This time, old Philemon bestirred him- | aside, and inquired how under the sun a fountain of milk could have got into an old earthen pitcher, this latter personage pointed to his staff. self, and took up the pitcher; for he was curious to discover whether there was any reality in the marvels which Baucis had whispered to him. He knew that his good old wife was incapable of falsehood, and that she was seldom mistaken in what she supposed to be true; but this was so very singular a case that he wanted to see into it with his own eyes. On taking up the pitcher, therefore, he slyly peeped into it, and was fully satisfied that it contained not so much as a single drop. All at once, however, he beheld a little white fountain, which gushed up from the bottom of the pitcher, and speedily filled it to the brim. with foaming and deliciously fragrant milk. It was lucky that Philemon, in his surprise, did not drop the miraculous pitcher from his hand. "Who are ye, wonder-working strangers?" cried he, even more bewildered than his wife had been. "Your guests, my good Philemon, and your friends," replied the elder traveler, in his mild, deep voice, that had something at once sweet and awe-inspiring in it. "Give me likewise a cup of the milk; and may your pitcher never be empty for kind Baucis and yourself, any more than for the needy wayfarer!" "There is the whole mystery of the affair," quoth Quicksilver; "and if you can make it out, I'll thank you to let me know. I can't tell what to make of my staff. It is always playing such odd tricks as this; sometimes getting me a supper, and quite as often stealing it away. If I had any faith in such nonsense, I should say the stick was bewitched!" He said no more, but looked so slyly in their faces, that they rather fancied he was laughing at them. The magic staff went hopping at his heels, as Quicksilver quitted the room. When left alone, the good old couple spent some little time in conversation about the events of the evening, and then lay down on the floor, and fell fast asleep. They had given up their sleeping-room to the guests, and had no other bed for themselves, save these planks, which I wish had been as soft as their own hearts. The old man and his wife were stirring, betimes, in the morning, and the strangers likewise arose with the sun, and made their preparations to depart. Philemon hospitably entreated them to remain a little longer, until Baucis could milk the cow, and bake a cake upon the hearth, and, perhaps, find them a few fresh eggs, for breakfast. The guests, however, seemed to think it better to accomplish a good part of their journey before the heat of the day should come on. They, therefore, persisted in setting out imme The supper being now over, the strangers requested to be shown to their place of repose. The old people would gladly have talked with them a little longer, and have expressed the wonder which they felt, and their delight at finding the poor and meager supper prove so much better and more abundant than they hoped. But the elder traveler had in-diately, but asked Philemon and Baucis spired them with such reverence that they dared not ask him any questions. And when Philemon drew Quicksilver to walk forth with them a short distance, and show them the road which they were to take. So they all four issued from the cottage, chatting together like old friends. It was very remarkable, indeed, how familiar the old couple insensibly grew with the elder traveler, and how their good and simple spirits melted into his, even as two drops of water would melt into the illimitable ocean. And as for Quicksilver, with his keen, quick, laughing wits, he appeared to discover every little thought that but peeped into their minds, before they suspected it themselves. They sometimes wished, it is true, that he had not been quite so quickwitted, and also that he would fling away his staff, which looked so mysteriously mischievous, with the snakes always writhing about it. But then, again, Quicksilver showed himself so very goodhumored, that they would have been rejoiced to keep him in their cottage, staff, snakes, and all, every day, and the whole day long. "Ah, me! Well-a-day!" exclaimed Philemon, when they had walked a little way from their door. "If our neighbors only knew what a blessed thing it is to show hospitality to strangers, they would tie up all their dogs, and never allow their children to fling another stone." "It is a sin and shame for them to behave so, that it is!" cried good old Baucis, vehemently. "And I mean to go this very day and tell some of them what naughty people they are!" "I fear," remarked Quicksilver, slyly smiling, "that you will find none of them at home." The elder traveler's brow, just then, assumed such a grave, stern, and awful grandeur, yet serene withal, that neither Baucis nor Philemon dared to speak a word. They gazed reverently into his face, as if they had been gazing at the sky. "When men do not feel towards the humblest stranger as if he were a brother," said the traveler, in tones so deep they sounded like those of an organ, "they are unworthy to exist on earth, which was created as the abode of a great human brotherhood!" "And, by the by, my dear old people,' cried Quicksilver, with the liveliest look of fun and mischief in his eyes, "where is this same village that you talk about? On which side of us does it lie? Methinks I do not see it hereabouts." Philemon and his wife turned towards the valley, where, at sunset, only the day before, they had seen the meadows, the houses, the gardens, the clumps of trees, the wide, green-margined street, with children playing in it, and all the tokens of business, enjoyment, and prosperity. But what was their astonishment! There was no longer any appearance of a village! Even the fertile vale, in the hollow of which it lay, had ceased to have existence. In its stead, they beheld the broad, blue surface of a lake, which filled the great basin of the valley from brim to brim, and reflected the surrounding hills in its bosom, with as tranquil an image as if it had been there ever since the creation of the world. For an instant, the lake remained perfectly smooth. Then, a little breeze sprang up, and caused the water to dance, glitter, and sparkle in the early sunbeams, and to dash, with a pleasant rippling murmur, against the hither shore. The lake seemed so strangely familiar, that the old couple were greatly perplexed, and felt as if they could only have been dreaming about a village having lain there. But, the next moment, they remembered the vanished dwellings, and the faces and characters of the inhabitants, far too distinctly for a dream. The village had been there yesterday, and now was gone! feasted, at your board, off the same viands. that supply their banquets on Olympus. You have done well, my dear old friends. have most at heart, and it is granted." "Alas!" cried these kind-hearted old | Wherefore, request whatever favor you people, "what has become of our poor neighbors!" "They exist no longer as men and women," said the elder traveler, in his grand and deep voice, while a roll of thunder seemed to echo it at a distance. "There was neither use nor beauty in such a life as theirs; for they never softened or sweetened the hard lot of mortality by the exercise of kindly affections between man and man. They retained no image of the better life in their bosoms; therefore, the lake, that was of old, has spread itself forth again, to reflect the sky!" "And as for those foolish people," said Quicksilver, with his mischievous smile, "they are all transformed to fishes. There needed but little change, for they were already a scaly set of rascals, and the coldest-blooded beings in existence. So, kind Mother Baucis, whenever you or your husband have an appetite for a dish of broiled trout, he can throw in a line, and pull out half a dozen of your old neighbors!" "Ah," cried Baucis, shuddering, "I would not, for the world, put one of them on the gridiron!" "No," added Philemon, making a wry face, "we could never relish them!" "As for you, good Philemon," continued the elder traveler, -"and you, kind Baucis,-you, -you, with your scanty means, have mingled so much heartfelt hospitality with your entertainment of the homeless stranger, that the milk became an inexhaustible fount of nectar, and the brown loaf and the honey were ambrosia. Thus, the divinities have Philemon and Baucis looked at one another, and then, I know not which of the two it was who spoke, but that one uttered the desire of both their hearts. "Let us live together, while we live, and leave the world at the same instant, when we die! For we have always loved one another!" "Be it so!" replied the stranger, with majestic kindness. "Now, look towards your cottage!" They did so. But what was their surprise on beholding a tall edifice of white marble, with a wide-open portal, occupying the spot where their humble residence had so lately stood! "There is your home," said the stranger, beneficently smiling on them both. "Exercise your hospitality in yonder palace as freely as in the poor hovel to which you welcomed us last evening." The old folks fell on their knees to thank him; but, behold! neither he nor Quicksilver was there. So Philemon and Baucis took up their residence in the marble palace, and spent their time, with vast satisfaction to themselves, in making everybody jolly and comfortable who happened to pass that way. The milk-pitcher, I must not forget to say, retained its marvelous quality of being never empty, when it was desirable to have it full. Whenever an honest, goodhumored, and free-hearted guest took a draught from this pitcher, he invariably found it the sweetest and most invigorating fluid that ever ran down his throat. But, if a cross and disagreeable curmudgeon happened to sip, he was pretty certain to twist his visage into a hard knot, and pronounce it a pitcher of sour milk! Thus the old couple lived in their palace a great, great while, and grew older and older, and very old indeed. At length, however, there came a summer morning when Philemon and Baucis failed to make their appearance, as on other mornings, with one hospitable smile overspreading both their pleasant faces, to invite the guests of over-night to breakfast. The guests searched everywhere, from top to bottom of the spacious palace, and all to no purpose. But, after a great deal of perplexity, they espied, in front of the portal, two venerable trees, which nobody could remember to have seen there the day before. Yet there they stood, with their roots fastened deep into the soil, and a huge breadth of foliage overshadowing the whole front of the edifice. One was an oak, and the other a lindentree. Their Their boughs-it was strange and beautiful to see-were intertwined together, and embraced one another, so that each tree seemed to live in the other's bosom, much more than in its own. While the guests were marveling how these trees, that must have required at least a century to grow, could have come to be so tall and venerable in a single night, a breeze sprang up, and set their intermingled boughs astir. And then there was a deep, broad murmur in the air, as if the two mysterious trees were speaking. "I am old Philemon!" murmured the oak. "I am old Baucis!" murmured the linden-tree. But, as the breeze grew stronger, the trees both spoke at once, -"Philemon! Baucis! Baucis! Philemon!"-as if one were both and both were one, and talking together in the depths of their mutual heart. It was plain enough to perceive that the good old couple had renewed their age, and were now to spend a quiet and delightful hundred years or so, Philemon as an oak, and Baucis as a linden-tree. And oh, what a hospitable shade did they fling around them! Whenever a wayfarer paused beneath it, he heard a pleasant whisper of the leaves above his head, and wondered how the sound should so much resemble words like these: "Welcome, welcome, dear traveler, welcome!" And some kind soul, that knew what would have pleased old Baucis and old Philemon best, built a circular seat around both their trunks, where, for a great while afterwards, the weary, and the hungry, and the thirsty used to repose themselves, and quaff milk abundantly out of the miraculous pitcher. And I wish, for all our sakes, that we had the pitcher here now! 258 One of the very satisfactory attempts to retell the classic myths for young readers is to be found in Gods and Heroes by R. E. Francillon. The stories are brought together into a "single saga, free from inconsistencies and contradictions." This gives the book all the charm of a single story made of many dramatic episodes. Francillon's version of the familiar tale of Narcissus and Echo follows by permission of the publishers. (Copyright. Ginn & Co., Boston.) THE NARCISSUS R. E. FRANCILLON There was a very beautiful nymph named Echo, who had never, in all her life, seen anybody handsomer than the god Pan. You have read that Pan was the chief of all the Satyrs, and what hideous monsters the Satyrs were. So, when Pan made love to her, she very naturally kept him at a distance: and, as she supposed him to be no worselooking than the rest of the world, she made up her mind to have nothing to do with love or lovemaking, and was quite content to ramble about the woods all alone. But one day, to her surprise, she happened to meet with a young man who was as different from Pan as any creature could be. Instead of having a goat's legs and long hairy arms, he was as graceful as Apollo himself: no horns grew out of his forehead, and his ears were not long, pointed, and covered with hair, but just like Echo's own. And he was just as beautiful in face as he was graceful in form. I doubt if Echo would have thought even Apollo himself so beautiful. The nymphs were rather shy, and Echo was the very shyest of them all. But she admired him so much she could not leave the spot, and at last she even plucked up courage enough to ask him, "What is the name of the most beautiful being in the whole world?" "Whom do you mean?" asked he. "Yourself? If you want to know your own name, you can tell it better than I can." "No," said Echo, "I don't mean myself. I mean you. What is your name?" "My name is Narcissus," said he. "But as for my being beautiful—that is absurd." "Narcissus!" repeated Echo to her here in these woods all alone? She is lucky-whoever she may be." "I have come to meet nobody," said Narcissus. "But-am I really so beautiful? I have often been told so by other girls, of course; but really it is more than I can quite believe." "And you don't care for any of those girls?" "Why, you see," said Narcissus, "when all the girls one knows call one beautiful, there's no reason why I should care for one more than another. They all seem alike when they are all always saying just the same thing. Ah! I do wish I could see myself, so that I could tell if it was really true. I would marry the girl who could give me the wish of my heart—to see myself as other people see me. But as nobody can make me do that, why, I suppose I shall get on very well without marrying anybody at all." Looking-glasses had not been invented in those days, so that Narcissus had really never seen even so much of himself as his chin. "What!" cried Echo, full of hope and joy; "if I make you see your own face, you will marry me?" "I said so," said he. "And of course what I say I'll do, I'll do." "Then come with me!" Echo took him by the hand and led him to the edge of a little lake in the middle of the wood, full of clear water. "Kneel down, Narcissus," said she, "and bend your eyes over the waterside. That lake is the mirror where Diana comes every morning to dress her hair, and in which, every night, the moon and the stars behold themselves. Look into that water, and see what manner of man you are!" |