for he strove
hard with all diligence, and rather would he have lost a night's sleep
than have left what he deemed a duty only half done. Thus there were
sore half-hours for him in school-time; but he was not therefor to be
pitied, for he had a right merry soul and was easily content, and loved
many things. Good temper and a high spirit looked out of his great blue
eyes; aye, and when he had played some prank which was like to bring him
into trouble he had a look in his eyes--a look that might have melted a
stone to pity, much more good Cousin Maud.

But this did not altogether profit him, for after that Herdegen had
discovered one day how easily Kunz got off chastisement he would pray
him to take upon himself many a misdeed which the elder had done; and
Kunz, who was soft-hearted, was fain rather to suffer the penalty than
to see it laid on his well-beloved brother. Add to this that Kunz was
a well-favored, slender youth; but as compared with Herdegen's splendid
looks and stalwart frame he looked no more than common. For this
cause he had no ill-wishers while our eldest's uncommon beauty in all
respects, and his hasty temper, ever ready to boil over for good or
evil, brought upon him much ill-will and misliking.

When Cousin Maud beheld how little good Kunz got out of his learning, in
spite of his zeal, she was minded to get him a private governor to teach
him; and this she did by the advice of a learned doctor of Church-law,
Albrecht Fleischmann, the vicar and provost of Saint Sebald's and member
of the Imperial council, because we Schoppers were of the parish of
Saint Sebald's, to which church Albrecht and Friedrich Schopper, God
rest their souls, had attached a rich prebendary endowment.

His Reverence the prebendary Fleischmann, having attended the Council at
Costnitz, whither he was sent by the town elders with divers errands to
the Emperor Sigismund, who was engaged in a disputation with John Huss
the Bohemian schismatic, brought to my cousin's knowledge a governor
whose name was Peter Pihringer, a native of Nuremberg. He it was who
brought the Greek tongue, which was not yet taught in the Latin schools
of our city, not in our house alone, but likewise into others; he
was not indeed at all like the high-souled men and heroes of whom his
Plutarch wrote; nay, he was a right pitiable little man, who had learnt
nothing of life, though all the more out of books. He had journeyed long
in Italy, from one great humanis