"I will make you pay dear for this. Anna Apenborg was witness of the assault. I will swear information this very day before his Highness, how the hag assaulted me, the sheriff, and superintendent of the convent, in the performance of my duty, and pray him to deliver an honourable cloister from the presence of such a vagabond."
Then he went to the abbess, and begged her and the nuns to sustain him in his accusation—
"Such wickedness and arrogance had never yet been seen under the sun. Let the good abbess only feel his head; there was a lump as big as an egg on it. Truly, he had had a mind to horsewhip her black and blue; but that would have been illegal; so he thanked God that he had restrained himself."
Then he made the abbess feel his head again; also Anna Apenborg, who happened to come in that moment. But the worthy mother knew not what to do. She told the sheriff of Sidonia's behaviour as she drove into the convent; also how she had possessed herself of the refectory by force, refused to knit or spin, and had sent for her, the abbess, bidding her come to her, as if she were no better than a serving-wench.
At last the sheriff desired all the nuns to be sent for, and in their presence drew up a petition to his Highness, praying that the honourable convent might be delivered from the presence of this dragon, for that no peace could be expected within the walls until this vagabond and evil-minded old hag were turned out on the road again, or wherever else his Highness pleased. Every one present signed this, with the exception of Anna Apenborg and the sub-prioress, Dorothea Stettin. And many think that in consideration of this gentleness, Sidonia afterwards spared their lives, and did not bring them to a premature grave, like as she did the worthy abbess and others.
For the next time that she caught Anna at her old habit of listening, Sidonia said, while boxing her—
"You should get something worse than a box on the ear, only for your refusal to sign that lying petition to his Highness."
Summa.—After a few days, an answer arrived from his Grace the Duke of Stettin, and the abbess, with the sheriff, proceeded with it to Sidonia's apartment.
They found her brewing beer, an art in which she excelled; and the letter which they handed to her ran thus, according to the copy received likewise by the convent:—
"WE, BOGISLAFF, BY THE GRACE OF GOD, DUKE OF STETTIN, &c.