y to the south was a haunt for crows such
as I never have seen again since; the black birds flew round and about
it in dark clouds with loud shrieks, as though in its midst stood a
charnel and gallows, and from the brushwood likewise, by the pool's
edge, came other cries of birds, all as full of complaining as though
they were bewailing the griefs of the whole world.

Here we stayed our horses, and called and shouted; but none made answer,
save only toads and crows. "This is the place, for certain," said Young
Kubbeling, and Grubner the head forester, sprang to his feet to help
him down from his tall mare. The gentlemen likewise dismounted, and
were about to follow the Trunswicker across the mead to the place where
Eppelein had been found; but he bid them not, inasmuch as they would mar
the track he would fain discover.

They, then, stood still and gazed after him, as I did likewise; and my
fears waxed greater till I verily believed that the crows were indeed
birds of ill-omen, as I saw a large black swarm of them wheel croaking
round Kubbeling. He, meanwhile, stooped low, seeking any traces on the
frosted grass, and his short, thick-set body seemed for all the world
one of the imps, or pixies, which dwell among the roots of trees and
in the holes in the rocks. He crept about with heedful care and never a
word, prying as he went, and presently I could see that he shook his
big head as though in doubt, nay, or in sorrow. I shuddered again, and
meseemed the grey clouds in the sky waxed blacker, while deathly pale
airy forms floated through the mist over the pools, in long, waving
winding-sheets. The thick black heads of the bulrushes stood up
motionless like grave-stones, and the grey silken tufts of the
bog-grass, fluttering in the cold breath of a November morning, were as
ghostly hands, threatening or warning me.

Ere long I was to forget the crows, and the fogs, and the reed-grass,
and all the foolish fears that possessed me, by reason of a real and
well-founded terror; again did Kubbeling shake his head, and then I
heard him call to my Uncle Conrad and Grubner the headforester, to come
close to him, but to tread carefully. Then they stood at his side, and
they likewise stooped low and then my uncle clasped his hands, and he
cried in horror, "Merciful Heaven!"

In two minutes I had run on tip-toe across the damp, frosted grass to
join them, and there, sure enough, I could see full plainly the mark of
a woman's dai