Besides, whether he regretted it now or not, the work
of the Nuernberg potter was sold irrevocably, and he had to stand still
and see the men from Munich wrap it in manifold wrappings and bear it
out into the snowy air to where an ox-cart stood in waiting for it.

In another moment Hirschvogel was gone--gone forever and aye.

August stood still for a time, leaning, sick and faint from the
violence that had been used to him, against the back wall of the
house. The wall looked on a court where a well was, and the backs of
other houses, and beyond them the spire of the Muntze Tower and the
peaks of the mountains.

Into the court an old neighbour hobbled for water, and, seeing the
boy, said to him:

"Child, is it true your father is selling the big painted stove?"

August nodded his head, then burst into a passion of tears.

"Well, for sure he is a fool," said the neighbour. "Heaven forgive me
for calling him so before his own child! but the stove was worth a
mint of money. I do remember in my young days, in old Anton's time
(that was your great-grandfather, my lad), a stranger from Vienna saw
it, and said that it was worth its weight in gold."

August's sobs went on their broken, impetuous course.

"I loved it! I loved it!" he moaned. "I do not care what its value
was. I loved it! _I loved it_!"

"You little simpleton!" said the old man, kindly. "But you are wiser
than your father, when all's said. If sell it he must, he should have
taken it to good Herr Steiner over at Spruez, who would have given him
honest value. But no doubt they took him over his beer, ay, ay! but if
I were you I would do better than cry. I would go after it."

August raised his head, the tears raining down his cheeks.

"Go after it when you are bigger," said the neighbour, with a
good-natured wish to cheer him up a little. "The world is a small
thing after all: I was a travelling clockmaker once upon a time, and I
know that your stove will be safe enough whoever gets it; anything
that can be sold for a round sum is always wrapped up in cotton wool
by everybody. Ay, ay, don't cry so much; you will see your stove again
some day."

Then the old man hobbled away to draw his brazen pail full of water at
the well.

August remained leaning against the wall; his head was buzzing and his
heart fluttering with the new idea which had presented itself to his
mind. "Go after it," had said the old man. He thought, "Why not go
with it?" He loved it