t
importance to the Saxon court, to warn him against an emissary who was
at Berlin, with the design of taking it, and to ask for the paper
herself, under the pretext that it was no more safe in his own bosom.
The real design of her coming was, however, to tell him that the threat
of depriving him of the paper, by force or cunning, was completely
idle, that he had not the least cause to feel any apprehension about
it, under the protection of the Elector of Brandenburg--nay, that the
paper was much safer with him than with her, and that he should take
great care not to lose it, by delivering it to any one under any
pretext whatever. However, she added by saying, that she thought it
prudent to use the paper for the purpose for which she had given it to
him at the Jueterboch fair, to listen to the offer which had been made
to him on the borders by the page, von Stein, and to give the paper,
which could be of no further use to him, to the Elector of Saxony, in
exchange for life and liberty.

Kohlhaas, who exulted in the power which was given him, of mortally
wounding his enemy's heel, at the very moment when it trampled him in
the dust, replied, "Not for the world, good mother; not for the world!"
and pressing the old woman's hand, only desired to know, what were the
answers to the important questions contained in the paper.

The woman, taking in her lap the youngest child, who was crouching down
at her feet, said, "No--not for the world, Kohlhaas the horse-dealer;
but for the sake of this pretty little fair-haired boy." So saying,
she smiled at him, embraced him, and kissed him; while he stared at her
with all his might, and gave him with her dry hands an apple, which she
carried in her pocket.

Kohlhaas said, in some confusion, that even the children, if they were
old enough, would commend him for what he had done, and that he could
not do any thing more serviceable for them and their posterity than
keep the paper. He asked, besides, who, after the experience he had
already made, would secure him against fresh deception, and whether he
might not sacrifice the paper to the elector, just as uselessly, as he
had formerly sacrificed the troop which he collected at Luetzen. "With
him who has once broken his word," said he, "I have nothing more to do,
and nothing, good mother, but your demand, definitively and
unequivocally expressed, will cause me to part with the slip by which,
in such a remarkable manner, satisfaction