THE FORGOTTEN BELL

      MANY, many years ago there was a pious hermit. He had turned his back on the world, and had built a hermitage in a green meadow, which lay in the midst of the forest; and the peasants of the neighboring villages and farms had helped him diligently in the building and furnishing of his hut. Next the hermit's dwelling stood a chapel with a doleful Madonna; and above it, under a little roof, hung a small bell, which the solitary man was accustomed to ring at certain hours, and this was his most important work of the day; the rest of the time he spent in prayer and pious reflection. His thirst he quenched at a cool fountain, which sprang up out of the black-wood earth, not far from the hermitage; but he satisfied his hunger with the fruit of the forest and the food which the faithful peasant women brought to him.
      In this way the pious man lived for a long succession of years. Then he laid himself down on his bed of straw, wrapped himself up closely in his cowl, and died. Many tears were shed at his burial, and the sobbing women said, “Such a hermit as he was we shall never have again.” And in this respect they were quite right.
      It happened that soon after the hermit's decease another came, who established himself in the deserted hermitage; and he pleased the women quite well, for he was young in years and had a pair of eyes as black as coals. But the new hermit was an eyesore to the men; why, it was never exactly known. In short, the peasants collected together one day, seized the recluse, and conducted him to the highway. And the hermit turned his back to the thankless fellows, and was seen no more in that region.
      >From that time the hermitage stood desolate, and only occasionally did a roving huntsman, or a maiden with her jug, turn their footsteps towards the deserted house to draw refreshment from the well near by. Brown wood-moss grew luxuriantly on the thatched roof of the hermitage, and brambles and clematis grew round the door and windows. In the deceased hermit's straw bed the field-mice were rearing their young, and in the chapel the red-tail had built her nest. The forest, with its creatures, was gradually taking possession again of the ground which man had taken away from it.
      Spring was about to make her appearance, and the earth was getting ready for the Easter festival. With damp wings the thawing wind came flying across the sea, shook the trees and threw the fir-cones and dead branches on the ground. The springs and brooks murmured louder, and ran more swiftly on their winding way. The tips of the snowdrops and anemones peeped stealthily up out of the ground in the woods, and the showy laurel put on its red silk gown. Then came the hoopoo bird with his bright-colored crest and announced the coming of the cuckoo. And the briers shook off their last dry leaves and stood with their buds swollen with sap, waiting patiently for the awakening call of Spring.
      The little bell in the ruined forest chapel saw with sorrow how everything was preparing for the feast of the Resurrection. In former years, when the sound of the bells trembled through the air at the happy Easter-tide, she, too, had lifted her voice and sung in the chorus of the proud sisters in the church towers. But that time was long ago. Since the old hermit was buried, no hand had pulled the rope at Easter-tide; silent and forgotten hung the bell beneath her little roof, and for a bell nothing is harder than to be obliged to keep silent at the feast of the Resurrection.
      Passion week had come. On Wednesday the hare came bounding out of the forest. He stopped in front of the chapel, stood on his hind legs, and called up to the bell, “If you have anything to be done in the city, tell me, for I am on my way there. I have been appointed Easter hare, and have my paws full, and so much business to attend to that I don't know which end my head is on.” The sorrowful bell kept silent, and the hare ran on.
      The next night there was a mighty roaring in the air. The roses crouched down in the underbrush, for they thought it was the night huntsman passing through the forest. But it was not the forest fiend, but the bells, on their way to Rome to obtain the blessing of the Pope.
      The bell from the convent on the mountain came over to the forest chapel, and stopped for a moment.
      “How is it, sister,” she asked the forgotten bell, “that you are not going, too?”
      “Ah, I would gladly go,” lamented the little bell. “But I have been idle the whole year long, therefore I dare not go with you. Still, if you will do me a favor, say a good word to the holy father in Rome for me. Perhaps he will send some one to ring me on Easter Sunday. It is so melancholy to have to be silent when all of you are singing. Will you do me the kindness?”
      The convent bell mumbled something like “non possumus.” Then she arose, like a great, clumsy bird, from the ground, and flew after the others. And the forgotten bell remained sadly behind.
      “Be thankful that human beings leave you in peace,” said the forest owl to the bell. “The stupid beasts in the woods understand nothing about your ringing, and it disturbs me in my meditation. But you are not entirely forsaken, for I am going to build my nest near you. And you will gain much by it, for I am a man from whom you can learn a great deal.” Thus spoke the owl, and puffed himself up. But the bell gave him no answer.
      Easter morning dawned. Twilight still lingered over the village, and the mist stretched over the mountain slope. A cool wind blew through the branches of the trees, stirred the white May lilies, and rustled through the dry reeds, so that it sounded like the low tones of a harp. Then the mountain tops grew red, and the firs creaked and shook their branches, as if they were just awaking from sleep. The sun rose and scattered gold over the tips of the fir-trees, and the wood birds flapped their wings, raised their voices, and sang their Easter songs. But the forgotten bell hung sad and silent under the roof in the chapel.
      At the same hour a young man was walking along the highway which led through the forest. He wore a huntsman's leather jacket and a gray hawk's feather in his hat. By his left side hung a broad hunting-knife, with a handle of a stag's horn; but instead of fire-arms, he carried a heavily packed knapsack of badger's skin. This and a cane of buckthorn with iron mountings, which he swung in his right hand, led one to suppose that the huntsman was not after game, but was making a journey; and so it was.
      At the place where a path which led to a mill struck off from the road, the young fellow stopped, and seemed undecided whether to keep on the road or to take the meadow path. But he did not linger long. He cast a gloomy look in the direction of the mill, threw his head back haughtily, and gave a hunting-cry that made the fir-woods resound. Then as he went along, he sang:—
      “Farewell, green jocund forest home! Thee must I leave behind me, Throughout the weary world to roam Till Fortune's favors find me. As hunter lad My joy I've had The noble stag in chasing; But now my way Leads to the fray Where death I shall be facing.
      “A gray hawk sat upon the height, Enchained by evil magic; In sadness pined he day and night, His mood was grim and tragic. He would exchange For freedom's range The forests' wide dominions; On high, on high, Thou wild bird, fly, And spread thy noble pinions.”
      But the last words stuck in the young man's throat, and the half-suppressed sigh at the end ill accorded with the huntsman's joyous manner.
      Suddenly the youth left the broad road, and went diagonally through the forest, straight to the deserted hermitage. By the spring, which had its source near the house he stopped, bent down, and filled a wooden cup with the cool water. He drank it slowly, and sprinkled the last drops on the moss. “Well,” he said, “now it is all over.”
      The water was clear and cold, but it could not cool the hot blood of the one who drank it. The young huntsman sat down on the threshold of the hermitage and covered his face with both hands.
      The summer before, after a long absence, he had returned to the country, and entered the service of the old forester. He had seen something of the world; in the emperor's hunting-train, he had chased the chamois and the steinboc in the high mountains; he had followed his master to the merry hunting-boxes and to the splendid residence in the capital; and everywhere he had carried with him his love for the miller's fairhaired daughter in his native valley. He had come back with a generous sum of money and many sweet hopes, but they had melted away to nothing, and now he was on the point of leaving the country and enlisting as a soldier.
      It was near the hermitage in the forest where he had found his sweetheart for the first time after their separation. She had come to draw water; and when the hunter recognized the beautiful, slender form, as she bent over the well, his joy was so great that he leaped from his hiding-place with a wild shout, and threw his arms around the frightened maiden. But she had pushed him roughly away from her, so that he fell backwards, and then she turned her back and went away.
      Later on, the huntsman had tried once more to approach the miller's daughter. It was at the time of the harvest festival, when young and old march in bands to the dancing-ground. There the huntsman had waylaid the beautiful girl, and had come to meet her with a friendly greeting and a bouquet of clove pinks. But when she saw the youth coming towards her, she had turned around and gone back to the mill, and the hunter, in his anger, had thrown the bunch of pinks into the mill brook. The coy maid had fished the flowers out of the water near the dam, dried them, and laid them away in her chest, but he knew nothing about that.
      Then perversity came over the huntsman. “If you go to the left, I will go to the right,” he thought; and lest she might imagine that he took the matter to heart, he joined a company of gay fellows, drank, sang, and carried on so madly that the wild youth was in everybody's mouth for seven miles around.
      That went on through the whole winter. Then one evening a bright light, which took the form of a sword, was seen in the sky, and shortly after the news came that in the spring there would be war in Italy. It was not long before the beating of drums was heard in the land, and the roads swarmed with travelling people, who were all going to join the imperial army. Then the huntsman gave notice that he was going to leave the forester's service, gave his drinking-companions a generous parting cup, and followed the rest, to forget on the field his sorrow and distress. And he had already really come as far as the hermitage in the forest. He was now sitting on the door-stone, sadly hanging his head.
      A soft, distant rustling in the underbrush fell on the young fellow's sharp ear. The huntsman was awake in him, and his sharp eye looked about for the cause of the sound. But it was no shifting game that was coming through the bushes. Between the trunks of the fir-trees gleamed something light, like a woman's garments, and the hunter slipped noiselessly, but with loud-beating heart, behind the wall of the house, for through the forest came walking her whom he would fain forget, but could not forget.
      The maiden came slowly nearer. Now and then she bent down to add a flower to the nosegay which she carried in her hand, and each time her long flaxen braids would fall forward and touch the ground. When she reached the well, she filled a little earthen jug with the water and placed the nosegay in it. Then she went into the chapel, placed the flowers before the image of the Virgin, and knelt down on the moss-covered step.
      In a low voice she repeated the angel's greeting, and then began to pour out her heart to the queen of heaven. It was a prayer full of self-accusation and repentance. “I have driven him from me,” she bemoaned, “driven him out into danger and death, and yet I love him so! more dearly than the light of my eyes! Still there is time to change everything by a word of reconciliation, if I knew that he still loved me. Easter is the time of miracles. Give me, oh, heaven, a sign, if he still thinks of me lovingly and faithfully, and I will run after him to the end of the world, and bring him back. Give me a sign!”
      Then above her softly sounded the bell. It was only a single tone, but it rang through the heart of the grieved maiden like a joyful song of jubilee. She lifted her eyes and looked up questioningly at the Madonna. Then the bell sounded for the second time, and louder and more joyful, and when the maiden turned, there stood in the entrance of the chapel the young huntsman, stretching out his arms to his beloved. And this time she did not run away. She threw her arms about the wild hunter's sun-burned neck, and stammered words of love.
      The titmice, and the golden-crested wrens which lived in the branches of the fir-trees, fluttered along, and the wood-mouse put his head out at the door of his house, and everything looked curiously at the pair in the chapel.
      The two remained in each others' embrace for a long time. Then the huntsman grasped the rope of the bell and called up to it: “Bell, you have brought us together; now tell our joy to the forest!” And the little bell under the chapel roof began to gleam with joy in the warm sunshine, and swing tirelessly to and fro and let her clear voice sound through the forest.
      From the towers in the surrounding villages came the sounds of famous church bells. They had returned the night before from their visit to Rome, and had seen many wonderful sights. But not one of them sang her Easter song so joyfully as the little forgotten bell in the forest.