‘In Venice town I wash myself,
In the Morgenbrots Valley I dry myself,’.
and I should at once find myself in our Hartz Mountains again. I did as he bade me, and all came to pass as he said. Only, when I looked at my face in the spring, and when I questioned the folk in the villages hard by, I found that not one night, as I supposed, but many years, had passed since I left the valley. Home, relations—and bride, I had lost all. I knew it was vain to return here, yet I have come all the same.”
“Upon my soul, ’tis a worse punishment than thou didst deserve!” cried Master Ran. “But come home now, at any rate, and greet my daughter.”
“Nay,” replied the wanderer, taking up his staff again, “there is no place there for me, and I had best go on my way. I shall never be anything but a homeless man now.”
[XVII]
THE MAIDEN’S ROCK
