The landlady had undertaken to send to the sexton, whose house was near, that he might immediately obtain everything the abbot needed for the dying woman’s viaticum.

Kuni told the sufferer what an exalted servant of the Church was ready to receive her confession and give her the sacrament.

Then she whispered that she might mention Nickel’s burdened soul to the abbot.  Whatever happened, she could now depart from earth in peace.

Reserving for herself half of the flowers she had gathered in the garden she glided away, in order not to disturb the dying woman’s confession.

CHAPTER X.

At the edge of the meadow Kuni paused to reflect.  She would gladly have flung herself down on the dewy grass to rest, stretched at full length on the cool turf.  She was worn out, and her foot ached and burned painfully after her long walk in the warm August night; but something else exerted a still stronger attraction over her poor longing heart; the desire to see Lienhard again and give him the pinks as a token of gratitude for so much kindness.

He was still sitting with the other gentlemen at the table in front of the tavern.  One of the torches threw its light full on his manly face.  Kuni knew that he could not see her in the darkness surrounding her figure, yet it seemed as though she was meeting the gaze of his sparkling dark eyes.  Now he was speaking.  How she longed to know what he said.  Summoning up her courage, she glided along in the shadow of the wall and sat down behind the oleander bush on the sharp edge of the tub.  No one noticed her, but she was afraid that a fit of coughing might betray her presence, so she pressed her apron firmly over her lips and sat straining her ears to listen.  In spite of the violent aching of her foot and the loud rattling in her chest, she thought it a specially favourable dispensation of Providence that she had found her way here just at this moment; for Lienhard was still speaking.  The others had asked him to tell them connectedly how the beautiful Katharina Harsdtirffer had become his wife, in spite of the opposition of her stern father and though the Honourable Council had punished him for such insubordination with imprisonment and exile.

He had already related this in detail when Kuni came to listen.  Now, pointing to Wilibald Pirckheimer, who sat opposite, he went on with his story, describing how, thanks to the mediation of the latter and of the great artist, Albrecht Durer, he had obtained an audience at Innsbruck with the Emperor Maximilian, how the sovereign had interceded personally in behalf of himself and his betrothal, and how, in consequence of this royal intervention, he had attained the goal of his wishes.

“Our Honourables,” he concluded, “now willingly permitted me to return home, and Hans Harsdtirffer, Katharina’s father-Heaven rest his soul—­relinquished his opposition to our marriage.  Perhaps he would have done so earlier, but for the keen antagonism which, owing to their totally different natures, had arisen between the stern man and my lighthearted father, and displayed itself in the Council as well as in all the affairs of life.  Not until his old opponent, to whom I owed my existence, was on his death-bed, did Herr Hans clasp hands with him in reconciliation, and consent to our betrothal.”