but they grew gradually lighter
and softer, and at the ends they were like the plumage of an unfledged
bird. At the tip, the germ, with its neatly-folded scales, gave promise
of a fir-nut. A smell sweeter than that of lavender or of rosemary
oozed out of its pores. Mat passed it gently over his face and closed
eyes, until he fell asleep. He dreamed of being spellbound to a swaying
fir-tree, without being able to stir: he heard Eva's voice begging the
spirit who held him in chains for leave to come up to him and set him
free. He awoke, and really heard Eva's voice and that of his brother
Christian. They had brought him his dinner, and begged the jailer to
let them speak to Mat in his presence; but in vain.

It was late in the day when Mat was brought up for a hearing. The
president-judge received him roughly, and scolded him in high German,
just as the squire had done in the dialect of the country. Wherever
judicial transactions are withheld from the public eye, as they have
been in Germany for three or four centuries, any man accused of an
offence will always be at the mercy of the officiating functionary.
Though it will not do to torture or to beat him, there are means of ill
treatment which the law cannot reach.

The judge walked up and down the room with rattling spurs, and twirled
a bit of paper nervously between his fingers, as he put his questions.

"Where did you steal the tree?"

"I don't know any thing about it, your honor."

"You lie, you beggarly rascal!" cried the judge, stepping up to Mat and
seizing him by the lapel of his coat.

Mat started backward, and clenched his fist involuntarily.

"I'm not a rascal," said he, at last, "and you must write what you have
said in the minutes: I'd like to see what sort of a rascal I am. My
cousin Buchmaier will come home after a while."

The judge turned away, biting his lips. If Mat's case had been a better
one, the judge might have had reason to rue his words; but he wisely
abstained from inserting what he had said in the minutes. He rang the
bell, and sent for Soges.

"What proof have you that it was this fellow that put up the May-pole?"

"Every child in the village, the tiles on the roofs, know that Mat goes
to see Eva: no offence, your honor, but I should think it would be the
quickest way to send for Eva, and then he won't deny it: he can't
qualify that it isn't so."

Mat opened his eyes wide, and his lips quivered; but he said nothing.
The judge he