many and he is one--let us get rid of him, for he is always finding fault,
and thwarting us in the most innocent pleasures;--as if we would wish to
do anything wrong!' So without a word spoken, they rushed upon him; and
although he was stronger than any of them, and struggled hard at first,
yet they overcame him at last. Indeed some of them thought he yielded to
their violence long before they had the mastery of him; and this very
submission terrified the more tender-hearted amongst them. However, they
bound him; carried him down many stairs, and, having remembered an iron
staple in the wall of a certain vault, with a thick rusty chain attached
to it, they bore him thither, and made the chain fast around him. There
they left him, shutting the great gnarring brazen door of the vault, as
they departed for the upper regions of the castle.

"Now all was in a tumult of preparation. Every one was talking of the
coming festivity; but no one spoke of the deed they had done. A sudden
paleness overspread the face, now of one, and now of another; but it
passed away, and no one took any notice of it; they only plied the task of
the moment the more energetically. Messengers were sent far and near, not
to individuals or families, but publishing in all places of concourse a
general invitation to any who chose to come on a certain day, and partake
for certain succeeding days of the hospitality of the dwellers in the
castle. Many were the preparations immediately begun for complying with
the invitation. But the noblest of their neighbours refused to appear; not
from pride, but because of the unsuitableness and carelessness of such a
mode. With some of them it was an old condition in the tenure of their
estates, that they should go to no one's dwelling except visited in
person, and expressly solicited. Others, knowing what sort of persons
would be there, and that, from a certain physical antipathy, they could
scarcely breathe in their company, made up their minds at once not to go.
Yet multitudes, many of them beautiful and innocent as well as gay,