he trotted after the torch-bearers towards the city.




CHAPTER XIII.

The drawbridge before the watch-tower was promptly lowered for the
imperial magistrate and his wife. He would have dissuaded Frau Chris the
from the ride and come alone, had not experience taught him that Ernst
Ortlieb was more ready to listen to her than to him. But they came too
late; just before sunset Herr Ernst had availed himself of the visit of
the imperial forester, Waldstromer, to give him the petition to convey to
the protonotary, by whom it was to reach the Emperor. Nor did he regret
this decision, but insisted that his duty as a father and a Nuremberg
"Honourable" would not permit the wrong done to his child and his
household by a foreign knight to pass unpunished.

True, Fran Christine exerted all her powers of persuasion to change his
opinion, and her husband valiantly supported her, but they accomplished
nothing except to gain the prisoner's consent that if the paper had not
yet reached the Emperor the protonotary might defer its presentation
until he was asked for it.

Herr Ernst had made this concession after the magistrate's representation
that Sir Heinz Schorlin had been subjected to an experience which had
stirred the inmost depths of his soul, and soon after had been
unexpectedly sent in pursuit of the Siebenburgs. Hence he had found no
time to speak to the father. If he persisted in his intention of
entering a monastery, the petition would be purposeless. If it proved