and a meeting was appointed in the Rathhaus for the day of their expected return. The higher burghers sat on their carved chairs in the grand old hall, the lesser magnates on benches, and Ebbo, in an elbowed seat far too spacious for his slender proportions, met a glance from Friedel that told him his merry brother was thinking of the frog and the ox. The pursuivants entered—hardy, shrewd-looking men, with the city arms decking them wherever there was room for them.
“Honour-worthy sirs,” they said, “no letter did the Graf von Schlangenwald return.”
“Sent he no message?” demanded Moritz Schleiermacher.
“Yea, worthy sir, but scarce befitting this reverend assembly.” On being pressed, however, it was repeated: “The Lord Count was pleased to swear at what he termed the insolence of the city in sending him heralds, ‘as if,’ said he, ‘the dogs,’ your worships, ‘were his equals.’ Then having cursed your worships, he reviled the crooked writing of Herr Clerk Diedrichson, and called his chaplain to read it to him. Herr Priest could scarce read three lines for his foul language about the ford. ‘Never,’ said he, ‘would he consent to raising a bridge—a mean trick,’ so said he, ‘for defrauding him of his rights to what the flood sent him.’”
“But,” asked Ebbo, “took he no note of our explanation, that if he give not the upper bank, we will build lower, where both sides are my own?”
“He passed it not entirely over,” replied the messenger.
“What said he—the very words?” demanded Ebbo, with the paling cheek and low voice that made his passion often seem like patience.
“He said—(the Herr Freiherr will pardon me for repeating the words)—he said, ‘Tell the misproud mongrel of Adlerstein that he had best sit firm in his own saddle ere meddling with his betters, and if he touch one pebble of the Braunwasser, he will rue it. And before your city-folk take up with him or his, they had best learn whether he have any right at all in the case.’”
“His right is plain,” said Master Gottfried; “full proofs were given in, and his investiture by the Kaisar forms a title in itself. It is mere bravado, and an endeavour to make mischief between the Baron and the city.”
“Even so did I explain, Herr Guildmaster,” said the pursuivant; “but, pardon me, the Count laughed me to scorn, and quoth he, ‘asked the Kaisar for proof of his father’s death!’”