Then Kuengolt took the boy by the hand, and first led him into the forester's armory where he kept his weapons. And there hung seven magnificent crossbows and arquebuses, and spears and javelins for the chase, hangers and dirks, and also the long sword of the master of the house which stood in the corner by itself. Dietegen examined all this, silently but with gleaming eyes, and Kuengolt mounted a chair to take down several of the finest crossbows from the wall, which she handed him so that he could look them over more at leisure, and he was delighted with these, for they showed ornaments inlaid in ivory or mother-of-pearl, daintily done by some expert artisan. The boy admired it all, in a silent sort of ecstasy, about as would a rather talented prentice in the studio of a great master painter while the latter might be absent from home. But Kuengolt's quick proposal to have him try his marksmanship outside in a meadow could not be realized at the time, because the bolts and arrows were locked away in a separate receptacle. But to make up for that she gave him a fine hunting spear to hold so that he should have a weapon of some kind to take along into the greenwoods. Near the house she showed him a hedged-in space full of deer and game, in which the town constantly kept its reserve of stock, so that at no time there should be lack of venison and other fine roasts for public or private banquets. The girl coaxed several roes and stags to come to her at the hedge, and this was astonishing to Dietegen, for so far he had seen such animals only when dead. With his spear, therefore, he stood attentive, his eyes fixed on these pretty denizens of the woods, and could not get his fill of watching them. Eagerly he held out his hand to fondle a finely antlered stag, and when the latter shyly bounded aside and leisurely trotted off, the boy scurried after him with a joyous halloo, and ran and jumped with the animal around in a wide circle. It was perhaps the first time in his life that he could use his young limbs in this way, and when he felt how his tendons stretched with the violent exercise and how he was able to race with the swift stag, the latter apparently taking as much pleasure in the sport as Dietegen himself, a feeling of untried strength and agility first woke within him.