He took exercise in the beautiful woods around the castle, and there, as he related afterwards, he used to look for strawberries. In August he had news to give Spalatin of a hunt, at which he had been present two days. He wished to look on at 'this bitter-sweet pleasure of heroes.' 'We have,' he says, 'hunted two hares and a few poor little partridges; truly a worthy occupation for idle people!' But among the nets and hounds he managed, as he says, to pursue theology. He saw in it all a picture of the devil, who by cunning and godless doctrines ensnares poor innocent creatures. Graver thoughts still were suggested to his mind by the fate of a little hare, which he had helped to save, and had rolled up in the long sleeve of his cloak, but which, on his putting it down afterwards and going away, the dogs caught and killed. 'Thus,' he says, 'do the Pope and Satan rage together, to destroy, despite my efforts, souls already saved.' At that time too he fancied he heard and saw all kinds of devil's noises and sights, which long afterwards he frequently described to his friends, but which he took at the time with great calmness. Such, for instance, were a strange continual rumbling in a chest in which he kept hazel nuts, nightly noises of falling on the stairs, and the unaccountable appearance of a black dog in his bed. Of the well-known ink-stain at the Wartburg we hear nothing either from those or after-times; and a similar spot was shown in the last century at the Castle of Coburg, where Luther stayed in 1530. In the outer world, meanwhile, the great movement that emanated from Luther continued to advance and grow, in spite of his disappearance. It was apparent how powerless was his enforced absence to suppress it. Soon too it was to be seen how much on the other hand it depended on him that the movement should not bring real danger and destruction. At Wittenberg his friends continued labouring faithfully and undisturbed. Much as Melancthon troubled himself about Luther and longed for his return, Luther relied with confidence upon him and his efforts, as rendering his own presence unnecessary. With joyful congratulations to his friend he acknowledged his receipt at the Wartburg of the sheets of his work--the _Loci Communes_--wherein Melancthon, whilst intending at first only to proclaim the fundamental principles and doctrines of the Bible, and especially of the Epistle to the Romans, actually laid the foundation for the dogma of the Evangelical Church.