t crushed to
death, for the cows all tried to get in at once. They each had but one
hand free, as the other was needed to hold the pail. They succeeded in
getting to the wall and, at last, when all the cows were in the stable,
the two girls waded through the hail with which the ground was thickly
covered, and regained the cottage. They groped about until they found
the hearth and sat down by it. And the two lonely, forlorn children sat
there in the dark, while the storm raged without.

"I feel sure," cried Gundel, "that father must have found shelter
somewhere. He knows every overhanging rock and--O God!" she suddenly
cried, "just think of the poor blind man, out in such weather! Has the
hail cut your hand and back, the way it did mine?" said she, crying,
and nestling close to Irma.

"No, I feel nothing," replied Irma, and it really seemed as if physical
pain could not affect her. She, too, had thought of the blind man, and
also of the king whom filial ingratitude had turned out into the stormy
night. But hail or wind were not half so violent as her regret that,
yielding to pity, she had allowed a man to pass his hand across her
face.

Is all lost again? Is all that has cost so great a struggle,
sacrificed? wofully asked an inner voice--and yet she felt conscious of
her purity.

"Thank God! it's only raining now," said Gundel at last. She struck a
light, and the two looked at each other, as if they had just emerged
from depths of darkness. The floor was wet with the water that had
dripped from their clothes.

"Are you at home?" exclaimed a voice from without. The door opened and
the little pitchman entered, carrying a young kid in his arms.

"Thank God you're safe and sound," he exclaimed, laying the kid down by
the empty fireplace. With his sleeve, which was far wetter that either,
he wiped the water from his eyes and forehead. Then he took a bottle of
gentian brandy from the upper shelf and, after taking a drink, and
forcing Gundel and Irma to do likewise, he went on to say: "I've gone
through a good deal in my time, but never anything like this. I know
every tree and every rock for miles, but I seemed to have lost my way.
While I stood there in the midst of the storm, I heard a chamois doe
bleating pitifully, and I went up to her and there she stood, with the
young kid that had just been born. It had hardly come into the world,
before the hail tried to beat it to death. When the mother saw me, she
ran away, b