The days went by, until already the autumn crocuses began to star with their bright colors the glades among the hills. The time of year had come when the blood of the huntsman begins to tingle in his veins because the best sport of the whole twelvemonth is at hand. The sky mellowed like the winter pears which were showing the first shade of the tawny and russet hue that should cover their cheeks when the time came for their gathering.

Now of nights the Wild Huntsman was often heard riding with mad crew of wood-sprites through the forest; and as the days shortened and the dusk of twilight gathered earlier than before, it happened that not a few of the churls and serfs of the castle caught glimpses of vague forms stealing through the gathering darkness, now on earth and anon in the air, as if the wood-folk were watching what was in progress at Rittenberg with the most careful eagerness. Father Christopher, when these tales came to his hearing, sighed and shook his head. He could easily comprehend that all the wild soulless folk of the wood, whether in league with the powers of darkness or not, might well be interested in the fate of one of their band who from a wood-creature had become human, and, whether they were plotting to do him harm or no, would long to watch how he bore his new powers and his gift of immortality. But withal was Father Christopher troubled in his mind lest these strange sprites might be other than creatures who looked upon Albrecht with wonder and longing. He knew how prone are the wood-folk to do mischief; and as the wild herd will set upon a tame animal though he be of their kind, so it might well be that the unbaptized crew were eager to do harm to one who had deserted their ranks.

More than the doings of the creatures of the forest, however, did the ways at Rittenberg concern the priest. There was day by day a more and more jocund stir in the castle. The countess seemed to drink in animation from the air, which was now chill in the morning, and ever did she become more and more eager in the chase and in all merry-making. The hounds and the hawks were well looked to in these days; and old Rupert, the chief huntsman, whose office had become a mere idle name in the days before the coming of the Baron Albrecht, found himself so busy that he lay down at night on his hard pallet with all his aged bones an ache. He was full of pride in the revival of his art, and he began to boast that the sport was as well followed now as in the days of his former master, the late count; but he sighed to himself now and then when he was alone, and shook his head, wondering whether he should be much longer able to keep up to the pace which was now the custom of the castle. He began to say to himself more and more frequently that he was, after all, an old man, and that it was getting to be time for him to make way for the young fellows he had trained. It made him melancholy enough to consider this possibility, but it was a great comfort to him that the revival of venery at Rittenberg gave him a chance to show those who were to take his place how things should be done, and to prove his own cunning in the chase before he resigned forever the boar-spear which was his badge of office.

For there were gay doings at Rittenberg in these autumn days. The doves that of old had sailed so smoothly and sleepily about the castle towers, had now no rest, so greatly were they excited by the sound of hunting-horn by day and of lute by night, the stir of huntsmen in the courtyard, and the laughter of Erna and her maidens ringing out through the windows of the great hall.

"All the castle," quoth the Lady Adelaide to Father Christopher, "seems to have caught the spirit of the baron. Everybody is full of life now, and Heaven knows we were dull enough before he came. Count Stephen told me that he felt as if he were in the tower of the Sleeping Beauty when he was here."

"The sleeper has awakened," the priest responded, with a smile that was not without some secret shadow. "In truth, the countess and her husband have become so truly one that it is not possible to say that either is gayer than the other. They think alike, and they feel in all things the same."

He spoke reflectively, and even as he spoke there came into his mind a doubt whether his words were exactly true. He had watched with the keenest interest and anxiety the growth of the spiritual in Albrecht, and the gradual humanizing that had been wrought in the kobold by his marriage. He felt profoundly his own responsibility in regard to both the baron and Erna, and the beads of his rosary were growing more and more smooth under his fingers in the days and nights that had sped since the wedding.

He had watched Erna no less carefully than Albrecht, and he was beginning to wonder with some sense of fear how far the influence of her husband was destined to lead her from the condition of innocent and spiritual calm in which the Baron von Waldstein had found her upon that spring day when she had first met him in the great hall. There was nothing in the life of Erna which the priest could look upon with blame, and yet he was vaguely uneasy when he thought of her. He said to himself that he was really only unduly affected by the changes which were natural under the circumstances, and that his charge had only developed; and yet the more he pondered the less was he satisfied. He found Albrecht every day more interested in things which concerned the soul which he had won. Continually he became a deeper student of things spiritual, and less wholly given up to the pursuit of pleasure. Erna, on the other hand, seemed each day more intoxicated with the joy of living, and more absorbed in the delights of the world which belongs to the senses.

"It is natural that husband and wife should become alike," Lady Adelaide answered the last remark of Father Christopher's with an air of the greatest wisdom; "that is, if they are at all in accord. He hath waked her, and she hath toned him down, and it is an improvement on both sides. I must say that taking into account the magnificence of the Morgengabe, I do not see that the countess could possi............