Yes, he was sure
Hirschvogel would care. Had he not decked it all summer long with
alpine roses and edelweiss and heaths and made it sweet with thyme
and honeysuckle and great garden lilies? Had he ever forgotten
when Santa Claus came to make it its crown of holly and ivy and
wreathe it all around?
"Oh, shelter me; save me; take care of me!" he prayed to the old
fire-king, and forgot, poor little man, that he had come on this
wild-goose chase northward to save and take care of Hirschvogel!
After a time he dropped asleep, as children can do when they weep,
and little robust hill-born boys most surely do, be they where
they may. It was not very cold in this lumber-room; it was tightly
shut up, and very full of things, and at the back of it were the
hot pipes of an adjacent house, where a great deal of fuel was
burnt. Moreover, August's clothes were warm ones, and his blood
was young. So he was not cold, though Munich is terribly cold in
the nights of December; and he slept on and on--which was a
comfort to him, for he forgot his woes, and his perils, and his
hunger, for a time.
Midnight was once more chiming from all the brazen tongues of the
city when he awoke, and, all being still around him, ventured to
put his head out of the brass door of the stove to see why such a
strange bright light was round him.
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