Martina, however, was vexed that Joseph should be sent out of the house on this particular day. Still it was quite right that he should not hear what they were going to talk about; and though she did not join in Leegart's denunciations, she could not help crying and lamenting. She sent Joseph back to Häspele, but Joseph had talked enough already of the dog he seemed doomed never to get. He went along the village, and a woman who met him said in a compassionate tone, "Ah! poor child! this is an evil day for you," Joseph thought so too, as he had been pushed out of the house. Presently another, by way of cloaking the bad news adroitly, said, "Joseph, what is your father doing? Is it long since you saw him?" The boy perceived that something was going on in the village, and that it concerned him; he, however, kept his promise to his mother, and told no one that his father was to come this very day.
It never ceased snowing, and Joseph, being quite alone on the ice, kept sliding backwards and forwards on the ground, and constantly looking at the path where his father was likely to come. But he found himself at last so solitary, that he went to his grandfather's. He remained standing outside the door of the workshop, for he heard two men talking there. He knew their voices: they were the two churchwardens Wagner and Harzbauer. They were saying that the cook at the Parsonage had let out that the Pastor intended to leave the village, and that she believed Röttmann and the Forest Miller were the chief cause of this; and then they abused Adam, saying that he well deserved his nickname of The Horse, for he allowed himself to be bridled and driven about, just as other people chose.
The men now came out, along with Schilder-David, who said, "So you are there, Joseph? Go home, and I will soon come to you."
His grandfather did not take him by the hand, as usual, but went with his two friends to the Parsonage. Joseph stood still. But suddenly, as if some one had whistled to him, he turned round, and ran off through the village into the fields, to meet his father. "He will be so glad to see me! and he will put me before him on his horse." Away ran the boy, jumping merrily along through the fields, and into the wood. Every now and then he wiped off the snow from his face and breast with his hands, and making small snowballs, he threw them at particular trees that he fixed upon, and never failed to hit them. He went more slowly when he was once fairly in the wood, and often looked round. Two bullfinches were perched on a mountain ash close to the path, twittering incessantly, but as if half asleep, and every now and then picking the red berries; but many more than they ate, were scattered on the ground. "You are silly, greedy fellows, and destroy more than you eat," said Joseph, and, despising the simple creatures, went on his way. Below in the valley a bird was singing charmingly, and with infinite tenderness: it sounded something like the notes of a thrush. What could it be? And the bird went on singing and flying—on and on, further and further! Deep snow was lying where the path takes a sharp turn. At the very first step Joseph sunk up to his knees. He was, however, quick enough to clamber up an overhanging bank, and then to get down again into the path beyond the snowdrift. It was lucky that this steep declivity was planted with mountain ash, to show the way.
"Do the mountain ash berries belong to my father, too, I wonder?" said Joseph aloud. The trees could not answer him, and there was no human being near to give him any information. A fox appeared on the path in the thicket, and stared at the boy. No doubt he was puzzled to make out what such a singular apparition could be: he stood for some moments immoveable, watching the boy, till the latter cried out, "Get along!" And off trotted the fox, but in no hurry, and little Joseph again exclaimed, "Yes, grandfather, it is just as you said, for now I saw it myself,—the fox drags his tail after him on the ground, to brush away the marks of his paws, that no one may know which way he is gone. How clever of him!" Magpies chattered from the tops of the trees, and a crossbill was perched on a projecting bit of rock, just above the valley; and the boy nodded to it, and the bird nodded too: he did not say a word, but he only opened and shut his beak, as if he wished to say, "I am hungry." "There's something for you!" cried little Joseph, flinging down the ravine the only bit of bread he had left. The bird, no doubt, supposed that it was a stone thrown at him, for he flew away timidly, and the piece of bread was buried in the snow, so no one got a share of it.
Joseph went on quietly, resting sometimes under a tree, and sometimes under a projecting rock, amusing himself by watching how the snow fell in such thick showers, and yet so softly, covering everything more and more. "My father must take me a drive in a sledge tomorrow," thought Joseph; and, thinking of his father, he wandered further and further.
Twilight was beginning to fall, and the boy felt rather frightened, but he still went straight on; and it was lucky for him that Schilder-David had guarded him from all the prevalent superstitions of the country. Still Häspele had told him that the souls of the dead danced in churchyards at night, in the shape of lights, and often in the wood besides; and the rider on the gallant grey, who rides through the air, can crack his whip famously, for he has a fir tree as tall as the church steeple for a whip. There is the stone cross at the side of the road, where once a peasant with his cart and horse fell down the hill; and there sits a raven on the cross. "You are nothing but a raven," said Joseph, throwing a snowball at the bird, who flew away with a croak.
Joseph went on till he came to a group of wooden figures, the faces almost covered with snow, and the figures, in summer attire, peeping out of the hollow in which the group was placed. Joseph broke off a fir branch, and rubbed off all the snow from the wooden faces, that seemed to stare at him so strangely. They consisted of five men, in the hollow, under green trees: they all wore white shirts, green breeches, and short yellow leather gaiters. They stood in a row, each with an axe in his hand. In front, however, of the others stood one man alone, with uplifted axe, and beside him lay a man on the ground, bleeding and crushed, close to a felled tree. Joseph read the inscription: it was, "Vincent Röttmann was crushed by this tree on the 17th of August, and died, after great suffering, on the 23rd of August. May God grant him everlasting rest, and punish the guilty!"
Joseph shuddered. The figures kept staring at him as if he were guilty. And what Röttmann could this be?
As a sign that he was innocent, Joseph placed the green fir branch on the group, and went on his way, not quite easy in his mind, because the figures stared after him so oddly.