"It was not with the Ulmers' good will; for they even wanted to induce me to remain longer with them, and to give me board and lodging gratis," replied the man.
"Yes, they would have put you in the lowest cell of the prison, where you would have seen neither sun nor moon, the place appropriated to spies and such like gentry."
"Excuse me, sir," replied the messenger, "though I might have been somewhat lower, we should both have been under the same roof."
"Dog of a spy!" cried Albert, with anger burning on his cheek; "would you place my father's son in the same rank with the fifer of Hardt?"
"What is that you say?" replied the other with menacing tone; "what name is that you mentioned? do you know the fifer of Hardt?" At these words he grasped his axe, though perhaps involuntarily. His compact, broad-chested figure, spite of his low stature, gave him the appearance of an adversary not to be despised: and many a man, single handed, would have been staggered at his determined countenance and fierce eye.
But the young man leaped up, threw back his long hair, and met the dark look of his companion with one full of pride and dignity; he seized his sword, and said calmly, "What do you mean by placing yourself in that threatening position? If I do not mistake, you are the man I mentioned, the mover and leader of those rebellious hounds; away with you or I will show you how such outcasts ought to be treated!"
The countryman struggled with rage; he threw His axe with a powerful swing into the tree, and stood unarmed before Albert. "Allow me," said he, "to give you another piece of advice, namely, never to let your adversary stand between you and your horse, for if I had taken immediate advantage of your order to take myself off, I should have had by far the best of it."
A look at his horse proved the truth of what the man said, and Albert blushed for his inexperience. He quitted the grasp of his sword, and, without replying, seated himself again on the ground. The countryman followed his example, but at a respectable distance, and said, "You are perfectly justified in being suspicious of me, Albert von Sturmfeder; but if you knew the pain that the name you have just mentioned gives me, you would pardon my violent conduct. Yes, I am he who goes by that name; but I have an abhorrence to be called by it: my friends call me Hans--my enemies the fifer of Hardt, which they know I so much detest."
"What has that name to do with you?" asked Albert; "why are you called by it? and why do you dislike it?"
"Why do people call me so?" answered the other: "I came from a village of the name of Hardt; it lies in the low country, not far from Nürtingen. I follow the profession of music, and play at fairs and wakes, and when young people want to dance. For this reason I go by the appellation of the fifer of Hardt; but as this name was stained with crime and blood in an evil moment, I have dropped it, and cannot bear the sound of it any longer."