His brothers, who
lay in the same chamber with him, were sound asleep; very soon
his father and mother snored also, on the other side of the wall.
Findelkind was alone wide awake, watching the big white moon sail
past his little casement, and hearing Katte bleat.
Where were her poor twin lambs?
The night was bitterly cold, for it was already far on in
autumn; the rivers had swollen and flooded many fields, the snow
for the last week had fallen quite low down on the mountainsides.
Even if still living, the little lambs would die, out on such a
night without the mother or food and shelter of any sort.
Findelkind, whose vivid brain always saw everything that he
imagined as if it were being acted before his eyes, in fancy saw
his two dear lambs floating dead down the swollen tide, entangled
in rushes on the flooded shore, or fallen with broken limbs upon
a crest of rocks. He saw them so plainly that scarcely could he
hold back his breath from screaming aloud in the still night and
answering the mourning wail of the desolate mother.
At last he could bear it no longer: his head burned, and his
brain seemed whirling round; at a bound he leaped out of bed
quite noiselessly, slid into his sheepskins, and stole out as he
had done the night before, hardly knowing what he did. Poor Katte
was mourning in the wooden shed with the other sheep, and the
wail of her sorrow sounded sadly across the loud roar of the
rushing river.
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