initial commit of ebook 5546HEADmain

5 files changed, 2402 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/5546.txt b/5546.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..32b052b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/5546.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,2386 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook In The Fire Of The Forge, by Georg Ebers, v4
+#107 in our series by Georg Ebers
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
+Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
+header without written permission.
+
+Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
+eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
+important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
+how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
+donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers*****
+
+
+Title: In The Fire Of The Forge, Volume 4.
+
+Author: Georg Ebers
+
+Release Date: April, 2004  [EBook #5546]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on July 26, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+
+
+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIRE OF THE FORGE, BY EBERS, V4 ***
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+
+
+
+[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
+file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
+entire meal of them.  D.W.]
+
+
+
+
+
+IN THE FIRE OF THE FORGE
+
+A ROMANCE OF OLD NUREMBERG
+
+By Georg Ebers
+
+Volume 4.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+The city gates were already open.  Peasants and peasant women bringing
+vegetables and other farm produce to market thronged the streets, wains
+loaded with grain or charcoal rumbled along, and herds of cattle and
+swine, laden donkeys, the little carts of the farmers and bee keepers
+conveying milk and honey to the city, passed over the dyke, which was
+still softened by the rain of the preceding night.
+
+The thunderstorm had cooled the air, but the rays of the morning sun were
+already scorching.  A few heavy little clouds were darkly relieved
+against the blue sky, and a peasant, driving two sucking pigs before him,
+called to another, who was carrying a goose under each arm, that the sun
+was drawing water, and thundershowers seldom came singly.
+
+Yet the city looked pleasant enough in the freshness of early June.  The
+maidservants who were opening the shutters glanced gaily out into the
+streets, and arranged the flowers in front of the windows or bowed
+reverently as a priest passed by on his way to mass.  The barefooted
+Capuchin, with his long beard, beckoned to the cook or the tradesman's
+wife and, as she put something into his beggar's sack and he thanked her
+kindly with some pious axiom, she felt as if she herself and all her
+household had gained a right to the blessing of Heaven for that day,
+and cheerily continued her work.
+
+The brass counter in the low, broad bow window of the baker's house
+glittered brightly, and the pale apprentice wiped the flour from his face
+and gave his master's rosy-cheeked daughter fresh warm cakes to set on
+the shining shelves.  The barber's nimble apprentice hung the towel and
+basin at the door, while his master, wearied by the wine-bibbing and talk
+at the tavern or his labour at the fire, was still asleep.  His active
+wife had risen before him, strewed the shop with fresh sand, and renewed
+the goldfinch's food.
+
+The workshops and stores were adorned with birch branches, and the young
+daughters of the burghers, in becoming caps, the maid servants and
+apprentices, who were going to market with baskets on their arms, wore a
+flower or something green on their breasts or in their caps.
+
+The first notes of the bells, pealing solemnly, were summoning
+worshippers to mass, the birds were singing in the garden, and the cocks
+were crowing in the yards of the houses.  The animals passing in the
+street lowed, grunted, and cackled merrily in the dawn of the young day.
+
+Gay young men, travelling students who had sought cheap quarters in the
+country, now entered the city with a merry song on their lips just shaded
+by the first down of manhood, and when a maiden met them she lowered her
+eyes modestly before the riotous fellows.
+
+The terrors of the frightful thunderstorm seemed forgotten.  Nuremberg
+looked gladsome; a carpet hung from many a bow-window, and flags and
+streamers fluttered from roofs and balconies to honour the distinguished
+guests.  Many signs of their presence were visible, squires and
+equerries, in their masters' colours, were riding spirited horses, and
+a few knights who loved early rising were already in the saddle, their
+shining helmets and coats of mail flashing brightly in the sunshine.
+
+The gigantic figure of Sir Seitz Siebenburg moved with drooping head
+through the budding joy of this June day towards the Eysvogel dwelling.
+
+His gloomy, haggard face and disordered attire made two neatly dressed
+young shoemaker's apprentices, on their way to their work, nudge each
+other and look keenly at him.
+
+"I'd rather meet him here in broad daylight among houses and people than
+in the dusk on the highway," remarked one of them.
+
+"There's no danger," replied the other.  "He wears the curb now.  He
+moved from the robber nest into the rich Eysvogel house opposite.  That's
+Herr Casper's son-in-law.  But such people can never let other folks'
+property alone.  Only here they work in another way.  The shoes he wears
+were made in our workshop, but the master still whistles for his pay,
+and he owes everybody--the tailor, the lacemaker, the armourer, the
+girdlemaker, and the goldsmith.  If an apprentice reminds him of the
+debt, let him beware of bruises."
+
+"The Emperor Rudolph ought to issue an edict against such injustice!"
+wrathfully exclaimed the other and taller youth, the handsome son of a
+master of the craft from Weissenburg on the Sand, who expected soon to
+take his father's place.  "Up at Castle Graufels, which is saddled on our
+little town, master and man would be going barefoot but for us; yet for
+three years we haven't seen so much as a penny of his, though my father
+says times have already improved, since the Hapsburg, as a just man----"
+
+"Things have not been so bad here for a long while, the saints be
+praised!" his companion broke in.  "Siebenburg, or some of his wife's
+rich kindred, will at last be compelled to settle matters.  We have the
+law and the Honourable Council to attend to that.  Look up!  Yonder
+stately old house gave its daughter to the penniless knight.  She is one
+of our customers too; a handsome woman, and not one of the worst either.
+But her mother, who was born a countess--if the shoe doesn't make a foot
+small which Nature created big, there's such an outcry!  True, the old
+woman, her mother, is worse still; she scolds and screams.  But look up
+at the bow window.  There she stands.  I'm only a poor brewer's son, but
+before I----"
+
+"You don't say so!"  the other interrupted.  Have you seen the owl in the
+cage in front of the guardhouse at the gate of the hospital?  It is her
+living image; and how her chin projects and moves up and down, as though
+she were chewing leather!"
+
+"And yet," said the other, as if insisting upon something difficult to
+believe, "and yet the old woman is a real countess."
+
+The Weissenburg apprentice expressed his astonishment with another: "You
+don't say so!" but as he spoke he grasped his companion's arm, adding
+earnestly: "Let us go.  That ugly old woman just looked at me, and if it
+wasn't the evil eye I shall go straight to the church and drive away the
+misfortune with holy water."
+
+"Come, then," answered the Nuremberg youth, but continued thoughtfully:
+"Yet my master's grandmother, a woman of eighty, is probably older than
+the one up there, but nobody could imagine a kinder, pleasanter dame.
+When she looks approvingly at one it seems as if the dear God's blessing
+were shining from two little windows."
+
+"That's just like my grandmother at home!" exclaimed the Weissenburg
+apprentice with sparkling eyes.
+
+Turning from the Eysvogel mansion as they spoke, they pursued their way.
+
+Siebenburg had overtaken the apprentices, but ere crossing the threshold
+of the house which was now his home he stopped before it.
+
+It might, perhaps, be called the largest and handsomest in Nuremberg; but
+it was only a wide two-story structure, though the roof had been adorned
+with battlements and the sides with a small bow-windowed turret.  At the
+second story a bracket, bearing an image of the Madonna, had been built
+out on one side, and on the other the bow window from which old Countess
+Rotterbach had looked down into the street.
+
+The coat of arms was very striking and wholly out of harmony with the
+simplicity of the rest of the building.  Its showy splendour, visible for
+a long distance, occupied the wide space between the door of the house
+and the windows of the upper story.  The escutcheon of the noble family
+from which Rosalinde, Herr Casper's wife, had descended rested against
+the shield bearing the birds.  The Rotterbach supporters, a nude man and
+a bear standing on its hind legs, rose on both sides of the double
+escutcheon, and the stone cutter had surmounted the Eysvogel helmet with
+a count's coronet.
+
+This elaborate decoration of the ancient patrician house had become
+one of the sights of the city, and had often made Herr Casper, at the
+Honourable Council and elsewhere, clench his fist under his mantle, for
+it had drawn open censure and bitter mockery upon the arrogant man, but
+his desire to have it replaced by a more modest one had been baffled by
+the opposition of the women of his family.  They had had it put up, and
+would not permit any one to touch it, though Wolff, after his return from
+Italy, had strenuously urged its removal.
+
+It had brought the Eysvogels no good fortune, for on the day of its
+completion the business received its first serious blow, and it also
+served to injure the commercial house externally in a very obvious
+manner.  Whereas formerly many wares which needed to be kept dry had been
+hoisted from the outer door and the street to the spacious attic, this
+was now prevented by the projecting figures of the nude men and the
+bears.  Therefore it became necessary to hoist the goods to be stored in
+the attic from the courtyard, which caused delay and hindrances of many
+kinds.  Various expedients had been suggested, but the women opposed them
+all, for they were glad that the ugly casks and bales no longer found
+their way to the garret past their windows, and it also gratified their
+arrogance that they were no longer visible from the street.
+
+Siebenburg now looked up at the huge escutcheon and recalled the day
+when, after having been specially favoured by Isabella Eysvogel at a
+dance in the Town Hall, he had paused in the same place.  A long line of
+laden waggons had just stopped in front of the door surmounted by the
+double escutcheon, and if he had previously hesitated whether to profit
+by the favour of Isabella, whose haughty majesty, which attracted him,
+also inspired him with a faint sense of uneasiness, he was now convinced
+how foolish it would be not to forge the iron which seemed aglow in his
+favour.  What riches the men-servants were carrying into the vaulted
+entry, which was twice as large as the one in the Ortlieb mansion!
+Besides, the escutcheon with the count's coronet had given the knight
+assurance that he would have no cause to be ashamed, in an assembly of
+his peers, of his alliance with the Nuremberg maiden.  Isabella's hand
+could undoubtedly free him from the oppressive burden of his debts, and
+she was certainly a magnificent woman!  How well, too, her tall figure
+would suit him and the Siebenburgs, whose name was said to be derived
+from the seven feet of stature which some of them measured!
+
+Now he again remembered the hour when she had laid her slender hand
+in his.  For a brief period he had been really happy; his heart had not
+felt so light since early childhood, though at first he had ventured to
+confess only one half his load of debt to his father-in-law.  He had
+even assumed fresh obligations to relieve his brothers from their most
+pressing cares.  They had attended his brilliant wedding, and it had
+flattered his vanity to show them what he could accomplish as the wealthy
+Eysvogel's son-in-law.
+
+But how quickly all this had changed!  He had learned that, besides the
+woman who had given him her heart and inspired him with a passion
+hitherto unknown, he had wedded two others.
+
+Now, as the image of old Countess Rotterbach, Isabella's grandmother,
+forced itself upon his mind, he unconsciously knit his brow.  He had not
+heard her say much, but with every word she bestowed upon him he was
+forced to accept something bitter.  She rarely left her place in the
+armchair in the bow window in the sitting-room, but it seemed as if her
+little eyes possessed the power of piercing walls and doors, for she knew
+everything that concerned him, even his greatest secrets, which he
+believed he had carefully concealed.  More on her account than on that
+of his mother-in-law, who did nothing except what the former commanded,
+he had repeatedly tried to remove with his wife to the estate of
+Tannenreuth, which had been assigned to him on the day of the marriage,
+that its revenues might support the young couple, but the mother and
+grandmother detained his wife, and their wishes were more to her than
+his.  Perhaps, however, he might have induced her to go with him had not
+his father-in-law made his debts a snare, which he drew whenever it was
+necessary to stifle his wishes, and he, too, wanted to retain his
+daughter at home.
+
+Since Wolff's return from Italy he had become aware that the stream of
+gold from the Eysvogel coffers flowed more sparingly, or even failed
+altogether to satisfy his extravagant tastes.  Therefore his relations
+with his brother-in-law, whose prudent caution he considered avarice, and
+whose earnest protests against his often unprecedented demands frequently
+roused his ire, became more and more unfriendly.
+
+The inmates of the Eysvogel house rendered his home unendurable, and from
+the experiences of his bachelor days he knew only too well where mirth
+reigned in Nuremberg.  So he became a rare guest at the Eysvogels, and
+when Isabella found herself neglected and deceived, she made him feel her
+resentment in her own haughty and--as soon as she deemed herself injured
+--harsh manner.
+
+At first her displeasure troubled him sorely, but the ardent passion
+which had absorbed him during the early days of their marriage had died
+out, and only flamed up with its old fervour occasionally; but at such
+times the haughty, neglected wife repulsed him with insulting severity.
+
+Yet she had never permitted any one to disparage her husband behind his
+back.  True, Siebenburg did not know this, but he perceived more and more
+plainly that both the Eysvogels, father and son, were oppressed by some
+grave anxiety, and that the sums which Wolff now paid him no longer
+sufficed to hold his creditors in check.  He was not accustomed to impose
+any restraint upon himself, and thus it soon became known throughout the
+city that he did not live at peace with his wife and her family.
+
+Yet five weeks ago matters had appeared to improve.  The birth of the
+twins had brought something new into his life, which drew him nearer to
+Isabella.
+
+The children at first seemed to him two lovely miracles.  Both boys, both
+exactly like him.  When they were brought to him on their white, lace-
+trimmed pillows, his heart had swelled with joy, and it was his greatest
+delight to gaze at them.
+
+This was the natural result.
+
+He, the stalwart Siebenburg, had not become the father of one ordinary
+boy, but of two little knights at once.  When he returned home--even if
+his feet were unsteady--his first visit was to them, and he had often
+felt that he was far too poor and insignificant to thank his neglected
+wife aright for so precious a gift.
+
+Whenever this feeling took possession of him he expressed his love to
+Isabella with tender humility; while she, who had bestowed her hand upon
+him solely from love, forgot all her wrongs, and her heart throbbed
+faster with grateful joy when she saw him, with fatherly pride, carry the
+twins about with bent knees, as if their weight was too heavy for his
+giant arms to bear.
+
+The second week after their birth Isabella fell slightly ill.  Her mother
+and grandmother undertook the nursing, and as the husband found them both
+with the twins whenever he came to see the infants and their mother, the
+sick-room grew distasteful to him.  Again, as before their birth, he
+sought compensation outside of the house for the annoyance caused by the
+women at home; but the memory of the little boys haunted him, and when he
+met his companions at the tavern he invited them to drink the children's
+health in the host's best wine.
+
+So life went on until the Reichstag brought the von Montforts, whom he
+had met at a tournament in Augsburg, to the city of Nuremberg.
+
+Mirth reigned wherever Countess Cordula appeared, and Siebenburg needed
+amusement and joined the train of her admirers--with what evil result he
+now clearly perceived for the first time.
+
+He again stood before the stately dwelling where he had hoped to find
+luxury and wealth, but where his heart now throbbed more anxiously than
+those of his kinsmen had formerly done in the impoverished castle of his
+father, who had died so long ago.
+
+The Eysvogel dwelling, with its showy escutcheon above the door, was
+threatened by want, and hand in hand with it, he knew, the most hideous
+of all her children--disgrace.
+
+Now he also remembered what he himself had done to increase the peril
+menacing the ancient commercial house.  Perhaps the old man within was
+relying upon the estate of Tannenreuth, which he had assigned to him, to
+protect some post upon which much depended, and he had gambled it away.
+This must now be confessed, and also the amount of his own debts.
+
+An unpleasant task confronted him but, humiliating and harassing as was
+the interview awaiting him beyond the threshold before which he still
+lingered, at least he would not find Wolff there.  This seemed a boon,
+since for the first time he would have felt himself in the wrong in the
+presence of his unloved brother-in-law.  Even the burden of his debts
+weighed less heavily on his conscience than the irritating words with
+which he had induced his father-in-law to break off Wolff's betrothal to
+Els Ortlieb.  The act was base and malicious.  Greatly as he had erred,
+he had never before been guilty of such a deed, and with a curse upon
+himself on his bearded lips he approached the door; but when half way to
+it he stopped again and looked up to the second-story windows behind
+which the twins slept.  With what delight he had always thought of them!
+But this time the recollection of the little boys was spoiled by Countess
+Cordula's message to his wife to rear them so that they would not be like
+him, their father.
+
+An evil wish!  And yet the warmest love could have devised no better one
+in behalf of the true welfare of the boys.
+
+He told himself so as he passed beneath the escutcheon through the heavy
+open door with its iron ornaments.  He was expected, the steward told
+him, but he arched his broad breast as if preparing for a wrestling
+match, pulled his mustache still longer, and went up the stairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+The spacious, lofty sitting-room which Seitz Siebenburg entered looked
+very magnificent.  Gay Flanders tapestries hung on the walls.  The
+ceiling was slightly vaulted, and in the centre of each mesh of the net
+designed upon it glittered a richly gilded kingfisher from the family
+coat of arms.  Bear and leopard skins lay on the cushions, and upon the
+shelf which surrounded three sides of the apartment stood costly vases,
+gold and silver utensils, Venetian mirrors and goblets.  The chairs and
+furniture were made of rare woods inlaid with ebony and mother of pearl,
+brought by way of Genoa from Moorish Spain.  In the bow window jutting
+out into the street, where the old grandmother sat in her armchair, two
+green and yellow parrots on brass perches interrupted the conversation,
+whenever it grew louder, with the shrill screams of their ugly voices.
+
+Siebenburg found all the family except Wolff and the twins.  His wife was
+half sitting, half reclining, on a divan.  When Seitz entered she raised
+her head from the white arm on which it had rested, turned her oval face
+with its regular features towards him, and gathered up the fair locks
+which, released from their braids, hung around her in long, thick
+tresses.  Her eyes showed that she had been weeping violently, and as her
+husband approached she again sobbed painfully.
+
+Her grandmother seemed annoyed by her lamentations for, pointing to
+Isabella's tears, she exclaimed sharply, glancing angrily at Siebenburg:
+
+"It's a pity for every one of them!"
+
+The knight's blood boiled at the words, but they strengthened his
+courage.  He felt relieved from any consideration for these people, not
+one of whom, except the poor woman shedding such burning tears, had given
+him occasion to return love for love.  Had they flowed only for the lost
+wealth, and not for him and the grief he caused Isabella, they would not
+have seemed "a pity" to the old countess.
+
+Siebenburg's breath came quicker.
+
+The gratitude he owed his father-in-law certainly did not outweigh the
+humiliations with which he, his weak wife, and ill-natured mother-in-law
+had embittered his existence.
+
+Even now the old gentleman barely vouchsafed him a greeting.  After he
+had asked about his son, called himself a ruined man, and upbraided the
+knight with insulting harshness because his brothers--the news had been
+brought to him a short time before--were the robbers who had seized his
+goods, and the old countess had chimed in with the exclamation, "They are
+all just fit for the executioner's block!"  Seitz could restrain himself
+no longer; nay, it gave him actual pleasure to show these hated people
+what he had done, on his part, to add to their embarrassments.  He was no
+orator, but now resentment loosened his tongue, and with swift, scornful
+words he told Herr Casper that, as the son-in-law of a house which liked
+to represent itself as immensely rich, he had borrowed from others what--
+he was justified in believing it--had been withheld through parsimony.
+Besides, his debts were small in comparison with the vast sums Herr
+Casper had lavished in maintaining the impoverished estates of the
+Rotterbach kindred.  Like every knight whose own home was not pleasant,
+he sometimes gambled; and when, yesterday, ill luck pursued him and he
+lost the estate of Tannenreuth, he sincerely regretted the disaster, but
+it could not be helped.
+
+Terror and rage had sealed the old countess's lips, but now they parted
+in the hoarse cry: "You deserve the wheel and the gallows, not the
+honourable block!"  and her daughter, Rosalinde Eysvogel, repeated in a
+tone of sorrowful lamentation, "Yes, the wheel and the gallows."
+
+A scornful laugh from Siebenburg greeted the threat, but when Herr
+Casper, white as death and barely able to control his voice, asked
+whether this incredible confession was merely intended to frighten the
+women, and the knight assured him of the contrary, he groaned aloud:
+"Then the old house must succumb to disgraceful ruin."
+
+Years of life spent together may inspire and increase aversion instead of
+love, but they undoubtedly produce a certain community of existence.  The
+bitter anguish of his aged household companion, the father of his wife,
+to whom bonds of love still unsevered united him, touched even Seitz
+Siebenburg.  Besides, nothing moves the heart more quickly than the grief
+of a proud, stern man.  Herr Casper's confession did not make him dearer
+to the knight, but it induced him to drop the irritating tone which he
+had assumed, and in an altered voice he begged him not to give up his
+cause as lost without resistance.  For his daughter's sake old Herr
+Ortlieb must lend his aid.  Els, with whom he had just spoken, would
+cling firmly to Wolff, and try to induce her father to do all that was
+possible for her lover's house.  He would endeavour to settle with his
+own creditors himself.  His sharp sword and strong arm would be welcome
+everywhere, and the booty he won----  Here he was interrupted by the
+grandmother's query in a tone of cutting contempt: "Booty?  On the
+highway, do you mean?"
+
+Once more the attack from the hostile old woman rendered the knight's
+decision easier, for, struggling not to give way to his anger, he
+answered: "Rather, I think, in the Holy Land, in the war against the
+infidel Saracens.  At any rate, my presence would be more welcome
+anywhere than in this house, whose roof shelters you, Countess.  If, Herr
+Casper, you intend to share with my wife and the twins what is left after
+the old wealth has gone, unfortunately, I cannot permit you to do so.
+I will provide for them also.  True, it was your duty; for ever since
+Isabella became my wife you have taken advantage of my poverty and
+impaired my right to command her.  That must be changed from this very
+day.  I have learned the bitter taste of the bread which you provide.
+I shall confide them to my uncle, the Knight Heideck.  He was my dead
+mother's only brother, and his wife, as you know, is the children's
+godmother.  They are childless, and would consider it the most precious
+of gifts to have such boys in the castle.  My deserted wife must stay
+with him, while I--I know not yet in what master's service--provide that
+the three are not supported only by the charity of strangers---"
+
+"Oh, Seitz, Seitz!" interrupted Isabella, in a tone of urgent entreaty.
+She had risen from her cushions, and was hurrying towards him.  "Do not
+go!  You must not go so!"
+
+Her tall figure nestled closely against him as she spoke, and she threw
+her arms around his neck; but he kissed her brow and eyes, saying, with a
+gentleness which surprised even her: "You are very kind, but I cannot,
+must not remain here."
+
+"The children, the little boys!" she exclaimed again, gazing up at him
+with love-beaming eyes.  Then his tortured heart seemed to shrink, and,
+pressing his hand on his brow, he paused some time ere he answered
+gloomily: "It is for them that I go.  Words have been spoken which appeal
+to me, and to you, too, Isabella: 'See that the innocent little creatures
+are reared to be unlike their unhappy father.'  And the person who
+uttered them----"
+
+"A sage, a great sage," giggled the countess, unable to control her
+bitter wrath against the man whom she hated; but Siebenburg fiercely
+retorted:
+
+"Although no sage, at least no monster spitting venom."
+
+"And you permit this insult to be offered to your grandmother?"  Frau
+Rosalinde Eysvogel wailed to her daughter as piteously as if the injury
+had been inflicted on herself.  But Isabella only clung more closely to
+her husband, heeding neither her mother's appeal nor her father's warning
+not to be deluded by Siebenburg's empty promises.
+
+While the old countess vainly struggled for words, Rosalinde Eysvogel
+stood beside the lofty mantelpiece, weeping softly.  Before Siebenburg
+appeared, spite of the early hour and the agitating news which she had
+just received, she had used her leisure for an elaborate toilette.  A
+long trailing robe of costly brocade, blue on the left side and yellow on
+the right, now floated around her tall figure.  When the knight returned
+she had looked radiant in her gold and gems, like a princess.  Now,
+crushed and feeble, she presented a pitiable image of powerless yet
+offensively hollow splendour.  It would have required too much exertion
+to assail her son-in-law with invectives, like her energetic mother; but
+when she saw her daughter, to whom she had already appealed several times
+in a tone of anguished entreaty, rest her proud head so tenderly on her
+husband's broad breast, as she had done during the first weeks of their
+marriage, but never since, the unhappy woman clearly perceived that the
+knight's incredible demand was meant seriously.  What she had believed an
+idle boast he actually requested.  Yonder hated intruder expected her to
+part with her only daughter, who was far more to her than her unloved
+husband, her exacting mother, or the son who restricted her wishes, whom
+she had never understood, and against whom her heart had long been
+hardened.  But it could not be and, losing all self-control and dignity,
+she shrieked aloud, tore the blue headband from her hair and, repeating
+the "never" constantly as if she had gone out of her senses, gasped:
+"Never, never, never, so long as I live!"
+
+As she spoke she rushed to her startled husband, pointed to her son-in-
+law, who still held his wife in a close embrace, and in a half-stifled
+voice commanded Herr Casper to strike down the gambler, robber,
+spendthrift, and kidnapper of children, or drive him out of the house
+like some savage, dangerous beast.  Then she ordered Isabella to leave
+the profligate who wanted to drag her down to ruin; and when her daughter
+refused to obey, she burst into violent weeping, sobbing and moaning
+till her strength failed and she was really attacked with one of the
+convulsions she had often feigned, by the advice of her own mother,
+to extort from her husband the gratification of some extravagant wish.
+
+Indignant, yet full of sincere sympathy, Herr Casper supported his wife,
+whose queenly beauty had once fired his heart, and in whose embrace he
+had imagined that he would be vouchsafed here below the joys of the
+redeemed.  As she rested her head, with its long auburn tresses, still so
+luxuriant, upon his shoulder, exquisite pictures of the past rose before
+the mental vision of the elderly man; but the spell was quickly broken,
+for the kerchief with which he wiped her face was dyed red from her
+rouged cheeks.
+
+A bitter smile hovered around his well-formed, beardless lips, and the
+man of business remembered the vast sums which he had squandered to
+gratify the extravagant wishes of the mother and daughter, and show these
+countesses that he, the burgher, in whose veins ran noble blood,
+understood as well as any man of their own rank how to increase the charm
+of life by luxury and splendour.
+
+While he supported his wife, and the old countess was seeking to relieve
+her, Isabella also prepared to hasten to her mother's assistance, but her
+husband stopped her with resistless strength, whispering: "You know that
+these convulsions are not dangerous.  Come with me to the children.
+I want to bid them farewell.  Show me in this last hour, at least, that
+these women are not more to you than I."  He released her as he spoke,
+and the mental struggle which for a short time made her bosom heave
+violently with her hurried breathing ended with a low exclamation, "I
+will come."
+
+The nurse, whom Isabella sent out of the room when she entered with her
+husband, silently obeyed, but stopped at the door to watch.  She saw the
+turbulent knight kneel beside the children's cradle before the wife whom
+he had so basely neglected, raise his tearful eyes to the majestic woman,
+whose stature was little less than his own and, lifting his clasped
+hands, make a confession which she could not hear; saw her draw him
+towards her, nestle with loving devotion against his broad breast, and
+place first one and then the other twin boy in his arms.
+
+The young mother's cheeks as well as the father's were wet, but the eyes
+of both sparkled with grateful joy when Isabella, in taking leave of her
+husband, thanked him with a last loving kiss for the vow that, wherever
+he might go, he would treasure her and the children in his heart, and do
+everything in his power to secure a fate that should be worthy of them.
+
+As Siebenburg went downstairs he met his father-in-law on the second-
+story landing.  Herr Casper, deadly pale, was clinging with his right
+hand to the baluster, pressing his left on his brow, as he vainly
+struggled for composure and breath.  He had forgotten to strengthen
+himself with food and drink, and the terrible blows of fate which had
+fallen upon him during these last hours of trial crushed, though but for
+a short time, his still vigorous strength.  The knight went nearer to
+help him, but when he offered Herr Casper his arm the old merchant
+angrily thrust it back and accepted a servant's support.
+
+While the man assisted him upstairs he repented that he had yielded
+to resentment, and not asked his son-in-law to try to discover Wolff's
+hiding place, but no sooner had food and fiery wine strengthened him than
+his act seemed wise.  The return of the business partner, without whose
+knowledge he had incurred great financial obligations, would have placed
+him in the most painful situation.  The old gentleman would have been
+obliged to account to Wolff for the large sum which he owed to the Jew
+Pfefferkorn, the most impatient of his creditors, though he need not have
+told him that he had used it in Venice to gratify his love of gaming.
+How should he answer his son if he asked why he had rejected his
+betrothed bride, and soon after condescended to receive her again as his
+daughter and enter into close relations with her father?  Yet this must
+be done.  Ernst Ortlieb was the only person who could help him.  It had
+become impossible to seek aid from Herr Berthold Vorchtel, the man whose
+oldest son Wolff had slain, and yet he possessed the means to save the
+sinking ship from destruction.
+
+When the news of the duel reached him the messenger's blanched face had
+made him believe that Wolff had fallen.  In that moment he had perceived
+that his loss would have rendered him miserable for the rest of his life.
+This was a source of pleasure, for since Wolff had extorted his consent
+to the betrothal with Els Ortlieb, and thus estranged him from the
+Vorchtels, he had seriously feared that he had ceased to love him.  Nay,
+in many an hour when he had cause to feel shame in the presence of his
+prudent, cautious, and upright partner, it had seemed as if he hated him.
+Now the fear of the judge whom he saw in Wolff was blended with sincere
+anxiety concerning his only son, whose breach of the peace menaced him
+with banishment--nay, if he could not pay the price of blood which the
+Vorchtels might demand, with death.  Doubtless he had done many things
+to prejudice Wolff against his betrothed bride, yet he who had cast the
+first stone at her now felt that, in her simple purity, she would be
+capable of no repudiation of the fidelity she owed her future husband.
+However strongly he had struggled against this conviction, he knew that
+she, if any one, could make his son happy--far happier than he had ever
+been with the tall, slender, snow-white, unapproachable countess, who had
+helped bring him to ruin.
+
+While consuming the food and drink, he heard his wife, usually a most
+obedient daughter, disputing with her mother.  This was fortunate; for,
+if they were at variance, he need not fear that they would act as firm
+allies against him when he expressed the wish to have Wolff's marriage
+solemnised as soon as circumstances would permit.
+
+It was not yet time to discuss the matter with any one.  He would first
+go to the Jew Pfefferkorn once more to persuade him to defer his claims,
+and then, before the meeting of the Council, would repair to the
+Ortliebs, to commit to Herr Ernst the destiny of the Eysvogel firm and
+his partner Wolff, on which also depended the welfare of the young
+merchant's betrothed bride.  If the father remained obdurate, if he
+resented the wrong he had inflicted yesterday upon him and his daughter,
+he was a lost man; for he had already availed himself of the good will of
+all those whose doors usually stood open to him.  Doubtless the news of
+his recent severe losses were in every one's mouth, and the letter which
+he had just received threatened him with an indictment.
+
+The luckless Siebenburg's creditors, too, would now be added to his own.
+It was all very well for him to say that he would settle his debts him
+self.  As soon as it was rumoured abroad that he had gambled away the
+estate of Tannenreuth, whose value gave the creditors some security,
+they would rise as one man, and the house assailed would be his, Casper
+Eysvogel's.
+
+The harried man's thoughts of his son-in-law were by no means the most
+kindly.
+
+Meanwhile the latter set out for the second distasteful interview of the
+morning.
+
+His purpose was to make some arrangement with Heinz Schorlin about the
+lost estate and obtain definite knowledge concerning his quarrel with
+him, of which he remembered nothing except that intoxication and jealousy
+had carried him further than would have happened otherwise.  He had
+undoubtedly spoken insultingly of Els; his words, when uttered against a
+lady, had been sharper than beseemed a knight.  Yet was not any one who
+found a maiden alone at night with this man justified in doubting her
+virtue?  In the depths of his soul he believed in her innocence, yet he
+avoided confessing it.  Why should not the Swiss, whom Nature had given
+such power over the hearts of women, have also entangled his brother-in-
+law's betrothed bride in a love affair?  Why should not the gay girl who
+had pledged her troth to a grave, dull fellow like Wolff, have been
+tempted into a little love dalliance with the bold, joyous Schorlin?
+
+Not until he had received proof that he had erred would he submit to
+recall his charges.
+
+He had left his wife with fresh courage and full of good intentions.  Now
+that he was forced to bid her farewell, he first realised what she had
+been to him.  No doubt both had much to forgive, but she was a splendid
+woman.  Though her father's storehouses contained chests of spices and
+bales of cloth, he did not know one more queenly.  That he could have
+preferred, even for a single moment, the Countess von Montfort, whose
+sole advantage over her was her nimble tongue and gay, bold manners, now
+seemed incomprehensible.  He had joined Cordula's admirers only to forget
+at her feet the annoyances with which he had been wearied at home.  He
+had but one thing for which to thank the countess--her remark concerning
+the future of the twins.
+
+Yet was he really so base that it would have been a disgrace for his
+darlings to resemble him?  "No!" a voice within cried loudly, and as the
+same voice reminded him of the victories won in tournaments and sword
+combats, of the open hand with which, since he had been the rich
+Eysvogel's son-in-law, he had lent and given money to his brothers, and
+especially of the manly resolve to provide for his wife and children as a
+soldier in the service of some prince, another, lower, yet insistent,
+recalled other things.  It referred to the time when, with his brothers,
+he had attacked a train of freight waggons and not cut down their
+armed escort alone.  The curse of a broad-shouldered Nordlinger carrier,
+whose breast he had pierced with a lance though he cried out that he was
+a father and had a wife and child to support, the shriek of the pretty
+boy with curling brown hair who clung to the bridle of his steed as he
+rode against the father, and whose arm he had cut off, still seemed to
+ring in his ears.  He also remembered the time when, after a rich capture
+on the highway which had filled his purse, he had ridden to Nuremberg in
+magnificent new clothes at the carnival season in order, by his brothers'
+counsel, to win a wealthy bride.  Fortune and the saints had permitted
+him to find a woman to satisfy both his avarice and his heart, yet he had
+neither kept faith with her nor even showed her proper consideration.
+But, strangely enough, the warning voice reproached him still more
+sharply for having, in the presence of others, accused and disparaged his
+brother-in-law's betrothed bride, whose guilt he believed proved.  Again
+he felt how ignoble and unworthy of a knight his conduct had been.  Why
+had he pursued this course?  Merely--he admitted it now--to harm Wolff,
+the monitor and niggard whom he hated; perhaps also because he secretly
+told himself that, if Wolff formed a happy marriage, he and his children,
+not Siebenburg's twin boys, would obtain the larger share of the Eysvogel
+property.
+
+This greed of gain, which had brought him to Nuremberg to seek a wife,
+was probably latent in his blood, though his reckless accumulation of
+debts seemed to contradict it.  Yesterday, at the Duke of Pomerania's,
+it had again led him into that wild, mad dice-throwing.
+
+Seitz Siebenburg was no calm thinker.  All these thoughts passed singly
+in swift flashes through his excited brain.  Like the steady monotone of
+the bass accompanying the rise and fall of the air, he constantly heard
+the assurance that it would be a pity if his splendid twins should
+resemble him.
+
+Therefore they must grow up away from his influence, under the care of
+his good uncle.  With this man's example before their eyes they would
+become knights as upright and noble as Kunz Heideck, whom every one
+esteemed.
+
+For the sake of the twins he had resolved to begin a new and worthier
+life himself.  His wife would aid him, and love should lend him strength
+to conduct himself in future so that Countess von Montfort, and every one
+who meant well by his sons, might wish them to resemble their father.
+
+He walked on, holding his head proudly erect.  Seeing the first
+worshippers entering the Church of Our Lady, he went in, too, repeated
+several Paternosters, commended the little boys and their mother to the
+care of the gracious Virgin, and besought her to help him curb the
+turbulent impulses which often led him to commit deeds he afterwards
+regretted.
+
+Many people knew Casper Eysvogel's tall, haughty son-in-law and marvelled
+at the fervent devotion with which, kneeling in the first place he found
+near the entrance, beside two old women, he continued to pray.  Was it
+true that the Eysvogel firm had been placed in a very critical situation
+by the loss of great trains of merchandise?  One of his neighbours had
+heard him sigh, and declared that something must weigh heavily upon the
+"Mustache."  She would tell her nephew Hemerlein, the belt-maker, to whom
+the knight owed large sums for saddles and harnesses, that he would be
+wise to look after his money betimes.
+
+Siebenburg quitted the church in a more hopeful mood than when he entered
+it.
+
+The prayers had helped him.
+
+When he reached the fruit market he noticed that people gazed at him in
+surprise.  He had paid no heed to his dress since the morning of the
+previous day, and as he always consumed large quantities of food and
+drink he felt the need of refreshment.  Entering the first barber's shop,
+he had the stubble removed from his cheeks and chin, and arranged his
+disordered attire, and then, going to a taproom close by, ate and drank,
+without sitting down, what he found ready and, invigorated in body and
+mind, continued his walk.
+
+The fruit market was full of busy life.  Juicy strawberries and early
+cherries, red radishes, heads of cabbages, bunches of greens, and long
+stalks of asparagus were offered for sale, with roses and auriculas,
+balsams and early pinks, in pots and bouquets, and the ruddy peasant
+lasses behind the stands, the stately burgher women in their big round
+hats, the daughters of the master workmen with their long floating locks
+escaping from under richly embroidered caps, the maidservants with neat
+little baskets on their round arms, afforded a varied and pleasing scene.
+Everything that reached the ear, too, was cheery and amusing, and
+rendered the knight's mood brighter.
+
+Proud of his newly acquired power of resistance, he walked on, after
+yielding to the impulse to buy the handsomest bouquet of roses offered by
+the pretty flower girl Kuni, whom, on Countess Cordula's account, during
+the Reichstag he had patronised more frequently than usual.  Without
+knowing why himself, he did not tell the pretty girl, who had already
+trusted him very often, for whom he intended it, but ordered it to be
+charged with the rest.
+
+At the corner of the Bindergasse, where Heinz Schorlin lodged, he found a
+beggar woman with a bandaged head, whom he commissioned to carry the
+roses to the Eysvogel mansion and give them to his wife, Fran Isabella
+Siebenburg, in his--Sir Seitz's--name.
+
+In front of the house occupied by the master cloth-maker Deichsler, where
+the Swiss had his quarters, the tailor Ploss stopped him.  He came from
+Heinz Schorlin, and reminded Siebenburg of his by no means inconsiderable
+debt; but the latter begged him to have patience a little longer, as he
+had met with heavy losses at the gaming table the night before, and Ploss
+agreed to wait till St. Heinrich's day--[15th July].
+
+How many besides the tailor had large demands! and when could Seitz begin
+to cancel his debts?  The thought even darted through his mind that
+instead of carrying his good intentions into effect he had not paid for
+the roses--but flowers were so cheap in June!
+
+Besides, he had no time to dwell upon this trifle, for while quieting the
+tailor he had noticed a girl who, notwithstanding the heat of the day,
+kept her face hidden so far under her Riese--[A kerchief for the head,
+resembling a veil, made of fine linen.]--that nothing but her eyes and
+the upper part of her nose were visible.  She had given him a hasty nod
+and, if he was not mistaken, it was the Ortlieb sisters' maid, whom he
+had often seen.
+
+When he again looked after the muffled figure she was hurrying up the
+cloth-maker's stairs.
+
+It was Katterle herself.
+
+At the first landing she had glanced back, and in doing so pushed the
+kerchief aside.  What could she want with the Swiss?  It could scarcely
+be anything except to bring him a message from one of her mistresses,
+doubtless Els.
+
+So he had seen aright, and acted wisely not to believe the countess.
+
+Poor Wolff!  Deceived even when a betrothed lover!  He did not exactly
+wish him happiness even now, and yet he pitied him.
+
+Seitz could now stand before Heinz Schorlin with the utmost confidence.
+The Swiss must know how matters stood between the older E and him self,
+though his knightly duty constrained him to deny it to others.
+Siebenburg's self-reproaches had been vain.  He had suspected no innocent
+girl--only called a faithless betrothed bride by the fitting name.
+
+The matter concerning his estate of Tannenreuth was worse.  It had been
+gambled away, and therefore forfeited.  He had already given it up in
+imagination; it was only necessary to have the transfer made by the
+notary.  The Swiss should learn how a true knight satisfies even the
+heaviest losses at the gaming table.  He would not spare Heinz Schorlin.
+He meant to reproach the unprincipled fellow who by base arts had
+alienated the betrothed bride of an honest man--for that Wolff certainly
+was--when adverse circumstances prevented his watching the faithless
+woman himself.  Twisting the ends of his mustache with two rapid motions,
+he knocked at the young knight's door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+Twice, three times, Siebenburg rapped, but in vain.  Yet the Swiss was
+there.  His armour-bearer had told Seitz so downstairs, and he heard his
+voice within.  At last he struck the door so heavily with the handle of
+his dagger that the whole house echoed with the sound.  This succeeded;
+the door opened, and Biberli's narrow head appeared.  He looked at the
+visitor in astonishment.
+
+"Tell  your  master," said  the  latter  imperiously, recognising Heinz
+Schorlin's servant, "that if he closes his lodgings against dunning
+tradesfolk--"
+
+"By your knock, my lord," Biberli interrupted, we really thought the
+sword cutler had come with hammer and anvil.  My master, however, need
+have no fear of creditors; for though you may not yet know it, Sir
+Knight, there are generous noblemen in Nuremberg during the Reichstag who
+throw away castles and lands in his favour at the gaming table."
+
+"And hurl their fists even more swiftly into the faces of insolent
+varlets!" cried Siebenburg, raising his right hand threateningly.
+"Now take me to your master at once!"
+
+"Or, at any rate, within his four walls," replied the servitor, preceding
+Seitz into the small anteroom from which he had come.  "As to the 'at
+once,' that rests with the saints, for you must know----"
+
+"Nonsense!"  interrupted the knight.  "Tell your master that Siebenburg
+has neither time nor inclination to wait in his antechamber."
+
+"And certainly nothing could afford Sir Heinz Schorlin greater pleasure
+than your speedy departure," Biberli retorted.
+
+"Insolent knave!" thundered Seitz, who perceived the insult conveyed in
+the reply, grasping the neck of his long robe; but Biberli felt that he
+had seized only the hood, swiftly unclasped it, and as he hurried to a
+side door, through which loud voices echoed, Siebenburg heard the low cry
+of a woman.  It came from behind a curtain spread over some clothes that
+hung on the wall, and Seitz said to himself that the person must be the
+maid whom he had just met.  She was in Els Ortlieb's service, and he was
+glad to have this living witness at hand.
+
+If he could induce Heinz to talk with him here in the anteroom it would
+be impossible for her to escape.  So, feigning that he had noticed
+nothing, he pretended to be much amused by Biberli's nimble flight.
+Forcing a laugh, he flung the hood at his head, and before he opened
+the door of the adjoining room again asked to speak to his master.
+Biberli replied that he must wait; the knight was holding a religious
+conversation with a devout old mendicant friar.  If he might venture to
+offer counsel, he would not interrupt his master now; he had received
+very sad news, and the tailor who came to take his measure for his
+mourning garments had just left him.  If Seitz had any business with the
+knight, and expected any benefit from his favour and rare generosity----
+
+But Siebenburg let him get no farther.  Forgetting the stratagem which
+was to lure Heinz hither, he burst into a furious rage, fiercely
+declaring that he sought favour and generosity from no man, least of all
+a Heinz Schorlin and, advancing to the door, flung the servant who barred
+his passage so rudely against the wall that he uttered a loud cry of
+pain.
+
+Ere it had died away Heinz appeared on the threshold.  A long white robe
+increased the pallor of his face, but yesterday so ruddy, and his
+reddened eyes showed traces of recent tears.
+
+When he perceived what had occurred, and saw his faithful follower,
+with a face distorted by pain, rubbing his shoulder, his cheeks flushed
+angrily, and with just indignation he rebuked Siebenburg for his unseemly
+intrusion into his quarters and his brutal conduct.
+
+Then, without heeding the knight, he asked Biberli if he was seriously
+injured, and when the latter answered in the negative he again turned to
+Seitz and briefly enquired what he wanted.  If he desired to own that,
+while in a state of senseless intoxication he had slandered modest
+maidens, and was ignorant of his actions when he staked his castle and
+lands against the gold lying before him, Heinz Schorlin, he might keep
+Tannenreuth.  The form in which he would revoke his calumny to Jungfrau
+Ortlieb he would discuss with him later.  At present his mind was
+occupied with more important matters than the senseless talk of a
+drunkard, and he would therefore request the knight to leave him.
+
+As Heinz uttered the last words he pointed to the door, and this
+indiscreet, anything but inviting gesture robbed Siebenburg of the last
+remnant of composure maintained with so much difficulty.
+
+Nothing is more infuriating to weak natures than to have others expect
+them to pursue a course opposite to that which, after a victory over
+baser impulses, they have recognised as the right one and intended to
+follow.  He who had come to resign his lost property voluntarily was
+regarded by the Swiss as an importunate mendicant; he who stood here to
+prove that he was perfectly justified in accusing Els Ortlieb of a crime,
+Schorlin expected to make a revocation against his better knowledge.  And
+what price did the insolent fellow demand for the restored estate and the
+right to brand him as a slanderer?  The pleasure of seeing the unwelcome
+guest retire as quickly as possible.  No greater degree of contempt and
+offensive presumption could be imagined, and as Seitz set his own
+admirable conduct during the past few hours far above the profligate
+behaviour of the Swiss, he was fired with honest indignation and, far
+from heeding the white robe and altered countenance of his enemy, gave
+the reins to his wrath.
+
+Pale with fury, he flung, as it were, the estate the Swiss had won from
+him at his feet, amid no lack of insulting words.
+
+At first Heinz listened to the luckless gambler's outbreak of rage in
+silent amazement, but when the latter began to threaten, and even clapped
+his hand on his sword, the composure which never failed him in the
+presence of anything that resembled danger quickly returned.
+
+He had felt a strong aversion to Siebenburg from their first meeting, and
+the slanderous words with which he had dragged in the dust the good name
+of a maiden who, Heinz knew, had incurred suspicion solely through his
+fault, had filled him with scorn.  So, with quiet contempt, he let him
+rave on; but when the person to whom he had just been talking--the old
+Minorite monk whom he had met on the highroad and accompanied to
+Nuremberg--appeared at the door of the next room, he stopped Seitz with a
+firm "Enough!" pointed to the old man, and in brief, simple words, gave
+the castle and lands of Tannenreuth to the monastery of the mendicant
+friars of the Franciscan order in Nuremberg.
+
+Siebenburg listened with a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders, then he
+said bitterly: "I thought that a life of poverty was the chief rule in
+the order of St. Francis.  But no matter!  May the gift won at the gaming
+table profit the holy Brothers.  For you, Sir Knight, it will gain the
+favour of the Saint of Assisi, whose power is renowned.  So you have
+acted wisely."
+
+Here he hesitated; he felt choked with rage.  But while the Minorite was
+thanking Heinz for the generous gift, Siebenburg's eyes again rested on
+the curtain behind which the maid was concealed.
+
+It was now his turn to deal the Swiss a blow.  The old mendicant friar
+was a venerable person whose bearing commanded respect, and Heinz seemed
+to value his good opinion.  For that very reason the Minorite should
+learn the character of this patron of his order.
+
+"Since you so earnestly desire to be rid of my company, Sir Heinz
+Schorlin," he continued, "I will fulfil your wish.  Only just now you
+appeared to consider certain words uttered last night in reference to a
+lady--"
+
+"Let that pass," interrupted Heinz with marked emphasis.
+
+"I might expect that desire," replied Siebenburg scornfully; "for as you
+are in the act of gaining the favour of Heaven by pious works, it will be
+agreeable to you--"
+
+"What?" asked the Swiss sharply.
+
+"You will surely desire," was the reply, "to change conduct which is an
+offence to honourable people, and still more to the saints above.  You
+who have estranged a betrothed bride from her lover and lured her to
+midnight interviews, no doubt suppose yourself safe from the future
+husband, whom the result of a duel--as you know--will keep from her side.
+But Wolff happens to be my brother-in-law, and if I feel disposed to take
+his place and break a lance with you----"
+
+Heinz, pale as death, interrupted him, exclaiming in a tone of the
+deepest indignation: "So be it, then.  We will have a tilt with lances,
+and then we will fight with our swords."
+
+Siebenburg looked at him an instant, as if puzzled by his adversary's
+sharp assault, but quickly regained his composure and answered: "Agreed!
+In the joust--[single combat in the tourney]--with sharp weapons it will
+soon appear who has right on his side."
+
+"Right?" asked Heinz in astonishment, shrugging his shoulders scornfully.
+
+"Yes, right," cried the other furiously, "which you have ceased to
+prize."
+
+"So far from it," the Swiss answered quietly, "that before we discuss the
+mode of combat with the herald I must ask you to recall the insults with
+which yesterday, in your drunkenness, you injured the honour of a
+virtuous maiden in the presence of other knights and gentlemen."
+
+"Whose protector," laughed Seitz, "you seem to have constituted yourself,
+by your own choice, in her bridegroom's place."
+
+"I accept  the position,"  replied Heinz with cool deliberation.
+"Not you, nay, I will fight in Wolff Eysvogel's stead--and with his
+consent, I think.  I know him, and esteem him so highly----"
+
+"That you invite his plighted bride to nocturnal love dalliance, and
+exchange love messages with her," interrupted the other.
+
+This was too much for Heinz Schorlin and, with honest indignation, he
+cried: "Prove it!  Or, by our Lord's blood!--My sword, Biberli!--Spite of
+the peace proclaimed throughout the land, you shall learn, ere you open
+your slandering lips again----"
+
+Here he paused suddenly, for while Biberli withdrew to obey the command
+which, though it probably suited his wishes, he was slow in executing,
+doubtless that he might save his master from a reckless act, Siebenburg,
+frantic with fury, rushed to the curtain.  Ere Heinz could interfere, he
+jerked it back so violently that he tore it from the fastenings and
+forced the terrified maid, whose arm he grasped, to approach the knight
+with him.
+
+Heinz had seen Katterle only by moonlight and in the twilight, so her
+unexpected appearance gave him no information.  He gazed at her
+enquiringly, with as much amazement as though she had risen from the
+earth.  Siebenburg gave him no time to collect his thoughts, but dragged
+the girl before the monk and, raising his voice in menace, commanded:
+"Tell the holy Brother who you are, woman!"
+
+"Katterle of Sarnen," she answered, weeping.  "And whom do you serve?"
+the knight demanded.
+
+"The Ortlieb sisters, Jungfrau Els and Jungfrau Eva," was the reply.
+
+"The beautiful Es, as they are called here, holy Brother," said
+Siebenburg with a malicious laugh, "whose maid I recognise in this girl.
+If she did not come hither to mend the linen of her mistress's friend--"
+
+But here Biberli, who on his return to the anteroom had been terrified by
+the sight of his sweetheart, interrupted the knight by turning to Heinz
+with the exclamation: "Forgive me, my lord.  Surely you know that she is
+my betrothed bride.  She came just now--scarcely a dozen Paternosters
+ago-to talk with me about the marriage."
+
+Katterle had listened in surprise to the bold words of her true and
+steadfast lover, yet she was not ill pleased, for he had never before
+spoken of their marriage voluntarily.  At the same time she felt the
+obligation of aiding him and nodded assent, while Siebenburg rudely
+interrupted the servant by calling to the monk: "Lies and deception,
+pious Brother.  Black must be whitened here.  She stole, muffled, to her
+mistress's gallant, to bring a message from the older beautiful E, with
+whom this godly knight was surprised last night."
+
+Again the passionate outbreak of his foe restored the Swiss to composure.
+With a calmness which seemed to the servant incomprehensible, though it
+filled him with delight, he turned to the monk, saying earnestly and
+simply: "Appearances may be against me, Pater Benedictus.  I will tell
+you all the circumstances at once.  How this maid came here will be
+explained later.  As for the maiden whom this man calls the older
+beautiful E, never--I swear it by our saint--have I sought her love or
+received from her the smallest token of her favour."
+
+Then turning to Siebenburg he continued, still calmly, but with menacing
+sternness: "If I judge you aright, you will now go from one to another
+telling whom you found here, in order to injure the fair fame of the
+maiden whom your wife's valiant brother chose for his bride, and to place
+my name with hers in the pillory."
+
+"Where Els Ortlieb belongs rather than in the honourable home of a
+Nuremberg patrician," retorted Siebenburg furiously.  "If she became too
+base for my brother-in-law, the fault is yours.  I shall certainly take
+care that he learns the truth and knows where, and at what an hour, his
+betrothed bride met foreign heartbreakers.  To open the eyes of others
+concerning her will also be a pleasant duty."
+
+Heinz sprang towards Biberli to snatch the sword from his hand, but he
+held it firmly, seeking his master's eyes with a look of warning
+entreaty; but his faithful solicitude would have been futile had not
+the monk lent his aid.  The old man's whispered exhortation to his young
+friend to spare the imperial master, to whom he was so deeply indebted, a
+fresh sorrow, restored to the infuriated young knight his power of self-
+control.  Pushing the thick locks back from his brow with a hasty
+movement, he answered in a tone of the most intense contempt:
+
+"Do what you will, but remember this: Beware that, ere the joust begins,
+you do not ride the rail instead of the charger.  The maidens whose pure
+name you so yearn to sully are of noble birth, and if they appear to
+complain of you----"
+
+"Then I will proclaim the truth," Siebenburg retorted, "and the Court of
+Love and Pursuivant at Arms will deprive you, the base seducer, of the
+right to enter the lists rather than me, my handsome knight!"
+
+"So be it," replied Heinz quietly.  "You can discuss the other points
+with my herald.  Wolff Eysvogel, too--rely upon it--will challenge you,
+if you fulfil your base design."
+
+Then, turning his back upon Seitz without a word of farewell, he motioned
+the monk towards the open door of the antechamber, and letting him lead
+the way, closed it behind them.
+
+"He will come to you, you boaster!"  Siebenburg shouted contemptuously
+after the Swiss, and then turned to Biberli and the maid with a
+patronising question; but the former, without even opening his lips in
+reply, hastened to the door and, with a significant gesture, induced the
+knight to retire.
+
+Seitz submitted and hastened down the stairs, his eyes flashing as if he
+had won a great victory.  At the door of the house he grasped the hilt of
+his sword, and then, with rapid movements, twisted the ends of his
+mustache.  The surprise he had given the insolent Swiss by the discovery
+of his love messenger--it had acted like a spell--could not have
+succeeded better.  And what had Schorlin alleged in justification?
+Nothing, absolutely nothing at all.  Wolff Eysvogel's herald should
+challenge the Swiss, not him, who meant to open the deceived lover's
+eyes concerning his betrothed bride.
+
+He eagerly anticipated the joust and the sword combat with Heinz.  The
+sharper the herald's conditions the better.  He had hurled more powerful
+foes than the Swiss from the saddle, and from knightly "courtoisie" not
+even used his strength without consideration.  Heinz Schorlin should feel
+it.
+
+He gazed around him like a victor, and throwing his head back haughtily
+he went down the Bindergasse, this time past the Franciscan monastery
+towards the Town Hall and the fish market.  Eber, the sword cutler, lived
+there and, spite of the large sum he owed him, Seitz wished to talk with
+him about the sharp weapons he needed for the joust.  On his way he gave
+his imagination free course.  It showed him his impetuous onset, his
+enemy's fall in the sand, the sword combat, and the end of the joust, the
+swift death of his hated foe.
+
+These pictures of the future occupied his thoughts so deeply that he
+neither saw nor heard what was passing around him.  Many a person for
+whom he forgot to turn aside looked angrily after him.  Suddenly he found
+his farther progress arrested.  The crier had just raised his voice to
+announce some important tidings to the people who thronged around him
+between the Town Hall and the Franciscan monastery.  Perhaps he might
+have succeeded in forcing a passage through the concourse, but when he
+heard the name "Ernst Ortlieb," in the monotonous speech of the city
+crier, he followed the remainder of his notice.  It made known to the
+citizens of Nuremberg that, since the thunderstorm of the preceding
+night, a maid had been missing from the house of the Honourable Herr
+Ernst Ortlieb, of the Council, a Swiss by birth, Katharina of Sarnen,
+called Katterle, a woman of blameless reputation.  Whoever should learn
+anything concerning the girl was requested to bring the news to the
+Ortlieb residence.
+
+What did this mean?
+
+If the girl had vanished at midnight and not returned to her employers
+since, she could scarcely have sought Heinz Schorlin as a messenger of
+love from Els.  But if she had not come to the Swiss from one of the Es,
+what proof did he, Seitz, possess of the guilt of his brother-in-law's
+bride?  How should he succeed in making Wolff understand that his beloved
+Els had wronged him if the maid was to play no part in proving it?
+Yesterday evening he had not believed firmly in her guilt; that very
+morning it had even seemed to him a shameful thing that he had cast
+suspicion upon her in the presence of others.  The encounter with the
+maid at the Swiss knight's lodgings had first induced him to insist on
+his accusation so defiantly.  And now?  If Heinz Schorlin, with the help
+of the Ortliebs, succeeded in proving the innocence of those whom he had
+accused, then--ah, he must not pursue that train of thought--then, at the
+lady's accusation, he might be deprived of the right to enter the lists
+in the tournament; then all the disgrace which could be inflicted upon
+the slanderous defamer of character threatened him; then Wolff would
+summon him to a reckoning, as well as Heinz Schorlin.  Wolff, whom he had
+begun to hate since, with his resistless arm of iron, he had exposed him
+for the first time to the malicious glee of the bystanders in the fencing
+hall.
+
+Yet it was not this which suddenly bowed his head and loudly admonished
+him that he had again behaved like a reckless fool.  Cowardice was his
+least fault.  He did not fear what might befall him in battle.  Whether
+he would be barred out from the lists was the terrible question which
+darkened the bright morning already verging towards noon.  He had charged
+Els with perfidy in the presence of others, and thereby exposed her, the
+plighted bride of a knight, to the utmost scorn.  And besides--fool that
+he was!--his brothers had again attacked a train of waggons on the
+highway and would soon be called to account as robbers.  This would
+certainly lead the Swiss and others to investigate his own past, and the
+Pursuivant at Arms excluded from joust and tourney whoever "injured trade
+or merchant."  What would not his enemy, who was in such high favour with
+the Emperor, do to compass his destruction?  But--and at the thought he
+uttered a low imprecation--how could he ride to the joust if his father-
+in-law closed his strong box which, moreover, was said to be empty?  If
+the old man was forced to declare himself bankrupt Siebenburg's creditors
+would instantly seize his splendid chargers and costly suits of armour,
+scarcely one half of which were paid for.  How much money he needed as
+security in case of defeat!  His sole property was debts.  Yet the
+thought seemed like an illumination--his wife's valuable old jewels could
+probably still be saved, and she might be induced to give him part of the
+ornaments for the tournament.  He need only make her understand that his
+honour and that of the twins were at stake.  Would that Heaven might
+spare his boys such hours of anxiety and self-accusation!
+
+But what was this?  Was he deluding himself?  Did his over-excited
+imagination make him hear a death knell pealing for his honour and his
+hopes, which must be borne to their grave?  Yet no!  All the citizens and
+peasants, men and women, great and small, who thronged the salt market,
+which he had just entered, raised their heads to listen with him; for
+from every steeple at once rang the mournful death knell which announced
+to the city the decease of an "honourable" member of the Council, a
+secular or ecclesiastical prince.  The mourning banner was already waving
+on the roof of the Town Hall, towards which he turned.  Men in the
+service of the city were hoisting other black flags upon the almshouse,
+and now the Hegelein--[Proclaimer of decrees]--in mourning garments,
+mounted on a steed caparisoned with crepe, came riding by at the head of
+other horsemen clad in sable, proclaiming to the throng that Hartmann,
+the Emperor Rudolph's promising son, had found an untimely end.  The
+noble youth was drowned while bathing in the Rhine.
+
+It seemed as if a frost had blighted a blooming garden.  The gay bustle
+in the market place was paralysed.  The loud sobs of many women blended
+with exclamations of grief and pity from bearded lips which had just been
+merrily bargaining for salt and fish, meat and game.  Messengers with
+crepe on their hats or caps forced a passage through the throng, and a
+train of German knights, priests, and monks passed with bowed heads,
+bearing candles in their hands, between the Town Hail and St. Sebald's
+Church towards the corn magazine and the citadel.
+
+Meanwhile dark clouds were spreading slowly over the bright-blue vault of
+the June sky.  A flock of rooks hovered around the Town Hall, and then
+flew, with loud cries, towards the castle.
+
+Seitz watched them indifferently.  Even the great omnipotent sovereign
+there had his own cross to bear; tears flowed in his proud palace also,
+and sighs of anguish were heard.  And this was just.  He had never wished
+evil to any one who did not injure him, but even if he could have averted
+this sore sorrow from the Emperor Rudolph he would not have stirred a
+finger.  His coronation had been a blow to him and to his brothers.
+Formerly they had been permitted to work their will on the highways, but
+the Hapsburg, the Swiss, had pitilessly stopped their brigandage.  Now
+for the first time robber-knights were sentenced and their castles
+destroyed.  The Emperor meant to transform Germany into a sheepfold,
+Absbach exclaimed.  The Siebenburg brothers were his faithful allies, and
+though they complained that the joyous, knightly clank of arms would be
+silenced under such a sovereign, they themselves took care that the loud
+battle shouts, cries of pain, and shrieks for aid were not hushed on the
+roads used for traffic by the merchants.  But this was not Seitz's sole
+reason for shrugging his shoulders at the expressions of the warmest
+sympathy which rose around him.  The Emperor was tenderly attached to
+Heinz Schorlin, and the man who was so kindly disposed to his foe could
+never be his friend.  Perhaps to-morrow Rudolph might behead his brothers
+and elevate Heinz Schorlin to still greater honors.  Seitz, whose eyes
+had overflowed with tears when the warder of his native castle lost his
+aged wife, who had been his nurse, now found no cause to grieve with the
+mourners.
+
+So he continued his way, burdened with his own anxieties, amid the tears
+and lamentations of the multitude.  The numerous retinue of servants in
+the Eysvogel mansion were moving restlessly to and fro; the news of the
+prince's death had reached them.  Herr Casper had left the house.  He was
+probably at Herr Ernst Ortlieb's.  If the latter had already learned what
+he, Seitz Siebenburg, had said at the gaming table of his daughter,
+perhaps his hand had dealt the first decisive blow at the tottering
+house where, so long as it stood, his wife and the twins would under
+any circumstances find shelter.  Resentment against the Swiss, hatred,
+and jealousy, had made him a knave, and at the same time the most
+shortsighted of fools.
+
+As he approached the second story, in which the nursery was situated and
+where he expected to find his wife, it suddenly seemed as if a star had
+risen amid the darkness.  If he poured out his heart to Isabella and let
+her share the terrible torture of his soul, perhaps it would awaken a
+tender sympathy in the woman who still loved him, and who was dearer to
+him than he could express.  Her jewels were certainly very valuable, but
+far more precious was the hope of being permitted to rest his aching head
+upon her breast and feel her slender white hand push back the hair from
+his anxious brow.  Oh, if misfortune would draw her again as near to him
+as during the early months of their married life and directly before it,
+he could rise from his depression with fresh vigour and transform the
+battle, now half lost, into victory.  Besides, she was clever and had
+power over the hearts of her family, so perhaps she might point out the
+pathway of escape, which his brain, unused to reflection, could not
+discover.
+
+His heart throbbed high as, animated by fresh hope, he entered the
+corridor from which opened the rooms which he occupied with her.  But his
+wish to find her alone was not to be fulfilled; several voices reached
+him.
+
+What was the meaning of the scene?
+
+Isabella, her face deadly pale, and her tall figure drawn up to its
+full height, stood before the door of the nursery with a stern, cold
+expression on her lovely lips, like a princess pronouncing sentence upon
+a criminal.  She was panting for breath, and before her, her mother, and
+her grandmother, Countess Cordula's pretty page, whom Siebenburg knew
+only too well, was moving to and fro with eager gestures.  He held in his
+hand the bunch of roses which Seitz had sent to his newly-won wife and
+darling as a token of reconciliation, and Siebenburg heard his clear,
+boyish tones urge: "I have already said so and, noble lady, you may
+believe me, this bouquet, which the woman brought us, was intended for my
+gracious mistress, Countess von Montfort.  It was meant to give her a
+fair morning greeting, and--Do not let this vex you, for it was done
+only in the joyous game of love, as custom dictated.  Ever since we came
+here your lord has daily honoured my countess with the loveliest flowers
+whose buds unfold in the region near the Rhine.  But my gracious
+mistress, as you have already heard, believes that you, noble lady, have
+a better right to these unusually beautiful children of the spring than
+she who last evening bade your lord behold in you, not in her, fair lady,
+the most fitting object of his homage.  So she sent me hither, most
+gracious madam, to lay what is yours at your feet."
+
+As he spoke, the agile boy, with a graceful bow, tried to place the
+flowers in Isabella's hand, but she would not receive the bouquet, and
+the abrupt gesture with which she pushed them back flung the nosegay on
+the floor.  Paying no further heed to it, she answered in a cold, haughty
+tone: "Thank your mistress, and tell her that I appreciated her kind
+intention, but the roses which she sent me were too full of thorns."
+Then, turning her back on the page, she advanced with majestic pride to
+the door of the nursery.
+
+Her mother and grandmother tried to follow, but Siebenburg pressed
+between them and his wife, and his voice thrilled with the anguish of a
+soul overwhelmed by despair as he cried imploringly: "Hear me, Isabella!
+There is a most unhappy misunderstanding here.  By all that is sacred to
+me, by our love, by our children, I swear those roses were intended for
+you, my heart's treasure, and for you alone."
+
+But Countess Rotterbach cut him short by exclaiming with a loud chuckle:
+"The unripe early pears will probably come from the fruit market to the
+housewife's hands later; the roses found their way to Countess von
+Montfort more quickly."
+
+The malicious words were followed like an echo by Frau Rosalinde's
+tearful "It is only too true.  This also!"
+
+The knight, unheeding the angry, upbraiding woman, hastened in pursuit
+of his wife to throw himself at her feet and confess the whole truth; but
+she, who had heard long before that Sir Seitz was paying Countess Cordula
+more conspicuous attention than beseemed a faithful husband, and who,
+after the happy hour so recently experienced, had expected, until the
+arrival of the page, the dawn of brighter, better days, now felt doubly
+abased, deceived, betrayed.
+
+Without vouchsafing the unfortunate man even a glance or a word, she
+entered the nursery before he reached her; but he, feeling that he must
+follow her at any cost, laid his hand on the lock of the door and tried
+to open it.  The strong oak resisted his shaking and pulling.  Isabella
+had shot the heavy iron bolt into its place.  Seitz first knocked with
+his fingers and then with his clenched fist, until the grandmother
+exclaimed: "You have destroyed the house, at least spare the doors."
+
+Uttering a fierce imprecation, he went to his own chamber, hastily thrust
+into his pockets all the gold and valuables which he possessed, and then
+went out again into the street.  His way led him past Kuni, the flower
+girl from whom he had bought the roses.  The beggar who was to carry them
+to his wife did not hear distinctly, on account of her bandaged head, and
+not understanding the knight, went to the girl from whom she had seen him
+purchase the blossoms to ask where they belonged.  Kuni pointed to the
+lodgings of the von Montforts, where she had already sent so many
+bouquets for Siebenburg.  The latter saw both the flower-seller and the
+beggar woman, but did not attempt to learn how the roses which he
+intended for his wife had reached Countess Cordula.  He suspected the
+truth, but felt no desire to have it confirmed.  Fate meant to destroy
+him, he had learned that.  The means employed mattered little.  It
+would have been folly to strive against the superior power of such an
+adversary.  Let ruin pursue its course.  His sole wish was to forget his
+misery, though but for a brief time.  He knew he could accomplish this by
+drink, so he entered the Mirror wine tavern and drained bumper after
+bumper with a speed which made the landlord, though he was accustomed to
+marvellous performances on the part of his guests, shake the head set on
+his immensely thick neck somewhat suspiciously.
+
+The few persons present had gathered in a group and were talking sadly
+about the great misfortune which had assailed the Emperor.  The universal
+grief displayed so hypocritically, as Seitz thought, angered him, and he
+gazed at them with such a sullen, threatening look that no one ventured
+to approach him.  Sometimes he stared into his wine, sometimes into
+vacancy, sometimes at the vaulted ceiling above.  He harshly rebuffed the
+landlord and the waiter who tried to accost him, but when the peasant's
+prediction was fulfilled and the thunderstorm of the preceding night
+was followed at midnight by one equally severe, he arose and left the
+hostelry.  The rain tempted him into the open air.  The taproom was so
+sultry, so terribly sultry.  The moisture of the heavens would refresh
+him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+The fury of the tempest had ceased, but the sky was still obscured by
+clouds.  A cool breeze blew from the northeast through the damp, heavy
+air.
+
+Heinz Schorlin was coming from the fortress, and after crossing the
+Diligengasse went directly towards his lodgings.  His coat of mail,
+spurs, and helmeted head were accoutrements for the saddle, yet he was on
+foot.  A throng of men, women, and children, whispering eagerly together,
+accompanied him.  One pointed him out to another, as if there was
+something unusual about him.  Two stalwart soldiers in the pay of the
+city followed, carrying his saddle and the equipments of his horse, and
+kept back the boys or women who boldly attempted to press too near.
+
+Heinz did not heed the throng.  He looked pale, and his thick locks,
+falling in disorder from under his helmet, floated around his face.  The
+chain armour on his limbs and his long surcoat were covered with mire.
+The young knight, usually so trim, looked disordered and, as it were,
+thrown off his balance.  His bright face bore the impress of a horror
+still unconquered, as he gazed restlessly into vacancy, and seemed to be
+seeking something, now above and now in the ground.
+
+The pretty young hostess, Frau Barbara Deichsler, holding her little
+three-year-old daughter by the hand, stood in front of the house in the
+Bindergasse where he lodged.  The knight usually had a pleasant or merry
+word for her, and a gay jest or bit of candy for Annele.  Nay, the young
+noble, who was fond of children, liked to toss the little one in his arms
+and play with her.
+
+Frau Barbara had already heard that, as Heinz was returning from the
+fortress, the lightning had struck directly in front of him, killing his
+beautiful dun charger, which she had so often admired.  It had happened
+directly before the eyes of the guard, and the news had gone from man to
+man of the incredible miracle which had saved the life of the young
+Swiss, the dearest friend of the Emperor's dead son.
+
+When Heinz approached the door Frau Barbara stepped forward with Annele
+to congratulate him that the dear saints had so graciously protected him,
+but he only answered gravely: "What are we mortals?  Rejoice in the
+child, Frau Barbara, so long as she is spared to you."
+
+He passed into the entry as he spoke, but Frau Deichsler hastily prepared
+to call his armour-bearer, a grey-bearded Swiss who had served the
+knight's father and slept away the hours not devoted to his duties or
+to the wine cup.  He must supply the place of Biberli, who had left the
+house a long time before, and for the first time in many years was
+keeping his master waiting.  But Heinz knew where he was, and while the
+armour-bearer was divesting him, awkwardly enough, of his suit of mail
+and gala attire, he was often seized with anxiety about his faithful
+follower, though many things with which the morning had burdened his soul
+lay nearer to his heart.
+
+Never had he been so lucky in gambling as last night in the Duke of
+Pomerania's quarters.  Biberli's advice to trust to the two and five had
+been repeatedly tested, and besides the estate of Tannenreuth, which
+Siebenburg had staked against all his winnings, he had brought home more
+gold than he had ever seen before.
+
+Yet he had gone to rest in a mood by no means joyous.  It was painful to
+him to deprive any one of his lands and home.  He had even resisted
+accepting Siebenburg's reckless stake, but his obstinate persistence and
+demand could not be opposed.  The calumnies by which the "Mustache" had
+assailed the innocent Els Ortlieb haunted him,  and many others had shown
+their indignation against the traducer.  Probably thirty gentlemen at the
+gaming table had been witnesses of these incidents, and if, to-morrow, it
+was in everybody's mouth that he, Heinz, had been caught at mid-night in
+an interview with the elder beautiful Ortlieb E, the fault was his, and
+he would be burdened with the guilt of having sullied the honour and name
+of a pure maiden, the betrothed bride of an estimable man.
+
+And Eva!
+
+When he woke in the morning his first thought had been of her.  She had
+seemed more desirable than ever.  But his relatives at home, and the
+counsel Biberli had urged upon him during their nocturnal wandering, had
+constantly interposed between him and the maiden whom he so ardently
+loved.  Besides, it seemed certain that the passion which filled his
+heart must end unhappily.  Else what was the meaning of this unexampled
+good luck at the gaming table?  The torture of this thought had kept him
+awake a long time.  Then he had sunk into a deep, dreamless sleep.  In
+the morning Biberli, full of delight, roused him, and displayed three
+large bags filled with florins and zecchins, the gains of the night
+before.
+
+The servant had begged to be permitted to count the golden blessing,
+which in itself would suffice to buy the right to use the bridge from the
+city of Luzerne twice over, and the best thing about which was that it
+would restore the peace of mind of his lady mother at Schorlin Castle.
+
+Now, in the name of all the saints, let him continue his life of liberty,
+and leave the somnambulist to walk over the roofs, and suffer Altrosen,
+who had worn her colour so patiently, to wed the countess.
+
+But how long the servitor's already narrow face became when Heinz, with a
+grave resolution new to Biberli, answered positively that no ducats would
+stray from these bags to Schorlin Castle.  If, last night, anxiety had
+burdened his mind like the corpse of a murdered man, these gains weighed
+upon his soul like the loathsome body of a dead cat.  Never in his whole
+life had he felt so poor as with this devil's money.  The witch-bait
+which Biberli had given him with the two and the five had drawn it out of
+the pockets of his fellow gamblers.  He would be neither a cut-purse nor
+a dealer in the black arts.  The wages of hell should depart as quickly
+as they came.  While speaking, he seized the second largest bag and gave
+it to the servant, exclaiming: "Now keep your promise to Katterle like an
+honest man.  The poor thing will have a hard time at her employer's.  I
+make but one condition: you are to remain in my service.  I can't do
+without you."
+
+While the armour-bearer, in the agile Biberli's place, was handing him
+the garments to be worn in the house, Heinz again remembered how the
+faithful fellow had thrown himself on his knees and kissed his master's
+hands and arms in the excess of his joyful surprise, and yet he had felt
+as if a dark cloud was shadowing the brightness of his soul.  The morning
+sun had shone so radiantly into his window, and Annele had come with such
+bewitching shyness to bring him a little bunch of lilies of the valley
+with a rose in the centre, and a pleasant morning greeting from her
+mother, that the cloud could not remain, yet it had only parted
+occasionally to close again speedily, though it was less dense and dark
+than before.
+
+Yet he had taken the child in his arms and looked down into the narrow
+street to show her the people going to market so gaily in the early
+morning.  But he soon put her down again, for he recognised in a horseman
+approaching on a weary steed Count Curt Gleichen, the most intimate
+friend of young Prince Hartmann and himself, and when he called to him he
+had slid from his saddle with a faint greeting.
+
+Heinz instantly rushed out of the house to meet him, but he had found him
+beside his steed, which had sunk on its knees, and then, trembling and
+panting, dragged itself, supported by its rider's hand, into the entry.
+There it fell, rolled over on its side, and stretched its limbs stiffly
+in death.  It was the third horse which the messenger had killed since he
+left the Rhine, yet he was sure of arriving too soon; for he had to
+announce to a father the death of his promising son.
+
+Heinz listened, utterly overwhelmed, to the narrative of the eye-witness,
+who described how Hartmann, ere he could stretch out a hand to save
+him, had been dragged into the depths by the waves of the Rhine.
+
+In spite of the sunny brightness of the morning the young Swiss had had a
+presentiment of some great misfortune, and had told himself that he would
+welcome it if it relieved him from the burden which had darkened his soul
+since the disgraceful good luck of the previous night.  Now it had
+happened, and how gladly he would have continued to bear the heaviest
+load to undo the past.  He had sobbed on his friend's breast like a
+child, accusing Heaven for having visited him with this affliction.
+
+Hartmann had been not only his friend but his pupil--and what a pupil!
+He had instructed him in horsemanship and the use of the sword, and
+during the last year shared everything with him and young Count Gleichen
+as if they were three brothers and, like a brother, the prince had
+constantly grown closer to his heart.  Had he, Heinz, accompanied
+Hartmann to the Rhine and been permitted to remain with him, neither or
+both would have fallen victims to the river!  And Hartmann's aged father,
+the noble man to whom he owed everything, and who clung with his whole
+soul to the beloved youth, his image in mind and person--how would the
+Emperor Rudolph endure this?  But a few months ago death had snatched
+from him his wife, the love of his youth, the mother of his children, the
+companion of his glorious career!  The thought of him stirred Heinz to
+the depths of his soul, and he would fain have hastened at once to the
+castle to help the stricken father bear the new and terrible burden
+imposed upon him.  But he must first care for the messenger of these
+terrible tidings who, with lips white from exhaustion, needed
+refreshment.
+
+Biberli, who saw and thought of everything, had already urged the hostess
+to do what she could, and sent the servant to the tailor that, when Heinz
+rode to the fortress, he might not lack the mourning--a tabard would
+suffice--which could be made in a few hours.
+
+Frau Barbara had just brought the lunch and promised to obey the command
+to keep the terrible news which she had just heard a secret from every
+one, that the rumor might not reach the fortress prematurely, when
+another visitor appeared--Heinz Schorlin's cousin, Sir Arnold Maier of
+Silenen, a tall, broad-shouldered man of fifty, with stalwart frame and
+powerful limbs.
+
+His grave, bronzed countenance, framed by a grey beard, revealed that he,
+too, brought no cheering news.  He had never come to his young cousin's
+at so early an hour.
+
+His intelligent, kindly grey eyes surveyed Heinz with astonishment.  What
+had befallen the happy-hearted fellow?  But when he heard the news which
+had wet the young knight's eyes with tears, his own lips also quivered,
+and his deep, manly tones faltered as he laid his heavy hands on the
+mourner's shoulders and gazed tearfully into his eyes.  At last he
+exclaimed mournfully: "My poor, poor boy!  Pray to Him to whom we owe all
+that is good, and who tries us with the evil.  Would to God I had less
+painful tidings for you!"
+
+Heinz shrank back, but his cousin told him the tidings learned from a
+Swiss messenger scarcely an hour before.  The dispute over the bridge
+toll had caused a fight.  The uncle who supplied a father's place to
+Heinz and managed his affairs--brave old Walther Ramsweg--was killed;
+Schorlin Castle had been taken by the city soldiery and, at the command
+of the chief magistrate, razed to the ground.  Wendula Schorlin, Heinz's
+mother, with her daughter Maria, had fallen into the hands of the city
+soldiers and been carried to the convent in Constance, where she and her
+youngest child now remained with the two older daughters.
+
+Heinz, deeply agitated by the news, exclaimed:  "Uncle Ramsweg, our kind
+second father, also in the grave without my being able to press his
+brave, loyal hand in farewell!  And Maria, our singing bird, our nimble
+little squirrel, with those grave, world-weary Sisters!  And my mother!
+You, too, like every one, love her, Cousin--and you know her.  She who
+has been accustomed to command, and to manage the house and the lands,
+who like a saint dried tears far and near amid trouble and deprivation--
+she, deprived of her own strong will, in a convent!  Oh, Cousin, Cousin!
+To hear this, and not be able to rush upon the rabble who have robbed us
+of the home of our ancestors, as a boy crushes a snail shell!  Can it be
+imagined?  No Castle Schorlin towering high above the lake on the cliff
+at the verge of the forest.  The room where we all saw the light of the
+world and listened to our mother's songs destroyed; the sacred chamber
+where the father who so lovingly protected us closed his eyes; the chapel
+where we prayed so devoutly and vowed to the Holy Virgin a candle from
+our little possessions, or, in the lovely month of May, brought flowers
+to her from our mother's little garden, the cliff, or the dark forest.
+The courtyard where we learned to manage a steed and use our weapons, the
+hall where we listened to the wandering minstrels, in ruins!  Gone, gone,
+all gone!  My mother and Maria weeping prisoners!"
+
+Here his cousin broke in to show him that love was leading him to look on
+the dark side.  His mother had chosen the convent for her daughter's
+sake; she was by no means detained there by force.  She could live
+wherever she pleased, and her dowry, with what she had saved, would be
+ample to support her and Maria, in the city or the country, in a style
+suited to their rank.
+
+This afforded Heinz some consolation, but enough remained to keep his
+grief alive, and his voice sounded very sorrowful as he added: "That
+lessens the bitterness of the cup.  But who will re build the ancient
+castle?  Who will restore our uncle?  And the Emperor, my beloved,
+fatherly master, dying of grief!  Our Hartmann dead!  Washed away like a
+dry branch which the swift Reuss seizes and hurries out of our sight!
+Too much, too hard, too terrible!  Yet the sun shines as brightly as
+before!  The children in the street below laugh as merrily as ever!"
+
+Groaning aloud, he covered his face with his hands, and those from whom
+he might have expected consolation were forced to leave him in the midst
+of the deepest sorrow; for the Swiss mail, which had come to Maier of
+Silenen as the most distinguished of his countrymen, was awaiting
+distribution, and Count Gleichen was forced to fulfill his sorrowful duty
+as messenger.  His friend Heinz had lent him his second horse, the black,
+to ride to the fortress.
+
+While Heinz, pursued by grief and care, sometimes paced up and down the
+room, sometimes threw himself into the armchair which Frau Barbara, to do
+him special honour, had placed in the sitting-room, the Minorite monk
+Benedictus, whom he had brought to Nuremberg, had come uninvited from the
+neighbouring monastery to give him a morning greeting.  The enthusiasm
+with which St. Francis had filled his soul in his early years had not
+died out in his aged breast.  He who in his youth had borne the
+escutcheon of his distinguished race in many a battle and tourney, as a
+knight worthy of all honour, sympathised with his young equal in rank,
+and found him in the mood to provide for his eternal salvation.  On the
+ride to Nuremberg he had perceived in Heinz a pious heart and a keen
+intellect which yearned for higher things.  But at that time the joyous
+youth had not seemed to him ripe for the call of Heaven; when he found
+him bowed with grief, his eyes, so radiant yesterday, swimming in tears,
+the conviction was aroused that the Omnipotent One Himself had taken him
+by the hand to lead the young Swiss, to whom he gratefully wished the
+best blessings, into the path which the noble Saint of Assisi himself had
+pointed out to him, and wherein he had found a bliss for which in the
+world he had vainly yearned.
+
+But his conversation with his young friend had been interrupted, first by
+the tailor who was to make his mourning garb, then by Siebenburg, and
+even later he had had no opportunity to school Heinz; for after Seitz had
+gone Biberli and Katterle had needed questioning.  The result of this was
+sufficiently startling, and had induced Heinz to send the servant and his
+sweetheart on the errand from which the former had not yet returned.
+
+When the young knight found himself alone he repeated what the monk had
+just urged upon him.  Then Eva's image rose before him, and he had asked
+himself whether she, the devout maiden, would not thank her saint when
+she learned that he, obedient to her counsel, was beginning to provide
+for his eternal salvation.
+
+Moved by such thoughts, he had smiled as he told himself that the
+Minorite seemed to be earnestly striving to win him for the monastery.
+The old man meant kindly, but how could he renounce the trade of arms,
+for which he was reared and which he loved?
+
+Then he had been obliged to ride to the fortress to wait upon the Emperor
+and tell him how deeply he sympathised with his grief.  But he was denied
+admittance.  Rudolph desired to be alone, and would not see even his
+nearest relatives.
+
+On the way home he wished to pass through the inner gate of the
+Thiergartnerthor into Thorstrasse to cross the milk market.  The violence
+of the noonday thundershower had already begun to abate, and he had
+ridden quietly forward, absorbed in his grief, when suddenly a loud,
+rattling crash had deafened his ears and made him feel as if the earth,
+the gate, and the fortress were reeling.  At the same moment his horse
+leaped upward with all four feet at once, tossed its clever head
+convulsively, and sank on its knees.
+
+Half blinded by the dazzling light he saw, and bewildered by the
+sulphurous vapour he noticed, Heinz nevertheless retained his presence of
+mind, and had sprung from the saddle ere the quivering steed fell on its
+side.  Several of the guard at the gate quickly hastened to his
+assistance, examined the horse with him, and found the noble animal
+already dead.  The lightning had darted along the iron mail on its
+forehead and the steel bit, and struck the ground without injuring Heinz
+himself.  The soldiers and a Dominican monk who had sought shelter from
+the rain in the guardhouse extolled this as a great miracle.  The people
+who had crowded to the spot were also seized with pious awe, and followed
+the knight to whom Heaven had so distinctly showed its favour.
+
+Heinz himself only felt that something extraordinary had happened.  The
+world had gained a new aspect.  His life, which yesterday had appeared so
+immeasurably long, now seemed brief, pitifully brief.  Perhaps it would
+end ere the sun sank to rest in the Haller meadows.  He must deem every
+hour that he was permitted to breathe as a gift, like the earnest money
+he, placed in the trainer's hand in a horse trade.  According to human
+judgment the lightning should have killed him as well as the horse.  If
+he still lived and breathed and saw the grey clouds drifting across the
+sky, this was granted only that he might secure his eternal salvation, to
+which hitherto he had given so little concern.  How grateful he ought to
+be that this respite had been allowed him--that he had not been snatched
+away unwarned, like Prince Hartmann, in the midst of his sins!
+
+Would not Eva feel the same when she learned what had befallen him?
+Perhaps Biberli would come back soon--he had been gone so long--and could
+tell him about her.
+
+Even before the thunderbolt had stirred the inmost depths of his being,
+when he was merely touched by his deep grief and the monk's admonition,
+he had striven to guide the servant and his sweetheart into the right
+path, and the grey-haired monk aided him.  The monastic life, it is true,
+would not have suited Biberli, but he had shown himself ready to atone
+for the wrong done the poor girl who had kept her troth for three long
+years and, unasked, went back with her to her angry master.
+
+Ere Heinz set forth on his ride to the fortress he had gone out declaring
+that he would prove the meaning of his truth and steadfastness, thereby
+incurring a peril which certainly gave him a right to wear the T and St
+on his long robe and cap forever.  He must expect to be held to a strict
+account by Ernst Ortlieb.  If the incensed father, who was a member of
+the Council, used the full severity of the law, he might fare even worse
+than ill.  But he had realised the pass to which he had brought his
+sweetheart, and the Minorite led his honest heart to the perception of
+the sin he would commit if he permitted her to atone for an act which she
+had done by his desire--nay, at his command.
+
+With the gold Heinz had given him, and after his assurance that he would
+retain him in his service even when a married man, he could, it is true,
+more easily endure being punished with her who, as his wife, would soon
+be destined to share evil with him as well as good.  He had also secured
+the aid of both his master and the Minorite, and had arranged an account
+of what had occurred, which placed his own crime and the maid's in a
+milder light.  Finally--and he hoped the best result from this--Katterle
+would bring the Ortliebs good news, and he was the very man to make it
+useful to Jungfrau Els.
+
+So he had committed his destiny to his beloved master, behind whom was
+the Emperor himself, to the Minorite, who, judging from his great age and
+dignified aspect, might be an influential man, St. Leodogar, and his own
+full purse and, with a heart throbbing anxiously, entered the street with
+the closely muffled Katterle, to take the unpleasant walk to the
+exasperated master and father.
+
+The morning had been rife with important events to Biberli also.  The
+means of establishing a household, the conviction that it would be hard
+for him to remain a contented man without the idol of his heart, and the
+still more important one that it would not be wise to defer happiness
+long, because, as the death of young Prince Hartmann had shown, and Pater
+Benedictus made still more evident, the possibility of enjoying the
+pleasures of life might be over far too speedily.
+
+He had been within an ace of losing his Katterle forever, and through no
+one's guilt save that of the man on whose truth and steadfastness she so
+firmly relied.  After Siebenburg's departure she had confessed with tears
+to him, his master, and the monk, what had befallen her, and how she had
+finally reached the Bindergasse and Sir Heinz Schorlin's lodgings.
+
+When, during the conflagration, fearing punishment, she had fled, she
+went first to the Dutzen pond.  Determined to end her existence, she
+reached the goal of her nocturnal and her life pilgrimage.  The
+mysterious black water with its rush-grown shore, where ducks quacked and
+frogs croaked in the sultry gloom, lay before her in the terrible
+darkness.  After she had repeated several Paternosters, the thought that
+she must die without receiving the last unction weighed heavily on her
+soul.  But this she could not help, and it seemed more terrible to stand
+in the stocks, like the barber's widow, and be insulted, spit upon by the
+people, than to endure the flames of purgatory, where so many others--
+probably among them Biberli, who had brought her to this pass--would be
+tortured with her.
+
+So she laid down the bundle which--she did not know why herself--
+she had brought with her, and took off her shoes as if she were going
+into the water to bathe.  Just at that moment she suddenly saw a red
+light glimmering on the dark surface of the water.  It could not be the
+reflection of the fires of purgatory, as she had thought at first.  It
+certainly did not proceed from the forge on the opposite shore, now
+closed, for its outlines rose dark and motionless against the moon.
+No--a brief glance around verified it--the light came from the burning of
+the convent.  The sky was coloured a vivid scarlet in two places, but the
+glow was brightest towards the southeastern part of the city, where St.
+Klarengasse must be.  Then she was overpowered by torturing curiosity.
+Must she die without knowing how much the fire had injured the newly
+built convent, on whose site she had enjoyed the springtime of love, and
+how the good Sisters fared?  It seemed  impossible,  and  her greatest
+fault for the first time proved a blessing.  It drew her back from the
+Dutzen pond to the city.
+
+On reaching the Marienthurm she learned that only a barn and a cow stable
+had b@en destroyed by the flames.  For this trivial loss she had suffered
+intense anxiety and been faithless to her resolution to seek death, which
+ends all fears.
+
+Vexed by her own weakness, she determined to go back to her employer's
+house and there accept whatever fate the saints bestowed.  But when she
+saw a light still shining through the parchment panes in the room
+occupied by the two Es, she imagined that Herr Ernst was pronouncing
+judgment upon Eva.  In doing so her own guilt must be recalled, and the
+thought terrified her so deeply that she joined the people returning from
+the fire, for whom the Frauenthor still stood open, and allowed the crowd
+to carry her on with them to St. Kunigunde's chapel in St. Lawrence's
+church; and when some, passing the great Imhof residence, turned into the
+Kotgasse, she followed.
+
+Hitherto she had walked on without goal or purpose, but here the question
+where to seek shelter confronted her; for the torchbearers who had
+lighted the way disappeared one after another in the various houses.
+Deep darkness suddenly surrounded her, and she was seized with terror.
+But ere the last torch vanished, its light fell upon one of the brass
+basins which hung in front of the barbers' shops.
+
+The barber!  The woman whom she had seen in the stocks was the widow of
+one, and the house where she granted the lovers the meeting, on whose
+account she had been condemned to so severe a punishment, was in the
+Kotgasse, and had been pointed out to her.  It must be directly opposite.
+The thought entered her mind that the woman who had endured such a
+terrible punishment, for a crime akin to her own, would understand better
+than any one else the anguish of her heart.  How could the widow yonder
+refuse her companion in guilt a compassionate reception!
+
+It was a happy idea, but she would never have ventured to rouse the woman
+from her sleep, so she must wait.  But the first grey light of dawn was
+already appearing in the eastern horizon on the opposite side of the
+square of St. Lawrence, and perhaps Frau Ratzer would open her house
+early.
+
+The street did honour to the name of Kotgasse--[Kot or koth-mire].
+Holding her dress high around her, Katterle waded across to the northern
+row of houses and reached the plank sidewalk covered with mud to her
+ankles; but at the same moment a door directly in front of her opened,
+and two persons, a man and a woman, entered the street and glided by; but
+they came from Frau Ratzer's--she recognised it by the bow-window above
+the entrance.  The maid hurried towards the door, which still stood open,
+and on its threshold was the woman to whom she intended to pay her early
+visit.
+
+Almost unable to speak, she entreated her to grant a poor girl, who did
+not know where to seek shelter at this hour, the protection of her house.
+
+The widow silently drew Katterle into the dark, narrow entry, shut the
+door, and led her into a neat, gaily ornamented room.  A lamp which was
+still burning hung from the ceiling, but Frau Ratzer raised the tallow
+candle she had carried to the door, threw its light upon her face, and
+nodded approvingly.  Katterle was a pretty girl, and the flush of shame
+which crimsoned her cheeks was very becoming.  The widow probably thought
+so, too, for she stroked them with her fat hand, promising, as she did
+so, to receive her and let her want for nothing if she proved an obedient
+little daughter.  Then she pinched the girl's arm with the tips of her
+fingers so sharply that she shrank back and timidly told the woman what
+had brought her there, saying that she was and intended to remain a
+respectable girl, and had sought shelter with Frau Ratzer because she
+knew what a sore disgrace she had suffered for the same fault which had
+driven her from home.
+
+But the widow, starting as if stung by a scorpion, denounced Katterle as
+an impudent hussy, who rightfully belonged in the stocks, to which the
+base injustice of the money-bags in the court had condemned her.  There
+was no room in her clean house for anyone who reminded her of this
+outrage and believed that she had really committed so shameful an act.
+Then, seizing the maid by the shoulders, she pushed her into the street.
+
+Meanwhile it had grown light.  The sun had just risen in the east above
+the square of St. Lawrence and spread a golden fan of rays over the azure
+sky.  The radiant spectacle did not escape the eyes of the frightened
+girl, and she rejoiced because it gave her the assurance that the
+terrifying darkness of the night was over.
+
+How fresh the morning was, how clear and beautiful the light of the young
+day!  And it shone not only on the great and the good, but on the lowly,
+the poor, and the wicked.  Even for the horrible woman within the sky
+adorned itself with the exquisite blue and glorious brilliancy.
+
+Uttering a sigh of relief she soon reached the Church of St. Lawrence,
+which the old sexton was just opening.  She was the first person who
+entered the stately house of God that morning and knelt in one of the
+pews to pray.
+
+This had been the right thing for her to do.  Dear Lord!  Where was there
+any maid in greater trouble, yet Heaven had preserved her from the death
+on a red-hot gridiron which had rendered St. Lawrence, whose name the
+church bore, a blessed martyr.  Compared with that, even standing in the
+pillory was not specially grievous.  So she poured out her whole soul to
+the saint, confessing everything which grieved and oppressed her, until
+the early mass began.  She had even confided to him that she was from
+Sarnen in Switzerland, and had neither friend nor countryman here in
+Nuremberg save her lover, the true and steadfast Biberli.  Yet no!  There
+was one person from her home who probably would do her a kindness, the
+wife of the gatekeeper in the von Zollern castle, a native of Berne, who
+had come to Nuremberg and the fortress as the maid of the Countess
+Elizabeth of Hapsburg, the present Burgravine.  This excellent woman
+could give her better counsel than any one, and she certainly owed the
+recollection of Frau Gertrude to her patron saint.
+
+After a brief thanksgiving she left the church and went to the fortress.
+
+As she expected, her countrywoman received her kindly; and after Katterle
+had confided everything to her, and in doing so mentioned Wolff Eysvogel,
+the betrothed husband of the elder of her young mistresses, Frau Gertrude
+listened intently and requested her to wait a short time.
+
+Yet one quarter of an hour after another elapsed before she again
+appeared.  Her husband, the Bernese warder, a giant of a man to whom the
+red and yellow Swiss uniform and glittering halberd he carried in his
+hand were very becoming, accompanied his wife.
+
+After briefly questioning Katterle, he exacted a solemn promise of
+secrecy and then motioned to her to follow him.  Meanwhile the maid had
+been informed how the duel between Wolff Eysvogel and Ulrich Vorchtel had
+ended, but while she still clasped her hands in horror, the Swiss had
+opened the door of a bright, spacious apartment, where Els Ortlieb's
+betrothed husband received her with a kind though sorrowful greeting.
+Then he continued his writing, and at last gave her two letters.  One, on
+whose back he drew a little heart, that she might not mistake it for the
+other, was addressed to his betrothed bride; the second to Heinz
+Schorlin, whom Wolff--no, her ears did not deceive her--called the future
+husband of his sister-in-law Eva.  At breakfast, which she shared with
+her country people and their little daughter, Katterle would have liked
+to learn how Wolff reached the fortress, but the gatekeeper maintained
+absolute silence on this subject.
+
+The maid at last, without hindrance, reached the Deichsler house and
+found Biberli (not) at home.  She ought to have returned to the Ortliebs
+in his company long before, but the knight still vainly awaited his
+servant's appearance.  He missed him sorely, since it did not enter his
+head that his faithful shadow, Biberli, knew nothing of the thunderbolt
+which had almost robbed him of his master and killed his pet, the dun
+horse.  Besides, he was anxious about his fate and curious to learn how
+he had found the Ortlieb sisters; for, though Eva alone had power to make
+Heinz Schorlin's heart beat faster, the misfortune of poor Els affected
+him more deeply as the thought that he was its cause grew more and more
+painful.
+
+Wolff's letter, which Katterle delivered to him, revealed young
+Eysvogel's steadfast love for the hapless girl.  In it he also alluded to
+his nocturnal interview with Heinz, and in cordial words admitted that he
+thought he had found in him a sincere friend, to whom, if to any one, he
+would not grudge his fair young sister-in-law Eva.  Then he described how
+the unfortunate duel had occurred.
+
+After mentioning what had excited young Ulrich Vorchtel's animosity, he
+related that, soon after his interview with Heinz, he had met young
+Vorchtel, accompanied by several friends.  Ulrich had barred his way,
+loading him with invectives so fierce and so offensive to his honour,
+that he was obliged to accept the challenge.  As he wore no weapon save
+the dagger in his belt, he used the sword which a German knight among
+Ulrich's companions offered him.  Calm in the consciousness that he had
+given his former friend's sister no reason to believe in his love, and
+firmly resolved merely to bestow a slight lesson on her brother, he took
+the weapon.  But when Ulrich shouted to the crusader that the blade he
+lent was too good for the treacherous hand he permitted to wield it, his
+blood boiled, and with his first powerful thrust all was over.
+
+The German knight had then introduced himself as a son of the Burgrave
+von Zollern and taken him to the castle, where, with his father's
+knowledge, the noble young Knight Hospitaller concealed him, and the
+point now was to show the matter, which was undoubtedly a breach of the
+peace, to the Emperor Rudolph in the right light.  The young Burgrave
+thought that he, Heinz Schorlin, could aid in convincing the sovereign,
+who would lend him a ready ear, that he, Wolff, had only drawn his sword
+under compulsion.  So truly as Heinz himself hoped to be a happy man
+through Eva's love, he must help him to bridge the chasm which, by his
+luckless deed, separated him from his betrothed bride.
+
+Heinz had had this letter read aloud twice.  Then when Biberli had gone
+and he rode to the fortress, he had resolved to do everything in his
+power for the young Nuremberg noble who had so quickly won his regard,
+but the sorely stricken imperial father had refused to see him, and
+therefore it was impossible to take any step in the matter.
+
+Yet Wolff's letter had showed that he believed him in all earnestness to
+be Eva's future husband, and thus strengthened his resolve to woo her as
+soon as he felt a little more independent.
+
+After the thunderbolt had killed the horse under him, and the old
+Minorite had again come and showed him that the Lord Himself, through the
+miracle He had wrought, had taken him firmly and swiftly by the hand as
+His chosen follower, it seemed to his agitated mind, when he took up the
+letter a second time, as though everything Wolff had written about him
+and Els's sister was not intended for him.
+
+Eva was happiness--but Heaven had vouchsafed a miracle to prove the
+transitoriness of earthly life, that by renunciation here he might attain
+endless bliss above.  Sacrifice and again sacrifice, according to the
+Minorite, was the magic spell that opened the gates of heaven, and what
+harder sacrifice could he offer than that of his love?  "Renounce!
+renounce!"  he heard a voice within cry in his ears as, with much
+difficulty, he himself read Wolff's letter, but whatever he might cast
+away of all that was his, he still would fail to take up his cross as
+Father Benedictus required; for even as an unknown beggar he would have
+enjoyed--this he firmly believed--in Eva's love the highest earthly
+bliss.  Yet divine love was said to be so much more rapturous, and how
+much longer it endured!
+
+And she?  Did not the holy expression of her eyes and the aspiration of
+her own soul show that she would understand him, approve his sacrifice,
+imitate it, and exchange earthly for heavenly love?  Neither could
+renounce it without inflicting deep wounds on the heart, but every drop
+of blood which gushed from them, the Minorite said, would add new and
+heavy weight to their claim to eternal salvation.
+
+Ay, Heinz would try to resign Eva!  But when he yielded to the impulse
+to read Wolff's letter again he felt like a dethroned prince whom some
+stranger, ignorant of his misfortune, praises for his mighty power.
+
+The visions of the future which the greyhaired monk conjured up, all that
+he told hint of his own regeneration, transformation, and the happiness
+which he would find as a disciple of St. Francis in poverty, liberty, and
+the silent struggle for eternal bliss, everything which he described with
+fervid eloquence, increased the tumult in the young knight's deeply
+agitated soul.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Deem every hour that he was permitted to breathe as a gift
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIRE OF THE FORGE, BY EBERS, V4 ***
+
+********** This file should be named 5546.txt or 5546.zip **********
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+
+Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
+even years after the official publication date.
+
+Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.
+
+Most people start at our Web sites at:
+https://gutenberg.org or
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
+Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
+eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).
+
+
+Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
+can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
+also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
+indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
+announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
+
+http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
+ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03
+
+Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
+
+Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
+as it appears in our Newsletters.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
+files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
+We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
+If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
+will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
+
+Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):
+
+eBooks Year Month
+
+    1  1971 July
+   10  1991 January
+  100  1994 January
+ 1000  1997 August
+ 1500  1998 October
+ 2000  1999 December
+ 2500  2000 December
+ 3000  2001 November
+ 4000  2001 October/November
+ 6000  2002 December*
+ 9000  2003 November*
+10000  2004 January*
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
+to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
+and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
+Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
+Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
+Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
+Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
+Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
+Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
+Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
+
+We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
+that have responded.
+
+As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
+will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
+Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.
+
+In answer to various questions we have received on this:
+
+We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
+request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
+you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
+just ask.
+
+While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
+not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
+donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
+donate.
+
+International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
+how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
+deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
+ways.
+
+Donations by check or money order may be sent to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Ave.
+Oxford, MS 38655-4109
+
+Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
+method other than by check or money order.
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
+the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
+[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
+tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
+requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
+made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+You can get up to date donation information online at:
+
+https://www.gutenberg.org/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
+you can always email directly to:
+
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.
+
+We would prefer to send you information by email.
+
+
+**The Legal Small Print**
+
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
+you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
+is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
+through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
+Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
+under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
+any commercial products without permission.
+
+To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
+receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
+all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from. If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
+and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
+with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
+legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
+following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
+[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
+or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word
+     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
+     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
+     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
+     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
+     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
+     let us know your plans and to work out the details.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
+public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
+in machine readable form.
+
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
+public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
+Money should be paid to the:
+"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
+software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
+when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
+Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
+used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
+they hardware or software or any other related product without
+express permission.]
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*
+
diff --git a/5546.zip b/5546.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d7a02fe
--- /dev/null
+++ b/5546.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1ffb864
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #5546 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5546)