'Lord, deal not with him in judgment!' prayed the enthusiastic young woman, with pious zeal.
'My second father!' cried Clara, mildly weeping, and, bending down over the dead body, she softly kissed his pale lips.
'No,' cried Alf, with angry grief, 'this sentence was not pronounced and executed in accordance with thy will, Spirit of Mercy!'
CHAPTER II.
The next morning Alf stepped into the apartment of his kinsman, Gerhard Kippenbrock, to salute him. The good old man, a worthy butcher by calling, had by the overthrow of all established customs been made second burgomaster of the imperial free city of Munster, without clearly knowing how that precise result had been attained. He advanced to meet the new comer, uncommonly magnificent in his black official dress, with the lace collar and golden chain of honor, and introduced him to a large, raw-boned, meagre man, in a similar dress, who sat at the table staring on vacancy with half-extinguished eyes, in which the flashes of a quiet insanity were occasionally playing.
'Thou hast here the best opportunity to recommend thyself to the favor of our first burgomaster, of brother Bernd Knipperdolling,' said the elder Kippenbrock to the youth. Alf bowed himself low before the singular man, whose appearance affected him disagreeably, and stammered some expressions of respect.
Knipperdolling cast upon him a searching glance, and then said in a hollow and monotonous voice, 'a well formed vessel for the spirit!--thy kinsman, my brother? He may become a bailiff of the city of Zion.'
'God preserve me, revered sir burgomaster!' protested Alf. 'I by no means understand all that the office requires, and should disgrace my undeserved promotion.'
'Whoever hath the spirit,' said Knipperdolling, decisively, 'needs no earthly wisdom.'
'I have taken upon myself a holy duty!' exclaimed the youth with anxiety, shuddering at the burthen of the proffered dignity. 'I have promised to the unfortunate Trutlinger on his death-bed, to take upon myself the care of his two nieces, whom he left unprotected. I shall have plenty to do,--for six journeymen are employed in the workshop of the orphans, and much work is ordered.'