giving him a letter of recommendation, he hoped that he might by this means get employment as a scribe.  With much good advice, and many prayers for his safety, Father Gottlieb bade him farewell, laying his hands on his head and bestowing on him his parting blessing.  Hans had now to take leave of his poor mother, and he turned his steps with a heavy heart towards her cottage.  Grieved was he indeed to tell her all that had befallen;—­how that he had shed the blood of a fellow creature, and that he must leave her, when to return he knew not.

Frau Gensfleisch wept long and sore.  She knew not what she should do without her Hans.  It was like tearing the life from out her body, she said.  Old as she was, who could tell that she should ever see him again.  Where would his wanderings end?  What would become of him in the strange, wide world into which he was thus thrown without guide or guard?  While she lamented, however, she hastily made a number of little preparations with motherly care, to preserve him from want and to secure his comfort.  A bundle of clothes put together, a knapsack with bread and pieces of dried meat and cheese, and a purse with all the money that she possessed in the world, which she insisted on his taking.

“I will come back to thee, mother,” said Hans, in a tone of more cheerfulness than he really felt.  “I will come back to thee again, and see if I shall not one day become rich and great,—­see if thou wilt not have reason to be proud of thy Hanschen.”

His mother shook her head.  She could then only feel that she was losing his daily care and presence, and that the future was all uncertain.  But she was at the same time pleased to see him of good cheer, and that his courage and spirit did not forsake him.  She promised to find out if the young man whom he had wounded recovered, and to discover some means of sending him word when he might return in safety; and with many embraces and blessings, and parting words of love he went away.

Hans had not gone far, however, before turning his thoughts to the future, and thinking of what had been his former hopes and intentions, he all at once remembered the little bag of letters which he had some years before carved out of wood, and which hung in the back room of the cottage.  He called to mind all the schemes and visions which of old he had formed over these letters, and he thought to himself that now, perhaps, was come the right time for turning them and all his acquired knowledge to account.  He determined to go back and fetch his letters; and he thought it best to do so unknown to his mother, so that he might not renew in her the sorrow of parting; retracing then his steps, he got over the hedge which divided his mother’s little garden from the road, and softly opening the door that led to the little room in which he had been accustomed to sleep, and where he had kept his treasured letters, he took the little pouch from the nail on which it hung, and was hastening