e
person didn't pass here before you came, and I don't mean to say you saw
him, but some one did pass, that I know. On your honor--you saw no one?"

"Not a human being."

"That is sufficient; I know you are telling me the truth."

He began to count the money on the path, we on our knees eagerly helping
to stack it in little piles.

"It's eleven hundred ducats odd!" he said. "Oh dear! if it were only
mine--and I need it so!" and his voice broke and his lips quivered.

"It is yours, sir!" we all cried out at once, "every heller!"

"No--it isn't mine. Only four ducats are mine; the rest...!" He fell to
dreaming, poor old soul, and caressing some of the coins in his hands,
and forgot where he was, sitting there on his heels with his old gray
head bare; it was pitiful to see. "No," he said, waking up, "it isn't
mine. I can't account for it. I think some enemy... it must be a trap."

Nikolaus said: "Father Peter, with the exception of the astrologer you
haven't a real enemy in the village--nor Marget, either. And not even a
half-enemy that's rich enough to chance eleven hundred ducats to do you
a mean turn. I'll ask you if that's so or not?"

He couldn't get around that argument, and it cheered him up. "But it
isn't mine, you see--it isn't mine, in any case."

He said it in a wistful way, like a person that wouldn't be sorry, but
glad, if anybody would contradict him.

"It is yours, Father Peter, and we are witness to it. Aren't we, boys?"

"Yes, we are--and we'll stand by it, too."

"Bless your hearts, you do almost persuade me; you do, indeed. If I
had only a hundred-odd ducats of it! The house is mortgaged for it, and
we've no home for our heads if we don't pay to-morrow. And that four
ducats is all we've got in the--"

"It's yours, every bit of it, and you've got to take it--we are bail
that it's all right. Aren't we, Theodor? Aren't we, Seppi?"

We two said yes, and Nikolaus stuffed the money back into the shabby old
wallet and made the owner take it. So he said he would use two hundred
of it, for his house was good enough security for that, and would put
the rest at interest till the rightful owner came for it; and on our
side we must sign a paper showing how he got the money--a paper to
show to the villagers as proof that he had not got out of his troubles
dishonestly.

Chapter 4

It made immense talk next day, when Father Peter paid Solomon Isaacs in
gold and left the rest of the money with him at