Nor was this all the letter.  In it my brother set forth that he had pledged his word solemnly and beyond recall to Ann and her parents, and entreated my lover to declare to the Tetzels and to his grand-uncle that henceforth and forever he renounced Ursula.  He would speak of the matter at greater length at the place of meeting.

Cousin Maud and Hans and I held a brief council, and we were of one mind:  that this message should not be given to the Tetzels till after the great dinner and when we should know the issue of the combat.  My heart urged me indeed to desire my lover to forego this ride, and I mind me yet how I implored him with uplifted hands and how he forced himself to put them from him with steadfast gentleness.  And when he told me that he for certain, if any one, could pacify the combatants or ever blood should be shed, I gazed into his brave and manful and kind face, and methought whither he went all must be for the best, and I cried with fresh assurance:  “Then go!” Every word do I remember as though it were graven in brass.

Eppelein cracked his whip against his leathern boot-tops; old Tetzel’s leaden voice cried out to enquire where we were lingering, and a silken train came rustling down the stairs.  My lover kissed his hand to me, and I went forth with him into the court-yard.  His fiery horse gave him so much to do that he never marked my farewell.  On a sudden it flashed through my brain that this was that very horse which my grand-uncle had given to Herdegen, and herein again, meseemed, was an omen of ill.  Likewise I noted that Hans was in silken hose with neither spurs nor riding-boots.  Howbeit the Hallers had many horses; and as a lad he had been wont to ride with or without a saddle, and was a rider whom none could unhorse, even in the jousting-ring.

He had soon quelled his steed and was trotting lightly over the stones, followed by Eppelein; but as he vanished round the first corner meseemed that the bourn stone, as he rode past it, was turned into the yellow gravestone I had seen in my dream, and that again I saw the great black letters of the name “Hans Haller.”

I passed my hands across my eyes to chase away the hideous vision, and I was young enough and brave enough to return Ursula’s greeting without any quaking of my knees.  Cousin Maud, meanwhile, had walked up the stairs, snorting and fuming like a boiling kettle; nor could she be at peace, even among the company who were awaiting the bidding to table.  Many an one marked that something more than common was amiss with her.  I refrained myself well enough, and I excused my brother’s and my lover’s absence with a plea of weighty affairs.  My grand-uncle, however, guessed the truth, and when I gave true answer to his short, murmured questions he wrathfully cried:  then these were the thanks he got?  Henceforth he would plainly show how he, who had been a benefactor, could deal with the youth who had dared to mock his