Even this matter of homage, that seemed so hard to my Ebbo,
has now been made easy to him by his veneration for the Emperor."
It was even so. If the sense that he was the last veritable FREE
lord of Adlerstein rushed over Ebbo, he was, on the other hand,
overmastered by the kingliness of Friedrich and Maximilian, and was
aware that this submission, while depriving him of little or no
actual power, brought him into relations with the civilized world,
and opened to him paths of true honour. So the ceremonies were gone
through, his oath of allegiance was made, investiture was granted to
him by the delivery of a sword, and both he and Friedel were dubbed
knights. Then they shared another banquet, where, as away from the
Junkern and among elder men, Ebbo was happier than the day before.
Some of the knights seemed to him as rude and ignorant as the
Schneiderlein, but no one talked to him nor observed his manners, and
he could listen to conversation on war and policy such as interested
him far more than the subjects affected by youths a little older than
himself.
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