"
"Pfui!" said Ebbo, hotly; "hast not heard fifty times how he died
even in speaking, and how Heinz crossed his hands on his breast?
What wouldst have more?"
"Hardly even that," said Friedel, slightly smiling.
"Tush!" hastily returned his brother, "I meant only by way of proof.
Would an honest old fellow like Heinz be a deceiver?"
"Not wittingly. Yet I would fain ride to that hostel and make
inquiries!"
"The traitor host met his deserts, and was broken on the wheel for
murdering a pedlar a year ago," said Ebbo. "I would I knew where my
father was buried, for then would I bring his corpse honourably back;
but as to his being a living man, I will not have it spoken of to
trouble my mother."
"To trouble her?" exclaimed Friedel.
"To trouble her," repeated Ebbo. "Long since hath passed the pang of
his loss, and there is reason in what old Sorel says, that he must
have been a rugged, untaught savage, with little in common with the
gentle one, and that tender memory hath decked him out as he never
could have been. Nay, Friedel, it is but sense.
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