shed to conciliate him by a specimen of
unrelenting severity.

In conjunction with his faithful prime minister Soges, a report was
prepared and Mat transported to Horb early next morning. It was well
that Eva's house lay at the other end of the village, so that she could
not see the wretched plight to which a night's imprisonment had reduced
the fine, active fellow who generally appeared so neatly clad. In his
anger he tore a bough from every hedge he passed, gnawed it between his
teeth, and threw it away again. In the fir-wood he broke a twig and
kept it in his mouth. He never spoke a word: the fir-sprig seemed to be
the symbol of his silence in regard to the May-pole,--a charm with
which he intended to tie his tongue. Arrived at the court-house door,
he hastily took it out of his mouth and unconsciously thrust it in his
pocket.

No one who has not been in the hands of a German court of justice can
form any idea of the misery attending such a perfect loss of the power
of self-control: it is as if one's mind had been forcibly deprived of
its body. Pushed from hand to hand, the feet move with apparent freedom
of will, and yet do only another's bidding. Mat felt all this keenly;
for he had never been in trouble like this. He felt as if he was a
great criminal, and had killed somebody at the very least: his knees
seemed to sink under him as he was taken up the long flights of steps
which lead to the top of the hill. He was locked up in the old tower
which stands so uncomfortably on the hill, like a great stone finger
pointing upward as if to say, "Beware!"

Every minute appeared to last an age. As long as he could remember, he
had never been left alone for an hour without work: what could he do
now? For a while he peered through the doubly-barred and grated window
in the wall, which was six feet thick, but saw only a patch of sky.
Lying on the bench, he played with the fir-sprig which he found in his
pocket,--the only keepsake he had of the green world without. Sticking
it into a crack of the floor, he amused himself with supposing it to be
the great May-pole before Eva's window,--which he seemed not to have
seen for a hundred years. Sighing, he started up, looked around wildly,
whistled, and began to count the needles of the fir-sprig. In the midst
of this occupation he stopped and regarded it more closely: he had
never before seen the beauty of one of Nature's fabrics. At the stem
the needles were dark-green and hard;