ney at stake--fifteen
florins!" Fifteen minutes after, Jorg entered the but.

The smith and the doctor believed the charcoal-burner, when he told them
that all the vehicles in the village were in use, but he would find one
elsewhere. They must let the boy go with him, to enquire at the
farm-houses in another village. Somebody would doubtless be found to risk
his horses. The lad looked like a young nobleman, and the peasants would
take earnest-money from him. If he, Jorg, should show them florins, it
would get him into a fine scrape. The people knew he was as poor as a
beggar.

The smith asked the poacher's opinion, and the latter growled:

"That will, doubtless, be a good plan."

He said no more, and when Adam held out his hand to the boy, and kissed
him on the forehead, and the doctor bade him an affectionate farewell,
Marx called himself a Judas, and would gladly have flung the tempting
florins to the four winds, but it was too late.

The smith and Lopez heard him call anxiously to Jorg: "Take good care of
the boy!" And when Adam patted him on the shoulder, saying: "You are a
faithful fellow, Marx!" he could have howled like a mastiff and revealed
all; but it seemed as if he again felt the rope around his neck, so he
kept silence.

CHAPTER X.

The grey dawn was already glimmering, yet neither the expected vehicle
nor Jorg had come. Old Rahel, usually an early riser, was sleeping as
soundly as if she had to make up the lost slumber of ten nights; but the
smith's anxiety would no longer allow him to remain in the close room.
Ruth followed him into the open air, and when she timidly touched
him--for there had always been something unapproachable to her in the
silent man's gigantic figure--he looked at her from head to foot, with
strange, questioning sympathy, and then asked suddenly, with a haste
unusual to him.

"Has your father told you about Jesus Christ?"

"Often!" replied Ruth.

"And do you love Him?"

"Dearly. Father says He loved all children, and called them to Him."

"Of course, of course!" replied the smith, blushing with shame for his
own distrust.

The doctor did not follow the others, and as soon as his wife saw that
they were alone, she beckoned to him.

Lopez sat down on the couch beside her, and took her hand. The slender
fingers trembled in his clasp, and when, with loving anxiety, he drew her
towards him, he felt the tremor of her delicate limbs, while her eyes
expressed bitter