"But when later the people in Suabia took pity on the poor outlaw, and gave him a little bit of land, whereby to earn a scanty livelihood; and when they thought of sending an army to fight for his rights, Luitward dispatched murderers against him. It was a wild night for the tenement of Neidingen; the storm was breaking the branches of the trees, and the shutters were rattling violently. The dethroned Emperor not being able to sleep on account of the headache, had mounted on the roof, to let the storm cool his burning forehead, when they broke in to murder him. It is not a very pleasant feeling I can tell you, to sit in the cold night-air on the roof, with a heavy aching head, and hear how people are regretting downstairs, that they cannot strangle you, or hang you over the draw-well." ...
"He who has lived to hear that, had better die at once. The stout Meginhard at Neidingen, had fallen down from a tree and was killed just at the right time; so that they could lay him on the bier, and spread the news in the country that the dethroned Emperor had paid his tribute to grim King Death. They say that it was a fine procession, when they carried him to the Reichenau. The Heavens are said to have opened, casting a ray of light on the bier; and the funeral must have been touching indeed, when they buried him on the right side of the altar. 'That he had been stript of his honour, and bereft of his kingdom, was a trial imposed from above, to cleanse and purify his soul, and as he bore it patiently, it is to be hoped that the Lord rewarded him, with the crown of eternal life; to comfort him for the earthly crown which he had lost' ... thus they preached in the cloister-church, not knowing that he, whom they imagined they had buried, was at that same hour entering the solitude of the Heidenhöhlen; laden with all his trifling belongings; and leaving behind him a curse on the world." ...
The old man laughed. "Here it is safe and quiet enough, to think of old times. Let's drink a bumper to the dead! And Luitward has been cheated after all; for though his Emperor wears an old hat instead of a golden crown, and drinks the sour juice of the Sippling grape, instead of the sparkling Rhinewine, he is still alive; whilst the meagre ones and all their race are dead, long ago. And the stars will prove right after all, in prophesying at his birth, that he would leave this false world, in the roar of battle. The Huns are coming! Oh, come thou also soon, thou joyful end!"