here's only one little glimpse of sunlight remaining!"

Poor child! how many in this world live upon one single gleam of
hope--ay, and even cling to it when a mere twilight, fast fading before
them!

The Bauer was silent for some minutes; his look wandered from the child
to the cage, and back again from the cage to the child. At last he
stooped down and peeped in at the bird, which, with a sense of being in
disgrace, sat with his head beneath his wing.

"Come, my little man," said he, laying a hand on Fritz's shoulder, "I'll
take thee home with me! 'Tis true I have no cattle--nothing save a few
goats--but thou shalt herd these. Pack up thy bird, and let us away,
for we have a long journey before us, and must do part of it before we
sleep."

Fritz's heart bounded with joy and gratitude. It would have been, in
good truth, no very splendid prospect for any other to be a goatherd to
a poor Bauer--so poor that he had not even one cow; but little Fritz was
an orphan, without a home, a friend, or one to give him shelter for a
single night. It may be believed, then, that he felt overjoyed; and it
was with a light heart he trotted along beside the old Bauer, who never
could hear enough about the starling--where he came from? how he was
caught? who taught him to speak? what he liked best to feed upon? and
a hundred other questions, which, after all, should have been far more
numerous ere Fritz found it any fatigue to answer them. Not only did it
give him pleasure to speak of Jacob, but now he felt actually grateful
to him, since, had the old Bauer not taken a fancy to the bird, it was
more than likely he had never hired its master.

The Bauer told Fritz that the journey was a long one, and true enough.
It lay across the Zillerthal, where the garnets are found, and over
the great mountains that separate the Austrian from the Bavarian
Tyrol--many a long, weary mile--many, I say, because the Bauer had come
up to Inspruck to buy hemp for spinning when the evenings of winter are
long and dark, and poor people must do something to earn their bread.
This load of hemp was carried on a little wheeled cart, to which the old
man himself was harnessed, and in front of him his dog--a queer-looking
team would it appear to English eyes, but one meets them often enough
here; and as the fatigue is not great, and the peasants lighten the
way by many a merry song--as the Tyrol "Jodeln"--it never suggests the
painful idea of over-hard or distre