FRITZ--Canzler has been a father to the boy.
(_Rudolph comes toward the road, then turns and looks back at the Christ._)
So Balder looked lying on Valhal floor. If the men hear this, they will vote to die.
RUDOLPH--He must go quietly and no word be said.
FRITZ--The way he goes, the Saxon race has gone.
RUDOLPH--We must go to the mountains, not the grave.
FRITZ--Canzler has been a father to the boy.
RUDOLPH--He may return and bring the Saxon race.
FRITZ--(_Bitterly._) Lives with the dead.
RUDOLPH-- He may yet be reclaimed. The paths of Prophesy lead far away But still the Powers of the air are bent To guide it and their eyes are on its feet. Let us not doubt Val-father's hand in this. That eye in Mimer's fountain sees through all The dark, gnome-haunted caverns of the earth; The other under his calm brow watches heaven.
_SCENE TWO--Under an old beech in the edge of the forest. A knoll, like the toe of a large boot shoved in from the rear, butts squarely against the trunk. Up under the boughs, left, lies a decaying log with here and there a tuft of rank grass growing from the cores of old knots._ _Beside it is a small basket filled with berries. At the_ _foot of the beech, bubbles a spring partly walled in with_ _dark mossy rocks, on top of which lies a brown gourd_ _dipper. Two worn foot-paths, one winding up the slope into the forest, the other entering from the left, meet at the spring. The ground is checkered with flakes of sunlight_ _that fall through the leaves, and over all is the silence_ _of the summer noon._
_A crackle is heard as of a dry twig breaking under foot. The branches on the left swing apart and Selma pushes through backwards. She is a fairy-like creature dressed in green. Her hair falls loose about her shoulders and upon her head she wears a coronet of wild-flowers. Holding the boughs slightly apart, she stands peering intently to the left, then, turning quickly, she snatches up the basket and hides it behind the log, and after picking a few green burrs from the branches above her, darts to the right and conceals herself behind the trunk. For a time she stands motionless. Then, as if upon second thought, she stoops and removes the dipper from the rocks._