him privately
that he was looking for the boy, and that he was in great trouble lest
something should have happened to the child; he did not know what, but
he felt very uneasy about him.

"Did you look for him at the old Bugler's? I heard him blowing away,
and beautifully too; at this moment, depend upon it, Joseph is with
him; here are his boots, I will go and fetch the boy."

The worthy Haespele ran quickly down the village, to a stocking weaver's
who was seated in his room, practising some new tunes on the French
horn. It sounded very pretty through the stillness of the night, when a
man's own footsteps were inaudible in the thick snow.

It was very natural that Joseph should prefer being with the old horn
player, to sitting at home; but he was not there either. On his way,
Haespele mentioned to his neighbours that he was in search of Joseph; no
one had seen him, and nowhere was he to be found! Haespele returned to
David with this distressing intelligence, and the latter said, "Keep
quiet, and not a word before the women, or there will be a fine
howling; stay here for a little, he has very probably hid himself, and
perhaps intends to come here with the Three Holy Kings--I mean the
masks, who go about on this evening--I daresay he thinks it would be
fine fun; but I'll show him another sort of fun when I catch him."

David sat down again, and with apparent composure, whistled, and kept
waving his hand in the air, as if in anticipation of the strokes of the
birch rod he fully intended to administer to the little culprit.

"I will stay quietly where I am," said he, as if addressing himself; so
he filled his pipe and went on smoking, muttering occasionally, what a
good-for-nothing little scamp Joseph was, but he would take care he
should be well punished for all the anxiety he had caused. David took
up his Bible, and continued to read on from the place where he had
stopped the day before; it was in the 2nd book of Samuel, 12th chapter,
where King David mourns for his sick child. This did not contribute to
tranquillize the reader, so he got up and went out and in, listening
anxiously. The bells were all merrily ringing in the Festival--surely
he must come soon now--but no one came. There was no longer a
possibility of secresy; David went to every house in the village to the
right, and Haespele the same to the left. They both met again at David's
house. The procession of the Three Holy Kings passed along; Joseph was
n