“He’ll be put in the stocks for a week.  That’s the worst that can befall him.”

“No, no.  Let me alone,—­or I’ll tell Adam what you’re plotting. . . .”

“Then I’ll denounce you first, you gallows’ fruit, you rogue, you poacher.  They’ve suspected you a long time!  Will you change your mind now, you blockhead?”

“Yes, yes; but Ulrich is here too, and the boy is as dear to me as my own child.”

“I’ll come here later, say that no vehicle can be had, and take him away with me.  When it’s all over, I’ll let him go.”

“Then I’ll keep him.  He already helps me as much, as if he were a grown man.  Oh, dear, dear!  The Jew, the gentle man, and the poor women, and the little girl, Ruth. . . .”

“Big Jews and little Jews, nothing more.  You’ve told me yourself, how the Hebrews were persecuted in your dead father’s day.  So we’ll go shares.  There’s a light in the room still.  You’ll detain them.  Count Frohlinger has been at his hunting-box since last evening. . . .  If they insist on moving forward, guide them to the village.”

“And I’ve been an honest man all my life,” whined the poacher, and then continued, threateningly:  “If you harm a hair on Ulrich’s head. . . .”

“Fool that you are!  I’ll willingly leave the big feeder to you.  Go in now, then I’ll come and fetch the boy.  There’s money at stake—­fifteen florins!” Fifteen minutes after, Jorg entered the but.

The smith and the doctor believed the charcoal-burner, when he told them that all the vehicles in the village were in use, but he would find one elsewhere.  They must let the boy go with him, to enquire at the farm-houses in another village.  Somebody would doubtless be found to risk his horses.  The lad looked like a young nobleman, and the peasants would take earnest-money from him.  If he, Jorg, should show them florins, it would get him into a fine scrape.  The people knew he was as poor as a beggar.

The smith asked the poacher’s opinion, and the latter growled: 

“That will, doubtless, be a good plan.”

He said no more, and when Adam held out his hand to the boy, and kissed him on the forehead, and the doctor bade him an affectionate farewell, Marx called himself a Judas, and would gladly have flung the tempting florins to the four winds, but it was too late.

The smith and Lopez heard him call anxiously to Jorg:  “Take good care of the boy!” And when Adam patted him on the shoulder, saying:  “You are a faithful fellow, Marx!” he could have howled like a mastiff and revealed all; but it seemed as if he again felt the rope around his neck, so he kept silence.

CHAPTER X.

The grey dawn was already glimmering, yet neither the expected vehicle nor Jorg had come.  Old Rahel, usually an early riser, was sleeping as soundly as if she had to make up the lost slumber of ten nights; but the smith’s anxiety would no longer allow him to remain in the close room.  Ruth followed him into the open air, and when she timidly touched him—­for there had always been something unapproachable to her in the silent man’s gigantic figure—­he looked at her from head to foot, with strange, questioning sympathy, and then asked suddenly, with a haste unusual to him.