The abbot felt that the crime of which the Jew was accused was a heavy and unpardonable one, but he regarded only the sin, and it vexed him to see how the magistrate’s zeal was exclusively turned against the unhappy criminal.  So he rose, saying with cold hauteur: 

“Then do your duty.”

“Rely upon it.  We shall capture him and his family to-morrow.  The town-clerk is full of zeal too.  We shall not be able to harm the child, but it must be taken from the Jew and receive a Christian education.  It would be our right to do this, even if both parents were Hebrews.  You know the Freiburg case.  No less a personage than the great Ulrich Zasius has decided, that Jewish children might be baptized without their father’s knowledge.  I beg you to send Father Anselm to the town-hall on Saturday as a witness.”

“Very well,” replied the prelate, but he spoke with so little eagerness, that it justly surprised the magistrate.  “Well then, catch the Jew; but take him alive.  And one thing more!  I wish to see and speak to the doctor, before you torture him.”

“I will bring him to you day after to-morrow.”  The Nurembergers! the Nurembergers!....” replied the abbot, shrugging his shoulders.

“What do you mean?”

“They don’t hang any one till they catch him.”  The magistrate regarded these words as a challenge to put forth every effort for the Jew’s capture, so he answered eagerly:  “We shall have him, Your Reverence, we shall surely have him.  They are trapped in the snow.  The sergeants are searching the roads; I shall summon your foresters and mine, and put them under Count Frohlinger’s command.  It is his duty to aid us.  What they cannot find with their attendants, squires, beaters and hounds, is not hidden in the forest.  Your blessing, Holy Father, there is no time to lose.”

The abbot was alone.

He gazed thoughtfully at the coals in the fireplace, recalling everything he had just seen and heard, while his vivid power of imagination showed him the learned, unassuming man, who had spent long years in quiet seclusion, industriously devoting himself to the pursuit of knowledge.  A slight feeling of envy stole into his heart; how rarely he himself was permitted to pursue undisturbed, and without interruption, the scientific subjects, in which alone he found pleasure.

He was vexed with himself, that he could feel so little anger against a criminal, whose guilt was deserving of death, and reproached himself for lukewarmness.  Then he remembered that the Jew had sinned for love, and that to him who has loved much, much should be forgiven.  Finally, it seemed a great boon, that he was soon to be permitted to make the acquaintance of the worthy doctor from Coimbra.  Never had the zealous magistrate appeared so repulsive as to-day, and when he remembered how the crafty man had outwitted poor Father Anselm in his presence, he felt as if he had himself committed an unworthy deed.  And yet, yet—­the Jew could not be saved, and had deserved what threatened him.