uestions,
that seemed to him neither very intelligible, nor calculated to inspire
confidence.

"Well, my little bird!" the jester began, joyously anticipating a
confirmation of the clever inferences he had drawn, "I suppose it was
a long flight to the churchyard, where we found you. On the grave is a
better place than in it, and a bed at Emmendingen, with plenty of grits
and veal, is preferable to being in the snow on the highway, with a
grumbling stomach Speak freely, my lad! Where does your nest of robbers
hang?"

"Nest of robbers?" repeated Ulrich in amazement.

"Well, castle or the like, for aught I care," continued Pellicanus
inquiringly. "Everybody is at home somewhere, except Mr. Nobody; but as
you are somebody, Nobody cannot possibly be your father. Tell me about
the old fellow!"

"My father is dead," replied the boy, and as the events of the preceding
day rushed back upon his memory, he drew the coverlet over his face and
wept.

"Poor fellow!" murmured the jester, hastily drawing his sleeve across
his eyes, and leaving the lad in peace, till he showed his face again.
Then he continued: "But I suppose you have a mother at home?"

Ulrich shook his head mournfully, and Pellicanus, to conceal his own
emotion, looked at him with a comical grimace, and then said very
kindly, though not without a feeling of satisfaction at his own
penetration:

"So you are an orphan! Yes, yes! So long as the mother's wings cover it,
the young bird doesn't fly so thoughtlessly out of the warm nest into
the wide world. I suppose the Latin school grew too narrow for the young
nobleman?"

Ulrich raised himself, exclaiming in an eager, defiant tone:

"I won't go back to the monastery; that I will not."

"So that's the way the hare jumps!" cried the fool laughing. "You've
been a bad Latin scholar, and the timber in the forest is dearer to you,
than the wood in the school-room benches. To be sure, they send out no
green shoots. Dear Lord, how his face is burning!" So saying, Pellicanus
laid his hand on the boy's forehead and when he felt that it was hot,
deemed it better to stop his examination for the day, and only asked his
patient his name.

"Ulrich," was the reply.

"And what else?"

"Let me alone!" pleaded the boy, drawing the coverlet over his head
again.

The jester obeyed his wish, and opened the door leading into the
tap-room, for some one had knocked. The artist's servant entered, to
fetch his master's portmant