Part 5

“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?”