The Argosy — page 76: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

In the Black Forest. 63 after hour, and still the woods never ceased. Noone interrupted the solitude ; I was utterly alone—like Robinson Crusoe on his desert island: no trace that man inhabited the earth, save here and there a stack of wood neatly piled up; young trees sawn into logs, and bear- ing testimony that now, as in the primeval days, “man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour.” Ferns and bracken grew in profusion of loveliest, purest green; wild flowers abounded : paths led in all directions—one knew not whither. Mile after mile the sombre pines seemed inexhaustible. Long vistas of forest ground, lovely glades, opened up continually, chequered by lights and shades, and long-drawn shadows cast by the sun as it struggled through the pines. ‘To stand awhile and listen was to re- alize the intensity of silence ; no chirping of birds, ‘‘ mate answering to mate,” or flutter of wings, or ring of woodman’s axe. Utter solitude. In all senses of the word it was refreshing and Ten eae to mind, body, and spirit. At length a village, sounds of life and sights of human habitation, though not on a large scale. A quaint, picturesque village, with whitewashed houses and blackened rafters, and creepers over the porches ; great fuchsias and roses and geraniums. Plum trees grew in the middle of the road, and grapes trailed their leaves and fruit over the walls of the cottages up to the very roofs. In many of them the ground floor was turned into a stable and abandoned to the animals. Here and there a pretty, laughing face peeped in- quisitively from a latticed window, set off by a framework of green leaves. The few children in the road, all with naked feet, ran away as if they had suddenly espied an arch enemy, but quickly returned and made friends when bribed by the offer of an infinitesimal coin. Evidently these little people had been taught wisdom in their generation. Presently I came to the cemetery, a humble, melancholy little spot, where many newly made graves had small crosses tied round with ragged white muslin. ‘There was nothing here to cause one to linger, and passing out I chanced upon a young lad of some ten or twelve years, as quick and intelligent as if he had been brought up in a town, and far more picturesque. We immediately struck up a firm under- standing, under the influence of which he told me his little history and his little life with a charm and a naiveté and an innocence —ah, how much to be envied! There was a strange and unaccountable refinement about him, some- what sad to see, for it was almost out of place ; suggesting delicacy of health, or a nature worthy of a better lot. And when I asked him his name, and in the gentlestand most musicalof voices he replied ‘‘Walde,” my heart went out to this little namesake. He was barefooted, and dressed very raggedly, his small knickerbockers all holes and fringes ; but in spite of it all the lad was innately a little gentleman; and would be; until, growing up to manhood, and mixing with his kind, COUN (>) eoOOKKS.CO