"Marry, the fool was right. The fools should be doctors, for the doctors are all fools. Away with ye all, and your gibberish, to the devil!"
After this he had the said fool placed in a handsome black coffin, and conveyed to his own town of Hinzendorf, there to be buried; and over his grave my lord erected a stately monument, on which was represented the poor fool, as large as life, with his cap and bells, and staff in his hand; and round his waist was a girdle, from which many geese dangled, all cut like life, while at his side lay his shepherd's bag, and at his feet a beer-can. The figure is five feet two inches long, and bears a Latin inscription above it, which I forget; but the initials G. H. are carved upon each cheek. [Footnote: His original name was Gürgen Hinze, not Clas. The Latin inscription is nearly effaced, but the beginning is still visible, and runs thus: "Caput ecce manus gestus que;" from which Oelrichs concludes that the whole was written in hexameters. (See his estimable work, "Memoirs of the Pomeranian Dukes," p. 41.)]
Shortly after the death of the fool a messenger arrived from Saatzig to Marcus Bork, bringing him the joyful tidings that the Lord God had granted him the blessing of a little son. So he is away to my Lord Duke, to solicit permission to leave the Diet and return to his castle. This the Duke readily granted, seeing that he himself was going away to attend the funeral of the poor fool at Hinzendorf. Then he wished Marcus joy with all his heart, which so emboldened the knight that he ventured to make one more effort about the opening of the courts, praying his Grace to put faith in the word of his faithful states, and open the courts and the treasury without further delay.
But his Grace is wroth: "What should he be troubled for? The states could give the money when they chose, and then all would be right. Let the nobles do their duty. He never saw a penny come out of their pockets for their Prince."
"But his Highness knew the poor peasants were all beggared; and where could the nobles get the money?"
"Let them go to their saving-pots, then, where the money was turning green from age; better for them if they had less avarice. Why did not he himself bring him some gold, in place of dressing up his wife in silks and jewels, finer than the Princess Erdmuth herself, his own princely spouse? Then, indeed, the courts might be soon opened," &c. So the sorrowing knight took his leave, and each went his different way.
CHAPTER XVI.
How Sidonia makes poor Clara appear quite dead, and of the great mourning at Saatzig over her burial, while Sidonia dances on her coffin and sings the 109th psalm—Item, of the sermon and the anathema pronounced upon a wicked sinner from the altar of the church.
I must first state that this horrible wickedness of Sidonia, which no eye had seen nor ear heard, neither had it entered into the heart of man to conceive (for only in hell could such have been imagined), never would have come to light but that she herself made confession thereof to Dr. Cramero, thy well-beloved godfather, in her last trial. And he, to show how far Satan can lead a poor human creature who has once fallen from God, related the same to my worthy father-in-law, Master David Reutzio, some time superintendent at the criminal court, from whose own lips I received the story.
And this was her confession:—That when the messenger returned from Daber with the broth, he had ridden so fast that it was still, in truth, quite hot, but she (the horrible Sidonia), who was standing at the bed of the young mother, along with the other women, pretended that it was too cold for a woman in her state, and must just get one little heating on the fire.