At last, when Sintram, with the help of his esquires, was well-nigh equipped, the holy priest spoke: "Wonderful providence of God! See, dear Sintram, this armour and this spear were formerly those of Sir Weigand the Slender, and with them he did many mighty deeds.

When he was tended by your mother in the castle, and when even your father still showed himself kind towards him, he asked, as a favour, that his armour and his lance should be allowed to hang in Biorn's armoury--Weigand himself, as you well know, intended to build a cloister and to live there as a monk--and he put his old esquire's helmet with it, instead of another, because he was yet wearing that one when he first saw the fair Verena's angelic face.

How wondrously does it now come to pass, that these very arms, which have so long been laid aside, should be brought to you for the decisive hour of your life! To me, as far as my short-sighted human wisdom can tell,--to me it seems truly a very solemn token, but one full of high and glorious promise." Sintram stood now in complete array, composed and stately, and, from his tall slender figure, might have been taken for a youth, had not the deep lines of care which furrowed his countenance shown him to be advanced in years.
"Who has placed boughs on the head of my war-horse ?" asked Sintram of the esquires, with displeasure.

"I am not a conqueror, nor a wedding-guest.

And besides, there are no boughs now but those red and yellow crackling oak-leaves, dull and dead like the season itself." "Sir Knight, I know not myself," answered an esquire; "but it seemed to me that it must be so." "Let it be," said the chaplain.