Bergamot

N OW you shall hear a tale of a thing that happened when the hills were young. There was a girl who stood in her father's garden and nipped the leaves off a plant of bergamot, so that the fresh sharp smell of them rose up to her. Down the dusty road came a huckster woman with a pack on her back.

"Good-day to you," says the lass.

"Good-day, my child," says the old woman; "and is there anything you may be wanting in this pack of mine?"

Well, like every lass that ever wore skin, the girl was not above lingering a little to talk and look on; so she opened the gate and the old woman walked into the garden.

So she opened the gate and the old woman walked into the garden.

There were as many different things in that pack as there are straws in a haystack, but the only thing that the lass looked at twice was a little round pot. "Come," says she, "this is just the pot for my bergamot," and nothing would do but she must have it,—but as for money, the weasels had sucked that egg before it was put in the basket.

"Tush!" says the old woman, "for your good will and a touch of your hand, you may have it and welcome." The girl stretched out her hand, but no sooner had she touched the old woman than her fingers stuck fast, and she was forced to follow wherever the huckster woman led, over hill and hollow and bog and bramble, until they came to the dark forest.

Well, the father and mother of the lass looked high and low for her, but neither lock nor lace could they find; so they sat by the fire and wept, and the house seemed to rattle around their ears, it was so empty without her.

So matters stood when the great wars were over, and a dragoon came marching by the cottage one day at sunset. And was there a soft spot on the floor and a mouldy crust for the likes of him? That was what the dragoon said. The old people were as radiant as the sun on Easter morning to have a third body in the house again; and the dragoon got the best of everything, let me tell you! In the morning he had to be off on his travels again,—but was there anything he could do for the old people between this point and the end of the world? Because that was where he was going, the soldier said. The old people made him sit down again on the stone doorstep, and then they told him all about their daughter,—how one minute she had been picking bergamot, and the next was gone as clean as if she had married the north wind. And could the dragoon make a guess as to what had become of her?

"Well," says the soldier, "sometimes a guess makes shorter work than certainty, as the man said when he tried to count the sea sands; but in this case I would rather not hazard one. However, if the earth stays dry and the sea stays wet, I shall find her for you." And with that, he marched off without looking behind him.

He trudged along through dry ways and dusty ways, through wet ways and weary ways, over hill and hollow and bog and bramble, until he came to the dark forest. That was not the kind of nest he had been fledged in, to be sure; but once one has acquired wings, one is a simpleton if he cannot use them anywhere. So the dragoon took out his sword and slashed a path as straight as the briers allowed,—about as straight as my grandmother's rheumatic finger, and no more,—and by and by he came to an open space.

There was a great brick wall as high as the soldier's head, without a sign of a door in it. "It takes more than a wall to daunten me," says the dragoon, and he knocked at the wall with the handle of his sword. The leaves rustled and the birds whistled, and there was no sound but that. "Steel does not do it," says the dragoon; "let's try wood." So he knocked at the wall with his blackthorn stick. The leaves rustled and the birds whistled, and there was no sound but that. "Steel nor wood does it," says the dragoon; "let's be trying flesh and blood." So he spread his hand flat on the wall and laid four kisses in the spaces between the fingers. Ptst! The wall was outside and he was inside, and all before you could snip the scissors once. By all this you may know that the dragoon knew a bit more than he should, of the things that are written in the big book with the black pages and the red letters.

Well, there he was, in the fairest garden, for all I know, that ever bloomed since that one on the other side of Jordan River, where Master Adam and his wife Dame Eve were born. There was one of every flower and plant that the dragoon had ever known, except one, and a many thousand more beside. He sniffed and he sniffed, and finally he knew what smell it was that he missed; there was neither twig nor leaf of bergamot in that whole garden. Sometimes the thing that is lacking is the most important of all, as the squirrel said when he found no acorns in his larder,—and the soldier knew that as well as the next one. So he went on through the flowering hedges until he came to a little gray house at the farther end of the garden. On the doorstep sat a lass with her hands in her lap.

"Good morrow," says the dragoon to her, as bold as bagonets; "I'm thinking that you are the one I'm looking for." The lass just looked at him with eyes as blank and brown as the water in the well at home. Yes, yes, she was certainly bewitched. But the snail that draws in his horns never sees the world at all; so the dragoon rapped at the door. Out came a little old woman so dried up and shrivelled that she resembled nothing so much as a fisherman's net hung up on a post.

And what was the like of him wanting at that house? Oh, he was wanting a bit of a lass to draw the water and mend the fires at his house, and he would as soon have the lass there as any other.

"Not so fast, not so fast," says the little old woman; "she is bound to me for a term of years, and I should do ill to lose her for nothing. All the same, you may have her if you catch her. I'll give you three days to manage it." So it was agreed that he was to make the first trial on the following day; and then they all went in to supper.

With the first bit that passed over his tongue, the dragoon knew that the meat had no salt in it. He had a bit of salt in his pouch, and when the witch was not looking, he laid a little on his own plate, and sprinkled a good pinch upon the plate of the lass with the blank eyes. She tasted it as if she were remembering an old name, and the next look she gave the dragoon was the look of one who hears his own mother tongue in a foreign land. When they got up from the table, the lass passed close to the soldier, and whispered without turning her head, "A little brown hare is worth something, if the truth be known." The soldier made nothing out of that, but the fields that do not drink both clear water and cloudy will never grow grass,—and so he remembered it.

The next morning the dragoon ran down-stairs as if the steps were hot iron instead of cold stone; but when he came to the courtyard, he saw nothing at all of the lass. He waited and waited, and fumed and fussed,—and at last he thought he saw something over beyond the sweet Williams. He stole over there as quietly as the cat stealing cream in the pantry,—and there was a little brown hare, with eyes as blank and brown as water in the well at home.

"This is the knife that fits my sheath," says the dragoon to himself, and he stooped to pick up the rabbit by the ears. Whoosh! away it scampered with a whisk of its heels, and away went the dragoon after it, through the gillyflowers and the hollyhocks, and then through the cabbages and onions, and then through the wheat and barley, and into the dark forest. They ran all day, until the sun grew tired of watching them, and went to bed with the sparrows.

So the soldier went back to the little gray house, and there was the lass sitting on the door-stone with her hands in her lap, as if nothing at all had happened. That night at supper the soldier sprinkled salt upon her meat as before, and when they got up from the table, the lass passed close to him, so that she brushed against him; and when he looked down at his jacket there were three brown rabbit hairs upon it.

The next day he ran as he had never run before, through the marigolds and mignonette, and then through the lettuces and carrots, and then through the rye and oats, and into the dark forest, but he could no more lay hands on the little brown hare than the chick that is still inside the shell. By this time the dragoon saw pretty clearly what pot that gravy was cooked in, and he was bound to have his spoon in it, come what might.

So that night, instead of going back to the little gray house, he trudged off through the dark forest, over bramble and bog and hollow and hill, and by weary ways and wet ways, through dusty ways and dry ways, until he came to the cottage where bergamot grew in the garden. Rap-tap-tap—! And here came the old house-father to answer the dragoon's knock, in his nightcap and slippers. And what was the dragoon wanting at that hour of the night?

"It's three things I'm wanting," says the soldier, "and the quicker I get them the better. Give me the kettle from over the fire there, and the looking-glass that hangs on the wall, and a handful of bergamot." He got what he asked for, without any question, and off he set before the sun was up, through dry ways and dusty ways, through wet ways and weary ways, over hill and hollow and bog and bramble, and through the dark forest.

At the foot of an alder tree he left the kettle from the cottage fire, and at the foot of an ash tree he left the mirror from the cottage wall, and at the foot of an oak tree he left the bergamot from the cottage garden. Then he set off for the little gray house; and when he got there, nothing was to be seen but the little brown hare down among the Joseph's lilies.

Off it whisked as if it were made of thistle-down, and off set the dragoon after it. They ran through the lavender and lady's-slippers, and then through the peas and turnips, and then through the maise and millet, until they came to the dark forest. On and on and on they went; and by and by the little brown hare came up to the alder tree, and saw the black kettle.

She stopped for a heart beat, and nodded to the kettle:

And the kettle answered:

But the little brown hare gathered her heels and ran faster than ever. On and on and on they went, and by and by the hare came to the ash tree, saw the looking-glass from the cottage wall. She stopped and looked in the mirror:

And the mirror answered:

The little brown hare stopped for another minute to look at herself once more, as all maids do; and the dragoon was almost upon her. But she laid back her ears, and ran faster than ever. On and on and on they went, and by and by the hare came to the handful of bergamot, and there she stopped short:

And the bergamot answered:

The brown hare shivered a little, sniffed at the green leaves. Then of a sudden, she cried in a voice of remembrance, "Bergamot!" and down she fell as stark and still as if it were the night before Judgment Day.

Up came the dragoon, and when he saw the little brown hare lying as still as a stone, he scratched his head in dismay. But he was not one to cry "All is lost!" when there was a single straw remaining. He kneeled down behind the brown hare and looked between its ears,—and sure enough, there was the old witch, with her skinny hand over its nose. The dragoon grinned, for he knew a remedy to that ailment.

He cut off a silver button from his coat, and a lock of his red hair, and he put these into his gun with a leaf of the bergamot. Then he took careful aim, and fired between the ears of the little brown hare.

Ha! There was no rabbit within as much as twenty miles, but a fresh-faced lass with eyes as brown and clear as the water that bubbles over the stones in the burn back of my grandfather's house.

"Now we'll be going home," says she; "and the next time I shall be too busy to be dickering with a tramping peddler."

She pulled a sprig of the bergamot and stuck it in the dragoon's cap, and they set off quite merrily with the handful of bergamot, and the looking-glass, and the kettle from the cottage fire. They went by hedge rows and hillocks and wild flowers and willows, through deep ways and dusky ways, through sweet ways and shady ways, until in good time they came to the cottage where bergamot grew in the garden.

And if they were not married there it is a great shame, for a story without a wedding at the end of it is a peacock without a tail. But I think there must have been a clergyman somewhere in the neighborhood.