You can lie on your back in
the sunshine and raisins drop into your mouth; and if a tarantula
bites you, you dance with the greatest ease, although you never
in your life before learned to dance." "Ay, to Italy! to Italy!" I
shouted with delight, and, heedless of any choice of roads, hurried on
along the first that came.
After I had gone a little way I saw on the right a most beautiful
orchard, with the morning sun shimmering on the trunks and through the
tree-tops so brilliantly that it looked as if the ground were spread
with golden rugs. As no one was in sight, I clambered over the low
fence and lay down comfortably on the grass under an apple-tree;
all my limbs were still aching from camping out in the tree on the
previous night. From where I lay I could see far abroad over the
country, and as it was Sunday the sound of the church-bells from
the far distance came to me over the quiet fields, and gaily-dressed
peasants were walking across the meadows and along the lanes to
church. I was glad at heart; the birds sang in the tree overhead;
I thought of my father's mill, and of the garden of the lovely Lady
fair, and of how far, far away it all was--until I fell sound asleep.
I dreamed that the Lady fair came walking, or rather slowly flying,
toward me from the lovely landscape to the music of the church-bells,
in long white robes that waved in the rosy morning. Then again
it seemed that we were not in a strange country, but in my native
village, in the deep shade beside the mill.
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