Page:The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen (c1899).djvu/72

 cannot seize him even when he hangs by a branch above the precipice. I should be delighted te tickle his feet, or pitch him headlong through the air; but I cannot!”

“We will succeed between us,” said the Ice-Maiden. “Thou or I! I! I!”

“No, no!” an unseen voice replied, sounding like distant church bells; the joyful singing of good spirits—the Daughters of the Sun. These float above the mountain every evening; they expand their rosy wings which glow more and more like fire as the sun nears to setting over the snowy peaks. People call it the “Alpine glow.” And after sunset they withdraw into the snow and rest there until sunrise, when they again show themselves. They love flowers, and butterflies, and human beings; and they were particularly fond of Rudy.

“You shall never catch him—you shall never have him,” said they.

“| have captured bigger and stronger Boys than he,” said the Ice-Maiden.

The Daughters of the Sun now sang a song of a traveller whose cloak was carried away by the storm: “The storm took the cloak, but not the man. You can grasp at him, but not hold him, ye strong ones. He is stronger, he is more spiritual than we are! He will ascend above the sun, our mother! He has the power to bind the winds and the waves, and make them serve him and do his bidding. If you unloose the weight that holds him down, you will set him free to rise yet higher.”

Thus ran the chorus which sounded like distant church bells.

Each morning the sunbeams shone through the little window of the grandfather’s house, and lighted on the silent boy. The Daughters of the Sun kissed him, and tried to thaw the cold kisses which the Queen of the Glaciers had given him, while he was in the arms of his dead mother, in the deep crevasse, whence he had been so wonderfully rescued.

UDY was now a boy of eight. His uncle, who lived in the Rhone valley at the other side of the mountains, wished him to come to him, and learn how to make his way in the world; his grandfather approved of this, and let him go.

Rudy therefore said good-bye. He had to take leave of others besides his grandfather; and the first of these was his old dog, Ajola.

“When your father was postillion, I was his post-dog,” said Ajola. “We travelled backwards and forwards together; and I know some dogs at the other side of the mount and some of the people. I was never a chatterer; but now that we are not likely to have many more chances of talking, I want to tell you a few things. I will tell you something I have had in my head and thought over for a long time. I can’t make it out, and you won’t make it out; but that doesn’t matter. At least I can see that things are not fairly divided in this world, whether for dogs or for men. Only a few