Famous Stories Every Child Should Know / Various

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Title: Famous Stories Every Child Should Know

Author: Various

Editor: Hamilton Wright Mabie

Release Date: July 8, 2005 [EBook #16247]

Language: English

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[Illustration: Old Man of the Mountain]


[Illustration: (Title Page)]




FAMOUS STORIES

Every Child Should Know

EDITED BY

Hamilton Wright Mabie

THE WHAT-EVERY-CHILD-SHOULD-KNOW-LIBRARY

_Published by_

DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & CO., INC., _for_

THE PARENTS' INSTITUTE, INC.

_Publishers of "The Parents' Magazine"_

9 EAST 40th STREET, NEW YORK




COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE
COUNTRY LIFE PRESS. GARDEN CITY. N.Y.




ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


The stories of "The Great Stone Face" and "The Snow Image" by
Nathaniel Hawthorne, are used in this volume by permission of Messrs.
Houghton, Mifflin & Company. Messrs. Little, Brown & Company have
granted permission for the republication of "The Man Without a
Country" by Edward Everett Hale.




INTRODUCTION


The group of stories brought together in this volume differ from
legends because they have, with one exception, no core of fact at the
centre, from myths because they make no attempt to personify or
explain the forces or processes of nature, from fairy stories because
they do not often bring on to the stage actors of a different nature
from ours. They give full play to the fancy as in "A Child's Dream of
a Star," "The King of the Golden River," "Undine," and "The Snow
Image"; but they are not poetic records of the facts of life, attempts
to shape those facts "to meet the needs of the imagination, the
cravings of the heart." In the Introduction to the book of Fairy Tales
in this series, those familiar and much loved stories which have been
repeated to children for unnumbered generations and will be repeated
to the end of time, are described as "records of the free and joyful
play of the imagination, opening doors through hard conditions to the
spirit, which craves power, freedom, happiness; righting wrongs, and
redressing injuries; defeating base designs; rewarding patience and
virtue; crowning true love with happiness; placing the powers of
darkness under the control of man and making their ministers his
servants." The stories which make up this volume are closer to
experience and come, for the most part, nearer to the every-day
happenings of life.

A generation ago, when the noble activities of science and its
inspiring discoveries were taking possession of the minds of men and
revealing possibilities of power of which they had not dreamed, the
prediction was freely made that poetry and fiction had had their day,
and that henceforth men would be educated upon facts and get their
inspirations from what are called real things. So engrossing and so
marvellous were the results of investigation, the achievements of
experiment, that it seemed to many as if the older literature of
imagination and fancy had served its purpose as completely as alchemy,
astrology, or chain armour.

The prophecies of those fruitful years of research did not tell half
the story of the wonderful things that were to be; the uses of
electricity which are within easy reach for the most homely and
practical purposes are as mysterious and magical as the dreams of the
magicians. We are served by invisible ministers who are more powerful
than the genii and more nimble than Puck. There has been a girdle
around the world for many years; but there is good reason to believe
that the time will come when news will go round the globe on waves of
air. If we were not accustomed to ordering breakfast miles away from
the grocer and the poulterer, we should be overcome with amazement
every time we took up the telephone transmitter. Absolutely pure tones
are now being made by the use of dynamos and will soon be sent into
homes lying miles distant from the power house, so to speak, so that
very sweet music is being played by arc lights.

The anticipations of scientific men, so far as the uses of force are
concerned, have been surpassed by the wonderful discoveries and
applications of the past few years; but poetry and romance are not
dead; on the contrary, they are more alive in the sense of awakening a
wider interest than ever before in the history of writing. During the
years which have been more fruitful in works of mechanical genius or
dynamic energy, novels have been more widely distributed and more
eagerly read than at any previous period. The poetry of the time, in
the degree in which it has been fresh and vital, has been treated by
newspapers as matter of universal interest.

Men are born story-readers; if their interest subsides for the moment,
or is absorbed by other forms of expression, it reasserts itself in
due time and demands the old enchantment that has woven its spell over
every generation since men and women reached an early stage of
development. Barbarians and even savages share with the most highly
civilised peoples this passion for fiction.

Men cannot live on the bare, literal fact any more than they can live
on bread alone; there is something in every man to feed besides his
body. He has been told many times by men of great disinterestedness
and ability that he must believe only that which he clearly knows and
understands, and that he must concern himself with those matters only
which he can thoroughly comprehend. He must live, in other words, by
the rule of common sense; meaning by that oft-used phrase, clear sight
and practical dealing with actual things and conditions. It would
greatly simplify life if this course could be followed, but it would
simplify it by rejecting those things which the finest spirits among
men and women have loved most and believed in with joyful and fruitful
devotion. If we could all become literal, matter of fact and entirely
practical, we should take the best possible care of our bodies and let
our souls starve. This, however, the soul absolutely refuses to do;
when it is ignored it rebels and shivers the apparently solid order of
common-sense living into fragments. It must have air to breathe, room
to move in, a language to speak, work to do, and an open window
through which it can look on the landscape and the sky. It is as idle
to tell a man to live entirely in and by facts that can be known by
the senses as to tell him to work in a field and not see the
landscape of which the field is a part.

The love of the story is one of the expressions of the passion of the
soul for a glimpse of an order of life amid the chaos of happenings;
for a setting of life which symbolises the dignity of the actors in
the play; for room in which to let men work out their instincts and
risk their hearts in the great adventures of affection or action or
exploration. Men and women find in stories the opportunities and
experiences which circumstances have denied them; they insist on the
dramatisation of life because they know that certain results
inevitably follow certain actions, and certain deeply interesting
conflicts and tragedies are bound up with certain temperaments and
types of character.

The fact that many stories are unwholesome, untrue, vulgar or immoral
impeaches the value and dignity of fiction as little as the abuse of
power impeaches the necessity and nobility of government, or the
excess of the glutton the healthfulness and necessity of food. The
imagination must not only be counted as an entirely normal faculty,
but the higher intelligence of the future will recognise its primacy
among the faculties with which men are endowed. Fiction is not only
here to stay, as the phrase runs, but it is one of the great and
enduring forms of literature.

The question is not, therefore, whether or not children shall read
stories; that question was answered when they were sent into the world
in the human form and with the human constitution: the only open
question is "what stories shall they read?" That many children read
too many stories is beyond question; their excessive devotion to
fiction wastes time and seriously impairs vigour of mind. In these
respects they follow the current which carries a multitude of their
elders to mental inefficiency and waste of power. That they read too
many weak, untruthful, characterless stories is also beyond question;
and in this respect also they are like their elders. They need food,
but in no intelligent household do they select and provide it; they
are given what they like if it is wholesome; if not, they are given
something different and better. No sane mother allows her child to
live on the food it likes if that food is unwholesome; but this is
precisely what many mothers and fathers do in the matter of feeding
the imagination. The body is scrupulously cared for and the mind is
left to care for itself!

Children ought to have stories at hand precisely as they ought to have
food, toys, games, playgrounds, because stories meet one of the normal
needs of their natures. But these stories, like the food given to the
body, ought to be intelligently selected, not only for their quality
but for their adaptation. There are many good books which ought not to
be in the hands of children because children have not had the
experience which interprets them; they will either fail to understand,
or if they understand, they will suffer a sudden forcing of growth in
the knowledge of life which is always unwholesome.

Only stories which are sound in the views of life they present ought
to be within the reach of children; these stories ought to be well
constructed and well written; they ought to be largely objective
stories; they ought not to be introspective, morbid or abnormal in any
way. Goody-good and professionally "pious" stories, sentimental or
unreal stories, ought to be rigorously excluded. A great deal of
fiction specially written for children ought to be left severely
alone; it is cheap, shallow and stamped with unreality from cover to
cover. It is as unwise to feed the minds of children exclusively on
books specially prepared for their particular age as to shape the
talk at breakfast or dinner specially for their stage of development;
few opportunities for education are more valuable for a child than
hearing the talk of its elders about the topics of the time. There are
many wholesome and entertaining stories in the vast mass of fiction
addressed to younger readers; but this literature of a period ought
never to exclude the literature of all periods.

The stories collected in this volume have been selected from many
sources, because in the judgment of the editor, they are sound pieces
of writing, wholesome in tone, varied in interest and style, and
interesting. It is his hope that they will not only furnish good
reading, but that they will suggest the kind of reading in this field
that should be within the reach of children.

HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE




FAMOUS STORIES

CONTENTS


CHAPTER

I. A Child's Dream of a Star
   By CHARLES DICKENS

II. The King of the Golden River or, The Black Brothers
    By JOHN RUSKIN

III. The Snow Image: A Childish Miracle
     By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

IV. Undine
    By FRIEDRICH, BARON DE LA MOTTE FOUQUE

V. The Story of Ruth
   FROM THE BOOK OF RUTH

VI. The Great Stone Face
    By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

VII. The Diverting History of John Gilpin
     By WILLIAM COWPER

VIII. The Man Without a Country
      By EDWARD EVERETT HALE

IX. The Nuernberg Stove
    By LOUISE DE LA RAMEE ("Ouida")

X. Rab and His Friends
   By JOHN BROWN, M.D.

XI. Peter Rugg, the Missing Man
    By WILLIAM AUSTIN




STORIES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW




I

A CHILD'S DREAM OF A STAR


There was once a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought
of a number of things. He had a sister, who was a child too, and his
constant companion. These two used to wonder all day long. They
wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered at the height and
blueness of the sky; they wondered at the depth of the bright water;
they wondered at the goodness and the power of God who made the lovely
world.

They used to say to one another, sometimes, supposing all the children
upon earth were to die, would the flowers, and the water, and the sky
be sorry? They believed they would be sorry. For, said they, the buds
are the children of the flowers, and the little playful streams that
gambol down the hill-sides are the children of the water; and the
smallest bright specks playing at hide and seek in the sky all night,
must surely be the children of the stars; and they would all be
grieved to see their playmates, the children of men, no more.

There was one clear shining star that used to come out in the sky
before the rest, near the church spire, above the graves. It was
larger and more beautiful, they thought, than all the others, and
every night they watched for it, standing hand in hand at a window.
Whoever saw it first cried out, "I see the star!" And often they cried
out both together, knowing so well when it would rise, and where. So
they grew to be such friends with it, that, before lying down in their
beds, they always looked out once again, to bid it good-night; and
when they were turning round to sleep, they used to say, "God bless
the star!"

But while she was still very young, oh very, very young, the sister
drooped, and came to be so weak that she could no longer stand in the
window at night; and then the child looked sadly out by himself, and
when he saw the star, turned round and said to the patient pale face
on the bed, "I see the star!" and then a smile would come upon the
face, and a little weak voice used to say, "God bless my brother and
the star!"

And so the time came all too soon! when the child looked out alone,
and when there was no face on the bed; and when there was a little
grave among the graves, not there before; and when the star made long
rays down toward him, as he saw it through his tears.

Now, these rays were so bright, and they seemed to make such a shining
way from earth to Heaven, that when the child went to his solitary
bed, he dreamed about the star; and dreamed that, lying where he was,
he saw a train of people taken up that sparkling road by angels. And
the star, opening, showed him a great world of light, where many more
such angels waited to receive them.

All these angels, who were waiting, turned their beaming eyes upon the
people who were carried up into the star; and some came out from the
long rows in which they stood, and fell upon the people's necks, and
kissed them tenderly, and went away with them down avenues of light,
and were so happy in their company, that lying in his bed he wept for
joy.

But, there were many angels who did not go with them, and among them
one he knew. The patient face that once had lain upon the bed was
glorified and radiant, but his heart found out his sister among all
the host.

His sister's angel lingered near the entrance of the star, and said to
the leader among those who had brought the people thither:

"Is my brother come?"

And he said "No."

She was turning hopefully away, when the child stretched out his arms,
and cried, "O, sister, I am here! Take me!" and then she turned her
beaming eyes upon him, and it was night; and the star was shining into
the room, making long rays down towards him as he saw it through his
tears.

From that hour forth, the child looked out upon the star as on the
home he was to go to, when his time should come; and he thought that
he did not belong to the earth alone, but to the star too, because of
his sister's angel gone before.

There was a baby born to be a brother to the child; and while he was
so little that he never yet had spoken word he stretched his tiny form
out on his bed, and died.

Again the child dreamed of the open star, and of the company of
angels, and the train of people, and the rows of angels with their
beaming eyes all turned upon those people's faces.

Said his sister's angel to the leader:

"Is my brother come?"

And he said "Not that one, but another."

As the child beheld his brother's angel in her arms, he cried, "O,
sister, I am here! Take me!" And she turned and smiled upon him, and
the star was shining.

He grew to be a young man, and was busy at his books when an old
servant came to him and said:

"Thy mother is no more. I bring her blessing on her darling son!"

Again at night he saw the star, and all that former company. Said his
sister's angel to the leader:

"Is my brother come?"

And he said, "Thy mother!"

A mighty cry of joy went forth through all the star, because the
mother was reunited to her two children. And he stretched out his arms
and cried, "O, mother, sister, and brother, I am here! Take me!" And
they answered him, "Not yet," and the star was shining.

He grew to be a man, whose hair was turning gray, and he was sitting
in his chair by the fireside, heavy with grief, and with his face
bedewed with tears, when the star opened once again.

Said his sister's angel to the leader: "Is my brother come?"

And he said, "Nay, but his maiden daughter."

And the man who had been the child saw his daughter, newly lost to
him, a celestial creature among those three, and he said, "My
daughter's head is on my sister's bosom, and her arm is around my
mother's neck, and at her feet there is the baby of old time, and I
can bear the parting from her, God be praised!"

And the star was shining.

Thus the child came to be an old man, and his once smooth face was
wrinkled, and his steps were slow and feeble, and his back was bent.
And one night as he lay upon his bed, his children standing round, he
cried, as he had cried so long ago:

"I see the star!"

They whispered one to another, "He is dying."

And he said, "I am. My age is falling from me like a garment, and I
move towards the star as a child. And O, my Father, now I thank Thee
that it has so often opened, to receive those dear ones who await me!"

And the star was shining, and it shines upon his grave.




II

THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER; OR, THE BLACK BROTHERS


I.--HOW THE AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM OF THE BLACK BROTHERS WAS INTERFERED
WITH BY SOUTHWEST WIND, ESQUIRE

In a secluded and mountainous part of Stiria there was, in old time, a
valley of the most surprising and luxuriant fertility. It was
surrounded, on all sides, by steep and rocky mountains, rising into
peaks, which were always covered with snow, and from which a number of
torrents descended in constant cataracts. One of these fell westward,
over the face of a crag so high, that, when the sun had set to
everything else, and all below was darkness, his beams still shone
full upon this waterfall, so that it looked like a shower of gold. It
was, therefore, called by the people of the neighbourhood, the Golden
River. It was strange that none of these streams fell into the valley
itself. They all descended on the other side of the mountains, and
wound away through broad plains and by populous cities. But the clouds
were drawn so constantly to the snowy hills, and rested so softly in
the circular hollow, that in time of drought and heat, when all the
country round was burnt up, there was still rain in the little valley;
and its crops were so heavy, and its hay so high, and its apples so
red, and its grapes so blue, and its wine so rich, and its honey so
sweet that it was a marvel to everyone who beheld it, and was
commonly called the Treasure Valley.

The whole of this little valley belonged to three brothers called
Schwartz, Hans, and Gluck. Schwartz and Hans, the two elder brothers,
were very ugly men, with overhanging eyebrows and small, dull eyes,
which were always half shut, so that you couldn't see into _them_, and
always fancied they saw very far into _you_. They lived by farming the
Treasure Valley, and very good farmers they were. They killed
everything that did not pay for its eating. They shot the blackbirds,
because they pecked the fruit; and killed the hedgehogs, lest they
should suck the cows; they poisoned the crickets for eating the crumbs
in the kitchen; and smothered the cicadas, which used to sing all
summer in the lime-trees. They worked their servants without any
wages, till they would not work any more, and then quarrelled with
them, and turned them out of doors without paying them. It would have
been very odd, if with such a farm, and such a system of farming, they
hadn't got very rich; and very rich they _did_ get. They generally
contrived to keep their corn by them till it was very dear, and then
sell it for twice its value; they had heaps of gold lying about on
their floors, yet it was never known that they had given so much as a
penny or a crust in charity; they never went to mass; grumbled
perpetually at paying tithes; and were, in a word, of so cruel and
grinding a temper, as to receive from all those with whom they had any
dealings the nickname of the "Black Brothers."

The youngest brother, Gluck, was as completely opposed, in both
appearance and character, to his seniors as could possibly be imagined
or desired. He was not above twelve years old, fair, blue-eyed, and
kind in temper to every living thing. He did not, of course, agree
particularly well with his brothers, or, rather, they did not agree
with _him_. He was usually appointed to the honourable office of
turnspit, when there was anything to roast, which was not often; for,
to do the brothers justice, they were hardly less sparing upon
themselves than upon other people. At other times he used to clean the
shoes, floors, and sometimes the plates, occasionally getting what was
left on them, by way of encouragement, and a wholesome quantity of dry
blows, by way of education.

Things went on in this manner for a long time. At last came a very wet
summer, and everything went wrong in the country around. The hay had
hardly been got in, when the hay-stacks were floated bodily down to
the sea by an inundation; the vines were cut to pieces with the hail;
the corn was all killed by a black blight; only in the Treasure
Valley, as usual, all was safe. As it had rain when there was rain
nowhere else, so it had sun when there was sun nowhere else. Everybody
came to buy corn at the farm, and went away pouring maledictions on
the Black Brothers. They asked what they liked, and got it, except
from the poor, who could only beg, and several of whom were starved at
their very door, without the slightest regard or notice.

It was drawing towards winter, and very cold weather, when one day the
two elder brothers had gone out, with their usual warning to little
Gluck, who was left to mind the roast, that he was to let nobody in,
and give nothing out. Gluck sat down quite close to the fire, for it
was raining very hard, and the kitchen walls were by no means dry or
comfortable-looking. He turned and turned, and the roast got nice and
brown. "What a pity," thought Gluck, "my brothers never ask anybody to
dinner. I'm sure, when they've got such a nice piece of mutton as
this, and nobody else has got so much as a piece of dry bread, it
would do their hearts good to have somebody to eat it with them."

Just as he spoke there came a double knock at the house door, yet
heavy and dull, as though the knocker had been tied up--more like a
puff than a knock.

"It must be the wind," said Gluck; "nobody else would venture to knock
double knocks at our door."

No; it wasn't the wind: there it came again very hard, and what was
particularly astounding, the knocker seemed to be in a hurry, and not
to be in the least afraid of the consequences. Gluck went to the
window, opened it, and put his head out to see who it was.

It was the most extraordinary looking little gentleman he had ever
seen in his life. He had a very large nose, slightly brass-coloured;
his cheeks were very round, and very red, and might have warranted a
supposition that he had been blowing a refractory fire for the last
eight and forty hours; his eyes twinkled merrily through long silky
eyelashes, his moustaches curled twice round like a corkscrew on each
side of his mouth, and his hair, of a curious mixed pepper-and-salt
colour, descended far over his shoulders. He was about four-feet-six
in height, and wore a conical pointed cap of nearly the same altitude,
decorated with a black feather some three feet long. His doublet was
prolonged behind into something resembling a violent exaggeration of
what is now termed a "swallow-tail," but was much obscured by the
swelling folds of an enormous black, glossy-looking cloak, which must
have been very much too long in calm weather, as the wind, whistling
round the old house, carried it clear out from the wearer's shoulders
to about four times his own length.

Gluck was so perfectly paralysed by the singular appearance of his
visitor that he remained fixed without uttering a word, until the old
gentleman, having performed another, and a more energetic concerto on
the knocker, turned round to look after his fly-away cloak. In so
doing he caught sight of Gluck's little yellow head jammed in the
window, with its mouth and eyes very wide open indeed.

"Hollo!" said the little gentleman, "that's not the way to answer the
door. I'm wet, let me in."

To do the little gentleman justice, he _was_ wet. His feather hung
down between his legs like a beaten puppy's tail, dripping like an
umbrella; and from the ends of his moustaches the water was running
into his waistcoat pockets, and out again like a mill stream.

"I beg pardon, sir," said Gluck, "I'm very sorry, but I really can't."

"Can't what?" said the old gentleman.

"I can't let you in, sir--I can't indeed; my brothers would beat me to
death, sir, if I thought of such a thing. What do you want, sir?"

"Want?" said the old gentleman, petulantly, "I want fire, and shelter;
and there's your great fire there blazing, crackling, and dancing on
the walls, with nobody to feel it Let me in, I say; I only want to
warm myself."

Gluck had had his head, by this time, so long out of the window that
he began to feel it was really unpleasantly cold, and when he turned,
and saw the beautiful fire rustling and roaring, and throwing long
bright tongues up the chimney, as if it were licking its chops at the
savory smell of the leg of mutton, his heart melted within him that it
should be burning away for nothing. "He does look _very_ wet," said
little Gluck; "I'll just let him in for a quarter of an hour." Round
he went to the door, and opened it; and as the little gentleman walked
in, there came a gust of wind through the house, that made the old
chimneys totter.

"That's a good boy," said the little gentleman. "Never mind your
brothers. I'll talk to them."

"Pray, sir, don't do any such thing," said Gluck. "I can't let you
stay till they come; they'd be the death of me."

"Dear me," said the old gentleman, "I'm very sorry to hear that. How
long may I stay?"

"Only till the mutton's done, sir," replied Gluck, "and it's very
brown."

Then the old gentleman walked into the kitchen, and sat himself down
on the hob, with the top of his cap accommodated up the chimney, for
it was a great deal too high for the roof.

"You'll soon dry there, sir," said Gluck, and sat down again to turn
the mutton. But the old gentleman did _not_ dry there, but went on
drip, drip, dripping among the cinders, and the fire fizzed, and
sputtered, and began to look very black, and uncomfortable: never was
such a cloak; every fold in it ran like a gutter.

"I beg pardon, sir," said Gluck at length, after watching the water
spreading in long, quicksilver-like streams over the floor for a
quarter of an hour; "mayn't I take your cloak?"

"No, thank you," said the old gentleman.

"Your cap, sir?"

"I am all right, thank you," said the old gentleman rather gruffly.

"But--sir--I'm very sorry," said Gluck, hesitatingly; "but--really,
sir--you're--putting the fire out."

"It'll take longer to do the mutton, then," replied his visitor dryly.

Gluck was very much puzzled by the behaviour of his guest, it was such
a strange mixture of coolness and humility. He turned away at the
string meditatively for another five minutes.

"That mutton looks very nice," said the old gentleman at length.
"Can't you give me a little bit?"

"Impossible, sir," said Gluck.

"I'm very hungry," continued the old gentleman. "I've had nothing to
eat yesterday, nor to-day. They surely couldn't miss a bit from the
knuckle!"

He spoke in so very melancholy a tone, that it quite melted Gluck's
heart. "They promised me one slice to-day, sir," said he; "I can give
you that, but not a bit more."

"That's a good boy," said the old gentleman again.

Then Gluck warmed a plate and sharpened a knife. "I don't care if I do
get beaten for it," thought he. Just as he had cut a large slice out
of the mutton there came a tremendous rap at the door. The old
gentleman jumped off the hob, as if it had suddenly become
inconveniently warm. Gluck fitted the slice into the mutton again,
with desperate efforts at exactitude, and ran to open the door.

"What did you keep us waiting in the rain for?" said Schwartz, as he
walked in, throwing his umbrella in Gluck's face. "Ay! what for,
indeed, you little vagabond?" said Hans, administering an educational
box on the ear, as he followed his brother into the kitchen.

"Bless my soul!" said Schwartz when he opened the door.

"Amen," said the little gentleman, who had taken his cap off, and was
standing in the middle of the kitchen, bowing with the utmost possible
velocity.

"Who's that?" said Schwartz, catching up a rolling-pin, and turning to
Gluck with a fierce frown.

"I don't know, indeed, brother," said Gluck in great terror.

"How did he get in?" roared Schwartz.

"My dear brother," said Gluck, deprecatingly, "he was so _very_ wet!"

The rolling-pin was descending on Gluck's head; but at the instant,
the old gentleman interposed his conical cap, on which it crashed with
a shock that shook the water out of it all over the room. What was
very odd, the rolling-pin no sooner touched the cap than it flew out
of Schwartz's hand, spinning like a straw in a high wind, and fell
into the corner at the further end of the room.

"Who are you, sir?" demanded Schwartz, turning upon him.

"What's your business?" snarled Hans.

"I'm a poor old man, sir," the little gentleman began very modestly,
"and I saw your fire through the window, and begged shelter for a
quarter of an hour."

"Have the goodness to walk out again, then," said Schwartz. "We've
quite enough water in our kitchen, without making it a drying-house."

"It is a cold day to turn an old man out in, sir; look at my gray
hairs." They hung down to his shoulders, as I told you before.

"Ay!" said Hans, "there are enough of them to keep you warm. Walk!"

"I'm very, very hungry, sir; couldn't you spare me a bit of bread
before I go?"

"Bread indeed!" said Schwartz; "do you suppose we've nothing to do
with our bread but to give it to such red-nosed fellows as you?"

"Why don't you sell your feather?" said Hans, sneeringly. "Out with
you!"

"A little bit," said the old gentleman.

"Be off!" said Schwartz.

"Pray, gentlemen--"

"Off, and be hanged!" cried Hans, seizing him by the collar. But he
had no sooner touched the old gentleman's collar, than away he went
after the rolling-pin, spinning round and round, till he fell into the
corner on the top of it. Then Schwartz was very angry, and ran at the
old gentleman to turn him out; but he also had hardly touched him,
when away he went after Hans and the rolling-pin, and hit his head
against the wall as he tumbled into the corner. And so there they lay,
all three.

Then the old gentleman spun himself round with velocity in the
opposite direction; continued to spin until his long cloak was all
wound neatly about him; clapped his cap on his head, very much on one
side (for it could not stand upright without going through the
ceiling), gave an additional twist to his corkscrew moustaches, and
replied with perfect coolness: "Gentlemen, I wish you a very good
morning. At twelve o'clock to-night I'll call again; after such a
refusal of hospitality as I have just experienced, you will not be
surprised if that visit is the last I ever pay you."

"If ever I catch you here again," muttered Schwartz, coming half
frightened out of his corner--but, before he could finish his
sentence, the old gentleman had shut the house door behind him with a
great bang: and there drove past the window, at the same instant, a
wreath of ragged cloud, that whirled and rolled away down the valley
in all manner of shapes; turning over and over in the air, and melting
away at last in a gush of rain.

"A very pretty business, indeed, Mr. Gluck!" said Schwartz. "Dish the
mutton, sir. If ever I catch you at such a trick again--bless me, why,
the mutton's been cut!"

"You promised me one slice, brother, you know," said Gluck.

"Oh! and you were cutting it hot, I suppose, and going to catch all
the gravy. It'll be long before I promise you such a thing again.
Leave the room, sir; and have the kindness to wait in the coal cellar
till I call you."

Gluck left the room melancholy enough. The brothers ate as much mutton
as they could, locked the rest in the cupboard and proceeded to get
very drunk after dinner.

Such a night as it was! Howling wind, and rushing rain, without
intermission. The brothers had just sense enough left to put up all
the shutters, and double bar the door, before they went to bed. They
usually slept in the same room. As the clock struck twelve, they were
both awakened by a tremendous crash. Their door burst open with a
violence that shook the house from top to bottom.

"What's that?" cried Schwartz, starting up in his bed.

"Only I," said the little gentleman.

The two brothers sat up on their bolster, and stared into the
darkness. The room was full of water, and by a misty moonbeam, which
found its way through a hole in the shutter, they could see in the
midst of it an enormous foam globe, spinning round, and bobbing up and
down like a cork, on which, as on a most luxurious cushion, reclined
the little old gentleman, cap and all. There was plenty of room for it
now, for the roof was off.

"Sorry to incommode you," said their visitor, ironically. "I'm afraid
your beds are dampish; perhaps you had better go to your brother's
room: I've left the ceiling on, there."

They required no second admonition, but rushed into Gluck's room, wet
through, and in an agony of terror.

"You'll find my card on the kitchen table," the old gentleman called
after them. "Remember the _last_ visit."

"Pray Heaven it may!" said Schwartz, shuddering. And the foam globe
disappeared.

Dawn came at last and the two brothers looked out of Gluck's little
window in the morning. The Treasure Valley was one mass of ruin and
desolation. The inundation had swept away trees, crops, and cattle,
and left in their stead a waste of red sand and gray mud. The two
brothers crept shivering and horror-struck into the kitchen. The water
had gutted the whole first floor; corn, money, almost every movable
thing, had been swept away and there was left only a small white card
on the kitchen table. On it, in large, breezy, long-legged letters,
were engraved the words: _South-West Wind, Esquire_.


II.--OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE THREE BROTHERS AFTER THE VISIT OF
SOUTHWEST WIND, ESQUIRE; AND HOW LITTLE GLUCK HAD AN INTERVIEW WITH
THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER.

Southwest Wind, Esquire, was as good as his word. After the momentous
visit above related, he entered the Treasure Valley no more; and, what
was worse, he had so much influence with his relations, the West Winds
in general, and used it so effectually, that they all adopted a
similar line of conduct. So no rain fell in the valley from one year's
end to another. Though everything remained green and flourishing in
the plains below, the inheritance of the Three Brothers was a desert.
What had once been the richest soil in the kingdom, became a shifting
heap of red sand; and the brothers, unable longer to contend with the
adverse skies, abandoned their valueless patrimony in despair, to seek
some means of gaining a livelihood among the cities and people of the
plains. All their money was gone, and they had nothing left but some
curious, old-fashioned pieces of gold plate, the last remnants of
their ill-gotten wealth.

"Suppose we turn goldsmiths?" said Schwartz to Hans, as they entered
the large city. "It is a good knave's trade; we can put a great deal
of copper into the gold, without any one's finding it out."

The thought was agreed to be a very good one; they hired a furnace,
and turned goldsmiths. But two slight circumstances affected their
trade: the first, that people did not approve of the coppered gold;
the second, that the two elder brothers, whenever they had sold
anything, used to leave little Gluck to mind the furnace, and go and
drink out the money in the ale-house next door. So they melted all
their gold, without making money enough to buy more, and were at last
reduced to one large drinking-mug, which an uncle of his had given to
little Gluck, and which he was very fond of, and would not have parted
with for the world; though he never drank anything out of it but milk
and water. The mug was a very odd mug to look at. The handle was
formed of two wreaths of flowing golden hair, so finely spun that it
looked more like silk than metal, and these wreaths descended into,
and mixed with, a beard and whiskers of the same exquisite
workmanship, which surrounded and decorated a very fierce little face,
of the reddest gold imaginable, right in the front of the mug, with a
pair of eyes in it which seemed to command its whole circumference. It
was impossible to drink out of the mug without being subjected to an
intense gaze out of the side of these eyes; and Schwartz positively
averred, that once, after emptying it, full of Rhenish, seventeen
times, he had seen them wink! When it came to the mug's turn to be
made into spoons, it half broke poor little Gluck's heart: but the
brothers only laughed at him, tossed the mug into the melting-pot, and
staggered out to the ale-house: leaving him, as usual, to pour the
gold into bars, when it was all ready.

When they were gone, Gluck took a farewell look at his old friend in
the melting-pot. The flowing hair was all gone; nothing remained but
the red nose, and the sparkling eyes, which looked more malicious than
ever. "And no wonder," thought Gluck, "after being treated in that
way." He sauntered disconsolately to the window, and sat himself down
to catch the fresh evening air, and escape the hot breath of the
furnace. Now this window commanded a direct view of the range of
mountains, which, as I told before, overhung the Treasure Valley, and
more especially of the peak from which fell the Golden River. It was
just at the close of the day, and when Gluck sat down at the window he
saw the rocks of the mountain tops, all crimson and purple with the
sunset; and there were bright tongues of fiery cloud burning and
quivering about them; and the river, brighter than all, fell, in a
waving column of pure gold, from precipice to precipice, with the
double arch of a broad purple rainbow stretched across it, flushing
and fading alternately in the wreaths of spray.

"Ah!" said Gluck aloud, after he had looked at it for a while, "if
that river were really all gold, what a nice thing it would be."

"No it wouldn't, Gluck," said a clear, metallic voice close at his
ear.

"Bless me! what's that?" exclaimed Gluck, jumping up. There was nobody
there. He looked round the room, and under the table, and a great many
times behind him, but there was certainly nobody there, and he sat
down again at the window. This time he didn't speak, but he couldn't
help thinking again that it would be very convenient if the river were
really all gold.

"Not at all, my boy," said the same voice, louder than before.

"Bless me!" said Gluck again; "what _is_ that?" He looked again into
all the corners and cupboards, and then began turning round, and
round, as fast as he could in the middle of the room, thinking there
was somebody behind him, when the same voice struck again on his ear.
It was singing now very merrily, "Lala-lira-la;" no words, only a soft
running, effervescent melody, something like that of a kettle on the
boil. Gluck looked out of the window. No, it was certainly in the
house. Upstairs, and downstairs. No, it was certainly in that very
room, coming in quicker time, and clearer notes, every moment.
"Lala-lira-la." All at once it struck Gluck that it sounded louder
near the furnace. He ran to the opening, and looked in: yes, he saw
right; it seemed to be coming, not only out of the furnace, but out of
the pot. He uncovered it, and ran back in a great fright, for the pot
was certainly singing! He stood in the farthest corner of the room,
with his hands up, and his mouth open, for a minute or two, when the
singing stopped, and the voice became clear and pronunciative.

"Hollo!" said the voice.

Gluck made no answer.

"Hollo! Gluck, my boy," said the pot again.

Gluck summoned all his energies, walked straight up to the crucible,
drew it out of the furnace, and looked in. The gold was all melted,
and its surface as smooth and polished as a river; but instead of
reflecting little Gluck's head, as he looked in, he saw meeting his
glance from beneath the gold the red nose and sharp eyes of his old
friend of the mug, a thousand times redder and sharper than ever he
had seen them in his life.

"Come, Gluck, my boy," said the voice out of the pot again, "I'm all
right; pour me out."

But Gluck was too much astonished to do anything of the kind.

"Pour me out, I say," said the voice rather gruffly.

Still Gluck couldn't move.

"_Will_ you pour me out?" said the voice passionately. "I'm too hot."

By a violent effort, Gluck recovered the use of his limbs, took hold
of the crucible, and sloped it so as to pour out the gold. But instead
of a liquid stream, there came out, first, a pair of pretty little
yellow legs, then some coat tails, then a pair of arms stuck akimbo,
and, finally, the well-known head of his friend the mug; all which
articles, uniting as they rolled out, stood up energetically on the
floor, in the shape of a little golden dwarf, about a foot and a half
high.

"That's right!" said the dwarf, stretching out first his legs, and
then his arms, and then shaking his head up and down, and as far round
as it would go, for five minutes without stopping; apparently with the
view of ascertaining if he were quite correctly put together, while
Gluck stood contemplating him in speechless amazement. He was dressed
in a stashed doublet of spun gold, so fine in its texture, that the
prismatic colours gleamed over it, as if on a surface of
mother-of-pearl; and, over this brilliant doublet, his hair and beard
fell full halfway to the ground, in waving curls, so exquisitely
delicate that Gluck could hardly tell where they ended; they seemed to
melt into air. The features of the face, however, were by no means
finished with the same delicacy; they were rather coarse, slightly
inclining to coppery in complexion, and indicative, in expression, of
a very pertinacious and intractable disposition in their small
proprietor. When the dwarf had finished his self-examination, he
turned his small eyes full on Gluck, and stared at him deliberately
for a minute or two. "No, it wouldn't, Gluck, my boy," said the little
man.

This was certainly rather an abrupt and unconnected mode of commencing
conversation. It might indeed be supposed to refer to the course of
Gluck's thoughts, which had first produced the dwarf's observations
out of the pot; but whatever it referred to, Gluck had no inclination
to dispute the dictum.

"Wouldn't it, sir?" said Gluck, very mildly and submissively indeed.

"No," said the dwarf, conclusively. "No, it wouldn't." And with that,
the dwarf pulled his cap hard over his brows, and took two turns, of
three feet long, up and down the room, lifting his legs up very high,
and setting them down very hard. This pause gave time for Gluck to
collect his thoughts a little, and, seeing no great reason to view his
diminutive visitor with dread, and feeling his curiosity overcome his
amazement, he ventured on a question of peculiar delicacy.

"Pray, sir," said Gluck, rather hesitatingly, "were you my mug?"

On which the little man turned sharp round, walked straight up to
Gluck, and drew himself up to his full height. "I," said the little
man, "am the King of the Golden River." Whereupon he turned about
again, and took two more turns, some six feet long, in order to allow
time for the consternation which this announcement produced in his
auditor to evaporate. After which, he again walked up to Gluck and
stood still, as if expecting some comment on his communication.

Gluck determined to say something at all events. "I hope your Majesty
is very well," said Gluck.

"Listen!" said the little man, deigning no reply to this polite
inquiry. "I am the King of what you mortals call the Golden River. The
shape you saw me in was owing to the malice of a stronger king, from
whose enchantments you have this instant freed me. What I have seen of
you, and your conduct to your wicked brothers, renders me willing to
serve you; therefore, attend to what I tell you. Whoever shall climb
to the top of that mountain from which you see the Golden River
issue, and shall cast into the stream at its source three drops of
holy water, for him, and for him only, the river shall turn to gold.
But no one failing in his first, can succeed in a second attempt; and
if anyone shall cast unholy water into the river, it will overwhelm
him, and he will become a black stone." So saying, the King of the
Golden River turned away and deliberately walked into the centre of
the hottest flame of the furnace. His figure became red, white,
transparent, dazzling--a blaze of intense light--rose, trembled, and
disappeared. The King of the Golden River had evaporated.

"Oh!" cried poor Gluck, running to look up the chimney after him; "oh
dear, dear, dear me! My mug! my mug! my mug!"


III.--HOW MR. HANS SET OFF ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE GOLDEN RIVER, AND
HOW HE PROSPERED THEREIN

The King of the Golden River had hardly made the extraordinary exit
related in the last chapter, before Hans and Schwartz came roaring
into the house, very savagely drunk. The discovery of the total loss
of their last piece of plate had the effect of sobering them just
enough to enable them to stand over Gluck, beating him very steadily
for a quarter of an hour; at the expiration of which period they
dropped into a couple of chairs, and requested to know what he had to
say for himself. Gluck told them his story, of which, of course, they
did not believe a word. They beat him again, till their arms were
tired, and staggered to bed. In the morning, however, the steadiness
with which he adhered to his story obtained him some degree of
credence; the immediate consequence of which was, that the two
brothers, after wrangling a long time on the knotty question, which
of them should try his fortune first, drew their swords and began
fighting. The noise of the fray alarmed the neighbours who, finding
they could not pacify the combatants, sent for the constable.

Hans, on hearing this, contrived to escape, and hid himself; but
Schwartz was taken before the magistrate, fined for breaking the
peace, and, having drunk out his last penny the evening before, was
thrown into prison till he should pay.

When Hans heard this, he was much delighted, and determined to set out
immediately for the Golden River. How to get the holy water was the
question. He went to the priest, but the priest could not give any
holy water to so abandoned a character. So Hans went to vespers in the
evening for the first time in his life, and, under pretence of
crossing himself, stole a cupful and returned home in triumph.

Next morning he got up before the sun rose, put the holy water into a
strong flask, and two bottles of wine and some meat in a basket, slung
them over his back, took his alpine staff in his hand, and set off for
the mountains.

On his way out of the town he had to pass the prison, and as he looked
in at the windows, whom should he see but Schwartz himself peeping out
of the bars, and looking very disconsolate.

"Good morning, brother," said Hans; "have you any message for the King
of the Golden River?"

Schwartz gnashed his teeth with rage, and shook the bars with all his
strength; but Hans only laughed at him, and advising him to make
himself comfortable till he came back again, shouldered his basket,
shook the bottle of holy water in Schwartz's face till it frothed
again, and marched off in the highest spirits in the world.

It was, indeed, a morning that might have made anyone happy, even
with no Golden River to seek for. Level lines of dewy mist lay
stretched along the valley, out of which rose the massy
mountains--their lower cliffs in pale gray shadow, hardly
distinguishable from the floating vapour, but gradually ascending till
they caught the sunlight, which ran in sharp touches of ruddy colour
along the angular crags, and pierced, in long level rays, through
their fringes of spear-like pine. Far above, shot up red splintered
masses of castellated rock, jagged and shivered into myriads of
fantastic forms, with here and there a streak of sunlit snow, traced
down their chasms like a line of forked lightning; and, far beyond,
and far above all these, fainter than the morning cloud, but purer and
changeless, slept, in the blue sky, the utmost peaks of the eternal
snow.

The Golden River, which sprang from one of the lower and snowless
elevations, was now nearly in shadow; all but the uppermost jets of
spray, which rose like slow smoke above the undulating line of the
cataract, and floated away in feeble wreaths upon the morning wind.

On this object, and on this alone, Hans's eyes and thoughts were
fixed; forgetting the distance he had to traverse, he set off at an
imprudent rate of walking, which greatly exhausted him before he had
scaled the first range of the green and low hills. He was, moreover,
surprised, on surmounting them, to find that a large glacier, of whose
existence, notwithstanding his previous knowledge of the mountains, he
had been absolutely ignorant, lay between him and the source of the
Golden River. He entered on it with the boldness of a practised
mountaineer; yet he thought he had never traversed so strange or so
dangerous a glacier in his life. The ice was excessively slippery, and
out of all its chasms came wild sounds of gushing water; not
monotonous or low; but changeful and loud, rising occasionally into
drifting passages of wild melody, then breaking off into short
melancholy tones, or sudden shrieks, resembling those of human voices
in distress or pain. The ice was broken into thousands of confused
shapes, but none, Hans thought like the ordinary forms of splintered
ice. There seemed a curious _expression_ about all their outlines--a
perpetual resemblance to living features, distorted and scornful.
Myriads of deceitful shadows, and lurid lights, played and floated
about and through the pale-blue pinnacles, dazzling and confusing the
sight of the traveller; while his ears grew dull and his head giddy
with the constant gush and roar of the concealed waters. These painful
circumstances increased upon him as he advanced; the ice crashed and
yawned into fresh chasms at his feet, tottering spires nodded around
him, and fell thundering across his path; and, though he had
repeatedly faced these dangers on the most terrific glaciers, and in
the wildest weather, it was with a new and oppressive feeling of panic
terror that he leaped the last chasm, and flung himself, exhausted and
shuddering, on the firm turf of the mountain.

He had been compelled to abandon his basket of food, which became a
perilous incumbrance on the glacier, and had now no means of
refreshing himself but by breaking off and eating some of the pieces
of ice. This, however, relieved his thirst; an hour's repose recruited
his hardy frame, and, with the indomitable spirit of avarice, he
resumed his laborious journey.

His way now lay straight up a ridge of bare red rocks, without a blade
of grass to ease the foot, or a projecting angle to afford an inch of
shade from the south sun. It was past noon, and the rays beat
intensely upon the steep path, while the whole atmosphere was
motionless, and penetrated with heat. Intense thirst was soon added
to the bodily fatigue with which Hans was now afflicted; glance after
glance he cast on the flask of water which hung at his belt. "Three
drops are enough," at last thought he; "I may, at least, cool my lips
with it."

He opened the flask, and was raising it to his lips, when his eye fell
on an object lying on the rock beside him; he thought it moved. It was
a small dog, apparently in the last agony of death from thirst. Its
tongue was out, its jaws dry, its limbs extended lifelessly, and a
swarm of black ants were crawling about its lips and throat. Its eye
moved to the bottle which Hans held in his hand. He raised it, drank,
spurned the animal with his foot, and passed on. And he did not know
how it was, but he thought that a strange shadow had suddenly come
across the blue sky.

The path became steeper and more rugged every moment; and the high
hill air, instead of refreshing him, seemed to throw his blood into a
fever. The noise of the hill cataracts sounded like mockery in his
ears; they were all distant, and his thirst increased every moment.
Another hour passed, and he again looked down to the flask at his
side; it was half empty; but there was much more than three drops in
it. He stopped to open it, and again, as he did so, something moved in
the path above him. It was a fair child, stretched nearly lifeless on
the rock, its breast heaving with thirst, its eyes closed, and its
lips parched and burning. Hans eyed it deliberately, drank, and passed
on. And a dark-gray cloud came over the sun, and long, snake-like
shadows crept up along the mountain sides. Hans struggled on. The sun
was sinking, but its descent seemed to bring no coolness; the leaden
weight of the dead air pressed upon his brow and heart, but the goal
was near. He saw the cataract of the Golden River springing from the
hillside, scarcely five hundred feet above him. He paused for a
moment to breathe, and sprang on to complete his task.

At this instant a faint cry fell on his ear. He turned, and saw a
gray-haired old man extended on the rocks. His eyes were sunk, his
features deadly pale, and gathered into an expression of despair.
"Water!" he stretched his arms to Hans, and cried feebly, "Water! I am
dying."

"I have none," replied Hans; "thou hast had thy share of life." He
strode over the prostrate body, and darted on. And a flash of blue
lightning rose out of the east, shaped like a sword; it shook thrice
over the whole heaven, and left it dark with one heavy, impenetrable
shade. The sun was setting; it plunged toward the horizon like a
red-hot ball.

The roar of the Golden River rose on Hans's ear. He stood at the brink
of the chasm through which it ran. Its waves were filled with the red
glory of the sunset: they shook their crests like tongues of fire, and
flashes of bloody light gleamed along their foam. Their sound came
mightier and mightier on his senses; his brain grew giddy with the
prolonged thunder. Shuddering he drew the flask from his girdle, and
hurled it into the centre of the torrent. As he did so, an icy chill
shot through his limbs: he staggered, shrieked, and fell. The waters
closed over his cry. And the moaning of the river rose wildly into the
night, as it gushed over _The Black Stone_.


IV.--HOW MR. SCHWARTZ SET OFF ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE GOLDEN RIVER,
AND HOW HE PROSPERED THEREIN

Poor little Gluck waited very anxiously alone in the house for Hans's
return. Finding he did not come back, he was terribly frightened, and
went and told Schwartz in the prison all that had happened. Then
Schwartz was very much pleased, and said that Hans must certainly
have been turned into a black stone, and he should have all the gold
to himself. But Gluck was very sorry, and cried all night. When he got
up in the morning there was no bread in the house, nor any money; so
Gluck went and hired himself to another goldsmith, and he worked so
hard, and so neatly, and so long every day, that he soon got money
enough together to pay his brother's fine, and he went and gave it all
to Schwartz, and Schwartz got out of prison. Then Schwartz was quite
pleased, and said he should have some of the gold of the river. But
Gluck only begged he would go and see what had become of Hans.

Now when Schwartz had heard that Hans had stolen the holy water, he
thought to himself that such a proceeding might not be considered
altogether correct by the King of the Golden River, and determined to
manage matters better. So he took some more of Gluck's money, and went
to a bad priest who gave him some holy water very readily for it. Then
Schwartz was sure it was all quite right. So Schwartz got up early in
the morning before the sun rose, and took some bread and wine in a
basket, and put his holy water in a flask, and set off for the
mountains. Like his brother, he was much surprised at the sight of the
glacier, and had great difficulty in crossing it, even after leaving
his basket behind him. The day was cloudless, but not bright: there
was a heavy purple haze hanging over the sky, and the hills looked
lowering and gloomy. And as Schwartz climbed the steep rock path, the
thirst came upon him, as it had upon his brother, until he lifted his
flask to his lips to drink. Then he saw the fair child lying near him
on the rocks, and it cried to him, and moaned for water.

"Water, indeed," said Schwartz; "I haven't half enough for myself,"
and passed on. And as he went he thought the sunbeams grew more dim,
and he saw a low bank of black cloud rising out of the west; and, when
he had climbed for another hour, the thirst overcame him again, and he
would have drunk. Then he saw the old man lying before him on the
path, and heard him cry out for water. "Water, indeed," said Schwartz;
"I haven't half enough for myself," and on he went.

Then again the light seemed to fade from before his eyes, and he
looked up, and, behold, a mist, of the colour of blood, had come over
the sun; and the bank of black cloud had risen very high, and its
edges were tossing and tumbling like the waves of an angry sea. And
they cast long shadows, which flickered over Schwartz's path.

Then Schwartz climbed for another hour, and again his thirst returned;
and as he lifted his flask to his lips, he thought he saw his brother
Hans lying exhausted on the path before him; and, as he gazed, the
figure stretched its arms to him, and cried for water. "Ha, ha,"
laughed Schwartz, "are you there? Remember the prison bars, my boy.
Water indeed! Do you suppose I carried it all the way up here for
_you_?" And he strode over the figure; yet, as he passed, he thought
he saw a strange expression of mockery about its lips. And, when he
had gone a few yards farther, he looked back; but the figure was not
there.

And a sudden horror came over Schwartz, he knew not why; but the
thirst for gold prevailed over his fear, and he rushed on. And the
bank of black cloud rose to the zenith, and out of it came bursts of
spiry lightning, and waves of darkness seemed to heave and float
between their flashes over the whole heavens. And the sky where the
sun was setting was all level, and like a lake of blood; and a strong
wind came out of that sky, tearing its crimson clouds into fragments,
and scattering them far into the darkness. And when Schwartz stood by
the brink of the Golden River, its waves were black, like thunder
clouds, but their foam was like fire; and the roar of the waters
below, and the thunder above, met, as he cast the flask into the
stream. And, as he did so, the lightning glared into his eyes, and the
earth gave way beneath him, and the waters closed over his cry. And
the moaning of the river rose wildly into the night, as it gushed over
the _Two Black Stones_.


V.--HOW LITTLE GLUCK SET OFF ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE GOLDEN RIVER, AND
HOW HE PROSPERED THEREIN; WITH OTHER MATTERS OF INTEREST

When Gluck found that Schwartz did not come back he was very sorry,
and did not know what to do. He had no money, and was obliged to go
and hire himself again to the goldsmith, who worked him very hard, and
gave him very little money. So, after a month or two, Gluck grew
tired, and made up his mind to go and try his fortune with the Golden
River. "The little king looked very kind," thought he. "I don't think
he will turn me into a black stone." So he went to the priest, and the
priest gave him some holy water as soon as he asked for it. Then Gluck
took some bread in his basket, and the bottle of water, and set off
very early for the mountains.

If the glacier had occasioned a great deal of fatigue to his brothers,
it was twenty times worse for him, who was neither so strong nor so
practised on the mountains. He had several very bad falls, lost his
basket and bread, and was very much frightened at the strange noises
under the ice. He lay a long time to rest on the grass, after he had
got over, and began to climb the hill in just the hottest part of the
day. When he had climbed for an hour, he got dreadfully thirsty, and
was going to drink like his brothers, when he saw an old man coming
down the path above him, looking very feeble, and leaning on a staff.
"My son," said the old man, "I am faint with thirst, give me some of
that water." Then Gluck looked at him, and, when he saw that he was
pale and weary, he gave him the water. "Only pray don't drink it all,"
said Gluck. But the old man drank a great deal, and gave him back the
bottle two-thirds empty. Then he bade him good speed, and Gluck went
on again merrily. And the path became easier to his feet, and two or
three blades of grass appeared upon it, and some grasshoppers began
singing on the bank beside it; and Gluck thought he had never heard
such merry singing.

Then he went on for another hour, and the thirst increased on him so
that he thought he should be forced to drink. But, as he raised the
flask, he saw a little child lying panting by the roadside, and it
cried out piteously for water. Then Gluck struggled with himself, and
determined to bear the thirst a little longer; and he put the bottle
to the child's lips, and it drank it all but a few drops. Then it
smiled on him, and got up, and ran down the hill; and Gluck looked
after it till it became as small as a little star, and then turned and
began climbing again. And then there were all kinds of sweet flowers
growing on the rocks, bright green moss, with pale pink starry
flowers, and soft belled gentians, more blue than the sky at its
deepest, and pure white transparent lilies. And crimson and purple
butterflies darted hither and thither, and the sky sent down such pure
light, that Gluck had never felt so happy in his life.

Yet, when he had climbed for another hour, his thirst became
intolerable again; and, when he looked at his bottle, he saw that
there were only five or six drops left in it, and he could not venture
to drink. And, as he was hanging the flask to his belt again, he saw
a little dog lying on the rocks, gasping for breath--just as Hans had
seen it on the day of his ascent. And Gluck stopped and looked at it
and then at the Golden River, not five hundred yards above him; and he
thought of the dwarf's words, "that no one could succeed, except in
his first attempt"; and he tried to pass the dog, but it whined
piteously, and Gluck stopped again. "Poor beastie!" said Gluck: "it'll
be dead when I come down again, if I don't help it." Then he looked
closer and closer at it, and its eye turned on him so mournfully that
he could not stand it. "Confound the King and his gold too," said
Gluck; and he opened the flask, and poured all the water into the
dog's mouth.

The dog sprang up and stood on its hind legs. Its tail disappeared,
its ears became long, longer, silky, golden; its nose became very red,
its eyes became very twinkling; in three seconds the dog was gone, and
before Gluck stood his old acquaintance, the King of the Golden River.

"Thank you," said the monarch; "but don't be frightened, it's all
right"; for Gluck showed manifest symptoms of consternation at this
unlooked-for reply to his last observation. "Why didn't you come
before," continued the dwarf, "instead of sending me those rascally
brothers of yours, for me to have the trouble of turning into stones?
Very hard stones they make too."

"Oh dear me!" said Gluck; "have you really been so cruel?"

"Cruel!" said the dwarf, "they poured unholy water into my stream; do
you suppose I'm going to allow that?"

"Why," said Gluck, "I am sure, sir--your Majesty, I mean--they got the
water out of the church font."

"Very probably," replied the dwarf; "but," and his countenance grew
stern as he spoke, "the water which has been refused to the cry of
the weary and dying is unholy, though it had been blessed by every
saint in heaven; and the water which is found in the vessel of mercy
is holy, though it had been defiled with corpses."

So saying, the dwarf stooped and plucked a lily that grew at his feet.
On its white leaves there hung three drops of clear dew. And the dwarf
shook them into the flask which Gluck held in his hand. "Cast these
into the river," he said, "and descend on the other side of the
mountains into the Treasure Valley. And so good speed."

As he spoke, the figure of the dwarf became indistinct. The playing
colours of his robe formed themselves into a prismatic mist of dewy
light; he stood for an instant veiled with them as with the belt of a
broad rainbow. The colours grew faint, the mist rose into the air; the
monarch had evaporated.

And Gluck climbed to the brink of the Golden River, and its waves were
as clear as crystal, and as brilliant as the sun. And, when he cast
the three drops of dew into the stream, there opened where they fell a
small circular whirlpool, into which the waters descended with a
musical noise.

Gluck stood watching it for some time, very much disappointed, because
not only the river was not turned into gold, but its waters seemed
much diminished in quantity. Yet he obeyed his friend the dwarf, and
descended the other side of the mountains toward the Treasure Valley;
and, as he went, he thought he heard the noise of water working its
way under the ground. And, when he came in sight of the Treasure
Valley, behold, a river, like the Golden River was springing from a
new cleft of the rocks above it, and was flowing in innumerable
streams among the dry heaps of red sand.

And as Gluck gazed, fresh grass sprang beside the new streams, and
creeping plants grew, and climbed among this moistening soil. Young
flowers opened suddenly along the river sides, as stars leap out when
twilight is deepening, and thickets of myrtle, and tendrils of vine,
cast lengthening shadows over the valley as they grew. And thus the
Treasure Valley became a garden again, and the inheritance which had
been lost by cruelty was regained by love.

And Gluck went, and dwelt in the valley, and the poor were never
driven from his door: so that his barns became full of corn, and his
house of treasure. And, for him, the river had, according to the
dwarf's promise, become a River of Gold.

And, to this day, the inhabitants of the valley point out the place
where the three drops of holy dew were cast into the stream, and trace
the course of the Golden River under the ground, until it emerges in
the Treasure Valley. And at the top of the cataract of the Golden
River are still to be seen two BLACK STONES, round which the waters
howl mournfully every day at sunset, and these stones are still called
by the people of the valley _The Black Brothers_.




III

THE SNOW-IMAGE: A CHILDISH MIRACLE


One afternoon of a cold winter's day, when the sun shone forth with
chilly brightness, after a long storm, two children asked leave of
their mother to run out and play in the new-fallen snow. The elder
child was a girl, whom, because she was of a tender and modest
disposition, and was thought to be very beautiful, her parents, and
other people who were familiar with her, used to call Violet. But her
brother was known by the style and title of Peony, on account of the
ruddiness of his broad and round little phiz, which made everybody
think of sunshine and great scarlet flowers. The father of these two
children, a certain Mr. Lindsey, it is important to say, was an
excellent but exceedingly matter-of-fact sort of man, a dealer in
hardware, and was sturdily accustomed to take what is called the
common-sense view of all matters that came under his consideration.
With a heart about as tender as other people's, he had a head as hard
and impenetrable, and therefore, perhaps, as empty, as one of the iron
pots which it was a part of his business to sell. The mother's
character, on the other hand, had a strain of poetry in it, a trait of
unworldly beauty--a delicate and dewy flower, as it were, that had
survived out of her imaginative youth, and still kept itself alive
amid the dusty realities of matrimony and motherhood.

So, Violet and Peony, as I began with saying, besought their mother to
let them run out and play in the new snow; for, though it had looked
so dreary and dismal, drifting downward out of the gray sky, it had a
very cheerful aspect, now that the sun was shining on it. The children
dwelt in a city, and had no wider play-place than a little garden
before the house, divided by a white fence from the street, and with a
pear-tree and two or three plum-trees overshadowing it, and some
rose-bushes just in front of the parlour-windows. The trees and
shrubs, however, were now leafless, and their twigs were enveloped in
the light snow, which thus made a kind of wintry foliage, with here
and there a pendent icicle for the fruit.

"Yes, Violet--yes, my little Peony," said their kind mother; "you may
go out and play in the new snow."

Accordingly, the good lady bundled up her darlings in woollen jackets
and wadded sacks, and put comforters round their necks, and a pair of
striped gaiters on each little pair of legs, and worsted mittens on
their hands, and gave them a kiss apiece, by way of a spell to keep
away Jack Frost. Forth sallied the two children, with a
hop-skip-and-jump, that carried them at once into the very heart of a
huge snow-drift, whence Violet emerged like a snow-bunting, while
little Peony floundered out with his round face in full bloom. Then
what a merry time had they! To look at them, frolicking in the wintry
garden, you would have thought that the dark and pitiless storm had
been sent for no other purpose but to provide a new plaything for
Violet and Peony; and that they themselves had been created, as the
snow-birds were, to take delight only in the tempest, and in the white
mantle which it spread over the earth.

At last, when they had frosted one another all over with handfuls of
snow, Violet, after laughing heartily at little Peony's figure, was
struck with a new idea.

"You look exactly like a snow-image, Peony," said she, "if your cheeks
were not so red. And that puts me in mind! Let us make an image out
of snow--an image of a little girl--and it shall be our sister, and
shall run about and play with us all winter long. Won't it be nice?"

"O, yes!" cried Peony, as plainly as he could speak, for he was but a
little boy. "That will be nice! And mamma shall see it!"

"Yes," answered Violet; "mamma shall see the new little girl. But she
must not make her come into the warm parlour; for, you know, our
little snow-sister will not love the warmth."

And forthwith the children began this great business of making a
snow-image that should run about; while their mother, who was sitting
at the window and overheard some of their talk, could not help smiling
at the gravity with which they set about it. They really seemed to
imagine that there would be no difficulty whatever in creating a live
little girl out of the snow. And, to say the truth, if miracles are
ever to be wrought, it will be by putting our hands to the work in
precisely such a simple and undoubting frame of mind as that in which
Violet and Peony now undertook to perform one, without so much as
knowing that it was a miracle. So thought the mother; and thought,
likewise, that the new snow, just fallen from heaven, would be
excellent material to make new beings of, if it were not so very cold.
She gazed at the children a moment longer, delighting to watch their
little figures--the girl, tall for her age, graceful and agile, and so
delicately coloured that she looked like a cheerful thought, more than
a physical reality; while Peony expanded in breadth rather than
height, and rolled along on his short and sturdy legs as substantial
as an elephant, though not quite so big. Then the mother resumed her
work. What it was I forget; but she was either trimming a silken
bonnet for Violet, or darning a pair of stockings for little Peony's
short legs. Again, however, and again, and yet other agains, she could
not help turning her head to the window to see how the children got on
with their snow-image.

Indeed, it was an exceedingly pleasant sight, those bright little
souls at their task! Moreover, it was really wonderful to observe how
knowingly and skilfully they managed the matter. Violet assumed the
chief direction, and told Peony what to do, while, with her own
delicate fingers, she shaped out all the nicer parts of the
snow-figure. It seemed, in fact, not so much to be made by the
children, as to grow up under their hands, while they were playing and
prattling about it. Their mother was quite surprised at this; and the
longer she looked, the more and more surprised she grew.

"What remarkable children mine are!" thought she, smiling with a
mother's pride; and, smiling at herself, too, for being so proud of
them. "What other children could have made anything so like a little
girl's figure out of snow at the first trial? Well; but now I must
finish Peony's new frock, for his grandfather is coming to-morrow, and
I want the little fellow to look handsome."

So she took up the frock, and was soon as busily at work again with
her needle as the two children with their snow-image. But still, as
the needle travelled hither and thither through the seams of the
dress, the mother made her toil light and happy by listening to the
airy voices of Violet and Peony. They kept talking to one another all
the time, their tongues being quite as active as their feet and hands.
Except at intervals, she could not distinctly hear what was said, but
had merely a sweet impression that they were in a most loving mood,
and were enjoying themselves highly, and that the business of making
the snow-image went prosperously on. Now and then, however, when
Violet and Peony happened to raise their voices, the words were as
audible as if they had been spoken in the very parlour, where the
mother sat. O how delightfully those words echoed in her heart, even
though they meant nothing so very wise or wonderful, after all!

But you must know a mother listens with her heart, much more than with
her ears; and thus she is often delighted with the trills of celestial
music, when other people can hear nothing of the kind.

"Peony, Peony!" cried Violet to her brother, who had gone to another
part of the garden, "bring me some of that fresh snow, Peony, from the
very farthest corner, where we have not been trampling. I want it to
shape our little snow-sister's bosom with. You know that part must be
quite pure, just as it came out of the sky!"

"Here it is, Violet!" answered Peony, in his bluff tone--but a very
sweet tone, too--as he came floundering through the half-trodden
drifts. "Here is the snow for her little bosom. O Violet, how
beau-ti-ful she begins to look!"

"Yes," said Violet, thoughtfully and quietly; "our snow-sister does
look very lovely. I did not quite know, Peony, that we could make such
a sweet little girl as this."

The mother, as she listened, thought how fit and delightful an
incident it would be, if fairies, or, still better, if angel-children
were to come from paradise, and play invisibly with her own darlings,
and help them to make their snow-image, giving it the features of
celestial babyhood! Violet and Peony would not be aware of their
immortal playmates--only they could see that the image grew very
beautiful while they worked at it, and would think that they
themselves had done it all.

"My little girl and boy deserve such playmates, if mortal children
ever did!" said the mother to herself; and then she smiled again at
her own motherly pride.

Nevertheless, the ideas seized upon her imagination; and ever and
anon, she took a glimpse out of the window, half dreaming that she
might see the golden-haired children of paradise sporting with her own
golden-haired Violet and bright-cheeked Peony.

Now, for a few moments, there was a busy and earnest, but indistinct
hum of the two children's voices, as Violet and Peony wrought together
with one happy consent. Violet still seemed to be the guiding spirit,
while Peony acted rather as a labourer, and brought her the snow from
far and near. And yet the little urchin evidently had a proper
understanding of the matter, too!

"Peony, Peony!" cried Violet; for the brother was again at the other
side of the garden. "Bring me those light wreaths of snow that have
rested on the lower branches of the pear-tree. You can clamber on the
snow-drift, Peony, and reach them easily. I must have them to make
some ringlets for our snow-sister's head!"

"Here they are, Violet!" answered the little boy. "Take care you do
not break them. Well done! Well done! How pretty!"

"Does she not look sweet?" said Violet, with a very satisfied tone;
"and now we must have some little shining bits of ice, to make the
brightness of her eyes. She is not finished yet. Mamma will see how
very beautiful she is; but papa will say, 'Tush! nonsense!--come in
out of the cold!'"

"Let us call mamma to look out," said Peony; and then he shouted
lustily, "Mamma! mamma!! mamma!!! Look out, and see what a nice 'ittle
girl we are making."

The mother put down her work, for an instant, and looked out of the
window. But it so happened that the sun--for this was one of the
shortest days of the whole year--had sunken so nearly to the edge of
the world, that his setting shine came obliquely into the lady's eyes.
So she was dazzled, you must understand, and could not very distinctly
observe what was in the garden. Still, however, through all that
bright, blinding dazzle of the sun and the new snow, she beheld a
small white figure in the garden, that seemed to have a wonderful deal
of human likeness about it. And she saw Violet and Peony--indeed, she
looked more at them than at the image--she saw the two children still
at work; Peony bringing fresh snow, and Violet applying it to the
figure as scientifically as a sculptor adds clay to his model.
Indistinctly as she discerned the snow-child, the mother thought to
herself that never before was there a snow-figure so cunningly made,
nor ever such a dear little girl and boy to make it.

"They do everything better than other children," said she, very
complacently. "No wonder they make better snow-images!"

She sat down again to her work, and made as much haste with it as
possible; because twilight would soon come, and Peony's frock was not
yet finished, and grandfather was expected, by railroad, pretty early
in the morning. Faster and faster, therefore, went her flying fingers.
The children, likewise, kept busily at work in the garden, and still
the mother listened, whenever she could catch a word. She was amused
to observe how their little imaginations had got mixed up with what
they were doing, and were carried away by it. They seemed positively
to think that the snow-child would run about and play with them.

"What a nice playmate she will be for us, all winter long!" said
Violet. "I hope papa will not be afraid of her giving us a cold!
Sha'n't you love her dearly, Peony?"

"O yes!" cried Peony. "And I will hug her and she shall sit down
close by me, and drink some of my warm milk!"

"O no, Peony!" answered Violet, with grave wisdom. "That will not do
at all. Warm milk will not be wholesome for our little snow-sister.
Little snow-people, like her, eat nothing but icicles. No, no, Peony;
we must not give her anything warm to drink!"

There was a minute or two of silence; for Peony, whose short legs were
never weary, had gone on a pilgrimage again to the other side of the
garden. All of a sudden, Violet cried out, loudly and joyfully--

"Look here, Peony! Come quickly! A light has been shining on her cheek
out of that rose-coloured cloud! and the colour does not go away! Is
not that beautiful!"

"Yes; it is beau-ti-ful," answered Peony, pronouncing the three
syllables with deliberate accuracy. "O Violet, only look at her hair!
It is all like gold!"

"O, certainly," said Violet, with tranquillity, as if it were very
much a matter of course. "That colour, you know, comes from the golden
clouds, that we see up there in the sky. She is almost finished now.
But her lips must be made very red--redder than her cheeks. Perhaps,
Peony, it will make them red if we both kiss them!"

Accordingly, the mother heard two smart little smacks, as if both her
children were kissing the snow-image on its frozen mouth. But, as this
did not seem to make the lips quite red enough, Violet next proposed
that the snow-child should be invited to kiss Peony's scarlet cheek.

"Come, 'ittle snow-sister, kiss me!" cried Peony.

"There! she has kissed you," added Violet, "and her lips are very red.
And she blushed a little, too!"

"O, what a cold kiss!" cried Peony.

Just then, there came a breeze of the pure west-wind, sweeping
through the garden and rattling the parlour-windows. It sounded so
wintry cold, that the mother was about to tap on the window-pane with
her thimbled finger, to summon the two children in, when they both
cried out to her with one voice. The tone was not a tone of surprise,
although they were evidently a good deal excited; it appeared rather
as if they were very much rejoiced at some event that had now
happened, but which they had been looking for, and had reckoned upon
all along.

"Mamma! mamma! We have finished our little snow-sister, and she is
running about the garden with us!"

"What imaginative little beings my children are!" thought the mother,
putting the last few stitches into Peony's frock. "And it is strange,
too, that they make me almost as much a child as they themselves are!
I can hardly help believing, now, that the snow-image has really come
to life!"

"Dear mamma!" cried Violet, "pray look out and see what a sweet
playmate we have!"

The mother, being thus entreated, could no longer delay to look forth
from the window. The sun was now gone out of the sky, leaving,
however, a rich inheritance of his brightness among those purple and
golden clouds which make the sunsets of winter so magnificent. But
there was not the slightest gleam or dazzle, either on the window or
on the snow; so that the good lady could look all over the garden, and
see everything and everybody in it. And what do you think she saw
there? Violet and Peony, of course, her own two darling children. Ah,
but whom or what did she see besides? Why, if you will believe me,
there was a small figure of a girl, dressed all in white, with
rose-tinged cheeks and ringlets of golden hue, playing about the
garden with the two children! A stranger though she was, the child
seemed to be on as familiar terms with Violet and Peony, and they
with her, as if all the three had been playmates during the whole of
their little lives. The mother thought to herself that it must
certainly be the daughter of one of the neighbours, and that, seeing
Violet, and Peony in the garden, the child had run across the street
to play with them. So this kind lady went to the door, intending to
invite the little runaway into her comfortable parlour; for, now that
the sunshine was withdrawn, the atmosphere, out of doors, was already
growing very cold.

But, after opening the house-door, she stood an instant on the
threshold, hesitating whether she ought to ask the child to come in,
or whether she should even speak to her. Indeed, she almost doubted
whether it were a real child, after all, or only a light wreath of the
new-fallen snow, blown hither and thither about the garden by the
intensely cold west-wind. There was certainly something very singular
in the aspect of the little stranger. Among all the children of the
neighbourhood, the lady could remember no such face, with its pure
white, and delicate rose-colour, and the golden ringlets tossing about
the forehead and cheeks. And as for her dress, which was entirely of
white, and fluttering in the breeze, it was such as no reasonable
woman would put upon a little girl, when sending her out to play, in
the depth of winter. It made this kind and careful mother shiver only
to look at those small feet, with nothing in the world on them, except
a very thin pair of white slippers. Nevertheless, airily as she was
clad, the child seemed to feel not the slightest inconvenience from
the cold, but danced so lightly over the snow that the tips of her
toes left hardly a print in its surface; while Violet could but just
keep pace with her, and Peony's short legs compelled him to lag
behind.

Once, in the course of their play, the strange child placed herself
between Violet and Peony, and taking a hand of each, skipped merrily
forward, and they along with her. Almost immediately, however, Peony
pulled away his little fist, and began to rub it as if the fingers
were tingling with cold; while Violet also released herself, though
with less abruptness, gravely remarking that it was better not to take
hold of hands. The white-robed damsel said not a word, but danced
about, just as merrily as before. If Violet and Peony did not choose
to play with her, she could make just as good a playmate of the brisk
and cold west-wind, which kept blowing her all about the garden, and
took such liberties with her, that they seemed to have been friends
for a long time. All this while, the mother stood on the threshold,
wondering how a little girl could look so much like a flying
snow-drift, or how a snow-drift could look so very like a little girl.

She called Violet, and whispered to her.

"Violet, my darling, what is this child's name?" asked she. "Does she
live near us?"

"Why, dearest mamma," answered Violet, laughing to think that her
mother did not comprehend so very plain an affair, "this is our little
snow-sister, whom we have just been making!"

"Yes, dear mamma," cried Peony, running to his mother and looking up
simply into her face, "This is our snow-image! Is it not a nice 'ittle
child?"

At this instant a flock of snow-birds came flitting through the air.
As was very natural, they avoided Violet and Peony. But--and this
looked strange--they flew at once to the white-robed child, fluttered
eagerly about her head, alighted on her shoulders, and seemed to claim
her as an old acquaintance. She, on her part, was evidently as glad to
see these little birds, old Winter's grandchildren, as they were to
see her, and welcomed them by holding out both her hands. Hereupon,
they each and all tried to alight on her two palms and ten small
fingers and thumbs, crowding one another off, with an immense
fluttering of their tiny wings. One dear little bird nestled tenderly
in her bosom; another put its bill to her lips. They were as joyous,
all the while, and seemed as much in their element, as you may have
seen them when sporting with a snow-storm.

Violet and Peony stood laughing at this pretty sight: for they enjoyed
the merry time which their new playmate was having with their
small-winged visitants, almost as much as if they themselves took part
in it.

"Violet," said her mother, greatly perplexed, "tell me the truth,
without any jest. Who is this little girl?"

"My darling mamma," answered Violet, looking seriously into her
mother's face, and apparently surprised that she should need any
further explanation, "I have told you truly who she is. It is our
little snow-image, which Peony and I have been making. Peony will tell
you so, as well as I."

"Yes, mamma," asseverated Peony, with much gravity in his crimson
little phiz, "this is 'ittle snow-child. Is not she a nice one? But,
mamma, her hand, is oh, so very cold!"

While mamma still hesitated what to think and what to do, the
street-gate was thrown open, and the father of Violet and Peony
appeared, wrapped in a pilot-cloth sack, with a fur cap drawn down
over his ears, and the thickest of gloves upon his hands. Mr. Lindsey
was a middle-aged man, with a weary and yet a happy look in his
wind-flushed and frost-pinched face, as if he had been busy all the
day long, and was glad to get back to his quiet home. His eyes
brightened at the sight of his wife and children, although he could
not help uttering a word or two of surprise, at finding the whole
family in the open air, on so bleak a day, and after sunset too. He
soon perceived the little white stranger, sporting to and fro in the
garden, like a dancing snow-wreath, and the flock of snow-birds
fluttering about her head.

"Pray, what little girl may that be?" inquired this very sensible man.
"Surely her mother must be crazy, to let her go out in such bitter
weather as it has been to-day, with only that flimsy white gown and
those thin slippers!"

"My dear husband," said his wife, "I know no more about the little
thing than you do. Some neighbour's child, I suppose. Our Violet and
Peony," she added, laughing at herself for repeating so absurd a
story, "insist that she is nothing but a snow-image, which they have
been busy about in the garden, almost all the afternoon."

As she said this, the mother glanced her eyes toward the spot where
the children's snow-image had been made. What was her surprise, on
perceiving that there was not the slightest trace of so much
labour!--no image at all--no piled up heap of snow--nothing whatever,
save the prints of little footsteps around a vacant space!

"This is very strange!" said she.

"What is strange, dear mother?" asked Violet. "Dear father, do not you
see how it is? This is our snow-image, which Peony and I have made,
because we wanted another playmate. Did not we, Peony?"

"Yes, papa," said crimson Peony. "This be our 'ittle snow-sister. Is
she not beau-ti-ful? But she gave me such a cold kiss!"

"Pooh, nonsense, children!" cried their good, honest father, who, as
we have already intimated, had an exceedingly common-sensible way of
looking at matters. "Do not tell me of making live figures out of
snow. Come, wife; this little stranger must not stay out in the bleak
air a moment longer. We will bring her into the parlour; and you
shall give her a supper of warm bread and milk, and make her as
comfortable as you can. Meanwhile, I will inquire among the
neighbours; or, if necessary, send the city-crier about the streets,
to give notice of a lost child."

So saying, this honest and very kind-hearted man was going toward the
little white damsel, with the best intentions in the world. But Violet
and Peony, each seizing their father by the hand, earnestly besought
him not to make her come in.

"Dear father," cried Violet, putting herself before him, "it is true
what I have been telling you! This is our little snow-girl, and she
cannot live any longer than while she breathes the cold west-wind. Do
not make her come into the hot room!"

"Yes, father," shouted Peony, stamping his little foot, so mightily
was he in earnest, "this be nothing but our 'ittle snow-child! She
will not love the hot fire!"

"Nonsense, children, nonsense, nonsense!" cried the father, half
vexed, half laughing at what he considered their foolish obstinacy.
"Run into the house, this moment! It is too late to play any longer,
now. I must take care of this little girl immediately, or she will
catch her death a-cold!"

"Husband! dear husband!" said his wife, in a low voice--for she had
been looking narrowly at the snow-child, and was more perplexed than
ever--there is something very singular in all this. "You will think me
foolish--but--but--may it not be that some invisible angel has been
attracted by the simplicity and good faith with which our children set
about their undertaking? May he not have spent an hour of his
immortality in playing with those dear little souls? and so the result
is what we call a miracle. No, no! Do not laugh at me; I see what a
foolish thought it is!"

"My dear wife," replied the husband, laughing heartily, "you are as
much a child as Violet and Peony."

And in one sense so she was, for all through life she had kept her
heart full of childlike simplicity and faith, which was as pure and
clear as crystal; and, looking at all matters through this transparent
medium, she sometimes saw truths so profound, that other people
laughed at them as nonsense and absurdity.

But now kind Mr. Lindsey had entered the garden, breaking away from
his two children, who still sent their shrill voices after him,
beseeching him to let the snow-child stay and enjoy herself in the
cold west-wind. As he approached, the snow-birds took to flight. The
little white damsel, also, fled backward, shaking her head, as if to
say, "Pray, do not touch me!" and roguishly, as it appeared, leading
him through the deepest of the snow. Once, the good man stumbled, and
floundered down upon his face, so that, gathering himself up again,
with the snow sticking to his rough pilot-cloth sack, he looked as
white and wintry as a snow-image of the largest size. Some of the
neighbours, meanwhile, seeing him from their windows, wondered what
could possess poor Mr. Lindsey to be running about his garden in
pursuit of a snow-drift, which the west-wind was driving hither and
thither! At length, after a vast deal of trouble, he chased the little
stranger into a corner, where she could not possibly escape him. His
wife had been looking on, and, it being nearly twilight, was
wonderstruck to observe how the snow-child gleamed and sparkled, and
how she seemed to shed a glow all round about her; and when driven
into the corner, she positively glistened like a star! It was a frosty
kind of brightness, too like that of an icicle in the moonlight. The
wife thought it strange that good Mr. Lindsey should see nothing
remarkable in the snow-child's appearance.

"Come, you odd little thing!" cried the honest man, seizing her by
the hand, "I have caught you at last, and will make you comfortable in
spite of yourself. We will put a nice warm pair of worsted stockings
on your frozen little feet, and you shall have a good thick shawl to
wrap yourself in. Your poor white nose, I am afraid, is actually
frost-bitten. But we will make it all right. Come along in."

And so, with a most benevolent smile on his sagacious visage, all
purple as it was with the cold, this very well-meaning gentleman took
the snow-child by the hand and led her towards the house. She followed
him, droopingly and reluctant; for all the glow and sparkle was gone
out of her figure; and whereas just before she had resembled a bright
frosty, star-gemmed evening, with a crimson gleam on the cold horizon,
she now looked as dull and languid as a thaw. As kind Mr. Lindsey led
her up the steps of the door, Violet and Peony looked into his
face--their eyes full of tears, which froze before they could run down
their cheeks--and again entreated him not to bring their snow-image
into the house.

"Not bring her in!" exclaimed the kind-hearted man. "Why, you are
crazy, my little Violet!--quite crazy, my small Peony! She is so cold,
already, that her hand has almost frozen mine, in spite of my thick
gloves. Would you have her freeze to death?"

His wife, as he came up the steps, had been taking another long,
earnest, almost awe-stricken gaze at the little white stranger. She
hardly knew whether it was a dream or not, but she could not help
fancying that she saw the delicate print of Violet's fingers on the
child's neck. It looked just as if, while Violet was shaping out the
image, she had given it a gentle pat with her hand, and had neglected
to smooth the impression quite away.

"After all, husband," said the mother, recurring to her idea that the
angels would be as much delighted to play with Violet and Peony as she
herself was--"after all, she does look strangely like a snow-image! I
do believe she is made of snow!"

A puff of the west-wind blew against the snow-child, and again she
sparkled like a star.

"Snow!" repeated good Mr. Lindsey, drawing the reluctant guest over
this hospitable threshold. "No wonder she looks like snow. She is half
frozen, poor little thing! But a good fire will put everything to
rights."

Without further talk, and always with the same best intentions, this
highly benevolent and common-sensible individual led the little white
damsel--drooping, drooping, drooping, more and more--out of the frosty
air, and into his comfortable parlour. A Heidenberg stove, filled to
the brim with intensely burning anthracite, was sending a bright gleam
through the isinglass of its iron door, and causing the vase of water
on its top to fume and bubble with excitement. A warm, sultry smell
was diffused throughout the room. A thermometer on the wall farthest
from the stove stood at eighty degrees. The parlour was hung with red
curtains, and covered with a red carpet, and looked just as warm as it
felt. The difference betwixt the atmosphere here and the cold, wintry
twilight out of doors, was like stepping at once from Nova Zembla to
the hottest part of India, or from the North Pole into an oven. O,
this was a fine place for the little white stranger!

The common-sensible man placed the snow-child on the hearth-rug, right
in front of the hissing and fuming stove.

"Now she will be comfortable!" cried Mr. Lindsey, rubbing his hands
and looking about him, with the pleasantest smile you ever saw. "Make
yourself at home, my child."

Sad, sad and drooping, looked the little white maiden, as she stood
on the hearth-rug, with the hot blast of the stove striking through
her like a pestilence. Once, she threw a glance wistfully toward the
windows, and caught a glimpse, through its red curtains, of the
snow-covered roofs, and the stars glimmering frostily, and all the
delicious intensity of the cold night. The bleak wind rattled the
window-panes, as if it were summoning her to come forth. But there
stood the snow-child, drooping, before the hot stove!

But the common-sensible man saw nothing amiss.

"Come, wife," said he, "let her have a pair of thick stockings and a
woollen shawl or blanket directly; and tell Dora to give her some warm
supper as soon as the milk boils. You, Violet and Peony, amuse your
little friend. She is out of spirits, you see, at finding herself in a
strange place. For my part, I will go around among the neighbours, and
find out where she belongs."

The mother, meanwhile, had gone in search of the shawl and stockings;
for her own view of the matter, however subtle and delicate, had given
way, as it always did, to the stubborn materialism of her husband.
Without heeding the remonstrances of his two children, who still kept
murmuring that their little snow-sister did not love the warmth, good
Mr. Lindsey took his departure, shutting the parlour-door carefully
behind him. Turning up the collar of his sack over his ears, he
emerged from the house, and had barely reached the street-gate when he
was recalled by the screams of Violet and Peony, and the rapping of a
thimbled finger against the parlour window.

"Husband! husband!" cried his wife, showing her horror-stricken face
through the window-panes. "There is no need of going for the child's
parents!"

"We told you so, father!" screamed Violet and Peony, as he re-entered
the parlour. "You would bring her in; and now our
poor--dear--beau-ti-ful little snow-sister is thawed!"

And their own sweet little faces were already dissolved in tears; so
that their father, seeing what strange things occasionally happen in
this every-day world, felt not a little anxious lest his children
might be going to thaw too! In the utmost perplexity, he demanded an
explanation of his wife. She could only reply, that, being summoned to
the parlour by the cries of Violet and Peony, she found no trace of
the little white maiden, unless it were the remains of a heap of snow,
which, while she was gazing at it, melted quite away upon the
hearth-rug.

"And there you see all that is left of it!" added she, pointing to a
pool of water, in front of the stove.

"Yes, father," said Violet, looking reproachfully at him, through her
tears, "there is all that is left of our dear little snow-sister!"

"Naughty father!" cried Peony, stamping his foot, and--I shudder to
say--shaking his little fist at the common-sensible man. "We told you
how it would be! What for did you bring her in?"

And the Heidenberg stove, through the isinglass of its door, seemed to
glare at good Mr. Lindsey, like a red-eyed demon, triumphing in the
mischief which it had done!

This, you will observe, was one of those rare cases, which yet will
occasionally happen, where common-sense finds itself at fault. The
remarkable story of the snow-image, though to that sagacious class of
people to whom good Mr. Lindsey belongs it may seem but a childish
affair, is, nevertheless, capable of being moralised in various
methods, greatly for their edification. One of its lessons, for
instance, might be that it behooves men, and especially men of
benevolence, to consider well what they are about, and, before acting
on their philanthropic purposes, to be quite sure that they comprehend
the nature and all the relations of the business in hand. What has
been established as an element of good to one being may prove absolute
mischief to another; even as the warmth of the parlour was proper
enough for children of flesh and blood, like Violet and Peony--though
by no means very wholesome, even for them--involved nothing short of
annihilation to the unfortunate snow-image.

But, after all, there is no teaching anything to wise men of good Mr.
Lindsey's stamp. They know everything--O, to be sure!--everything that
has been, and everything that is, and everything that, by any future
possibility, can be. And should some phenomenon of nature or
providence transcend their system, they will not recognise it, even if
it come to pass under their very noses.

"Wife," said Mr. Lindsey, after a fit of silence, "see what a quantity
of snow the children have brought in on their feet! It has made quite
a puddle here before the stove. Pray tell Dora to bring some towels
and sop it up!"




IV

UNDINE


I.--HOW THE KNIGHT CAME TO THE FISHERMAN'S COTTAGE

Once--it may be some hundreds of years ago--there lived a good old
Fisherman, who, on a fine summer's evening, was sitting before the
door mending his nets. He dwelt in a land of exceeding beauty. The
green slope, upon which he had built his hut, stretched far out into a
great lake; and it seemed either that the cape, enamoured of the
glassy blue waters, had pressed forward into their bosom, or that the
lake had lovingly folded in its arms the blooming promontory, with her
waving grass and flowers, and the refreshing shade of her tall trees.
Each bade the other welcome, and increased its own beauty by so doing.
This lovely nook was scarcely ever visited by mankind, except by the
Fisherman and his family. For behind the promontory lay a very wild
forest, which, beside being gloomy and pathless, had too bad a name as
the resort of wondrous spirits and goblins, to be crossed by anyone
who could help it. Yet the pious old Fisherman went through it without
being molested, whenever he walked to a large city beyond the forest,
to dispose of the costly fish that he caught in the lake. For him,
indeed, there was little danger, even in that forest; for his thoughts
were almost all thoughts of devotion, and his custom was to carol
forth to Heaven a loud and heartfelt hymn, on first setting foot
within the treacherous shades.

As he sat this evening most peacefully over his nets, he was startled
in an unwonted manner by a rustling sound in the forest, like that of
a man and horse; and the noise came nearer and nearer. The dreams he
had had in many a stormy night of the spirits of the forest started up
before his mind, particularly the image of a gigantic long snow-white
man, who kept nodding his head mysteriously. Nay, as he raised his
eyes and looked into the forest, he could fancy he saw, through the
thick screen of leaves, the nodding creature advance toward him. But
he soon composed himself, recollecting that even in the heart of the
woods nothing had ever befallen him; much less here, in the open air,
could the bad spirits have power to touch him. He moreover repeated a
text from the Bible aloud and earnestly, which quite restored his
courage, and he almost laughed to see how his fancy had misled him.
The white nodding man suddenly resolved himself into a little brook he
knew of old, which gushed bubbling out of the wood, and emptied itself
into the lake. And the rustling had been caused by a horseman in
gorgeous attire, who now came forward toward the hut from beneath the
trees.

He wore a scarlet mantle over his purple, gold-embroidered jerkin; a
plume of red and purple feathers waved over his gold-coloured
barret-cap; and from his golden belt hung a glittering jewelled sword.
The white courser which carried him was of lighter make than the
generality of chargers, and trod so airily, that the enamelled turf
seemed scarcely to bend under him. The aged Fisherman could not quite
shake off his uneasiness, although he told himself that so noble a
guest could bring him no harm, and accordingly doffed his hat
courteously, and interrupted his work when he approached.

The Knight reined in his horse, and asked whether they could both
obtain one night's shelter.

"As to your horse, good sir," answered the Fisherman, "I have no
better stable to offer him than the shady meadow, and no provender
but the grass which grows upon it. But you shall yourself be heartily
welcome to my poor house, and to the best of my supper and night
lodging."

The stranger seemed quite content; he dismounted, and they helped each
other to take off the horse's girth and saddle, after which the Knight
let him graze on the flowery pasture, saying to his host, "Even if I
had found you less kind and hospitable, my good old man, you must have
borne with me till to-morrow; for I see we are shut in by a wide lake
and Heaven forbid that I should cross the haunted forest again at
nightfall!"

"We will not say much about that," replied the Fisherman; and he led
his guest into the cottage.

There, close by the hearth, from whence a scanty fire shed its
glimmering light over the clean little room, sat the Fisherman's old
wife. When their noble guest came in, she rose to give him a kind
welcome, but immediately resumed her place of honour, without offering
it to him; and the Fisherman said with a smile: "Do not take it amiss,
young sir, if she does not give up to you the most comfortable place;
it is the custom among us poor people that it should always belong to
the oldest."

"Why, husband!" said his wife, quietly, "what are you thinking of? Our
guest is surely a Christian gentleman, and how could it come into his
kind young heart to turn old people out of their places? Sit down, my
young lord," added she, turning to the Knight; "there stands a very
comfortable chair for you; only remember it must not be too roughly
handled, for one leg is not so steady as it has been." The Knight drew
the chair carefully forward, seated himself sociably, and soon felt
quite at home in this little household, and as if he had just returned
to it from a far journey.

The three friends began to converse openly and familiarly together.
First the Knight asked a few questions about the forest, but the old
man would not say much of that; least of all, said he, was it fitting
to talk of such things at nightfall; but, on household concerns, and
their own way of life, the old folks talked readily; and were pleased
when the Knight told them of his travels, and that he had a castle
near the source of the Danube, and that his name was Lord Huldbrand of
Ringstetten. In the middle of their discourse, the stranger often
observed a noise outside a small window, as if someone were dashing
water against it. The old man knit his brows and looked grave whenever
this occurred; at last, when a great splash of water came full against
the panes, and some found its way into the room, he could bear it no
longer, but started up, crying, "Undine! will you never leave off
these childish tricks--when we have a stranger gentleman in the house
too!" This produced silence outside, all but a sound of suppressed
giggling, and the Fisherman said as he came back; "My honoured guest,
you must put up with this, and perhaps with many another piece of
mischief; but she means no harm. It is our adopted child Undine; there
is no breaking her of her childish ways, though she is eighteen years
old now. But as I told you she is as good a child as ever lived at
bottom."

"Ay, so you may say!" rejoined his wife, shaking her head. "When you
come home from fishing, or from a journey, her playful nonsense may be
pleasant enough. But, to be keeping her out of mischief all day long,
as I must do, and never get a word of sense from her, nor a bit of
help and comfort in my old age, is enough to weary the patience of a
saint."

"Well, well," said the good man, "you feel toward Undine as I do
toward the lake. Though its waves are apt enough to burst my banks
and my nets, yet I love them for all that, and so do you love our
pretty wench, with all her plaguey tricks. Don't you?"

"Why, one cannot be really angry with her, to be sure," said the dame,
smiling.

Here the door flew open, and a beautiful fair creature tripped in, and
said, playfully: "Well, father, you made game of me; where is your
guest?" The next moment she perceived the Knight, and stood fixed in
mute admiration; while Huldbrand gazed upon her lovely form, and tried
to impress her image on his mind, thinking that he must avail himself
of her amazement to do so, and that in a moment she would shrink away
in a fit of bashfulness. But it proved otherwise. After looking at him
a good while, she came up to him familiarly, knelt down beside him,
and playing with a golden medal that hung from his rich chain, she
said: "So, thou kind, thou beautiful guest! hast thou found us out in
our poor hut at last? Why didst thou roam the world so many years
without coming near us? Art come through the wild forest, my handsome
friend?" The old woman allowed him no time to answer. She desired her
to get up instantly, like a modest girl, and to set about her work.
But Undine, without replying, fetched a footstool and put it close to
Huldbrand's chair, sat down there with her spinning, and said
cheerfully--"I will sit and work here." The old man behaved as parents
are apt to do with spoiled children. He pretended not to see Undine's
waywardness, and was beginning to talk of something else; but she
would not let him. She said, "I asked our visitor where he came from,
and he has not answered me yet."

"From the forest I came, you beautiful sprite," answered Huldbrand;
and she continued:

"Then you must tell me how you came there, and what wonderful
adventures you had in it, for I know that nobody can escape without
some."

Huldbrand could not help shuddering on being reminded of his
adventures, and involuntarily glanced at the window, half expecting to
see one of the strange beings he had encountered in the forest
grinning at him through it; but nothing was to be seen except the deep
black night, which had now closed in. He recollected himself, and was
just beginning his narrative, when the old man interposed: "Not just
now, Sir Knight; this is no time for such tales."

But Undine jumped up passionately, put her beautiful arms akimbo, and
standing before the Fisherman, exclaimed: "What! may not he tell his
story, father--may not he? But I will have it; he must. He shall
indeed!" And she stamped angrily with her pretty feet, but it was all
done in so comical and graceful a manner, that Huldbrand thought her
still more bewitching in her wrath, than in her playful mood.

Not so the old man; his long-restrained anger burst out uncontrolled.
He scolded Undine smartly for her disobedience, and unmannerly conduct
to the stranger, his wife chiming in.

Undine then said: "Very well, if you will be quarrelsome and not let
me have my own way, you may sleep alone in your smoky old hut!" and
she shot through the door like an arrow, and rushed into the dark
night.


II.--HOW UNDINE FIRST CAME TO THE FISHERMAN

Huldbrand and the Fisherman sprang from their seats, and tried to
catch the angry maiden; but before they could reach the house door,
Undine had vanished far into the thick shades, and not a sound of her
light footsteps was to be heard, by which to track her course.
Huldbrand looked doubtfully at his host; he almost thought that the
whole fair vision which had so suddenly plunged into the night, must
be a continuation of the phantom play which had whirled around him in
his passage through the forest. But the old man mumbled through his
teeth: "It is not the first time she has served us so. And here are
we, left in our anxiety with a sleepless night before us; for who can
tell what harm may befall her, all alone out-of-doors till daybreak?"

"Then let us be after her, good father, for God's sake!" cried
Huldbrand eagerly.

The old man replied, "Where would be the use? It were a sin to let you
set off alone in pursuit of the foolish girl, and my old legs would
never overtake such a Will-with-the-wisp--even if we could guess which
way she is gone."

"At least let us call her, and beg her to come back," said Huldbrand;
and he began calling after her in most moving tones: "Undine! O
Undine, do return!"

The old man shook his head, and said that all the shouting in the
world would do no good with such a wilful little thing. But yet he
could not himself help calling out from time to time in the darkness:
"Undine! ah, sweet Undine! I entreat thee, come back this once."

The Fisherman's words proved true. Nothing was to be seen or heard of
Undine; and as her foster-father would by no means suffer Huldbrand to
pursue her, they had nothing for it but to go in again. They found the
fire on the hearth nearly burnt out, and the dame, who did not take to
heart Undine's flight and danger so much as her husband, was gone to
bed. The old man blew the coals, laid on dry wood, and by the light of
the reviving flames he found a flagon of wine, which he put between
himself and his guest. "You are uneasy about that silly wench, Sir
Knight," said he, "and we had better kill part of the night chatting
and drinking, than toss about in our beds, trying to sleep in vain.
Had not we?"

Huldbrand agreed; the Fisherman made him sit in his wife's empty
arm-chair, and they both drank and talked together, as a couple of
worthy friends should do. Whenever, indeed, there was the least stir
outside the window, or even sometimes without any, one of them would
look up and say, "There she comes." Then they would keep silence for a
few moments, and as nothing came, resume their conversation, with a
shake of the head and a sigh.

But as neither could think of much beside Undine, the best means they
could devise for beguiling the time was, that the Fisherman should
relate, and the Knight listen to, the history of her first coming to
the cottage. He began as follows:

"One day, some fifteen years ago, I was carrying my fish through that
dreary wood to the town. My wife stayed at home, as usual; and at that
time she had a good and pretty reason for it--the Lord had bestowed
upon us (old as we already were) a lovely babe. It was a girl; and so
anxious were we to do our best for the little treasure, that we began
to talk of leaving our beautiful home, in order to give our darling a
good education among other human beings. With us poor folks, wishing
is one thing, and doing is quite another, Sir Knight; but what then?
we can only try our best. Well then, as I plodded on, I turned over
the scheme in my head. I was loath to leave our own dear nook, and it
made me shudder to think, in the din and brawls of the town, 'So it is
here we shall soon live, or in some place nearly as bad!' Yet I never
murmured against our good God, but rather thanked Him in secret for
His last blessing; nor can I say that I met with anything
extraordinary in the forest, either coming or going; indeed nothing to
frighten me has ever crossed my path. The Lord was ever with me in the
awful shades."

Here he uncovered his bald head, and sat for a time in silent prayer;
then putting his cap on again, he continued: "On this side of the wood
it was--on this side, that the sad news met me. My wife came toward me
with eyes streaming like two fountains; she was in deep mourning. 'Oh,
good Heaven!' I called out, 'where is our dear child? Tell me?'

"'Gone, dear husband,' she replied; and we went into our cottage
together, weeping silently. I looked for the little corpse, and then
first heard how it had happened. My wife had been sitting on the shore
with the child, and playing with it, all peace and happiness; when the
babe all at once leaned over, as if she saw something most beautiful
in the water; there she sat smiling, sweet angel! and stretching out
her little hands; but the next moment she darted suddenly out of her
arms, and down into the smooth waters. I made much search for the poor
little corpse; but in vain; not a trace of her could I find.

"When evening was come, we childless parents were sitting together in
the hut, silent; neither of us had a mind to speak, even if the tears
had let us. We were looking idly into the fire. Just then something
made a noise at the door. It opened, and a beautiful little maid, of
three or four years' old stood there gaily dressed, and smiling in our
faces. We were struck dumb with surprise, and at first hardly knew if
she were a little human being, or only an empty shadow. But I soon saw
that her golden hair and gay clothes were dripping wet, and it struck
me the little fairy must have been in the water and distressed for
help. 'Wife,' said I, 'our dear child had no friend to save her; shall
we not do for others what would have made our remaining days so happy,
if anyone had done it for us?' We undressed the child, put her to bed,
and gave her a warm drink, while she never said a word, but kept
smiling at us with her sky-blue eyes.

"The next morning we found she had done herself no harm; and I asked
her who were her parents, and what had brought her here; but she gave
me a strange, confused answer. I am sure she must have been born far
away, for these fifteen years have we kept her, without ever finding
out where she came from; and besides, she is apt to let drop such
marvellous things in her talk, that you might think she had lived in
the moon. She will speak of golden castles, of crystal roofs, and I
can't tell what beside. The only thing she has told us clearly, is,
that as she was sailing on the lake with her mother, she fell into the
water, and when she recovered her senses found herself lying under
these trees, in safety and comfort, upon our pretty shore.

"So now we had a serious, anxious charge thrown upon us. To keep
and bring up the foundling, instead of our poor drowned child--that
was soon resolved upon but who should tell us if she had yet been
baptised or no? She knew how not how to answer the question. That she
was one of God's creatures, made for His glory and service, that much
she knew; and anything that would glorify and please Him, she was
willing to have done. So my wife and I said to each other: 'If she has
never been baptised, there is no doubt it should be done; and if she
was, better do too much than too little, in a matter of such
consequence.' We therefore began to seek a good name for the child.
Dorothea seemed to us the best; for I had once heard that meant God's
gift; and she had indeed been sent us by Him as a special blessing, to
comfort us in our misery. But she would not hear of that name. She
said Undine was what her parents used to call her, and Undine she
would still be. That, I thought, sounded like a heathen name, and
occurred in no Calendar; and I took counsel with a priest in the town
about it. He also objected to the name Undine; and at my earnest
request, came home with me, through the dark forest, in order to
baptise her. The little creature stood before us, looking so gay and
charming in her holiday clothes, that the priest's heart warmed toward
her; and what with coaxing and wilfulness, she got the better of him,
so that he clean forgot all the objections he had thought of to the
name Undine. She was therefore so christened and behaved particularly
well and decently during the sacred rite, wild and unruly as she had
always been before. For, what my wife said just now was too true--we
have indeed found her the wildest little fairy! If I were to tell you
all--"

Here the Knight interrupted the Fisherman, to call his attention to a
sound of roaring waters, which he had noticed already in the pauses of
the old man's speech, and which now rose in fury as it rushed past the
windows. They both ran to the door. By the light of the newly risen
moon, they saw the brook which gushed out of the forest breaking
wildly over its banks, and whirling along stones and branches in its
eddying course. A storm, as if awakened by the uproar, burst from the
heavy clouds that were chasing each other across the moon; the lake
howled under the wings of the wind; the trees on the shore groaned
from top to bottom, and bowed themselves over the rushing waters.
"Undine! for God's sake, Undine!" cried the Knight, and the old man.
No answer was to be heard; and, heedless now of any danger to
themselves, they ran off in different directions, calling her in
frantic anxiety.


III.--HOW THEY FOUND UNDINE AGAIN

The longer Huldbrand wandered in vain pursuit of Undine, the more
bewildered he became. The idea that she might be a mere spirit of the
woods, sometimes returned upon him with double force; nay, amid the
howling waves and storm, the groaning of trees, and the wild commotion
of the once-peaceful spot, he might have fancied the whole promontory,
its hut and its inhabitants, to be a delusion of magic, but that he
still heard in the distance the Fisherman's piteous cries of "Undine!"
and the old housewife's loud prayers and hymns, above the whistling of
the blast.

At last he found himself on the margin of the overflowing stream, and
saw it by the moonlight rushing violently along, close to the edge of
the mysterious forest so as to make an island of the peninsula on
which he stood. "Gracious Heaven!" thought he, "Undine may have
ventured a step or two into that awful forest--perhaps in her pretty
waywardness, just because I would not tell her my story--and the
swollen stream has cut her off, and left her weeping alone among the
spectres!" A cry of terror escaped him, and he clambered down the bank
by means of some stones and fallen trees, hoping to wade or swim
across the flood, and seek the fugitive beyond it. Fearful and
unearthly visions did indeed float before him, like those he had met
with in the morning, beneath these groaning, tossing branches.
Especially he was haunted by the appearance of a tall white man, whom
he remembered but too well, grinning and nodding at him from the
opposite bank; however, the thought of these grim monsters did but
urge him onward as he recollected Undine, now perhaps in deadly fear
among them, and alone.

He had laid hold of a stout pine branch, and leaning on it, was
standing in the eddy, though scarcely able to stem it, but he stepped
boldly forward--when a sweet voice exclaimed close behind him: "Trust
him not--trust not! The old fellow is tricksy--the stream!"

Well he knew those silver tones: the moon was just disappearing behind
a cloud, and he stood amid the deepening shades, made dizzy as the
water shot by him with the speed of an arrow. Yet he would not desist.
"And if thou art not truly there, if thou flittest before me an empty
shadow, I care not to live; I will melt into air like thee, my beloved
Undine!" This he cried aloud, and strode further into the flood.

"Look round then--look round, fair youth!" he heard just behind him,
and looking round, he beheld by the returning moonbeams, on a fair
island left by the flood, under some thickly interlaced branches,
Undine all smiles and loveliness, nestling in the flowery grass. How
much more joyfully than before did the young man use his pine staff to
cross the waters! A few strides brought him through the flood that had
parted them; and he found himself at her side, on the nook of soft
grass, securely sheltered under the shade of the old trees. Undine
half arose, and twined her arms round his neck in the green arbour,
making him sit down by her on the turf. "Here you shall tell me all,
my own friend," said she in a low whisper; "the cross old folks cannot
overhear us. And