among the slain horses. Then they moved onward toward the farm, which
still burned in the midst of the plain.

When they came to the orchard of the flaming house, they stopped at the
gate of the garden, dumb before the overwhelming misfortune of the
peasant. For there, his wife hung, quite naked, on the branches of an
enormous nut tree, among which he himself was now mounting on a ladder,
and beneath which, on the frozen grass, lay his nine little daughters.
Korneliz had already, climbed along the vast boughs, when suddenly, by
the light of the snow, he saw the crowd who horror-struck watched his
every movement. With tears in his eyes, he made a sign to them to help
him, whereat the innkeepers of the Blue Lion and the Golden Sun, the
cure, with a lantern, and many others, climbed up in the moonshine amid
the snow-laden branches, to unfasten the dead. The women of the village
received the corpse in their arms at the foot of the tree; even as our
Lord Jesus Christ was received by the women at the foot of the Cross.

On the morrow they buried her, and for the week thereafter nothing
unusual happened in Nazareth.

But the following Sunday, hungry wolves ran through the village after
high mass, and it snowed until midday. Then, suddenly, the sun shone
brilliantly, and the peasants went to dine as was their wont, and
dressed for the benediction.

There was no one to be seen on the Place, for it froze bitterly. Only
the dogs and chickens roamed about under the trees, or the sheep nibbled
at a three-cornered bit of grass, while the cure's servant swept away
the snow from his garden.