X
All was dark around him. Was it still midnight or had morningcome? Morning, surely; for against the barred shutters he heardthe tiny song of the robin.
Tramp, tramp, too, came a heavy step up the stair. He had but amoment in which to scramble back into the interior of the greatstove, when the door opened and the two dealers entered, bringingburning candles with them to see their way.
August was scarcely conscious of danger more than he was of coldor hunger. A marvellous sense of courage, of security, ofhappiness, was about him, like strong and gentle arms enfoldinghim and lifting him upwards--upwards--upwards! Hirschvogel woulddefend him.
The dealers undid the shutters, scaring the red-breast away, andthen tramped about in their heavy boots and chattered incontented voices, and began to wrap up the stove once more in allits straw and hay and cordage.
It never once occurred to them to glance inside. Why should theylook inside a stove that they had bought and were about to sellagain for all its glorious beauty of exterior?
The child still did not feel afraid. A great exaltation had cometo him: he was like one lifted up by his angels.
Presently the two traders called up their porters, and the stove,heedfully swathed and wrapped and tended as though it were somesick prince going on a journey, was borne on the shoulders of sixstout Bavarians down the stairs and out of the door into theMarienplatz. Even behind all those wrappings August felt the icybite of the intense cold of the outer air at dawn of a winter'sday in Munich. The men moved the stove with exceeding gentlenessand care, so that he had often been far more roughly shaken inhis big brothers' arms than he was in his journey now; and thoughboth hunger and thirst made themselves felt, being foes that willtake no denial, he was still in that state of nervous exaltationwhich deadens all physical suffering and is at once a cordial andan opiate. He had heard Hirschvogel speak; that was enough.
The stout carriers tramped through the city, six of them, withthe Nuernberg fire-castle on their brawny shoulders, and wentright across Munich to the railway-station, and August in thedark recognized all the ugly, jangling, pounding, roaring,hissing railway-noises, and thought, despite his courage andexcitement, "Will it be a _very_ long journey?" For his stomachhad at times an odd sinking sensation, and his head sadly oftenfelt light and swimming. If it was a very, very long journey hefelt half afraid that he would be dead or something bad beforethe end, and Hirschvogel would be so lonely: that was what hethought most about; not much about himself, and not much aboutDorothea and the house at home. He was "high strung to highemprise," and could not look behind him.
Whether for a long or a short journey, whether for weal or woe,the stove with August still within it was once more hoisted upinto a great van; but this time it was not all alone, and the twodealers as well as the six porters were all with it.
He in his darkness knew that; for he heard their voices. Thetrain glided away over the Bavarian plain southward; and he heardthe men say something of Berg and the Wurm-See, but their Germanwas strange to him, and he could not make out what these namesmeant.
The train rolled on, with all its fume and fuss, and roar ofsteam, and stench of oil and burning coal. It had to go quietlyand slowly on account of the snow which was falling, and whichhad fallen all night.
"He might have waited till he came to the city," grumbled one manto another. "What weather to stay on at Berg!"
But who he was that stayed on at Berg, August could not make outat all.
Though the men grumbled about the state of the roads and theseason, they were hilarious and well content, for they laughedoften, and, when they swore, did so good-humoredly, and promisedtheir porters fine presents at New-Year; and August, like ashrewd little boy as he was, who even in the secluded Innthal hadlearned that money is the chief mover of men's mirth, thought tohimself, with a terrible pang,--
"They have sold Hirschvogel for some great sum. They have soldhim already!"
Then his heart grew faint and sick within him, for he knew verywell that he must soon die, shut up without food and water thus;and what new owner of the great fire-palace would ever permit himto dwell in it?
"Never mind; I _will_ die," thought he; "and Hirschvogel willknow it."
Perhaps you think him a very foolish little fellow; but I donot.
It is always good to be loyal and ready to endure to the end.
It is but an hour and a quarter that the train usually takes topass from Munich to the Wurm-See or Lake of Starnberg; but thismorning the journey was much slower, because the way wasencumbered by snow. When it did reach Possenhofen and stop, andthe Nuernberg stove was lifted out once more, August could seethrough the fret-work of the brass door, as the stove stoodupright facing the lake, that this Wurm-See was a calm and noblepiece of water, of great width, with low wooded banks and distantmountains, a peaceful, serene place, full of rest.
It was now near ten o'clock. The sun had come forth; there was aclear gray sky hereabouts; the snow was not falling, though itlay white and smooth everywhere, down to the edge of the water,which before long would itself be ice.
Before he had time to get more than a glimpse of the greengliding surface, the stove was again lifted up and placed on alarge boat that was in waiting,--one of those very long and hugeboats which the women in these parts use as laundries, and themen as timber-rafts. The stove, with much labor and muchexpenditure of time and care, was hoisted into this, and Augustwould have grown sick and giddy with the heaving and falling ifhis big brothers had not long used him to such tossing about, sothat he was as much at ease head, as feet, downward. The stoveonce in it safely with its guardians, the big boat moved acrossthe lake to Leoni. How a little hamlet on a Bavarian lake gotthat Tuscan-sounding name I cannot tell; but Leoni it is. The bigboat was a long time crossing: the lake here is about three milesbroad, and these heavy barges are unwieldy and heavy to move,even though they are towed and tugged at from the shore.
"If we should be too late!" the two dealers muttered to eachother, in agitation and alarm. "He said eleven o'clock."
"Who was he?" thought August; "the buyer, of course, ofHirschvogel." The slow passage across the Wurm-See wasaccomplished at length: the lake was placid; there was a sweetcalm in the air and on the water; there was a great deal of snowin the sky, though the sun was shining and gave a solemn hush tothe atmosphere. Boats and one little steamer were going up anddown; in the clear frosty light the distant mountains ofZillerthal and the Algau Alps were visible; market-people,cloaked and furred, went by on the water or on the banks; thedeep woods of the shores were black and gray and brown. PoorAugust could see nothing of a scene that would have delightedhim; as the stove was now set, he could only see the oldworm-eaten wood of the huge barge.
Presently they touched the pier at Leoni.
"Now, men, for a stout mile and half! You shall drink your rewardat Christmas-time," said one of the dealers to his porters, who,stout, strong men as they were, showed a disposition to grumbleat their task. Encouraged by large promises, they shoulderedsullenly the Nuernberg stove, grumbling again at its preposterousweight, but little dreaming that they carried within it a small,panting, trembling boy; for August began to tremble now that hewas about to see the future owner of Hirschvogel.
"If he look a good, kind man," he thought, "I will beg him to letme stay with it."