Fairy Tales from the German Forests Part 4

he went on in an enthusiastic way. "You can go for a ride in it any day in Frankfurt, providing the weather is fine and you can afford to pay 15!"

"Just listen to him, just listen to him!" said the dwarfs. "We don't believe a word you have said. You are imposing on our credulity, you bad man," and thereupon they flew at him and began to beat him with their clubs, which were heavily weighted, and to pinch him with their long fingers.

It might have gone hardly with him, but quick as thought Karl flashed out the little revolver from his pocket. They seemed to know the meaning of that modern toy; for they crouched back trembling, and not daring to move.

"Now stop it, will you," he said, "or I shall have to shoot you, and take you home with me to be stuffed or put into the National Anthropological Museum. They would give me a good price for you," he said musingly--"they would think you were The Missing Link."

"O please, Mr Hammerstein, don't shoot us--("however did the little chaps find out my name!" thought Karl) we will believe all you say, even if it seems the greatest nonsense to us. After all birds fly, bats fly and fairies fly, why should not s.h.i.+ps and trains fly?" said the spokesman, who, I must tell you, was a relation of King Reinhold in the Taunus Mountains and was proud of belonging to a royal family.

Karl called him Mr Query, because he was so fond of asking questions, but so slow to take in a new fact, as indeed were all the dwarfs.

"You promised us _Christmas Tree_ not to harm us," said Mr Query, reproachfully.

"Well, I didn't hurt anyone, did I, but how about your treatment of me?

That wasn't in the contract either," said Karl.

Meanwhile Karl looked about him curiously. He had never been to dwarfland before, and might never have the chance of visiting it again, and he did not wish to lose the opportunity of seeing all he could.

"Are there any more of you?" he asked the dwarfs.

"I should think so," they answered. "Hundreds and thousands of us live under this mountain."

Karl noticed pa.s.sages running in all directions, and low caves which seemed to be dwellings, many of them richly ornamented and furnished. In one of these caves he observed a looking-gla.s.s, and wondered which of the dwarf men trimmed his beard before it. He met a great many little men scurrying about, who cast anxious glances at the giant who had strayed among them. Karl had frequently to stoop; the ceilings seemed very low to him, although they were high enough compared to the dwarf men.

"Where are the female dwarfs?" he asked abruptly.

"Dwarfs have no womenfolk," Mr Query replied. "We did away with them long, long ago!"

"That was rather rough on them, eh?" said Karl.

"Well it happened so many centuries ago that we have forgotten all about it, and so are unable to gratify your curiosity. Perhaps if you care for antiquities and were to study the pictures on the walls, you might find out."

"Not my line," said Karl shortly.

"As we have no women," Mr Query continued, "we never quarrel and have no differences of opinion."

"I expect no lady would care to live down here with you in this dark hole," said Karl, thoughtfully. "But to whom does the looking-gla.s.s belong?"

"A fairy comes to visit us occasionally; she makes herself useful and tidies up the place a bit for us," said the dwarf. "She's here now--would you like to see her?"

"Of course I should," said Karl, his heart beating fast at the thought of meeting a real fairy--perhaps she was a princess in disguise, and he might be chosen to win her.

The dwarf drew back the curtain that hung before a beautifully furnished cave, and there Karl saw a young girl who was busy dusting and arranging handsome gold vases on a carved bracket. Even by the pale light of the glow-worms and the lantern which he had not yet extinguished, he could see that she was very beautiful. She had a ma.s.s of red-brown hair, that waved in tiny curls about her forehead, and hazel eyes with dark eyelashes. As to her figure, she was small and slight, so that she did not look quite so monstrous in that little world as Karl did. She had a big holland ap.r.o.n on, with a gaily embroidered border. When she saw Karl, she laughed. "To think of meeting a young man in this old hole--how funny," she exclaimed.

"Are you a fairy?" said Karl, bewildered by her beauty.

"Do I look like one?" she answered with a toss of her bronze curls.

"Not exactly," said Karl, "but then I have never seen a fairy; you are pretty enough for one!"

She made a little curtsy in acknowledgment of the compliment. "I'll have finished my work soon," she said, "and then we will go home together."

"That will be delightful," said Karl.

The dwarfs were looking on.

"You may go," said Mr Query. "You have worked enough for to-day." He handed her several pieces of gold. Her eyes sparkled with glee as she pocketed the coins; she was proud of having earned some money.

"Follow me," she said to Karl, "and I will show you the way home. You would never be able to find it alone."

"The dwarfs have burrowed here like moles," said Karl aside to the girl, "and I believe they are almost as blind and ignorant."

"Do not speak disrespectfully of moles," said a dwarf who had overheard the last part of this remark. "They belong to the most intelligent of all creatures; who can build a fortress like the mole?"

"Norah," said the dwarfs, "Norah, when are you coming again?"

"Very soon," she said, "I'll bring some metal polish with me, and make your vases s.h.i.+ne!"

"Norah," thought Karl, "so that is her name. I wonder where she lives?"

Norah led the way back through intricate pa.s.sages until they came to the open s.p.a.ce where there was the staircase leading up to the outside world. "Good morning," she said to the dwarfs.

Karl pulled out his watch--yes--the night was already past, it was four o'clock.

"I'll drop in again soon, and see about your little commissions," he said to the dwarfs. "Electric light you want, telephone and lift, it will be rather a big job."

"And what about the airs.h.i.+p?" asked Mr Query.

"O I can't rig that up for you; you must go to Frankfurt and see that for yourselves. Good morning," and he turned to follow Norah, who was already some way up the stone staircase. From a distance she really looked like a fairy. The light of dawn shone on her wonderful hair; she had taken off her ap.r.o.n, and had on a white dress trimmed with gold, that fluttered as she mounted the steps. At the top she waited to take breath, and Karl easily caught her up. They gazed down into the depths beneath them, but no trace of dwarfland could they see. Even the glow-worms had vanished, and the rough steps looked like natural niches in the rock. They were on the top of the mountain. Near by stood a grove of firs, the trees were so gnarled and stunted from their exposed position that they looked like a dwarf forest, and seemed appropriate growing there.

"Your name is 'Norah'," said Karl boldly, "but that is all I know about you!"

"I am no fairy princess, alas," said Norah, "but only a poor landlord's daughter. My father and I have the new hotel in Elm!"

"O you must be the pretty innkeeper's daughter then of whom I have heard so much," said Karl. "Now isn't it funny, I had meant to stay the night at your hotel on the chance of seeing you, and now we meet under the earth in dwarfland--romantic I call that! Why do you work for those little beggars?" he continued.

"For the same reason that you have proposed doing so," she answered, "to earn money. I was picking bilberries on the mountains and strayed into their land by chance one day. I found them busy at work spring cleaning, and helped them a bit, and that was my first introduction to the dwarfs.

They pay me well for little work, and starting an hotel costs a great deal of money you must know. I am glad to be able to help my father."

"You do not come from this part of Germany, you speak quite differently to us," said the young man inquiringly.

"My home is over the seas," said Norah. "My father is an Irishman; but we found it hard to get on there, and meant to emigrate to America. Then father changed his mind, and we came to Germany. My mother died some years ago," she said sadly.

"Poor child," said Karl in a deep, sympathetic voice, "there must be a good deal of responsibility on your young shoulders."

"I should just think so," said Norah with a sigh, "but our hotel is going to be a tremendous success!" As she spoke, she led the way through a little narrow path, that crossed a heath where heather grew, and great ma.s.ses of yellow starred ragwort. "Ah! me beloved golden flower," she cried, pointing the plant out to Karl, who had pa.s.sed it by a thousand times as a common weed, but to whom it seemed from this day forth to be alive and full of meaning. "We call it fairy-horses in Ireland," she said, with a rapt look on her face, "sure and I can see my native mountains when I pluck it"--and her eyes filled with tears.

She wanted no consoling however, her mood changed quickly enough. "Do come here," she called out to Karl, "and see what I've found now!" She showed him a clump of pure white heather; "it is tremendously lucky,"