The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Field of Clover, by Laurence Housman

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Title: The Field of Clover
Author: Laurence Housman
Illustrator: Clemence Housman
Release Date: July 19, 2006 [EBook #18872]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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The Field of Clover
By Laurence Housman.
ENGRAVED BY
CLEMENCE HOUSMAN
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MERCURY GOD OF MERCHANDISE LOOK ON WITH FAVOURABLE EYES
BE KINDLY TO THE WEARY DROVER & PIPE THE SHEEP INTO THE
CLOVER
This Dover edition, rst published in 1968, is an unabridged and unaltered
republication of the work originally published by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trbner &
Co. in 1898.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 68-30802
Manufactured in the United States of America Dover Publications, Inc. 180 Varick
Street New York, N. Y. 10014
Contents
THE BOUND PRINCESS (in six parts) PAGE
I THE FIRE-EATERS 3
II THE GALLOPING PLOUGH 13
III THE THIRSTY WELL 23
IV THE PRINCESS MELILOT 33
V THE BURNING ROSE 45
VI THE CAMPHOR WORM 57
THE CROWN'S WARRANTY 69
THE WISHING-POT 81
THE FEEDING OF THE EMIGRANTS 111
THE PASSIONATE PUPPETS 119
TO MY DEAR WOOD-ENGRAVER
THE BOUND PRINCESS
THE BOUND PRINCESS
I
THE FIRE-EATERS
long time ago there lived a man who had the biggest head in the world.
Into it he had crammed all the knowledge that might be gathered from
the four corners of the earth. Every one said he was the wisest man living.
If I could only nd a wife, said the sage, as wise for a woman as I am for a man,
what a race of head-pieces we could bring into the world!
He waited many years before any such mate could be found for him: yet, at last,
found she wasone into whose head was bestowed all the wisdom that might be
gathered from the four quarters of heaven.
They were both old, but kings came from all sides to their wedding, and oered
themselves as god-parents to the rst-born of the new race that was to be. But, to
the grief of his parents, the child, when he arrived, proved to be a simpleton; and
no second child ever came to repair the mistake of the rst.
That he was a simpleton was evident; his head was small and his limbs were large,
and he could run long before he could talk or do arithmetic. In the bierness of
their hearts his father and mother named him Noodle, without the aid of any royal
god-parents; and from that moment, for any care they took in his bringing-up, they
washed their wise hands of him.
Noodle grew and prospered, and enjoyed life in his own foolish way. When his
father and mother died within a short time of each other, they le him alone
without any friend in the world.
For a good while Noodle lived on just what he could nd in the house, in a
hand-to-mouth sort of way, till at last only the furniture and the four bare walls
were le to him.
One cold winters night he sat brooding over the re, wondering where he should
get food for the morrow, when he heard feet coming up to the door, and a knock
striking low down upon the panel. Outside there was a faint chirping and crackling
sound, and a whispering as of re licking against the woodwork without.
He opened the door and peered forth into the night. There, just before him, stood
seven lile men huddled up together; three feet high they were, with bright yellow
faces all shrivelled and sharp, and eyes whose light leaped and sank like candle
ame before a gust.
When they saw him, they shut their eyes and opened famished mouths at him,
pointing inwards with ickering nger-tips, and shivering from head to foot with
cold, although it seemed to the youth as if the warmth of a slow re came from
them. Alas! said Noodle, in reply to these signs of hunger, I have not le even a
crust of bread in the house to give you! But at least come in and make yourselves
warm! He touched the foremost, making signs for them all to enter. Ah, he cried,
what is this, and what are you, that the mere touch of you burns my nger?
Without answer they huddled tremblingly across the threshold; but so soon as they
saw the re burning on the hearth, they yelped all together like a pack of hounds,
and, throwing themselves face forwards into the hot embers, began ravenously to
lap up the ames. They lapped and lapped, and the more they lapped the more
the re sank away and died. Then with their ickering nger-tips they stirred the
hot logs and coals, burrowing aer the thin tapes and swirls of vanishing ame,
and fetching them out like small blue eels still wriggling for escape.
Aer each blue wisp had been gulped down, they sipped and sucked at their
ngers for any least tricklet of avour that might be le; and at the last seemed
more famished than when they began.
More, more, O wise Noodle, give us more! they cried; and Noodle threw the last
of his fuel on the embers.
They breathed round it, fanning it into a great blaze that leaped and danced up to
the raers; then they fell on, till not a eck or a ake of it was le. Noodle, seeing
them still famished, broke up a stool and threw that on the hearth. And again they
ared it with their breath and gobbled o the ame. When the stool was nished
he threw in the table, then the dresser, and aer that the oak-chest and the
window-seat.
Still they feasted and were not fed. Noodle fetched an axe, and broke down the
door; then he wrenched up the boards from the oor, and pulled the beams and
raers out of the ceiling; yet, even so, his guests were not to be satised.
I have nothing le, he said, but the house itself; but since you are still hungry you
shall be welcome to it!
He scaered the re that remained upon the hearth, and threw it out and about
the room; and as he ran forth to escape, up against all the walls and right through
the roof rose a great crackling sheaf of ame. In the midst of the re, Noodle could
see his seven guests lying along on their bellies, slopping their hands in the heat,
and lapping up the ames with their tongues. Surely, he thought, I have given
them enough to eat at last!
Aer a while all the re was eaten away, and only the black and smouldering ruins
were le. Day came coldly to light, and there sat Noodle, without a home in the
world, watching with considerate eye his seven guests nishing their inordinate
repast.
They all rose to their feet together, and came towards him bowing; as they
approached he felt the heat of their bodies as it had been seven furnaces.
Enough, O wise Noodle! said they, we have had enough! That, answered
Noodle, is the least thing le me to wonder at. Go your ways in peace; but rst tell
me, who are you? They replied, We are the Fire-eaters: far from our own land, and
strangers, you have done us this service; what, now, can we do to serve you? Put
me in the way of a living, said Noodle, and you will do me the greatest service of
all.
Then the one of them who seemed to be chief took from his nger a ring having for
its centre a great restone, and threw it into the snow, saying, Wait for three hours
till the ring shall have had time to cool, then take it, and wear it; and whatever
fortune you deserve it shall bring you. For this ring is the sweetener of everything
that it touches: bread it turns into rich meats, water into strong wine, grief into
virtue, and labour into strength. Also, if you ever need our help, you have but to
brandish the ring, and the gleam of it will reach us, and we will be with you
wherever you may be.
With that they bowed their top-knots to the ground and departed, inverting
themselves swily till only the shining print of seven pairs of feet remained,
red-hot, over the place where they had been standing.
Noodle waited for three hours; then he took up the restone ring, and puing it on
his nger set out into the world.
At the rst door he came to, he begged a crust of bread, and touching it with the
ring found it tasted like rich meats, well cooked and delicately avoured. Also, the
water which he drew in the hollow of his hand from a brook by the roadside tasted
to him like strong wine.
II
THE GALLOPING PLOUGH
oodle went on many miles till he came near to a rich mans farm. Though
it was the middle of winter, all the elds showed crops of corn in
progress; here it was in thin blade, and here green, but in full ear; and
here it was ripe and ready for harvest. How is this, he said to the rst man he met,
that you have corn here in the middle of winter? Ah! said the man, you have not
heard of the Galloping Plough; you too have to fall under bondage to my master.
What is your master? inquired Noodle, and in what bondage does he bind man?
My master, and your master that shall soon be, answered the old man, is the
owner of all this land and the farmer of it. He is rich and sleek and fat like his own
furrows, for he has the Galloping Plough as his possession. Ah, that! t is a very
miracle, a wonder, a thing to catch at the heartstrings of all beholders; it shines like
a moonbeam, and is beer than an Arab mare for swiness; it warms the very
ground that it enters, so that seeds take root and spring, though it be the middle of
winter. No man sees it but what he loses his heart to it, and sells his freedom for
the possession of it. All here are men like myself who have become slaves because
of that desire. You also, when you see it, will become slave to it.
Noodle went on through the summer and the spring corn, till he came to bare
elds. Ahead of him on a hill-top he saw the farmer himself, sleek and rosy, and of
full paunch, lolling like a lord at his ease; yet with a working eye in the midst of his
leisure.
To and fro, up to him and back, shot a silver gleam over the purple brown of the
elds; and Noodles heart gave a thump at the sight, for the spell of the Galloping
Plough was on him.
Now and then he heard a clear sound that startled him with its note. It was like the
sweet whistling cry of a bird many times multiplied. Ever when the silver gleam of
the Plough had run its farthest from the farmer, the cry sounded; and at the sound
the gleam wavered and stayed and ew back dartingly to the farmers side. So
Noodle understood how this was the farmers signal for the Plough to return; and
the Plough knew it as a horse its masters voice, and came so fast that the wind
whistled against its silver side.
As he watched, Noodles heart went down into the valley and up the hillside,
following in the track of the Galloping Plough. I can never be happy again,
thought he; either I must possess it, or must die.
He came to the farmer where he sat calling his Plough to him and leing it go; and
the farmer smiled, the wide indulgent smile of a man who knows that a bargain is
about to fall his way.
What is the price, asked Noodle, of yonder Galloping Plough, that runs like an
Arab mare, and returns to you at your call?
Said the farmer, A years service; and if the Plough will follow you, it is yours; if
not, then you must be my bondman until you die!
Noodle looked once the way of the Galloping Plough, and his heart apped at his
side like a sail which the wind drops and lets go; and he had no thought or will le
in him but to be where the Galloping Plough was. So he closed hands on the
bargain, to be the farmers servant either for a year, or for his whole life.
For a year he worked upon the farm, and all the while ploed how he might win
the Galloping Plough to himself. The farmer kept no watch upon it, nor put it
under lock and key, for the Plough recognised no voice but his own, nor went nor
came save at his bidding. In the night Noodle would go down to the shed or eld
where it lay, and whistle to it, trying to put forth notes of the same magical power
as those which came through the farmers lips.
But no sound that came from his lips ever stroked life into its silver sides. The year
was nearly run out, and Noodle was in despair.
Then he remembered the restone ring, the Sweetener. May be, said he, since it
changes to sweetness whatever I eat and drink, it will sweeten my voice also, so
that the Plough will obey. So he put the ring between his lips and whistled; and at
the sound his heart turned a somersault for joy, for he felt that out of his mouth the
farmers magic had been over-topped and conquered.
The Galloping Plough stirred faintly from the furrow where it lay, breaking the
ground and marring its smooth course. Then it shook its head slowly, and returned
impassively to rest.
In the morning the farmer came and saw the broken earth close under the Ploughs
nose. Noodle, hiding among the corn hard by, heard him say, What hast thou
heard in the night, O my moonbeam, my miracle, that thy lily-foot has trodden up
the ground? Hast thou forgoen whose hand feeds thee, whose corn it is thou
lovest, whose hearts care also cherishes thee?
The farmer went away, and presently came back bearing a bowl of corn; and
Noodle saw the Plough li its head to its masters palm, and feed like a horse on
the grain.
Then Noodle, gay of heart, waited till it was night, and surely his time was short,
for on the morrow his wages were to be paid, and the Plough was to be his, or else
he was to be the farmers bondservant for the rest of his life. He took with him
three handfuls of corn, and went down to where the Plough stood waiting by the
furrow. Shaping his lips to the ring, he whistled gently like a lover, and immediately
the Plough stirred, and lied up its head as if to look at him.
O my moonbeam, my miracle, whispered Noodle, wilt thou not come to the one
that feeds thee? and he held out a handful of corn. But the Plough gave no regard
to him or his grain: slowly it moved away from him back into the furrow.
Then Noodle laughed soly and dropped his ring, the Sweetener, into the hand
that held the grain; and barely had he oered the corn before he felt the silver
Plough nozzling at his palm, and eating as a horse eats from the hand of its master.
Then he whistled again, placing the Sweetener back between his lips; and the
Galloping Plough sprang aer him, and followed at his heels like a dog.
So, nding himself its master, he bid it stay for the night; and in the morning he
said to the farmer, Give me my wages, and let me go! And the farmer laughed,
saying, Take your wages, and go!
Then Noodle took o his ring, the Sweetener, and laid it between his lips and blew
through it; and up like a moonbeam, and like an Arab mare, sprang the Galloping
Plough at his call. So he leaped upon its back, crying, Carry me away out of this
land, O thou moonbeam, and miracle of beauty, and never slacken nor stay except
I bid thee!
Vainly the farmer, borne down on a torrent of rage and amazement, whistled his
best, and threw corn and rice from the rear; for the whistling of Noodle was
sweeter to the ear, and his corn sweeter to the taste, and he nearer to the heart of
the Galloping Plough than was the old master whom it le behind.
III
THE THIRSTY WELL
o they escaped, sliing the swi hours with ungovernable speed. The
furrow they two made in the world that day, as they went shooting over
the round of it, was called in aer times the Equator, and men still know it
by the heat of it, though it has since been covered over by the dust of ages.
To Noodle, as he went careering round it, the whole worlds circuit ran in a line
across his brain, entering his vision and passing through it as a thread through the
needles eye. Nor would he of his own will ever have stopped his galloping, but
that at the completion of the rst round a mighty thirst took hold of him. O my
moonbeam, he said, choking behind parched lips, and sick at heart, check me, or I
faint! And the Galloping Plough stopped at once, and set him to earth in a green
space under the shadow of overhanging boughs.
He found himself in a richly grown garden, a cool paradise for a traveller to rest in.
Close at hand and inviting to the eye was a well with a bucket slung ready to be let
down. Noodle had lile thought of seeking for the owner of the garden to beg for a
drink, since water is an equal gi to all and the right of any man; but as he drew
near he found the means to it withheld from him, the lid being fast locked. He
went on in search of the owner, till at length he came upon the same lying half
asleep under a thorn-bush with the key in her hand. She was an old woman, so
withered and dry, she looked as if no water could have ever passed her lips.
When Noodle asked for a drink from the well, she looked at him bright and sharp,
and said: Before any man drinks of my water he must make a bargain with me.
What is the bargain? asked Noodle; and she led him down to the well.
Then she unlocked the lid and bade him look in; and at the sight Noodle knew for
a second time that his heart had been stolen from him, and that to be happy he
must taste that water or die.
Again he asked, with his eyes intent upon the blue wrimpling of the water in the
wells depth, What is the bargain? And the old woman answered, If you fail to
draw water out of the well you must ing yourself into it. For answer Noodle
swung down the bucket, lowering it as fast as it would go; then he set both hands
to the windlass and wound.
He heard the water splashing o the sides of the bucket all the way up, as the
shortening rope brought it near; but when he drew it over the wells brink wonder
and grief held him fast, for the bucket was as empty as vanity. From behind him
came a noise of laughter, and there was the old witch running round and round in
a circle; and everywhere a hedge of thorns came shooting up to enclose him and
keep him fast for her.
What a trap I am in! thought Noodle; but once more he lowered the bucket, and
once more it returned to him empty.
The old woman climbed up into the thorn-hedge, and sat on its top, singing:
Overground, underground, round-about spell;
The Thirsty has come to the Thirsty Well!
Again Noodle let down the bucket; and this time as he drew it up he looked over
into the wells heart, and saw all the way up the side a hundred blue arms reaching
out crystal scallops and drawing water out of the bucket as hard as they could go.
He saw thick lips like sea-anemones thrust out between the crevices of the wall,
sucking the crystals dry as fast as they were lled. Truly, he said to himself, this is
a thirsty well, but myself am thirstier!
When he had drawn up the bucket empty for the third time, he stood considering;
and at last he fastened to it the restone ring, the Sweetener, and lowered it once
more. Then he laughed to himself as he drew up, and felt the bucket lightening at
every turn till it touched the surface of things.
Empty he found it, with only his restone hanging by the rim, and once again he
let it down to be relled. But this time as he wound up, nothing could keep him
from leing a curious eye go over the brink, to see how the Well-folk fared over
their wine; and in what he beheld there was already comfort for his soul.
The blue arms went like oars out of unison; like carpet-beaters stricken in the eyes
and throat with dust, they beat foolishly against the sides and boom of the
bucket, shaering and leing fall their goblets in each unruly aempt. And because
Noodle wound leniently at the rope, willing that they should have their ll, at the
last gasp they were able to send the bucket empty to the top. It was the last staving
o of destiny that lay in their power to make; thereaer wine conquered them.
Quickly Noodle drew out the ring, and sent the bucket ying on its last errand. It
smacked the water, heeled over, and dipped under a full draught. Then Noodle
spun the windlass with the full pinch of his energies, calling on the bucket to
ascend. He heard the water spilling from its sides, and knew that the blue arms
were there, baling to arrest it as it ew, and to pay him back once more with
emptiness and mockery. Yet in spite of them the bucket hasted and lightened not,
but was drawn up to the wells head brimming largely, and winking a blue eye
joyously to the light of day.
Over head and ears Noodle plunged for the quenching of his thirst, nor stayed nor
drew back till his head had smien upon the boom of the bucket in his pursuit of
the draught. Then it was apparent that only a third of the water remained, the rest
having obeyed the imperative suction of his throat, and that the thirsty well had at
last found a master under the eye of heaven.
In the depth of the bucket the water ashed like a burning sapphire and swung
circling, curling and coiling, tossing this way and that, as if struggling to get out. At
last with a laugh it threw down the bucket, and tore back into the well with a crash
like thunder.
Up from the well rose a chant of voices:
Under Heaven, over Hell,
You have broken the spell,
You are lord of the Well.
Noodle stepped over the brink of his new realm, calling the Well-folk to reach
hands for him and bear him down. All round, the blue arms started out, catching
him and handing him on from one to another ladderwise, down, and down, and
down. As he went, anemone lips came out of the crannies in the wall, and kissed
his feet and hands in token of allegiance. You are lord of the well! they said, as
they passed him each one to the next.
He came to the boom of the well; under his feet, wherever he stepped upon its
waters, hands came up and sustained him. The knowledge of everything that was
there had become his. Give me, he said, the crystal cup that is for him who holds
kingship over you; so shall I be lord of you in all places wherever I go.
A blue arm reached down and drew up from the water a small crystal, that burned
through the darkness with a blue re, and gave it to Noodle. Now I am your king,
however far from you! said Noodle. And they answered, chanting:
Under Heaven, over Hell,
You have broken the spell,
You are lord of the Well.
Li me up! said he; and the blue arms caught him and lied him up; from one to
another they passed him in ascending circles, till he came to the mouth of the well.
There overhead was the old witch, crouching and looking in to know what had
become of him; and her hair hung far down over her eyes into the well. He caught
her to him by it over the brink. Old witch, he said, you must change places with
me now! and he tossed her down to the boom of the well.
She went like a falling shulecock, shrieking as she fell; and as she struck the
water, the drowned bodies of the men she had sent there came to the surface, and
caught her by the feet and hair, and drew her down, making an end of her, as she
also had made of them.
IV
THE PRINCESS MELILOT
hen Noodle, carrying the crystal with him, set foot once more upon dry
land, straightway he was again upon the back of the Galloping Plough,
with the world ying away under him. But now weariness came over him,
and his head weighed this way and that, so that earth and sky mixed themselves
before his gaze, and he was so drugged with sleep that he had no wits to bid the
Plough slacken from its speed. Therefore it happened that as they passed a wood,
a hanging bough caught him, and brushed him like a feather from his place,
landing him on a green bosom of grass, where he slept the sleep of the weary, nor
ever lied his head to see the Plough fast disappearing over hill and valley and
plain, out of sound of his voice or sight of his eye.
When Noodle awoke and found that the Plough was gone, he was bier against
himself for his folly. So poor a use to make of so noble a steed! he cried; no
wonder it has gone from me to seek for a worthier master! If by good fortune I nd
it again, needs must I do great things by its aid to be worthy of its service. So he set
out, following the furrow of its course, determined, however far he must seek, to
journey on till he found it.
For a whole year he travelled, till at length he came, footsore and weary, to a
deserted palace standing in the midst of an overgrown garden. The great gates,
which lay wide open, were overrun with creepers, and the paths were green with
weeds. That morning he had thought that he saw far away on the hills the gleam of
his silver Plough, and now hope rose high, for he could see by its track that the
Plough had passed before him into the garden of the palace. O my moonbeam, he
thought, is it here I shall nd you at last?
Within the garden there was a sound of cross questions and crooked answers, of
many talking with loud voices, and of one weeping apart from the rest. When he
got quite close, he was struck still with awe, and joy, and wonder. For rst there lay
the Galloping Plough in the middle of a green lawn, and round it a score of
serving-men, tugging at it and trying to make it move on. Near by stood an old
woman, wringing her hands and begging them to leave it alone: For, cried she, if
the Plough touches but the feet of the Princess, she will be uprooted, and will
presently wither away and die. Of what use is it to break one, if the other
enchantments cannot be broken?
In the centre of the lawn grew a bower of roses, and beneath the bower stood the
loveliest princess that ever eye beheld; but she stood there motionless, and without
sign of life. She seemed neither to hear, nor see, nor breathe; her feet were rooted
to the ground; though they seemed only to rest lightly under her weight upon the
grass, no man, nor a hundred men, could stir her from where she stood. And, as
the spell that held her fast bound to the spot, even so was the spell that sealed her
senses,no man might li it from her. When Noodle set eyes upon her he knew
that for the third time his heart had been stolen from him, and that to be happy he
must possess her, or die.
He ran quickly to the old woman, who, unregarded by the serving-men, stood
weeping and wringing her hands. Tell me, said Noodle, who is this sleeper who
stands enchanted and rooted like a ower to earth? And who are you, and these
others who work and cry at cross purposes?
The old woman cried from a wide mouth: It is my mistress, the honey-jewel of my
heart, whom you see here so grievously enchanted. All the gis of the fairies at her
christening did not prevent what was foretold of her at her birth. In her
seventeenth year, as you see her now, so it was told of her that she should be.
Does she live? asked Noodle; is she asleep? She is not dead; when will she wake?
Tell me, old woman, her history, and how this fate has come upon her.
She was the daughter of the king of this country by his rst wife, said the old
woman, and heir to the throne aer his death; but when her mother died the king
married again, and the three daughters he had by his second wife were jealous of
the beauty, and charm, and goodness which raised their sister so high above them
in the estimation of all men. So they asked their mother to teach them a spell that
should rob Melilot of her charms, and make them useless in the eyes of men. And
their mother, who was wise in such arts, taught to each of them a spell, so that
together they might work their will.
One day they came running to Melilot, and said, Come and play with us a new
game that our mother has taught us! Then they began turning themselves into
owers. I will be a hollyhock! said one. And I will be a columbine! said another;
and saying the spell over each other they became each the ower they had named.
Then they unloosed the spells, and became themselves again. Oh, it is so nice to
be a ower! they cried, laughing and clapping their hands. But Melilot knew no
spell.
At last, seeing how her sisters turned into owers, and came back safe again, I will
be a rose! she cried; turn me into a rose and out again!
Then her three sisters joined their tongues together, and nished the spell over
her. And so soon as she had become a rose-tree, the three sisters turned into three
moles, and went down under the earth and gnawed at the roots.
Then they came up, and took their own forms again, and sang,
Sister, sister, here you are now,
Till the ploughman come with the Galloping Plough!
Then they turned into bees, and sucked out the honey from the roses, and coming
to themselves again they sang,
Sister, here you must doze and doze,
Till they bring you a ower of the Burning Rose!
Then they shook the dewdrops out of her eyes, crying,
Sister, your brain lies under our spell,
Till water be brought from the Thirsty Well!
Then they took the top blossom of all, and broke it to pieces, and threw the petals
away as they cried,
Sister, your life goes down for a term,
Till they bring you breath from the Camphor-Worm!
And when they had done all this, they turned her back into her true shape, and
le her standing even as you see her now, without warmth, or sight, or memory, or
motion, dead saving for her beauty, that never changes or dies. And here she must
stand till the spells which have been fastened upon her have been unloosed. No
long time aer, the wickedness of the three sisters and of their cruel mother was
discovered to the king, and they were all put to death for the crime. Yet the ill they
had done remained; and the kings grief became so great to see his loved daughter
standing dead before him that he removed with his court to another place, and le
this palace to the care of only a few serving-men, and myself to keep watch and
guard over the Princess.
So now four-fold is the spell that holds her, and to break the lightest of them the
water of the Thirsty Well is needed; with two of its drops laid upon her eyes
memory will come back to her, and her mind will remember of the things of the
past. And for the breaking of the second spell is needed a blossom of the Burning
Rose, and the plucking of that no mans hand can achieve; but when the Rose is
laid upon her breast, her heart will belong to the world once more, and will beat
again under her bosom. And for the breaking of the third spell one must bring the
breath of the Camphor-Worm that has lain for a whole year inside its body, and
breathe it between her lips; then she will breathe again, and all her ve senses will
return to her. And for the last spell only the Galloping Plough can uproot her back
to life, and free her feet for the ways of earth. Now, here we have the Galloping
Plough with no man who can guide it, and what aid can it be? If these fools should
be able to make it so much as but touch the feet of my dear mistress, she will be
mown down like grass, and die presently for lack of earth; for only the three other
charms I have told you of can put whole life back into her.
As for the mastery of the Plough, said Noodle, I will fetch that from them in a
breath. See, in a moment, how marvellous will be the upliing of their eyes! He
put to his lips the restone ringthe Sweetenerand blew but one note through
it. Then in a moment the crowd divided hither and thither, with cries of wonder
and alarm, for the Plough turned and bounded back to its master quickly, as an
Arab mare at the call of her owner.
The old woman, weeping for gladness, cried: Thou art master of the Plough! Art
thou master of all the other things as well?
He said: Of one thing only. Tell me of the Burning Rose and the Camphor-Worm;
what and where are they? For I am the master of the ends of the earth by reason of
the speed with which this carries me; and I am lord of the Thirsty Well, and have
the Fire-eaters for my friends.
The old woman clapped her hands, and blessed him for his youth, and his wisdom,
and his courage. First, she said, restore to the Princess her memory by means of
the water of the Thirsty Well; then I will show you the way to the Burning Rose, for
the easier thing must be done rst.
Then Noodle drew out the crystal and breathed in it, calling on the Well-folk for
the two drops of water to lay on Princess Melilots eyes. Immediately in the boom
of the cup appeared two blue drops of water, that came climbing up the sides of
the glass and stood trembling together on the brim. And Noodle, touching them
with the restone ring to make the memory of things sweet to her, bent back the
Princesss face, and let them fall under her closed lids.
Look! cried the faithful nurse, light trembles within those eyes of hers! In there
she begins to remember things; but as yet she sees and hears nothing. Now it is for
you to be swi and fetch her the blossom of the Burning Rose. Be wise, and you
shall not fail!
V
THE BURNING ROSE
he told him how he was to go, across the desert southward, till he found a
giant, longer in length than a days journey, lying asleep upon the sand.
Over his head, it was told, hung a cloud, covering him from the heat and
resting itself against his brows; within the cloud was a dream, and within the
dream grew the garden of the Burning Rose. Than this she knew no more, nor by
what means Noodle might gain entrance and become possessor of the Rose.
Noodle waited for no more; he mounted upon the Galloping Plough, and pressed
away over the desert to the south. For three days he travelled through parched
places, refreshing himself by the way with the water of the Thirsty Well, calling on
the Well-folk for the replenishment of his crystal, and turning the draught to wine
by the sweetness of his magic ring.
At length he saw a cloud rising to him from a distance; like a great opal it hung
motionless between earth and heaven. Coming nearer he saw the giant himself
stretched out for a days journey across the sand. His head lay under the colours of
the dawn, and his feet were covered with the dusk of evening, and over his middle
shone the noonday sun.
Under the giants shadow Noodle stopped, and gazed up into the cloud; through
the outer covering of its mists he saw what seemed to be balls of re, and knew
that within lay the dream and the garden of the Burning Rose.
The giant laughed and muered in his sleep, for the dream was sweet to him. O
Rose, he said, O sweet Rose, what end is there of thy sweetness? How
innumerable is the dance of the Roses of my Rose-garden!
Noodle caught hold of the ropes of the giants hair, and climbed till he sat within
the hollow of his right ear. Then he put to his lips the ring, the Sweetener, and sang
till the giant heard him in his sleep; and the sweet singing mixed itself with the
sweetness of the Rose in the giants brain, and he muered to himself, saying: O
bee, O sweet bee, O bee in my brain, what honey wilt thou fetch for me out of the
Roses of my Rose-garden?
So, more and more, Noodle sweetened himself to the giant, till the giant passed
him into his brain, and into the heart of the dream, even into the garden of the
Burning Rose.
Far down below the folds of the cloud, Noodle remembered that the Galloping
Plough lay waiting a call from him. When I have stolen the Rose, thought he, I
may need swi heels for my ight. And he put the Sweetener to his lips and
whistled the Plough up to him.
It came, cleaving the encirclement of clouds like a silver gleam of moonlight, and
for a moment, where they parted, Noodle saw a ri of blue sky, and the light of the
outer world clear through their midst.
The giant turned uneasily in his sleep, and the garden of the Burning Rose rocked
to its foundations as the edge of things real pierced into it.
While I stay here there is danger, thought Noodle. Surely I must make haste to
possess myself of the Rose and to escape!
All round him was a garden set thick with rose-trees in myriads of blossom, rose
behind rose as far as the eye could reach, and the fragrance of them lay like a
heavy curtain of sleep upon the senses. Noodle, beginning to feel drowsy,
stretched out his hand in haste to the nearest ower, lest in a lile while he should
be no more than a part of the giants dream. O beloved Heart of Melilot! he cried,
and crushed his ngers upon the stem.
The whole bough crackled and sprang away at his touch; the Rose turned upon
him, screaming and spouting re; a noise like thunder lled all the air. Every rose
in the garden turned and spat ame at where he stood. His face and his hands
became blistered with the heat.
Leaping upon the back of his Plough, he cried, Carry me to the borders of the
garden where there are open spaces! The price of the Princess is upon my head!
The Plough bounded this way and that, searching for some outlet by which to
escape. It ew in spirals and circles, it leaped like a ea, it burrowed like a mole, it
ploughed up the rose-trees by the roots. But so soon as it had passed they stood up
unharmed again, and to whatever point of refuge the Plough ed, that way they all
turned their heads and darted out vomitings of re.
In vain did Noodle summon the Well-folk to his aid; his crystal shot forth fountains
of water that turned into steam as they rose, and fell back again, scalding him.
Then with two deaths threatening to devour him, he brandished the ring, calling
upon the Fire-eaters for their aid.
They laughed as they came. Here is food for you! he cried. Multiply your
appetites about me, or I shall be consumed in these ames!
Brandish again! cried theythe same seven whom he had fed. We are not
enough; this re is not quenchable.
Noodle brandished till the whole garden swarmed with their kind. One fastened
himself upon every rose, a gulf opposing itself to a torrent. All sight of the
conagration disappeared; but within there went a roaring sound, and the bodies
of the Fire-eaters crackled, growing large and luminous the while.
Do your will quickly and begone! cried the Fire-eaters. Even now we swell to
bursting with the pumping in of these res!
Noodle seized on a rose to which one hung, sucking out its heats. He tugged, but
the strong bres held. Then he locked himself to the back of the Plough, crying to it
and caressing its speed with all names under heaven, and beseeching it in the
name of Melilot to break free. And the Plough giving but one plunge, the Rose
came away into Noodles hand, panting and a prisoner. All blushing it grew and
radiant, with a so inner glow, and an odour of incomparable sweetness. He
seemed to see the heart of Melilot beating before him.
But now there came a blast of re behind him, for the Fire-eaters had disappeared,
and all was whirling and shaken before his eyes; and the Plough sped desperately
over earthquake and space. For the plucking of the Rose had awakened the giant
from his sleep; and the dream shrivelled and spun away in a whirl of ame-
coloured vapours. Leaping into clear day out of the unravelment of its mists,
Noodle found himself and his Plough launching over an edge of precipice for a
downward dive into space. The giants hair, standing upright from his head in the
wrath and horror of his awakening, made a forest ending in his forehead that
bowered them to right and to le. Quiing it they slid ungovernably over the bulge
of his brow, and went at full spurt for the abyss.
Dexterously the Plough steered its descent, catching on the bridge and furrowing
the ridge of the nose; nine leagues were the duration of a second.
The giant, thinking some venomous parasite was injuring his esh, aimed, and a
moment too late had thumped his st upon the place. But already the Plough
skirting the amazed opening of his mouth was lost in the trammels of his beard.
Thence, as it escaped the rummaging of his ngers, it ew scouring his breast, and
inicted a ying scratch over the regions of his abdomen. Then, still believing it to
be the triumphal procession of a ea, he pursued it to his thigh, and mistaking the
shadow for the substance allowed it yet again to escape. At his knee-cap there was
but a hairs-breadth between Noodle and the weight of his thumb; but thereaer
the Plough out-distanced his every eort, and, with Noodle preserved whole and
alive, sped fast and far, bearing the Burning Rose to the heart of the beloved
Melilot.
The crone was aware of his coming before she heard him, or saw the gleam of his
Plough running beam-like over the land. From her seat by the Princesss bower she
clapped her hands, and springing to his neck ere he alighted: A long way o, and a
long time o, she cried, I knew what fortune was with you; for when you plucked
o the Rose, and bore it out of the heart of the dream, the scent of it lled the
world; and I felt the sweetness of youth once more in my blood.
Then she led him to the Princess, and bade him lay the Rose in her breast, that her
heart might be won back into the world. Looking at her face again, Noodle saw
how memory had made it more beautiful than ever, and how between her lips had
grown the tender parting of a smile. Then he laid the Rose where the movement of
the heart should be; and presently under the white breast rose the music of its
beating.
Ah! cried the old nurse, weeping for happiness, now her heart that loved me is
come back, and I can listen all day to the sound of it! You have brought memory to
her, you have brought love; now bring breath, and the awakening of her ve
senses. Surely the light of her eyes will be your reward!
VI
THE CAMPHOR-WORM
ell me quickly of the Camphor-Worm, cried the youth as he feasted his
eyes on the Princesss loveliness, made more unendurable by the
awakening within of love. Where and what is it? It is not so far as was
the way to the Burning Rose, answered the crone; an hour on the back of the
Plough shall bring it near to you; but the danger and diculty of this quest is more,
not less. For to reach the Camphor-Worm you need to be a diver in deep waters,
whose weight crushes a man; and to touch its lips you must master the loathing of
your nature; and to carry away its breath you must have strength of will and
endurance beyond what is mortal. You trouble me with things I need not know,
cried Noodle. Tell me, he said, how I may reach the Camphor-Worm; and of it and
its ways.
By this path, and by that, said the old woman, pointing him, go on till you come to
the thick waters of the Bier Lake; they are blacker than night, and their weight is
heavier than lead, and in the depths dwells the Camphor-Worm. Once a year,
when the air is sweetest with the scents of summer, she rises to breathe, liing her
black snout through the surface of the waters. Then she draws fresh air into her
lungs, avoured with leaves and owers, and aer she has breathed it in she lets
go the last bubble of the breath she drew from the summer of the year before; and
it is this bubble of breath alone that will give back life to the ve senses of Princess
Melilot. But the Worms time for rising is far; and how you shall bear the weight in
the depths of those waters, or make the Worm give up the bubble before her time,
or at last bear back the bubble to lay it on the lips of the Princess so that she may
wake,these are things I know not the way of, for to my eyes they seem dark with
diculty and peril.
Then Noodle, opening the petals of the Burning Rose as it lay upon the heart of
Melilot, drew out honey from its centre, lling his hand with the golden crumblings
of fragrance; and he leapt upon the Galloping Plough, urging it in the way the
Princesss nurse had pointed out to him. As they went he caressed it with all the
names under heaven, stroking it with his hand and praising it for the delicacy of its
steering: saying, O my moonbeam, if thou wouldst save the life of thy master, or
restore the ve senses of the Princess Melilot, thou must surpass thyself to-day.
Listen, thou heaven-sent limb, thou miracle of quicksilver, and have a long mind to
my words; for in a short while I shall have no speech le in me till the thing be
done, and the deliverance, from head to feet, of my Beloved accomplished.
Even while he spoke they came to the edge of the Bier Lakea small pool, but its
waters were blacker than night, and heavier than lead to the eye. Then Noodle
leapt down from the Plough, and caressed it for the last time, saying: Set thy face
for the garden where the Princess Melilot is; and when I am come back to thee
speechless out of the Lake and am striding thee once more, then wait not for a
word but carry me to her with more speed than thou hast ever mustered to my aid
till now; go faster than wind or lightning or than the eye of man can see! So, by
good fortune, I may live till I reach her lips; but if thou tarry at all I am a dead man.
And when thou art come to Melilot set thy share beneath the roots of her feet, and
take her up to me out of the ground. Do this tenderly, but abate not speed till it be
done!
Then the youth put into his mouth the honey of the Burning Rose, and into his lips
the Sweetener, and stripped himself as a bather to the pool. And the Plough,
remembering its masters word, turned and set its face to where lay the garden
with Melilot waiting to be relieved of her enchantment. Whereat Noodle, bowing
his head, and blessing it with lips of farewell, turned shortly and slid down into the
blackness of the lake.
The weight of that water was like a vice upon his limbs, and around his throat, as
he swam out into the centre of the pool. As he went he breathed upon the water,
and the scent of the honey of the Burning Rose passing through the Sweetener
made an incomparable fragrance, gentle, and subtle, and wooing to the senses.
When he came to the middle of the lake he stayed breathing full breaths, till the air
deepened with fragrance around him. Presently underneath him he felt the
movement of a great thing coming up from the boom of the pool. It touched his
feet and came grazing along his side; and all at once shuddering and horror took
hold upon him, for his whole nature was lled with loathing of its touch.
Out of the pools surface before him rose a great black snout, that opened, showing
a round hole. Then he thought of Melilot and her beauty laid fast under a charm,
and drawing a full breath he laid his lips containing the ring, the Sweetener, to the
lips of the Worm.
The Worm began to breathe. As the Worm drank the air out of him, he drew in
more through his nostrils, and more and more, till the great gills were lled and
satised.
Then the Worm let go the last bubble of air which remained from the year before,
and had lain ever since in its body, by which alone life could be given back to the
ve senses of Melilot. Then drawing in its head it lowered itself once more to the
boom of the pool; and Noodle, feeling in his mouth the precious globule of air,
fastened his lips upon it and shot out for shore.
Against the weight of those leaden waters a longing to gasp possessed him; but he
knew that with the least breath the bubble would be lost, and all his labour
undone. Not too soon his feet caught hold of the bank, and drew him free to land.
He cast himself speechless across the back of the Galloping Plough and clung.
The Plough gathered itself together and sprang away through space. Remembering
its masters word it showed itself a miracle of speed; like lightning became its ight.
The eye of Noodle grew blind to the passing of things; he could take no count of
the collapsing leagues. More and more grew the amazingness of the Ploughs leaps,
things only to be measured by miles, and counted as joltings on the way; while fast
to the back of it clung Noodle, and endured, praying that shortness of breath might
not overmaster him, or the check of his lungs give way and burst him to the
emptiness of a drum. His senses rocked and swayed; he felt the gates of his resolve
slackening and forcing themselves apart; and still the Galloping Plough plunged
him blindly along through space.
But now the shrill crying of the crone struck in upon his ears, and he stretched
open his arms for the accomplishment of the deliverance. Even in that nick of time
was the end of the thing brought about; for the Plough, guiding itself as a thread to
the needles eye, gave the uprooting stroke to the white feet of Melilot; and
Noodle, swooning for the last gasp, saw all at once her beauty swaying level to his
gaze and her body bending down upon his.
Then he fastened his lips upon hers, and loosed the bubble from his mouth; and
panting and sobbing themselves back to life they hung in each others arms. She
warmed and ripened in his embrace, opening upon him the light of her eyes; and
the greatness and beauty of the reward abashed him and bore him down to earth.
He heard the old crone clucking and crowing, like a hen over its egg, of the
happiness that had come to her old years; till recognising the youths state she
covered him over with a cloak amid exclamations of astonishment.
The Princess saw nothing but her lovers face and the happy feasting of his eyes.
She bent her head nearer and nearer to his, and the story of what he had done
became a dream that she remembered, and that waking made true. O you Noodle,
she said, laughing, you wise, wise Noodle! And then everything was nished, for
F
she had kissed him!
So Noodle and the Princess were married, and came to the throne together and
reigned over a happy land. The Fire-eaters were their friends, and the gis of
fortune were theirs. The Galloping Plough made all the waste places fertile; and
the water of the Thirsty Well rose and ran in rivers through the land; and over the
walls of their palace, where they had planted it, grew the ower of the Burning
Rose.
THE CROWNS WARRANTY
Image77
THE CROWNS WARRANTY
ive hundred years ago or more a king died, leaving two sons: one was the
child of his rst wife, and the other of his second, who surviving him
became his widow. When the king was dying he took o the royal crown which he
wore, and set it upon the head of the elder born, the son of his rst wife, and said
to him: God is the lord of the air, and of the water, and of the dry land: this gi
cometh to thee from God. Be merciful, over whatsoever thou holdest power, as
God is! And saying these words he laid his hands upon the heads of his two sons
and died.
Now this crown was no ordinary crown, for it was made of the gold brought by the
Wise men of the East when they came to worship at Bethlehem. Every king that
had worn it since then had reigned well and uprightly and had been loved by all
his people: but only to himself was it known what virtue lay in his crown; and
every king at dying gave it to his son with the same words of blessing.
So, now, the kings eldest son wore the crown; and his step-mother knew that her
own son could not wear it while he lived, therefore she looked on and said
nothing. Now he was known to all the people of his country, because of his right to
the throne, as the kings son; and his brother, the child of the second wife, was
called the queens son. But as yet they were both young, and cared lile enough for
crowns.
Aer the kings death the queen was made regent till the kings son should be
come to a full age; but already the lile king wore the royal crown his father had
le him, and the queen looked on and said nothing.
More than three years went by, and everybody said how good the queen was to
the lile king who was not her own son; and the kings son, for his part, was good
to her and to his step-brother, loving them both; and all by himself he kept
thinking, having his thoughts guarded and circled by his golden crown, How shall
I learn to be a wise king, and to be merciful when I have power, as God is?
So to everything that came his way, to his playthings and his pets, to his ministers
and his servants, he played the king as though already his word made life and
death. People watching him said, Everything that has touch with the kings son
loves him. They told strange tales of him: only in fairy books could they be
believed, because they were so beautiful; and all the time the queen, geing a good
name for herself, looked on and said nothing.
One night the kings son was lying half-asleep upon his bed, with wise dreams
coming and going under the circle of his gold crown, when a mouse ran out of the
wainscot and came and jumped up upon the couch. The poor mouse had turned
quite white with fear and horror, and was trembling in every limb as it cried its
news into the kings ear. O kings son, it said, get up and run for your life! I was
behind the wainscot in the queens closet, and this is what I heard: if you stay here,
when you wake up to-morrow you will be dead!
The kings son got up, and all alone in the dark night stole out of the palace,
seeking safety for his dear life. He sighed to himself, There was a pain in my crown
ever since I wore it. Alas, mother, I thought you were too kind a step-mother to do
this!
Outside it was still winter: there was no warmth in the world, and not a leaf upon
the trees. He wandered away and away, wondering where he should hide.
The queen, when her villains came and told her the kings son was not to be found,
went and looked in her magic crystal to nd trace of him. As soon as it grew light,
for in the darkness the crystal could show her nothing, she saw many miles away
the kings son running to hide himself in the forest. So she sent out her villains to
search until they should nd him.
As they went the sun grew hot in the sky, and birds began singing. It is spring!
cried the messengers. How suddenly it has come! They rode on till they came to
the forest.
The kings son, stumbling along through the forest under the bare boughs, thought,
Even here where shall I hide? Nowhere is there a leaf to cover me. But when the
sun grew warm he looked up; and there were all the trees breaking into bud and
leaf, making a green heaven above his head. So when he was too weary to go
farther, he climbed into the largest tree he could nd; and the leaves covered him.
The queens messengers searched through all the forest but could not nd him; so
they went back to her empty handed, not having either the kings crown or his
heart to show. Fools! she cried, looking in her magic crystal, he was in the big
sycamore under which you stopped to give your horses provender!
The sycamore said to the kings son, The queens eye is on you; get down and run
for your life till you get to the hollow tarn-stones among the hills! But if you stay
here, when you wake to-morrow you will be dead.
When the queens messengers came once more to the forest they found it all
wintry again, and without leaf; only the sycamore was in full green, clapping its
hands for joy in the keen and bier air.
The messengers searched, and beat down the leaves, but the kings son was not
there. They went back to the queen. She looked long in her magic crystal, but lile
could she see; for the kings son had hidden himself in a small cave beside the
tarn-stones, and into the darkness the crystal could not pry.
Presently she saw a ight of birds crossing the blue, and every bird carried a few
crumbs of bread in its beak. Then she ran and called to her villains, Follow the
birds, and they will take you to where the lile wizard is; for they are carrying
bread to feed him, and they are all heading for the tarn-stones up on the hills.
The birds said to the kings son, Now you are rested; we have fed you, and you are
not hungry. The queens eye is on you. Up, and run for your life! If you stay here,
when you wake up to-morrow you will be dead.
Where shall I go? said the kings son. Go, answered the birds, and hide in the
rushes on the island of the pool of sweet waters!
When the queens messengers came to the tarn-stones, it was as though ve
thousand people had been feeding: they found crumbs enough to ll twelve
baskets full, lying in the cave; but no kings son could they lay their hands on.
The kings son was lying hidden among the rushes on the island of the great pool of
sweet waters; and thick and fast came silver-scaled shes, feeding him.
It took the queen three days of hard gazing in her crystal, before she found how
the shes all swam to a point among the rushes of the island in the pool of sweet
waters, and away again. Then she knew: and running to her messengers she cried:
He is among the rushes on the island in the pool of sweet waters; and all the shes
are feeding him!
The shes said to the kings son: The queens eye is on you; up, and swim to shore,
and away for your life! For if they come and nd you here, when you wake
to-morrow you will certainly be dead.
Where shall I go? asked the kings son. Wherever I go, she nds me. Go to the
old fox who gets his poultry from the palace, and ask him to hide you in his
burrow!
When the queens messengers came to the pool they found the shes playing at
alibis all about in the water; but nothing of the kings son could they see.
The kings son came to the fox, and the fox hid him in his burrow, and brought him
buer and eggs from the royal dairy. This was beer fare than the kings son had
had since the beginning of his wanderings, and he thanked the fox warmly for his
friendship. On the contrary, said the fox, I am under an obligation to you; for ever
since you came to be my guest I have felt like an honest man. If I live to be king,
said the kings son, you shall always have buer and eggs from the royal dairy, and
be as honest as you like.
The queen hugged her magic crystal for a whole week, but could make nothing out
of it: for her crystal showed her nothing of the kings sons hiding-place, nor of the
fox at his nightly thes of buer and eggs from the royal dairy. But it so happened
that this same fox was a sort of half-brother of the queens; and so guilty did he feel
with his brand-new good conscience that he quite le o going to see her. So in a
lile while the queen, with her suspicions and her magic crystal, had nosed out the
young kings hiding-place.
The fox said to the kings son: The queens eye is on you! Get out and run for your
life, for if you stay here till to-morrow, you will wake up and nd yourself a dead
goose!
But where else can I go to? asked the kings son. Is there any place le for me?
The fox laughed, and winked, and whispered a word; and all at once the kings son
got up and went.
The queen had said to her messengers, Go and look in the foxs hole; and you shall
nd him! But the messengers came and dug up the burrow, and found buer and
eggs from the royal dairy, but of the kings son never a sign.
The kings son came to the palace, and as he crept through the gardens he found
there his lile brother alone at play,playing sadly because now he was all alone.
Then the kings son stopped and said, Lile brother, do you so much wish to be
king? And taking o the crown, he put it upon his brothers head. Then he went
on through underground ways and corridors, till he came to the palace dungeons.
Now a dungeon is a hard thing to get out of, but it is easy enough to get into. He
came to the deepest and darkest dungeon of all, and there he opened the door,
and went in and hid himself.
The queens son came running to his mother, wearing the kings crown. Oh,
mother, he said, I am frightened! while I was playing, my brother came looking all
dead and white, and put this crown on my head. Take it o for me, it hurts!
When the queen saw the crown on her sons head, she was horribly afraid; for that
it should have so come there was the most unlikely thing of all. She fetched her
crystal ball, and looked in, asking where the kings son might be, and, for answer,
the crystal became black as night.
Then said the queen to herself, He is dead at last!
But, now that the kings crown was on the wrong head, the air, and the water, and
the dry land, over which God is lord, heard of it. And the trees said, Until the
kings son returns, we will not put forth bud or leaf!
And the birds said, We will not sing in the land, or breed or build nests until the
kings son returns!
And the shes said, We will not stay in the ponds or rivers to get caught, unless
the kings son, to whom we belong, returns!
And the foxes said, Unless the kings son returns, we will increase and multiply
exceedingly and be like locusts in the land!
So all through that land the trees, though it was spring, stayed as if it were
mid-winter; and all the shes swam down to the sea; and all the birds ew over the
sea, away into other countries; and all the foxes increased and multiplied, and
became like locusts in the land.
Now when the trees, and the birds, and the beasts, and the shes led the way the
good folk of the country discovered that the queen was a criminal. So, aer the
way of the esh, they took the queen and her lile son, and bound them, and
threw them into the deepest and darkest dungeon they could nd; and said they:
Until you tell us where the kings son is, there you stay and starve!
The kings son was playing all alone in his dungeon with the mice who brought him
food from the palace larder, when the queen and her son were thrown down to
him fast bound, as though he were as dangerous as a den of lions. At rst he was
terribly afraid when he found himself pursued into his last hiding-place; but
presently he gathered from the queens remarks that she was quite powerless to do
him harm.
Oh, what a wicked woman I am! she moaned; and began crying lamentably, as if
she hoped to melt the stone walls which formed her prison.
Presently her lile son cried, Mother, take o my brothers crown; it pricks me!
And the kings son sat in his corner, and cried to himself with grief over the harm
that his step-mothers wickedness had brought about.
Mother, cried the queens son again, night and day since I have worn it, it pricks
me; I cannot sleep!
But the queens heart was still hard; not if she could help, would she yet take o
from her son the crown.
Hours went by, and the queen and her son grew hungry. We shall be starved to
death! she cried. Now I see what a wicked woman I am!
Mother, cried the queens son, some one is puing food into my mouth! No one,
said the queen, is puing any into mine. Now I know what a wicked woman I am!
Presently the kings son came to the queen also, and began feeding her. Someone
is puing food into my mouth, now! cried the queen. If it is poisoned I shall die in
agony! I wish, she said, I wish I knew your brother were not dead; if I have killed
him what a wicked woman I am!
Dear step-mother, said the kings son I am not dead, I am here.
Here? cried the queen, shaking with fright. Here? not dead! How long have you
been here?
Days, and days, and days, said the kings son, sadly.
Ah! if I had only known that! cried the queen. Now I know what a wicked woman
I am!
Just then, the trap-door in the roof of the dungeon opened, and a voice called
down, Tell us where is the kings son! If you do not tell us, you shall stay here and
starve.
The kings son is here! cried the queen.
A likely story! answered the gaolers. Do you think we are going to believe that?
And they shut-to the trap.
The queens son cried, Dear brother, come and take back your crown, it pricks so!
But the kings son only undid the queens bonds and his brothers. Now, said he,
you are free: you can kill me now.
Oh! cried the queen, what a wicked woman I must be! Do you think I could do it
now? Then she cried, O lile son, bring your poor head to me, and I will take o
the crown! and she took o the crown and gave it back to the kings son. When I
am dead, she said, remember, and be kind to him!
The kings son put the crown upon his own head.
Suddenly, outside the palace, all the land broke into leaf; there was a rushing
sound in the river of shes swimming up from the sea, and all the air was loud and
dark with ights of returning birds. Almost at the same moment the foxes began to
disappear and diminish, and cease to be like locusts in the land.
People came running to open the door of the deepest and darkest dungeon in the
palace: For either, they cried, the queen is dead, or the kings son has been found!
Where is the kings son, then? they called out, as they threw wide the door. He is
here! cried the king; and out he came, to the astonishment of all, wearing his
crown, and leading his step-mother and half-brother by the hand.
He looked at his step-mother, and she was quite white; as white as the mouse that
had jumped upon the kings bed at midnight bidding him y for his life. Not only
her face, but her hair, her lips, and her very eyes were white and colourless, for she
had gone blind from gazing too hard into her crystal ball, and hunting the kings
son to death.
So she remained blind to the end of her days; but the king was more good to her
than gold, and as for his brother, never did half-brothers love each other beer
than these. Therefore they all lived very happily together, and aer a long time, the
queen learned to forget what a wicked woman she had been.
THE WISHING-POT
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THE WISHING-POT
Tulip was the son of a poor but prudent mother; from the moment of his birth she
had trained him to count ten before ever he wanted or asked for anything. An
otherwise reckless youth, he acquired an intrinsic value through the practice of this
habit. Only once, just as he was reaching, but had not quite reached, years of
discretion, did his habit of precaution fail him; and this same failure became in the
end the opening of his fortunes.
Bathing one day in the river, to whose banks the woods ran down in steep terraces,
he heard a voice come singing along one of the upper slopes; and looking up under
the boughs of cedar and sycamore, he saw a pair of green feet go dancing by, up
and down like grasshoppers on the prance.
There was such rhythm in them, and such sweetness in the voice, that his heart
was out of him before he could harness it to the number ten, and he came out of
the water the most natural and forlorn of lovers.
Before he was dressed the green feet and the voice were gone, and before he got
home his health and his appetite seemed to have gone also. He pined industriously
from day to day, and spent all his hours in searching among the woods by the river
side for his lady of the dear green feet. He did not know so much as the size or
colour of her face; the sound of her voice alone, and the running up and down of
her feet, had, as he told his mother, decimated his aections.
In his trouble he could think of only one possible remedy, and that he counted well
over, knowing its risk. Away in the loneliest part of the forest there lived a wise
woman, to whom, now and then, folk went for help when everything else had
failed them. So he had heard tell of a certain Wishing-Pot that was hers in which
people might see the thing they desired most, and into which for a fee she allowed
lovers and other poor fools of fortune to look. One thing, however, was told against
the virtues of this Wishing-Pot, that though many had had a sight of it, and their
wishes revealed to them therein, others had gone and had never again returned to
their homes, but had vanished altogether from mens sight, nor had any news ever
been heard of them aer. There were some wise folk who held that they had only
gone elsewhere to seek the fortune that the Wishing-Pot had shown to them.
Nevertheless, for the most part the wise woman and her Wishing-Pot had an ill
name in that neighbourhood.
To a lovers heart risk gives value; so one ne morning Tulip kissed his mother,
counted ten, and set out for the woods.
Towards evening he came to the house of the witch and knocked at the door.
Good mother, said he, when she opened to him, I have brought you the fee to
buy myself a wish over the Wishing-Pot. Ay, surely, answered the crone, and drew
him in.
In one corner of the room stood a great crystal bowl. Nearly round it was, and had
a small opening at the top, to which a man might place his eye and look in. To
Tulip, as he looked at it, it seemed all coloured res and falling stars, and a so
crackling sound came from it, as though heat burned in its veins. It threw long
shapes and lustres upon the walls, and within innumerable things writhed, and
ran, and whied in the oating of its vapours.
You may have two wishes, said the old witch, a one and a two. And she said the
spell that undid the secret of the Pot to the wisher.
Then Tulip bent down his head and looked in, counting soly to himself, and at
ten, he let the wish go to his lady of the dear green feet.
The colours changed and sprang, as though stirred and fed with fresh fuel; and
down in the depths of the Wishing-Pot he saw the feet of his Beloved go by in
twinkling green slippers.
As soon as he saw that he began counting ten in great haste for the second wish.
O to be inside the Wishing-Pot with her! was his thought now. He had got to nine,
and the wish was almost on his tongue, when he caught sight of the old womans
eye looking at him. And the eye had become like a large green spider, with great
long limbs that kept clutching up and out again!
His heart queegled to a jelly at the sight; but the green feet lured him so, that he
still thought how to get to them and yet be safe. Surely, to be in the Wishing-Pot
and out by the sound of the next Angelus became the shape of his wish. He shut
his eyes, cried ten upon the venture, and was in the Wishing-Pot!
The lile green feet were trebling over the glass with a sound like running water;
and he himself began running at full speed, shot o into the Wishing-Pot like a
pellet from a pop-gun. Nothing could he see of his dear but her wee green feet. But
above them as they ran he heard showery laughter, and he knew that his lady was
there before him, though invisible to the eye.
The Pot, now he was in it, seemed bigger than the biggest dome in the world; to
run all round it took him two or three minutes. Away in the centre of its base stood
a great opal knob, like the axle to a wheel round which he and the green feet kept
circling.
However much he wished and wished, the green feet still kept their distance, for
now he was in the Wishing-Pot wishes availed him nothing. The green feet ew
faster than his; the light laugh rang further and further away; right across to the
other side of the hall his lady had passed from him now.
The magic res of the crystal leapt and crackled under his tread; now it seemed as
if his feet ran on a green lawn, out of which broke crocuses and daodils, and now
roses reddened in the track, and now the purple of grapes spurted across the path
like spilled wine. The sound of the green feet and the running of overhead
laughter, as they distanced him in front, came nearer and nearer behind him from
across the hall. He felt that he must follow and not turn, however beaten he might
be.
Presently a voice, that he knew was his Beloveds, cried,
Heart that would have me must hatch me!
Feet that would nd me must catch me!
Man that would mate me must match me!
Oh, how? wondered spent feet, and failing heart, and reeling brain. He stumbled
slower and slower in the race, till presently with quick innumerable paerings the
green feet grew closer, and were overtaking him from the rear.
Warm breath was in his hair,lips and a hand; he turned, open armed, to snatch
the mischievous morsel, but all that he clasped was a gust of air; and he saw the
green feet scudding out and away on a fresh start before him.
Again, with laughter, the voice cried,
Lap for lap you must wind me:
Equal, before you can nd me!
You are a lap behind me!
Where they raced the surface of the glass sloped slightly to the upward rise of its
walls; Tulip shied his ground, and ran where the footing was leveller toward the
centre, and the circle began to go smaller. So he began to gain, till the green
slippers, seeing how the advantage had come about, shied also in their turn.
Thus they ran on; there were no inner posts to mark the course, only the great opal
standing in the centre of all formed the pivot of the race, and round and round it, a
great way o, they ran.
All at once a big thought came into Tulips head; he waited not to count ten, but,
before Green Slippers knew what he was aer, he had reached the opal centre,
and was circling it. Then quickly all the laughter stopped; the green feet came
twinkling sixteens to the dozens, so as to get round the post before him and away.
One lap, he was before her; two laps, he turned again to her coming, and found
her falling into his arms. She blossomed into sight at his touch: from top to toe she
was there! All rosy and alive he had her in his clasp, laughing, crying, clinging, yet
struggling to be free. She made a most endless handful, till Tulip had caught her by
the hair and kissed her between the eyes.
All round and overhead the magic crystal reared up arches of re, to a roof that
dropped like rain, while Tulip and his prize sank down exhausted on the great hub
of opal to rest. As he touched it all the secret wonders of the Wishing-Pot were
opened and revealed to his gaze.
Crowds and crowds of faces were what he most saw; everywhere that he turned
he saw old friends and neighbours who, he thought, had been dead and gone,
looking sadly, and shaking long sorrowful faces at him. You here too, Tulip? they
seemed forever to be saying. Always another, and another; and now you here too!
There was the dairymans wife, who had waited seven years to have a child,
holding a lile will-o-the-wisp of a thing in her arms. Now and then for a while it
would lie still, and then suddenly it would leap up and dart away; and she, poor
soul, must up and aer it, though the chase were ever so long!
There also was Miller Dick with his broad thumbs, counting over a rich pile of gold,
which, ever and anon, spun up into the air, and went strewing itself like dead
leaves before the wind. Then he too must needs up and aer it, till it was all caught
again, and added together, and made right.
There were small playmates of Tulips childhood, each with its lile conceit of
treasure: one had a toy, and another a lamb, another a bird; and all of them hunted
and caught the thing they loved, and kissed it and again let go. So it went on, over
and over again, more sad than the sight of a quaker as he twiddles his thumbs.
Whenever they were at peace for a moment, they turned their eyes his way. What,
you here too, Tulip? was always the thing they seemed to be saying.
While Tulip sat looking at them, and thinking of it all, suddenly his lady
disappeared, and only her green feet darted from his side and began running
round and round in a circle. Then was he just about to set o running aer them,
when he felt himself caught up to the coloured res of the roof and sent spinning
ungovernably through space. Suddenly he was dumped to the ground, and just as
his feet were gathering themselves up under him he heard the Angelus bell ringing
from the village below the slopes of the wood.
He was standing again by the side of the Wishing-Pot, and the old woman sat
cowering, and blinking her spider-eye at him, too much astonished to speak or
move.
Tulip looked at her with a pleasant and engaging air. Oh, good mother, what a
treat you have given me! he said. How I wish I had money for another wish! what
a pity it was ever to have wished myself back again!
When the old witch heard that she thought still to entrap him, and answered
joyfully, Why, kind Sir, surely, kind Sir, if you like it you shall look again! Take
another wish, and never mind about the money. So she said the spell once more
which opened to him the wonders of the Wishing-Pot.
Then cried Tulip, clapping his hands, What beer can I wish than to have you in
the Wishing-Pot, in the place of all those poor folk whom you have imprisoned
with their wishes!
Hardly was the thing said than done; all the children who had been Tulips
playmates, and Miller Dick with his broad thumbs, and the dairymans wife, were
every one of them out, and the old witch woman was nowhere to be seen.
But Tulip put his eye to the mouth of the Wishing-Pot; and there down below he
saw the old witch, running round and round as hard as she could go, pursued by a
herd of green spiders. And there without doubt she remains.
And now everybody was happy except Tulip himself; for the children had all of
them their toys, and the old miller his gold, and as for the dairymans wife, she
found that she had become the mother of a large and promising infant. But Tulip
had altogether lost his lady of the dear green feet, for in thinking of others he had
forgoen to think of himself. All the gratitude of the poor people he had saved was
nothing to him in that great loss which had le him desolate. For his part he only
took the Wishing-Pot up under his arm, and went sadly away home.
But before long the noise of what he had done reached to the kings ears; and he
sent for Tulip to appear before him and his Court. Tulip came, carrying the
Wishing-Pot under his arm, very downcast and sad for love of the lady of the dear
green feet.
At that time all the Court was in half mourning; for the Princess Royal, who was
the kings only child, and the most beautiful and accomplished of her sex, had gone
perfectly distraught with grief, of which nothing could cure her. All day long she
sat with her eyes shut, and tears running down, and folded hands and quiet lile
feet. And all this came, it was said, from a dream which she could not tell or
explain to anybody.
The king had promised that whoever could rouse her from her grief, should have
the princess for his wife, and become heir to the throne; and when he heard that
there was such a thing in the world as a Wishing-Pot, he thought that something
might be done with it.
From Tulip he learned, however, that no one knew the spell which opened the
resources of the Wishing-Pot save the old witch woman who was shut up fast for
ever in its inside. So it seemed to the king that the Pot could be of no use for curing
the princess.
But it was so beautiful, with its shooting stars and coloured res, that, when Tulip
brought it, they carried it in to show to her.
Aer three hours the princess was prevailed upon to open her eyes; and directly
they fell upon the great opal bowl, all at once she started to her feet and began
laughing and dancing and singing.
These are the words that they heard her sing,
Lap for lap I must wind you;
Equal, before I can nd you;
I am a lap behind you!
Tulip, as soon as he heard the sweetness of that voice, and the words, pushed his
way past the king and all his court, to where the princess was. And there over the
heads of the crowd he saw his lady of the dear green feet laughing and opening
her white arms to him.
As she set eyes on his face the dream of the princess came true, and all her
unhappiness passed from her. So they loved and were married, to the
astonishment and edication of the whole court; and lived to be greatly loved and
admired by all their grandchildren.
O
THE FEEDING OF THE EMIGRANTS
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THE FEEDING OF THE EMIGRANTS
ver the sea went the birds, ying southward to their other home where
the sun was. The rustle of their wings, high over head, could be heard
down on the water; and their so, shrill twierings, and the thirsty nibbling of their
beaks; for the seas were hushed, and the winds hung away in cloud-land.
Far away from any shore, and beginning to be weary, their eyes caught sight of a
white form resting between sky and sea. Nearer they came, till it seemed to be a
great white bird, brooding on the calmed water; and its wings were stretched high
and wide, yet it stirred not. And the wings had in themselves no motion, but stood
rigidly poised over their own reection in the water.
Then the birds came curiously, dropping from their straight course, to wonder at
the white wings that went not on. And they came and seled about this great,
bird-like thing, so still and so grand.
Onto the deck crept a small child, for the noise of the birds had come down to him
in the hold. There is nobody at home but me, he said; for he thought the birds
must have come to call, and he wished to be polite. They are all gone but me, he
went on, all gone. I am le alone.
The birds, none of them understood him; but they put their heads on one side and
looked down on him in a friendly way, seeming to consider.
He ran down below and fetched up a pannikin of water and some biscuit. He set
the water down, and breaking the biscuit sprinkled it over the white deck. Then he
clapped his hands to see them all uer and crowd round him, dipping their bright
heads to the food and drink he gave them.
They might not stay long, for the waterlogged ship could not help them on the way
they wished to go; and by sunset they must touch land again. Away they went, on
a sudden, the whole crew of them, and the sound of their voices became faint in
the bright sea-air.
I am le alone! said the child.
Many days ago, while he was asleep in a snug corner he had found for himself, the
captain and crew had taken to the boats, leaving the great ship to its fate. And
forgeing him because he was so small, or thinking that he was safe in some one of
the other boats, the rough sailors had gone o without him, and he was le alone.
So for a whole week he had stayed with the ship, like a whisper of its vanished life
amid the blues of a deep calm. And the birds came to the ship only to desert it
again quickly, because it stood so still upon the sea.
But that night the mermen came round the vessels side, and sang; and the wind
rose to their singing, and the sea grew rough. Yet the child slept with his head in
dreams. The dreams came from the mermens songs, and he held his breath, and
his heart stayed burdened by the deep sweetness of what he saw.
Dark and strange and cold the sea-valleys opened before him; blue sea-beasts
ranged there, guarded by strong-nned shepherds, and shes like birds darted to
and fro, but made no sound. And that was what burdened his heart,that for all
the beauty he saw, there was no sound, no song of a single bird to comfort him.
The mermen reached out their blue arms to him, and sang; on the top of the waves
they sang, striving to make him forget the silence of the land below. They oered
him the sea-life: why should he be drowned and die?
And now over him in the dark night the great wings crashed, and beat abroad in
the wind, and the ship made great way. And the mermen swam fast to be with her,
and ceased from their own song, for the wind sang a coronach in the canvas and
cordage. But the lile child lied his head in his sleep and smiled, for his soul was
eased of the mermens song, and it seemed to him that instead he heard birds
singing in a far-o land, singing of a child whose loving hand had fed them, faint
and weary, in their way over the wide ocean.
In that far southern land the dawn had begun, and the birds, waking one by one,
were singing their story of him to the so-breathing tamarisk boughs. And none of
them knew how they had been sent as a salvage crew to save the childs spirit from
the spell of the sea-dream, and to carry it safely back to the land that loved him.
But with the childs body the white wings had own down into the wave-buried
valleys, and to a cle of the sea-hills to rest.
THE PASSIONATE PUPPETS
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THE PASSIONATE PUPPETS
W
hen the long days of summer began, Killian, the cow-herd, was able to
lead his drove up into the hills, giving them the high pastures to range.
Then from sunrise to sunset he was alone, except when, early each morning,
Grendel and the other girls came up to carry down the milk to the villages.
All day long the cow-bells sounded in his ears, but still the time of his wedding was
a long way o; it would be ve years before he and Grendel could aord to set up
a house and farm, with cows of their own.
The great stretch of world that lay out under him, like a broad map coloured blue
and green, made him full of a restless longing for a move in life. Yonder he could
pick out the towns with their spires and gliering roofs, and the overhead mists,
that gave token of crowded life below. It was there that wealth could be got; and
with wealth men married soon, and were at ease. Somewhere, he had heard, lived
kings and queens, wearing rich robes and gold crowns on the top of their hearts
desire. For kings and queens, he supposed, loved as did he and Grendel, regarding
nothing else as much in the world besides.
So Killian put heart into his de hands, and presently had set to work.
One evening Grendel came up from the valley, aer her days work, to have a look
at her lover; she had brought him some brown cakes and a bole of wine. But
Killian, who had caught sight of her eyes over the green rise at his feet, was hiding
something behind his back.
Whatever have you there? she asked, as she saw chips, and tools, and bits of
bright foil, lying scaered about the ground. Yet for three days he would show her
nothing, only he said, What I do is because we love each other so.
At the end of that time, he showed her what he had done. There she saw a lile
king and queen, about six inches high; he was in blue, and she in white; and they
were both as dear as they were small. The king was partly like a cow-herd, having a
crown over his broad-brimmed hat, with thick wooden shoes, and leather-bound
legs; and the queen was like Grendel, with great long plaits past her waist, and a
gold-worked bodice, such as Grendel had for Sunday wear. Aye, aye, cried
Grendel, why, it is you and me!
Then Killian showed her how the joints of the lile puppets moved on delicate
wires, and how ve strings ran up, one from each limb, to be fastened to the
players ngers, so that he might make them act as though life were in them.
I shall take these down with me to the valley, said Killian. First I shall go about
among the villages; then, when I can do beer, I shall go to the towns. Aer that
no doubt the kings and queens will hear of me, and will send for me to play before
them, and I shall become rich. Then I shall come home and marry you.
Grendel thought her lover the most wonderful man in the world, and it is the truth
he was very clever; she kissed him a hundred times, and the lile marionees also.
Ah, she said, now we shall not have to wait ve years! in ve months you will
come back rich and famous, and we shall marry, and live happily.
How Killian had loved her while making his puppets, only she knew as well as he.
Truly, he had put his heart into them, so that they were like living beings,and so
small that their very smallness made them a marvel. Being a lover, he had put
inside each breast a lile heart, and, for the luck of the thing, had christened them
with a drop of his own blood, and a drop of Grendels; so each heart had in it one
lile drop of blood. Now he was to go out, and try his fortune.
He found a lad to come and take his place and see aer the cows; then he said
good-bye to Grendel, and set o on a round of all the villages of the plain.
At every inn where he put up, he called the country folk together to the sound of
his shepherds bag-pipes, and showed them his play. It was only himself and
Grendel, no story at all, merely lovers parting and meeting again, each believing
the other dead, and in the end living happily to the sound of cow-bells, that
showed how rich they were in herds.
And the villagers laughed and cried, and gave him pence, and a nights lodging,
and food; so that presently he was able to make himself a lile travelling-stage, and
hire a piper to play dance-music for him. But it was always the one story of himself
and Grendel, and no other, though the two puppets wore crowns upon their
heads.
The lile marionees had hearts. That was the beginning of things: they
remembered nothing else. When their eyes had grown open to the fact, then for
them life had begun. Aer that they lived like bee and blossom, only that the bee
never ew away, and the honey remained in the blossom.
How this came to pass was a question they never asked; why they loved each other
they did not know. If they had had to think of it they would have said, It is because
we cannot help it. And every day one same thing happened to them that they
could not help, the most beautiful thing in life. It came to them by instinct, taking
hold of them from head to feet and saying, love, love, love, in all sorts of
wonderful ways.
Whenever this thing happened they began to move about soly, going to and fro,
and round and round, dancing, and holding each other by the hand, puing their
cheeks so close together that their eyelids brushed, and sometimes their lile
hearts that heaved. And all the while music from somewhere was giving a meaning
to these things; and over and over again, love, love, love, was what it kept saying
to them.
Their happiness was so great, that they would begin playing with it, pretending
that it was all turned into grief. First he would kiss her from forehead to chin, and
into the hollow of her lile throat; and then all down each dear arm, even to the
nger-tips; and last of all her feet; and again last of all her lips, and again last of all
her breast. And then he would go away, walking backwards most of the time, or if
not, still turning round and round to take another look at her. Then when he was
altogether out of sight, she would sit down and cry, though all the while he would
be peeping at her from his hiding-place, to let her know that he was not really
gone. Then she would lie down, and cry more, and at last leave o crying and stay
almost still on a lile bed, that seemed to come to her from nowhere, just when she
was ready to fall on it. Then, at last, she would shut her eyes, and cover her face up
very slowly with a sheet, and lie so still that he would grow quite frightened, and
come running from his hiding-place, and li the sheet, and look at her; then he
would fall down as if his legs had been cut from under him; then he would get up
and throw owers over her, and at last catch her up and begin to carry her; and at
that she would wake up all at once and kiss him, to a sound of bells.
They did not know why they did this; it was so beautiful they could not have
thought of it for themselves, and yet it said everything of life that they wanted to
say. For love was the beginning and the end of it; and always, as they came to the
sad part, they had tender tremblings for fear the other should think the sorrow was
real: he, lest she should think he had really gone away and le her, never to return;
and she, lest he should believe that she always meant to lie so cruelly still, with a
sheet over her eyes. Yet the kissings that came aer made the fearfulness almost
the sweetest thing in their prayer-sayings to each other.
For to them this was a daily prayer, the most solemn thing in their lives; heart
praying to heart, and hand reaching to hand; and from somewhere overhead
gentle monitions as to what they must do next coming to them, so that they knew
how to pray best, now by liing a hand, or now by turning the head, or now by
running fast with both feet. And all this beautiful worship of love their bodies
learned to do more perfectly day by day; yet the lile quaking of fear was still in the
centre of it all.
Killians ngers grew nimble; and yet he oen wondered to see how true to life his
puppets were, how they sighed, how they embraced and clung, as if their hearts
were coming in two when the parting drew near. How lingeringly the lile queen
drew up the sheet over her face, when her lover did not return, and let it fall to
cover her with a quiet sigh. Oen he cried when she did that part, so like Grendel
was it,the tender waiting, and the last giving in! And then, how the lile king
shuddered as he drew the cloth from her face; and how he threw the owers, as if
there were not enough in the world to express his grief! And yet it was only a play,
made by the twitching of the strings tied to his ngers, with love as the beginning
and end of it.
Killian was geing quite rich in copper coin, so he sent some of it home to Grendel,
that she might buy stock for the home that was so soon to be theirs. And presently
he made bold to go into the towns, where, instead of copper, he might gain silver.
He built a bigger stage, and had more music to go to the dance; but still it was the
story of himself and Grendel, with crowns upon their heads, and nothing more.
And now, indeed, people began to cry, Here is a wonderful new actor! He has it all
at the ends of his ngers! What a pity he has no beer play in which to show
himself o! But Killian said, It is the only play I know how to do.
Presently there came a sharp fellow to him, who said: If you will go shares with
me, I will make your fortune. We have only to put our heads together, and the
thing is done. I will write the plays for you, and you shall play them on the strings.
What is wanted is a lile more real life.
Killian was a simple fellow, who believed all the world to be wiser than himself. He
was glad enough to meet with a clever fellow who could write plays for him. His
partner wanted him to make new dresses for the marionees, to suit their new
parts; but to that Killian would not agree. So whatever they were they still wore
their broad hats and crowns, and their wooden shoes, that still he might watch in
his own mind himself and Grendel making their way to fortune and happiness.
The marionees grew bewildered with their new taking; they did not understand
the meaning of all the coarse things they had to do. So in the middle of a play, the
lile queen would fail now and then in her part, and move awkwardly, wondering
what her lover meant when he sprawled to and fro, and seemed trying to nd in
the air more feet than he had upon the ground.
Yet the crowd found her bashful fear so irresistibly funny, that it roared again.
Also, when the lile cow-herd with a crown on his head, lied his hand or foot
toward his partner, and then shrank trembling away, it roared yet more at the
poltroon manner of the thing.
Killians partner said, You alter all my plays, but the way you do them is something
to marvel at. Only, why do you always bring them round again to that silly lovers
ending?
I cannot help it, said Killian; oen now, with these new plays, I cant get the
strings to work properly. I think the poor puppets are geing worn out.
His partner began examining the puppets, and watching how Killian played them,
with more aention; and presently he knew that there was more in it than met the
eye. It is the puppets who are the marvel, not the man, he said to himself. I could
work them beer myself, if I had practice.
Soon aer this he proposed that they should set o for another town; it was the
chief town of all, where they hoped at last to be allowed to show their plays to the
queen herself. It must be a real play this time, said the partner, a tragedy; but it
wants a third person. You must make another puppet, while I write the play!
So Killian set to work. But he had no love for the third puppet, which was neither
himself nor Grendel, and he put no heart inside it, and no lile drop of blood. So
the new marionee was but limbs, and a head drawn on wires.
Soon, thought Killian, I shall be rich enough to go home and marry Grendel. Then
I will throw this stupid third one away; but the other two we will always keep close
to the niche with the statue of Saint Lady, to help to make us thankful for the good
things God gives us in this world.
It was beautiful late spring weather when he and his companion set out for the
capital. On the way Killians partner told him the play that would have to be played
before the queen, and said, In case three should be too much for you to manage,
you had beer teach me also to handle the strings. So Killian began to teach him,
with the two lile marionees alone, the rst play which he had brought down
with him from the mountains, that being the easiest of all to learn, and the one
he loved best to teach.
The partner was surprised to nd how wonderfully the puppets followed the
leading-strings; in spite of his clumsiness the story acted itself to perfection.
Simple-hearted Killian was charmed. Ah! you clever townsman, said he, see how
at rst trial you equal poor me, who have been at it for months! It had beer be
you, aer all, to do the play when it is called for at the court. And this Killian
proposed truly out of pure modesty, but also because he did not like the play his
partner had made for him. It is too cruel a one! he said. Aer they have played it
together so long, I feel as if my two puppets can do nothing else so well as love
each other, and live happily.
Ah, but, said his partner, the queen would nd that very dull! Killian could not
see why, but he believed that the townsman was wiser than himself, and gave in.
All he wanted now was to get money enough to run back home with, and throw
himself into his dear Grendels arms for life.
So they journeyed on, and at last, one day, they came in sight of the capital. But it
had been such a long way to come that when they reached the gates they found
them shut.
The night was warm, and a high moon was overhead. Come, said Killian, and let
us lie down in one of these orchards that are outside the walls! So they le the
high-road, and went and lay down.
First they ate some food that they carried with them. Then Killian opened the case
in which lay the two marionees, and looked them over to see that they were in
working order. His partner took up the odd number, and began practising it; but
Killians aention all went to the lile king cow-herd and his queen.
He fondled them gently with his hands, and as he looked at them his heart went
up into the mountains to pray for his dear Grendel.
Presently he began dreaming to himself like Jacob, only his dream was just of the
simple things of earth. Down the great green uplands came troops of white cale;
but to him they seemed to be bridesmaids coming to Grendels wedding day, and
the ringing of the cow-bells was as sweet to him as the songs of angels. Before he
was fast asleep the two marionees had slipped o his knee and lay in the deep
grass looking up at the sky.
They had never seen so beautiful a sight before, for never had they spent a night in
the sweet open air till now. Over their heads swung dusky clusters of blossom, that
would look white by day; and over them the moon went kissing its way from star to
star.
Now and then single blossoms dropped as if they had something to say to the lile
cow-herd and his queen, lying there in the cool grass.
But the marionees said nothing; their hearts were very full; now, at last, they
found their old happiness return to them. Their prayers, that they used to say to
each other so tenderly, had been going wrong for quite a long time; sudden starts
and tremblings of fear had taken hold of their light-hearted deceptions of each
other; and every day things had been going worse. But now they felt like entering
upon a long rest.
As they lay, their hands met together. The lile cow-herd could count her ngers
across the palm of his hand, and never once did she pretend to be drawing them
away. How good it all seemed!
Close by them the odd man was struing in sti, ungainly aitudes, cricking his
neck and elbows, and tossing up his toes. How foolish he seemed to them in their
innocent wisdom! They knew he was nothing to them, for he had no heart; he was
nothing but a trick on springs. Yet they wished he would go away, and give them
room to be alone, while the moon was making a white dream over their lives.
The partner grumbled to himself at the awkward ways of the new puppet. Instead
of obeying, it kicked at the leading strings, and did everything like a stick, all angles
and corners. Presently he put it back into its box; and then he saw the lile king
and queen lying together on the damp grass. He picked them up, growling at
Killian as a simpleton, for leaving them there to get rusty with the dew. Then he
put them also away, and curled himself up to dream about the success of his play
on the morrow.
Quite early in the morning he and Killian went into the city, and set up their stage
in a corner of the marketplace. The wonderful acting of the lile king and queen,
compared with the ungainly hobblings and jerkings of the odd man, threw the
townspeople into ecstasies of laughter. They declared they had never seen so
funny a sight in their lives as the beautiful nervous acting of the pair, side by side
with the sti-jointed awkwardness of the other.
Presently, sure enough, the queen heard tell of this new form of entertainment,
and sent word for the mummers to appear at the palace.
Killian said to his partner: There is something the maer with the puppets to-day;
they want careful handling. I am glad we seled that you are to do the new play;
for, before the queen and her great ladies, I am likely to lose my head.
All the court was gathered together to watch the puppet-play, while behind the
scenes the partner took all the leading strings into his own hands.
The two marionees opened their eyes, and saw daylight; they began moving to
and fro soly; every now and then they put their faces together and kissed. The
stupid odd man seemed to have gone; they were so glad to be le alone.
Soon the lile king lay down, pretending to be tired, but it was only that he might
put his head in the queens lap. She bent over him, and laid her ngers on his eyes,
seeming to say, Go to sleep, then! I will shut your eyes for you. How prey it was
of her!
Then she covered his face over with her handkerchief; and all at once in came the
odd man, walking on the points of his toes. The lile king, now that the
handkerchief was over his face, opened his eyes, and looked through it, to see
what his dear queen would be doing now. The odd man had his arms round her
neck, and was kissing her, and the queen looked as if she were going to kiss him
back; but all at once she had pushed away the odd man so hard that he fell down
with his heels in the air; and then she snatched the handkerchief from the kings
face, and began trembling, and kissing him.
The whole of the court shouted, rst with laughter at the odd mans fall, and then
with admiration at the wonderful acting of the lile queen.
Behind the scenes the partner began grumbling to Killian: They are going all
wrong! Its all your doing, leaving them to lie in the damp grass last night!
But still the whole court shouted and applauded. So the play went on; and now,
more and more, the showman had cause to grumble. Whenever he came to a part
where the play required that the queen should turn from her own cow-herd to the
ugly odd man, everything went wrong. Very well, thought he at last, she may be
as innocent as Desdemona but it will all come to the same at the last!
And so, still more, as the play went on, the lile marionees trembled and shook
with fear. They wished the silly odd man would go away, and not come
interrupting their prayers; and all the while they loved each other so! No idea of
jealousy ever entered the lile kings head; and as for the queen, if the odd man
came and put his arms round her neck and kissed her, could she help it? All she
could do was to run and put her arms round her own lover when he reappeared;
and how the court shouted and applauded, when she went so quick from one to
the other.
At last the nal act was begun; the king came running in with a sword in his hand,
why, he did not know, until he saw his poor lile queen struggling in the arms of
the odd man. Ah, thought he, it is to drive him away! Then we shall be by
ourselves again, and happy.
No one ever fought so wonderfully on a stage before as the lile cow-herd. All the
court started to their feet, shouting; and still, while they shouted, they laughed to
see the impossible odd man scooping about with his sword, and jerking head over
heels, and high up into the air, to get away from the lile kings sword-play. The
partner had to keep snatching him up out of harms way, for fear of a wrong
ending. Then, suddenly he let him come down with a jump on the lile kings head.
And at that the king fell back upon the ground, and felt a sharp pain go through
his heart.
The odd man drew out his sword and laughed; on the end of it was a tiny drop of
blood. The poor lile queen ran up, and bent down to look in her lovers face, to
know if he were really hurt. And then a terrible thing happened.
Three times the lile king raised his sword and pointed it at her heart, and
dropped it again. And all the time the partner was tugging at the strings, and
swearing by all the worst things he knew.
The lile king felt himself growing weak; he was very frightened. He felt as if he
were going away altogether, and leaving her to think he did not love her any more.
And still his arm went up and down, pointing the sword at her heart.
The showman tugged angrily; then there was the sound of a wire that
snappedthe king had thrown away his sword.
He reached up his two arms, and laid them fast round the queens neck. Now at
last she knows that I have not le o loving her. He felt her drawing herself away,
he held her more and more tightly to his breast; and now her lile face lay close
against his. Nothing should take her away from him now!
The showman pulled violently with all his might, to get her away; there was a
snapping of strings, and thenthe queen reached out two weak lile hands, and
laid them under her lovers head.
They lay quite still, quite still for a long time, and never moved. The play is over!
said the showman, disgusted and angry at the wreck of his plot.
Suddenly the whole stage became showered with gold; the great queen and all her
court threw out showers of it like rain. It fell all over the two marionees, covering
them where they lay, just as the babes in the wood when they died were covered
over with leaves.
Killian dropped his head on to the boards of the lile stage, and sobbed. The
partner let down the curtain, and began gathering up the gold.
And still, from without, the queen and her court clapped, and cried their applause;
and still within lay Killian with his head upon the stage, sobbing for the two lile
marionees, lying still with all the springs and strings of their bodies quite broken.
Inside, though he could not see them, their hearts were broken also. Now, he
thought, I must go back to Grendel, or I too shall die!
That night, in the middle of the night, the partner went away, carrying with him all
the gold that the lile marionees had earned by their deaths. And these, indeed,
he le, seeing that they were useless any more. But to Killian, when he woke the
next morning, they were the only things le him in the world, to take back to
Grendel.
He took them just as they were, locked in each others arms, and went back all the
long way to Grendel, up into the hills of his home, as poor in money as when he
rst started.
But Grendel saw that he had come back rich; for his face was grown tender and
wise. And for ve years they waited very patiently together, till by cow-keeping he
had earned enough for them to keep some cows of their own, and to live in
married happiness.
The lile marionees they put on a shelf, beneath the cross, and the statue of our
Lady; and there, locked in each others arms, those two disciples and martyrs of
love lie at peace, feeling no pain any more in their broken hearts.
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