The pious Rebecca answered this piece of tenderness by a heavy thwack on the short ribs, which thwack made the mettled Kurt stagger to the wall; then raised loud shrieks, and shouted to her servants for help against violence, and scolded and stormed like an Infernal Fury. The loving husband excused this unloving reception, on the score of his virtuous spouse's delicacy, which his bold kiss of welcome had offended, she not knowing who he was; and tore his lungs with bawling to undo this error; but his preaching was to deaf ears, and he soon found that there was no misunderstanding in the case. "Thou shameless varlet," cried she, in shrieking treble, "after wandering seven long years up and down the world, following thy wicked courses with other women, dost thou think that I will take thee back to my chaste bed? Off with thee! Did not I publicly cite thee at three church-doors, and wert not thou, for thy contumacious non-appearance, declared to be dead as mutton? Did not the High Court authorise me to put aside my widow's chair, and marry Buergermeister Wipprecht? Have not we lived six years as man and wife, and received these children as a blessing of our wedlock? And now comes the Marpeace to perplex my house! Off with thee! Pack, I say, this instant, or the Amtmann shall crop thy ears, and put thee in the pillory, to teach such vagabonds, that run and leave their poor tender wives." This welcome from his once-loved helpmate was a sword's-thrust through the heart of the mettled Kurt; but the gall poured itself as a defence into his blood. "O thou faithless strumpet!" answered he; "what holds me that I do not take thee and thy bastards, and wring your necks this moment? Dost thou recollect thy promise, and the oath thou hast so often sworn in the trustful marriage-bed, that death itself should not part thee from me? Didst thou not engage, unasked, that should thy soul fly up directly from thy mouth to Heaven, and I were roasting in Purgatory, thou wouldst turn again from Heaven's gate, and come down to me, to fan cool air upon me till I were delivered from the flames? Devil broil thy false tongue, thou gallows carrion!" Though the Prima Donna of Ordruff was endowed with a glib organ, which, in the faculty of cursing, yielded no whit to that of the tumultuous pretender, she did not judge it good to enter into farther debate with him, but gave her menials an expressive sign; and, in an instant, man and maid seized hold of the mettled Kurt, and _brevi manu_ ejected his body from the house; in which act of domestic jurisdiction Dame Rebecca herself bore a hand with the besom, and so swept away this discarded helpmate from the premises. The mettled Kurt, half-broken on the wheel, then mounted his horse, and dashed full gallop down the street, which he had rode along so gingerly some minutes before.