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Title: The Hope of the Katzekopfs - or, The Sorrows of Selfishness. A Fairy Tale.
Author: Paget, Francis Edward
Language: English
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THE JUVENILE
Englishman’s Library.
II.
[Illustration]
“Not so Master Marmozet, sweet little boy,
Mrs. Danglecub’s hope, her delight, and her joy.
* * * * *
His jacket’s well laced, and the ladies protest
Master Marmozet dances as well as the best;
Yet some think the boy would be better at school.”
_Anstey._
[Illustration]
THE
HOPE
OF THE
KATZEKOPFS;
SORROWS
OF
SELFISHNESS.
A Fairy Tale.
SECOND EDITION.
LONDON:
JOSEPH MASTERS.
JAMES BURNS.
1846.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
· LONDON ·
PRINTED BY JOSEPH MASTERS,
ALDERSGATE STREET.
[Illustration]
PREFACE.
The former edition of this little tale was put forth with an
Introduction (which was intended to be in keeping with it) from the pen
of an imaginary author,—that William Churne, of whom Bishop Corbet
writes, and who, two centuries since, seems to have been the great
authority on all matters connected with Fairy-land.
In this introduction, the object with which the “Hope of the Katzekopfs”
was written was stated. It was an attempt, under the guise of a
Fairy-tale, to lead young minds to a more wholesome train of thought
than is commonly found at the present day in popular juvenile
literature. The Author’s aim was to excite the sympathies of the young
in behalf of _others_, and to set before them in its true colours the
hideous sin of _selfishness_. And the book was put forth as an
experiment, to ascertain whether the youth of the present generation had
patience to glean the lessons which lurk beneath the surface of
legendary tales, and the chronicles of the wild and supernatural;
whether their hearts could be moved to noble and chivalrous feelings,
and to shake off the hard, cold, calculating, worldly, selfish temper of
the times, by being brought into more immediate contact with the ideal,
the imaginary, and the romantic, than has been the fashion of late
years,—whether, in short, a race that has been glutted with Peter
Parley, and Penny Magazines, and such like stories of (so called) useful
knowledge, would condescend to read a Fable and its Moral, and learn
wisdom from a tale of enchantment.
* * * * *
The early call for a Second Edition seems to show that the experiment
was not made in vain, and at the request of the Publisher, the Author
appends his name.
FRANCIS E. PAGET.
ELFORD RECTORY,
SEPTEMBER, MDCCCXLVI.
CONTENTS.
Page.
INTRODUCTION xi.
CHAPTER I.
The Heir and many Friends 1
CHAPTER II.
The Hunting of the Heir 23
CHAPTER III.
Another Heir started 55
CHAPTER IV.
A Hashed Heir 79
CHAPTER V.
The Heirs on their Travels 121
CHAPTER VI.
Experiments on the Heir 163
[Illustration]
Introduction.
“‘A Fairy tale, by William Churne of Staffordshire!’ And who may he be?
I am sure I never heard of _him_ before.”
“Say you so, gentle Reader? Well, perhaps, after all, there is nothing
very extraordinary in the fact that a man who was born some two hundred
and fifty years ago should be forgotten. Well I wot that William Churne
is not the only one who is in that predicament. And yet my name has had
a better chance of being remembered than that of many of my
cotemporaries, who, in their day, were more illustrious than ever I was;
for it has been wedded, look you, to immortal verse. Doctor Corbet,
Bishop of Norwich,—‘the wittie Bishop,’ as King James the First was wont
to call him—conferred on me the title of Registrar-General to the
Fairies. Have you never read his ‘Fairies’ Farewell’? They say, indeed,
that his poems, like many better things, are little read now-a-days; but
you will find it among the ballads collected by a congenial spirit (a
prelate likewise), Bishop Percy of Dromore. His ‘Reliques of Ancient
Poetry,’ you are surely conversant withal? But stay, I see you have
forgotten the passage, which my vanity, perhaps, has preserved in my
memory for so many years. Thus, then, Richard Corbet speaks of me in
connection with those merry elves, whom he supposes to have taken their
final farewell of that land, which, since their presence was withdrawn,
has deserved the name of merry England no longer:—
‘Now, they have left our quarters;
A registrar they have,
Who can preserve their charters;
A man both wise and grave.
An hundred of their merry pranks
By one that I could name,
Are kept in store; con twenty thanks
To William for the same.
‘_To William Churne, of Staffordshire_,
Give laud and praises due,
Who, every meale, can mend your cheare
With tales both old and true;
To William all give audience,
And pray ye for his noddle,
For all the Fairies’ evidence
Were lost if it were addle.’
There, gentle reader, that was the way in which the Bishop-Poet spake of
me. I warrant you, my cheeks tingle still as I repeat the lines.”
“Indeed? cheeks that blushed for the first time two centuries and a half
ago, must, I should think, have nearly blushed their last by this time.
I cannot read your riddle. You would not have us believe, would you,
that a man who was born in the sixteenth century, was story-telling in
the nineteenth? I fear you must be story-telling in more senses than
one, or else that the event so much deprecated by the Bishop of Norwich,
hath befallen you, and that the ‘noddle’ is ‘_addle_.’”
“Ah, gentle reader, is it even so? Can you think of no other solution of
the difficulty? I fear me that you have a larger share of the unbelief
of this dull, plodding, unimaginative, money-getting, money-loving
nineteenth century, than of the humour, and simplicity, and romance of
the seventeenth.”
“Come then, I _will_ hazard a solution. What if the fairies, whose
official you have admitted yourself to be, carried you off some
moonlight night, two hundred years ago, and hid you for that space in
their secret chambers, amid the recesses of the grassy hills?”
“Hush! hush! kind reader; speak not so loudly. You know not who may be
listening. However, I do not say but that it may be even as you suppose.
Perhaps, while time and change have worked their will on others, I have
been exempted from their influence.”
“How? What? Can such things be? Dear Sir, how much I should like to make
your acquaintance. Two hundred and fifty years old! Why, your face must
be a wilderness of wrinkles! And your dress, how strange and antiquated
must be its cut! Are you not greatly incommoded, as you walk the
streets, by the curiosity of the populace?”
“Nay, my friend, if that which I have hinted be the case, it is more
than probable that I have the secret of fern-seed, and walk invisible.”
“What changes you must find among us! What advances have been made since
you went to Fairy-land!”
“Changes, indeed! and advances, too, for that matter! but whether on the
right road is another question. However, of this I can assure you,
gentle reader, that I would I were back again in Fairy-land. I see
nothing here to tempt me to linger among you.”
“Then why do you linger?”
“I only wait to see if it be a hopeless task to speak to the youth of
the rising generation, as I spake to their forefathers. I would fain
learn whether it be possible to excite their sympathies in behalf of
anything but _themselves_; whether they have yet patience to glean the
lessons of wisdom, which lurk beneath the surface of legendary tales,
and the chronicles of the wild and supernatural; whether their hearts
can be moved to noble and chivalrous feelings, and to shake off the
hard, cold, calculating, worldly, selfish temper of the times, by being
brought into more immediate contact with the ideal, the imaginary, and
the romantic, than has been the fashion of late years.”
“In plain English, then, good Master Churne, you desire to ascertain
whether a race that has been glutted with Peter Parley and Penny
Magazines, and such like stores of (so called) useful knowledge, will
condescend to read a Fable and its moral, or to interest themselves with
the grotesque nonsense, the palpable, fantastic absurdities, the utter
impossibilities of a Tale of Enchantment?”
“Such is my object.”
“Well, we have lived to see a tunnel under the Thames, and they are
talking of a canal across the isthmus of Darien. But your scheme is a
wild one.”
“I do not think so.”
“And suppose you can find readers, is it your object to retail those
‘hundred merry pranks’ of Fairy-land, of which Bishop Corbet tells us
that you are the depositary?”
“I shall be better able to answer your question, gentle reader, when I
know how far your patience has carried you through the ensuing pages.
Till then farewell.”
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I.
The Heir and many Friends.
“This little one shall make it holy day.”
_Shakespeare._
“Unheard and unespied,
Through keyholes we do glide;
Over tables, stools, and shelves;
We trip with our fairy elves.”
_Poole’s English Parnassus._
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I.
Never were such rejoicings heard of before as those which took place
at the Court of King Katzekopf when it was announced that Queen
Ninnilinda had got a little boy. It was what everybody had been
wishing for, hoping for, expecting, year after year, but no little boy
came; and so, at length, folks began to despair, and to settle it in
their own minds that, whenever King Katzekopf died, the crown would go
to his second cousin nine times removed, one of the Katzekopfs of
Katzenellenbogen-Katzevervankotsdarsprakenluftschlosser, whom nobody
knew or cared about.
So when Queen Ninnilinda had an heir, the nation almost went beside
itself with joy. The church bells rang till they cracked; the guns of
the citadel were fired till they grew so hot that they went off of
themselves; oxen were roasted whole in the great square (my dear reader,
never attempt to roast an ox _whole_, either on your own birthday, or on
that of anybody else; the thing is an impossibility, half the meat is
sure to be raw, and the other half burnt, and so good beef is spoiled);
the two chief conduits of the city no longer poured forth water, but one
spouted out cowslip-wine, and the other raspberry-vinegar; the lake in
front of the palace was filled with small beer (this, however, was a
failure, as it killed the fish, and folks said that the beer tasted
muddy); an air-balloon hovered over the principal streets, and showered
down carraway comfits and burnt almonds; Punch was exhibited all day for
nothing; the prisons were all thrown open, and everybody paid the debts
of everybody else.
Such being the state of things out of doors, you will readily believe
that within the palace, the joy was of the most exuberant kind.
Everything was in confusion; people ran up-stairs and down-stairs,
jostling against one another, and always forgetting whither they were
going, and for what they had been sent. Some were laughing, and some
were crying, but the greater part were all talking at once, each making
his own remarks, and nobody listening to his neighbour. The lords of the
bed-chamber were laying wagers upon the likelihood of a new creation of
peers; the maids of honour were discussing the probable colour of the
infant prince’s eyes; the pages were speculating upon an increase of
salary; nay, the very scullions were counting on a brevet for the
kitchen.
But if all his court were thus in such a frenzy of pleasurable emotion,
what must have been the condition of King Katzekopf himself? It must be
confessed, that, in the main, his Majesty was one of those easy,
indolent, careless sort of folks, who are content to let things take
their own course, and who can very seldom be roused to make an exertion
of any kind. But the birth of an heir had thrown even him into a state
of excitement. Happily, he was a king, and so he had it in his power to
give vent to his emotions in the manner which was most agreeable to him,
for if such unwonted exhilaration had been pent up too long, there is no
saying what the consequences might not have been. Fortunately, however,
there was a safety-valve, through which he was enabled to let off the
steaming overflow of his spirits.
So first he sent for the Yeoman of the Mouth, and bespoke a roast goose,
with plenty of sage and onions, for his dinner; then he summoned the
Master of the Robes, and ordered himself four new suits of clothes; then
the head Confectioner was commanded to prepare materials for the
manufacture of the largest christening-cake that the world had ever
seen; and, lastly, he called together his Privy Council, and having
created the new born infant Commander in Chief, and Lord High Admiral,
Inspector General of everything and everybody, and settled on him the
Crown revenues accruing from the sale of shrimps and periwinkles, his
Majesty in a fervour of patriotism and paternal pride, rang the bell,
and desired that the nurse, Mrs. Yellowlily, should bring the heir
apparent into the Council-chamber.
Accordingly, in a few moments, the folding doors were thrown open, and
nurse Yellowlily appeared with her precious charge swathed in a mantle
of sky-blue taffety and silver, supported by two of the royal rockers.
“No indeed!” said the Lord Chancellor, dropping his mace and the great
seal, and clasping his hands, as he fixed his eyes on the ceiling,
“never was such a lovely infant seen!”
“Wait a moment, my Lord,” said nurse Yellowlily, “and you shall have a
peep at his Royal Highness:”—for as yet the Chancellor had not beheld
him.
With that she gently turned back the mantle, and the Privy Councillors
crowded round her. “There, my Lord,” she exclaimed, “you can now see his
blessed little nose.”
Everybody was delighted: it was the most exquisite nose ever beheld. The
King was so gratified, that he instantly created the nurse a Baroness in
her own right; upon which she curtsied three times, walked backwards
till she trod upon the Lord Chamberlain’s gouty foot, and then retired
with the rockers, who, as they proceeded down the corridor, chanted the
softest of lullabies.
The Privy Councillors listened till the last faint echoes of the melody
had died away, when King Katzekopf thus addressed them.
“My Lords,” said he, “I have called you together on the present
auspicious occasion, for the purpose of making you acquainted with
certain measures which I am about to take with reference to the Prince,
my son. And first, my Lord Chamberlain, I have to announce to you my
intention of giving a most magnificent fête on the occasion of his Royal
Highness’s christening. You will be pleased to send out cards of
invitation according to this list, which I believe contains the name of
every person of reputation in the kingdom.”
Here his Majesty handed a book to the Lord Chamberlain, which that
functionary received with reverence, and proceeded to inspect with great
attention. Having turned over five or six pages, the Chamberlain
suddenly nodded his head as if a thought had struck him. This was so
uncommon an event that the Lord Steward of the Household immediately
inquired in a whisper what it was that had attracted his attention. The
Chamberlain pointed to the list of names, and said in an under tone,
“Look through the A’s, my Lord, and see if there is not a very important
name omitted.”
At this moment King Katzekopf’s attention was attracted by the
whispering, and he graciously exclaimed, “Well, my Lords, what’s the
matter?”
“I apprehend,” said the Chamberlain with becoming diffidence, “that your
Majesty has caused these names to be written in alphabetical order.”
“Certainly, my Lord,” replied the King.
“I speak with all possible deference,” rejoined the Chamberlain, “but I
presume that your Majesty did not intend that the Lady Abracadabra
should be excluded from the invitations.”
“Humph,” said the King, “I never thought about her.”
“But she is your Majesty’s consort’s great aunt,” observed the
Chamberlain.
“And a very powerful Fairy,” suggested the Steward of the Household.
“And, if I may say it without offence, rather capricious in her temper
at times; at least she turned an acquaintance of mine into a tadpole,”
remarked the Groom of the Stole.
“And your Majesty,” said the Keeper of the Records, interposing, “cannot
have forgotten the very untoward event which took place in your
Majesty’s family, some centuries ago, when all the misfortunes that
occurred to your Majesty’s ancestress, the Sleeping Beauty, arose from
her Fairy relative not being invited to the christening.”
King Katzekopf would have rather preferred the Lady Abracadabra’s room
to her company, for he was very much afraid of the Fairies, but then, on
the other hand, the bare thought of having the Hope of his House turned
into a tadpole, or put to sleep in a castle in a wood for a hundred and
fifty years, was most alarming. His Majesty grew red and pale
alternately, shifted from one side of his throne to the other, and was
evidently in a state of great anxiety.
“But how is the Lady Abracadabra to be found?” said he at length. “Who
can tell where to look for her? One moment she may be a thousand miles
off, and the next she may bob up through a crack in the floor, as if she
had passed the night in the cellar.”
“He! he! he!” cried a shrill tiny voice in the distance, as though the
owner of the said voice was greatly amused at something it had just
heard.
“How the mice are squeaking behind the arras to-day!” exclaimed the
King. “My Lord Chamberlain, you must send for a cat, and when she has
caught the mice, we will set her to catch the Lady Abracadabra. Ha! ha!
ha!” continued his Majesty, laughing at his own wit.
But the Keeper of the Records, who, from his study of the archives of
the kingdom, knew better than most people what a dangerous thing it is
to speak disrespectfully of the Fairies, and who was supposed to have
acquired a smattering of the black art himself, immediately endeavoured
to repress King Katzekopf’s laughter, by saying,—“So please you, my
Liege, I apprehend that there would be little difficulty in sending an
invitation to the Lady Abracadabra. If one of the Government messengers
will bury it under a fairy-hill, next Wednesday morning, any time before
noon, turning his face to the East, and calling her by her name three
times....”
At this point the Keeper of the Records stopped short, for all of a
sudden, a very strange sound was heard at the keyhole of the
Council-chamber door, a scratching, rustling, noise, followed by a
violent blast, such as might issue from the nozzle of a blacksmith’s
bellows.
The President of the Council looked up to see what was the matter, but
was immediately struck on the nose by a pellet of closely squeezed
paper, which was immediately followed by another, and another, as the
blowing at the keyhole was repeated. At length, when another blast had
produced a shrill whistle, which showed that the aperture was clear, a
little object, about the size of a hornet, darted through it, and
increasing instantaneously in dimensions, presented the appearance of an
old woman, some three feet high, by the time it had reached the floor.
Whether the Lady Abracadabra (for of course it was she) had been a
beauty in the days of her youth, some eight or nine hundred years
before, there is, at present, no means of ascertaining; but certainly,
when she stood upon the floor of the Council-chamber, her appearance was
anything but prepossessing. Perhaps, gentle reader, you have been in the
habit of supposing that all the Fairies are dainty, little, airy beings,
with butterfly wings, and vests of green and gold, who hide themselves
in a blue-bell, and lose themselves among the petals of a peony. And
such, no doubt, are the elves that live among the green hills, and who
love to dance by moonlight, in the glades of the forest, or beside the
pleasant water-courses. But there are others who mingle more with the
human race, and adopt their habits, and hence, it may be, they become
more subject to the changes which affect mortals. Perhaps this was the
cause why the Lady Abracadabra’s face had become so brown, and shrunken,
and covered with deep-set wrinkles; or perhaps it was the having had her
own way so much; or those long journeys in which she travelled at the
rate of a thousand miles a minute, might have spoiled her complexion; or
perhaps, having arrived at (what even among the Fairies is allowed to
be) _a certain age_, she could not help looking like an old woman. But
be this as it may, she did look very old, and the effect of her short
black velvet jacket, and yellow satin petticoat, did not mend matters.
She wore on her head a tall, steeple-crowned hat, of the same material
as her jacket; had high-heeled shoes with diamond buckles, and bore in
her hand a pliant rod of ebony, with a small star of living light at
each end of it.
It was evident that she was very angry, for she scowled at the Privy
Councillors, stamped vehemently on the floor, and every muscle of her
face quivered with passion, as she addressed the King.
“So, nephew! you are determined to keep _me_ out of your palace at any
rate, I see. Let who will come to court, I am to be excluded. There is
always greater difficulty in getting into your house than anybody’s
else.”
King Katzekopf stammered forth an apology, assured his kinswoman that he
was delighted to see her, that he had just been speaking of sending her
an invitation, and that he had given general orders that she should be
admitted at all times.
“No such thing!” cried the little lady angrily. “You use me abominably.
You know I always make it a rule to come through the keyhole, and there
it is that you always try to stop me. Either I find a plate of metal
over the opening, or else the key is left in the lock, and so my ruff
gets crumpled to pieces. But the insult you have exposed me to to-day is
intolerable: blocking up the passage with scraps of dirty paper,
squeezed together by fingers of some greasy yeoman of the guard.—Oh it’s
atrocious!” And the Lady Abracadabra shook her quilted petticoat as if
she never should be clean again.
The King looked at his Ministers, and the Ministers looked at the King;
but neither seemed to know how to excuse themselves. At length, the
President of the Council, trembling exceedingly (for he expected to be
changed into a tadpole, or some such reptile), ventured to assure the
Lady, that he was the person in fault; for that, finding that the
door-keeper had got into the habit of applying his ear to the keyhole of
the Council-chamber, and fearing lest state-secrets should thus get wind
prematurely, he had himself obstructed the passage in the manner already
described.
“The varlet! the knave!” exclaimed the Fairy, as she heard of the
door-keeper’s delinquency, “I’ve a great mind to hang him up by his ears
to the vane of the church steeple. Go look for him, my Lord, and tell
him from me, that if ever he puts his ear to a keyhole again, I’ll blow
mushroom spawn into his brains, and cause his ears to vegetate, instead
of to listen.”
Fairies, as all the world knows, are hasty and capricious; but it is
only a very few who are spiteful and malignant. And to this class the
Lady Abracadabra had never belonged. If she was angry one moment, she
was pacified the next, and she much more frequently used her
supernatural powers in acts of kindness, than to gratify her freaks of
mischief.
It was so on the present occasion. After the little ebullition just
recorded, she speedily recovered her equanimity. Her eyes no longer
sparkled with passion, and so agreeable an expression came over her
countenance, that nobody thought about her wrinkles, or the
unbecomingness of her yellow petticoat.
“I was taking an airing on Mount Caucasus a quarter of an hour ago,”
said she, “when one of our people told me of your good fortune; so here
I came wind-speed to congratulate you, and to see if I could not find
some lucky gifts for my great-great-nephew.”
King Katzekopf thanked her for her condescension, and immediately
proposed to escort her to the royal nursery.
“Ha! ha! ha!” cried the Lady Abracadabra, almost choking with laughter
at the absurdity of the suggestion. “You don’t suppose I came to talk to
you before I had seen the baby, do you? Why, I’ve been sitting by his
cradle these ten minutes!”
“You have?” exclaimed the King in astonishment.
“Aye, marry,” said the lady, “and have pulled the chair from under the
Baroness Yellowlily, and, he! he! he! have given her such a bump. She
was going to feed the child with pap that would have scalded it; but it
will be cool enough, I warrant me, now, before she has done rubbing her
bruised elbows. Well, nephew, and so you’re going to have a grand
christening, are you? Who are to be sponsors besides myself?”
It had never entered into King Katzekopf’s imagination to ask the Lady
Abracadabra to be godmother to the young prince. And now she had taken
it as a matter of course, and it would never do to affront her! Was
there ever such a distress? And what would Queen Ninnilinda say, and
what would the Arch-duchess of Klopsteinhesseschloffengrozen say, when,
after a direct invitation, she found an old Fairy was to be substituted
in her place?
The King was so nervous and frightened that he did not know what to
answer. He could only stammer out something about final arrangements
being as yet undetermined.
“Well, but, at any rate, I suppose you have settled the child’s name,”
continued the Lady Abracadabra, approaching the Council-table. “Hoity
toity! what is this?” she added, snatching up one of his Majesty’s
memoranda: “Conrad-Adalbert-Willibald-Lewis-Hildebrand-Victor-
Sigismund-Belvidere-Narcissus-Adonis Katzekopf? I never heard such a
string of silly, conceited names in my life. I shan’t allow it, I can
tell you that,” and she stamped on the floor till her diamond buckles
glanced like lightning. “If _I_ am to have anything to do with the
child, I shall give him what name I think proper. Stay; I’ve watched him
for ten minutes, and can read his whole character, and a more wilful
little brat I never saw. You shall call him Eigenwillig. There! that’s
to be his name; Eigenwillig, and nothing else!”[1]
Footnote 1:
It is mentioned in the Chronicle of Carivaldus of Cologne, from which
this veracious tale has been extracted, that the word “Eigenwillig,”
in the ancient Teutonic tongue, bears the meaning of Self-willed; a
statement which is the more credible, since it has a corresponding
signification in the modern language of Germany.
And then, not waiting for a reply, the Lady Abracadabra gathered her
yellow satin habiliments round her, threw out her arms, brought them
together above her head, sprung from the floor, shrunk up to nothing in
a moment, and darted through the keyhole of the Council-chamber door.
CHAPTER II.
The Hunting of the Heir.
“You parents all that children have,
And you that have got none,
If you would keep them safe abroad,
Pray keep them safe at home.”
_Nursery Rhyme._
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II
And Eigenwillig he was called. There was no help for it. Even Queen
Ninnilinda soon saw that. She flew into a violent passion, indeed, and
called her husband an old goose, and told him that if he had as much
sense in his whole body as a mite has in the tip of its tail, he would
have contrived to have got rid of the Lady Abracadabra without
affronting her.
“Shall I send her an excuse, my dear?” asked King Katzekopf meekly.
“Send her a fiddlestick!” cried the Queen indignantly, at the same time
kicking over her footstool, and upsetting a basin of caudle, scalding
hot, into her husband’s lap.—“How can you make such a ridiculous
proposition? What but mischief can come of offending her? Will she not
vent her spite on me, or the Arch-duchess? Or may not she make the poor
dear baby a victim? May she not dart through the keyhole, and carry him
off to Fairy-land, and substitute in his place some frightful, wide
mouthed, squinting, red haired changeling, as much like your Majesty,
and as little like me, as possible? Oh it is too vexatious, and
ridiculous, and shocking, and foolish!”
And then Ninnilinda burst out a crying. But her Majesty’s tears and
rages were so frequent that they had lost their effect. Nobody thought
much about them; and besides, King Katzekopf was trying to take out the
stains of the caudle, which had sadly damaged the appearance of the
pea-green brocade that covered his knees.
So when her Majesty was tired of crying, she ceased: and, in the course
of the afternoon, wrote a note to her “dearest Lady Abracadabra,”
expressing the intensity of her satisfaction at the fact that her sweet
baby had secured the protection of such an amiable and powerful
patroness.
Then she sent for the Baroness Yellowlily, and told her that, as she had
reason to fear that a malicious old Fairy was disposed to do the child a
mischief, and, perhaps, carry him off altogether, she must immediately
anoint him all over with an unguent, made of three black spiders, the
gall of a brindled cat, the fat of a white hen, and the blood of a
screech owl; and that his cradle must be watched night and day until
after the christening. It was lucky for Queen Ninnilinda that the Lady
Abracadabra wished nothing but well to the little prince, and knew
nothing of these proceedings.
It is not necessary to fatigue the reader with the details of the fête,
which was given a few weeks after the events which have just been
recorded. There were firing of cannon, and ringing of bells, and beating
of drums, and blowing of trumpets. And there were long processions of
high officers of state, and nobles, and foreign ambassadors, dressed in
gorgeous robes, and glittering with gold and jewels. And there was the
arrival of the Fairy sponsor, in a coach made of a single pearl, and
drawn by a matchless pair of white cockatrices from the mountains of
Samarcand; and there was the flight of birds of Paradise that
accompanied her, each bearing round its neck a chain of gold and
diamonds, from which depended a casket, containing some costly offering
for the Hope of the House of Katzekopf. And there was the Lady
Abracadabra herself, no longer stamping the floor with anger, and
wearing that frightful, unbecoming, ill-tempered dress of yellow and
black, but arrayed in the most delicate fabrics of the fairy-loom, and
bearing upon her shoulders a mantle of gossamer, spangled all over with
dew-drops, sparkling with the colours of a hundred rainbows. No look of
age or ill-nature had she. The refulgence of her veil had obliterated
her wrinkles, and as she passed along the gallery of the palace, side by
side with the Arch-duchess of Klopsteinhesseschloffengrozen, even Queen
Ninnilinda herself was forced to confess that she looked very amiable,
that her manners were exceedingly good, and that, on the whole, she was
a captivating person,—when she chose it.
When the child was to be named, the Queen gave a supplicatory glance at
her kinswoman, and gently whispered in an appealing tone, “Have you
_really_ any objection to the charming name originally proposed?
Conrad-Adalbert-Willibald....”
But the Lady Abracadabra cut the catalogue short, with saying the word
“Eigenwillig” in so decided a tone, that the prince was named
Eigenwillig directly, and there was an end of the matter.
And then followed the royal banquet, and then a ball, and then the town
was illuminated, and at midnight the fête terminated with a most
magnificent display of fireworks.
Just, however, before the amusements of the evening were concluded, the
old Fairy called her niece and the King into the royal closet, and thus
addressed them: “Kinsmen mine,” said she, “I have shown you this day
that I bear a most hearty good-will both to you and yours; and therefore
if ye be wise,—which I think ye are not—you will listen to what I now
say to you. You have got a fair son: for that you must thank Providence;
and your son has got the fairest gifts that were to be found in all
Fairy-land: for them you must thank me. But if, in spite of these gifts,
your son turns out a wilful, disagreeable, selfish monkey, for that you
will have to thank yourselves. Queen Ninnilinda, if ever I saw a mother
that was likely to spoil a child, you are that person. King Katzekopf,
if ever I saw a father who was likely to let his son lead him by the
nose, you are that man. But attend to what I say,” continued the Fairy,
with a look of great severity, “I don’t intend to have my godchild a
selfish little brat, who shall be a bad man, and a bad king, and a bad
son, whom everybody shall dislike, and whose faults shall be all
attributed to his having a Fairy godmother. No: I have named the child
according to his natural temper. I have called him Eigenwillig, because
his disposition is to be self-willed. And of this it is fit that you
should be reminded continually, even by his name, in order that you may
discipline his mind, and make him the reverse of what he is now called.
Poor child! he has everything around him to make him selfish. Let it be
the object of your life, to make him unselfish. This is my injunction,
and remember I have both the will and the power to enforce it. I am his
godmother, and I am a Fairy besides, so I have a right to insist. And
mark my words, I shall do _my_ duty by the prince, let who will neglect
theirs. I shall watch over him night and day, and shall be among you
when least you expect me. If you manage him properly, you may expect my
help; if you show yourselves unfit for the charge, I shall take the
reins of discipline into my own hands; and if you then resist me ... but
I will not allow myself to imagine that such infatuation and insanity
were possible. Sweet niece, I must take my leave. May I trouble your
Majesty to open the window. Kiss my godchild for me. Good night.”
As the Lady Abracadabra took her leave, there was a rustling of wings in
the air, the chariot of pearl, with its attendant cockatrices, appeared
on a level with the window: the Fairy sprung into her seat, and,
preceded by a cloud of lantern flies, each insect sparkling with a
different coloured flame, blue, or crimson, or violet, or green, and
followed by myriads of elves, each crowned with asteroids of lambent
light, she wended on her way to Fairy-land, her track through the sky
being marked by a long train of sparks, whose dazzling brilliancy waxed
fainter and fainter as she receded from earth, till it mingled with, and
became lost in the pallid hues of the Milky Way.
It is needless to say that Queen Ninnilinda did not relish the parting
admonitions of her Fairy kinswoman. First, she (being a Queen) did not
like to submit to dictation; next, she persuaded herself that she had a
full right to do as she pleased, and to spoil her own child as much as
she liked; lastly, being rather timid, she felt very uncomfortable at
the notion of being watched by a Fairy, and still more so at the
possibility of incurring that Fairy’s vengeance. So, as usual, she
vented all her anger on her husband, and then went to bed and sobbed
herself to sleep. King Katzekopf was not easily disturbed; and the
chronicles of the kingdom assure us that he slept as well as usual on
the night after the fête; but upon awaking next morning he felt the
necessity of something being done, and therefore called together once
more his trusty councillors, who, after much grave discussion,
determined that the best method of securing the further favour of the
Lady Abracadabra would be, by immediately appointing proper instructors
for the royal infant.
Accordingly, a commission was issued to inquire who would be the proper
persons to undertake so responsible an office, and after a year and a
half of diligent investigation, it was decided that the three cleverest
women in the kingdom should be charged with the prince’s education until
such time as he should exchange his petticoats for jacket and trousers.
So the Lady Brigida was appointed to teach him how to feed himself, and
to instruct him in _Belles Lettres_, and the —ologies: the Lady Rigida
was to make him an adept in prudence and etiquette: while the Lady
Frigida was directed to enlighten his mind on the science of political
economy, and to teach him the art of governing the country.
But alas! nobody thought of appointing a preceptress, who should
instruct him in the art of governing _himself_.
Meanwhile, Queen Ninnilinda, finding that her husband had become highly
popular in consequence of the pains he was taking to have his heir
properly educated, determined that she would do something which should
set her own character in a favourable light as a wise and discreet
mother. She, therefore, after much careful consideration, drew up the
following rules for the nursery, which were immediately printed in an
Extraordinary Gazette, and which were received with so much applause,
that almost all the ladies in the kingdom adopted them immediately in
their own families, and have, in fact, been guided by them ever since,
even though they have not followed Queen Ninnilinda’s plan of having
them framed and glazed.
RULES FOR THE NURSERY.
1. The Prince Eigenwillig is never to be contradicted; for
contradiction is depressing to the spirits.
2. His Royal Highness is to have everything he cries for; else he
will grow peevish and discontented.
3. He is to be allowed to eat and drink when, what, and as much he
pleases; hunger being a call of nature, and whatever nature
dictates is natural.
4. His Royal Highness is to be dissuaded from speaking to any one
below the rank of Baron; as it is highly desirable that he should
acquire a proper pride.
5. It is to be impressed upon the Prince’s mind continually that
he is an object of the first consequence, and that his first duty
is to take good care of himself.
Such being the plan laid down for Prince Eigenwillig’s education, it is
not to be wondered at that, by the time he was two years old, he had a
very fair notion of the drift of his mother’s rules, and that they found
great favour in his eyes; insomuch that at three, when the Ladies
Brigida, Frigida, and Rigida commenced the task of tuition, he contrived
to inspire them with the notion that their office, for the present, at
least, was likely to be a sinecure. He even resisted the efforts which
the Lady Brigida made to induce him to feed himself with a fork and a
spoon, and adhered upon principle to the use of his fingers, lest, by
yielding the point, he should seem to allow himself to be contradicted.
At four years old the precocity of his talents had greatly developed
themselves. He had mingled mustard with the Lady Frigida’s chocolate; he
had pulled the chair from under his father, just as the King was about
to sit down, whereby his Majesty got a tumble, and the Prince got his
ears boxed; he had killed nurse Yellowlily’s cockatoo by endeavouring to
ascertain whether it was as fond of stewed mushrooms as he was himself,
and he had even gone the length of singing in her presence, and of
course in allusion to her bereavement,
“Dame what made your ducks to die?
Ducks to die? ducks to die? ducks to die?
Eating o’ polly-wigs! Eating o’ polly-wigs.”
But if the truth must be told, the prince had acquired by this time many
worse habits than that of mischief. And these had their origin in his
being permitted to have his own way in everything. For, indeed, it might
be said, that this spoilt child was the person who ruled the entire
kingdom. The prince ruled his nurse, and his three instructresses; they
ruled the Queen; the Queen ruled the King; the King ruled his Ministers;
and the Ministers ruled the country.
O Lady Abracadabra, Lady Abracadabra, how could you allow things to come
to such a pass? You must have known right well that Queen Ninnilinda was
very silly; and that King Katzekopf was one of those folks who are too
indolent to exert themselves about anything which is likely to be
troublesome or unpleasant; and you must have been quite sure that the
nurses and governesses were all going the wrong way to work; you must
have foreseen that at the end of four years of mismanagement the poor
child would be a torment to himself and to everybody else. Why did you
not interfere?
This is a hard question to answer; but perhaps the Lady Abracadabra’s
object was to convince both parties of this fact by actual experience,
as being aware that in such experience lay the best hope of a remedy.
A torment, however, the child was; there could be no mistake about that.
Though he had everything he asked for, nothing seemed to satisfy him; if
he was pleased one moment, he was peevish the next: he grew daily more
and more fractious, and ill-humoured, and proud, and greedy, and
self-willed, and obstinate. It is very shocking to think of so young a
child having even the seeds of such evil tempers; but how could it be
otherwise, when he was taught to think only of himself, and when he was
allowed to have his own way in all things? Unhappy child! yet happy in
this, that he was likely to find out for himself that, in spite of
having all he wished for, he was unhappy! Unhappy parents! yet happy in
this, that, if so disposed, they might learn wisdom, from the obvious
failure of their foolish system of weak indulgence!
Prince Eigenwillig had nearly completed his fifth year, when, one day
that the Lady Rigida was endeavouring to explain to his Royal Highness
her cleverest theory on the subject of the Hyscos, or Shepherd Kings
(he, meanwhile, being intently absorbed in a game of bilboquet), a Lord
of the Bedchamber entered the apartment, and announced that the Queen
desired the Prince’s presence in her boudoir.
“Ha!” exclaimed the little boy, with a start of pleasure and surprise,
as he entered the apartment, “what a beautiful creature you’ve got in
that cage. Whose is it? I should like to have it.”
“Well, my sweet pet,” replied his mother, “so you shall, if you wish for
it.”
“Of course I do,” said the Prince; “what a sleek gray coat! what
strange, orange-coloured eyes! what curious rings of black and white fur
on its tail! What is it?”
“It is a ring-tailed macauco, love,” answered the Queen, “your papa has
just made me a present of it. I don’t know how much money he gave for
it.”
“Well, mamma, it’s mine now; that’s one comfort,” observed the Prince.
“Let it out,” continued he, addressing the Lord of the Bedchamber.
“I am afraid, sir,” replied Baron Puffendorf, “that it might do
mischief. I believe it isn’t tamed yet.”
“Oh, we’ll tame it, then,” replied the Prince; “call Lady Rigida; she’ll
tame it directly, I’m sure. Lady Rigida, here’s a monkey wants taming;
talk to it about the shepherd kings, will you?”
The Lady Rigida drew up with offended dignity.
“Ha! ha! my good Rigida,” said the Queen, laughing, “you mustn’t be
angry with these sallies of wit. What a clever child it is!”
“Is nobody going to open the door of the cage?” asked the boy
impatiently. “I want to see the creature loose.”
“Oh, my sweet child, leave it where it is. You’ll frighten me to death,
if you let it out,” cried the Queen in alarm.
The Prince immediately threw himself down on the floor, and began to
roar.
“Don’t cry, there’s a love,” said his wise mother, soothingly, “and the
Baron shall see if he can’t hold it while you look at it. Wrap your
handkerchief round your hand, Baron; it won’t bite, I’m sure.”
The Baron did as he was bid, and, in considerable trepidation, opened
the door of the cage, and made an effort to seize the macauco. The
animal immediately darted at his hand, bit it with all its strength, and
dashed out of the cage in an instant. “Sess! sess! sess!” cried Prince
Eigenwillig, springing up from the floor, and clapping his hands. “Now
for a chase! Sess! macauco! Hie at them! Good monkey! Bite Rigida! Bite
Puffendorf!”
Away ran the instructress, away ran the Lord of the Bedchamber, and
after them pursued the macauco round and round the room, now biting at
the Baron’s heels, and now at the Lady Rigida’s; while the Queen ran
screaming out of the apartment, and the author of all the mischief stood
in the midst, laughing with all his might. In another moment, the agile
monkey had scrambled up the Lady Rigida’s back, and, having half
strangled her in its attempts to tear off her head-dress, took a flying
leap to the top of a cabinet, whence, having dashed down a most precious
vase of rose-coloured chrystal, it proceeded to tear the cap to tatters.
But Prince Eigenwillig was too highly delighted with the more active
freaks of the animal, and too much pleased at the opportunity of
terrifying and tormenting the Lady Rigida, to allow it to remain long at
the top of the cabinet. So snatching up a book which lay on a table
beside him, he threw it at the macauco for the purpose of dislodging it.
And therein he succeeded, but at a cost which by no means entered into
his calculations, for the animal, irritated by the blow, now turned on
the naughty boy, and springing on his shoulders, laid hold of one of his
ears with his teeth.
It was now the Prince’s turn to scream, and the more he screamed and
struggled, the more the macauco bit him, and the child would soon have
fainted with fright and pain; but, just at the critical moment, when he
had fallen to the ground, the sound of many voices was heard outside the
door, which was immediately flung open, and, together with a number of
members of the household, in rushed a great black mastiff, which
immediately flew at the monkey, who, thereupon, quitted its hold of the
Prince’s ear, and retreated to its cage.
The whole palace was by this time in confusion; messengers were rushing
in all directions for surgeons and physicians; and even King Katzekopf,
who had now grown so fat, that he never left his arm-chair when he could
help it, ran up-stairs, three steps at a time, to know what was the
matter.
“Ah!” exclaimed the Lord Chamberlain, as soon as he had recovered
sufficient presence of mind to shake his head. “Ah,” quoth he.
“Yea, forsooth!” replied the Chancellor, with the air of one who _could_
say a great deal if he chose.
The Arch-Treasurer of the Empire, who never spoke at all, if he could
help it, and who never allowed his countenance to indulge itself in any
particular expression, shrugged his shoulders slightly, but with what
particular intention no one ventured to imagine.
The old ladies of the household (including his grace the Keeper of the
Records) were, however, by no means so prudent or taciturn.
“I knew how it would be!” cried one.
“I always guessed as much,” rejoined another.
“I anticipated it from the first,” ejaculated the third.
“This comes of Fairy-godmothers,” groaned forth he of the Records.
“No doubt, it is some malicious prank of hers!” said Nurse Yellowlily,
with a shudder.
“I shouldn’t be surprised if henceforth the poor child were possessed,”
added the first speaker.
“Or squinting and blear-eyed,” continued the second.
“Or if his ears mortified, and turned into pigs’ feet!” sobbed out the
third.
“Oh, too true! too true!” exclaimed the Queen. “I see it all. Unhappy
mother that I am! All the poor child’s misfortunes, past, present, and
to come, are owing to my peevish, spiteful, malicious, capricious, old,
ugly witch of an aunt, Lady Abracadabra! Oh, that I had been turned into
a tadpole, and the Grand Duchess of Klopsteinhesseschloffengrozen had
been the only sponsor!”
It was a long while before anything like tranquillity was restored; but
when the King and the Queen had been assured by the medical attendants
that the Prince’s wound was by no means serious, and the child himself
had ceased screaming, and the macauco had been hanged, the black mastiff
began to attract attention.
“Whose dog is it?” asked one.
“Where did it come from?” said another.
But nobody could answer the question. At this moment the King called the
hound to him, for the purpose of patting it. The mastiff approached, and
laid its heavy fore-paws on the royal knee, and looked very wisely at
the King; and then his Majesty looked as wisely as ever he could (how
could he do less?) at the dog. But what was the King’s amazement, when,
all of a sudden, he perceived the tan portion of the glossy hide
changing into a yellow satin petticoat, and the black part into a black
velvet jacket; the canine features resolving themselves into a human
countenance; the fore-paws becoming hands, and hind-paws a woman’s feet,
enveloped in high-heeled shoes fastened with diamond buckles?
It was even so. The Lady Abracadabra stood before him, not, however, as
when he last beheld her, all smiles and affability, but stern, grave,
and angry. Her eyes gleamed like coals of fire, her wrinkles were deeper
than ever, and gave her face a most harsh and severe expression,—nay,
her black jacket had acquired a most ominous sort of intensity, and the
yellow petticoat seemed shot with a lurid flame-colour.
“So!” said she, “you have not only disobeyed all my injunctions,
neglected my advice, and thwarted all my benevolent intentions, but now,
when you are reaping the fruit of your misconduct, you have audacity
enough to charge me with being the cause of it!”
King Katzekopf declared that he had never suspected her ladyship of
anything but good will towards the prince; and had never attributed to
her agency the mishaps of a spoilt boy.
“Spoilt boy!” she exclaimed with indignation, “and how comes he to be
spoilt? Yes,” she continued with increasing vehemence, “who has spoilt
him? What is it that makes everybody dislike him? What makes him a
plague and a torment to himself and everybody else? Why is he impatient,
and greedy, and wilful, and ill-tempered, and selfish? Is it not because
Queen Ninnilinda encourages him in all these vices, and because King
Katzekopf, though he knows that everything is going wrong, is too lazy
and indolent to interfere and set them right? You are neither of you fit
to be trusted with your own child. You are doing all you can to make him
wicked and miserable, a bad man, and a bad king.”
“I’m sure there’s not a child in the kingdom that has such pains taken
with him,” replied the Queen angrily. “He has instructors in all the
different branches of useful knowledge, and if he is a little
mischievous, or self-willed at times, are not all children so?”
“Niece, niece,” replied the Fairy, “you speak like a fool. What good is
there in knowledge, unless a right use be made of it? And how is he
likely to make a right use of it, if he be mischievous and self-willed?
And how can you expect him to be otherwise than mischievous and
self-willed, if you encourage, instead of checking, his propensities
that way?”
“I’m sure I cannot check his propensities,” retorted Ninnilinda in a
huff.
“I never thought you could,” said Lady Abracadabra quietly, “for you
have not yet learned to control your own temper.”
The Queen coloured and bit her lip.
“I wish, kinswoman,” said the King in a conciliating tone, “since you
thought the Prince was being so ill brought up, that you would have told
us so a little sooner?”
“And where would have been the good of that? You know very well that you
would not have listened to me. Nay, I don’t believe that you will listen
to me now. No, no, when I promised to befriend your child, I ought to
have taken the matter into my own hands at once, and carried him off to
Fairy-land, and superintended his education there.”
When the Queen heard these words, she trembled from head to foot, and
threw herself on her knees before her aunt, exclaiming—“Nay, Lady
Abracadabra, anything but that! anything but that! I know your power,
but oh! as you are powerful, be merciful likewise, and do not take my
child from me!”
The Fairy saw that Queen Ninnilinda was now in a disposition to submit
to any conditions which might be imposed upon her, and therefore she
answered her kindly:
“I do not want to separate you from your child, if only you will do your
duty by him.”
“I will do anything you desire, aunt!”
“Teach him not to be selfish, then!” replied the Lady Abracadabra. “If
you really are in earnest, I will give you one more trial; _but remember
it is the last_.”
The Queen grew more frightened than ever, for she felt as if she were a
fly in a spider’s web; that the Lady Abracadabra was spreading toils for
her, and that the little Eigenwillig was already as good as lost to her.
“But how can I teach him not to be selfish?” she asked at length.
“By making him consider others as much as himself; by teaching him to
bear contradiction, and to yield up his own wishes and inclinations; and
by letting him associate with his equals.”
“You forget he is a prince, Lady,” replied the Queen proudly.
“No, I do not,” answered the Fairy. “A prince may have his equals in
age, I suppose, if not in rank.”
“Ah! Lady Abracadabra!” cried King Katzekopf. “I believe you have hit
the right nail on the head. I’ve often wished the boy could have had
somebody to play with,—somebody who would set him a good example, and
would not flatter him, as these courtiers do.”
“Suppose I could find such a companion for him,” said the Fairy, “would
you befriend him, and treat him as you do your own child?”
“Gladly will I,” answered the King. The Queen could not bring herself to
say that she would do it gladly, but she submitted with as good a grace
as she could.
“Well then,” said the Lady Abracadabra, “upon those terms I will give
you a fresh trial. I know a fair, gentle boy, whose temper and
disposition the Prince will do well to imitate. His father, foolish man!
is anxious to get him a place at court,—little knowing what he desires
for him. Methinks it would be well that he should see the experiment
tried. It may be of benefit to both parties. So I shall set about it at
once.”
And thereupon the Lady Abracadabra gradually faded away, or at any rate
seemed to do so, till she wholly disappeared.
CHAPTER III.
Another Heir Started.
“More swift than lightning can I flye
About this aery welkin soone,
And in a minute’s space descrye
Each thing that’s done below the moone.”
_Ben Jonson._
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III.
Many and many a mile from King Katzekopf’s Court,—in a valley among
those Giant Mountains, which separated his territories from the
neighbouring kingdoms, stood the Castle of Taubennest, in which, at the
date of our tale, dwelt Count Rudolf and his family.
And a happy family they were, all except the Count, who was a
discontented man. He had spent his youth in cities, and so the country
had no charms for him. He was ambitious, and a time-server. He was never
so happy as among great people, and he longed to meddle with the
intrigues of state, and to be talked of as among the eminent men of the
kingdom.
He was a very poor man when the Castle and its broad lands were
bequeathed him by a distant relation, and so he was glad enough to take
possession of them, even though he found the bequest coupled with the
condition that he should live on his domains continually.
Now if, on acquiring this property, the Count had set himself in earnest
to the discharge of the duties for which the possession of that property
rendered him responsible,—if he had turned his talents to bettering the
condition of his vassals, improving his estates, and benefiting his
neighbourhood generally, he would not only have spent his days happily,
but would, in all probability, have arrived at the object of his
desires, and acquired an illustrious name. But instead of this, he spent
his years in murmurs and repinings; now railing at the blindness of
Fortune, who had condemned one of his genius for rising in the world to
a sphere of inactivity, now complaining that he was imprisoned for life
amid the mountains. What a sad thing it is, when people neglect their
present duties, for no wiser reason than because they choose to imagine
that if their duties were of some different kind, they could discharge
them better! Our trial in life consists in our being required to do our
best in _whatever_ circumstances we are placed. If we were to choose
those circumstances for ourselves, there would be an end of the trial,
and the main object for which life is given us would be lost.
Happily for her children and dependents, the character of the Countess
Ermengarde was a complete contrast to that of her husband. She was one
of those people who seem only to find happiness in doing good to those
around them. Had her destiny placed her in the midst of a court, she
would have added to its dignity and honour by the lustre of her example.
But that example was not lost because her days were spent in comparative
seclusion. The Castle of Taubennest was at a great distance from the
metropolis, but it did not rear its head in a solitary desert. And the
Countess, as she stood on the stone platform, which opened out of her
withdrawing room, and led to the garden below, and gazed at the wide and
fertile valley which lay stretched before her, could count hamlet after
hamlet, the inhabitants of which were tenants to her husband, and over
whom, therefore, she felt that it was in her power to exercise an
influence for good. But the Countess Ermengarde had yet dearer ties, to
whom she well knew that all her care and tenderness were due. There were
her two little girls, Ediltrudis and Veronica, and her son, a boy of
seven years old, the gentle, yet noble-spirited Witikind. In educating
these her treasures, disciplining their youthful minds, and training
them for the duties and trials of active life, the greater part of her
time was spent, and so fully absorbed was she in this labour of love,
that never an hour hung heavy on her hands, and not days only, but
months and years seemed to glide on without her having a wish or a
thought beyond her children, and the vassals of her husband’s house.
“What a happy family should we be!” exclaimed the Count, as, in spite of
himself, he stood enjoying the evening breeze, and watching his lovely
children in their play, “What a happy family we should be, my
Ermengarde, if we were not condemned to wear out our existence in this
dull wilderness!”
“I would you were in any place that could bring you a greater measure of
enjoyment than you find here, my dearest Rudolf,” replied the Countess,
soothingly, “and yet, methinks, our lot might have been cast in a less
fair scene than this. What if the setting sun, instead of throwing its
rosy lustre on yonder mountain peaks, and illumining with its declining
rays those verdant meadows, through which our glassy river flows, and
the fields yellow with the ripening corn, and the purple vineyards, and
the deep umbrageous forest, were to light up for us no more joyous scene
than a desert of interminable sand? What if, instead of looking forth,
and seeing nothing so far as eye can reach which does not call you
master, we were landless, houseless wanderers, without bread to eat, or
a roof to cover us, should we not have less to be thankful for, than is
the case now?”
“Doubtless,” answered the Count; but he made the reply impatiently, and
as if his wife were putting the matter before him in an unfair point of
view. Without being the least aware of it, he was unthankful for all the
blessings which he actually possessed, because a single ingredient which
he supposed necessary to fill up his cup of happiness was wanting. So
long as he had not _that_, all else went for nothing. “Doubtless,” said
the Count; “but, say what you will, this place will never be any better
than a wilderness in my eyes. Is it possible to conceive a more
monotonous life than I pass? nothing to interest one, not a soul within
twenty miles that one cares to speak to!”
The Countess smiled. “Nay, nay, Rudolf,” she cried gaily, “you shall not
persuade me that the children and I do not make very agreeable society!”
“The children! there again! what a distressing subject is that! Poor
things, they will not have common justice done them! They have not a
chance of getting on in the world.”
“For my part,” replied the Countess, “I don’t see what is the necessity
for their ‘getting on in the world.’ They will do very well as they
are.”
“How can you talk such nonsense as that, Ermengarde?” exclaimed the
Count in a tone of pique. “Why, what is to become of the girls, when
they grow up to womanhood?”
“Oh,” answered the Countess, “we need scarcely make that a cause of
anxiety at present. Years must elapse before they will be women, and
when they are grown up, I don’t know why they may not become the wives
of honest men, or why they may not find happiness in a single life, if
they prefer it.”
“Really, Ermengarde, you sometimes provoke one past all patience. ‘Wives
of honest men,’ forsooth! I believe you would be satisfied if you could
see them making cheese on the next farm, or wedded to the huntsman, or
the woodreve. You forget,” added he proudly, “that their birth entitles
them to some splendid connexion, and less than a splendid connexion
shall never satisfy me.”
“Why, what is it that you covet for them?”
“That they should see something of courts and cities, instead of being
immured in this mountain-dungeon; that they should take that place in
the world to which their rank entitles them, and that they should be
followed by a host of admirers, and that their cotemporaries should have
cause to envy their good fortune. Yes,” continued he, warming with his
subject, and falling unconsciously into one of those day-dreams in which
he was continually indulging, “I should like to waken and find myself at
the court, with Ediltrudis at my side, the admired of all beholders,
princes and peers struggling to obtain the honour of her hand, while I,
with watchful eyes, would be ascertaining which of her many suitors it
would be most prudent to encourage, and which to reject. Can you
conceive anything more interesting, more delightful to a parent’s
feelings?”
“Yes, indeed, my Lord,” replied the Lady Ermengarde, “to me it would
afford more satisfaction, if I were permitted to see my child growing up
to maturity, unspotted by the world, and saved from exposure to its
poisonous breath, and from the temptation to yield to its evil
influences. I would rather see her innocent and happy here, than the
star and favourite of a court.”
Had Count Rudolf listened to this speech it would have probably made him
very angry, but he was too much occupied with his castles in the air to
attend to it.
“And then my pretty little Veronica,” he continued, “your career shall
be no less brilliant than your sister’s. Come hither,” said he, calling
the child, “and tell us what destiny you would choose. Would you not
like to be a Maid of Honour to the Queen, and to be glittering with
silks and jewels, and to live in a royal palace, and to spend your time
in all manner of pleasures?”
The little girl seemed puzzled, and did not answer immediately. After a
pause she said, “Must I leave Taubennest, if I were to be Maid of Honour
to the Queen?”
“Yes, my child, that must you, for where the King lives is many a mile
from Taubennest.”
“Nay, then, dear father, I would rather be where I am. I should like to
see the royal palace, and all the things you mention, but I should
prefer to _live_ here. Ah! we never could be so happy as we are here,
could we, Witikind? We never could find such pretty walks as we have
here among the hills, nor play such merry games in a palace, as now we
do in the meadows by the river side. And besides, I dare say I should
not be allowed to take my kid with me, nor my birds, nor perhaps,” added
the child in a tone of dismay,—her eyes brimming with tears as the
thought occurred to her—“perhaps you, and Ediltrudis, and nurse, and
papa, and mamma might not be with me. Oh, no, no; I would rather stay
where I am; would not you, Witikind?”
“Why, what folly!” exclaimed Count Rudolf, interposing. “Even you,
Veronica, must be old enough to know that a boy cannot pass through life
beside his nurse’s apron-string. Witikind must see the world, and learn
to be bold and manly.”
“Can I not be bold and manly, father, unless I see the world?” asked the
boy rather timidly.
“No, to be sure not!” answered the Count.
“Well then of course I must go,” replied Witikind with a sigh. “But I
never can be so happy elsewhere as I am here.”
“Pooh! you are but a child;” rejoined his father, “you don’t know what
real happiness is.”
“Did you find real happiness, father, in living among courts and
cities?”
“Certainly, I did,” said the Count; and then, after some hesitation he
added, “At least I should have found it, if I had not been a poor man,
as I was in those days. Ah! what would I have given for such advantages
as you have, my boy?”
“Is it possible that there can be so much pleasure to be found away from
home and friends?” asked Witikind, still somewhat doubtfully, and
looking up with anxiety at the expression of sadness which seemed to
spread itself over his mother’s face.
“Possible, Witikind? I would I had the opportunity of enabling you to
make the experiment this very moment! How I should like to see you a
Page of Honour to the King, It would make a man of you at once.”
Witikind thought it would be a very fine thing to be made a man of at
once, and his heart was more inclined to a change than it had yet been.
“And I suppose then, father, I should ride a horse instead of a pony,
and wear a sword, and be treated by every body as if I were a man.”
“Of course, you would,” replied the Count,—“at least, in a very short
time.”
“Then, father, I do think that I should like to go and live at
court.”—The Count kissed the boy and withdrew.
It is a very well known, but at the same time a most remarkable
circumstance in the natural history of Fairies, that they are not only
sure to be found in the most unexpected places, but they are certain to
arrive in the very nick of time, for the purpose of overhearing some
conversation which was never intended for their ears, but which they
never fail to turn to account in some manner for which the speakers are
wholly unprepared. It was so on the present occasion.
Our friend, the Lady Abracadabra, who had been paying a visit to some
old acquaintances among the Gnomes who inhabited the silver mines in the
mountains, in the immediate vicinity of Count Rudolf’s castle, had heard
from her subterranean hosts such an interesting account of the goodness
and benevolence of Countess Ermengarde, that she had resolved to
introduce herself to her. And as she had been led to believe that to be
poor, or afflicted, was a ready passport to that lady’s presence, she
assumed the garb and appearance of a lame beggar-woman, and in this
disguise entered the domain of Taubennest, and approached the castle. No
gate was closed against her, no insolent, pampered menial thrust her
from the door. The Countess had long since forbidden her servants to
turn away one who sought relief at her hands. “We have enough for all,”
she was wont to say, “and, therefore, if we give not according to our
ability, we may expect that the ability to give, will be taken away from
us. If we do not make a good use of our money; our money is like to make
itself wings, and fly elsewhere.”
Of course where so much was given, there must have been some unworthy
recipients of her bounty. And when this was urged upon her by some of
her less liberal friends, she made no attempt to deny the probability of
the assertion; “but,” said she, “I would rather bestow my alms on a
hundred unworthy recipients, than miss an opportunity of aiding one poor
creature who needed my bounty.”
And so the weary traveller, and the needy applicant, were under no fears
of being repulsed when they approached the portals of Taubennest, and
thus it happened that the Lady Abracadabra wandered forward unobserved,
or, if observed, unchecked, until she came close to the platform on
which the conversation which has been recorded, took place.
“And so you would like to see the court, would you, my pretty master?”
said she, as soon as little Witikind had expressed his wish on the
subject.
The boy started at the sudden inquiry, “What is it you want, good
mother?” he asked after a little hesitation.
“Nay,” replied the Fairy, “I have expressed no want. I desire to learn
what it is that _you_ want?”
“Oh! I want some good Fairy to carry me over hill and dale to the court
of King Katzekopf.”
“Are you quite sure of that?” asked the lame woman.
“Aye marry, am I,” replied the boy, laughing. “Will you show me the way
to Fairy-land?”
“May be I will, and may be I won’t,” answered the Fairy. “I must first
see what metal you are made of. Will you go with me to court?”
“I shouldn’t like your pace, mother,” said Witikind. “I should never get
there, if I kept by the side of your crutches.”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” rejoined the beggar. “There’s many a worse
hobbyhorse than my crutch. Can you ride, sir boy?”
“To be sure I can,” replied Witikind, “I were fit for little, if I could
not.”
“Then let me see how you can sit this nag of mine,” said the Fairy; and
seating herself sideways on one crutch, she waved the other; when, in an
instant, that on which she was seated became a living cockatrice, which
mounted up into the air with its burden, and, after three or four
circumvolutions, descended on the platform, to which allusion has been
made, and then stood still; while the Lady Abracadabra, no longer
disguised as a beggar-woman, but wearing her usual Fairy garb,
dismounted and approached the astonished Countess and her terrified
children.
“I ought to apologize for this intrusion,” said she, “but a Fairy, who
comes with purposes of kindness, can scarcely conceive herself to be
unwelcome. You do not know me, Countess, for I quarrelled with your
father before you were born; but your mother Frideswida and I were well
known to one another. I doubt not you have heard her speak of
Abracadabra of Hexenberg.”
The Countess intimated her assent.
“I recognize in you, Lady,” said the Fairy, “a transcript of her beauty
of feature, and if fame do not greatly misrepresent you, the beauty of
her mind has descended to you. I hear you spoken of as the blessing of
these valleys, and that your days are spent in feeding the hungry,
clothing the naked, and visiting the sick.”
“I live among my own people,” replied Ermengarde, “and they are a simple
race, who are satisfied with little, and whom small kindnesses gratify
largely.”
“You are modest,” rejoined the Lady Abracadabra, “but if, as I believe,
you have the means of doing good, and find pleasure in doing it, why
should you be dissatisfied with your abode?”
“I dissatisfied, Lady?” exclaimed the Countess, “I would gladly live and
die here.”
“Then, what was the meaning of what I heard no long time since?
Methought as I listened to your converse, your boy seemed to say that he
should like to go and live at court. You would hardly send him to face
such perils alone? That were as unnatural as wicked.”
The Countess knew not what to answer. The thought of separation from
Witikind had already filled her with sorrow and dismay, but she was
unwilling to excuse herself at the cost of inculpating her husband. She
therefore remained silent, but the tears gushed from her eyes in spite
of her.
“And how comes it that you, sir boy,” asked the Fairy, addressing
Witikind, “are so eager to leave your home? Can you not be happy here?”
“Yes, Lady, I am happy as the day is long; but my father assures us
often and often, that our best happiness here is grief and dulness,
compared with what we should find, if we went to the great City, and
lived in King Katzekopf’s court?”
“Is this true, Lady?” said the Fairy to Ermengarde. “But,” continued
she, “I see it is, and will spare you the pain of answering.” She paused
awhile, and then added, “Countess, I see a black spot on that child’s
fair brow, that, unless we find a remedy, will spread and spread till it
infects his whole nature. What his natural disposition may be I know
not, but I see his father has inoculated him with one of the most
dangerous of all maladies, a love of _self_. He is willing to seek for
pleasure, even though it cost him separation from you. He already thinks
of himself more than of you.”
“He is but a child, Lady,” said the mother apologetically.
“Aye, Countess Ermengarde, but the child is father to the man. Such as
you make him now, such will he be hereafter.”
“Perhaps, Lady, if you spoke to Rudolf, he might be induced to see the
matter as you do,” observed the wife.
“Nay, nay!” replied the Fairy, with an increase of sternness in her
manner, “I am not one to be trifled with. You _know_ even while you make
it, that your suggestion is a hopeless one. To reason with your precious
husband (of whom I know more than you think) is only to render him more
obstinate. I must devise some other plan. Ah!” she continued, after a
momentary pause, “I see my way clearly. The evil shall be made to work
its own remedy. Go, tell the Count, that an ancient Fairy, a friend of
your mother’s house, and who, on that account, desires to befriend you,
has become acquainted with his wishes as respects his son: tell him that
I have influence at Court, that King Katzekopf and the Queen are not
likely to turn a deaf ear to any request I make them, and that he may
hold himself in readiness to expect, ere long, a summons from his
Majesty. Countess Ermengarde, tell him this; but I charge you at your
peril, tell him no more than this. Meanwhile, keep up good heart, and
trust me to befriend your boy. I will teach him one lesson, that shall
be of more use to him than all his father’s.”
So saying, she smiled graciously on little Witikind, patted him on the
head, and springing on her cockatrice was soon out of sight.
CHAPTER IV.
A hashed Heir.
“Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough briar,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire.”
_Shakespeare._
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV.
The events recorded in the last chapter took place, as the judicious
reader will have anticipated, a short time previously to that visit of
the Lady Abracadabra to the Court of King Katzekopf, in which she
asserted her authority, and proposed the companionship of a boy of his
own age as likely to form a salutary check on the growing wilfulness and
selfishness of Prince Eigenwillig.
Accordingly, many days did not elapse before little Witikind was
transported from the Castle of Taubennest to the royal nursery.
It was a sad business, that leaving his home. Of the trials that lay
before him, he, poor child, could, of course, know nothing. He had never
lived anywhere but at home, and he could not as yet imagine that any
place could be very different from home; and he had good hope, from all
his father told him, that he would be happy as the day was long at the
court of King Katzekopf. But when it really came to bidding farewell:
when he saw his mother trying to smile and encourage him, yet was sure,
by her appearance, that she had been weeping all night long; when
Ediltrudis and Veronica, quite unable to bear up against this, their
first deep sorrow, clung to him, and sobbed as if their hearts were
breaking. Oh, how bitterly did Witikind lament the rash words he had
spoken! Oh, what would he have given to recall them, and to be allowed
to live on, as heretofore, with those who so dearly loved him, and whom
he so dearly loved! But it was now too late.
And so it is ever with us all. The blessings which we do not appreciate
are sooner or later withdrawn from us, and when, on their removal, we
feel their value, and would flee after them and secure them, we find
they are gone irrecoverably, and that we can never be again as we were
when we possessed them. For Witikind, we trust that many happy days may
be in store, that he will return to Taubennest better and wiser every
way than when he left it; that his mother will fold him in her arms once
more, and that his sisters will shed more tears of pleasure over him
than now of sorrow; but never, never will he be again as when first he
quitted home: a change will have taken place; he will be different
himself; those around him will be different; fresh hopes, and feelings,
and wishes will have come over them; their confidences will not be the
same confidences, their love will not be the same love that it was
before they knew the sorrows of separation.
Oh, reader, reader! if _you_ have a happy home, and loving parents, and
affectionate brothers and sisters, try and show yourself worthy of the
blessing while yet it is yours. You know not how soon you may be taken
from them, or they from you: strive, then, so to live with them, that,
when separation comes, you may have no cause to mourn for your behaviour
to them now!
* * * * *
Taubennest was a fine old castle in its way, but certainly not at all
comparable to King Katzekopf’s palace; and as for the city, it was a
thing altogether beyond Witikind’s conceptions. Such a labyrinth of
streets and houses! such crowds of people passing and repassing! such
strange, unaccustomed sights and sounds! the boy was in a state of utter
bewilderment!
And before he had recovered himself, he found he was passing through
marble halls, and corridors hung with silks and satins, and glittering
with gilding; and then he was brought into an apartment where King
Katzekopf was sitting on his throne, with a velvet nightcap on his head,
and his crown over his nightcap (for his Majesty was now growing so fat
and infirm, that when he was not eating or governing the country, he was
usually asleep); and then, when he had been patted on the head by a
real, live king, and had been told to be a good boy by Queen Ninnilinda,
who came into the room on purpose to look at him, he was committed to
the care of Lady Brigida, and immediately became an inmate of the royal
nursery.
The Prince was quite charmed to have such a companion: he dismounted
from his rocking-horse in a moment, and running up to Witikind asked
whether he was the little boy (Witikind was the biggest of the two) who
was to come and live with him.
And when Lady Brigida answered in the affirmative, he immediately threw
his arms round Witikind’s neck and kissed him.
“I shall love you so much, and we shall be so happy together,” said he.
“I know we shall, for you look so good-natured.”
Witikind could say but little in reply, for he was quite unused to being
with strangers, especially royal ones, and his thoughts were already
reverting to his mother, and Ediltrudis, and Veronica, and the happy
home at Taubennest; but he was grateful to the Prince for his kindness,
and anxious by all the means in his power to show that he was so. He was
a very gentle, amiable, good humoured boy, ever ready to oblige, and not
easily put out of temper, and though in some respects his being an only
son had been to his disadvantage, he was not spoilt like the little
Prince, and had even made some progress in habits of self-control.
For several days, therefore, the two boys lived very happily together,
and the nurses and governesses began to congratulate themselves on the
improvements which had taken place in their prospects; and that,
whereas, they scarce knew what it was to have five minutes in the course
of the day free from vexation of some kind connected with their royal
charge, the little Eigenwillig seemed all at once transformed into an
amiable child.
And so he was, as long as he continued without any temptation to be
overbearing and disagreeable. His attendants, whom heretofore he had
tormented so diligently, were now left in peace, because, for the time,
he found more immediate amusement in Witikind than in the art of
tormenting. His companion was, as it were, a new toy: so long as
Witikind was new to him, things were pretty sure to go smoothly. The
trial only began when the novelty ceased.
And there was a good deal in Witikind’s gentle temper, and in the
feelings natural to his position, which tended to avert, for some time,
the explosion which, sooner or later, was inevitable.
At first, the Prince treated him as if he were his equal in rank,
offered him his toys to play with, and even went so far as to say that
he would allow Witikind to ride on his pony,—_when he had done with it
himself_. By-and-bye, however, when he saw that his attendants paid more
respect to him than to the son of Count Rudolf, he thought it would be
better to assume a patronizing air, which he did very much to his own
satisfaction. A few more days elapsed, and then, instead of patronizing,
he was domineering.
All this, however, Witikind submitted to as a matter of course. He had
been already taught to give up his own wishes and inclinations
cheerfully; and his father had inculcated upon him twenty times that he
never was to allow himself to think of anything save how he could best
please the heir-apparent. He felt it was his business to yield his own
inclinations to the Prince’s, and he invariably did yield them amiably,
and as, consequently, the little Eigenwillig continued to have his own
way, there could be no open rupture. It is impossible to have a quarrel,
when there is nobody to quarrel with.
However, it cannot be said that at the end of a week Witikind thought
his royal companion so full of good nature as he had expected, and at
the end of a fortnight Witikind had begun to compare the ways of
Ediltrudis and Veronica, with those of the Prince, and certainly the
result of the comparison was not in his royal highness’s favour. On the
other hand, the Prince had made the discovery that with his nurse and
instructresses, the gentle-tempered son of Countess Ermengarde was
rapidly becoming a much greater favourite than he was himself.
This made him very jealous; and his jealousy became insupportable when
Witikind was held out as a model for his imitation. “What a sweet little
boy is Count Rudolf’s son;” nurse Yellowlily would exclaim. “He always
does what he is bid the moment he is spoken to: _so unlike some
people_!”
“Yes;” the lady Brigida would add, “and so quick at his lessons; never
stupid, never idle, never impatient. Such a contrast, you know!”
“Every body loves little Witikind,” rejoined the nurse again, “he is so
civil-spoken, and gives so little trouble, and isn’t proud, nor
quarrelsome, nor selfish, nor finds pleasure in teasing and plaguing
people.”
Thus these silly women took the surest means to prevent the prince from
benefiting by the example of his companion.
Under such circumstances Witikind grew more and more unhappy every day.
Let him do what he would, the Prince was always disposed to quarrel with
him: and the more he gave up his own will to the Prince’s, the more he
strove to oblige him, the more the Prince seemed to dislike him for it,
for a contrast was sure to be drawn by the attendants between Witikind’s
good nature, and the unamiable disposition of his companion.
At length Witikind gave up the attempt to please, and would go and hide
himself in some corner where nobody was likely to find him, or would sit
moping on a bench in the palace gardens, thinking of Ediltrudis and
Veronica, and contrasting their affection with the Prince’s ill nature.
Now it so happened, that the seat to which Witikind was so fond of
betaking himself was one which King Katzekopf could see out of his
window as he sat in his arm chair. Witikind did not know this, or he
would never have chosen it. He was thinking of watching the gold fish in
the fountain, not of King Katzekopf, when he first made it his favourite
haunt.
“I wonder why that boy sits on yonder bench all day,” observed the King,
one fine afternoon. “I wonder why I never see him playing with
Eigenwillig.” But nobody made any answer in reply to his Majesty’s
observation, and so the matter passed from his thoughts. But when
another day, and another, and another, and another, had elapsed, and
Witikind was still seen on his favourite bench, the King’s curiosity was
quite roused, and he sent for the boy. Witikind was very much frightened
when he heard that the King wanted him; but he could not help hoping
that, since the Prince disliked him so much, he was going to be sent
home again.
“Why are you not at play with Eigenwillig?” asked the King, so soon as
Witikind was ushered into the room.
“The Prince, Sire, prefers playing alone,” replied Witikind.
“But don’t you know that you came here on purpose to be his playfellow?”
“Yes, Sire.”
“Why won’t the Prince play with you?”
“I suppose it is, Sire, because he does not like me,” answered the boy.
“Have you quarrelled with him?”
“No, Sire.”
“I am afraid, Witikind, you are not happy here,” said the King kindly.
“It is my wish that you should be so. I gave orders that you should be
as kindly treated as if you were at home.”
“Your Majesty is very good to me,” replied Witikind, and he meant to
have gone on to thank the King for all the favours that had been shown
him; but his heart was very full, and that one word “_home_,” which the
King had used, made it overflow. Taubennest and all its dear ones, rose
before his eyes, and he began to sob violently. The King saw there was
something at which he had not yet arrived; but he thought it more
prudent to seek an explanation elsewhere; so, with a few kind words, he
dismissed the boy, telling him that he would speak to him again in a day
or two.
By-and-bye, Witikind fell in with the Prince. “So!” exclaimed the
latter, as soon as he saw him, “you have been complaining of me to the
King, have you? You little, mean, spiteful creature!”
“No, Prince, I haven’t. The King asked me why you would not play with
me, and I told him I supposed the reason was because you did not like
me.”
“Well, I don’t like you. I hated you before, and I hate you now worse
than ever.”
“Why should you hate me, Prince?”
“Because I do,” answered the heir of the Katzekopfs.
“But why will you hate me? I am sure I don’t hate you, Prince; I would
be very glad to love you, if you would only let me.”
“But I won’t, won’t, _won’t_” shouted the Prince, clenching his fist,
and striking the table with it. “I won’t let you love me. I won’t have
anything to say to such a mean, sneaking creature.”
“Why do you call me mean and sneaking?” asked Witikind, the colour
mounting in his cheeks.
“Because you are so,” replied the other. “Are you not always trying to
show off before Nurse Yellowlily, and the governesses, in order that
they may praise you, and blame me?”
“No, Prince; I would much rather they should never praise me. I would
much rather they would never say a word, unless they could praise us
both. Oh, Prince, you would be so much happier, if you would try and not
be so—so—so self-willed. Indeed, indeed, you would!”
“How dare you call me self-willed? And what business is it of yours if I
am ever so self-willed? I wish I had never seen your face. You have done
nothing but make mischief ever since you came here.”
“I never made mischief,” replied Witikind indignantly, “and it is very
unjust of you to say such a thing. You would not have dared to say it to
one who was your equal. But it is no use talking with you. If I am what
you charge me with being, I am no fit companion for you; if I am not,
you are no fit companion for me. So at no rate will I stay here any
longer.” And he immediately proceeded towards the door.
“Oh, you won’t, won’t you?” cried his enraged companion; “then take this
with you!” And, suiting his actions to his words, the Prince seized a
heavy silver inkstand, which stood upon the table, and threw it at
Witikind. Had it reached him, it might have hurt him very seriously; but
Eigenwillig was in too great a passion to take a deliberate aim, and the
consequence was, that the missile, instead of hitting Witikind, struck
the centre of a large looking-glass, which it broke to shivers.
The crash of the falling fragments was heard by Queen Ninnilinda, and
she immediately entered the apartment, to see what was the matter. The
first object which met her eyes was Witikind, who ran against her in his
hurry to escape from the Prince.
“Ah,” said she, laying hold of him, “you need not attempt to run away. I
knew I should find you out sooner or later, and now I have caught you.
How dared you to break that looking-glass, and spill the ink all over
the carpet, you little, good-for-nothing varlet?”
“Please your Majesty, I did not break it.”
“Not break it!” exclaimed the Queen, who was much too angry to observe
that her own son was likewise in the room. “Not break it? Are you not
ashamed to utter such falsehoods?” And with that the Queen struck the
little boy two or three sharp blows.
“Oh, Mamma, Mamma,” cried Prince Eigenwillig, rushing forward, and
seizing her uplifted arm, “it was not his doing; it was mine. I don’t
like him, and I wish he had never come here; but he didn’t break the
looking-glass. I broke it; do not beat him; he doesn’t deserve it. I did
the mischief. He put me in such a rage with what he said, that I took up
the inkstand and threw it at him; but it struck the glass instead of
him.”
The Prince was a spoilt child, and full of faults; but here was an
evidence that there were redeeming points in his character. Nothing
could have been better than the manner in which he came forward to take
the blame on his own shoulders. There was still something to work upon;
and had his mother been anything but what she was, the incident might
have been turned as much to his advantage as to her own. But her
weakness and vanity were excessive. She saw she had been too hasty; but
was unwilling to confess herself in the wrong; so she availed herself of
an expression of her son, and continued to pour out her wrath on the
unfortunate Witikind.
“How dared you offend the Prince?” she cried. “How could you presume to
misbehave yourself in such a manner, as to put him in a rage, as he says
you did? And what is the meaning of all these malicious tales you have
been carrying to the King?”
“I have carried no tales to the King, Madam,” replied Witikind.
“Yes, you have,” retorted the Queen, “you have been making him believe
that the Prince is cruel to you. And like a little artful, hypocritical
wretch, you have been even setting his own attendants against him.”
Witikind was so bewildered with all these charges that he was quite
silent.
“Yes,” continued the Queen, “no wonder you are struck dumb; now you are
found out, you have not a word to say for yourself.”
“Will you hear me, Madam, or believe me, when I do speak?” replied
Witikind, recovering his self-possession.
“Believe _you_? you little deceitful creature! No, that will I not.”
“Then, since your Majesty says that, when you know I have never deceived
you, I had rather say nothing, except that I hope you will confront me
with the King, and the Prince’s attendants.”
“Leave the room,” said Queen Ninnilinda, in still greater anger, “I am
not going to be argued with by you, I promise you.”
“Mamma,” said Prince Eigenwillig, as soon as Witikind had left the room,
“I don’t like him, but I don’t think he ever tells lies; and I don’t
think he ever tried to set Nurse Yellowlily against me, though she often
praised him, in order to plague me.”
Here again, the boy was getting upon a right path; but his foolish
mother, as soon as she perceived it, lost no time in turning him into a
wrong one.
“Ah, my sweetest boy,” said she, “it was no more than I expected from
your noble, generous nature, that you should try and find excuses for
this odious little brat. You don’t know the world as well as I do: if
you did, you would find it prudent to consider others less, and yourself
more. But I have my own opinion about this Witikind. Everything went on
well enough in the palace till he came, and now every thing goes wrong,
and I can trace his finger at the bottom of all the mischief. I always
misdoubted the intentions of that cross-grained old toad, my Fairy-aunt,
ever since she insisted on giving you your horrid name. I was sure her
professions of kindliness were a blind, and that she was meaning
mischief all the time. And I am quite satisfied now that this creature
which she brought here, is not Count Rudolf’s son. Count Rudolf is a
very respectable man and would not deceive us, but parents are
proverbially blind;” (Yes, indeed, Queen Ninnilinda!) “and I don’t doubt
that this Witikind is a changeling, some imp from Fairy-land, hundreds
of years old, perhaps, sly, and mischievous, and malicious, who is sent
to bring some terrible misfortune on us all.”
Poor Witikind! he little suspected the nature of this fresh accusation
against him; and while he was weeping in his chamber over the injustice
which he was suffering, and writhing under the indignity of being
charged with saying what was not true, he was being subjected to an
imputation, at once the most cruel, and (in his case) the most difficult
to disprove.
The idea once started, every body had something to say in confirmation
of it. All the courtiers discovered that, though they had never
mentioned it, they had, from the first, observed something very elvish
in his countenance. The Keeper of the Records had been struck with his
always being dressed in green and gold,—the fashionable colours in
Fairy-land. The Ladies Frigida, Rigida, and Brigida, detected something
supernatural in the precocious aptness with which he received their
lessons. The Baroness Yellowlily had occasionally found great
entanglement in the poor child’s sunny ringlets, when she combed them
after he had been at play: this was a strong presumption they were
elflocks. He was wont to talk with rapture of the happy home he had
left; this, in the opinion of the Lord Chamberlain, was proof positive
that he had come from Fairy-land, for what but Fairy-land could be
preferable to a palace? Finally, even good-natured King Katzekopf, when
he heard all these allegations, was fain to shake his head, and confess
that there was something suspicious in the case, and that the
circumstance which he had himself observed, namely, Witikind’s habit of
sitting moping for hours together, by the side of the fountain, was
certainly very unlike the habits of other boys.
What was to be done? If they sent him back to his reputed parents,
without the Lady Abracadabra’s permission, they might bring all kinds of
trouble upon themselves. If they kept him longer in the palace, there
was no calculating the amount of mischief which might be effected by
him. However, it was resolved, that of the two evils, this was the
least: and so it was determined, that things should go on as usual, and
that Witikind should be kept in ignorance of the nature of the
suspicions against him.
Whether all those who contributed to blacken this unlucky boy’s
character, were sincere in their belief of his elvish origin, may be
doubted. To seem so was to follow the fashion, and a ready method of
getting into Queen Ninnilinda’s good graces; and that was enough for
courtiers.
But, though Witikind knew not of what he was accused, he was not long
kept in ignorance of the fact, that he was out of favour with every
body. It seemed as if nobody, from the King on his throne, to the
scullion in the kitchen, could say a word of kindness to him. Some were
ruder than others, in proportion as they desired to pay court to her
Majesty; but all made it evident that they wished to have nothing to say
to him. A thousand petty mortifications were heaped upon him. He was
kept at his lessons for many more hours than heretofore, and his tasks
were made doubly difficult. He was allowed, as formerly, to take his
meals with the Prince, but those in attendance contrived to give him
whatever was likely to be most unpalatable. He was required to be with
the Prince during his play hours, but was not allowed to play with him,
but only to wait on him; to run after his ball, or to fetch his hoop out
of a ditch, or pick up his arrows which had fallen wide of the mark.
And yet nothing was said or done in such a manner that Witikind could
lay hold of it. He felt that every body was against him, though it was
their general manner, rather than any particular act, that gave him the
impression. It seemed to him, as if his feet had become entangled in a
net, and that some unseen hand was preventing his escape. And all this
while, Prince Eigenwillig was growing more and more unkind, sometimes
not speaking to him at all, and other times loading him with abuse and
reproaches. For weeks and weeks, this state of things continued, and
Witikind was nearly broken in spirit, and would have been quite so, had
he not been able to cheer himself, by the thought that sooner or later,
he would be sent home, and that the Fairy had promised to befriend him.
Yet still as time passed on, and he heard nothing from Taubennest, and
his father never came to Court to inquire after him, and the Lady
Abracadabra failed to appear, he grew more and more downcast. Sometimes
he thought of running away; but whither should he run, and how could he
find his way home? Sometimes he resolved to entreat the King to dismiss
him; but then he remembered the Fairy’s commands, that let what would
happen, he must not leave the Court, without her permission.
However, when things are at the worst, they usually begin to mend; and
just as Witikind began to despair, the crisis came which he feared would
never come.
In obedience to his mother,—for sometimes, when he had no temptation the
other way, even Eigenwillig could be obedient,—the Prince had carefully
abstained from letting fall any expression which should convey to
Witikind the knowledge that he was suspected of being an elf in
disguise; but at length it happened, as might have been expected, that
the boy forgot his secret.
It fell out, upon a summer’s evening, that the Prince and Witikind were
alone together in one of the apartments of the palace, which opened out
of the Queen’s sitting-room, and which had a door of communication with
the gardens.—The Prince was amusing himself with a game of battledore,
and Witikind stood near to pick up the shuttlecock for him as it
occasionally fell. But the Prince was expert with his battledore, and
would keep the shuttlecock bounding in the air for a long time together.
Consequently the services of Witikind were not often needed.
No wonder, therefore, that he crept towards the window to look at the
gay flower beds, and to watch the waters of his favourite fountain as
they rose sparkling in the air to a vast height, and then fell into
various fantastic basins, from which they issued into the grand
reservoir below; and no wonder, as he listened to the soothing plash of
the waters, and watched the clouds, painted with all the gorgeous hues
which the setting sun threw over them, that his thoughts reverted to
Taubennest, and that fatal evening when he had expressed a wish to quit
it. Surely the error had brought its recompense of punishment! If he had
done wrong, he had suffered for it, and had learned a lesson which would
last him his life. Oh bitter and sincere was his repentance! What would
he not now give to turn his back for ever on the hateful palace! What
would he not give to see the towers of Taubennest, and look from its
ramparts on the mountains, barren as they were; and the valley, and the
winding river! What would he not give, were it but for a few brief
minutes, to hear the sweet voices of his sisters, and to be clasped in
his mother’s arms!
The shuttlecock had fallen, but he heard it not, and remained
inattentive to his duties. How could it be otherwise! he was hundreds of
miles away.
“Why don’t you pick up the shuttlecock?” cried the Prince, in a sharp,
impatient tone.—Witikind started, and ran forward in a random way; but
he could not see it: tears were blinding his eyes.
“Not there, blockhead!” shouted the Prince “look behind the statue.”
There were two statues; Witikind went towards the wrong one.
“What a stupid _elf’s-brat_ you are!” cried the Hope of the Katzekopfs
to the child of Countess Ermengarde, when he brought back the
shuttlecock.
“What did you call me, Prince?” said Witikind with a look of surprise
and anger.
“I called you what you are,—what all the world knows you to be—an
elf’s-brat: the good-for-nothing, impish son of some malevolent old
Fairy, or some old hag of a witch!”
“How dare you call my mother evil names?” exclaimed Witikind, his eyes
sparkling with anger, and his whole frame quivering with emotion. His
patient endurance and gentleness seemed to have fled from him for ever;
his entire character appeared altered on the instant. Anything personal
he had long since proved that he could submit to, but the insult to his
mother called forth in a moment the long-sleeping energies of his
character. “How DARE you to abuse my mother?” he cried in a still louder
tone. “How dare you utter such a base, cowardly lie?”
The Prince, wholly unprepared for such an outbreak, was too much
terrified to answer. He saw that in Witikind’s gleaming eye which told
him, boy as he was, that Countess Ermengarde’s son was not to be trifled
with. The Hope of the Katzekopfs turned pale, quailed, and continued
retreating towards the corner of the room nearest to his mother’s
apartments.
“Unsay what you have said,” cried Witikind, following close upon him as
he retreated step by step. “Unsay what you have said, and beg my pardon
on your knees for this insult to my mother!”
Down sank the Prince on his knees in the corner of the room, while over
him stood Witikind, pale with anger, his arm outstretched, and his fist
clenched, repeating in tones hoarse from excitement, but waxing louder,
and louder every moment, “Unsay what you have said, unsay what you have
said!”
Such was the sight which presented itself to Queen Ninnilinda’s
wondering eyes, when she issued from her boudoir to ascertain the cause
of the noise which had alarmed her.
“Take him away! take him away!” cried the Prince, as soon as he saw his
mother. “Take him away, or he will kill me!”
“Help! help!” shrieked the Queen, “or the Prince will be bewitched by
this spiteful elf—this Fairy’s changeling.”
Her screams brought one of the yeomen of the guard into the room, who
instantly seized Witikind.
“Hold him fast!” exclaimed her Majesty. “Get ropes and tie him hand and
foot, and then flog him till he faints. He has been trying to bewitch my
son!”
But the Queen’s commands were not destined to be obeyed. Even when the
hubbub was at its height, a pause ensued, for the well-known whistle of
the Fairy at the keyhole, loud and shrill above all other sounds, was
heard. Forth from the aperture the Lady Abracadabra sprung, and with a
single bound darted into the midst of the group. Her expression was that
of the deepest indignation, and her robe seemed glowing with living
fire. Throwing her wand down upon the nearest table, she caught hold of
Witikind with one hand, and with the other sent the burly yeoman of the
guard reeling to the extremity of the apartment, from whence he rushed
forth in an agony of terror.
“And this is the way you keep your promises, is it, Queen Ninnilinda?
This is the way you treat the poor child whom you engaged to bring up
with the same kindness which you exhibit to yonder unhappy boy? Think
not that I am not cognizant of all your proceedings! Think not that I
have not witnessed the indignities and unkindnesses you have heaped upon
him! Think not that I have not overheard your shameless words of
ingratitude towards myself. Think not, above all, that I, his friend and
protector, have kept Witikind an hour longer than was necessary for his
future happiness, in this abode of folly and weakness: think not, that
I, your own child’s sponsor, will allow him to be longer exposed to your
mismanagement, and evil influence. I gave you a fair warning; and you
must now take the consequences of having neglected it. You have had your
trial. It is over. Now comes your punishment.”
The Queen threw herself on her knees.
“No:” replied the Lady Abracadabra; “it is too late now. The sooner you
take leave of your son the better. But first, Prince Eigenwillig, come
here to me.”
“I won’t!” cried the Prince doggedly.
“It will be the worse for you if you don’t,” said the Fairy.
“I won’t, I tell you!” repeated the Prince.
“Oh Eigenwillig,” cried his mother, “for mercy’s sake, do as you are
bid; you know not what the consequences of disobedience may be!”
“Come, when I call you!” said Lady Abracadabra calmly, but fixing her
eye upon him, “come here and beg Witikind’s pardon for all your
abominable conduct towards him.”
Eigenwillig approached Witikind, who had already a smile of
reconciliation on his face, expecting that the Prince would now gladly
make up for his error. But the Hope of the Katzekopfs had no such
intention. He advanced indeed close to Witikind, and stretched out one
hand towards him, but with the other he snatched the Fairy’s wand off
the table, and before she could prevent him, he struck Witikind over the
head, and exclaimed, “Detestable creature! be thou turned into a timid
hare! Mays’t thou be hunted to death by dogs and men!”
In another instant he was gazing in amazement at what he had done; for
such was the portentous power of Abracadabra’s wand that, even in his
hands, it failed not to work the required transformation. Witikind was
crouching before them, a terrified trembling hare!
“Well!” cried the Fairy, “be it so. You have but anticipated my purpose,
evil-minded child that you are!” She opened a door that led into the
garden, and said,
“Hare! Hare! hurry away!
Neither halt nor rest,
And at Taubennest
You shall safely be, by the break of day.
No huntsman harm thee!
No hound alarm thee!
From evil I charm thee!
Bound forth! away! away!”
She paused a moment to see the little creature safe on its route, and
then closed the door.
“And now,” said she to the author of the mischief, “I come to settle my
account with thee. But first surrender my wand.”
“I’ll turn you into a toad first,” shouted the Prince, striking at her;
but with indecision in his voice and manner; for, in spite of his recent
triumph, he was utterly terrified at what he had done, and at what he
was doing. He already had a misgiving that Fairies are not to be trifled
with.
The Lady Abracadabra was, as may be supposed, in no humour to be turned
into a toad. She, therefore, merely stretched out her hand, and caught
hold of the extremity of the wand as the Hope of the Katzekopfs struck
her with it.
“Give me the wand!” said she.
“I shan’t!” cried Eigenwillig.
“Give it me directly!”
“I won’t, won’t, WON’T!” screamed the naughty boy, clinging fast to one
end of the wand, while the Fairy held the other.
“I shall make you glad enough to loose it before I have done with you.”
“Leave it alone, Eigenwillig,” cried his mother, clasping her hands.
“I won’t,” exclaimed the boy, “I won’t do anything you tell me. If you
had not spoilt me, I shouldn’t be in all this trouble now! I _won’t_
give it up, I say!”
“Then take the consequences!” said the Lady Abracadabra. As she said
these words, she darted up into the air, still keeping hold of the wand,
and lessening in size, as she rose, made her way towards the keyhole. By
the time she had reached it, dragging the Prince after her, she had
shrunk to the size which enabled her to go through it. But she paused
for a moment before she disappeared, and, standing on the handle of the
door, she cried out in a shrill, thin voice, such as might be expected
to issue from one of her diminutive size:—
“Follow wand,
Follow hand.”
Then she sprung through the keyhole, and in another instant her wand was
seen following her.
“Drop it now, my darling!” exclaimed the Queen. “Let her take her wand,
if she’ll only take herself off, too!”
All this time the wand was passing through the keyhole. Less and less of
it was left in sight. Now not more than an inch; now not half an inch;
now the tips of the Prince’s fingers seemed sucked up towards the
keyhole.
“Drop it,” cried the Queen, “why don’t you drop it?”
“Oh, mother, mother!” screamed the struggling, breathless boy, in an
agony of terror, “I can’t, I CAN’T; it has grown to my fingers; it
sticks to them! Oh dear! dear! what shall I do? my fingers are being
dragged through the keyhole! they are being stretched into strings! Oh
help me! help me!”
The Queen rushed to the door, before which her son was kicking and
writhing. But his efforts to escape were fruitless. To her horror, the
Queen beheld each joint tapering and elongating itself, till it could
pass through the narrow aperture; now, the wrists had disappeared; now,
in a twinkling, the elbows were out of sight; now the upper portion of
the arm was gone.
“Surely,” thought Ninnilinda, “she will never attempt to drag his head
through.” But she was wrong; the boy’s hair was rapidly sucked through
the keyhole, and the head began to lengthen itself out for the purpose
of following.
This was too much for endurance. The Queen strove with all her power to
open the door; but it was as fast as if it formed part of the original
wall. Then, in her dismay, she seized hold of the body of the Prince,
for the purpose of dragging him back; but a miserable, elongated drawl
from the other side of the door conveyed the boy’s entreaty that she
would not hurt him.
“Never mind what he says, niece,” cried the voice of the Fairy. “Hold
his legs tight, and in half a minute I shall have finished my work, and
wound him up!”
The Queen was so transfixed with dismay, that she stood motionless,
watching the receding body of the Prince, till the soles of his feet
caught her despairing eyes.
“There! ‘tis done now,” cried the Lady Abracadabra. “He makes a very
compact ball, and will travel well!”
The Queen, in her despair, now rushed to the door leading into the
flower-garden; but she was too late.
The Fairy had reached the extremity of the terrace, kicking before her
something that seemed like a ball of rope; but which ball was, in fact,
the convoluted form of Prince Eigenwillig.
In another moment, the lady Abracadabra and the Hope of the Katzekopfs
had bounded over the parapet, and were lost to view; and Queen
Ninnilinda fell, for the first time in her life, into a real swoon.
CHAPTER V.
The Heirs on their Travels.
“O see ye not yon narrow road,
So thick beset with thorns and briers?
That is the path of righteousness,
Though after it but few inquires.
“And see ye not that braid, braid road,
That lies across that lily leven?
That is the path of wickedness,
Though some call it the road to heaven.
“And see ye not that bonny road,
That winds about the fernie brae?
That is the road to fair Elf-land,
Where thou and I this night maun gae.”
_Thomas the Rhymer._
[Illustration]
CHAPTER V.
How is it that the faithful hound succeeds in finding his way back to
his master’s house, from a distance of many miles, and through a country
which he has never been permitted to see? How is it that the
carrier-pigeon, when loosed from the bag in which it has been confined,
mounts up into the air, makes one brief circuit, and then pursues his
way, through an unknown region, in a straight line homeward? Mysteries
these, which the more we attempt to investigate them, the more do they
bewilder us, and, in the attempt to elucidate which, the learned and the
ignorant are alike at fault.
However, our daily experience of the fact that such things are, at once
removes any antecedent improbability which might otherwise suggest
itself to the sceptical, when it is mentioned that Witikind, though
transformed into a hare, found little difficulty in discovering his
route to Taubennest. Had he been even a hare only, his instinct would
probably have guided him in the right direction; but being a
sharp-witted boy, as well as a hare, there seems little cause for wonder
in the matter. The circumstance most worthy of remark is, that he should
have performed his journey of many hundred miles in the course of a
single night. The spells of the Lady Abracadabra had secured him from
the perils of huntsmen and hounds; but how had she bestowed upon him
such marvellous speed of foot? The sun was setting, as we know, when the
son of Count Rudolf received his unexpected dismissal from the Court of
King Katzekopf: ere the moon had risen, the towers and cupolas of the
city scarce broke the line of the distant horizon: by midnight, a
distance which, to the ordinary traveller, would have been equivalent to
a six-days’ journey, had been mastered, and when the chilliness of the
first grey dawn refreshed the heated frame of the breathless quadruped,
the giant forms of his own loved mountains were looming dim and
indistinct in the shadowy distance. What was it that gave to Witikind
the speed of the winged wind? Was it solely the boon of his patroness?
or was it not the magic of deep affection,—of filial and fraternal love,
and the spells of _home_—which infused into his tender frame a vigour
with which even the supernatural gifts of Fairy-land would have been
unable to inspire him?
“Over the mountains,
And over the waves,
Under the fountains,
And under the graves;
Over floods that are deepest,
Which Neptune obey;
Over rocks that are steepest,
Love will find out the way.
“Where there is no place
For the glow-worm to lie;
Where there is no space
For receipt of a fly;
Where the midge dares not venture,
Lest herself fast she lay;
If Love come, he will enter,
And soon find out his way.”
And thus it was that Love urged Witikind on his way, and inspired him to
task to the uttermost the extraordinary powers with which he had been
endowed. No loiterer, nor lingerer was he; “he stay’d not for brake, and
he stopp’d not for stone,” till the turrets of his happy home at
Taubennest caught his eyes, glittering in the brightness of the morning
sun.
But Taubennest, whatever it might be in his imagination, had scarce
deserved the name of _happy_ Taubennest, since the day he quitted it. It
was not that his sisters had not had many a pleasant walk, and played at
many a merry game together, during his absence. It was not that no
smiles had ever lightened his mother’s brow of care. Things had gone on
much in their usual course; a year (for it was no more) of separation
had not wrought many obvious changes, save that Count Rudolf’s health
was declining; disappointed hopes, and ungratified ambition are worse
diseases than fever or consumption, and they were wearing his life away.
Countess Ermengarde had spent many days in calm content, and in active
usefulness, and these things bring their reward of peace with them. The
little girls had not lost the gaiety of disposition which is natural to
their years, and their minds were in a process of training, which is
sure to produce a happy temper. So Taubennest seemed to the friends of
the family the same bright joyous scene as ever.
And yet they who watched closely, would see a tear falling at times,
from the mother’s eye, or mark that now and then an involuntary sigh
would escape from her. And they who looked for it might observe, that
ever and anon some game was laid aside by the children, because _two_
felt that they could find no pleasure in it, when the _third_, who had
been used to join in it, was absent. And walks were chosen, because they
had been favourites with some one who was no longer of the party. And
every thing that awakened an association of this description was most
dearly prized. Surely they did not err who deemed that at such seasons
Witikind was foremost in his mother’s and his sisters’ thoughts.
“I wonder,” said Veronica to Ediltrudis, “whether we shall find the
rosebud blown this morning. Mamma said she thought it would not be out
for three days. What a pity he planted such a late-flowering rose in his
garden. It would have been such a nice present for Mamma on his
birthday.”
“Dear Witikind!” exclaimed Ediltrudis, “how few besides himself would
ever have thought of such a delicate attention to Mamma, as his choice
of that tree involved! ‘What kind of rose shall we plant against the
trellis which surrounds your garden?’ asked the gardener. ‘Shall it be
the blush-moss from Candahar? it is the choicest rose grown; but I have
a promise of one for you, if you wish it.’ ‘No, Florian, that will not
suit me, unless it be the latest, as well as the choicest rose that
grows. I do not care for a rose that I can gather when roses are in
plenty; you must find one for me that will be in flower when all others
are gone. You know how the Countess loves flowers. I want to be able to
provide her with a nosegay, when nobody else can do so.’”
“Ah!” replied Veronica, “that was just like Witikind. A more
affectionate heart than his never beat. How I hope we shall find one of
his buds in flower! It is quite too soon to expect it; but that was a
chance cluster which we observed yesterday, and, perhaps, one of the
buds may be far enough advanced by this time. If it be open ever so
little, I would gather it for Mamma.”
“How I wish some good Fairy would touch the buds with her wand, and
provide us each with a full-blown rose; one for Mamma; one for you; and
one for me.”
“Nay,” said Veronica, “I shall be satisfied if only a few petals of that
single bud be open. I shall hail it as a good omen that we shall have
Witikind himself among us before the year is over.”
“What a fanciful notion!” answered Ediltrudis, laughing. “There is no
end to your romantic imaginations. Now, I confess that, for my part, I
shall be quite surprised if I find that——why look here!” she suddenly
exclaimed, as, being a little in advance of her sister, she caught the
first glimpse of the rose-tree. “Look here, Veronica; make haste, make
haste, a Fairy must have been here.”
“How very extraordinary!” cried the child, running up. “Four full-blown
roses on this cluster! And yet, when we were here yesterday, there was
but one bud at all advanced, and the others were tiny, tiny things,
which I thought would not be in bloom for months to come! You may say
what you will, Ediltrudis, but this _must_ be a good omen. There is not
only a rose for Mamma, and for each of us, but one for Papa likewise.”
“You forget that Papa does not care for flowers.”
“Ah, poor Papa, the smell is too strong for his head now; but, perhaps,
he would not dislike a rose if he knew it was gathered from Witikind’s
tree.”
Ediltrudis shook her head.
“But what if it should be for Witikind himself?” cried Veronica with
eagerness, as so pleasant a thought struck her. “Depend upon it, this is
a token that Witikind will be here before long, to gather his own
roses!”
“I hope you don’t mean to leave these ungathered till he comes. Why, if
you don’t cut them now, they will shed their leaves with the noon-day
heat. You are not hesitating about gathering them, surely, Veronica?”
“Why I don’t know what to think,” replied Veronica doubtfully. “Suppose
we wait till we come in from our walk.”
“Nonsense!” said Ediltrudis; “lend me your knife, and let us carry them
in to Mamma at once.”
“Very well,” answered Veronica; “only let me tie up this
clove-gilliflower first. How sadly,” she continued, “its leaves have
been eaten. I wish we could keep those tiresome hares out.”
“It won’t be easy to do that while they are as bold as they are at
present. See there! there is one coming now to the bed, though we are
standing here. I wonder what people mean by talking of timid hares. I am
sure here they are as bold as lions. Sh! sh! get away with you!” cried
Ediltrudis, clapping her hands, and making a noise which was likely to
have put any ordinary hare to flight.
But the little animal made no attempt to retrace his steps.
“Sh! sh!” cried Ediltrudis once more; and taking up a pebble, made as
though she was about to throw it.
“Nay,” said Veronica, “do not hurt it. See how weary the poor creature
looks; how faint and breathless; and how soiled is its fur! It has been
hunted, and has fled here for succour. Come here, poor thing. I will
protect you!”
The animal approached Veronica, and crouched at her feet. “Get some
water, Ediltrudis! it is going to die; I am sure it is; its eyes look so
dim and glassy.”
Ediltrudis ran to a fountain close at hand, and brought some water in a
shell which lay at its side. Veronica stooped down to place the water
within reach of the exhausted animal, and, as she did so, she was about
to pat it gently; but no sooner did her hand light upon its head, than a
shock like that from an electric battery, ran through her frame, and
made her start violently. Before she could recover herself, the hare had
disappeared, and Witikind was in his sisters’ arms.
For a time, the children were too much overwhelmed with terror and
amazement, to be able to speak. Veronica would have fainted, but for the
timely supply of water which was close at hand; and even when she came
to herself, she could not persuade herself that she was not dreaming.
But there was something too hearty in the embraces of Witikind, and his
kisses were altogether too vehement to have come from Dreamland.
Briefly, but clearly, he made them acquainted with the events which had
befallen him, and when, by degrees, they began to comprehend the reality
of what they saw, he sent them into the castle, to prepare the Countess
for his arrival.
Poor children! it was an arduous task. The excess of their joy made them
as timid and afraid to speak, as excess of sorrow might have done.
However, the roses helped them, and, as it were, prepared the mother’s
mind for some unexpected intelligence of her boy; for, in those days,
people thought more about the unseen world, and the interference of
spiritual beings in men’s affairs, than they do now. And so, at length,
the Countess Ermengarde, and the other inhabitants of Taubennest, were
brought to understand that Witikind was once more among them.
Oh! how vain it were to attempt to describe the scene which then
ensued!—
“Eager steps the threshold pressing;
Open’d arms in haste advancing;
Joyful looks through blind tears glancing;
The gladsome bounding of his aged hound,
Say he in truth is here! our long, long lost is found.”
The reader’s imagination must delineate to him the ecstatic joy of that
meeting; how embrace followed embrace, and a thousand questions were put
to him, ere Witikind had time to answer ten: how Count Rudolf, having
first forgotten his ambitious schemes, in the joy of seeing his son,
soon began to express his belief that the Lady Abracadabra had
mismanaged things shockingly; that she was a Fairy without either talent
or discrimination; that she ought not to have allowed the boy to quit
the palace till she had secured a handsome pension for him; and that it
was quite inexcusable of her to allow a child of Witikind’s high rank to
return home in the form of a hare, and to be liable to be barked at by
every village cur; how Witikind poured forth his regrets that he had
ever been selfish enough to desire to leave his home; how ardently he
hoped that all he had gone through had cured him of some of his worst
faults; how useful a lesson he had been taught; how truly he appreciated
the blessing of a home; and how earnestly he trusted that his future
life would be spent in doing good to his neighbours and dependants at
Taubennest.
“I have seen enough,” said he, “young as I am, to cure me of ambition. I
would rather pass my days in retirement here, striving to benefit those
among whom I dwell, and to repay, so far as I can, my dear parents’ care
of me, than have the highest place and the highest honours, in the
greatest kingdom in the universe.”
“Wait a few years, and we shall see!” said Count Rudolf.
“May Heaven strengthen you to keep to such a determination, my dearest
Witikind,” exclaimed the Countess Ermengarde. “The Fairy has proved
herself a true friend to us, by giving you an opportunity of learning,
by your own experience, to estimate, at their proper value, those things
which are so commonly looked on as advantages, and which the world so
earnestly covets. How I long to express my thanks to our kind patroness!
How earnestly I hope she will continue to help you with her counsels and
advice!”
“Mother,” replied the boy, “I am as grateful to her as you could wish me
to be; but so long as I can be guided by _you_, I will seek no other
counsellor!”
As he said this, he threw himself into his mother’s arms, and mingled
his kisses with her tears of affection and joy.
And thus engaged we must leave them for the present.
* * * * *
Bump, bump, bump! never was ball so elastic and springy. Caoutchouc was
as lazy and lumpish as lead itself when compared with it! Bump, bump,
bump! and a bound of twenty feet between each bump. Down to the ground
as light as a feather, and then up in the air again, ever so high,
almost before you could say it had touched the earth. A single kick from
the Lady Abracadabra, and away it went, down the broad gravel terrace,
as if it took pleasure in its feats!
Poor Prince Eigenwillig: it was lucky for you that that same process of
drawing you through the keyhole, which, so to speak, had elongated you
into a coil of living catgut, had also transformed your bones into
gristle. Had there been any brittle material left in your fabric, it
must have been fractured; but you were more mercifully dealt with than,
considering your conduct to little Witikind, you deserved. The Fairy had
no malevolent intentions towards you, though she did not choose that
your audacious misbehaviour should go unpunished. She made a foot-ball
of you, and kicked you before her, which was very much the kind of
treatment you had bestowed upon all your attendants; but she had no wish
to do you a mischief in life or limb; she only desired to administer
some wholesome discipline.
Down the broad terrace bounded the involuntary traveller, and over the
parapet in which it terminated. Fifty feet and more did the contorted
Hope of the Katzekopfs traverse in the air before a bed of nettles
received him. Over and over did he turn, to escape the stinging torment,
but in vain: even the most elastic of balls cannot raise itself out of
the bottom of a ditch.
Another kick from the Fairy was necessary; and as she kicked him, she
exclaimed, “This is your punishment for having endeavoured to turn me
into a toad: you may thank your lucky stars, and my good-nature, that
this ditch is filled with nothing worse than nettles: it would have
served you right had it been full of vipers.”
The Prince was smarting all over, so, perhaps, he did not feel as
grateful as the Lady Abracadabra seemed to expect. But however that
might be, there was no time for talking. Up the bank he flew, and
pursued his painful way, “through bush, and through briar,” now over a
wide expanse of gorse, now over thistly wastes, till there was not a
quarter of an inch on the whole surface of the ball which had not
received its share of castigation.
“Stop!” cried the Lady Abracadabra at length; and the Prince was but too
glad to obey. “Come hither!” she continued. The Prince rolled towards
her. As soon as he was within reach, she slipped off her girdle, and
passing it through two or three of the living coils, lifted the ball
from the ground, and threw it over her shoulder with a jerk, much in the
same manner that a porter raises a sack on his back. Then she whistled
three times; her cockatrice appeared at the sound; she sprung on her
embroidered saddle,—her burden still suspended from her shoulder:—she
gave the word; the monster spread forth his wings, and rose in the air;
and in a few seconds the Hope of the Katzekopfs was far away from the
scene of his errors, and from the influence of those whose weak
indulgence had contributed to confirm him in them.
Darkness was now coming on apace, and the Prince was too much entangled
in his own circumvolutions to be able to see very accurately whither he
was wending, even had he known the country; but he was conscious that he
was mounting higher and higher, and that he was being borne along with
such increasing rapidity, that he thought within himself that they would
certainly reach the world’s end by sunrise. On, and on, and on. The moon
rose and set. The night air grew colder and colder: the clouds among
which they travelled seemed denser and denser. Shivering at once and
smarting; exhausted and hungry; terrified and indignant, the unhappy son
of Queen Ninnilinda at length sunk into a state of apathy or
unconsciousness.
How far, therefore, or in what direction he had been conveyed he knew
not, but when he came to himself, morning had dawned, and he was aware
that the Fairy was hovering at no great distance above the summit of a
grassy hill, in the midst of a wooded country.
“Stop!” cried the Lady Abracadabra to her steed. The cockatrice poised
in mid air. “Now, Eigenwillig,” said she, “you are going into
Fairy-land. Take care how you behave there, for my countrymen are not to
be trifled with.”
As she spoke she slipped one end of her girdle, and at the same moment
the Prince became conscious that he was falling as rapidly as he had
risen. But this was not all, for still, as he fell, he was conscious
that he was no longer a compact ball, but that he was unrolling—yard
after yard—with the greatest velocity; and not only so, but that his
elongated form was shrinking back again to its original dimensions.
No sooner was he aware of this than a fresh terror seized him. “I am
being restored to my natural shape,” thought he, “only to be dashed to
pieces when I reach the summit of the hill beneath me.”
In a few moments he touched the earth; but instead of receiving a
concussion which shattered him to atoms, he fell as lightly on the
summit of the grassy knoll, as if a featherbed had been placed there to
receive him; and, stranger still, the green turf immediately parting
asunder beneath him, he continued to fall through a chasm which opened
below him, and closed above him, till suddenly he found himself once
more emerging into daylight, and entering into a country altogether new
to him, in the bowels of the earth.
A single glance sufficed to show that he was in Fairy-land; for where
else grow trees with fruits that gleam like precious stones? where else
is the whole surface of the country covered with flowers of the most
dazzling hues, and most delicious fragrance? where else is every
dwelling a palace, and every palace built of gold and silver, and
mother-o’-pearl? and of what but Fairies could those troops of delicate,
ethereal forms consist, some of which were chasing each other in mid
air, and some, with robes as green as the grass upon which they scarce
deigned to tread, were hurrying hither and thither to discharge the
various tasks assigned them by their sovereign?
Prince Eigenwillig had scarcely reached the ground before he was
surrounded by a crowd of them, while, in a moment, scores more were
swarming over him in the air.
“Ho! ho! who are you? How came you here?” cried a little sprite, who, by
his crabbed face, and the bullrush which he carried in his hand like a
mace, was probably the holder of some such office among the elves, as,
with us mortals, is occupied by the parish beadle. “Ho! ho!” said he,
poking the Prince with his staff of office. “Who are you? How came you
here?”
“The Lady Abracadabra, whom perhaps you know, dropped me just now from
the clouds,” replied the Prince.
“Ha! ha! ha!” shouted the whole troop laughing immoderately, “what a
comical lady she is! Why, how come you with such fine clothes? Who are
you?”
“I am the Prince Eigenwillig, eldest son of King Katzekopf,” replied the
boy, throwing as much dignity into his manner as possible, for he was
altogether unaccustomed to such interrogations, and had no idea of not
being treated with profound respect.
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed the elves louder than ever. “What a _very_ comical
fancy! Why this is the spoilt boy, that gave himself such airs, and was
so selfish that nobody could endure him! What a strange choice to fix on
_him_ of all people! To think of sending us a prince for our new
apprentice! Well, Prince, what can you do?” asked he of the bullrush.
“_Do!_” said the Prince. “I don’t know what you mean. But I wish,
gentlemen, you would let me have something to eat, for I am very
hungry.”
“Ha! ha! ha! how very ridiculous, the apprentice wants something to eat!
I tell you what, my young friend, you must take care what you are about,
or you’ll make some of us laugh till we go into fits!”
“I don’t see anything laughable in asking for food when one’s hungry!”
observed the Prince rather sulkily.
“No, no;” answered the first speaker as soon as he recovered breath,
“the oddity consisted in the notion that you could get it by asking for
it, and without doing anything to earn it. Nothing for nothing, is the
rule here.”
“Well, I’ll pay for it honestly,—I’ll give you money for it,” said the
Hope of the Katzekopfs.
“Money! what is money?” inquired a very young Fairy.
The man in authority laughed louder than ever. “Little bits of the
stones we build our houses of, my child,” said he. “No, Prince, you must
offer us something more to our taste than money, before we can find you
provisions. Money is of no use here: we often mend the roads with it.”
“Then what is it you require of me?” asked the Prince, in a perturbed
and astonished tone.
“Why you must work, work, work, like a dutiful apprentice, and then, as
often as it is proper, you shall have something to eat.”
“Who am I to work for? what work am I expected to do?” inquired the
scion of royalty.
“Oh you’re to work for me!” answered a shrill voice.
“And for me.” “And me.” “And me,” added a hundred more.
“Why, of course, you are to work for all of us,” observed the bearer of
the bullrush gravely, “how could you be our apprentice else?”
“My chimneys want sweeping,” cried one.
“My garden wants digging,” said another.
“My house wants scouring,” observed a third.
“My ditches want cleaning,” remarked a fourth.
“I’m sure I shan’t clean ditches, or sweep chimneys for anybody,” said
the Prince, in a most resolute tone.
“Ha! ha! ha! nobody asked you!” shouted the sprites, and away they all
swept like a flight of starlings, making the air ring with their shrill
laughter, while some of them sang,—
“Our apprentice has got an obstinate fit;
Hunger and thirst shall cure him of it.
He shall not eat
A morsel of meat,
He need not think
A drop to drink,
Till he works and earns it every bit!”
The Prince was now left alone. Not a Fairy remained in sight. So long as
there was a single spectator, the boy’s pride enabled him to seem bold
and unyielding; but when he was sure that no eye was upon him, overcome
with weariness and vexation, he threw himself down upon the ground and
sobbed as though his heart would break.
Poor child, he was to be pitied! There he was, without a friend—so far
as he knew—near him; unable any longer to command attention on the score
of his exalted rank; conscious within himself that all his misfortunes
were the consequences of his own errors; and yet, at present, so rooted
in his bad habits, that he was rather disposed to punish himself to any
amount, than do anything which seemed to imply a disposition to yield
and submit.
Long and sore he wept; but, in the end, hunger and thirst prevailed, and
induced him to dry his tears, and to endeavour to obtain for himself
that sustenance which the inhospitable Fairies would not provide him
withal.
And he did not long hesitate as to the quarter whence he would seek
refreshment. Those trees, laden with glittering fruits, had caught his
eye the moment he entered Fairy-land, and he now resolved to help
himself. To be sure the trees were high, and he was unused to climbing,
but he did not feel much apprehension of not being able to get as much
fruit as he needed; but he soon found greater difficulties than he
expected. The first tree which he attempted to ascend had such an
unctuous, slippery bark, that he only mounted a few yards, before he
involuntarily slid to the ground. And this happened again and again. The
next tree he approached had the most luscious-looking pears imaginable,
hanging quite within his reach; but when he had advanced within a few
yards of it, he beheld a tiger, glaring at him with blood-shot eyes,
from within the tangled thicket. A third tree offered him its fruits,
but the rind was so hard that his teeth could not penetrate it: in a
fourth, the products, though beautiful to the eye, seemed to the taste
like liquid fire;—his lips scarce touched them before they were
blistered.
So he soon gave up the fruit trees in despair, and hastened towards a
lake, which seemed at an inconsiderable distance, in order to satisfy
his thirst with its sparkling waters. But soon he discovered that, as he
advanced, the lake retreated, and that a shadowy vapour was mocking his
aching sight.
Faint and weary he threw himself upon the ground once more and wept. But
his tears this time were not those of offended pride, but of real
suffering and distress.
“Alas!” thought he to himself, “how much I wish that I had considered
more about the sufferings of those beneath me,—the poor, and sick, and
hungry, and thirsty in my father’s kingdom! If I die here of hunger and
thirst, nobody will miss me; nobody will mourn for me! Even Nurse
Yellowlily, and the governesses, will be glad to find that they are not
to see me any more; and no wonder! for I used to plague them
shamefully.”
Thus did self-reproach mingle with the bodily discomforts of Prince
Eigenwillig. Ah! if those whom he had most wearied and irritated with
his naughty tricks, could have seen him now, they would have pitied and
soothed him! And what a lesson would it have been for silly Queen
Ninnilinda, could she have witnessed the end of her foolish indulgences!
It was a happy thing for the Hope of the Katzekopfs, that he _had_ no
one to pity and soothe him. The bitterer his pains now, the more hope
that he would escape them hereafter. The more searching and nauseous the
medicine, the more hope that he would be careful not to render it
necessary again, the more prospect that it would work an entire reform
in his constitution. The experience of the last twelve hours was doing
more for Prince Eigenwillig, than could have been acquired in as many
years at his father’s court. The course of self-examination upon which
the usage he had received in Fairy-land had caused him to enter was of
more real value to him than all the jewels in his future crown. The
sharp and trying process by which he was now in progress of being taught
the defects of his character, was a more certain evidence of the
good-will of his Fairy-godmother towards him, than all the precious
gifts which she had heaped upon him, on the day when she named him
Eigenwillig.
There is no night in Fairy-land; for elves have no need of that rest and
sleep which are indispensable to more gross and corporeal forms; so the
Prince knew not, save by the increase of his hunger and thirst, that
another day (as we mortals count time,) was drawing to its close. Hour
after hour he had lain upon the grass, alternately weeping and
meditating, and still uncertain what to do. Once or twice he felt
disposed to remain in his obstinacy. “I’m not going to be a slave,”
thought he, “and nobody shall compel me to work for them.” But then,
after a while, he reflected that there was no compulsion in the case.
So, when he got very hungry indeed, he determined he would apply to the
first Fairy he saw, for some job of work which should be worth a good
meal to him. No sooner had he made this resolution, than he felt rather
more comfortable in his mind, than when he was struggling with his
self-will; but his appetite was by no means relieved. “I shall see a
Fairy, no doubt, very soon,” said he. But he waited a long time, and not
one appeared in sight. “I wish I could see a Fairy!” he cried, after a
while. “What a terrible scrape I shall be in, if they have left this
part of the country! Perhaps I had better get up and walk onward!”
Up he got: but he was so faint and exhausted, he was obliged to rest at
the end of half-a-mile. “Alas! alas! how rash was I to offend them: how
wrong to give way to my pride and bad temper! But what a terrible
punishment they are inflicting! They have certainly left me to starve!”
And the Prince buried his face in his knees, and wept once more. He had
not sat long, when he heard a rustling in the air above him, and,
looking up, he beheld, within a few yards of him, two Fairies, bearing
between them a basket laden with most delicious-looking grapes.
“Gentlemen,” said the Prince, “can you set me to work? I should be very
glad to earn a meal.”
“Who are you?” asked the first.
“Oh,” replied the second, “he’s our new apprentice; the self-willed
Prince, who expected to live among us in idleness.”
“No, my little master,” said the first, addressing himself to the
Prince, “I’ve no work for you. You should have asked me when I was going
to the vineyard, not when I was coming from it. Let me find you here
twelve hours hence, and I dare say we can find you something to do.”
“But I shall be dead in twelve hours; I am so faint for want of food
now, I can hardly walk.”
“I am sorry for that,” observed the second Fairy. “What a pity you
didn’t sweep the chimneys, and clean the ditches, when you had the
offer. But it can’t be helped. Nothing for nothing is the rule here.
Farewell, Prince Wilful. Come, Tomalin, forward with our burden.”
“Nay, nay,” replied Tomalin, who was the more amiable-looking of the
two; “if it be as he says, and if he be willing to work, we may as well
do somewhat for him. Maybe he is inclining to mend his ways.”
“You are the ruin of our apprentices with your good-nature,” replied
Claribel, “but I suppose it must be as you wish. Suppose we give him the
grapes to carry. Come Prince-Apprentice, here’s work for you, if you
want it. Carry our load for us over the hill yonder, and you shall have
some of the fruit for your pains.”
The Hope of the Katzekopfs came forward with alacrity: at least, with
all the alacrity in his power.
“Take care you don’t drop any!” said Tomalin, helping him to throw the
basket over his shoulder. “Now, then, away with you!”
The Prince bent under his burden with hearty good-will. The elves had
seemed to bear it through the air without the slightest difficulty, and
he anticipated that, after all, he had got an easy task. But he was
wofully disappointed. The grapes might have been bullets, to judge from
their weight. The basket, instead of resting easily on his shoulder,
nearly dragged him backwards. He was tempted to relinquish his task
almost at the outset. Fortunately, however, his natural resoluteness of
character, which so often had assumed the shape of obstinacy, now
displayed itself in a more praiseworthy form; he determined to prove his
sincerity, by doing his best.
And he was rewarded. For, after reeling and staggering a few steps, the
burden at his back seemed somewhat lighter. At first the relief was
almost imperceptible, but the further he advanced, the more his load was
lessened, so that, at the end of two or three hundred yards, he found he
was getting on with tolerable ease.
He ventured to remark the change to his companions. They only smiled,
and said, “It is ever so when folks are in earnest.” It was a long tug
up the hill, and the Prince was a good deal out of breath; but he did
not lose heart, and, before long, had arrived at a mansion built of
mother-o’-pearl, and adorned with cupolas and domes of silver, according
to the usual form of Fairy architecture. Here, still bearing his burden
on his back, he passed through a tennis-court of ivory, thence through a
hall of blue sapphire, down a long corridor of agate, into a kitchen of
crystal, with doors of nutmeg, and pillars of green ginger. Here he was
bidden to set down his load, and was allowed to refresh himself with the
grapes.
“You have worked hard and shown hearty good-will,” said Claribel, “so
you may eat as many grapes as you like, while we take our own repast.”
And a strange repast it seemed. If the Prince had not been too much
occupied with the grapes, he might have ventured to ask its nature, and
perhaps would have received some such reply as the following:—
“A roasted ant that’s nicely done,
By one small atom of the sun;
These are flies’ eggs, in moonshine poach’d;
This a flea’s thigh, in collops scotched—
‘Twas hunted yesterday i’ the park,
And like t’have ‘scaped us in the dark.
This is a dish entirely new—
Butterflies’ brains, dissolved in dew;
These lovers’ vows, these courtiers’ hopes,
Things to be eat by microscopes;
These sucking-mites, a glow-worm’s heart,
This a delicious rainbow tart.”[2]
Footnote 2:
King’s Works, Edit. 1776, vol. III., p. 112.
“I begin to have hopes of our apprentice,” observed Tomalin, when he had
finished his supper. “There’s plenty of work for him in the meadow
yonder. I want to have all the worm-casts stopped. You had better go and
set about it, my little master.”
Prince Eigenwillig coloured, and, for a moment, he had a struggle with
himself not to say that as he had now got a meal, he did not intend to
do any more work; but experience had taught him wisdom; so he expressed
his willingness to do what he was bidden, only hinting that he should be
better up to his work, if he could be allowed a few hours’ sleep.
“Oh, true,” said Claribel, “I forgot that;” Then he showed the Hope of
the Katzekopfs a soft bed of moss, and bade the weary child rest
himself.
Prince Eigenwillig—king’s son as he was—had never eaten so delicious a
meal as those few bunches of grapes, earned with the sweat of his brow,
and never had he slept so sound between sheets of the finest cambric, as
now on that mossy couch.
And better still, when he woke, he woke with a light heart—light, though
he was far from home, and forced to work for his bread, as the Fairy’s
apprentice. From the moment in which he made up his mind to take his
trial cheerfully, and do what he was bidden, the whole prospect seemed
to brighten before him.
And the Fairies, who, at first, appeared cross, and spiteful, and
capricious towards him, by degrees softened in their manner. The feeling
that he was at every body’s call, and that he had more masters to please
than he could count, was certainly very disheartening at the outset; but
in a few days he got reconciled to it. And then, moreover, he had the
satisfaction of finding that the kind of labour to which he was put was
changed. At first, and while the Fairies thought him disposed to be
obstinate and self-willed, and inclined to rebel, they set him to all
the dirtiest and hardest tasks they could think of; but, as they
observed him growing more willing and good-humoured, they made more of a
companion of him than a servant, and at length he became such a
favourite, that he was allowed to join in their sports.
Hitherto he had seen nothing of the Lady Abracadabra; but when the
Prince had thus gained the regard of her countrymen, she suddenly
appeared among them, and inquired how their apprentice had conducted
himself.
All were open mouthed in his praise. Even the beadle with the bullrush,
had a word to say in his favour, and Claribel declared that he thought
the Lady Abracadabra’s object was accomplished, and her godchild might
be allowed to revisit his family.
But the Lady Abracadabra, though smiling kindly on him, shook her head.
“Alas,” said she, “you know not how much he has to unlearn every way,
and how great are the trials to which he would still be exposed at home.
But so far, so good. He has learned to obey orders. We must now see
whether he has learned to govern _himself_.”
CHAPTER VI.
Experiments on the Heir.
_Portia._——“Now make your choice.
_Morocco._ “The first of gold, who this inscription bears:
‘Who chuseth me, shall gain what many men desire.’
The second silver, which this promise carries:
‘Who chuseth me, shall get as much as he deserves.’
This third, dull lead, with warning all as blunt:
‘Who chuseth me, must give and hazard all he hath.’
How shall I know if I do chuse the right?”
_Shakespeare._
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VI.
The Hope of the Katzekopfs was alone once more: the Lady Abracadabra had
brought her countrymen another apprentice, in his place, and Prince
Eigenwillig’s term of servitude was ended. But, as has been already
intimated, this measure was only the prelude to a further trial; for his
Fairy-sponsor had no intention of allowing him to quit Fairy-land, till
his mind had been so far disciplined as to give every reasonable hope
that in spite of the temptations to which he was likely to be exposed at
home, he would turn out a good man and a good king.
The Prince was once more alone; for the Lady Abracadabra had suddenly
transported him to a district in Fairy-land, which he had not hitherto
seen; but instead of being, as on a former occasion, an ill-tempered,
unhappy, weary, hungry boy, he was there with a light heart, expecting
companions whom his godmother promised should meet him, and anticipating
no small pleasure, from being allowed to roam at will through the realm
of the Fairies.
The part of the country in which he found himself was even more
beautiful than that with which he had been made acquainted at first. The
flowers were of a more dazzling brilliancy, and more perfect fragrance.
The fruits upon the trees were even more tempting in their appearance.
The waters sparkled like diamonds, and the mingled forms of hill and
valley arranged themselves into the most exquisite landscape imaginable.
While the Prince stood gazing on the scene, listening to the enchanting
songs of the birds, and watching the flight of butterflies, each more
delicate in form and colouring than the other, he observed a figure
approaching him out of a neighbouring thicket. The form was that of an
aged man, with white hair, and white beard, and a long grey robe
reaching down to his feet. He was very pale, and very thin, and his
shoulders were rather bent. He was not different in height and size,
from the generality of the inhabitants of Fairy-land; and so the Prince
supposed, at first sight, that, in spite of the stranger’s unusual
dress, he was one of the ordinary inhabitants of that country. And so,
perhaps, he might have been. But there was a gravity in his manner, and
calm severity in his eye, which was unlike other Fairies, whose
countenances have generally a merry, sly, or mischievous expression.
The Prince continued to gaze on him, and as he gazed, their eyes met.
Immediately, and without being able to account for the feeling, the boy
felt himself fascinated. The old man’s expression was stern and even
repulsive. Under ordinary circumstances, the Prince would have said to
himself, “What an odd, disagreeable face is that!” would have turned
away from it, and never thought of it again. But now the face rivetted
him, and as he looked on it, its severity seemed to relax, and the mouth
had something of inexpressible sweetness in it.
“Good-morrow to you, my Prince,” said the old man, “I have been long
looking for you, and am glad to have found you at last.”
There was nothing peculiarly attractive in his voice, which, indeed, to
Eigenwillig’s ears, sounded rather harsh and grating; but the old man’s
manner was very kind and winning, though his words surprised the Prince
not a little.
“I thank you, good father,” said he; “but how is it possible that you
should have been long looking for me? Are you a friend of King
Katzekopf, or of Queen Ninnilinda?”
“No, my son. I knew them once for a short time; but they have long since
forgotten my very existence.”
“Then who are you, aged man?”
“Never mind who I am. I am not wont to tell my name at first. I have
found that it raises a prejudice against me. But you may be satisfied of
my good-will towards you, since it was by the Lady Abracadabra’s
direction that I came to seek you here. I am ready to be your companion,
if you are willing to accept my services.”
“I fear I should weary you out in a few hours,” replied the Prince, “you
forget that I have the active limbs of youth, and that you, my father,
guide your steps with a staff.”
“Nay,” answered the old man, “the fear is on the other side. I am more
like to weary you, than you to weary me.”
“Have you ever travelled with any as young as I am?”
“I have set out upon pilgrimage with multitudes such as you are,”
answered the stranger with a sigh, “and some,” he added, “have I
accompanied to their journey’s end. And dearly have they loved me.”
“I think I should love you, too, and like you for a companion,” said the
Prince, “for though you look severe, and speak gravely, your manner
bespeaks kind intentions.”
“Stay,” said the old man, “perhaps you choose me because no more
acceptable guide appears at hand. The Lady Abracadabra did not mean to
restrict you in your choice. If I mistake not, we have another companion
hard at hand. Lo you there!”
The Prince following the direction of the old man’s eyes, turned himself
a little to the left, and there, close by his side, he perceived a tiny
sprite, scarce a span high, who was eyeing the old man with a most
malevolent and insulting expression of countenance.
The Prince gazed at him in wonder; he had never seen a creature so
small, wearing the human form. “Surely!” he remarked to his aged
companion, “this must be the most diminutive of elves.”
“All persons think him so,” replied the old man, “when first they see
him; indeed, many declare that, except in a strong light, and after a
good deal of exertion, they are unable to see him at all. And what is
very remarkable, he never appears alike to two persons at the same time.
For instance, I will be bold to say that he looks quite different in
your eyes and mine at this very moment. I think him a very hideous
little ape.”
“An ape!” exclaimed the Prince, “how you surprise me! To me he seems to
have the features of a good-looking boy.”
The old man gave a glance of peculiar meaning at the Prince, and
smiling, said, “Did you ever see any boy like him?”
“No!” answered the Hope of the Katzekopfs.
“There is nothing remarkable in that,” replied the grey-robed stranger,
with the same smile, and quiet tone, “some persons are more quick at
finding resemblances than others. What think you of his dress?”
“Oh,” said the Prince, “I see nothing to find fault with in that; it is
just like _my own_.”
The old man smiled once more.
Meanwhile the little Sprite was fidgetting about uneasily, endeavouring
to attract attention, as it should seem, and provoked at not finding his
efforts more successful.
“Good day to you, my fair and gracious Prince,” it said at length, in
tones which, to the Prince’s ear, sounded the softest and most agreeable
he had ever heard; “may I venture to address your royal highness?”
“Wait a moment longer,” said the old man, waving his hand. The Sprite
made a movement of impatience, which the Prince, involuntarily and
unconsciously as it were, repeated. The old man saw it. “Bear with me,
Sir, for a single instant. I was only going to say this to you. I am
aware that the merry gentleman yonder is more likely to find favour in
your eyes than I am. I can only engage that I will be a safe and
faithful friend to you, and that I ever keep the promises which I make.
If _he_ makes large professions to you, perhaps you will do well to
consider his probable ability to fulfil them. I will now leave you to
make your decision. I will not interrupt your colloquy, nor attempt to
bias your judgment. You have heard me without interruption. You will now
have an opportunity of hearing him. It may be that I already anticipate
your decision; but of that I say nothing at present. If, hereafter, you
find yourself in trouble or difficulty, and have need of me, I shall not
be so far off as not to be within call. Clap your hands thrice, and I
will speedily be at your side.”
There were some things in this speech which the Prince did not like, and
others which he did not understand. But he felt that, at any rate, the
old man’s intentions towards him were kind, and, therefore, he was about
to express his thanks; but, as he turned to do so, the aged stranger had
vanished.
“Ehem!” said the little Sprite, resolved to gain the Prince’s attention
at last; “did your royal highness speak? Perhaps you wished that that
venerable gentleman should be called back; shall I run after him, and
endeavour to find him?”
“Why, no,” replied the Prince, with a little hesitation, “it is
unnecessary; but perhaps you can do me the favour of informing me who he
is?”
“He was an entire stranger to your royal highness, was he?”
“Yes,” answered the Hope of the Katzekopfs, “I am pretty sure I never
saw him before.”
“Just what I apprehended,” observed the Sprite; “he is an old fellow of
the most insufferable presumption; one who is continually endeavouring
to obtrude himself into the best society; and if by any chance accident
he gets admission therein, he is sure to meddle with matters that don’t
concern him, to volunteer advice when nobody wishes for it, and to throw
a restraint and gloom over any company into which he is allowed to
enter.”
“His name?” inquired the Prince.
“Ah,” responded his companion, “it has escaped me; but I shall recall it
presently. Meanwhile, allow me to tender my own allegiance, and to
assure you that if you should so far condescend as to choose me for the
companion of your leisure, your royal highness—”
“I observe that you have given me that designation very frequently,”
observed the Prince, “what reason have you for supposing it belongs to
me?”
“My Prince,” replied the Sprite; “had I never set eyes upon you till
this moment, there is that in your form and figure which could not have
failed to betray to the most unobservant that you could be sprung from
none but the very highest. You bear that in your eye, and on your brow.
But, my gracious Prince, though you see me now for the first time, you
are no stranger to me. I am of a race who walk invisible, and, if I may
be allowed to say such a thing without presumption, you have been the
object of my tender regards since the very hour of your birth. In fact,
I may say that I have never been parted from you during your whole
existence.”
“You amaze me,” said Eigenwillig; “explain, I pray you, how such a thing
can have happened without my being conscious of it.”
“I would gladly do so,” replied the Sprite; “but it is among the
mysteries which we are forbidden to reveal to mortals.”
“But may you not tell me who you are? How call they you, and what is
your name?”
“Selbst, at your service,” answered the tiny elf.
“And why have you sought me here?” asked the Prince.
“Because our interests are identical, and because the Lady Abracadabra,
being well aware of my anxiety to befriend you, permitted me to offer
myself as a companion to you on your travels.”
“You know this country then?”
“Intimately, my Prince; and I flatter myself that I am sufficiently
conversant with your tastes to be able to make myself agreeable to you,
which (I say it with all diffidence) is a great deal more than our
friend in the gray habiliments undertook for himself. I can fly, while
he can only creep. I am ready to join in any merry sport; but he seems
fit for nothing but a hermitage in a desert. I can watch over you, and
defend your interests; he, poor old gentleman, is fit for nothing but a
scarecrow.”
“Why certainly,” answered the Prince, with a smile, “there is no denying
that externals are in your favour. He looks so austere, and his dress
and appearance are so unlike those of the rest of the world, that if I
was to ask him to accompany me, every body would think I was travelling
with an old schoolmaster.”
The sprite laughed contemptuously at the notion of the Hope of the
Katzekopfs being so attended. And that laugh settled the matter, for the
Prince was not accustomed to be laughed at, and the thought of appearing
ridiculous to anybody was what his pride would not brook for a moment.
So he said, “Well, Selbst, I fix my choice on you. Will you be my
companion?”
“With the greatest pleasure imaginable, my gracious Prince, if you will
grant me one condition.”
“And what will that be?”
“Oh, it is by no means an onerous one,” replied Selbst. “My limbs,
though active, are so slight, that I am a bad walker, and soon wearied.
Have you any objection to taking me on your back. I am as light as a
feather.”
“None in the world,” answered Eigenwillig, “I can stow you away in my
pocket if you like it. Come, jump up.”
The sprite waited for no second bidding.
“You’re heavier than I expected,” exclaimed the Hope of the Katzekopfs
in some surprise.
“You’ll soon get used to it,” returned Master Selbst, in the most
nonchalant tone imaginable. “Thank you, I’m quite comfortable now,” he
continued, clasping his arms round the Prince’s neck.
“Why, Sprite, Sprite, how have you contrived to make your hands reach in
front of my neck? A moment ago, and your arms scarce seemed two inches
long?”
“Oh, I’m obliged to stretch them to the utmost; but I’m comfortable
now,” replied the Sprite with an air of great self-satisfaction.
“Yes, but you are throttling me,” said the Prince, “unclasp your
fingers.”
“No, I can’t do that, my Prince: you’ll soon get used to the pressure;
and I am sure you would not wish me to be uncomfortable.”
“Let go your hold, I say,” cried the Prince angrily, “you are
suffocating me;” and he endeavoured to unloose the tiny fingers which
clutched round his throat. The sprite only increased his pressure.
“I shall be strangled,” cried the Prince, gasping for breath.
“Oh no, you won’t,” replied Selbst; “do not struggle, and you will be as
comfortable as I am directly. Why should not we both be comfortable? It
is useless to writhe about in that way, my Prince. See, it forces me to
drive my knees into your side.”
And suiting the action to the word, the sprite contrived to shoot down
those knees which, but a minute before, were so tiny as to be scarce
perceptible, and to give them a very firm hold on the Prince’s ribs.
Now, if Prince Eigenwillig had only possessed the courage and resolution
to have continued the struggle, and had remembered to have called the
old man to his aid, he would have been able to master Selbst, to shake
him off, and prevent him from gaining the upper hand. To be sure it was
a grievous oversight to have allowed such a mischievous-looking elf to
get upon his back at all; but for this there was now no help; the only
question was, how to get rid of him. If the Prince had given himself
time for consideration, it might have occurred to him as probable that
such a boastful little creature, as Selbst had already shown himself to
be, was not likely to have much resolution about him when fairly
encountered. Selbst, in fact, was little better than a cowardly bully,
full of presumption and bravado, who was in the habit of endeavouring to
carry matters with a high hand, by using great swelling words, and who,
when persons yielded to him, tyrannized over them more and more, the
more they yielded. But though there was a good deal of obstinacy and
importunity in his character, he was very mean and pitiful when he met
with a determined opponent.
Unhappily for himself, Prince Eigenwillig was soon cowed. When he found
that he could not shake off the sprite at once, his heart failed him,
and he thought within himself that, having given Selbst such an
advantage over him, there was no help for it, and he must e’en make the
best bargain he could for himself.
“There!” cried the Sprite, as, breathless and exhausted, Prince
Eigenwillig desisted from further efforts to free himself, “There! now I
hope you will be satisfied. It is no use struggling with me. I am sure
to carry the day. So, that point being settled, we shall be good friends
directly, and I will see if I cannot make my weight less of an
incumbrance to you.”
This was said so pleasantly that the Prince felt disposed to be
appeased; and being immediately followed up by an effort on Selbst’s
part to sit more lightly, and by an apparent relaxation of his hold, the
royal traveller became much better reconciled to his companion, and
proceeded cheerfully on his way, Selbst directing him as to the route
which would prove most agreeable, and beguiling the path with narrative
and song.
They had not gone far together before the Prince became so well used to
his burden, that he would have disliked the thought of being released
from it. He ceased to find it troublesome, and grew so intimate with
Selbst, that he felt as if he must needs consult him, and take his
opinion upon every thing, and that there would be no getting on without
him.
This was precisely the object at which the sprite was aiming: he desired
to make the Prince wholly subservient to him, but he did not choose that
his victim should become aware of the extent to which he was enslaved,
and therefore he contrived to appear to submit, when, in fact, he was
dictating.
The Hope of the Katzekopfs was travelling with the object of seeing all
that was most remarkable in Fairy-land, and he had been particularly
anxious to witness the process by which dew-drops were crystallized into
diamonds, and also to learn the method by which sunbeams can be
extracted from cucumbers. Remembering how much his mother was apt to
suffer from cold in the winter season, he felt desirous to be able to
carry home a recipe which might materially increase her comforts, and
also, being aware of her strong penchant for diamonds, he affectionately
proposed to himself to acquire the secret by which diamonds could be
made as plentiful as blackberries.
The sprite made no sort of opposition to the Prince’s proposal that they
should visit these manufactories; but, while secretly resolving that he
should see neither, this sly elf affected to give his cordial consent to
the scheme. However, what with enlarging on the length of the journey,
and the difficulties to be encountered, he contrived so effectually,
though so skilfully, to work on the Prince, that his royal highness gave
up the scheme in the full belief that the change of plan originated in
himself, and that it was owing to himself only, that the evening found
them in the self-same spot from which they had started in the morning.
Throughout the course of his long day’s walk, the Prince had been
carrying Selbst on his back, and very much surprised he felt that the
sprite had never offered to get down, and allow the Prince to rest
himself. But no: no such thought ever seemed to enter his mind; he
pointed out the road, complained, now and then, of the roughness of the
ways, and expressed his own great satisfaction at finding himself in
such a comfortable position; but he evidently thought of nobody but
himself. If the wallet of provisions was opened, Selbst, while appearing
anxious that the Prince should take refreshment, contrived to lay his
own hands on the delicacies which were choicest: if the flask of wine
was produced, Selbst drained it all but a few drops. And what was
stranger still, even the little which the Prince secured seemed of no
service to him, it appeared to refresh the sprite, and not himself; he
continued as hungry and thirsty as if neither victuals nor drink had
entered his mouth. And yet, all the while, Selbst talked so pleasantly,
and was so amusing, and there was so little appearance of intentional
greediness or ill-breeding in his manner, that the Prince did not feel
that he had any cause of complaint.
But as he continued plodding on his way, wondering why it was that his
food did him so little good, a circumstance occurred which afforded him
a probable, though certainly a very strange explanation of his
difficulty. Happening, while the sun was shining brightly, to catch a
glimpse of his own shadow on an opposite rock, he perceived that Selbst
had increased in bulk to such a degree that, instead of being any longer
a span high, he was now larger than the Prince himself. By some
mysterious process he was not only absorbing all the nourishment in the
Prince’s body, but was intercepting, as it were, the supplies on which
existence depended.
No wonder the Hope of the Katzekopfs felt low and sinking.
“Why, Selbst,” exclaimed he, “how enormously you are increased in size,
since you mounted on my shoulders! I shall never be able to carry you.”
“Go on, go on,” answered the sprite. “I am quite comfortable. I dare say
you will do very well.”
The Prince was very much alarmed when he perceived that Selbst was
growing so rapidly, and that all the sustenance which he himself took
was turning to his companion’s nutriment. But the excitement and alarm
passed off almost immediately; somehow or other he got reconciled to the
state of things, and grew quite apathetical about it. If he felt any
increase of weight on his shoulders, he speedily became indifferent to
it, and he even ceased to wonder that his food seemed to do him no good.
Thus they went on roaming about, with no particular object in view;
Selbst directing the Prince to go in this direction or that, as the
fancy happened to take him, and the Prince obeying implicitly, in a sort
of listless, unresisting manner.
“Go to yonder fountain,” said the sprite, after they had journeyed some
hours longer. “Your body is so warm it quite heats and fatigues me. Why
don’t you keep yourself cool?”
“How can I,” asked the Prince, “under such a broiling sun, and with you
on my back? I wish you would get down for a little while.”
“No indeed,” answered the sprite, “I shall do nothing of the kind. I am
quite comfortable, all except the heat, and I shall be cooler when you
have stood a little while in the fountain.”
“Oh, Selbst, surely you forget how hot _I_ am: to stand in a fountain
would kill me.”
“And what does that matter to me, so long as I can keep myself
comfortable? I am master now, and intend to remain so.”
“Master!” exclaimed Prince Eigenwillig, his natural disposition breaking
out for a moment, “Tyrant, you mean.”
“Well, tyrant, if you like,” said the sprite. “Call me what you please,
I care not; only do what I tell you. Go into the fountain.”
The Prince groaned, but obeyed mechanically, for resistance seemed to be
useless; but when he approached the water’s edge, he saw a sight
reflected on its glassy surface which made him start back. Selbst had
become double the size which he was when the Prince had seen his shadow
on the rock.
“What’s the matter? why don’t you go in?” cried the sprite impatiently.
Fear, and the strong impulse of self-preservation now aided the unhappy
victim, and he replied, “Look at your own reflection in the water. How
can you expect me who am but half your size, to carry you in there? Your
weight is enough to drown me.”
“Do as you are bid, slave!” cried the sprite angrily, giving the boy a
violent kick in the side. Hitherto he had contrived to keep his limbs
out of the Prince’s sight, but Eigenwillig had now the opportunity of
observing that his tormentor’s foot was the size of that of a full-grown
man.
“You may drag me into the water if you will: you are stronger than I am,
and I can’t help myself, but go, of my own free will, I won’t.”
The Prince spoke these words in a tone of resolute determination, and
the sprite seemed to hesitate for a moment what he would do; but his
mind was soon made up, for he gave the boy another kick, and much more
severe than the first. It quite took the Prince’s breath away, and he
was very near falling.
“If you kick me in that manner,” said he, “you will break my ribs, and
then I shall be unable to carry you at all.”
“Go into the water, slave, or it will be the worse for you!” rejoined
Selbst, and tried to force him forward. The Prince threw his arms round
a young tree, and clung to it with all his strength.
“You’re as obstinate as a pig,” exclaimed the sprite, “and I have a
great mind to throw you into the water, and hold you there till you are
drowned,—only I don’t choose to make myself hotter than I am already.”
Thus he yielded the point, and proved himself a mere blustering bully.
As for the Prince, he was so amazed and confounded at so unexpected a
change, that he was unable to avail himself of his own victory. Had he
been sufficiently self-possessed, he would have reflected that now was
the time to follow up his advantage, and never to rest till he had
shaken off his troublesome companion. But the boy had been so cowed and
alarmed at the sight of the prodigious size of his adversary, that he
felt it would be hopeless to prolong the struggle,—that he must be
worsted,—and so he hesitated and lost heart, at the very moment when
Selbst was beginning to fear that his tyranny was at an end.
He, the crafty elf! had no lack of self-possession; and so, though
foiled in his object, he contrived to make it seem as if his yielding
was rather the result of good-nature than necessity, whereby he hoped
that, before long, he should reduce the unfortunate Prince to his former
condition of listless docility.
But if young Eigenwillig had not yet acquired sufficient resolution to
enter on a further struggle with his oppressor, he was no longer
inclined to look on him in the light of an agreeable companion. He had
now learned the falseness and hollowness of his professions; he began to
see through his artifices; he was no longer unconscious of his unwieldy
size; he had contrived to catch a glimpse of his features, and to see
that they were hideous and ape-like, and to perceive that his very
breath was loathsome and pestilential.
And this was a great point gained, though much more remained behind to
be accomplished. It set the Prince upon reflecting on the Lady
Abracadabra’s last words to him, and on the ill-considered haste of his
recent decision.
But why did he not summon to his aid the venerable stranger who had
first appeared to him, and who had promised to be close at hand to help
him?
It is not difficult to find an answer to this inquiry. Greatly as Prince
Eigenwillig had been improved by his recent trials, he had a good deal
of false pride still hanging about him, which disinclined him to own
himself in the wrong; and then, though the old man had been so kind to
him, it is sometimes difficult to get over first impressions, and the
stern, austere countenance, and grave manners of that venerable person,
rendered him unattractive. The Prince was afraid of him, and he felt as
if he could not make a friend of any one of whom he stood in awe. Still
he had grateful feelings towards the grey-robed stranger, and desired to
have an opportunity of seeing more of him.
Moreover, he had a secret conviction that the old man was the only
person who could protect him against the tyranny of Selbst, and he
determined upon any fresh act of tyranny, to call the old man to his
aid.
It was not long before his resolution was put to the test.
Though Selbst, like a cowardly bully, had given way when he found he was
manfully resisted, and though, like a cunning knave, he had endeavoured
to make his defeat appear like a voluntary concession, still he was too
fond of having his own way, and of domineering upon all occasions, to go
on for long without further exasperating his victim against him.
When he yielded the point upon the fountain, he commanded the Prince to
carry him to the top of a hill at some distance; the air, he said, would
be less hot and oppressive there than in the valley. This was his
nominal reason; his real object was to punish the Prince, by wearing him
out with fatigue and exhaustion.
The Prince, bending under his burden, accordingly set forth towards the
hill; but he had now been on foot many hours, and every step he took,
Selbst seemed to grow heavier and heavier; however, he contrived, though
very weary and breathless, to reach the bottom of the hill; but there he
stopped.
“Prithee, Selbst,” said he, “let us rest awhile.”
“Rest forsooth!” cried the sprite in a tone of surprise, “what should we
rest for? I am quite comfortable. I am not at all tired.”
“Likely enough!” replied the Prince, “for you have not walked a step all
day. But I, who have had to carry you, am quite tired out; so rest I
must.”
“Get to the top of the hill first, then,” answered Selbst. The Prince,
dispirited and unwilling to begin a fresh contest, made an effort to
ascend the precipitous bank; but he had not gone many yards before he
stumbled and fell. Nor was it a simple fall; for he continued rolling
over the sharp stones, Selbst and all, till he reached the bottom of the
hill.
He was not much hurt himself; but Selbst was a good deal scratched and
bruised. This misfortune, however, as might be expected, threw the
sprite into a great rage. He abused the Prince, called him all manner of
evil names, declared that he had fallen on purpose, and ended by
bestowing on him a shower of blows.
“Get up again, you idle hound,” cried he, “and mount the hill directly.
I’ll soon teach you who is master.”
“Indeed I would get up if I could,” said the Prince, “but you know,
Selbst, how weary I am.”
“Get up, or I’ll strangle you,” screamed the malicious sprite,
tightening his hold round the Prince’s neck.
The poor boy made an effort to get up, but fell backwards. Harder and
harder, tighter and tighter, grew the grasp upon his throat. His
eyeballs seemed ready to start from his head; his ears were tingling and
his veins swelling through the impeded circulation of the blood. He
struggled, but his struggles were powerless; he endeavoured to shriek
for help; but a gasping, gurgling sound was all that proceeded from his
lips. In another minute he would have been strangled. Hitherto his hands
had been employed in vain endeavours to wrest the sprite’s fingers from
his throat; on a sudden, however, he looses them, and leaving his
adversary to do his worst, claps his hands once—twice.
Selbst sees his object, and looses his hold round the boy’s neck, in
order to secure his hands, and prevent his making the signal a third
time.
The relaxing of the monster’s grasp enables Prince Eigenwillig to draw
his breath, and with his returning breath, returns, in some measure at
least, his strength. It is a struggle for life or death; long it
continues. Longer far than could have been expected from the exhausted
powers of the boy. But in his struggles lay the secret of his strength.
The more he struggled, the stronger he became, and the weaker waxed his
adversary, and not only weaker, but smaller. He shrank and shrank at
each fresh effort of the Prince to master him, till from the size of a
full-grown man, he became no bigger than a dwarf.
Who could fail to be encouraged to persevere in such a contest? Each
effort of the Prince became more vigorous and effectual, till, at
length, after a violent exertion, he contrived to liberate both hands,
and, for the third time, made the required signal. The sprite no sooner
heard the sound, than he howled like a maniac, and gnashed his teeth
with disappointed rage.
The Prince had scarcely clapped his hands for the third time, when there
seemed a change in the appearance of the air before him, as when a
shadow is cast: and then the shadow assumed the form and consistency, as
it were, of a thin vapour; and the vapour thickened and thickened till
it became a dense grey cloud; and the outline of the cloud grew sharper
and more defined, till the form of the old man with his white hairs and
flowing beard, and long sombre robes, were developed, and Prince
Eigenwillig saw before him the companion he had rejected, and whose aid
had now come so opportunely.
“Well, my son,” said the old man, “you are now able to judge who was
your truest friend; he who made few promises, and kept them; or he, who
after multiplied professions of regard, has made you first his slave,
and who then nearly destroyed you.”
No sooner had the old man begun to speak, than Selbst shuddered from
head to foot, and ceased to struggle with the Prince, who now, breathing
freely once more, looked up timidly at the old man, expecting to see
nothing but severity depicted on his countenance. How was he surprised!
Gravity, indeed, there was in the old man’s face and manner; but all
sternness had passed from his eyes, and a smile of the utmost gentleness
and benignity lit up his features.
“Oh, my kind friend and protector!” exclaimed the Prince, “how little
have I deserved such a timely interference from you,—_you_ whom I
treated so unthankfully and ungraciously!”
“If you _be_ grateful, as you intimate you are,” replied the old man,
“give me now the proof of it by following my advice.”
“Advise me, father,” said the boy, “and you shall judge whether or no I
be grateful.”
“My son, you know not yet to what you may be pledging yourself. My terms
are hard,—my conditions difficult to be fulfilled.”
“I will not shrink from the hardest,” exclaimed the Prince with fervour,
“if you will but free me from this clinging reptile. Command him to
loose his hold.”
“Ha! ha!” cried the sprite in a mocking, gibing tone, “there go two
words to that bargain. Old greybeard may command if he pleases, and as
long as he pleases, but he cannot force me to obey.”
“It is even so, my son,” observed the old man, “I cannot compel him;
nay, I can be of no service at all, without your hearty cooperation.
And, even then, the most I can do for you will be to show you how to
treat him; so that, for his own sake, he will be glad to quit you.”
“Oh, good Father, prithee teach me how to gain the mastery over him!”
“STARVE him, and CONTRADICT him continually,” said the old man; “keep
him from every kind of food—from all that can, in any way, nourish him.
And so soon as ever you ascertain what his wishes are—be the subject
what it may—make it your rule to do the reverse. Follow this plan, and
he will soon be your slave; you will be no longer his. My long
experience enables me to pledge myself to this.”
“Then others, father, besides myself, have been exposed to his malignant
influence; and you have befriended others as well as me!”
“My son, none ever mastered that odious sprite, but he received
assistance from me. It is only by the aid of DISCIPLINE that any one can
hope to conquer SELF!”
Then the Prince knew the old man’s name, and he ceased to wonder why he
had been so unwilling, on a former occasion, to make it known; for it
has a stern, repulsive sound in it, which is sure to disgust the
thoughtless and the pleasure-seeking.
“Father,” said the Prince, “if thy name be Discipline, then will I be
thy Disciple. Had I known thee sooner, from what faults and errors
should I have been saved! If thou hadst but taken a part in the
education of my earliest years, how different should I now be from what,
alas! I am.”
“Prince,” replied his venerable friend, “heretofore you have been
greatly to be pitied, for you have deserved, as well as possessed, the
name of Self-willed. But sharp trials have brought you to your senses,
and I trust that you have already laid the foundations of a character in
which shall be united all the best qualities of your race. But you have
still an arduous task before you, and your first and most pressing duty
is, to effect the entire subjugation of that hateful sprite whom I still
see clinging to you.”
“Father,” said the Prince, “will you now be my companion, and will you
advise and help me to master Selbst!”
“That will I gladly, my child,” answered Discipline, and forthwith they
wended on their way.
Steep, and rugged, and narrow was the route: now among tangled thickets
of thorns and briers, now over parched and arid sands, now in a waste
and howling wilderness. Often, when the Prince was most hungry and
thirsty, did Discipline enjoin him to go without food or drink, or, just
as he was about to partake of them, to give them to some wayfarer on the
road. Often, when most weary, was he advised to pass the night in
watching. Often, when he desired to go one way, was he recommended to
pursue another.
Now all this was done in order to master Selbst, and make him glad to
relax his hold, and quit a companion who would give him nothing to eat,
and who led him through thorns and briers for the purpose of wounding
and hurting him.
And all this Prince Eigenwillig continued to do day after day, and still
he found the wisdom of those oft repeated sayings of his aged companion:
“=Learn to live hardly=; =Deny yourself in things lawful=; =Love not
comforts=; =Think of others first=, =and of yourself last=.” And thus,
when they drew near to their journey’s end, and the palace of the Lady
Abracadabra was in sight, the sprite Selbst, who had exercised such
tyranny over the little boy, was no longer to be seen. For some
time,—much longer than the sanguine Prince had expected,—for it was when
Discipline had been for some time his companion, he continued to feel
inconvenience from the presence of the malicious elf. But in due time,
_starving_ and _contradiction_ did their promised work. The evil
creature dwindled, and withered, and shrank, till at length, from sheer
weakness and exhaustion, he relaxed his hold round the Prince’s throat,
and fell to the ground.
The Prince himself was not aware of the precise moment when this event
took place, and Discipline did not think good to make him acquainted
with it immediately. And even when he made the circumstance known, he
accompanied it with a word of caution.
“Prince,” said he, “you are released from the grasp of your adversary.
He has fallen to the ground, mastered by your perseverance and
resolution. But I entreat you bear this in mind, that, though invisible,
he still runs at your side; and if ever you give him opportunity or
encouragement, he will yet again be your master!”
They had now reached the palace of the Lady Abracadabra, and as they
stood before its portals, the Fairy godmother came out to receive them.
Once more she was radiant with smiles; the flame-coloured petticoat had
faded into the palest primrose, and instead of seeming haggard and
wrinkled, her complexion had that dazzling lustre which is peculiar to
Fairy-land. She threw her arms round her godson and embraced him with
tenderness.
“I have been a secret witness,” she said, “of all your trials and
struggles. I have watched your endeavours to rid yourself of your
selfish, and self-willed habits, and being satisfied of the pains you
have taken, and are taking with yourself, I am not afraid to restore you
to your family. The Court of King Katzekopf is not a wholesome
atmosphere for you; but every place has its trials, and I am satisfied
that you will profit by your past experience.”
“Lady,” replied the Prince, “the time has been that I have feared you,
and even hated you; but I now know how much I owe to you. You have
taught me that the secret of happiness is in myself, and that I am most
happy when I am showing most consideration to others. I hope, dear Lady,
that now you are about to send me home, you will not cease to befriend
me, and that this venerable man may accompany me to the upper world.”
“Follow the rules he has given you here, and you will not need his
bodily presence. They that dwell in kings’ houses, and the rich, and the
indolent, and the lovers of comforts, bear a deadly hatred to him, and
therefore he is not wont to expose himself to their insults. You,
however, he has adopted as one of his children, and so long as you do
not forget him, he will not forget you. For myself, you may count on my
protection. If I loved you because I saw the elements of good in you,
when I brought you into this country seven years ago, how much more do I
love you now, when I have witnessed your endeavours to become master of
yourself.”
“_Seven years ago!_” These were almost the only words in the sentence
which the Prince heard. Why, the time he had spent in Fairy-land seemed
hardly as many days. But so it was; and when he came to reflect, he
remembered to have heard, over and over again, that nobody who enters
Fairy-land is allowed to return under seven years.
So it was; and when he arrived at his father’s court (where he found
himself already expected; for, little as Queen Ninnilinda deserved it,
the Lady Abracadabra had never kept her in ignorance about her son’s
place of abode, and general well-doing,)—when he arrived at his father’s
court, he saw changes which soon satisfied him that a long period had
elapsed since he had quitted it. King Katzekopf had become quite
childish, and Queen Ninnilinda was so occupied with her lap-dogs and
parrots, that, though very glad to see her son, she was not likely to
spoil him again. The Baroness Yellowlily was dead, and the Ladies
Rigida, Frigida, and Brigida had quitted the court for scenes more
congenial to their taste.
But the greatest surprise of all to Prince Eigenwillig, was to hear
himself spoken to as if he were almost a young man. It seemed but the
other day, since he was a little naughty child, and now grave
counsellors were discussing the propriety of appointing him Regent of
the kingdom, and easing poor old King Katzekopf’s shoulders from the
burden and cares of state.
Prince Eigenwillig had, however, too much distrust of himself, and felt
the responsibilities of the position too deeply to desire such a charge;
but when he saw that the welfare of the nation in a great measure
depended on it, and found that the Lady Abracadabra heartily approved of
it, he consented to become Regent.
And his first act, when he assumed the office, was to write an
affectionate letter to Witikind, intreating him to forgive him his past
misconduct, and come and give him his assistance in ruling the country.
Count Rudolf had been dead some years, and Witikind was in possession of
his father’s estates, and he found such abundant scope for the best
energies of his mind in contributing to the welfare of his neighbours
and vassals, that he could not (especially after his past experience,)
make up his mind to quit his beloved Taubennest for a court. So he
declined the Prince’s offer of place and power; but was, through life,
his sound adviser and faithful friend.
As for the Prince, though he could not shake off the _name_ of
Eigenwillig, he entirely ceased to be the _thing_: in a few years he
became king in his father’s place; reigned long and happily; ruled his
subjects well; his family better still; and himself best of all: so that
his name was cherished in his native land long after his bones were
mouldering in the grave; and it is mentioned in the Chronicles of
Carivaldus of Cologne, that he whose real name was Eigenwillig, and who
for some years of his life was called the Hope of the Katzekopfs, is now
only remembered by that name which the universal consent of his
countrymen assigned him while still living, and that his designation in
the annals of Christendom is that of King Katzekopf _the GOOD_.
_And so my Story ends._
[Illustration: L’Envoy.]
“If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, (and all is mended,)
Think you have but slumber’d here,
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream;
Gentles, do not reprehend,
If you pardon, we will mend.”
J. MASTERS, PRINTER, ALDERSGATE STREET.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Changed all instances of 'Shakspere' to 'Shakespeare'. There was
originally one 'Shakespeare' in the book.
2. Silently corrected typographical errors.
3. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
5. Enclosed bold font in =equals=.
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