A Captive of the Roman Eagles Part 2

"The saying ran through the district, nay, all the provinces by the lake. Wherever my granddaughter went, to pick berries in summer, to comb the flax, to glean, to mow, to thresh--everywhere the jeering couplet greeted her. That was not kind. Or wise!" she added in a lower tone.

"Mother Waldrun, you are right: it was not well done, but no harm was meant."

"Yes, yes, Odin placed the song in your reckless lips and gave you the winged words, the biting jest. You cannot help it! Wherever you see a tempting mark, the arrow of a mocking speech whizzes from your mouth."

"But unvenomed, unbarbed. A blunt little shaft like that with which we strike the pretty red-breast, Donar's favorite, not to harm it, nay, only to capture it unhurt and bear it home to our hearths that it may sing sweetly to us year after year."

"Beware! Everything that has the red hue is pa.s.sionate, swift to revenge, and slow to forgive.

"Yes," replied the youth laughing. "How runs another verse?

"'Dost vex little Red Hair?

I bid thee beware!

The fair one fear.

She's false and spits her ire Like the fox and the fire.'"

Scarcely was the last line uttered when, high among the topmost boughs of the lofty tree, a strange sound was heard. At the very summit the noise resembled spitting and rattling, while below it was different, like something sliding down the trunk. The first sounds undoubtedly came from a little squirrel, which, startled by some disturbance, chattering and hissing in fear or anger, sprang in a wide curve yet with a sure leap from the topmost bough of the tree to a neighboring oak which stood at a considerable distance.

CHAPTER V.

Adalo's glance followed the little creature's bound, which really resembled flying.

But meanwhile, from amid the dense foliage in the centre of the tree a figure clad in the dress of a girl slid nimbly down the trunk, and as soon as she reached the ground, smoothed her garments carefully from her knees to her ankles. With her dainty, sparkling beauty, her almost childlike delicacy of form, this apparition looked less like a mortal maiden than a spirit of light.

She wore no cloak. Her white linen robe, with its cherry-red border and girdle of the same hue a hand's breadth wide, left her neck and arms bare; her complexion, wherever any portion of her almost too slenderly moulded figure was visible, gleamed with the dazzling whiteness of ivory; the unusually heavy dark-red eyebrows, which nearly met in the centre but were beautifully arched, frowned threateningly, and her clear blue eyes were now flas.h.i.+ng with wrath. The vision attracted rather by the vivacious charm of expression and the perfect symmetry of her dainty figure than by regular beauty. For it must be confessed, though the charming inquisitive little nose did not actually turn up--by no means--it was really a little too short. And, as it sloped sharply away at the end, the s.p.a.ce between it and the upper lip became too long, thereby giving the oval face when in repose an expression half of alert surprise, half of mischievous wilfulness.

Everything about this dainty dragon-fly was so delicate that the young girl might easily have been taken for a child, had not her rounded bust revealed her womanhood. Wonderfully charming was the little mouth, whose lips were so full that they seemed to pout mirthfully, while their hue rivalled the red border of her robe. A dimple in the chin and a slight tendency to a double chin lent the face that innocent sweetness without which woman's beauty fails to attract.

The most remarkable thing about this elfin vision was her hair--hair whose bright red hue was the very tint of flame--which rippled around her brow and temples in a thousand wilful little ringlets as if each individual one curled separately. They seemed to frame the face protectingly, as thorns cl.u.s.ter about a rosebud. The rest of her locks, after the Suabian fas.h.i.+on, were combed upward toward the crown, knotted there, and then flowed in magnificent tawny waves, somewhat darker in tint, over her dazzlingly white neck far below her waist.

The expression of saucy defiance, inquisitive surprise, nay even superiority, enhanced by this arrangement of the hair, was still further heightened by the little creature's habit of raising her heavy eyebrows as if in mingled astonishment and reproof. In the charm of the contradiction lay a temptation to smile which this fragile elf, with her pert little nose and sparkling blue eyes, seamed to discover--and if necessary instantly resent.

An extremely strong will, a hot, ungovernable temper, and the sweetness of a half unfolded bud, were contrasts which provoked a smile--nay, almost irresistibly awakened a desire to try what the impetuous little thing would do if her swift wrath were aroused. But when she raised her eyes with a more gentle expression, they were so bewitchingly beautiful, so pure, so tender, so soulful, that enthusiastic admiration made the spectator forget the inclination to tease her.

True, at this moment the elf looked by no means angelic, but thoroughly evil, as, darting only one swift glance of furious rage at the tall young n.o.ble, she seized the old woman violently by the shoulder and in a low voice stifled by suppressed fury--cried: "Grandmother!--Away!--To the marshes! Zercho the bondman must guide us. Away!"

"Gently, child, gently! Did not you hear? It will be safer on the mountain."

"Safer perhaps for us; but not for those whom we--no, whom _I_ should then be near. Go," she cried furiously to the youth, "save yourself, I advise you, from the red-hair. 'False and spitting her ire like the fox and the fire.' Was that the way it ran, you witty fellow? As soon as the daughter of our neighbor Ero, giggling with spiteful mirth, told me your last jibe against me, I climbed the hay-ladder to the ridge-pole of our house and painted our white star up there red: painted it very thick and bright, so that you could see it from the edge of the forest and keep far away from the evil color. Very far--do you hear?"

CHAPTER VI.

Adalo had now recovered from his astonishment.

"I knew," he said, smiling, "that the elves of light dwell above our heads; but I was not aware that they had nests among the boughs of the oaks."

"And why not? If you reproach me with being an elf of light."

"It is no reproach, I should think. What says the elf-song? 'Fairest fair are not the ases, but the elves.'"

"'Sharp is the bite of the squirrel, but Bissula's is sharper still.'

You yourself cla.s.sed me with the biting animals, so do not wonder that I fled to my red, snarling, biting sisters when I heard in the distance the haughty footfall of the hated Adalo. I detected your approach even sooner than the long-practised ear of my blind grandmother. Hate is quick to hear."

"Do you hate me?" asked the youth. His voice sounded low and sad.

"Forgive her, Adalo! She is but a child."

"No, grandmother, I am a child no longer; I shall see my eighteenth winter when the next snow falls. The child tried to defend herself against superior strength. She was too weak; but now something within me struggles against your arrogance--I know not what it is; it glows here in my breast, and believe me, this thing within is stronger than my hands once were: you cannot conquer."

"I do not wish to conquer; I seek to protect you and your grandmother."

"The head of our clan will protect us--Suomar, her son, my uncle and guardian."

"Suomar thought that you would be safer on Odin's Mountain."

"Because my good uncle did not suspect that you were only trying to win fresh renown by new couplets. Something like this:

'Bitterly bites Bissula! But back Repentant she ran, in fear of the Romans; To Adalo, the Adeling!'

You hear--I too can make verses."

"Evil words," said Waldrun reprovingly, "which were not given to you by Odin the Wise, but by Loki! Why do you scorn the protection your neighbor offers? You grew up together like brother and sister, constant playfellows on the sh.o.r.e and the lake."

"Until the neighbor discovered that he was the rich, strong young n.o.ble, skilled in song; the 'handsome' Adalo--as all the silly girls whisper. He handsome? He is hideous. His name is forever ringing in one's ears throughout the whole region in every dwelling along the lake. Who is the boldest hero in the Roman war? The stoutest swimmer, the most successful hunter? The victor in wrestling, hurling stones, casting the spear? Who leaps highest in the sword dance? To whom do even the gray-beards listen in the Council? At whom do the maidens peep at the sun-festival? Adalo! Adalo! Adalo!--The arrogant fellow! It is unbearable."

The angry maiden pressed both little clenched hands over her eyes to shut out the sight of the foe she so fervently hated.

"Would arrogance bring me here with this entreaty?"

"Ay; sheer arrogance! When, during the spinning in the winter and the hay-making in the autumn, the girls talked about you, I said little; I only listened. It was rumored that Jetto, the rich lord of the manor, was beginning--he took the first step--to treat with Adalo concerning a marriage with his daughter, Jettaberga. Jettaberga is the handsomest girl in the lake region--"

"That is not true," said Adalo earnestly.

"Her kinsmen, next to your own family, have the largest number of spears and of cattle, are the richest in s.h.i.+elds and in lands."

"That is true," he answered, nodding a.s.sent. "But Adalo refused the offer as soon as it was sufficiently well known in the neighborhood that Jetto himself had proposed to give him his daughter because both clans would have profited by the alliance--"

"Especially Jetto!" interrupted Waldrun. "And because Jettaberga thought the young n.o.bleman was handsomer than any other man."

"That is probably _not_ true!" remarked the latter, smiling pleasantly.

"Yes, it is true!" exclaimed Bissula vehemently. "Don't deny it. She told me so."

"I wish to hear nothing about it, Bissula--chatterer!" said the grandmother reproachfully.