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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Wonder-Box Tales, by Jean Ingelow,
+Illustrated by Diantha W. Horne
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Wonder-Box Tales
+
+
+Author: Jean Ingelow
+
+
+
+Release Date: April 8, 2007  [eBook #21014]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WONDER-BOX TALES***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Sigal Alon, Fox in the Stars, Mary Meehan, and the
+Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+(https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 21014-h.htm or 21014-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/0/1/21014/21014-h/21014-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/0/1/21014/21014-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+The Editha Series
+
+WONDER-BOX TALES
+
+by
+
+JEAN INGELOW
+
+With Illustrations by Diantha W. Horne
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+H. M. Caldwell Co.
+Publishers
+New York & Boston
+
+Copyright, 1902
+By Dana Estes & Company
+All rights reserved
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "'TO BE SURE I CAN,' REPLIED THE LARK."]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+The Ouphe of the Wood
+
+The Fairy Who Judged Her Neighbors
+
+The Prince's Dream
+
+The Water-lily
+
+A Lost Wand
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+"'To be sure I can,' replied the Lark"
+
+"So he sat down as close to the fire as he could, and spread out his
+hands to the flames"
+
+"Coming home on top of it, driving the four gray horses
+himself"
+
+"While she was fitting on her shoes, she saw the Lark's friend"
+
+"Then he reclined beside the chafing-dish and inhaled the heavy
+perfume"
+
+"'I could not do so,' he replied, 'only that as I go on I keep
+lightening it'"
+
+"Lived on the borders of one of the great American forests"
+
+"The next moment a beautiful little creature stood upon his
+hand"
+
+"'Oh, don't go,' cried Hulda. 'I am going up-stairs to fetch my
+wand'"
+
+"The pedlar had now sunk up to his waist"
+
+
+
+
+WONDER-BOX TALES
+
+
+
+
+THE OUPHE[1] OF THE WOOD
+
+
+"An Ouphe!" perhaps you exclaim, "and pray what might that be?"
+
+[Footnote 1: _Ouphe_, pronounced "oof," is an old-fashioned word for
+goblin or elf.]
+
+An Ouphe, fair questioner,--though you may never have heard of
+him,--was a creature well known (by hearsay, at least) to your
+great-great-grandmother. It was currently reported that every forest had
+one within its precincts, who ruled over the woodmen, and exacted
+tribute from them in the shape of little blocks of wood ready hewn for
+the fire of his underground palace,--such blocks as are bought at shops
+in these degenerate days, and called in London "kindling."
+
+It was said that he had a silver axe, with which he marked those trees
+that he did not object to have cut down; moreover, he was supposed to
+possess great riches, and to appear but seldom above ground, and when he
+did to look like an old man in all respects but one, which was that he
+always carried some green ash-keys about with him which he could not
+conceal, and by which he might be known.
+
+Do I hear you say that you don't believe he ever existed? It matters not
+at all to my story whether you do or not. He certainly does not exist
+now. The Commissioners of Woods and Forests have much to answer for, if
+it was they who put an end to his reign; but I do not think they did; it
+is more likely that the spelling-book used in woodland districts
+disagreed with his constitution.
+
+After this short preface please to listen while I tell you that once in
+a little black-timbered cottage, at the skirts of a wood, a young woman
+sat before the fire rocking her baby, and, as she did so, building a
+castle in the air: "What a good thing it would be," she thought to
+herself, "if we were rich!"
+
+It had been a bright day, but the evening was chilly; and, as she
+watched the glowing logs that were blazing on her hearth, she wished
+that all the lighted part of them would turn to gold.
+
+She was very much in the habit--this little wife--of building castles in
+the air, particularly when she had nothing else to do, or her husband
+was late in coming home to his supper. Just as she was thinking how late
+he was there was a tap at the door, and an old man walked in, who said:
+
+"Mistress, will you give a poor man a warm at your fire?"
+
+"And welcome," said the young woman, setting him a chair.
+
+So he sat down as close to the fire as he could, and spread out his
+hands to the flames.
+
+[Illustration: "SO HE SAT DOWN AS CLOSE TO THE FIRE AS HE COULD, AND
+SPREAD OUT HIS HANDS TO THE FLAMES."]
+
+He had a little knapsack on his back, and the young woman did not doubt
+that he was an old soldier.
+
+"Maybe you are used to the hot countries," she said.
+
+"All countries are much the same to me," replied the stranger. "I see
+nothing to find fault with in this one. You have fine hawthorn-trees
+hereabouts; just now they are as white as snow; and then you have a
+noble wood behind you."
+
+"Ah, you may well say that," said the young woman. "It is a noble wood
+to us; it gets us bread. My husband works in it."
+
+"And a fine sheet of water there is in it," continued the old man. "As I
+sat by it to-day it was pretty to see those cranes, with red legs,
+stepping from leaf to leaf of the water-lilies so lightly."
+
+As he spoke he looked rather wistfully at a little saucepan which stood
+upon the hearth.
+
+"Why, I shouldn't wonder if you were hungry," said the young woman,
+laying her baby in the cradle, and spreading a cloth on the round table.
+"My husband will be home soon, and if you like to stay and sup with him
+and me, you will be kindly welcome."
+
+The old man's eyes sparkled when she said this, and he looked so very
+old and seemed so weak that she pitied him. He turned a little aside
+from the fire, and watched her while she set a brown loaf on the table,
+and fried a few slices of bacon; but all was ready, and the kettle had
+been boiling some time before there were any signs of the husband's
+return.
+
+"I never knew Will to be so late before," said the stranger. "Perhaps he
+is carrying his logs to the saw-pits."
+
+"Will!" exclaimed the wife. "What, you know my husband, then? I thought
+you were a stranger in these parts."
+
+"Oh, I have been past this place several times," said the old man,
+looking rather confused; "and so, of course, I have heard of your
+husband. Nobody's stroke in the wood is so regular and strong as his."
+
+"And I can tell you he is the handiest man at home," began his wife.
+
+"Ah, ah," said the old man, smiling at her eagerness; "and here he
+comes, if I am not mistaken."
+
+At that moment the woodman entered.
+
+"Will," said his wife, as she took his bill-book from him, and hung up
+his hat, "here's an old soldier come to sup with us, my dear." And as
+she spoke, she gave her husband a gentle push toward the old man, and
+made a sign that he should speak to him.
+
+"Kindly welcome, master," said the woodman. "Wife, I'm hungry; let's to
+supper."
+
+The wife turned some potatoes out of the little saucepan, set a jug of
+beer on the table, and they all began to sup. The best of everything was
+offered by the wife to the stranger. The husband, after looking
+earnestly at him for a few minutes, kept silence.
+
+"And where might you be going to lodge to-night, good man, if I'm not
+too bold?" asked she.
+
+The old man heaved a deep sigh, and said he supposed he must lie out in
+the forest.
+
+"Well, that would be a great pity," remarked his kind hostess. "No
+wonder your bones ache if you have no better shelter." As she said this,
+she looked appealingly at her husband.
+
+"My wife, I'm thinking, would like to offer you a bed," said the
+woodman; "at least, if you don't mind sleeping in this clean kitchen, I
+think that we could toss you up something of that sort that you need not
+disdain."
+
+"Disdain, indeed!" said the wife. "Why, Will, when there's not a tighter
+cottage than ours in all the wood, and with a curtain, as we have, and a
+brick floor, and everything so good about us--"
+
+The husband laughed; the old man looked on with a twinkle in his eye.
+
+"I'm sure I shall be humbly grateful," said he.
+
+Accordingly, when supper was over, they made him up a bed on the floor,
+and spread clean sheets upon it of the young wife's own spinning, and
+heaped several fresh logs on the fire. Then they wished the stranger
+good night, and crept up the ladder to their own snug little chamber.
+
+"Disdain, indeed!" laughed the wife, as soon as they shut the door.
+"Why, Will, how could you say it? I should like to see him disdain me
+and mine. It isn't often, I'll engage to say, that he sleeps in such a
+well-furnished kitchen."
+
+The husband said nothing, but secretly laughed to himself.
+
+"What are you laughing at, Will?" said his wife, as she put out the
+candle.
+
+"Why, you soft little thing," answered the woodman, "didn't you see that
+bunch of green ash-keys in his cap; and don't you know that nobody would
+dare to wear them but the Ouphe of the Wood? I saw him cutting those
+very keys for himself as I passed to the sawmill this morning, and I
+knew him again directly, though he has disguised himself as an old man."
+
+"Bless us!" exclaimed the little wife; "is the Wood Ouphe in our
+cottage? How frightened I am! I wish I hadn't put the candle out."
+
+The husband laughed more and more.
+
+"Will," said his wife, in a solemn voice, "I wonder how you dare laugh,
+and that powerful creature under the very bed where you lie!"
+
+"And she to be so pitiful over him," said the woodman, laughing till the
+floor shook under him, "and to talk and boast of our house, and insist
+on helping him to more potatoes, when he has a palace of his own, and
+heaps of riches! Oh, dear! oh, dear!"
+
+"Don't laugh, Will," said the wife, "and I'll make you the most
+beautiful firmity[2] you ever tasted to-morrow. Don't let him hear you
+laughing."
+
+[Footnote 2: _Firmity_: generally written frumenty; wheat boiled in milk
+with sugar and fruit.]
+
+"Why, he comes for no harm," said the woodman. "I've never cut down any
+trees that he had not marked, and I've always laid his toll of the wood,
+neatly cut up, beside his foot-path, so I am not afraid. Besides, don't
+you know that he always pays where he lodges, and very handsomely, too?"
+
+"Pays, does he?" said the wife. "Well, but he is an awful creature to
+have so near one. I would much rather he had really been an old soldier.
+I hope he is not looking after my baby; he shall not have him, let him
+offer ever so much."
+
+The more the wife talked, the more the husband laughed at her fears,
+till at length he fell asleep, whilst she lay awake, thinking and
+thinking, till by degrees she forgot her fears, and began to wonder what
+they might expect by way of reward. Hours appeared to pass away during
+these thoughts. At length, to her great surprise, while it was still
+quite dark, her husband called to her from below:
+
+"Come down, Kitty; only come down to see what the Ouphe has left us."
+
+As quickly as possible Kitty started up and dressed herself, and ran
+down the ladder, and then she saw her husband kneeling on the floor over
+the knapsack, which the Ouphe had left behind him. Kitty rushed to the
+spot, and saw the knapsack bursting open with gold coins, which were
+rolling out over the brick floor. Here was good fortune! She began to
+pick them up, and count them into her apron. The more she gathered, the
+faster they rolled, till she left off counting, out of breath with joy
+and surprise.
+
+"What shall we do with all this money?" said the delighted woodman.
+
+They consulted for some time. At last they decided to bury it in the
+garden, all but twenty pieces, which they would spend directly.
+Accordingly they dug a hole and carefully hid the rest of the money, and
+then the woodman went to the town, and soon returned laden with the
+things they had agreed upon as desirable possessions; namely, a leg of
+mutton, two bottles of wine, a necklace for Kitty, some tea and sugar, a
+grand velvet waistcoat, a silver watch, a large clock, a red silk cloak,
+and a hat and feather for the baby, a quilted petticoat, a great many
+muffins and crumpets, a rattle, and two new pairs of shoes.
+
+How enchanted they both were! Kitty cooked the nice things, and they
+dressed themselves in the finery, and sat down to a very good dinner.
+But, alas! the woodman drank so much of the wine that he soon got quite
+tipsy, and began to dance and sing. Kitty was very much shocked; but
+when he proposed to dig up some more of the gold, and go to market for
+some more wine and some more blue velvet waistcoats, she remonstrated
+very strongly. Such was the change that had come over this loving
+couple, that they presently began to quarrel, and from words the woodman
+soon got to blows, and, after beating his little wife, lay down on the
+floor and fell fast asleep, while she sat crying in a corner.
+
+The next day they both felt very miserable, and the woodman had such a
+terrible headache that he could neither eat nor work; but the day after,
+being pretty well again, he dug up some more gold and went to town,
+where he bought such quantities of fine clothes and furniture and so
+many good things to eat, that in the end he was obliged to buy a wagon
+to bring them home in, and great was the delight of his wife when she
+saw him coming home on the top of it, driving the four gray horses
+himself.
+
+[Illustration: "COMING HOME ON TOP OF IT, DRIVING THE FOUR GRAY HORSES
+HIMSELF."]
+
+They soon began to unpack the goods and lay them out on the grass, for
+the cottage was far too small to hold them.
+
+"There are some red silk curtains with gold rods," said the woodman.
+
+"And grand indeed they are!" exclaimed his wife, spreading them over the
+onion bed.
+
+"And here's a great looking-glass," continued the woodman, setting one
+up against the outside of the cottage, for it would not go in the door.
+
+So they went on handing down the things, and it took nearly the whole
+afternoon to empty the wagon. No wonder, when it contained, among other
+things, a coral and bells for the baby, and five very large tea-trays
+adorned with handsome pictures of impossible scenery, two large sofas
+covered with green damask, three bonnets trimmed with feathers and
+flowers, two glass tumblers for them to drink out of,--for Kitty had
+decided that mugs were very vulgar things,--six books bound in handsome
+red morocco, a mahogany table, a large tin saucepan, a spit and silver
+waiter, a blue coat with gilt buttons, a yellow waistcoat, some
+pictures, a dozen bottles of wine, a quarter of lamb, cakes, tarts,
+pies, ale, porter, gin, silk stockings, blue and red and white shoes,
+lace, ham, mirrors, three clocks, a four-post bedstead, and a bag of
+sugar candy.
+
+These articles filled the cottage and garden; the wagon stood outside
+the paling. Though the little kitchen was very much encumbered with
+furniture, they contrived to make a fire in it; and, having eaten a
+sumptuous dinner, they drank each other's health, using the new tumblers
+to their great satisfaction.
+
+"All these things remind me that we must have another house built," said
+Kitty.
+
+"You may do just as you please about that, my dear," replied her
+husband, with a bottle of wine in his hand.
+
+"My dear," said Kitty, "how vulgar you are! Why don't you drink out of
+one of our new tumblers, like a gentleman?"
+
+The woodman refused, and said it was much more handy to drink it out of
+the bottle.
+
+"Handy, indeed!" retorted Kitty; "yes, and by that means none will be
+left for me."
+
+Thereupon another quarrel ensued, and the woodman, being by this time
+quite tipsy, beat his wife again. The next day they went and got numbers
+of workmen to build them a new house in their garden. It was quite
+astonishing even to Kitty, who did not know much about building, to see
+how quick these workmen were; in one week the house was ready. But in
+the meantime the woodman, who had very often been tipsy, felt so unwell
+that he could not look after them; therefore it is not surprising that
+they stole a great many of his fine things while he lay smoking on the
+green damask sofa which stood on the carrot bed. Those articles which
+the workmen did not steal the rain and dust spoilt; but that they
+thought did not much matter, for still more than half the gold was left;
+so they soon furnished the new house. And now Kitty had a servant, and
+used to sit every morning on a couch dressed in silks and jewels till
+dinner-time, when the most delicious hot beefsteaks and sausage pudding
+or roast goose were served up, with more sweet pies, fritters, tarts,
+and cheese-cakes than they could possibly eat. As for the baby, he had
+three elegant cots, in which he was put to sleep by turns; he was
+allowed to tear his picture-books as often as he pleased, and to eat so
+many sugar-plums and macaroons that they often made him quite ill.
+
+The woodman looked very pale and miserable, though he often said what a
+fine thing it was to be rich. He never thought of going to his work, and
+used generally to sit in the kitchen till dinner was ready, watching the
+spit. Kitty wished she could see him looking as well and cheerful as in
+old days, though she felt naturally proud that her husband should always
+be dressed like a gentleman, namely, in a blue coat, red waistcoat, and
+top-boots.
+
+He and Kitty could never agree as to what should be done with the rest
+of the money; in fact, no one would have known them for the same people;
+they quarrelled almost every day, and lost nearly all their love for one
+another. Kitty often cried herself to sleep--a thing she had never done
+when they were poor; she thought it was very strange that she should be
+a lady, and yet not be happy. Every morning when the woodman was sober
+they invented new plans for making themselves happy, yet, strange to
+say, none of them succeeded, and matters grew worse and worse. At last
+Kitty thought she should be happy if she had a coach; so she went to the
+place where the knapsack was buried, and began to dig; but the garden
+was so trodden down that she could not dig deep enough, and soon got
+tired of trying. At last she called the servant, and told her the secret
+as to where the money was, promising her a gold piece if she could dig
+it up. The servant dug with all her strength, and with a great deal of
+trouble they got the knapsack up, and Kitty found that not many gold
+pieces were left. However, she resolved to have the coach, so she took
+them and went to the town, where she bought a yellow chariot, with a
+most beautiful coat of arms upon it, and two cream-colored horses to
+draw it.
+
+In the meantime the maid ran to the magistrates, and told them she had
+discovered something very dreadful, which was, that her mistress had
+nothing to do but dig in the ground and that she could make money
+come--coined money: "which," said the maid, "is a very terrible thing,
+and it proves that she must be a witch."
+
+The mayor and aldermen were very much shocked, for witches were commonly
+believed in in those days; and when they heard that Kitty had dug up
+money that very morning, and bought a yellow coach with it, they decided
+that the matter must be investigated.
+
+When Kitty drove up to her own door, she saw the mayor and aldermen
+standing in the kitchen waiting for her. She demanded what they wanted,
+and they said they were come in the king's name to search the house.
+
+Kitty immediately ran up-stairs and took the baby out of his cradle,
+lest any of them should steal him, which, of course, seemed a very
+probable thing for them to do. Then she went to look for her husband,
+who, shocking to relate, was quite tipsy, quarrelling and arguing with
+the mayor, and she actually saw him box an alderman's ears.
+
+"The thing is proved," said the indignant mayor; "this woman is
+certainly a witch."
+
+Kitty was very much bewildered at this; but how much more when she saw
+her husband seize the mayor--yes, the very mayor himself--and shake him
+so hard that he actually shook his head off, and it rolled under the
+dresser! "If I had not seen this with my own eyes," said Kitty, "I could
+not have believed it--even now it does not seem at all real."
+
+All the aldermen wrung their hands.
+
+"Murder! murder!" cried the maid.
+
+"Yes," said the aldermen, "this woman and her husband must immediately
+be put to death, and the baby must be taken from them and made a slave."
+
+In vain Kitty fell on her knees; the proofs of their guilt were so plain
+that there was no hope for mercy; and they were just going to be led out
+to execution when--why, then she opened her eyes, and saw that she was
+lying in bed in her own little chamber where she had lived and been so
+happy; her baby beside her in his wicker[3] cradle was crowing and
+sucking his fingers.
+
+[Footnote 3: _Wicker_: made of willow twigs like a basket.]
+
+"So, then, I have never been rich, after all," said Kitty; "and it was
+all only a dream! I thought it was very strange at the time that a man's
+head should roll off."
+
+And she heaved a deep sigh, and put her hand to her face, which was wet
+with the tears she had shed when she thought that she and her husband
+were going to be executed.
+
+"I am very glad, then, my husband is not a drunken man; and he does
+_not_ beat me; but he goes to work every day, and I am as happy as a
+queen."
+
+Just then she heard her husband's good-tempered voice whistling as he
+went down the ladder.
+
+"Kitty, Kitty," said he, "come, get up, my little woman; it's later than
+usual, and our good visitor will want his breakfast."
+
+"Oh, Will, Will, do come here," answered the wife; and presently her
+husband came up again, dressed in his fustian jacket, and looking quite
+healthy and good-tempered--not at all like the pale man in the blue
+coat, who sat watching the meat while it roasted.
+
+"Oh, Will, I have had such a frightful dream," said Kitty, and she began
+to cry; "we are not going to quarrel and hate each other, are we?"
+
+"Why, what a silly little thing thou art to cry about a dream," said the
+woodman, smiling. "No, we are not going to quarrel as I know of. Come,
+Kitty, remember the Ouphe."
+
+"Oh, yes, yes, I remember," said Kitty, and she made haste to dress
+herself and come down.
+
+"Good morning, mistress; how have you slept?" said the Ouphe, in a
+gentle voice, to her.
+
+"Not so well as I could have wished, sir," said Kitty.
+
+The Ouphe smiled. "_I_ slept very well," he said. "The supper was good,
+and kindly given, without any thought of reward."
+
+"And that is the certain truth," interrupted Kitty: "I never had the
+least thought what you were till my husband told me."
+
+The woodman had gone out to cut some fresh cresses, for his guest's
+breakfast.
+
+"I am sorry, mistress," said the Ouphe, "that you slept uneasily--my
+race are said sometimes by their presence to affect the dreams of you
+mortals. Where is my knapsack? Shall I leave it behind me in payment of
+bed and board?"
+
+"Oh, no, no, I pray you don't," said the little wife, blushing and
+stepping back; "you are kindly welcome to all you have had, I'm sure:
+don't repay us so, sir."
+
+"What, mistress, and why not?" asked the Ouphe, smiling. "It is as full
+of gold pieces as it can hold, and I shall never miss them."
+
+"No, I entreat you, do not," said Kitty, "and do not offer it to my
+husband, for maybe he has not been warned as I have."
+
+Just then the woodman came in.
+
+"I have been thanking your wife for my good entertainment," said the
+Ouphe, "and if there is anything in reason that I can give either of
+you--"
+
+"Will, we do very well as we are," said his wife, going up to him and
+looking anxiously in his face.
+
+"I don't deny," said the woodman, thoughtfully, "that there are one or
+two things I should like my wife to have, but somehow I've not been able
+to get them for her yet."
+
+"What are they?" asked the Ouphe.
+
+"One is a spinning-wheel," answered the woodman; "she used to spin a
+good deal when she was at home with her mother."
+
+"She shall have a spinning-wheel," replied the Ouphe; "and is there
+nothing else, my good host?"
+
+"Well," said the woodman, frankly, "since you are so obliging, we should
+like a hive of bees."
+
+"The bees you shall have also; and now, good morning both, and a
+thousand thanks to you."
+
+So saying, he took his leave, and no pressing could make him stay to
+breakfast.
+
+"Well," thought Kitty, when she had had a little time for reflection, "a
+spinning-wheel is just what I wanted; but if people had told me this
+time yesterday morning that I should be offered a knapsack full of
+money, and should refuse it, I could not possibly have believed them!"
+
+
+
+
+THE FAIRY WHO JUDGED HER NEIGHBORS
+
+
+There was once a Fairy who was a good Fairy, on the whole, but she had
+one very bad habit; she was too fond of finding fault with other people,
+and of taking for granted that everything must be wrong if it did not
+appear right to her.
+
+One day, when she had been talking very unkindly of some friends of
+hers, her mother said to her: "My child, I think if you knew a little
+more of the world, you would become more charitable. I would therefore
+advise you to set out on your travels; you will find plenty of food, for
+the cowslips are now in bloom, and they contain excellent honey. I need
+not be anxious about your lodging, for there is no place more delightful
+for sleeping in than an empty robin's nest when the young have flown.
+And if you want a new gown, you can sew two tulip leaves together, which
+will make you a very becoming dress, and one that I should be proud to
+see you in."
+
+The young Fairy was pleased at this permission to set out on her
+travels; so she kissed her mother, and bade good-by to her nurse, who
+gave her a little ball of spiders' threads to sew with, and a beautiful
+little box, made of the egg-shell of a wren, to keep her best thimble
+in, and took leave of her, wishing her safe home again.
+
+The young Fairy then flew away till she came to a large meadow, with a
+clear river flowing on one side of it, and some tall oak-trees on the
+other. She sat down on a high branch in one of these oaks, and, after
+her long flight, was thinking of a nap, when, happening to look down at
+her little feet, she observed that her shoes were growing shabby and
+faded. "Quite a disgrace, I declare," said she. "I must look for another
+pair. Perhaps two of the smallest flowers of that snapdragon which I see
+growing in the hedge would fit me. I think I should like a pair of
+yellow slippers." So she flew down, and, after a little trouble, she
+found two flowers which fitted her very neatly, and she was just going
+to return to the oak-tree, when she heard a deep sigh beneath her, and,
+peeping out from her place among the hawthorn blossoms, she saw a fine
+young Lark sitting in the long grass, and looking the picture of misery.
+
+"What is the matter with you, cousin?" asked the Fairy.
+
+"Oh, I am so unhappy," replied the poor Lark; "I want to build a nest,
+and I have got no wife."
+
+"Why don't you look for a wife, then?" said the Fairy, laughing at him.
+"Do you expect one to come and look for you? Fly up, and sing a
+beautiful song in the sky, and then perhaps some pretty hen will hear
+you; and perhaps, if you tell her that you will help her to build a
+capital nest, and that you will sing to her all day long, she will
+consent to be your wife."
+
+"Oh, I don't like," said the Lark, "I don't like to fly up, I am so
+ugly. If I were a goldfinch, and had yellow bars on my wings, or a
+robin, and had red feathers on my breast, I should not mind the defect
+which now I am afraid to show. But I am only a poor brown Lark, and I
+know I shall never get a wife."
+
+"I never heard of such an unreasonable bird," said the Fairy. "You
+cannot expect to have everything."
+
+"Oh, but you don't know," proceeded the Lark, "that if I fly up my feet
+will be seen; and no other bird has feet like mine. My claws are enough
+to frighten any one, they are so long; and yet I assure you, Fairy, I am
+not a cruel bird."
+
+"Let me look at your claws," said the Fairy.
+
+So the Lark lifted up one of his feet, which he had kept hidden in the
+long grass, lest any one should see it.
+
+"It looks certainly very fierce," said the Fairy. "Your hind claw is at
+least an inch long, and all your toes have very dangerous-looking
+points. Are, you sure you never use them to fight with?"
+
+"No, never!" said the Lark, earnestly; "I never fought a battle in my
+life; but yet these claws grow longer and longer, and I am so ashamed of
+their being seen that I very often lie in the grass instead of going up
+to sing, as I could wish."
+
+"I think, if I were you, I would pull them off," said the Fairy.
+
+"That is easier said than done," answered the poor Lark. "I have often
+got them entangled in the grass, and I scrape them against the hard
+clods; but it is of no use, you cannot think how fast they stick."
+
+"Well, I am sorry for you," observed the Fairy; "but at the same time I
+cannot but see that, in spite of what you say, you must be a quarrelsome
+bird, or you would not have such long spurs."
+
+"That is just what I am always afraid people will say," sighed the Lark.
+
+"For," proceeded the Fairy, "nothing is given us to be of no use. You
+would not have wings unless you were to fly, nor a voice unless you were
+to sing; and so you would not have those dreadful spurs unless you were
+going to fight. If your spurs are not to fight with," continued the
+unkind Fairy, "I should like to know what they _are_ for?"
+
+"I am sure I don't know," said the Lark, lifting up his foot and looking
+at it. "Then you are not inclined to help me at all, Fairy? I thought
+you might be willing to mention among my friends that I am not a
+quarrelsome bird, and that I should always take care not to hurt my wife
+and nestlings with my spurs."
+
+"Appearances are very much against you," answered the Fairy; "and it is
+quite plain to me that those spurs are meant to scratch with. No, I
+cannot help you. Good morning."
+
+So the Fairy withdrew to her oak bough, and the poor Lark sat moping in
+the grass while the Fairy watched him. "After all," she thought, "I am
+sorry he is such a quarrelsome fellow, for that he is such is fully
+proved by those long spurs."
+
+While she was so thinking, the Grasshopper came chirping up to the Lark,
+and tried to comfort him.
+
+"I have heard all that the Fairy said to you," he observed, "and I
+really do not see that it need make you unhappy. I have known you some
+time, and have never seen you fight or look out of temper; therefore I
+will spread a report that you are a very good-tempered bird, and that
+you are looking out for a wife."
+
+The Lark upon this thanked the Grasshopper warmly.
+
+"At the same time," remarked the Grasshopper, "I should be glad if you
+could tell me what is the use of those claws, because the question might
+be asked me, and I should not know what to answer."
+
+"Grasshopper," replied the Lark, "I cannot imagine what they are
+for--that is the real truth."
+
+"Well," said the kind Grasshopper, "perhaps time will show."
+
+So he went away, and the Lark, delighted with his promise to speak well
+of him, flew up into the air, and the higher he went the sweeter and the
+louder he sang. He was so happy, and he poured forth such delightful
+notes, so clear and thrilling, that the little ants who were carrying
+grains to their burrow stopped and put down their burdens to listen; and
+the doves ceased cooing, and the little field-mice came and sat in the
+openings of their holes; and the Fairy, who had just begun to doze, woke
+up delighted; and a pretty brown Lark, who had been sitting under some
+great foxglove leaves, peeped out and exclaimed, "I never heard such a
+beautiful song in my life--never!"
+
+"It was sung by my friend, the Skylark," said the Grasshopper, who just
+then happened to be on a leaf near her. "He is a very good-tempered
+bird, and he wants a wife."
+
+"Hush!" said the pretty brown Lark. "I want to hear the end of that
+wonderful song."
+
+For just then the Skylark, far up in the heaven, burst forth again, and
+sang better than ever--so well, indeed, that every creature in the field
+sat still to listen; and the little brown Lark under the foxglove leaves
+held her breath, for she was afraid of losing a single note.
+
+"Well done, my friend!" exclaimed the Grasshopper, when at length he
+came down panting, and with tired wings; and then he told him how much
+his friend the brown Lark, who lived by the foxglove, had been pleased
+with his song, and he took the poor Skylark to see her.
+
+The Skylark walked as carefully as he could, that she might not see his
+feet; and he thought he had never seen such a pretty bird in his life.
+But when she told him how much she loved music, he sprang up again into
+the blue sky as if he was not at all tired, and sang anew, clearer and
+sweeter than before. He was so glad to think that he could please her.
+
+He sang several songs, and the Grasshopper did not fail to praise him,
+and say what a cheerful, kind bird he was. The consequence was, that
+when he asked the brown Lark to overlook his spurs and be his wife, she
+said:
+
+"I will see about it, for I do not mind your spurs particularly."
+
+"I am very glad of that," said the Skylark. "I was afraid you would
+disapprove of them."
+
+"Not at all," she replied. "On the contrary, now I think of it, I should
+not have liked you to have short claws like other birds; but I cannot
+exactly say why, for they seem to be of no use in particular."
+
+This was very good news for the Skylark, and he sang such delightful
+songs in consequence, that he very soon won his wife; and they built a
+delightful little nest in the grass, which made him so happy that he
+almost forgot to be sorry about his long spurs.
+
+The Fairy, meanwhile, flew about from field to field, and I am sorry to
+say that she seldom went anywhere without saying something unkind or
+ill-natured; for, as I told you before, she was very hasty, and had a
+sad habit of judging her neighbors.
+
+She had been several days wandering about in search of adventures, when
+one afternoon she came back to the old oak-tree, because she wanted a
+new pair of shoes, and there were none to be had so pretty as those made
+of the yellow snapdragon flower in the hedge hard by.
+
+While she was fitting on her shoes, she saw the Lark's friend.
+
+[Illustration: "WHILE SHE WAS FITTING ON HER SHOES, SHE SAW THE LARK'S
+FRIEND."]
+
+"How do you do, Grasshopper?" asked the Fairy.
+
+"Thank you, I am very well and very happy," said the Grasshopper;
+"people are always so kind to me."
+
+"Indeed!" replied the Fairy. "I wish I could say that they were always
+kind to me. How is that quarrelsome Lark who found such a pretty brown
+mate the other day?"
+
+"He is not a quarrelsome bird indeed," replied the Grasshopper. "I wish
+you would not say that he is."
+
+"Oh, well, we need not quarrel about that," said the Fairy, laughing; "I
+have seen the world, Grasshopper, and I know a few things, depend upon
+it. Your friend the Lark does not wear those long spurs for nothing."
+
+The Grasshopper did not choose to contend with the Fairy, who all this
+time was busily fitting yellow slippers to her tiny feet. When, however,
+she had found a pair to her mind--
+
+"Suppose you come and see the eggs that our pretty friend the Lark has
+got in her nest," asked the Grasshopper. "Three pink eggs spotted with
+brown. I am sure she will show them to you with pleasure."
+
+Off they set together; but what was their surprise to find the poor
+little brown Lark sitting on them with rumpled feathers, drooping head,
+and trembling limbs.
+
+"Ah, my pretty eggs!" said the Lark, as soon as she could speak, "I am
+so miserable about them--they will be trodden on, they will certainly be
+found."
+
+"What is the matter?" asked the Grasshopper. "Perhaps we can help you."
+
+"Dear Grasshopper," said the Lark, "I have just heard the farmer and his
+son talking on the other side of the hedge, and the farmer said that
+to-morrow morning he should begin to cut this meadow."
+
+"That is a great pity," said the Grasshopper. "What a sad thing it was
+that you laid your eggs on the ground!"
+
+"Larks always do," said the poor little brown bird; "and I did not know
+how to make a fine nest such as those in the hedges. Oh, my pretty
+eggs!--my heart aches for them! I shall never hear my little nestlings
+chirp!"
+
+So the poor Lark moaned and lamented, and neither the Grasshopper nor
+the Fairy could do anything to help her. At last her mate dropped down
+from the white cloud where he had been singing, and when he saw her
+drooping, and the Grasshopper and the Fairy sitting silently before her,
+he inquired in a great fright what the matter was.
+
+So they told him, and at first he was very much shocked; but presently
+he lifted first one and then the other of his feet, and examined his
+long spurs.
+
+"He does not sympathize much with his poor mate," whispered the Fairy;
+but the Grasshopper took no notice of the speech.
+
+Still the Lark looked at his spurs, and seemed to be very deep in
+thought.
+
+"If I had only laid my eggs on the other side of the hedge," sighed the
+poor mother, "among the corn, there would have been plenty of time to
+rear my birds before harvest time."
+
+"My dear," answered her mate, "don't be unhappy." And so saying, he
+hopped up to the eggs, and laying one foot upon the prettiest, he
+clasped it with his long spurs. Strange to say, it exactly fitted them.
+
+"Oh, my clever mate!" cried the poor little mother, reviving; "do you
+think you can carry them away for me?"
+
+"To be sure I can," replied the Lark, beginning slowly and carefully to
+hop on with the egg in his right foot; "nothing more easy. I have often
+thought it was likely that our eggs would be disturbed in this meadow;
+but it never occurred to me till this moment that I could provide
+against this misfortune. I have often wondered what my spurs could be
+for, and now I see." So saying, he hopped gently on till he came to the
+hedge, and then got through it, still holding the egg, till he found a
+nice little hollow place in among the corn, and there he laid it and
+came back for the others.
+
+"Hurrah!" cried the Grasshopper, "Larkspurs forever!"
+
+The Fairy said nothing, but she felt heartily ashamed of herself. She
+sat looking on till the happy Lark had carried the last of his eggs to a
+safe place, and had called his mate to come and sit on them. Then, when
+he sprang up into the sky again, exulting and rejoicing and singing to
+his mate that now he was quite happy, because he knew what his long
+spurs were for, she stole gently away, saying to herself, "Well, I could
+not have believed such a thing. I thought he must be a quarrelsome bird
+as his spurs were so long; but it appears that I was wrong, after all."
+
+
+
+
+THE PRINCE'S DREAM
+
+
+If we may credit the fable, there is a tower in the midst of a great
+Asiatic plain, wherein is confined a prince who was placed there in his
+earliest infancy, with many slaves and attendants, and all the luxuries
+that are compatible with imprisonment.
+
+Whether he was brought there from some motive of state, whether to
+conceal him from enemies, or to deprive him of rights, has not
+transpired; but it is certain that up to the date of this little history
+he had never set his foot outside the walls of that high tower, and that
+of the vast world without he knew only the green plains which surrounded
+it; the flocks and the birds of that region were all his experience of
+living creatures, and all the men he saw outside were shepherds.
+
+And yet he was not utterly deprived of change, for sometimes one of his
+attendants would be ordered away, and his place would be supplied by a
+new one. The prince would never weary of questioning this fresh
+companion, and of letting him talk of cities, of ships, of forests, of
+merchandise, of kings; but though in turns they all tried to satisfy his
+curiosity, they could not succeed in conveying very distinct notions to
+his mind; partly because there was nothing in the tower to which they
+could compare the external world, partly because, having chiefly lived
+lives of seclusion and indolence in Eastern palaces, they knew it only
+by hearsay themselves.
+
+At length, one day, a venerable man of a noble presence was brought to
+the tower, with soldiers to guard him and slaves to attend him. The
+prince was glad of his presence, though at first he seldom opened his
+lips, and it was manifest that confinement made him miserable. With
+restless feet he would wander from window to window of the stone tower,
+and mount from story to story; but mount as high as he would there was
+still nothing to be seen but the vast, unvarying plain, clothed with
+scanty grass, and flooded with the glaring sunshine; flocks and herds
+and shepherds moved across it sometimes, but nothing else, not even a
+shadow, for there was no cloud in the sky to cast one. The old man,
+however, always treated the prince with respect, and answered his
+questions with a great deal of patience, till at length he found a
+pleasure in satisfying his curiosity, which so much pleased the poor
+young prisoner, that, as a great condescension, he invited him to come
+out on the roof of the tower and drink sherbet with him in the cool of
+the evening, and tell him of the country beyond the desert, and what
+seas are like, and mountains, and towns.
+
+"I have learnt much from my attendants, and know this world pretty well
+by hearsay," said the prince, as they reclined on the rich carpet which
+was spread on the roof.
+
+The old man smiled, but did not answer; perhaps because he did not care
+to undeceive his young companion, perhaps because so many slaves were
+present, some of whom were serving them with fruit, and others burning
+rich odors on a little chafing-dish that stood between them.
+
+"But there are some words to which I never could attach any particular
+meaning," proceeded the prince, as the slaves began to retire, "and
+three in particular that my attendants cannot satisfy me upon, or are
+reluctant to do so."
+
+"What words are those, my prince?" asked the old man. The prince turned
+on his elbow to be sure that the last slave had descended the tower
+stairs, then replied:
+
+"O man of much knowledge, the words are these--Labor, and Liberty, and
+Gold."
+
+"Prince," said the old man, "I do not wonder that it has been hard to
+make thee understand the first, the nature of it, and the cause why most
+men are born to it; as for the second, it would be treason for thee and
+me to do more than whisper it here, and sigh for it when none are
+listening; but the third need hardly puzzle thee; thy hookah[4] is
+bright with it; all thy jewels are set in it; gold is inlaid in the
+ivory of thy bath; thy cup and thy dish are of gold, and golden threads
+are wrought into thy raiment."
+
+[Footnote 4: _Hookah_: a kind of pipe for smoking tobacco, used in
+Eastern Europe and Asia.]
+
+"That is true," replied the prince, "and if I had not seen and handled
+this gold, perhaps I might not find its merits so hard to understand;
+but I possess it in abundance, and it does not feed me, nor make music
+for me, nor fan me when the sun is hot, nor cause me to sleep when I am
+weary; therefore when my slaves have told me how merchants go out and
+brave the perilous wind and sea, and live in the unstable ships, and run
+risks from shipwreck and pirates, and when, having asked them why they
+have done this, they have answered, 'For gold,' I have found it hard to
+believe them; and when they have told me how men have lied, and robbed,
+and deceived; how they have murdered one another, and leagued together
+to depose kings, to oppress provinces, and all for gold; then I have
+said to myself, either my slaves have combined to make me believe that
+which is not, or this gold must be very different from the yellow stuff
+that this coin is made of, this coin which is of no use but to have a
+hole pierced through it and hang to my girdle, that it may tinkle when I
+walk."
+
+"Notwithstanding this," said the old man, "nothing can be done without
+gold; for it is better than bread, and fruit, and music, for it can buy
+them all, since all men love it, and have agreed to exchange it for
+whatever they may need."
+
+"How so?" asked the prince.
+
+"If a man has many loaves he cannot eat them all," answered the old man;
+"therefore he goes to his neighbor and says, 'I have bread and thou hast
+a coin of gold--let us exchange;' so he receives the gold and goes to
+another man, saying, 'Thou hast two houses and I have none; lend me one
+of thy houses to live in, and I will give thee my gold;' thus again they
+exchange."
+
+"It is well," said the prince; "but in time of drought, if there is no
+bread in a city, can they make it of gold?"
+
+"Not so," answered the old man, "but they must send their gold to a city
+where there is food, and bring that back instead of it."
+
+"But if there was a famine all over the world," asked the prince, "what
+would they do then?"
+
+"Why, then, and only then," said the old man, "they must starve, and the
+gold would be nought, for it can only be changed for that which _is_; it
+cannot make that which is not."
+
+"And where do they get gold?" asked the prince. "Is it the precious
+fruit of some rare tree, or have they whereby they can draw it down from
+the sky at sunset?"
+
+"Some of it," said the old man, "they dig out of the ground."
+
+Then he told the prince of ancient rivers running through terrible
+deserts, whose sands glitter with golden grains and are yellow in the
+fierce heat of the sun, and of dreary mines where the Indian slaves work
+in gangs tied together, never seeing the light of day; and lastly (for
+he was a man of much knowledge, and had travelled far), he told him of
+the valley of the Sacramento in the New World, and of those mountains
+where the people of Europe send their criminals, and where now their
+free men pour forth to gather gold, and dig for it as hard as if for
+life; sitting up by it at night lest any should take it from them,
+giving up houses and country, and wife and children, for the sake of a
+few feet of mud, whence they dig clay that glitters as they wash it; and
+how they sift it and rock it as patiently as if it were their own
+children in the cradle, and afterward carry it in their bosoms, and
+forego on account of it safety and rest.
+
+"But, prince," he went on, seeing that the young man was absorbed in his
+narrative, "if you would pass your word to me never to betray me, I
+would procure for you a sight of the external world, and in a trance you
+should see those places where gold is dug, and traverse those regions
+forbidden to your mortal footsteps."
+
+Upon this, the prince threw himself at the old man's feet, and promised
+heartily to observe the secrecy required, and entreated that, for
+however short a time, he might be suffered to see this wonderful world.
+
+Then, if we may credit the story, the old man drew nearer to the
+chafing-dish which stood between them, and having fanned the dying
+embers in it, cast upon them a certain powder and some herbs, from
+whence as they burnt a peculiar smoke arose. As their vapors spread, he
+desired the prince to draw near and inhale them, and then (says the
+fable) assured him that when he should sleep he would find himself, in
+his dream, at whatever place he might desire, with this strange
+advantage, that he should see things in their truth and reality as well
+as in their outward shows.
+
+[Illustration: "THEN HE RECLINED BESIDE THE CHAFING-DISH AND INHALED THE
+HEAVY PERFUME."]
+
+So the prince, not without some fear, prepared to obey; but first he
+drank his sherbet, and handed over the golden cup to the old man by way
+of recompense; then he reclined beside the chafing-dish and inhaled the
+heavy perfume till he became overpowered with sleep, and sank down upon
+the carpet in a dream.
+
+The prince knew not where he was, but a green country was floating
+before him, and he found himself standing in a marshy valley where a few
+wretched cottages were scattered here and there with no means of
+communication. There was a river, but it had overflowed its banks and
+made the central land impassable, the fences had been broken down by it,
+and the fields of corn laid low; a few wretched peasants were wandering
+about there; they looked half-clad and half-starved. "A miserable
+valley, indeed!" exclaimed the prince; but as he said it a man came down
+from the hills with a great bag of gold in his hand.
+
+"This valley is mine," said he to the people; "I have bought it for
+gold. Now make banks that the river may not overflow, and I will give
+you gold; also make fences and plant fields, and cover in the roofs of
+your houses, and buy yourselves richer clothing." So the people did so,
+and as the gold got lower in the bag the valley grew fairer and greener,
+till the prince exclaimed, "O gold, I see your value now! O wonderful,
+beneficent gold!"
+
+But presently the valley melted away like a mist, and the prince saw an
+army besieging a city; he heard a general haranguing his soldiers to
+urge them on, and the soldiers shouting and battering the walls; but
+shortly, when the city was well-nigh taken, he saw some men secretly
+giving gold among the soldiers, so much of it that they threw down their
+arms to pick it up, and said that the walls were so strong that they
+could not throw them down. "O powerful gold!" thought the prince; "thou
+art stronger than the city walls!"
+
+After that it seemed to him that he was walking about in a desert
+country, and in his dream he thought, "Now I know what labor is, for I
+have seen it, and its benefits; and I know what liberty is, for I have
+tasted it; I can wander where I will, and no man questions me; but gold
+is more strange to me than ever, for I have seen it buy both liberty and
+labor." Shortly after this he saw a great crowd digging upon a barren
+hill, and when he drew near he understood that he was to see the place
+whence the gold came.
+
+He came up and stood a long time watching the people as they toiled
+ready to faint in the sun, so great was the labor of digging up the
+gold.
+
+He saw some who had much and could not trust any one to help them to
+carry it, binding it in bundles over their shoulders, and bending and
+groaning under its weight; he saw others hide it in the ground, and
+watch the place clothed in rags, that none might suspect that they were
+rich; but some, on the contrary, who had dug up an unusual quantity, he
+saw dancing and singing, and vaunting their success, till robbers
+waylaid them when they slept, and rifled their bundles and carried their
+golden sand away.
+
+"All these men are mad," thought the prince, "and this pernicious gold
+has made them so."
+
+After this, as he wandered here and there, he saw groups of people
+smelting the gold under the shadow of the trees, and he observed that a
+dancing, quivering vapor rose up from it which dazzled their eyes, and
+distorted everything that they looked at; arraying it also in different
+colors from the true one. He observed that this vapor from the gold
+caused all things to rock and reel before the eyes of those who looked
+through it, and also, by some strange affinity, it drew their hearts
+toward those who carried much gold on their persons, so that they called
+them good and beautiful; it also caused them to see darkness and dulness
+in the faces of those who had carried none. "This," thought the prince,
+"is very strange;" but not being able to explain it, he went still
+farther, and there he saw more people. Each of these had adorned himself
+with a broad golden girdle, and was sitting in the shade, while other
+men waited on them.
+
+"What ails these people?" he inquired of one who was looking on, for he
+observed a peculiar air of weariness and dulness in their faces. He was
+answered that the girdles were very tight and heavy, and being bound
+over the regions of the heart, were supposed to impede its action, and
+prevent it from beating high, and also to chill the wearer, as, being of
+opaque material, the warm sunshine of the earth could not get through to
+warm them.
+
+"Why, then, do they, not break them asunder," exclaimed the prince, "and
+fling them away?"
+
+"Break them asunder!" cried the man; "why, what a madman you must be;
+they are made of the purest gold!"
+
+"Forgive my ignorance," replied the prince; "I am a stranger."
+
+So he walked on, for feelings of delicacy prevented him from gazing any
+longer at the men with the golden girdles; but as he went he pondered on
+the misery he had seen, and thought to himself that this golden sand did
+more mischief than all the poisons of the apothecary; for it dazzled the
+eyes of some, it strained the hearts of others, it bowed down the heads
+of many to the earth with its weight; it was a sore labor to gather it,
+and when it was gathered the robber might carry it away; it would be a
+good thing, he thought, if there were none of it.
+
+After this he came to a place where were sitting some aged widows and
+some orphan children of the gold-diggers, who were helpless and
+destitute; they were weeping and bemoaning themselves, but stopped at
+the approach of a man whose appearance attracted the prince, for he had
+a very great bundle of gold on his back, and yet it did not bow him down
+at all; his apparel was rich, but he had no girdle on, and his face was
+anything but sad.
+
+"Sir," said the prince to him, "you have a great burden; you are
+fortunate to be able to stand under it."
+
+[Illustration: "'I COULD NOT DO SO,' HE REPLIED, 'ONLY THAT AS I GO ON I
+KEEP LIGHTENING IT.'"]
+
+"I could not do so," he replied, "only that as I go on I keep lightening
+it;" and as he passed each of the widows, he threw gold to her, and,
+stooping down, hid pieces of it in the bosoms of the children.
+
+"You have no girdle," said the prince.
+
+"I once had one," answered the gold-gatherer; "but it was so tight over
+my breast that my heart grew cold under it, and almost ceased to beat.
+Having a great quantity of gold on my back, I felt almost at the last
+gasp; so I threw off my girdle, and being on the bank of a river, which
+I knew not how to cross, I was about to fling it in, I was so vexed!
+'But no,' thought I, 'there are many people waiting here to cross
+besides myself. I will make my girdle into a bridge, and we will cross
+over on it.'"
+
+"Turn your girdle into a bridge!" said the prince, doubtfully, for he
+did not quite understand.
+
+The man explained himself.
+
+"And, then, sir, after that," he continued, "I turned one-half of my
+burden into bread, and gave it to these poor people. Since then I have
+not been oppressed by its weight, however heavy it may have been; for
+few men have a heavier one. In fact, I gather more from day to day."
+
+As the man kept speaking, he scattered his gold right and left with a
+cheerful countenance, and the prince was about to reply, when suddenly a
+great trembling under his feet made him fall to the ground. The refining
+fires of the gold-gatherers sprang up into flames, and then went out;
+night fell over everything on the earth, and nothing was visible in the
+sky but the stars of the southern cross.
+
+"It is past midnight," thought the prince, "for the stars of the cross
+begin to bend."
+
+He raised himself upon his elbow, and tried to pierce the darkness, but
+could not. At length a slender blue flame darted out, as from ashes in a
+chafing-dish, and by the light of it he saw the strange pattern of his
+carpet and the cushions lying about. He did not recognize them at first,
+but presently he knew that he was lying in his usual place, at the top
+of his tower.
+
+"Wake up, prince," said the old man.
+
+The prince sat up and sighed, and the old man inquired what he had seen.
+
+"O man of much learning!" answered the prince, "I have seen that this is
+a wonderful world; I have seen the value of labor, and I know the uses
+of it; I have tasted the sweetness of liberty, and am grateful, though
+it was but in a dream; but as for that other word that was so great a
+mystery to me, I only know this, that it must remain a mystery forever,
+since I am fain to believe that all men are bent on getting it; though,
+once gotten, it causeth them endless disquietude, only second to their
+discomfort that are without it. I am fain to believe that they can
+procure with it whatever they most desire, and yet that it cankers their
+hearts and dazzles their eyes; that it is their nature and their duty to
+gather it; and yet that, when once gathered, the best thing they can do
+is to scatter it!"
+
+The next morning, when he awoke, the old man was gone. He had taken with
+him the golden cup. And the sentinel was also gone, none knew whither.
+Perhaps the old man had turned his golden cup into a golden key.
+
+
+
+
+THE WATER-LILY
+
+
+My father and mother were gone out for the day, and had left me charge
+of the children. It was very hot, and they kept up a continual fidget. I
+bore it patiently for some time, for children will be restless in hot
+weather, but at length I requested that they would get something to do.
+
+"Why don't you work, or paint, or read, Hatty?" I demanded of my little
+sister.
+
+"I'm tired of always grounding those swans," said Harriet, "and my
+crochet is so difficult; I seem to do it quite right, and yet it comes
+wrong."
+
+"Then why don't you write your diary?"
+
+"Oh, because Charlie won't write his."
+
+"A very bad reason; his not writing leaves you the more to say; besides,
+I thought you promised mamma you would persevere if she would give you a
+book."
+
+"And so we did for a long time," said Charlie; "why, I wrote pages and
+pages of mine. Look here!"
+
+So saying, he produced a copy-book with a marbled cover, and showed me
+that it was about half-full of writing in large text.
+
+"If you wrote all that yourself, I should think you might write more."
+
+"Oh, but I am so tired of it, and besides, this is such a very hot day."
+
+"I know that, and to have you leaning on my knee makes me no cooler; but
+I have something for you to do just now, which I think you will like."
+
+"Oh, what is it, sister? May we both do it?"
+
+"Yes, if you like. You may go into the field to gardener, and ask him to
+get me a water-lily out of the stream; I want one to finish my sketch
+with."
+
+"You really do want one? you are not pretending, just to give us
+something to do?"
+
+"No, I really want one; you see these in the glass begin to wither."'
+
+"Make haste then, Hatty. Sister, you shall have the very best lily we
+can find."
+
+Thereupon they ran off, leaving me to inspect the diary. Its first page
+was garnished with the resemblance of a large swan with curly wings;
+from his beak proceeded the owner's name in full, and underneath were
+his lucubrations. The first few pages ran as follows:
+
+"_Wednesday._ To-day mamma said, as all the others were writing diaries,
+I might do one too if I liked, so I said I should, and I shall write it
+every day till I am grown up. I did a long division sum, a very hard
+one. We dined early to-day, and we had a boiled leg of mutton and an
+apple pudding, but I shall not say another time what we had for dinner,
+because I shall have plenty of other things to say."
+
+"_Friday._ Gardener has been mending the palings; he gave me five nails;
+they were very good ones, such as I like. He said if any boy that he
+knew was to pull nails out of his wall trees when _he'd_ done them, he
+should certainly tell their papa of them. Aunt Fanny came and took away
+Sophy to spend a fortnight. Uncle Tom came too; he said I was a fine
+boy, and gave me a shilling."
+
+"_Saturday._ My half-holiday. Hurrah! I went and bought two hoop-sticks
+for me and Hatty; they cost fourpence each."
+
+"_Sunday._ On Sunday I went to church."
+
+"_Monday._ To-day I had a cold, and after school I was just going to
+bowl my hoop when Orris said to mamma it rained, and ma said she
+couldn't think of my going out in the rain, and so I couldn't go. After
+that Orris called me to come into her room, and gave me a fourpenny
+piece and two pictures, so now I've got eightpence. Orris is very kind,
+but sometimes she thinks she ought to command, because she is the
+eldest."
+
+"_Tuesday._ I shall not write my diary every day, unless I like."
+
+"_Wednesday._ I dined late with papa and mamma and the elder ones: it
+rained. If the others won't tell me what to say, of course I don't
+know."
+
+"_Friday._ I went to the shop and bought some tin _tax_. I don't like
+writing diaries particularly. It will be a good thing to leave off till
+the holidays."
+
+I had only got so far when the children ran in with a beautiful
+water-lily. They had scarcely deposited it in my hand when they both
+exclaimed in a breath:
+
+"And what are we to do now?"
+
+"You may bring me a glass of water to put it in."
+
+This was soon done, and then the question was repeated. I saw there was
+but one chance of quiet, so I resolved to make a virtue of necessity,
+and say that if they would each immediately begin some ordinary
+occupation, I would tell them a story. What child was ever proof against
+a story?
+
+"But we are to choose what it shall be about?" said one of them.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Oh, never mind why. Shall we tell her, Harriet? Well, it's because you
+tell cheating stories: you say, 'I'll tell you a story about a girl, or
+a cottage, or a thimble, or anything you like,' and it really is
+something about us."
+
+"You may choose, then."
+
+"Then it shall be about the lily we got for you."
+
+"Give me ten minutes to think about it, and collect your needles and
+pencils."
+
+Upon this they brought together a heap of articles which they were not
+at all likely to want, and after altering the position of their stools
+and discussing what they would do, and changing their minds many times,
+declared at length that they were quite ready.
+
+[Illustration: "LIVED ON THE BORDERS OF ONE OF THE GREAT AMERICAN
+FORESTS."]
+
+"Now begin, please. _There was once--_" So I accordingly began. "There
+was once a boy who was very fond of pictures. There were not many
+pictures for him to look at, for his mother, who was a widow, lived on
+the borders of one of the great American forests. She had come out from
+England with her husband, and now that he was dead, the few pictures
+hanging on her walls were almost the only luxuries she possessed.
+
+"Her son would often spend his holidays in trying to copy them, but as
+he had very little application, he often threw his half-finished
+drawings away, and once he was heard to say that he wished some
+kind-hearted fairy would take it in hand and finish it for him.
+
+"'Child,' said the mother, 'for my part I don't believe there are any
+such things as fairies. I never saw one, and your father never did; but
+by all accounts, if fairies there be, they are a jealous and revengeful
+race. Mind your books, my child, and never mind the fairies.'
+
+"'Very well, mother,' said the boy.
+
+"'It makes me sad to see you stand gazing at the pictures,' said his
+mother, coming up to him and laying her hand on his curly head; 'why,
+child, pictures can't feed a body, pictures can't clothe a body, and a
+log of wood is far better to burn and warm a body.'
+
+"'All that is quite true, mother,' said the boy.
+
+"'Then why do you keep looking at them, child?'
+
+"The boy hesitated, and then answered, 'I don't know, mother.'
+
+"'You don't know! nor I neither. Why, child, you look at the dumb things
+as if you loved them. Put on your cap and run out to play.'
+
+"So the boy went out, and wandered toward the forest till he came to the
+brink of a sheet of water. It was too small to be called a lake, but it
+was deep, clear, and overhung with crowds of trees. It was evening, and
+the sun was getting low. There was a narrow strip of land stretching out
+into the water. Pine-trees grew upon it; and here and there a plane-tree
+or a sumach dipped its large leaves over, and seemed intent on watching
+its own clear reflection.
+
+"The boy stood still, and thought how delightful it was to see the sun
+red and glorious between the black trunks of the pine-trees. Then he
+looked up into the abyss of clear sky overhead, and thought how
+beautiful it was to see the little frail clouds folded over one another
+like a belt of rose-colored waves. Then he drew still nearer to the
+water, and saw how they were all reflected down there among the leaves
+and flowers of the lilies; and he wished he were a painter, for he said
+to himself, 'I am sure there are no trees in the world with such
+beautiful leaves as these pines; I am sure there are no other clouds in
+the world so lovely as these; I know this is the sweetest piece of water
+in the world, and, if I could paint it, every one else would know it
+too.' He stood still for awhile, watching the water-lilies as they
+closed their leaves for the night, and listening to the slight sound
+they made when they dipped their heads under water. 'The sun has been
+playing tricks with these lilies as well as with the clouds,' he said to
+himself, 'for when I passed by in the morning they swayed about like
+floating snowballs, and now there is not a bud of them that has not got
+a rosy side. I must gather one, and see if I cannot make a drawing of
+it.' So he gathered a lily, sat down with it in his hand, and tried very
+hard to make a correct sketch of it in a blank leaf of his copy-book. He
+was far more patient than usual, but he succeeded so little to his own
+satisfaction, that at length he threw down the book, and, looking into
+the cup of his lily, said to it, in a sorrowful voice, 'Ah, what use is
+it my trying to copy anything so beautiful as you are? How much I wish I
+were a painter!'
+
+"As he said these words he felt a slight quivering in the flower; and,
+while he looked, the cluster of stamens at the bottom of the cup floated
+upward, and glittered like a crown of gold; the dewdrops which hung upon
+them changed into diamonds before his eyes; the white petals flowed
+together; the tall pistil was a golden wand; and the next moment a
+beautiful little creature stood upon his hand, clad in a robe of the
+purest white, and scarcely taller than the flower from which she sprung.
+
+[Illustration: "THE NEXT MOMENT A BEAUTIFUL LITTLE CREATURE STOOD UPON
+HIS HAND."]
+
+"Struck with astonishment, the boy kept silence. She lifted up her face,
+and opened her lips more than once. He expected her to say some
+wonderful thing; but, when at length she did speak, she only said,
+'Child, are you happy?'
+
+"'No,' said the boy, in a low voice, 'because I want to paint, and I
+cannot.'
+
+"'How do you know that you cannot?' asked the fairy.
+
+"'Oh, fairy,' replied the boy, 'because I have tried a great many times.
+It is of no use trying any longer.'
+
+"'What if I were to help you?' said the fairy.
+
+"'There would then indeed be some pleasure in the work and some chance
+of success,' said the boy.
+
+"'I was just closing my leaves for the night,' answered the fairy, 'when
+you drew me out of the water; and I should have made you feel the
+effects of my resentment if it had not happened that you are the
+favorite of our race. Under the water, at the bottom of this lake, are
+our palaces and castles; and when, after visiting the upper world, we
+wish to return to them, we close one of these lilies over us, and sink
+in it to our home. The wish that I heard you utter just now induced me
+to appear to you. I know a powerful charm which will ensure your success
+and the accomplishment of your highest wishes; but it is one which
+requires a great deal of care and patience in the working, and I cannot
+put you in possession of it unless you will promise the most implicit
+obedience to my directions.'
+
+"'Spirit of a water-lily!' said the boy, 'I promise with all my heart.'
+
+"'Go home, then,' continued the fairy, 'and you will find lying on the
+threshold a little key: take it up.'
+
+"'I will,' answered the boy; 'and what then shall I do?'
+
+"'Carry it to the nearest pine-tree,' said the fairy, 'strike the trunk
+with it, and a keyhole will appear. Do not be afraid to unlock that
+magic door. Slip in your hand, and you will bring out a wonderful
+palette. I have not time now to tell you half its virtues, but they will
+soon unfold themselves. You must be very careful to paint with colors
+from that palette every day. On this depends the success of the charm.
+You will find that it will soon give grace to your figures and beauty to
+your coloring; and I promise you that, if you do not break the spell,
+you shall not only in a few years be able to produce as beautiful a copy
+of these flowers as can be wished, but your name shall become known to
+fame, and your genius shall be honored, and your pictures admired on
+both sides the Atlantic.'
+
+"'Can it be possible?' said the boy; and the hand trembled on which
+stood the fairy.
+
+"'It shall be so, if only you do not break the charm,' said the fairy;
+'but lest, like the rest of your ungrateful race, you should forget what
+you owe to me, and even when you grow older begin to doubt whether you
+have ever seen me, the Lily you gathered will never fade till my promise
+is accomplished.'
+
+"So saying, she gathered around her the folds of her robe, crossed her
+arms, and dropping her head on her breast, trembled slightly; and,
+before the boy could remark the change, he had nothing in his hand but a
+flower.
+
+"He looked up. All the beautiful rosy flowers were faded to a shady
+gray. The gold had disappeared from the water, and the forest was dense
+and gloomy. He arose with the lily in his hand, went slowly home, laid
+it in a casket to protect it from injury, and then proceeded to search
+for the palette, which he shortly found; and, lest he should break the
+spell, he began to use it that very night.
+
+"Who would not like to have a fairy friend? Who would not like to work
+with a magic palette? Every day its virtues become more apparent. He
+worked very hard, and it was astonishing how soon he improved. His deep,
+heavy outlines soon became light and clear; and his coloring began to
+assume a transparent delicacy. He was so delighted with the fairy
+present that he even did more than was required of him. He spent nearly
+all his leisure time in using it, and often passed whole days beside the
+sheet of water in the forest. He painted it when the sun shone, and it
+was spotted all over with the reflection of fleeting white clouds; he
+painted it covered with water-lilies rocking on the ripples; by
+moonlight, when two or three stars in the empty sky shone down upon it;
+and at sunset, when it lay trembling like liquid gold.
+
+"But the fairy never came to look at his work. He often called to her
+when he had been more than usually successful; but she never made him
+any answer, nor took the least notice of his entreaties that he might
+see her again.
+
+"So a long time--several years--passed away. He was grown up to be a
+man, and he had never broken the charm; he still worked every day with
+his magic palette.
+
+"No one in these parts cared at all for his pictures. His mother's
+friends told him he would never get his bread by painting; his mother
+herself was sorry that he chose to waste his leisure so; and the more
+because the pictures on her walls were brighter far than his, and had
+clouds and trees of far clearer color, not like the common clouds and
+misty hills that he was so fond of painting, and his faintly colored
+distant forest, with uncertain and variable hues, such as she could see
+any day when she looked out at her window.
+
+"It made the young man unhappy to hear all this fault found with his
+proceedings, but it never made him leave off using the fairy's palette,
+though about this time he himself began to doubt whether he should ever
+be a painter. One evening he sat at his easel, trying in vain to give
+the expression he wished to an angel's face, which seemed to get less
+and less like the face in his heart with every touch he gave it. On a
+sudden he threw down his brush, and with a feeling of bitter
+disappointment upbraided himself for what he now thought his folly in
+listening to the fairy, and accepting her delusive gift. What had he got
+by it hitherto? Nothing but his mother's regrets and the ridicule of his
+companions. He threw himself on his bed. It grew dark; he could no
+longer be vexed with the sight of his unfinished angel; and presently he
+fell asleep and forgot his sorrow.
+
+"In the middle of the night he suddenly awoke. His chamber was full of
+moonlight. The lid of the casket where he kept the lily had sprung open,
+and his fairy friend stood near it.
+
+"'American painter,' she said, in a reproachful voice, 'since you think
+I have been rather a foe than a friend to you, I am ready to take back
+my gift.'
+
+"But sleep had now cooled the young painter's mind, and softened his
+feelings of vexation, so that he did not find himself at all willing to
+part with the palette. While he hesitated how to excuse himself, she
+further said, 'But if you still wish to try what it can do for you, take
+this ring which _my sister_ sends you; wear it, and it will greatly
+assist the charm.'
+
+"The youth held out his hand and took the ring. As he cast his eyes upon
+it, the fairy vanished. He turned it to the moonlight, and saw that it
+was set with a stone of a transparent blue color. It had the property of
+reflecting everything bright that came near it; and there was a word
+engraven upon it. He thought--he could not be sure--but he thought the
+word was 'Hope.'
+
+"After this, and during a long time, I can tell you no more about him:
+whether he finished the angel's face, and whether it pleased him at
+last, I do not know. I only know that, in process of time, his mother
+died--that he came to Europe--and that he was quite unknown and very
+poor.
+
+"The next thing recorded of him is this, that on a sudden he became
+famous. The world began to admire his works, and to seek his company. He
+was considered a great man, and wealth and honors flowed in upon him. It
+happened to him that one day in travelling he came to a great city,
+where there was a large collection of pictures. He went to see them, and
+among them he saw many of his own pictures; some of them he had painted
+before he had left his forest home; others were of more recent date. All
+the people and all the painters praised them. But there was one that
+they liked better than the others; and when he heard them call it his
+masterpiece, he went and sat down opposite to it, that he might think
+over again some of the thoughts that he had had when he painted it.
+
+"It was a picture of a little child, holding in its hands several
+beautiful water-lilies; and the crowd that gathered round it praised the
+lightness of the drapery, the beauty of the infant form, the soft light
+shed down upon it, and, above all, the innocent expression of the baby
+features.
+
+"He was pleased, but not elated. He called to mind the words of his
+fairy benefactress, and acknowledged to himself that at length they were
+certainly fulfilled.
+
+"And then it drew toward evening, and the people one by one disappeared,
+till he was left alone with his masterpiece. The excitement of the day
+had made him anxious for repose. He was thinking of leaving the place,
+when suddenly he fell asleep, and dreamed that he was standing behind
+the sheet of water in his native country, and lingering, as of old, to
+watch the rays of the setting sun as they melted away from its surface.
+He thought, too, that his beautiful lily was in his hand, and that while
+he looked at it the leaves withered and fell at his feet. Then followed
+a confused recollection of his conversation with the fairy; and after
+that his thoughts became clearer, and, though still asleep, he
+remembered where he was, and in what place he was sitting. His
+impressions became more vivid. He dreamed that something lightly touched
+his hand. He looked up, and his fairy benefactress was at his side,
+standing on the arm of his chair.
+
+"'O wonderful enchantress!' said the dreaming painter, 'do not vanish
+before I have had time to thank you for your magic gift. I have nothing
+to offer you but my gratitude in return; for the diamonds of this world
+are too heavy for such an ethereal being, and the gold of this world is
+useless to you who have no wants that it can supply. The fame I have
+acquired I cannot impart to you, for few of my race believe in the
+existence of yours. What, then, can I do? I can only thank you for your
+goodness. But tell me at least your name, if you have a name, that I may
+cut it on a ring, and wear it always on my finger.'
+
+"'My name,' replied the fairy, 'is Perseverance.'"
+
+"Well!" said the children, looking at each other, "she has cheated us
+after all!"
+
+
+
+
+A LOST WAND
+
+
+More than a hundred years ago, at the foot of a wild mountain in Norway,
+stood an old castle, which even at the time I write of was so much out
+of repair as in some parts to be scarcely habitable.
+
+In a hall of this castle a party of children met once on Twelfth-night
+to play at Christmas games and dance with little Hulda, the only child
+of the lord and lady.
+
+The winters in Norway are very cold, and the snow and ice lie for months
+on the ground; but the night on which these merry children met it froze
+with more than ordinary severity, and a keen wind shook the trees
+without, and roared in the wide chimneys like thunder.
+
+Little Hulda's mother, as the evening wore on, kept calling on the
+servants to heap on fresh logs of wood, and these, when the long flames
+crept around them, sent up showers of sparks that lit up the brown
+walls, ornamented with the horns of deer and goats, and made it look as
+cheerful and gay as the faces of the children. Hulda's grandmother had
+sent her a great cake, and when the children had played enough at all
+the games they could think of, the old gray-headed servants brought it
+in and set it on the table, together with a great many other nice things
+such as people eat in Norway--pasties made of reindeer meat, and castles
+of the sweet pastry sparkling with sugar ornaments of ships and flowers
+and crowns, and cranberry pies, and whipped cream as white as the snow
+outside; but nothing was admired so much as the great cake, and when the
+children saw it they set up a shout which woke the two hounds who were
+sleeping on the hearths, and they began to bark, which roused all the
+four dogs in the kennels outside who had not been invited to see either
+the cake or the games, and they barked, too, shaking and shivering with
+cold, and then a great lump of snow slid down from the roof, and fell
+with a dull sound like distant thunder on the pavement of the yard.
+
+"Hurrah!" cried the children, "the dogs and the snow are helping us to
+shout in honor of the cake."
+
+All this time more and more nice things were coming in--fritters,
+roasted grouse, frosted apples, and buttered crabs. As the old servants
+came shivering along the passages, they said, "It is a good thing that
+children are not late with their suppers; if the confects had been kept
+long in the larder they would have frozen on the dishes."
+
+Nobody wished to wait at all; so, as soon as the supper was ready, they
+all sat down, more wood was heaped on to the fire, and when the moon
+shone in at the deep casements, and glittered on the dropping snowflakes
+outside, it only served to make the children more merry over their
+supper to think how bright and warm everything was inside.
+
+This cake was a real treasure, such as in the days of the fairies, who
+still lived in certain parts of Norway, was known to be of the kind they
+loved. A piece of it was always cut and laid outside in the snow, in
+case they should wish to taste it. Hulda's grandmother had also dropped
+a ring into this cake before it was put into the oven, and it is well
+known that whoever gets such a ring in his or her slice of cake has only
+to wish for something directly, and the fairies are bound to give it,
+_if they possibly can_. There have been cases known when the fairies
+could not give it, and then, of course, they were not to blame.
+
+On this occasion the children said: "Let us all be ready with our
+wishes, because sometimes people have been known to lose them from being
+so long making up their minds when the ring has come to them."
+
+"Yes," cried the eldest boy. "It does not seem fair that only one should
+wish. I am the eldest. I begin. I shall wish that Twelfth-night would
+come twice a year."
+
+"They cannot give you that, I am sure," said Friedrich, his brother, who
+sat by him.
+
+"Then," said the boy, "I wish father may take me with him the next time
+he goes out bear-shooting."
+
+"I wish for a white kitten with blue eyes," said a little girl whose
+name was Therese.
+
+"I shall wish to find an amber necklace that does not belong to any
+one," said another little girl.
+
+"I wish to be a king," said a boy whose name was Karl. "No, I think I
+shall wish to be the burgomaster, that I may go on board the ships in
+the harbor, and make their captains show me what is in them. I shall see
+how the sailors make their sails go up."
+
+"I shall wish to marry Hulda," said another boy; "when I am a man I
+mean. And besides that, I wish I may find a black puppy in my room at
+home, for I love dogs."
+
+"But that is not fair," said the other children. "You must only wish for
+one thing, as we did."
+
+"But I really wish for both," said the boy.
+
+"If you wish for both perhaps you will get neither," said little Hulda.
+
+"Well, then," answered the boy, "I wish for the puppy."
+
+And so they all went on wishing till at last it came to Hulda's turn.
+
+"What do you wish for, my child?" said her mother.
+
+"Not for anything at all," she answered, shaking her head.
+
+"Oh, but you must wish for something!" cried all the children.
+
+"Yes," said her mother, "and I am now going to cut the cake. See, Hulda,
+the knife is going into it. Think of something."
+
+"Well, then," answered the little girl, "I cannot think of anything
+else, so I shall wish that you may all have your wishes."
+
+Upon this the knife went crunching down into the cake, the children gave
+three cheers, and the white waxen tulip bud at the top came tumbling on
+the table, and while they were all looking it opened its leaves, and out
+of the middle of it stepped a beautiful little fairy woman, no taller
+than your finger. She had a white robe on, a little crown on her long
+yellow hair; there were two wings on her shoulders, just like the downy
+brown wings of a butterfly, and in her hand she had a little sceptre
+sparkling with precious stones.
+
+"Only one wish," she said, jumping down on to the table, and speaking
+with the smallest little voice you ever heard. "Your fathers and mothers
+were always contented if we gave them one wish every year."
+
+As she spoke, Hulda's mother gave a slice of cake to each child, and,
+when Hulda took hers, out dropped the ring, and fell clattering on her
+platter.
+
+"Only one wish," repeated the fairy. And the children were all so much
+astonished (for even in those days fairies were but rarely seen) that
+none of them spoke a word, not even in a whisper. "Only one wish. Speak,
+then, little Hulda, for I am one of that race which delights to give
+pleasure and to do good. Is there really nothing that you wish, for you
+shall certainly have it if there is?"
+
+"There was nothing, dear fairy, before I saw you," answered the little
+girl, in a hesitating tone.
+
+"But now there is?" asked the fairy. "Tell it me, then, and you shall
+have it."
+
+"I wish for that pretty little sceptre of yours," said Hulda, pointing
+to the fairy's wand.
+
+The moment Hulda said this the fairy shuddered and became pale, her
+brilliant colors faded, and she looked to the children's eyes like a
+thin white mist standing still in her place. The sceptre, on the
+contrary, became brighter than ever, and the precious stones glowed like
+burning coals.
+
+"Dear child," she sighed, in a faint, mournful voice, "I had better have
+left you with the gift of your satisfied, contented heart, than thus
+have urged you to form a wish to my destruction. Alas! alas! my power
+and my happiness fade from me, and are as if they had never been. My
+wand must now go to you, who can make no use of it, and I must flutter
+about forlornly and alone in the cold world, with no more ability to do
+good, and waste away my time--a helpless and defenceless thing."
+
+"Oh, no, no!" replied little Hulda. "Do not speak so mournfully, dear
+fairy. I did not wish at first to ask for it. I will not take the wand
+if it is of value to you, and I should be grieved to have it against
+your will."
+
+"Child," said the fairy, "you do not know our nature. I have said
+whatever you wished should be yours. I cannot alter this decree; it
+_must_ be so. Take my wand; and I entreat you to guard it carefully, and
+never to give it away lest it should get into the hands of my enemy; for
+if once it should, I shall become his miserable little slave. Keep my
+wand with care; it is of no use to you, but in the course of years it is
+possible I may be able to regain it, and on Midsummer night I shall for
+a few hours return to my present shape, and be able for a short time to
+talk with you again."
+
+"Dear fairy," said little Hulda, weeping, and putting out her hand for
+the wand, which the fairy held to her, "is there nothing else that I can
+do for you?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing," said the fairy, who had now become so transparent
+and dim that they could scarcely see her; only the wings on her
+shoulders remained, and their bright colors had changed to a dusky
+brown. "I have long contended with my bitter enemy, the chief of the
+tribe of the gnomes--the ill-natured, spiteful gnomes. Their desire is
+as much to do harm to mortals as it is mine to do them good. If now he
+should find me I shall be at his mercy. It was decreed long ages ago
+that I should one day lose my wand, and it depends in some degree upon
+you, little Hulda, whether I shall ever receive it again. Farewell."
+
+And now nothing was visible but the wings; the fairy had changed into a
+moth, with large brown wings freckled with dark eyes, and it stood
+trembling upon the table, till at length, when the children had watched
+it some time, it fluttered toward the window and beat against the panes,
+as if it wished to be released, so they opened the casement and let it
+out in the wind and cold.
+
+Poor little thing! They were very sorry for it; but after a while they
+nearly forgot it, for they were but children. Little Hulda only
+remembered it, and she carefully enclosed the beautiful sceptre in a
+small box. But Midsummer day passed by, and several other Midsummer
+days, and still Hulda saw nothing and heard nothing of the fairy. She
+then began to fear that she must be dead, and it was a long time since
+she had looked at the wand, when one day in the middle of the Norway
+summer, as she was playing on one of the deep bay windows of the castle,
+she saw a pedlar with a pack on his back coming slowly up the avenue of
+pine-trees, and singing a merry song.
+
+"Can I speak to the lady of this castle?" he said to Hulda, making at
+the same time a very low bow.
+
+Hulda did not much like him, he had such restless black eyes and such a
+cunning smile. His face showed that he was a foreigner; it was as brown
+as a nut. His dress also was very strange; he wore a red turban, and had
+large earrings in his ears, and silver chains wound round and round his
+ankles.
+
+Hulda replied that her mother was gone to the fair at Christiana, and
+would not be back for several days.
+
+"Can I then speak with the lord of the castle?" asked the pedlar.
+
+"My father is gone out to fish in the fiord," replied little Hulda; "he
+will not return for some time, and the maids and the men are all gone to
+make hay in the fields; there is no one left at home but me and my old
+nurse."
+
+The pedlar was very much delighted to hear this. However, he pretended
+to be disappointed.
+
+"It is very unfortunate," he said, "that your honored parents are not at
+home, for I have got some things here of such wonderful beauty that
+nothing could have given them so much pleasure as to have feasted their
+eyes with the sight of them--rings, bracelets, lockets, pictures--in
+short, there is nothing beautiful that I have not got in my pack, and if
+your parents could have seen them they would have given all the money
+they had in the world rather than not have bought some of them."
+
+"Good pedlar," said little Hulda, "could you not be so very kind as just
+to let me have a sight of them?"
+
+The pedlar at first pretended to be unwilling, but after he had looked
+all across the wide heath and seen that there was no one coming, and
+that the hounds by the doorway were fast asleep in the sun, and the very
+pigeons on the roof had all got their heads under their wings, he
+ventured to step across the threshold into the bay window, and begin to
+open his pack and display all his fine things, taking care to set them
+out in the sunshine, which, made them glitter like glowworms.
+
+Little Hulda had never seen anything half so splendid before. There were
+little glasses set round with diamonds, and hung with small tinkling
+bells which made delightful music whenever they were shaken; ropes of
+pearls which had a more fragrant scent than bean-fields or hyacinths;
+rings, the precious stones of which changed color as you frowned or
+smiled upon them; silver boxes that could play tunes; pictures of
+beautiful ladies and gentlemen, set with emeralds, with devices in coral
+at the back; little golden snakes, with brilliant eyes that would move
+about; and so many other rare and splendid jewels that Hulda was quite
+dazzled, and stood looking at them with blushing cheeks and a beating
+heart, so much she wished that she might have one of them.
+
+"Well, young lady," said the cunning pedlar, "how do you find these
+jewels? Did I boast too much of their beauty?"
+
+"Oh, no!" said Hulda, "I did not think there had been anything so
+beautiful in the world. I did not think even our queen had such fine
+jewels as these. Thank you, pedlar, for the sight of them."
+
+"Will you buy something, then, of a poor man?" answered the pedlar.
+"I've travelled a great distance, and not sold anything this many a
+day."
+
+"I should be very glad to buy," said little Hulda, "but I have scarcely
+any money; not half the price of one of these jewels, I am sure."
+
+Now there was lying on the table an ancient signet-ring set with a large
+opal.
+
+"Maybe the young lady would not mind parting with this?" said he, taking
+it up. "I could give her a new one for it of the latest fashion."
+
+"Oh, no, thank you!" cried Hulda, hastily, "I must not do so. This ring
+is my mother's, and was left her by my grandmother."
+
+The pedlar looked disappointed. However, he put the ring down, and said,
+"But if my young lady has no money, perhaps she has some old trinkets or
+toys that she would not mind parting with--a coral and bells, or a
+silver mug, or a necklace, or, in short, anything that she keeps put
+away, and that is of no use to her?"
+
+"No," said the little girl, "I don't think I have got anything of the
+kind. Oh, yes! to be sure, I have got somewhere up-stairs a little gold
+wand, which I was told not to give away; but I'm afraid she who gave it
+me must have been dead a long while, and it is of no use keeping it any
+longer."
+
+Now this pedlar was the fairy's enemy. He had long suspected that the
+wand must be concealed somewhere in that region, and near the sea, and
+he had disguised himself, and gone out wandering among the farmhouses
+and huts and castles to try if he could hear some tidings of it, and get
+it if possible into his power. The moment he heard Hulda mention her
+gold wand, he became excessively anxious to see it. He was a gnome, and
+when his malicious eyes gleamed with delight they shot out a burning
+ray, which scorched the hound who was lying asleep close at hand, and he
+sprang up and barked at him.
+
+"Peace, peace, Rhan!" cried little Hulda; "lie down, you unmannerly
+hound!" The dog shrank back again growling, and the pedlar said in a
+careless tone to Hulda:
+
+"Well, lady, I have no objection just to look at the little gold wand,
+and see if it is worth anything."
+
+"But I am not sure that I could part with it," said Hulda.
+
+"Very well," replied the pedlar, "as you please; but I may as well look
+at it. I should hope these beautiful things need not go begging." As he
+spoke he began carefully to lock up some of the jewels in their little
+boxes, as if he meant to go away.
+
+"Oh, don't go," cried Hulda. "I am going up-stairs to fetch my wand. I
+shall not be long; pray wait for me."
+
+[Illustration: "'OH, DON'T GO,' CRIED HULDA. 'I AM GOING UP-STAIRS TO
+FETCH MY WAND.'"]
+
+Nothing was further from the pedlar's thought than to go away, and while
+little Hulda was running up to look for the wand he panted so hard for
+fear that after all he might not be able to get it that he woke the
+other hound, who came up to him, and smelt his leg.
+
+"What sort of a creature is this?" said the old hound to his companion,
+speaking, of course, in the dogs' language.
+
+"I'm sure I can't say," answered the other. "I wonder what he is made
+of,--he smells of mushrooms! quite earthy, I declare! as if he had lived
+underground all his life."
+
+"Let us stand one on each side of him, and watch that he doesn't steal
+anything."
+
+So the two dogs stood staring at him; but the pedlar was too cunning for
+them. He looked out of the window, and said, "I think I see the master
+coming," upon which they both turned to look across the heath, and the
+pedlar snatched up the opal ring, and hid it in his vest. When they
+turned around he was folding up his trinkets again as calmly as
+possible. "One cannot be too careful to count one's goods," he said,
+gravely. "Honest people often get cheated in houses like these, and
+honest as these two dogs look, I know where one of them hid that
+leg-of-mutton bone that he stole yesterday!" Upon hearing this the dogs
+sneaked under the table ashamed of themselves. "I would not have it on
+my conscience that I robbed my master for the best bone in the world,"
+continued the pedlar, and as he said this he took up a little silver
+horn belonging to the lord of the castle, and, having tapped it with his
+knuckle to see whether the metal was pure, folded it up in cotton, and
+put it in his pack with the rest of his curiosities.
+
+Presently Hulda came down with a little box in her hand, out of which
+she took the fairy's wand.
+
+The pedlar was so transported at the sight of it that he could scarcely
+conceal his joy; but he knew that unless he could get it by fair means
+it would be of no use to him.
+
+"How dim it looks!" said little Hulda; "the stones used to be so very
+bright when first I had it."
+
+"Ah! that is a sign that the person who gave it you is dead," said the
+deceitful pedlar.
+
+"I am sorry to hear she is dead," said Hulda, with a sigh. "Well, then,
+pedlar, as that is the case, I will part with the wand if you can give
+me one of your fine bracelets instead of it."
+
+The pedlar's hand trembled with anxiety as he held it out for the wand,
+but the moment he had got possession of it all his politeness vanished.
+
+"There," he said, "you have got a very handsome bracelet in your hand.
+It is worth a great deal more than the wand. You may keep it. I have no
+time to waste; I must be gone." So saying, he hastily snatched up the
+rest of his jewels, thrust them into his pack, and slung it over his
+shoulder, leaving Hulda looking after him with the bracelet in her hand.
+She saw him walk rapidly along the heath till he came to a gravel-pit,
+very deep, and with overhanging sides. He swung himself over by the
+branches of the trees.
+
+"What can he be going to do there?" she said to herself. "But I will run
+after him, for I don't like this bracelet half so well as some of the
+others."
+
+So Hulda ran till she came to the edge of the gravel-pit, but was so
+much surprised that she could not say a word. There were the great
+footmarks made by the pedlar down the steep sides of the pit; and at the
+bottom she saw him sitting in the mud, digging a hole with his hands.
+
+"Hi!" he said, putting his head down. "Some of you come up. I've got the
+wand at last. Come and help me down with my pack."
+
+"I'm coming," answered a voice, speaking under the ground; and presently
+up came a head, all covered with earth, through the hole the pedlar had
+made. It was shaggy with hair, and had two little bright eyes, like
+those of a mole. Hulda thought she had never seen such a curious little
+man. He was dressed in brown clothes, and had a red-peaked cap on his
+head; and he and the pedlar soon laid the pack at the bottom of the
+hole, and began to stamp upon it, dancing and singing with great
+vehemence. As they went on the pack sank lower and lower, till at last,
+as they still stood upon it, Hulda could see only their heads and
+shoulders. In a little time longer she could only see the top of the red
+cap; and then the two little men disappeared altogether, and the ground
+closed over them, and the white nettles and marsh marigolds waved their
+heads over the place as if nothing had happened.
+
+Hulda walked away sadly and slowly. She looked at the beautiful
+bracelet, and wished she had not parted with the wand for it, for she
+now began to fear that the pedlar had deceived her. Nevertheless, who
+would not be delighted to have such a fine jewel? It consisted of a gold
+hoop, set with turquoise, and on the clasp was a beautiful bird, with
+open wings, all made of gold, and which quivered as Hulda carried it.
+Hulda looked at its bright eyes--ruby eyes, which sparkled in the
+sunshine--and at its crest, all powdered with pearls, and she forgot her
+regret.
+
+"My beautiful bird!" she said, "I will not hide you in a dark box, as
+the pedlar did. I will wear you on my wrist, and let you see all my
+toys, and you shall be carried every day into the garden, that the
+flowers may see how elegant you are. But stop! I think I see a little
+dust on your wings. I must rub it off." So saying, Hulda took up her
+frock and began gently rubbing the bird's wings, when, to her utter
+astonishment, it opened its pretty beak and sang:
+
+    "My master, oh, my master,
+      The brown hard-hearted gnome,
+    He goes down faster, faster,
+      To his dreary home.
+    Little Hulda sold her
+      Golden wand for me,
+    Though the fairy told her
+      That must never be--
+    Never--she must never
+      Let the treasure go.
+    Ah! lost forever,
+      Woe! woe! woe!"
+
+The bird sang in such a sorrowful voice, and fluttered its golden wings
+so mournfully, that Hulda wept.
+
+"Alas! alas!" she said, "I have done very wrong. I have lost the wand
+forever! Oh, what shall I do, dear little bird? Do tell me."
+
+But the bird did not sing again, and it was now time to go to bed. The
+old nurse came out to fetch Hulda. She had been looking all over the
+castle for her, and been wondering where she could have hidden herself.
+
+In Norway, at midsummer, the nights are so short that the sun only dips
+under the hills time enough to let one or two stars peep out before he
+appears again. The people, therefore, go to bed in the broad sunlight.
+
+"Child," said the old nurse, "look how late you are--it is nearly
+midnight. Come, it is full time for bed. This is Midsummer day."
+
+"Midsummer day!" repeated Hulda. "Ah, how sorry I am! Then this is a day
+when I might have seen the fairy. How very, very foolish I have been!"
+
+Hulda laid her beautiful bracelet upon a table in her room, where she
+could see it, and kissed the little bird before she got into bed. She
+had been asleep a long time when a little sobbing voice suddenly awoke
+her, and she sat up to listen. The house was perfectly still; her cat
+was curled up at the door, fast asleep; her bird's head was under its
+wing; a long sunbeam was slanting down through an opening in the green
+window-curtain, and the motes danced merrily in it.
+
+"What could that noise have been?" said little Hulda, lying down again.
+She had no sooner laid her head on the pillow than she heard it again;
+and, turning round quickly to look at the bracelet, she saw the little
+bird fluttering its wings, and close to it, with her hands covering her
+face, the beautiful, long lost fairy.
+
+"Oh, fairy, fairy! what have I done!" said Hulda. "You will never see
+your wand again. The gnome has got it, and he has carried it down under
+the ground, where he will hide it from us forever."
+
+The fairy could not look up, nor answer. She remained weeping, with her
+hands before her face, till the little golden bird began to chirp.
+
+"Sing to us again, I pray you, beautiful bird!" said Hulda; "for you are
+not friendly to the gnome. I am sure you are sorry for the poor fairy."
+
+"Child," said the fairy, "be cautious what you say--that gnome is my
+enemy; he disguised himself as a pedlar the better to deceive you, and
+now he has got my wand he can discover where I am; he will be constantly
+pursuing me, and I shall have no peace; if once I fall into his hands, I
+shall be his slave forever. The bird is not his friend, for the race of
+gnomes have no friends. Speak to it again, and see if it will sing to
+you, for you are its mistress."
+
+"Sing to me, sweet bird," said Hulda, in a caressing tone, and the
+little bird quivered its wings and bowed its head several times; then it
+opened its beak and sang:
+
+      "Where's the ring?
+    Oh the ring, my master stole the ring,
+      And he holds it while I sing,
+    In the middle of the world.
+      Where's the ring?
+    Where the long green Lizard curled
+      All its length, and made a spring
+    Fifty leagues along.
+      There he stands,
+      With his brown hands,
+
+    And sings to the Lizard a wonderful song.
+    And he gives the white stone to that Lizard fell,
+      For he fears it--and loves it passing well."
+
+"What!" said Hulda, "did the pedlar steal my mother's ring--that old
+opal ring which I told him I could not let him have?"
+
+"Child," replied the fairy, "be not sorry for his treachery; this theft
+I look to for my last hope for recovering the wand."
+
+"How so?" asked Hulda.
+
+"It is a common thing among mortals," replied the fairy, "to say the
+thing which is not true, and do the thing which is not honest; but among
+the other races of beings who inhabit this world the penalty of mocking
+and imitating the vices of you, the superior race, is, that if ever one
+of us can be convicted of it, that one, be it gnome, sprite, or fairy,
+is never permitted to appear in the likeness of humanity again, nor to
+walk about on the face of the land which is your inheritance. Now the
+gnomes hate one another, and if it should be discovered by the brethren
+of this my enemy that he stole the opal ring, they will not fail to
+betray him. There is, therefore, no doubt, little Hulda, that he carries
+both the ring and the wand about with him wherever he goes, and if in
+all your walks and during your whole life you should see him again, and
+go boldly up to him and demand the stolen stone, he will be compelled
+instantly to burrow his way down again into the earth, and leave behind
+him all his ill-gotten gains."
+
+"There is, then, still some hope," said Hulda, in a happier voice; "but
+where, dear fairy, have you hidden yourself so long?"
+
+"I have passed a dreary time," replied the fairy. "I have been compelled
+to leave Europe and fly across to Africa, for my enemy inhabits that
+great hollow dome which is the centre of the earth, and he can only come
+up in Europe; but my poor little brown wings were often so weary in my
+flight across the sea that I wished, like the birds, I could drop into
+the waves and die; for what was to me the use of immortality when I
+could no longer soothe the sorrow of mortals? But I cannot die; and
+after I had fluttered across into Egypt, where the glaring light of the
+sun almost blinded me, I was thankful to find a ruined tomb or temple
+underground, where great marble sarcophagi were ranged around the walls,
+and where in the dusky light I could rest from my travels, in a place
+where I only knew the difference between night and day by the redness of
+the one sunbeam which stole in through a crevice, and the silvery blue
+of the moonbeam that succeeded it.
+
+"In that temple there was no sound but the rustling of the bats' wings
+as they flew in before dawn, or sometimes the chirping of a swallow
+which had lost its way, and was frightened to see all the grim marble
+faces gazing at it. But the quietness did me good, and I waited, hoping
+that the young King of Sweden would marry, and that an heir would be
+born to him (for I am a Swedish fairy), and then I should recover my
+liberty according to an ancient statute of the fairy realm, and my wand
+would also come again into my possession; but alas! he is dead, and the
+reason you see me to-day is, that, like the rest of my race, I am come
+to strew leaves on his grave and recount his virtues. I must now return,
+for the birds are stirring; I hear the cows lowing to be milked, and the
+maids singing as they go out with their pails. Farewell, little Hulda;
+guard well the bracelet; I must to my ruined temple again. Happy for me
+will be the day when you see my enemy (if that day ever comes); the bird
+will warn you of his neighborhood by pecking your hand.
+
+"One moment stay, dear fairy," said Hulda. "Where am I most likely to
+see the gnome?"
+
+"In the south," replied the fairy, "for they love hot sunshine. I can
+stay no longer. Farewell."
+
+So saying, the fairy again became a moth and fluttered to the window.
+Little Hulda opened it, the brown moth settled for a moment upon her
+lips as if it wished to kiss her, and then it flew out into the
+sunshine, away and away.
+
+Little Hulda watched her till her pretty wings were lost in the blue
+distance; then she turned and took her bracelet, and put it on her
+wrist, where, from that day forward, she always wore it night and day.
+
+Hulda now grew tall, and became a fair young maiden, and she often
+wished for the day when she might go down to the south, that she might
+have a better chance of seeing the cruel gnome, and as she sat at work
+in her room alone she often asked the bird to sing to her, but he never
+sang any other songs than the two she had heard at first.
+
+And now two full years had passed away, and it was again the height of
+the Norway summer, but the fairy had not made her appearance.
+
+As the days began to shorten, Hulda's cheeks lost their bright color,
+and her steps their merry lightness; she became pale and wan. Her
+parents were grieved to see her change so fast, but they hoped, as the
+weary winter came on, that the cheerful fire and gay company would
+revive her; but she grew worse and worse, till she could scarcely walk
+alone through the rooms where she had played so happily, and all the
+physicians shook their heads and said, "Alas! alas! the lord and lady of
+the castle may well look sad: nothing can save their fair daughter, and
+before the spring comes she will sink into an early grave."
+
+The first yellow leaves now began to drop, and showed that winter was
+near at hand.
+
+"My sweet Hulda," said her mother to her one day, as she was lying upon
+a couch looking out into the sunshine, "is there anything you can think
+of that would do you good, or any place we can go to that you think
+might revive you?"
+
+"I had only one wish," replied Hulda, "but that, dear mother, I cannot
+have."
+
+"Why not, dear child?" said her father. "Let us hear what your wish
+was."
+
+"I wished that before I died I might be able to go into the south and
+see that wicked pedlar, that if possible I might repair the mischief I
+had done to the fairy by restoring her the wand."
+
+"Does she wish to go into the south?" said the physicians. "Then it will
+be as well to indulge her, but nothing can save her life; and if she
+leaves her native country she will return to it no more."
+
+"I am willing to go," said Hulda, "for the fairy's sake."
+
+So they put her on a pillion, and took her slowly on to the south by
+short distances, as she could bear it. And as she left the old castle,
+the wind tossed some yellow leaves against her, and then whirled them
+away across the heath to the forest. Hulda said:
+
+    "Yellow leaves, yellow leaves,
+      Whither away?
+    Through the long wood paths
+      How fast do ye stray!"
+
+The yellow leaves answered:
+
+    "We go to lie down
+      Where the spring snowdrops grow,
+    Their young roots to cherish
+      Through frost and through snow."
+
+Then Hulda said again to the leaves:
+
+    "Yellow leaves, yellow leaves,
+      Faded and few,
+    What will the spring flowers
+      Matter to you?"
+
+And the leaves said:
+
+    "We shall not see them,
+      When gaily they bloom,
+    But sure they will love us
+      For guarding their tomb."
+
+Then Hulda said:
+
+"The yellow leaves are like me: I am going away from my place for the
+sake of the poor fairy, who now lies hidden in the dark Egyptian ruin;
+but if I am so happy as to recover her wand by my care, she will come
+back glad and white, like the snowdrops when winter is over, and she
+will love my memory when I am laid asleep in my tomb."
+
+So they set out on their journey, and every day went a little distance
+toward the south, till at last, on Christmas Eve, they came to an
+ancient city at the foot of a range of mountains.
+
+"What a strange Christmas this is!" said Hulda, when she looked out the
+next morning. "Let us stay here, mother, for we are far enough to the
+south. Look how the red berries hang on yonder tree, and these myrtles
+on the porch are fresh and green, and a few roses bloom still on the
+sunny side of the window."
+
+It was so fine and warm that the next day they carried Hulda to a green
+bank where she could sit down. It was close by some public gardens, and
+the people were coming and going. She fell into a doze as she sat with
+her mother watching her, and in her half-dream she heard the voices of
+the passers-by, and what they said about her, till suddenly a voice
+which she remembered made her wake with a start, and as she opened her
+frightened eyes, there, with his pack on his back, and his cunning eyes
+fixed upon her, stood the pedlar.
+
+"Stop him!" cried Hulda, starting up. "Mother, help me to run after
+him!"
+
+"After whom, my child?" asked her mother.
+
+"After the pedlar," said Hulda. "He was here but now, but before I had
+time to speak to him, he stepped behind that thorn-bush and
+disappeared."
+
+"So that is Hulda," said the pedlar to himself, as he went down the
+steep path into the middle of the world. "She looks as if a few days
+more would be all she has to live. I will not come here any more till
+the spring, and then she will be dead, and I shall have nothing to
+fear."
+
+But Hulda did not die. See what a good thing it is to be kind. The soft,
+warm air of the south revived her by degrees--so much, that by the end
+of the year she could walk in the public garden and delight in the warm
+sunshine; in another month she could ride with her father to see all the
+strange old castles in that neighborhood, and by the end of February she
+was as well as ever she had been in her life; and all this came from her
+desire to do good to the fairy by going to the south.
+
+"And now," thought the pedlar, "there is no doubt that the daisies are
+growing on Hulda's grave by this time, so I will go up again to the
+outside of the world, and sell my wares to the people who resort to
+those public places."
+
+So one day when in that warm climate the spring flowers were already
+blooming on the hillsides, up he came close to the ruined walls of a
+castle, and set his pack down beside him to rest after the fatigues of
+his journey.
+
+"This is a cool, shady place," he said, looking round, "and these dark
+yew-trees conceal it very well from the road. I shall come here always
+in the middle of the day, when the sun is too hot, and count over my
+gains. How hard my mistress, the Lizard, makes me work! Who would have
+thought she would have wished to deck her green head with opals down
+there, where there are only a tribe of brown gnomes to see her? But I
+have not given her that one out of the ring which I stole, nor three
+others that I conjured out of the crozier of the priest as I knelt at
+the altar, and they thought I was rehearsing a prayer to the Virgin."
+
+After resting some time, the pedlar took up his pack and went boldly on
+to the gardens, never doubting but that Hulda was dead; but it so
+happened that at that moment Hulda and her mother sat at work in a shady
+part of the garden under some elder-trees.
+
+"What is the matter, my sweet bird?" said Hulda, for the bird pecked her
+wrist, and fluttered its wings, and opened its beak as if it were very
+much frightened.
+
+"Let us go, mother, and look about us," said Hulda.
+
+So they both got up and wandered all over the gardens; but the pedlar,
+in the meantime, had walked on toward the town, and they saw nothing of
+him.
+
+"Sing to me, my sweet bird," said Hulda that night as she lay down to
+sleep. "Tell me _why_ you pecked my wrist."
+
+Then the bird sang to her:
+
+    "Who came from the ruin, the ivy-clad ruin,
+    With old shaking arches, all moss overgrown,
+              Where the flitter-bat hideth,
+              The limber snake glideth,
+    And chill water drips from the slimy green stone?"
+
+"Who did?" asked Hulda. "Not the pedlar, surely? Tell me, my pretty
+bird." But the bird only chirped a little and fluttered its golden
+wings, so Hulda ceased to ask it, and presently fell asleep, but the
+bird woke her by pecking her wrist very early, almost before sunrise,
+and sang:
+
+    "Who dips a brown hand in the chill shaded water,
+    The water that drips from a slimy green stone?
+              Who flings his red cap
+              At the owlets that flap
+    Their white wings in his face as he sits there alone?"
+
+Hulda, upon hearing this, arose in great haste and dressed herself; then
+she went to her father and mother, and entreated that they would come
+with her to the old ruin. It was now broad day, so they all three set
+out together. It was a very hot morning, the dust lay thick upon the
+road, and there was not air enough to stir the thick leaves of the trees
+which hung overhead.
+
+They had not gone far before they found themselves in a crowd of people,
+all going toward the castle ruin, for there, they told Hulda, the
+pedlar, the famous pedlar from the north, who sold such fine wares, was
+going to perform some feats of jugglery of most surprising cleverness.
+
+"Child," whispered Hulda's mother, "nothing could be more fortunate for
+us; let us mingle with the crowd and get close to the pedlar."
+
+Hulda assented to her mother's wish, but the heat and dust, together
+with her own intense desire to rescue the lost wand, made her tremble so
+that she had great difficulty in walking. They went among gypsies,
+fruit-women, peasant girls, children, travelling musicians, common
+soldiers, and laborers; the heat increased, and the dust and the noise,
+and at last Hulda and her parents were borne forward into the old ruin
+among a rush of people running and huzzaing, and heard the pedlar shout
+to them:
+
+"Keep back, good people; leave a space before me; leave a large space
+between me and you."
+
+So they pressed back again, jostling and crowding each other, and left
+an open space before him from which he looked at them with his cunning
+black eyes, and with one hand dabbling in the cold water of the spring.
+
+The place was open to the sky, and the broken arches and walls were
+covered with thick ivy and wall flowers. The pedlar sat on a large gray
+stone, with his red cap on and his brown fingers adorned with splendid
+rings, and he spread them out and waved his hands to the people with
+ostentatious ceremony.
+
+"Now, good people," he said, without rising from his seat, "you are
+about to see the finest, rarest, and most wonderful exhibition of the
+conjuring art ever known!"
+
+"Stop!" cried a woman's voice from the crowd, and a young girl rushed
+wildly forward from the people, who had been trying to hold her back.
+
+"I impeach you before all these witnesses!" she cried, seizing him by
+the hand. "See justice done, good people. I impeach you, pedlar. Where's
+the ring--my mother's ring--which you stole on Midsummer's day in the
+castle?"
+
+"Good people," said the pedlar, pulling his red cap over his face, and
+speaking in a mild, fawning voice, "I hope you'll protect me. I hope you
+won't see me insulted."
+
+"My ring, my ring!" cried Hulda; "he wore it on his finger but now!"
+
+"Show your hand like a man!" said the people. "If the lady says falsely,
+can't you face her and tell her so? Never hold it down so cowardly!"
+
+The pedlar had tucked his feet under him, and when the people cried out
+to him to let the rings on his hand be seen, he had already burrowed
+with them up to his knees in the earth.
+
+[Illustration: "THE PEDLAR HAD NOW SUNK UP TO HIS WAIST."]
+
+"Oh, he will go down into the earth!" cried Hulda. "But I will not let
+go! Pedlar, pedlar, it is useless! If I follow you before the Lizard,
+your mistress, I will not let go!"
+
+The pedlar turned his terrified, cowardly eyes upon Hulda, and sank
+lower and lower. The people were too frightened to move.
+
+"Stop, child," cried her mother. "Oh, he will go down and drag thee with
+him."
+
+But Hulda would not and could not let go. The pedlar had now sunk up to
+his waist. Her mother wrung her hands, and in an instant the earth
+closed upon them both, and, after falling in the dark down a steep
+abyss, they found themselves, not at all the worse, standing in a dimly
+lighted cave with a large table in it piled with mouldy books. Behind
+the table was a smooth and perfectly round hole in the wall about the
+size of a cartwheel.
+
+Hulda looked that way, and saw how intensely dark it was through this
+hole, and she was wondering where it led to when an enormous green
+Lizard put its head through into the cave, and gazed at her with its
+great brown eyes.
+
+"What is thy demand, fine child of the daylight?" said the Lizard.
+
+"Princess," replied Hulda, "I demand that this thy servant should give
+up to me a ring which he stole in my father's castle when I was a
+child."
+
+The pedlar no sooner heard Hulda boldly demand her rights than he fell
+on his knees and began to cry for mercy.
+
+"Mercy rests with this maiden," said the Lizard. At the same time she
+darted out her tongue, which was several yards in length and like a
+scarlet thread, and with it stripped the ring from the gnome's finger
+and gave it to Hulda.
+
+"Speak, maiden, what reparation do you demand of this culprit, and what
+shall be his punishment?"
+
+"Great princess," replied Hilda, "let him restore to me a golden wand
+which I sold to him, for it belongs to a fairy whom he has long
+persecuted."
+
+"Here it is, here it is!" cried the cowardly gnome, putting his hand
+into his bosom and pulling it out, shaking all the time, and crying out
+most piteously, "Oh, don't let me be banished from the sunshine!"
+
+"After this double crime no mercy can be shown you," said the Lizard,
+and she twined her scarlet tongue round him, and drew him through the
+hole to herself. At the same instant it closed, and a crack came in the
+roof of the cave, through which the sunshine stole, and as Hulda looked
+up in flew a brown moth and settled on the magic bracelet. She touched
+the moth with the wand, and instantly it stood upon her wrist--a
+beautiful and joyous fairy. She took her wand from Hulda's hand, and
+stood for a moment looking gratefully in her face without speaking. Then
+she said to the wand:
+
+"Art thou my own again, and wilt thou serve me?"
+
+"Try me," said the wand.
+
+So she struck the wall with it, and said, "Cleave, wall!" and a hole
+came in the wall large enough for Hulda to creep through, and she found
+herself at the foot of a staircase hewn in the rock, and, after walking
+up it for three hours, she came out in the old ruined castle, and was
+astonished to see that the sun had set. The moment she appeared her
+father and mother, who had given her over for lost, clasped her in their
+arms and wept for joy as they embraced her.
+
+"My child," said her father, "how happy thou lookest, not as if thou
+hadst been down in the dark earth!"
+
+Hulda kissed her parents and smiled upon them; then she turned to look
+for the fairy, but she was gone. So they all three walked home in the
+twilight, and the next day Hulda set out again with her parents to
+return to the old castle in Norway. As for the fairy, she was happy from
+that day in the possession of her wand; but the little golden bird
+folded its wings and never sang any songs again.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+The Editha Series
+
+NEW EDITION, 1906
+
+
+     1 Editha's Burglar, By Burnett
+
+     2 Pinocchio's Adventures
+
+     3 Burglar's Daughter, By Penrose
+
+     4 J. Cole, By Gellibrand
+
+     5 Laddie
+
+     6 Miss Toosey
+
+     7 A Child's Garden of Verses, By Stevenson
+
+     8 Little Rosebud, By Harraden
+
+     9 Wonder Book Stories, By Hawthorne
+
+    10 The Golden Apple, By Hawthorne
+
+    11 Little Lame Prince, By Mulock
+
+    12 Sleeping Beauty, By Mulock
+
+    13 Adventures of a Brownie, By Mulock
+
+    14 The Pygmies, By Hawthorne
+
+    15 The Brownies, By Ewing
+
+    16 Cuckoo Clock, By Molesworth
+
+    17 Christmas Carol, By Dickens
+
+    18 Jackanapes, By Ewing
+
+    19 Alice in Wonderland, By Carroll
+
+    20 Rab and His Friends, By Dr. John Brown
+
+    21 Through a Looking-Glass, By Lewis Carroll
+
+    22 The Prince of the Pin Elves, By Charles Lee Sleight
+
+    23 Snap-Dragons and Other Stories, By J. H. Ewing
+
+    24 Madam Liberality, By J. H. Ewing
+
+    25 Millicent in Dreamland, By Edna S. Brainerd
+
+    26 Flower Fables, By Louisa M. Alcott
+
+    27 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, By Washington Irving
+
+    28 Lives of Two Cats, By Pierre Loti
+
+    29 Wonder-Box Tales, By Jean Ingelow
+
+    30 Boss and Other Dogs, By Maria L. Pool
+
+
+    H. M. CALDWELL COMPANY
+    Publishers
+    NEW YORK AND BOSTON
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WONDER-BOX TALES***
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