His part in the formation of defences for the Fatherland had been an important and distinguished one. Two years before he had sat as a deputy for the knighthood in the famous _Land-tag_ to which Germany owed the foundation of the Landwehr. He had hailed old York with cheers, and helped to draw up the address to the King. Afterwards he had hastened back to his native place to set the organisation on foot, and had achieved results which made his district the brilliant model that excited the admiring emulation of the whole country. Then arose those marauders attendant on success, vanity and egoism. What at first had been a labour of noble disinterestedness, gradually degenerated into a peg for self-advertisement and a means of memorialising his own fame. For the rest, and long before the treachery of the Cats' Bridge incident had been generally made known to the world, Herr von Krotkeim had by repute been a bitter enemy of the house of Schranden. To hope any favour at his hands would therefore be over-sanguine indeed. But Boleslav had abandoned hope of any kind as he entered the square in front of the church. He advanced composed, and almost indifferent, towards the crowd that formed a cordon round the inn. He had, on his way, cast one shy glance at the parsonage, where in a window he fancied he had seen a fair face which withdrew into shadow directly he smiled up at it. He was received by a murmur of malignant tongues, but the cordon let him through, understanding enough to know that, without him, the game they were anticipating with such keen relish could not be played. At the entrance to the best parlour, he stood face to face with the great man with the lion's mane, on either side of whom sat the old pastor and Herr Merckel. Felix lounged in the window-sill, trying to assume an air of nonchalance. He now considered his former playmate too inferior an object on which even to bestow his hate. But the old landlord greeted Boleslav with a benign smile. Had he come there with the purpose of treating every one present to a bottle of the celebrated Muscat wine, the smile could not have been more smugly servile. Lightning-flashes irradiated from beneath the prominent brows of the old pastor, and the Landrath sat coolly contemplating his fingers, which were white and bony as a skeleton's. Boleslav felt his bosom swell proudly. "His hand against every man; every man's hand against him." It was the old story! A voice from the crowd hiccoughed out some unflattering remark. The Schrandeners received it with laughter. "It's the poor father, the unhappy father," old Merckel whispered to the Landrath, with a melancholy elevation of his eyebrows. "As you have summoned me here," exclaimed Boleslav, "I demand your protection from the insults of the mob!" The Landrath drooped his eyelids and bowed. "Silence, dear people!" he commanded, stroking his clean-shaven chin, and then he added, "I shall have any person who makes a disturbance ejected."