Nicodemus looked at Leander, and Leander grew crimson.
"Well!--" said Nicodemus, "now I know who's lying in there!--The vulture that won't leave the roof--and all night she was raving about a vulture--that's not so bad--we've the Vulture-maiden in the house!"
Benedict sprang up. "What!" he cried.
"Don't cry out so loud," said Leander, "dost want the poor sick girl to hear it all?"
Then Nicodemus related how Leander had found her half dead in the snow, and how they could not do otherwise than keep her in the house, at least till she was able to walk. But Benedict was a rough man, and thought the illness was only a pretence--that his brothers had been too soft and should have sent her away. He would soon have got the better of her. "For incendiaries he had no sanctuary," he cried, and his piercing eyes glanced wrathfully under his bushy brows.
"If thou'd seen the maid, thou'd have taken her in too," said Leander, "It'd have been less than human to turn the poor thing out in the wind and weather."
"Indeed? And in that way we should get at last every robber and murderer in the neighbourhood in asylum here, till it is said that Rofen is a hiding-place for all the rabble--that'd be a fine thing for the justices to get hold of. If you two can be taken in by a cunning chit, I at least must maintain order and decency in Rofen!"
He approached the door. Nicodemus stood before it and said quietly, but firmly, "Benedict, I am the eldest, and I'm master in Rofen as much as thou, and I know as well as thou what is our duty as Rofeners. I give thee my word I will keep the girl no longer in the house than I must for human and Christian duty; but now she is sick, and I will not suffer thee to ill-use her. So long as I live at Rofen I'll have no injustice done under my roof."
Then Leander broke in. "Look here," he said confidently and with flashing eyes; "only let him go in--when he sees her, he'll never send her away."
"I believe thou'rt right, thou simpleton," said Nicodemus smiling, and he softly opened the door.