she said, "and have not truly mastered your desire. Now, if you do not promise
me on your life and your soul, or whatever is dearer, never to shoot at a
white doe, sorrow will surely come of it. Promise me, and you shall certainly
be happy!"

So the huntsman promised faithfully, saying, "On your life, which is dearer to
me than my own, I give you my word to keep that it shall be so." Then she
kissed him, and bound up his wounds with healing herbs; and to look at her all
that day, and for many days after, was better to him than all the hunting the
king's forests could provide.

For a whole year they lived together in perfect happiness, and two children
came to bless their union--a boy and a girl born at the same hour. When they
were but a month old, they could run; and to see them leaping and playing
before the door of their home made the huntsman's heart jump for joy. "They
are forest-born, and they come of a hunter's blood; that is why they run so
early, and have such limbs," said he.

"Yes," answered his wife, "that is partly why. When they grow older they will
run so fast--do not mistake them for deer if ever you go hunting."

No sooner had she said the word than the memory of it, which had slept for a
whole year, stirred his blood. The scent of the forest blew up through the
rocky ravine, which he had never repassed since the day when he entered, and
he laid his hands thoughtfully on the weapons he no longer used.

Such restlessness took hold of him all that day that at night he slept ill,
and, waking, found himself alone with no wife at his side. Gazing about the
room, he saw that the cradle also was empty. "Why," he wondered, "have they
gone out together in the middle of the night?"