whom life should have had no summer heats nor winter frosts, but only
blossoming spring-tide and happy autumn days.

But now we had got round the wood, and we might see what the cloud of
dust had concealed. Foremost there came a train of waggons loaded
with merchandise and faring southwards, and the first waggon had met a
piled-up load of charcoal coming forth from the forest at a place in
the road where they were pent between a deep ditch on one hand and thick
brushwood and undergrowth on the other; thus neither could turn aside,
and their wheels were so fast locked that they barred the road as it
had been a wall. Thus the second waggon likewise had come to hurt by the
sudden stopping of the first, and it was but hardly saved from turning
over into the ditch. There was a scene of wild turmoil. The waggons
stopped the way, and neither could the rest of the train, nor their
armed outriders, nor our own folks come past, by reason that the ditch
was full deep and the underwood thick. We likewise were compelled to
draw rein and look on while the six fine waggon horses which had but
just come from the stable, their brown coats shining like mirrors,
were unharnessed, and likewise the draughtoxen were taken out of the
charcoal-waggon; which was done with much noise and cursing, and the
brass plates that decked the leathern harness of the big horses jingling
so loud and clear that we might not hear the cries of our kinsfolks.
Nay, it was the plume in Gotz's hat, towering above the throng, which
showed us that they were come.

Now, while Herdegen was vainly urging and spurring his unwilling horse
to leap down into the ditch and get round this fortress of waggons, two
of the others--and I instantly saw that they were Ann and her father,
on horseback--had made their way close to the charcoal waggon; howbeit,
they could get no further by reason that it had lurched half over and
strewed the way with black charcoal-sacks.

My heart beat as though it would crack, and lo, as I looked round to
point them out to Herdegen, he had put forth his last strength to make
his horse take the leap, and could scarce hold himself in the saddle;
his anguish of mind, and the foolish struggle with the wilful horse, had
exhausted the strength of his sickly frame. His face was pale and his
breath came hard as he sat there, on the edge of the ditch, and held his
great hand to his breast as though he were in pain. Hereupon I likewise
felt a deep pang o