was interesting, for the abbot listened eagerly and with evident
emotion. When he had performed the duties of his office he remained alone
for a time; he could not immediately regain a mood in which he cared to
rejoin the others. He did not ask for the gentlemen from Cologne; those
from Nuremberg, whom he sought, had returned to the table in front of the
tavern long before.

The waves of the Main were now reflecting the golden light of the morning
sun. Dewdrops glittered on the grass and flowers in the meadow with the
cart, and in the landlady's little garden. Carriers' men were harnessing
the freshly groomed bays to the pole. The brass rings on the high collars
of the stallions jingled loudly and merrily, and long whiplashes cracked
over the four and six-horse teams which were beginning the day's journey
along the highroad.

But even the rattling of the carts and the trampling of the horses' hoofs
could not rouse the Cologne professors, who, with their clerical
companions, had gone to rest, and slept in darkened rooms until late into
the morning. Most of the humbler guests had already left their straw
beds.

Cyriax was one of the first who followed the road. He had sold his cart
and donkey, and wanted to burden his red-haired wife with his
possessions, but as she resolutely refused he had taken the bundle on his
own lazy shoulders. Now he dragged himself and his new load onward,
swearing vehemently, for Ratz had remained with the cart in Miltenberg,
where the sham lunatic no longer found it safe to stay. This time it was
he who was obliged to pull his wife along by the chain, for she had long
refused, as if fairly frantic, to desert the dying girl who had nursed
her child so faithfully. Again and again the doubly desolate woman looked
back toward the companion whom she had abandoned in her suffering until
they reached Frankfort. There Gitta left Cyriax and accompanied Ratz. The
cart in which her child had lived and died, not its repulsive owner,
induced her to sever the bond which, for nine years, had bound her to the
blasphemer.

The travelling scholars set off singing merrily; but the strolling
musicians waited for the ship to sail down the Main, on whose voyage they
could earn money and have plenty to drink.

The vagrants tramped along the highway, one after another, without
troubling themselves about the dying ropedancer.

"Everybody finds it hard enough to bear his own cross," said Jungel,
seizing his long