th old
Jordan had taken his meals in that same place, and whenever they came
to the Lodge the serving people knew right well what was due to them and
their fellows. And whereas they did not sit at the upper table, it
was only by reason that old Jordan, sixty years ago, had deemed it a
burthensome honor, and more than his due; and Young Kubbeling would in
all things do as his father had done before him. My seat was where I
might see them, and an empty chair stood between me and my aunt; this
was left for Master Ulsenius, the leech. This good man loved not to ride
after dark, by reason of highway robbers and plunderers, and some of us
were somewhat ill at ease at his coming so late. Notwithstanding this,
the talk was not other than cheerful; new guests had come to us from
the town at noon, and they had much to tell. Tidings had come that
the Sultan of Egypt had fallen upon the Island of Cyprus, and that the
Mussulmans had beaten King Janus, who ruled over it, and had carried him
beyond seas in triumph to Old Cairo, a prisoner and loaded with chains.
Hereupon we were instructed by that learned man, Master Eberhard
Windecke, who was well-read in the history of all the world--he had come
to Nuremberg as a commissioner of finance from his Majesty, and Uncle
Tucher had brought him forth to the Forest--he, I say, instructed us
that the forefather of this King Janus of Cyprus had seized upon the
crown of Jerusalem at the time of the crusades, during the lifetime of
the mighty Sultan Saladin, by poison and perjury, and had then bartered
it with the English monarch Richard Coeur de lion, in exchange for
the Kingdom of Cyprus. That ancestor of King Janus was by name Guy de
Lusignan, and the sins of the fathers, so Master Windecke set forth with
flowers of eloquence, were ever visited on the children, unto the third
and fourth generation.

I, like most of the assembled company, had hearkened with due respect to
this discourse; yet had I not failed to note with what restless eyes
my aunt watched the two men when, after hardly staying their hunger
and thirst, they forthwith quitted the hall to tend the sick man; she
truly--as I would likewise--would rather have heard some present tidings
than this record of sins of the Lusignans dead and gone. Presently the
two men came back to their seats, and when Master Windecke, who, in
speaking, had forgotten to eat, fell to with double good will, Uncle
Conrad gravely bid Kubbeling to out with wh