ng else; and, being safe inside his dear Hirschvogel and
intensely cold, he went fast asleep as if he were in his own bed
at home with Albrecht and Christof on either side of him. The
train lumbered on, stopping often and long, as the habit of
goods-trains is, sweeping the snow away with its cow-switcher,
and rumbling through the deep heart of the mountains, with its
lamps aglow like the eyes of a dog in a night of frost.

The train rolled on in its heavy, slow fashion, and the child
slept soundly for a long while. When he did awake, it was quite
dark outside in the land; he could not see, and of course he was
in absolute darkness; and for a while he was sorely frightened,
and trembled terribly, and sobbed in a quiet heart-broken
fashion, thinking of them all at home. Poor Dorothea! how anxious
she would be! How she would run over the town and walk up to
grandfather's at Dorf Ampas, and perhaps even send over to
Jenbach, thinking he had taken refuge with Uncle Joachim! His
conscience smote him for the sorrow he must be even then causing
to his gentle sister; but it never occurred to him to try and go
back. If he once were to lose sight of Hirschvogel how could he
ever hope to find it again? how could he ever know whither it had
gone,--north, south, east, or west? The old neighbor had said
that the world was small; but August knew at least that it must
have a great many places in it: that he had seen himself on the
maps on his schoolhouse walls. Almost any other little boy would,
I think, have been frightened out of his wits at the position in
which he found himself; but August was brave, and he had a firm
belief that God and Hirschvogel would take care of him. The
master-potter of Nuernberg was always present to his mind, a
kindly, benign, and gracious spirit, dwelling manifestly in that
porcelain tower whereof he had been the maker.

A droll fancy, you say? But every child with a soul in him has
quite as quaint fancies as this one was of August's.

So he got over his terror and his sobbing both, though he was so
utterly in the dark. He did not feel cramped at all, because the
stove was so large, and air he had in plenty, as it came through
the fret-work running round the top. He was hungry again, and
again nibbled with prudence at his loaf and his sausage. He could
not at all tell the hour. Every time the train stopped and he
heard the banging, stamping, shouting, and jangling of chains
that went on, his heart see