nd his house
door; others, rather, that he had taken upon himself the penance of ever
wearing such a cord about his neck day and night.

As touching the Tetzels themselves, they made no claim for blood; and for
this he was so thankful to them, all his life through, that he gave them
his word that he would name Ursula in his testament; whereas he ever
hated the Im Hoffs to the end, after that they, on whom he had brought so
much vexation by his wilful and haughty temper, took counsel after the
judgment as to whether it behooved them not to strip him of their good
old name and thrust him forth from their kinship. Four only, as against
three, spoke in his favor, and this his haughty spirit could so ill
endure that never an Im Hoff dared cross his threshold, though one and
another often strove to win back his favor.

He had little comfort from his wife in his grief, for when he was found
guilty of manslaughter she quitted him to return to the Emperor's court
at Prague, and there she died after a wild hunt which she had followed in
King Wenzel's train, while she was not yet past her youth.

CHAPTER V.

Three years were past since Herdegen had first gone to the High School,
and we had never seen him but for a few weeks at the end of the first
year, when he was on his way from Erfurt to Padua. In the letters he
wrote from thence there was ever a greeting for Mistress Anna, and often
there would be a few words in Greek for her and me; yet, as he knew full
well that she alone could crack such nuts, he bid me to the feast only as
the fox bid the stork. While he was with us he ever demeaned himself both
to me and to her as a true and loving brother, when he was not at the
school of arms proving to the amazement of the knights and nobles his
wondrous skill in the handling of the sword, which he had got in the High
School. And during this same brief while be at divers times had speech of
Ursula, but he showed plainly enough that he had lost all delight in her.

He had found but half of what he sought at Erfurt, but deemed that he was
ripe to go to Padua; for there, alone, he thought--and Magister Peter
said likewise--could he find the true grist for his mill. And when he
told us of what he hoped to gain at that place we could but account his
judgment good, and wish him good speed and that he might come home from
that famous Italian school a luminary of learning. When, at his
departing, I saw that Ann was in no better heart