ld do nothing to help him, I
went down stairs. There I found our gentlemen taking leave, for one was
off to the city to make inquisition as to the fire, and the other would
fain seek his warm bed.

Hot elecampane wine had been served to give them comfort, when again we
heard horses' hoofs and the watchman's call. Everybody came out in haste,
only Uncle Christian Pfinzing did not move, for, so long as the wine jug
was not empty, it would have needed more than this to stir him. He was a
mighty fat man, with a short brick-red neck, cropped grey hair, and a
round, well-favored countenance, with shrewd little eyes which stood out
from his head.

We young Schoppers loved this jolly, warm-hearted uncle, who was
childless, with all our hearts; but I clung to him most of all, since he
was my dear godfather; likewise had he for many years shown an especial
and truly fatherly care for Ann.

Well, Uncle Christian had peacefully gone on drinking the fiery liquor,
waiting for the others; but when they came to tell him what tidings the
horseman had brought, the cup fell from his hand, clattering down on the
paved floor and spilling the wine; and at the same time his kind,
faithful head dropped to one side, and for a few minutes his senses had
left him. Albeit we were able ere long to bring him back to life again, I
found, to my great distress, that his tongue seemed to have waxed heavy.
Howbeit, by the help of the Blessed Virgin, he afterwards was so far
recovered that when he sat over his cups his loud voice and deep laugh
could be heard ringing through the room.

The tidings delivered by the messenger and which brought on this
sickness--of which the leech Ulsenius had ere this warned him--might have
shaken the heart of a sterner man; for my Uncle Christian lodged in the
Imperial Fort as its warder, and his duty it was to guard it. Near it,
likewise, on the same hill-crag, stood the old castle belonging to the
High Constable, or Burgrave Friedrich. Now the Burgrave had come to high
words with Duke Ludwig the Bearded, of Bayern-Ingolstadt, so that the
Duke's High Steward, the noble Christoph von Laymingen, who dwelt at
Lauf, had made so bold, with his lord at his back, as to break the peace
with Friedrich, although he had lately become a powerful prince as
Elector of the Mark of Brandenburg.

The said Christoph von Laymingen, so the horsemen told us, had ridden
forth to Nuremberg this dark night and had seized the castle--not ind