Page:The Garden of Romance - 1897.djvu/246

234 is ordered wisely; she could not help it, and yet I have been so bitter against her."

And the years went by. Anthony's father was dead, and strangers lived in his father's house. But Anthony was to see it again, for his rich employer sent him travelling on business, and so he came to his native town—Eisenach. The old Wartburg stood up there on the mountain just the same, with the great stones, the "monk and the nun"; the huge oak-trees spread the same beauty over all as in his childhood. The Venusberg stood up bare and grey from among the valleys. How willingly he would have called: "Lady Holle, Lady Holle! open your mountain; I will stay with you in my own land!"

But that was a wicked thought, and he made the sign of the cross on his bosom. Then a little bird sang in the bushes, and the old song came into his head—

He remembered so much, now when he saw his old home, that he had to look through tears. His father's house stood as before, but the garden was changed. A new road cut off one corner of it, and the apple-tree, that he had never torn down, stood there still, but now outside the garden, and on the other side of the road. Still the sun shone there, and the dew fell there, and it bore fruit, so the branches were weighed down to the ground.

"Ay, it thrives!" said he; "well for it!"