e in the world, that on these
occasions the Pastor was composing poems, so tender and so aerial 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.

When they were again in the sitting-room, Edward told how Joseph had
been found in the Forest Mill, with Adam's betrothed bride, Tony, He
did not stop to describe minutely the fierce rage of the ungovernable
Roettmaennin, he spoke with enthusiasm of the kind honest sympathy shown
by all the villagers:--

"These men," said he, "possess nothing but their lives, and their sound
limbs, to enable them to struggle on through life, and yet with the
utmost decision and confidence, as if it could not be otherwise, they,
every one, exposed themselves to danger in order to save a lost child;
this proved to me, dear brother, that your heart lived in all these
men--you were at home, and yet they all came with us. I cannot but
think that it must be a severe trial to you to leave such people."

The Pastor answered nothing; neither in assent or dissent, and