and!]

Nor was this the end. The Latin tongue of this song may peradventure
have roused Junker Henning to make a display of learning on his part,
and in a voice which had won no mellowness from the stout Brandenburg
ale--which is yclept "Death and murder"--or from the fiery Hippocras he
had been drinking he carolled forth the wanton verse:

"Per transivit clericus
[Beneath the greenwood shade;]
Invenit ibi stantent,
[A fair and pleasant maid;]
Salve mi puella,
[Hail thou sweetest she;]
Dico tibi vere
[Thou my love shalt be!]"

The rest of the song was not to be understood whereas Herdegen likewise
sang at the same time, as though he would fain silence the other:

"Fair Lady, oh, my Lady!
I would I were with thee,
But two deep rolling rivers
Flow down 'twixt thee and me."

And as Herdegen sang the last lines:

"But time may change, my Lady,
And joy may yet be mine,
And sorrow turn to gladness
My sweetest Elselein!"

I heard the Junker roar out "Annelein;" and thereupon a great tumult,
and my Uncle Conrad's voice, and then again much turmoil and moving of
benches till all was silence.

Even then sleep visited us not, and that which had been doing below was
as great a distress to me as my fears for my lover. That Ann likewise
never closed an eye is beyond all doubt, for when the riot beneath us
waxed so loud she wailed in grief: "Oh, merciful Virgin!" or "How shall
all this end?" again and again.

Nay, nor did Ursula sleep; and through the boarded wall I could not fail
to hear well-nigh every word of the prayers in which she entreated
her patron saint, beseeching her fervently to grant her to be loved by
Herdegen, whose heart from his youth up had by right been hers alone,
and invoking ruin on the false wench who had dared to rob her of that
treasure.

I was right frightened to hear this and, in truth, for the first time I
felt honest pity for Ursula.

BOOK 2.

CHAPTER I.

The Imperial Diet in Nuremberg!--the Imperial Advent!

The next day their Majesties were to enter into the town, and with them
my Hans.

A messenger had brought the tidings, and now we must use all diligence;
Ann and Elsa and I, with one and twenty more, had been chosen among all
the daughters of the worshipful gentlemen of the council, to go forth to
greet