been long anxious to
visit?"

"How," cried the wife. "I go to Schwerin?--I cross the border with my
children, to go to my aunt at Schwerin?" And her voice was stifled
with horror.

"Certainly," replied Kohlhaas, "and, if possible, immediately, that I
may not be impeded in the steps I am about to take in this matter."

"Oh, I understand you," she exclaimed. "You want nothing but weapons
and horses; the rest any one may take who will." And so saying, she
threw herself down upon a seat and wept.

Kohlhaas, much perplexed, said: "Dearest Lisbeth, what are you doing?
God has blessed me with wife, children, and property; shall I wish, for
the first time, that it was otherwise?" And he sat down by her in a
kindly mood, while she, at these words, fell blushing on his neck.
"Tell me," he said, moving the curls from her forehead, "what I am to
do? Shall I give up my cause? Shall I go to Tronkenburg, and ask the
knight for my horses, mount them, and then ride home to you?"

Lisbeth did not venture to answer "Yes;" she shook her head, weeping,
clasped him fervently, and covered his breast with burning kisses.

"Good!" cried Kohlhaas. "Then, if you feel that I must have justice,
if I am to carry on my business, grant me the liberty which is
necessary to attain it." Upon this he rose up, and said to the
servant, who told him that his chestnut horse was saddled, that the
horses must be put in harness the following day, to take his wife to
Schwerin. Suddenly Lisbeth saying that a thought had struck her,
raised herself, wiped the tears from her eyes, and asked him, as he sat
down at a desk, whether he could not give her the petition, and let her
go to Dresden instead of him, to present it to the sovereign.

Kohlhaas, struck by this sudden turn, for more reasons than one, drew
her to him, and said: "Dearest wife, that is impossible! The sovereign
is surrounded by many obstacles, and to many annoyances is the person
exposed who ventures to approach him."

Lisbeth replied that the approach would be a thousand times easier for
a woman than for a man. "Give me the petition," she repeated; "and if
you wish nothing more than to know that it is in his hands, I will
vouch for it."

Kohlhaas, who had frequently known instances of her courage as well as
of her prudence, asked her how she intended to set about it. Upon
which she told him, hanging down her head abashed, that the castellan
of the electoral castle had formerly