“We must make such rousing fires that the old owls will be scared from their nests among the rocks in their ruined palace. I can’t endure owls. On that horrid night when I saw the fairy Ubfem she took the shape of an owl.”
“By Saint Sylvester!” interrupted Guldon Stayper, turning his head, “the angel of the storm beats his wings most furiously! Take my advice, Captain Kennybol, and set fire to all the pine-trees on the mountain. It would be a fine sight to see an army warm itself with a whole forest.”
“Heaven forbid, my dear Guldon! Think of the deer, and the gerfalcons, and the pheasants! Roast the game, if you will, but do not burn it alive.”
Old Guidon laughed: “Oh, Captain, you are the same devil of a Kennybol,—the wolf of deer, the bear of wolves, and the buffalo of bears!”
“Are we far from Black Pillar?” asked a voice from the huntsmen.
“Comrade,” replied Kennybol, “we shall enter the gorge at nightfall; we shall reach the Four Crosses directly.”
There was a brief silence, during which nothing was heard but the tramp of many feet, the moaning of the wind, and the distant song of the regiment of iron-workers from Lake Miösen.
“Friend Guldon Stayper,” resumed Kennybol, when he had whistled an old hunting-song, “you have just passed a few days at Throndhjem, have you not?”
“Yes, Captain; my brother George, the fisherman, was ill, and I took his place in the boat for a short time, so that his poor family might not starve while he was ill.”
“Well, as you come from Throndhjem, did you happen to see this count, the prisoner—Schumacker—Gleffenhem—what is his name, now? I mean that man in whose behalf we have rebelled against the royal protectorate, and whose arms I suppose you have on that big red flag.”