"'To Ebel's question, "where he should drive to?" the answer was, "To the Stechbahn;" that was a road which lay opposite the ducal castle. Ebel's wonderment grew greater and greater, but Breyhan kept still, slowly dismounted, gave orders to Ebel that he should drive to the inn, but he himself went straight on to the ducal castle. As he had expected, for it was just eleven o'clock, he found the duke sitting in front of the entrance to the castle. For about this hour the duke was wont to sit there and allow everybody, even the lowest of his vassals, to have free access and speech of him. If there were no petitions, or complaints, or the like on hand, he would converse in the kindest and most affable way with everybody, and many a peasant could boast that in all simple-heartedness he had shaken hands with his liege lord. Breyhan found the duke (it was George William) surrounded by a number of people. However there can have been nothing of consequence going on, for when the duke saw the pastor approaching, he signed him immediately to come near. Breyhan presented himself; and related simply and in childlike wise how things stood in Hermannsburg, and how the people had not yet been able to get their affairs rightly under way since the terrible war. George William listened kindly, and many a tear came into his mild eyes as Breyhan told him of the sick beds and the dying beds. "'"You want to ask some help in your need?" demanded the duke. "'"No," was the answer; "we can manage as yet to get along with these earthly troubles. But we have a spiritual trouble, that we feel more keenly, and which we cannot deal with by ourselves, and in that you must help us, my lord duke; this is what I have come for to-day." He told him now all that he had on his heart respecting the bell; how that the beautiful metal was there yet, but no means to get it cast, and that that was for the duke to do. The duke was delighted with the childlike, honest nature of the man, and his hearty confidence that the duke's help was certain; and he could not help putting Breyhan's faith a little to the test. "'"Dear pastor," said he, "you are suffering in a small way from the after effects of the Thirty Years' War; on the other hand, I am suffering the same thing on a great scale. Your village treasury is empty, my castle treasury is empty, and the country's treasury to boot. So I cannot shake down the money for you out of my sleeves. If all the people in the land came to me to get their bells cast for them, what would be the end of it?"