Faithful to her custom of permitting no delay in the execution of a good
resolution, she wanted to send Katterle to call her husband, but the girl
could not be found.

Then Frau Christine went herself, beckoning to Eva to follow; but they
had scarcely reached the centre of the room when a peal of shrill
laughter greeted them from a couch on the left.

The person from whom it came was the barber's widow, whose attack had
alarmed Eva so terribly the day before in front of the pillory. It
pealed loudly and shrilly through the stillness of the night, and when
the matron turned angrily to reprove the person who so inconsiderately
disturbed the rest of the others, the woman clapped her hands and
instantly a chorus of sharp, screaming voices rose around her. The
barber's widow, who knew everybody who lived in Nuremberg, had recognised
the magistrate's wife at her entrance, and secretly incited her
neighbours to follow her example and, as soon as she gave the signal,
demand better fare and make Frau Christine, the patroness of the
hospital, feel what they thought of the cruelty of her husband, who had
delivered them to the executioner.

The female thieves and swindlers-in short, all the reprobate women around
Frau Ratzer, whose feet had just been tied on account of her unruly
behaviour in the Countess von Montfort's presence--obeyed her signal,
and the fierce voices raised in demand and invective woke those who were
sleeping farther away. Weeping, wailing, and screaming they started up,
clamouring to know what danger threatened them, whilst Frau Ratzer and
her fellow-conspirators shrieked for beer or wine instead of water, for
meat with the black bread and wretched broth and, yelling and howling,