Ruthelm slept little that night, and was at his post before the dawn of morn. He found the ladder placed against the perpendicular precipice, and reaching to its highest pinnacle. He began to mount the ladder; but the terrific vibrations and oscillations of the slender machine, required all the courage of a hero, and all the devotion of a lover—
——lest the deficient sight Topple down headlong.——
At length he reached the summit of the rock, and was rewarded for his hazard, by the sight of Garlinda reclining asleep in a bower of roses and eglantine. Her beauty surpassed all that had been reported, even by her own friends. While gazing on the sleeping nymph, she awoke, and Ruthelm dropped on his knee. At that instant the little old man, who had carried off Garlinda, stood before them, and, with frowning looks, demanded the name of the intruder, the cause of his visit, and the means by which he had ascended the mountain? Ruthelm firmly replied, that he came to deliver Garlinda from her prison, and restore her to an affectionate, but broken-hearted parent—that the means of his access would be explained by the bell, which he held in his hand. Garlinda, at these words, burst into a flood of tears, and entreated the dwarf to allow her to visit her father. The dwarf paused for a moment, and then replied:—“Your father, Garlinda, has been amply punished for his inhospitality, and you deserve reward for your patience and resignation. For you, Sir Knight, (addressing Ruthelm,) the jewel you seek is not yet purchased, even by the perils you have encountered. A more dangerous task remains—the descent from this mountain. You must return by the ladder; I will conduct Garlinda by a secret path to her father’s mansion.”
Ruthelm, in descending the ladder, found infinitely more difficulty than in his ascent: and several times his head turned giddy, and he was nearly precipitated to the bottom of the ravine. When he reached Sibo’s castle, he found the daughter in the arms of her father, who was weeping for joy. SIBO, from that moment, kept his gate open to every object of distress—a practice which was continued by Ruthelm and Garlinda, during a long series of years.
To counterpoise the baser passions and propensities of our nature, the Omniscient Creator has implanted others in the human breast of an ennobling kind. Thus charity and benevolence antagonise selfishness and avarice. But these passions and propensities, good and bad, are not left to contend with each other in anarchy, like jarring elements. Over them is placed a power without passion, an emanation from the Deity, designed to control the vicious and foster the virtuous workings of the spirit, either by direct influence, or, which is more common, by nullifying the bad by the good propensities.