day. True, Marx could kill the animal
himself, but Ulrich had learned to shoot too, and if the place whence the
game came should be noised abroad, the charcoal-burner, without any
scruples of conscience, could swear that he did not shoot the buck, but
found it with the arrow in its heart.

People called the charcoal-burner a poacher, and he owed his ill-name of
"Hangemarx" to the circumstance that once, though long ago, he had
adorned a gallows. Yet he was not a dishonest man, only he remembered too
faithfully the bold motto, which, when a boy, one peasant wood-cutter or
charcoal-burner whispered to another:

"Forest, stream and meadow are free."

His dead father had joined the Bundschuh,--[A peasants' league which
derived its name from the shoe, of peculiar shape, worn by its
members.]--adopted this motto, and clung fast to it and with it, to the
belief that every living thing in the forest belonged to him, as much as
to the city, the nobles, or the monastery. For this faith he had
undergone much suffering, and owed to it his crooked mouth and ill name,
for just as his beard was beginning to grow, the father of the reigning
count came upon him, just after he had killed a fawn in the "free"
forest. The legs of the heavy animal were tied together with ropes, and
Marx was obliged to take the ends of the knot between his teeth like a
bridle, and drag the carcass to the castle. While so doing his cheeks
were torn open, and the evil deed neither pleased him nor specially
strengthened his love for the count. When, a short time after, the
rebellion broke out in Stuhlingen, and he heard that everywhere the
peasants were rising against the monks and nobles, he, too, followed the
black, red and yellow banner, first serving with Hans Muller of
Bulgenbach, then with Jacklein Rohrbach of Bockingen, and participating
with the multitude in the overthrow of the city and castle of Neuenstein.
At Weinsberg he saw Count Helfenstein rush upon the spears, and when the
noble countess was driven past him to Heilbronn in the dung-cart, he
tossed his cap in the air with the rest.

The peasant was to be lord now; the yoke of centuries was to be broken;
unjust imposts, taxes, tithes and villenage would be forever abolished,
while the fourth of the twelve articles he had heard read aloud more than
once, remained firmly fixed in his memory "Game, birds and fish every one
is free to catch." Moreover, many a verse from the Gospel, unfavorable to