ON a certain bright October morning, in the year 1779, a gay train set out from the princely hunting-lodge of Nonnenwald. This lodge was built under the shadow of an outlying spire of the great Thuringerwald, a range of mountains to the south-east of the dominions of the prince to whom it belonged. It was, in fact, a small Schloss or castle, a part of which was quite ruinous and overgrown with ivy and brambles. This part of the building was made of dark stone taken from a quarry near at hand. A couple of its towers were in good preservation, and showed signs of being inhabited, while a two-story wing, evidently quite new and built of brick, looked awkward and uncomfortable beside its sombre old neighbour. Even with this addition, the lodge would accommodate very few people—a circumstance which made it something of a favourite with its owner. The lodge of Nonnenwald belonged to the hereditary prince or landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, and he liked now and then to escape to it from the splendours of his magnificent court, to indulge in the pursuits of hunting and fishing in company with a few special friends. The Thuringerwald swarmed with every species of game. Wild boars abounded, and there was a somewhat mythical story that the great wild bull of Europe—the urus—was still to be met in its deeper recesses. Wildcats, bears, and lynxes, made their homes on the rocky ledges, and the great gray wolves ran down the deer and boars, and now and then made an incursion into the cultivated country. Such an incursion had just taken place, early as it was in the year, and many cattle and sheep had been destroyed in the fields about Nonnenwald. Nay, the animals had entered the village itself, and had killed a calf belonging to Gertrude Reinhart, who lived in the little stone house near the churchyard where was the deserted blacksmith's forge. It was the report of this incursion which had brought down the prince and his train, and a fine week's sport was in anticipation. As the gay train, with the prince in the midst, wound their way through the street of the little village, it was met by a train of a very different description arriving from the opposite direction. First came the Lutheran pastor of the little church in his gown, then time coffin—a child's coffin decked with a wreath of everlasting flowers and carried on a bier. Then came the mourning family, the mother leaning on the arm of a tall gray-haired man and leading a little boy by the hand. A boy of about fifteen, and a girl somewhat younger, followed hand in hand, and a few neighbours brought up the rear. They came slowly up the hill, giving the hunting-train plenty of time to halt and draw up to the side of the road near the church, which they did with some trouble, for the horses were very restive and unmanageable, and the great wolf-hounds bayed and howled and strained furiously at their slips, as if they already scented their savage game.