Only one thing was left for me to do. If I could not suppress common crime, I had lost all hold on my peasantry. Moritz was invited to join us with a band from Blankenburg. All that day the great dogs bayed in the wood, and some fifty of us beat up the thickets; in mid afternoon we found our quarry. He was a tall, powerful man, and made a desperate run for it. At last the dogs cornered him under a giant fir tree. It was a sight when I broke in upon them,--the fellow lunging about with his big knife, striving with despair to keep the brutes from his throat, and the dogs all leaping at him with as good will as upon a boar or stag. He had killed one hound already, when Adolf whipped them off, and then he sullenly dropped his knife. “Better hanging than being eaten alive,” he muttered between his pantings, as my men roped his hands behind him, and we all trooped triumphantly back to the Regenstein. The women and children came out to greet us, as if we were Roman conquerors, and they “oh-ed,” and “ah-ed” long at our captive. As for Adolf, without consulting me, he ordered Rüdiger (who attended to such nice matters), “to get the gibbet and running noose ready.” However, I was not prepared for such speedy justice. I did not flinch from the disagreeable task of passing on the life of a fellow-man; but hanging even a worse wretch without formality was another matter. In the great hall I held court. Moritz stood at my right hand as assessor; the prisoner, pale, and pinioned, was before me; the whole room was crowded with uncouth retainers flashing their spears and partizans; while behind the men pressed the brightly kirtled women. The ruddy torch-light added a touch of barbaric color to the whole. I felt I was a Turkish pasha about to order in the black slave with his bow string. The guilt of the prisoner was undoubted. Lampe was not so wounded he could not come and identify. The robberies had been extensive. The way the fellow had used his knife showed he would not stick at murder. Adolf was already whispering to a varlet to “bring in the new parson to confess this fine bird before he gets his dance on nothing,” when I began to interrogate the prisoner. “What have you to say to these charges?” “Nothing.” He held down his head in stolid defiance. “You know your life then is forfeit?” “I suppose so.” “How came a great hulking fellow of your age to turn rogue? You should have been an honest man. Whence came you?” “From Quedlinburg.” I saw Moritz’s ears prick. “Quedlinburg? And what did you there?” “I was an honest peasant on the abbey lands. A month ago the Vogt[8] of the Abbess came to demand my rent. He required too much. I am a man of hot temper. Words flew, I struck him. Then he slandered me to the Abbess with all manner of vileness. My Lady Abbess when she once believes the worst of a man has as much mercy as a hawk for a sparrow. I was sorely and publicly flogged.”