"And then it goes on:
"Oh! Hutten, away! nor spare the goad,
The Duke's eye rolls with fury wode;
Away, whilst there is yet time to fly,
The scabbard is voided, his sword is on high."
The fat man put on a serious face, and said, "I would not advise you to go on; such songs in public houses, in these times, are dangerous; they cannot serve the Duke's cause at present. The confederates being round about us, some one of them might easily overhear it," he added, as he cast a scrutinizing glance at Albert, "and then Pfullingen might have to pay another hundred ducats contribution."
"God knows, you are in the right," said the pedlar; "it is no longer the case, as it used to be, when one could freely speak his mind, and sing a song over his glass; but now a man must always be on the look out, to see that a partizan of the Duke's does not sit on one side, or a Leaguist on the other; but, in spite of Bavarian or Swabian, I'll sing the last verse:
"There stands an oak in Schönbuch wood,
It shoots aloft and it spreads abroad;
And centuries hence recorded shall be,