Part 4

“Hurt me as you please,” cried Nanina, “and I shan’t mind. If only I can get back my sheep I will bear any pain.” So she knelt beneath the tree, and dug a deep hole in the ground among its roots, and then she placed her feet among the loose earth, and she felt something moving near them which tightened around and drew them far down into the ground, and held them as if they were bound with cords. She saw the lights in the windows of the palace, and the door opened. “Hold me, hold me fast,” she cried, “for when I hear the music I shall begin to dance.” The tree said nothing, but she felt its roots tightening so that she could not move. The door of the palace opened as before, and the beautiful shepherd, followed by his goats and her sheep, came out, and she heard once more the sound of the wonderful pipe, and he danced straight up to the tree beneath which she stood, and held out his hand to her. Nanina felt as if her feet were beginning to move under the earth, but the roots of the tree held them so firmly that she could not stir one inch. Still the shepherd danced before her, and as she saw him springing in front, with the flocks behind him following him, she grew quite wild to dance, and tried her hardest to break her feet free from the roots which held them, but in vain, though she almost screamed with the pain they cost her. For hours the shepherd danced in front of her, till, as before, the pipe sounded forth one long note, and he disappeared, but this time not all the flock went with him, for beside her was left one of her own little lambs, and when she saw it she cried for joy. She felt the roots releasing their hold of her feet, and she drew them out of the earth, and they were all blue and bruised where they had been held. She drove home the lamb and fastened it into the sheep-pen, but her feet were so stiff and swelled that she limped as she walked. Next night she went back to the beech tree, and again slipped her feet into its roots, and felt them twist around them; but this time the poor feet were so sore that she cried when they touched them. Again the fairy appeared, and again she heard the pipe, and her longing to dance was worse than ever, but the roots clutched her and would not let her stir. When the pipe ceased and the fairy disappeared, another of her lambs was left with her, and she drove it home as she had done the first, but she had to go very slowly on account of her crushed feet.

The same thing happened the next night and the next, till all the flock had returned save one, and Nanina’s feet were so bad that she could scarcely hobble, for they were crushed and bleeding, and she wondered whether she would walk lame all the days of her life.

On the last evening she limped down to the tree almost crying with pain. When she sat down by its trunk she heard the soft sighing voice saying, “Never mind, Nanina; to-night is the last, and though it will hurt you the most, it will soon be past.” So she slipped her feet into the earth once more, though she shrank as they touched it, and directly the sun had set, the lights appeared in the palace windows, and out came the shepherd with all his black goats and her one white sheep following him. He looked more beautiful than ever, for he had a crown set with jewels, and was dressed in scarlet and gold, but when the pipe began to play it was not merry dance-music it made, but long sad notes, like a funeral march; yet Nanina’s feet would have moved in spite of herself, and she would have marched in time to them, had not the roots tightened like cords and held her down. Tears of pain ran down her cheeks, and she sobbed, and instead of the joyous words what the music said was—

“Join us, Nanina, dance again, One last dance will ease your pain.”

Presently the music grew quicker, and her longing to move with it grew stronger. She swayed herself about, and cried and screamed as the fairy and flock danced, now solemnly and slowly, now joyously and wildly. Just when she felt that she could bear it no longer there came one long low note on the pipe, and with a mighty crash like thunder the shepherd and the goats disappeared, and not only had they gone, but the walls of the old palace had fallen, and nothing was left of it but a heap of stones. Beside her on the grass was the last of her lost sheep. “Good-bye, Nanina,” said the voice from the beech tree; “now you have all your flock again,” and she felt the roots loosen round her feet, but when she looked at them she found that her legs were wounded and bleeding, where she had dashed them about in trying to dance. She knelt down and smoothed over the earth where it was torn up among the trees, and she put her arms round the trunk and kissed and thanked it for having helped her, but the voice did not speak again. Then she drove home the last sheep, but she had to go on her hands and knees, for her feet were too bad to walk.

Next day when the farmer came home, he was well pleased that she had kept his flock safe, but he would fain know how she had got such sore feet that for long she must walk lame. “Of a truth, master,” she quoth, “it was in saving the lambs when they got into dangerous places.”

Underneath the beech tree, where Nanina’s feet had bled among the earth, there sprang up pretty little scarlet flowers, and whenever she passed and saw them she remembered how she had been punished for disobeying her master, and made up her mind never to do so again.

IN a little village there lived a young potter, who made his living by making all sorts of earthenware. He took the clay, and made it into shapes on the wheel, and then baked his cups and jars in a kiln. He made big jugs and little jugs, and basins and cups and saucers, and indeed every sort of pot or jar that could be wanted. He was very fond of his work, and was always thinking of how to make new shapes, or colour his jars with pretty colours. It was a very tiny village he lived in, and he worked at throwing his pots on his wheel by the road-side, but people came from many other villages and towns to buy his ware. Once a year there was a big fair, held in the town near, and just before it, the potter was always very busy making new pots and jugs to sell there. A few nights before the fair was to be held, he was hard at work, trying to finish a number of little bowls, so he sat at his wheel late in the evening after the sun was set. All day long the road had been gay with folk coming to the fair, some were in carts, and some were on foot, and there were a number of gipsies in caravans, bringing all sorts of goods to sell. Most of them went through the village and on to a big common a little further on, where they got out of their carts and put up tents, to sleep in while the fair went on. The potter was so busy with his little basins on his turning wheel that he did not hear the sound of footsteps, and when he looked up, he was surprised to see a young gipsy girl standing near, watching him. She was quite young, and had big black eyes, and rosy round cheeks, and her black hair was twisted up in little red beads and chains. She was dressed in some very gay stuff, and round her neck was a gold necklace, and on her fingers and arms were rings and bracelets.

“That should be a fine cup,” said the girl, “since you keep your eyes on it and can look at nothing else.”

“I keep my eyes for my work, that I may do it well,” said the potter, “for I live by my work, and neither by stealing nor begging.”

“But I fancy many others can do your work as well, or better than you,” answered the gipsy. “What can your cups do when they are finished? I don’t hear you say anything to them, so I should think they would be stupid cups—only fit to drink out of.”

“And what else should they be for?” asked the potter angrily. “What do you mean by saying that you don’t hear me saying anything to my cups? I don’t think you know what you are talking about. It is nonsense, and you are talking nonsense.”

“My grandfather used to make pots on a wheel,” said the gipsy, and she laughed low, and showed her white teeth in the moonlight; “ah! but he knew how to do them, and he had charms to say to them when he threw them. And one of his cups would make you wise if you drank out of it, and another would give you your true love’s heart if she drank from it, and another would make you forget everything—yes, even your true love, and all your mirth and all your sorrow, and I think that was the best cup of all;” and again the gipsy laughed in the moonlight, and sang a little song to herself as she sat herself down before the potter.

“Now this is real child’s talk,” said the potter very impatiently. “’Tis easy to say your grandfather knew how to do all this, but why should I believe you? and because your grandfather may have been able to throw a bowl upon the wheel, that doesn’t make you know anything about the craft, or how it is done.”

“Nay, but he taught me too,” said the gipsy. “Give me a piece of your clay, and let me come to your wheel and you shall see.”

At first the potter thought she was talking nonsense, but to his great surprise she took hold of the clay in her little brown hands, and moulded and modelled it with the greatest skill. Then she placed it on the wheel and threw a little jug, and he wondered to see how deft she was.

“Now I will make you a little bowl,” she said, and then she made jugs and pots and jars, far more quickly and skilfully than the potter could have done. “And now I will colour them too,” she cried. “See, I shall catch the colour from the moon, and to-morrow you can put them into your kiln and bake them, and you may be sure that you have never had such pots there before.” Then she put her little brown hands out into the moonlight, and they were covered with rings which glittered and shone, but as she held up her palms to the moon’s rays, it seemed to the potter as if they too were full of some strange glittering liquid. “And now,” she said, “see, I will put it on to your pots, and I should think I had taught you that I know more about your trade than you do yourself.” And she took the pots in her hands and rubbed her palms over them, and she traced patterns on them with her fingers.

The potter looked at her and felt almost angry, but she only laughed in his face.

“And now one last thing,” she cried, “and that is, that I will make you a cup that has a spell in it, and it shall be a present for you to remember me by. It will be very plain, and there will be no gay colours in it, but when you give it to your true love to drink from, if once you have drunk from it yourself, you will have all her heart, but beware that she doesn’t take a second draught. For though the first draught that she drinks will be drunk to love, the second draught will be drunk to hate, and though she have loved you more than all else on earth, all her love will turn to hate when she drinks again. And as you are so ignorant how to make bowls and cups, you will not know how to fashion one so as to win back her love again.”

The potter stared in silence, while the gipsy took another bit of clay and placed it upon the wheel, and then she bent her head, which glittered with beads and coins, low over it, and placing her rosy lips close to the mouth of the cup, sang some words into it, while she moulded it with her hands, and turned the wheel with her foot. It was in some strange language that the potter had never heard before.

“Good-bye,” she said presently. “Now, there, that is for you, and be sure you do not sell the little brown cup, but keep it and give it to your true love to drink out of; but only one draught, for if there are two maybe you will need the gipsy’s help again.” Then she laughed, and nodding her head over her shoulder, tripped lightly away in the moonlight while the potter stared after her.

At first he thought he had been asleep, but there around him stood the little rows of jugs and pots which the gipsy had made, and truly they were beautifully done. He took them up, and turned them over in his hand, and wondered at their shape and workmanship.

“To-morrow,” he said, “I will put them into the kiln, and see how they come out. She certainly was a clever wench, and knew her work; but as for her talk about having coloured them, that was all nonsense, and as for breathing spells and charms into the cups, why it is like baby’s talk.”

But next day when the pots were baked, the potter was even more surprised, for they had the most wonderful colours that he had ever seen: silver, blue, grey and yellow, in all sorts of patterns, all save the little brown cup, which was the last the gipsy had made. But when he looked at it the potter felt a little uncomfortable, and began to wonder if it really did contain the charm as she had declared.

When the fair began, the potter placed all the gipsy’s wares on a stall with his own, and marked them with very high prices, but had he asked three times as much he could have got it, for there were some rich folk from the big houses who came to the fair, and they at once bought them all up, declaring that such pots and jugs they had never seen. At this the potter was well pleased, and found that he had made more money than he had earned in many a long month past; but when people wanted him to make them more like them, he was obliged to shake his head, and say, “That he was very sorry, but he had had them coloured from afar, and he did not know where he could now have them done.” Of the gipsy he saw nothing more, though he looked for her everywhere during the three days in which the fair lasted, but she was not to be seen, and when the fair was over, and the other people were packing their carts and vans to go on their way, he saw very many gipsies, and supposed that she had gone with some of them, without giving him the chance of speaking to her again.

Years went by, and the potter never heard anything more of the gipsy, indeed he would have thought it had all been a dream if it had not been for the little brown pot standing on the shelf. Sometimes he took it up, and looked at it, and wondered when he saw how well and cleverly it was made. He still laughed when he remembered what the gipsy had said about leaving a charm in it, for though he himself had drunk out of it many times, he never thought it had brought any spell on him.

One year when the fair was being held, the potter was at his place as usual with his stall covered with pots, and there came and placed herself beside him at the next stall a woman with some spinning-wheels. Her stall was covered with fine linen cloths woven in pretty patterns, and so fine and well wrought were they, that many people wanted to buy them. With her were her two daughters, and one sat at the spinning-wheel and spun the flax, and the other had a hand-loom and wove it when it was spun to show the good folk how the cloths were made. Both were pretty girls, but the girl who had the hand-loom had the sweetest face the potter had ever seen. Her eyes were very blue, and her hair was like golden corn, and when she smiled, it was as if the sun shone. The potter watched her as she sat weaving, and could not keep his eyes from her or attend properly to his own pots, or to the people who wanted to buy them. Every day he watched the young girl at her work, for the fair lasted for a week, and the more he looked at her the more he wanted to look, till at last he said to himself that somehow or other he must get her for his wife; so when the fair was done he begged her to marry him, and to remain with him, and he said he would always work for her, and she should want for nothing. The mother was a poor widow, and she and her daughters made their bread by going about the country spinning and weaving, and she would have been quite willing that the potter should marry her daughter, but the girl only laughed, and said that she scarcely knew the potter, but when she came back again the next year to the fair, she would give him his answer. So the widow and her two daughters went away, and no sign of them was left with the potter, save a lock of golden hair, which he had begged from the daughter.

The year passed away, but to the potter it seemed the longest year he had ever lived. He pined for the time to come when the fair should be held, and the widow and her daughters should return. As the time drew near he got down the brown cup, and looked at it again and again. “Nay,” he said, “what harm could it do? the gipsy said it would give me my true love’s heart if she drank out of it after I had drunk, and I have drunk out of it many a time. I don’t believe it, but all the same it would be no harm for her to drink from it.”

And so when the fair was opened, he took the brown cup down with him, and stood it upon the stall with his other ware. The spinning woman and her two daughters came back with their fine cloths, and their wheel and their loom, and when he saw the golden-haired girl, he loved her still more than before, for he thought her eyes were bluer and her smile was brighter. He watched her all the time as she sat weaving, but said nothing, but when the fair was over, and they were packing their goods to go on their way, he pressed the maid for her answer. Still she hesitated, and then the potter took the little brown cup off his stall, and poured into it some choice wine, and said to her,

“If then you wish to go away, and never see me again, I pray you drink one draught, in remembrance of the happy days we have had together.”

The young girl took the cup, but no sooner had she tasted it than she put it down and turned her eyes on the potter, and said in a low voice,

“I will stay with you always, if you want me, and will be a true wife to you, and love you better than anything on earth.”

So the potter married her, and she went to live in his little cottage.

Time passed, and the potter and his young wife lived together very happily, and every day he thought her fairer and sweeter. And they had a little baby girl with blue eyes like its mother’s, and the potter thought himself the happiest man on earth, and the little brown pot stood on the shelf, and the potter looked at it, and still he would not believe about the charm, for he said to himself, “My wife loved me for my own sake, and not for any silly charm or nonsense.”

So for a time all things went well, but there came a day when the potter had to go to a neighbouring town and leave his wife at home alone all day. When he was gone she sat by the window with her little child, and presently there came up outside a dark, rough-looking man, with a wicked face, and he looked at her as she sat rocking the cradle, and thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen on earth. When he looked at her the potter’s wife was frightened, but when he told her he was very hungry, and begged her for food and drink, she rose, for her heart was tender, and she fetched him bread and meat, and spread them on the table before him. So the rough man came into the cottage and sat at the table, and ate the potter’s bread and meat, and drank his wine. “And who is your husband, and where is he?” he said. “I am sure he is a lucky man to have such a wife and such a home.”

“Yes, truly,” said the potter’s wife. “We are very happy, and we love each other dearly, and we really have nothing else to wish for.”

Then the gipsy man said, “But your dress is plain, and your rooms are bare; now, were you the wife of some wealthy man, he would give you pearls and diamonds for your neck, and beautiful silks and satins.”

“No, but I don’t want them,” said the potter’s wife smiling. “My husband works very hard, and he gives me all he can, and I am quite content with it.”

“And you say he is a potter; then what sort of things does he make?” asked the gipsy man as he cast his eyes about the room, and they lit upon the little brown jug standing upon the shelf. “And did he make the little bowl there?”

“I don’t know,” said his wife, and she took it down and turned it about in her hand. “I suppose so, but he has told me it was very old.”

The gipsy man seized it eagerly, and poured wine in it, and looked inside it, and then he laughed, and stooping his head over it, said a few words, and then laughed again.

“I have seen cups like this before,” he said. “And they are worth a mint of money, though you would not think it. And have you never drunk out of it? Has it not been used?”

“I don’t drink from it,” said the potter’s wife, “but I believe I did so once, and that was on the day when I promised my husband I would be his wife.”

Then the gipsy laughed again and again. “See,” he said, “I am going a long way off, perhaps to die by cold and hunger by the road-side, while you and your husband are cosy and warm. You set small store by this cup, but it may be that in foreign countries I could sell it for what would keep me for many a long day. Give it to me, I pray you, that I may take it with me.”

The potter’s wife hesitated and trembled. She was afraid of the man, and she thought he had a hard, bad face, but she did not want to seem unkind.

“Well, take it,” she said; “but why should you want it?”

Then the gipsy man came and caught her by the arm. “Now,” he said, “you are the fairest woman I have ever seen, and I am going away, and shall never see you again. So I beg you wish me God-speed, and drink my health out of the little brown cup you have given me. And if your lips have touched it, it will be the dearest thing I have on earth!”

Then the potter’s wife was still more frightened, and trembled more than before. But the man looked so dark and threatening, that she did not like to refuse him, and she took the cup in her hand,

“And then you will go on your way,” she said.

“And then I shall go on my way,” cried the gipsy. “And you will wait here till your husband comes, whom you love more than anything else on this earth.”

Then the potter’s wife bent her head and tasted the wine out of the cup, and wished the gipsy happiness. And when she had done so he laughed again, long and low, till her heart sank with fear, and he picked up the cup and put it into his bundle, and went his way. Then the potter’s wife sat down by the cradle, and almost cried, she knew not why, and the whole room seemed cold, and when she looked out at the sunshine it looked dark, and she bent over the baby in the cradle with her tears falling.

“Alack!” she cried, “why doesn’t my husband come home? Where is he gone? How cruel it is to leave me all alone here, so that any rough man may come into the house. In truth I don’t think he can love me much, since all he thinks of is to go away and leave me; and as for me, surely I could have had many a better husband, and one who should have loved me more. How foolish I was to marry him.”