THE WEAVER’S DAUGHTERS.
THE WEAVER’S DAUGHTERS.
In a poor little house that stood almost within the shadow of a
great monastery there lived once two sisters, named Agnes and
Elthea,--orphans, and heirs of nothing but an honest name and the trade
of their parents, which was that of weaving. The elder, Agnes, had
black hair, a pale face, hands that were never idle, and a tongue that
was always still, except when it repeated prayers or when the prattle
of Elthea provoked it to speech.
Mirth ill becomes you, good sister, Agnes often said, with severe voice
and frowning brow. Do not the bones of our parents moulder in the dust?
and have we not to earn our bread by our weaving? and if we take time
to laugh, what will become of the work!
Then Elthea would answer something after this fashion: “I know, my
sister, that you are wise and I am simple; I know too that our parents
are dead, and that we are poor girls who must weave from morning till
night to earn our food and our clothing; but I cannot see that it is
wicked to keep the heart light just because the hands have to be busy,
or for that other reason that our good father and mother have gone to a
better world.”
And having said this, or something like it, she would try to separate
the smiles from her rosy mouth, and would weave very quietly for five
minutes; then, all unaware, she would break into mockery of the bird at
the doorside, and after her little song, ask Agnes how it happened that
so often at nightfall the cloth in her loom measured the longer!
“Giddy child,” Agnes would answer, with never a smile, “do you not know
that the Devil helps his own?”
This was a dreadful thought, and, pondering it, Elthea would remain
silent a whole half-hour sometimes; but in the end laugh again, and
reply, “If it be as you say, good sister, I will sing while I may, for
the breath I use in singing would not serve me to cool the fires a
thousand years hence.”
“O my poor sister!” Agnes would sigh, moistening the threads of her
weaving with her tears; and thus from day to day they sat at their
looms, roses blooming in the cheeks of one, and wrinkles and pallor
making the face of the other old before its time.
At twilight Elthea went with their woven cloth to the neighboring
convent, where it was embroidered by the sisters in patterns fine and
beautiful enough for queens to wear. If it were summer, she plucked
flowers on the way and made crowns for her golden hair, which she
sometimes wished might be admired by eyes besides her own, as she bent
her head over the still places along the brook.
If Agnes could have seen how nicely she disposed the flowers, and with
what vanity she broadened the golden bands of her hair, she would have
frowned, even at her prayers; but Elthea never wore home the flowers.
She gave them to the brook, whose bright waters carried them lovingly
away, and smoothed back the broad bands of her hair before crossing the
threshold of the gloomy house, where, till her return, the firelight
seemed afraid to shine.
One night, as she was spreading the table with bread and grapes and
milk, singing a song so low that it hardly came out of her heart,--a
song that was half thanksgiving and half prayer,--the great bell of the
monastery began to toll so solemnly that for a moment she grew pale,
and crossed herself in silence; for she had been born and reared in
the faith that teaches men and women to believe there is some special
virtue in the sign of the cross, and she had not learned that there is
no virtue at all in the signs, or outward shows of things. No change
came over the face of Agnes, and indeed her face was always so gloomy
that it would have been difficult for it to look gloomier than common,
but her voice had in it some bitter gratification as she said she was
glad to see her sister Elthea silent and sad for once!
It was only for a moment, however, that Elthea looked sad. “I was
afraid some evil had fallen upon the land, at first,” she said, “but I
perceive by the peculiar tolling of the bell that it is not evil, but
good that has befallen. And it is probably some sister of the convent
that has passed from death into life”; and so saying, she joined
her little song where it had been broken off, and went on with her
preparations for supper with a face as tenderly bright as the tenderest
and brightest of all the May mornings.
“Hush!” said Agnes, lifting up her hand; “I hear the mountain wind
coming angrily down; the roof-tree shakes its last leaves off to battle
with it. Saints, protect us! it will be a fearful night!”
As she spoke the rain dashed against the roof as if a thunder-cloud
emptied itself all at once. Then Agnes began to cry aloud, as a
child that is lost in the dark; but Elthea said: “God, who holds the
whirlwinds in his hand, will keep us, and we shall not die. Why do you
fear, my sister? doth he not love us the same when to our weak vision
the way of his providence seems dark?”
And still the bell tolled mournfully, the winds drove dismally, and
the rain beat heavily. It was enough to make any soul afraid that could
not draw light into the darkness from the sunshine of a past life of
pious cheerfulness and resignation.
“Have mercy on us, good saints!” cried Agnes again and again, wringing
her hands in dismay.
“Our Father, we thank and bless thee for the fire that makes us warm,
and for the roof that shelters us, and for our trust in thee that no
storm can beat down,” prayed Elthea.
Directly, in a lull of the storm, there was heard a knocking at the
door, and Elthea, smiling, made haste to open it; for she said, “It
is, perhaps, some poor wayfarer, whose life is mercifully given into
our keeping.” But Agnes reproved her with frowns, saying, “Stir not
for your life; it is some murderer who seeks our blood, or at best a
robber who takes advantage of the storm.” And when she saw that Elthea
would not be hindered from opening the door, she hid herself in the
darkest corner of the house, under the cloth that was in her loom; and
her trembling shook the floor beneath Elthea’s feet, as her steady hand
unlatched the door and set it open wide.
“Now, all good saints and angels bless thee for the sake of thy sweet
charity,” said the stranger who stood waiting. “I dreamed not these
rude hills held so fair a blossom. Thy goodness--for I am sure thou
art good--shalt be my shield as well as thy roof. Bring me straight to
thy royal mother, that I may kiss her hand.”
The youth and stranger had crossed the threshold as he spoke, and now
stood waiting meekly before Elthea in the light of the burning fire.
“You honor me above my deserts, gentle friend,” replied Elthea, her
confusion showing all the more for the blushes in which it tried to
hide. “We are but poor girls, the children of weavers, and our parents
are dead.”
“Children?” repeated the stranger, turning his fair face toward the
dark corners of the room; “I see only thyself.”
Then Agnes came forth from beneath the cloth of the loom, and said,
turning her dark face toward the stranger, “My sister, a giddy and
thoughtless maiden as you may judge, has spoken truly. We are indeed
poor, weaving all day long for our bread, which at the best is scanty
enough”; and she broke the small loaf in two pieces as she said this,
and offering one piece to Elthea, began to eat the other, for she hoped
to drive the stranger away by showing him that they had nothing to
spare.
But Elthea forgot her long fast, which she was used to keep all day,
and remembering the stranger, who had been beaten by the rain, and must
be tired and famished, she offered him what bread was left without
tasting any.
The stranger accepted the bread, bowing so low that all his golden
locks fell down about his face; and seeing what he did, Agnes not only
frowned, but asked, in accents sharp and reproachful, how the poor
could work without food. As she spoke, the piece of bread the stranger
held seemed to grow into a whole loaf, and the part he gave back to
Elthea was more than the whole she had given. And as they ate, the
rain drove, and the wind blew, and the great bell of the monastery
tolled and tolled. When Agnes spoke, she could hardly hear her own
voice for the noise of the storm. Nevertheless, she said she believed
the tempest had wellnigh ceased, and a favorable time was offered for
wanderers, if any were abroad, to seek shelter in the neighboring
convent. The stranger seemed not to hear or to understand her words,
for he continued to eat his bread quietly as before. “Had we never so
much charity,” continued Agnes, “we could neither shelter nor lodge a
wayfarer, even though we knew him to be a pious priest, let alone a
vagabond of a minstrel, such as are likeliest to trespass on the poor.”
Now the stranger wore the habit of a minstrel, and carried with him
a harp, so that if he heard the words of Agnes he could not mistake
their meaning. But he seemed not to hear her words. He seemed only to
hear the tolling of the monastery bell; and as he listened, the tears
filled his beautiful eyes, and ran silently down his cheeks. It seemed,
indeed, as if the shadow of some great affliction were resting upon him.
“Your tears will not be dried by remaining here,” said Agnes, “for
we are poor girls who have no comfort for ourselves, let alone for
strangers, and we sell the kerchiefs we weave for our bread.”
But Elthea, when she heard this cruel speech, came softly between her
sister and him, and in silence that was just as sweet as any spoken
words, wiped his tears with her long golden hair. And directly the
heart of the young man began to be lighter in his bosom, and he told
the little maiden, as she strove to comfort him in her own gentle way,
that the king who had ruled in his own country for years and years, so
wisely and so well that all his people loved him and came to him in
the time of their sorrow as though he had been their own father and
not the king, was now dead,--dead and gone,--and all the land was in
mourning, and all the bells of all the convents ringing dirges, and
all the sisters singing funeral chants. Then he made a dark picture of
the king’s empty palace, and of the king’s son, who in his grief had
wandered to a strange country.
“And what is all that to a poor minstrel like thee, or to the poor
daughters of a weaver like us?” cried Agnes, her words dropping like
icicles from her mouth. “The kings may all die and may all be buried,
but can we leave our work to weep, though they were twice dead and
twice buried!”
And having spoken these chiding words, she climbed into her loom again,
and beckoned her sister to follow; but Elthea, who had a mind of her
own, sat at the feet of the stranger and wept, saying, “The king was a
good king and a lover of his people, doing in the land the things that
were lovely and the things that were right, and it is a wise thing and
a just thing to pause a little and ponder upon the life and upon the
death of such an one.” And the burden seemed lifted more and more from
the young man’s heart, for the words spoken by the gentle and kindly
maiden.
“O my sister! my foolish sister!” cried Agnes. “What is the king to
you, whether he were good or bad, whether he be alive or dead?”
But Elthea, regardless of her sister’s words, continued to sit at
the stranger’s feet and to weep, and to speak words that were sweet
and pleasant to him. And the wind blew and the bell tolled, and the
rain beat against the house, but the moments fled away as fast as the
moments of a bright day in the middle of the summer.
And as the firelight shone upon the young man, and Agnes perceived
that he was fair in the face, and that his locks were in their beauty
like the locks of the morning, she grew only the more impatient and
vexed and uncharitable toward him.
“You may perceive how poor we are,” she said, “and that we have but one
bed, which cannot be divided”; and then going on more fretfully, she
said that strolling minstrels, she supposed, were used to no better
shelter than the oak-trees afforded; and as for the harp, the thought
of it was displeasing to her, and she would gladly have it out of the
house. “What is the good of music?” she said. “Would it help us to
weave the better, though we should listen to your harp till cock-crow!”
But the young man still sat contentedly by the fire, his eyes resting
on the face of Elthea as though it had been the face of some delightful
flower, and the glow of the coals made his beauty radiant, and his
curling locks like the brightness of a day in the middle of summer.
His milk-white hands were all sparkling with rings, and the weaver’s
daughters had never seen lace in their lives that was so fine as the
ruffle he wore upon his neck. And seeing that he sat thus contented,
and seeing the whiteness of his hands, and the glittering splendor of
the rings that adorned them, Agnes, casting upon him a look of scorn,
arose and dashed herself across the bed, and made a pretence of sleep;
but she did not sleep, you may be sure. Sleep is gentle, and comes not
readily to the ungentle, the cold, and the hard.
Then Elthea stirred the coals, and added fresh sticks of wood to the
fire, and made all the low room, and the two clumsy looms, and the
cloth that was in them, and the yarn that hung on the walls, to shine
again, and bringing her shawl from the beam of her loom and the pillow
from her bed, she spread them on the hearth for the stranger, saying
how sorry she was that such scanty hospitality was all she could offer.
And the young man thanked her with his eyes so kindly, and thanked her
with his smile so brightly, that she went away, and resting her head on
the cloth of her loom, slept never so sweetly in her life.
And all night the rain beat, and the winds drove, and the bell of
the convent tolled; but at last the cold gray morning rose over the
hill-tops, and the face of Agnes, as she left her pillow, was black
with rage as the clouds, for there sat the stranger waiting to share
the morning meal. In vain she scowled upon him: he would not be driven
away, but leaning his cheek upon his harp, followed Elthea with his
eyes, as she went about the humble room; and she, still freely as
before, divided her bread with him, and after that broke from her
geranium all its pretty flowers and twined them about his harp; for he
was going to the monastery to sing dirges and to offer prayers for the
rest of the dead king’s soul.
“The king was a good king, and he is dead,” said the young man; “and
my faith teaches me to sing thus and to pray thus for the rest of his
soul.”
And when he went away, Elthea asked the Lord to bless him; and it
seemed as if the blessing came back and rested upon her own head, for
her heart had never been so full of peace as it was that day.
“A pretty measure of cloth you will be likely to weave,” said Agnes,
flinging her shuttle across the warp so violently as to break her
thread; “the sun is an hour high, and be sure I shall not divide my
bread with you for your folly!”
Elthea was thinking of the minstrel, and hardly heard what her
ill-natured sister said. She was thinking, not so much of his beautiful
locks, and not so much of his fair face, as she was thinking of his
beautiful spirit, for it was that which made him seem so beautiful
after all; and as she thought, her fingers grew nimble, and her shuttle
flew just as if it had wings, and the hours of the day seemed almost
like moments, and before she had dreamed of it, it was night, and her
task was done; and while Agnes still sat scolding and fretting over her
unfinished work, she was away to the convent with her full measure of
cloth.
A long time she lingered, for the music of the choir had never sounded
half so sweet: the minstrel was singing with the rest of them.
Three days went by, and on the evening of each Elthea listened to the
music of the choir, and the hour of her listening was like an hour
taken out of heaven.
It was an easy thing to weave now, for she was weaving dreams while
she wove her cloth,--dreams that stretched away and away, she knew not
where.
On the evening of the fourth day she missed the harp of her minstrel,
and the convent seemed to her cold and gloomy, and all the world to
be changed. And yet it was changed from clouds to sunshine, and from
the moaning and beating of the winds to the chirping and singing of
the birds,--the storm was broken up and gone, and the land was smiling
again. She could not stay in the convent, but hurried away as fast as
her feet could carry her; and coming to the brook she sat down on the
bank very sad,--it seemed to her as if her heart was being borne away
in its waves.
The waters that had leapt and prattled along the stones for the three
days past were murmuring and moaning now; the flowers that had seemed
to be made of light now seemed to be made of shadows, or of something
still darker than shadows; the grass had lost its tender greenness,
and the air its balm. Her very face must be changed, she thought, as
well as everything else; and looking into the brook where the water lay
still and mirror-like, she was startled to see there a face beside her
own. It was that of the strange minstrel, who had followed her, and was
peeping over her shoulder.
With a cry of joy she turned to him, all her heart blushing in her
cheek; and then feeling that she had betrayed an interest deeper than a
weaver’s daughter should feel for one whose hands were so much whiter
than her own, she covered her face with her long loose hair, and stood
silent and trembling before him.
[Illustration: THE WEAVER’S DAUGHTER.]
Placing his harp on the grass by the brookside, the minstrel seated
himself a little way from where Elthea was; and when the moon came
up and looked over the hill, she saw the minstrel kiss the hand of
the weaver’s daughter; and then she hid her face in a cloud, for she
thought it was not fair that she should look upon that which it was
never meant she should see; but when she had gotten over the hill and
came nearer, she could not for the life of her help hearing what the
minstrel was saying to the weaver’s daughter, and the substance of what
she heard was this. When he had laid his hand on her golden hair, he
told her that if he had any riches except his harp, he would ask her
to go with him to his own country, and to be his companion always.
But what cared Elthea for riches? she knew how to weave, and it would
be easy work weaving for him. And there, in the moonlight, they
plighted everlasting love with manifold kisses.
Many nights the bosom of the minstrel had been the pillow of Elthea,
and many days they had travelled together, her feet bruised and tired,
but her heart running over with delight, and her lips singing and
prattling all the while, when toward sunset one day they sat down by
the wayside to rest. Then it was that the minstrel told his pretty
wife another story, the marrow of which was, that he was no minstrel
at all, except, indeed, for the season of mourning for the king, his
father; for himself was the king’s son; and the poor weaver girl, who
had shared with him her bread and her fireside, was henceforth to share
with him his broad and beautiful palace, and for the shelter she had
given him from one storm, he would shelter her from all the storms of
life.
And Elthea was loved and honored by all her people as long as she
lived, and many was the real minstrel that blessed her name, and sang
songs in her praise; and many was the embroidered train she wore that
was made of the cloth she had woven when a poor girl, and the cloudy
days and the stormy days were always brightest with the blessing of
memory. And to the end of her life Agnes wore coarse frocks, and wove
cloth to make embroideries that she never saw, fretting and scolding at
her sister’s good-fortune all the while, and spoiling before its time
the beauty of a face that might have rivalled her sister’s if she had
suffered her heart to shine through it the same.
THREE LITTLE WOMEN.
There were three little women,
Each fair in the face,
And their laughter, like music,
Filled all the green place,
As they sat knitting talk with the
Threads of their lace.
Of the winds in the tree-tops,
The flowers in the glen,--
The birds, the brown robin,
The wood-dove, the wren,--
They talked, but their thoughts were
Of three little men!
The sea lay before them,
With ships going by;
Behind them the hills shone,
So grand and so high;
And above them, blue beautiful
Patches of sky.
But they felt not the sweetness
That smiled from the lea,
And they knew not the way of
The wind through the tree;
And they saw not the sea,
When they looked at the sea!
The wood-dove tapped note of the storm,
The shy wren
Twittered fearful, and low
Hung the mist o’er the fen,
But all that they thought of
Was three little men!
The wind rose, the clouds gathered,
Mass upon mass,
The sun drew his long lines
Of light from the grass,--
Alas! for the three little
Women, alas!
Fast home ran the robin,
Fast home flew the wren;
The blacksnake led all his
Black sons to the fen,
That lay ’twixt the three
Little women and men.
The sky was all over
One horrible frown;
The rain from the hill-tops
In torrents dashed down,
The three little short-sighted
Women to drown.
They died: pray their watery
Graves may atone
For their folly, in trusting
To see things alone
Through the eyes of the
Three little men,--not their own.
PRETTY IS THAT PRETTY DOES.
The spider wears a plain brown dress,
And she is a steady spinner;
To see her, quiet as a mouse
Going about her silver house,
You would never, never, never guess
The way she gets her dinner!
She looks as if no thought of ill
In all her life had stirred her,
But while she moves with careful tread,
And while she spins her silken thread,
She is planning, planning, planning still
The way to do some murder!
My child, who reads this simple lay
With eyes down-dropt and tender,
Remember the old proverb says
That pretty is, which pretty does,
And that worth does not go nor stay
For poverty nor splendor.
’Tis not the house and not the dress
That makes the saint or sinner.
To see the spider sit and spin,
Shut with her walls of silver in,
You would never, never, never guess
The way she gets her dinner!
ELIJAH AND I.
The house that you see underneath the great pine,
With walls that are painted and doors that are fine,
And meadows and wheat-fields about it, is mine.
On the stony side-hill of the woodland close by,
In a house that is not half so wide nor so high,
Elijah, my miller, lives, richer than I.
When I go to the town to pay tax on my land,
He sits by the chimney, his book in his hand,
And merry of heart as if money were sand.
Of the meadows about him he owns not a rood,
No stone of the brookside, no stick of the wood,
Yet ne’er lacked Elijah for clothing or food.
’Tis good in his blue eyes the twinkle to see;
That the mill goes awry never troubles his glee;
’Tis I that must pay for the mending,--not he.
He laughs while I frown, and he sings while I sigh,
The pleasant love-ditties of days that are by;
So Elijah, my miller, is richer than I.
A FISHERMAN.
A fisherman leaned on a clapboard gate
He was often used to pass;
’Twas sunset, and two little boys
Were playing on the grass.
The watchdog by the door-stone sat,
And bayed the rising moon,
And the mother milked her cow and sung
An old and pleasant tune.
The children left their play and ran,
And, leaning on her knee,
She milked the milk into their mouths,
Laughing with girlish glee.
And as she carried her frothy pail
Slow to the rustic door,
One little one held at her skirt behind,
And the other one before.
She stopped, and hugging both their heads
Against her loving breast,
They looked like two bright little birds
A-peeping from one nest.
The sunburnt fisher went his way,
Sighing, alas, alas!
It was not for the little boys
That played upon the grass.
And when he came where cold gray stones
Were standing, many a pair,
He put his net from his shoulder down,--
His little boy was there.
AMY TO HER FLOWERS.
My lowly little beauties,
Your time is coming on,--
The meadows will be full of you
Before a month is gone.
I never knew your names, so near
Your wild estate I grew,
But would that you could be alive
To feel my love for you.
Full many a time the coverlets
Of grass from off your beds
I’ve turned, my beauties, just to touch,
With reverent hands, your heads.
They called you simple country flowers,
But what for that care I?
I loved you all the more because
You were not proud and high!
We had our ways of naming you,--
We children of the wood,--
Red-slippers, lily-fingers,
Queen’s cap, and martyr’s blood.
The rustic flower, by virtue of
A coat as brown as sand,
And by the dew-drop shining
Like a sickle in his hand.
The crumply cow,--the little shrew
In strange and sad attire,--
Lover’s tremble, old maid’s thimble,--
Moon men,--miser’s fire;
And one we used to gather
When the millet land was ploughed,
With little thin and ragged leaves,
We called the beggar’s shroud.
The belle,--the lady leopard,--
The sweetheart,--tender-eyed,--
The spinner’s gown,--the winter-frown,
And many a one beside.
And these, our untaught fancies,
So much from nature grew,
I do not care to call you
By the names that others do.
But O my little beauties,
Of field and brook and brake,--
The slender ones,--the tender ones,--
I would, for my love’s sake,
I could take and make immortal,
With the power of better lays,
All your crooked little bodies
That had never any praise.
AUTUMN THOUGHTS.
When frosts begin the leaves to blight,
And winds to beat and blow,
I think about a stormy night
Of a winter long ago.
The clouds that lay, when the sun went down,
In a heap of blood-red bars,
Turned, all at once, of a grayish brown,
And ran across the stars.
And the moon went out, and the wind fell low,--
And in silence everywhere
The fine and flinty flakes of snow
Slipped slantwise down the air.
Slipped slantwise down, more fast and fast,
And larger grew amain,
Till the long-armed brier-bush, at last,
Was like a ghost at the pane.
A group of merry children we,
As any house can show;
The very rafters rang with glee,
That night, beneath the snow.
The candle up and down we slid,
To make our shadows tall;
And played at hide-and-seek, and hid
Where we were not hid at all.
We heaped the logs against the cold,
And made the chimney roar;
And told the stories we had told
A thousand times before.
We ran our stock of riddles through,--
Nor large, be sure, nor wise;
And guessed the answers that we knew,
And feigned a glad surprise.
But, in despite our frolic joys,
That rang so wild and high,
We wished, we foolish girls and boys,
That time would faster fly.
And years have come and gone since then;
And the children there at play,
Are sober women, now, and men,
With heads that are growing gray.
But their hearts will never be so light,
And their cheeks will never glow
As they did upon that stormy night,
In the garret rude and low.