dwig de Hombourg, Jerusalem, but the name
of the Holy City had been dashed out with the pen, and that of Godesberg
substituted." "By St. Hugo of Katzenellenbogen," said the good knight
shivering, "'tis colder here than at Damascus. Shall I be at Godesberg
in time for dinner?" He has come to see his friend Count Karl, Margrave
of Godesberg.

But at Godesberg everything is in distress and sorrow. There is a new
inmate there, one Sir Gottfried, since whose arrival the knight of the
castle has become a wretched man, having been taught to believe all
evils of his wife, and of his child Otto, and a certain stranger, one
Hildebrandt. Gottfried, we see with half an eye, has done it all. It is
in vain that Ludwig de Hombourg tells his old friend Karl that this
Gottfried is a thoroughly bad fellow, that he had been found to be a
cardsharper in the Holy Land, and had been drummed out of his regiment.
"'Twas but some silly quarrel over the wine-cup," says Karl. "Hugo de
Brodenel would have no black bottle on the board." We think we can
remember the quarrel of "Brodenel" and the black bottle, though so many
things have taken place since that.

There is a festival in the castle, and Hildebrandt comes with the other
guests. Then Ludwig's attention is called by poor Karl, the father, to a
certain family likeness. Can it be that he is not the father of his own
child? He is playing cards with his friend Ludwig when that traitor
Gottfried comes and whispers to him, and makes an appointment. "I will
be there too," thought Count Ludwig, the good Knight of Hombourg.

On the next morning, before the stranger knight had shaken off his
slumbers, all had been found out and everything done. The lady has been
sent to a convent and her son to a monastery. The knight of the castle
has no comfort but in his friend Gottfried, a distant cousin who is to
inherit everything. All this is told to Sir Ludwig,--who immediately
takes steps to repair the mischief. "A cup of coffee straight," says he
to the servitors. "Bid the cook pack me a sausage and bread in paper,
and the groom saddle Streithengst. We have far to ride." So this
redresser of wrongs starts off, leaving the Margrave in his grief.

Then there is a great fight between Sir Ludwig and Sir Gottfried,
admirably told in the manner of the later chroniclers,--a hermit sitting
by and describing everything almost as well as Rebecca did on the tower.
Sir Ludwig being in the right, of course gains the