And now he could not shake off the new idea: he would not find her. As if she would hide herself from him, and he would be obliged to seek her in vain because it was too dark.
Or was all this only nonsense, such as arises in the confused brain of a man who for hours has jolted alone in a damp chaise, over rough country roads, staring out into the murky atmosphere, which grew grayer and denser every minute. Was it the terrible type of a terrible possibility. Hinrich Scheel had taken Brandow's horse when he came home, and two hours after Hinrich Scheel had disappeared. Now he had been at home at least four hours; so he had had twice as much time.
Gotthold tore away the curtain which was still fastened on one side; it seemed as if he was suffocating. At last! there was the smithy close before him; he would see and speak to the worthy Prebrows; they lived so near that they could surely tell him they had seen and spoken to her a short time before.
The smithy was lonely and deserted; several hours must have passed since the bellows, had been used: a thick covering of ashes lay over the dead coals. It seemed as if the father and son, who lived alone in the old-fashioned little house, had just run away from their work. The piece of iron they had last been forging still lay on the anvil, the pincers and hammer were close beside it on the ground, as if they had been suddenly thrown down to rush out of the door, which stood wide open. The driver was very indignant; one of the springs of the chaise was almost broken. He had depended upon getting the injury repaired here so that it should go no farther. Gotthold told the lad to follow him slowly, he would go forward on foot.
He could not have waited a moment longer; the sight of the deserted smithy had infinitely increased the terrible anxiety which had tortured him all the way. He hurried up the ascending road over the moor, without heeding the rain that the wind drove into his face with redoubled violence as he walked hastily on, his eyes always fixed upon the nearest hillock which lay before him, and seemed inaccessible. Then he stood panting for breath on the top of the slope, but his view on the right was no clearer; a gray mist from the morass floated nearer and nearer, was so near already that the rugged side of the next hillock gleamed very dimly through the drizzling vapor, and he scarcely recognized the scene of the accident. On reaching the bottom he remembered that by keeping close to the edge one might pass between the hill and morass, so he left the height on the left, and took that course.
But as he turned towards the marsh he entered farther and farther into the fog that had now spread over the bog like a heaving gray sea, and whirled against the steep acclivity like surges dashed by a violent wind against the cliffs.
While the height on the left obstructed his view, and on the right he gazed into the gray mist, which scarcely permitted him to see where to set his feet, the terrible dread increased at every step; it seemed as if every moment the misty curtain must rise to reveal the horrible picture it now concealed, and the height against which it pressed was only there that he might not escape the scene. And there it was!
Gotthold stood trembling and staring into the mist with eyes fairly starting from their sockets. It could have been nothing but a trick of his over-excited fancy, for he now saw nothing, nothing at all, and yet he had seen it with perfect distinctness: four or five figures standing in a circle, thrusting long poles into the morass--misty spectres!
No, no; no spectres! Or else ghosts could speak with human voices, which he clearly distinguished, although he could not understand the words, and now he even caught a few.
"Could it possibly be here?"