vii

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CONTENTS.

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9

EVA’S ADVENTURES

IN SHADOW-LAND.

CHAPTER I.
WHAT EVA SAW IN THE POND.

SHE had been reading fairy-tales, after her lessons were done, all the morning; and now that dinner was over, her father gone to his office, the baby asleep, and her mother sitting quietly sewing in the cool parlor, Eva thought that she would go down across the field to the old mill-pond; and sit in the grass, and make a fairy-tale for herself.

There was nothing that Eva liked better than to go and sit in the tall grass; grass so tall that when the child, in her white dress, looped on her plump white shoulders with blue ribbons, her bright golden curls brushed back from her fair brow, and10 her blue eyes sparkling, sat down in it, you could not see her until you were near her, and then it was just as if you had found a picture of a little girl in a frame, or rather a nest of soft, green grass.

All through this tall, wavy grass, down to the very edge of the pond, grew many flowers,—violets, and buttercups, and dandelions, like little golden suns. And as Eva sat there in the grass, she filled her lap with the purple and yellow flowers; and all around her the bees buzzed as though they wished to light upon the flowers in her lap; on which, at last,—so quietly did she sit,—two black-and-golden butterflies alighted; while a great brown beetle, with long black feelers, climbed up a tall grass-stalk in front of her, which, bending slightly under his weight, swung to and fro in the gentle breeze which barely stirred Eva’s golden curls; and the field-crickets chirped, and even a snail put his horns out of his shell to look at the little girl, sitting so quietly in the grass among the flowers, for Eva was gentle, and neither bee, nor butterfly, beetle, cricket, or snail were afraid of her. And this is what Eva called making a fairy-tale for herself.

11 But sitting so quietly and watching the insects, and hearing their low hum around her, at last made Eva feel drowsy; and she would have gone to sleep, as she often did, if all of a sudden there had not sounded, just at her feet, so that it startled her, a loud

Croak! croak!

But it frightened the two butterflies; for away they went, floating off on their black-and-golden wings; and the brown beetle was in so much of a hurry to run away that he tumbled off the grass-stalk on which he had been swinging, and as soon as he could regain his legs, crept, as fast as they could carry him, under a friendly mullein-leaf which grew near, and hid himself; and the crickets were silent; and the bees all flew away to their hive; and the snail drew himself and his horns into his house, so that he looked like nothing in the world but a shell; for when beetles, and butterflies, and crickets, and bees, and snails hear this croak! croak! they know that it is time for them to get out of the way.

And when Eva looked down, there, just at her feet, sat a great green toad.

12 She gave him a little push with her foot to make him go away; but instead of that he only hopped the nearer, and again came—

Croak! croak!

He was entirely too near now for comfort, so the little girl jumped up, dropping all the flowers she had gathered; and as she stood still for a moment she thought that she heard the green toad say:

“Go to the pond! Go to the pond!”

It seemed so funny to Eva to hear a toad talk that she stood as still as a mouse looking at him; and as she looked at him, she heard him say again, as plain as possible:

“Go to the pond! Go to the pond!”

And then Eva did just exactly what either you or I would have done if we had heard a great green toad talking to us. She went slowly through the tall grass down to the very edge of the pond.

But instead of the fishes which used to swim about in the pretty clear water, and which would come to eat the crumbs of bread she always threw to them, and the funny, croaking frogs which used to jump and splash in the water, she saw nothing13 but the same great green toad, which had hopped down faster than she had walked, and which was now sitting on a mossy stone near the bank. And when Eva would have turned away he croaked again:

“Stay by the pond! Stay by the pond!”

And whether Eva wished it or not, she stood by the pond—for she really could not help it—and looked. And it seemed to her that the sky grew dark and the water black, as it always does before a rain; and then the child grew frightened, and would have run away, but that just then, in the very blackest part of the pond, she saw shining and looking up at her a little round full moon, with a face in it; and it seemed to her, strange though you may think it, that the eyes of the face in the moon winked at her; and then it was gone.

And again Eva would have left the pond, but the green toad, which she thought had suddenly grown larger, croaked more loudly:

“Stay by the pond! Stay by the pond!”

And Eva obeyed, as indeed she could not help doing; and then again, in the pond, there came and went the little moon-face, only that this time it was larger, and the eyes winked longer.

14 For the third time the child would have turned away, frightened at all these strange doings in the pond; but for the third time the green toad, larger than ever, croaked:

“Stay by the pond! Stay by the pond!”

So, for the third time, Eva looked at the pond; and there, for the third time, was the shining moon-face, as large now as a real full moon, though, when Eva looked up, there was no moon shining in the sky to be reflected in the pond; and then the eyes in the moon-face looked harder at her, and the toad winked at her; and then the toad was the moon and the moon was the toad, and both seemed to change places with each other; and at last both of them shone and winked so that Eva could not tell them apart; and before she knew what she was doing she lay down quietly in the tall grass, and the moon in the pond and the green toad winked at her until she fell asleep.

Then the moon-eyes closed and the shining face faded; and the green toad slipped quietly off his stone into the water; and still Eva slept soundly.

And that was what Eva saw in the pond.

CHAPTER II.
EVA’S FIRST ADVENTURE.

HOW long she lay there asleep the child did not know. It might only have been for a few minutes; it might have been for hours. Yet, when she did awake, and think it was time for her to go home, she did not understand where she could be. The place seemed the same, yet not the same,—as though some wonderful change had come over it during her sleep. There was the pond, to be sure, but was it the same pond? Tall trees grew round it, yet their branches were bare and leafless. A little brook ran into the pond, which she was sure that she never had seen there before. Was she still asleep? No. She was wide awake. She sprang to her feet and looked around. The green toad was gone, so was the moon-face; her father’s house16 was nowhere to be seen; there was no sun, but it was not dark, for a light seemed to come from the earth, and yet the earth itself did not shine; mountains rose in the distance; but, strangest of all, these mountains sometimes bore one shape, sometimes another; at times they were like great crouching beasts, then again like castles or palaces, then, as you looked, they were mountains again. Strange shadows passed over the pond, stranger shapes flitted among the trees.

Eva did not know how the change had been made, still less did she guess that she was now in Shadow-Land.

Yet it was all so singular that, as she looked upon the changing mountain forms, and the quaint shadows, a sudden longing came over her, with a desire to go home, and she turned away from the pond. And as she did so, a little fragrant purple violet, the last that was left of all the flowers which she had gathered, and which had been tangled in her curls, fell to the ground, melting into fragrance as it did so; and as it fell, there passed from Eva’s mind all recollection of father, mother, home, and the little brother cooing17 in his cradle: the changing mountain forms seemed strange no longer; she forgot to wonder at the singular earth-light, and at the absence of the sun; and noticing for the first time that she was standing in a little path which ran along the pond, and then followed the course of the little brook, whose waters seemed singing the words, “Follow, follow me!” Eva wondered no longer, but first stooping to pick up a little stick, in shape like a boy’s cane, with a knob at one end, just like a roughly carved head, and which was lying just at her feet, she walked along the little path, which seemed made expressly for her to walk in.

She walked on and on, as she thought, for hours, yet there came neither sunset nor moonrise, and there were no stars in the sky, which seemed nearer the earth than she had ever seen it before. There were clouds, to be sure, of shapes as strange as those of the mountains, which passed and repassed each other, although there was no wind to move them. Everything was silent. Even the trees, swaying, as they did, to and fro, moved noiselessly; the only sound, save Eva’s light steps, which broke the stillness was the18 silvery ripple of the brook, which kept company with the path Eva trod, and whose waters murmured, gently, “Follow, follow me!”

And Eva followed the murmuring brook, which seemed to her like a pleasant companion in this silent land, where, even as there was no sound, there was no sign of life; nothing like the real world which the child had left, and of which, with the fall of the little violet from her curls, she had lost all recollection; even as though that world had never existed for her. Once or twice, as she went on, holding her little stick in her hand, she imagined that she saw child-figures beckoning to her; but, upon going up to them, she always found that either a rock, or a low, leafless shrub, or else a rising wreath of mist, had deceived her.

Yet, though she was alone, with no one near her, not even a bird to flit merrily from tree to tree, nor an insect to buzz across her path, Eva felt and knew no fear, and not for a moment did she care that she was alone. The silvery ripple of the little brook, along which her path lay, sounded like a pleasant voice in her ears; when19 thirsty, she drank of its waters, which seemed to serve alike as food and drink; when tired, she would lie fearlessly down upon its grassy margin, and sleep, as she would imagine, only for a few minutes, for there would be no change in the strange sky nor in the earth-light when she would awake from what it had been when she lay down; and yet in reality she would sleep as long as she would have done in her little bed at home.

For two whole days, which yet seemed as only a few hours, the child followed the brook. During this time she had felt no desire to leave the path; she had unhesitatingly obeyed the rippling voice of the brook, which seemed to say, “Follow, follow me!” But now there was a change: the water, at times, encroached upon the path, and rocks obstructed the current, around which little waves broke and dashed, while strange little flames, which yet did not burn, and gave no heat, started from the waves, dancing on them; and misty shapes, more definite than those she had first seen, beckoned to her to come to them. Now, Eva felt an irresistible longing to leave the brook,20 and wander away; far, far into the deep forest, away from the dancing flames and the beckoning shapes.

And once or twice she did leave the path, and turn her back upon the brook. But every time that she stepped off the beaten track, faint though it was, her feet grew heavy, and clung to the earth, so that she could scarcely move; and the waves of the brook leaped higher and higher; and the dancing flames grew brighter; and the silvery voice, louder and clearer than ever, would call, “Follow, follow me!” till the child was always glad to return to the path, and then once again the way would grow easy to her feet, and the water would resume its former tranquillity.

On, on she went, still following the course of the brook. But at last a new sound mingled, though but faintly, with its musical ripple,—the distant voice of falling waters. And when first this new tone reached Eva’s ears, a few signs of life began to show themselves,—a sad-colored moth flitted lazily across the path into the forest,—a slow-crawling worm or hairy caterpillar hid itself under a stone as Eva passed,—the bright21 eyes of a mouse would peep out at her from under the shelter of a leaf, or else a toad would leap hastily from the path into the waters of the brook.

Still Eva walked onward, more eagerly than ever, for though the “Follow, follow me!” of the brook was now silent, she heard the voice of the other waters, and at every turn in the path she looked forward eagerly for the little joyous cascade she expected to see. For it she looked, yet in vain: though the sound of the waters grew louder, she saw nothing, till at last a sudden gleam of golden light, from a long opening in the forest, fell across the now placid waters of the brook; and Eva looked up to see, far away in this opening, a fountain playing in clouds of golden spray, amid which danced sparkles of light; and the path, parting abruptly from the brook which it had followed so long, led down the opening in the forest directly to this play of waters, whose voice Eva had heard and followed.

And as she turned away from the little brook, whose course and her own had so long been the same, it seemed to her that even the silvery ripple22 of its waters died away into silence; and, looking back once more, after she had taken a few steps, upon the way by which she had come, lo! the brook and its waters had wholly disappeared, and an impenetrable forest had already closed up the path behind her.

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CHAPTER III.
THE GIFT OF THE FOUNTAIN.

I HAVE said that Eva wondered at nothing which came to pass in this land through which she was wandering; nothing surprised her, but the most singular occurrences appeared natural; and so it did not seem at all strange to her that the path and the brook should be swallowed up, as it were, by the dark, hungry, impenetrable forest; and it was almost with a feeling of pleasure at the change that after the one hurried glance she gave to the path by which she had come, and which was now no longer to be seen, that she went, still holding the little stick in her hand, up the opening between the trees to the beautiful fountain.

And as she drew near, the bright waters of the fountain played higher and higher, and sparkled24 and glistened in golden beauty; and rainbows of many colors surrounded it, so that Eva longed to dip her hands in its joyous flow, while the waters as they fell tinkled merrily like silvery fairy bells; and she came nearer and nearer, thinking she had never heard such sweet music as this water made, till she was within a few feet of the fountain.

But when there she paused. For, out of the earth,—all round and even under the dropping spray and the falling waters,—sprang myriads of little rainbow-colored flames, which danced to and fro among and under the water-drops,—like a circle of tiny, fiery sentinels, guarding the fountain. And Eva, afraid to cross this circle of flames, for which she was unprepared, would not have ventured nearer, but that at this very moment the little stick which she held turned in her hand, and pointed downward; and then Eva saw that it pointed to a little path, like that by which she had come, which ran around the fountain; and the child followed the path; until she had walked once, twice, thrice, around the playing waters, and yet, though she looked for it, found25 no spot where the little flame-sentinels, like faithful soldiers on duty, would permit her to pass. And then she would have turned away from the beautiful water,—her foot, indeed, had left the path,—when she heard a voice, even sweeter and more silvery than the voice of the brook, coming from the very midst of the fountain, and saying:

And hearing these words, Eva stood still in surprise, yet without obeying them. But, after a moment’s pause, the voice repeated the words.

Then, for the first time since her wanderings had begun, Eva spoke, and her voice sounded strange in her own ears, low though it was:

“How can I cross the fire?”

A little, low, melodious laugh, like that of a merry child, answered her; and when Eva looked to see whence it came, she saw that the little knot upon the end of her cane was a real head, that the lips were laughing, and that from the queer eyes came two funny little blue flames; and as26 Eva looked at it, very much tempted to throw it away, the head laughed again, and then the lips parted and said:

Then the voice was silent. But a thousand rainbow-colored bubbles glowed at once all over the waters of the fountain; and on each bubble there stood and danced a tiny elf, clad in bright colors; shapes so light and airy that their frail supports never failed them; and the tiny flames grew brighter, and then, as Eva still hesitated, fearing yet to cross them, the lips of the little head spoke once more:

Hearing this, Eva stepped forward. As she did so, the little stick dropped or slipped from her hand, and, rolling into the fountain, disappeared in its waters; and at every step she took she saw that the little flames died away, as the voice had said, under her feet; till, when she27 reached the fountain’s brink, they were all gone, and no trace of them was left. As she looked at the waters, they seemed to become solid, and shape themselves into an image carved as it were out of pure, shining gold, yet glowing with many colors; and then, slowly, slowly, with a sound like distant music, the beautiful, wonderful thing began to sink into the earth; and Eva, her tiny hands clasped, her fair cheeks flushed, her soft blue eyes sparkling, stood in silence and looked. And just as the magic fountain, which, when the child first came up to it, had been so high that its waters played far above her head, had sunk so low that Eva, had she wished, might have laid her hand upon its summit, she saw, cradled as it were, on the very crest of what had been the golden water, a tiny figure; not like one of the elves which had danced on the rainbow-bubbles, but like a sleeping child, which Eva thought, at first, was only a doll lying there, in its green-and-scarlet velvet dress; and for a moment the slow, descending motion of the fountain stopped, and Eva heard these words, in the same voice which had spoken before through the lips of the28 little head, though this time it came from the fountain:

Obedient to the voice, the child stretched forth her hand, and as her slight fingers closed upon the little, motionless form, a bright and dazzling crimson light seemed to flash everywhere, and the water, losing its solidity, began once more to gleam and sparkle, and to sink again into the earth; and in another moment it was gone, and in the place where the fountain had played there was now a bed of soft, green moss, through and around which was twined a vine, whose leaves were mingled with clusters of bright scarlet berries. Then for the first time she missed her little stick; and she looked for it, but it was nowhere to be found.

And then the sky grew dark, as the glorious crimson light slowly faded away, and one by one stars peeped out from the sky; and Eva, still clasping the little figure which had come so strangely to her, to her heart, lay down quietly upon the soft, green moss, which seemed to have29 sprung up there expressly as a bed for her, and before many minutes had passed she was asleep.

But while she slept, there hovered over her two fair white forms, who looked at her and smiled, and then one of them whispered to the other, in the silvery voice of the brook:

“The worst is over.”

“No,” the other replied. “Although the boy is safe, for a time, in the hands of his protector, his punishment is not yet over. Love must teach him obedience,—that alone can appease and work out the will of Fate.”

“And we can do no more for him!”

“We can only wait, and hope.”

A moment later, and the two bright forms were gone. And, watched by the twinkling stars, lulled by the low murmur of the gentle breeze playing among the trees of the great forest, the fair child slept, holding clasped to her innocent breast the helpless figure which had come to her as the gift of the fountain.

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CHAPTER IV.
THE FIRST MOONRISE.

BUT sleep does not last forever, and after a time Eva awoke. And when she first sat up, and looked around her, she could not understand, for a moment, how it could be that everything was so changed; why the brook should be gone, and its voice silenced; the path no more to be seen; and how she should be sitting on this soft bed of velvety-green moss, with the little figure lying in her lap. Then, all at once, she remembered all that had happened the day before,—and as she thought it over, like a pleasant, yet indistinct dream, she recalled the two fair forms which had hovered over her sleep,—faintly conscious of their presence, though unaware of the words which they had spoken. Whether they were real, or only a dream, Eva did31 not know; she only recalled them mistily; for, in this strange, silent land, through which she was wandering, she never knew what was real or what unreal,—it was all alike to her.

And as nothing that happened astonished her, so never for one moment did her thoughts go back to the father and mother she had left, or to the little baby-brother cooing in his cradle. It was as though they never had existed, so completely were they forgotten. The Present, such as it was, had effaced all memory of that Past.

Sitting on her soft, mossy bed, still holding in her little hands the motionless little figure which the fountain had left her, and which, Eva knew,—though how she knew it she could not tell,—was something to be cared for and guarded, as being more helpless than herself. Eva thought over all the adventures of the day before, and while she wondered what would come next, she wished she could once more hear the pleasant murmur of the brook which had guided her, for what purpose she knew not, to this spot.

Only a few moments had passed since the child awoke, when a low, musical chime rang through32 the forest. It died away and then returned; and then came again and again, in tones so marvellously sweet that Eva, who had just taken the little figure into her hands, dropped him into her lap, and pushed her long golden curls away from her face, the better to listen to the melody.

Once more it came, and once more died away into silence. And then there was a low, rushing sound, and, far in the distance, Eva saw arise, as it were from out of the earth, among the trees, the tiny silver crescent of a young new moon,—and as she looked at it, it rose higher and higher, and faster and faster, till it reached, in a few minutes, the very centre of the sky, the child’s blue eyes still following it; and when once there it paused, and floated among the strange, gleaming clouds, which surrounded it, like a little shining boat.

With a sudden impulse Eva bent down and kissed the little figure lying in her lap; and then she looked up at the crescent of the moon, as upon the face of an old friend; and she would have sat there longer watching it, but that all at once a little, weak voice said:

“I am awake again, and there is my home.”

33 Then there came a hurried exclamation of surprise, and Eva looked down from the moon’s crescent to see that the little figure which she had taken from the crest of the fountain had suddenly, as it were, been gifted by her kiss, with life, motion, and speech, and that he was now standing in her lap, evidently as much astonished at seeing her as she was at the change which had come over him.

But their mutual surprise did not last; for the little mannikin began to laugh as Eva’s blue eyes grew larger and rounder, and when at last she asked, “Who are you?” he put his head to one side, in the most comical manner, and, taking off the plumed cap which he wore, he made her a very low bow.

“I know now who you are,” he said. “You are Eva, and you will have to take care of me,—that is all you were sent here for.”

Eva laughed. “Suppose I should not want to take care of such a little thing as you are?”

“You will not have any choice in the matter,—you cannot help yourself.”

“Why?”

34 “Because THEY have said it.”

“I may not choose to do it.”

“What is the use of talking,” the boy went on, “when you know that you will?”

And such were the answers that he persisted in giving to all her inquiries.

“You said you knew who I was,” Eva went on; “but how did you know it?”

“They told me.”

“Who are THEY?”

“They led you here to me, and for me. You must not ask so many questions.”

“May I not even ask your name?”

“You ought to know that without my telling you. But, as you don’t, I will answer you. It is Aster.”

“Aster? Aster?” Eva slowly repeated; “it seems to me that I have heard that name before.”

“You never did,” was the somewhat sullen answer; “for no one but myself has any right to it.”

“Yet I am very sure that I have heard it before, at——”

“Hush! hush! You must never say that here,” said the miniature boy, climbing up on Eva’s35 shoulder, and laying his hand upon her lips. “You know as well as I do that you never heard my name before.”

“I thought I had,” Eva said, looking lovingly at the little figure nestling among her golden curls; “but I now know that I never did. Still, I would like to know who you are. Are you a fairy?”

“I am not a fairy, but you are all mine,” Aster said, gayly. “But you must be careful with me, and never lose me, or else——”

“What?”

“I do not know. They are watching us.”

Who “THEY” were, Eva could not induce him to say. For even when he did try to explain, his words were all so confused that Eva could not understand at all what he meant, although he seemed to speak plainly; and the only thing that she could really learn from him was this,—that she must not ask questions, and that THEY were THEY.

Which is all very strange to us; but it appears that Eva was at last satisfied, because Aster seemed to think that she should understand it just as he did, and that nothing further need, consequently, be said on the subject.

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CHAPTER V.
WHAT ASTER WAS.

FOR several days the two, Eva and Aster, wandered through the forest with no object in view, and returned every evening to rest upon the soft, mossy bed which now covered the place where the golden fountain had once played. The scarlet berries of the vine surrounding it gave them food. The young moon, floating in the sky, gave them light; for while she shone, it was their day; when, suddenly as she arose, she would drop from the centre of the sky, then came their night; and the hours of her absence were spent in sleep.

So, at stated intervals, the moon sprang suddenly from the earth, shone there, replacing the faint earth-light which, during her absence, had guided Eva, and which still shone when she was not to be seen; then, after her hours were over,37 she as suddenly descended; and her rising and her setting were alike accompanied by the same weird music which had heralded her first coming, though its notes were fainter than those which had hailed the rising of the young new moon.

But every time that the moon returned it seemed to Eva that she grew brighter and larger, and that she shed more light upon the earth. And as the light grew brighter, pale white flowers began here and there to bloom, flowers which drooped and closed their petals as soon as the moon fell from the sky; flowers which, as Eva thought, murmured a low song as she passed them, yet a song whose words she never could distinguish. And at last she noticed that, as the silver crescent of the moon broadened, the slight form of Aster seemed to grow and to expand; so that he was no longer the tiny doll-like figure which she had taken from the fountain’s crest, but more like a boy of four years old.

Yet this change, although it was singular, was only a source of pleasure to the child. It gave her a companion, not merely a plaything, for until now she had looked upon Aster in that light,—something38 which, though it could talk, walk, sleep, and eat, was only a new toy, to be taken care of and prized as such. She never had looked upon Aster otherwise.

At last, when the moon had reached her first quarter, and the two, enjoying her pure light, sat on their mossy bed, Eva asked the boy the same question she had asked him the day her first kiss had awakened him:

“Tell me who you are.”

“I am Aster.”

“I know that,” Eva said, laying her hand on the boy’s shoulder; “but that is only your name.”

“I shall be as large as you are, soon,” Aster said, raising his star-like eyes to the moon as he spoke. “When she is round, I shall be as tall as you are, Eva.”

Eva laughed. “How do you know?”

“It will be; because it must be.”

“You are Aster,” Eva said, slowly, “and I know how you came to me; but why did you come?”

“You will know then.”

“When?”

39 “When the moon is round.”

“Why not now?”

“They will not let you.”

And with this answer Eva was forced to be content. But every day they would stand side by side, and every day Aster grew taller and taller; and every day the moon grew broader and brighter.

At last she rose, a round, perfect orb, to her station in the sky; and as Eva, awakened by the loud music which told of her coming, sat up to see and wonder at the bright light she cast, Aster came quietly behind her, and, laying his hands on her shoulders, said:

“Look at me, Eva. The day has come, and I am as tall as you are.”

Eva sprang to her feet. As she did so, Aster put his arm around her, and she saw that there was now no difference in their height,—they were exactly the same size. And, strange to say, his clothes had grown with him, and their rich, soft velvet fitted him now as perfectly as it had done when Eva first took him, small and helpless, from the crest of the golden fountain.

“I can tell you now who I am,” the beautiful40 boy said, “for to-day THEY cannot silence me; this one day when I can be my own self again. You ought to know, Eva, without my telling you, and you would know, if you were like me; but you are not as I am.”

“Why not?” Eva asked, in surprise.

“Because you are only a little earth-maiden.”

Eva laughed, “What is that?” She had wholly, as we know, forgotten the past.

“I cannot tell you,” Aster said, slowly. “I only know what THEY have told me about you.”

“And that?”

“I do not know. But you are not like me, Eva. We are very different. Look at your dress, and then at mine.”

In truth, every here and there upon the rich velvet of Aster’s dress were soils and stains, while not a spot discolored the pure white Eva wore.

“Now do you see?” Aster asked. “You know that we are in Shadow-Land, and it can only affect things which are like itself; it cannot harm you or deceive you.”

“Do you belong here?”

“No,” Aster said, “I came from there,”41 pointing to the round full moon above their heads. “I wish I was there again.”

“Why don’t you go back, then?”

“I can’t, unless you help me. They who sent me here say so.”

“Why did they send you here?”

“Because up there,” pointing to the moon, “I lost my flower, and everything which is lost there falls into Shadow-Land, as everything which is lost in Fairy-Land falls into the Enchanted River; and so they sent me here to find it again, because a prince cannot live there without his flower; and I cannot find it unless you help me. Now you know who I am, Eva,—the moon-prince, Aster.”

“Then must I say Prince Aster?”

“No; to you I am only Aster. And I know that it will be hard for you to find the flower, for I cannot help you, or tell you what it is like. I know that the Green Frog has hidden it, and you are the only person who can help me to find it, and then you must give it to me. They say we shall have trouble.”

“But we will find it at last?”

42 “When my punishment for losing it is over. To-morrow we must leave this place, for after this moon the moss will be gone.”

“You know where to go, then?”

“No; I can only follow you. I have no power here; you will have to take care of me.”

And then Aster began to sing, and this was the song which he sung:

Then Aster threw himself down on the soft moss at Eva’s feet. But when she asked him where he had learned the words of his song, he43 could not tell her. Just then a cloud came over the face of the moon, hiding her from their sight; and as the darkness came over everything, only leaving for a moment the pale earth-light, it seemed to Eva that there were faces looking at her, peeping from behind every tree; and then a light breeze sprang up, just moving the flowers, and from the bell of one of them seemed to come these words, all in verse, for in Fairy-Land and in Shadow-Land people seldom speak in plain prose as we do:

Then the breeze died away, and the voice was silent; and Eva saw that Aster was asleep, and, frightened at the faces which made grimaces and mocked at her, more angrily, she thought, on account of the warning the flower had sung, she touched him to awaken him; and as she did so the cloud passed from the face of the moon, and as once more her pure, clear light returned, the ugly, threatening faces vanished, and Aster44 awoke. But when Eva tried to tell him of what she had seen and heard during his short sleep, she could only say these words:

Then Aster laughed, because Eva declared that these were not the words which the flower had spoken; yet every time that she tried to recollect and repeat them, she could only say the same thing over. Then she began to try and tell him about the faces, and when she began to speak of them, suddenly the full moon sank from the sky, and all was dark; and then a strange drowsiness came over the children, and Eva and Aster, nestled in each other’s arms, lay down to sleep upon the soft, green moss, knowing that with the next moonrise they must go forth in search of Aster’s lost flower.

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Chapter VI.
THE BEGINNING OF THE SEARCH.

WHEN the two children, after their sleep, awoke to see the moon rise to her station in the sky, they were not surprised to find that her fair, round proportions were already changed. But when Eva turned to Aster, she saw that he, too, was smaller than when they had lain down to rest; and she knew at once, almost as if she had been told, that the Moon-Prince would in future wax and wane as did the orb from which he had been banished; that this was part of his punishment; and now she understood why it was that Aster had said she would have to take care of him. But as she stood, thinking of this, Aster suddenly touched her hand, and directly over the mossy bed on which they had46 slept, and which had never been crushed by their weight, but was always fresh, Eva saw again the mocking faces which had disturbed her the night before; but only for a moment, and then they were gone. And even as she looked, she saw that the soft green moss began to shrivel, dry up, and crumble away, as though in a fire; and a moment later it was all gone, and in its place was a heap of rough sand and stone, instead of the velvety moss and the vine with its scarlet berries.

“The faces have done it,” Eva said, clasping Aster’s hand tightly, as she watched the rapid change.

“The faces!” Aster said, scornfully. “Eva, you are dreaming; there were no faces there.”

“I saw them,” Eva began; but Aster interrupted her.

“I tell you, Eva, you saw no faces, there was nothing there. I told you that the moss would be gone the next time that the moon rose; and you see I told you the truth. We must leave this place.”

“Where shall we go?”

47 “I don’t know. We cannot stay here. What did the flower say to you, Eva?

Even as Aster spoke, Eva saw a faint little path at her feet, like that which she had first followed. Looking back, wishing it might lead her again to the pleasant little brook, and that she might return to it, instead of going on into the forest, she saw that the sand and stone had grown into a huge wall, or rather a mound, over which she never could have climbed, and which would prevent her return. As if Aster had read her thoughts, he said to her,—

“There is no going back, Eva; we can only go forward.”

Aster’s words were true. The wall of stone, which a few moments had been enough to build up behind them, seemed to come closer and closer, as though to shut them out from the place where they had been; and, clasping Aster’s hand tightly, Eva and the boy walked slowly on, in the little path which lay before them.

48 For days the two went on, walking while the moon shone, and sleeping when her light was hid. At each moonrise they were awakened by the strains of music, which, as the moon waned, grew sadder and more mournful; while that accompanying her setting became at last a low, sad moaning, and each day she grew smaller, and, in sympathy with her, Aster seemed to dwindle and wane, and he became more and more helpless, till at last, when the moon was reduced to a thin crescent, the little prince was once more as small as he was when Eva first received him.

Yet, through all these changes, the two went slowly on through the dark forest, which opened on either side of the path to let them pass, and closed again behind them. Were they thirsty, they were sure to find some tiny spring, issuing as at a wish from the earth; were they hungry, some wild fruit or berry was always to be found. But not once did Eva leave the path. What it was that kept her in it, she could not tell,—except that every time she felt the slightest desire to go into the forest; she saw the same hateful faces which had peeped at her for the first time49 when the cloud had passed over the face of the full moon, and which had mocked at her from above the soft mossy bed when it had been turned into the stony wall which had forced them to go forward, and she thought they forbade her to go near them. But Aster, in spite of all her efforts to detain him in the path, would sometimes run away from her, saying he saw some beautiful flower which he must gather, or else some sweet child-face which smiled upon him; but each time that he did this, he was sure to hasten back to Eva, saying that either thorns had pierced or else nettles stung him; and then he would hide his face in the folds of Eva’s white dress, trembling, and saying that THEY were there, and had frightened him.

Still, Eva could never find out from the boy who THEY were. For Aster, though he sometimes tried, could not tell her; it seemed as if he was not allowed to speak, and the child began to think that the faces which haunted her, and THEY of whom Aster so often spoke, were only different manifestations of the same power, which seemed to follow them wherever they went, seeking an50 opportunity to hurt them, although as yet no harm had been done.

Once, before Aster grew so small, Eva asked him why it was that they were thus followed.

“It is not you that THEY are following; THEY would do me harm if I were to fall into their hands; but I am safe while you keep me. You are beyond their reach.”

But, though Aster knew this, it seemed to Eva that he dared, and tried, to put himself in the power of THEY, whom he seemed to dread,—for it was only when the faces looked at her from behind tree or shrub that Aster desired to leave her, and only then that he spoke of THEY who always frightened him back to her side. He never alluded to the flower they sought; only once, when Eva asked him what it was like, he said to her:

“I cannot describe it to you; you will know it when you see it.”

“How shall I know it?” Eva asked.

“You will know it when the time comes.”

But, though Eva looked carefully for the flower, she never saw it. There were flowers enough51 along the path, but the right one was not to be seen. She did not know—how could she?—that the search was only begun, and that not till after long wanderings and many troubles to Aster would she be able to find for him the flower which he had lost, and without which he could never regain his home.

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CHAPTER VII.
ASTER’S MISFORTUNES.

AT last, even the thin crescent of the moon disappeared, and once more Aster lay motionless, and, as it were, without life, the same tiny, helpless thing which Eva had taken from the crest of the fountain. Once more she wandered, alone,—for what companionship could she find in the senseless little figure which she carried about with her?—through the strange, dream-like country in which she now found herself. But, wherever she went, a feeling she could not explain nor understand made her hold the helpless little prince close, never for a moment letting him pass from her loving clasp.

53 Once more, too, the faint earth-light shone, instead of the vanished moon. And Eva thought that while Aster lay helpless, there were fewer difficulties in her path; the faces no longer appeared to torment and harass her; the way seemed easier to her feet; more and brighter flowers bloomed along the path; and the misty, shadowy shapes which were to be seen at intervals passing among the close-set trunks of the trees were fair and lovely to look upon.

But this quiet was not to last. Again, after a time, the music rang triumphantly through the forest; and again, as the young moon sprang to her station overhead, Aster awoke, to all appearance unconscious of the time he had slept, and of the distance which Eva had carried him. As he grew, with the moon, it seemed to her that he was changed; that he was no longer the gentle, loving boy who had wandered with her when the first moon shone: something elfish, imp-like, and changeable had come over him.

Then, too, as day by day the path led them on into the forest, which seemed endless, the trees altered their shape. Sometimes they were circled with huge, twining snakes, which Eva thought seemed coiled there, ready to seize her as she passed, though when near them they proved to be54 nothing but huge vines climbing up the trees. Here and there in the path lay huge stones, which you might think at first sight were insurmountable, obstructing their further progress; yet, if either Eva’s foot touched them, or the hem of her white dress brushed ever so lightly against them, they would always fade away, like a shadow, into utter nothingness, or else would roll slowly away to one side, leaving the path clear. But when Aster saw the stones he would cry, and say that they would crush him if he passed them, and the only way in which Eva could soothe him was by taking him up in her arms and carrying him past the stones, while he hid his face, so as not to see them, in her long, golden curls.

Every now and then, in spite of what he had often told Eva,—that she, and she only, could find and give him the flower which he had lost,—Aster would declare to her that he saw it blooming in places where she saw nothing but nettles or ugly weeds, but which he would always insist were beds of the most beautiful flowers. These flowers, he said, called to him to come and gather them; while Eva thought that warning voices bade her55 pass them by, and that she saw over or else among them shadows of the same hateful faces which she dreaded. But it was useless to try and convince Aster of this; she soon learned that nothing ever presented the same appearance to him that it did to her.

In consequence, whenever Aster insisted upon leaving the path, as he often did, Eva watched him with a kind of terror, and never felt he was safe unless she led him by the hand. Placed, as he was, under her care, she felt sure that when with her no danger could come near him, nothing harm him. Still, if he had enemies in this great forest, he had friends, too; for once, when he stooped to gather a flower which bloomed near the path, she heard it say:

But Aster laughed joyfully, as he looked up without gathering the flower, and said:

“Did you hear what the flower told me, Eva? That was the reason why I did not pick it, for it said that I should have much pleasure to-day.”

56 Eva only smiled; she said nothing; she had learned that Aster would not bear being contradicted. But she quietly resolved to be more watchful than ever; for, from what she had heard the flower say, she thought that efforts would be made to take the little prince from her.

She was wrong, however, for the day passed, the moon disappeared, and, as nothing had happened to disturb them, she began to think that perhaps she had been mistaken, and that Aster had been right regarding the words which the flower had spoken; for he had, all that day, been cheerful and gentle. But, that night, she was awakened from her sleep by Aster’s talking, as though to himself, in a rambling, disconnected manner, of THEY whom he seemed to fear; and this being the first time for days—not since he had awakened from the stupor into which the disappearance of the moon had thrown him—that he had mentioned or even appeared to think of these nameless yet formidable beings, she guessed, seeing that Aster’s words were spoken, as it were, in a dream, and unconsciously to himself, that the coming day contained more danger to him than any of the preceding ones.

57 It was, notwithstanding, with a feeling of relief that Eva at last saw the moon arise, and once more she and Aster set out on their journey. He never referred to the words which had awakened her. No strange sights or sounds came to disturb them. There was utter stillness all around; and as hour after hour passed, and Aster walked quietly by her side, Eva began to think that her anxiety had all been for nothing, and she relaxed a little of her watchfulness.

At last they came to a place where every plant along the path was hung with filmy, gossamer, delicate webs, and in each web sat a spider. And every spider was different,—no two of them being alike. And, as they passed these patient spinners, Aster clung closely to Eva’s hand, saying that he was afraid of being entangled among their webs, or else stung by them; although to her it appeared as though the spiders did not even notice them as they passed. Then all of a sudden the webs and the insects were gone; and the children saw crawling slowly in the path, as if it was afraid of them and wanted to get out of their way, a spider larger than any of those they had seen; a spider whose58 body was ringed with scarlet and gold, whose long, slender black legs shone like polished jet, and whose eyes were like bright-green emeralds; a spider handsome enough to be the king of all the spiders.

And while Eva was admiring the beautiful colors of the insect, Aster let go her hand, and, stooping down, passed his finger gently over its gold and scarlet back. Then the spider raised its head, and looked at Eva with its bright-green eyes, which, as Eva gazed at them, appeared to grow larger and brighter, and dazzled her own; and then a mist seemed to come over them, and everything began to fade slowly away; and she never noticed how Aster went, slowly, nearer and nearer to the insect, crouching down into the path as he did so, nor how the spider, by degrees, began to grow larger, and moved towards the side of the path, till a sudden cry from Aster, “Eva! Eva! help me!” roused her from the trance in which she stood, in which she saw nothing but the emerald eyes, like two gleaming lights; and then she saw that the beautiful spider had enveloped Aster in a large web which it had spun around him, and was59 dragging him off the path, to carry him away with it.

But Eva was not going to lose her charge. Springing forward, she threw her arms around him. And as her dress touched the web, it fell off, releasing him; and the spider, unfolding a pair of blue wings, flew into the forest with a loud cry of disappointment; and as it flew away, its shape changed, and Eva, looking after it, with her arms still around Aster, saw that it had one of the terrible faces which she had seen so often before. Then it disappeared, and the two went on, or rather tried to go on, for Aster complained that his feet were fastened to the ground; and then Eva saw that they were still tangled in some of the spider’s web; and both Eva and Aster tried in vain to break it. But Eva was nearly in despair, when, as she stooped, one of her long golden curls brushed against the web, and then it melted away and vanished like smoke.

Then, and not till then, were they able to go on. But Aster walked forward unwillingly, and complained that he was tired, and began to insist upon Eva’s stopping to rest. But she felt that60 they would not be safe until after the moon was gone, and so they went on. At every mossy stone, every fair cluster of flowers, Aster would insist upon stopping, but Eva would not listen to him, for she always heard, at these places, a friendly voice which said, “Go on, go on;” and so they went on.

But at last Aster, who did nothing but complain of weariness, told Eva that he could and would go no farther. Seeing a great, velvety, green mushroom growing in the path, he ran and sat down upon it, saying that it was a seat which had been made and put there for him, and that Eva should not share it.

He had scarcely said this, had scarcely seated himself, when the mushroom changed into a great green frog, which, with Aster seated astride upon its back, began to hop nimbly away in the direction of the forest. But Eva, whose eyes had never for a moment left the boy, sprang forward, and before Aster—pleased at the motion of the frog—could say a word, she had dragged him off his strange steed, which turned and snapped at her, but, instead of touching her, caught the skirt of61 Aster’s coat in his mouth and held on to it till Eva’s efforts tore it from him, leaving, however, a small piece of the velvet in the frog’s mouth. Even then he tried to seize Aster again, and it was not till Eva’s dress touched him that he turned to leave them, still holding in his mouth the scrap torn from Aster’s coat, and as he hopped off the path he faded away just like a shadow.

Then, too, the moon sank from the sky, and the two children, completely worn out, lay down and slept, and Eva knew that for a little while, at least, Aster was safe, because as she lay down she heard a little song which said;

Then all was still. But though Eva, trusting to this song, was not afraid to lie down and sleep,62 she never knew that while they did sleep a circle of tiny shining lamps, like fairy-lamps, gleamed all around them,—a magic circle which nothing could pass. And although both the spider and the green frog returned, bringing with them the piece of Aster’s coat, by means of which they hoped to steal him away from Eva while he was asleep, they could not pass the circle which the Light Elves had drawn around the sleeping pair, and, after many vain efforts to cross it, they vanished.

And the grateful elves had watched and saved Aster because Eva, that morning, seeing a shapeless, helpless worm lying near a stone, which was about to fall and crush it, had tenderly picked up the worm, and laid it carefully on a cool, green leaf, out of danger. The grateful Light Elf,—for such she was,—being compelled to wear the form of a worm while the moonlight lasted, had come with her companions to return what service she could and give Eva a peaceful rest.

So, as ever, Good overcomes Evil, and no service, no matter how small or how trifling it may seem, is ever wasted or thrown away.

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CHAPTER VIII.
WHAT ASTER DID.

THE farther the progress which the children made into the forest, the wilder and more singular became the country through which they passed. Shadows cast by no visible forms went before them in the path,—shadows which shook, moved, and trembled; which seemed as if they might all at once become real forms; shadows which had something dreadful about them, so that Eva was glad they were always in advance of her, and that her foot never had to touch the ground on which they lay. The color of the moon’s light was changed. She shone with a pale greenish lustre. No green plants, no beautiful flowers, grew in the stony, rocky soil through which their path now lay. It produced things like sticks full of thorns. Under the stones lay hidden long, slender lizards,64 or coiled-up serpents with forked and fiery-red tongues; things like dry twigs, which would suddenly display many legs and run away. Slow-crawling, hairy caterpillars, and round, fat, slimy worms, lay everywhere. Things like insects, which yet had no life, grew, instead of flowers, on the thorny sticks which stood among the stones. One of these things, in shape like a dragon-fly, Aster picked; but he immediately dropped it, and said that it had stung him; and from that time Eva thought that he became more and more perverse, and that he was every day less like the gentle, affectionate boy she had been so glad to receive as a companion. She saw, too, that, while her own dress retained its spotless whiteness which nothing seemed to affect, his became every day more and more soiled and stained.

She missed, too, the low, sweet songs which had been sung by the flowers. To be sure, she had not always been able to distinguish their words; but they had been friendly, and had warned her of every danger before it came; but this was all over. Every night, as soon as the moon was gone, creatures like bats, with shining heads, came in65 great numbers, flying around, and moaning in a sad, mournful way which was most pitiful to hear.

As the moon neared the full, stranger shadows and shapes came near. Yet the two went on, following the path, though Eva sometimes imagined that the inhabitants of this strange country were opposed to their passing through it. The music which had been always heard at the rising and setting of the moon grew fainter and fainter, till at last her ascent and fall came in perfect silence. Then the strange shadows disappeared, but the path led through a stonier and more rocky country, where all was wild and barren, and where, after the moon was gone, little, dancing flames played on the stones. Sometimes it was hard, indeed almost impossible, for the two children to climb over the rough places in their path; and Aster was very often discouraged; but Eva persevered, for she felt that the flower they sought could never be found in this barren and dreary land.

I have said that Aster became every day more obstinate and perverse. Sometimes Eva thought that the strange flower, like a dragon-fly, which he had picked, and which he said stung him, had66 changed him, and that was the reason why he tried to annoy her in every possible way. He knew how uneasy she was when he was not with her; yet, knowing this, it was his greatest delight to hide himself behind some large stone, and after she had looked for him for a long time without finding him, afraid that his enemies had carried him off, he would jump out upon her with a loud mocking cry; he would pull her hair, he would try to soil her white dress, by throwing mud and dirt upon it, to make it, as he said, like his own, which was all stained and soiled, and then, when he found that he could not discolor its whiteness, he would throw himself down on the ground, and kick and scream, and tell Eva that he hated her, and that he wished THEY would come and carry her away.

One day, when Aster had been worse than ever, and the way had been stonier and harder than it had ever been before, Eva began to think that it was of no use to go on, or to look for the flower lost so long ago by the imp-like boy, whose powers of annoying her seemed to increase as he grew smaller with the moon. She sat down upon one67 of the rough stones, and great tears gathered in her eyes. And as, one by one, they rolled down her cheeks and fell to the ground, everything around her seemed to grow vague and dim; and at her feet, just where the tear-drops fell, there came a bed of round green leaves, under whose shelter bloomed and nodded a multitude of tiny purple flowers; violets, whose sweet fragrance, rising, made a misty cloud, through which Eva caught faint glimpses of a pond, and a house near it, and then the house seemed to change into a cosy parlor. And by the window of this parlor a lady was sitting sewing, and rocking a cradle with her foot, and singing to a baby boy who was kicking and crowing in the cradle; and then the child heard her mother’s voice calling, softly, “Eva, Eva!” But before these memories came fully back, Aster came up, and angrily crushed and trampled the sweet violets under his feet; and as he did so the cloud and its pictures disappeared, and Eva forgot them; only she was very sorry for the dear little flowers that Aster had killed.

Poor little flowers, which tried to do her good!68 For it seemed to her that with their last breath of perfume there came a low voice, which whispered. “Beware of the stones,”—and that was all. And then she asked Aster why he had destroyed the harmless flowers, which had only come to warn them.

“They only came to do me harm,” Aster said, angrily. “They would have taken you away from me, and I should never have seen you again. You shall not go away from me yet, for I can never get home without you; after I have done with you, why, then you may go.”

“Where?” Eva asked, pained at this selfish speech.

“Into what is to be,—out of Shadow-Land into what is to come, but is not yet.”

“I do not understand you.”

“You will know when the time comes. I crushed the flowers because they were part of what is to come; they had no right here.”

Nothing more was said; but Aster seemed restless and uneasy until they left the place where the violets had bloomed. Yet nothing disturbed them, and on they went, till Eva began to wonder69 where the stones could be of which the voice had said, “Beware!”

At last, when there was only a tiny crescent of the moon, like a faint silver line, floating in the sky, and Aster’s figure, like it, was once more reduced to its smallest dimensions, the forest through which they had wandered for so long ended; and as they passed from it, a low cry of surprise from Aster made Eva look down, as she saw that his eyes were fixed upon the earth; and then she saw with equal surprise that, while she walked along the rough, stony path without leaving any impression, every step that Aster took left a deep, plain track, and that in each of these tracks there was either a frog or a spider, which would disappear while she looked at them.

Then a sudden turn in the path brought them to a place where a huge pile of rocks, like an immense stone wall built by giants, rose up before them. A faint breath of violets seemed to come, and then pass away, and as it did, Eva knew that these were the stones of which she had been warned.

At that very moment there was a flash of70 light, and a star fell from the sky, near the moon.

“A falling star, how pretty it is!” Eva said, as she watched the bright thing, which seemed to fall behind the stone wall. “Did you see it, Aster?”

“You don’t know anything, Eva,” was his reply. “I told you once before that everything which was lost in the moon fell into Shadow-Land, and that was something bright which fell just now.”

But this had nothing to do with the wall, which must be climbed. How, Eva did not know. She was almost afraid to try it; and so she stood, looking at it, when Aster, who, ever since he had crushed the violets, had followed her in silence, except when he had spoken of the shooting star, with his eyes bent on the ground, suddenly ran forward to the wall, and began to look eagerly into every crevice between the stones.

“What are you looking for?” Eva asked him. “Come back to me, Aster; it is not safe for you there without me.”

“I will look,” Aster said. “The bright thing71 you called a star was my flower. It is here, and I am going to find it.”

“Don’t!” Eva said, imploringly, as the boy tried to creep into one of the crevices between the stones. “Remember Aster, that the moon is nearly gone, and if she should disappear, you will go to sleep, and then you will have to stay in there until she returns.”

“I don’t care!” Aster said, crossly, “If, as I know I shall, I find my flower in here, the moon will have no more power over me, for I shall then be myself; and you may go on alone into what will come. Besides, the piece which was torn off my coat is in there, and I am going to get it. If I do go to sleep, I can lie down in here, and rest; you can mark the place and wait for me, if you choose. I don’t intend to obey you any longer; you are nothing but a little girl, and I am a prince.”

Eva’s hand was on Aster’s shoulders and when he found she would not remove it, he raised his own, and struck her. Not till then did the child unwillingly release him, seeing that all her efforts to detain him would be in vain. Then, without72 saying another word, Aster crept slowly into the crevice. And Eva, picking up a white stone which lay at her feet; made a mark over the place with it. As she did this, the faint silver light of the moon faded from the sky; there was a loud croaking as of frogs, and then she heard the shrill cry of the spider which had spun the web around Aster; and then it grew very dark, and a sudden drowsiness came over her, which she could not resist; and, lying down upon a stone under the crevice into which Aster had crept, Eva fell asleep.

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CHAPTER IX.
THE DOOR IN THE WALL.

IT was with a start that, after the darkness had gone, Eva awoke from the dull, heavy sleep into which she had fallen; and for a moment she could not recollect how it was that she should be lying upon a stone at the foot of this huge rocky wall, or why she should be alone, without Aster near her. She looked for him, thinking that perhaps he might have hidden himself, only to tease her; but he was nowhere to be found. She called him, hoping that he might hear and answer her; but there was no reply,—only the rocks echoed back the sound of her own voice, which said, “Aster, Aster! where are you?” and then another echo seemed to answer, mockingly, “Where?”

74 But all this only lasted for a few moments. Then all at once Eva remembered the falling star; the warning which the violets had given her; the blow, which, coming as it did from Aster’s hand, had so deeply grieved her; her efforts to detain him at her side, which had all proved useless; and how, after the boy had crept into one of the crevices of the wall, declaring he went there in search of his flower, she had picked up a stone, which she now found she still held in her hand, and marked the place. Then she felt relieved, for she knew that this was the time when Aster would be asleep, as he always was when the moon was absent, and consequently he could not move from the place into which he had crept. She thought, therefore, that, whenever she chose, she would find him, and, taking him again under her care, carry him away from this barren and stony waste.

Encouraged and relieved by this thought, she did not look for Aster any longer, but went to a little spring bubbling up between two rough stones, and which was the only pleasant thing she could see in this rocky place. She knelt down75 by it, for she was thirsty, to drink from its cool and sparkling waters, and then to wash her face and hands in them; and as she dipped her hands in the spring, the little ripples they made whispered, softly, “Over yonder! over yonder!” but Eva was not sure if she really had heard these words; or only imagined them.

Refreshed by the cool waters she went back to the great, rough, stone wall, intending to secure her charge, and then try to go on. But what was her surprise, on returning, as she thought, to the same stone on which she had slept, to see that there were so many stones just exactly like it, that she could not find the one she wanted! and, what was still stranger, she saw that over every little hole, every tiny cavity in the stone, there was a white mark exactly like the one which she had made over the crevice into which Aster had crept, and she could not say which of them all was hers.

She was in despair for a moment. How was she to find, among all these holes, each with the same white mark over it, the one in which Aster was asleep? Then she remembered that standing still and looking at the wall would do no good;76 that if she wanted to find Aster she must look for him; and Eva determined to examine every hole she saw, in hopes that with patience and perseverance she might at last succeed in finding her lost charge, of whom, in spite of all the trouble he had given her, she had grown very fond.

But if she had been surprised at seeing a white mark over every hole, instead of the one she had made, she was still more astonished when she saw that in every cranny which she examined there sat either a large black-legged spider, with a gold and scarlet back, and eyes which shone in the dark like little bright stars, or else there squatted snugly in it a huge green frog, with a wide mouth and projecting black eyes; while just beyond her reach there would flutter every now and then a little green flag, like the scrap of velvet, as Eva thought, which the teeth of the frog had torn from Aster’s coat.

Yet the child climbed slowly up the wall, fearless of the spiders and the frogs, which she knew had no power to harm her, even if they had wished it. But seeing them, and knowing, as she did, that these two creatures, in the forest through77 which they had passed, had tried to get possession of Aster, Eva began to fear that by creeping into the hole he had put himself in their power, and that she would never be able to find him again.

She went on, however, looking carefully into every tiny cavity; but always with the same result. No Aster was to be seen: only huge spiders and squatting frogs stared at her from every cranny. And, as she climbed up higher and higher, she found that the rocky wall was like a giant staircase; and when she looked back, noticing that the stones she displaced, as she climbed up, only rolled a short time and then made no noise as they fell, and thinking that after her search was over she would return to the little spring and wait there patiently until the moon rose again, when, as she hoped, Aster, if she did not find him now, would wake up and come back to her, she saw that she could never return to the spring. For the steps by which she had come were gone, melting one by one into the face of the rock, changing into a steep precipice behind her; and at its foot were curling mists and vapors, among which she saw dimly the hateful, mocking faces78 she had seen before. Go back she could not, for every step, as she passed it, melted into the precipice; to look back made her dizzy. She must go upward.

For the first time since she had begun to climb the wall, which had changed, as she climbed, into steps, and then into a precipice, Eva was afraid. But there was no choice left for her; go on she must; and, accordingly, on she went, till she came to a place where the rock rose, so high that she could not see its top, in a smooth, unbroken wall, over which she could not possibly climb, and a narrow path ran along its base; and as yet she had not seen nor heard anything of the truant Aster.

She walked slowly along the foot of the great blank wall, tired and discouraged. What to do now, she did not know. She could not go back, for there was the frightful precipice; in front was the wall, along which she was walking. Poor Eva was almost ready to cry, when all of a sudden she saw a door, cut in the stone, and the door was shut. But she heard, behind this door, the silvery voices and ringing laughter of children, and then a great longing came over79 her to go in and join them, and she thought that perhaps Aster might be with them.

Yet, although she tried, she could not open the door. She heard the merry voices of the children, and, hearing them as plainly as she did, she thought it was strange that they did not hear her and open the door to her; for, try as she would, she could not open it. And then she grew tired of trying, and would have gone on, when, looking once more at the door to see if there was any way of opening it which she could possibly have neglected, she saw cut across the door, in deep, old-fashioned, moss-grown letters, the word

Then, gathering courage, Eva raised her tiny hand, and knocked. Once, and no answer came. Again, and with the same result. A third time, and then the merry voices of the children, and their gay laughter, ceased, and Eva hoped that her appeal was heard.

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CHAPTER X.
THE VALLEY OF REST.

EVA waited for a moment, with as much patience as she could, in hopes that the door might now be opened for her. Vain hopes, for the ringing laughter and the merry voices began again; and once more Eva would have been discouraged, if the thought had not come that perhaps her gentle knocking had not been heard, and once more she tapped, louder this time, at the door.

A voice within immediately asked, “Who knocks?”

“I—Eva,” was the child’s reply.

“Eva may enter.”

Poor child! She thought the permission was useless, for the door remained as tightly shut as ever.

81 “Why do you not come in?” the same voice asked, after a pause, “You are permitted.”

“I cannot come in, because the door is shut,” Eva said.

“Take the key and unlock it.”

But Eva, after looking around carefully, could see no key, and so she said, “I do not know where the key can be.”

“Look under your right foot,” said the voice within; and Eva, stepping to one side, saw lying, just where her foot had been, a queer little key, which she picked up; and seeing a key-hole among the quaint letters of the inscription, she found the little key just fitted it; and on turning it, the door flew open, and, as it did, a band of beautiful children came forward to meet her, though not one of them crossed the threshold of the door, and they bade her welcome. But when Eva would have gone in, it seemed to her that invisible hands prevented her entrance; and then one of the children, seeing that she still held in her hand the white stone she had picked up near the spring, and with which she had made the mark over Aster’s hiding-place, told her to throw it away, for that82 nothing from Shadow-Land could be brought into their valley; and then to be careful and not touch the threshold of the door, but to step over it. And Eva did as they told her; but when she threw the white stone over the precipice, it changed into a large white moth as it left her hand; and Eva, watching it, saw one of the faces rise from out of the curling mists to meet it, and then the moth changed into a face like the one she had first seen, and then both disappeared among the mists and vapors. And the moment she passed through the door, it closed suddenly behind her, and could not be told from the solid rock; and Eva saw that she was in a place totally different from anything she had ever seen before in her wanderings.

She found that she was now in a large, grassy valley, in the midst of which was built a beautiful rose-colored palace, shining like a star. Flowers of the gayest hues bloomed all through the grass; fountains of musical water, surrounded with rainbows, played here and there; birds and butterflies of brilliant colors flew among the flowers, and were so tame that they would alight on the children’s83 hands, and the birds were so wise that they could talk, and tell the most interesting stories, which you never grew tired of hearing. A little brook ran sparkling through the valley, and groups of beautiful children were playing on its banks, among whom Eva looked—but looked in vain—for Aster.

The children gathered around her, asking where she came from, if she was the Queen who was to reign over them, and if she was not going to live always with them. And when Eva tried to explain how she had come, and asked them if they knew where Aster was, they joined hands and danced in a circle around her to their own singing, and then one of them gave her the leaves of a flower to eat. Now the leaves of this flower were delicious, and as sweet as honey to the taste, and one never wearied of eating them; and as Eva ate them, all memory of Shadow-Land and of Aster faded from her mind, and she was content to remain in the valley with the children.

It was a pleasant life that she led in this peaceful valley, surrounded, as it was, and shut in by high, insurmountable, and steep rocks, over which84 nothing without wings could go; in which the children dwelt, and where there was neither sun nor moon, but only a soft, rosy light, which never hurt or dazzled the eyes, and where nothing ever happened which could disturb the peace of the place. To chase the brilliant butterflies, to listen to the songs and stories of the birds, to dance on the soft green grass, and gather flowers to make fragrant wreaths and garlands with which to decorate the beautiful palace in which, when darkness came over the valley, they all assembled, and where tables, spread with the most delicious fruits, always stood ready for them,—such was the life that Eva and the children led in the Valley of Rest.

But at last a day came when the children told Eva that, as their custom was, they must leave the valley and carry baskets of flowers and fruit to the Queen for whom they had at first taken her. She could not go with them now, they said, but the next time that they went they would take her with them. They would be gone the next morning before she was awake, and she would be alone for that day in the valley; but then they would return;85 and the only favor they asked of her was this,—that she would not go near the brook, nor play upon its banks, while they were absent.

Eva willingly promised this. Such a little thing as it was to promise, when she would have the whole fair valley to herself, to go where she pleased, and to do what she pleased! It would be very easy to keep away from the brook.

But when once more the soft, rosy light came, and the darkness was gone, and Eva awoke to find herself lying, all alone, on her little bed in the palace, and to know that all the children were indeed gone, though only for a time, a strange restlessness came over her, and she felt that she could not stay all alone in the palace. She would go out of it into the valley. But she was no better off there. She gathered flowers and made beautiful wreaths and bouquets, but there was no one to admire them when they were made. The rainbows around the fountains were less brilliant; the birds were all gone with the children, so that she could not listen to their songs or the stories they might have told her. She might play and dance, but what fun was there in that, when she had no86 companions to dance and play with her? Eva thought she never had spent such a stupid, long, dull day in all her life; and she wished it was over. The only thing which seemed as merry as ever was the little brook, which she had promised to avoid, yet which rippled along so joyously that it was as much as Eva could do to keep away from it.

But she remembered her promise to the children, and turning her back upon the brook, she went and sat down near one of the fountains. She had only been there for a few moments, when she felt something pull her dress; and looking round to see what it was,—wondering if the children could possibly have returned,—she saw, to her great surprise, a huge green toad, which had hold of her dress, and which, when she looked at it, said:

“Croak! croak!”

Then Eva knew that she had seen the toad before, and she began to wonder how it had gotten into the Valley of Rest, where she never had seen anything like it. But she did not have much time for wonder; for the toad, giving her dress another pull, said to her, “Come to the87 brook! Come to the brook!” And then it began to hop towards the brook just as fast as it could go.

She forgot her promise to the children, and, just exactly as she had done once before, she obeyed the toad, and went down to the brook. And when she got there, she could not imagine why the toad wanted her to go there, for he was nowhere to be seen, and the brook looked just as it always did. But she sat down by it, and watched the merry water as it rippled along over its pebbly bed. Then, soothed by the low murmur it made, she lay down on the grass and fell asleep. And while she was asleep she had a dream; and this is what she dreamed:

She saw Aster, his dress torn, dirty, and ragged, his long curls tangled; tired and sad, and compelled to carry burdens of stone too heavy for him to lift. And when he wanted to rest, two figures, with the faces which Eva had seen in the forest and among the curling mists and vapors at the foot of the precipice, beat him with rods full of thorns. And then a huge red-and-black spider would sting him in the foot, or a great green frog,88 with prominent black eyes, would threaten to swallow him; and then the boy would cry, and call for Eva to come and help him.

Then the frog would say:

“Why did you let me tear your coat?”

And the faces would ask:

“Why did you lose your flower?”

And then the spider would say:

“Why did you creep into the rock?”

And to all this Aster would only answer with the cry, “Eva! Eva! help me!”

Then one of the faces said, angrily:

“We shall punish you here until three things are done, because through three things you fell into our power. First. Eva must find your coat. Second. She must get the piece to mend it with. Third. She must find you. But you need not call her, because she cannot hear you; for she is in the Valley of Rest with the Happy Children, who are the Dawn Fairies, and she has forgotten you. And there are many dangers to pass in Shadow-Land before, she can come to you; and she will not come, unless she hears you call.”

Then they would beat him again; and Aster89 would cry, louder than ever, “Eva! Eva! help me!”

And then the dream passed away, and Eva awoke. And it seemed to her that Aster’s voice mingled with the rippling of the water, and it cried, piteously, “Eva! Eva! help me!”

And then Eva knew why it was that the children had begged her not to go near the brook while they were gone; because its voice would bring back to her all that she had forgotten. For now, as she sat by it, she remembered everything that the leaves of the flower which she had eaten had made her forget; and she sprang to her feet, determined to follow the course of the brook, and let it lead her to where Aster was.

She went all through the fair valley, along the margin of the brook with whose waters Aster’s voice still seemed to mingle. It led her at last to the high rocks, which, like a steep wall, surrounded the valley, and where a low cavern, the roof of which was only a few inches above the surface of the water, received the brook. Eva could not enter it, neither could she climb the steep precipice-like wall; and, with Aster’s voice still sounding90 piteously in her ears, with a heavy heart, after several fruitless efforts to climb the rocks, she went back to the palace, determined to wait for the return of the children; for, although she had been very happy while with them, and was unwilling to leave them, she intended to ask them how she could leave the peaceful Valley of Rest, and if they would provide her with the means of continuing her search for Aster.

Had Eva consulted her own wishes, and been able to carry them out, she would not have waited one moment, but would have gone at once out into Shadow-Land, which she now knew lay all around the valley. She knew, too, that the little brook running through the valley, and which had brought her Aster’s cry for help, was the same whose “Follow, follow me!” had led her to the golden fountain from whose crest she had received her little charge. But how to leave the valley she did not know. She could do nothing by herself,—she must wait till the return of the children,—so that she could scarcely be patient till the hours of darkness came, knowing that during91 them, and before the soft, rosy light could dawn again, that they would be with her.

There was nothing for it, however, but patience, and at last, after a day which had seemed at least a year long, darkness covered the valley; and although Eva had fully intended to keep awake until the children’s return, her eyes, try and resolve as she might, would not stay open, and she slept.

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CHAPTER XI.
THE MAGIC BOAT.

MORNING came, and Eva awoke, to find that she was all alone in the palace, and to wonder at the utter stillness around her. There was no song of birds to be heard,—no fall of musical waters,—no merry children’s ringing laughter and sweet voices. To all intents and purposes the palace seemed as deserted as it had been the day before. And wondering at all this, Eva rose, and went out of the palace to look for her companions.

They had returned; but when she saw them she understood why everything was so still. For, instead of the merry songs and joyous games and dances with which they had been accustomed to begin the day, they were gathered in little groups, and every face wore a sad and mournful expression.93 They seemed troubled, and every now and then one of them would point to the brook, and then shake her head; and Eva was going to ask them what could possibly have happened, and what the matter was, when they saw her; and then the whole crowd came around her, and before she could say a word, they exclaimed, with one voice:

“Oh, Eva! Eva! what have you done? You forgot your promise; you went to the brook, and you heard its story?”

Then it came into Eva’s mind that she must leave the children, who seemed so sorry for what she had done, and she hung her head and said, timidly:

“I could not help it.”

“It is true, and only what we feared,” one of them said,—the same one who had spoken to Eva through the door. “We knew how it would be before we left you. You could not help it, for it was Fate, and no promise can bar the power, no wishes change the will, of Fate.”

Then Eva began to tell them her story. And they all listened, and when she told them how the94 green toad had pulled her dress, another of the children spoke and told Eva that the green toad was Aster’s friend, and would do all it could to help him. That, just before she came to the valley, it had been there and told them she was coming. And then Eva finished her story, and begged them to let her go.

“We cannot keep you,” they said to her, “even if we wished it. We would like to keep you with us; but the green toad has commanded us to help you, so far as lies in our power. But we cannot save you from the dangers of the way. They, who are more powerful than our Queen, have forbidden it, and will not allow us to tell you what these dangers are, or how you can avoid them or escape them. That you will learn on the Enchanted River, down which you will have to go, and we must, if you ask us, furnish you with the means of reaching it. You cannot go there unless we help you, and we cannot keep you here if we would.”

“Will I find Aster?” Eva asked.

“That will depend upon yourself,” one of the children said, exactly as if she was telling a story95 she had heard. “If Aster had obeyed you, as he should have done, and as he was expected to do, your journey would have ended here, in this Valley of Rest, and we, who are the Dawn Fairies, would have been able to take his flower from the Night and Shadow Elves; but the loss of part of his coat gave them power over him, because Darkness always swallows up Light whenever it can; and so, just at the entrance of this place, on the verge between Shadow and Dawn, they succeeded in luring him away from you.”

Then they told Eva that for a certain time, which had now expired, Aster’s enemies had been able to prevent her seeking for him. “During that time,” they went on, “we were permitted to receive you; but then since Aster’s friends have been able to speak to you by means of the brook, though they can do nothing to rescue or to help him, for you are the only person who can release him from the power of the Elves of Shadow-Land; and since you have heard the voice, and are willing to follow it, we can only, much as we would like to keep you with us, help you, and let you go.”

96 “Has she no choice?” another asked. “Could she not, if she chose, remain with us, instead of exposing herself to the dangers through which she must pass?”

“I would rather go,” Eva began, “if I may choose.”

“You are right,” the first one who had spoken went on. “It is your fate, and,” using, as Eva remembered, words that Aster had spoken long before, and which seemed to be a proverb among the elves and fairies, “it will be, because it must be.”

And then Eva heard, above the voices of the children and mingling with them, the words which had come to her along the waters of the brook, but spoken this time more plaintively than ever:

“Eva! Eva! help me!”

And the children heard, for they said:

“You will not hear those words after you leave our valley. For, in the region through which you must pass, Aster’s friends have no power; you will have to depend wholly upon yourself. And”—as the waters of the little brook, by whose97 margin they were standing, began to ripple along faster, and murmur louder, while the musical fountains began to play, and the birds to sing—“and now you must leave us: everything is in readiness, and the time has come.”

Then, with Eva in their midst, the children began to walk slowly along the brook, which no longer brought Aster’s voice with it. On they went, through the calm valley; not, however, as Eva had expected, to the door in the rock through which she had entered, and which she had never been able to find again,—though she had looked for it the day before, but in the opposite direction,—towards the cavern in which the waters of the brook disappeared. She asked why she was not to be allowed to seek for Aster among the rocky, stony wastes in which he had disappeared.

“Because that is all over, and you cannot go back into the Past,” was the reply. “Nothing, which has once happened there, or been seen there, remains in Shadow-Land.”

They had come, by this time, to the cavern, and Eva saw that its roof was higher above the98 brook than it had been the day before; and that, floating on the water, which was here as smooth and still as glass, there were a great many pure white lilies, and that every now and then a speckled trout would jump from the water, and send a shower of crystal drops to sparkle on the green leaves around the white lilies.

“There lies your way,” the children said, pointing to the cavern and the brook. “But we must give you the means of going down the brook to the place where it meets the Enchanted River. Beyond that we cannot help you. We can only send you, in our boat, down the brook.”

At these words Eva looked up in great surprise, for no boat was to be seen, and she could not imagine where one was to come from. But then one of the children clapped her hands, and, as she did so, a lily-bud slowly rose from the water, and then opened, till it was larger and whiter than any of the other lilies. And then, while all looked on in silence, the pure white leaves of the lily fell into the water and melted away in it like snow; and then another waved99 her hands in the air, and immediately, on the stalk from which the lily-petals had fallen, there grew a pod. And when the pod had stopped growing, a third, stooping by the brook, dipped her hands into the water, and the lily-pod detached itself from its stem, and came floating to the bank.

Then the one who had clapped her hands took the pod out of the water and laid it on the bank. The second opened it and taking from out of it six round speckled seeds, laid them in the hands of the third. Then the third threw these six seeds, one by one, into the water, and as each seed touched the water it changed into a beautiful, large speckled trout; and one by one the six trout, gently moving their fins, ranged themselves in a line, their heads to the bank, and remained there, waiting.

Then the three children, lifting up the empty lily-pod, placed it gently upon the brook, and Eva saw that, as it lay on the smooth waters, it had become a little boat. And then the six trout, one by one, swam from the line which they had formed, and ranged themselves around it, one at100 the bow and one at the stern, and two on each side; and while she looked at the tiny boat it grew longer and broader, and at either end it rose in a graceful curve, finished at bow and stern with an open lily-cup; and then the calm surface of the water broke into a thousand little ripples, rocking the lilies to and fro, which bent as though they were saluting the little vessel, along whose sides the tiny waves flowed caressingly.

The children then told Eva that everything was ready, and that it was time for her to enter the boat which they had prepared for her, and which the six Fish Fairies would guide down the brook. But Eva hesitated, for the boat, she thought, was too small for her. One of the children, seeing that Eva hesitated, told her not to be afraid, for the boat was built in such a way, being a magic boat, that it would hold any one for whom it was made. So Eva did as she was told, and, stepping lightly into the boat, she found that it was just the right size for her; though she did not exactly know if it was she that had grown smaller or the boat which had grown larger.

101 As she sat down, the children told her to be careful and eat nothing except what the trout, who were to guide the boat, would bring her; and in return she was to take care of them, and let no one molest them, for the Fish Fairies are the weakest of all the fairies, though they can go where the others dare not even be seen. When the boat had taken her as far as it could, it would leave her, and return to the Valley of Rest.

Then, all joining hands, the children began to sing; and this is what they sung:

As the last words were sung, the boat, apparently of its own accord, moved into the centre of the brook, its bow pointing to the cavern. Then it paused for a moment, till the six speckled trout could come and take their places around it. And then, with a smooth, gliding motion, it went towards the entrance of the cavern, which suddenly raised its arch so as to admit the magic boat. When it was just under the arch, the boat stopped for a moment, and as Eva looked back, she saw that the children were already going back to the palace, singing as they went,—the bright, rosy light, and the rainbow-surrounded fountains, and the beautiful birds, seemed more charming than ever in contrast with the Dark Unknown into which she was going.

Then the boat shot forward again, and the arch of the cavern, which had been raised to103 allow the boat to enter, dropped behind her like a curtain, shutting out the Valley of Rest from Eva’s sight.

The rest she had enjoyed there was over,—her wanderings had again begun.

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CHAPTER XII.
DOWN THE BROOK.

IT was not without a moment’s fear that Eva saw the arch of the cavern close behind her, shutting her into silence; and surrounding her with a darkness which could not only be seen, but which was almost to be felt. At least so it seemed in contrast with the bright valley which she had left; but before many minutes had passed, or the boat had gone very far, her eyes became accustomed to the change, the intense blackness which surrounded her softened into a pale, dim gray; and then Eva saw that she was in a low arched place, like a long tunnel cut in the solid rock. Every now and then a drop of water would fall splashing into the brook from the roof, or else a little wave would break, rippling105 against the wall; but those were the only sounds to be heard.

Even the boat glided along noiselessly, with a smooth, uniform motion,—and the tiny waves, which occasionally ruffled the surface of the dark, still water, passed under her without Eva’s noticing them. Leaning over the side, Eva could just see in the water the dim outlines of the trout, which swam along noiselessly in their respective places. Then all at once it grew lighter, and in the two cups of the lilies in which the curved prow and stern of the boat ended, she saw that a pale, blue flame was burning, and she knew then that from these blue flames came all the dim gray light which illumined the cavern. And presently, without thinking, she dipped her hand into the brook, and right away the water all around it was full of bright sparkles, and yet these little sparkles did not burn her; and then one of the six speckled trout came and rubbed his head softly against Eva’s hand, and asked her what she wanted.

Eva stroked the trout’s back, and said,—

“Nothing.”

“Well, when you do want anything,” the trout106 said to her, “just dip your hand into the water, and one of us will come to you. Then you must ask for what you want, and if we can get it for you we will; and when you are hungry we will bring you something to eat.”

Eva thanked the trout, and said she would be sure to ask when she wanted anything. And then she took her hand out of the water, and the trout went back to his place, and Eva lay down quietly in the bottom of the boat, for she was tired of sitting up, and looked at the roof of the cavern. It was all rough and uneven, high above the water in some places and near it in others, with bright stones set here and there in it, which shone and sparkled like diamonds or little stars whenever the boat passed under them, or the light from the flames burning in the lily-cups, which Eva called her lamps, fell upon them. But there was no sign of life in the cavern, except that every now and then things like bats, frightened by the light, would fly out of holes in the wall away back into the darkness.

The boat went on and on, though there seemed no current in the water over which it glided, till,107 as Eva thought, they must have travelled for days. Sometimes she would sleep, and the boat went on just the same; when she was hungry, she would dip her hand into the water, and the trout would bring her a basket filled with the fruit which grew in the Valley of Rest. But Eva began to be very tired of the long journey through the cavern; and she was wondering to herself how much farther they would have to go, when all of a sudden the little blue flames burning in the lily-cups flickered for a moment, and then, seemingly gathering themselves together, shot up to the roof of the cavern and disappeared, leaving everything again in total darkness; and Eva was just going to ask the trout what this meant, when she saw, far away in the distance before her, what looked to her like a tiny, yet beautiful blue star shining.

This little star, which was yet far away, seemed so fair and lovely that Eva said, without intending to speak, “O little boat, if only you would sail faster, and go near the pretty star!” And, just as if the boat had heard and understood the words, it began to move faster,—or was it the star which grew larger and larger, and came to meet108 them? No! it surely was no star, for the blue spot became larger and still larger, and then the cavern grew lighter and lighter, till, when she was near enough, Eva saw that what she had taken for a star was the arched entrance into the rock, and the light it shed was the pure light of day pouring into the darkness of the cavern.

But it did not look so very inviting when the boat came nearer. Beyond the arch the air was full of curling mists and vapors, like those which Eva had seen at the foot of the precipice, and through these mists and vapors she caught dim glimpses of the same old hateful faces she had seen so often before. Just before the boat reached the arch, one of the six trout, putting his head above the water, said to her:

“Stop the boat.”

“How can I?” Eva asked, in surprise.

“Speak to her; she will obey you.”

And, to Eva’s great astonishment, as soon as the words, spoken very doubtingly, “Little boat, wait,” passed her lips, the little vessel stopped, and lay without moving on the water.

Then the same trout which had spoken to her109 previously put his head again out of the water and said:

“Before we go on, among the mists and vapors which lie beyond the cavern, it is well to tell you to be prepared. You must be on your guard, for THEY who dwell on the margin of the Brook of Mists will do everything in their power to prevent your reaching the Enchanted River. You will have to be careful, not only for yourself but for us, and no matter what they whom we meet may ask you to do, you must refuse, however trifling it may seem. Beyond the cavern we have no power to warn you; you must judge for yourself.”

More than this, the trout went on, they were not permitted to say to her. So Eva thanked them, and promised to remember what they had told her; and then she told the little boat to go on, and once more the little vessel glided forward with each trout in its own place.

They proceeded slowly; the curling mists and vapors always before them,—and, as Eva noticed, always behind them, although they were never close to the boat,—just as if she carried a free110 space along with her, and that the mists were not allowed to come within a certain distance of her.

So, for a time, they went quietly down the brook. And Eva, seeing that nothing happened, began to wonder why the trout had told her to be careful; and she was looking over the side of the boat at her own face reflected in the clear water, in which not a fish was to be seen, except those with her, when suddenly the boat began to rock to and fro, as she never had done before; and when Eva turned round to ascertain the cause of this rocking, there, perched on the side of the boat, was a great black jackdaw.

But, oh! what a very queer-looking jackdaw he was, to be sure! Every here and there he had peacock feathers stuck in among his plumage, and it was easy to see that they were only put in for show. It was as much as Eva could do to keep from laughing when she looked at him.

“Caw! caw!” cried the jackdaw, with his head to one side, just as if he thought himself the finest bird in the world. “I am hungry, little girl, for I have flown a long way to-day, and I want to know if you won’t give me something to eat.”

111 “I would, with pleasure,” Eva said, “if I had any corn with me, for that is what jackdaws eat.”

The jackdaw tossed his head at this.

“Pooh! you are silly; can’t you see I’m a peacock? Just look at my fine feathers, and tell me what you suppose I want with corn? If you really are willing to give me something to eat, why, I’ll take one of those fine, fat fish swimming near the boat.”

“That I cannot let you do,” Eva said. “I know who you are, now: you are the bird who stole the peacock’s feathers; I saw a picture of you in a little book I once read.”

“Found out! Found out!” cawed the jackdaw; and, with that, off he flew; and he was in such a hurry to be gone that he dropped two of the long feathers which had been in his tail, and Eva picked them up and stuck them into the side of the boat.

Then one of the trout, after the jackdaw was gone, put his head up out of the water and said:

“It is a good thing for all of us that you said ‘no’ to the bird. For, if you had said he might112 take one of us, he would not have touched us, but would have pecked a hole in the boat, and she would have sunk to the bottom of the brook. We should have had to leave you, and then you never could have reached the Enchanted River.”

“Where is the Enchanted River?” Eva asked the trout.

He answered, “It runs through Shadow-Land.”

“And where are we?”

“We are on the Brook of Mists, which empties into the Enchanted River. You came out of Shadow-Land when you entered the Valley of Rest.”

Then the boat went on quietly again. Only for a time, however, and presently Eva heard a voice, in a squeaky tone, calling to her:

“Stop, little girl, and take me in.”

And there, apparently crawling along the surface of the water, was a queer little dwarf. He had a large head, with round, green eyes; a fat, round body; and he was dressed in a yellow coat with scarlet facings, and his legs were so long and thin that they bent under him as he walked. And when he came up to the boat and laid his113 hand upon it, Eva saw that it was not a hand, but only a sharp black claw.

“Take me in!” he repeated.

Eva peeped at the trout over the side of the boat before she answered him, but they were taking no notice of the dwarf, and were swimming along as quietly as ever.

“Take me in!” he squeaked again.

“No,” Eva said; “the boat is too small to hold us both.”

“Then give me one of those peacock feathers to fan myself with.”

“I must refuse you,” Eva went on; “but perhaps the jackdaw, who was here not long since, might supply you, as he did me.”

“You are very unkind,” the dwarf said. “Come, now, I will give you such a pretty flower if you will only let me go a little way with you; a star-flower. Aster means—a star.”

Eva shook her head. “I cannot.”

“Why?”

“Because I think I saw you in the forest.”

And just as Eva said these words, a change came over the dwarf; he was the same, yet not114 the same, and she saw that he was nothing but a huge spider, and that instead of walking on the water, as she had supposed, he had come to the boat on a web stretched across the brook, on which he was now running away just as fast as he could.

Then another of the trout put up his head, and said:

“You did well to refuse him, for if he had gotten into the boat, or if you had given him the feather, he would have put a bandage over your eyes, so that you could not see, and then would have spun a web around you and the boat, and nobody knows how you ever would have got out of it.”

“He could not do it in the forest,” Eva said; “how could he do it here?”

“Because first you were only brought into Shadow-Land; this time you came into it. Such as he can only control those who allow him. He could only have power over you by your own act and deed.”

And once more the boat went on. But after awhile she was hailed again,—and Eva bade her stop.

115 This time Eva was surprised to see that the call came from a little old woman crouched upon a stone which rose above the water. A very ugly old woman she was, too; for she had a very wide mouth and a pair of prominent, staring black eyes, and she was wrapped in a green shawl, and talked in an odd little croaking voice.

“Where are you going?” she asked Eva. Eva only smiled, for she could not tell the old woman what she did not know herself.

“I know,” the old woman said, nodding her head, and without waiting for a reply, “you are looking for Aster and his coat.”

“How do you know?” Eva began; but the old woman interrupted her:

“Never you mind how I know it; it is enough for you that I do know it. And if you really want to find Aster, I can tell you where he is, and put you in the way of finding him.”

“If you only would,” Eva said, eagerly.

“You must first take me into the boat, and then give me one of your curls.”

“No,” Eva said, remembering what the trout had told her; “that I cannot do.”

116 Then the old woman grew angry, and she jumped off the stone, as if she wanted to get into the boat. But as she jumped, Eva spoke to the boat, and she moved on; and then the old woman fell into the water. And Eva saw that the old woman, changing her shape as soon as she touched the water, was nothing but the same great green frog she had seen before; and that her shawl was the piece torn from Aster’s coat which it was part of her business to find.

The third trout popped his head up out of the water:

“If you only could have known, and had given us the curl that the Green Frog asked you for, we would have made a net of it, in which we could have caught the frog, and then the hardest part of your task would have been over; for then you could have taken the piece of Aster’s coat away from her.”

“If you only had told me,” Eva said. “But it seems that you can only speak when it is too late.”

“Because when higher powers are present we must be silent. We are never allowed to speak till after they have spoken, and are gone.”

117 “Then, how could you have caught the frog?”

“Through the power you would have given us. But nothing can stop us or molest us now.”

Then the boat went on, down the brook, and nothing more happened to stop her progress. On she went, till at last, all of a sudden, the mists and vapors before her vanished, and Eva saw, just in front of her, what seemed the open mouth of a huge serpent ready to devour them. But the boat went on until it came near the terrible jaws, and then Eva saw that they were only two great rocks, one on each side of the brook,—and the boat passed unhurt between them. And just beyond them the water stopped short; and then the boat came to a pause, and nothing that Eva could say or do would move her one inch.

And then another of the trout put up his head, and told Eva she should bid the boat go to the shore; which she did; and the boat obeyed, and then stopped again, her bow resting on the shore.

“We can do no more for you,” the trout then told her. “We must now go home, for there, where the brook stops, the Enchanted River runs.118 On it our boat cannot go, and in it we cannot live; so, though we would like to help you, we cannot.”

Then Eva thanked them for what they had done, and taking one of her long bright curls, she tied part of it round each trout’s neck, where it shone like a collar of gold. And they told her that she should keep the rest of the curl, and if at any time she was in trouble from which she could not escape, and was near water, and thought that they could help her, she should throw the rest of the curl into the water, and they would come to her.

Then, holding in her hand the two feathers the jackdaw had dropped, which the trout told her might be useful, Eva bade the trout farewell, and stepped on shore. And as her foot touched the ground, the boat moved off into the stream, and waited there.

And presently Eva said, “Go home, little boat,” and the boat immediately, with the trout, began to go up the brook. She watched it till it was out of sight, and then the child stood alone on the banks of the Enchanted River.

119

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CHAPTER XIII.
THE ENCHANTED RIVER.

EVA had heard so much about this wonderful stream that, as she stood upon its banks, she could scarcely realize that she had at last reached it. And it looked quiet enough, now that she had come to it. It had seemed to her that the waters of the Brook of Mists had ended in nothing; but now, as she stood upon the river-bank, and looked back, she could see no water. The curling mists and vapors had spread over and covered all the way by which she had come, and the only things left to show the place of the brook were the two black rocks, half hid, half revealed, by the mists playing around them. But to remain there, looking back, would, as Eva well knew, never do. Her way lay down the river, and she might as well go boldly forward. So, slowly and carefully, she began to walk along the bank.

120 Quiet as the river had at first seemed, it was not very long before Eva found that it deserved its name. What she thought was land would very often prove to be water; and then again places which seemed to be a broad expanse of river would afford her a firm foothold. Here and there were sheets of what Eva thought at first was ice, so smooth and glassy did it look, yet it would not be cold to the touch. The river had no perceptible banks,—it was almost impossible to tell where earth ended and water began. Yet, walking along, sometimes with the water splashing above her ankles, Eva’s feet were never wet. The trees along the river seemed to walk on, and little green flames, tipped with orange, danced among them. Once one of these little flames fell on Eva’s dress, and when, fearing it might burn her, she brushed it off, she found that it was nothing but a harmless green leaf, with a golden tip, which had dropped from a tree hanging over the river.

Many wonderful things, too, lay on the bottom of the river. Eva saw them, and remembered dimly what they were as she caught sight of them121 through the clear water, though she could not tell where she ever had heard of them. An old lamp, rusty and cracked, she knew was Aladdin’s wonderful lamp; near it lay Cinderella’s little glass slippers; not far off was Blue Beard’s key; and the next thing that she saw was Jack’s famous bean-stalk. Seeing these things, and many more, she began to wonder if the flower which Aster had lost could possibly be among them, or if the piece of his coat was there; when she suddenly remembered that she had seen the latter in the possession of the Green Frog.

On she went, meeting no one and with no hindrance in her way. Then she saw a tiny worm, writhing, as if in pain, and trying to crawl away from a twig which lay on it and seemed to hold it. And pitying the feeble creature, even more helpless than she was, Eva stooped and took it from under the twig, and laid it gently down again. The twig immediately put forth many legs and ran away, and the worm crept into a hole near by. And a few minutes later Eva saw an old woman sitting in the water and warming her hands over a fire built upon a stone, and122 the child went up to her, and asked her if she would tell her where Aster was. But the old woman would not even look at her; she only shook her head and mumbled something which sounded like “Ask my sister,” and then she seemed, as Eva stood by her, to fall apart and melt away, and then there was nothing left of her except a little vapor, and the child saw that the fire was only a little heap of the same green leaves which she had seen among the trees.

And Eva went on, eager to leave a place where such strange things as this happened. Then the river seemed to disappear, and only a number of little pools of water were left. Picking her way carefully among them, in one she saw a poor, half-drowned mouse struggling, unable to get out; and when Eva saw it she took the little animal in her hand and laid it on dry land. It never even looked at her, but crept shyly away, as if it was afraid of her, and hiding itself under a leaf, Eva saw it no more.

Weary and tired, the child went slowly onward. At last the pools of water were all gone, and the river flowed on as before, but its waters123 were now white like milk. Tall, shadowy forms every now and then rose from it, and made threatening gestures; yet they always vanished before she came up to them. The banks of the river became high and steep, and Eva was compelled to walk in its bed; at times these rocky sides were so close together that it looked as if it would be almost impossible to pass between them; then again it would spread out into a vast expanse, with no visible limit, or else the water would run, not down, but up a rocky slope; it would smoke, and yet the water would be freezingly cold; masses of something as clear as ice would float in this smoking water, which were so warm that Eva could scarcely bear her hand upon them; on one of these masses lay a bird, like a robin, worn and exhausted, its feathers all wet and ruffled. Eva took it up tenderly, smoothed and dried its plumage, and held it till it was warm. And then the bird, seemingly impatient of her gentle hold, struggled to get free, and Eva released it, and in another moment it was gone too.

And then she came to where another old124 woman sat on a rock, around which the milky waters were foaming, and mists and vapors rose above and behind her. To this old woman she also spoke, and asked her the same question which she had asked before,—where Aster was. And in reply she was told that still farther down the river, at the Cascade of Rocks, was where the Toad-Woman lived, and that perhaps she might tell Eva what it was that she wished to know. “But,” the Mist-Woman added, “my sister will not always answer those who speak to her, and I cannot tell you how to make her.” And, as she spoke, the vapors thickened and gathered around her for a moment, and then melted away, and the Mist-Woman had vanished with them, and nothing was left except the bare rock.

The child began to think that the wonders of the river would never cease, and that her journey down it would be endless. Yet, tired as she was, she persevered, and went on until all the water was gone, and only stones and rocks lay in its former bed. But, strange to say, as Eva walked among the stones and rocks, she found they were only shadows. Then, all at once, a loud noise,125 as of falling stones, met her ear, and on coming to a sudden turn in the river, she saw that the noise was caused by what she at once knew was the Cascade of Rocks; for from a high precipice crossing the river’s bed fell an endless stream of huge stones, and seated in a sort of cavern, just behind the fall, there was a third old woman, with a head like that of a toad, fanning herself with a fan made of peacock’s feathers.

Eva was at first afraid to go near the woman, lest the stones should fall and crush her. But at last she ventured to go near, and she saw that at her approach the stones parted, as though to make room for her; and summoning all her courage, she went close to the cascade, and finding that none of the stones touched her, but rather got out of her way, she walked into the grotto.

The Toad-Woman stopped fanning and looked at her. Then she took a pair of spectacles out of her pocket and put them on, and Eva thought she looked funnier than ever. And then she asked:

“What do you want?”

And Eva answered, “I am looking for Aster.”

126 “I’ve not got him,” the old woman said.

“I know,” Eva replied; “but I was told that you might be able to tell me where he was.”

“Hum!” the Toad-Woman said. “You have, then, come down the Enchanted River, and seen my sister, the Mist-Woman. But even that won’t help you, though she did let you pass her, and though the stones did not trouble you. I do know where Aster is, but I promised my cousin that I would only tell it to the person who would bring me back the two feathers that her servant the jackdaw stole out of my fan.”

She held up her fan as she said this, and Eva saw that two feathers out of it were gone. And then the child remembered the two feathers which the jackdaw had dropped in the boat, and which, as the trout had advised her, she had brought with her from the brook. So she showed them to the woman, and asked her if these were not the same ones which she had lost. And the Toad-Woman was very much astonished, for they were the very feathers she had been talking about.

“Take a seat,” she said to Eva, “and tell me how you got them.”

127 And then a great big brown toad hopped out of his hole when he heard his mistress say this, bringing a three-legged stool on his back. He put it down before Eva, and then went back to his hole, and Eva sat down on the stool and looked at the Toad-Woman.

“Now, tell me about it,” said the Toad-Woman.

So Eva had to begin at the beginning and tell the whole story. And every time that she said anything about the green toad the old woman would nod her head, as much as to say, “I know all about that.” But she never interrupted Eva; only when she was done she said to her:

“I am the only person who can help you now, and as you brought me back my feathers, I will do what I can for you. The Green Frog, who has done all this harm, is a distant cousin of mine, but she delights in doing mischief, and we have not been friends since her servant the jackdaw stole the feathers out of my fan. She it is who has got Aster, and you cannot find him until you get his coat, and the piece of it. You will have to work for them, for I cannot help you128 there; all I can do for you will be to send you where she lives.”

Then Eva thanked the Toad-Woman very earnestly, who told her that she must be content to remain with her for that night, and the next morning that she would tell her where the Green Frog lived, and what she should do when she got there.

So that night Eva slept in the grotto behind the Cascade of Rocks. The Toad-Woman waked her up very early in the morning. She had a dress in her hand, just the color of mud, which she told Eva to put on.

“Leave your white dress here with me,” she said. “Because you will have to deal with the things and the inhabitants of Shadow-Land, and it would, if it touched them, change them all into mists and shadows. Then, too, you must not be recognized.”

Then the Toad-Woman tied Eva’s head up in a cap, so as to hide all her golden curls, and made her wash her face and hands in some water which she gave her. Then she told her to go and look at herself in a little pool of water which was just129 outside of the grotto, and Eva could not help laughing when she saw herself, for face, hands, cap, and dress were all the same color.

“My cousin lives on the other side of the Cascade of Rocks,” the Toad-Woman went on. “Go to her—one of my servants will show you the way—and ask her to hire you. She will not recognize you, but will take you, and will tell you that if you do your work well you may name your own wages at the end of each week. You will be able to do any work she may give you, and at the end of every week she will ask you what wages you want. Tell her you cannot say without asking your mother. Then she will tell you to go and ask her, and you must then come to me, and I will tell you what to say. In the mean time I will take care of your dress till you need it again.”

Eva listened attentively to all that the Toad-Woman said to her, and thanked her for her advice. And then the woman called her servant, and the same big brown toad who had brought the stool, and who, by the way, was just the color of Eva’s dress, hopped out of his hole, and his mistress bade him take Eva to where the Green Frog lived.

130

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CHAPTER XIV.
THE GREEN FROG.

FOLLOWING the toad, and saying good-bye to his mistress, Eva passed unhurt through the falling stones, and picked her way carefully among those which lay in the bed of the river, till they came to the turn at which she had first caught sight of the Cascade of Rocks. There the toad hopped quickly on shore, and then he hopped across a large plain of mud, in which grew a multitude of toad-stools, and on every toad-stool, or mushroom, there sat either a frog or a toad, and in the mud at their feet were countless numbers of snakes and lizards, their long, shining bodies and tails coiled around the stalks of the toad-stools.

It was almost impossible for Eva to make any progress through the mud, over which the toad,131 big as he was, hopped so lightly. Still, she succeeded in crossing the field after him, though when they reached a firmer soil, Eva was fairly ashamed of her dress, on which there was so much mud; and when they came to a little pool of clear water, in which she saw herself reflected, she wondered for a moment who that dirty little girl could be; and then she laughed to think how very different this little mud-stained figure was from the white-robed maiden who had passed without a soil or a spot on her dress through the forests of Shadow-Land.

At last they came in sight of a little hut, built of rough stones, with a huge toad-stool for a roof, directly in the middle of a field, which was full of little pools of water. The field was surrounded by a strange fence, in which the posts were all toad-stools, and the rails all spider-webs. On each toad-stool a green frog was sitting, and in every web there hung either a red or a black spider. When they came to this fence, the toad, after going up to one of the green frogs and croaking something to him, turned round without so much as saying “good-bye” to Eva, and132 hopped away just as fast as he could go; and then one of the toad-stools; with the web attached to it, swung open as if it had been on a hinge, so that Eva could enter the inclosure.

She went up to the door of the hut and knocked. And the third time that she knocked the door was opened by a large jackdaw, which Eva immediately recognized as the same bird which she had seen on the brook, dressed in the peacock feathers which he had stolen from the Toad-Woman’s fan; but although she knew him in a moment, he evidently did not know her, she was so very muddy, and so unlike her own self. In the hut, on a toad-stool, which served as a chair, sat the same Green Frog, with a little shawl over her shoulders, she had seen before, which had tried to carry Aster off, and had torn his coat; and it was with some little hesitation that Eva went up to her, and curtsied to her. And then, as she had been told, she asked the Frog if she needed a servant.

The Green Frog inspected her from head to foot.

“You are pretty dirty,” she said to Eva, “and133 I don’t think that I ever saw you before. But that don’t matter. You will have to work out-of-doors, and if you do your work properly, at the end of the week you may ask for your own wages. But if you don’t work well, I will give you nothing, but I will turn you into a frog, and put you on a toad-stool, as I have done with a great many before you.”

Eva thought to herself that perhaps the Frog never before had a servant like herself, so she told her that she was still willing to hire herself. Then the Frog told the jackdaw to take the new servant out and tell her what she was to do.

So the jackdaw hopped out, and Eva followed him. And when he told her what her work for that week was to be, she thought it was very funny work. And then he told her she might do as she pleased for the rest of that day, but the next morning she must go to work. And Eva amused herself by looking everywhere for Aster. But he was not to be seen. Only, just over the back-door of the hut, there hung a little wire cage, and in it there sat a little green bird, which screamed whenever the jackdaw or the Frog even134 looked at it. And when it began to grow dark, these two took the little bird out of his cage and picked out his tail and wing-feathers, the bird screaming and struggling all the time, and then they put him back into the cage. And it was just as much afraid of Eva as it was of the jackdaw and the Frog.

There was neither sun nor moon in this place,—as in the forest, when the moon was gone, all the light seemed to come from the earth. And every morning Eva noticed that the tail and wing-feathers of the little green bird had grown again, though every evening either the Frog or the jackdaw pulled them out.

I said that when Eva was told of the work she would have to do she thought it was very queer work. Every morning, when the light drove away the darkness, she was to wipe off and dust the tops of the toad-stools on which the frogs sat, and she thought it would be very easy to do. So she tried to do it, and the jackdaw stood on one foot and cawed at her all the time,—and the more she rubbed and wiped the top of the toad-stool post the dirtier it became,—and she was nearly in135 despair, when she heard one of the frogs whisper to the other,—

“If she would only catch the jackdaw and sweep one off with his tail, she would have no more trouble.”

And Eva did as the frog had said, and though the jackdaw screamed and struggled, and tried to get away, it did him no good. But she found that when she had swept one toad-stool off that all the rest were as clean and nice as possible, and there was nothing more to be done to any of them. And every evening before the Green Frog went to sleep—she slept every night in a little pond or pool in the corner of the hut—Eva had to walk around the inclosure and count the spiders and see that their webs were whole. But she never had any trouble,—the webs were always whole; and one of the spiders was sure to tell her how many of them there were.

So a whole week went by, and every morning Eva caught the jackdaw and swept one toad-stool off with his tail. Now, Mr. Jackdaw did not at all approve of this, and in the morning, when he saw Eva coming, he would run away and hide136 himself. Then Eva would stoop down and pretend to whisper to one of the frogs; and the jackdaw, who was very inquisitive, would be so terribly afraid that something might be said that he would like to hear, that he would come running up in a great hurry, only to be caught and used as a living duster.

And when the week was over Eva presented herself to the Green Frog, and asked for her wages. And then the old Frog asked her what she wanted. And Eva did as the Toad-Woman had told her, and said she would like to go and consult her mother. This she was allowed to do, and Eva returned, by the same road by which the brown toad had led her, to the grotto behind the Cascade of Rocks.

There sat the Toad-Woman, fanning herself, just as if she had never moved since Eva first saw her. And she knew all about the work Eva had to do without Eva’s telling her. She told Eva to ask for the little green coat which hung at the head of her mistress’s bed (if you can call a pool of water a bed). “She will refuse you,” the woman went on, “but you must insist. You have earned it, and will get it in the end.”

137 Eva thanked her, and then returned to the hut. And sitting in the door was the Frog; and she said to her that she was ready for her wages.

“What am I to give you?” croaked the Frog.

“Nothing but the little green coat which hangs at the head of your bed.”

Then the Frog told her that she could not give her that, and offered her all sorts of beautiful things instead. But Eva insisted upon having the little green coat; and as fairies—even when they are bad fairies—are compelled to keep their promises or else lose their power, the Frog had to keep her word; and she told Eva that if she could find the little coat she might have it.

So Eva went into the hut and looked over the pool in which the Frog slept; and hanging against the wall were little green coats innumerable, which surprised Eva, for she never had seen anything hanging there before; and they all looked so much alike that she did not know which to choose. Then it seemed to her that a mist gathered in her eyes, and she raised her hand to rub it away, and then she saw, sitting on one of the little green coats, a beautiful, pure white138 moth; and then Eva saw that the other coats were only shadows, and the one on which the white moth sat was Aster’s coat. So she took it down, and the moth never moved,—and then it spoke:

“Do you remember the tiny worm that you saved from the crawling twig? I was that worm; and this is the first opportunity I have had to thank you for saving my life, and the best service I could render you was this.”

And without waiting to be thanked, the white moth spread her wings and was gone.

The Green Frog was angry enough when she saw that Eva had chosen rightly. But there was nothing to be done, only she grumbled to herself and said,—she did not know that Eva heard her:

“The coat is useless without the piece.”

However, she hired Eva on the same terms for another week. For she thought that if the new servant failed this time she would not only change her into a frog, but get the little coat back. And the work Eva had to do this week was to empty, and then refill with fresh water every morning, the pool in which the Frog slept,139 and they gave her a pail with no bottom to do it with.

And Eva would have been in a sad way if she had not heard the jackdaw say, as he stood by the pool:

“Our new servant is caught at last; for, if she did take me for a broom last week, she will never have sense enough to know that if she shakes her pail over the pool and says ‘Water, go,’ it will empty itself, and then ‘Water, come,’ and she will have no more trouble.”

And then out hopped the jackdaw, and never knew that Eva heard him. And she found he was right; and she noticed, too, that this week they only pulled out the little green bird’s wing-feathers, and never touched his tail.

She did her work this time without any trouble. At the end of the week it was the same thing over again about the wages, and again Eva went to the Toad-Woman, and was told what she should do.

So she said to the Green Frog, “My coat is useless as long as it has a hole in it. You can give me the jackdaw’s best cravat to mend it with.”

140 The Frog laughed at this, and told Eva to go and get it. She did not know that the jackdaw, being fond of dress, and a thief, had stolen the piece of Aster’s coat for that purpose. However, she found it out soon enough, and when Eva went to look for it,—behold! a great spider had spun a web around it,—a web so strong that she could not break it. And after trying a long time, she was nearly in despair, when she saw a little gray mouse come out of a hole, and, climbing up to the web, gnaw and bite at it with its sharp teeth till it cut it all through; and then it brought and laid in her hand the same piece of velvet which had been torn out of Aster’s coat. Then the little mouse said to her:

“You saved me from being drowned, and I am not ungrateful.” And then it crept back into its hole.

But when the Green Frog saw what Eva had, she was very angry, and determined to give her something which was harder to do than anything she had yet tried. So for the third week Eva’s work was to wash and keep the shawl clean which the Frog wore when she went out. And the first141 time that Eva tried to wash it she found that the harder she rubbed it, and the more she tried to clean it, the dirtier it became. But late in the day she heard the Green Frog say to the jackdaw:

“I’ll get my coat back, and you shall have your cravat again, for the servant is such a dunce that she will never learn that the only way to clean my shawl is to lay it on a toad-stool, and to walk around it three times, and say every time, ‘Shawl, be clean.’”

But Eva’s ears were given to her for use, and, consequently, every night the shawl was like new. And this week she saw that they only plucked one of the little bird’s wings. The end of the week came, and Eva, instructed by the Toad-Woman, asked for her wages.

“What is it this time?”

“I want the little green bird that hangs in the cage over the back-door.”

“No,” said the Frog, “I cannot give him to you.”

“You cannot help it,” Eva said, quietly; “you promised to pay me, and I have earned my wages.’

142 “Who told you anything about the little green bird,” the Frog went on. “He won’t sing for you, and you had better let me give you a purse full of gold.”

But no, Eva would take nothing but the bird, and at last the Frog told her to go and take him, if she could find him. And then she went into the hut, grumbling and talking to herself.

Eva went to the back of the house to look for the little green bird. When she got there she did not know what to do, for there were at least fifty cages there, and in each cage was a little green bird, and cages and birds were all exactly alike,—there was no telling them apart,—and which the one she wanted could be Eva did not know. And if she chose the wrong one, all her work would be lost.

Yet, look as she might, she could not tell which was the right one. Then there was a flutter of wings in the air, and then she felt something pull her dress, and there at her feet was a beautiful bird, holding her dress in its beak, and it led her round and round the cages, and every cage that her dress touched melted away and disappeared,143 till there was only one cage and one bird left, and then the new bird never hesitated, but lit on the top of this cage, and then he said to Eva:

“This is Aster, who was changed by the Green Frog into this form. He cannot regain his own shape without you, and the Toad-Woman will tell you what you are to do. As soon as the Frog misses him she will know who you are, which she does not yet know, and she will do her best to get him away from you. Go at once, and without any delay, to the Cascade of Rocks. Your friend there will help you. And remember that a kind action never goes unrewarded.”

And then the bird was gone, and Eva was alone. She tried to open the cage and take the little green bird out, but there was no such thing as opening it. So she took the cage, and the coat, which she had mended, and the piece had grown into the velvet, so that you never could tell that it had been torn, and without going again into the hut or telling the Frog she had found the bird, she went, for the last time, by the same road by which she had come, to the grotto of the Toad-Woman.

144 But she had not been gone many minutes before the Green Frog, wondering that her servant did not return to hire herself again, went in search of her. And the moment she saw that the bird was gone she knew who Eva was, and that she had discovered Aster; and, angry at herself for her own stupidity, she immediately set off in pursuit, hoping it was not yet too late to regain the prizes she had lost.

145

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CHAPTER XV.
IN THE GROTTO.

IT was with a light heart that Eva passed over the muddy way which lay between the hut and the cascade. As rapidly as she could, she went along. The little bird screamed and cried incessantly, and Eva feared, that hearing him, the frogs inhabiting this region might, by their croakings, give the alarm, and bring their powerful mistress on her track before she reached the grotto. But the frogs were all, or else seemed to be, asleep, and she passed them unnoticed.

In a very short time, which yet seemed to Eva like hours, she reached the grotto. Here she felt comparatively safe, and she would gladly have rested, but the Toad-Woman, telling her she had no time to lose, for the Green Frog knew of her escape, and that she herself was well aware of all146 that had happened at the hut, bade her change her dress.

Now, what Eva most wanted was to see Aster restored to his original shape. But, without a word, she obeyed the woman, and put on her own white dress again. It was so nice to get rid of that horrid, mud-colored thing she had been wearing, to shake down her long curls, instead of having them tied up in a little plain cap, and to have the ugly brown dye come off her face and hands. Eva was more than glad,—she enjoyed the change.

“Now we will help Aster,” said the Toad-Woman. But the question was, how to open the cage and to get the bird out. For the cage had no door, and the bird flew round and round it, screaming and pecking at Eva’s hands, till the child was nearly ready to cry. “The Frog has still power, through her enchantments, over him,” the woman said. “Give me the cage, and let me see what I can do.”

So she took up the cage and said some words which Eva did not understand, and then drew a circle in the air over it with her hand; and then,147 to Eva’s great amazement, a door in the cage opened and the woman put her hand in it and took out the bird, which screamed louder and pecked harder than ever.

“Now,” said the Toad-Woman, “we must make all the haste we can. We must find Aster before the Frog gets here. I’ll hold the bird’s head, and you take his tail, and then pull,—pull as hard as you can.”

All this was so queer to Eva, who thought they had found Aster, that she could not understand it. But the old woman saw her trouble, and, without getting angry or impatient, as some fairies would have done, she said to Eva:

“Aster is sewed up in the bird’s skin. And we can only get him out by tearing it apart. Make haste, there is no time to be lost.”

So the old woman at the head, and Eva at the tail, pulled, and pulled, and pulled. And the harder they pulled, the more the bird screamed and cried, till Eva pitied him so that she could scarcely bear to hurt him. But whenever she would want to stop the Toad-Woman would tell her to pull harder.

148 Such a tough skin as it was, to be sure! There seemed to be no such thing as tearing it, and the Toad-Woman said that Aster must have been very naughty before he fell into the Green Frog’s hands. And Eva, much as she loved Aster, could not contradict this.

But at last the bird left off screaming, and hung between them as if it was dead. And then, as the two pulled, it got larger and longer, and the feathers were farther apart, and then all of a sudden the skin gave way and vanished, where, Eva did not know, and from it there dropped, just in time for Eva to save it from falling to the floor of the grotto, Aster’s tiny figure, motionless, and as it were, asleep, and just like what he had been when Eva first received him, except that his coat was in her hands; and the Toad-Woman had only time enough to tell her to put it on him, and Eva had just obeyed, and was stooping to kiss the little prince as he lay in her lap, when they heard a loud croak, and with a long leap the Green Frog was in the grotto.

But as soon as she saw Eva, standing there in her spotless white robe, holding the unconscious149 little prince, she knew how it was that he had been taken from her, and that her power over him was nearly gone. Yet she knew that if she could once again obtain possession of him that no one could rescue him; and as Eva had once submitted to her, she had no power of herself, as she before possessed, to protect him. And without even looking at the Toad-Woman, she was going to leap upon Aster, and try and snatch him from Eva’s arms, when the Toad-Woman, taking from her pocket a curl, which even in that moment Eva recognized as part of the one which she had cut to give to the trout, and which had lain, forgotten ever since, in the pocket of her own white dress, dropped it on the ground. And as the hair touched the ground a spring of clear water came bubbling up, and in it Eva saw her friends, the six trout, whom she recognized by the golden collars they wore; and the Green Frog was so surprised that she stopped to look, and then the water covered her, and before she could move, the trout, as they had once said they could do, swam up to her and enveloped her in a net made of these golden hairs, which the Frog could150 not break, and then, in spite of all her efforts to escape, and her loud croakings, the floor of the grotto opened, and spring, trout, and Frog were gone in a moment.

It all passed in less time than can be told, and once more Eva and the Toad-Woman were alone.

“Your hardest work is over,” the woman said to her. “The three tasks are done; you have found Aster, his coat, and its piece. Here you cannot stay any longer. When the moon is full again Aster’s long-lost flower will bloom, and you will find it.”

And then a sudden darkness came over everything, and when, a moment later, the light returned, nothing was as it had been. The Toad-Woman, her grotto, and the Cascade of Rocks were gone, and when Eva heard the music which heralded the coming of the moon, and saw the silver crescent rise to its place, and Aster once more woke from his sleep, she could scarcely realize that she was again in the old, familiar forest, and the past seemed like a dream.

For in that moment of darkness, the Enchanted River had disappeared, and Eva knew that the search in truth was nearly over.

151

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CHAPTER XVI.
ASTER’S STORY.

ONCE more Eva and Aster, hand in hand, wandered, as they both had feared they would never again be allowed to do, through the forest, by the light of the fair young moon, which looked down upon them from the sky. And nothing came now to disturb them; no hideous faces mocked at them from behind shrub or tree; no hostile beings, in shape of spider or of frog, strove to take Aster from his young guardian. Nor were they limited, as before, to the narrow path which had previously confined their steps; but they might wander, unmolested, as their fancy led them, through the forest. Shadows still surrounded them, yet these shadows were fair and lovely152 to look upon: groups of sweet child-figures at play, or fair faces which smiled on the two as they passed.

Flowers, too, more brilliant and beautiful in hue than any they had yet found, bloomed wherever they looked. Not the pale, scentless blossoms they had seen before, but flowers which greeted them with rich perfume, and whose bells and chalice-like cups, touched lightly by the dress of the children as they passed, rang forth in bright and joyous melody. In the bells of the flowers sat and swung tiny and beautiful shapes, which Aster told Eva were the Flower Fairies, the gentlest of the race, whose sole duty was to carry perfume to, and color the flowers. Some bathed in the dewdrops on the leaves, others rode, seated on beautiful butterflies, but all seemed gay and happy.

The light shed by the growing crescent of the moon seemed brighter; the soft music which hailed her coming more joyous and triumphant; the clouds, reflecting the moon’s light, wore a rich, rosy tint, reminding Eva of the light in the Valley of Rest; the grass was green, and soft as153 velvet,—the little sparkling brooks which they occasionally crossed all sung the same song:

For a few days, however, Eva noticed that Aster seemed dull and spiritless. He scarcely ever spoke, but walked quietly by her side. Nothing seemed to attract his attention, nothing made him smile; but every now and then, when they would cross one of the little brooks, and it would sing its song, he would look down upon his dress, and say, sadly:

“It will never be bright again!”

Yet Eva noticed that he was careful never to trample on the flowers, or to hurt anything in their path. And as, day after day, the moon brightened and broadened, and Aster grew with her increase, Eva saw that the sad, mournful expression in his eyes vanished, and they regained their former starlike brilliancy. By slow degrees154 the spots and the stains upon his dress disappeared; and, as they faded away, Aster became once more his own playful and happy self. Never before had he been as gentle or as docile and affectionate as he now was, though he was very silent; and Eva thought, could he only be always as he was now she would be content never to leave him; and she began to think, almost with dread, of their approaching separation.

On and on they went, till they came to a place where a tiny spring, bright as a living diamond, gushed up joyously, singing to itself for very gladness. Soft green mosses and pure white flowers grew around it; and when Aster saw it, he sprang forward with a joyous cry, and seating himself near it, he beckoned to Eva to follow his example.

Then, for the first time since the two had been together, for he had never before mentioned the past, so that Eva almost thought he had forgotten it, Aster asked her to tell him how she ever had found him again.

And once more Eva told the story,—this time to an interested listener,—how, after she missed155 him, she had sought him, but in vain, among the marked holes, and, seeking him, had climbed the rock to the door of the Valley of Rest; how she had been admitted, and had dwelt among the Happy Children till, the day of their absence, the little brook had brought her the piteous cry, “Eva! Eva! help me!” How this cry had recalled all she had forgotten, how the Dawn Fairies had given her the magic boat, in which she had gone through the cavern and down the Brook of Mists,—and then, leaving the boat, had gone, all alone, up the Enchanted River to the grotto of the Toad-Woman behind the Cascade of Rocks; how the woman had advised her, and how she had served the Green Frog; what the moth, the mouse, and the bird had done for her; how the skin covering the little green bird had been torn; and how, after the Frog was carried away by the friendly Fish Fairies, she had known that the worst was over, and the search nearly done.

Aster listened, and when Eva paused, he began; and it seemed to her that, as he told his story, he spoke as he had never before spoken,—as if he was older, and more matured.

156 “I can tell you now,” he said, “now that it is all nearly over, who THEY were of whom you used to wonder that I spoke. The Green Frog and her servants were the visible forms of THEY to whom my punishment was committed. Yet, had I obeyed you,—which was part of my trial,—you, under whose care my friends, who advised you in the shape of the toad and the Toad-Woman, were allowed to place me, but little of this trouble would have come upon me. If I failed in obedience to you,—such was the condition,—if THEY gained the slightest hold upon me,—I must fall wholly into their power, and then only, if you really wished it, could your Love have power to overcome their Hate. And you know, Eva, how I fell into their hands.”

“Yes, I know,” Eva said; “but I do not yet see why you crept into the crevice in the rock.”

“How could I help it?” Aster asked. “After all I had done, and all that had happened before! Because what must be, will be, and THEY made me.”

“And then, after you went into the rock?” Eva asked, eagerly. “Remember, I know nothing of that.”

157 Then Aster told her how, in the crevice of the rock, he had found that the Green Frog lay in wait for him. How she and her servants had taken him, bound and tied with the same spider’s web from which Eva had, once before, in the forest, released him, to her hut in the field of mud. And how, when there, he had to lie in the mud, as a footstool for the Frog,—and that every night she made him stand before her, and would laugh at him, and ask him why Eva and his friends did not come to help him.

“I was too proud,” Aster said, “and too angry, to call for you. I thought I should, by myself, be able to escape. I tried, but the power of THEY who kept me was too great for me, and I never once succeeded even in passing the strange fence around the hut.

“But all the time, Eva, I knew—and it was part of my punishment—that an appeal to you could be heard, and that you would come to help me. But that I—I, a prince,—powerful at home, and only weak now because I had lost such a trifling thing as a flower, should be compelled to ask help of one who was able to help me only because158 she was gentler and kinder than I was,—I could not do it. Meantime, the Green Frog laughed at my efforts to escape. Yet, do what she would to me, I never called for you. She might hang me up in the spider’s web,—she might threaten to crush me,—I was silent.

“At last I could stand it no longer, I must help to carry heavy stones, and when their weight nearly crushed me,—for though only shadows to you, they were realities to me,—I would have rested, the spider would sting me and scorch me with his poisonous breath,—the jackdaw peck me,—and the Green Frog would threaten to swallow me, and tell me that now you never would come to me, for the Dawn Fairies had made you forget me. And not till then, when they told me you had forgotten me, did I speak; and the only words that I said were these, ‘Eva! Eva! help me!’”

“Yes,” Eva said, “those are the same words that the brook brought me.” And then she told Aster about her dream: how the faces had asked why he lost his flower; and the frog had spoken of his coat; and the spider asked why he crept159 into the rock; and how, between it all, had come the wailing cry of “Eva! Eva! help me!”

Then, too, Aster told her how they had spoken of what she must do, and that they thought she never would do it, or know what was to be done. And then he went on:

“But at last the Green Frog grew angry, when she found that, no matter what she said or did, I only answered, ‘Eva! Eva! help me!’ For then, making her servants strip off my coat, she touched me with a stick, and said to me:

“‘You shall never let Eva hear you. I will silence you.’

“And, as she spoke, I was changed all at once into the little green bird in whose shape you found me. And then the Frog, putting me in a cage, said:

“‘You can never get out till your friend gets the piece of your coat, the coat itself, and then finds you. If she does these things, you may be free; but these things she cannot do unless others help her; and not till after all these things are done can she hope to find your flower again.’

“The rest, Eva, you know.”

160 As Aster spoke, Eva looked at him. And she saw that, on the rich, green velvet of his dress, only a few tiny spots and stains were left; and then she began to wonder what would happen when the moon would again be full, and the flower they had sought so long should bloom and be found. Would Aster then return to his home? and, as for herself, what would become of her?

But she did not wonder long, for the soft music which attended the disappearance of the moon thrilled through the forest, and Eva and Aster, by the side of the spring, lay down and slept. And, once more, as on the first night that Eva, holding the tiny form of Aster to her heart, had slept on the mossy bed where once the golden fountain had played, the two fair white forms bent over the sleeping children, and one said:

“The punishment is over.”

“Yes,” was the other’s reply, “Love has overcome Hate, and Aster has been led back, through its gentle influences, to his true self once more.”

Yet, even as they spoke, two figures, with the hateful faces Eva had seen, crept slowly up161 through the darkness to where the children lay. But the white forms, hovering over their sleep, spoke:

“Go back, oh, evil fairies! to the dark shadows among which ye dwell! Here your power is over, and our Prince is a prince once more.”

And, with a low cry of disappointment and rage, the two, turning away from the bright forms, shrank into the darkness, and were seen no more. Then, with a smile on their beautiful faces, the two bright forms bent caressingly over the sleepers; and a moment later they, too, were gone, and Eva and Aster were alone.

162

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CHAPTER XVII.
THE LAST OF SHADOW-LAND.

ONCE again there rang through the forest a strain of rich and gleeful music. Once more the moon rose, a bright, unbroken circle, to her station in the sky. A soft, rosy light lingered everywhere; flowers of rarer beauty than ever, bloomed in profusion; the murmur of the spring was sweeter than ever, and as Eva awoke, and looked at Aster, she saw that neither spot nor stain defaced his rich dress, but that it was as unsullied as her own. And as she looked upon her young companion, now as tall as herself, and with something in his bearing Eva had never been conscious of before,—something noble and princelike,—she heard a voice from the spring murmuring, in soft, melodious tones:

And oh! what a sweet smile curved Aster’s lips as he heard these words! Yet, when Eva would have spoken, he laid his hand gently upon her mouth, as though to command silence; and the child, feeling that their positions, somehow, were strangely reversed,—that it was now Aster’s turn to command and hers to obey,—was silent.

The two stood, looking into the clear water of the spring. Then Aster seated himself on the moss, in silence, and beckoned to Eva to do the same, and without hesitating she followed his example.

They sat, not a word passing between them, and on each fair face was a different expression. On Aster’s was all joyous expectation, all smiles and happiness; on Eva’s there was a serious look, almost amounting to mournfulness. It pained her, more than she was willing to confess, to think that, after all she had borne and done for Aster, he should welcome their separation so gladly; for, however much they might wish to164 remain together, the finding of the flower would be the signal for their parting; and the toil and trouble through, which Eva had passed for Aster’s sake had only the more endeared him to her. He seemed already far, far away from her, and Eva knew she was no longer necessary to him.

And as Eva, sitting by Aster’s side, thought of all this, somehow the place where they sat seemed to grow more familiar; another and a well-known sound mingled with the other sounds of the forest,—the voice of falling waters. And then, as Aster’s face grew brighter and more expectant, and his starlike eyes sparkled, Eva felt a sudden dimness gather in her own, and first one large tear and then another rolled down her cheeks, and dropped, as she bent over it, into the waters of the little spring.

But she was wholly unprepared for what followed. Aster sprang to his feet, and the words, “Look, Eva, look!” passed his lips. And as Eva, her hand now clasped in his, looked, the spring bubbled and foamed, and then, its waters parting, up rose from its bosom the Golden165 Fountain, with its clouds of glistening, golden spray; its rainbow sparkles of colored light; its musical falls and its dancing elves, as she had long since seen it.

Nor was this all. For, even as the children gazed, there appeared in the calm water at the foot of the fountain a bud, folded in soft, green leaves; and, by slow degrees, as Eva looked, the bud rose from the encircling foliage, and its stem grew higher and higher, and then, slowly and gracefully, its pure white petals opened, like a fair and stainless ivory cup enfolding a golden torch, and it breathed forth the fragrance of many violets: and, as Eva looked, she knew that the search was over, and the pure white lily before them was Aster’s flower, won at last.

Then Eva’s blue eyes shone with joy, and her fair cheeks flushed, and she turned to Aster:

“Aster, be glad; for your flower is won, and all that remains is for you to pluck it.”

“No,” he said, slowly; “that is not for me to do. I can only receive it as your gift, Eva; I am not worthy to gather it,—that can only be done by your hand.”

166 And Eva, bending over the water, plucked the beautiful lily, with its long stem, and laid it in Aster’s hand. And, as his fingers clasped the gift, a swell of music thrilled through the air, and Eva saw, hovering over them, the two fair, white forms which had come before, and which she at once knew had, under the shapes of the toad and the Toad-Woman, led and advised her, and she pointed them out to Aster. And, as Aster raised his eyes to them, they beckoned to him, and smiled upon Eva; and she knew that all was over, and the moment had come for them to part.

Still, not a word passed between them. Eva’s eyes were fixed upon Aster,—his were raised to the bright hovering forms. Then, holding the lily in his hand, he turned to Eva and pressed his lips to her brow.

“That was the kiss with which you woke me, Eva, given back to you,—this is because I love you.”

He kissed her lips, and as he did so a bright crimson light flashed suddenly around them, dazzling Eva’s blue eyes, so that she involuntarily167 closed them, and then the sweet breath of violets floated around them, and all was still.

Eva sat up, and rubbed her eyes. Tall, wavy grass grew all around her, violets, dandelions, and buttercups bloomed through it, and her lap was full of the pretty field-flowers. Bees were buzzing and collecting honey,—butterflies floated lazily about on their black-and-golden wings,—the brown beetle, with his long black feelers, swung on the tall grass-stalk,—the crickets chirped,—the snail had put out his horns,—the old mill-pond glistened and shone in the long, slanting rays of the setting sun,—there was her father’s house,—everything was just as it used to be, except the green toad, and that was a very important exception.

And while Eva was rubbing her eyes, and trying to think where she could be, and what all this meant, she heard the tea-bell ring, and as that was very easy to understand, she got up and went to the house. She peeped through the window before she went in, and everything seemed right168 in there. For her mother was just folding up her work,—the baby was crowing and playing with his rattle in the cradle,—strawberries and cream and sponge-cake were on the table; and when Eva came quietly in, and slipped into her seat by her father, he put his hand on her curls, and asked her if she had had a nice time down by the pond the whole afternoon.

“Yes, papa,” was all Eva could say, and then she paid very strict attention to her saucer of ripe strawberries covered with cream.

Presently her mother said:

“My little girl had a nice long nap this afternoon. I called her once, and she only raised her head for a minute, and then down it went again.”

Papa laughed.

“Strawberries and cream waked her up at last.”

And Eva never said a word.

But to this day she never sees a shooting-star without wondering what has been lost in the moon,—she never sees a toad without thinking169 it may be a fairy in disguise, and every lily recalls Aster and his flower.

For Eva believes in fairies. Why should she not? She knows all about them. She has never told any one,—not even papa, though he never laughs at her; but if Eva should live to be an old woman—and I hope she may!—she will never forget her

Adventures in Shadow-Land.

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THE MERMAN

AND

THE FIGURE-HEAD.

CHAPTER I.
THE SEA-NYMPH.

“I SHALL call her the Sea-nymph,” said Master Isaac Torrey.

“Umph!” said his clerk, Ichabod Sterns, looking over his spectacles at his master.

“And why not The Sea-nymph, pray?” demanded Master Torrey. “Why, I say, should I not call my fine new brig The Sea-nymph if it pleases my fancy?”

8 “Fancy!” said Ichabod Sterns, putting his head on one side. “Fancy! Umph!”

Now this was most exasperating conduct on Ichabod’s part, and as such Master Torrey felt it.

“Yes, if it pleases my fancy,” he repeated, defiantly. “What right have you, Ichabod Sterns, to object to that, I should like to know? If I chose to name her after the whole choir of all the nymphs that ever swam in the sea—Panope and Melite, Arethusa, Leucothea, Thetis, Cymodoce—what have you to say against it? Isn’t she to swim the seas and make her living out of the winds and waves? And what can you object to ‘The Sea-nymph?’ I’d like to hear. But it’s your nature to object, Ichabod Sterns. I’ve no doubt that you came objecting into the world, and I’ve no doubt that when your time comes you’ll object to dying. It would be just like you.”

“And death will mind my objections no more than you, Master Torrey,” said the old clerk, smiling rather grimly as Master Torrey ceased his pacing up and down the room and flung himself into a chair.

9 “But what is your objection to the name?” asked the merchant, calming down a little.

“Did I object?” said Ichabod Sterns.

“Didn’t you? You were bristling all over with objections from the toe of your shoe to the top of your wig.” Ichabod involuntarily put up his hand to his wig. “Why isn’t it a good name for a ship?”

“Nay, I know naught against it, Master Torrey, only it is a heathenish kind of name for a ship that is to sail out of our decent Christian town of Salem.”

“Heathenish! Let me tell you, Master Ichabod, that this world owes a vast deal to the heathen—more than she does to some Christians I could name.”

Now this awful speech was enough to make the very pig tails of many of Master Torrey’s acquaintance stand on end with horror and surprise. But Ichabod was used to his master’s ways, so he did not jump out of his chair, but only looked to the door to be sure that no one had overheard the terrible statement, for had such been the case there is no telling what might have come to pass.

10 “How do you make that out, Master Torrey?” he said, composedly.

“Did you ever happen to hear of Socrates or Cicero?”

“Yes, I’ve heard of ’em,” said Ichabod.

“And did you ever hear of the Duke of Alva, or Cardinal Pole, or Bloody Queen Mary, or Catenat?”

“Yes, I’ve heard of ’em,” returned Ichabod again, a little fiercely.

“And which was the better man, the Athenian or the Christians who burnt their fellows at the stake?” said Master Torrey, triumphantly, as one who had made a point.

“Umph!” said Ichabod; “I’m not a scholar like you, Master Torrey, but I’d like you to tell me whether they were Christians by name that poisoned Socrates and murdered Cicero?”

“Well, no,” said the merchant.

“Umph!” said Ichabod Sterns again, leaning back on his chair and rubbing his hands slowly one over the other.

“Well, what of that?” said Master Torrey, a little taken aback.

11 “Oh, nothing, sir,” said Ichabod; “we have wandered a long way from the name of the new brig.”

“She shall be The Sea-nymph,” said Master Torrey with decision. “What could be better?”

“I thought, Master Torrey, you might have liked to call her the Anna Jane,” said Ichabod, with a little cracked laugh like an amused crow.

Master Torrey colored high, but not with displeasure.

“I wouldn’t venture, Ichabod, I wouldn’t dare. She’s too shy, too modest, to be pleased with such an open compliment.”

“Umph!” said the clerk again. It seemed to be a way he had. “But you are determined to call her The Sea-nymph, Master Torrey?”

“Ah, am I!” replied Torrey, who seemed by no means disposed to pursue the subject of the “inexpressive she,” whoever it might be. “And she shall have the handsomest figure-head that Job Chippit can carve; and it sha’n’t be a mere head and shoulders either, it shall be a full-length figure.”

12 “It will cost a good penny, master. Job’s prices are high.”

“There’s another objection! Who cares what it costs? Am I a destitute person? Am I an absolute pauper? Am I like to apply to the selectmen to be supported by the town?”

“Not yet, master,” said Ichabod, gathering his papers together. “But if we go to following our fancies”—scornful emphasis—“there is no telling where we may end;” and without giving his master time to reply, Ichabod sped out of the counting-room.

Now I am not going to tell you a long story about Master Torrey, though I might do so if I had not a tale to tell you about something else—namely, this sea-nymph and the merman who figure at the head of this story. I was once told by a schoolmaster that in writing there was “nothing so important as a strict adherence to facts;” “fax” he called them. I treasured up this valuable precept in the inmost recesses of my mind, and I mean to adhere to facts if I possibly can. But I can’t adhere to facts till I get them, and to do that I don’t see but I shall have to tell you a13 little about Master Isaac Torrey, merchant of Salem, who was the means of putting this wonderful figure-head in the merman’s way. He was a merchant of Salem when Salem was a centre of trade, and sent many a brave ship to the Indies and the Mediterranean. He was thirty-four years old, and looked ten years younger. He was a man inclined to extravagance and luxury. He wore the handsomest waistcoats and the finest lace of any one in town. He had been educated in the gravest, strictest fashion of those grave days. His parents would have been horrified if they had found him reading a novel or a play, but they urged him on to study Virgil and Homer.

Now if you will promise, my young readers, never to tell your respected instructors, I will let you into a secret. The truth is that the poems of Virgil and Homer are all full of stories as interesting and charming as any boy or girl could desire. But this is a circumstance which most schoolteachers make it their first object in life to conceal, and they generally succeed so well that their pupils for the most part go through their whole course of education and never discover that their14 Virgils and Homers are anything but stupid schoolbooks—a sort of intellectual catacombs enshrining the dryest bones of grammar and parsing.

Now and then, however, a boy or girl finds out that there is food for the imagination in classic poetry. Such had been the case with Isaac Torrey, and the verses that he read with his tutor took such a hold upon him that he became what some of his friends called “half a heathen.” Not but that an acquaintance with the classics was thought becoming, nay, essential, to the character of a gentleman. In the speeches and writings of those days a due seasoning of allusions to the old gods and a sprinkling of Latin quotations was considered the proper thing. But this learning was rather looked upon as solid and ponderous furniture for the mind—an instrument of mental discipline. Fancy, imagination, amusement, were ideas much too light and frivolous to be connected with anything so grave, solid and respectable as the intellectual drill for which alone Latin and Greek were intended. So when Isaac Torrey talked about the old gods as if they had been real existences, and spoke of Achilles, Hector15 and Andromache as though they had been live creatures, he rather startled the excellent young divinity student who was his tutor.

Once upon a time his father detecting a smell of burning followed it up to Isaac’s room, where he found his son in the midst of a cloud of blue smoke. He asked the cause, and was told that in order to procure fair weather for the next day’s fishing excursion he (Isaac) had been sacrificing a paper bull to Jupiter.

Mr. Torrey senior was inexpressibly shocked at the thought that his son should have been guilty of such a heathenish performance. He gave the boy a lecture of an hour long, ending with a whipping. He called in the minister to talk to him. That gentleman, on being informed of the act of idolatry perpetrated in his parish, only took a prodigious pinch of snuff and said: “Pooh! pooh! child’s play! child’s play! No use to talk about it. Let the boy alone.” Mr. Torrey had the highest respect for his clergyman, and the boy was let alone accordingly, and was deeply grateful to the Rev. Mr. Bartlett.

Isaac grew up tall and handsome, went to school16 and to college, and in spite of numerous prophecies that he would never be good for anything, neither went into debt nor disgraced himself in any way. In due course of time he succeeded to his father’s business, and astonished every one by making money and being successful, in spite of his tasteful dress, his “wild ways” of talking and a report that he actually wrote poetry.

At the present time he was devoted to Miss Anna Jane Shuttleworth, a beautiful still image of a girl, who was supposed to have a great fund of good sense, propriety, prudence and piety, because she liked to sit still and sew from morning to night, and hardly ever opened her lips. Ichabod Sterns was the old clerk of Isaac’s father. He and his young master exasperated each other in many ways, but they were fond of each other for all that.

From the counting-house on the wharf and the talk with Ichabod Sterns, Master Torrey went to the workshop of Job Chippit, who in those days was famous for his skill in the carving of figure-heads.

In these times Job would probably have been a17 sculptor, have gone to Rome and been famous in marble and bronze. But the idea of such a thing had never entered his brain, and he went on from year to year making his wooden figures without any thought of a higher calling. He was a little dried, brown old man, with bright eyes slightly near-sighted. Year after year he carved Indian chiefs, eagles and wooden maidens for the Sally Anns and Susan Janes that sailed from the New England ports, portraits of public men, likenesses of William and Mary. He had once made a full-length figure of Oliver Cromwell for a certain stiff-necked old merchant of Boston who called his best ship after the great Protector—a statue which every one thought his finest work. “It was so natural,” said the good folks of Salem, and really I don’t know that they could have said anything better even if they had been art critics and had written for the newspapers.

True it was that all Job’s works had a certain live look to them that was almost startling sometimes. The Indians clenched their hatchets with a savageness quite alarming; they looked as though they might open their wooden lips and18 whoop. His female figures had life and character. Each governor, senator or general had his own peculiar expression and style.

Job was an artist, and, what was more, he was a well-paid artist. He quite appreciated his own genius, and got almost any prices he liked to ask for his signs and figure-heads. Job was the fashion, and no ship of any pretension sailed from a harbor along the coast but carried one of his masterpieces on the bow.

As Master Torrey entered his shop he was just putting the last touches of paint on an oaken bust destined to adorn Captain Peabody’s little schooner, The Flora. “So you have nearly finished The Flora’s figure-head,” said Master Torrey, whose tastes led him to be a frequent visitor at Job’s shop.

“And a pretty creature she is,” said Job, suspending his paint-brush full of the yellow-brown pigment with which he was tinging the rippled hair of the wooden lady, which was crowned with a garland of flowers carved with no mean skill.

“And the flowers! Don’t you think they are19 an improvement? What did Captain Peabody say to them?”

“He didn’t jest like them at first,” replied Job, continuing his work. “I didn’t myself, to begin with, for you know the ship is called after his wife, and nobody ever see old Mis’ Peabody going round with flowers in her hair; but the captain, sez he, ‘Job, I want to have you make it somethin’ like what Mis’ Peabody was when she was a young woman, ef you kin,’ sez he. ‘She was a most uncommon pretty girl when I went a-courting in Salsbury.’ Well, I was kind of struck with the idee, and the next day I went to meeting, and I sot and sot, and kind of studied the old lady’s face all through meetin’-time; and when they stood up to sing, the choir sang ‘Amsterdam.’ You know it’s a kind of livening sort of hymn. The old lady, she kind of brightened up, and it seemed as if I could see the young face sort of coming out behind the old one. Thinks I, ‘Job Chippit, you’ve got it,’ and when I come home, though it was the Sabbath day, I couldn’t hardly keep my hands off the tools, and the minute the sun was down I went at it. Then when you come in the next day and20 told me about the Flora them old folks used to think took care of the flowers and the spring, it seemed to suit so well with my notion of the old lady when she was young I couldn’t help stickin’ the flowers onto her head, like a fool as I was, for they wa’n’t in the bargain, and I sha’n’t get no extry pay for ’em.”

“And what did Captain Peabody say?” asked Master Torrey, whose own nature found sympathy in that of the artist.

“Oh, he was as tickled as could be when I’d persuaded him about the flowers. Lucy Peabody, she’s been to see it. She says she expects that’s the way her mother’ll look when she gets to heaven, and the flowers was like the crowns we read about in the Revelations. She’s an awful nice girl, Lucy Peabody. Anna Jane Shuttleworth was with her.”

“And what did she say?” asked Master Torrey, eagerly.

“Oh, nothing. Anna Jane don’t never have much to say for herself. I told her the wreath was your notion, and she kind of smiled, but she hadn’t a word to say. But look here, Master Torrey,21 am I to have the making of the figure-head for your new ship, and what is it to be?”

“That’s just what I have come to see you about, Job,” said Master Torrey. “I am going to call her the Sea-nymph, and I want you to make the most beautiful full-length figure of a sea-nymph to stand on her bow and look across the water when the brig goes sailing away into the South Seas.”

“A sea-nimp!” said Job; “and what sort of a critter may that be?”

“Did you never hear of them?”

“Never as I know of. There’s more fish in the sea than ever come out of it. I expect these nimps of yourn are some of the kind that never come out.”

“You never were more mistaken in your life, Job Chippit. They have been seen on the surface of the sea over and over again. We know almost all their names, and how could they have names if they were not real beings? Answer me that!”

“Oh!” said Job, standing back to take a general survey of his wooden Flora. “They’re some22 of them heathen young women your head is always so full of, Master Torrey?”

“Young women! Why they were goddesses, man, or a sort of goddesses. Was there not the white-footed Thetis, mother of Achilles? and did she not come to him with all her attendant nymphs—Melite, and Doris, and Galatea, and Panope?”

“I’ve hearn tell of her,” said Job, touching up the wreath on Flora’s head; “it’s in Lycidas:

“Jest so; I kinder like to read that piece. It don’t seem to have so very much meanin’ to’t, I must say, but I sort of like the sound of it. Them nimps lived in the sea, or folks thought they did, didn’t they?”

“Yes, Job, as we live on the land. I’m by no means sure that I haven’t heard and seen Nereides and Oceanides myself when I’ve been out by moonlight on the bay or round the rocks.”

“I guess they never was any round these parts; it’s too cold for ’em. I knew an old sailor once that said he’d seen a mermaid, but I suppose you23 don’t want me to stick a curly fish’s tail on your figure-head?”

“No, indeed. Make her full length, like the most beautiful woman you know.”

“Hev’ you any idee how them young women used to dress. Master Torrey?” asked the wood-carver. “I’d like to go as near the nature of the critter as I could. I must say the notion takes my fancy. It’ll make kind of a variety, and it’s a pretty sort of an idee to name a ship after a thing that has its life out the sea.”

“I thought you’d think so,” said Master Torrey, gratified. “Ichabod Sterns said it was a heathenish name for a ship that was to sail out of Salem.”

“Well, you know Ichabod. He hain’t got much notion of anything of that sort. But now what’s your notion of these ’ere water women? Kinder cold-blooded critters they must have been, I’m thinking.” There was something in this last remark which seemed to grate on Master Torrey’s feelings, whatever they were.

“Why so?” he said, a little shortly.

“Oh, because it’s the natur’ of all the things in24 the sea. It must have been but a damp, uncomfortable way to live for warm-blooded folks; but tell me what they were like, or do you happen to have a picture of one?”

“I’m sorry to say I have not.”

“Did they think they was like folks, or did they live for ever?”

“Some said they were immortal, others that they were only very long-lived. Plutarch says they lived more than nine thousand years.”

“Creation! What awful old maids they must have been! That’s more than old Mrs. Skinner, who was eighty-six when she married John Dickenson, ’cause she said she wasn’t going to have ‘Miss’ on her tombstone if she could help it.”

“But then they always remained young and lovely, never grew old or changed. They used to say that whoever looked on an unveiled nymph went mad.”

“Waal, I’d risk that if I could see one. But they was kind of onlucky sort of critters, then, after all?” asked Job, who seemed to be inwardly dwelling on some thought which he was keeping out of the talk.

25 “Yes, to those who approached them rashly, but they were kind to those who worshiped them with reverence and offered them the gifts they loved.”

“Waal, they wa’n’t very peculiar in that. The most of women is capable of being coaxed if you only go to work the right way. I don’t know how it might have been with gals in the sea, but it ain’t best to be too dreadful diffident with the land kind always,” returned Job, with a sly smile. “But about this figure of ourn. I suppose it ought to have some kind of a light gown on, and hadn’t they—them nimps?—got no emblem, nor nothing of that sort, like Neptune’s trident? I’m going to make a Neptune for a ship Peleg Brag’s got. Her name was The Ann Eliza. But the young woman she was named for, she up and married Jonathan Whitbeck, so Peleg, he’s gont to call his ship The Neptune now. It’s the only way he can think of to take it out on Ann Eliza, and I don’t expect that’ll kill her; but didn’t these nimps have nothing about them to show what they were?”

“Sometimes seaweeds, or coral and shells. Sometimes they held a silver vase.”

26 “Waal, I reckon I’ll take the vase, if it’s agreeable to you, and make her holding it out, and put some seaweed and shells and sich onto her head, and let her hair fly loose, as if the wind blew it back. She won’t want no shoes nor sandals, nor nothing of that sort. What would be the use to a critter that passes its life swimming round the sea?”

“I see you understand. You’ll make her a beauty, Job?”

“I’ll do my best. You’ll want her to be a light-complected young woman, I guess.”

“They say the Nereides had green hair, but Virgil says Arethusa’s was golden, so we may make our nymph’s that color,” said Master Torrey, turning away to the window.

“Jes’ so; I’ll go right to work. I must get Lucy Peabody to put on a white gown and come and let me look at her a little. She’ll do it. She’s a real accommodating girl, is Lucy.”

“But Lucy is not fair.”

“No more she ain’t. Not white as milk, like Anna Jane Shuttleworth, but she’s a nice, pretty girl, and will be willing to oblige me. I’d never27 dare ask such a thing of old Colonel Shuttleworth’s daughter.”

Master Torrey smiled to himself as he thought of the silent, stately Anna standing as a model in the rude shop.

“But I’ll give the figure a look like Anna Jane, if I can,” pursued Job. “To my mind, she’s a great deal more like some such thing than she is like a real flesh-and-blood woman.”

To this Master Torrey made no answer, but smiled at the old man’s folly, and passed into the street without even asking what would be the price of the wooden sea-nymph.

28

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CHAPTER II.
THE SEA KINGDOM.

I TAKE it for granted that all my readers have heard of mermen and mermaids. But in case any one’s education should have been neglected, I will just say that they are like human beings, only that instead of legs they have tails like dolphins, a fashion much more useful in their element, and regarded by them as much more ornamental, than the style in which people are finished on land.

The merladies are very beautiful. They have long, golden hair, and have often been seen sitting on the rocks by the seaside, combing their locks with their golden combs and holding a looking-glass. They are also said to sing in the most charming manner. I knew a Manx woman once whose mother had seen a mermaid making her toilette.29 She described the sea lady as wonderfully beautiful, and “singing in a way that would ravish your heart.”

“But as soon as she saw that she was watched,” said Katy, “she gave a scream like a sea eagle and dived into the water. No one ever saw her again, but I’ve heard the singing more than once when I was young.”

Concerning the kingdoms of the sea and their inhabitants Hans Anderson has written a pretty story, which I hope you have all read. The fullest account, however, that I know of the mer countries is in the Arabian Nights, Lane’s translation, where you will find the story of “Abdalla of the Land and Abdalla of the Sea.” It is a pity that the date and place of this interesting narration is left so uncertain, for to some minds it throws an air of improbability over the whole story; however, it is certainly the most authentic account of the world under the waters. So far as I know, “Abdalla of the Land” is the only person who has ever associated familiarly with mermen.

There was, to be sure, Gulnare of the Sea, who married the King of Khorassan and introduced30 her family to that monarch. But she was not a proper merwoman, being destitute of their peculiar appendage, and being, moreover, related to the Genii and Afrites of those parts.

But in the chronicle of Abdalla you will find much that is curious and interesting. There you may read concerning the “dendan,” that tremendous fish which is able to swallow an elephant at a mouthful; and, by the way, if you wish to descend into the sea undrowned, you have only to anoint yourself with the fat of the dendan. But the difficulty seems to be in catching this monster, who eats mermen whenever he can find them. You, however, are in no danger even if you happen to fall in his way, for he dies “whenever he hears the voice of a son of Adam.” So if you should fall in with a dendan, you have only to scream at the top of your voice and be quite safe. But concerning these wonders and many more I have no time to write, seeing that if you can get the book you can read it for yourself.

Now there are just as many mermen and mermaids along the American coasts as there are anywhere else, though they very seldom show themselves.31 I heard, indeed, of a sailor who had seen one in Passamaquoddy Bay, but I did not have the pleasure of conversing with this mariner myself, so I am unable to state as an absolute fact that a mermaid was seen.

If any of you are at the seaside in the summer, you can keep a sharp lookout, and there is no telling what you may see. You would find an alliance with a mer-person very advantageous if we may judge by the experience of Abdalla. Jewels in the sea are as common as pebbles with us, and in return for a little fruit a merman will give you bushels of precious stones.

You must be a little careful, however, not to offend them, for it would seem that some of them are rather touchy and apt to be intolerant of other people’s opinion in matters of doctrine and practice.

Now, not far from the Massachusetts coast, out beyond the bay, is a very beautiful sea country. There are mountains as big as Mount Washington, whose tops, just covered by the sea, are bare rock, but which are clothed around their base with the most beautiful seaweed, golden green and purple32 and crimson. Through these seaweeds wander all manner of strange creatures, such as human eyes have never seen, for there is no truer proverb than that “There are more fish in the sea than ever came out of it.” There are miles and miles of gray-green weed and emerald moss where the sea cows and sea horses find pasture. There, too, are the cities and villages of the merpeople, and many a pleasant home standing in the midst of the beautiful sea gardens, blossoming with strange flowers and bright with strange fruit.

The houses are grottoes and caves hollowed out of the rock, and for the most part very handsomely furnished, for there is a great deal of wealth among the sea people. They have not only all the mineral wealth of the sea, but they have all the treasures that have been lost in the deep ever since men first began to sail the waters. Their soft carpets are made of sea-green wool that the sea people comb and weave, for they are skillful in the arts and manufactures.

They have soft, lace-like fabrics woven of seaweed, silks and satins that the water does not hurt. There is no coral on our Northern shores, but they33 import it, and pay in exchange with oysters and looking-glasses. The sea ladies dress in the most beautiful things you can imagine, that is, when they dress at all, for in warm weather they generally make their appearance in a light suit of their own hair with a zone and necklace of pearls or jewels.

This country that I am writing about has a republican form of government, and is very prosperous and comfortable. It is a long time since any foreign power has made war upon it, and it has had time to grow and develop its resources. But at the time of which I write they had just finished a seven years’ war with the king of a country lying to the east who had tried to annex the sea republic to his own dominions. This monarch had counted on a very easy conquest because the republic kept a very small army, not big enough really to keep down the sharks. Moreover, there was a large “Peace Society” in the country, every member of which had maintained repeatedly, in the most public manner, that it was the duty of every member to be invaded and killed a dozen times over rather than lift up his hand in war34 against any creature with mer blood in his veins. The king thought this talk of theirs really meant something, I suppose they thought so themselves in peace-times, but when the annual meeting came, about a week after the declaration of war, only two members made their appearance, and they told each other that all the men of the society had enlisted and all the women were busy making their clothes and packing their knapsacks. The king was very much surprised to find that these peaceable soldiers fought harder than any one else, and when he was at last forced to conclude peace on the most humiliating terms, it was the ex-President of the non-resistance society that insisted on a surrender of his most important frontier fortress.

“I thought you believed in non-resistance,” said the king, greatly disgusted.

“So I do, your majesty, for other people,” said the ex-President, respectfully, and the king had to give way.

But this is not a chronicle of the politics and history of the sea country, but only of one particular merman’s fortunes. Our merman was young35 and very handsome, and belonged to a very distinguished family in his own state. It was said that they were in some way connected with that royal race to which belonged Gulnare of the Sea—she who married the King of Khorassan. It was whispered that the family were descended from a younger son of this pair, who had married a merlady, and displeased both her family and his to such an extent by the marriage that they had left the Eastern seas and emigrated to the English waters, and from there into the new sea lands of the West.

All these things, if they were true, must have happened centuries before my merman was born. The legend was well known, and if it was founded on fact, the family had human blood in their veins and a cross of sea genii, for Gulnare was, as you will remember, not quite a flesh-and-blood woman. However, the humanity in them was at least royal humanity, and the King of Khorassan, as the story goes, was a very fine gentleman.

All the people of that country were fair-haired, big-boned people, with blue eyes, but the race I am writing about were black haired and dark eyed,36 with slender hands. They were rather delicate and slight in their appearance, and they had a peculiarly graceful way of carrying their tails, a manner quite indescribable in its elegance, but a family mark. They were rather more intellectual than their countrymen and were fond of literary pursuits and the study of magic, which in the sea land is considered as a very essential part of a gentleman’s education. It is taught only in the higher schools and colleges.

Our merman’s old grandfather (his father was dead) was Professor of Magic in the State University, and so expert in his own science that he could turn himself into an oyster so perfect that you could not tell him from the genuine article. It was said that once while in that condition he had been nearly swallowed by a member of the Freshman class. For this offence the young merman was called up before the Faculty. He apologized very humbly, and said his only motive had been to see if he couldn’t for once get the professor to agree with him. He professed himself very penitent, and was let off with a reprimand, but he said afterward that his great mistake had been in waiting37 for the pepper and vinegar. After this accident the professor could never be induced to repeat the performance except in a small circle of his intimate friends.

Now, there was one curious thing about this family, and one which makes me think there was some truth in the legend of their descent from Gulnare and the King of Khorassan.

All the other merpeople have the greatest objection to human beings, and shun all inhabited coasts, seaport towns and ships. But every once in a while a member of this race would show the oddest fancy for the shore and a kind of longing after human society—a longing which of course they never could gratify, for they could not live out of the water, and if they had been able to desert the sea, the forked ends of their long tails would have been of no use on land.

A few years before the family left the English coast, a younger son had actually married a human girl who went back to her friends and deserted him on the shamefully false pretence that she wanted to go to church. The poor merman went out of his wits and died, and was ever afterward38 held up as an example to any of the younger ones who showed any signs of similar weakness. To care anything for human creatures is counted disgraceful in mer society, and the older members of the family for the most part felt it their duty to express the greatest possible animosity to the whole human race. The old professor of magic had once said that he would swim a hundred miles to see a shipwreck if he were only sure the people would all be drowned, but he was strongly suspected of having saved a drunken sailor who fell overboard from a Cape Cod schooner. The professor himself used to deny this story with great indignation, and say it was of a piece with the slanderous invention about his family’s connection with Gulnare of the sea and her misalliance.

His grandson, however, if the story was hinted at in his presence, would look grave and say that he had never supposed the story was true, but if it were, his grandfather had only obeyed the dictates of mermanity. This was a shocking speech in the ears of the merpeople. Our young merman, however, had distinguished himself in the war,39 and no one cared to quarrel with him. So they contented themselves with calling him “queer,” and saying that “oddity ran in the family.”

It was the summer vacation in the sea land. All the commencements in the mer colleges were just over. All the presidents of those institutions had made their speeches in languages dead and alive, and told all their classes what an enormous responsibility rested upon them, how they were bound to “go forward,” and “to conquer,” and to “build themselves up,” and to “develop themselves,” and be “leaders of their kind,” and, in short, do something in proportion to the expense bestowed on their education. This is a way they have in sea land. But naturally in the sea they take things cooler than we can on land, and you wouldn’t believe how very little difference the advent of all these expensively got up young mermen made in the water world if you had not been there to see. Now the old mer professor hadn’t had a very comfortable time. His class that year was rather a stupid one, and with all the pains he could take and all the “coaches” they could use40 they hadn’t passed a very good examination in magic. One young gentleman upon whom he had thought he could certainly depend being told to make himself invisible, which is a very difficult problem, had made a mistake, used the wrong formula, and by accident transformed the whole Board of Examiners, who were not expecting any such thing, into cuttle-fishes. There was dreadful confusion for a few minutes, for the student couldn’t remember how to turn them back again, and as the spell could not be undone by any one else, the members of the board got all tangled up together, while the professor, in an awful temper, was trying to teach the young man the right formula.

But they were all undone at last, only there was one immensely wealthy old merman who was never quite sure in his mind that he had got back his own proper curly fish’s tail, and not that of some other gentleman, so that all the rest of his life he was in a puzzle as to at least half his personal identity. This incident so vexed him that he did not give anything to the college funds, as he had fully intended. This circumstance and a few other accidents41 had so annoyed the professor that instead of going to the North Seas with his grandson he shut himself up in the house and began to write a book. The book was in opposition to a theory put forth by a learned merman in the Baltic Sea that human beings were undeveloped mermen. The professor, however, declared that they were no such thing, but simply undeveloped walruses. He began his first chapter by saying that, while he had the highest respect for the Baltic merman’s acquirements, intellect, penetration and general infallibility, he nevertheless felt himself obliged to declare that none but an idiot or a madman could come to the conclusion of the learned man aforesaid. He (the professor) wished to lay down his platform in the beginnings and state that he differed from the opinions of the learned author on this and all other conceivable points.

“You’d a good deal better go along with me, grandfather,” said the young merman, swimming into the room where the professor was sitting with his big books all about him. “Think how nice and cool it will be among the icebergs this hot weather. Hadn’t you better come?”

42 “I won’t,” said the old professor, snapping and switching his tail angrily round in the water, for the houses there are full of water, as ours are of air.

“I didn’t say you would, sir,” said the young merman; “I said you’d better.”

“Did you ever know me say I would do a thing when I did?” returned the professor, angrily. “I mean, did you ever know me say I did do a thing when I would? Pooh! Pshaw! That isn’t what I mean.”

“Yes, sir!” said his grandson, respectfully.

“What do you mean by that?” said the professor, sharply. “There’s that catfish mewing at the door. Get up and let her in, do, and make yourself useful for once in your life.”

The young merman got up and opened the door for the catfish, which came swimming in, followed by two little kitten fish. These, frisking playfully around the room, soon overset the professor’s inkstand.

“There!” said the professor to his grandson. “That’s all your fault! What did you let them in for? Open the windows and let in some fresh43 water, do. Scat! scat! you little torments! I don’t believe the cook has given them their dinner; she never does unless I see to it myself; your sisters forget them. No, I’m not going to the North Seas; I can’t spare the time.”

“Don’t you think you can, sir?” said the young merman. “What odds does it make about those forked creatures on land?”

“Do you know this fellow has the impudence to pretend that they are undeveloped mermen, that they’ll be just like ourselves after a series of ages when their two legs grow into one, and that our ancestors were actually of the same type as those low creatures that go about in ships? But perhaps you agree with him, sir?” said the old professor, with a look that seemed to say that if he did he might expect to be annihilated on the spot.

“Not I, sir. For aught I know we mermen may be undeveloped human beings. I’ve sometimes thought so, I have such a sort of longing for the land.”

“How dare you—?” began the old gentleman in great indignation.

44 “Come, come, grandfather,” said the young merman, smiling. “You are not angry with me I know; I presume you’ve felt just so yourself.”

The professor was silent, and swam thoughtfully two or three times up and down the room. The two little kitten fish went and sat on his head.

“I won’t say but I have,” he remarked at length, “but it’s best not to mention it. Where do you mean to go for your vacation?”

“I thought I should go North along the coast,” said the young merman. “I can’t help having a curiosity about the land, and if I am in a way to observe any human creatures, I may pick up some facts to support your theory that they are undeveloped walruses.”

“Any one can see that who has ever seen them floundering about in the water,” said the old professor, scornfully.

“But the men drown and the walruses don’t.”

“That’s because the men have not yet acquired the habit of not being drowned,” said the professor. “When are you going?”

“To-morrow, I thought.”

45 “Very well,” said the professor. “Swim away with you now, and tell the cook to feed these kittens; there they are nibbling the hair off my head.”

The next day the young merman set off on his travels. He bade good-bye to no one but his grandfather and his two sisters. His best friend was away as bearer of despatches to the secretary of state.

“I wish he wouldn’t go near the coast,” said the older sister, wistfully.

“So do I,” said the younger; “I’m afraid for him. But, sister, now honestly, don’t you wish you could see a human creature near enough to speak to?”

“No, not I,” said the elder, who had less of the family traits than any of her relations; “I wish you wouldn’t say such silly things.”

Just as the young merman was going out of the front door, he met a huge lobster coming into it, and without ringing. The young merman felt that this was a liberty in the lobster, and was sure that his grandfather would not be pleased.

46 “Hadn’t you better go round to the back door?” he said, quietly.

Now the lobster was no less than the old Witch of the Sea in disguise.

“Round to the back door indeed!” shrieked the lobster. “Do you know who I am, young man?”

“I beg your pardon,” said the young merman; “I had no idea you were any one in particular. The servant will admit you if you wish to see the professor.”

“I do,” said the lobster, in a huff, “but I won’t;” and she turned round and swam away.

The professor saw her out of the window. He knew who it was well enough, but he did not like the Witch of the Sea. He thought females had no business to study magic, and he said she practiced her art in a most irregular manner. Moreover, she could do two or three things which he couldn’t, so he naturally held her in contempt.

“Ahrr! you old fool!” cried the lobster, shaking her claw at him.

But the professor pretended to take no notice. “Those low-bred people always call names,” he47 said to himself. “What an old humbug she is, and what idiots people are to go to her for advice!”

The merman went swimming on his way, but as he swam he passed a garden. It was rather a large garden, shut in by a hedge of sea flag and tangle, with pink and white shells glittering here and there among the leaves. Behind the garden was a very lofty and spacious grotto, where lived a family with whom the professor’s household was very intimate. The merman paused a minute, for some one in the garden was singing. The singer had a voice that would have made people on land go wild to hear her. If you can imagine a wood-thrush multiplied by fifty and singing articulate music, you can have some idea of the mermaid’s voice. But in the sea every one can sing, and they don’t care much more for it than we do here for public speaking. She was singing a silly little song, but it was joined to a sweet air, and the words were of no great consequence:

49

“Is that you?’” called the merman when the song was done.

Just over the hedge was a little arbor covered with trailing sea-plants. As the merman spoke, two little white hands parted the broad crimson leaves of a dulse that hung over the door, then there swam out one of the loveliest mermaids in the whole sea. Her yellow hair shone like gold, and was full two yards long as it trailed on the water, for mermaids never wear their hair any other way. Her complexion was like the inside of a pink-and-white shell, and her eyes were like two clear, still pools of water, they were so pure and deep. As for the mer part of her, the dolphin’s tail, I declare it was only an additional beauty, she managed it so gracefully. I can’t begin to tell you how beautiful she was. She was a very intimate friend of the merman’s sister, and he had known her all his life—ever since they used to chase the fishes round the garden and in and out of the rocks, and make baby-houses together.

“Where are you going?” said the mermaid to the merman.

“Only North a little for my vacation trip.”

50 “Without saying good-bye?” said the mermaid, smiling as though she did not care a bit.

“I didn’t know you’d come home till I heard you singing, I sha’n’t be gone long; what shall I bring you?”

“A tame seal to play with, if you can remember it.”

“Tie a string round my finger,” said the merman.

“You can wear this,” she said, holding up a seal ring of red carnelian. “I found it in the garden; I suppose it belonged to some human being.”

It was a large seal ring, having two interlaced triangles cut in the stone.

“That’s a spell,” said the merman; “it will keep away evil spirits.”

“Then wear it,” said the mermaid, holding it out to him, and he slipped it on his finger.

“Good-bye,” she said; “you won’t forget the tame seal?”

“Certainly not; I’ll be home in time to dance at your birth-day party.”

The mermaid swam away to the house, turning51 at the door to wave her hand to her old playmate, but he did not see her. His two sisters had watched their interview from an upper window of their own house.

“He has no more eyes in his head than an oyster,” said the elder, in quite a pet.

“It would be so nice,” said the younger, with a sigh. “It would be just the thing for him.”

“Of course, and that’s the reason why he never thinks of it,” said the elder, who had more experience.

52

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CHAPTER III.
THE FIGURE-HEAD.

IN the mean time, a most beautiful thing had grown out of the oak block in Job Chippit’s shop.

Day by day Job worked at the figure-head of the Sea-nymph, Master Torrey’s beautiful new brig that was lying on the stocks all but ready for the launch. Job spared no pains on his work, and his wonderful success really astonished himself.

Every one wanted to see the new figure-head, but Job kept it locked up in an inner room, and would admit no one but Master Torrey and Lucy Peabody. Lucy had been willing to put on a white dress and stand for a model, but the figure did not look at all like Lucy. It was taller, more slender, and the features were nothing like hers.53 Once or twice Lucy had persuaded Anna Jane Shuttleworth with her into Job’s shop. The old man had studied her face, and worked every moment of the young lady’s stay. He stared at Anna in meeting-time in a way that almost disturbed that young woman’s composure, but she looked straight before her and took no notice. It was impossible to tell how she felt. Anna was always “very reserved,” people said. They had an idea that treasures of wisdom, good sense and virtue were at once indicated and concealed by that statue-like air and silence.

Master Torrey was delighted with the nymph, which was, indeed, most beautiful. She stood on a point of rock, leaning lightly forward. Her rounded arms upheld a silvered vase of antique fashion; her head was thrown back; her hair, crowned with seaweed and coral, streamed over her shoulders as though blown by the same breeze that wafted back the thin robe from her dainty feet and ankles; the face was of the regular classic type, yet not quite human in its cold purity; the eyes looked out over the sea toward the far horizon. It was really quite extraordinary how the54 old Yankee wood-carver could have accomplished such a work of art. It looked, also, as if it might, if it chose, open its lips and speak, but you were quite certain it never would choose, it was so lifelike and yet so still.

Job had sent to Boston and procured finer colors than he had ever used before, and laid them on with a cunning hand. He had painted the sea lady’s robe a pale sea-green; over it fell her hair—not yellow with golden lights, but soft flaxen; the eyes were blue, and the faintest sea-shell pink tinged the lips and cheeks. It was altogether the most beautiful figure-head that any one had ever seen.

“There! I reckon she’s about done,” said Job as he laid down his last brush and stood contemplating his work. There was an odd look on the old man’s face, half satisfaction, half dislike.

“She’s a pretty cretur, ain’t she?” he said to Lucy Peabody.

“Beautiful,” said Lucy, but speaking with a slight effort.

“Don’t you like her?” said Job in a doubtful tone.

55 “She’s very beautiful, Uncle Job, but—but”—and Lucy hesitated—“I shouldn’t want any one I cared for to love a woman like that.”

“Waal, I can’t say’s I would myself,” said Job. “But this ain’t a woman, you see; it’s one of them nimps. They wa’n’t like real human girls, you know.”

“But she is not kind,” said Lucy, with a little shiver. “She would see men drowning before her eyes, and would not put out her hand to help them. I think she took those pearl bracelets and her necklace from some poor dead girl she found floating in the sea. She wouldn’t mind; she would only care to dress herself with them.”

“I won’t say but that’s my notion of her too,” said Job. “Do you know, Lucy,” he continued, in a lower voice, “I can’t help feeling as if there was something more than common in this bit of wood all the while I’ve been doing it? It seemed as if ’twa’n’t me that was making of it up, but I was jest like some kind of a machine going along on some one else’s notion. Sometimes I am half skeered at the critter myself.”

“You meant to make her like Anna Jane56 Shuttleworth, didn’t you?” asked Lucy, suddenly.

“Waal, yis, I did kind o’ mean to give her a look of Anna Jane, ’cause Torrey, he’s so set on her, but I’ve got it more like her than I meant. Somehow, it seems as if it was more like her than she is herself.”

Lucy gave one more long look at the figure “I must go,” she said, with a little start. “Good-bye, Uncle Job;” and she flitted away by a side door.

Just then Master Torrey came into the shop, and with him came old Colonel Shuttleworth and his daughter. Colonel Shuttleworth was a pompous, portly man, in an embroidered waistcoat, plum-colored coat and lace ruffles.

“A pretty thing! a pretty thing!” he said, condescendingly. “How many guineas has she cost Master Torrey?”

“You didn’t expect I was going to make her for nothing, did you, cunnel?” said Job, who stood in no awe of the old man’s wealth, clothes or title.

“No, no, of course not,” said the colonel, trying57 to be dignified. “Um! ah! it seems to me this figure has something the look of my daughter. Anna, isn’t the new figure-head like you?”

“I don’t know, sir,” said Anna, who had dropped into a seat and sat looking at nothing in particular.

“She’s so delicate, so modest, she won’t notice,” thought her lover. “She is lovely, Job,” he cried aloud. “You have outdone yourself. Our sea lady is no mortal, but a goddess. She has everything noble in humanity, but none of its faults or weaknesses.”

“Umph!” said Job; “I don’t know about that. I’ve heard some of them goddesses was rather queer-acted people. Anyhow, I think I’d like the women folks best, not being a heathen god myself.”

“Why, Job, you don’t understand your own work,” said Master Torrey, half angrily. “She is too pure to be moved by our passions, too much exalted above humanity to be agitated by its troubles.”

“Waal now, that ain’t my notion of exaltation,” said Job. “’Seems to me that’s more like havin’58 no feelin’s at all, kind of too dull and stupid and full of herself to keer very much about anything. This wooden girl of ourn is uncommon handsome, though I say it, but bless you, Master Torrey! she hain’t got no more brains in her skull than a minnow. She’d be a kind of dead-and-alive sort of a critter always. If she had a husband, she’d never bother herself if he was in trouble. If she had a baby, she wouldn’t care much for it, only maybe to dress it up.”

The old man seemed strangely excited in this absurd discussion. Master Torrey, too, seemed much disturbed and not a little provoked. Anna Jane sat calm and still, and wondered whether that light green color in the nymph’s robe would become her. The colonel, who had not the faintest idea what the two men were talking about, looked from one to the other uncomprehending, and consequently slightly offended.

“Are you talking about this wooden image?” he said, wondering.

“Yes, to be sure, cunnel,” said Job, with an odd sound between a laugh and a groan.

59 “Come, child, it is time to go home,” said the colonel, loftily.

Anna Jane rose and took her father’s arm. Master Torrey followed them out of the shop without looking back or saying good-bye to his old friend. In a strange passion, Job caught up the axe and looked at the wooden nymph as if about to dash it in pieces. “What an old fool I am!” he said. “She ain’t only wood, and I’ll get my pay for her. Creation! it does beat all how contrary things turn out in this world!”

The figure-head of the Sea-nymph was carried through the streets in the midst of an admiring throng and fixed securely in its place on the beautiful new brig. A few days more, and the ship was launched and slid swiftly and safely into the sea. That night it was bright moonlight. Silver-gilt ripples were rising and falling along the coast and all over the bay. Now and then a fish would jump, scattering a shower of shining drops. Everything was very still around the Sea-nymph. She lay quite by herself at some distance from any other craft. There was no one on board but an old watchman, who was fast asleep. If he had60 been awake, he would have seen a long, bright ripple on the water coming nearer as some sea creature cut its way swiftly toward the new craft. It was our merman, who found himself drawn toward the land by a longing curiosity too strong for him to resist.

“It is all so quiet and still,” he thought. “There can be no possible danger, and I do so want to see what sort of houses these human creatures live in. There’s a new ship. I’m a great mind to go and look at it. What is that standing there on the end of it?”

The merman swam on slowly, debating whether he should really go and look. Something seemed at once to warn him away and to call him forward. He could not tell what was the matter with him. Once he turned to swim away. Then he made up his mind once for all, and dashed straight on toward the ship. He said over to himself a charm his grandfather had taught him: “Aski, kataski, lix tetrax, damnamenous,” words of power once written on the fish-bodied statue of the great goddess of Ephesus; but, dear me! it did him no good at all. All the while he was coming61 the wooden nymph stood up in her place, holding out her silver vase in both hands and looking over the sea with her painted eyes.

“What a lovely creature!” thought the merman. “She is looking at me; she holds her vase toward me.”

She was doing no such thing, of course—the wooden image—but he thought she was. He did not know that she would have looked just the same way if he had been an old porpoise instead of a young merman. He swam closer and closer. The moon shone on the painted face. The ship moved gently on the water. The merman thought the lady had inclined her head. In one moment he fell desperately, helplessly, in love with the oaken nymph. It certainly must have been the doing of the old Witch of the Sea. Some influence of the kind must have been at work, or else a merman who had been to college would surely have had more sense than to become enamored of an oak block. But whether it was the witch’s work, or whether it was the drop of human blood in his veins, or whether it was fate, that is just what he did—he fell in love with a wooden image. He62 forgot his home, his old grandfather, his sisters, his best friend, who loved him like a brother and who had saved his life in the war. As for the mermaid who had given him the ring, he never gave her a thought. He didn’t care for anything in the world but that painted image smiling up there and holding its vase. He saw nothing but that, and, in fact, he didn’t see that either, for he saw it as if it were alive.

“Oh I wish I knew her name or what she is!” said the merman to himself. “She can’t be human. She is too beautiful.” He swam round and round and read the words “The Sea-nymph” painted under the figure. He gave a jump almost out of the water. “It is a nymph,” he said—“one of the Nereides or Oceanides. I thought they had left this world long ago. What can she be doing on that ship?”

He gazed at the wooden creature with all his heart in his eyes. He wished he were human that he might at least be a little like this lovely shape. He hated his own form. Was it likely the divine nymph would ever deign to notice a creature with a fish’s tail? Finally he ventured to speak.

63 “Fairest nymph,” he said.

He got no answer, but as the shadow of a cloud flitted across her face, and then the moon shone on her, he thought the nymph smiled. If there had been any possible way, he would certainly have climbed up to her, though he knew he could not live five minutes out of the water. He did not think anything about that, the poor silly merman. He was so infatuated that he would have been glad to die beside her. He stayed there the whole night talking to the wooden sea-nymph, and when the image moved with the rise and fall of the water he thought she inclined her head toward him. He said the most extravagant things to her; he told her all he had ever thought or felt, things he had never spoken to his best friend who loved him dearly; he poured out all his heart into the deaf ears of the wooden nymph. The image kept looking out over the water with its painted eyes, and the merman thought, “Now at last I have found some one who can understand me.”

It was growing to gray dawn when a huge sea gull came sweeping over the water, and poised and hovered over the merman’s head.

64 “Hallo!” said the sea-gull to the merman, “what are you up to, young man?”

The merman was disgusted and made no answer.

“You’d better clear out of this,” said the gull. “If they catch you, they’ll make a show of you and wheel you round the streets in a tub of water for sixpence a sight.”

“Be so good as to reserve your anxiety for your own affairs,” said the merman, haughtily. He had always been sweet-tempered, but now he felt as if he must have a quarrel with some one. He had a general impression that every living creature was his rival and enemy. He didn’t just know what he wanted, but he was determined to have it.

“Highty tighty!” said the sea-gull. “Don’t put yourself out. What have we here? A pretty wooden image, upon my word!” and the gull perched on the sea-nymph’s head and scratched his ear with one claw. The merman went almost wild at the sight.

“You profane wretch!” he shouted; “how dare you? Oh, good heavens, that I should see her so insulted and not be able to help her. Oh, why can’t I fly?”

65 “’Cause you hain’t got no wings,” said the vulgar bird, flapping his own wide white pinions. “Why shouldn’t I perch here as well as on any other post? It’s none of your funeral.”

“Post!” said the merman, in a fury.

“Yes, post! Why? You don’t mean to say you think this thing’s alive?”

“Alive! She is a goddess, a nymph, an angel!”

“Well, you are a muff,” said the gull, with immense contempt. “If I ever! Look here! if you don’t want a harpoon in you, you had better quit.”

“I’ll wring your neck,” said the merman, in a rage.

“Skee-ee-eek!” screamed the gull. “Will you have it now or wait till you get it? Take your own way, if you only know what it is;” and the gull lifted his wings and swept off over the water, laughing frantically. The wooden lady kept looking over the sea.

“What noble composure! what breeding!” thought the merman. “She scorns to notice a creature like that. How much more noble and66 womanly is this modest reserve and silence than the chatter and laughing of our mermaids!”

It grew lighter and lighter; sounds of life were heard from the shore; a boat put out on the bay; presently the workmen began to come on board the brig.

“Any of those human beings can speak to her,” thought the merman. He was frantically jealous of an old ship carpenter with a wooden leg.

One of the workmen caught a glimpse of him. “Ho!” said he, “there’s an odd fish! Who’s got a harpoon?”

The merman had just sense enough left to see that if he was harpooned in the morning he couldn’t court the goddess at night. He dived and swam away, for mermen, although they are warm-blooded animals, are not obliged to come up to the top of the water to breathe.

He hid all day long under the timbers of an old wharf, and when it was still at night he came out again and swam toward The Sea-nymph. Some one had covered up the figure with an old sheet to keep the dust off. The merman thought she had put on a veil.

67 “What charming modesty!” he said. “She don’t wish to be seen by these human beings, or perhaps I offended her by my staring.”

He called her every lovely name he could invent or think of. He got no answer, of course, but that was her feminine reserve, the merman thought.

“Speech is silvern, silence is golden,” he said. So it went on all the time the new brig was being fitted up. The merman lived a wretched life. Two or three times he was seen and chased by the fishermen. A talk went about of the odd creature that haunted the water near the new ship. Some one was always on the lookout for him, and once he was nearly caught. They kept watch for him at night. It was only now and then that he could worship his wooden love for an hour.

All the time the old sheet was over her head, but the merman only loved her the better. He hid under the old wharf by day, for though he knew how to make himself invisible to mermen, the charm hadn’t the slightest effect where Yankees were concerned. He lived on whatever he could catch, but he had very little appetite. The shallow68 harbor water did not agree with his constitution. He grew thin and hollow-eyed, a mere ghost of a merman, but he was constant to his wooden image.

Meantime, the ship was finished and the cargo was stowed away. One day, glancing out from his place, he saw that the nymph was unveiled and was standing in her old fashion, lovely as ever. She was looking straight at him, the merman thought. “She is anxious about my safety,” he said, with delight, for he did not know that the image just looked toward the old wharf because it happened to be in the way.

“Dearest,” he said, “I would follow you over the whole ocean for such a look as that!”

That night there were so many men on board the brig that the merman did not dare go near her. The next morning the ship spread her sails and went out of the harbor with a fair wind, bound for Lisbon and the Mediterranean. That same evening there was a great gathering at Colonel Shuttleworth’s. Master Torrey was married to Anna Jane.

69 The merman followed the ship at a long distance. He dared not go too near in the daytime for fear of the harpoon that had been thrown at him once or twice. Then it came into his head that the lovely nymph was in some mysterious way held captive by these human creatures. He swore to deliver her if it cost him his life, for which he cared only as it could serve his goddess, for that she was a goddess he fully believed.

He swam in the wake of the ship, and it was very seldom that he could come up and look his idol in the face. The sailors kept a sharp lookout for him. They thought he was some sort of monster, the poor innocent merman, and had harpoons ready to throw at him whenever he showed himself. But for all this he followed The Sea-nymph across the Atlantic. He knew he was not likely to meet any of his own people, for the merfolk avoid ships whenever they can, and do not frequent the highway between the two continents.

One day, however, he was so possessed with a desire for the sight of his love that, utterly reckless, he swam directly before the ship and stretched out his arms to the wooden image. “I am here!70 I will die for you!” he cried, for he thought she was suffering in her captivity and wanted comfort. There was a shout from the sailors; one flung a fish spear, another fired a gun. The captain ordered out the whale-boat, and they gave chase to the merman, for such they now saw it was. It was all that he could do to get away. He was a very fast swimmer, however, and as he was not obliged to come up to breathe, they soon lost sight of him. He distanced the boat, but he found when he stopped that the bullet from the gun had grazed his shoulder, and that he had lost blood and was suffering pain. “It is for her,” thought the merman as he tried to stanch the blood with his pocket handkerchief.

Just then a huge sperm whale came dashing up.

“Why, what in the world are you doing here?” said the whale, surprised. “Have those wretches of men been chasing you?”

“Yes,” said the merman, his eyes flashing; “you may well call them wretches. Do you know who it is they hold prisoner in their hateful ship? The loveliest sea-nymph in the world.”

“How do you know?” said the whale.

71 “I have seen her. I have followed her all the way from home. She stands holding out a silver vase. Every creature in the sea ought to fly to deliver her. If I was only as big and strong as you! These men are your enemies as well as mine and hers. I know how they kill you whales whenever they can. You can sink that ship if you like and deliver the goddess.”

The whale was so astonished that he had to go to the top of the water and blow. “My dear sir,” said he, diving down again, “you are under some strange mistake. That is nothing but wood, that figure on the ship, as sure as my name is Moby Dick.”

“You great stupid creature, where are your eyes?” said the merman in a passion, and yet he was rather struck by the whale’s remarks too.

“In my head,” said Moby Dick, “and I shouldn’t think yours were. Why they put some such thing on all the ships—women, dolphins, what not. I’ve seen dozens of ’em. I know about nymphs. I used to read about ’em in the old classical dictionary in our school. Every school of whales of any pretension has one. If she was72 a sea goddess, do you suppose she’d stand there in all weathers? Besides, there are no nymphs.”

“Then you won’t sink the ship?” said the merman.

“Certainly not; she’s only a merchant ship. If she was a whaler, I would with pleasure. I’ve done it before now, but that was in self-defence. I’m not going to drown a lot of folks because you have lost your wits. Come, come, my young friend, go home to your family. I dare say your mother don’t know you’re out. You are too tired to swim after that ship, and you are hurt besides. Let me take you home on my back; I’d just as soon swim your way as any other.”

The merman was a little affected by the whale’s tone of kindness, but he was too much possessed with his wooden love to accept the offer.

“No! no!” he cried, “I must follow her to the ends of the earth. Something tells me she will yet be mine.”

“And suppose she should be?” said Moby Dick. “Why, she’s only a stick cut and painted. What would the ladies of your family think if you brought home a wooden wife?”

73 “You are blind,” said the merman, swimming away.

“You are cracked!” the whale shouted after him, but the merman was already out of hearing.

“Dear! dear!” said Moby Dick. “What a pity! If I can find any of the mermen, I’ll tell them about him. He ought not to be left to himself;” and he shook his huge head solemnly and swam away in an opposite direction.

74

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CHAPTER IV.
THE BEWITCHED LOVER.

OFF to Lisbon went the brig Sea-nymph, and after her the poor merman. He stayed there as long as the ship stayed, hiding under boats and behind timbers, chased more than once, in danger of his life every hour, hardly able to get a glimpse of his idol. The wooden nymph stood straight up in her place, looking toward the city this time, because her head happened to be turned that way.

Once a priest going across the water in a boat happened to see him. The priest took him for a demon, was dreadfully scared, and solemnly cursed him, as is the fashion of priests when they are afraid of anything. Besides, such is the approved mode of dealing with demons in those countries. The report went abroad that there was an evil75 spirit in the harbor. The Spanish and Italian sailors said innumerable prayers to the saints and bought little blessed candles. The Yankees and Englishmen hunted him whenever they could, for they had a curiosity to see what a live demon was like. You may imagine what a life it was for the poor merman. He was almost worn out when The Sea-nymph weighed anchor and set sail for Sicily. He followed her, of course, for he was more possessed than ever.

And yet away down at the bottom of his heart he had misgivings. When day after day went on and the nymph stood still in the same place, he could not help thinking to himself, “What if it should be a wooden image, after all!”

But when this thought came into his head he drove it away, and called himself all the names that ever were for daring to entertain such a notion about his goddess. Was she not constant? Did she not always hold out her vase toward him? He didn’t or wouldn’t think, the poor silly merman, that it was because he always swam right before her and she couldn’t hold it any other way.

Not far from the Straits of Gibraltar the merman76 met his most intimate friend, who had been looking for him a long time, and had only heard of him through Moby Dick.

“My dear fellow,” said his friend, “I am so glad to see you!” and then he stopped, for he couldn’t help seeing that the other was not at all glad to see him, and he felt hurt and disappointed.

“Are you?” said the merman, coldly, and gazing after the ship sailing away from him.

“Why, of course. We’ve all been so anxious about you. Why haven’t you written? Your grandfather has tried every spell he could think of, but it all seemed of no use. The dear old gentleman is almost sick, and so miserable about you that he has had no heart to finish his work, even though the Baltic merman has come out with another pamphlet. Do come home.”

Now as his friend spoke our merman felt at once how selfish and ungrateful he had been. But his passion for his wooden nymph had so altered his nature that instead of being sorry he was only angry with himself, and pretended that he was angry with his friend.

77 “I suppose I am old enough to be my own master,” he said, haughtily.

“Why, what has come over you?” said his friend. “I’m sure it was natural I should come to look for you. If I’d been lost, wouldn’t you have tried to find me?”

The merman felt more and more ashamed of himself and grew crosser and crosser. “Excuse me,” he said, coldly, “but I have business that I must attend to. I don’t choose to discuss the subject;” and he swam away after The Sea-nymph.

“But look here!” said his friend, coming after him. “I must tell you something. I’m going to be married to your youngest sister, and I want you to come and be best man. The girls are breaking their hearts about you.”

“Oh, I dare say,” said the merman with a sneer. He had always been a most affectionate brother, but now he had no room in his heart for anything but his wooden image.

“And there’s a dear little girl next door that will be glad to see you. She’s to be bridesmaid, of course. It’s my belief she likes you. The78 sweetest mermaid in the sea, she is, except your sister.”

“She’s well enough for a mermaid,” said the merman, impatiently, for the ship was going farther and farther away.

“I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said his friend, growing vexed at last. “I shall really think that absurd story of Moby Dick’s was true when he said you were in love with a wooden statue of a human being.”

“She’s not human,” snapped the merman, coloring scarlet; “she’s a nymph, an immortal.”

“Let’s have a look at her,” he said.

“You are not worthy to behold her perfections,” said the merman.

“Why, a catfish may look at a congressman,” said his friend, quoting a sea proverb. “Is she on board that ship off there? Come on;” and away he went and our merman after him. They came up with the ship, and there, as usual, stood the wooden image staring over the water.

“She’s watching for me,” said the merman.

The friend said nothing. He swam round and79 round, and looked up at the figure-head through his eye-glass.

“Isn’t she a goddess?” asked our merman, impatiently.

“Goddess!” said the other. “My dear fellow, it’s only wood as sure as you are alive.”

“No merman shall insult me,” said our merman, in a passion.

“Who wants to? Do open your eyes, my dear boy, and see for yourself.”

“I do; I see how she looks at me and holds out her silver vase.”

“She’ll do as much for me,” said his friend, swimming before the ship. Our merman was wild with rage and jealousy, for he could not help seeing that she did. He drew his sword (for he wore one), made of a sword-fish blade, and flew at his friend. “Defend yourself,” he said.

“Nonsense,” said the other. “A likely story, I am going to fight you about a wooden stick. As for looking at me, she’d do the same for any old turtle.”

The merman couldn’t but feel that this was true. But he only grew more angry. He struck his80 friend with all his might. There was a dark stain on the sea.

“I’m not going to fight you,” said the other, turning very pale, “for you are her brother, but I think you’ll be very sorry for this some time;” and he turned round and swam away as well as he could.

Fortunately, after a little he met Moby Dick.

“Hallo!” said the whale in a tone of concern. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing much,” said the other, for he wouldn’t tell the story.

The whale suspected the truth. He sniffed and wiped his eyes with his flipper, for he was a soft-hearted monster.

“Come with me,” said he; “I’ll take you to a surgeon.”

He carried the wounded merman to an old sea-owl who lived in a cave under the rock of Gibraltar. The old sea-owl was sitting in his door reading the newspaper when Moby Dick came rushing toward him, supporting in his flipper the hurt merman, who was too faint to swim.

“This young gentleman has met with an accident,”81 said the whale to the sea-owl; “I want you to cure him.” The sea-owl laid down his paper and took off his spectacles.

“What concern is it of yours?” said the sea-owl.

“That is none of your business,” said Moby Dick. “Take him into the house and take care of him.”

“You are weakly sentimental,” said the sea-owl. “I perceive that you belong to the rose-water class. What is suffering? A mere thrilling of a certain set of nerves. It creates a sensation which we call pain. It is disagreeable. Suppose it is. Are we sent into the world only to enjoy ourselves? Enjoyment is contemptible; the desire of happiness is base, unworthy a rational being. Let us rise to more exalted feelings; let us glorify ourselves in discomfort; and if we see any one basely comfortable, let us make ourselves as disagreeable as possible, and raise him to our own platform. What possible difference does it make whether we live or die, or are cold and hungry? What odds does it make in this huge universe? Are we nothing but vultures screaming for prey?82 Let us cultivate silence, that I may have the talk all to myself;” and the sea-owl looked at Moby Dick in the most impressive and superior manner. “What difference, I repeat, does our happiness or misery make in the huge sum of the universal—?”

“Look here!” said Moby Dick, “if you don’t quit talking and tend to this young man, I’ll swallow you. I don’t know as that will make much difference in the universe, but it’ll make a sight of difference to you;” and the whale opened his tremendous jaws wide and showed all his teeth.

The sea-owl took the merman into his office on the instant. He bound up his wound and attended him very carefully, for he was by no means such a fool as you would imagine from his conversation. The merman was cured before long, and made the sea-owl a handsome return for his services. The owl was just as much pleased as though the money had been a large item in the sum of the universe. He gave the merman a present of his own poems neatly bound in shark skin. He had several hundred copies in his office, for he had issued them at his own expense. They had been much praised, but some way they did not sell. The sea-owl said83 it was because all the people in the sea were “Philistines.” No one knew just what he meant, but when he called people by that name most all of them experienced a sort of crushed feeling, and pretended to admire the poems. Sometimes they would even buy them, but not often. Moby Dick accompanied the young merman home, and they made up a story that his hurt had been caused by a sword-fish, against whom he had run in the dark. Nobody believed him, for some way every one knew the truth, but all the members of the family’s own circle pretended to believe the tale, for they were all very high-bred people.

It had been intended that the wedding of the professor’s granddaughter should be a very brilliant affair, but they felt so unhappy about the grandson that they resolved to invite only a few intimate friends. Moby Dick, of course, was among the number. He was too huge to come into the house, but he put his nose to the window and ate ice cream with a fire shovel for a spoon. The beautiful mermaid from next door was bridesmaid, and looked most lovely. She seemed in better spirits than any one else, and never said a84 word about her old playmate. Toward the end of the evening she went out into the garden that was all glittering with sea phosphorescence. She swam up to Moby Dick and said it was warm weather.

“So it is, my dear,” said the whale, and looking with admiration at the bridesmaid, who wore white lace and emeralds.

“You came from Gibraltar, didn’t you?” said the mermaid, playing with her looking-glass, which the sea ladies carry as ours do their fans.

“Yes, where the bridegroom and I went to see after that bewitched brother-in-law of his,” said the whale, for he was vexed at the merman.

“Do you think he is bewitched?” said the bridesmaid.

The whale scratched his head, which is not vulgar in a whale.

“I never thought of it before,” he said; “but now you speak of it I shouldn’t wonder if it was so.”

The bridesmaid whispered in the whale’s ear.

“I wish you’d come with me to the old Witch of the Sea,” she said. “Won’t you, please?”

85 “I’ll go to the ends of the ocean with you, miss, if you want me to,” said Moby Dick; “but what for?”

“Oh,” said the bridesmaid, looking straight in the eye which happened to be that side of the whale’s head, “I’m a friend of the family, you know. I’m very much attached to the girls and very fond of the professor. I should like to help them if I could, and I think the witch is a wise woman, and it wouldn’t do at all for the professor to go to her in his position, but it won’t make any difference to me and you. Will you come now? It isn’t far.”

“Of course I will,” said the whale. “Just sit on my head, and I’ll take you there in no time.”

Just then the bride’s sister came out into the garden.

“Are you going, dear?” she said to the bridesmaid.

“Yes, I think I shall. Mr. Dick will see me home,” said the other mermaid.

“It’s been rather forlorn,” sighed the bride’s sister. “To think of his loving a wooden thing!”

“I suppose he had a right to if he chose,” said86 the mermaid a little hastily. “I’m sure it’s nothing to me.”

The bride’s sister was not angry at all. She kissed her friend good-night, and when she and Dick had gone sat down and cried a little.

“The poor dear!” she said.

Meanwhile Moby Dick and the bridesmaid were on their way to the old Witch of the Sea. She lived in a cave in a thick dark grove of seaweed. She was sitting before the door talking with a gossip of hers, one of the Salem witches, whose broomstick would carry her through the water as well as through the air. The broomstick, which was a spirited young one, was standing hitched at the door, impatiently stamping its stick part on the ground and switching the broom part about to keep off the little crabs.

“Ho! ho!” said the Salem witch. “Here’s a dainty young maiden indeed! I’m a great mind to stick a few pins in her.”

“You better hadn’t,” said Moby Dick, grimly, for he was not at all afraid of witches. “Ask the old lady any questions you like, my dear; nothing shall hurt you.”

87 “If you would be so good,” said the mermaid, taking off her jeweled necklace and zone and holding them out to the witches, “will you tell me where the professor’s grandson is, and whether he cannot be induced to come home?”

“And what’s your interest in him?” said the Witch of the Sea, taking snuff and looking at her sharply.

“I am his sister’s friend,” said the mermaid, steadily; “otherwise it is not a matter of consequence to me whether he spends his life in the chase of a wooden image; but I am very fond of the professor, and I think it a very sad thing that he should be left alone in his old age.”

“Umph!” said the Salem witch. “Just the same, fish-tailed or two-legged, in the sea or out of it. There’s a girl in our town as like her as two peas.”

“Young lady,” said the Witch of the Sea, “I haven’t had any hand in this matter.” (But of course I can’t say this was true. I incline myself to think she had had her finger in the pie.) “I can’t undo the spell—not now. If you want to88 find your friend’s brother, you must go West toward the coast.”

“Take a bee line,” said the Salem witch.

“I don’t know what that is,” said the mermaid, who didn’t know what a bee was.

“As the crow flies,” said the Salem witch.

“Crow?” said the mermaid, perplexed.

“As the mackerel swims,” said the sea witch.

“Oh, I see,” said the mermaid. “Thank you very much. Pray keep the stones. Good-night;” and she turned to Moby Dick. “You’ll go with me?”

“To be sure,” said the whale. “That’s rather a dangerous coast for me,” he thought to himself. “But never mind; if they come after me I can sink a whaler as easy as nothing. I’ll go with her. She reminds me of a whaless I used to go to school with;” and Moby Dick looked at the little slim mermaid in her bridesmaid’s dress, and heaved a sigh about a quarter of an acre in extent. “I’m your whale,” he said, cheerfully; and away they dashed at the rate of a hundred miles an hour.

Every one in the sea knew that the professor’s89 grandson had fallen in love with a wooden image, and was following it about the world. The very porpoises talked about it to each other. The whole family were dreadfully mortified.

“Suppose he marries her!” said his sisters.

“We never can take her into society. A real human being would be bad enough, but a wooden one—”

“I disown him,” said the old mer professor. “I desire that no one will mention him in my hearing. If he would only come home, the poor dear boy!”

There was universal sympathy with the family. The very sophomores behaved like gentlemen for as much as a week, they were so touched with the old mer professor’s trouble.

90

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CHAPTER V.
THE SEA-NYMPHS.

AFTER his friend had left him, our merman swam once more after The Sea-nymph. He felt wicked, ashamed, remorseful and very miserable, but for all that he followed his wooden goddess. He was so worn out with his long journeying and with trouble of mind that he could not keep up with the ship—he who had once beaten a fin-back whale in a race. He had lost sight of the brig before she went into the harbor of Syracuse, but he knew where she was going, and he followed in her track. It was a beautiful moonlit night. The water was all golden ripples. The ruins of the ancient town stood up white, still and solemn in the flood of silver light. The modern city did not look dirty91 as it does by sunlight, but white and cool and still. Only a bell rung at intervals from the tower of a convent.

On a fragment of a broken capital that lay in the water near the island shore of Ortyggia sat three lovely ladies. They looked young and beautiful as the day, but they were very, very old. They had known the place before the first Greek ship bore the first Greek colonists to Sicily. The broken capital was the last bit of a temple that had been reared in their honor ages ago, for these were the real sea-nymphs. They had come back from the unknown countries where they went when men forgot them, and the monks shattered their beautiful marble statues to replace them with waxen virgins dressed in tinsel. They were taking a journey just to see what sort of a place this world had grown to be. They were all three rather low-spirited—as much so as sea-nymphs can be.

“This is all so different,” said Arethusa. “It was hardly sadder in the great siege; I could hardly find the place where my fountain was once.”

92 “And nothing of Alpheus?” said Cymodoce with a little smile.

“No, thank Heaven!” said Arethusa; “the stream is there, but it has another name. I wonder what has become of the old gentleman? My dears, you can’t think what a torment he was. I really don’t know what I should have done but for Diana.”

“Maybe you would have married him,” said Panope. “He was very devoted to you.”

“Not he,” said Arethusa. “He was determined to have his own way, but he didn’t get it.”

“Sing something,” said Cymodoce. “What concerts we used to have on this very shore! Oh dear!”

Arethusa began to sing. I only wish you had been there to hear her.

As Arethusa finished her song, the merman came swimming wearily toward the three nymphs. If94 he had been a human being, he would not have seen them, but as it was they were revealed to his eyes. He knew what they were in a moment. They were dressed like his wooden nymph, and Arethusa carried a little silver vase in her hand, but they were not like the figure-head, for they had sweet, kind faces, and could laugh and cry. The merman made a most respectful bow, for he knew how to do it.

“Well,” said Panope, kindly, “can we do anything for you?”

“Lovely nymphs,” said the merman, “have you seen a ship pass this way with one of your fair sisters on its prow?”

“One of our sisters?” said Arethusa, a little haughtily. “That seems very unlikely.”

“I assure you she is, my lady,” said the merman, reverently but firmly. “She has her name, The Sea-nymph, written below her.”

“He has lost his wits,” said Panope, sighing.

“What a pity! Such a handsome youth!”

“You don’t mean that wooden figure-head?” cried Arethusa.

“Surely she is your sister,” said the merman,95 looking at Cymodoce, who was more like the wooden nymph than the other two, and whose manners were always a little stiff and prim.

“My sister!” cried Cymodoce, quite bristling. “Am I related to a log of wood?”

Here Arethusa slyly pinched Panope behind Cymodoce’s back, for the truth was Cymodoce had once been a wooden ship, and had been made into a nymph to save her from a conflagration. She never would allow, however, that this was a true story.

“No, of course there is nothing wooden about you, dear,” said Panope, soothingly. “Don’t be vexed. Let us help the poor boy if we can.”

“He’s very like a Triton I used to know,” said Arethusa, aside.

“I saw a ship pass,” said Panope, looking down at him with her kind blue eyes. “Such a big ship! Not like the ones I used to see here years ago, and it certainly had a wooden statue on the prow, but it was only a wooden image; it was not alive.”

“How strange it is,” thought the merman to himself, “that these three goddesses should be96 jealous of my beauty—just like three mortal mermaids.”

“Jealous of that stick indeed!” cried Cymodoce, answering his thought.

“Men!” said Arethusa. “Panope, my darling, they are just the creatures they always were in the water or out of it.”

“So it seems,” said Panope, playing in the sand with her little pink toes like a mortal girl.

“I assure you, sir,” said Cymodoce, gravely, “that you are under a serious mistake. That figure is a mere painted figure-head, quite incapable of a rational thought or instructive conversation.”

“What we admire in woman is her affections, not her intellect,” said the merman.

“Look at me!” said Arethusa; and the tall nymph stood up before him in all her immortal beauty and shook down her golden hair till it swept her ankles.

“My dear Arethusa,” said Cymodoce, “let me ask you to consider if this is quite proper?”

Panope only smiled, and Arethusa took no sort of notice.

97 “Look at me,” she said, “and compare me with that wooden thing. Don’t you see the difference?”

A difference there certainly was. The merman felt a cold chill go to his heart. For one instant his eyes were opened; for one instant he knew he had been worshiping a stick. Then he would not see or feel the truth.

“Farewell!” he cried, desperately; “I will follow her to the ends of the earth, whether she is alive or not,” and he swam away.

“Poor fellow!” said Arethusa.

“He looks a good deal like the pious Æneas,” said Cymodoce, who often mentioned that gentleman.

“I don’t see it,” said Panope, almost sharply. “He may be a goose, but he is not a prig. I do wish you ever could talk about any one else, Cymodoce! I am tired to death of the pious Æneas.”

“So am I,” said Arethusa; “he was a humbug if ever there was one.”

“What an expression!” said Cymodoce.

“Never mind,” said Arethusa; “suppose we do this poor merman a good turn, and get Aphrodite98 to make his wooden thing a live creature. Don’t you think she would do as much for wood as she did for marble?”

“We could ask her,” said Cymodoce. “I have some influence with her. I was so well acquainted with her son, the pious—”

“Oh bother him!” said Arethusa, who had been a mountain nymph originally, and was apt to be a little brusque.

“I don’t believe she’d be good for much if she did come alive,” said Panope, looking down. “I’ve heard that match of Pygmalion’s didn’t turn out very well. I saw the marble woman once. She was pretty enough, but so stiff, and she walked as though she weighed a ton, and hadn’t a word to say for herself. And as for this wooden thing, the woodenness would always remain in her mind and manners. But we can try. Come, if you like;” and the three slipped into the sea and went swimming after the merman, but he never saw them. He had caught sight of his wooden goddess, and had no eyes for the real ones. He thought he had never seen his idol looking so beautiful, so lifelike. “She wood!” he thought99 as he leaned back in the water and looked up in her face. Meanwhile, some strange influence was at work upon the wooden image. A kind of thrill ran over it. It began slowly to breathe.

“Dear me!” thought the wooden creature, for it could think a little now. “I must be coming alive! How very disagreeable! I can see—even feel. I don’t like it. It’s too much trouble. What is that thing in the sea staring at me?” and she actually bent her head and looked down.

The merman, of course, was in ecstasies, for he thought she was coming to him.

“I certainly am growing alive,” thought the wooden thing. “I won’t come alive; I was made wood, and wood I’ll stay; I won’t go out of my sphere; I’m sure it’s not proper;” and she stiffened herself as stiff as she could. “I will be wood,” she thought, and wood she was, for even a goddess can’t make a thing alive against its own will. “Yes, this is much the best way,” was the wooden image’s last thought, as the breath of life went away from her and left her more wooden than ever.

“Let it go, the stupid thing,” said Arethusa in100 a pet which was scarcely reasonable, as the image was wood in its nature. “Come, my dears, let us go from a world where no one cares for our gifts. Don’t cry, Panope dear. There are just as many fools in the world as ever there were, for all they pretend to be so much wiser.”

“It is strange too,” said Cymodoce, “considering how long they have had before them the example of the pious Æneas—”

“He never lost sight of his interest,” said Panope. “I wish we could persuade that poor merman, but I know very well that the twelve great gods couldn’t do it;” and the three vanished and were seen no more.

That night there came up a terrible storm. There was wind and rain and thunder such as the merman had never heard. From far away came a thick sulphurous cloud of smoke, and in the air was a dull red glare. The land shook and trembled, for Ætna was feeding his hidden fires, filling his inmost furnaces. The gale blew fiercely from land. The Sea-nymph snapped her cable, and drove out of the harbor before the tempest.101 The merman followed her. By the glare of the lightning he could see that the figure stood in its old place holding out her silver vase. “What wonderful courage!” he thought, for he did not know it was nailed there. The masts went crashing into the sea. The sailors threw overboard everything they could to lighten the ship. One of them sprang forward with an axe and began to cut away the figure-head. The merman swam, balancing himself on the crest of the waves; every one was too busy to notice him; he could not hear the blows of the axe in the noise of the wind and thunder; he did not see what the sailor was doing; he saw the image quiver under the strokes of the axe, and thought that at last she was coming down to him. “Oh come, come,” he cried, swimming directly below and holding out his arms. The wooden image quivered and shook; it bent forward; the next instant the solid heavy oak fell with a plunge and struck the poor merman in its fall. He felt that he was dying, but he did not know what had hurt him. “My own love, my sea-nymph,” he murmured; and he put his arms round the figure-head that was bobbing up102 and down in the sea quite unconcernedly. He kissed the painted lips. Then at length he knew that his idolized nymph, for whom he had given his life, was nothing but a carved log. It was well for him that his next breath was his last.

CHAPTER VI.
LUCY PEABODY’S DREAM.

MOBY DICK went on his way, “emerging strong against the tide.” A Nantucket ship saw him as he blew, and her boats put out after him.

“Just get off a minute, my dear,” said he to the little mermaid whom he carried. She did so, and then, instead of swimming away from the boats, he put down his enormous head and went straight at them.

“The white whale!” cried the sailors; and they did not throw the harpoon, but went meekly back to the ship. They were bold enough, but they were afraid of the white whale, for Moby Dick had sunk two or three ships in his time and entirely reversed the whalers’ programme.

Moby Dick executed a huge frisk on the surface104 of the sea, flapped his tail on the water with a noise like thunder, and then dived down to rejoin the mermaid.

“All right, my dear,” he said, cheerfully.

“I’m so glad you are safe,” said the mermaid, patting him with her little hands.

On they went through the water, and the coast was soon in sight. It was growing dusk, and the lighthouse showed its red star over the sea. The mermaid was silent, and Moby Dick did not trouble her to talk.

Suddenly a beautiful woman appeared to them on the crest of a long rolling billow. She made no effort; she did not swim, but moved through the water by her will alone. She seemed a part of the sea, like a wave come alive.

“That is not a human being, surely,” said the mermaid, startled.

“It’s very like that—you know—that wooden thing—that he ran after,” said Moby Dick in a gigantic whisper, “only it’s alive.”

“She don’t seem as though she could ever have been wood,” said the mermaid. “She looks kind. I don’t feel as though she were that—that person. Please ask if she has seen our friend.”

105 “Yes; my dear child,” said Panope—for she it was—answering the mermaid’s thought, “I have seen him;” and the immortal sighed.

“His family are very anxious about him, my lady,” said the whale, who was conscious of an awe he had never known before, though he felt he could trust the Sea-Nymph.

“They need be anxious no more,” said Panope, gently and sadly.

“What has happened?” asked the mermaid, turning pale, but keeping herself very quiet.

Panope went to her, and the immortal daughter of the sea put her white arms round the mermaid and held her in a close and soft embrace.

“My dear,” she said, very gently, “your old playmate is dead.”

“You don’t say so, ma’am!” said Moby Dick, with a great sigh; and then he swam away to a little distance and left the mermaid to the care of the Sea-Nymph, for he was a whale of very delicate feelings.

The mermaid looked into the blue eyes of the106 Goddess, and felt that the countless ages of her being had but made her more wise and kind. She hid her face on the immortal maiden’s bosom.

“My sweet child,” said Panope, after a little while, “I cannot bring your friend to life—it is beyond my power—but if you will, I can give you an immortality like my own. I can carry you with me to a world where death or pain has never come, and keep you young and lovely for ever.”

The mermaid was silent a moment. Then she looked up into Panope’s face.

“You will not be angry with me?” said she.

“Angry, my poor darling!”

“Then, my friends that I have loved have all been mortal. My mother is dead, my twin brother was killed in the war, and now my old companion—and I have known him so long! I think I should rather not be so very different, but go to them when my time comes.”

Panope caressed her hair with a soft hand.

“I don’t know but you are right. Sometimes,” said the Goddess, with a sad, tired look in her eyes, “I think I would be glad to be mortal myself, except that I am glad to be a little comfort to you.107 I am sorry I came back. Either the world has grown a sad place, or else I had forgotten what it used to be. But I don’t know; I almost broke my heart over Prometheus when I was quite a young thing. I could have helped him take care of his beloved human race a great deal better than Asia, but he never cared anything for me. It is all over long ago. Is there nothing that I can do for you, my dear?”

The mermaid was silent a minute. Then she said:

“I think I should like to take him home to his friends. I know they would wish it should be so.”

“It shall be,” said Panope. “Wait here, and I will bring him to you. But, my dear child, you are so quiet. All the mortal women I ever knew in the old days, in the sea or out, would have torn their hair and screamed, but you are so different.”

The mermaid looked up with a little ghost of a smile, half proud, half pitiful. “I suppose it is because I was born in American waters,” she said.

“Wait but a little,” said Panope. “The whale will take care of you. He is a good creature. His great-grandfathers were pets of mine long ago.108 I will soon come back again;” and the Nymph was gone.

Some time after the news had come to Salem of the total loss of the brig Sea-nymph, Lucy Peabody was walking alone along the sands. She felt weary, and sat down under the shadow of a rock to rest. The sun was just setting, the west was suffused with a golden glow, the water lay, hardly rippling to a low whispering wind, a sea of fire and glass. Lucy leaned her head against the rock, and sitting there, she dreamed a dream. Along the sands toward her came old Goody Cobb, whom everybody suspected of witchcraft. She appeared so suddenly that Lucy in her dream thought she had come out of the sea.

“Ho! ho!” said Goody Cobb, with a cracked laugh; “so here is Madam Peabody’s lady daughter come out to cry over her disappointment all by herself? The man was a fool, sure enough, but I wouldn’t mind. Just let me write your name down in a little book I keep, and you shall see our fine young madam dwine away like snow in spring-time, and then we shall see—”

109 “You are out of your mind, Goody,” said Lucy in her dream; “but such talk as that is not safe, for there are those in town who are silly enough to believe witch stories, and you might get yourself into trouble.”

“Silly, are they!” cried Goody Cobb, growing angry. “But never mind. Just let me have your name, and we shall see what we shall see. Look at the pretty necklace I will give you;” and she drew from her pocket a chain of shining green stones and held it up before the girl’s eyes.

“I will have nothing to say to you or your gifts,” said Lucy, steadily. “Pass on your way, Goody, and leave me alone.”

“So you think yourself too good for me!” said the witch in a rage. “Let me tell you that my family is as good as yours, and better. My grandfather was a minister—ay, and a noted one—while yours was selling clams round the streets.”

It was a very odd thing that while Goody Cobb had become a witch, renounced her baptism and sold herself to the enemy of mankind, she was yet very proud of the eminent divine, her grandfather.

“I’ll be the death of you! I’ll stick pins in110 you, and set my imps to pinch you black and blue!” screamed Goody Cobb, with the look of a possessed woman, as she was.

Suddenly, as Lucy dreamed—so suddenly that she seemed to grow out of the air—there stood on the sand between herself and the witch a tall and beautiful woman in shining raiment of green and silver, with golden hair that fell loosely to her ankles. She gazed sternly on the witch; a divine wrath made her blue eyes awful.

“You earth-born creature!” she cried as she caught the green necklace from the old woman’s trembling hand. “This girl is a child of the ocean, and is in my care;” and Lucy dreamed that she felt glad to remember how she had been born on the voyage her mother made with her father to Calcutta. “Stay where you are for ever!” continued the stranger lady, raising her white hand with a gesture of command. “You will wreck no more ships—you, nor your sister witch.” And then as she stood Goody Cobb stiffened into stone and became a black rock.

“You need not be afraid of me, my dear,” said the dream lady to Lucy. “I never hurt any one111 in my life. I am only an innocent Sea-Nymph, and I am—or I was—the helper of all the sailor-folk, and your father is a bold seaman.”

Lucy dreamed that she was very much surprised, which was curious, for in a dream the more remarkable a thing is, the less it astonishes the dreamer.

“But I thought there never were any nymphs,” she said, perplexed.

The sea-maiden smiled a queer little smile—half sad, half amused.

“Do you know,” she said, “that since men left off believing in them and building temples, the gods all declare that there never were such things as human creatures, and that it was all a delusion of ours? Keep this;” and she dropped the necklace into Lucy’s lap. “It belonged to one who will not care to wear it now. Farewell;” and the goddess bent down and lightly kissed the girl’s forehead, and the next instant Lucy was alone. She woke up, as she thought, and sat still for a moment.

“What a singular dream!” she said to herself. Then she looked round, and saw a black rock112 standing beside her, “Was that rock there? I don’t remember it, but of course it must have been.” She rose to her feet. Something fell glittering on the sand. She picked it up. It was a long, shining necklace of green stones.

“This is very strange!” said Lucy, thoughtfully. “But I suppose I had better take them home. They must have been washed up from the sea and caught to my gown some way. How pretty they are! I wonder if they belonged to some one who is drowned?”

She put the necklace into her pocket, and turned to go home. She had gone but a little way when she met Job Chippit.

“Uncle Job,” she said, “I have found something on the sand. Do you think any one in town has lost it, or that it was washed up by the sea?”

Job examined closely the emerald necklace. “This never belonged to anyone in our town, Lucy,” he said; “most likely the tide washed it up in the last storm. Yours it is by all right if no one comes to claim it; and be keerful of it, for I expect it’s awful valuable. But what’s happened to you?”

113 “Why?”

“You’ve got an odd look about you, some way, but I never see you look so pretty. Has anything happened?”

“No,” said Lucy, quietly, “only I sat down to rest and fell asleep, and had a very strange dream. Good-night, Uncle Job.” From that evening Goody Cobb was never seen in Salem town.

Job Chippit continued his walk, thoughtfully whittling a little stick. Before long he overtook Master Isaac Torrey, who was walking along the shore with his head down, seeming to notice nothing but the sand at his feet. Master Torrey had quite left off his wild ways. He made no more foolish, fanciful speeches about nymphs and goddesses, and such nonsense. “Anna Jane had made a sensible man of him,” said his father-in-law. “He was greatly improved,” said every one, with the exception of Ichabod Sterns and Job Chippit.

Master Torrey had avoided the wood-carver since his marriage. His father-in-law thought it a good sign. “He had been quite too familiar with that person,” thought the colonel. But this114 night Master Torrey did not avoid him, though he only nodded without speaking in answer to Job’s “Good-evening,” and then the two walked on in silence.

“That’s an odd-looking thing on the beach,” said Job at last.

They went up to the dark mass Job had pointed out. There on a heap of weed, thrown up by the late storm, lay the wooden nymph, the paint almost washed away, and there, with its arms tightly clasped about her neck, lay a strange creature, half fish, half human.

“As sure as the world, it’s a merman!” said Job; “and there really are such critters, after all! Poor fellow! The human part of him was pretty good-lookin’ when he was alive. See what a dent he’s got in his head!”

“And this is the figure-head of The Sea-nymph,” said Master Torrey. “Don’t you know it?”

“To be sure! Well, it does beat all! What shall we do with the merman? I’d kind of hate to make a show of him. He’s a sort of man, and I s’pose he had his feelings anyhow. Look at the115 empty scabbard and the sword-belt; and he’s got a ring on his finger.”

Job bent down and tried to unfold the dead hand from its close clasp. At that moment, though it was very calm, a huge wave rose from the sea, and came thundering up the beach, covering the two men with spray. When it retreated the dead merman and the figure-head were gone, and up from the sea came a low sobbing sound.

Master Torrey and Job stood watching, surprised and startled. Another minute, and up came a second huge wave, bearing upon its crest the oaken sea-nymph. On it rolled—a mountain of water. It dashed its burden upon the jagged rocks once, twice, thrice, and strewed the shattered fragments over sea and sand. Job drew a long breath.

“Waal,” said he, “there goes the best piece of wood I ever chipped. Tell ye what, philosophy won’t explain everything. ’Tain’t best to be too rational if you want to have any insight into things in this world. If that wa’n’t done a-purpose, I never see a thing done so!”

They turned back and walked toward the town.116 Far away in the offing a whale sent up an enormous jet, a sea-gull screamed wildly above their heads.

“Going to say anything about this?” said Job at last.

“What would be the use?” said Master Torrey, sharply. “Half of them would not believe you; and who wants to set all the fools in the place chattering?”

“Not I! I’m not over-fond of answering questions. I’d rather ask ’em,” said Job. “Do you know, putting this and that together, and the story of the queer fish that hung round the ship, I’ve got a notion that poor fishy thing fell in love with that figger-head of ourn? You couldn’t expect such a critter as he was to have more sense than a landsman, and I expect the log fell on him when the brig went to pieces and killed him.”

“So much the better for him if he had given his soul to a wooden image,” said Master Torrey, bitterly. “Good-night;” and he left Job and walked slowly back to his handsome new house. Job looked after him wistfully. Just then old Ichabod came up and saluted the wood-carver.

117 “Do you know, Ichabod,” said Job, “that Master Torrey and I just found the figure-head of the poor Sea-nymph, all shattered to bits on the rocks? The waves brought her all this way to smash her at last.”

“I wish they had smashed her at first,” said Ichabod.

“Why?” said Job, with a curious look.

“Because,” said Ichabod, “she was an unlucky creature from the first. She was too much alive for a wooden image, and too wooden to be a live woman, much less a goddess.”