AR

PRINCESS ILSE.*

A TALE OF THE HARZ MOUNTAINS.

T the time of the Deluge, when all the waters of the earth had run together, and had climbed up the mountains and had overflowed with their wild billows the highest mountain peaks, there arose a terrible confusion among the waters; and when the Lord at last took pity upon the poor earth, and let the clear light of Heaven break thru the gray cloud coverlet, and bade the waters separate from one another and seek the homeward way to their valleys, then no brook or stream could have found again his old bed had not a band of good angels descended upon the earth and conducted them carefully down the right path.

As the long lines of lofty mountains emerged from the flood the angels descended upon their summits and stepped slowly from all sides into the valleys, driving the waters before them. they got down lower and lower they directed the course of river and brook, marked out the boundaries of the sea, and inclosed the lakes fast in spiked chains of rock or in green girdles of wood and meadow. With broad wind brooms and brushes of sunbeams they were busy enough on the wet earth, brushing mud out of the grass and drying the heavy foliage of the trees, and were so active over it that the quantity of spray they stirred up hung like a fragrant veil of mist in the mountain cliffs.

The work had lasted several days, and neared completion, as a tired angel rested on one of the highest peaks of the Alps. He had from there a wide survey over north and south, east and west, and looked reflectively down upon the green earth, which had emerged looking so charming, and with such a youthful freshness, from the waters of expiation. "How lovely she is," he thought; "how radiant in her purity-but will she keep herself so pure?Will all this misery of sin, all this stain of sin which was here. washed away with so much water, not germinate again? Will sin never again press her black finger upon the blooming countenance of the purified world?" An anxious, foreboding sigh swelled the breast of the good angel and he turned his dazzled eyes away from the morning sun, which rose upon the horizon flaming,

*Translated from the German of Marie Petersen by Bertha Johnston.

blood red. He gazed long upon that side to which the German rivers had been drawn. He saw them glide away in the distance; the large, main streams far ahead, the little ones following after, and a great number of hurrying little creeks and brooks merrily hastening after. He was rejoiced that all were so well guided, that all confusion had been saved, and that no little spring was so tiny or so insignificant that an angel had not gone to its side, ever pointing out the right path if it, lingering and irresolute, inclined to go aside, and carefully guarding it if it clumsily and inconsiderately rushed over the rocky cliffs. He saw the merry Rhine, a full grape-vine wreath upon his head, restlessly hastening away, and imagined from the far distance that he heard the jubilant cry with which he greeted his beloved Mosel, as she, her locks also wreathed with the vine, approached him, blushing.

Further and further away drew the waters! Their murmur and tinkling resounded far in the distance, and the solitary angel on the Alpine summit suddenly found his ears attracted by another sound. It was a soft, dolorous weeping and splashing in his immediate neighborhood; and as he stood up and stepped behind the rock whence came the sound he found there, lying on the ground, wrapped up in a white veil, a young spring crying bitterly. Sympathetically he bent over her-and as he raised her up and threw aside her veil he recognized her as the little Ilse, for whom stood ready a green bed far off in the valleys of the Harz. "Poor child," said the good angel, "have you had to remain alone here, on the rough mountain? Have the others all gone away and none thought to take you along?" But the little Ilse tossed up her head and spoke very pertly: "No, I have not been forgotten. That old Weser waited long enough, and beckoned and called for me to go with him; and Ecker and Ocker wanted to seize me; but I wouldn't go with them, not at all, not even if I must pine away here. Shall I descend to the valley, like a common brook to do contemptible service, by running thru the plain to give drink to the cattle and sheep and wash their awkward feet-I, the Princess Ilse! Look at me and see if I am not of the noblest lineage. The light ray is my father and the clear air my mother; my brother is the diamond, and the dewdrop in its little bed of roses my dear little sister. The waves of the Deluge have borne me on high. I have been allowed to undulate around the snow peaks of the primeval mountains, and the first sunbeam that broke thru the clouds

has embroidered my dress with spangles. I am a princess of the purest water and truly cannot go down into the valley. So I preferred to hide myself and assume to be sleeping, and at last the old Weser, with the stupid brooks that knew nothing better to do than to run into her arms, was obliged to go away grumbling."

The angel shook his head sadly over little Ilse's long speech. and looked gravely and searchingly into her pale little face; and as he gazed long and steadily into the frank, blue, child-eyes, that today blazed with bright sparks of anger, there, in their clear depths he saw dark points stir, and knew that an evil guest was exercising his nature in the head of little Ilse. The demon of Pride had entered there, had driven out all holy thoughts, and looked banteringly at the good angel from the eyes of poor little Ilse. The pride demon has, however, turned the head of many a foolish child who is not exactly a princess of the purest water, and the sympathetic angel, who recognized the danger of the poor little spring, wished to save it at any cost.

In his eyes, which penetrated so far, Princess Ilse was nothing but a naughty child, and so he did not say to her "Highness," nor "Serene Highness," but, quite simply, "dear Ilse." "Dear Ilse," therefore, said the angel, "if you, then, of your own choice, remained up here, and considered it far beneath your dignity to withdraw into the plains with the other waters, you must then be quite contented to be up here, and I do not understand why you behave so and weep and lament."

"Ah!" said child Ilse, "when the waters had left, dear angel, then came the Stormwind to scour off the mountain, and when he found me he became furious; he scolded and raged and wrangled, and shook me and wanted to throw me over that cliff into a deep, dark abyss, where never a spark of daylight shines. I pleaded and wept, and drew myself trembling against the point of rockwhere I was at last so fortunate as to wrest myself from his powerful arms and to conceal myself here in this cleft of rock."

"And as you will not always succeed in so doing," said the angel, "for the Stormwind keeps strict order here above, and drives a good broom, so you will comprehend, dear Ilse, that it was foolish of you to remain up here alone, and will follow me willingly if I lead you back to the good old Weser, and your young companions."

"No, indeed!" cried little Ilse, "I will remain up here; I am the princess!"

"Ilse," said the angel, in his soft, tender voice, "dear, little Ilse, I mean well by you, and you will please me, too, a little, and be a good child. Do you see there the white morning cloud sailing in the blue space of heaven? I will call upon it to approach and then we will both step in-you will lay yourself upon its soft cushions and I will sit near you; and so the cloud will carry us quickly down into the quiet valley where the other brooks are going. There I will lay you in your little green bed and stay with you, and send you bright dreams and tell you stories."

But Princess Ilse was incorrigibly stubborn. She cried always more and more defiantly and violently: "No, no, I will not go down! I don't want to go down!" and as the angel approached nearer her, and would have taken her in his arms with gentle force, she struck him and squirted water in his face.

The angel seated himself sadly on the ground and little Princess Obstinacy crept into her rocky cleft again, and rejoiced that she showed so much character and gave curt denials to the angel, who went to her once more and sought to persuade her to go with him. But as the good angel at last comprehended that in spite of all his love he had lost all control over little Ilse, that the pride. demon held captive all her senses, he turned, sighing, from the lost child and sought out his companions who still actively hurried below.

But Princess Ilse, when she was once more alone on the Alpine peak, wished now to enjoy her sovereignty. She advanced from her rocky fissure, seated herself on a projecting cliff, spread her fragrant draperies in wide folds around her, and then waited to see if the other mountains would not bow before her, and the clouds come down to kiss her gown. But it did not happen that way, however solemn the air assumed by her little highness, and at last she grew weary of the long sitting and began to be most painfully bored, sighing softly to herself: "I could have pleased myself with a little tediousness, that goes with one's rank; but a princess needs not to endure so horrible an amount." As evening now drew on, and the sun set, and from the distance sounded the roar of the approaching Stormwind, again the poor little spring shed hot, anxious tears. And much as she sustained herself in her firmness, and rejoiced that she had not followed the

angel, the sweet self-satisfaction could not conquer her fear of the Stormwind.

It grew darker and darker; heavy, bewildering vapors arose from the abyss, a hollow thunder rolled thru the depths, and little Ilse thought she would pass away in nameless terror. Her breath was choked in the hot, heavy air which suddenly swept around her. All at once a pale beam of light palpitated thru the deep night, and as the little spring glanced up in terror, there stood before her a large, dark man, wrapped in a wide, red mantle, who bowed low before her and addressed her as, "most gracious Princess." Such a greeting was sweet music in the ears of little Isle, and she constrained her dread of the strange, uncanny shape and listened to the flattering words which met her ears.

The dark man said to her that he had been long in the vicinity, had listened to her conversation with the angel, and was glad that she had dispatched him so contemptuously. He could not understand how one would want to drag down to the flat earth so much charm and grace to bury it in the obscure valley. He spoke of the brilliant future which awaited her if she would permit him to serve her; told about his pleasure-seat on one of the highest and most magnificant mountains of Germany; he would conduct her there and surround her with a brilliant court with all the splendor and magnificence that belonged to her proud rank; in joy and pleasure would she reign there, elevated high above all waters, big and little, of the earth's surface.

Ilse's little heart beat high in joyful expectation at all these promises. And as the man now threw open his mantle and drew thence a broad, golden shell whose artistically worked foot was set with sparkling gems, and set this shell before her and invited the gracious princess to sit down in it that he might carry her to his beautiful Brockenberg, where numberless servants already prepared for her a merry feast, then all recollection, all consideration was over for her little highness. In joyful haste she sprang, both feet at once, into the golden basin, so that her water splashed high up, and a couple of its drops fell on the hand of the dark man, where they evaporated, hissing, while a burning pain palpitated thru all the little Ilse's limbs.

Frightened, the poor child seized the rim of the shell as tho she would immediately swing herself out over it again, and looked timidly up in the man's face. But he laughed at it, seized the