“You beauty!” he cried. He picked it up tenderly and tapped the rest of the mold so that the ball came free, on a long stalk of silver where the molten metal had run down the channel he’d left for it in the clay. “Taken me all day, this,” he said. “I lost half of it, and all, when the first mold broke. What a beauty, eh!” He began to file off the stalk, while I filled my pockets with bulbs of garlic.

“What about horses?” I said.

“Hannerl’s seeing to them.”

“I wish we didn’t need them….”

“Well, we do. It’s a long way—we’ll have to bring the girls back as well, don’t forget. And we don’t want to leave it too late.” He looked up at the old wooden clock—half-past four, it said.

If we left now, we’d do it easily. After five o’clock, and we’d be pushing it a bit—any later than that, and we’d probably not make it before midnight; in which case we might as well give up now….But I still wished we didn’t need horses. I don’t like horses, or they don’t like me; and though I could manage old Pansy, that was because she could manage only a walk.

Peter held up the bullet again to admire it and looked up briefly as the door opened and Hannerl came in from the stables. She was a soft, kindly girl of sixteen, much in love with Peter, who was (I supposed) handsome in a scowling sort of way.

“I’ve found a pair,” she said. “I’ve saddled ’em up for you.”

“Whose are they?” said Peter.

It was seldom that we had more than two or three horses in the stable, but now that the inn was full there were a dozen or more.

“I don’t know who they belong to exactly, but they won’t want ’em tonight and that’s a fact. They’re all settled in the parlor with their pipes.”

“Good girl,” he said, and the silly thing blushed.

I went into the parlor to say good-bye to Ma, feeling horribly uneasy about a number of things—of which riding a horse was by no means the least. Ma came to one side with me while old Conrad knocked out the bung of a barrel of beer. I didn’t know what Peter had told her; I’d have to go carefully.

“Well?” she said.

“We’ve got to go out. To the forest. Honestly, Ma, we’ve got to.”

“All right, I won’t ask any more. That boy’s said nothing to me all day—I can’t get any sense out of him. For God’s sake, Hildi—I don’t know what’s going on, but look after him, will you?”

“Me—look after him?”