Page:Love's trilogy.djvu/294

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284
'GOD'S PEACE'

graveyards are so big and so far away. There the dead must take care of themselves. The old town has its dead in its very midst, always present, always living in loving memory. I thank you, my mother's friends in the old town. I don't know you any more, but I send you my heartfelt gratitude.


I finish my morning wandering on Rough-Hill, and there I stay. Rough-Hill lies just outside the old town, and is its pleasure-haunt and its pride. Seldom has a town found such a pleasant spot for a park. A century ago a generous citizen laid out the hill, dividing it into terraces, staircases, and winding alleys, protecting it with pines and fir-trees, in the shelter of which beeches and shrubberies grew up, making powerless the west wind, and letting the sun reign, creating out of the bleak hill a fertile garden. Here come on summer afternoons the old town's inhabitants with their picnic-baskets. From the pavilion on the lowest terrace they get their tea-urns and hot water, and make themselves happy in the little summer-houses. On the terraces above is the wood where the boys play their robber-games.

I approach Rough-Hill with a secret terror of being disappointed. In my childhood's memory it stands as something fairy-tale-like and wonderful. The hill is a mountain, the wood a primeval forest.

With a smile I see its greatness vanish. It seems to me that hill, as well as trees, have shrunk. There is nothing fairy-tale-like nor fantastic about Rough-