Albeit I was truly minded at all times to rejoice with those who were rejoicing, all this bravery, at this time, was sorely against the grain of my troubled heart and its forebodings of ill.  I could not feel at ease, and meseemed that all this magnificence and good cheer mocked my hapless and oppressed spirit.

In truth, I could scarce bring myself to return the old dame’s greeting with due gladness; and her keen eyes at once discerned how matters were with me.  She held me by the hand, and asked me in a hearty voice whence came the clouds that darkened my brow.  When her bright, high-spirited Margery, whom she had never known to be in a gloomy mood, looked like this, for sure some great evil had befallen.

Whereupon what came over me I know not.  Whether it were that the blackness and the terror in my bosom were too great a contrast with the gladness and splendor about me, or what it was that so tightly gripped my heart, I cannot tell to this day; but I know full well that all which had oppressed me since Abenberger denounced me came rushing down on my soul as it were, and that I burst into tears and cried out “Yes, grandmother dear, I have gone through a dreadful, terrible hour!  I have had to withstand the attack of a madman, and hear a horrible curse from his lips.  But it is not that alone, no, verily and indeed!  I can, for that matter, make any man to know his place, were he twice the man that little Abenberger is; and as to curses, I learnt from a child to mind my dear father’s saying:  “Curse me if you will!  What matters it if I may earn God’s blessing!”

“And you have earned it, honestly earned it,” quoth she, drawing me down to kiss my forehead.  Hereupon I ceased weeping and bid my heart take fresh courage, and went on, still much moved:  “It is nought but a woman’s shameless craft that troubles me so sorely.  Ursula’s hate hangs over my brothers like a black storm-cloud; and on my way hither meseemed I saw full plainly that the ransom is not the end of the matter.  Nay, if we had twice so much, yet Herdegen will never come home alive if we fail to cross Ursula’s scheming; has she not cause to fear the worst, if ever he comes home in safety?  But where is the envoy who would dare so much?  Kunz lies wounded in a strange land, Young Kubbeling would doubtless be ready to cross the seas, notwithstanding his fever, but good-will would not serve him, so little is he skilled in such matters.  Our other friends are over old, or forced to stay in Nuremberg.  Thus do matters stand.  What then is left to us—­to Ann and me, Grandmother?  I ask you—­ what, save to act on our first and only wise intent?  And that which it is our part to do, which we may not put off one day longer than we need, is to take ship, under the grace of the Blessed Virgin, and ourselves to carry fresh courage to those who are nearest and dearest to us.  Of a truth I am but an orphaned maid; my lover and my guardian are both dead; and