over.

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 dainty shoe. The sole and the heel were plainly to be seen, and,
hard by, the print of a man's large, broad shoes, with iron-shod heels,
which told Kubbeling that they were those of Uhlwurm's great boots. Yet
though we had not met those we sought, the forest was full of by-ways, by
which they might have crossed us on the road; but nigh to the foot-prints
of the maid and the old man were there three others. The old woodsman
could discern them only too well; they had each and all been made in the
hoar-frost by men's boots. Two, it was certain, had been left by
finely-cut soles, such as are made by skilled city cordwainers; and one
left a track which could only be that of a spur; whereas the third was so
flat and broad that it was for sure that of the shoe of a peasant, or
charcoal burner.

There was a green patch in the