Upon the elevated bank of the stream, opposite to the road by which they approached, they saw a group of people—­perhaps twenty-drawn closely together, either in the sympathy of segregation from an unfeeling world, or for protection from the keen wind.  On the hither bank, and leaning on the rails of the drive, had collected a motley crowd of spectators, men, women, and boys, who exhibited some impatience and much curiosity, decorous for the most part, but emphasized by occasional jocose remarks in an undertone.  A serious ceremony was evidently in progress.  The separate group had not a prosperous air.  The women were thinly clad for such a day.  Conspicuous in the little assembly was a tall, elderly man in a shabby long coat and a broad felt hat, from under which his white hair fell upon his shoulders.  He might be a prophet in Israel come out to testify to an unbelieving world, and the little group around him, shaken like reeds in the wind, had the appearance of martyrs to a cause.  The light of another world shone in their thin, patient faces.  Come, they seemed to say to the worldlings on the opposite bank—­come and see what happiness it is to serve the Lord.  As they waited, a faint tune was started, a quavering hymn, whose feeble notes the wind blew away of first, but which grew stronger.

Before the first stanza was finished a carriage appeared in the rear of the group.  From it descended a middle-aged man and a stout woman, and they together helped a young girl to alight.  She was clad all in white.  For a moment her thin, delicate figure shrank from the cutting wind.  Timid, nervous, she glanced an instant at the crowd and the dark icy stream; but it was only a protest of the poor body; the face had the rapt, exultant look of joyous sacrifice.

The tall man advanced to meet her, and led her into the midst of the group.

For a few moments there was prayer, inaudible at a distance.  Then the tall man, taking the girl by the hand, advanced down the slope to the stream.  His hat was laid aside, his venerable locks streamed in the breeze, his eyes were turned to heaven; the girl walked as in a vision, without a tremor, her wide-opened eyes fixed upon invisible things.  As they moved on, the group behind set up a joyful hymn in a kind of mournful chant, in which the tall man joined with a strident voice.  Fitfully the words came on the wind, in an almost heart-breaking wail: 

   “Beyond the smiling and the weeping I shall be soon;
   Beyond the waking and the sleeping,
   Beyond the sowing and the reaping, I shall be soon.”

They were near the water now, and the tall man’s voice sounded out loud and clear: 

“Lord, tarry not, but come!”

They were entering the stream where there was an opening clear of ice; the footing was not very secure, and the tall man ceased singing, but the little band sang on: 

   “Beyond the blooming and the fading I shall be soon.”