Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 9, 1895 - Romances Volume II

DEPARTS ON AN ADVENTURE
shall be left to the conjecture of the reader. But
for the season of the year (which, in such a story, is
the more important of the two), it was already so far
forward in the spring, that when mountain people
heard horns echoing all day about the north-west
corner of the principality, they told themselves that
Prince Otto and his hunt were up and out for the
last time till the return of autumn.
At this point the borders of Griinewald descend
somewhat steeply, here and there breaking into
crags ; and this shaggy and trackless country stands
in a bold contrast to the cultivated plain below. It
was traversed at that period by two roads alone ;
one, the imperial highway, bound to Brandenau in
Gerolstein, descended the slope obliquely and by the
easiest gradients. The other ran like a fillet across
the very forehead of the hills, dipping into savage
gorges, and wetted by the spray of tiny waterfalls.
Once it passed beside a certain tower or castle, built
sheer upon the margin of a formidable cliff, and
commanding a vast prospect of the skirts of Griine-
wald and the busy plains of Gerolstein. The
Felsenburg (so this tower was called) served now as
a prison, now as a hunting-seat ; and for all it stood
so lonesome to the naked eye, with the aid of a good
glass the burghers of Brandenau could count its
windows from the lime-tree terrace where they
walked at night.
In the wedge of forest hillside enclosed between
the roads, the horns continued all day long to scatter
tumult; and at length, as the sun began to draw
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