“You can’t know what I would wish.”
“Yes, yes. You would bring your mother back home again.”
“No, I wasn’t thinking of that,” replied Ulrich, flushing scarlet and fixing his eyes on the ground.
“What, then? Tell me; I won’t repeat it.”
“I should like to be one of the count’s squires, and always ride with him when he goes hunting.”
“Oh!” cried Ruth. “That would be the very thing, if I were a boy like you. A squire! But if the word can do everything, it will make you lord of the castle and a powerful count. You can have real velvet clothes, with gay slashes, and a silk bed.”
“And I’ll ride the black stallion, and the forest, with all its stags and deer, will belong to me; as to the people down in the village, I’ll show them!”
Raising his clenched fist and his eyes in menace as he uttered the words, he saw that heavy rain-drops were beginning to fall, and a thunder-shower was rising.
Hastily and skilfully loading himself with several bundles of faggots, he laid some on the little girl’s shoulders, and went down with her towards the valley, paying no heed to the pouring rain, thunder or lightning; but Ruth trembled in every limb.
At the edge of the narrow pass leading to the city they stood still. The moisture was trickling down its steep sides and had gathered into a reddish torrent on the rocky bottom.