Fairy Circles Part 19

"Puck, dear Puck, can you not save him?" cried the maiden, in distress, when they were once outside the castle walls.

"Not till your safety is beyond a doubt," said the little goblin resolutely; "not till you are away in the depth of the forest, where they will never be able to find you."

With trembling haste Maude ran towards the wood, but the way was long, and her eager feet tottered under her. Turning to look towards the castle, she saw flames bursting from door and window. Still more anxiously she pressed on till the tall forest trees hid the castle from her sight. Even then Puck refused to leave her.

"Would Gero, who has, I confess, done his duty by you--would he, since he seems to love you, wish me to go back to save him a little trouble, and leave you unsheltered?"

Further and further they went through the very scenes where Puck had spent so many pleasant hours with his child-friend. But now, the trees that used to whisper so softly looked down like grim giants, and the night-wind in the branches howled "Flee!"

Suddenly a gleam of light broke on their path with a mild silvery radiance. A gentle murmur of water fell on the wanderer's ear, and in a few minutes they stood by the side of a valley, which here, forgotten by the world, lay like a home of peace in the heart of the forest.

There, in the shelter of a mossy rock, stood the cosy cottage of the old forest-warden. The moonbeams flashed back from the single window, and trembled on the stone bench before the door. The cottage was uninhabited, for the good old man whose home it had once been had years since pa.s.sed away, and his office had never been filled. Yet nothing bore traces of decay. There was even a bright fire on the hearth, and a boiling kettle hung upon the hook above it. For the old forest-warden had been a good friend to Puck, and the little fellow loved to keep the little cottage as neat and homelike as it used to be.

Maude smiled gratefully as she looked around. "Thanks, dear Puck," she said; "now hasten back to Gero. I will lie down on this nice bed of fragrant moss, and I will not be afraid, I promise you."

When Puck returned, he found that the maiden's weariness had overcome her anxiety, but he knew by the tears that trembled on her eyelashes that she was thinking, even in dreams, of her brave page, and he dreaded to tell her when she awoke that he had not been able to find any trace of the faithful Gero. A great portion of the turret stair had fallen in, and among the bodies that lay piled beneath its ruins it was impossible to distinguish any one.

When the maiden woke, she almost for a moment fancied herself in her own turret chamber, for there, at the open window, stood the richly-carved arm-chair, the one carefully-preserved souvenir of her sainted mother, where Maude had so often sat and chatted with her little friend, and there in the corner stood her harp and the silver spindle, with its snowy thread.

But alas! she soon remembered the terrors of the night, and when, in answer to her questioning look, Puck told her, with faltering voice, his fears for Gero, the maiden's grief found vent in bitter weeping.

But Puck would not allow her to dwell on these sad thoughts. Drawing aside a curtain that hung against the wall, he disclosed to her astonished eyes the portraits of her dear parents, which had hung just so in her own room at home. And while she stood gazing on the beloved faces, her hands clasped in silent emotion, the flame was crackling on the hearth beneath the bubbling kettle, and Puck was rummaging in cupboards and chests, rattling with plates and cups, and preparing a meal for himself and his dear charge.

Maude, with the happy buoyancy of youth, half forgot her trouble of the night, while her colour came back with the needed food, and her heart was cheered by Puck's pleasant chatter, so willing was she to believe his prophecies of better days.

"You must stay here, Maude," he said, "until your father returns, and till he has punished the wicked Earl for his malice. For you would not be as safe, even in your father's protection, as here in this forest retreat. So be patient, and I will give you back in time to your friends, even to Gero, if he still lives, though that will be the hardest thing of all. But I know now that he was worthy of you, or he could not have fought as he did last night. It was n.o.bly done!"

And the little fellow rubbed his hands with delight, which he felt, in spite of himself, in thinking of that valiant defence.

"You would have been friends yet if he had lived," said Maude tearfully. "Two such dear, good people could not have been enemies all their lives."

Days and weeks pa.s.sed by, and still Maude was kept in her place of concealment. From time to time Puck went out to see what was going on between the hostile n.o.blemen. The report brought back was always the same--"The Earl is sending out spies--I see them lurking in all directions--to find out your retreat, for they seem to know that you escaped the fire, or to suspect it from not finding your body among the dead. He wants to take you now as a hostage against your father's vengeance." Then, when Maude's cheek would pale at the words, he would add, "But they cannot find you in the midst of this thicket."

So the maiden still stayed in the forest cottage, and if her grief about Gero and her longing for her beloved father had not gnawed at her heart, she could have been nearly as happy in the lovely valley as she was once in her old home.

Puck was at work every morning by break of day, as if he wanted to make up for a century of idleness, nor would he ever allow Maude to share his household toil. But she sat spinning on the stone bench at the door, while he bustled cheerily about the little cottage. Then, when all the work was done, they would go into the wood, and it seemed as if the old days had come back again. For they still lay on the soft moss gazing into the shady trees while Puck told his marvellous stories.

Autumn and winter came, and the leisure hours were spent now by the cheery fire that burned on the clean-swept hearth. Never was there such a servant or such a merry companion as the little faithful goblin.

At last spring came. And now Puck went away every day to see what was going on at the wicked Earl's castle, for Maude's father had laid siege to his enemy's stronghold, hoping to force him to give up the dear one whom he believed to be imprisoned within those walls. Puck never let the sorrowing father know of his child's safety, for he did not wish her to be removed from his protection till her powerful enemy had been reduced by war, or even slain.

As the wood grew greener, the hopes of the besiegers waxed daily brighter. The fall of the castle was sure, and its defence could last but a few days longer.

This was the news which Puck brought home one day as he came to the noonday meal, and when he again went out to get further information, or, if possible, lend, unseen, a helping hand to the besiegers, Maude sat on the stone bench before the cottage, and tried to busy her trembling fingers with her spinning. But Puck was longer absent than usual, and she asked herself anxiously should she regard it as a good sign or the contrary.

At last she could stand it no longer. She rose and went along the narrow path by which she had come to her place of refuge. She had never before ventured alone through those forest shades; but the birds sang sweetly as she pa.s.sed along, and she thought their cheerful voices bid her hope.

Soon she came to the scenes familiar to her from her childhood. Here was the place where Margaret used to sit and rest, and there--what memories filled her soul with sad emotion!--there was the old oak-stump on which she had sat by Gero's side, as he told her of the great world of which she knew so little. And now the eloquent mouth was silent, and her faithful page had fallen in her defence, for Puck, in all his journeys to the castle, had never seen Gero among the besiegers.

She leant her head against a tree-stem, and wept long and bitterly.

Then she raised her head to take one more look at the sacred spot. But were her tear-filled eyes deceiving her? There sat, as if lost in painful memories, a tall, manly form in gleaming armour, with a well-remembered sash of silver and blue across his breast.

Maude uttered a cry. The knight raised his head, and she looked into a familiar, but now pale and grief-marked face.

"Gero, Gero!" she cried, forgetting every other feeling in her wild delight, and rushing with outstretched arms to where he stood.

The young knight's brain swam. At first he thought the sweet apparition must be his dear one's spirit; but no, he clasped in his arms the trembling form of the lost maiden.

For one moment she lay sobbing on his breast; then, recollecting herself, she tore herself blushing from his arms.

"Forgive me, Gero, my surprise overcame me. So you are alive, and I had mourned for you as dead."

"Did you mourn for me, lady?" asked the young knight. "Thanks for the sweet a.s.surance. I too sorrowed--oh! how deeply--for your loss; and to-day I rose from what I thought would be my death-bed, and came to visit the spot where we had spent so many happy hours together, here to indulge my grief undisturbed. The wicked Earl who caused our trouble fell to-day in the storming of his own castle, but great was our disappointment not to find you anywhere within its walls. And now you are here, and I am not deceived by a blessed dream!"

"No, it is no dream," said Maude joyfully; "but now let us hasten to relieve my father's grief."

As they went together through the wood, Maude told the knight how Puck had saved her, and how he had cared for her in the lonely valley.

"The brave little goblin!" cried Gero, as she finished. "Let bygones be bygones; we will be friends henceforth."

They had now reached the blackened ruins of Maude's former home, but, in the joy of dispelling the grief from the dear face of her father, who stood gazing, in deep sadness, on the scene of desolation, the maiden forgot to mourn at the wreck before her.

Ere the sun set, Gero and Maude were formally betrothed, and the work was at once begun of repairing the ruined castle. Meantime, Maude found a home with her future father-in-law, who was delighted to welcome as a daughter the child of his trusted friend; and Puck found no lack of employment among the busy builders, who wondered sometimes what made the work progress so quickly.

Before another spring the castle stood in more than its old strength and greatness, and no part had received such careful attention as the turret where Puck had made the lonely child his friend.

No guest at Gero's wedding received such marked deference and attention from the bridegroom as his former enemy, and the servants of the new household, catching their tone from their master, treated little Puck with kindness such as he had experienced at the hands of former generations.

The turret chamber was his home henceforth, and all through the long winter Maude's children loved to gather there at twilight, and coax the merry goblin to join them in their games, or tell them tales of the old days of the castle. But perhaps their mother's story was the one that they loved best--the story about the old enmity that changed to such firm friendship between the Lady Maude's page and her faithful goblin.

THE FALLEN BELL.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE STORM HURLS THE BELL INTO THE STREAM.]

Ere the light of the Gospel had shone on the benighted land of Saxony, there stood on the green banks of the Saale a stately temple, within whose walls a throng of ignorant worshippers presented the offering of praise and of sacrifice to the G.o.ds who had been honoured, as they believed, by their remotest ancestors. Then came Charlemagne, who cast out the heathen G.o.ds of Saxony, threw down their altars, and introduced Christianity. Among the rest fell the temple on the banks of the Saale. The Christian priest with pious zeal seized the idol which had there been worshipped, and hurled it into the river. From that time on, the rejected G.o.d lived as a water-sprite down in the waters of the Saale, cherishing a deadly hatred against the new religion, which had robbed him of his old-established rights. On the site of his former shrine rose now a cloister, and the bell, whose deep rich voice reached even the dwelling of the water-elf, stirring up afresh his bitter wrath and jealousy, called the inhabitants of the surrounding district to the new G.o.d and His sanctuary.

But the old honoured faith did not so easily die out from the hearts of the Saxons, and though they were obliged to join in the newly-enforced worship, they clung long to their ancient divinities, and secretly brought them the usual sacrifices.

At last the power of the Gospel triumphed, and the innocent child who had yearly been offered to the water-spirit on St. John's day was now withheld.

Wild was the rage of the mortified elf. All day long he watched among the willows on the bank, whence he could look unseen far over the fields, to see if they had really forgotten him. No sacrifice was brought. He felt that the last vestige of his power was gone. In gloomy anger against the thankless race, he resolved to take by force the victim of which he had been cheated.

A lovely child approached the bank, heedless of danger, holding in its tiny hand a bunch of forget-me-nots. Close by the water's edge were more of the blue flowers, and he ran forward to pluck the tempting blossoms. Then the waters of the Saale suddenly rose, swept over the place where the child was standing, and carried him down in their cold embrace. From that time people were careful to avoid the river on St.

John's day, fearing a similar fate.