Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 377, March 1847. Various

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      “Who was that?” inquired the stranger, without turning his eyes from the direction in which the centaur had disappeared.

      “It is a wild fellow called Mads Hansen, or Black Mads: he has a little hut on the other side of the brook. Times are hard with him: he has many children, I believe, and so he manages as he can. He comes sometimes on this side and takes a deer; but to-day it would seem that the deer had taken him: that is,” added he, thoughtfully, “if it really be a deer. God deliver us from all that is evil! but Mads is certainly a dare-devil fellow, though I know nothing but what is honourable and good of him. He shoots a head of deer now and then; but what matters that? there’s enough of them; far too many, indeed. There, you may see yourself how they have cropped the ears of my rye. But here have we Niels the game-keeper. Yes; you are tracking Black Mads. To-day he is better mounted than you are.”

      While he was saying this, a hunter appeared in sight, coming towards them at a quick trot from the side where they had first seen the deer-rider. “Have you seen Black Mads?” cried he, before he came near them.

      “We saw one, sure enough, riding on a deer, but can’t say whether he was black or white, or who it was; for he was away in such haste that we could hardly follow him with our eyes,” said the farmer.

      “The fiend fetch him!” cried the huntsman, stopping his horse to let him take breath; “I saw him yonder in the Haverdal, where he was skulking about, watching after a deer. I placed myself behind a small rising, that I might not interrupt him. He fired, and a deer fell. Mads ran up, leaped across him to give him the death-blow, when the animal, on feeling the knife, rose suddenly up, squeezed Mads between his antlers – and hallo! I have got his gun, but would rather get himself.” With these words he put his horse into a trot, and hastened after the deer-stealer, with one gun before him on his saddle-bow, and another slung at his back.

      The traveller, who was going in nearly the same direction, now set off with his guide, as fast as the latter could go at a jog-trot, after having thrown off his wooden shoes. They had proceeded little more than a mile, and had reached the summit of a hill, which sloped down towards a small river, when they got sight of the two riders. The first had arrived at the end of his fugitive course: the deer had fallen dead in the rivulet, at a spot where there was much shallow water. Its slayer, who had been standing across it, and struggling to free himself from its antlers, which had worked themselves into his clothes, had just finished his labour and sprung on land, when the huntsman, who at first had taken a wrong direction, came riding past our traveller with the rein in one hand and the gun in the other. At a few yards’ distance from the unlucky deer-rider he stopped his horse, and with the comforting words, “Now, dog! thou shalt die,” deliberately took aim at him. “Hold! hold!” cried the delinquent, “don’t be too hasty, Niels! you are not hunting now; we can talk matters to rights.”

      “No more prating,” answered the exasperated keeper, “thou shalt perish in thy misdeeds!”

      “Niels, Niels!” cried Mads, “here are witnesses; you have now got me safe enough, I cannot go from you; why not take me to the manor-house, and let the owner do as he likes with me, and you will get good drink-money into the bargain.”

      At this moment the traveller rode up, and cried out to the keeper, “For heaven’s sake, friend, do not commit a crime, but hear what the man has to say.”

      “The man is a great offender,” said the keeper, uncocking his gun, and laying it across the pommel of his saddle, “but as the strange gentleman intercedes for him, I will give him his life. But thou art mad, Mads! for now thou wilt come to drive a barrow before thee7 for the rest of thy life. If thou hadst let me shoot thee, all would now have been over.” Thereupon he put his horse into a trot, and the traveller, who was also going to Ansbjerg, kept them company.

      They proceeded a considerable way without uttering a word, except that the keeper, from time to time, broke silence with an abusive term, or an oath. At length the deer-stealer began a new conversation, to which Niels made no answer, but whistled a tune, at the same time taking from his pocket a tobacco-pouch and pipe. Having filled his pipe, he endeavoured to strike a light, but the tinder would not catch.

      “Let me help you,” said Mads, and without getting or waiting for an answer, struck fire in his own tinder, blew on it, and handed it to the keeper; but while the latter was in the act of taking it, he grasped the stock of the gun which lay across the pommel, dragged it with a powerful tug out of the strap, and sprang three steps backwards into the heather. All this was done with a rapidity beyond what could have been expected from the broad-shouldered, stout and somewhat elderly deer-stealer.

      The poor gamekeeper, pale and trembling, roared with rage at his adversary, without the power of uttering a syllable.

      “Light thy pipe,” said Mads, “the tinder will else be all burned out; perhaps it is no good exchange thou hast made; this is certainly better, – ”here he patted the gun, – “but thou shalt have it again when thou givest me my own back.”

      Niels instantly took the other from behind him, held it out to the deer-stealer with one hand, at the same time stretching forth the other to receive his own piece.

      “Wait a moment,” said Mads, “thou shalt first promise me – but it is no matter, it is not very likely you’d keep it – though should you now and then hear a pop in the heather, don’t be so hasty, but think of to-day and of Mike Foxtail.” Turning then towards the traveller, “Does your horse stand fire?” said he, “Fire away,” exclaimed the latter. Mads held out the keeper’s gun with one hand, like a pistol, and fired it off; thereupon he took the flint from the cock, and returned the piece to his adversary, saying, “There, take your pop-gun; at any rate it shall do no more harm just yet. Farewell, and thanks for to-day.” With these words he slung his own piece over his shoulder, and went towards the spot where he had left the deer.

      The keeper, whose tongue had hitherto been bound by a power like magic, now gave vent to his long-repressed indignation, in a volley of oaths and curses.

      The traveller, whose sympathy had transferred itself from the escaped deer-stealer to the almost despairing game-keeper, endeavoured to comfort him as far as lay in his power. “You have in reality lost nothing,” said he, “except the miserable satisfaction of rendering a man and all his family unhappy.”

      “Lost nothing!” exclaimed the huntsman, “you don’t understand the matter. Lost nothing! The rascal has spoiled my good gun.”

      “Load it, and put in another flint,” said the traveller.

      “Pshaw!” answered Niels, “it will never more shoot hart or hare. It is bewitched, that I will swear; and if one remedy does not succeed – aha! there lies one licking the sunshine in the wheel-rut; he shall eat no young larks to-day.” Saying this, he stopped his horse, hastily put a flint in his gun, loaded it, and dismounted. The stranger, who was uninitiated in the craft of venery, and equally ignorant of its terminology and magic, also stopped to see what his companion was about to perform; while the latter, leading his horse, walked a few steps forward, and with the barrel of his piece poked about something that lay in his way, which the stranger now perceived to be an adder.

      “Will you get in?” said the keeper, all the while thrusting with his gun at the serpent. At length, having got its head into the barrel, he held his piece up, and shook it until the adder was completely in. He then fired it off with its extraordinary loading, of which not an atom was more to be seen, and said, “If that won’t do, there is no one but Mads or Mike Foxtail who can set it to rights.”

      The traveller smiled a little incredulously, as well at the witchcraft as at the singular way of dissolving it; but having already СКАЧАТЬ