had deserted Eber by
reason of his over-hard rule, and betaken themselves to robbery on their
own account. Howbeit Starch was of opinion that matters were otherwise.
When he had been sent forth to seek them he had as yet no knowledge of
the attack on Eppelein; now, so soon as he heard that they had stripped
him of his clothes, he bid them stand in a row and examined each one; in
truth they were a pitiable crew, and had they not so truly deserved our
compassion their rags must have moved us to laughter. One had made his
cloak of a woman's red petticoat, pulling it over his head and cutting
slits in it for arm-holes, and another great fellow wore a friar's brown
frock and on his head a good-wife's fur turban tied on with an infant's
swaddling band. Jorg Starch's enquiries as to where were Eppelein's
garments made one of them presently point to his decent and whole jerkin,
another to his under coat, and the biggest man of them all to his hat
with the cock's feather, which was all unmatched with his ragged weed.
Starch searched each piece for the letter, and meanwhile Uhlwurm stooped
his long body, groping on the ground in such wise that it might have
seemed that he was seeking the four-leaved clover; and on a sudden he
laid hands on the shoes of a lean, low fellow, with hollow cheeks and a
thrifty beard on his sharp chin, who till now had looked about him, the
boldest of them all; he felt round the top of the shoes, and looking him
in the face, asked him in a threatening voice: "Where are the tops?"

"The tops?" said the man in affrighted tones. "I wear shoes, Master, and
shoes are but boots which have no tops; and mine. . . ."

"And yours!" quoth Uhlwurm in scorn. "The rats have made shoes of your
boots and have eaten the tops, unless it was the mice? Look here,
Captain, if it please you. . . ."

Starch did his bidding, and when he had made the lean knave put off his
left shoe he looked at it on all sides, stroked his beard the wrong way,
and said solemnly: "Well said, Master, this is matter for thought! All
this gives the case a fresh face." And he likewise cried to the rogue:
"Where are the tops?" The fellow had had time to collect himself, and
answered boldly: "I am but a poor weak worm, my lord Captain; they were
full heavy for me, so I cut them away and cast them into the pool, where
by now the carps are feeding on them." And he glanced round at his
fellows, as it were to read in their faces their praise of his qui