preferred what was noble and knightly to all other graces he would wed no
daughter of Nuremberg but the penniless child of Baron von Frauentrift.
But my grand-uncle had made an evil choice; his wife was high-tempered
and filled full of conceits. When princes and great lords came into our
city, they were ever ready to find lodging in the great and wealthy house
of the Im Hoffs; but then she would suffer them to pay court to her, and
grant them greater freedom than becomes the decent honor of a Nuremberg
citizen's hearth. Once, then, when my lord the duke of Bavaria lay at
their house with a numerous fellowship, a fine young count, who had
courted my grand uncle's wife while she was yet a maid, fanned his
jealousy to a flame; and, one evening, at a late hour, while his wife was
yet not come home from seeing some friends, as it fell he heard a noise
and whispering of voices, beneath their lodging, in the courtyard wherein
all these folks' chests and bales were bestowed. He rushed forth, beside
himself; and whereas he shouted out to the courtyard and got no reply, he
thrust right and left at haphazard with his naked sword among the chests
whence he had heard the voices, and a pitiful cry warned him that he had
struck home. Then there came the wailing of a woman; and when the
squires and yeomen came forth with torches and lanterns, he could see
that he had slain Ludwig Tetzel, Ursula's uncle, a young unwedded man.
He had stolen into the courtyard to hold a tryst with the fair daughter
of the master-weigher in the Im Hoffs' house of trade, and the loving
pair, in their fear of the master, had not answered his call, but had
crept behind the baggage. Thus, by ill guidance, had my grand-uncle
become a murderer, and the judges broke their staff over him; albeit,
since he freely confessed the deed of death, and had done it with no evil
intent, they were content to make him pay a fine in money. But some said
that they likewise commanded the hangman to nail up a gallows-cord behind
his house door; others, rather, that he had taken upon himself the
penance of ever wearing such a cord about his neck day and night.