watching how the snow fell
in such thick showers, and yet so softly, covering everything more and
more. "My father must take me a drive in a sledge tomorrow," thought
Joseph; and, thinking of his father, he wandered further and further.

Twilight was beginning to fall, and the boy felt rather frightened, but
he still went straight on; and it was lucky for him that Schilder-David
had guarded him from all the prevalent superstitions of the country.
Still Haespele had told him that the souls of the dead danced in
churchyards at night, in the shape of lights, and often in the wood
besides; and the rider on the gallant grey, who rides through the air,
can crack his whip famously, for he has a fir tree as tall as the
church steeple for a whip. There is the stone cross at the side of the
road, where once a peasant with his cart and horse fell down the hill;
and there sits a raven on the cross. "You are nothing but a raven,"
said Joseph, throwing a snowball at the bird, who flew away with a
croak.

Joseph went on till he came to a group of wooden figures, the faces
almost covered with snow, and the figures, in summer attire, peeping
out of the hollow in which the group was placed. Joseph broke off a fir
branch, and rubbed off all the snow from the wooden faces, that seemed
to stare at him so strangely. They consisted of five men, in the
hollow, under green trees: they all wore white shirts, green breeches,
and short yellow leather gaiters. They stood in a row, each with an axe
in his hand. In front, however, of the others stood one man alone, with
uplifted axe, and beside him lay a man on the ground, bleeding and
crushed, close to a felled tree. Joseph read the inscription: it was,
"Vincent Roettmann was crushed by this tree on the 17th of August, and
died, after great suffering, on the 23rd of August. May God grant him
everlasting rest, and punish the guilty!"

Joseph shuddered. The figures kept staring at him as if he were guilty.
And what Roettmann could this be?

As a sign that he was innocent, Joseph placed the green fir branch on
the group, and went on his way, not quite easy in his mind, because the
figures stared after him so oddly.

What does he see coming, along the path? Is it a man?--he has at least
a hundred protuberances! He must be a spectre! He comes nearer and
nearer. Joseph goes up to him boldly, and says--"Good evening!" The man
with the hundred protuberances--it was the hatter with his bundles of
thre