art best loved the green forest where
dwelt our uncle Conrad Waldstromer, father to my cousin Gotz, who still
was far abroad.

Now, since I shall have much to tell of this well-beloved kinsman and of
his kith and kin, I will here take leave to make mention that all the
Stromers were descended from a certain knight, Conrad von Reichenbach,
who erewhile had come from his castle of Kammerstein, hard by Schwabach,
as far forth as Nuremberg. There had he married a daughter of the
Waldstromers, and the children and grandchildren, issue of this marriage,
were all named Stromer or Waldstromer. And the style Wald--or
wood--Stromer is to be set down to the fact that this branch had, from a
long past time, heretofore held the dignity of Rangers of the great
forest which is the pride of Nuremberg to this very day. But at the end
of the last century the municipality had bought the offices and dignities
which were theirs by inheritance, both from Waldstromer and eke from
Koler the second ranger; albeit the worshipful council entrusted none
others than a Waldstromer or a Koler with the care of its woods; and in
my young days our Uncle Conrad Waldstromer was chief Forester, and a
right bold hunter.

Whensoever he crossed our threshold meseemed as though the fresh and
wholesome breath of pine-woods was in the air; and when he gave me his
hand it hurt mine, so firm and strong and loving withal was his grip, and
that his heart was the same all men might see. His thick, red-gold hair
and beard, streaked with snowy white, his light, flax-blue eyes and his
green forester's garb, with high tan boots and a cap of otter fur
garnished with the feather of some bird he had slain--all this gave him a
strange, gladsome, and gaudy look. And as the stalwart man stepped forth
with his hanger and hunting-knife at his girdle, followed by his hounds
and badger-dogs, other children might have been affrighted, but to me,
betimes, there was no dearer sight than this of the terrible-looking
forester, who was besides Cousin Gotz's father.

Well, on the second Sunday after Whitsunday, when the apple blossoms were
all shed, my uncle came in to town to bid me and Cousin Maud to the
forest lodge once more; for he ever dwelt there from one Springtide till
the next, albeit he was under a bond to the Council to keep a house in
the city. I was nigh upon seventeen years old; Ann was past seventeen
already, and I would have expressed my joy as freely as heretofore but