I thank you, my friends, for standing by me, yet I would yet more that you stood by yourselves. Veit, have you forgotten the sick wife and hungering little ones for whose sake good Master Dorner has given you work? Gregor, the old father looks to you as his staff in age, would you let him find it break in his hand? This thing is sin to you, men-sin, and you know it; yet you let yourself be led by yon bad man who has swaggered off with a scoff; for what is it to him how many souls he ruins or how many hearts he breaks? Look back, see what you were before he came, and what you are now. At least you may see your own weakness, and your need to seek the true Strength. And you have not only your own souls to answer for, but that of the boy Joseph; forget not that, and the woe spoken on those who mislead the young of the flock. No man ever lost his own soul only, nor went down to the pit alone."

Faber spoke from his very heart, and both men seemed moved, Veit especially, for he was touched by the thought of those dependent on him, and they implored him not to bring down Dorner's anger upon them; yet they showed great hesitation in promising to avoid Josenhans, and Faber felt that the hold which the gambler had on them was too strong to be shaken by anything which he could urge, and that they were even reluctant to believe in that accusation of false play which he had not denied, and which they might have easily seen for themselves, was impossible to question. He went sadly away, asking himself wherein lay the power of such men as Josenhans.

CHAPTER XVII.

"Their roots isn' twisted someway with ours,
And the flowers that's at them is other flowers,
And they're waiting, I'm thinking, to be transplanted
To the place where the like of them is wanted;
And our love is not their love, and they cannot take it,
Nor our thirst their thirst, and we cannot slake it."
-Fo'cs'le Yarns.

HERE must be an end of this," Dorner said,
when he heard what had passed; "though I

would any one could tell me what to do with a man who laughs in my face and tells me downright he will not budge, and that man my own brother! I have asked myself more than once whether it were best to bribe him to depart with such moneys as yet remain to me; but who can say that he would not return, even as the chronicle you read us last winter tells us that the Danes did unto the land of England so soon as the pieces were spent? Moreover, I shall need the money; and more yet, if I had it, unless I shrewdly err, for the year promises ill; the wheat is thin and light, and Martin says that even the acorns and beech-mast are like to fail, and he is seldom wrong in such matters."

"All ill-fortune, whatever it may be this year, will be laid at Resi's door."

"To Resi! Sure you speak jestingly," said Dorner, looking at Faber with much surprise; "what has the girl to do with the crops?"

"Nay, I jest not, and sorcery is no matter for jesting. The Alsdorfers are saying that she has come no man knows whence, and brought ill-fortune with her, being a witch."

"Heard one ever such unchristian nonsense? The folk are truly all bewitched, I think, but by their own folly and unreasonable fancies," said Dorner, quite moved out of his usual phlegm. "I know not what has come to them. Here, too, Martin, who hears and sees everything which touches the maiden, as you may have marked for yourself, tells me that strange things are whispered against her, and evils looks cast upon her-the girl who saved us all by her ready wit. I declare to you that when I hear all this I am so sore vexed that I know not how to rule myself; but one must have patience; I mind me that when first she came there was as it were a breeze of ill-will against her, which blew itself out after a while, and so it will be again."

"I fear me not so, Master Dorner," said Faber, very seriously. "It was indeed on this matter that I came to speak. I need not tell you, who are of these parts, how perilous is ill-will among our peasants; how it slumbers and smoulders until all at once it blazes up, so that never landsknecht kindled fire so fierce and hard to quench; and

again, it is seldom, if ever, that a stranger is trusted or well seen by them. From what I see and hear, though I take it none care I should know it, there is danger brewing for the maiden here and in the village."

"I am fairly dazed," said the farmer, passing his hand over his brow. "How rose this accusation of witchcraft? The folk are ever ready to believe it, and a terrible one it is, for they would hold mercy to a sorceress as impious; but whences comes it?"

"It would seem to have come from here," said Faber, reluctantly.

"From here! And wherefore? Who has made it here?"

"It is ever hard to get a peasant to give a plain answer, or to render up the name of one who has told him a thing, if it be but that a cow looked over a hedge; but when I would not be put off until I knew from whose lips came such charges the baker's wife owned that your Rosel had told her strange things, and given her many unquestionable proofs that Theresa was an Unholdin."

"Rosel! The mischief-making baggage! I will have her hither, and make her answer for her words," said Dorner, with the hasty anger of a usually calm man when greatly roused.

"Stay, Master Dorner," said Faber, laying his hand on the farmer's arm; "be not over-hasty, lest you repent it later. It would seem that Rosel had these things from Dame Martha."

"My mother!" said Dorner, in blank consternation.

"I fear so, dear friend. She has ever misliked the girl, and had strange and hard thoughts about her from the first."

"But she would not betray them-to her serving-maid! My mother, as you should know, is not one to do that, however hard she was in her thoughts upon the stranger. That I cannot believe. Rosel has devised these ill reports, and laid them at the door of her mistress. And what else is to be said? though truly I have heard too much."

"Such wild and crazy rumours are hard to unravel, especially when they are not meant for my ear, and are hushed at mine approach; but chiefly it is said that not only is she a witch, but that while the people are starving she keeps great store of gold hidden away, left her by the landsknecht Conrad."

"Ha! Then indeed I must believe that my mother betrayed the secret, for none but Martin and I knew of that matter except herself. And yet I would as soon, or sooner, have thought that mine own tongue would bewray counsel as hers, unless indeed she were cajoled by Josenhans," added Dorner, with a start.

"Had it been to him that she told it he would rather have kept such news to himself than have gossipped it abroad to the risk of others desiring to lay hands upon this hoard," said Faber.

"Yet he must have heard of it-perhaps by common report, since you say they speak of it in Alsdorf. I under