and deprivation—­she, deprived of her own strong will, in a convent!  Oh, Cousin, Cousin!  To hear this, and not be able to rush upon the rabble who have robbed us of the home of our ancestors, as a boy crushes a snail shell!  Can it be imagined?  No Castle Schorlin towering high above the lake on the cliff at the verge of the forest.  The room where we all saw the light of the world and listened to our mother’s songs destroyed; the sacred chamber where the father who so lovingly protected us closed his eyes; the chapel where we prayed so devoutly and vowed to the Holy Virgin a candle from our little possessions, or, in the lovely month of May, brought flowers to her from our mother’s little garden, the cliff, or the dark forest.  The courtyard where we learned to manage a steed and use our weapons, the hall where we listened to the wandering minstrels, in ruins!  Gone, gone, all gone!  My mother and Maria weeping prisoners!”

Here his cousin broke in to show him that love was leading him to look on the dark side.  His mother had chosen the convent for her daughter’s sake; she was by no means detained there by force.  She could live wherever she pleased, and her dowry, with what she had saved, would be ample to support her and Maria, in the city or the country, in a style suited to their rank.

This afforded Heinz some consolation, but enough remained to keep his grief alive, and his voice sounded very sorrowful as he added:  “That lessens the bitterness of the cup.  But who will re build the ancient castle?  Who will restore our uncle?  And the Emperor, my beloved, fatherly master, dying of grief!  Our Hartmann dead!  Washed away like a dry branch which the swift Reuss seizes and hurries out of our sight!  Too much, too hard, too terrible!  Yet the sun shines as brightly as before!  The children in the street below laugh as merrily as ever!”

Groaning aloud, he covered his face with his hands, and those from whom he might have expected consolation were forced to leave him in the midst of the deepest sorrow; for the Swiss mail, which had come to Maier of Silenen as the most distinguished of his countrymen, was awaiting distribution, and Count Gleichen was forced to fulfill his sorrowful duty as messenger.  His friend Heinz had lent him his second horse, the black, to ride to the fortress.

While Heinz, pursued by grief and care, sometimes paced up and down the room, sometimes threw himself into the armchair which Frau Barbara, to do him special honour, had placed in the sitting-room, the Minorite monk Benedictus, whom he had brought to Nuremberg, had come uninvited from the neighbouring monastery to give him a morning greeting.  The enthusiasm with which St. Francis had filled his soul in his early years had not died out in his aged breast.  He who in his youth had borne the escutcheon of his distinguished race in many a battle and tourney, as a knight worthy of all honour, sympathised with his young equal in