parted but for whispers only to be heard by her; see it
in her downcast eyes and heightened colour. "'Alas! regardless of
their doom,'" muttered Kenelm, "what trouble those 'little victims'
are preparing for themselves and their progeny! Would I could lend them
Decimus Roach's 'Approach to the Angels'!" The road now for some minutes
became solitary and still, when there was heard to the right a sprightly
sort of carol, half sung, half recited, in musical voice, with a
singularly clear enunciation, so that the words reached Kenelm's ear
distinctly. They ran thus:--

"Black Karl looked forth from his cottage door,
He looked on the forest green;
And down the path, with his dogs before,
Came the Ritter of Neirestein:
Singing, singing, lustily singing,
Down the path with his dogs before,
Came the Ritter of Neirestein."

At a voice so English, attuned to a strain so Germanic, Kenelm pricked
up attentive ears, and, turning his eye down the road, beheld, emerging
from the shade of beeches that overhung the park pales, a figure that
did not altogether harmonize with the idea of a Ritter of Neirestein. It
was, nevertheless, a picturesque figure enough. The man was attired in a
somewhat threadbare suit of Lincoln green, with a high-crowned Tyrolese
hat; a knapsack was slung behind his shoulders, and he was attended by a
white Pomeranian dog, evidently foot-sore, but doing his best to appear
proficient in the chase by limping some yards in advance of his master,
and sniffing into the hedges for rats and mice, and such small deer.

By the time the pedestrian had reached to the close of his refrain he
had gained the fountain, and greeted it with an exclamation of pleasure.
Slipping the knapsack from his shoulder, he filled the iron ladle
attached to the basin. He then called the dog by the name of Max, and
held the ladle for him to drink. Not till the animal had satisfied his
thirst did the master assuage his own. Then, lifting his hat and bathing
his temples and face, the pedestrian seated himself on the bench,
and the dog nestled on the turf at his feet. After a little pause the
wayfarer began again, though in a lower and slower tone, to chant his
refrain, and proceeded, with abrupt snatches, to link the verse on
to another stanza. It was evident that he was either endeavouring to
remember or to invent, and it seemed rather like the latter and more
laborious operation of mind.

"'Why on foot, why on fo