“Hark ye, William!” said the forester to him in the evening, rousing him from the torpor of grief into which he had fallen; “you must resent this affront as earnestly as myself: nobody shall dare utter falsehoods of our ancestor Kuno, nor accuse him as Rudolph is now doing. “I insist,” continued he, turning again to the latter, “if good angels helped him, (which was very likely, for in the Old Testament we frequently read of instances of their protection,) we ought to be grateful, and praise the wonderful goodness of God. But nobody shall accuse Kuno of practising the black art. He died happily—ay, and holily, in his bed, surrounded by children and grandchildren,—which he who carries on a correspondence with the evil one never does. I saw a terrible example of that myself, when I was a forester’s boy in Bohemia.”
“Let us hear how it happened, good Bertram,” said all the listeners; and the forester nodded gravely, and continued.
“I shiver when I think of it; but I will tell you nevertheless. When a young man, practising with other youths under the chief foresters, there used frequently to join us a town lad, a fine daring fellow, who, being a great lover of field sports, came out to us as often as he
