y the effect of the little healing spring, which had
been inclosed and roofed over.

It so happened that the City Governor was just giving some directions,
as he stood beside the depression in which Kohlhaas had placed Herse,
when a messenger, whom the horse-dealer's wife had sent on after him,
put in his hands the disheartening letter from his lawyer in Dresden.
The City Governor, who, while speaking with the doctor, noticed that
Kohlhaas let a tear fall on the letter he had just read, approached
him and, in a friendly, cordial way, asked him what misfortune had
befallen him. The horse-dealer handed him the letter without
answering. The worthy Governor, knowing the abominable injustice done
him at Tronka Castle as a result of which Herse was lying there before
him sick, perhaps never to recover, clapped Kohlhaas on the shoulder
and told him not to lose courage, for he would help him secure
justice. In the evening, when the horse-dealer, acting upon his
orders, came to the palace to see him, Kohlhaas was told that what he
should do was to draw up a petition to the Elector of Brandenburg,
with a short account of the incident, to inclose the lawyer's letter,
and, on account of the violence which had been committed against him
on Saxon territory, solicit the protection of the sovereign. He
promised him to see that the petition would be delivered into the
hands of the Elector together with another packet that was all ready
to be dispatched; if circumstances permitted, the latter would,
without fail, approach the Elector of Saxony on his behalf. Such a
step would be quite sufficient to secure Kohlhaas justice at the hand
of the tribunal at Dresden, in spite of the arts of the Squire and his
partisans. Kohlhaas, much delighted, thanked the Governor very
heartily for this new proof of his good will, and said he was only
sorry that he had not instituted proceedings at once in Berlin without
taking any steps in the matter at Dresden. After he had made out the
complaint in due form at the office of the municipal court and
delivered it to the Governor, he returned to Kohlhaasenbrueck, more
encouraged than ever about the outcome of his affair.

After only a few weeks, however, he was grieved to learn from a
magistrate who had gone to Potsdam on business for the City Governor,
that the Elector had handed the petition over to his Chancellor, Count
Kallheim, and that the latter, instead of taking the course most
likely to produce re