Landgraf Ludwig, a trusty feudatory of the Emperor, had issued general orders for his vassals to collect, and attend him to the camp. But most of them sought pretexts for politely declining this honour. One was tormented by the gout, another by the stone; one had got his horses foundered, another's armoury had been destroyed by fire. Count Ernst of Gleichen, however, with a little troop of stout retainers, who were free and unencumbered, and took pleasure in the prospect of distant adventures, equipped their squires and followers, obeyed the orders of the Landgraf, and led their people to the place of rendezvous. The Count had been wedded for two years; and in this period his lovely consort had presented him with two children, a little master and a little miss, which, according to the custom of those stalwart ages, had been born without the aid of science, fair and softly as the dew from the Twilight. A third pledge, which she carried under her heart, was, by virtue of the Pope's insomnolency, destined, when it saw the light, to forego the embraces of its father. Although Count Ernst put on the rugged aspect of a man, Nature maintained her rights in him, and he could not hide his strong feelings of tenderness, when at parting he quitted the embraces of his weeping spouse. As in dumb sorrow he was leaving her, she turned hastily to the cradle of her children; plucked out of it her sleeping boy; pressed it softly to her breast, and held it with tearful eyes to the father, to imprint a parting kiss on its unconscious cheek. With her little girl she did the same. This gave the Count a sharp twinge about the heart: his lips began to quiver, his mouth visibly increased in breadth; and sobbing aloud, he pressed the infants to his steel cuirass, under which there beat a very soft and feeling heart; kissed them from their sleep, and recommended them, together with their much loved mother, to the keeping of God and all the Saints. As he winded down along the castle road with his harnessed troop from the high fortress of Gleichen, she looked after him with desolate sadness, till his banner, upon which she herself had wrought the Red-cross with fine purple silk, no longer floated in her vision.