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"In short, you will see for yourself," she continued, "that it's all quite true and that this incident is merely another one of those outrages that have been committed of late against strangers at Tronka Castle." "I must first investigate that," answered Kohlhaas. "Call him in here, Lisbeth, if he is up and about."
As soon as Sir Wenzel, in the presence of the Chamberlain, his cousin, learned from an indefinite rumor that a man had arrived in the city with two black horses which had escaped from the burning of Tronka Castle, both gentlemen, accompanied by a few servants hurriedly collected in the house, went to the palace square where the man had stopped, intending, if the two animals proved to be those belonging to Kohlhaas, to make good the expenses the man had incurred and take the horses home with them.
At least, Herse reported that at midnight the Squire in a skiff without rudder or oars had arrived at a village on the Elbe, to the great astonishment of the inhabitants who were assembled on account of the fire at Tronka Castle and that he had gone on toward Erlabrunn in a village cart.
When he also found in it a clause condemning Squire Wenzel Tronka to a punishment of two years' imprisonment, his feelings completely overcame him and he sank down on his knees at some distance from the Elector, with his hands folded across his breast.
The Squire who had gone around the cart and gazed at the miserable animals, which seemed every moment about to expire, said in an embarrassed way that those were not the horses which he had taken from Kohlhaas; but Sir Kunz, the Chamberlain, casting at him a look of speechless rage which, had it been of iron, would have dashed him to pieces, and throwing back his cloak to disclose his orders and chain, stepped up to the knacker and asked if those were the black horses which the shepherd at Wilsdruf had gained possession of, and for which Squire Wenzel Tronka, to whom they belonged, had made requisition through the magistrate of that place.
By this decree he was ordered to fetch the horses from Tronka Castle and, under pain of imprisonment, not to bring any further action in the matter. Kohlhaas put the letter in his pocket and had the coffin carried out to the hearse.
Toward midday Herse came and confirmed what Kohlhaas' heart, which was always filled with the most gloomy forebodings, had already told him namely, that the Squire was then in the nunnery of Erlabrunn with the old Lady Antonia Tronka, his aunt.
But even while crossing the courtyard, Kohlhaas learned with dismay that for alleged insolence his groom had been cudgeled and dismissed in disgrace a few days after being left behind at Tronka Castle.
Sometimes they pretended that the black horses belonging to Kohlhaas had been detained at Tronka Castle on the arbitrary authority of the castellan and the steward, and that the Squire had known little, if anything, of their actions.
He was told in reply that the suit had been dismissed in the Dresden courts at the instance of an influential person. To the astonished reply of the horse-dealer asking what was the reason of this, the lawyer informed him that Squire Wenzel Tronka was related to two young noblemen, Hinz and Kunz Tronka, one of whom was Cup-bearer to the person of the sovereign, and the other actually Chamberlain.
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