*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVENTURES IN SHADOW-LAND ***
[Illustration: “The Toad Woman stopped fanning and looked at her.”
_Frontispiece._ Page 125.]
ADVENTURES IN SHADOW-LAND.
CONTAINING
EVA’S ADVENTURES IN SHADOW-LAND.
BY MARY D. NAUMAN.
AND
THE MERMAN AND THE FIGURE-HEAD.
BY CLARA F. GUERNSEY.
TWO VOLUMES IN ONE.
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS._
PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1874.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
LIPPINCOTT’S PRESS,
PHILADELPHIA.
EVA’S ADVENTURES IN SHADOW-LAND.
TO
MY FRIEND
E. W.
[Illustration]
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
WHAT EVA SAW IN THE POND 9
CHAPTER II.
EVA’S FIRST ADVENTURE 15
CHAPTER III.
THE GIFT OF THE FOUNTAIN 23
CHAPTER IV.
THE FIRST MOONRISE 30
CHAPTER V.
WHAT ASTER WAS 36
CHAPTER VI.
THE BEGINNING OF THE SEARCH 45
CHAPTER VII.
ASTER’S MISFORTUNES 52
CHAPTER VIII.
WHAT ASTER DID 63
CHAPTER IX.
THE DOOR IN THE WALL 73
CHAPTER X.
THE VALLEY OF REST 80
CHAPTER XI.
THE MAGIC BOAT 92
CHAPTER XII.
DOWN THE BROOK 104
CHAPTER XIII.
THE ENCHANTED RIVER 119
CHAPTER XIV.
THE GREEN FROG 130
CHAPTER XV.
IN THE GROTTO 145
CHAPTER XVI.
ASTER’S STORY 151
CHAPTER XVII.
THE LAST OF SHADOW-LAND 162
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
EVA’S ADVENTURES IN SHADOW-LAND.
CHAPTER I.
_WHAT EVA SAW IN THE POND._
She had been reading fairy-tales, after her lessons were done, all the
morning; and now that dinner was over, her father gone to his office,
the baby asleep, and her mother sitting quietly sewing in the cool
parlor, Eva thought that she would go down across the field to the old
mill-pond; and sit in the grass, and make a fairy-tale for herself.
There was nothing that Eva liked better than to go and sit in the tall
grass; grass so tall that when the child, in her white dress, looped on
her plump white shoulders with blue ribbons, her bright golden curls
brushed back from her fair brow, and her blue eyes sparkling, sat
down in it, you could not see her until you were near her, and then it
was just as if you had found a picture of a little girl in a frame, or
rather a nest of soft, green grass.
All through this tall, wavy grass, down to the very edge of the pond,
grew many flowers,--violets, and buttercups, and dandelions, like
little golden suns. And as Eva sat there in the grass, she filled her
lap with the purple and yellow flowers; and all around her the bees
buzzed as though they wished to light upon the flowers in her lap;
on which, at last,--so quietly did she sit,--two black-and-golden
butterflies alighted; while a great brown beetle, with long black
feelers, climbed up a tall grass-stalk in front of her, which, bending
slightly under his weight, swung to and fro in the gentle breeze which
barely stirred Eva’s golden curls; and the field-crickets chirped, and
even a snail put his horns out of his shell to look at the little girl,
sitting so quietly in the grass among the flowers, for Eva was gentle,
and neither bee, nor butterfly, beetle, cricket, or snail were afraid
of her. And this is what Eva called making a fairy-tale for herself.
But sitting so quietly and watching the insects, and hearing their low
hum around her, at last made Eva feel drowsy; and she would have gone
to sleep, as she often did, if all of a sudden there had not sounded,
just at her feet, so that it startled her, a loud
Croak! croak!
But it frightened the two butterflies; for away they went, floating off
on their black-and-golden wings; and the brown beetle was in so much
of a hurry to run away that he tumbled off the grass-stalk on which he
had been swinging, and as soon as he could regain his legs, crept, as
fast as they could carry him, under a friendly mullein-leaf which grew
near, and hid himself; and the crickets were silent; and the bees all
flew away to their hive; and the snail drew himself and his horns into
his house, so that he looked like nothing in the world but a shell; for
when beetles, and butterflies, and crickets, and bees, and snails hear
this croak! croak! they know that it is time for them to get out of the
way.
And when Eva looked down, there, just at her feet, sat a great green
toad.
She gave him a little push with her foot to make him go away; but
instead of that he only hopped the nearer, and again came--
Croak! croak!
He was entirely too near now for comfort, so the little girl jumped up,
dropping all the flowers she had gathered; and as she stood still for a
moment she thought that she heard the green toad say:
“Go to the pond! Go to the pond!”
It seemed so funny to Eva to hear a toad talk that she stood as still
as a mouse looking at him; and as she looked at him, she heard him say
again, as plain as possible:
“Go to the pond! Go to the pond!”
And then Eva did just exactly what either you or I would have done if
we had heard a great green toad talking to us. She went slowly through
the tall grass down to the very edge of the pond.
But instead of the fishes which used to swim about in the pretty clear
water, and which would come to eat the crumbs of bread she always threw
to them, and the funny, croaking frogs which used to jump and splash
in the water, she saw nothing but the same great green toad, which
had hopped down faster than she had walked, and which was now sitting
on a mossy stone near the bank. And when Eva would have turned away he
croaked again:
“Stay by the pond! Stay by the pond!”
And whether Eva wished it or not, she stood by the pond--for she really
could not help it--and looked. And it seemed to her that the sky grew
dark and the water black, as it always does before a rain; and then the
child grew frightened, and would have run away, but that just then, in
the very blackest part of the pond, she saw shining and looking up at
her a little round full moon, with a face in it; and it seemed to her,
strange though you may think it, that the eyes of the face in the moon
winked at her; and then it was gone.
And again Eva would have left the pond, but the green toad, which she
thought had suddenly grown larger, croaked more loudly:
“Stay by the pond! Stay by the pond!”
And Eva obeyed, as indeed she could not help doing; and then again, in
the pond, there came and went the little moon-face, only that this time
it was larger, and the eyes winked longer.
For the third time the child would have turned away, frightened at all
these strange doings in the pond; but for the third time the green
toad, larger than ever, croaked:
“Stay by the pond! Stay by the pond!”
So, for the third time, Eva looked at the pond; and there, for the
third time, was the shining moon-face, as large now as a real full
moon, though, when Eva looked up, there was no moon shining in the sky
to be reflected in the pond; and then the eyes in the moon-face looked
harder at her, and the toad winked at her; and then the toad was the
moon and the moon was the toad, and both seemed to change places with
each other; and at last both of them shone and winked so that Eva could
not tell them apart; and before she knew what she was doing she lay
down quietly in the tall grass, and the moon in the pond and the green
toad winked at her until she fell asleep.
Then the moon-eyes closed and the shining face faded; and the green
toad slipped quietly off his stone into the water; and still Eva slept
soundly.
And that was what Eva saw in the pond.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II.
_EVA’S FIRST ADVENTURE._
How long she lay there asleep the child did not know. It might only
have been for a few minutes; it might have been for hours. Yet, when
she did awake, and think it was time for her to go home, she did not
understand where she could be. The place seemed the same, yet not the
same,--as though some wonderful change had come over it during her
sleep. There was the pond, to be sure, but was it the same pond? Tall
trees grew round it, yet their branches were bare and leafless. A
little brook ran into the pond, which she was sure that she never had
seen there before. Was she still asleep? No. She was wide awake. She
sprang to her feet and looked around. The green toad was gone, so was
the moon-face; her father’s house was nowhere to be seen; there was no
sun, but it was not dark, for a light seemed to come from the earth,
and yet the earth itself did not shine; mountains rose in the distance;
but, strangest of all, these mountains sometimes bore one shape,
sometimes another; at times they were like great crouching beasts, then
again like castles or palaces, then, as you looked, they were mountains
again. Strange shadows passed over the pond, stranger shapes flitted
among the trees.
Eva did not know how the change had been made, still less did she guess
that she was now in Shadow-Land.
Yet it was all so singular that, as she looked upon the changing
mountain forms, and the quaint shadows, a sudden longing came over
her, with a desire to go home, and she turned away from the pond. And
as she did so, a little fragrant purple violet, the last that was left
of all the flowers which she had gathered, and which had been tangled
in her curls, fell to the ground, melting into fragrance as it did
so; and as it fell, there passed from Eva’s mind all recollection of
father, mother, home, and the little brother cooing in his cradle:
the changing mountain forms seemed strange no longer; she forgot to
wonder at the singular earth-light, and at the absence of the sun; and
noticing for the first time that she was standing in a little path
which ran along the pond, and then followed the course of the little
brook, whose waters seemed singing the words, “Follow, follow me!” Eva
wondered no longer, but first stooping to pick up a little stick, in
shape like a boy’s cane, with a knob at one end, just like a roughly
carved head, and which was lying just at her feet, she walked along the
little path, which seemed made expressly for her to walk in.
She walked on and on, as she thought, for hours, yet there came neither
sunset nor moonrise, and there were no stars in the sky, which seemed
nearer the earth than she had ever seen it before. There were clouds,
to be sure, of shapes as strange as those of the mountains, which
passed and repassed each other, although there was no wind to move
them. Everything was silent. Even the trees, swaying, as they did, to
and fro, moved noiselessly; the only sound, save Eva’s light steps,
which broke the stillness was the silvery ripple of the brook, which
kept company with the path Eva trod, and whose waters murmured, gently,
“Follow, follow me!”
And Eva followed the murmuring brook, which seemed to her like a
pleasant companion in this silent land, where, even as there was no
sound, there was no sign of life; nothing like the real world which
the child had left, and of which, with the fall of the little violet
from her curls, she had lost all recollection; even as though that
world had never existed for her. Once or twice, as she went on, holding
her little stick in her hand, she imagined that she saw child-figures
beckoning to her; but, upon going up to them, she always found that
either a rock, or a low, leafless shrub, or else a rising wreath of
mist, had deceived her.
Yet, though she was alone, with no one near her, not even a bird to
flit merrily from tree to tree, nor an insect to buzz across her path,
Eva felt and knew no fear, and not for a moment did she care that she
was alone. The silvery ripple of the little brook, along which her path
lay, sounded like a pleasant voice in her ears; when thirsty, she
drank of its waters, which seemed to serve alike as food and drink;
when tired, she would lie fearlessly down upon its grassy margin, and
sleep, as she would imagine, only for a few minutes, for there would
be no change in the strange sky nor in the earth-light when she would
awake from what it had been when she lay down; and yet in reality she
would sleep as long as she would have done in her little bed at home.
For two whole days, which yet seemed as only a few hours, the child
followed the brook. During this time she had felt no desire to leave
the path; she had unhesitatingly obeyed the rippling voice of the
brook, which seemed to say, “Follow, follow me!” But now there was
a change: the water, at times, encroached upon the path, and rocks
obstructed the current, around which little waves broke and dashed,
while strange little flames, which yet did not burn, and gave no
heat, started from the waves, dancing on them; and misty shapes, more
definite than those she had first seen, beckoned to her to come to
them. Now, Eva felt an irresistible longing to leave the brook, and
wander away; far, far into the deep forest, away from the dancing
flames and the beckoning shapes.
And once or twice she did leave the path, and turn her back upon the
brook. But every time that she stepped off the beaten track, faint
though it was, her feet grew heavy, and clung to the earth, so that
she could scarcely move; and the waves of the brook leaped higher and
higher; and the dancing flames grew brighter; and the silvery voice,
louder and clearer than ever, would call, “Follow, follow me!” till the
child was always glad to return to the path, and then once again the
way would grow easy to her feet, and the water would resume its former
tranquillity.
On, on she went, still following the course of the brook. But at last
a new sound mingled, though but faintly, with its musical ripple,--the
distant voice of falling waters. And when first this new tone
reached Eva’s ears, a few signs of life began to show themselves,--a
sad-colored moth flitted lazily across the path into the forest,--a
slow-crawling worm or hairy caterpillar hid itself under a stone as Eva
passed,--the bright eyes of a mouse would peep out at her from under
the shelter of a leaf, or else a toad would leap hastily from the path
into the waters of the brook.
Still Eva walked onward, more eagerly than ever, for though the
“Follow, follow me!” of the brook was now silent, she heard the voice
of the other waters, and at every turn in the path she looked forward
eagerly for the little joyous cascade she expected to see. For it she
looked, yet in vain: though the sound of the waters grew louder, she
saw nothing, till at last a sudden gleam of golden light, from a long
opening in the forest, fell across the now placid waters of the brook;
and Eva looked up to see, far away in this opening, a fountain playing
in clouds of golden spray, amid which danced sparkles of light; and the
path, parting abruptly from the brook which it had followed so long,
led down the opening in the forest directly to this play of waters,
whose voice Eva had heard and followed.
And as she turned away from the little brook, whose course and her
own had so long been the same, it seemed to her that even the silvery
ripple of its waters died away into silence; and, looking back once
more, after she had taken a few steps, upon the way by which she had
come, lo! the brook and its waters had wholly disappeared, and an
impenetrable forest had already closed up the path behind her.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III.
_THE GIFT OF THE FOUNTAIN._
I have said that Eva wondered at nothing which came to pass in this
land through which she was wandering; nothing surprised her, but the
most singular occurrences appeared natural; and so it did not seem at
all strange to her that the path and the brook should be swallowed up,
as it were, by the dark, hungry, impenetrable forest; and it was almost
with a feeling of pleasure at the change that after the one hurried
glance she gave to the path by which she had come, and which was now no
longer to be seen, that she went, still holding the little stick in her
hand, up the opening between the trees to the beautiful fountain.
And as she drew near, the bright waters of the fountain played higher
and higher, and sparkled and glistened in golden beauty; and rainbows
of many colors surrounded it, so that Eva longed to dip her hands in
its joyous flow, while the waters as they fell tinkled merrily like
silvery fairy bells; and she came nearer and nearer, thinking she had
never heard such sweet music as this water made, till she was within a
few feet of the fountain.
But when there she paused. For, out of the earth,--all round and even
under the dropping spray and the falling waters,--sprang myriads of
little rainbow-colored flames, which danced to and fro among and under
the water-drops,--like a circle of tiny, fiery sentinels, guarding the
fountain. And Eva, afraid to cross this circle of flames, for which
she was unprepared, would not have ventured nearer, but that at this
very moment the little stick which she held turned in her hand, and
pointed downward; and then Eva saw that it pointed to a little path,
like that by which she had come, which ran around the fountain; and
the child followed the path; until she had walked once, twice, thrice,
around the playing waters, and yet, though she looked for it, found no
spot where the little flame-sentinels, like faithful soldiers on duty,
would permit her to pass. And then she would have turned away from the
beautiful water,--her foot, indeed, had left the path,--when she heard
a voice, even sweeter and more silvery than the voice of the brook,
coming from the very midst of the fountain, and saying:
“Eva! Eva! have no fear,
To the fountain’s brink come near.”
And hearing these words, Eva stood still in surprise, yet without
obeying them. But, after a moment’s pause, the voice repeated the words.
Then, for the first time since her wanderings had begun, Eva spoke, and
her voice sounded strange in her own ears, low though it was:
“How can I cross the fire?”
A little, low, melodious laugh, like that of a merry child, answered
her; and when Eva looked to see whence it came, she saw that the
little knot upon the end of her cane was a real head, that the lips
were laughing, and that from the queer eyes came two funny little blue
flames; and as Eva looked at it, very much tempted to throw it away,
the head laughed again, and then the lips parted and said:
“Flames, like these, of shadow birth,
May not harm a child of earth.”
Then the voice was silent. But a thousand rainbow-colored bubbles
glowed at once all over the waters of the fountain; and on each bubble
there stood and danced a tiny elf, clad in bright colors; shapes so
light and airy that their frail supports never failed them; and the
tiny flames grew brighter, and then, as Eva still hesitated, fearing
yet to cross them, the lips of the little head spoke once more:
“’Neath thy step they will expire--
Fear not, Eva; cross the fire.”
Hearing this, Eva stepped forward. As she did so, the little stick
dropped or slipped from her hand, and, rolling into the fountain,
disappeared in its waters; and at every step she took she saw that the
little flames died away, as the voice had said, under her feet; till,
when she reached the fountain’s brink, they were all gone, and no
trace of them was left. As she looked at the waters, they seemed to
become solid, and shape themselves into an image carved as it were out
of pure, shining gold, yet glowing with many colors; and then, slowly,
slowly, with a sound like distant music, the beautiful, wonderful thing
began to sink into the earth; and Eva, her tiny hands clasped, her fair
cheeks flushed, her soft blue eyes sparkling, stood in silence and
looked. And just as the magic fountain, which, when the child first
came up to it, had been so high that its waters played far above her
head, had sunk so low that Eva, had she wished, might have laid her
hand upon its summit, she saw, cradled as it were, on the very crest
of what had been the golden water, a tiny figure; not like one of the
elves which had danced on the rainbow-bubbles, but like a sleeping
child, which Eva thought, at first, was only a doll lying there, in its
green-and-scarlet velvet dress; and for a moment the slow, descending
motion of the fountain stopped, and Eva heard these words, in the same
voice which had spoken before through the lips of the little head,
though this time it came from the fountain:
“Take it, Eva, ’tis thy fate,
See, for thee the waters wait.”
Obedient to the voice, the child stretched forth her hand, and as her
slight fingers closed upon the little, motionless form, a bright and
dazzling crimson light seemed to flash everywhere, and the water,
losing its solidity, began once more to gleam and sparkle, and to sink
again into the earth; and in another moment it was gone, and in the
place where the fountain had played there was now a bed of soft, green
moss, through and around which was twined a vine, whose leaves were
mingled with clusters of bright scarlet berries. Then for the first
time she missed her little stick; and she looked for it, but it was
nowhere to be found.
And then the sky grew dark, as the glorious crimson light slowly faded
away, and one by one stars peeped out from the sky; and Eva, still
clasping the little figure which had come so strangely to her, to
her heart, lay down quietly upon the soft, green moss, which seemed
to have sprung up there expressly as a bed for her, and before many
minutes had passed she was asleep.
But while she slept, there hovered over her two fair white forms, who
looked at her and smiled, and then one of them whispered to the other,
in the silvery voice of the brook:
“The worst is over.”
“No,” the other replied. “Although the boy is safe, for a time, in the
hands of his protector, his punishment is not yet over. Love must teach
him obedience,--that alone can appease and work out the will of Fate.”
“And we can do no more for him!”
“We can only wait, and hope.”
A moment later, and the two bright forms were gone. And, watched by the
twinkling stars, lulled by the low murmur of the gentle breeze playing
among the trees of the great forest, the fair child slept, holding
clasped to her innocent breast the helpless figure which had come to
her as the gift of the fountain.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV.
_THE FIRST MOONRISE._
But sleep does not last forever, and after a time Eva awoke. And when
she first sat up, and looked around her, she could not understand,
for a moment, how it could be that everything was so changed; why the
brook should be gone, and its voice silenced; the path no more to be
seen; and how she should be sitting on this soft bed of velvety-green
moss, with the little figure lying in her lap. Then, all at once, she
remembered all that had happened the day before,--and as she thought it
over, like a pleasant, yet indistinct dream, she recalled the two fair
forms which had hovered over her sleep,--faintly conscious of their
presence, though unaware of the words which they had spoken. Whether
they were real, or only a dream, Eva did not know; she only recalled
them mistily; for, in this strange, silent land, through which she was
wandering, she never knew what was real or what unreal,--it was all
alike to her.
And as nothing that happened astonished her, so never for one moment
did her thoughts go back to the father and mother she had left, or to
the little baby-brother cooing in his cradle. It was as though they
never had existed, so completely were they forgotten. The Present, such
as it was, had effaced all memory of that Past.
Sitting on her soft, mossy bed, still holding in her little hands the
motionless little figure which the fountain had left her, and which,
Eva knew,--though how she knew it she could not tell,--was something
to be cared for and guarded, as being more helpless than herself.
Eva thought over all the adventures of the day before, and while she
wondered what would come next, she wished she could once more hear the
pleasant murmur of the brook which had guided her, for what purpose she
knew not, to this spot.
Only a few moments had passed since the child awoke, when a low,
musical chime rang through the forest. It died away and then returned;
and then came again and again, in tones so marvellously sweet that
Eva, who had just taken the little figure into her hands, dropped him
into her lap, and pushed her long golden curls away from her face, the
better to listen to the melody.
Once more it came, and once more died away into silence. And then there
was a low, rushing sound, and, far in the distance, Eva saw arise,
as it were from out of the earth, among the trees, the tiny silver
crescent of a young new moon,--and as she looked at it, it rose higher
and higher, and faster and faster, till it reached, in a few minutes,
the very centre of the sky, the child’s blue eyes still following it;
and when once there it paused, and floated among the strange, gleaming
clouds, which surrounded it, like a little shining boat.
With a sudden impulse Eva bent down and kissed the little figure lying
in her lap; and then she looked up at the crescent of the moon, as upon
the face of an old friend; and she would have sat there longer watching
it, but that all at once a little, weak voice said:
“I am awake again, and there is my home.”
[Illustration: “--taking off the plumed hat which he wore, he made her
a very low bow.” Page 33.]
Then there came a hurried exclamation of surprise, and Eva looked down
from the moon’s crescent to see that the little figure which she had
taken from the crest of the fountain had suddenly, as it were, been
gifted by her kiss, with life, motion, and speech, and that he was now
standing in her lap, evidently as much astonished at seeing her as she
was at the change which had come over him.
But their mutual surprise did not last; for the little mannikin began
to laugh as Eva’s blue eyes grew larger and rounder, and when at last
she asked, “Who are you?” he put his head to one side, in the most
comical manner, and, taking off the plumed cap which he wore, he made
her a very low bow.
“I know now who you are,” he said. “You are Eva, and you will have to
take care of me,--that is all you were sent here for.”
Eva laughed. “Suppose I should not want to take care of such a little
thing as you are?”
“You will not have any choice in the matter,--you cannot help yourself.”
“Why?”
“Because THEY have said it.”
“I may not choose to do it.”
“What is the use of talking,” the boy went on, “when you know that you
will?”
And such were the answers that he persisted in giving to all her
inquiries.
“You said you knew who I was,” Eva went on; “but how did you know it?”
“THEY told me.”
“Who are THEY?”
“THEY led you here to me, and for me. You must not ask so many
questions.”
“May I not even ask your name?”
“You ought to know that without my telling you. But, as you don’t, I
will answer you. It is Aster.”
“Aster? Aster?” Eva slowly repeated; “it seems to me that I have heard
that name before.”
“You never did,” was the somewhat sullen answer; “for no one but myself
has any right to it.”
“Yet I am very sure that I have heard it before, at----”
“Hush! hush! You must never say that here,” said the miniature boy,
climbing up on Eva’s shoulder, and laying his hand upon her lips. “You
know as well as I do that you never heard my name before.”
“I thought I had,” Eva said, looking lovingly at the little figure
nestling among her golden curls; “but I now know that I never did.
Still, I would like to know who you are. Are you a fairy?”
“I am not a fairy, but you are all mine,” Aster said, gayly. “But you
must be careful with me, and never lose me, or else----”
“What?”
“I do not know. THEY are watching us.”
Who “THEY” were, Eva could not induce him to say. For even when he
did try to explain, his words were all so confused that Eva could not
understand at all what he meant, although he seemed to speak plainly;
and the only thing that she could really learn from him was this,--that
she must not ask questions, and that THEY were THEY.
Which is all very strange to us; but it appears that Eva was at last
satisfied, because Aster seemed to think that she should understand it
just as he did, and that nothing further need, consequently, be said on
the subject.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER V.
_WHAT ASTER WAS._
For several days the two, Eva and Aster, wandered through the forest
with no object in view, and returned every evening to rest upon the
soft, mossy bed which now covered the place where the golden fountain
had once played. The scarlet berries of the vine surrounding it gave
them food. The young moon, floating in the sky, gave them light; for
while she shone, it was their day; when, suddenly as she arose, she
would drop from the centre of the sky, then came their night; and the
hours of her absence were spent in sleep.
So, at stated intervals, the moon sprang suddenly from the earth, shone
there, replacing the faint earth-light which, during her absence, had
guided Eva, and which still shone when she was not to be seen; then,
after her hours were over, she as suddenly descended; and her rising
and her setting were alike accompanied by the same weird music which
had heralded her first coming, though its notes were fainter than those
which had hailed the rising of the young new moon.
But every time that the moon returned it seemed to Eva that she grew
brighter and larger, and that she shed more light upon the earth. And
as the light grew brighter, pale white flowers began here and there
to bloom, flowers which drooped and closed their petals as soon as
the moon fell from the sky; flowers which, as Eva thought, murmured a
low song as she passed them, yet a song whose words she never could
distinguish. And at last she noticed that, as the silver crescent of
the moon broadened, the slight form of Aster seemed to grow and to
expand; so that he was no longer the tiny doll-like figure which she
had taken from the fountain’s crest, but more like a boy of four years
old.
Yet this change, although it was singular, was only a source of
pleasure to the child. It gave her a companion, not merely a plaything,
for until now she had looked upon Aster in that light,--something
which, though it could talk, walk, sleep, and eat, was only a new toy,
to be taken care of and prized as such. She never had looked upon Aster
otherwise.
At last, when the moon had reached her first quarter, and the two,
enjoying her pure light, sat on their mossy bed, Eva asked the boy the
same question she had asked him the day her first kiss had awakened him:
“Tell me who you are.”
“I am Aster.”
“I know that,” Eva said, laying her hand on the boy’s shoulder; “but
that is only your name.”
“I shall be as large as you are, soon,” Aster said, raising his
star-like eyes to the moon as he spoke. “When she is round, I shall be
as tall as you are, Eva.”
Eva laughed. “How do you know?”
“It will be; because it must be.”
“You are Aster,” Eva said, slowly, “and I know how you came to me; but
why did you come?”
“You will know then.”
“When?”
“When the moon is round.”
“Why not now?”
“THEY will not let you.”
And with this answer Eva was forced to be content. But every day they
would stand side by side, and every day Aster grew taller and taller;
and every day the moon grew broader and brighter.
At last she rose, a round, perfect orb, to her station in the sky; and
as Eva, awakened by the loud music which told of her coming, sat up to
see and wonder at the bright light she cast, Aster came quietly behind
her, and, laying his hands on her shoulders, said:
“Look at me, Eva. The day has come, and I am as tall as you are.”
Eva sprang to her feet. As she did so, Aster put his arm around her,
and she saw that there was now no difference in their height,--they
were exactly the same size. And, strange to say, his clothes had grown
with him, and their rich, soft velvet fitted him now as perfectly as it
had done when Eva first took him, small and helpless, from the crest of
the golden fountain.
“I can tell you now who I am,” the beautiful boy said, “for to-day
THEY cannot silence me; this one day when I can be my own self again.
You ought to know, Eva, without my telling you, and you would know, if
you were like me; but you are not as I am.”
“Why not?” Eva asked, in surprise.
“Because you are only a little earth-maiden.”
Eva laughed, “What is that?” She had wholly, as we know, forgotten the
past.
“I cannot tell you,” Aster said, slowly. “I only know what THEY have
told me about you.”
“And that?”
“I do not know. But you are not like me, Eva. We are very different.
Look at your dress, and then at mine.”
In truth, every here and there upon the rich velvet of Aster’s dress
were soils and stains, while not a spot discolored the pure white Eva
wore.
“Now do you see?” Aster asked. “You know that we are in Shadow-Land,
and it can only affect things which are like itself; it cannot harm you
or deceive you.”
“Do you belong here?”
“No,” Aster said, “I came from there,” pointing to the round full moon
above their heads. “I wish I was there again.”
“Why don’t you go back, then?”
“I can’t, unless you help me. THEY who sent me here say so.”
“Why did they send you here?”
“Because up there,” pointing to the moon, “I lost my flower, and
everything which is lost there falls into Shadow-Land, as everything
which is lost in Fairy-Land falls into the Enchanted River; and so
they sent me here to find it again, because a prince cannot live there
without his flower; and I cannot find it unless you help me. Now you
know who I am, Eva,--the moon-prince, Aster.”
“Then must I say Prince Aster?”
“No; to you I am only Aster. And I know that it will be hard for you to
find the flower, for I cannot help you, or tell you what it is like. I
know that the Green Frog has hidden it, and you are the only person who
can help me to find it, and then you must give it to me. THEY say we
shall have trouble.”
“But we will find it at last?”
“When my punishment for losing it is over. To-morrow we must leave this
place, for after this moon the moss will be gone.”
“You know where to go, then?”
“No; I can only follow you. I have no power here; you will have to take
care of me.”
And then Aster began to sing, and this was the song which he sung:
Till my flower bloom again,
We may seek, yet seek in vain.
Till ’tis plucked by Eva’s hand,
We must roam through Shadow-Land.
Only this does Aster know,
Through hard trials he must go;
Eva’s hand must guide him on
Till his flower again be won.
She must wander far and near,
Led by songs he may not hear;
Should she lose me from her hand,
Worse my fate in Shadow-Land.
Then Aster threw himself down on the soft moss at Eva’s feet. But when
she asked him where he had learned the words of his song, he could
not tell her. Just then a cloud came over the face of the moon, hiding
her from their sight; and as the darkness came over everything, only
leaving for a moment the pale earth-light, it seemed to Eva that there
were faces looking at her, peeping from behind every tree; and then a
light breeze sprang up, just moving the flowers, and from the bell of
one of them seemed to come these words, all in verse, for in Fairy-Land
and in Shadow-Land people seldom speak in plain prose as we do:
O’er this spot do THEY have power,
Not here groweth Aster’s flower.
Wander, Eva, wander on
Till thy hand the prize hath won.
Then the breeze died away, and the voice was silent; and Eva saw
that Aster was asleep, and, frightened at the faces which made grimaces
and mocked at her, more angrily, she thought, on account of the warning
the flower had sung, she touched him to awaken him; and as she did so
the cloud passed from the face of the moon, and as once more her pure,
clear light returned, the ugly, threatening faces vanished, and Aster
awoke. But when Eva tried to tell him of what she had seen and heard
during his short sleep, she could only say these words:
Moss shall harden into stone,
Faces mock you o’er the sand;
Leading Aster by the hand,
From this spot ye must be gone.
Then Aster laughed, because Eva declared that these were not the words
which the flower had spoken; yet every time that she tried to recollect
and repeat them, she could only say the same thing over. Then she began
to try and tell him about the faces, and when she began to speak of
them, suddenly the full moon sank from the sky, and all was dark; and
then a strange drowsiness came over the children, and Eva and Aster,
nestled in each other’s arms, lay down to sleep upon the soft, green
moss, knowing that with the next moonrise they must go forth in search
of Aster’s lost flower.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Chapter VI.
_THE BEGINNING OF THE SEARCH._
When the two children, after their sleep, awoke to see the moon rise
to her station in the sky, they were not surprised to find that her
fair, round proportions were already changed. But when Eva turned to
Aster, she saw that he, too, was smaller than when they had lain down
to rest; and she knew at once, almost as if she had been told, that the
Moon-Prince would in future wax and wane as did the orb from which he
had been banished; that this was part of his punishment; and now she
understood why it was that Aster had said she would have to take care
of him. But as she stood, thinking of this, Aster suddenly touched her
hand, and directly over the mossy bed on which they had slept, and
which had never been crushed by their weight, but was always fresh, Eva
saw again the mocking faces which had disturbed her the night before;
but only for a moment, and then they were gone. And even as she looked,
she saw that the soft green moss began to shrivel, dry up, and crumble
away, as though in a fire; and a moment later it was all gone, and in
its place was a heap of rough sand and stone, instead of the velvety
moss and the vine with its scarlet berries.
“The faces have done it,” Eva said, clasping Aster’s hand tightly, as
she watched the rapid change.
“The faces!” Aster said, scornfully. “Eva, you are dreaming; there were
no faces there.”
“I saw them,” Eva began; but Aster interrupted her.
“I tell you, Eva, you saw no faces, there was nothing there. I told you
that the moss would be gone the next time that the moon rose; and you
see I told you the truth. We must leave this place.”
“Where shall we go?”
“I don’t know. We cannot stay here. What did the flower say to you, Eva?
When soft moss shall change to stone,
From this spot ye must be gone.”
Even as Aster spoke, Eva saw a faint little path at her feet, like that
which she had first followed. Looking back, wishing it might lead her
again to the pleasant little brook, and that she might return to it,
instead of going on into the forest, she saw that the sand and stone
had grown into a huge wall, or rather a mound, over which she never
could have climbed, and which would prevent her return. As if Aster had
read her thoughts, he said to her,--
“There is no going back, Eva; we can only go forward.”
Aster’s words were true. The wall of stone, which a few moments had
been enough to build up behind them, seemed to come closer and closer,
as though to shut them out from the place where they had been; and,
clasping Aster’s hand tightly, Eva and the boy walked slowly on, in the
little path which lay before them.
For days the two went on, walking while the moon shone, and sleeping
when her light was hid. At each moonrise they were awakened by the
strains of music, which, as the moon waned, grew sadder and more
mournful; while that accompanying her setting became at last a low,
sad moaning, and each day she grew smaller, and, in sympathy with her,
Aster seemed to dwindle and wane, and he became more and more helpless,
till at last, when the moon was reduced to a thin crescent, the little
prince was once more as small as he was when Eva first received him.
Yet, through all these changes, the two went slowly on through the
dark forest, which opened on either side of the path to let them pass,
and closed again behind them. Were they thirsty, they were sure to
find some tiny spring, issuing as at a wish from the earth; were they
hungry, some wild fruit or berry was always to be found. But not once
did Eva leave the path. What it was that kept her in it, she could not
tell,--except that every time she felt the slightest desire to go into
the forest; she saw the same hateful faces which had peeped at her for
the first time when the cloud had passed over the face of the full
moon, and which had mocked at her from above the soft mossy bed when
it had been turned into the stony wall which had forced them to go
forward, and she thought they forbade her to go near them. But Aster,
in spite of all her efforts to detain him in the path, would sometimes
run away from her, saying he saw some beautiful flower which he must
gather, or else some sweet child-face which smiled upon him; but each
time that he did this, he was sure to hasten back to Eva, saying that
either thorns had pierced or else nettles stung him; and then he would
hide his face in the folds of Eva’s white dress, trembling, and saying
that THEY were there, and had frightened him.
Still, Eva could never find out from the boy who THEY were. For Aster,
though he sometimes tried, could not tell her; it seemed as if he was
not allowed to speak, and the child began to think that the faces which
haunted her, and THEY of whom Aster so often spoke, were only different
manifestations of the same power, which seemed to follow them wherever
they went, seeking an opportunity to hurt them, although as yet no
harm had been done.
Once, before Aster grew so small, Eva asked him why it was that they
were thus followed.
“It is not you that THEY are following; THEY would do me harm if I were
to fall into their hands; but I am safe while you keep me. You are
beyond their reach.”
But, though Aster knew this, it seemed to Eva that he dared, and tried,
to put himself in the power of THEY, whom he seemed to dread,--for it
was only when the faces looked at her from behind tree or shrub that
Aster desired to leave her, and only then that he spoke of THEY who
always frightened him back to her side. He never alluded to the flower
they sought; only once, when Eva asked him what it was like, he said to
her:
“I cannot describe it to you; you will know it when you see it.”
“How shall I know it?” Eva asked.
“You will know it when the time comes.”
But, though Eva looked carefully for the flower, she never saw it.
There were flowers enough along the path, but the right one was not
to be seen. She did not know--how could she?--that the search was only
begun, and that not till after long wanderings and many troubles to
Aster would she be able to find for him the flower which he had lost,
and without which he could never regain his home.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VII.
_ASTER’S MISFORTUNES._
At last, even the thin crescent of the moon disappeared, and once more
Aster lay motionless, and, as it were, without life, the same tiny,
helpless thing which Eva had taken from the crest of the fountain. Once
more she wandered, alone,--for what companionship could she find in
the senseless little figure which she carried about with her?--through
the strange, dream-like country in which she now found herself. But,
wherever she went, a feeling she could not explain nor understand made
her hold the helpless little prince close, never for a moment letting
him pass from her loving clasp.
[Illustration: “As day by day the path led them on into the forest, the
trees altered their shape.” Page 53.]
Once more, too, the faint earth-light shone, instead of the vanished
moon. And Eva thought that while Aster lay helpless, there were fewer
difficulties in her path; the faces no longer appeared to torment
and harass her; the way seemed easier to her feet; more and brighter
flowers bloomed along the path; and the misty, shadowy shapes which
were to be seen at intervals passing among the close-set trunks of the
trees were fair and lovely to look upon.
But this quiet was not to last. Again, after a time, the music rang
triumphantly through the forest; and again, as the young moon sprang to
her station overhead, Aster awoke, to all appearance unconscious of the
time he had slept, and of the distance which Eva had carried him. As
he grew, with the moon, it seemed to her that he was changed; that he
was no longer the gentle, loving boy who had wandered with her when the
first moon shone: something elfish, imp-like, and changeable had come
over him.
Then, too, as day by day the path led them on into the forest, which
seemed endless, the trees altered their shape. Sometimes they were
circled with huge, twining snakes, which Eva thought seemed coiled
there, ready to seize her as she passed, though when near them they
proved to be nothing but huge vines climbing up the trees. Here and
there in the path lay huge stones, which you might think at first sight
were insurmountable, obstructing their further progress; yet, if either
Eva’s foot touched them, or the hem of her white dress brushed ever so
lightly against them, they would always fade away, like a shadow, into
utter nothingness, or else would roll slowly away to one side, leaving
the path clear. But when Aster saw the stones he would cry, and say
that they would crush him if he passed them, and the only way in which
Eva could soothe him was by taking him up in her arms and carrying him
past the stones, while he hid his face, so as not to see them, in her
long, golden curls.
Every now and then, in spite of what he had often told Eva,--that
she, and she only, could find and give him the flower which he had
lost,--Aster would declare to her that he saw it blooming in places
where she saw nothing but nettles or ugly weeds, but which he would
always insist were beds of the most beautiful flowers. These flowers,
he said, called to him to come and gather them; while Eva thought that
warning voices bade her pass them by, and that she saw over or else
among them shadows of the same hateful faces which she dreaded. But it
was useless to try and convince Aster of this; she soon learned that
nothing ever presented the same appearance to him that it did to her.
In consequence, whenever Aster insisted upon leaving the path, as he
often did, Eva watched him with a kind of terror, and never felt he
was safe unless she led him by the hand. Placed, as he was, under her
care, she felt sure that when with her no danger could come near him,
nothing harm him. Still, if he had enemies in this great forest, he
had friends, too; for once, when he stooped to gather a flower which
bloomed near the path, she heard it say:
“Guard thou well thy charge to-day,
There is danger in the way.”
But Aster laughed joyfully, as he looked up without gathering the
flower, and said:
“Did you hear what the flower told me, Eva? That was the reason why I
did not pick it, for it said that I should have much pleasure to-day.”
Eva only smiled; she said nothing; she had learned that Aster would not
bear being contradicted. But she quietly resolved to be more watchful
than ever; for, from what she had heard the flower say, she thought
that efforts would be made to take the little prince from her.
She was wrong, however, for the day passed, the moon disappeared,
and, as nothing had happened to disturb them, she began to think that
perhaps she had been mistaken, and that Aster had been right regarding
the words which the flower had spoken; for he had, all that day, been
cheerful and gentle. But, that night, she was awakened from her sleep
by Aster’s talking, as though to himself, in a rambling, disconnected
manner, of THEY whom he seemed to fear; and this being the first time
for days--not since he had awakened from the stupor into which the
disappearance of the moon had thrown him--that he had mentioned or even
appeared to think of these nameless yet formidable beings, she guessed,
seeing that Aster’s words were spoken, as it were, in a dream, and
unconsciously to himself, that the coming day contained more danger to
him than any of the preceding ones.
It was, notwithstanding, with a feeling of relief that Eva at last saw
the moon arise, and once more she and Aster set out on their journey.
He never referred to the words which had awakened her. No strange
sights or sounds came to disturb them. There was utter stillness all
around; and as hour after hour passed, and Aster walked quietly by her
side, Eva began to think that her anxiety had all been for nothing, and
she relaxed a little of her watchfulness.
At last they came to a place where every plant along the path was hung
with filmy, gossamer, delicate webs, and in each web sat a spider.
And every spider was different,--no two of them being alike. And, as
they passed these patient spinners, Aster clung closely to Eva’s hand,
saying that he was afraid of being entangled among their webs, or else
stung by them; although to her it appeared as though the spiders did
not even notice them as they passed. Then all of a sudden the webs and
the insects were gone; and the children saw crawling slowly in the
path, as if it was afraid of them and wanted to get out of their way, a
spider larger than any of those they had seen; a spider whose body was
ringed with scarlet and gold, whose long, slender black legs shone like
polished jet, and whose eyes were like bright-green emeralds; a spider
handsome enough to be the king of all the spiders.
And while Eva was admiring the beautiful colors of the insect, Aster
let go her hand, and, stooping down, passed his finger gently over its
gold and scarlet back. Then the spider raised its head, and looked at
Eva with its bright-green eyes, which, as Eva gazed at them, appeared
to grow larger and brighter, and dazzled her own; and then a mist
seemed to come over them, and everything began to fade slowly away;
and she never noticed how Aster went, slowly, nearer and nearer to
the insect, crouching down into the path as he did so, nor how the
spider, by degrees, began to grow larger, and moved towards the side
of the path, till a sudden cry from Aster, “Eva! Eva! help me!” roused
her from the trance in which she stood, in which she saw nothing but
the emerald eyes, like two gleaming lights; and then she saw that the
beautiful spider had enveloped Aster in a large web which it had spun
around him, and was dragging him off the path, to carry him away with
it.
But Eva was not going to lose her charge. Springing forward, she threw
her arms around him. And as her dress touched the web, it fell off,
releasing him; and the spider, unfolding a pair of blue wings, flew
into the forest with a loud cry of disappointment; and as it flew away,
its shape changed, and Eva, looking after it, with her arms still
around Aster, saw that it had one of the terrible faces which she had
seen so often before. Then it disappeared, and the two went on, or
rather tried to go on, for Aster complained that his feet were fastened
to the ground; and then Eva saw that they were still tangled in some of
the spider’s web; and both Eva and Aster tried in vain to break it. But
Eva was nearly in despair, when, as she stooped, one of her long golden
curls brushed against the web, and then it melted away and vanished
like smoke.
Then, and not till then, were they able to go on. But Aster walked
forward unwillingly, and complained that he was tired, and began to
insist upon Eva’s stopping to rest. But she felt that they would not
be safe until after the moon was gone, and so they went on. At every
mossy stone, every fair cluster of flowers, Aster would insist upon
stopping, but Eva would not listen to him, for she always heard, at
these places, a friendly voice which said, “Go on, go on;” and so they
went on.
But at last Aster, who did nothing but complain of weariness, told Eva
that he could and would go no farther. Seeing a great, velvety, green
mushroom growing in the path, he ran and sat down upon it, saying that
it was a seat which had been made and put there for him, and that Eva
should not share it.
He had scarcely said this, had scarcely seated himself, when the
mushroom changed into a great green frog, which, with Aster seated
astride upon its back, began to hop nimbly away in the direction of the
forest. But Eva, whose eyes had never for a moment left the boy, sprang
forward, and before Aster--pleased at the motion of the frog--could
say a word, she had dragged him off his strange steed, which turned
and snapped at her, but, instead of touching her, caught the skirt of
Aster’s coat in his mouth and held on to it till Eva’s efforts tore it
from him, leaving, however, a small piece of the velvet in the frog’s
mouth. Even then he tried to seize Aster again, and it was not till
Eva’s dress touched him that he turned to leave them, still holding in
his mouth the scrap torn from Aster’s coat, and as he hopped off the
path he faded away just like a shadow.
Then, too, the moon sank from the sky, and the two children, completely
worn out, lay down and slept, and Eva knew that for a little while, at
least, Aster was safe, because as she lay down she heard a little song
which said;
Tranquil be your sleep,
Peaceful be your rest,
We a watch will keep,
Naught shall you molest;
Sleep, Eva, sleep.
Where our light may shine,
Where we weave our charm,
In our magic line,
Naught may cause you harm;
Sleep, Aster, sleep.
Then all was still. But though Eva, trusting to this song, was not
afraid to lie down and sleep, she never knew that while they did sleep
a circle of tiny shining lamps, like fairy-lamps, gleamed all around
them,--a magic circle which nothing could pass. And although both the
spider and the green frog returned, bringing with them the piece of
Aster’s coat, by means of which they hoped to steal him away from Eva
while he was asleep, they could not pass the circle which the Light
Elves had drawn around the sleeping pair, and, after many vain efforts
to cross it, they vanished.
And the grateful elves had watched and saved Aster because Eva, that
morning, seeing a shapeless, helpless worm lying near a stone, which
was about to fall and crush it, had tenderly picked up the worm, and
laid it carefully on a cool, green leaf, out of danger. The grateful
Light Elf,--for such she was,--being compelled to wear the form of a
worm while the moonlight lasted, had come with her companions to return
what service she could and give Eva a peaceful rest.
So, as ever, Good overcomes Evil, and no service, no matter how small
or how trifling it may seem, is ever wasted or thrown away.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VIII.
_WHAT ASTER DID._
The farther the progress which the children made into the forest,
the wilder and more singular became the country through which they
passed. Shadows cast by no visible forms went before them in the
path,--shadows which shook, moved, and trembled; which seemed as if
they might all at once become real forms; shadows which had something
dreadful about them, so that Eva was glad they were always in advance
of her, and that her foot never had to touch the ground on which they
lay. The color of the moon’s light was changed. She shone with a pale
greenish lustre. No green plants, no beautiful flowers, grew in the
stony, rocky soil through which their path now lay. It produced things
like sticks full of thorns. Under the stones lay hidden long, slender
lizards, or coiled-up serpents with forked and fiery-red tongues;
things like dry twigs, which would suddenly display many legs and run
away. Slow-crawling, hairy caterpillars, and round, fat, slimy worms,
lay everywhere. Things like insects, which yet had no life, grew,
instead of flowers, on the thorny sticks which stood among the stones.
One of these things, in shape like a dragon-fly, Aster picked; but he
immediately dropped it, and said that it had stung him; and from that
time Eva thought that he became more and more perverse, and that he
was every day less like the gentle, affectionate boy she had been so
glad to receive as a companion. She saw, too, that, while her own dress
retained its spotless whiteness which nothing seemed to affect, his
became every day more and more soiled and stained.
She missed, too, the low, sweet songs which had been sung by the
flowers. To be sure, she had not always been able to distinguish their
words; but they had been friendly, and had warned her of every danger
before it came; but this was all over. Every night, as soon as the
moon was gone, creatures like bats, with shining heads, came in great
numbers, flying around, and moaning in a sad, mournful way which was
most pitiful to hear.
As the moon neared the full, stranger shadows and shapes came near.
Yet the two went on, following the path, though Eva sometimes imagined
that the inhabitants of this strange country were opposed to their
passing through it. The music which had been always heard at the
rising and setting of the moon grew fainter and fainter, till at last
her ascent and fall came in perfect silence. Then the strange shadows
disappeared, but the path led through a stonier and more rocky country,
where all was wild and barren, and where, after the moon was gone,
little, dancing flames played on the stones. Sometimes it was hard,
indeed almost impossible, for the two children to climb over the rough
places in their path; and Aster was very often discouraged; but Eva
persevered, for she felt that the flower they sought could never be
found in this barren and dreary land.
I have said that Aster became every day more obstinate and perverse.
Sometimes Eva thought that the strange flower, like a dragon-fly, which
he had picked, and which he said stung him, had changed him, and that
was the reason why he tried to annoy her in every possible way. He knew
how uneasy she was when he was not with her; yet, knowing this, it was
his greatest delight to hide himself behind some large stone, and after
she had looked for him for a long time without finding him, afraid that
his enemies had carried him off, he would jump out upon her with a loud
mocking cry; he would pull her hair, he would try to soil her white
dress, by throwing mud and dirt upon it, to make it, as he said, like
his own, which was all stained and soiled, and then, when he found that
he could not discolor its whiteness, he would throw himself down on the
ground, and kick and scream, and tell Eva that he hated her, and that
he wished THEY would come and carry her away.
One day, when Aster had been worse than ever, and the way had been
stonier and harder than it had ever been before, Eva began to think
that it was of no use to go on, or to look for the flower lost so
long ago by the imp-like boy, whose powers of annoying her seemed to
increase as he grew smaller with the moon. She sat down upon one of
the rough stones, and great tears gathered in her eyes. And as, one by
one, they rolled down her cheeks and fell to the ground, everything
around her seemed to grow vague and dim; and at her feet, just where
the tear-drops fell, there came a bed of round green leaves, under
whose shelter bloomed and nodded a multitude of tiny purple flowers;
violets, whose sweet fragrance, rising, made a misty cloud, through
which Eva caught faint glimpses of a pond, and a house near it, and
then the house seemed to change into a cosy parlor. And by the window
of this parlor a lady was sitting sewing, and rocking a cradle with
her foot, and singing to a baby boy who was kicking and crowing in the
cradle; and then the child heard her mother’s voice calling, softly,
“Eva, Eva!” But before these memories came fully back, Aster came up,
and angrily crushed and trampled the sweet violets under his feet; and
as he did so the cloud and its pictures disappeared, and Eva forgot
them; only she was very sorry for the dear little flowers that Aster
had killed.
Poor little flowers, which tried to do her good! For it seemed to her
that with their last breath of perfume there came a low voice, which
whispered. “Beware of the stones,”--and that was all. And then she
asked Aster why he had destroyed the harmless flowers, which had only
come to warn them.
“They only came to do me harm,” Aster said, angrily. “They would have
taken you away from me, and I should never have seen you again. You
shall not go away from me yet, for I can never get home without you;
after I have done with you, why, then you may go.”
“Where?” Eva asked, pained at this selfish speech.
“Into what is to be,--out of Shadow-Land into what is to come, but is
not yet.”
“I do not understand you.”
“You will know when the time comes. I crushed the flowers because they
were part of what is to come; they had no right here.”
Nothing more was said; but Aster seemed restless and uneasy until they
left the place where the violets had bloomed. Yet nothing disturbed
them, and on they went, till Eva began to wonder where the stones
could be of which the voice had said, “Beware!”
At last, when there was only a tiny crescent of the moon, like a faint
silver line, floating in the sky, and Aster’s figure, like it, was
once more reduced to its smallest dimensions, the forest through which
they had wandered for so long ended; and as they passed from it, a low
cry of surprise from Aster made Eva look down, as she saw that his
eyes were fixed upon the earth; and then she saw with equal surprise
that, while she walked along the rough, stony path without leaving any
impression, every step that Aster took left a deep, plain track, and
that in each of these tracks there was either a frog or a spider, which
would disappear while she looked at them.
Then a sudden turn in the path brought them to a place where a huge
pile of rocks, like an immense stone wall built by giants, rose up
before them. A faint breath of violets seemed to come, and then pass
away, and as it did, Eva knew that these were the stones of which she
had been warned.
At that very moment there was a flash of light, and a star fell from
the sky, near the moon.
“A falling star, how pretty it is!” Eva said, as she watched the bright
thing, which seemed to fall behind the stone wall. “Did you see it,
Aster?”
“You don’t know anything, Eva,” was his reply. “I told you once before
that everything which was lost in the moon fell into Shadow-Land, and
that was something bright which fell just now.”
But this had nothing to do with the wall, which must be climbed. How,
Eva did not know. She was almost afraid to try it; and so she stood,
looking at it, when Aster, who, ever since he had crushed the violets,
had followed her in silence, except when he had spoken of the shooting
star, with his eyes bent on the ground, suddenly ran forward to the
wall, and began to look eagerly into every crevice between the stones.
“What are you looking for?” Eva asked him. “Come back to me, Aster; it
is not safe for you there without me.”
“I will look,” Aster said. “The bright thing you called a star was my
flower. It is here, and I am going to find it.”
“Don’t!” Eva said, imploringly, as the boy tried to creep into one of
the crevices between the stones. “Remember Aster, that the moon is
nearly gone, and if she should disappear, you will go to sleep, and
then you will have to stay in there until she returns.”
“I don’t care!” Aster said, crossly, “If, as I know I shall, I find my
flower in here, the moon will have no more power over me, for I shall
then be myself; and you may go on alone into what will come. Besides,
the piece which was torn off my coat is in there, and I am going to get
it. If I do go to sleep, I can lie down in here, and rest; you can mark
the place and wait for me, if you choose. I don’t intend to obey you
any longer; you are nothing but a little girl, and I am a prince.”
Eva’s hand was on Aster’s shoulders and when he found she would not
remove it, he raised his own, and struck her. Not till then did the
child unwillingly release him, seeing that all her efforts to detain
him would be in vain. Then, without saying another word, Aster crept
slowly into the crevice. And Eva, picking up a white stone which lay
at her feet; made a mark over the place with it. As she did this, the
faint silver light of the moon faded from the sky; there was a loud
croaking as of frogs, and then she heard the shrill cry of the spider
which had spun the web around Aster; and then it grew very dark, and a
sudden drowsiness came over her, which she could not resist; and, lying
down upon a stone under the crevice into which Aster had crept, Eva
fell asleep.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IX.
_THE DOOR IN THE WALL._
It was with a start that, after the darkness had gone, Eva awoke from
the dull, heavy sleep into which she had fallen; and for a moment she
could not recollect how it was that she should be lying upon a stone at
the foot of this huge rocky wall, or why she should be alone, without
Aster near her. She looked for him, thinking that perhaps he might have
hidden himself, only to tease her; but he was nowhere to be found. She
called him, hoping that he might hear and answer her; but there was no
reply,--only the rocks echoed back the sound of her own voice, which
said, “Aster, Aster! where are you?” and then another echo seemed to
answer, mockingly, “Where?”
But all this only lasted for a few moments. Then all at once Eva
remembered the falling star; the warning which the violets had given
her; the blow, which, coming as it did from Aster’s hand, had so
deeply grieved her; her efforts to detain him at her side, which had
all proved useless; and how, after the boy had crept into one of the
crevices of the wall, declaring he went there in search of his flower,
she had picked up a stone, which she now found she still held in her
hand, and marked the place. Then she felt relieved, for she knew that
this was the time when Aster would be asleep, as he always was when the
moon was absent, and consequently he could not move from the place into
which he had crept. She thought, therefore, that, whenever she chose,
she would find him, and, taking him again under her care, carry him
away from this barren and stony waste.
Encouraged and relieved by this thought, she did not look for Aster
any longer, but went to a little spring bubbling up between two rough
stones, and which was the only pleasant thing she could see in this
rocky place. She knelt down by it, for she was thirsty, to drink from
its cool and sparkling waters, and then to wash her face and hands in
them; and as she dipped her hands in the spring, the little ripples
they made whispered, softly, “Over yonder! over yonder!” but Eva was
not sure if she really had heard these words; or only imagined them.
Refreshed by the cool waters she went back to the great, rough, stone
wall, intending to secure her charge, and then try to go on. But what
was her surprise, on returning, as she thought, to the same stone on
which she had slept, to see that there were so many stones just exactly
like it, that she could not find the one she wanted! and, what was
still stranger, she saw that over every little hole, every tiny cavity
in the stone, there was a white mark exactly like the one which she had
made over the crevice into which Aster had crept, and she could not say
which of them all was hers.
She was in despair for a moment. How was she to find, among all these
holes, each with the same white mark over it, the one in which Aster
was asleep? Then she remembered that standing still and looking at
the wall would do no good; that if she wanted to find Aster she must
look for him; and Eva determined to examine every hole she saw, in
hopes that with patience and perseverance she might at last succeed in
finding her lost charge, of whom, in spite of all the trouble he had
given her, she had grown very fond.
But if she had been surprised at seeing a white mark over every hole,
instead of the one she had made, she was still more astonished when she
saw that in every cranny which she examined there sat either a large
black-legged spider, with a gold and scarlet back, and eyes which shone
in the dark like little bright stars, or else there squatted snugly
in it a huge green frog, with a wide mouth and projecting black eyes;
while just beyond her reach there would flutter every now and then a
little green flag, like the scrap of velvet, as Eva thought, which the
teeth of the frog had torn from Aster’s coat.
Yet the child climbed slowly up the wall, fearless of the spiders and
the frogs, which she knew had no power to harm her, even if they had
wished it. But seeing them, and knowing, as she did, that these two
creatures, in the forest through which they had passed, had tried to
get possession of Aster, Eva began to fear that by creeping into the
hole he had put himself in their power, and that she would never be
able to find him again.
She went on, however, looking carefully into every tiny cavity; but
always with the same result. No Aster was to be seen: only huge spiders
and squatting frogs stared at her from every cranny. And, as she
climbed up higher and higher, she found that the rocky wall was like a
giant staircase; and when she looked back, noticing that the stones she
displaced, as she climbed up, only rolled a short time and then made
no noise as they fell, and thinking that after her search was over she
would return to the little spring and wait there patiently until the
moon rose again, when, as she hoped, Aster, if she did not find him
now, would wake up and come back to her, she saw that she could never
return to the spring. For the steps by which she had come were gone,
melting one by one into the face of the rock, changing into a steep
precipice behind her; and at its foot were curling mists and vapors,
among which she saw dimly the hateful, mocking faces she had seen
before. Go back she could not, for every step, as she passed it, melted
into the precipice; to look back made her dizzy. She must go upward.
For the first time since she had begun to climb the wall, which had
changed, as she climbed, into steps, and then into a precipice, Eva
was afraid. But there was no choice left for her; go on she must; and,
accordingly, on she went, till she came to a place where the rock rose,
so high that she could not see its top, in a smooth, unbroken wall,
over which she could not possibly climb, and a narrow path ran along
its base; and as yet she had not seen nor heard anything of the truant
Aster.
She walked slowly along the foot of the great blank wall, tired and
discouraged. What to do now, she did not know. She could not go back,
for there was the frightful precipice; in front was the wall, along
which she was walking. Poor Eva was almost ready to cry, when all of
a sudden she saw a door, cut in the stone, and the door was shut. But
she heard, behind this door, the silvery voices and ringing laughter
of children, and then a great longing came over her to go in and join
them, and she thought that perhaps Aster might be with them.
Yet, although she tried, she could not open the door. She heard the
merry voices of the children, and, hearing them as plainly as she did,
she thought it was strange that they did not hear her and open the door
to her; for, try as she would, she could not open it. And then she grew
tired of trying, and would have gone on, when, looking once more at the
door to see if there was any way of opening it which she could possibly
have neglected, she saw cut across the door, in deep, old-fashioned,
moss-grown letters, the word
Knock.
Then, gathering courage, Eva raised her tiny hand, and knocked. Once,
and no answer came. Again, and with the same result. A third time, and
then the merry voices of the children, and their gay laughter, ceased,
and Eva hoped that her appeal was heard.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER X.
_THE VALLEY OF REST._
Eva waited for a moment, with as much patience as she could, in hopes
that the door might now be opened for her. Vain hopes, for the ringing
laughter and the merry voices began again; and once more Eva would have
been discouraged, if the thought had not come that perhaps her gentle
knocking had not been heard, and once more she tapped, louder this
time, at the door.
A voice within immediately asked, “Who knocks?”
“I--Eva,” was the child’s reply.
“Eva may enter.”
Poor child! She thought the permission was useless, for the door
remained as tightly shut as ever.
“Why do you not come in?” the same voice asked, after a pause, “You are
permitted.”
“I cannot come in, because the door is shut,” Eva said.
“Take the key and unlock it.”
But Eva, after looking around carefully, could see no key, and so she
said, “I do not know where the key can be.”
“Look under your right foot,” said the voice within; and Eva, stepping
to one side, saw lying, just where her foot had been, a queer little
key, which she picked up; and seeing a key-hole among the quaint
letters of the inscription, she found the little key just fitted it;
and on turning it, the door flew open, and, as it did, a band of
beautiful children came forward to meet her, though not one of them
crossed the threshold of the door, and they bade her welcome. But when
Eva would have gone in, it seemed to her that invisible hands prevented
her entrance; and then one of the children, seeing that she still held
in her hand the white stone she had picked up near the spring, and
with which she had made the mark over Aster’s hiding-place, told her
to throw it away, for that nothing from Shadow-Land could be brought
into their valley; and then to be careful and not touch the threshold
of the door, but to step over it. And Eva did as they told her; but
when she threw the white stone over the precipice, it changed into a
large white moth as it left her hand; and Eva, watching it, saw one
of the faces rise from out of the curling mists to meet it, and then
the moth changed into a face like the one she had first seen, and then
both disappeared among the mists and vapors. And the moment she passed
through the door, it closed suddenly behind her, and could not be
told from the solid rock; and Eva saw that she was in a place totally
different from anything she had ever seen before in her wanderings.
She found that she was now in a large, grassy valley, in the midst of
which was built a beautiful rose-colored palace, shining like a star.
Flowers of the gayest hues bloomed all through the grass; fountains
of musical water, surrounded with rainbows, played here and there;
birds and butterflies of brilliant colors flew among the flowers, and
were so tame that they would alight on the children’s hands, and the
birds were so wise that they could talk, and tell the most interesting
stories, which you never grew tired of hearing. A little brook ran
sparkling through the valley, and groups of beautiful children were
playing on its banks, among whom Eva looked--but looked in vain--for
Aster.
The children gathered around her, asking where she came from, if she
was the Queen who was to reign over them, and if she was not going
to live always with them. And when Eva tried to explain how she had
come, and asked them if they knew where Aster was, they joined hands
and danced in a circle around her to their own singing, and then one
of them gave her the leaves of a flower to eat. Now the leaves of
this flower were delicious, and as sweet as honey to the taste, and
one never wearied of eating them; and as Eva ate them, all memory of
Shadow-Land and of Aster faded from her mind, and she was content to
remain in the valley with the children.
It was a pleasant life that she led in this peaceful valley,
surrounded, as it was, and shut in by high, insurmountable, and steep
rocks, over which nothing without wings could go; in which the
children dwelt, and where there was neither sun nor moon, but only
a soft, rosy light, which never hurt or dazzled the eyes, and where
nothing ever happened which could disturb the peace of the place. To
chase the brilliant butterflies, to listen to the songs and stories
of the birds, to dance on the soft green grass, and gather flowers
to make fragrant wreaths and garlands with which to decorate the
beautiful palace in which, when darkness came over the valley, they all
assembled, and where tables, spread with the most delicious fruits,
always stood ready for them,--such was the life that Eva and the
children led in the Valley of Rest.
But at last a day came when the children told Eva that, as their custom
was, they must leave the valley and carry baskets of flowers and fruit
to the Queen for whom they had at first taken her. She could not go
with them now, they said, but the next time that they went they would
take her with them. They would be gone the next morning before she was
awake, and she would be alone for that day in the valley; but then they
would return; and the only favor they asked of her was this,--that she
would not go near the brook, nor play upon its banks, while they were
absent.
Eva willingly promised this. Such a little thing as it was to promise,
when she would have the whole fair valley to herself, to go where she
pleased, and to do what she pleased! It would be very easy to keep away
from the brook.
But when once more the soft, rosy light came, and the darkness was
gone, and Eva awoke to find herself lying, all alone, on her little
bed in the palace, and to know that all the children were indeed gone,
though only for a time, a strange restlessness came over her, and she
felt that she could not stay all alone in the palace. She would go out
of it into the valley. But she was no better off there. She gathered
flowers and made beautiful wreaths and bouquets, but there was no one
to admire them when they were made. The rainbows around the fountains
were less brilliant; the birds were all gone with the children, so that
she could not listen to their songs or the stories they might have told
her. She might play and dance, but what fun was there in that, when she
had no companions to dance and play with her? Eva thought she never
had spent such a stupid, long, dull day in all her life; and she wished
it was over. The only thing which seemed as merry as ever was the
little brook, which she had promised to avoid, yet which rippled along
so joyously that it was as much as Eva could do to keep away from it.
But she remembered her promise to the children, and turning her back
upon the brook, she went and sat down near one of the fountains. She
had only been there for a few moments, when she felt something pull her
dress; and looking round to see what it was,--wondering if the children
could possibly have returned,--she saw, to her great surprise, a huge
green toad, which had hold of her dress, and which, when she looked at
it, said:
“Croak! croak!”
Then Eva knew that she had seen the toad before, and she began to
wonder how it had gotten into the Valley of Rest, where she never had
seen anything like it. But she did not have much time for wonder; for
the toad, giving her dress another pull, said to her, “Come to the
brook! Come to the brook!” And then it began to hop towards the brook
just as fast as it could go.
She forgot her promise to the children, and, just exactly as she had
done once before, she obeyed the toad, and went down to the brook. And
when she got there, she could not imagine why the toad wanted her to
go there, for he was nowhere to be seen, and the brook looked just as
it always did. But she sat down by it, and watched the merry water as
it rippled along over its pebbly bed. Then, soothed by the low murmur
it made, she lay down on the grass and fell asleep. And while she was
asleep she had a dream; and this is what she dreamed:
She saw Aster, his dress torn, dirty, and ragged, his long curls
tangled; tired and sad, and compelled to carry burdens of stone too
heavy for him to lift. And when he wanted to rest, two figures, with
the faces which Eva had seen in the forest and among the curling mists
and vapors at the foot of the precipice, beat him with rods full of
thorns. And then a huge red-and-black spider would sting him in the
foot, or a great green frog, with prominent black eyes, would threaten
to swallow him; and then the boy would cry, and call for Eva to come
and help him.
Then the frog would say:
“Why did you let me tear your coat?”
And the faces would ask:
“Why did you lose your flower?”
And then the spider would say:
“Why did you creep into the rock?”
And to all this Aster would only answer with the cry, “Eva! Eva! help
me!”
Then one of the faces said, angrily:
“We shall punish you here until three things are done, because through
three things you fell into our power. First. Eva must find your coat.
Second. She must get the piece to mend it with. Third. She must find
you. But you need not call her, because she cannot hear you; for she
is in the Valley of Rest with the Happy Children, who are the Dawn
Fairies, and she has forgotten you. And there are many dangers to pass
in Shadow-Land before, she can come to you; and she will not come,
unless she hears you call.”
Then they would beat him again; and Aster would cry, louder than ever,
“Eva! Eva! help me!”
And then the dream passed away, and Eva awoke. And it seemed to her
that Aster’s voice mingled with the rippling of the water, and it
cried, piteously, “Eva! Eva! help me!”
And then Eva knew why it was that the children had begged her not to
go near the brook while they were gone; because its voice would bring
back to her all that she had forgotten. For now, as she sat by it, she
remembered everything that the leaves of the flower which she had eaten
had made her forget; and she sprang to her feet, determined to follow
the course of the brook, and let it lead her to where Aster was.
She went all through the fair valley, along the margin of the brook
with whose waters Aster’s voice still seemed to mingle. It led her
at last to the high rocks, which, like a steep wall, surrounded the
valley, and where a low cavern, the roof of which was only a few
inches above the surface of the water, received the brook. Eva could
not enter it, neither could she climb the steep precipice-like wall;
and, with Aster’s voice still sounding piteously in her ears, with
a heavy heart, after several fruitless efforts to climb the rocks,
she went back to the palace, determined to wait for the return of the
children; for, although she had been very happy while with them, and
was unwilling to leave them, she intended to ask them how she could
leave the peaceful Valley of Rest, and if they would provide her with
the means of continuing her search for Aster.
Had Eva consulted her own wishes, and been able to carry them out, she
would not have waited one moment, but would have gone at once out into
Shadow-Land, which she now knew lay all around the valley. She knew,
too, that the little brook running through the valley, and which had
brought her Aster’s cry for help, was the same whose “Follow, follow
me!” had led her to the golden fountain from whose crest she had
received her little charge. But how to leave the valley she did not
know. She could do nothing by herself,--she must wait till the return
of the children,--so that she could scarcely be patient till the hours
of darkness came, knowing that during them, and before the soft, rosy
light could dawn again, that they would be with her.
There was nothing for it, however, but patience, and at last, after a
day which had seemed at least a year long, darkness covered the valley;
and although Eva had fully intended to keep awake until the children’s
return, her eyes, try and resolve as she might, would not stay open,
and she slept.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XI.
_THE MAGIC BOAT._
Morning came, and Eva awoke, to find that she was all alone in the
palace, and to wonder at the utter stillness around her. There was
no song of birds to be heard,--no fall of musical waters,--no merry
children’s ringing laughter and sweet voices. To all intents and
purposes the palace seemed as deserted as it had been the day before.
And wondering at all this, Eva rose, and went out of the palace to look
for her companions.
They had returned; but when she saw them she understood why everything
was so still. For, instead of the merry songs and joyous games and
dances with which they had been accustomed to begin the day, they were
gathered in little groups, and every face wore a sad and mournful
expression. They seemed troubled, and every now and then one of them
would point to the brook, and then shake her head; and Eva was going to
ask them what could possibly have happened, and what the matter was,
when they saw her; and then the whole crowd came around her, and before
she could say a word, they exclaimed, with one voice:
“Oh, Eva! Eva! what have you done? You forgot your promise; you went to
the brook, and you heard its story?”
Then it came into Eva’s mind that she must leave the children, who
seemed so sorry for what she had done, and she hung her head and said,
timidly:
“I could not help it.”
“It is true, and only what we feared,” one of them said,--the same one
who had spoken to Eva through the door. “We knew how it would be before
we left you. You could not help it, for it was Fate, and no promise can
bar the power, no wishes change the will, of Fate.”
Then Eva began to tell them her story. And they all listened, and when
she told them how the green toad had pulled her dress, another of the
children spoke and told Eva that the green toad was Aster’s friend, and
would do all it could to help him. That, just before she came to the
valley, it had been there and told them she was coming. And then Eva
finished her story, and begged them to let her go.
“We cannot keep you,” they said to her, “even if we wished it. We
would like to keep you with us; but the green toad has commanded us to
help you, so far as lies in our power. But we cannot save you from the
dangers of the way. THEY, who are more powerful than our Queen, have
forbidden it, and will not allow us to tell you what these dangers are,
or how you can avoid them or escape them. That you will learn on the
Enchanted River, down which you will have to go, and we must, if you
ask us, furnish you with the means of reaching it. You cannot go there
unless we help you, and we cannot keep you here if we would.”
“Will I find Aster?” Eva asked.
“That will depend upon yourself,” one of the children said, exactly as
if she was telling a story she had heard. “If Aster had obeyed you,
as he should have done, and as he was expected to do, your journey
would have ended here, in this Valley of Rest, and we, who are the Dawn
Fairies, would have been able to take his flower from the Night and
Shadow Elves; but the loss of part of his coat gave them power over
him, because Darkness always swallows up Light whenever it can; and so,
just at the entrance of this place, on the verge between Shadow and
Dawn, they succeeded in luring him away from you.”
Then they told Eva that for a certain time, which had now expired,
Aster’s enemies had been able to prevent her seeking for him. “During
that time,” they went on, “we were permitted to receive you; but then
since Aster’s friends have been able to speak to you by means of the
brook, though they can do nothing to rescue or to help him, for you
are the only person who can release him from the power of the Elves of
Shadow-Land; and since you have heard the voice, and are willing to
follow it, we can only, much as we would like to keep you with us, help
you, and let you go.”
“Has she no choice?” another asked. “Could she not, if she chose,
remain with us, instead of exposing herself to the dangers through
which she must pass?”
“I would rather go,” Eva began, “if I may choose.”
“You are right,” the first one who had spoken went on. “It is your
fate, and,” using, as Eva remembered, words that Aster had spoken long
before, and which seemed to be a proverb among the elves and fairies,
“it will be, because it must be.”
And then Eva heard, above the voices of the children and mingling with
them, the words which had come to her along the waters of the brook,
but spoken this time more plaintively than ever:
“Eva! Eva! help me!”
And the children heard, for they said:
“You will not hear those words after you leave our valley. For, in the
region through which you must pass, Aster’s friends have no power; you
will have to depend wholly upon yourself. And”--as the waters of the
little brook, by whose margin they were standing, began to ripple
along faster, and murmur louder, while the musical fountains began to
play, and the birds to sing--“and now you must leave us: everything is
in readiness, and the time has come.”
Then, with Eva in their midst, the children began to walk slowly along
the brook, which no longer brought Aster’s voice with it. On they went,
through the calm valley; not, however, as Eva had expected, to the door
in the rock through which she had entered, and which she had never been
able to find again,--though she had looked for it the day before, but
in the opposite direction,--towards the cavern in which the waters of
the brook disappeared. She asked why she was not to be allowed to seek
for Aster among the rocky, stony wastes in which he had disappeared.
“Because that is all over, and you cannot go back into the Past,” was
the reply. “Nothing, which has once happened there, or been seen there,
remains in Shadow-Land.”
They had come, by this time, to the cavern, and Eva saw that its roof
was higher above the brook than it had been the day before; and that,
floating on the water, which was here as smooth and still as glass,
there were a great many pure white lilies, and that every now and
then a speckled trout would jump from the water, and send a shower of
crystal drops to sparkle on the green leaves around the white lilies.
“There lies your way,” the children said, pointing to the cavern and
the brook. “But we must give you the means of going down the brook to
the place where it meets the Enchanted River. Beyond that we cannot
help you. We can only send you, in our boat, down the brook.”
At these words Eva looked up in great surprise, for no boat was to be
seen, and she could not imagine where one was to come from. But then
one of the children clapped her hands, and, as she did so, a lily-bud
slowly rose from the water, and then opened, till it was larger and
whiter than any of the other lilies. And then, while all looked on
in silence, the pure white leaves of the lily fell into the water
and melted away in it like snow; and then another waved her hands
in the air, and immediately, on the stalk from which the lily-petals
had fallen, there grew a pod. And when the pod had stopped growing, a
third, stooping by the brook, dipped her hands into the water, and the
lily-pod detached itself from its stem, and came floating to the bank.
Then the one who had clapped her hands took the pod out of the water
and laid it on the bank. The second opened it and taking from out of
it six round speckled seeds, laid them in the hands of the third. Then
the third threw these six seeds, one by one, into the water, and as
each seed touched the water it changed into a beautiful, large speckled
trout; and one by one the six trout, gently moving their fins, ranged
themselves in a line, their heads to the bank, and remained there,
waiting.
Then the three children, lifting up the empty lily-pod, placed it
gently upon the brook, and Eva saw that, as it lay on the smooth
waters, it had become a little boat. And then the six trout, one by
one, swam from the line which they had formed, and ranged themselves
around it, one at the bow and one at the stern, and two on each side;
and while she looked at the tiny boat it grew longer and broader, and
at either end it rose in a graceful curve, finished at bow and stern
with an open lily-cup; and then the calm surface of the water broke
into a thousand little ripples, rocking the lilies to and fro, which
bent as though they were saluting the little vessel, along whose sides
the tiny waves flowed caressingly.
The children then told Eva that everything was ready, and that it
was time for her to enter the boat which they had prepared for her,
and which the six Fish Fairies would guide down the brook. But Eva
hesitated, for the boat, she thought, was too small for her. One of the
children, seeing that Eva hesitated, told her not to be afraid, for the
boat was built in such a way, being a magic boat, that it would hold
any one for whom it was made. So Eva did as she was told, and, stepping
lightly into the boat, she found that it was just the right size for
her; though she did not exactly know if it was she that had grown
smaller or the boat which had grown larger.
As she sat down, the children told her to be careful and eat nothing
except what the trout, who were to guide the boat, would bring her; and
in return she was to take care of them, and let no one molest them, for
the Fish Fairies are the weakest of all the fairies, though they can go
where the others dare not even be seen. When the boat had taken her as
far as it could, it would leave her, and return to the Valley of Rest.
Then, all joining hands, the children began to sing; and this is what
they sung:
Little boat,
Gently float,
With your sweet freight laden;
Evil charm
May not harm
Eva, the earth-maiden.
On her way,
Night and day,
Bear her onward ever;
Till she land
On the strand
Of th’ Enchanted River.
On this spot
Linger not!
’Tis the appointed hour!
Little boat,
Onward float,
Led by magic power.
As the last words were sung, the boat, apparently of its own accord,
moved into the centre of the brook, its bow pointing to the cavern.
Then it paused for a moment, till the six speckled trout could come and
take their places around it. And then, with a smooth, gliding motion,
it went towards the entrance of the cavern, which suddenly raised its
arch so as to admit the magic boat. When it was just under the arch,
the boat stopped for a moment, and as Eva looked back, she saw that
the children were already going back to the palace, singing as they
went,--the bright, rosy light, and the rainbow-surrounded fountains,
and the beautiful birds, seemed more charming than ever in contrast
with the Dark Unknown into which she was going.
Then the boat shot forward again, and the arch of the cavern, which
had been raised to allow the boat to enter, dropped behind her like a
curtain, shutting out the Valley of Rest from Eva’s sight.
The rest she had enjoyed there was over,--her wanderings had again
begun.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XII.
_DOWN THE BROOK._
It was not without a moment’s fear that Eva saw the arch of the cavern
close behind her, shutting her into silence; and surrounding her with a
darkness which could not only be seen, but which was almost to be felt.
At least so it seemed in contrast with the bright valley which she had
left; but before many minutes had passed, or the boat had gone very
far, her eyes became accustomed to the change, the intense blackness
which surrounded her softened into a pale, dim gray; and then Eva saw
that she was in a low arched place, like a long tunnel cut in the solid
rock. Every now and then a drop of water would fall splashing into
the brook from the roof, or else a little wave would break, rippling
against the wall; but those were the only sounds to be heard.
Even the boat glided along noiselessly, with a smooth, uniform
motion,--and the tiny waves, which occasionally ruffled the surface of
the dark, still water, passed under her without Eva’s noticing them.
Leaning over the side, Eva could just see in the water the dim outlines
of the trout, which swam along noiselessly in their respective places.
Then all at once it grew lighter, and in the two cups of the lilies in
which the curved prow and stern of the boat ended, she saw that a pale,
blue flame was burning, and she knew then that from these blue flames
came all the dim gray light which illumined the cavern. And presently,
without thinking, she dipped her hand into the brook, and right away
the water all around it was full of bright sparkles, and yet these
little sparkles did not burn her; and then one of the six speckled
trout came and rubbed his head softly against Eva’s hand, and asked her
what she wanted.
Eva stroked the trout’s back, and said,--
“Nothing.”
“Well, when you do want anything,” the trout said to her, “just dip
your hand into the water, and one of us will come to you. Then you must
ask for what you want, and if we can get it for you we will; and when
you are hungry we will bring you something to eat.”
Eva thanked the trout, and said she would be sure to ask when she
wanted anything. And then she took her hand out of the water, and the
trout went back to his place, and Eva lay down quietly in the bottom of
the boat, for she was tired of sitting up, and looked at the roof of
the cavern. It was all rough and uneven, high above the water in some
places and near it in others, with bright stones set here and there in
it, which shone and sparkled like diamonds or little stars whenever the
boat passed under them, or the light from the flames burning in the
lily-cups, which Eva called her lamps, fell upon them. But there was no
sign of life in the cavern, except that every now and then things like
bats, frightened by the light, would fly out of holes in the wall away
back into the darkness.
The boat went on and on, though there seemed no current in the water
over which it glided, till, as Eva thought, they must have travelled
for days. Sometimes she would sleep, and the boat went on just the
same; when she was hungry, she would dip her hand into the water, and
the trout would bring her a basket filled with the fruit which grew in
the Valley of Rest. But Eva began to be very tired of the long journey
through the cavern; and she was wondering to herself how much farther
they would have to go, when all of a sudden the little blue flames
burning in the lily-cups flickered for a moment, and then, seemingly
gathering themselves together, shot up to the roof of the cavern and
disappeared, leaving everything again in total darkness; and Eva was
just going to ask the trout what this meant, when she saw, far away in
the distance before her, what looked to her like a tiny, yet beautiful
blue star shining.
This little star, which was yet far away, seemed so fair and lovely
that Eva said, without intending to speak, “O little boat, if only you
would sail faster, and go near the pretty star!” And, just as if the
boat had heard and understood the words, it began to move faster,--or
was it the star which grew larger and larger, and came to meet them?
No! it surely was no star, for the blue spot became larger and still
larger, and then the cavern grew lighter and lighter, till, when she
was near enough, Eva saw that what she had taken for a star was the
arched entrance into the rock, and the light it shed was the pure light
of day pouring into the darkness of the cavern.
But it did not look so very inviting when the boat came nearer. Beyond
the arch the air was full of curling mists and vapors, like those which
Eva had seen at the foot of the precipice, and through these mists and
vapors she caught dim glimpses of the same old hateful faces she had
seen so often before. Just before the boat reached the arch, one of the
six trout, putting his head above the water, said to her:
“Stop the boat.”
“How can I?” Eva asked, in surprise.
“Speak to her; she will obey you.”
And, to Eva’s great astonishment, as soon as the words, spoken very
doubtingly, “Little boat, wait,” passed her lips, the little vessel
stopped, and lay without moving on the water.
Then the same trout which had spoken to her previously put his head
again out of the water and said:
“Before we go on, among the mists and vapors which lie beyond the
cavern, it is well to tell you to be prepared. You must be on your
guard, for THEY who dwell on the margin of the Brook of Mists will do
everything in their power to prevent your reaching the Enchanted River.
You will have to be careful, not only for yourself but for us, and
no matter what they whom we meet may ask you to do, you must refuse,
however trifling it may seem. Beyond the cavern we have no power to
warn you; you must judge for yourself.”
More than this, the trout went on, they were not permitted to say to
her. So Eva thanked them, and promised to remember what they had told
her; and then she told the little boat to go on, and once more the
little vessel glided forward with each trout in its own place.
They proceeded slowly; the curling mists and vapors always before
them,--and, as Eva noticed, always behind them, although they were
never close to the boat,--just as if she carried a free space along
with her, and that the mists were not allowed to come within a certain
distance of her.
So, for a time, they went quietly down the brook. And Eva, seeing
that nothing happened, began to wonder why the trout had told her to
be careful; and she was looking over the side of the boat at her own
face reflected in the clear water, in which not a fish was to be seen,
except those with her, when suddenly the boat began to rock to and fro,
as she never had done before; and when Eva turned round to ascertain
the cause of this rocking, there, perched on the side of the boat, was
a great black jackdaw.
But, oh! what a very queer-looking jackdaw he was, to be sure! Every
here and there he had peacock feathers stuck in among his plumage, and
it was easy to see that they were only put in for show. It was as much
as Eva could do to keep from laughing when she looked at him.
“Caw! caw!” cried the jackdaw, with his head to one side, just as if
he thought himself the finest bird in the world. “I am hungry, little
girl, for I have flown a long way to-day, and I want to know if you
won’t give me something to eat.”
“I would, with pleasure,” Eva said, “if I had any corn with me, for
that is what jackdaws eat.”
The jackdaw tossed his head at this.
“Pooh! you are silly; can’t you see I’m a peacock? Just look at my fine
feathers, and tell me what you suppose I want with corn? If you really
are willing to give me something to eat, why, I’ll take one of those
fine, fat fish swimming near the boat.”
“That I cannot let you do,” Eva said. “I know who you are, now: you are
the bird who stole the peacock’s feathers; I saw a picture of you in a
little book I once read.”
“Found out! Found out!” cawed the jackdaw; and, with that, off he flew;
and he was in such a hurry to be gone that he dropped two of the long
feathers which had been in his tail, and Eva picked them up and stuck
them into the side of the boat.
Then one of the trout, after the jackdaw was gone, put his head up out
of the water and said:
“It is a good thing for all of us that you said ‘no’ to the bird. For,
if you had said he might take one of us, he would not have touched us,
but would have pecked a hole in the boat, and she would have sunk to
the bottom of the brook. We should have had to leave you, and then you
never could have reached the Enchanted River.”
“Where is the Enchanted River?” Eva asked the trout.
He answered, “It runs through Shadow-Land.”
“And where are we?”
“We are on the Brook of Mists, which empties into the Enchanted River.
You came out of Shadow-Land when you entered the Valley of Rest.”
Then the boat went on quietly again. Only for a time, however, and
presently Eva heard a voice, in a squeaky tone, calling to her:
“Stop, little girl, and take me in.”
And there, apparently crawling along the surface of the water, was a
queer little dwarf. He had a large head, with round, green eyes; a fat,
round body; and he was dressed in a yellow coat with scarlet facings,
and his legs were so long and thin that they bent under him as he
walked. And when he came up to the boat and laid his hand upon it, Eva
saw that it was not a hand, but only a sharp black claw.
[Illustration: “Stop, little girl, and take me in.” Page 112.]
“Take me in!” he repeated.
Eva peeped at the trout over the side of the boat before she answered
him, but they were taking no notice of the dwarf, and were swimming
along as quietly as ever.
“Take me in!” he squeaked again.
“No,” Eva said; “the boat is too small to hold us both.”
“Then give me one of those peacock feathers to fan myself with.”
“I must refuse you,” Eva went on; “but perhaps the jackdaw, who was
here not long since, might supply you, as he did me.”
“You are very unkind,” the dwarf said. “Come, now, I will give you such
a pretty flower if you will only let me go a little way with you; a
star-flower. Aster means--a star.”
Eva shook her head. “I cannot.”
“Why?”
“Because I think I saw you in the forest.”
And just as Eva said these words, a change came over the dwarf; he was
the same, yet not the same, and she saw that he was nothing but a huge
spider, and that instead of walking on the water, as she had supposed,
he had come to the boat on a web stretched across the brook, on which
he was now running away just as fast as he could.
Then another of the trout put up his head, and said:
“You did well to refuse him, for if he had gotten into the boat, or if
you had given him the feather, he would have put a bandage over your
eyes, so that you could not see, and then would have spun a web around
you and the boat, and nobody knows how you ever would have got out of
it.”
“He could not do it in the forest,” Eva said; “how could he do it here?”
“Because first you were only brought into Shadow-Land; this time you
came into it. Such as he can only control those who allow him. He could
only have power over you by your own act and deed.”
And once more the boat went on. But after awhile she was hailed
again,--and Eva bade her stop.
This time Eva was surprised to see that the call came from a little old
woman crouched upon a stone which rose above the water. A very ugly
old woman she was, too; for she had a very wide mouth and a pair of
prominent, staring black eyes, and she was wrapped in a green shawl,
and talked in an odd little croaking voice.
“Where are you going?” she asked Eva. Eva only smiled, for she could
not tell the old woman what she did not know herself.
“I know,” the old woman said, nodding her head, and without waiting for
a reply, “you are looking for Aster and his coat.”
“How do you know?” Eva began; but the old woman interrupted her:
“Never you mind how I know it; it is enough for you that I do know it.
And if you really want to find Aster, I can tell you where he is, and
put you in the way of finding him.”
“If you only would,” Eva said, eagerly.
“You must first take me into the boat, and then give me one of your
curls.”
“No,” Eva said, remembering what the trout had told her; “that I cannot
do.”
Then the old woman grew angry, and she jumped off the stone, as if she
wanted to get into the boat. But as she jumped, Eva spoke to the boat,
and she moved on; and then the old woman fell into the water. And Eva
saw that the old woman, changing her shape as soon as she touched the
water, was nothing but the same great green frog she had seen before;
and that her shawl was the piece torn from Aster’s coat which it was
part of her business to find.
The third trout popped his head up out of the water:
“If you only could have known, and had given us the curl that the Green
Frog asked you for, we would have made a net of it, in which we could
have caught the frog, and then the hardest part of your task would have
been over; for then you could have taken the piece of Aster’s coat away
from her.”
“If you only had told me,” Eva said. “But it seems that you can only
speak when it is too late.”
“Because when higher powers are present we must be silent. We are never
allowed to speak till after they have spoken, and are gone.”
“Then, how could you have caught the frog?”
“Through the power you would have given us. But nothing can stop us or
molest us now.”
Then the boat went on, down the brook, and nothing more happened to
stop her progress. On she went, till at last, all of a sudden, the
mists and vapors before her vanished, and Eva saw, just in front of
her, what seemed the open mouth of a huge serpent ready to devour them.
But the boat went on until it came near the terrible jaws, and then
Eva saw that they were only two great rocks, one on each side of the
brook,--and the boat passed unhurt between them. And just beyond them
the water stopped short; and then the boat came to a pause, and nothing
that Eva could say or do would move her one inch.
And then another of the trout put up his head, and told Eva she should
bid the boat go to the shore; which she did; and the boat obeyed, and
then stopped again, her bow resting on the shore.
“We can do no more for you,” the trout then told her. “We must now go
home, for there, where the brook stops, the Enchanted River runs. On
it our boat cannot go, and in it we cannot live; so, though we would
like to help you, we cannot.”
Then Eva thanked them for what they had done, and taking one of her
long bright curls, she tied part of it round each trout’s neck, where
it shone like a collar of gold. And they told her that she should keep
the rest of the curl, and if at any time she was in trouble from which
she could not escape, and was near water, and thought that they could
help her, she should throw the rest of the curl into the water, and
they would come to her.
Then, holding in her hand the two feathers the jackdaw had dropped,
which the trout told her might be useful, Eva bade the trout farewell,
and stepped on shore. And as her foot touched the ground, the boat
moved off into the stream, and waited there.
And presently Eva said, “Go home, little boat,” and the boat
immediately, with the trout, began to go up the brook. She watched it
till it was out of sight, and then the child stood alone on the banks
of the Enchanted River.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XIII.
_THE ENCHANTED RIVER._
Eva had heard so much about this wonderful stream that, as she stood
upon its banks, she could scarcely realize that she had at last reached
it. And it looked quiet enough, now that she had come to it. It had
seemed to her that the waters of the Brook of Mists had ended in
nothing; but now, as she stood upon the river-bank, and looked back,
she could see no water. The curling mists and vapors had spread over
and covered all the way by which she had come, and the only things
left to show the place of the brook were the two black rocks, half
hid, half revealed, by the mists playing around them. But to remain
there, looking back, would, as Eva well knew, never do. Her way lay
down the river, and she might as well go boldly forward. So, slowly and
carefully, she began to walk along the bank.
Quiet as the river had at first seemed, it was not very long before Eva
found that it deserved its name. What she thought was land would very
often prove to be water; and then again places which seemed to be a
broad expanse of river would afford her a firm foothold. Here and there
were sheets of what Eva thought at first was ice, so smooth and glassy
did it look, yet it would not be cold to the touch. The river had no
perceptible banks,--it was almost impossible to tell where earth ended
and water began. Yet, walking along, sometimes with the water splashing
above her ankles, Eva’s feet were never wet. The trees along the river
seemed to walk on, and little green flames, tipped with orange, danced
among them. Once one of these little flames fell on Eva’s dress, and
when, fearing it might burn her, she brushed it off, she found that it
was nothing but a harmless green leaf, with a golden tip, which had
dropped from a tree hanging over the river.
Many wonderful things, too, lay on the bottom of the river. Eva saw
them, and remembered dimly what they were as she caught sight of them
through the clear water, though she could not tell where she ever had
heard of them. An old lamp, rusty and cracked, she knew was Aladdin’s
wonderful lamp; near it lay Cinderella’s little glass slippers; not far
off was Blue Beard’s key; and the next thing that she saw was Jack’s
famous bean-stalk. Seeing these things, and many more, she began to
wonder if the flower which Aster had lost could possibly be among them,
or if the piece of his coat was there; when she suddenly remembered
that she had seen the latter in the possession of the Green Frog.
On she went, meeting no one and with no hindrance in her way. Then she
saw a tiny worm, writhing, as if in pain, and trying to crawl away from
a twig which lay on it and seemed to hold it. And pitying the feeble
creature, even more helpless than she was, Eva stooped and took it from
under the twig, and laid it gently down again. The twig immediately
put forth many legs and ran away, and the worm crept into a hole near
by. And a few minutes later Eva saw an old woman sitting in the water
and warming her hands over a fire built upon a stone, and the child
went up to her, and asked her if she would tell her where Aster was.
But the old woman would not even look at her; she only shook her head
and mumbled something which sounded like “Ask my sister,” and then she
seemed, as Eva stood by her, to fall apart and melt away, and then
there was nothing left of her except a little vapor, and the child saw
that the fire was only a little heap of the same green leaves which she
had seen among the trees.
And Eva went on, eager to leave a place where such strange things as
this happened. Then the river seemed to disappear, and only a number
of little pools of water were left. Picking her way carefully among
them, in one she saw a poor, half-drowned mouse struggling, unable to
get out; and when Eva saw it she took the little animal in her hand and
laid it on dry land. It never even looked at her, but crept shyly away,
as if it was afraid of her, and hiding itself under a leaf, Eva saw it
no more.
Weary and tired, the child went slowly onward. At last the pools of
water were all gone, and the river flowed on as before, but its waters
were now white like milk. Tall, shadowy forms every now and then rose
from it, and made threatening gestures; yet they always vanished
before she came up to them. The banks of the river became high and
steep, and Eva was compelled to walk in its bed; at times these rocky
sides were so close together that it looked as if it would be almost
impossible to pass between them; then again it would spread out into a
vast expanse, with no visible limit, or else the water would run, not
_down_, but _up_ a rocky slope; it would smoke, and yet the water would
be freezingly cold; masses of something as clear as ice would float in
this smoking water, which were so warm that Eva could scarcely bear
her hand upon them; on one of these masses lay a bird, like a robin,
worn and exhausted, its feathers all wet and ruffled. Eva took it up
tenderly, smoothed and dried its plumage, and held it till it was warm.
And then the bird, seemingly impatient of her gentle hold, struggled to
get free, and Eva released it, and in another moment it was gone too.
And then she came to where another old woman sat on a rock, around
which the milky waters were foaming, and mists and vapors rose above
and behind her. To this old woman she also spoke, and asked her the
same question which she had asked before,--where Aster was. And in
reply she was told that still farther down the river, at the Cascade of
Rocks, was where the Toad-Woman lived, and that perhaps she might tell
Eva what it was that she wished to know. “But,” the Mist-Woman added,
“my sister will not always answer those who speak to her, and I cannot
tell you how to make her.” And, as she spoke, the vapors thickened
and gathered around her for a moment, and then melted away, and the
Mist-Woman had vanished with them, and nothing was left except the bare
rock.
The child began to think that the wonders of the river would never
cease, and that her journey down it would be endless. Yet, tired as she
was, she persevered, and went on until all the water was gone, and only
stones and rocks lay in its former bed. But, strange to say, as Eva
walked among the stones and rocks, she found they were only shadows.
Then, all at once, a loud noise, as of falling stones, met her ear,
and on coming to a sudden turn in the river, she saw that the noise was
caused by what she at once knew was the Cascade of Rocks; for from a
high precipice crossing the river’s bed fell an endless stream of huge
stones, and seated in a sort of cavern, just behind the fall, there was
a third old woman, with a head like that of a toad, fanning herself
with a fan made of peacock’s feathers.
Eva was at first afraid to go near the woman, lest the stones should
fall and crush her. But at last she ventured to go near, and she saw
that at her approach the stones parted, as though to make room for
her; and summoning all her courage, she went close to the cascade, and
finding that none of the stones touched her, but rather got out of her
way, she walked into the grotto.
The Toad-Woman stopped fanning and looked at her. Then she took a pair
of spectacles out of her pocket and put them on, and Eva thought she
looked funnier than ever. And then she asked:
“What do you want?”
And Eva answered, “I am looking for Aster.”
“I’ve not got him,” the old woman said.
“I know,” Eva replied; “but I was told that you might be able to tell
me where he was.”
“Hum!” the Toad-Woman said. “You have, then, come down the Enchanted
River, and seen my sister, the Mist-Woman. But even that won’t help
you, though she did let you pass her, and though the stones did not
trouble you. I do know where Aster is, but I promised my cousin that
I would only tell it to the person who would bring me back the two
feathers that her servant the jackdaw stole out of my fan.”
She held up her fan as she said this, and Eva saw that two feathers
out of it were gone. And then the child remembered the two feathers
which the jackdaw had dropped in the boat, and which, as the trout had
advised her, she had brought with her from the brook. So she showed
them to the woman, and asked her if these were not the same ones which
she had lost. And the Toad-Woman was very much astonished, for they
were the very feathers she had been talking about.
“Take a seat,” she said to Eva, “and tell me how you got them.”
And then a great big brown toad hopped out of his hole when he heard
his mistress say this, bringing a three-legged stool on his back. He
put it down before Eva, and then went back to his hole, and Eva sat
down on the stool and looked at the Toad-Woman.
“Now, tell me about it,” said the Toad-Woman.
So Eva had to begin at the beginning and tell the whole story. And
every time that she said anything about the green toad the old woman
would nod her head, as much as to say, “I know all about that.” But she
never interrupted Eva; only when she was done she said to her:
“I am the only person who can help you now, and as you brought me back
my feathers, I will do what I can for you. The Green Frog, who has done
all this harm, is a distant cousin of mine, but she delights in doing
mischief, and we have not been friends since her servant the jackdaw
stole the feathers out of my fan. She it is who has got Aster, and you
cannot find him until you get his coat, and the piece of it. You will
have to work for them, for I cannot help you there; all I can do for
you will be to send you where she lives.”
Then Eva thanked the Toad-Woman very earnestly, who told her that she
must be content to remain with her for that night, and the next morning
that she would tell her where the Green Frog lived, and what she should
do when she got there.
So that night Eva slept in the grotto behind the Cascade of Rocks. The
Toad-Woman waked her up very early in the morning. She had a dress in
her hand, just the color of mud, which she told Eva to put on.
“Leave your white dress here with me,” she said. “Because you will
have to deal with the things and the inhabitants of Shadow-Land, and
it would, if it touched them, change them all into mists and shadows.
Then, too, you must not be recognized.”
Then the Toad-Woman tied Eva’s head up in a cap, so as to hide all her
golden curls, and made her wash her face and hands in some water which
she gave her. Then she told her to go and look at herself in a little
pool of water which was just outside of the grotto, and Eva could not
help laughing when she saw herself, for face, hands, cap, and dress
were all the same color.
“My cousin lives on the other side of the Cascade of Rocks,” the
Toad-Woman went on. “Go to her--one of my servants will show you the
way--and ask her to hire you. She will not recognize you, but will take
you, and will tell you that if you do your work well you may name your
own wages at the end of each week. You will be able to do any work she
may give you, and at the end of every week she will ask you what wages
you want. Tell her you cannot say without asking your mother. Then she
will tell you to go and ask her, and you must then come to me, and I
will tell you what to say. In the mean time I will take care of your
dress till you need it again.”
Eva listened attentively to all that the Toad-Woman said to her, and
thanked her for her advice. And then the woman called her servant, and
the same big brown toad who had brought the stool, and who, by the way,
was just the color of Eva’s dress, hopped out of his hole, and his
mistress bade him take Eva to where the Green Frog lived.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XIV.
_THE GREEN FROG._
Following the toad, and saying good-bye to his mistress, Eva passed
unhurt through the falling stones, and picked her way carefully among
those which lay in the bed of the river, till they came to the turn
at which she had first caught sight of the Cascade of Rocks. There
the toad hopped quickly on shore, and then he hopped across a large
plain of mud, in which grew a multitude of toad-stools, and on every
toad-stool, or mushroom, there sat either a frog or a toad, and in
the mud at their feet were countless numbers of snakes and lizards,
their long, shining bodies and tails coiled around the stalks of the
toad-stools.
It was almost impossible for Eva to make any progress through the mud,
over which the toad, big as he was, hopped so lightly. Still, she
succeeded in crossing the field after him, though when they reached a
firmer soil, Eva was fairly ashamed of her dress, on which there was so
much mud; and when they came to a little pool of clear water, in which
she saw herself reflected, she wondered for a moment who that dirty
little girl could be; and then she laughed to think how very different
this little mud-stained figure was from the white-robed maiden who had
passed without a soil or a spot on her dress through the forests of
Shadow-Land.
At last they came in sight of a little hut, built of rough stones,
with a huge toad-stool for a roof, directly in the middle of a field,
which was full of little pools of water. The field was surrounded by a
strange fence, in which the posts were all toad-stools, and the rails
all spider-webs. On each toad-stool a green frog was sitting, and in
every web there hung either a red or a black spider. When they came
to this fence, the toad, after going up to one of the green frogs and
croaking something to him, turned round without so much as saying
“good-bye” to Eva, and hopped away just as fast as he could go; and
then one of the toad-stools; with the web attached to it, swung open as
if it had been on a hinge, so that Eva could enter the inclosure.
She went up to the door of the hut and knocked. And the third time
that she knocked the door was opened by a large jackdaw, which Eva
immediately recognized as the same bird which she had seen on the
brook, dressed in the peacock feathers which he had stolen from the
Toad-Woman’s fan; but although she knew him in a moment, he evidently
did not know her, she was so very muddy, and so unlike her own self. In
the hut, on a toad-stool, which served as a chair, sat the same Green
Frog, with a little shawl over her shoulders, she had seen before,
which had tried to carry Aster off, and had torn his coat; and it was
with some little hesitation that Eva went up to her, and curtsied to
her. And then, as she had been told, she asked the Frog if she needed a
servant.
The Green Frog inspected her from head to foot.
“You are pretty dirty,” she said to Eva, “and I don’t think that I
ever saw you before. But that don’t matter. You will have to work
out-of-doors, and if you do your work properly, at the end of the week
you may ask for your own wages. But if you don’t work well, I will
give you nothing, but I will turn you into a frog, and put you on a
toad-stool, as I have done with a great many before you.”
Eva thought to herself that perhaps the Frog never before had a servant
like herself, so she told her that she was still willing to hire
herself. Then the Frog told the jackdaw to take the new servant out and
tell her what she was to do.
So the jackdaw hopped out, and Eva followed him. And when he told her
what her work for that week was to be, she thought it was very funny
work. And then he told her she might do as she pleased for the rest
of that day, but the next morning she must go to work. And Eva amused
herself by looking everywhere for Aster. But he was not to be seen.
Only, just over the back-door of the hut, there hung a little wire
cage, and in it there sat a little green bird, which screamed whenever
the jackdaw or the Frog even looked at it. And when it began to grow
dark, these two took the little bird out of his cage and picked out
his tail and wing-feathers, the bird screaming and struggling all the
time, and then they put him back into the cage. And it was just as much
afraid of Eva as it was of the jackdaw and the Frog.
There was neither sun nor moon in this place,--as in the forest, when
the moon was gone, all the light seemed to come from the earth. And
every morning Eva noticed that the tail and wing-feathers of the little
green bird had grown again, though every evening either the Frog or the
jackdaw pulled them out.
I said that when Eva was told of the work she would have to do she
thought it was very queer work. Every morning, when the light drove
away the darkness, she was to wipe off and dust the tops of the
toad-stools on which the frogs sat, and she thought it would be very
easy to do. So she tried to do it, and the jackdaw stood on one foot
and cawed at her all the time,--and the more she rubbed and wiped the
top of the toad-stool post the dirtier it became,--and she was nearly
in despair, when she heard one of the frogs whisper to the other,--
“If she would only catch the jackdaw and sweep one off with his tail,
she would have no more trouble.”
And Eva did as the frog had said, and though the jackdaw screamed and
struggled, and tried to get away, it did him no good. But she found
that when she had swept one toad-stool off that all the rest were as
clean and nice as possible, and there was nothing more to be done to
any of them. And every evening before the Green Frog went to sleep--she
slept every night in a little pond or pool in the corner of the
hut--Eva had to walk around the inclosure and count the spiders and see
that their webs were whole. But she never had any trouble,--the webs
were always whole; and one of the spiders was sure to tell her how many
of them there were.
So a whole week went by, and every morning Eva caught the jackdaw and
swept one toad-stool off with his tail. Now, Mr. Jackdaw did not at all
approve of this, and in the morning, when he saw Eva coming, he would
run away and hide himself. Then Eva would stoop down and pretend to
whisper to one of the frogs; and the jackdaw, who was very inquisitive,
would be so terribly afraid that something might be said that he would
like to hear, that he would come running up in a great hurry, only to
be caught and used as a living duster.
And when the week was over Eva presented herself to the Green Frog,
and asked for her wages. And then the old Frog asked her what she
wanted. And Eva did as the Toad-Woman had told her, and said she would
like to go and consult her mother. This she was allowed to do, and Eva
returned, by the same road by which the brown toad had led her, to the
grotto behind the Cascade of Rocks.
There sat the Toad-Woman, fanning herself, just as if she had never
moved since Eva first saw her. And she knew all about the work Eva had
to do without Eva’s telling her. She told Eva to ask for the little
green coat which hung at the head of her mistress’s bed (if you can
call a pool of water a bed). “She will refuse you,” the woman went on,
“but you must insist. You have earned it, and will get it in the end.”
Eva thanked her, and then returned to the hut. And sitting in the door
was the Frog; and she said to her that she was ready for her wages.
“What am I to give you?” croaked the Frog.
“Nothing but the little green coat which hangs at the head of your bed.”
Then the Frog told her that she could not give her that, and offered
her all sorts of beautiful things instead. But Eva insisted upon
having the little green coat; and as fairies--even when they are bad
fairies--are compelled to keep their promises or else lose their power,
the Frog had to keep her word; and she told Eva that if she could find
the little coat she might have it.
So Eva went into the hut and looked over the pool in which the
Frog slept; and hanging against the wall were little green coats
innumerable, which surprised Eva, for she never had seen anything
hanging there before; and they all looked so much alike that she did
not know which to choose. Then it seemed to her that a mist gathered
in her eyes, and she raised her hand to rub it away, and then she saw,
sitting on one of the little green coats, a beautiful, pure white
moth; and then Eva saw that the other coats were only shadows, and the
one on which the white moth sat was Aster’s coat. So she took it down,
and the moth never moved,--and then it spoke:
“Do you remember the tiny worm that you saved from the crawling twig?
I was that worm; and this is the first opportunity I have had to thank
you for saving my life, and the best service I could render you was
this.”
And without waiting to be thanked, the white moth spread her wings and
was gone.
The Green Frog was angry enough when she saw that Eva had chosen
rightly. But there was nothing to be done, only she grumbled to herself
and said,--she did not know that Eva heard her:
“The coat is useless without the piece.”
However, she hired Eva on the same terms for another week. For she
thought that if the new servant failed this time she would not only
change her into a frog, but get the little coat back. And the work Eva
had to do this week was to empty, and then refill with fresh water
every morning, the pool in which the Frog slept, and they gave her a
pail with no bottom to do it with.
And Eva would have been in a sad way if she had not heard the jackdaw
say, as he stood by the pool:
“Our new servant is caught at last; for, if she did take me for a broom
last week, she will never have sense enough to know that if she shakes
her pail over the pool and says ‘Water, go,’ it will empty itself, and
then ‘Water, come,’ and she will have no more trouble.”
And then out hopped the jackdaw, and never knew that Eva heard him. And
she found he was right; and she noticed, too, that this week they only
pulled out the little green bird’s wing-feathers, and never touched his
tail.
She did her work this time without any trouble. At the end of the week
it was the same thing over again about the wages, and again Eva went to
the Toad-Woman, and was told what she should do.
So she said to the Green Frog, “My coat is useless as long as it has a
hole in it. You can give me the jackdaw’s best cravat to mend it with.”
The Frog laughed at this, and told Eva to go and get it. She did not
know that the jackdaw, being fond of dress, and a thief, had stolen the
piece of Aster’s coat for that purpose. However, she found it out soon
enough, and when Eva went to look for it,--behold! a great spider had
spun a web around it,--a web so strong that she could not break it. And
after trying a long time, she was nearly in despair, when she saw a
little gray mouse come out of a hole, and, climbing up to the web, gnaw
and bite at it with its sharp teeth till it cut it all through; and
then it brought and laid in her hand the same piece of velvet which had
been torn out of Aster’s coat. Then the little mouse said to her:
“You saved me from being drowned, and I am not ungrateful.” And then it
crept back into its hole.
But when the Green Frog saw what Eva had, she was very angry, and
determined to give her something which was harder to do than anything
she had yet tried. So for the third week Eva’s work was to wash and
keep the shawl clean which the Frog wore when she went out. And the
first time that Eva tried to wash it she found that the harder she
rubbed it, and the more she tried to clean it, the dirtier it became.
But late in the day she heard the Green Frog say to the jackdaw:
“I’ll get my coat back, and you shall have your cravat again, for the
servant is such a dunce that she will never learn that the only way
to clean my shawl is to lay it on a toad-stool, and to walk around it
three times, and say every time, ‘Shawl, be clean.’”
But Eva’s ears were given to her for use, and, consequently, every
night the shawl was like new. And this week she saw that they only
plucked one of the little bird’s wings. The end of the week came, and
Eva, instructed by the Toad-Woman, asked for her wages.
“What is it this time?”
“I want the little green bird that hangs in the cage over the
back-door.”
“No,” said the Frog, “I cannot give him to you.”
“You cannot help it,” Eva said, quietly; “you promised to pay me, and I
have earned my wages.’
“Who told you anything about the little green bird,” the Frog went on.
“He won’t sing for you, and you had better let me give you a purse full
of gold.”
But no, Eva would take nothing but the bird, and at last the Frog told
her to go and take him, if she could find him. And then she went into
the hut, grumbling and talking to herself.
Eva went to the back of the house to look for the little green bird.
When she got there she did not know what to do, for there were at
least fifty cages there, and in each cage was a little green bird, and
cages and birds were all exactly alike,--there was no telling them
apart,--and which the one she wanted could be Eva did not know. And if
she chose the wrong one, all her work would be lost.
Yet, look as she might, she could not tell which was the right one.
Then there was a flutter of wings in the air, and then she felt
something pull her dress, and there at her feet was a beautiful
bird, holding her dress in its beak, and it led her round and round
the cages, and every cage that her dress touched melted away and
disappeared, till there was only one cage and one bird left, and then
the new bird never hesitated, but lit on the top of this cage, and then
he said to Eva:
“This is Aster, who was changed by the Green Frog into this form. He
cannot regain his own shape without you, and the Toad-Woman will tell
you what you are to do. As soon as the Frog misses him she will know
who you are, which she does not yet know, and she will do her best
to get him away from you. Go at once, and without any delay, to the
Cascade of Rocks. Your friend there will help you. And remember that a
kind action never goes unrewarded.”
And then the bird was gone, and Eva was alone. She tried to open the
cage and take the little green bird out, but there was no such thing as
opening it. So she took the cage, and the coat, which she had mended,
and the piece had grown into the velvet, so that you never could tell
that it had been torn, and without going again into the hut or telling
the Frog she had found the bird, she went, for the last time, by the
same road by which she had come, to the grotto of the Toad-Woman.
But she had not been gone many minutes before the Green Frog, wondering
that her servant did not return to hire herself again, went in search
of her. And the moment she saw that the bird was gone she knew who Eva
was, and that she had discovered Aster; and, angry at herself for her
own stupidity, she immediately set off in pursuit, hoping it was not
yet too late to regain the prizes she had lost.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XV.
_IN THE GROTTO._
It was with a light heart that Eva passed over the muddy way which lay
between the hut and the cascade. As rapidly as she could, she went
along. The little bird screamed and cried incessantly, and Eva feared,
that hearing him, the frogs inhabiting this region might, by their
croakings, give the alarm, and bring their powerful mistress on her
track before she reached the grotto. But the frogs were all, or else
seemed to be, asleep, and she passed them unnoticed.
In a very short time, which yet seemed to Eva like hours, she reached
the grotto. Here she felt comparatively safe, and she would gladly have
rested, but the Toad-Woman, telling her she had no time to lose, for
the Green Frog knew of her escape, and that she herself was well aware
of all that had happened at the hut, bade her change her dress.
Now, what Eva most wanted was to see Aster restored to his original
shape. But, without a word, she obeyed the woman, and put on her
own white dress again. It was so nice to get rid of that horrid,
mud-colored thing she had been wearing, to shake down her long curls,
instead of having them tied up in a little plain cap, and to have
the ugly brown dye come off her face and hands. Eva was more than
glad,--she enjoyed the change.
“Now we will help Aster,” said the Toad-Woman. But the question was,
how to open the cage and to get the bird out. For the cage had no door,
and the bird flew round and round it, screaming and pecking at Eva’s
hands, till the child was nearly ready to cry. “The Frog has still
power, through her enchantments, over him,” the woman said. “Give me
the cage, and let me see what I can do.”
[Illustration: “So the old woman at the head, and Eva at the tail,
pulled, and pulled.” Page 147.]
So she took up the cage and said some words which Eva did not
understand, and then drew a circle in the air over it with her hand;
and then, to Eva’s great amazement, a door in the cage opened and the
woman put her hand in it and took out the bird, which screamed louder
and pecked harder than ever.
“Now,” said the Toad-Woman, “we must make all the haste we can. We must
find Aster before the Frog gets here. I’ll hold the bird’s head, and
you take his tail, and then pull,--pull as hard as you can.”
All this was so queer to Eva, who thought they had found Aster, that
she could not understand it. But the old woman saw her trouble, and,
without getting angry or impatient, as some fairies would have done,
she said to Eva:
“Aster is sewed up in the bird’s skin. And we can only get him out by
tearing it apart. Make haste, there is no time to be lost.”
So the old woman at the head, and Eva at the tail, pulled, and pulled,
and pulled. And the harder they pulled, the more the bird screamed and
cried, till Eva pitied him so that she could scarcely bear to hurt him.
But whenever she would want to stop the Toad-Woman would tell her to
pull harder.
Such a tough skin as it was, to be sure! There seemed to be no such
thing as tearing it, and the Toad-Woman said that Aster must have been
very naughty before he fell into the Green Frog’s hands. And Eva, much
as she loved Aster, could not contradict this.
But at last the bird left off screaming, and hung between them as if it
was dead. And then, as the two pulled, it got larger and longer, and
the feathers were farther apart, and then all of a sudden the skin gave
way and vanished, where, Eva did not know, and from it there dropped,
just in time for Eva to save it from falling to the floor of the
grotto, Aster’s tiny figure, motionless, and as it were, asleep, and
just like what he had been when Eva first received him, except that his
coat was in her hands; and the Toad-Woman had only time enough to tell
her to put it on him, and Eva had just obeyed, and was stooping to kiss
the little prince as he lay in her lap, when they heard a loud croak,
and with a long leap the Green Frog was in the grotto.
But as soon as she saw Eva, standing there in her spotless white robe,
holding the unconscious little prince, she knew how it was that he had
been taken from her, and that her power over him was nearly gone. Yet
she knew that if she could once again obtain possession of him that no
one could rescue him; and as Eva had once submitted to her, she had no
power of herself, as she before possessed, to protect him. And without
even looking at the Toad-Woman, she was going to leap upon Aster, and
try and snatch him from Eva’s arms, when the Toad-Woman, taking from
her pocket a curl, which even in that moment Eva recognized as part of
the one which she had cut to give to the trout, and which had lain,
forgotten ever since, in the pocket of her own white dress, dropped it
on the ground. And as the hair touched the ground a spring of clear
water came bubbling up, and in it Eva saw her friends, the six trout,
whom she recognized by the golden collars they wore; and the Green Frog
was so surprised that she stopped to look, and then the water covered
her, and before she could move, the trout, as they had once said they
could do, swam up to her and enveloped her in a net made of these
golden hairs, which the Frog could not break, and then, in spite of
all her efforts to escape, and her loud croakings, the floor of the
grotto opened, and spring, trout, and Frog were gone in a moment.
It all passed in less time than can be told, and once more Eva and the
Toad-Woman were alone.
“Your hardest work is over,” the woman said to her. “The three tasks
are done; you have found Aster, his coat, and its piece. Here you
cannot stay any longer. When the moon is full again Aster’s long-lost
flower will bloom, and you will find it.”
And then a sudden darkness came over everything, and when, a moment
later, the light returned, nothing was as it had been. The Toad-Woman,
her grotto, and the Cascade of Rocks were gone, and when Eva heard
the music which heralded the coming of the moon, and saw the silver
crescent rise to its place, and Aster once more woke from his sleep,
she could scarcely realize that she was again in the old, familiar
forest, and the past seemed like a dream.
For in that moment of darkness, the Enchanted River had disappeared,
and Eva knew that the search in truth was nearly over.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XVI.
_ASTER’S STORY._
Once more Eva and Aster, hand in hand, wandered, as they both had
feared they would never again be allowed to do, through the forest,
by the light of the fair young moon, which looked down upon them from
the sky. And nothing came now to disturb them; no hideous faces mocked
at them from behind shrub or tree; no hostile beings, in shape of
spider or of frog, strove to take Aster from his young guardian. Nor
were they limited, as before, to the narrow path which had previously
confined their steps; but they might wander, unmolested, as their
fancy led them, through the forest. Shadows still surrounded them,
yet these shadows were fair and lovely to look upon: groups of sweet
child-figures at play, or fair faces which smiled on the two as they
passed.
Flowers, too, more brilliant and beautiful in hue than any they had yet
found, bloomed wherever they looked. Not the pale, scentless blossoms
they had seen before, but flowers which greeted them with rich perfume,
and whose bells and chalice-like cups, touched lightly by the dress of
the children as they passed, rang forth in bright and joyous melody.
In the bells of the flowers sat and swung tiny and beautiful shapes,
which Aster told Eva were the Flower Fairies, the gentlest of the race,
whose sole duty was to carry perfume to, and color the flowers. Some
bathed in the dewdrops on the leaves, others rode, seated on beautiful
butterflies, but all seemed gay and happy.
The light shed by the growing crescent of the moon seemed brighter;
the soft music which hailed her coming more joyous and triumphant; the
clouds, reflecting the moon’s light, wore a rich, rosy tint, reminding
Eva of the light in the Valley of Rest; the grass was green, and soft
as velvet,--the little sparkling brooks which they occasionally
crossed all sung the same song:
When will Eva’s task be done?
When will Aster’s flow’r be won?
When his robes from stains are free,--
When the moon’s orb round shall be,--
Then the trial will be done,
Then shall Aster’s flow’r be won.
For a few days, however, Eva noticed that Aster seemed dull and
spiritless. He scarcely ever spoke, but walked quietly by her side.
Nothing seemed to attract his attention, nothing made him smile; but
every now and then, when they would cross one of the little brooks, and
it would sing its song, he would look down upon his dress, and say,
sadly:
“It will never be bright again!”
Yet Eva noticed that he was careful never to trample on the flowers,
or to hurt anything in their path. And as, day after day, the moon
brightened and broadened, and Aster grew with her increase, Eva saw
that the sad, mournful expression in his eyes vanished, and they
regained their former starlike brilliancy. By slow degrees the spots
and the stains upon his dress disappeared; and, as they faded away,
Aster became once more his own playful and happy self. Never before had
he been as gentle or as docile and affectionate as he now was, though
he was very silent; and Eva thought, could he only be always as he was
now she would be content never to leave him; and she began to think,
almost with dread, of their approaching separation.
On and on they went, till they came to a place where a tiny spring,
bright as a living diamond, gushed up joyously, singing to itself for
very gladness. Soft green mosses and pure white flowers grew around it;
and when Aster saw it, he sprang forward with a joyous cry, and seating
himself near it, he beckoned to Eva to follow his example.
Then, for the first time since the two had been together, for he had
never before mentioned the past, so that Eva almost thought he had
forgotten it, Aster asked her to tell him how she ever had found him
again.
And once more Eva told the story,--this time to an interested
listener,--how, after she missed him, she had sought him, but in vain,
among the marked holes, and, seeking him, had climbed the rock to the
door of the Valley of Rest; how she had been admitted, and had dwelt
among the Happy Children till, the day of their absence, the little
brook had brought her the piteous cry, “Eva! Eva! help me!” How this
cry had recalled all she had forgotten, how the Dawn Fairies had given
her the magic boat, in which she had gone through the cavern and down
the Brook of Mists,--and then, leaving the boat, had gone, all alone,
up the Enchanted River to the grotto of the Toad-Woman behind the
Cascade of Rocks; how the woman had advised her, and how she had served
the Green Frog; what the moth, the mouse, and the bird had done for
her; how the skin covering the little green bird had been torn; and
how, after the Frog was carried away by the friendly Fish Fairies, she
had known that the worst was over, and the search nearly done.
Aster listened, and when Eva paused, he began; and it seemed to her
that, as he told his story, he spoke as he had never before spoken,--as
if he was older, and more matured.
“I can tell you now,” he said, “now that it is all nearly over, who
THEY were of whom you used to wonder that I spoke. The Green Frog and
her servants were the visible forms of THEY to whom my punishment was
committed. Yet, had I obeyed you,--which was part of my trial,--you,
under whose care my friends, who advised you in the shape of the toad
and the Toad-Woman, were allowed to place me, but little of this
trouble would have come upon me. If I failed in obedience to you,--such
was the condition,--if THEY gained the slightest hold upon me,--I must
fall wholly into their power, and then only, if you really wished it,
could your Love have power to overcome their Hate. And you know, Eva,
how I fell into their hands.”
“Yes, I know,” Eva said; “but I do not yet see why you crept into the
crevice in the rock.”
“How could I help it?” Aster asked. “After all I had done, and all that
had happened before! Because what must be, will be, and THEY made me.”
“And then, after you went into the rock?” Eva asked, eagerly.
“Remember, I know nothing of that.”
Then Aster told her how, in the crevice of the rock, he had found that
the Green Frog lay in wait for him. How she and her servants had taken
him, bound and tied with the same spider’s web from which Eva had, once
before, in the forest, released him, to her hut in the field of mud.
And how, when there, he had to lie in the mud, as a footstool for the
Frog,--and that every night she made him stand before her, and would
laugh at him, and ask him why Eva and his friends did not come to help
him.
“I was too proud,” Aster said, “and too angry, to call for you. I
thought I should, by myself, be able to escape. I tried, but the power
of THEY who kept me was too great for me, and I never once succeeded
even in passing the strange fence around the hut.
“But all the time, Eva, I knew--and it was part of my punishment--that
an appeal to you could be heard, and that you would come to help me.
But that I--I, a prince,--powerful at home, and only weak now because I
had lost such a trifling thing as a flower, should be compelled to ask
help of one who was able to help me only because she was gentler and
kinder than I was,--I could not do it. Meantime, the Green Frog laughed
at my efforts to escape. Yet, do what she would to me, I never called
for you. She might hang me up in the spider’s web,--she might threaten
to crush me,--I was silent.
“At last I could stand it no longer, I must help to carry heavy stones,
and when their weight nearly crushed me,--for though only shadows to
you, they were realities to me,--I would have rested, the spider would
sting me and scorch me with his poisonous breath,--the jackdaw peck
me,--and the Green Frog would threaten to swallow me, and tell me that
now you never would come to me, for the Dawn Fairies had made you
forget me. And not till then, when they told me you had forgotten me,
did I speak; and the only words that I said were these, ‘Eva! Eva! help
me!’”
“Yes,” Eva said, “those are the same words that the brook brought me.”
And then she told Aster about her dream: how the faces had asked why he
lost his flower; and the frog had spoken of his coat; and the spider
asked why he crept into the rock; and how, between it all, had come
the wailing cry of “Eva! Eva! help me!”
Then, too, Aster told her how they had spoken of what she must do, and
that they thought she never would do it, or know what was to be done.
And then he went on:
“But at last the Green Frog grew angry, when she found that, no matter
what she said or did, I only answered, ‘Eva! Eva! help me!’ For then,
making her servants strip off my coat, she touched me with a stick, and
said to me:
“‘You shall never let Eva hear you. I will silence you.’
“And, as she spoke, I was changed all at once into the little green
bird in whose shape you found me. And then the Frog, putting me in a
cage, said:
“‘You can never get out till your friend gets the piece of your coat,
the coat itself, and then finds you. If she does these things, you may
be free; but these things she cannot do unless others help her; and not
till after all these things are done can she hope to find your flower
again.’
“The rest, Eva, you know.”
As Aster spoke, Eva looked at him. And she saw that, on the rich, green
velvet of his dress, only a few tiny spots and stains were left; and
then she began to wonder what would happen when the moon would again be
full, and the flower they had sought so long should bloom and be found.
Would Aster then return to his home? and, as for herself, what would
become of her?
But she did not wonder long, for the soft music which attended the
disappearance of the moon thrilled through the forest, and Eva and
Aster, by the side of the spring, lay down and slept. And, once more,
as on the first night that Eva, holding the tiny form of Aster to her
heart, had slept on the mossy bed where once the golden fountain had
played, the two fair white forms bent over the sleeping children, and
one said:
“The punishment is over.”
“Yes,” was the other’s reply, “Love has overcome Hate, and Aster has
been led back, through its gentle influences, to his true self once
more.”
Yet, even as they spoke, two figures, with the hateful faces Eva had
seen, crept slowly up through the darkness to where the children lay.
But the white forms, hovering over their sleep, spoke:
“Go back, oh, evil fairies! to the dark shadows among which ye dwell!
Here your power is over, and our Prince is a prince once more.”
And, with a low cry of disappointment and rage, the two, turning away
from the bright forms, shrank into the darkness, and were seen no more.
Then, with a smile on their beautiful faces, the two bright forms bent
caressingly over the sleepers; and a moment later they, too, were gone,
and Eva and Aster were alone.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XVII.
_THE LAST OF SHADOW-LAND._
Once again there rang through the forest a strain of rich and gleeful
music. Once more the moon rose, a bright, unbroken circle, to her
station in the sky. A soft, rosy light lingered everywhere; flowers of
rarer beauty than ever, bloomed in profusion; the murmur of the spring
was sweeter than ever, and as Eva awoke, and looked at Aster, she saw
that neither spot nor stain defaced his rich dress, but that it was as
unsullied as her own. And as she looked upon her young companion, now
as tall as herself, and with something in his bearing Eva had never
been conscious of before,--something noble and princelike,--she heard a
voice from the spring murmuring, in soft, melodious tones:
“’Tis the hour!
Aster’s flower
Here shall bloom!”
And oh! what a sweet smile curved Aster’s lips as he heard these words!
Yet, when Eva would have spoken, he laid his hand gently upon her
mouth, as though to command silence; and the child, feeling that their
positions, somehow, were strangely reversed,--that it was now Aster’s
turn to command and hers to obey,--was silent.
The two stood, looking into the clear water of the spring. Then Aster
seated himself on the moss, in silence, and beckoned to Eva to do the
same, and without hesitating she followed his example.
They sat, not a word passing between them, and on each fair face
was a different expression. On Aster’s was all joyous expectation,
all smiles and happiness; on Eva’s there was a serious look, almost
amounting to mournfulness. It pained her, more than she was willing to
confess, to think that, after all she had borne and done for Aster,
he should welcome their separation so gladly; for, however much they
might wish to remain together, the finding of the flower would be the
signal for their parting; and the toil and trouble through, which Eva
had passed for Aster’s sake had only the more endeared him to her. He
seemed already far, far away from her, and Eva knew she was no longer
necessary to him.
And as Eva, sitting by Aster’s side, thought of all this, somehow
the place where they sat seemed to grow more familiar; another and a
well-known sound mingled with the other sounds of the forest,--the
voice of falling waters. And then, as Aster’s face grew brighter and
more expectant, and his starlike eyes sparkled, Eva felt a sudden
dimness gather in her own, and first one large tear and then another
rolled down her cheeks, and dropped, as she bent over it, into the
waters of the little spring.
But she was wholly unprepared for what followed. Aster sprang to his
feet, and the words, “Look, Eva, look!” passed his lips. And as Eva,
her hand now clasped in his, looked, the spring bubbled and foamed, and
then, its waters parting, up rose from its bosom the Golden Fountain,
with its clouds of glistening, golden spray; its rainbow sparkles of
colored light; its musical falls and its dancing elves, as she had long
since seen it.
Nor was this all. For, even as the children gazed, there appeared in
the calm water at the foot of the fountain a bud, folded in soft,
green leaves; and, by slow degrees, as Eva looked, the bud rose from
the encircling foliage, and its stem grew higher and higher, and then,
slowly and gracefully, its pure white petals opened, like a fair and
stainless ivory cup enfolding a golden torch, and it breathed forth the
fragrance of many violets: and, as Eva looked, she knew that the search
was over, and the pure white lily before them was Aster’s flower, won
at last.
Then Eva’s blue eyes shone with joy, and her fair cheeks flushed, and
she turned to Aster:
“Aster, be glad; for your flower is won, and all that remains is for
you to pluck it.”
“No,” he said, slowly; “that is not for me to do. I can only receive it
as your gift, Eva; I am not worthy to gather it,--that can only be done
by your hand.”
And Eva, bending over the water, plucked the beautiful lily, with its
long stem, and laid it in Aster’s hand. And, as his fingers clasped the
gift, a swell of music thrilled through the air, and Eva saw, hovering
over them, the two fair, white forms which had come before, and which
she at once knew had, under the shapes of the toad and the Toad-Woman,
led and advised her, and she pointed them out to Aster. And, as Aster
raised his eyes to them, they beckoned to him, and smiled upon Eva; and
she knew that all was over, and the moment had come for them to part.
Still, not a word passed between them. Eva’s eyes were fixed upon
Aster,--his were raised to the bright hovering forms. Then, holding the
lily in his hand, he turned to Eva and pressed his lips to her brow.
“That was the kiss with which you woke me, Eva, given back to
you,--this is because I love you.”
He kissed her lips, and as he did so a bright crimson light flashed
suddenly around them, dazzling Eva’s blue eyes, so that she
involuntarily closed them, and then the sweet breath of violets
floated around them, and all was still.
* * * * *
Eva sat up, and rubbed her eyes. Tall, wavy grass grew all around her,
violets, dandelions, and buttercups bloomed through it, and her lap
was full of the pretty field-flowers. Bees were buzzing and collecting
honey,--butterflies floated lazily about on their black-and-golden
wings,--the brown beetle, with his long black feelers, swung on the
tall grass-stalk,--the crickets chirped,--the snail had put out his
horns,--the old mill-pond glistened and shone in the long, slanting
rays of the setting sun,--there was her father’s house,--everything
was just as it used to be, except the green toad, and that was a very
important exception.
And while Eva was rubbing her eyes, and trying to think where she could
be, and what all this meant, she heard the tea-bell ring, and as that
was very easy to understand, she got up and went to the house. She
peeped through the window before she went in, and everything seemed
right in there. For her mother was just folding up her work,--the baby
was crowing and playing with his rattle in the cradle,--strawberries
and cream and sponge-cake were on the table; and when Eva came quietly
in, and slipped into her seat by her father, he put his hand on her
curls, and asked her if she had had a nice time down by the pond the
whole afternoon.
“Yes, papa,” was all Eva could say, and then she paid very strict
attention to her saucer of ripe strawberries covered with cream.
Presently her mother said:
“My little girl had a nice long nap this afternoon. I called her once,
and she only raised her head for a minute, and then down it went again.”
Papa laughed.
“Strawberries and cream waked her up at last.”
And Eva never said a word.
* * * * *
But to this day she never sees a shooting-star without wondering what
has been lost in the moon,--she never sees a toad without thinking it
may be a fairy in disguise, and every lily recalls Aster and his flower.
For Eva believes in fairies. Why should she not? She knows all about
them. She has never told any one,--not even papa, though he never
laughs at her; but if Eva should live to be an old woman--and I hope
she may!--she will never forget her
ADVENTURES IN SHADOW-LAND.
THE MERMAN AND THE FIGURE-HEAD.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: “He gazed at the wooden creature with all his heart in
his eyes.” _Frontispiece._ Page 62. ]
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
THE SEA-NYMPH 7
CHAPTER II.
THE SEA KINGDOM 28
CHAPTER III.
THE FIGURE-HEAD 52
CHAPTER IV.
THE BEWITCHED LOVER 74
CHAPTER V.
THE SEA-NYMPHS 90
CHAPTER VI.
LUCY PEABODY’S DREAM 103
[Illustration]
THE MERMAN AND THE FIGURE-HEAD.
CHAPTER I.
_THE SEA-NYMPH._
“I may be wrong, but I think it a pity
For a movable doll to be made so pretty.”
_Doll Poems._
“I shall call her the Sea-nymph,” said Master Isaac Torrey.
“Umph!” said his clerk, Ichabod Sterns, looking over his spectacles at
his master.
“And why not The Sea-nymph, pray?” demanded Master Torrey. “Why, I
say, should I not call my fine new brig The Sea-nymph if it pleases my
fancy?”
“Fancy!” said Ichabod Sterns, putting his head on one side. “Fancy!
Umph!”
Now this was most exasperating conduct on Ichabod’s part, and as such
Master Torrey felt it.
“Yes, if it pleases my fancy,” he repeated, defiantly. “What right
have you, Ichabod Sterns, to object to that, I should like to know?
If I chose to name her after the whole choir of all the nymphs that
ever swam in the sea--Panope and Melite, Arethusa, Leucothea, Thetis,
Cymodoce--what have you to say against it? Isn’t she to swim the seas
and make her living out of the winds and waves? And what can you object
to ‘The Sea-nymph?’ I’d like to hear. But it’s your nature to object,
Ichabod Sterns. I’ve no doubt that you came objecting into the world,
and I’ve no doubt that when your time comes you’ll object to dying. It
would be just like you.”
“And death will mind my objections no more than you, Master Torrey,”
said the old clerk, smiling rather grimly as Master Torrey ceased his
pacing up and down the room and flung himself into a chair.
“But what _is_ your objection to the name?” asked the merchant, calming
down a little.
“Did I object?” said Ichabod Sterns.
“Didn’t you? You were bristling all over with objections from the toe
of your shoe to the top of your wig.” Ichabod involuntarily put up his
hand to his wig. “Why isn’t it a good name for a ship?”
“Nay, I know naught against it, Master Torrey, only it is a heathenish
kind of name for a ship that is to sail out of our decent Christian
town of Salem.”
“Heathenish! Let me tell you, Master Ichabod, that this world owes a
vast deal to the heathen--more than she does to some Christians I could
name.”
Now this awful speech was enough to make the very pig tails of many of
Master Torrey’s acquaintance stand on end with horror and surprise. But
Ichabod was used to his master’s ways, so he did not jump out of his
chair, but only looked to the door to be sure that no one had overheard
the terrible statement, for had such been the case there is no telling
what might have come to pass.
“How do you make that out, Master Torrey?” he said, composedly.
“Did you ever happen to hear of Socrates or Cicero?”
“Yes, I’ve heard of ’em,” said Ichabod.
“And did you ever hear of the Duke of Alva, or Cardinal Pole, or Bloody
Queen Mary, or Catenat?”
“Yes, I’ve heard of ’em,” returned Ichabod again, a little fiercely.
“And which was the better man, the Athenian or the Christians who burnt
their fellows at the stake?” said Master Torrey, triumphantly, as one
who had made a point.
“Umph!” said Ichabod; “I’m not a scholar like you, Master Torrey, but
I’d like you to tell me whether they were Christians by name that
poisoned Socrates and murdered Cicero?”
“Well, no,” said the merchant.
“Umph!” said Ichabod Sterns again, leaning back on his chair and
rubbing his hands slowly one over the other.
“Well, what of that?” said Master Torrey, a little taken aback.
“Oh, nothing, sir,” said Ichabod; “we have wandered a long way from the
name of the new brig.”
“She shall be The Sea-nymph,” said Master Torrey with decision. “What
could be better?”
“I thought, Master Torrey, you might have liked to call her the Anna
Jane,” said Ichabod, with a little cracked laugh like an amused crow.
Master Torrey colored high, but not with displeasure.
“I wouldn’t venture, Ichabod, I wouldn’t dare. She’s too shy, too
modest, to be pleased with such an open compliment.”
“Umph!” said the clerk again. It seemed to be a way he had. “But you
are determined to call her The Sea-nymph, Master Torrey?”
“Ah, am I!” replied Torrey, who seemed by no means disposed to pursue
the subject of the “inexpressive she,” whoever it might be. “And she
shall have the handsomest figure-head that Job Chippit can carve;
and it sha’n’t be a mere head and shoulders either, it shall be a
full-length figure.”
“It will cost a good penny, master. Job’s prices are high.”
“There’s another objection! Who cares what it costs? Am I a destitute
person? Am I an absolute pauper? Am I like to apply to the selectmen to
be supported by the town?”
“Not yet, master,” said Ichabod, gathering his papers together. “But
if we go to following our _fancies_”--scornful emphasis--“there is no
telling where we may end;” and without giving his master time to reply,
Ichabod sped out of the counting-room.
Now I am not going to tell you a long story about Master Torrey,
though I might do so if I had not a tale to tell you about something
else--namely, this sea-nymph and the merman who figure at the head of
this story. I was once told by a schoolmaster that in writing there was
“nothing so important as a strict adherence to facts;” “fax” he called
them. I treasured up this valuable precept in the inmost recesses of
my mind, and I mean to adhere to facts if I possibly can. But I can’t
adhere to facts till I get them, and to do that I don’t see but I
shall have to tell you a little about Master Isaac Torrey, merchant
of Salem, who was the means of putting this wonderful figure-head in
the merman’s way. He was a merchant of Salem when Salem was a centre of
trade, and sent many a brave ship to the Indies and the Mediterranean.
He was thirty-four years old, and looked ten years younger. He was
a man inclined to extravagance and luxury. He wore the handsomest
waistcoats and the finest lace of any one in town. He had been educated
in the gravest, strictest fashion of those grave days. His parents
would have been horrified if they had found him reading a novel or a
play, but they urged him on to study Virgil and Homer.
Now if you will promise, my young readers, never to tell your respected
instructors, I will let you into a secret. The truth is that the poems
of Virgil and Homer are all full of stories as interesting and charming
as any boy or girl could desire. But this is a circumstance which most
schoolteachers make it their first object in life to conceal, and
they generally succeed so well that their pupils for the most part
go through their whole course of education and never discover that
their Virgils and Homers are anything but stupid schoolbooks--a sort
of intellectual catacombs enshrining the dryest bones of grammar and
parsing.
Now and then, however, a boy or girl finds out that there is food
for the imagination in classic poetry. Such had been the case with
Isaac Torrey, and the verses that he read with his tutor took such a
hold upon him that he became what some of his friends called “half a
heathen.” Not but that an acquaintance with the classics was thought
becoming, nay, essential, to the character of a gentleman. In the
speeches and writings of those days a due seasoning of allusions to
the old gods and a sprinkling of Latin quotations was considered the
proper thing. But this learning was rather looked upon as solid and
ponderous furniture for the mind--an instrument of mental discipline.
Fancy, imagination, amusement, were ideas much too light and frivolous
to be connected with anything so grave, solid and respectable as the
intellectual drill for which alone Latin and Greek were intended. So
when Isaac Torrey talked about the old gods as if they had been real
existences, and spoke of Achilles, Hector and Andromache as though
they had been live creatures, he rather startled the excellent young
divinity student who was his tutor.
Once upon a time his father detecting a smell of burning followed it
up to Isaac’s room, where he found his son in the midst of a cloud of
blue smoke. He asked the cause, and was told that in order to procure
fair weather for the next day’s fishing excursion he (Isaac) had been
sacrificing a paper bull to Jupiter.
Mr. Torrey senior was inexpressibly shocked at the thought that his son
should have been guilty of such a heathenish performance. He gave the
boy a lecture of an hour long, ending with a whipping. He called in the
minister to talk to him. That gentleman, on being informed of the act
of idolatry perpetrated in his parish, only took a prodigious pinch of
snuff and said: “Pooh! pooh! child’s play! child’s play! No use to talk
about it. Let the boy alone.” Mr. Torrey had the highest respect for
his clergyman, and the boy _was_ let alone accordingly, and was deeply
grateful to the Rev. Mr. Bartlett.
Isaac grew up tall and handsome, went to school and to college, and in
spite of numerous prophecies that he would never be good for anything,
neither went into debt nor disgraced himself in any way. In due course
of time he succeeded to his father’s business, and astonished every one
by making money and being successful, in spite of his tasteful dress,
his “wild ways” of talking and a report that he actually wrote poetry.
At the present time he was devoted to Miss Anna Jane Shuttleworth, a
beautiful still image of a girl, who was supposed to have a great fund
of good sense, propriety, prudence and piety, because she liked to sit
still and sew from morning to night, and hardly ever opened her lips.
Ichabod Sterns was the old clerk of Isaac’s father. He and his young
master exasperated each other in many ways, but they were fond of each
other for all that.
From the counting-house on the wharf and the talk with Ichabod Sterns,
Master Torrey went to the workshop of Job Chippit, who in those days
was famous for his skill in the carving of figure-heads.
In these times Job would probably have been a sculptor, have gone to
Rome and been famous in marble and bronze. But the idea of such a thing
had never entered his brain, and he went on from year to year making
his wooden figures without any thought of a higher calling. He was a
little dried, brown old man, with bright eyes slightly near-sighted.
Year after year he carved Indian chiefs, eagles and wooden maidens for
the Sally Anns and Susan Janes that sailed from the New England ports,
portraits of public men, likenesses of William and Mary. He had once
made a full-length figure of Oliver Cromwell for a certain stiff-necked
old merchant of Boston who called his best ship after the great
Protector--a statue which every one thought his finest work. “It was so
natural,” said the good folks of Salem, and really I don’t know that
they could have said anything better even if they had been art critics
and had written for the newspapers.
True it was that all Job’s works had a certain live look to them that
was almost startling sometimes. The Indians clenched their hatchets
with a savageness quite alarming; they looked as though they might
open their wooden lips and whoop. His female figures had life and
character. Each governor, senator or general had his own peculiar
expression and style.
Job was an artist, and, what was more, he was a well-paid artist. He
quite appreciated his own genius, and got almost any prices he liked to
ask for his signs and figure-heads. Job was the fashion, and no ship of
any pretension sailed from a harbor along the coast but carried one of
his masterpieces on the bow.
As Master Torrey entered his shop he was just putting the last
touches of paint on an oaken bust destined to adorn Captain Peabody’s
little schooner, The Flora. “So you have nearly finished The Flora’s
figure-head,” said Master Torrey, whose tastes led him to be a frequent
visitor at Job’s shop.
“And a pretty creature she is,” said Job, suspending his paint-brush
full of the yellow-brown pigment with which he was tinging the rippled
hair of the wooden lady, which was crowned with a garland of flowers
carved with no mean skill.
“And the flowers! Don’t you think they are an improvement? What did
Captain Peabody say to them?”
“He didn’t jest like them at first,” replied Job, continuing his work.
“I didn’t myself, to begin with, for you know the ship is called after
his wife, and nobody ever see old Mis’ Peabody going round with flowers
in her hair; but the captain, sez he, ‘Job, I want to have you make
it somethin’ like what Mis’ Peabody was when she was a young woman,
ef you kin,’ sez he. ‘She was a most uncommon pretty girl when I went
a-courting in Salsbury.’ Well, I was kind of struck with the idee, and
the next day I went to meeting, and I sot and sot, and kind of studied
the old lady’s face all through meetin’-time; and when they stood up to
sing, the choir sang ‘Amsterdam.’ You know it’s a kind of livening sort
of hymn. The old lady, she kind of brightened up, and it seemed as if I
could see the young face sort of coming out behind the old one. Thinks
I, ‘Job Chippit, you’ve got it,’ and when I come home, though it was
the Sabbath day, I couldn’t hardly keep my hands off the tools, and the
minute the sun was down I went at it. Then when you come in the next
day and told me about the Flora them old folks used to think took care
of the flowers and the spring, it seemed to suit so well with my notion
of the old lady when she was young I couldn’t help stickin’ the flowers
onto her head, like a fool as I was, for they wa’n’t in the bargain,
and I sha’n’t get no extry pay for ’em.”
“And what did Captain Peabody say?” asked Master Torrey, whose own
nature found sympathy in that of the artist.
“Oh, he was as tickled as could be when I’d persuaded him about the
flowers. Lucy Peabody, she’s been to see it. She says she expects
that’s the way her mother’ll look when she gets to heaven, and the
flowers was like the crowns we read about in the Revelations. She’s an
awful nice girl, Lucy Peabody. Anna Jane Shuttleworth was with her.”
“And what did _she_ say?” asked Master Torrey, eagerly.
“Oh, nothing. Anna Jane don’t never have much to say for herself. I
told her the wreath was your notion, and she kind of smiled, but she
hadn’t a word to say. But look here, Master Torrey, am I to have the
making of the figure-head for your new ship, and what is it to be?”
“That’s just what I have come to see you about, Job,” said Master
Torrey. “I am going to call her the Sea-nymph, and I want you to make
the most beautiful full-length figure of a sea-nymph to stand on her
bow and look across the water when the brig goes sailing away into the
South Seas.”
“A _sea-nimp_!” said Job; “and what sort of a critter may that be?”
“Did you never hear of them?”
“Never as I know of. There’s more fish in the sea than ever come out of
it. I expect these nimps of yourn are some of the kind that never come
out.”
“You never were more mistaken in your life, Job Chippit. They have been
seen on the surface of the sea over and over again. We know almost
all their names, and how could they have names if they were not real
beings? Answer me that!”
“Oh!” said Job, standing back to take a general survey of his wooden
Flora. “They’re some of them heathen young women your head is always
so full of, Master Torrey?”
“Young women! Why they were goddesses, man, or a sort of goddesses.
Was there not the white-footed Thetis, mother of Achilles? and did she
not come to him with all her attendant nymphs--Melite, and Doris, and
Galatea, and Panope?”
“I’ve hearn tell of _her_,” said Job, touching up the wreath on Flora’s
head; “it’s in Lycidas:
‘The air was calm, and on the level brine
_Slick_ Panope and all her sisters played.’
“Jest so; I kinder like to read that piece. It don’t seem to have so
very much meanin’ to’t, I must say, but I sort of like the sound of it.
Them nimps lived in the sea, or folks thought they did, didn’t they?”
“Yes, Job, as we live on the land. I’m by no means sure that I haven’t
heard and seen Nereides and Oceanides myself when I’ve been out by
moonlight on the bay or round the rocks.”
“I guess they never was any round these parts; it’s too cold for ’em.
I knew an old sailor once that said he’d seen a mermaid, but I suppose
you don’t want me to stick a curly fish’s tail on your figure-head?”
“No, indeed. Make her full length, like the most beautiful woman you
know.”
“Hev’ you any idee how them young women used to dress. Master Torrey?”
asked the wood-carver. “I’d like to go as near the nature of the
critter as I could. I must say the notion takes my fancy. It’ll make
kind of a variety, and it’s a pretty sort of an idee to name a ship
after a thing that has its life out the sea.”
“I thought you’d think so,” said Master Torrey, gratified. “Ichabod
Sterns said it was a heathenish name for a ship that was to sail out of
Salem.”
“Well, you know Ichabod. He hain’t got much notion of anything of that
sort. But now what’s your notion of these ’ere water women? Kinder
cold-blooded critters they must have been, I’m thinking.” There was
something in this last remark which seemed to grate on Master Torrey’s
feelings, whatever they were.
“Why so?” he said, a little shortly.
“Oh, because it’s the natur’ of all the things in the sea. It must
have been but a damp, uncomfortable way to live for warm-blooded folks;
but tell me what they were like, or do you happen to have a picture of
one?”
“I’m sorry to say I have not.”
“Did they think they was like folks, or did they live for ever?”
“Some said they were immortal, others that they were only very
long-lived. Plutarch says they lived more than nine thousand years.”
“Creation! What awful old maids they must have been! That’s more than
old Mrs. Skinner, who was eighty-six when she married John Dickenson,
’cause she said she wasn’t going to have ‘Miss’ on her tombstone if she
could help it.”
“But then they always remained young and lovely, never grew old or
changed. They used to say that whoever looked on an unveiled nymph went
mad.”
“Waal, I’d risk that if I could see one. But they was kind of onlucky
sort of critters, then, after all?” asked Job, who seemed to be
inwardly dwelling on some thought which he was keeping out of the talk.
“Yes, to those who approached them rashly, but they were kind to those
who worshiped them with reverence and offered them the gifts they
loved.”
“Waal, they wa’n’t very peculiar in that. The most of women is capable
of being coaxed if you only go to work the right way. I don’t know how
it might have been with gals in the sea, but it ain’t best to be too
dreadful diffident with the land kind always,” returned Job, with a sly
smile. “But about this figure of ourn. I suppose it ought to have some
kind of a light gown on, and hadn’t they--them nimps?--got no emblem,
nor nothing of that sort, like Neptune’s trident? I’m going to make
a Neptune for a ship Peleg Brag’s got. Her name was The Ann Eliza.
But the young woman she was named for, she up and married Jonathan
Whitbeck, so Peleg, he’s gont to call his ship The Neptune now. It’s
the only way he can think of to take it out on Ann Eliza, and I don’t
expect that’ll kill her; but didn’t these _nimps_ have nothing about
them to show what they were?”
“Sometimes seaweeds, or coral and shells. Sometimes they held a silver
vase.”
“Waal, I reckon I’ll take the vase, if it’s agreeable to you, and make
her holding it out, and put some seaweed and shells and sich onto her
head, and let her hair fly loose, as if the wind blew it back. She
won’t want no shoes nor sandals, nor nothing of that sort. What would
be the use to a critter that passes its life swimming round the sea?”
“I see you understand. You’ll make her a beauty, Job?”
“I’ll do my best. You’ll want her to be a light-complected young woman,
I guess.”
“They say the Nereides had green hair, but Virgil says Arethusa’s was
golden, so we may make our nymph’s that color,” said Master Torrey,
turning away to the window.
“Jes’ so; I’ll go right to work. I must get Lucy Peabody to put on a
white gown and come and let me look at her a little. She’ll do it.
She’s a real accommodating girl, is Lucy.”
“But Lucy is not fair.”
“No more she ain’t. Not white as milk, like Anna Jane Shuttleworth, but
she’s a nice, pretty girl, and will be willing to oblige me. I’d never
dare ask such a thing of old Colonel Shuttleworth’s daughter.”
Master Torrey smiled to himself as he thought of the silent, stately
Anna standing as a model in the rude shop.
“But I’ll give the figure a look like Anna Jane, if I can,” pursued
Job. “To my mind, she’s a great deal more like some such thing than she
is like a real flesh-and-blood woman.”
To this Master Torrey made no answer, but smiled at the old man’s
folly, and passed into the street without even asking what would be the
price of the wooden sea-nymph.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II.
_THE SEA KINGDOM._
I take it for granted that all my readers have heard of mermen and
mermaids. But in case any one’s education should have been neglected,
I will just say that they are like human beings, only that instead of
legs they have tails like dolphins, a fashion much more useful in their
element, and regarded by them as much more ornamental, than the style
in which people are finished on land.
The merladies are very beautiful. They have long, golden hair, and have
often been seen sitting on the rocks by the seaside, combing their
locks with their golden combs and holding a looking-glass. They are
also said to sing in the most charming manner. I knew a Manx woman once
whose mother had seen a mermaid making her toilette. She described the
sea lady as wonderfully beautiful, and “singing in a way that would
ravish your heart.”
“But as soon as she saw that she was watched,” said Katy, “she gave a
scream like a sea eagle and dived into the water. No one ever saw her
again, but I’ve heard the singing more than once when I was young.”
Concerning the kingdoms of the sea and their inhabitants Hans Anderson
has written a pretty story, which I hope you have all read. The fullest
account, however, that I know of the mer countries is in the Arabian
Nights, Lane’s translation, where you will find the story of “Abdalla
of the Land and Abdalla of the Sea.” It is a pity that the date and
place of this interesting narration is left so uncertain, for to some
minds it throws an air of improbability over the whole story; however,
it is certainly the most authentic account of the world under the
waters. So far as I know, “Abdalla of the Land” is the only person who
has ever associated familiarly with mermen.
There was, to be sure, Gulnare of the Sea, who married the King of
Khorassan and introduced her family to that monarch. But she was not
a proper merwoman, being destitute of their peculiar appendage, and
being, moreover, related to the Genii and Afrites of those parts.
But in the chronicle of Abdalla you will find much that is curious
and interesting. There you may read concerning the “dendan,” that
tremendous fish which is able to swallow an elephant at a mouthful;
and, by the way, if you wish to descend into the sea undrowned, you
have only to anoint yourself with the fat of the dendan. But the
difficulty seems to be in catching this monster, who eats mermen
whenever he can find them. You, however, are in no danger even if you
happen to fall in his way, for he dies “whenever he hears the voice of
a son of Adam.” So if you should fall in with a dendan, you have only
to scream at the top of your voice and be quite safe. But concerning
these wonders and many more I have no time to write, seeing that if you
can get the book you can read it for yourself.
Now there are just as many mermen and mermaids along the American
coasts as there are anywhere else, though they very seldom show
themselves. I heard, indeed, of a sailor who had seen one in
Passamaquoddy Bay, but I did not have the pleasure of conversing with
this mariner myself, so I am unable to state as an absolute fact that a
mermaid was seen.
If any of you are at the seaside in the summer, you can keep a sharp
lookout, and there is no telling what you may see. You would find an
alliance with a mer-person very advantageous if we may judge by the
experience of Abdalla. Jewels in the sea are as common as pebbles with
us, and in return for a little fruit a merman will give you bushels of
precious stones.
You must be a little careful, however, not to offend them, for it would
seem that some of them are rather touchy and apt to be intolerant of
other people’s opinion in matters of doctrine and practice.
Now, not far from the Massachusetts coast, out beyond the bay, is
a very beautiful sea country. There are mountains as big as Mount
Washington, whose tops, just covered by the sea, are bare rock, but
which are clothed around their base with the most beautiful seaweed,
golden green and purple and crimson. Through these seaweeds wander all
manner of strange creatures, such as human eyes have never seen, for
there is no truer proverb than that “There are more fish in the sea
than ever came out of it.” There are miles and miles of gray-green weed
and emerald moss where the sea cows and sea horses find pasture. There,
too, are the cities and villages of the merpeople, and many a pleasant
home standing in the midst of the beautiful sea gardens, blossoming
with strange flowers and bright with strange fruit.
The houses are grottoes and caves hollowed out of the rock, and for
the most part very handsomely furnished, for there is a great deal of
wealth among the sea people. They have not only all the mineral wealth
of the sea, but they have all the treasures that have been lost in the
deep ever since men first began to sail the waters. Their soft carpets
are made of sea-green wool that the sea people comb and weave, for they
are skillful in the arts and manufactures.
They have soft, lace-like fabrics woven of seaweed, silks and satins
that the water does not hurt. There is no coral on our Northern
shores, but they import it, and pay in exchange with oysters and
looking-glasses. The sea ladies dress in the most beautiful things you
can imagine, that is, when they dress at all, for in warm weather they
generally make their appearance in a light suit of their own hair with
a zone and necklace of pearls or jewels.
This country that I am writing about has a republican form of
government, and is very prosperous and comfortable. It is a long time
since any foreign power has made war upon it, and it has had time
to grow and develop its resources. But at the time of which I write
they had just finished a seven years’ war with the king of a country
lying to the east who had tried to annex the sea republic to his own
dominions. This monarch had counted on a very easy conquest because
the republic kept a very small army, not big enough really to keep
down the sharks. Moreover, there was a large “Peace Society” in the
country, every member of which had maintained repeatedly, in the most
public manner, that it was the duty of every member to be invaded and
killed a dozen times over rather than lift up his hand in war against
any creature with mer blood in his veins. The king thought this talk of
theirs really meant something, I suppose they thought so themselves in
peace-times, but when the annual meeting came, about a week after the
declaration of war, only two members made their appearance, and they
told each other that all the men of the society had enlisted and all
the women were busy making their clothes and packing their knapsacks.
The king was very much surprised to find that these peaceable soldiers
fought harder than any one else, and when he was at last forced to
conclude peace on the most humiliating terms, it was the ex-President
of the non-resistance society that insisted on a surrender of his most
important frontier fortress.
“I thought you believed in non-resistance,” said the king, greatly
disgusted.
“So I do, your majesty, for other people,” said the ex-President,
respectfully, and the king had to give way.
But this is not a chronicle of the politics and history of the sea
country, but only of one particular merman’s fortunes. Our merman was
young and very handsome, and belonged to a very distinguished family
in his own state. It was said that they were in some way connected with
that royal race to which belonged Gulnare of the Sea--she who married
the King of Khorassan. It was whispered that the family were descended
from a younger son of this pair, who had married a merlady, and
displeased both her family and his to such an extent by the marriage
that they had left the Eastern seas and emigrated to the English
waters, and from there into the new sea lands of the West.
All these things, if they were true, must have happened centuries
before my merman was born. The legend was well known, and if it was
founded on fact, the family had human blood in their veins and a cross
of sea genii, for Gulnare was, as you will remember, not quite a
flesh-and-blood woman. However, the humanity in them was at least royal
humanity, and the King of Khorassan, as the story goes, was a very fine
gentleman.
All the people of that country were fair-haired, big-boned people, with
blue eyes, but the race I am writing about were black haired and dark
eyed, with slender hands. They were rather delicate and slight in
their appearance, and they had a peculiarly graceful way of carrying
their tails, a manner quite indescribable in its elegance, but a family
mark. They were rather more intellectual than their countrymen and were
fond of literary pursuits and the study of magic, which in the sea land
is considered as a very essential part of a gentleman’s education. It
is taught only in the higher schools and colleges.
Our merman’s old grandfather (his father was dead) was Professor of
Magic in the State University, and so expert in his own science that
he could turn himself into an oyster so perfect that you could not
tell him from the genuine article. It was said that once while in that
condition he had been nearly swallowed by a member of the Freshman
class. For this offence the young merman was called up before the
Faculty. He apologized very humbly, and said his only motive had been
to see if he couldn’t for once get the professor to agree with him.
He professed himself very penitent, and was let off with a reprimand,
but he said afterward that his great mistake had been in waiting for
the pepper and vinegar. After this accident the professor could never
be induced to repeat the performance except in a small circle of his
intimate friends.
Now, there was one curious thing about this family, and one which makes
me think there was some truth in the legend of their descent from
Gulnare and the King of Khorassan.
All the other merpeople have the greatest objection to human beings,
and shun all inhabited coasts, seaport towns and ships. But every once
in a while a member of this race would show the oddest fancy for the
shore and a kind of longing after human society--a longing which of
course they never could gratify, for they could not live out of the
water, and if they had been able to desert the sea, the forked ends of
their long tails would have been of no use on land.
A few years before the family left the English coast, a younger son
had actually married a human girl who went back to her friends and
deserted him on the shamefully false pretence that she wanted to go to
church. The poor merman went out of his wits and died, and was ever
afterward held up as an example to any of the younger ones who showed
any signs of similar weakness. To care anything for human creatures
is counted disgraceful in mer society, and the older members of the
family for the most part felt it their duty to express the greatest
possible animosity to the whole human race. The old professor of magic
had once said that he would swim a hundred miles to see a shipwreck if
he were only sure the people would all be drowned, but he was strongly
suspected of having saved a drunken sailor who fell overboard from
a Cape Cod schooner. The professor himself used to deny this story
with great indignation, and say it was of a piece with the slanderous
invention about his family’s connection with Gulnare of the sea and her
misalliance.
His grandson, however, if the story was hinted at in his presence,
would look grave and say that he had never supposed the story was
true, but if it were, his grandfather had only obeyed the dictates of
mermanity. This was a shocking speech in the ears of the merpeople.
Our young merman, however, had distinguished himself in the war, and
no one cared to quarrel with him. So they contented themselves with
calling him “queer,” and saying that “oddity ran in the family.”
* * * * *
It was the summer vacation in the sea land. All the commencements
in the mer colleges were just over. All the presidents of those
institutions had made their speeches in languages dead and alive, and
told all their classes what an enormous responsibility rested upon
them, how they were bound to “go forward,” and “to conquer,” and to
“build themselves up,” and to “develop themselves,” and be “leaders
of their kind,” and, in short, do something in proportion to the
expense bestowed on their education. This is a way they have in sea
land. But naturally in the sea they take things cooler than we can on
land, and you wouldn’t believe how very little difference the advent
of all these expensively got up young mermen made in the water world
if you had not been there to see. Now the old mer professor hadn’t had
a very comfortable time. His class that year was rather a stupid one,
and with all the pains he could take and all the “coaches” they could
use they hadn’t passed a very good examination in magic. One young
gentleman upon whom he had thought he could certainly depend being
told to make himself invisible, which is a very difficult problem, had
made a mistake, used the wrong formula, and by accident transformed
the whole Board of Examiners, who were not expecting any such thing,
into cuttle-fishes. There was dreadful confusion for a few minutes, for
the student couldn’t remember how to turn them back again, and as the
spell could not be undone by any one else, the members of the board got
all tangled up together, while the professor, in an awful temper, was
trying to teach the young man the right formula.
[Illustration: “And by accident transformed the whole board of
examiners into cuttle-fishes.” Page 40.]
But they were all undone at last, only there was one immensely wealthy
old merman who was never quite sure in his mind that he had got back
his own proper curly fish’s tail, and not that of some other gentleman,
so that all the rest of his life he was in a puzzle as to at least
half his personal identity. This incident so vexed him that he did not
give anything to the college funds, as he had fully intended. This
circumstance and a few other accidents had so annoyed the professor
that instead of going to the North Seas with his grandson he shut
himself up in the house and began to write a book. The book was in
opposition to a theory put forth by a learned merman in the Baltic Sea
that human beings were undeveloped mermen. The professor, however,
declared that they were no such thing, but simply undeveloped walruses.
He began his first chapter by saying that, while he had the highest
respect for the Baltic merman’s acquirements, intellect, penetration
and general infallibility, he nevertheless felt himself obliged to
declare that none but an idiot or a madman could come to the conclusion
of the learned man aforesaid. He (the professor) wished to lay down his
platform in the beginnings and state that he differed from the opinions
of the learned author on this and all other conceivable points.
“You’d a good deal better go along with me, grandfather,” said the
young merman, swimming into the room where the professor was sitting
with his big books all about him. “Think how nice and cool it will be
among the icebergs this hot weather. Hadn’t you better come?”
“I won’t,” said the old professor, snapping and switching his tail
angrily round in the water, for the houses there are full of water, as
ours are of air.
“I didn’t say you would, sir,” said the young merman; “I said you’d
better.”
“Did you ever know me say I would do a thing when I did?” returned the
professor, angrily. “I mean, did you ever know me say I did do a thing
when I would? Pooh! Pshaw! That isn’t what I mean.”
“Yes, sir!” said his grandson, respectfully.
“What do you mean by that?” said the professor, sharply. “There’s
that catfish mewing at the door. Get up and let her in, do, and make
yourself useful for once in your life.”
The young merman got up and opened the door for the catfish, which
came swimming in, followed by two little kitten fish. These, frisking
playfully around the room, soon overset the professor’s inkstand.
“There!” said the professor to his grandson. “That’s all your fault!
What did you let them in for? Open the windows and let in some fresh
water, do. Scat! scat! you little torments! I don’t believe the cook
has given them their dinner; she never does unless I see to it myself;
your sisters forget them. No, I’m not going to the North Seas; I can’t
spare the time.”
“Don’t you think you can, sir?” said the young merman. “What odds does
it make about those forked creatures on land?”
“Do you know this fellow has the impudence to pretend that they are
undeveloped mermen, that they’ll be just like ourselves after a series
of ages when their two legs grow into one, and that our ancestors were
actually of the same type as those low creatures that go about in
ships? But perhaps you agree with him, sir?” said the old professor,
with a look that seemed to say that if he did he might expect to be
annihilated on the spot.
“Not I, sir. For aught I know we mermen may be undeveloped human
beings. I’ve sometimes thought so, I have such a sort of longing for
the land.”
“How dare you--?” began the old gentleman in great indignation.
“Come, come, grandfather,” said the young merman, smiling. “You are not
angry with me I know; I presume you’ve felt just so yourself.”
The professor was silent, and swam thoughtfully two or three times up
and down the room. The two little kitten fish went and sat on his head.
“I won’t say but I have,” he remarked at length, “but it’s best not to
mention it. Where do you mean to go for your vacation?”
“I thought I should go North along the coast,” said the young merman.
“I can’t help having a curiosity about the land, and if I am in a way
to observe any human creatures, I may pick up some facts to support
your theory that they are undeveloped walruses.”
“Any one can see that who has ever seen them floundering about in the
water,” said the old professor, scornfully.
“But the men drown and the walruses don’t.”
“That’s because the men have not yet acquired the habit of not being
drowned,” said the professor. “When are you going?”
“To-morrow, I thought.”
“Very well,” said the professor. “Swim away with you now, and tell the
cook to feed these kittens; there they are nibbling the hair off my
head.”
The next day the young merman set off on his travels. He bade good-bye
to no one but his grandfather and his two sisters. His best friend was
away as bearer of despatches to the secretary of state.
“I wish he wouldn’t go near the coast,” said the older sister,
wistfully.
“So do I,” said the younger; “I’m afraid for him. But, sister, now
honestly, don’t you wish you could see a human creature near enough to
speak to?”
“No, not I,” said the elder, who had less of the family traits than any
of her relations; “I wish you wouldn’t say such silly things.”
* * * * *
Just as the young merman was going out of the front door, he met a huge
lobster coming into it, and without ringing. The young merman felt that
this was a liberty in the lobster, and was sure that his grandfather
would not be pleased.
“Hadn’t you better go round to the back door?” he said, quietly.
Now the lobster was no less than the old Witch of the Sea in disguise.
“Round to the back door indeed!” shrieked the lobster. “Do you know who
I am, young man?”
“I beg your pardon,” said the young merman; “I had no idea you were any
one in particular. The servant will admit you if you wish to see the
professor.”
“I do,” said the lobster, in a huff, “but I won’t;” and she turned
round and swam away.
The professor saw her out of the window. He knew who it was well
enough, but he did not like the Witch of the Sea. He thought females
had no business to study magic, and he said she practiced her art in a
most irregular manner. Moreover, she could do two or three things which
he couldn’t, so he naturally held her in contempt.
“Ahrr! you old fool!” cried the lobster, shaking her claw at him.
But the professor pretended to take no notice. “Those low-bred people
always call names,” he said to himself. “What an old humbug she is,
and what idiots people are to go to her for advice!”
* * * * *
The merman went swimming on his way, but as he swam he passed a garden.
It was rather a large garden, shut in by a hedge of sea flag and
tangle, with pink and white shells glittering here and there among the
leaves. Behind the garden was a very lofty and spacious grotto, where
lived a family with whom the professor’s household was very intimate.
The merman paused a minute, for some one in the garden was singing. The
singer had a voice that would have made people on land go wild to hear
her. If you can imagine a wood-thrush multiplied by fifty and singing
articulate music, you can have some idea of the mermaid’s voice. But
in the sea every one can sing, and they don’t care much more for it
than we do here for public speaking. She was singing a silly little
song, but it was joined to a sweet air, and the words were of no great
consequence:
“My goodman marchèd down the street,
‘Good-bye, my dear, good-bye,’ said he;
‘Good-bye, my dear;’ it might be ne’er
Would he come back again to me.
“‘Good-bye, my love,’ I said aloud;
I kept my smile, I did not cry;
‘Good-bye, my own,’ and he was gone,
And who was left so lone as I!
“It was so long, so very long,
I kept myself so calm and still;
The days went on, the time was gone,
I lost my hope and I fell ill.
“I could not rest, I could not sleep,
I hid myself from every eye;
And wearing care to dumb despair
Was changed, and yet I did not cry.
“My goodman came up the street,
And from the street he called to me;
‘Look out, my dear, for I am here,
And safe returned to comfort thee.’
“My tears fell down like summer rain,
I could not rise to ope the door,
Though once again, so firm and plain,
I heard his step upon the floor.
“I was so glad, so very glad,
I had to cry and so did he;
But wars are o’er, and now no more
My goodman goes away from me.”
“Is that you?’” called the merman when the song was done.
Just over the hedge was a little arbor covered with trailing
sea-plants. As the merman spoke, two little white hands parted the
broad crimson leaves of a dulse that hung over the door, then there
swam out one of the loveliest mermaids in the whole sea. Her yellow
hair shone like gold, and was full two yards long as it trailed on
the water, for mermaids never wear their hair any other way. Her
complexion was like the inside of a pink-and-white shell, and her eyes
were like two clear, still pools of water, they were so pure and deep.
As for the mer part of her, the dolphin’s tail, I declare it was only
an additional beauty, she managed it so gracefully. I can’t begin to
tell you how beautiful she was. She was a very intimate friend of the
merman’s sister, and he had known her all his life--ever since they
used to chase the fishes round the garden and in and out of the rocks,
and make baby-houses together.
“Where are you going?” said the mermaid to the merman.
“Only North a little for my vacation trip.”
“Without saying good-bye?” said the mermaid, smiling as though she did
not care a bit.
“I didn’t know you’d come home till I heard you singing, I sha’n’t be
gone long; what shall I bring you?”
“A tame seal to play with, if you can remember it.”
“Tie a string round my finger,” said the merman.
“You can wear this,” she said, holding up a seal ring of red carnelian.
“I found it in the garden; I suppose it belonged to some human being.”
It was a large seal ring, having two interlaced triangles cut in the
stone.
“That’s a spell,” said the merman; “it will keep away evil spirits.”
“Then wear it,” said the mermaid, holding it out to him, and he slipped
it on his finger.
“Good-bye,” she said; “you won’t forget the tame seal?”
“Certainly not; I’ll be home in time to dance at your birth-day party.”
The mermaid swam away to the house, turning at the door to wave her
hand to her old playmate, but he did not see her. His two sisters had
watched their interview from an upper window of their own house.
“He has no more eyes in his head than an oyster,” said the elder, in
quite a pet.
“It would be so nice,” said the younger, with a sigh. “It would be just
the thing for him.”
“Of course, and that’s the reason why he never thinks of it,” said the
elder, who had more experience.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III.
_THE FIGURE-HEAD._
In the mean time, a most beautiful thing had grown out of the oak block
in Job Chippit’s shop.
Day by day Job worked at the figure-head of the Sea-nymph, Master
Torrey’s beautiful new brig that was lying on the stocks all but ready
for the launch. Job spared no pains on his work, and his wonderful
success really astonished himself.
Every one wanted to see the new figure-head, but Job kept it locked up
in an inner room, and would admit no one but Master Torrey and Lucy
Peabody. Lucy had been willing to put on a white dress and stand for
a model, but the figure did not look at all like Lucy. It was taller,
more slender, and the features were nothing like hers. Once or twice
Lucy had persuaded Anna Jane Shuttleworth with her into Job’s shop.
The old man had studied her face, and worked every moment of the
young lady’s stay. He stared at Anna in meeting-time in a way that
almost disturbed that young woman’s composure, but she looked straight
before her and took no notice. It was impossible to tell how she felt.
Anna was always “very reserved,” people said. They had an idea that
treasures of wisdom, good sense and virtue were at once indicated and
concealed by that statue-like air and silence.
Master Torrey was delighted with the nymph, which was, indeed, most
beautiful. She stood on a point of rock, leaning lightly forward. Her
rounded arms upheld a silvered vase of antique fashion; her head was
thrown back; her hair, crowned with seaweed and coral, streamed over
her shoulders as though blown by the same breeze that wafted back
the thin robe from her dainty feet and ankles; the face was of the
regular classic type, yet not quite human in its cold purity; the eyes
looked out over the sea toward the far horizon. It was really quite
extraordinary how the old Yankee wood-carver could have accomplished
such a work of art. It looked, also, as if it might, if it chose, open
its lips and speak, but you were quite certain it never would choose,
it was so lifelike and yet so still.
Job had sent to Boston and procured finer colors than he had ever used
before, and laid them on with a cunning hand. He had painted the sea
lady’s robe a pale sea-green; over it fell her hair--not yellow with
golden lights, but soft flaxen; the eyes were blue, and the faintest
sea-shell pink tinged the lips and cheeks. It was altogether the most
beautiful figure-head that any one had ever seen.
“There! I reckon she’s about done,” said Job as he laid down his last
brush and stood contemplating his work. There was an odd look on the
old man’s face, half satisfaction, half dislike.
“She’s a pretty cretur, ain’t she?” he said to Lucy Peabody.
“Beautiful,” said Lucy, but speaking with a slight effort.
“Don’t you like her?” said Job in a doubtful tone.
[Illustration: “‘Don’t you like her?’ said Job, in a doubtful tone.”
Page 54.]
“She’s very beautiful, Uncle Job, but--but”--and Lucy hesitated--“I
shouldn’t want any one I cared for to love a woman like that.”
“Waal, I can’t say’s I would myself,” said Job. “But this ain’t a
woman, you see; it’s one of them nimps. They wa’n’t like real human
girls, you know.”
“But she is not kind,” said Lucy, with a little shiver. “She would see
men drowning before her eyes, and would not put out her hand to help
them. I think she took those pearl bracelets and her necklace from some
poor dead girl she found floating in the sea. She wouldn’t mind; she
would only care to dress herself with them.”
“I won’t say but that’s my notion of her too,” said Job. “Do you know,
Lucy,” he continued, in a lower voice, “I can’t help feeling as if
there was something more than common in this bit of wood all the while
I’ve been doing it? It seemed as if ’twa’n’t me that was making of it
up, but I was jest like some kind of a machine going along on some one
else’s notion. Sometimes I am half skeered at the critter myself.”
“You meant to make her like Anna Jane Shuttleworth, didn’t you?” asked
Lucy, suddenly.
“Waal, yis, I did kind o’ mean to give her a look of Anna Jane, ’cause
Torrey, he’s so set on her, but I’ve got it more like her than I meant.
Somehow, it seems as if it was more like her than she is herself.”
Lucy gave one more long look at the figure “I must go,” she said, with
a little start. “Good-bye, Uncle Job;” and she flitted away by a side
door.
Just then Master Torrey came into the shop, and with him came old
Colonel Shuttleworth and his daughter. Colonel Shuttleworth was a
pompous, portly man, in an embroidered waistcoat, plum-colored coat and
lace ruffles.
“A pretty thing! a pretty thing!” he said, condescendingly. “How many
guineas has she cost Master Torrey?”
“You didn’t expect I was going to make her for nothing, did you,
cunnel?” said Job, who stood in no awe of the old man’s wealth, clothes
or title.
“No, no, of course not,” said the colonel, trying to be dignified.
“Um! ah! it seems to me this figure has something the look of my
daughter. Anna, isn’t the new figure-head like you?”
“I don’t know, sir,” said Anna, who had dropped into a seat and sat
looking at nothing in particular.
“She’s so delicate, so modest, she won’t notice,” thought her lover.
“She is lovely, Job,” he cried aloud. “You have outdone yourself. Our
sea lady is no mortal, but a goddess. She has everything noble in
humanity, but none of its faults or weaknesses.”
“Umph!” said Job; “I don’t know about that. I’ve heard some of them
goddesses was rather queer-acted people. Anyhow, I think I’d like the
women folks best, not being a heathen god myself.”
“Why, Job, you don’t understand your own work,” said Master Torrey,
half angrily. “She is too pure to be moved by our passions, too much
exalted above humanity to be agitated by its troubles.”
“Waal now, that ain’t my notion of exaltation,” said Job. “’Seems to
me that’s more like havin’ no feelin’s at all, kind of too dull and
stupid and full of herself to keer very much about anything. This
wooden girl of ourn is uncommon handsome, though I say it, but bless
you, Master Torrey! she hain’t got no more brains in her skull than a
minnow. She’d be a kind of dead-and-alive sort of a critter always. If
she had a husband, she’d never bother herself if he was in trouble. If
she had a baby, she wouldn’t care much for it, only maybe to dress it
up.”
The old man seemed strangely excited in this absurd discussion. Master
Torrey, too, seemed much disturbed and not a little provoked. Anna Jane
sat calm and still, and wondered whether that light green color in the
nymph’s robe would become her. The colonel, who had not the faintest
idea what the two men were talking about, looked from one to the other
uncomprehending, and consequently slightly offended.
“Are you talking about this wooden image?” he said, wondering.
“Yes, to be sure, cunnel,” said Job, with an odd sound between a laugh
and a groan.
“Come, child, it is time to go home,” said the colonel, loftily.
Anna Jane rose and took her father’s arm. Master Torrey followed them
out of the shop without looking back or saying good-bye to his old
friend. In a strange passion, Job caught up the axe and looked at the
wooden nymph as if about to dash it in pieces. “What an old fool I
am!” he said. “_She_ ain’t only wood, and I’ll get my pay for her.
_Creation!_ it does beat all how contrary things turn out in this
world!”
The figure-head of the Sea-nymph was carried through the streets in
the midst of an admiring throng and fixed securely in its place on the
beautiful new brig. A few days more, and the ship was launched and slid
swiftly and safely into the sea. That night it was bright moonlight.
Silver-gilt ripples were rising and falling along the coast and all
over the bay. Now and then a fish would jump, scattering a shower of
shining drops. Everything was very still around the Sea-nymph. She lay
quite by herself at some distance from any other craft. There was no
one on board but an old watchman, who was fast asleep. If he had been
awake, he would have seen a long, bright ripple on the water coming
nearer as some sea creature cut its way swiftly toward the new craft.
It was our merman, who found himself drawn toward the land by a longing
curiosity too strong for him to resist.
“It is all so quiet and still,” he thought. “There can be no possible
danger, and I do so want to see what sort of houses these human
creatures live in. There’s a new ship. I’m a great mind to go and look
at it. What is that standing there on the end of it?”
The merman swam on slowly, debating whether he should really go and
look. Something seemed at once to warn him away and to call him
forward. He could not tell what was the matter with him. Once he
turned to swim away. Then he made up his mind once for all, and dashed
straight on toward the ship. He said over to himself a charm his
grandfather had taught him: “Aski, kataski, lix tetrax, damnamenous,”
words of power once written on the fish-bodied statue of the great
goddess of Ephesus; but, dear me! it did him no good at all. All the
while he was coming the wooden nymph stood up in her place, holding
out her silver vase in both hands and looking over the sea with her
painted eyes.
“What a lovely creature!” thought the merman. “She is looking at me;
she holds her vase toward me.”
She was doing no such thing, of course--the wooden image--but he
thought she was. He did not know that she would have looked just the
same way if he had been an old porpoise instead of a young merman. He
swam closer and closer. The moon shone on the painted face. The ship
moved gently on the water. The merman thought the lady had inclined her
head. In one moment he fell desperately, helplessly, in love with the
oaken nymph. It certainly must have been the doing of the old Witch of
the Sea. Some influence of the kind must have been at work, or else a
merman who had been to college would surely have had more sense than to
become enamored of an oak block. But whether it was the witch’s work,
or whether it was the drop of human blood in his veins, or whether
it was fate, that is just what he did--he fell in love with a wooden
image. He forgot his home, his old grandfather, his sisters, his best
friend, who loved him like a brother and who had saved his life in the
war. As for the mermaid who had given him the ring, he never gave her
a thought. He didn’t care for anything in the world but that painted
image smiling up there and holding its vase. He saw nothing but that,
and, in fact, he didn’t see that either, for he saw it as if it were
alive.
“Oh I wish I knew her name or what she is!” said the merman to himself.
“She can’t be human. She is too beautiful.” He swam round and round and
read the words “The Sea-nymph” painted under the figure. He gave a jump
almost out of the water. “It is a nymph,” he said--“one of the Nereides
or Oceanides. I thought they had left this world long ago. What can she
be doing on that ship?”
He gazed at the wooden creature with all his heart in his eyes. He
wished he were human that he might at least be a little like this
lovely shape. He hated his own form. Was it likely the divine nymph
would ever deign to notice a creature with a fish’s tail? Finally he
ventured to speak.
“Fairest nymph,” he said.
He got no answer, but as the shadow of a cloud flitted across her face,
and then the moon shone on her, he thought the nymph smiled. If there
had been any possible way, he would certainly have climbed up to her,
though he knew he could not live five minutes out of the water. He
did not think anything about that, the poor silly merman. He was so
infatuated that he would have been glad to die beside her. He stayed
there the whole night talking to the wooden sea-nymph, and when the
image moved with the rise and fall of the water he thought she inclined
her head toward him. He said the most extravagant things to her; he
told her all he had ever thought or felt, things he had never spoken to
his best friend who loved him dearly; he poured out all his heart into
the deaf ears of the wooden nymph. The image kept looking out over the
water with its painted eyes, and the merman thought, “Now at last I
have found some one who can understand me.”
It was growing to gray dawn when a huge sea gull came sweeping over the
water, and poised and hovered over the merman’s head.
“Hallo!” said the sea-gull to the merman, “what are _you_ up to, young
man?”
The merman was disgusted and made no answer.
“You’d better clear out of this,” said the gull. “If they catch you,
they’ll make a show of you and wheel you round the streets in a tub of
water for sixpence a sight.”
“Be so good as to reserve your anxiety for your own affairs,” said the
merman, haughtily. He had always been sweet-tempered, but now he felt
as if he must have a quarrel with some one. He had a general impression
that every living creature was his rival and enemy. He didn’t just know
what he wanted, but he was determined to have it.
“Highty tighty!” said the sea-gull. “Don’t put yourself out. What have
we here? A pretty wooden image, upon my word!” and the gull perched on
the sea-nymph’s head and scratched his ear with one claw. The merman
went almost wild at the sight.
“You profane wretch!” he shouted; “how dare you? Oh, good heavens, that
I should see her so insulted and not be able to help her. Oh, why can’t
I fly?”
“’Cause you hain’t got no wings,” said the vulgar bird, flapping his
own wide white pinions. “Why shouldn’t I perch here as well as on any
other post? It’s none of your funeral.”
“Post!” said the merman, in a fury.
“Yes, post! Why? You don’t mean to say you think this thing’s alive?”
“Alive! She is a goddess, a nymph, an angel!”
“Well, you _are_ a muff,” said the gull, with immense contempt. “If I
ever! Look here! if you don’t want a harpoon in you, you had better
quit.”
“I’ll wring your neck,” said the merman, in a rage.
“Skee-ee-eek!” screamed the gull. “Will you have it now or wait till
you get it? Take your own way, if you only know what it is;” and
the gull lifted his wings and swept off over the water, laughing
frantically. The wooden lady kept looking over the sea.
“What noble composure! what breeding!” thought the merman. “She scorns
to notice a creature like that. How much more noble and womanly is
this modest reserve and silence than the chatter and laughing of our
mermaids!”
It grew lighter and lighter; sounds of life were heard from the shore;
a boat put out on the bay; presently the workmen began to come on board
the brig.
“Any of those human beings can speak to her,” thought the merman. He
was frantically jealous of an old ship carpenter with a wooden leg.
One of the workmen caught a glimpse of him. “Ho!” said he, “there’s an
odd fish! Who’s got a harpoon?”
The merman had just sense enough left to see that if he was harpooned
in the morning he couldn’t court the goddess at night. He dived and
swam away, for mermen, although they are warm-blooded animals, are not
obliged to come up to the top of the water to breathe.
He hid all day long under the timbers of an old wharf, and when it was
still at night he came out again and swam toward The Sea-nymph. Some
one had covered up the figure with an old sheet to keep the dust off.
The merman thought she had put on a veil.
“What charming modesty!” he said. “She don’t wish to be seen by these
human beings, or perhaps I offended her by my staring.”
He called her every lovely name he could invent or think of. He got
no answer, of course, but that was her feminine reserve, the merman
thought.
“Speech is silvern, silence is golden,” he said. So it went on all the
time the new brig was being fitted up. The merman lived a wretched
life. Two or three times he was seen and chased by the fishermen. A
talk went about of the odd creature that haunted the water near the
new ship. Some one was always on the lookout for him, and once he was
nearly caught. They kept watch for him at night. It was only now and
then that he could worship his wooden love for an hour.
All the time the old sheet was over her head, but the merman only loved
her the better. He hid under the old wharf by day, for though he knew
how to make himself invisible to mermen, the charm hadn’t the slightest
effect where Yankees were concerned. He lived on whatever he could
catch, but he had very little appetite. The shallow harbor water did
not agree with his constitution. He grew thin and hollow-eyed, a mere
ghost of a merman, but he was constant to his wooden image.
Meantime, the ship was finished and the cargo was stowed away. One day,
glancing out from his place, he saw that the nymph was unveiled and was
standing in her old fashion, lovely as ever. She was looking straight
at him, the merman thought. “She is anxious about my safety,” he said,
with delight, for he did not know that the image just looked toward the
old wharf because it happened to be in the way.
“Dearest,” he said, “I would follow you over the whole ocean for such a
look as that!”
That night there were so many men on board the brig that the merman
did not dare go near her. The next morning the ship spread her sails
and went out of the harbor with a fair wind, bound for Lisbon and the
Mediterranean. That same evening there was a great gathering at Colonel
Shuttleworth’s. Master Torrey was married to Anna Jane.
The merman followed the ship at a long distance. He dared not go too
near in the daytime for fear of the harpoon that had been thrown at him
once or twice. Then it came into his head that the lovely nymph was in
some mysterious way held captive by these human creatures. He swore
to deliver her if it cost him his life, for which he cared only as it
could serve his goddess, for that she was a goddess he fully believed.
He swam in the wake of the ship, and it was very seldom that he could
come up and look his idol in the face. The sailors kept a sharp
lookout for him. They thought he was some sort of monster, the poor
innocent merman, and had harpoons ready to throw at him whenever he
showed himself. But for all this he followed The Sea-nymph across the
Atlantic. He knew he was not likely to meet any of his own people, for
the merfolk avoid ships whenever they can, and do not frequent the
highway between the two continents.
One day, however, he was so possessed with a desire for the sight of
his love that, utterly reckless, he swam directly before the ship and
stretched out his arms to the wooden image. “I am here! I will die for
you!” he cried, for he thought she was suffering in her captivity and
wanted comfort. There was a shout from the sailors; one flung a fish
spear, another fired a gun. The captain ordered out the whale-boat, and
they gave chase to the merman, for such they now saw it was. It was
all that he could do to get away. He was a very fast swimmer, however,
and as he was not obliged to come up to breathe, they soon lost sight
of him. He distanced the boat, but he found when he stopped that the
bullet from the gun had grazed his shoulder, and that he had lost blood
and was suffering pain. “It is for her,” thought the merman as he tried
to stanch the blood with his pocket handkerchief.
Just then a huge sperm whale came dashing up.
“Why, what in the world are you doing here?” said the whale, surprised.
“Have those wretches of men been chasing you?”
“Yes,” said the merman, his eyes flashing; “you may well call them
wretches. Do you know who it is they hold prisoner in their hateful
ship? The loveliest sea-nymph in the world.”
“How do you know?” said the whale.
“I have seen her. I have followed her all the way from home. She stands
holding out a silver vase. Every creature in the sea ought to fly to
deliver her. If I was only as big and strong as you! These men are
your enemies as well as mine and hers. I know how they kill you whales
whenever they can. You can sink that ship if you like and deliver the
goddess.”
The whale was so astonished that he had to go to the top of the water
and blow. “My dear sir,” said he, diving down again, “you are under
some strange mistake. That is nothing but wood, that figure on the
ship, as sure as my name is Moby Dick.”
“You great stupid creature, where are your eyes?” said the merman in a
passion, and yet he was rather struck by the whale’s remarks too.
“In my head,” said Moby Dick, “and I shouldn’t think yours were. Why
they put some such thing on all the ships--women, dolphins, what not.
I’ve seen dozens of ’em. I know about nymphs. I used to read about ’em
in the old classical dictionary in our school. Every school of whales
of any pretension has one. If she was a sea goddess, do you suppose
she’d stand there in all weathers? Besides, there are no nymphs.”
“Then you won’t sink the ship?” said the merman.
“Certainly not; she’s only a merchant ship. If she was a whaler,
I would with pleasure. I’ve done it before now, but that was in
self-defence. I’m not going to drown a lot of folks because you have
lost your wits. Come, come, my young friend, go home to your family. I
dare say your mother don’t know you’re out. You are too tired to swim
after that ship, and you are hurt besides. Let me take you home on my
back; I’d just as soon swim your way as any other.”
The merman was a little affected by the whale’s tone of kindness, but
he was too much possessed with his wooden love to accept the offer.
“No! no!” he cried, “I must follow her to the ends of the earth.
Something tells me she will yet be mine.”
“And suppose she should be?” said Moby Dick. “Why, she’s only a stick
cut and painted. What would the ladies of your family think if you
brought home a wooden wife?”
“You are blind,” said the merman, swimming away.
“You are cracked!” the whale shouted after him, but the merman was
already out of hearing.
“Dear! dear!” said Moby Dick. “What a pity! If I can find any of the
mermen, I’ll tell them about him. He ought not to be left to himself;”
and he shook his huge head solemnly and swam away in an opposite
direction.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV.
_THE BEWITCHED LOVER._
Off to Lisbon went the brig Sea-nymph, and after her the poor merman.
He stayed there as long as the ship stayed, hiding under boats and
behind timbers, chased more than once, in danger of his life every
hour, hardly able to get a glimpse of his idol. The wooden nymph stood
straight up in her place, looking toward the city this time, because
her head happened to be turned that way.
Once a priest going across the water in a boat happened to see him. The
priest took him for a demon, was dreadfully scared, and solemnly cursed
him, as is the fashion of priests when they are afraid of anything.
Besides, such is the approved mode of dealing with demons in those
countries. The report went abroad that there was an evil spirit in the
harbor. The Spanish and Italian sailors said innumerable prayers to the
saints and bought little blessed candles. The Yankees and Englishmen
hunted him whenever they could, for they had a curiosity to see what
a live demon was like. You may imagine what a life it was for the
poor merman. He was almost worn out when The Sea-nymph weighed anchor
and set sail for Sicily. He followed her, of course, for he was more
possessed than ever.
And yet away down at the bottom of his heart he had misgivings. When
day after day went on and the nymph stood still in the same place, he
could not help thinking to himself, “What if it should be a wooden
image, after all!”
But when this thought came into his head he drove it away, and called
himself all the names that ever were for daring to entertain such a
notion about his goddess. Was she not constant? Did she not always hold
out her vase toward him? He didn’t or wouldn’t think, the poor silly
merman, that it was because he always swam right before her and she
couldn’t hold it any other way.
Not far from the Straits of Gibraltar the merman met his most intimate
friend, who had been looking for him a long time, and had only heard of
him through Moby Dick.
“My dear fellow,” said his friend, “I am so glad to see you!” and then
he stopped, for he couldn’t help seeing that the other was not at all
glad to see him, and he felt hurt and disappointed.
“Are you?” said the merman, coldly, and gazing after the ship sailing
away from him.
“Why, of course. We’ve all been so anxious about you. Why haven’t you
written? Your grandfather has tried every spell he could think of, but
it all seemed of no use. The dear old gentleman is almost sick, and so
miserable about you that he has had no heart to finish his work, even
though the Baltic merman has come out with another pamphlet. Do come
home.”
Now as his friend spoke our merman felt at once how selfish and
ungrateful he had been. But his passion for his wooden nymph had so
altered his nature that instead of being sorry he was only angry with
himself, and pretended that he was angry with his friend.
“I suppose I am old enough to be my own master,” he said, haughtily.
“Why, what has come over you?” said his friend. “I’m sure it was
natural I should come to look for you. If I’d been lost, wouldn’t you
have tried to find me?”
The merman felt more and more ashamed of himself and grew crosser and
crosser. “Excuse me,” he said, coldly, “but I have business that I must
attend to. I don’t choose to discuss the subject;” and he swam away
after The Sea-nymph.
“But look here!” said his friend, coming after him. “I must tell you
something. I’m going to be married to your youngest sister, and I want
you to come and be best man. The girls are breaking their hearts about
you.”
“Oh, I dare say,” said the merman with a sneer. He had always been a
most affectionate brother, but now he had no room in his heart for
anything but his wooden image.
“And there’s a dear little girl next door that will be glad to see you.
She’s to be bridesmaid, of course. It’s my belief she likes you. The
sweetest mermaid in the sea, she is, except your sister.”
“She’s well enough for a mermaid,” said the merman, impatiently, for
the ship was going farther and farther away.
“I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said his friend, growing
vexed at last. “I shall really think that absurd story of Moby Dick’s
was true when he said you were in love with a wooden statue of a human
being.”
“She’s not human,” snapped the merman, coloring scarlet; “she’s a
nymph, an immortal.”
“Let’s have a look at her,” he said.
“You are not worthy to behold her perfections,” said the merman.
“Why, a catfish may look at a congressman,” said his friend, quoting
a sea proverb. “Is she on board that ship off there? Come on;” and
away he went and our merman after him. They came up with the ship, and
there, as usual, stood the wooden image staring over the water.
“She’s watching for me,” said the merman.
The friend said nothing. He swam round and round, and looked up at the
figure-head through his eye-glass.
“Isn’t she a goddess?” asked our merman, impatiently.
“Goddess!” said the other. “My dear fellow, it’s only wood as sure as
you are alive.”
“No merman shall insult me,” said our merman, in a passion.
“Who wants to? Do open your eyes, my dear boy, and see for yourself.”
“I do; I see how she looks at me and holds out her silver vase.”
“She’ll do as much for me,” said his friend, swimming before the ship.
Our merman was wild with rage and jealousy, for he could not help
seeing that she did. He drew his sword (for he wore one), made of a
sword-fish blade, and flew at his friend. “Defend yourself,” he said.
“Nonsense,” said the other. “A likely story, I am going to fight you
about a wooden stick. As for looking at me, she’d do the same for any
old turtle.”
The merman couldn’t but feel that this was true. But he only grew more
angry. He struck his friend with all his might. There was a dark stain
on the sea.
“I’m not going to fight you,” said the other, turning very pale, “for
you are _her_ brother, but I think you’ll be very sorry for this some
time;” and he turned round and swam away as well as he could.
Fortunately, after a little he met Moby Dick.
“Hallo!” said the whale in a tone of concern. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing much,” said the other, for he wouldn’t tell the story.
The whale suspected the truth. He sniffed and wiped his eyes with his
flipper, for he was a soft-hearted monster.
“Come with me,” said he; “I’ll take you to a surgeon.”
He carried the wounded merman to an old sea-owl who lived in a cave
under the rock of Gibraltar. The old sea-owl was sitting in his
door reading the newspaper when Moby Dick came rushing toward him,
supporting in his flipper the hurt merman, who was too faint to swim.
“This young gentleman has met with an accident,” said the whale to the
sea-owl; “I want you to cure him.” The sea-owl laid down his paper and
took off his spectacles.
“What concern is it of yours?” said the sea-owl.
“That is none of your business,” said Moby Dick. “Take him into the
house and take care of him.”
“You are weakly sentimental,” said the sea-owl. “I perceive that you
belong to the rose-water class. What is suffering? A mere thrilling of
a certain set of nerves. It creates a sensation which we call pain.
It is disagreeable. Suppose it is. Are we sent into the world only to
enjoy ourselves? Enjoyment is contemptible; the desire of happiness is
base, unworthy a rational being. Let us rise to more exalted feelings;
let us glorify ourselves in discomfort; and if we see any one basely
comfortable, let us make ourselves as disagreeable as possible, and
raise him to our own platform. What possible difference does it make
whether we live or die, or are cold and hungry? What odds does it make
in this huge universe? Are we nothing but vultures screaming for prey?
Let us cultivate silence, that I may have the talk all to myself;” and
the sea-owl looked at Moby Dick in the most impressive and superior
manner. “What difference, I repeat, does our happiness or misery make
in the huge sum of the universal--?”
“Look here!” said Moby Dick, “if you don’t quit talking and tend to
this young man, I’ll swallow you. I don’t know as that will make much
difference in the universe, but it’ll make a sight of difference to
_you_;” and the whale opened his tremendous jaws wide and showed all
his teeth.
The sea-owl took the merman into his office on the instant. He bound up
his wound and attended him very carefully, for he was by no means such
a fool as you would imagine from his conversation. The merman was cured
before long, and made the sea-owl a handsome return for his services.
The owl was just as much pleased as though the money had been a large
item in the sum of the universe. He gave the merman a present of his
own poems neatly bound in shark skin. He had several hundred copies in
his office, for he had issued them at his own expense. They had been
much praised, but some way they did not sell. The sea-owl said it was
because all the people in the sea were “Philistines.” No one knew just
what he meant, but when he called people by that name most all of them
experienced a sort of crushed feeling, and pretended to admire the
poems. Sometimes they would even buy them, but not often. Moby Dick
accompanied the young merman home, and they made up a story that his
hurt had been caused by a sword-fish, against whom he had run in the
dark. Nobody believed him, for some way every one knew the truth, but
all the members of the family’s own circle pretended to believe the
tale, for they were all very high-bred people.
It had been intended that the wedding of the professor’s granddaughter
should be a very brilliant affair, but they felt so unhappy about the
grandson that they resolved to invite only a few intimate friends. Moby
Dick, of course, was among the number. He was too huge to come into
the house, but he put his nose to the window and ate ice cream with
a fire shovel for a spoon. The beautiful mermaid from next door was
bridesmaid, and looked most lovely. She seemed in better spirits than
any one else, and never said a word about her old playmate. Toward the
end of the evening she went out into the garden that was all glittering
with sea phosphorescence. She swam up to Moby Dick and said it was warm
weather.
“So it is, my dear,” said the whale, and looking with admiration at the
bridesmaid, who wore white lace and emeralds.
“You came from Gibraltar, didn’t you?” said the mermaid, playing with
her looking-glass, which the sea ladies carry as ours do their fans.
“Yes, where the bridegroom and I went to see after that bewitched
brother-in-law of his,” said the whale, for he was vexed at the merman.
“Do you think he is bewitched?” said the bridesmaid.
The whale scratched his head, which is not vulgar in a whale.
“I never thought of it before,” he said; “but now you speak of it I
shouldn’t wonder if it was so.”
The bridesmaid whispered in the whale’s ear.
“I wish you’d come with me to the old Witch of the Sea,” she said.
“Won’t you, please?”
“I’ll go to the ends of the ocean with you, miss, if you want me to,”
said Moby Dick; “but what for?”
“Oh,” said the bridesmaid, looking straight in the eye which happened
to be that side of the whale’s head, “I’m a friend of the family,
you know. I’m very much attached to the girls and very fond of the
professor. I should like to help them if I could, and I think the witch
is a wise woman, and it wouldn’t do at all for the professor to go to
her in his position, but it won’t make any difference to me and you.
Will you come now? It isn’t far.”
“Of course I will,” said the whale. “Just sit on my head, and I’ll take
you there in no time.”
Just then the bride’s sister came out into the garden.
“Are you going, dear?” she said to the bridesmaid.
“Yes, I think I shall. Mr. Dick will see me home,” said the other
mermaid.
“It’s been rather forlorn,” sighed the bride’s sister. “To think of his
loving a wooden thing!”
“I suppose he had a right to if he chose,” said the mermaid a little
hastily. “I’m sure it’s nothing to me.”
The bride’s sister was not angry at all. She kissed her friend
good-night, and when she and Dick had gone sat down and cried a little.
“The poor dear!” she said.
Meanwhile Moby Dick and the bridesmaid were on their way to the old
Witch of the Sea. She lived in a cave in a thick dark grove of seaweed.
She was sitting before the door talking with a gossip of hers, one of
the Salem witches, whose broomstick would carry her through the water
as well as through the air. The broomstick, which was a spirited young
one, was standing hitched at the door, impatiently stamping its stick
part on the ground and switching the broom part about to keep off the
little crabs.
“Ho! ho!” said the Salem witch. “Here’s a dainty young maiden indeed!
I’m a great mind to stick a few pins in her.”
“You better hadn’t,” said Moby Dick, grimly, for he was not at all
afraid of witches. “Ask the old lady any questions you like, my dear;
nothing shall hurt you.”
[Illustration: “‘Ho! ho!’ said the Salem witch. ‘Here’s a dainty young
maiden indeed!’” Page 86.]
“If you would be so good,” said the mermaid, taking off her jeweled
necklace and zone and holding them out to the witches, “will you tell
me where the professor’s grandson is, and whether he cannot be induced
to come home?”
“And what’s your interest in _him_?” said the Witch of the Sea, taking
snuff and looking at her sharply.
“I am his sister’s friend,” said the mermaid, steadily; “otherwise it
is not a matter of consequence to me whether he spends his life in the
chase of a wooden image; but I am very fond of the professor, and I
think it a very sad thing that he should be left alone in his old age.”
“Umph!” said the Salem witch. “Just the same, fish-tailed or
two-legged, in the sea or out of it. There’s a girl in our town as like
her as two peas.”
“Young lady,” said the Witch of the Sea, “I haven’t had any hand in
this matter.” (But of course I can’t say this was true. I incline
myself to think she had had her finger in the pie.) “I can’t undo the
spell--not now. If you want to find your friend’s brother, you must go
West toward the coast.”
“Take a bee line,” said the Salem witch.
“I don’t know what that is,” said the mermaid, who didn’t know what a
bee was.
“As the crow flies,” said the Salem witch.
“Crow?” said the mermaid, perplexed.
“As the mackerel swims,” said the sea witch.
“Oh, I see,” said the mermaid. “Thank you very much. Pray keep the
stones. Good-night;” and she turned to Moby Dick. “You’ll go with me?”
“To be sure,” said the whale. “That’s rather a dangerous coast for me,”
he thought to himself. “But never mind; if they come after me I can
sink a whaler as easy as nothing. I’ll go with her. She reminds me of
a whaless I used to go to school with;” and Moby Dick looked at the
little slim mermaid in her bridesmaid’s dress, and heaved a sigh about
a quarter of an acre in extent. “I’m your whale,” he said, cheerfully;
and away they dashed at the rate of a hundred miles an hour.
* * * * *
Every one in the sea knew that the professor’s grandson had fallen in
love with a wooden image, and was following it about the world. The
very porpoises talked about it to each other. The whole family were
dreadfully mortified.
“Suppose he marries her!” said his sisters.
“We never can take her into society. A real human being would be bad
enough, but a wooden one--”
“I disown him,” said the old mer professor. “I desire that no one will
mention him in my hearing. If he would only come home, the poor dear
boy!”
There was universal sympathy with the family. The very sophomores
behaved like gentlemen for as much as a week, they were so touched with
the old mer professor’s trouble.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER V.
_THE SEA-NYMPHS._
After his friend had left him, our merman swam once more after The
Sea-nymph. He felt wicked, ashamed, remorseful and very miserable, but
for all that he followed his wooden goddess. He was so worn out with
his long journeying and with trouble of mind that he could not keep up
with the ship--he who had once beaten a fin-back whale in a race. He
had lost sight of the brig before she went into the harbor of Syracuse,
but he knew where she was going, and he followed in her track. It was
a beautiful moonlit night. The water was all golden ripples. The ruins
of the ancient town stood up white, still and solemn in the flood
of silver light. The modern city did not look dirty as it does by
sunlight, but white and cool and still. Only a bell rung at intervals
from the tower of a convent.
On a fragment of a broken capital that lay in the water near the island
shore of Ortyggia sat three lovely ladies. They looked young and
beautiful as the day, but they were very, very old. They had known the
place before the first Greek ship bore the first Greek colonists to
Sicily. The broken capital was the last bit of a temple that had been
reared in their honor ages ago, for these were the real sea-nymphs.
They had come back from the unknown countries where they went when men
forgot them, and the monks shattered their beautiful marble statues to
replace them with waxen virgins dressed in tinsel. They were taking a
journey just to see what sort of a place this world had grown to be.
They were all three rather low-spirited--as much so as sea-nymphs can
be.
“This is all so different,” said Arethusa. “It was hardly sadder in the
great siege; I could hardly find the place where my fountain was once.”
“And nothing of Alpheus?” said Cymodoce with a little smile.
“No, thank Heaven!” said Arethusa; “the stream is there, but it has
another name. I wonder what has become of the old gentleman? My dears,
you can’t think what a torment he was. I really don’t know what I
should have done but for Diana.”
“Maybe you would have married him,” said Panope. “He was very devoted
to you.”
“Not he,” said Arethusa. “He was determined to have his own way, but he
didn’t get it.”
“Sing something,” said Cymodoce. “What concerts we used to have on this
very shore! Oh dear!”
Arethusa began to sing. I only wish you had been there to hear her.
“Years ago when the world was young,
And this weary time was yet to be,
A little bay lay the hills among
Where the hills slope down to the sand and sea.
“The shepherd came down to the cool seashore,
Fearless and tall and fair was he;
Careless the cornel spear he bore,
As he paced the sand along the sea.
“Low in the sky the red moon hung,
The wind went wandering wild and free;
To and fro the foam-bells swung
Off from the sand into the sea.
“‘Come up, my love,’ he called, ‘oh come!
Give, oh goddess, once more to me
That fairest face in the whitening foam,
On the pebbly marge ’twixt the sand and sea.’
“The sunset faded like smouldering brand,
And never the nymph again saw he;
The shadow sloped from the tall headland
Off from the sand, out o’er the sea.
“His was a being that, born to-day,
Grows old to-morrow and dies, and she
Lived on for ages as fair alway,
To sing on the shore ’twixt the sand and the sea.
“Yet oh, my lover, by this right hand,
It was fate, not I, that was false to thee;
For thine was the life of the solid land,
And I was a thing of the restless sea.”
As Arethusa finished her song, the merman came swimming wearily toward
the three nymphs. If he had been a human being, he would not have seen
them, but as it was they were revealed to his eyes. He knew what they
were in a moment. They were dressed like his wooden nymph, and Arethusa
carried a little silver vase in her hand, but they were not like the
figure-head, for they had sweet, kind faces, and could laugh and cry.
The merman made a most respectful bow, for he knew how to do it.
“Well,” said Panope, kindly, “can we do anything for you?”
“Lovely nymphs,” said the merman, “have you seen a ship pass this way
with one of your fair sisters on its prow?”
“One of _our_ sisters?” said Arethusa, a little haughtily. “That seems
very unlikely.”
“I assure you she is, my lady,” said the merman, reverently but firmly.
“She has her name, The Sea-nymph, written below her.”
“He has lost his wits,” said Panope, sighing.
“What a pity! Such a handsome youth!”
“You don’t mean that wooden figure-head?” cried Arethusa.
“Surely she is your sister,” said the merman, looking at Cymodoce, who
was more like the wooden nymph than the other two, and whose manners
were always a little stiff and prim.
“My sister!” cried Cymodoce, quite bristling. “Am I related to a log of
wood?”
Here Arethusa slyly pinched Panope behind Cymodoce’s back, for the
truth was Cymodoce had once been a wooden ship, and had been made
into a nymph to save her from a conflagration. She never would allow,
however, that this was a true story.
“No, of course there is nothing wooden about you, dear,” said Panope,
soothingly. “Don’t be vexed. Let us help the poor boy if we can.”
“He’s very like a Triton I used to know,” said Arethusa, aside.
“I saw a ship pass,” said Panope, looking down at him with her kind
blue eyes. “Such a big ship! Not like the ones I used to see here years
ago, and it certainly had a wooden statue on the prow, but it was only
a wooden image; it was not alive.”
“How strange it is,” thought the merman to himself, “that these three
goddesses should be jealous of my beauty--just like three mortal
mermaids.”
“Jealous of that stick indeed!” cried Cymodoce, answering his thought.
“Men!” said Arethusa. “Panope, my darling, they are just the creatures
they always were in the water or out of it.”
“So it seems,” said Panope, playing in the sand with her little pink
toes like a mortal girl.
“I assure you, sir,” said Cymodoce, gravely, “that you are under a
serious mistake. That figure is a mere painted figure-head, quite
incapable of a rational thought or instructive conversation.”
“What we admire in woman is her affections, not her intellect,” said
the merman.
“Look at me!” said Arethusa; and the tall nymph stood up before him in
all her immortal beauty and shook down her golden hair till it swept
her ankles.
“My dear Arethusa,” said Cymodoce, “let me ask you to consider if this
is quite proper?”
Panope only smiled, and Arethusa took no sort of notice.
“Look at me,” she said, “and compare me with that wooden thing. Don’t
you see the difference?”
A difference there certainly was. The merman felt a cold chill go to
his heart. For one instant his eyes were opened; for one instant he
knew he had been worshiping a stick. Then he would _not_ see or feel
the truth.
“Farewell!” he cried, desperately; “I will follow her to the ends of
the earth, whether she is alive or not,” and he swam away.
“Poor fellow!” said Arethusa.
“He looks a good deal like the pious Æneas,” said Cymodoce, who often
mentioned that gentleman.
“I don’t see it,” said Panope, almost sharply. “He may be a goose, but
he is not a prig. I do wish you ever could talk about any one else,
Cymodoce! I am tired to death of the pious Æneas.”
“So am I,” said Arethusa; “he was a humbug if ever there was one.”
“What an expression!” said Cymodoce.
“Never mind,” said Arethusa; “suppose we do this poor merman a good
turn, and get Aphrodite to make his wooden thing a live creature.
Don’t you think she would do as much for wood as she did for marble?”
“We could ask her,” said Cymodoce. “I have some influence with her. I
was so well acquainted with her son, the pious--”
“Oh bother _him_!” said Arethusa, who had been a mountain nymph
originally, and was apt to be a little brusque.
“I don’t believe she’d be good for much if she did come alive,” said
Panope, looking down. “I’ve heard that match of Pygmalion’s didn’t turn
out very well. I saw the marble woman once. She was pretty enough, but
_so_ stiff, and she walked as though she weighed a ton, and hadn’t a
word to say for herself. And as for this wooden thing, the woodenness
would always remain in her mind and manners. But we can try. Come,
if you like;” and the three slipped into the sea and went swimming
after the merman, but he never saw them. He had caught sight of his
wooden goddess, and had no eyes for the real ones. He thought he had
never seen his idol looking so beautiful, so lifelike. “_She_ wood!”
he thought as he leaned back in the water and looked up in her face.
Meanwhile, some strange influence was at work upon the wooden image. A
kind of thrill ran over it. It began slowly to breathe.
“Dear me!” thought the wooden creature, for it could think a little
now. “I must be coming alive! How very disagreeable! I can see--even
feel. I don’t like it. It’s too much trouble. What is that thing in the
sea staring at me?” and she actually bent her head and looked down.
The merman, of course, was in ecstasies, for he thought she was coming
to him.
“I certainly am growing alive,” thought the wooden thing. “I won’t
come alive; I was made wood, and wood I’ll stay; I won’t go out of my
sphere; I’m sure it’s not proper;” and she stiffened herself as stiff
as she could. “I will be wood,” she thought, and wood she was, for even
a goddess can’t make a thing alive against its own will. “Yes, this is
much the best way,” was the wooden image’s last thought, as the breath
of life went away from her and left her more wooden than ever.
“Let it go, the stupid thing,” said Arethusa in a pet which was
scarcely reasonable, as the image was wood in its nature. “Come, my
dears, let us go from a world where no one cares for our gifts. Don’t
cry, Panope dear. There are just as many fools in the world as ever
there were, for all they pretend to be so much wiser.”
“It is strange too,” said Cymodoce, “considering how long they have had
before them the example of the pious Æneas--”
“_He_ never lost sight of his interest,” said Panope. “I wish we could
persuade that poor merman, but I know very well that the twelve great
gods couldn’t do it;” and the three vanished and were seen no more.
* * * * *
That night there came up a terrible storm. There was wind and rain
and thunder such as the merman had never heard. From far away came a
thick sulphurous cloud of smoke, and in the air was a dull red glare.
The land shook and trembled, for Ætna was feeding his hidden fires,
filling his inmost furnaces. The gale blew fiercely from land. The
Sea-nymph snapped her cable, and drove out of the harbor before the
tempest. The merman followed her. By the glare of the lightning he
could see that the figure stood in its old place holding out her silver
vase. “What wonderful courage!” he thought, for he did not know it was
nailed there. The masts went crashing into the sea. The sailors threw
overboard everything they could to lighten the ship. One of them sprang
forward with an axe and began to cut away the figure-head. The merman
swam, balancing himself on the crest of the waves; every one was too
busy to notice him; he could not hear the blows of the axe in the noise
of the wind and thunder; he did not see what the sailor was doing; he
saw the image quiver under the strokes of the axe, and thought that at
last she was coming down to him. “Oh come, come,” he cried, swimming
directly below and holding out his arms. The wooden image quivered
and shook; it bent forward; the next instant the solid heavy oak fell
with a plunge and struck the poor merman in its fall. He felt that he
was dying, but he did not know what had hurt him. “My own love, my
sea-nymph,” he murmured; and he put his arms round the figure-head that
was bobbing up and down in the sea quite unconcernedly. He kissed the
painted lips. Then at length he knew that his idolized nymph, for whom
he had given his life, was nothing but a carved log. It was well for
him that his next breath was his last.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VI.
_LUCY PEABODY’S DREAM._
Moby Dick went on his way, “emerging strong against the tide.” A
Nantucket ship saw him as he blew, and her boats put out after him.
“Just get off a minute, my dear,” said he to the little mermaid whom he
carried. She did so, and then, instead of swimming away from the boats,
he put down his enormous head and went straight at them.
“The white whale!” cried the sailors; and they did not throw the
harpoon, but went meekly back to the ship. They were bold enough, but
they were afraid of the white whale, for Moby Dick had sunk two or
three ships in his time and entirely reversed the whalers’ programme.
Moby Dick executed a huge frisk on the surface of the sea, flapped his
tail on the water with a noise like thunder, and then dived down to
rejoin the mermaid.
“All right, my dear,” he said, cheerfully.
“I’m so glad you are safe,” said the mermaid, patting him with her
little hands.
On they went through the water, and the coast was soon in sight. It was
growing dusk, and the lighthouse showed its red star over the sea. The
mermaid was silent, and Moby Dick did not trouble her to talk.
Suddenly a beautiful woman appeared to them on the crest of a long
rolling billow. She made no effort; she did not swim, but moved through
the water by her will alone. She seemed a part of the sea, like a wave
come alive.
“That is not a human being, surely,” said the mermaid, startled.
“It’s very like that--you know--that wooden thing--that _he_ ran
after,” said Moby Dick in a gigantic whisper, “only it’s alive.”
“She don’t seem as though she could ever have been wood,” said the
mermaid. “She looks kind. I don’t feel as though she were that--that
person. Please ask if she has seen our friend.”
[Illustration: “‘My dear,’ she said, very gently, ‘your old playmate is
dead.’” Page 105.]
“Yes; my dear child,” said Panope--for she it was--answering the
mermaid’s thought, “I have seen him;” and the immortal sighed.
“His family are very anxious about him, my lady,” said the whale, who
was conscious of an awe he had never known before, though he felt he
could trust the Sea-Nymph.
“They need be anxious no more,” said Panope, gently and sadly.
“What has happened?” asked the mermaid, turning pale, but keeping
herself very quiet.
Panope went to her, and the immortal daughter of the sea put her white
arms round the mermaid and held her in a close and soft embrace.
“My dear,” she said, very gently, “your old playmate is dead.”
“You don’t say so, ma’am!” said Moby Dick, with a great sigh; and then
he swam away to a little distance and left the mermaid to the care of
the Sea-Nymph, for he was a whale of very delicate feelings.
The mermaid looked into the blue eyes of the Goddess, and felt that
the countless ages of her being had but made her more wise and kind.
She hid her face on the immortal maiden’s bosom.
“My sweet child,” said Panope, after a little while, “I cannot bring
your friend to life--it is beyond my power--but if you will, I can give
you an immortality like my own. I can carry you with me to a world
where death or pain has never come, and keep you young and lovely for
ever.”
The mermaid was silent a moment. Then she looked up into Panope’s face.
“You will not be angry with me?” said she.
“Angry, my poor darling!”
“Then, my friends that I have loved have all been mortal. My mother
is dead, my twin brother was killed in the war, and now my old
companion--and I have known him so long! I think I should rather not be
so very different, but go to them when my time comes.”
Panope caressed her hair with a soft hand.
“I don’t know but you are right. Sometimes,” said the Goddess, with
a sad, tired look in her eyes, “I think I would be glad to be mortal
myself, except that I am glad to be a little comfort to you. I am
sorry I came back. Either the world has grown a sad place, or else I
had forgotten what it used to be. But I don’t know; I almost broke my
heart over Prometheus when I was quite a young thing. I could have
helped him take care of his beloved human race a great deal better than
Asia, but he never cared anything for me. It is all over long ago. Is
there nothing that I can do for you, my dear?”
The mermaid was silent a minute. Then she said:
“I think I should like to take him home to his friends. I know they
would wish it should be so.”
“It shall be,” said Panope. “Wait here, and I will bring him to you.
But, my dear child, you are so quiet. All the mortal women I ever knew
in the old days, in the sea or out, would have torn their hair and
screamed, but you are so different.”
The mermaid looked up with a little ghost of a smile, half proud, half
pitiful. “I suppose it is because I was born in American waters,” she
said.
“Wait but a little,” said Panope. “The whale will take care of you. He
is a good creature. His great-grandfathers were pets of mine long ago.
I will soon come back again;” and the Nymph was gone.
* * * * *
Some time after the news had come to Salem of the total loss of the
brig Sea-nymph, Lucy Peabody was walking alone along the sands. She
felt weary, and sat down under the shadow of a rock to rest. The sun
was just setting, the west was suffused with a golden glow, the water
lay, hardly rippling to a low whispering wind, a sea of fire and glass.
Lucy leaned her head against the rock, and sitting there, she dreamed a
dream. Along the sands toward her came old Goody Cobb, whom everybody
suspected of witchcraft. She appeared so suddenly that Lucy in her
dream thought she had come out of the sea.
“Ho! ho!” said Goody Cobb, with a cracked laugh; “so here is Madam
Peabody’s lady daughter come out to cry over her disappointment all by
herself? The man was a fool, sure enough, but I wouldn’t mind. Just let
me write your name down in a little book I keep, and you shall see our
fine young madam dwine away like snow in spring-time, and then we shall
see--”
“You are out of your mind, Goody,” said Lucy in her dream; “but such
talk as that is not safe, for there are those in town who are silly
enough to believe witch stories, and you might get yourself into
trouble.”
“Silly, are they!” cried Goody Cobb, growing angry. “But never mind.
Just let me have your name, and we shall see what we shall see. Look at
the pretty necklace I will give you;” and she drew from her pocket a
chain of shining green stones and held it up before the girl’s eyes.
“I will have nothing to say to you or your gifts,” said Lucy, steadily.
“Pass on your way, Goody, and leave me alone.”
“So you think yourself too good for me!” said the witch in a rage.
“Let me tell you that my family is as good as yours, and better. My
grandfather was a minister--ay, and a noted one--while yours was
selling clams round the streets.”
It was a very odd thing that while Goody Cobb had become a witch,
renounced her baptism and sold herself to the enemy of mankind, she was
yet very proud of the eminent divine, her grandfather.
“I’ll be the death of you! I’ll stick pins in you, and set my imps
to pinch you black and blue!” screamed Goody Cobb, with the look of a
possessed woman, as she was.
Suddenly, as Lucy dreamed--so suddenly that she seemed to grow out of
the air--there stood on the sand between herself and the witch a tall
and beautiful woman in shining raiment of green and silver, with golden
hair that fell loosely to her ankles. She gazed sternly on the witch; a
divine wrath made her blue eyes awful.
“You earth-born creature!” she cried as she caught the green necklace
from the old woman’s trembling hand. “This girl is a child of the
ocean, and is in my care;” and Lucy dreamed that she felt glad to
remember how she had been born on the voyage her mother made with
her father to Calcutta. “Stay where you are for ever!” continued the
stranger lady, raising her white hand with a gesture of command. “You
will wreck no more ships--you, nor your sister witch.” And then as she
stood Goody Cobb stiffened into stone and became a black rock.
“You need not be afraid of me, my dear,” said the dream lady to Lucy.
“I never hurt any one in my life. I am only an innocent Sea-Nymph, and
I am--or I was--the helper of all the sailor-folk, and your father is a
bold seaman.”
Lucy dreamed that she was very much surprised, which was curious, for
in a dream the more remarkable a thing is, the less it astonishes the
dreamer.
“But I thought there never were any nymphs,” she said, perplexed.
The sea-maiden smiled a queer little smile--half sad, half amused.
“Do you know,” she said, “that since men left off believing in them
and building temples, the gods all declare that there never were such
things as human creatures, and that it was all a delusion of ours? Keep
this;” and she dropped the necklace into Lucy’s lap. “It belonged to
one who will not care to wear it now. Farewell;” and the goddess bent
down and lightly kissed the girl’s forehead, and the next instant Lucy
was alone. She woke up, as she thought, and sat still for a moment.
“What a singular dream!” she said to herself. Then she looked round,
and saw a black rock standing beside her, “Was that rock there? I
don’t remember it, but of course it must have been.” She rose to her
feet. Something fell glittering on the sand. She picked it up. It was a
long, shining necklace of green stones.
“This is very strange!” said Lucy, thoughtfully. “But I suppose I had
better take them home. They must have been washed up from the sea and
caught to my gown some way. How pretty they are! I wonder if they
belonged to some one who is drowned?”
She put the necklace into her pocket, and turned to go home. She had
gone but a little way when she met Job Chippit.
“Uncle Job,” she said, “I have found something on the sand. Do you
think any one in town has lost it, or that it was washed up by the sea?”
Job examined closely the emerald necklace. “This never belonged to
anyone in our town, Lucy,” he said; “most likely the tide washed it up
in the last storm. Yours it is by all right if no one comes to claim
it; and be keerful of it, for I expect it’s awful valuable. But what’s
happened to you?”
“Why?”
“You’ve got an odd look about you, some way, but I never see you look
so pretty. Has anything happened?”
“No,” said Lucy, quietly, “only I sat down to rest and fell asleep, and
had a very strange dream. Good-night, Uncle Job.” From that evening
Goody Cobb was never seen in Salem town.
Job Chippit continued his walk, thoughtfully whittling a little stick.
Before long he overtook Master Isaac Torrey, who was walking along
the shore with his head down, seeming to notice nothing but the sand
at his feet. Master Torrey had quite left off his wild ways. He made
no more foolish, fanciful speeches about nymphs and goddesses, and
such nonsense. “Anna Jane had made a sensible man of him,” said his
father-in-law. “He was greatly improved,” said every one, with the
exception of Ichabod Sterns and Job Chippit.
Master Torrey had avoided the wood-carver since his marriage. His
father-in-law thought it a good sign. “He had been quite too familiar
with that person,” thought the colonel. But this night Master Torrey
did not avoid him, though he only nodded without speaking in answer to
Job’s “Good-evening,” and then the two walked on in silence.
“That’s an odd-looking thing on the beach,” said Job at last.
They went up to the dark mass Job had pointed out. There on a heap of
weed, thrown up by the late storm, lay the wooden nymph, the paint
almost washed away, and there, with its arms tightly clasped about her
neck, lay a strange creature, half fish, half human.
“As sure as the world, it’s a merman!” said Job; “and there really are
such critters, after all! Poor fellow! The human part of him was pretty
good-lookin’ when he was alive. See what a dent he’s got in his head!”
“And this is the figure-head of The Sea-nymph,” said Master Torrey.
“Don’t you know it?”
“To be sure! Well, it does beat all! What shall we do with the merman?
I’d kind of hate to make a show of him. He’s a sort of man, and I
s’pose he had his feelings anyhow. Look at the empty scabbard and the
sword-belt; and he’s got a ring on his finger.”
Job bent down and tried to unfold the dead hand from its close clasp.
At that moment, though it was very calm, a huge wave rose from the sea,
and came thundering up the beach, covering the two men with spray. When
it retreated the dead merman and the figure-head were gone, and up from
the sea came a low sobbing sound.
Master Torrey and Job stood watching, surprised and startled. Another
minute, and up came a second huge wave, bearing upon its crest the
oaken sea-nymph. On it rolled--a mountain of water. It dashed its
burden upon the jagged rocks once, twice, thrice, and strewed the
shattered fragments over sea and sand. Job drew a long breath.
“Waal,” said he, “there goes the best piece of wood I ever chipped.
Tell ye what, philosophy won’t explain everything. ’Tain’t best to be
too rational if you want to have any insight into things in _this_
world. If that wa’n’t done a-purpose, I never see a thing done so!”
They turned back and walked toward the town. Far away in the offing a
whale sent up an enormous jet, a sea-gull screamed wildly above their
heads.
“Going to say anything about this?” said Job at last.
“What would be the use?” said Master Torrey, sharply. “Half of them
would not believe you; and who wants to set all the fools in the place
chattering?”
“Not I! I’m not over-fond of answering questions. I’d rather ask ’em,”
said Job. “Do you know, putting this and that together, and the story
of the queer fish that hung round the ship, I’ve got a notion that poor
fishy thing fell in love with that figger-head of ourn? You couldn’t
expect such a critter as he was to have more sense than a landsman, and
I expect the log fell on him when the brig went to pieces and killed
him.”
“So much the better for him if he had given his soul to a wooden
image,” said Master Torrey, bitterly. “Good-night;” and he left Job
and walked slowly back to his handsome new house. Job looked after him
wistfully. Just then old Ichabod came up and saluted the wood-carver.
“Do you know, Ichabod,” said Job, “that Master Torrey and I just found
the figure-head of the poor Sea-nymph, all shattered to bits on the
rocks? The waves brought her all this way to smash her at last.”
“I wish they had smashed her at first,” said Ichabod.
“Why?” said Job, with a curious look.
“Because,” said Ichabod, “she was an unlucky creature from the first.
She was too much alive for a wooden image, and too wooden to be a live
woman, much less a goddess.”
[Illustration: FINIS]
Transcriber’s Note:
Punctuation has been standardised. Hyphenation and spelling have been
retained as in the original publication except as follows:
Page 35 of The Mermen
who had married a mer lady, and _changed to_
who had married a merlady, and
Page 90 of The Mermen
a beautiful moonlight night _changed to_
a beautiful moonlit night
Page 114 of The Mermen
I ’spose he had his feelings _changed to_
I s’pose he had his feelings
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVENTURES IN SHADOW-LAND ***
