-fitted red jacket, and leather buskins slashed
with silk, which might have been handsome when new, but by dint of bad
weather and hard work had now assumed an uninterrupted dark-brown
colour,--large heavy riding boots came up to his knees; his only
weapon, a singularly large sword, with a long handle, and without
basket-guard, completed the figure of the warrior. The sole ornament
worn by this man was a long gold chain of massive rings, twisted five
times around his neck, having a medallion of merit of the same metal
attached to it, which hung upon his breast.

"Tell me, quickly, uncle, who is that stately man, who at once looks so
young and so old?" said the fair girl, as she turned her head a little
towards the man in black standing behind her.

"I can tell you, Marie," he answered; "that is George von Fronsberg,
commander of the confederate infantry; an honourable man, did he but
serve a better cause."

"Keep your remarks to yourself, Mr. Wuertemberger," she replied, whilst
she playfully threatened him with her finger; "you know that the
maidens of Ulm are staunch confederates."

Her uncle, however, not heeding her reply, proceeded: "That one on the
grey horse is Truchses von Waldburg, second in command. He also owes a
debt of gratitude to our Wuertemberg. Behind him come the colonels of
the League. By heaven! they look like hungry wolves seeking for prey."

"Oh! what a set of miserable figures," remarked Marie to her cousin
Bertha, "they surely are not worth the trouble we have taken of
dressing; but hold, who is that young man in black on the brown horse?
just look at his pale countenance, with his fiery black eyes; on his
shield is written, 'I have ventured.'"

"That is the knight Ulerich von Hutten," replied the old man. "May God
forgive his calumny against our Duke. Children! he is a learned, pious
man, but the Duke's bitterest enemy; and I say so, for what is true
must remain true. And there, those are Sickingen's colours. Truly, he
is there himself! Look this way, girls; that is Franz von Sickingen. It
is said he brings a thousand horsemen into the field; that is him, with
the plain cuirass and red feather."

"But tell me, uncle," asked Marie again, "which of them is Goetz von
Berlichingen, of whom cousin Kraft has related so much to us; he is a
powerful man, by all accounts, and has a hand of iron; does not he ride
among the burghers?"

"Do not name Goetz and the burghers in the same breath," said t