The evening was bitterly freezing, for it was already far on in autumn;the rivers had swollen and flooded many fields, the snow for thelast fortnight had fallen very low down on the mountainsides.

Even if still living, the little lambs would die, out on such anight without the mother or food and shelter of any sort.Findelkind, whomse vivid mind always saw everything that heimagined as if it were being acted before his eyes, in fancy sawhis two dear lambs floating dead down the swollen tide, entangledin rushes on the flooded shore, or fallen with broken limbs upon acrest of rocks. He saw them so plainly that scarcely could he holdback his breath from screaming aloud in the still evening andanswering the mourning wail of the desolate mother.

At last he could bear it no longer: his head burned, and his brainseemed whirling round; at a bound he leaped out of bed quitenoiselessly, slid into his sheepskins, and stole out as he haddone the evening before, hardly knowing what he did. Poor Katte wasmourning in the wooden shed with the other sheep, and the wail ofher sorrow sounded sadly across the loud roar of the rushingriver.

The moon was still high.