TSCRIPTUM BY KUNZ SCHOPPER

The children entreat me to write more of Margery's unfinished tale.
Howbeit I am nigh upon eighty years of age, and how may I hope to win
favor in the exercise of an act to which I am unskilled save in matters
of business? Yet, whereas I could never endure to say nay to any
reasonable prayer of those who are dearest to my heart, I will fulfil
their desire, only setting down that which is needful, and in the
plainest words.

They at whose bidding I sit here, all knew my dear sister well. Margery,
the widow of the late departed Forest-ranger, the Knight Sir Gotz
Waldstromer, Councillor to his Imperial Majesty and Captain of the
men-at-arms in our good city; and each profited during a longer or
shorter space by her loving-kindness, and her wise and faithful counsel.

Many of them can likewise remember the late Anna Spiesz, sometime wife
of Herdegen Schopper; and as to the said Herdegen Schopper, my dear
brother, Margery's book of memorabilia right truly shows forth the
manner of his life and mind in the bloom of his youth, and verily it
is a sorrowful task for me to set forth the decay and end of so noble a
man.

As to myself, the last remaining link of the Schopper chain whereof
Margery hath many times made mention, I am still with you, my dear
ones; and I remain but little changed, inasmuch as that my life has ever
flowed calmly and silently onward.

How it came to pass that Margery should so suddenly have brought her
memories to an end most of you know already; howbeit I will set it down
for the younger ones.

Till she reached the age of sixty and seven years, she never rode in a
litter, but ever made her journeyings on horseback. For many years past
she and her husband abode in the forest during the summer months only,
and dwelt in their town-house the winter through. Now on a day, when in
her written tale she had got as far as the time when she and Gotz, her
dear husband, were wed, she besought him to ride forth with her to the
forest, inasmuch as that she yearned once more to see the spot in the
winter season which had seen the happiest days of her life in that
long-past December. Thus they fared forth on horseback, although it was
nigh on Christmas-tide, and when they waved their hands to me as they
passed me by in sheer high spirits and mirthfulness, meseemed that in
all Nuremberg, nay in Franconia or in the whole German Empire a man
might scarce find an old white-haired pair of l