So we dropped the sore topic, and talked of the new Emperor and whether he could long maintain the peace with France. Nevertheless, that night I sent my quondam outlaw Gunter away on a private mission. He was to steal back to Quedlinburg and ascertain from his daughter Trude what was the gossip among the nuns touching the abbess’s niece. * * * * * But now for me began a period of intense activity. Not lightly had I taken that strange pledge with the other three that summer’s day, beside the rushing Elbe. If Luther and the Cause were to be saved, they were not to be saved by letters from learned doctors, nor by the plaudits of students and worthy peasants. One thing I knew in last resort would halt the vengeance of the now roused Vatican,--the “thou shalt not” of the German princes and free cities, backed by the armed hand. In Italy I had failed. In Germany I did not fail. During the following months I was but little at the Regenstein. My mission carried me to almost every princely court in North Germany. Sometimes I was turned away with scant courtesies, but not always. If Elector Frederick of Saxony sent word to Luther to remain in Wittenberg, at a moment the hard-pressed friar was preparing to flee the land, I had my modest part in winning the favor of His Electoral Grace. I was in constant correspondence with Spalatin, the Elector’s confessor. Not a few influential Grafs and Freiherrs were changed from wavering friends to hearty supporters by my poor efforts. Perhaps it was thanks to me that young Philip, Markgraf of Hesse, so early gave his support to the Cause and its leader. I had like fortune at the ducal courts of Brunswick, Lüneburg and Mecklenburg. I argued the case of Luther before the lordly Burgomasters and Councillors of mighty Lübeck, the queen city by the Baltic--and not in vain. My travels even carried me to distant Prussia, to the confines of the German land; and there in his glorious Marienburg, true Kaiser among castles, I met Prince Albrecht, Grand-Master of the Teutonic Knights, and talked till the candles were deep in their sockets, pleading the cause of Germany against Italy, of the Wittenberg prophet against the black gowns of Rome. And here too I think my seed was destined to bear a harvest. Then as I labored, and imagined I saw my labors crowned with a fair success, I felt my soul rise buoyantly within me. I knew that the forsaking of Italy had been no rash mistake, that I could mock at my old companions when they wrote to me from the South “thou fool.”