And he closed the book and put it back in its place, and went to the fresh
flowers at the window. Perhaps the Story might have hidden itself in the red
tulips, with the golden yellow edges, or in the fresh rose, or in the beaming
camellia. The sunshine lay among the flowers, but no Story.
The flowers which had been here in the dark troublous time had been
much more beautiful; but they had been cut off, one after another, to be
woven into wreaths and placed in coffins, and the flag had waved over
them! Perhaps the Story had been buried with the flowers; but then the
flowers would have known of it, and the coffin would have heard it, and
every little blade of grass that shot forth would have told of it. The Story
never dies.
Perhaps it has been here once, and has knocked; but who had eyes or ears
for it in those times? People looked darkly, gloomily, and almost angrily at
the sunshine of spring, at the twittering birds, and all the cheerful green; the
tongue could not even bear the old merry, popular songs, and they were laid
in the coffin with so much that our heart held dear. The Story may have
knocked without obtaining a hearing; there was none to bid it welcome, and
so it may have gone away.
“I will go forth and seek it. Out in the country! out in the wood! and on
the open sea beach!”
Out in the country lies an old manor house, with red walls, pointed
gables, and a red flag that floats on the tower. The nightingale sings among
the finely-fringed beech-leaves, looking at the blooming apple trees of the
garden, and thinking that they bear roses. Here the bees are mightily busy in
the summer-time, and hover round their queen with their humming song.
The autumn has much to tell of the wild chase, of the leaves of the trees,
and of the races of men that are passing away together. The wild swans sing
at Christmas-time on the open water, while in the old hall the guests by the
fireside gladly listen to songs and to old legends.
Down into the old part of the garden, where the great avenue of wild
chestnut trees lures the wanderer to tread its shades, went the man who was
