United States or Martinique ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The grey dawn was now peeping in, and the lamp turning pale. Indistinct voices were audible in the castle. Suddenly there was a noise of hurried steps outside. I saw some one pass before the window, the door opened abruptly, and Gideon appeared at the threshold. Sperver's pale face and glowing eyes announced that events were on their way.
There was a calm grandeur in the step of the young countess which seemed to express a consciousness of duty fulfilled. When she had disappeared down the long corridor Gideon turned towards me. "Well, Fritz," he said gravely, "what is your opinion?" I bent my head down without answering. This girl's incredible firmness astonished and bewildered me. Sperver's indignation was mounting.
"Yes, that stranger who came yesterday in the middle of the night." "Well, you must make haste." "Yes, I shall not be long. Before you have done uncorking the bottles I shall be with you again." And he hobbled away as fast as he could. The mention of breakfast had given a different turn to Sperver's thoughts.
I stopped short: was it Sperver's? or Kasper Trumpfs? or whose? I came to it, and you may fancy how astounded I was when I saw that it was nobody from our place! I know every foot in the Schwartzwald from Fribourg to Nideck. That foot was like none of ours. It must have come from a distance.
"That is true enough, Sperver, but it may have been made much later; for instance, at eight or nine." "No, look, there is frost upon it! The fog that freezes on the snow only comes at daybreak. The creature passed here after the sleet and before the fog that is, about three or four this morning." I was astonished at Sperver's exactitude.
Every morning there was the doleful bugle-call of the huntsman, whose occupation was gone; then came a visit to the count; after that breakfast, with Sperver's interminable speculations upon the Black Plague, the incessant gossiping and chattering of Marie Lagoutte, Maître Tobias, and all that pack of idle servants, who had nothing to do but eat and drink, smoke, and go to sleep.
The colour of Marie Lagoutte's cheeks, rather redder even than usual, told of an evening of jollity, and her broad cap-frills seemed as if they were wanting to fly all abroad; she sat laughing, now with one, then with another. Knapwurst, squatting in his arm-chair, with his head on a level with Sperver's elbow, looked like a big pumpkin.
I had just had supper, and was going up into Hugh Lupus's tower completely knocked up, when, passing Sperver's room, whose door was half open, shouts and cries of joy reached my ears. I stopped, when the most jovial spectacle burst upon me. Around the massive oaken table beamed twenty square rosy faces, bright and ruddy with health and fun.
Look at Sperver! why, if Count Ludwig was alive, Sperver's bones would long ago have been rattling in chains; instead of which he is head huntsman at the castle." All my theories were now in a state of disorganisation. I laid my head between my hands and thought a long while. Knapwurst, supposing that I was asleep, had turned to his folio again.
Word Of The Day