CHAPTER THE LAST. 393 



evening after a good day's sport, the forest and its 

 delights play a prominent part. Among the northern 

 nations the forest may be said to have had, and in- 

 deed still to have, a poetry of its own. There were 

 the " Wald-Marchen" and " Wald-Lieder," and in its 

 gloom many a myth was born. The Germans have 

 an appropriate word Waldlust to describe the pe- 

 culiar delight which the woodland imparts ; and as 

 such solitude is also different from that experienced 

 any other where, for it too there is a particular de- 

 signation Wald-einsamkeit. 



But, as many a story in the preceding pages will 

 have shown, there are other far more stirring causes 

 of excitement, contrasting strangely enough with the 

 calmer pleasures I have just attempted to describe. 

 From time to time a report will come of the depre- 

 dations committed by poachers, or that one of the 

 foresters has been badly wounded, or that a Tyrolese 

 has been shot who had come across to fetch a chamois 

 in the Bavarian mountains. Or perhaps, according to 

 a preconcerted arrangement, on a certain day all the 

 gamekeepers will be on the look-out for miles round, 

 in expectation of meeting the marauders ; and, if you 

 also go out, the report of a rifle from some neigh- 

 bouring mountain fills you with expectation, well 

 knowing that on such an occasion the foresters would 

 not fire at game. It must therefore have been at 

 a man, unless indeed the shot was from a poacher 

 stalking in his old haunts ; if so, he will hardly escape 

 now, for the keepers will close in upon him and cut 



