THE STORY OF THE WATER-NIX
My grandmother was a wonderful woman (said he): there was nothing she heard that she ever forgot and she had a good education at her back, too. Not a thing happened but she could make a story out of it, and on the days when she went to market she used to take me with her in the cart; she would drive and I sat up beside her, and it was then I heard from her what I am going to tell you now.
Long ago there lived in the deep water round the wheel a Water-Nix. She was the most beautiful lady ever seen, though it was not many had the luck to catch sight of her, for she seldom came out of her hiding-place near the walls. A body might live here a year and never see her. But sometimes, on light nights, she would dive under the door and swim out, and even sit up on the bank, with her thin white smock trailing in the water. Once—so grandmother said—the miller’s man saw her perched upon the wall by the road, just where the stream runs under it. The drops were falling off her white feet on to the grass—so he told grandmother—and though there was only a little crescent like a sickle in the sky that night, he could see the water-lilies twisted in her hair. She was laughing and holding up her arms at the moon.
“ONCE . . . THE MILLER’S MAN SAW HER.”
And have you ever seen her? inquired little Peter, his eyes round.
Never, said the miller. Well, to go on: Sometimes she would get through the causeway and go and lie in the pool over yonder near your cottage, floating and sending the ripples widening in great circles round her.
Now, it happened one day that the Nix was in her place, hidden behind the door near the wheel, when a pedlar passed by on the road. He had a pack on his back, gold rings in his ears and a staff in his hand; for he was a lusty fellow, landed off a ship that had come in from the Baltic, and was travelling inland to sell what wares he could carry. He was singing as he went, and the Nix came out and swam close under the walls to hear him. He sang of the sea, and there was something in his voice that reminded you of the wind droning in the rigging. (How grandmother knew that I don’t know, for she wasn’t there to hear him; but she had once been in a ship off the coast of Jutland, so I suppose she guessed it.)
“Out and home and out again,
As the tide rolls heavily,
With the ship to steer and the fog to fear,
By the grey banks near the sea.
“Hand to the helm and heart to the blast,
And face to the driving rain,
And the sea runs high to the glowering sky
As we sail for the North again.
“Hark to the mermaids off the shore,
As they sing so bonnilie
Through the rocks and caves to the sounding waves
In the grey lands out at sea,
In the caves across the sea.”
She had never heard such words or such a tune in her life, and she rose, head and shoulders, out of the water, crying to the pedlar to sing it again. But when he saw the yellow hearts of the water-lilies round her head, he took them for gold, and he leaned over the little wall and made a snatch at them. The Nix dived under again and went back like a flash to the darkness by the wheel.
But all day long she sat there, singing to herself all she could remember of the song of the pedlar; she was like one possessed:
“By the grey banks near the sea,”
she sang, rocking herself about,
“In the caves across the sea.”
Now, as time went on her longing grew stronger and stronger: all the day she thought of the sea and the grey caves of the coast, and all night she sat on the wall, looking out eastwards and listening for any sound of water that might come inland. (It was at this time that the miller’s man saw her.) Why this happened to her I can’t tell, for I don’t know. Perhaps her relations were those sea-kelpies that haunt the Baltic.
Be that as it may, one night she crept out of the pool and followed the banks of the wet ditch by which it escapes, making for the river. It must have been a queer sight to see her as she went, with her wet garments clinging round her, running down the fields; I always used to fancy when I was a boy how she would look from side to side, afraid of being seen, and how she would stop here and there to listen for the sea. She reached the marshes and ran out till she felt the incoming tide about her feet. The steeple of the town and its lights were strange to her, but long before she got near them, the water was deep, and she swam under the bridge and out through the shipping in the harbour till she heard the surf and saw the white line over the bar.
Outside the sea was thundering and booming, and the salt spray flew in her face, for a rough night was setting in. Farther and farther she swam, and soon she felt the current running strong with her towards the cliffs that stand miles out and look towards Denmark. The gulls came swooping over her, but she did not care; she had seen them at times screaming behind the plough in the fields round the mill. But, as the wind rose and the waves lifted her up and tossed her, she grew frightened; for all she knew of waters was the stillness of the pool.
The storm was louder as night went on, and by morning she was so much buffeted about that she lay floating among the seaweed. She had no strength left to go one way or another, and at last she was cast up on a bit of sandy shore and sat under the cliffs wondering what to do, for the place was strange and she was afraid of all the world. A track wound upwards, so she followed it till it brought her out high above the sands. The size of the sea bewildered her and she gazed about for some place in which to hide.
Close by was a little circle of tumble-down wall; she looked over it into a tangle of weeds, and saw what seemed to her the strangest thing of all, for she did not know it was a deserted graveyard. If she had she would have been no wiser. The crosses leaned sideways out of the rank thistles and hemlock. Some of the stones lay flat, with only their carved corners sticking out and some had the shape of tables; some were no more than broken pieces. But one of the graves had once been a very grand place, with a little building over it to shelter the stone; its roof was battered in, but it had a helmet and strange words cut above the doorway. The Nix made her way to it through the hemlock; in she went and crouched against its farthest corner. It was the quietest spot she had seen. She was so weary that she did not know what to do, and the sun dazzled her, for it was growing strong and she was accustomed to dark places.
She had lain there some time when she heard steps not far off. Someone was coming along the ridge of the cliffs. In another minute a brown goat had jumped into a gap in the circle, and stood staring in as though it were counting the tombstones, moving its upper lip from side to side. Goats seldom passed the mill, and she was half scared at its beard and wagging ears and the horns above its solemn face. As she looked a boy appeared behind it—a rough-looking boy, with a shock of yellow hair and a switch in his hand to drive the beast with. When he saw her he set up a loud cry of terror, for he did not expect to find anyone in such a place, and he had never seen a Water-Nix in his life. Then he took to his heels, and the goat galloped after him, baaing as it went. The Nix lay quite still; she could not think why anyone should run away like that.
She curled herself closer into her refuge.
Presently she heard a noise like the beating of pots and pans and voices coming nearer. She crept to the wall and looked over. A whole crowd of boys was coming with sticks in their hands, shouting, and as they caught sight of her, they cried louder, brandishing them. Some even had the handles of old brooms and the goat-boy was at their head, beating a tin kettle. “There she is!” he cried.
Then the poor Nix understood that they had come out after her, and she climbed out of the graveyard on the side nearest the sea and began to run for her life. She rushed down a narrow path winding among great boulders, and, when she was exhausted, she crept behind one of them and lay there till the voices had died away and she thought her pursuers had given up the chase. When all was still she rose and went on, not knowing where to go for peace. Great tears stood in her eyes as she thought of the mill and the trees by the dam.
In time she came to a huge crag standing out into the waves and joined to the land by only a neck of rock no wider than the top of a wall. She had no fear of growing giddy, for she knew nothing of the uncomfortable things that happen to human beings, so she crossed it. The place looked so lonely that she was sure there could be nobody there. When she was over she turned the corner of a rock and found herself at the foot of a high wall, pierced by little shot windows and broken by a heavy iron door. In her astonishment she sprang back, for in front of it stood a tall man with a fierce face and eyes like a hawk. The Water-Nix turned and fled. Poor thing! she did not get far, for he bounded after her and caught her by the wrist. She struggled and fought, but it was no good; he seized her in his strong arms, and carried her in through the door.
Now, inside the door was the court of a great tower, which was hidden on the landward side by the top of the crag, and the man with the fierce face was a robber who had made his home in it. The people who lived in the country round were terrified of him, for he would come out at night and harry their villages, robbing both rich and poor. No one could catch him, because the narrow crossing over which the Nix had come was the only way of getting at the tower, and he and his men would shoot from behind the loopholes, killing all who approached. They could not get at him from the sea, for the rock ran straight down into it like a wall and nobody could climb it.
The robber dragged the Nix into his tower, not because he wanted to kill her, but because he had no wife to be mistress of it, and he thought that so beautiful a lady would be the very person. He was not at all cruel to her, and he brought her all the finest things in his treasure-house. He offered her jewels he had plundered, necklaces of pearls and diamonds stolen from the merchant ships he had attacked; for he was a pirate too and his galleys were anchored in the deep water of the caves below his rock. But she scarcely looked at them; the only ornament she cared for was her wreath of water-lilies that she used to pluck from the mill-pool.
But at last the time came when he got angry. “To-night I am going out,” he said. “The only thing I have not stolen is a wedding-ring, and now I want one. I shall land at the first village up the coast, for I know that the fishermen are at sea, and at the first house I go to I will seize the wife’s wedding-ring. To-morrow we will be married with it.”
Among the robber’s captives was a priest he had taken prisoner, so he told him that he must be ready to marry them as soon as he could get back with the ring. The priest was sorry for the Water-Nix and did not want to do it.
“You will have to,” said the robber, “or you shall be thrown into the sea.”
Then the poor Water-Nix wrung her hands and cried and sobbed so piteously that the priest’s heart smote him, and he cudgelled his brains to think of some plan to save her. At last he found one. As soon as the robber’s back was turned he said: “Bring me the diamond necklace that he gave you and I will see what we can do.”
When he had got it he went to one of the robber’s men.
“Look at this,” said he. “If you will open the great door to-night when your chief is gone, and let us all three out, you shall have it the moment we reach the mainland. It is so valuable that, if you sell it, the price will enable you to live honestly for the rest of your days.”
“But I don’t care for honesty,” said the robber’s man.
“Well, never mind about being honest,” said the priest. “You can be rich without that.”
“That is a grand idea,” replied the other. “The robber is a cruel master, so I will do as you say. But if you don’t give me the necklace the moment we get out of sight of the tower, I will kill you and the Water-Nix too.”
So when it was dark, and the robber’s galley had rowed away, the priest took the necklace, hiding it under his clothes, and he and the Nix stole out to the door. Everyone was asleep or drinking but the man who waited for them with the key he had contrived to get.
They let themselves out so noiselessly that no one heard them, for the robber’s man had oiled the lock, and when they reached the mainland the priest gave him the necklace.
“Well, I’m off. Good luck to you!” he said, as he snatched it. Then he took to his heels and ran off with his treasure.
“And now I think that is all I can do for you,” said the priest. And he left the Water-Nix standing where she was, without so much as giving her his blessing. The sooner he could put a few miles between himself and the robber’s tower the better, he thought.
The Nix looked round and round about her. Below lay the sea, moaning and washing the shore, and not far off was the outline of the little graveyard in the faint starlight. She ran on along the cliffs, for far away a few lights of the town by the river’s mouth could be seen twinkling in a row, and she knew that up that river lay the mill. As morning dawned she found herself in a thick wood. She was glad, for what she had seen of people made her wish to get as far from them as possible, and she determined to hide all day in the wood, and travel on all night. She ran far in among the trees, and threw herself down on a bank and fell asleep, for she was almost worn out and her feet ached from the rough ground.
She had slept a long time when she woke and saw, to her dismay, that someone else was sitting on the bank, quite near. He was a long, thin, pale young man, with lank, untidy hair and shabby clothes, and he was reading aloud to himself out of a book on his knees. As she moved he turned and saw her over the fallen trunk behind which she lay. He shut his book, taking care to keep a finger between the leaves to mark the place, and looked calmly at her. He was the first person she had met who did not seem surprised to see her. All the same, she prepared to run away.
“You needn’t be afraid,” said the student—for that is what he was. “I notice that you are a Water-Nix, and, that being so, you are the very person I should wish to see. This is a poetry-book that I am reading; the writing is fine enough, but there is nothing in it as fine as what I am going to write. I am going to make a poem. Three days, I assure you, have I wandered in this wood trying to think of a subject for it, and now I have it. It shall be no less than my meeting with yourself.”
And he said a long sentence in Latin, which the Nix could not understand; but, then, neither could she understand much of anything else he had said, so it didn’t matter.
“Ah, yes, you are a Water-Nix,” he continued—“Nixiana Aquatica.”
And he took a pencil out of his pocket and scribbled down a note on the margin of his book.
It was some time before he left off saying learned things, and began to consider how his companion had come to a place so far from the river, where not even a stream ran through the trees. He listened to the tale she told him with astonishment, and at last he put aside his book and promised to help her to find the way to the mill. He was very sorry for her, though now and then he would forget her presence as he pulled out his pencil to write down the beginning of the poem he meant to make.
When night came the student and the Nix started off. He walked in front, and she went after him, like a dog following its master. In the morning they hid in an overgrown quarry, for she was much too frightened to go abroad in the daylight; and thus they travelled till, after midnight on the second day, they found themselves close to the highroad which ran towards the mill-pool. They sat down to rest. All was so still that you could hear sounds ever so far off, and they soon made out that someone was coming to meet them. Then a man passed on the road; they could not see him, but he was singing to himself. And what he sang was this:
“Out and home and out again,
As the tide rolls heavily;
With the ship to steer and the fog to fear,
By the grey banks near the sea,
In the caves across the sea.”
The Nix held her breath as the pedlar—for it was he—went by, and when he began the second verse the thought of everything that had happened went from her. All she could hear or remember was the beating of the grey sea, calling her with its compelling voice.
Without a word she got up and followed the pedlar and left the student sitting by himself in the dark. He sat open-mouthed.
Back to him from the distance came the sound of footsteps and the floating refrain.
“Bless me!” he exclaimed. “Bless me! Nixiana Maritima!”
But it was too dark to write that down on the margin of his book.
The pedlar walked on singing, and she kept a little way behind him, treading softly. On they went till the first streak of daylight broke in the sky, for he was on his way to the town; he had sold all his wares and meant to go to sea again in the first ship he could find leaving the harbour. When they entered the streets all the world was asleep, and they passed through the town unnoticed. Beside the quay a forest of masts stood dark against the sky, and here the pedlar halted, looking about him. Then he turned and saw the Nix.
“Hullo!” he cried roughly. “What’s this?”
But before he could get nearer she dived into the water. The pedlar began to shout. In a minute the place was awake, for at the sound of his voice men sleeping in their boats at the quay’s edge leaped ashore to see what was the matter, windows were opened in the houses, and everyone was calling out to know what had happened.
The Nix looked back and saw the crowd collecting. She swam for the harbour’s mouth with all her strength, and she was so afraid that they might put to sea and follow her that by the time the sun rose she was miles out in the clear waters. All was blue around her, sky and wave, and the land lay behind, a faint line in the sunshine. The great ocean was as calm as her own pool by the mill and her heart sang as she went out farther and farther. It seemed to her that the voice’s of the mermaids the pedlar had sung about were resounding from all the caves on these haunted shores. She had never been so happy.
She went on and on. Time and space and distance were as nothing; everything was falling from her but the sense of a great joy.
Far in the distance something was steering fast to meet her, making white splashes on the blue expanse, and soon she could see a face and brown arms rising above the surface. A great sea-kelpie was coming towards her, the seaweed trailing from his hair and his shoulders breasting the water. As they met he held out his hand.
She put hers into it. Then they swam out till the coast was no more, and the remembrance of the world of men was no more, and disappeared together into the mists of the North.
The miller ceased, and little Peter sat spellbound for a while, for he had forgotten everything but the adventures of the Water-Nix.
“And what happened to her?” he said at last.
“I can’t tell you any more,” replied the miller; “and how grandmother knew as much as that I don’t know, though, to be sure, she understood more than most people about everything.”
“The kelpie would take care that she came to no harm,” said Janet.
“You’re right there,” said the miller. “I make no doubt but they’re living happily among the sea-caves hundreds of miles away.”
“But the man with the untidy hair—you haven’t told what happened to him,” said the little boy.
“Ah yes, there’s more to be said about him,” answered the miller. “He wrote his poem, and it made him rich. There was so much Latin in it that people thought it wonderful. That brought him in a heap of money. He married and had a large family, and one of his daughters was my grandmother. She was a fine girl, and it seemed to him a bad come-down in life when she married the miller and came to live here. But they were very happy, for all that, and it was from the miller’s man she heard the story of the Water-Nix.”
“Is it because your great-grandfather was a poet that you can tell stories so well?” asked Janet, with some awe.
“Well, it might be,” said the miller. “Anyhow, it’s a fine notion. I never thought of it before.”