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Title: The Mouse Miller and other stories
Author: Cooke Don-Carlos
Release date: July 18, 2026 [eBook #79122]
Language: English
Original publication: Boston: Davis & Bond, 1917
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79122
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOUSE MILLER AND OTHER STORIES ***
_The_
Mouse Miller
AND OTHER STORIES
_By_ COOKE DON-CARLOS
Author of “Virginia’s Inheritance”
[Illustration]
DAVIS & BOND
PUBLISHERS OF GOOD BOOKS
BOSTON - MASS.
COPYRIGHT, 1917,
BY DAVIS & BOND
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I THE BAKER OF COBLENTZ
II A DAUGHTER OF THE STARS
III THE BROOM MASTER
IV ROSE-MARIE AND THE WITCH O’ WOODS
V TOODLES AND THE GRAY LADY
VI LITTLE HANS AND THE KOBOLDS
VII THE MOUSE MILLER
VIII ALICY’S ADVENTURE
IX JEHAN THE GOLDHAIRED
THE MOUSE MILLER
I
THE BAKER OF COBLENTZ
One Christmas Eve, the glow of the setting sun reddened the spires and
domes of Coblentz and lit up a little window set in the upper half of
Baker Gottlieb’s door as he looked out on the narrow, snowy street.
It was lined with ugly little shops like his, with two or three tall
old houses with quaint overhanging eaves and high chimney-pots, the
only exception to the general shabbiness being the mansion of the
Herr Professor at the corner, a handsome house set well back in its
high-walled garden, as if it shrank from the poverty about it, though
its master owned most of the buildings in sight.
As the sunlight faded from the street, a last beam lingered over the
great house at the corner. “Like a glow from the comfort within,”
sighed poor Gottlieb, with envy in his heart, for his flour bin stood
nearly empty, the few pfennigs brought in by the day’s baking would
barely eke out the rent due on the morrow, and the one loaf left on his
counter would be his only Christmas feast.
Gottlieb was turning toward the end of his shop where the oven stood
when the door opened and two women came in,--the Herr Professor’s
housekeeper, a buxom young female, following a ragged, aged dame who
produced three bent and blackened coins and quaveringly asked for a
loaf.
“Nay, mother, I have but one loaf for my own needs,” answered the baker
kindly. “Besides, flour has risen in price, and it takes ten pfennigs
instead of three to buy a loaf.”
The housekeeper broke in briskly:
“My good man, I must have that loaf. There are guests at the Herr
Professor’s, and I need bread for croutons.” And she fumbled in an
ample purse hanging at her side with her keys.
“Nay, mistress, I must eat, as well as your master’s guests, and this
loaf is all I have for my Christmas dinner.”
“Then you shall have thirty pfennigs,” cried she good-naturedly. “Only
haste, Master Gottlieb, for my supper waits!”
As Gottlieb extended the loaf, the old dame exclaimed:
“Alas, I must perish! for I am too weak and old to go farther. Other
shops are sold out, and I have had naught to eat since yesterday!” And
she turned away, still gazing with longing eyes at the one loaf.
Under Gottlieb’s ragged apron beat a kind heart, and thrusting the loaf
into her hands, he bade her begone and keep her pfennigs for Christmas.
So, mumbling thanks, she shuffled away, leaving the housekeeper shaking
her fist at poor Gottlieb.
“What?” she screamed. “You insult me, housekeeper of the Herr
Professor? Refuse thirty pfennigs and give the loaf away? Oh, you shall
dearly rue this, Master Gottlieb! There will be no bakeshop here next
rent day. My brother is the Herr Professor’s agent!” And she flounced
out, banging the door behind her.
After a bite to eat, the baker lit a candle and sat a long time staring
into the embers of his oven fire, and when the room was cold and the
candle burned out, he went sadly to bed, feeling that disaster had
indeed come upon him.
In the Christmas dawning, a loud knocking at his door awakened him.
Opening it, he found his friend Hans, the shoemaker from across the way.
“A Merry Christmas!” cried he. “See, my good daughter has come in
from the country with gifts which I share with thee. Here are eggs,
milk, butter, and dried grapes. And now haste you and make a Christmas
pudding, for I must be back over ere my coffee cools.” And the jolly
shoemaker was across the street while Gottlieb was trying to thank him.
“God is good!” thought Gottlieb, “and now I can bake kuchen and sell
them, and that, at least, will buy my Christmas dinner, even if I must
pack from here to-morrow.”
As he was whistling over his dough, the agent came for the rent. “On
Christmas day, too!” thought the poor baker, as he counted it out from
a broken mug. “Surely, the Herr Professor is a hard man.”
The agent laughed. He was stout, with a wart on his nose, and wore a
blue coat.
“His agent is, baker,” he growled. “You are to be out of this
to-morrow. I shall let the shop to a bookseller, baker. The Herr
Professor will be pleased!”
Gottlieb tried to plead for time, but the agent would not stay to
listen, and taking up his tall staff, he went out, still repeating,
“The change will much please the Herr Professor. Baker, the Herr
Professor will be much pleased!”
As Gottlieb began his baking, he comforted himself with the thought
that perhaps he could go as cook’s helper at some inn or bakery, and
surely his friend, the cobbler, could lodge him for a time.
When the cakes were made, he set them, very plump and tempting, on his
tray, and, donning his worn cloak, went out in the snowy morning.
People were hurrying to church, the bells were all ringing, and every
one cried “Merry Christmas” but poor Gottlieb.
By dinner time he had sold but half his cakes, and he gladly took an
innkeeper’s offer to give him a meal for the rest. And after dining
well in the servants’ hall, he went away with such broken food as was
given him, and a much lighter heart.
As he passed down an alley way, the wretched outcasts came out of their
hovels to beg, but seeing his poor clothes, they did not stop him, and
he hurried on until he came to one hovel more wretched than the rest.
It was hardly more than a heap of stones, with no door save a gaping
hole in its toppling walls. Inside, Gottlieb saw the old woman who had
been in his shop yesterday. She was crouched on the earthen floor,
wrapped in rags, and only moaned when he called “Merry Christmas!”
Gottlieb went up to her. “What did you buy with your three pfennigs,
mother?”
“They stole my loaf and the coins, and I starve and freeze on Christmas
Day!” And she fell to moaning again.
“At least you shall not freeze,” cried Gottlieb, and he ran to a corner
shop to buy fuel, and soon had a fire blazing in her cracked iron
brazier, and his own poor coat hung over the doorway.
Then the dame, who had neither moved nor spoken, arose and shook off
her rags. She grew straight and tall, a white robe floated about her,
and her face was beautiful and bright, for on her forehead gleamed a
star which shone so brightly that Gottlieb must shade his eyes.
Then she smiled on him and said, in a voice like the sweetest music:
“I am the Christmas Fairy, born when Bethlehem’s star first rose. I
shall never die nor the star’s light cease to shine as long as men love
and are merciful. You have given all that you have, and my reward is
three wishes; but remember, wealth, fame, nor power can give happiness,
nor plenty a contented heart.” And so saying, she laid a sprig of
fir-tree in his hand and vanished.
Gottlieb looked around the empty firelit hut and rubbed his eyes. Could
he be dreaming? No; there burned the fire he had kindled, there lay the
old crone’s rags, and in his hand was the fir sprig. He sniffed its
spicy fragrance as he went from the alley way into the street, passing
the Herr Professor’s house.
The street was dark, save for the pale gleam of the starlight; but
lights shone here and there behind holly-wreathed lattices, and the
Herr Professor’s house was all aglow with warmth and welcome, for the
counsellor would sup there to-night. Servants hurried to and fro with
steaming platters, and the Herr Professor and his family stood at the
great open door to welcome the great guest.
“Ah,” sighed Gottlieb as he passed, “if I were the Herr Professor,
how happy I should be!” Then he felt his form grow stout and robust,
his hair curly and long. In the twinkling of an eye, the gift of the
Christmas Fairy had worked, and he, Gottlieb, was the Herr Professor,
and his tall, thin wife was bowing, too, and his children clapped their
hands and chorused shrilly, “You are welcome, Herr Professor!”
The great counsellor walked proudly into the velvet-hung room, and
when he had been unrolled from his many fur wraps and shawls, and the
housekeeper, now very meek and attentive, had carried them away, they
went in to the table, all set out in fine array with all manner of good
things, and a man servant to help the housekeeper serve them.
But the supper was a failure. The counsellor felt it a condescension
that he should dine with a plain professor, and showed this by his
patronizing ways and the rude manner in which he contradicted his host.
Gottlieb, the professor, was wretched,--vexed that his gold plate had
not been put on the table, envious that his old schoolmate should be so
high above him in rank, and furious at his sneering manner.
“As if I, a Breneke, was not as good as a Schollenbergh!” he fumed to
himself. “Why should he be counsellor and I only a professor? Oh, I
wish I were he! I should--”
But before he could think another thought, Gottlieb felt his jaws grow
long, his body lean, his head rather bald, his good stuff coat changed
to velvet, and--he was seated in the counsellor’s chair, Counsellor
Schollenbergh himself!
“The wine was bad,” he thought, “and the heavy pastry gave me
stomach-ache. How stupid are these Brenekes! Why did I ever come to
sup with such inferior persons?” And the counsellor arose and said
haughtily that he wished his carriage called, as he desired to take
leave of them. “Matters of state, good Herr Professor; I must away.”
And he was speedily stalking out to his carriage, after a cold farewell
which left the poor Herr Professor very sore at heart.
Yet as he wrapped himself warmly and settled back into the handsome
coach, the counsellor sighed. He thought of his own great, cold,
mansion, where no little children welcomed the Christ-child’s
birthday; of his baby’s name carved on his family tomb, and of his
fair, proud wife who cared only for his wealth and name, and was now
dancing, with no thought of him, you may be sure, at the count’s ball.
Tears of loneliness wet the counsellor’s eyes as he gazed out on the
dark street, and by the light from the cobbler’s window he read, above
a tiny shop-door, “Gottlieb the Baker,” and said aloud, “Ah, within
there sleeps an honest fellow, with not a worry or a care, no doubt. I
wish I were as care-free as Gottlieb the baker,--nay, I wish I were he!”
Bang--bang! Pound--pound! Pushing his yellow nightcap back, Gottlieb
sat up in bed. It was the morning after Christmas, and as the gray
light came through the frosted window at which he stared, he finally
decided that the noise of pounding came from his shop door below.
Running down in his shirt, he found Hans the cobbler lifting a great
bundle from the step. Beside it lay a branch of fir, which Gottlieb
picked up ere he closed the door on Hans, who laid the bundle on the
counter and laughed at the baker’s dress.
“Run for your trousers, man,” he cried, “you are still asleep! This
bundle is yours, left by the Herr Professor’s housekeeper an hour ago.
And as you did not open your door, I was afraid of thievery and waked
you.”
By the time Gottlieb was dressed, the cobbler had made up a roaring
fire, and together they opened the parcel. It contained a warm cloak, a
box of sweets, a stuffed goose from Strasburg, a goodly leather purse
with five silver thalers therein, and a letter sealed with a red wafer
and addressed to “Master Gottlieb the Baker.” And this was the letter:
“MASTER GOTTLIEB:
“My housekeeper was angry on Christmas Eve, but in proof that
she repents, sends the goose, and begs that you continue in
your shop, serving my household. My family join me in the other
gifts. Your act of charity has taught us a lesson in the spirit
of Christmas giving, and at your unselfish conduct we are most
edified and pleased.
“GUSTAVE BRENEKE.”
When Hans had been told the story of the two women (though Gottlieb
said no word of his later meeting with the old dame), he shook hands
heartily and said, “That is well, friend Gottlieb,” and went away,
after accepting an invitation to dine off the goose that very evening.
Once alone, Gottlieb stood looking at the gifts, and turning the sprig
of fir in his hands, said:
“I wonder did I dream it all,--what part of my Christmas day was real,
and what part a dream. Here is the fir branch the Christmas Fairy gave
me, and I am sure I had those three wishes.”
Smiling gently, with a great peace in his heart, he set about preparing
the goose for the oven, and as it began to send up a savory smell, he
laid the fir branch on the fire and, still shaking his head dubiously,
said:
“At least part of it is real, for, as the agent said, the Herr
Professor was pleased.”
II
A DAUGHTER OF THE STARS
Long ago a young hunter said to his mother, “I will go and hunt for
buffalo.” But she answered, “It is far to go, and evil may befall you!
Tarry a little, my son.”
So he laid away his bow and spear and stayed at her bidding. That
was in winter; but when the spring rains had washed the earth clean
and bright and carpeted the prairie with flowers, again he took his
weapons, and, resisting all pleading, he went away from his village
just as the sun rose.
The prairie grass was sweet and cool to his feet; the larks were
calling cheerily, and his heart was very happy; and he went on, miles
and miles away from home, until the sun told him it was noon; so he
stopped at a spring to eat the parched corn his mother had given him.
Bending to drink, he saw a leaf floating on the water, and on it a
wounded cricket. It chirped feebly, and the young hunter cried, “No,
little brother, you shall not drown!” and took him out of the water.
Resting on a grass blade, the grateful insect shrilled its thanks, and
said:
“Across the prairie is a purple hill. On this hillside you will find
something worth seeking; but take care to keep what first comes to you,
for if you do not, you will mourn all your life.”
The young hunter laughed at the thought of finding something on the
hillside and mourning all his life; yet he promised to be careful, and
went on his way.
Although he walked far, he found nothing. At last, tired and hungry,
he decided to go home, yet, knowing how the villagers would laugh if
he returned empty-handed, thought to hunt a little longer. So, though
the sun was down and the stars were out, he persevered, until in the
distance he saw a purple hill outlined against the dying fire of the
sunset.
Remembering the cricket’s promise, he hastened on, and just as twilight
faded into night, he discerned, among the trees upon the hillside, a
globe of light, and heard delicious music.
Down, down the dazzling ball floated to the foot of the hill, and
he saw that it was a great golden basket, out of which sprang twelve
lovely maidens in gossamer robes like moonlight. Joining hands, their
music swelled into a song, to which they danced in and out among the
trees, while fireflies flitted through the dusk and the starlight fell
soft and pale over the prairie.
In vain he called to them; they did not heed, but wove in and out in
their graceful dance, singing sweetly. Their long, dark hair hung over
their glittering robes like dusky mantles, and their faces were like
lilies and roses, save one who moved more lightly than the rest. Her
face was like a pearl, her eyes two sapphires darkly blue, and her hair
fell in a shower of gold to her feet.
Of all the beautiful ones, this one seemed the brightest, and the
hunter followed them, vainly endeavoring to stay her, though she moved
on softly as a cloud.
But at last the dancing feet paused, the song died away into a sweet
refrain. With beating heart and panting breath, the young hunter came
near and stretched out eager hands towards the brightest one; but she
glided away, leaving in her stead one of the darker beauties. Then,
forgetful of the cricket’s warning, he released her and sprang forward
with a cry, clasping the maiden he desired. Her bright hair sweeping
over him obscured his sight for a moment, but he heard a plaintive
minor chord, which died away in the distance, and when he could see,
the dancers were fled, leaving the golden-haired maiden alone with him.
There in the starlight he wooed her. But she told him she was not of
his kind and that it would not be well for him to take her for wife.
But he would not have no for answer, and when she refused him, wept,
and said she would go with him. Then he kissed her, and she took his
hand and went back with him to his people. So the hunter did not return
from his hunt empty-handed.
The village people marveled at her beauty and did homage to her. But in
private his mother wept, saying, “He has wed a daughter of the stars,
and he cannot be happy.”
But the star maiden, though she did not mingle with the people nor join
in the work of the women, seemed to love her husband very much. And at
night, when the village slept and the fires were low, she would sit
out upon the prairie with his head on her lap and sing him songs of
the sky, or tell tales of her beautiful home beyond the seven golden
mountains, across the seven golden bridges, in the land of the seven
golden fountains; and it seemed to the young hunter that he was the
happiest man in all the world.
Autumn came; the flowers faded, the grass grew sear upon the prairie,
and the men of the village said, “Come, it is time for the fall hunt.”
So, sorrowfully he bade his beautiful wife good-by and set off for the
hunting-ground. When night was come and the village all asleep, the
hunter’s mother was awakened by a soft sighing, and, looking up, saw
that her son’s wife stood at the tepee door with her hand stretched
up to the stars. And when the mother asked why the young wife sighed,
she answered, “O mother dear, I long for home.” Then she began a sad,
sweet song that made the tears stand in the old mother’s eyes; but its
music soon lulled her to sleep, and when she awoke it was morning, and
the young wife was gone. But by and by she came with her robe full of
rushes and her feet all wet with dew, for she had walked far over the
sear grass to a little pond where they grew.
When the hunter’s mother asked what she did with the rushes, she
answered, “I shall weave a basket,” and she sat all day weaving and
weaving; but though the basket grew under her skilful fingers, night
came and it was not finished.
And that night she sighed as before and said, “Mother dear, I long for
home.” And in the morning she was gone, but presently came again with
more rushes, and sat to weave as before; and when the old mother said,
“Daughter, you weave a great basket,” she answered, “Not greater than
my need, mother,” and worked away until nightfall, when it was finished.
“How pleased your husband will be, daughter, at the fine basket you
have woven, when he comes on the morrow!” But the son’s wife answered,
“Nay, he will like it not,” and fell to sighing in the night as before,
and answered the mother’s questionings with “Ah, mother dear, I long
for home!”
Then she sang a sad, sweet strain in her own language. “Why, it is as
if it were farewell!” cried the mother; but her eyes grew heavy, and
when she awoke, her daughter was gone, and the great basket, too.
When noon had come and the wife did not return, she was afraid, and
when at night her son, laden with game, entered the village with the
rest of the hunters amid the shouts of the people, he cried, “Mother,
where is my wife?”
The mother wept and could not tell him.
All night the people of the village searched and called, all night
their torches lit the prairie, but no trace of the beautiful wife could
they find; and at last, worn and spent, the young hunter staggered into
his mother’s tepee at daybreak and fell asleep on a mat before the
fire, and in a dream he thought his wife came to him and kissed him,
that her golden hair swept over his breast and her tears fell upon his
face. Then a plaintive minor chord sounded through the tepee, and he
awoke.
On his cheek was a drop of water like a splash of rain, and upon his
breast lay one long golden hair; but his bride was not there. Days went
by, but she did not return, and finally the young hunter made a long
journey to a wise woman who, when she heard his story, shook her head
and said, as had his mother, “You wedded a daughter of the stars and
you could not be happy, for she could never be satisfied with earth
life, and longed for home. So she made a basket of rushes secretly, and
by help of a charm ascended to her father.”
Weeping bitterly, the hunter went away over the dreary prairie. The
snow fell fast and the cold winds wailed about him.
On, on he went, not knowing whither, until in the chill dusk of a
winter’s twilight, he saw in the distance the purple hill where he had
wooed his star maiden.
In vain hope of her return, he tried to reach it, but, weary and spent
with sorrow, his limbs refused to carry him farther, and he sank down
as the night closed over the prairie and fell asleep. Then the soft
snow covered him with its white blanket and he never woke again.
Years have gone, and the people of the young hunter have vanished like
the daughter of the stars, but the springtime still brings the flowers
to deck the prairie and the fireflies still flit at evening among the
trees on the purple hill, and if you will walk there in the gathering
twilight, you will hear the plaintive call sounding from the hillside.
Sweet, low, and sad it rings out, never changing its mournful cadence.
They say it is a night bird which sings there when daylight is fading,
but it is the spirit of the young hunter calling to the daughter of the
stars.
III
THE BROOM MASTER
There was one time an old man who had three sons, and the two eldest
were bold, bright lads of whom he was proud; but the youngest was so
dull a lout that they called him “Dumbling,” and he must always sit at
the lowest place at table and wait on all the others. He wore ragged
clothes and fared hardly until it came time for his father to die.
Then the father said to the eldest son, “I give thee the roan horse,
the house and all therein. Keep it!”
To the second he said, “I give thee the gray mare and the little field
with all therein. Till it!”
And to poor Dumbling he said: “Thou art good for nothing save to be a
scullion; so take the old broom behind the door!”
For many days after the funeral, the elder brothers spent all their
money in carousing, and the house stood cluttered and unattended;
and the little field lay untilled and unwatered. Only the hearth fire
burned brightly, for Dumbling brought in wood and swept the hearth
clean from day to day.
When the money was all gone and the cellar empty of meat and drink, the
elder brothers rode away, telling Dumbling he could stay and starve.
When he had eaten his last crust, poor Dumbling bethought him that he
must now fare forth into the wide, wide world and seek his fortune. But
as he turned from the cold hearth to go, the house lay all dusty and
cluttered before him; so he took the old broom from behind the door
and set the house to rights, sweeping it clean. Then lo! from where I
cannot tell you, he swept up a rusty brown leather knapsack.
“Come,” said he, “I’ll not go forth empty-handed.” So he swung it over
his shoulder, took his broom in hand, and set out.
But as he passed the little field, he thought: “Father said ‘till
it’; so dig I must.” And he set to work with such a good will that by
evening he had spaded it. Then he stopped to rest by a scarecrow that
had been set up to frighten the birds. About this straw man hung an
old cloak of faded green.
“Come,” said Dumbling, “thou art better clad than I.” And he put the
cloak across his own shoulders and set out to seek his fortune just
as the sun went down. He walked and walked for a long time, until the
stars spangled the dark sky and the owls began to hoot in a large wood
to which he now came.
Seeing no other path but that which entered the forest, Dumbling
pressed on, and suddenly heard a loud quarreling and shouting of rough
voices from behind a clump of bushes. Peeping through them, he saw by
a smoldering fire three robbers, with long mustaches, and with fierce
pistols in their belts and broadswords at their sides, engaged in a
wrangle over a bag of gold.
Running suddenly among them, Dumbling seized the money and was gone
like a flash; and when he had run a mile or so, he marveled to find
that he was not pursued. But you must know that the green cloak from
the scarecrow’s back was one that rendered its wearer invisible, and
though the robbers saw their booty disappear, they each accused the
other, not being able to see Dumbling at all.
When Dumbling had walked a great distance, it began to grow so dark
that he had to feel his way until he saw a faint light, which he found
came from a little hut with a candle in its window.
Knocking at the door, it was opened by a ragged old woman who peered
out, much frightened to hear a voice so near and see nothing. For a
while Dumbling enjoyed her dismay; then he entered, closed the door
behind him with a bang, and removed the green cloak, when the dame saw
a poorly clad lad with tousled hair, and an old broom in his hand.
Then she cried out that he must depart at once, as she was the servant
of three bloody robbers, who would murder them both if they should come
home.
“Well, I only ask a bite and a sup and a sleep by the fire,” said
Dumbling. But she wept and wrung her hands, saying her throat would
surely be cut, and that there was not even a moldy crust in the
cupboard.
“Alas,” said Dumbling, “I have worked and traveled fasting for a day.
How I wish this old knapsack held a capon and a pottle of good wine
therein!” And he pulled at the rusty buckles until it flew open. And
there, indeed, was a lusty, smoking capon and an earthen pottle of
fine wine, with a long, crusty loaf, for this knapsack was enchanted,
and its owner would never want food.
You may be sure they dined well, and then, when the dame had fallen
asleep by the fire, Dumbling took up his broom to clean the hearth,
when he swept up--from where, I cannot tell you--an old pair of leather
top-boots.
Just then a great hullabaloo arose outside. It was the robbers
returning, and their horses’ feet were tramping nearer and nearer, when
the old woman awoke with a cry of “Fly!” and, seeing the boots, she
told Dumbling that none could hear or catch their wearer, as they were
the seven-league boots of silence. So, pulling them on and taking up
his luggage, Dumbling stepped swiftly and invisibly out the door as the
robbers entered, and was far away from there in a jiffy, I can tell you!
And by midnight he had come to a large city which was all illuminated,
and where bells were all ringing, though the citizens who crowded the
streets were mourning and seemed sorrowful.
Doffing the invisible cloak, Dumbling stopped before the door of a
handsome mansion, in whose portico sat an old man in a ragged black
cloak, looking sadly out at the lights. And in reply to a salutation,
he answered civilly enough, and noting the lad’s strange burden,--the
knapsack, the boots, the bag of gold, great cloak, and old birch
broom,--he asked him whither he went and what he did for a living.
“Why, as for the first, honored master,” answered Dumbling, “anywhere!
And for a vocation, I may say I am a broom master, for this birch broom
and these things you see upon me are all I am master of in this world.”
After some talk, the two struck a bargain. Dumbling should serve in the
old man’s house for a penny a day. And before they went to rest, his
master told him the reason for the illumination of the city, and why
he, the owner of so fine a mansion, must be served by a strange lad at
a penny a day.
The king of that city had a daughter fairer than moonlight, but more
black-hearted than midnight, for she was a wicked witch and would marry
no one of her many suitors who could not make her shiver. And this none
could do, for she had a heart of ice, and many a prince, noble and
gentle, had failed in this endeavor and had had his head cut off and
hung on the garden wall to scare the birds away.
Dumbling’s master had seven sons, all of whom tried to make the
princess shiver, and all of whom now lay headless in the churchyard,
while the poor father had vainly spent his vast fortune in the king’s
courts trying to save them. But no unsuccessful suitor lived, for the
law was, “He who fails dies.”
And now the son of a great king had sent heralds to declare his intent
to win the lovely princess, and so the town was all ablaze with rockets
and strings of lanterns in honor of his coming.
For some days after his arrival in the city, Dumbling pondered on all
this as he moved about the mansion, serving his master faithfully for a
penny a day, though he often eked out the scanty board with food from
his enchanted knapsack. The poor master, however, never noticed this,
so sad was he at his great losses.
Soon the king’s son came with a great retinue, and fell into ecstasy
over the beauty of the princess. But he fared no better than all the
rest, and his head would certainly have graced the wall had not his
faithful followers rallied around him, fought a fierce fight with the
king’s soldiers, and, having slaughtered many and burned part of the
town, marched away vowing vengeance.
Now was the poor old king more anxious than ever to wed his daughter,
for, with a great war threatening, he knew he must secure a rich
and powerful ally in the shape of a son-in-law. So he redoubled his
efforts, even sending the princess riding through all the countryside
on a milk-white, silver-trappinged palfrey, with forty noble maidens in
her train, that all might see her beauty.
So it was that Dumbling, the broom master, saw her from his high
balcony as he shook out a dusty tapestry. He marveled at her long,
golden hair falling across her horse’s flanks, and her rose-leaf face,
like some rare flower, smiling at the shouting people; for, though she
had bereaved half the city by her wickedness, they could but worship
her beauty. She, looking up on the balcony, saw only a rosy-cheeked
serving man waving a tapestry, and smiled up at him, as she did on all
men. That smile won the broom master’s heart, and he thereafter could
think of nothing but the princess, and he finally went to his master,
asking a holiday, that he might go and win the princess for his wife.
“Alas, my poor servant,” cried his master, “have you lost your wits?”
And he told again the long list of gentles and nobles whose heads hung
on the garden wall. But go Dumbling would and must.
“Well, then,” said the master, “if it must be, go sweep the courtyard
yet once more, and tell me what you find there.”
So the broom master swept the flagging clean, and lo! he turned up--I
cannot tell you from where--a great stone; whereupon up gushed a
fountain, colder than the mountain snows and sparkling with hundreds of
tiny gold and silver fishes, a lovely sight in the morning sunlight.
“Take thou this cask,” said Dumbling’s master, “and fill it. My sons,
scorning my advice, would have none of it; but it may save your head.”
Wondering, but obedient, the broom master set his cask, the cloak,
boots, and broom into a donkey cart and drove away.
As he passed down the street, neighbors said, “Whither away, broom
master?” And when he answered, “To wed the king’s daughter,” they
laughed, yet were sorry, too. For all liked Dumbling, and one cried:
“They’ll never let you in with those rags! Come, I’ll lend you my coat.”
“If clothes be needed, neighbor,” answered the broom master, “I can
soon provide for that.” And thanking him, Dumbling drove the little
gray donkey to the king’s own tailor, and, taking out the bag of
robbers’ gold, soon had a suit of handsome velvet all overlaid with
silver, a hat with a long, long plume, and stockings of silk above his
gold-buckled shoes. Then to the king’s own barber clattered the cart,
and when, towards evening, his toilet was completed, the broom master
came forth as curled and perfumed an exquisite as ever took the palace
stairs.
When he arrived in the palace yard, he threw his reins to an astonished
groom, and bade the porter carefully to carry up the cask to the king.
But as it was wrapped in the green cloak, the fellow marveled at this
strange, handsome fellow who gave him a burden that he could not see.
His Majesty gave a willing audience to this new suitor, not dismayed
by his queer equipage or the old boots and broom tucked away under his
arm; for wooers of the princess had come in strange guise. He also
consented to the broom master’s demand that the princess must not know
of his coming, and that he must see her asleep.
These arrangements made, the two sat down to supper, and afterwards
drank their wine and talked of this and that until the palace bells
rang midnight, and the king gave the order that the broom master be
shown into the garden where the princess slept in summer.
The broom master, with the cask, broom, boots, and cloak in one great
bundle on his back, followed a page through the silent palace out into
the silent rose perfumed garden.
Here the loveliest princess in all the world slept on a bed of white
satin upon a marble portico overlooking the lake, and her ladies,
wearied by the heat of the midsummer night, slept also upon cushions on
the steps below her, instead of watching, as was their duty.
The broom master’s heart gave a leap as he saw her, so fair, asleep in
the starlight. He wrapped his cloak about him, donned the seven-league
boots of silence, and, walking softly to her couch, turned out the
cask of icy water, which, being under enchantment, had but grown the
colder as it stood.
Ugh! The icy shower drenched her lacy robe and wet her through and
through, the tiny fishes splashed and wriggled coldly all about her,
and, waking with a cry, “I shiver! Oh, I shiver!” she saw that she was
conquered at last.
Then, with a loud scream of rage, she turned herself into a great black
eagle and flew out of the garden away across the prairies. But the
seven-league boots could fly, too. So after her sped the broom master,
flogging her with the birchen broom, until she was glad to alight in
a forest and turn herself into a roaring lion; but the broom master
belabored her so hard she was forced to take to the air again, this
time turning into a lovely white swan; and he, following in her wake,
flogged and flogged until the blood stained her white feathers, and
she was forced to turn again toward the palace garden. And just at
daybreak, with drooping pinions and plaintive cries, she flew over the
garden wall and, dropping her swan form, fell at the broom master’s
feet. Then the golden sun rose over the fair garden, where all the
sweet flowers stretched their little lovely faces up to smile at him,
and all the birds woke to chant his praise.
Then the sleeping ladies woke, too, to see their mistress, all draggled
and disheveled, seated on her couch by the side of a handsome lad, who
was kissing her as if he never meant to stop and vowing to make her a
kind and loving husband.
This he did, for the next day they were wed amidst great rejoicing, and
the broom master and the king’s daughter lived happily forever after.
IV
ROSE-MARIE AND THE WITCH O’ WOODS
I
A long time ago, in a village at the edge of the Harz mountains,
lived a stone-cutter and his wife, with their children, Eldwald and
Rose-Marie.
The children were left much alone at home in the little stone cot on
the outskirts of the town, for their father was away all day at the
quarry, and their mother sewed at the burgomaster’s house almost all
the year round, leaving them each morning when breakfast was over.
After setting out their luncheon of black bread and cheese, she would
kiss them and say:
“Eat when you are hungry, my children, and _do not go near the woods_.”
Now, there were no fearful beasts or poisonous snakes in the wood. It
was a lovely place, with long aisles of green trees carpeted with moss,
where all manner of pretty, harmless, woodland creatures loved to
play, and all manner of bright flowers and berries grew among the tall
ferns and brambles.
Lovers walked the wood unafraid, and the elders of the village were
wont to stroll about its edge on sunny Sabbath afternoons.
But still the sweet, green wood held danger for the little ones, and
many a home had been bereft because of it. For in the very heart of the
wood lived a wicked witch, sometimes seen in the dark, flitting here
and there like a shadow. They called her the “Witch o’ Woods,” and more
than one brave hunter kept a silver bullet in his box for her. For you
must know that only a _silver_ bullet will kill a witch. And though no
one had ever been close enough to get a shot at the dreadful creature,
the whole village hated and feared her, with just cause, as you shall
see.
Whenever a child who was disobedient or naughty strayed into the wood,
she changed it into a pretty little rabbit, and hippety-hop it went
through a little tunnel which led straight into her den. And as the
years went by and every now and then a child would disappear, the
villagers would cry, “The Witch o’ Woods!” In time there came to be a
song about it, which mothers sang to their babies to a sad, sad tune:
“Stay out of the wood
If you know what’s good.”
This song Rose-Marie knew well, as she did the story of the witch, and
she never ventured across the great green meadow lying between their
house and the wood, where the geese fed and squawked all day, and where
she sometimes must venture for her mother’s five geese when Fritz, the
gooseherd, who was old and forgetful, failed to drive them home.
One bright summer morning, Rose-Marie and Eldwald played in front of
their home, and all at once a great butterfly flew over their heads,
with wings of purple and gold. For a moment it hovered above them, and
then settled on a rose-bush not far away. With a cry of joy, Eldwald
ran toward it, but it sailed in circles just above his reach, leading
him out across the meadow toward the wood.
Despite Rose-Marie’s cries, the boy followed it, and though she ran
after him as fast as she could, she reached the edge of the wood to
see the bit of purple and gold flitting far down its dim aisles, with
Eldwald running after it.
Poor Rose-Marie called and searched for him vainly for some hours, and
when it was noon and he had not returned, she hurried to the village
and sobbingly broke the news to her mother.
Soon the stone-cutter and a crowd of his neighbors were searching the
underbrush of the forest. But though they searched until sunset, and
all night torches flared among the trees, no trace of the lost boy
could they find.
Now all was changed in Rose-Marie’s home. The mother sat all day at the
window gazing with tear-stained eyes at the wood that had swallowed
up her child. The father came and went, white and silent, and poor
Rose-Marie’s little heart ached and ached for their sorrow, and grieved
over her lost playmate. Night after night, she lay awake on her little
bed in the loft, thinking of Eldwald and trying to plan some way
to find her brother; for she would not believe, as did many of the
villagers, that Eldwald was dead, but felt sure that the Witch o’ Woods
had turned him into a rabbit, and that he was a prisoner far within the
heart of the forest.
As she lay one night watching the stars through her open window, the
night wind whispered among the leaves of the vine which wreathed it,
and the moon, rising like a great golden shield over the tower of the
church, seemed to smile down upon her. A nightingale trilled faintly
from the wood.
It was as if some far-away voice called her, and springing up, she
slipped on her gown, and, taking her shoes in her hand, stole softly
down the ladder and across the stone floor of the kitchen. She could
hear her parents’ heavy breathing from the cupboard bed in the corner,
and trembled as she took down her father’s knapsack from behind the
door, and in the darkness felt for bread and cheese on the shelf
nearby. Putting these, with a cup, into the knapsack, she opened the
door carefully and stole out into the moonlight.
The flowers slept, drenched in dew, faintly sweet about her. The trees
stirred in the soft air, and a bird twittered drowsily in its dream.
Far away, a dog barked and an owl hooted. The crickets chirped so
loudly in the grasses as she passed that her heart stood still for
fear they should waken her mother. They seemed to say, “Whist, whist!
Rose-Marie runs away!” And in the meadow pond the frogs took up the
cry: “Croak, croak! Rose-Marie runs away!”
Eldwald’s pet cock stirred in his sleep and cried shrill and high,
“Cock-a-doodle-doo! Rose-Marie runs away!” And this woke the doves in
the house eaves, who murmured peevishly, “Coo-hoo! Who runs away?”
Yet, despite all these alarums, little Rose-Marie ran swiftly on across
the meadow, and at last came to the edge of the wood. Turning to look
back at the little stone house sleeping so peacefully in the moonlight,
the tears stood in her eyes, and stretching her hands out to it, poor
Rose-Marie cried, “O, good-by, dear home! Good-by! Good-by!” And thus
saying, she pushed on into the darkness of the wood.
II
On and on went Rose-Marie, over moss and fern, stopping now and then in
the darkness to loosen a bramble from her gown. But save for a stumble
and a lash from some low-hanging bough, nothing happened to frighten
her.
At last, as her feet began to falter, it seemed as if tiny lights
gleamed here and there through the thickets, and when she sank at
length upon a mossy knoll at the foot of a great oak-tree, a faint
humming came to her ears, like the far-away singing of gnats, and
finally, as she was dropping asleep, the sound seemed to change into a
kind of chant.
“See, oh, see,
On every tree,
What lamps are shining (ting, ting, ting).
They are eyes
Of fireflies,
To light your wandering (ting, ting, ting).
And sweetly sleep, dear Rose-Marie,
We watch will keep, and guard o’er thee;
And ne’er a danger cometh nigh
When fairies chant a lullaby.”
And so, to the chime of faint fairy bells, Rose-Marie fell softly
asleep and dreamed of little Eldwald and their home.
When she awoke, the sun was high, though but few of his rays could
pierce the green gloom about her. At her side lay a large leaf heaped
high with bright berries. Springing up, she vainly sought for the giver
of this gift, but heard nothing save the trickling of a tiny rill
nearby, and saw nothing but a flash of crimson as a redbird flew before
her.
After a little prayer of thankfulness, she ran to wash her face in
the little stream, and ate a hearty breakfast from her store of food,
finishing with the fairies’ berries, for she decided it must be those
little people who had gathered them, for fairies always stand ready to
help good children, and when once you start to do a good thing, though
it seems hard, hundreds of little helpers spring up unseen on every
side to aid the task.
Cheered and refreshed, Rose-Marie went on her way until, at evening
she came to a barren, rocky opening in the woods. Through the trees, a
long red beam of light seemed pointing like a fiery finger at a dark
pool which lay there, dull and slimy, amid blasted trees and withered
rushes, which seemed to shrink back from the dead, dark water.
High above it towered a cliff, rough with boulders and dark with dusky
pine, and at its base, just beyond the margin of the pool, she could
see a dark opening, or cave, which seemed very narrow and deep.
It was a sad place at all times; but to a little girl alone at
nightfall, it seemed a frightful place. As she paused, shivering, a
chant of tiny voices buzzed in her ear:
“Now human love
Must dare and fare
Where fairies fear to tread.”
Darkness fell suddenly, strange noises sounded about her, and from the
cave in the cliff came a faint whimpering sound like the noise of many
little animals crying weakly. With a sinking heart, Rose-Marie knew
that this place must be the place she had come so far to seek. This was
the den of the Witch o’ Woods.
III
Gathering courage, Rose-Marie at last ventured into the dark opening
before her. The way led downward; it was slippery, and now and then
drops of water fell upon her. At last she came into a small square
chamber. In one corner was a stone fireplace, wherein a few logs
smoldered. Wood was piled on each side. Dried herbs and bones hung from
the rafters, and one or two rude shelves were crowded with utensils and
strange objects whose names she did not know. A low, rough bedstead
filled another corner, and one or two heavy benches were pushed against
the walls. Rose-Marie was so busy in staring about her that she did
not notice a little person who sat on a low stool by the fire, until
a malicious chuckle startled her, and looking closely, she could just
make out in the dim light a little old lady in a dull brown garb, with
high pointed cap pulled well down over a dark little face. Two very
bright eyes peeped at her, and the witch’s nose went down as her thin
mouth turned up in a shrill laugh, that echoed through the cavern and
was answered by a whimper from somewhere beneath her feet.
Rose-Marie’s heart stood still. But she set her lips firmly and made a
little courtesy and said, “Good evening, mother!”
The Witch o’ Woods jumped up with a startled look on her face.
“Hoity-toity! Here is the first mortal that ever spoke to me. Come
hither, girl, and let me see the only being in the Harzberg who does
not fear the Witch o’ Woods.”
As she stood there leaning on her tall cane, Rose-Marie thought she
looked like a figure carved out of brown wood, and so she did, all but
her eyes, which were piercing, though they did not look unkind now.
“But I _am_ afraid, ma’am,” said Rose-Marie. “But I had to come for my
brother Eldwald; and O madam, if you have changed little Eldwald into a
rabbit, I beg that you will release him, for my mother weeps all day,
and my father cannot work for sighing. I will serve you faithfully and
well if you will only let him go.”
“What is your name?” said the witch, though she knew it already, being
a witch.
“I am Rose-Marie, the daughter of Hans, the stone-cutter,” answered the
girl, with another courtesy.
“Go to the corner cupboard, Rose-Marie, and take down some supper on a
platter you will find there, and then we shall see what we shall see.”
In the cupboard was a nice plump cake, all iced, with a knife lying by,
and it said, “Eat me!” On a shelf above stood a finely baked capon in a
silver dish, and it cried, “Eat me!” And by its side stood a handsome
bottle of wine, which gurgled, “Drink me!” And down on the lowest shelf
of all stood a little brown loaf and an earthen cup of milk, which said
nothing at all; these Rose-Marie took and placed on the platter as she
had been told, and going to a bench near the fire, began to eat with
good appetite.
“Hum,” said the witch, “not greedy. Why did you not take the good
things in the cupboard, stone-cutter’s daughter?”
“Why, they did not seem suitable for me, ma’am, and I thought that,
had you intended such grand provisions for my eating, you would have
mentioned it.”
“Had you eaten them, you would now be a hare with the others,” growled
the witch, very much disappointed.
When Rose-Marie had eaten and set away the platter and cup, the witch
showed her a pallet where she might sleep. And after a little prayer,
the tired girl lay down and slept as peacefully as if she had been in
her own little bed.
The Witch o’ Woods sat mumbling by the fire all night long, trying to
change Rose-Marie into a rabbit; but try as she could, all her magic
failed. For when we send up a thought of thankfulness and ask help of
the Love that is ever near, a beam of light comes down like a lovely
angel and guards us from all harm. So at dawn the Witch o’ Woods sat
cold and cross by her dead fire, and wondered to find a power greater
than her own.
Then she roused Rose-Marie, who hustled about busily, and soon had the
chamber bright with a crackling fire, clean as a good sweeping could
make it, and a hot breakfast smoking before the old witch, who for the
first time in years found herself comfortable.
When they had eaten, she took up her staff and a great sack of grain,
which she spilled over the whole room until it fell into every crack
and crevice.
“Now,” said she, “I shall try you. If you serve me well three days and
do the tasks I set you, you shall go free with little Eldwald; but
if you fail, he will remain a little hare and you shall be my slave
forever, and never again see the sun. By the time I return to-night,
this spilled grain must be back in its sack, and, mind you, not one
kernel must be lost!”
And with that she went out, and slammed the heavy door behind her,
bolting it fast.
Rose-Marie’s heart sank; but she glanced at the rush-broom in the
corner, and crying, “At least I can try,” set to work. But though she
persevered until noontime, only a small part of the grain had been
gathered.
Resolved, however, not to despair, she sat down to eat the bread and
cheese the witch had left out for her, when she heard the whimpering
that had frightened her the night before, and seeking for the sound,
she opened a trap-door in the floor, to find there a cage filled with
all kinds of rabbits. These were the poor little children the Witch
o’ Woods had caught, and there was a snow-white one that reached his
little paws through the cage and cried more piteously than the rest,
with tears in his little round eyes. And this, she knew, must be little
Eldwald.
Breaking up her food, she divided it among them, and watered them in a
bowl from a huge piggin of water that stood behind the door. Then she
swept and cleaned their cage as well as she could through the bars, put
straw in it from her pallet, and after caressing and reassuring little
Eldwald, she shut them up again for fear the witch would come.
Then she went back to her task, but began to despair as the afternoon
wore away and she had made so little progress. At last she sat down by
the hearth to weep, and her tears fell into the cold ashes; when far
above her head she heard a soft “Cooee-cooee,” and found by stepping
inside, she could look up the chimney, on the rim of which sat six
pretty wood-doves, cooing and preening their feathers.
“Cooee, Rose-Marie,” they called; for the fairies had told her story,
and all the little woodland creatures were ready to help her. “Why do
you weep?”
Then Rose-Marie explained her plight, and down flew the six wood-doves.
In a jiffy their sharp beaks “pecked, pecked,” here and there, their
keen eyes spying out every grain, and by the time the sun went down,
they had filled the sack and left not one kernel outside. Then, with
a soft “Cooee,” they disappeared up the chimney, and Rose-Marie, much
relieved, set about getting supper, which the witch found smoking hot
when she came in at dark.
She gasped when she saw the great sack of grain standing in a corner,
but, poke and pry as she might, she could not discover one kernel left
out. So she was forced to sit down to her nice supper, and, looking at
her as they sat eating, Rose-Marie thought she was not so brown nor so
wrinkled as she had been.
At bedtime, after her usual prayer was said, Rose-Marie lay down on
her hard bed and was soon fast asleep, leaving the witch staring into
the fire, and there she sat all night, as before; and, as before,
her magic failed. In the morning she awoke Rose-Marie, and when they
had breakfasted, she emptied a great jar of peas into the ashes, and
repeating her commands, she hobbled away. And Rose-Marie thought she
was taller and straighter than she had been.
Rose-Marie picked up peas and put them into the jar, but gained little
headway; and at noon she fed and tended the little captives under the
floor.
And when, some hours later, she gave up in despair, declaring
that the peas seemed to grow more rather than less, she heard a
“scratch--scratching” at the door, then a “gnawing--gnawing,” and
finally, through a tiny hole they had gnawed at the door’s bottom, came
a mole, a squirrel, and a chipmunk; and, bowing low before the weeping
girl, they cried:
“We will help you, Rose-Marie!”
My, how sharp claws and teeth did fly! How furry coats did flash to and
fro over the floor, here and there and everywhere, until every pea was
safe in the jar, and they whisked out of the hole in the door just as
the witch’s steps sounded in the passage outside.
She came in to find Rose-Marie dishing up supper by the bright
fireside, and had to confess that every pea was in the jar and the
supper the best she had ever eaten, for Rose-Marie had baked little
cakes in the warm ashes, and set out a pot of honey and one of fresh
butter which she had found in the cupboard.
And that night it was the same as before: after her prayers were said,
little Rose-Marie slept safely and well, and the magic of the Witch o’
Woods failed.
Therefore, on the third morning she awoke the girl with a rough shake,
and when ready to go away, she took two great pails of water and
emptied them over the stone floor of the cavern, where the water stood
high enough to run over Rose-Marie’s wooden shoes. And bidding the girl
see to it that the pails were full when she returned, the Witch o’
Woods went out, chuckling with glee, for well she knew that no power on
earth could gather spilled water.
When she was gone, poor Rose-Marie climbed on a bench to be out of the
wet, and cried and cried and cried, and all the little captives under
the floor cried with her.
It was nearly noon, when down the chimney flew a sleek, pretty
swallow, with so merry a chirp that Rose-Marie smiled before her tears
were dried.
When he had heard her troubles, he sat for a moment on the mantel-shelf
with bowed head, for this, indeed, seemed a task too hard for any bird
or beast. At last he broke into an excited trill.
“I know,” he chirped. “Far, far away to the north, over the icy plains
of Norway into the ever-frozen fastness of the Arctic night, dwells the
north wind. He alone can help us. If I can find my friend the gull,
and he can carry the news, and north wind will come, you are saved.
Cheep--cheep.” And off he flew, like a rocket.
But Rose-Marie was not a whit comforted by his words, for there were
so many “ifs” in the way. And who knew, if the gull found north wind,
whether or not he would leave his beloved ice-floes, where he herds his
giant flocks of white polar bears, as farmers herd sheep, or drives the
seals far out to sea, as he blows great gusts over the bergs upon the
poor ships that flounder at their base.
Who could believe that so great a king would come far south to aid a
poor little peasant maid? And Rose-Marie’s tears began to flow afresh,
when a little song which her mother had taught her seemed to ring in
her ears:
“If God is All-in-all,
His children cannot fear.”
Over and over she hummed the comforting words all the long afternoon,
while the little rabbits whimpered for food, as she could not open
their pen for the water.
But the world is full of charity for them that follow Love’s way. And
the swallow found the gull, the gull found the north wind, and when he
heard the story of Rose-Marie and the Witch o’ Woods, he laughed long
and loud, until great icebergs splintered about him; and, wrapping his
glittering white mantle about him, he flew southward, cooling the air
as he went, until, for forty years afterward, all Germany talked of the
“cold summer.”
Down, down he flew, until it was nearly sunset when the forest on the
Harzberg came in sight. Down, down to the top of the chimney of the
witch’s den, and with one kind “Halloo” to Rose-Marie, he blew an icy
blast down the chimney, which froze the water on the witch’s floor,
and, cracking it with her broom handle, Rose-Marie soon had it all in
the pails again, and by the time the Witch o’ Woods came, the nice, hot
fire had melted the ice until the great pails stood brimming with water
and the floor was dry and clean.
And then there was a great ado! The Witch o’ Woods shrieked and raged.
She shook her enchanted staff at Rose-Marie, and in vain tried to utter
words of magic. Failing to do this, she turned, in turn, into a bear,
a wolf, and a great black eagle. But Rose-Marie stood firm by the
fireplace, and, having now learned that evil had no real power, she did
not feel afraid.
Finally, after some moments of such goings-on, the Witch o’ Woods began
slowly to change back into her own shape. And yet it was not she who
at last stood there, slender and straight, with shining golden hair
falling from a green, leafy crown, but a beautiful fairy, who smiled at
Rose-Marie as if she enjoyed her surprise.
For love and goodness can change even ugly witches into fairies, and
that is what they had done. And the Witch o’ Woods was gone forever,
and in her place was a lovely fairy of the woods, who loved and
cherished every woodland creature ever afterward.
Then the fairy, still smiling kindly, opened the door of the little
cage under the floor, and out trooped a lot of little children, among
them little Eldwald, whom you may be sure was clasped in Rose-Marie’s
arms.
Then said the wood fairy:
“Come, let us leave this dark place and go out into the greenwood and
sunshine. But before I go, you shall all be recompensed.” And, going to
the side of the cavern, she drew forth the great treasure of the Witch
o’ Woods--gold and jewels, diamonds, pearls, and rubies--and divided it
among them.
But to Rose-Marie she gave the most beautiful of all--a great
pink-hearted pearl, set round with blazing diamonds. “This,” said the
wood fairy, “is small pay for the service you have done me; but you
have love, the pearl of great price, in your heart, dear, and that no
money can buy, and nothing can take it away. But this jewel shall some
day crown the diadem of a princess, and Rose-Marie, the stone-cutter’s
daughter, shall wear it.”
Which proved all too true; for years afterward, when Rose was grown
up, a handsome prince came riding over the Harzberg--But that is
another story, for another time.
And the wood fairy, with Rose-Marie and the other children, danced out
of the black cavern into the bright sunshine. And how the birds sang
above them in the green boughs! And how the perfume of the flowers came
from the thickets! And the way opened broad and smooth before them as,
with filled hands and joyous hearts, Rose-Marie and the other children
went home.
V
TOODLES AND THE GRAY LADY
If Toodles had not been cross that morning at breakfast, because she
could not have nine buckwheats, she might have gone to the pantomime
with mamma and Uncle Charles, and all that I am going to tell you would
not have happened. But Toodles--her real name was Mary, but Uncle
Charles called her Toodles, because that was the first word she had
ever spoken--got out of her bed “wrong side” (that’s what nurse said).
She fretted because it was raining, cried when her hair was combed,
and was so naughty at the breakfast table that she was sent up to the
nursery in disgrace, and went to her dolls’ house with her lips stuck
out and a very deep frown on her pretty little face.
Dear me, how the poor dolls suffered that morning! Geraldine, the big
bisque dolly, was put to bed, after a severe spanking, just because
she would shut her eyes when Toodles wanted her to lie on the couch
and pretend to read from the little Testament, with which Toodles was
not allowed to play. Then Cadet, the woolly doll with bead eyes, fell
into the cistern when his mother took him out in the back entry for
water. There was plenty in the nursery, but it was fun to turn the
cistern crank and see the water run into the pitcher. But after Cadet
was drowned, Toodles felt so sad that she shut up the doll house and
went to look for the cat.
It was Saturday. Mamma and nurse were busy, so the little girl was
left alone in the dining-room, where the cat lay asleep, her gray paws
stretched out before her, and her gray head upon them. Monnie-cat was
dreaming of mice, for she groaned, snorted, and twitched her claws. But
Toodles did not care anything about that; she picked up the kitty and
sat herself in the deep window-seat. Monnie yawned reproachfully, and
struggled to free herself. Then, I regret to say, Toodles slapped her
and called her a hateful old thing, bursting into tears, all out of
pure bad temper. Just then cook began to set the table for luncheon,
and asked Toodles to run up-stairs for the key to the linen closet.
Toodles was usually very obliging, but to-day she said she wouldn’t,
and was so cross that cook called her a “sassy little missy,” which
made the tears fall faster than ever.
By the time luncheon was served, mamma came in with Uncle Charles,
who tried to get his niece into a better humor. But she sulked until
he took out three pink tickets and said to mamma, “By the way, Emily,
here are tickets to ‘Humpty-Dumpty.’” Oh, then how Toodles clapped her
hands! But mamma looked grave and shook her head. “No, we cannot go,
Charles, Mary has been too naughty to-day to go anywhere; you can take
grandma and Josie.”
Toodles cried and cried, “quarts,” she afterward told me; but mamma
was firm. So Uncle Charles went after grandma and Josie, and mamma
talked to the child for a long time, telling her how she wished to
see “Humpty-Dumpty” herself, but would not, because she could not let
her naughty little daughter go. Then Toodles was sorry, and promised
to be good, and mamma, after giving her two chocolate wafers, and
Hans Andersen’s tales to read, went back to the sewing, leaving her
alone with Monnie, who had eaten her luncheon, too, and now purred
forgivingly as she rubbed against Toodles’ feet.
Toodles gave her half of a wafer because she had slapped her--and that
was real repentance, for the wafers were delicious--then took her up
in the window-seat, where she sat blinking her green eyes at the rain,
while Toodles read “The Elfin Hill” aloud.
When it was finished, she said to Monnie, “Now, dear, don’t you wish
it was all really true, and we could see the elf girls dance in the
moonlight?” But Monnie only switched her tail, sitting up so demurely
that Toodles cried, “Why, kitty, you look just like a little gray lady!”
Then a funny thing happened: Monnie’s fur grew long, her paws changed
into hands and feet, and she stood up, a little lady with long gray
hair nearly covering her gray dress.
Toodles’ eyes grew round with astonishment as the gray lady spoke in
such a soft little voice: “O dear me, O dear me! So much to be done
before they come,” and then turned to hurry away down a passage which
seemed to open right in the wall. Toodles started up, for the gray lady
was hollow, like a mask, and she remembered that the lizards running
up and down the elfin hill had said that the elf girls were hollow, so
had always to keep front face. “My! Then this must be the old elf girl
herself!” and Toodles ran after her as fast as she could. The passage
was long and dimly lighted, with doors on either side, which had names
printed on them in large gilt letters.
Toodles paused long enough to read some of them, and skipped
delightedly when on one she saw “Little Claus,” on another “The Robber
Girl;” and on one whence came a cold draught was the name, “The Ice
Queen.” From this door she ran away at once, I can tell you! and if you
have ever read Hans Andersen, you will know why.
By this time, the gray lady had turned the corner and gone out of the
passage. As the door closed behind them, Toodles found herself on a
great heath. It was night, and the wind swept across the dark waste,
above which the stars glowed like golden lamps in the far-off sky.
On they went, until suddenly they came upon a hillock, which seemed
to spring up right at their feet. On this Toodles stumbled and fell,
frightening a large lizard who sat there. By the time the little
girl had seated herself on the top of the hillock, the gray lady had
vanished. So Toodles sat there saying to herself, “And so it is true,
after all, and soon the old Norwegian and his sons will come, and the
elf king’s daughters will dance.”
“Of course, child,” said a petulant voice close to her ear, as the old
gray lizard rose on her tail to catch a better glimpse of her in the
dim starlight. “Of course, as soon as the moon rises, the elf hill will
open, and then I fancy we shall see what good society is. I myself am
unable to go about much, on account of my large family; but I assure
you I am well connected, being closely related to the dragon and the
rockshaft.”
For some moments the lizard droned on, using such large words that
Toodles could not understand half she was saying and began to get tired
and cross, when the moon rose suddenly, big and round, over the elfin
hill, looking so near that the little girl was half afraid, though he
smiled on her very kindly.
Then there were sounds of music. The elfin hill opened and seven lovely
little maidens came out, with scarfs of woven moonshine and gowns of
pearly mist. The gray lady (or the old elf girl, as we must now call
her) followed, her long hair fastened up under a glittering crown.
And she leaned upon the arm of a great rosy old man, whom Toodles
recognized, by his bearskin cap and sealskin coat, as the old Norwegian
himself. The three sons lay asleep back of the elfin hill, for the elf
king had turned them out when they had drunk too much wine and shouted
and trod upon the ladies’ toes in dancing.
Now the elf king joined the group, his high crown shining in the
moonlight like a hundred glowworms. The music inside became louder and
louder as the musicians marched out on the greensward. Twelve very
large black crickets were the fiddlers, twelve very green grasshoppers
played the bass viol, and six very fat brown locusts beat the drums
they carried under their wings.
So gay was the music and so bright the moonshine that Toodles and
the lizard joined hands and danced around the glittering, whirling
circle of the elfin folk, where the old Norwegian whirled the elf girl
until her long gray hair fell down. Round and round they circled,
faster and faster, until they were but a whirl of color and light.
Louder and louder shrilled the music. The big moon sailed up into
the deeper blue of the sky, as if he, too, marched to the music, and
as if the stars must hop out of his way or be run over. Faster and
faster, until Toodles grew so excited that she sat right down, and fell
over the elfin hill into their very midst. A shrill chorus of tiny
cries went up, the dark heath seemed to melt from under the child;
the whirling figures vanished; the moon and stars faded out into the
cheerful firelight of the dining-room; and Toodles found herself on the
window-seat, rubbing her eyes, with Uncle Charles holding out to her
a picture of a funny clown, and mamma smilingly saying, “Why, you and
Monnie have both been asleep in the window-seat!”
But this is just what Toodles ever afterward denied.
VI
LITTLE HANS AND THE KOBOLDS
A long time ago, near a village of the Oberharz, was a little house
of rough stone, with gay wallflowers growing in the mossy patches on
its thatched roof. Its windows were small and crooked, and a bake-oven
bulged the wall on one side of its low vine-studded door.
In the clean swept yard, marigolds marched in two yellow ranks up the
broken flagged walk, and a tall linden drooped over the attic window of
its high pitched roof, where little Hans and his sister Gerta slept.
Behind the house was the forest, and then the mountain crags, all very
quiet, with only a goat’s bell tinkling now and then, or the twit of
a swallow. And up beyond the house and forest and crags was the great
mountain, the Vorharz.
On the mountain, the streams ran bright and clear over bolder and
smooth, pebbly bottom, lingering in cool ferny places where the
quaking aspen bent and sweet red raspberries grew.
On the mountain, the rough crags and peaks loomed barely about the
shadowy canons and valleys, on up to where the everlasting snows gleam
coldly under the starlight, or glow, roseate, in the light of the
dawning.
Little Hans was bold and wayward, and if it had not been for Gerta,
he would have given their parents no end of care. But she, being a
year older, looked after him, and at nightfall she often had to go in
search of him, for he was always running here and there, in forest and
village, even venturing up on the crags, which were brown rocks, bare,
save for a bit of juniper or a stunted fir-tree jutting from the side
of the mountain, with dark caves where the most daring goatherd or
bravest hunter feared to go.
These they called the berg caves. And when the oldest grandmother in
the village sat before her fire late one afternoon with a little crowd
of children about her, little Hans stood by her chair to hear her tales
of the kobolds, who haunted the berg caves. Woe betide him who slept
beside one of them, for he would vanish, and the world would know him
no more, for he toiled deep inside the mountain, a slave to the Kobold
king, until some one was brave enough to venture by night within the
caves and, reaching the king’s throne, demand the prisoner’s release.
But never, said the grandmother, never in all the years, had one been
found willing to go; and never had one who vanished thus returned.
It became twilight as she talked, and little Hans’ mother was bustling
about in their home setting forth the supper. So Gerta must run to the
oldest grandmother’s house and bring home little Hans.
At supper, he was full of the kobolds; but his father declared it was
no good luck to talk of the little folk. “But father, last night, when
all were abed, I heard you and mother speak of how poor we are and how
you dreaded the long winter coming. In the mountains, father, are all
kinds of gold and precious stones, Grossmutter says.” But his father
stopped his chatter, and, supper over, they were soon all abed.
But long after all was quiet and the cricket was chirping by the
smoldering hearth, Gerta heard little Hans mutter in his sleep. “Silver
and gold and all manner of precious stones;” and when she awoke in the
morning, the attic window stood open and little Hans was gone.
He had climbed from the roof into the linden-tree and gone off in the
moonlight to hunt the gold of the kobold king.
Goatherds and chamois hunters for miles around aided in the search for
him, as well as the village neighbors; but after a week of seeking, the
lost boy could not be found, and he was mourned as dead. But not by
little Gerta. She was very sure, in her heart, that he was far within
the berg caves, a slave to the kobolds; but as no one believed her, she
finally came to say no more about it. Yet every day, as she followed
their goats as they minced daintily along to join the village herd, she
fell into a way of asking every swift-winged swallow, every darting
fish, every golden butterfly, “Where is little Hans?”
One evening, at sunset, when all the peaks were rose, and all the
valleys purple patches on the dusky mountainsides, and the goatherds’
horns blew sweet and high as they gathered their flocks,--just then,
as she stood by the dripping basin of the spring in her garden, she
saw a toad slip out from beneath and sit with half shut jeweled eyes,
darting his slender tongue to catch the midges dancing in the last
sunbeams.
Again little Gerta asked, as she had so often, “Oh, where is little
Hans?” And a tiny, lisping voice answered, “Serving the kobolds under
Oberharz.”
The toad then hopped away, and Gerta, hardly believing her ears, could
not be sure that it was he who had spoken; yet as he went through
a broken place in the wall, he turned his head and blinked at her
knowingly. But when she told her father and mother, they thought she
had dreamed it.
All that night little Gerta could not sleep. The tree-frogs chirped
“Little Hans,” the sleeping swallows, twittering under the eaves in
their dreaming, seemed to sound his name. A nightingale came and sat
in the linden-tree, and the moon peered palely in from behind the dark
little bird with the silvery voice singing of lost love and longing.
“She means little Hans,” thought Gerta, and two big tears slipped down
her cheeks.
At that hour when the world wakes and turns over in its bed to sleep
again until sunrise, when the cocks were crowing the shrill high
call of the false dawn, she could endure it no longer. Running to the
window, she looked out into the dark, starry sky. The air was chill,
and she shivered as she began to dress. Taking her little red, hooded
cloak, she climbed over the window-sill and out into the linden-tree.
“O mother-linden, do not let me fall!” she whispered, and the rustling
new leaves seemed to answer, “Climb down and do not fear.”
Soon Gerta was on the ground, soon across the yard and garden, and into
the forest. Strange to say, the trees that seemed so dark from her
window seemed now but great lacy fans, through which the stars sparkled
like spangles; and a smooth, mossy path lay under her feet, as she
hurried on, eager to reach the berg caves.
The trees were now farther apart, and as Gerta went higher, the bare
rock began to show, with only a bit of juniper or a stunted fir here
and there.
Then the crags overhung her, and in the starlight the little sister
climbed and climbed, cold and dizzy. But she kept on until, as she
pulled herself up over a ledge, she stumbled over something soft and
furry, and sat down with a gasp as a small, squeaky voice said crossly,
“Look where you are going, child; you nearly spoiled my fine velvet
cloak.” Two bright eyes gleamed at her, and sharp little teeth snapped
at her hand.
“Ah, Herr Mole,” cried Gerta, never heeding his bad temper, “tell me,
have you seen little Hans? Is he in the kobolds’ cave?”
Herr Mole was not really cross, and he liked Gerta’s respectful
address. On her finger shone a thin silver ring.
“Well, now,” answered he, “I have seen him lately, and if you will give
me that shining band on your finger for a bracelet, I’ll tell you.”
After slipping it on his front paw, Herr Mole continued:
“Little Hans came this way when the moon was first quarter, and went
straight into a band of kobolds making their usual rounds.”
Gerta looked about anxiously. “Do not be afraid; it is too near morning
for them now. They carried him inside the berg, and if you will go to
the entrance up above us there, my friend, the great white owl, will no
doubt help you find him.”
So saying, Herr Mole hurried away, turning his paw this way and that to
get a good look at his new bracelet.
At the mouth of the cave, Gerta was stopped by a stern “Who--Who are
you?” And there were two fiery balls of light above her head in the
center of the dark arch. But it was only the great white owl, who came
down at her call and was very polite when he heard she had been sent
by his crony, Herr Mole. “Oh, yes,” he had seen little Hans go by with
the kobolds; but Gerta must give him that shining clasp at her throat
before he would tell her how to follow. Gerta slipped off the little
brass cloak clasp and hung it around his neck on her hair-ribbon.
The great white owl then led her inside the cave and showed her a point
of light far down in its black depths.
“That is the light of the kobolds’ fire, and all day and half the night
must little Hans delve coals to keep it bright, for if it should die,
the kobolds would all fall asleep and not wake again for a thousand
years. Do not be afraid of the dark, little Gerta, for to eyes that
really see there is no darkness.”
Then Gerta noticed that, though all was black as night, she could see
quite well indeed, and she left the great white owl sitting like a big
ball of down, his eyes rolling like yellow moons as he craned his great
round head to admire his necklace.
Walking resolutely on over the slippery, mossy stones, Gerta was
finally stopped by a whirr and a shrill “Cheet--cheet,” like the twit
of a swallow and a mouse’s squeak combined. Something big and dark
fanned her cheek, and down flew a big black bat, menacing her with
sharp teeth and extended claws.
“Good evening, Frau Bat,” cried Gerta in a trembling tone, for the bat
looked very big and fierce. “Have you seen little Hans? The great white
owl sent me this way in search of him!”
Frau Bat drew back, mollified by this respectful address. “Indeed,
child, I have seen little Hans. I know you both from having flitted
past your attic window many an evening as you went to bed. But before I
tell you news of him, you must give me that pretty red cloak to line my
nest.”
So Gerta gladly laid the cloak at Frau Bat’s feet, who directed her
how to slip unseen into the kobold hall, and gave her this counsel:
“Do not speak, laugh, or eat while you are in the hall! Put this bit
of my fur into your shoe, and you will be invisible to all but little
Hans. And if you can find a way to quench the kobold fires, they will
all fall asleep for a thousand years, and little Hans will be free.”
Thanking her kindly, Gerta passed on, and finally came into a large
hall, where glittering pendants hung from the high rocky ceiling; and
all around the room sat queer little brown men, with long beards and
pointed caps, wherein a tiny lamp glared. Taller and stouter and with
a far longer beard of snowy white, sat the kobold king on a golden
throne, with a crown of gold on his head; and his light burned brighter
than all the rest.
Before each kobold was a little table laid with a fair white cloth,
whereon were rich foods in golden dishes and silver goblets of
sparkling wine. In the center of the hall was a sort of iron brazier of
giant size, and in it flamed a great fire. From time to time a stooped
black figure toiled up from a pit behind the king’s throne with a sack
of coal on its back, and when it came shrinking into the light, jeered
and taunted by the kobolds, poor Gerta thought her heart would break,
for the poor slave who fed the fire was little Hans dressed in sooty
rags and his fair face and yellow locks black as ink. He rarely lifted
his head, but as he turned for more fuel, a kobold, rougher than the
rest, pushed him against the brazier, and they laughed at his scream
of pain as the burning sleeve scorched his arm. Gerta, forgetful of
everything, ran behind the little man, and, catching him by his beard,
pounded him over the head with his heavy silver cup.
Then they all jumped from their seats, rushing about to find what had
hurt their comrade; but, Gerta, invisible, had slipped through the
crowd, beckoned little Hans to follow her, and run down into the coal
pit, where she stifled her brother’s cries of joy in her apron.
As it was nearly dawn, the time when the kobolds sleep for an hour,
they were left alone, for each kobold fell asleep right where he sat
or stood as the sun began to rise, and the sister and brother plotted
and planned, though she could speak only by signs, until Hans was again
driven to his task, and they began the day’s work of digging the
precious ore inside the mountains, and melting it into ingots of gold
and silver.
How hungry poor Gerta grew as the day went on! Fortunately, she had in
her pocket a bit of bread and cheese left from last night’s supper; but
as night came on again and the fairy tables came up out of the floor at
a nod from the kobold king, it was all she could do not to snatch a bit
of the rich food they threw about, those more kind even tossing bits to
their little slave.
Hungry, and fearing discovery, in spite of the bat fur in her shoe,
Gerta sat all the evening behind the kobold king’s throne, plotting and
planning some way to put out the fire, as she could not take Hans away
with her, for he was not invisible, and a kobold lamp glowed in the cap
fitted on his head with a magic word, so that it would not come off,
however hard they pulled.
“I must have help, or I’ll never do it,” she said to herself as the
long, dark day dragged on. “I’ll go to Frau Bat and see what she can
say.”
So back went little Gerta, climbing up the long, slippery way from the
mine until she found Frau Bat asleep, hanging head downward in a most
alarming way. She was so vexed at being waked that she squeaked and
showed all her sharp little teeth, and only said crossly, “I told you
if the fires went out, they’d all fall asleep and never wake up.” Nor
would she say one word more, it mattered not how much Gerta begged.
Finally, in despair, she went farther up, to the cave’s mouth. Over the
door the white owl was perched, like Frau Bat, asleep. When she had
wakened him by standing on tiptoe and tweaking his tail feathers, he
said “Hoo--hoo” very loudly, and would have fallen asleep again, when
she cried, “O sir, how can we put out the kobolds’ fire?”
“Fire?” said he, sleepily. “Why water puts out fire. Any _dummkopf_
knows that, girl!”
And to sleep he went, and though she even dared throw some small
pebbles up at him, he never stirred or opened his eyes, until, in
despair, she went outside, almost blinded by the lovely evening
sunshine that flooded the crags with light and made every leaf and
berry as bright as a jewel in a queen’s diadem.
After some searching among the rocks, she found Herr Mole’s house,
where he, too, was curled asleep in his fine, black velvet cloak, with
her ring shining on his little black paw in fine style. He was sleepily
stupid, and all he could answer to her questioning as to how she was to
get water on to the kobolds’ fire was, “On top of the mountain there’s
a spring. Go away, child; if I lose my regular sleep, my cloak loses
its gloss.”
In vain Gerta begged him to tell her how a spring on top of the
mountain could help her put out the kobolds’ fires far underground; all
he would do was to yawn and keep murmuring, “I must get my sleep--I
must get my sleep.”
It was getting along toward evening, and Gerta could see the smoke
from her home curling up, a faint blue streak against the rosy sky.
She was hungry and discouraged; but she reasoned that if she went
home, they would not let her return, nor, indeed, believe any of her
queer adventures. So, not knowing what else to do, she climbed up on
the bergside, pausing now and then to eat the berries which jeweled
the bushes on every side. When she had climbed a long way, she heard a
great screeching and flapping of wings over her head, and looking up,
saw a great eagle flying about, uttering the most piercing cries. Then
she saw the trouble it was in. One of its young had fallen from the
nest, and its legs had caught under a stone that its fall dislodged.
And there it lay, almost at Gerta’s feet, its bright little eyes
glazing and its little beak only croaking feebly. Taking the stone in
both hands, Gerta dropped it over the cliff. She then lifted the young
bird in her apron, and, climbing up on a high ledge, laid it down,
where the old birds soon ministered to it; and after a while, Gerta saw
it rise and hop feebly about.
Then the eagle cried down to Gerta, in its high, harsh voice, “Thank
you, child. If you need help, call for the eagles, and you shall find
it near at hand by the time of a wing’s fanning.”
On climbed Gerta in the dying sunshine, determined at least to reach
the spring on top of the mountain, as the creatures seemed to think it
might aid her, though she had not the faintest gleam of an idea as to
how it could do so.
Coming around a sharp corner where stood a small, stout pine-tree, she
heard a faint, panting cry, and saw a little red squirrel lying limply
against a limb, faint and bleeding, while a large hawk pecked and
pierced him with his sharp beak till all poor squirrel’s fuzzy sides
were red.
Seizing a stone, Gerta threw it straight and true, and it landed on the
hawk’s back with such a bang that, hurt and frightened, he flew away,
screaming in disappointment.
“You have saved my life, child,” chattered the squirrel, “and should
you need help, call on the squirrel, and he will come.”
Thanking him, Gerta hurried on, and reached a large, dark spring almost
on top of the mountain just as the sun went down, and sat down beside
it, as the twilight fell, a lonely, tired little soul, almost at the
end of her endurance. So she added a few more drops of water to the
spring by weeping into it. But then the stars came out, so calm and
bright that they seemed to cheer her as she thought how changeless
they were. As she glanced back to earth, she saw a gleam from a nearby
crevice, and, looking nearer, saw to her wonder that she could look
right down into the kobolds’ cave, where the kobolds were about to wake
from their day’s rest, and were even now shoving and pushing little
Hans about.
“Water puts out fire,” said little Gerta, and clapped her hands at
the idea. If she could but turn the waters of the spring down upon the
kobolds’ fire! If a channel were made to turn the spring into the cave
all at once in one grand splash, out would go the fire, and little Hans
would be free!
“Now it’s time for the squirrels to help me,” said Gerta, and she
called, “Come, little fuzzy-tails, come and help little Gerta!”
Then from every side came a chattering, bright eyes flashed, plumy
tails waved. Strong, tiny claws scratched, scratched, at the loose dirt
and stones, and soon the waters of the great spring began to drip, to
run, and then--splash! They went down the crevice in the ceiling of
the kobolds’ cave, soaking the great brazier with its flaming coals,
flooding the cavern deeply all about; and each little brown kobold man
sat or lay asleep, just where he was, and little Hans fled quickly up
the steep, dark way to the cave’s mouth, free at last!
But now, alas! in the starry darkness Gerta stood alone on the
mountain, and the liberated spring had cut a deep chasm between her and
the road by which she had come. The round moon rode up the eastern sky
and peered kindly at her. She could hear little Hans’ shrill call of
“Gerta, O Gerta!” but she could not go to him.
“Oh, now I must have wings to descend, indeed,” cried little Gerta, and
clapping her hands she called, “Help from the great eagles!” And, sure
enough, black wings flashed between Gerta and the moon, and two great
eagles caught her by her stout little homespun gown, and down, down
they flew to the cave’s mouth, where the sister and brother were soon
clasped in each other’s arms.
“Now home,” said Gerta to little Hans. “And mother will certainly have
to give us a hot supper.”
VII
THE MOUSE MILLER
In the olden times, the city of Perth was a dour city, even when the
sun shone, for the houses were tall and narrow and sad colored, and
little and crumbling, and the streets were narrow, too, and muddy. But
when the winter’s mist blows in from the north seas and December’s
sleets begin, then it is a very cold and dreary place, indeed.
So young David found it one winter’s morning, when the night mail had
galloped and creaked and snorted up to the door of the Boar’s Head Inn.
His father had just passed away in Dunfermline, leaving but a hut,
an acre, and a cow; and his mother, having much ado to find food for
herself and the cow, sent David, a gawk of a lad of sixteen, to Perth
to a cousin, of whom, save for his name and trade and the memory of a
fairing with him when she was as young as her son, she knew nothing. So
young David, when he got out of the coach, had no notion as to where
he should go.
A servant stood at the door of the Boar’s Head, holding it open for
the travelers, and from the icy pavement David glimpsed a bright fire,
a neatly sanded floor, and a counter with shining bottles and plates
of smoking hot food set out on it. But, having only a few pence, he
was afraid to go in, and was turning away with his bundle over his
shoulder, when the man cried:
“In wi’ ye, lad! and have a hot cup of tea and an oat-cake for a penny.”
So David, thus encouraged, went inside and stole into the
chimney-corner to sit on a great settle, where he was soon warm and
cozy, with his earthen mug of steaming tea and a well buttered oat-cake
to eat with it. As the servant gave him his breakfast, David asked if
he knew of a tradesman by the name of Alexander Hutton; but the fellow
shook his head, and David, after his breakfast was finished, sat gazing
into the fire, wondering what to do next, when he heard an old man
across the hearth from him, seated on a settle as tall as his own,
laugh.
“Zander Hutton, a tradesman,” he cried, and his funny, brown face
wrinkled up like a nutcracker under his sparse white hair. “Hey,
lad, there beant many in Perth now who know Zander; but we were both
tradesmen fifty years ago. By good thrift, I saved, and live in ease;
but old Zander dwells up an alley beyond the cathedral. Ask for the
ragpicker, and you’ll find him.”
Now was poor David more aghast than ever. That he had come to seek aid
from a ragpicker promised badly; but he paid his penny at the bar and
walked out into the cold, gray morning, turning toward the gold-crossed
spires of the cathedral. “At least,” he thought stoutly, “Zander Hutton
may know of some way I can get my living, even if he does pick up rags
for his own.”
Up the long High Street, around the cathedral close, and then down
a narrow, miry alley, with the odds and ends of the backs of houses
sticking out into it, and all the odds and ends of Perth’s poor folk
sticking out of them, overflowing windows and doors, cursing, laughing,
fighting, singing; and right in the midst of it all was a dingy, low,
dirty shop, with a wooden stair outside, leading to a dingier, dirtier
attic above, and this was the place David had come to seek. Inside,
the room was piled high with rags and bottles, with sacks of bones and
heaps of rubbish of every description; and right in its midst sat a
little, old, red-eyed man, on a broken stool, who could hardly be told
from the other rubbish, so brown and dirty and ragged was he. And yet,
when David spoke his name, he answered civilly enough and got off the
stool to open the half-door, which he kept barred, he explained, to
keep out the bad boys, who were the torment of his life. Even as David
went inside, a gang of ragged street urchins yelled about the door:
“Old rags--old tags! Old ragged, tagged Zander! Where’s your gold, Old
Tags? Bring out the bags of money you count so late at night in your
attic.”
Then followed shrieks and yells and catcalls, and David, who had been
taught in his village to respect age, ran out angrily upon them, and
soon dispersed them with his cudgel.
“Come in, stranger lad,” old Zander chuckled, patting him on the back.
“Now what can I do for so brave and fine a lad?”
“I am David, your cousin Allyce’s son,” said David, “and I’ve come to
Perth to seek my fortune, as my mother is a widow and too poor to help
me. She told me you had a kind heart and would find me work.”
“And so I will,” said the old man. “In this very fine shop there is
much to do,--bottles to sort, rags to pick, chains to weigh, and a long
beat to walk up and down the alleys of the town, and my old legs grow
lame and my back stiff under my pack. You shall have a penny a day,
Allyce’s David, lodge above the shop, and feed yourself save for a wee
bit o’ porridge of a morning. Come, I’ll show you where to take your
bundle.” And he hobbled nimbly outside into the alley and up the broken
wooden stair, with David following with a very wry face; for if you set
out to make your fortune, you would never think to begin at ragpicking
at a penny a day.
The attic was dark and cold and dirty, like the shop, and such of his
stock as Zander could not put in the shop was piled here. There were
a ragged mattress on the floor, a few battered pieces of furniture,
and David was right glad to throw down his bundle and descend with his
cousin to eat a scanty meal of porridge, which the old man scraped into
a cracked bowl from a pot hanging above a very small fire in the back
of the shop.
Then “To work--to work,” the old man cried. And all day long, until the
lights came out and the big cathedral bell tolled six, did his cousin
Zander keep David hard at it. Then he gave him a penny and showed him a
cart around the corner where a man sold a bit of bread and dripping and
a cup of coffee for just that much. And tired and half fed, David went
to his cold bed at the end of his first day in Perth.
All that long, cold winter David picked rags, sorted rags, collected
rags; never quite warm, never quite well fed; and the chief of his
discomfort lay in the mice that infested his attic. They nibbled his
clothes by day and raced across the floor at night, even daring to
frisk over his bed, until, in despair of getting rest and sleep, he
fell to making little traps for them, and finally caught them all save
one, the oldest and wisest, who was, indeed, the king of all the mice,
though David, of course, did not know that. He did know, however, that
he vainly saved bits of bacon and cheese from his scanty supper, and
vainly baited this trap and that; the King of Mice frisked about the
attic unafraid, until he became a pet instead of a pest, and ran out
to feed on the choice bits that David carried in his pockets.
Outside the attic window was the roof of a tenement, and here prowled a
great black tomcat, gaunt and hungry, like all the alley cats, preying
upon sparrows and unwary pigeons, and often, on moonlit nights, peering
malevolently through the window-panes upon David’s mouse.
One night Zander came up for some of his plunder and opened the window,
and David, entering a few moments later, saw Tom spring from the window
with poor mousy in his teeth. Through the window went David after the
cat, and though the roof was slippery and steep, he climbed intrepidly
up to the very comb, and there had the luck to seize Sir Tom by his
tail, and in the mew of pain he let out, the mouse fell from his jaws,
scuttled down the tiles, and was soon safe up a drain-pipe, where all
Tom’s mewing or scratching failed to reach him.
That night Davy had a queer dream. He thought that he saw his mouse
grown taller and walking on his hind legs with much dignity. Six
milk-white lady mice held up his tail, and on his head was a very shiny
gold crown. Around him came mice of every size, kind, and color, and
they all paid him homage and cried, “Hail to the king!”
“This human,” said he to an old white-whiskered fellow at his side,
whose collar and mace proclaimed him a chancellor, “has saved the
king’s life, and all my subjects must now serve him. He came far to
seek his fortune and found only hard fare and uncongenial tasks. Yet
cheerfully and well has he done them, and to-morrow he shall find his
reward.”
Then all grew dark, the mice disappeared, and old Zander was calling to
David from the foot of the stair that it was dawn, and he must start
early on his tour of the town. So, with pack on back and stick in hand,
Davy started out, whistling, just as the town was waking, thinking of
his strange dream and half believing that something would come of it.
Yet nothing new came his way that day, save that his rounds took him
past the back door of a mercer’s shop, where a pretty girl called out
to him to come and take away the rubbish from their bin. He entered a
small, low room, where sat five or six women, laughing and chatting
and winding linen thread on little reels for the shop. As he emptied
the rubbish bin, the shopman called out to them to hurry, and the girl
who had smiled on Davy answered somewhat pertly that if there was some
faster way to wind thread, they would certainly get through sooner, as
they made little enough as it was.
Later in the day, David passed the prison windows where the French
prisoners were confined, and stopped with a small crowd that lingered
there, intent on a very ingenious cage which one of them had made, with
a wheel at one end turned by a treadmill, wherein a pretty squirrel ran
round and round.
That night the wind blew so that the whole house shook, and the crazy
windows rattled and the shutters banged, until sleep quite left Davy,
and he lay thinking over his dream of last night and of his day’s
rounds. And all at once there popped into his head an idea. The thread
women turned the reel over and over to wind their thread; if bobbins
were strung on a post that turned, why could you not wind many at a
time, and if one had a wheel like the French prisoner’s, why would that
not wind the thread better than the hand?
He fell asleep turning the idea over in his mind, and dreamed of his
mouse again. This time the mouse said, “To-morrow I send my subjects
to aid you,” and sure enough, in a forgotten trap set far back in a
corner, Davy found three pretty, bright-eyed little mice, who did not
seem at all afraid. And you may be sure that Davy was early back at
the prison window, studying the wheel cage. And that night he started
making one, and by the light of his tallow dip, secreted from Zander’s
scant store, in an evening or two he had as neat a cage for his mice as
had the French prisoner for his squirrel, only across its end were four
reels strung, and by much coaxing he got a penny from old Zander and
bought a little thread. That night it was quickly and smoothly wound,
and he sold it for two pennies the next day.
And this was the beginning. He fed his little winders well, and as more
came into the trap, let each three go free. And always more came, and
more, until there was quite a row of little cages, and Zander wondered
to find his young ragpicker get fat and rosy, for his thread now kept
him well fed.
Days went by. Spring came, and old Zander went out with the winter,
leaving his shop and rags to Allyce’s boy, with a bag of coins, not
gold, indeed, as the street boys had cried, but enough to clean out the
shop, buy thread and materials for wheels, and start Davy up a thread
manufactory. For he now began to make reels that were turned by hand,
winding twenty bobbins at once, and his little mice were long ago set
free.
In a year he had moved from Zander’s alley and set up in a decent
street, with his mother, come from Dunfermline, to keep his house.
And because he must needs tell his mother how he had set about making
their fortune, and women’s tongues must ever clack, and the good woman
must needs tell every old gossip of the kirk, the folk of Perth began
to call young David the “Mouse Miller.” And though he became rich and
famous, and married the pretty girl who smiled at him from the back
door of the shop, until this day Allyce’s David is known as the “Mouse
Miller.”
VIII
ALICY’S ADVENTURE
One summer morning Alicy got up with a frown on her face, and it didn’t
come off even at a very nice breakfast, so mamma suggested that she
take a walk about the big back garden and see if she could find a smile
to put on.
She walked down the gravel path and around the shrubbery out of sight
of the house, where there was nothing but grass and trees and some
tall, gay dahlias. It was quite like being far away, and she often came
here to play “lost child,” a play where you built a house of branches
and leaves and eat lunch from flat stones, pretending that you are a
little girl lost in the jungles.
Looking up at the clear blue of the sky and walking amid the whispering
greenness of the leaves, you would have thought that Alicy should have
a lovely smile right there; but the dark old pout lay on her little
face like a veil and only lifted a little as she spied a nice pink box
tied neatly with a silver cord, lying on a pile of rock. Alicy opened
it eagerly and piff-puff, out popped three lovely little fairies all
pink and blue and gold, and flit, flirt, off they flew singing like
finches, happy to be free.
“O,” cried the surprised little girl and “O! O! O!” growled a deep
cross voice beside her.
“O you horrid girl, you have let out my flower fairies, and now there
is no one to make me a crown for my wedding. I have a good mind to
pinch you black and blue.”
“O, O-wee.” This time it was Alicy, for what she had thought was a pile
of brown boulders was a little hard-faced rock woman with buttons made
of shining pebbles and grass for hair. Poor Alicy jumped and rubbed a
red spot on her knee where the rock woman had pinched her.
“Now,” said the rock woman, “you will certainly have to go and hunt
them for me. You take this pink pebble in your mouth and go among the
grass people and maybe they can help you find my fairies again. Hurry
on!” and she gave poor Alicy such a kick that she flew into a clump of
blue-grass, and found herself grown so small that the grass all about
her looked like tall forest trees; for the pink pebble had made her as
small as an ant.
“Now,” said Alicy, “I have four things to hunt for instead of one. A
smile, and three flower fairies. Poor Bo-peep, I know how she felt out
hunting for those tiresome sheep; though a smile and three fairies
haven’t three tails to bring behind them. Ha! Ha!” And that thought
made her laugh aloud; and right in the path Alicy found a little golden
smile which she tried on and, looking in a dewdrop on a nearby leaf,
she found that it fitted exactly and was immensely becoming.
Cheered up by her good fortune she went on and met a file of ant
soldiers all in black, shiny uniforms marching out to bring in the ant
cows, which are little green aphids that they pasture on the under side
of oak leaves. Their captain was very polite, as are all grass people,
and in answer to her questions about the possible whereabouts of the
flower fairies he told her that if she would catch a young grasshopper
and ride him she would reach the fairy dell where they had no doubt
gone.
After they had all saluted and marched off down the road, Alicy sat
down in the cool shade and taking some grass plaited a little halter
and started out to catch one of the grasshopper colts frisking about
in the pasture; but a big fat caterpillar came up and very fiercely
demanded, “What are you doing with my horses?”
“Why, I didn’t know they belonged to anybody,” faltered Alicy, “I just
wanted one to ride to the fairy dell. I would have turned it loose
there.” My, how the caterpillar worked all of his legs, he was so mad!
“It’s a good thing for you that you are not a boy,” growled he. “I hope
that you didn’t really mean to steal a horse, but I tell you the Anti
Horse Thief Association will get you if you are up to such tricks long.
Now beat it!”
Frightened at his angry manner and the long name he called her with
such an ugly word as thief in it, Alicy made up her mind that he meant
by “beat it” that she must go away, and she took to her heels like a
good one; until finally quite out of breath, she sat down and cried a
little.
Then she heard a squeak, squeak under her and found that she was almost
sitting upon a funny, green-eyed, field-mouse, who wagged her whiskers
in a friendly way and said, “I am Milly Mouse. Who are you?” After
hearing Alicy’s story, she rubbed her sleek head with her little claw
awhile, thoughtfully, and then said, “I think I can help you a bit;
look in the path before you, right there! Go in there;” and with a
swish of her tail, she whisked out of sight into a hole in the ground.
Alicy looked all around and finally saw a large orange-colored ball
with a little window in one side, like the candy eggs you get at
Easter. It was too large to pick up so she knelt down and looked in
through the glass. Inside she saw a lovely landscape. Around a tiny
lake grew red and white roses, all bright with sunshine; a fairy prince
in green and gold armor and glistening filmy wings parted the roses
and came down to the lake. As she looked he blew a call on his golden
trumpet and six white swans came sailing up to the bank where a pretty
shell-like boat rocked gently. He fastened this to the swans with a
silken ribbon, and then he looked straight through the little window at
Alicy and cried, “All aboard to the fairy dell!”
Alicy saw that what she thought was a window was really a door, and
she turned a knob, opened the door, and walking down to the lakeside
was in the boat before you could say Jack Robinson. And there she sat
beside the fairy prince while the swans pulled the boat over the clear,
lovely water as they swam gently away.
In thinking of it afterwards, Alicy couldn’t remember a thing the fairy
prince said, but no doubt it was because she was so taken up in gazing
at the lovely, sheeny wings and the darling little gold crown on his
head. The scent of the roses on its banks were wafted over the little
lake by a cool breeze, and the wings and feet of the swans made a soft
paddling in the water that soon made Alicy sleepy, and despite her
determination to look at the fairy once more to see whether his wings
were feathers or just little moving sparkles of light, her eyes closed
tightly and when she opened them again, it was dark and she could see
nothing save one big star looking down at her between the branches of a
great oak-tree.
She smelled violets so strongly that it reminded her of the time, when
she was very little, that she poured all of mamma’s best perfume over
her kitty. They still call that cat “Vi,” although her name was really
“Tegums.” Turning over on the soft moist pillow under her cheek she
found that she was lying on a bed of white violets and that all about
her in the trees and on the grass tiny lights were beginning to twinkle
and a faint far-away chorus of tiny voices was singing, hardly louder
than a cricket’s chirp:
“See, oh, see,
On bush and tree,
What lamps are shining!
Ting, ting, ting!
“They are eyes,
Of fireflies,
To light our wedding,
Ting, ting, ting!”
The singing was all mixed up with a lovely little chime of silver bells
and Alicy sat up in delight. Surely this must be the fairy dell she
had been seeking. She was lying in a tiny valley and about her rose
the violet covered banks. And now that she was fully awake, she could
see hundreds of little fairy houses all lighted up, and many delicate
creatures, no higher than your thumb, coming down among the violets,
carrying gold and silver lanterns, which were really little cages with
fireflies shut inside, giving out a clear green light.
High above all this, on a glittering throne, sat a lovely being larger
and more beautiful than even the fairies themselves, and this was the
great Titania, their queen. Her eyes were soft and sweet like mother’s
eyes, and her smile so kind that Alicy was not afraid, but ran and
knelt before her throne. Titania spoke in a soft voice, like waterfalls
going over boulders, “And what does the earth-child ask of the fairies?”
Then Alicy told of her travels in search of the truant fays, and as she
finished, Titania waved her hand and called, “Violet, Anemone, Fern,”
and three fairies, violet, pink, and green clad came floating up the
valley to where the queen sat. “Now,” said Titania, “you must give them
each a gift for a wedding portion and they will return with you to make
Dame Bolder’s crown.”
So Alicy took her little scissors from her pocket and cut off a golden
curl. “Good,” cried the queen, “that will make Violet a capital
mattress.” Alicy took out her little silver thimble next, and Fern, who
was a knight with a long green plume in his hat cried, “Splendid! Now I
will have a cuirass that no beetle can pierce.” Alicy then took off her
little gold ring with the turquoise buckle and Anemone was delighted to
own so elegant a belt.
Then they all kissed Alicy and laughed and danced about her, the lovely
queen smiling down on them with her starry eyes, and all of the little
fairy houses sparkled in the light, and the fairy folk, with the
firefly lanterns, came up and joined in the dance till Alicy became
dizzy with the music and the whirl and flash of light in her eyes.
And then it was the flash of sunshine in her own garden and mother
dear, instead of Titania, leaning over her laughing.
“Why, sweetheart, you found your smile in slumberland.”
“No, mother, I found it in the fairy dell. Oh, where are the flower
fairies to make Dame Bolder’s wedding crown?” but mother only said,
“You have been dreaming, dear, come in to luncheon;” but Alicy knew
better, though it is of no use to talk to grown-ups, as you know. So
she quietly followed her mother into the house; but mark this,--the
next day she found her ring and thimble on the bolder pile, and growing
there were two lovely flowers, anemone and violet and the green fronds
of a feathery fern. So she knew that the fairies had made Madam
Bolder’s wedding crown as Titania had promised.
IX
JEHAN THE GOLDHAIRED[A]
I
There was once a village lad whose name was Jehan, but because of the
golden curls that covered his head they called him “Goldhair;” and
because he chose to sit at home and read his grandame’s parchment
book of knightly glory and fairy gold, while the other lads tilled
the fields or roamed the woods, they called him a milksop, and he was
laughed at and sometimes roughly treated by his parents and elder
brothers. But his aged grandame, who dwelt in a lonely tower on a
heath, and who was called the “wise dame,” would shake her staff at
them and prophesy fame and fortune for her favorite.
[A] From William Morris’ “Goldilocks,” published by Thomas Crowell &
Company.
It was in the high tide of summer and all the villagers were in the
upland fields cutting grain. Indeed, so large were the wheat-fields
of Goldhair’s countryside, that it was called “The Land of the
Wheaten-shocks,” and Goldhair was often named in derision, “My Lord of
Wheaten-shock.” Early one morning as the household ate the porridge
and yellow cream which the serving wench poured in earthen bowls,
Goldhair came into the rush-lighted kitchen, his grandsire’s sword
clanking along the flagged floor. For, though they tilled the soil,
the forebears of his family had worn armor and fought under a crested
banner.
Goldhair was a brave sight that morning with his coat of scarlet and
his hosen of green; a pheasant’s feather curled from his cap; a scrip
hung over his shoulder, and he girded the good sword at his side.
“Whither away, son Jehan, when my wheat hangs heavy for the sickle?”
thus his father.
“Whither away, son Jehan, when the water buckets await thee at the
well, that the reapers may not be athirst?” cried his mother.
“Whither away?” said his little sisters, “and why do you wear your
holiday dress, Jehan?”
“Whither away?” chorused his three great brothers, their smocks
upgirded for the reaping and their brown arms and legs bare.
“I go into the wide, wide world,” answered Jehan, “to seek fame and
fortune and to bring back the nut-brown fay for a wife.”
Now I must tell you that in an ancient wood nearby there dwelt a fay, a
lovely creature with long, brown hair that clothed her like a garment.
She seemed to serve and love all the woodland beasts and birds, and
they often heard her sing there at twilight. Many a lad spent hours
trying to catch a glimpse of her, but heard only the flitting of a
light body through the leaves and a laugh like a wood bird’s call.
Within the depths of the wood, there stood a ruined castle. Though its
drawbridge was gone and its moat a mere reed-grown swamp, the great
iron gates stood closed and none had ever dared to scale its massive
walls; for at night when the wind rocked the great old forest trees
and the screech-owls cried weirdly, strange lights flickered in its
iron-barred windows and strange wails echoed from its vine-covered
walls. It was to this fearful place that Goldhair had full intent of
going, though he dared not say so, for fear they would forcibly detain
him. So, amid the jeers of his brothers, the reproof of his father,
and the tears of his mother and sisters, he set out to seek his fortune
in the wide, wide world and to bring back the nut-brown fay.
II
As the sun rose, Goldhair stepped into the dim aisles of the forest and
“The autumn drought, and the winter rain,
The frost and the snow, and St. David’s wind,
All these that were time out of mind,
All these a many times shall be
Ere the Upland Town again he see.”
He pressed on to where no birds’ notes sounded, nor any noise of life
broke the silence, save the soft rustle of some leaf, or the silver
tinkle of a stream. Six nights Goldhair lay down under the moonless
sky. Six days he walked alone in the wood and his scrip was empty of
food and he was footsore and weary when he arose on the seventh morning.
Before him, the trees seemed to open into a softly lit glade and he
caught a glimpse of a white beckoning hand, and hastening forward, fell
over a great moss-hidden stone and was set upright again by a strong
arm, while sweet lips brushed his cheek and he saw before him the
sparkling eyes and shining face of the nut-brown fay. She was clad in
a brown kirtle, all rent and shredded like the falling bark of an old
tree. Her snowy feet were bare and a rustic scrip hung at her side. Now
she took from her scrip and gave him rosy apples and brown cakes and a
shell with which she dipped him water from a rivulet nearby, and they
sat them down together on the grass and began to dine as if they were
old friends.
“O fair one with golden hair, and so bravely scarlet clad, what is
the name of thee?” asked the fay, and he told her his name and his
condition and of how he had set out in quest of fame and fortune.
“But now,” said Jehan, shaking his gold hair so that it sparkled, even
in the dark wood, “I want but one thing and that--that you love me as I
do love thee.”
“And so I will,” said the brown fay heartily, “and fame and fortune
will come to thee if thou art a faithful lover and fearless knight. But
many trials must assail us and I have great fear for thee, for already,
she who sits in the gray death hall knows you have come; and amid the
shadows of evil that obey her will, she is plotting our destruction.
Long have I served, a thrall in her hall and bower, and now it will be
no easy thing for you to win me and my fortune from her.”
Later when they had come where they could look across the clearing
the fay cried to Jehan, “Look forth, O my Goldhair, and see what thou
seest,” and Goldhair looked and said, “I see an exceedingly high and
handsome castle of rough-hewn stone.”
“Oh, that is my mistress’ home, and I fear to look upon it. What comes
down the stony stair, Goldhair?”
“Nothing.”
“No great white bear?”
“Nay, him I would kill with my sword.”
“No great winged serpent?”
“Nay, her I would chop with my sharp blade.”
“No poison flood?”
“Nothing, sweet fay, but leafy shadows flecking the gray stone.”
“No flash of flame?”
“Nay, I would call upon my patron saints and at their blessing it would
die away.”
“My heart fails me. O Jehan! In some such guise must my dread mistress
appear, for I know well she sees all things in this wood and will never
let us fare forth free from it. Look again, beloved Jehan.”
“Ah, now I see a most beautiful queen all alone, dressed in a coat of
peacock feathers and shod in gold. How fair she is as she smiles upon
me in the sunshine! She beckons me to come. Her hair is like silver
lying to her feet.”
“O look not so. O look not so on her! She has bewitched thee, Jehan,
her hair is twisted serpents. Dost not see she is an ancient witch,
one-eyed and horrible? She is only beautiful by enchantment,” and the
fay seized and held his scarlet coat; but Jehan laughed and thrust her
from him.
“Thou little brown thrush whom I found in the woods, seek not to peck
the robe of light from the queen of beauty.”
The brown fay scarcely knew her lover now; his glance was only for the
enchantress, and though the fay could see her dusky skin, skeleton
limbs, and horrid, toothless grin, to poor Jehan she seemed a vision
of beauty, and with a cry he broke from her hold and ran to fall at
the feet of the witch, who threw her arms about his neck and with a
triumphant laugh led him into the castle and shut the great iron-bound
door upon the poor fay.
All day she sadly wandered through the woods, and finally when night
came she lay down under a bramble-bush and sobbed herself to sleep; but
as she slept she felt a cool hand touch her brow, and looking up saw a
tall being, like a shaft of green light. It was crowned with a garland
of leaves and its face was kind and beautiful.
“Fear not, little forest fay,” it said, “thou art a daughter of the
trees, and we, the tree-folk, will help thee.”
Now the witch had cast a spell upon Jehan until he saw the empty
ruins as a stately castle all filled with costly furnishings and
treasures of silver and gold. And her, he saw, as a beautiful queen,
and the ugly messengers of evil who came at her bidding, he believed
to be gallant lords and fair ladies. All day he sat beside the witch
queen on her throne and heard the pretty stories she told him hour by
hour. Entranced in a half slumber, he listened to mandolins beside
the tinkling fountain of a court that was really a bare, unwatered
spot, the home of hideous spiders and spotted toads. All memory of
the nut-brown fay seemed gone from him, yet ever and anon he thought
he heard a sweet voice call, “Jehan, beware!” “Jehan, beware!” and
wondered what it might mean.
III
Now came the day of his wedding to the witch, and banners of scarlet
and gold flaunted to the breeze; rich carpets and tapestries lined
floors and halls, but in reality, only cobwebs draped the crumbly
walls. Jehan sat at breakfast beside the witch amid a great crowd of
company. And the warlocks, demons, spirits, and wizards that flocked
there like crowds of evil birds, he believed to be noble guests who,
richly clad, bent to do him honor as the liege lord of their queen.
As they sat at breakfast and the witch raised the marriage cup to her
lips, though it was mid-morn, the darkness of midnight fell upon them
and all the guests cried out and ran about wildly, for the tree-folk
had helped the fay, as they promised, and bent about the castle
shutting out the sun. Emboldened by the darkness, the evil creatures
began to tear and fight with each other, and all sought to destroy
the witch who ruled them. But she held them back by her superior power
and cried out that whoever had worked the enchantment should go free
from the castle with what belonged to him and a rich reward if he would
bring back the light.
Then spake a sweet voice, “I am she who will do this; but I will to sit
by the bridegroom’s side, between him and the bride, until ye rise up
at night-time, and I will to carry as much treasure as my small basket
will hold and that which belongs to me besides when I go forth. Yet ye
shall swear a binding oath that I shall go free with all that belongs
to me.”
“What sure oath shall I make?” said the witch queen smiling wickedly,
for she knew only one oath unbreakable; but the voice answered and
named that oath!
“Thou shalt swear by the one eye in thy head and the evil ghosts and
spirits that throng these cursed halls.”
Then a great wail went up in the dark, but the witch said loudly, “I
swear, because I wish to look again upon the light of day and the gold
hair of Jehan my love.”
So there was peace; the light came again; the queen was beautiful once
more and the guests handsome and courteous. But Goldhair seemed to
dream of the wood and the lovely fay who fed him there, and though the
witch smiled and laid her hand upon his he sat looking across the hall
when there came towards him a lovely maid in a gown of green leaves.
Like moonlight on a summer’s eve she passed along the hall. It was the
nut-brown fay who carried a golden basket which she set down upon the
table at his side. Then she sat herself between him and the queen, but
the witch queen smiled and waved her hand and Jehan was like one in
sleep, and though the maiden poured his wine and whispered into his ear
he knew her not.
“O Goldhair, dost forget the mirk wood and the meal we ate together?
Dost thou forget the nut-brown fay? Dost thou forget the land of
wheaten shocks where thou wast to take me, as thy bride, to thy
father’s house?”
But the witch queen sat and smiled and opened a casket which stood
before her to play with its great jewels which she took forth by
handfuls. And as she tossed them to and fro in her fingers they
glittered like rainbows in the sunshine. But the bridegroom saw and
heard not. Only through the enchantment he seemed to dream of a loved
voice and that his mother and sisters beckoned from his home door.
Then the maiden opened her basket and took therefrom a pair of
milk-white doves, and taking food from the table, fed them from her
hand; but the hen bird fed her mate with her rosy bill, and as the
maid crumbled the bread, Jehan gazed on her white hand and seemed to
remember a time when he, like the tender dove, was also fed by that
kindly hand; but the witch touched him on the brow and all memory faded.
Then the male bird fought his tender mate to get the food she was
eating, and as he looked on this, memory came to Jehan and he cried,
“Foul bird! as ungrateful as I, to the kind love that fed me!” Then the
maiden kissed his cheek and he knew and loved her again and he saw the
witch and her servants as they really were, and springing up he, with
his sword, drove back the monsters that would have torn them to pieces.
The witch, with a hideous yell, came towards them with a flagon of
liquid fire, bent on their destruction. Then Jehan caught up the fay
in his arms and with the good two-edged sword gave one stroke and the
head of the witch went flying through the air, and she and all of the
company vanished, leaving them alone in the hall. Emptying the jewel
casket into her basket, the fay took Jehan by the hand and they went
forth free, out of the castle, through the great gate, into the green
wood.
IV
Happily they walked on, but ere they had gone far the fay cried, “Now
turn you, my love, Jehan!” and after them came a great white bear, his
teeth agleam and paws outstretched. Again the good sword flashed in the
sun and the bear lay dead on the greensward. Then on and on they fled.
“Turn ye, Jehan, my love,” again cried the fay. And behold, a great
green dragon with long scaly body lashed at them, and only after a
mighty battle was he chopped into pieces.
Then they went across a wide plain. It was now evening, and so weary
and footsore were they, that they fain would have rested, but ere the
stars came out a red mist rolled along the ground towards them and the
fay cried aloud in fear:
“Now we are lost indeed, for this is the poison flood.”
On they sped toward a forest with the great red waves rolling after
them. And where they passed, grasses lay sear and the flowers withered
and died. Then cried the nut-brown fay, stretching out her hands
towards the tall trees:
“O my woodland folk, save us.” As she spoke they entered the wood and
the venomous flood rolled to their feet; but the good tall trees sucked
down the flood into their strong roots, and where the vapor rolled, a
bright stream sprang up and Goldhair and the fay laved their hot faces
in its silvery coolness.
Now did Jehan rejoice for, said he, “Won are all our fights,” but the
fay answered him:
“Nay, for the night cometh down and I fall into sleep and thou must
carry me as I sleep, and whatever may betide, if you lay me down, you
lay me in my grave.”
So Jehan promised to obey her and took her in his arms. There she lay
against his breast and slept. The moon came up, round and golden, and
peered through the branches on Jehan walking with the sleeping fay
in his arms, his naked sword in his hand. By and by, the moon was
darkened by great batlike creatures which fluttered about them and
gnashed upon him with their sharp teeth; but Jehan waved his sword and
called upon the names of St. Gabriel and St. Michael for deliverance,
and they flew away shrieking.
Then there sounded a woeful cry. A woman ran towards them with a man
following at her heels, a long dagger in his hand.
“Save me! Save me! brave Jehan,” she cried, kneeling at his feet while
tears ran down her pallid face, and the man dressed in a sheepskin coat
came running quickly with his weapon gleaming in the moonlight.
Now was Jehan hard pressed, for to fight for her life he must lay
down his sleeping love and he could not see the woman die. Yet, as he
bent to lay the fay on the grass, under an oak, the leaves murmured
in his ear, “Beware! Beware!” and making the sign of the cross with
his drawn sword in the air Jehan heard a great wail and the two
figures disappeared in a puff of smoke. And thus he was free from the
enchantment. Then the sleeping fay awoke and slid from his arms to kiss
him right roundly. And the sun came up as they climbed the hill above
the Land of the Wheaten-shocks, and he saw the smoke from his father’s
house. And as they went down the green valley to the town, his kinfolk
came running forth to meet him and his bride. And thus entering his
home, amid rejoicing, he drew the fay after him, and forgetting all of
their trials Jehan the Goldhaired and the nut-brown fay dwelt happy
ever afterward.
Transcriber’s Notes
Perceived typographical errors have been silently corrected.
A table of contents has been added.
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