ourse. If they
might find a fitting envoy, they might perchance move the Sultan to
forego some portion of the ransom; yet would they bear in mind what the
whole sum was. Much of our possessions we were indeed not suffered to
sell, yet might we borrow on them or pledge them, and the good feeling
of our friends and fellow citizens would, for sure, help us to the
remainder. Nay, and these gentlemen methought had some privy purpose;
yet, inasmuch as they told us nought of their own free will, we were
careful to put no questions. As we took leave they besought us yet to
delay our departing and to suffer them to be free to do what they would.
And we were fain to yield, albeit the blood of the Schoppers boiled at
the thought that I must tarry here idle, and others go round as it were
with the beggars' staff, in our name, and for the sake of a son of our
house who had done no good to any man. Howbeit, I knew full well that
pride and defiance were now out of place; and while I was walking
homewards with Ann and Cousin Maud, on a sudden my cousin asked me: If
Lorenz Stromer were in Herdegen's plight would I not gladly give of my
estate; and when I said yes, quoth she: "Then all is well." And inasmuch
as she was of the same mind she could, without a qualm, suffer the
gentlemen to ask from door to door in Herdegen's name and in her own.
It was our part only to show that we, as his nearest and dearest, were
foremost in giving. And on that same day Ann brought all she possessed
in gold and jewels, even to her christening coins which she had kept in
her money-box, and among them likewise a costly cross of diamonds which
my lord Cardinal had given her a few months ago.

That evening, again, as dusk was falling, Ann once more knocked at
our door, and the reason of her coming was in truth a sad one: her
grand-uncle, old Adam Heyden the organist, our friend of the tower, felt
that his last hour was nigh, and bid us go to see him. Thus it came to
pass that in two following days we had to stand by a death-bed. On each
lay an old man departing to the other world, and meseemed their end had
fallen so close together to yield warning and meditation to our young
souls. Now, as I toiled up the steep turret-stair, after flying,
yesterday, up the matted steps of the wealthy house of the Im Hoffs,
meseemed that the two men's lives had been like to these staircases,
and, young as I was, I nevertheless could say to myself that the
humbler man's steep