it told the same old stories over and over again very minutely, making
them sometimes longer, sometimes shorter, according to its mood. It
told of the olden days--the rigorous, dark times.
To the tower upon St. Albani Church, where the bell hung, ascended a
monk. He was both young and handsome, but had an air of deep
melancholy. He looked through an aperture out over the Odensee river.
Its bed then was broad, and the monks' meadows were a lake. He gazed
over them, and over the green mound called "The Nuns Hill," beyond
which the cloister lay, where the light shone from a nun's cell. He
had known her well, and he remembered the past, and his heart beat
wildly at the recollection.
"Ding-dong! ding-dong!" This was one of the bell's stories:--
"There came up to the tower one day an idiot servant of the bishop;
and when I, the bell, who am cast in hard and heavy metal, swung about
and pealed, I could have broken his head, for he seated himself
immediately under me, and began to play with two sticks, exactly as if
it had been a stringed instrument, and he sang to it thus: 'Now I may
venture to sing aloud what elsewhere I dare not whisper--sing of all
that is kept hidden behind locks and bolts. Yonder it is cold and
damp. The rats eat the living bodies. No one knows of it; no one hears
of it--not even now, when the bell is pouring forth its loudest
peal--ding-dong! ding-dong!'
"There was a king: he was called Knud. He humbled himself both before
bishops and monks; but as he unjustly oppressed the people, and laid
heavy taxes on them, they armed themselves with all sorts of weapons,
and chased him away as if he had been a wild beast. He sought shelter
in the church, and had the doors and windows closed. The furious
multitude surrounded the sacred edifice, as I heard related; the
crows and the ravens, and the jackdaws to boot, became scared by the
noise and the tumult; they flew up into the tower, and out again; they
looked on the multitude below, they looked also in at the church
windows, and shrieked out what they saw.
"King Knud knelt before the altar and prayed; his brothers Erik and
Benedict stood guarding him with their drawn swords; but the king's
servitor, the false Blake, betrayed his lord. They knew outside where
he could be reached. A stone was cast in through the window at him,
and the king lay dead. There were shouts and cries among the angry
crowd, and cries among the flocks of frightened birds; and I joined
them too. I pealed forth, 'Ding-dong! ding-dong!'
"The church bell hangs high, sees far around, receives visits from
birds, and understands their language. To it whispers the wind through
the wickets and apertures, and through every little chink; and the
wind knows everything. He hears it from the air, for it encompasses
all living things; it even enters into the lungs of human beings--it
hears every word and every sigh. The air knows all, the wind repeats
all, and the bell understands their speech, and rings it forth to the
whole world--'Ding dong! ding dong!'
"But all this was too much for me to hear and to know. I had not
strength enough to ring it all out. I became so wearied, so heavy,
that the beam from which I hung broke, and I flew through the luminous
air down to where the river is deepest, where the merman dwells alone
in solitude; and here I am, year after year, relating to him what I
have seen and what I have heard. 'Ding-dong! ding-dong!'"
Thus rang the chimes from "The Bell's Hollow" in the Odensee river, as
my grandmother declares.
But our schoolmaster says there is no bell ringing down there, for it
could not be; and there is no merman down there, for there are no
mermen; and, when all the church bells are ringing loudly, he says
that it is not the bells, but the air that makes the sound. My
grandmother told me that the bell also said this; so, since the
schoolmaster and the bell agree in this, no doubt it is true.
The air knows everything. It is round us, it is in us; it speaks of
our thoughts and our actions; and it proclaims them farther than did
the bell now down in the Hollow in Odensee river, where the merman
dwells--it proclaims all out into the great vault of heaven, far, far
away, even into eternity, up to where the glorious bells of paradise
peal in tones unknown to mortal ears.
_Soup made of a Sausage-stick._
I.
"We had a capital dinner yesterday," said an aged female mouse to one
who had not been at the feast. "I sat only twenty-one from the old
King of the Mice: that was not being badly placed. Shall I tell you
what we had for dinner? It was all very well arranged. We had mouldy
bread, the skin of bacon, tallow candles, and sausages. Twice we
returned to the charge: it was as good as if we had had two dinners.
There was nothing but good-humour and pleasant chit-chat, as in an
agreeable family circle. Not a mite was left except the sausage-stick.
The conversation happened to fall upon the possibility of making soup
of a sausage-stick. All said they had heard of it, but no one had ever
tasted that soup, or knew how to prepare it. A health was proposed to
the inventor, who, it was remarked, deserved to be superintendent of
the poor. Was not that witty? And the old King of the Mice arose and
declared that the one among the young mice who could prepare the soup
in question most palatably should be his queen, and he would grant
them a year and a day for the trial."
"Well, that was not a bad idea," said the other mouse. "But how is the
soup made?"
"Ay, how is it made? That was what they were all asking, the young and
the old. Every one was willing enough to become the queen, but they
were all loath to take the trouble of going out into the world to
acquire the prescribed qualification; yet it was absolutely necessary
to do so. But it does not suit every one to leave her family and her
snug old mouse-hole. One cannot be going out every day after cheese
parings, and sniffing the rind of bacon. No: such pursuits, too often
indulged in, would perchance put them in the way of being eaten alive
by a cat."
These apprehensions were quite terrible enough to scare most of the
mice from going forth upon the search of knowledge. Only four
presented themselves for the undertaking. They were young and active,
but very poor. They would have gone to the four corners of the earth,
if only good fortune might attend their enterprise. Each of them took
with her a sausage-stick to remind her what she was travelling for. It
was to be her walking staff.
On the 1st of May they set out, and on the 1st of May, a year after,
they returned; but only three of them. The fourth did not report
herself, and sent no tidings of herself; and yet it was the day fixed
for the royal decision.
"There shall be no sadness or no drawback to our pleasure," said the
King of the Mice, as he gave orders that every mouse within several
miles round should be invited. They were to assemble in the kitchen.
The three travelled mice were drawn up in a row alone. In the place
of the fourth, who was absent, was deposited a sausage-stick covered
with black crepe. No one ventured to utter a word until the three had
made their statements, and the king had determined what more was to be
said.
We have now to hear all this.
II.
WHAT THE FIRST LITTLE MOUSE HAD SEEN AND LEARNT ON HER JOURNEY.
"When I first went forth into the wide world," said the little mouse,
"I thought, as so many of my age do, that I had swallowed all the
wisdom of the earth; but that was not the case--it required a year and
a day for that to come to pass. I went at once to sea, on board a ship
which was bound for the north. I had heard that cooks at sea were
pretty well acquainted with their business; but there is little to do
when one has plenty of sides of bacon, barrels of salt meat, and musty
meal at hand. One lives delicately on these nice things; but one
learns nothing like making soup of a sausage-stick. We sailed for many
days and nights, and a stormy and wet time we had of it. When we
reached our destination I left the vessel: this was far away up in the
north.
"One has a strange feeling on leaving one's own mouse-hole at home,
being carried away in a ship, which becomes a home for the time, and
suddenly finding one's self, at the distance of more than a hundred
miles, standing alone in a foreign land. I saw myself amidst a large
tangled wood full of pine and birch trees. Their scent was so strong!
It is not at all my taste; but the perfume from the wild plants was so
spicy that I was quite charmed, and thought of the sausage and the
seasoning for the soup. There were lakes amidst the forest, the water
was beautifully clear close at hand, but looking in the distance as
black as ink. There were white swans upon the lake. I mistook them at
first for foam, they lay so still; but when I saw them fly I
recognised them. They, however, belong to the race of geese. No one
can deny his kindred. I like mine, and I hastened to seek the field
mice, who, truth to tell, know very little except what concerns their
food; and it was just that on account of which I had travelled to a
foreign country. That any one should think of making soup out of a
sausage-stick seemed to them so extraordinary an idea, that it was
speedily circulated through the whole wood; but that the problem
should be solved they considered an impossibility. Little did I think
then that the very same night I should be initiated into the process.
"It was midsummer; therefore it was that the woods scented so
strongly, they said; therefore were the plants so aromatic in their
perfume, the lake so clear, and yet so dark with the white swans upon
them. On the borders of the forest, amidst three or four houses, was
erected a pole as high as a mainmast, and around it hung wreaths and
ribbons. This was the Maypole. Girls and young men danced round it,
and sang to the accompaniment of the fiddler's violin. All went on
merrily till after the sun had set, and the moon had risen, but I took
no part in the festivity; for what had a little mouse to do with a
forest ball? I sat down amidst the soft moss, and held fast my
sausage-stick. The moon shone brightly on a place where there was a
solitary tree surrounded by moss so fine--yes, I venture to say as
fine as the Mice-King's skin--but it had a green tint, and its colour
was very soothing to the eye. All at once I saw approaching a set of
the most beautiful little people, so little that they would only have
reached to my knee; they looked like men and women, but they were
better proportioned. They called themselves Elves, and their garments
were composed of the leaves of flowers, trimmed with the wings of
gnats and flies--not at all ugly. They seemed as if they were
searching for something--what I did not know; but when they came a
little nearer to me their leader tapped my sausage-stick, and said,
'This is what we want; it is all ready, all prepared;' and he became
more and more joyful as he gazed upon my walking-stick.
"'You may borrow it, but not keep it,' said I.
"'Not keep it!' they all exclaimed together, as they seized my
sausage-stick, and, dancing away to the green mossy spot, placed the
sausage-stick there in the centre of it. They determined also on
having a Maypole; and the stick they had just captured seeming quite
suited to their purpose, it was soon ornamented.
"Small spiders spun gold threads around it--hung up waving veils and
flags so finely worked, shining so snow-white under the moonbeams,
that my eyes were quite dazzled. They took the colours from the wings
of the butterflies, and sprinkled them on the white webs, till they
seemed to be laden with flowers and diamonds. I did not know my own
sausage-stick--it had become such a magnificent Maypole, that
certainly had not its equal in the world. And now came tripping
forwards the great mass of the elves, most of them very slightly
clad; but what they did wear was of the finest materials. I looked
on, of course, but in the background, for I was too big for them.
"Then what a game commenced! It was as if a thousand glass bells were
ringing, the sound was so clear and full. I fancied the swans were
singing, and I also thought I heard cuckoos and thrushes. At length it
seemed as if the whole wood was filled with music. There were the
sweet voices of children, the ringing of bells, and the songs of
birds; and all these melodious sounds seemed to proceed from the
elves' Maypole--an orchestra in itself--and that was my sausage-stick.
I never would have believed that so much could have come from it; but
much, of course, depended on what hands it fell into. I became very
much agitated, and I wept, as a little mouse can weep, from sheer
pleasure.
"The night was all too short; but, at this time of the year, the
nights are not long up yonder. At the dawn of day there arose a fresh
breeze; the surface of the lake became ruffled; all the delicately
fine veils and flags disappeared in the air; the swinging kiosks of
cobwebs, the suspension bridges and balustrades, or whatever they are
called, which were constructed from leaf to leaf, vanished into
nothing; six elves brought me my sausage-stick, and at the same time
asked if I had any wish they could fulfil; whereupon I begged them to
tell me how soup could be made from a sausage-stick.
"'What we can do,' said the foremost, laughing, 'you have just seen.
You could scarcely have recognised your sausage-stick.'
"'You mean as you transformed it,' said I; and then I told them the
cause of my journey, and what was expected at home from it. 'Of what
use,' I asked, 'will it be to the King of the Mice and all our large
community that I have seen this beautiful sight? I cannot shake the
sausage-stick and say, You see here the stick--now comes the soup!
That would be like a hoax.'
"Then the elf dipped its little finger into a blue violet, and said to
me,--
"'Look! I spread a charm over your walking-stick, and when you return
to the palace of the King of the Mice make it touch the king's warm
breast, and violets will spring from every part of the staff, even in
the coldest winter weather. See! you have now something worth taking
home, and perhaps a little more.'"
But before the little mouse had finished repeating what the elf had
said she laid her staff against the king's breast, and sure enough
there sprang forth from it the loveliest flowers. They yielded so
strong a perfume that the king commanded that the mice who stood
nearest the chimney should stick their tails in the fire, in order
that the smell of the singed hair should overpower the odour from the
flowers, which was very offensive.
"But what was 'the little more' you spoke of?" asked the King of the
Mice.
"Oh!" said the little mouse, "it is what is called an _effect_;" and
so she turned her sausage-stick. And behold, there were no more
flowers visible! She held only the naked stick, and she moved it like
a stick for beating time.
"The violets are for sight, smell, and touch, the elf told me; but
there are still wanting hearing and taste."
She beat time, and there was music--not such, however, as sounded in
the wood at the elfin fete; no, such as is heard at times in the
kitchen. It came suddenly, like the wind whistling down the chimney.
The pots and the pans boiled over, and the shovel thundered against
the large brass kettle. It stopped as suddenly as it had commenced;
and then was only to be heard the smothered song of the tea-kettle,
which was so strange with its tones rising and falling, and the little
pot and the large pot boiling, the one not troubling itself about the
other, as if neither could think. Then the little mouse moved her
time-stick faster and faster; the pots bubbled up and boiled over; the
wind roared in the chimney; the commotion was so great that the little
mouse herself got frightened, and dropped the stick.
"It was hard work to make that soup," cried the old king; "but where
is the result--the dish?"
"That is all," said the little mouse, courtesying.
"All! Then let us hear what the next has to tell," said the king.
III.
WHAT THE SECOND MOUSE HAD TO RELATE.
"I was born in the palace library," said the second mouse. "I, and
several members of my family there, have never had the good fortune to
enter the dining-room, let alone the pantry. It was only when I first
began my travels, and now again to-day, that I have even beheld a
kitchen. We had often to endure hunger in the library, but we acquired
much knowledge. The report of the reward offered by royalty for the
discovery of the process by which soup could be made of a
sausage-stick reached us even up there, and my grandmother thereupon
looked for a manuscript which, though she could not read herself, she
had heard read, wherein it was said,--
"'A poet can make soup out of a sausage-stick.'
"She asked me if I were a poet. I confessed I was not, to which she
replied that I must go and try to become one. I begged to know what
was to be done to acquire this art, for it appeared to me about as
difficult to attain as to make the soup itself. But my grandmother had
heard a good deal of reading, and she told me that the three things
principally necessary were--good sense, imagination, and feeling. 'If
thou canst go and furnish thyself with _these_, thou wilt be a poet;
and there will be every chance of thy success in the matter of the
sausage-stick.'
"So I set off to the westward, out into the wide world, to become a
poet.
"_Good sense_ I knew was the most important of all things, the two
other qualities not being so highly esteemed. So I went first after
good sense. Well, where did it dwell? 'Go to the ant; consider her
ways, and be wise,' a great king of the Hebrews has said. I knew this
from the library, and I never stopped until I reached a large
ant-hill; and there I settled myself to watch them.
"They are a very respectable tribe, the ants, and full of good sense;
everything among them is as correctly done as a well-calculated sum in
arithmetic. 'To labour and to lay eggs,' say they, 'is to live in the
present, and to provide for the future;' and that they assuredly do.
They divide themselves into the clean ants and the dirty ones. Rank is
distinguished by a number. The queen ant is number one, and her will
is their only law. She has swallowed all the wisdom, and it was of
consequence to me to listen to her; but she said so much and was so
profoundly wise, that I could scarcely comprehend her.
"She said that their hill was the highest in the world; but close to
the hill stood a tree that was higher, certainly much higher. She
could not deny this, so she did not allude to it. One evening an ant
had lost his way, and finding himself on the tree, he crept up the
trunk, not as far as the top, but much higher than any ant had ever
gone before; and when he descended, and found his way home at last, he
imprudently told in the ant-hill of something much higher at a little
distance from it. This was taken by one and all as an affront to the
whole community, and the offending ant was condemned to have his mouth
muzzled, as well as to perpetual solitude. But shortly after another
ant got as far as the tree, and made a similar journey and a similar
discovery. He spoke of it, however, discreetly and mysteriously, and
as he happened to be an ant of consideration--one of the clean--they
believed him; and when he died they placed an egg-shell over him as a
monument in honour of his extensive knowledge.
"I observed," said the little mouse, "that the ants continually move
with their eggs on their backs. One of them dropped hers. She tried
very hard to get it up again, but could not succeed; then two others
came and helped her with all their might, until they had nearly lost
their own eggs, whereupon they let the attempt alone, for one is
nearest to one's self; and the queen ant remarked that both heart and
good sense had been shown. 'These two qualities place us ants among
reasonable beings,' she said. 'Sense ought to be, and is, of the most
consequence; and I have the most of that;' and she raised herself, in
her self-satisfaction, on her hind leg. I could not mistake her, and
I swallowed her. 'Go to the ant; consider her ways, and be wise.' I
had now the queen.
"I then went nearer to the above-mentioned large tree: it was an oak.
It had high branches, a majestic crown of leaves, and was very old. I
perceived that a living creature resided in it--a female. She was
called a Dryad. She had been born with the tree, and would die with
it. I had heard of this in the library; and now I beheld one of the
real trees, and a real oak-nymph. She uttered a frightful shriek when
she saw me near her; for she was like all women, very much afraid of
mice. She, however, had more reason to be afraid of me than others of
her sex have, for I could have gnawed the tree in two, and on it hung
her life. I spoke to her kindly and cordially. This gave her courage,
and she took me in her slender hand; and when she understood what had
brought me out into the wide world, she promised that I should,
perhaps that very night, become possessed of one of the two treasures
of which I was in search. She told me that Imagination was her very
particular friend; that he was as charming as the God of Love; and
that he often, for many an hour, sought repose under the spreading
foliage of the tree, which then sighed more musically over the two. He
called her _his_ dryad, she said, and the tree _his_ tree. The mighty,
gnarled, majestic oak was just to his taste, with its broad roots sunk
deep into the earth, its trunk and its coronal rising so high in the
free air, meeting the drifting snow, the cutting winds, and the bright
sunshine, before they had reached the ground. All this she said, and
she continued: 'The birds sing up yonder, and tell of foreign lands,
and upon the only decayed branch the stork has built a nest; and it
is a pleasure to hear of the country where the pyramids stand. All
this Fancy can well depict, and very much more. I myself can describe
life in the woods from the time that I was quite little, and this tree
was so tiny that a nettle could have covered it, until now, when it is
so strong and mighty. Sit down yonder under the woodruffs, and be on
the look-out. When Fancy comes I shall find an opportunity of pinching
his wing, and stealing a little feather from it. You shall take that,
and no poet will ever have been better provided. Will that do?'
"And Imagination came; a feather was plucked from him, and I got it,"
said the little mouse. "I held it in the water till it became soft. It
was still hard of digestion, but I managed to gnaw it all up. It is
not at all easy to stuff one's self so as to be a poet--there is so
much to be put in one. I had now got two of the ingredients--good
sense and imagination; and I knew by their help that the third
ingredient was to be found in the library; for a great man has said
and written that there are romances which are useful in easing people
of a superfluity of tears, and which also act as a sort of swamp to
cast feelings into. I remembered some of these books; they had always
looked very enticing to me. They were so thumbed, so greasy, they must
have been very popular.
"I returned home to the library, ate almost as much as a whole
romance--that is to say, the soft part of it, the pith--but the crust,
the binding, I let alone. When I had digested this, and another to
boot, I perceived how my inside was stirred up; so I ate part of a
third, and then I considered myself a poet, and every one about me
said I was. I had headaches, of course, and all sorts of aches. I
thought over what story I could work up about a sausage-stick, and
there was no end of sticks and pegs crowding my mind. The queen ant
had had an uncommon intellect. I remembered the man who took a white
peg into his mouth, and both he and it became invisible. All my
thoughts ran upon sticks. A poet can write even upon these; and I am a
poet I trust, for I have fagged hard to be one. I shall be able every
day in the week to amuse you with the story of a stick. This is my
soup."
"Let us hear the third," said the King of the Mice.