Here, behind and beside the frames of the cloth weavers, stood the tents before which the followers and soldiers of the princes and dignitaries who had come to the Reichstag were still sitting around the camp fire, carousing and laughing.
Any interruption was welcome to him, and to Biberli it seemed like a deliverance to be permitted to use his poor endangered tongue, for his master had asked what grief oppressed him.
"If you desired to know what trouble did not burden my soul I could find a speedier answer," replied Biberli piteously.

"Oh, this night, my lord! What has it not brought upon us and others! Look at the black clouds rising in the south.

They are like the dark days impending over us poor mortals." Then he confided to Heinz his fears for himself and Katterle.

The knight's assurance that he would intercede for him and, if necessary, even appeal to the Emperor's favour, somewhat cheered his servitor's drooping spirits, it is true, but by no means restored his composure, and his tone was lugubrious enough as he went on: "And the poor innocent girl in the Ortlieb house! Your little lady, my lord, broke the bread she must now eat herself, but the other, the older E." "I know," interrupted the knight sorrowfully.

"But if the gracious Virgin aids us, they will continue to believe in the wager Cordula von Montfort----" "She! she!" Biberli exclaimed, enthusiastically waving his stick aloft.
"The Lord created her in a good hour.