times he came near falling. Now some distance ahead
the darkness seemed to break, and presently both entered a rather large
clearing. The moon shone down brightly and showed that only a short
while ago the axe had raged here mercilessly. Everywhere stumps of trees
jutted up, some many feet above the ground, just as it had been most
convenient to cut through them in haste; the forbidden work must have
been interrupted unexpectedly, for directly across the path lay a
beech-tree with its branches rising high above it, and its leaves, still
fresh, trembling in the evening breeze. Simon stopped a moment and
surveyed the fallen tree-trunk with interest. In the centre of the open
space stood an old oak, broad in proportion to its height. A pale ray of
light that fell on its trunk through the branches showed that it was
hollow, a fact that had probably saved it from the general destruction.

Here Simon suddenly clutched the boy's arm. "Frederick, do you know that
tree? That is the broad oak." Frederick started, and with his cold hands
clung to his uncle. "See," Simon continued, "here Uncle Franz and
Huelsmeyer found your father, when without confession and extreme
unction he had gone to the Devil in his drunkenness."

"Uncle, uncle!" gasped Frederick.

"What's coming over you? I should hope you are not afraid? Devil of a
boy, you're pinching my arm! Let go, let go!" He tried to shake the boy
off. "On the whole your father was a good soul; God won't be too strict
with him. I loved him as well as my own brother." Frederick let go his
uncle's arm; both walked the rest of the way through the forest in
silence, and soon the village of Brede lay before them with its mud
houses and its few better brick houses, one of which belonged to Simon.

The next evening Margaret sat at the door with her flax for fully an
hour, awaiting her boy. It had been the first night she had passed
without hearing her child's breathing beside her, and still Frederick
did not come. She was vexed and anxious, and yet knew that there was no
reason for being so. The clock in the tower struck seven; the cattle
returned home; still he was not there, and she had to get up to look
after the cows.

When she reentered the dark kitchen, Frederick was standing on the
hearth; he was bending forward and warming his hands over the coal fire.
The light played on his features and gave him an unpleasant look of
leanness and nervous twitching. Margaret stopped at the doo