'And, that you have brought me here--' said Oswald, forcing into his hand a couple of dollars over and above the fee agreed upon....
'I have already forgotten it,' said the conductor, laughing. 'Besides, when I get into the forest, I intend to load my wagon with wood, which I shall gaily drag into Friedland early in the morning, and nobody will think of asking me what freight I took thence. May God protect you!'
He mounted his wagon and drove rapidly away, while Oswald led his companion into the bar-room. To their great satisfaction it was tolerably empty. Only in one corner of the room snored three men and four large hounds on some straw, and at a table near the gray-headed host, with a goblet before him, sat a large strongly built man in the dress of a Bohemian peasant. Oswald observed the sabre which the guest bore, and the large knife in his girdle, with some suspicion; but the honest lineaments and saddened expression of his brown, haggard face, again inspired him with confidence. He courteously seated himself at the table and called for a glass of wine, while Faith was arranging with the hostess for a supper and accommodations for the night.
'You are in flight on account of your faith, as I hear, my dear sir?' asked the stranger in a voice of the deepest bass, and at the same time glancing at him mistrustfully with his wild, black eyes.
'The time and weather would have been badly chosen for a journey of pleasure,' peevishly answered Dorn.
'You must surely have come from Jauer, or Loewenberg, or Schweidnitz?' further asked the man; 'for they are very strenuously pushing the counter-reformation in those places just now. 'You are by far too curious!' cried Oswald, with displeasure. 'I do not willingly listen to such questions from strangers.'
'It is the business of my office to ask questions, my young gentleman,' thundered the stranger; 'for I am a captain of Bohemian provincial troops, and am stationed here upon the border to guard against the influx of Silesian heretics.'
While he said this, the four hounds sprang up and placed themselves growling before Oswald, and the three men half raised their bodies from the straw, their flashing eyes peering from their dark brown faces, and their well scoured muskets glistening in their hands. Oswald instantly arose and drew his sword.
'Put up your weapon!' the man now cried in an altered tone, seizing his goblet. 'I but wished to be certain of my man. Come, be again quietly seated, and do me justice in a fresh goblet. The Bohemian goose and Silesian swan!'
'Huss and Luther!' cried Oswald touching glasses and emptying his own with a lighter heart, while the hounds and soldiers again stretched themselves upon the straw.