reatures. But who heeds them
on a sunny Spring morning in the forest, when the birds are singing,
twittering, trilling, pecking, cooing and calling so joyously? Murmuring
and plashing, the forest stream dashed down its steep bed over rocks and
amid moss-covered stones and smooth pebbles to the valley. The hurrying
water lived, and in it dwelt its gay inhabitants, fresh plants grew along
the banks from source to mouth, while over and around it a third species
of living creatures sunned themselves, fluttered, buzzed and spun
delicate silk threads.

In the midst of a circular clearing, surrounded by dense woods, smoked a
charcoal kiln. It was less easy to breathe here, than down in the forest
below. Where Nature herself rules, she knows how to guard beauty and
purity, but where man touches her, the former is impaired and the latter
sullied.

It seemed as if the morning sunlight strove to check the smoke from the
smouldering wood, in order to mount freely into the blue sky. Little
clouds floated over the damp, grassy earth, rotting tree-trunks, piles of
wood and heaps of twigs that surrounded the kiln. A moss-grown but stood
at the edge of the forest, and before it sat Ulrich, talking with the
coal-burner. People called this man "Hangemarx," and in truth he looked
in his black rags, like one of those for whom it is a pity that Nature
should deck herself in her Spring garb. He had a broad, peasant face, his
mouth was awry, and his thick yellowish-red hair, which in many places
looked washed out or faded, hung so low over his narrow forehead, that it
wholly concealed it, and touched his bushy, snow-white brows. The eyes
under them needed to be taken on trust, they were so well concealed, but
when they peered through the narrow chink between the rows of lashes, not
even a mote escaped them. Ulrich was shaping an arrow, and meantime
asking the coal-burner numerous questions, and when the latter prepared
to answer, the boy laughed heartily, for before Hangemarx could speak, he
was obliged to straighten his crooked mouth by three jerking motions, in
which his nose and cheeks shared.

An important matter was being discussed between the two strangely
dissimilar companions.

After it grew dark, Ulrich was to come to the charcoal-burner again. Marx
knew where a fine buck couched, and was to drive it towards the boy, that
he might shoot it. The host of the Lamb down in the town needed game, for
his Gretel was to be married on Tues