“As I have just observed,” he resumed, “it is my duty now to pronounce finally on these men and their conduct.  Firstly they are strangers, and as such are not only ignorant of our laws, but entitled to our hospitality; next, they have been punished sufficiently for the original offence, by being abridged of the day’s sports; and as to the crime committed against ourselves, in the person of our agents, it is freely forgiven, for forgiveness is a generous quality, and becomes a paternal form of rule.  Depart therefore, of God’s name! all of ye to a man, and remember henceforth to be discreet.  Signore, and you, Herr Baron, shall we to the banquet?”

The two old friends had already moved onward, in close and earnest discourse, and the bailiff was obliged to seek out another companion.  None offered, at the moment, but Sigismund, who had stood, since quitting the stage, in an attitude of complete indecision and helplessness, notwithstanding his great physical energy and his usual moral readiness to act.  Taking the arm of the young soldier, with the disregard of ceremony that denotes a sense of condescension, the bailiff drew him away from the spot, heedless himself of the other’s reluctance, and without observing that, in consequence of the general desertion, for few were disposed to indulge their compassion unless it were in company with the honored and noble, Adelheid was left absolutely alone with the family of Balthazar.

“This office of a headsman, Herr Sigismund,” commenced the unobservant Peterchen, too full of his own opinions, and much too sensible of his right to be delivered of them in the presence of his junior and inferior, to note the youth’s trouble, “is at the best but a disgusting affair; though we, of station and authority, are obliged prudently to appear to deem it otherwise before the people, in our own interest.  Thou hast had occasion to remark often, in the discipline of thy military followers, that a false coloring must be put upon things, lest they who are very necessary to the state should not think the state quite so necessary to them.  What is thy opinion, Captain Sigismund, as a man who has yet his hopes and his views on the softer sex, of this act of Jacques Colis?—­Is it conduct to be approved of, or to be condemned?”

“I deem him a heartless, mercenary, miscreant!”

The suppressed energy with which these unexpected words were uttered caused the bailiff to stop and to look up in his companion’s face, as if to ask its reason.  But there all was already calm, for the young man had too long been accustomed to drill its expression, when the sensitive sore of his origin was probed, as so frequently happened, to permit the momentary weakness long to maintain its ascendency.

“Ay, this is the opinion of thy years;” resumed Peterchen.  “Thou art at a time of life when we esteem a pretty face and a mellow eye of more account even than gold.  But we put on our interested spectacles after thirty, and seldom see any thing very admirable, that is not at the same time very lucrative.  Here is Melchior de Willading’s daughter, now, a woman to set a city in a blaze, for she hath wit, and lands, and beauty, besides good blood;—­what, for instance, is thy opinion of her merit?”