TO ALL OUR

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 307, 28 December 1935, Page 2 (Supplement)

TO ALL OUR

The Quiet Woman.

Not many people had seen the woman who lived in the forest hills. Sometimes you would see her standing still and tall upon the bare hilltop, with her cloak whipping behind her and her long hair flying wild and black as a rainy, cloud. Once a hunter had seen the crimson of her shawl slipping among the tree trunks, and had found a solitary footprint in the snow—unbelievably light it was, and so narrow that one would have thought it made by a child instead of a woman.

Old Anna, tlie weaver, declared that the stranger was a spirit, a wandering soul lost between heaven and earth, who hid in the dark forest away from all human sight and sound. Nicholas, the jshoemaker, bore out Anna's opinion saying that the first time he had seen her she had been standing on the hilltop, silhouetted clear and black against a moon as red as blood —and in the forest below a wolf had howled, sorrowfully, poignantly. So the villagers sitting around Nicholas' fire listened gravely, saying: "Yes, she is a spirit, a queer one, that quiet woman. It is well to leave her alone.." So the years passed, and the strange woman and her red cloak haunted the misty depths of the dark forest, flitting away like a pale wraith whenever men approached, until that day when the children of the shoemaker went wandering and were lost. ♦ * » • "I can hear the horns, Anushka! I can hear the horns!" panted Grisha joyously, pushing his way through the wet bracken. Little Anushka held up her red kirtle with both hands, wrinkling her nose distastefully at the sodden smell of the leaves. "My shoes are all covered with mud, Grisha," she said protestingly, "and my new red petticoat —" The boy looked at her disdainfully. "I'm sorry I brought you, sister. I might have known —but listen, listen!" he cried ecstatically. He pulled the little girl down in the bracken and crouched beside her. , There was a flash of blurred colour through the drifting mist, a thud of feet, and the huntsmen swept past them in a rush of sight and sound. From afar off came the baying of a hound, and the sudden, triumphant shrilling of a horn. Grisha peered through the closing mist with shining eyes. "I'll be a huntsman soon; Anushka, and have a horn and a bow and quiver!" he said over his shoulder. "Come on, let's follow!" "I'm so tired, Grisha," said Anushka plaintively, "and my shoes are so muddy. And I don't like this mist. It's dank and clammy, like wet fingers trailing along my neck. And there are shadows —" She glanced fearfully at the dripping trees, half seen through the- mist.

Grisha. glanced sharply at her. Her bright little face was drawn and weary and her eyes were tearful. 'He felt a sudden twinge of guilt. After all she was only seven, lie thought from the lofty superiority of his 'own nine years, and they'd come many miles in their following of the huntsmen. Besides, there would be punishment awaiting them at home for this escapade —poor little An'ushka. He had no right to bring her.

"Come on," he said, taking her cold little hand, "we'll go home."

They had been walking nearly half an hour when Grisha, with a sense of growing horror, began to realise that he,had°lost his way. The little sister was following him docilely, her feet stumbling every now and then, her Ijands still holding up the treasured red kirtle, which now clung wet and sodden round her ankles. As Grisha paused irresolute, she looked up and asked trustingly, "Are we nearly home now, brother ?"

(By Ruth Park.) '

Grisha stared at her, then with a sudden sob gathered her into his rougli little arms and hugged her fiercely. 'Oh, Anushka, I don't know the way home. We're lost. We're lost, and it's all my fault." The tears trickled down his face.

Anushka seemed unperturbed. She only put up her soft little hand and patted his face." "Poor Grisha, poor Grisha!' slie crooned. "Don't cry, Grisha!. The good God will guard us —and the angels."

To Grisha's ears came the lonely, sorrowful howl of a wolf. Instinctively he thrust his hands over her ears. "We'll be all right, little sister," he assured her, thorigh his lips trembled. "The angels —"

They stumbled on, while the wet trees drooped around them, and the mist weaved and billowed thicker, like an infinitely fine, intangible veil smelling of sodden earth and rotting leaves. After seeming hours they sank hopelessly under a huge tree. "Grisha put his arm protectingly around Anushka s shoulders.

Suddenly he felt her body stiffen "Grisha!" she screamed, pointing "Grisha!"

Through the shadowy trees there moved a blur of crimson. The mist billowed and parted like a curtain—and the crimson became a cloak—hanging in heavy folds from the shoulders of the quiet woman. She moved slowly forward until she was only a yard from the shrinking two. and there stood looking upon them. She was very tall and straight like a soldier, and her face was white—not a pallid, unhealthy white like the mist, but a queer luminous ivory that seemed to shine as though a light were behind. She leaned forward, and Grisha saw that her eyes were grey like a stormy cloud, wise eyes they were, which looked as though their soul had learnt the uttermoaning of pain and infinite desolation, yet had risen clear and unscathed above all. Something like a light ran over that wonderful white face. "Children!" she said softlv. "Dear God, at last?"

With a sob Anushka arose and ran into her arms. "We arc lost," she sobbed, "and you are kind like my mother. I like von—" Grisha started up. "Anushka!" he said, horrified. "It is—she is the ghost-woman —the spirit." But even as he said it ho knew that the quiet woman was everything that was kind and beautiful on earth, and he too, lost in the spell of those wonderful Toy eyes, went simply to the shelter of her "arms, as if she were his mother. "I will show you the way home," she murmured. "It is not very far," and she led them through the misty trees, her cloak glowing warm and red like a flame. It seemed only a minute before they were at the fringe of the forest, where the bracken grew sparse and green, and the mist melted into clearness.

"I am free now. After all these years of the loneliness and desolation of the dark forest," she said, and the light behind her eyes was a glory. "I have paid at last." Hand in hand the two trudged off. When thev were a hundred yards, away they looked hack. The tall woman fttill stood there like a shining red flame against the misty trees. It seemed to them that the mist waa full of angels who stretched out welcoming arras to her, and bore her up with white, intangible fingers. "Who is she, I wonder?" whispered Gffeha in awe. "She was returned to make atonement for something she once did wrong," said Anushka dreamily. "I seem to know, although she said .nothing," "She is so tall," murmured Grisha, and then "Listen!" There came suddenly a great sound ot the beating of wings, which surged up and above them, and when they dared look up again the red-cloaked figure was gone. There was only the thinning mist, and beyond the darkness of the forest.