"Good faith! but little," answered the other; "your old man is worse to deal with than your young one, for he is as weak in the wit as in the hams, and his brain, like a worn horse-trough, is ever leaking with watery talk. "Graybeards and wisdom were married one day;-- 'Tis a very long time since then-- But they parted by chance upon the highway And ne'er came together again. "Leave wine, and leave women, graybeard, and leave oaths, Leave dicing, and jesting, and scoffing; And thou'lt find thine old wife, dressed in her best clothes, At thy long journey's end--in the coffin." "There Seckendorf," cried the Count of Ehrenstein, "you have enough, methinks. For my part; I will not tempt our friend." "Then you shall have counsel without asking," answered the jester, and he went on in his usual rude verse as follows:-- "The noble lord, the just, the true-- Methinks I see him now-- Claims from no vassal more than due-- But gives him more, I trow. "No stolen swine grunts in his sty, No plundered goose complains, No cackling hens against him cry, His barn no spoil contains. "Quick he restores what's wrongly got, Without a suit at law, His sword has never cut a knot, His fingers could not draw. "If such thou art, no danger dread, In camp, in court, in town, But if thou'rt not, beware thy head, For sure thou'lt tumble down." At the first stanza the Lord of Ehrenstein smiled pleasantly, but as the jester went on to paint a character, which by no stretch of human vanity he could attribute to himself, his laugh grew somewhat grim, and although all the customs of the day required that he should seem amused with the jester's observations, even when they hit him the hardest, yet he might have made a somewhat tart reply in the shape of a joke, which he was very well qualified to do, if he had not been interrupted before he could speak. Just as the jester concluded, however, a loud, wild, extraordinary burst of martial music drowned every other sound at the table: clarions and trumpets, drums and atabals, sounded all round the hall, in a strain so peculiar, that ears which had once heard it, could never forget it again. Count Frederick started, and turned towards the Count, exclaiming, "Odds life! we are in Africa again. Whence got you this Moorish music, my lord? I have not heard the like since I was at Damietta. You must have a whole troop of Moslema." The Count's cheek had turned very pale, and Ferdinand's eye was seen wandering round the hall, as if expecting some strange sight suddenly to present itself.