“Who is this that comes to the Dragon’s Dale?”
“I, Johann of the ‘Crown and Bells’;” and Johann’s teeth rattled.
“Have you brought the basket?”
“Surely, holy father; bread and cheese as always on the first of the month.”
“Christ then abide with you and your good parents. In the helmet you will find the accustomed payment. Now leave the basket and depart.”
From the helmet Johann took a silver piece,—a strange coin current amongst the Orient infidels. However, silver was silver; it came from a holy hermit, and Johann’s chief need was a swift gait home; so home he flew, his teeth a-chattering.
For long after his going, absolute silence held the glade; then seemingly out from the precipice emerged a man who walked straight to the basket and lifted it so easily as to convince a grave crow—the sole onlooker—that here was a mortal of wondrous strength. The new-comer moved in long strides which did not belie the mighty proportions of thigh and limb. Over his broad shoulders, scarcely bowed with fast and age, hung a brown sheepskin jerkin, sewed with thongs, descending below the knees and bound with a bit of rope. Feet, neck, arms, were absolutely bare, hairy, and sinewy. How the face looked one might not tell, all hidden as the features were behind the unshorn snow-white hair and beard which veiled almost everything save two marvellously lustrous blue eyes.
Without a word or look to right or left, he lifted the basket, and strode directly toward the rock. Not till the wall was arm’s length away could a stranger have discovered how one boulder thrusting before another opened a passage, narrow, tortuous, dark, betwixt the masses of sandstone. The defile was scarce wide enough for two to pass. Under-foot trickled a shallow stream. The stone walls were mantled with green moss and myriad ferns and harebells. Often the rocks locked closer, throwing the gorge into twilight, or opening, disclosed the grassy hill-slopes fifty feet on high. The solitary went onward, heedless of gloom, until, after following this uncanny path for nigh two hundred yards, the rocks sprang apart, and as by art-magic the long-prisoned sun burst forth, and shot his glory over the greenwood. Instantly all the beeches’ leafy clusters were glistering with diamonds, the sheen of the grassy slopes grew dazzling, the brook flashed on its way, with a rainbow in every ripple, whilst right over the massy Wartburg hung a true “Bow of the Promise” in full splendour.
The stranger mounted the slope, till castle and hills were clear in view; then spoke his first word.
“O dear Lord Jesus Christ, if this Thy present world is fair, how fair must be Thy heavenly world, before which all this shall flee unclean away!”