"Grace and Peace in Christ! My dear Kate! We have safely reached our Sinai; but we purpose to make a Tabor of it, and build three tabernacles, one for the Psalter, one for the Prophets, and one for Æsop.[1] First of all, your old lover wishes to announce to you that Dr. Martin has become a king, or at least a prince, and dwells in a high castle, with thirty serving men, in gay coats, together with twelve watchmen, and two trumpeters in the tower. It is a very quiet place, and favorable to study, except that a great tumult is constantly going on in the air without. Under our windows there is a little wood, where the ravens and jackdaws are holding a diet. There is a continual coming and going, and such chattering, day and night, that one might think they were all drunken with wine. Young and old are cawing and croaking together, that I marvel that their ears and throats can endure it. I should like to know, if any of this nobility still remain with you, for methinks they are gathered here from all quarters of the earth. I have not yet seen their Emperor, but the nobles and great ones among them are always before our eyes--not in costly raiment, but all alike arrayed in black, and all alike grey-eyed. They also sing but one tune, with the various voices of young and old, great and small. They care not for stately palaces and halls; their hall is arched with the fair, wide heavens; their floor is the earth, tricked out with green boughs; and their walls are as wide as the ends of the earth. They ask not for horses and soldiers, for they have feathery pinions, upon which they fly from the anger of men. Great and mighty lords are they; but what decisions they have arrived at, I have not yet heard; although as far as I could learn through an interpreter, they are planning a mighty crusade against the fields of wheat, barley, oats and other grains, where many an one will perform deeds of valor, and win his spurs by his prowess. Thus we are here present at this diet, hearing and seeing with much pleasure and goodwill, how the princes, lords, and other estates of the empire sing so merrily and fare so well. With especial pleasure we see them strut about, wipe their bills and hasten to the attack upon the grain-fields. We wish them good luck, and that one and all they may be spitted on a hedge stake. Methinks they are no other than the papists and sophists, with their clamoring and writing, who are here assembled before me, to show me what useful folk they are, devouring what is upon the earth, and chattering for pastime. "To-day we heard the first nightingale; she mistrusted the month of April. The weather has been fair and lovely; and we have had no rain, save only yesterday a little. Perhaps it has been otherwise with you. Look well to the house, and God be with you. "MARTIN LUTHER. "_April the 28th, 1530_." Katharine folded the letter carefully, and took up another, in a different handwriting.