The Man-Wolf and Other Tales | Page 6

country. You know I
have a keen eye for distant objects. At last, amidst the grey mists afar
off, between sky and earth, I can just make out a dark speck. The next
morning that black spot has grown larger. The Count of Nideck goes to
bed with chattering teeth. The next day again we can make out the
figure of the old hag; the fierce attacks begin; the count cries out. The
day after, the witch is at the foot of the mountain, and the consequence
is that the count's jaws are set like a vice; his mouth foams; his eyes
turn in his head. Vile creature! Twenty times I have had her within
gunshot, and the count has bid me shed no blood. 'No, Sperver, no; let
us have no bloodshed.' Poor man, he is sparing the life of the wretch
who is draining his life from him, for she is killing him, Fritz; he is
reduced to skin and bone."
My good friend Gideon was in too great a rage with the unhappy
woman to make it possible to bring him back to calm reason. Besides,
who can draw the limits around the region of possibility? Every day we
see the range of reality extending more widely. Unseen and unknown
influences, marvellous correspondences, invisible bonds, some kind of
mysterious magnetism, are, on the one hand, proclaimed as undoubted
facts, and denied on the other with irony and scepticism, and yet who
can say that after a while there will not be some astonishing revelations
breaking in in the midst of us all when we least expect it? In the midst
of so much ignorance it seems easy to lay a claim to wisdom and

shrewdness.
I therefore only begged Sperver to moderate his anger, and by no
means to fire upon the Black Plague, warning him that such a
proceeding would bring serious misfortune upon him.
"Pooh!" he cried; "at the very worst they could but hang me."
But that, I remarked, was a good deal for an honest man to suffer.
"Not at all," he cried; "it is but one kind of death out of many. You are
suffocated, that is all. I would just as soon die of that as of a hammer
falling on my head, as in apoplexy, or not to be able to sleep, or smoke,
or swallow, or digest my food."
"You, Gideon, with your grey beard, you have learnt a peculiar mode
of reasoning."
"Grey beard or not, that is my way of seeing things. I always keep a
ball in my double-barrelled gun at the witch's service; from time to time
I put in a fresh charge, and if I get the chance--"
He only added an expressive gesture.
"Quite wrong, Sperver, quite wrong. I agree with the Count of Nideck,
and I say no bloodshed. Oceans cannot wipe away blood shed in anger.
Think of that, and discharge that barrel against the first boar you meet."
These words seemed to make some impression upon the old huntsman;
he hung down his head and looked thoughtful.
We were then climbing the wooded steeps which separate the poor
village of Tiefenbach from the Castle of Nideck.
Night had closed in. As it always happens with us after a bright clear
winter's day, snow was again beginning to fall, heavy flakes dropped
and melted upon our horses' manes, who were beginning now to pluck
up their spirits at the near prospect of the comfortable stable.

Now and then Sperver looked over his shoulder with evident
uneasiness; and I myself was not altogether free from a feeling of
apprehension in thinking of the strange account which the huntsman
had given me of his master's complaint.
Besides all this, there is a certain harmony between external nature and
the spirit of a man, and I know of nothing more depressing than a
gloomy forest loaded in every branch with thick snow and hoar frost,
and moaning in the north wind. The gaunt and weird-looking trunks of
the tall pines and the gnarled and massive oaks look mournfully upon
you, and fill you with melancholy thoughts.
As we ascended the rocky eminence the oaks became fewer, and
scattered birches, straight and white as marble pillars, divided the dark
green of the forest pines, when in a moment, as we issued from a
thicket, the ancient stronghold stood before us in a heavy mass, its dark
surface studded with brilliant points of light.
Sperver had pulled up before a deep gateway between two towers,
barred in by an iron grating.
"Here we are," he cried, throwing the reins on the horses' necks.
He laid hold of the deer's-foot bell-handle, and the clear sound of a bell
broke the stillness.
After waiting a few minutes the light of