When we got into the town, and I bid the rider take us to the Schopperhof, my aunt said:  “No, to Ulman Pernhart’s house, the coppersmith.”

At this the faithful old serving-man, who had heard many rumors of his banished young master’s dealings with the craftsman’s fair daughter, and who was devoted to Gotz, muttered the name of his protecting saint and looked about him as though some giant cutthroat were ready to rush out of the brush wood and fall upon the sleigh; nor, indeed, could I altogether refrain my wonder.  Howbeit, I recovered myself at once, and pointed out to her that it scarce beseemed her to enter a stranger’s house for the first time in such attire.  Moreover, Akusch had been sent in front to announce her coming to cousin Maud.  I could send for Ann; as, indeed, it beseemed her, the younger, to wait upon my aunt.

But she held to her will to go to Master Ulman’s dwelling; yet, whereas the kerchiefs and wraps were a discomfort to her, she agreed to lay them aside at our house first.

Cousin Maud pressed her almost by force to take rest and meat and drink; but she refused everything; though all was in readiness and steaming hot; till, as fate would have it, as she was being carried down and out again, the Magister came in from his journey to Nordlingen.  In his high fur boots and the heavy wrapping he had cast about his head to screen him from the wintry blast, he had not to be sure, the appearance of a suitor for a fair young maiden; and the glance cast at him by my aunt, half in mockery and half in wrath, eyeing him from head to foot, would have said plainly enough to other men than Master Peter—­who, for his part made her a right humble and well-turned speech—­“Wait awhile, young fellow!  I am here now!  And if you find a flea in your ear, you have me to thank for it!”

Apparelled now as befitted a lady of her degree, in a furred cloak and hood, she was borne off in Cousin Maud’s well-curtained litter.  I had sent Akusch to Ann with a note, but he had not found her within, and awaited me in the street; thus it fell that no one at the Pernharts was aware of what was coming upon them.

When presently the bearers set down the litter, Aunt Jacoba looked at the fine house before which we stood, and enquired what this might mean, whereas it was seven years since she had been in the city, and the master’s new dwelling was not at that time built.  Also she was greatly amazed to find a craftsman in so great a house.  But better things were to come:  as I was about to knock at the door it opened, and five gentlemen of the Council, all men of the first rank among the Elders of the city, appeared on the threshold, and Master Pernhart in their midst.  They shook hands with him as with one of themselves, and he towered above them all; nay, if he had not stood there as he had come from the forge, in his leathern apron, with his smith’s cap in his hand, any one might have conceived him to be the chief of them all.