"Back!" exclaimed the burgomaster indignantly, and pushed her from him. "My son is dead. Neither your wealth nor your tears can make him alive again. Blood demands blood, and Tausdorf must die!" "Not another word of supplication," cried the little Henry to his mother, who was exhausted by her agony; "tis a pity you offered any to the wicked man. Has not uncle Netz told you a hundred times that the rich burgomaster is as cold and as hard as the dollars of which he is always boasting so much? Come, mother; we cannot beg the good man free, and therefore we will weep for him as long as we have eyes. But this house is not worthy of your tears;"--and then turning to Erasmus, he said, with a dignity and spirit beyond his years, "You have heavily vexed and offended the Frau von Netz, Mr. Burgomaster, and it is the duty of a good son to avenge every insult which his mother has had to endure. At present my arm is not strong enough for my inclination; but, please God, I shall grow every day larger and stouter, and I think to be able to wield the sword shortly. For this time I denounce feud against you, and whatever may come of it, murder or fire, I shall have set my honour above your impeachment." He pulled away his mother with him, and Erasmus said to the preacher, "Do you hear how the young snake can hiss already? But follow the lady, if you will be so good, comfort her by virtue of your holy office, and exhort her to betake herself to her own house, that she may not excite the people by her lamentations in the streets, and force me to send her home by a couple of gens-d'armes." "Well advised!" replied the preacher, and hastened after Althea, whom he found at the street-door, her head leaning against one of the stone columns of the portal, while Henry stroked her hand consolingly, and wet it with his tears. "Submit yourself to the will of Heaven," he began; "and this must be the easier to you when you weigh the justice of the sentence pronounced upon the culprit, who was once dear to you. Such assassins and bloodhounds must be forfeit to the executioner as a warning to others, and for their own well-earned punishment. Had not the council done justice in this way, I had never endured to abide in the town; and, if I could not have walked out, I should have crept out, with wife and children, from this pit of murder, in which no honest man could have been secure of his life any longer." Althea lifted up to him her heavy eyes, that were red and swollen with weeping, and merely saying, "May God comfort you as you have comforted me!" she sunk back into her old position. Still, however, the preacher continued in the same strain for a time; but when he perceived that the sufferer no longer even listened to his splendid grounds of consolation, he suddenly broke off, and removed himself, with a look in which was couched an anathema. In the mean time Christopher Friend came out of the street-door and gazed tenderly on Althea.