"My mother is sick, and I have come for the doctor. There isn't much the matter, but father is so anxious."
"Are all the rest well?"
"Of course they are."
The doctor drove away with Peter, and the judge's wife asked him to send Thoma to her as soon as she could leave her mother.
Anton, too, soon went home with his father.
The physician on the plateau, and the raft-drivers in the valley, were overtaken by a severe thunderstorm that burst forth with wind and hail.
CHAPTER LXII.
Two days and two nights it stormed in the valley and on the plateau, with only short intermissions. When the thunder-clouds are ensnared between close-set wooded mountains and sharply pointed rocks, they can find no outlet. They toss hither and thither; they break and then come together again; it thunders and lightens, rains and hails, till they have entirely disburdened themselves.
One could almost say that it was the same with the people here; when bad humor had fastened on these hard, sharp-pointed natures, the anger and quarreling had no end.
Landolin and Thoma sat by the mother's sick bed; sometimes together, sometimes alone. Their eyes flashed, but their thoughts were unspoken. The mother was constantly faint, for the air did not cool off during the two days and nights. On the third day, however, when the sun shone again, and a balmy, fresh air quickened everything anew, she said: