The speech was not German, but some strange tongue of the East, alien indeed to this northern forest; but the hermit only scanned the sky and valley once, then pressed up the hillside until in a hollow shaded by immemorial pines, and carpeted by their brown needles, there was a hut of wicker and of boughs, and from the damp wood before the entrance a stream of thin smoke crawled upward, whilst at the crunching tread of the hermit a beast started from the dying fire, growled softly, and wagged a bushy tail,—a yellow, white-toothed wolf, who raised his black muzzle to the basket, and mildly sniffed for bread, beseeching with low whines. But the strange man only spoke two sharp words, in the same Eastern tongue.
“Down, Harun!” And the wolf slunk back to the fireside to switch his tail and eye the basket timidly.
The hermit deliberately entered the hut, soon to return with a cake of coarse black bread. Again the wolf started, but the man rebuked him.
“First, we must thank God.”
The man knelt by the fire, and the beast regarded in silence.
“We thank thee, O Father of all mercies, for food and for another day of life in which we may prove ourselves repentant of our sins, and more obedient to Thy will, sic oramus in nomine nostri delecti Domini, Jesu Christi: Amen.”
The “Amen” was answered by a yelp; the wolf rose on his hinder legs. The man broke the cake into halves scrupulously equal, and cast one to the beast who caught it with his teeth, growled gently, and began to devour. His master seemed in no haste to eat. It lacked an hour of evening. The slant sunshine through the trees streamed in a witching brightness. The air grew warm. From the pines bird answered to bird. The man went across the narrow clearing, drew from his girdle a keen knife, and cut a notch upon a sturdy fir. Many notches were there already, some long, some short, forming a kind of reckoning. He scanned them carefully, clearing the moss from some with his fingers.
“Eight years ago, eight years lacking one month,”—he was speaking in the same uncouth tongue—“this same day I had to quit Fulda for this place. The Abbot wished to make me esteemed a saint, and so draw pilgrims to the abbey. About this time I was assailed by the Demon of Spiritual Pride, and thought myself somewhat righteous. Then might I have fallen into his clutches and been burned forever, I and the soul of my Sigismund, but I escaped him, gloria Tibi, Domine!”
The wolf had finished the cake, and gave a low whine to attract attention.
“You may go,” spoke the man, upraising his head, whereat the beast shambled away into the forest, and his master returned by slow steps to the fire.