her of all that the
coppersmith's mother had told me of the attempt to carry away Gertrude,
and what the end of that had been. Indeed, so soon as the foreman had
betrayed the lovers' plot, Master Ulman had locked his daughter into her
chamber; and when her lover, after waiting for her in vain at the altar
with the hireling priest, came at last to seek her, her father told him
that unless he--Gotz--ceased his suit, he should exert his authority as
her father to compel Gertrude to marry the foreman and go with him to
Augsburg, or give her the choice of taking the veil. And this he
confirmed by a solemn oath; and when Gotz, like one in a frenzy, strove
to make good his claim to see his sweetheart, and hear from her own lips
whether she were minded to yield to her father's yoke, they came to
blows, even on the stairs leading to Gertrude's chamber, and there was a
fierce battle, which might have had a bloody end but that old dame
Magdalen herself came between them to part them. And then Master Ulman
had sworn to Gotz that he would keep his daughter locked up as a captive
unless the youth pledged himself to cease from seeing Gertrude till he
had won his parents' consent. Thereupon Gotz went forth into a strange
land; but he did not forget his well-beloved, and from time to time a
letter would reach her assuring her of his faithfulness.

At the end of three years after his departing he at last wrote to the
coppersmith that he had found a post which would allow of his marrying
and setting up house and he straightly besought Master Ulman no longer to
keep apart two who could never be sundered. Nor did Pernhart delay to
answer him, hard as he found it to use the pen, inasmuch as there was no
more to say than that Gertrude was sleeping under the sod with her
lover's ring on her finger and the last violets he had ever given her
under her head, as she had desired.

Thus ended the tale of poor Gertrude; but before I had half told it my
wrath had cooled. For my aunt sat in silence, listening to me with devout
attention. Nor were my eyes dry, nor even those of that strong-willed
dame, and when, at the end, I said: "Well, Aunt?" she woke, as it were,
from a dream, and cried out: "And yet those craftsmen folk robbed me of
my son, my only child!"

And she sobbed aloud and hid her face in her hands, while I knelt by her
side, and threw my arms about her, and kissed her thin fingers which
covered her eyes, and said softly, as if by inspi