last October rose-bud, which my uncle had plucked for her at
parting. Yet she held to her demands.

She left us after supper, escorted by Master Ulsemus. She had come
hither one sunny morn with the song of the larks, and now she departed
in darkness and gloom.

CHAPTER X.

"By Saint Bacchus--if there be such a saint in the calendar, there is
stuff in the lad, my boy!" cried burly Uncle Christian Pfinzing, and
he thumped the table with his fists so that all the vessels rang. His
tongue was still somewhat heavy, but he had mended much in the three
weeks since Ann had departed, and it was hard enough by this time to get
him away from the wine-jug.

It was in the refectory of the forest lodge that he had thus delivered
himself to my Uncle Conrad and Jost Tetzel, Ursula's father; and it was
of my brother Herdegen that he spoke.

Herdegen was healed of his bruises and his light limbs had never been
more nimble than now; still he bore his left arm in a sling, for there
it was, said he, that the horse's hoof had hit him. Whither the horse
had fled none had ever heard; nor did any man enquire, inasmuch as it
was only Eppelein's nag, and my granduncle had given him a better one.

My silly brain, from the first, had been puzzled to think wherefor my
brother should have taken that nag to ride to see his guardian, who
thought more than other men of a good horse. And in truth I was not far
from guessing rightly, so I will forthwith set down whither indeed my
dear brother's horse had vanished, and by what chance and hap he had
fallen into so evil a plight.

He had aforetime met the young wench on his way from Padua to Nuremberg,
not far from Dachau and had then and there begun his tricks with her,
giving her to wit that she might find him again at the forest lodge
in the Lorenzer wall. Now when matters took so ill a turn, he pledged
himself to get her safe away from the dungeon cell. To this end he
feigned that he would ride into the town, after possessing himself of
the key of the black hole and after stowing a suit of his man's apparel
and a loaf of bread into his saddle-poke. Then he wandered about the
wood for some time, and as soon as it fell dark he stole back to the
house again on foot. He had made a bold and well-devised plan, and yet
he might have come to a foul end; for, albeit the hounds, who knew him
well, let him pass into the cell, within he was so fiercely set upon
that it needed all his strength and swif