Then he went into the wood and reflected on what Elsbeth might have wished to tell him.
But it was not to be—something always came between them.
CHAPTER XI.
It was a midsummer night. The alder-tree sent forth its perfume. The moonlight lay in silver veils upon the earth. There was great rejoicing in the village. Tar-barrels were lighted, and the farm-servants and maids were dancing on the green. The flames sent their glare far over the heath, and the shrill sounds of the fiddle came sadly through the night.
Paul stood at the garden fence and looked out into the distance. The servants had gone to the midsummer-night’s fire, and his sisters had not come home yet, either.
They had asked permission to visit the vicar’s daughter Hedwig, their playmate, who was an unpretending, quiet girl, in whose company he gladly trusted them.
Now he thought he would wait till they had all come home.
The moonlight drew him out onto the heath. It lay there in midnight silence; only in the heather a linnet chirped from time to time, as if in its sleep. The wild-pinks bent their red heads, and the golden-rod shone as if it wanted to compete with the moonbeams. Slowly, with hesitating steps, he walked on, sometimes stumbling over a mole-hill or entangling himself in the tendrils of the plants. The dew sparkled before him in shining drops. Thus he came to the region of the juniper-bushes, which looked more elf-like than usual.