where they lifted their presumptuous thoughts to the height of
controlling the sovereign; and, even in circumstances which to his own
judgment might seem to confer much less discretionary power over the
rights of prisoners, he had been suspected of directing the course of
law and of punishment into channels that would not brook the public
knowledge. Darker dealings were imputed to him in the popular opinion.
Gloomy suspicions were muttered at the fireside, which no man dared
openly to avow; and in the present instance the conduct of the
Landgrave was every way fitted to fall in with the worst of the public
fears. At one time he talked of bringing his prisoners to a trial; at
another, he countermanded the preparations which he had made with that
view. Sometimes he spoke of banishing them in a body; and again he
avowed his intention to deal with their crime as treason. The result of
this moody and capricious tyranny was to inspire the most vague and
gloomy apprehensions into the minds of the prisoners, and to keep their
friends, with the whole city of Klosterheim, in a feverish state of
insecurity.

This state of things lasted for nearly three weeks; but at length a
morning of unexpected pleasure dawned upon the city. The prisoners were
in one night all released. In half an hour the news ran over the town
and the university; multitudes hastened to the college, anxious to
congratulate the prisoners on their deliverance from the double
afflictions of a dungeon and of continual insecurity. Mere curiosity
also prompted some, who took but little interest in the prisoners or
their cause, to inquire into the circumstances of so abrupt and
unexpected an act of grace. One principal court in the college was
filled with those who had come upon this errand of friendly interest or
curiosity. Nothing was to be seen but earnest and delighted faces,
offering or acknowledging congratulation; nothing to be heard but the