know that he's not all right here"--he touched his forehead--"I'd take him in hand, but it's a terrible cross. It's strange, too, that he shoots so well, when he sees the game, though that's not often. He stares up into the trees and the sky, and a stag will run away right under his nose. I'm not curious, but, indeed, I'd like to know where the moon-calf comes from."
Valentin looked pained at these words, but he replied, calmly, "That can hardly interest you. Do not put such ideas into Michael's head, or he might ask you questions which you cannot answer."
"He's too stupid for that," asserted the forester, with whom his foster-son's stupidity seemed to be an indisputable article of faith. "I don't believe he knows that he was ever even born. But Tyras is barking,--he must see Michael."
In fact, the dog was barking joyously, the sound of approaching footsteps was heard, and in the next instant Michael entered the room.
The new-comer was a lad of about eighteen, but his tall, powerful figure, with its awkward movements, showed nothing of the grace and freshness of youth. The face, plain and irregular in all its lines, had a half-shy, half-dreamy expression that was hardly attractive. The thick, fair curls were matted around the temples and brow, below which looked out a pair of eyes deep blue in colour, but as vacant as if no soul enlightened their depths. His dress was as sordid and neglected as the forester's, and in his entire appearance there was absolutely nothing to attract.
"Well, have you come at last?" was his foster-father's gruff reception of him. "You must have gone to sleep on the way, or you would have been here long ago."
"I came through the forest," replied Michael, going up to the priest, who kindly held out his hand to him.
Wolfram laughed scornfully. "Didn't I tell your reverence? He didn't dare to go through the village,--I knew it."
Michael paid not the slightest heed to the apparently well-grounded accusation, being well used to such treatment from his foster-father, who now took his hat and made ready to go.
"I must go up to the fenced forest," he said; "it looks badly there: more than a dozen of the tallest trees are torn down; the Wild Huntsman has made terrible work there lately."
"You mean the storms of the last week, Wolfram?"
"No, it was the Wild Huntsman, your reverence. He is abroad every night this spring. The day before yesterday, as we came through the wood at dusk, the whole mad crew swept by not a hundred yards away. They raged and howled and stormed as though all hell had broken loose, and I suppose a bit of it had done so. Michael, stupid fool, would have rushed into the thick of it, but I caught his arm in time and held him fast."
"I wanted to see the demon at close quarters," said Michael, quietly.
The forester shrugged his shoulders. "There, your reverence, you see what the fellow is! He runs away from human creatures and such like, but he wants to be right in the midst of things which make every Christian shudder, and cross himself! I really believe he would have joined the phantoms if I had not held him back, and then he would now have been lying dead in the forest, for he who joins the Wild Huntsman's chase is lost."
"Will you never be rid of this sinful superstition, Wolfram?" said the priest. "You pretend to be a Christian, and are nothing better than a heathen. And you have infected Michael, too; his head is full of heathenish legends."
"It may be sinful, but it's true for all that," Wolfram insisted. "I don't suppose you see anything of it. You are a holy man, a consecrated priest, and the ghostly rabble that haunt the forest at night is afraid of you, but the like of us see and hear more of it than is agreeable. Then Michael is to stay here?"
"Of course. I will send him back in the afternoon."
"Good--by, then," said the forester, tightening the strap of his gun. He bowed to the priest, and departed without taking further notice of his foster-son.
Michael, who seemed to be perfectly at home in the parsonage, now fetched various books and papers from a cupboard and arranged them on the writing-table. Evidently the wonted instruction was about to begin, but before it could do so the sound of a sleigh was heard outside. Valentin looked up in surprise; the rare visits that he received were almost exclusively from the pastors of secluded Alpine villages, and pilgrims were scarcely to be looked for at this time of year. Saint Michael was not one of those large and famous places of pilgrimage whither the faithful resort in crowds at all seasons. Only the poor dwellers on the Alps brought their vows and supplications to the secluded hamlet, and only upon church festivals was there any great gathering there.
Meanwhile, the sleigh had drawn up before the parsonage. A gentleman in a fur coat got out, inquired of the maid who met him at the door whether the Herr Pastor was at home, and forthwith made his way to the study.
Valentin started at the sound of the voice, and then rose with delighted surprise in every feature. "Hans! Is it you?"
"You know me still, then? It would be no wonder if each of us failed to recognize the other," said the stranger, offering his hand, which was warmly grasped by the priest.
"Welcome, welcome! Have you really found me out?"
"Yes, it certainly was a proof of affection, the getting up to you here," said the guest. "We have been working our way for hours through the snow; sometimes fallen hemlocks lay directly across the road, sometimes we had to cross a mountain torrent, and for a change we had small avalanches from the rocks. And yet my coachman obstinately insisted that it was the high-road. I should like, then, to see your foot-paths; they must be practicable for chamois only."
Valentin smiled. "You are the same old fellow,--always sneering and criticising. Leave us, Michael, and tell the gentleman's coachman to put up his horses."
Michael left the room, but not before the stranger had turned and glanced at him. "Have you set up a famulus? Who is that dreamer?"
"My pupil, whom I teach."
"You must have hard work to gel anything inside that head! That fellow's talent would seem to lie solely in his fists."
As he spoke the guest had taken off his furs, and was seen to be a man about five or six years younger than the pastor, of hardly medium height, but with a very distinguished head, which, with its broad brow and intellectual features, riveted attention at the first glance. The clear, keen eyes seemed used to probe everything to the core, and in the man's whole bearing there was evident the sense of superiority which comes of being regarded as an authority in one's own circle.
He looked keenly about him, investigating the pastor's study and adjoining room, both of which displayed a monastic simplicity; and as he turned his eyes from one object to another in the small apartment, he said, without a trace of sarcasm, but with some bitterness, "And here you have cast anchor! I never imagined your solitude so desolate and world-forsaken. Poor Valentin! You have to pay for the assault that my investigations make so inexorably upon your dogmas, and for my works being down in the 'Index.'"
The pastor repudiated this charge by a gentle gesture. "What an idea! There are frequent changes in ecclesiastical appointments, and I came to Saint Michael----"
"Because you had Hans Wehlau for a brother," the other completed the sentence. "If you would publicly have cut loose from me, and thundered from your pulpit against my atheism, you would have been in a more comfortable parsonage, I can tell you. It is well known that there has been no breach between us, although we have not seen each other for years, and you must pay for it. Why did
