Chapter III

Gathering courage, Rose-Marie at last ventured into the dark opening before her. The way led downward; it was slippery, and now and then drops of water fell upon her. At last she came into a small square chamber. In one corner was a stone fireplace, wherein a few logs smoldered. Wood was piled on each side. Dried herbs and bones hung from the rafters, and one or two rude shelves were crowded with utensils and strange objects whose names she did not know. A low, rough bedstead filled another corner, and one or two heavy benches were pushed against the walls. Rose-Marie was so busy in staring about her that she did not notice a little person who sat on a low stool by the fire, until a malicious chuckle startled her, and looking closely, she could just make out in the dim light a little old lady in a dull brown garb, with high pointed cap pulled well down over a dark little face. Two very bright eyes peeped at her, and the witch’s nose went down as her thin mouth turned up in a shrill laugh, that echoed through the cavern and was answered by a whimper from somewhere beneath her feet.

Rose-Marie’s heart stood still. But she set her lips firmly and made a little courtesy and said, “Good evening, mother!”

The Witch o’ Woods jumped up with a startled look on her face.

“Hoity-toity! Here is the first mortal that ever spoke to me. Come hither, girl, and let me see the only being in the Harzberg who does not fear the Witch o’ Woods.”

As she stood there leaning on her tall cane, Rose-Marie thought she looked like a figure carved out of brown wood, and so she did, all but her eyes, which were piercing, though they did not look unkind now.

“But I _am_ afraid, ma’am,” said Rose-Marie. “But I had to come for my brother Eldwald; and O madam, if you have changed little Eldwald into a rabbit, I beg that you will release him, for my mother weeps all day, and my father cannot work for sighing. I will serve you faithfully and well if you will only let him go.”

“What is your name?” said the witch, though she knew it already, being a witch.

“I am Rose-Marie, the daughter of Hans, the stone-cutter,” answered the girl, with another courtesy.

“Go to the corner cupboard, Rose-Marie, and take down some supper on a platter you will find there, and then we shall see what we shall see.”

In the cupboard was a nice plump cake, all iced, with a knife lying by, and it said, “Eat me!” On a shelf above stood a finely baked capon in a silver dish, and it cried, “Eat me!” And by its side stood a handsome bottle of wine, which gurgled, “Drink me!” And down on the lowest shelf of all stood a little brown loaf and an earthen cup of milk, which said nothing at all; these Rose-Marie took and placed on the platter as she had been told, and going to a bench near the fire, began to eat with good appetite.

“Hum,” said the witch, “not greedy. Why did you not take the good things in the cupboard, stone-cutter’s daughter?”

“Why, they did not seem suitable for me, ma’am, and I thought that, had you intended such grand provisions for my eating, you would have mentioned it.”

“Had you eaten them, you would now be a hare with the others,” growled the witch, very much disappointed.

When Rose-Marie had eaten and set away the platter and cup, the witch showed her a pallet where she might sleep. And after a little prayer, the tired girl lay down and slept as peacefully as if she had been in her own little bed.

The Witch o’ Woods sat mumbling by the fire all night long, trying to change Rose-Marie into a rabbit; but try as she could, all her magic failed. For when we send up a thought of thankfulness and ask help of the Love that is ever near, a beam of light comes down like a lovely angel and guards us from all harm. So at dawn the Witch o’ Woods sat cold and cross by her dead fire, and wondered to find a power greater than her own.

Then she roused Rose-Marie, who hustled about busily, and soon had the chamber bright with a crackling fire, clean as a good sweeping could make it, and a hot breakfast smoking before the old witch, who for the first time in years found herself comfortable.

When they had eaten, she took up her staff and a great sack of grain, which she spilled over the whole room until it fell into every crack and crevice.

“Now,” said she, “I shall try you. If you serve me well three days and do the tasks I set you, you shall go free with little Eldwald; but if you fail, he will remain a little hare and you shall be my slave forever, and never again see the sun. By the time I return to-night, this spilled grain must be back in its sack, and, mind you, not one kernel must be lost!”

And with that she went out, and slammed the heavy door behind her, bolting it fast.

Rose-Marie’s heart sank; but she glanced at the rush-broom in the corner, and crying, “At least I can try,” set to work. But though she persevered until noontime, only a small part of the grain had been gathered.

Resolved, however, not to despair, she sat down to eat the bread and cheese the witch had left out for her, when she heard the whimpering that had frightened her the night before, and seeking for the sound, she opened a trap-door in the floor, to find there a cage filled with all kinds of rabbits. These were the poor little children the Witch o’ Woods had caught, and there was a snow-white one that reached his little paws through the cage and cried more piteously than the rest, with tears in his little round eyes. And this, she knew, must be little Eldwald.

Breaking up her food, she divided it among them, and watered them in a bowl from a huge piggin of water that stood behind the door. Then she swept and cleaned their cage as well as she could through the bars, put straw in it from her pallet, and after caressing and reassuring little Eldwald, she shut them up again for fear the witch would come.

Then she went back to her task, but began to despair as the afternoon wore away and she had made so little progress. At last she sat down by the hearth to weep, and her tears fell into the cold ashes; when far above her head she heard a soft “Cooee-cooee,” and found by stepping inside, she could look up the chimney, on the rim of which sat six pretty wood-doves, cooing and preening their feathers.

“Cooee, Rose-Marie,” they called; for the fairies had told her story, and all the little woodland creatures were ready to help her. “Why do you weep?”

Then Rose-Marie explained her plight, and down flew the six wood-doves. In a jiffy their sharp beaks “pecked, pecked,” here and there, their keen eyes spying out every grain, and by the time the sun went down, they had filled the sack and left not one kernel outside. Then, with a soft “Cooee,” they disappeared up the chimney, and Rose-Marie, much relieved, set about getting supper, which the witch found smoking hot when she came in at dark.

She gasped when she saw the great sack of grain standing in a corner, but, poke and pry as she might, she could not discover one kernel left out. So she was forced to sit down to her nice supper, and, looking at her as they sat eating, Rose-Marie thought she was not so brown nor so wrinkled as she had been.

At bedtime, after her usual prayer was said, Rose-Marie lay down on her hard bed and was soon fast asleep, leaving the witch staring into the fire, and there she sat all night, as before; and, as before, her magic failed. In the morning she awoke Rose-Marie, and when they had breakfasted, she emptied a great jar of peas into the ashes, and repeating her commands, she hobbled away. And Rose-Marie thought she was taller and straighter than she had been.

Rose-Marie picked up peas and put them into the jar, but gained little headway; and at noon she fed and tended the little captives under the floor.

And when, some hours later, she gave up in despair, declaring that the peas seemed to grow more rather than less, she heard a “scratch--scratching” at the door, then a “gnawing--gnawing,” and finally, through a tiny hole they had gnawed at the door’s bottom, came a mole, a squirrel, and a chipmunk; and, bowing low before the weeping girl, they cried:

“We will help you, Rose-Marie!”

My, how sharp claws and teeth did fly! How furry coats did flash to and fro over the floor, here and there and everywhere, until every pea was safe in the jar, and they whisked out of the hole in the door just as the witch’s steps sounded in the passage outside.

She came in to find Rose-Marie dishing up supper by the bright fireside, and had to confess that every pea was in the jar and the supper the best she had ever eaten, for Rose-Marie had baked little cakes in the warm ashes, and set out a pot of honey and one of fresh butter which she had found in the cupboard.

And that night it was the same as before: after her prayers were said, little Rose-Marie slept safely and well, and the magic of the Witch o’ Woods failed.

Therefore, on the third morning she awoke the girl with a rough shake, and when ready to go away, she took two great pails of water and emptied them over the stone floor of the cavern, where the water stood high enough to run over Rose-Marie’s wooden shoes. And bidding the girl see to it that the pails were full when she returned, the Witch o’ Woods went out, chuckling with glee, for well she knew that no power on earth could gather spilled water.

When she was gone, poor Rose-Marie climbed on a bench to be out of the wet, and cried and cried and cried, and all the little captives under the floor cried with her.

It was nearly noon, when down the chimney flew a sleek, pretty swallow, with so merry a chirp that Rose-Marie smiled before her tears were dried.

When he had heard her troubles, he sat for a moment on the mantel-shelf with bowed head, for this, indeed, seemed a task too hard for any bird or beast. At last he broke into an excited trill.

“I know,” he chirped. “Far, far away to the north, over the icy plains of Norway into the ever-frozen fastness of the Arctic night, dwells the north wind. He alone can help us. If I can find my friend the gull, and he can carry the news, and north wind will come, you are saved. Cheep--cheep.” And off he flew, like a rocket.

But Rose-Marie was not a whit comforted by his words, for there were so many “ifs” in the way. And who knew, if the gull found north wind, whether or not he would leave his beloved ice-floes, where he herds his giant flocks of white polar bears, as farmers herd sheep, or drives the seals far out to sea, as he blows great gusts over the bergs upon the poor ships that flounder at their base.

Who could believe that so great a king would come far south to aid a poor little peasant maid? And Rose-Marie’s tears began to flow afresh, when a little song which her mother had taught her seemed to ring in her ears:

“If God is All-in-all,
His children cannot fear.”

Over and over she hummed the comforting words all the long afternoon, while the little rabbits whimpered for food, as she could not open their pen for the water.

But the world is full of charity for them that follow Love’s way. And the swallow found the gull, the gull found the north wind, and when he heard the story of Rose-Marie and the Witch o’ Woods, he laughed long and loud, until great icebergs splintered about him; and, wrapping his glittering white mantle about him, he flew southward, cooling the air as he went, until, for forty years afterward, all Germany talked of the “cold summer.”

Down, down he flew, until it was nearly sunset when the forest on the Harzberg came in sight. Down, down to the top of the chimney of the witch’s den, and with one kind “Halloo” to Rose-Marie, he blew an icy blast down the chimney, which froze the water on the witch’s floor, and, cracking it with her broom handle, Rose-Marie soon had it all in the pails again, and by the time the Witch o’ Woods came, the nice, hot fire had melted the ice until the great pails stood brimming with water and the floor was dry and clean.

And then there was a great ado! The Witch o’ Woods shrieked and raged. She shook her enchanted staff at Rose-Marie, and in vain tried to utter words of magic. Failing to do this, she turned, in turn, into a bear, a wolf, and a great black eagle. But Rose-Marie stood firm by the fireplace, and, having now learned that evil had no real power, she did not feel afraid.

Finally, after some moments of such goings-on, the Witch o’ Woods began slowly to change back into her own shape. And yet it was not she who at last stood there, slender and straight, with shining golden hair falling from a green, leafy crown, but a beautiful fairy, who smiled at Rose-Marie as if she enjoyed her surprise.

For love and goodness can change even ugly witches into fairies, and that is what they had done. And the Witch o’ Woods was gone forever, and in her place was a lovely fairy of the woods, who loved and cherished every woodland creature ever afterward.

Then the fairy, still smiling kindly, opened the door of the little cage under the floor, and out trooped a lot of little children, among them little Eldwald, whom you may be sure was clasped in Rose-Marie’s arms.

Then said the wood fairy:

“Come, let us leave this dark place and go out into the greenwood and sunshine. But before I go, you shall all be recompensed.” And, going to the side of the cavern, she drew forth the great treasure of the Witch o’ Woods--gold and jewels, diamonds, pearls, and rubies--and divided it among them.

But to Rose-Marie she gave the most beautiful of all--a great pink-hearted pearl, set round with blazing diamonds. “This,” said the wood fairy, “is small pay for the service you have done me; but you have love, the pearl of great price, in your heart, dear, and that no money can buy, and nothing can take it away. But this jewel shall some day crown the diadem of a princess, and Rose-Marie, the stone-cutter’s daughter, shall wear it.”

Which proved all too true; for years afterward, when Rose was grown up, a handsome prince came riding over the Harzberg--But that is another story, for another time.

And the wood fairy, with Rose-Marie and the other children, danced out of the black cavern into the bright sunshine. And how the birds sang above them in the green boughs! And how the perfume of the flowers came from the thickets! And the way opened broad and smooth before them as, with filled hands and joyous hearts, Rose-Marie and the other children went home.