and incense, and consecrating the church anew, they
held a service of their own. The Preacher closed the church, but they
sang all the more lustily in the refectory. The Inspector confiscated
their song-books, they looked in all the corners for old ones and
shrieked to Heaven till their wearied old throats gave out. These books
were likewise taken away, but they sang from memory. Sometimes they
read the _Horae_ in one room, sometimes in another by closed doors, and
their "_Salve Regina_" never sounded louder or shriller than when the
Inspector and Preacher raged outside and demanded admission in the name
of the Count Palatine. When the two gentlemen had thus been beaten off,
then the Domina and her ladies sent a complaint to the Kurfuerst, that
the men, whom he had introduced into their nunnery, had attempted to
force their way into the nuns' cells to spite their virginal chastity,
honor and other laudable qualifications. Out of revenge the Inspector
took the clapper from the bell and cut the ropes so that they could no
longer toll the "_tempora_." Then arose a loud wailing and sobbing all
through the convent, and the Inspector grinned as contentedly as if he
heard the most delectable music, but in the evening when he climbed
into his bed, he found it as wet as if the rain had poured through the
roof, and when he strode down the steps the next morning in a rage, to
insist upon an inquiry in the matter of this outrage, he trod on some
peas which caused him to fall so heavily as to produce a painful lump.
This mode of life seemed to him so miserable and unprofitable that he
resigned the place and returned to Heidelberg. As the Preacher was now
left alone he comforted himself in his solitary chamber at the
furthermost end of the convent, with a beaker of wine; but the Domina
took note of every little dissipation which he thus enjoyed, and
drawing up an affidavit which was signed by many unimpeachable
witnesses of both sexes, sent it off to the Chancellory at Heidelberg,
who reproved the poor man so severely, that his life likewise became a
burden to him. Otto Heinrich had considered the struggle carried on
under his eyes in the light of an excellent joke, and whenever he was
informed of any new tribulation undergone by his Inspector, the stout
lord, who measured three feet and a half across the back from shoulder
to shoulder, laughed so loud, that the large dining room of the new
Court shook again. But he was succeeded by F