The soul looked up. She had been so long in that dismal tomb, and now she found herself all at once in G.o.d"s gloriously beautiful creation, though only for a short time, and as a prisoner! She forgot her past sorrow, and thought not of the future; she rejoiced in the delightful present, and looked up at the sun, which in noontide splendour stood in the blue canopy of heaven, sending its rays down on the green meadow, their brilliance softened by the crystal flood.
Then she looked around. Before her stood the splendid palace, with its glittering walls and transparent pillars, and round her swam the prettiest little fishes as fearlessly as if the little soul had been an acquaintance for years.
A lovely young girl came out of the shining building, and asked her to play with her.
The old water-sprite frowned in displeasure at his daughter"s friendliness, but the little elf did not look at him, and the child"s soul thought, "I must go back to prison at any rate, and he cannot do anything worse to me!" So she took the friendly fairy"s hand, and rose with her through the silvery flood, chasing the fishes and trying to grasp the sunbeams with her little transparent hand. Then she wound garlands of reeds, and let them rise to the top of the water, after she had pressed sweet kisses on them, and laden them with loving messages for her dear ones up above.
As she stood watching them with tearful longing as they rose nearer and nearer to her home, she heard herself called once more. The water-sprite stood behind her, seized her hand, and led her back to the bell. She turned for a last look at the clear blue sky; the next moment she was back in her dark and narrow prison.
Hours and days pa.s.sed slowly by. The time seemed endless to the poor little soul. Her only amus.e.m.e.nt and her only pleasure was to go over again and again that one hour of freedom and happiness.
One day, just as she was doing this, there was a noise outside the bell; the ray of light pierced her prison again, and before the old water-sprite had time to give her permission the little prisoner slipped through, spread out her delicate transparent arms towards the light of heaven, and with a cry of joy greeted the fair, free world.
Her playfellow was standing waiting for her, and together they left the bell with joyous haste, slipped through the waving gra.s.s, and danced on the sunbeams with the dragon-flies and fishes.
"Oh!" said the little soul sadly, "why does this delightful hour come so seldom. Why may I not get out every day?"
"I do not know," answered the water-fairy; "but it is only on Sat.u.r.day, between twelve and one o"clock, that the spirits are allowed to leave their prison down here and play in the sunlight."
"But it is so lonely and dark in the bell," said the child"s soul dolefully.
The little nymph looked at her compa.s.sionately. Both had lost all pleasure in their joyous play, and arm-in-arm they looked up through the water at the clouds which were slowly sailing past.
"There comes your father to fetch me," said the little girl"s soul, shuddering. "Oh! do come once, just once, every day to my prison; knock against the bell, and when the sound pierces through my metal walls I shall know that I am not quite alone in the world. Will you?"
A thought struck the young water-sprite; she opened her mouth to tell it to her playmate, but just then her father came up, and she had to be silent. She could only nod kindly at the poor little prisoner, whom the old water-sprite led roughly away to the dismal prison, whose narrow walls soon shut her out from the cheerful daylight.
It was night. Souls cannot sleep, but they may have waking dreams.
Thus the child"s spirit was led back in imagination to her home. She saw herself once more in the ship on which she had been born, and fancied herself sitting beside her mother, listening to pleasant stories told by the dear gentle voice, and as she dreamed she forgot the impa.s.sable gulf which separated her from the living ones above the stream.
Then the sound of a bell fell gently on her ear. She had been so absorbed in her dreams that she started in alarm at the unexpected sound, and it was a moment or two before she could collect her thoughts to think. Then she remembered her request, of which this was evidently the fulfilment, so she struck softly against the inside of the bell as a sign that she had heard her friend"s greeting.
Then the edge of her prison was gently lifted, and with a cry of joy she slipped out into the water. There stood the little water-sprite.
"Will you go up with me to the surface of the stream?" asked she.
"Would you like to float up and down on my lily-raft?"
"Indeed I should," answered the little soul. "What do I want but freedom, air, and light? Oh yes, take me with you!"
The lovely nymph took the child"s hand, and a little shining wave bore them upwards as on the wings of a swan.
Now they are standing on the surface of the water. The little water-sprite beckoned, and from far and near swam the water-lilies and anemones to make a boat of flowers for their young mistress and her dear little pale companion.
They glided down the stream. Oh, how beautiful it was!
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WATER-ELF AND THE LITTLE SOUL ON THE RAFT OF WATER-LILIES.]
On they moved past lofty mountains crowned by stately castles--past villages lying in peaceful slumber, whose churches mirrored their graceful spires in the clear flood below--past the willows on the banks, that nodded their drowsy heads as the night-wind played through their branches. And over all these lovely scenes the moon shed her magic light, and the waves sang softly their everlasting song.
Then the little water-elf took her golden harp, and sent her clear voice floating through the stillness of the night. She sang of what was stirring her own heart and filling the child"s soul with sorrow--of their longing for happiness on earth or in heaven, which was so far, so far from them both. The sweet sounds floated through the silent night, till the waves checked their song, and the slumbering trees awoke to listen to the enthralling strains.
"Oh!" said the child"s soul at length, "why cannot I rise into the kingdom of light? why must I linger far away from my heavenly home, and pine down below in that dark dungeon?"
"Because," answered the lovely water-elf kindly, "my father has sentenced you to the bell, and this spell holds you bound, and always forces you to return to darkness and captivity."
"Can this sentence, this spell never be broken?" asked the little soul.
"Yes, if a human being descends and overthrows the bell the charm will be broken, and you may rise to heaven."
"Ah! would that that time would come!" said the little one sorrowfully. "The only ones whose love would be strong enough to make them take the risk are far away." And she looked sadly into the distance.
When the moonlight began to pale, and the stars were dying out one by one, the friends left their lily-raft, plunged into the flood, and the little soul went back reluctantly to her dark prison.
So the days went by. Alone, alone in the dark bell, and once a-week one short hour of freedom and sunlight--that was the lot of the little soul, with now and then a sail on the lily-raft by the side of the water-elf. Unspeakably delightful were these hours, but the longing for their return made the dark days seem all the longer to the poor little prisoner.
And this pleasure was but rare. The little water-sprite had to be very prudent, for her cruel father might have made her pay for her nightly journeys with her life, so displeasing to him was her hankering after the human world, and her mild and friendly disposition.
Many a night the old water-fairy rose himself to the surface, many a time did his sons sit among the willows; and often the water-man could not sleep, and went restlessly through the rooms of his palace to see that everything was right.
It was only on nights when all in the crystal castle were fast asleep, and no discovery was to be feared, that the young nymph hastened to the little soul, opened her prison, by raising the edge of the bell, and rose with her for a sail in the lily-boat.
Years pa.s.sed by, and with them hope died out from the little girl"s soul; nothing remained to her but memory and longing. In the world above the water, what she had last seen young and fresh had grown gradually old. The playmates of her childhood had been married long ago, and some of them had entered on their eternal rest. Her father had never recovered the shock of that unhappy day, and the secret thought that he had excited the water-fairy"s wrath by his defiant words, and had thus caused his dear child"s death, gnawed at his life, and brought him to an untimely grave. Her mother alone was left. Her hair had grown white, not so much through age as through sorrow. Once, when in her solitude a deep longing seized her to see once more the place where her child had died, she entrusted the guidance of the boat to her brother"s son, who was one day to fall heir to all her little possessions, and told him to take her to her darling"s grave.
The boat reached its destination the night before Easter. Here, opposite the clump of willows, which had grown even denser than when she saw them last, and above which the spire of the village church raised its graceful form, the boat had stopped on that unhappy day so many years ago. Here, therefore, was the anchor lowered, and the boatman went to rest. But the mother, when she found herself so near the fatal spot, could not sleep. The most dreadful hour of her life, when she stood watching for the coming of her merry child, and saw instead but her pale, cold corpse, came again before her soul, and she pa.s.sed the night in bitter weeping.
When the first gleam of daylight played on the stream, she rose and went on deck. All the stars had gone to rest except the morning star, and even its radiance grew gradually fainter; for the young day began to don his golden festive robe. The poor mother leaned over the edge of the boat, and looked down into the water. The sky was one glow of purple, and on the stream lay the roses of the dawn. The Easter sun rose slowly above the horizon, and as its first beam struck the river a sound of solemn melancholy came upwards from its depths.
"What was that?" said the woman, leaning forward to listen.
A second chime broke the stillness of the morning, and soon the bell began to ring in tones of wondrous richness from the bed of the river.
With the chimes, and borne on the sunbeams, which cheerfully plunged into the stream, and rose again radiant from the crystal flood, came a sweet, familiar voice to thrill the heart of the listening mother.
"Jesus lives, and I in Him: Where is thy victory, O grave?
Jesus lives to set me free, My captive soul His love will save; Jesus will lead me to the light, This the sure hope that cheers my night."
So sang her child"s clear voice in the words of the hymn which she herself had once taught her, and which the little one used to sing on Easter morning. The child"s soul was still imprisoned, but now, on the day of Christ"s resurrection, when the bell began to ring as the first sunbeam touched it, she felt a strange, sweet joy, that made her feel inclined to join her voice with its mellow chimes.
On the great Christian festivals all bells that have sunk in rivers or lakes awake to join in the hymn of all creation, and when, among the rest, the little girl"s bell began to sound, her grief and longing generally awoke afresh. But to-day with the first note her sadness suddenly vanished, and a strange joy sprang up in her heart. She folded her delicate hands, and sang the verse of her childhood. But the metal did not send the sound back to her as on other days; it pierced through the walls, and floated through the waves up to the ear and heart of her sorrowing mother.
Yes, it was her child"s voice; every drop of blood, every pulse-beat of her trembling body told her that. She had indeed found her little daughter"s corpse; but her soul must have remained in the power of the cruel water-sprite, and had been pining all these years down in the stream, shut out from light and liberty and love. All the stories that she had heard of the imprisonment of souls, and which she had always laughed at as childish tales, came into her mind, and filled her with unspeakable anguish. Her captivity must be somehow connected with the bells, or else the chimes would not have mingled as they did with the hymn. She leaned over the edge of the boat, and looked down into the water.
There was a sudden splashing and foaming in the river, and the old water-sprite slowly rose, parted the waves, and stood before the terrified woman. It was the same powerful form, the erect carriage, the long grey-green beard, for the hand of time pa.s.ses more gently over spirits than over men. The woman recognised him at the first glance, for she had seen him from her cabin window as he vented his wrath on her husband, though she herself was out of sight. She knew that the murderer of her child stood before her, but the water-sprite did not suspect that this was the mother of his little prisoner.
"My wife is ill," he said gloomily. "The chimes in the water always make her ill, but there must have been some special power in them to-day, for she is writhing in agony, and she begged me to bring her a woman of the human race, to lay her warm hand on her aching head, and restore her to health. Come with me," he concluded sullenly; "it is not for nothing that I ask this."
The woman could have shouted with joy. Her enemy himself was about to lead her to the place where all her affections were centered; it seemed to her a sign from heaven, and she went fearlessly to the edge of the boat, and prepared to plunge into the stream.
"Not so," growled the water-sprite: "thou couldst not reach the bottom alive--a thing which would have pleased me well enough at any other time, but to-day it would not suit my purpose. Take this ring!"