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 green, and from them grew luxuriously all kinds of wild plants, branching in all directions, straying over the bastion to the inside of the castle, and there covering the cracks and crevices. Vines, running through the garden, covered the chapel, under which was the family crypt of the Felsenburks, twined over wild beds and rough trees and transformed the sad deserted corner into a beautiful thicket resembling an immense bouquet. During the summer months there was not a scar in the wall over which did not hang a thick drapery of ivy; not a pillar around which it did not twine in dark rings; not a stone without a mossy cushion, nor a roof without a mossy fleece. A thousand buds were scattered over the dark ruins, a thousand leaves glistened in the morning dew, and a thousand red and white blossoms draped the wall in beauty. A beam of youth smiled on the hermit’s face.

The old ruin not only bloomed all summer long, but also rang more loudly and sweetly with music than all the surrounding forests. Whole flocks of birds nestled there, and as