The feast proceeded. It was impossible for me, without giving dire offence, to avoid drinking large quantities of the fiery Rudesheimer. I boasted a strong head, but I felt I was gradually losing complete self-mastery. With a kind of dread I found the conversation drifting again toward religious topics. Graf Eckbert had been airing more of his grievances. “The times are evil. Wholly out of joint! The peasants, insolent hounds, think themselves as good as their masters. They drink wine in place of beer, and are actually enraged if you flog them. All from lack of piety! True religion is dying out. How can the clod-hoppers hope to obey God if they do not first obey their masters? To hell they’ll go, all of them.” “Their masters, of course,” I added viciously, “setting an example of all Christian graces.” “Graces? What d’ye say?” the Graf’s mind leaped from one thing to another. “What need have _we_, the ritters, of graces? Can’t we drink, swear, indulge, carouse, kill as we like, and square with the saints at the end? The saints are very good-natured, I tell you. We do as we please, and at the end, a good indulgence from some vendor, a few acres given the abbey, the merits that come of owning some saints’ relics--ei!--we slip through Master Satan’s fingers like a greased pig, and up we go to heaven!” “So your pious Lordship owns some saints’ relics?” I asked, fingering my goblet. “Relics! By my father’s soul; haven’t I squandered half my fortune on them! Suffering in this world to lay up treasure in heaven, as says Father Augustin.” Tear-drops were again on his nose at thought of his piety. “Three hairs of St. Laurenz, plucked by a soldier just ere he was toasted on the gridiron; a finger nail of St. John the Less; a toe of St. Agatha, and the whole right thigh bone of St. Anthony. Here, Dietrich--bring me the reliquary.” “You need not hasten,” spoke up Moritz, whom the wine had rendered wholly irresponsible; “that thigh bone is from a pig, as any but a fool can recognize. At Pisa there are _both_ thigh bones of the selfsame saint. My father was easily hoodwinked by the glozing friar who sold it him.” He glanced at me for confirmation. “Certainly,” I nodded recklessly, though imagining a storm. “I have seen them there myself; only, there is still another pair at Mantua. I fear the worthy saint--” But this time I had roused the demon. Mine host bounded out of his chair, and seized me furiously by the shoulder. “Holy Wounds! Will you say I was cheated, and that to my very face? Men have died for less than that!” “Very possibly,” I replied, with drunken abandon, loosening his clutch. “But I shall not. And now, Graf von Blankenburg, since you would lay hands on a guest, and insult me before your family and servants, hear at length the truth. All the country-side proclaims you the most profligate, cruel, dastardly lord in the Harzland. You prate of the saints, when you care as little for saintliness as a dog for Lent.”