confess with regard to Vincent's murder. The tree that caused Vincent's death lay long untouched in the wood, but one day the Roettmaennin gave orders that its branches should be lopped off. She hid herself, unperceived by the wood cutters, in order to watch them, and to listen to all they said, but she got no information. Speidel-Roettmann, as the trunk was the finest tree in the forest, wished to send it floating down the Rhine, for he said,--'a tree is a tree, and money is money; why should the tree be left to rot on the ground, because it chanced to cause Vincent's death?' His wife, however, was of a different opinion. She collected the branches into a great heap, to which she set fire, and burned the clothes of the dead man in it, shouting out, 'May those who murdered my Vincent, burn hereafter like these clothes in this bonfire!' Six horses and ten oxen tried to drag the tree into the courtyard of the house, but they could only move it a little way, for the roads are not good enough to admit of so huge a tree being dragged up hill. It was, therefore, sawn into three pieces, and these three monstrous logs are still lying in the court, close to the door. The Roettmaennin always declares that the tree is waiting till a gallows and a funeral pile are required, to hang and to burn the murderer of her Vincent. She often sits at the window, muttering to the logs of wood, as if telling them some secret; and when she sees any stranger tumble over them, she laughs with delight. She also caused a group of figures to be erected, in memory of the murdered man, close to the footpath which leads down from Hohlzobel to the forest mill, though this is a custom peculiar to Catholics alone in our neighbourhood. Yonder, deep in the centre of the wood, Vincent met his death. The only son left is Adam, and she uses him worse than a step-child; it is said, that she beats him as if he were still a child, and he makes no resistance, though he has already proved that he is a genuine Roettmann, and won a singular title, for he is known in the whole country as _The Horse_. He went once to get his horse shod by the smith, whom he found bargaining with a Briesgau peasant about the exchange of a horse: the horse was harnessed to a large two-wheeled waggon, laden with sacks of peas. The Briesgau peasant said: 'There is not such a horse in the world, he is drawing a load that would require three common horses to draw.' "'Oh! ho!' exclaimed Adam, who was standing by, in so loud and gruff a voice that the Briesgauer tumbled right over his load, but luckily fell against his horse. 'Oh! ho! I will make you a bet that I carry the waggon and the peas in three loads to the Crown inn yonder. Will you conclude the bargain, if I succeed in doing this?' "'I will--done!' said the peasant.