t the game in the
forest. And my Heinz Schorlin! You saw him, and admitted that he was
worth looking at. And that was when he had scarcely recovered from his
dangerous wounds, while now----The French Knight de Preully, in Paris,
with whom my dead foster-brother, until he fell sick-----" Here he
hesitated; an enquiring look from his sweetheart showed that--perhaps for
excellent reasons--he had omitted to tell her about his sojourn in Paris.

Now that he had grown older and abandoned the wild revelry of that period
in favour of truth and steadfastness, he quietly related everything she
desired to know.

He had acquired various branches of learning while sharing the studies of
his foster-brother, the eldest son of the old Knight Schorlin, who was
then living, and therefore, when scarcely twenty, was appointed
schoolmaster at Stansstadt. Perhaps he might have continued to teach--for
he promised to be successful--had not a vexatious discovery disgusted him
with his calling.

He was informed that the mercenaries in the Schnitzthurm guard were paid
five shillings a week more than he, spite of the knowledge he had gained
by so much toil.

In his indignation he went back to Schorlin Castle, which was always open
to him, and he arrived just at the right time.

His present master's older brother, whose health had always been
delicate, being unable to follow the profession of arms, was on the eve
of departing to attend the university at Paris, accompanied by the
chaplain and an equerry. When the Lady Wendula, his master's mother,
learned what an excellent reputation Biberli had gained as a
schoolmaster, she persuaded her husband to send him as esquire with their
sickly son.

In Paris there was at first no lack of pleasures of every description,
especially as they met among the king's mercenaries many a dissolute
Swiss knight and man at arms. His foster-brother, to his sorrow, was
unable to resist the temptations which Satan scatters in Paris as the
peasants elsewhere sow rye and oats, and the young knight was soon
attacked, by a severe illness. Then Biberli's gay life ended too. For
months he did not leave his foster-brother's sick bed a single hour, by
day or night, until death released him from his suffering.

On his return to Castle Schorlin he found many changes; the old knight
had been called away from earth a few days before his son's death, and
Heinz Schorlin, his present master, had fallen heir to castle and lands.