throwing his arm over the shoulder
of the artisan's son. "If the glass wouldn't rattle, I would throw now;
but there's another day coming to-morrow."

CHAPTER VII.

Autumn had come. The yellow leaves were fluttering about the school
play-ground, the starlings were gathering in flocks on the church roof to
take their departure, and Ulrich would fain have gone with them, no
matter where. He could not feel at home in the monastery and among his
companions. Always first in Richtberg, he was rarely so here, most seldom
of all in school, for his father had forbidden the doctor to teach him
Latin, so in that study he was last of all.

Often, when every one was asleep, the poor lad sat studying by the
ever-burning lamp in the lobby, but in vain. He could not come up with
the others, and the unpleasant feeling of remaining behind, in spite of
the most honest effort, spoiled his life and made him irritable.

His comrades did not spare him, and when they called him "horse-boy,"
because he was often obliged to help Pater Benedictus in bringing
refractory horses to reason, he flew into a rage and used his superior
strength.

He stood on the worst terms of all with black-haired Xaver, to whom he
owed the nickname.

This boy's father was the chief magistrate of the little city, and was
allowed to take his son home with him at Michaelmas.

When the black-haired lad returned, he had many things to tell, gathered
from half-understood rumor, about Ulrich's parents. Words were now
uttered, that brought the blood to Ulrich's cheeks, yet he intentionally
pretended not to hear them, because he dared not contradict tales that
might be true. He well knew who had brought all these stories to the
others, and answered Xaver's malicious spite with open enmity.

Count Lips did not trouble himself about any of these things, but
remained Ulrich's most intimate friend, and was fond of going with him to
see the horses. His vivacious intellect joyously sympathized with the
smith's son, when he told him about Ruth's imaginary visions, and often
in the play-ground he went apart with Ulrich from their companions; but
this very circumstance was a thing that many, who had formerly been on
more intimate terms with the aristocratic boy, were not disposed to
forgive the new-comer.

Xaver had never been friendly to the count's son, and succeeded in
irritating many against their former favorite, because he fancied himself
better than they, and sti