THE CAVE-DWELLERS.
(Kreutzwald.)
Once upon a time a man lost his way on a stormy night between Christmas and New Year. He wore out his strength plunging through the deep snowdrifts, until, by good luck, he found some protection from the wind under a thick juniper bush. Here he resolved to pass the night, hoping to find his way easier by the clear light of the morning. He rolled himself together like a hedgehog in his warm fur-cloak and fell asleep. I don't know how long he lay there before he was roused by somebody shaking him, and a stranger's voice said in his ear, "Get up, farmer, or the snow will bury you, and you will never get out again." The sleeper pushed his head out of his fur, and opened his sleepy eyes wide. He saw a tall thin man before him, who carried a young fir-tree, twice as high as himself, as his staff.
"Come with me," said the man; "we have made a fire under the trees, where you can rest better than in this open field." The traveller could not refuse such a friendly invitation, so he got up directly, and walked on quickly with the stranger. The snowstorm raged so furiously that they could not see a step before them, but when the stranger lifted his fir staff and cried with a loud voice, "Ho there, mother of the snowstorm, make way!" a broad pathway appeared before them, on which no snowflakes fell. A dreadful snowstorm raged on either side of the wanderers and behind them, but it did not touch them. It appeared as if an invisible wall held back the storm on either hand. The men soon reached the wood, and they had already seen the light of the fire from afar off. "What is your name?" asked the man with the fir staff, and the peasant answered, "Hans, the son of tall Hans."
Three men sat at the fire, clothed in white linen garments, as if it had been midsummer. For thirty paces or more around them, everything looked like summer; the moss was dry, the herbage was green, and the grass swarmed with ants and small beetles; but afar off Hans heard the blasts of wind and the raging of the storm. Still stranger seemed the burning fire, which spread a bright light around, but threw up no smoke. "What think you, tall Hans' son? isn't this a better resting-place for the night than under the juniper bush in the open field?" Hans assented, and thanked the stranger for bringing him there. Then he took off his fur-cloak, rolled it up as a pillow for his head, and lay down in the glow of the fire. The man with the fir staff took his flask from under a bush and offered Hans a drink, which tasted most excellent, and warmed his heart. He then lay down too, and began conversing with his companions in a foreign language, of which Hans could not understand a word; and Hans presently fell asleep.
When he awoke, he found himself lying in a strange place, where was neither wood nor fire. He rubbed his eyes, and tried to recollect what had happened to him the night before, and thought he must have been dreaming, but he could not understand how he came to be lying in quite a strange place. A great noise resounded from a distance, and he felt the ground under his feet tremble. Hans listened for some time to find out where the noise came from, and then determined to follow it, hoping to find some people. Presently he reached the entrance to a cavern, from which the noise proceeded, and where a fire was shining. When he entered, he found a huge smithy filled with bellows and anvils, and seven workmen stood round each anvil. But stranger smiths were not to be found in the world. They were not higher than the knee of an ordinary man, and their heads were larger than their own bodies, and they wielded hammers more than twice as large as themselves. But they smote on the anvil so lustily with these huge iron hammers that the strongest man could not have struck harder. The little smiths were clad in leathern aprons which reached from the neck to the feet; but at the back their bodies were as naked as God had made them. In the background a high bench stood against the wall, on which sat Hans' friend with the fir staff, and looked sharply after the work of the little journeymen. A large can stood at his feet, from which the workmen took a drink now and then. The master of the smithy was no longer dressed in white, as on the previous day, but wore a black sooty coat, and round his waist a leathern belt with a great buckle. Now and then he made a sign to the workmen with his fir staff, for the noise was so great that no human voice could have been heard. Hans was uncertain whether any one had noticed him, for both master and men continued their work without paying any attention to the stranger. After some hours, the little smiths were allowed to rest; the bellows were stopped, and the heavy hammers thrown on the ground. When the workmen had left, the master rose from the bench, and called to Hans to approach.
Oh, what riches and treasure Hans beheld there! All sorts of gold and silver lay about everywhere, and glittered and gleamed before his eyes. Hans amused himself by counting the bars of gold in a single heap, and had just counted up to five hundred and seventy, when the master turned round and said, smiling, "You'd better leave off, for it will take up too much time. You would do better to take some bars from the heap, for I will give you them as a remembrance."
Of course Hans needed no second invitation. He grasped one of the bars of gold with both hands, but could not even move it, much less lift it from its place. The master laughed, and said, "Poor delicate flea! you cannot carry off even the least of my treasures, so you must feast your eyes on them instead." He then led Hans into another room, and through a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth of these treasure-caverns, till they reached the seventh, which was as big as a large church, and, like the others, was crammed with heaps of gold and silver from floor to ceiling. Hans marvelled at these immeasurable riches, which could easily have bought up all the kingdoms in the world, but which were now lying useless underground. So he asked the master, "Why do you store up these vast treasures here, where no human being can derive any benefit from the gold and silver? If these treasures came into the hands of men, they would all be rich, and nobody would have to work or suffer distress."
"It is for this very reason," answered the master, "that I cannot hand over these treasures to mankind. The whole world would perish from sloth, if no one needed longer to work for his daily bread. Man is created to sustain himself by toil and thrift."