“Thus, I came to the age of twelve, and grew a tall strong lad, skilful and active; already I was so expert with the sword that with a horizontal cut I sent the blade between blocks piled on each other, and without in the least injuring them. I also tied a noose with a dexterity that filled Arnulph with proud joy, and he declared me fully qualified to officiate upon the scaffold. It happened one day that my father, plagued with the gout, ordered me to go alone to the town, and to fetch the tribute from the well-known house of the Elephant. He made me promise not to let the women caress me, and to lose none of the bright pfennings they had to give me. I obeyed his orders, and brought him home the full amount. But I did not tell him what had happened to me by the way. When the boys, who usually ran after us, saw that I was alone, they ventured much nearer than formerly; and amongst them I particularly remarked a fair-haired lad, who had always been the most spiteful and violent of them all, and whom his companions sometimes called Engolf, sometimes by the nickname of Bully-bird. He was the son of a patrician, of the noble Herr Hahn of Baumgarten, and was somewhat older than myself. This time he followed me to the very threshold of the house, and just as the door was opened he struck at me. I warded his blow, and returned it with one upon the nose, which knocked him down, and gave me time to enter the house.” Berthold’s persecutors awaited his exit to take their revenge, but he provided himself with a stick for defence, and, moreover, Elizabeth showed him an opening in the garden wall, choked with bushes and rubbish, and leading into a timber-yard, through which he passed unseen, and of which he thenceforward availed himself on his frequent visits to his playfellow. Engolf, however, watched him, and at last, on a certain afternoon, as he turned into the timber-yard, he heard a shout of “Huzza! the hangman’s boy!” and was set upon by a number of lads, from whom he escaped with difficulty, and severely beaten, by the help of Elizabeth, who dragged him into the garden as he fell senseless from a blow on the head. In the house of the Elephant he lay for some time, too ill for removal, carefully tended by his child-mistress, and by the wretched but kind-hearted women. About that period, however, the “Lutheran heresy” had begun to take root in the town, and a certain Dr Neander preached furiously against gambling and drunkenness, and against such establishments as that in which Berthold was confined by his wounds; “against all those things, in short, which, according to old usage and to the emperor’s statutes, paid tribute to the headsman. This pleased the women beyond measure; with yellow envy they had long seen their husbands, lovers, and sons, wager away their fair white _groschen_ at skittles and dice and cards; the headsman‘s daughters in the Rosenthal were a yet sharper thorn in their eyes; and now, supported by