"Yes, yes, I'll do so of course, not another word," said Häspele, and, gulping down his disappointment as he best could, he went up to the attic and sat down by Joseph's bedside.
The two fathers, the mother, and the bridal pair went to the Parsonage, and a few paces behind followed Leegart alone, looking round at the houses on every side, where she saw a light, as she went along, and thinking how little they knew what an unexpected event was about to take place that night. Leegart heard the sounds of music—it must be bridal music sounding in the air. To be sure she is the only one who hears the melody, but she both knows and hears more than most people.
When the wedding party entered the sitting-room of the Parsonage, Leegart stayed below with the maid in the kitchen; she soon, however, dispatched her upstairs, that she might throw open the little window of the kitchen for air, she was in such a state of excitement.
CHAPTER XVIII.
FOR THE SAKE OF THE CHILD.
Night had followed morning, and morning turned into night, on this day like the previous one. The worthy Pastor required to exercise all his quiet self command, not to give way to the most feverish feelings of distress and anxiety; but just in the same way that he had resisted allowing the alarm bell to be rung except in the greatest extremity, so he now restrained his own feelings. He stood long looking out of the window. In the dead of night the ticking of the pendulum of the church clock was distinctly heard, and the heart of the anxious Pastor vibrated in unison with the swinging pendulum. He had learned the difficult art, in the midst of all the heartfelt sorrow and uneasiness he so keenly felt, to maintain the most perfect outward composure, and to subdue every symptom of passion: even the noblest of all—that of sympathy for others.
While all those who had remained behind in the village forced themselves to go to work, or sought to divert their thoughts by conversing with each other, and keeping themselves awake by sharing their uneasiness, the Pastor sat alone in his room, looking out of the window, apparently without emotion or noticing any object—and yet his inward agitation and excitement were great. The villagers, well acquainted with this habit of his, declared that at such moments the Pastor preached a silent sermon to himself; the Pastorin, however, had confided to her father, and to no one else in the world, that on these occasions the Pastor was composing poems, so tender and so aërial that solid words were too substantial for them, and he was content to breathe out his words and thoughts, though he neither wished nor tried to preserve them, by writing down his conceptions. Thus, when the poor child was found frozen to death, in the neighbouring village of Wenger, he had repeated, almost unconsciously, aloud, the words that are now inscribed on his tomb, and they had no little difficulty in persuading him to allow them to be written down, and sent to his brother clergyman at Wenger. Often, however, it was a poem, a deep thought from the kindred soul of another, or a melody of his favourite master, Mozart, that the Pastor repeated to himself at such hours, with all sorts of imaginary variations; and when he had held this silent intercourse with himself—the Pastorin called this his supernatural existence—he then went forth into the world, with a kind and consoling word for every one who needed it, and a degree of holiness an faith, strength and power, visible to all men. Thus he sat on this evening absorbed in a reverie.
The strokes of the clock were heard striking slowly from the church tower, proclaiming on hour after another; they go on striking, by day and by night, in joy or in sorrow—they sound on, and on, and loudly say: "Another space of time gone for ever—lost in Eternity!"
"We have found him," was the cry he suddenly heard in the streets, as the sound of a horn rung through the silent night, and the Pastor went out to welcome back his brother-in-law.