Soon there were just two times in the day for the Hunter, an unhappy and a happy one.  The unhappy time was when Lisbeth was helping the bride with her linen—­and this she did every day.  The Hunter then was absolutely at a loss what to do with his time.  The happy time, on the other hand, began when Lisbeth rested from her work and took the fresh air.  It was then certain that the two would come together, the Hunter and she.  And were he ever so far away behind the bushes, it would always seem as if somebody were saying to him, “Lisbeth is now outdoors.”  Then he would fly to the place where he suspected she was, and behold! his suspicions had not deceived him, for even from a distance he would catch sight of her slender form and pretty face.  Then she would always bend over sideways after a flower, as if she were not aware of his approach.  But beforehand, to be sure, she had looked in the direction from which he was coming.

And now they would walk together through field and meadow, for he would beg her so earnestly to do it that it seemed almost sinful to her to refuse him so small a request.  The further away from the Oberhof they wandered in the waving fields and green meadows, the more free and happy would their spirits grow.  When the red, setting sun lighted up everything about them, including their own youthful forms, it seemed to them as if anxiety and pain could never enter into their lives again.

On these walks the Hunter would do everything possible to please Lisbeth that he could guess from her eyes she wanted him to do.  If she happened accidentally to look toward a cluster of wild field-flowers that were blooming on a high hedge at some distance from the road, before the wish to have them had even had time to enter her mind, he had swung himself up on the hedge.  And in places where the road dropped off somewhat abruptly, or where a stone lay in their way, or where it was necessary for them to cross an insignificant bit of water, he would stretch out his arm to lead and support her, while she would laugh over this unnecessary readiness to help.  Nevertheless she would accept his arm, and permit her own to rest in it for a while, even after the road had become level again.  On these quiet, pleasant walks the young souls had a great deal to impart to each other.  He told her all about the Suabian mountains, the great Neckar, the Alps, the Murg Valley, and the Hohenstaufen Mountain on which the illustrious imperial family, whose deeds he related to her, originated.  Then he would speak of the great city where he had studied, and of the many clever people whose acquaintance he had made there.  Finally, he told her about his mother, how tenderly he had loved her, and how it was perhaps for that reason that he afterwards came to cherish and revere all women more, because each one of them made him think of his own deceased mother.