the great court with my head high and my heart high also. I might not understand Voetius; but I understood that my lady was one, who in face of all and in spite of all, come Hofman or Dietz, come peace or war, would not blench, but stand by the right! And it did me good. He is a bad horse that will not jump when his rider's heart is right, and a bad servant that will not follow when his master goes before! I hummed a tune, I rattled my staff on the stones. I said to myself it was a thousand pities so gallant a spirit should be wasted on a woman: and then again I fancied that I could not have served a man as I knew I could and would serve her should time and the call ever put me to the test.

The castle at Heritzburg, rising abruptly above the roofs of the houses, is accessible from the town by a flight of steps cut in the rock. On the other three sides the knob on which it stands is separated from the wooded hills to which it belongs by a narrow ravine, crossed in one place by a light horse-bridge made in modern days. This forms the chief entrance to the castle, but the road which leads to it from the town goes so far round that it is seldom used, the flight of steps I have mentioned leading at once and more conveniently from the end of the High Street. Half way down the High Street on the right hand side is the Market-place, a small paved square, shaded by tall wooden houses, and having a carved stone pump in the middle. A hundred paces beyond this on the same side is the Red Hart, standing just within the West Gate.

From one end of the town to the other is scarcely a step, and I was at the inn before the Countess's voice had ceased to sound in my ears. The door stood open, and I went in, expecting to find the kitchen empty or nearly so at that hour of the day. To my surprise, I found at least a dozen people in it, with as much noise and excitement going forward as if the yearly fair had been in progress. For a moment I was not observed. I had time to see who were present--Klink, the two soldiers who had put themselves forward the evening before, and half a score of idlers. Then the landlord's eye fell on me and he passed the word. A sudden silence followed and a dozen faces turned my way; so that the room, which was low in the roof with wide beetle-browed windows, seemed to lighten.

'Just in time, Master Schwartz!' cried one fellow. 'You, can write, and we are about a petition! Perhaps you will draw it up for us.'

'A petition,' I said shortly, eyeing the fellow with contempt. 'What petition?'

'Against Papists!' he answered boldly.

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