On the way, their conversation naturally turned upon the demon of the Harz and the doctrine of the capuchin.

Max and George Waldeck, the two elder brothers, although they allowed the language of the capuchin to have been indiscreet and worthy of censure, as presuming to determine upon the precise character and abode of the spirit, yet contended it was dangerous, in the highest degree, to accept of his gifts, or hold any communication with him, He was powerful, they allowed, but wayward and capricious, and those who had intercourse with him seldom came to a good end.

Did he not give the brave knight, Ecbert of Rabenwald, that famous black steed, by means of which he vanquished all the champions at the great tournament at Bremen?
and did not the same steed afterwards precipitate itself with its rider into an abyss so steep and fearful, that neither horse nor man were ever seen more?
Had he not given to Dame Gertrude Trodden a curious spell for making butter come?
and was she not burnt for a witch by the grand criminal judge of the Electorate, because she availed herself of his gift?
But these, and many other instances which they quoted, of mischance and ill-luck ultimately attending on the apparent benefits conferred by the Harz spirit, failed to make any impression upon Martin Waldeck, the youngest of the brothers.
Martin was youthful, rash, and impetuous; excelling in all the exercises which distinguish a mountaineer, and brave and undaunted from his familiar intercourse with the dangers that attend them.

He laughed at the timidity of his brothers.

"Tell me not of such folly," he said; "the demon is a good demon--he lives among us as if he were a peasant like ourselves--haunts the lonely crags and recesses of the mountains like a huntsman or goatherd--and he who loves the Harz forest and its wild scenes cannot be indifferent to the fate of the hardy children of the soil.