United States or Cameroon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The prayer was needless; they saw not the Elle-king, and he marked not them he only bore away Hyldreda, singing mockingly in her ear something of the same rhyme which had bound her his: "Complainest thou here all drearily Camest thou not of thyself in the hill to me? And stayest thou here thy lot to deplore? Camest thou not of thyself in at my door?"
And did not the eyes of Esbern Lynge say so, when, week after week, he came up the hilly road, and descended again to the little chapel, supporting the feeble mother's slow steps, and watching his betrothed as she bounded on before, with little Resa in her hand? "Is Esbern coming?" said the mother's voice within. "I know not I did not look," answered Hyldreda, with a girlish willfulness.
But time and grief together had bowed the mother almost to the verge of the grave. The one knew not the other, until little Resa came between; little Resa, who looked her sister's olden self, blooming in the sweetness of seventeen. Nothing to her was the magnificence of the beautiful guest; she only saw Hyldreda, the lost and found.
The first sigh, the first tear, and I carry thee back into the hill with shame." So Hyldreda left the fairy-palace, sweeping through the village, with a pageant worthy a queen. Thus in her haughtiness, after seven years had gone by, she came to her mother's door. Seven years, none of which had cast one shadow on the daughter's beauty.
When the mother and sister of Hyldreda lifted up their eyes, they saw nothing but a cloud of dust sweeping past the cottage-door, they heard nothing but the ancient elder-tree howling aloud as its branches were tossed about in a gust of wintry wind. Kong Tolv took back to the hill his mortal bride.
In the white frozen grass, for it was wintertime, knelt the wife of Kong Tolv, holding fast to her bosom the elfin babe, who shivered at every blast of wind, yet, shivering, seemed to smile. Hyldreda knelt, until the chapel-bells ceased at service-time. And then there came bursting from her lips the long-sealed prayers, the prayers of her childhood.
"Nothing, but a cloud of dust that the wind sweeps forward. Stand back, sister, or it will blind thee." Still Hyldreda bent forward with admiring eyes, muttering, "Oh! the grand golden chariot, with its four beautiful white horses! And therein sits a man surely it is the king! and the lady beside him is the queen. See, she turns "
The mother read her olden soul the pure soul that was hers of yore in her infant's eyes. One day when Hyldreda was following the child in its play, she noticed it disappear through what seemed the outlet of the fairy-palace, which outlet she herself had never been able to find. She forgot that her boy was of elfin as well as of mortal race.
And hast thou young children dancing about thy feet, and a little blue-eyed one to creep dove-like to thy heart at nights, as mine does? Say, dear sister, art thou as happy as I?" Hyldreda paused. Earth's sweet ties arose before her, and the grandeur of her lot seemed only loneliness.
Then the whole train vanished, and, shorn of all his glories, except a certain brightness which his very presence seemed to shed, the king, if he were indeed such, stood beside the trembling peasant maid. He did not address her, but looked in her face inquiringly, until Hyldreda felt herself forced to be the first to speak. "My lord, who art thou, and what is thy will with me?" He smiled.
Word Of The Day