my good woman. If the Turk wants to make war, he requires no
Heidelberg Parson to help him." Shaking his head he went on. But at the
next corner met with another group.

"They have also arrested Parsons Suter and Vehe," cried a hoarse voice,
which Erastus immediately recognized to be Klaus' of the golden Stag.
"All natives of the Palatinate must give way to the Belgian dogs."

"Sylvan and Neuser are no Palatines," said another voice.

"But they love our Palatinate, and have made front for us against the
French, the Italians, and Dutch, who would be our masters."

"Let us burn down Olevianus' house," cried out a voice.

"And Zanchi's also," echoed another.

"And that of Dathen the court preacher," added Klaus.

"Be quiet good folks," now said Erastus. "Do not say anything that you
might regret should you be ever heard by the Magistrate." The speakers
already began to look about them in terror. "Get thee to thy tavern,
Klaus, and attend to thy guests. No one has heard thee, but do not help
to make matters worse."

The crowd in the market became visibly greater. Men poured forth from
every house, and the voices sounded like the humming of a swarm of
bees. Here Erastus remarked two of the bitterest of the nuns of the
Stift at Neuburg, who were exciting the people by telling them, that
the calvinistic church council was responsible for all this oppression.
"Only come out to us on St. John's day," he heard Sister Anastasia, a
withered up yellow old maid say, "then can you dance in the mill, and
we shall soon see if the Calvinists dare prevent our good people from
enjoying a proper amusement." The host of the Hirsch was relating in a
side street to an astonished crowd of young villagers, that Olevianus
intended closing all public houses; Parson Willing was making his way
through the crowd with a ready smile, letting a word here and there be
heard against the Professors. At the corner of the gable-house opposite
the church, Erastus saw the baptist Werner standing, looking down from
some raised steps, with socratic irony on the mob. He also met Xylander
in the crowd, whose jolly brown eyes gleamed with pleasure at the
turmoil going on around him.

"What are the people crying about?" he asked Erastus.

"If they only knew themselves. Crying seems to be to them the great
object of life." Even the haggard philosopher Pithopoeus, who overtopped
by a head all his neighbours, was threading his way through the throng
to his u