Then came the shadows of night. The old man brought forth his dilapidated harp, and the three sang the evening hymn to its accompaniment—
"Te lucis ante terminum,"
and repeated the psalm Qui habitat; then with a short prayer, not unlike our "Lighten our darkness," indeed its prototype, they retired to sleep, while the wind sighed a requiem about them through the arches of the forest, and dewy odours stole through the crevices of the hut—
"The torrent's smoothness ere it dash below."
FOOTNOTES:
[17] It still stands, one of the oldest of our old village churches.
[18] Ite missa est, i.e. the concluding words of the Mass.