the poor outcasts besieged his door, the men begging for time to pay,
while their wives sought to move his stony heart by drawing his
attention to their children, who were crying for bread. But after he
had provided himself with one or two big and savage dogs, there was
soon an end to these "cat's concerts," as he termed them. He had but to
whistle and call his dogs, and the beggars fled, crying and screaming,
in all directions.

His chief annoyance was the "old woman"--who was none other than Dame
Munk, his own mother. She had lived in misery and want from the day
when they had sold up her house and home; and now her son, though he
had come back rich, no longer took any notice of her. Yet she, old,
feeble and broken down, would come from time to time and stand, leaning
on her stick, in front of his house. She did not now dare to enter, for
he had once driven her out. But her greatest grief was that she was
compelled to accept the charity of others in order to live, though her
own son could have made her old age happy and free from care. But the
cold heart was never touched at the sight of those pale well-known
features, by their pleading expression, by the withered outstretched
hand, by the frail and tottering form. When she knocked at the door on
Saturdays he would draw sixpence from his pocket, grumbling the while,
wrap it up in a piece of paper, and send a servant out to her with it.
He caught the sound of her quavering voice as she spoke her thanks and
wished him well on this earth; he heard her pant as she shuffled away
from his door; then he thought no more of her except to regret that
another sixpence had been so profitlessly expended.

At length Peter determined to marry. He knew well that any father in
the Black Forest would be glad to let him wed his daughter; but he took
pains over his choice, for he wanted everybody to praise his good luck
and sense even in this matter. Wherefore he rode about on a round of
inspection, visiting several houses in all parts of the forest; but
none of the pretty Black Forest maidens seemed to be beautiful enough
for him. At last, after having vainly attended all the dance-meetings
in his search for a beautiful damsel, he heard one day that the
loveliest and most virtuous of all the girls in the forest was the
daughter of a poor woodcutter.

She lived quietly and alone, keeping house for her father, was clever
and diligent, and never attended a dance, not even at Whitsuntide