After having thus vowed, William sunk exhausted in body, but somewhat tranquillized in mind, into the arms of sleep.
The duke’s commissioner presented himself at the cottage next morning, and proposed, before the trial-shot, to make a small hunting-party with the young forester. “It is quite right,” he remarked, “that the old solemnity should be kept up; but a Jäger’s ball is best proved within the broad forest itself.”
William turned pale at this proposal, and begged that he might at least be allowed his trial-shot first. But old Bertram shook his head significantly, and William yielding to his fate, withdrew instantly, and in a few minutes appeared ready accoutred for the chase.
The old forester tried to suppress his rising misgivings of heart, but in vain,—they overmastered all his strength; and Katherine caught her father’s sadness, and moved about the house performing her work listlessly and almost unconsciously like a person in a dream. “Might not the trial be put off?” asked the maiden inquiringly at her father. “I have thought of that too,” replied the latter, “but—” here he checked himself and remained silent.
The priest now entered the cottage, and reminded the bride of her bridal-garland: the mother had locked it up in a drawer, and hastily attempting to open it injured the lock, so that it could not be got at. A child was therefore sent a neighbouring village to purchase another garland for the bride. “Be sure to bring the finest they have,” called the bride’s mother after the child, who in obedience to this direction, in its simplicity, pitched upon a funeral gardland of
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