During his captivity, Benz had reflected on his unkindness to his first-born, and resolved to repair past injustice by better treatment. On returning home, his first inquiry was for Berthold. The answer was, that the boy had run away. The truth was, that his stepmother had had him conveyed to a long distance from his father’s house, and by frightful menaces deterred him from returning. And now she wheedled her husband out of a pardon, and things resumed their old course in the headsman’s house. We pass over a good deal of episodical matter, having little to do with the main subject of the book; amongst other things, a long account of a son of Count Ruprecht, who was sent on his travels in charge of a learned preceptor and bad horseman, one Dr Wohlgemuth, on whom the scamp of a pupil played an infinity of mischievous tricks, proving that travelling tutors three hundred years ago had by no means a sinecure. After an absence of some duration, Berthold returns home in the suite of this young Count Ulrich, finds Elizabeth still at the sign of the Thistle, and his old enemy Engolf and other dissolute companions persecuting her with their insolent addresses, to which she turns a deaf ear. She has not forgotten Berthold; their childish affection has grown into love, and they mutually plight their troth. Soon afterwards, Berthold sets out on a three years’ pilgrimage, during which to learn surgery and farriery, and Count Ruprecht promises that, on his return, none but he shall shoe his horses and cure his servants. But the headsman’s son has higher aspirations, and resolves to become a physician. At Heidelberg and Paris the three years pass quickly by in diligent study, and at the end of that time he has conquered the doctor’s gown, and returns to his native place as Dominus Bertholdus. As he draws near to the town, he prays in heart for a good omen to welcome his return; but none is vouchsafed him, and in its stead he meets Engolf and has an angry colloquy. At the little inn he sees Elizabeth, who betrays great agitation on beholding him, for a report had been set about of his death. At a ball to which he accompanies her, held at the old house of the Elephant, now converted into a respectable inn, he meets Engolf, who coarsely taunts him with taking up with his cast-off mistress. Elizabeth cannot repel the imputation, Berthold spurns her from him, and strikes Engolf; a fight ensues, blood is shed, and the headsman’s son is obliged to conceal himself for a while. Then comes some more extraneous matter, until we find Berthold established as assistant in the house of Master Baldwin the physician, who one day sends him to attend the infliction of torture on an old woman accused of witchcraft. In the wrinkled wretch bound upon the rack, he recognises old Blutrude, and here, after seven years’ separation, he meets his father.