certainly do look as if they had seen better days; and I am heartily
glad to see them making so comfortable a supper."
Each of the guests had now taken his bunch of grapes upon his plate.
Baucis (who rubbed her eyes, in order to see the more clearly) was of
opinion that the clusters had grown larger and richer, and that each
separate grape seemed to be on the point of bursting with ripe juice. It
was entirely a mystery to her how such grapes could ever have been
produced from the old stunted vine that climbed against the cottage
wall.
"Very admirable grapes these!" observed Quicksilver, as he swallowed one
after another, without apparently diminishing his cluster. "Pray, my
good host, whence did you gather them?"
"From my own vine," answered Philemon. "You may see one of its branches
twisting across the window, yonder. But wife and I never thought the
grapes very fine ones."
"I never tasted better," said the guest. "Another cup of this delicious
milk, if you please, and I shall then have supped better than a prince."
This time, old Philemon bestirred himself, and took up the pitcher; for
he was curious to discover whether there was any reality in the marvels
which Baucis had whispered to him. He knew that his good old wife was
incapable of falsehood, and that she was seldom mistaken in what she
supposed to be true; but this was so very singular a case, that he
wanted to see into it with his own eyes. On taking up the pitcher,
therefore, he slyly peeped into it, and was fully satisfied that it
contained not so much as a single drop. All at once, however, he beheld
a little white fountain, which gushed up from the bottom of the pitcher,
and speedily filled it to the brim with foaming and deliciously fragrant
milk. It was lucky that Philemon, in his surprise, did not drop the
miraculous pitcher from his hand.
"Who are ye, wonder-working strangers!" cried he, even more bewildered
than his wife had been.
"Your guests, my good Philemon, and your friends," replied the elder
traveller, in his mild, deep voice, that had something at once sweet and
awe-inspiring in it. "Give me likewise a cup of the milk; and may your
pitcher never be empty for kind Baucis and yourself, any more than for
the needy wayfarer!"
The supper being now over, the strangers requested to be shown to their
place of repose. The old people would gladly have talked with them a
little longer, and have expressed the wonder which they felt, and their
delight at finding the poor and meagre supper prove so much better and
more abundant than they hoped. But the elder traveller had inspired them
with such reverence, that they dared not ask him any questions. And when
Philemon drew Quicksilver aside, and inquired how under the sun a
fountain of milk could have got into an old earthen pitcher, this latter
personage pointed to his staff.
"There is the whole mystery of the affair," quoth Quicksilver; "and if
you can make it out, I'll thank you to let me know. I can't tell what to
make of my staff. It is always playing such odd tricks as this;
sometimes getting me a supper, and, quite as often, stealing it away. If
I had any faith in such nonsense, I should say the stick was bewitched!"
He said no more, but looked so slyly in their faces, that they rather
fancied he was laughing at them. The magic staff went hopping at his
heels, as Quicksilver quitted the room. When left alone, the good old
couple spent some little time in conversation about the events of the
evening, and then lay down on the floor, and fell fast asleep. They had
given up their sleeping-room to the guests, and had no other bed for
themselves, save these planks, which I wish had been as soft as their
own hearts.
The old man and his wife were stirring, betimes, in the morning, and the
strangers likewise arose with the sun, and made their preparations to
depart. Philemon hospitably entreated them to remain a little longer,
until Baucis could milk the cow, and bake a cake upon the hearth, and,
perhaps, find them a few fresh eggs, for breakfast. The guests, however,
seemed to think it better to accomplish a good part of their journey
before the heat of the day should come on. They, therefore, persisted in
setting out immediately, but asked Philemon and Baucis to walk forth
with them a short distance, and show them the road which they were to
take.
So they all four issued from the cottage, chatting together like old
friends. It was very remarkable, indeed, how familiar the old couple
insensibly grew with the elder traveller, and how their good and simple
spirits melted into his, even as two drops of water would melt into the
illimitable ocean. And as for Quicksilver, with his keen, quick,
laughing wits, he appeared to discover every little thought that but
peeped into their minds, before they suspected it themselves. They
sometimes wished, it is true, that he had not been quite so
quick-witted, and also that he would fling away his staff, which looked
so mysteriously mischievous, with the snakes always writhing about it.
But then, again, Quicksilver showed himself so very good-humored, that
they would have been rejoiced to keep him in their cottage, staff,
snakes, and all, every day, and the whole day long.
"Ah me! Well-a-day!" exclaimed Philemon, when they had walked a little
way from their door. "If our neighbors only knew what a blessed thing it
is to show hospitality to strangers, they would tie up all their dogs,
and never allow their children to fling another stone."
"It is a sin and shame for them to behave so,--that it is!" cried good
old Baucis, vehemently. "And I mean to go this very day, and tell some
of them what naughty people they are!"
"I fear," remarked Quicksilver, slyly smiling, "that you will find none
of them at home."
The elder traveller's brow, just then, assumed such a grave, stern, and
awful grandeur, yet serene withal, that neither Baucis nor Philemon
dared to speak a word. They gazed reverently into his face, as if they
had been gazing at the sky.
"When men do not feel towards the humblest stranger as if he were a
brother," said the traveller, in tones so deep that they sounded like
those of an organ, "they are unworthy to exist on earth, which was
created as the abode of a great human brotherhood!"
"And, by the by, my dear old people," cried Quicksilver, with the
liveliest look of fun and mischief in his eyes, "where is this same
village that you talk about? On which side of us does it lie? Methinks I
do not see it hereabouts."
Philemon and his wife turned towards the valley, where, at sunset, only
the day before, they had seen the meadows, the houses, the gardens, the
clumps of trees, the wide, green-margined street, with children playing
in it, and all the tokens of business, enjoyment, and prosperity. But
what was their astonishment! There was no longer any appearance of a
village! Even the fertile vale, in the hollow of which it lay, had
ceased to have existence. In its stead, they beheld the broad, blue
surface of a lake, which filled the great basin of the valley from brim
to brim, and reflected the surrounding hills in its bosom with as
tranquil an image as if it had been there ever since the creation of the
world. For an instant, the lake remained perfectly smooth. Then, a
little breeze sprang up, and caused the water to dance, glitter, and
sparkle in the early sunbeams, and to dash, with a pleasant rippling
murmur, against the hither shore.
The lake seemed so strangely familiar, that the old couple were greatly
perplexed, and felt as if they could only have been dreaming about a
village having lain there. But, the next moment, they remembered the
vanished dwellings, and the faces and characters of the inhabitants, far
too distinctly for a dream. The village had been there yesterday, and
now was gone!
"Alas!" cried these kind-hearted old people, "what has become of our
poor neighbors?"
"They exist no longer as men and women," said the elder traveller, in
his grand and deep voice, while a roll of thunder seemed to echo it at a
distance. "There was neither use nor beauty in such a life as theirs;
for they never softened or sweetened the hard lot of mortality by the
exercise of kindly affections between man and man. They retained no
image of the better life in their bosoms; therefore, the lake, that was
of old, has spread itself forth again, to reflect the sky!"
"And as for those foolish people," said Quicksilver, with his
mischievous smile, "they are all transformed to fishes. There needed but
little change, for they were already a scaly set of rascals, and the
coldest-blooded beings in existence. So, kind Mother Baucis, whenever
you or your husband have an appetite for a dish of broiled trout, he can
throw in a line, and pull out half a dozen of your old neighbors!"
"All," cried Baucis, shuddering, "I would not, for the world, put one of
them on the gridiron!"
"No," added Philemon, making a wry face, "we could never relish them!"
"As for you, good Philemon," continued the elder traveller,--"and you,
kind Baucis,--you, with your scanty means, have mingled so much
heartfelt hospitality with your entertainment of the homeless stranger,
that the milk became an inexhaustible fount of nectar, and the brown
loaf and the honey were ambrosia. Thus, the divinities have feasted, at
your board, off the same viands that supply their banquets on Olympus.
You have done well, my dear old friends. Wherefore, request whatever
favor you have most at heart, and it is granted."
Philemon and Baucis looked at one another, and then,--I know not which
of the two it was who spoke, but that one uttered the desire of both
their hearts.
"Let us live together, while we live, and leave the world at the same
instant, when we die! For we have always loved one another!"
"Be it so!" replied the stranger, with majestic kindness. "Now, look
towards your cottage!"
They did so. But what was their surprise on beholding a tall edifice of
white marble, with a wide-open portal, occupying the spot where their
humble residence had so lately stood!
"There is your home," said the stranger, beneficently smiling on them
both. "Exercise your hospitality in yonder palace as freely as in the
poor hovel to which you welcomed us last evening."
The old folks fell on their knees to thank him; but, behold! neither he
nor Quicksilver was there.
So Philemon and Baucis took up their residence in the marble palace, and
spent their time, with vast satisfaction to themselves, in making
everybody jolly and comfortable who happened to pass that way. The
milk-pitcher, I must not forget to say, retained its marvellous quality
of being never empty, when it was desirable to have it full. Whenever an
honest, good-humored, and free-hearted guest took a draught from this
pitcher, he invariably found it the sweetest and most invigorating fluid
that ever ran down his throat. But, if a cross and disagreeable
curmudgeon happened to sip, he was pretty certain to twist his visage
into a hard knot, and pronounce it a pitcher of sour milk!
Thus the old couple lived in their palace a great, great while, and grew
older and older, and very old indeed. At length, however, there came a
summer morning when Philemon and Baucis failed to make their appearance,
as on other mornings, with one hospitable smile overspreading both their
pleasant faces, to invite the guests of over-night to breakfast. The
guests searched everywhere, from top to bottom of the spacious palace,
and all to no purpose. But, after a great deal of perplexity, they
espied, in front of the portal, two venerable trees, which nobody could
remember to have seen there the day before. Yet there they stood, with
their roots fastened deep into the soil, and a huge breadth of foliage
overshadowing the whole front of the edifice. One was an oak, and the
other a linden-tree. Their boughs--it was strange and beautiful to
see--were intertwined together, and embraced one another, so that each
tree seemed to live in the other tree's bosom much more than in its own.
While the guests were marvelling how these trees, that must have
required at least a century to grow, could have come to be so tall and
venerable in a single night, a breeze sprang up, and set their
intermingled boughs astir. And then there was a deep, broad murmur in
the air, as if the two mysterious trees were speaking.
"I am old Philemon!" murmured the oak.
"I am old Baucis!" murmured the linden-tree.
But, as the breeze grew stronger, the trees both spoke at
once,--"Philemon! Baucis! Baucis! Philemon!"--as if one were both and
both were one, and talking together in the depths of their mutual heart.
It was plain enough to perceive that the good old couple had renewed
their age, and were now to spend a quiet and delightful hundred years or
so, Philemon as an oak, and Baucis as a linden-tree. And oh, what a
hospitable shade did they fling around them. Whenever a wayfarer paused
beneath it, he heard a pleasant whisper of the leaves above his head,
and wondered how the sound should so much resemble words like these:--
"Welcome, welcome, dear traveller, welcome!"
And some kind soul, that knew what would have pleased old Baucis and old
Philemon best, built a circular seat around both their trunks, where,
for a great while afterwards, the weary, and the hungry, and the thirsty
used to repose themselves, and quaff milk abundantly out of the
miraculous pitcher.
And I wish, for all our sakes, that we had the pitcher here now!
The Hill-Side
_After the Story_
"How much did the pitcher hold?" asked Sweet Fern. "It did not hold
quite a quart," answered the student; "but you might keep pouring milk
out of it, till you should fill a hogshead, if you pleased. The truth
is, it would run on forever, and not be dry even at midsummer,--which is
more than can be said of yonder rill, that goes babbling down the
hill-side."
"And what has become of the pitcher now?" inquired the little boy.
"It was broken, I am sorry to say, about twenty-five thousand years
ago," replied Cousin Eustace. "The people mended it as well as they
could, but, though it would hold milk pretty well, it was never
afterwards known to fill itself of its own accord. So, you see, it was
no better than any other cracked earthen pitcher."
"What a pity!" cried all the children at once.
The respectable dog Ben had accompanied the party, as did likewise a
half-grown Newfoundland puppy, who went by the name of Bruin, because he
was just as black as a bear. Ben, being elderly, and of very circumspect
habits, was respectfully requested, by Cousin Eustace, to stay behind
with the four little children, in order to keep them out of mischief. As
for black Bruin, who was himself nothing but a child, the student
thought it best to take him along, lest, in his rude play with the
other children, he should trip them up, and send them rolling and
tumbling down the hill. Advising Cowslip, Sweet Fern, Dandelion, and
Squash-Blossom to sit pretty still, in the spot where he left them, the
student, with Primrose and the elder children, began to ascend, and were
soon out of sight among the trees.
THE CHIMAERA
Bald-Summit
_Introductory to "The Chimaera"_
Upward, along the steep and wooded hill-side, went Eustace Bright and
his companions. The trees were not yet in full leaf, but had budded
forth sufficiently to throw an airy shadow, while the sunshine filled
them with green light. There were moss-grown rocks, half hidden among
the old, brown, fallen leaves; there were rotten tree-trunks, lying at
full length where they had long ago fallen; there were decayed boughs,
that had been shaken down by the wintry gales, and were scattered
everywhere about. But still, though these things looked so aged, the
aspect of the wood was that of the newest life; for, whichever way you
turned your eyes, something fresh and green was springing forth, so as
to be ready for the summer.
At last, the young people reached the upper verge of the wood, and found
themselves almost at the summit of the hill. It was not a peak, nor a
great round ball, but a pretty wide plain, or table-land, with a house
and barn upon it, at some distance. That house was the home of a
solitary family; and often-times the clouds, whence fell the rain, and
whence the snow-storm drifted down into the valley, hung lower than this
bleak and lonely dwelling-place.
On the highest point of the hill was a heap of stones, in the centre of
which was stuck a long pole, with a little flag fluttering at the end of
it. Eustace led the children thither, and bade them look around, and
see how large a tract of our beautiful world they could take in at a
glance. And their eyes grew wider as they looked.
Monument Mountain, to the southward, was still in the centre of the
scene, but seemed to have sunk and subsided, so that it was now but an
undistinguished member of a large family of hills. Beyond it, the
Taconic range looked higher and bulkier than before. Our pretty lake was
seen, with all its little bays and inlets; and not that alone, but two
or three new lakes were opening their blue eyes to the sun. Several
white villages, each with its steeple, were scattered about in the
distance. There were so many farm-houses, with their acres of woodland,
pasture, mowing-fields, and tillage, that the children could hardly make
room in their minds to receive all these different objects. There, too,
was Tanglewood, which they had hitherto thought such an important apex
of the world. It now occupied so small a space, that they gazed far
beyond it, and on either side, and searched a good while with all their
eyes, before discovering whereabout it stood.
White, fleecy clouds were hanging in the air, and threw the dark spots
of their shadow here and there over the landscape. But, by and by, the
sunshine was where the shadow had been, and the shadow was somewhere
else.
Far to the westward was a range of blue mountains, which Eustace Bright
told the children were the Catskills. Among those misty hills, he said,
was a spot where some old Dutchmen were playing an everlasting game of
nine-pins, and where an idle fellow, whose name was Rip Van Winkle, had
fallen asleep, and slept twenty years at a stretch. The children eagerly
besought Eustace to tell them all about this wonderful affair. But the
student replied that the story had been told once already, and better
than it ever could be told again; and that nobody would have a right to
alter a word of it, until it should have grown as old as "The Gorgon's
Head," and "The Three Golden Apples," and the rest of those miraculous
legends.
"At least," said Periwinkle, "while we rest ourselves here, and are
looking about us, you can tell us another of your own stories."
"Yes, Cousin Eustace," cried Primrose, "I advise you to tell us a story
here. Take some lofty subject or other, and see if your imagination will
not come up to it. Perhaps the mountain air may make you poetical, for
once. And no matter how strange and wonderful the story may be, now that
we are up among the clouds, we can believe anything."
"Can you believe," asked Eustace, "that there was once a winged horse?"
"Yes," said saucy Primrose; "but I am afraid you will never be able to
catch him."
"For that matter, Primrose," rejoined the student, "I might possibly
catch Pegasus, and get upon his back, too, as well as a dozen other
fellows that I know of. At any rate, here is a story about him; and, of
all places in the world, it ought certainly to be told upon a
mountain-top."
So, sitting on the pile of stones, while the children clustered
themselves at its base, Eustace fixed his eyes on a white cloud that was
sailing by, and began as follows.
The Chimaera
Once, in the old, old times (for all the strange things which I tell you
about happened long before anybody can remember), a fountain gushed out
of a hill-side, in the marvellous land of Greece. And, for aught I know,
after so many thousand years, it is still gushing out of the very
selfsame spot. At any rate, there was the pleasant fountain, welling
freshly forth and sparkling adown the hill-side, in the golden sunset,
when a handsome young man named Bellerophon drew near its margin. In his
hand he held a bridle, studded with brilliant gems, and adorned with a
golden bit. Seeing an old man, and another of middle age, and a little
boy, near the fountain, and likewise a maiden, who was dipping up some
of the water in a pitcher, he paused, and begged that he might refresh
himself with a draught.
"This is very delicious water," he said to the maiden as he rinsed and
filled her pitcher, after drinking out of it. "Will you be kind enough
to tell me whether the fountain has any name?"
"Yes; it is called the Fountain of Pirene," answered the maiden; and
then she added, "My grandmother has told me that this clear fountain was
once a beautiful woman; and when her son was killed by the arrows of the
huntress Diana, she melted all away into tears. And so the water, which
you find so cool and sweet, is the sorrow of that poor mother's heart!"
"I should not have dreamed," observed the young stranger, "that so clear
a well-spring, with its gush and gurgle, and its cheery dance out of the
shade into the sunlight, had so much as one tear-drop in its bosom! And
this, then, is Pirene? I thank you, pretty maiden, for telling me its
name. I have come from a far-away country to find this very spot."
A middle-aged country fellow (he had driven his cow to drink out of the
spring) stared hard at young Bellerophon, and at the handsome bridle
which he carried in his hand.
"The water-courses must be getting low, friend, in your part of the
world," remarked he, "if you come so far only to find the Fountain of
Pirene. But, pray, have you lost a horse? I see you carry the bridle in
your hand; and a very pretty one it is with that double row of bright
stones upon it. If the horse was as fine as the bridle, you are much to
be pitied for losing him."
"I have lost no horse," said Bellerophon, with a smile. "But I happen to
be seeking a very famous one, which, as wise people have informed me,
must be found hereabouts, if anywhere. Do you know whether the winged
horse Pegasus still haunts the Fountain of Pirene, as he used to do in
your forefathers' days?"
But then the country fellow laughed.
Some of you, my little friends, have probably heard that this Pegasus
was a snow-white steed, with beautiful silvery wings, who spent most of
his time on the summit of Mount Helicon. He was as wild, and as swift,
and as buoyant, in his flight through the air, as any eagle that ever
soared into the clouds. There was nothing else like him in the world. He
had no mate; he never had been backed or bridled by a master; and, for
many a long year, he led a solitary and a happy life.
Oh, how fine a thing it is to be a winged horse! Sleeping at night, as
he did, on a lofty mountain-top, and passing the greater part of the day
in the air, Pegasus seemed hardly to be a creature of the earth.
Whenever he was seen, up very high above people's heads, with the
sunshine on his silvery wings, you would have thought that he belonged
to the sky, and that, skimming a little too low, he had got astray among
our mists and vapors, and was seeking his way back again. It was very
pretty to behold him plunge into the fleecy bosom of a bright cloud, and
be lost in it, for a moment or two, and then break forth from the other
side. Or, in a sullen rain-storm, when there was a gray pavement of
clouds over the whole sky, it would sometimes happen that the winged
horse descended right through it, and the glad light of the upper region
would gleam after him. In another instant, it is true, both Pegasus and
the pleasant light would be gone away together. But any one that was
fortunate enough to see this wondrous spectacle felt cheerful the whole
day afterwards, and as much longer as the storm lasted.
In the summer-time, and in the beautifullest of weather, Pegasus often
alighted on the solid earth, and, closing his silvery wings, would
gallop over hill and dale for pastime, as fleetly as the wind. Oftener
than in any other place, he had been seen near the Fountain of Pirene,
drinking the delicious water, or rolling himself upon the soft grass of
the margin. Sometimes, too (but Pegasus was very dainty in his food), he
would crop a few of the clover-blossoms that happened to be sweetest.