wine. The other burghers,
however, broke out in a murmur of astonishment at the mention of such a
high acquaintance, and raised their caps out of respect.

"Well, if you are so well acquainted with the movements of the League,
as you pretend to be," said the pedlar, with something of a haughty
mien, "you will be able to give us the last intelligence respecting the
state of Tuebingen."

"It whistles out of its last hole," answered the rawbone man; "I was
there but a short time ago, and saw most formidable preparations for
the siege."

"Eh!--what?" whispered the inquisitive burghers among themselves, and
drew nearer, expecting to hear some important news.

The thin man leaned back on his chair, grasped the handle of his sword
with his long fingers, stretched out his legs a yard further, and said,
with an air of triumph, "Yes, yes, my friends, it looks very bad there;
the surrounding places in the neighbourhood have suffered; all the
fruit trees have been cut down, the town and castle furiously
bombarded, the former having already surrendered. Forty knights,
indeed, still defend the castle; but they cannot hold out their
tottering walls much longer!"

"What tottering walls do you talk of?" cried the fat man; "whoever has
seen the castle of Tuebingen, must not talk of tottering walls. Are
there not two deep ditches on the side towards the mountains, which no
ladder of the League can scale, and walls twelve feet thick, with high
towers, whence the falconets keep up no insignificant fire, I can tell
you?"

"Battered down, battered down!" cried the thin man, with such a fearful
hollow voice, as made the astonished burghers think they heard the
falling of the towers of Tuebingen about their ears: "the new tower,
which Ulerich lately built, was battered down by Fronsberg, as if it
had never stood there."

"But everything is not lost with that," answered the pedlar; "the
knights make sallies from the castle, and many a one has found his bed
in the Neckar. Old Fronsberg had his hat shot from his head, which
makes his ears tingle to this day, I'll be bound."

"There you are wrong again," said the thin man, carelessly; "sallies,
indeed! the besiegers have light cavalry enough, who fight like devils;
they are Greeks; but whether they come from the Ganges or Epirus, I
know not, and are called Stratiots, commanded by George Samares, who
does not allow a dog of them to sally out of their holes."[1]

"He also has been made t