Read Ebook: Legends from River & Mountain by Strettell Alma Sylva Carmen Robinson T H Thomas Heath Illustrator

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Ebook has 927 lines and 78645 words, and 19 pages

The merriment was heightened by her constant mistaking of one brother for the other, and when Andrei gave himself out as having saved her life, Mirea would eagerly affirm that it was he who had warded off the bear's last embrace.

"It's a good thing," she would cry, "that I have to thank you both for my life, for else, indeed, I should never be able to recognise my preserver."

When the meal was over she begged for distaff and spindle, "for she wanted to show that her spinning was no hunter's tale." This was spoken with a sly glance at the brothers. And, in truth, the threads she spun were as fine and even as a spider's web, to the great amazement of Dame Roxana.

"I can embroider beautifully too," said the maiden. "My mother, who could do wonders at it, taught me that, for she hoped to tame me with such fair work. But it was all in vain, for I had always finished before she expected it, and was out and away again to the stables or the chase." She sighed a little. "But now the stud is sold; and, indeed, who could ride among these wretched mountains, where there is no room? Ah, there are the horses!" and she sprang from her seat. "I must go, or I shall not be home by nightfall; and surely grandfather must know how to chide if he be minded to, for he has such bushy eyebrows!" In a moment she had kissed the hand of Dame Roxana, greeted the brothers with a wave of her furry cap as she cast it upon her curly locks, and was away out of the hall and into her saddle like a whirlwind. But the brothers, too, had their horses ready, and were not to be hindered from bearing their young guest company to the outskirts of their lands. So, greeting Dame Roxana with laughing glances, they rode away, and she looked after them with grave eyes, though a smile was on her lips. Her heart was heavy, she knew not why, and she would fain have called her sons back to her.

It was with difficulty that Rolanda could be restrained from galloping up hill and down dale; only when her pity for the horses was stirred did she draw rein, saying with a sigh, "You call these walking chairs horses!"

As night was now falling, she begged the brothers to seek shelter beneath her grandfather's roof. The old man was sitting by the hearth when they entered, stroking the white beard that fell down far over his breast.

"And where has this wild creature been now?" he kindly asked.

"In a dreadful prison, because of having trespassed on another's hunting-ground! And here are my persecutors, whom I have brought with me to prove whether I speak truly."

The old man's gaze was full of kindliness as it rested upon the two youths, standing ready to do him homage. The evening meal was soon ready; nor was it less cheerful than that which they had shared at midday at Dame Roxana's table. At early dawn Andrei and Mirea rode hence again. They were startled, as they passed under the castle windows, at finding themselves pelted by a shower of blossoms. But as they glanced upwards a window was hastily closed, and they saw no one.

This was the first of many mutual visits, of many riding and hunting parties, and pleasant hours passed in merry chatter within doors. But Rolanda had her sadder moments also, when she was more entrancing than ever; then she would speak of her dead parents, and of how lonely she was in the wide world; for her grandfather could not live much longer, and then she would not know whither to turn.

"Oh, cruel words!" Andrei would exclaim. "Are we, then, not thy brothers? and is there no home for thee here?"

"Does our mother not love thee?" Mirea would add.

Then would Dame Roxana's heart quiver with pain once more; and yet the untutored child had become very dear to her.

Not long after this a clatter of hurrying horse's hoofs sounded up the hillside, and then upon the stones of the courtyard; it was Rolanda, riding bare-headed and with fluttering locks. As pale as death she burst in upon Dame Roxana. "For God's sake, let me take shelter with you! Grandfather is dead! I closed his eyes myself; I made him ready for the grave, and laid him there to rest, and felt no fear the while. But now all the kinsfolk have come flocking in, quarrelling over the inheritance, and giving me hard and cruel words because some of it is to be mine. And one bald-headed fellow would straightway have taken me to wife. Ah me! then I was affrighted. Such a wretch! But I told him I was called Urlanda, and was so bad that none would care to marry me. Nor will I have any husband. I will stay here with you until I am turned out."

It was a hard matter for Dame Roxana to understand this flow of incoherent words, and harder still for her to soothe the agitated girl. She folded her to her heart and stroked the disordered curls; then she led her to the little white bed-chamber, where she had often dwelt before, and told her this should be her home as long as there was a roof over the house.

Rolanda threw herself into her arms, kissed her hands, and promised to become as gentle and calm as a deep, calm lake.

Dame Roxana smiled. "Methinks," she replied, "that the calm and gentleness will come all in good time, when once thou art a wife."

"But I would never become a wife. I would always remain a maiden and free--free as a bird."

Dame Roxana sighed quite low, and listened for the voices of her sons, who had just come home and were asking for Rolanda, whose tumultuous arrival they had witnessed from afar.

A wondrous change took place in the behaviour of the brothers after Rolanda came to sojourn with them.

They had greeted her as their "little sister," but thereupon the young girl had suddenly grown shy and constrained. They lived out of doors more than ever now, only they no longer went together, but by separate ways; and Rolanda stayed much at home with the mother, and grew dreamy and absent, often shedding tears in secret. When she thought herself unnoticed, her quick glance would travel backwards and forwards between the brothers, as though she would fain discover something that yet remained dark to her. She often still confused the two together, yet now she no longer laughed at this, but gazed anxiously over at the mother. Dame Roxana watched with a heavy heart the dark cloud that seemed gathering over her house, and wept far oftener and more secretly than Rolanda, since the day that each of her sons had confessed to her, alone at the twilight hour, his great, undying, unconquerable love, and had asked--

"Dost think my brother loves her too, he is so changed? And to which of us will she give her heart?"

Dame Roxana offered many a taper in the little mountain chapel at Lespes, and hoped that this painfully made pilgrimage might incline Heaven's mercy towards them, and ward off a great disaster from her home.

Rolanda had been in a state of indescribable agitation ever since the time that Andrei and Mirea had, each unknown to the other, confessed their love to her. In vain the poor child questioned her heart; she loved them both too well--far too well--to make either wretched; nor could she separate the one from the other in her heart, any more than she could with her eyes. She kept silence towards Dame Roxana, for she could not bear to give her pain; but day by day she saw how the brothers no longer cherished each other, and even how sharp words sometimes passed between them, and that had never chanced in all their lives before.

At last Dame Roxana called the three to her side and spoke.

"I have watched the bitter struggle of your hearts too long. One of you must needs make a hard sacrifice, that the other may be happy."

"Yes," answered Mirea gloomily, "one of us must quit this world."

"For God's sake!" cried Rolanda, "you would not fight over me?"

"Nay," said Andrei, with a sad smile, "that were impossible. But one can go hence alone."

Then said Dame Roxana with uplifted hands, "O godless children! have I, then, borne you and brought you up so feeble that neither of you has the strength to bear his first sorrow? Rolanda, till to-morrow shalt thou have time for thought; by to-morrow we shall all have won strength and courage."

So they parted.

Andrei took a path that led through the forest to Lespes, and there he knelt in the little rock-hewn chapel and prayed: "O my God! Thou knowest my heart and my strength. Grant that I may be preserved from any sin towards myself, my mother, my brother, or the woman that I love. But if she give herself not to me, then turn me to stone, that I may feel pain no more." But, by another path, Mirea had come, too, to the little chapel, and had prayed the same prayer. They cast a sorrowful look at one another, and went home, each by himself; for each thought that he alone had offered up the sacrifice.

Dame Roxana appeared next morning as white as the veil which covered the first silver threads in her hair. The two brothers wore the look of men going to their death. Rolanda alone came among them with the glow of joy on her face. She was as though transfigured by an unearthly beauty, that seemed to increase her very height. With gentle dignity she spoke: "Come out yonder with me, my only dear ones; let the decision be given under God's open sky."

She glided out before them, hardly seeming to tread on earth; her hands were transparent as wax, and her eyes full of tears as she raised them to heaven. On the edge of a steep and giddy precipice she paused, and knelt before Dame Roxana.

"Give me thy blessing, mother," she said.

Dame Roxana laid a trembling hand upon the fair, curly head.

"And now," continued Rolanda in a clear voice, "now hearken to me. I love you both so well, so passing well--far more than myself or my own life--that I cannot give myself to either of you. But whichever brings me back from the abyss, his wife will I be." And ere one of them could stretch out a hand she had flown like a bird over the edge of the cliff, into the immeasurable depths below. But--oh wonder!--as she fell, she was changed into a foaming waterfall, whose spray floated in the air like a bridal veil. The two brothers would have cast themselves down after her, but they could not, for their feet turned to rock, their arms to rock, their hearts to stone, and so they towered aloft toward heaven. But the unhappy mother spread out her arms, crying, "And I alone must live! Hast Thou no pity, Heaven?" Then with arms outstretched she fell to earth, embracing her children. And, behold! where she lay she was changed into thick, soft moss, that grew and spread farther and farther, till the rocks were half shrouded in it. So they remain, and will remain for ever--the wild white bride, Urlatoare, the self-sacrificing sons, the Jipi, and their loving, tender mother.

THE SERPENT-ISLE

The great Latin poet Ovid was banished by the Emperor of Rome, no one knew why, to a desolate spot near the mouth of the Danube, on the shores of the Black Sea. That land has had many masters, and last of all the Roumanians, under King Charles, took it from the Turks. Where Ovid once wandered by that lonely shore there is now a grand hotel, where fashionable ladies and officers sit and listen to the music of the band; a large town, too, lies hard by, but in the poet's days only a small collection of miserable huts stood there, which men called the city of Tomi. On one side there was nothing to be seen, as far as the eye could reach, but sand and marshes, where at intervals a solitary tree stretched out its barren boughs over some evil-smelling mere; while on the other the endless sea, black and cheerless, rolled its monotonous waves towards the shore. Snowstorms, unknown to an inhabitant of Rome, swept over the land in winter; and in summer the sun beat down with scorching heat, setting the brain on fire and parching the tongue. Wells were scarce here, and Ovid learnt to prize a draught of pure water more than he had ever prized the choicest wines in his Roman cellars. The inhabitants of the country were few--dark-skinned men, whose language was strange to him. The only Romans were men whom he would in former days have thought unworthy of his slightest glance or word--thieves, galley-slaves, or fraudulent officials. Surely he could never have borne such a life, and must have died of misery, save for one only consolation. Every man must have some such, be it only a dog, a flower, or a spider. Ovid had a snake, a tiny, bewitching snake, that always lay curled about his neck or his arm, and in whose eyes he read the most wondrous tales. To his mind she was very likely the victim of some spell--a banished princess in a serpent's shape--for did he not write the "Metamorphoses"?--and he wove fancies about her by the hour together--of how fair she was in reality, and how unfortunate, his shining little Colubra, as he called her. And as his thoughts wandered thus, and he sat gazing out upon the sea, his eyes would close and he would sink into peaceful sleep. One day, as he thus slept, he dreamed a strange dream; his little snake had suddenly become possessed of human speech, and was whispering softly in his ear, "Come, come with me to the island at the mouth of the Danube--that which they call the Serpent-Isle. There thou shalt witness transformations indeed." He awoke with a start of surprise; but his little snake was lying quite quietly about his neck, as though she had never spoken a word. Again he fell asleep, and again Colubra whispered, "Come to the Serpent-Isle. Come; trust thy little friend." The poet awoke once more and gazed at the little creature, that still clung motionless to his throat, and met his eyes with a strange look of comprehension. He slept for the third time, and for the third time Colubra whispered, "Come with me; thou wilt not repent it." But this time he awoke before she had finished speaking, and she gave him so expressive a glance that Ovid thought to himself, "Why should I not go to the Serpent-Isle? It cannot be a more desolate spot than this is; and if the serpents devour me, then there is an end of my pain for ever."

So he manned a sail-boat with stout rowers, took provisions with him for several days, and set out across the sea. He reached the island, not without trouble, for the Black Sea has its evil moods, far worse than those of the ocean itself. The heart-sick poet was in danger of being punished for his desire to be quit of life, for it came near taking him at his word. But the boatmen were less weary of life than he, and fought bravely with the stormy elements, grumbling all the while at the enterprise.

"So much pain and danger for the sake of a desert island full of poisonous reptiles," they would mutter, casting dark glances upon the poet. Several times was he minded to put back, for fear of a mutiny among the crew, but each time a slight movement from the little creature about his throat admonished him to pause. Once or twice he was even aware of an impatient stroke from the slender tail, and the tiny head would be raised aloft, ever gazing in the same direction. "There is the island," muttered the sailors at last. "Where?" asked Ovid, for he could see nothing. "That strip of land there, at the river's mouth, that is the Isle of Serpents." As he saw the bank of sand covered with stunted bushes, the poet's heart sank, more on account of the men's discontent than because of the uninviting aspect of the place. To his mind the whole country was equally desolate, and whether it were somewhat more or less so was of little moment. But the little snake about his throat began fairly to dance for joy, and the lonely man felt glad of the pleasure he could give to the only creature he loved. As he stepped on shore he felt for her about his neck. What was his amazement at finding nothing there! His little Colubra was gone! Sore at heart, he thought to himself, "So that was why thou wert so fain to reach the island--only to forsake me! Thou art not a human being, yet thy deeds are even as theirs." And, lost in bitter thought, he waded onward through the deep sand, having promised the sailors to go and seek water for them. But the wine to be found on board was far more acceptable to the men, and soon they lay wrapped in a drunken sleep. Ovid went sorrowfully on his way. "Now have I lost my all," he sighed; and since no one saw him, he was not ashamed of the tears that filled his eyes.

Was it the gleam of those tears or the light of the sun that blinded him? Was a midsummer madness upon him? He passed his hand over his brow again and again and closed his eyes; but each time he reopened them his bewilderment increased. For there rose before him a magic garden, with shady trees, undulating lawns, and plashing fountains. A carpet of forget-me-nots and poppies spread out on every side, and the tender petals of the flowers seemed transfused with sunlight. Marble steps led down to the sea, and smooth paths wound in and out among hedges of rose and myrtle. Wondrous birds perched among the planes and chestnut-trees, and poured out a song that no nightingale could rival. Beneath the poet's feet, violets and mignonette gave forth well-nigh too unrestrained a perfume; and sprays of lilac and jessamine caressed his brow. The lonely exile fancied himself transported to one of the fairest gardens of Rome, and his heart beat high with joy, till it seemed ready to burst in his bosom. But what was his delight when he suddenly became aware of a crowd of beautiful maidens, gliding about among the trees and over the smooth turf chasing and embracing one another in the wildest glee, swinging upon the thick, tangled boughs of the hedge-roses, and tripping down the marble stairs to the sea, to bathe, and splash each other with the clear water. He saw, too, Roman matrons clad in long robes and snowy veils, whose faces seemed familiar, and men wearing the toga and mantle, who paced to and fro, as though in eager discussion over the topics of the day, just as of old in the Roman Forum. But before he could draw near them, a lovely maiden hastened up to him with a gesture of familiar greeting and took his hand, saying, "I warrant thou dost not know me in this shape; yet I am thy little Colubra! Come with me and I will show thee all." And she drew him away, through the undulating crowd of people, who were all speaking Latin and Greek, so that he could understand their every word. He seemed to recognise them too, and would fain have accosted many a one by name, for they appeared to him to be courtiers of the Emperor, whom he had been wont to see every day. But his little guide clung to his hand with slender, caressing fingers and led him on. He heard around him the names of Greek sculptors or philosophers and Roman statesmen; and though these names might once have been indifferent to him, they now made his heart leap and brought the moisture to his eyes, only because it was so sweet to hear the familiar sounds once more. Several persons approached him with an expression of delighted surprise, but Colubra motioned them all aside with an impatient stamp of her little foot, and if they did not heed, her delicate eyebrows would contract and her dark eyes flash--those eyes which were the only reminder of her serpent nature. Once, however, it is true that she thrust the tip of her rosy tongue between her lips--a little tongue as sharp as though it could prick.

There were very few children to be seen in the magic garden, and those few, the poet noticed, crept sadly about, holding one another by the hand, and gazing with wide-open eyes at this gay, merry world, which seemed quite strange to them. No one spoke to them or took any notice of them, for here each seemed to think of nothing but his own pleasure. Ovid would have given them a kind word, but Colubra drew him past them also, and led him to an arbour hidden among the thick bushes, hard by a bubbling spring. There she fed him with the most luscious fruits, and making a cup out of a broad leaf, she fetched a draught of water for him. Then, swinging herself up on one bough and clasping her white arms round another, she began in triumphant tones: "Now, what dost think of thy little friend?"

"I think thou art lulling me with a fa?ry dream."

"Nay, nay, thou art not dreaming! Thou art on the Serpent-Isle, whither all men are banished who have lied during their lifetime. Once in every thousand years the island grows green, and we can take our own shapes again, and wander in this magic garden. But no living man may look upon us save a poet, and he must be a sorrow-stricken creature; nor must he speak with any one, for should he utter the smallest lie he would be changed into a serpent for a thousand years. And it will no longer be fair here to-morrow."

"But I can surely speak without lying?"

"Yea, with thy little Colubra, or on the mainland yonder, in Tomi, where thou dost need to ask for naught but bread, water, and wood, and where it avails thee nothing to be gracious or witty, since none would understand thee; but amid this company thou wouldst be tempted to speak as they do, and then I would not stand warranty for thee!"

"But I see statesmen here, high officials, artists and philosophers, matrons who are held in esteem, and even little children."

With a pitying smile she replied, "All these spoke untruths while they lived; and because even in the under-world they and their false tongues are dreaded, they have been sent here on to this island, where they can do no harm, or at least only hiss, and strangle one another. It is saddest of all for the children, because they are such strangers here, and belong to no one, neither are they remembered by any earthly friends. Even this festive day is sad for them, since it makes them feel lonelier than ever. This evening the old boatman, Charon, will sail to the shore of the island, and those who have spoken nothing but the truth during the last thousand years he will suffer to enter his boat, and to journey with him to the under-world. But thou must not await that moment, for then everything will be changed. I, truly, am privileged, for I may stay with thee, and thou art safe on the island, because thou art doing penance enough in thy lifetime."

"But thou--what hast thou done?" asked the poet.

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