At this moment there came an interruption.  I heard a loud argument outside in the court-yard.

“Tell me what you want with the servant of the most learned Doctor!” cried a voice.

“That is his business, and mine—­not yours, rusty son of a stable-sweeper!” was the answer.

I went out immediately, and there, facing each other in a position of mutual defiance, I saw Peter of the Pigs and the decent legal domestic of Master Gerard von Sturm.

“Get out of my wind, old Muck-to-the-Eyes!” said the servitor, offensively; “you poison the good, wholesome air that is needed for men’s breath.”

“Go back to your murderer of the saints,” responded Peter of the Pigs, valiantly.  “Your master and you will swing in effigy to-night in every street in Thorn.  Some day before long you will both swing in the body—­if a hair of this angel’s head be harmed.”

“I must see this learned Doctor’s servant!” persisted the man of law, avoiding the personal question.

“Here he is,” said I; “and now what would you with him?”

“I am sent to invite you to come to the Weiss Thor immediately, on business which deeply concerns you.”

“That is not enough for me,” said I.  “Who sends for me?”

“Let me come in out of the hearing of this moon-faced idiot,” said he, pointing contumeliously to Peter of the Pigs, “and I will tell you.  I am not bidden to proclaim my business in the market sties and city cattlepens!”

“You do well, Parchment Knave,” cried Peter; “for it is such black business that if you proclaimed a syllable of it there you would be torn to pieces of honest folk.  Thank God there are still some such in the world!”

“Aye, many,” quoth the servitor, “and we all know they are to be found in the dwellings of priestlings!”

I walked with the man to the gate, for I did not care to take him to where Dessauer was sitting.  I feared that it might be some ill news from the Lubber Fiend, who, though I had seen him clear of the gate, might very well have returned and told my message to Master Gerard.

“Well,” said I, brusquely, for I had no love for the Sir Rusty Respectable, “out with it—­who sends you?”

“It is not my master,” answered the man, “but one other.”

“What other?” said I.

“The one,” he said, cunningly, “with whom on a former occasion you rode out at the White Gate.”

Then I saw that he knew me.

“The Princess—­” I began.

“Hush,” he said, touching my arm; “that is not a word to be whispered in the streets of Thorn—­the Lady Ysolinde is at her father’s house, and would see you—­on a matter of life or death—­so she bade me tell you.”

“I will go with you,” I said, instantly.

“Nay,” he said, smirking secretly, “not now, but at nine of the clock, when the city ways shall be dark, you must come—­you know the road.  And then you two can confer together safely, and eke, an it please you, jocosely, when Master Gerard will be safe in his study, with the lamp lit.”