also. I can endure these rooms no longer. The forest is putting forth
its first green leafage. The birds are returning. Red deer are plenty
in the woods along the Danube. I must get out of doors into the open
air. As matters are now, I could not leave his Majesty; but when the
band and the boy choir are at his disposal, they will dispel his
melancholy moods, and I can venture later to leave him to you and
Malfalconnet, whose wit will be freshly seasoned by the payment of his
debts. O Luis! if only I can get out of doors! Meanwhile, may music do
for my imperial brother what we anticipate! And one thing more: Take
Master Adrian with you. I released him from attendance upon the Emperor
until midnight. It was no easy matter. When you have provided the
favourites of Apollo with lodgings, come to me again, however late the
hour may be. Sir Wolf Hartschwert must call early to-morrow morning.
The nuncio brought some new songs from Rome. The music is too high for
my voice, and the knight understands how to transpose the notes for me
better than even the leader of the choir, Appenzelder."




CHAPTER II.

The April sun, ere it sank to rest, had won the victory and kindly
dried the garments of the horsemen who were approaching Ratisbon by
the Nuremberg road.

A young man who had ridden forward in advance of the great train of
travellers behind him checked his steed above the village of Kneiting,
just where the highway descended in many a curve to the valley of the
Danube, and gazed at the landscape whose green spring leafage, freshened