"Will you not go with us?"
"No! I will stay here. I am best off here. I wish I were a horse; such a creature has the best time, after all."
"Oh come, dear brother!"
"I am not your dear brother; let me alone."
Father and daughter went into the living-room, and there the father related what his sainted wife--he sobbed aloud when he spoke this word--had said while Thoma was gone; and Thoma told about the judge's wife, and about Anton.
All night long father and daughter sat by the body. At daybreak Landolin said, "Your mother can never see the day again."
The father now tried to rest; and Thoma too went to her room, but she could not sleep.
CHAPTER LXVI.
The rain had passed over and had come back again, and now seemed to make itself quite at home in the valley and on the height.
When Landolin followed his wife's coffin down the outer stairs, he caught, step by step, with his left hand at the wall of the house, as though he needed support. The school children, who were in the yard singing the funeral hymn, looked up at the changed man.