the watchman's cry of fire.
Mathias persuades Martha to hide herself; so he is found alone on the
place and seized by the crowd and brought before the warden. Engel at
once jumps to the conclusion, that he has been the incendiary, to
revenge himself for Engel's hard-heartedness, and despite his
protestations of innocence Mathias is put in chains and carried away,
while Martha, who comes out from her hiding-place falls back in a swoon
after proclaiming his innocence.

The second act takes place thirty years later in Vienna. Magdalen sits
under a lime-tree in the court of an old house and muses sadly over
days gone by. After long, lonely years she has found the school-master
John sick unto death, and now finds comfort in nursing him. Nothing
has ever been heard of Mathias again, and she wonders sadly what has
become of him. Children throng into the court, they dance around the
lime-tree, while an {379} old organ-grinder plays pretty waltz-tunes to
their steps.--While they are dancing, an Evangelimann comes into the
court. He reads and sings to the children the verses from Christ's
Sermon on the Mount, and teaches them to repeat the melody. When they
are able to sing it faultlessly, he faintly asks for a drink of water,
which Magdalen brings him. She asks him, whence he comes, and when he
tells her, that his father's house stood in St. Othmar, she recognizes
in him her old friend Mathias. Then he relates his sad story, how he
lay imprisoned for twenty years, the real incendiary having never been
discovered. When he was set free, he returned home, only to find that
his bride had drowned herself. All his efforts to earn a livelihood
were fruitless; nobody would employ the convict, until he was at last
obliged to become an Evangelimann, and wandered from place to place,
preaching the gospel to the poor, and getting such small bounties they
could afford to give.--Exhausted by hunger and overcome by sad
remembrances Mathias sinks down on the bench half fainting, but is
revived by bread and broth brought to him by Magdalen, who earnestly
entreats him to return soon, and to bring comfort to the sick man she
is nursing.

The last scene takes place a day later in John's sick-room. He is
lying on a couch, a prey to bitter thoughts and pangs of conscience,
when his brother's voice reaches his ear from below, and dimly awakens
sweet memories in him. He bids Magdalen to fetch the singer, and when
the latter enters, he f