The baron and his spouse were both sitting before the door of their simple dwelling, looking at the evening-red, which was beginning to flame up from behind the blue mountains in golden streamers. They had their supper laid out on a little table: it consisted of a n.o.ble jug of splendid milk, and a plate of bread-and-b.u.t.ter.

"I don't know," the baron began, "where Tutor Ink can be staying out so long with the children. At first there was no getting him to go out at all to the wood, and now there's no getting him back from it. He's really a very extraordinary fellow, this Tutor Ink, taking him all in all. I sometimes almost wish he had never entered our doors. To begin with, his p.r.i.c.king the children with that needle was a thing that I cannot say I liked; and I don't think his knowledge of the sciences amounts to very much, either. He plappers out a lot of stuff that n.o.body run make head or tail of, and can tell you what kind of spatterdashes the Grand Mogul puts on; but when he goes outside, he can't tell a lime-tree from a chestnut; and his behaviour has always struck me as being most remarkable."

"I feel just as you do, dearest husband," said Frau von Brakel; "and, glad as I was that your great cousin should interest himself about the children, I feel quite sure, now, that he might have done it in other and better ways than by saddling us with this Tutor Ink. As regards his knowledge of the sciences, I don't pretend to give an opinion; but I know that the little black creature, with his little weeny legs, is more and more disagreeable to me every day. He has such a nasty way of gobbling things. He can't see a drop of beer at the bottom of a gla.s.s, or the f.a.g-end of a jug of milk, but he must gulp them down his throat; and if he finds the sugar-box open, he's at it in a moment, snuffing at the sugar, and dipping his fingers in it, till one has to clap to the lid in his face; and then away he darts, humming and buzzing in a way that's most disgusting and abominable."

The baron was going to carry this conversation further, when Felix and Christlieb came running home through amongst the birches.

"Hurrah! hurrah!" Felix kept shouting, "the pheasant prince has bitten Master Tutor Ink to death!"

"Oh, mamma dear," cried Christlieb, "Master Tutor Ink is not a Tutor Ink at all! What he really is, is Pepser, king of the Gnomes; a great, monstrous fly, but a fly with a wig on, and shoes and stockings!"

The parents gazed at the children in utter amazement, as they went on excitedly telling them all about the Stranger Child, whose mother was a great fairy queen; and of the Gnome King Pepser, and his combat with the pheasant prince.

"Who on earth has been cramming all this nonsense into your heads?" the baron asked over and over again. "Have you been dreaming? or what in the name of goodness has happened to you?" However, the children declared, and stuck to it, that everything had happened just as they told it, and that the horrible Pepser, who had given himself out as being Master Ink, the tutor, must be lying killed in the wood.

Frau von Brakel struck her hands over her head and cried, in much sorrow, "Oh, children, children, I don't know what on earth is to become of you, when fearful things of this sort come into your heads, and you won't let yourselves be persuaded to the contrary!"

But the baron grew very grave and thoughtful. "Felix," he said, "you are really a very sensible boy now; and I must admit that Tutor Ink has always, from the very first, struck me as being a very strange, mysterious creature. Indeed, it often seemed to me that there was something very queer about him, which I could by no means get to the bottom of; he is not like the common run of tutors at all. Your mother and I are by no means satisfied with him, particularly your mother. He has such a terribly liquorish tooth of his own, there's no keeping him away from sweet things! And then he hums and buzzes in such a distressing way! Altogether, I can a.s.sure you he wouldn't have been here much longer. No! But now, my dear boy, just bethink yourself calmly; even if there were, really, any such nasty things as gnomes existing in the world, could (I ask you now to think it over calmly and rationally), _could_, I say, a tutor really be a fly?"

Felix looked his father steadily in the face with his clear blue eyes, as he repeated this question. "Well," said Felix, "I never thought very much about that; in fact, I should not have believed it myself, if the Stranger Child had not said so, and if I had not seen, with my own eyes, that he is a horrible, nasty fly, and only pretends to be Tutor Ink. And then," continued Felix, while the baron shook his head in silence, like one who does not know quite what to say, or think, "see what mother says about his fondness for sweet things. Isn't that just like a fly? Flies are always grabbing at sweet things. And then, his hummings and buzzings!"

"Silence!" cried the baron. "Whatever Tutor Ink may really be, one thing is certain; that the pheasant prince has not bitten him to death, for here he comes out of the wood!"

At this the children uttered loud screams, and fled into the house.

For, in truth, Tutor Ink was approaching out of the wood, up the path among the birches. But he was all wild-looking and bewildered, with sparkling eyes, and his wig all touzled. He was buzzing and humming, and making great springs, high off the ground, first to one side, then to another, banging his head against the birches till you heard them resound. When he got to the house, he dashed at the milk-jug and popped his face into it, so that the milk ran over the sides; and he gulped it down, making a horrible noise of swallowing.

"For the love of heaven, Master Ink," cried Fran von Brakel, "what are you about?"

"Are you out of your senses?" said the baron. "Is the foul fiend after you?"

But, regardless of those interrogations, Master Ink, taking his mouth from the milk-jug, threw himself down bodily on the dish of bread-and-b.u.t.ter; fluttered over it with his coat-tails, and, somehow, made such play over it with his weazened legs, that he smoothed it down all over. Then, with a louder buzzing, he made for the house-door; but he couldn't manage to get into the house, but staggered hither and thither as if he was drunk, banging against the windows till they rattled and rang.

"I'll tell you what it is, my good sir!" cried the baron. "This is pretty behaviour! Look out, or you'll come to grief before you know where you are!" And he tried to seize Master Ink by the coat-tails; but Master Ink always managed to elude him, deftly. Here Felix came running out, with his father's big fly-flapper in his hand; and he gave it to the baron, crying, "Here you are, father; knock the horrible Pepser to death!"

The baron took the fly-flapper, and then they all set to work at Master Ink. Felix, Christlieb, and their mother took table-napkins, and made sweeps with them in the air, driving the tutor backwards and forwards, here and there; whilst the baron kept letting drive at him with the fly-flapper, which did not hit him, unfortunately, because he took good care never to stay a moment in the same place. And wilder and wilder grew the chase. "Summ-summ----simm-simm----trr-trr," went the tutor, storming hither and thither; "huss-huss," went the table-napkins, pursuing the foe; "klip-klap" fell the baron's strokes with the flapper, thick as hail. At last the baron managed to hit the tutor's coat-tails; he fell down with a groan. But just as the baron was going to get a second stroke at him, he bounced up into the air, with renewed and redoubled strength, stormed, humming and buzzing, away through the birches, and was seen no more.

"A good job," said the baron, "that we're well rid of horrible Tutor Ink: never shall he cross my threshold again."

"No; that he shall not!" said Frau von Brakel. "Tutors with such objectionable manners can do nothing but mischief, when just the contrary ought to be the case. Brags about his 'sciences,' and then goes flop into the milk-jug. A nice sort of a tutor, upon my word!"

But the children laughed and shouted, crying, "Hip-hip, hurrah! It's all right now! Father has. .h.i.t Tutor Ink a good one on the nose, and we've got rid of him for good and all."

THAT WHICH CAME TO Pa.s.s IN THE WOOD, AFTER TUTOR INK WAS GOT RID OF.

Felix and Christlieb breathed freely again now. A great weight was taken off their hearts. Above all things, there was the delicious thought that, now that the horrid Pepser was gone, the Stranger Child would be sure to come back, and play with them as of yore. They hurried into the wood, full of sweet hope and happy expectancy. But everything there was silent and desolate. Not a merry note of finch or siskin was to be heard; and in place of the gladsome rustling of the bushes and the joyous voice of the brook, sighs of sorrow seemed to be pa.s.sing through the air, and the sun cast only faint and feeble glimpses through the clouded sky. Presently great dark clouds began to pile themselves up; thunder muttered in the distance; a storm-wind howled, and the tall fir-trees creaked and groaned. Christlieb clung to Felix, in alarm. But he said, "What's come to you? What are you afraid of?

There's going to be a thunderstorm. We must get home as fast as we can; that's all!"

So they set off to do so; but somehow--they didn't know why--instead of getting out of the wood, they seemed to keep getting farther and farther into it. The darkness deepened: great rain-drops fell, faster and faster, thicker and thicker, and flashes of lightning darted hither and thither, hissing as they pa.s.sed. The children came to a stand by the edge of an impa.s.sable thicket. "Let's duck down here for a little, Christlieb," said Felix; "the storm won't last long." Christlieb was crying from fear, but she did as Felix asked her. Scarcely had they sat down among the thick bushes, however, when nasty, snarling voices began to speak, behind them, saying:

"Stupid things! Senseless creatures! You despised us; didn't know how to treat us--what to do with us. So now you can do your best without any playthings, senseless creatures that you are!" Felix looked round, and felt very eery and uncomfortable when he saw the sportsman and the harper rise up out of the thicket into which he had thrown them, staring at him with dead eyes and struggling and fighting about them with their hands. Moreover, the harper tw.a.n.ged on his strings so that they gave out a horrible, nasty, eery clinkering and rattling; and the sportsman went so far as to take a deliberate aim at Felix with his gun; and both of them croaked out, "Wait a little, you boy and you girl. We are obedient pupils of Master Tutor Ink: he'll be here directly, and then we'll pay you out nicely for despising us."

Terrified--regardless of the rain, which was now streaming in torrents, and of the rattling peals of thunder, and the gale which was roaring through the firs--the children ran away from thence, and came to the brink of the pond which bordered the wood. But as soon as they got there, lo and behold! Christlieb's big doll, which Felix had thrown into the water, rose out of the sedges, and squeaked out, in a horrible voice, "Wait a little, you boy and you girl! Stupid things! Senseless creatures! You despised me; didn't know what to do with me--how to treat me. So now you can get on without playthings the best way you can. I am an obedient pupil of Master Tutor Ink's: he'll be here directly, and then you'll be nicely paid out for despising me." And then the nasty thing sent great splashes of water flying at Felix and Christlieb, though they were wet through already with the rain.

Felix could not endure this terrible process of haunting. Poor Christlieb was half dead, so they ran off again, as hard as they could; but soon, in the heart of the wood, they sank down, exhausted with weariness and terror. Then they heard a humming and a buzzing behind them. "Oh, heavens!" cried Felix; "here comes Tutor Ink, now!" At that moment his consciousness left him, and so did Christlieb's too.

When they came back to their senses, they found themselves lying on a bed of soft moss. The storm was over, the sun was shining bright and kindly, and the raindrops were hanging on the glittering bushes and trees like sparkling jewels. The children were much surprised to find that their clothes were quite dry, and that they felt no trace of either cold or wet. "Ah!" cried Felix, stretching his arms to the sky; "the Stranger Child must have protected us." And then they both called out so loud that the wood re-echoed: "Ah, thou darling child, do but come to us again! We do so long for you; we cannot live without you!"

And it seemed, too, as though a bright beam of light came darting through the trees, making the flowers lift up their heads as it touched them. But though the children called upon their playfellow yet more movingly, nothing made itself seen. They crept home in silence and sadness. But their parents were very glad to see them, having been exceedingly anxious about them during the storm. The baron said, "It is a good thing that you are home again; for I confess I was afraid that Tutor Ink was still hanging about somewhere in the wood, and on your track."

Felix related all that had happened in the wood. "That is all stupid nonsense," their mother said. "If you are to go dreaming all that sort of stuff in the wood, you shan't be allowed to go there any more.

You'll have to stop at home." And indeed--although, when they begged that they might be allowed to go back there, their mother yielded--it so came about that they didn't care very much about doing it. Alas! the Stranger Child was never there; and whenever they got far into the wood, or reached the bank of the pond, they were jeered at by the harper, the sportsman, and the doll, who cried to them, "Stupid things!

Senseless creatures! You must do without playthings. You didn't know how to treat us clever, cultivated people--stupid things, senseless creatures that you are!"

This being unendurable, the children preferred staying at home.

CONCLUSION.

"I don't know," said the baron to his lady one day, "what it is that has been the matter with me for the last few days. I feel so queer and so odd, that I could almost fancy Tutor Ink has put some spell upon me.

Ever since the moment when I hit him that crack with the fly-flapper, all my limbs have felt like bits of lead."

And the baron did really grow weaker and paler, day by day. He gave up walking about his grounds; he no longer went bustling about the house, cheerily ordering matters as he used to do; he sat, hour after hour, in deep meditation, and would get Felix and Christlieb to repeat to him, over and over again, all about the Stranger Child; and when they spoke eagerly of all the marvels connected with the Stranger Child, and of the beautiful brilliant kingdom which was its home, he would give a melancholy smile, and the tears would come to his eyes.

But Felix and Christlieb could not reconcile themselves to the circ.u.mstance that the Stranger Child went on keeping aloof from them, leaving them exposed to the nasty behaviour of those troublesome puppets in the thicket and the duck pond, on account of which they did not like now to frequent the wood at all.

But one morning, when it was fine and beautiful, the baron said, "Come along, children; we'll go to the wood together, you and I. Master Ink's nasty pupils shan't do you any harm." So he took them by the hands, and they all three went together to the wood, which that day was fuller than ever of bright sunshine, perfume, and song. When they had laid themselves down amongst the tender gra.s.s, and the sweet-scented flowers, the baron began as follows:--

"You dear children, I have for some time had a great longing to tell you a thing, and I cannot delay doing so any longer. It is, that--once on a time--I knew the beautiful Stranger Child that used to show you such lovely things in the wood, just as well as you did yourselves.

When I was about your age, that child used to come to me too, and play with me in the most wonderful way. How it was that it came to leave me, I cannot quite remember; and I don't understand how I had so completely forgotten all about it till you spoke to me about what had happened to you, and then I didn't believe you, though I often had a sort of dim consciousness that what you told me was the truth. But within the last few days, I have been remembering and thinking about the delightful days of my own boyhood, in a way that I have not been able to do for many a long year. And then that beautiful magic-child came back to my memory, bright and glorious, as you saw it yourselves; and the same longing which filled your b.r.e.a.s.t.s came to mine too. But it is breaking my heart! I feel, and I know quite well, that this is the last time that I shall ever sit beneath these bonnie trees and bushes. I am going to leave you very soon, and when I am dead and gone, you must cling fast to that beautiful child."

Felix and Christlieb were beside themselves with grief and sorrow. They wept and lamented, crying, "No, no, father; you are not going to die!

You have many a long year to be with us still, and to play with the Stranger Child along with us."

But the next day, the baron lay sick in his bed. A tall, meagre man came and felt his pulse, and said, "You'll soon be better!" But he was not soon better. On the third day, the Baron von Brakel was no more.

Ah, how Frau von Brakel mourned! How the children wrung their hands and cried, "Oh, father! our dear, dear father!"

Soon, when four peasants of Brakelheim had borne their master to his grave, there came to the house some horrible fellows, almost like Tutor Ink in appearance, and they told Frau von Brakel that they must take possession of all the piece of land, and the house, and everything in it, because the deceased baron owed all that, and more besides, to his cousin, who could wait no longer for his money. So that Frau von Brakel was a beggar, and had to go away from the pretty little village of Brakelheim, where she had spent so many happy years, and go to live with a relation not very far away. She and the children had to pack up whatever little bits of clothes and effects they had left, and with many tears take their leave, and set forth upon their way. As they crossed the bridge, and heard the loud voice of the forest stream, Frau von Brakel fell down in a swoon, and Felix and Christlieb sank on their knees beside her, and cried, with many sobs and tears, "Oh, unfortunate creatures that we are! Will no one take any pity on us?"

At that moment the distant rushing of the forest stream seemed to turn into beautiful music. The thickets gave forth mysterious sighs, and presently all the forest streamed with wonderful, sparkling fires. And lo! the Stranger Child appeared, coming forth out of the sweet-smelling leaf.a.ge, surrounded by such a brilliant light and radiance, that Felix and Christlieb had to shut their eyes at the brightness of it. Then they felt themselves gently touched, and the Stranger Child's beautiful voice said, "Oh, do not mourn so, dear playmates of mine! Do I not love you as much as ever? Can I ever leave you? No, no! Although you do not see me with your bodily eyes, I am always with you and about you, helping you with all my power to be always happy and fortunate. Only keep me in your hearts, as you have done hitherto, and neither the wicked Pepser, nor any other adversary, will have power to harm you. Only go on loving me truly and faithfully."

"Oh, that we shall--that we shall!" the children cried. "We love you with all our souls!"

When they were able to open their eyes again, the Stranger Child had vanished; but all their pain was gone from them, and they felt that a heavenly joy and gladness had arisen within their hearts. Frau von Brakel recovered slowly from her swoon, and said, "Children, I saw you in a dream. You seemed to be standing in a blaze of gleaming gold, and the sight has strengthened and refreshed me in a wonderful way."

Delight beamed in the children's eyes, and shone in their cheeks. They related how the Stranger Child had come to them and comforted them. And their mother said, "I do not know how it is that I feel compelled to believe in this story of yours to-day, nor how my believing in it seems to have taken away all my sorrow and anxiety. Let us go on our way with confidence."

They were kindly received and welcomed by their relatives, and all that the Stranger Child promised came to pa.s.s. Whatever Felix and Christlieb undertook was sure to prosper, and they and their mother became quite happy. And, as their lives went on, they still, in dreams, played with the Stranger Child, which, never ceased to bring to them the loveliest wonders from its fairy home.