In the midst of a circular clearing, surrounded by dense woods, smoked a
charcoal kiln. It was less easy to breathe here, than down in the forest
below. Where Nature herself rules, she knows how to guard beauty and
purity, but where man touches her, the former is impaired and the latter
sullied.

It seemed as if the morning sunlight strove to check the smoke from the
smouldering wood, in order to mount freely into the blue sky. Little
clouds floated over the damp, grassy earth, rotting tree-trunks, piles of
wood and heaps of twigs that surrounded the kiln. A moss-grown but stood
at the edge of the forest, and before it sat Ulrich, talking with the
coal-burner. People called this man "Hangemarx," and in truth he
looked in his black rags, like one of those for whom it is a pity that
Nature should deck herself in her Spring garb. He had a broad, peasant
face, his mouth was awry, and his thick yellowish-red hair, which in many
places looked washed out or faded, hung so low over his narrow forehead,
that it wholly concealed it, and touched his bushy, snow-white brows.
The eyes under them needed to be taken on trust, they were so well
concealed, but when they peered through the narrow chink between the rows
of lashes, not even a mote escaped them. Ulrich was shaping an arrow,
and meantime asking the coal-burner numerous questions, and when the
latter prepared to answer, the boy laughed heartily, for before Hangemarx
could speak, he was obliged to straighten his crooked mouth by three
jerking motions, in which his nose and cheeks shared.

An important matter was being discussed between the two strangely
dissimilar companions.

After it grew dark, Ulrich was to come to the charcoal-burner again.
Marx knew where a fine buck couched, and was to drive it towards the boy,