Page:The New-Year's Bargain (1884).djvu/21

 "Why, Max! Look! There are people in there. I can see them through the bushes!"

"People?" cried Max. "Stealing wood, no doubt. Quiet, Thekla! don't make any noise: we'll creep up, and catch them at it. They shall see what the Ranger says to such doings."

So, like mice, they crept forward, and peeped through the screen of boughs. But there was no sound of chopping, and nobody was meddling with the wood. In fact, there was only one body visible, an old, old man with snow-white hair. But there was a long row of clay figures in front of him, men and women as large as life; and they looked so natural, it was no wonder Thekla had made the mistake. Some were half-finished; some but just begun: one only seemed perfect, the figure of a beautiful youth, with a crescent moon on his cap; and, even as they looked, the old man took a pinch of something, moulded it with his hand, and stuck it on the side of the head, from which it hung like a graceful plume.