THE WHITE DOE

ONE day, as the king's huntsman was riding in the forest, he came to a

small pool. Fallen leaves covering its surface had given it the colour

of blood, and knee-deep in their midst stood a milk-white doe drinking.

The beauty of the doe set fire to the huntsman's soul; he took an arrow

and aimed well at the wild heart of the creature. But as he was loosing

the string the branch of a tree overhanging the pool struck him across

the face, and caught hold of him by the hair; and arrow and doe vanished

away together into the depths of the forest.

Never until now, since he entered the king's service, had the huntsman

missed his aim. The thought of the white doe living after he had willed

its death inflamed him with rage; he could not rest till he had brought

hounds to the trail, determined to follow until it had surrendered to

him its life.

All day, while he hunted, the woods stayed breathless, as if to watch;

not a blade moved, not a leaf fell. About noon a red deer crossed his

path; but he paid no heed, keeping his hounds only to the white doe's

trail.

At sunset a fallow deer came to disturb the scent, and through the

twilight, as it deepened, a grey wolf ran in and out of the underwood.

When night came down, his hounds fled from his call, following through

tangled thickets a huge black boar with crescent tusks. So he found

himself alone, with his horse so weary that it could scarcely move.

But still, though the moon was slow in its rising, the fever of the

chase burned in the huntsman's veins, and caused him to press on. For

now he found himself at the rocky entrance of a ravine whence no way

led; and the white doe being still before him, he made sure that he

would get her at last. So when his horse fell, too tired to rise again,

he dismounted and forced his way on; and soon he saw before him the

white doe, labouring up an ascent of sharp crags, while closer and

higher the rocks rose and narrowed on every side. Presently she had

leapt high upon a boulder that shook and swayed as her feet rested, and

ahead the wall of rocks had joined so that there was nowhere farther

that she might go.

Then the huntsman notched an arrow, and drew with full strength, and let

it go. Fast and straight it went, and the wind screamed in the red

feathers as they flew; but faster the doe overleapt his aim, and,

spurning the stone beneath, down the rough-bouldered gully sent it

thundering, shivering to fragments as it fell. Scarcely might the

huntsman escape death as the great mass swept past: but when the danger

was over he looked ahead, and saw plainly, where the stone had once

stood, a narrow opening in the rock, and a clear gleam of moonlight

beyond.

That way he went, and passing through, came upon a green field, as full

of flowers as a garden, duskily shining now, and with dark shadows in

all its folds. Round it in a great circle the rocks made a high wall, so

high that along their crest forest-trees as they clung to look over

seemed but as low-growing thickets against the sky.

The huntsman's feet stumbled in shadow and trod through thick grass into

a quick-flowing streamlet that ran through the narrow way by which he

had entered. He threw himself down into its cool bed, and drank till he

could drink no more. When he rose he saw, a little way off, a small

dwelling-house of rough stone, moss-covered and cosy, with a roof of

wattles which had taken root and pushed small shoots and clusters of

grey leaves through their weaving. Nature, and not man, seemed there to

have been building herself an abode.

Before the doorway ran the stream, a track of white mist showing where

it wound over the meadow; and by its edge a beautiful maiden sat, and

was washing her milk-white feet and arms in the wrinkling eddies.

To the huntsman she became all at once the most beautiful thing that the

world contained; all the spirit of the chase seemed to be in her blood,

and each little movement of her feet made his heart jump for joy. "I

have looked for you all my life!" thought he, as he halted and gazed,

not daring to speak lest the lovely vision should vanish, and the memory

of it mock him for ever.

The beautiful maiden looked up from her washing. "Why have you come

here?" said she.

The huntsman answered her as he believed to be the truth, "I have come

because I love you!"

"No," she said, "you came because you wanted to kill the white doe. If

you wish to kill her, it is not likely that you can love me."

"I do not wish to kill the white doe!" cried the huntsman; "I had not

seen you when I wished that. If you do not believe that I love you, take

my bow and shoot me to the heart; for I will never go away from you

now."

At his word she took one of the arrows, looking curiously at the red

feathers, and to test the sharp point she pressed it against her breast.

"Have a care!" cried the hunter, snatching it back. He drew his breath

sharply and stared. "It is strange," he declared; "a moment ago I almost

thought that I saw the white doe."

"If you stay here to-night," said the maiden, "about midnight you will

see the white doe go by. Take this arrow, and have your bow ready, and

watch! And if to-morrow, when I return, the arrow is still unused in

your hand, I will believe you when you say that you love me. And you

have only to ask, and I will do all that you desire."

Then she gave the huntsman food and drink and a bed of ferns upon which

to rest. "Sleep or wake," said she as she parted from him; "if truly you

have no wish to kill the white doe, why should you wake? Sleep!"

"I do not wish to kill the white doe," said the huntsman. Yet he could

not sleep: the memory of the one wild creature which had escaped him

stung his blood. He looked at the arrow which he held ready, and grew

thirsty at the sight of it. "If I see, I must shoot!" cried his hunter's

heart. "If I see, I must not shoot!" cried his soul, smitten with love

for the beautiful maiden, and remembering her word. "Yet, if I see, I

know I must shoot--so shall I lose all!" he cried as midnight

approached, and the fever of long waiting remained unassuaged.

Then with a sudden will he drew out his hunting-knife, and scored the

palms of his two hands so deeply that he could no longer hold his bow or

draw the arrow upon the string. "Oh, fair one, I have kept my word to

you!" he cried as midnight came. "The bow and the arrow are both ready."

Looking forth from the threshold by which he lay, he saw pale moonlight

and mist making a white haze together on the outer air. The white doe

ran by, a body of silver; like quicksilver she ran. And the huntsman,

the passion to slay rousing his blood, caught up arrow and bow, and

tried in vain with his maimed hands to notch the shaft upon the string.

The beautiful creature leapt lightly by, between the curtains of

moonbeam and mist; and as she went she sprang this way and that across

the narrow streamlet, till the pale shadows hid her altogether from his

sight. "Ah! ah!" cried the huntsman, "I would have given all my life to

be able to shoot then! I am the most miserable man alive; but to-morrow

I will be the happiest. What a thing is love, that it has known how to

conquer in me even my hunter's blood!"

In the morning the beautiful maiden returned; she came sadly. "I gave

you my word," said she: "here I am. If you have the arrow still with you

as it was last night, I will be your wife, because you have done what

never huntsman before was able to do--not to shoot at the white doe when

it went by."

The huntsman showed her the unused arrow; her beauty made him altogether

happy. He caught her in his arms, and kissed her till the sun grew high.

Then she brought food and set it before him; and taking his hand, "I am

your wife," said she, "and with all my heart my will is to serve you

faithfully. Only, if you value your happiness, do not shoot ever at the

white doe." Then she saw that there was blood on his hand, and her face

grew troubled. She saw how the other hand also was wounded. "How came

this?" she asked; "dear husband, you were not so hurt yesterday."

And the huntsman answered, "I did it for fear lest in the night I should

fail, and shoot at the white doe when it came."

Hearing that, his wife trembled and grew white. "You have tricked us

both," she said, "and have not truly mastered your desire. Now, if you

do not promise me on your life and your soul, or whatever is dearer,

never to shoot at a white doe, sorrow will surely come of it. Promise

me, and you shall certainly be happy!"

So the huntsman promised faithfully, saying, "On your life, which is

dearer to me than my own, I give you my word to keep that it shall be

so." Then she kissed him, and bound up his wounds with healing herbs;

and to look at her all that day, and for many days after, was better to

him than all the hunting the king's forest could provide.

For a whole year they lived together in perfect happiness, and two

children came to bless their union--a boy and a girl born at the same

hour. When they were but a month old they could run; and to see them

leaping and playing before the door of their home made the huntsman's

heart jump for joy. "They are forest-born, and they come of a hunter's

blood; that is why they run so early, and have such limbs," said he.

"Yes," answered his wife, "that is partly why. When they grow older they

will run so fast--do not mistake them for deer if ever you go hunting."

No sooner had she said the word than the memory of it, which had slept

for a whole year, stirred his blood. The scent of the forest blew up

through the rocky ravine, which he had never repassed since the day when

he entered, and he laid his hands thoughtfully on the weapons he no

longer used.

Such restlessness took hold of him all that day that at night he slept

ill, and, waking, found himself alone with no wife at his side. Gazing

about the room, he saw that the cradle also was empty. "Why," he

wondered, "have they gone out together in the middle of the night?"

Yet he gave it little more thought, and turning over, fell into a

troubled sleep, and dreamed of hunting and of the white doe that he had

seen a year before stooping to drink among the red leaves that covered

the forest pool.

In the morning his wife was by his side, and the little ones lay asleep

upon their crib. "Where were you," he asked, "last night? I woke, and

you were not here."

His wife looked at him tenderly, and sighed. "You should shut your eyes

better," said she. "I went out to see the white doe, and the little ones

came also. Once a year I see her; it is a thing I must not miss."

The beauty of the white doe was like strong drink to his memory: the

beautiful limbs that had leapt so fast and escaped--they alone, of all

the wild life in the world, had conquered him. "Ah!" he cried, "let me

see her, too; let her come tame to my hand, and I will not hurt her!"

His wife answered: "The heart of the white doe is too wild a thing; she

cannot come tame to the hand of any hunter under heaven. Sleep again,

dear husband, and wake well! For a whole year you have been sufficiently

happy; the white doe would only wound you again in your two hands."

When his wife was not by, the hunter took the two children upon his

knee, and said, "Tell me, what was the white doe like? what did she do?

and what way did she go?"

The children sprang off his knee, and leapt to and fro over the stream.

"She was like this," they cried, "and she did this, and this was the

way she went!" At that the hunter drew his hand over his brow. "Ah," he

said, "I seemed then almost to see the white doe."

Little peace had he from that day. Whenever his wife was not there he

would call the little ones to him, and cry, "Show me the white doe and

what she did." And the children would leap and spring this way and that

over the little stream before the door, crying, "She was like this, and

she did this, and this was the way she went!"

The huntsman loved his wife and children with a deep affection, yet he

began to have a dread that there was something hidden from his eyes

which he wished yet feared to know. "Tell me," he cried one day, half in

wrath, when the fever of the white doe burned more than ever in his

blood, "tell me where the white doe lives, and why she comes, and when

next. For this time I must see her, or I shall die of the longing that

has hold of me!" Then, when his wife would give no answer, he seized his

bow and arrows and rushed out into the forest, which for a whole year

had not known him, slaying all the red deer he could find.

Many he slew in his passion, but he brought none of them home, for

before the end a strange discovery came to him, and he stood amazed,

dropping the haunch which he had cut from his last victim. "It is a

whole year," he said to himself, "that I have not tasted meat; I, a

hunter, who love only the meat that I kill!"

Returning home late, he found his wife troubling her heart over his long

absence. "Where have you been?" she asked him, and the question inflamed

him into a fresh passion.

"I have been out hunting for the white doe," he cried; "and she carries

a spot in her side where some day my arrow must enter. If I do not find

her I shall die!"

His wife looked at him long and sorrowfully; then she said: "On your

life and soul be it, and on mine also, that your anger makes me tell

what I would have kept hidden. It is to-night that she comes. Now it

remains for you to remember your word once given to me!"

"Give it back to me!" he cried; "it is my fate to finish the quest of

the white doe."

"If I give it," said she, "your happiness goes with it, and mine, and

that of our children."

"Give it back to me!" he said again; "I cannot live unless I may master

the white doe! If she will come tame to my hand, no harm shall happen to

her."

And when she denied him again, he gave her his bow and arrows, and bade

her shoot him to the heart, since without his word rendered back to him

he could not live.

Then his wife took both his hands and kissed them tenderly, and with

loud weeping quickly set him free of his promise. "As well," said she,

"ask the hunter to go bound to the lion's den as the white doe to come

tame into your keeping; though she loved you with all her heart, you

could not look at her and not be her enemy." She gazed on him with full

affection, and sighed deeply. "Lie down for a little," she said, "and

rest; it is not till midnight that she comes. When she comes I will wake

you."

She took his head in her hands and set it upon her knee, making him lie

down. "If she will come and stand tame to my hand," he said again, "then

I will do her no harm."

After a while he fell asleep; and, dreaming of the white doe, started

awake to find it was already midnight, and the white doe standing there

before him. But as soon as his eyes lighted on her they kindled with

such fierce ardour that she trembled and sprang away out of the door and

across the stream. "Ah, ah, white doe, white doe!" cried the wind in the

feathers of the shaft that flew after her.

Just at her leaping of the stream the arrow touched her; and all her

body seemed to become a mist that dissolved and floated away, broken

into thin fragments over the fast-flowing stream.

By the hunter's side his wife lay dead, with an arrow struck into her

heart. The door of the house was shut; it seemed to be only an evil

dream from which he had suddenly awakened. But the arrow gave real

substance to his hand: when he drew it out a few true drops of blood

flowed after. Suddenly the hunter knew all he had done. "Oh, white doe,

white doe!" he cried, and fell down with his face to hers.

[Illustration]

At the first light of dawn he covered her with dry ferns, that the

children might not see how she lay there dead. "Run out," he cried to

them, "run out and play! Play as the white doe used to do!" And the

children ran out and leapt this way and that across the stream, crying,

"She was like this, and she did this, and this was the way she went!"

So while they played along the banks of the stream, the hunter took up

his beautiful dead wife and buried her. And to the children he said,

"Your mother has gone away; when the white doe comes she will return

also."

"She was like this," they cried, laughing and playing, "and she did

this, and this was the way she went!" And all the time as they played he

seemed to see the white doe leaping before him in the sunlight.

That night the hunter lay sleepless on his bed, wishing for the world to

end; but in the crib by his side the two children lay in a sound

slumber. Then he saw plainly in the moonlight, the white doe with a red

mark in her side, standing still by the doorway. Soon she went to where

the young ones were lying, and, as she touched the coverlet softly with

her right fore-foot, all at once two young fawns rose up from the ground

and sprang away into the open, following where the white doe beckoned

them.

Nor did they ever return. For the rest of his life the huntsman stayed

where they left him, a sorrowful and lonely man. In the grave where lay

the woman's form he had slain he buried his bow and arrows far from the

sight of the sun or the reach of his own hand; and coming to the place

night by night, he would watch the mists and the moonrise, and cry,

"White doe, white doe, will you not some day forgive me?" and did not

know that she had forgiven him then when, before she died, she kissed

his two hands and made him sleep for the last time with his head on her

knee.