While all the community were rushing about in the night and in the snow, on rocks and in ravines, and the whole village in a state of excitement, there were only two objects that remained steady and stationary and kept time together--these were the clock on the church tower, and Leegart beside her huge pincushion. Martina had left the room along with the men, but several women remained there. They complained loudly that their husbands were so rash as to expose their lives to danger, for the sake of one single child, perhaps only to cause their own children to suffer want and misery. Leegart, however, while waxing her thread, said, "Indeed it is very dreadful to lose your way in the forest. I can well tell you about it, for it happened to me once in my life, but I found that once quite enough. For God's sake, never, never be tempted to take a near cut through the wood, unless you are thoroughly acquainted with every corner of it. A short cut is the Devil's cut. Am I right or not? It takes a very short cut to go to the Devil. I remember it as if it were only yesterday; and who knows whether poor Joseph may not have done the very same thing. I went through that very forest, and the hatter met the boy at the large beech tree, which I also passed. God forbid that the child should have to go as far as I did, before I found my way back! It was on the Sunday after All Saints--no, it was on a Monday; at all events it was a holiday, St. Peters and St. Paul's. We don't keep it holy, but the Catholics do. I left home on a fine bright day, carrying nothing with me but a velvet cap in a handkerchief for Holderstein's daughter, in Wenger. You know who I mean. She is now a widow: they say she is going to marry a very young man, who lives near Neustaedtle; for she went there two Sundays following, and he walked back with her both times: it is not very wise in her to marry such a boy. At the time I speak of, she was betrothed to her first husband, a nephew of the Forest Miller--I mean of the old miller. So I set out and went first along the valley. It was a very fine season; it is long since we have had one like it--just the quantity of rain and sunshine that we required. In the wood I met the beadle's children--the boy and Maidli. The boy became a soldier, and was shot by the Freischaerfer. Maidli lives in Elsass, where they say she is happily married. They were herding an old and a young goat, beside the hedge where there are so many hazel nuts. So I asked the children--I don't know why--if there was not a nearer path to Wenger. 'Yes, indeed,' said the children. 'I must not keep on the beaten track; but when I came to the group of juniper trees, turn to the left through the wood.' I wanted one of the children to show me the way, that I might be quite sure of the right road. I can't tell the reason, but I somehow anticipated evil; but the children were so stupid, that they would neither go alone nor together with me.