We ate with the ravenous appetite which a ten hours' ride through the snows of the Black Forest would be likely to impart. Sperver attacked, in turn, the kid, the pheasants, and the pike, murmuring, with his mouth full, "Thank God for the woods, the heather, and the ponds." Then, leaning over the back of his chair and seizing the first bottle that came under his hand, he added, "And for the hillsides, green in spring and purple in autumn. Your health, Gaston!"

"Yours, Gideon!"

The fire crackled, the forks jingled, the bottles gurgled, and the glasses clinked, while outside the wind of the winter night, the blast from the snow-bound mountains, sang its unearthly hymn,—the hymn that it sings when storm-driven, fantastic cloud-shapes rush across the sky and obscure from moment to moment the pale face of the moon.

We continued our grateful meal. Sperver filled the "wieder komm" with old Brumberg wine, whose sparkling froth bordered its generous edges, and, handing it to me, he cried, "Here's to the recovery of Hermann of Nideck, my noble master! Drink to the last drop, Gaston, that your prayer may be heard."

This was done; then, refilling the bowl, he drained it in his turn.

A sense of satisfaction took possession of us. We felt at peace with all the world. I sprawled out in my chair with my head thrown back and my arms hanging down, and began to study my apartment. It was a low, arched chamber cut out of the live rock, shaped like an oval, and measuring in the highest part not more than twelve feet. At the further end I perceived a sort of alcove, and in it a bed resting on the floor, and covered, as nearly as I could make out, with a bearskin robe. Still further back was another and smaller niche, with a statue of the Virgin cut out of the same piece of granite and crowned with a bunch of withered grass.

"You are studying your chamber," said Sperver; "it is not as large nor as luxurious as the rooms of the Castle. We are now in Hugh's Tower, and it is as old as the mountain itself. It dates back to the time of Charlemagne. In those days the people didn't understand the art of building lofty, spacious dwellings; they cut right into the solid rock."

"That served the purpose as well; but it is an odd corner that you have stuck me in, Gideon."

"Don't be deceived on that point, Gaston; it is the place of honor. Whenever the Count's particular friends come to visit him, they are put in here. Hugh's Tower is the most honorable accommodation of all."

"By the way, who was this Hugh?"

"Why, Hugh the Wolf!"

"What!" I exclaimed in astonishment.

"Certainly; the founder of the family of Nideck; a rough customer, they say. He came and settled down here with a score of horsemen and archers. They scaled the highest rock on the mountain,—you will see it to-morrow,—and built this tower. 'We are the masters,' they declared, 'and woe be to those who try to pass without paying toll. We will fall on them like wolves, tear the clothes from their backs, and the hides, too, if they are obstinate. From here we can command the landscape, the passes of the Rhethal, the Steinbach, and the Roche Plate, and the entire line of the Black Forest. Let the merchants beware.' And the bold fellows carried out their threats under the leadership of Hugh the Wolf. Knapwurst told me all about it when we were sitting up the other night."

"Knapwurst?"

"You know; the little dwarf who opened the gate to us; a droll chap, Gaston, who is always to be found in the library bent over a book."

"So you have a scholar at Nideck."

"Yes, the rascal! Instead of staying in his lodge, where he belongs, he spends the whole blessed day shaking the dust from old family parchments. He moves about among the shelves like a cat, and he knows our history better than we do ourselves. He would like nothing better than to tell you his stories; he calls them chronicles. Ha, ha, ha!"

Hereupon, Sperver, exalted by the old wine, laughed for some moments, without knowing exactly why.

"So that is why you call this the Tower of Hugh the Wolf?" I resumed.

"Didn't I just tell you so? What are you so surprised at?"

"Oh, nothing."

"Yes, you are. I see it in your face. What are you thinking of?"

"It isn't so much the name of the tower that surprises me, as that you, an old ranger, who from a baby had never known any home but the fir-trees and crests of the Wald Horn and the gorges of the Rhethal, who would never sleep with a roof over your head in spite of all my father's urging, and who amused yourself roaming the paths of the Black Forest and revelling in the fresh air, the sunlight, and the freedom of a hunter's life, should be found here, after sixteen years, in this red-granite hole. Come, Sperver, light your pipe and tell me how it happened."

The old ranger drew a short, black pipe from his leather jacket, filled it leisurely, and snatching up a coal from the hearth, placed it on the bowl of his pipe; then, with his head thrown back and his eyes wandering over the ceiling, he replied thoughtfully:

"After I left your father's service twenty years ago, it was long before I could bring my mind to work for any other master, for I loved the General, and you, and your pretty mother, as I could never come to love others, not even the Count and my mistress Odile. So I took to poaching for a term of years, and found a living by any means I could, until one night the Count came upon me in the moonlight.

"He did not despise Sperver, the old hawk, the true man of the woods; and he said to me, 'Comrade, you have hunted long enough by yourself; now come and hunt with me. You have a good beak and strong claws, and you might as well hunt my game with my permission as without it.'"

Sperver was silent for some minutes; then he continued:

"I was getting old,—and the old falcons and hawks, having long swept the plains, end by settling down in the cleft of a rock to die. So it was with me. I loved the open air, and I love it yet; but now, instead of lying on a high branch at night and being rocked to sleep by the wind, I prefer to come back to my cover, quietly pick a woodcock, and dry my plumage before the fire."

Sperver was silent for some moments; then he continued:

"I still hunt as before, and afterwards I drink a quiet glass of Rudesheimer with my friends, or—" At this moment a shock made the door tremble.

"It is a gust of wind," I said.

"No; it is something else. Don't you hear a claw scratching on the panel? I think one of the dogs must have got loose. Open, Walden! open, LieverlÉ!"

He got up, but he had not gone two steps when a formidable Danish hound leaped into the room and raised his fore-paws on his master's shoulders, licking his cheeks and beard with his long, red tongue, and whining with joy. Sperver put his arm around the dog's neck, and turning to me:

"Gaston," he said, "what man could love me as this dog does? Look at this head, these eyes, and teeth!"

He drew back the animal's lips and showed me a set of fangs that could have torn a buffalo to pieces. Then pushing him off with difficulty, for the dog redoubled his caresses, he cried, "Down with you, LieverlÉ; I know you love me! Who would, if you did not?" He went and closed the door.

I never had seen a dog of such formidable proportions before; he measured nearly four feet in height, with a broad, low forehead and fine coat, a bright eye, long paws, broad across the chest and shoulders and tapering down to the haunches,—a mass of nerves and muscles interwoven,—but he had no scent. If such animals possessed the scent of the terrier, the game would soon be exterminated.

Sperver had returned to his seat and was passing his hand proudly over LieverlÉ's head, while he enumerated the dog's fine points. LieverlÉ seemed to understand him.

"Look, Gaston, that dog would strangle a wolf with a snap of his jaws. He is what you might well call perfection in the matter of courage and strength; not yet five, and in his prime. I need not tell you that he is trained to hunt wild boar. Every time we meet them, I fear for LieverlÉ; he attacks them too boldly; he flies at them like an arrow. Beware of the brutes' tusks, LieverlÉ, you rascal! It makes me tremble. Down on your back!" cried the huntsman; "down on your back!"

The dog obeyed, presenting to us his flesh-colored thighs.

"Do you see that long, white line, without any hair on it, which extends from his thigh clear up to his chest? A boar did that. The noble chap did not let go of the brute's ear, in spite of the wound, and we tracked them by the blood. I came up with them first. Seeing my LieverlÉ, I cried out, jumped to the ground, and lifting him in my arms, I wrapped him in my mantle and brought him home. I was beside myself with grief. Luckily, the vital parts were not injured, and I sewed up the wound. God! how he howled and suffered; but at the end of the third day he began to lick the place, and a dog who licks a wound is already saved. Ha, LieverlÉ! you remember it! And now we love each other, don't we?"

I was much moved by the affection of the man for the dog, and the animal for his master. LieverlÉ watched him and wagged his tail, while a tear stood in Sperver's eye. Soon he began again:

"What strength! Do you see, Gaston, he has broken his cord to come to me,—a cord of six strands? He found my tracks, and that was enough. Here, LieverlÉ! Catch!"

He threw him the remains of the kid's leg. The dog went over and stretched himself in front of the fire with the bone between his fore-paws, and he slowly tore it into shreds. Sperver watched him from the corner of his eye with evident satisfaction.

"Hey, Gaston," said the old steward, "if any one should order you to go and take that bone away, what would you say?"

"That it was a matter which required delicate manipulation."

We laughed heartily, and Sperver, who was stretched out in his red-leather armchair, with his left arm thrown over the back, one leg resting on a stool, and the other on a log that was dripping with sap and singing in the fierce flame, puffed blue rings of smoke to the ceiling with an air of supreme contentment. As for me, I was lazily watching the dog, when suddenly remembering our interrupted conversation, I began:

"Listen, Sperver! You haven't told me everything. Was it not because of the death of your worthy wife, my old nurse Gertrude, that you left the mountains to come here?"

Gideon looked grave, and a tear dimmed his eye; he straightened up, and knocking the ashes from his pipe upon his thumb nail, he replied:

"Yes, my wife is dead, and that is what drove me from the woods. I could not see the valley of the Roche Creuse without sorrow, and so I have come hither. I hunt but little in the underbrush, and if the pack happen to go in that direction, I leave them to themselves and turn back again, trying to think of other things."

Sperver had become melancholy. His head had fallen on his breast, and he remained silent. I regretted having recalled these sad images to his mind. Then, reflecting once more on the Black Plague crouching in the snow, I shivered. How singular that a single word had thrown us into a train of dismal recollections! A whole world of retrospection had been invoked by the merest accident.

I know not how long our silence had lasted, when a deep, terrible growl, like the sound of distant thunder, made us tremble. We looked at the dog. He still held his half-eaten bone between his fore-paws, but with raised head, ears pricked up, and shining eyes, he was listening,—listening in the dead silence, and a tremor of rage ran along his back.

Sperver and I looked at each other anxiously; not a sound, not a murmur, for the wind outside had fallen, and we could have heard the least noise; nothing, save the deep, continued growl, which seemed to come from deep down in the dog's chest. Suddenly the animal sprang up and leaped against the wall, with a short, harsh, ominous bark that made the arches resound as if thunder were rolling away along the empty passages. LieverlÉ, with his head low down, seemed to see through the granite, and his teeth, bared to their roots, glistened like snow. He still growled, pausing now and then for a moment to sniff along the bottom of the wall; then he sprang up again angrily, and seemed trying to tear away the stone with his fore-paws.

We were watching him, unable to understand the cause of his excitement, when a second howl, more fearful than the first, brought us to our feet.

"LieverlÉ," cried Sperver, springing towards him, "for heaven's sake, what ails you? Are you going mad?"

He seized a log, and began to sound the wall, which, however, gave forth only a dull, dense sound. There was apparently no hollow in it, but still the dog maintained the same posture.

"Decidedly, LieverlÉ," said the huntsman, "you have had a nightmare. Come, lie down, and don't set our nerves on edge any more."

At the same moment we heard a sound outside. The door opened, and the big, fat face of honest Tobias Offenloch, with his round lantern in one hand and his stick in the other, and his three-cornered hat on one side of his head, appeared smiling and genial in the doorway.

"Greeting, worthy company!" he exclaimed; "what the devil are you doing here?"

"It was this foolish LieverlÉ who made all the racket," said Sperver; "he sprang against the wall and wouldn't be quieted. Can you tell us the reason of it?"

"He probably heard the stumping of my wooden leg as I came up the tower stairs," replied the good-natured fellow with a laugh. Then setting his lantern on the table: "That will teach you, Master Gideon, to tie up your dogs. You have a weakness for dogs,—an absurd weakness. They will end by putting us all out of doors. Only a moment ago, as I was coming along the gallery, I met your Blitz; he snapped at my leg,—see, there are the marks of his teeth. A new leg, too, confound the cur!"

"Tie up my dogs? What an idea!" replied Sperver. "Dogs that are tied up are good for nothing; it makes them savage. Moreover, LieverlÉ was fastened, and he has what was left of the cord around his neck still."

"It is not on my account that I am speaking, for whenever I see them coming, I always raise my stick and put my wooden leg first. It is only for discipline. The dogs ought to be in the kennels, the cats on the gutters, and the people in the Castle, according to my way of thinking."

Tobie sat down as he finished his sentence, and with his elbows resting on the table and his eyes beaming with satisfaction, he said in a confidential tone:

"You should know, gentlemen, that I am a bachelor this evening."

"How is that?"

"Marie Anne is sitting up with Gertrude in the Count's antechamber."

"Then you are in no hurry."

"Not the least bit."

"How unlucky you should have come so late," observed Sperver; "all the bottles are empty."

The discomfited expression of the good fellow made me feel positively sorry. He would gladly have profited by his widowhood. In spite of my efforts to repress it, however, my mouth parted in a wide yawn.

"We will put it over till another day," he said, getting up; "what is postponed is not lost."

He took up his lantern.

"Good night, gentlemen."

"Wait a minute," said Gideon; "I see the doctor is sleepy; we will go down together."

"Gladly, Sperver! We will have a word with Trumpf as we pass. He is down-stairs with the others, and Knapwurst is telling them stories."

"Well, good night, Gaston."

"Good night, Sperver. Don't forget to call me if the Count grows worse."

"Never fear. LieverlÉ, come here."

They went out, and as they were crossing the platform, I could hear the old Nideck clock striking eleven.

I was completely exhausted with the day's experiences. Soon I threw myself on the bed, and straightway fell into a deep slumber, where all night long I was wandering beside a radiant creature with a halo of golden hair about her face, amid flower-strewn paths, and the song of birds, and above our heads the fairest of summer skies.