the sorrow he must be even then causing to his gentle sister; but
it never occurred to him to try and go back. If he once were to
lose sight of Hirschvogel, how could he ever hope to find it
again? how could he ever know whither it had gone--north, south,
east, or west? The old neighbor had said that the world was small;
but August knew at least that it must have a great many places in
it: that he had seen himself on the maps on his schoolhouse walls.
Almost any other little boy would, I think, have been frightened
out of his wits at the position in which he found himself; but
August was brave, and he had a firm belief that God and
Hirschvogel would take care of him. The master-potter of Nurnberg
was always present to his mind, a kindly, benign, and gracious
spirit, dwelling manifestly in that porcelain tower whereof he had
been the maker.

A droll fancy, you say? But every child with a soul in him has
quite as quaint fancies as this one was of August's.

So he got over his terror and his sobbing both, though he was so
utterly in the dark. He did not feel cramped at all, because the
stove was so large, and air he had in plenty, as it came through
the fretwork running round the top. He was hungry again, and again
nibbled with prudence at his loaf and his sausage. He could not at
all tell the hour. Every time the train stopped and he heard the
banging, stamping, shouting, and jangling of chains that went on,
his heart seemed to jump up into his mouth. If they should find
him out! Sometimes porters came and took away this case and the
other, a sack here, a bale there, now a big bag, now a dead
chamois. Every time the men trampled near him, and swore at each
other, and banged this and that to and fro, he was so frightened