ck wit.
Howbeit they were in overmuch dread to pay him that he looked for; nay,
and his bold spirit was quelled when Starch took him by the throat and
asked him: "Do you see that bough there, my lad? If another lie passes
your lips, I will load it with a longer and heavier pear than ever it
bore yet? Sebald, bring forth the ropes.--Now my beauty; answer me three
things: Did the messenger wear boots? How come you, who are one of the
least of the gang, to be wearing sound shoes? And again, Where are the
tops?"

Whereupon the little man craved, sadly whimpering, that he might be asked
one question at a time, inasmuch as he felt as it were a swarm of
humble-bees in his brain, and when Starch did his will he looked at the
others as though to say: "You did no justice to my ready wit," and then
he told that he had in truth drawn off the boots from the messenger's
feet and had been granted them to keep, by reason that they were too
small for the others, while he was graced with a small and dainty foot.
And he cast a glance at us ladies on whom he had long had an eye, a sort
of fearful leer, and went on: "The tops--they . . . " and again he stuck
fast. Howbeit, as Starch once more pointed to the pear-tree, he confessed
in desperate terror that another man had claimed the tops, one who had
not been caught, inasmuch as they were so high and good. Hereupon Starch
laughed so loud and clapped his hand with such a smack as made us maidens
start, and he cried: "That's it, that is the way of it! Zounds, ye
knaves! Then the Sow--[Eber, his name, means a boar. This is a sort of
punning insult]--of Wichsenstein was himself your leader yesterday, and
it was only by devilish ill-hap that the knave was not with you when I
took you! You ragged ruffians would never have given over the tops in
this marsh and moorland, to any but a rightful master, and I know where
the Sow is lurking--for the murderer of a messenger is no more to be
called a Boar. Now then, Sebald! In what hamlet hereabout dwells there a
cobbler?"

"There is crooked Peter at Neufess, and Hackspann at Reichelstorf," was
the answer.

"Good; that much we needed to know," said Starch. "And now, little one,"
and he gave the man another shaking, "Out with it. Did the Sow--or, that
there may be no mistake--did Eber of Wichsenstein ride away to Neufess or
to Reichelstorf? Who was to sew the tops to his shoes, Peter or
Hackspann?"

The terrified creature clasped his slender hands in