welfare forbade that he should give her in marriage to a youth whose
kinsfolks would receive her with scorn and ill-feeling, rather than with
love and kindness, he had at last set his heart hard against young
Waldstromer, whom he had loved as his own son, and forced him to go far
away from his sweetheart. I, in my heart, was strangely wroth with my
cousin in that he had not staked his all to win so fair a maid; nay, and
I made so bold as to confess that in Gertrude's place I should have gone
after my lover whithersoever he would, even against my father's will.

And again that proud smile came upon Ulman Pernhart's bearded lips, and
his eye flashed fire as he said: "My life moves in a narrow round, but
all that dwell therein bend to my will as the copper bends under my
hammer. If you think that the Junker gave in without a struggle you are
greatly mistaken; after I had forbidden him the house, he had tempted
Gertrude to turn against me and was ready to carry her off; nay, and
would you believe it, my own mother sided with the young ones. The
priest even was in readiness to marry them privily, and they would have
won the day in spite of me. But the eyes of jealousy are ever the
sharpest; my head apprentice, who was madly in love with the maid,
betrayed the plot, and then, Mistress Margery, were things said and done
--things concerning which I had best hold my peace. And if you crave to
know them, you may ask my mother. You will see some day, if you do not
scorn to enter my house and if you gain her friendship--and I doubt not
that you will, albeit it is not granted to every one--she will be glad
enough to complain of my dealings in this matter--mine, her own son's,
although on other points she is wont to praise my virtues over-loudly."

This discourse raised my cousin once more to his old place in my opinion,
and I knew now that the honest glance of his blue eyes, which doubtless
had won fair Gertrude's heart, was trustworthy and true.