The Unpublished Legends of Virgil

by Charles Godfrey Leland

“Oh, I can make silk when I try,” answered Gega; and applying her will to it, she presently spun from cotton-thread a yard of what was certainly real silk stuff.

And seeing this, all present declared that Gega must be a witch.

“Nonsense,” she replied; “you could all do it if you tried as I do. As for being a witch, it is Ermelinda and not I who should be so, for she first said it was like silk, and made it so.”

Then Ermelinda saw that there was magic in the loom, of which Gega knew nothing, so she resolved to do all in her power to obtain it. And this she effected firstly by flattery, and giving the innocent girl extravagant ideas of her beauty, assuring her that she had an attractiveness which could not fail to win her a noble husband, and that, having laid by a large sum of money, she should live on it in style till married, and that in any case she could go back to her weaving. But that on which she laid most stress was that Gega should leave her old lodging and get rid of her dirty old furniture, and especially of that horrible, crazy old loom, persuading her that, if she ever should have occasion to weave again, she, with her talent, could do far better with a new loom, and probably gain thrice as much, all of which the simple girl believed, and so let her false friend dispose of everything, in doing which Ermelinda did not fail to keep the loom herself, declaring that nobody would buy it.

“Now,” said the latter, “I am content. Thou art very beautiful; all that thou needest is to be elegantly dressed, and have fine things about thee, to soon catch a fine husband.”

Gega assented to this, but was loth to part with her old loom, which she had promised Nunzia should never be neglected; but Ermelinda promised so faithfully to keep it carefully for her, that she was persuaded to let her have it. Then the young girl took a fine apartment, well furnished, and bought herself beautiful clothes, and, guided by her false friend, began to go to entertainments and make fashionable friends, and live as if she were rich.

Then Ermelinda, having obtained the old loom, went to work with it, in full hope that she too could spin silk out of cotton, but found out to her amazement and rage that she could do nothing of the kind—nay, she could not so much as weave common cloth from it; all that she got after hours of fruitless effort was a headache, and the conviction that she had thrown away all her time and trouble, which made her hate Gega all the more.

Meanwhile the latter for a time enjoyed life as she had never done before; but though she looked anxiously to the right and the left for a husband, found none, the well-to-do young men being quite as anxious to wed wealth as she was, and all of them soon discovered on inquiry that she had little or nothing, despite her style of living, and her money rapidly melted away, till at last she found that to live she must work—there was no help for it. With what remained she bought a fine loom and thread, and sat down to weave; but though she succeeded in making common stuff like others, it was not silk, nor anything like it, nor was there anyone who would buy what she made. In despair she remembered what Mamma Nunzia had solemnly said to her, that she must never part from the old loom, so she went to Ermelinda to reclaim it. But her false friend, although she could do nothing with the loom herself, was not willing that Gega, whom she hated with all her heart, should in any way profit, and declared that her mother had broken up and burned the rubbishy old thing, and to this story she adhered, and when Gega insisted on proof of it, drove her in a rage out of the house.

While Mamma Nunzia was living she, being a very wise woman, had taught Gega with care the properties and nature of plants, roots, herbs, and flowers, saying that some day it might be of value to her, as it is to everyone. So whenever they had a holiday they had gone into the fields and woods, where the girl became so expert that she could have taught many a doctor very strange secrets; and withal, the Mamma also made her learn the charms and incantations which increase the power of the plants. So now, having come to her last coin, and finding there was some profit in it, she began to gather herbs for medicine, which she sold to chemists and others in the towns. And finding a deserted old tower in a wild and rocky place, she was allowed to make it her home; and indeed, after all she had gone through, and her disappointment both as to friends and lovers, she found herself far happier when alone than when in a town, where she was ashamed to meet people who had known her when she lived in style.

One evening as she was returning home she heard a groaning in the woods as of someone in great suffering, and, guided by the sound, found a poor old woman seated on a stone, who told her that she had hurt her leg by slipping from a rock. And Gega, who was as strong as she was kind and compassionate, carried the poor soul in her arms to the tower, where she bound an application of healing herbs to the wound, and bade her remain and welcome.