What can science do in presence of the great mortal strife between Death and Life? At the supreme hour, when the invisible wrestlers are writhed together body to body and limb to limb, panting, each in turn overthrowing and overthrown, what avails the healing art? One can but watch, and tremble, and listen! At times the struggle seems suspendeda truce has sounded; Life has retired into her hold. She is resting; she is collecting the courage of despair. But the relentless enemy beats at the gates; he bursts in; then Life springs to the rescue, and again grapples with her adversary. The strife is renewed with fresh fuel added to the fire of mortal energy as the fatal issue draws closer and nearer. And the exhausted patient, himself the field of battle, weltering in the cold sweat of death, the eye set and the arm powerless, can do nothing for himself. His breathing, sometimes short, broken, and distressing, sometimes long, deep, laboured, and heavy, indicates the varying phases of this dreadful struggle. The bystanders watch each other's faces, and they think, "The day will come when we in our turns shall be the field of the same strife, and victorious Death will bear us away into the grave, his den, as the spider carries away the fly." But the true life, the only life, the soul, spreading her immortal wings, will speed her flight to another world, with the exulting cry, "I have fought the good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith!" And Death, disappointed of its prey, will look up at the emancipated being, unable to follow, and holding in its clutches only a cold and decaying corpse, soon to be a handful of dust. "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" O best and only consolation, the hope and belief in the final triumph of justice, the certainty of immortal life through Jesus Christ the Saviour! Cruel indeed is he who would rob man of the chief brightness and glory of life! Towards midnight the Count of Nideck seemed almost gone; the agony of death was at hand; the broken, weakened pulse indicated the sinking of the vital powers; then, it might return to a more active state; but there seemed no hope. My only duty left was to stay and see this unhappy man die. I was exhausted with fatigue and anxiety; whatever art could do I had tried. I told Sperver to sit up, and close his master's eyes in death. The poor faithful fellow was in the utmost distress; he reproached himself with his involuntary cry"Count of Nideckwhat are you doing?" and tore his hair in bitter repentance. I went away alone to Hugh Lupus's tower, having had scarcely any time to take food, but I did not feel the want of it. There was a bright fire on the hearth; I threw myself dressed upon the bed, and sleep soon came to relieve my weight of apprehensionthat heavy sleep broken by the consciousness that you may any minute be awoke by tears and lamentations. I was sleeping thus, with my face turned towards the fire, and as it often happens, the flame fitfully rising, and falling threw a fluttering, flickering light like those of ruddy flapping wings against the walls, and wearied still more my dropping eyelids. Lost in a dreamy slumber, I was half opening my eyes to see the cause of these alternate lights and shadows, but the strangest sight surprised me. Close by the hearth, hardly revealed by the feeble light of a few dying embers, I recognised with dismay the dark profile of the Black Plague! She sat upon a low stool, and was evidently warming herself. At first I thought myself deceived by my senses, which would have been natural enough after the exciting scenes of the last few days; I raised myself upon my elbow, gazing with my eyes starting with fear and horror. It was she indeed! I lay horrified, for there she sat calm and immovable, with her hands clasped over her skinny knees, just as I had seen her in the snow, with her long scraggy neck outstretched, her hooked nose, her compressed lips. How had the Black Pest got here? How had she found her way into this high tower crowning the dangerous precipices? Everything that Sperver had told me of this mysterious being seemed to be coming true! And now the unaccountable behaviour of Lieverl, growling so fiercely against the wall, seemed clear as the daylight. I huddled myself close up into the alcove, hardly daring to breathe, and staring upon this motionless profile just as a mouse out of its hole fixes its paralysed stare upon the cat that is watching for it. The old woman stirred no more than the rockhewn pillars on each side of the hearthstone, and her lips were mumbling inarticulate sounds. My heart was palpitating, my fears increased momentarily during the long silence, made more startling by the motionless supernatural figure that sat there before me. This had lasted a quarter of an hour when, the fire catching a splinter of firwood, a flash of light broke out, the shaving twisted and flamed, and a few rays of light flared to the end of the room. That luminous jet was sufficient to show me that the creature was clothed in an old dress of rich purple silk as stiff as cardboard, with a violet pattern; there was a massive bracelet upon her left wrist, and a gold arrow stuck through her thick grey hair twisted over the back of her head. It was like an apparition out of the ages past. Still the Plague could have had no hostile intentions towards me, or she might easily have taken advantage of my sleep to have put them in execution. That thought was beginning to give me some confidence, when suddenly she rose from her seat and with slow steps approached my bed, holding in her hand a torch which she had just lighted. I then observed that her eyes were fixed and haggard. I made an effort to rise and cry aloud, but not a muscle of my body would obey my wishes, not a breath came to my lips; and the old woman, bending over me between the curtains, fixed her stony stare upon me with a strange unearthly smile. I wanted to call for help, I wanted to drive her from me, but her petrifying stare seemed to fascinate and paralyse me, just as that of the serpent fixes the little bird motionless before it. During this speechless contemplation minutes seemed like hours. What was she about to do? I was ready for any event. Suddenly she turned her head, went round upon her heel, listened, strode across the room, and opened the door. At last I recovered a little courage; an effort of the will brought me to my feet as if I were acted on by a spring; I darted after her footsteps; she with one hand was holding her torch on high, and with the other kept the door open. I was about to seize her by the hair, when at the end of the long gallery, under the Gothic archway of the castle leading to the ramparts, I sawa tall figure. It was the Count of Nideck! The Count of Nideck, whom I had thought a dying man, clad in a huge wolfskin thrown with its upper jaw projecting grimly over his eyes like a visor, the formidable claws hanging over each shoulder, and the tail dragging behind him along the flags. He wore stout heavy shoes, a silver clasp gathered the wolfskin round his neck, and his whole aspect, but for the icecold deathly expression of his face, proclaimed the man born for commandthe master! In the presence of such an imposing personage my ideas became vague and confused. Flight was no longer possible, yet I had the presence of mind to throw myself into the embrasure of the window. The count entered my room with his eyes fixed on the old woman and his features unrelaxed. They spoke to one another in hoarse whispers, so low that I could not distinguish a word. But there was no mistaking their gestures. The woman was pointing to the bed. They approached the fireplace on tiptoe. There in the dark shadow of the recess at its side the Black Plague, with a horrible smile, unrolled a large bag. As soon as the count saw the bag he made a bound towards the bed and kneeled upon it with one knee; there was a shaking of the curtains, his body disappeared beneath their folds, and I could only see one leg still resting on the floor, and the wolf's tail undulating irregularly from side to side. They seemed to be acting a murder in ghastly pantomime. No real scene, however frightful, could have agitated me more than this mute representation of some horrible deed. Then the old woman ran to his assistance, carrying the bag with her. Again the curtains shook and the shadows crossed the walls; but the most horrible of all was that I fancied I saw a pool of blood creeping across the floor and slowly reaching the hearth. But it was only the snow that had clung to the count's boots, and was melting in the heat. I was still gazing upon this dark stream, feeling my dry tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, when there was a great movement; the old woman and the count were stuffing the sheets of the bed into the sack, they were thrusting and stamping them in with just the same haste as a dog scratching at a hole, then the lord of Nideck flung this unshapely bundle over his shoulder and made for the door; a sheet was dragging behind him, and the old woman followed him torch in hand. They went across the court. My knees were almost giving way under me; they knocked together for fear. I prayed for strength. In a couple of minutes I was on their footsteps, dragged forward by a sudden irresistible impulse. I crossed the court at a run, and was just going to enter the door of the tower when I perceived a deep but narrow pit at my feet, down which went a winding staircase, and there far below I could see the torch describing a spiral course around the stone rail like a little star; at last it was lost in the distance. Now I also descended the first steps of this newlydiscovered staircase, directing my course after this distant light; suddenly it vanished. The old woman and the count had reached the bottom of the precipice. Supported by the stone rail I continued my descent, safe to be able to mount again if I found my further progress stopped. Soon I came to the last step; I looked around me, and discovered on my left hand a narrow streak of moonlight shining under a low door, through the nettles and brambles; I kicked a way through these obstacles, clearing the snow away with my feet, and then found that I was at the very foot of the keepHugh's donjon tower. Who would have supposed that such a hole would have led up into the castle? Who had shown it to the old woman? I did not stay to satisfy myself on these points. The vast plain lay spread before me bathed in a light almost equal to that of day. On the right lay extended wide the dark line of the Black Forest with its craggy rocks, its gullies, its passes stretching away as far as the sight could reach. The night air was keen and sharp, but perfectly calm, and I felt myself awakened to the highest degree, almost as if my senses were volatilised by the still and icecold air. My first examination of the horizon was for the figures of the count and his strange companion. I soon distinguished their tall dark forms standing out sharply against the starspangled purple heavens. I nearly overtook them at the bottom of the ravine. The count was moving with deliberate steps, the imaginary windingsheet dragging slowly after him. There was an automatic precision in the movements of both. I kept six or eight yards behind them down the hollow road to the Altenberg, now in the shade, now in the full light, for the moon was shining with astonishing brilliancy. A few clouds floated idly across the zenith, seeming to want to clasp her in their long arms, but she ever eluded their grasp, and her rays, keen as a blade of steel, cut me to the marrow of my bones. I could have wished to turn back, but some invisible power impelled me onwards to follow this funeral procession in pantomime. Even to this day I fancy still I can see the rough mountain path through the Black Forest, I can hear the crisp snow crackling under foot, and the dead leaves rustling in the light north wind; I can see myself following those two silent beings, but I cannot understand what mysterious power drew me in their footsteps. At last we reach the forest, and advance amongst the tall barebranched, beeches; the dark shadows of their higher boughs intersect the lower branches, and fall broken upon the snowencumbered road. Sometimes I fancy I can hear steps behind me; I turn sharply round, but can see no one. We had just reached the long rocky ridge that forms the crest of the Altenberg; behind it flows the torrent of the Schneberg, but in winter no current is visible; scarcely does a mere thread of its blue waters trickle under the thick crust of ice. Here the deep solitude is broken by no murmuring brooks, no warblings of birds, no thunder of the waterfall. In the vast unbroken solitudes the awful silence is terrible. The Count of Nideck and the old woman found a gap in the face of the rock, up which they mounted straight with marvellous celerity, whilst I had to pull myself up by the help of the bushes. Hardly had they reached the ridge of the crags, which came almost to a point, when I was within three yards of them, and I beheld beyond a dreadful precipice of which I could not see the bottom. At the left hung in the air like a vast sheet the fall of the Schneberg, a mass of ice. That resemblance to an immense wave taking the precipice at one bound, bearing trees on its breast, fringed with the bushes, and winding out the long ivy sprays, which exhibit in their delicate tracery the form of the rigid glassy billow; that mere semblance of movement amidst the stillness and immovableness of death, and the presence of those two speechless creatures pursuing their ghastly work with automatic precision, added to the terror with which I already trembled. Nature herself seemed to shrink with horror. The count had laid down his burden; the old woman and he took it up together, swung it for a moment over the edge of the precipice, then the long shroud floated over the abyss, and the imaginary murderers in silence bent forward to see it fall. That long white sheet floating in the air is still present before my eyes. It descends, it falls like a wild swan shot in the clouds, spreading its wide wings, the long neck thrown back, whirling down to earth to die. The white burden disappeared in the dark depths of the precipice. At last the cloud which I had long seen threatening to cover the moon's bright disc veiled her in its steelblue folds, and her rays ceased to shine. The old woman, holding the count by the hand and dragging him forward with hurried steps, came for a moment into view. The cloud had overshadowed the moon, and I could not move out of their way without danger of falling over the precipice. After a few minutes, during which I lay as close as I could, there was a rift in the cloud. I looked out again. I stood alone on the point of the peak with the snow up to my knees. Full of horror and apprehension, I descended from my perilous position, and ran to the castle in as much consternation as if I had been guilty of some great crime. As for the lord of Nideck and his companion, I lost sight of them. CHAPTER X. I wandered around the castle of Nideck unable to find the exit from which I had commenced my melancholy journey. So much anxiety and uneasiness were beginning to tell upon my mind; I staggered on, wondering if I was not mad, unable to believe in what I had seen, and yet alarmed at the clearness of my own perceptions. My mind in confusion passed in review that strange man waving his torch overhead in the darkness, howling like a wolf, coldly and accurately going through all the details of an imaginary murder without the omission of one ghastly detail or circumstance, then escaping and committing to the furious torrent the secret of his crime; these things all harassed my mind, hurried confusedly past my eyes, and made me feel as if I were labouring under a nightmare. Lost in the snow, I ran to and fro panting and alarmed, and unable to judge which way to direct my steps. As day drew near the cold became sharper; I shivered, I execrated Sperver for having brought me from Fribourg to bear a part in this hideous adventure. At last, exhausted, my beard a mass of ice, my ears nearly frostbitten, I discovered the gate and rang the bell with all my might. It was then about four in the morning. Knapwurst made me wait a terribly long time. His little lodge, cut in the rock, remained silent; I thought the little humpbacked wretch would never have done dressing; for of course I supposed he would be in bed and asleep. I rang again. This time his grotesque figure appeared abruptly, and he cried to me from the door in a fury "Who are you?" "I?Doctor Fritz." "Oh, that alters the case," and he went back into his lodge for a lantern, crossed the outer court where the snow came up to his middle, and staring at me through the grating, he exclaimed "I beg your pardon, Doctor Fritz; I thought you would be asleep up there in Hugh Lupus's tower. Were you ringing? Now that explains why Sperver came to me about midnight to ask if anybody had gone out. I said no, which was quite true, for I never saw you going out." "But pray, Monsieur Knapwurst, do for pity's sake let me in, and I will tell you all about that byandby." "Come, come, sir, a little patience." And the hunchback, with the slowest deliberation, undid the padlock and slipped the bars, whilst my teeth were chattering, and I stood shivering from head to foot. "You are very cold, doctor," said the diminutive man, "and you cannot get into the castle. Sperver has fastened the inside door, I don't know why; he does not usually do so; the outer gate is enough. Come in here and get warm. You won't find my little hole very inviting, though. It is nothing but a sty, but when a man is as cold as you are he is not apt to be particular." Without replying to his chatter I followed him in as quickly as I could. We went into the hut, and in spite of my complete state of numbness, I could not help admiring the state of picturesque disorder in which I found the place. The slate roof leaning against the rock, and resting by its other side on a wall not more than six feet high, showed the smoky, blackened rafters from end to end. The whole edifice consisted of but one apartment, furnished with a very uninviting bed, which the dwarf did not often take the trouble to make, and two small windows with hexagonal panes, weatherstained with the rainbow tints of motherofpearl. A large square table filled up the middle, and it would be difficult to account for that massive oak slab being got in unless by supposing it to have been there before the hut was built. On shelves against the wall were rolls of parchment, and old books great and small. Wide open on the table lay a fine blackletter volume, with illuminations, bound in vellum, clasped and cornered with silver, apparently a collection of old chronicles. Besides there was nothing but two leathern armchairs, bearing on them the unmistakable impression of the misshapen figure of this learned gentleman. I need not stay to do more than mention the pens, the jar of tobacco, five or six pipes lying here and there, and in a corner a small castiron stove, with its low, open door wide open, and throwing out now and then a volley of bright sparks; and to complete the picture, the cat arching her back, and spitting threateningly at me with her armed paw uplifted. All this scene was tinted with that deep rich amber light in which the old Flemish painters delighted, and of which they alone possessed the secret, and never left it to the generations after them. "So you went out last night, doctor?" inquired my host, after we had both installed ourselves, and while I had my hands in a warm place upon the stove. "Yes, pretty early," I answered. "I had to look after a patient." This brief explanation seemed to satisfy the little hunchback, and he lighted his blackened boxwood pipe, which was hanging over his chin. "You don't smoke, doctor?" "I beg your pardon, I do." "Well, fill any one of these pipes. I was here," he said, spreading his yellow hand over the open volume. "I was reading the chronicles of Hertzog when you came." "Ah, that accounts for the time I had to wait! Of course you stayed to finish the chapter?" I said, smiling. He owned it, grinning, and we both laughed together. "But if I had known it was you," he said, "I should have finished the chapter another time." There was a short silence, during which I was observing the very peculiar physiognomy of this misshapen beingthose long deep wrinkles that moated in his wide mouth, his small eyes with the crow's feet at the outer corners, that contorted nose, bulbous at its end, and especially that huge doublestoried forehead of his. The whole figure reminded me not a little of the received pictures of Socrates, and while warming myself and listening to the crackling of the fire, I went off into contemplations on the very diversified fortunes of mankind. "Here is this dwarf," I thought, "an illshaped, stunted caricature, banished into a corner of Nideck, and living just like the cricket that chirps beneath the hearthstone. Here is this little Knapwurst, who in the midst of excitement, grand hunts, gallant trains of horsemen coming and going, the barking of the hounds, the trampling of the horses, and the shouts of the hunters, is living quietly all alone, buried in his books, and thinking of nothing but the times long gone by, whilst joy or sorrow, songs or tears, fill the world around him, while spring and summer, autumn and winter, come and look in through his dim windows, by turns brightening, warming, and benumbing the face of nature outside. Whilst men in the outer world are subject to the gentle influences of love, or the sterner impulses of ambition or avarice, hoping, coveting, longing, and desiring, he neither hopes, nor desires, nor covets anything. As long as he is smoking his pipe, with his eyes feasting on a musty parchment, he lives in the enjoyment of dreams, and he goes into raptures over things long, long ago gone by, or which have never existed at all; it is all one to him. 'Hertzog says so and so, somebody else tells the tale a different way,' and he is perfectly happy! His leathery face gets more and more deeply wrinkled, his broken angular back bends into sharper angles and corners, his pointed elbows dig beds for themselves in the oak table, his skinny fingers bury themselves in his cheeks, his piggish grey eyes get redder over manuscripts, Latin, Greek, or mediaeval. He falls into raptures, he smacks his lips, he licks his chops like a cat over a dainty dish, and then he throws himself upon that dirty litter, with his knees up to his chin, and he thinks he has had a delightful day! Oh, Providence of God, is a man's duty best done, are his responsibilities best discharged, at the top or at the bottom of the scale of human life?" But the snow was melting away from my legs, the balmy warmth of the stove was shedding a pleasant influence over my feelings, and I felt myself reviving in this mixed atmosphere of tobaccosmoke and burning pinewood. Knapwurst gravely laid his pipe on the table, and reverently spreading his hand upon the folio, said in a voice that seemed to issue from the bottom of his consciousness; or, if you like it better, from the bottom of a twentygallon cask "Doctor Fritz, here is the law and the prophets!" "How so? what do you mean?" "Parchmentold parchmentthat is what I love! These old yellow, rusty, wormeaten leaves are all that is left to us of the past, from the days of Charlemagne until this day. The oldest families disappear, the old parchments remain. Where would be the glory of the Hohenstauffens, the Leiningens, the Nidecks, and of so many other families of renown? Where would be the fame of their titles, their deeds of arms, their magnificent armour, their expeditions to the Holy Land, their alliances, their claims to remote antiquity, their conquests once complete, now long ago annulled? Where would be all those grand claims to historic fame without these parchments? Nowhere at all. Those high and mighty barons, those great dukes and princes, would be as if they had never beenthey and everything that related to them far and near. Their strong castles, their palaces, their fortresses fall and moulder away into masses of ruin, vague remembrancers! Of all that greatness one monument alone remainsthe chronicles, the songs of bards and minnesingers. Parchment alone remains!" He sat silent for a moment, and then pursued his reflections. "And in those distant times, while knights and squires rode out to war, and fought and conquered or fought and fell over the possession of a nook in a forest, or a title, or a smaller matter still, with what scorn and contempt did they not look down upon the wretched little scribbler, the man of mere letters and jargon, halfclothed in untanned hides, his only weapon an inkhorn at his belt, his pennon the feather of a goosequill! How they laughed at him, calling him an atom or a flea, good for nothing! 'He does nothing, he cannot even collect our taxes, or look after our estates, whilst we bold riders, armed to the teeth, sword in hand and lance on thigh, we fight, and we are the finest fellows in the land!' So they said when they saw the poor devil dragging himself on foot after their horses' heels, shivering in winter and sweating in summer, rusting and decaying in old age. Well, what has happened? That flea, that vermin, has kept them in the memory of men longer than their castles stood, long after their arms and their armour had rusted in the ground. I love those old parchments. I respect and revere them. Like ivy, they clothe the ruins and keep the ancient walls from crumbling into dust and perishing in oblivion!" Having thus delivered himself, a solemn expression stole over his features, and his own eloquence made the tears of moved affection to steal down his furrowed cheeks. The poor hunchback evidently loved those who had borne with and protected his unwarlike but clever ancestors. And after all he spoke truly, and there was profound good sense in his words. I was surprised, and said, "Monsieur Knapwurst, do you know Latin?" "Yes, sir," he answered, but without conceit, "both Latin and Greek. I taught myself. Old grammars were quite enough; there were some old books of the count's, thrown by as rubbish; they fell into my hands, and I devoured them. A little while after the count, hearing me drop a Latin quotation, was quite astonished, and said, 'When did you learn Latin, Knapwurst?' 'I taught myself, monseigneur.' He asked me a few questions, to which I gave pretty good answers. 'Parbleu!' he cried, 'Knapwurst knows more than I do; he shall keep my records.' So he gave me the keys of the archives; that was thirty years ago. Since that time I have read every word. Sometimes, when the count sees me mounted upon my ladder, he says, 'What are you doing now, Knapwurst?' 'I am reading the family archives, monseigneur.' 'Aha! is that what you enjoy?' 'Yes, very much.' 'Come, come, I am glad to hear it, Knapwurst; but for you, who would know anything about the glory of the house of Nideck?' And off he goes laughing. I do just as I please." "So he is a very good master, is he?" "Oh, Doctor Fritz, he is the kindesthearted master! he is so frank and so pleasant!" cried the dwarf, with hands clasped. "He has but one fault." "And what may that be?" "He has no ambition." "How do you prove that?" "Why, he might have been anything he pleased. Think of a Nideck, one of the very noblest families in Germany! He had but to ask to be made a minister or a fieldmarshal. Well! he desired nothing of the sort. When he was no longer a young man he retired from political life. Except that he was in the campaign in France at the head of a regiment he raised at his own expense, he has always lived far away from noise and battle; plain and simple, and almost unknown, he seemed to think of nothing but his hunting." These details were deeply interesting to me. The conversation was of its own accord taking just the turn I wished it to take, and I resolved to get my advantage out of it. "So the count has never had any exciting deeds in hand?" "None, Doctor Fritz, none whatever; and that is the pity. A noble excitement is the glory of great families. It is a misfortune for a noble race when a member of it is devoid of ambition; he allows his family to sink below its level. I could give you many examples. That which would be very fortunate in a trader's family is the greatest misfortune in a nobleman's." I was astonished; for all my theories upon the count's past life were falling to the earth. "Still, Monsieur Knapwurst, the lord of Nideck has had great sorrows, had he not?" "Such as what?" "The loss of his wife." "Yes, you are right there; his wife was an angel; he married her for love. She was a Zan, one of the oldest and best nobility of Alsace, but a family ruined by the Revolution. The Countess Odile was the delight of her husband. She died of a decline which carried her off after five years' illness. Every plan was tried to save her life. They travelled in Italy together but she returned worse than she went, and died a few weeks after their return. The count was almost brokenhearted, and for two years he shut himself up and would see no one. He neglected his hounds and his horses. Time at last calmed his grief, but there is always a remainder of grief," said the hunchback, pointing with his finger to his heart; "you understand very well, there is still a bleeding wound. Old wounds you know, make themselves felt in change of weatherand old sorrows tooin spring when the flowers bloom again, and in autumn when the dead leaves cover the soil. But the count would not marry again; all his love is given to his daughter." "So the marriage was a happy one throughout?" "Happy! why it was a blessing for everybody." I said no more. It was plain that the count had not committed, and could not have committed, a crime. I was obliged to yield to evidence. But, then, what was the meaning of that scene at night, that strange connection with the Black Pest, that fearful acting, that remorse in a dream, which impelled the guilty to betray their past atrocities? I lost myself in vain conjectures. Knapwurst relighted his pipe, and handed me one, which I accepted. By that time the icy numbness which had laid hold of me had nearly passed away, and I was enjoying that pleasant sense of relief which follows great fatigue when by the chimneycorner in a comfortable easychair, veiled in wreaths of tobaccosmoke, you yield to the luxury of repose, and listen idly to the duet between the chirping of a cricket on the hearth and the hissing of the burning log. So we sat for a quarter of an hour. At last I ventured to remark "But sometimes the count gets angry with his daughter?" Knapwurst started, and fixing a sinister, almost a fierce and hostile eye upon me, answered "I know, I know!" I watched him narrowly, thinking I might learn something now in support of my theory, but he simply added ironically "The towers of Nideck are high, and slander flies too low to reach their elevation!" "No doubt; but still it is a fact, is it not?" "Oh yes, so it is; but after all it is only a craze, an effect of his complaint. As soon as the crisis is past all his love for mademoiselle comes back. I assure you, sir, that a lover of twenty could not be more devoted, more affectionate, than he is. That young girl is his pride and his joy. A dozen times have I seen him riding away to get a dress, or flowers, or what not, for her. He went off alone, and brought back the articles in triumph, blowing his horn. He would have entrusted so delicate a commission to no one, not even to Sperver, whom he is so fond of.


Mademoiselle never dares express a wish in his hearing lest he should start off and fulfil it at once. The lord of Nideck is the worthiest master, the tenderest father, and the kindest and most upright of men. Those poachers who are for ever infesting our woods, the old Count Ludwig would have strung them up without mercy; our count winks at them; he even turns them into gamekeepers. Look at Sperver! why, if Count Ludwig was alive, Sperver's bones would long ago have been rattling in chains; instead of which he is head huntsman at the castle." All my theories were now in a state of disorganisation. I laid my head between my hands and thought a long while. Knapwurst, supposing that I was asleep, had turned to his folio again. The grey dawn was now peeping in, and the lamp turning pale. Indistinct voices were audible in the castle. Suddenly there was a noise of hurried steps outside. I saw some one pass before the window, the door opened abruptly, and Gideon appeared at the threshold. CHAPTER XI. Sperver's pale face and glowing eyes announced that events were on their way. Yet he was calm, and did not seem surprised at my presence in Knapwurst's room. "Fritz," he said briefly, "I am come to fetch you." I rose without answering and followed him. Scarcely were we out of the hut when he took me by the arm and drew me on to the castle. "Mademoiselle Odile wants to see you," he whispered. "What! is she ill?" "No, she is much better, but something or other that is strange is going on. This morning about one o'clock, thinking that the count was nearly breathing his last, I went to wake the countess; with my hand on the bell my heart failed me. 'Why should I break her heart?' I said to myself, 'She will learn her misfortune only too soon; and then to wake her up in the middle of the night, weak and frail as she is, after such shocks, might kill her at a stroke.' I took a few minutes to consider, and then I resolved I would take it all on myself. I returned to the count's room. I looked innot a soul was there! Impossible! the man was in the last agonies of death. I ran into the corridor like a madman. No one was there! Into the long galleryno one! Then I lost my presence of mind, and rushing again into the young countess's room, I rang again. This time she appeared, crying out'Is my father dead?' 'No.' 'Has he disappeared?' 'Yes, madam. I had gone out for a minutewhen I came in again' 'And Doctor Fritz, where is he?' 'In Hugh Lupus's tower.' 'In that tower?' She started. She threw a dressinggown around her, took her lamp, and went out. I stayed behind. A quarter of an hour after she came back, her feet covered with snow, and so pale and so cold! She set her lamp upon the chimneypiece, and looking at me fixedly, said'Was it you who put the doctor into that tower?' 'Yes, madam.' 'Unhappy man! you will never know the extent of the harm you have done.' I was about to answer, but she interrupted me'No more; go and fasten every door and lie down. I will sit up. Tomorrow morning you will find Doctor Fritz at Knapwurst's, and bring him to me. Make no noise, and mind, you have seen nothing and know nothing!'" "Is that all, Sperver?" I asked. He nodded gravely. "And about the count?" "He is in again. He is better." We had got to the antechamber. Gideon knocked at the door gently, then he opened it, announcing"Doctor Fritz." I took a pace forward, and stood in the presence of Odile. Sperver had retired, closing the door. A strange impression crossed my mind at the sight of the young countess standing pale and still, leaning upon the back of an armchair, her eyes of feverish brightness, and robed in a long dress of rich black velvet. But she stood calm and firm. "Doctor," she said, motioning me to a chair, "pray sit down; I have a very serious matter to speak to you about." I obeyed in silence. In her turn she sat down and seemed to be collecting her thoughts. "Providence or an evil destiny, I know not which, has made you witness of a mystery in which lies involved the honour of my family." So she knew it all! I sat confounded and astonished. "Madam, believe me, it was but by chance" "It is useless," she interrupted; "I know it all, and it is frightful!" Then, in a heartrending appealing voice, she cried "My father is not a guilty man!" I shuddered, and with hands outstretched cried "Madam, I know it; I know that the life of your father has been one of the noblest and loveliest." Odile had halfrisen from her seat, as if to protest, by anticipation, against any supposition that might be injurious to her father. Hearing me myself taking up his defence, she sank back again, and covering her face with her hands, the tears began to flow. "God bless you, sir!" she exclaimed. "I should have died with the very thought that a breath of suspicion was harboured against him." "Ah! madam, who could possibly attach any reality to the action of a somnambulist?" "That is quite true, sir; I had had that thought myself, but appearancespardon meyet I fearedstill I knew Doctor Fritz was a man of honour." "Pray, madam, be calm." "No," she cried, "let me weep on. It is such a relief; for ten years I have suffered in secret. Oh, how I suffered! That secret, so long shut up in my breast, was killing me. I should soon have died, like my dear mother. God has had pity upon me, and has sent you, and made you share it with me. Let me tell you all, sir, do let me!" She could speak no more. Sobs and tears broke her voice. So it always is with proud and lofty natures. After having conquered grief, and imprisoned it, buried, and, as it were, crushed down in the secret depths of the mind, they seem happy, or, at any rate, indifferent to the eyes of the uninformed around, and the eye of the most watchful observer might be mistaken; but let a sudden shock break the seal, an unexpected rending of a portion of the veil, then, as with the crash of a thunderstorm, the tower in which the sufferer hid his sorrow falls in ruins to the ground. The conquered foe rises more fierce than before his defeat and captivity; he shakes with fury the prison doors, the frame trembles with long shudderings, sobs and sighs heave the breast, the tears, too long contained within bounds, overflow their swollen banks, bounding and rushing as if after the heavy rain of a thunderstorm. Such was Odile. At length she lifted her beautiful head; she wiped her tearstained cheeks, and with her arm on the elbow of her chair, her cheek resting on her hand, and her eyes tenderly fixed on a picture on the wall, she resumed in slow and melancholy tones "When I go back into the past, sir, when I return to my first impressions, my mother's is the picture before me. She was a tall, pale, and silent woman. She was still young at the period to which I am referring. She was scarcely thirty, and yet you would have thought her fifty. Her brow was silvered round with hair white as snow; her thin, hollow cheeks, her sharp, clear profileher lips ever closed together with an expression of paingave to her features a strange character in which pride and pain seemed to contend for the mastery. There was nothing left of the elasticity of youth in that aged woman of thirtynothing but her tall, upright figure, her brilliant eyes, and her voice, which was always as gentle and as sweet as a dream of childhood. She often walked up and down for hours in this very room, with her head hanging down, and I, an unthinking child, ran happily along by her side, never aware that my mother was sad, never understanding the meaning of the deep melancholy revealed by those furrows that traversed her fair brow. I knew nothing of the past, to me the present was joy and happiness, and oh! the future!the dark, miserable future!there was none! My only future was tomorrow's play!" Odile smiled bitterly and went on "Sometimes I would happen, in my noisy play, to disturb my mother in her silent walk; then she would stop, look down, and, seeing me at her feet, would slowly bend, kiss me with an absent smile, and then again resume her interrupted walk and her sad gait. Since then, sir, whenever I have desired to search back in my memory for remembrances of my early days that tall, pale woman has risen before me, the image of melancholy. There she is," pointing to a picture on the wall"there she is!not such as illness made her as my father supposes, but that fatal and terrible secret. See!" I turned round, and as my eye dwelt upon the portrait the lady pointed to, I shuddered. It was a long, pale, thin face, cold and rigid as death, and only luridly lighted up by two dark, deepset eyes, fixed, burning, and of a terrible intensity. There was a moment's silence. "How much that woman must have suffered!" I said to myself with a pain striking at my heart. "I know not how my mother made that terrible discovery," added Odile, "but she became aware of the mysterious attraction of the Black Pest and their meetings in Hugh Lupus's tower; she knew it allall! She never suspected my fatherah no!but she perished away by slow degrees under this consuming influence! and I myself am dying." I bowed my head into my hands and wept in silence. "One night," she went on, "one nightI was only tenand my mother, with the remains of her superhuman energy, for she was near her end that night, came to me when I lay asleep. It was in winter; a stony cold hand caught me by the wrist. I looked up. Before me stood a tall woman; in one hand she held a flaming torch, with the other she held me by the arm. Her robe was sprinkled with snow. There was a convulsive movement in all her limbs and her eyes were fired with a gloomy light through the long locks of white hair which hung in disorder round her face. It was my mother; and she said, 'Odile, my child, get up and dress! You must know it all!' Then taking me to Hugh Lupus's tower she showed me the open subterranean passage. 'Your father will come out that way,' she said, pointing to the tower; 'he will come out with the shewolf; don't be frightened, he won't see you.' And presently my father, bearing his funereal burden, came out with the old woman. My mother took me in her arms and followed; she showed me the dismal scene on the Altenberg of which you know. 'Look, my child,' she said; 'you must for Iam going to die soon. You will have to keep that secret. You alone are to sit up with your father,' she said impressively'you alone. The honour of your family depends upon you!' And so we returned. A fortnight after my mother died, leaving me her will to accomplish and her example to follow. I have scrupulously obeyed her injunctions as a sacred command, but oh, at what a sacrifice! You have seen it all. I have been obliged to disobey my father and to rend his heart. If I had married I should have brought a stranger into the house and betrayed the secret of our race. I resisted. No one in this castle knows of the somnambulism of my father, and but for yesterday's crisis, which broke down my strength completely and prevented me from sitting up with my father, I should still have been its sole depositary. God has decreed otherwise, and has placed the honour and reputation of my family in your keeping. I might demand of you, sir, a solemn promise never to reveal what you have seen tonight. I should have a right to do so." "Madam," I said, rising, "I am ready." "No, sir," she replied with much dignity, "I will not put such an affront upon you. Oaths fail to bind base men, and honour alone is a sufficient guarantee for the upright. You will keep that secret, sir, I know you will keep it, because it is your duty to do so. But I expect more than this of you, much more, and this is why I consider myself obliged to tell you all!" She rose slowly from her seat. "Doctor Fritz," she resumed in a voice which made every nerve within me quiver with deep emotion, "my strength is unequal to my burden; I bend beneath it. I need a helper, a friend. Will you be that friend?" "Madam," I replied, rising from my seat, "I gratefully accept your offer of friendship. I cannot tell you how proud I am of your confidence; but still, allow me to unite with it one condition." "Pray speak, sir." "I mean that I will accept that title of friend with all the duties and obligations which it shall impose upon me." "What duties do you mean?" "There is a mystery overhanging your family; that mystery must be discovered and solved at any cost. That Black Pest must be apprehended. We must find out where she comes from, what she is, and what she wants!" "Oh, but that is impossible!" she said with a movement of despair. "Who can tell that, madam? Perhaps Divine Providence may have had a design connected with me in sending Sperver to fetch me here." "You are right, sir. God never acts without consummate wisdom. Do whatever you think right. I give my approval in advance." I raised to my lips the hand which she tremblingly placed in mine, and went out full of admiration for this frail and feeble woman, who was, nevertheless, so strong in the time of trial. Is anything grander than duty nobly accomplished? CHAPTER XII. An hour after the conversation with Odile, Sperver and I were riding hard, and leaving Nideck rapidly behind us. The huntsman, bending forward over his horse's neck, encouraged him with voice and action. He rode so fast that his tall Mecklemburger, her mane flying, tail outstretched, and legs extended wide, seemed almost motionless, so swiftly did she cleave the air. As for my little Ardenne pony, I think he was running right away with his rider. Lieverl accompanied us, flying alongside of us like an arrow from the bow. A whirlwind seemed to sweep us in our headlong way. The towers of Nideck were far away, and Sperver was keeping ahead as usual when I shouted "Halloo, comrade, pull up! Halt! Before we go any farther let us know what we are about." He faced round. "Only just tell me, Fritz, is it right or is it left?" "No; that won't do. It is of the first importance that you should know the object of our journey. In short, we are going to catch the hag." A flush of pleasure brightened up the long sallow face of the old poacher, and his eyes sparkled. "Ha, ha!" he cried, "I knew we should come to that at last!" And he slipped his rifle round from his shoulder into his hand. This significant action roused me. "Wait, Sperver; we are not going to kill the Black Pest, but to take her alive!" "Alive?" "No doubt, and it will spare you a good deal of remorse perhaps if I declare to you that the life of this old woman is bound up with that of your master. The ball that hits her hits your lord." Sperver gazed at me in astonishment. "Is this really true, Fritz?" "Positively true." There was a long silence; our mounts, Fox and Rappel, tossed their heads at each other as if in the act of saluting one another, scraping up the snow with their hoofs in congratulation upon so pleasant an expedition. Lieverl opened wide his red mouth, gaping with impatience, extending and bending his long meagre body like a snake, and Sperver sat motionless, his hand still upon his gun. "Well, let us try and catch her alive. We will put on gloves if we have to touch her, but it is not so easy as you think, Fritz." And pointing out with extended hand the panorama of mountains which lay unrolled about us like a vast amphitheatre, he added "Look! there's the Altenberg, the Schneberg, the Oxenhorn, the Rhthal, the Behrenkopf, and if we only got up a little higher we should see fifty more mountaintops far away, right into the Palatinate. There are rocks and ravines, passes and valleys, torrents and waterfalls, forests, and more mountains; here beeches, there firs, then oaks, and the old woman has got all that for her campingground. She tramps everywhere, and lives in a hole wherever she pleases. She has a sure foot, a keen eye, and can scent you a couple of miles off. How are you going to catch her, then?" "If it was an easy matter where would be the merit? I should not then have chosen you to take a part in it." "That is all very fine, Fritz. If we only had one end of her trail, who knows but with courage and perseverance" "As for her trail, don't trouble about that; that's my business." "Yours?" "Yes, mine." "What do you know about following up a trail?" "Why should not I?" "Oh, if you are so sure of it, and you know more about it than I do, of course march on, and I'll follow!" It was easy to see that the old hunter was vexed that I should presume to trespass upon his special province; therefore, only laughing inwardly, I required no repetition of the request to lead on, and I turned sharply to the left, sure of coming across the old woman's trail, who, after having left the count at the postern gate, must have crossed the plain to reach the mountain. Sperver rode behind me now, whistling rather contemptuously, and I could hear him now and then grumbling "What is the use of looking for the track of the shewolf in the plain? Of course she went along the forest side just as usual. But it seems she has altered her habits, and now walks about with her hands in her pockets, like a respectable Fribourg tradesman out for a walk." I turned a deaf ear to his hints, but in a moment I heard him utter an exclamation of surprise; then, fixing a keen eye upon me, he said "Fritz, you know more than you choose to tell." "How so, Gideon?" "The track that I should have been a week finding, you have got it at once. Come, that's not all right!" "Where do you see it, then?" "Oh, don't pretend to be looking at your feet." And pointing out to me at some distance a scarcely perceptible white streak in the snow "There she is!" Immediately he galloped up to it; I followed in a couple of minutes; we had dismounted, and were examining the track of the Black Pest. "I should like to know," cried Sperver, "how that track came here?" "Don't let that trouble you," I replied. "You are right, Fritz; don't mind what I say; sometimes I do speak rather at random. What we want now is to know where that track will lead us to." And now the huntsman knelt on the ground. I was all ears; he was closely examining. "It is a fresh track," he pronounced, "last night's. It is a strange thing, Fritz, during the count's last attack that old witch was hanging about the castle." Then examining with greater care "She passed here between three and four o'clock this morning." "How can you tell that?" "It is quite a fresh track; there is sleet all round it. Last night, about twelve, I came out to shut the doors; there was sleet falling then, there is none upon the footsteps, therefore she has passed since." "That is true enough, Sperver, but it may have been made much later; for instance, at eight or nine." "No, look, there is frost upon it! The fog that freezes on the snow only comes at daybreak. The creature passed here after the sleet and before the fogthat is, about three or four this morning." I was astonished at Sperver's exactitude. He rose from his knee, clapping his hands together to get rid of the snow, and looking at me thoughtfully, as if speaking to himself, said "It is twelve, is it not, Fritz?" "A quarter to twelve." "Very well; then the old woman has got seven hours' start of us. We must follow upon her trail step by step; on horseback we can do it in half the time, and, if she is still going, about seven or eight tonight we have got her, Fritz. Now then, we're off." And we started afresh upon the track. It led us straight to the mountains. Galloping away, Sperver said "If good luck only would have it that she had rested an hour or two in a hole in a rock, we might be up with her before the daylight is gone." "Let us hope so, Gideon." "Oh, don't think of it. The old shewolf is always moving; she never tires; she tramps along all the hollows in the Black Forest. We must not flatter ourselves with vain hopes. If, perhaps, she has stopped on her journey, so much the better for us; and if she still keeps going, we won't let that discourage us. Come on at a gallop." It is a very strange feeling to be hunting down a fellowcreature; for, after all, that unhappy woman was of our own kind and nature; endowed like ourselves with an immortal soul to be saved, she felt, and thought, and reflected like ourselves. It is true that a strange perversion of human nature had brought her near to the nature of the wolf, and that some great mystery overshadowed her being. No doubt a wandering life had obliterated the moral sense in her, and even almost effaced the human character; but still nothing in the world can give one man a right to exercise over another the dominion of the man over the brute. And yet a burning ardour hurried us on in pursuit; my blood was at fever heat; I was determined to stand at no obstacle in laying hold of this extraordinary being. A wolfhunt or a boarhunt would not have excited me near so much. The snow was flying in our rear; sometimes splinters of ice, bitten off by the horseshoes, like shavings of iron from machinery, whizzed past our ears. Sperver, sometimes with his nose in the air and his red moustache floating in the wind, sometimes with his grey eyes intently following the track, reminded me of those famous Cossacks that I had seen pass through Germany when I was a boy; and his tall, lanky horse, muscular and fullmaned, its body as slender as a greyhound's, completed the illusion. Lieverl, in a high state of enthusiasm and excitement, took bounds sometimes as high as our horses' backs, and I could not but tremble at the thought that when we came up at last with the Pest he might tear her in pieces before we could prevent him. But the old woman gave us all the trouble she could; on every hill she doubled, at every hillock there was a false track. "After all, it is easy here," cried Sperver, "to what it will be in the wood. We shall have to keep our eyes open there! Do you see the accursed beast? Here she has confused the track! There she has been amusing herself sweeping the trail, and then from that height which is exposed to the wind she has slipped down to the stream, and has crept along through the cresses to get to the underwood. But for those two footsteps she would have sold us completely." We had just reached the edge of a pineforest. In woods of this description the snow never reaches the ground except in the open spaces between the trees, the dense foliage intercepting it in its fall. This was a difficult part of our enterprise. Sperver dismounted to see our way better, and placed me on his left so as not to be hindered by my shadow. Here were large spaces covered with dead leaves and the needles and cones of the firtrees, which retain no footprint. It was, therefore, only in the open patches where the snow had fallen on the ground that Sperver found the track again. It took us an hour to get through this thicket. The old poacher bit his moustache with excitement and vexation, and his long nose visibly bent into a hook. When I was only opening my mouth to speak, he would impatiently say "Don't speakit bothers me!" At last we descended a valley to the left and Gideon pointing to the track of the shewolf outside the edge of the brushwood, triumphantly remarked "There is no feint in this sortie, for once. We may follow this track confidently." "Why so?" "Because the Pest has a habit every time she doubles of going three paces to the right; then she retraces her steps four, five, or six in the other direction, and jumps away into a clear place. But when she thinks she has sufficiently disguised her trail she breaks out without troubling herself to make any feints. There now! What did I say? Now she is burrowing beneath the brushwood like a wild boar, and it won't be so difficult to follow her up." "Well, let us put the track between us and smoke a pipe." We halted, and the honest fellow, whose countenance was beginning to brighten up, looking up at me with enthusiasm, cried "Fritz, if we have luck this will be one of the finest days in my life. If we catch the old hag I will strap her across my horse behind me like a bundle of old rags. There is only one thing troubles me." "And what is that?" "That I forgot my bugle. I should have liked to have sounded the return on getting near the castle! Ha, ha, ha!" He lighted his stump of a pipe and we galloped off again. The track of the shewolf now passed on to the heights of the forest by so steep an ascent that several times we had to dismount and lead our horses by the bridle. "There she is, turning to the right," said Sperver. "In this direction the mountains are craggy; perhaps one of us will have to lead both horses while the other climbs to look after the trail. But don't you think the light is going?" The landscape now was assuming an aspect of grandeur and magnificence. Vast grey rocks, sparkling with long icicles, raised here and there their sharp peaks like breakers amidst a snowy sea. There is nothing more sadly impressive than the aspect of winter in a mountainous region. The jagged crests of the precipices, the deep, dark ravines, the woods sparkling with boarfrost like diamonds, all form a picture of desertion, desolation, and unspeakable melancholy. The silence is so profound that you hear a dead leaf rustling on the snow, or the needle of the fir dropping to the ground. Such a silence is oppressive as the tomb; it urges on the mind the idea of man's nothingness in the vastness of creation. How frail a being is man! Two winters together, without a summer between, would sweep him off the earth! At times we felt it a necessity to be saying something if only to show that we were keeping up our spirits. "Ah, we are getting on! How fearfully cold! Lieverl, what is the matter? what have you found now?" Unfortunately Fox and Rappel were beginning to tire; they sank deeper in the snow and no longer neighed joyfully. And added to this the endless mazes of the Black Forest wearied us too. The old woman affected this solitary region greatly; here she had trotted round a deserted charcoalburner's hut; farther on she had torn out the roots that projected from a mossgrown rock; there she had sat at the foot of a tree, and that very recentlynot more than two hours since, for the track was quite freshand our hope and our ardour rose together. But the daylight was slowly fading away! Very strangely, ever since our departure from Nideck we had met neither woodcutters, nor charcoalburners, nor timbercarriers. At this season the silence and solitude of the Black Forest is as deep as that of the NorthAmerican steppes. At five o'clock it was almost dark. Sperver halted and said "Fritz, my lad, we have started a couple of hours too late. The shewolf has had too long a start. In ten minutes it will be as dark as a dungeon. The best way would be to reach Roche Creuse, which is twenty minutes' ride from here, light a good fire, and eat our provisions and empty our flasks. When the moon is up we will follow the trail again, and unless the old hag is the foul fiend himself, ten to one we shall find her dead and stiff with cold against the foot of a tree, for nothing can live after such a tremendous tramp in weather like this. Sbalt is the best walker in the Black Forest, and he would not have stood it. Come, Fritz, what is your opinion?" "I am not so mad as to think differently. Besides, I am perishing with hunger!" "Well, let us start again." He took the lead and passed into a close and narrow glen between two precipitous faces of rock. The firtrees met over our heads; under our feet ran a mere thread of the stream, and from time to time some ray from above was dimly reflected in the depths below and glinted with a dull leaden light. The darkness was now such that I thought it prudent to drop my bridle on Rappel's neck. The steps of our horses on the slippery gravel awoke strange discordant sounds like the screaming of monkeys at play. The echoes from rock to rock caught up and repeated every sound, and in the distance a tiny space of deep blue widened as we advanced; it was the issue from the glen. "Fritz," said Sperver, "we are in the bed of the Tunkelbach. This is the wildest spot in the Black Forest. The end is a pit called La Marmite du Grand Gueulard, the mucklemouthed giant's kettle. In the spring, when the snow is melting, the Tunkelbach hurls all its waters into it, a depth of two hundred feet. There is an awful uproar; the waters dash down and then splash up again and fall in spray on all the hills around. Sometimes it even fills the Roche Creuse, but just now it must be as dry as a powderflask." Whilst I was listening to Gideon's explanations I was at the same time meditating upon this dark and fearful glen, and I reflected that the instinct which attracts the brutes into such retreats as these, far from the light of heaven, away from everything bright and cheerful, must partake of the nature of remorse. Those animals which love the open sunshinethe goat aloft upon a high conspicuous peak, the horse flying across the wide plain, the dog capering round his master, the bird bathed in sunlightall breathe joy and happiness; they bask, and sing, and rejoice in dancing and delight. The kid nibbling the tender grass under the shade of the great trees is as poetic an object as the shelter that it loves; the fierce boar is as rough as the tangled brakes through which he loves to run his huge bristly back; the eagle is as proud and lofty as the skypiercing crags on which he perches as his home; the lion is as majestic as the arching vaults of the caves where he makes his den; but the wolf, the fox, and the ferret seek the darkness that conforms to their ugly deeds; fear and remorse dog their steps. I was still dreamily pursuing these thoughts, and I was beginning to feel the keen air moving upon my face, for we were approaching the outlet of the gorge, when all at once a red light struck the rock a hundred feet above us, purpling the dark green of the firtrees and lighting up the wreaths of snow. "Ha!" cried Sperver, "we have got her at last!" My heart leaped; we stood, closely pressed, the one against the other. The dog growled low and deep. "Cannot she escape?" I asked in a whisper. "No; she is caught like a rat in a trap. There is no way out of La Marmite du Grand Gueulard but this, and everywhere all round the rocks are two hundred feet high. Now, vile hag, I hold you!" He alighted in the icecold stream, handing me his bridle. I caught in the silence the click of the lock of his gun, and that slight noise threw me into a tremor of apprehension. "Sperver, what are you about?" "Don't be alarmed; it is only to frighten her." "Very well, then, but no blood. Remember what I told youthe ball which strikes the Pest slays the count!" "Don't trouble yourself," was the answer. He went away without further parley. I could hear the splash of his feet in the water; then I saw his tall figure emerge at the opening of the dark glen, black against a purple background. He stood five minutes motionless. Attentive, bending forward, I looked and listened, still moving onward. As he returned I was but a few yards from him. "Hark!" he whispered mysteriously. "Look there!" At the end of the hollow, scooped out perpendicularly like a quarry in the mountain side, I saw a bright fire unrolling its golden spires beneath the vault of a cave, and before the fire sat a man with his hands clasped about his knees, whom I recognised by his dress as the Baron de ZimmerBluderich. He sat motionless, his forehead resting between his hands. Behind him lay a dark gaunt form extended on the ground. Farther on, his horse, half lost in the shade, reared his neck, gazed on us with eyes fixed, ears erect, and nostrils distended. I stood rooted to the ground.


How did the Baron de Zimmer happen to be in that lonely wilderness at such a time? What did he want here? Had he lost his way? The most contradictory conjectures were passing in confusion through my excited brain, and I could not tell what conclusion to arrive at, when the baron's horse began to neigh, and the master raised his head. "Well, Donner, what is the matter now?" said he. Then he, too, directed his gaze our way, straining his eyes through the darkness. That pale face, with its stronglymarked features, thin lips, and thick black eyebrows meeting together, and forming a deep hollow on the brow in the form of a long vertical wrinkle, would have struck me with admiration at any other time; while now an inexplicable anxiety laid hold of me, and I was filled with vague apprehensions. Suddenly the young man exclaimed "Who goes there?" "I, monseigneur," answered Sperver, coming forward"Sperver, chief huntsman to the lord of Nideck." A flash shot from the baron's quick eye; not a muscle of his countenance quailed. He rose to his feet, gathering his pelisse over his shoulders. I drew towards me the horses and the dog, and this animal suddenly began howling fearfully. Is not every one, more or less, subject to superstitious fears? At these dismal sounds I trembled, and a cold shudder crept through my whole body. Sperver and the baron stood at a distance of fifty yards from each other; the first immovable in the midst of the deep glen, his gun unslung from his shoulder, the other erect upon the level platform outside of the cave, carrying his head high, fixing on us a haughty eye and a proud look of superiority. "What do you want here?" he asked aggressively. "We are looking for a woman," replied the old poacher"a woman who comes every year prowling about Nideck, and our orders are to take her." "Has she stolen anything?" "No." "Has she committed murder?" "No, monseigneur." "Then what do you want with her? What right have you to pursue her?" "And youwhat right have you over her?" answered Sperver with an ironical smile. "See, there she is. I can see her at the bottom of the cave. What right have you to meddle with our affairs? Don't you know that we are here in the domains of Nideck, and that we administer justice and execute our own decrees?" The young man changed colour, and said coldly "I have no account to render to you." "Beware," replied Sperver. "I am come with proposals of peace and conciliation. I am here on behalf of the lord YeriHans. I am in the execution of my duty, and you are putting yourself in the wrong." "Your duty!" cried the young man bitterly. "If you talk about your duty you will oblige me to do mine!" "Well, do it!" cried the huntsman, whose features were becoming disturbed with anger. "No," replied the baron, "I am not responsible to you, and you shall not come here!" "That's what we shall soon see!" said Sperver, drawing nearer to the cave. The young man drew his huntingknife. Perceiving this menacing action, I was about to dart between them, but happily the hound which I was holding by his collar slipped from me with a violent shock and threw me on the ground. I thought the baron would be lost, but at that instant a wild shriek rose from the dark bottom of the cavern, and as I rose to my feet I saw the old woman standing erect before the fire, her tattered garments hanging loosely about her, her grey and tangled locks floating wildly in the wind; she flung her bony arms in the air and uttered prolonged piercing howls like the cry of agony of the hungry wolf in the long cold nights of winter when famine is gnawing his entrails. Never in my life have I seen a more fearful apparition. Sperver, motionless, his eyes riveted on the fearful object before him, and his mouth open with astonishment, stood as if rooted to the earth. But the powerful dog, surprised himself at this unexpected sight, stood still for a moment; then with a bend of his bristling back in preparation for a mighty leap, he made a rush with a deep, impatient growl which made me tremble. The platform before the cave was about eight or nine feet from the level where we stood, or he would have reached it at a single bound. I can yet hear him clearing a way through the snowy brambles, the baron flinging himself before the woman with a piercing cry, "My mother!" then the dog taking another spring, and Sperver, quick as lightning, raising his gun, and bringing down the poor animal dead at the young man's feet. This was but the work of a second. The gulf had been illuminated with a momentary flash, and the wild echoes were vibrating with the explosion from rock to rock, till it died in the far distance. Then silence again settled on the gloomy scene, as darkness after the lightning. When the smoke of the explosion had cleared away I saw Lieverl lying outstretched at the foot of the rock, and the woman fainting in the arms of the young man. Sperver, pale with concentrated rage and excitement, and eyeing the young baron darkly, dropped the butt of his gun to the ground, his features discomposed, and his eyes halfhid in his gloomy frown. "Seigneur de Bluderich," he cried, with his hand extended, "I have killed my best friend to save the life of that unhappy woman, your mother! Thank God that her life is bound up with that of the Count of Nideck! Take her away! take her hence, and never let her return here again; if you do I cannot answer for what old Sperver may be driven to do!" Then, with a glance at the poor dog "Oh! Lieverl, Lieverl!" he cried, "was it to end thus? Come, Fritz, let us go. I cannot stay here. I might do something that I should have to repent of!" And, laying hold of Fox by the mane, he was going to throw himself into the saddle, but suddenly his feelings of distress overcame all restraint, and bowing his head upon his horse's neck, he burst into sobs and tears, and wept like a child. CHAPTER XIII. Sperver had gone, bearing the body of poor Lieverl in his cloak. I had declined to follow; my sense of duty kept me by this unhappy woman, and I could not leave her without violence to my own feelings. Besides, I must confess I was curious to see a little more closely this strange mysterious being, and therefore as soon as Sperver had disappeared in the darkness of the glen I began to climb up to reach the cavern. There I beheld a strange sight. Extended upon a large cloak of white fur lay the aged woman in a long and ragged robe of purple, her fingers clutching her breast, a golden arrow through her grey hair. Never shall I forget the figure of this strange woman; her vulturelike features distorted with the last agonies of death, her eyes set, her gasping mouth, were fearful to look upon. Such might have been the terrible Queen Frdgonde. The baron, on his knees at her side, was trying to restore her to animation; but I saw at a glance that the wretched creature was dying, and it was not without a profound sense of pity that I took her by the arm. "Leave madame alonedon't touch her," cried the young man with irritation. "I am a surgeon, monseigneur." He looked in silence at me for a moment, then rising, said "Pardon me, sir; pray forgive my hasty language." He trembled with excitement, scarcely yet subdued, and presently he went on "What is your opinion, sir?" "It is overshe is dead!" Then, without speaking another word, he sat upon a large stone, with his forehead resting upon his hand and his elbow on his knee, his eyes motionless, as still as a statue. I sat near the fire, watching the flames rising to the vaulted roof of the cave, and casting lurid reflections upon the rigid features of the corpse. We had sat there an hour as motionless as statues, each deep in thought, when, suddenly lifting his head, the baron said "Sir, all this utterly confounds me. Here is my motherfor twentysix years I thought I knew herand now an abyss of horrible mysteries opens before me. You are a doctor; tell me, did you ever know anything so dreadful?" "Monseigneur," I replied, "the Count of Nideck is afflicted with a complaint strikingly similar to that from which your mother appears to have suffered. If you feel enough confidence in me to communicate to me the facts which you have yourself observed, I will gladly tell you what I know myself; for perhaps this exchange of our experiences might supply me with the means to save my patient." "Willingly, sir," he replied, and without any further prelude he informed me that the Baroness de Bluderich, a member of one of the noblest families in Saxony, took, every year towards autumn, a journey into Italy, with no attendant besides an old manservant, who possessed her entire confidence; that that man, being at the point of death, had desired a private interview with the son of his old master, and that at that last hour, prompted, no doubt, by the pangs of remorse, he had told the young man that his mother's visit to Italy was only a pretence to enable her to make, you observed, a certain excursion into the Black Forest, the object of which was unknown to himself, but which must have had something fearful in its character, since the baroness returned always in a state of physical prostration, ragged, half dead, and that weeks of rest alone could restore her after the hideous labours of those few days. This was the purport of the old servant's disclosures to the young baron, who believed that in so doing he was only fulfilling his duty. The son, anxious at any sacrifice to know the truth of this account, had, that very year, ascertained it, first by following his mother to Baden, and then by penetrating on her track into the gorges of the Black Forest. The footsteps which Sbalt had tracked in the woods were his. When the baron had thus imparted his knowledge to me, I thought I ought not to conceal from him the mysterious influence which the appearance of the old woman in the neighbourhood of the castle exercised over the count, nor the other circumstances of this unaccountable series of events. We were both amazed at the extraordinary coincidence between the facts narrated, the mysterious attraction which these beings unconsciously exercised the one over the other, the tragic drama which they performed in union, the familiarity which the old woman had shown with the castle, and its most secret passages, without any previous examination of them; the costume which she had discovered in which to carry out this secret act, and which could only have been rummaged out of some mysterious retreat revealed to her by the strange instinct of insanity. Finally, we were agreed that there are unknown, unfathomed depths in our being, and that the mystery of death is not the only secret which God has veiled from our eyes, although it may seem to us the most important. But the darkness of night was beginning to yield to the pale tints of early dawn. A bat was sounding the departure of the hours of darkness with a singular note resembling the gurgling of liquid from a narrow bottleneck. A neighing of horses was heard far up the defile; then, with the first rays of dawn, we distinguished a sledge driven by the baron's servant; its bottom was littered with straw; on this the body was laid. I mounted my horse, who seemed not sorry to use his limbs again, which had been numbed by standing upon ice and snow the whole night through. I rode after the sledge to the exit from the defile, when, after a grave salutationthe usual token of courtesy between the nobility and the peoplethey drove off in the direction of Hirschland and I rode towards the towers of Nideck. At nine I was in the presence of Mademoiselle Odile, to whom I gave a faithful narrative of all that had taken place. Then repairing to the count's apartments, I found him in a very satisfactory state of improvement. He felt very weak, as was to be expected after the terrible shocks of such crises as he had gone through, but had returned to the full possession of his clear faculties, and the fever had left him the evening before. There was, therefore, every prospect of a speedy cure. A few days later, seeing the old lord in a state of convalescence, I expressed a desire to return to Fribourg, but he entreated me so earnestly to stay altogether at Nideck, and offered me terms so honourable and advantageous, that I felt myself unable to refuse compliance with his wishes. I shall long remember the first boarhunt in which I had the honour to join with the count, and especially the magnificent return home in a torchlight procession after having sat in the saddle for twelve hours together. I had just had supper, and was going up into Hugh Lupus's tower completely knocked up, when, passing Sperver's room, whose door was half open, shouts and cries of joy reached my ears. I stopped, when the most jovial spectacle burst upon me. Around the massive oaken table beamed twenty square rosy faces, bright and ruddy with health and fun. The hob and nobbing of the glasses gave out an incessant tinkling and clattering. There was sitting Sperver with his bossy forehead, his moustaches bedewed with Rhenish wine, his eyes sparkling, and his grey hair rather disordered; at his right was Marie Lagoutte, on his left Knapwurst. He was raising aloft the ancient silvergilt and chased goblet dimmed with age, and on his manly chest glittered the silver plate of his shoulderbelt, for, according to his custom on a hunting day, he was still wearing the uniform of his office. The colour of Marie Lagoutte's cheeks, rather redder even than usual, told of an evening of jollity, and her broad capfrills seemed as if they were wanting to fly all abroad; she sat laughing, now with one, then with another. Knapwurst, squatting in his armchair, with his head on a level with Sperver's elbow, looked like a big pumpkin. Then came Tobias Offenloch, so red that you would have thought he had bathed his face in the red wine, leaning back with his wig upon the chairback and his wooden leg extended under the table. Farther on loomed the melancholy long face of Sbalt, who was peeping with a sickly smile into the bottom of his wineglass. Besides these worthies there were present the waitingpeople, men and women servants, comprising all that little community which springs up around the board of the great people of the land and belongs to them as the ivy, and the moss, and the wild convolvulus belong to the monarch of the forests. Upon the groaning board lay a vast ham, displaying its concentric circles of pink and white. Then among the gailypatterned plates and dishes came the longnecked bottles containing the produce of the vineyards that border the broad and flowing Rhinelong German pipes with little silver chains, and long shining blades of steel. The light of the lamp shed over the whole scene its ambercoloured hue and left in the shade the old grey and timestained walls, where hung in ample numbers the brazen convolutions of the huntinghorns and bugles. What an original picture! The vaulted roof was ringing with the joyous shouts of laughter. Sperver, as I have already told, was lifting high the full bumper and singing the song of Black Hatto, the Burgrave, "I am king on these mountains of mine," while the rosy dew of Affnthal hung trembling from his long moustaches. As soon as he caught sight of me he stopped, and holding out his hand "Fritz," said he, "we only wanted you. It is a long time since I felt so comfortable as I do tonight. You are welcome, old boy!" As I gazed upon him with surprisefor since the death of Lieverl I had never seen him smilehe added more seriously "We are celebrating the return of monseigneur to his health, and Knapwurst is telling us stories." All the guests turned my way, and I was saluted with kindly welcomes on all sides. I was dragged in by Sbalt, seated near Marie Lagoutte, and found a large glass of Bohemian wine in my hand before I could quite understand the meaning of it all. The old hall was echoing with merry peals of laughter, and Sperver, throwing his arm round my neck, holding his cup high, and with an attempt at gravity which showed plainly that the wine was up in his head, he shouted "Here is my son! He and II and heuntil death! Here's the health of Doctor Fritz!" Knapwurst, standing as high as he was able upon the seat of his armchair, not unlike a turnip half divided in two, leaned towards me and held me out his glass. Marie Lagoutte shook out the long streamers of her cap, and Sbalt, upright before his chair, as gaunt and lean as the shade of the wild jger amongst the heather, repeated, "Your health, Doctor Fritz!" whilst the flakes of silvery foam ran down his cup and floated gently down upon the stoneflagged floor. Then there was a moment's silence. Every guest drank. Then, with a single clash, every glass was set vigorously down upon the table. "Bravo!" cried Sperver. Then turning to me "Fritz, we have already drunk to the health of the count and of Mademoiselle Odile; you will do the same." Twice had I to drain the cup before the vigilant eyes of the whole table. Then I too began to look grave. Could it have been drunken gravity? A luminous radiance seemed shed on every object; faces stood out brightly from the darkness, and looked more nearly upon me; in truth, there were youthful faces and aged, pretty and ugly, but all alike beamed upon me kindly, and lovingly, and tenderly; but it was the youngest, at the other end of the table, whose bright eyes attracted me, and we exchanged long and wistful glances, full of affection and sympathy! Sperver kept on humming and laughing. Suddenly putting his hand upon the dwarf's misshapen back, he cried "Silence! Here is Knapwurst, our historian and chronicler! He is preparing to speak. This hump holds all the history of the house of Nideck from the beginning of time!" The little hunchback, not at all indignant at so ambiguous a compliment, directed his benevolent eyes upon the face of the huntsman, and replied "You, Sperver, you are one of the reiters whose story I have been telling you. You have the arm, and the courage, and the whiskers of a reiter of old! If that window opened wide, and a reiter was to hold out his hand at the end of his long arm to you, what would you say to him?" "I would say, 'You are welcome, comrade; sit down and drink. You will find the wine just as good and the girls just as pretty as they were in the days of old Hugh Lupus.' Look!" And he pointed with his glass at the jolly young faces that brightened the farther end of the table. Certainly the damsels of Nideck were lovely. Some were blushing with pleasure to hear their own praises; others halfveiled their rosy cheeks with their long drooping eyelashes, while one or two seemed rather to prefer to display their, sweet blue eyes by raising them to the smoky ceiling. I wondered at my own insensibility that I had never before noticed these fair roses blooming in the towers of the ancient manor. "Silence!" cried Sperver for the second time. "Our friend Knapwurst is going to tell us again the legend he related to us just now." "Won't you have another instead?" asked the hunchback. "No. I like this best." "I know better ones than that." "Knapwurst," insisted the huntsman, raising his finger impressively, "I have reasons for wishing to hear the same again and no other. Cut it shorter if you like. There is a great deal in it. Now, Fritz, listen!" The dwarf, rather under the influence of the sparkling wine he had taken, rested his elbows on the table, and with his cheeks clutched in his bony fingers, and his eyes starting from his head with his concentrated efforts to speak with becoming seriousness, he cried as if he were publishing a proclamation "Bernard Hertzog relates that the burgrave Hugh, surnamed Lupus, or the Wolf, when he was old, used to wear a cowl, which was a kind of knitted cap that covered in the crest of the knight's helmet when engaged in fighting. When the helmet tired him he would take it off and put on the knitted cowl, and its long cape fell around his shoulders. "Up to his eightysecond year Hugh still wore his armour, though he could hardly breathe in it. "Then he sent for Otto of Burlach, his chaplain, his eldest son Hugh, his second son Berthold, and his daughter the redhaired Bertha, wife of a Saxon chief named Bluderich, and said to them "'Your mother the shewolf has bequeathed you her claws; her blood flows, mingled with mine, in your veins. In you the wolf's blood will flow from generation to generation; it shall weep and howl among the snows of the Black Forest. Some will say, "Hark! The wind howls!" others, "No, it is the owl hooting!" But not so; it is your blood, mine and the blood of the shewolf who drove me to murder Hedwige, my wife before God and the Church. She died under my bloody hands! Cursed be the shewolf! for it is written, "I will visit the sins of the fathers upon the children." The crime of the father shall be visited upon the children until justice shall have been satisfied!' "Then old Hugh the Wolf died. "From that dreary day the north wind has howled across the wilds, and the owl has hooted in the dark, and travellers by night know not that it is the blood of the shewolf weeping for the day of vengeance that will come, whose blood will be renewed from generation to generationso says Hertzoguntil the day when the first wife of Hugh, Hedwige the Fair, shall reappear at Nideck under the form of an angel to comfort and to forgive!" Then Sperver, rising from his seat, took a lamp and demanded of Knapwurst the keys of the library, and beckoned to me to follow him. We rapidly traversed the long dark gallery, then the armoury, and soon the archivechamber appeared at the end of the great corridor. All noises had died away in the distance. The place seemed quite deserted. Once or twice I turned round, and could then see with a creeping feeling of dread our two long fantastic shadows in ghostly fashion writhing in strange distortions upon the high tapestry. Sperver quickly opened the old oak door, and with torch uplifted, his hair all bristling in disorder, and excited features, walked in the first. Standing before the portrait of Hedwige, whose likeness to the young countess had struck me at our first visit to the library, he addressed me in these solemn words "Here is she who was to return to comfort and pity me! She has returned! At this moment she is downstairs with the old count. Look well, Fritz; do you recognise her? Is it not Odile?" Then turning to the picture of Hugh's second wife "There," he said, "is Huldine, the shewolf. For a thousand years she has wept in the deep gorges amongst the pine forests of the Schwartzwald; she was the cause of the death of poor Lieverl; but henceforward the lords of Nideck may rest securely, for justice is done, and the good angel of this lordly house has returned!" MYRTLE. CHAPTER I. Just at the end of the village of Dosenheim, in Alsace, about fifty yards from the gravelly road that leads into the wood, is a pretty cottage surrounded with an orchard, the flat roof loaded with boulderstones, the gableend looking down the valley. Flights of pigeons wheel around it, hens are scratching and picking up what they can under the fences, the cock takes his stand majestically on the low garden wall, and sounds the rveille, or the retreat, for the echoes of Falberg to repeat; an outside staircase, with its wooden banisters, the linen of the little household hanging over it, leads to the first story, and a vine climbs up the front, and spreads its leafy branches from side to side. If you will only go up these steps you will see at the end of the narrow entry the kitchen, with its dresser and its pewter plates and dishes, its souptureens puffing out like balloons; open the door to the right and you are in the parlour with its dark oak furniture, a ceiling crossed by brown smokestained rafters, and its old Nuremberg clock clickclacking monotonously. Here sits a woman of fiveandthirty, spinning and dreaming, her waist encircled with a long black taffety bodice, and her head covered with a velvet headdress, with long ribbons. A man in broadskirted velveteen coat, with breeches of the same, and with a fine open brow, looking calm and thoughtful, is dandling on his knee a fine stout boy, whistling the call to "boot and saddle." There lies the quiet village at the end of the valley, framed, as you sit, in the little cottage window; the river is leaping over the milldam and crossing the winding street; the old houses, with their deep and gloomy eaves, their barns, their gabled windows, their nets drying in the sun; the young girls, kneeling by the riverside on the stones, washing linen; the cattle lazily lounging down to drink, and gravely lowing amidst the willows; the young herdsmen cracking their whips; the mountain summit, jagged like a saw by the pointed firtree topsall these rural objects lie reflected in the flowing blue stream, only broken by the fleets of ducks sailing down or the occasional passage of an old tree rooted up on the mountainside. Looking quietly on these things, you are impressed with a sense of the ease and comfort of which they speak, and you are moved with gratitude to the Giver of all good. Well, my dear friends and neighbours, such was the cottage of the Brmers in 1820, such were Brmer himself, his wife Catherine, and their son, little Fritz. To my own mind they come back exactly as I have described them to you. Christian Brmer had served in the chasseurs of the Imperial Guard. After 1815 he had married Catherine, his old sweetheart, grown a little older, but quite fresh and fair, and full of grace. With his own little property, his house, and his four or five acres of vineyard, and Catherine's added to it, Brmer had become one of the most substantial bourgeois of Dosenheim; he might have been mayor, or adjoint, or municipal councillor, but these honours had no attractions for him; and what pleased him best was, after work was over, to take down his old gun, whistle for Friedland, and take him a turn in the woods. Now it fell out one day that this worthy man, coming home after a day's shooting, brought in his bag a little gipsy girl two or three years old, as lively as a squirrel, and as brown as a hazelnut. He had found her in the bundle of an unhappy gipsy woman who had died of fatigue or hunger, or both, at the foot of a tree. You may well imagine what an outcry Catherine raised against this new uninvited member of her family. But as Brmer was master in his own house, he simply announced to his wife that the child should be christened by the name of Susanna Frederica Myrtle, and that she should be brought up with little Fritz. As a matter of course, all the women in the place, old and young, came to pass their observations upon the little gipsy, whose serious and thoughtful expression of countenance surprised them. "This is not a child like others," said they; "she is a heathenquite a heathen! You may see by her eyes that she understands every word! She is listening now! Mind what I say, Matre Christian! Gipsies have claws at the ends of their fingers. If you will rear young ferrets and weasels you must not expect your poultry to be safe. They will have the run of all the farmyard!" "Go and mind your own business!" shouted Brmer. "I have seen Russians and Spaniards, I have seen Italians, and Germans, and Jews; some were brown, and some were black, some white, and others red; some had long noses, and others had turneddown noses, but I found good fellows amongst them all." "Very likely," said the ladies, "but those people lived in houses, and gipsies live in the open air." He vouchsafed no reply to this argument, but with all possible politeness he put them out by the shoulders. "Go away," he cried; "I don't want your advice. It is time to air the rooms, and then I have to go and attend to the stables." But, after all, the rejected counsels were not so bad, as the event unhappily showed a dozen or fourteen years afterwards. Fritz was always delighted to feed the cattle, and take the horses to the pond, and follow his father and learn to plough and sow, to reap and mow, to tie up the sheaves and bring them home. But Myrtle had no wish to milk the cows, churn the butter, shell peas, or peel potatoes. When the maidens of Dosenheim, going out to wash clothes in the morning at the river, called her the heathen, she mirrored herself complacently in the fountain, and when she had admired her own long dark tresses, her violet lips, her white teeth, her necklace of red berries, she would smile and murmur to herself "Ah! they only call me a heathen because I am prettier than they are," and she would dip the tip of her little foot in the fountain and laugh. But Catherine could not approve of such conduct, and said "Myrtle is not the least good to us. She won't do a single thing that is useful. It is no use for me to preach, and advise, and scold, she does everything the wrong way. The other day, when we were stowing away apples in the closet, she took bites out of the best to see if they were ripe! She has no pleasure but in gobbling up the best of everything." Brmer himself could not help admitting that there was a very heathenish spirit in her when he heard his wife crying from morning till night, "Myrtle, Myrtle! where are you now? Ah, naughty, bad girl! she has run away into the woods again to gather blackberries." But still he laughed to himself, and pitied poor Catherine, whom he compared to a hen with a brood of ducklings. Every year after harvesttime Fritz and Myrtle spent whole days far away from the farm, pasturing the cattle, singing, and whistling, and baking potatoes under the ashes, and coming down the rocky hill in the evening blowing the shepherd's horn. These were some of Myrtle's happiest days. Seated before the burning hempstalks, with her pretty brown face between her hands, she lost herself in endless reveries. The long strings of wild ducks and geese which traverse, about the end of autumn, the boundless heavens spread from the mountains on the east to the western hills, seemed to have a depressing effect upon her mind. She used to follow them with longing eyes, straining them as if to overtake the wild birds in the immeasurable distance; and suddenly she would rise, spread out her arms, and cry "I must go! I must go! I can't stay!" Then she would weep with her head bowed down, and Fritz, seeing her in tears, would cry too, asking "Why do you cry, Myrtle? Has anybody hurt you? Is it any of the boys in the village?Kasper, Wilhelm, Heinrich? Only tell me, and I will knock him down at once! Do tell!" "No; it is not that." "Well, why are you crying?" "I don't know." "Do you want to run as far as the Falberg?" "No; that is not far enough." "Where do you want to go?" "Down there! down there! ever so far! where the birds are going." This made Fritz open his eyes and his mouth very wide. One day in September, when they were idling along by the woods, about noon, the heat was so great and the air so still that the smoke of their little fire, instead of rising straight into the air, fell like water and crept among the briars. The grasshopper had ceased its dull monotonous chirp, not the buzzing of a fly was to be heard, nor the warbling of a bird. The oxen and the cows, with sleepy eyes halfclosed, their knees bent under them, were resting together under a spreading oak in the meadow, now and then lowing in a slow, protracted way as if in idle protest against such hot weather. Fritz had begun by plaiting the strands of his whip, but he soon lay down in the long grass with his hat over his eyes, and Friedland came to lie near him, gaping from ear to ear. Myrtle alone suffered no inconvenience from the overwhelming heat; sitting on the ground near the fire, with her arms wreathed around her knees, full in the sun, her large dark eyes slowly surveyed the dark arches formed by the branches of the forest. Time passed on slowly.