“They were about half a mile from the highway,” said an elderly woman who was laying some bushes of heath under the kettle.
“Half a mile?” replied a voice from the other side of the cart, and Otto remarked a man who, wrapped in a large gray riding-cloak, had stretched himself out among the heather. “It is not a quarter of a mile to the highway if people know how to direct their course properly!”
The pronunciation of the man was somewhat foreign, but pure, and free from the gibberish which the others employed in their speech. The voice seemed familiar to Otto, his ear weighed each syllable, and his blood ran quicker through his veins: “It is the German Heinrich, the evil angel of my life!” he felt, and wrapt himself closer in his mantle, so that his countenance was concealed.
A half-grown lad came forward and offered himself as a guide.
“But the lad must have two marks!” said the woman.
Otto nodded assent, and glanced once more toward the man in whom he believed he recognized the German Heinrich; the man had again carelessly stretched himself among the heath, and did not seem inclined to enter into farther discourse.
The woman desired the payment in advance, and received it. The boy led the horses toward one side; at the moment the fire flare up between the turf-sods, a great dog, with a loose cord about his neck, sprang forward and ran barking after the carriage, which now travelled on over the heath in the gloomy night.
CHAPTER XXI
“Poetry does not always express sorrow; the rainbow can also
arch across a cloudless blue firmament.”—JEAN PAUL.