“We have not time for that,” replied the Prince; “but if you would oblige us with a cup of wine without here, you will give a pleasure and a service, both in one.”
The miller once more coloured to the nape. He hastened to bring forth wine in a pitcher and three bright crystal tumblers. “Your Highness must not suppose,” he said, as he filled them, “that I am an habitual drinker. The time when I had the misfortune to encounter you, I was a trifle overtaken, I allow; but a more sober man than I am in my ordinary, I do not know where you are to look for; and even this glass that I drink to you (and to the lady) is quite an unusual recreation.”
The wine was drunk with due rustic courtesies; and then, refusing further hospitality, Otto and Seraphina once more proceeded to descend the glen, which now began to open and to be invaded by the taller trees.
“I owed that man a reparation,” said the Prince; “for when we met I was in the wrong and put a sore affront upon him. I judge by myself, perhaps; but I begin to think that no one is the better for a humiliation.”
“But some have to be taught so,” she replied.
“Well, well,” he said, with a painful embarrassment. “Well, well. But let us think of safety. My miller is all very good, but I do not pin my faith to him. To follow down this stream will bring us, but after innumerable windings, to my house. Here, up this glade, there lies a cross-cut—the world’s end for solitude—the very deer scarce visit it. Are you too tired, or could you pass that way?”
“Choose the path, Otto. I will follow you,” she said.
“No,” he replied, with a singular imbecility of manner and appearance, “but I meant the path was rough. It lies, all the way, by glade and dingle, and the dingles are both deep and thorny.”
“Lead on,” she said. “Are you not Otto the Hunter?”
They had now burst across a veil of underwood, and were come into a lawn among the forest, very green and innocent, and solemnly surrounded by trees. Otto paused on the margin, looking about him with delight; then his glance returned to Seraphina, as she stood framed in that silvan pleasantness and looking at her husband with undecipherable eyes. A weakness both of the body and mind fell on him like beginnings of sleep; the cords of his activity were relaxed, his eyes clung to her. “Let us rest,” he said; and he made her sit down, and himself sat down beside her on the slope of an inconsiderable mound.