howl would be his funeral dirge.

Far up, he went into the deepest of the forest. The noise of falling
waters came to him as a distant hymn. He sat on the ground to rest,
before he made his last climb. Mechanically, he took from his pocket a
small book, his testament--his sole remaining bit of property. He opened
it, and his eyes fell on some lines which he had penciled on the margin,
seemingly, years and years ago. They ran as follows:

"'Tis sorrow builds the shining ladder up,
Whose golden rounds are our calamities."

And the passages to which they pointed read:

"My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint
when thou art rebuked of him; for whom the Lord loveth he
chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye
receive chastenings, God dealeth with you as with sons, for what
son is he whom the father chasteneth not?"

The book dropped from the reader's trembling grasp. It was then that the
Angel of Mercy said, "It is enough," and touched the young man's heart.
The long pent-up spring burst forth, and Rupert sobbed like a child. By
a huge gray rock sheltered by the pines, he uttered his first prayer to
God. For a full hour he prayed and wept, until a peaceful spirit
overpowered him, and he slept.

Rupert awoke with a changed heart, though he was weak and faint. Evening
was coming on and he saw the smoke curling from the chimney of a
farmhouse half a mile below. Painfully, he made his way down to it.