The Northern Light | Page 8

a new bait on his hook and for a few minutes there was perfect silence.
Then suddenly something black swooped down like a flash of lightning from the height above them into the water, and a second later rose again in the air with the slippery, glittering prey in its beak.
"Bravo, that was a good catch!" cried Hartmut, rising. But Will spoke angrily.
"The wretched robber robs our whole pond. I will speak to the forester and tell him to fill him full of lead."
"A robber?" repeated Hartmut, as his glance followed the heron who was just disappearing behind the high tree tops. "Yes, of course, but how fine it must be to live such a free robber's life up there in the air. To descend like a flash for your booty and be up and off again where no one can follow; that's a hunt that pays."
"Hartmut, I verily believe you'd take pleasure in such a wild, lawless life," said Willibald, with the repugnance of a well-trained boy for such sentiments.
His companion laughed, but it was the same bitter laugh without the joyousness of youth in its sound.
"Well, if I had any such desire, they'd take it out of me at the military academy. There obedience and discipline is the Alpha and Omega of all things. Will, have you never wished that you had wings?"
"I, wings?" asked Will, whose whole attention was again directed to his bait. "How ridiculous! Who would wish for impossibilities?"
"I only wish I had them," cried Hartmut excitedly. "I would I were one of the falcons from whom we take our name. Then I would mount higher and always higher in the blue sky towards the sun, and never come back again."
"I believe you're crazy," answered his listener good-naturedly. "Well, I wont catch anything, if I sit here all day, for the fish wont bite. I must move to another place."
With that he gathered up his fishing tackle and crossed to the other side of the pond, while Hartmut threw himself on the ground again.
It was one of those autumn days which during the midday hours recall thoughts of early spring. The sunshine was so golden, the air so mild, the woods so fresh and odorous. Upon the glistening little lake danced thousands of shining sparks, and the long grass whispered softly and mysteriously to itself whenever a breath of wind passed over it.
Hartmut lay stretched out motionless on the grass as if listening to the secrets it told to the autumnal wind. The wild passion and excitement which flashed from his eyes when he spoke of the bird of prey had all vanished. Now the eyes which looked into the heavens above were sad and dreamy, and there rested in them an expression of ardent longing.
A light step, almost unheard on the soft ground, approached, and the low bushes rustled as if against a silk garment. Then they parted and a woman's figure appeared and stood looking intently at the young dreamer.
"Hartmut!"
The boy started and sprang up instantly. He knew neither the voice nor the apparition which stood before him, but saw it was a lady, and he made her one of his courtly bows.
"Pardon, Madame--"
A slender, trembling hand was laid quickly and restrainingly on his arm.
"Be quiet, not so loud; your companion might hear us, and I want to speak to you, and to you alone, Hartmut."
She stepped back again into the thicket and motioned him to follow. Hartmut hesitated a moment. How came this heavily-veiled and richly-attired stranger into the lonely wood, and why did she speak so familiarly to him whom she had never seen before? But the mysteriousness of her behavior beginning to charm him, he followed.
She stood now in the shadow of the low trees, where she could not be seen from the lake, and slowly threw back her veil. She was not very young, a woman of more than thirty, but her face with its great burning eyes, possessed an indefinable witchery, and a certain charm lay in her voice, which, though she talked in whispers, had a soft, deep tone, and an odd intonation, as though the German which she spoke so fluently was not her mother tongue.
"Hartmut, look at me. Do you really not know me any more? Does no memory of your childhood come back to you, to tell you who I am?"
The young man shook his head slowly, and yet some dreamy and obscure memory did come to his recollection, of having heard this voice before, and of this face which had looked into his at some far distant period. Half shy, half fascinated, he stood looking at this stranger, who suddenly threw her arms around him.
"My son, my only child! Do you not know your own mother?"
"My mother is dead," he answered, half aloud.
The stranger