Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne Page A

hillside.
    When Cadmus had thrust a passage through the tangled boughs, and made
his way into the bower, he did not at first discern the half-hidden
cavity. But soon he felt a cold stream of air rushing out of it, with
so much force that it shook the ringlets on his cheek. Pulling away the
shrubbery which clustered over the hole, he bent forward, and spoke in
a distinct but reverential tone, as if addressing some unseen personage
inside of the mountain.
    "Sacred oracle of Delphi," said he, "whither shall I go next in quest of
my dear sister Europa?"
    There was at first a deep silence, and then a rushing sound, or a noise
like a long sigh, proceeding out of the interior of the earth. This
cavity, you must know, was looked upon as a sort of fountain of truth,
which sometimes gushed out in audible words; although, for the most
part, these words were such a riddle that they might just as well have
staid at the bottom of the hole. But Cadmus was more fortunate than many
others who went to Delphi in search of truth. By and by, the rushing
noise began to sound like articulate language. It repeated, over and
over again, the following sentence, which, after all, was so like the
vague whistle of a blast of air, that Cadmus really did not quite know
whether it meant anything or not:
    "Seek her no more! Seek her no more! Seek her no more!"
    "What, then, shall I do?" asked Cadmus.
    For, ever since he was a child, you know, it had been the great
object of his life to find his sister. From the very hour that he left
following the butterfly in the meadow, near his father's palace, he had
done his best to follow Europa, over land and sea. And now, if he must
give up the search, he seemed to have no more business in the world.
    But again the sighing gust of air grew into something like a hoarse
voice.
    "Follow the cow!" it said. "Follow the cow! Follow the cow!"
    And when these words had been repeated until Cadmus was tired of hearing
them (especially as he could not imagine what cow it was, or why he was
to follow her), the gusty hole gave vent to another sentence.
    "Where the stray cow lies down, there is your home."
    These words were pronounced but a single time, and died away into
a whisper before Cadmus was fully satisfied that he had caught the
meaning. He put other questions, but received no answer; only the gust
of wind sighed continually out of the cavity, and blew the withered
leaves rustling along the ground before it.
    "Did there really come any words out of the hole?" thought Cadmus; "or
have I been dreaming all this while?"
    He turned away from the oracle, and thought himself no wiser than when
he came thither. Caring little what might happen to him, he took the
first path that offered itself, and went along at a sluggish pace;
for, having no object in view, nor any reason to go one way more than
another, it would certainly have been foolish to make haste. Whenever he
met anybody, the old question was at his tongue's end.
    "Have you seen a beautiful maiden, dressed like a king's daughter, and
mounted on a snow-white bull, that gallops as swiftly as the wind?"
    But, remembering what the oracle had said, he only half uttered the
words, and then mumbled the rest indistinctly; and from his confusion,
people must have imagined that this handsome young man had lost his
wits.
    I know not how far Cadmus had gone, nor could he himself have told you,
when at no great distance before him, he beheld a brindled cow. She was
lying down by the wayside, and quietly chewing her cud; nor did she take
any notice of the young man until he had approached pretty nigh. Then,
getting leisurely upon her feet, and giving her head a gentle toss, she
began to move along at a moderate pace, often pausing just long enough
to crop a mouthful of grass. Cadmus loitered behind, whistling idly to
himself, and scarcely noticing the cow; until the thought occurred to
him, whether this could possibly be the animal which, according to
the oracle's response, was to