Page:The Garden of Romance - 1897.djvu/239

Rh might not remain, and, by setting light to something, work him great mischief. At that thought he would get out of bed and creep to the ladder, for it could not be called a stair, and when he reached the fire-pan there would not be a spark to be seen, so that he must just go back again. But as soon as he had got half way he would begin to wonder if the doors were all fast and the shutters bolted; so his poor thin legs must carry him back to see, and, as he crept back to bed, he froze, and his teeth chattered, for the last nip the cold gives one is always the sharpest.

Then he would pull the bedclothes higher up, and his nightcap farther down over his eyes, and turn away his thoughts from the day's work and business. But small comfort he would get, for then came old memories and hung their curtains up, and sometimes they brought pins as well, which pricked sadly. "Oh, oh!" cry the poor souls who lie awake, when the pins are driven sharply in, and tears fall from their eyes. All these things came to poor old Anthony, and he wept hot tears like the clearest pearls; they fell down over the coverlet and on to the floor, with a sound as if pain were breaking the strings of the heart. When the tear vanished, then a flame sprang in its place, and lit up a picture of life that had never faded from his heart. If he wiped his eyes with his nightcap the tear and the picture would be crushed, but the source of them remained, for it lay in his heart. The pictures did not come in the same order as in the life whose reflection they were; the most painful ones came oftenest, but the happy ones were the saddest to him, for they cast the deepest shadow.

"How beautiful are the beech-woods of Denmark!"