The Wild Huntsman.
The forest paths were dappled with sunlight as Father and I strolled
down its winding glades, and all the wood things were chirping and
chattering with joy. Now and then something brown and furry scuttled
across our path, and once I all but trod on a tiny mouse, who had hidden
herself under last year's leaves.
"You clumsy boy!" said a tiny voice, and I turned in time to catch sight
of a wee pink Elf as she sprang from the flower Father wore in his
button hole upon a bright blue butterfly which had been hovering above
her for some time, and now darted swiftly away.
After a while we came to an open space where the woodmen had been
felling timber. Several great trees still lay on the ground; one was
particularly straight and round, and I noticed three wide crosses cut
deep into the bark. I thought I would like to carve my name there too,
for my knife had been most beautifully sharp since the _Nain Rouge_
touched it, so when Father sat down soon afterward to read his letters,
I went straight back to the spot. As I reached it I heard the distant
baying of hounds; the sound came nearer and nearer, and mingling with
it were shouts in a strange deep voice, which almost frightened me.
As I looked up, my knife was jerked out of my hand by a little woman
dressed in green, who pushed me breathlessly aside and sat down,
sobbing bitterly, on the middle cross. I was still staring at her when
there flashed through the air a huntsman on a fiery horse, followed by
many hounds. Their hurrying feet knocked off my cap and rumpled all my
hair. They had passed in a second, and next moment I heard their
baying far away.
The little woman in green sobbed still, but she seemed to be growing
calmer. Her hair and eyes were a soft light grey, and her frock was most
prettily trimmed with tufts of moss.
"Aha!" I thought when I noticed this, "you are one of the Moss-women,
I've no doubt." For I knew that these were supposed to haunt the forests
of Southern Germany.
"That was the Wild Huntsman," said the little thing, looking at me
trustfully. "But for the kindness of the woodcutters who make these
marks in the trees they fell, I should have fallen to his bow and
spear. When we can find three crosses we are safe, for he dare not touch
us then."
I waited to hear what else she would say, for I thought of the Kobold's
"_Why? Why? Why?_" and did not like to ask her questions. In a little
while her lips were smiling, and swaying to and fro, as a tree sways in
the wind, she began to sing. I knew I had heard that song before, but I
could not think where until I remembered that the pines which rustled
against the windows of my night nursery had often sung it when I was
small.
"It's the song of the wind," she told me, "and the very first sound we
hear. We are born in the roots of the tree which is to be our home, and
when this dies, we must die too. So long as the sap runs through its
branches, and the bark is not cut or injured, we are safe and sound in
our snug recess, but at certain times we are bound to leave it, to seek
for food, or to attend our lords. It is then that we are in such grave
danger--and all because Elfrida tried her witcheries on a stranger."
"What did she do?" I could not help asking.
"I will tell you," said the Moss-woman sadly, "and then you will
understand why even the youngest of us has now grey hair."
[Illustration]
The Wild Huntsman.
"Elfrida was the fairest of our race," she sighed, "and her palace the
tallest and straightest pine that ever raised its boughs to Heaven.
When she left its shelter at early dawn to bathe in some sparkling
stream, or seek for sweet berries in the thickets, the Flower-Elves
flocked to greet her; wild roses gave her their bloom for her oval
cheeks, and the violets scented her sunny hair. Wherever she passed, the
moss grew a brighter green, and she had but to breathe on a gnarled old
trunk, and the softest feathery fronds came to hide its ugliness. The
creatures of the forest were all her friends, and took pride, as we did,
in her loveliness.
'Have a care, Elfrida--a stranger comes!' cried a squirrel one summer
morning, staying his dancing feet to warn her. His up-cocked ears had
caught the thud of some well-shod charger's swift approach, and he
guessed he would not be riderless.
'Go back to thy palace, dear child!' cooed a motherly pigeon who had
reared many broods of snowy fledglings, and misdoubted the sparkle in
Elfrida's pale green eyes.
'Haste thee home, Elfrida!' cried the stream as it gurgled over the
stones; 'haste thee home, and hide thy face from the sunlight.' But
Elfrida pretended not to hear as she shook out the crystal drops from
her gorgeous hair.
The horse and his rider were close to her now; the huntsman blew his
golden horn, and in the excitement of the chase might have passed her
by, unseeing, but for his hounds. In a moment they had surrounded her,
baying like hungry wolves, and Elfrida sprang to a branch that overhung
the water, where her white limbs gleamed against its green. The huntsman
sent the dogs to heel, and dismounting from his horse, entreated the
maiden to come down to him. Nothing loth, Elfrida coyly descended, and
the huntsman was amazed anew at her perfect form. He sat at her feet
through the hush of noonday, and at even he was there still. When the
moon turned the glades to silver, Elfrida left him, but she promised to
meet him again next day, and he could not sleep for thinking of her.
But although she smiled on him sweetly as she lay on the banks of the
stream, and listened with languid pleasure to his fond fierce wooing,
which passed for her many an idle hour, she would not consent to be his
wife.
'I like best the gems that I find on the lilies at daybreak,' she said,
when he vowed that the richest jewels that the earth could give should
deck her fair white arms. 'You must offer me something rarer than these
if I am to forsake my kindred to go with you.'
Then the huntsman swore that he would give her all he had; only his
honour would he hold back, for he was sick with love and longing.
Now behind Elfrida's loveliness dwelt a spirit of malice and wanton
cruelty, and though she loved not this wild Huntsman, and had no
intention of being his bride, she wished to see how far her power over
him could go. So she asked of him these three things: the crest of his
House cut in the stone over his castle gates, where it had stood for
centuries; the leaf from his dead mother's Bible, whereon she had
written the date of her marriage day, with the names of the children
born to her; and his father's sword.
[Illustration: He entreated the Maiden to come down.]
[Illustration]
'Nay, Sweetheart!' cried the Huntsman. 'Ask me for aught else in the
world, but not for these things, since they touch my honour!'
'These will I have, and nothing less,' said Elfrida wilfully, looking at
him through her long gold lashes until his soul went out from him. His
face was white as milk as he rode away, and the creatures of the forest
cringed with shame. For they knew she had asked what was unseemly; and
they ceased to attend her when she went to the stream at dawn.
When the moon was at her full the Huntsman returned with the three
gifts, and now he thought to take Elfrida in his arms. But she thrust
him from her with bitter words, tearing the leaf from the sacred Book
into a thousand shreds, and tossing the crest and sword into the running
stream.
'What!' she cried, and her scornful laugh rang through the woodland,
'shall I, Elfrida, be the sport of a man who holds the honour of his
house as something less than a maiden's whim? I will have none of
you--get you gone!' And she flung out her arms to the strong North Wind,
who caught her to him and bore her off. But not to her high pine palace
did he take her, for he was angry because of her cruelty; and far away
at the grim North Pole, she shivers yet under the thickest ice. Her
green eyes shine through the frost-bound floes, and light the depths of
the Northern seas."
"And the Huntsman?" I questioned.
"He died in his rage, where Elfrida left him!" said the Moss-woman
mournfully, "and his spirit seeks still to avenge his wrongs. To the
last of our race it will pursue us, until none of our kindred lives."
"Chris! Chris! where are you?"
It was Father's voice, and the Moss-woman vanished. Father wanted to
read me a funny letter from the Locust, who complained a lot of being
called up at night by patients who had no money, and wouldn't have paid
him even if they had. This was the way they often treated Father, but he
said "Poor beggars!" and then forgot it, while the Locust was very
cross.
Next day I went back to the forest, hoping to find the Moss-woman again,
but she was not there. I found instead an Elf who was almost too small
to be seen. She told me that she and her sisters lived in the cells
which make leaves so green, and mixed things they drew in from the air
and sunlight with the water that came through the roots, turning these
into sugar to feed the tree. It sounded like magic, and I was so much
interested that I almost forgot to ask about the Moss-women.
"Poor little things!" said the Leaf-Elf kindly, when I said I had seen
one. "It is well that the woodcutters are their friends, or they would
fare badly. Many a meal did they have from them in past times, and even
Hans the Unlucky never grudged them what he gave. They paid him back for
it, never fear, for they do not forget a kindness."
"Who was he?" I asked. And this is what she told me.
[Illustration]
The Luck of Hans.
"Of all the unlucky mortals, Hans was surely the most to be pitied, for
though he was honest and frugal, nothing he touched seemed to prosper.
The farm had done well in his father's lifetime, but after he died there
was not one good season for three bad ones. Far from being idle, Hans
was up before dawn, and still hard at work at sundown. His mother sent
away her maids, since she could not pay them their wages, and kept the
house straight herself; where could you find a worthier pair? But Hans'
affairs went from bad to worse, and when (at the busiest time of the
year) his mother lost her sight and became quite blind it was clear he
was born to be unlucky.
The farm went to rack and ruin, and there came a time when Hans was
forced to go off to the forest to fell a tree that his poor old mother
might have fuel to warm her. When the sun was high, he drew out his
lunch, and a poor little Moss-woman stole out from the undergrowth to
beg a few crumbs for her hungry children.
'Take it all!' he cried, thrusting his bread into her tiny hands. 'It is
waste of good food for a man to eat who is as unlucky as I.'
'I cannot repay you in kind, friend Hans,' said the Moss-woman, 'but I
will give you some good advice. In the house by the mill lives a sweet
young girl, with a face tinged with pink like a daisy's. She has loved
you long, for you are her mate. Take her to wife, and your luck will
turn.'
Hans flushed deep crimson beneath his tan, and the veins on his forehead
grew tense and hard.
'You--you--' he stammered; 'you must mean Elsa? And Elsa, you say, Elsa
cares for _me_? It can't--it can't--be true.'
'A woman's heart goes where it will,' answered the Moss-woman. 'Try your
luck, friend Hans, and lose no time. Life is short, and the days are
flying.'
Hans went at once to the house by the mill, for had he not gazed at it
time and again as the casket which held his treasure?
When Elsa saw him coming with that look upon his face, she twisted a
ribbon, blue as her eyes, in the pale gold plait that crowned her head,
and went shyly down to meet him.
[Illustration: "Went shyly down to meet him"]
Hans said not a word, but he found a way to make her understand, and his
eyes spoke, though his lips were dumb.
They were betrothed and married within the month, and little cared sweet
Elsa that her friends marvelled at her choice. She comforted the sad
blind dame, whose son was now her husband, as a happy woman comforts one
who fears she has lost all, and behold! the old woman smiled again. As
to Hans, the neighbours scarcely recognised him when they met him in
the markets; she trimmed his beard, did Elsa, with her own hands, and
mothered him as if he were a child of seven. His fields grew green, and
then golden with harvest; his scanty flocks increased and multiplied.
'Hans' luck has changed!' the neighbours said, and they scoffed at him
no more.
But good luck itself does not last for ever, and after three years of
plenty came a bad one for all in those parts. There was a long and
unusual drought, followed by so much rain that the roots rotted in the
ground, and sickness spread amongst sheep and oxen. Hans lost all that
he had re-gained, and to add to his misfortunes, he chopped his hand
instead of a log of wood, and could do no work for weeks. He was in
despair, and the old blind woman beside his hearth wept and wailed from
morn till eve.
'I would I were dead,' she moaned. 'I am a useless burden, for I cannot
even knit. My store of wool is exhausted, and we have no money to buy
more.'
'Dear Mother,' said Elsa tenderly, 'who has a greater right than you to
the last penny that Hans possesses? You carried him on your breast when
he was small and helpless, and have loved him faithfully all these
years!'
But the mother turned her face to the wall and wrung her idle hands.
Then Elsa sold the ring that had been her lover's gift in order to buy
for her soft white bread and warming cordials, and wool wherewith to ply
her needles. As she returned home with her basket, grieving to think of
the pain of those she loved, a Moss-woman accosted her in the forest.
'I have nought for my children to eat,' she said. And Elsa, pitying her
the more that she herself was hungry, gave her a share of what she had,
even to a skein of the wool, that she might weave a coat for her crying
babe.
'Wait for me here!' cried the Moss-woman earnestly, and Elsa leaned
sadly against a tree, too weary to be surprised. In a moment or two the
Moss-woman returned, carrying a grey ball of wool and some chips of
wood.
'Give the wool to the old crone who weeps by your hearth,' said the
little thing, 'and the chips to Hans. He is lucky in his wife, if in
nought else!'
So saying, she disappeared, and Elsa went quickly home. Thinking to
win a laugh from her husband, she opened her apron to show him the
Moss-woman's gifts, and, to her amazement, found that the chips had
turned to yellow gold, and the little grey ball of wool into a large one
of fleecy whiteness, so soft and thick that it felt like velvet! The
golden chips stocked the farm again, for they were of pure metal, and
weighty, and the ball of white wool was never exhausted during the old
woman's life time. She knitted away until her hundredth year, and when,
long afterward, the summons came also for Hans and Elsa, in their turn,
their children had good cause to bless the name of the Moss-woman."
[Illustration]
[Illustration]