red, holding two horses by their bridles. My lord who spoke with him
was my dear Hans. We went into the hall together, and as our eyes met,
I wist that there was evil in the air. The letter he held bid him ride
forthwith to Altenperg. Junker Henning and my brother were minded to
have a passage of arms, and with sharp weapons. This, however, they
might not do within the limits of the city save at great risk, inasmuch
as that the town was within the King's peace, and by a severe enactment
knight or squire, lord or servant, in short each and every man was
threatened by the Emperor with outlawry, who should make bold to provoke
another to challenge him, or to lift a weapon against another with evil
intent, be he who he might, throughout the demesne of Nuremberg or so
long as the diet was sitting. Hence they would go forth to Altenperg,
inasmuch as it was the nearest to arrive at of any township without the
limits of the city.

All this my lover had heard betimes that morning; but Herdegen had told
him that Master Schlebitzer and a certain Austrian Knight would attend
him. Now the letter was to say that they had both played him false;
the former in obedience to the stern behest of his father, the
town-councillor; the second by reason that his Duke commanded his
attendance. And Herdegen hereby urgently besought my Hans that he would
take the place thus left unfilled and ride forthwith to Altenperg.

Nor was this all the letter. In it my brother set forth that he had
pledged his word solemnly and beyond recall to Ann and her parents, and
entreated my lover to declare to the Tetzels and to his grand-uncle that
henceforth and forever he renounced Ursula. He would speak of the matter
at greater length at the place of meeting.

Cousin Maud and Hans and I held a brief council, and we were of one
mind: that this message should not be given to the Tetzels till after
the great dinner and when we should know the issue of the combat. My
heart urged me indeed to desire my lover to forego this ride, and I mind
me yet how I implored him with uplifted hands and how he forced himself
to put them from him with steadfast gentleness. And when he told me that
he for certain, if any one, could pacify the combatants or ever blood
should be shed, I gazed into his brave and manful and kind face, and
methought whither he went all must be for the best, and I cried with
fresh assurance: "Then go!" Every word do I remember as though it were
graven in