"Where--where are they?" Felix and Christlieb cried.
"Look round you," said the Stranger Child; and Felix and Christlieb then saw how, out of the thick grass and the wool-like moss, all sorts of glorious flowers were peeping, with bright eyes gleaming, and between them many-coloured stones and crystalline shells sparkled and shone, while little golden insects danced up and down, humming little gentle songs.
"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."