"Not the first time. When I was young--it may now be thirty years ago, or more--there stood in their cursed nest, in a waste place between the town wall and the ramparts, an old half-rotten gallows, and on the gallows were nailed two rusty iron plates, upon which there stood half-defaced names, and one of these names was _Malte von Zehren_, with the date 1436. I recognized it by the date; and one night, with the friend of my youth, Hans von Trantow--the father of our Hans--I wrenched it off, cut down the gallows, and pitched it over the rampart into the fosse. Do you know how my ancestor's name came there? He had a feud with the Peppersacks there in the town, and they had sworn, if they caught him, to hang him on the gallows. And though he heard of it, and knew that there would be no mercy for him, he slipped into the town in disguise, during the carnival, for the love of a townsman's pretty daughter. You see, my dear George, the women--they are at the bottom of all mischief. And they caught him too, early next morning, as he was stealing away, flung him into the dungeon, and the next day he was to be hanged, to the delight of all the good townsfolk. But a page who accompanied him, and who had escaped, carried the news to Hans von Trantow, and Hans sent off a score of riders to all cousins and kinsfolk over the whole island, and that night they crossed over in twenty boats, two hundred of them, with Hans at their head, forced their way into the town, broke into the dungeon and rescued my ancestor, the good fellows, and then set the old nest on fire at its four corners and burned it down. So as the townsmen had lost Malte von Zehren, they contented themselves with nailing his name upon the gallows.
"And what was the origin of the feud? The Sound-dues, which the Lords of Zehren had levied for centuries, and which the Peppersacks now laid claim to. By what right? I ask you now, by what right? At a time when their pedlars' nest was a mere cluster of hovels inhabited by wretched fishermen, the Zehrens were living as lords and masters in a block-house surrounded by a rampart, as men used to do in the earliest times; then in a castle of stone, with towers and battlements, and as far as the eye can reach from up yonder over forests and coves into the island, no hearth smoked in house or hut at which vassals and retainers of the castle did not warm themselves; and as far as the eye can reach from up there over the sea, no sail swelled and no pennon flew that did not pay tribute to the castle. Do you think, young man, that things like these can be forgotten? Do you suppose that I can learn to feel myself under one law with a crew that crawled before my ancestors in the dust? or to acknowledge any master over me? _By the grace of God_--and what is that? Where were these fellows 'by the grace of God' four or five hundred years ago? I could sit where they sit now, with just as good a right; my escutcheon instead of theirs would flaunt on every gate and guard-house, and in my name would tolls and taxes be levied. And now 'sdeath! here I sit, a Lord Lack-all, in this box of stone, which before long will fall in over my head, and not a foot of the soil on which I tread can I call my own. See there--" he stepped to the open window, and pointed out with a hand trembling with emotion--"you once asked me why I did not turn those into money. There are thousands upon thousands in the forest, and I answered that I had not the heart to have the old trees hewn down. It was the truth; I could not do it; and the only right that I have over them is that I can keep them from being cut down as long as I live. Not a tree belongs to me--not a sapling--not enough to serve for my coffin; every twig belongs to that mountebank, your Cr[oe]sus, who calls himself commerzienrath, and is well named Streber [Striver.] I see the stockfish still, distorting his crooked mouth as he counted down the pittance on the table and crammed the contract into his pocket. He thought: 'It will not last him long, and then he will blow out his brains.' It has not lasted long; and he may have been as correct in his other anticipation.