Pirckheimer with a slight bend
of his stately head; "but in my young days we had a better understanding
of the art of reconciling stern duty with indulgent compassion, when
dealing with a beautiful Calypso whom our sternness threatened to wound.
But everything in the good old days was not better than at the present
time, and that you, whom I honour as the most faithful of husbands, may
not misunderstand me, Lienhard: To bend and to succumb are two different
things."

"Succumb!" Sir Hans von Obernitz, the Nuremberg magistrate, here
interposed indignantly. "A Groland, who, moreover, is blessed with a
loyal, lovely wife, succumb to the sparkling eyes of a vagabond wanton!
The Pegnitz would flow up the castle cliff first. I should think we
might have less vulgar subjects to discuss."

"The daring, skilful ropedancer certainly does not belong to the
latter," Doctor Peutinger eagerly retorted. "Besides, who would not
desire to know how the free, hot-blooded daughter of the highway settled
the account with you, friend Lienhard? Love disdained is said to be the
mother of hatred, and from the days of Potiphar's wife has often caused
cruel vengeance. Had this girl whom Sir Hans holds in such light esteem
really possessed an evil nature, like others of her class--"

"That she does not," Lienhard Groland here warmly interrupted the
Augsburg guest.

"Whatever Kuni may lack, and whatever errors she may have committed,
she is, and will remain a rare creature, even among the few whose lofty
spirit can not be bowed or broken by the deepest calamity. When I met
her here again at The Blue Pike, among the most corrupt vagabonds, ill
and poor, perhaps already the victim of death, I thought it a fitting
time to renew the gift which she had refused. I would gladly do more for
the poor girl, and my wife at home certainly would not be vexed; she,
too, is fond of Kuni, and--I repeat it--this girl has a good, nay, the
best nature. If, instead of among vagabonds, she had been born in a
respectable household--"

Here the young envoy was suddenly interrupted. His table companions also
raised their heads in surprise--a strange noise echoed through the night
air.

Little Doctor Eberbach started up in affright, Hans von Obernitz, the
Nuremberg magistrate, grasped the hilt of his sword, but Doctor Schedel
instantly perceived that the sound which reached his aged ears was
nothing but a violent, long-repressed fit of coughing. He and the
other gen