In the Fire of the Forge | Page 7

recovered. The assault resulted
unfortunately for young Hirschhorn, who led it; he met with a shameful
death on the gallows.
The information enraged Biberli. Instead of feeling any sympathy for
the severely injured lady, he insisted that the Nuremberg burghers had
dealt with Hirschhorn in a rascally fashion; for he was a knight, and
therefore, as honest judges familiar with the law, they ought to have put
him to death by the sword instead of with the rope. And Katterle agreed
with him; she never contradicted his opinions, and surely Biberli must
know what treatment befitted a knight, since he was the foster-brother
of one.
Nor did the maid, who was in the personal service of the daughters of
the house, make any complaint against them. Indeed, she could not
praise Els, the elder, sufficiently. She was very just, the careful nurse of
her invalid mother, and always unvarying in her cheerful kindness.
She had no fault to find with Eva either, especially as she was more
religious than any one in the whole house. Spite of her marvellous
beauty--Katterle knew that there was nothing false about it--she would
probably end by joining the nuns in the convent. But her mood changed
with every breath, like the weathercock on the steeple. If she got out of
bed the wrong way, or one did not guess her wishes before they were
uttered, she would fly into a rage at the least trifle. Then she sometimes
used very unkind words; but no one could cherish anger against her
long, for she had an indescribably lovely manner of trying to atone for
the offences which her hasty young blood made her commit. She had
gone to the ball that night as if it were a funeral; she shunned men like
poison, and even kept out of the way of her sister's friends.
Biberli laughed, as if there could be no doubt of his opinion, and
exclaimed: "Just wait a while! My master will meet her at the Town
Hall tonight, and if the scrawny little squirrel I saw three years ago has
really grown up into such a beauty, if he does not get on her track and
capture her, my name isn't Biberli."

"But surely," replied Katterle doubtfully, "you told me that you had not
yet succeeded in persuading him to imitate you in steadfastness and
truth."
"But he is a knight," replied the servant, striking himself pompously
under the T on his shoulder, as if he, too, belonged to this favoured
class, "and so he is as free to pursue a woman as to hunt the game in the
forest. And my Heinz Schorlin! You saw him, and admitted that he was
worth looking at. And that was when he had scarcely recovered from
his dangerous wounds, while now----The French Knight de Preully, in
Paris, with whom my dead foster-brother, until he fell sick-----" Here
he hesitated; an enquiring look from his sweetheart showed
that--perhaps for excellent reasons--he had omitted to tell her about his
sojourn in Paris.
Now that he had grown older and abandoned the wild revelry of that
period in favour of truth and steadfastness, he quietly related everything
she desired to know.
He had acquired various branches of learning while sharing the studies
of his foster-brother, the eldest son of the old Knight Schorlin, who was
then living, and therefore, when scarcely twenty, was appointed
schoolmaster at Stansstadt. Perhaps he might have continued to
teach--for he promised to be successful--had not a vexatious discovery
disgusted him with his calling.
He was informed that the mercenaries in the Schnitzthurm guard were
paid five shillings a week more than he, spite of the knowledge he had
gained by so much toil.
In his indignation he went back to Schorlin Castle, which was always
open to him, and he arrived just at the right time.
His present master's older brother, whose health had always been
delicate, being unable to follow the profession of arms, was on the eve
of departing to attend the university at Paris, accompanied by the
chaplain and an equerry. When the Lady Wendula, his master's mother,
learned what an excellent reputation Biberli had gained as a

schoolmaster, she persuaded her husband to send him as esquire with
their sickly son.
In Paris there was at first no lack of pleasures of every description,
especially as they met among the king's mercenaries many a dissolute
Swiss knight and man at arms. His foster-brother, to his sorrow, was
unable to resist the temptations which Satan scatters in Paris as the
peasants elsewhere sow rye and oats, and the young knight was soon
attacked, by a severe illness. Then Biberli's gay life ended too. For
months he did not leave his foster-brother's sick bed a single hour, by
day or night,