It was a fair compact. But as for me, I've changed my mind. If my men
are the first to come you shall be the first to be helped, as though you
were my guest. We have quarrelled like devils all our lives over this
stupid strip of forest, where the trees can't even stand upright in a
breath of wind. Lying here to-night thinking I've come to think we've
been rather fools; there are better things in life than getting the
better of a boundary dispute. Neighbour, if you will help me to bury the
old quarrel I--I will ask you to be my friend."
Georg Znaeym was silent for so long that Ulrich thought, perhaps, he had
fainted with the pain of his injuries. Then he spoke slowly and in
jerks.
"How the whole region would stare and gabble if we rode into the market-
square together. No one living can remember seeing a Znaeym and a von
Gradwitz talking to one another in friendship. And what peace there
would be among the forester folk if we ended our feud to-night. And if
we choose to make peace among our people there is none other to
interfere, no interlopers from outside . . . You would come and keep the
Sylvester night beneath my roof, and I would come and feast on some high
day at your castle .
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