hair, in glad and hearty
greeting. She was dressed in her bravest array, and there was in her
aspect likewise somewhat solemn and festal.

Albeit I was truly minded at all times to rejoice with those who were
rejoicing, all this bravery, at this time, was sorely against the grain
of my troubled heart and its forebodings of ill. I could not feel at
ease, and meseemed that all this magnificence and good cheer mocked my
hapless and oppressed spirit.

In truth, I could scarce bring myself to return the old dame's greeting
with due gladness; and her keen eyes at once discerned how matters were
with me. She held me by the hand, and asked me in a hearty voice whence
came the clouds that darkened my brow. When her bright, high-spirited
Margery, whom she had never known to be in a gloomy mood, looked like
this, for sure some great evil had befallen.

Whereupon what came over me I know not. Whether it were that the
blackness and the terror in my bosom were too great a contrast with the
gladness and splendor about me, or what it was that so tightly gripped my
heart, I cannot tell to this day; but I know full well that all which had
oppressed me since Abenberger denounced me came rushing down on my soul
as it were, and that I burst into tears and cried out "Yes, grandmother
dear, I have gone through a dreadful, terrible hour! I have had to
withstand the attack of a madman, and hear a horrible curse from his
lips. But it is not that alone, no, verily and indeed! I can, for that
matter, make any man to know his place, were he twice the man that little
Abenberger is; and as to curses, I learnt from a child to mind my dear
father's saying: 'Curse me if you will! What matters it if I may earn
God's blessing!'"

"And you have earned it, honestly earned it," quoth she, drawing me down
to kiss my forehead. Hereupon I ceased weeping and bid my heart take
fresh courage, and went on, still much moved: "It is nought but a woman's
shameless craft that troubles me so sorely. Ursula's hate hangs over my
brothers like a black storm-cloud; and on my way hither meseemed I saw
full plainly that the ransom is not the end of the matter. Nay, if we had
twice so much, yet Herdegen will never come home alive if we fail to
cross Ursula's scheming; has she not cause to fear the worst, if ever he
comes home in safety? But where is the envoy who would dare so much? Kunz
lies wounded in a strange land, Young Kubbeling would doubtless be ready
to cross the