"Strehla," said the big man as August's father entered the room, "you have got a little mad dog here; muzzle him." One way and another they did muzzle him. He fought like a little demon, and hit out right and left, and one of his blows gave the Bavarian a black eye. But he was soon mastered by four grown men, and his father flung him with no light hand out from the door of the back entrance, and the buyers of the stately and beautiful stove set to work to pack it heedfully and carry it away. When Dorothea stole out to look for August, he was nowhere in sight. She went back to little 'Gilda, who was ailing, and sobbed over the child, whilst the others stood looking on, dimly understanding that with Hirschvogel was going all the warmth of their bodies, all the light of their hearth. Even their father now was sorry and ashamed; but two hundred florins seemed a big sum to him, and, after all, he thought the children could warm themselves quite as well at the black iron stove in the kitchen. Besides, whether he regretted it now or not, the work of the Nurnberg potter was sold irrevocably, and he had to stand still and see the men from Munich wrap it in manifold wrappings and bear it out into the snowy air to where an ox cart stood in waiting for it. In another moment Hirschvogel was gone--gone forever and aye. August had stood still for a time, leaning, sick and faint from the violence that had been used to him, against the back wall of the house. The wall looked on a court where a well was, and the backs of other houses, and beyond them the spire of the Muntze Tower and the peaks of the mountains. Into the court an old neighbor hobbled for water, and, seeing the boy, said to him:-- "Child, is it true your father is selling the big painted stove?" August nodded his head, then burst into a passion of tears. "Well, for sure he is a fool," said the neighbor. "Heaven forgive me for calling him so before his own child! but the stove was worth a mint of money. I do remember in my young days, in old Anton's time (that was your great-grand-father, my lad), a stranger from Vienna saw it, and said that it was worth its weight in gold." August's sobs went on their broken, impetuous course. "I loved it! I loved it!" he moaned. "I do not care what its value was. I loved it! I LOVED IT!" "You little simpleton!" said the old man, kindly. "But you are wiser than your father, when all's said. If sell it he must, he should have taken it to good Herr Steiner over at Spritz, who would have given him honest value. But no doubt they took him over his beer--ay, ay! but if I were you I would do better than cry. I would go after it." August raised his head, the tears raining down his cheeks.