Fairy Circles Part 4

King Laurin looked even more gravely than before on the weeping maiden.

"No, do not be angry!" she begged, raising her hands entreatingly to him; "call it not foolish weakness; remember that it needed hundreds of years before your n.o.ble heart would close against our deceitful race. I know that Tony has been persuaded by his friends to take this step; but he still loves me, and it would grieve him if I were to go without farewell. When he brings his bride up the mountain to-morrow, on their way to the wedding in the next valley, let me go out to meet him as he is pa.s.sing my cottage--let me say farewell and part from him in peace."

"Do as thou wilt, my child," answered King Laurin with gentle sadness, "though thou wilt find but a new sorrow. And now, Vreneli, it is late.

Go to thy cottage, and lie down on thy couch, there to forget thy griefs for a few short hours at least."

"Ah no!" said Vreneli, entreatingly; "let me stay here with you beneath the stars, for I dread the loneliness of the cottage. Wherever I may be I cannot sleep, and the shadows of past happiness would there trouble my soul. No; let me stay here and share your watch."

They climbed the rock, and sat down side by side beneath the lofty pines. Vreneli folded her hands and looked up to the stars, while her prayer for peace and comfort arose to Him who sits enthroned above the sky.

Not a word was spoken. King Laurin gazed in silence on the moonlit glacier, while his mind wandered back to the memories of a thousand years, and on Vreneli's brow lay the deep shadow of her young grief.

Gradually her eyelids closed, and her head sank gently to the old king's shoulder. He placed his arm tenderly round the slumbering girl, and stretched out his right hand towards the lofty glacier.

Then the storm-song in its icy clefts grew suddenly still, but the moonbeams still played around its jagged peaks; like glistening serpents they moved across the gla.s.sy sea, and then flowed slowly in a broad shining stream down on the crystal road. The mountain torrent meanwhile checked its thunder, and moved more gently on its rocky way.

The night that hung above the mountain seemed but a pleasant twilight, and through the mild, soft air a bell tinkled gently now and then from the night pasture where the cattle lay at rest. All was peace. Nothing stirred save the summer breeze and the golden starlight, which ventured near to kiss the tear-stained cheek of the maiden who lay in sweet forgetfulness of sorrow on the old king's arm.

And now it was once more morning, and Vreneli's cheek grew pale as she thought of the sorrowful parting with him whom she had once called her Tony. But she was determined to do her duty to the very last, so she led her herds to the pasture, by the side of which the road ran, that she might be at hand to tend them while waiting by the wayside for Tony and his bride.

The sun rose higher and higher, and the minutes of painful waiting seemed hours to the poor girl. Suddenly voices and loud laughter sounded in her ear, and soon two figures appeared from round the rock.

For the first time since the morning when she brought the herds up the mountain Tony stood face to face with the poor orphan whose life's happiness he had ruined, and he started as he looked into the face so beautiful, but deadly pale. For one moment he remembered his oath.

Then the rich bride at his side cried mockingly--"I suppose this is the servant girl of whom your father spoke, who had the presumption to dream of becoming a rich farmer's wife? Fancy the little beggar entertaining such an idea!"

The scornful words cut deep into Vreneli's crushed heart.

"I should never have thought of it myself," she said, sadly; "it was Tony who wished it, because he loved me so that my poverty seemed no obstacle."

"Oh! indeed, Tony," said the bride, haughtily, "that is rather different from what you told me yesterday evening. Did you not tell me that you had never troubled your head about her, and that you had always wished to marry me? Tell this girl that she lies, or if you cannot do that, then you are free to choose this beggar still. I have plenty of suitors left!"

Tony grew red with shame and vexation, but he did not vent his anger on the haughty bride, but on poor innocent Vreneli. "You lie, girl,"

he cried; "I never made you any promise; I never loved you!"

"Tony," answered Vreneli gently, "do not bring needless guilt on your head. Have you forgotten your oath beneath the lonely cross on the mountain? But I am not angry with you for forsaking me. Perhaps your parents persuaded you to do it; but I could not refrain from coming to say farewell, and to wish you happiness and prosperity."

"Keep your farewell and your wishes to yourself!" cried Tony, white with anger and shame; "you were a fool, if you took my words in earnest. I and a beggar like you!"

With a loud mocking laugh he turned away, gave his arm to his bride, and pa.s.sed on without a word of farewell.

Vreneli looked after him in speechless amazement. The wise king was right, then; she had met but a new blow, and this one more crushing than the first. She turned, and saw behind her King Laurin, who had been an unseen witness of Tony's shameful treachery. His eyes glowed, but he uttered not a word. Vreneli stooped again to raise his hands to her trembling lips. "I am ready to follow you!" she said in a low voice.

Then the rock opened before them; Vreneli gave a farewell look at the midday sun, then, led by King Laurin's hand, she entered the magic kingdom of the dwarfs.

That very moment an avalanche was set free from the snow-clad slopes of the glacier, rolled down with angry thunder, and at the cross where once Tony had sworn faithful love to Vreneli it overtook him and his heartless bride, and buried them so deep that their bodies were never found. Thus King Laurin avenged his adopted daughter.

Vreneli had found a home, and, instead of the one worthless heart that she had lost, a thousand hearts beat true to her in unchanging love.

King Laurin loved her as he had once loved his own lost child, and she returned his affection with all the warmth of her young heart, while the little dwarfs obeyed her every wish with that cheerful eagerness with which they had once served their lost princess.

She tended the rose-garden beside the king's crystal palace with such loving care that it bloomed once more as in the days in which the magic-mighty hand of the princess had moved among its fairy blossoms, and the sweet fragrance that the roses breathed into her very soul healed every wound of disappointed love.

She did not miss the sunlight in this fairy kingdom, for the mild radiance of unseen stars lit it day and night; she never longed for earth, for here was unchanging spring; warm breezes kissed her brow, and the wild chamois, shy dwellers of the mountain solitudes, came up in friendly confidence, and let her stroke them with her snow-white hand.

Many a time on starry nights she went by King Laurin's side out to the glacier peaks, to look around upon the slumbering land. Her eye, made keen by the light of the fairy world, pierced the distance and the darkness of night, and she gazed, even unaided by any "magic ring,"

far beyond the boundaries which limit human vision. And what had once driven her from the region of sunlight she saw always and everywhere--sorrow, injustice, and untruth.

And when she looked into many a joyless cottage and many a sorrowful heart, she would turn to the old king by her side, kiss his hand with loving reverence, and say, smiling--"Come, King Laurin, let us go back to our home, to our peaceful kingdom, where tears and guilt and fickleness are all unknown."

The Dwarf of Venice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Dwarf of Venice takes his Departure for his Native Land.]

Evening was falling with the mild beauty of spring on the mountains and pasture-lands of the Tyrol. The latest sunbeams which streamed down from the lofty glacier bore the tones of the vesper bell through the quiet village street, and floated over the brook and in at the open windows of a substantial farm-house which stood at the end of the little valley. A neatly carved balcony surrounded the house, the window-panes gleamed like mirrors, and the orderly arrangements of the farm-yard showed the owner to be a man of some wealth.

At the table in the oak-panelled sitting-room sat the rich farmer himself, but in spite of his possessions he seemed discontented and unhappy, for between his brows was a deep frown, and his eyes were dark and lowering. Opposite him sat his beautiful young wife, whose soft eyes looked anxiously into her husband's face. On her lap she held her only child, a lovely little girl, with eyes as blue as the flax blossom, and hair that shone like gold: she folded her little hands, as her mother did, as long as the vesper bell continued to call to prayer; but her eyes looked longingly, now on the pancakes that lay piled on the bright pewter plate, now casting a friendly glance on the boy that sat at the furthest end of the table, with his hands folded in devout reverence.

It was Hans, the son of a poor relation, to whom the rich farmer, with unwonted generosity, had granted a place in his house and at his table, and who in return had to drive the goats every day up to the highest pastures on the mountain, to places inaccessible to other herds. He had just returned with his nimble charge, and had brought to little Anneli on her mother's knee a bunch of alproses, for he dearly loved the child.

The bell had ceased ringing, the hands were unclasped, and the mother began to help the delicate pancakes. There was a gentle knocking at the door, and in walked a little man in a sombre and threadbare garment. His back was bent, either with the weight of years or by the wallet which hung from his shoulder; his hair was silver grey; but the dark shining eyes told that in this decrepit body lived a strong unconquered spirit.

"Good evening, sir," said the little man humbly; "might I beg you for a bit of supper, for I am starving, and for a night's rest on your haystack, for I am tired to death."

"Indeed," said the farmer angrily; "do you take my house for a beggar's tavern? if so, I am sorry your sight is so bad. You may seek elsewhere, for you will not find what you want here!"

The dwarf looked in astonishment on the master of the house, who, regardless of the hospitable customs of the country, could thus turn a poor man away from his door; but the farmer took no notice of his surprise, nor of his wife's looks of entreaty.

"No, wife," he said harshly, "this time you shall not have your own way. I will not keep open house for all the beggars in the land. Did I not give in to you about that boy over there? You might be content with that."

Poor Hans blushed crimson at this allusion to his poverty, but when the little man turned away with a sigh and left the inhospitable threshold, sympathy with the poor old man overcame his fear of his employer; he seized the plate with the pancakes, and the great piece of bread which the farmer's wife had just given him, and ran out of the room.

"What's the boy after?" asked the farmer angrily.

"He is just doing what we ought to have done," answered the wife, with gentle reproach in her fair face; "he is sharing his meal with the poor man."

"Yes, yes," growled the man, "birds of a feather flock together."

Meantime the old man was creeping with weary steps across the yard, and had just reached the gate when Hans seized him by the arm.

"Here, good little man," said he in mingled pity and fear--"here is my supper; come, sit down there on the well and eat."