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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75166 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+                          [Cover Illustration]
+
+                                STORIES
+                           TOLD BY THE MILLER
+
+                            BY VIOLET JACOB
+                 AUTHOR OF “IRRESOLUTE CATHERINE,” ETC.
+
+                           WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                 LONDON
+                   JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
+                                  1909
+
+
+
+
+                                   TO
+                              MY BOY HARRY
+
+
+
+
+                                CONTENTS
+
+               1. STORIES TOLD BY THE MILLER
+               2. THE STORY OF THE WATER-NIX
+               3. THE KING OF GROWGLAND’S CROWN
+               4. THE STORY OF MASTER BOGEY
+               5. THE TREE OF PRIDE
+               6. THE STORY OF FARMYARD MAGGIE
+               7. THE FIDDLING GOBLIN
+               8. THE WITCH’S CLOAK
+               9. CONCLUSION
+
+
+
+
+                          LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+               1. “ONCE . . . THE MILLER’S MAN SAW HER”
+               2. “THEN THE BIRD TOLD HER THE WHOLE PLOT”
+               3. “SHE HELD OUT HER HAND, AND HE TOOK IT”
+               4. “SHE WOULD SCARCE ANSWER HER FATHER WHEN HE
+                    SPOKE”
+               5. “MAGGIE TOOK IT AND BEGAN TO ROCK IT ABOUT”
+               6. “WHIRLING HER SPANGLED VEIL, SHE BEGAN TO
+                    GLIDE ABOUT”
+               7. “‘WHO ARE YOU?’ INQUIRED THE OLD WOMAN”
+
+
+
+
+                       STORIES TOLD BY THE MILLER
+
+
+Janet and little Peter lived in an old white-washed cottage that stood
+in a field by the border of the mill-pool. It was a tiny,
+weather-stained cot, to which a narrow path led through a gap in the low
+wall of the highroad. Across the road stood the mill itself, grey,
+windowless, and solid, with stone steps leading up to a door, through
+which, on a grinding day, you could hear the noise of the machinery and
+see the dusty atmosphere within. Peter and Janet thought the mill-field
+over the road a charming place; and so it was, for at one end the
+overflow from the tree-hidden dam poured down its paved slide in a white
+waterfall, to wander, a zigzagging stream, through the field and out,
+under the road, to the pool near their cottage. From the farther side of
+the dam the mill-lead ran evenly below the gnarled roots of the trees
+shadowing its course, and was lost in that dark hole in the wall behind
+which the flashing wheel turned. The water came racing out to join the
+overflow and dive with it through the causeway, coming up in the pool
+beyond. From there it meandered over the country into the river, which
+carried it to the sea. On wild days in winter you might hear the roaring
+sound of the North Sea beating against the coast.
+
+Janet and her brother were orphans, and their lives were very hard; for
+their grandmother, with whom they had been lately sent to live, was a
+cruel old woman who beat poor little Peter when she was out of temper.
+Janet came in for rough words, and blows, too, sometimes, although she
+was almost seventeen, and old enough to take care of herself. Many a
+time she longed to run away, but in her heart she knew that she would
+never do so because she could not leave her brother alone. She was a
+good girl, and a pretty one besides, for her hair was like the corn and
+she was as slender as a bulrush. The neighbours whose boys and girls
+passed on their way from school would not let their children have
+anything to do with little Peter, for many thought that his wicked old
+grandmother was a witch. The children had made a rhyme that they used to
+sing. It was like this:
+
+             “Peter, Peter, the witch’s brat,
+             Lives in the house with a green-eyed cat!
+             Peter, Peter, we jump for joy,
+             Throwing stones at the witch’s boy!”
+
+And then sometimes they would throw them, but not when Janet was by, for
+she would catch them and shake them.
+
+“_You_ are the green-eyed cat!” they would shout, as they saw her angry
+face. But they took care to run as they said it.
+
+In spite of their troubles, the brother and sister were not always
+unhappy, for there were many things they liked. One was the crooked old
+cherry-tree that grew between their cottage and the pool, and when the
+leaves turned fiery rose-colour in the autumn Peter would pick them up
+as they dropped and make them stand in rows against the wood-pile,
+pretending they were armies of red soldiers. The brightest and reddest
+ones were the generals, the paler ones the privates. And the wild
+cherries tasted delicious.
+
+One day Peter was crying bitterly. The old woman had beaten him and he
+was very sad.
+
+“Come away,” said Janet. “We will go to the mill, for I can hear the
+grinding going on. No one will notice if we slip into the field, and we
+can look right in and see the wheel itself.”
+
+Peter forgot all about his trouble and stopped crying, for she had never
+allowed him to go so near the wheel before. They set off and went round
+the back of the mill buildings. Oh, how charmed he was! Janet lifted him
+up and he looked through the big hole. Round and round went the great
+spokes of the wheel, and the water, clear as crystal in the darkness,
+dripped from it and fell in showers into the brown swirl below. The
+sides of the walls were green with slime and little clumps of fern, and
+the long mosses streamed down like tresses of emerald-coloured hair. At
+last he drew back and she sat him on the ground. Then they turned round
+to go home, and nearly jumped out of their skins, for there was the
+miller looking at them. He was a tall young man, with a brown face and
+clothes covered with white dust; even the leather leggings he wore were
+white, and his hat, which he had pushed back, was white too.
+
+“Well, my man,” said he to Peter, “and what do you think of the wheel?”
+
+Peter did not know what to say, he was so much taken aback.
+
+“When I was a little boy,” said the miller, “I was just like you, and
+couldn’t keep away from a mill-wheel if there was one within twenty
+miles. ‘When I’m a man,’ said I, ‘it’s a miller I’ll be.’ And a miller I
+am.”
+
+But little Peter was still too much startled to understand friendliness.
+He pointed to the cottage over the road.
+
+“You won’t tell grandmother we came here?” he asked, his eyes filling
+with tears.
+
+“Not I,” said the miller.
+
+“She would beat him if you did,” remarked Janet.
+
+“That’s bad,” observed the miller, pushing his hat farther back. “I had
+a grandmother, too, when I was a little lad; she had a great cap and
+horn spectacles.”
+
+“And did she beat you?” said Peter, gaining courage.
+
+“Not she!” exclaimed the miller. “But she used to comfort me if anyone
+else did. Such fine tales she used to tell me, too—some out of a book
+and some out of her head! I’ve got the book in the house now.”
+
+Little Peter loved stories more than anything in the world, and every
+moment he was growing less afraid of the miller.
+
+“Oh, tell me one!” he cried. “Please tell me one!”
+
+“Sit down, then,” he said, “and you, too, my pretty lass. The first I
+can mind her telling me was about this very mill. Would you like to hear
+about that?”
+
+“Yes, yes!” cried little Peter.
+
+And so they sat down by the mill-lead, and the miller began his story.
+
+
+
+
+                       THE STORY OF THE WATER-NIX
+
+
+My grandmother was a wonderful woman (said he): there was nothing she
+heard that she ever forgot and she had a good education at her back,
+too. Not a thing happened but she could make a story out of it, and on
+the days when she went to market she used to take me with her in the
+cart; she would drive and I sat up beside her, and it was then I heard
+from her what I am going to tell you now.
+
+Long ago there lived in the deep water round the wheel a Water-Nix. She
+was the most beautiful lady ever seen, though it was not many had the
+luck to catch sight of her, for she seldom came out of her hiding-place
+near the walls. A body might live here a year and never see her. But
+sometimes, on light nights, she would dive under the door and swim out,
+and even sit up on the bank, with her thin white smock trailing in the
+water. Once—so grandmother said—the miller’s man saw her perched upon
+the wall by the road, just where the stream runs under it. The drops
+were falling off her white feet on to the grass—so he told
+grandmother—and though there was only a little crescent like a sickle
+in the sky that night, he could see the water-lilies twisted in her
+hair. She was laughing and holding up her arms at the moon.
+
+[Illustration: “ONCE . . . THE MILLER’S MAN SAW HER.”]
+
+And have _you_ ever seen her? inquired little Peter, his eyes round.
+
+Never, said the miller. Well, to go on: Sometimes she would get through
+the causeway and go and lie in the pool over yonder near your cottage,
+floating and sending the ripples widening in great circles round her.
+
+Now, it happened one day that the Nix was in her place, hidden behind
+the door near the wheel, when a pedlar passed by on the road. He had a
+pack on his back, gold rings in his ears and a staff in his hand; for he
+was a lusty fellow, landed off a ship that had come in from the Baltic,
+and was travelling inland to sell what wares he could carry. He was
+singing as he went, and the Nix came out and swam close under the walls
+to hear him. He sang of the sea, and there was something in his voice
+that reminded you of the wind droning in the rigging. (How grandmother
+knew that I don’t know, for she wasn’t there to hear him; but she had
+once been in a ship off the coast of Jutland, so I suppose she guessed
+it.)
+
+            “Out and home and out again,
+              As the tide rolls heavily,
+            With the ship to steer and the fog to fear,
+              By the grey banks near the sea.
+
+            “Hand to the helm and heart to the blast,
+              And face to the driving rain,
+            And the sea runs high to the glowering sky
+              As we sail for the North again.
+
+            “Hark to the mermaids off the shore,
+              As they sing so bonnilie
+            Through the rocks and caves to the sounding waves
+              In the grey lands out at sea,
+              In the caves across the sea.”
+
+She had never heard such words or such a tune in her life, and she rose,
+head and shoulders, out of the water, crying to the pedlar to sing it
+again. But when he saw the yellow hearts of the water-lilies round her
+head, he took them for gold, and he leaned over the little wall and made
+a snatch at them. The Nix dived under again and went back like a flash
+to the darkness by the wheel.
+
+But all day long she sat there, singing to herself all she could
+remember of the song of the pedlar; she was like one possessed:
+
+                 “By the grey banks near the sea,”
+
+she sang, rocking herself about,
+
+                   “In the caves across the sea.”
+
+Now, as time went on her longing grew stronger and stronger: all the day
+she thought of the sea and the grey caves of the coast, and all night
+she sat on the wall, looking out eastwards and listening for any sound
+of water that might come inland. (It was at this time that the miller’s
+man saw her.) Why this happened to her I can’t tell, for I don’t know.
+Perhaps her relations were those sea-kelpies that haunt the Baltic.
+
+Be that as it may, one night she crept out of the pool and followed the
+banks of the wet ditch by which it escapes, making for the river. It
+must have been a queer sight to see her as she went, with her wet
+garments clinging round her, running down the fields; I always used to
+fancy when I was a boy how she would look from side to side, afraid of
+being seen, and how she would stop here and there to listen for the sea.
+She reached the marshes and ran out till she felt the incoming tide
+about her feet. The steeple of the town and its lights were strange to
+her, but long before she got near them, the water was deep, and she swam
+under the bridge and out through the shipping in the harbour till she
+heard the surf and saw the white line over the bar.
+
+Outside the sea was thundering and booming, and the salt spray flew in
+her face, for a rough night was setting in. Farther and farther she
+swam, and soon she felt the current running strong with her towards the
+cliffs that stand miles out and look towards Denmark. The gulls came
+swooping over her, but she did not care; she had seen them at times
+screaming behind the plough in the fields round the mill. But, as the
+wind rose and the waves lifted her up and tossed her, she grew
+frightened; for all she knew of waters was the stillness of the pool.
+
+The storm was louder as night went on, and by morning she was so much
+buffeted about that she lay floating among the seaweed. She had no
+strength left to go one way or another, and at last she was cast up on a
+bit of sandy shore and sat under the cliffs wondering what to do, for
+the place was strange and she was afraid of all the world. A track wound
+upwards, so she followed it till it brought her out high above the
+sands. The size of the sea bewildered her and she gazed about for some
+place in which to hide.
+
+Close by was a little circle of tumble-down wall; she looked over it
+into a tangle of weeds, and saw what seemed to her the strangest thing
+of all, for she did not know it was a deserted graveyard. If she had she
+would have been no wiser. The crosses leaned sideways out of the rank
+thistles and hemlock. Some of the stones lay flat, with only their
+carved corners sticking out and some had the shape of tables; some were
+no more than broken pieces. But one of the graves had once been a very
+grand place, with a little building over it to shelter the stone; its
+roof was battered in, but it had a helmet and strange words cut above
+the doorway. The Nix made her way to it through the hemlock; in she went
+and crouched against its farthest corner. It was the quietest spot she
+had seen. She was so weary that she did not know what to do, and the sun
+dazzled her, for it was growing strong and she was accustomed to dark
+places.
+
+She had lain there some time when she heard steps not far off. Someone
+was coming along the ridge of the cliffs. In another minute a brown goat
+had jumped into a gap in the circle, and stood staring in as though it
+were counting the tombstones, moving its upper lip from side to side.
+Goats seldom passed the mill, and she was half scared at its beard and
+wagging ears and the horns above its solemn face. As she looked a boy
+appeared behind it—a rough-looking boy, with a shock of yellow hair and
+a switch in his hand to drive the beast with. When he saw her he set up
+a loud cry of terror, for he did not expect to find anyone in such a
+place, and he had never seen a Water-Nix in his life. Then he took to
+his heels, and the goat galloped after him, baaing as it went. The Nix
+lay quite still; she could not think why anyone should run away like
+that.
+
+She curled herself closer into her refuge.
+
+Presently she heard a noise like the beating of pots and pans and voices
+coming nearer. She crept to the wall and looked over. A whole crowd of
+boys was coming with sticks in their hands, shouting, and as they caught
+sight of her, they cried louder, brandishing them. Some even had the
+handles of old brooms and the goat-boy was at their head, beating a tin
+kettle. “_There_ she is!” he cried.
+
+Then the poor Nix understood that they had come out after her, and she
+climbed out of the graveyard on the side nearest the sea and began to
+run for her life. She rushed down a narrow path winding among great
+boulders, and, when she was exhausted, she crept behind one of them and
+lay there till the voices had died away and she thought her pursuers had
+given up the chase. When all was still she rose and went on, not knowing
+where to go for peace. Great tears stood in her eyes as she thought of
+the mill and the trees by the dam.
+
+In time she came to a huge crag standing out into the waves and joined
+to the land by only a neck of rock no wider than the top of a wall. She
+had no fear of growing giddy, for she knew nothing of the uncomfortable
+things that happen to human beings, so she crossed it. The place looked
+so lonely that she was sure there could be nobody there. When she was
+over she turned the corner of a rock and found herself at the foot of a
+high wall, pierced by little shot windows and broken by a heavy iron
+door. In her astonishment she sprang back, for in front of it stood a
+tall man with a fierce face and eyes like a hawk. The Water-Nix turned
+and fled. Poor thing! she did not get far, for he bounded after her and
+caught her by the wrist. She struggled and fought, but it was no good;
+he seized her in his strong arms, and carried her in through the door.
+
+Now, inside the door was the court of a great tower, which was hidden on
+the landward side by the top of the crag, and the man with the fierce
+face was a robber who had made his home in it. The people who lived in
+the country round were terrified of him, for he would come out at night
+and harry their villages, robbing both rich and poor. No one could catch
+him, because the narrow crossing over which the Nix had come was the
+only way of getting at the tower, and he and his men would shoot from
+behind the loopholes, killing all who approached. They could not get at
+him from the sea, for the rock ran straight down into it like a wall and
+nobody could climb it.
+
+The robber dragged the Nix into his tower, not because he wanted to kill
+her, but because he had no wife to be mistress of it, and he thought
+that so beautiful a lady would be the very person. He was not at all
+cruel to her, and he brought her all the finest things in his
+treasure-house. He offered her jewels he had plundered, necklaces of
+pearls and diamonds stolen from the merchant ships he had attacked; for
+he was a pirate too and his galleys were anchored in the deep water of
+the caves below his rock. But she scarcely looked at them; the only
+ornament she cared for was her wreath of water-lilies that she used to
+pluck from the mill-pool.
+
+But at last the time came when he got angry. “To-night I am going out,”
+he said. “The only thing I have not stolen is a wedding-ring, and now I
+want one. I shall land at the first village up the coast, for I know
+that the fishermen are at sea, and at the first house I go to I will
+seize the wife’s wedding-ring. To-morrow we will be married with it.”
+
+Among the robber’s captives was a priest he had taken prisoner, so he
+told him that he must be ready to marry them as soon as he could get
+back with the ring. The priest was sorry for the Water-Nix and did not
+want to do it.
+
+“You will have to,” said the robber, “or you shall be thrown into the
+sea.”
+
+Then the poor Water-Nix wrung her hands and cried and sobbed so
+piteously that the priest’s heart smote him, and he cudgelled his brains
+to think of some plan to save her. At last he found one. As soon as the
+robber’s back was turned he said: “Bring me the diamond necklace that he
+gave you and I will see what we can do.”
+
+When he had got it he went to one of the robber’s men.
+
+“Look at this,” said he. “If you will open the great door to-night when
+your chief is gone, and let us all three out, you shall have it the
+moment we reach the mainland. It is so valuable that, if you sell it,
+the price will enable you to live honestly for the rest of your days.”
+
+“But I don’t care for honesty,” said the robber’s man.
+
+“Well, never mind about being honest,” said the priest. “You can be rich
+without that.”
+
+“That is a grand idea,” replied the other. “The robber is a cruel
+master, so I will do as you say. But if you don’t give me the necklace
+the moment we get out of sight of the tower, I will kill you and the
+Water-Nix too.”
+
+So when it was dark, and the robber’s galley had rowed away, the priest
+took the necklace, hiding it under his clothes, and he and the Nix stole
+out to the door. Everyone was asleep or drinking but the man who waited
+for them with the key he had contrived to get.
+
+They let themselves out so noiselessly that no one heard them, for the
+robber’s man had oiled the lock, and when they reached the mainland the
+priest gave him the necklace.
+
+“Well, I’m off. Good luck to you!” he said, as he snatched it. Then he
+took to his heels and ran off with his treasure.
+
+“And now I think that is all I can do for you,” said the priest. And he
+left the Water-Nix standing where she was, without so much as giving her
+his blessing. The sooner he could put a few miles between himself and
+the robber’s tower the better, he thought.
+
+The Nix looked round and round about her. Below lay the sea, moaning and
+washing the shore, and not far off was the outline of the little
+graveyard in the faint starlight. She ran on along the cliffs, for far
+away a few lights of the town by the river’s mouth could be seen
+twinkling in a row, and she knew that up that river lay the mill. As
+morning dawned she found herself in a thick wood. She was glad, for what
+she had seen of people made her wish to get as far from them as
+possible, and she determined to hide all day in the wood, and travel on
+all night. She ran far in among the trees, and threw herself down on a
+bank and fell asleep, for she was almost worn out and her feet ached
+from the rough ground.
+
+She had slept a long time when she woke and saw, to her dismay, that
+someone else was sitting on the bank, quite near. He was a long, thin,
+pale young man, with lank, untidy hair and shabby clothes, and he was
+reading aloud to himself out of a book on his knees. As she moved he
+turned and saw her over the fallen trunk behind which she lay. He shut
+his book, taking care to keep a finger between the leaves to mark the
+place, and looked calmly at her. He was the first person she had met who
+did not seem surprised to see her. All the same, she prepared to run
+away.
+
+“You needn’t be afraid,” said the student—for that is what he was. “I
+notice that you are a Water-Nix, and, that being so, you are the very
+person I should wish to see. This is a poetry-book that I am reading;
+the writing is fine enough, but there is nothing in it as fine as what
+_I_ am going to write. I am going to make a poem. Three days, I assure
+you, have I wandered in this wood trying to think of a subject for it,
+and now I have it. It shall be no less than my meeting with yourself.”
+
+And he said a long sentence in Latin, which the Nix could not
+understand; but, then, neither could she understand much of anything
+else he had said, so it didn’t matter.
+
+“Ah, yes, you are a Water-Nix,” he continued—“_Nixiana Aquatica_.”
+
+And he took a pencil out of his pocket and scribbled down a note on the
+margin of his book.
+
+It was some time before he left off saying learned things, and began to
+consider how his companion had come to a place so far from the river,
+where not even a stream ran through the trees. He listened to the tale
+she told him with astonishment, and at last he put aside his book and
+promised to help her to find the way to the mill. He was very sorry for
+her, though now and then he would forget her presence as he pulled out
+his pencil to write down the beginning of the poem he meant to make.
+
+When night came the student and the Nix started off. He walked in front,
+and she went after him, like a dog following its master. In the morning
+they hid in an overgrown quarry, for she was much too frightened to go
+abroad in the daylight; and thus they travelled till, after midnight on
+the second day, they found themselves close to the highroad which ran
+towards the mill-pool. They sat down to rest. All was so still that you
+could hear sounds ever so far off, and they soon made out that someone
+was coming to meet them. Then a man passed on the road; they could not
+see him, but he was singing to himself. And what he sang was this:
+
+            “Out and home and out again,
+              As the tide rolls heavily;
+            With the ship to steer and the fog to fear,
+              By the grey banks near the sea,
+              In the caves across the sea.”
+
+The Nix held her breath as the pedlar—for it was he—went by, and when
+he began the second verse the thought of everything that had happened
+went from her. All she could hear or remember was the beating of the
+grey sea, calling her with its compelling voice.
+
+Without a word she got up and followed the pedlar and left the student
+sitting by himself in the dark. He sat open-mouthed.
+
+Back to him from the distance came the sound of footsteps and the
+floating refrain.
+
+“Bless me!” he exclaimed. “Bless me! _Nixiana Maritima!_”
+
+But it was too dark to write that down on the margin of his book.
+
+The pedlar walked on singing, and she kept a little way behind him,
+treading softly. On they went till the first streak of daylight broke in
+the sky, for he was on his way to the town; he had sold all his wares
+and meant to go to sea again in the first ship he could find leaving the
+harbour. When they entered the streets all the world was asleep, and
+they passed through the town unnoticed. Beside the quay a forest of
+masts stood dark against the sky, and here the pedlar halted, looking
+about him. Then he turned and saw the Nix.
+
+“Hullo!” he cried roughly. “What’s this?”
+
+But before he could get nearer she dived into the water. The pedlar
+began to shout. In a minute the place was awake, for at the sound of his
+voice men sleeping in their boats at the quay’s edge leaped ashore to
+see what was the matter, windows were opened in the houses, and everyone
+was calling out to know what had happened.
+
+The Nix looked back and saw the crowd collecting. She swam for the
+harbour’s mouth with all her strength, and she was so afraid that they
+might put to sea and follow her that by the time the sun rose she was
+miles out in the clear waters. All was blue around her, sky and wave,
+and the land lay behind, a faint line in the sunshine. The great ocean
+was as calm as her own pool by the mill and her heart sang as she went
+out farther and farther. It seemed to her that the voice’s of the
+mermaids the pedlar had sung about were resounding from all the caves on
+these haunted shores. She had never been so happy.
+
+She went on and on. Time and space and distance were as nothing;
+everything was falling from her but the sense of a great joy.
+
+Far in the distance something was steering fast to meet her, making
+white splashes on the blue expanse, and soon she could see a face and
+brown arms rising above the surface. A great sea-kelpie was coming
+towards her, the seaweed trailing from his hair and his shoulders
+breasting the water. As they met he held out his hand.
+
+She put hers into it. Then they swam out till the coast was no more, and
+the remembrance of the world of men was no more, and disappeared
+together into the mists of the North.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+The miller ceased, and little Peter sat spellbound for a while, for he
+had forgotten everything but the adventures of the Water-Nix.
+
+“And what happened to her?” he said at last.
+
+“I can’t tell you any more,” replied the miller; “and how grandmother
+knew as much as that I don’t know, though, to be sure, she understood
+more than most people about everything.”
+
+“The kelpie would take care that she came to no harm,” said Janet.
+
+“You’re right there,” said the miller. “I make no doubt but they’re
+living happily among the sea-caves hundreds of miles away.”
+
+“But the man with the untidy hair—you haven’t told what happened to
+him,” said the little boy.
+
+“Ah yes, there’s more to be said about him,” answered the miller. “He
+wrote his poem, and it made him rich. There was so much Latin in it that
+people thought it wonderful. That brought him in a heap of money. He
+married and had a large family, and one of his daughters was my
+grandmother. She was a fine girl, and it seemed to him a bad come-down
+in life when she married the miller and came to live here. But they were
+very happy, for all that, and it was from the miller’s man she heard the
+story of the Water-Nix.”
+
+“Is it because your great-grandfather was a poet that you can tell
+stories so well?” asked Janet, with some awe.
+
+“Well, it might be,” said the miller. “Anyhow, it’s a fine notion. I
+never thought of it before.”
+
+
+
+
+                     THE KING OF GROWGLAND’S CROWN
+
+
+It was almost a week before the brother and sister saw the miller again,
+but one evening as Janet was coming down the road he jumped over the
+wall from the mill-field.
+
+“Where’s the little boy?” he asked. “I hope your grandmother has not
+been bad to him again.”
+
+“No,” said Janet, “she’s very cross, but she hasn’t beaten him for more
+than a week.”
+
+“You go and fetch him,” said he. “I have been looking for the book I
+told you about—grandmother’s story-book. I’m not busy to-night, and we
+can sit in the field, and I’ll read him a story.”
+
+“How lovely!” cried Janet. “I’ll run and bring him at once.”
+
+“Yes, and mind _you_ come back, too,” called the miller after her.
+
+In a few minutes she returned, with Peter jumping and clapping his hands
+beside her, and when they had found a nice place, they sat down to read.
+
+They sat on the roots of a tree by the mill-lead, with the water
+babbling at their feet. The book was old and tattered, and,
+unfortunately, there were no pictures in it, but they did not mind that.
+They could see just as good pictures for themselves, in their own minds’
+eyes.
+
+“I will read you a story about three brothers,” said the miller to
+Peter; “and there’s a magpie in it, too, and a pretty young woman like
+your sister.”
+
+And he opened his book and began:
+
+There was once upon a time a widow who had three sons; they were fine,
+strong young men, and the two elder thought themselves more than
+commonly clever. The youngest did not think much about anything but his
+business, which was to keep the sheep, look after the horses, and supply
+the pot with the game he brought home. He was a hard worker, and when he
+lay down at night, he was glad enough to sleep, though the others would
+usually sit up scheming how they might grow rich. He thought them rather
+grand fellows, all the same, and quite expected they would do something
+wonderful.
+
+One day the widow called them all and told them it was high time they
+saw something of the world. “To-morrow morning you shall all be off
+round it,” she said to the eldest. “You must start facing east, your
+next brother facing west, and when you meet in the middle at the other
+side you can compare all you have learned. As for you,” she went on,
+turning to the youngest, “you shall start southward, and no doubt will
+be in time to fall in with them and profit by their knowledge.” She also
+had a great opinion of her elder sons.
+
+So off they went, and when they had gone half round the world, the two
+elder brothers came face to face at the other side in a sandy hollow.
+They sat down and began to talk.
+
+“Well, brother, and what have you done?” asked the second.
+
+“_Done!_” exclaimed the first brother; “what do you mean? I haven’t made
+a penny or seen anybody I think as well of as myself. There is nothing
+to be got by giving oneself all this trouble. The world is an overrated
+place, I can tell you. What have _you_ got out of it?”
+
+“Nothing,” said the second; “and I agree heartily with every word you
+have said.”
+
+At this moment they looked up and saw the third brother coming over a
+hillock. He did not look much more prosperous than themselves.
+
+“We won’t tell him,” they said; “we will pretend we have done wonders
+and made our mark, and then we’ll get a pretext to be rid of him before
+he finds out the truth. It would never do for him to lose his respect
+for us.”
+
+“Hi!” cried the youngest brother, “this is luck indeed!” And when he had
+greeted them he sat down beside them in the sand.
+
+“Hullo! how are you?” said the eldest.
+
+“Oh, well enough,” replied he.
+
+“And how have you got on, and how much money have you made?”
+
+“Oh, no money,” replied the young man, “but I think I have picked up a
+little experience.”
+
+“Pooh!” cried the others in a breath. “That’s all very well, but it
+isn’t good enough for _us_.”
+
+“Are you rich, then?” asked the youngest.
+
+“Rich?” cried the eldest, “did you say rich? I am rolling in gold. I
+have a great shop in which the merchandise of four kingdoms changes
+hands, and my counting-house is so fine that two Emperors drove up last
+Sunday and asked if they might be allowed to go over it. I said yes, of
+course. There was a Bishop in the carriage, too.”
+
+The youngest brother’s eyes grew round. “Well, that’s grand indeed,” he
+said.
+
+“And I,” broke in the middle brother—“I have no taste for buying and
+selling; in fact, I think it rather low. But a lady fell in love with
+me, so I married her. She inherited money from a Duke, who is her uncle,
+and she asks nothing better than I should spend it.”
+
+“Well, well, well!” exclaimed the youngest.
+
+Then he looked curiously at his companions. “And how is it,” said he,
+“that such great people as you have come here on foot? I should have
+imagined you would have arrived on horseback or in carriages.”
+
+“Oh, we live so close by that it was not worth while disturbing the
+servants,” they replied quickly.
+
+“Then you live in the nearest town and in the same house?” continued he.
+
+“Yes, yes,” answered the second. “My wife cherishes me so that she
+insisted upon my brother living with us, for fear I should feel
+homesick. It was very good of her, but what an idea to be homesick for
+such a hole as our mother’s farm, when I live in the finest house in the
+market-square!”
+
+“Indeed, brothers,” said the youngest, “I think all this is capital, and
+so much so that I shall certainly go back with you at once. I will start
+for home early to-morrow, but you shall give me a lodging for the night,
+and I promise you that I shall rejoice at the sight of your prosperity.
+I have slept under the stars every night since I began journeying, and a
+good soft bed will be a treat to me. Besides which, I shall see my
+sister-in-law and be able to tell mother all about her.”
+
+At this the elder men’s faces fell, but there was nothing for it but to
+go back by the way they had come to the nearest town. However, their
+brother walked behind as they went, so they had time to invent a way out
+of their difficulties. When they reached their destination, they paused
+at the town gate, telling him to stay where he was while they went to
+prepare for his coming.
+
+“All right, then,” said he, “but in five minutes I shall follow.”
+
+They could not help smiling at his innocence, for they intended to
+escape as quickly as they could.
+
+“How are you going to find the way?” they inquired.
+
+“Why, haven’t you been telling me that you live in the finest house in
+the market-square? I shall soon find that.”
+
+This was rather a blow to the others, for they knew that he was swift of
+foot and that they would not get far in five minutes.
+
+“It doesn’t matter,” whispered the middle brother; “I know a fine trick.
+We will have dinner and a night’s lodging at his expense, and in the
+morning we will be off before he is awake, and leave him to pay the
+reckoning. Come, look sharp, or he will be after us.”
+
+With that they ran to a large, handsome inn which stood in the middle of
+the market-square. It had a tower on it, and an entrance good enough for
+an Alderman’s family.
+
+“Landlord,” said the middle brother, “I am a gentleman from a distance,
+and in a most unexpected dilemma. Help me out of it, and I can assure
+you you shall profit. A great lord, finding that I am in the town, has
+sent me a message. You must know that he is under heavy obligations to
+me, and has sworn that on the day I am married he will give me a
+thousand crowns as a wedding gift. Now, I am not married at all; but if
+he arrives and can be made to believe I have a wife, he will immediately
+redeem his word. My plan is simply this: I shall entertain him well at
+your inn, and, if you have a daughter—or even a decent-looking
+serving-maid—who will sit at the head of the table during dinner and
+act as though she were mistress of the house, I will divide the sum with
+you the moment I receive it. Should he go back from his word, there will
+be no harm done, and I will pay you liberally for your hospitality. I
+will give the girl a new gown, too, as a remembrance of her assistance.”
+
+Now, the landlord was the first rogue in the kingdom, and the scheme so
+pleased him that he nearly died of laughter.
+
+“You are a sharp one!” he exclaimed. “Why, I have a daughter clever
+enough to act any part in the world, and she shall do her best, you may
+be sure. Come, I will get ready a good dinner and take down the
+signboard, so that the place shall appear as a private house.”
+
+By the time he had done this and acquainted the girl with the plan, a
+loud thumping was heard at the door, and the third brother stood
+outside.
+
+Now, the landlord’s girl was goddaughter to a witch, and very beautiful;
+she had also learned some useful things from her godmother, who had
+brought her up till she was sixteen and obliged to return and help her
+father with his inn. So, when the plot was explained, she said: “I hope
+no harm will come of it,” and before getting ready to preside at the
+table, she took a good look at the two men.
+
+“They have rascals’ faces,” she said to herself.
+
+She then ran to a top window, and looked out to see what sort of a
+person the great lord who was coming to dinner might be.
+
+It chanced that, as she leaned out, the third brother glanced up.
+
+“If that is my brother’s wife,” said he, “she is indeed a beauty!” And
+he sighed, wishing that such luck had come his way.
+
+When the girl saw his face, she thought:
+
+“That is no great lord, but he is a handsome fellow, for all that. I
+will see, at least, that he gets the best of everything in the house.”
+
+So when the table was spread, and before the three brothers came into
+the dining-room, the girl said to the magpie that hung in a cage behind
+the window-curtain:
+
+“Take notice of every word that is said to-night, and repeat it to me,
+or I will wring your neck!”
+
+The magpie promised, and she went forward to receive the guest.
+
+“Here,” said the second brother, “is madam, my wife.”
+
+With that the youngest brother kissed his sister-in-law heartily.
+
+“I knew he was no fool,” said the girl to herself.
+
+As dinner progressed she made herself so pleasant that the room rang
+with joy and merriment, and she pressed all the most delicate dishes on
+the youngest brother; nor did she fail to notice that whenever he
+addressed either of his companions as ‘brother,’ which he did
+frequently, the two exchanged covert glances of annoyance.
+
+“All is not right here,” she exclaimed under her breath, “for, were he
+the great lord they say, there are no two men alive who would more
+willingly call him a relation!” And she smiled rather slyly.
+
+“Why do you smile, wife?” asked the second brother.
+
+“My love,” replied she, “at finding so great a personage a member of
+your family.”
+
+No one knew what to say, for the youngest brother feared she was
+laughing at them all, and the two elder were sure of it.
+
+However, time flew, the wine sparkled, the hot roast dishes smoked, and
+it was hard to say which of the four was in the best humour.
+
+When the feast was done the girl got up, and, taking a silver
+candlestick from the table, said:
+
+“Husband, I see that our guest is weary with travelling and his eyes
+heavy with sleep. I myself will show him the guest-chamber, and assure
+myself that the servants have made his bed well.”
+
+So saying, she led the youngest brother to the room prepared for him,
+walking before him with the lights. As he went he could not cease
+admiring the fine plaits of dark hair which hung down her back and
+regretting that the evening was over and he would be so soon deprived of
+her company.
+
+When they got to the bedchamber, she made every pretext to remain away
+from the dining-room as long as possible, smoothing the pillows and
+drawing the window-curtains close, that the starlight might not disturb
+his sleep. When she had bidden him good-night, she went downstairs as
+slowly as she could.
+
+[Illustration: “THEN THE BIRD TOLD HER THE WHOLE PLOT.”]
+
+“I had no notion it was so late!” she exclaimed as she entered. “Now
+that my part is done, I may tell you two gentlemen that the longer you
+sit here burning our oil and occupying our best room, the more you will
+be charged for it. Now, tell me if you are satisfied with my
+performance, and then take my advice and go to bed for the sake of your
+pockets. There is a good room ready for you upstairs.”
+
+The brothers congratulated her on the way she had played her part, and
+went off. Nothing could have suited them better, for they meant to slip
+out of the house and be gone long before dawn broke.
+
+When the girl had showed them the way, she ran downstairs to the
+magpie’s cage.
+
+“Quick, quick!” she cried, “tell me everything those knaves said to each
+other while I was taking the stranger to the guest-chamber.”
+
+“Oh, mistress,” exclaimed he, “we have indeed dined in evil company!”
+
+“You have not dined at all,” she said, “and never shall if I hear not
+every word of their talk.”
+
+Then the bird told her the whole plot, for the brothers had discussed it
+openly in her absence. “Besides all this,” he concluded, “they mean to
+run away in the night and leave the young man to pay the reckoning.”
+
+At this the girl ran straight upstairs and locked the two brothers in;
+she took off her shoes and turned the key so softly that they heard
+nothing. Afterwards she slipped out into the yard, and, taking a harrow
+which lay in the outhouse, drew it under their window and turned it with
+the spikes uppermost, to deter them from jumping out. She then knocked
+at the door of the guest-chamber.
+
+“Come out!” she cried through the keyhole; “there is knavery afoot!”
+
+When the youngest brother opened the door she told him all, and when he
+had hurried on a few clothes he came down to the dining-room to hear
+what the magpie had discovered.
+
+“I shall be out of this as quick as I can,” he remarked when the bird
+had finished. “My only grief is that I shall never see you again. I am
+really very glad you are not my brother’s wife, for I had much rather
+you were mine.”
+
+“So had I,” said the girl.
+
+So they determined to depart together.
+
+“You are never going to leave me behind!” exclaimed the magpie.
+
+“Well, then, come along,” said the young man, opening the cage door.
+“When you are tired of flying you can have a lift on my shoulder; I am
+not going to let my wife trouble herself with your cage.”
+
+“I am not your wife yet,” said the girl, tossing her head.
+
+“That’s easily mended,” replied the youngest brother.
+
+So they crept softly out of the inn and took the road long before the
+sky showed signs of morning. But at last the east grew grey in the
+darkness and bars of rose-colour hung over the sea of primrose and gold
+from which the sun was about to rise. They sat down beside a stream to
+rest, for they had come a good long distance.
+
+“Fly into the nearest tree,” said the youngest brother to the magpie,
+“and wait till the risen sun shows you the nearest steeple. Where there
+is a church there will be a priest, so, when you have directed us to it,
+you can go there yourself and rouse him. We will follow and wait in the
+church porch till you bring him to marry us.”
+
+As soon as it was fully light the bird obeyed, and having lit on a
+church steeple, he called to a man in the road below to direct him to
+the priest’s house.
+
+The priest was just getting out of bed, but he ordered the magpie to be
+admitted. When he had heard his request he promised to set out with his
+prayer-book as soon as he had eaten his breakfast, and the bird, after
+thanking him courteously, flew off again to the church. “I forgot to ask
+who you are,” called the priest after him, with his mouth full.
+
+“I am a near relation of the bride’s,” said the magpie as he sailed
+away.
+
+By the time the engaged couple reached the porch they found the holy man
+awaiting them, and were immediately married. The magpie gave the bride
+away and offered some advice upon the married state, for he was a
+widower and knew what he was talking about. “Now go,” he said, “and I
+will return to the steeple, where I shall find snug enough quarters.
+Three is an ill number for a honeymoon.”
+
+So the husband and wife went to the village and found a suitable
+lodging; they meant to stay there for the next few days, till they
+should decide where they should live.
+
+As the sun set that evening the magpie sat on the steeple meditating on
+life. The bright glow struck through the ivy-leaves, and he was much
+astonished at seeing something glittering so brightly in the light that
+he was almost dazzled. The shine came from behind a great tangle of
+foliage which clothed the tower. He hopped down and thrust his beak in
+among the ivy. There, in a hole scooped carefully among the stones, was
+a heap of jewels such as he had never seen in all his days. There were
+ropes of pearls, chains of diamonds and rubies, and emeralds in heaps.
+It was with difficulty that he could resist screaming aloud, so great
+was his astonishment, and he was all the more shocked when he reflected
+that this cunningly-made storehouse of wealth must be the handiwork of
+robbers.
+
+“I fear that the world is a terribly wicked place,” he observed; “I must
+look into this. I will remain here till night and see what roguery is
+going on.”
+
+So when night was come he concealed himself with great caution in a
+niche. When midnight had struck and the moon—now at her full—blackened
+the shadows, he heard a rustling below and saw the head of a man
+appearing above the belfry stair. He was a wicked-looking ruffian and
+was followed by another who held something hidden under his cloak. The
+magpie poked his head round the corner of his niche. The two thieves
+went straight to the hole behind the ivy, and, having looked in at their
+stolen wealth, sat down on the church roof.
+
+“And now,” said the one who had come up first, “what is this great
+treasure that you have taken?”
+
+“You may well ask,” replied the other, “for it is no less than the King
+of Growgland’s crown. Here—you may try it on if you like.”
+
+And he pulled out a bundle wrapped in cloth. His companion snatched it,
+and, when he had untied the knots, there came out such a blaze in the
+moonlight that the magpie was almost blinded.
+
+The crown glowed and shone. It had spikes of gold with knobs of rubies
+on the top, and pearls as big as marrowfat peas were studded round the
+circlet. In front was a fan-shaped ornament half a foot high and one
+mass of emeralds and diamonds. The thief set it on his own knavish head
+and turned round and round that his friend might admire his appearance.
+
+“There now, stop that,” said the other at last; “I have had enough of
+your masquerading. Not even a crown can make you like a gentleman.” And
+he whipped it off and thrust it into the hole. Then he drew the ivy
+across it, and, after a few more rough words, the robbers disappeared as
+they had come.
+
+When morning dawned the magpie flew to the house where the youngest
+brother was lodging with his bride. He pecked the window with his beak
+and cried to the young man, “Here is great news! Follow my advice, and
+you will find your fortune made. Now tell your wife to go to the town
+and buy a piece of fine silk to make a bag. While she is doing this you
+must procure a hammer, a piece of pointed iron and a yard of string; you
+can get a pickaxe and shovel from the shed where the sexton keeps his
+tools. All these you must hide in a bush which I shall show you in the
+churchyard. Ask no questions; and, when evening falls, meet me with the
+bag and all these things behind the church.”
+
+So saying, he flew away.
+
+Now, the girl knew very well that the magpie was no ordinary bird, and
+she obeyed him carefully; she rose and went into the town and bought a
+piece of red silk. Having made the bag, she gave it to her husband, and,
+at the time appointed, he met the magpie behind the church with all the
+implements he had got together.
+
+The bird directed him to leave the pickaxe and shovel in the porch, and
+they went up to the roof by the belfry stair. When the youngest brother
+saw the treasure he was speechless, but the magpie gave him no time to
+examine the jewels.
+
+“Listen to me,” he said, “and we are rich for ever. (I say ‘we’ because
+I feel you will not forget my poor services.) Do you see an iron bar
+that sticks out into space on the side of that flying buttress? It is
+placed there to hold a swinging lamp, and there are five steps by which
+the sexton approaches it to hang up the light. As you see, they also
+stand out into space. Tie this piece of string round my leg, and, when I
+have flown up and alighted on the iron bar, twist the other end round
+it, so that I may seem to be fastened to it as to a perch; but do not
+knot it, or make it really secure. To do this you must reach the bar by
+these steps.”
+
+When the young man heard this, his flesh crept, for he was not
+accustomed to high places and, the steps being on the outer wall, the
+least giddiness might plunge him headlong into the churchyard, fifty
+feet below; but, being a manful fellow, he climbed up and twisted the
+string so neatly round the bar that no one could have supposed the
+magpie to be anything but a prisoner.
+
+“Now,” said the bird, “take your hammer and the piece of iron and loosen
+the three top steps till they will not bear more than a child’s weight.”
+
+When the youngest brother had done this, the magpie told him to hide
+himself in a ditch in the churchyard, and not to come out till he was
+called by name.
+
+After midnight the robbers came to look at their treasures, and did not
+notice the magpie sitting on the bar. Indeed, had they done so, they
+would have paid little heed, supposing him to be some ignorant bird who
+had no interests beyond his own food. They sat down on the roof as they
+had done before, and, taking out the jewels, began to count them. They
+made a large heap and placed the crown on the top. All at once the
+magpie flew up in the air as far as the string would permit, and cried
+in a loud and dreadful voice, “_Help! help! The King of Growgland’s
+crown is stolen!_”
+
+At this the thieves were so much horrified that they dropped their
+booty, and ran wildly to and fro on the roof searching for some hidden
+person, and, when they came close to the place where the iron bar was,
+the magpie flew up again, crying the same words more terribly than
+before.
+
+“We’ll soon choke his noise,” exclaimed the robbers; and with one accord
+they began to climb the steps. But the youngest brother had done his
+work well: the stones were loose, and in another moment they had fallen
+headlong through the air, and were lying with their necks broken in the
+churchyard.
+
+The magpie then called his friend, who brought the pickaxe and shovel,
+and when they had buried the two robbers they went up again to the roof,
+and put the King of Growgland’s crown into the red silk bag.
+
+“We know who this belongs to, and we will certainly restore it,” said
+the magpie; “the rest we will keep as some slight remuneration for our
+trouble.”
+
+There were enough jewels to make fifty people rich for life. It _was_ a
+haul! The youngest brother praised the magpie, and, taking off his
+shirt, knotted the tails together and filled it up to the neck with
+precious stones. It was almost light before he got back to his wife and
+showed her what the magpie’s good sense had accomplished.
+
+In a few days the magpie set out for the kingdom of Growgland, scarcely
+more than a hundred miles away, and demanded to see the King. He found
+the whole city in a ferment and everyone distracted. The King had grown
+quite thin, and the head of the police had been sent to prison for being
+unable to find the thieves.
+
+“If your Majesty will start the day after to-morrow,” said the magpie,
+“and go a day’s journey from the city, you will meet a young man and a
+girl on horseback carrying a red silk bag. Your Majesty may wring my
+neck if it does not contain the crown of Growgland.”
+
+At this everyone was electrified, and the King, with a great retinue,
+started and encamped a day’s march off, that the crown of Growgland
+might be received with all due ceremony. As evening came on the magpie
+grew a little nervous, for the King had placed a guard over him to do
+him honour (at least, that was what he said); but the bird knew very
+well that it was done so that he should not escape if the crown failed
+to appear. But at last he saw his friends approaching. Being now rich,
+they rode fine horses and were dressed as befitted great personages. The
+King sat on the royal throne (which was a folding one, and so had been
+brought with him), and the youngest brother, having related his story,
+gave the red silk bag into his hands. Before parting with him His
+Majesty presented him with a sum of money that, even had he not been
+rolling in wealth already, would have made him independent for life.
+
+After this, the magpie and his friends set out for the town in which
+they had left the two elder brothers and a few days later dismounted
+before the inn. The harrow was still in its place, prongs uppermost, and
+at the window, far above it, two forlorn-looking faces were to be seen.
+
+The landlord came out, transported with surprise at the fine appearance
+of his daughter and the youngest brother.
+
+“There,” he said, pointing to the upper window, “are the two knaves who
+have deceived me, and whom I have kept locked up ever since you left.”
+
+At this the imprisoned pair perceived who it was that had arrived.
+
+“Here,” they shouted, “here is the great lord come to pay our debts! Did
+we not assure you that he would come?”
+
+And they rained abuse upon the landlord.
+
+“Let them out and I will make it good to you,” said the youngest
+brother.
+
+So the two miscreants were freed, and a sorry sight they were; for, as
+the price of each day of their detainment the landlord had demanded a
+garment, and their clothes were almost at an end. One had only a shirt
+left; and the other one garter and a piece of an old tablecloth in which
+he had wrapped himself for decency. The inn servants shouted with
+laughter as they came running out. The youngest brother and his wife
+laughed too; and as for the magpie, he was so delighted that he nearly
+choked, and had to be restored with strong waters.
+
+“I still prefer my experience to your money,” remarked the youngest
+brother to his relations.
+
+
+
+
+                       THE STORY OF MASTER BOGEY
+
+
+“This time it will have to be a tale I remember hearing grandmother
+tell,” said the miller one evening, “for I’ve left my book in the town.
+The cover was so battered that it had to be mended.”
+
+They were sitting on the steps of the mill. Every week now, and
+sometimes twice between Sunday and Sunday, they spent a delightful time
+with their friend. Little Peter thought he was the finest man in the
+world; and Janet, though she said little, was quite sure there was no
+one like him. And, indeed, they were not far wrong, for he was the most
+splendid miller that anybody ever saw; he was like a big boy at heart,
+though he was a grown-up man with a mill of his own and a horse and cart
+in the stable.
+
+There was once a square house (he began) that stood in a garden. Outside
+the garden were great trees which had been there for more than a hundred
+years, and when the wind blew high and the gales raged in the autumn,
+they swayed about and creaked so that anyone might think they must fall
+and crush everything near them; but they never did. Up in the top story
+of the house was a row of windows belonging to the rooms where the
+children lived, and, as the blinds were often left up, you might see the
+lights inside and the shadows of the nurse and the little girls moving
+about.
+
+Now, high up in the highest tree visible from the nursery lived a family
+of Bogeys. They were very nice people. There was Father Bogey and Madam
+Bogey and young Master Bogey, their son.
+
+The children had no idea that they lived there, for they never showed
+themselves, but lurked hidden in the dark shadows of the boughs. When
+the wind blew they swayed hither and thither with the branches, and when
+the nursery blinds were up and the firelight shone behind them, Master
+Bogey, who was inquisitive, would sit staring and trying to make out
+what was going on in the room.
+
+“How I should love to get in and see what it is like!” he would say to
+his parents.
+
+And Madam Bogey would answer: “Nonsense! Your father and I have lived
+here for ages, and have never tried to get in. We know very well what is
+our business and what is not. You can see the little girls every morning
+as they come down the avenue with their nurse, and you know that their
+names are Josephine, Julia and Jane. What more can you want?”
+
+And Master Bogey would say no more. But that did not prevent him from
+being as inquisitive as ever.
+
+Every day as the little girls came out for their walk he would peer down
+on them, unseen. Each had her doll in her arms, and the two elder ones
+would talk to theirs and carry them as carefully as though they were
+babies. But Jane was always scolding hers; once, even, she threw the
+poor thing roughly on the ground. She did not suspect for a moment that
+Master Bogey was looking down at her, horrified.
+
+At last, one night in winter, his curiosity grew more than he could
+bear; for he had not heard the front door bolted nor the key turned, and
+he knew that he might never have such a chance of getting into the house
+again. The snow lay deep, and his parents were snoring in the fork of
+the branches in which the family spent the winter months. Overhead, the
+stars were clear and trembling in the frost and the nursery firelight
+shone red through the curtains. He slid down, ran across the white
+ground and up the front-door steps. Yes, the handle went round in his
+grasp, and in another moment he was standing in the hall.
+
+It was easy to see that the servants had been careless that night; not
+only was the door unlocked, but the lamps were left burning too. As
+Master Bogey paused at the foot of the wooden staircase, it was all he
+could do not to turn and run, for the wall beside it was hung with
+family portraits of fierce gentlemen and bedizened ladies who stared at
+him dreadfully. But he was a sensible fellow, and, as most of them were
+half-length pictures, he decided that people who had no legs couldn’t
+run after him. He ventured to touch one, and, finding it wasn’t a living
+thing at all, he grew as bold as brass and began to look about him.
+Christmas was not long over; the yew and the holly were still wreathed
+above the frames, making him wonder how these little pieces of trees
+could have got inside the house. There were swords and spears and old
+fire-arms too, whose use he could not understand. Up he went softly,
+nearly jumping out of his skin when a step creaked under his foot, and
+he found himself at last on the nursery threshold. The door was ajar and
+the firelight bright in the empty room, so in he went.
+
+But suddenly he gave a most terrible start, for the room was not empty
+at all; three dolls were sitting on three chairs, watching him intently,
+and two of them were looking very severe.
+
+“May I ask, sir, who you are?” demanded the one nearest to the hearth.
+
+Master Bogey was speechless. He turned to run away.
+
+“Stop, sir!” cried the doll again, “and be good enough to answer me, or
+I will alarm the house. Who are you? I insist upon knowing.”
+
+“I am Master Bogey,” he stammered.
+
+“La! what a name!” exclaimed the doll upon the next chair. And she held
+up her fine satin muff and giggled behind it.
+
+“Yes, and what a shock of hair!” said the other. She held up her muff
+and giggled too.
+
+Poor Master Bogey was ready to cry.
+
+The two dolls who had spoken were almost exactly alike: they had round
+pink faces and round blue eyes; on either side of their cheeks hung
+beautiful golden curls—no wonder they laughed at the black mop on his
+dusky head. They really were the most elegant ladies. They wore frilled
+silk pelisses, with handsome ruffles at the neck; large silk hats, tied
+under their chins with bows, and enormous sashes. On their feet were
+openwork socks and bronze shoes with rosettes; their muffs we know all
+about. The only difference between them was that one was dressed in blue
+and the other in pink. Their mouths were like rosy buttons; to look at
+them, who could guess that such rude words had ever come out of them?
+(My grandmother always used to make that remark, for she had a good
+bringing-up and knew manners.)
+
+The third doll was not nearly so fine as her companions. To begin with,
+she had no muff, and her sash was tied round her waist, and not halfway
+down her skirt, which showed at once she was out of the fashions in the
+doll world. Her frock was plain and torn and she had lost one shoe; all
+the same, she had a dear little face. When she saw poor Master Bogey’s
+downcast looks, she got off her chair and went to him.
+
+“Don’t mind what they say,” she said. “They have just got new dresses
+and it makes them proud. They mean no harm. Your hair is very nice, and
+it is a great blessing to have so much.”
+
+You may fancy how grateful Master Bogey was!
+
+She held out her hand, and he took it.
+
+“Come,” she said, “let us go and sit at the other end of the room. You
+are a stranger, and I have heard nurse say that one should always be
+polite to strangers.”
+
+[Illustration: “SHE HELD OUT HER HAND, AND HE TOOK IT.”]
+
+So they went, and the ladies in blue and pink cried out “Pooh!” very
+loud and both at the same time.
+
+“Take no notice,” whispered the doll.
+
+It was not long before she persuaded Master Bogey to confess his
+curiosity about the house and the people in it, and he began to enjoy
+himself immensely. He heard all about the pictures that had astonished
+him so much, and how the holly and yew branches had managed to get on to
+the frames, and about the Christmas party which was just over. He saw
+the rocking-horse, and even had a ride on it; the cupboard where nurse
+kept the jams for tea, and the door which led to the attics overhead.
+But the most delightful part of all was when he led his companion to the
+window and showed her the tree in which he lived standing black in the
+whiteness and the starlight.
+
+“You can’t see my parents, for they are asleep,” he remarked; “but I
+_think_ that round sort of bump where the branches fork is the back of
+my mother’s head. I wish you could see all of it.”
+
+“Does she know where you are?” asked the doll.
+
+“Well, no,” replied he, “she doesn’t; she had gone to bed when I left,
+and I really couldn’t wake her. But I’ll tell her everything in the
+morning, and all about you, and how charming you are.”
+
+“I’m afraid she’ll punish you,” said the doll, sighing. “I only hope she
+won’t throw you out of the tree.”
+
+“Gracious!” cried Master Bogey, “what an idea! Why, my mother is the
+best mother in the world! I know what put that into your head, all the
+same. I saw one of the little girls throw her doll on the ground once,
+when I was looking down from the branches. It wasn’t you, I trust?”
+
+“Indeed it was,” said she; “that was Miss Jane, and I am her doll. I am
+very unhappy, for she is dreadfully cruel to me. Sometimes she bangs me
+on the floor and puts me in the corner for hours. And look at my
+clothes! The others are lucky—they belong to Josephine and Julia. They
+have each got a new dress, but this ragged one is all I have, and only
+one shoe.”
+
+The tears ran down her face, poor little thing!
+
+“Show me Miss Jane, and I will go and kill her!” cried Master Bogey, in
+a rage.
+
+“Oh no, no!” begged the doll. “If you did that, I might be thrown away.
+No one would care to keep a shabby thing like me. I might be flung into
+the ashpit.”
+
+“I would soon go and fetch you if you were,” said Master Bogey
+gallantly. “But show me Jane; if I could even shake my fist at her I
+should be happier.”
+
+“Will you promise not to do any harm if I take you to the
+night-nursery?” said she.
+
+He promised, and they went, hand in hand, down the long passage to the
+room where Josephine, Julia and Jane slept.
+
+They went in on tiptoe. The sisters were sleeping in a row in their
+little white beds with frilled curtains; they really looked very pretty
+with their hair lying spread upon the pillows.
+
+“That is Josephine,” said the doll, pointing to the eldest, “and the
+next is Julia, and the one nearest the door is Jane, my mistress.”
+
+Josephine and Julia were smiling in their sleep, but as they looked,
+Jane turned over and tossed, grinding her teeth.
+
+“I am afraid she is having a bad dream,” explained the doll.
+
+“Serve her right! I wish she could have two at once!” said Master Bogey.
+
+At last he thought it was time for him to be getting home, and the doll
+said she would go down with him to the hall. He was very sad, for he did
+not know when he should see her again; and she was sad, too.
+
+“The very first time they leave the door open I will come back,” said
+he.
+
+“Oh, I hope it will be soon!” she said. “Whenever Jane is bad to me I
+will think about you, and every night I will look out and try to see
+you.”
+
+“And I will look for you,” replied Master Bogey, as he slipped out of
+the front door.
+
+Next morning he told Madam Bogey all that he had done, and, though she
+read him a long lecture on curiosity, she could not help being
+interested.
+
+“A good whipping is what Jane wants,” she remarked, “and if I were her
+nurse she should get it.”
+
+Every night the doll and Master Bogey looked across the snowy space to
+try and get a glimpse of each other, but, though he could see her
+against the firelight through the windows, she could not see him where
+he sat in the dim tangle of branches. Madam Bogey watched too, but she
+was short-sighted and soon gave it up, though her good heart ached to
+think of the poor little creature and all she had to endure. She and
+Master Bogey talked about it a great deal.
+
+One night, as he looked from his tree towards the nursery, he saw Miss
+Jane, with one of her sisters, standing by the window-sill. He knew it
+was Jane, because she was the only one of the little girls who had a
+pigtail; he could see its outline as it hung behind her head, with a bow
+sticking out, like a fat insect, at the end of it.
+
+Each had put her doll to stand on the window-sill, inside the pane. He
+couldn’t tell whether it was the blue or the pink lady who was there,
+but he saw the shadow of a smart hat. He hoped very much that his friend
+was looking out for him, and he waved his hand. All at once she slipped
+on the sill and fell out of sight! He saw Jane stoop down, her pigtail
+sticking out farther than ever as she did so, and drag her up by the
+arm, shaking her—oh, so cruelly! She began to slap her, first on this
+side, then on that; he almost fancied he could hear her crying. Again
+and again she struck her, and Master Bogey shouted and threw up his arms
+in despair. Oh, how hard it was that he could not reach her!
+
+“Mother!” he cried. “Oh, mother! Look! look!”
+
+Up came Madam Bogey, hurrying to see what was the matter with her son.
+When she saw how dreadfully the poor doll was being treated, she was
+almost as angry as he was; and after Jane and her sister had disappeared
+from the window with their dolls, she still sat talking to him. It was
+quite late when he went to bed at last, and she stayed beside him and
+held his hand. He cried himself to sleep with rage and pity.
+
+Now, Father Bogey had been away for some time on business, and when he
+returned next day his wife and he had such a long consultation that
+Master Bogey thought it would never be done. They sent him to a
+different tree while it was going on. He sat there rather crossly,
+looking at them as they nodded and shook their heads and nodded again.
+He knew it was all about something very interesting. When they called
+him back he was quite pettish.
+
+“Sit down, boy,” his father began, very solemnly, “and try to look more
+intelligent. When I was your age I was setting up house. As you are an
+only child I have tried not to spoil you, and I may say that, on the
+whole, you have been a good son; but now it is time you were settled. I
+hear from your mother that you have made the acquaintance of a young
+lady in the house opposite. From what you have told your mother of her
+manners, she must be of a good disposition and naturally refined. If you
+have any mind to marry her she shall have a hearty and fatherly welcome,
+and your mother and I will give up the whole of the top branches to you.
+You had better think it over.”
+
+Master Bogey did not take long to do that. He clapped his hands with joy
+when he thought that he might see his dear doll again, and never part
+from her any more, for he knew that she would be thankful to escape from
+cruel Jane and the rude ladies in blue and pink. The only difficulty
+was, how was he to get at her?
+
+Evidently the servants had been blamed for their carelessness. Since his
+adventure the front door had been locked and the windows bolted as soon
+as it grew dark. He ran round the house every night, looking eagerly for
+some chink or crack large enough for him to squeeze himself in through;
+but there was nothing big enough, for he was a well-grown lad, and as
+tall as his father.
+
+At last a bold plan came into his mind. He decided to get in in broad
+daylight, hiding in some empty room till everyone had gone to bed and
+then making his way to the nursery. As soon as he could persuade his
+love to elope with him, they would steal downstairs, unlock the front
+door, and let themselves out. When he told Madam Bogey of this plan she
+was in a dreadful state, and said it was much too dangerous; but he was
+determined. It is terrible to think what love will do!
+
+So one afternoon he began to make his way to the house by short stages.
+From tree to tree he dodged, and just before dusk he had reached a small
+yew growing in a shrubbery near the front-door steps without being seen
+by anyone. He heard the great bell clang which called servants and
+stablemen to tea; and when he thought they were all safe in the
+servants’ hall, he flew up the steps like a lamplighter, and in at the
+door. Opposite to it was a large drawing-room, which the doll had told
+him was never used in winter, and in he went. There was a sofa there,
+with a long chintz cover touching the floor; and he crawled under this,
+and lay down as still as a mouse. How his heart beat when a maid came to
+draw the curtains! How he longed to catch her by the ankle and make her
+scream! But he did nothing so silly; he only lay and longed for the
+night, when he might get upstairs.
+
+It was so still that his own footsteps made him jump. It was quite dark,
+too, as the lamps were out, and he could only feel his way; but he got
+safely to the top of the nursery stair, and began tiptoeing up the
+passage. A chink of light under the day-nursery door showed him the fire
+was still in.
+
+One thing is certain, and that is that luck favours brave people. Master
+Bogey went in, and the first thing he saw was his dear doll at the
+window, looking out, no doubt, for a glimpse of himself in the tree. The
+pink lady and the blue lady were asleep in their chairs by the hearth,
+their eyes shut, their muffs in their laps and their hats tied firmly
+under their chins.
+
+The poor doll ran to him and put her arms round his neck. She looked
+very woebegone and her clothes were more tattered than ever. She had no
+shoes at all now.
+
+“I’ve come to take you away,” said Master Bogey. “You must come back to
+my tree and we will be married at once, and then I can see you every day
+for the rest of my life.”
+
+“Do you _really_ mean it?” asked the doll.
+
+“Yes, yes!” cried he. “Come at once, this very moment, before anyone
+catches us. My father and mother are waiting for you, and we are to have
+the top branches to live in.”
+
+The poor little thing could hardly believe her ears. She liked Master
+Bogey better than anyone she had ever seen, and now she was going away
+from cruel Jane, and the blue and pink ladies, who sneered at
+everything. She held his hand tight and they went stealing out. She was
+so happy she did not know what to do.
+
+They felt their way along safely till they got almost to the hall, and
+then, alas! alas! Master Bogey missed his footing on the last flight of
+stairs and rolled from the top to the bottom. Bump, bump, he went, and
+landed in a heap on the mat. He had just time to pick himself up before
+a door opened and the mother of Josephine, Julia and Jane came out of
+her bedroom with a candle in her hand. She could not see into the hall,
+but she began to come downstairs.
+
+Master Bogey and the doll went straight to a corner where rows of coats
+hung from pegs, and got behind the thickest fur cloak they could find.
+He took her up in his arms, so that her little white feet should not
+show underneath it; his own black ones he kept quite still. In the light
+of the candle they only seemed like dark shadows.
+
+The lady held up her light and looked round. She was much prettier than
+any of her daughters, and though her hair was now in a pigtail like
+Jane’s, it really suited her. She peeped under tables and behind chests,
+and then she came to the row of cloaks and began prodding them to see if
+anyone was hidden behind them. It was an awful moment.
+
+What saved them was the fact that Bogeys are seldom very tall; though
+young Master Bogey was such a fine-grown lad, he was scarcely three feet
+high. Jane’s mother prodded the cloak just above his head and passed on
+without feeling anything. Just then a man’s face looked over the
+banisters above.
+
+“What are you doing there?” cried Josephine, Julia and Jane’s father.
+
+“I thought I heard a noise,” said the lady, “so I came to look.”
+
+“Nonsense!” he exclaimed, “you are always imagining burglars. Go back to
+bed, and don’t be such a goose.”
+
+When she had gone, Master Bogey and his love came out of their
+hiding-place. It took but a moment to unlock the door and draw the
+bolts. They shut it softly after them and ran down the steps and out
+into the shadows, where Father Bogey and Madam were waiting to embrace
+their daughter-in-law.
+
+Then they all went up into the tree, where, as I have heard, they lived
+happily together ever after.
+
+
+
+
+                           THE TREE OF PRIDE
+
+
+“To-day it’s the book’s turn,” said the miller to his friends as the
+light was fading one evening. “Last time we heard about Bogeys and
+people of that sort, but to-day we’ll have a Princess, and King’s Courts
+and fine company.”
+
+“I like hearing about grand ladies,” observed Janet.
+
+“Yes, I like them well enough, too,” replied he; “that is, if they’re as
+good and as beautiful as some lasses I have seen.”
+
+He looked rather hard at Janet, and she blushed.
+
+“Oh, never mind talking!” broke in little Peter, pulling the miller’s
+sleeve. “It’s the story I want. If you don’t begin quick the light will
+be gone; the rooks are coming home already, and soon we shall have to go
+in to supper.”
+
+“You needn’t do that, for you shall come to supper with me in the mill,”
+said the miller. “How would you like that?”
+
+“We daren’t,” said Janet.
+
+“I’ll go and make it right with your grandmother myself,” he replied.
+“She’ll be glad enough, maybe, for there’ll be all the more left in the
+larder to-morrow. Sit still till I come back.”
+
+And he jumped over the wall. They watched him pass the pool and
+disappear into the white cottage.
+
+“Oh, how delightful!” shouted little Peter, turning head over heels.
+
+In a few minutes the miller returned. The old woman had promised
+everything he wanted. It is a funny thing how often young men can manage
+witches. They all went into the mill.
+
+“So now to business,” said he, as he sat down and took up his book.
+
+In a kingdom far from this everyday earth a great city sat royally in
+its surrounding plain. It had domes and towers, temples and fortresses,
+and in it lived a Princess whose goodness and beauty were known for
+miles round. The plain was vast and fertile, but here and there patches
+of wilderness lay like islands among the crops; and a winding stream
+wandered, now through their richness, now through tangled briars and
+unfrequented tracks.
+
+By one of these it made a loop, encircling a spot where the turf was
+cleared of undergrowth and a great tree thrust its gnarled roots through
+the grass. The few who passed this place looked upon it with no little
+awe, for the tree was inhabited, and even on a calm day its boughs might
+be seen rocking to and fro, as though moved by some unruly breeze. Its
+leaves were large and glossy, its limbs spreading like the limbs of an
+oak, and in spring it bore white, waxy flowers, heavily scented and
+shaped like open tulips; in the heart of each was a cluster of stiff
+golden stamens.
+
+The upper branches were haunted by an old man whose long robe gave him
+the appearance of a wizard. Though he had lurked in the tree for
+generations, time had not robbed him of his activity, for he would swing
+himself to earth every morning to drink of the stream, and, in summer,
+to wash the dust from the leaves and blossoms, which he tended as
+carefully as a gardener might his plants. The dwellers in the city knew
+nothing of his existence; but the dwellers in the fields near the tree
+had sometimes seen him descend from it to the earth, and remembered
+having heard in their childhood that it was called the “Tree of Pride.”
+
+One autumn day all the city was making holiday, for the Princess had
+been betrothed to a King from a far country and was starting with a
+great following to meet him ten leagues from its walls. Her father
+accompanied her, and she rode on a white horse shod with silver; she was
+so beautiful and charming that there was not a man in the whole retinue
+who did not envy the unknown King. Her brown hair, looped up behind her
+head, fell almost to the stirrup, and she wore a coif woven of burning
+gold. Her cloak was embroidered with rose and purple and patterns of
+stars, and its gold fringes swung as she rode. Her eyes were like the
+still, moon-haunted pools of a moorland.
+
+It chanced that the procession had been delayed in leaving the city, so
+that by sunset the place where it was to encamp was yet many miles off.
+The Princess was tired, and a man-at-arms was sent out to look for some
+spot where the tents might be pitched and water found for the horses. He
+soon came back to say that within a mile was a stretch of grass
+surrounding a large tree and watered by a stream. In a short time they
+reached it, and encamped for the night.
+
+Next morning, when they had risen betimes to continue their way, the
+Princess caught sight of the tree, which was a dream of beauty; for
+autumn was at its full, and the fruit was heavy where the flowers had
+been. As she stood to admire it, a rustling was heard in the branches,
+and an old man descended, swinging himself from bough to bough and
+holding a piece of fruit, round and ripe; he leaned down and offered it
+to her.
+
+When she had accepted the gift, the Princess mounted, and the whole
+company returned to the beaten track and went forward on their road. The
+sun grew hot, and as noonday came on she ate the fruit, thinking that
+she had never tasted anything so delicious.
+
+They rode by brook and meadow, by hill and wood, and soon everyone began
+to wonder at the change which had come over the Princess. Those whom she
+had looked upon as friends all her life were now commanded to rein back,
+that they might not offend her dignity by their presence. She would
+scarce answer her father when he spoke, and, whereas in the early part
+of her journey she had taken pleasure in the beauty of the landscape,
+she now blamed the road as unfit for her horse’s feet to tread.
+
+“Not content with dragging me out to meet this sorry fellow,” she said,
+“you must needs bring me by ways only fit for peasants.”
+
+Her father and his people looked aghast. Never before had they heard her
+speak in such a manner.
+
+[Illustration: “SHE WOULD SCARCE ANSWER HER FATHER WHEN HE SPOKE.”]
+
+When the shadows were long they halted again, and soon they could
+distinguish a company of horsemen between them and the hills. The
+Princess withdrew to her tent, for she knew that the distant spearmen
+must be the unknown King’s following, and that in a short time she would
+be summoned to receive him. She called her maids, and when they had
+dressed her in her state robes, she took a knife and made a slit in the
+curtains that she might see the King’s arrival without being seen. As
+she stood watching the little band advancing, she was surprised to hear
+her father’s voice almost beside the tent. She ran towards the place,
+and, cutting another slit, looked through and saw him in conversation
+with a man-at-arms, who had just dismounted from the steaming horse he
+held.
+
+He was dressed from head to heel in russet leather, and a steel helmet,
+with spreading steel wings, was on his head. He was tall and brown, and
+his white teeth gleamed as he smiled. “Sire,” he was saying, “I beg you
+to forgive this unceremonious coming. When I saw your tents on the plain
+and knew that the Princess was so near, I could contain myself no longer
+and galloped forward with all speed. I will not dare to enter her
+presence till my people have arrived, and I have cast off the dust of
+the road. But wait I could not. I hope your Majesty will forgive me.”
+
+And so this rash, leather-clad soldier was the King—this careless,
+dusty fellow who was loosening his horse’s girths as any common groom
+might do! Did he think to thrust himself thus, without ceremony, into
+the following of a royal Princess?
+
+Behind her curtains she turned away, biting her lips, and she was still
+frowning when her father entered.
+
+“Daughter,” said he, “the King is here and I have spoken with him.”
+
+“And what is he like?” inquired she, her voice cold with scorn.
+
+“He is the most gallant-looking gentleman that ever I saw,” said the old
+man.
+
+The Princess turned her back.
+
+An hour later father and daughter waited to receive their guest in a
+long tent hung with fine stuffs and wreathed in garlands. The whole of
+their retinue stood around, and, at the far end, the Princess sat on a
+carved chair, her eyes on the ground and her face as pale as ivory,
+never looking at the opposite door, by which her suitor was to enter.
+
+At last the hangings were drawn wide and he came in. He still wore his
+russet brown, but it was now of silver-studded velvet which clung to him
+like a glove, and as he went forward a murmur of admiration ran through
+the crowd; for he walked like some kingly animal, and his eyes sparkled
+under his dark brows. “Here is a King indeed,” whispered the bystanders.
+
+The Princess scarcely glanced at him. She curtseyed low as he
+approached, but when he would have taken her hand, she drew back, her
+lip curling.
+
+“Your Majesty does me an honour for which I have no desire,” she said;
+“and if I have brought you to the meeting-place only to refuse your
+hand, you will pardon it the more readily as you yourself like ceremony
+so little.”
+
+So saying, she turned and left everyone standing speechless.
+
+When the company had dispersed, the Princess declared that she would set
+out next morning for the city. There was nothing left for the King to do
+but to depart by the way he had come, and, furious and mortified, he
+returned to his own camp to throw off his velvet and resume his leather
+and steel; he meant to go at once. His heart was hot within him, for the
+one look he had had at the Princess was enough to set it in a flame. She
+was so beautiful that he had never seen her like, and even through his
+anger there was a sharp stab of regret for what he had lost. Heartless
+as she seemed, and ill as she had treated him, he would have given the
+world for her. While his men and horses were getting ready, he went out
+into the night, and turned his steps to a little thicket of birches
+which stood with their glimmering stems not far from the camp. The
+darkness was moist and chill, and some of the Princess’s men had lit a
+fire on the outskirts of the trees, and were sitting round it. He drew
+close to them under cover of the wood, and saw an old soldier in the
+centre of the circle who was talking to his companions. “If I had my
+will,” he was saying, “I would fell the tree to the ground, and the old
+goblin should die with it. He should pay for turning the sweetest, most
+beautiful lady in the world into such a jade! I remember her from the
+time she was no higher than my sword, and until she tasted that accursed
+fruit there was no creature more beloved in the kingdom—and with
+reason, too. And look at her now!”
+
+“What is all this talk?” asked a new-comer, as he joined the group in
+the firelight. “Not but what Her Highness has given us enough to talk
+about for some time to come.”
+
+“Why, it is just that,” continued the first speaker; “there’s the matter
+plain. She has eaten of the Tree of Pride. I saw it myself.”
+
+“The Tree of Pride?” cried the others—“whoever heard of that?”
+
+“You are young men,” the old soldier went on, “and you were not born, as
+I was, in a hut in these fields, where all the tales of the country
+round were common talk. My home was in sight of the Tree of Pride, where
+we camped last night, and many’s the time I’ve seen the old man sitting
+among the boughs like an evil bird. Whoever tastes of it, rich or poor,
+man or woman, young or old, becomes mad with vanity and pride. And but
+yesterday the Princess stood under the branches, and the old man reached
+down and offered her the fruit. She took it, poor lady, and thanked him,
+understanding nothing. I’ve more than a mind to turn aside and slay him
+on the way back.”
+
+The King waited to hear no more; he stole through the trees and back to
+his own camp: he was determined to start at once for the Tree of Pride.
+He rode all night, taking only a couple of men with him, and in the
+morning sunlight he saw it raising its heavy head above the plain. He
+drew up almost under the boughs and dismounted. There, peering down on
+him, was the wizened face of the old man, smiling elusively as he
+plucked a cluster of fruit and began climbing down to offer it. The King
+waited until he had reached the lowest arm of the tree, and then,
+instead of taking the gift, he seized his garment and dragged him to the
+ground.
+
+The old man shrieked and struggled, but the King held him fast, and,
+throwing him on the grass, stood over him while his two soldiers bound
+him hand and foot.
+
+“Look!” cried the King, when they had done this, “here is my blade,
+ready to plunge into your evil body. Because the Princess ate the fruit
+you gave her, her whole heart is changed. You have only one chance of
+life. I will spare it if you tell me the remedy that can turn her into
+her true self.”
+
+“There is no remedy,” he said, fixing his malicious eyes on the King.
+
+“Then,” said the young man, “I will prevent anyone else from sharing the
+Princess’s fate.”
+
+And he raised his arm.
+
+“Stop!” screamed the other. “I will tell you everything! Only let me go
+and I will promise never to offer the fruit to anyone again.”
+
+“Lie still,” said the King. “You will tell me the cure before you move
+and then I will cut down the tree. Go to the nearest hut and borrow an
+axe,” he added, turning to one of his men.
+
+“No! no!” cried the old man again; “cut it down and all will be lost!
+Only unbind my hands and I vow I will make the mischief right.”
+
+“You will be loosed when you have spoken,” replied the King.
+
+“Tell your soldiers to go away,” said the prisoner at last; “for the
+thing is a secret.”
+
+The King told his men to raise him, and when they were alone the old man
+began.
+
+“You will need patience,” said he. “The winter must come and go before
+the tree whitens again, for it is only the blossom that can cure the
+poison of the fruit. When spring comes you must make a crown of the
+white flowers and take it as a gift to the Princess. If you can persuade
+her to wear it—if only for a few moments—her heart will change, and
+she will once more be the woman she was.”
+
+The King’s face fell. It was full six months of waiting and it seemed
+like an eternity.
+
+“Now let me go!” cried the old man again.
+
+“I will unbind you, as I promised,” said the King, “but from now till
+the day we return together to pluck the flowers I will not lose sight of
+you—no, not for an hour—until your words are proven. Come, hold out
+your hands and feet, and I will cut the cords. Then we will turn our
+faces to my kingdom.”
+
+And the prisoner was mounted and led away between two men-at-arms in the
+King’s troop.
+
+                     *      *      *      *      *
+
+While these things were happening, the Princess was on the road home.
+Having arrived, she shut herself up in her rooms and would hardly deign
+to go outside the walls of her garden, or to notice anyone. When her
+father was with her she treated him as though he were an intruder, and
+the slightest difference of opinion between them threw her into a fury.
+
+She would pace up and down the corridor, her figure erect, her head
+thrown back; in her eyes was the look of one scarce conscious of her
+surroundings. And indeed, her soul had strayed into another world—the
+world of pride, and self and hardness of heart.
+
+Time went, and the leaves of the Tree of Pride lay thick round its foot.
+Winter’s white veil covered plain and city, and the Princess, in her
+palace, drew every day farther from humanity; only the King, in his
+distant kingdom, hoped on, waiting for spring.
+
+But in the old man, his prisoner, a mighty change was being wrought, and
+his malignant spirit was beginning to go from him. He had never before
+been brought so close to a noble human being. As the King had said, so
+he had done, and in the winter which followed his return he had hardly
+allowed his hostage out of his sight for an hour: waking, he kept him at
+his side, and sleeping, he lay across his barred door.
+
+But, even while so much was at stake, he could not neglect his daily
+work, and so it came about that where he went the old man had to go
+also. While he sat in council he was at his left hand; when he dealt out
+justice he was present; and when he was occupied with his army—the
+pride of his soul—he was still beside him. He saw how the King made
+himself as one of his soldiers, how he shirked no work, took no
+advantage; he saw his gay and noble heart his joy in living, his prowess
+in all feats of arms, the love his troops bore him—and as he saw, his
+withered nature grew soft. And so it was that by the time the young buds
+began to show on the branches and the season drew near for their journey
+to the Tree of Pride, captive though he was, he would have laid down his
+life for him willingly.
+
+All the earth was bursting into youth as the two rode over the plain and
+approached the tree. The scent of its blossoms was blowing towards them,
+heavy on the air. The flowers were thick about the ends of the green
+shoots, the petals, half closing, like cups, over the golden hearts
+within them. The King cut a few handfuls with his knife while his
+companion plaited them into a wreath, and when it was made, they mounted
+and rode into the city.
+
+When they arrived, they went to a small inn, and the King, not wishing
+his presence to be known, sent a messenger to the palace, giving him a
+sum of money. With this he was to bribe the servants to carry news to
+the Princess that two strangers, having discovered a treasure, desired
+to offer it to her. In this manner they hoped to induce her to receive
+the crown. On the following day the man returned, having reached the
+Princess’s ear, and bringing leave for the strangers to approach. So
+they presented themselves.
+
+They placed the wreath upon a velvet cushion, and the King waited in a
+dark corner of the Princess’s antechamber, while the old man, whose face
+was hidden by a magician’s hood which he had procured, entered and laid
+the gift at her feet.
+
+“Royal lady——” he began, but his voice dropped, for the Princess’s
+glance fell on the flowers, and she rose from her chair, her eyes alight
+with wrath and her lips trembling. Instead of the rich jewels she had
+imagined, there lay before her a simple wreath—beautiful exceedingly,
+but with a beauty for which she had ceased to care. There was nothing
+about the offering that could add to her splendour. Any peasant girl,
+having leisure to weave such a crown, might wear it without pride and
+without remark.
+
+And as she sprang up, her eyes met those of her rejected suitor, who had
+drawn the curtains of the antechamber a little aside in his suspense.
+
+When the old man raised the cushion, she seized the wreath and tore it
+in pieces, scattering the petals, like snowflakes, on the floor.
+
+The King went from the palace in despair and returned to his lodging. He
+had hoped so fiercely and so long that life seemed almost to have come
+to an end. He mounted his horse, and, bidding the old man farewell,
+determined to return to his kingdom and his soldiers, putting the
+thought of the Princess from him for ever. Before he went he gave him a
+thousand gold pieces, and made him promise to return to the Tree of
+Pride and cut it down. As the city walls faded behind him, he looked
+back at them with a sigh. For the first time he had lost interest in
+everything, and he knew that it was no longer his pleasure to which he
+was returning; but he had not forgotten that it was still his duty.
+
+Now, it chanced that, while the Princess refused the crown, there stood
+by the chair a certain lady-in-waiting. She was no longer young, but she
+had been a beauty in her day and had seen much of men and matters. She
+had been at the Court for years and her heart was heavy at the change
+she saw in her mistress. She was a shrewd woman, and it did not escape
+her notice that the person who offered the crown wore a hood like those
+she had seen on the heads of magicians; besides this, she marvelled that
+two strangers, one of whom did not even show himself, should wish to
+give the Princess what any one of her servants might pluck from the
+hedge. The old man had scarcely disappeared before she made up her mind
+that here was some mystery she did not understand. Unobserved, she
+gathered up the broken flowers, and that evening she sent a page
+secretly to discover where he lived, and to desire him to meet her,
+after dark, at the foot of the palace garden. She also sent the key of a
+little door by which he might enter unobserved.
+
+When the page found him, the old man was on the point of leaving the
+city. He was sad, for he had just parted from the King; but he was
+resolved, when he should have destroyed the Tree of Pride, to follow him
+to his own country and spend the rest of his life in his service. When
+he received the lady’s commands, he did not hesitate to obey them.
+
+The watchmen were crying ten o’clock as he stood in the starlight inside
+the little door. He trembled, for he suspected the summons might lead
+him into some trap; but to serve the King he was ready to venture all,
+and he only hoped the morning might not find him at the bottom of a
+dungeon. He was considering these things when the lady appeared. He was
+about to speak when she held up her hand.
+
+“I am the Princess’s chief lady-in-waiting,” she began, “and her welfare
+is to me as my own. I have sent for you that I may ask you, for her
+sake, what reason you had for bringing such a gift. She has everything
+the world can offer, and I am certain that you would not have brought
+her such a present as a common flower wreath if there had not been some
+hidden virtue in it.”
+
+The old man fell down before her, clinging to her skirt and kissing its
+hem.
+
+“Madam!” he cried, “only persuade the Princess to wear it and all that I
+have is yours! The King, who loves her, and whose heart she has broken,
+has made me rich for the rest of my days, but I will give it all up to
+you if you will only induce her to wear it, even for a moment.”
+
+Then the lady remembered the King, for she had been at her post when he
+received his dismissal, and, under her breath, she had called the
+Princess a fool. She had lived long enough in the world to know a man
+when she saw one.
+
+“I never take bribes,” she said, “nor, as a rule, do I tolerate those
+who offer them; but if you will tell me the truth, I will do my best to
+bring the King and my mistress together.”
+
+So the old man told her all.
+
+When the lady returned to the palace, she took the fragments of the
+wreath and put them carefully together. The petals she collected and
+sewed into their right places with fine silk; it was so deftly done that
+no one could suspect them of having been broken.
+
+The next day there was to be a banquet at the palace, and before the
+time came for the Princess to get ready, the lady took one of her maids
+aside. “While you are fastening the pins of Her Royal Highness’s veil,”
+said she, “and before you put on her crown, you must scream as though
+you had pricked your finger. Do as I tell you and ask no questions, for
+I myself will be present and keep her wrath from you.”
+
+So when the Princess sat before her mirror, the maid brought her veil
+and began to fasten it, while the lady stood by with the wreath
+concealed in her wide sleeve. All at once the girl shrieked aloud: “Oh!
+oh! I have torn my finger with a pin!”
+
+“You unmannerly jade!” cried the lady, “will you make all this to-do
+while Her Highness is dressing? Off with you, and I will fasten the
+crown myself.”
+
+And she thrust her from the room and took her place.
+
+Suddenly the Princess looked up into the glass, and saw, instead of her
+crown, the wreath of half-opened flowers with their golden centres
+glowing through her hair. She put up her hand to tear the thing from her
+head; but just as she was going to do so, her lips trembled, and she
+leaned, sobbing, against the table, her face buried in her hands.
+
+                     *      *      *      *      *
+
+Great was the joy in the palace that night. The Princess sat at her
+father’s side with a strange look in her eyes, but her speech was gentle
+and her voice soft. The lady-in-waiting watched her, smiling. She had
+given the true history of the wreath, and she wondered what would
+happen.
+
+                     *      *      *      *      *
+
+Before dawn next morning the Princess rose. Without a word to anyone,
+she ordered her horse to be brought, and, riding by the quietest
+streets, left the city while the world was yet asleep. She took with her
+a heavy purse full of gold, which she hid in the trappings of the
+saddle, and her spaniel, Giroflé, which she carried on her knee. A
+mantle was thrown over her head, that her face should not be seen, and
+under it she still wore the wreath of flowers. Her way took her past the
+old man’s lodging, and there she stopped.
+
+“Come out!” she cried. “Here are some gold pieces. Go to the stable,
+take the best mule you can find, and follow me. I have vowed to wear the
+wreath from the Tree of Pride until I can mend the heart that its evil
+magic has broken. I have determined to seek out the King and ask his
+forgiveness for all I have done.”
+
+The old man desired nothing better. In a few minutes he came from the
+stable, leading a fine strong mule, and, as soon as he was mounted, they
+set off, and passed through the city gate while the sun was still rising
+through the mist.
+
+Now, the little dog, Giroflé, was not in the best of tempers, for he
+resented his position very much. He had spent a pampered youth in the
+royal palace, and was now entering on a worldly and selfish middle age.
+His mistress had always made a great deal of him, and she now took him
+with her, because she feared his arrogant manners would earn him scant
+consideration in her absence. She knew that he thought himself a great
+deal better than her chief lady-in-waiting, and, in the days before her
+own pride blinded her to everything else, she had often rebuked him
+sharply. He sat curled up under her cloak, putting his nose out now and
+then, and sniffing to show his contempt for everything they passed.
+
+“I suppose,” said he to the Princess’s horse, “that when one travels in
+outlandish places one is justified in addressing those whom one would
+not be called upon to notice at home. I shall, therefore, speak to you.
+Be good enough to inform me where we are going.”
+
+Never having been inside the palace, the horse had not met Giroflé
+before, though he had often heard tell of him. His honest heart burned
+at the little creature’s insolence, but he answered civilly, not wishing
+to annoy the Princess.
+
+“I have been told nothing, either,” said he.
+
+“No one supposed you had,” replied Giroflé, “but one imagines that a
+beast of burden should know his way about the country.”
+
+“Hold your peace, sirrah!” exclaimed the Princess. “I allow no one to
+speak to Amulet like that. It would be well for you if you were but half
+as useful and brave as he is.”
+
+“I prefer to be ornamental myself,” said the little dog, impudently.
+
+“You may change your mind when I set you down to run,” replied she,
+slapping him.
+
+They travelled steadily day by day, sleeping at night in such country
+inns as lay in their road. These were not very grand places, but the
+Princess cared for no discomfort, thinking only how she might get
+forward on her way. The old man rode a few paces behind, sometimes
+carrying Giroflé. The little dog was light, but what he lacked in weight
+he made up in noise, for he barked ceaselessly, and nothing but threats
+of making him walk could keep his tongue still.
+
+At last, one evening, as it grew late, they came to the borders of a
+forest which stretched, like a dark sea, across the horizon. A red
+streak from the departed sun glared angrily over the tree-tops, and they
+hurried on towards a miserable little house where they hoped to get a
+lodging. When they reached it, they found it to be an inn, but so mean
+and tumble-down was it that its walls seemed hardly able to hold
+together. A rough-looking man was leaning out of an upper window.
+
+“Can we lodge here?” asked the Princess as she stopped before the door.
+“There are only myself, my servant, and my little dog.”
+
+The man nodded, and came to take Amulet and the mule to the stable. She
+dismounted and went in, carrying Giroflé under her arm.
+
+“Heavens! what a place!” he exclaimed, as he peeped from under her
+cloak. “Surely we are never going to spend the night here!”
+
+“The forest is in front,” said she, “and we cannot find our way through
+it at this time of night. We have no choice but to stay where we are and
+be thankful that we have a roof over our heads. Listen! do you hear the
+wind? There will be a storm before morning.”
+
+As she spoke a kind of moan ran through the air and the trees began to
+toss to and fro. A great splash of rain fell against the window. Giroflé
+said no more, but when food was brought and the Princess sat down to
+sup, he remained in a corner of the room, his face to the wall, and an
+expression on it impossible to describe.
+
+“Come here, Giroflé, and have some food,” said the Princess, as she sat
+at the table.
+
+“I am glad you call it food,” said he; “for my part, I should have
+called it garbage.”
+
+The landlord, who was serving, looked at him angrily.
+
+“I suppose you have never seen a spaniel of good family before, fellow?”
+snapped Giroflé, as he met his eye.
+
+“Giroflé, behave yourself!” cried the Princess.
+
+The landlord left the room, muttering.
+
+So there Giroflé sat till his mistress had retired to bed; then he came
+out and went to warm himself by the hearth, for, the corner being cold,
+his exclusive demeanour had chilled him. Soon the landlord returned to
+take away the dishes.
+
+“Oh, you are there, are you, little viper?” said he.
+
+At this Giroflé turned upon him with such a torrent of impertinence as
+the man had never heard before. He had sharpened his tongue for years
+upon every member of the royal household, including the King himself,
+and the landlord, who soon found he was no match for him, grew almost
+frantic.
+
+He rushed upon the little dog, trying to reach him with his foot and a
+soup-ladle which he held; but Giroflé tore about round the table and
+behind such furniture as there was, only darting out now and then to get
+a good snap at his heels. The Princess, who was not yet undressed, came
+downstairs to see what was the matter; for what between the landlord’s
+roars, Giroflé’s barks, the overturning of chairs and the wind and rain
+outside, the noise was really frightful.
+
+“What is all this?” she cried, standing in the doorway.
+
+“I’ll soon show you!” bawled the landlord. “I’ll show you that an honest
+man is not to be insulted for nothing! Out with you—you and your vile,
+ill-conditioned cur! Princess indeed! He says you are a Princess—but,
+Princess or not, out you go! Not another moment do you stop under this
+roof!”
+
+Just then he managed to reach Giroflé with the ladle, and the little dog
+sprang out, yelping, into the passage.
+
+“Come, off with you!” cried the landlord. And, before the Princess had
+time to say a word, he had opened the door and thrust her out into the
+night. It was fortunate for her that she had hidden the bag of gold in
+her girdle, for he slammed the door behind them, and they could hear the
+key turn and the bolts shoot into their places.
+
+By this time Giroflé was whining. She took him by the scuff of the neck
+and shook him. “If I did what was right, I should leave you to perish in
+the nearest ditch,” said she.
+
+But, all the same, he was so small that she had not the heart to let him
+die, so she took him up, and ran to the stable, where the old man had
+laid himself down for the night beside Amulet and his mule. Giroflé
+whined and snarled all the time.
+
+There was nothing for it but to start off again; they could not even
+remain in the stable, for the landlord was shouting from the window to a
+couple of men to turn them out. All they could do was to mount and ride
+towards the forest, where at least the branches would give them some
+shelter from the pouring rain.
+
+When they entered it, the darkness was such that they could scarcely see
+their way. There were no stars to guide them, so, after stumbling about
+for some time, they began to search for a place in which they could be
+sheltered from the wind. By the light of the little lantern that the old
+man carried with him, they saw a bank covered with distorted tree-roots,
+some of which had been torn from the ground in a gale. They spread
+leaves and bracken in a hollow underneath one of these, and the Princess
+lay down to rest, with her cloak drawn about her, and Giroflé, who was
+by this time much subdued, curled himself at her feet. The old man and
+his mule disposed themselves a little way off, and Amulet stood in as
+snug a spot as he could find. The noise of the swishing branches
+overhead sounded like the waves of the sea.
+
+But at last the wanderers fell asleep, and the storm had abated and the
+moon come out when the Princess heard Amulet plunging and stamping, and
+sat up, rubbing her eyes. By the light of the crescent showing through a
+gap in the trees, she saw a host of dark creatures surrounding them on
+all sides. She could not imagine what they were. Their great wings were
+outlined sharply against the moonlight, and, though their faces were
+hidden, she was aware of their bright eyes fixed upon her. One figure in
+their midst came towards them holding a tall spear; a crown of pale
+green flickering flame was on his head. Giroflé jumped up barking and
+then fled to his mistress’s skirts, his tail between his legs. In a
+moment the tall figure strode after him and pierced him to the heart
+with his spear. As he bent over his victim, the Princess could see that
+he had the face of a bat.
+
+Then, at a signal from him, the whole host came about them; they were
+seized, and Amulet, who had tried to attack the Bat-King with his teeth,
+was taken also; for, gallop and stamp as he might, the fluttering wings
+closed him round on every side, so that there was no escape. The mule
+fled at once.
+
+When they were all safely secured, the Bat-King went on before them and
+his people followed, leading their prisoners into the heart of the
+forest.
+
+And there we must leave them, for we must return to the King, and hear
+what happened to him after his parting with the old man.
+
+                     *      *      *      *      *
+
+When he reached home, the King threw himself into his old pursuits as if
+nothing had happened; but his heart was so sore that they gave him
+little joy, and, instead of spending his spare hours in hunting with his
+lords and gentlemen, he only longed to be alone. When he had leisure he
+would ride off by himself for days at a time, searching for new scenes
+and new thoughts. He would go out across the borders of his kingdom, by
+towers and rivers and high castles, sometimes wandering through towns
+and sometimes passing nights alone in the waste places of the hills.
+
+One evening he came to the foot of a chain of rocky mountains, and
+stopped, looking up at the crags which towered above his head. Their
+shapes were so weird that he wondered whether their spires and pinnacles
+had been carved out by human hands, or whether an earthquake had cast
+them up in the likeness of men’s work. A track wound up and disappeared
+among them, and he turned his horse’s steps into it.
+
+He had reached a considerable height when he came suddenly to a chasm so
+deep that he could not see its bottom. The rock on either side was worn
+smooth, as though with the passing of many feet, and the opening was
+narrow enough for a man to stride across without difficulty. The horse
+stopped, and the rein being loose on his neck, snuffed delicately at the
+strange gash that divided his path; then he picked his way over it,
+snorting and cocking his ears. They were scarcely ten yards on the
+farther side when there was a loud cracking noise, and, looking back,
+the King saw that the chasm had split wider asunder and now yawned
+behind him like the mouth of a pit. The horse dashed forward, and had
+gone some distance before his rider could check him. When at last they
+stood still, they had come to a smooth face of high rock, with a wide
+ledge at its foot, over which the track went.
+
+Crowning its summit, some feet above their heads, ran a battlemented
+wall, and on it sat a woman who looked down at the King while she
+supported herself with one white arm. Whirling vapour floated behind
+her, through which appeared the outline of a fantastic castle whose
+towers seemed to climb to heaven. Her hair was bound about with cords of
+silver and livid purple poppies. Their petals were dropping down and
+falling in the King’s path. A dull dark blue garment was wound round her
+which left only her bare arms free and trailed over the wall below her
+feet, mixing with her heavy plaits and the silver tassels at the ends of
+them.
+
+She smiled, bending forward till she looked as though she must fall from
+her high place; she was like some great unearthly gull poised upon a
+wave’s crest.
+
+“Soon it will be too dark to travel among these precipices,” she cried.
+“Come up, O King, before the light falls. The way winds up to my gates.”
+
+And, indeed, the path took a turn at the end of the ledge, and, twisting
+like a ribbon, vanished in the vapour.
+
+There was no going back, for the chasm was behind him, and the light, as
+she said, was failing; so he rode upwards till he came to a gate whose
+top was lost in the clouds. It opened, disclosing a castle, and inside
+it the lady was coming to meet him, her draperies trailing behind her
+and the silver tassels on her plaits making a tinkling sound as they
+swept the stones. A noiseless person came from a doorway and led away
+his horse.
+
+She was very beautiful. Her pale face and scarlet lips and her
+heavy-lidded eyes made him think of things he had seen in dreams, and a
+faint misgiving touched him as he followed her. Before the castle was a
+terrace, on the wall of which he had seen her sitting above him as he
+entered. He passed through stone galleries, over whose sides he thought
+he could see wild faces staring; the misgiving deepened with every step.
+
+She went before him to a chamber hung with curtains, and when she had
+left him, another silent servant brought him fresh clothes and began to
+unbuckle his spurs. When he had put off his belt and sword, the servant
+took them from him and turned to the door.
+
+“Give me my sword,” said the King; “I never part with that.”
+
+He stretched out his hand to take it, but as he did so his companion
+vanished on the spot where he had stood. Then he saw that the walls were
+hung with images of demons, and that snakes’ heads peered from the
+corners. He looked out of the window, to see nothing but whirling
+vapours. When a messenger came to tell him that the lady awaited him to
+sup with her, he followed gloomily, for he knew he was in the stronghold
+of an Enchantress.
+
+She was sitting at a table, on which a feast was spread, and she made
+him as welcome as though he had been some long-expected guest. Her voice
+was mellow as the voice of pigeons cooing in the woods, but it seemed to
+him that a gleam of cruelty lurked in her eyes. After dark, a chill fell
+in the air, and they drew close to a fire of logs which glowed at one
+end of the hall. A silent-footed company of musicians came, playing on
+instruments the like of which he had never seen, and one in their midst
+began to sing:
+
+              “Boughs of the pine, and stars between,
+              In woods where shadows fill the air—
+              Oh, who may rest that once hath been
+                    A shadow there?
+
+              “Sounds of the night, and tears between,
+              The grey owl hooting, dimly heard:
+              Can footsteps reach these lands unseen,
+                    Or wings of bird?
+
+              “Days of the years, and worlds between—
+              Oh, through those boughs the stars may burn;
+              The heart may break for lands unseen,
+              For woods wherein its life has been,
+                    But not return!”
+
+The King sat listening, his head leaning upon his hand, and when he
+looked up, the Enchantress’s eyes were fixed on him with the cruel look
+he could not fathom. He sprang up and begged leave to retire; he was
+weary, he said, for he had ridden a long distance. At the door of the
+hall he asked her to tell her servants to return his sword. “We have
+never been parted yet,” said he.
+
+She broke into a laugh. “To-morrow,” she said, waving him away. And when
+he would have spoken again, he found himself alone.
+
+He rose very early next day and left the castle without meeting anyone;
+the gates were open, and he went all round the walls, hoping to come
+across some path which would take him out of the hills and lead him to
+the plains below. He was now sure that he was a prisoner. He remembered
+with a shudder how the rock on either side of the chasm was worn by the
+feet that had passed over it; and, having found only precipices on the
+north side of the castle, he determined to follow the track by which he
+had come, and see if some path, no matter how dangerous, might be found
+by which he could escape.
+
+Coming down towards the chasm, he could hardly believe his eyes, for the
+sides had closed together, and it was no wider than when he had first
+seen it. He ran forward, but as he reached the brink it opened with the
+cracking noise he had heard before, and he found himself standing on the
+edge, looking into a gulf of mist. He turned back, disheartened; and as
+he crossed the ledge under the wall, he looked up to see the
+Enchantress, perched upon her height, watching him and smiling.
+
+Day after day he lived on, a free prisoner. Each evening when he left
+her he asked for his sword, and each evening her laugh was the only
+answer he got. He did not know that the Enchantress had sat countless
+years upon the ramparts of her castle, waiting, like a spider, for her
+prey; that all her life had been spent in entrapping and imprisoning
+men. Some she had slain, some she had kept in dungeons, and some had
+dashed themselves down into the ravines or perished among them in their
+efforts to escape.
+
+But she had no intention of killing the King or of casting him into a
+dungeon; of all those she had entrapped, he was the one she liked best,
+and every day she fell more deeply in love with him. She would stand by
+him on the highest tower of the castle, showing him all the wonders of
+the landscape and telling him tales which almost made him forget his
+captivity; she gave him rich gifts, and plied him with such wines and
+delicacies as, King though he was, he had never tasted. Each morning a
+servant brought him new clothes and jewels to choose from, but it only
+made him long more fervently for his russet leather and his sword. Each
+evening she would send for her musicians and sit by him till far into
+the night, listening to the unearthly melodies they played. But he cared
+neither for her nor for them.
+
+His thought was always of escape, but, to throw her off her guard, he
+behaved as though life was growing endurable. He kissed her hand night
+and morning, he sought her company, he did all that he could to flatter
+her; but in reality he hated her false smile and soft voice, and only
+the hope of releasing himself made him able to play his part.
+
+On the first night of every week the Enchantress would disappear, going
+out in a car drawn by great owls, and not returning till dawn. He longed
+to go with her, because he was weary for a change of scene, and because
+he thought it possible that he might find some chance of escape. So one
+evening, seeing that she was about to depart, he sighed heavily.
+
+“Lady,” he said, “if you knew how long these evenings seem to me when
+you are away, you would never have the heart to go.”
+
+“Are not all my dancing-girls and musicians here to while away the
+time?” replied she, looking very softly at him.
+
+“What do I care for them?” said he. “Is there one who has a voice like
+yours, or a face to be compared with yours? No, no. If I have to part
+with you, my only wish is to be alone.”
+
+The Enchantress was delighted.
+
+“I must go, nevertheless,” she said. “For a long time past I have spent
+the first night of every week in a visit to the Bat-King, who rules over
+an enchanted forest some leagues from here. If I were to disappoint him,
+he would never forgive me. I have to go after dark and return before
+sunrise, as he can only see at night, and spends his days sleeping among
+the trees.”
+
+The King made as though he were jealous.
+
+“And who is this Bat-King that he should rob me of you?” he cried in an
+angry voice.
+
+“Well, well,” said the Enchantress, laughing, “there is only one thing
+for it—you must come too. For I cannot vex the Bat-King by my absence,
+and you can delight yourself with my company while we go and come.”
+
+Then, as though she guessed his thoughts, she continued: “If I did not
+know you loved me, I would tell you that you need not hope to escape
+from me in the forest. The Bat-King has millions of subjects, and he has
+only to sign to them to put you to death should you attempt it.”
+
+They went out, and on the ramparts her chariot waited her. The King
+could not tell what it was made of, but it looked like one of those
+clouds that cross the setting sun before a stormy night; six enormous
+owls were harnessed to it and stood ready for a flight, their yellow
+eyes fixed on space. A servant handed a long scourge of plaited twigs to
+the Enchantress. When she and the King had seated themselves, the car
+rose into the air, and they were soon rushing across the sky.
+
+Away they went, leaving the earth far under them; they flew over towns
+twinkling with lights and rivers which lay in the darkness like shining
+snakes. Sometimes a heavy bird of prey would pass on its way beneath
+them, and sometimes the cry of a nightjar would come up from below. At
+last they came upon a dark mass covering many miles, which the
+Enchantress told him was the forest of the Bat-King. A curious twilight
+shone through the branches, caused by the presence of many glow-worms.
+The owls lit upon an open patch among the trees, and she got out of the
+car, telling the King to remain beside her as he valued his life. The
+owls crouched near, ruffling as they settled.
+
+In a short time they saw a dark-winged figure coming towards them, whose
+crown of pale flame threw furtive shadows on the tree-trunks. The
+Enchantress went to meet him, and for some time the two friends walked
+up and down at a little distance from the King. He looked above and
+around for some chance of escape. Once he thought of springing into the
+owl chariot, but the Enchantress had taken her whip of plaited twigs
+with her, and he feared that without it the owls might refuse to fly. He
+felt under his doublet for a dagger which he had managed to lay hands on
+after his sword had been taken, and which he had kept carefully hidden
+ever since. Then a sound made him glance upwards, and he saw that the
+boughs of the trees were a mass of gigantic figures, winged and carrying
+long nets; they jibbered and laughed, making as though they would throw
+them over him. It was plain that there was no hope of escape, and that
+his only chance would be on the homeward way, when he might stab the
+Enchantress, and with her plaited switch force the owls downwards to
+earth. But he shuddered at the thought of killing a woman, even though
+she were a fiend. He turned over these things in his mind till he heard
+her calling.
+
+“Come!” she was saying. “It may please you to see some of your own kind.
+His Majesty has got two prisoners he is keeping in the forest, and I am
+going to look at them. You need not think we shall leave you. I hear
+that the woman is beautiful, so you can tell me if you think her as
+beautiful as I am.”
+
+They followed the Bat-King for some distance. The thickness of the
+forest was surprising; twisted roots were woven together in the most
+wonderful manner, and starry blossoms swayed to and fro in the night
+wind. The Bat-creatures came crowding behind, close on their footsteps.
+
+At last they reached a place where some trees stood round a grassy
+circle; in the centre of it were two figures.
+
+“See,” said the Bat-King, “here are my prisoners. In the night, when my
+people are awake, they are watched on all sides, and in the day, while
+we sleep, one touch of my spear raises such a wall of bush and brier
+that they may try for ever to get through it in vain.”
+
+His eyes gleamed with malice. “Stand, woman!” he cried, “stand up and
+let the Enchantress see you!”
+
+A lady rose and stood before them, and, as she looked up at her
+tormentor, her eyes met those of the King. For a moment he remained dumb
+with horror, then, with a shout, he sprang upon the Bat-King, hurling
+him to the ground and battering his head against the earth.
+
+The Enchantress shrieked and the Bat-people came round in dozens. They
+overpowered the King, dragging his enemy from under him, and in another
+moment he also found himself a prisoner.
+
+The Bat-King, who was now on his feet, rushed at him with his spear, but
+the Enchantress threw herself between them.
+
+“No, no!” she cried, “you shall not kill him! He is mine! No one shall
+harm him. I love him and he loves me!”
+
+At this the King, beside himself with rage, turned upon her.
+
+“I would sooner die than be near you another day,” he cried. “I hate you
+as I hate sin itself! There is only one person in the world I love, and
+that is this Princess.”
+
+The Enchantress’s face grew white; all her beauty seemed to have faded.
+She pressed close to him, her fingers opening and shutting, as though
+she would tear him to pieces.
+
+“I hate you!” he exclaimed again. “Woman though you are, if my hands
+were free, I would kill you.”
+
+“You all shall die,” said the Enchantress. “First you shall see the
+woman die, you traitor; then her companion; then you shall die yourself.
+No one lives to offend me twice.”
+
+Then she turned to the Bat-King. “Send for your subjects,” she cried,
+“and let us kill them before I leave this forest. I will not go back to
+my castle till I have seen them slain with torments.”
+
+The Bat-King held up his spear, and his creatures came flocking from
+every thicket till the place looked like a billowy sea of black wings.
+
+The King’s heart sank; he cared little for torment and pain or the loss
+of his own life, but he could not bear the thought of seeing the
+Princess die. But she looked bravely at him.
+
+“We have met again,” she said, “so I am happy. And now we are going to
+die for each other.” Then she turned to the old man. “Giroflé is dead,”
+said she, “and they have taken Amulet—I know not where; but you have
+stayed to the end with me. I have nothing to reward you with, but I will
+do all I can for you. Lady,” she continued, “neither I nor the King
+would ask for our lives, even if you were willing to grant them. But
+this old man, my faithful servant, has done you no harm. I beg you to
+spare him.”
+
+“He shall die first, that you may see it,” replied the Enchantress, with
+a look of hatred.
+
+But at this moment there was a sudden movement among the Bat-people, and
+all their dark arms were raised, pointing in one direction. For, far
+away eastward, beyond the tree-trunks, the first pale streaks of morning
+lay along the edge of the world.
+
+“It is too late,” cried the Bat-King. “In a few minutes the dawn will be
+upon us, and we shall not be able to see.”
+
+Even as he spoke the Bat-creatures were hurrying back to their trees,
+blinking in the growing light. His eyes were getting dimmer every
+moment, and the Enchantress saw that she must put off her vengeance.
+
+“When I return, this night week, we will kill them,” said she. “Keep
+them for me, for I will not lose the sight for twenty kingdoms.”
+
+And she went off in haste, for she feared that her owls might not reach
+the castle ere the full blaze of day.
+
+Before the Bat-King left his prisoners, he struck his spear on the
+ground, and a wall of briers rose around them, shutting them in. As soon
+as they were alone, the King, who still had his dagger hidden upon him,
+began to try and cut a way through with it. But as fast as he cut one
+stem, another grew in its place, and he found his work useless; there
+seemed nothing to do but to sit and wait for the end. In a week the
+Enchantress would return to see them put to death, and he could only
+promise himself that, while he had his concealed weapon, he would sell
+all their lives dear. Neither he nor the Princess had any hope of
+escape, for even should they be able to get through the tangled walls,
+they knew that the Bat-creatures could easily prevent their getting out
+of the forest.
+
+At night, when the Bats were astir, the Bat-King would make the wall
+disappear, for he liked to look at his captives and tell them how little
+time they had left. In this way several days went by.
+
+Now, the Princess had worn her white wreath till every bit of blossom
+had fallen, so that by the time she arrived in the forest it was
+scarcely more than a twist of withered leaves. She had taken it off
+reluctantly and thrown it down close to the place where they were now
+confined, and one day, as she and her lover paced their prison, they saw
+that the damp earth had revived the dying shoots and that they had put
+forth fruit. It lay on the earth, ripe and purple, and when night had
+fallen, and the Bat-King walked abroad, he saw what he took to be a
+spray of plums lying tossed at the foot of a tree. He ate one, and,
+finding it delicious, did not stop till he had devoured the whole.
+
+That night the Bats rushed up and down the forest in dismay, for they
+could not think what had happened to their monarch. He would suffer none
+to approach him. No one could do his bidding fast enough to escape his
+wrath; no one was fit to stand in his presence; no one could make a low
+enough obeisance as he passed. But the strangest thing of all was that,
+when dawn broke, instead of hastening to his tree till the light should
+be gone, he protested that he was able to see as well in the sunshine as
+in the dark. To one so great as himself, he said, day and night were the
+same. He stumbled about, feeling the way with his spear, and by the time
+the Bats were asleep he came to the place where the Princess and her
+companions were. He had forgotten the wall he should have raised round
+them; he had forgotten how dangerous it was to approach the King
+unguarded; he had forgotten everything but his own fancied greatness.
+
+The King watched him come; his hand was on his dagger, his eyes on fire.
+As he drew near he sprang upon him and stabbed him to the
+heart—once—twice. It was all over in a moment, quietly, and the
+Bat-King died without a groan, for his enemy’s hand was over his mouth.
+
+By noon they had dug a hole deep enough for his body, and, having taken
+his clothes, his wings and his spear, they laid him in it, treading down
+the earth and covering the place with leaves.
+
+Then they took the old man and dressed him in the Bat-King’s garments.
+They fastened the wings to his shoulders in as natural a way as they
+could. They put the spear in his hand, the flaming crown on his head,
+and with the dagger they cut off his long beard. With flint and steel
+they lit a fire, and, burning some wood, smeared his face with the ash
+till it was as dark as that of their dead enemy. His own clothes they
+rolled up and hid in a hole. When all this was done the old man made a
+whistling noise, such as he had heard the Bat-King make to call his
+subjects, and the evil creatures trooped round, staggering blindly about
+in the daylight.
+
+When they were gathered at a little distance, he told them, in a voice
+as like that of their leader as he could make it, that the Princess’s
+servant was dead. He showed them the mound in the grass, under which, he
+said, he had made the other two prisoners bury him. A murmur of approval
+ran through the Bat crowd. The creatures could scarcely see the speaker,
+but they were anxious to keep their Sovereign in a good temper, so they
+pretended to understand everything. It was evident that they had no
+suspicions.
+
+“If we are to escape,” said the Princess, under her breath, “I must have
+my dear Amulet back, I will never consent to leave him here.”
+
+“Now!” cried the old man, “bring me the white horse that the woman rode
+upon. Fetch him immediately, for I intend to go afoot no more.”
+
+“To-night, your Majesty, to-night?” cried they, astonished. “We cannot
+see in this blinding light!”
+
+“Obey me at once,” roared the old man, “or I will have fifty of you
+executed after sunset! Is the greatest monarch on earth to walk like the
+lowest of his people?”
+
+The Bats disappeared in all directions, for the Bat-King had kept the
+horse tied up in a distant spot; in their alarm they strayed all over
+the forest, but at last some of them got to the place where he was
+tethered.
+
+The Princess watched eagerly for her favourite. “Dear Amulet,” she
+whispered to him when he arrived, “have no fear and we shall yet escape.
+I have sent for you that I may free you. Do all you are bid, for he who
+you think is the Bat-King is our friend who has come all the way with
+us.”
+
+Then the old man mounted; he dismissed the crowd, but kept back one of
+the Bat-creatures, whom he drove before him with his spear to guide him
+to the edge of the enchanted forest. The Bat could scarcely see, but
+when he stopped, he beat him with the spear-shaft till he found the way
+again.
+
+The King and Princess remained behind; they feared to rouse the
+suspicions of their enemies by going with him, as evening was far spent
+and the time when they would see clearly was drawing near. Besides
+which, they did not know how far distant the forest’s edge might be, nor
+whether the Princess would be able to reach it on foot by dark.
+
+Before long the old man returned. He had freed Amulet at the borders,
+bidding him stay near the wood’s outskirts till his mistress should be
+able to join him. He had then slain the guide with his spear, lest he
+should bring word to his fellows of what had happened. The Princess
+rejoiced that her dear Amulet was safe, and the three companions sat
+down to discuss their escape. The King had a plan which they hoped to
+carry out that night, for the week had gone by and the Enchantress was
+coming.
+
+The glow-worms were shining and the Bats going about again with open
+eyes when the owl-chariot was seen. The old man took a dark cloak which
+had belonged to the Bat-King, and, muffling his head and face with it,
+went to meet the Enchantress. As she stepped out of her car he cried:
+“Alas, lady! I have bad news. The old man is dead, and the pleasure of
+slaying one of these wretches is lost. I kept him alive as long as I
+could, but his captivity told on him and he died.”
+
+“That is of no consequence,” said she. “It is the other two who concern
+me most. We will make it yet worse for them. But why do you keep your
+face hidden?”
+
+“Fair one,” replied he, “flying in the daylight, I bruised my cheek
+against a tree, and I would not that you should see it.”
+
+She laughed. “And why is your voice so strange?” she asked again.
+
+“It is the folds of the cloak that muffle it,” said he.
+
+“And how is it,” she went on, seating herself on the grass, “that you
+have made no preparations for the execution?”
+
+“All is ready,” he said; “only wait till I call up my people, and you
+shall choose the manner of their deaths.”
+
+Then he gave a call, and the Bat-creatures surrounded them.
+
+“Bats!” he cried, pointing to the Enchantress, “fall upon this woman and
+slay her where she stands.”
+
+And almost before she had time to scream they had set upon her, and
+while she raved and struggled they beat her with their heavy wings,
+smiting her till she died.
+
+Then the King and Princess sprang into the owl-chariot, the old man
+following. Before the Bats discovered how they had been deceived, the
+King took the plaited switch which was lying in the car and lashed the
+owls till they flew up far above the heads of the tossing crowd. The
+Bat-creatures rose with one accord into the air and followed in a great
+flight, but the owls were swifter, and soon the forest was passed and
+the pursuers fell back, fearing the open country.
+
+                     *      *      *      *      *
+
+When the lovers and their companion came down to earth and lit on the
+ground, they found Amulet waiting near the place where the old man had
+left him, and they passed the rest of the night peacefully under the
+stars.
+
+Next day they began their homeward journey, and in time reached the city
+in the plain where the Princess lived; and there she was married to her
+lover with great splendour. Amulet and the old man went with her to her
+husband’s kingdom, and on the way thither they stopped to see the Tree
+of Pride cut down.
+
+Then they rode on, the King and his Queen side by side, and disappeared
+over the plain and beyond the blue hills into their new life.
+
+
+
+
+                      THE STORY OF FARMYARD MAGGIE
+
+
+One Saturday afternoon when the miller had let his man go out, he was
+standing at the mill door above the steps, with the white dust whirling
+behind him like a mist. He saw Peter and his sister near the witch’s
+cottage, and he waved his hand and shouted to them to come. He was
+smoking, but knocked the ashes out of his pipe, for he was certain that
+little Peter would ask for a story. He liked telling him stories better
+than reading out of his grandmother’s book, because he could look at
+Janet all the time, instead of keeping his eyes upon the words. He began
+to rack his brains for something new.
+
+“A story! a story!” cried little Peter, as soon as he had got within
+earshot.
+
+“But I have none left in my head,” said the miller, teasing him.
+
+“Then there is the book,” said Peter. “I’ll go for it.”
+
+It was a long time since he had stopped being afraid of the tall man in
+the white hat.
+
+“No! no! no!” cried the miller. “Come here and sit on the sacks, and
+I’ll think of something. We’ll go up and shut the sluice in a few
+minutes, and by that time no doubt something new will come into my
+mind.”
+
+Janet came in and sat down, and the dust settled on her yellow hair till
+she looked like a snow-powdered fairy on the top of a Christmas cake.
+The miller thought it beautiful. As for little Peter, the creaking
+machinery was enough to keep him happy, and when they went to shut the
+sluice-gate, he danced and jumped the whole way there.
+
+“So here we’ll stay,” said the miller, when the water was turned off and
+they were sitting on a fallen tree at the edge of the mill-dam. “I have
+just remembered the story of Farmyard Maggie.”
+
+Long before you were born, and before I was born either (began the
+miller), there lived at the farm over yonder a little girl. She was an
+orphan, like you, but she had not even a grandmother to share her roof
+with her. In summer she slept by the hedge, and in winter she would slip
+into the stable and lie by the farm horses. And when it was autumn, and
+the stacks stood in rows in the rickyard waiting to be threshed, she
+would crawl in under them through the little hole that is left for the
+air to pass through and to keep them from heating. There she slept as
+snug as if she were in a house. She was called “Farmyard Maggie,”
+because it was her business to look after the fowls in the yard.
+
+Poor little body! she had not a very happy life of it. They were rough
+folk at the farm, for the farmer was miserly and his wife was cruel, and
+often she did not get enough to eat. But the farm men were kind and
+would sometimes give her a crust of bread or a bit of cheese from their
+own dinners; and once, when it was cold, a ploughman brought her a pair
+of shoes that belonged to his own little girl, for he did not like to
+see her poor little toes on the frosty ground. The horses were kind
+always, and were careful not to kick her or tramp on her when she took
+refuge in their stalls; but, unfortunately, they were proud, and when
+they had on their fine harness with the brass crescents that swung
+between their ears, they would not notice her. They were high creatures.
+
+Maggie took care of the poultry well. She knew all the cocks and hens
+and little chickens, and even the waddling, gobbling, ducks, whom she
+fetched home each evening from the pond at the foot of the hill, thought
+well of her—that is, when they had time to think of anything but their
+own stomachs, which was not often, certainly. But she had two great
+friends who loved her dearly. One was a little game-fowl who was as
+straight on his legs as a sergeant on parade, and the other was a large
+Cochin-China cock who looked as if he wore ill-fitting yellow trousers
+that were always on the verge of coming off. The gamecock despised the
+Cochin-Chinaman a little, for he thought him vulgar, but he was a great
+deal too well-bred to show it. Besides which, their affection for Maggie
+made the two birds quite friendly.
+
+One autumn afternoon, when the mist hung over the stubble and the
+brambles were red and gold, Maggie sat crying just over there by the
+roadside. She was most dreadfully unhappy, for a duck was lost and the
+farmer’s wife had told her that she must go away and never come back any
+more. She had turned her out of the yard without so much as a sixpence
+or a piece of bread to keep her from starving.
+
+Presently the Cochin-China cock passed by, and when he saw she was in
+trouble, he came running towards her as hard as he could, with great
+awkward strides and his neck stuck out in front of him.
+
+“Oh, what _is_ the matter?” he cried. And Maggie put her arms round him
+and told him everything.
+
+When he knew what had happened he was in as great a taking as herself,
+and he walked up and down, flapping his wings distractedly and making
+the most heartrending noises in his throat.
+
+“I must go for Alfonso,” he said at last.
+
+Alfonso was the gamecock.
+
+I can tell you there was a to-do when the birds got at the bottom of the
+affair! They stood, one on either side of their poor friend, begging her
+not to cry; and Alfonso was anxious to fight everybody, from the bantam
+up to the great bubbly-jock who scraped his wings along the ground and
+turned blue about the neck if you whistled to him. All the fowls knew
+that something terrible had happened.
+
+“But what is the use of your fighting, dear Alfonso?” said Maggie. “It
+would do me no good, and the poultry are all innocent. They have done me
+no harm.”
+
+“I am not so sure about those sly fat huzzies of ducks. What business
+have they to look after themselves so badly? I have a good mind to go
+down and have a few words with the drake.”
+
+“No, no—pray don’t,” said Maggie. “The best thing I can do is to go
+away and be done with it.”
+
+The Cochin-Chinaman was weeping hoarsely: he had no dignity.
+
+“I never thought to leave my family,” he cried, “but this is the last
+they’ll see of me. I shall go with you.”
+
+Alfonso was rather shocked, for he had very proper ideas.
+
+“And leave your wife?” he exclaimed.
+
+“She is in love with the Dorking cock, so she can stay with him. I have
+known it for some time. There he is, standing on one leg by the
+wood-pile.”
+
+“I will come too,” said the game-fowl, who was a bachelor, “but do you
+go on. I will just go and break every bone in the drake’s body, and I
+can catch you up before you are out of sight.”
+
+“Oh, no! no! Promise you won’t do that!” implored Maggie.
+
+It took some time to persuade him to be quiet, but at last it was done.
+
+“It is better to get the business over at once,” said the Cochin-China
+cock. “If Alfonso is ready, we will start.”
+
+“And pray, who says I am not ready for anything?” inquired the other.
+“Anyone who wants to eat his words has only to come to me!”
+
+“But nobody says it,” replied Maggie soothingly. “I am sure no one ever
+had two such dear, brave friends as I have.”
+
+And with that the three set forth on their travels.
+
+They went up the road that runs north, round the other side of the dam,
+for they were anxious to get as far as possible without being seen, in
+case anyone should come after them to try and make the cocks go back.
+Sometimes they ran, they were in such a hurry. At last they came to
+where the old gipsy track crosses the way, and turned into it; feeling
+much safer for the shelter of the whins and bushes in that green place.
+
+All round them there were tangles of bramble, red and copper and orange,
+and fiery spotted leaves. Where it was damp the dew still lay under the
+burning bracken and the yellow ragwort stood up like plumes and feathers
+of gold. Here they went slower, pushing through the broom, whose black
+pods rattled as they passed. In front of them a little string of smoke
+was rising, and when they reached it, they found that it came from the
+chimneys of a caravan which was drawn up in a clearing.
+
+Maggie and her two friends crouched down and looked at it through the
+bracken. They saw a large blue van and a battered-looking green one,
+which stood with their shafts resting on the ground. A couple of horses
+grazed, unharnessed, a few yards away. In a circle of stones burned a
+fire, over which hung a black caldron, and a woman, with a string of red
+beads round her neck, was nursing a baby on the top step of the blue
+van.
+
+“Oh, what a lovely baby!” whispered Maggie, as she gazed at them.
+
+“So it is,” replied the Cochin-China cock amiably. Alfonso turned up his
+beak, for he had no domestic tastes.
+
+“I must go a little nearer,” said Maggie. “Oh, look! the woman can see
+us. I really will ask her to show it to me.”
+
+“Ma’am,” she said, making a curtsey, “may I look at your little child?”
+
+[Illustration: “MAGGIE TOOK IT AND BEGAN TO ROCK IT ABOUT.”]
+
+The woman exchanged glances of rather contemptuous amusement with a man
+who had come out of the van and stood behind her. Then she held the baby
+out to Maggie, and Maggie took it and began to rock it about as if she
+had minded babies, and not poultry, all her life.
+
+“Well, I never!” said the man. He wore small gold rings in his ears.
+
+At this moment there arose a most furious noise from some fowls that
+were wandering about among the van wheels, where a fight was beginning.
+Alfonso had already managed to pick a quarrel with someone of his own
+sex, and the hens were screeching as the two birds crouched opposite to
+each other, making leaps into the air and striking out until the
+feathers flew.
+
+“Alfonso! Alfonso! stop this moment!” screamed Maggie. “Oh! what a way
+to behave!”
+
+But she could not get at him because of the baby she held.
+
+“He has dreadful manners,” moaned the Cochin-China cock. But he would
+not have said that if Alfonso had been able to hear him.
+
+“Well,” said the man, vaulting down the steps, “that’s the finest little
+game-bird I ever saw.”
+
+And without more ado he separated the fighters and pushed Alfonso under
+a basket that stood upside down near the van. There was a hole in it,
+and through this Alfonso stuck his head and crowed at the top of his
+voice.
+
+“What are you doing to him?” cried Maggie. “He is my friend, and we are
+travelling together.”
+
+“He’s mine now,” replied the man, “for I’m going to keep him.”
+
+“But I can’t part from him—you have got no right to take him away.” And
+the tears rushed to Maggie’s eyes at the thought.
+
+“Best come along too,” said the woman, who spoke little.
+
+“Oh yes—and perhaps I could mind the baby,” exclaimed Maggie.
+
+“You’d have to,” said the woman. “We don’t keep people for nothing.”
+
+“But there’s him too,” said Maggie, pointing to the Cochin-Chinaman. “I
+can’t leave him either. He always goes with Alfonso and me.”
+
+The man laughed. “You’re the queerest lot _I_ ever saw,” said he. “But I
+suppose we must have you all.”
+
+And so it was settled.
+
+Maggie was very much relieved to find that the party was to move away
+early next morning, and she took care to keep as much out of sight as
+possible. But the rest of the evening passed without their hearing or
+seeing anything of the people at the farm, and she hoped that no one had
+discovered their absence. As soon as it was light next day the horses
+were harnessed, and the three truants set out with their new friends.
+
+There was another member of the party who came back to the camp just as
+they were starting, and who drove the green van. His name was Dan, and
+he was the brother of the man with the gold earrings, a clean-shaved
+brown young fellow, with dark smooth hair which came forward in a flat
+lock over either ear. He wore a cap made of rabbit-skin, and he looked
+after the two horses. Though he took little notice of Maggie she was not
+afraid of him, for he had a self-contained, serious face, and was so
+good to the beasts that she knew he must be kind.
+
+Besides this work he did nothing in the camp. His brother was a tinman,
+but Dan left the pots and pans alone; and it was only when the party was
+at village fairs that his talents came into play. The horse which drew
+the smaller van and did the lighter work was a bright chestnut with a
+fine coat, which Dan groomed ceaselessly. Both animals followed him like
+dogs, and he could do whatever he pleased with the chestnut, which could
+jump almost anything. When he rode him, barebacked, at the big fairs,
+the crowd would look on open-mouthed, shouting as he cleared the hurdles
+and dropping their pence into the rabbit-skin cap when it was carried
+round. Once an ill-natured fellow had stuck a thorn into the horse’s
+flank as he was led by, and Dan had blacked both his eyes before leaving
+the fair. When the vans were settled in one place, he would often be
+absent for days together, and nobody knew where he went.
+
+Maggie soon found out that they were making for some woods a few days’
+journey off. She was very happy, for she had seen so little of the world
+outside the farmyard that every new place amused her. The woman was
+friendly to her in her silent way when she found how careful she was of
+the baby. Maggie soon learnt to dress and tend it; and she swept out the
+vans, lit the fires, and in the evening sat on the top step, talking to
+Alfonso and the Cochin-China cock. They were quite contented too, though
+they did not live so well as they had done at the farm.
+
+They travelled on, by villages and hill-sides, by moors and by roads.
+The trees flamed with autumn, and the rose-hips were turning red. At
+last they drew up in a grassy track which ran through an immense wood,
+where the sighing of the air in the fir-branches rose and fell in little
+gusts, and grey-blue wood-pigeons went flapping away down the vistas of
+stems. Maggie had never imagined such a place, and when the camp was set
+out and she lay down, tired, to sleep, she promised herself that, if she
+had a free moment on the morrow, she would go and see more of it.
+
+It was the next afternoon that her chance came, and off she set, looking
+back now and then, to make sure of finding her way home. How tall the
+bracken was! The bramble, that in woods keeps its living green almost
+into the winter, trailed over the path, and there were regiments of
+table-shaped toadstools, crimson and scarlet and brown. The rabbits fled
+at her step, diving underground into unseen burrows, and the male-fern
+stood like upright bunches of plumes. She was so much delighted by all
+this that she went on, and on, until the sound of a voice singing to a
+stringed instrument made her stand still to listen.
+
+Not far off was another camp, much like the one she had left. There were
+several tents, and people were moving about; but the music came from
+close by, on the other side of an overturned fir whose roots stood up
+like wild arms. She stole up and peeped round the great circle of earth
+which the tree had torn out with it in its fall, and in which ferns and
+rough grass had sown themselves. She _was_ surprised!
+
+On his face in the moss lay Dan, his elbows on the ground, his chin in
+his hands. His rabbit-skin cap was pulled over his eyes, and the gold
+rings which, like his brother, he wore in his ears gleamed against his
+dark neck.
+
+A girl sat near him, playing on a little stringed instrument, such as
+Maggie had never seen before. Her voice reminded her of the
+wood-pigeons, and the twang of the strings as she struck them was both
+sharp and soft at once. The blue of her eyes and the pale pink colour of
+her cheeks made Dan look almost like an Indian by contrast with her. She
+had ceased singing, but Maggie kept as still as possible in hopes of
+hearing some more.
+
+“It’s a good thing I left Alfonso at home,” she thought; “he would have
+never stayed quiet. I won’t breathe, and perhaps she’ll begin again.”
+
+Dan was silent too, though he never took his eyes off his companion’s
+lips. Soon she touched the strings again and played a few notes that
+sounded like a whisper.
+
+“This is called ‘The Wind in the Broom,’” she said:
+
+          “‘Wind, wind, in the forest tall,
+          Do you stir the broom where my lass is waiting?
+          Pale lass, in the witch’s thrall—
+          For the witch is by, and she may not call.
+          (O the long, long days that my lass is waiting!)
+            Gold broom, with your flowers in bloom,
+          Wave,’ says the lad: ‘it is time for mating.’
+
+          “‘Lad, lad, in the witch’s wood,
+          There is no more hope when the spell is spoken;
+          Lost lad, is the sight so good
+          Of the empty place where your love has stood?
+          (O the long, long days that her heart has broken!)
+            Dead broom, be your bare pod’s doom
+          Black,’ says the witch, ‘for a sign and token.’
+
+          “‘Bold broom, by the witch’s door,
+          Will you hide my lad as his step steals nigher?
+          Sleep, witch, on the forest floor;
+          You are drugged by the broom-flowers’ scented core.
+          (O the smouldering fumes of its golden fire!)
+            Burn, broom, in the forest’s gloom,
+          Glow,’ says the lass, ‘like the heart’s desire.’
+
+          “‘Wind, wind, round the witch’s lair
+          There’s a lad and lass that no spell can sever;
+          Sing, wind, in the broom-flowers there,
+          For you sing good-bye to an old despair.
+          (O the long, long days, that are done for ever!)
+            Gold broom, with the silken plume,
+          Laugh,’ says the wind, ‘because love dies never.’”
+
+Maggie was so much absorbed in the song that she came forward a little
+from behind the root. Though Dan had not turned his head she saw that
+his watchful eyes were on her, and she prepared to move away. The girl
+turned round; her face was so sweet that Maggie spoke up.
+
+“I was only listening to the song,” she said.
+
+“Come and sit beside me,” said the singer. “My name is Rhoda. Who are
+you?”
+
+“That’s the girl from our camp,” said Dan.
+
+Long after he had gone back to feed the horses Maggie sat talking to her
+new friend. She told her all about Alfonso and the Cochin-Chinaman, and
+how they had all run away from the farm. Though Rhoda was grown up and
+could not understand fowls when they spoke, she listened with great
+interest, and Maggie promised to bring the two cocks to visit her. When
+she got home Dan was putting a rug on the chestnut horse, for the nights
+were growing colder. He seemed to look at her with a new interest.
+
+“Do you like Rhoda’s songs?” he asked suddenly.
+
+“Oh yes.”
+
+“She makes them for me,” said Dan.
+
+“I am going to take Alfonso and the other cock to see her,” continued
+Maggie. “Perhaps I shall go to-morrow.”
+
+“Then I had better come with you. There are wild-cats in the wood,”
+observed Dan shortly. And he went into the green van and said no more.
+
+After that Maggie managed to slip away nearly every day to see her
+friend in the other camp. Sometimes she took the birds with her, and
+sometimes she left them at home. Dan and his brother had gone off to a
+fair in the neighbourhood, which was to last several days.
+
+One afternoon as she sat with Rhoda under the trees, a man came towards
+them from the tents. He had a long pointed nose, and was very grandly
+dressed for a gipsy, for he wore a bright-coloured scarf and waistcoat
+and his fingers were covered with silver rings. Maggie thought him very
+nice, for he joined them and seemed to admire Alfonso very much. The
+little cock strutted about, ruffling himself out as the man watched him.
+He loved notice. The gipsy threw him a handful of corn from his pocket,
+and when he went off again to the tents, he kept looking back with a
+smile. Rhoda took up her guitar once more for she had laid it down at
+his approach, though she was in the middle of a song.
+
+“I never sing to _him_,” she said.
+
+It was a pleasant time they spent in the fir-woods, and Maggie began to
+think there could be nothing better than life in the caravan. She loved
+the open air and the blue mists, the silver spider webs and the winking
+eyes of the little fires that were lit among the trees at night. She
+loved the whispering branches and the red toadstools and the sceptres of
+tall ragwort, that were beginning to fade as the days went by. She did
+not want to leave the place, and, besides that, she did not want to
+leave Rhoda.
+
+But early one morning, as she was gathering wood a little way from the
+van, she glanced up to find Rhoda standing before her. Her guitar was
+under her arm and a little bundle in her hand.
+
+“I have come to say good-bye,” said she. “Yes, I am going, and you must
+not tell anybody. I can’t stay any more in our camp. I shall take my
+guitar and go and make my living by singing at fairs, as I have done
+before. So I’ve come to say good-bye to you first.”
+
+Maggie was too much surprised to answer.
+
+“It is because of the man you saw,” continued Rhoda, “the man I will not
+sing for. He is the richest gipsy in the country, and I hate him; but he
+loves me. My mother says I must marry him. He has given her presents of
+money and necklaces and fine clothes, and she has promised me to him.
+They don’t know I have gone, but by to-night I shall be miles away, and
+I will never come back. He is the most hateful man in the world.”
+
+“And now I shall never see you any more!” cried Maggie.
+
+“Oh, but I hope you will,” replied Rhoda. “I like you, and you like me,
+and when you are at a fair some day, you’ll hear my guitar, and come and
+speak to me and be glad to see me. You will, won’t you?”
+
+And she turned away towards the edge of the wood, and Maggie went a
+little distance with her.
+
+“May I tell Dan?” she asked, as they parted.
+
+“Oh, Dan knows,” said Rhoda.
+
+Then she went away through the tree-stems into the open country, and
+Maggie stood at the outskirts of the wood watching her until she
+disappeared among the shorn fields, looking back and waving her hand.
+
+She was sad for a long time after that. Dan said nothing of what he
+knew, and when she tried to speak to him, he got out of her way. She did
+not even tell Alfonso or the Cochin-Chinaman what had happened; though,
+to be sure, it would have been safe enough, for, even if they had spoken
+of it, no one but herself could have understood them. Once she saw the
+rich gipsy with the evil face and silver rings prowling about the vans,
+which made her so frightened that she got into one of them and locked
+herself in. No one else had seen Rhoda when she came to say good-bye,
+and there was nothing to do but to keep her own counsel and hope that in
+time she might meet her friend again.
+
+The Cochin-China cock was as happy as possible. He did not care for high
+company, and the few fowls that ran about the van wheels and travelled
+together in a basket on the roof when the family was moving were good
+enough for him. He forgot that he had ever had a wife and family, though
+he had wept so loudly when he left them to follow Maggie; and now he had
+chosen for a partner a young speckled hen, who was bewitched by his
+yellow trousers and deep voice.
+
+Alfonso, on the contrary, had grown prouder than ever; and when he
+discovered that the man with the gold earrings meant to make a deal of
+money by backing him to fight other cocks in public, he was extremely
+happy. He longed for spring to come, for then the vans were to make a
+tour through many villages and towns, and he would have the chance of
+meeting all sorts of champions in single combat. He had found this out
+through the Cochin-Chinaman, who was a gossip, and whose new wife told
+him everything that went on. But Maggie knew nothing about it, for
+Alfonso would not tell her, and promised to thrash his friend if he did
+so. Alfonso knew that if anything were to happen to himself it would
+break her heart. Sometimes his conscience blamed him for deceiving her,
+but he did not listen to it; it seemed to him that he heard the crowing
+of whole crowds of upstart birds, and his spurs itched.
+
+It had grown quite cold when the time came for them to leave the woods.
+Dan and Maggie were to go off in the green van at sunrise, and the woman
+with her husband and baby were to follow after midday. Dan knew the
+place for their next camp, and he and his companion were to get
+everything ready, and have fires lit and water carried by the time the
+family arrived with its belongings and the cocks and hens.
+
+It was a pleasant journey; the roads were good and the sun shone. They
+sat with their feet on the shafts, and Dan talked more than he had ever
+talked before. He told Maggie of his youth and the tents among which he
+was born; of his half-Spanish mother, who had died in the cold of a
+snowy winter; and of his father, who had beaten him with a strap till he
+had learnt to ride better than any of the other boys. She heard how he
+and his brother got enough money to buy the van and the horses, and how
+he had met Rhoda at a great gipsy gathering; how she had sung ‘The Wind
+in the Broom’ for him by a camp-fire when all their companions had gone
+to sleep; how they had sat till the morning came and the stars went out
+like so many street-lamps in the daylight. Then he said very little
+more, and sat with his cap pulled over his eyes, whistling the tune of
+‘The Wind in the Broom’ till the journey was done.
+
+They had come to an old quarry cut into the hollow of a hill-side. Dan
+unharnessed the horse, and they began their work. It was getting dark
+when they heard approaching wheels and saw their friends coming up the
+winding road. Maggie could hear the Cochin-Chinaman’s hoarse voice
+proclaiming his arrival and distinguish in the dusk the smaller basket
+tied on the top step of the van, in which Alfonso, according to custom,
+travelled alone. The Cochin-Chinaman’s wife, who was greedy, was already
+making a disturbance and demanding to know how soon they might expect
+their evening meal.
+
+It was late by the time Maggie was able to prepare it. She turned it out
+in a heap and let the birds loose. They rushed at it, pushing and
+struggling to get the best bits, the speckled hen screaming to her
+husband to protect her from the other hens, and to see that she was not
+robbed of her share. Then Maggie took Alfonso’s little plate, and,
+putting a few nice spoonfuls in it, went up the van steps.
+
+But she opened the basket and looked in, to find that Alfonso was gone.
+
+                     *      *      *      *      *
+
+Then indeed there was consternation in the camp. Maggie’s tears fell
+fast and heavy down her cheeks as she sat looking into the empty basket.
+The whole family came out at her call and stood bewailing itself in
+different ways. The man with the gold earrings swore, the wife fixed her
+dark gaze on her weeping servant, and Dan hung about trying to comfort
+Maggie. But she cared for none of them, and only when the
+Cochin-Chinaman hurried from his food to her side did she dry her eyes.
+
+“He’s gone! he’s gone!” she wailed, “and we shall never see him again. O
+Alfonso! Alfonso! how I loved you!”
+
+“The basket was fastened down when you saw it first, and that shows that
+someone has taken him. If he had fallen out it would have been open,”
+said Dan.
+
+“I took fine care not to let anyone see him,” observed his brother; “he
+was too good a bird to run risks with.”
+
+At this Maggie started up.
+
+“It is the man with the silver rings!” she exclaimed—“the rich gipsy in
+the wood! Oh, it is all my fault! If it had not been for me he would
+never have seen Alfonso.”
+
+And that was the most cruel idea of all.
+
+That night, when everyone was asleep, she got up and packed her bundle.
+She was afraid to say good-bye to her friends for fear she should be
+prevented from going to seek her lost comrade, and she had made up her
+mind to leave everything and travel this difficult world till she should
+meet him again. She was certain the wicked-looking gipsy in the wood had
+stolen him before the blue van left its last camping-ground, and she
+resolved to go back to the place where they had all been so happy, to
+see whether, by some contrivance, she might steal him from the tents.
+Perhaps he was miserable himself, poor Alfonso! She was broken-hearted
+as she crept out of the van. She could make out the heavy figure of the
+Cochin-Chinaman roosting with his wife upon a shaft. He got down and
+came running to her, striding and sprawling with his great awkward legs.
+
+“Don’t say a word—I am going to find Alfonso,” began Maggie. “If anyone
+hears me I may be stopped, and then I shall die of despair. Hush! hush!
+Don’t open your beak to screech like that, or they’ll all come out.”
+
+“You care more for Alfonso than for me,” wailed the cock, as loudly as
+he dared. “You think nothing of bidding good-bye to me!”
+
+She could not answer, for she knew it was true. She loved Alfonso best.
+
+“But we shall both come back together, Alfonso and I,” she replied. “I
+can leave you because I know you are quite happy.”
+
+“I’m glad you think so,” replied he. “Never you marry if you want peace.
+What that speckled baggage has made me endure is beyond all telling!”
+
+“And I thought you were so comfortably married!” exclaimed Maggie.
+
+“Oh, what I have gone through!” he went on—“what I have endured! She is
+so greedy that I never get a bite. She is so violent that I have had to
+call in help or not keep a feather on my body. And she has told all the
+others that I left the farm we came from because I was afraid of the
+bantam cock. She has no heart and no manners—only claws and a tongue!”
+
+“Then come with me,” said Maggie. “We shall be very poor, and perhaps
+starve, but we shan’t be lonely.”
+
+“Family life is dreadful,” said the Cochin-Chinaman. “I’ll come.”
+
+It took many hours to get back to the woods, and they were both tired
+and hungry by the time they saw the long line of dark trees stretching
+away before them. Maggie had brought some food with her, which she
+shared with her friend; but they did not dare to eat much, as they had
+to make it last as long as possible. They tried not to think of their
+bad prospects as they trudged along. They did not enter the woods till
+dusk, for they knew that if the rich gipsy saw Maggie, he would guess
+what had brought her back, and hide Alfonso more carefully than ever.
+They found the spot where their camp had been, and rested there a little
+before going into the heart of the wood. Maggie knew every step of the
+way, every clump of yellowing ferns, every trail of bramble, and the
+Cochin-Chinaman, who was not observant, was glad to follow her blindly.
+When once they caught sight of the tents, he was to run on and prowl
+about in the undergrowth, calling to Alfonso in his own language. As
+nobody but the gamecock would understand what he said, he was to shout,
+telling him Maggie was there, and the two birds were to settle a way of
+escape. These were fine schemes, and would, no doubt, have succeeded
+beautifully; but alas! and alas! when they came to the root beside which
+Rhoda had sung her songs to Dan, they saw that the place was empty and
+the tents gone. The only traces remaining of the camp were the little
+black circles of ashes on the ground, which showed where the fires had
+been.
+
+It was chilly comfort to think that, if Alfonso had been stolen only a
+day ago, the gipsy could not have gone far. He had horses and carts, and
+there was not much chance of overtaking him for the two poor footsore
+friends, even if they knew which way he went. It was too dark now to see
+the traces of his wheels on the soft moss, and they could go no farther
+that night. Nevertheless, Maggie would not give up her quest, and the
+Cochin-Chinaman, great yellow booby of a fellow as he was, vowed that he
+would never leave her. He blubbered as he said it, but he meant it, all
+the same.
+
+When morning broke their hearts were very sad. Where were they to go?
+Winter was coming on, and they had no money and hardly any food, and
+unless they begged as they went, there was nothing they could do for a
+living. But they made up their minds either to die or to rescue their
+friend, and started at daybreak to follow the track of footprints and
+wheel-marks which took them to the dusty highroad. The cock picked up
+all sorts of odds and ends by the way, and a friendly blacksmith who was
+eating bread and cheese at the door of his smithy gave Maggie a share of
+it. They slept in an empty barn that night, and the next day found them
+on the outskirts of a little country town.
+
+They were eager to get to it, hoping to hear news of the gipsy, or to
+find his tents pitched in the neighbourhood. The cock had cut his foot
+on a piece of broken glass by the roadside, and was so lame that he
+could scarcely walk. He sat on Maggie’s shoulder, but he was so heavy
+that he prevented her from getting on fast. Sometimes she put him down,
+and he limped a little way, but she always had to take him up again.
+When they reached the first houses, the people ran out to look at the
+amusing sight, and when they heard how the strange pair of comrades were
+talking together, they held up their hands. “Was ever anything like that
+seen before?” they cried.
+
+Soon there was quite a crowd. The whole street turned out to listen,
+though, of course, no one could understand a word. Maggie took the
+opportunity of explaining that they were very poor, and asked for some
+food. A woman offered them a hunk of bread and a plate of broken meat,
+which they took gratefully.
+
+“It’s worth while paying for such a show!” she exclaimed. And everybody
+agreed with her, though only a few were willing to put their hands in
+their pockets.
+
+All at once a great clatter was heard, and a running footman came racing
+along the road, shouting as he went and pushing people out of the way
+with his staff.
+
+“Room! room!” he cried. “Make way for the Lord Bishop’s carriage!”
+
+A splendid open coach came in sight, drawn by four white horses with
+purple plumes on their heads and driven by a gold-laced coachman. A fine
+fat Bishop sat in it, dressed in purple. Gold tassels hung from his hat,
+and opposite to him sat a servant armed with a silk pocket-handkerchief
+with which to flick the dust of the road from the episcopal person.
+Everybody bowed to the earth.
+
+“What is all this crowd for?” demanded the Bishop, stopping his coach.
+
+When he heard that a girl was to be heard talking to a Cochin-China cock
+in his native tongue, he was immensely surprised, and ordered Maggie and
+her companion to come before him. The woman who had given them meat and
+bread pushed her forward.
+
+“Your Reverend Holiness will die o’ laughing to hear them,” she
+exclaimed.
+
+“Speak, girl,” said the Bishop. “Address the bird, and tell him to
+reply.”
+
+When he had heard the conversation that followed, he could hardly
+believe his senses. The servant with the silk handkerchief grinned from
+ear to ear, the coachman on his box turned round to listen, and the
+footmen who stood on a board behind the carriage gaped.
+
+“You are evidently a highly intelligent little girl,” said the Bishop,
+“and it is a scandal that you should be tramping the roads. I have a
+large aviary at my palace and you shall come to look after it. I really
+never thought to find a person who could speak to birds. Some of mine
+are very tiresome, and you will be able to make them hear reason. I will
+see that you are properly clothed and educated.”
+
+But Maggie refused, and explained that she was going to seek Alfonso.
+
+“Tut, tut, tut!” said the Bishop. “If the cock is as valuable as you
+say, he will be well cared for. You will have a good education at my
+palace, and be clean and tidy.”
+
+“But I don’t want to be clean and tidy, and I shouldn’t like to live in
+a palace,” cried Maggie.
+
+All the servants tittered.
+
+“_Nonsense!_” said the Bishop. “Everyone wants to be clean and tidy, and
+everyone would like to live in a palace.”
+
+“But I can’t!” exclaimed Maggie—“indeed I can’t!”
+
+“There is no such word as ‘can’t’ in the English language,” said the
+Bishop.
+
+“Come! come!” said Maggie to the Cochin-Chinaman, “we must get away as
+quick as we can!”
+
+The Bishop could not understand what she said, but he saw she was
+preparing to run.
+
+“I fear you are one of the many people who do not know what is good for
+them,” said he. “Get into the carriage immediately. The footmen will
+help you in, and you may sit opposite to me.”
+
+And before you could count ten they had sprung from their places, opened
+the door, and lifted her in. With a hoarse agonized screech the
+Cochin-Chinaman leaped up and flew heavily into the coach. He came
+through the air like a cannon-ball.
+
+“Really, this is too much!” exclaimed the Bishop. “I cannot be made
+ridiculous by having this creature sitting in front of me as we go
+through the streets.”
+
+“He is the only friend I have got left,” sobbed poor Maggie, bursting
+into tears as the footmen tried to seize the cock’s legs.
+
+The Bishop was far from being an unkind man; indeed, he had a great
+reputation for charity, both public and private.
+
+“Tut, tut!” he said; “let him come. But he can’t sit there opposite to
+me. Put him under the seat.”
+
+And so Maggie, thankful to keep him at any price, stuffed him
+underneath, and pressed her feet against him, to comfort him. The
+footmen were inexpressibly shocked. Then they all drove off to the
+palace.
+
+The palace was a truly imposing place, with cupolas and courts, porches
+and statues; and, being outside the town, it was approached by an avenue
+a mile long. A wide stream flowed round one side of it, and the great
+entrance gates were covered with crests and glorious devices. Behind it
+was an aviary full of bright-coloured birds, who screamed and fought and
+made such a terrible din that, when the carriage drew up, the
+Cochin-Chinaman was taken from under the seat trembling. Maggie was
+shown a hut which she was to inhabit, built in a little remote yard, and
+an old chicken-coop was brought and filled with straw to make a bed for
+the cock. The Bishop ordered that food should be given them, and told
+Maggie she was to begin her duties on the morrow.
+
+She did not like her place at all. The birds in the aviary were nearly
+all foreign, so she did not know their language; and those she could
+understand were rude and turbulent, and made the most heartless jokes
+about the poor Cochin-Chinaman’s yellow trousers. But there was no use
+in grumbling. The Bishop was determined that she should stay and look
+after the aviary; he disapproved of vagrants and gipsies, and had
+settled that she was to be brought up respectably. She could not get
+away, because she was never allowed to leave the place alone; so she
+consoled herself by thinking that, as winter was at hand, she would be
+likely to starve were she still tramping the road; and then she would
+certainly never see Alfonso again.
+
+And so time went by and she lived at the palace, feeding and tending the
+foreign birds, and cheered by the company of her faithful comrade, who
+grew fat on the crumbs from the Bishop’s kitchen and took care not to
+display his yellow trousers within sight of the aviary.
+
+Soon it grew bitterly cold. The snow fell, and Christmas came and went;
+and then, at last, the young New Year grew strong, and birds began to
+sing and trees to bud. The little yard in which the hut stood was
+surrounded by an ivy-covered wall with a small iron gate in it, and
+through the latter she could see the ground slope down to the still,
+wide stream that passed the palace like a crawling silver snake.
+
+The bars of the gate were firm in their places, for she had tried them
+all and they would not move; they were so closely set that she could not
+squeeze herself out between them. She would press her face against them,
+looking out enviously at every passing insect that was free. In the wood
+over the water squirrels jumped about, or sat up like little begging
+dogs, with their tails over their heads. The Cochin-Chinaman could fly
+out of the yard, but what was the use of that when he could not take her
+with him? She would sit by the gate while he stood on the top of the
+wall describing to her all the things he could see.
+
+One spring afternoon, as they passed their time thus, a sound of music
+came floating from some distance. It was very faint, but as it drew
+nearer Maggie sprang up, crying to the cock to fly out and see what it
+could mean.
+
+For the tune was the tune of “The Wind in the Broom.”
+
+Nearer and nearer it came. She could faintly hear the words. “Gold
+broom, with your flowers in bloom,” sang the voice.
+
+The cock leaped down, and, running and flying, he rushed along the green
+banks of the stream as hard as he could. The town was behind him at the
+far side of the palace, so he was molested by no one; and there, sure
+enough, coming to meet him at the water-side, was Rhoda with her guitar
+slung on her shoulder. Oh, how he longed to speak! but, as she could not
+understand his talk, there was no use in saying anything. But he took
+her by the skirts and began dragging her along.
+
+“You are Maggie’s Cochin-Chinaman!” she cried.
+
+He hurried on before her, and she followed as fast as she could run.
+
+How delighted the two friends were at meeting again! Rhoda stood outside
+the gate, and Maggie held her hand through the bars, and they told each
+other all that had happened since they parted.
+
+“I will get you away from here, see if I don’t!” said Rhoda. “Then we
+will start off together to find Alfonso, for I can make enough to keep
+us all by singing. I am quite rich already.” She pulled a little bag out
+of her bosom.
+
+“Feel how heavy it is,” she said.
+
+At last Rhoda went away. She said that she would not return till she had
+thought of a good plan for Maggie’s escape, and she commanded the cock
+to roost every night on the yard wall; for she would come back under
+cover of night, and wake him by throwing up a stone at him when her plan
+was ready.
+
+Rhoda was very clever—the making of songs and music was not the only
+thing she understood. When she found that the iron gate was fastened by
+a bolt, and that the bolt was held in its place by a padlock, she went
+off to the town and bought a file, and next night she returned and began
+to saw away. She did it from the outside, so that no one who might
+chance to come into the yard could see any mark on the bolt. When
+morning came it was cut through all but a little piece. Up the stream, a
+short way above the palace, was a house whose walls stood almost in the
+water, and near it a little boat was moored to a stake in the bank. This
+boat she determined should carry them all out of the Bishop’s reach.
+
+On the second night, therefore, when it was dark, and she guessed the
+palace people were in bed, she came stealing along to the gate. There
+was the cock at his post, fast asleep. When she had filed through the
+last bit of the bolt, she woke him with a stone, and signed to him to go
+and fetch Maggie. Then she ran to the boat, cut its rope with her knife,
+and, jumping into it, rowed quickly down to where her friends were
+waiting.
+
+How smoothly and how fast the water carried them along, as they ran into
+the current and the tall mass of the palace dropped behind them! Rhoda
+had the oars, and the cock sat in the bottom of the boat beside the
+guitar. Maggie was so much delighted to be free that she did not speak a
+word. The fields and the alder-trees slipped by, and when the spring day
+broke, she saw the tufts on the willows and the yellow stars of the
+celandines shining among the roots. She felt quite sure now that
+everything would go right.
+
+The whole day they rowed on, and when they thought themselves far enough
+from the Bishop to be safe, they jumped on shore and let the boat drift
+out of sight. Then they started off to seek their fortunes once more.
+
+It was a hard life they led as they roamed the country, but they were
+contented with it. They got enough money to keep themselves from want by
+Rhoda’s singing, and the cock contrived to pick up many scraps by the
+way. They went to every village they saw, and every town; at every fair
+or market they were to be seen, Rhoda with her guitar and Maggie
+searching up and down for news of the rich gipsy and his tents. As the
+months went by she began to despair, but she never faltered or forgot
+Alfonso.
+
+One day they were approaching a little hamlet, and, as they were within
+sight of its roofs, groups of people passed them. Men wore their best
+coats and women their best gowns; little children ran along with holiday
+faces, and horses and cattle went by in droves. The horses had their
+tails plaited up with coloured ribbons, and some had roses stuck in
+their brow-bands, for it was the day of a great fair and all sorts of
+shows and amusements were going on.
+
+The road was full of people. Just in front of Rhoda and Maggie some men
+were plodding along, laughing and joking, and one of them turned round,
+calling to another, who lagged behind the party.
+
+“Come on! come on!” he shouted. “You’ll have to step out if you want to
+see the cock-fight.”
+
+Maggie followed at their heels like a dog. They thought she meant to beg
+and told her roughly to go away. But she took no notice, and ran after
+them, listening breathlessly to their talk, for they were speaking of
+the wonderful game-bird belonging to a gipsy who had beaten every cock
+in the countryside. To-day he was to fight the greatest champion of all,
+a bird which had been brought fifty miles to meet him. One of the men
+pulled out a large silver watch the size of an apple. It came up from
+his pocket like a bucket out of a well.
+
+“We’re too late!” he exclaimed.
+
+And they all began to run.
+
+Maggie and Rhoda ran too. And the Cochin-Chinaman straddled and flapped
+after them, raising a trail of dust and volleys of abuse from everyone
+he passed.
+
+By the time they reached the village a great crowd were dispersing in
+all directions. It was chiefly made up of men, and, as our friends
+pushed through the throng, scraps of conversation came to their ears.
+
+“_He’ll_ never fight again,” said one.
+
+“That’ll take down the pride of that gipsy fellow, with his money-bags
+and his rings,” said another.
+
+Maggie ran faster and faster till she came to an open space that had
+been cleared in the middle of the village green. A man was walking off
+with a cock in his arms, while a string of people followed, clapping him
+on the back and shouting. They were all leaving the spot where the
+long-nosed gipsy stood staring at something that lay at his foot. It
+looked like a bundle of rags as he rolled it over with his boot. “He’s
+no more use to me,” said he, turning away with a shrug of his shoulders,
+“so he can die if he likes.”
+
+Maggie threw herself down and took poor Alfonso in her arms. Blood was
+oozing from between his beautiful feathers, and his eyes were closed.
+Nobody noticed her as she carried him away, followed by Rhoda and the
+Cochin-Chinaman. Her tears were falling thick on him, blinding her, so
+that she could hardly see where she was going, and she almost ran into a
+dark young man who was coming towards them. It was Dan—Dan, with his
+gold earrings and rabbit-skin cap. Rhoda poured out the story of their
+search to him, and he took them to a pond, where he poured water down
+Alfonso’s throat and felt his breast to see if his heart was still
+beating.
+
+“Run and meet my brother,” he said to Rhoda; “our vans are just coming
+into the village. Tell him from me to go and settle with that long-nosed
+thief. I’ll come and help him when I see whether Alfonso’s dead or not.”
+
+So Rhoda ran.
+
+And now we are coming to the end of the story. Alfonso was not dead, and
+he did not die; he was nursed back to life by Dan and Maggie; but he
+never fought again, for his back was dreadfully injured, and he was lame
+for the rest of his days. The three friends returned to their old life
+in the vans, for Maggie had been much missed, and was received back with
+joy. Neither was Rhoda left behind, because she soon became Dan’s wife
+and went to live with him in the green van.
+
+The Cochin-Chinaman married again, but this time with better luck; for
+he chose a good dame of suitable age, who knew the world far too well to
+wish to quarrel with anyone in it.
+
+And Alfonso, in spite of his crippled body, was not unhappy. He limped
+round the van wheels or sat in his basket on the step, looking out on
+the green woods and blue distances of their various places of sojourn.
+His fighting days were done, but he was well content; for those who have
+taken their share in life are those who can best bear to see it go by
+and accept their rest.
+
+
+
+
+                          THE FIDDLING GOBLIN
+
+
+One day they were in the miller’s garden. He had white rose-bushes on
+either side of his door and a box-tree by the gate.
+
+“Here is the book!” cried little Peter, who had dashed into the house,
+and now came dancing out with the volume in his hand. “I’ve been peeping
+inside, and there is such a fine bit about a man beating a big drum.”
+
+“You rascal!” said the miller. “Who told you you might touch my book? I
+shall put you into the mill-pond for that!”
+
+And he began to chase the little boy about, shouting and jumping over
+the flower-beds. It was really splendid.
+
+Janet stood by laughing.
+
+“Be quiet, Peter, or you’ll drop the book!” she exclaimed.
+
+“If he promises to read about the drum-man I’ll be as quiet as a mouse,”
+shrieked Peter.
+
+“I promise, I promise,” said the miller, stopping beside a row of
+cabbages.
+
+So when Peter gave him the book and had settled down to listen, he
+began.
+
+There was once upon a time a widowed Baron who had a lovely daughter.
+She was so beautiful that she seldom went out of the castle gates,
+because people stared at her so much that it made her quite
+uncomfortable. Her name was Laurine, and she could dance so wonderfully
+that she looked more like an autumn leaf sailing in the wind than a
+human being. Her chestnut hair floated all round her, and her grey eyes
+shone like stars through a mist.
+
+Now, in spite of all this, the Baron, who was only her stepfather, was
+most anxious to get rid of her by marriage, for he was a lazy old man,
+and did not like the trouble of looking after her; he liked to have his
+own house to himself. He let this be known far and wide, and the very
+greatest Princes and gentlemen came courting Laurine, which gave him
+more trouble than ever, for she persisted in refusing every one, and the
+expenses of their entertainment went, consequently, for nothing.
+
+At last he could stand it no longer, and one morning, after a whole
+batch of suitors had been turned away, he sent for her to his room. He
+was sitting up in bed looking frightfully angry, and when she came in he
+roared and beat his cane on the bed-clothes. He always took it to bed
+with him, so that he might bang the servants if they made too much noise
+when they called him in the morning.
+
+“What is the matter, sir?” asked Laurine, making a very pretty curtsey.
+
+“Matter!” shouted the Baron; “the matter is that I’m tired of you and
+your airs, and I have made up my mind to stand them no longer. Married
+you shall be. I am going to give out a notice to be posted up everywhere
+that, in ten days from now, the first twelve gentlemen who send in their
+names to me are to come here, bringing a musical instrument each; and
+the one who plays best shall have your hand in marriage. Now, it’s no
+good crying. I have made up my mind, and the messenger carrying the news
+shall go out to-day. You have had the choice of all the grandest persons
+in the country, and now you must just take what you can get. So get out
+of my sight!”
+
+And he laid about so furiously that Laurine burst into tears. This time
+she was at her wits’ end, and could not think what to do.
+
+“Oh, my lady!” said her maid when she heard what had happened, “you must
+get advice from a Goblin I know. He is the cleverest person in the whole
+countryside, and he will be able to find some way out of it. Only say
+the word, and I will go at once to fetch him.”
+
+“Go! go!” cried Laurine.
+
+Now, in a wood not far off lived a Goblin who was well known to his
+neighbours as one of the finest musicians in the world. He was rich too,
+and it was said that he had a grander house than the King himself hidden
+in the heart of the wood. But, for all that, he generally chose to live
+in a little thatched hut near the edge of the trees, playing on his
+fiddle and coming occasionally into the village, where he was greatly
+honoured for his wisdom in spite of his strange appearance. He was only
+about four feet high and quite black; but he had thin legs and arms, a
+round, fat body and a head like a turnip. In spite of this he dressed in
+the very height of the fashion, with a pointed hat and feather, doublet
+and hose and a short cloak. He was called ‘The Fiddling Goblin.’
+
+He entered Laurine’s presence with a low bow, though he was rather out
+of breath; for when he had received the message from the waiting-woman,
+he had made the large billy-goat which he rode gallop the whole way. It
+was a magnificent animal, with an action like a horse, and the men who
+took charge of it when he dismounted in the courtyard were lost in
+admiration of his handsome saddlery. It was easy to see he was a man of
+note.
+
+“What you must do is this,” said the Goblin, when Laurine had finished
+her story: “As soon as you hear the names of the twelve suitors, write
+privately to each one. I will compose the letter for you, and this is
+what you must say:
+
+    ‘SIR,
+
+    ‘Being extremely anxious for your success—, I am writing to
+    give you a piece of important advice. My stepfather has offered
+    my hand to the finest musician; but his _real_ purpose is to
+    give it to the one who will play loudest and longest, and most
+    effectually drown the efforts of the rest. Therefore, I beg you,
+    if you love me, to play stoutly against all others, and,
+    whatever anyone may say or do, neither stay nor stop till you
+    have silenced them all.’
+
+“Then,” continued the Goblin, “the noise will be so frightful that the
+illustrious Baron, who is irritable, will drive the whole party out of
+the house, and meanwhile you can escape in the turmoil. If you will come
+to my hut I will take you to a palace I have, deep in the wood, where
+you can hide till his wrath is over.”
+
+Laurine was charmed with his wisdom, and having given him a lock of her
+hair as a keepsake, dismissed him with many words of gratitude,
+promising to do exactly as he had said.
+
+Now, it happened that there lived at some little distance off a young
+man of good parentage who had fallen madly in love with Laurine. He was
+brave and handsome, but he was so poor that he had never come forward as
+a suitor, believing that the Baron would not so much as receive him.
+When he heard of the proclamation he tore his hair.
+
+“What a chance I’ve missed!” he cried. “If I could play even a
+shepherd’s pipe I would go. But I cannot so much as do that.”
+
+“You have got ten days to learn in,” said a friend of his, who was
+practical.
+
+So he bought a pipe and began to take lessons from the man who kept the
+sheep, and one day when he was practising Laurine’s letter was brought
+to him. He was simply overjoyed.
+
+“I may be a poor musician!” he exclaimed, “but I have the strongest arm
+for miles round, and now it will stand me in good stead!”
+
+And with that he rushed off to the nearest town and bought a big drum,
+the biggest that could be got for money; and, going into a solitary
+field, he laid about it daily, for practice, with such effect that
+people for miles round were deafened.
+
+When the great day came, Laurine sat in state beside her stepfather and
+all the musicians were ranged in a row a little way in front of them.
+There were fiddles and flutes, trumpets and harps, dulcimers and guitars
+and the big drum in the middle.
+
+When the Baron had taken his seat, he made a sign to a man who had a
+large golden harp to begin. But no sooner was the first chord struck
+than the whole assembly burst into sound with a stupendous crash. The
+fiddlers sawed their fiddles as though they would cut them to pieces,
+the trumpeters blew and brayed, the flutes shrieked, the harps and
+dulcimers twanged, and the young man with the drum fell upon it as
+though it had been his enemy. The Baron leaped up and roared for
+silence, but his voice might have been the cooing of a distant dove for
+all the good it did. The noise grew more and more terrible, and at the
+first convenient opportunity Laurine put her hands over her ears and
+rushed from the hall.
+
+Away she ran through the courtyard. It was empty, because everybody had
+gone to see what the awful disturbance could mean, and the castle gates
+were open. She flew out like an arrow, taking the shortest way to the
+wood and rushing along with her hair streaming behind her, and at last
+she came to the hut where the Goblin lived; she never stopped till she
+got safely into it.
+
+“Did I not give you sound advice?” said he as she sat down, breathless.
+
+“Oh, excellent,” she replied, panting. “By this time I am sure my
+stepfather has driven the whole lot out of doors.”
+
+“And now I must hide you away,” said the Fiddling Goblin, stepping out
+of the door and searching the country up and down with his rolling eye.
+
+As soon as she had recovered her breath they plunged into the wood. Dusk
+was beginning to fall, for the musical competition had taken place late
+in the evening. At last they came to a place where there was nothing but
+horse-chestnut trees in full bloom. The Goblin struck his heel upon the
+ground, and, to Laurine’s astonishment, the white flowers of the
+chestnuts on either side became suddenly lit up, looking like so many
+blazing candles on so many Christmas trees.
+
+The avenue of light stretched away before them, narrowing to the
+distance, and when they had walked to the end of it, they found
+themselves in front of a magnificent mansion with a high steep roof
+covered with golden weathercocks. “This is my house,” observed the
+Goblin, “and here you will be a welcome guest for as long as you like.
+No one can find the path to it unless I light up the horse-chestnut
+candles to show the way, so you will be perfectly safe from your
+stepfather.”
+
+When the door was opened Laurine found herself in a beautiful hall.
+There were golden staircases, woven curtains, groves of myrtle-trees in
+pots; and servants came from every corner of the place to wait upon her.
+The Fiddling Goblin told her to use everything as though it were her
+own, and then left her, promising to return upon the morrow.
+
+We must now return to the Baron’s castle, and hear what happened after
+Laurine’s flight.
+
+The noise went on without intermission: the more the Baron raved, the
+more furiously the musicians played. It seemed as though the howling
+deep and all the thunder of the firmament were let loose together. The
+air was alive with vibration and everyone rushed about in terror, as
+though he were crazy. As the pandemonium grew the young man with the big
+drum began to be depressed, for the sound of his drum was getting
+swallowed up in the shrill blare of the trumpets. But he set his teeth
+and went on harder and harder, and at last he struck it with such
+violence that it broke in two and the drumstick went right through at
+one end and came out at the other.
+
+There was no use in going on any more; he was vanquished, and all hope
+of winning the beautiful Laurine was gone. In despair he threw the
+remaining drumstick to the farther end of the hall and strode out of the
+castle to avoid his sad thoughts and the terrific noise that still
+raged. Once clear of the place, he sat down on a stone, and, burying his
+head in his hands, thought of all he had lost. He determined to leave
+the country and seek his fortune far away from the scene of his
+disappointment; so when he got up, he walked straight forward, without
+caring where he went, and soon found himself on the edge of a wood. It
+was growing dark, and he wandered on, meaning to take the first shelter
+that offered itself for the night.
+
+A little way on was a thatched hut, and when he saw that the door was
+open and the place empty, he went in. He scarcely troubled to look
+about, he was so weary, and soon he threw himself down full-length on
+the hearth and fell asleep.
+
+It was about midnight when he awoke with a start and saw the Fiddling
+Goblin sitting on a chair by the fire, preparing to tune his violin. He
+arose at once, and began to apologize to him for his presence.
+
+“Don’t mention it,” said the Goblin, “and pray sit down again. I will
+play you a tune upon the fiddle.”
+
+“Oh, anything but that!” cried the young man, leaping up in horror. “I
+have heard so much noise to-day that the very sight of any musical
+instrument is death to me!”
+
+“Then you are one of the suitors who came to play before the Baron for
+the hand of the beautiful Laurine!” exclaimed the Goblin.
+
+“I am indeed,” replied he, “and why I am not dead I don’t know.” And
+then he told him the whole story. They talked almost till daybreak.
+
+Now, as the Goblin listened he began to like the young man, and as he
+saw how brave and handsome he looked, he had a mind to help him; for he
+thought the best thing that could happen to Laurine would be to get such
+a fine fellow for a husband.
+
+“Don’t despair,” said he, at the end of the history. “I think I can do
+you a good turn, for I must tell you that Laurine is at my big house not
+far from here at this moment. Does she know you by sight?”
+
+“I hardly think so,” replied the young man. “I have often watched her as
+she walks abroad, but I don’t think she has ever noticed me. There was
+such a crowd in the hall while the music went on, and such a turmoil,
+that, as I was behind the drum, it is likely she never saw me at all.
+And yet she wrote to me as if she had every wish I should succeed. I
+can’t understand it.”
+
+The Goblin looked so sly that it was frightful to see him.
+
+“Well,” he continued, “to-morrow I am going to my house, and she will be
+there. If you have a mind for it, I will take you with me, and you will
+then have the chance of making yourself agreeable.”
+
+“You are too kind!” cried his companion; “but on what pretext can I
+intrude on her? She has probably repented of her letter.”
+
+“As she does not know you by sight, I will say you are my nephew,”
+replied the Goblin; “so mind you call me ‘uncle.’ You can address me as
+Uncle Sackbut. We are a musical family, and all named after instruments.
+One of my brothers is called Shawm and the other Hautboy. What is your
+name?”
+
+“Swayn,” said the young man.
+
+“Very well, Nephew Swayn,” said the Goblin, “to-morrow we will set out.”
+
+When they arrived at the Goblin’s house, Swayn was astonished at its
+magnificence; but he had no time to think of anything but Laurine, and
+to hope that, if she had ever seen him, she would not recognize him. He
+could not imagine why she had not so much as looked his way after
+writing such a condescending letter. But the Goblin bade him keep up
+heart, and in they went.
+
+She was sitting among the myrtles when they approached, and the Goblin
+introduced his friend, being careful not to mention his name.
+
+“This is my nephew,” said he, “my sister’s only son. He has come to pay
+me a visit, and as I have no room for him in my hut, I propose that we
+shall both keep you company here.”
+
+Laurine received them in the most charming manner, and so much pleased
+was the Goblin that he spent all day in practising his fiddle, so that
+the young people should be left together. In this manner two whole weeks
+went by. They spent a delightful time, and Swayn grew more hopeful every
+day. They strolled in the gardens, they hunted in the woods, and it was
+evident that Laurine looked upon him with great favour.
+
+One morning he and the Goblin were together on a terrace where there was
+a little green arbour.
+
+“Swayn,” said the Goblin, “it is high time that you asked Laurine to
+marry you. I think so well of you that I mean to leave you this house
+when I die, though you are not my nephew at all; and while I live you
+can stay here with me, whether you have a wife or not.”
+
+“Uncle Sackbut,” said Swayn, “I can hardly believe such good fortune!
+How little I thought when I threw away my drumstick and left the Baron’s
+castle what luck was in store for me!”
+
+At this moment there was a movement in the arbour, and Laurine, who was
+in it and had heard every word they said, came rushing out.
+
+“And so you are not the Goblin’s nephew at all?” she cried. “And you are
+one of those horrible musicians who came to play? I will go away at
+once!” she shrieked. “I will never see you again! I will not stay here
+another hour!”
+
+Then she turned to the Goblin. “Good-bye,” she said. “Never, never will
+I forgive you for deceiving me!”
+
+And, before they could stop her, she had rushed out of the garden into
+the wood.
+
+They ran after her, they shouted, they called, they implored—nothing
+was of any use. She fled so swiftly that they could not even see which
+path she had taken. At last, after a long time, they gave up the search.
+They felt very much crestfallen.
+
+“We shall never see her again, I fear,” said the Goblin; “she has gone
+back to the Baron’s castle, and the best thing we can do is to try and
+think of something else. We have made a terrible mess of it.”
+
+“As for me,” said Swayn, “it is not so easy to think of something else
+as you fancy. I shall go off and try to better my fortunes elsewhere.
+What I am to do I don’t know. It is a sad thing that I am a gentleman,
+for I have learnt no trade, and now, though I have every will to work,
+there is nothing I can do.”
+
+“I have a good mind to come with you,” remarked the Goblin. “I can
+always return here if I get tired of it, and we can pass for uncle and
+nephew still. I’ll take my fiddle, and we will make our living by it.
+You can play the drum.”
+
+“They won’t go well together,” said Swayn moodily.
+
+“What of that?” cried the Goblin. “Very few people have any ear for
+music. You’ll see—they’ll be delighted, and pay us well.”
+
+So next day the two comrades set out together. The Goblin locked up his
+house, put his fiddle in a bag, and when Swayn had procured a new drum,
+they left the wood by its farther edge and made for the boundary of the
+kingdom, which was not far off.
+
+At the first village they came to they determined to try their luck, so,
+having found the village green, the Fiddling Goblin mounted the steps of
+the market-cross, and struck up with his bow, while Swayn, at a little
+distance, kept time with the drum. Soon figures began to appear at every
+door, and women left their houses and men their work; children came
+capering up, and everybody’s feet could be seen tapping the ground. When
+the Goblin at the market-cross saw that, he stood on tiptoe, and looking
+round with a shout, burst into the fastest country dance he could think
+of. In one moment the whole crowd was stamping, chasséing, and
+pirouetting to the music, seizing one another round the waist, and
+swaying like corn in the wind. On and on they played, till the Goblin
+had lost his hat and Swayn’s arm ached, and the people were whirling
+round in fours and sixes together instead of in couples. It was as if
+the whole world had gone mad. When at last the Goblin stopped and signed
+to his friend to go round and ask for money, it poured in so handsomely
+that they were able to go to the nearest inn and take the best lodgings
+to be got.
+
+When they looked out next morning, there was a crowd under their
+windows.
+
+“Come out! come out!” cried the people. “Come out and play!” Their feet
+were going already at the very recollection of the music.
+
+So the friends set up again at the market-cross and played as they had
+done before; and from far and wide, people, hearing of their fame, came
+pouring into the village to dance. No work was done, and none of the
+children were sent to school, for their parents were too busy dancing to
+attend to the matter. Besides which, the schoolmaster had taken to his
+bed, having sprained his ankle in hopping and skipping.
+
+“We must depart,” said the Goblin, “or everyone will go crazy.”
+
+So they rose in the night and made off, while the world was snoring
+after its exertions. They went travelling on towards a great city, and
+at each village they made enough money to lodge well; but they were
+always obliged to leave secretly in the night, because the people would
+never consent to their departure.
+
+When they got to the capital their fame had run before them, and even
+the very King and Queen were at the palace windows to see them arrive.
+By twelve o’clock next day the Lord Mayor and his family had made
+themselves so ridiculous by the way in which they had kicked their legs
+about that the King was displeased, and ordered the music and dancing to
+be stopped. He could not hear the music himself, because his business
+room was in the centre of the palace, and the walls were thick.
+
+But when the decree went out, there rose such a howl of rage that the
+Court feared a rebellion. People were rushing about in bands, crying:
+“Down with the King! Down with the palace! Down with everybody! Hurray
+for the Fiddling Goblin! Three cheers for the Big Drum!”
+
+The end of it was that the soldiers were called out, and Swayn and the
+Goblin were thrown into prison. The Lord Mayor, whose antics had done so
+much harm, took charge of the drum and the fiddle and locked them up in
+the town-hall, and peace reigned once more.
+
+And now we must hear something of what happened to Laurine when she ran
+away from the Goblin’s house in such a hurry.
+
+She found it very difficult to get free of the wood, but she did so at
+last, and, by good fortune, came out on the side nearest to her
+stepfather’s castle. But when she arrived there the first thing she saw
+was the Baron himself looking out of a high window. At the sight of her
+he began to shout with fury and to beat the window-sill with his cane,
+just as he had beaten the bed-clothes.
+
+“Off!” he roared, “hussy that you are! I have done with you. I have
+found out all about you. Not content with being the plague of my life,
+you encouraged all these knaves to break my head with their detestable
+noise, and I have been at death’s door ever since. Off you go, or I will
+let loose the dogs! You will soon see what a mistake you have made in
+refusing all these husbands, for you will have to get your own living as
+best you can.”
+
+And he drew in his head, banging the window till the iron bars rattled.
+
+Laurine turned to go, trembling, for she could hear the dogs which were
+kept to chase away beggars howling inside the gates. She dared not even
+beg a piece of bread from the servants, and she knew she could never
+find her way back to the Goblin’s house.
+
+She turned sadly away and wandered on till sundown, when a charitable
+peasant-woman in a village shared her supper with her, and allowed her
+to rest in a barn when night came on. But Laurine could not sleep for
+thinking how she was to save herself from starving and what she could do
+to earn enough to keep herself alive. If she were to offer to work as a
+servant, people would laugh at her white hands and delicate ways.
+
+The next day, before she departed, she thanked the woman, and said: “Now
+I will do something to amuse you and your children, for it is all the
+payment I can make.”
+
+And so saying, she began to dance.
+
+Never had anybody seen anything like her dancing; the village people
+thought she must be a fairy and were almost afraid to go near her. She
+gathered up her hair in both hands, whirling it round and round her like
+a scarf; her feet seemed scarcely to touch the ground. It was wonderful.
+Everyone came to look on.
+
+It so chanced that there passed by a fine chariot, in which sat a
+red-faced, crooked old lady, very grandly dressed; and when the dame
+beheld the crowd, she let down her window and shouted to her coachman to
+stop, that she might see the dancing. At the end of the performance she
+threw Laurine a purse.
+
+“Here, girl!” she cried, “that is for you if you will come with me. I am
+going to give a great feast to-morrow night, and want some new
+entertainment for my guests. Get in quickly, if you have a mind to come,
+for I can’t waste any more time here. The whole of the nobility are
+coming to the party, and I have a great deal to arrange.”
+
+Laurine picked up the purse, thankful for such luck, and they drove away
+to the nearest city.
+
+As soon as they got there, Laurine, who was determined to do her best,
+took some gold pieces from the purse and went out to see the merchants’
+wares. She bought the most beautiful dress that could be got for money,
+a girdle of jasmine, a long veil covered with spangles and a pair of
+golden shoes. Then she came back and practised all the steps she could
+think of, so as to be perfect in them by evening.
+
+The feast was gorgeous. Several Kings came to it, and even one aged
+Emperor, who was so much startled by the thunder of applause that he was
+carried out for dead. The dancing was the talk of the city from end to
+end, and the only dreadful part of it was that the lady who had given
+the entertainment grew jealous because no one talked of her and her
+hospitality, while every tongue was wagging about the lovely dancer.
+
+But Laurine cared very little; she knew that her fortune was made, and
+she determined to leave the place and travel about, dancing at the
+various towns through which she passed. When she had taken leave of the
+lady she set out.
+
+Wherever she went, crowds came to see her dance and criers went before
+her to tell people what a treat was in store for them. Her stepfather,
+hearing news of her success, sent a messenger after her, commanding her
+to return, for he wished to share in her grandeur; but she only laughed,
+and pursued her way.
+
+At last she drew near the capital city in which Swayn and the Goblin
+were imprisoned, and the whole place was in a shiver of excitement at
+her approach. When she got there a deputation waited on her, bringing
+all the town musicians with it, that she might chose the best among them
+to play for her dancing.
+
+One after another, she refused them all. There was not one she
+considered good enough to be of any use; and she grew quite impatient,
+saying she would depart next day without dancing at all unless something
+very much better could be found.
+
+“Madam,” said the Lord Mayor, “it is quite true we have nobody fit to
+accompany your ladyship, except a young man and a Goblin, who are,
+unfortunately, in prison; but if we could get the King to release them
+so that they could play for you, they could be put back into prison
+afterwards quite easily.”
+
+So the heads of the city appealed to the King, and as the King was
+extremely anxious to see Laurine, he made no difficulty about the
+matter.
+
+“Certainly, certainly,” said he; “you can release the Goblin and his
+nephew at once. We can always execute them if they are troublesome
+afterwards.”
+
+And so Swayn and his pretended uncle were taken out of prison and set to
+play in the courtyard of the house where Laurine lodged, that she might
+judge of their talents.
+
+“That will do beautifully,” said she. “I will dance at nine o’clock this
+evening.”
+
+But she did not think of looking out of the window.
+
+Nine o’clock came, and the crowd was assembled; and when she saw who the
+musicians were, she was almost too much annoyed and astonished to begin.
+But there sat the King with the Queen in her best robes, and all the
+lords of the kingdom, and she was not sure that they would not throw her
+into prison too were she to disappoint them. So she gave a sign to the
+Goblin to strike up, and, whirling her spangled veil, began to glide
+about like the shadows on a windy moonlit night.
+
+[Illustration: “WHIRLING HER SPANGLED VEIL, SHE BEGAN TO GLIDE ABOUT.”]
+
+By the time she had finished, the whole court was spellbound and she
+herself almost in tears from excitement, the Goblin had played so
+rapturously. Gold was showered upon her, flowers were thrown to her in
+basketfuls, and the King whipped off his crown, dug out the biggest ruby
+with his pocket-knife, and presented it to her himself.
+
+“Now then!” cried the head of the police to the Goblin, “back to prison
+with you! And tell that fierce-looking nephew of yours to go quietly, or
+it will be the worse for him!”
+
+“If you will come with me as my musician,” said Laurine, “I will beg the
+King on my knees to let you go. I have never danced to such playing in
+my life. Will you come?”
+
+“Not without Swayn,” said the Goblin.
+
+“But I hate the drum,” said Laurine.
+
+“Then he need not play it,” replied he.
+
+“And I don’t want _him_,” continued Laurine.
+
+“It is both or neither,” said the Goblin.
+
+“Oh, very well, then,” said she, turning away. “He can come as my
+servant.”
+
+So she went to the King the very next day, and the King, seeing an
+excellent chance of getting rid of the prisoners without the expenses of
+an execution, consented.
+
+So the Lord Mayor gave the Goblin back his fiddle, and the three set out
+on their travels together.
+
+“Uncle Sackbut tells me that you object to the drum,” said Swayn to
+Laurine, “so I’ll leave it behind, and I shall have all the more time to
+attend upon you.”
+
+Certainly he made a most valuable servant. He cleaned her little gold
+shoes, he robbed all the jasmine-bushes to make her girdles, and when
+anyone annoyed her, he looked so big and fierce that people were only
+too glad to get out of the way.
+
+They travelled about for a whole year, and Laurine was beginning to be
+tired of such a restless life. When they came to a grim-looking town
+built on a rushing river, she made up her mind to dance there for the
+last time; for the Goblin had begged her to return with him to his house
+in the wood, and she had promised to do so. Swayn was to come too, for
+there was no doubt that it was impossible to get on without him.
+
+“Patience,” said the Goblin to him, “and all will come right.”
+
+“Patience is a long word,” replied Swayn.
+
+As they approached the town gates a crowd of sour-looking men came out
+to meet them with fierce eyes and frowning faces.
+
+“You need not come here, thinking to bewitch us with light ways and
+mountebank tricks,” they said to Laurine. “We have heard about you, and
+we know that you are a witch!”
+
+“A witch! a witch!” they shouted.
+
+“Why,” cried someone in the crowd, “she has even got a Goblin for her
+musician!”
+
+Then they all began to cry “Witch! witch!” at the top of their voices,
+till she could hardly hear herself speak. And in a moment they had
+surrounded her and were dragging her away.
+
+Oh! how the poor Goblin stamped and raved! but, unfortunately, he was
+too small to hurt anyone much. Swayn began knocking down everybody he
+could reach, but there were so many that he was soon overpowered.
+
+“It is the witch we want! It is the witch we want!” cried the people.
+
+The crowd turned back to the town. Some seized Laurine by the wrists,
+and some by her long hair, and the rest held her companions while they
+hurried her through the city gates, leaving them outside. Then the doors
+were locked, and they lost sight of her.
+
+As Laurine was dragged along the streets, a very good idea came into her
+head. She was quite sure that, by hook or by crook, Swayn would try to
+rescue her, so she managed to pluck the flowers from her jasmine girdle,
+and to drop them behind her as she went, that he might see which way she
+had gone; and when there were no more left, she plucked off the leaves,
+and dropped them too. Just when the very last leaf was gone, they came
+to a little stone cell built by the parapet of the city wall, where it
+was low and overlooked the river. Into this dreadful place they thrust
+her, turning the key in the great lock, and calling to her that they
+would come in the morning to drown her in the water below. One man was
+left to stand outside and guard the door, and he tied the large key to
+his belt.
+
+It was quite dark in the cell, for only a little light could come in at
+a barred window, whose sill she could just reach by standing on tiptoe.
+Poor Laurine wept bitterly when she thought that she was going to be
+drowned next morning, and she cried all the more when she remembered how
+unkind she had been to Swayn, and how much he loved her. She wished she
+had not been so cruel. How often she had thrown her gold slippers at him
+and told him he had not made them shine enough, when he had spent hours
+rubbing and polishing them! How many times she had seen him sad and
+heavy with the weight of her scornful words! She was afraid that, even
+if he got into the town, the jasmine flowers would be so much trampled
+that he would not guess what they were. She took off her little gold
+shoes and put them up on the window-sill, just inside the bars. “If he
+passes he will see them,” she said. The man outside was so near the wall
+that the depth of the sill hid them from his sight.
+
+Swayn was only waiting till it was dark to get into the town. The river
+ran all round it, but he could swim well, and he had noticed a place
+where the wall was low and a beam stuck out which he thought he could
+reach with a leap. When the moon was up he left the Goblin in a thicket
+and plunged into the river, and, once across, he ran along under the
+walls till he came to the big beam. After one or two attempts he managed
+to spring up and clasp it with his hands, and then he swung himself up
+without much difficulty, and was soon standing on it, looking down into
+the moonlit streets of the city.
+
+Nobody was about. The ground was much higher on the inside, so he let
+himself down easily, but, as he had no notion where they had taken
+Laurine, he did not know which way to go. He met few people in the
+deserted streets, and as the whole of the crowd which had captured her
+was sitting planning how it should drown her on the morrow, no one had
+any idea who he was.
+
+He was almost in despair, when he noticed a jasmine flower lying at his
+feet; then he saw that there was another farther on, and yet another
+after that, and he knew that she had dropped them that he might trace
+her. He followed the track through several streets, and as he went he
+kept singing, that she might hear his voice if she were anywhere near.
+
+                “Laurine, Laurine, the jasmine white
+                Shines like a star in the darkest night,”
+
+he sang. He dared not call, for fear of disturbing the sleeping town.
+
+At last he came to where flowers and leaves stopped, near an open space
+by the town wall. Close to it was a little stone cell with a barred
+window and a door, in front of which lay a sleeping man, with a key tied
+to his belt. It was easy to see that no one could get in without
+awakening him.
+
+Swayn looked up to the window above the sleeper’s head, and saw the two
+little shoes placed together on the sill. He crept nearer, and sang
+again:
+
+                “Laurine, Laurine, the jasmine white
+                Shines like a star in the darkest night”;
+
+and in a moment he heard a voice inside the cell singing softly:
+
+              “Swayn, Swayn, nearer tread:
+              Love lives on when the stars are dead.”
+
+He came a little closer and sang:
+
+                “Laurine, Laurine, throw your veil:
+                Dead men’s lips can tell no tale.”
+
+Then the spangled veil was thrown through the window-bars, and he caught
+it as it fell.
+
+Stealthily he went up to the sleeper and cut the heavy key from his belt
+with his knife; then, as the man stirred, he thrust the veil into his
+mouth to stop his cries, and, seizing him in his strong arms, flung him
+over the low parapet into the river swirling below. In another moment he
+had unlocked the door of the cell and was embracing Laurine, while she
+asked his forgiveness for all her unkindness and promised to marry him
+if they managed to get out of the city alive.
+
+There was an old piece of tattered sacking lying in a corner of the
+prison, and she took off her rich dress and wrapped the horrible rag
+about her. They tucked away her long hair and tied a bandage over her
+face, so that she looked like some wretched beggar, and, when they had
+locked the door and pitched the key into the river, she set off down the
+silent streets, Swayn following a little way behind. They hid in a dark
+alley near the town gates, and waited till the hour should come to
+unlock them at dawn. The sentry on duty was not the same man who had
+closed them after Laurine on the preceding day, and he let the poor
+beggar go through with a jeer. As for Swayn, following at a little
+distance, he took no notice of him beyond bidding him a friendly
+good-morning. So the lovers were soon in the open country, pressing
+forward to the thicket where the Fiddling Goblin had promised to wait
+for his nephew’s return.
+
+You may be sure that they spared no haste in getting away. By the time
+the sun was high they had reached a village, where they procured horses.
+All the money that Laurine had made by her dancing was kept by the
+Goblin tied up in a bag with his fiddle; so they lacked no means of
+getting forward, and they turned their heads towards the country from
+which they had started.
+
+When they reached the wood they could have shouted for joy. As they came
+to the middle of it the Goblin stamped his heel, and all the candles of
+the horse-chestnut trees burst into a blaze of light, for they had been
+away a whole year, and it was the season of blossom again. Swayn and
+Laurine promised to live with their uncle Sackbut, and never to leave
+him any more.
+
+They were soon married, with great pomp and solemnity, the only drawback
+being that the Goblin could not make up his mind whether to be best man,
+or give away the bride, or play the wedding music on his fiddle. But the
+matter was happily settled by his doing all three.
+
+
+
+
+                           THE WITCH’S CLOAK
+
+
+Peter and Janet and the miller stood on the rising ground by the farm;
+the sound of the wheel came to them, and the whir of grinding. Before
+them lay the tidal marshes that stretched to the seaport town. It was
+the same town through whose streets the Water-Nix followed the pedlar
+when she left dry land for the last time to swim out and join the
+water-kelpies. It looked like a blue shadow-town now, cut sharp against
+sky and sea, with its tall steeple reflected in the wet sand.
+
+“I have often had it in my mind to tell you a strange story my
+grandmother heard about a man who lived in that place,” said the miller,
+pointing across the salt marsh.
+
+“Is it true?” asked Peter.
+
+“That’s more than I know,” replied his friend, “for I never asked my
+granny, and maybe if I had, she couldn’t have told me. If you like the
+story you can think it true, and if you don’t we’ll say it isn’t.”
+
+“Have you ever been in that town?” the miller asked Janet.
+
+“Never,” said she.
+
+“Well, just where you see the steeple rising and the glint of the sun on
+the weathercock is the High Street. It’s a wide road, with windows
+looking down on it from either side; and at the end, as you go to the
+docks, is an old house with carved gable-ends, and in a niche of its
+wall is the statue of a man.”
+
+“And is that the man the story is about?” inquired little Peter.
+
+“The same,” said the miller. “But, to tell you about him, I must begin
+somewhere very far away from the place where the old statue stands.”
+
+“How far?” asked inquisitive Peter.
+
+“I don’t know,” answered the miller, “because nobody I’ve ever seen has
+been there.
+
+    “Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a Princess who had
+    five handsome elder sisters.”
+
+“But I thought you were going to tell about the man!” cried Peter.
+
+“If you listen hard enough, you’ll hear the grass grow,” said the
+miller, “and if you listen long enough, you’ll hear about the man.”
+
+Once upon a time, as I said before, there was a Princess who had five
+elder sisters, the most beautiful ladies ever seen; and their father
+thought a deal of them, but not much of the youngest, who was small and
+not nearly so pretty. But she was very nice, all the same, and the thing
+she loved best was to go hunting after flowers. Nobody cared what she
+did or where she went, and she spent all her days wandering in woods and
+valleys looking for her plants. There was little she did not know about
+them, and if she had not been a Princess, with no need to work, she
+might have made her fortune by writing books about them and their
+histories. One day as she roamed about she came to a place she had never
+seen before—a little valley full of great trees, with a winding stream
+rushing through it like a silver thread. Beside the water grew a clump
+of the most lovely yellow irises.
+
+She liked the spot so much that she returned to it every day; and she
+would sit for hours at a time beside the iris-bed, with her elbows on
+her knees, dreaming about wonderful foreign plants she had never seen
+and the strange descriptions of them she had read in books.
+
+Farther up the valley, beyond the trees, could be seen the roofs of a
+castle which stood on towering rocks. She did not know who it belonged
+to, so one day, as she sat by the water, she said aloud: “I wonder who
+lives there?”
+
+“The witch, the witch!” sang the iris-flowers behind her. The sound went
+through them like a sigh.
+
+She started and turned round, but there was no one to be seen; and again
+as she looked the flowers repeated: “The witch, the witch!”
+
+Then she asked them many more questions, but nothing would they say.
+Perhaps it was all they knew, or perhaps what she took for words was
+only the rustling of the long stiff leaves one against the other. But
+that’s as may be. In any case, it roused her curiosity so much that she
+rose and went off towards the castle. She had no sooner got among the
+trees than by came the witch herself.
+
+[Illustration: “‘WHO ARE YOU?’ INQUIRED THE OLD WOMAN.”]
+
+“Who are you?” inquired the old woman.
+
+The Princess explained, and politely asked to be forgiven for
+trespassing.
+
+“Pray don’t apologize,” said the witch, “and do me the favour to give me
+your arm as far as my castle. I have, as you see, no staff, and I am not
+so young as I was.”
+
+The Princess agreed willingly, and they walked on together. The old
+woman was wrapped in a trailing black cloak, and her hair hung over her
+eyes, like the hair of all other witches. She seemed rather a pleasant
+body, though her nose and chin were certainly a little too near
+together. When they had climbed as far as the castle gate, she invited
+her companion to come in and rest, and the Princess, who feared nobody,
+followed her. They sat down together at a window overlooking the valley;
+from it she could see the winding water and the clump of irises.
+
+“It is the most fortunate thing in the world that I met you,” began the
+old woman, “for I am much in need of advice from somebody. My difficulty
+is this: I have grown very tired of being a witch, and I wish to leave
+my profession and become like other people. I am learning, as you have
+noticed, to do without my crooked staff. Last week I sold my broomstick
+and bought a very pretty little brown horse instead, and I have given my
+black cat to a friend. My appearance is still not quite what I could
+wish, and I really do not know what kind of clothes to get, nor how to
+arrange my hair. Other witches can tell me nothing, for they know as
+little as I do, but your advice would be the greatest help to me.”
+
+“I shall be very pleased to do anything I can,” said the Princess.
+
+“If you will consent to stay with me for a few days till my wardrobe is
+complete, I shall be more obliged than I can say,” continued the old
+woman. “Use my house as your own, and everything in it.”
+
+And so it was all arranged in five minutes.
+
+The Princess was uncommonly useful. She brushed the witch’s hair and
+pinned it up tidily, and made her a fine lace head-dress, which gave her
+a dignified air. She sent to the nearest town for silks and brocades and
+buckled shoes, and, instead of the crooked staff that her friend missed
+so much, she bought her a handsome stick with an amber head.
+
+The witch was delighted, for she looked both refined and venerable as
+she stood before her glass.
+
+“Here!” she exclaimed, taking up her old black cloak, which lay on the
+floor, “this must be thrown away.”
+
+She was just going to cast it upon the fire when the Princess stopped
+her.
+
+“Oh no, no!” she cried, snatching it from her, “don’t destroy it. Pray,
+pray give it to me!”
+
+“What for?” exclaimed the witch. “A Princess in a witch’s cloak? A
+pretty idea, indeed!”
+
+But the Princess clung to it.
+
+“Surely you will not refuse me,” she said, “since you do not want it any
+more! How often have I heard you say that you could fly wherever you
+liked in it? Think what it would be for me if I were able to go off in
+it to foreign countries, and see all the wonderful plants I have heard
+so much about! Only give it to me and I will be your debtor for life.”
+
+“Well, after all, why not?” said the witch. “One good turn certainly
+deserves another. Keep it, my dear. If you put it on, and hold out your
+arms like wings on either side, it will take you up into the sky, and
+you can sail along like a ship. When you wish to descend, just fold your
+arms and you will come down to earth quite gently.”
+
+The Princess took her treasure and locked it up in her own chamber, for
+fear the witch should change her mind. The next day she bade her
+farewell, and, throwing on the cloak, spread out her arms. Up she went,
+easily and gently, and when she had decided where she should go, she
+turned her face southwards and was soon far, far away, a little speck
+among the clouds. The witch looked after her till she could see her no
+more.
+
+She was now in the seventh heaven of joy. She went to every country she
+had ever heard about. She saw the sea-pinks and water-asters of lonely
+islands known only to screaming gulls; she stood in forests where
+creepers were thrown like veils over the branches and the air was heavy
+with the scent of fringed and spotted orchids, purple and mauve and
+cream-yellow. She wandered beside lakes, walled in by solemn trees that
+hid the sun and strewn with red and white lilies; she saw the groves of
+cherry-blossom that hang on the steep gorges of blue hills far away, and
+the giant palms and scarlet flowers of the South. At last, after many
+months of wandering, she flew northward and up the coast of the North
+Sea till she was right over the town before us.
+
+It was midnight as she stood, wrapped in her black cloak, on the topmost
+point of the steeple. The folds fluttered and crackled, as you may hear
+a flag flutter and crackle if you stand by a flagstaff on a tower; but
+no one noticed it or saw her, for everyone but the watchman was in bed,
+and _he_ was asleep too, though he was paid to be awake. In the bright
+moonlight she sailed down to the empty pavement of the High Street,
+among the dark shadows of the gable-ends. It was winter now and the
+frost was iron-hard over the whole country. She went quickly through the
+streets, for she did not care for towns, determining that when the sun
+rose next day she would be well on her way back to the witch’s castle in
+the valley. But she was rather tired and wanted a few hours of sleep
+first. She left the town and flew up this very road and past the
+mill—so I have heard—till she came to an old deserted cottage that
+once stood not far from here by the wayside. (There were still a few
+stones of it left when I was a child, and I used to pass it on my way to
+school.) The nettle-stalks were all frozen round it as she pushed
+through the broken door, meaning to lie down and sleep in shelter till
+morning. She had nothing to fear from the cold, for among the cloak’s
+other useful qualities was the power of keeping the person inside it
+perfectly warm. She was exceedingly surprised to see by the moonlight
+that someone else was in the miserable hovel.
+
+A little starving boy was lying on a pile of straw in the corner. His
+poor face was thin and blue with cold, and he had crept into the hut
+because it was the only refuge he could find. He had walked all day,
+begging from door to door, for he had neither home nor friends nor food,
+and was worn out with fatigue and hunger. He lay, scarcely knowing where
+he was, for his wits were beginning to go, and when the Princess came in
+he was very near death. Strange dreams were in his brain. The moon
+struck brilliantly on a little window in the wall and the bitter cold
+had covered it with wonderful frost-flowers. It was the last thing he
+had seen before he closed his eyes, and he seemed to himself to be
+looking deep into a white forest that had grown up from the panes. Oh,
+how freezing it was! The forest was all made of frozen ferns and seaweed
+and feathers, like the white images on the glass. It stretched far, far
+away in alleys of fantastic sparkling fronds and glittering branches.
+How thick the strange, beautiful things grew! He had been once told
+that, if he was a good boy, when he died a white angel would come and
+take him to a place where he would never be sad or hungry any more. He
+was not sure that he did not see someone coming to him between the stems
+of the frozen forest. Perhaps it was the white angel.
+
+He tried to sit up, but he was too weak. Poor little man, he had just
+enough life left in him to see that what he had taken for an angel was a
+woman in a black cloak.
+
+The Princess went to him and bent over him. Then she took him up under
+the warm folds, bound him to her breast with her girdle, and hurried out
+of the hut. She spread out her arms, and, sailing with him into the
+wintry sky, flew over land and sea till she arrived at the witch’s
+castle.
+
+The witch was overjoyed to see her come back, for she had been away half
+a year. They took the little boy and put him in a warm bed, in which he
+lay for many long days. But he was fed with the best of food, and such
+care was taken of him that when he got well he was able to run about and
+play in the valley and be happy from morning till night. They were so
+good to him that he soon forgot he had ever had any troubles at all.
+
+The witch and the Princess got on so well together that they determined
+not to part, and they had plenty to do, looking after their charge and
+teaching him all the things he should know—how to read and write and
+say his prayers, and how to answer nicely when he was spoken to. When
+the Princess went, as she did every year, to find new flowers in foreign
+lands, he went with her, and helped her to carry back roots and seeds,
+which they planted in the valley; for the cloak was so large that, even
+when he grew bigger, there was room in it for them both. She taught him
+all her own knowledge, and as time went by and he grew up to be a man,
+he became even more learned than herself. He was very clever and so
+hardy and strong that nobody would have believed him to be the little
+wretched child who had lain starving in the hovel.
+
+At last the time came when he was ready to go out into the world to seek
+his fortune. The parting gift that the Princess gave him was the black
+cloak. He was to have it on condition that he would come back once every
+year to go to some foreign land with her, and to visit the witch. He was
+given a small sum of money to start life with; and, as he was anxious to
+see the country of his birth and the hut in which he had been found, he
+wrapped himself in the cloak and came down, as the Princess had done, at
+midnight into the town across the marsh.
+
+He was a fine, sensible fellow. Though he had lived in a castle, and
+perhaps because he had been brought up by a real Princess, he had no
+silly notions and was ready for any work he could find. He hired a
+modest lodging, and, going to the director of a large public garden that
+had been made in the town, he asked to be employed as a gardener. There
+was only one place vacant, and that was the very lowest, but he took it
+eagerly. His work was to wheel barrows, and sweep leaves, and cut grass,
+but he did it as carefully and put as much heart into it as if he was
+raising priceless flowers; for the Princess had brought him up strictly,
+and made him understand that honest work can only be made mean by the
+meanness of the person who does it.
+
+Every year, when he had a few weeks’ holiday, he returned to the witch’s
+castle. No one saw him go, and no one saw him come back, and nobody knew
+how he managed to get the marvellous plants that he brought back with
+him. Very soon he was no longer an under-gardener, but the head of all,
+and by the time he was turning grey he had become the greatest botanist
+and teacher in the country. Learned men came from all parts of the
+kingdom to talk with him in his house with the carved gable-ends in the
+High Street of yonder town.
+
+Time went by, and his fame spread all over the world. He grew old and
+his hair turned white, but still he went about wrapped in the black
+cloak, from which he never parted. His white beard flowed over his
+breast as he sat and wrote the books which helped to make him famous, or
+walked over the country, comparing plants and teaching his pupils out of
+his stores of wisdom. But at last he grew too infirm to walk long
+distances, and strangers coming to the town would look with awe upon his
+venerable figure as he passed through the streets. Everyone loved him,
+rich and poor alike.
+
+And so it came to be that a great banquet was given in his honour, and
+the learned from all countries met together.
+
+It was the middle of summer, and the hall in which it took place was
+decorated with flowers. A laurel-wreath hung over the chair in which he
+was to sit, costly fruits were brought from far-away lands, and the hall
+was filled with the glory of blossoming plants, many of which he had
+carried home with him as tiny seeds from his journeys. Wise men were
+there and beautiful ladies, students and great personages. All had come
+to see him and to hear him speak. The town was thronged—you would think
+there was no room in it for so much as one additional person.
+
+When the feast was over he rose and began his speech, and silence fell
+upon everyone. Though he was frail and old, his voice was clear as he
+told them of the countries he had wandered in—the distant islands, the
+tropics, the golden East. No one imagined he had been so far afield, and
+his listeners wondered how he had contrived to make such voyages, for
+they knew that he was not rich and lived very simply in the old house at
+the end of the street. But everybody was enthralled; his life of work,
+his modesty, his great age and wisdom adorned him, in the eyes of his
+pupils and the assembled guests, like the jewels of a crown.
+
+When the long speech was over he sat down, leaning back in his chair
+under the laurel-wreath, for the effort he had made was great. The
+guests remained respectfully in their places; they saw that he was weary
+and would need rest before he could listen to their congratulations. For
+a moment he closed his eyes, and when he opened them, a wonderful change
+seemed to have come over the scene before him.
+
+The green boughs that filled the hall and the vases of flowers on the
+long tables were changing before his failing sight. Instead of the tall
+sheaves of roses a white forest was rising up, deep and pure, a forest
+that he had seen before. On either side the frost-flowers hung
+sparkling, their snow-crystals thick in the maze of white feathers and
+seaweed and ferns. The sprays and branches crowded on him in their
+dazzling myriads, dense and high, and far down the white vista into
+which he looked a figure was coming—a white figure. It was the angel.
+
+He rose and grasped an outstretched hand.
+
+“He is gone,” said the guests. “The exertion has been too much for him.”
+And his pupils and friends came round him, the tears standing in their
+eyes.
+
+At that moment a gust of wind ran through the open doors of the hall,
+and the black cloak, which its owner had laid on a window-sill before he
+sat down at the table, was blown from it and flew out into the air. No
+one saw it go, but it rose on the sudden wind and sailed upwards, above
+the town, above the steeple, and disappeared like a dark cloud into the
+distant spaces of sky.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+“Some day,” said the miller to little Peter, “I’ll take you to the town
+in my cart and show you the statue of that man in the wall of the old
+house.”
+
+“And you’ll let me hold the end of the reins and the whip, and drive
+too, won’t you?” shouted the little boy.
+
+“Well, perhaps I will,” laughed the miller, “only Janet must come too,
+to keep you in order.”
+
+
+
+
+                               CONCLUSION
+
+
+It was not long after this that the miller kept his promise. The horse
+was harnessed and away they drove to the town. He and Janet sat
+together, with Peter between them; the little boy held the end of the
+reins in one hand and the whip in the other, shouting and flourishing
+the lash about and thinking that coachmen were even better people than
+millers. Janet was happy too. She sat smiling and holding the tail of
+his coat, for fear he should overbalance himself and fall out into the
+road.
+
+They left the cart at an inn, and went to see the house with its statue
+in the niche of the wall and carved gable-ends turned towards the
+street. It was now inhabited by poor families, whose washing flapped
+from the upper story like a row of banners over the head of the stone
+image. They stood on the pavement of the High Street and looked up to
+the giddy point of the steeple, where the weathercock twirled, more than
+a hundred feet in the air; they wondered at the quaint houses, with
+their outside staircases and their little wooden triangles of drying
+haddocks nailed against the wall. Then they strolled to the docks and
+stood at the place from which the lovely Nix had dived into the salt
+water. The tide lapped and gurgled against the quays, and the wind sang
+in the rigging of the ships alongside, and the fair-haired sailors
+talked in a foreign tongue, shouting to the fishwives who passed in
+their blue petticoats and amber necklaces along the cobbled roadway. The
+lighthouse stood on the promontory and the North Sea rolled and heaved
+outside the bar. It was a delightful holiday.
+
+When they were tired of that they went out towards the seashore. The
+gulls were wheeling over the bents and sea-grass, and the sands lay
+smooth and fine to the edge of the waves. Little Peter rushed off to
+play, leaping about and throwing stones and gathering shells, while his
+companions sat upon the sand-dunes watching him.
+
+“Janet,” said the miller, “I hear that your grandmother is going to
+leave the cottage by the pond and go away to some other place. Is that
+true, do you think?”
+
+“I’m afraid so,” replied she.
+
+“And you will go too?”
+
+“Oh yes,” said Janet; “we have no other home.”
+
+“But little Peter will miss his stories.”
+
+Janet sighed. “Indeed he will,” she answered, sadly. “There is not much
+else we have in the way of pleasure.”
+
+“But I can’t let you go,” the miller went on, “and what’s more, I won’t.
+Janet, if you’ll marry me and come and live with me at the mill-house,
+I’ll see that you are happy for the rest of your life. Do you think you
+could like me enough for that?”
+
+“But I can’t leave Peter,” she exclaimed; “I could never be happy to
+think of him all alone, and perhaps being cruelly used.”
+
+“But suppose he came too?—there’s plenty of room for him. Will you say
+yes, Janet, or shall we ask him to settle it for us?” said the miller.
+“Will you promise to marry me if he says yes?”
+
+“I will,” said she.
+
+And so they drove home together when the sun was getting low.
+
+“Peter,” said the miller, “don’t you think it would be a good plan if I
+married Janet, and you were to come and live with me and learn to be a
+miller too? You should have cake for tea every other day, and a pair of
+fine blue trousers, and a whipping-top of your own, and a kite, and I’d
+tell you a new story every Sunday afternoon.”
+
+Peter’s eyes grew round.
+
+“And should I be all white with flour like your man?”
+
+“From head to foot,” said the miller.
+
+“Hooray! hooray! hooray!” shrieked little Peter, jumping about in the
+cart.
+
+“Take care, take care,” cried Janet, “or you will make the horse run
+away.”
+
+“That settles it,” observed the miller. “We’ll be married next week.”
+
+And so they were.
+
+             BILLING AND SONS, LIMITED, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD
+
+
+
+
+                           TRANSCRIBER NOTES
+
+Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple
+spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
+
+Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors
+occur.
+
+Illustrations have been relocated due to using a non-page layout.
+
+[The end of _Stories Told by the Miller_ by Violet Jacob]
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75166 ***