"I am, my good lord," answered the knight, with cold calmness. "I have studied the laws and customs of knighthood and nobility since first I buckled on my spurs, now five-and-twenty years ago; and I have often found the knowledge serviceable to myself and others, as here also it is likely to prove. But let us proceed: you have given this young gentleman arms and horses, you say, as recompense and wages for the services he has sworn to perform. It is a somewhat doubtful point whether this will render him your man; but I think it will, if--" "Ha!" cried the Count, "what is the _if_? The case is as clear as light. He is my man; and I claim him as such. Where is there an _if_?" "I was about to show you," said the knight; "for there are several conditions which would bar your claim. He must have received them and acknowledged them as payment, not as a free gift, not as a loan to serve you with in war. He must be of inferior degree." "I thank you, noble Sir," said Ferdinand of Altenburg, interposing, "for your strictness in seeing justice done me; but I will avail myself of no doubtful points of law to shield what I have done. The Lady Adelaide's love I have won, the Lady Adelaide's hand I have gained. I have done it boldly, and boldly will I justify it; denying all power in her father to judge me as his man, or to do aught but treat me as noble to noble. He has no law that can touch me; he has no authority that can bind me. I here proclaim, and by this I will abide, that by no possibility could I ever become his man, though he might become mine. Nay more, I say that his bread I have never eaten; that his wine I have never drunk; that his horses or arms have I never received; that to the Count of Ehrenstein have I taken no oath." "The youth is mad," exclaimed the Count; and all present looked from one to the other with surprise, as boldly and even vehemently Ferdinand of Altenburg poured forth such startling assertions. "Ay, he is mad enough," said old Karl von Mosbach; "that is clear." "Pray, good youth," said the Count, with a look of contemptuous pity, "by what title have you fed in my castle, ridden with my band, or used my arms, and in what position do you stand as to the oath between us?"