Page:Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales (1888).djvu/345



the narrow streets of a large city, towards evening, when the setting sun threw a golden light over roof and chimney, there might sometimes be heard, by one and another, a strange tone, something like the sound of a church bell. Only for a moment, however, for the continual rumbling of carriages and the hum of voices often drowned the tone. Still, people would say, “The evening bell is sounding, for it is sunset.” Those who wandered outside the town after sunset, where the houses stood at greater distances from each other, could see the evening sky in all its beauty, and hear the sound of the bell much more clearly. It was as if the tones came rom a cathedral lying in the still depths of the fragrant forest, and people looked in that direction with solemnized feelings.

After some time, one said to another, “Is there a church in the wood yonder? That bell has a singularly fine tone; shall we go a little nearer and listen?” And the rich people drove there, and the poor walked, but the way seemed long and interminable, for they were no nearer to the tones of the bell. By a number of willow-trees, which grew on the borders of the forest, they sat down, and glanced up at the long branches, and fancied they were really in the green wood. A pastrycook from the town came amongst them, and pitched a tent, and then came another and hung a bell over his tent, which he had covered with tar to protect it from the rain, but the clapper was wanting.

When the people returned home they said it had been all very romantic, which was really more than merely taking tea. Three persons, however, declared that they had been to the very end of the wood; they had always heard the sound of the bell, but it appeared to them as if it came from the town. One of them wrote a song about it, and said that the bell was like the voice of a mother singing to a good and beloved child. No melody could be more beautiful than the sound of the bell.

The emperor was informed of this matter, and promised that whoever really found out what the sound came from should have the title of “Bell-ringer to the world,” even if it should prove that there was no bell in the case.