"Into a cuckoo; but not another word now; be quiet."
Filled with strange thoughts, the father and child went up the mountain. Hansei could not understand how, at such a moment, his wife could leave her friend and go to the queen--. Perhaps they were bound together in some way? He shook his head. Matters that he could not disentangle, he always put away from him. The only thing was to see what could be done for the sick one; that was the most important matter. He squared his shoulders and was ready, if the physician thought well of it, to carry Irmgard in his arms, all the way down to the farm.
The child ran along, looking about it with wondering eyes. "He's calling! he's calling!" whispered she. "My mother will free you."
A cuckoo was really crying in the wood, through which the noonday sun was gleaming. His cry was sometimes near and then more distant, and at last, uttering his peculiar note, he flew over the travelers' heads.
Hansei, with the child, at last reached the shepherd's hut, where the uncle and Gundel, with sorrowful countenances, came forward to meet him.
"She's still alive, but she can't last long," said the uncle, wiping away his tears with his sleeve. "The doctor won't let any of us go in to her. But where's Walpurga?"
"She'll soon be here," replied Hansei. It was all he could do to keep off the cows, who knew their master and came up to him, as was their wont, in order to get a handful of salt. But he had forgotten to bring it with him, and all the salt they had up here was in the room that no one was permitted to enter.
Hansei ordered the cowboy to drive the cows off for some distance, so that the sick one might not hear the sound of the bells. That was all he could do for Irma.
He sat down sadly on the bench before the hut, and taking up a piece of carved wood which lay on the ground, he looked at it as carefully as if it were marble and turned it again and again. He sat there for a long time. Then he put Burgei in Gundel's charge, and, hoping to meet his wife, went out alone along the road that led toward the little town. But it was long before she came. He went further into the forest, and was vexed, as he always was whenever he came up here, to think of yonder fine trees that were his own property, but which could not be felled, because no one could get up to the rocks on which they were. A chattering magpie, sitting on the high branches of a beautiful pine, seemed to be making sport of him. After he had again and again passed his hand over his face, Hansei became conscious of the thoughts that had engaged him in the midst of all this trouble. There was nothing wrong in it--he was sure of that; but this was not the time to think of such things, and, as if the trouble were now dawning on him for the first time, he was overwhelmed with grief.
He turned back and went toward the hut. The doctor was just coming out.