 | Twice-told tales |  |
THE VISION OF THE FOUNTAIN.
THE VISION OF THE FOUNTAIN.
At fifteen, I became a resident in a country village,
more than a hundred miles from home. The morning
after my arrival—a September morning, but warm and
bright as any in July—I rambled into a wood of oaks,
with a few walnut trees intermixed, forming the closest
shade above my head. The ground was rocky, uneven,
overgrown with bushes and clumps of young saplings,
and traversed only by cattle-paths. The track, which
I chanced to follow, led me to a crystal spring, with a
border of grass, as freshly green as on May morning,
and overshadowed by the limb of a great oak. One
solitary sunbeam found its way down, and played like
a goldfish in the water.
From my childhood, I have loved to gaze into a
spring. The water filled a circular basin, small, but
deep, and set round with stones, some of which were
covered with slimy moss, the others naked, and of
variegated hue, reddish, white, and brown. The bottom
in the lonely sunbeam, and seemed to illuminate the
spring with an unborrowed light. In one spot,
the gush of the water violently agitated the sand,
but without obscuring the fountain, or breaking the
glassiness of its surface. It appeared as if some living
creature were about to emerge, the Naiad of the spring,
perhaps, in the shape of a beautiful young woman, with
a gown of filmy water-moss, a belt of rainbow drops,
and a cold, pure, passionless countenance. How would
the beholder shiver, pleasantly, yet fearfully, to see her
sitting on one of the stones, paddling her white feet in
the ripples, and throwing up water, to sparkle in the
sun! Wherever she laid her hands on grass and flowers,
they would immediately be moist, as with morning
dew. Then would she set about her labors, like a
careful housewife, to clear the fountain of withered
leaves, and bits of slimy wood, and old acorns from
the oaks above, and grains of corn left by cattle in
drinking, till the bright sand, in the bright water, were
like a treasury of diamonds. But, should the intruder
approach too near, he would find only the drops of a
summer shower, glistening about the spot where he
had seen her.
Reclining on the border of grass, where the dewy
goddess should have been, I bent forward, and a pair
of eyes met mine within the watery mirror. They
were the reflection of my own. I looked again, and
lo! another face, deeper in the fountain than my own
thought. The vision had the aspect of a fair young
girl, with locks of paly gold. A mirthful expression
laughed in the eyes and dimpled over the whole shadowy
countenance, till it seemed just what a fountain
would be, if, while dancing merrily into the sunshine,
it should assume the shape of woman. Through the
dim rosiness of the cheeks, I could see the brown
leaves, the slimy twigs, the acorns, and the sparkling
sand. The solitary sunbeam was diffused among the
golden hair, which melted into its faint brightness, and
became a glory round that head so beautiful!
My description can give no idea how suddenly the
fountain was thus tenanted, and how soon it was left
desolate. I breathed; and there was the face! I held
my breath; and it was gone! Had it passed away, or
faded into nothing? I doubted whether it had ever
been.
My sweet readers, what a dreamy and delicious hour
did I spend, where that vision found and left me!
For a long time, I sat perfectly still, waiting till it
should reappear, and fearful that the slightest motion,
or even the flutter of my breath, might frighten it
away. Thus have I often started from a pleasant
dream, and then kept quiet, in hopes to wile it back.
Deep were my musings, as to the race and attributes
of that ethereal being. Had I created her? Was she
the daughter of my fancy, akin to those strange shapes
which peep under the lids of children's eyes? And
then die? Or was she a water-nymph within the fountain,
or fairy, or woodland goddess, peeping over my
shoulder, or the ghost of some forsaken maid, who had
drowned herself for love? Or, in good truth, had a
lovely girl, with a warm heart, and lips that would
bear pressure, stolen softly behind me, and thrown her
image into the spring?
I watched and waited, but no vision came again. I
departed, but with a spell upon me, which drew me
back, that same afternoon, to the haunted spring. There
was the water gushing, the sand sparkling, and the
sunbeam glimmering. There the vision was not, but
only a great frog, the hermit of that solitude, who
immediately withdrew his speckled snout and made
himself invisible, all except a pair of long legs, beneath
a stone. Methought he had a devilish look! I could
have slain him as an enchanter, who kept the mysterious
beauty imprisoned in the fountain.
Sad and heavy, I was returning to the village. Between
me and the church spire, rose a little hill, and
on its summit a group of trees, insulated from all the
rest of the wood, with their own share of radiance
hovering on them from the west, and their own solitary
shadow falling to the east. The afternoon being far
declined, the sunshine was almost pensive, and the
shade almost cheerful; glory and gloom were mingled
in the placid light; as if the spirits of the Day and
Evening had met in friendship under those trees, and
when the shape of a young girl emerged from behind
the clump of oaks. My heart knew her; it was the
Vision; but so distant and ethereal did she seem, so
unmixed with earth, so imbued with the pensive glory
of the spot where she was standing, that my spirit
sunk within me, sadder than before. How could I
ever reach her!
While I gazed, a sudden shower came pattering down
upon the leaves. In a moment the air was full of
brightness, each rain-drop catching a portion of sunlight
as it fell, and the whole gentle shower appearing
like a mist, just substantial enough to bear the burthen
of radiance. A rainbow, vivid as Niagara's, was painted
in the air. Its southern limb came down before the
group of trees, and enveloped the fair Vision, as if the
hues of Heaven were the only garment for her beauty.
When the rainbow vanished, she, who had seemed a
part of it, was no longer there. Was her existence
absorbed in nature's loveliest phenomenon, and did
her pure frame dissolve away in the varied light? Yet,
I would not despair of her return; for, robed in the
rainbow, she was the emblem of Hope.
Thus did the Vision leave me; and many a doleful
day succeeded to the parting moment. By the spring,
and in the wood, and on the hill, and through the
village; at dewy sunrise, burning noon, and at that
magic hour of sunset, when she had vanished from my
sight, I sought her, but in vain. Weeks came and
them. I imparted my mystery to none, but wandered
to-and-fro, or sat in solitude, like one that had caught
a glimpse of Heaven, and could take no more joy on
earth. I withdrew into an inner world, where my
thoughts lived and breathed, and the Vision in the
midst of them. Without intending it, I became at
once the author and hero of a romance, conjuring up
rivals, imagining events, the actions of others and my
own, and experiencing every change of passion, till
jealousy and despair had their end in bliss. Oh, had I
the burning fancy of my early youth, with manhood's
colder gift, the power of expression, your hearts, sweet
ladies, should flutter at my tale!
In the middle of January, I was summoned home.
The day before my departure, visiting the spots which
had been hallowed by the Vision, I found that the
spring had a frozen bosom, and nothing but the snow
and a glare of winter sunshine, on the hill of the rainbow.
`Let me hope,' thought I, `or my heart will be
as icy as the fountain, and the whole world as desolate
as this snowy hill.' Most of the day was spent in preparing
for the journey, which was to commence at four
o'clock the next morning. About an hour after supper,
when all was in readiness, I descended from my chamber
to the sitting-room, to take leave of the old clergyman
and his family, with whom I had been an inmate.
A gust of wind blew out my lamp as I passed through
the entry.
According to their invariable custom, so pleasant a
one when the fire blazes cheerfully, the family were
sitting in the parlor, with no other light than what
came from the hearth. As the good clergyman's scanty
stipend compelled him to use all sorts of economy, the
foundation of his fires was always a large heap of tan,
or ground bark, which would smoulder away, from
morning till night, with a dull warmth and no flame.
This evening, the heap of tan was newly put on, and
surmounted with three sticks of red oak, full of moisture,
and a few pieces of dry pine, that had not yet
kindled. There was no light, except the little that
came sullenly from two half-burnt brands, without even
glimmering on the andirons. But I knew the position
of the old minister's arm-chair, and also where his wife
sat, with her knitting-work, and how to avoid his two
daughters, one a stout country lass, and the other a
consumptive girl. Groping through the gloom, I found
my own place next to that of the son, a learned collegian,
who had come home to keep school in the village
during the winter vacation. I noticed that there was
less room than usual, to-night, between the collegian's
chair and mine.
As people are always taciturn in the dark, not a
word was said for sometime after my entrance. Nothing
broke the stillness but the regular click of the
matron's knitting-needles. At times, the fire threw
out a brief and dusky gleam, which twinkled on the
old man's glasses, and hovered doubtfully round our
who composed it. Were we not like ghosts? Dreamy
as the scene was, might it not be a type of the mode
in which departed people, who had known and loved
each other here, would hold communion in eternity?
We were aware of each other's presence, not by sight,
nor sound, nor touch, but by an inward consciousness.
Would it not be so among the dead?
The silence was interrupted by the consumptive
daughter, addressing a remark to some one in the circle,
whom she called Rachel. Her tremulous and
decayed accents were answered by a single word, but
in a voice that made me start, and bend towards the
spot whence it had proceeded. Had I ever heard that
sweet, low tone? If not, why did it rouse up so many
old recollections, or mockeries of such, the shadows of
things familiar, yet unknown, and fill my mind with
confused images of her features who had spoken,
though buried in the gloom of the parlor? Whom
had my heart recognised, that it throbbed so? I listened,
to catch her gentle breathing, and strove, by
the intensity of my gaze, to picture forth a shape where
none was visible.
Suddenly, the dry pine caught; the fire blazed up
with a ruddy glow; and where the darkness had been,
there was she—the Vision of the Fountain! A spirit
of radiance only, she had vanished with the rainbow,
and appeared again in the fire-light, perhaps to flicker
with the blaze, and be gone. Yet, her cheek was rosy
the room, were even sweeter and tenderer than my
recollection of them. She knew me! The mirthful
expression, that had laughed in her eyes and dimpled
over her countenance, when I beheld her faint beauty
in the fountain, was laughing and dimpling there now.
One moment, our glance mingled—the next, down
rolled the heap of tan upon the kindled wood—and
darkness snatched away that daughter of the light, and
gave her back to me no more!
Fair ladies, there is nothing more to tell. Must the
simple mystery be revealed, then, that Rachel was the
daughter of the village 'Squire, and had left home for
a boarding-school, the morning after I arrived, and
returned the day before my departure? If I transformed
her to an angel, it is what every youthful lover
does for his mistress. Therein consists the essence of
my story. But, slight the change, sweet maids, to
make angels of yourselves!
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