and all accused him loudly except his nephew, Grimbart the badger.

"And yet there was one who was absent,
Reineke Fox, the rascal! who, deeply given to mischief,
Held aloof from half the Court. As shuns a bad conscience
Light and day, so the fox fought shy of the nobles assembled.
One and all had complaints to make, he had all of them injured;
Grimbart the badger, his brother's son, alone was excepted."

[Sidenote: Complaints against Reynard.] The complaint was voiced by Isegrim
the wolf, who told with much feeling how cruelly Reynard had blinded three
of his beloved children, and how shamefully he had insulted his wife, the
fair lady Gieremund. This accusation had no sooner been formulated than
Wackerlos the dog came forward, and, speaking French, pathetically
described the finding of a little sausage in a thicket, and its purloining
by Reynard, who seemed to have no regard whatever for his famished
condition.

The tomcat Hintze, who at the mere mention of a sausage had listened more
attentively, now angrily cried out that the sausage which Wackerlos had
lost belonged by right to him, as he had concealed it in the thicket after
stealing it from the miller's wife. He added that he too had had much to
suffer from Reynard, and was supported by the panther, who described how he
had once found the miscreant cruelly beating poor Lampe the hare.

"Lampe he held by the collar,
Yes, and had certainly taken his life, if I by good fortune
Had not happened to pass by the road. There standing you see him.
Look and see the wounds of the gentle creature, whom no one
Ever would think of ill treating."