CHAPTER III.
MY FIRST NIGHT IN HUGH'S TOWER.
We ate with the ravenous appetite which a ten hours' ride through the snows of the Black Forest would be likely to impart. Sperver attacked, in turn, the kid, the pheasants, and the pike, murmuring, with his mouth full, "Thank God for the woods, the heather, and the ponds." Then, leaning over the back of his chair and seizing the first bottle that came under his hand, he added, "And for the hillsides, green in spring and purple in autumn. Your health, Gaston!"
The fire crackled, the forks jingled, the bottles gurgled, and the glasses clinked, while outside the wind of the winter night, the blast from the snow-bound mountains, sang its unearthly hymn,—the hymn that it sings when storm-driven, fantastic cloud-shapes rush across the sky and obscure from moment to moment the pale face of the moon.
We continued our grateful meal. Sperver filled the "wieder komm" with old Brumberg wine, whose sparkling froth bordered its generous edges, and, handing it to me, he cried, "Here's to the recovery of Hermann of Nideck, my noble master! Drink to the last drop, Gaston, that your prayer may be heard."
This was done; then, refilling the bowl, he drained it in his turn.
A sense of satisfaction took possession of us. We felt at peace with all the world. I sprawled out in my chair with my head thrown back and my arms hanging down, and began to study my apartment. It was a low, arched chamber cut out of the live rock, shaped like an oval, and measuring in the highest part not more than twelve feet. At the further end I perceived a sort of alcove, and in it a bed resting on the floor, and covered, as nearly as I could make out, with a bearskin robe. Still further back was another and smaller niche, with a statue of the Virgin cut out of the same piece of granite and crowned with a bunch of withered grass.
"You are studying your chamber," said Sperver; "it is not as large nor as luxurious as the rooms of the Castle. We are now in Hugh's Tower, and it is as old as the mountain itself. It dates back to the time of Charlemagne. In those days the people didn't understand the art of building lofty, spacious dwellings; they cut right into the solid rock."
"That served the purpose as well; but it is an odd corner that you have stuck me in, Gideon."