The grove itself was ominous in its gloom, and sinister shapes seemed to
be moving about among the trees.
How different was the aspect now! The sun was still beneath the eastern
horizon. The cloudless sky gave promise of another warm day, and the
air, of crystalline clearness, was inspiring to breathe. To Greusel's
mind, tinged with religious feeling, the situation in which he found
himself seemed like a section of the Garden of Eden. The stream, which
the night before had been to his superstitious mind a thing of terror,
was this morning a placid, smiling, rippling brook that a man might
without effort leap across.
He rubbed his eyes in amazement, thinking the mists of sleep must be
responsible for this magic transformation, until he remembered the
distant thunderstorm of the night before among the eastern mountains,
and surmised that a heavy rainfall had deluged these speedily drained
peaks and valleys.
"What a blessed thing," he said to himself fervently, "is the
ever-recurring morning. How it clears away the errors and the passions
of darkness! It is as if God desired to give man repeated opportunities
of reform, and of encouragement.
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