st tears and
sobbings, to explain herself in the following words:

"In the whole world there are no beings so wretched as myself and these
poor children. My husband was indebted to the Prince-Bishop for three
years' rent. The first year he could not pay it, on account of the
failure of his crops; during the second the Bishop's wild-boars grubbed
up all his seed from the ground; and during the third his whole
hunting-train galloped over our fields and destroyed our harvest. As my
husband had often been threatened by the steward with a distress, he
intended to have gone this morning to Frankfort, to sell a fat calf and
his last pair of oxen, and with the amount to have paid his rent. But
just as he was setting out the Bishop's clerk-of-the-kitchen came, and
demanded the calf for his lordship's table. My husband pleaded his
poverty, and told him how unjust it would be to take away his calf, which
would fetch a high price at Frankfort. The clerk-of-the-kitchen
answered, that no peasant had a right to carry any thing out of his
master's domain. The steward and his bailiffs then came, and instead of
taking my husband's part, he drove off the oxen; the clerk-of-the-kitchen
took the calf; the bailiffs turned me and my children out of house and
home; and while they were pillaging and carrying off our goods, my
husband went into the barn and out his throat in despair. The poor
wretch lies under that sheet, and we sit here to watch the body, so that
it may not be devoured by the wild-beasts, for the priest has refused to
bury it."

She tore away the white sheet which had concealed the body, and fell to
the ground. Faustus started at the horrible sight, while tears gushed
from his eyes, and he cried, "Man, man, is this thy lot?" Then looking
up to heaven, "Oh! didst thou create this unfortunate man merely that a
servant of thy religion might drive him to despair and suicide?" He cast
the cloth over the body, flung the woman some gold, and said, "I will go
to the Bishop and tell him your melancholy story. I am certain that he
will bury your husband, give you back your goods, and punish the
villains."

This circumstance made so strong an impression upon Faustus, that he and
the Devil reached the Bishop's castle before he could collect himself.
They were received with great civility, and shown into a spacious hall,
where his reverence was at table. The Prince-Bishop was a man in his
best years, but so enormously corpul