Bimbi | Page 2

to their
beds. He could not run, or he would have spilled the beer; he was half
frozen and a little frightened, but he kept up his courage by saying over
and over again to himself, "I shall soon be at home with dear
Hirschvogel."
He went on through the streets, past the stone man-at-arms of the
guardhouse, and so into the place where the great church was, and
where near it stood his father Karl Strehla's house, with a sculptured
Bethlehem over the doorway, and the Pilgrimage of the Three Kings
painted on its wall. He had been sent on a long errand outside the gates
in the afternoon, over the frozen fields and the broad white snow, and

had been belated, and had thought he had heard the wolves behind him
at every step, and had reached the town in a great state of terror,
thankful with all his little panting heart to see the oil lamp burning
under the first house shrine. But he had not forgotten to call for the beer,
and he carried it carefully now, though his hands were so numb that he
was afraid they would let the jug down every moment.
The snow outlined with white every gable and cornice of the beautiful
old wooden houses; the moonlight shone on the gilded signs, the lambs,
the grapes, the eagles, and all the quaint devices that hung before the
doors; covered lamps burned before the Nativities and Crucifixions
painted on the walls or let into the woodwork; here and there, where a
shutter had not been closed, a ruddy fire-light lit up a homely interior,
with a noisy band of children clustering round the house-mother and a
big brown loaf, or some gossips spinning and listening to the cobbler's
or the barber's story of a neighbor, while the oil wicks glimmered, and
the hearth logs blazed, and the chestnuts sputtered in their iron roasting
pot. Little August saw all these things, as he saw everything with his
two big bright eyes, that had such curious lights and shadows in them;
but he went needfully on his way for the sake of the beer which a single
slip of the foot would make him spill. At his knock and call the solid
oak door, four centuries old if one, flew open, and the boy darted in
with his beer and shouted with all the force of mirthful lungs: "Oh, dear
Hirschvogel, but for the thought of you I should have died!"
It was a large barren room into which he rushed with so much pleasure,
and the bricks were bare and uneven. It had a walnut- wood press,
handsome and very old, a broad deal table, and several wooden stools,
for all its furniture; but at the top of the chamber, sending out warmth
and color together as the lamp shed its rays upon it, was a tower of
porcelain, burnished with all the hues of a king's peacock and a queen's
jewels, and surmounted with armed figures, and shields, and flowers of
heraldry, and a great golden crown upon the highest summit of all.
It was a stove of 1532, and on it were the letters H. R. H., for it was in
every portion the handwork of the great potter of Nurnberg, Augustin
Hirschvogel, who put his mark thus, as all the world knows.
The stove, no doubt, had stood in palaces and been made for princes,
had warmed the crimson stockings of cardinals and the gold-broidered
shoes of archduchesses, had glowed in presence- chambers and lent its

carbon to help kindle sharp brains in anxious councils of state; no one
knew what it had seen or done or been fashioned for; but it was a right
royal thing. Yet perhaps it had never been more useful than it was now
in this poor, desolate room, sending down heat and comfort into the
troop of children tumbled together on a wolfskin at its feet, who
received frozen August among them with loud shouts of joy.
"Oh, dear Hirschvogel, I am so cold, so cold!" said August, kissing its
gilded lion's claws. "Is father not in, Dorothea?"
"No, dear. He is late."
Dorothea was a girl of seventeen, dark-haired and serious, and with a
sweet sad face, for she had had many cares laid on her shoulders, even
whilst still a mere baby. She was the eldest of the Strehla family; and
there were ten of them in all. Next to her there came Jan and Karl and
Otho, big lads, gaining a little for their own living; and then came
August, who went up in the summer to the high alps with the farmers'
cattle, but in winter could do nothing to fill his own little platter and pot;
and then all the little