Thorough flood, thorough fire.”
Shakespeare.
CHAPTER IV.
The events recorded in the last chapter took place, as the judicious reader will have anticipated, a short time previously to that visit of the Lady Abracadabra to the Court of King Katzekopf, in which she asserted her authority, and proposed the companionship of a boy of his own age as likely to form a salutary check on the growing wilfulness and selfishness of Prince Eigenwillig.
Accordingly, many days did not elapse before little Witikind was transported from the Castle of Taubennest to the royal nursery.
It was a sad business, that leaving his home. Of the trials that lay before him, he, poor child, could, of course, know nothing. He had never lived anywhere but at home, and he could not as yet imagine that any place could be very different from home; and he had good hope, from all his father told him, that he would be happy as the day was long at the court of King Katzekopf. But when it really came to bidding farewell: when he saw his mother trying to smile and encourage him, yet was sure, by her appearance, that she had been weeping all night long; when Ediltrudis and Veronica, quite unable to bear up against this, their first deep sorrow, clung to him, and sobbed as if their hearts were breaking. Oh, how bitterly did Witikind lament the rash words he had spoken! Oh, what would he have given to recall them, and to be allowed to live on, as heretofore, with those who so dearly loved him, and whom he so dearly loved! But it was now too late.
And so it is ever with us all. The blessings which we do not appreciate are sooner or later withdrawn from us, and when, on their removal, we feel their value, and would flee after them and secure them, we find they are gone irrecoverably, and that we can never be again as we were when we possessed them. For Witikind, we trust that many happy days may be in store, that he will return to Taubennest better and wiser every way than when he left it; that his mother will fold him in her arms once more, and that his sisters will shed more tears of pleasure over him than now of sorrow; but never, never will he be again as when first he quitted home: a change will have taken place; he will be different himself; those around him will be different; fresh hopes, and feelings, and wishes will have come over them; their confidences will not be the same confidences, their love will not be the same love that it was before they knew the sorrows of separation.
Oh, reader, reader! if you have a happy home, and loving parents, and affectionate brothers and sisters, try and show yourself worthy of the blessing while yet it is yours. You know not how soon you may be taken from them, or they from you: strive, then, so to live with them, that, when separation comes, you may have no cause to mourn for your behaviour to them now!