Fairy Fancies; From the German (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: bach, it had far overflowed the edges of the green cliff basin, and Walter found that he had to pick his steps upon wet stones which jutted out from the rocks, and so pass out by the gateway which Nature had formed in them. Without, the water had completely torn up the road which led into the fields. The brook was far too much swollen to allow him to cross it by the well-known stepping-stones. He wandered for some distance along the banks, but at last made up his mind to keep to the left in the forest, and then to cross the Schwarzbach by the stone bridge at Nordingen. The pathway which he now chose was longer round, and his father had always forbidden him to go there alone at evening time; for the forest had swampy spots of fathomless depths, which would betray a stranger or unwary traveller into great danger. To-day, however, there was no choice; Walter knew the footpath so well, and also, since his father had last interdicted his going that way, he had grown two years older. Even his father would have made no objection had he been on the spot. So he pursued the small footpath, which, leaving the brook, carried him deeper into the forest. The excitement of the last few days, which had effectually chased all sleep from his eyes, and which had prompted him so hastily to run down the narrow ravine roadway, up the mountain, and into a race with the rapid Schwarz- bach, gave way by degrees to the more softening calm of the forest. Even Walter himself was scarcely conscious how tired he was, as he walked slowly under the trees and thought of the many wanderings which he had had here with his father, and recalled the old stories which had been related of these parts of the forest. A grey-haired Jager, who belonged to those left by the old family, and who still lived in the Manor-...