inging in the garden, and the cocks
were crowing in the yards of the houses. The animals passing in the
street lowed, grunted, and cackled merrily in the dawn of the young day.

Gay young men, travelling students who had sought cheap quarters in the
country, now entered the city with a merry song on their lips just shaded
by the first down of manhood, and when a maiden met them she lowered her
eyes modestly before the riotous fellows.

The terrors of the frightful thunderstorm seemed forgotten. Nuremberg
looked gladsome; a carpet hung from many a bow-window, and flags and
streamers fluttered from roofs and balconies to honour the distinguished
guests. Many signs of their presence were visible, squires and equerries,
in their masters' colours, were riding spirited horses, and a few knights
who loved early rising were already in the saddle, their shining helmets
and coats of mail flashing brightly in the sunshine.

The gigantic figure of Sir Seitz Siebenburg moved with drooping head
through the budding joy of this June day towards the Eysvogel dwelling.

His gloomy, haggard face and disordered attire made two neatly dressed
young shoemaker's apprentices, on their way to their work, nudge each
other and look keenly at him.

"I'd rather meet him here in broad daylight among houses and people than
in the dusk on the highway," remarked one of them.

"There's no danger," replied the other. "He wears the curb now. He moved
from the robber nest into the rich Eysvogel house opposite. That's Herr
Casper's son-in-law. But such people can never let other folks' property
alone. Only here they work in another way. The shoes he wears were made
in our workshop, but the master still whistles for his pay, and he owes
everybody--the tailor, the lacemaker, the armourer, the girdlemaker, and
the goldsmith. If an apprentice reminds him of the debt, let him beware
of bruises."

"The Emperor Rudolph ought to issue an edict against such injustice!"
wrathfully exclaimed the other and taller youth, the handsome son of a
master of the craft from Weissenburg on the Sand, who expected soon to
take his father's place. "Up at Castle Graufels, which is saddled on our
little town, master and man would be going barefoot but for us; yet for
three years we haven't seen so much as a penny of his, though my father
says times have already improved, since the Hapsburg, as a just man----"

"Things have not been so bad here for a long while, the saints be