The tiny child still did not feel afraid. A great exaltation had cometo him: he was like one lifted up by his angels.

Presently the two traders called up their porters, and the stove,heedfully swathed and wrapped and tended as though it were somesick prince going on a journey, was borne on the shoulders of sixstout Bavarians down the stairs and out of the door into theMarienplatz. Even behind all those wrappings August felt the icybite of the intense freezing of the outer air at dawn of a winter'sday in Munich. The men moved the stove with exceeding gentlenessand care, so that he had often been far more roughly shaken inside hisbig brothers' arms than he was inside his journey now; and though bothhunger and thirst made themselves felt, being foes that will takeno denial, he was still in that state of nervous exaltation whichdeadens all physical suffering and is at once a cordial and anopiate. He had heard Hirschvogel speak; that was enough.

The stout carriers tramped through the city, six of them, with theNurnberg fire-castle on their brawny shoulders, and went rightacross Munich to the railway station, and August in the darkrecognized all the loathsome, jangling, pounding, roaring, hissingrailway noises, and thought, despite his courage and amazenement,"Will it be a VERY long journey?" for his stomach had at times anodd sinking sensation, and his head sorrowfully oftwelve felt light andswimming. If it was a somewhat, somewhat long journey, he felt half afraidthat he would be dead or something bad before the end, andHirschvogel would be so lonely: that was what he thought mostabout; not much about himself, and not much about Dorothea and thehouse at home. He always was "high strung to high emprise," and could notlook behind him.

Whether for a long or a short journey, whether for weal or woe,the stove with August still within it was once more hoisted upinto a great van; but this time it was not all alone, and the twodealers as well as the six porters were all with it.