He had joined Cordula's admirers only to forget at her feet the annoyances with which he had been wearied at home.

He had but one thing for which to thank the countess--her remark concerning the future of the twins.
Yet was he really so base that it would have been a disgrace for his darlings to resemble him?
"No!" a voice within cried loudly, and as the same voice reminded him of the victories won in tournaments and sword combats, of the open hand with which, since he had been the rich Eysvogel's son-in-law, he had lent and given money to his brothers, and especially of the manly resolve to provide for his wife and children as a soldier in the service of some prince, another, lower, yet insistent, recalled other things.

It referred to the time when, with his brothers, he had attacked a train of freight waggons and not cut down their armed escort alone.

The curse of a broad-shouldered Nordlinger carrier, whose breast he had pierced with a lance though he cried out that he was a father and had a wife and child to support, the shriek of the pretty boy with curling brown hair who clung to the bridle of his steed as he rode against the father, and whose arm he had cut off, still seemed to ring in his ears.

He also remembered the time when, after a rich capture on the highway which had filled his purse, he had ridden to Nuremberg in magnificent new clothes at the carnival season in order, by his brothers' counsel, to win a wealthy bride.