After breakfast, Hans, Karl, and Fritz came up to the house. Good Friday we always keep alone with our own family; but these three are of it, though they are lodged under a different roof. I read part of a sermon of South's:—"For the transgression of my people was he stricken."
How real seemed to me, that morning, the sacred story! I had hitherto contemplated the Christ in his divine being, looking up to him from a reverent distance. Now he seemed suddenly brought near to me in his human nature. I felt that our earth had, indeed, once owned him. And then how vivid the sense of loss and waste,—a beautiful and beneficent life cut short by violence! "Dying, not like a lamp that for want of oil can burn no longer, but like a torch in its full flame blown out by the breath of a north wind!"
Everything that I read with Harry, or that I talk over with him, has new meaning for me, or a new force.
Why are we so careful to avoid pain? If it was a necessary part of the highest mortal experience, how can we ask that it may be left out from ours? And yet, on every new occasion, we strive to put from us the offered cross. Even while we say, "Thy will be done!" an inward hope entreats that will to be merciful. Such remonstrances with myself rose in me as I read. They did not prevent me from feeling a thrill of dread as this warning passed over my lips:—"Who shall say how soon God may draw us from our easy speculations and theories of suffering, to the practical experience of it? Who can tell how soon we may be called to the fiery trial?" I turned involuntarily to Harry. He, too, had heard a summons in these words. I read in his eyes the answer that came from his steady breast,—"My Father, I am here!" I felt my spirit lifted with the closing words,—"If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him"; but there was no change in Harry's clear, prepared look. I have never known a faith so implicit as his. He does not ask after threats or promises; he only listens for commands.
When the services were over, Hans came forward to say good-bye to the Doctor and Harry. He took a hand of each, and stood looking from one to the other.
"We cannot spare you, Harry Dudley. We shall miss you, Doctor. Harry, when you are ready to set up your farm, come and take a look round you here again. We are good people, and love you. There will be land near in the market before long. Sooner should you have it than old Rasey. Think of it; we can talk things over, evenings."
"You shall have your turn," he said to his boys, who were waiting, one on either side of him. "I am an old man, and leave-taking comes hard. Youth has many chances more."
He gave his benediction, repeated a little rhyming German couplet,—a charm, perhaps, for a good journey,—and then turned away sturdily, went slowly out of the door and down the steps, leaving Karl and Fritz to say their words of farewell. Karl spoke for both. What Fritz had in his heart to say he could not utter, for the tears would have come with it.
At a quarter before twelve Harry brought down the russet knapsack,—brought down the little flower-press,—brought down the long umbrella.