All this was glad tidings indeed, not alone for Herdegen’s sake, but also by reason that there are few greater joys than that of finding good cause to approve one whom we respect, and yet whom we have begun to doubt.

Ann and I went to our chamber greatly comforted, and in such good heart as at that time I could be, and when from thence I heard Uncle Christian’s great voice, as full of jollity as ever, I was certain that matters were all for the best for Herdegen.  Our last fears and doubts were ere long cleared away; while the gentlemen beneath were still over their cups a heavy foot tramped up the stairs, a hard finger knocked at our chamber door, and Uncle Christian’s deep voice cried:  “Are you asleep betimes or still awake, maidens?”

Whereupon Ann, foreboding good, answered in the gladness of her heart that we were long since sleeping sweetly, and my uncle laughed.

“Well and good,” quoth he, “then sleep on, and let me tell you what meseems your very next dream will be:  You will be standing with all of us out in a green mead, and a little bird will sing:  ’Herdegen is freed from his ban.’  At this you will greatly rejoice; but in the midst of your joy a raven shall croak from a dry branch:  ’Can it be!  The law must be upheld, and I will not suffer the rascal to go unpunished.’  Whereupon the little bird will twitter again:  ’Well and good; ’t will serve him right.  Only be not too hard on him.’  And we shall all say the same, and thereupon you will awake.”

And he tramped down the stair again, and albeit we cried after him, and besought him to tell us more of the matter, he heard us not at all.

When we were at home again, lo, the Elector had done much to help us.  I found a letter waiting for me, sealed with the Emperor’s signet, wherein it was said that, by his Majesty’s grace and mercy, my brother Herdegen was purged of his outlawry, but was condemned in a fine of a thousand Hungarian ducats as pain and penalty.

Thus the little bird and the raven had both been right.  Howbeit, when I presently betook me to the castle to speak my thanks to the Empress, I was turned away; and indeed it had already been told to me that at Court this morning that sorrowful Margery, with her many petitions, was looked upon with other eyes than that other mirthful Margery, who had come with flowers and songs whensoever she was bidden.  None but Porro the jester seemed to be of the same mind as ever; when he met me in the castle yard he greeted me right kindly and, when I had told him of the tidings in the Emperor’s letter, he whispered as he bid me good day:  “If I had a fox for a brother, fair child, I would counsel him to lurk in his cover till the hounds were safe at home again.  In Hungary once I met a certain fellow who had been kicked by a highway thief after he had emptied his pockets.  I tell you what.  A man may well pawn his last doublet, if he may thereby gain a larger.  He need never redeem the first, and it is given some folks to coin gold ducats out of humbler folks’ sins.  Ah!  If I had a fox for a brother!”