Martina soon came back and said, "Joseph is neither at Häspele's nor in the workshop."
"Where on earth can that tiresome boy be? I will go and look for him myself."
The grandfather went out, and enquired for Joseph from house to house; no one knew anything of him; Schilder-David went home again, thinking that no doubt he should find the boy arrived before him.
"But where is Joseph?" said Martina to her father, when he entered the room on the ground floor, that served as a kitchen.
"He is sure to be here very soon," said the grandfather; going however through the whole house, and searching every corner of it; he called up to his workshop in the loft the name of Joseph, and felt quite startled by the hollow echo; he shoved aside presses, behind which neither man nor boy could have been hidden, and he even opened the cover of the watercourse, behind the house, forgetting that it was frozen over, and nobody could possibly fall into it. Just as he returned to the house he met Häspele, bringing home Joseph's new boots: he told him privately that he was looking for the boy, and that he was in great trouble lest something should have happened to the child; he did not know what, but he felt very uneasy about him.
"Did you look for him at the old Bugler's? I heard him blowing away, and beautifully too; at this moment, depend upon it, Joseph is with him; here are his boots, I will go and fetch the boy."
The worthy Häspele ran quickly down the village, to a stocking weaver's who was seated in his room, practising some new tunes on the French horn. It sounded very pretty through the stillness of the night, when a man's own footsteps were inaudible in the thick snow.
It was very natural that Joseph should prefer being with the old horn player, to sitting at home; but he was not there either. On his way, Häspele mentioned to his neighbours that he was in search of Joseph; no one had seen him, and nowhere was he to be found! Häspele returned to David with this distressing intelligence, and the latter said, "Keep quiet, and not a word before the women, or there will be a fine howling; stay here for a little, he has very probably hid himself, and perhaps intends to come here with the Three Holy Kings--I mean the masks, who go about on this evening--I daresay he thinks it would be fine fun; but I'll show him another sort of fun when I catch him."