"I hear a gentle murmur, like the gurgling of water," said the Professor.
"A stream runs over the stones below," explained Ilse. "Now it is scanty, but in the spring much water collects from the hills. Then the sound of the rushing water becomes loud, and the brook courses wildly over the stones; it covers the meadows below, fills the whole valley, and rises up to the copse-wood. But in warm weather this is a pleasant resting-place for us all. When my father bought the estate the cave was overgrown, the entrance choked up with stones and earth, and it was the abode of owls. He had it opened and cleared."
The Professor examined the cave with curiosity, and struck the red rock with his cane. Ilse standing apart watched him with troubled look. "Now he is beginning his search," she thought.
"It is all old stone," she exclaimed.
The Doctor had been clambering outside the cave with the children. He now freed himself from Hans, who had just confided to him that among the thick alder bushes there was the empty nest of a mountain titmouse.
"This must be a wonderful place for the legends of the country," he exclaimed, with delight; "there cannot be a more charming home for the spirits of the valley."
"People talk absurd stuff about it," rejoined Ilse, with a tone of disapprobation. "They say that little dwarfs dwell here, and that their footsteps can be perceived in the sand, yet the sand was first brought here by my father. Nevertheless, the people are frightened, and when evening comes the women and children of the laborers do not like to pass it. But they conceal this from us, as my father cannot bear superstition."
"The dwarfs are evidently not in favor with you," answered the Doctor.
"As there are none, we ought not to believe in them," replied Ilse, eagerly. "Men ought to believe what the Bible teaches; not in wild beings that, as they say in the village, fly through the wood in the night. Lately an old woman was ill in a neighboring village, no one would bring her any food, and they disgracefully rejoiced in her sickness because they thought the poor woman could change herself into a black cat and injure the cattle. When we first heard of it, the woman was in danger of dying of starvation. This idle talk is therefore wicked."
The Doctor had meanwhile noted down the dwarfs in his note-book; but he looked dissatisfied at Ilse, who, speaking from the dusk in the rear of the cave, resembled a legendary figure.