THE WAGNER STORY BOOK [Illustration: "AT LAST WE CAN SEE SOMETHING IN THE FIRE. "] THE WAGNER STORY BOOK FIRELIGHT TALES OF THE GREAT MUSIC DRAMAS BY WILLIAM HENRY FROST ILLUSTRATED BY SYDNEY RICHMOND BURLEIGH To Helen Krebbier CONTENTS THE STOLEN TREASURE THE DAUGHTER OF THE GOD THE HERO WHO KNEW NO FEAR THE END OF THE RING THE KNIGHT OF THE SWAN THE PRIZE OF A SONG THE BLOOD-RED SAIL THE LOVE POTION THE MINSTREL KNIGHT THE KING OF THE GRAIL THE ASHES LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "AT LAST WE CAN SEE SOMETHING IN THE FIRE" "THE GOLD SHINES OUT SO BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL" "THE DAUGHTER OF THE GOD" "THE SUNLIGHT FOLLOWS HIM STRAIGHT INTO THE CAVE" "THEIR TREASURE IS THEIR OWN AGAIN" "THE KNIGHT OF HER DREAM" "HE SAW HER EYES BRIGHTER THAN THE STARS" "THROUGH THE BLACK STORM AND HIS OWN BLACKER DESPAIR" "AS IF THEY COULD NEVER GAZE ENOUGH" "THE STRANGEST FLOWERS GROW UP UNDER THEIR FEET" "THE KING OF THE GRAIL" THE STOLEN TREASURE There is a certain little girl who sometimes tries to find out when Iam not over busy, so that she may ask me to tell her a story. She iskind enough to say that she likes my stories, and this so flatters myvanity that I like nothing better than telling them to her. One reasonwhy she likes them, I suspect, is that they are not really my storiesat all, the most of them. They are the stories that the whole world hasknown and loved all these hundreds and thousands of years, tales of thegods and the heroes, of the giants and the goblins. Those are the rightstories to tell to children, I believe, and the right ones for childrento hear--the wonderful things that used to be done, up in the sky, anddown under the ocean, and inside the mountains. If the boys and girlsdo not find out now, while they are young, all about the strange, mysterious, magical life of the days when the whole world was young, itis ten to one that they will never find out about it at all, for themost of us do not keep ourselves like children always, though surely wehave all been told plainly enough that that is what we ought to do. This little girl's mother is rather a strange sort of woman. I do notknow that she exactly disagrees with us about these stories that weboth like so much, but she seems to have a different way of looking atthem from ours. I sometimes suspect that she does not even believe infairies at all, that she never so much as thought she saw a ghost, that, if she heard a dozen wild horses galloping over the roof of thehouse and then flying away into the sky, she would think it was onlythe wind, and that she is no more afraid of ogres than of policemen. Still she is a woman whom one cannot help liking, in some respects. But one day she said something to the little girl that surprised me, and made me think that perhaps I had done her injustice. The child cameto me with a face full of perplexity and said: "What do you supposemamma just told me?" "I am sure I can't guess, " I replied; "your mother tells you suchridiculous things that I am always afraid to think what will be thenext. Perhaps she says that William Tell didn't shoot an apple off hislittle boy's head, or that the baker's wife didn't box King Alfred'sears for letting the cakes burn. " "Oh, no, " said the child, "it isn't a bit like that; she says that youcan see pictures in the fire sometimes--men and horses and trees andall kinds of things. " "Does she, indeed? And how does your mother know what I can see in thefire or what I can't see?" "Oh, I don't mean just you--yourself, I mean anybody. Now can you? Imean can anybody?" "Why, yes, if that is what you mean; I think some people can. It is themost sensible thing I have known your mother to say in a long time. " "But how can anybody see such things? Can you see them? I have beenlooking at the fire ever so long, and I can't see anything at all butjust the fire, the wood, and the ashes. " "Let us look at it together, " I said; and I put a chair that was bigenough to hold both of us before the fireplace. "Just see how brightthe fire is; look down into those deep places under the sticks, and seehow it glows and shines like melted gold. Now, you know when you lookinto a mirror you can see pictures of the things in front of it--yourown face, the walls of the room, the furniture. That is because themirror is so bright that it reflects these things; yet the mirror isnot bright enough to reflect anything except what is there before it, such things as you can see with your eyes and touch with your hands. But the fire can do better than that, for it is a great deal brighterthan the mirror, and it is so bright that it can reflect thoughts. Soyou must think of the pictures first, and then, if you know just how tolook for them in the fire, you will find them reflected there, andafter a little while you will be surprised at the wonderful things youwill see. " "I don't know what you mean at all, " said the child; "tell me what youcan see in the fire now. " "Very well. Suppose, then, first, that you almost close your eyes, butnot quite, so that you will not see the fire so plainly, and it willall run together and look dim and misty. When I look at it in that wayit seems to me to be fire no more, but water. It is as if we were downunder a broad, deep river, and could see all the mass of water slowlyeddying and whirling and flowing on above us, with just the little glowand glimmer of brightness that come down from the daylight and the airabove. But there is one little spot that is brighter, right in themiddle of the fire, where you see that one little yellow flame all byitself. In my picture, it is like a big lump of pure gold, resting on apoint of rock that stands straight up from the bottom of the river. Itis really gold, and magic gold at that, for you know wonderfultreasures often lie at the bottoms of rivers. One of the wonderfulthings about this gold is that, if anybody could have a ring made ofit, he could compel everybody else to obey him and serve him, and couldrule the whole world. "Three forms I can see now moving backward and forward, and up anddown, and around and around about the gold. Now they grow a littleclearer. They are river nymphs, or something of the sort, and they arehere to guard the gold, lest anybody should try to steal it. It wouldnot be easy to steal, even if it had no guard, and knowing this hasperhaps made these pretty keepers a little careless about it, so thatnow, instead of watching it very closely, they are swimming and divingand circling about, trying to catch one another, having the jolliesttime in the world, and never thinking that there may be danger near. " "And you can see all those things in the fire?" said the little girl. "I can't see any of them. How do you see them?" "Just as I told you at first, by thinking of them and then seeing thethoughts reflected there. " "Well, tell me some more. " "Look at that little dark spot under the fire. When I look at it in theway I have told you, it is the form of a dwarf. He is ugly and rough-looking, he is crooked, and he has a wicked face. He slips and tumblesslowly along, till he catches sight of the water nymphs, and they lookso pretty and graceful and happy, as they chase one another about andup and down and around, that his cruel little eyes light up withpleasure, and he calls to them that he should like to come up and playwith them too. " "Oh, now I don't believe any of it at all, " said the child; "I thoughtjust for a little while you might know how to see all those funnythings in the fire, but you can't hear people talk in the fire. " "Oh, my dear child, you don't know very much about the fire if youthink I can't see anything I want to in it, or hear anything I want toeither. I tell you I can hear what this dwarf says, just as plainly asI can see him walk about. Still, if you don't believe any of it anddon't care to know about the dwarf and the nymphs and the gold, perhapsyou might better go and study your multiplication table, and I willfind something else to do. " "Oh, but I do want to know about them. Please tell me some more. Whatdo the nymphs say to the dwarf? Can you hear that too?" "Of course I can hear it; they call to him to come up and play withthem if he likes, and he clambers up over the rocks and trees to catchone of them after another, while they swim and glide away from him, andfind it much better fun than chasing one another. It is good fun, nodoubt, for the dwarf cannot swim like them, but only scrambles about inthe most ridiculous way, with never any hope of catching one of them, except when she lets him come near her for a moment, to plague him byslipping away again quite out of his reach. At last he gets thoroughlytired and discouraged and angry, while the three sisters laugh at himand taunt him and chatter with one another, and have clearly enoughforgotten all about the gold that they are supposed to be watching. "But see now how much brighter the fire is getting. It makes me thinkthat something must have happened up above the river. The sun must haverisen, or something of that sort, for everything looks clearer and thegold shines out so bright and beautiful, that the blear-eyed dwarfhimself sees it and forgets all about trying to catch water nymphs inwondering what it is. He asks the nymphs, and they tell him about thering that could be made of it if only it could be stolen from them; butit is of no use for him to try, they say, because it is a part of themagic of the gold that it can never be stolen except by some one wholoves nobody in the world and has sworn that he will never loveanybody, and it is clear enough that the dwarf is in love with allthree of them at this very minute. When such a strange treasure as thiswas to be guarded, it was no doubt very clever to set three suchbeautiful creatures as these to watch it, for if a thief were not inlove already, it is a hundred to one that he would be before he gotnear enough to the gold to steal it. "But the nymphs do not understand at all how much more a heartlesslittle monster like this dwarf loves the glitter of gold than he couldever possibly love them. So, even while they are laughing at him, he isforgetting them completely, and then he swears a deep oath that as longas he lives he will never love any living thing. Now, if you can thinkof anything that anybody could do more wicked, more horrible, morecruel than that, you must know a great deal more about wicked andhorrible things than you have any right to know. After that every kindof wrong is easy, and a little thing like stealing a lump of gold ofthe size of a bushel basket is a mere nothing. The dwarf scrambles upthe point of rock again, while the nymphs, who think that he is stillchasing them, swim far away from him, and he seizes the gold andplunges down to the bottom with it. The nymphs rush together again witha cry of horror and grief and fright, and in an instant everything isdark, as the flames of our fire suddenly drop down. [Illustration: "THE GOLD SHINES OUT SO BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL. "] "But you see they fall only for a moment, and now, as they blaze upagain, brighter than ever, I see another picture. It is on the hilltopabove the river. The grass there is soft and fresh, the trees are cooland green, and the mellow light of morning is over them all. A light, white morning mist comes up from the river, and the sun, which has justrisen from behind the purple hills, away off where the sky touchesthem, turns the mist into shifting and shimmering silver, so that itmakes the whole scene look brighter instead of dimmer. On the hillacross the river is a glorious sight. It is a castle, the grandest andmost beautiful you ever saw. Its walls are thick and strong enough fora fortress, yet its towers and battlements look so light and gracefulthat you would think they might hold themselves up there in the air, orrest on the silver river mist, if there were no walls under them. As Ilook at the castle through the mist it seems half clear and solid andfirm, and half wavering and dim, mysterious and magical, like a castlein a dream. "There is something magical about it, for it was all built in one nightby two giants, and they built it for the gods themselves. And now youmust be prepared to meet some very fine company, for right here beforeus are the great Father and the great Mother of the gods, lookingacross the river at their splendid new home. " "Do you mean Jupiter and Juno?" the little girl asked. "No, these are not Jupiter and Juno; and the other gods whom we shallsee soon, if the fire burns right, are not the gods you know already, but they are a good deal like them in some ways. The Father of the Godsis full of joy at having such a glorious castle, and the Mother of theGods is full of dread at the price that must be paid to the giants forbuilding it. A terrible price indeed it is, as she does not hesitate toremind him, for the gods have promised to give the giants the beautifulGoddess of Love and Youth. It was a foolish and wicked promise for themto make, foolish because if they kept it they could never in the worldget on without her, and wicked because they did not intend to keep it. The homes of the gods, like any other homes, would be dreary enoughwithout the Goddess of Love, but it is worse than that, for she has agarden where apples grow for the gods to eat; it is eating these applesthat makes the gods always young, and nobody but her knows how to carefor them, so that if she goes away the gods will begin to grow old atonce and will soon die. " "Were the apples like that--oh, what was it? you know the name of it--that the other gods used to eat?" "Ambrosia? Yes, something like it, but not quite. You know the gods whoate ambrosia would live forever and are living still; we have seen someof them ourselves up among the stars. But these gods have to eat theapples often, and they must get them from the Goddess of Love. This ismuch the better story of the two, I think, because it shows us how godsand other people, as long as they keep love with them, will be alwaysyoung, no matter how many years they may live; and how, if they let itgo away from them, they will be old at once, no matter how few theiryears. "All this the Father and the Mother of the Gods are talking overtogether now, and he tells her how the Fire God, who proposed thebargain in the first place, said that the price need never be paid andthat he trusts the Fire God may yet find some way out of the trouble. Yet the giants must be made in some way to give up their price ofthemselves, for the Father of the Gods has the words of the promise cutupon his spear, and he cannot break a promise that he has once made. The Fire God has gone away now to search through the world forsomething that may be offered to the giants instead of the Goddess ofLove. And now I see her come, running to the Father of the Gods forprotection, and the other gods are here, to help her if they can, andthe giants themselves have come to claim her for the building of thecastle. "Well, to be sure, they are all in a fine state of excitement. Thegiants are big, dreadful-looking fellows, with clubs made of the trunksof trees, and the poor goddess does not want to go with them in theleast. All the other gods declare, too, that she shall not go withthem, and the giants insist that she shall. The Thunder God is thereand he has a wonderful hammer, a blow of which is like a stroke oflightning. He is about to strike the giants with it, and that, you maybe sure, would settle the whole matter, big as they are, but the Fatherof the Gods will not let him harm them. He has promised, and whateverhappens he cannot break his word. "While everything is in this dreadful state, the Fire God comes backfrom his search. It is not a very cheering story that he has to tell. He has been through all the world, he says, and he has asked everywherewhat there is that is as good for gods or giants, or anybody else, asthe love of a woman, which makes those who have it always young. Butthe people in those days knew more than a good many of the people inthese days, and everywhere they laughed at him and told him that hemight as well give up his search, for he would never find what hesought. " "What do you mean by 'the people in those days'?" the child asked; "Ithought you said you could see them right here in the fire now. " "So I can, but it is the beauty of these pictures in the fire that Ican see things that happened years ago, thousands of years ago, if Ilike, just as well as things that happen now, and perhaps a littlebetter. So you see the Fire God has not had very good luck, but as hewas coming back, he says, he passed near where the river nymphs were, and they called to him, telling him that their beautiful gold had beenstolen, and begging him to ask the Father of the Gods to get it backfor them. They told him, too, about the wicked dwarf who stole it, andhow, before he could steal it, he had to swear never again, as long ashe lived, to love anybody or anything. The Fire God seems to have heardabout the dwarf somewhere else, too, for he says that he has alreadymade the magic ring out of the gold, that by the help of the ring hehas compelled all the other dwarfs to obey him and serve him, and haspiled up such a treasure of gold and jewels as was never seen before;and finally, that, if the gods are not careful, the dwarf will soonrule over them and the whole world besides. "So it seems that there is one person in the world who has foundsomething which he thinks is worth more than love. And there are atleast two others who are as foolish as he, though they may not be quiteso wicked. And these are the giants, for when they hear the Fire Godtell of the wonderful treasure that the dwarf has heaped together, theysay to the gods that they think the dwarf is quite right, they wouldrather have all that gold than the love of any woman, and, if the godswill get it for them, they may keep their Goddess of Love and Youth. The Father of the Gods hesitates; how can he get the treasure? he asks. "'You can find some way to get it, if you like, ' the giants reply. "'I will not get it for you; you shall not have it, ' says the Father ofthe Gods. "'Then we will hold to our first bargain, ' they answer, 'and take yourLove Goddess with us. To-night we will bring her back; if you have thetreasure ready for us, then you may keep her; if not, then you havelost her forever. ' And they seize her and stride away, dragging herwith them, while the gods look on in grief and fear. And well they mayfear at the change that comes as soon as the beautiful goddess is gone. You can see the change yourself in the fire. If it did not fit thestory that I am finding in it so well, I should say that the fireneeded more wood, for it seems almost out; see how the blackened sticksare smouldering and smoking, with scarcely any bright flames at all. The smoke is spreading like an ugly gray cloud over everything; thetrees and the flowers droop; the sky is dull and the grass is dingy;the castle looks grim and heavy, and no longer bright and graceful; thefaces of the gods themselves grow pale and haggard; they feel that theyare suddenly older. They have not eaten the apples of youth to-day, andnobody can get them but the one goddess who has gone. They know thatthey will grow older every hour and will soon die if they do not gether back, and the only way is to find the dwarf's treasure for thegiants. "'Come quickly, ' says the Father of the Gods, 'and let us get thistreasure; let us hasten down under the ground where the dwarfs live, for we must have it to-night, when the giants come. ' "There, where the dirty yellow smoke is pouring out between the sticksof wood at the top of the pile, I see a crevice in the rocks. TheFather of the Gods and the Fire God go down into it, and the smokecomes thicker and blacker, and hides everything but those two, and Isee them climbing down and down over the rough, sharp rocks, toward thecaverns of the dwarfs, while the little tongues of flame shoot out atthem from the fissures, as if they were trying to catch and burn andsting them, just as they shoot out from between the black, charredsticks here before our eyes. "It is a deep, dark cave that I see now, with little spots of lighthere and there, like forges, and there is the sound of anvils. Thedwarfs live here, and they are all working hard, as they must now, forthe dwarf who stole the gold and made the ring from it. I see him too, and he is scolding and beating another dwarf, who is his brother. It isall about a piece of fine metal work that he has set his brother to do, and now the brother wants to keep what he has made. But he drops it onthe ground and the dwarf king, for a king he really is now, picks it upand claps it on his head. It is a helmet, made of delicate rings ofsteel linked together. It is a magic helmet, and anybody who wears itcan disappear from sight whenever he likes, or can take any shape hechooses. In a minute the dwarf is no more to be seen, and in his placethere is only a cloud of smoke. But he can still beat his brother, andpresently he leaves him whining and crying on the ground, and the cloudfloats away. "You are not to suppose because this dwarf is treated in this cruel waythat he is any better than his brother who beats him. One of them isjust as wicked as the other, and he deserves all he gets. So here, lying upon the ground and groaning, the two gods find him, as they comedown into the cave. 'What is the matter?' they ask, and he tells themabout the magic helmet. Then back comes the other dwarf, who wears thehelmet and the ring, driving before him a crowd of his fellows, allladen down with gold and gems, and they throw them in a pile. They areso rich and dazzling, and there is such a quantity of them that thefire actually burns brighter there in the corner where they have heapedthem up. The dwarf drives all his workmen away, and then sulkily asksthe gods what they want here, for with his ring and his helmet hethinks that he is just as good as any of the gods. "The Fire God tells him that they have heard so much about his greatwealth that they have come to see it, and now they find his treasuregreater and finer than anything they ever saw before. At that the dwarfis flattered and begins to boast. 'This that you see is nothing, ' hesays; 'I shall soon have much more, and by the magic of my ring I meanto rule the whole world and you gods too. ' "'But suppose, ' says the Fire God, 'that some one should steal the ringfrom you while you were asleep?' "'That shows how little you know about it, ' the dwarf answers. 'Why, doyou see this magic helmet of mine? With this I can make myselfinvisible, or I can take any form I like, and so nobody can find mewhile I am asleep to steal the ring. ' "'Oh, now you are telling us too big a story, ' says the Fire God; 'itis nonsense to say you can take any form you like, helmet or no helmet;you can't expect us to believe that. ' "At this the dwarf begins to get a little angry; 'I tell you I can, ' hecries; 'I will prove it to you; I can change myself into anything; whatshall it be?' "'Oh, whatever you like, ' says the Fire God, 'only let it be somethingbig and horrible to show just how much you can do. ' "So, to show what he can do, in a second the dwarf changes himself intoa horrible dragon, with slimy scales and a writhing tail, and eyes andjaws that look as wicked as the dwarf himself, and twice as savage. TheFire God pretends to be dreadfully frightened, and when the dwarf comesback to his own shape again he says: 'That was very good, but that doesnot seem so hard, after all. Now, the way for you to hide, it seems tome, would be to make yourself very small, so that you could slip into acrack in the rocks. You can puff yourself up like a dragon, of course, but can you make yourself small as easily? Oh, no, I cannot believethat. ' "'I can be anything, anything, I tell you, ' the dwarf cries, gettingstill more angry; 'I will be as small as you like, ' and in anothersecond he has changed himself into a toad, not much bigger than yourhand, as slimy as ever, looking still just as wicked as the dwarfhimself, and almost as ugly. "'Now is the time--quick!' cries the Fire God, and in an instant theFather of the Gods stamps his foot upon the toad and has him fast. TheFire God stoops and pulls the magic helmet off the toad's head, andinstantly he is the dwarf again, but he is still firmly held under thegod's foot, and they tie him with cords and drag him away with them, upamong the rocks from which they came. " "That is just the way Puss in Boots caught the ogre, when he turnedhimself into a mouse, " said the little girl. "Yes, to be sure it is, but you know there are only a very few storiesin the world, any way, and we cannot find new ones. The most we canever do is to tell the old ones over in different ways, and after allit is better so, for old things are better than new almost always, asyou will find when you get a little older yourself. But now, with thefire burning up a little better to help me, we are back above ground. Let us put on more wood and see if we cannot make it better yet. We arejust where we were before, on the hill by the river and the castle ofthe gods. And back now come the two gods from under the ground, dragging the dwarf with them. 'And what will you give us now, ' theycry, 'if we will untie you and let you go?' "'What must I give you?' he asks. "'You must give us the whole of your treasure, ' they answer; 'we willnot let you go for anything less. ' "That seems a large price, but the dwarf is as crafty as he is wicked, though his craft seldom does him much good, and he thinks that even ifhe gives up all his treasure he can soon pile up as much more, with thehelp of the ring. So, by the power of the ring, he calls the dwarfs tobring him the treasure, and up they come with it, out of the cleft ofthe rocks, and they pile it in a great, glittering heap just therewhere the new fire is beginning to burn so bright. 'There is the gold, 'cries the dwarf, 'let me go. ' "'Not yet, ' says the Father of the Gods; 'give us your ring first, thatbelongs to the treasure. ' "At that the dwarf screams and struggles and writhes and curses thegods, but it is all of no use; the Father of the Gods tears the ringfrom his finger, and then they untie him and tell him to take himselfoff where he will. And now, as he goes, he lays a terrible curse on thering. To every one who shall ever gain it, he swears, shall come illluck, misfortune, sorrow, terror, and death; let him rule the world ifhe will, never shall he be happy; everyone shall long for the ring, andto him who gets it, it shall bring misery and ruin. Truly the dwarf hasgained little by stealing the gold from the river nymphs, but the godshave done wrong as well in stealing it from him, and they are doingwrong still in not giving it back to the nymphs; so they must suffertoo. "But it is not yet time for that, for now, as the fire burns up, thewhole picture grows brighter again. That is because the giants arebringing back the Goddess of Love and Youth, to see if the treasure isready for them. The trees lift up their branches again and the happysunlight pours down through them; the flowers open their eyes to seeit; the sky is clear and bright, and the grass is again fresh; whilethe faces of the gods, who run to meet their sister, look young andhappy as before. Only the castle is still hidden by the shining silverriver mist. The giants have come near. 'Is the ransom ready for us?'they cry. "'There is your treasure. ' says the Father of the Gods, 'take it and begone. ' "'We must see that it is enough first, ' they answer; 'our treasure mustbe as much as your goddess, so you must pile it up before her till sheis quite hidden by it; then we will take it, and you shall have herback. ' "They heap up the gold and the jewels before the goddess, higher andhigher, till everything is gone from the old pile to the new one. Thenone of the giants looks over it and still sees the gold of her hairabove the gold of the treasure. 'Give me that helmet that you carry, 'he says to the Fire God, 'to put on the top. ' and he gives it. Now theother giant peeps through a chink in the pile and sees one of her eyes. 'Quick, ' he cries to the Father of the Gods, 'give me that ring youwear to stop this chink. ' "'No, ' says the Father of the Gods, 'you shall not have that; it is thering that gives the power to rule the world, and I will keep it. ' "' Very well, then, ' say the giants, 'we will have no more to do withyou, and we will take the goddess back with us. ' "All the gods stand terrified and pale. Will their great father let theGoddess of Love be taken from them again, and must they all grow oldand die, that he may keep this ring? Everything grows dark again, asour fire here drops down; only there is that pale blue flame that givesno light, away at the back of the hearth. And now, right in the paleblue flame, rises the form of a woman out of the ground. It is theEarth Goddess, the wisest woman in the world, who knows all that everwas, all that is, and all that ever shall be. She speaks to the Fatherof the Gods and tells him to give the ring to the giants, for the cursethat the dwarf has laid upon it will surely destroy him who keeps it. Then she sinks out of sight, and the Father of the Gods takes from hisfinger the ring, and gives it. "And even while the giants are stowing the treasure in a sack to carryit away, they fall to quarrelling about how it shall be divided, andone of them strikes the other a terrible blow with his club which layshim dead upon the ground. Then he strides away with the treasure, leaving the gods filled with horror at the first fatal work done by thecurse of the ring. "Yet only for a moment; their grand new castle is ready for them now. High up upon a rock stands the Thunder God. He swings his hammer andthe black clouds roll around him. The thunder mutters, and lightningflames flash out from the dark vapors. The fire flickers and blazes upagain, the clouds part and melt away, and all is light at last. Arainbow reaches across the river from shore to shore, and the godsslowly walk across upon it toward their castle. Up from the river, farbelow them, comes a sad cry of the nymphs, begging the gods to givethem back their gold. But the gods do not heed it. They rest upon therainbow, gazing only at their castle, as it stands before them, stately, graceful, radiant, and rosy in the warm glow of the sunset. " "And did you really, really see it all in the fire?" the little girlasked, after she had thought it all over for a few minutes. "It soundsjust as if it was a story you had read in a book. " "Well, perhaps I may have seen something, or heard something, or readsomething of the kind somewhere, " I replied, "but you know I told youat first that you must think of the pictures before you could see themreflected in the fire. " The little girl sat still and thought about it again for a time. "Idon't believe you saw any pictures in the fire at all, " she said atlast. THE DAUGHTER OF THE GOD "If you say you can see all those things in the fire, " said the littlegirl, with an air of doubt not yet quite overcome, "I suppose I shallhave to believe it, but I don't see how. I try to think of them the wayyou said, but I don't see them in the fire a bit. Can you see them allthe time?" "It makes a good deal of difference how I feel about it, " I answered, "and a little difference how the fire burns. To-night, you see, thefire does not burn quite as it usually does. It is cold out of doors, and there is a wind that comes in gusts and blows different ways. Itgives the fire a good draught, and on the whole it burns ratherfiercely, but when the wind goes down the fire goes down a little too, and when the wind changes it blows a puff of smoke down the chimney nowand then. Altogether it is not a well-behaved fire at all, and I amafraid if we try to see things in it, some of them will be rather roughand rude, and none of them very cheerful. Still, if you would like totry--" "Oh, do try, " the child said, "I like nice gloomy things. " "Very well. Just now the fire is so fierce and hot that it seems to menothing less than a house on fire. It is a house that stands all alonein the woods. Before it was set on fire a boy and a girl lived there. Neither of them had any mother, but the boy's father lived with themand took care of them, going out hunting and leaving the boy and thegirl together, till the boy was old enough to go hunting with him, andthen the girl was left alone. They were very happy there together, allthree of them, and the father always thought that the girl wouldsometime grow up and be his son's wife. But now, while they arehunting, a robber has come and has burned the house, and he takes thegirl with him and carries her off to his own house, far away among themountains. "After this it is not so pleasant roaming the woods and hunting allday, with no house to go back to and no greeting of a bright face inthe evening. To make it still worse, one day, while they are hunting, the poor boy loses sight of his father and never finds him again. Sonow he is quite alone, but he still lives in the woods in the old waytill he grows to be a tall, strong, handsome young man. Perhaps he isall the stronger and the better fighter because the most of hisenemies, and his friends too, for that matter, have been wild beasts. That he has had one good enemy I know, because the coat that he wearsis the skin of a bear. "And all this time the girl has been kept a prisoner at the house ofthe robber, and she has grown up as well, now, to be a tall, beautifulwoman. At times, no doubt, the robber has treated her well enough, andat times, I am afraid, not so well. But always he has urged her and hastried to make her promise to be his wife, and now, after all theseyears, at last she has promised. She has never forgotten the brave boywhom she used to love, but the robber has told her that he is dead, andfinally she has come to believe it and has no more any hope of everbeing happy. "I am looking right into the robber's house now. It is a strange house, for right in the middle of it stands a large tree, which grows upthrough the roof and spreads its branches over the house. And morewonderful still, there is a sword sticking in this tree, up to thehilt. Perhaps I might better tell you something about this sword beforewe go any farther. Do you remember the gold that was stolen from theriver nymphs, the other night, when we were watching the fire, and themagic ring that the dwarf made of it? Of course you do, and youremember too how the Father of the Gods got it and paid it to thegiants for building his castle, and would not give it back to the rivernymphs, and how one of the giants killed the other and kept all thetreasure. Well, the Father of the Gods has been learning and thinking agood deal since then, and he has begun to see what a great wrong he didwhen he put the gold to his own uses, instead of giving it back to thenymphs. It is no light punishment that falls on gods when they dowrong, and he sees that for this sin he and all the other gods who livewith him in his castle must at last be destroyed utterly. Yet he stillhopes to save them if only the gold, or at least the ring, can be givenback again to the nymphs. "Now, the giant who took all the treasure carried it away to a deepcave in the side of a mountain, and then, by the help of the magichelmet, he changed himself into a horrible, fierce, fiery, poisonousdragon, so that he might stay in the cave and guard it. And there hehas stayed guarding it ever since. You will see at once that thetreasure never would do him any good in that way, but giants areusually stupid, and he could not think of anything better to do withit. A boy who has a penny and knows enough to buy a penny whistle withit is richer than this dragon giant. Yet he guards the treasure prettywell, and the Father of the Gods cannot take it away from him, andcannot help anybody else to take it away from him, because he paid itto him for the castle, and to touch it now would be to break hispromise. Yet he wishes that somebody, without his help, would kill thedragon and give the gold back to its real owners. This would not reallydo him any good, for his own old sin would still be just as great, andhe knows it; yet he has a strange kind of hope that it may somehow helphim. But the dragon is so big and fierce and fiery and poisonous, thatnobody could ever hope to kill him except the very greatest of heroes, and one who simply did not know what fear meant. Even such a hero mighthave a good deal of trouble about it, if he did not have a sword thatwas just as keen and strong, just as sharp and firm and true ashimself. So, that he may not want for such a good blade, the Father ofthe Gods has made a magic sword. No one but a god could make a swordlike this, and he has driven it up to the hilt into the great tree inthe robber's house. It is quite safe there, for the magic of it is thatnobody but the bravest, strongest, truest hero living can ever draw itout, but for him it will be easy. There are some things besides drawingswords out of trees which can be done easily by men who are brave andstrong and true, and which no other man can do at all. "All this time I have been looking into the robber's house. There is astorm outside, worse than the wind that is troubling our fire. It howlsabove the house, and tears at the branches of the tree, till even thegreat trunk shivers and trembles and makes the roof creak and groan. Suddenly the door is burst open, and in, out of the storm, rushes aman, and falls before the fire as if he were so weary that he couldmove no more. Then from another room of the house comes the woman whohas promised to be the robber's wife, the girl who once lived in thehouse that the robber burned. When she sees the stranger lying beforethe fire, she lifts him up and brings him a big drinking-horn, andtells him to stay and rest till the robber comes home. Then he looks ather, and she seems to him the kindest, the sweetest, and the loveliestwoman he has ever seen. "Soon the robber comes home, and he asks the stranger what he is andhow he came here. Then the stranger tells him all the story that I havetold you of the burning of the house where he lived with his father, and how since then he has wandered the woods and has fought with thewild beasts and with his enemies. As soon as he tells that, the womanknows that the boy whom she used to love so long ago is not dead, butis sitting here before her, and the hope comes to her that he may takeher away from this place, so that she may not have to be married to therobber. Then she asks the stranger why he is unarmed, and he says thathe fought to rescue a woman from her enemies; he killed some of them, but the others were so many that they broke his spear and his shield, and he had to save himself from them, and so it was that he came tothis house. "At this the robber grows red and pale with anger. He has heard ofthe fight, and the men who were killed were his friends. 'Stay hereto-night, ' he says; 'while you are in my house I cannot harm you, butto-morrow you must go out and fight with me for killing my friends. ' "The robber and the woman have gone away and the stranger is leftalone. Sad and gloomy enough are his thoughts, for to-morrow he mustfight with the robber, and he has no sword, no spear, no shield. Thefire before him dies down, as our fire dies down too, for the moment, and as all his hope grows darker and colder. And then, just as his lifeand the world and the future seem blackest, the woman comes back. Whyshould her coming bring him hope? He could not tell, perhaps, yet hervery presence cheers him; misfortune and death seem not so near whenshe is by, and not so terrible, even should they come. He may not knowwhy it is, but I know, and so do you. "She hastens to him and shows him the sword in the tree. She tells himof its magic; he must be the hero to draw it out, she says, and then, in the fight to-morrow, he must overcome his enemy and give her revengefor all she had suffered from him. And how gladly he will do herbidding! He seizes the sword and draws it quickly out of the tree, while her eyes gaze at him and are filled with joy. The hero has come--her hero. He holds the wonderful magic sword in his hand, but only fora moment he looks upon its long, gleaming, beautiful blade. Then heturns to her again. They twine their arms about each other and togetherthey leave this hateful house. And now, of a sudden, it is as if theirtwo hearts were all the world, as indeed they are, to each other, forall around them the storm was stilled; the winter is gone and it isspring; the peaceful moonlight fills the happy woods with a soft glory;sweet airs breathe tenderly on them and on the flowers in their path;quiet voices speak to them out of the budding trees; and so togetherthey are gone into the forest. "The Father of the Gods has done more than I have told you yet to guardagainst the end which he knows must come, in spite of all that he cando. He has fancied that his castle might be safer if he were to fill itwith strong warriors to fight for him in any need. Therefore, whereverbattles are fought he sends his nine daughters to choose the bravest ofthe men who are killed and to bring them to his castle. Each of thesedaughters has a horse which flies through the air faster than any bird. When the fallen heroes have come thus to the halls of the gods, theyare brought to life and their wounds are healed by means that the godsknow how to use, and they live there, feasting day after day with otherheroes. And lest they should forget their old skill and bravery infighting, every day they have a battle and many of them are killed andchopped to pieces by the others' swords, but at sunset they are allalive and well again, and they go back together to their feast in thehalls of the gods. "It is one of these daughters of the god, one of these choosers ofheroes, whom I see before me now. I wish that I could make you see her. She is more than a beautiful woman, and also she is less. She is talland her form is strong, yet light and buoyant. She is dressed all inarmor, and she has a spear and a shield which gleams and glistens likea beacon-light for an army. She herself, as I see her here, is asgraceful and as full of warm life as a flame of the fire, the same hotglow stirs her heart and moves her to the same eager, free action. Herface is as clear and pure as the fire itself, and almost as radiant asher silver shield, while the gold of her hair breaking from under thelight of her helmet, outshines them all. Beating under her bosom, thrilling through her form, glowing in her cheeks, and beaming from hereyes, is the joy of life and strength and beauty. Yet where is thetenderness that one would seek in a woman's eyes? A glad light shinesin hers, but it is not softened by any kindly ray of gentleness ormercy. Where is the sweetness of a woman's lips? Hers are calm andbeautiful, but they tempt no more than a stain of blood upon the snow. What is there in her face that could melt into a woman's compassion andpity? Her face is not cruel, not unkind, only still, stern, and placidas marble. She is not a woman, you know; only a goddess--a war goddess. "Just now the Father of the Gods is telling his daughter of the fightthat is to come between the robber and the hero who won the sword, andhe commands her to help the hero to win. She is delighted at this, forshe loves all brave, true heroes as he does, but she has scarcely lefther father when the Mother of the Gods comes, riding furiously throughthe air in a chariot drawn by two rams. She has heard of the fight too, and she takes quite a different view of it. 'This man whom you wouldsave and help, ' she says, 'has taken the woman away from the man whosewife she promised to be. Is that all you care for a promise? He must bepunished; you must help his enemy to kill him. ' [Illustration: "DAUGHTER OF THE GOD. "] "You see she cares nothing at all about heroes, but to her a promise isa promise. And the Father of the Gods himself is very particular aboutpromises, as you must remember, so he is forced to say that he will nothelp the hero. But that is not enough for her; he must command hisdaughter not to help him. She shall not, he says, but that is notenough; he must help his enemy and see that he wins. This is hard forthe Father of the Gods, for he loves the hero, and if he is left tohimself he must win, with his magic sword, yet he cannot choose; thepromise has been broken, and he gives his word that the hero shall die. "The Father of the Gods is left alone, and again his daughter comes tohim. He tells her sadly that she must help the robber in the fight, andthat the hero must die. She is as sad as he at this command, for allthat she ever wishes is to do what he would have her do, and she knowsthat, though he says that the hero must die, yet he would have himlive. But his word is given, and, full of sorrow, the god and hisdaughter part. And now comes the hero himself, with his bride. She isfearful of what may befall him in the fight, and would have him fleefarther away. He will not do that, and he tries to cheer her, till shefaints and sinks down at his feet. Then, beautiful and sad, but stillcalm, stern, and placid, the Daughter of the God stands before him. "'Soon, ' she says to him, 'you must come with me to the castle of thegods. There the Father of the Gods will welcome you, there your ownfather, whom you lost so long ago, waits for you, there you will fightand feast with heroes, and the daughters of the god will serve you. ' "'And shall this woman here, ' he asks, 'whom I love, go with me andwith you there?' "'No, ' she answers, 'this woman cannot go. ' "'Then I will not go, ' he replies; 'gladly I would stand before theFather of the Gods, gladly I would see my own father again and theheroes and the daughters of the god, but not without her; I will not gowith you; leave us here. ' "If the daughter of the god were a woman she would understand all this, but now it would make her impatient, if anything could. She cannot knowand cannot feel why this man, who has had only trouble and ill luck allhis life, should choose to stay and wait for more trouble and ill luckwith this one poor woman who lies at their feet, fainting and knowingnot even that she is alive, rather than to sit and feast with gods andheroes. How little a war goddess can really know about brave men! "Yet she does know that her father, whose wishes are her own, wishesthis woman to live, and that she will be in danger after her hero hasleft her; so she tells him that he may leave his bride with her and shewill protect her. But the man is still more unreasonable. He says thatshe is cruel and hard-hearted. That is unjust, for she is not cruel. Hesays too that the woman shall die rather than be left with her. If hemust die, he will kill the woman, too, and he is about to do it, whenthe Daughter of the God holds his hand. She thinks only now of how muchher father longs that this man may live; she resolves that in spite ofthe command she will save him; she tells him that he shall have herhelp in the fight, and she leaves him, just as there comes a noise anda shout of the robber with his men and his dogs hunting for the hero tokill him. "See how the black smoke is driven down the chimney by the changinggusts of wind. It is like dark clouds gathering over the sky anddropping down upon the mountain, so that it is hard to see anything atall. The fire goes down, too, and its flames dart and flicker insudden, angry flashes. Some of them are like lightning, brightening thewhole scene for an instant, and then I can see the hero and the robberin their fight, springing and thrusting and striking at each other sothat it seems as if they must both be killed a dozen times over. Againin the sparkle of the fire I see the gleaming of the magic sword, asthe hero whirls it above his head and strikes at his enemy. Then comesa flare of flame that shines from the shield of the Daughter of theGod, as she throws it over the hero to protect and save him. It is allin vain, for there comes a hot, red glow in which for an instant allthe rest is lost, and now, in the midst of it stands the Father of theGods himself. The daughter falls back helpless before him, and hestretches his spear toward the hero. The magic sword falls upon thespear and is shivered to pieces. Nothing indeed could shatter thatblade but the spear of the god who made it, but with that spear to helphim the robber springs upon his enemy and his sword is through hisheart, and he is fallen. "The Daughter of the God has come back to where the woman lay, she haslifted her from the ground and has laid her across her horse's saddleas if she were dead; she leaps upon his back and they are gallopingaway like the wind. The Father of the Gods has avenged the brokenpromise; he has killed the hero whom he loved, and now he turns for onemoment toward the robber whom he has helped to win the fight. Only oncethe god waves his hand toward him and the robber falls dead; he willfight and kill brave men no more. But a harder task than all is to comefor the Father of the Gods; how shall he deal with his own daughter, who has disobeyed him? "The fire is burning a little better now, but it does not yet seem tobe quite on good terms with the wind outside. The smoke is going upagain instead of down, and that is an improvement. It rises in suddenpuffs and flurries, like clouds flying across the sky after a storm. The shadows of the clouds fall upon a mountain height, a rugged, rocky, wild, beautiful place, where the daughters of the god are meeting toride home together with the heroes they have brought from some field ofbattle. Now and then, as the quick flames leap up into the smoke, I cansee another and another coming, riding on her flying horse, racing withthe driving wind and the hurrying clouds, each with her warrior lyingbefore her across her saddle, and so alighting here and joining hersisters. They are all here at last except the one Daughter of the Godwhom we have seen before, and now she comes, but she brings no warrioracross her saddle, only the poor woman with whom she fled from thefight. "She tells her sisters how she has disobeyed their father, and she begsthem to protect her and the woman against his anger. They dare not helpher; never has one of them done anything that was not his will. Whatcan she do? He is coming in pursuit of her; sooner or later he mustfind her, but she may at least save the woman. She bids her flee alonewhile she waits with her sisters for her father and her punishment tocome. Far away, she tells her, there is a deep forest, and in theforest is a cave where the horrible dragon that was once the giantkeeps and guards his treasure. So much does the Father of the Godsdread the curse that the wicked dwarf laid upon the ring, and the doomwhich he knows is coming to himself because of his own sin, that henever wanders there. To this forest she must go, and there she may finda refuge. The Daughter of the God gives the woman the fragments of thebroken magic sword, which she has brought with her from the field ofthe fight, and bids her go. "And now, with angry lightnings flashing all around him, comes theFather of the Gods. Never before has he been shaken by such a storm asthis. His daughter whom he loved more than all the others, hasdisobeyed him. Never before has she done anything but that which it washis will that she should do. Now she has known his will, she has heardhis command, and she has broken it. She stands before him, sorrowful, but still calm, stern, and placid, and asks what is to be herpunishment. She has brought her doom upon herself, he answers, and nowshe must be a war goddess no more, but only a woman. He must kiss heronce, and all the strength and the valor and the pride of the goddesswill be gone. Then she will sink to sleep, and here on this rockymountain height she must lie till some man comes and awakes her, andshe must be a woman only and his wife. "Very dreadful this seems to the poor war goddess, but it is becauseshe has never been a woman, and does not know much about women. To meit does not seem dreadful at all. It is much better and sweeter andnobler, I believe, to be the best that a woman can be than thestrongest and greatest and proudest that a goddess can be. And I hopeyou will always remember what we see here in the fire to-night, and ifyou ever feel that there is any danger of your being a goddess, or ifanybody ever tells you that you are one, then let somebody kiss you andmake you a woman. "But to one who has so long been used to wearing armor and ridingthrough the air, and choosing the bravest of the fallen heroes, andbearing them to the castle of the gods, the change may well seem hardto suffer at first. So the Daughter of the God thinks that no heavierpunishment could have been found for her. Her sisters think so, too, and they beg their father to have mercy on her, but he sternly bidsthem be silent and to leave him. Now the Daughter of the God tells himhow she tried to do what he would have her do; she knew that he lovedthe hero and hated the robber, and that his command to her was givenunwillingly; she hoped to gain for him the wish of his heart, in spiteof his words, and she threw her shield over the hero. "It is useless; he cannot stay her punishment now, but his anger is allgone and he is filled with sorrow like her own. He loves her still, more than any other daughter, and now he will never have her beside himin the halls of the gods again, never again see her ride to the battle, never see her return with brave men to guard his house, never againspeak to her as he could to no other, and tell her all that is in hisheart, never again see her glad, deep, answering eyes look into his, full of sympathy and help. One thing yet she begs: if all that theyhave been to each other, the god and his daughter, must be no more, ifshe must sleep and wait here for an unknown husband to wake her, sheprays him to set some guard around her, a wall of fire, that no one buta brave man, the bravest of men, may win her for his bride. "Yes, he will do this; she shall be shut in by fire and none shall evercome to her but the bravest of heroes, one who knows no fear at all. Noone who fears even his own terrible spear, that spear which broke themagic sword that he himself had made, shall ever awake her who was hisdaughter, and now is to be his daughter no more. He draws her to himfor one last time; he kisses her lips and they are silent; he kissesher eyes and they close. He lays her on a bank of soft moss; he closesher helmet and covers her with her shield. Near by her horse lies uponthe ground asleep too; the flowers among the grass and in the crevicesof the rocks droop their drowsy heads; the winds as they pass make nonoise. He touches the point of his spear to the ground. Instantly thefire springs up; it makes a fierce, raging ring around the rock; surelyonly one who knows no fear can ever pass it. The Father of the Gods isgone. Now we can see nothing but the fire streaming up and exulting inits life and its hot defiance of all but the bravest; but there in themidst of it lies the Daughter of the God, asleep till her lover shallcall her with a kiss to come with him and be a woman. " The little girl's mother had come into the room and had heard the lastof the story. "Isn't it time, " she said, "that the daughter of somebodyelse was asleep, too, if she wants to grow to be a woman?" "It is late, " I had to admit. "Well, the Daughter of the God is safefor the present. Perhaps some other time, when we have a better-behavedfire, we may see something of the lover. " THE HERO WHO KNEW NO FEAR "Don't you think the fire is very good to-night?" the little girlasked. "Yes, it is certainly very good indeed, " I admitted. "I should think, " she said, "that anybody that could see things infires might see very nice things in this one. " When she who might command deigns thus delicately to make a meresuggestion, it is the part both of chivalry and of loyalty to obey. Ishould feel that having my head chopped off was altogether too good forme if I hesitated at such a time. "Come, " I said, "and let us see whatthe fire really looks like. What does it look like to you?" "Oh, it doesn't look like anything at all to me, only just the fire. What does it to you?" "It looks like a fire to me too, but it is the fire of a smith's forge. The place where it is looks half like a room and half like a cavern. Itis all of rocks, but there is the forge and there are the chimney andthe anvil and the bellows and all sorts of smith's tools. " "You can see things all around the fire, just the same as in it, can'tyou?" said the child. "Oh, to be sure; when I want to see these things that make themselvesinto stories, I can see them almost anywhere, only I think the fire isa particularly good place. And who do you think is working at theforge? It is an ugly little dwarf, the very one whom we saw the othernight, who made the magic helmet, the brother of the one who stole thetreasure from the river nymphs. You remember he was a clever smith, else he never could have made that wonderful helmet. Now he is at workhere trying to make a sword. And he does make a sword too, but he doesnot seem pleased with it when it is finished, and he leaves off hiswork and sits down, with a very dissatisfied, sulky, ugly look in hisface. "It would be hard for anybody to look more unlike the dwarf than theperson I see now coming into the cave. He is a boy, or perhaps he wouldrather be called a young man, and I shall be glad to call him whateverhe likes. He is dressed in skins and wears a little silver horn at hisside. If the dwarf is short and ugly, he is tall and handsome; if thedwarf's face has a scowl of wicked hatred and cunning, his has a smilethat beams with kindliness and candor; if the dwarf is old and crookedand rough and hairy, he is young and straight and graceful and fair. Inshort, you surely never saw a young man who looked more free, happy, generous, noble, strong, and bold than he. It makes one more good-humored to look at him, and the sunlight follows him straight into thecave. Something else follows him too, for he is leading a big brownbear by a cord twisted around its neck. He sends the bear at the dwarf, who screams and runs away in terror. The young man seems to have caughtthe bear in the woods just to frighten the dwarf, and he lets it goagain when the dwarf tells him that the sword is finished and ready forhim. He takes the sword and looks at it scornfully. It is good fornothing, he says. He strikes it upon the anvil and breaks it into adozen pieces. He is a little particular about his swords; he does notlike them unless he can chop anvils with them. "Before we try to see any more, perhaps I ought to tell you somethingabout this wonderful youth and why he lives here in the cave with thedwarf. He was born here. This is the forest where the treasure ishidden that was paid to the giants for building the castle of the gods. It is guarded, as you know, by the giant who killed his brother so thathe might have the whole of it, and he has changed himself into ahorrible dragon, by the magic helmet, so that he may guard it better. The young man's mother was the woman whom the Daughter of the God sentaway into this forest to save her from the anger of the Father of theGods, as you remember. She took refuge here in the dwarf's cave and shedied soon after her son was born, and then the dwarf kept the boy andbrought him up. But it was not because he cared for him at all or hadthe least kindly feeling for anybody. It was just because he wanted, asso many others wanted, that rich treasure and the magic helmet and themagic ring with the curse upon it. "Now, you see, the boy's mother gave him the pieces of the broken magicsword and told him to keep them for the boy. He knew something aboutthe sword and so he got it into his head that this was the very swordthat would sometime kill that dragon. And since this boy was to havethe sword, he thought, too, that he might very likely grow up to be theman who would kill the dragon. Do you see, then, why he has kept himand fed him and brought him up so carefully? It was just because he wasso cunning and cruel and selfish that he took good care of the boy. Heknew very well that he himself would never dare to go near enough tothat dragon for it to breathe on him, but he thought: 'Some day I willgive this boy the magic sword and make him go and kill the monster withit, and then I will kill him and get all the treasure, with the helmetand the ring, and then I shall be the ruler of all the dwarfs, of men, of the gods themselves, and of the whole world. ' [Illustration: "THE SUNLIGHT FOLLOWS HIM STRAIGHT INTO THE CAVE. "] "So the baby that the dwarf took and tended at first has grown to bethis noble, brave, generous young man, and he hates the dwarf as anyoneas good and strong as he must hate anything so cowardly and mean andwicked. All these years the dwarf has never told him anything about hismother or how he came to be living with him here in the cave. But nowof a sudden the young man asks the dwarf some questions and shows thathe means to treat him very roughly if he does not answer them. So thedwarf tells him a little of what I have told you, and to prove thatwhat he says about his mother is true he shows him the pieces of thebroken sword. "The young man gets interested in these at once, you may be sure. 'Thatwas a good sword, ' he cries; 'that is the sword I must have; mend itfor me, dwarf, and mend it quickly. I will go into the forest, and, ifit is not done when I come back, you shall be sorry that you worked sobadly. ' "Then away he goes to play with the bears, perhaps, in the forest. Nowyou can be quite sure that the dwarf has not kept that broken sword allthese years without ever trying to mend it. He has tried many times, and he can no more put the pieces together than he can look as handsomeas the fiery youth who has just left him here frightened half to death. So he simply sits down and lets himself get more frightened till helooks up and finds that he has a visitor. "The visitor is a tall old man whom he does not know, but I know him;he is the Father of the Gods. He asks the dwarf to let him sit down andrest, but the dwarf is even more ill-natured than usual and bids him goaway and not trouble him. The Father of the Gods replies that he mightperhaps tell the dwarf something that would be of use to him if hewould let him stay. Now you see what a good chance this would be forthe dwarf to ask how to mend the broken sword, but he is so cross andsurly that he thinks of nothing but how to be as disagreeable aspossible, so he says that he knows all that he needs to know and doesnot care to learn from anybody. But the Father of the Gods persists; hewill give the dwarf his head, he says, if he cannot answer any threequestions that he may ask him. This pleases the dwarf, for he thinks itwould be a pleasure to him to cut off somebody's head. 'What people, then, ' he asks for his first question, 'live under the ground?' "'The dwarfs, ' says the stranger; 'one of them had a ring once, bywhich he ruled all the others. ' "'And what people, ' asks the dwarf, 'live upon the mountains?' "'The giants; one of them, in the form of a dragon, has the ring now. ' "'And who live up among the clouds?' "'The gods, ' says the stranger, 'and the Father of the Gods has a spearwith which he rules the world. ' "As he says that, he lets the end of the spear which he carries dropupon the ground and instantly there is a peal of thunder. "'Now, ' says the stranger, 'as I have saved my head, you must pledge meyours to answer the three questions which I shall ask. Who is thestrongest of heroes whom the Father of the Gods loves?' "The dwarf answers that he thinks it must be the son of the woman whodied long ago in the forest, who will kill the dragon and win thetreasure. This is a good answer, and the stranger asks again: 'Whatsword must he use to kill the dragon?' "What easy questions these are, to be sure! The dwarf says at once:'The magic sword that the Father of the Gods made. ' "Now the stranger looks stern and says: 'But who shall mend the swordthat it may be fit for the fight?' "At this the dwarf is frightened indeed. He cries out in terror that hecannot do it, he knows no better smith than himself, and he does notsee how it can be done. 'Then you should have asked me that, ' says thestranger, 'instead of foolish questions about things that you knewalready. Yet I will tell you: as none but the best of heroes could pullthat sword out of the tree where it once stuck, so now none but a herowho knows no fear can put its broken pieces together. Your poor head, which belongs to me, I will leave to the same hero, and so good-by. ' "The dwarf falls upon the ground in a trembling heap, and so the youngman finds him when he comes back to ask if he has yet mended the sword. 'I can never mend it, ' he cries. 'Have you ever known fear?' "'Fear?' he answers; 'no, what is fear? Is it something I ought to knowhow to do, something you ought to have taught me and have not? Is it apleasant thing to have or to know or to do? What is it like?' "'I cannot teach you fear, ' says the dwarf, 'but I know one who can, orelse you never can learn it. It is the dragon that lives in the cave atthe end of the wood. I will take you to him and if he will not teachyou fear then you may kill him. ' "'Very well, ' says the young man, 'I will go; but first mend the swordfor me; I shall need it. ' "'I cannot mend it for you. ' the dwarf answers; 'only one who does notknow how to fear can do that. ' "'Then I must do it myself, ' says the young man, and he sets about itat once. "The fire on that forge has never been so hot and the fire here on ourhearth has never been so bright as now when the young man who knows nofear blows the bellows. While the coals under that eager blast shineredder and redder and then whiter and whiter he begins filing thepieces of the sword to powder. The dwarf cries out to him that that isnot the way to mend a sword; but this is not a common sword, and thedwarf has shown well enough already that he knows nothing about mendingit. So the young smith pays no attention to him, but goes on with hiswork. In mending magic swords, just as in some other things, knowinghow at the start does not count for so much as not knowing any fear. "So without any fear the young man melts the filings of the sword withthe splendid fire which you can surely see just as well as anybody, andpours the melted metal into a mould of the shape of a sword blade. Bythis time the dwarf has found that it is of no use to interrupt him andhas begun to think about his own work. When the dragon has been killed, he thinks, the hero will be hot and tired, and then he will offer himsomething to drink. It will be poison, the hero will die, and then he, the poor dwarf, who has worked and waited all these years for this day, will have all the treasure, with the magic helmet and the ring. So hesets himself to brewing the poison by the very same fire that the youngman is using to forge his sword. "And now the young man has heated the sword again and shaped it withhammers and cooled it with water, he is sharpening and polishing theblade and fitting it to the hilt, and now at last he holds it in hishand and it is done. He has forged the magic sword and has proved hisright; he is the true hero, the hero who knows no fear. And is thereany thing that such a hero loves better than a good sword? Yes, to besure; but to this hero the time for that has not come yet, and he hasnever felt such delight as fills him now when he looks along thebright, smooth, keen edge of this blade. Oh, the sword was not likethis before it was broken. Sometimes people say that beautiful polishedthings are like mirrors, but this sword is like a flame. It burns andtwinkles as he holds it and turns it in his hand. I can scarcely see ofwhat shape it is, for now it shines like a straight beam of light, now, as he twists it, there is a flash in a half circle, like a scymitar, and again the point alone gleams out and flashes, as if it would findits own way to the heart of a foe, with no hand to guide it. He swingsthe sword above his head, as he did the other that the dwarf made forhim, and strikes it upon the anvil. And this time the anvil falls intwo as if it were made of paper, and the sword glitters and shines andshimmers in the joy of its magic sharpness and strength. "Now that the sword is ready, the dwarf leads the young man awaythrough the woods, a long journey, to a place where he has never beenbefore, to find the dragon. You see that deep, dark hole under thesticks; that is the dragon's cave in the side of the mountain. Just alittle light shines at the very bottom of it, where the dragon isresting and breathing out fire. 'There is his hole, ' says the dwarf;'just wait here till he comes out and then kill him, Look out for histeeth or he will catch you and eat you; be careful about his breath, for it is fiery and poisonous; beware of his tail, for he may wind itaround you and crush you. ' "'I do not care for his teeth or his breath or his tail, ' says theyoung man; 'I only want to find his heart. Leave me here, and never letme see you again. ' "The dwarf goes away and the young man sits down on the grass to waitfor the dragon. You see, since he knows nothing at all about fear itdoes not seem to him such a great thing to kill a dragon. He does notcare much whether he kills it or not, and he is in no hurry about it. So he sits on the grass and looks at the gray old rocks and the brightyoung flowers about him, sees the golden sunlight falling in littlespots and flecks through the branches, feels the cool, fresh morningair, and hears the soft rustle of the trees and the singing of thebirds. Most of all, he listens to the birds that flutter about in thebranches above him, as the sparks hover over the fire there, beforethey fly away up the chimney, and in particular to one bird, right overhis head in the tree. It sings so loudly and so clearly that it seemsto be talking to him, only, of course, he cannot understand what itsays. He has wished for a long time that he might have some bettercompany than the ugly dwarf, and he thinks now that he should like totalk with the bird. "If he cannot understand the bird, perhaps the next best thing would beto make the bird understand him, so he makes a pipe out of a reed andtries to play upon it something like the bird's song. I don't know whathe thinks he is saying to the bird with his reed, and he seems not muchpleased with it himself, for he throws it away and blows a ringing, echoing blast on his horn instead. And now he gets an answer, for thistime he has awakened the dragon, and it comes out of its cave to seewhat is making so much noise so early in the morning. "Oh, but it is an ugly-looking monster! It is something like a snake, but more like a giant lizard. It has scales all over its body and ithas a long, shiny tail. It walks clumsily, because its legs are toosmall for it, and writhes and wriggles itself along, raising its headnow and then to look about, and breathing out red fire and black smokelike a blast from a furnace. When its poisonous breath has blown thissmoke away for an instant, it shows two rows of teeth like knives and along forked tongue like a snake's, and its jaws are opened wide enoughto take the young man into them and bite him into a dozen pieces at onesnap. Surely if he is ever to learn what fear is now is his chance. "He sees all this just as plainly as I see it here in the fire; but doyou think he is afraid? Why, he simply laughs at the monster. 'Apleasant-looking fellow you are, ' he says; 'can you teach me what fearis? If you cannot, I shall prick you with my sword to make you thinkabout it. ' "Now, this dragon can talk just as well as it could when it was agiant, so it begins to get angry and tells the impudent young man tocome on and see what he can do with his little tailor's needle of asword. He does not have to be asked twice, and in a minute there isjust as lively a fight as you ever saw. The dragon tries to breathefire upon the hero and scorch him up to a black cinder, but he does notwant to be a cinder and he runs around to the dragon's side. Then thedragon tries to catch him with its long slimy tail, so that it maycrush him to a jelly, but he does not want to be a jelly either, so assoon as the tail comes near enough he gives it a terrible wound withhis sword, and then runs back in front of the dragon. The monster givesa dreadful roar as it feels the wound, and raises its head and breasthigh up in the air, striking at the hero with its long, sharp claws andtrying to throw the whole weight of its body upon him. This is justwhat he has been watching for, and as the dragon lifts itself beforehim he drives his sword clear through its heart. "Then he springs lightly away again, as the dragon, with anotherhorrible bellow, falls down and rolls over upon its side. 'It is thecurse of the ring that has killed me, ' says the dragon, as it dies; 'mytreasure is there in the cave; you can take it now, bold boy, but thecurse of the ring will bring death to you, as it has brought it to me. ' "So the dragon lies dead. The young hero seizes the hilt of the swordto draw it from the dragon's body, and as he pulls it out the bloodfrom the wound spurts upon his hand. It burns as if it were the fuel ofthe creature's fiery breath. As he feels its heat he puts his fingersinto his mouth, and the instant that he tastes the blood the mostwonderful thing of all happens to him. He understands the songs of thebirds. The one that he tried to talk with before sings to him again, and now he knows every word. It tells him that in the cave are gold andjewels untold, that with the magic helmet he can do wonderful things, and that with the magic ring he can rule the world. He thanks the birdfor telling him such good things, and goes to find the helmet and thering. In a minute he comes back with them; he does not want the rest ofthe treasure, for he knows nothing about gold and cares nothing aboutit. "Now the bird sings to him again. 'Beware of the dwarf, ' it says, 'hemeans to do you harm. But when he speaks to you the blood of the dragonwhich you have tasted will help you to understand the meaning that isin his heart instead of the words that he says. ' "So the dwarf comes back, with a drinking-horn in which he has pouredthe poison, and he offers it to the hero to drink. But with all thefriendly words that he tries to speak, he can hide nothing from theyoung man, who reads his heart and knows that he has kept him and fedhim all these years only that he might kill the dragon, and that now hemeans to poison him and get the gold for himself. There is only onething to be done with such wickedness as this. He raises his sword andwith one blow strikes the dwarf dead. "You can guess how the bird is delighted at this. It sings to himagain: 'I know where you could find the loveliest woman in the world. There is fire burning all around her, and if you could only passthrough that you could win her for your wife. ' "'But could I pass through the fire?' he asks. "'Only the hero who knows no fear can do that, ' sings the bird. "'Very well, then, I know no fear, ' he answers; 'the dragon could notteach it to me; lead me to this woman; perhaps I may learn it fromher. ' "The bird flutters down a little from the tree and then flies away. Didyou see the big, bright spark that flew up the chimney? "Away runs the hero too, following the bird. It is a long journey, through the forest and over the rocks and the mountains, but he isyoung and eager, and his light heart makes the way almost as easy forhim as it is for the bird. Yet the bird is the faster, and by and by itflies so far ahead that he cannot see it at all, and then his way isbarred by a mighty form that stands before him. It is the Father of theGods. The young man does not know what a terrible person he has met, though it is fair to say that if he did know he would not care, and heasks him if he knows where he may find the beautiful woman with thefire all about her. "The Father of the Gods asks him in turn how he heard of this woman, what taught him to understand the song of the bird, who forged thesword with which he killed the dragon. All these things he answers, andthe Father of the Gods is sure that the hero who knows no fear has comeat last. Yet one test remains for him. 'There is the place you seek, 'he says, as he points to the mountain-top, where the bright flames arewhirling and dancing and leaping up into the very sky, 'there is yourway, yet not another step upon it shall you go. ' and he stretches hisspear across the path to keep the young man back. "Ah, once before that spear was raised against this magic sword. It wasa mighty arm that swung the sword then, the arm of the best of heroesliving, but the hero had done a wrong, he had helped to break apromise, and he who breaks promises can never break the spears of thegods. His arm had not the young strength of that which masters thesword to-day. Fierce and brave and noble was he, yet he had seen manysorrows, and he knew what fear was; the glad, free hope of the new herowas not his. The sword then was true of temper, bright and sharp, butthe heat and the light of the fire of a new manhood had not been forgedinto it then, and it was not aflame with the glory of youth and thepromise of love. And so, with a sweep and a flash as of lightning, themagic sword cuts through the spear that no other sword ever dared evenstrike, and as the fragments fall upon the ground, the mountain shakesand shudders, and the thunder rolls and rumbles about its top. Theyoung man is again upon his way. Half sadly and half gladly, the Fatherof the Gods looks after him. He has come and has passed, the hero whoknows no fear; he has not even feared the spear that ruled the world, and now that spear is broken. The time of the gods is near. "Again I see the whole fire streaming up fiercely and joyously, as itdid when the Father of the Gods kissed his daughter to sleep. The windsare still hushed around the mountain top, the flowers in the grass andon the rock still droop with folded petals, and the horse still sleepsupon the ground, for there, in the midst of the fire, on the bank ofmoss still lies the Daughter of the God, her form covered with hershield, and her face hidden by her closed helmet. Through all theseyears nothing has changed or stirred in this magic circle except thechanging, stirring, restless, watchful fire that rings it around. Now, the time for life has come again. Up from the mountain side comes aringing horn note, and in a moment the hero strides through the flamesthat dart and flicker and lick at him, but cannot harm him, and standsin the magic circle gazing in wonder upon its strange sleep. "'Who is that, ' he thinks, 'covered with the shield? It must be aknight, but is it not hard for him to lie there all dressed in armor?'He gently takes off the helmet and starts back in surprise as he seesthe lovely face and the soft spun gold that falls out upon the moss ashe lifts the helmet away. Now he raises the shield and tries to openthe armor in front, that the knight may breathe more freely. He cannotunfasten it, and at last he cuts it with his sword, and then he startsagain as he sees the light, snowy folds of the garment underneath. Thiscan be no knight, this is a woman. What has he done? What shall he do?He stands and looks at her; he has never seen anything half sobeautiful, and as he looks he trembles; he fears to wake her and hefears to leave her asleep. Yes, the hero who knew no fear trembles. Hehas learned to fear from this woman. Not by anything that she has donehas she taught him, for she still sleeps. It is only because she is awoman that he fears. He is no less a hero for that. A man who livedlong and never feared at all would be no hero. The time has come tohim, as it must come to every man, when it is braver to fear. "Yet, though he fears, he does not hesitate. He does just the onlything that he possibly could do. He kneels beside her and kisses herlips. Then she awakes. She opens those eyes that are blue with thedepth of the sea and the light of the sky. She gazes around her at therocks, at the trees, at the sunlight, at her hero, and her face isfilled with joy. And what a face it is! No longer as it was before. Ather father's kiss the goddess slept; her hero's kiss awoke the woman. Her face is as clear, as pure, and as radiant as before, but soft andgracious and gentle; her eyes are as full of light as they were, butthere is tenderness in them too; her lips are as calm and beautiful, but they are all sweetness; what was still and stern and placid is fullof sympathy, kind, and loving. "The flowers lift up their heads and open to look at her; the horseneighs to say that he is awake again and knows her; the little windscome back and murmur softly at first among the leaves; then they getbolder and kiss her cheek and lift her hair and shake it out to thelight, and whisper to her hero and ask him if he saw any gold like thatin the dragon's cave. He has never seen any woman before, yet he knowsthat in all the world there cannot be another such as this. She hasseen many heroes, yet this is he for whom she has waited so long. Eachknows all the depth of the other's thoughts, and so they stand and gazeeach into the other's eyes and into the other's heart. " "And is that all?" said the child. "It ends just like 'The SleepingBeauty, ' doesn't it?" "No; just here it is like 'The Sleeping Beauty, ' but we shall see moresome other time. This is the end for the night. " THE END OF THE RING The fire has always fascinated and charmed me. When I was a childmyself I used to watch it till my eyes ached, and my habit of throwingsticks and paper into it to see them burn was a terror to all my aunts. A bonfire was a delicious joy, and fireworks, especially if I could setthem off myself, were the summit of happiness. Even now, whenever I seea house on fire I am afraid my pleasure in watching it is much greaterthan my sorrow for the people who are losing their property or theirhome. I do not want houses to burn, but if they must burn I want to seethem. As for the fire on the hearth, that is my counsellor and friend. When we are alone together I sit and gaze into it, and it tells me ofold, happy times, of other friends who are far away now, and of thepleasant nights we had together. It speaks to me of old hopes, it isglad with me in their fulfilment or it cheers me in their loss. Ittalks of bright, new hopes, and tells me that even if all else fails, it will still be true to me and will try, if I will come back to it, tocheer and help me again as it cheers and helps me now. As I sat in this way with the fire, the little girl came and took a lowstool beside me. She looked into the fire too, laying her cheek upon myhand, which rested on the arm of the chair. She does not care for ourtalks about other hearth fires that long ago went out, so we had to dosomething else to entertain her. "Did you want to know more about theDaughter of the God and the Hero who knew no fear?" I said. "Well, Ican see them both now, just where we saw them last on the mountain top, with the fire burning around them as it did before, but not so high andfierce as before, because it is not needed for a guard so much as itwas. "The Daughter of the God is telling her hero that he ought to go toseek more adventures. Perhaps he may find other things for his magicsword to kill besides dragons and wicked dwarfs, and the more suchthings he does the better she will love him when he comes back. Oh, sheknows all about heroes and what they ought to do. He does not like toleave her at all, but if he knows that she really wants him to seekadventures, you may be sure he will seek them. Before he goes, he givesher the ring that he got from the dragon's cave, with the curse uponit, but they are not the sort of man and woman to trouble themselvesabout curses. In return she gives him her horse and her shield, notthat he will need it much against his enemies, with that magic sword, and besides she knows how to cast a spell upon him so that he cannot bewounded in battle; but the shield may keep off the rain, if he has tosleep out of doors. So he goes away down the mountain and she waits forhim to come back. "Now all the fire changes to a shining river. It is the same riverwhere the treasure was once kept by the nymphs, only now we are aboveit instead of under it. On the bank is the hall of a king and I see theking himself sitting on his throne, with his sister, a beautifulprincess, beside him. With them too is their half-brother. He is astrange fellow and you ought to know him. His father is the dwarf whostole the treasure, and his father has told him all about it many timesand has taught him to hope that some time he may get it again, so thatthey two may divide all the riches between them, and with the ring andthe helmet may rule the world. He is just as wicked as his father, allhe cares for in the world is to get that treasure, and you may be surethat he will try to get it in every way that he can find, good or bad. "He is trying at this very moment, and in rather a strange way, you maythink at first. He is telling the king that he ought to have a wife, and that his sister ought to have a husband. The king asks, just aseverybody always asks when he is told that, 'Whom do you want me tohave?' "'The most beautiful and the most royal of all women, ' says the half-brother, 'lives upon a rock with fire all around it for a guard, andwhoever shall break through the fire and come to her shall win her forhis wife. ' "This does not encourage the king at all. He never walked through afire or did anything of the sort, and he does not even care to try. Yousee the difference between a king and a hero. But the half-brother saysthat he knows of a hero who would be glad to go through the fire andget this woman for the king, if only he might have the king's sisterfor himself. The princess is not displeased at all at the notion of ahusband who is so brave and can do such wonderful things, but she fearsthat such a hero must long ago have seen and loved some woman morebeautiful than she, and that he will not care for her at all. But thehalf-brother answers: 'There is a magic drink which you shall give him, and it will make him forget any other woman he has ever seen, no matterwho she is. ' "The half-brother knows very well, I believe, that the hero alreadyloves the Daughter of the God, and it is she that he means to make himforget before he sends him to get her for the king. Of course the kingand his sister know nothing about this, or they would have nothing todo with such a wicked plan, for they are reasonably good people. Thehalf-brother says that the hero is going about the world to findadventures and is sure to come here before long, and true enough, evenwhile he is speaking they see him coming with his horse in a littleboat on the river. They call to him to come on shore, and they welcomehim as if they were never so glad to see anybody before in their lives. "Perhaps, indeed, they never were so glad to see anybody, and I am surethe princess never was. A form so full of life and action and vigor, ora face so full of freedom and courage and cheer surely she has neverseen. The fine frankness of his ways and the young grace of his motionare new to her too, and that she can hope to win him at once forherself is almost more than she can believe. She would not think ofsuch a thing at all if she knew how little he thought or cared abouther. He is charming and polite enough, of course, but as often as hethinks of her or of anything else once he thinks of the Daughter of theGod twice, and when his thoughts are not especially drawn away hethinks of her all the time. But now the princess offers him a hornfilled with the magic drink that is to make him forget. Oh, if onlythat clever little bird were here now to warn him, as it did when thedwarf mixed the drink for him, how much trouble might be saved! But, you know, he never thinks of danger, so he drinks, and then he thinksof nothing at all--nothing at all but the princess. "Well, that is not surprising, for you know she is only the secondwoman he ever saw and he has forgotten the first. You would scarcelybelieve how much he has forgotten her. Why, if the king were to tellhim at this moment that a woman slept under a shield, guarded by fire, that a young man came through the fire, cut open her armor, kissed her, awakened her, and vowed that he would love her forever, he would notremember that he had ever known of anything of the kind or had everheard of such a young man. For him there is no woman in the world nowbut the princess. "The king does tell him a little of this story, when the hero asks him, still thinking of the princess, whether he has a wife as well a sister. 'No, ' the king answers, 'I have no wife. The woman I want for my wife Ifear I never can win; she is far away upon a mountain and a fire burnsall around her. He who could pass through the fire and come to hermight win her, but I could never do it. ' "It is just as I told you. This absurd young man does not know that heever heard of a woman in the middle of a fire before; he does not knowthat he ever learned to fear, so he says: 'I am not afraid of a littlefire; I will go and get your bride for you if you will give me yoursister for mine. ' "'I will give you my sister gladly, ' says the king; 'but how is mybride to be made to think that it is I who come to her and win her, instead of you?' "'That is easy, ' says the half-brother; 'with that helmet which hewears he can take any form he will, and he can make himself lookexactly like you. He shall bring the woman away through the fire andthen he shall leave her to you, and she will never know that it was notyou who came to her rock. ' "Now, the hero, you know, never knew what could be done with thathelmet. He only took it with him from the dragon's cave because thelittle bird told him it was good for something. Now that he has learnedits use everything that he and the king want to do seems simple enough, and they set off in the little boat for the rock with the fire aroundit. The half-brother stays on the shore and looks after them, with hispale face and his wicked eyes. The woman far away on that rock has themagic ring. When the king brings her here as his bride he will findsome way to get the ring, and then what will he care for kings orbrides, for princesses or heroes? He and the wicked dwarf, his father, will rule the world. "The fire burns up high and clear again and within its circle sits theDaughter of the God. She does not sleep now; she sits and gazes at thering her hero gave her, thinking nothing of the curse upon it, andwonders when he will come back to her. Ah, when will her hero come backto her? Do you remember how once on this very rock the daughters of thegod met to ride together to his castle, and how they came each ridingon her flying horse, racing with the driving wind and the hurryingclouds? With just such a leap and a flash of a sudden flame up into thesmoke I can see one of them riding now. So quickly she gallops throughthe sky that I can scarcely see what she is till she reaches the rock, springs from her horse, and stands before her sister. Her sister runsto meet her and to ask if their father is still angry with her. "The war goddess has sad things to tell of their father. He sits in hiscastle with the gods and his heroes around him. They do not go out tofight and kill each other, and to be made alive and well again atsunset any more. The Father of the Gods only sits there and looks athis broken spear, and the rest, full of dread, look only at him. He isweary of ruling the world, weary of all the trouble that has come fromthe wrong that he did in not giving that treasure back to the rivernymphs. He is not sorry that his spear is broken and he would gladlyhasten the end of all. He has made his heroes cut down the great ashtree from which his spear was made, the tree that spread its branchesover all his castle, and they have piled the wood high around thewalls. When the end comes it will help the castle to burn. And now theFather of the Gods says that, if the woman who has the magic ring whosecurse has been so heavy would but give it back to the river nymphs, allhis great sorrows would be over. "This his daughter, the war goddess, heard, and hastened here to tellit to his daughter, the woman. Will she give up the ring? Will she helpthe gods to find the rest that they long for? Ah, but a war goddessknows as little of women as she does of men. No, no, the woman lovesthe man who gave her the ring and she would not lose it for a moment togain ages of peace for the gods whose homes she shares no more. Shecares nothing for weary gods; she has a hero. The war goddess cannotunderstand her sister. She leaves her and is away again, toward thecastle of the gods, riding on her flying horse, galloping against thedriving wind and the hurrying clouds. "A horn sounds down in the valley. There is only one horn in the worldlike that, and the woman springs joyfully up to meet her hero. He comesand walks through the fire as he did before, but oh! how different heis from what he was before! Then his face was young and fresh and nobleand his form was graceful and light; now his face and his form arethose of the king. Is this the promise that the Father of the Gods madeto his daughter? He said that none should ever come to her or win herbut the bravest of heroes. Yes, this is indeed the promise and this thehero, but how sadly for her the promise is kept! When he saw her beforehe gently lifted off her helmet and kissed her and learned to fearbefore her; now he thinks only of the princess, away there by theriver, and he tells the Daughter of the God that he is the king andthat she must come with him and be his bride. "She resists him, and he seizes her to force her. She holds out herhand to him with the ring and bids him beware its power, which willprotect her from him; he seizes her hand and pulls the ring from herfinger. She is helpless; she faints in his grasp; he carries herthrough the fire and down the mountain to where the real king is. Heleaves them together and goes back alone to the hall by the river andto the princess. "Very glad is the princess, you may be sure, to see him come back soquickly and so safely, and glad too is the half-brother, but for adifferent reason, for he sees the ring on his finger. Now they call allthe people together to greet the king and his bride as they come intheir boat on the river. There are shouts and cheers, and men withwaving banners and women who scatter flowers; the king smiles upon hispeople and thanks them for their greeting, and there is only one who isnot merry and glad. And whom do you think the king's new bride sees inall this happy crowd? Only her hero, in his own form again, and, if herheart was wounded and sad before, it dies within her now, when she seeshim leading the princess out to meet them and knows that he thinks nolonger of her. She turns pale and faint at first and then angry andfierce. She cries out that this man was her lover, that he has betrayedher for the princess and that he has betrayed the king too. "Of course, nobody can understand that at all--nobody but the half-brother--but you can think how everybody must be shocked andastonished, and how everybody tries to make out what she means, andfails. To be sure, she understands it herself as little as the rest. She knows nothing about the magic drink that made her lover forget her;she knows only that he swore always to love her and that now he lovesthe princess. The king does not know that the hero ever saw his bridetill he went to her mountain to bring her for him, so he supposes that, if he ever told her that he loved her, it must have been then; thatwould be betraying the king, his friend, in a most cruel way, ofcourse. The princess knows only just what the king knows, and if theking has been deceived and betrayed, she must have been deceived andbetrayed a great deal more. As for the poor hero himself, he does notremember that he ever saw this woman before, he does not know how hecan have done any wrong, and he is more puzzled than any of the rest. Only the half-brother knows all about it, that nobody is to blame atall except himself, and it is he whom nobody thinks of suspecting. Thehero lays his hand on the half-brother's spear and swears that he hasnever wronged anyone here; if he has, he says, may this very spear slayhim. "Now is the time for the half-brother to work the hero's ruin and totry to get the ring that he wears. When all have gone but him and theking and his bride, he whispers to her that he will help her, and willkill the hero to revenge the wrong that he has done her. 'You killhim!' she cries. 'If he once looked at you, you would not dare comenear him. ' "'Yet, ' he says, 'there must be some way that I could do it; tell mewhat it is and you will be revenged. ' "'I cast a spell upon him, ' she says, 'so that he could not be woundedin battle, but I knew that he would never turn his back upon an enemy, so I set no spell there; you may strike him in the back. ' "Now, he tells the king that nothing but the hero's death can restorethe honor that he has lost. 'To-morrow, ' he says, 'we will go hunting;I will kill him with my spear, and we will tell the princess that itwas a wild boar that did it. ' "'It shall be so, ' they all cry; 'he must die. ' "And whom do you think I see now? The river nymphs again. Not beforethe king's house, where we have been so long, but in another part ofthe river, all shut in by wild woods and rocks. They are swimming andplaying on the water, just as they did under it when we saw them first, and they seem just as careless and happy as they did then, but they arestill mourning for their lost treasure and longing to get it backagain. If they could only get the ring it would do as well as the wholetreasure, for the ring is the magic part of it. And now to this veryspot comes the hero, who wears the ring on his finger. He has wanderedaway from the king and his men, who were hunting with him, and as soonas the nymphs see him they beg him to give them back their ring. "He says that he will not, at first; it was too much trouble for him towin it from the dragon. But he really does not care so very much aboutit, and I think he would let them have it in the end if it were not fora great mistake that they make in asking for it. They tell him aboutthe curse of the ring, and that if he keeps it he will be killed thisvery day. Now, you can see easily enough that that is the very worstthing they could say if they hoped to get the ring from him, for he isnot in the least afraid of being killed, and he will not have anybodybelieve that he is afraid. They shall not have it, he says, happen whatwill. They will have it, they call back to him, and this very day; andso they dive down under the water and leave him. "Now come the rest of the huntsmen and sit about in a circle to resthere in the shade and to talk. The king is gloomy, thinking still ofthe wrongs that have been done him. His half-brother asks the hero ifit is true that he knows what the birds say. 'I listen to them nomore, ' he answers; 'but to cheer the king I will tell you some storiesof the things that I have seen and the things that I have done. ' "He tells them of the dwarf who kept him and brought him up that hemight fight the dragon; he tells how he mended the magic sword, how hekilled the dragon with it, and took the helmet and the ring from thecave. A bird then sang to him, he says, and told him that the dwarfwould try to kill him, but he killed the dwarf instead. Here he stops, for he cannot remember anything about the mountain top with the firearound it, or the Daughter of the God, or even what the bird sang tohim next. But the king's half-brother squeezes something into his wineand tells him to drink it and it will make him remember better. "He drinks, and it does make him remember better. He tells of thelovely woman who slept with the fire all around her, and how he kissedher and awoke her. Then suddenly the king understands it all; heremembers the drink of forgetfulness that they gave the hero, and heknows that nobody has done any wrong but his wicked half-brother; he itwas who told him of the woman in the fire who should be his wife, hewho said that the hero should bring her to him, he who bade them givehim the drink to make him forget, he who first said that the hero mustdie. The king would gladly save the hero now, but it is too late. "It is too late, for of a sudden two ravens fly up from beside theriver and away over the heads of them all. They are the ravens that flyall over the world and then to the Father of the Gods, to tell him allthat they see and all that they hear. They are going now to tell himthat the end of the gods, the end that he longs for, is near. The herostarts up to hear what they say. He turns his back to the others, andthe half-brother, before the king can stop him, thrusts his spear intohis back. The hero turns for an instant to rush against the murderer, but his strength is gone, and he falls helpless upon the ground. Allthe rest cry out in horror, and the half-brother turns from them andstrides away. "And what now of the hero? He speaks no word to those who stand abouthim as he lies here dying on the ground. Where are his thoughts now? Heis thinking of the only time he ever feared. He is back again upon therock, with the flames curling and whirling all around him. Before himonce more lies the Daughter of the God. Again he kisses her lips. Sheawakes. He sees again those deep, blue, wonderful eyes. He does not seethe rocks, or the trees, or the sunlight--only her. Again for one lastmoment he knows that in all the world there cannot be another womansuch as this. They look each into the other's eyes and into the other'sheart. He is dead. "They lay him on his shield and lift it upon their shoulders, and sothey bear him back to the king's house by the river. The half-brotheris there before them and tells the princess that her lover has beenkilled by a wild boar. She does not believe him, and when the otherscome she calls the king and all the rest his murderers. The king indeedwished his death once, but he is sorry enough for it now, and says thatit was his half-brother alone who did it. 'Well, then, ' cries themurderer, 'it was I, and now I will have my reward; I will take thering. ' "The king cries out that he shall not have it, and draws his sword. Thehalf-brother draws his own and rushes upon him, and before the men canrun between them the king too lies dead upon the ground. Then again themurderer turns toward the body of the hero to take the ring, but, as hecomes near it, the hand that wears the ring rises of itself, as if itwere not dead and would ward him off. He falls back in terror, and sodo all the rest. "But now comes the Daughter of the God. She bids them all stand backfrom her hero. 'He was mine, not yours, ' she says to the princess; 'heloved me and I loved him before you ever saw him. ' "'Then it was all the fault of this wicked man who has murdered him, 'the princess answers; 'he gave me the drink for him that made himforget you. ' "She turns away from the hero and bends over the king, her brother. TheDaughter of the God understands now; he was never faithless to her ofhimself. She tells the men to build a funeral pyre. They pile up thewood and the women scatter flowers upon it. Then she takes the ringfrom her hero's hand. While they lay his body on the pyre she bids thembring his horse, the horse that once was hers, that flew with herthrough the clouds when she was a goddess, and slept on the mountaintop with the fire around it where she slept. With a torch she lightsthe pyre. See how the flames leap up and catch at the wood and streamand grow. Once more the ravens fly up from the river bank and away intothe sky. Now the end for the gods comes indeed. "The Daughter of the God springs upon the horse and with one bound theyleap into the middle of the flames. Yet, as soon as they are there, they are gone, nor can I see the hero there any more. The pyre allfalls together; but in the middle of its hot, red embers I seesomething brighter than all the rest. It is the ring. The water of theriver rises and rises till it flows over the fire and puts it out. Thenon the surface, swimming and playing about as always, I see the rivernymphs. They have found the ring, and their treasure is their ownagain. But the wicked half-brother of the king, the son of that dwarfwho stole it at first long ago, tries one last time to gain it. Heplunges into the river to seize it from the nymphs, but one of themholds it up high in her hand and swims away from him, and the otherstwine their arms around him and draw him down and down under the waterand he is seen no more. The river sinks back to its old bed. Thetreasure that was stolen is restored. All the evil and the punishmentthat came from the curse of the ring is done. " [Illustration: "THEIR TREASURE IS THEIR OWN AGAIN. "] A big stick that had been burning brightly and steadily for a long timesuddenly fell in two and the quick flames and the sparks sprang high upinto the chimney. "See, it is the castle of the gods itself that isburning and lighting up all the sky. The wrong that they have done andthe sorrow that they have suffered are past, and their end has come. But the fire burns fiercer still. It seizes upon everything, in the skyand on the earth. Perhaps it is better that it should. The world thatwe have seen in our fire here grew so selfish and cruel and bad afterthe gold was stolen from the river that it may be best for it to end inthese flames. They will last for only a moment. Even now they are notso fierce. I can see the sky again. There is a beautiful brightness init, like the coming of the morning; yet it is more than that, for itstreams and flashes like the northern lights. I can see the earth againtoo, but it is not as it was before. It is a new world. It has all thebeautiful things that the old one had, the green pastures and plains, the silver rivers, the blue mountains. Some of the gods have come back, but not those who did such wrong and made the old world so wicked. TheGod of Summer, who died long ago when the evil began, has come again;and if he and all who were good and beautiful before are to be herestill, I am sure that the Daughter of the God and the hero who knew nofear must find their way here somehow. A new world that is to be allunselfish and brave and true needs such a woman and such a hero. " THE KNIGHT OF THE SWAN The little girl was lying on the rug before the fire, one elbow buriedin the long fur, and one cheek resting on her hand. She was gazing intothe fire, studying the bright, flickering flames and the red embers. Ihad not noticed that she was there till her mother said, "You will ruinthat child's eyes with your stories about the things in the fire. Shewould watch it half the day if I would let her; it is too bright andtoo hot to look at so long and so near. Come away, dear, and don't lookat the fire again to-day. " "But why can't I see such things as you see?" the child said to me, with a little sigh, as she got up slowly from the rug and came towardme. "Just because you have not quite learned how yet, " I said; "now supposeyou give up trying for a little while, because you might hurt youreyes, as your mother says, and let me look into the fire for you again. Sit here in the big chair with me; turn your face right away from thefire and lay it against my shoulder. Now shut your eyes. Some peoplecan see a great deal better with their eyes shut, especially suchthings as we are trying to see, because when their eyes are open theysee the every-day things all around them, and it confuses them andprevents their seeing what they want to see or what they ought to see. They are people who have not learned to look right through the every-day things and see others, in spite of them, that are much better andmore beautiful, as you will learn to do some time. But just now keepyour eyes shut. "I see then, first, a splendid company of knights and people. Theshining of the fire is like the light of the sun, that glances from thepolished armor, the gleaming weapons, the standards, and the banners ofbright-colored silk and gold. It is all so fine that it looks like aholiday time; but it is not that, for the crowds of people seem bent onsomething more important than dancing and playing games. They are alllooking toward the King, who stands under a great tree and seems tohave something to say to them. The heralds are blowing their trumpetsand calling to the people to come and hear what the King has to say, though they are all there already and are only too anxious to hear, andso the King speaks. He says that far away at the other end of thecountry there is danger. Enemies are coming against him and his people, and he calls upon all the men here about him to help him to guard theland. "Then they all shout and wave their banners and their arms, as I cansee in the flickering of the bright little flames, and they all crythat they will fight for their King and their country. But this doesnot satisfy the King, for he says that since he has come here he findseverything going wrong and everybody quarrelling, and he asks what itall means. Now there comes forward a man who has all this while beenstanding silent beside his wife; and it may be as well to say just herethat this man's wife is a wicked witch and that the man himself is nonetoo good. So a part of what he tells the King is true and another goodlarge part is not true at all. When he tells what the King knew before, he tells the truth; and when he tells anything that the King did notknow before, it is generally a lie. "So he tells the King that he was left the guardian of the two childrenof the Duke who ruled in this part of the country, and who died a fewyears ago. One of the children was a girl and the other was a boy, andhe tells the King, too, how he took care of them as they grew up. Allthis is true and the King knew all about it before. But now he goes onto say that one day, when the brother and the sister had gone away fromtheir castle together, the sister came back alone, trembling and cryingand saying that she had lost her brother. Probably this is true enoughtoo, but when he says that the poor sister was not really sorry at all, because she had killed her brother herself, he is telling a dreadful, cruel lie. Still perhaps it is not so much his fault, for his wife, thewitch, who you must remember is a good deal more wicked than himself, knows much more about it all than it would do for her to tell, and shemay have deceived him as well as other people. "Of course the King is shocked at such a dreadful story as this, and hewants to know how the sister could ever have done anything so wicked. Well, of course the man who accuses her so boldly has a reason to givefor what he says she did, or he never would have dared mention it atall. So he explains that the sister was to be married to him and thatshe refused him, and then he married the witch instead, only he doesnot call her a witch. He thinks that the sister must have had someother lover, and she must have thought that if her brother, who oughtto be Duke as soon as he should be old enough, were only dead, shecould be married to her lover, and then he would be the Duke. And nowhe says that he thinks he himself ought to be Duke, since there isnobody who deserves to be one better than he, and he asks the King tomake him so. Now, of course anybody as bright as you are can see atonce that the whole reason for all these wicked stories is just that hewants to be Duke; but kings and knights and crowds of people are notalways very bright, though they may look so there in the fire, and theydo not feel so sure about it as you or I would. So the quarrel liesbetween a rich and powerful man who is a soldier and once saved theKing's life, with a wife who is a witch and knows all about magic, andone poor girl who knows nothing about magic and who has no friends whowould dare to help her. For these people here about the King are apeculiar sort of people who shout very loud about justice and their ownrights and others' rights, but seldom do anything unless they feel surethat they are on the side that is going to win. There are no suchpeople nowadays, of course; but there were once. "But the King himself is a good king, and he means to be quite fair andjust, and he calls for the sister to come before him and tell her ownstory. So the heralds blow their trumpets again and call for her, andshe comes. She is dressed all in white, and she looks so beautiful andpale and sad that nobody who was not wicked himself could ever suspecther of doing anything wicked, and all the men about mutter that the onewho says that she killed her brother will have to prove it. They havejust heard the King say something of the kind, so they feel veryrighteous and very bold about it. The King, then, asks her if she cansay anything about this dreadful accusation, and she tells him howoften she has prayed for help, how, after she has prayed, she hasfallen into a sweet sleep and has seen a knight in bright armor, leaning on his sword, and how he has comforted her. This knight, shesays, shall be the one to fight for her and to protect her. "Now, of course, this is all very pretty, but it does not seem to havemuch to do with the question of whether she killed her poor littlebrother or not. Yet it does have something to do with it, and I willtell you how. A long time ago, hundreds of years, when people hadquarrels, they did not hire lawyers to argue and plead and plot andcontrive for them, but they just stood up together, if they were bothstrong men, and fought till one of them killed the other or showed thathe could if he wanted to. And everybody who looked on felt perfectlysure that the one who was right could not possibly lose such a fightand the one who was wrong could not possibly win it. If one of the twowho had the quarrel was a woman, some friend who trusted her enough tothink that she was right would fight for her. " "But what made the man who was wrong ever fight at all, " the littlegirl asked, "if everybody believed that he was sure to get beaten?" "I have thought of that myself, " I admitted, "and I think that it musthave been for one of two reasons: either the bad people did not believethat the right was sure to win, or else the people who were wrongusually thought that they were really right. I believe that was thetrue reason, and it shows that bad people are not always quite so badas we think, for they usually contrive in some way, I am sure, to makethemselves believe they are right. And now, though all these thingsthat I am telling you are things that I see right here in the fire, yetthey are like things that must have happened long, long ago, and thisvery way of settling disagreements by a good hard fight is the way thatthe question of this poor girl's guilt or innocence must be settled. She probably knows this just as well as anybody, and that is what shemeans when she says that the knight she saw in her dream shall be theone to fight for her. But the accuser turns everything against her, asusual, and says: 'You see it is just as I said; she is talking aboutthis lover of hers who she hopes will marry her and be Duke instead ofher brother. Yet he says he is quite ready to fight anybody who wantsto try it with him, and he invites any of the men standing about tocome forward and fight for the poor, helpless girl, if he wants to. Butthey all say no, they should be very sorry to have to kill such a greatman and so brave a soldier. The truth is, you see, they are all afraidthat if they should fight they might get hurt, and why should theytrouble themselves about this girl's rights or wrongs? "Still she says that the knight whom she saw in her dream shall be herchampion, and if he will come now and help her in this need she will behis bride if he will take her, and he shall have all her father's landsand his crown, since her brother is dead. But nobody comes, and thepeople all begin to think that she must be guilty after all, and that, instead of the accuser having to prove that she is, she will have toprove that she is not, if she wants any sympathy from them, though whyshe should want it I hardly know. But the King still means to give herevery chance, and he orders the heralds to blow their trumpets towardthe north and the east and the south and the west, and to call uponanybody who will defend her straightway to appear. And the heralds blowtheir loud trumpets and the people gaze anxiously in all directions, but nobody comes to help her. And then she tells the King that herknight dwells far off and does not hear, and she begs him to call uponhim again, and the heralds blow once more, and she prays that herknight may be sent to her, and now suddenly all the eyes of the crowdare turned one way, and all the people shout and point and gaze atsomething which they see away in the distance. "I can see it too, for there in the fire, back on the hearth, is a bedof bright embers that shines and glitters like a broad river under thesun of noon, and at the very farthest place is one little spot brighterthan all the rest, and it seems to come nearer and nearer, and as itcomes I begin to make out its wonderful shape. There is a little boat, and in it stands a knight, all in silver armor, and it is his armorthat shines so. But the strangest thing of all is that a beautifulwhite swan, its wings almost as bright as the knight's armor, isdrawing the boat along by a silver chain wound about its neck. It isthis that makes the people gaze and point, and, while the swan and theboat are coming nearer, I will tell you more about the knight than hewill be willing to tell about himself. Did you ever hear of the HolyGrail? It was the crystal cup, the old stories say, out of which theSaviour drank at the Last Supper, and afterward His blood was caught init, as He hung upon the cross. Hundreds of years later it was kept in abeautiful temple which nobody ever knew how to find, except a fewchosen knights, who guarded the Grail and did its bidding, for this cupseemed still to have the life of that blood in it, and it had ways oftelling its knights what they must do. And so they were sometimes sentfar away to fight for the right or to punish wrong, but wherever theywent they never knew hunger or thirst or weariness, and they couldnever be killed or overcome in battle; but no one must ever ask one ofthese knights his name or his dwelling place, and, if anyone having theright should ask these questions, the knight must return to the templeof the Holy Grail. Now, seven days ago a bell in the temple rang, allof itself, meaning that help was needed somewhere. One of the knightsput on his armor and called for his horse, and stood ready, but he knewnot where he was to go or what he was to do, till a swan drawing alittle boat came sailing along upon the river, and the knight said:'Take back the horse; I will go with the swan, ' and so here is he cometo see what help is wanted of him. "And now I see him step on shore, and the girl whom he has come torescue knows him as the knight of her dream, and everybody is glad ofhis coming except the accuser and his wife, the witch, and she, strangely enough, seems a good deal more frightened at the sight of theswan than at that of the knight. Now the knight asks the young girlwhether, if he will fight her battle and win it, she will promise neverto ask him whence he comes or what he is, and she swears that she willalways love him and trust him, and will do whatever he commands. So nowthe two knights, with all the people looking on and holding theirbreaths with anxiety, and the king watching that all may be done fairlyand in order, draw their swords and stand against each other. But I seeonly one or two little flashes of the flames as the gleaming swords arewhirled above their heads, and then the wicked accuser falls and theKnight of the Swan spares his life, while all the people shout and liftthe knight above their heads on his shield, just as if they had knownall along that the girl was innocent, and just as if they would nothave shouted just as loud if the battle had gone the other way. [Illustration: "THE KNIGHT OF HER DREAM. "] "The fire is going down a little and everything looks darker. It isnight now. Here on one side is a church, all dark, and on the otherside, where the light still shines, I can see the bright windows of thepalace, where they are making preparations for a grand weddingtomorrow, and you can guess who are to be married. On the steps of thechurch, looking up at the palace windows and the lights that shine inthem, are the witch and her husband. He is bemoaning his disgrace andaccusing his wife of causing it all by telling him that the good sisterhad killed her brother. And this shows me, more than anything he hasdone before, how bad he is, and what a coward he is, because, when aman has tried to gain things that he knows are not his by ways that heknows are not right, he ought to take all the consequences, if hefails, like a man, and not snivel and say that a woman made him do it. But the witch says that there is a chance yet for them to be revenged, for, if only the Knight of the Swan can be made to tell who he is, hewill have to go away as he came and be lost, and she believes she canfind some way to tempt his bride to ask him the forbidden questions, and then he will have to answer. "Now the bride that is to be to-morrow comes out upon a balcony of thepalace, and the witch, sending her husband away, calls to her and tellsher how sorry they both are for all that they have done. No doubt theyare very sorry indeed, as they ought to be. But the bride is so happyand so kind that she cannot bear to see anybody unhappy, so she saysthat she forgives them, and if she has injured them in any way she asksthat they forgive her. That is absurd, of course. Then she lets thewitch talk to her till the wicked woman says that she hopes the knightwho came to her in such a strange way, that nobody can account for, will never deceive her, and that she will always live happily with him;and by this she means, of course, that she thinks that he will deceiveher and that she will not be happy. But the bride says that she trustsher knight wholly, and she asks the witch to come in with her and restfor the night. And that is just the one thing she ought not to do, forhere is what I hope you will see and remember more than anything elsein all this: be as kind and as helpful and as compassionate as you can, always, but never help, never listen to, never allow to be near you aman or a woman who says one word against anyone you love. Put no trustin anyone till you know that trust is safe, and, when you once know, never hear of one breath of doubt again. "The fire burns higher and brighter, and the morning is coming. Thesquare grows light and fills with people. Now come the heralds again, and they sound their trumpets and proclaim that the Knight of the Swanis to have the crown of his bride's father, and is to be calledGuardian instead of Duke, that the accuser of his bride is an outcastand must be shunned by all men, and finally that everybody to-day is tocome to the marriage, but that to-morrow all the men must go to thedefence of the King and the country. And now, with all its sparkle andglitter, comes the procession, leading the bride to the church, when, just as she is at the door, right before her stands the witch, full ofanger and pride, and cries aloud that it is her place to go before thiswoman, and no one shall keep her from the place that is hers, and shetaunts the bride with not knowing who or what her knight is; and so agreat clamor arises among the people, and in the midst of it come theKing and the Knight of the Swan and their train. The witch's wickedhusband comes, too, and calls out that the knight beat him yesterday bymagic and not by honest fighting, and he demands that the King ask theknight who he is. But he and his wife are put aside, and the processiongoes into the church, and as I look into the church itself now thewhole of the fire is a blaze of candles on the altar. Now turn yourface away from the fire as it was before and shut your eyes again. There is no more to be seen in this wedding than there was in thebattle of the two knights, and all that there is I will tell you. "The light of the candles on the altar changes to a blaze of weddingtorches, and the King and the knights and the ladies are leading thebride and the bridegroom to their chamber. Slowly and solemnly, yetjoyfully, they march along, and it is all so clear to me that I caneven hear the music that they chant as they come. Soft and low it is atfirst, and then it swells out fuller and stronger and clearer butalways so noble and pure and stately in its melody and its rhythm thatnobody who had once heard it could ever forget how grand and beautifulit was. I have heard it many times, and you will hear it often, too, and once, I hope--I almost know--you will hear it at one of thesweetest moments of your life, and whenever you hear it I think it willbe more full of meaning for you if you will think of the Knight of theSwan and his bride. But do not think of what comes to them afterward, for that need never come to you or to anyone who remembers what I toldyou a little while ago; and if ever you feel tempted to forget for onemoment, then think of this true and lovely music--you will know it welland can think of it when you like by that time--and I am sure you willfeel truer and better again at once. "But the torches pass away and out of sight, and the knight and hisbride are left alone; and now comes the sad part, for the poor bridehas listened too much to those who spoke evil of her husband, orsomething evil has come into her own mind and made her forget herpromise, for she tells him that she loves him so much that she wishesshe might know what he is whom she loves. Now this may be very naturaland might be very right if she had not promised never to ask; butthough he begs her not to demand of him this one thing, yet sheimplores him more and more to tell her, till at last she speaks verycruelly to him, and as much as tells him that he does not love her atall. You would never think that she was the same poor girl who knelt bythe river and prayed that her knight might be sent to help her in herdanger. And suddenly, as he is about to tell her all she asks, her oldaccuser breaks into the room with his men, and rushes with his sworddrawn to kill the knight, and now indeed his bride does seize his swordand hold it out to him, while he draws it from the sheath; then thereis one little flash of a flame as he swings it high above his head, andhis enemy lies at last dead before him. He tells the men to take himaway and to lead his bride before the King, where he will come and tellher everything. "It is morning again on the banks of the river, and the knights and thepeople are coming in crowds as I saw them in the beginning. The Kingcomes, and the poor bride, sadder now even than she was at first. TheKnight of the Swan comes too, and he asks the King if he did right tokill his wicked enemy, who was trying to kill him unprepared. The Kinganswers that he did right. Then he says that he cannot go with the Kingto his wars, because his bride has forgotten her promise to him, andhas asked him whence he came, and now, by the law which he obeys, assoon as he has answered her, he must leave her and all the restforever. Then, while they all listen in sorrow, he tells them that heis a Knight of the Holy Grail, and must go back to the temple which heleft to come here and help his bride. And while she weeps at thethought of losing him, suddenly I see the swan again on the river, drawing the little boat as before, ready to take the knight away, andthen he tells his bride that if she could but have trusted him andnever questioned him for a year, her brother would have come back toher. "And now for one last time the witch stands up, more proud andrevengeful then ever, and cries out that she has beaten them all, forthe swan is really the brother, and that it was she who wound the chainabout his neck that enchanted him and made him a swan. But while sheexults in her triumph, there flies down over the heads of all of them abeautiful white dove. It is the dove that comes once a year to thetemple and strengthens the power of the Holy Grail, and as the knightsees it he kneels and prays and then rises and unwinds the silver chainfrom the swan's neck, and at the very instant the swan is changed intoa beautiful boy, the lost brother, and he runs to his sister and theyclasp each other in their arms, while the witch falls down upon theground, overcome at last and powerless, and the knight steps into theboat, the dove lifts the silver chain, and they glide away upon theriver, farther and farther, and the little spot where they were, thatwas the brightest in the fire, grows dimmer and fainter and goes outand is dark. " "And won't the knight come back at all?" asked the little girl. "No, " I answered, "the brother and the sister are close in each other'sarms and they are gazing away upon the river as far as they can see, but the Knight of the Swan will never come back. " THE PRIZE OF A SONG The fire was almost out. It was so late in the spring that none at allwas needed, but we liked it to look at. As for the little girl and me, we should hardly have known how to get on without it, and the littlegirl's mother chose to humor us, so we wasted a great deal of wood, asignorant people would think, and were just as comfortable with the skysmiling and the trees budding all around us as if we had been in themidst of snow-drifts and howling storms. This afternoon the sun hadbeen shining right in upon the fire, as if he would like to know whatit was doing there at all, when he was making the weather quite warmenough, in the house as well as out. A fire never burns well when thesun shines on it, and besides, nobody had taken much care of ours, sothat after the sun had gone it looked very low and discouraged. "Do you think anybody could see anything in a fire like that?" thelittle girl asked, with a doubtful gaze into it and a meaning, clearlyenough, that, if I thought it at all possible for anybody to seeanything, she wished that I myself would try. "We will put on another stick, " I said, "and have a better fire. Itwill not be a very hot fire even then, and with all this soft springair about us, I don't think we can see any more gods and giants andknights and dragons in it. But we may see some simpler people, withbright young hearts that begin to stir and move and to beat quicker andharder in the spring, as young hearts ought to do, not only in thespring of the year, but in their own spring, and we may perhaps seesome people with older hearts, which stirred and beat too in theirtime, and we shall see by them that those which move freest and growwarmest in their spring are the fullest and the richest in their autumnand can never be hurt in the winter, just as the tree in which the sapflows best in the spring spreads out the broadest shade in the fierceheat of the summer, bears the finest fruit in the autumn, and lives thestrongest till the next spring comes. If you ever tell any very learnedpeople what we see here in this fire they may tell you, perhaps, thatit all happened on Midsummer Day and not in the spring at all, and theywill be quite right, in their own poor way of being right, butMidsummer Day is not in the middle of the summer, you know, but just atthe beginning of it, when the spring has been gone only a few days. Itis then that the lovely touch of the spring has done all that it canfor the world, when the sun climbs his very highest in the heavens tolook at all the sweetness and beauty that have been spread over theearth, when the summer is young and happy and kind and has not begun toburn and wither everything that would like to love its brightness andits power. So if you would see all the joy and the light that thespring can bring, you must look for them not far from Midsummer Day. "We shall not begin to see all this till our new stick begins to burnbetter, but in the meantime we may see some things that are pleasantenough, if they are not quite so radiant, and while the fire is stillrather dark, just burning quietly in a few little places, we seem to meto be in a dim, old church. The service is just ending. In one of thepews sits a pretty girl who is behaving herself in a most unbecomingway, for she is constantly sending shy glances toward a young man wholeans against a pillar not far off and looks at her in his turn in away that really ought to shock her, instead of pleasing her, as itseems to do. " "Is he a knight?" asked the little girl, instinctively knowing him forthe hero of the story. "Do you want him to be a knight?" "Oh, yes; let's have just one knight, if we can't have any giants ordragons. " "I believe you are beginning to see the pictures in the fire yourself. Well, he shall be a knight, but he shall not wear any armor and heshall not fight, and all the rest of the people we see shall be quitecommon people, mere tradesmen, a goldsmith and a tailor and a toy-makerand a cobbler and the like. But whether the young man is a knight ornot, he and the pretty girl ought to know better than to look at eachother in that way in church, with looks that seem to mean so much andyet to have no connection with the service at all. The service is overnow and the people all leave the church, except a few, but the youngknight and the pretty girl stay behind, and he does not lose a minutein telling her that he loves her and that he is dreadfully anxious toknow if she can love him. Now, of course, as she has done nothing allthrough the service but steal glances at him and probably could noteven tell what hymns were sung, or whether there was a sermon or not, and has been thinking all the time how handsome he was, and knows verywell that he was looking at her all the time, and knows very well, too, being a pretty girl, that he was thinking how pretty she was, ofcourse, you see, she could not tell at all whether she could love himor not, and such a question naturally throws her into the greatestconfusion. "But while the young man is saying all the pretty things that the timeallows, and the young woman is trying to think what she shall answer, her maid, who has been running about all this time, looking for thingsshe has lost, bustles up, hears a part of what the young man says, andtells him that her mistress is already betrothed; and the mistressquickly says yes, but that nobody yet knows to whom. This is such asurprising state of things that it needs an explanation; so the maidtells the young knight that her mistress is to be given as bride for aprize to-morrow, which will be Midsummer Day, to the man who shall singthe best song. He asks if the bride herself is to judge whose song isbest; and at that she makes up her mind at last, and says that she willchoose nobody but him. But there is something else, for nobody can eventry for the prize unless he belongs to a certain company or society ofpoets and singers here in the town, and the knight, though he has apretty good opinion of the song he could make if he should try, isquite a stranger here. And now, as if for the very purpose of helpingthe knight, comes another young man, who turns out to be a prentice, and he begins arranging benches and chairs in some queer sort of way, while the looks that he casts at the maid and the looks she throws backat him show that they are not total strangers; and he tells them thatthese very poets and singers are to meet here in a few minutes, andthat if anybody wants to join them he will have a chance to sing tothem and to prove whether he is worthy. "So the young man of course determines that he will try, and it isclear that he expects nothing in the world but that he will carryeverything before him; and while the young women hurry away, theprentice tells him something about the singers, who are always calledmasters, and the queer rules that they have for making all their songs. Queer enough they are, too, and so many that if you were to hear themall you would think that they were quite enough to prevent anybody'sever making a song at all; but the most important thing that the knightlearns is that, while he is singing, the judge will make a mark withchalk every time he breaks a rule, and, if more than seven chalk marksare scored against him, he cannot be a master, and so cannot try forthe prize that he wants so much to win to-morrow. "Now the masters begin to gather for their meeting, coming in one byone and two by two. First comes a goldsmith, the father of the prettygirl we have just seen. With him is a queer-looking, awkward, self-conceited man, who, anybody can see in a minute, must be a town clerk. From what he is saying to the goldsmith it is clear that he means totry for the prize of his daughter's hand to-morrow. He is in no doubtthat he can sing better than anybody else, but is not sure that thegoldsmith's daughter will think so. That is a very unlucky thing thathappens to singers sometimes; they themselves know perfectly well thatthey can sing better than anybody else anywhere about, but all theother people are so stupid that they will not understand it. "The young knight, who knows the goldsmith, tells him now that he wantsto join this company of singers, and be a master too; and the goldsmithsays that he shall be glad to help all he can. But the town clerkoverhears them, and he sees at once that what the knight wants is tosing for the prize to-morrow. Now, the rule is, you remember, thatnobody but a master may even try for the prize; so the jealous townclerk resolves that he will keep the young man from becoming a master. And it happens, by good luck for him and bad luck for the knight, thatit is his turn to-day to take the chalk and mark the mistakes that aremade in singing by anybody who tries to prove himself worthy to be amaster. "When the masters are all met, the goldsmith makes a little speech, andtells them how the prize is to be given to-morrow. They are to decidewho wins, but his daughter is to judge too. She may choose none withouttheir voice, but she may refuse any. That is no more than fair, ofcourse. No girl would like to be married to a man just because thelines of his poetry came out right when somebody else counted them. Yetthe masters all argue and dispute and suggest about the rules; but inthe end they agree to do just what the goldsmith says, since theycannot do anything else. "Now comes the trial of the young knight who wants to be a master. Thetown clerk goes behind a curtain, with his slate and his chalk, and youmay be sure he does not forget his promise to himself that the knightshall fail. Then the young man stands up in the midst of them all andsings his song. A happy, free, beautiful song it is. It tells first howthe spring came into the forest and awakened the trees and brought theflowers. Then it tells how the spring came into the young man's ownheart, as you know I told you it ought to do, and how it made him singof love; and that is quite right too, though perhaps I forgot to say sobefore. "But happy and beautiful as the song is, it is scarcely begun beforethe most dreadful scratching of the chalk is heard behind the curtain. All the masters begin to shake their heads, too, for this knight isbold enough to make his own song in his own way, and he knows and caresno more about the rules and measures of these masters for making songsthan you know or care about the game laws of Scotland. So by the timethe song is half over, out rushes the town clerk with his slate, notwith the eight marks on it that would end the singer's hopes of being amaster, but with nearer eighty. He vows the case is hopeless, and as heshows the slate to the other masters they all seem to agree with him, though they are not all quite so jealous as he is. "All but one; for there is one old shoemaker who says that he thinksthe song was very good. It did not follow the rules, but it had rulesof its own, and he liked it. Then there is trouble indeed. For any manto say in this old church and this old town that a song can be goodwhen it has one line too many or one rhyme too few is almost as bad asfor him to say that the King is bald-headed and that the oldestprincess has freckles. All the masters say that to let such a song passis out of the question, and that the shoemaker is quite absurd to thinkof such a thing. At this the shoemaker declares that the town clerk isnot a fair judge, because he is jealous. At that again the town clerksays that the shoemaker had better not talk so much about poetry, butgo home and finish the shoes he has ordered. Now, the shoemaker isreally the only one of all the masters who knows anything at all aboutpoetry; but now and then, years ago, a man who knew a great deal had tostand aside and let others, who knew very little but could talk louder, do what they liked in their own way. That is what the shoemaker has todo now, and for this time the knight has failed. "What a bad fire we have, to be sure! It is getting lower and lower, and even our new stick will not burn. While everything is as dark asthis we shall have to think that it is night. Never mind, we can see alittle still, and the little that I can see is the street of the oldtown, with its queer old houses and peaked roofs and sharp steeples. Here, on one side, where there is a bit of light shining like a glow ina window, is the shop of our old cobbler; and over there, with no lightat all, the fire is so bad, is the goldsmith's house. The cobbler issitting outside his door, trying to work; but the light is as bad forhim as it is for us, and, besides, he cannot think of his work, muchless do it. He is thinking, I know, of the young knight and his song, and is wishing that he might win the prize to-morrow, master or nomaster. His heart had its spring-time once, you may be sure, and itsglowing summer, and they have brought it a rich, peaceful autumn, suchas they alone can bring. That was why he knew all the meaning of thesong and liked it, though it broke every one of his own rules. And so, like the good old fellow that he is, he wishes the man who sang thesong all joy and good luck--and the prize. "While he is thinking of all this, comes the goldsmith's daughter, forshe has heard that the young man has failed, and she is sad, and wantsto talk to some one. Perhaps, too, she wants to know something. Theytalk about to-morrow, of course, and the shoemaker tells her that thetown clerk means to sing for the prize. At that the prize herself getsquite alarmed, for she likes the town clerk no better than you or I do. 'But why should he not win?' the shoemaker says; 'there will not bemany bachelors there to try. ' "'And might not a widower try?' she asks slyly. "Now, the shoemaker knows that she means himself, but he says no, he istoo old. And then the absurd girl actually urges him to try, though shedoes not want him the least bit, and does not want anybody except theyoung knight, who makes such beautiful songs that are all out of shape. When you get to be a woman, perhaps you will know why she does this;but I confess I do not. Perhaps she thinks that the shoemaker would notbe half so bad as the town clerk, or perhaps she only wants to find outif the shoemaker really does mean to sing, so that she may know whetherhe is the knight's friend or his enemy. At any rate, he pretends to benot half so much the friend of the young people as I know he really is, and when she is beginning to get quite angry with him her maid comesand tries to lead her into the house. But just at this moment theknight himself is seen coming down the street, and not a step towardthe house does she go after that. "The shoemaker has gone into his shop now, and the lovers are alone. Hetells her how he sang his very best, that he might be a master, becausethat was the only way to win her, and it was of no use. But she doesnot care whether he failed or not. She declares that he is a poet, thatshe will give the prize herself and to nobody but him; so now what doyou suppose it matters to him if all the masters in the world said thathis songs were wrong? He will not sing for them, and they need notlisten. "There is just one way now, as anybody can see, for him to make sure ofthe prize, and that is to take it while he has it. And that is justwhat he is about to do. But I am sorry to see that the cobbler, behindthe door of his shop, has been impolite enough to listen to all thisimportant talk about poets and songs; and he sees that if he lets thesetwo run away together now, there will be no prize and no singing forto-morrow. So he sets a lamp in his window, right there where the fireis kind enough to burn for us a little at last, and sends the lightstreaming out across the street, and the lovers know that if they tryto pass they will be seen. And while they are helping each other thinkwhat they can do, somebody else comes slowly down the street, walkingin the shadows and looking around to see if he is watched, like aburglar. It is the town clerk, and he has come here just to sing underthe window of the goldsmith's daughter the song that he means to singto-morrow, to see if she will like it and if she will probably give itthe prize. Oh, he is a good, honest poet and faithful lover, and hemeans to leave nothing untried that can help him. One does not get achance to marry a goldsmith's daughter every day. "All this is annoying enough, but there is nothing for the lovers to dobut to wait for the town clerk to sing and go away; so they get intothe deepest shadow, and then they put their arms around each other sothat they can stand closer and not be seen so easily. It is a good planfor another reason, too, because some people can wait much morepatiently in that position than in any other. But things are gettingworse and worse, for the shoe-maker seems bound to have his part of thefun too; and just as the town clerk is about to sing he begins to workagain and to hammer on his last. This is the most impolite shoemaker, Isuppose, that this polite old town ever saw, if he is a poet. Think ofa man who will hammer on a shoe when a town clerk is going to sing, anda song that he made himself, too. Something must be done, of course; sothe town clerk comes and talks with the cobbler, and pretends that heis very anxious to get his opinion of the song he is going to sing. That seems natural enough, because everybody knows that the cobbler isthe best poet in town. So they agree that whenever the town clerkbreaks a rule in his song the cobbler shall strike one blow on hislast, just as if he were marking the mistakes on the slate, the way thetown clerk himself did with the knight. "Oh, but he must be a good town clerk, he knows so many tricks, and canalways arrange everything so well to make it go his way. The town islucky to have such a clerk. Yet, strange to say, the minute he beginsto sing, he makes more mistakes than even the poor young knight did, and it is really a question whether his song or the shoemaker'spounding makes the more noise. Mind, I say noise, not music; if it werea question of music the shoemaker would be far ahead. Well, betweenthem, they wake up the shoemaker's prentice, and he comes to the windowof the shop, to see what is the matter. He is the same prentice whom wesaw in the church, who looked at the goldsmith's daughter's maid insuch a strange way, you remember. And now, as he looks across at thehouse opposite, he sees the goldsmith's daughter's maid again, standingat the window. She is standing there in one of her mistress's gowns, tomake the town clerk think that the mistress herself is listening to hissong; and he does think so, but the poor prentice knows who she is verywell indeed. And since he knows who she is, of course he makes up hismind at once that the town clerk is singing to her, that he loves her, and that just as likely as not she loves him. No doubt you think hemight know better; and perhaps he might, if he were not so much in lovewith the goldsmith's daughter's maid; but when a man is in love he isalways ready to believe anything that it is particularly uncomfortablefor him to believe. "So, what does the shoemaker's prentice do but jump right out of thewindow, fetch the good town clerk one blow under the chin, that shutshis mouth and stops his singing, and begin just as lively a fight withhim as any we ever saw among our knights and giants and dragons. Theymake so much noise that more people wake up, and come out of theirhouses into the street; and, since the old town is usually a bit dulland quiet, they find this just the sort of thing they like, and theyall begin fighting, too, with a jolly good will. Of course, not one ofthem has the slightest notion of what he is fighting about; but thatmakes no difference to any good, honest fighter, and there is a finebreaking of heads and kicking of shins. Just as everything is in themost delightful confusion possible, the knight and the goldsmith'sdaughter try to make their way through the crowd and escape; but thetroublesome old shoemaker, who has been watching them from the verybeginning, runs quickly out, pushes the girl to her own door, where herfather stands to receive her, drags the knight into his shop, seizeshis prentice too, and shuts his door behind him. Somebody cries thatthe watchman is coming; the people scatter right and left, and, by thetime that little flame there under the andiron has burned up and shownitself to me as the old watchman's lantern, it shines on nothing butthe quiet, empty street. "But there is more light than the watchman's lantern, for our new stickis beginning to burn now. The night must be past, and, if the night ispast, it is Midsummer Day. It is not so bright yet as it might be. Letus put on still another stick, and have all the Midsummer weather wecan. I see a room now, not very handsome or rich, but very comfortableand cheerful, with flowers in the window and more flowers scatteredabout. It is the old shoemaker's shop, and the old shoemaker himselfsits at the window, pretending to read, but really thinking, as usual, about the young knight who sings to please himself and not to obeyother people's rules, and about the goldsmith's daughter; and he istrying, also as usual, to plan some way to make the prize go as hewants it to go. He does not quite see how it is to be done, but he hasa comfortable feeling that it will all come out right; and while he isstudying over it, the knight himself comes put of the room where he hasslept to say good-morning. "He tells the shoemaker that he has had a beautiful dream, and theshoemaker asks him what it was, saying that it is the true business ofa poet to have dreams and to tell them, so that everybody may knowthem. So the knight tells his dream, making it into a song as he goesalong, and now and then the shoemaker stops him quietly to tell himwhat are the rules of the masters for making such songs as this. Theknight always asks why such rules should be, and the shoemaker giveshim some pretty reason for each one, and he shows that the rules arenot so bad after all, if only one knows how to use them and to make themost of them. The dream was about a beautiful garden with a tree thatbore fruit of gold, and as the dreamer looked at it there came a lovelymaiden, who you may be sure was the goldsmith's daughter, and sheembraced him and then pointed to the fruit of the tree, and when shepointed to it, it was golden fruit no longer, but stars, and the treeitself was a laurel-tree. "You may guess that the poor old masters never heard such a song asthis. As the knight sings it the shoemaker writes it down on a bit ofpaper and tells the knight to remember the melody, and then they goaway together. Scarcely have they gone when the door opens softly andin a treacherous-looking sort of way that must be strange to theshoemaker's door, and in comes the town clerk. Ridiculous enough helooks in his gorgeous holiday clothes, and limping along, because ofthe beating that the prentice gave him last night. And angry enough heis, too, with the shoemaker and the prentice and the knight and theworld in general, except himself, with whom it might be reasonable forhim to be angry. You can see a wicked red glow, right there in themiddle of the fire, where he stands. But he has not forgotten about theprize--oh, not in the least. He is still plotting and contriving how hecan best make sure of it, and so it does not take long for his sharplittle eyes to find the song lying on the table, where the shoemakerleft it when he went out. "Now, there is one peculiar thing about these people who can seethrough mill-stones, and that is, that they sometimes think they areseeing through one when there is really no mill-stone there at all;just as you and I might think we were looking through a glass windowwhen it was only an empty sash. Just see, for instance, how muchcleverer the town clerk is than there is any sort of need for him tobe. He sees that this song is a song; well, anybody could see that. Hesees that it is in the shoemaker's handwriting; anybody who knew theshoemaker's handwriting could see that. But now he takes the liberty ofguessing that the shoemaker made this song himself, and that he isgoing to sing it himself for the prize. So he gets more angry still, for he knows that the shoemaker is the best poet in all this dear oldtown, where anybody can be a poet by learning the rules, and he knowsthat if the shoemaker tries to win the prize he will probably do so. But he hears the shoemaker coming back and he has just time to hide thesong in his pocket. "Now he boldly accuses the shoemaker of meaning to sing for the prize. It may seem to you that it is no affair of his whether the shoemakermeans to sing or not, and it may seem so to me too, but we are not townclerks. Yet the shoemaker assures him that he does not mean to sing, accuses him in turn of stealing the song, and then, to prove his ownwords, gives it to him. With that the town clerk is altogetherdelighted, for he is one of those shallow people who think that whenone man has done a good thing, another man can do just as well as he bydoing the same thing. He feels sure that if he sings one of theshoemaker's songs he cannot fail to win the prize, and he makes theshoemaker promise that, whatever happens, he will not claim the song ashis. The shoemaker is quite ready to promise anything, because he is awise old soul and he knows that it is not altogether what one does, butpretty largely how one does it, as a cobbler or as a town clerk or as asinger, that wins him fame and honor--and Midsummer Day prizes. "The town clerk hobbles away, and now who should come in but thegoldsmith's daughter herself? Well, no one could wonder at her lover'shaving pleasant dreams, for she is as pretty a prize as ever a poetsang a song for, or to, or about. With her best gown and her flowersand her jewels, and especially with herself, I don't think you couldfind any prize that a poet would rather have, even in a town twice asbig as this. It seems there is something wrong about the shoe that thecobbler has made for her to wear to-day, and she has come to get him tomend it. I wonder, by the way, if she knows that the knight was theshoemaker's guest last night. She says that when she wants tostandstill the shoe insists on walking, and when she wants to walk theshoe makes up its mind to stand still. You see yourself what aremarkable and improper way this is for a shoe to behave. It is sostrange that I am inclined to doubt if it is the fault of the shoe atall, or if she really knows whether she wants to walk or stand still. You see it is not easy for us to tell just how a girl would feel atbeing put up for a prize. "While the cobbler is at work on the shoe, the knight too appears, andthe cobbler hints that he should like to hear the rest of the dreamthat the young man began to tell him before. So he sings more of hissong and tells how the stars among the branches of the laurel-treeformed a crown for the lovely maiden's head, how her eyes, as he lookedinto her face, were to him brighter than all of them, and how then shetwined with her own hand, about his head, the wreath of the star-fruitof the laurel-tree, and still and always he saw her eyes brighter thanthe stars. "After he has sung this they all seem to understand one another better. The goldsmith's daughter's maid comes in to look for her mistress, theprentice tumbles in to look for the maid, or for something else, andaway they all start for the fields outside the town, where all whowill--that is, if they are masters and may--are to sing for the prize. "At last the fire is burning as it ought, and we can see all the lifeand light that we care to enjoy. Those flames that stream up so farmust mean that the sun has mounted his very highest to mark the noon ofMidsummer Day, and the floods of merry sparks that pour up the chimneyare not brighter or merrier than the throngs of people, men and women, boys and girls, that walk and run, and caper and dance, and tumble outof the city gates and into the meadows where the singing is to be. Butthere is more gravity all at once when the masters come. They aremighty and important persons at any time, and above all they are soto-day, when they are to decide who is to have this wonderful prize. They have a higher place to sit than the rest of the meadow, and thecommon people of the town, who do not pretend to be poets at all, canstand wherever they can find room. The goldsmith and his daughter havethe highest seats of all, and the shoemaker is next to them, for he issupposed to know a good song when he hears it. All the other mastershave good places too, including the town clerk. The knight is somewherein the crowd of people who know nothing about poetry. [Illustration: "HE SAW HER EYES BRIGHTER THAN THE STARS. "] "When everything is ready the town clerk is the first to sing his songfor the prize, because he is the oldest of those who are to try, andindeed he seems to be about the only one, with the knight quite out ofthe race, because he did so badly in the church yesterday. So the townclerk stands forth, and after a little opening plink-plunk on hisguitar, he tries to sing the knight's own song, which the shoemakergave him, knowing well that he would get into trouble with it. Andindeed, the dream that he tells about must have been a nightmare, though nobody who hears him knows what it is about, and the poor townclerk seems to know least of all. He has the song under his coat andtries to look at it now and then, but he reads it wrong and singsnonsense, and in a moment all the people are laughing at him, eventhose who do not know a good song when they hear it, for they seem toknow a bad song very well when they hear it. "At that he gets angry, stops singing, and says that the song is nothis at all but the shoemaker's, and he is to blame. Here is a finestate of things, for the shoemaker is supposed, as I said before, toknow more about songs than any of the other people in town, and indeedhe knows more about most things than all of them put together. He saysthat the song is not his, but that it is good enough, if only it couldbe sung right, and he asks if there is anybody here who knows how tosing it. "This is the time for the young knight, and he comes forward from thecrowd and says that he will try. But first, the shoemaker makes all themasters promise that if he sings the song well and if it is a good songhe shall have all the honor just as if he were a master. Now the youngman takes his place and everybody is still. He looks straight at thegoldsmith's daughter; he does not know that there are any others aroundhim; and now he sings. And what a glorious song it is, full of hope andhappiness and victory and joy! He did not sing like this to the mastersin the church yesterday; not even to the shoemaker this morning did hesing like this. It is not hard to see the reason. Yesterday he tried tobe a master, and when he sang he was wondering how these fussy oldfellows would measure his song with their rhyme-gauges and their foot-rules. How could anybody sing when he was thinking of that? Even thenit was not a bad song and the goldsmith's daughter would have known itif she had been the judge. The shoemaker, with his warm old spring-timeheart, knew it as it was, but the masters were too learned ever to knowanything. But now the goldsmith's daughter is the judge and the youngpoet sings only to her, only for her, only about her. If one smilecurves her pretty lips as he sings, it is more to him than the shoutsof all the people. That is the way to sing, and that is why, when he isdone, all the people do shout, and do clap their hands and wave theirhats, and do cry out that he must have the prize. "And he does have the prize. She crowns his head with a wreath oflaurel, which he cares for only because she sets it there, and thegoldsmith himself brings him the gold chain that makes him a master. This the young man would put aside, but the wise old shoemaker bids himtake this too, and to honor the masters and their art; for, he says, though the Holy Roman Empire should vanish in smoke, yet art willremain. And I think he means by this that all the kingdoms of the earthmay be lost and may fall into dust and ashes, as our fire here will dowhen we leave it to-night, but that the happy young people, with theirstirring hearts of spring, and the kindly old people, with their ripehearts of autumn, will still sing songs and still tell stories. " THE BLOOD-RED SAIL The fire had been out for weeks. Somebody who came from the country hadalmost filled the fireplace with a huge bouquet of wild roses. Theymade it look very pretty for a few days, but now the roses had allfaded and fallen to pieces too, and nobody cared enough even to sweepup the dry, dead leaves and throw them out. It all looked forsaken anddesolate enough. But it was no more desolate than I. We were lonely andunhappy for the same reason, the poor fireplace and I, because thelittle girl had gone away with her mother down to the sea and would notbe back for more weeks and weeks yet. The city was so hot and dull andstupid! It made me feel dull and stupid to stay in it, except when itmade me angry. Yet perhaps the fireplace was even a little worse offthan I, though it was not more forsaken and alone, for it had no workto do, while I had plenty. Then again the fireplace, in spite of allthe wonderful and beautiful things we had seen in it sometimes, hadnever been anywhere except just where it was now, and it knew nothingabout the sea. But I had been in several other places; and even in thecity, with the heat pouring down from the sky and quivering up from thepavements, one can dream of "waters, winds, and rocks, " and dreams aregood things to have for those who can have nothing else. And I had the dreams and something else. For the little girl and hermother had said that I might come down to the sea too, whenever Ithought the city could get on without me. What surprised me was thatthe city got on at all, but all the time I thought more and more that Iwas of no use to it, and it was of no use to me, and finally I left allmy work in it to take care of itself and fled away to the sea. Oh, howlovely it was! That first long unbroken sight of the line where the skyand the water met made me feel, as I always feel at such times, that itwas worth half the year's worry and care just to see this ocean andthis heaven, to breathe this free, salt air, to smell the flowers bythe roadside, and to gaze and gaze again at the two great tracts ofpeaceful blue. How wonderful is this calm rest of a thing that can rageand destroy when it will! The peace of a field of daisies is pretty andsweet; the peace of the ocean is like that of God. The little girl and I had a long walk along the beaches, over therocks, and through the tall, salt grass. We hunted among the smooth, round pebbles for the smoothest and the roundest; we studied the jelly-fish that was borne up the beach by the wave and then glided swiftlyback again with it, as if it had forgotten something, till one wave, higher than the others, would leave it lying on the sand at our feet, where we could study it as much as we liked; we wondered if the jelly-fish ever did forget anything and if he had remembered it now, so thathe did not want to go back any more. We caught little crabs and madethem run races, laying huge wagers on our favorites; I filled mypocket, and the little girl filled her handkerchief with the tiny, pointed shells that can be strung into such pretty necklaces. Then wefound a great, bright, curly ribbon of seaweed, as wide as two hands, so long that when the little girl held it by the middle she couldscarcely lift the ends off the sand, and rich and beautiful in colorlike dark-red tortoise-shell. The little girl looped one end of itaround her head and wound the rest about her body, so that she looked atrue little sea princess. All day a fresh, cool breeze came up from the sea, so different fromthe air of the dreadful city. Toward evening it grew cooler yet. Thewind blew more, and little shreds and patches of fog, and then largerclouds of it, hurried along over the fields. We could see them coming, away off over the water, then they reached the shore and hid the wallsand the pastures, then they wrapped us up within themselves and passedus, and we saw them flying off again as if they were trying to carry achill from the sea as far into the land as they could. And it waschilly after the sun was quite gone--not very cold, but just coolenough so that everybody thought it would be pleasant to have a bit offire on the hearth. And when we thought a fire would be pleasant wealways had it. Of course down there we never think of making a fire of anything butdriftwood. It makes the most wonderful, magical fire in the world. Onecould dream out stories for a whole evening from the wood alone. Hereis a stick that must have been a part of a spar. Was it blown away fromthe mast in a gale? Now hold your breath and think if some poor sailorwas blown off into the waves with it. Did he catch at this very stickas he sank? Did his wife wait and wait for him at home, till hisshipmate came and told her? Here is a little piece of smooth board, with a bit of cornice fastened to the end. It must be from the wall ofa cabin. Did the captain's daughter and the young mate sit under it andwhisper stories to each other in the calm evenings of the voyage? Thereis a piece of barrel-stave. Perhaps it once held rum for the sailors'grog; it burns as if it did. There again is a float from a fisherman'snet. Was the net torn when it broke away, and did the fisherman losesome fish? And because of that did his sweetheart perhaps lose a ribbonor a trinket? Then here is a broken fragment of a lobster pot. Eventhis might be some loss to a poor man. And not only are all thesethings and a hundred times as many more to be thought of, but all thiswood has been soaked in the salts of the sea, and when it burns theflames are of all sorts of strange and beautiful and ghostly colors--white and red and green and blue and yellow and violet. Everybody feels the charm of a driftwood fire. The little girl surelycould not help feeling it, and she came and sat on the stool at myfeet, leaned her head against my knee, and gazed at the flames withoutsaying a word. But I answered her thought. "Yes, " I said, "we may seealmost anything in that fire. Look at that strip of cocoanut husk. Doesit not tell of green palm-groves and sunny skies and warm breezes? Yetas it lies there on its curved side, with the two ends lifted from thehearth, has it not the shape of a galley, like those in which the rudeold pirates of the North used to sweep over the sea, bringing terror toall who came in their way? It is all burnt and blackened, and rightover it rises a tall flame of bright red. It is a black ship, withsails all of the color of blood. The strangest of ships it is, and ithas the strangest of stories. "Long, long years ago, in a fearful storm, the captain tried to sailthis ship around the cape. The captain of another ship hailed him andasked him if he did not mean to find a harbor for the night. But heswore a terrible oath that he would sail around the cape in spite ofDavy Jones, if it took till doomsday. At this Davy Jones was angry, andswore on his part that it should take till doomsday, that the captainshould sail in the storm till then and should never get around thecape. Do you know who Davy Jones is? He is the wicked spirit of thesea. When the winds and the waves rage and tear away the sails of theships, or sink the ships or drive them upon the reefs, it is his work;when it is all smooth and calm and sparkling, as we saw it to-day, thenthe good fairies of the sea are there and are making everything aboutit calm and happy. "But the fairies never came near this ship. She was always drivenabout, and there was a storm wherever she went. Never could her captainbring her into any port and never could he round the cape. Only foryears and years he sailed and sailed in the storm, and found no harborand no rest. At first he was bold and tried to sail on and gain hisport; then he was angry and raged again, and swore that he would not bebeaten; then he was in despair; and at last he grew so weary with thestorm and the sea and the clouds and again the wind and the sky and theocean and yet the rain and the waves and the fog, that he longed onlyto die and to be at peace. "But he did not die, and no one of his crew died. The sailors all grewold, and their hair and their beards were white, and they looked likeghosts, and their ship was like the ghost of a ship; but they were notghosts; they were real men and they sailed in a real ship. Sometimesthe crews of other ships saw them. Sometimes they hailed the crews ofthe other ships and begged them to take letters to their friends athome. They said that their almanac had been blown away and they did notknow how long they had been from home. They would lower a boat and rowto the ship they had hailed, in a sea that would swamp any other boatin half a minute, and so they would bring their letters on deck. Thosewho knew their story refused to take the letters, and then the sailorswould nail them to the mast or lay them on the deck, with a heavyweight to keep them from blowing away, and go back to their own ship. So the letters sometimes reached their homes, for it was said to bringbad luck either to take their letters willingly or to throw them awaywhen they were left on the ship. "But oh, what of those to whom the letters were sent? Once a captainbrought a packet of them to the port from which the strange ship hadsailed. Not one of those to whom they were directed could be found, andhe opened some of them, hoping that the letters themselves might tellhim some way of finding the sailors' friends. One of the sailors hadwritten to his father that after this voyage he meant to live on theland with him and never to go to sea again. When the captain took thisletter to its address, he found a man of the right name, but the mansaid: 'No, no, the letter is not for me; no son of mine is a sailor. None of our family ever went to sea except one, for there is an oldstory that my great-grandfather's brother once went away in a ship andthat the ship was never heard of again. For years his old father usedto dream about him and to declare that his ship still floated, and hedied believing that his boy was yet alive. No, that is my name on theletter, but it is not for me' One sailor had sent a bank-note to hissister, but where her house stood there was a church, and it had beenthere for a hundred years. Another in his letter sent a pressedtropical flower to his sweetheart. It was of the color that lookedpretty in her hair, but the poor fellow forgot that pressing it wouldspoil it for that. The captain, despairing of delivering the letters, went into the church, and there, on one of the stones of the floor, heread the sweetheart's name. It said that she was ninety years old whenshe died, and the words were almost worn away by the feet that hadcrossed them. The captain dropped the flower upon the stone, and thenext morning it was swept away. "So the sailors grew so old that it seemed they could not grow anyolder. Then slowly they began to know what they had always refused tobelieve, that they had been sailing for years and for hundreds ofyears, and that all who ever knew them and loved them had been long, long dead. Then their eyes grew more hollow, and their hair and theirlong beards thinner, and their faces more wrinkled and withered, and itwas as if all the blood had dried out of their hearts. Perhaps it waswhen the blood went out of their hearts that it stained the sails thatdreadful red. So much for the crew, but it was different with thecaptain. Davy Jones was preparing something worse yet for him, orthought he was. He was tired of seeing him simply wander hopelessly onthe ocean; he wanted to plague him more. He could do this, he thought, by giving him now and then a little hope and then shattering it andsinking it to the bottom of the sea, and dragging the man's heart tothe bottom of the sea, too, with a leaden load of despair. "The captain had never grown to look old, and now, to carry out hiswicked plan, Davy Jones promised that once in every seven years hemight enter a port and go on shore, and if ever he should find a goodwoman who would love him and give her life for him, he might rest andnever sail again; but when he failed to find such a woman he must go onboard his ship again and sail through the storm and the wind and thewaves for seven years more. Now, Davy Jones would never have promisedthis if he had thought that there could be such a good and lovingwoman, but being only a wicked spirit of the sea he did not know muchabout good women. "And for a long time his plan did succeed and the poor captain was morewretched than ever. Once in seven years he would go on shore to seekthat true woman, and as often he would return to his ship and sailaway. Good women he found many, but none of them would love him. Thenhis heart would fill with bitterness, for he saw them loving and givingtheir lives to men who, he could not but know, were less brave andpatient and worthy of them than he; faithless men who forgot them, cruel men who misused them, dull men who knew not their own blessings. Why should they love such men as these and never him? Now, you and I, who are so wise, know, of course, that such thoughts were selfish andwicked. For what was he to any woman that she should give her life, oreven an hour of it, for him? Was his life or his peace better thananother's, that another's should be given for his? Why should any womanlove him when there were so many others for her to love? "But he never thought of these things, so he would rage against allwomen and he would steer his ship into the most awful waves andwhirlpools, hoping that she would be wrecked and sunk, but his ship wasnever harmed; and he would steer toward pirates, hoping that they wouldkill him for the chests of gold he had, but even the pirates, when theysaw his blood-red sails, would cross themselves and flee from him. Thenthe seven years would pass and he would go on shore, and now, perhaps, a woman would say that she loved him; yet when the time came she wouldnot give her life for him, and he would throw himself down upon hisface on the deck of his ship and steer nowhere, but still drive onthrough the wind, the black waves, the black storm, and his own blackerdespair. " "Oh, my!" said the little girl, "that's awfully nice and ghosty, but Ithought this was the best fire we ever had, and now you don't seeanything in it at all. " "Oh, yes, I do, " I replied, "I have seen the ship all the time, thatblack ship with its sail of red flame. I have seen it tossing upon thesea, sweeping up till the flame of its sail almost touched the clouds, and then plunging down into the black water, but always, always rushingon with the storm around it and with never any rest. And I have seenthe angry clouds tearing across the sky; you can see them yourself whenthe smoke flies up the chimney, and then when the white flames areflickering and flashing up and then dying down, you can think that yousee the lightning. Yes, and you cannot help hearing the wind, whistlingup there around the top of the chimney as it would whistle through therigging of a ship. "The seven years have passed again, and now the ship has come to land, that the captain may try the little chance once more that has failedhim so often. The red flame has dropped down, for the sails are furled, and the wind has stopped for a minute, too, while the ship is atanchor, and there is no need for the storm to pursue it. I see thecaptain walking on the shore and talking with the master of anothership that is anchored near by. The master tells him that he lives onlya few miles away, and asks him if he will come and spend the night withhim on shore. The captain replies that for a little rest at his househe will give the master untold treasures from his ship. He makes a signto his men and they bring a big chest. He opens it and shows the masterthat it is full to the top of gold and pearls and rubies and emeralds, that flash and shine with all the colors that ever our driftwood firecan show us. [Illustration: "THROUGH THE BLACK STORM AND HIS OWN BLACKER DESPAIR. "] "Such a price for a night's or a year's lodging the master neverdreamed of. He cannot believe that such wealth is all for him, and heasks what he can ever do for the captain to earn it. 'Have you not adaughter?' the captain asks. You see he knows how to go about his workwithout loss of time, even though he has never been very lucky in it. "'Indeed I have, ' the master answers, 'a good, true, lovely girl. ' "'Give her to me, ' says the captain, 'for my wife; that is all I ask. ' "The master thinks that is a good deal to ask, but not too much, whenhe looks at the chest again, and he says, joyfully enough: 'You shallhave her, indeed; I know such a man as you will make a good son-in-law;come home with me quickly. ' "So each goes on board his own ship. The master sails first to lead theway, and then the red flaming sail springs up again and the black shipis off the shore. And the storm howls again too; the waves rise, theclouds tear across the sky, and in a minute the ship has passed out ofsight. "Listen to the wind around the chimney. It was roaring and whistling aminute ago, but now it is not so loud. It grows fainter still, till itssound is no more a roar or a whistle, but only the lightest humming ofa wind, and to me all the wind seems gone now and it is the hum ofwhirling spinning wheels that I hear. And what I see is a room where adozen girls sit spinning and singing songs about their wheels and abouttheir lovers. But one among them does not spin. She lets her wheelstand idle and only sits and looks at a picture that hangs on the wall. It is of a dark man with black hair, a black beard, and deep, piercingeyes; it is the captain whom we have seen so much already. The othergirls laugh at her, say that she is in love with the picture, and askher why she does not sing with them. She cannot sing their happy songs, she says. Then they ask her to sing by herself, and she sings them asong about the captain. It tells them his story, as we know it already, and as she sings they all stop their wheels and begin to gather aroundher, and in spite of all their merriment it moves them at last, as sucha sad story ought to move anybody. "And when she has finished they all say, 'Ah, poor fellow, if only somegood woman would save him from his dreadful lot! But who would do itand give up her own life?' "'I would do it, ' she replies, 'and I hope that the winds may blow himhere, so that I can tell him that I am ready to love him and to savehim. ' "The others, who are very charming girls, no doubt, but just now notquite so noble and resolute as this one, are almost frightened to hearher talk so, and when somebody says that her father is coming they allslip away and leave her to meet him alone, while they chatter amongthemselves about what a strange girl she is to want to give her lifefor a man whose black hair and piercing eyes she has never even seenexcept in a picture. Her father is the shipmaster whom we saw, as youhave guessed by this time, and he has brought the stranger captain homewith him. 'This is my daughter, ' he says; 'is she not all and more thanall that I told you?' "Then, having always found her, no doubt, a good and obedient child, hetells her at once that the captain is to stay with them, and that heexpects her to be his wife. Some girls do not like to be ordered tomarry even the men they love; but she is so true and simple and kindthat she means to love the captain with all her heart, and even herfather's wish that she shall do so cannot change her. The father thinksvery wisely that they will get on better without him, so he leavesthem, and they do get on better at once. First they gaze for a longtime into each other's eyes, those deep, piercing, sad eyes of thecaptain, and those true, soft, young eyes of the master's daughter. Then he thinks that her face is not strange to him, as he remembers, dimly at first and then more clearly, that he has seen this face indreams many times, when it was the face of an angel who was to save himfrom his long weariness. And the dreams were not far wrong, for shelooks into his eyes with no thought for herself, but only: 'This is onewho has suffered for many years and must suffer for many years more, unless I love him and save him. ' "He asks her if she can give herself wholly to him, and she answersthat, whatever his fate may be and whatever hers, she will take it alland will be all his own forever. 'If you knew what it would cost you tobe true to me, ' he says, 'you would shrink away from me and try to saveyourself. ' 'Never, ' she answers; 'let it cost what it will, I will betrue to you till death. ' "I see the shore and the sea again. This time it is near the master'shouse, and the two ships are moored not far apart. The red sails arefurled, but on the ship there is the little pale blue flame of aghostly watch-fire. The captain comes out of the house and strides upand down along the shore. All the gladness that he had when we saw himlast is gone--no, not all, but there is doubt and perplexity with itnow. The fact is that the captain has learned something now that henever knew before. All these weary years he has been longing and hopingfor some good woman to love him, but he has never thought much aboutloving any good woman. What right had he to expect anything when hemeant to give nothing? He has never thought of this before, but hethinks of it now. And the reason is that now, when he has found a womanwho loves him and will gladly die for him, he finds too that he lovesher as well; and if he loves her, how can he let her die for him? Sheis so good and unselfish that perhaps it would be a happiness to her todo it, but it is the more to his credit that he does not think of that. "That is why he paces up and down the shore and fights hard withhimself. Only think of it. For all these many years, while other menwere living happy lives and growing old, and their children and theirgrand-children were growing old too, the angry winds and waves havedriven him about and have given him no rest; now this woman could savehim, but his love tells him that he ought to save her instead. Can hesave her and go back again to the rage of the storm and live in itforever, live in it till doomsday? Oh, it is a hard fight, but at lasthe answers yes; all that he has borne so long he can bear still longer. The sea shall swallow his ship and cast it up again, the clouds shallsink down upon it, the winds shall drive it over the whole ocean, butshe shall not die because of him. And it will not be with him quite asit was before; now he will remember through all the hundreds of yearsthat are to come that she loved him once, he will think of her always, and thinking of her he will wait for doomsday. "I see him go on board his ship again; he is calling to his men; theyare hoisting the sails; see the red flame spring up again. The stormcomes again too. Look at the black smoke that is like flying clouds, and hear the wind up there around the chimney. But now out of herfather's house comes the master's daughter. She sees the ship speedingaway, and in an instant she knows all the reason; she knows it becauseshe would have done the same if she had been the captain. Then she runsto a high rock that stands out into the sea; she calls through the loudwind that drowns her voice that she will come to him and will be trueto him till death, and then she leaps from the rock into the rough, raging waves. But look; the waves that very instant are rough andraging no more; the sea is all still; the clouds are gone, and the windis silent. The ship with the blood-red sails is sinking out of sight. See how the red flame dies down and the black hull is breaking topieces. And right where it was I can see the captain and the master'sdaughter rising out of the sea together, with a beautiful light aroundthem, as beautiful as all the colors of our fire can make it. They seemto float along the water, away and away, and I think the good fairiesof the sea must be taking them to Fairyland or to some pleasant island, where they will always live happily together. " The fire blazed up brighter than ever for a minute and then droppeddown again. "Come here to the window, " I said; "see how the fog has allcleared away and has left the moon shining down upon the sea. What abroad track of light it makes from the shore here where it is nearestus, away off to the edge of the sky! How the little flecks and sparklesof light run and dance and chase one another, and how happy and gladthey seem, riding the little ripples of waves in the light of the moon!Are they the sea fairies, dancing and playing together and calming thewater, to bring the sailors safe back to their homes, do you think?" THE LOVE POTION There was a beautiful moon and everybody said it was a pity to have itwasted. So indeed it was, and everybody asked everybody else what weshould do to prevent its being wasted. A few, who had made the bestpossible use of more moons than the rest of us, were in favor of simplysitting on the rocks and looking at the moon and the sea under it. Thatwas really not a bad plan at all. When you sit with somebody beside youand the rest of the party not too near, on a high rock that runs farout into the water, and look at the big white moon and the soft colorsof the sky around it, and then at the stretch of water, unobstructed tothe horizon, with the moon's reflection broken by the waves into amillion dancing sparkles, when you turn and look toward the beach, seeing the black surges rolling swiftly up to the shore and thenbreaking into gleaming foam, but still plunging on, like banks oftumbling snow--then indeed you can think of wonderful things and saywonderful things if you like. But perhaps you may prefer to say nothingat all, and that is a very good and pleasant way too, for at such atime it seems really not quite right to talk unless you can talk inpoetry, and that is not easy to do, no matter how much you may feellike doing it. These people who had made the best of so many moons knew all this, butsome of the others thought that this moon was worthy of a greatereffort and a more deep-laid plan. All the things that are usually doneon moonlight nights were rejected one by one. Then one of those strangepersons who are always noticing things said, not at all as if hethought it had anything to do with the subject, that there was anuncommon quantity of wood scattered along the shore. Then it wasdecided, just because nothing better could be thought of, that thereshould be a bonfire down on the shore, and nothing else, except themoon. So in the forenoon the daily bathing party started for the shorea little earlier than usual, and instead of spending our extra time inlying on our backs with the sun in our eyes, in the hope of gettingsunburned, we spent it in gathering wood for the fire. Picking up driftwood for a bonfire is not very easy work, but therewere so many of us that we soon had two good piles, one for the fire atthe start and one to feed it as it burned. Among the wood there weretwo whole barrels, and one of them had had tar in it, so we were sureof a splendid fire. Then we all went home, and after it was dark we allcame back again. The fire was lighted; the bright-colored flames of thedriftwood played together and grew and streamed up above our heads, crackled and roared and sent up torrents of black smoke mixed withgolden sparks. For a little while nobody was tired of feeding it andwatching it, but by and by we let a few attend to keeping it up, whilethe rest of us made a very little fire among the stones and let itquickly die down to a bed of red embers for toasting marshmallow drops. The man up at the village who keeps the shop with everything in it, andthe post-office, must have a notion that city people live chiefly onmarshmallow drops, that is, if he ever lets himself be troubled by anynotions except those he keeps to sell. After that the most of the people strolled away along the shore. Somesaid they wanted to see how the fire looked from a distance, andothers, I think, were trying to get nearer to the moon. At last thelittle girl and I were left alone. We made cushions of folded coats andshawls, and sat leaning against a big rock, looking at the fire. "We scarcely need the fire to-night, " I said; "if we try a little wecan see pictures through it and all around it, as well as in it. Seethat big, black rock, that stands almost in the edge of the water, likean old castle, built upon the shore. Then look away across the water tothe island over yonder. I see a ship coming from the island toward ourshore; perhaps you do not see it yet. As it gets nearer I can see aknight standing in the bow. He is a big, bold, fine-looking fellow, andhe is all in black armor. The ship reaches the shore and the knight andhis men go toward the castle, where the King lives, while the King andall his court come out to meet him. Some people may tell you, or youmay some time find out for yourself, that this King is a very wickedman, mean, cruel, and treacherous. Perhaps he is, but all I can tellyou is that now he does not seem so to me; on the contrary he seems askind and generous as you could wish. "The knight in the black armor marches proudly up to him and tells himthat he has been sent by his brother, the King of the island over therefrom which he came, to get the tribute which the king here has owed tohim for years, and it must be paid, or else the king or some one of hisknights must fight with him to see whether it shall be paid or not. Theblack knight is such a big man and looks like such a good fighter thatthe men about the King seem to think it would be a pretty good thing topay the tribute and let him go home with it. Not one of them says aword about wanting to fight with him, for a little while; but by andby, when all the rest have had a fair chance, a young man comes forwardand asks the King if he may try. He is as big a man as the black knighthimself, and as handsome and brave looking as any you ever dreamed ofseeing, but he is so young that he cannot have fought many battles, andone would think that he would be afraid to set himself against the bigblack knight, unless one looked at his face, as I do, and saw that hecould not possibly be afraid of anything. " "Is he braver than the one that killed the dragon?" the child asked. "Why, no, I suppose not; nobody could be braver than he, because, youknow, he could not learn what fear meant, and did not even know whetherit was something to feel or something to eat or something to wear, butthis young knight is just as brave as there is any need for anybody tobe, and when he asks the King to let him try to beat the black knight, all the other knights say at once, 'By all means, let him try, ' andthey are really quite eager about it, and almost all of them changetheir minds about giving the tribute. So the King says that he mayfight the battle if he will, and he puts on his armor, which is all ofgreen, and mounts his horse. "The black knight is on his horse too, and they ride far apart and thenface each other and hold their long spears before them, ready for thebattle. All the people stand far off at the sides, the heralds blowtheir trumpets, and the two knights run together with all the speed oftheir horses. The points of their spears are down and they are bothwell aimed, but each catches the other's spear fairly in the middle ofhis shield, and they rush together so hard that there is a great crash, and both the knights and both the horses fall to the ground with aterrible clatter of arms. But the knights are both on their feet againin a moment, and are falling upon each other with their swords, cuttingand slashing and warding and advancing and retreating, till it is hardto tell which is the black knight and which the green, or whether theyare not both black and both green. First one seems to be getting alittle the better of the fight and then the other. The black knight isbetter trained, but the green knight is so much younger and fresherthat he keeps his strength better, and by and by the black knight seesthat he is surely gaining a little. Then he rushes upon the greenknight and fights with all his strength and all his skill, and at lasthe gives him a wound on the shoulder. Then the green knight sees thatif he is ever to do anything in this fight he must do it now, and heuses all his strength and all his skill too, and he brings down such ablow with his sword on the head of the black knight that it cutsthrough the helmet, and the edge of the sword is broken, and withanother clash and clatter of arms the black knight falls to the ground. "The black knight's men run to him and carry him to his ship, and sailaway as quickly as they can toward their island. I can see them all theway, though it is a little dark out there, in spite of the moon, and Ican see everything they do after they get there; I have to, you know, or it would spoil the story. They carry him to the King's castle, andthe Queen and her daughter, who know all about medicines, and even somethings that are stronger than medicines, dress his wound and nurse himand watch him day and night. But it is all of no use; nothing can curethe black knight's wound, and so he dies; but in dressing the wound theprincess has found in it a little piece of steel that was broken fromthe edge of the green knight's sword. "Now you ought to know, before we go any farther, that this princess isprobably altogether the most beautiful princess that you ever heard astory about. " "Oh, that's the way they always are, " said the little girl; "is shebeautifuller than the one that had the fire all round her?" "Perhaps not, but she was not a princess, you know; she was a goddesstill her father kissed her, and then she was nothing at all till herlover came and kissed her, and after that she was a woman, which wasaltogether the best thing she could possibly be. But when we first sawher she was a goddess, and we have a right to expect more of her thanof a princess. So I say again that this is quite the most beautifulprincess that you have ever heard a story about, and you must believeit, if you please, or I shall not tell you any more about her. " "Oh, I believe anything you say, " said the child, "but where is thegreen knight?" "He is still here on the shore, in the King's castle, and his wound isa very bad one too, and after all the doctors have tried to cure it andhave failed, one of them says that it can never be cured at all exceptin the country of the black knight who gave it to him. Now it is notvery safe for the knight to go over to that island, where so manypeople would probably be glad to kill him for killing the black knight, so he disguises himself as much as he can before he goes. And he goesstraight to the King's castle, just as the black knight did, and theQueen and the princess take care of him just as they took care of theblack knight, only this time they have better luck, and in a littlewhile he gets well. "But long before he gets well the princess, who is watching by hisside, sees the sword that he brought lying near by, and having nothingbetter to do, she looks first at the jewels in the hilt and then slowlydraws the sword out of its scabbard to let her eye run along thepolished blade, with its smooth, sharp edge. And then her eye quicklycomes to a break in the smooth, sharp edge, and in an instant shethinks of the splinter of a sword edge that she found in her uncle'swound. At that she quickly drops the sword. Then she gets the splinter, which she has kept, and finds that it just fits the broken place in thesword, so she knows that this knight whom she is nursing and curing ofhis wound is the one who killed her uncle when he was fighting for herfather. For a moment she thinks that she will kill him, and she liftsthe sword above him, but when she sees the helpless look in his eyesshe has not the heart to do it, and she lets the sword fall again. Ifthe truth were told, I think she is already a little in love with him, and if he were any kind of knight except a green one, he would be inlove with her too. "If he only would fall in love now it might save a good deal of troubleafterwards, but because of his habit of wearing green clothes and greenarmor, or for some other reason, he does not, and when his wound isquite cured he sails cheerfully away again, just as if it were aneveryday affair to be nursed by a queen and a princess. He sails backhere to our own shore now, to the King's castle, and the King andeverybody else are as glad as possible to see him. He tells them allabout the Queen and the princess, and how beautiful she is, for itseems he did notice that, till by and by, when the knights of the courtfind that he is talking about her only in the way he would talk about apicture that pleased him, they whisper to the King that such aprincess, who is so beautiful, and knows so much about curing wounds, would no doubt make a good queen, and they advise him to send for herand marry her. The green knight himself hears these whispers, and hesays, 'Yes, by all means; I will go and get her; she will be glad tocome, and her father and mother will be delighted to have her. ' Did youever hear of such absurd conduct from a young man dressed in green? "Away he sails again, over to the island, and when he tells his errandthe King and the Queen are delighted indeed. The princess is not somuch delighted as some young women might be at the prospect of beingmarried to a king, but she pretends to be very well pleased and saysthat she will go. This time it is she who makes a sad mistake, for ifshe would only say, right out aloud, 'I do not want to be married tothis King; I want to be married to the green knight, ' again it mightsave a good deal of trouble afterwards. She need not say it to him, butshe might say it to her mother, and if he did not love her the Queenwould know very well how to make him, as you shall see by and by. Still, if there were no trouble there would be no story, so we mightbetter not complain, as long as the trouble will not be ours. So theprincess sails away with the knight, and the Queen, before she goes, like a careful mother, gives her a little box of medicines such as sheuses herself. That is to say, medicines and other things. One of theother things is a poison that kills anybody who drinks it, in justabout a minute, and it looks and tastes just like wine. Another is astranger mixture yet, for when a man and a woman drink it together itmakes them, from that instant, love each other as long as they live, more than they love life or honor or their country or anything oranybody else in the world. And this, too, looks and tastes just likewine. It would not be easy to find two more dangerous drinks than thesetogether. "I see the knight and the princess now on board the ship, coming hereto our shore. The knight stands near the helmsman, looking away at thesea and the sky, and thinking of nothing more sensible than how gladhis King will be when he sees his bride, and how much his King willthank him for finding for him and bringing to him such a lovelyprincess. But the princess, who is sitting far away from him, at theother end of the ship, is thinking a great deal, and of such bitterthings that she does not look at the beautiful sea and sky at all. Theend of half her thoughts is that in a very little while now she willhave to be the wife of a king whom she has never seen and never wantsto see, because she loves the green knight, and the end of the otherhalf of her thoughts is that she hates the knight who has brought herto this, as she could never in the world hate anybody except one whomshe loved. "And this is how her thoughts come, for you know I can see thoughtsjust as plainly as I can see castles and ships and battles: she thinksof her uncle, whom she loved, who fought for her father and for hercountry, who was wounded, and whose life she could not save; she thinksof the unknown knight who came to her, wounded too, whom she nursed anddid save; she thinks how she began to love him, for the most of us lovebetter those whom we help than those who help us; she thinks of thattime when she saw his sword and knew that it was he who had killed heruncle, how her anger rose against him for that and because he had daredto come to her for help, how she had been about to kill him, and howshe saw that helpless look in his eyes and had not the heart to do it. It is now that her thoughts grow bitter, for she thinks how he wentaway again and never dreamed of loving her for healing his wound andsaving his life, and then sparing his life and loving him, when sheought to hate him and kill him, because he killed her uncle. She isbeautiful enough to be loved, she thinks. Then comes a maddeningthought of how this man whom she loved not only cared no more for herthan for one of her father's dogs, but himself came back to ask herhand for another. This seems an insult to her and it makes her wholesoul burn. She wishes she had killed him when she had his sword in herhands, and the madness fills her mind and burns her soul till sheresolves that she will kill him now. "She not only thinks all this but says it to her maid, and she ordersher to take the poison out of the box of medicines that her mother gaveher, and put it into a goblet, and she says that the knight shall drinksome of it and that she will drink the rest herself, and so punish herenemy and be rid of the King who is to be her husband, for she willgladly die rather than be married to him. Of course this throws thepoor maid into a terrible fright, for she is not a princess, andpoisoning and cutting off heads, and such things seem like seriousmatters to her, so she would gladly save the knight and her mistresstoo, if she could. If you were in her place I know very well what youwould do. You would give the princess some wine instead of the poison, and before she could find out what you had done, she and the knightwould be on shore and would be saved. But this poor girl is sofrightened that she can think of nothing to do but to give her mistressand the knight the love drink instead of the poison. "The princess calls the knight to her and frowns upon him as dreadfullyas she knows how. Can you think how a bunch of sweet, fresh, red andwhite roses would look if it should get terribly angry? Well, that isabout the way the princess frowns. But it is not her fault. She was notmade to frown. She tells the knight that he has been very cruel andvery untrue to her, and that she ought to have killed him for killingher uncle; but now she says she will forgive him, and to show that theyare friends she asks him to drink this wine with her. And now you maysee how brave this green knight really is, for he sees well enough thatshe does not forgive him at all and means to kill him; yet he takes thegoblet from her hand without a tremor of his own and drinks. Then shesnatches the goblet from him and drinks the rest herself, and cries, 'Now we shall both die; I have my revenge upon you, and you shall notmarry me to your King!' "But, oh, it is the drink of love, and instead of dying the two standand gaze at each other as if they could never gaze enough, then theystretch their arms toward each other, and so they meet, and now, whatever happens to either of them, they must always love each other aslong as they live, more than they love life or honor or their countryor anything or anybody else in the world. "How they ever get on shore I don't know, but I do know that when theyare there they make another great mistake, for they hide from the Kingthat they love each other, and they let him think still that theprincess means to be married to him, when I am sure she can meannothing of the kind. He is a very good sort of King, who wantseverybody to be as happy as possible, and he never has seen thisprincess before, so what can he really care for her? If they would onlytell him I am sure he would be glad to help them, instead of standingin their way, but they are just as foolish as they have both been allalong, and they say nothing about it. "The princess is in the garden of the castle with her maid and they arewaiting for the knight to come. The King and all his men have ridden a-hunting. It is night, and a torch burns at the castle door; at last wecan see something in the fire. The knight will not come till they putout the torch, for that is the signal they have arranged, and they willnot put out the torch till the hunting party is far away. You see theyare still so absurdly secret about it! The maid tells the princess thatshe might better not put out the torch at all, for a treacherous friendof the knight has watched them, suspects their love, and has told theKing; that the hunting party is only a trap, and that the King willsoon come back. If it were a real hunt it would be strange for thegreen knight himself not to go, for he is the best huntsman in thewhole country. All this is quite true; for the King, kind and generousas he is, does not like to be deceived any better than anybody else, and he wants people to keep the promises that they make to him. "But the princess is in such haste to see the green knight again thatshe will not heed the maid's warning. She sends her up to the tower towatch, as soon as she thinks the hunters are far enough away, and thenshe throws the torch down upon the ground and puts it out. Then thegreen knight comes. But they have scarcely sat down on the grassy bankto tell each other how much they love each other, and to forget allabout the poor King, when the maid cries out from the tower that thehuntsmen are coming back, the knight's old servant comes running withhis sword drawn to his master and begs him to save himself, and in aminute they all come, the treacherous friend of the green knightleading the way, and the King next after him. The knight is standingbefore the princess, not thinking of himself, and the traitor, whocould never match him for a moment in a fair fight, rushes upon him andwounds him, but before he can do more the King himself holds him back. The old servant raises the knight from the ground where he has fallen, drags him quickly to the shore and puts him in a ship that is there, and once more they sail away. [Illustration: "AS IF THEY COULD NEVER GAZE ENOUGH. "] "The rock there by the water is no longer the castle of the King. It isthe green knight's castle now, in another country, across the sea. Theold servant has brought the knight here, away from his enemies, to tryto heal his wound. All his care seems useless. The poor knight has allthe time grown worse. But his faithful old servant has remembered whoit was that cured another wound of his before, and he has sent a shipwith secret messengers to bring the princess if they can. That he mayknow as soon as he sees the ship whether the princess is on board, hehas told the sailors to hoist white sails if they bring her with them, and black sails if they do not. He is watching now for the ship to comeback. "It is the court-yard of the castle that I see, and a sweet, calm, lovely picture it is. The knight and his servant have been so long awaythat the place has been neglected, but it is all the prettier for that. The grass has grown long, and, as the light winds breathe upon it, itsways and sinks and rises in waves, as if it tried to be like the seadown there below it. The gray old walls and ramparts of the castle havebright green moss upon them, and from the crannies hang little plantsand vines. High up, where a rough stone projects a little from thetower, a cluster of bluebells swings in the breeze and nods to theother flowers and the grass and the trees down below. Are the bluebellstrying to say to the grass that up there on their airy lookout they cansee away over the shining water, that the ship is not yet in sight, butthat they know she will come? Beyond and away, clear to the edge of thesky, just as it is here before us now, lies the sea. Smooth andpeaceful it is, as if it were resting all through this calm day. Overit all the sun is sending a flood of light, fifty times as bright asthe light of this splendid moon of ours. But now and then it is dimmeda little, for far away on the sea lies a strip of shade, the shadow ofa cloud; slowly it moves toward the land, as the cloud sails throughthe blue sky, and as it comes it is seen plainer and moves faster, tillthe shadow reaches the shore and rests for an instant on the castle andthe court-yard, and then it passes away into the land and everything issunny again. "Yet in all this light and peaceful beauty there is something thatseems like sadness. In the court-yard, on his couch, lies the knight, in the cool shade. He does not know where he is, and he does not knowhis servant, who stands beside him, with the tears in his faithful oldeyes, but he must know that he is in a beautiful place. Does everythingin the place know that he is here, too, and feel sad to see him lyingsick and wounded and weak and weary? The sun veils his face oftenerthan he does on some of our bright days, and when there is no cloud heshines with a soft, mellow light, the sea throws shades of purple overits blue and silver, and its waves break against the shore with only asoft little sound, and a sort of hushed song that is like a moan and islike a lullaby too. You can hear it down there among the pebbles aroundthe rock. The bluebells swing softly, as if they were afraid to ringout aloud and disturb the sleeping knight. The hard walls look softerfor their coverings of moss; the grass waves slowly and bends towardthe wounded man, seeming to listen to his breathing. A shepherd leansover the rampart and plays a soft, sad, sleepy little air on his pipe. 'Is the knight awake?' he calls to the servant. "'No, ' the servant answers, 'and unless the princess comes I fear hewill never wake; watch for the ship. ' "'I will watch, ' the shepherd says, 'and if I see the ship I will playa lively tune on my pipe to tell you of it. ' "The knight begins to wake and stir; he asks where he is, and theservant tells him that he is at his own castle. He has been dreaming ofthe princess, and the servant says, 'I have sent the ship for her; shewill come to-day. ' But the knight is so weak that he cannot understandor talk of one thing very long, and he falls half asleep again anddreams of the princess, and because he has heard of a ship he dreams ofother ships. He has his old wound now and is lying, just as he lieshere, in that ship which bore him the first time toward the princess;now she is with him and his face grows lighter. She is looking at hissword; she raises it again, as she did so long ago, to kill him; butshe sees again the helpless look in his eyes and has not the heart todo it, and she lets the sword fall again. He is on a second ship, sailing toward the princess to bring her for the King's bride; now theship is sailing back and they are together on the deck. She holds outto him that goblet of strange wine; they both drink, they gaze intoeach other's eyes, the dream is too happy to last, and he awakes andcries, 'Has the ship come? Can you not see her yet?' "'Not yet, ' the servant answers; 'but she must come soon. ' "The knight is in the garden of the castle--the other castle--waitingfor the princess to put out the torch, that he may come to her. Thetorch falls upon the ground, he runs toward the place, and they aretogether yet again. It is another happy dream that cannot stay. 'Is theship nowhere in sight?' "Before the servant can answer he hears the merry tune from theshepherd's pipe and knows that the ship is coming now, indeed. He looksaway across the sea and tells his master how swiftly it flies over thewater toward them, with its white sails, for the sails are white andthe princess is on board. The time seems long to the knight and hisservant, yet it is really short, for the wind is fair. The ship comesnearer and nearer, it passes the dangerous reef, it is so near that theservant can see the faces of the princess and the helmsman and thesailors. Now it is at the very shore and the princess is at the gate. Ah, it was not medicines that the knight needed. With the veryknowledge that the princess is there, he raises himself from his couchand walks toward the gate. Then his little strength fails again and hewould fall, but the princess herself catches him in her arms and holdshim. This time it is no dream. "She leads him back to the couch, he sinks upon it, and she bends overhim. But suddenly the shepherd runs to the rampart and cries thatanother ship is coming, the King's ship. Are the King's men coming thento carry back the princess, perhaps to kill the knight? The servantcalls the men of the castle and they try to barricade and guard thegate. But they are too late; the King's men and the King himself breakthrough the barriers and are in the courtyard. The very first of themis the knight's treacherous friend; the old servant instantly cuts himdown with his sword, and there is one good stroke at least. Then theKing calls to all to hold their hands and to strike no more; he hascome only to give the princess to the knight. He has heard of the lovedrink, and knows at last that they were not to blame for what they did, and that they never meant to be false to him. "But still the knight lies there on his couch and the princess kneelsby his side and bends over him, and neither of them speaks or moves. " "And will the knight get well again?" the little girl asked. "Let us not try to find out any more now, " I said. "The knight and theprincess are both here, and I know that they are happier together thanthey have ever been before. That is enough, is it not?" All at once there were voices behind us, three voices at least. "Hello, there! who's attending to the fire? You're letting it all goout, and there's plenty of wood left. " "What are you two doing here all alone? Don't you know you'll catchyour death o' cold sitting here so long?" "Are there any marshmallows left?" "No, " said the little girl, answering the last question, "we don't careabout marshmallows any way, " and I really believe just then she thoughtshe did not care about them, though usually she likes them almost aswell as anybody. THE MINSTREL KNIGHT The little girl stayed at the seashore till the middle of the autumn. That is the way sensible people do, when they can, and I have workedmuch in vain if I have not shown by this time that this little girl isa sensible little person. The spring is very lovely, to be sure, and ofcourse we all love it. I should be the last one to say anything againstit. But to me the most beautiful time of the whole beautiful year isthe early autumn. The heat and the work and the worry of the year areover, and the clear, rich, golden good of it all is left to be enjoyed. The flowers are not pink and pale blue any more; they are of deep, splendid yellow and red and purple. The golden-rod and the asters arelords of flowers, and the cardinal is their high-priest, while if youwill have something that is delicate and modest, there is the fringedgentian, and that shows, too, how healthy and brave and free it is bykeeping no company with dark shadows, and opening only when the brightsun shines full upon it. But of the things that are best in the autumn, the best above allothers is the sea. It has been lying quiet and restful all summer, andnow it awakes and begins to move and to show the strength and thefreedom of its glorious life. As you stand upon the shore and look atit, it draws itself away from you and away from the land as if it weredone with it forever; then it pauses, and in a moment begins to comeback. Up and up the beach it marches with a majestic will that nothingelse in the world is like; as it comes it lifts itself higher andhigher; then the wave leaps into the air and its crest is turned toemerald as the sunlight strikes through it for the pause of anotherinstant, there is a roll, a mad plunge, the spray dashes high aboveyour head, the foam floats and flies up the beach to your very feet, the hollow rumble of the water sounds fainter and farther along thesands, and the ocean draws itself back away from you and away from theland. Its colors are different, too. Before it had all sorts offanciful hues and shades, pale green and blue, silver, violet, almostrose sometimes, the colors of summer dreams. Now the dreaming time isover. The green of the wave-crests is luminous, the white and the bluehave the gleam of polished steel, the violet and the rose are turned todeep, rich purple. The sea is not cold, harsh, and cruel yet, but it isfree, bold, and majestic. All this I knew because I remembered it, not because I saw it, for Ihad been back in the city a long time. The fire was lighted again and Ihad sat before it often, thinking of the driftwood fire away downthere, with the little girl sitting before it, seeing pictures in itfor herself, perhaps, and listening to the low sound of the sea, comingup through the still evening air. But one night she came and sat withme again, and once more we both looked into the same fire. "I believe Ican almost see pictures myself now, " she said. "Can you? And what do you see in the fire now?" "Oh, I can see a prince and a princess--and a knight--and a lovelygoddess, like the one that had the apples--and a cave, like the onewhere the dragon lived--" "And don't you see the dragon himself? Where is he?" "No, there isn't any dragon; that would be too much like the otherstory. " "But you must not mind that. There are only a few good storiesaltogether, and the most we can do, as I told you once before, is totell them over and over again in different ways. " "But I don't want any dragon in this one. Now you tell me what they alldo, the goddess and the knight, and the prince and the princess, andwhat the cave is for. " "Very well, I will try. First I see the knight. He is riding along uponhis horse, through the forests, over the hills and across the valleys. It is a lovely day of summer. When he comes to the top of a hill, hesees the country lying before him and all around him, deep green withwoods and pastures and paler green where the grain is ripening. Hereand there, too, it is sprinkled with tiny dots of red, where thepoppies grow thick in a field, and there are spots that are almost bluewith cornflowers. A silver ribbon of a river winds through it, and thesight of it is lost among the blue mountains. As he rides down into avalley the branches wave above him and break the sunshine that fallsupon the road and the grass beside it. The flecks of light and thepatches of shade tremble and waver and dart across and across the way, as if they were weaving a robe for the earth, of gold and brown andgreen. The air is full of the smell of the flowers, a brook makes asoft, cheery little noise, and from the pastures comes the sleepy soundof sheep-bells. "The knight is riding toward the castle of the prince. He is aminstrel, as well as a knight, and at the castle he will meet otherminstrels who are his friends, and they are all to sing for a prizewhich the prince has offered. There is as much happiness in the heartof the knight as in everything around him, for he loves the prince'sdaughter, and he knows that she loves him. Besides this she is to givethe prize to the one who wins it, and with his mind full of gladnessand thoughts of her, he feels sure that he can win. "As he rides thus the evening falls. The moon comes up, and from thehills the country stretches darkly away all around, with the silverribbon of the river still winding through it. The shade is so deep inthe valleys that he has to ride through them slowly. The robe of theearth now is all of deep gray and silver. The smell of the flowers isstronger and sweeter than before, the brooks sound louder, and thesheep bells are silent. The knight's thoughts just now are wanderingaway from the princess, and he is thinking of the fame that he hopes towin as a minstrel, how he will gain this prize and many other prizes, how kings will send for him to come to their courts, that they may hearhis songs, how he will grow great and rich, and how his name will liveon after he is dead. "As he thinks of these things, suddenly he sees a strange form beforehim in the valley. It is like a woman, wonderfully beautiful, marvellously, magically beautiful. Something more than the moonlightseems to rest upon her and to show him her face with its deep eyes andsoft cheeks, her movements, so graceful and gentle that it seems as ifshe did not move herself at all, but were just stirred and swayed bythe little breezes. A rosy light shines from her face and around herdark hair. All about her are nymphs, or fairies, dancing and glidingand scattering roses for her to walk upon. It seems really quiteneedless to do that, for she appears rather to float and move in theair and to rest on the flower-perfumed wind than to stand or walk uponthe ground. Now a knight who was also a minstrel could not possiblymake any mistake about such a person as this, and he knows at once thatshe is the very Goddess of Love and Beauty. " "Is she the one that had the apples?" the little girl asked. "No, not quite the same. She is one something like her, yet a good dealdifferent. " "Is she Venus then?" "Yes, you have guessed just right, and so at last somebody in our storyhas a name. But she is not altogether like the Venus that you haveheard about so many times before. Some people used to believe thatafter the old gods whom you know so well had lost their rule on MountOlympus, they went to live inside the mountains and under the ground, and that they were not kind to men any more, but always did harm, whenever they were able to do anything. Now, for myself, I don't quitesee how this could be, because you know we have felt so sure that wesaw some of them up in the sky sometimes. Yet now that I see Venushere, it does seem to me as if there were something in the story afterall, and I believe it would be better for the knight if he had neverseen her at all. If he were thinking of the princess at the time I donot believe he would look twice at Venus. No, I am sure he would noteven see her once. "But since he is not thinking of the princess, but only of what a greatman he would be if he could make his songs seem as wonderful toeverybody else as they seem to himself, it is not surprising that he isdelighted by such a vision, and it is not surprising, either, when thegoddess and her nymphs beckon to him and then glide away as if theywanted him to follow them, that he gets off his horse and does followthem. They move along so fast that he cannot keep up with them, andsoon he cannot even see them, but it is still easy for him to follow. For everywhere they go the strangest flowers spring up under their feetand make a pathway to lead him. They are huge, bright flowers, cup-shaped and star-shaped and sun-shaped. Flowers of such wonderful formand size, and such gorgeous colors the knight never saw before. Some ofthem seem to be made of hammered gold, and some of silver; some havestamens of precious stones, and some look like clear crystal, blood-red, deep purple, or orange, as if they were cut from solid gems; someof them have petals like flames, that shimmer and glow and arereflected by the others; the leaves are all glistening emerald and theyare sprinkled with pearls like drops of evening dew. The stems twineabout like serpents, and they seem to the knight to move and turn aboutto show him all their magic splendor. Some of them, with coilingtendrils, like gold wire, sway toward him as if they would catch himand hold him, others dance and wave about on their stems and twinkle asthe other stars do, up above the trees, as if they were laughing andmocking at him, and still others bow and bend away from him and beckonhim on. The whole of the fire is scarcely enough to show me thisstrange garden. A pale, ghostly light rises from all the flowers andhovers over the path. The knight would stop to pick some of them, butthose before him seem always more beautiful than those close at hand, and, besides, he is eager to follow the goddess. So on he hurries tillhe sees before him a way straight into the side of the mountain andwithin a great glare of light. If he would only think of the princessnow, for one instant! But he goes straight on into the mountain, andthe way shuts behind him, and outside the magic flowers are gone, andthere is nothing but the soft grass, the whispering trees, the darksky, with the stars, and the calm night. [Illustration: "THE STRANGEST FLOWERS SPRING UP UNDER THEIR FEET. "] "Do you see how very wrong it is for the knight to go away after thegoddess into the mountain? When people let themselves be led away likethat by fairies and goddesses it is usually a long time before they getback. A knight like this one, who is a minstrel as well, ought to knowall about such things, and I dare say he does. He must have heard ofmen who went to such places and saw beautiful and wonderful sights, andfeasted and danced till they thought that they had been away from theirhomes for a day, or a week, and then, when they went back to them, found that they had really been gone for years, perhaps for hundreds ofyears, and that all their friends were dead. He ought to think of hisfriends, the other knights and minstrels, who will be grieved when theymeet and he is not with them. For his own sake he ought to know betterthan to run into strange and dangerous places just because they lookpleasant. More than all, he ought to think of the princess. If he doesnot care for the prize of his song any more for itself he should carefor her who is to give it. He should remember how much she loves him, little as he deserves it. She will not forget him as he does her. Whenshe waits and waits for him and he does not come she will believe thathe is dead, and she will cry her pretty eyes out. She will never thinkthat he has gone away from her to visit a goddess of love and beautywho lives in a cave. "Now I see the cave of the goddess, deep in the mountain. It seems dimand misty and confused at first, but gradually I can see it clearer. All around the sides and the top are great pendants of gems, likeicicles, of all sorts of colors, as if the precious stones had oncebeen liquid and had run down into the cave and then had frozen intocrystal. Here and there are diamonds and rubies and opals and emeraldsas big as your head, set in the roof, and they have some magical way ofshining all by themselves and light up the whole cave like lamps. Theground is covered with flowers like those that made the path to leadthe knight to the place. A stream of water runs from the cave and isfed by fountains in the middle. These fountains are wonderful affairstoo. Sometimes they throw jets of liquid silver almost to the roof;then they fall down and spread out wide in sheets, of the color and thebrightness of melted gold; again the water rises in little streams thattwine and weave themselves together like basket-work, and all of deep, shining crimson; then the fountains take other fantastic forms andother colors, purple or green or orange, but always glowing with light, and so they pass to silver and to gold again. "This is the cave of Venus. It is filled with the nymphs who attendher, and they are singing choruses in her praise, and dancingwonderful, mazy, mad, delirious dances. They whirl about and aroundalone, in couples, in lines, in circles, and in crowds, their armswaving and their hair streaming in the air. Sometimes while they danceevery one is plainly to be seen, and again their garments surround themlike clouds, and they are all one waving, streaming, fluttering mass. These mists of light robes then are like the fountains, for now theyare shining white, now red or yellow or green or purple, now all thecolors together, mixed and blended like broken and tangled rainbows. "If you could see all that I see here in the fire I think you would bedelighted with it, for a little while. But how do you suppose theminstrel knight likes it? He sits beside the goddess and looks at itwearily. He has seen them all so much that walls of gems and streams ofgold and whirling rainbows do not please him any more. He has been herein the cave for a whole year. He sees now how wrong it was for him tocome, and he is so tired of it all that he is beginning to feel that hewould rather die than be among these mad pleasures any longer. But hecannot do that because nobody ever dies here. When he sees these wallsof cold crystal, gleaming with the colored light from the great gems, he thinks of the broad, lovely country that he once saw, that stretchedaway and ended only at the blue mountains, and of the silver river thatnever changed to blood, or to green fire, with the clear sunlightbrightening them all. "If he tries to rest his eyes upon the great, glowing, magic flowersthat cover the ground, they only make him think of the red poppies thatshone out from the fields of ripening grain, and of the blue of thecorn-flowers, and then he tries to think of the perfume from theflowers that filled the air after it grew still at evening. There areodors here, too, but they are so heavy and sweet that after a time itis almost a pain to smell them. He hears the rush and the dash of thefountains, and he longs for the low, merry little sound of the brookthat ran along beside his road. The air here is full of music, the richharmonies of many instruments and the voices of the nymphs who singtheir choruses to Venus, but his ears are tired of the sounds, and hewishes that he might hear only the sleepy tinkle of the sheep-bells, chiming with the voice of the brook. But more than everything else hethinks of the princess. He remembers now how kind and true she was, andhow much truer he ought to have been in return than he really was. Hewonders if she still remembers him, if she thinks him dead, and thenhis heart stops, as he wonders if she herself is dead. Oh, it is a finetime now to think of these things! If he had only remembered theprincess once before, instead of thinking what a great minstrel he was, he would never have followed Venus into her cave. Now he can only thinkof that great wrong he did and long for the fresh fields and woods, forthe air, the sunlight--and the princess. "Venus, sitting by his side, sees that he is troubled and asks him why. He tells her how much he wishes that he might see again the world heused to know, and live the life he used to live, and he begs her to lethim go. She is angry at first. Has she not brought him to live hereamong such delights as no man before ever knew, and is he tired of themnow, and does he want to escape from them? He can only say that he willnever forget her or the beautiful things he has seen here, but he cannever be happy here again, and if she will only let him he must go. Atlast she tells him that he may go. 'But you will not be happy, ' shesays; 'your old friends will scorn you when they know where you havebeen. They will never forgive you for coming here. You will find norest, no help, no hope. Then, when you learn that you can have peacenowhere else, come back to me and stay with me forever. ' "All at once the cave, with everything in it, is gone. The knight knowshow or where it went no more than I. As for him, he does not know thathe has moved from his place, and as for me, the fire is burning just asit did before. Yet now I see him lying on the soft grass of a beautifulvalley. Above him are the sky and the nodding branches of the trees;around are the hills. He sees and he smells the flowers that were lostto him so long. The low tinkle of the sheep-bells comes again drowsilyto his ears. A little way up the hill a shepherd is playing softly onhis pipe. He picks a flower and smells it, to be sure that it is allreal. Then the tears come to his eyes as he thinks of all the beautyand sweetness of the life that he lost and has found again. "But now a band of pious pilgrims passes, on the way to Rome. They aregoing to ask the Pope to forgive their sins. The sight of them brings anew thought to the knight. It is the thought of his own sin. Now thathe sees again the sweet loveliness of the world, he feels at last fullyhow wicked it was for him to leave it and all his own duties and hisfriends in it. He is in despair when he thinks that he is no longerworthy of the princess, if indeed he ever were. He dares not see heragain; he dares not ask his friends to be his friends longer; he throwshimself upon the ground and feels that he has no more a place in thishappy world. "At this very moment comes a company of huntsmen riding past. Theirleader is the prince himself and the rest are the friends of theminstrel knight, the very ones with whom he should have sung for theprize a year ago. Very glad they are to find him, after thinking himdead so long, and they insist that he must come with them and be one ofthem again. He will not go with them. He feels that he is not like themany more. His wrong has been so great that he dares not be with brave, good men. They urge him, but it is useless. But there is one amongthem, a knight and a minstrel too, who also loves the princess. Shedoes not love him, but his own love is so deep and true that he will doanything to make her happy. When he finds that nothing else can movethe stubborn knight he tells him that the princess still loves him, that she has grieved for him all the time that he has been lost, andthat he must come back to them for her sake. He is touched at last. Hehad not dared to ask of her, and now he knows that he may see heragain, that she could never forget like him, that she will love him andforgive him. He cannot resist. He will go. "They are all in the hall of the prince's castle now. They are to singagain for a prize and again the princess is to give it. The princetells them that they must all sing of love. The knight who loves theprincess hopelessly begins. He sings of his own love, how it is fixedupon one who does not love him in return, and how still his love forher is all the joy he has, and he would gladly lose the last blood ofhis heart for her. They all cry out that he has sung nobly, except theknight from the cave of Venus. He thinks this is a very weak, sillykind of love; he sings in a very different way, and he tells them thatif they want to know what love really is they must go and learn of theGoddess of Love. "They are all filled with horror. They know now where he has been. Hehas left the princess for Venus; he has learned to scorn their knightlylove; worse than all, it seems to them, he, a Christian man, has passeda whole year in the home of a heathen goddess. They declare that he hasbetrayed them in daring to come among them like an honest knight. Theyforget that he refused to come, that he told them he was unworthy ofthem and was too wicked to be one of them, and they almost compelledhim. So their swords are out to kill him. But the princess, whom he hasinjured a thousand times as much as all of them put together, commandsthem to spare him. He may yet be forgiven, she says, and it is not forthem to judge. She will pray for him as long as she lives, and God maypardon him. At her word they draw back and put up their swords, yetthey think his guilt too great ever to be forgiven. There can be butone only hope for him, says the prince; some of the pilgrims on theirway to Rome are still in the valley; he must go with them and pray forpardon from the Pope. "Never another pilgrim toiled along the road to Rome feeling such aheavy weight of sin to be forgiven as the minstrel knight. He does nottalk with the others or lighten the way as they do with holy songs. Heknows not how to suffer enough for his guilt, and to seek outpunishments for himself is his only content. Some of the pilgrims walkwhere the grass is soft and cool; he chooses the paths that are full ofstones and thorns. They drink at the springs of cold water; he thirstsmore than they, but he turns away and lets the noon sun blaze down uponhis bare head. They find shelter and rest for the night; he lies uponthe snow of the mountain and sleeps there, if he sleeps at all. When hecomes near to Italy he fears that the sight of that lovely land will bepleasing to his eyes, and so he has himself led blindfold on to Rome. "The Pope sits upon his throne, and before him come all who seek forpardon. He forgives them, blesses them, and sends them away. At lastcomes the minstrel knight. He throws himself on the stones before thefeet of the Pope and tells the story of all the wrong that he has done. The Pope listens and is filled with horror, as the prince and theknights were before, and there is no princess here to say one word oflove or mercy. 'There is no hope for you, ' he answers, 'no pardon, nohope. Your guilt is too deep and black. As soon shall this naked staffI hold bear flowers and leaves as one like you find forgiveness ormercy. ' "And so the minstrel knight shrinks away. He knows not where to turn. All places are alike to him, alike full of darkness and despair. Thepilgrims are returning home. He follows them, as a dog that had beenstruck and wounded might crawl after men who had been his friends. "I see the beautiful valley again. The princess is kneeling before alittle cross. She is praying that the knight whom she loves may beforgiven. Back in the rising shadows of the evening stands the knightwho loves her hopelessly, watching her as she prays. The pilgrims arecoming from Rome. They are singing songs of mercy and peace. Theprincess looks eagerly among them. The minstrel knight is not there. 'He will never come back, ' she sighs, and she turns away and slowlyclimbs the hill toward her father's castle, where she may pray for himagain. "And now a dark figure comes slowly, fearfully on, by the way that thepilgrims have passed. He sees his friend, standing where he stood whilethe princess prayed. He calls to him to stand back; he is too guiltyfor any good man to touch or come near him. He tells him how he went toRome and what the Pope said. Then he tells the awful thought that isnow in his mind. The Goddess of Love and Beauty bade him when all hopeshould be lost to come to her again and stay with her forever. He isseeking her mountain now. He calls to her to guide him. Now at the veryback of the fire I see a rising red glow. The goddess is there and shecalls to him to hasten to her. 'You are mad, ' cries his friend; 'stay;be brave; bear it all, and you may yet be forgiven. ' "Suddenly there comes to the knight another thought--the best thoughthe has ever had--the princess. Instantly the red glow is gone and thegoddess is hidden from him forever. His friend knows his thought. 'Sheis up there, ' he says, 'praying for you still. ' "At last the knight is humbled, overcome, subdued. He falls upon hisface and prays for pardon, as the princess is praying for him up therein the castle. And now all at once there is a glad shout, a song ofhappiness and peace. Another band of pilgrims has come from Rome. Theyare bringing the staff of the Pope, and all in a night it has borneflowers and leaves. The smell of lilies fills the air. They arecarrying the staff through the land to tell the knight and all othermen like him, if, indeed, there are others, that they are forgiven. Theminstrel knight has found pardon and he may rest. " "And what became of the princess?" the little girl asked. "The fire is too low, " I said; "I cannot see any more. What do youthink became of her?" "I don't know, " she answered, "but I think she must be very happy thatthe knight is forgiven. " "I think they are both very happy, " I said. THE KING OF THE GRAIL It was the last evening of the year. In honor of the occasion thelittle girl was allowed to sit up rather later than usual--not tillmidnight, of course, so that she could see how different the wholeworld would look after the clock had struck, but long enough to makeher feel that she was doing something very pleasant, because somethingthat it was not good for her to do very often. Our friends down by thesea had sent us a strange Christmas present, but they knew what wewanted. It was a big box of driftwood, almost a wagon-load. We resolvedthat it should not be used except on great occasions, and of course NewYear's eve was a great occasion. Here in the city we could not listenin the evening stillness and catch the low murmur of the restlesswater, but the fire burned with the same strange and lovely colors asif it had been kindled on the beach. Tonight it was not likely that weshould see any storms or any ghostly ships, yet the little girl knewwell enough that there were wonderful things to be seen in that fire. "What can you see in it?" I asked her. "I don't want to see things myself, " she said. "I want you to see them. Just think; this is the last time we can have any stories about thefire this year. " "But the new year will begin to-morrow, " I said, "and it will be justas good as the old one, will it not?" "Oh, yes, I suppose so, " she said, "but this has been such a nice yearthat I don't like to have it go. But now tell me what is in the fire. " "There are so many strange things in it that I scarcely know how tobegin to tell you about them. I am very much afraid that I shall notmake you understand all that I see in the fire to-night, and I am themore afraid of it because I am not at all sure that I can quiteunderstand it all myself. But first the reddest and brightest spot inthe whole fire begins to grow redder and brighter and to take a newshape. It is the shape of a goblet. It is of clear crystal and itssharp angles and edges sparkle with many colors, but within it thatstrange, deep red glows and shines and grows brighter still, till itbeats and throbs as if it were alive. And all around it, too, there isa circle of soft rays of light, like a halo. "Perhaps you know what this is, but I am afraid you don't Do youremember what I told you once about the Holy Grail? This is the HolyGrail--the cup from which the Saviour drank at the Last Supper, and inwhich afterwards His blood was caught as He hung upon the cross. It isthat blood in the cup which is still alive and glows and beats andthrobs. This Holy Grail, as I told you before, is guarded by a band ofknights in a beautiful temple, which nobody can find except those whomthe Grail itself has chosen and allowed to come. I can see the templenow. It has a high, light, graceful dome, which rests on tall pillarsof marble that is like snow. The whole temple may be of something likesnow, too, for it melts away so that I cannot see it and comes again, then half of it is gone and then the other half, so that I scarcelyknow whether I see it at all. Perhaps it is the smoke of the fire thatmakes it seem so. But I can see that the dome is all covered withfigures and traceries of gold, which bloom out bright like flowerswhenever the whole dome looks plainest, and then fade again. But whenthe smoke comes across the whole picture and darkens it for a moment, then the lines upon the dome show through it like fire, and they changeand waver, and then the whole temple is gone again. "You remember something about the Grail's knights. The Knight of theSwan was one of them. They live here in the temple, except when theyare sent away on some journey, to help some one who is in trouble, todo some act of justice, to fight for the right, or to punish the wrong. And whether they stay here or go as far away as they can, they neverneed any food except what the Grail gives them. The Grail chooses themat first, feeds them afterwards, and gives them their commands, forsometimes, in that halo that shines around it, there appear letters andwords to tell the knights what they should know. And once a year, onGood Friday, a white dove flies into the temple and rests upon the HolyGrail, to give it more of these powers for the coming year. "I see now a strange-looking man with a dark face and deep, bright eyeswhich seem never to rest, but always to look and search for somethingthat they never find. Yet now and then a cruel light comes into themand makes them blaze for an instant, and his hard lips smile a little, and then his face grows stern and gloomy again. He is a wickedmagician. Once he wanted to join the Knights of the Grail. He couldeven be their king, he thought. But the Grail chose its own knights andit did not choose him. Then he swore that he would be avenged upon theGrail knights; he would tempt them away from the temple, he wouldoverthrow them, he would find a way to steal the Grail itself. It wasfor this that he learned his magic. He built an enchanted castle notfar from the Temple of the Grail and filled it with every kind ofpleasure that he could devise. Then he tried to entice good knights tocome to his castle, and if any knight came, if any stayed in theenchanted halls to eat or drink or dance or play, that knight was lostforever. He could go back to his old friends and his old life no more, and his use in the world was ended. "Again I see a woman--a woman yet more strange than this man. You willthink so when I tell you who she is. You remember the wife of the King, whose daughter danced before the King and pleased him so much that hepromised her any gift she should ask; how the Queen told her to ask forthe head of the great prophet, who was in prison, and how the head wascut off and brought to her. This woman whom I see was that Queen. Theold stories say that she saw the Saviour as He passed, bearing Hiscross upon His back, and that she laughed at Him. He only looked at hersorrowfully and spoke no word. But always from that time she was forcedto wander through the world, and laugh at everything that was true andgood. Can you think of anything more horrible? After a long, weary timeshe wished that she might die, but still through all lands shejourneyed, laughing at everything she saw that was sweet and pure andholy. The wish to die grew and grew till it was her only longing. Butshe could not die. For hundreds of years she has lived unchanged. Somesay that she can never die or grow old till the best knight of all theworld shall come and pardon her great sins. Others say that she mustlive till one comes whom she cannot tempt away by her beauty from thepath he follows. "For she is very beautiful. It is not the beauty of a common woman thatshe has, but something far beyond it. She can be tender, sweet, gentle, enticing, and then in an instant proud, defiant, radiant. Perhaps thewicked magician has given her some of this wonderful beauty by hismagic, for she is in his power and helps him to entrap knights into hiscastle, where they lose all hope of returning to the life of the worldand of doing good in it. She does not wish to do this, but the magiciancompels her. So always she must tempt and entice at his command theknights who come near his castle, and always she must long for one tocome whom she cannot tempt, for then she will be free. The knights ofthe Grail are not the men for whom she waits. To tempt them is only tooeasy. Even their King cannot resist her. "I see the King of the Grail now. He holds a spear in his hand that isalmost as great and wonderful a thing as the Grail itself. From thepoint of the spear flows a little stream of blood. It trickles down theshaft of the spear to the King's hand that holds it, but the blood doesnot stain the hand; it flows over it and leaves it clean and white. Itis the very spear with which the Roman soldier wounded the side of theSaviour, and ever since that time the blood has run from its point. Butthe King has wandered too far away from the Temple of the Grail and toonear the magician's enchanted castle. The magician sees him and sendsthe woman to try to bring him within his power. Such wonderful beautyas hers the King has never seen before. For one instant in looking ather he forgets to guard the spear; he lets it go from his hand, themagician seizes it and strikes the King with it in the side. He isborne back to the temple with just such a wound as that other whichthis same spear made so many years ago. And the magician has the spear. As he holds it the blood flows from its point and trickles down theshaft, and as it flows over his hand it stains it a deep, ugly red. Hecarries the spear to his castle. He has stolen this, and now he willwait on and watch for a chance to steal the Grail. "And the wound in the King's side will not heal. All that can be donewith medicines and balsams and ointments is done, but they are of nouse. Many years pass--yes, just while we are looking into the fire--andstill the wound is the same, still it burns and stings, and still itbleeds again whenever the King uncovers the Grail so that it may feedthe knights who are in the temple and help those who are far away. Somewounds, some sicknesses, the Grail itself can cure, but it cannot curethis, or it will not. Yet once, while the King knelt before it, he sawwords that shone like fire in the halo around it, and they said: 'Waitfor the simple Fool, taught by pity, for him I have chosen. ' Perhapsyou do not see quite what that means. Well, I don't think the Kingquite knows what it means either, but he knows that he has something towait for, and that is better than knowing nothing at all about it. Thatwas years ago, and still the wound burns and stings, and still itbleeds when the King uncovers the Grail. "When we look into the fire we can go back through the years just aswell as forward. So now, going back for a little while and far awayfrom the Temple of the Grail, I see something very different from whatwe have seen before. I see a boy who lives with his mother in a forest. His father was a knight and was killed in battle. His mother fearedthat when he grew up he would want to be a knight too, and would bekilled in the same way, so she brought him here to the forest and kepthim away from the great world where men live and work and fight, andnever let him know anything about knights or battles or tournaments orthe courts of kings. She lets him learn to shoot with a bow as he growsup, and to hunt the beasts of the woods. He can hit any bird that flieswith his arrows, and he runs so fast that he can catch the deer by thehorns. "Yet he does not know that men wear armor and fight with spears andswords, and he has never heard of an army or a battle. Perhaps he maybe almost enough of a simple fool about these things to help the Kingof the Grail. " "I don't think he was a fool at all, " said the little girl, "if hismother wouldn't let him hear anything about such things. " "I think, " I answered, "that the letters around the Grail could nothave meant quite what we mean by a fool. The Grail would not choose anysuch person, I am sure. They must have meant some one who was good andsimple and had not learned the ways of the world. And then you know theletters said, 'taught by pity, ' so I suppose he is to be a fool at allonly till he is 'taught by pity. ' Well, the mother might have knownthat she could not keep her boy in this ignorance forever, and so oneday he meets three knights riding through the forest. He is filled withwonder and delight at their polished armor, their waving plumes, andtheir long spears, with their glittering points. He asks them who theyare and what all these wonderful things are for. They tell him thatthey are knights, and everything else that he wants to know, and thenhe runs home to his mother and tells her that he wants to go away andsee the world and be a knight too. "She tries to tell him that knights are wicked men, but he will notbelieve it, and he begs her to let him go. She sees that she cannotkeep him, that all her care has been lost, and at last she says that hemay go. He has no armor, but perhaps he may get that some time. Hetakes his bow and his arrows and wanders away through the forest, andhis mother looks after him till she can see no more through her tears. "We are back near the Temple of the Grail now. I see a beautiful, deepforest. An old knight and two young squires are lying on a green bankand are just awaking at the sound of trumpets from the temple. They arescarcely awake when a strange creature is seen coming toward them. Itis a woman upon a galloping horse. And the horse is strange enough too. Its mane is so long that it drags upon the ground, and then the windcatches it and blows it about till the horse looks like a hurryingblack cloud, and its eyes show through the cloud like flashes oflightning. The woman's eyes sometimes are deep and full of fire, andsometimes they look dull and cold, almost dead. She is not beautiful. She has a dark face, burned as if she had travelled much under hotsuns. Her long black hair is in disorder and flies all about her in thewind. Her dress is in disorder too, and it is fastened around the waistby a girdle of snake skin, with long ends that hang down to the ground. Everything about her looks wild and terrible. She is a woman whom youwould not care to meet on a lonely road after dark and on a horse likethis. Yet if you looked at her face more closely you would not findanything cruel in it, but you would find a great deal of sorrow andsuffering. "You can never guess who this woman is, so I must tell you. She is thevery same who helps the wicked magician to entice knights into hiscastle. She looks very different now, to be sure, but it is a strangelife that she leads altogether. It is only when she is asleep that themagician has power over her. When she is awake she tries to atone alittle for her great sins by serving the Holy Grail. She rides all overthe world and brings news of battles or messages from knights of theGrail who are in distant countries, or she stays here and finds work todo at home. But always, because of her curse, she laughs, even at thegood that she herself tries to do. And at last the longing for restcomes upon her again till she cannot resist it. She sinks to sleep, andthen the magician calls her. She is forced to obey him, he gives herback that wonderful beauty, and she helps him in his wicked work. "Now she has been all the way to Arabia to find a balsam for the King'swound. She gives it to the old knight, in a little flask, and thenthrows herself upon the ground to rest. At the same time there comes atrain of knights, bearing the King of the Grail in a litter toward thelake for his morning bath. He thanks the woman for bringing the balsam, but she only laughs at what she has done and at his thanks. It will dohim no good, she says. Alas, he knows too well that it will do himnone. Nobody can do him good but the simple Fool, taught by pity. Andso they carry him on to his bath. "The old knight stays behind. 'Why should we try all these things, ' hethinks again, 'when none can help him but the simple Fool?' At thisinstant a swan flies up from the lake and then suddenly flutters andfalls upon the ground. There is an arrow through its heart. Everybodywho sees it cries out in horror, for it is one of the laws of thisplace that no animal shall be harmed. What man cruel enough to killthis beautiful, harmless swan can have found his way here, where nonecan come who is not chosen by the Grail? In a moment some squires runin, bringing the murderer of the swan. He is scarcely a man at all, hardly more than a boy, and he carries a bow and arrow. It is the sameboy whom we saw living in the woods with his mother. The old knightlooks at him sorrowfully. 'Did you kill this poor bird?' he asks. "'Yes, to be sure, ' says the young man, ' I can hit anything. ' "The old knight talks with him kindly and tells him how wrong it is tokill harmless things. His mother never taught him that. She only triedto keep him from knowing anything about knights. The old man makes himsee how cruel he has been, and at last the boy throws away his arrowsand breaks his bow. Now the knight asks him who he is, whence he comes, and who was his father, but he can answer nothing. Indeed, he knowslittle enough of these things, for his mother never told him. Hismother and the life that he led with her in the forest are all that hecan remember to tell the old knight. Even of his mother and of his oldlife the strange woman who lies upon the grass can tell more than he, for she has seen him and his mother often, though they did not see her, and she laughs at the poor woman who thought she could keep her sonfrom ever knowing anything of arms and battles. She tells him, too, that his mother is dead; she saw her die as she passed, because he hadleft her. The boy is moved at last, frightened, bewildered. He neverknew anybody but his mother; she was his only friend; she taught himall he ever learned; and she is dead because of him. What shall he donow? "The King and his train come back again from the lake and pass ontoward the temple. The woman feels the terrible weariness coming uponher again. She struggles against it, but it is of no use. She sinksupon the ground behind the low bushes and sleeps. The magician can haveher now if he wants her, and surely he will want her. "The old knight has been watching the boy. 'Can it be, ' he thinks, 'that this is the Fool, taught by pity, for whom we were to wait?' Thathe is a fool the old man thinks is clear enough, but how could he killthe swan? He cannot have been taught very much by pity. But perhaps thetime for that has not come yet, and surely he could not get here at allif the Grail had not chosen him in some way. Perhaps if he sees theKing, so pale and sick with his wound, and knows how he has sufferedwith it these many years, he may be moved to pity and may learn someneedful things. So the old knight leads him gently away toward theTemple of the Grail. "They walk through the forest and among the rocks, and as they go therecomes to them a sound of chimes. It grows clearer as they go on, tillthey reach the temple, and then it is over their heads. They are in agrand, beautiful hall that is something like a church, but not quite. There are tall pillars and arches, and high above everything is thedome, so high that, as one looks up into it, its loftiest curves seemdim and misty and the eye loses itself in trying to see how high it is. Yet all the light of the great hall streams down from there, and downfrom there too comes the sound of the bells. "The knights of the Grail are coming into the hall and sitting at twotables, long and curved, so that they make a great circle just underthe dome. On the tables before them are cups, but nothing else. As theknights come they sing in chorus, and voices up in the dome and othersstill higher answer their song, while from the height far above themall still rings the soft voice of the chimes. And now the King of theGrail is borne in upon his couch and is brought to the highest place inthe hall. Before him something is carried covered with purple cloth. Itis the Holy Grail itself, and the time has come when it must beuncovered, that it may feed and strengthen its knights. "But the King fears. It is when the Grail is uncovered and when it doesso much good to all the others, that his wound always bleeds again andthe pain of it is most terrible. Perhaps you think he is not very braveto delay what he knows he must do, but only think of that dreadfulwound that can never be cured but by the one who is so long in coming;yes, think of the slow, weary years that he has waited for the simpleFool, and you will not wonder that it is a terrible thing to him touncover the Grail again. But the voices up in the dome still sing thepromise: 'Wait for the simple Fool, taught by pity, for him I havechosen. ' The knights gently bid their King do his duty. He makes a signto the boys who have brought the Grail. They uncover it and place it inhis hand. Everything else in the hall grows dim, while one clear ray oflight falls from the dome straight upon the Grail, and the red bloodthat is in it shines through the crystal of the goblet as if it were alight itself. "A feeling of peace and gladness comes upon all, even upon the King. But now the Grail grows dimmer. The boys cover it again and the oldlight comes slowly back into the hall. All the cups on the tables arefilled with wine, and beside each one is a piece of bread. It is thusthat the Holy Grail feeds its knights. But the King does not eat, andsuddenly he grows paler and presses his hand to his side. His wound isbleeding again and his squires quickly carry him away. The knightsleave the hall too. The old knight is still watching the boy. If he isthe Fool that was promised, if he is to be taught by pity, surely hemust pity the poor King and he will ask something about him, why hesuffers so, or what is his wound. But the old knight waits and the boysays nothing. 'Do you know what you have seen?' the knight asks. Theboy only shakes his head. Then he has not been moved at all; he doesnot pity. 'Begone, ' says the knight, 'you are good for nothing, ' and hesends him away and is alone. And still from the dome, far up and out ofsight, comes the chiming of the bells. If the old man could hear itright, surely it would say to him again: 'Wait for the simple Fool, taught by pity, for him I have chosen. ' "The Temple of the Grail is gone now. We are in the castle of thewicked magician. He has been thinking too of the young man--the boy--the Fool, who was at the Temple of the Grail, and he knows more abouthim than the poor old knight. He knows that if he is ever to steal theHoly Grail, as he so long has hoped to do, he must get this Fool intohis power, of all people in the world. He has a magic mirror in whichhe can see him. He sees that he has left the Temple of the Grail and iscoming nearer his own castle. "Now he needs the help of the woman, the woman who is sleeping andcannot resist him. He lights a magic fire, right there where you seethat blue flame in our own fire, he speaks magic words, and the womanrises out of the very blue flame itself, and stands before him. But howdifferent she is from that woman we saw among the Grail knights! Shehad no beauty then. Now it is radiant, burning, blinding. All thatmight make the beauty of a hundred women--the pride, the tenderness, the stateliness, the modesty, the fierceness, the gentleness, therounded form, the glowing color, the waves of hair, the deep eyes, nowflashing and fiery, and now soft and dewy--are hers. The magiciansmiles as he sees her. With her to help him, what can he not do? Hetells her whom she is to entice into his power. She will not do it, shesays. He reminds her that if she cannot entice the Fool she willherself be saved from all her wanderings and her weary life. He neednot remind her of anything. She cannot resist him any more than shecould resist the sleep that came upon her. What he commands she mustdo. "Still the magician sees the boy approaching. He calls to the knightsof the castle to defend it against him. They run out in a crowd to meetthe Fool. He snatches weapons from the foremost of them and fights themall at once. Some he wounds and all he drives before him, for theknights that are in the magician's power quickly grow to be cowards. Not all of them together can keep him back. "And now I see the garden of the castle. It is full of big, gay-colored, gorgeous flowers. They trail along the ground, they cluster upon theterraces, they climb upon the walls of the castle and of the garden, andthey clutch at the ramparts and twine and twist about them. I suppose Imust say that they are beautiful flowers, but they are not of the sortthat I like. Anybody can see that there is magic about them. The earthand the water, the air and the sunshine, never would make such flowers. It might not be easy to say why, but just a single look at them isenough to make one feel sure that they are all poisonous. On the wall ofthe garden, with a sword in his hand, stands the Fool, looking down intoit and wondering at the flowers. There were none in the least like thesein the forest where he lived with his mother, and none about the Templeof the Grail. "But what is this more wonderful sight still that he sees? Are theflowers alive, and are they running about and playing together? It is acrowd of girls, with queer, bright colored gowns that make them lookfor all the world like the huge flowers of the garden. They have justrun out of the castle and they are all in confusion, and are crying andcomplaining because the knights, who were their play-fellows, have beenbeaten and wounded. Who is he that has done it? Where is he? If theycould find him they would tear him all to little bits, you would think. And then they do find him. There he stands on the wall, looking down atthem and wondering. And when he says that he will play with theminstead of the knights, they forget all about everybody but him in amoment, and instead of quarrelling with him or trying to punish him forwounding their knights, they only quarrel with one another, becauseevery one of them wants him all for herself. "He has come down from the wall and they all gather around him, chattering and struggling for him. He does not seem to care half somuch for them as they do for him, and when he sees that they will donothing but quarrel about him he turns to go away again, but a voicecalls him and tells him to stay. He turns again and stops, and all theliving flowers run away, chattering and laughing at him. The voice thatcalled him was the woman's, He is bewildered when he sees her. He hasnever seen such beauty before, any more than you or I ever have. For aninstant he thinks that she is another of the strange flowers of thisstrange garden. Yet her beauty does not seem to move him very much. Perhaps that is because he is a Fool. "But she speaks to him not at all as the other living flowers did. Atfirst she makes him remember the old years when he was with his mother, how she cared for him in everything, and how she tried to keep him fromknowing those things which she dreaded that he should learn. Then shetells him again how she died when he had left her. This, she thinks, with what she is to say next, may move him, and indeed it does, but notas she meant that it should. The great sorrow for his mother comes uponhim again, and stronger than when he heard first that she was dead. Heweeps now and throws himself upon the ground, and nothing can comforthim. "The woman tries to console him now. She tells him that if he will butstay he may have all the pleasures of the magician's castle, and shewill love him, she, the most beautiful woman in the whole world. But hedoes not heed her, the Fool--he is thinking of other things. Heremembers the King and his wound. So much he remembers that he almostfeels the wound in himself. And as the woman bends above him therecomes another thought. Nobody has ever told him, yet somehow now heknows, that it was she who tempted the King when he got that wound, just as she tries to tempt him now. I think that it is his own greatsorrow that has made him know something of what another's sorrow mustbe, and when he has remembered the King and has felt the wound himself, all this has helped him to see and to know much more. Perhaps this isthe way that he is 'taught by pity. ' "The woman cannot move him more, cannot tempt him, but now the magicianhimself stands on the wall of the castle with the spear in his hand. The blood still flows from the point and trickles down the shaft to hishand and stains it that deep, ugly red. He poises the spear a momentand then hurls it at the Fool. But it will not strike him. It stopsabove his head and hangs in the air. The Fool lifts his hand and graspsthe spear. The blood from its point runs down the shaft and over hishand, and leaves it clean and white. He only shakes the spear in hishand, and the castle and the garden tremble and fall, as the fire herefalls together, and they are gone. "Once more we are near the Temple of the Grail. The place is at theedge of woods which reach away in one direction, while in the other arefields and meadows. It is spring, and the green of the trees is freshand light, and the fields are covered with flowers. They are not likethe flowers of that magic garden. Their bright little cups hold cooldrops of dew, and the air is full of their perfume. The old knight ishere. He has heard a sound like a groan from the little thicket of lowbushes and brambles at the border of the wood. He searches, and bringsout a woman--the same woman. She is still asleep, but in a moment sheslowly awakes. She is no longer beautiful. She is out of the magician'spower now, even if he is not buried under his ruined castle. She isready to serve the Grail. "The Grail! Alas! nobody serves the Grail now. The poor King, sincethat last time when the Fool saw him uncover the Grail, will touch itno more. He fears too much the pain of his wound. It cannot feed orhelp its knights now, and they cannot go any more to carry help intofar-off lands. But to-day the King has promised that he will uncover itfor one last time, for this is Good Friday, when the dove comes torenew the power of the Grail. "While the old knight and the woman stand here, another comes towardthem. He is a knight in black armor, with his helmet closed, andcarrying a spear. 'Do you not know, ' the old knight asks him, 'whatholy day this is, and that none now should come here bearing arms?' Theblack knight only shakes his head. He sets his spear in the ground andkneels before it, taking off his helmet and gazing up at the point, from which the blood flows. The old knight looks at him and at thespear in wonder. Then he sees the blood, and by that he knows whatspear it is. He looks again at the knight, with his helmet off, and nowhe knows him too. He is filled with a joy that he has not known thesemany years. Yes, the sorrows of the King and of the knights of theGrail are over now. This is indeed 'the simple Fool, taught by pity, 'this is he whom the Grail has chosen. "And now there comes the soft sound of the chimes to tell them that itis time for them to go to the temple to see the Grail uncovered. Theold knight leads the way and the others follow. Through the woods andalong the rocky pathways they walk, the sound of the bells growsplainer, and so they come to the temple. The hall is filled with theknights of the Grail. The King is borne in as he was before, and isbrought to the highest place. The Holy Grail is carried before him withits purple cover. They all look at the King and wait for him. For amoment he wavers, then he springs from his couch--no, no, he will notuncover the Grail again; let him die rather; let them kill him, andthen the Grail shall feed them and bless them, and shall torture him nomore. [Illustration: "THE KING OF THE GRAIL. "] "They all draw back from him in dread at his look and his words--allbut one. For the Fool goes straight to him and touches the wound withthe spear. Instantly the wound is healed. 'You shall uncover the Grailno more, ' he says, 'for I am chosen to be its King instead of you. ' Hemakes a sign to the boys who have brought it, and they uncover it andplace it in his hand. He holds it above his head and again the redblood in it glows and throbs. Down from the dome flies a white dove andrests above it. Before it, and before him who holds it, kneel the oldKing, no longer king now, the old knight, and the woman, for her toothis new King has saved, for he has come, the best knight of the worldand one whom she could not tempt. The simple Fool is the King of theGrail. The sound of the singing voices comes down from the dome, andfrom far above them come still the voices of the bells. Surely to anywho could know how to hear it their chiming must say again: 'Taught bypity--him I have chosen, '" THE ASHES After the little girl had gone, I still sat for a long time lookinginto the fire. I was seeing pictures for myself, not now of the days solong gone by, but of days not yet come, pictures with the little girlin them. There, in the flames where we had seen so much together, Icould see pretty clearly, as I thought, what she would be and all thatshe would be some time. But when I tried to see what she would do andhow her lot should fall, the fire would tell me no more. Yet whereverand however it shall fall, may she not be a little better, a littlewiser, a little happier perhaps, for knowing these old stories thathave helped so many women and so many men before her to live theirlives? Will it not be good for her to remember Brünnhilde's fearlesstruth, Senta's sacrifice, Elizabeth's constancy? And if to the thoughtsof these she add Parsifal's lesson of compassion, surely then even alittle of Eva's coquetry can do no harm. And then I tried to see something of her knight. But the fire had alldied down now, and was only a heap of ashes. I could question as muchas I would, but there was no reply. Would he seek her out and come toher like Siegfried, through struggles and through fire? Would he findand help her in her greatest need, like Lohengrin? Would he only loveher and sing a song for her, like Walter? Or would it be for her tohelp and to save him, like Vanderdecken?--Surely not like Tannhäuser. No, no answer. I stirred the ashes. Underneath there was still abright, ruddy, friendly glow, but nothing more. A clock somewhere in the house, with a low, musical note, struckmidnight. But what was this other music that followed it? Was it againthe bells of Monsalvat, this soft chime that came on the still air? No, no, only church bells far off, ringing in the New Year, Many times Ihad heard them and well I knew their sound. And all around those bells, I knew too, at this moment, there were noise and uproar and confusion, so much that those who stood nearest to them in the street could nottell whether they were ringing, just as many other sweet and pleasantthings are made to seem lost among the coarse and the commonplace. Butto me here, away from the vulgar crowd and forgetting it, the musiccame, faint indeed, yet clear and pure. I opened the window and thechime came plainer with the keen winter air, and the bells--I am sureof it--answered all my questions and rang a promise for the New Yearand for all the years.