Without considering how long a time had passed since he first tried to bring the culprit into the clutches of the law, he had resumed the pursuit where it was interrupted.  As a thoughtless child whose bird has flown from the cage looks into the water jug to find it, he had turned the light of his lantern upon places where a kitten could not have hidden itself, and had even been to the meadow on the bank of the Main to seek Kuni with the widow of the thief Nickel; but here the sacrament was just being given to the sufferer, and to interrupt such a ceremony would have been a great crime.  His eyes were keen, and the red pinks had gleamed from the straw on which the dying woman lay in the light of the lantern, whose long pole the sexton had thrust into the soft earth of the meadow.  Those flowers must have come from the garden of the landlady of The Pike, and she valued her pinks more than anything else.  The ropedancer had gathered them for the sick woman, and certainly had not stopped at that one act of theft.  How far these vagabonds’ impudence went!  But he, whose duty it was to look after the property of The Blue Pike, would spoil their pleasure in thieving.

The dog Phylax had soon put him on the trail, and before any of the gentlemen could reach the groaning person Dietel’s triumphant shout rang from behind the oleander: 

“Now we’ve caught the pilferer, and we’ll make an example of her!”

His first glance had fallen on the little bunch of pinks in the girl’s hand, and the vein on his forehead swelled with wrath at this damage to his mistress’s favourite flowers.

But when he shook the culprit by the shoulder and, to his surprise, met with no resistance, he threw the light of the lantern upon her face, and what he saw there suddenly troubled him, for the girl’s lips, chin, and dress were covered with bright blood, and her head drooped on one side as if it had lost its support.

This frightened him, and instead of continuing to boast of his success, he called for help.

The Nuremberg gentlemen soon surrounded Kuni, and Doctor Hartmann Schedel told the waiter to carry her, with the aid of his assistants, summoned by his shout, into the house and provide her with a comfortable bed.

Dietel obeyed the command without delay—­nay, when he heard the famous leech whisper to the other gentlemen that the sufferer’s life was but a failing lamp, his feelings were completely transformed.  All the charity in his nature began to stir and grew more zealous as he gazed at Kuni’s face, distorted by pain.  The idea of giving up to her his own neat little room behind the kitchen seemed like a revelation from St. Eoban, his patron.  She should rest in his bed.  The wanderer who, a few years ago, had scattered her gold so readily and joyously for the pleasure of others certainly would not poison it.  Her misery seemed to him a touching proof of the transitory nature of all earthly things.  Poor sufferer!  Yet she ought to find recovery on his couch, if anywhere; for he had surrounded it with images of the saints, pious maxims, and little relics, bought chiefly from the venders who frequented the tavern.  Among them was a leather strap from St. Elizabeth’s shoe, whose healing power he had himself tested during an attack of bilious fever.