The giant laughed and muttered in his sleep, for the dream was sweet to him. 'O Rose,' he said, 'O sweet Rose, what end is there of thy sweetness? How innumerable is the dance of the Roses of my Rose-garden!'
Noodle caught hold of the ropes of the giant's hair, and climbed till he sat within the hollow of his right ear. Then he put to his lips the ring, the Sweetener, and sang till the giant heard him in his sleep; and the sweet singing mixed itself with the sweetness of the Rose in the giant's brain, and he muttered to himself, saying: 'O bee, O sweet bee, O bee in my brain, what honey wilt thou fetch for me out of the Roses of my Rose-garden?'
So, more and more, Noodle sweetened himself to the giant, till the giant passed him into his brain, and into the heart of the dream, even into the garden of the Burning Rose.
Far down below the folds of the cloud, Noodle remembered that the Galloping Plough lay waiting a call from him. 'When I have stolen the Rose,' thought he, 'I may need swift heels for my flight.' And he put the Sweetener to his lips and whistled the Plough up to him.
It came, cleaving the encirclement of clouds like a silver gleam of moonlight, and for a moment, where they parted, Noodle saw a rift of blue sky, and the light of the outer world clear through their midst.
The giant turned uneasily in his sleep, and the garden of the Burning Rose rocked to its foundations as the edge of things real pierced into it.
'While I stay here there is danger,' thought Noodle. 'Surely I must make haste to possess myself of the Rose and to escape!'
All round him was a garden set thick with rose-trees in myriads of blossom, rosebehind rose as far as the eye could reach, and the fragrance of them lay like a heavy curtain of sleep upon the senses. Noodle, beginning to feel drowsy, stretched out his hand in haste to the nearest flower, lest in a little while he should be no more than a part of the giant's dream. 'O beloved Heart of Melilot!' he cried, and crushed his fingers upon the stem.
The whole bough crackled and sprang away at his touch; the Rose turned upon him, screaming and spouting fire; a noise like thunder filled all the air. Every rose in the garden turned and spat flame at where he stood. His face and his hands became blistered with the heat.
Leaping upon the back of his Plough, he cried, 'Carry me to the borders of the garden where there are open spaces! The price of the Princess is upon my head!'
The Plough bounded this way and that, searching for some outlet by which toescape. It flew in spirals and circles, it leaped like a flea, it burrowed like a mole, it ploughed up the rose-trees by the roots. But so soon as it had passed they stood up unharmed again, and to whatever point of refuge the Plough fled, that way they all turned their heads and darted out vomitings of fire.
In vain did Noodle summon the Well-folk to his aid; his crystal shot forth fountains of water that turned into steam as they rose, and fell back again, scalding him.
Then with two deaths threatening to devour him, he brandished the ring, calling upon the Fire-eaters for their aid.
They laughed as they came. 'Here is food for you!' he cried. 'Multiply your appetites about me, or I shall be consumed in these flames!'
'Brandish again!' cried they—the same seven whom he had fed. 'We are not enough; this fire is not quenchable.'
Noodle brandished till the whole garden swarmed with their kind. One fastened himself upon every rose, a gulf opposing itself to a torrent. All sight of the conflagration disappeared; but within there went a roaring sound, and the bodies of the Fire-eaters crackled, growing large and luminous the while.
'Do your will quickly and begone!' cried the Fire-eaters. 'Even now we swell to bursting with the pumping in of these fires!'
Noodle seized on a rose to which one hung, sucking out its heats. He tugged, but the strong fibres held. Then he locked himself to the back of the Plough, crying to it and caressing its speed with all names under heaven, and beseeching it in the name of Melilot to break free. And the Plough giving but one plunge, the Rose came away into Noodle's hand, panting and a prisoner. All blushing it grew andradiant, with a soft inner glow, and an odour of incomparable sweetness. He seemed to see the heart of Melilot beating before him.
But now there came a blast of fire behind him, for the Fire-eaters had disappeared, and all was whirling and shaken before his eyes; and the Plough sped desperately over earthquake and space. For the plucking of the Rose had awakened the giant from his sleep; and the dream shrivelled and spun away in a whirl of flame-coloured vapours. Leaping into clear day out of the unravelment of its mists, Noodle found himself and his Plough launching over an edge of precipice for a downward dive into space. The giant's hair, standing upright from his head in the wrath and horror of his awakening, made a forest ending in his forehead that bowered them to right and to left. Quitting it they slid ungovernablyover the bulge of his brow, and went at full spurt for the abyss.
Dexterously the Plough steered its descent, catching on the bridge and furrowing the ridge of the nose; nine leagues were the duration of a second.
The giant, thinking some venomous parasite was injuring his flesh, aimed, and a moment too late had thumped his fist upon the place. But already the Plough skirting the amazed opening of his mouth was lost in the trammels of his beard. Thence, as it escaped the rummaging of his fingers, it flew scouring his breast, and inflicted a flying scratch over the regions of his abdomen. Then, still believing it to be the triumphal procession of a flea, he pursued it to his thigh, and mistaking the shadow for the substance allowed it yet again to escape. At his knee-cap there was but a hair's-breadth between Noodle and the weight of his thumb; but thereafterthe Plough out-distanced his every effort, and, with Noodle preserved whole and alive, sped fast and far, bearing the Burning Rose to the heart of the beloved Melilot.
The crone was aware of his coming before she heard him, or saw the gleam of his Plough running beam-like over the land. From her seat by the Princess's bower she clapped her hands, and springing to his neck ere he alighted: 'A long way off, and a long time off,' she cried, 'I knew what fortune was with you; for when you plucked off the Rose, and bore it out of the heart of the dream, the scent of it filled the world; and I felt the sweetness of youth once more in my blood.'
Then she led him to the Princess, and bade him lay the Rose in her breast, that her heart might be won back into the world. Looking at her face again, Noodle saw how memory had made it more beautifulthan ever, and how between her lips had grown the tender parting of a smile. Then he laid the Rose where the movement of the heart should be; and presently under the white breast rose the music of its beating.
'Ah!' cried the old nurse, weeping for happiness, 'now her heart that loved me is come back, and I can listen all day to the sound of it! You have brought memory to her, you have brought love; now bring breath, and the awakening of her five senses. Surely the light of her eyes will be your reward!'
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Tell me quickly of the Camphor-Worm, cried the youth as he feasted his eyes on the Princess's loveliness, made more unendurable by the awakening within of love. 'Where and what is it?' 'It is not so far as was the way to the Burning Rose,' answered the crone; 'an hour on the back of the Plough shall bring it near to you; but the danger and difficulty of this quest is more, not less. For to reach the Camphor-Worm you need to be a diver in deep waters, whose weight crushes a man; and to touch its lips you must master the loathing of your nature;and to carry away its breath you must have strength of will and endurance beyond what is mortal.' 'You trouble me with things I need not know,' cried Noodle. 'Tell me,' he said, 'how I may reach the Camphor-Worm; and of it and its ways.'
'By this path, and by that,' said the old woman, pointing him, 'go on till you come to the thick waters of the Bitter Lake; they are blacker than night, and their weight is heavier than lead, and in the depths dwells the Camphor-Worm. Once a year, when the air is sweetest with the scents of summer, she rises to breathe, lifting her black snout through the surface of the waters. Then she draws fresh air into her lungs, flavoured with leaves and flowers, and after she has breathed it in she lets go the last bubble of the breath she drew from the summer of the year before; and it is this bubble of breath alone that will give back life to the five senses of PrincessMelilot. But the Worm's time for rising is far; and how you shall bear the weight in the depths of those waters, or make the Worm give up the bubble before her time, or at last bear back the bubble to lay it on the lips of the Princess so that she may wake,—these are things I know not the way of, for to my eyes they seem dark with difficulty and peril.'
Then Noodle, opening the petals of the Burning Rose as it lay upon the heart of Melilot, drew out honey from its centre, filling his hand with the golden crumblings of fragrance; and he leapt upon the Galloping Plough, urging it in the way the Princess's nurse had pointed out to him. As they went he caressed it with all the names under heaven, stroking it with his hand and praising it for the delicacy of its steering: saying, 'O my moonbeam, if thou wouldst save the life of thy master, or restore the five senses ofthe Princess Melilot, thou must surpass thyself to-day. Listen, thou heaven-sent limb, thou miracle of quicksilver, and have a long mind to my words; for in a short while I shall have no speech left in me till the thing be done, and the deliverance, from head to feet, of my Beloved accomplished.'
Even while he spoke they came to the edge of the Bitter Lake—a small pool, but its waters were blacker than night, and heavier than lead to the eye. Then Noodle leapt down from the Plough, and caressed it for the last time, saying: 'Set thy face for the garden where the Princess Melilot is; and when I am come back to thee speechless out of the Lake and am striding thee once more, then wait not for a word but carry me to her with more speed than thou hast ever mustered to my aid till now; go faster than wind or lightning or than the eye of man can see! So,by good fortune, I may live till I reach her lips; but if thou tarry at all I am a dead man. And when thou art come to Melilot set thy share beneath the roots of her feet, and take her up to me out of the ground. Do this tenderly, but abate not speed till it be done!'
Then the youth put into his mouth the honey of the Burning Rose, and into his lips the Sweetener, and stripped himself as a bather to the pool. And the Plough, remembering its master's word, turned and set its face to where lay the garden with Melilot waiting to be relieved of her enchantment. Whereat Noodle, bowing his head, and blessing it with lips of farewell, turned shortly and slid down into the blackness of the lake.
The weight of that water was like a vice upon his limbs, and around his throat, as he swam out into the centre of the pool. As he went he breathed upon the water,and the scent of the honey of the Burning Rose passing through the Sweetener made an incomparable fragrance, gentle, and subtle, and wooing to the senses.
When he came to the middle of the lake he stayed breathing full breaths, till the air deepened with fragrance around him. Presently underneath him he felt the movement of a great thing coming up from the bottom of the pool. It touched his feet and came grazing along his side; and all at once shuddering and horror took hold upon him, for his whole nature was filled with loathing of its touch.
Out of the pool's surface before him rose a great black snout, that opened, showing a round hole. Then he thought of Melilot and her beauty laid fast under a charm, and drawing a full breath he laid his lips containing the ring, the Sweetener, to the lips of the Worm.
The Worm began to breathe. As theWorm drank the air out of him, he drew in more through his nostrils, and more and more, till the great gills were filled and satisfied.
Then the Worm let go the last bubble of air which remained from the year before, and had lain ever since in its body, by which alone life could be given back to the five senses of Melilot. Then drawing in its head it lowered itself once more to the bottom of the pool; and Noodle, feeling in his mouth the precious globule of air, fastened his lips upon it and shot out for shore.
Against the weight of those leaden waters a longing to gasp possessed him; but he knew that with the least breath the bubble would be lost, and all his labour undone. Not too soon his feet caught hold of the bank, and drew him free to land. He cast himself speechless across the back of the Galloping Plough and clung.
The Plough gathered itself together and sprang away through space. Remembering its master's word it showed itself a miracle of speed; like lightning became its flight.
The eye of Noodle grew blind to the passing of things; he could take no count of the collapsing leagues. More and more grew the amazingness of the Plough's leaps, things only to be measured by miles, and counted as joltings on the way; while fast to the back of it clung Noodle, and endured, praying that shortness of breath might not overmaster him, or the check of his lungs give way and burst him to the emptiness of a drum. His senses rocked and swayed; he felt the gates of his resolve slackening and forcing themselves apart; and still the Galloping Plough plunged him blindly along through space.
But now the shrill crying of the cronestruck in upon his ears, and he stretched open his arms for the accomplishment of the deliverance. Even in that nick of time was the end of the thing brought about; for the Plough, guiding itself as a thread to the needle's eye, gave the uprooting stroke to the white feet of Melilot; and Noodle, swooning for the last gasp, saw all at once her beauty swaying level to his gaze and her body bending down upon his.
Then he fastened his lips upon hers, and loosed the bubble from his mouth; and panting and sobbing themselves back to life they hung in each other's arms. She warmed and ripened in his embrace, opening upon him the light of her eyes; and the greatness and beauty of the reward abashed him and bore him down to earth.
He heard the old crone clucking and crowing, like a hen over its egg, of the happiness that had come to her old years; till recognising the youth's state shecovered him over with a cloak amid exclamations of astonishment.
The Princess saw nothing but her lover's face and the happy feasting of his eyes. She bent her head nearer and nearer to his, and the story of what he had done became a dream that she remembered, and that waking made true. 'O you Noodle,' she said, laughing, 'you wise, wise Noodle!' And then everything was finished, for she had kissed him!
So Noodle and the Princess were married, and came to the throne together and reigned over a happy land. The Fire-eaters were their friends, and the gifts of fortune were theirs. The Galloping Plough made all the waste places fertile; and the water of the Thirsty Well rose and ran in rivers through the land; and over the walls of their palace, where they had planted it, grew the flower of the Burning Rose.
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Five hundred years ago or more a king died, leaving two sons: one was the child of his first wife, and the other of his second, who surviving him became his widow. When the king was dying he took off the royal crown which he wore, and set it upon the head of the elder born, the son of his first wife, and said to him: 'God is the lord of the air, and of the water, and of the dry land: this gift cometh to thee from God. Be merciful, over whatsoever thou holdest power, as God is!' And saying these words he laid his hands upon the heads of his two sons and died.
Now this crown was no ordinary crown, for it was made of the gold brought by the Wise men of the East when they came to worship at Bethlehem. Every king that had worn it since then had reigned well and uprightly and had been loved by all his people: but only to himself was it known what virtue lay in his crown; and every king at dying gave it to his son with the same words of blessing.
So, now, the king's eldest son wore the crown; and his step-mother knew that her own son could not wear it while he lived, therefore she looked on and said nothing. Now he was known to all the people of his country, because of his right to the throne, as the king's son; and his brother, the child of the second wife, was called the queen's son. But as yet they were both young, and cared little enough for crowns.
After the king's death the queen wasmade regent till the king's son should be come to a full age; but already the little king wore the royal crown his father had left him, and the queen looked on and said nothing.
More than three years went by, and everybody said how good the queen was to the little king who was not her own son; and the king's son, for his part, was good to her and to his step-brother, loving them both; and all by himself he kept thinking, having his thoughts guarded and circled by his golden crown, 'How shall I learn to be a wise king, and to be merciful when I have power, as God is?'
So to everything that came his way, to his playthings and his pets, to his ministers and his servants, he played the king as though already his word made life and death. People watching him said, 'Everything that has touch with the king's son loves him.' They told strange tales ofhim: only in fairy books could they be believed, because they were so beautiful; and all the time the queen, getting a good name for herself, looked on and said nothing.
One night the king's son was lying half-asleep upon his bed, with wise dreams coming and going under the circle of his gold crown, when a mouse ran out of the wainscot and came and jumped up upon the couch. The poor mouse had turned quite white with fear and horror, and was trembling in every limb as it cried its news into the king's ear. 'O king's son,' it said, 'get up and run for your life! I was behind the wainscot in the queen's closet, and this is what I heard: if you stay here, when you wake up to-morrow you will be dead!'
The king's son got up, and all alone in the dark night stole out of the palace, seeking safety for his dear life. He sighedto himself, 'There was a pain in my crown ever since I wore it. Alas, mother, I thought you were too kind a step-mother to do this!'
Outside it was still winter: there was no warmth in the world, and not a leaf upon the trees. He wandered away and away, wondering where he should hide.
The queen, when her villains came and told her the king's son was not to be found, went and looked in her magic crystal to find trace of him. As soon as it grew light, for in the darkness the crystal could show her nothing, she saw many miles away the king's son running to hide himself in the forest. So she sent out her villains to search until they should find him.
As they went the sun grew hot in the sky, and birds began singing. 'It is spring!' cried the messengers. 'How suddenly it has come!' They rode on till they came to the forest.
The king's son, stumbling along through the forest under the bare boughs, thought, 'Even here where shall I hide? Nowhere is there a leaf to cover me.' But when the sun grew warm he looked up; and there were all the trees breaking into bud and leaf, making a green heaven above his head. So when he was too weary to go farther, he climbed into the largest tree he could find; and the leaves covered him.
The queen's messengers searched through all the forest but could not find him; so they went back to her empty handed, not having either the king's crown or his heart to show. 'Fools!' she cried, looking in her magic crystal, 'he was in the big sycamore under which you stopped to give your horses provender!'
The sycamore said to the king's son, 'The queen's eye is on you; get down and run for your life till you get to the hollowtarn-stones among the hills! But if you stay here, when you wake to-morrow you will be dead.'
When the queen's messengers came once more to the forest they found it all wintry again, and without leaf; only the sycamore was in full green, clapping its hands for joy in the keen and bitter air.
The messengers searched, and beat down the leaves, but the king's son was not there. They went back to the queen. She looked long in her magic crystal, but little could she see; for the king's son had hidden himself in a small cave beside the tarn-stones, and into the darkness the crystal could not pry.
Presently she saw a flight of birds crossing the blue, and every bird carried a few crumbs of bread in its beak. Then she ran and called to her villains, 'Follow the birds, and they will take you to where the little wizard is; for they are carryingbread to feed him, and they are all heading for the tarn-stones up on the hills.'
The birds said to the king's son, 'Now you are rested; we have fed you, and you are not hungry. The queen's eye is on you. Up, and run for your life! If you stay here, when you wake up to-morrow you will be dead.'
'Where shall I go?' said the king's son. 'Go,' answered the birds, 'and hide in the rushes on the island of the pool of sweet waters!'
When the queen's messengers came to the tarn-stones, it was as though five thousand people had been feeding: they found crumbs enough to fill twelve baskets full, lying in the cave; but no king's son could they lay their hands on.
The king's son was lying hidden among the rushes on the island of the great pool of sweet waters; and thick and fast came silver-scaled fishes, feeding him.
It took the queen three days of hard gazing in her crystal, before she found how the fishes all swam to a point among the rushes of the island in the pool of sweet waters, and away again. Then she knew: and running to her messengers she cried: 'He is among the rushes on the island in the pool of sweet waters; and all the fishes are feeding him!'
The fishes said to the king's son: 'The queen's eye is on you; up, and swim to shore, and away for your life! For if they come and find you here, when you wake to-morrow you will certainly be dead.'
'Where shall I go?' asked the king's son. 'Wherever I go, she finds me.' 'Go to the old fox who gets his poultry from the palace, and ask him to hide you in his burrow!'
When the queen's messengers came to the pool they found the fishes playing atalibisall about in the water; but nothing of the king's son could they see.
The king's son came to the fox, and the fox hid him in his burrow, and brought him butter and eggs from the royal dairy. This was better fare than the king's son had had since the beginning of his wanderings, and he thanked the fox warmly for his friendship. 'On the contrary,' said the fox, 'I am under an obligation to you; for ever since you came to be my guest I have felt like an honest man.' 'If I live to be king,' said the king's son, 'you shall always have butter and eggs from the royal dairy, and be as honest as you like.'
The queen hugged her magic crystal for a whole week, but could make nothing out of it: for her crystal showed her nothing of the king's son's hiding-place, nor of the fox at his nightly thefts of butter and eggs from the royal dairy.But it so happened that this same fox was a sort of half-brother of the queen's; and so guilty did he feel with his brand-new good conscience that he quite left off going to see her. So in a little while the queen, with her suspicions and her magic crystal, had nosed out the young king's hiding-place.
The fox said to the king's son: 'The queen's eye is on you! Get out and run for your life, for if you stay here till to-morrow, you will wake up and find yourself a dead goose!'
'But where else can I go to?' asked the king's son. 'Is there any place left for me?' The fox laughed, and winked, and whispered a word; and all at once the king's son got up and went.
The queen had said to her messengers, 'Go and look in the fox's hole; and you shall find him!' But the messengers came and dug up the burrow, and foundbutter and eggs from the royal dairy, but of the king's son never a sign.
The king's son came to the palace, and as he crept through the gardens he found there his little brother alone at play,—playing sadly because now he was all alone. Then the king's son stopped and said, 'Little brother, do you so much wish to be king?' And taking off the crown, he put it upon his brother's head. Then he went on through underground ways and corridors, till he came to the palace dungeons.
Now a dungeon is a hard thing to get out of, but it is easy enough to get into. He came to the deepest and darkest dungeon of all, and there he opened the door, and went in and hid himself.
The queen's son came running to his mother, wearing the king's crown. 'Oh, mother,' he said, 'I am frightened! while I was playing, my brother camelooking all dead and white, and put this crown on my head. Take it off for me, it hurts!'
When the queen saw the crown on her son's head, she was horribly afraid; for that it should have so come there was the most unlikely thing of all. She fetched her crystal ball, and looked in, asking where the king's son might be, and, for answer, the crystal became black as night.
Then said the queen to herself, 'He is dead at last!'
But, now that the king's crown was on the wrong head, the air, and the water, and the dry land, over which God is lord, heard of it. And the trees said, 'Until the king's son returns, we will not put forth bud or leaf!'
And the birds said, 'We will not sing in the land, or breed or build nests until the king's son returns!'
And the fishes said, 'We will not stayin the ponds or rivers to get caught, unless the king's son, to whom we belong, returns!'
And the foxes said, 'Unless the king's son returns, we will increase and multiply exceedingly and be like locusts in the land!'
So all through that land the trees, though it was spring, stayed as if it were mid-winter; and all the fishes swam down to the sea; and all the birds flew over the sea, away into other countries; and all the foxes increased and multiplied, and became like locusts in the land.
Now when the trees, and the birds, and the beasts, and the fishes led the way the good folk of the country discovered that the queen was a criminal. So, after the way of the flesh, they took the queen and her little son, and bound them, and threw them into the deepest and darkest dungeon they could find; and said they: 'Untilyou tell us where the king's son is, there you stay and starve!'
The king's son was playing all alone in his dungeon with the mice who brought him food from the palace larder, when the queen and her son were thrown down to him fast bound, as though he were as dangerous as a den of lions. At first he was terribly afraid when he found himself pursued into his last hiding-place; but presently he gathered from the queen's remarks that she was quite powerless to do him harm.
'Oh, what a wicked woman I am!' she moaned; and began crying lamentably, as if she hoped to melt the stone walls which formed her prison.
Presently her little son cried, 'Mother, take off my brother's crown; it pricks me!' And the king's son sat in his corner, and cried to himself with grief over the harm that his step-mother's wickedness had brought about.
'Mother,' cried the queen's son again, 'night and day since I have worn it, it pricks me; I cannot sleep!'
But the queen's heart was still hard; not if she could help, would she yet take off from her son the crown.
Hours went by, and the queen and her son grew hungry. 'We shall be starved to death!' she cried. 'Now I see what a wicked woman I am!'
'Mother,' cried the queen's son, 'some one is putting food into my mouth!' 'No one,' said the queen, 'is putting any into mine. Now I know what a wicked woman I am!'
Presently the king's son came to the queen also, and began feeding her. 'Someone is putting food intomymouth, now!' cried the queen. 'If it is poisoned I shall die in agony! I wish,' she said, 'I wish I knew your brother were not dead; if I have killed him what a wicked woman I am!'
'Dear step-mother,' said the king's son 'I am not dead, I am here.'
'Here?' cried the queen, shaking with fright. 'Here? not dead! How long have you been here?'
'Days, and days, and days,' said the king's son, sadly.
'Ah! if I had only knownthat!' cried the queen. 'NowI know what a wicked woman I am!'
Just then, the trap-door in the roof of the dungeon opened, and a voice called down, 'Tell us where is the king's son! If you do not tell us, you shall stay here and starve.'
'The king's son is here!' cried the queen.
'A likely story!' answered the gaolers. 'Do you think we are going to believe that?' And they shut-to the trap.
The queen's son cried, 'Dear brother, come and take back your crown, it pricksso!' But the king's son only undid the queen's bonds and his brother's. 'Now,' said he, 'you are free: you can kill me now.'
'Oh!' cried the queen, 'what a wicked woman I must be! Do you think I could do it now?' Then she cried, 'O little son, bring your poor head to me, and I will take off the crown!' and she took off the crown and gave it back to the king's son. 'When I am dead,' she said, 'remember, and be kind to him!'
The king's son put the crown upon his own head.
Suddenly, outside the palace, all the land broke into leaf; there was a rushing sound in the river of fishes swimming up from the sea, and all the air was loud and dark with flights of returning birds. Almost at the same moment the foxes began to disappear and diminish, and cease to be like locusts in the land.
People came running to open the door of the deepest and darkest dungeon in the palace: 'For either,' they cried, 'the queen is dead, or the king's son has been found!'
'Where is the king's son, then?' they called out, as they threw wide the door. 'He is here!' cried the king; and out he came, to the astonishment of all, wearing his crown, and leading his step-mother and half-brother by the hand.
He looked at his step-mother, and she was quite white; as white as the mouse that had jumped upon the king's bed at midnight bidding him fly for his life. Not only her face, but her hair, her lips, and her very eyes were white and colourless, for she had gone blind from gazing too hard into her crystal ball, and hunting the king's son to death.
So she remained blind to the end of her days; but the king was more good toher than gold, and as for his brother, never did half-brothers love each other better than these. Therefore they all lived very happily together, and after a long time, the queen learned to forget what a wicked woman she had been.
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Tulip was the son of a poor but prudent mother; from the moment of his birth she had trained him to count ten before ever he wanted or asked for anything. An otherwise reckless youth, he acquired an intrinsic value through the practice of this habit. Only once, just as he was reaching, but had not quite reached, years of discretion, did his habit of precaution fail him; and this same failure became in the end the opening of his fortunes.
Bathing one day in the river, to whose banks the woods ran down in steepterraces, he heard a voice come singing along one of the upper slopes; and looking up under the boughs of cedar and sycamore, he saw a pair of green feet go dancing by, up and down like grasshoppers on the prance.
There was such rhythm in them, and such sweetness in the voice, that his heart was out of him before he could harness it to the number ten, and he came out of the water the most natural and forlorn of lovers.
Before he was dressed the green feet and the voice were gone, and before he got home his health and his appetite seemed to have gone also. He pined industriously from day to day, and spent all his hours in searching among the woods by the river side for his lady of the dear green feet. He did not know so much as the size or colour of her face; the sound of her voice alone, and the running upand down of her feet, had, as he told his mother, 'decimated his affections.'
In his trouble he could think of only one possible remedy, and that he counted well over, knowing its risk. Away in the loneliest part of the forest there lived a wise woman, to whom, now and then, folk went for help when everything else had failed them. So he had heard tell of a certain Wishing-Pot that was hers in which people might see the thing they desired most, and into which for a fee she allowed lovers and other poor fools of fortune to look. One thing, however, was told against the virtues of this Wishing-Pot, that though many had had a sight of it, and their wishes revealed to them therein, others had gone and had never again returned to their homes, but had vanished altogether from men's sight, nor had any news ever been heard of them after. There were some wise folk whoheld that they had only gone elsewhere to seek the fortune that the Wishing-Pot had shown to them. Nevertheless, for the most part the wise woman and her Wishing-Pot had an ill name in that neighbourhood.
To a lover's heart risk gives value; so one fine morning Tulip kissed his mother, counted ten, and set out for the woods.
Towards evening he came to the house of the witch and knocked at the door. 'Good mother,' said he, when she opened to him, 'I have brought you the fee to buy myself a wish over the Wishing-Pot.' 'Ay, surely,' answered the crone, and drew him in.
In one corner of the room stood a great crystal bowl. Nearly round it was, and had a small opening at the top, to which a man might place his eye and look in. To Tulip, as he looked at it, it seemed all coloured fires and falling stars, and a soft crackling sound came from it, as thoughheat burned in its veins. It threw long shapes and lustres upon the walls, and within innumerable things writhed, and ran, and whiffed in the floating of its vapours.
'You may have two wishes,' said the old witch, 'a one and a two.' And she said the spell that undid the secret of the Pot to the wisher.
Then Tulip bent down his head and looked in, counting softly to himself, and at ten, he let the wish go to his lady of the dear green feet.
The colours changed and sprang, as though stirred and fed with fresh fuel; and down in the depths of the Wishing-Pot he saw the feet of his Beloved go by in twinkling green slippers.
As soon as he saw that he began counting ten in great haste for the second wish. 'O to be inside the Wishing-Pot with her!' was his thought now. He had gotto nine, and the wish was almost on his tongue, when he caught sight of the old woman's eye looking at him. And the eye had become like a large green spider, with great long limbs that kept clutching up and out again!
His heart queegled to a jelly at the sight; but the green feet lured him so, that he still thought how to get to them and yet be safe. Surely, to be in the Wishing-Pot and out by the sound of the next Angelus became the shape of his wish. He shut his eyes, cried ten upon the venture, and was in the Wishing-Pot!
The little green feet were trebling over the glass with a sound like running water; and he himself began running at full speed, shot off into the Wishing-Pot like a pellet from a pop-gun. Nothing could he see of his dear but her wee green feet. But above them as they ran he heard showery laughter, and he knew that his lady wasthere before him, though invisible to the eye.
The Pot, now he was in it, seemed bigger than the biggest dome in the world; to run all round it took him two or three minutes. Away in the centre of its base stood a great opal knob, like the axle to a wheel round which he and the green feet kept circling.
However much he wished and wished, the green feet still kept their distance, for now he wasinthe Wishing-Pot wishes availed him nothing. The green feet flew faster than his; the light laugh rang further and further away; right across to the other side of the hall his lady had passed from him now.
The magic fires of the crystal leapt and crackled under his tread; now it seemed as if his feet ran on a green lawn, out of which broke crocuses and daffodils, and now roses reddened in the track, and nowthe purple of grapes spurted across the path like spilled wine. The sound of the green feet and the running of overhead laughter, as they distanced him in front, came nearer and nearer behind him from across the hall. He felt that he must follow and not turn, however beaten he might be.
Presently a voice, that he knew was his Beloved's, cried,—
'Heart that would have me must hatch me!Feet that would find me must catch me!Man that would mate me must match me!'
'Heart that would have me must hatch me!Feet that would find me must catch me!Man that would mate me must match me!'
'Heart that would have me must hatch me!
Feet that would find me must catch me!
Man that would mate me must match me!'
Oh, how? wondered spent feet, and failing heart, and reeling brain. He stumbled slower and slower in the race, till presently with quick innumerable patterings the green feet grew closer, and were overtaking him from the rear.
Warm breath was in his hair,—lips and a hand; he turned, open armed, to snatch the mischievous morsel, but all that heclasped was a gust of air; and he saw the green feet scudding out and away on a fresh start before him.
Again, with laughter, the voice cried,—
'Lap for lap you must wind me:Equal, before you can find me!You are a lap behind me!'
'Lap for lap you must wind me:Equal, before you can find me!You are a lap behind me!'
'Lap for lap you must wind me:
Equal, before you can find me!
You are a lap behind me!'
Where they raced the surface of the glass sloped slightly to the upward rise of its walls; Tulip shifted his ground, and ran where the footing was leveller toward the centre, and the circle began to go smaller. So he began to gain, till the green slippers, seeing how the advantage had come about, shifted also in their turn.
Thus they ran on; there were no inner posts to mark the course, only the great opal standing in the centre of all formed the pivot of the race, and round and round it, a great way off, they ran.
All at once a big thought came intoTulip's head; he waited not to count ten, but, before Green Slippers knew what he was after, he had reached the opal centre, and was circling it. Then quickly all the laughter stopped; the green feet came twinkling sixteens to the dozens, so as to get round the post before him and away.
One lap, he was before her; two laps, he turned again to her coming, and found her falling into his arms. She blossomed into sight at his touch: from top to toe she was there! All rosy and alive he had her in his clasp, laughing, crying, clinging, yet struggling to be free. She made a most endless handful, till Tulip had caught her by the hair and kissed her between the eyes.
All round and overhead the magic crystal reared up arches of fire, to a roof that dropped like rain, while Tulip and his prize sank down exhausted on the great hub of opal to rest. As he touched it allthe secret wonders of the Wishing-Pot were opened and revealed to his gaze.
Crowds and crowds of faces were what he most saw; everywhere that he turned he saw old friends and neighbours who, he thought, had been dead and gone, looking sadly, and shaking long sorrowful faces at him. 'You here too, Tulip?' they seemed forever to be saying. 'Always another, and another; and now you here too!'
There was the dairyman's wife, who had waited seven years to have a child, holding a little will-o'-the-wisp of a thing in her arms. Now and then for a while it would lie still, and then suddenly it would leap up and dart away; and she, poor soul, must up and after it, though the chase were ever so long!
There also was Miller Dick with his broad thumbs, counting over a rich pile of gold, which, ever and anon, spun up into the air, and went strewing itself likedead leaves before the wind. Then he too must needs up and after it, till it was all caught again, and added together, and made right.
There were small playmates of Tulip's childhood, each with its little conceit of treasure: one had a toy, and another a lamb, another a bird; and all of them hunted and caught the thing they loved, and kissed it and again let go. So it went on, over and over again, more sad than the sight of a quaker as he twiddles his thumbs.
Whenever they were at peace for a moment, they turned their eyes his way. 'What, you here too, Tulip?' was always the thing they seemed to be saying.
While Tulip sat looking at them, and thinking of it all, suddenly his lady disappeared, and only her green feet darted from his side and began running round and round in a circle. Then was he just about to set off running after them, whenhe felt himself caught up to the coloured fires of the roof and sent spinning ungovernably through space. Suddenly he was dumped to the ground, and just as his feet were gathering themselves up under him he heard the Angelus bell ringing from the village below the slopes of the wood.
He was standing again by the side of the Wishing-Pot, and the old woman sat cowering, and blinking her spider-eye at him, too much astonished to speak or move.
Tulip looked at her with a pleasant and engaging air. 'Oh, good mother, what a treat you have given me!' he said. 'How I wish I had money for another wish! what a pity it was ever to have wished myself back again!'
When the old witch heard that she thought still to entrap him, and answered joyfully, 'Why, kind Sir, surely, kind Sir,if you like it you shall look again! Take another wish, and never mind about the money.' So she said the spell once more which opened to him the wonders of the Wishing-Pot.
Then cried Tulip, clapping his hands, 'What better can I wish than to have you in the Wishing-Pot, in the place of all those poor folk whom you have imprisoned with their wishes!'
Hardly was the thing said than done; all the children who had been Tulip's playmates, and Miller Dick with his broad thumbs, and the dairyman's wife, were every one of them out, and the old witch woman was nowhere to be seen.
But Tulip put his eye to the mouth of the Wishing-Pot; and there down below he saw the old witch, running round and round as hard as she could go, pursued by a herd of green spiders. And there without doubt she remains.