FOUNTAIN AT SCHAFFHAUSEN.
Queer times were those, and queer relations existed between the Church and State. The Lord of Windeck was at one time kidnapped by the Bishop of Strasburg, and confined in a tower three years,—a thing that would not be regarded as a very clerical or spiritual proceeding to-day. A little later the Dean of Strasburg was surprised by the retainers of the Lord of Windeck, and was in turn carried a prisoner to the gray old castle of Windeck.
The captive dean had a niece, a lovely girl, who was deeply attached to him. When she heard of his captivity she was much grieved, and set herself to devising plans for his release.
At the foot of the grim old castle, in the Black Forest, there lived an old woman. She was wiser than her neighbors, and was regarded as a witch. She was able to tell inquirers whatever they wished to know, and so was as useful as a newspaper, in her day and generation.
She was the last of her family. She lived alone, and her only society was some pure white hens, so large that the biggest of modern Shanghai fowls must have been mere pygmies to them.
The people of the region were very shy of the old woman and her strange hens. The timid never ventured past her door after dark, after her hens went to roost.
She was surprised one winter evening by a rap at her door.
She listened.
Tap, tap, tap!
“Come in.”