The wise abbot wished to avoid anything, that would cause excitement, during this time of rebellion against the power of the Church, but the magistrate claimed the right to commence proceedings against the doctor.  Of course, he said, sufficient proof must be brought against the accused.  Father Hieronymus might note down the blasphemous tenets he heard from the boy’s lips before witnesses, and at the Advent season the smith and his son would be examined.

The abbot, who liked to linger over his books, was glad to know that the matter was in the hands of the civil authorities, and enjoined Hieronymus to pay strict attention.

On the third Sunday in Advent, the magistrate again came to the monastery.  His horses had worked their way with the sleigh through the deep snow in the ravine with much difficulty, and, half-frozen, he went directly to the refectory and there asked for his son.

The latter was lying with a bandaged eye in the cold dormitory, and when his father sought him, he heard that Ulrich had wounded him.

It would not have needed Xaver’s bitter complaints, to rouse his father to furious rage against the boy who had committed this violence, and he was by no means satisfied, when he learned that the culprit had been excluded for three weeks from the others’ sports, and placed on a very frugal diet.  He went furiously to the abbot.

The day before (Saturday), Ulrich had gone at noon, without the young count, who was in confinement for some offence, to the snow-covered play-ground, where he was attacked by Xaver and a dozen of his comrades, pushed into a snow-bank, and almost suffocated.  The conspirators had stuffed icicles and snow under his clothes next his skin, taken off his shoes and filled them with snow, and meantime Xaver jumped upon his back, pressing his face into the snow till Ulrich lost his breath, and believed his last hour had come.

Exerting the last remnant of his strength, he had succeeded in throwing off and seizing his tormentor.  While the others fled, he wreaked his rage on the magistrate’s son to his heart’s content, first with his fists, and then with the heavy shoe that lay beside him.  Meantime, snowballs had rained upon his body and head from all directions, increasing his fury; and as soon as Xaver no longer struggled he started up, exclaiming with glowing cheeks and upraised fists: 

“Wait, wait, you wicked fellows!  The doctor in Richtberg knows a word, by which he shall turn you all into toads and rats, you miserable rascals!”

Xaver had remembered this speech, which he repeated to his father, cleverly enlarged with many a false word.  The abbot listened to the magistrate’s complaint very quietly.

The angry father was no sufficient witness for him, yet the matter seemed important enough to send for and question Ulrich, though the meal-time had already begun.  The Jew had really spoken to his daughter about the magic word, and the pupil of the monastery had threatened his companions with it.  So the investigation might begin.