Fairy dreams or, Wanderings in Elf-land
pausing as she was concealing the little book as directed, she said,
“But why shall I hide your gift, dear Fraulein? If it is right that I
should have it, all may see it.”
“Nonsense, little saint!” said the young lady angrily; but pausing a
moment, she kissed the child’s pure brow, and said, “you are right,
little one, and I am wrong,--go show the book to your mother and do as
she says about keeping it.”
Mabel’s mother did not object to the child’s receiving the little book,
nor did she think it necessary to mention it to any of the sisterhood,
knowing that she should thereby bring the gay young Fraulein into
disgrace; so Mabel kept the book, and while the sad and silent mother
spun or sewed in the summer sunshine or by the winter’s fire, the child
sat on a low stool by her side, reading in her clear, sweet voice,
stories of the graceful little fairies, who dance through the long,
bright summer nights; of the crooked, swarthy gnomes who forever pile
up riches which they can never enjoy, in the gloomy mountain caverns;
of the fair and graceful Undines who frolic in the mountain streams
and broad, rolling rivers; of the wood-nymphs, whose slender, supple
figures animate the graceful, waving trees, and whisper to each other
in the evening breezes.
But chief among all these wonders was the dreamy child impressed with
the story of King Tolv, who, every midsummer night, rides, at speed,
with all his gallant retinue, through lonely woods and mountain gorges,
and if in his wild career he should meet a pure and spotless maiden,
her he seizes for his bride and queen, in his glowing, golden palace,
deep in the green hill-side.
Many an hour did Mabel peer about in the wild thickets and among the
grotesquely piled rocks which lay about her home, to find the entrance
to that fairy palace, for the story said that it was in the Hartz
Mountains that he always disappeared, and the mountain of Köningsberg,
on which the charcoal-burner lived, was the highest, the wildest, and
the most goblin-haunted of all the pine-clad peaks.
Either, however, Mabel did not look in the right spot, or King Tolv
had so cunningly concealed the entrance to his abode that she passed
without noticing it, for she never could find it; and before she had
done looking for it the deep snows of winter, and then her mother’s
long, fading illness and death, chased such things from her mind, and
filled her heart with such deep sorrow and hopeless loneliness that
she thought no more of König Tolv or her other goblin friends, but
turned, with a heart thankful to the kind old nun, who had put the key
of consolation in her hand, to the sublime promises and comforting
words of Holy Writ, the living beauty of which not even the garbled and
imperfect form in which the Catholic Church presents it to her children
can wholly disguise.
Mabel read and prayed, and wept the long winter months away, making
from time to time vain efforts to find the way to her father’s heart,
more securely hidden than even the hill-side door to König Tolv’s
golden palace.
At last she gave up the search, and contented herself with providing
for her father’s comfort, as well as she could, and praying, night and
morning, to the Holy Virgin and all the saints to turn toward her that
stony heart, and show her the way to gain the love of the only one left
on earth to whom she could turn for affection and comfort.
So passed the long, chill winter; but when the cold, deep snow had
turned to fresh young grass, and trees which all winter had clashed
their bare brown arms against each other as in the vain attempt to keep
warm, had put on their new green dresses, and the wood-nymphs had begun
to whisper again among their leaves, then Mabel once more wandered
forth and found among the spring flowers her own old sadly joyous
dreams and fancies. Again she took the book of fairy tales from the
shelf, where it had lain undisturbed ever since the last time she had
read to her mother, sitting on the little footstool by her side. Again
she read, and now with a deeper and more thrilling interest than ever,
the legend of König Tolv.
“To be loved,” murmured she, sitting by the leaping, laughing mountain
stream, the book upon her knees, and her soft, dreamy eyes fixed upon
the distant turrets of the old gray castle of Wolfsmarchen, which rose
on the far horizon, “To be loved even by König Tolv--ah, what joy!
Truly it would not be so hard a fate to meet him beneath the midsummer
moon, and be borne away to dance and laugh and love within his golden
halls! Who is there but my father for me to love on earth? and were I
König Tolv’s bride I could come at night and leave gifts of gold and
jewels on his pillow, which would more than make up to him for all that
he would lose in me;” and as she admitted to her heart the dreary truth
that gold was fairer and dearer to her father’s heart than his own
child, great pearly drops rose slowly to her thoughtful eyes, and fell
plashing upon the open book.
Mabel rose, and went slowly home to prepare the evening meal. That
over, and the hut restored to what order was possible with its extreme
poverty, the maiden bid a timid good-night to her father, who sat,
as usual, smoking his evening pipe in morose silence. She received
no answer, and though she expected none, she sighed heavily as she
closed the door of the little closet which her mother had persuaded
Karl, years before, to partition off from the common room, that her
daughter might not, for want of privacy, lose the sensitive modesty
which is to a woman what the dew-drop is to the rose, the bloom to the
grape, as great a charm while it remains as impossible to replace, once
carelessly brushed off.
Mabel dreamed that she was the loved and loving bride of King Tolv. She
sat with him upon a bank thickly set with new and beautiful flowers,
as is the sky with stars upon a frosty night. Before them wheeled and
glided elves and fairies dancing to music which made glad the hearts
of all who heard it; in her ear whispered her fairy lover words whose
intoxicating sweetness still thrilled the maiden’s heart as she slowly
awoke, with a vague sense of regret to find herself alone in the smoky
little mountain cabin.
That day she renewed her old search for the hidden door, which should
open to her that joyous scene which filled her heart with such wild
longing, but still the mystic gate evaded her most earnest search. The
next night and the next her dream was renewed, and as she awoke on the
third morning the thought flashed across her mind that midsummer night
was fast approaching, and that by meeting King Tolv on his midnight
ride she could learn the way to his palace home without further trouble
of her own. “And if I should not like him,” whispered she to herself,
“I can easily steal away and come home, and all will be as before.”
This wild thought dwelt in Mabel’s mind day after day; her father, to
whom added years brought but added gloom, evidently cared nothing for
her presence or absence. The only notice he had taken of her since
her mother’s death was to forbid her visits to the convent since she
had delivered a message from the Mother, warning him that unless he
attended mass and confession his soul stood in imminent peril. When
Mabel tremblingly repeated these unwelcome words, Karl Gatz turned for
a moment his gloomy eyes upon her, and bid her, if she would ever see
his face again, to cease from that day her visits to the good sisters,
whom he designated by a word that puzzled, while it instinctively
shocked, the pure and unsullied mind of his daughter.
The dreamy, balmy summer days swept on all too fast for the hesitating,
irresolute girl. One day she renounced her scheme, the next it again
filled all her heart. So midsummer day came, and through the long,
sunny hours Mabel could not trust herself to the soft influences of her
favorite haunts, but in the intervals of unaccustomed labor she knelt
and wept and prayed beside her little bed.
As daylight faded, she threw herself, without undressing, upon her rude
pillow, and soon slept soundly.
As her eyelids fell, the old dream sunk down on her spirit more vivid,
more sweet and tempting, than ever before. She woke, and, gliding to
her little window, looked out. The night had not yet reached its noon,
although the round-orbed moon rode high in the heavens.
The stillness in the outer room was proof that Karl Gatz had, as
was often his wont, stayed all night in the forest, where lay his
employment.
Murmuring a fervent prayer, Mabel threw her mother’s bridal veil over
her head and glided out into the moonlight, looking like one of the
fair and gentle spirits of whom she loved to read.
Rapidly, yet with trembling steps, the maiden pursued her way to the
spot where, two roads crossing each other upon the mountain side, a
cross had been erected, that the devout might pause to pray and rest
upon the bench at its foot.
Arriving here, the trembling girl sunk upon her knees at the foot of
the cross, half resolved to fly while yet there was time, and half
reluctant to lose forever the fulfilment of that fair dream.
While still she lingered, her light form swayed by each contending
impulse as sways the bird upon the waving tree-top, her fate was
deciding the question, for suddenly the clatter of horses’ feet,
descending the mountain road, smote upon her ear, and, making a
convulsive effort to rise and fly, she sunk senseless at the foot of
the cross, and lay in the moonlight still and white as a wreath of
new-fallen snow.
When Mabel again opened her eyes a few moments after, she at first
thought that she was dreaming of the beloved and familiar scene, for
over her bent the earnest, handsome face of a young man, who, as her
eyes opened, launched into them the look of admiration, love, and
respect which had so often filled her heart.
As Mabel’s eyes fell, however, upon the horses standing beside her
and the old stone cross above her head, she remembered her position,
and recollected that the last sound which had met her ears was the
approaching clatter of horses’ feet.
With a blush deep as guilt, she sprang to her feet, and covering her
glowing face with her hands she murmured,
“Take pity, O King Tolv! Pardon and suffer me to leave you!”
She did not look up as she spoke to see the puzzled expression in
the face of the fairy king giving place, suddenly, to a look of
enlightenment and merry joy. He did not speak, and Mabel, her eyes
still cast down, turned to depart.
“Hold, maiden!” exclaimed a rich and sonorous voice, “where wouldst
thou go?”
“To my father’s hut, most noble king.”
“Thy name, child?”
“I am Mabel, the daughter of Karl Gatz the charcoal-burner; and my
father will, e’er now, be wondering at my absence.”
“Nay, maiden,” returned the stranger, gently taking her slender hand
in his, “thou art no longer his daughter, but the bride of King Tolv.
Didst thou not know, fairest, that when he meets beneath the midsummer
moon a maiden fair and pure as thou, carries her to his own home, to
reign for ever queen of him and his?”
“But heaven? My soul?” murmured the trembling girl.
“Thou shalt be wedded by a man of God (thou seest I can pronounce
that sacred name), and the benediction of heaven shall rest upon our
heads. Thou knowest, dear Mabel, the hermit who makes his dwelling in a
mountain cave near by?”
“Father Franz--I know and love him,” murmured Mabel in a half reassured
voice.
“Then, if he will bless our union, wilt thou be content, sweet one?”
asked the lover, in a voice sweet and low as the dream-voice of King
Tolv.
“Yes,” faltered the maiden, and in another moment found herself borne
swiftly upon the back of the goblin horse up the mountain road.