So she sat down again and waited till the sun had set, and she trembled at every noise lest it might be some one coming to seek her, but they left her alone, and no one came. When it was quite dark, and all the village was quiet she went to the window, and tried to climb up to it, but she found that she could not manage to get up on to the window-sill while she held the snake in her hand. Then first she thought she would wind it around her waist, but she remembered how it had tightened around the singing girl and killed her, and for some time she could not think what to do with it. At last she twisted it into a knot, and placed it in her bosom, though she trembled lest it should bite her. And when she placed it in her bosom, she saw the curl of Othmar’s hair that lay there, and she took it and tied up the snake’s jaws with it so that it might not open its mouth. “For Othmar’s hair will not break or give way,” she said; “it is like his heart, it will be true and strong till the end.”
Then she climbed up on to the window-ledge, and scrambled through the window, and took the piece of rope and let herself down on to the ground outside. And when she lit upon the ground, she heard the raven croaking above her, and her heart leapt for joy, and she began to run as fast as she could to get away from the village lest they might catch her again.
When she came again into the open country, she looked for the raven, and saw that it was flying in front of her as before, towards the distant mountains where she knew lay her home. She toiled on, for many days, but by now the summer had nearly passed away, and when she got into the high mountain land, she found that the cold winter had given signs of coming, and the trees were beginning to be bare, and there was a light white frost on the ground. It was far into the night when she arrived in the village, and the villagers were all asleep and their cottages shut. Outside the cottage where Othmar lived grew a big old ivy tree, and on this the raven perched, and underneath it Hulda lay down to wait the dawn and Othmar’s waking. She lay quiet for a bit, but when she saw a faint glimmering of light where the sun was going to rise, she felt she could be still no longer, and she sprang up and called, “Othmar, come down, I am here,” for she dreaded having to tell him before the other villagers that she had failed.
In a few moments the door of the cottage opened and Othmar came out, and ran to greet her, but she kept afar.
“Othmar,” she cried, “I have done you no good, save that I have punished the wicked girl who took your voice. This snake killed her, so she will never sing as you did again. See.” And she held out the snake to him; it was curled round and still tied up with his hair, and as the sun began to shine it glittered brightly.
“But I have done you no good, indeed rather harm,” Hulda went on, “for I have made you hope where there was no hope, and you have waited and expected that I should bring you back what you had lost, and I have not done it, and now I shall never hear you say my name ‘Hulda’ again,” and she wept so bitterly that the tears fell from her face, and dropped upon the snake which still she grasped. Othmar held out his hand, and tried to take her hand that he might kiss it, and as he did so, he touched the snake’s long tail, and it began to writhe and twist, and glisten more and more as the sun shone on it. And as he raised her hand to his mouth, Othmar tried to say her name “Hulda” with his poor dumb lips that could make no sound, and he breathed it on the snake, and it seemed as if the snake vibrated with the name, and suddenly it swelled and swelled, and shone still more brightly, and its mouth grew wide and burst Othmar’s hair which had bound it, and widened out till it was not a snake any more, but a curled golden trumpet, curled up as the snake had been, and like that which had been changed into the singing girl who stole Othmar’s voice. “Take it, Othmar, and blow,” cried Hulda, and he put it to his lips and cried “Hulda!” and Hulda heard her name echoing back in a burst of music from all around. At its sound the birds awoke in all the trees, and began their morning chorus, and the village folk ran to their windows to see what the trumpet’s peal had been, and saw Othmar standing with Hulda in his arms, and at their feet the bright trumpet which he had dropped. It lay on the ground, but as Othmar began to speak and to say, “Hulda, Hulda, you have brought it back, you have given me my voice again,” the trumpet broke into many pieces, and with every word crumbled, till there was nothing left but a little heap of shining golden sand, and from under it there glided out a dark green snake with yellow markings, and it slid away into the bushes and disappeared.
Then all the villagers rejoiced, and Hulda wept with happiness. And Othmar married Hulda, and his voice never left him again; but when long years after folk would tell him his voice was sweet and far more beautiful than the birds, he would say, “But it is not really my voice, it is my wife’s, Hulda’s, for I should have been dumb for ever if she had not sought it and brought it back to me.”
THE RAIN MAIDEN
