It was with Mamsell Westphalen as with many honest souls who have a great terror of danger that threatens in the distance, but who are no sooner in the middle of it than they play with it; being like gnats, which cannot bear smoke but are attracted by fire. When she saw that the bridge behind her was broken away, and that she was going to be put on oath, she set her arms a-kimbo, walked forward and stood on the same place on which the Amtshauptmann had stood. "For," she said afterwards, "I had seen that he had stood proudly there, and his spirit came over me." The Judge now asked what she knew of the watchmaker. "I know nothing about him except that he speaks broken German, that, for bread, he says '_doo pang_' and for wine, '_doo vang_;' that's all I know." How was it that he was in a French uniform? "I don't know how he gets into it and I don't know how he gets out of it again. I suppose he does like all other men." Why had he come up to the Schloss last night? "A great many people come to the Schloss--all honest people, except those whom the gensdarmes bring,--and if I am to bother myself with what they all want, the duke had better make me Amtshauptmann, and the Herr Amtshauptmann can then look after the kitchen." Why had not the watchmaker gone home? "Because the weather was so bad that one could not have had the heart to drive a dog out of the house, much less a Christian. I hold the man for a Christian, though he's not too good a one, for, as I have heard say, he goes hunting hares by night--and why doesn't he go in the daytime like other folk?--and then he uses a stool with one leg, which he straps on to himself behind, and every other Christian sits on a stool with three legs; and he wanted to mislead our Corlin into this outlandish mode for milking, but she told him plainly that if that was the fashion in his country, he might run about with the stool tied to him if he liked, but she was not going to make herself the laughing-stock of the place." But why had she hidden the watchmaker with her in her room? At this Mamsell Westphalen was silent, the blood rushed into her face at the impertinence of the French fellow; that was the very question that had driven her into flight up in the garret. But while in her distress she was seeking for an answer, help came. Hanchen Besserdich and Corlin pressed forward to her side and burst out "Those are lies; those are foul lies!" They would take their oath of it. Their Mamsell had slept with them; and they should tell the Herr Amtshaup-mann. The noise became dreadful, and scarcely had the Judge succeeded in restoring quiet, when they broke out again, and at last the Judge ordered them all three to be turned out.