How long he lay there by the roadside, stunned and motionless, he could
not guess; but when he came to himself at last the sun was already high
in the heavens. He discovered himself to be reclining on the tall grass
of a pleasant graveyard which surrounded a tiny country church in the
outskirts of a pretty little village. It was in the early summer, and
the foliage was green above him as the boughs swayed gently to and fro
in the morning breeze. The birds were singing gayly as they flitted
about over his head. The bees hummed along from flower to flower. At
last, so it seemed to him, he had come into a land of peace and quiet,
where there was rest and comfort and where no man need go in fear of
his life. It was a country where vengeance was not a duty and where
midnight combats were not a custom he found himself smiling as he
thought that a grisly dragon and a goblin rider would be equally out of
place in this laughing landscape.
Then the bell in the steeple of the little church began to ring
merrily, and he rose to his feet in expectation. All of a sudden the
knowledge came to him why it was that they were ringing. He wondered
then why the coming of the bride was thus delayed. He knew himself to
be a lover, with life opening brightly before him; and the world seemed
to him sweeter than ever before and more beautiful.
Then at last the girl whom he loved with his whole heart and who had
promised to marry him appeared in the distance, and he thought he had
never seen her look more lovely. As he beheld his bridal party
approaching, he slipped into the church to await her at the altar. The
sunshine fell full upon the portal and made a halo about the girl's
head as she crossed the threshold.
But even when the bride stood by his side and the clergyman had begun
the solemn service of the church the bells kept on, and soon their
chiming became a clangor, louder and sharper and more insistent.