"It was a lovely summer's day, the Sunday after All Saints--no, not Sunday, the Monday of Peter and Paul. Oh! what must it be to wander about in the snow at night, and such a child, too! what could it do but lie down and die! Oh heavens! I see the child before me, fast in the snow, or in the cleft of a rock, its hands struggling, and its feet frozen, so that it cannot move; and crying out, 'Mother!' and listening, and hoping that some one will come, and no one answers but the raven on the tree. And a hare runs past him--whish!--over the snow. It is afraid of the child, and the child looks after the hare, and forgets his misery for the moment. 'Mother! mother!' he goes on calling, and it is a blessing that he falls asleep at last, never to wake again. Good heavens! what an unhappy creature I am to have such thoughts pass through my mind; and come they will, I can't help it; but it runs in our family, and my mother was right in saying, that she knew more than that two and two made four. And you know what happened to the poor child that lies buried up yonder in Wenger. He was found in the wood on the third day, quite covered with snow, and only close to his heart was the snow melted. All those who saw it could not help sobbing their very hearts out; and the mother became an idiot. The Herr Pastor wrote a beautiful epitaph on the tombstone: I knew it once by heart, but I could not repeat it now. And what happened to the hatter, who was carrying a bundle of newly dyed hats on New Year's Day to Knusling? He arrived at the Schroeckenhalde, the very precipice where I was when I lost myself, and went on through the meadow; and there was such a fog that you could not see your hand before you. He went round and round the village at least seven times, and could never find his way in. The bells were ringing, but they always seemed to him to come from the other side, and so he never got there. At last he heard geese cackling, so he followed the cry, and soon got safe to the village. But if you could but have seen him! he looked just as if he had been buried, and dug up again. But one thing I forgot to tell you, which was that the Forest Miller"-- Here Leegart was interrupted by loud cries in front of the house. CHAPTER XV. A CHILD SEEKING HIS FATHER. Leegart was absolute mistress of Schilder-David's house, on the days when she came in the morning to stay till night; and therefore it was but natural that she should dismiss little Joseph at noon; for in his presence, it was not possible to discuss the many points that were absolutely necessary to be discussed.