"You say a faithful servant brought him to you," said the Emperor, after pausing a moment, when Father George had done speaking; "is that person still living?" "He is, my lord, and is here," answered the monk. "Call him," rejoined the Emperor; and Father George raising his voice, pronounced the name of Franz Creussen, when immediately from one of the side aisles, pushed forward between the columns the gigantic form of the blacksmith: no longer, indeed, in the garb of his trade, but armed from the neck to the heel in black armour. His head alone was bare, with the short, curly hair sweeping round his bold face. "Ah! our good friend the blacksmith, who shod my horse the other day in the woods," exclaimed the Emperor; "but how is it, friend? You seem to have changed your trade." "But taken up my old one, Kaiser," answered the deep thundering voice of Franz Creussen. "I was bred to arms, and hammered on enemies' heads before I touched an anvil." "Then how came you to change one profession for the other?" asked the Emperor. "Oh, every man has many reasons for one thing," said Franz Creussen; "mine were partly a fondness for iron, partly to gain my bread at a time when no wars were going on, partly to watch and protect this boy, my dead lord's child." "Then you, too, know him to be the son of the late Count of Ehrenstein?" said the Emperor. "He was the late Count's lady's son," answered Franz Creussen, bluffly; "and the Count never doubted he was his own." "And did you bring him to Father George," inquired the Emperor, "at his mother's death?" "The case is this, my lord," replied the blacksmith: "I never quitted the dear good lady for any length of time, from the hour when we set out from Venice, till the hour when she told me to carry the lad to Father George of Altenburg, and made me swear that I would watch and guard him at the peril of my life. I was not always with her, I was not always in the house; for when we arrived at Augsburg, we had notice that yon lord, the Count's brother, had seized upon the lands, had strangled poor Rudolph of Oggersheim, who bore him the tidings of his brother's fate, and had set men to waylay us and destroy us, so that he might enjoy the inheritance in peace. It was needful, therefore, to keep quiet, and to watch shrewdly, too; and I, with the rest of the men, kept guard about the place, riding here, and riding there, for news, till we were all obliged to fly together, having tidings from Father George here, that the Baron of Eppenfeld had set out with all his band, to carry off the lady and her child, and drown them in the Danube, by orders of yon lord." "It is false!" cried the Count of Ehrenstein; "it is a bitter falsehood!"