say that, no more than twelve years sooner, the liberty
of coining for the whole city was granted by the Emperor Sigismund to
Herdegen Valzner for four thousand Rhenish gulden; and that Master Ulman
Stromer purchased his fine dwelling-house behind the chapel of Our Lady,
with the houses pertaining thereto, and his share in the Rigler's house
for two thousand eight hundred gulden. For such a sum as was demanded a
whole street in Nuremberg might have been sold; nay, the great castle of
Malmsbach on the Pegnitz would lately have been bought by the city for
a thousand Rhenish gulden, but that Master Ulrich Rummel, whose it was,
would not part with it. And we were now required to pay the price of
two dozen such strongholds! It was indeed an unheard-of and devilish
extortion; and when Kubbeling came to hear of it he turned his
wild-cat-skin pocket inside out, and fell to raging and storming.

Aunt Jacoba turned pale when she heard the great sum named, and she
likewise was of opinion that old Im Hoff, who had of late been spending
much money in vows and foundations, would never give forth so vast a
sum. The richest families in Nuremberg might be moved to pay fifty,
and at the most a hundred gulden for the ransom of a Christian and a
fellow-countryman, but if even twenty might be found so open-handed,
which was not to be looked for, and if my godfather Christian Pfinzing,
and the Waldstromers, and the Hallers should do their utmost, and we
should give the greater part of all our possessions, we could scarce
make it up to twenty-four thousand sequins if my grand-uncle did not
help.

Thus after a day of hope came a first night of despairing, and many
another must follow, and I was to know once more that misfortunes never
come singly.

I had hoped of a surety to speak with Eppelein once more or ever I
departed at noon, and to ask him of many matters; howbeit, when I went
up to his chamber Master Ulsenius met me with a face of care and told me
that the poor fellow was again wandering in his wits. When I presently
went forth from the house, a bee-keeper's waggon was slowly moving from
the court-yard. The housewife waved her hand, and from beneath the tilt
the face of Dame Henneleinlein looked at me with a scornful grin. Since
her evil demeanor at the Pernbarts' they had closed their house on her,
and when she had dared once to go to the Schopperhof, thence likewise
had she been shut out, and thus she felt no good-will towards us.