"The bird flies jocund through the sky, And sports in upper air, Only too soon fluttering to lie, Caught in the fowler's snare, The wind constrains the forest tall, The tempest rules the sea; The mighty hold the weak in thrall; And only love is free. "Nor bonds, nor bars, nor word of hate, Can love's sweet will control; Or quench the flame resistless fate Hath kindled in the soul. The mind may bow to slavish law, As kings in chains may be; Reason to wisdom bend in awe; Yet still will love be free. "What's plighted troth or formal vow, When hearts are turned to fire? As chaff on tempests blown, I trow, Such bonds before desire! Let whosoever come between, To part my dear and me, I'd beat down all to reach my queen, And make our loving free!" His voice rang out with a strain of passion as he sang these last words. His eyes shone, and he bent forward toward Erna as if he would constrain her to understand the message of his song. And when Erna, rising hastily, dropped her embroidery and hastened out of the hall, there came into his face a look of triumph which it was ill to see. He bent over the hound at his feet to conceal it from Lady Adelaide, who looked after her niece with astonishment. "Body of Saint Fridolin," quoth the old dame for the hundredth time that morning, "but she is becoming flighty instead of settling down, now that she is married." Meantime Albrecht sat in the chamber of the priest, learning the wonders of that soul which had been so lately bestowed upon him by Heaven. XVII HOW THEY HUNTED THE STAG. It was on a glorious autumn afternoon, when all the air was fragrant with the odor of pine trees steeping in the warm sunlight, and dim with the hazes which were smoke-like without being smoke, that the folk of Castle Rittenberg set forth to hunt the stag. While the hounds were baying in the courtyard eager to be off, and the sound of trampling horse's hoof and jingling bridle-rein, with cry of groom and laugh of page, came through the open window, Erna and Count Stephen stood in the hall waiting for Albrecht. At a little distance stood Fastrade and Elsa, both of whom were to ride with Erna to follow the hunt; and Elsa said to her companion, pointing to the boar-spear which still stuck in the head of the deer that hung above the chimney-place: "If the baron can but make such another shot as that he made when he thrust that spear into the bone from the other end of the hall, may I be there to see!" The eyes of both Erna and of Count Stephen turned to the spear, as the damsel spoke; and most vividly before the mind of the countess came up the picture of Albrecht as he had flung it on his wedding eve, full of buoyant life and of joyful love.