other vagabonds.

Certain of having found the right trail, he instantly went to the window
below which the strollers lay, thrust his head into the room from the
outside, and waked the wife of the tongueless swearer. She had fallen
asleep on the floor with the sewing in her hand. The terror with which
she started up at his call bore no favourable testimony to her good
conscience, but she had already recovered her bold unconcern when he
imperiously demanded to know what had become of lame Kuni.

"Ask the other travellers--the soldiers, the musicians, the monks, for
aught I care," was the scornful, irritating answer. But when Dietel
angrily forbade such insolent mockery, she cried jeeringly:

"Do you think men don't care for her because she has lost her foot and
has that little cough? You ought to know better.

"Master Dieter has a sweetheart for every finger, though the lower part
of his own body isn't quite as handsome as it might be."

"On account of my foot?" the waiter answered spitefully. "You'll soon
find that it knows how to chase. Besides, the Nuremberg city soldiers
will help me in the search. If you don't tell me at once where the girl
went--by St. Eoban, my patron----"

Here red-haired Gitta interrupted him in a totally different tone; she
and her companions had nothing good to expect from the city soldiers.

In a very humble manner she protested that Kuni was an extraordinarily
charitable creature. In a cart standing in the meadow by the highroad
lay the widow of a beggar, Nickel; whom the peasants had hung on account
of many a swindling trick. A goose and some chickens had strayed off to
his premises. The woman had just given birth to twins when Nickel was
hung, and she was now in a violent fever, with frequent attacks of
convulsions, and yet had to nurse the infants. The landlady of The Pike
had sent her some broth and a little milk for the children. As for Kuni,
she had gone to carry some linen from her own scanty store to the two
babies, who were as naked as little frogs. He would find her with the
sick mother.

All this flowed from Gitta's lips with so much confidence that Dietel,
whose heart was easily touched by such a deed of charity, though he by
no means put full confidence in her, allowed himself to be induced to
let the city soldiers alone for the present and test the truth of her
strange statement himself.

So he prepared to go in search of the cart, but the landlord of The
Pike met him