"I say and maintain that it is the genuine and actual sword of Carolus Magnus with which he here at the Oberhof located and established the 'Freemen's Tribunal.' And even today the sword still performs and fulfils its office, although nothing further may be said about it." The old man uttered these words with an expression on his features and a gesture which had something sublime in them.
"And I say and maintain that all that is sheer nonsense!" exclaimed the Collector with emphasis. "I have examined the old toasting-iron no less than a hundred times, and it isn't five hundred years old! It comes down perhaps from the time of the feud of Soest, when very likely one of the Archbishop's cavalrymen crawled into the bushes here and left it."
"The devil take you!" cried the Justice, pounding his fist on the table. Then he mumbled softly to himself "Just wait; you'll get your punishment for that this very day!"
The servant came out of the door. He was carrying a terra-cotta jug with a rather large circumference and a strange, exotic appearance, gripping it firmly and carefully by the handles with both hands.
"Oh!" cried the Collector, when he had obtained a closer view of it.
"What a splendid large amphora! Where did it come from?"
The Justice replied with an air of indifference: "Oh, I found the old jug in the ditch a week ago when we were digging out gravel. There was a lot more stuff around there, but the men smashed it all to pieces with their picks. This jug was the only thing they spared, and, inasmuch as you are here, I wanted you to see it."
The Collector looked at the large, well-preserved vessel with moist eyes. Finally he stammered: "Can't we strike a bargain for it?"
"No," replied the peasant coldly. "I'll keep the pot for myself." He motioned to the servant, and the latter started to carry the amphora back into the house. He was prevented from doing so, however, by the Collector, who, without turning his eyes away from it, besought its owner with all kinds of lively arguments to turn the longed-for wine-jug over to him. But it was all in vain; the Justice, in the face of the most urgent entreaties, maintained an attitude of unshakable composure. In this way he formed the motionless centre-figure of the group, of which the peasants, listening to the business with open mouths, the servant tugging the jug with both handles toward the house, and the antiquarian holding on to the lower end, constituted the excited lateral and secondary figures. Finally the Justice said that he had been of a mind to give the jug to his guest along with several other pieces which he had previously discovered, because he himself would take pleasure in seeing the old things arranged in order on the shelves of the collection around the room, but that the constant attacks made by the Collector against the sword of Carolus Magnus had annoyed him, and that he had decided, therefore, to keep the jug after all.
Thereupon, after a pause, the Collector said in a dejected tone that to err was human, that medieval weapons could not always be distinguished with certainty as to their age, that he himself was less of an expert in these than in Roman relics, and that there were after all many things about the sword which seemed to indicate a more remote age, before the feud of Soest. Whereupon the Justice replied that general statements of that kind were of no use to him; he wanted to have the dispute and doubt regarding his sword settled once and for all, and there was only one way for the Collector to gain possession of the old jug, namely, by writing out on the spot a signed statement, wherein he should formally recognize the sword kept in the Oberhof as the actual sword of Charles the Great.
On hearing this a severe conflict ensued in the Collector's mind between his antiquarian conscience and his antiquarian longing. He pouted his lips and tapped with his fingers about the spot where he had concealed the bone from the battlefield of Teutoburg. Evidently he was striving to subdue the exhortations of a desire which was seducing him into signing an untruthful statement. Finally, however, passion, as is always the way, got the upper hand; suddenly demanding pen and paper, he made out in hot haste, now and then casting furtive glances at the amphora, a direct statement to the effect that he, after frequent examinations of it, recognized and declared the sword in the Oberhof as one formerly belonging to the Emperor, Charles the Great.