Summa.-The unfortunate abbess ascertained, but too well, that same night, what such praying betokened. She screamed out, like all the others, that it seemed as if a miner was in her breast, and hammered there, striving to raise up the bones; and the good dairy-mother, a pious and tender-hearted creature, not very old either, never left her side during all her martyrdom. For three days and three nights she took no rest, but watched by the sick abbess; lifting her from the bed to the cold floor, and from the cold floor to the bed, and refused a piece of gold the abbess offered for her trouble, begging it might be given to Lisa Behlken, a little gipsy maiden, whose thievish and heathenish parents had left her behind them in the town, but who had been taken in and sheltered by the poor widow, though she had enough to do to get her living alone.
Summa.—On the Friday night the worthy abbess expired in horrible tortures; and, in consequence, such a fear and horror fell upon the whole convent, that they trembled and shook like aspen leaves, and bitterly repented now of their folly with loud cries and weeping, in having, with their own hands, helped to cast down their only stay and support.
So, next morning, Sidonia summoned the whole chapter to her apartment, drew herself up like a black adder, as she was, menaced them with her dry fists, and spake—
"See now, ye shameless wantons, what ye have done! Ye have murdered the worthy abbess, though she told you herself, it would be her death if ye came not down from the Muhlenberg; giving up your honour and the honour of our convent, ye vile crew, as a prey to the malicious world. In vain have I cried to God three days and three nights for pardon for your heavy sins, and for support for our dear mother; your sins are an offence to the Lord, and He would not hearken to me. For this morning I hear, to my great terror, that the good abbess, just as I feared, has been done to death by your vile obduracy and disobedience."
As the blasphemous devil thus went on, all were silent round her. Even Dorothea Stettin had not a word—for, though her wrath was great, her fear was yet greater. Only Anna Apenborg, who had her eyes always about, cried out—"See there, dear sisters, there comes the porter back from Old Stettin. Ah, that he should find our good mother in her coffin, as she prophesied!"
So Sidonia despatches a sister for the princely letter, and bids the others remain; and when the letter is brought, Sidonia breaks the seal, runs over the contents to herself, laughs, and then says, at last—
"Listen to the message his Grace sends to our, alas! now dead mother, as a kind and just father!" Reads—
"HONOURABLE MOTHER, WORTHY ABBESS,—
"As our serene and gracious Prince is just setting off to hunt with the illustrious patricio, Philip Heinhofer of Augsburg, his Grace bids me say that he will visit the convent himself next month on his way to New Stettin, to advise with you, and investigate, in person, this evil business with the sisterhood. As to Sidonia, he reserves a different treatment for her.
"Your good son and friend, "FRANCISCA BLODOW," Ducal Secretary.