There was silence. Conrad wiped his eyes with his sleeve, got up from his chair, and said, "Mike!"
The sound had been so long unheard that Mike started and looked up. Conrad went up to him and said, "Mike, forgive me." The hands of the brothers were firmly clasped, and the hand of the parson seemed to shed a blessing on them both.
All the village rejoiced when Mike and Conrad were seen coming down the little hill by the town-house, hand in hand.
They did not relinquish their grasp until they had reached home: it was as if they desired to make up for the long privation. But here they hastened to tear off the padlocks; then, going into the garden, they tore away the dividing hedge, heedless of the cabbage destroyed in the operation.
Then they went to their sister's, and sat side by side at the dinner-table.
In the afternoon they sat in church together, each holding one side of their mother's hymn-book.
They lived in harmony from that day forth.