"Come out on the roof with me, little Rudy," was the first thinghe heard the cat say, and Rudy understood him. "What people sayabout falling down is all nonsense," continued the cat; "you willnot fall, unless you are afraid. Come, now, set one foot here andanother there, and feel your way with your fore-feet. Keep your eyeswide open, and move softly, and if you come to a hole jump over it,and cling fast as I do." And this was just what Rudy did. He was oftenon the sloping roof with the cat, or on the tops of high trees. But,more frequently, higher still on the ridges of the rocks where pussnever came.
  "Higher, higher!" cried the trees and the bushes, "see to whatheight we have grown, and how fast we hold, even to the narrow edgesof the rocks."
  Rudy often reached the top of the mountain before the sunrise, andthere inhaled his morning draught of the fresh, invigoratingmountain air,- God's own gift, which men call the sweet fragrance ofplant and herb on the mountain-side, and the mint and wild thyme inthe valleys. The overhanging clouds absorb all heaviness from the air,and the winds convey them away over the pine-tree summits. Thespirit of fragrance, light and fresh, remained behind, and this wasRudy's morning draught. The sunbeams- those blessing-bringingdaughters of the sun- kissed his cheeks. Vertigo might be lurking onthe watch, but he dared not approach him. The swallows, who had notless than seven nests in his grandfather's house, flew up to him andhis goats, singing, "We and you, you and we." They brought himgreetings from his grandfather's house, even from two hens, the onlybirds of the household; but Rudy was not intimate with them.
  Although so young and such a little fellow, Rudy had travelled agreat deal. He was born in the canton of Valais, and brought to hisgrandfather over the mountains. He had walked to Staubbach- a littletown that seems to flutter in the air like a silver veil- theglittering, snow-clad mountain Jungfrau. He had also been to the greatglaciers; but this is connected with a sad story, for here hismother met her death, and his grandfather used to say that allRudy's childish merriment was lost from that time. His mother hadwritten in a letter, that before he was a year old he had laughed morethan he cried; but after his fall into the snow-covered crevasse,his disposition had completely changed. The grandfather seldom spokeof this, but the fact was generally known. Rudy's father had been apostilion, and the large dog which now lived in his grandfather'scottage had always followed him on his journeys over the Simplon tothe lake of Geneva. Rudy's relations, on his father's side, lived inthe canton of Valais, in the valley of the Rhone. His uncle was achamois hunter, and a well-known guide. Rudy was only a year oldwhen his father died, and his mother was anxious to return with herchild to her own relations, who lived in the Bernese Oberland. Herfather dwelt at a few hours' distance from Grindelwald; he was acarver in wood, and gained so much by it that he had plenty to liveupon. She set out homewards in the month of June, carrying herinfant in her arms, and, accompanied by two chamois hunters, crossedthe Gemmi on her way to Grindelwald. They had already left more thanhalf the journey behind them. They had crossed high ridges, andtraversed snow-fields; they could even see her native valley, with itsfamiliar wooden cottages. They had only one more glacier to climb.Some newly fallen snow concealed a cleft which, though it did notextend to the foaming waters in the depths beneath, was still muchdeeper than the height of a man. The young woman, with the child inher arms, slipped upon it, sank in, and disappeared. Not a shriek, nota groan was heard; nothing but the whining of a little child. Morethan an hour elapsed before her two companions could obtain from thenearest house ropes and poles to assist in raising them; and it waswith much exertion that they at last succeeded in raising from thecrevasse what appeared to be two dead bodies. Every means was usedto restore them to life. With the child they were successful, butnot with the mother; so the old grandfather received his daughter'slittle son into his house an orphan,- a little boy who laughed morethan he cried; but it seemed as if laughter had left him in the coldice-world into which he had fallen, where, as the Swiss peasantssay, the souls of the lost are confined till the judgment-day.
  The glaciers appear as if a rushing stream had been frozen inits course, and pressed into blocks of green crystal, which,balanced one upon another, form a wondrous palace of crystal for theIce Maiden- the queen of the glaciers. It is she whose mighty powercan crush the traveller to death, and arrest the flowing river inits course. She is also a child of the air, and with the swiftnessof the chamois she can reach the snow-covered mountain tops, where theboldest mountaineer has to cut footsteps in the ice to ascend. Shewill sail on a frail pine-twig over the raging torrents beneath, andspring lightly from one iceberg to another, with her long,snow-white hair flowing around her, and her dark-green robe glitteringlike the waters of the deep Swiss lakes. "Mine is the power to seizeand crush," she cried. "Once a beautiful boy was stolen from me byman,- a boy whom I had kissed, but had not kissed to death. He isagain among mankind, and tends the goats on the mountains. He isalways climbing higher and higher, far away from all others, but notfrom me. He is mine; I will send for him." And she gave Vertigo thecommission.
  It was summer, and the Ice Maiden was melting amidst the greenverdure, when Vertigo swung himself up and down. Vertigo has manybrothers, quite a troop of them, and the Ice Maiden chose thestrongest among them. They exercise their power in different ways, andeverywhere. Some sit on the banisters of steep stairs, others on theouter rails of lofty towers, or spring like squirrels along the ridgesof the mountains. Others tread the air as a swimmer treads thewater, and lure their victims here and there till they fall into thedeep abyss. Vertigo and the Ice Maiden clutch at human beings, asthe polypus seizes upon all that comes within its reach. And nowVertigo was to seize Rudy.
  "Seize him, indeed," cried Vertigo; "I cannot do it. Thatmonster of a cat has taught him her tricks. That child of the humanrace has a power within him which keeps me at a distance; I cannotpossibly reach the boy when he hangs from the branches of trees,over the precipice; or I would gladly tickle his feet, and send himheels over head through the air; but I cannot accomplish it."
  "We must accomplish it," said the Ice Maiden; "either you or Imust; and I will- I will!"