impatient and despairing was she now. She gave up all hope, and took it
into her head that in these heavy times of war the young lord had been
killed by robbers. Nought availed with her, not even prayer, for when I
called upon God with her, on my knees, she straightway began so grievously
to bewail that the Lord had cast her off, and that she was condemned to
nought save misfortunes in this world; that it pierced through my heart
like a knife, and my thoughts forsook me at her words. She lay also at
night, and "like a crane or a swallow so did she chatter; she did mourn
like a dove; her eyes did fail with looking upward," because no sleep came
upon her eyelids. I called to her from my bed, "Dear child, wilt thou,
then, never cease? sleep, I pray thee!" and she answered and said, "Do you
sleep, dearest father; I cannot sleep until I sleep the sleep of death.
Alas, my father; that I was not burned!" But how could I sleep when she
could not? I indeed said, each morning, that I had slept a while, in order
to content her; but it was not so; but, like David, "all the night made I
my bed to swim; I watered my couch with my tears." Moreover I again fell
into heavy unbelief, so that I neither could nor would pray. Nevertheless
the Lord "did not deal with me after my sins, nor reward me according to
mine iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great was
his mercy toward" me, miserable sinner!

For mark what happened on the very next Saturday! Behold, our old
maid-servant came running in at the door, quite out of breath, saying that
a horseman was coming over the Master's Mount, with a tall plume waving on
his hat, and that she believed it was the young lord. When my child, who
sat upon the bench combing her hair, heard this, she gave a shriek of joy,
which would have moved a stone under the earth, and straightway ran out of
the room to look over the paling. She presently came running in again,
fell upon my neck, and cried without ceasing, "The young lord! the young
lord!" whereupon she would have run out to meet him, but I forbade her,