His rude affection had utterly
failed to console her for her desolated home and slaughtered kindred,
and it had so soon turned to brutality that, when brought to
comparative peace and rest in his brother's home, there was nothing
left for the poor Italian but to lie down and die, commending her
babe in broken German to Hausfrau Johanna, and blessing Master
Gottfried for his flowing Latin assurances that the child should be
to them even as the little maiden who was lying in the God's acre
upon the hillside
And verily the little Christina had been a precious gift to the
bereaved couple. Her father had no sooner recovered than he returned
to his roving life, and, except for a report that he had been seen
among the retainers of one of the robber barons of the Swabian Alps,
nothing had been heard of him; and Master Gottfried only hoped to be
spared the actual pain and scandal of knowing when his eyes were
blinded and his head swept off at a blow, or when he was tumbled
headlong into a moat, suspended from a tree, or broken on the wheel:
a choice of fates that was sure sooner or later to befall him.
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