His breath failed, but he did not cease to search, look, examine.

Yonder, where for the length of a man the snow had vanished and grass and brown earth appeared, people had fought together, and there—­Holy Virgin!  What was this!—­there lay his father’s hammer.  He knew it only too well; it was the smaller one, which to distinguish it from the two larger tools, Goliath and Samson, he called David-the boy had swung it a hundred times himself.

His heart stood still, and when he found some freshly-hewn pine-boughs, and a fir-trunk that had been rejected by one of the men, he said to himself:  “The bier was made here,” and his vivid imagination showed him his father fighting, struck down, and then a mournful funeral procession.  Exulting bailiffs bore a tall strong-limbed corpse, and a slender, black-robed body, his father and his teacher.  Then came the quiet, beautiful wife and Ruth in bonds, and behind them Marx and Rahel.  He distinctly saw all this; it even seemed as if he heard the sobs of the women, and wailing bitterly, he thrust his hands in his floating locks and ran to and fro.  Suddenly he thought that the troopers would return to seize him also.  Away, away! anywhere—­away! a voice roared and buzzed in his ears, and he set out on a run towards the south, always towards the south.

The boy had not eaten a mouthful, since the oatmeal porridge obtained at the charcoal-burner’s, in the morning, but felt neither hunger nor thirst, and dashed on and on without heeding the way.

Long after his father had left the clearing for the second time, he still ran on—­but gasping for breath while his steps grew slower and shorter.  The moon rose, one star after another revealed its light, yet he still struggled forward.

The forest lay behind him; he had reached a broad road, which he followed southward, always southward, till his strength utterly failed.  His head and hands were burning like fire, yet it was very, very cold; but little snow lay here in the valley, and in many places the moonlight showed patches of bare, dark turf.

Grief was forgotten.  Fatigue, anxiety and hunger completely engrossed the boy’s mind.  He felt tempted to throw himself down in the road and sleep, but remembered the frozen people of whom he had heard, and dragged himself on to the nearest village.  The lights had long been extinguished; as he approached, dogs barked in the yards, and the melancholy lowing of a cow echoed from many a stable.  He was again among human beings; the thought exerted a soothing influence; he regained his self-control, and sought a shelter for the night.

At the end of the village stood a barn, and Ulrich noticed by the moonlight an open hatchway in the wall.  If he could climb up to it!  The framework offered some support for fingers and toes, so he resolved to try it.