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Christian, standing in shirt-sleeves, his broad chest uncovered, and with a pair of canvas trousers hitched up about his hips, looked a good-natured fellow enough; his tawny beard came down in a point to his waist; his huge bull head was covered with bristling brown hair; his small grey eyes inspired confidence.

“Take a seat, master,” he said, rolling a log of wood before the fire. “Are you hungry?”

“Why, you know, my lad, your mountain air does excite one’s appetite.”

“Very well; you are just in time. I have got some very good potatoes quite at your service.”

At the mention of potatoes Uncle Bernard could not help grimacing; he remembered, with the longing of affection, old Berbel’s good suppers, and had a difficulty in coming down to the humble realities before him.

Christian seemed to take no notice; he took five or six potatoes out of a sack, and put them into the embers, taking care to cover them entirely; then, sitting down on the hearthstone, he lighted his pipe.

“But just tell me, master, how is it that you are here to-night, at six leagues’ distance from Saverne, in the gorge of Nideck?”

“The gorge of Nideck!” cried my uncle Bernard, springing from his seat in great surprise.

“To be sure! You may see the ruins from here, about two gunshots distant.”

Master Bernard looked out, and really did recognise the ruins of Nideck, just as he had described them in the twenty-fourth chapter of his History of Alsacian Antiquities, with their high towers crumbling away at the foot, and dominating over the abyss into which the torrent falls.

“But I thought I was near Haslach!” he cried with amazement.

The woodcutter burst out laughing.

“Haslach!–you are two leagues away from it! I see how it is. You went wrong at the old oak-tree. You took the right instead of the left path. When you are in the woods you must look well about you. A few yards wrong at starting come to leagues at the end!”

Bernard Hertzog at this discovery was in consternation.

“Six leagues from Saverne,” he murmured, “and all mountains!–and if I have to go two more to-morrow, that will be eight!”

“Oh, don’t mind that! I will guide you to the road down the valley. And don’t forget. You are very fortunate.”

“Fortunate? You are joking with me, Christian.”

“Yes, you are lucky. You might have had to spend the night in the woods. There is a thunderstorm coming on from Schneeberg; if that had overtaken you you might have had some reason to complain, with the rain at your back and thunder and lightning all round. But now you shall sleep in a good bed,” pointing to the box in the corner; “you will sleep there like a log, and to-morrow, when the sun is up, we will start; you will be rested, and you will get there in very good time.”

“You are very kind, Christian,” said Uncle Bernard with tears in his eyes. “Give me a potato, and then I will go to bed. I am more tired than anything else. I am not hungry. One hot potato will be quite enough for me.”

“Here is a couple as mealy as chestnuts. Taste that, master; take a small glass of kirschwasser, and then lie down. I have to set to work again. I have got to saw fifteen more planks before I can go to bed.”

Christian rose, set the bottle of kirschwasser on the window-sill, and went out. The alternate movement of the saw, which had for a time ceased, now recommenced amidst the rushing of the stream.

Maitre Hertzog, astonished as he was to find himself in those remote solitudes between Dagsberg and the ruins of Nideck, sat long meditating what he must do to rejoin his household gods; then, gliding down the stream of his usual meditations, he went over the fabulous, heroic, or barbarous legends and chronicles of the former lords of that land. He went back to the Tribocci, that German nation settled about Strasbourg, remembering Clovis, Chilperic, Theodoric, Dagobert, the furious struggle between Brunehaut, Queen of Austrasia, and Fredegonde, queen of Chilperic of France, and many heroes and heroines besides. All these fierce personages passed in review before his eyes. The vague murmuring of the trees, the inky blackness of the rocks, favoured this strange invocation. All the distinguished personages of his chronicle were there, and the boar, and the wolf, and the bear were among them.