"What said he--the very words?" demanded Ebbo, with the paling cheek
and low voice that made his passion often seem like patience.
"He said--(the Herr Freiherr will pardon me for repeating the words)-
-he said, 'Tell the misproud mongrel of Adlerstein that he had best
sit firm in his own saddle ere meddling with his betters, and if he
touch one pebble of the Braunwasser, he will rue it. And before your
city-folk take up with him or his, they had best learn whether he
have any right at all in the case.'"
"His right is plain," said Master Gottfried; "full proofs were given
in, and his investiture by the Kaisar forms a title in itself. It is
mere bravado, and an endeavour to make mischief between the Baron and
the city."
"Even so did I explain, Herr Guildmaster," said the pursuivant; "but,
pardon me, the Count laughed me to scorn, and quoth he, 'asked the
Kaisar for proof of his father's death!'"
"Mere mischief-making, as before," said Master Gottfried, while his
nephews started with amaze. "His father's death was proved by an
eye-witness, whom you still have in your train, have you not, Herr
Freiherr?"
"Yea," replied Ebbo, "he is at Adlerstein now, Heinrich Bauermann,
called the Schneiderlein, a lanzknecht, who alone escaped the
slaughter, and from whom we have often heard how my father died,
choked in his own blood, from a deep breast-wound, immediately after
he had sent home his last greetings to my lady mother.
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