But the game in Rudolstadt had become a veritable torment, which destroyed the husbandmen’s hopes of harvests.  The peasant, to save his fields from the stags and does which broke into them in herds at sunset, tried to keep them out by means of clappers and bad odours.  I have seen and smelled the so-called “Frenchman’s oil” with which the posts were smeared, that its really diabolical odour—­I don’t know from what horrors it was compounded—­might preserve the crops.  The ornament of the forests had become the object of the keenest hate, and as soon as—­shortly before we entered Keilhau—­hunting was freely permitted, the peasants gave full vent to their rage, set off for the woods with the old muskets they had kept hidden in the garrets, or other still more primitive weapons, and shot or struck down all the game they encountered.  Roast venison was cheap for weeks on Rudolstadt tables, and the pupils had many an unexpected pleasure.

The hunting exploits of the older scholars were only learned by us younger ones as secrets, and did not reach the teachers’ ears until long after.

But the woods furnished other pleasures besides those enjoyed by the sportsman.  Every ramble through the forest enriched our knowledge of plants and animals, and I soon knew the different varieties of stones also; yet we did not suspect that this knowledge was imparted according to a certain system.  We were taught as it were by stealth, and how many pleasant, delicious things attracted us to the class-rooms on the wooded heights!

Vegetation was very abundant in the richly watered mountain valley.  Our favourite spring was the Schaalbach at the foot of the Steiger,—­[We pupils bought it of the peasant who owned it and gave it to Barop.]—­ because there was a fowling-floor connected with it, where I spent many a pleasant evening.  It could be used only after breeding-time, and consisted of a hut built of boughs where the birdcatcher lodged.  Flowing water rippled over the little wooden rods on which the feathered denizens of the woods alighted to quench their thirst before going to sleep.  When some of them—­frequently six at a time—­had settled on the perches in the trough, it was drawn into the but by a rope, a net was spread over the water and there was nothing more to do except take the captives out.

The name of the director of this amusement was Merbod.  He could imitate the voices of all the birds, and was a merry, versatile fellow, who knew how to do a thousand things, and of whom we boys were very fond.

The peasant Bredernitz often took us to his crow-hut, which was a hole in the ground covered with boughs and pieces of turf, where the hunters lay concealed.  The owl, which lured the crows and other birds of prey, was fastened on a perch, and when they flew up, often in large flocks, to tease the old cross-patch which sat blinking angrily, they were shot down from loop-holes which had been left in the hut.  The hawks which prey upon doves and hares, the crows and magpies, can thus easily be decimated.