Little Johannes

'Here you are at last!' cried Johannes; 'I have longed for you so much!'

'Come with me, Johannes, we will bury your little key.'

'I cannot,' said Johannes sadly.

But Windekind took him by the hand and he felt himself wafted through the still evening air, as light as the wind-blown down of a dandelion.

'Windekind,' said Johannes, as they floated on, 'I love you so dearly. I believe I would give all the people in the world for you, and Presto into the bargain.'

'And Simon?'

'Oh, Simon does not care whether I love him or not. I believe he thinks it too childish. Simon loves no one but the fish-woman, and that only when he is hungry. Do you think that Simon is a common cat, Windekind?'

'No, formerly he was a man.'

Whrrr – bang! There went a fat cockchafer buzzing against Johannes.

'Can you not look where you are going?' grumbled the cockchafer, 'those Elves fly abroad as though the whole air were theirs by right. That is always the way with idlers who go flitting about for pleasure; those who, like me, are about their business, seeking their food and eating as hard as they can, are pushed out of their road.' And he flew off, scolding loudly.

'Does he think the worse of us because we do not eat?' asked Johannes.

'Yes, that is the way of cockchafers. According to them, the highest duty is to eat a great deal. Shall I tell you the history of a young cockchafer?'

'Ay, do,' said Johannes.

'There was a pretty young cockchafer who had just crept out of the earth. That was a great surprise. For a whole year he had sat waiting in the dark earth, watching for the first warm summer evening. And when he put his head out of the clod, all the greenery, and the waving grass, and the singing-birds quite bewildered him. He had no idea what to be about. He touched the blades of grass with his feelers, spreading them out in a fan. Then he observed that he was a male cockchafer, very handsome in his way, with shining black legs, a large, fat body, and a breastplate that shone like a mirror. As luck would have it, he at once saw, not far off, another cockchafer, not indeed so handsome as himself, but who had come out the day before and who was quite old. Very modestly, being still so young, he crept towards the other.

'What do you want, my friend?' said the second cockchafer rather haughtily, seeing that the other was a youngster, 'do you wish to ask me the way?'

'No, I am obliged to you,' said the younger one civilly, 'but I do not know what I ought to be doing. What is there for cockchafers to do?'

'Dear me,' said the other, 'do not you know that much? Well, I cannot blame you, for I was young myself once. Listen, then, and I will tell you. The principal thing in a cockchafer's life is to eat. Not far from this is a delicious lime-walk which was placed there for us, and it is our duty to eat there as diligently as we can.'

'Who put the lime-walk there?' asked the younger beetle.

'Well, a great being who means very kindly to us. He comes down the Avenue every morning, and those who have eaten most he takes away to a splendid house where a beautiful light shines, and where chafers are all happy together. Those, on the other hand, who, instead of eating, spend the night in flying about are caught by the Bat.'

'What is that?' asked the young one.

'A fearful monster with sharp teeth who comes flying down on us all on a sudden and eats us up with a horrible crunch.

As the chafer spoke they heard a shrill squeak overhead which chilled them to the very marrow.

'Hark! There he is!' cried the elder, 'beware of him, my young friend, and be thankful that I have given you timely warning. You have the whole night before you. Make good use of your time. The less you eat, the greater the risk of the bat's seizing you. And none but those who choose a serious vocation in life ever go to the house where the beautiful light is. Mark that; a serious vocation.'

Then the chafer, who was by a whole day the elder, disappeared among the blades of grass, leaving the other greatly impressed.

'Do you know what a vocation is, Johannes? No? Well, the young chafer did not know. It had something to do with eating – he understood that. But how was he to find the lime-walk? Close at hand stood a slender but stalwart grass-stem, waving softly in the evening air. This he firmly clutched with his six crooked legs. It seemed a long journey up to the top, and very steep. But the cockchafer was determined to reach it. 'This is a vocation!' he thought to himself, and began to climb with much toil. He went but slowly and often slipped back; but he got on, and when at last he found himself on the slender tip, and rocked with its swaying, he felt triumphant and happy. What a view he had from thence! It seemed to him that he could see the whole world. How blissful it was to be surrounded by air on all sides! He eagerly breathed his fill. What a wonderful feeling had come over him! Now he craved to go higher!'

'In his rapture he raised his wing-cases and quivered his gauzy wings. Higher! and yet higher I His wings fluttered, his legs released the grass-stem, and then – oh joy! Whoo-oo I He was flying – freely and gladly, in the still, warm evening air!'

'And then?' said Johannes.

'The end is not happy. I will tell it you some day later.'

They were hovering over the pool. A pair of white butterflies fluttered to meet them.

'Whither are you travelling, elves?' they asked.

'To the large wild rose-tree which blooms by yonder mound.'

'We will go with you; we will go too!'

The rose-bush was already in sight in the distance, with its abundance of pale-yellow sheeny blossoms. The buds were red and the open flowers were dashed with red, as if they remembered the time when they were still buds.

The wild down-rose bloomed in peaceful solitude, and filled the air with its wonderfully sweet odours. They are so fine that the down-elves live on nothing else. The butterflies fluttered about and kissed flower after flower.

'We have come to place a treasure in your charge,' cried Windekind. 'Will you keep it safe for us?'

'Why not – why not?' whispered the rose. 'It is no pain to me to keep awake – and I have no thought of going away unless I am dragged away. And I have sharp thorns.'

Then came the field-mouse – the cousin of the school-mouse – and burrowed quite under the roots of the rose-tree. And there he buried the little key.

'When you want it again you must call me; for you must on no account hurt the rose.'

The rose twined its thorny arms thickly over the entrance and took a solemn oath to guard it faithfully. The butterflies were witnesses.

Next morning Johannes awoke in his own little bed, with Presto, and the clock against the wall. The cord with the key was gone from round his neck.

IV

'Children! children! A summer like this is a terrible infliction!' sighed one of three large stoves which stood side by side to bewail their fate in a garret of the old house. 'For weeks I have not seen one living soul or heard one rational remark. And always that hollow within! It is fearful!'

'I am full of spiders' webs,' said the second. 'And that would never happen in the winter.'

'And I am so dry and dusty that I shall be quite ashamed when, as winter comes on, the Black Man appears again, as the poet says.'

This piece of learning the third stove had of course picked up from Johannes, who had repeated some verses last winter, standing before the hearth.

'You must not speak so disrespectfully of the smith,' said the first stove, who was the eldest. 'It annoys me.'

A few shovels and tongs which lay on the floor, wrapped in paper to preserve them from rust, also expressed their opinion of this frivolous mode of speech.

But suddenly they were all silent, for the shutter in the roof was raised; a beam of light shone in on the gloomy place, and the whole party lapsed into silence under their dust and confusion.

It was Johannes who had come to disturb their conversation. This loft was at all times a delightful spot to him, and now, after the strange adventures of the last few days, he often came here. Here he found peace and solitude. There was a window, too, closed by a shutter, which looked out towards the sand-hills. It was a great delight to open the shutter suddenly, and, after the mysterious twilight of? the garret, to see all at once the sunlit landscape shut in by the fair, rolling dimes.

It was three weeks since that Friday evening, and Johannes had seen nothing of his friend since. The key was gone, and there was nothing now to assure him that he had not dreamed it all. Often, indeed, he could not conquer a fear that it was all nothing but fancy. He grew very silent, and his father was alarmed, for he observed that since that night out of doors Johannes had certainly had something the matter with him. But Johannes was only pining for Windekind.