nt in the pigsty, I took the horses, which had
become dirty in spite of my efforts, and started to ride them down to
the horse-pond. When I reached the castle-gate and was just about to
turn, I heard the castellan and the steward, with servants, dogs and
cudgels, rushing out of the servants' hall after me and calling, 'Stop
thief! Stop gallows-bird!' as if they were possessed. The gate-keeper
stepped in front of me, and when I asked him and the raving crowd that
was running at me, 'What in the world is the matter?'--'What's the
matter!' answered the castellan, seizing my two black horses by the
bridle. 'Where are you going with the horses?' he asked, and seized me
by the chest. 'Where am I going?' I repeated. 'Thunder and lightning!
I am riding down to the horse-pond. Do you think that I--?'--'To the
horse-pond!' cried the castellan. 'I'll teach you, you swindler, to
swim along the highroad back to Kohlhaasenbrueck!' And with a spiteful,
vicious jerk he and the steward, who had caught me by the leg, hurled
me down from the horse so that I measured my full length in the mud.
'Murder! Help!' I cried; 'breast straps and blankets and a bundle of
linen belonging to me are in the stable.' But while the steward led
the horses away, the castellan and servants fell upon me with their
feet and whips and cudgels, so that I sank down behind the castle-gate
half dead. And when I cried, 'The thieves! Where are they taking my
horses?' and got to my feet--'Out of the courtyard with you!' screamed
the castellan, 'Sick him, Caesar! Sick him, Hunter!' and, 'Sick him,
Spitz!' he called, and a pack of more than twelve dogs rushed at me.
Then I tore something from the fence, possibly a picket, and stretched
out three dogs dead beside me! But when I had to give way because I
was suffering from fearful wounds and bites, I heard a shrill whistle;
the dogs scurried into the yard, the gates were swung shut and the
bolt shot into position, and I sank down on the highroad unconscious."

Kohlhaas, white in the face, said with forced jocularity, "Didn't you
really want to escape, Herse?" And as the latter, with a deep blush,
looked down at the ground--"Confess to me!" said he; "You didn't like
it in the pigsty; you thought to yourself, you would rather be in the
stable at Kohlhaasenbrueck, after all!"

"Od's thunder!" cried Herse; "breast strap and blankets I tell you,
and a bundle of linen I left behind in the pigsty. Wouldn't I have
taken along th