Rudy And Babette Part 11

He was now seventeen, and nothing ran in his head but this garden.

One day he went to take a walk in the forest, all alone, as he best liked to be.

As evening came on, the sky grew overcast, and there came on such a shower, that it seemed as if the heavens had become one vast sluice that kept pouring down water; besides this, it was darker than it usually is, even at night, except at the bottom of the deepest well.

At every step, he either slipped on the wet gra.s.s, or stumbled over some bare rock. Everything was dripping wet, and the poor prince had not a dry thread about him. He was obliged to climb over huge blocks of stone, where water was running down from the thick moss. He was near fainting away, when he heard a singular rushing noise, and perceived a large cavern, lighted up by a huge fire, piled up in the middle, and fit to roast a whole deer. And this, indeed, was being done. A very fine deer, with its branching horns, was placed on a spit, and slowly turned round between the felled trunks of two pine-trees. An elderly woman, as bony and masculine as though she were a man in female attire, sat by the fire, and kept throwing in one log of wood after another.

"Come nearer," said she, "and sit by the fire, and dry your clothes."

"There is a great draught here," observed the prince, sitting down on the ground.

"It will be much worse when my sons come home," returned the woman.

"You are in the Cavern of the Winds. My sons are the Four Winds of Heaven--can you understand that?"

"Where are your sons?" asked the prince.

"It is difficult to answer a silly question," said the woman. "My sons are now at it, with their own hands. They are playing at shuttle-c.o.c.k with the clouds, up there in the King's hall." And she pointed above.

"Oh, that's it!" quoth the prince. "But you seem to speak rather harshly, and are not as gentle as the women I am accustomed to see."

"Because they have nothing else to do. But I must be harsh, to keep my boys in any order; which I manage to do, headstrong as they are. You see those four bags hanging on the wall? Well, they are every bit as much afraid of them as you used to be of the rod behind the looking-gla.s.s. I bend the boys in two, I can tell you, and then pop them into the bag, without their making the least resistance. There they stay, and don't dare come out till I think it proper they should.

But here comes one of them."

It was the North Wind who came in, diffusing an icy coldness around.

Large hailstones jumped about on the floor, and snowflakes were scattered in all directions. He wore a bearskin jacket and clothes; his cap of sea-dog's skin came down over his ears; long icicles clung to his beard, and one hailstone after another fell from the collar of his jacket.

"Don't go too near the fire at once," said the prince, "or your face and hands might easily get frozen."

"Frozen, quotha!" said the North Wind, with a loud laugh. "Why, cold is my greatest delight! But what kind of little snip are you? How did you come into the Cavern of the Winds?"

"He is my guest," said the old woman; "and if that does not satisfy you, why, you need only get into the bag. Do you understand me now?"

Well, this did the business at once; and the North Wind then began to relate whence he came, and where he had been staying for nearly a month past.

"I come from the Arctic Sea," said he, "and I have been on Bear's Island, with the Russian sea-cow hunters. I sat and slept at the helm, as they sailed away from the North Cape; but whenever I happened to wake, the petrels were flying about my legs. What comical birds they are! They will flap their wings suddenly, and then remain poised upon them, and quite motionless, as if they had had enough of flying."

"Don't be so diffuse," said the mother of the Winds. "And so you reached Bear's Island?"

"It's a beautiful place! There's a ballroom floor for you, as smooth as a plate! Heaps of half-thawed snow, slightly covered with moss, sharp stones, and skeletons of sea-cows and bears were lying about, together with the arms and legs of giants in a state of green decay.

It looks as if the sun had never shone there. I blew slightly on the mist, that the hovels might be visible, and there appeared a hut, built from the remains of a ship that had been wrecked, and covered over with sea-cows' skins. The fleshy side was turned outwards, and it was both red and green. A living bear sat growling on the roof. I went to the sh.o.r.e, and looked after birds' nests, and saw the unfledged youngsters opening their beaks and screaming l.u.s.tily; so I blew into their thousands of throats, and they learned to shut their mouths. A little farther on, the sea-cows were rolling about like giant worms with pigs' heads, and teeth a yard long."

"You tell your adventures right pleasantly, my son," said his mother; "it makes my mouth water to hear you."

"Then the hunting began. The harpoon was flung right into the sea-cow's chest, so that a smoking jet of blood spurted forth like water from a fountain, and besprinkled the ice. Then I thought of my part of the game. I began to blow, and set my vessels, the towering icebergs, to stick the boats fast. Oh! what a whistling and a bawling there was! Only I whistled louder than all of them. They were obliged to unpack the dead sea-cows, the chests, and the tackle upon the ice; I then shook snowflakes over them, and left them and their spoils to sail in their pent-up vessels towards the south, to drink salt-water.

They will never return to Bear's Island."

"Then you have done mischief?" said the mother of the Winds.

"Let others tell of the good I may have done!" said he. "But here comes my brother from the West. I like him the best, because he smacks of the sea, and brings a nice bracing cold with him."

"Is that the little Zephyr?" asked the prince.

"Yes, that is the Zephyr!" said the old woman; "but he's not so very little either. Some years ago he was a pretty boy; but that is now over."

He looked like a wild man; but he wore a roller round his head, that he might not get hurt. In his hand he held a mahogany club, hewn from an American mahogany forest. It was no small weight to carry.

"Whence do you come?" asked the mother.

"From the wild forests," said he, "where tangled bindweed forms a hedge between each tree, where water-snakes lie in the damp gra.s.s, and where man seems to be a superfluous nonent.i.ty."

"What have you been doing there?"

"I looked into the deep river, and saw it had rushed down from the rocks, and then became dust, and flew towards the clouds to support the rainbow. I saw a wild buffalo swimming in the river, but he was carried away by the tide. He had joined a flock of wild ducks, who flew up into the air the moment the waters dashed downwards. The buffalo was obliged to be hurled into the precipice. This pleased me, and I raised a storm, so that the oldest trees sailed down the river, and were reduced to splinters."

"And was that all you did?" asked the old woman.

"I cut capers in the savannahs, I stroked wild horses and shook cocoanut trees. Oh! I have plenty of tales to tell! Only one must not tell all one knows, as you well know, good mammy." And he kissed his mother so roughly, that she had nearly fallen backwards. He was a shocking wild lad.

Now, in came the South Wind in a turban and Bedouin's flying mantle.

"It is very cold hereabouts!" said he, throwing wood upon the fire.

"It is easy to perceive that the North Wind has preceded me."

"It is hot enough here to roast a northern bear!" said the North Wind.

"You are a bear yourself!" answered the South Wind.

"Have you a mind to be both put into the bag?" asked the old woman.

"There! sit down on that stone, and tell us where you have been."

"In Africa, mother," returned he. "I was amongst the Hottentots, who were lion-hunting in Caffraria. The gra.s.s in their plains looks as green as an olive. An ostrich ran a race with me, but I beat him hollow. I reached the yellow sands of the desert, which look like the bottom of the sea. I met a caravan. They killed their last camel to obtain some water; but they only got a very little. The sun was scorching above, and the sand equally scorching beneath one's feet.

The desert stretched out into boundless expanse. I then rolled in the fine loose sand, and made it whirl about in large columns. A fine dance I led it! You should have seen how dejected the dromedaries looked as they stood stock still, and how the merchants pulled their caftans over their heads. They threw themselves on the ground before me as they would before Allah, their G.o.d. They are now all buried beneath a pyramid of sand; and when I come to puff it away, the sun will bleach their bones, and travelers will see that others have been there before them: a fact which is seldom believed in the desert, short of some tangible proof."

"Then you have done nothing but mischief!" said his mother. "Into the bag with you!" And before he had time to perceive it, she had taken the South Wind round the waist, and popped him into the bag. He wiggled about on the ground; but she sat upon him, and then he was forced to lie still.

"Your sons are a set of lively boys!" said the prince.

"Yes," answered she; "and I know how to correct them. Here comes the fourth."

This was the East Wind, who was dressed like a Chinese.

"Oh! you come from that neighborhood, do you?" said his mother. "I thought you had been to the Garden of the World?"

"I am going there to-morrow," said the East Wind. "To-morrow will be a hundred years since I was there. I have just returned from China, where I danced round the porcelain tower till all the bells were set a-jingling. The government officers were being beaten in the street; the bamboo stick was broken across their shoulders; and these were people belonging to the several degrees from the first to the ninth.

They cried out: 'Many thanks, my fatherly benefactor!' But the words did not come from their hearts, so I made the bells jingle, and sang!

'Tsing! tsang! tsu!'"

"You are a wanton boy!" said the old woman. "It is well you are going to-morrow to the Garden of the World, for that always improves your mind. Pray drink abundantly from the fountain of wisdom, and take a small phial and bring it home full for me."