he third Sunday in Advent, the magistrate again came to the
monastery. His horses had worked their way with the sleigh through the
deep snow in the ravine with much difficulty, and, half-frozen, he went
directly to the refectory and there asked for his son.

The latter was lying with a bandaged eye in the cold dormitory, and when
his father sought him, he heard that Ulrich had wounded him.

It would not have needed Xaver's bitter complaints, to rouse his father
to furious rage against the boy who had committed this violence, and
he was by no means satisfied, when he learned that the culprit had been
excluded for three weeks from the others' sports, and placed on a very
frugal diet. He went furiously to the abbot.

The day before (Saturday), Ulrich had gone at noon, without the young
count, who was in confinement for some offence, to the snow-covered
play-ground, where he was attacked by Xaver and a dozen of his comrades,
pushed into a snow-bank, and almost suffocated. The conspirators had
stuffed icicles and snow under his clothes next his skin, taken off
his shoes and filled them with snow, and meantime Xaver jumped upon his
back, pressing his face into the snow till Ulrich lost his breath, and
believed his last hour had come.

Exerting the last remnant of his strength, he had succeeded in throwing
off and seizing his tormentor. While the others fled, he wreaked his
rage on the magistrate's son to his heart's content, first with his
fists, and then with the heavy shoe that lay beside him. Meantime,
snowballs had 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