The Boy and the Baron

by Adeline Knapp

Then a man’s voice sounded above the noise of the bell. They could not make out its utterance, but something in the hoarse, droning cry chilled the listeners’ hearts. The men within the glade looked at one another in awe.

“Mother of heaven! What may it be?” Elise whispered with white lips to Wulf.

He shook his head, not knowing, when in the opening at the yonder side of the glade a figure showed—a tall, gaunt figure of a man, indeed, but looking rather like some wild thing of the forest.

He was clad for the most part in the skins of beasts with the hair left on, and about his loins was knotted a rope from which hung the iron bell whose clangor had held their attention so long.

“’Tis Bell-Hutten,” whispered Wulf to Elise. “I might have guessed as much, but in truth ne’er saw I him before.”

By now most of the group within the glade knew the man, for the whole countryside knew his history. He was a harmless half-wit who, in years agone, had been as bright and forward as any man until one evil day when he had been hired by a company of merchants to set them through the forest, for such was the business he followed. This he had undertaken, riding the bell-horse at the head of the company; but the caravan had been set upon by robber knights, who spoiled the merchants of their goods. In the affair Hutten, the guide, had been wounded in the head, so that his wits were hurt; and since that day he had wandered in the forest, no man’s man, living such ways as he might, but ever thinking himself estrayed from that company which he led, and seeking it, that he might guide the merchants through the woods.

It was talked among the forest folk and in the villages of the district that the guide had really been faithless and had led his charge into the ambush which those knights had made, and for this reason many feared and shunned the man, even while they pitied him with the rough pity of the time. As to the truth of this harsh belief, however, no man knew, but many, when they heard his bell, which he had taken from the horse he had ridden that day, turned aside and went their ways, crossing themselves and praying to be delivered from the black sin of falseness to friends.

The stranger was plainly taken aback at the sight of the unfriendly-looking men in the open. He had been wailing forth a miserere as he walked, but the words were hushed upon his lips as he stood in his tracks for an instant and then turned to flee.

But the one-armed man did a woeful thing, whereat even Conradt cried out in dismay. Plucking from his belt a short dagger, he hurled it, with a curse upon him for giving them such a fright, after the retreating figure. The dagger struck the half-wit in the back, whereupon he gave a great cry and staggered forward out of sight, while the dastard stood half appalled at his own wickedness.

Then all the robbers turned away from the doer of that foul deed, even the blind men refusing to be led away by him, as was evidently their wont, choosing instead to follow Conradt and the others out into the forest. Left thus to himself, the outcast struck into the woods alone, and soon not a sound could be heard of any of that company.