saying she had better first bind up her hair, which she then remembered,
and laughing, weeping, and praying, all at once, she bound up her long
hair. And now the young lord came galloping round the corner, attired in a
green velvet doublet with red silk sleeves, and a grey hat with a heron's
feather therein; _summa_, gaily dressed as beseems a wooer. And when we
now ran out at the door, he called aloud to my child in the Latin, from
afar off, "_Quomodo stat dulcissima virgo?_" Whereupon she gave answer,
saying, "_Bene te aspecto._" He then sprang smiling off his horse, and
gave it into the charge of my ploughman, who meanwhile had come up
together with the maid; but he was affrighted when he saw my child so
pale, and taking her hand spake in the vulgar tongue, "My God! what is it
ails you, sweet maid? you look more pale than when about to go to the
stake." Whereupon she answered, "I have been at the stake daily since you
left us, good my lord, without coming into our house, or so much as
sending us tidings of whither you were gone."

This pleased him well, and he said, "Let us first of all go into the
chamber, and you shall hear all." And when he had wiped the sweat from
his brow, and sat down on the bench beside my child, he spake as
follows:--That he had straightway promised her that he would clear her
honour before the whole world, and the self-same day whereon he left us he
made the worshipful court draw up an authentic record of all that had
taken place, more especially the confession of the impudent constable,
_item_, that of my ploughboy, Claus Neels; wherewith he rode throughout
the same night, as he had promised, to Anclam, and next day to Stettin, to
our gracious sovereign Duke Bogislaw: who marvelled greatly when he heard
of the wickedness of his Sheriff, and of that which he had done to my
child: moreover, he asked whether she were the pastor's daughter who once
upon a time had found the signet-ring of his Princely Highness Philippus
Julius of most Christian memory in the castle garden at Wolgast? and as he