to a cart, which stood there with
a horse harnessed to one side of the pole, as the country-people love
to do, to the risk of their own lives and their neighbours'. Findelkind
said never a word; he was as dumb as Theodoric had been to him; he felt
stupid, heavy, half blind; his father pushed him some bread, and he ate
it by sheer instinct, as a lost animal will do; the cart jogged on, the
stars shone, the great church vanished in the gloom of night.

As they went through the city toward the riverside along the homeward
way, never a word did his father, who was a silent man at all times,
address to him. Only once, as they jogged over the bridge, he spoke.

"Son," he asked, "did you run away truly thinking to please God and help
the poor?"

"Truly I did!" answered Findelkind, with a sob in his throat.

"Then thou wert an ass!" said his father. "Didst never think of thy
mother's love and of my toil? Look at home."

Findelkind was mute. The drive was very long, backward by the same way,
with the river shining in the moonlight, and the mountains half covered
with the clouds.

It was ten by the bells of Zirl when they came once more under the
solemn shadow of grave Martinswand. There were lights moving about his
house, his brothers and sisters were still up, his mother ran out into
the road, weeping and laughing with fear and joy.

Findelkind himself said nothing.

He hung his head.

They were too fond of him to scold him or to jeer at him; they made him
go quickly to his bed, and his mother made him a warm milk posset, and
kissed him.

"We will punish thee tomorrow, naughty and cruel one," said his parent.
"But thou art punished enough already, for in thy place little Stefan
had the sheep, and he has lost Katte's lambs,--the beautiful twin lambs!
I dare not tell thy father tonight. Dost hear the poor thing mourn? Do
not go afield for thy duty again."

A pang went through the heart of Findelkind, as if a knife had pierced
it. He loved Katte better than almost any other living thing, and
she was bleating under his window childless and alone. They were such
beautiful lambs, too!--lambs that his father had promised should never
be killed, but be reared to swell the flock.

Findelkind cowered down in his bed, and felt wretched beyond all
wretchedness. He had been brought back; his wallet was empty; and
Katte's lambs were lost. He could not sleep.

His pulses were beating like so many steam-hammers; he felt as if h