Chapter 49

"Now we will build a palace," said the Stranger Child. "Help me to get the stones together." And the Stranger stooped down and began choosing stones of pretty colours. Felix and Christlieb helped, and the Stranger Child knew so well how to set the stones up on one another that soon there arose tall columns, shining in the sun like polished metal, while an aerial golden roof vaulted itself over them at the top. Then the Stranger Child kissed the flowers which were peeping from the ground; when, with sweet whisperings, they shot up higher, and, embracing each other lovingly, formed sweet-scented arcades and covered walks, in which the children danced about, full of delight and gladness. The Stranger Child clapped hands; and then the golden roof of the palace, which was formed of insects' golden wings vaulted together, went asunder with a hum, and the pillars melted away into a plashing silver stream, on whose banks the varied flowers took up their stations, and peered inquiringly into its ripples, or, moving their heads from side to side, listened to its baby pattering. Then the Stranger Child plucked blades of grass, and gathered little twigs from trees, strewing them down before Felix and Christlieb. But those blades of grass presently turned into the prettiest little dolls ever seen; and the twigs became delicious little huntsmen. The dolls danced round Christlieb; let her take them up in her lap, and whispered, in delicate little voices, "Be kind to us!--love us, dearest Christlieb!" The hunters shouted, "Halloa! halloa! the hunt's up!" and blew their horns, and bustled about. Then hares came darting out of the bushes, with dogs after them, and the hunters banging about. This was delightful.

Then all disappeared again. Christlieb and Felix cried, "What has become of the dolls? where are the hunters?" The Stranger Child said, "Oh, they are all at your disposal; they are close by you at any moment when you want them. But hadn't you rather come on through the wood a little now?" "Oh, yes! yes!" cried Felix and Christlieb. The Stranger Child took hold of their hands, crying, "Come; come!"

And with that they went off. But it could not be called "running," really, for the children floated along, lightly and easily, through amongst the trees, whilst all the bird's went fluttering along beside them, singing and warbling in the blithest fashion. All of a sudden up they soared, far into the sky. "Good morning, children! Good morning, Fritz, my crony!" cried the stork in the by-going.

"Don't hurt me! don't hurt me!" screamed the hawk. "I'm not going to touch your pigeons." And he swept away as hard as his long wings would carry him, alarmed at the children. Felix shouted with delight, but Christlieb was frightened. "Oh, my breath's going!" she cried; "I shall tumble!" And just at that moment the Stranger Child let them all three down to the ground again, and said: "Now I shall sing you the Forest-Song, as a good-bye for to-day. I shall come again to-morrow." Then the Child took out a little horn, of which the golden windings looked almost as if made of wreaths of flowers, and began to sound it so beautifully that the whole wood echoed wondrously with the lovely music of it, whilst the nightingales (which had come up fluttering as if in answer to the horn's summons, and were sitting on the branches, as close as they could to the children) sang their sweetest songs. But all at once the music grew fainter and fainter, till nothing of it remained but a soft whisper, which seemed to come from the thicket into which the Stranger Child had disappeared. "To-morrow!--to-morrow I come again!" the children could just hear, as if from an immense distance. They could not give themselves any explanation of their feelings, for never, never had they known such happiness and enjoyment before in their lives.

"And, oh, I wish it were to-morrow now!" they both cried, as they hastened home as hard as they could, to tell their parents all that had happened to them.

WHAT BARON VON BRAKEL AND HIS LADY SAID, AND WHAT HAPPENED FURTHER.

"I could almost fancy the children had dreamt all this," the Baron said to his wife, when Felix and Christlieb, full of the Stranger Child, could not cease from talking of all that had happened--the delightsomeness of their new friend, the exquisite music, the wonderful events generally--"but then," said the Baron, "when I remember that they could not both have dreamt just the same things at the same time, really, when all's said and done, I cannot get to the bottom of it all."

"Don't trouble your head about it, dear," said Frau von Brakel. "My idea is that this Stranger Child was nobody but the schoolmaster's boy, Gottlieb, from the village. It must have been he that ran over, and put all this nonsense in the children's heads. We must take care that he is not allowed to do it any more."

The Baron, was by no means of his wife's opinion; and, with the view of getting better at the rights and wrongs of the affair, the children were brought in and made to describe minutely what the child was like; how it was dressed, and so forth. With respect to its appearance, both Felix and Christlieb agreed that its face was fair as the lilies; that it had cheeks like roses, cherry lips, bright blue eyes, locks of golden hair, and that it was more beautiful altogether than words could tell. As regarded its dress, all they knew was that it certainly had not a blue-striped jacket and trousers, or a black leather cap, such as the schoolmaster's Gottlieb wore. On the other hand, all they said of its dress sounded utterly fabulous and absurd. For Christlieb said its dress was wondrous beautiful, shining and gleaming, as if made of the petals of roses; whilst Felix maintained that it was sparkling golden green, like spring-leaves in the sunshine. Felix further said that the child could not possibly have any connection with such a person as a school master, because it was too deeply acquainted with sportsmanship and woodcraft, and must consequently belong to some very home and head-quarters of forest lore, and was going to be the grandest sportsman ever heard of. "Oh, Felix!" Christlieb broke in, "how can you say that dear little girl could ever be a sportsman? She may, perhaps, know a good deal about that too, but I'm sure she knows a great deal more about house-management; or how should she have dressed those dolls for me so beautifully, and made such delightful dishes?" Thus Felix thought the Stranger Child was a boy, and Christlieb, a girl; and those contradictory opinions could not be reconciled.

Fran von Brakel thought it was a pity to go into nonsense of this kind with children; but the Baron thought differently, and said: "I should only have to follow the children into the woods, to find out what wondrous sort of creature this is that comes to play with them; but I can't help feeling that if I did I should spoil what is for them a great pleasure; and for that reason I don't want to do it."

Next day, when Felix and Christlieb went off to the wood at the usual time, they found the Stranger Child waiting for them; and, if their play had been glorious on the former day, this day the Stranger Child did the most miraculous things imaginable, so that Felix and Christlieb shouted for rapture over and over again. It was delicious and most enjoyable that, during their play, the Stranger Child talked so prettily and comprehendingly with the trees, the bushes, the flowers, and the brook which ran through the wood, and they all answered so understandably that Felix and Christlieb knew everything that they said.

The Stranger Child said to the alder-thicket, "What is it that you black-looking folks are muttering and whispering to each other again?" and the branches took to shaking more forcibly, and they laughed and whispered "Ha, ha, ha! we are delighting ourselves over the charming things that friend Morning-breeze was saying to us when he came rustling over from the blue hills, in advance of the sunbeams. He brought us thousands of greetings and kisses from the Golden Queen; and plenty of wing-waftings, full of the sweetest perfume."

"Oh, silence!" the flowers broke in, interrupting the talk of the branches. "Hold your tongues on the score of that flatterer, who is so vain about the perfumes which his false caresses rob us of. Never mind the thickets, children; let them lisp and whisper; look at us--listen to us. We love you so, and we dress ourselves out, day by day, in the loveliest colours merely to give you pleasure."

"And do we not love _you_, you beautiful flowers?" said the Stranger Child. But Christlieb knelt down on the ground, and stretched out her arms, as if she would take all the beautiful flowers to her heart, crying, "Ah, I love you all, every one of you!" Felix cried, "I love you all, too, flowers, in your bright dresses. Still I dote upon green, and the woods, and the trees. The woods have to take care of you, and shelter you, bonny little things that you are."

Then came a sighing out of the tall, dark fir-trees; and they said, "That is very true, you clever boy; and you are not to be afraid of us, when our cousin, the storm, comes rushing at us, and we have to hold a rather strenuous bit of argument with that rough customer."

"All right," said Felix. "Groan, and sigh, and snarl as much as you like, you green giants that you are; _then_ is when the real woodsman's heart begins to rejoice."

"You are quite right there," the forest brook plashed and rustled. "But what is the good of always hunting--always rushing in storm and turmoil? Come, and sit down nicely among the moss, and listen to me. I come from far-away places, out of a deep, dark, rocky cleft. I have delightful tales to tell you; and always something new, wave after wave, for ever and ever. And I will show you the loveliest pictures, if you will but look properly into this clear mirror of mine. Vaporous blue of the sky--golden clouds--bushes, flowers and trees, and your very selves, you beautiful children, I draw lovingly into the depths of my bosom."

"Felix and Christlieb," said the Stranger Child, looking round with wondrous blissfulness, "only listen how they all love us. But the redness of the evening is rising behind the hills, and the nightingale is calling me home."

"Oh, but let us just fly a little, as we did yesterday," Felix prayed.

"Yes," said Christlieb, "but not quite so high. It makes my head so giddy."

Then the Stranger Child took them by the hands again, and they went soaring up into the golden purple of the evening sky, while the birds crowded and sang round them. That was a shouting and a jubilating! In the shining clouds Felix saw, as if in wavering flame, beautiful castles all of rubies and other precious stones. "Look! look! Christlieb!" he cried, full of rapture, "look at all those splendid palaces! Let us fly along as fast as we can, and we shall get to them." Christlieb saw the castles too, and forgot her fear, as she was not looking down, this time, but up before her.

"Those are my beloved air-castles," the Stranger Child said. "But I don't think we shall get any further to-day.".

Felix and Christlieb seemed to be in a dream, and could not make out at all how they came to find themselves, presently, with their father and mother.

CONCERNING THE STRANGER CHILD'S HOME.

In the most beautiful part of the wood beside the brook, between whispering bushes, the Stranger Child had set up a most glorious tent, made of tall, slender lilies, glowing roses, and tulips of every hue; and beneath this tent Felix and Christlieb were sitting with the Stranger Child, listening to the forest-brook as it went on whispering the strangest things imaginable.

"I'll tell you, darling boy," Felix said, "I can't properly understand all that he, there, is saying; but I somehow feel that _you_ could tell me, clearly and distinctly, what it is that he goes on murmuring. But most of all I should like you to tell me where it is that you come from, and where it is that you go away to, so fast, so fast, that we never can make out how you do it."

"Do you know, sweetest girl," said Christlieb, "our mother thinks you are the schoolmaster's boy, Gottlieb."

"Hold your tongue, stupid thing!" Felix cried. "Mother has never seen this darling boy, or she wouldn't have talked about the schoolmaster's Gottlieb. But come now, tell me where it is that you live, dear boy; fur we want to go and see you at your home in the winter time, when it storms and snows, and nobody can trace a track in the woods."

"Yes, yes!" said Christlieb. "Tell us, like a darling, where your home is; and all about your father and mother, and more than all, what your own name is."

The Stranger Child looked very thoughtfully at the sky, almost sorrowfully, and gave a deep sigh. Then, after some moments of silence, the Stranger Child said, "Ah, my dears, why must you ask about my home? Is it not enough for you that I come every day and play with you? I might tell you that my home lies behind those distant hills, which are like dim, jagged clouds. But though you were to travel day after day, for ever and ever, till you were standing on those hills, you would always see other, and other ranges of hills, further and further away, and my home would still be beyond them; and even if you reached them, you would still see others further away, and would have to go to them, and you would never come to where my home is."

"Ah me!" sighed Christlieb. "Then you must live hundreds and hundreds of miles away from us. It is only on a sort of visit that you are here?"

"Christlieb, darling," the Stranger Child said; "whenever you long for me with all your heart, I am with you immediately, bringing you all those plays and wonders from my home with me; and is not that quite as good as if we were in my home together, playing there?"

"Not at all," Felix said; "for I believe that your home is some most glorious place, full of all sorts of delightful things which you bring--some of them--here with you. I don't care how hard you may say the road is to your home, I mean to set out upon it this minute. To work one's way through forests--by difficult tracks--to climb mountains, and wade rivers, and break through all sorts of thickets, and clamber over rugged rocks--all that is a woodsman's proper business, and I'm going to do it."

"And so you shall!" said the Stranger Child, smiling pleasantly; "for when you put it all so clearly before you, and make up your mind to it, it is as good as done. The land where I live is, in truth, so beautiful and glorious that I can give you no description of it. It is my mother who reigns over that country--all glory and loveliness--as queen."

"Ah, you are a prince!" "Ah, then, you are a princess! the two children cried together, amazed, and almost terrified.

"I am, certainly," the Stranger Child replied.

"Then you live in a beautiful palace?" Felix cried.

"Yes," said the Stranger Child. "My mother's palace is far more beautiful than those glittering castles which you saw in the evening clouds; for the gleaming pillars of her palace are all of the purest crystal, and they soar, slender and tall, into the blue of heaven; and upon them there rests a great, wide canopy; beneath that canopy sail the shining clouds, hither and thither, on golden wings, and the red of the evening and the morning rises and falls, and the sparkling stars dance in singing circles. Dearest playmates, you have heard of the fairies, who can bring about the most glorious wonders, as mortal men cannot; now, my mother is one of the most powerful fairies of all. All that lives and moves on earth she holds embraced to her heart in the purest and truest love; although, to her inward pain, many human beings will not allow themselves to come to any knowledge of her. But my mother loves children most of all; and thence it is that the festivals which she holds in her kingdom for children are the most splendid and glorious of all. It is then that beautiful spirits belonging to my mother's kingdom, and to her royal palace, fly deftly through the sky, weaving and combining a shining rainbow, from one end of her palace to another, gleaming in the most brilliant dyes. Under those rainbows they build my mother's diamond throne, all of nothing but diamonds--diamonds which are, in appearance and in perfume, like lilies, roses, and carnations; and when my mother takes her place on her throne, the spirits play on their golden harps and their crystal cymbals, and to those instruments the court singers of her court sing with voices so marvellous, that one could die of rapture to hear them. Now, those singers are beautiful birds, bigger even than eagles, with feathers all purple-red, such as you have never seen the like of. And as soon as their music begins, everything in the palace, the woods, and the gardens moves and sings; and all around there are thousands of beautiful children in charming dresses, shouting and delighting. They chase each other amongst the bushes, and throw flowers at each other in play; they climb trees, where the winds swing them and rock them; they gather gold-glittering fruit, which tastes as nothing on earth does; and they play with tame deer and other charming creatures which come bounding up to them from among the trees; then they run up and down the rainbows, or they ride on the golden pheasants, which fly up among the gleaming clouds with them on their backs."

"How delightful that must be!" Christlieb and Felix cried with rapture. "Oh, take us with you to your home! We want to stay there always!"

But the Stranger Child said, "I cannot take you with me to my home; it is too far away. You would have to be able to fly as far and as strongly as I can myself."

Felix and Christlieb were very sorry, and cast their eyes sadly down to the ground.

THE WICKED MINISTER AT THE FAIRY QUEEN'S COURT.

"And then," the Stranger Child continued, "you might not be as happy as you expect at my mother's court. Indeed, it might be a misfortune for you to go there. There are many children who cannot bear the singing of those purple-red birds, glorious as it is: it breaks their hearts, and they are obliged to die immediately. Others, who are too pert and adventurous in running up and down the rainbows, slip, and fall; and there are many who are so stupid and awkward, that they hurt the gold pheasants when they are riding on them. Then those birds, though they are good-tempered and kind-hearted, take this amiss, and they tear those children's breasts open with their sharp beaks, so that they fall down from the clouds bleeding. My mother is very very sorry when children come to misfortune in those ways, although it is all their own fault when they do. She would be only too happy if all the children in the world could enjoy the pleasures of her court and kingdom. But, although there are plenty who can fly strongly enough and far enough, they are often either too forward, or too timid, and cause her only sorrow and pain; and that is why she allows me to fly away from my home, and take to nice children all sorts of delightful playthings, as I have done to you."

"Ah," cried Christlieb, "I am sure I could never do anything to hurt those beautiful birds! But to run up and down a rainbow, that I am certain I never could. I shouldn't like that."

"Now that would be just what I should delight in," Felix said; "and that is the very reason why I want to go and see your mother, the queen. Couldn't you bring one of those rainbows here with you?"

"No," the Stranger Child said, "I could not do that. And I must tell you that I have only been able to come to you by stealing away from home. Once on a time, I was quite safe every where, just as if I were at home, and my mother's beautiful kingdom seemed to extend all over the world; but now that a bitter enemy of hers, whom she has banished from her kingdom, is going raging about everywhere, I cannot be safe from being watched, pursued, and molested."

"Well," Felix cried, jumping up, and shieing the thorn-stick which he was cutting into the air, "I should like to come across the fellow who would do anything to harm you! He would have to do with me in the first place; and then I should send for father, and he would have him taken up and put in the tower."

"Ah," the Stranger Child said, "powerless as my bitter enemy is to harm me when I am at home, he is terribly dangerous when I am not there, and neither sticks nor prisons can protect me from him!"

"What sort of a nasty creature is it, then," Christlieb inquired, "that can do you so much harm?"

"I have told you that my mother is a mighty queen," the Stranger Child said; "and you know that queens, like kings, have courts and ministers belonging to them."

"Yes, yes," said Felix. "My own uncle, the count, is one of those ministers, and wears a star on his breast. Do your mother's ministers wear stars like him?"