In effect they were days of companionship with one's sacred dead, and I have known no comradeship that was so close or so precious.
We clung to the hours and the minutes, counting them as they wasted away, and parting with them with that pain and bereavement which a miser feels who sees his hoard filched from him coin by coin by robbers and is helpless to prevent it.
When the evening of the last day came we stayed out too long; Seppi and I were in fault for that; we could not bear to part with Nikolaus; so it was very late when we left him at his door.

We lingered near awhile, listening; and that happened which we were fearing.

His father gave him the promised punishment, and we heard his shrieks.

But we listened only a moment, then hurried away, remorseful for this thing which we had caused.

And sorry for the father, too; our thought being, "If he only knew--if he only knew!" In the morning Nikolaus did not meet us at the appointed place, so we went to his home to see what the matter was.