The mother looked for the little ones, and brought them their evening luncheon.  “It is warm,” said the boy; and Mary eagerly reached out for the red cherries.

“Have a care, children,” said the mother, “and do not run too far from home, or into the wood; father and I are going to the fields.”

Little Andrew answered:  “Never fear, the wood frightens us; we shall sit here by the house, where there are people near us.”

The mother went in, and soon came out again with her husband.  They locked the door, and turned toward the fields to look after their laborers and see their hay-harvest in the meadow.  Their house lay upon a little green height, encircled by a pretty ring of paling, which likewise inclosed their fruit and flower-garden.  The hamlet stretched somewhat deeper down, and on the other side lay the castle of the Count.  Martin rented the large farm from this nobleman, and was living in contentment with his wife and only child; for he yearly saved some money, and had the prospect of becoming a man of substance by his industry, for the ground was productive, and the Count not illiberal.

As he walked with his wife to the fields, he gazed cheerfully round, and said:  “What a different look this quarter has, Brigitta, from the place we lived in formerly!  Here it is all so green; the whole village is bedecked with thick-spreading fruit-trees; the ground is full of beautiful herbs and flowers; all the houses are cheerful and cleanly, the inhabitants are at their ease:  nay, I could almost fancy that the woods are greener here than elsewhere, and the sky bluer; and, so far as the eye can reach, you have pleasure and delight in beholding the bountiful Earth.”

“And whenever you cross the stream,” said Brigitta, “you are, as it were, in another world, all is so dreary and withered; but every traveler declares that our village is the fairest in the country, far or near.”

“All but that fir-ground,” said her husband; “do but look back to it, how dark and dismal that solitary spot is lying in the gay scene—­the dingy fir-trees, with the smoky huts behind them, the ruined stalls, the brook flowing past with a sluggish melancholy.”

“It is true,” replied Brigitta; “if you but approach that spot, you grow disconsolate and sad, you know not why.  What sort of people can they be that live there, and keep themselves so separate from the rest of us, as if they had an evil conscience?”

“A miserable crew,” replied the young farmer; “gipsies, seemingly, that steal and cheat in other quarters, and have their hoard and hiding-place here.  I wonder only that his lordship suffers them.”

“Who knows,” said the wife, with an accent of pity, “but perhaps they may be poor people, wishing, out of shame, to conceal their poverty; for, after all, no one can say aught ill of them; the only thing is, that they do not go to church, and none knows how they live; for the little garden, which indeed seems altogether waste, cannot possibly support them; and fields they have none.”