It was now a warm and windless autumn day, and after dinner my aunt was
carried out into the courtyard. When the dancing was at an end, she, as
was her wont, questioned the men and the elder woman as to all she
desired to know; and, learning from them that the men were likewise
tinkers, she bid Ann hie to the kitchen and command that the house-keeper
should bring together all broken pots and pans. But now, near by the
wagon, was a noise heard of furious barking, and the pitiful cry of a
child.

The Junker, who had set forth early in the day to scour the woods, had
but now come home; the hounds with him had scented strangers, and had
rushed on the brown babe, which was playing in the sand behind the wagon,
making cakes and pasties. The dogs were indeed called off in all haste,
but one of them, a spiteful badger-hound, had bitten deep into the little
one's shoulder.

I ran forthwith to the spot, and picked up the babe in my arms, seeing
its red blood flow; but the elder woman rushed at me, beside her wits
with rage, to snatch it from me; and whereas she was doubtless its mother
or grand-dame, I might have yielded up the child, but that Ritter Franz
came to me in haste to bid me, from my Aunt Jacoba, carry it to her.

Who better than she knew the whole art and secret of healing the wounds
of a hound's making? And so I told the old dame, to comfort her, albeit
she struggled furiously to get the babe from me. Nay and she might have
done so if the little thing had not clung round my neck with its right
arm that had no hurt, as lovingly as though it had been mine own and no
kin to the shrieking old woman.

But ere long a clear and strange light was cast on the matter; for when