


This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>



[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them.  D.W.]





BARBARA BLOMBERG

By Georg Ebers

Volume 1.


Translated from the German by Mary J. Safford



CHAPTER I.

The sun sometimes shone brightly upon the little round panes of the
ancient building, the Golden Cross, on the northern side of the square,
which the people of Ratisbon call "on the moor"; sometimes it was veiled
by gray clouds.  A party of nobles, ecclesiastics, and knights belonging
to the Emperor's train were just coming out.  The spring breeze banged
behind them the door of the little entrance for pedestrians close beside
the large main gateway.

The courtiers and ladies who were in the chapel at the right of the
corridor started.  "April weather!" growled the corporal of the Imperial
Halberdiers to the comrade with whom he was keeping; guard at the foot of
the staircase leading to the apartments of Charles V, in the second story
of the huge old house.

"St. Peter's day," replied the other, a Catalonian.  "At my home fresh
strawberries are now growing in the open air and roses are blooming in
the gardens.  Take it all in all, it's better to be dead in Barcelona
than alive in this accursed land of heretics!"

"Come, come," replied the other, "life is life!  'A live dog is better
than a dead king,' says a proverb in my country."

"And it is right, too," replied the Spaniard