“Well said, Walter,--well said.” His vast hand clapped me on the back outrageously. “Here, rascal. Bring the noble Graf a deeper flagon. Put good warm Rhenish in it. We will teach him how deep a true Harzlander can go. ’Tis under the table for all of us before morning. Ten gulden, Walter, that you go there before me!” I could see the face of Lady Ilsa growing whiter than ever. Her father had evidently begun his challenges to deep potations very early. I saw her sign to her aunt, and the abbess leaning towards us tried to turn her brother’s conversation. “It is not time for the wine yet, Eckbert. Our guest is not yet thirsty. Do I understand that your Lordship has spent several years in Rome?” “I have had the honor, Reverend Abbess,” I replied. “I am glad, for now you can contradict my impious nephew here. Moritz was as quiet and God-fearing a lad as ever said his prayers until he went to Italy; on his return he vows he is almost a Turkish unbeliever, so great was the luxury and frivolity which he dares to assert were displayed by many churchmen, dwellers at His Holiness’s actual court, and even by certain most sacred cardinals.” Moritz looked up from his trencher at me, and his sober eyes winked slyly. “Surely,” spoke Ilsa, hanging on my answer, “Moritz is a wicked boy. He repeats these dreadful lies just to dismay us all, because we, forsooth, have never been to Italy and Rome.” “Lies! Lies!” vociferated her father, not waiting for me. “I vow they are. Almost heresy--and never shall heretic dwell in Schloss Blankenburg, not even my own child.” “Your Lordship will soon learn,” observed Moritz quietly, with a sidling glance at his aunt, “that my father, though liberal in other matters, is a valiant defender of Holy Church and all things touching her.” “Well, then,” roared the Graf, “speak it out, Walter. Has not Moritz lied outrageously concerning Rome and the Holy Pope’s court? Don’t spare him if he _is_ my son.” Alas for my courtesy! A man cannot sit through a feast like that and not give place to the devil. I had one eye in my head when I answered, “No foreigner can visit Rome and the Holy Father’s court and not see many things he is liable to misunderstand. I do not doubt that my noble friend Moritz _did_ hear of one or two cardinals whose lives were a bit worldly. You see the Lord Pope, with the best of intentions, is sometimes surrounded by a few self-seeking men.” “Only a ‘few’--do you hear, Moritz?” cried his father, putting down a prodigious goblet, which he had drained at a draught. “And the rest, of course--” a long hiccough finished the remark. “No doubt His Holiness,” interposed the abbess, “will soon reduce these unworthy cardinals to pious regularity. I am told the Pope delivers daily most eloquent and edifying sermons in the new church of St. Peter.” Moritz’s lip curled. “I never heard of the Pope’s preaching any sermons,” he sneered. “There is only one preacher in all Christendom _I_ ever cared for.”