ath sworn by Christ's wounds!--Moreover
I am the elder and his mother, he is the younger and my son. It is his
part to come to me, and if he then shall make a pilgrimage it shall be to
Rome and the Holy Sepulchre. He has time before him in which to do any
penance the Holy Church may require of him. I--I would lay me on the rack
only to see him once more, I would fast and scourge myself till my dying
day; but I am his mother, and he is my son, and it is his part to take
the first step, not mine who bore him."

How warmly I urged her again and again, and how often was she on the
point of yielding to her heart's loud outcry! Yet she ever came back to
the same point: that it ill-beseemed her to be the first to put forth her
hand, albeit her every feeling drove her to it.

The letters sent to Gotz had reached him through a merchant's house in
Venice. This his parents knew, and they had long since charged Kunz to
inquire where he dwelt. Yet had his pains been for nought, inasmuch as
the banished youth had forbidden the traders to tell any one, whosoever
might ask. Howbeit my uncle had implored his son in many a letter to mind
him of his mother's sickness, and come home; and in his answers Gotz had
many a time given his parents assurance of his true and loving devotion;
yet had he kept his oath, and tarried beyond seas. These letters likewise
did my aunt show me, and while I read them she charged me to make it my
duty not to quit that merchant's house and to take no rest until I had
learned where her son was dwelling: saying that what an Italian might
deny to a man a fair young maiden might yet obtain of him.

It was not yet dusk when Master Ulsenius came and broke off our
discourse. He had come forth in part to see Eppelein, and presently, when
a lamp was brought, as we stood by the faithful lad he called me by name,
and then Uncle Conrad, and said that albeit he was weary of limb he was
easy and comfortable; that he felt a smart now and then, and in especial
about his neck, yet that troubled him but little, inasmuch as that it
plainly showed him that the thought which had haunted him, that he was
really killed and in a darksome hell, was but a horrible dream.

Then when he had spoken thus much, with great pains, his pale face turned
red on a sudden, and again he asked, as he had many times in his
sickness, where was his master's letter. Hereupon I hastily told him that
we had hunted down the robbers and rescued it, and it