"That will melt the snow," he cried, exultingly.
"Yes; and set fire to the thatched roof," returned his comrade.
Faller stood in mute despair. The two began rolling up great snowballs and throwing them into the fire, just as the day was dawning, which they succeeded in extinguishing.
It was a clear day, almost as warm as spring. The sun shone bright on the Morgenhalde, seeking the house it had so often greeted; seeking the master who on Monday morning always sat busy at work in the window, as his father and grandfather had done before him. It found neither house nor master. The sunbeams quivered and shimmered here and there as if they had lost their way. There lay the defiant snow, challenging them to do their worst. The sun sent its fiery darts against the few cowardly flakes that yielded, but the solid fortress would hold out for days.
All the villagers were on the spot, the engineer at their head. Other villages too and other parishes had sent men and help in abundance.
Faller's logs offered a firm support, and companies were organized for working systematically both from below and above. A single raven flew persistently round and round the workmen and would not be frightened away. The men perched high in the air shouted at him; he heeded not their cries, but watched them at their work as if he knew what they were about, and had something to tell them if he could but have spoken.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
A PLANT GROWS UNDER THE SNOW.
Lenz sat mute and motionless, watching in the face of night and death.
Petrovitsch was the first to rouse himself. He told of a house that had once been buried in this way, and of those who came to the rescue finding the bodies of four peasants with the cards still in their hands, crushed to death at the table round which they had been sitting. The old man shuddered as he told the story, and yet he could not keep it to himself; he must tell it and relieve his mind, though it should freeze the hearer's blood. But God would save them, he added, for the sake of the innocent child. He almost railed against the Providence which could doom the child as well as themselves to destruction.