Cruel As The Grave

"Then all her fury suddenly subsided, and she became calm and resolute

unto death. She assured him that she never would leave the house; that

she was his wife, and the house's mistress; and she had the right to

remain, and would remain. Whereupon he broke out into furious oaths,

swearing that if she did not go, he would put her out by force. Then she

answered, in these memorable words, that have come down to us in

tradition: "'My body you may thrust forth from my home, but my spirit never! Living

or dead, in the flesh or the spirit, I will stay in this house as long

as its walls shall stand! Nay, though you were to pull this house down

to eject me, in the flesh or the spirit, I would enter in and possess

the next house you should build! And should you venture to bring here,

or there, a bride to supplant me, in the flesh or the spirit I will

blast and destroy her. So help me the gods of my people.' "For a moment the ruthless and dauntless man stood appalled by the awful

spirit he had raised in that slight form. But when he did recover

himself it was to fall into a transport of fury, in which he seized the

girl and hurled her violently through the open window. Fortunately they

were on the ground floor, so the fall was not great, and she was,

besides, light in form and agile as a cat. She fell on her hands and

feet upon a thick carpet of the dead leaves that strewed the lawn.

"For a moment she lay where she had fallen, breathless from the shock;

then she lifted herself slowly up. One arm hung useless by her side; it

was dislocated at the shoulder joint; but the other was raised to

heaven, and she muttered some words in her native tongue, and then

turned and walked away until she disappeared in the woods.

"'I hope she'll drown herself according to rule, and there will be an

end,' the fiendish wretch was heard to mutter. No one was allowed to

follow her. She probably did drown herself, but that was by no means

the end. Well, the gipsy girl is said to have kept her word.

"The third day thereafter, as a boy in search of eagle's eggs was

climbing the highest fastnesses of the Black Mountain, his eyes were

attracted by the glow of something scarlet lying on a ledge of rocks

about half way down the course of the Black Torrent. Agile as any

chamois hunter of the Alps, the boy let himself down, from point to

point, until he reached the ledge, upon which the dead body of the gipsy

girl was found. It was crushed by the fall, and sodden by the white foam

of the cascade that continually rolled over it.