What if we were to drive over and join the rest at the tournament?" His
young wife gladly consented, for she longed to see more of the world
than those eternal green woods and those eternal blue hills, which were
all she ever saw from the window. So the horses were put into the coach,
and it rattled up to the door, and in they got and away they drove. At
first all went well. The clouds hung low over the woods, the wind sighed
in the trees, a drearier day you could hardly imagine. So they joined
the rest at the other castle and took their seats to watch the jousting
in the lists. So intent were they in watching the gay spectacle of the
prancing steeds, the fluttering pennons, and the glittering armour of
the knights, that they failed to mark the change, the fatal change, in
the weather. For the wind was rising and had begun to disperse the
clouds, and suddenly the sun broke through, and the glory of it fell
like an aureole on the young wife, and at once she vanished away. No
sooner did her husband miss her from his side than he, too, mysteriously
disappeared. The tournament broke up in confusion, the bereft father
hastened home, and shut himself up in the dark castle from which the
light of life had departed. The green woods and the blue hills could
still be seen from the window that looked to the north, but the young
faces that had gazed out of it so wistfully were gone, as it seemed, for
ever.[166]
[Tyrolese story of the girl who might not see the sun.
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