festively bedecked and adorned with shields, especially the Limburg house, on whose banner was painted a maiden with a sparrow-hawk in her hand, and a monkey holding out to her a mirror.  Many knights and ladies standing on the balcony were engaged in animated conversation, or looking at the crowd below, which, in wild groups and processions, surged back and forth.  What a multitude of idlers of all ages and ranks were crowded together here to gratify their curiosity!  There was laughing, grumbling, stealing, rib-poking, hurrahing, while every now and then blared the trumpet of the mountebank, who, in a red cloak and with his clown and monkey, stood on a high stand loudly boasting of his own skill, and sounding the praises of his marvelous tinctures and salves, ere he solemnly examined the glass of urine brought by some old woman, or applied himself to pull a poor peasant’s tooth.  Two fencing-masters, dancing about in gay ribbons and brandishing their rapiers, met as if by accident and began to cut and pass with great apparent anger; but after a long bout each declared that the other was invincible, and took up a collection.  Then the newly-organized guild of archers marched by with drummers and pipers, and these were followed by the constable, who was carrying a red flag at the head of a flock of traveling strumpets, hailing from the brothel known as “The Ass,” in Wuerzburg, and bound for Rosendale, where the highly honorable authorities had assigned them quarters during the fair.  “Shut your eyes, Sara,” said the Rabbi.  For indeed these fantastic, and altogether too scantily clad women, among whom were a few really beautiful girls, behaved in a most immodest manner, baring their bold, white breasts, chaffing those who went by with shameless words, and swinging their long walking sticks; and using the latter as hobby-horses, they rode down toward the gate of St. Katherine, singing in shrill tones the witch-song—­

  “Where is the goat? the hellish beast;
   Where is the goat?  Oh bring him quick! 
   And if there is no goat, at least
   We’ll ride upon the stick.”

This wild sing-song, which rang afar, was finally drowned out by the long-drawn, sacred tones of a church procession.  It was a solemn train of bare-headed and bare-footed monks, who carried burning wax tapers, banners with pictures of the saints, and large silver crucifixes.  Before it ran boys clad in red and white gowns, bearing censers of smoking frankincense.  In the middle of the procession, under a beautiful canopy, marched priests in white robes adorned with costly lace, or in bright-colored, silk stoles; one of them held in his hand a sun-like, golden vessel, which, on arriving at a shrine by the market-corner, he raised on high, while he half-sang, half-spoke in Latin—­when all at once a little bell rang, and all the people around, becoming silent, fell to their knees and made the sign of the cross.  “Shut your eyes, Sara!” cried the Rabbi again, and he hastily drew her away through a labyrinth of narrow, crooked streets, and at last over the desolate, empty place which separated the new Jewish quarter from the rest of the city.