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Page 7
"You, Gideon, with your grey beard, you have learnt a peculiar mode of
reasoning."
"Grey beard or not, that is my way of seeing things. I always keep a ball
in my double-barrelled gun at the witch's service; from time to time I
put in a fresh charge, and if I get the chance--"
He only added an expressive gesture.
"Quite wrong, Sperver, quite wrong. I agree with the Count of Nideck, and
I say no bloodshed. Oceans cannot wipe away blood shed in anger. Think of
that, and discharge that barrel against the first boar you meet."
These words seemed to make some impression upon the old huntsman; he hung
down his head and looked thoughtful.
We were then climbing the wooded steeps which separate the poor village
of Tiefenbach from the Castle of Nideck.
Night had closed in. As it always happens with us after a bright clear
winter's day, snow was again beginning to fall, heavy flakes dropped and
melted upon our horses' manes, who were beginning now to pluck up their
spirits at the near prospect of the comfortable stable.
Now and then Sperver looked over his shoulder with evident uneasiness;
and I myself was not altogether free from a feeling of apprehension in
thinking of the strange account which the huntsman had given me of his
master's complaint.
Besides all this, there is a certain harmony between external nature and
the spirit of a man, and I know of nothing more depressing than a gloomy
forest loaded in every branch with thick snow and hoar frost, and moaning
in the north wind. The gaunt and weird-looking trunks of the tall pines
and the gnarled and massive oaks look mournfully upon you, and fill you
with melancholy thoughts.
As we ascended the rocky eminence the oaks became fewer, and scattered
birches, straight and white as marble pillars, divided the dark green of
the forest pines, when in a moment, as we issued from a thicket, the
ancient stronghold stood before us in a heavy mass, its dark surface
studded with brilliant points of light.
Sperver had pulled up before a deep gateway between two towers, barred in
by an iron grating.
"Here we are," he cried, throwing the reins on the horses' necks.
He laid hold of the deer's-foot bell-handle, and the clear sound of a
bell broke the stillness.
After waiting a few minutes the light of a lantern flickered in the deep
archway, showing us in its semicircular frame of ruddy light the figure
of a humpbacked dwarf, yellow-bearded, broad-shouldered, and wrapped in
furs from head to foot.
You might have thought him, in the deep shadow, some gnome or evil spirit
of earth realised out of the dreams of the Niebelungen Lieder.
He came towards us at a very leisurely pace, and laid his great flat
features close against the massive grating, straining his eyes, and
trying to make us out in the darkness in which we were standing.
"Is that you, Sperver?" he asked in a hoarse voice.
"Open at once, Knapwurst," was the quick reply. "Don't you know how cold
it is?"
"Oh! I know you now," cried the little man; "there's no mistaking you.
You always speak as if you were going to gobble people up."
The door opened, and the dwarf, examining me with his lantern, with an
odd expression in his face, received me with "Willkommen, herr doctor,"
but which seemed to say besides, "Here is another who will have to go
away again as others have done." Then he quietly closed the door, whilst
we alighted, and came to take our horses by the bridle.
CHAPTER II.
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