CHAPTER I.

“A word, only a word!” cried a fresh, boyish voice, then two hands were loudly clapped and a gay laugh echoed through the forest.  Hitherto silence had reigned under the boughs of the pines and tops of the beeches, but now a wood-pigeon joined in the lad’s laugh, and a jay, startled by the clapping of hands, spread its brown wings, delicately flecked with blue, and soared from one pine to another.

Spring had entered the Black Forest a few weeks before.  May was just over, yet the weather was as sultry as in midsummer and clouds were gathering in denser and denser masses.  The sun was still some distance above the horizon, but the valley was so narrow that the day star had disappeared, before making its majestic entry into the portals of night.

When it set in a clear sky, it only gilded the border of pine trees on the crest of the lofty western heights; to-day it was invisible, and the occasional, quickly interrupted twittering of the birds seemed more in harmony with the threatening clouds and sultry atmosphere than the lad’s gay laughter.

Every living creature seemed to be holding its breath in anxious suspense, but Ulrich once more laughed joyously, then bracing his bare knee against a bundle of faggots, cried: 

“Give me that stick, Ruth, that I may tie it up.  How dry the stuff is, and how it snaps!  A word!  To sit over books all day long for one stupid word—­that’s just nonsense!”

“But all words are not alike,” replied the girl.

“Piff is paff, and paff is puff!” laughed Ulrich.  “When I snap the twigs, you always hear them say ‘knack, knack,’ and ‘knack’ is a word too.  The juggler Caspar’s magpie, can say twenty.”

“But father said so,” replied Ruth, arranging the dry sticks.  “He toils hard, but not for gold and gain, to find the right words.  You are always wanting to know what he is looking for in his big books, so I plucked up courage to ask him, and now I know.  I suppose he saw I was astonished, for he smiled just as he does when you have asked some foolish question at lessons, and added that a word was no trifling thing and should not be despised, for God had made the world out of one single word.”

Ulrich shook his head, and after pondering a few minutes, replied.

“Do you believe that?”

“Father said so,” was the little girl’s only answer.  Her words expressed the firm, immovable security of childish confidence, and the same feeling sparkled in her eyes.  She was probably about nine years old, and in every respect a perfect contrast to her companion, her senior by several summers, for the latter was strongly built, and from beneath his beautiful fair locks a pair of big blue eyes flashed defiance at the world, while Ruth was a delicate little creature, with slender limbs, pale cheeks, and coal-black hair.