Page:Legends of Rubezahl, and Other Tales (1845).djvu/225

 that I had every prospect of getting back at least a great deal of my long-withheld property. However, until I had done myself full justice, I liked this life so well that I resolved to continue it; but such is the fatality by which I am persecuted that I can never long continue to pursue that calling which best suits my abilities. Being in professional attendance at the fair of Liegnitz, I detected a farmer in possession of what was, I had not the smallest doubt, one of my purses, and which the dishonest fellow had managed to cram full of gold. I attempted to assert my rights of ownership, but failed, the weight being too great for my fingers. Being observed, I was seized with brutal violence, and dragged before the magistrates as a cut-purse, though I by no means deserved this invidious appellation. I had, indeed, taken possession of many purses, but never cut purses from honest people, as I was now most unjustly accused of having done; all the purses I had appropriated having, as it were, spontaneously placed themselves in my hand, as if, by a sort of instinct, they were desirous of returning to their original owner. But this argument availed me nothing with the court; I was put in prison, and condemned not only thus a second time to be deprived of the means of earning my livelihood, but a second time to be cruelly flogged. But the latter injustice I saved myself from, by seizing an oppor-