Christian seemed to take no notice; he took five or six potatoes out of a sack, and put them into the embers, taking care to cover them entirely; then, sitting down on the hearthstone, he lighted his pipe.
"But just tell me, master, how is it that you are here to-night, at six leagues' distance from Saverne, in the gorge of Nideck?"
"The gorge of Nideck!" cried my uncle Bernard, springing from his seat in great surprise.
"To be sure! You may see the ruins from here, about two gunshots distant."
Master Bernard looked out, and really did recognise the ruins of Nideck, just as he had described them in the twenty-fourth chapter of his History of Alsacian Antiquities, with their high towers crumbling away at the foot, and dominating over the abyss into which the torrent falls.
"But I thought I was near Haslach!" he cried with amazement.
The woodcutter burst out laughing.
"Haslach!—you are two leagues away from it! I see how it is. You went wrong at the old oak-tree. You took the right instead of the left path. When you are in the woods you must look well about you. A few yards wrong at starting come to leagues at the end!"
Bernard Hertzog at this discovery was in consternation.
"Six leagues from Saverne," he murmured, "and all mountains!—and if I have to go two more to-morrow, that will be eight!"