Even their father now was very 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 Nuernberg 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 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 neighbour 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.
"Well, for sure he is a fool," said the neighbour. "Heaven forgive me
for calling him so before his own child! but the stove was worth a
mint of money. I do remember in my young days, in old Anton's time
(that was your great-grandfather, my lad), a stranger from Vienna saw
it, and said that it was worth its weight in gold."
August's sobs went on their broken, impetuous course.
"I loved it! I loved it!" he moaned.
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