"What is the matter with me?" said Egbert to himself; "I could have fancied this was Walters again." He looked round, and Walters it certainly was. Egbert spurred his horse on at its utmost speed; he flew away over rocks and through woods and meadows, until at length it sunk exhausted under him to the earth. He did not pause to think of this, but continued to hurry on on foot.
In a kind of half-dream, he climbed a little hill; he fancied he heard the lively barking of a dog somewhere near him. Tall chestnuts rustled in the wind, and he caught the strange wild strains of a song:
"In my forest-home Again sing I, Where pain hath no life; No envy and strife. Oh, am I not happy In my forest home?"
Egbert was completely stupified, his senses reeled; all seemed a dark painful riddle to him. He could not tell whether he was dreaming now, or whether he had not dreamt of a Bertha as his wife. The common and the wonderful were so strangely mingled together; the world round him was enchanted.... His thoughts and recollections swam confusedly before his mind.
A crooked hump-backed old woman came panting up the hill with a crutch.
"Are you come to bring me my bird? my pearls? my dog?" she screamed to him; "see how wickedness is its own punisher! I was your friend Walters--I was Hugo."
"God in heaven," muttered Egbert to himself, "to what dreadful place have I wandered? Where am I?"
"What made her run away from me in that way? the time of trial was almost over, and thus all had ended well. She was the daughter of a knight; he sent her to the herdsman to be brought up. She was your father's daughter."
"Oh, why, why have I ever had this dreadful foreboding?" cried Egbert.
"Because when you were young you once heard your father speak of it. He could not let her stay with him, for he was afraid of his wife; she was the child of an earlier marriage."
Egbert's heartstrings burst; he lay gasping out his life upon the ground; faintly and more faintly he heard the old woman speak, the dog bark, and the bird chant on his unwearying song.
That noble duke, the great Of Burgundy's proud land, Felt all his foemen's hate, And, vanquish'd, bit the sand.
He spoke: "I'm struck! I bleed! Where is my valour fled? Friends fail me at my need, My knights are flown or dead;