Work at the anvil impairs the hearing, and the smith did not notice the approaching peril, and repeated: "What ails you, man ?" "I am freezing," replied the charcoal-burner, cowering, with a piteous expression.
Ruth heard no more of the conversation, she had stopped and put her hand to her ear, listening with head bent forward, to the noises in the distance.
Suddenly she uttered a low cry, exclaiming: "There's a dog barking, Meister Adam, I hear it." The smith turned pale and shook his head, but she cried earnestly: "Believe me; I hear it.

Now it's barking again." Adam too, now heard a strange noise in the forest.

With lightning speed he loosened the hammer in his belt, took Ruth by the hand, and ran up the clearing with her.
Meantime, Lopez had compelled old Rahel to rise.
Everything must be ready, when Ulrich returned.

In his impatience he had gone to the door, and when he saw Adam hurrying up the glade with the child, ran anxiously to meet them, thinking that some accident had happened to Ulrich.
"Back, back!" shouted the smith, and Ruth, releasing her hand from his, also motioned and shrieked "Back, back!" The doctor obeyed the warning, and stopped; but he had scarcely turned, when several dogs appeared at the mouth of the ravine through which the party had come the day before, and directly after Count Frohlinger, on horseback, burst from the thicket.
The nobleman sat throned on his spirited charger, like the sun-god Siegfried.

His fair locks floated dishevelled around his head, the steam rising from the dripping steed hovered about him in the fresh winter air like a light cloud.