The mere memory of all those long winter evenings, when
they had all closed round it, and roasted chestnuts or crab-apples in
it, and listened to the howling of the wind and the deep sound of the
church-bells, and tried very much to make each other believe that the
wolves still came down from the mountains into the streets of Hall,
and were that very minute growling at the house door--all this memory
coming on him with the sound of the city bells, and the knowledge that
night drew near upon him so completely, being added to his hunger and
his fear, so overcame him that he burst out crying for the fiftieth
time since he had been inside the stove, and felt that he would starve
to death, and wondered dreamily if Hirschvogel would care. 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.
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