"I should like to be one of the count's squires, and always ride with him
when he goes hunting."

"Oh!" cried Ruth. "That would be the very thing, if I were a boy like
you. A squire! But if the word can do everything, it will make you lord
of the castle and a powerful count. You can have real velvet clothes,
with gay slashes, and a silk bed."

"And I'll ride the black stallion, and the forest, with all its stags
and deer, will belong to me; as to the people down in the village, I'll
show them!"

Raising his clenched fist and his eyes in menace as he uttered the words,
he saw that heavy rain-drops were beginning to fall, and a thunder-shower
was rising.

Hastily and skilfully loading himself with several bundles of faggots, he
laid some on the little girl's shoulders, and went down with her towards
the valley, paying no heed to the pouring rain, thunder or lightning; but
Ruth trembled in every limb.

At the edge of the narrow pass leading to the city they stood still. The
moisture was trickling down its steep sides and had gathered into a
reddish torrent on the rocky bottom.

"Come!" cried Ulrich, stepping on to the edge of the ravine, where
stones and sand, loosened by the wet, were now rattling down.

"I'm afraid," answered the little girl trembling. "There's another flash
of lightning! Oh! dear, oh, dear! how it blazes!--oh! oh! that clap of