“The right of parents is with those that have done the duty of parents,” returned Johanna. “What said the kid in the fable to the goat that claimed her from the sheep that bred her up? I am ashamed of you, housefather, for not better loving your own niece.”
“Heaven knows how I love her,” said Gottfried, as the sweet face was raised up to him with a look acquitting him of the charge, and he bent to smooth back the silken hair, and kiss the ivory brow; “but Heaven also knows that I see no means of withholding her from one whose claim is closer than my own—none save one; and to that even thou, housemother, wouldst not have me resort.”
“What is it?” asked the dame, sharply, yet with some fear.
“To denounce him to the burgomasters as one of the Adlerstein retainers who robbed Philipp der Schmidt, and have him fast laid by the heels.”
Christina shuddered, and Dame Johanna herself recoiled; but presently exclaimed, “Nay, you could not do that, good man, but wherefore not threaten him therewith? Stand at his bedside in early dawn, and tell him that, if he be not off ere daylight with both his cut-throats, the halberdiers will be upon him.”
“Threaten what I neither could nor would perform, mother? That were a shrewish resource.”
“Yet would it save the child,” muttered Johanna. But, in the meantime, Christina was rising from the floor, and stood before them with loose hair, tearful eyes, and wet, flushed cheeks. “It must be thus,” she said, in a low, but not unsteady voice. “I can bear it better since I have heard of the poor young lady, sick and with none to care for her. I will go with my father; it is my duty. I will do my best; but oh! uncle, so work with him that he may bring me back again.”
“This from thee, Stina!” exclaimed her aunt; “from thee who art sick for fear of a lanzknecht!”
“The saints will be with me, and you will pray for me,” said Christina, still trembling.
“I tell thee, child, thou knowst not what these vile dens are. Heaven forfend thou shouldst!” exclaimed her aunt. “Go only to Father Balthazar, housefather, and see if he doth not call it a sending of a lamb among wolves.”