"But they brand us for cowards!"
"The cowardice were in striking here," and Friedel sprang to withhold
Koppel, who had lighted a bundle of dried fern ready to thrust into
the thatch.
"Peasants!" said Ebbo, with the same impulse, "I spare you. You did
not this wrong. But bear word to your lord, that if he will meet me
with lance and sword, he will learn the valour of Adlerstein."
The serfs flung themselves before him in transports of gratitude, but
he turned hastily away and strode up the mountain, his cheek glowing
as he remembered, too late, that his defiance would be scoffed at, as
a boy's vaunt. By and by he arrived at the hamlet, where he found a
prisoner, a scowling, abject fellow, already well beaten, and now
held by two serfs.
"The halter is ready, Herr Freiherr," said old Ulrich, "and yon rowan
stump is still as stout as when your Herr grandsire hung three
lanzknechts on it in one day. We only waited your bidding."
"Quick then, and let me hear no more," said Ebbo, about to descend
the pass, as if hastening from the execution of a wolf taken in a
gin.
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