The Hunter felt his youth, his health, his hopes.  He took his position behind a large tree on the edge of the forest.

“Today,” he said, “I will see whether fate can be bent.  I’ll fire only when something comes within three paces of the muzzle, and then if I should miss it, there would needs be magic in it.”

Behind him was the forest, before him the low ground of the “Freemen’s Tribunal,” with its large stones and trees, and over opposite the solitary spot was shut in by yellow corn fields.  In the tree-tops above him the turtle-doves were cooing now and then a faint note, and through the branches of the trees by the “Freemen’s Tribunal” the wild hawk-moths were beginning to whir with their red-green wings.  Gradually the ground in the forest also began to show signs of life.  A hedgehog crept sleepily through the underbrush; a little weasel dragged his supple body forth from a crevice in the rocks no broader than a quill.  Little hares darted with cautious leaps out from the bushes, stopping in front of each to crouch down and lay their ears back, until finally, growing more brave, they mounted the ridge by the cornfield and danced and played together, using their fore paws to strike one another in sport.  The Hunter took care not to disturb these little animals.  Finally a slender roe stepped out of the forest.  Shrewdly thrusting its nose into the wind and glancing around to the right and left out of its big brown eyes, it stalked along on its delicate feet with an easy grace.  The gentle, wild, fleet animal now reached a point just opposite the hidden Hunter’s gun, and so close to him that he could hardly fail to hit it.  He was just about to pull the trigger when the deer took fright, faced about in a different direction, and made a leap straight for the tree behind which the Hunter was standing.  His gun cracked, and the animal, unwounded, made off with a series of mighty leaps into the forest.  But from amid the corn he heard a loud cry, and a few moments afterwards a woman’s form staggered out of the fields on a narrow path which lay in the line of his aim.  The Hunter threw down the gun and rushed toward the form; when he saw who it was he nearly collapsed.

[Illustration:  OSWALD.  THE HUNTER By Benjamin Vautier]

It was the beautiful girl of the flower scene in the woods.  He had hit her instead of the roe!  She was holding one hand over the region between her shoulder and left breast, where the blood was gushing out copiously beneath her kerchief.  Her face was pale, and somewhat drawn, though not distorted, by pain.  She drew a deep breath three times and then said with a soft, weak voice: 

“God be praised!  The wound can’t be very dangerous, for I can draw breath, even though it hurts me.  I will try,” she continued, “to reach the Oberhof, whither I was bound on this short-cut when I had to go and meet with this accident.  Give me your arm.”

He had supported her only a few steps down the hill when she collapsed and said: