though she were striving to rede some dark riddle. Then her vast bosom
began to heave up and down, and we, who knew her, could not fail to
perceive that somewhat great and strange was moving her. And whereas she
presently shook her heavy head to and fro, and set her fists hard on her
hips, I looked for a sudden and dreadful storm, and my Uncle Conrad
likewise gazed her in the face with expectant fear; yet it was long in
breaking forth. What then was my feeling when, at last, she took her
hands from her sides and struck her right hand in her left palm so that
it rang again, and burst forth eagerly, albeit with roguish good humor
and tearful eyes: "If indeed everything good and right that ever was done
in Nuremberg must have once been done there for the first time, our good
town shall now see that a grey-headed old woman with gout in her toes can
sail over seas, from the Pegnitz even to the land of the barbarian
Heathen and Cairo! Your hand on it, Young Kubbeling, and yours, Maidens.
We will be fellow-travellers. Signed and sealed. Strew sand on it!"

Hereupon Ann, who was wont to be still, shrieked loudly and cast herself
first on my cousin's neck and then on mine and then on my uncle's; he
indeed stood as though deeply offended, as likewise did my good godfather
Christian. Yet they would not speak, that they might not mar our joy,
albeit Uncle Pfinzing growled forth that our plan was sheer youthful
folly, wilfulness, and the like. "At any rate it is an unlaid egg, so
long as my wife has not added mustard to the peppered broth," Uncle
Conrad declared, and he departed to carry tidings to my aunt of what
mad folly these women's heads had brewed.

Even Kubbeling shook his head, albeit he spoke not, inasmuch as he knew
that it was hard to contend with the powers beyond seas.

He and Cousin Maud had ever been on terms of good-fellowship with Uncle