* * * * *So they went home and were married, and the Princess did not wear a veil at the wedding. She said she had had enough veils to last her time.* * * * *And a year and a day after that a little daughter was born to them.‘Now sweetheart,’ said King Bellamant—he was king now because the old king and queen had retired from the business, and were keeping pigs and hens in the country as they[p182had always planned to do—‘dear sweetheart and life’s love, I am going to ring the bells with my own hands, to show how glad I am for you, and for the child, and for our good life together.’So he went out. It was very dark, because the baby princess had chosen to be born at midnight.The King went out to the belfry, that stood in the great, bare, quiet, moonlit square, and he opened the door. The furry-pussy bell-ropes, like huge caterpillars, hung on the first loft. The King began to climb the curly-wurly stone stair. And as he went up he heard a noise, the strangest noises, stamping and rustling and deep breathings.He stood still in the ringers’ loft where the pussy-furry caterpillary bell-robes hung, and from the belfry above he heard the noise of strong fighting, and mixed with it the sound of voices angry and desperate, but with a noble note that thrilled the soul of the hearer like the sound of the trumpet in battle. And the voices cried:Down, down—away, away,When good has come ill may not stay,Out, out, into the night,The belfry bells are ours by right![p183]And the words broke and joined again, like water when it flows against the piers of a bridge. ‘Down,down——.’‘Ill may notstay——.’‘Good hascome——.’‘Away,away——.’And the joining came like the sound of the river that flows free again.Out, out, into the night,The belfry bells are ours by right!And then, as King Bellamant stood there, thrilled and yet, as it were, turned to stone, by the magic of this conflict that raged above him, there came a sweeping rush down the belfry ladder. The lantern he carried showed him a rout of little, dark, evil people, clothed in dust and cobwebs, that scurried down the wooden steps gnashing their teeth and growling in the bitterness of a deserved defeat. They passed and there was silence. Then the King flew from rope to rope pulling lustily, and from above, the bells answered in their own clear beautiful voices—because the good Bell-folk had driven out the usurpers and had come to their own again.Ring-a-ring-a-ring-a-ring-a-ring! Ring, bell!A little baby comes on earth to dwell. Ring, bell!Sound, bell! Sound! Swell!Ring for joy and wish her well![p184]May her life tellNo tale of ill-spell!Ring, bell! Joy, bell! Love, bell! Ring!* * * * *‘But I don’t see,’ said King Bellamant, when he had told Queen Belinda all about it, ‘how it was that I came to hear them. The Enchanter of the Ringing Well said that only lovers could hear what the bells had to say, and then only when they were together.’‘You silly dear boy,’ said Queen Belinda, cuddling the baby princess close under her chin, ‘wearelovers, aren’t we? And you don’t suppose I wasn’t with you when you went to ring the bells for our baby—my heart and soul anyway—all of me that matters!’‘Yes,’ said the King, ‘of course you were. That accounts!’[p185]VIIIJUSTNOWLAND‘Auntie! No, no, no! I will be good. Oh, I will!’ The little weak voice came from the other side of the locked attic door.‘You should have thought of that before,’ said the strong, sharp voice outside.‘I didn’t mean to be naughty. I didn’t, truly.’‘It’s not what you mean, miss, it’s what you do. I’ll teach you not to mean, my lady.’The bitter irony of the last words dried the child’s tears. ‘Very well, then,’ she screamed, ‘I won’t be good; I won’t try to be good. I thought you’d like your nasty old garden weeded. I only did it to please you. How was I to know it was turnips? It looked just like weeds.’ Then came a pause, then another shriek. ‘Oh, Auntie, don’t! Oh, let me out—let me out!’‘I’ll not let you out till I’ve broken your spirit, my girl; you may rely on that.’[p186]The sharp voice stopped abruptly on a high note; determined feet in strong boots sounded on the stairs—fainter, fainter; a door slammed below with a dreadful definiteness, and Elsie was left alone, to wonder how soon her spirit would break—for at no less a price, it appeared, could freedom be bought.The outlook seemed hopeless. The martyrs and heroines, with whom Elsie usually identified herself,theirspirit had never been broken; not chains nor the rack nor the fiery stake itself had even weakened them. Imprisonment in an attic would to them have been luxury compared with the boiling oil and the smoking faggots and all the intimate cruelties of mysterious instruments of steel and leather, in cold dungeons, lit only by the dull flare of torches and the bright, watchful eyes of inquisitors.A month in the house of ‘Auntie’ self-styled, and really only an unrelated Mrs. Staines, paid to take care of the child, had held but one interest—Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. It was a horrible book—the thick oleographs, their guarding sheets of tissue paper sticking to the prints like bandages to a wound…. Elsie knew all about wounds: she had had one herself. Only a scalded hand, it is true, but a wound is a wound, all the world over. It was[p187a book that made you afraid to go to bed; but it was a book you could not help reading. And now it seemed as though it might at last help, and not merely sicken and terrify. But the help was frail, and broke almost instantly on the thought—‘Theywere brave because they were good: how can I be brave when there’s nothing to be brave about except me not knowing the difference between turnips and weeds?’She sank down, a huddled black bunch on the bare attic floor, and called wildly to some one who could not answer her. Her frock was black because the one who always used to answer could not answer any more. And her father was in India, where you cannot answer, or even hear, your little girl, however much she cries in England.‘I won’t cry,’ said Elsie, sobbing as violently as ever. ‘I can be brave, even if I’m not a saint but only a turnip-mistaker. I’ll be a Bastille prisoner, and tame a mouse!’ She dried her eyes, though the bosom of the black frock still heaved like the sea after a storm, and looked about for a mouse to tame. One could not begin too soon. But unfortunately there seemed to be no mouse at liberty just then. There were mouse-holes right enough, all round the wainscot, and in the broad, time-worn[p188boards of the old floor. But never a mouse.‘Mouse, mouse!’ Elsie called softly. ‘Mousie, mousie, come and be tamed!’Not a mouse replied.The attic was perfectly empty and dreadfully clean. The other attic, Elsie knew, had lots of interesting things in it—old furniture and saddles, and sacks of seed potatoes,—but in this attic nothing. Not so much as a bit of string on the floor that one could make knots in, or twist round one’s finger till it made the red ridges that are so interesting to look at afterwards; not even a piece of paper in the draughty, cold fireplace that one could make paper boats of, or prick letters in with a pin or the tag of one’s shoe-laces.As she stooped to see whether under the grate some old match-box or bit of twig might have escaped the broom, she saw suddenly what she had wanted most—a mouse. It was lying on its side. She put out her hand very slowly and gently, and whispered in her softest tones, ‘Wake up, Mousie, wake up, and come and be tamed.’ But the mouse never moved. And when she took it in her hand it was cold.‘Oh,’ she moaned, ‘you’re dead, and now I can never tame you’; and she sat on the cold[p189hearth and cried again, with the dead mouse in her lap.‘Don’t cry,’ said somebody. ‘I’ll find you something to tame—if you really want it.’Elsie started and saw the head of a black bird peering at her through the square opening that leads to the chimney. The edges of him looked ragged and rainbow-coloured, but that was because she saw him through tears. To a tearless eye he was black and very smooth and sleek.‘Oh!’ she said, and nothing more.‘Quite so,’ said the bird politely. ‘You are surprised to hear me speak, but your surprise will be, of course, much less when I tell you that I am really a Prime Minister condemned by an Enchanter to wear the form of a crow till … till I can get rid of it.’‘Oh!’ said Elsie.‘Yes, indeed,’ said the Crow, and suddenly grew smaller till he could come comfortably through the square opening. He did this, perched on the top bar, and hopped to the floor. And there he got bigger and bigger, and bigger and bigger and bigger. Elsie had scrambled to her feet, and then a black little girl of eight and of the usual size stood face to face with a crow as big as a man, and no doubt as old. She found words then.[p190]‘Oh, don’t!’ she cried. ‘Don’t get any bigger. I can’t bear it.’‘Ican’tdoit,’ said the Crow kindly, ‘so that’s all right. I thought you’d better get used to seeing rather large crows before I take you to Crownowland. We are all life-size there.’‘But a crow’s life-size isn’t a man’s life-size,’ Elsie managed to say.‘Oh yes, it is—when it’s an enchanted Crow,’ the bird replied. ‘That makes all the difference. Now you were saying you wanted to tame something. If you’ll come with me to Crownowland I’ll show you something worth taming.’‘Is Crow-what’s-its-name a nice place?’Elsie asked cautiously. She was, somehow, not so very frightened now.‘Very,’ said the Crow.‘Then perhaps I shall like it so much I sha’n’t want to be taming things.’‘Oh yes, you will, when you know how much depends on it.’‘But I shouldn’t like,’ said Elsie, ‘to go up the chimney. This isn’t my best frock, of course, but still….’‘Quite so,’ said the Crow. ‘I only came that way for fun, and because I can fly. You shall go in by the chief gate of the kingdom, like a lady. Do come.’[p191]But Elsie still hesitated. ‘What sort of thing is it you want me to tame?’ she said doubtfully.The enormous crow hesitated. ‘A—a sort of lizard,’ it said at last. ‘And if you can only tame it so that it will do what you tell it to, you’ll save the whole kingdom, and we’ll put up a statue to you; but not in the People’s Park, unless they wish it,’ the bird added mysteriously.‘I should like to save a kingdom,’ said Elsie, ‘and I like lizards. I’ve seen lots of them in India.’‘Then you’ll come?’ said the Crow.‘Yes. But how do we go?’‘There are only two doors out of this world into another,’ said the Crow. ‘I’ll take you through the nearest. Allow me!’ It put its wing round her so that her face nestled against the black softness of the under-wing feathers. It was warm and dark and sleepy there, and very comfortable. For a moment she seemed to swim easily in a soft sea of dreams. Then, with a little shock, she found herself standing on a marble terrace, looking out over a city far more beautiful and wonderful than she had ever seen or imagined. The great man-sized Crow was by her side.‘Now,’ it said, pointing with the longest of[p192its long black wing-feathers, ‘you see this beautiful city?’‘Yes,’ said Elsie, ‘of course I do.’‘Well … I hardly like to tell you the story,’ said the Crow, ‘but it’s a long time ago, and I hope you won’t think the worse of us—because we’re really very sorry.’‘If you’re really sorry,’ said Elsie primly, ‘of course it’s all right.’‘Unfortunately it isn’t,’ said the Crow. ‘You see the great square down there?’Elsie looked down on a square of green trees, broken a little towards the middle.‘Well, that’s where the … whereitis—what you’ve got to tame, you know.’‘But what did you do that was wrong?’‘We were unkind,’ said the Crow slowly, ‘and unjust, and ungenerous. We had servants and workpeople doing everything for us; we had nothing to dobutbe kind. And we weren’t.’‘Dear me,’ said Elsie feebly.‘We had several warnings,’ said the Crow. ‘There was an old parchment, and it said just how you ought to behave and all that. But we didn’t care what it said. I was Court Magician as well as Prime Minister, and I ought to have known better, but I didn’t. We all wore frock-coats and high hats then,’ he added sadly.[p193]‘Go on,’ said Elsie, her eyes wandering from one beautiful building to another of the many that nestled among the trees of the city.‘And the old parchment said that if we didn’t behave well our bodies would grow like our souls. But we didn’t think so. And then all in a minute theydid—and we were crows, and our bodies were as black as our souls. Our souls are quite white now,’ it added reassuringly.‘But what wasthedreadful thing you’d done?’‘We’d been unkind to the people who worked for us—not given them enough food or clothes or fire, and at last we took away even their play. There was a big park that the people played in, and we built a wall round it and took it for ourselves, and the King was going to set a statue of himself up in the middle. And then before we could begin to enjoy it we were turned into big black crows; and the working people into big white pigeons—andtheycan go where they like, but we have to stay here till we’ve tamed the…. We never can go into the park, until we’ve settled the thing that guards it. And that thing’s a big big lizard—in fact … it’s adragon!’‘Oh!’ cried Elsie; but she was not as frightened as the Crow seemed to expect.[p194Because every now and then she had felt sure that she was really safe in her own bed, and that this was a dream. It was not a dream, but the belief that it was made her very brave, and she felt quite sure that she could settle a dragon, if necessary—a dream dragon, that is. And the rest of the time she thought about Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and what a heroine she now had the chance to be.‘You want me to kill it?’ she asked.‘Oh no! To tame it,’ said the Crow.‘We’ve tried all sorts of means—long whips, like people tame horses with, and red-hot bars, such as lion-tamers use—and it’s all been perfectly useless; and there the dragon lives, and will live till some one can tame him and get him to follow them like a tame fawn, and eat out of their hand.’‘What does the dragonliketo eat?’ Elsie asked.‘Crows,’ replied the other in an uncomfortable whisper. ‘At leastI’venever known it eat anything else!’‘Am I to try to tame itnow?’ Elsie asked.‘Oh dear no,’ said the Crow. ‘We’ll have a banquet in your honour, and you shall have tea with the Princess.’‘How do you know who is a princess and who’s not, if you’re all crows?’ Elsie cried.[p195]‘How do you know one human being from another?’ the Crow replied. ‘Besides … Come on to the Palace.’It led her along the terrace, and down some marble steps to a small arched door. ‘The tradesmen’s entrance,’ it explained. ‘Excuse it—the courtiers are crowding in by the front door.’ Then through long corridors and passages they went, and at last into the throne-room. Many crows stood about in respectful attitudes. On the golden throne, leaning a gloomy head upon the first joint of his right wing, the Sovereign of Crownowland was musing dejectedly. A little girl of about Elsie’s age sat on the steps of the throne nursing a handsome doll.‘Who is the little girl?’ Elsie asked.‘Curtsey!That’s the Princess,’ the Prime Minister Crow whispered; and Elsie made the best curtsey she could think of in such a hurry. ‘She wasn’t wicked enough to be turned into a crow, or poor enough to be turned into a pigeon, so she remains a dear little girl, just as she always was.’The Princess dropped her doll and ran down the steps of the throne to meet Elsie.‘You dear!’ she said. ‘You’ve come to play with me, haven’t you? All the little girls I used to play with have turned into crows, and[p196their beaks aresoawkward at doll’s tea-parties, and wings are no good to nurse dollies with. Let’s have a doll’s tea-partynow, shall we?’‘May we?’ Elsie looked at the Crow King, who nodded his head hopelessly. So, hand in hand, they went.I wonder whether you have ever had the run of a perfectly beautiful palace and a nursery absolutely crammed with all the toys you ever had or wanted to have: dolls’ houses, dolls’ china tea-sets, rocking-horses, bricks, nine-pins, paint-boxes, conjuring tricks, pewter dinner-services, and any number of dolls—all most agreeable and distinguished. If you have, you may perhaps be able faintly to imagine Elsie’s happiness. And better than all the toys was the Princess Perdona—so gentle and kind and jolly, full of ideas for games, and surrounded by the means for playing them. Think of it, after that bare attic, with not even a bit of string to play with, and no company but the poor little dead mouse!There is no room in this story to tell you of all the games they had. I can only say that the time went by so quickly that they never noticed it going, and were amazed when the Crown nursemaid brought in the royal tea-tray. Tea was a beautiful meal—with pink iced cake in it.[p197]Now, all the time that these glorious games had been going on, and this magnificent tea, the wisest crows of Crownowland had been holding a council. They had decided that there was no time like the present, and that Elsie had better try to tame the dragon soon as late. ‘But,’ the King said, ‘she mustn’t run any risks. A guard of fifty stalwart crows must go with her, and if the dragon shows the least temper, fifty crows must throw themselves between her and danger, even if it cost fifty-one crow-lives. For I myself will lead that band. Who will volunteer?’Volunteers, to the number of some thousands, instantly stepped forward, and the Field Marshal selected fifty of the strongest crows.And then, in the pleasant pinkness of the sunset, Elsie was led out on to the palace steps, where the King made a speech and said what a heroine she was, and how like Joan of Arc. And the crows who had gathered from all parts of the town cheered madly. Did you ever hear crows cheering? It is a wonderful sound.Then Elsie got into a magnificent gilt coach, drawn by eight white horses, with a crow at the head of each horse. The Princess sat with her on the blue velvet cushions and held her hand.[p198]‘Iknowyou’ll do it,’ said she; ‘you’re so brave and clever, Elsie!’And Elsie felt braver than before, although now it did not seem so like a dream. But she thought of the martyrs, and held Perdona’s hand very tight.At the gates of the green park the Princess kissed and hugged her new friend—her state crown, which she had put on in honour of the occasion, got pushed quite on one side in the warmth of her embrace—and Elsie stepped out of the carriage. There was a great crowd of crows round the park gates, and every one cheered and shouted ‘Speech, speech!’Elsie got as far as ‘Ladies and gentlemen—Crows, I mean,’ and then she could not think of anything more, so she simply added, ‘Please, I’m ready.’I wish you could have heard those crows cheer.But Elsie wouldn’t have the escort.‘It’s very kind,’ she said, ‘but the dragon only eats crows, and I’m not a crow, thank goodness—I mean I’m not a crow—and if I’ve got to be brave I’d like tobebrave, and none of you to get eaten. If only some one will come with me to show me the way and then run back as hard as he can when we get near the dragon.Please!’[p199]‘If only one goesIshall be the one,’ said the King. And he and Elsie went through the great gates side by side. She held the end of his wing, which was the nearest they could get to hand in hand.The crowd outside waited in breathless silence. Elsie and the King went on through the winding paths of the People’s Park. And by the winding paths they came at last to the Dragon. He lay very peacefully on a great stone slab, his enormous bat-like wings spread out on the grass and his goldy-green scales glittering in the pretty pink sunset light.‘Go back!’ said Elsie.‘No,’ said the King.‘If you don’t,’ said Elsie, ‘Iwon’t goon. Seeing a crow might rouse him to fury, or give him an appetite, or something. Do—do go!’So he went, but not far. He hid behind a tree, and from its shelter he watched.Elsie drew a long breath. Her heart was thumping under the black frock. ‘Suppose,’ she thought, ‘he takes me for a crow!’ But she thought how yellow her hair was, and decided that the dragon would be certain to notice that.‘Quick march!’ she said to herself, ‘remember Joan of Arc,’ and walked right up to[p200the dragon. It never moved, but watched her suspiciously out of its bright green eyes.‘Dragon dear!’ she said in her clear little voice.‘Eh?’ said the dragon, in tones of extreme astonishment.‘Dragon dear,’ she repeated, ‘do you like sugar?’‘Yes,’ said the dragon.‘Well, I’ve brought you some. You won’t hurt me if I bring it to you?’The dragon violently shook its vast head.‘It’s not much,’ said Elsie, ‘but I saved it at tea-time. Four lumps. Two for each of my mugs of milk.’She laid the sugar on the stone slab by the dragon’s paw.It turned its head towards the sugar. The pinky sunset light fell on its face, and Elsie saw that it was weeping! Great fat tears as big as prize pears were coursing down its wrinkled cheeks.‘Oh, don’t,’ said Elsie, ‘don’tcry! Poor dragon, what’s the matter?’‘Oh!’ sobbed the dragon, ‘I’m only so glad you’ve come. I—I’ve been so lonely. No one to love me. Youdolove me, don’t you?’‘I—I’m sure I shall when I know you better,’ said Elsie kindly.[p201]‘Give me a kiss, dear,’ said the dragon, sniffing.It is no joke to kiss a dragon. But Elsie did it—somewhere on the hard green wrinkles of its forehead.‘Oh,thankyou,’ said the dragon, brushing away its tears with the tip of its tail. ‘That breaks the charm. I can move now. And I’ve got back all my lost wisdom. Come along—Idowant my tea!’So, to the waiting crowd at the gate came Elsie and the dragon side by side. And at sight of the dragon, tamed, a great shout went up from the crowd; and at that shout each one in the crowd turned quickly to the next one—for it was the shout of men, and not of crows. Because at the first sight of the dragon, tamed, they had left off being crows for ever and ever, and once again were men.The King came running through the gates, his royal robes held high, so that he shouldn’t trip over them, and he too was no longer a crow, but a man.And what did Elsie feel after being so brave? Well, she felt that she would like to cry, and also to laugh, and she felt that she loved not only the dragon, but every man, woman, and child in the whole world—even Mrs. Staines.[p202]She rode back to the Palace on the dragon’s back.And as they went the crowd of citizens who had been crows met the crowd of citizens who had been pigeons, and these were poor men in poor clothes.It would have done you good to see how the ones who had been rich and crows ran to meet the ones who had been pigeons and poor.‘Come and stay at my house, brother,’ they cried to those who had no homes. ‘Brother, I have many coats, come and choose some,’ they cried to the ragged. ‘Come and feast with me!’ they cried to all. And the rich and the poor went off arm in arm to feast and be glad that night, and the next day to work side by side. ‘For,’ said the King, speaking with his hand on the neck of the tamed dragon, ‘our land has been called Crownowland. But we are no longer crows. We are men: and we will be Just men. And our country shall be called Justnowland for ever and ever. And for the future we shall not be rich and poor, but fellow-workers, and each will do his best for his brothers and his own city. And your King shall be your servant!’I don’t know how they managed this, but no one seemed to think that there would be any difficulty about it when the King[p203mentioned it; and when people really make up their minds to do anything, difficulties do most oddly disappear.Wonderful rejoicings there were. The city was hung with flags and lamps. Bands played—the performers a little out of practice, because, of course, crows can’t play the flute or the violin or the trombone—but the effect was very gay indeed. Then came the time—it was quite dark—when the King rose up on his throne and spoke; and Elsie, among all her new friends, listened with them to his words.‘Our deliverer Elsie,’ he said, ‘was brought hither by the good magic of our Chief Mage and Prime Minister. She has removed the enchantment that held us; and the dragon, now that he has had his tea and recovered from the shock of being kindly treated, turns out to be the second strongest magician in the world,—and he will help us and advise us, so long as we remember that we are all brothers and fellow-workers. And now comes the time when our Elsie must return to her own place, or another go in her stead. But we cannot send back our heroine, our deliverer.’ (Long, loud cheering.) ‘So one shall take her place. Mydaughter——’The end of the sentence was lost in shouts of admiration. But Elsie stood up, small and[p204white in her black frock, and said, ‘No thank you. Perdona would simply hate it. And she doesn’t know my daddy. He’ll fetch me away from Mrs. Staines some day….’The thought of her daddy, far away in India, of the loneliness of Willow Farm, where now it would be night in that horrible bare attic where the poor dead untameable little mouse was, nearly choked Elsie. It was so bright and light and good and kind here. And India was so far away. Her voice stayed a moment on a broken note.‘I—I….’ Then she spoke firmly.‘Thank you all so much,’ she said—‘so very much. I do love you all, and it’s lovely here. But, please, I’d like to go home now.’The Prime Minister, in a silence full of love and understanding, folded his dark cloak round her.* * * * *It was dark in the attic. Elsie crouching alone in the blackness by the fireplace where the dead mouse had been, put out her hand to touch its cold fur.* * * * *There were wheels on the gravel outside—the knocker swung strongly—‘Rat-tat-tat-tat—Tat!Tat!’ A pause—voices—hasty feet in strong boots sounded on the stairs, the key[p205turned in the lock. The door opened a dazzling crack, then fully, to the glare of a lamp carried by Mrs. Staines.‘Come down at once. I’m sure you’re good now,’ she said, in a great hurry and in a new honeyed voice.But there were other feet on the stairs—a step that Elsie knew. ‘Where’s my girl?’ the voice she knew cried cheerfully. But under the cheerfulness Elsie heard something other and dearer. ‘Where’s my girl?’After all, it takes less than a month to come from India to the house in England where one’s heart is.Out of the bare attic and the darkness Elsie leapt into light, into arms she knew. ‘Oh, my daddy, my daddy!’ she cried. ‘How glad I am I came back!’[p206]IXTHE RELATED MUFFWehad never seen our cousin Sidney till that Christmas Eve, and we didn’t want to see him then, and we didn’t like him when we did see him. He was just dumped down into the middle of us by mother, at a time when it would have been unkind to her to say how little we wanted him.We knew already that there wasn’t to be any proper Christmas for us, because Aunt Ellie—the one who always used to send the necklaces and carved things from India, and remembered everybody’s birthday—had come home ill. Very ill she was, at a hotel in London, and mother had to go to her, and, of course, father was away with his ship.And then after we had said good-bye to mother, and told her how sorry we were, we were left to ourselves, and told each other what a shame it was, and no presents or anything. And then mother came suddenly back in a cab,[p207and we all shouted ‘Hooray’ when we saw the cab stop, and her get out of it. And then we saw she was getting something out of the cab, and our hearts leapt up like the man’s in the piece of school poetry when he beheld a rainbow in the sky—because we thought she had remembered about the presents, and the thing she was getting out of the cab wasthem.Of course it was not—it was Sidney, very thin and yellow, and looking as sullen as a pig.We opened the front door. Mother didn’t even come in. She just said, ‘Here’s your Cousin Sidney. Be nice to him and give him a good time, there’s darlings. And don’t forget he’s your visitor, so be very extra nice to him.’I have sometimes thought it was the fault of what mother said about the visitor that made what did happen happen, but I am almost sure really that it was the fault of us, though I did not see it at the time, and even now I’m sure we didn’t mean to be unkind. Quite the opposite. But the events of life are very confusing, especially when you try to think what made you do them, and whether you really meant to be naughty or not. Quite often it is not—but it turns out just the same.When the cab had carried mother away—Hilda said it was like a dragon carrying away[p208a queen—we said, ‘How do you do’ to our Cousin Sidney, who replied, ‘Quite well, thank you.’And then, curiously enough, no one could think of anything more to say.Then Rupert—which is me—remembered that about being a visitor, and he said:‘Won’t you come into the drawing-room?’He did when he had taken off his gloves and overcoat. There was a fire in the drawing-room, because we had been going to have games there with mother, only the telegram came about Aunt Ellie.So we all sat on chairs in the drawing-room, and thought of nothing to say harder than ever.Hilda did say, ‘How old are you?’ but, of course, we knew the answer to that. It was ten.And Hugh said, ‘Do you like England or India best?’And our cousin replied, ‘India ever so much, thank you.’I never felt such a duffer. It was awful. With all the millions of interesting things that there are to say at other times, and I couldn’t think of one. At last I said, ‘Do you like games?’[opp p208]So we all sat on chairs in the drawing-room, and thought of nothing to say harder than ever.And our cousin replied, ‘Some games I do,’ in a tone that made me sure that the games he[p209liked wouldn’t be our kind, but some wild Indian sort that we didn’t know.I could see that the others were feeling just like me, and I knew we could not go on like this till tea-time. And yet I didn’t see any other way to go on in. It was Hilda who cut the Gorgeous knot at last. She said:‘Hugh, let you and I go and make a lovely surprise for Rupert and Sidney.’And before I could think of any way of stopping them without being downright rude to our new cousin, they had fled the scene, just like any old conspirators. Rupert—me, I mean—was left alone with the stranger. I said:‘Is there anything you’d like to do?’And he said, ‘No, thank you.’Then neither of us said anything for a bit—and I could hear the others shrieking with laughter in the hall.I said, ‘I wonder what the surprise will be like.’He said, ‘Yes, I wonder’; but I could tell from his tone that he did not wonder a bit.The others were yelling with laughter. Have you ever noticed how very amused people always are when you’re not there? If you’re in bed—ill, or in disgrace, or anything—it always sounds like far finer jokes than ever occur when you are not out of things.[p210]‘Do you like reading?’ said I—who am Rupert—in the tones of despair.‘Yes,’ said the cousin.‘Then take a book,’ I said hastily, for I really could not stand it another second, ‘and you just read till the surprise is ready. I think I ought to go and help the others. I’m the eldest, you know.’I did not wait—I suppose if you’re ten you can choose a book for yourself—and I went.Hilda’s idea was just Indians, but I thought a wigwam would be nice. So we made one with the hall table and the fur rugs off the floor. If everything had been different, and Aunt Ellie hadn’t been ill, we were to have had turkey for dinner. The turkey’s feathers were splendid for Indians, and the striped blankets off Hugh’s and my beds, and all mother’s beads. The hall is big like a room, and there was a fire. The afternoon passed like a beautiful dream. When Rupert had done his own feathering and blanketing, as well as brown paper moccasins, he helped the others. The tea-bell rang before we were quite dressed. We got Louisa to go up and tell our cousin that the surprise was ready, and we all got inside the wigwam. It was a very tight fit, with the feathers and the blankets.He came down the stairs very slowly, reading[p211all the time, and when he got to the mat at the bottom of the stairs we burst forth in all our war-paint from the wigwam. It upset, because Hugh and Hilda stuck between the table’s legs, and it fell on the stone floor with quite a loud noise. The wild Indians picked themselves up out of the ruins and did the finest war-dance I’ve ever seen in front of my cousin Sidney.He gave one little scream, and then sat down suddenly on the bottom steps. He leaned his head against the banisters and we thought he was admiring the war-dance, till Eliza, who had been laughing and making as much noise as any one, suddenly went up to him and shook him.‘Stop that noise,’ she said to us, ‘he’s gone off into a dead faint.’He had.Of course we were very sorry and all that, but we never thought he’d be such a muff as to be frightened of three Red Indians and a wigwam that happened to upset. He was put to bed, and we had our teas.‘I wish we hadn’t,’ Hilda said.‘So do I,’ said Hugh.But Rupert said, ‘No onecouldhave expected a cousin of ours to be a chicken-hearted duffer. He’s a muff. It’s bad enough[p212to have a muff in the house at all, and at Christmas time, too. But a related muff!’Still the affair had cast a gloom, and we were glad when it was bed-time.Next day was Christmas Day, and no presents, and nobody but the servants to wish a Merry Christmas to.Our cousin Sidney came down to breakfast, and as it was Christmas Day Rupert bent his proud spirit to own he was sorry about the Indians.Sidney said, ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry too. Only I didn’t expect it.’We suggested two or three games, such as Parlour Cricket, National Gallery, and Grab—but Sidney said he would rather read. So we said would he mind if we played out the Indian game which we had dropped, out of politeness, when he fainted.He said:‘I don’t mind at all, now I know what it is you’re up to. No, thank you, I’d rather read,’ he added, in reply to Rupert’s unselfish offer to dress him for the part of Sitting Bull.So he readTreasure Island, and we fought on the stairs with no casualties except the gas globes, and then we scalped all the dolls—putting on paper scalps first because Hilda wished it—and we scalped Eliza as she passed[p213through the hall—hers was a white scalp with lacey stuff on it and long streamers.[opp p213]‘We scalped Eliza as she passed through the hall.’And when it was beginning to get dark we thought of flying machines. Of course Sidney wouldn’t play at that either, and Hilda and Hugh were contented with paper wings—there were some rolls of rather decent yellow and pink crinkled paper that mother had bought to make lamp shades of. They made wings of this, and then they played at fairies up and down the stairs, while Sidney sat at the bottom of the stairs and went on readingTreasure Island. But Rupert was determined to have a flying machine, with real flipper-flappery wings, like at Hendon. So he got two brass fire-guards out of the spare room and mother’s bedroom, and covered them with newspapers fastened on with string. Then he got a tea-tray and fastened it on to himself with rug-straps, and then he slipped his arms in between the string and the fire-guards, and went to the top of the stairs and shouting, ‘Look out below there! Beware Flying Machines!’ he sat down suddenly on the tray, and tobogganed gloriously down the stairs, flapping his fire-guard wings. It was a great success, and felt more like flying than anything he ever played at. But Hilda had not had time to look out thoroughly, because he did not wait any time between his[p214warning and his descent. So that she was still fluttering, in the character of Queen of the Butterfly Fairies, about half-way down the stairs when the flying machine, composed of the two guards, the tea-tray, and Rupert, started from the top of them, and she could only get out of the way by standing back close against the wall. Unluckily the place where she was, was also the place where the gas was burning in a little recess. You remember we had broken the globe when we were playing Indians.Now, of course, you know what happened, because you have readHarriett and the Matches, and all the rest of the stories that have been written to persuade children not to play with fire. No one was playing with fire that day, it is true, or doing anything really naughty at all—but however naughty we had been the thing that happened couldn’t have been much worse. For the flying machine as it came rushing round the curve of the staircase banged against the legs of Hilda. She screamed and stumbled back. Her pink paper wings went into the gas that hadn’t a globe. They flamed up, her hair frizzled, and her lace collar caught fire. Rupert could not do anything because he was held fast in his flying machine, and he and it were rolling painfully on the mat at the bottom of the stairs.
* * * * *
So they went home and were married, and the Princess did not wear a veil at the wedding. She said she had had enough veils to last her time.
* * * * *
And a year and a day after that a little daughter was born to them.
‘Now sweetheart,’ said King Bellamant—he was king now because the old king and queen had retired from the business, and were keeping pigs and hens in the country as they[p182had always planned to do—‘dear sweetheart and life’s love, I am going to ring the bells with my own hands, to show how glad I am for you, and for the child, and for our good life together.’
So he went out. It was very dark, because the baby princess had chosen to be born at midnight.
The King went out to the belfry, that stood in the great, bare, quiet, moonlit square, and he opened the door. The furry-pussy bell-ropes, like huge caterpillars, hung on the first loft. The King began to climb the curly-wurly stone stair. And as he went up he heard a noise, the strangest noises, stamping and rustling and deep breathings.
He stood still in the ringers’ loft where the pussy-furry caterpillary bell-robes hung, and from the belfry above he heard the noise of strong fighting, and mixed with it the sound of voices angry and desperate, but with a noble note that thrilled the soul of the hearer like the sound of the trumpet in battle. And the voices cried:
Down, down—away, away,When good has come ill may not stay,Out, out, into the night,The belfry bells are ours by right!
Down, down—away, away,
When good has come ill may not stay,
Out, out, into the night,
The belfry bells are ours by right!
[p183]And the words broke and joined again, like water when it flows against the piers of a bridge. ‘Down,down——.’‘Ill may notstay——.’‘Good hascome——.’‘Away,away——.’And the joining came like the sound of the river that flows free again.
Out, out, into the night,The belfry bells are ours by right!
Out, out, into the night,
The belfry bells are ours by right!
And then, as King Bellamant stood there, thrilled and yet, as it were, turned to stone, by the magic of this conflict that raged above him, there came a sweeping rush down the belfry ladder. The lantern he carried showed him a rout of little, dark, evil people, clothed in dust and cobwebs, that scurried down the wooden steps gnashing their teeth and growling in the bitterness of a deserved defeat. They passed and there was silence. Then the King flew from rope to rope pulling lustily, and from above, the bells answered in their own clear beautiful voices—because the good Bell-folk had driven out the usurpers and had come to their own again.
Ring-a-ring-a-ring-a-ring-a-ring! Ring, bell!A little baby comes on earth to dwell. Ring, bell!Sound, bell! Sound! Swell!Ring for joy and wish her well![p184]May her life tellNo tale of ill-spell!Ring, bell! Joy, bell! Love, bell! Ring!
Ring-a-ring-a-ring-a-ring-a-ring! Ring, bell!
A little baby comes on earth to dwell. Ring, bell!
Sound, bell! Sound! Swell!
Ring for joy and wish her well!
[p184]May her life tell
No tale of ill-spell!
Ring, bell! Joy, bell! Love, bell! Ring!
* * * * *
‘But I don’t see,’ said King Bellamant, when he had told Queen Belinda all about it, ‘how it was that I came to hear them. The Enchanter of the Ringing Well said that only lovers could hear what the bells had to say, and then only when they were together.’
‘You silly dear boy,’ said Queen Belinda, cuddling the baby princess close under her chin, ‘wearelovers, aren’t we? And you don’t suppose I wasn’t with you when you went to ring the bells for our baby—my heart and soul anyway—all of me that matters!’
‘Yes,’ said the King, ‘of course you were. That accounts!’
‘Auntie! No, no, no! I will be good. Oh, I will!’ The little weak voice came from the other side of the locked attic door.
‘You should have thought of that before,’ said the strong, sharp voice outside.
‘I didn’t mean to be naughty. I didn’t, truly.’
‘It’s not what you mean, miss, it’s what you do. I’ll teach you not to mean, my lady.’
The bitter irony of the last words dried the child’s tears. ‘Very well, then,’ she screamed, ‘I won’t be good; I won’t try to be good. I thought you’d like your nasty old garden weeded. I only did it to please you. How was I to know it was turnips? It looked just like weeds.’ Then came a pause, then another shriek. ‘Oh, Auntie, don’t! Oh, let me out—let me out!’
‘I’ll not let you out till I’ve broken your spirit, my girl; you may rely on that.’
[p186]The sharp voice stopped abruptly on a high note; determined feet in strong boots sounded on the stairs—fainter, fainter; a door slammed below with a dreadful definiteness, and Elsie was left alone, to wonder how soon her spirit would break—for at no less a price, it appeared, could freedom be bought.
The outlook seemed hopeless. The martyrs and heroines, with whom Elsie usually identified herself,theirspirit had never been broken; not chains nor the rack nor the fiery stake itself had even weakened them. Imprisonment in an attic would to them have been luxury compared with the boiling oil and the smoking faggots and all the intimate cruelties of mysterious instruments of steel and leather, in cold dungeons, lit only by the dull flare of torches and the bright, watchful eyes of inquisitors.
A month in the house of ‘Auntie’ self-styled, and really only an unrelated Mrs. Staines, paid to take care of the child, had held but one interest—Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. It was a horrible book—the thick oleographs, their guarding sheets of tissue paper sticking to the prints like bandages to a wound…. Elsie knew all about wounds: she had had one herself. Only a scalded hand, it is true, but a wound is a wound, all the world over. It was[p187a book that made you afraid to go to bed; but it was a book you could not help reading. And now it seemed as though it might at last help, and not merely sicken and terrify. But the help was frail, and broke almost instantly on the thought—‘Theywere brave because they were good: how can I be brave when there’s nothing to be brave about except me not knowing the difference between turnips and weeds?’
She sank down, a huddled black bunch on the bare attic floor, and called wildly to some one who could not answer her. Her frock was black because the one who always used to answer could not answer any more. And her father was in India, where you cannot answer, or even hear, your little girl, however much she cries in England.
‘I won’t cry,’ said Elsie, sobbing as violently as ever. ‘I can be brave, even if I’m not a saint but only a turnip-mistaker. I’ll be a Bastille prisoner, and tame a mouse!’ She dried her eyes, though the bosom of the black frock still heaved like the sea after a storm, and looked about for a mouse to tame. One could not begin too soon. But unfortunately there seemed to be no mouse at liberty just then. There were mouse-holes right enough, all round the wainscot, and in the broad, time-worn[p188boards of the old floor. But never a mouse.
‘Mouse, mouse!’ Elsie called softly. ‘Mousie, mousie, come and be tamed!’
Not a mouse replied.
The attic was perfectly empty and dreadfully clean. The other attic, Elsie knew, had lots of interesting things in it—old furniture and saddles, and sacks of seed potatoes,—but in this attic nothing. Not so much as a bit of string on the floor that one could make knots in, or twist round one’s finger till it made the red ridges that are so interesting to look at afterwards; not even a piece of paper in the draughty, cold fireplace that one could make paper boats of, or prick letters in with a pin or the tag of one’s shoe-laces.
As she stooped to see whether under the grate some old match-box or bit of twig might have escaped the broom, she saw suddenly what she had wanted most—a mouse. It was lying on its side. She put out her hand very slowly and gently, and whispered in her softest tones, ‘Wake up, Mousie, wake up, and come and be tamed.’ But the mouse never moved. And when she took it in her hand it was cold.
‘Oh,’ she moaned, ‘you’re dead, and now I can never tame you’; and she sat on the cold[p189hearth and cried again, with the dead mouse in her lap.
‘Don’t cry,’ said somebody. ‘I’ll find you something to tame—if you really want it.’
Elsie started and saw the head of a black bird peering at her through the square opening that leads to the chimney. The edges of him looked ragged and rainbow-coloured, but that was because she saw him through tears. To a tearless eye he was black and very smooth and sleek.
‘Oh!’ she said, and nothing more.
‘Quite so,’ said the bird politely. ‘You are surprised to hear me speak, but your surprise will be, of course, much less when I tell you that I am really a Prime Minister condemned by an Enchanter to wear the form of a crow till … till I can get rid of it.’
‘Oh!’ said Elsie.
‘Yes, indeed,’ said the Crow, and suddenly grew smaller till he could come comfortably through the square opening. He did this, perched on the top bar, and hopped to the floor. And there he got bigger and bigger, and bigger and bigger and bigger. Elsie had scrambled to her feet, and then a black little girl of eight and of the usual size stood face to face with a crow as big as a man, and no doubt as old. She found words then.
[p190]‘Oh, don’t!’ she cried. ‘Don’t get any bigger. I can’t bear it.’
‘Ican’tdoit,’ said the Crow kindly, ‘so that’s all right. I thought you’d better get used to seeing rather large crows before I take you to Crownowland. We are all life-size there.’
‘But a crow’s life-size isn’t a man’s life-size,’ Elsie managed to say.
‘Oh yes, it is—when it’s an enchanted Crow,’ the bird replied. ‘That makes all the difference. Now you were saying you wanted to tame something. If you’ll come with me to Crownowland I’ll show you something worth taming.’
‘Is Crow-what’s-its-name a nice place?’Elsie asked cautiously. She was, somehow, not so very frightened now.
‘Very,’ said the Crow.
‘Then perhaps I shall like it so much I sha’n’t want to be taming things.’
‘Oh yes, you will, when you know how much depends on it.’
‘But I shouldn’t like,’ said Elsie, ‘to go up the chimney. This isn’t my best frock, of course, but still….’
‘Quite so,’ said the Crow. ‘I only came that way for fun, and because I can fly. You shall go in by the chief gate of the kingdom, like a lady. Do come.’
[p191]But Elsie still hesitated. ‘What sort of thing is it you want me to tame?’ she said doubtfully.
The enormous crow hesitated. ‘A—a sort of lizard,’ it said at last. ‘And if you can only tame it so that it will do what you tell it to, you’ll save the whole kingdom, and we’ll put up a statue to you; but not in the People’s Park, unless they wish it,’ the bird added mysteriously.
‘I should like to save a kingdom,’ said Elsie, ‘and I like lizards. I’ve seen lots of them in India.’
‘Then you’ll come?’ said the Crow.
‘Yes. But how do we go?’
‘There are only two doors out of this world into another,’ said the Crow. ‘I’ll take you through the nearest. Allow me!’ It put its wing round her so that her face nestled against the black softness of the under-wing feathers. It was warm and dark and sleepy there, and very comfortable. For a moment she seemed to swim easily in a soft sea of dreams. Then, with a little shock, she found herself standing on a marble terrace, looking out over a city far more beautiful and wonderful than she had ever seen or imagined. The great man-sized Crow was by her side.
‘Now,’ it said, pointing with the longest of[p192its long black wing-feathers, ‘you see this beautiful city?’
‘Yes,’ said Elsie, ‘of course I do.’
‘Well … I hardly like to tell you the story,’ said the Crow, ‘but it’s a long time ago, and I hope you won’t think the worse of us—because we’re really very sorry.’
‘If you’re really sorry,’ said Elsie primly, ‘of course it’s all right.’
‘Unfortunately it isn’t,’ said the Crow. ‘You see the great square down there?’
Elsie looked down on a square of green trees, broken a little towards the middle.
‘Well, that’s where the … whereitis—what you’ve got to tame, you know.’
‘But what did you do that was wrong?’
‘We were unkind,’ said the Crow slowly, ‘and unjust, and ungenerous. We had servants and workpeople doing everything for us; we had nothing to dobutbe kind. And we weren’t.’
‘Dear me,’ said Elsie feebly.
‘We had several warnings,’ said the Crow. ‘There was an old parchment, and it said just how you ought to behave and all that. But we didn’t care what it said. I was Court Magician as well as Prime Minister, and I ought to have known better, but I didn’t. We all wore frock-coats and high hats then,’ he added sadly.
[p193]‘Go on,’ said Elsie, her eyes wandering from one beautiful building to another of the many that nestled among the trees of the city.
‘And the old parchment said that if we didn’t behave well our bodies would grow like our souls. But we didn’t think so. And then all in a minute theydid—and we were crows, and our bodies were as black as our souls. Our souls are quite white now,’ it added reassuringly.
‘But what wasthedreadful thing you’d done?’
‘We’d been unkind to the people who worked for us—not given them enough food or clothes or fire, and at last we took away even their play. There was a big park that the people played in, and we built a wall round it and took it for ourselves, and the King was going to set a statue of himself up in the middle. And then before we could begin to enjoy it we were turned into big black crows; and the working people into big white pigeons—andtheycan go where they like, but we have to stay here till we’ve tamed the…. We never can go into the park, until we’ve settled the thing that guards it. And that thing’s a big big lizard—in fact … it’s adragon!’
‘Oh!’ cried Elsie; but she was not as frightened as the Crow seemed to expect.[p194Because every now and then she had felt sure that she was really safe in her own bed, and that this was a dream. It was not a dream, but the belief that it was made her very brave, and she felt quite sure that she could settle a dragon, if necessary—a dream dragon, that is. And the rest of the time she thought about Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and what a heroine she now had the chance to be.
‘You want me to kill it?’ she asked.
‘Oh no! To tame it,’ said the Crow.
‘We’ve tried all sorts of means—long whips, like people tame horses with, and red-hot bars, such as lion-tamers use—and it’s all been perfectly useless; and there the dragon lives, and will live till some one can tame him and get him to follow them like a tame fawn, and eat out of their hand.’
‘What does the dragonliketo eat?’ Elsie asked.
‘Crows,’ replied the other in an uncomfortable whisper. ‘At leastI’venever known it eat anything else!’
‘Am I to try to tame itnow?’ Elsie asked.
‘Oh dear no,’ said the Crow. ‘We’ll have a banquet in your honour, and you shall have tea with the Princess.’
‘How do you know who is a princess and who’s not, if you’re all crows?’ Elsie cried.
[p195]‘How do you know one human being from another?’ the Crow replied. ‘Besides … Come on to the Palace.’
It led her along the terrace, and down some marble steps to a small arched door. ‘The tradesmen’s entrance,’ it explained. ‘Excuse it—the courtiers are crowding in by the front door.’ Then through long corridors and passages they went, and at last into the throne-room. Many crows stood about in respectful attitudes. On the golden throne, leaning a gloomy head upon the first joint of his right wing, the Sovereign of Crownowland was musing dejectedly. A little girl of about Elsie’s age sat on the steps of the throne nursing a handsome doll.
‘Who is the little girl?’ Elsie asked.
‘Curtsey!That’s the Princess,’ the Prime Minister Crow whispered; and Elsie made the best curtsey she could think of in such a hurry. ‘She wasn’t wicked enough to be turned into a crow, or poor enough to be turned into a pigeon, so she remains a dear little girl, just as she always was.’
The Princess dropped her doll and ran down the steps of the throne to meet Elsie.
‘You dear!’ she said. ‘You’ve come to play with me, haven’t you? All the little girls I used to play with have turned into crows, and[p196their beaks aresoawkward at doll’s tea-parties, and wings are no good to nurse dollies with. Let’s have a doll’s tea-partynow, shall we?’
‘May we?’ Elsie looked at the Crow King, who nodded his head hopelessly. So, hand in hand, they went.
I wonder whether you have ever had the run of a perfectly beautiful palace and a nursery absolutely crammed with all the toys you ever had or wanted to have: dolls’ houses, dolls’ china tea-sets, rocking-horses, bricks, nine-pins, paint-boxes, conjuring tricks, pewter dinner-services, and any number of dolls—all most agreeable and distinguished. If you have, you may perhaps be able faintly to imagine Elsie’s happiness. And better than all the toys was the Princess Perdona—so gentle and kind and jolly, full of ideas for games, and surrounded by the means for playing them. Think of it, after that bare attic, with not even a bit of string to play with, and no company but the poor little dead mouse!
There is no room in this story to tell you of all the games they had. I can only say that the time went by so quickly that they never noticed it going, and were amazed when the Crown nursemaid brought in the royal tea-tray. Tea was a beautiful meal—with pink iced cake in it.
[p197]Now, all the time that these glorious games had been going on, and this magnificent tea, the wisest crows of Crownowland had been holding a council. They had decided that there was no time like the present, and that Elsie had better try to tame the dragon soon as late. ‘But,’ the King said, ‘she mustn’t run any risks. A guard of fifty stalwart crows must go with her, and if the dragon shows the least temper, fifty crows must throw themselves between her and danger, even if it cost fifty-one crow-lives. For I myself will lead that band. Who will volunteer?’
Volunteers, to the number of some thousands, instantly stepped forward, and the Field Marshal selected fifty of the strongest crows.
And then, in the pleasant pinkness of the sunset, Elsie was led out on to the palace steps, where the King made a speech and said what a heroine she was, and how like Joan of Arc. And the crows who had gathered from all parts of the town cheered madly. Did you ever hear crows cheering? It is a wonderful sound.
Then Elsie got into a magnificent gilt coach, drawn by eight white horses, with a crow at the head of each horse. The Princess sat with her on the blue velvet cushions and held her hand.
[p198]‘Iknowyou’ll do it,’ said she; ‘you’re so brave and clever, Elsie!’
And Elsie felt braver than before, although now it did not seem so like a dream. But she thought of the martyrs, and held Perdona’s hand very tight.
At the gates of the green park the Princess kissed and hugged her new friend—her state crown, which she had put on in honour of the occasion, got pushed quite on one side in the warmth of her embrace—and Elsie stepped out of the carriage. There was a great crowd of crows round the park gates, and every one cheered and shouted ‘Speech, speech!’
Elsie got as far as ‘Ladies and gentlemen—Crows, I mean,’ and then she could not think of anything more, so she simply added, ‘Please, I’m ready.’
I wish you could have heard those crows cheer.
But Elsie wouldn’t have the escort.
‘It’s very kind,’ she said, ‘but the dragon only eats crows, and I’m not a crow, thank goodness—I mean I’m not a crow—and if I’ve got to be brave I’d like tobebrave, and none of you to get eaten. If only some one will come with me to show me the way and then run back as hard as he can when we get near the dragon.Please!’
[p199]‘If only one goesIshall be the one,’ said the King. And he and Elsie went through the great gates side by side. She held the end of his wing, which was the nearest they could get to hand in hand.
The crowd outside waited in breathless silence. Elsie and the King went on through the winding paths of the People’s Park. And by the winding paths they came at last to the Dragon. He lay very peacefully on a great stone slab, his enormous bat-like wings spread out on the grass and his goldy-green scales glittering in the pretty pink sunset light.
‘Go back!’ said Elsie.
‘No,’ said the King.
‘If you don’t,’ said Elsie, ‘Iwon’t goon. Seeing a crow might rouse him to fury, or give him an appetite, or something. Do—do go!’
So he went, but not far. He hid behind a tree, and from its shelter he watched.
Elsie drew a long breath. Her heart was thumping under the black frock. ‘Suppose,’ she thought, ‘he takes me for a crow!’ But she thought how yellow her hair was, and decided that the dragon would be certain to notice that.
‘Quick march!’ she said to herself, ‘remember Joan of Arc,’ and walked right up to[p200the dragon. It never moved, but watched her suspiciously out of its bright green eyes.
‘Dragon dear!’ she said in her clear little voice.
‘Eh?’ said the dragon, in tones of extreme astonishment.
‘Dragon dear,’ she repeated, ‘do you like sugar?’
‘Yes,’ said the dragon.
‘Well, I’ve brought you some. You won’t hurt me if I bring it to you?’
The dragon violently shook its vast head.
‘It’s not much,’ said Elsie, ‘but I saved it at tea-time. Four lumps. Two for each of my mugs of milk.’
She laid the sugar on the stone slab by the dragon’s paw.
It turned its head towards the sugar. The pinky sunset light fell on its face, and Elsie saw that it was weeping! Great fat tears as big as prize pears were coursing down its wrinkled cheeks.
‘Oh, don’t,’ said Elsie, ‘don’tcry! Poor dragon, what’s the matter?’
‘Oh!’ sobbed the dragon, ‘I’m only so glad you’ve come. I—I’ve been so lonely. No one to love me. Youdolove me, don’t you?’
‘I—I’m sure I shall when I know you better,’ said Elsie kindly.
[p201]‘Give me a kiss, dear,’ said the dragon, sniffing.
It is no joke to kiss a dragon. But Elsie did it—somewhere on the hard green wrinkles of its forehead.
‘Oh,thankyou,’ said the dragon, brushing away its tears with the tip of its tail. ‘That breaks the charm. I can move now. And I’ve got back all my lost wisdom. Come along—Idowant my tea!’
So, to the waiting crowd at the gate came Elsie and the dragon side by side. And at sight of the dragon, tamed, a great shout went up from the crowd; and at that shout each one in the crowd turned quickly to the next one—for it was the shout of men, and not of crows. Because at the first sight of the dragon, tamed, they had left off being crows for ever and ever, and once again were men.
The King came running through the gates, his royal robes held high, so that he shouldn’t trip over them, and he too was no longer a crow, but a man.
And what did Elsie feel after being so brave? Well, she felt that she would like to cry, and also to laugh, and she felt that she loved not only the dragon, but every man, woman, and child in the whole world—even Mrs. Staines.
[p202]She rode back to the Palace on the dragon’s back.
And as they went the crowd of citizens who had been crows met the crowd of citizens who had been pigeons, and these were poor men in poor clothes.
It would have done you good to see how the ones who had been rich and crows ran to meet the ones who had been pigeons and poor.
‘Come and stay at my house, brother,’ they cried to those who had no homes. ‘Brother, I have many coats, come and choose some,’ they cried to the ragged. ‘Come and feast with me!’ they cried to all. And the rich and the poor went off arm in arm to feast and be glad that night, and the next day to work side by side. ‘For,’ said the King, speaking with his hand on the neck of the tamed dragon, ‘our land has been called Crownowland. But we are no longer crows. We are men: and we will be Just men. And our country shall be called Justnowland for ever and ever. And for the future we shall not be rich and poor, but fellow-workers, and each will do his best for his brothers and his own city. And your King shall be your servant!’
I don’t know how they managed this, but no one seemed to think that there would be any difficulty about it when the King[p203mentioned it; and when people really make up their minds to do anything, difficulties do most oddly disappear.
Wonderful rejoicings there were. The city was hung with flags and lamps. Bands played—the performers a little out of practice, because, of course, crows can’t play the flute or the violin or the trombone—but the effect was very gay indeed. Then came the time—it was quite dark—when the King rose up on his throne and spoke; and Elsie, among all her new friends, listened with them to his words.
‘Our deliverer Elsie,’ he said, ‘was brought hither by the good magic of our Chief Mage and Prime Minister. She has removed the enchantment that held us; and the dragon, now that he has had his tea and recovered from the shock of being kindly treated, turns out to be the second strongest magician in the world,—and he will help us and advise us, so long as we remember that we are all brothers and fellow-workers. And now comes the time when our Elsie must return to her own place, or another go in her stead. But we cannot send back our heroine, our deliverer.’ (Long, loud cheering.) ‘So one shall take her place. Mydaughter——’
The end of the sentence was lost in shouts of admiration. But Elsie stood up, small and[p204white in her black frock, and said, ‘No thank you. Perdona would simply hate it. And she doesn’t know my daddy. He’ll fetch me away from Mrs. Staines some day….’
The thought of her daddy, far away in India, of the loneliness of Willow Farm, where now it would be night in that horrible bare attic where the poor dead untameable little mouse was, nearly choked Elsie. It was so bright and light and good and kind here. And India was so far away. Her voice stayed a moment on a broken note.
‘I—I….’ Then she spoke firmly.
‘Thank you all so much,’ she said—‘so very much. I do love you all, and it’s lovely here. But, please, I’d like to go home now.’
The Prime Minister, in a silence full of love and understanding, folded his dark cloak round her.
* * * * *
It was dark in the attic. Elsie crouching alone in the blackness by the fireplace where the dead mouse had been, put out her hand to touch its cold fur.
* * * * *
There were wheels on the gravel outside—the knocker swung strongly—‘Rat-tat-tat-tat—Tat!Tat!’ A pause—voices—hasty feet in strong boots sounded on the stairs, the key[p205turned in the lock. The door opened a dazzling crack, then fully, to the glare of a lamp carried by Mrs. Staines.
‘Come down at once. I’m sure you’re good now,’ she said, in a great hurry and in a new honeyed voice.
But there were other feet on the stairs—a step that Elsie knew. ‘Where’s my girl?’ the voice she knew cried cheerfully. But under the cheerfulness Elsie heard something other and dearer. ‘Where’s my girl?’
After all, it takes less than a month to come from India to the house in England where one’s heart is.
Out of the bare attic and the darkness Elsie leapt into light, into arms she knew. ‘Oh, my daddy, my daddy!’ she cried. ‘How glad I am I came back!’
Wehad never seen our cousin Sidney till that Christmas Eve, and we didn’t want to see him then, and we didn’t like him when we did see him. He was just dumped down into the middle of us by mother, at a time when it would have been unkind to her to say how little we wanted him.
We knew already that there wasn’t to be any proper Christmas for us, because Aunt Ellie—the one who always used to send the necklaces and carved things from India, and remembered everybody’s birthday—had come home ill. Very ill she was, at a hotel in London, and mother had to go to her, and, of course, father was away with his ship.
And then after we had said good-bye to mother, and told her how sorry we were, we were left to ourselves, and told each other what a shame it was, and no presents or anything. And then mother came suddenly back in a cab,[p207and we all shouted ‘Hooray’ when we saw the cab stop, and her get out of it. And then we saw she was getting something out of the cab, and our hearts leapt up like the man’s in the piece of school poetry when he beheld a rainbow in the sky—because we thought she had remembered about the presents, and the thing she was getting out of the cab wasthem.
Of course it was not—it was Sidney, very thin and yellow, and looking as sullen as a pig.
We opened the front door. Mother didn’t even come in. She just said, ‘Here’s your Cousin Sidney. Be nice to him and give him a good time, there’s darlings. And don’t forget he’s your visitor, so be very extra nice to him.’
I have sometimes thought it was the fault of what mother said about the visitor that made what did happen happen, but I am almost sure really that it was the fault of us, though I did not see it at the time, and even now I’m sure we didn’t mean to be unkind. Quite the opposite. But the events of life are very confusing, especially when you try to think what made you do them, and whether you really meant to be naughty or not. Quite often it is not—but it turns out just the same.
When the cab had carried mother away—Hilda said it was like a dragon carrying away[p208a queen—we said, ‘How do you do’ to our Cousin Sidney, who replied, ‘Quite well, thank you.’
And then, curiously enough, no one could think of anything more to say.
Then Rupert—which is me—remembered that about being a visitor, and he said:
‘Won’t you come into the drawing-room?’
He did when he had taken off his gloves and overcoat. There was a fire in the drawing-room, because we had been going to have games there with mother, only the telegram came about Aunt Ellie.
So we all sat on chairs in the drawing-room, and thought of nothing to say harder than ever.
Hilda did say, ‘How old are you?’ but, of course, we knew the answer to that. It was ten.
And Hugh said, ‘Do you like England or India best?’
And our cousin replied, ‘India ever so much, thank you.’
I never felt such a duffer. It was awful. With all the millions of interesting things that there are to say at other times, and I couldn’t think of one. At last I said, ‘Do you like games?’
[opp p208]So we all sat on chairs in the drawing-room, and thought of nothing to say harder than ever.
[opp p208]So we all sat on chairs in the drawing-room, and thought of nothing to say harder than ever.
And our cousin replied, ‘Some games I do,’ in a tone that made me sure that the games he[p209liked wouldn’t be our kind, but some wild Indian sort that we didn’t know.
I could see that the others were feeling just like me, and I knew we could not go on like this till tea-time. And yet I didn’t see any other way to go on in. It was Hilda who cut the Gorgeous knot at last. She said:
‘Hugh, let you and I go and make a lovely surprise for Rupert and Sidney.’
And before I could think of any way of stopping them without being downright rude to our new cousin, they had fled the scene, just like any old conspirators. Rupert—me, I mean—was left alone with the stranger. I said:
‘Is there anything you’d like to do?’
And he said, ‘No, thank you.’
Then neither of us said anything for a bit—and I could hear the others shrieking with laughter in the hall.
I said, ‘I wonder what the surprise will be like.’
He said, ‘Yes, I wonder’; but I could tell from his tone that he did not wonder a bit.
The others were yelling with laughter. Have you ever noticed how very amused people always are when you’re not there? If you’re in bed—ill, or in disgrace, or anything—it always sounds like far finer jokes than ever occur when you are not out of things.
[p210]‘Do you like reading?’ said I—who am Rupert—in the tones of despair.
‘Yes,’ said the cousin.
‘Then take a book,’ I said hastily, for I really could not stand it another second, ‘and you just read till the surprise is ready. I think I ought to go and help the others. I’m the eldest, you know.’
I did not wait—I suppose if you’re ten you can choose a book for yourself—and I went.
Hilda’s idea was just Indians, but I thought a wigwam would be nice. So we made one with the hall table and the fur rugs off the floor. If everything had been different, and Aunt Ellie hadn’t been ill, we were to have had turkey for dinner. The turkey’s feathers were splendid for Indians, and the striped blankets off Hugh’s and my beds, and all mother’s beads. The hall is big like a room, and there was a fire. The afternoon passed like a beautiful dream. When Rupert had done his own feathering and blanketing, as well as brown paper moccasins, he helped the others. The tea-bell rang before we were quite dressed. We got Louisa to go up and tell our cousin that the surprise was ready, and we all got inside the wigwam. It was a very tight fit, with the feathers and the blankets.
He came down the stairs very slowly, reading[p211all the time, and when he got to the mat at the bottom of the stairs we burst forth in all our war-paint from the wigwam. It upset, because Hugh and Hilda stuck between the table’s legs, and it fell on the stone floor with quite a loud noise. The wild Indians picked themselves up out of the ruins and did the finest war-dance I’ve ever seen in front of my cousin Sidney.
He gave one little scream, and then sat down suddenly on the bottom steps. He leaned his head against the banisters and we thought he was admiring the war-dance, till Eliza, who had been laughing and making as much noise as any one, suddenly went up to him and shook him.
‘Stop that noise,’ she said to us, ‘he’s gone off into a dead faint.’
He had.
Of course we were very sorry and all that, but we never thought he’d be such a muff as to be frightened of three Red Indians and a wigwam that happened to upset. He was put to bed, and we had our teas.
‘I wish we hadn’t,’ Hilda said.
‘So do I,’ said Hugh.
But Rupert said, ‘No onecouldhave expected a cousin of ours to be a chicken-hearted duffer. He’s a muff. It’s bad enough[p212to have a muff in the house at all, and at Christmas time, too. But a related muff!’
Still the affair had cast a gloom, and we were glad when it was bed-time.
Next day was Christmas Day, and no presents, and nobody but the servants to wish a Merry Christmas to.
Our cousin Sidney came down to breakfast, and as it was Christmas Day Rupert bent his proud spirit to own he was sorry about the Indians.
Sidney said, ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry too. Only I didn’t expect it.’
We suggested two or three games, such as Parlour Cricket, National Gallery, and Grab—but Sidney said he would rather read. So we said would he mind if we played out the Indian game which we had dropped, out of politeness, when he fainted.
He said:
‘I don’t mind at all, now I know what it is you’re up to. No, thank you, I’d rather read,’ he added, in reply to Rupert’s unselfish offer to dress him for the part of Sitting Bull.
So he readTreasure Island, and we fought on the stairs with no casualties except the gas globes, and then we scalped all the dolls—putting on paper scalps first because Hilda wished it—and we scalped Eliza as she passed[p213through the hall—hers was a white scalp with lacey stuff on it and long streamers.
[opp p213]‘We scalped Eliza as she passed through the hall.’
[opp p213]‘We scalped Eliza as she passed through the hall.’
And when it was beginning to get dark we thought of flying machines. Of course Sidney wouldn’t play at that either, and Hilda and Hugh were contented with paper wings—there were some rolls of rather decent yellow and pink crinkled paper that mother had bought to make lamp shades of. They made wings of this, and then they played at fairies up and down the stairs, while Sidney sat at the bottom of the stairs and went on readingTreasure Island. But Rupert was determined to have a flying machine, with real flipper-flappery wings, like at Hendon. So he got two brass fire-guards out of the spare room and mother’s bedroom, and covered them with newspapers fastened on with string. Then he got a tea-tray and fastened it on to himself with rug-straps, and then he slipped his arms in between the string and the fire-guards, and went to the top of the stairs and shouting, ‘Look out below there! Beware Flying Machines!’ he sat down suddenly on the tray, and tobogganed gloriously down the stairs, flapping his fire-guard wings. It was a great success, and felt more like flying than anything he ever played at. But Hilda had not had time to look out thoroughly, because he did not wait any time between his[p214warning and his descent. So that she was still fluttering, in the character of Queen of the Butterfly Fairies, about half-way down the stairs when the flying machine, composed of the two guards, the tea-tray, and Rupert, started from the top of them, and she could only get out of the way by standing back close against the wall. Unluckily the place where she was, was also the place where the gas was burning in a little recess. You remember we had broken the globe when we were playing Indians.
Now, of course, you know what happened, because you have readHarriett and the Matches, and all the rest of the stories that have been written to persuade children not to play with fire. No one was playing with fire that day, it is true, or doing anything really naughty at all—but however naughty we had been the thing that happened couldn’t have been much worse. For the flying machine as it came rushing round the curve of the staircase banged against the legs of Hilda. She screamed and stumbled back. Her pink paper wings went into the gas that hadn’t a globe. They flamed up, her hair frizzled, and her lace collar caught fire. Rupert could not do anything because he was held fast in his flying machine, and he and it were rolling painfully on the mat at the bottom of the stairs.