It was bleak and bare on the mountainside, though there were still
patches of grass such as the flocks liked, that had grown since
the hay was cut. The frost of the night made the stone slippery,
and even the irons gripped it with difficulty; and there was a
strong wind rising like a giant's breath, and blowing his small
horn lantern to and fro.
Now and then he quaked a little with fear--not fear of the night
or the mountains, but of strange spirits and dwarfs and goblins of
ill repute, said to haunt Martinswand after nightfall. Old women
had told him of such things, though the priest always said that
they were only foolish tales, there being nothing on God's earth
wicked save men and women who had not clean hearts and hands.
Findelkind believed the priest; still, all alone on the side of
the mountain, with the snowflakes flying round him, he felt a
nervous thrill that made him tremble and almost turn backward.
Almost, but not quite; for he thought of Katte and the poor little
lambs lost--and perhaps dead--through his fault. The path went
zigzag and was very steep; the Arolla pines swayed their boughs in
his face; stones that lay in his path unseen in the gloom made him
stumble. Now and then a large bird of the night flew by with a
rushing sound; the air grew so cold that all Martinswand might
have been turning to one huge glacier.
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