Page:Select Popular Tales from the German of Musaeus.djvu/50

38 fell into Wackerman’s custody, and, through her intercession, often set them at liberty, and provided them with money for their journey.

At the foot of the castled mountain, a plentiful spring, concealed among deep bushes, gushed out of a natural grotto, and, according to an old tradition, it was inhabited by a water nymph called Nixa, and the saying went that she sometimes, on particular occasions, showed herself in the castle. The noble lady often wandered alone to this spring, when, in the absence of her husband, she wished to breathe fresh air, outside the thick walls of the castle, or to perform some charitable deeds in retirement without attracting notice. She met there the poor whom the porters would not admit, and distributed, on certain days, not only the best things from her table, but carried her humble good-nature sometimes as far as the holy Landgravine Elizabeth, who, with stoical contempt of all repugnant feelings, with her royal hand, at St. Elizabeth’s well, washed the beggars’ linen.

Once Wackerman had gone with his followers to encamp and to waylay the merchants who came from Augsburg market; and stayed away longer than was his wont. This made the tender wife anxious; she fancied that her lord had met with some misfortune; that he might be slain, or have fallen into the enemy’s power. Her heart was so heavy that she could neither sleep nor rest; already many days had she fretted, wavering between fear and hope, and often she cried out to the dwarf who held watch on the tower, “Kleinhansel, look out! what rustles through the wood? What sound of trampling in the valley? In what direction does the dust blow? Does Wackerman approach?” But Kleinhansel answered very sorrowfully, “Nothing stirs in the wood. Nothing rides in the valley; no dust is blown, and no plume of feathers waves.” This went on till night, when the evening star rose, and the light of the fall moon shone over the eastern mountains. Then she could not contain herself between the four walls of her chamber; she threw on her mantle, stole through the gates into the beech-grove, and wandered to her beloved spot, the crystal spring, in order to indulge undisturbed her sorrowful thoughts. Her eyes flowed with tears, and her mouth uttered melodious wailings which mingled with the rushing of the stream, as it murmured from the spring through the grass. While she approached the grotto, it appeared as if a light shadow hovered at its entrance; but her heart was so much troubled that she recked very little of it, and, at first sight, she thought that the quivering moonlight had presented to her this ideal figure. When she came nearer, the white figure seemed to move and to motion her with the hand. Then a shuddering came over her, yet she did not retreat, but stood to see what it really was. The tradition of the spring of Nixa, which was believed in the country round, was not unknown to her. She now recognised in the white lady, the nymph