Troublous days, days of trial, awaited them. Misfortune fell upon the home; the father, dogged by fate, became poor. So Anthony had other things to think about than the resentment he cherished in his heart towards Molly. He must take his father's place, he must go out into the great world and earn his bread.
He reached Bremen: hardship and dreary days were his lot—days that harden the heart or sometimes make it very tender. How he had misjudged his fellow-men in his young days! He became resigned and cheerful. God's way is best, was his thought. How had it been if heaven had not turned her affection to another before this calamity? "Thanks be to heaven," he would say. "She was not to blame, and I have felt so bitter towards her."
Time passed on. Anthony's father died, and strangers occupied the old home. But he was destined to see it once more. His wealthy master sent him on business that brought him once more to Eisenach, his native town.
The old Wartburg was unchanged—the monk and nun hewn on its stones. The grand old trees set off the landscape as of old. Over the valley the Venusberg rose, a gray mass in the twilight. He longed to say, "Lady Holle! Lady Holle! open the door to me. Fain would I stay forever." It was a sinful thought, and he crossed himself. Old memories crowded to his mind as he gazed with tear-bedewed eyes at the town of childhood's days. The old homestead stood unchanged, but the garden was not the same. A roadway crossed one corner of it. The apple tree, which he had not destroyed, was no longer in the garden, but across the way.
Still, as of old, bathed in sunshine and dew, the old tree bore richly, and its boughs were laden with fruit. One of its branches was broken. Wilful hands had done this, for the tree now stood by the highway.
Passers-by plucked its blossoms, gathered its fruit, and broke its branches. Well might one say, as one says of men, "This was not its destiny as it lay in its cradle." So fair its prospects, that this should be the end! Neglected, forsaken, no longer tended, there between field and highway it stood—bare to the storm, shattered and rent. As the years roll by it puts forth fewer blossoms, less fruit—and its story comes to a close!
So mused Anthony many a lonely evening in his room in the wooden booth in a strange land, in the narrow street in Copenhagen, whither his rich master sent him bound by his vow not to marry.
Marriage, forsooth, for him! Ha, ha! he laughed a strange laugh.
The winter was early that year with sharp frost. Outside raged a blinding snowstorm, so that every one that could stayed indoors. And so it befell that his neighbors never saw that for two days his shop was unopened, nor Anthony been seen, for who would venture out if not compelled to?