I am telling the story, as you see, rather in my own words than in those of the old shepherd, but you won't mind that. The truth is, I cannot remember the exact language he used, but so long as I keep to the main points of the history it doesn't much matter, does it?
"In a few minutes Fritz recovered his wits and made haste home, for he feared his mother might be alarmed at his long absence. She was not, however, for she supposed that he had risen early, as he sometimes did, and taking a piece of bread in his hand, had followed the goats up the valley, breakfasting by the way. She met him, full of wonder at a strange thing that had happened.
"'Such a queer mist filled the valley just now,' she said, 'I could not see the sun at all. I feared a storm was coming, but presently it rolled away all in a minute, and left the day as fine as ever. Did you notice it? I never saw anything like it before.'
"Fritz let his mother wonder, and held his peace. She would think that he had fallen asleep and dreamed it all, he was sure; in fact, after a little he himself began to believe that it was a dream.
"But, dream or no dream, the strange thing was that it came true! From that time on, the climate of the Unlucky Valley seemed to change. Years passed by without a single drought or inundation. When the pastures below were parched with thirst, rain fell on Fritz's fields, keeping them green as emerald. All his crops succeeded; his goats and sheep gave double share of milk, and little by little he grew rich.
"'The Lucky Valley,' people now called the once unlucky spot, while to Fritz they gave the name of 'The Favored of the Saints.' Year after year his gains went on increasing. Gradually all the land in the valley became his, except one tiny strip, there at the upper end, which belonged to a widow, poor as Fritz's mother once had been. This strip Fritz desired to buy, but the widow refused to sell, though he offered a large price. She had come there a bride, she declared, with the myrtle-crown on her head, and there she wished to die and be buried when her time should come. The memory of his own poor mother, who had died some time before, should have made Fritz pitiful to this lonely woman, but his heart had grown hard with continued prosperity, and it angered him to be opposed. So when after many attempts she persisted in her resolution, he tried harsher means. The widow had debts. These he bought up, and when she could not pay he brought the pressure of the law to bear, and turned her from her home.
"The very night after he had watched her depart, weeping and broken-hearted, as he lay on his bed, feeling at last that the valley was all his own, the Little White Door opened on the cliffs far above, and out came the clouds.
"Not pink and purple now, smiling and full of good will, but black and wrathful. Like a flock of dark vultures they swooped at the sleeping valley. Floods of rain fell, fierce winds tore and raved, the river rose and burst its bounds, carrying all before it; and Fritz, awakened by the fearful roar, had just time to escape from his bed and gain the nearer hillside, when the waters struck the châlet and bore it away in ruins down the valley, as though it were no more than a bubble of foam. The crops were swept off, the flocks drowned in the fields. Fritz clung to a tree-trunk through that fearful night, listening to the hiss and rush of the flood, and the bleatings of the drowning sheep; and ever and anon it seemed as if shapes, dimly seen through the darkness, swooped at and buffeted him, while voices cried in his ear, 'Promise-breaker! Widow-spoiler! Is this the way you keep faith with the clouds?'
"When morning dawned it revealed a scene of ruin. Not a blade of barley remained in the meadows, not a blade of grass in the fields. The labor of years had vanished in a single night."
"It served him right," said I.