ad
rained upon his body and head from all directions, increasing his fury;
and as soon as Xaver no longer struggled he started up, exclaiming with
glowing cheeks and upraised fists:

"Wait, wait, you wicked fellows! The doctor in Richtberg knows a word, by
which he shall turn you all into toads and rats, you miserable rascals!"

Xaver had remembered this speech, which he repeated to his father,
cleverly enlarged with many a false word. The abbot listened to the
magistrate's complaint very quietly.

The angry father was no sufficient witness for him, yet the matter seemed
important enough to send for and question Ulrich, though the meal-time
had already begun. The Jew had really spoken to his daughter about the
magic word, and the pupil of the monastery had threatened his companions
with it. So the investigation might begin.

Ulrich was led back to the prison-chamber, where some thin soup and bread
awaited him, but he touched neither. Food and drink disgusted him, and he
could neither work nor sit still.

The little bell, which, summoned all the occupants of the monastery, was
heard at an unusual hour, and about vespers the sound of sleigh-bells
attracted him to the window. The abbot and Father Hieronymus were talking
in undertones to the magistrate, who was just preparing to enter his
sleigh.

They were speaking of him and the doctor, and the pupils had just been
summoned to bear witness against him. No one had told him so, but he knew
it, and was seized with such anxiety about the doctor, that drops of
perspiration stood on his brow.

He was clearly aware that he had mingled his teacher's words with the
poacher's blasphemous sayings, and also that he had put the latter into
the mouth of Ruth's father.

He was a traitor, a liar, a miserable scoundrel!

He wished to go to the abbot and confess all, yet dared not, and so the
hours stole away until the time for the evening mass.

While in church he strove to pray, not only for himself but for the
doctor, but in vain, he could think of nothing but the trial, and while
kneeling with his hands over his eyes, saw the Jew in fetters before him,
and he himself at the trial in the town-hall.

At last the mass ended.

Ulrich rose. Just before him hung the large crucifix, and the Saviour on
the cross, who with his head bowed on one side, usually gazed so gently
and mournfully upon the ground, to-day seemed to look at him with mingled
reproach and accusation.

In th