Page:Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales (1888).djvu/70

 ding dong,” said the bell, “now I can have a long sleep,” as he went plump into the river at its deepest part, which on that account is called the “Bell-deep.”

But there was neither sleep nor rest for the bell. It is still heard by the watermen, ringing and sounding at all hours, and the tones sometimes come up through the water. When they do, men say it is a sign that someone is going to die; but that is a mistake. It is only the bell talking to the water-sprite, so that now he is not alone.

“And what is the bell talking about?” Why he is as old as Methuselah. Long, long before grandmamma was born he was there, and yet the bell is a young thing compared to the water sprite, who is quite an old man. Yet he has a strange appearance with his stockings made of the skins of eels, his seal-skin coat with yellow lilies for buttons, a wreath of reeds in his hair, and seaweed twisted in his beard. How funny he looks we need not say.

“What else does the bell say?” Why it would take years and years to repeat all the stories the bell can tell. Sometimes they are short and at other times long, just as it suits him; but they are all about old days and dark days, and hard times.

One of his stories was about St. Alban’s church, when the patron saint was a monk, and once mounted up into the tower where the bell hung. He was young and handsome then, and uncommonly thoughtful. The bed of the river was at that time very broad, and the monastery meadow still a lake. He could see it all through a loop-hole of the tower, but presently he went and looked at the prospect from the green wall, which people called the Nuns’-hill. It was near the convent, in which there was not a single light burning excepting from the cell of a nun with whom he had been a long time acquainted, and at the thought of her his heart beat rapidly—“Ding dong, ding dong.”

“You must wait,” said the bell. Then the halfwitted man-servant of the bishop came up into the tower, and now the bell must tell his own tale:—

“I am made of metal,” said the bell, “and as I swung to and fro I might have beaten out his brains. The man seated himself right under me, and began playing with two sticks, as if they were musical instruments, and sung to the imaginary music.

“Now I may ring out sounds which at another time I could not even whisper,” said the bell. “I can tell of things that are locked up behind bolts and bars. The rats are eating her up alive! No one knows of it. No one hears of it. Not even while the bell is booming and ringing ‘Ding dong, ding dong,’

“In those days there lived a king whom they called Canute. He bowed low before a bishop and a monk, but when he imposed heavy taxes on the peasants and gave them hard words, they seized their weapons and hunted him like a wild deer. He sought refuge in the church, and closed the doors behind him, but the enraged peasants surrounded the church, and there he had to stay. ‘I was there,’ said the bell, ‘and I heard it all.’

“The crows, the ravens, and the magpies flew about in terror when they