Then he lifted her up, and putting his left arm behind her and giving her his right to lean upon, made her walk a little way, which she did with less trembling and hesitation than before, now that she had such a strong arm round her. Heidi skipped along beside her in glee, and the grandfather looked too as if some happiness had befallen him. "We must not overdo it," he said taking Clara up in his arms. "It is high time we went home," and he started off down the mountain path, for he was anxious to get her indoors that she might rest after her unusual fatigue. When Peter got to Doerfli that evening he found a large group of people collected round a certain spot, pushing one another and looking over each other's shoulders in their eagerness to catch sight of something lying on the ground. Peter thought he should like to see too, and poked and elbowed till he made his way through. There it lay, the thing he had wanted to see. Scattered about the grass were the remains of Clara's chair; part of the back and the middle bit, and enough of the red padding and the bright nails to show how magnificent the chair had been when it was entire. "I was here when the men passed carrying it up," said the baker, who was standing near Peter. "I'll bet any one that it was worth 125 dollars at least. I cannot think how such an accident could have happened." "Uncle said the wind might perhaps have done it," remarked one of the women. "It's a good job that no one but the wind did it," said the baker again, "or he might smart for it! No doubt the gentleman in Frankfurt when he hears what has happened will make inquiries about it. I am glad for myself that I have not been seen up the mountain for a good two years, as suspicion is likely to fall on any one who was up there at the time." Many more opinions were passed on the matter, but Peter had heard enough. He crept quietly away out of the crowd and then took to his heels and ran up home as fast as he could, as if he thought some one was after him. The baker's words had filled him with fear and trembling. He was sure now that any day a constable might come over from Frankfurt and inquire about the destruction of the chair, and then everything would come out, and he would be seized and carried off to Frankfurt and there put in prison. He reached home in this disturbed state of mind. He would not open his mouth in reply to anything that was said to him; he would not eat his potatoes; all he did was to creep off to bed as quickly as possible and hide under the bedclothes and groan. "Peter has been eating sorrel again, and is evidently in pain by the way he is groaning," said his mother. "You must give him a little more bread to take with him; give him a bit of mine tomorrow," said the grandmother sympathizingly.