The foresters returned home after a few hours; no trace had been found.  Herr von S. was restless.  “When I think of such a man, forced to lie like a stone and unable to help himself, I—­but he may still be alive; a man can surely hold out three days without food.”  He set out himself; inquiry was made at every house, horns were blown everywhere, alarms were sent out, and dogs set on the trail—­in vain!  A child had seen him sitting at the edge of the forest of Brede, carving a spoon.  “But he cut it right in two,” said the little girl.  That had happened two days before.  In the afternoon there was another clue.  Again a child had seen him on the other side of the woods, where he had been sitting in the shrubbery, with his face resting on his knees as though he were asleep.  That was only the day before.  It seemed he had kept rambling about the forest of Brede.

“If only that damned shrubbery weren’t so dense!  Not a soul can get through it,” said the Baron.  The dogs were driven to the place where the woods had just been cut down; the searching-party blew their horns and hallooed, but finally returned home, dissatisfied, when they had convinced themselves that the animals had made a thorough search of the whole forest.  “Don’t give up!  Don’t give up!” begged Frau von S.  “It’s better to take a few steps in vain than to leave anything undone.”  The Baron was almost as worried as she; his restlessness even drove him to John’s room, although he was sure not to find him there.  He had the room of the lost man opened.  Here stood his bed still in disorder as he had left it; there hung his good coat which the Baroness had had made for him out of the Baron’s old hunting-suit; on the table lay a bowl, six new wooden spoons, and a box.  Herr von S. opened the box; five groschen lay in it, neatly wrapped in paper, and four silver vest-buttons.  The Baron examined them with interest.  “A remembrance from Mergel,” he muttered, and stepped out, for he felt quite oppressed in the musty, close room.  The search was continued until they had convinced themselves that John was no longer in the vicinity—­at least, not alive.

So, then, he had disappeared for the second time!  Would they ever find him again—­perhaps some time, after many years, find his bones in a dry pit?  There was little hope of seeing him again alive, or, at all events, certainly not after another twenty-eight years.

One morning two weeks later young Brandes was passing through the forest of Brede, on his way from inspecting his preserve.  The day was unusually warm for that time of the year; the air quivered; not a bird was singing; only the ravens croaked monotonously in the branches and opened their beaks to the air.  Brandes was very tired.  He took off his cap, heated through by the sun; and then he put it on again; but one way was as unbearable as another, and working his way through the knee-high underbrush was very laborious.  Round about there was not a single tree save the “Jew’s beech”; for that he made, therefore, with all his might, and stretched himself on the shady moss under it, tired to death.  The coolness penetrated to his limbs so soothingly that he closed his eyes.