would get him into a fine scrape. The people knew he was as poor as a
beggar.

The smith asked the poacher's opinion, and the latter growled:

"That will, doubtless, be a good plan."

He said no more, and when Adam held out his hand to the boy, and kissed
him on the forehead, and the doctor bade him an affectionate farewell,
Marx called himself a Judas, and would gladly have flung the tempting
florins to the four winds, but it was too late.

The smith and Lopez heard him call anxiously to Jorg: "Take good care of
the boy!" And when Adam patted him on the shoulder, saying: "You are a
faithful fellow, Marx!" he could have howled like a mastiff and revealed
all; but it seemed as if he again felt the rope around his neck, so he
kept silence.




CHAPTER X.

The grey dawn was already glimmering, yet neither the expected vehicle
nor Jorg had come. Old Rahel, usually an early riser, was sleeping as
soundly as if she had to make up the lost slumber of ten nights; but the
smith's anxiety would no longer allow him to remain in the close room.
Ruth followed him into the open air, and when she timidly touched him--
for there had always been something unapproachable to her in the silent
man's gigantic figure--he looked at her from head to foot, with strange,