When the driver, after letting down the steps, looked round for the object of his wrath, the astonished Christlieb was no longer to be seen, which gave rise to a fresh burst of angry words and oaths. The puzzled violin player had run away as fast as he could, and was now again within the wood, when his flying steps were arrested by another person, who came up to him, looking very exhausted and tired, and likewise very angry. "Balduin! Balduin!" he exclaimed, in a tone of vexation and displeasure, "will this thoughtlessness never end, which annoys and torments every one connected with you? Where have you been? Since you left the carriage under a pretext of only remaining away a few minutes, you have remained almost an hour! But how is this?" he continued in surprise. "Where have you exchanged your dress? and how did you get this instrument?"
The stranger stretched out his hand to take hold of the violin, whose possessor, however, firmly retained it, and took to his heels, flying through the wood as if winged.
He still, at a considerable distance, heard the voice of his pursuer entreating him to remain.
He arrived at home out of breath, and had scarcely time to put away his violin, when the bell rang for school; so that for some hours, he had to keep his adventure to himself.
"Only think, father!"--With these words, he entered the small room, in which, besides Kummas, he found the old bird-catcher, who looked at him with an angry countenance, and his father, too, seemed unusually disconcerted.
"There comes the young good-for-nothing," said Butter. "Bird-thief, and not Christlieb, should he be called."
Christlieb's words stuck in his throat at this salutation; and, much amazed and perplexed, he looked at the old man, to see whether he were speaking in jest or in earnest. But his father ended his doubt by saying, in a serious tone of voice, "What have you done, Christlieb? Confess the truth."
A deep red suffused Christlieb's face, as, with the greatest faithfulness, he related what had happened to him.
When he had finished, Butter said with bitterness, "So you wish to make us believe that a runaway boy, who had escaped from his tutor, played the trick, and not you, you young rascal, but your ghost (_doppelgänger_)! A likely story, forsooth! Will you still deny that you broke and destroyed all my nets?--that you let twelve thrushes, eighteen finches, nine-and-twenty other birds, not to speak of the very small ones, escape? Such a number I never caught at once in my life; and while I ran full of joy into the house, to get my old wife and Malchen to come and help me, the rascal falls upon the whole, tears my snares to pieces, sets all the birds at liberty, and then laughs at me scornfully from behind a bush, when I try to catch him."