"The night, an October one, was cold, and the wind was rising and sighing amongst the branches of the pine trees. Darker and darker gathered the shades, as mother and son stood again at the door of their hut after Hans had returned from his useless quest. No sign of his father had he seen, and boy though he was, he knew too much of the dangers that attend a wood-cutter's life in the Forest not to fear that some evil might have befallen his father; but he had a brave young heart, and tried to comfort his mother."

Anonymous children's book originally published in 1895. Some evidence that the author was Matilda Horsburgh, a little known children's author in the nineteenth century who wrote Little Hazel: The King's Messenger (1873) and Under the Old Oaks; or, Won by Love (1876). This may have been a pseudonym of Evelyn Ward Everett-Green (1856-1932), an English novelist who started her writing career with improving and pious stories for children, and later wrote historical fiction for older girls, and then adult romantic fiction.