"I am glad to hear it," replied Ferdinand; "there will be some chance of honour and distinction then."
The Count's brow grew dark. "Ay, foolish youth," he answered, "and what sums of gold will have to be spent, what fair fields ruined, what crops swept away!"
"And what bloodshed!" said Adelaide, in a low tone. "Oh, my father, I hope it will not be!"
"Bloodshed, that's but a small matter," replied her father, with a grim smile. "It does good to these hot youths to bleed them. Is it not so, Seckendorf?"
"Ay, my lord," answered the old knight to whom he spoke; "and as to the gold and the crops, that's no great matter either. Money must be spent, soldiers must live; and it's a pleasant sight to see a troop of bold fellows in a vineyard swilling the fat boor's grapes. I don't let them burn the houses, unless there's resistance; for there's no good in that, if the knaves give up their money and their food."
Adelaide was silent, but as she gazed down, with her beautiful eyes full of deep thought, many a dark image of spoliation and cruelty presented itself to fancy as approaching in the train of war. Her father was silent too; for he knew that his somewhat unknightly love of gold was not likely to raise him in the opinion of his followers; but at length he said, "Well, then, we must prepare, at all events, Seckendorf, if this be the Black Huntsman."
"Ay, that we must, my good lord," replied the old man. "He never comes out without being sure of what he's about. I remember when I was in the Odenwalde, with the lord of Erlach, looking at the book in which is written down each time he has gone forth for these two hundred years--"
"And you couldn't read it if you did look," said the other knight, who was at the same table.
"Ay, I know that," replied Seckendorf; "no one better; so I made the sacristan read to me, and it never failed once, when that Black Horseman went forth, or when the cry of his dogs was heard, that there was war within a twelvemonth. But it is right to be sure that this was he; for it would not do to sit here with the place cooped full of men, fretting ourselves for a year, with the thought of a brave war coming, and then for none to come after all. We should be obliged to have a feud with some friend, just to give the men something to do."
"True, true," answered the Count, with a quick assent; "that would not do at all, Seckendorf. I will go after meat, and inquire more into the affair."