Gothic windows, the pale countenance of Odile directed long and anxiously
towards the young man.

"Halloo, Fritz! what are you doing?"

"I am only looking at those strangers' horses."

"Oh, the Wallachians! I saw them this morning in the stable. They are
splendid animals."

The horsemen galloped away at full speed, and the curtain in the
turret-window dropped.




CHAPTER VII.


Several uneventful days followed. My life at Nideck was becoming dull
and monotonous. Every morning there was the doleful bugle-call of the
huntsman, whose occupation was gone; then came a visit to the count;
after that breakfast, with Sperver's interminable speculations upon the
Black Plague, the incessant gossiping and chattering of Marie Lagoutte,
Maître Tobias, and all that pack of idle servants, who had nothing to do
but eat and drink, smoke, and go to sleep. The only man who had any kind
of individual existence was Knapwurst, who sat buried up to the tip of
his red nose in old chronicles all the day long, careless of the cold so
long as there was anything left to find out in his curious researches.