Lisbeth, while they were waiting for the doctor, had been very calm; she had scarcely uttered a complaint, although her face, which was deathly pale, betrayed the fact that she was suffering pain. Even the operation, which the surgeon's clumsy hand caused to be more painful than was necessary, she had undergone bravely. She asked for the shot and presented them jokingly to the Hunter. They were "sure shot," she said to him—he should keep them, and they would bring him luck.
The Hunter accepted the "sure shot," wrapped them in a piece of paper, and gently withdrew his beautiful victim's head from his encircling arms to let her sleep. In these arms Lisbeth had rested with her pain, as up on the "Open Tribunal," ever since entering the room in the Oberhof. With sorrowful eyes he had gazed fixedly into her face, and had now and then met a friendly return-glance, which she directed up to him as if to comfort him.
He went out into the open. It was impossible for him to leave the Oberhof now; he had, he said, to await the recovery of the poor wounded girl, for human nature, he added, demanded that much. In the orchard he found the Justice, who, having found out that there was no danger, had gone on about his business as if nothing had happened. He asked the old man to furnish him with quarters for a longer stay. The Justice bethought himself, but knew of no room to accommodate the Hunter. "And even if it is only a corner in the corn-loft!" cried the Hunter, who was awaiting the decision of his old host as if his fate depended on it. After much deliberation it finally occurred to the Justice that there was a corner in the corn-loft, where he stored grain when the harvest turned out too abundant for the usual storing-places. At that time it was empty, and to it the old man now conducted his young guest, adding, however, that he would probably not like it up there. The Hunter went up, and although the bare and depressing room received its small amount of light only through a hole in the roof, and there was nothing but a board and a chest to sit on, nevertheless he was well satisfied. "For," he said, "it is all the same to me, if I can only remain here until I feel certain that I haven't done any lasting damage with my accursed shooting. The weather is fine, and I shan't need to be up here much of the time."
And, as a matter of fact, he was not up there in his nook much of the time, but down with Lisbeth. He begged her forgiveness for his act so often that she grew impatient, and told him, with a frown of annoyance which became her very well, to just stop it. After five days the wound had completely healed, the bandage could be removed, and light reddish spots on her white shoulder were all that remained to show the place of the injury.
She remained at the Oberhof, for the Justice had previously invited her to the wedding. This event was postponed a few days because the dowry would not be ready at the time appointed. The Hunter remained too, although the Justice did not invite him. He invited himself to the wedding, however, by saying to the old man one day that the customs of the country seemed to him so remarkable that he wished to learn what they were on the occasion of a wedding.
Soon there were just two times in the day for the Hunter, an unhappy and a happy one. The unhappy time was when Lisbeth was helping the bride with her linen—and this she did every day. The Hunter then was absolutely at a loss what to do with his time. The happy time, on the other hand, began when Lisbeth rested from her work and took the fresh air. It was then certain that the two would come together, the Hunter and she. And were he ever so far away behind the bushes, it would always seem as if somebody were saying to him, "Lisbeth is now outdoors." Then he would fly to the place where he suspected she was, and behold! his suspicions had not deceived him, for even from a distance he would catch sight of her slender form and pretty face. Then she would always bend over sideways after a flower, as if she were not aware of his approach. But beforehand, to be sure, she had looked in the direction from which he was coming.
And now they would walk together through field and meadow, for he would beg her so earnestly to do it that it seemed almost sinful to her to refuse him so small a request. The further away from the Oberhof they wandered in the waving fields and green meadows, the more free and happy would their spirits grow. When the red, setting sun lighted up everything about them, including their own youthful forms, it seemed to them as if anxiety and pain could never enter into their lives again.
On these walks the Hunter would do everything possible to please Lisbeth that he could guess from her eyes she wanted him to do. If she happened accidentally to look toward a cluster of wild field-flowers that were blooming on a high hedge at some distance from the road, before the wish to have them had even had time to enter her mind, he had swung himself up on the hedge. And in places where the road dropped off somewhat abruptly, or where a stone lay in their way, or where it was necessary for them to cross an insignificant bit of water, he would stretch out his arm to lead and support her, while she would laugh over this unnecessary readiness to help. Nevertheless she would accept his arm, and permit her own to rest in it for a while, even after the road had become level again. On these quiet, pleasant walks the young souls had a great deal to impart to each other. He told her all about the Suabian mountains, the great Neckar, the Alps, the Murg Valley, and the Hohenstaufen Mountain on which the illustrious imperial family, whose deeds he related to her, originated. Then he would speak of the great city where he had studied, and of the many clever people whose acquaintance he had made there. Finally, he told her about his mother, how tenderly he had loved her, and how it was perhaps for that reason that he afterwards came to cherish and revere all women more, because each one of them made him think of his own deceased mother.
Lisbeth, on the other hand, had only the story of her own simple life to tell him. In it there were no big cities, no clever people, and, alas, no mother! And yet he thought he had never heard anything more beautiful. For every menial service which she had performed, she had rendered noble by love. Of the young lady and the Baron she had a thousand touching things to tell, in all the little haunts in and behind the castle garden she had had adventures to relate, and she had read in the books which she had secretly brought down from the garret all sorts of astounding things about strange peoples and countries and remarkable occurrences on land and water—and all this she had retained in her memory.
Thus their days at the Oberhof passed, one after the other. The Justice, to be sure, looked upon it all with different eyes, but was, of course, obliged to let things which he could not prevent go on. But he often shook his head when he saw his young guests walking and talking with each other so much, and would say to himself: "It isn't right for a young nobleman like that!"