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Page 62
Very late, when the moon's rays became less brilliant, unable to stand
out against her fatigue any longer, she sank down on the heath and fell
fast asleep.
She was four leagues from Dosenheim, near the source of the Zinzel.
Br�mer was not likely to come so far to look for her.
CHAPTER II.
It was broad daylight when Myrtle awoke amidst the deep solitudes of the
Schlossberg, beneath an old fir-tree overgrown with moss and lichen. A
thrush was whistling overhead; another was answering in the distance far
down the valley. The morning breeze was fanning the rustling foliage; but
the air, already warm, was loaded with the sweet perfumes of the
ground-ivy, the honeysuckle, the woodruff, and the sweetbriars.
The young gipsy opened her eyes with astonishment remembering, with
surprise and delight, that the voice of Catherine would no more trouble
her, calling, "Myrtle! Myrtle! where are you, you idle child?" she
smiled, and listened to what gave her pleasure, the note of the thrush
singing among the trees.
Near at hand a spring was bubbling out of a cleft; the girl had but to
look round to see the living stream running, sparkling and clear, amidst
the long grass. From the rock high overhead hung an arbutus loaded with
its gorgeous freight of scarlet berries.
Though Myrtle was thirsty she felt too idle to move amongst all this
beauty and all this harmony, and she dropped her pretty brown face,
smiling and admiring the daylight through her long dark lashes.
"This is how I am always going to be," she said. "How can I help it? I am
an idle girl. I was made so."
Dreaming in this lazy way, the picture rose up in her mind of the
farm-yard with the proud cock strutting among his hens, and then she
remembered the eggs, how they used to find them in the straw in some
corner of the barn.
"If I had a couple of hard-boiled eggs," she thought, "just like those
Fritz had yesterday in his bag, with a crust of bread and a little salt,
I should like it very well. But what signifies? When you can't get eggs
you have blackberries and whinberries."
A scent of whinberries made her little nostrils dilate with expectation.
"There are some here," she said; "I can smell them."
She was right. The wood was full of them.
In another minute, not hearing the thrush, she raised herself on her
elbow and noticed the bird picking at the arbutus-berries.
Then she went to the brook and took a little clear water in her hollow
hand, and observed that there was plenty of watercress.
Then she remembered what she had never taken the trouble to think of
before, some words of the _cur�_, Niclausse about the birds of the air
that God provided for, and the lilies of the field that were more
beautiful than the glory of Solomon, and she remembered the lesson about
not being anxious for food and clothing, and thought that that would just
suit her, for she did not think of any of the teaching of the same great
Teacher about industry, and frugality, and living honestly, and so she
came to the satisfying conclusion that the true heathens were Catherine
and all her people, who were so foolish and wicked as to plough, and sow,
and reap, while she was the good Christian, because she was as idle as
the day was long.
She was still dwelling on these satisfactory deductions when there was a
sudden rustling among the dead leaves and a noise of footsteps.
She was going to run away when a gipsy lad of eighteen or twenty appeared
before her--a tall, lithe, dark fellow with thick woolly hair, shining
black eyes, and thick parted lips.
His eyes glittered as he cried--
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