"Beautiful. We'll have a famous harvest this year, please God."
"I hope so, neighbor. Won't you sit down a minute? It's warm walking."
"Thanks; I will. Holloa! what's the matter over yonder?"
Right opposite them, five thousand feet overhead, towered the dark mass of the Rossberg, the highest of the surrounding mountains. Just as Schwartz spoke, its huge outline seemed to be agitated by a slight tremulous motion, like the nodding of a plume of feathers.
"Well, my friend, what are you staring at? Did you never see the trees shaking in the wind before?"
"Of course; but it seemed to me somehow as if it wasn't only the trees that shook, but the whole mountain."
"You're easily scared," chuckled the old man. "I suppose you're thinking of the old saying that the Rossberg is to fall some day. Bah! they've been saying so ever since I was a child, and it hasn't fallen yet."
Schwartz laughed, and the two friends went on talking. But suddenly the visitor started up with a look of unmistakable terror; and no wonder. His spiked staff, which he had stuck carelessly into the ground beside him when he sat down, was moving to and fro of itself!
"Good gracious! do you see that, Father Kraus? And look at those birds yonder, flying screaming away from the trees on the Rossberg! Something is wrong, say what you will."
At that moment Hans Godrel, the miller, came flying past, shouting: "Run for your lives! The stream's dried up, and that always comes before an earthquake or an avalanche. Run!"