rich had robbed them, and to release the oppressed from the power of the mighty.  All this had not suffered him to rest on his tailor’s bench till he had laid down the needle and seized the cook’s great roasting spit.  Ere long he had discovered that, like master like man, each man cared for himself alone.  He himself had been forced to do many cruel and knavish deeds, sorely against his will and all that was good in him.  From his pious and gentle mother he had come by a soft and harmless soul, so that in the winter season he would strew sugar for the flies when they were starving, and it had even gone against him to stick his needle into a flesh-colored garment for sheer fear of hurting it.  When the others had left the messenger-lad stripped on the road, he had gone back alone and had bound up the wound in his head with his own kerchief, and more by token that he spoke the truth the kerchief bore his Christian name in the corner of it, “Pignot,” which his good mother, God rest her, had sewn there.  He was but a poor orphan, and if. . . .  Here his voice failed him for sobs.  But ere long he recovered his good cheer; for Ann had indeed marked the letter P on the cloth about Eppelein’s head, and the poor wight was of a truth none other than he had declared.  Hereupon we made bold to speak for him, and it was to his own act of mercy and the letters set in his kerchief by that pious mother that he owed it.  He afterwards came to be an honest and worthy master-tailor at Velden, and instead of taking up the cudgels for his oppressed fellow men, he suffered stern treatment in much humility at the hands of the great woman whom he chose to wife, notwithstanding he was so small a man.

CHAPTER XI.

Herdegen’s letter was burnt with fire, and the letter from Akusch was to me, and contained little besides thanks and assurances of faithfulness due to me his “beloved mistress,” with greetings to Cousin Maud, who had ever with just reproofs kept him in the right way, and to every member of the household.  The Pastscyiptum only contained tidings of great import; and it was as follows: 

“Moreover I declare and swear to you, my gracious lady, that my kindred take as good care of my Lord Kunz as though he were at home in Nuremberg.  His wounds are bad, yet by faithful care, and by the grace and help of God the all-merciful, they shall be healed.  He lacks for nothing.  In the matter of my lord Herdegen’s ransom there are many obstacles.

“Had God the all-merciful but granted to my dear father to hold his high estate a few weeks longer, it would have been a small matter to him to release a slave; but now he is cast into a dungeon by the evil malice of his enemies.  Oh! that the all-wise God should suffer such malignant men to live as his foes and as that shameless woman whom you have long known by the name of Ursula Tetzel!  But you will have learnt by my lord Herdegen’s letter all I could tell, and you will understand that your humble servant will daily beseech the Most High God to prosper you, and cause you to send hither some wise and potent captain to the end that we may be delivered; inasmuch as the craft and fury of our foes are no less than their power.  They are lions and likewise poisonous serpents.”