“And as we wound deeper into the mountains, past one red-roofed village after another, and saw the sturdy forms of the men, straight as the firs above them; saw the blond, clear beauty of the farmer maids, with their long, fair hair wound round their heads like shining wreaths, I confess the blood began to stir within me, and despite the remembrance of Rome and Florence and Venice and the rest, I began to find the upland air all spring and sparkle, and to think the German speech less harsh; yes, even to say under breath, ‘I will never mourn that my father sprang from this North.’ “After we passed Hasselfelde and entered upon the last stage of the journey, the country grew yet wilder. Over a clearing we saw the red coat of a startled deer go flashing through the pine stumps. A wolfish wood-cutter stopped and looked at us hard as we approached, as if wondering whether he had not best scamper up the hillside out of reach of our arquebuses. We crossed a roaring torrent by a rough timber bridge that swayed uncannily under our horses. Then at a sudden turn in the rocks we came face to face with half a score of men on big lumbering steeds, and clad in black and very nondescript armor. They bore halberds big enough to fell oxen, and Andrea--our vanguard,--had his firelock ready in a trice, ere I could call out ‘hold!’ But the foremost rider, a mighty man, too big for his tall roan horse, came straight on, and his grizzled mustaches, his wolf-white teeth, and the long scar over his forehead, I remembered from boyhood days right well. “‘Adolf!’ I cried. “By some magic instantly the whole band reined in, and the ten giants leaping down with direful clatter began to bend and scrape. “‘Your Countly Grace! Your Countly Grace!’ they all chanted together, and Adolf then begun to shuffle up to me, seizing my hand, kissing it in a slobbering way. Next he must needs tell in harshest mountain German, how he had always sworn that I would come back like a Regensteiner to the old schloss; that he had received my advance messenger; that he had kept the schloss true and fast even as my fathers had loved it; that there was a great boar in the Tannenwald waiting my hunting; that the dogs were in excellent fettle; that he had in the dungeon two poachers whom he was sure I would enjoy hanging, or perhaps I preferred breaking them on the wheel; and that-- “But here I shook off his bearlike embraces, and in what German I had, I thanked him for his faithfulness, assured him and his followers that I would try by my gratitude to merit their loyalty, and that I would be delighted with their escort onward to Schloss Regenstein. So then we rode forward, Andrea still casting one anxious eye upon our new companions and the other upon his well-primed arquebuse.