for it;” and with that he turned again toward the door with the intention of leaving the house.  Kohlhaas, who had reflected, said “My lord, do as you like!  If you will give me your word that the guard will be withdrawn as soon as I wish it, I have no objection to this measure.”  The Prince answered, “That is understood, of course.”  He informed the three foot-soldiers, who were appointed for this purpose, that the man in whose house they were to remain was free, and that it was merely for his protection that they were to follow him when he went out; he then saluted the horse-dealer with a condescending wave of the hand, and took his leave.

Toward midday Kohlhaas went to Count Wrede, Lord High Chancellor of the Tribunal; he was escorted by his three foot-soldiers and followed by an innumerable crowd, who, having been warned by the police, did not try to harm him in any way.  The Chancellor received him in his antechamber with benignity and kindness, conversed with him for two whole hours, and after he had had the entire course of the affair related to him from beginning to end, referred Kohlhaas to a celebrated lawyer in the city who was a member of the Tribunal, so that he might have the complaint drawn up and presented immediately.

Kohlhaas, without further delay, betook himself to the lawyer’s house and had the suit drawn up exactly like the original one which had been quashed.  He demanded the punishment of the Squire according to law, the restoration of the horses to their former condition, and compensation for the damages he had sustained as well as for those suffered by his groom, Herse, who had fallen at Muehlberg in behalf of the latter’s old mother.  When this was done Kohlhaas returned home, accompanied by the crowd that still continued to gape at him, firmly resolved in his mind not to leave the house again unless called away by important business.

In the mean time the Squire had been released from his imprisonment in Wittenberg, and after recovering from a dangerous attack of erysipelas which had caused inflammation of his foot, had been summoned by the Supreme Court in peremptory terms to present himself in Dresden to answer the suit instituted against him by the horse-dealer, Kohlhaas, with regard to a pair of black horses which had been unlawfully taken from him and worked to death.  The Tronka brothers, the Chamberlain and the Cup-bearer, cousins of the Squire, at whose house he alighted, received him with the greatest bitterness and contempt.  They called him a miserable good-for-nothing, who had brought shame and disgrace on the whole family, told him that he would inevitably lose his suit, and called upon him to prepare at once to produce the black horses, which he would be condemned to fatten to the scornful laughter of the world.  The Squire answered in a weak and trembling voice that he was more deserving of pity than any other man on earth.  He swore that he had known but little about the whole cursed affair