It was a low, dark shed leaning against a hollow in the rock.  At the farther end of the natural cavity was a small pile of smouldering sawdust.  In the front the boarded roof, weighted with heavy stones, descended to within three feet of the ground; in a corner at the right, a kind of box, full of dried heather; a few logs of oak, an axe, a massive bench, and other implements of toil, were lost in the shade.  A resinous odour of pine-wood impregnated the air, and the ruddy smoke eddied through a fissure in the rock.

Whilst the good man was observing these objects, the woodman, coming out from the mill, saw him, and cried—­

“Halloo!—­who is that?”

“I beg your pardon; pray pardon me,” said my worthy uncle, rather startled.  “I am a traveller who has lost his way.”

“Hey!” cried the other man; “good guide us!  Is not that Maitre Bernard, of Saverne?  You are very welcome indeed, Maitre Bernard.  Don’t you know me?”

“No, indeed!  How should I in this dark night?”

“Parbleu!—­of course not!  But I am Christian; I bring you your contraband snuff every fortnight.  But come in, come in!  We will soon get a light.”

They passed stooping under the little low door, and the woodman, having lighted a pine-torch, stuck it into a split iron rod to serve as a candlestick, and a bright light, clear and white as moonshine, filled the hut, lighting up every corner of it.

Christian, standing in shirt-sleeves, his broad chest uncovered, and with a pair of canvas trousers hitched up about his hips, looked a good-natured fellow enough; his tawny beard came down in a point to his waist; his huge bull head was covered with bristling brown hair; his small grey eyes inspired confidence.

“Take a seat, master,” he said, rolling a log of wood before the fire.  “Are you hungry?”

“Why, you know, my lad, your mountain air does excite one’s appetite.”

“Very well; you are just in time.  I have got some very good potatoes quite at your service.”

At the mention of potatoes Uncle Bernard could not help grimacing; he remembered, with the longing of affection, old Berbel’s good suppers, and had a difficulty in coming down to the humble realities before him.

Christian seemed to take no notice; he took five or six potatoes out of a sack, and put them into the embers, taking care to cover them entirely; then, sitting down on the hearthstone, he lighted his pipe.

“But just tell me, master, how is it that you are here to-night, at six leagues’ distance from Saverne, in the gorge of Nideck?”

“The gorge of Nideck!” cried my uncle Bernard, springing from his seat in great surprise.

“To be sure!  You may see the ruins from here, about two gunshots distant.”

Master Bernard looked out, and really did recognise the ruins of Nideck, just as he had described them in the twenty-fourth chapter of his History of Alsacian Antiquities, with their high towers crumbling away at the foot, and dominating over the abyss into which the torrent falls.