When Dorothea stole out to look for August, he was nowhere in
sight. She went back to little 'Gilda, who was ailing, and sobbed
over the child, whilst the others stood looking on, dimly
understanding that with Hirschvogel was going all the warmth of
their bodies, all the light of their hearth.
Even their father now was sorry and ashamed; but two hundred
florins seemed a big sum to him, and, after all, he thought the
children could warm themselves quite as well at the black iron
stove in the kitchen. Besides, whether he regretted it now or not,
the work of the Nurnberg 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 had 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 neighbor 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.
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