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+The Project Gutenberg EBook In The Fire Of The Forge, by Georg Ebers, v8
+#111 in our series by Georg Ebers
+
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+Title: In The Fire Of The Forge, Volume 8.
+
+Author: Georg Ebers
+
+Release Date: April, 2004  [EBook #5550]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on July 26, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIRE OF THE FORGE, BY EBERS, V8 ***
+
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+
+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
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+
+
+
+
+
+IN THE FIRE OF THE FORGE
+
+A ROMANCE OF OLD NUREMBERG
+
+By Georg Ebers
+
+Volume 8.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+Day followed day, a week elapsed, and no message had reached Schweinau
+from Heinz Schorlin or Katterle.
+
+The magistrate had learned that the Siebenburg brothers, with the robber
+knights who had joined them, were obstinately defending their castles and
+making it difficult for Heinz Schorlin to perform his task.  The day
+before news had come that the Absbach's strong mountain fortress had
+fallen; that the allied knights, in a sortie which merged into a
+miniature battle, had been defeated, and the Siebenburgs could not hold
+out much longer; but in the stress of his duties the knight seemed to
+have forgotten to make the slightest effort in behalf of his faithful
+servant.  At least the protonotary Gottlieb, a friend of Herr Berthold,
+through whose hands passed all letters addressed to the Emperor,
+positively assured them that, though plenty of military reports had
+arrived, in not a single one had the young commander mentioned his
+servant even by a word.  He, the protonotary, had taken advantage of a
+favourable hour to urge his royal master, as a reward for Biberli's rare
+fidelity, to protect him from further persecution by the citizens of
+Nuremberg; but the Emperor Rudolph did not even allow him to finish,
+because, as a matter of principle, he refrained from interference in
+matters whose settlement rightfully pertained to the Honourable Council.
+
+When soon after Herr Pfinzing availed himself of a report which he had to
+deliver to the Emperor to intercede himself for the valiant fellow, the
+Hapsburg, with the ruler's strong memory, recalled the protonotary's plea
+and referred Herr Berthold to the answer the former had received,
+remarking, less graciously than usual, that the imperial magistrate ought
+to know that he would be the last to assail the privileges which he had
+himself bestowed upon the city.
+
+Finally even Burgrave Frederick, whose sympathy had been enlisted in
+Biberli's behalf by Herr Berthold, fared no better.
+
+His interests were often opposed to those of the Council and, kindly as
+was his disposition, disputes concerning many questions of law were
+constantly occurring between him and the Honourables.  When he began to
+persuade the Emperor to prevent by a pardon the cruelty which the Council
+intended to practise upon a servant of Sir Heinz Schorlin, who was doing
+such good service in the field, the sovereign told even him, his friend
+and brother-in-law, who had toiled so energetically to secure him the
+crown, that he would not interfere, though it were in behalf of a beloved
+brother, with the decrees of the Council, and the noble petitioner was
+silenced by the reasons which he gave.  The Burgrave deemed the Emperor's
+desire to maintain the Honourables' willingness to grant the large loan
+he intended to ask to fill his empty treasury still more weighty than
+those with which he had repulsed Herr Pfinzing.
+
+On the other hand, the pardon granted to Ernst Ortlieb and Wolff Eysvogel
+could only tend to increase the good will of the Council.  The former was
+given at once, the latter only conditionally after the First Losunger of
+the city, with several other Honourables, had recommended it.  The
+Emperor thought it advisable to defer this act of clemency.  A violation
+of the peace of the country committed under his own eyes ought not to be
+pardoned during his stay in the place where the bloody deed was
+committed.  It would have cast a doubt upon the serious intent of the
+important measure which threatened with the severest punishment any
+attempt upon the lives and property of others.
+
+So long as the Emperor held his court at Nuremberg, Wolff, against whom
+no accuser had yet appeared, must remain concealed.  When the sovereign
+had left the city he might again mingle with his fellow-citizens.  An
+imperial letter alluding to the gratitude which Rudolph owed to the
+soldiers of Marchfield, to whose band the evildoer belonged, and the
+whole good city of Nuremberg for the hospitable reception tendered to him
+and his household, should shield from punishment the young patrician who
+had only drawn his sword in self-defence, and fulfil the petition of the
+Council for Wolff Eysvogel's restoration to the rights which he had
+forfeited.
+
+The news of this promise gave Els the first happy hour after long days of
+discomfort and the most arduous mental conflict.  True, the measures
+adopted by her friends seemed to have guarded her from the attacks of the
+old Countess Rotterbach; but Fran Rosalinde, since she had been allowed
+more freedom to move about than her mother, who had been confined to the
+upper story, felt like a boat drifting rudderless down the stream.  She
+needed guidance and, as Els now ruled the house, asked direction from her
+for even the most simple matters.  Clinging to her like a child deserted
+by its nurse, she told her the most hostile and spiteful remarks which
+the countess never failed to make whenever it suited her daughter to bear
+her company.  During the last few days the old lady had again won
+Rosalinde over to her side, and in consequence an enmity towards Els had
+sprung up, which was often very spiteful in its manifestations, and was
+the more difficult to bear, the more rigidly her position as daughter of
+the house forbade energetic resistance.
+
+But most painful of all to the volunteer nurse was the sick man's manner;
+for though Herr Casper rarely regained perfect consciousness, he showed
+his unfriendly disposition often enough by glances, gestures, and words
+stammered with painful effort.
+
+Yet the brave girl's patience seemed inexhaustible, and she resolutely
+performed even the most arduous tasks imposed by nursing the sufferer.
+Nay, the thought that Wolff owed his life to him aided her always to be
+kind to her father-in-law, no matter how much he wounded her, and to tend
+him no less carefully than she had formerly cared for her invalid mother.
+
+So she had held out valiantly until, at the end of a long, torturing
+week, something occurred which destroyed her courage.  On returning from
+an errand in the city, she was received at the door of the sick-room by
+her future mother-in-law with the statement that she would take charge of
+her husband herself, and no longer allow the intruder to keep her from
+the place which belonged to her alone.  The old countess's power of
+persuasion had strengthened her courage, and the unwonted energy of the
+weak, more than yielding woman, exerted so startling and at the same time
+disheartening an effect upon the wearied, tortured young creature that
+she attempted no resistance.  The entreaties of the leech and kind Herr
+Teufel, however, induced her to persist a short time longer.
+
+But when, soon after, the same incident occurred a second time, it seemed
+impossible to remain in their house even another day.
+
+Without opposing her lover's mother, she retired to her chamber and,
+weeping silently, spite of the earnest entreaties of the Sister of
+Charity, packed the few articles she had brought with her and prepared to
+leave the post maintained with so much difficulty.  To be again with Eva
+under the protection of her uncle and aunt now seemed the highest goal of
+her longing.  She did not wish to go home; for after his liberation from
+the tower her father had had a long conversation with Wolff and old
+Berthold Vorchtel, and then, at the desire of the Council, had ridden to
+Augsburg and Ulm to arrange the affairs of the Eysvogel firm.  He had
+felt that he could be spared by his family, knowing that his younger
+daughter was safe at Schweinau, and having heard that Wolff's pardon
+would not be long delayed.
+
+Eva, too, had experienced toilsome days and many an anxious night.  True,
+Biberli and the carrier's widow, with her children, had been moved to the
+Beguines' house, where she could pursue her charitable work safe from the
+rude attacks of the criminal inmates of the hospital; but what heavy
+cares had burdened her concerning the two patients for whom she was
+battling with death! how eagerly she watched for tidings from the
+neighbourhood of the Siebenburgs! what hours of trouble were caused by
+the prior of the Dominicans and his envoys, who strove to convince her
+that her intention of renouncing her conventual life was treason to God,
+and that the boldness with which she had released herself from the former
+guides of her spiritual life and sought her own way would lead her to
+heresy and perdition!  How painful, too, was the feeling that she was
+being examined to discover whether the Abbess Kunigunde had any share in
+her change of purpose!
+
+The torture to which stronger men rarely succumbed seemed to threaten the
+life of the more delicate ex-schoolmaster.  At first the leech Otto, who,
+to please Els and Fran Christine, and touched by the brave spirit of this
+humble man, had daily visited Biberli, believed that he could not save
+him.  On the straw pallet, and with the incompetent nursing at the
+hospital, he would have died very speedily, and what would have befallen
+his poor mangled toes and fingers in the hands of the barbers who managed
+affairs there?
+
+At the Beguines the kindly, skilful old physician had bandaged his hands
+and feet as carefully as if he had been the most aristocratic gentleman,
+and no prince could have been more tenderly and patiently watched by
+trained nurses; for, wonderful to relate, Eva, who had so willingly left
+her sick mother to her sister's care, and had often been vexed with
+herself because she could not even remotely equal Els beside the couch of
+the beloved invalid, rendered the mangled squire every service with a
+touch so light and firm that the old physician often watched her with
+glad astonishment.
+
+Caution, the quality she most lacked, seemed to have suddenly waked from
+a long slumber with doubly clear, far-seeing eyes.  If it was necessary
+to turn the sick man, she paid special heed to every aching spot in his
+tortured body, and invented contrivances which she arranged with patient
+care to save him pain.
+
+Her own bed had been placed in the widow's chamber next to Biberli's, and
+from the night that her Aunt Christine had permitted her to remain in the
+Beguine house, she, who formerly had loved sleep and slumbered soundly,
+had been beside the sick woman at the least sign.  On the third day she
+rendered her, with her own hands, every service for which she had
+formerly needed a Beguine's aid.  She had possessed the gift of uttering
+words of cheer and comfort even to her invalid mother better than any one
+else, and often gave new courage to the suffering man when almost driven
+to despair by the anguish of pain assailing him in ten places at once.
+How kindly she taught him what comfort the sufferer finds who not only
+moves his lips and turns his rosary in prayer, as he had hitherto done,
+but commends himself and his pain to Him who endured still worse agonies
+on the cross!  What a smile of content rested on the lips of the man who,
+in the ravings of fever, had so often repeated the words "steadfast and
+true," when she told him that he had done honour most marvellously to his
+favourite virtue, represented by the T and St, and might expect his
+master's praise and gratitude!
+
+All these things fell from her lips more warmly the more vividly she
+conjured up the image of the man for whose sake the gallant fellow had
+endured this martyrdom, the happier it made her to help Heinz, though
+without his knowledge, to pay the great debt of gratitude which he owed
+the faithful servitor.  She was not aware of it, but the strongest of all
+educational powers--sorrow and love--were transforming the unsocial,
+capricious "little saint" into a noble, self-sacrificing woman.  She was
+training herself to be what she desired to become to her lover, and the
+secret power whose influence upon her whole being she distinctly felt at
+each success, she herself called--remembering the last words of her dying
+mother--"the forge fire of life."
+
+At first it had been extremely painful for Biberli to allow himself to be
+nursed with such devoted, loving care by the very person from whom he had
+earnestly endeavoured to estrange his master; but soon the warmest
+gratitude cast every other feeling into the shade, and when he woke from
+the light slumber into which he frequently fell and saw Eva beside his
+bed, his heart swelled and he often felt as if Heaven had sent her to him
+to restore the best gifts for which he was struggling--life and health.
+When he began to recover, the faithful fellow clung to her with the
+utmost devotion; but this by no means lessened his love for his master
+and his absent sweetheart.  On the contrary, the farther his
+convalescence progressed the more constantly and anxiously he thought of
+Heinz and Katterle, the more pleasure it afforded him to talk about them
+and to discuss with Eva what could have befallen both.
+
+It  was  impossible--Biberli  believed this as firmly as his nurse--that
+Heinz could coldly forget his follower or Katterle neglect what she had
+undertaken.  So both agreed in the conjecture that the messengers sent by
+the absent ones had been prevented from reaching their destination.
+
+The supposition was correct.  Two troopers despatched by Heinz had been
+captured by the Siebenburgs, and the maid's messenger had cheated her by
+pocketing the small fee which she paid him and performing another
+commission instead of going to Schweinau.  Of the knight's letters which
+had fallen into the wrong hands, one had besought the Emperor Rudolph to
+pardon the loyal servant, the other had thanked Biberli, and informed him
+that his master remembered and was working for him.
+
+Katterle had reached Heinz, had been required to tell him everything she
+knew about Eva and Biberli down to the minutest detail and had then
+been commissioned to repeat to the latter what had been also contained in
+the letter.  On the way home, however, she only reached Schwabach, for
+the long walk in the most terrible anxiety, drenched by a pouring rain,
+whilst enquiring her way to Heinz, and especially the terrible
+excitements of the last few days, had been too much even for her vigorous
+constitution.  Her pulse was throbbing violently and her brow was burning
+when she knocked at the door of Apel, the carrier, who had taken her into
+his waggon at Schweinau, and the good old man and his wife received and
+nursed her.  The fever was soon broken, but weakness prevented her
+journeying to Schweinau on foot, and, as Apel intended to go to Nuremberg
+the first of the following week, she had been forced to content herself
+with sending the messenger who had betrayed her confidence.
+
+How hard it was for Katterle to wait!  And her impatience reached its
+height when, before she could leave, some of the imperial troopers
+stabled their horses at the carrier's and reported that Castle Siebenburg
+and the robber stronghold of the Absbachs were destroyed.  Sir Heinz
+Schorlin had fought like St. George.  Now he was detained only by the
+fortresses of the knights Hirschhorn and Oberstein, whose situation on
+inaccessible crags threatened long to defy the imperial power.
+
+The thought that the strong Swiss girl might be ill never entered the
+mind of Biberli or Eva, but in quiet hours he asked himself which it
+would probably grieve him most to miss forever--his beautiful young nurse
+or his countrywoman and sweetheart.  His heart belonged solely to
+Katterle, but towards Eva he obeyed the old trait inherent in his nature,
+and clung with the same loyalty hitherto evinced for his master to her
+whom he now regarded as his future mistress.
+
+This she must and should be, because already life seemed to him no longer
+desirable without her voice.  Never had he heard one whose pure tones
+penetrated the heart more deeply.  And had Heinz been permitted to hear
+her talk with the Dominicans, he would have given up his wish to renounce
+the world and, instead of entering a monastery, striven with every power
+of his being to win this wonderful maiden, for whom his heart glowed with
+such ardent love.  When she persisted in her refusal to take the veil
+because she had learned that it is possible in the world to live at peace
+with one's self, feel in harmony with God, and follow in love and
+fidelity the footsteps of the Saviour, she had heard many a kindly word
+of admonition, many a sharp reproof, and many a fierce threat from the
+Dominicans, but she did not allow herself to be led astray, and
+understood how to defend herself so cleverly and forcibly that his heart
+dilated, and he asked himself how a girl of eighteen could maintain her
+ground so firmly, so shrewdly, and with such thorough knowledge of the
+Scriptures, against devout, highly educated men--nay, the most learned
+and austere.
+
+The Abbess Kunigunde had also appeared sometimes at his bedside, and
+Eva's conversations with her revealed to him that she had obtained her
+armour against the Dominicans from the Sisters of St. Clare.  True, at
+first the former had laboured with the utmost earnestness to win her back
+to the convent, but two days before she had met two Dominicans, and the
+evident efforts of one who seemed to hold a distinguished position among
+his brother monks to gain Eva for his own order and withdraw her from the
+Sisters of St. Clare, whom he believed to be walking in paths less
+pleasing to God, had so angered the abbess that she lost the power, and
+perhaps also the will, to maintain her usual composure.  Therefore,
+yesterday she had opposed her niece's wish to remain in the world less
+strongly than before; nay, on parting with her she had clasped her in her
+arms and, as it were, restored her freedom by admitting that various
+paths led to the kingdom of heaven.
+
+This was balm to the convalescent's wounds; for he cherished no wish more
+ardent than to accompany his master to the marriage altar, where Eva
+would give her hand to Heinz Schorlin as her faithful husband, and the
+abbess's last visit seemed to favour this desire.  Besides, he who had
+gazed at life with open eyes had never yet beheld a brave young warrior,
+soon after reaping well-earned renown, yearn for the monk's cowl.  Doubt,
+suffering, and a miraculous escape from terrible peril had inspired the
+joyous-hearted Heinz with the desire to renounce the world.  Now,
+perhaps, Heaven itself was showing him that he had not received the boon
+of life to bury himself in a monastery, but to be blessed with the
+fairest and noblest of gifts, the love of a woman who, in his opinion,
+had not her equal beneath the wide vault of the azure sky.
+
+Countess Cordula was not suited for his master.  During the long hours
+that he lay quietly on his pallet a hundred reasons strengthened this
+opinion.  The man for whom he had steadfastly endured such severe agony,
+and was suffering still, was worthy of a more beautiful, devout, and calm
+companion-nay, the very loveliest and best--and that, in his eyes, was
+the girl for whom Heinz had felt so overmastering a passion just before
+his luckless winnings at the gaming table.  This potent fire of love
+might doubtless be smothered with sand and ashes, but never extinguished.
+
+Such were Biberli's thoughts as he recalled the events of the previous
+day.  He had found Eva less equable in her tender management than usual.
+Some anxiety concerning something apart from her patients seemed to
+oppress her.  True, she had not wished to reveal it, but his eyes were
+keen.
+
+Soon after sunrise that morning she had carefully rebandaged his crushed
+thumb, which was not yet healed.  Then she had gone away, as she assured
+him, for only a few hours.  Now the sun was already high in the heavens,
+yet she did not return, though it was long past the time for the bandages
+to be renewed, and the drops to be given which sustained the life of the
+dying Minorite in the adjoining room.  It made him uneasy, and when
+anxiety had once taken root in his heart it sent its shoots forward and
+backward, and he remembered many things in which Eva had been different
+the day before.  Why had she whispered so long with Herr Pfinzing and
+then looked so sorrowfully at him, Biberli?  Why had Frau Christine come
+not less than three times yesterday afternoon, and  again  in  the
+evening?  She had some secret to discuss with the surgeon Otto.  Had any
+change taken place in his condition?  and did the leech intend to
+amputate his thumb, or even his hand?  But, no! only yesterday he had
+been assured that he could save all five fingers, and his sorely mangled
+left foot too.  The widow was better, and all hope of saving the
+Minorite's life had been relinquished two days ago.  Eva's anxiety must
+have some other cause, and he asked himself, in alarm, whether she could
+have received any bad news from his master or Katterle?
+
+A terrible sense of uneasiness overpowered him, and the necessity of
+confiding it to some one took such possession of the loquacious man that
+he called little Walpurga from the next room.  But instead of running to
+his bedside, she darted forward with the joyful cry, "She is coming!"
+towards the door and Eva.
+
+Soon after the latter, leading the child by the hand, entered the room.
+Biberli felt as if the sun were rising again.  How gay her greeting
+sounded!  The expression of her blue eyes seemed to announce something
+pleasant.  Whoever possessed this maiden would be sure to have no lack of
+light in his home, no matter how dark the night might be.
+
+He must have been mistaken concerning the anxiety which had seemed to
+oppress her on his account.  Instead of bad news, she was surely bringing
+good tidings.  Nay, she had the best of all; for Katterle, Eva told him,
+would soon arrive.  But his future wife had been ill too.  Her cheeks had
+not yet regained their roundness or their bright colour.
+
+Sharp-sighted Biberli noticed this, and exclaimed: "Then she is here
+already!  For, my mistress, how else could you know how her cheeks look?"
+
+Soon afterwards the maid was really standing beside her lover's couch.
+
+Eva allowed them to enjoy the happiness of meeting undisturbed, and went
+to her other two patients.  When she returned to the couple, Katterle had
+already related what she had experienced in Schwabach.  It was little
+more than Eva had already heard from her uncle and others.
+
+That Seitz Siebenburg, whom he bitterly hated, had fallen in a sword
+combat by his master's own hand, afforded Biberli the keenest delight.
+No portion of the narrative vexed him except the nonarrival of the
+messengers, and the probability that some time must yet elapse ere Heinz
+could sheathe his sword.
+
+Eva's cheeks flushed with joy and pride as she heard how nobly her lover
+had justified the confidence of his imperial patron.  But it seemed to be
+impossible to follow Biberli's flood of eloquence to the end.  She was in
+haste, and he had been right concerning the cares which oppressed her.
+
+She had stood beside his couch the day before with a heavy heart, and it
+required the exercise of all her strength to conceal the anxiety with
+which her mind was filled, for if she did not intercede for him that very
+day; if his pardon could not be announced early the following morning
+during the session of the court in the Town Hall, then the half-recovered
+man must be surrendered to the judges again, and Otto believed that the
+torture would be fatal to his enfeebled frame.
+
+The tailor and his adherents, as Eva knew from Herr Pfinzing, were making
+every effort to obtain his condemnation and prove to the city that they
+had not censured the proceedings of the Ortlieb household as mere
+reckless slanderers.  Eva and her sister would be again mentioned in the
+investigation, and were even threatened with an examination.
+
+At first this had startled her, but she believed her uncle's assurance
+that this examination would fully prove her innocence before the eyes of
+the whole world.  For her own sake Eva surely would not have suffered
+herself to be so tortured by anxiety night and day, or undertaken and
+resolved to dare so much.  The thought that the faithful follower whom
+her patient nursing had saved from death and to whom she had become
+warmly attached must now lose his life, and Heinz Schorlin be robbed of
+the possibility of doing anything for him, had cast every other fear in
+the shade, and had kept her constantly in motion the evening before and
+this morning.
+
+But all that she and her Aunt Christine had attempted in behalf of the
+imperilled man had been futile.  To apply to the Emperor again every one,
+including the magistrate, had declared useless, since even the Burgrave
+had been refused.
+
+The members of the Council and the judges in the court had already, at
+Aunt Christine's solicitation, deferred the proceedings four days, but
+the law now forbade longer delay.  Though individuals would gladly have
+spared the accused the torture, its application could scarcely be
+avoided, for how many accusers and witnesses appeared against him, and
+if there were weighty depositions and by no means truthful replies on the
+part of the prisoner, the torture could not be escaped.  It legally
+belonged to the progress of the investigation, and how many who had by no
+means recovered from the last exposure to the rack were constantly
+obliged to enter the torture chamber?  Besides, the judges would be
+charged with partiality by the tailor and his followers, and to show such
+visible tokens of favour threatened to prejudice the dignity of the
+court.
+
+She had found good will everywhere, but all had withheld any positive
+promise.  It was so easy to retreat behind the high-sounding words
+"justice and law," and then: who for the sake of a squire--who, moreover,
+was in the service of a foreign knight--would awaken the righteous
+indignation of the artisans, who made the tailor's cause their own.
+
+Whatever the aunt and niece tried had failed either wholly or partially.
+Besides, Eva had been obliged to keep in the background in order not to
+expose herself to the suspicion of pleading her own cause.  Many probably
+thought that Frau Christine herself was talking ostensibly in behalf of
+the servant and really for her brother's slandered daughter.
+
+When Eva met Katterle in front of the hospital, she had passed without
+noticing her, so completely had sorrow, anxiety, and the effort to think
+of some expedient engrossed her attention.
+
+It had been very difficult to meet Biberli with an untroubled manner, yet
+she had even succeeded in showing a bright face to the carrier's widow,
+as well as to Father Benedictus, whose hours seemed to be numbered, and
+who only yesterday had wounded her deeply.
+
+When she returned from the Minorite's room to Biberli's the lovers were
+no longer alone.  The fresh, pleasant face of a vigorous woman, who had
+already visited the sufferer several times, greeted her beside his couch.
+
+When, in the exchange of salutations, her eyes met Eva's the latter
+suddenly found the plan of action she had vainly sought.  Gertrude of
+Berne could help her take the chance which, in the last extremity, she
+meant to risk, for she was the wife of the Swiss warder in the Burgrave's
+castle.  It certainly would not be difficult for her to procure her an
+interview with the Burgravine Elizabeth.  If the noble lady could not aid
+herself, she could--her cheeks paled at the thought, yet she resolutely
+clung to it--present her to her brother, the Emperor.
+
+When Eva, in a low tone, told Frau Gertrude what she hoped to accomplish
+at the castle, she learned that the Emperor had ridden with the
+Archduchess Agnes and a numerous train to the imperial forest, to show
+his Bohemian daughter-in-law the beekeeper's hives, and would scarcely
+return before sunset; but the Burgravine had remained at home on account
+of a slight illness.
+
+Nevertheless Eva wished to go to the castle, and, whatever reception the
+noble lady bestowed upon her, she would return to Schweinau as soon as
+possible.  Father Benedictus was so ill that she could not remain away
+from him long.
+
+If the Burgravine could do nothing for Biberli, she would undertake the
+risk which made her tremble, because it compelled her, the young girl, to
+appear alone at the court with all its watchful eyes and sharp tongues.
+She would go to the fortress to beseech the Emperor herself for pardon.
+
+She could act with entire freedom to-day, for her uncle had ridden to the
+city and, Frau Gertrude said, was one of the party who accompanied the
+Emperor to the beekeeper's, whilst her aunt had just gone to Nuremberg to
+see Els, who had besought her, in a despairing letter, to let her come to
+Schweinau, for her power of endurance was exhausted.
+
+How gladly Eva would have accompanied her aunt to her sister to exhort
+her to take courage!  What a strange transformation of affairs!  Ever
+since she could think Els had sustained her by her superior strength and
+perseverance.  Now she was to be the stronger, and teach her to exercise
+patience.
+
+She thought she had gained the right to do so.  Whilst Eva was still
+explaining her plan to Frau Gertrude, she herself perceived that she had
+taken no account of time.
+
+It was nearly noon, and if she ordered a sedan-chair to convey her to the
+city and back again to Schweinau, it would be too late to approach the
+Emperor as a petitioner.  She could fulfil her design only by riding; but
+the warder's wife reminded her that it would be contrary to custom--nay,
+scarcely possible--to appear before the Emperor, or even his sister, in a
+riding habit.
+
+But the young girl speedily found a way to fulfil her ardent wish to aid.
+On her swift palfrey, which her uncle had sent to Schweinau long before
+that she might refresh herself, after her arduous duties, by a ride, she
+would go to the city, stop at her own home, and have her new expensive
+mourning clothes taken to the castle.  The only doubt was whether she
+could change her garments in the quarters of the Swiss, and whether Frau
+Gertrude would help her do so.
+
+The latter gladly assented.  There was no lack of room in her apartments,
+nor did Frau Gertrude, who had served the Burgravine as waiting maid many
+years before her marriage, lack either skill or good will.
+
+So she went directly home on her mule; but Eva, after promising her
+patients to return soon, hastened to her uncle's residence.
+
+There she mounted the palfrey and reached the city gate a long time
+before the Swiss.  The clothes she needed were soon found in the Ortlieb
+mansion, and she was then carried in a sedan-chair to the castle with her
+wardrobe, whilst the groom led her palfrey after her.  Countess Cordula
+was not at home; she, too, had ridden to the forest with the Emperor.
+
+The Burgravine Elizabeth willingly consented to receive the charming
+child whose fate had awakened her warm interest.  She had just been
+hearing the best and most beautiful things about Eva, for the leech Otto
+had been called to visit her in her attack of illness, and the old man
+was overflowing with praises of both sisters.  He indignantly mentioned
+the vile calumnies with which Heinz Schorlin's name was associated, and
+which base slander had fixed upon the innocent girls whose pure morality
+he would guarantee.
+
+The great lady, who probably remembered having directed Heinz's attention
+to Eva at the dance, understood very clearly that they could not fail to
+attract each other.  Of all the knights in her imperial brother's train,
+none seemed to the Burgravine more worthy of her favour than her gay
+young countryman, whose mother had been one of the friends of her youth.
+She would gladly have rendered him a service and, in this case, not only
+for his own sake but still more on account of the rare fidelity of his
+servant, who was also a native of her beloved Swiss mountains.  Yet,
+notwithstanding all this, it seemed impossible to bring this matter again
+before the Emperor.  She knew her husband, and after the rebuff he had
+received on account of the tortured man he would be angry if she should
+plead his cause with her royal brother.
+
+But her kind heart, and the regard which both Eva and Heinz Schorlin
+had inspired, strengthened her desire to aid, as far as lay in her power,
+the brave maiden who urged her suit with such honest warmth, and the
+petitioner's avowal of her intention, as a last resort, of appealing to
+the Emperor in person showed her how to convert her kind wishes into
+deeds.
+
+Let Eva's youth and beauty try to persuade the Emperor to an act of
+clemency which he had refused to wisdom and power.
+
+After supper her brother received various guests, and she could present
+the daughter of a Nuremberg patrician whom he already knew, and whose
+rare charms had attracted his notice.
+
+Though she had been compelled to forego the ride to the forest, she was
+well enough to appear at supper in the Emperor's residence, which was
+close to her own castle.  When the meal was over she would take Eva
+herself to her royal brother.
+
+She told her this, and the gratitude which she received was so warm and
+earnest that it touched her heart, and as she bade the beautiful, brave
+child farewell she clasped her in her arms and kissed her.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+Encouraged and hopeful, Eva again mounted her palfrey, and urged the
+swift animal outside the city to so rapid a pace that the old groom on
+his well-fed bay was left far behind.  But the change of dress, the
+waiting, and the numerous questions asked by the Burgravine had consumed
+so much time that the poplars were already casting long shadows when she
+dismounted before the hospital.
+
+Sister Hildegard received her with an embarrassment by no means usual,
+but which Eva thought natural when the former told her that the dying
+Father Benedictus had asked for her impatiently.  The widow was doing
+well, and Biberli would hardly need her; for the wife of a Swabian knight
+in whose service he had formerly been was sitting by his couch with her
+young daughter, and their visit seemed to please him.
+
+Eva remarked in surprise that she thought the sick man had never served
+any one except the Schurlins, but she was in too much haste for further
+questions, and entered the room where Biberli lay.
+
+Her face was flushed by the rapid ride; her thick, fair hair, which
+usually fell loosely on her shoulders, had been hastily braided before
+she mounted her horse, but the long, heavy braids had become unfastened
+on the way, and now hung in tresses round her face and pliant figure.
+
+She waved her hand gaily from the threshold to the patient for whom she
+had done and dared so much; but ere approaching his couch she modestly
+saluted the stately matron who was with Biberli, and nodded a pleasant
+welcome to her daughter, whose pretty, frank face attracted her.  After
+the Swabians had cordially returned her greeting, she briefly excused
+herself, as an urgent duty would not permit her to yield to her desire to
+remain with them.
+
+Lastly, she addressed a few hasty questions to the squire about his
+health, kissed little Walpurga, who had nestled to her side, bade her
+tell her another that she would come to her later, and entered the next
+room.
+
+"Well?" Biberli asked his visitors eagerly, after the door had closed
+behind her.
+
+"Oh, how beautiful she is!" cried the younger lady quickly, but her
+mother's voice trembled with deep emotion as she answered: "How I
+objected to my son's marriage with the daughter of a city family!  Nay,
+I intended to cast all the weight of my maternal influence between Heinz
+and the Nuremberg maiden.  Yet you did not say too much, my friend, and
+what your praise began Eva's own appearance has finished.  She will be
+welcome to me as a daughter.  I have scarcely ever seen anything more
+lovely.  That she is devout and charitable and, moreover, has a clear
+intellect and resolute energy, can be plainly perceived in spite of the
+few minutes which she could spare us.  If Heaven would really suffer our
+Heinz to win the heart of this rare creature----"
+
+"Every fibre of it is his already," interrupted Biberli.  "The rub--
+pardon me, noble lady!--is somewhere else.  Whether he--whether Heinz can
+be induced to renounce the thought of the monastery, is the question."
+
+He sighed faintly as he gazed into the still beautiful, strong, and yet
+kindly face of the Lady Wendula Schorlin, Sir Heinz's mother, for she was
+the older visitor.
+
+"We ought not to doubt that," replied the matron firmly.  "As the last of
+his ancient race, it is his duty to provide for its continuance, not
+solely for his own salvation.  He was always a dutiful son."
+
+"Yet," replied Biberli thoughtfully, "'Away with those who gave us life!'
+was the exhortation of Father Benedictus in the next room.  'Away with
+the service of sovereign and woman!' he cried to our knight.  'Away with
+everything that stands in the way of your own salvation!'  And," Biberli
+added, "St. Francis was not the first to devise that.  Our Lord and
+Saviour commanded His disciples to leave father and mother and to follow
+Him."
+
+"Who will prevent his walking in the paths of Jesus Christ?" replied the
+Lady Wendula?  "Yet, though he follows His footsteps, he must and can do
+so as a scion of a noble race, as a knight and the brave soldier and true
+servant of his Emperor, which he is, as a good son and, God willing, as a
+husband and father.  He is sure of my blessing if he wields his sword as
+a champion of his holy faith.  When my two daughters took the veil I
+submissively yielded.  They can pray for heavenly bliss for their brother
+and ourselves.  My only son, the last Schorlin, I neither can nor will
+permit to renounce the world, in which he has tasks to perform which God
+Himself assigned him by his birth."
+
+"And how could Heinz part from this angel," cried Maria--to whom, next to
+her mother, her brother was the dearest person on earth--"if he is really
+sure of her love!"
+
+She herself had not yet opened her heart to love.  To wander through
+forest and field with the aged head of her family, assist her mother in
+housekeeping, and nurse the sick poor in the village, had hitherto been
+the joy and duty of her life.  Gaily, often with a song upon her lips,
+she had carelessly seen one day follow another until Schorlin Castle was
+besieged and destroyed, and her dear uncle, the Knight Ramsweg, was slain
+in the defence of the fortress confided to his care.  Then she and her
+mother were taken to the convent at Constance.  Both remained there in
+perfect freedom, as welcome guests of the nuns, until the mounted courier
+brought a letter from the Knight Maier of Silenen, her cousin, who wrote
+from Nuremberg that Heinz, like his sisters, intended to renounce the
+world.
+
+Lady Schorlin set out at once, and with an anxious heart rode to
+Nuremberg with her daughter as fast as possible.
+
+They had arrived a few hours before and gone to their cousin from
+Silenen.  From him the Lady Wendula learned what her maternal love
+desired to know.  Biberli's fate brought her, after a brief rest, to the
+hospital, and how it comforted the faithful fellow's heart to see the
+noble lady who had confided his master to his care, and in whose house
+the T and St had been embroidered on his long coat and cap!
+
+Lady Wendula had remembered these letters, and when she spoke of them
+he replied that since he had partially verified what the T and St had
+announced to people concerning his character, and to which the letters
+had themselves incited him, he no longer needed them.
+
+Then he lapsed into silence, and at last, as the result of his
+meditations, told his mistress that there was something unusual about his
+insignificant self, because he earnestly desired to practise the virtues
+whose possession he claimed before the eyes of the people.  He had
+usually found the worst wine in the taverns with showy signs, and when
+the Lady Wendula's daughter had embroidered those letters on the cloth
+for him, what he furnished the guests was also of very doubtful quality.
+On his sick bed he had been obliged to place no curb upon his proneness
+to reflection, and in doing so had discovered that there was no virtue
+which can be owned like a house or a steed, but that each must be
+constantly gained anew, often amidst toil and suffering.  One thing,
+however, was now firmly established in his belief: that his favourite
+virtues were really the fairest of all, because--one will answer for all
+--man never felt happier than when he had succeeded in keeping his
+fidelity inviolate and maintaining his steadfastness.  He had learned,
+too, from Fraulein Eva that the Redeemer Himself promised the crown of
+eternal life to those who remain faithful unto death.  In this confidence
+he awaited the jailers, who perhaps would come very soon to lead him into
+the most joyless of all apartments--the Nuremberg torture chamber.
+
+Then he told the ladies what he knew of the love which united Heinz and
+Eva.  The four Fs which he had advised his master to heed in his wooing
+--Family, Figure, Favor, and Fortune--he no longer deemed the right
+touch-tones.  Whilst he was forced to lie idly here he had found that
+they should rather be exchanged for four Ss--Spirituality, Steadfastness,
+Stimulation, and Solace--for the eyes and the heart.
+
+All these were united in Eva and, moreover, there could be no objection
+to the family to which she belonged.
+
+Thereupon he had commenced so enthusiastic a eulogy of his beloved nurse
+and preserver that more than once Lady Wendula, smiling, stopped him,
+accusing him of permitting his grateful heart to lead him to such
+exaggeration that the maiden he wished to serve would scarcely thank him.
+
+Yet Eva's personal appearance had disappointed neither the experienced
+mother nor the easily won daughter.  Nay, when Maria Schorlin gazed at
+her through the half-open door of the Minorite's room, because she did
+not want to lose sight of the girl who had already attracted her on
+account of her hard battle in the cause of love, and who specially
+charmed her because it was her Heinz whom she loved, she thought no
+human being could resist the spell which emanated from Eva.
+
+With her finger on her lip she beckoned to her mother, and she, too,
+could not avert her eyes from the wonderful creature whom she hoped soon
+to call daughter, as she saw Eva standing, with eyes uplifted to heaven,
+beside the old man's couch, and heard her, in compliance with his wish,
+as she had often done before, half recite, half sing in a low voice the
+Song of the Sun, the finest work of St. Francis.
+
+The words were in the Italian language, in which this song had flowed
+from the poet heart of the Saint of Assisi, so rich in love to God and
+all animate nature; for she had learned to speak Italian in the Convent
+of St. Clare, to which several Italians had been transferred from their
+own home and that of their order and its founder.
+
+Lady Wendula and her daughter could also follow the song; for the
+mother had learned the beautiful language of the Saint of Assisi from
+the minnesingers in her youth, and in the early years of her marriage
+had accompanied the Emperor Frederick, with her husband, across the Alps.
+So she had taught Maria.
+
+As Lady Schorlin approached the door Eva, with her large eyes uplifted,
+was just beginning the second verse:
+
+         "Praised by His creatures all
+          Praised be the Lord my God
+          By Messer Sun, my brother, above all,
+          Who by his rays lights us and lights the day.
+          Radiant is he, with his great splendour stored,
+          Thy glory, Lord, confessing.
+
+         "By sister Moon and stars my Lord is praised,
+          Where clear and fair they in the heavens are raised.
+
+         "By brother Wind, my Lord, thy praise is said,
+          By air and clouds, and the blue sky o'erhead,
+          By which thy creatures all are kept and fed.
+
+         "By one most humble, useful, precious, chaste,
+          By sister Water, O my Lord, thou art praised.
+
+         "And praised is my Lord
+          By brother Fire-he who lights up the night;
+          Jocund, robust is he, and strong and bright.
+
+         "Praised art Thou, my Lord, by mother Earth,
+          Thou who sustainest her and governest,
+          And to her flowers, fruit, herbs, dost colour give and birth.
+
+         "And praised is my Lord
+          By those who, for Thy love, can pardon give
+          And bear the weakness and the wrongs of men.
+
+         "Blessed are those who suffer thus in peace,
+          By Thee, the Highest, to be crowned in heaven.
+
+         "Praised by our sister Death, my Lord, art Thou,
+          From whom no living man escapes.
+          Who die in mortal sin have mortal woe,
+          But blessed are they who die doing Thy will;
+          The second death can strike at them no blow.
+
+         "Praises and thanks and blessing to my Master be!
+          Serve ye Him all, with great humility."
+
+How God was loved by this saint, who beheld in everything the Most High
+had created kindred whom he loved and held intercourse with as with
+brother and sister!  Whatever the divine Father's love had formed--the
+sun, the moon and stars, the wood, water and fire, the earth and her fair
+children, the various flowers and plants--he made proclaim, each for
+itself and all in common, like a mighty chorus, the praise of God.  Even
+death joins in the hymn, and all these sons and daughters of the same
+exalted Father call to the minds of men the omnipotent, beneficent rule
+of the Lord.  They help mortals to appreciate God's majesty, fill their
+hearts with gratitude, and summon them to praise His sublimity and
+greatness.  In death, whom the poet also calls his sister, he sees no
+cruel murderer, because she, too, comes from the Most High.  "And what
+sister," asks the saint, "could more surely rescue the brother from
+sorrow and suffering?"  Whoever, as a child of God, feels like the loving
+Saint of Assisi, will gratefully suffer death to lead him to union with
+the Father.
+
+Benedictus had followed the magnificent poem with rapture.  At the lines,
+
+         "But blessed are they who die doing Thy will;
+          The second death can strike at them no blow,"
+
+he nodded gently, as if sure that the close of his earthly pilgrimage
+meant nothing to him except the beginning of a new and happy life; but
+when Eva ended with the command to serve the Lord with great humility, he
+lowered his eyes to the floor hesitatingly, as if not sure of himself.
+
+But he soon raised them again and fixed them on the young girl.
+They seemed to ask the question whether this noble hymn did not draw his
+nurse also to him who had sung it; whether, in spite of it, she still
+persisted, with sorrowful blindness, in her refusal to join the Sisters
+of St. Clare, whom the saintly singer also numbered amongst his
+followers.  Yet he felt too feeble to appeal to her conscience now,
+as he had often done, and bear the replies with which this highly gifted,
+peculiar creature, in every conversation his increasing weakness
+permitted him to share with her, had pressed him hard and sometimes even
+silenced him.
+
+True, they fought with unequal weapons.  Pain and illness paralysed his
+keen intellect, and difficulty of breathing often checked the eloquent
+tongue, both of which had served him so readily in his intercourse with
+Heinz Schorlin.  She contended with the most precious goal of youth
+before her eyes, fresh and healthy in mind and body, conscious, in the
+midst of the struggle, against doubt and suffering, for what she held
+dearest of her own vigorous energy, panoplied by the talisman of the last
+mandate from the lips of her dying mother.
+
+Benedictus, during a long life devoted to the highest aims, had battled
+enough.  He already saw Sister Death upon the threshold, and he wished to
+depart in peace and reap the reward for so much conflict, pain, and
+sacrifice.  The Lord Himself had broken his weapons.  The Minorite
+Egidius, his friend and companion in years, must carry on with Eva,
+Father Ignatius, the most eloquent member of the order in Nuremberg,
+with Heinz Schorlin, the work which he, Benedictus, had begun.  Though he
+himself must retire from the battlefield, he was sure that his post would
+not remain empty.
+
+The chant had placed him in the right mood to take leave of the Brothers,
+whose arrival Sister Hildegard had just announced.
+
+Since yesterday he had seen the Saviour constantly before his mental
+vision.  Sometimes he imagined that he beheld Him beckoning to him;
+sometimes that He extended His arms to him; sometimes he even fancied
+that he heard His voice, or that of St. Francis, and both invited him to
+approach.
+
+To-day-the leech had admitted it, and he himself felt it by his fevered
+brow, the failing pulsations of the heart, and the chill in the cold
+feet, perhaps already dead--he might expect to leave the dust of the
+world and behold those for whom he longed face to face in a purer light.
+
+He wished to await the end surrounded only by the Brothers, who were
+fighting the same battle, reminded by nothing of the world, as if in the
+outer court of heaven.
+
+Eva, the beautiful yet perverse woman, was one of the last persons whom
+he would have desired to have near him when he took the step into the
+other world.
+
+Speech was difficult.  A brief admonition to renounce her earthly love in
+order to share the divine one whose rich joys he hoped to taste that very
+day was the farewell greeting he vouchsafed Eva.  When she tried to kiss
+his hand he withdrew it as quickly as his weakness permitted.
+
+Then she retired, and Father AEgidius led the Brothers of the order in
+Nuremberg into the room.  Meanwhile it had grown dark, and the Beguine
+Paulina brought in a two-branched candelabrum with burning candles.  Eva
+took it from her hand and placed it so that the light should not dazzle
+her patient; but he saw her and, by pointing with a frowning brow to the
+door, commanded her to leave the room.
+
+She gladly obeyed.  When she had passed the Brothers, however, she paused
+on the threshold before going into the entry and again gazed at the old
+man's noble, pallid features illumined by the candlelight.
+
+She had never seen him look so.  He was gazing, radiant with joy, at the
+monks, who were to give him the benediction at his departure.  Then he
+raised his dark eyes as if transfigured; he was thanking Heaven for so
+much mercy, but the other Minorites fell on their knees beside the bed
+and prayed with him.
+
+How lovingly the old man looked into each face!  He had never favoured
+her with such a glance.  Yet no other nursing had been so difficult and
+often so painful.  At first he had shown a positive enmity to her, and
+even asked Sister Hildegard for another nurse; but no suitable substitute
+for Eva could be found.  Then he had earnestly desired to be removed to
+the Franciscan monastery in Nuremberg; this, however, could not be done
+because it would have hastened his death.  So he was forced to remain,
+and Eva felt that her presence was not the least thing which rendered the
+hospital distasteful.
+
+Yet, as his aged eyes refused their service and he liked to have someone
+read aloud from the gospels which he carried with him, or from notes
+written by his own hand, which also comprised some of the poems of St.
+Francis, and no one else in the house was capable of performing this
+office, he at last explicitly desired to keep her for his nurse.
+
+To anoint and bandage, according to the physician's prescription, his
+sore feet and the deep scars made on his back by severe scourging, which
+had reopened, became more difficult the more plainly he showed his
+aversion to her touch, because she--he had told her so himself--was a
+woman.  She certainly had not found it easy to keep awake and wear a
+pleasant expression when, after a toilsome day, he woke her at midnight
+and forced her to read aloud until the grey dawn of morning.  But hardest
+of all for Eva to bear were the bitter words with which he wounded her,
+and which sounded specially sharp and hostile when he reproached her for
+standing between Heinz Schorlin and the eternal salvation for which the
+knight so eagerly longed.  He seemed to bear her a grudge like that which
+the artist feels towards the culprit who has destroyed one of his
+masterpieces.
+
+Often, too, a chance word betrayed that he blamed Heaven for having
+denied him victory in the battle for the soul of Heinz.  Schorlin which
+he had begun to wage in its name.  True, such murmuring was always
+followed by deep repentance.  But in every mood he still strove to
+persuade Eva to renounce the world.
+
+When she confessed what withheld her from doing so, he at first tried to
+convince her by opposing reasons, but usually strength to continue the
+interchange of thought soon failed him.  Then he confined himself to
+condemning with harsh words her perverse spirit and worldly nature, and
+threatening her with the vengeance of Heaven.
+
+Once, after repeating the Song of the Sun, as she had done just now, he
+asked whether she, too, felt that nothing save the peace of the cloister
+would afford the possibility of feeling the greatness and love of the
+Most High as warmly and fully as this majestic song commands us to do.
+
+Then, summoning her courage, she assured him of the contrary.  Though but
+a simple girl, she, who had often been the guest of the abbess, felt the
+grandeur and glory of God as much more deeply in the world and during the
+fulfilment of the hardest duties which life imposed than with the Sisters
+of St. Clare, as the forests and fields were wider than the little
+convent garden.
+
+The old man, in a rage, upbraided her with being a blinded fool, and
+asked her whether she did not know that the world was finite and limited,
+whilst what the convent contained was eternal and boundless.
+
+Another time he had wounded her so deeply by his severity that she had
+found it impossible to restrain her tears.  But he had scarcely perceived
+this ere he repented his harshness.  Nothing but love ought to move his
+heart on the eve of a union with Him whom he had just called Love itself,
+and with earnest and tender entreaties he besought Eva to forgive him for
+the censure which was also a work of love.  Throughout the day he had
+treated her with affectionate, almost humble, kindness.
+
+All these things returned to Eva's thoughts as she left her grey-haired
+patient.
+
+He was standing on the threshold of the other world, and it was easy for
+her to think of him kindly, deeply as he had often wounded her.  Nay, her
+heart swelled with grateful joy because she had been so patient and
+suffered nothing to divert her from the arduous duty which she had
+undertaken in nursing the old man, who regarded her with such disfavour.
+
+A light had been brought into Biberli's room too.  When Eva entered with
+glowing cheeks she found the Swabians still sitting beside his couch.
+The door leading into the chamber of the dying man had been closed long
+before, yet the notes of pious litanies came from the adjoining room.
+Lady Schorlin noticed her deep emotion with sympathy, and asked her to
+sit down by her side.  Maria offered her own low stool, but Eva declined
+its use, because she would soon be obliged to ride back to the city.  She
+pressed her hand upon her burning brow, sighing, "Now, now--after such an
+hour, at court!"
+
+Lady Wendula urged her with such kindly maternal solicitude to take a
+little rest that the young girl yielded.
+
+The matron's remark that she, too, was invited to the reception at the
+imperial residence that evening brought an earnest entreaty from Eva to
+accept the invitation for her sake, and the Swabian promised to gratify
+her if nothing occurred to prevent.  At any rate, they would ride to the
+city together.
+
+Biberli's astonished enquiry concerning the cause of Eva's visit to the
+fortress was answered evasively, and she was glad when the singing in the
+next room led the Swabian to ask whether it was true that the master of
+her suffering friend on the couch, who intended to devote himself to a
+monastic life, meant to enter the order of the Minorite whom she had just
+left and become a mendicant friar.  When Eva assented, the lady remarked
+that members of this brotherhood had rarely come to her castle; but
+Biberli said that they were quiet, devout men who, content with the alms
+they begged, preached, and performed other religious duties.  They were
+recruited more from the people than from the aristocratic classes.  Many,
+however, joined them in order to live an idle life, supported by the
+gifts of others.
+
+Eva eagerly opposed this view, maintaining that true piety could be most
+surely found in the order of St. Francis.  Then, with warm enthusiasm,
+she praised its founder, asserting that, on the contrary, the Saint of
+Assisi had enjoined labour upon his followers.  For instance, one of his
+favourite disciples was willing to shake the nuts from the rotten
+branches of a nut tree which no one dared to climb if he might have half
+the harvest.  This was granted, but he made a sack of his wide brown
+cowl, filled it with the nuts, and distributed them amongst his poor.
+
+This  pleased the mother and daughter; yet when the former remarked that
+work of this kind seemed to her too easy for a young, noble, and powerful
+knight, Eva agreed, but added that the saint also required an activity in
+which the hands, it is true, remained idle, but which heavily taxed even
+the strongest soul.  St. Francis himself had set the example of
+performing this toil cheerfully and gladly.
+
+Whilst giving this information she had again risen.  Sister Hildegard had
+announced that her palfrey and the horses of the guests had been led up.
+
+Finally Eva promised to mount at the same time as the Swabians, bade
+farewell to Biberli, who looked after her with surprise, yet silently
+conjectured that this errand to the Emperor was in his behalf, and then
+went into the entry, where Sister Hildegard told her that Father
+Benedictus had just died.
+
+The monks were still chanting beside his deathbed.  Brother AEgidius, the
+friend and comrade of the dead man, however, had left them and approached
+Eva.
+
+Deeply agitated, he struggled to repress his sobs as he told her that the
+old man's longing was fulfilled and his Saviour had summoned him.  To die
+thus, richly outweighed the many sacrifices he had so willingly made here
+below during a long life.  If Eva had witnessed his death she would have
+perceived the aptness of the saying that a monk's life is bitter, but his
+death is sweet.  Such an end was granted only to those who cast the world
+aside.  Let her consider this once more, ere she renounced the eternal
+bliss for which formerly she had so devoutly yearned.
+
+Eva's only answer was the expression of her grief for his friend's
+decease.  But whilst passing out into the darkness she thought: the holy
+Brother certainly had a beautiful and happy death, yet how gently,
+trusting in the mercy of her Redeemer, my mother also passed away, though
+during her life and on her deathbed she remained in the world.  And then
+--whilst Father Benedictus was closing his eyes--what concern did he
+probably have for aught save his own salvation, but my mother forgot
+herself and thought only of others, of those whom she loved, whilst the
+Saviour summoned her to Himself.  Her eyes were already dim and her
+tongue faltered when she uttered the words which had guided her daughter
+until now.  The forge fire of life burns fiercely, yet to it my gratitude
+is due if the resolutions I formed in the forest after I had gathered the
+flowers for her and saw Heinz kneeling in prayer have not been vain, but
+have changed the capricious, selfish child into a woman who can render
+some service to others.
+
+If Heinz comes now and seeks me, I think I can say trustingly, "Here I
+am!"  We have both striven for the divine Love and recognised its
+glorious beauty.  If later, hand in hand, we can interweave it with the
+earthly one, why should it not be acceptable to the Saviour?  If Heinz
+offers me his affection I will greet it as "Sister Love," and it will
+certainly summon me with no lower voice to praise the Father from whom it
+comes and who has bestowed it upon me, as do the sun, the moon and stars,
+the fire and water.
+
+Whilst speaking she went out, and after learning that Frau Christine and
+her husband had not yet returned, she rode with the Swabians towards the
+city.
+
+In order not to pass through the whole length of Nuremberg, Eva guided
+her friends around the fortifications.  Their destination was almost the
+same, and they chose to enter at the Thiergartnerthor, which was in the
+northwestern part of the city, under the hill crowned by the castle,
+whilst the road to Schweinau usually led through the Spitalthor.
+
+On the way Lady Wendula induced Eva to tell her many things about
+herself, urging her to describe her father and her dead mother.  Her
+daughter Maria, on the other hand, was most interested in her sister Els,
+who, as she had heard from Biberli, was the second beautiful E.
+
+Eva liked to talk about her relatives, but her depression continued and
+she spoke only in reply to questions, for the Minorite's death had
+affected her, and her heart throbbed anxiously when she thought of the
+moment that she must appear amongst the courtiers and see the Emperor.
+
+Would her errand be vain?  Must poor Biberli pay for his resolute
+fidelity with his life?  What pain it would cause her, and how heavily it
+would burden his master's soul that he had failed to intercede for him!
+
+Not until Lady Schorlin questioned her did Eva confess what troubled her,
+and how she dreaded the venture which she had undertaken on her own
+responsibility.
+
+They were obliged to wait outside the Thiergartnerthor, for it had just
+been opened to admit a train of freight waggons.
+
+Whilst Eva remained on the high-road, with the castle before her eyes,
+she sighed from the depths of her troubled heart: "Why should the Emperor
+Rudolph grant me, an insignificant girl, what he refused his sister's
+husband, the powerful Burgrave, to whom he is so greatly indebted?  Oh,
+suppose he should treat me harshly and bid me go back to my spinning
+wheel!"
+
+Then she felt the arm of the dignified lady at her side pass round her
+and heard her say: "Cheer up, my dear girl.  The blessing of a woman who
+feels as kindly towards you as to her own daughter will accompany you,
+and no Emperor will ungraciously rebuff you, you lovely, loyal,
+charitable child."
+
+At these words from her kind friend Eva's heart opened as if the dear
+mother whom death had snatched from her had inspired her with fresh
+courage, and from the very depths of her soul rose the cry, "Oh, how I
+thank you!"
+
+She urged her nimble palfrey nearer the lady's horse to kiss her left
+hand, which held the bridle, but Lady Wendula would not permit it and,
+drawing her towards her, exclaimed, "Your lips, dear one," and as her red
+mouth pressed the kind lady's, Eva felt as if the caress had sealed an
+old and faithful friendship.  But this was not all.  Maria also wished to
+show the affection she had won, and begged for a kiss too.
+
+Without suspecting it, Eva, on the way to an enterprise she dreaded,
+received the proof that her lover's dearest relatives welcomed her with
+their whole hearts as a new member of the family.
+
+On the other side of the gate she was obliged to part from the Swabians.
+
+Lady Wendula bade her farewell with an affectionate "until we meet
+again," and promised positively to go to the reception at the castle.
+
+Eva uttered a sigh of relief.  It seemed like an omen of success that
+this lady, who had so quickly inspired her with such perfect confidence,
+was to witness her difficult undertaking.  She felt like a leader who
+takes the field with a scanty band of soldiers and is unexpectedly
+joined by the troops of a firm friend.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+When Arnold, the warder from Berne, helped Eva from the saddle, a blaze
+of light greeted her from the imperial residence.  The banquet was just
+beginning.
+
+Frau Gertrude had more than one piece of good news to tell while
+assisting the young girl.  Among the sovereign's guests was her uncle
+the magistrate, who had accompanied the Emperor to the beekeeper's,
+and with his wife, whom she would also find there, had been invited to
+the banquet.  Besides--this, as the best, she told her last--her father,
+Herr Ernst Ortlieb, had returned from Ulm and Augsburg, and a short time
+before had come to the fortress to conduct Jungfrau Els, by the
+Burgrave's gracious permission, to her betrothed husband's hiding place.
+Fran Gertrude had lighted her way, and a long separation might be borne
+for such a meeting.
+
+The ex-maid was obliged to bestir herself that Eva might have a few
+minutes for her sister and Wolff, yet she would fain have spent a much
+longer time over the long, thick, fair hair, which with increasing
+pleasure she combed until it flowed in beautiful waving tresses over the
+rich Florentine stuff of her plain white mourning robe.
+
+The Swiss had also provided white roses from the Burgrave's garden to
+fasten at the square neck of Eva's dress.  The latter permitted her to do
+this, but her wish to put a wreath of roses on the young girl's head,
+according to the fashion of the day, was denied, because Eva thought it
+more seemly to appear unadorned, and not as if decked for a festival when
+she approached the Emperor as a petitioner.  The woman whose life had
+been spent at court perceived the wisdom of this idea, and at last
+rejoiced that she had not obtained her wish; for when her work was
+finished Eva looked so bewitching and yet so pure and modest, that
+nothing could be removed or--even were it the wreath of roses--added
+without injuring the perfect success of her masterpiece.
+
+Lack of time soon compelled the young girl to interrupt the exclamations
+of admiration uttered by the skilful tiring woman herself, her little
+daughter, the maidservant, and the friend whom Fran Gertrude had invited
+to come in as if by accident.
+
+While following the warder's wife through various corridors and rooms,
+Eva thought of the hour in her own home before the dance at the Town
+Hall, and it seemed as if not days but a whole life intervened, and she
+was a different person, a complete contrast in most respects to the Eva
+of that time.
+
+Before the dance she had secretly rejoiced in the applause elicited by
+her appearance; now she was indifferent to it--nay, the more eagerly the
+spectators expressed their delight the more she grieved that the only
+person whom she desired to please was not among them.
+
+How easy it had been to be led to the dance, and how hard was the errand
+awaiting her!  Her heart shrank before the doubt awakened by the flood of
+light pouring from the windows of the imperial residence; the doubt
+whether her lover would not avoid her if--ah, had it only been possible!
+--if he should meet her among the guests yonder; whether the eloquent
+Father  Ignatius, who had followed him, might not already have won from
+the knight a vow compelling him to turn from her and summon all his
+strength of will to forget her.
+
+But, no!  He could no more renounce his love than she hers.  She would
+not, dare not, let such terrible thoughts torture her now.
+
+Heinz was far away, and the fate of her love would be decided later.
+The cause of her presence here was something very different, and the
+conviction that it was good, right, and certain of his approval,
+dispelled the pain that had overpowered her, and raised her courage.
+
+Unspeakably hard trials lay behind her, and harder ones must, perhaps,
+yet be vanquished.  But she no longer needed to fear them, for she felt
+that the strength which had awakened within her after she became
+conscious of her love was still sustaining and directing her, and would
+enable her to govern matters which she could not help believing that she
+herself would be too weak to guide to their goal.  She felt freed from
+her former wavering and hesitation, and as formerly in the modest house
+of the Beguines, now in the stately citadel she realised that, in sorrow
+and severe trial, she had learned to assert her position in life by her
+own strength.  Her father, whom she was to meet presently, would
+find little outward change in her, but when he had perceived the
+transformation wrought in the character of his helpless "little saint"
+it would please him to hear from her how wonderfully her mother's last
+prophetic words were being fulfilled.
+
+She was emerging from the forge fire of life, steeled for every conflict,
+yet those would be wrong who believed that, trusting to her own newly won
+strength, she had forgotten to look heavenward.  On the contrary, never
+had she felt nearer to her God, her Saviour, and the gracious Virgin.
+Without them she could accomplish nothing, yet for the first time she had
+undertaken tasks and sought to win goals which were worthy of beseeching
+them for aid.  Love had taught her to be faithful in worldly life, and
+she said to herself, "Better, far better I can certainly become; but
+firmer faith cannot be kept."
+
+Wolff's hiding place was a large, airy room, affording a view of the
+Frank country, with its meadows, fields, and forests.  Eva saw there by
+the light of the blazing pine chips her father, sister, and brother-in-
+law.
+
+Yet the meeting between all these beloved ones after a long separation
+partook more of sorrow than of joy.  Els had really resolved to leave the
+Eysvogel mansion, yet she met her Aunt Christine with the joyful cry:
+"I shall stay!  Wolff's father and I have become good friends."
+
+In fact, a few hours before Herr Casper had looked at her kindly and
+gratefully, and when she showed him how happy this rendered her, warmly
+entreated her in a broken voice not to leave him.  She had proved herself
+to be his good angel, and the sight of her was the only bright spot in
+his clouded life.  Then she had gladly promised to stay, and intended to
+keep her word.  She had only accompanied her father, who had unexpectedly
+returned for a short time, because she could trust the nun who shared her
+nursing of the paralysed patient, and he rarely recognised his watcher
+at night.
+
+How long Els had been separated from her lover!  When Eva greeted the
+reunited pair they had already poured forth to each other the events
+which had driven them to the verge of despair, and which now once more
+permitted them with budding hope to anticipate new happiness.
+
+Eva had little time, yet the sisters found an opportunity to confide many
+things to each other, though at first their father often interrupted them
+by opposing his younger daughter's intention of going to the Emperor as a
+supplicant.
+
+The girl whose wishes but a short time ago he had refused or gratified,
+according to the mood of the moment, like those of a child, had since
+gained, even in his eyes, so well founded a claim to respect, she opposed
+him in her courteous, modest way with such definiteness of purpose,
+Biberli's fate interested him so much, and the prospect of seeing his
+daughters brought before the court was so painful, that he admitted the
+force of Eva's reasons and let her set forth on her difficult mission
+accompanied by his good wishes.
+
+Els had dropped her maternal manner; nay, she received her sister as her
+superior, and began to describe her work in the hospital to Wolff in such
+vivid colours that Eva laid her hand on her lips and hurried out of the
+room with the exclamation, "If you insist upon our changing places, we
+will stand in future side by side and shoulder to shoulder!  Farewell
+till after the battle!"
+
+She could not have given much more time to her relatives under any
+circumstances, for the Burgravine's maid of honour who was to attend
+her to the reception was already waiting somewhat impatiently in Frau
+Gertrude's room, and took her to the castle without delay.
+
+The place where they were to stay was the large apartment adjoining the
+dining hall.
+
+The confidence which Eva had regained on her way to her relatives
+vanished only too quickly in the neighbourhood of the sovereign and the
+sight of the formal reception bestowed on all who entered.  Her heart
+throbbed more and more anxiously as she realised for the first time how
+serious a step she had taken; nay, it was long ere she succeeded in
+calming herself sufficiently to notice the clatter of the metal vessels
+and the Emperor's deep voice, which often drowned the lower tones of the
+guests.  Reverence for royalty was apparent everywhere.
+
+How much quieter this banquet was than those of the princes and nobles!
+The guests knew that the Emperor Rudolph disliked the boisterous manners
+of the German nobility.  Besides, the sovereign's mourning exerted a
+restraint upon mirth and recklessness.  All avoided loud laughter, though
+the monarch was fond of gaiety and heroically concealed the deep grief of
+his own soul.
+
+When the lord high steward announced to the maid of honour who had
+brought Eva here that dessert was served, the latter believed that the
+dreaded moment when she would be presented to the Emperor was close at
+hand, but quarter of an hour after quarter of an hour passed and she
+still heard the clanking of metal and the voices of the guests, which now
+began to grow louder, and amidst which she sometimes distinguished the
+strident tones of the court fool, Eyebolt, and the high ones of the
+Countess Cordula.
+
+Time moved at a snail's pace, and she already fancied her heart could no
+longer endure its violent throbbing, when at last--at last--the heavy oak
+chairs were pushed noisily back over the stone floor of the dining hall.
+
+From the balcony of the audience chamber a flourish of trumpets echoed
+loudly along the arches of the lofty, vaulted ceiling of the apartment,
+and the Emperor, leading the company, crossed the threshold attended by
+several dignitaries, the court jesters, and some pages.
+
+His august sister, the Burgravine Elizabeth, leaned on his arm.  The
+papal ambassador, Doria, in the brilliant robe of a cardinal, followed,
+escorting the Duchess Agnes, but he parted from her in the hall.  Among
+many other secular and ecclesiastical princes and dignitaries appeared
+also Count von Montfort and his daughter, the old First Losunger of
+Nuremberg, Berthold Vorchtel, and Herr Pfinzing with his wife.
+
+Several guests from the city entered at the same time through another
+door, among whom, robed in handsome festal garments, were Eva's new
+Swabian acquaintances.  How gladly she would have hastened to them!  But
+a grey-haired stately man of portly figure, whose fur-trimmed cloak hung
+to his ankles--Sir Arnold Maier of Silenen, led them to a part of the
+hall very distant from where she was standing.
+
+To make amends, Count von Montfort and Cordula came very near her; but
+she could not greet them.  Each person--she felt it--must remain in his
+or her place.  And the restraint became stronger as the Duchess Agnes,
+giving one guest a nod, another a few words, advanced nearer and nearer,
+pausing at last beside Count von Montfort.
+
+The old huntsman advanced respectfully towards the Bohemian princess, and
+Eva heard the fourteen-year-old wife ask, "Well, Count, how fares your
+wish to find the right husband for your wilful daughter?"
+
+"Of course it must be fulfilled, Duchess, since your Highness deigned to
+approve it," he answered, with his hand upon his heart.
+
+"And may his name be known?" she queried with evident eagerness, her dark
+eyes sparkling brightly and a faint flush tingeing the slight shade of
+tan on her child face.
+
+"The duty of a knight and paternal weakness unfortunately still seal my
+lips," he answered.  "Your Highness knows best that a lady's wish--even
+if she is your own child--is a command."
+
+"You are praised as an obedient father," replied the Bohemian with a
+slight shrug of the shoulders.  "Yet you probably need not conceal
+whether the happy man, who is not only encouraged, but this time also
+chosen by the charming huntress of many kinds of game, is numbered among
+our guests."
+
+"Unfortunately he is denied the pleasure, your Highness," replied the
+count; but Cordula, who had noticed Eva, and had heard the Duchess
+Agnes's last words, approached her royal foe, and with a low, reverential
+bow, said: "My poor heart must imagine him far away from here amid peril
+and privation.  Instead of breaking ladies' hearts, he is destroying the
+castles of robber knights and disturbers of the peace of the country."
+
+The duchess, in silent rage, clenched her white teeth upon her quivering
+lips, and was about to make an answer which would scarcely have flattered
+Cordula, when the Emperor, who had left his distinguished attendants,
+approached Eva, with the Burgravine still leaning on his arm.
+
+She did not notice it; she was vainly trying to interpret the meaning of
+Cordula's words.  True, she did not know that when no messenger brought
+Heinz Schorlin's intercession for Biberli, in whose fate the countess
+felt a sincere interest, she had commanded her own betrothed husband to
+ride his horse to death in order to tell the master of the sorely
+imperilled man what danger threatened his faithful servant, and remind
+him, in her name, that gratitude was one of the virtues which beseemed a
+true knight, even though the matter in question concerned only a servant
+Boemund Altrosen had obeyed, and must have overtaken Heinz long ago and
+probably aided him to rout the Siebenburgs and their followers.  But
+Cordula read the young Bohemian's child heart, and it afforded her
+special pleasure to deal her a heavy blow in the warfare they were
+waging, which perhaps might aid another purpose.
+
+The surprise and bewilderment which the countess's answer had aroused in
+Eva heightened the spell of her beauty.
+
+Had she heard aright?  Could Heinz really have sued for the countess's
+hand and been accepted?  Surely, surely not!  Neither was capable of such
+perfidy, such breach of faith.  Spite of the testimony of her own ears,
+she would not believe it.  But when she at last saw the Emperor's tall
+figure before her, and he gazed down at her with a kind, fatherly glance,
+she answered it with her large blue eyes uplifted beseechingly, and
+withal as trustilly, as if she sought to remind him that, if he only
+chose to do so, his power made it possible to convert everything which
+troubled and oppressed her to good.
+
+The tearful yet bright gaze of those resistless eyes pierced the
+Emperor's very soul, and he imagined how this lovely vision of purity and
+innocence, this rare creature, of whom he had heard such marvellous
+things from Herr Pfinzing during their ride through the forest, would
+have fired the heart of his eighteen-year-old son, so sensitive to every
+impression, whom death had snatched from him so suddenly.  And whilst
+remembering Hartmann, he also thought of his dead son's most loyal and
+dearest friend, Heinz Schorlin, who was again showing such prowess in his
+service, and had earned a right to recognition and reward.
+
+He did not know his young favourite's present state of mind concerning
+his desire for a monastic life, but he had probably become aware that his
+swiftly kindled, ardent love for yonder lovely child had led him into an
+act of culpable imprudence.  Besides, that very day many things had
+reached his ears concerning these two who suited each other as perfectly
+as Heinz Schorlin seemed--even to the Hapsburg, who was loyally devoted
+to the Holy Church--unfit for a religious life.
+
+The Emperor could do much to further the union of this pair, yet he too
+was obliged to exercise caution.  If he joined them in wedlock as though
+they were his own children he might be sure of causing loud complaints
+from the priesthood, and especially the Dominicans, who were very
+influential at the court of Rome--nay, he must be prepared for opposition
+directed against himself as well as the young pair.  The prior of the
+order had already complained to the nuncio of the lukewarmness of the
+Superior of the Sisters of St. Clare, who idly witnessed the estrangement
+from the Church of the soul of a maiden belonging to a distinguished
+family; and Doria had told the sovereign of this provoking matter, and
+expressed the prior's hope that Sir Heinz Schorlin, who enjoyed the
+monarch's favour, would be won for the monastic life.  Opposition to this
+marriage, which he approved, and therefore desired to favour, was also to
+be expected from another quarter.  Therefore he must act with the utmost
+caution, and in a manner which his antagonists could not oppose.
+
+At this reflection a peculiar smile, familiar to the courtiers as an omen
+of a gracious impulse, hovered around his lips, which during the past
+month had usually revealed by their expression the grief that burdened
+his soul and, raising his long forefinger in playful menace, he began:
+
+"Aha, Jungfrau Eva Ortlieb!  What have you been doing since I had the
+boon of meeting so rare a beauty at the dance?  Do you know that you have
+caused a turmoil amongst both ecclesiastical and secular authorities,
+and that many a precious hour has been shortened for me on your account?
+You have disturbed both the austere Dominican Fathers and the devout
+Sisters of St. Clare.  The former think the gentle nuns treat you too
+indulgently, and the latter charge the zealous followers of St. Domingo
+with too much strictness concerning you.
+
+"And, besides, if you were not so well aware of it yourself, you would
+scarcely believe it: for the sake of an insignificant serving man, who is
+under your special protection, I, who carry the burden of so many serious
+and weighty affairs, am beset by those of high and low degree.  How much,
+too, I have also suffered on account of his master, Sir Heinz Schorlin--
+again in connection with you, you lovely disturber of the peace!  To say
+nothing of the rest, your own father brings a charge against him.  The
+accusation is made in a letter which Meister Gottlieb, our protonotary,
+was to withhold by Herr Ortlieb's desire, but through a welcome accident
+it fell into my hands.  This letter contains statements, my lovely child,
+which I--Nay, don't be troubled; the roses on your cheeks are glowing
+enough already, and for their sake I will not mention its contents; only
+they force me to ask the question--come nearer--whether, though it caused
+you great annoyance that a certain young Swiss knight forced his way into
+your father's house under cover of the darkness, you do not hope with me,
+the more experienced friend, that this foolhardy fellow, misguided by
+ardent love, with the aid of the saints to whom he is beginning to turn,
+may be converted to greater caution and praiseworthy virtue?  Whether, in
+your great charity--which I have heard so highly praised--you would be
+capable"--Here he paused and, lowering his voice to a whisper, added:
+
+"Do me the favour to lend your ear--what a well-formed little thing it
+is!--a short time longer, to confide to the elderly man who feels a
+father's affection for you whether you would be wholly reluctant to
+attempt the reformation of the daring evil-doer yourself were he to
+offer, not only his heart, but the little ring with--I will guarantee it
+--his honourable, knightly hand?"
+
+"Oh, your Majesty!" cried Eva, gazing at the gracious sovereign with an
+expression of such imploring entreaty in her large, tearful blue eyes
+that, as if regretting his hasty question, he added soothingly:
+
+"Well, well, we will reach the goal, I think, at a slower pace.  Such a
+confession will probably flow more easily from the lips when sought by
+the person for whom it means happiness or despair, than when a stranger
+--even one as old and friendly as I--seeks to draw it from a modest
+maiden."
+
+Here he paused; he had just recognised Lady Wendula Schorlin.  Waving his
+hand to her in joyous greeting, he ordered a page to conduct her to him
+and, again turning to Eva, said: "Look yonder, my beautiful child: there
+is someone in whom you would confide more willingly than in me.  I think
+Sir Heinz's mother, who is worthy of all reverence and love--"
+
+Here surprise and joy forced from Eva's lips the question, "His mother?"
+and there was such amazement in the tone that, as the Lady Wendula,
+bowing low, approached the Emperor, after exchanging the first greetings
+which pass between old friends who have been long separated, he asked how
+it happened that though Eva seemed to have already met the matron, she
+heard with such surprise that she was the mother of his brave favourite.
+
+Lady Wendula then confessed the name she had given herself, that she
+might study the young girl without being known; and again that peculiar
+smile flitted across the Emperor Rudolph's beardless face, and lingered
+there, as he asked the widow of his dead companion in arms whether, after
+such an examination, she believed she had found the right wife for her
+son; and she replied that a long life would not give her time enough to
+thank Heaven sufficiently for such a daughter.
+
+The maiden who was the subject of this whispering, whose purport only a
+loving glance from the Lady Wendula revealed, pressed her hand upon her
+heart, whose impetuous throbbing stifled her breath.  Oh, how gladly she
+would have hastened to the mother of the man she loved and his young
+sister, who stood at a modest distance, to clasp them in her arms, and
+confide to them what seemed too great, too much, too beautiful for
+herself alone, yet which might crumble at a single word from her lover's
+lips like an undermined tower swept away by the wind!  But she was forced
+to have patience, and submit to whatever might yet be allotted to her.
+
+Nor was she to lack agitating experiences, for the Emperor's murmured
+question whether she desired to hear herself called "daughter" by this
+admirable lady had scarcely called forth an answer, which, though mute,
+revealed the state of her heart eloquently enough, than he added in a
+louder tone, though doubtfully: "Then, so far, all would be well; but,
+fair maiden, my young friend, unfortunately, was by no means satisfied,
+if I heard aright, with knocking at the door of a single heart.  Things
+have reached my ears--But this, too, must be----"
+
+Here he suddenly paused, for already during this conversation with the
+ladies there had been a noise at the door of the hall, and now the person
+whom the Emperor had just accused entered, closely followed by the
+chamberlain, Count Ebenhofen, whose face was deeply flushed from his vain
+attempts to keep Sir Heinz Schorlin back.
+
+Heinz's cheeks were also glowing from his struggle with the courtier, who
+considered it a grave offence that a knight should dare to appear before
+the Emperor at a peaceful social assembly clad in full armour.
+
+His appearance created a joyful stir among the other members of the
+court--nay, in spite of the sovereign's presence, cordial expressions of
+welcome fell from the lips of ladies and nobles.  The Bohemian princess
+alone cast an angry glance at the blue ribbon which adorned the helmet of
+the returning knight; for "blue" was Countess von Montfort's colour, and
+"rose red" her own.
+
+The ecclesiastics whom Heinz passed whispered eagerly together.  The
+Duchess Agnes's confessor, an elderly Dominican of tall stature, was
+listening to the provost of St. Sebald's, a grey-haired man a head
+shorter than he, of dignified yet kindly aspect, who, looking keenly at
+Heinz, remarked: "I fear that your prior hopes too confidently to win
+yonder young knight.  No one walks with that bearing who is on the eve
+of renouncing the world.  A splendid fellow!"
+
+"To whom armour is better suited than the cowl," observed the Bishop of
+Bamberg, a middleaged prelate of aristocratic appearance, approaching the
+others.  "Your prior, my dear brothers, would have little pleasure, I
+think, in the fish he is so eagerly trying to drag from the Minorite's
+net into his own.  He would leap ashore again all too quickly.  He is not
+fit for the monastery.  He would do better for a priest, and I would bid
+him welcome as a military brother in office."
+
+"Bold enough he certainly is," added the Dominican.  "I would not advise
+every one to enter the Emperor's presence and this distinguished
+gathering in such attire."
+
+In fact, Heinz showed plainly that he had come directly from the
+battlefield and the saddle, for a suit of stout chain armour, which
+covered the greater part of his tolerably long tunic, encased his limbs,
+and even the helmet which he bore on his arm, spite of the blue ribbon
+that adorned it, was by no means one of the delicate, costly ones worn in
+the tournament.  Besides, many a bruise showed that hard blows and
+thrusts had been dealt him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+At Heinz Schorlin's quarters the day before his young hostess, Frau
+Barbel, had had the costly armour entrusted to her care, and the
+trappings belonging to it, cleaned and put in order, but her labour was
+vain; for Heinz Schorlin had ridden directly to the fortress from
+Schweinau, without stopping at his lodgings in the city.
+
+Only a short time before he had learned that his two messengers had been
+captured and failed to reach their destination.  He owed this information
+to Sir Boemund Altrosen--and many another piece of news which Cordula had
+given him.
+
+The main portion of Heinz Schorlin's task was completed when the
+countess's ambassador reached him, so he set out on his homeward way at
+once, and this time his silent friend had been eloquent and told him
+everything which had occurred during his absence.
+
+He now knew that Boemund and Cordula had plighted their troth, what the
+faithful Biberli had done and suffered for him, and lastly--even to the
+minutest detail--the wonderful transformation in Eva.
+
+When he had ridden forth he had hoped to learn to renounce her whom he
+loved with all the might of his fervid soul, and to bring himself to
+close his career as a soldier with this successful campaign; but whilst
+he destroyed castles and attacked the foe, former wishes were stilled,
+and a new desire and new convictions took their place.  He could not give
+up the profession of arms, which all who bore the name of Schorlin had
+practised from time immemorial, and to resign the love which united him
+to Eva was impossible.  She must become his, though she resembled an
+April day, and Biberli's tales of the danger which threatened the husband
+from a sleep-walking wife returned more than once to his memory.
+
+Yet what beautiful April days he had experienced, and though Eva might
+have many faults, the devout child, with her angel beauty, certainly did
+not lack the will to do what was right and pleasing to God.  When she was
+once his she should become so good that even his mother at home would
+approve his choice.
+
+He had wholly renounced the idea of going into the monastery.  The
+Minorite Ignatius, whom Father Benedictus had sent after him that he
+might finish the work which the latter had begun, was a man who lacked
+neither intellect nor eloquence; but he did not possess the fiery
+enthusiasm and aristocratic confidence of the dead man.  Yet when the
+zealous monks, whom the prior of the Dominicans had despatched to
+complete Heinz's conversion, opposed him, the former entered into such
+sharp and angry arguments with them that the young knight, who witnessed
+more than one of their quarrels, startled and repelled, soon held aloof
+from all three and told them that he had resolved to remain in the world,
+and his onerous office gave him no time to listen to their well-meant
+admonitions.
+
+He was not created for the monastery.  If Heaven had vouchsafed him a
+miracle, it was done to preserve his life that--as Eva desired--he might
+fight to the last drop of his blood for the Church, his holy faith, and
+the beloved Emperor.  But if he remained in the world, Eva would do the
+same; they belonged to each other inseparably.  Why, he could not have
+explained, but the voice which constantly reiterated it could not lie.
+
+After he had slain Seitz Siebenburg in the sword combat, and destroyed
+his brother's castle, his resolve to woo Eva became absolutely fixed.
+
+His heart dictated this, but honour, too, commanded him to restore to the
+maiden and her sister the fair fame which his passionate impetuosity had
+injured.
+
+During the rapid ride which he and Boemund Altrosen took to Nuremberg he
+had stopped at Schweinau hospital, and found in Biberli, Eva's former
+enemy, her most enthusiastic panegyrist.  Heinz also heard from him how
+quickly she had won the hearts of his mother and Maria, and that he would
+find all three at the fortress.
+
+Lastly, Sister Hildegard had informed him of the great peril threatening
+his beloved faithful servant and companion, "old Biber," which had led
+Eva there to appeal to the Emperor.
+
+Beside the body of Father Benedictus he learned how beautiful had been
+the death of the old man who had so honestly striven to lead him into the
+path which he believed was the right one for him to tread.  In a brief
+prayer beside his devout friend Heinz expressed his gratitude, and called
+upon him to witness that, even in the world, he would not forget the
+shortness of this earthly pilgrimage, but would also provide for the
+other life which endured forever.  True, Heinz had but a few short
+moments to devote to this farewell, the cause of the faithful follower
+who, unasked, had unselfishly endured unutterable tortures for him, took
+precedence of everything else and would permit no delay.
+
+When the knight, with his figure drawn up to its full height, strode
+hastily into the royal hall, he beheld with joyful emotion those who were
+most dear to him, for whose presence he had longed most fervently during
+the ride--his mother, Eva, his sister, and the imperial friend he loved
+so warmly.
+
+Overwhelmed by agitation, he flung himself on his knees before his
+master, kissing his hand and his robe, but the Emperor ordered him to
+rise and cordially greeted him.
+
+Before speaking to his relatives, Heinz informed the monarch that he had
+successfully executed his commission and, receiving a few words of thanks
+and appreciation, modestly but with urgent warmth entreated the Emperor,
+if he was satisfied with his work, instead of any other reward, to save
+from further persecution the faithful servant who for his sake had borne
+the most terrible torture.
+
+The face of the sovereign, who had welcomed Heinz as if he were a long-
+absent son, assumed a graver expression, and his tone seemed to vibrate
+with a slight touch of indignation, as he exclaimed: "First, let us
+settle your own affairs.  Serious charges have been made against you,
+my son, as well as against your servant, on whose account I have been so
+tormented.  A father, who is one of the leading men in this city, accuses
+you of having destroyed his daughter's good name by forcing yourself into
+his house after assuring his child of your love."
+
+Heinz turned to Eva, to protest that he was here to atone for the wrong
+he had done her, but the Emperor would not permit him to speak.  It was
+important to silence at once any objection which could be made against
+the marriage by ecclesiastical and secular foes; therefore, eagerly as
+he desired to enjoy the happiness of the young pair, he forced himself
+to maintain the expression of grave dissatisfaction which he had assumed,
+and ordered a page to summon the imperial magistrate, the First Losunger
+of the city, and his protonotary, who were all amongst the guests, and,
+lastly, the Duchess Agnes.
+
+He could read the latter's child eyes like the clear characters of a
+book, and neither the radiant glow on her face at Heinz Schorlin's
+entrance nor her hostile glance at the Countess von Montfort had escaped
+his notice.  Both her affection and her jealous resentment should serve
+him.
+
+The young Bohemian now thought herself certain that Heinz Schorlin, and
+no other, was Cordula's chosen knight; the countess, at his entrance,
+had exclaimed to her father loudly enough, "Here he is again!"
+
+When the princess stood before the Emperor, with the gentlemen whom he
+had summoned, he asked her to decide the important question.
+
+"Yonder knight--he motioned towards Heinz--had been guilty of an act
+which could scarcely be justified.  Though he had wooed the daughter of
+a noble Nuremberg family, and even forced his way into her father's
+house, he had apparently forgotten the poor girl.
+
+"And," cried the young wife indignantly, "the unprincipled man has not
+only made a declaration of love to another, but formally asked her hand."
+
+"That would seem like him," said the Emperor.  "But we must not close our
+ears to the charge of the Nuremberg Honourable.  His daughter, a lovely,
+modest maiden of excellent repute, has been seriously injured by Heinz
+Schorlin, and so I beg you, child, to tell us, with the keen appreciation
+of the rights and duties of a lady which is peculiar to you, what
+sentence, in your opinion, should be imposed upon Sir Heinz Schorlin
+to atone for the wrong he has done to the young Nuremberg maiden."
+
+He beckoned to the protonotary, as he spoke, to command him to show Ernst
+Ortlieb's accusation to the duchess, but she seemed to have practised the
+art of reading admirably; for, more quickly than it would otherwise have
+appeared possible to grasp the meaning of even the first sentences, she
+exclaimed, drawing herself up to her full height and gazing at Cordula
+with haughty superiority: "There is but one decision here, if the
+morality of this noble city is to be preserved and the maiden daughters
+of her patrician families secured henceforward from the misfortune of
+being a plaything for the wanton levity of reckless heart breakers.  But
+this decision, on which I firmly and resolutely insist, as lady and
+princess, in the name of my whole sex and of all knightly men who, with
+me, prize the reverence and inviolable fidelity due a lady, is: Sir Heinz
+Schorlin must ask the honourable gentleman who, with full justice,
+brought this complaint to your imperial Majesty, for his daughter's hand
+and, if the sorely injured maiden vouchsafes to accept it, lead her to
+the marriage altar before God and the world."
+
+"Spoken according to the feelings of my own heart," replied the Emperor
+and, turning to the citizens of Nuremberg, he added: "So I ask you,
+gentlemen, who are familiar with the laws and customs of this good city
+and direct the administration of her justice, will such a marriage remove
+the complaint made against Sir Heinz Schorlin and his servant?"
+
+"It will," replied old Herr Berthold Vorchtel, gravely and firmly.
+
+Herr Pfinzing also assented, it is true, but added earnestly that an
+unfortunate meeting had caused another to suffer even more severely than
+Eva from the knight's imprudence.  This was her older sister, the
+betrothed bride of young Eysvogel.  For her sake, as well as to make the
+bond between Sir Heinz Schorlin and the younger Jungfrau Ortlieb valid,
+the father's consent was necessary.  If his imperial Majesty desired to
+bring to a beautiful end, that very day, the gracious work so
+auspiciously commenced there was no obstacle in the way, for Ernst
+Ortlieb was at the von Zollern Castle with the daughter who had been so
+basely slandered.
+
+The Emperor asked in surprise how they came there, and then ordered Eva's
+father and sister to be brought to him.  He was eager to make the
+acquaintance of the second beautiful E.
+
+"And Wolff Eysvogel?" asked the magistrate.
+
+"We agreed to release him after we had turned our back on Nuremberg,"
+replied the sovereign.  "Much as we have heard in praise of this young
+man, gladly as we have shown him how gratefully we prize the blood a
+brave man shed for us upon the Marchfield, no change can be made in what,
+by virtue of our imperial word----"
+
+"Certainly not, little brother," interrupted the court fool, Eyebolt,
+"but for that very reason you must open the Eysvogel's cage as quickly
+as possible and let him fly hither, for on the ride to the beekeeper's
+you crossed in your own seven-foot tall body the limits of this good
+city, whose length does not greatly surpass it--your imperial person,
+I mean.  So you as certainly turned your back upon it as you stand in
+front of things which lie behind you.  And as an emperor's word cannot
+have as much added or subtracted as a fly carries off on its tail, if it
+has one, you, little brother, are obliged and bound to have the strange
+monster, which is at once a wolf and a bird, immediately released and
+summoned hither."
+
+"Not amiss," laughed the  Emperor, "if the boundaries of Nuremberg saw
+our back for even so brief a space as it needs to make a wise man a fool.
+
+"We will follow your counsel, Eyebolt.--Herr Pfinzing, tell young
+Eysvogel that the Emperor's pardon has ended his punishment.  The breach
+of the country's peace may be forgiven the man who so heroically aided
+the battle for peace."
+
+Then turning to Meister Gottlieb, the protonotary, he whispered so low
+that he alone could hear the command, that he should commit to paper a
+form of words which would give the bond between Heinz Schorlin and Eva
+Ortlieb sufficient legal power to resist both secular authority and that
+of the Dominicans and Sisters of St. Clare.
+
+During this conference court etiquette had prevented the company from
+exchanging any remarks.  Whatever one person might desire to say to
+another he was forced to entrust to the mute language of the eyes, and a
+sportive impulse induced Emperor Rudolph to maintain the spell which held
+apart those who were most strongly attracted to each other.
+
+Meantime, whilst he was talking with the protonotary, the bolder guests
+ventured to move about more freely, and of them all Cordula imposed the
+least restraint upon herself.
+
+Ere Heinz had found time to address a word to Eva or to greet his mother
+she glided swiftly to his side and, with an angry expression on her face,
+whispered: "If Heaven bestowed the greatest happiness upon the most
+deserving, you must be the most favoured of mortals, for a more exquisite
+masterpiece than your future wife--I know her--was never created.  But
+now open your ears and follow my advice: Do not reveal the state of your
+heart until you have left the castle so far behind that you are out of
+sight of the Bohemian princess, or your ship of happiness may be wrecked
+within sight of port."
+
+Then, with a well-assumed air of indignation, she abruptly turned her
+back upon him.
+
+After moving away, she intentionally remained standing near the duchess,
+with drooping head.  The latter hastily approached her, saying with
+admirably simulated earnestness: "You, Countess, will probably be the
+last to refuse your approval of my interference against our knightly
+butterfly and in behalf of the poor inexperienced girl, his victim."
+
+"If that is your Highness's opinion," replied Cordula, shrugging her
+shoulders as if it were necessary to submit to the inevitable, "for my
+part I fear your kind solicitude may send me behind convent walls."
+
+"Countess von Montfort a nun!"  cried the child wife, laughing.  "If it
+were Sir Heinz Schorlin to whom you just alluded, you, too, are among the
+deluded ones whom we must pity, yet with prudent foresight you provided
+compensation long ago.  Instead of burying yourself in a convent, you,
+whom so many desire, would do better to beckon to one of your admirers
+and bestow on him the happiness of which the other was not worthy."
+
+Cordula fixed her eyes thoughtfully on the floor a short time, then,
+as if the advice had met with her approval, exclaimed: "Your Royal
+Highness's mature wisdom has found the right expedient this time also.
+I am not fit for the veil.  Perhaps you may hear news of me to-morrow.
+By that time my choice will be determined.  What would you say to the
+dark-haired Altrosen?"
+
+"A brave champion!" replied the Bohemian, and this time the laugh which
+accompanied her words came from the heart.  "Try him, in the name of all
+the saints!  But look at Sir Heinz Schorlin!  A gloomy face for a happy
+man!  He does not seem quite pleased with our verdict."
+
+She beckoned, as she spoke, to her chamberlain and the high steward, took
+leave of her imperial father-in-law and, with her pretty little head
+flung proudly back, rustled out of the hall.
+
+Soon after Herr Pfinzing ushered Ernst Ortlieb, his daughter, and Wolff
+into the presence of the sovereign, who gazed as if restored to youth
+at the handsome couple whose weal or woe was in his hands.  This
+consciousness afforded him one of the moments when he gratefully
+felt the full beauty and dignity of his responsible position.
+
+With friendly words he restored Wolff's liberty, and expressed the
+expectation that, with such a companion, he would raise the noble
+house of his ancestors to fresh prosperity.
+
+When he at last turned to Heinz again he asked in a low tone: "Do you
+know what this day means to me?"
+
+"Nineteen years ago it gave you poor Hartmann," replied the knight, his
+downcast eyes resting sadly on the floor.
+
+The kind-hearted sovereign nodded significantly, and said, "Then it must
+benefit those who, so long as he lives, may expect his father's favour."
+
+He gazed thoughtfully into vacancy and, faithful to his habit of fixing
+his eye on a goal, often distant, and then carefully carrying out the
+details which were to ensure success, ere he turned to the next one, he
+summoned the imperial magistrate and the First Losunger to his side.
+
+After disclosing to them his desire to allow the judges to decide and,
+should the verdict go against Biberli, release him from punishment by a
+pardon, both undertook to justify the absence of the accused from the
+trial.  The wise caution with which the Emperor Rudolph avoided
+interfering with the rights of the Honourable Council afforded old Herr
+Berthold Vorchtel great satisfaction.  Both he and the magistrate, sure
+of the result, could promise that this affair, which had aroused so much
+excitement, especially among the artisans, would be ended by the marriage
+of the two Ortlieb sisters and the payment of the blood money to the
+wounded tailor.  Any new complaint concerning them would then be lawfully
+rejected by both court and magistrate.
+
+Never had Heinz thanked his imperial benefactor more warmly for any gift,
+but though the Emperor received his gallant favourite's expressions of
+gratitude and appreciation kindly, he did not yet permit him to enjoy his
+new happiness.
+
+There were still some things which must be decided, and for the third
+time his peculiar smile showed the initiated that he was planning some
+pleasant surprise for those whom it concerned.
+
+The mention of the blood money which Herr Ernst Ortlieb owed the
+slandering tailor, who had not yet recovered from his wound, induced the
+Emperor to look at the father of the beautiful sisters.
+
+He knew that Herr Ernst had also lost a valiant son in the battle of
+Marchfield, and Eva's father had been described as an excellent man, but
+one with whom it was difficult to deal.  Now, spite of the new happiness
+of his children, the sovereign saw him glance gloomily, as if some wrong
+had been done him, from his daughters to Heinz, and then to Lady Schorlin
+and Maria, to whom he had not yet been presented.  He doubtless felt that
+the Emperor had treated him and his family with rare graciousness, and
+was entitled to their warmest gratitude yet, as a father and a member of
+the proud and independent Honourable Council of the free imperial city of
+Nuremberg, he considered his rights infringed--nay, it had cost him a
+severe struggle not to protest against such arbitrary measures.  He had
+his paternal rights even here--Els and Eva were not parentless orphans.
+
+The noble monarch and shrewd judge of human nature perceived what was
+passing in the Nuremberg merchant's mind, but the pleasant smile still
+rested on his lips as, with a glance at the ill-humoured Honourable, he
+exclaimed to his future son-in-law: "I have just remembered something,
+Heinz, which might somewhat cool your warm expressions of gratitude.
+Yonder lovely child consented to become yours, it is true, but that does
+not mean very much, for it was done without the consent of her father, by
+which the compact first obtains signature and seal.  Herr Ernst Ortlieb,
+however, seems to be in no happy mood.  Only look at him!  He is
+certainly mutely accusing me of vexatious interference with his paternal
+rights, and yet he may be sure that I feel a special regard for him.  His
+son's blood, which flowed for his Emperor's cause, gives him a peculiar
+claim upon our consideration, and we therefore devoted particular
+attention to his complaint.  In this he now demands, my son, that you
+restore to him, Herr Ernst Ortlieb, the two hundred silver marks which
+are awarded to the tailor as blood money and he must pay to the injured
+artisan.  The prudent business man can scarcely be blamed for making this
+claim, for the wound he inflicted upon the ill-advised tradesman who so
+basely, insulted those dearest to him would certainly not have been dealt
+had not your insolent intrusion into the Ortlieb mansion unchained evil
+tongues.  So, Heinz, you caused his hasty act, and therefor, are justly
+bound to answer for the consequence; If he brings the accusation, the
+judges will condemn you to pay the sum.  I therefore ask whether you have
+it ready."
+
+Here Herr Ernst attempted to explain that, in the present state of
+affairs, there could be no further mention of a payment which was only,
+intended to punish the disturber of his domestic peace more severely;
+but the Emperor stopper him and bade Heinz speak.
+
+The latter gazed in embarrassment at the helmet he held in his hand, and
+had not yet found; fitting answer when the Emperor cried: "What am I to
+think?  Was the Duke of Pomerani; wrong when he told me of a heap of
+gold----"
+
+"No, Your Majesty," Heinz here interrupter without raising his eyes.
+"What was left of the money would have more than sufficed to cover the sum
+required----"
+
+"I thought so!" exclaimed the sovereign with out letting him finish; "for
+a young knight who like a great lord, bestows a fine estate upon the
+pious Franciscans, certainly need only command his treasurer to open the
+strong box----"
+
+"You are mocking me, Your Majesty," Heinz quietly interposed.  "You are
+doubtless well aware whence the golden curse came to me.  I thrust it
+aside like noxious poison, and if I am reluctant to use it to buy, as it
+were, what is dearest and most sacred to me, indeed it does not spring
+from parsimony, for I had resolved to offer the two remaining purses to
+the devout Sisters of St. Clare and the zealous Minorite Brothers, one of
+the best of whom laboured earnestly for the salvation of my soul."
+
+"That is right, my son," fell from the Emperor's lips in a tone of warm
+approval.  "If the gold benefits the holy poverty of these pious Brothers
+and Sisters, the devil's gift may easily be transformed into a divine
+blessing.  You both--" he gazed affectionately at Heinz and Eva as he
+spoke--"have, as it were, deserted the cloister, and owe it compensation.
+But your depriving yourself of your golden treasure, my friend--for two
+hundred silver marks are no trifle to a young knight--puts so different
+a face upon this matter that--that----"  Here he lowered his voice and
+continued with affectionate  mirthfulness--"that a  friend must determine
+to do what he can for him.  True, my gallant Heinz, I see that your
+future father-in-law, the other Nuremberg Honourables, and even your
+mother, are ready to pay the sum; but he who is most indebted to you
+holds fast this privilege, and that man am I, my brave champion!  What
+you did for your Emperor and his best work, the peace of the country,
+deserves a rich reward and, thanks to the saints, I have something which
+will discharge my debt.  The Swabian fief of Reichenbach became vacant.
+It has a strong citadel, from which we command you to maintain the peace
+of the country and overthrow robber knights.  This fief shall be yours.
+You can enjoy it with your dear wife.  It must belong to your children
+and children's children forever; for that a Schorlin should be born who
+would be unworthy of such a fief and faithless to his lord and Emperor
+seems to me impossible.  Three villages and broad forests, with fields
+and meadows, pertain to the estate.  As lord of Reichenbach, it will be
+easy for you to pay the blood money, if your father-in-law is not too
+importunate a creditor."
+
+The latter certainly would not be that, and it cost Ernst Ortlieb no
+effort to bend the knee gratefully before the kindly monarch.
+
+The Emperor Rudolph accepted the homage, but he clasped the young lord of
+Reichenbach to his heart like a beloved son, and as he placed Eva's hand
+in his, and she raised her beautiful face to him, he stooped and kissed
+her with fatherly kindness.
+
+When Wolff entreated him to bless his alliance in the place of his
+suffering father, he did so gladly; and Els also willingly offered him
+her lips; when he requested the same favour her sister had granted him,
+that he might boast of the kisses bestowed on him by the two beautiful
+Es, Nuremberg's fairest maidens.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+Heinz heeded Cordula's warning.  In the royal hall every one would have
+been justified in believing him a very cool lover, but during the walk
+with Eva to the lodgings of his cousin Maier of Silenen, where the
+Schurlins, Ortliebs, Wolff, and Herr Pfinzing and his wife were to meet
+to celebrate the betrothal, the moon, whose increasing crescent was again
+in the sky, beheld many things which gave her pleasure.
+
+The priest soon united Heinz and Eva, but the celestial pilgrim willingly
+resigned the power formerly exerted over the maiden to the husband, who
+clasped her to his heart with tender love.
+
+Luna was satisfied with Wolff and Els also.  She afterwards watched the
+fate of both couples in Swabia and Nuremberg, and when the showy
+escutcheon was removed from the Eysvogel mansion, and a more modest one
+put in its place, she was gratified.
+
+She soon saw that a change had also been made in the one above the door
+of the Ortlieb house, for the Ortlieb coat of arms, in accordance with
+the family name, had borne the figure of a cat, the animal which loves
+the place,--[Ort, place.]--the house to which it belongs, but on the
+wedding day of the two beautiful Es the Emperor Rudolph had commanded
+that, in perpetual remembrance of its two loveliest daughters, the
+Ortliebs should henceforward bear on their escutcheon two linden leaves
+under tendrils, the symbol of loyal steadfastness.
+
+When, a few months after Wolff's union with his heart's beloved, the
+coffin of old Countess Rotterbach, adorned with a handsome coronet upon
+the costly pall, was borne out of the house at the quiet evening hour,
+she thought there was no cause to mourn.
+
+On the other hand, she grieved when, for a long time, she did not see old
+Casper Eysvogel, whose tall figure she had formerly watched with pleasure
+when, at a late hour, he returned from some banquet, his bearing erect,
+and his step as firm as if wine could not get the better of him.  But
+suddenly one warm September noon, when her pale, waxing crescent was
+plainly visible in the blue sky by daylight, she beheld him again.  He
+was less erect than before, but he seemed content with his fate; for, as
+a cooler breeze waved the light cobwebs in the little garden, into which
+he had been led, his daughter-in-law Els with loving care wrapped his
+feet in the rug which she had embroidered for him with the Eysvogel coat
+of arms, and he gratefully kissed her brow.
+
+It was fully ten years later that Luna saw him also borne to the grave.
+Frau Rosalinde, his son, and his beautiful wife followed his coffin with
+sincere sorrow.  The three gifted children whom Els had given to her
+Wolff remained standing in front of the house with Frau Rickel, their
+nurse.  The carrier's widow, who had long since regained her health in
+the Beguine House at Schweinau, had been taken into Frau Eysvogel's
+service.  Her little adopted daughter Walpurga, scarcely seventeen years
+old, had just been married to the Ortlieb teamster Ortel.  The moon heard
+the nurse tell what a pleasant, quiet man Herr Casper had been, and how,
+away from his own business affairs and those of the Council, his sole
+effort had seemed to be to interfere with no one.
+
+The moon had forgotten to look at Frau Rosalinde.  Besides, after her
+mother's death she was rarely seen even by the members of her own
+household, but when Els desired to seek her she was sure of finding her
+with the children.  The parents willingly afforded her the pleasure she
+derived from the companionship of the little ones, but they were often
+obliged to oppose her wish to dress her grandchildren magnificently.
+
+Frau Rosalinde rarely saw the twin sons of her daughter Isabella, who
+took the veil after her husband's death to pray for his sorely imperilled
+soul.
+
+The Knight Heideck, the uncle and faithful teacher of the boys, was
+unwilling to let them go to the city.  He ruled them strictly until
+they had proved that Countess Cordula's wish had been fulfilled and,
+resembling their unfortunate father only in figure and beauty, strength
+and courage, they had grown into valiant, honourable knights.
+
+Wolff justified the expectations of Berthold Vorchtel and the Honourable
+Council concerning his excellent ability.  When, eight years after he
+undertook the sole guidance of the business, the Reichstag again met in
+Nuremberg, it was the house of Eysvogel which could make the largest loan
+to the Emperor Rudolph, who often lacked necessary funds.
+
+At the Reichstag of the year 1289, whose memory is shadowed by many a
+sorrowful incident, most of the persons mentioned in our story met once
+more.
+
+Countess Cordula, now the happy wife of Sir Boemund Altrosen, had also
+come and again lodged in the Ortlieb house.  But this time the only
+person whose homage pleased her was the grey-haired, but still vigorous
+and somewhat irascible Herr Ernst Ortlieb.
+
+The Abbess Kunigunde alone was absent.  When, after many an arduous
+conflict, especially with the Dominicans, who did not cease to accuse her
+of lukewarmness, she felt death approaching, she had summoned her darling
+Eva from Swabia, and the young wife's husband, who never left her save
+when he was wielding his sword for the Emperor, willingly accompanied her
+to Nuremberg.
+
+With Eva's hand clasped in hers, and supported by Els, the abbess died
+peacefully, rich in beautiful hopes.  How often she had described such an
+end to her pupil as the fairest reward for the sacrifices in which
+convent life was so rich!  But the memory of her mother's decease had
+brought to Eva, while in Schweinau, the firm conviction that dwellers in
+the world were also permitted to find a similar end.  The Saviour Himself
+had promised the crown of eternal life to those who were faithful unto
+death, and she and her husband maintained inviolable fidelity to the
+Saviour, to each other, and to every duty which religion, law, and love
+commanded them to fulfil.  Therefore, why should they not be permitted to
+die as happily and confidently as her aunt, the abbess?
+
+Her life was rich in happiness, and though Heinz Schorlin as a husband
+and father, as the brave and loyal liegeman of his Emperor, and the
+prudent manager of his estate, regained his former light-heartedness, and
+taught his wife to share it, both never forgot the painful conflict by
+which they had won each other.
+
+When Eva passed the village forge and saw the smith draw the glowing iron
+from the fire and, with heavy hammer strokes, fashion it upon the anvil
+as he desired, she often remembered the grievous days after her mother's
+death, which had made the "little saint"--she did not admit it herself,
+but the whole Swabian nobility agreed in the opinion--the most faithful
+of wives and mothers, the Providence of the poor, the zealous promoter
+of goodness, the most simply attired of noblewomen far and near, yet the
+most aristocratic and distinguished in her appearance of them all.
+
+Hand in hand with her husband she devoted the most faithful care to their
+children, and if Biberli, the castellan of the castle, and Katterle his
+wife, who had remained childless, were too ready to read the wishes of
+their darlings in their eyes, she exclaimed warningly to the loyal old
+friend, "The fire of the forge!"  He and Katterle knew what she meant,
+for the ex-schoolmaster had explained it in the best possible way to his
+docile wife.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+His sole effort had seemed to be to interfere with no one
+No virtue which can be owned like a house or a steed
+Retreat behind the high-sounding words "justice and law"
+Strongest of all educational powers--sorrow and love
+Usually found the worst wine in the taverns with showy signs
+
+
+
+
+
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