But the fellow laughed loudly and said he was no cousin, but a servant
here in the inn, and the place was called Aigle. Sami would have to
travel an hour longer and would not reach Zweisimmen before twelve
o'clock at night. But there was a coachman here from Interlaken, who had
to go back and would take him along.

The man of the house had bread and eggs brought for Sami and when he said
he wasn't hungry, he put everything kindly into the boy's pocket. Then he
led the boy out. Outside stood a large coach with two horses and high up
on the top sat the driver. No one was inside. Sami was lifted up, the
driver placed him next himself and drove away. At any other time this
would have pleased Sami very much, but now he was too sad. He kept
thinking of his grandmother, who could no longer talk with him and would
never wake again. After some time the driver began to talk to him. Sami
had to tell him where he came from and to whom he was going. He told him
everything, how he had lived with his grandmother, how she had fallen
asleep early that day, and did not wake up again; and that he was going
to find a cousin in Zweisimmen and would have to live with him. Sami's
childish description touched the driver so deeply that he finally said:

"It will be too late when we reach there, you must stay with me
to-night."

Then when he saw Sami's eyes close with the approaching twilight and only
open again when they went over a stone, and the two of them up on the box
were jounced almost dangerously against each other, he grasped the boy
firmly, lifted him up and slipped him backwards into the coach. Here he
fell at once fast asleep and when he finally opened his eyes again, the
sun was shining brightly in his face. He was lying in his clothes on a
huge, big bed in a room with white walls. In all his life he had never