Alas! they were
frozen and dead. Never again would they leap in the long green
grass, and frisk with each other, and lie happy by Katte's side;
they had died calling for their mother, and in the long, cold,
cruel night only death had answered.
Findelkind did not weep, or scream, or tremble; his heart seemed
frozen, like the dead lambs,
It was he who had killed them.
He rose up and gathered them in his arms,--and cuddled them in the
skirts of his skeepskin tunic, and cast his staff away that he
might carry them, and so, thus burdened with their weight, set his
face to the snow and the wind once more, and began his downward
way.
Once a great sob shook him; that was all. Now he had no fear.
The night might have been noonday, the snow storm might have been
summer, for aught he knew or cared.
Long and weary was the way, and often he stumbled and had to rest;
often the terrible sleep of the snow lay heavy on his eyelids, and
he longed to lie down and be at rest, as the little brothers were;
often it seemed to him that he would never reach home again. But
he shook the lethargy off him and resisted the longing, and held
on his way: he knew that his mother would mourn for him as Katte
mourned for the lambs. At length, through all difficulty and
danger, when his light had spent itself and his strength had well
nigh spent itself too, his feet touched the old highroad.
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