place:--A peasant once, stumbling into the interior, saw the
Kaiser in his stone cavern; Kaiser sat at a marble table, leaning on his
elbow; winking, only half asleep; beard had grown through the table, and
streamed out on the floor; he looked at the peasant one moment; asked
him something about the time it was; then dropped his eyelids again: Not
yet time, but will be soon! [Riesebeck's _Travels_ (English Translation,
London, 1787), i. 140, Busching, _Volks-Sagen,_ &c. (Leipzig, 1820), i.
333, &c. &x.] He is winking as if to awake. To awake, and set his
shield aloft by the Roncalic Fields again, with: Ho, every one that is
suffering wrong;--or that has strayed guideless, devil-ward, and done
wrong, which is far fataler!

CONRAD HAS BECOME BURGGRAF OF NURNBERG (A.D. 1170).

This was the Kaiser to whom Conrad addressed himself; and he did it with
success; which may be taken as a kind of testimonial to the worth of the
young man. Details we have absolutely none: but there is no doubt that
Conrad recommended himself to Kaiser Redbeard, nor any that the
Kaiser was a judge of men. Very earnest to discern men's worth and
capabilities; having unspeakable need of worth, instead of unworth, in
those under him! We may conclude he had found capabilities in Conrad;
found that the young fellow did effective services as the occasion rose,
and knew how to work, in a swift, resolute, judicious and exact manner.
Promotion was not likely on other terms; still less, high promotion.

One thing farther is known, significant for his successes: Conrad found
favor with "the Heiress of the Vohburg Family," desirable young heiress,
and got her to wife. The Vohburg Family, now much forgotten everywhere,
and never heard of in England before, had long been of supreme
importance, of immense possessions, and opulent in territories, and
we need not add, in honors and offices, in those Franconian Nurnberg
regions; and was now gone to this one girl. I know not that she had much
inheritance after all; the vast Vohburg properties lapsing all to the
Kaiser, when the male heirs were out. But she had pretensions, tacit
claims; in particular, the Vohburgs had long been habitual or in effect
hereditary Burggrafs of Nurnberg; and if Conrad had the talent for that
office; he now, in preference to others, might have a chance for it.
Sure enough, he got it; took root in it, he and his; and, in the course
of centuries, branched up from it, high and wide, ove