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Updated: May 27, 2025
On my right, separated from the road by a level field, perhaps fifty yards across, was a range of young forest-trees, dressed in their garb of autumnal glory. The sun shone directly upon them; and sunlight is like the breath of life to the pomp of autumn.
They were hung with countless strands of discolored and prickly smilax, and the impassable mud below bristled with chevaux de frise of the dwarf palmetto. Two lone forest-trees, dead cypresses, stood in the centre of the marsh, dotted with roosting vultures.
Throughout the whole of this space, the trunks of the old forest-trees, dimly seen in the light of a clouded sky, were yet standing, but entirely leafless and dead, and presenting such an aspect of desolation as is painful to the mind, even when sunshine, and the flourishing maize at their roots, invest them with a milder and more cheerful character.
An expression of annoyance was visible on his features, as he listened. But instead of advancing, the sounds receded until finally they were lost in the sighing of the wind among the forest-trees. "They have passed by," exclaimed he joyfully. "This day is mine, and I am free.
Thickets of forest-trees choked their orchards; the ocean broke over their neglected dikes, and desolated their meadows. Relentless misfortune pursued the exiles wherever they fled.
And I obeyed his instructions to the letter. On the same evening of that day I took a long walk round by the Uninhabited House. There it was, just as I had seen it last, with high brick walls dividing it from the road; with its belt of forest-trees separating it from the next residence, with its long frontage to the river, with its closed gates and shuttered postern-door.
As I lay in bed, or ever I slept, all that was fairest in my past life came back to me as clearly as if it were living truth, and first and chiefest I saw myself as little Red-riding-hood, under the forest-trees with Gotz, who did me a thousand services and preferred me above all others till, for Gertrude's sake, he departed beyond seas, and set my childish soul in a turmoil.
He was now known to be a man of skill; it was observed that he gathered herbs, and the blossoms of wild-flowers, and dug up roots, and plucked off twigs from the forest-trees, like one acquainted with hidden virtues in what was valueless to common eyes.
The most striking thing about this valley was its dense gloom, the huge forest-trees of Tapang, Pli, and other kinds, excluding every ray of light, excepting where here and there a bright patch of blue sky peeped in through the thick trellis-work of branches overhead. Beautiful palms, kladiums, and tree ferns, grew in profusion around us, and rare orchids filled the air with their sweet perfumes.
At that side were the oblong remains of the old moat, the waters of which lay placid and motionless under the crimson rays of the setting sun; with the forest-trees lying straight along each side, and their deep-green foliage mirrored to blackness in the burnished surface of the moat below and the broken sun-dial at the end nearest the hall and the heron, standing on one leg at the water's edge, lazily looking down for fish the lonely and desolate house scarce needed the broken windows, the weeds on the door-sill, the broken shutter softly flapping to and fro in the twilight breeze, to fill up the picture of desertion and decay.
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