'Only be patient,' said the tailor mysteriously. 'Better things will come. I have already heard various whispers. Our prophet is not the man to stop half way. Think of what I told you when we were traveling to Munster; it is not yet the end of time! I must now leave you, as we judges are invited to a feast by the chief prophet. He marries, this day, the beautiful widow of his predecessor, the great Matthias. Farewell! I shall always remain friendly to you, and should I hereafter rise yet higher on the scale of honor, you will always find in me a patron and protector.'
After one or two failures, the duodecemvir finally succeeded in passing himself and his new sword through the room door.
'Surely!' cried Alf impatiently, 'if this tailor-spirit is to set such vagabonds upon the judgment-seat of my native city, I may soon repent that I refused the crown. It would at least have given me the power to hinder many acts of madness.'
CHAPTER VIII.
Some time afterwards, Alf was sitting arm in arm with his Eliza in the family sitting-room, while Clara was spinning near the window, and moistening the thread with her bitter tears. Suddenly the door flew open, and in clattered a stout young trooper, who extended his hand to Alf, joyously exclaiming, 'God bless you, my dear school fellow! Do you not know me?'
'Hanslein of the long street!' cried Alf, embracing the friend of his youth. 'Welcome to Munster!'
'Hanslein of the long street?' asked the beautiful Eliza, with surprise and displeasure. 'How is this? were you not an episcopalian?'
'Certainly,' answered Hanslein, 'with body and soul, until the day before yesterday. On that day I got into a quarrel with my serjeant while drinking with him, and laid my blade over his head in a way that he will not easily forget. Life is as dear to me as to any other man, and therefore I made my way out of the bishop's camp, rode over to yours, and now let your orator but once more wash my head, and I am prepared to contend bravely with my old brethren in arms.'
'When the chief prophet holds you worthy of being received into our community!' sharply observed Eliza, who was highly offended at the frivolous conversation of the renegade.
'The worthy tailor has already received me with open arms,' answered Hanslein. 'I have become captain of the seventh company, and am quartered with the burgomaster-hangman Knipperdolling, where we have wine and women in abundance.'