Xaver had never been friendly to the count’s son, and succeeded in irritating many against their former favorite, because he fancied himself better than they, and still more against Ulrich, who was half a servant, yet presumed to play the master and offer them violence.

The monks employed in the school soon noticed the ill terms, on which the new pupil stood with his companions, and did not lack reasons for shaking their heads over him.

Benedictus had not been able to conceal, who had been Ulrich’s teacher in Richtberg; and the seeds the Jew had planted in the boy, seemed to be bearing strange and vexatious fruit.

Father Hieronymus, who instructed the pupils in religion, fairly raged, when he spoke of the destructive doctrines, that haunted the new scholar’s head.

When, soon after Ulrich’s reception into the school, he had spoken of Christ’s work of redemption, and asked the boy:  “From what is the world to be delivered by the Saviour’s suffering?” the answer was:  “From the arrogance of the rich and great.”  Hieronymus had spoken of the holy sacraments, and put the question:  “By what means can the Christian surely obtain mercy, unless he bolts the door against it—­that is, commits a mortal sin?” and Ulrich’s answer was:  “By doing unto others, what you would have others do unto you.”

Such strange words might be heard by dozens from the boy’s lips.  Some were repeated from Hangemarx’s sayings, others from the doctor’s; and when asked where he obtained them, he quoted only the latter, for the monks were not to be allowed to know anything about his intercourse with the poacher.

Sharp reproofs and severe penances were now bestowed, for many a word that he had thought beautiful and pleasing in the sight of God; and the poor, tortured young soul often knew no help in its need.

He could not turn to the dear God and the Saviour, whom he was said to have blasphemed, for he feared them; but when he could no longer bear his grief, discouragement, and yearning, he prayed to the Madonna for help.

The image of the unhappy woman, about whom he had heard nothing but ill words, who had deserted him, and whose faithlessness gave the other boys a right to jeer at him, floated before his eyes, with that of the pure, holy Virgin in the church, brought by Father Lukas from Italy.

In spite of all the complaints about him, which were carried to the abbot, the latter thought him a misguided, but good and promising boy, an opinion strengthened by the music-teacher and the artist Lukas, whose best pupil Ulrich was; but they also were enraged against the Jew, who had lured this nobly-gifted child along the road of destruction; and often urged the abbot, who was anything but a zealot, to subject him to an examination by torture.

In November, the chief magistrate was summoned, and informed of the heresies with which the Hebrew had imperiled the soul of a Christian child.