UNDINEEdward Abbott Parry
Once upon a time there was a child wave named Undine. "Undine the Beautiful," they called her, because, when she was quite a little ripple, she sparkled more brilliantly than any of her thousand brothers and sisters, and not one of them was so crystal clear or dressed in such wonderful shades of sapphire blue and emerald green. She was born at the mouth of a white limestone rock cave on the coast of Devonshire. The fourteenth of August was her birthday. Never had there been such a lovely little ripple as Undine. The old Tide let her run up and down on his back when he came into the bay where she lived. She kept close by the cave for a time, and grew big and strong, and became first a billow and then a wavelet; but when a monthhad passed she was a full-grown wave—only a small one, of course, but still a wave.
Her father was a well known Devonshire coast wave, a jolly compact old sea salt roller, with a great thatch of creamy foam on his head. He ran up and down the coast and out to sea in a lazy, aimless kind of way, playing with the fishing smacks and rolling over the porpoises.
He had a kindly look and was a friendly fellow as a rule, but could be as cruel and fierce as the worst of them, when he was roused. Old Lobster-Pot they called him, because he loved, when he could, to dive down and wash the lobsters out of their baskets, and then come and dance round the fishermen's boats in the morning when they pulled them up, and laugh at them when they found all their hard work had been for nothing.
Undine's mother was a tall, graceful wave with a beautiful green breast, on which she rested her white surge head proudly like a royal swan. Her name was Mora. She thought it vulgar to play with the lobster-pots, and when her children were old enoughshe took them across the sea to stay at the French seaside towns for the bathing season. She liked to hear the people on the pier cry out, "Oh! look at that lovely wave!" as she held back her glorious head and rushed through the girders of the pier, splashing and sparkling in the sun, and followed by her merry family tumbling headlong after her.
Little Undine saw nothing of her mother and father during the first months of her life. She never went outside the bay, but rippled up and down in front of a large cave, diving under the ruddy golden seaweed to look at the quiet sea anemones. They were wonderful fellows, she thought. Even the youngest of them could sit still for hours. You never saw sea anemones fidgeting about, and as for turning head over heels, they do not even think of it. But Undine was a restless young thing, full of life and spirits, never still for a moment; and the sea anemones loved her, for she was always gentle and kind to them. Ah! those were happy times!
The old waves like to go voyaging about and to see something of the wide world, sothey are sensible enough to pack their children off to school as soon as they are born. The ripples have a class to themselves. They are taught to walk in rows, and each one learns to keep his place. You cannot teach a ripple much more than that, but that is something. There was a wave school in the bay in which Undine lived. The Zephyr taught the ripple class. They went every morning at sunrise, and had drill in a pool behind the rocks. It was a pretty sight. The sea anemones, red and white, opened out on the rocks to look on, lazy star-fishes stretched themselves upon the sands and laughed when the little ripples tried to move them higher up the beach, even those snarly little periwinkles peeped out of their black shells to see what was going on, and the old hermit crab, grumbling all the while at being roused up so early, sat at the door of his shell, and beat time to the marching with one of his claws.
"One, two, three, four," said the gentle Zephyr. "Heads up! Keep your place! Let the little ripples have plenty of room. Now,Undine, dear, throw your shadow well forward."
When the morning drill was done, the Zephyr used to say to the ripples, "Now you shall have a holiday; go and play together. Love one another. Be as good as you can. Be kind to all the world, and you will be happy." Then she kissed them all lightly, and flew away across the yellow sand and the heather-covered rocks, and they saw her no more until next morning. But they could hear her singing on the cliff one of those songs about the waves she loved so well, and when the chorus came they would join in, for she had taught it to them in the class, and it went this way:
Oh, children may be naughtyAnd monkeys may be bad,Young fishes, too, will often doWhat makes their teacher sad.Did we expect them to behave,We should expect too much,But a ripple is a little waveAnd should behave as such,Yes, must behave as such.
Oh, children may be naughtyAnd monkeys may be bad,Young fishes, too, will often doWhat makes their teacher sad.Did we expect them to behave,We should expect too much,But a ripple is a little waveAnd should behave as such,Yes, must behave as such.
Oh, children may be naughtyAnd monkeys may be bad,Young fishes, too, will often doWhat makes their teacher sad.Did we expect them to behave,We should expect too much,But a ripple is a little waveAnd should behave as such,Yes, must behave as such.
Oh, children may be naughty
And monkeys may be bad,
Young fishes, too, will often do
What makes their teacher sad.
Did we expect them to behave,
We should expect too much,
But a ripple is a little wave
And should behave as such,
Yes, must behave as such.
Ah! the Zephyr was a kind teacher, and took such pains with the little ripples in her class, that in a week they were ready to go into the Upper School.
They had good playtimes, too. The old Tide let them play sea-horses on his back. Then there was "Hide and Seek" round the rocks, "Hunt the Cockle," and "Ripple-Chivy." It is no use telling you how to play those games, for children cannot play them.
One of their favourite sports was to race up the sand and see who could get farthest; Undine was very clever at that game. One day when they were doing this, a little boy and his elder sister were paddling in the water, sailing a boat. He was a bonny, little fellow, about four years old, and when Undine came running up the sand, rocking his toy boat and splashing the sails, he clapped his hands and cried out, "Look at that great, big, lovely wave!"
Undine could not help laughing at the little fellow's glee, but she liked to be called a big wave.
At that moment a nasty, rough ripple whowas quite big enough for the billow class—came rushing along, and the little boy got in his way and spoiled his run up the sand.
"Knock him over!" shouted a lot of the bigger ripples. "He is spoiling the game!"
"Leave him alone," cried Undine, as she floated gracefully back again.
But several of the bigger ripples rushed up at the same time, and, knocking over the little fellow, rolled him in the wet.
"Undine! Undine!" he called out in his terror, as they tumbled over him.
Undine rushed back to help him, but she was not strong enough. He knew nothing of Undine, the ripple. It was his sister, who was also named Undine, for whom he was calling; and she had run into the water at his first cry, and, picking him up in her arms, had carried him out onto the dry sand. But the nasty, little ripples had now caught hold of his boat, and were pushing it out to sea.
"Undine, Undine," sobbed the little chap; "I want my boat, I want my boat!"
His sister could not reach it, and the two stood, hand-in-hand, helpless on the beach,while the little boat drifted away. Bravely did our Undine, when she heard the call, dash forward to do battle with the naughty little ripples, who called out angrily, "Shut up! Wash it out to sea! Swamp it! He was spoiling our game."
They were too strong for poor Undine, and would have destroyed the little boat, or washed it away, had not the kind Zephyr, hearing all the noise, swept down from the cliffs, filled the sails of the toy boat and wafted it to shore. After this she blew the naughty little ripples away, and they went into rock pools and sulked by themselves.
When the Zephyr had returned to the cliffs the big, rough ripple who had knocked over the little boy cried out fiercely: "When I am a wave I shall kill all the boys I can and swamp their boats. That is what my big brother is taught to do, and he is a wave and goes out to sea."
The Zephyr often heard this sort of talk among the ripples, and when Undine asked her why they said these things, she kissed her gently and told her not to be angry even withthe ripples, who did not know what they were saying, and begged her when she grew up to be kind and good to everyone, for then she would be happy.
However, she was not altogether happy just at first, for the other ripples were not at all pleased with her, and would not speak to her. The little boy was carried off the beach by his sister, so Undine was left all alone, and hid herself under some dark brown seaweed in the cleft of a rock and cried herself to sleep, when she dreamed that the pretty little boy was a beautiful wave, and was dancing with her, hand-in-hand, over the wide ocean.
The next day she was moved into the billow class. The Master was the South Wind. He had just come home from college. He taught them cresting and breaking on rocks. He was a bright, clever fellow, but he told them nothing about being good and kind as the Zephyr had done. After a week in the billow class, Undine and several of her young friends were moved up into the wavelet class. This was taught by a young wave, and here they learned rushing, leaping, rolling, and marchingin open order. The young wave told them exciting stories of wrecks and drowning men, and repeated to them all that nonsense about Britannia wanting to rule the waves, and insisted on the duty of all good waves to go about fighting men, and killing as many as possible. This he called "Patriotism," and Undine listened to his eloquent stories until she had nearly forgotten all that the kind Zephyr had tried to teach her. But the fierce young wave could not change Undine's real nature, and she remained, at heart, a kind and gentle wave. Outwardly she grew tall and strong, and her mother and father and all her brothers and sisters still called her "Undine The Beautiful."
At the end of a month she passed all her examinations, and was a first-class wave ready to go to sea. That was a great day when they all left school. Old Lobster Pot and his good wife Mora came to fetch them away. The South Wind made an oration in Latin about the duty of waves to fight for their country.
It began,Anna virumque cano, and old Lobster Pot said it was very original andclever. The Zephyr sighed to see all these young waves, full of bright hope and eager fancies, passing out of the quiet bay into the open Channel and the wide world.
They sailed along in open order among the fishing boats, and yachts, and steamers. The nasty, rough ripple that had knocked down the little boy, and tried to steal his boat, had grown into a handsome big wave. Surger, they called him, because of his handsome head and fine flowing surge when he broke over the sand banks. He was very fond of Undine now, and kept close to her, as they sailed up the channel. It was a glorious day. The sun shone brightly, the gulls swooped down and floated for a few moments on Undine's shoulders, and then soared away down the breeze. The boats leaped merrily in front of them.
"Shall we see any wrecks to-day?" asked Undine.
"I hope so," shouted Surger; and he shook his curly white head, and shot in front of Undine, who could not help admiring his handsome presence.
"Wrecks! Nonsense!" growled out oldLobster Pot from behind. "These are the holidays, and we are going to picnic up the river."
Then they turned aside from the channel and went past a castle on a high rock, underneath steep cliffs, across wide mudbanks, lifting up the boats which were lying asleep among the damp seaweed. Some of the waves—lazy old fellows these—went off into the harbour for a quiet snooze, others ran up the river into long creeks, forcing their way roughly among the quiet country streams. Old Lobster Pot and his wife went straight along the big river. There Undine saw many strange sights. Trees and flowers, horses and carts, men, women, and children; but not one among them so beautiful, to her thinking, as the little blue-eyed boy she had tried to rescue from the naughty ripples. There, too, along the banks of the river, she saw wide, waving fields of green turning to gold, which rustled in the breeze, and she shouted to them to join her; for she felt so happy herself she wanted everyone else to be happy, too. But they did not understand her language, so theymade no answer; for they were only wheatfields.
At last they came to a big city, and ran between high walls of white stone, and saw tall buildings and the big towers of the cathedral, and here and there were crowds of people. "Oh! oh!" cried Undine and Surger together, "this is beautiful." The cathedral clock chimed four. Old Lobster Pot shook his head and called out the order for return.
"Time is up," he said; "we must be moving down again now, or the river will be on to us."
Surger laughed and cried out, "I will run another mile before I return, anyhow;" and he rushed up through the city with new force.
Undine followed him, but now she felt a faint, weary feeling coming over her. Her beauty was going, and her lovely colours changing to a gray, inky hue. The river was forcing its way down against them, and she and Surger were soon glad to follow old Lobster Pot down the river again. Back they went, past the fields, and soon they felt the pure sea breeze, and lent a hand to swing thehuge ships round at their moorings under the cliffs. They were glad enough to escape from the dull, cold river that was rushing after them, and sweep round the headland into the good salt sea, where they could feel alive again, free and joyous, and afraid of no one in their own country.
Many a time did they run up rivers like that, and Undine looked out for the little blue-eyed boy; but she never saw him. Sometimes they went out to the wide ocean, or visited the coast towns with Mora, and splashed the ladies bathing, and made them scream and laugh. Always Undine was looking for her little friend, but she never saw him. Many were the journeys she made, and wonderful were the sights she saw; indeed, one could fill a book with all that Undine did and saw when she grew up and became a wave.
It was now October, and had been wonderfully warm, close weather for the time of the year. The waves were rolling lazily about out at sea some three miles from the land. They arched their huge backs and pressed silently after each other, doing "Serpent drill,"as they called it, and weary work it was. The little waves were slapping at each other angrily, for no better reason than that they had been told not to, but had nothing else to do. They all seemed uneasy and troubled, yet Undine could not have told you why she felt in such a strange condition of pent-up excitement. A rumour ran round that there was to be a Storm War that evening, and almost before they had begun to discuss whether this was likely to be true, the clouds lowered, the sky grew black and dismal, the wind trumpeted out shouts of battle, huge waves bigger than old Lobster Pot rushed up the channel in answer to the summons, and the whole sea was one seething angry mass of cruel waves bent on destruction.
Now the great battalions of the Sea Wolves, as they call their fiercest fighting waves, came thundering up from the Atlantic, breaking all before them. Undine had never seen such wild, handsome fellows before. Everyone joined them, and soon the sea was nothing but a reckless mob of madly enraged waves, moaning and wailing horribly in a frenzy of rage.Down came the sleet and hail in sharp volleys, as though from a battery of artillery, which had taken up its position behind the thick clouds. A solitary storm bird was driven before the wet rushing wind, with stiff wings and bent claws, squealing miserably, as though to warn the vessels of their doom.
If you have not been a wave, you cannot understand the wild feeling that seizes you when the Storm War begins. Even gentle Undine quivered with rage, and sought about for something to destroy. As for Surger, he was leaping about and yelling like a mad thing.
The fishing smacks had hauled up their nets, or cut them adrift, and were speeding for the shore. Some few smaller boats had made for the beach earlier, suspecting danger. Old Lobster Pot hurried round among his family, giving orders in loud tones of command.
"There's for you," he shouted to Undine and Surger, as a small open boat with a single lug sail rushed through the surf. "He will be making for the little bay by the cave. Away with you! Drive him on to the rocks!"
A solitary man half-sat and half-stood in the stern of the boat, his back to the tiller, the end of the sheet in his hand. It was passed securely round a pin near to him. He stooped down to cover up with a spare sail two little children, girl and boy, who were lying frightened at the bottom of the boat. Then he set his teeth, and stared through the blinding hail into the gathering darkness, to find the opening into the little bay.
Undine and Surger rushed on to the slender little vessel with all their force. The man skilfully made way for them, and they passed under the keel of the boat, doing no harm. The wind howled and shrieked at them for their failure, and caught the boat with all its might, driving it past the two waves and nearer to the rocks. Then Undine and Surger raced on alongside the little boat until it neared the opening to the bay, and as the man tried to turn her into the safe harbour, the wind made a terrible effort, and the two waves, leaping together at the side of the boat, crashed her into the rocks.
In a moment the man had thrown back thesail and seized, from the bottom of the boat, the two children, who were lying hidden under the sail. They were the little blue-eyed boy and his sister, Undine. Bravely he struggled with them across the rocks and through the surf to gain the beach. Surger and Undine were after him, for in her rage and fury she had not seen that it was the little blue-eyed boy. Mora and Old Lobster Pot, with many other big waves, seeing what had happened, were rushing across the sea towards the bay, for fear Surger and Undine should not be strong enough to drown the man and his children. Happily they were too late; for before they arrived, the man had gained the shore and pulled himself up the slope of the beach, saving the girl in his arms, but Surger managed to knock the little boy out of his grasp, and was rolling him down again into the sea to drown him. The man and the girl were too stunned and bruised to know whether they were saved or drowned. A coastguard was running down the cliff, but he would have been too late to save the little boy, had not Undine heard him calling out in despair, asSurger dragged him underneath the waves, "Undine! Undine! Save me! Save me!"
The waters were falling on him, doing their best to choke him, when Undine heard the call, and for the first time since she had been a little ripple, remembered what the Zephyr had taught her of love and pity. In a moment she had forgotten her anger, and the fierce commands of Old Lobster Pot, and the battle shouts of the Storm War; she thought only of the beautiful little blue-eyed boy, who was being dragged under the water and drowned. She rushed past Surger, who tried his best to stop her, and, heedless of the shouts of Old Lobster Pot and Mora, who yelled out, "Kill him! Drown him!" and caring nothing for all the rage and raving of the mad waves that pressed round her, she caught up the little boy on her breast, and with all her might threw him on to the soft sand, just as the coastguard reached the edge of the sea, and was there to pull him out.
Then, half ashamed and half overjoyed at what she had done, she turned back and fled away out to sea. And there arose such a yelland a shout from the assembled waves, mingled with the groaning and howling of angry wind, that she sped on in the wildest terror like a hunted hare. And all the waves of the sea, full of rage that one of their number should turn traitor and coward and save a mortal man in a time of Storm War—gathered together and chased after her.
Away she went down the Channel, across the Bay of Biscay, round Cape Finisterre, and through the gates of Gibraltar into the warm Mediterranean; and after her in hot pursuit raced a surging crowd of fierce and angry waves. But they were not to punish her for her brave deed, for there, near the warm shores of Sicily, they say she met the good Zephyr, who saved her from her pursuers, taking her into her arms and changing her into a beautiful cloud.
And the glorious Sun heard the story of Undine, and was so pleased with what she had done that he made her one of his special evening attendants and gave her a splendid robe of amber and gold. And if you look in thesky when the sun is setting in the sea, you may see Undine even to this day, a beautiful golden cloud gazing lovingly down at the world she used to live in.