RUDOLPH-- Our time has not yet come.
FRITZ--Must be the feet and run, eh?
RUDOLPH-- We must wait
Until the heart calls from the silent north.
FRITZ--Wait?
RUDOLPH-- You would have us--?
FRITZ-- If we are the hand,
For the hand strikes.
RUDOLPH-- Without the head? No, Fritz;
We must delay our battle with the beast.
A new shield we will shape us on the heights;
Temper it in the flashes of the sky
And boss it with the terror of the grave.
Of mountain metal on the mountain tops,
New armor we will forge. Let the old shield
Lie here upon the plain, covering the dead.
Let the leaves cover it. And for the sword
That broken lies between the dragon's paws,
Val-father will reach down and put the hilt
Of some great Fafnir's-bane in Canzler's hand,
Canzler, in turn, in Oswald's when he weds,
And Oswald and the girl will pass it on
Down to the hand of that child--
FRITZ-- Canzler go?
RUDOLPH--Whom Woden shall bid seek the dragon's den,
And Siegfried of the North shall slay the snake.
FRITZ--Canzler will not go. Canzler!
RUDOLPH-- He will go.
FRITZ--Canzler will lay him in the grave first.
RUDOLPH-- Fritz,
Who calls the fairies?
FRITZ-- What of that?
RUDOLPH-- Witchcraft.
FRITZ--You mean that they will burn her?
RUDOLPH-- Do they not
Burn witches in the city...? We can die;
We on our swords can perish; but the girl...?
(_He goes off through the wood, leaving Fritz
silent upon the bridge._)
FRITZ-- (_To himself._)
Canzler will lay his sword upon her throat.
(_With bowed head he walks on across the bridge.
As he passes into the deeper shadows the
white sheep's pelt lying in the bank at the
roadside catches his eye. He goes curiously
toward it, when, seeing the post, he glances
up and stops suddenly. For a time he stands as_
_one appalled._)
Rudolph!
RUDOLPH--Ho!
FRITZ-- Here!
(_To himself._) This will break Canzler's heart.
(_Rudolph reappears and joins Fritz, and the two
stand in silence, Rudolph with his eyes fixed
upon the crucifix, and Fritz with his eyes on
Rudolph._)
FRITZ--What do you think?
RUDOLPH-- It was put up last night.
FRITZ--You still think we should leave here?
RUDOLPH-- Still think?
FRITZ-- Yes.
RUDOLPH--Can there be any doubt of what this means?
Almost its eyeballs gleam between the trees.
FRITZ--And if we leave here, what?
RUDOLPH-- We bear away
To some far mountain nest our eagle's egg.
We save our hope.
(_Fritz points to the crucifix._)
Only proves what I say.
'Tis some poor burgher who refused to bow
And would not leave.
(_Fritz goes toward the crucifix._)
And they have put it up
To mock us with the pains they will make us feel
If we don't bow.
FRITZ-- (_Bending over the pelt._)
Knee prints. He has knelt here;
Knelt here and prayed--
(_Coming back to the road._)
to Woden, do you think?
You know the hand that carved that?
(_Rudolph goes closer and scrutinizes the
crucifix._)
Your great sword,
Where is it now, Rudolph? the Fafnir's-bane
Val-father should reach down to Canzler's hand;
To whose hand will the chief's hand pass it now?
Out of the dragon's belly will he come,
Our Siegfried, with the great heart of the beast?
Our hope, our eagle's egg, where is it now?
RUDOLPH--It can't be.
_Fritz_-- Can't be?
_Rudolph_-- Can't be.
_Fritz_-- But it is.
At dusk last night I saw him in the wood
And he was wending this way carrying that.
And there are knee-prints on it.
(_A pause._)
And that thing;
What other hand could have carved out that brow
And laid that sorrow there? Look at those knees.
RUDOLPH--This is why he has shunned us.
FRITZ-- Say no word
To Canzler about this or to the girl.
Never will she be happy any more.
He will leave now.
RUDOLPH-- (_Contemplating the knee-prints._)
Under Val-father's trees!
FRITZ--Canzler has been a father to the boy.
(_Rudolph comes toward the road, then turns and
looks back at the Christ._)
So Balder looked lying on Valhal floor.
If the men hear this, they will vote to die.
RUDOLPH--He must go quietly and no word be said.
(_They walk together along the road._)
FRITZ--The way he goes, the Saxon race has gone.
RUDOLPH--We must go to the mountains, not the grave.
FRITZ--Canzler has been a father to the boy.
RUDOLPH--He may return and bring the Saxon race.
FRITZ--Who will deliver him?
RUDOLPH-- Val-father lives.
FRITZ--(_Bitterly._) Lives with the dead.
(_He goes out._)
RUDOLPH-- He may yet be reclaimed.
The paths of Prophesy lead far away
But still the Powers of the air are bent
To guide it and their eyes are on its feet.
Let us not doubt Val-father's hand in this.
That eye in Mimer's fountain sees through all
The dark, gnome-haunted caverns of the earth;
The other under his calm brow watches heaven.
(_He goes off through the forest._)
_SCENE TWO--Under an old beech in the edge of the forest.
A knoll, like the toe of a large boot shoved in from the
rear, butts squarely against the trunk. Up under the
boughs, left, lies a decaying log with here and there a
tuft of rank grass growing from the cores of old knots._
_Beside it is a small basket filled with berries. At the_
_foot of the beech, bubbles a spring partly walled in with_
_dark mossy rocks, on top of which lies a brown gourd_
_dipper. Two worn foot-paths, one winding up the slope into
the forest, the other entering from the left, meet at the
spring. The ground is checkered with flakes of sunlight_
_that fall through the leaves, and over all is the silence_
_of the summer noon._
_A crackle is heard as of a dry twig breaking under foot. The
branches on the left swing apart and Selma pushes through
backwards. She is a fairy-like creature dressed in green.
Her hair falls loose about her shoulders and upon her head
she wears a coronet of wild-flowers. Holding the boughs
slightly apart, she stands peering intently to the left,
then, turning quickly, she snatches up the basket and hides
it behind the log, and after picking a few green burrs from
the branches above her, darts to the right and conceals
herself behind the trunk. For a time she stands motionless.
Then, as if upon second thought, she stoops and removes the
dipper from the rocks._
_Along the foot-path, leading in from the left, Oswald enters._
_He stops and looks back and for a time stands thus, as one_
_undecided, a forlorn expression upon his face. He then_
_turns and proceeds to the spring. Not finding the dipper,_
_he lays aside his staff and hat, and stretches himself out
upon the flat stone at the entrance of the spring. While
he is drinking, Selma leans cautiously from behind the
trunk and raises her arm as if to drop something. Having
evidently seen her shadow in the water, Oswald glances
up, but seeing no one, lies down again and drinks. From
behind the hole Selma tosses a burr into the spring. Oswald
continues to drink. Finally he rises, and, taking up his
hat and staff, goes up the slope and sits down upon the
log. The girl moves stealthily around the trunk._
OSWALD--Selma. (_After a pause._)
Selma. I saw you in the spring.
SELMA--I'm there yet, then; you didn't take me out.
(_She comes round the side of the trunk opposite
the log and, stooping over, looks down into
the spring._)
O you should see the fishes! two, three, four,
A troop of them! O Oswald, come and see!
They're round a splash of sunlight in the spring.
See how they twinkle and in the current stir
Their little crimson fins. Ah, I've scared them.
I really did; I scared them with my hair.
See how it fell.
(_She points to a mass of hair that has fallen past
her cheek._)
It would not hurt them, though.
We must be still; we must not say a word.
They never will play if they see us looking.
(_Oswald points down into the spring._)
That little green thing? That's a beech-nut burr.
I threw it in to scare the water-sprite
That looked up at you when you stooped to drink.
You did not see her? Oh, I did. I peeped
Like this, softly, over, over the edge,
And saw her peeping from the mossy stones
Down in the spring. Her hair was loose like mine
And brown as buckeyes, and her lips were stained
With juice of berries. Then I raised my hand.
Thinks I: "I'll drop a beech-nut on his head."
Then she raised hers as if to say: "Be still!
I'll make the bubbles break against his nose."
Was that what made you jump? You scared her so.
I saw her hair fly up about her face
As I leaped back. She lives down in the spring.
This morning as I passed I stooped and said:
"I'm going after berries; won't you come?"
She beckoned to me, too, and seemed to say:
"I can't leave home; my little fish will stray.
You come down here; I have some pretty shells."
Oh, look! Be still! She's let them come again.
See them flash.
OSWALD-- It's the green shell they're after.
SELMA--Why, there's no kernel in it. If there were
They could not eat it; it would break their gills,
They are so very thin.
OSWALD-- We all do that;
We follow shells sometimes.
SELMA-- O Oswald, look!
See how the little silver bubbles rise.