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.
THE CROWN'S WARRANTY
[Illustration]
THE CROWN'S WARRANTY
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 was made 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
of him: 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 sighed to himself,
'There was a pain in my crown ever since I wore it. Alas, mother, I
thought you were too kind a step-mother to do this!'
Outside it was still winter: there was no warmth in the world, and not
a leaf upon the trees. He wandered away and away, wondering where he
should hide.
The queen, when her villains came and told her the 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 hollow tarn-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 carrying bread 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 at _alibis_ all 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 found butter 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 came looking 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 stay in 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: 'Until you 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 into _my_ mouth, now!' cried the queen.
'If it is poisoned I shall die in agony! I wish,' she said, 'I wish I
knew your brother were not dead; if I have killed him what a wicked
woman I am!'
'Dear step-mother,' said the 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 known _that_!' cried the queen. '_Now_ I know what
a wicked woman I am!'
Just then, the trap-door in the roof of the dungeon opened, and a
voice called down, 'Tell us where is the 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 pricks so!' 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 to her 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.
THE WISHING-POT
[Illustration]
THE WISHING-POT
Tulip was the son of a poor but prudent mother; from the moment of his
birth she had trained him to count ten before ever he wanted or asked
for anything. An otherwise reckless youth, he acquired an intrinsic
value through the practice of this habit. Only once, just as he was
reaching, but had not quite reached, years of discretion, did his
habit of precaution fail him; and this same failure became in the end
the opening of his fortunes.
Bathing one day in the river, to whose banks the woods ran down in
steep terraces, he heard a voice come singing along one of the upper
slopes; and looking up under the boughs of cedar and sycamore, he saw
a pair of green feet go dancing by, up and down like grasshoppers on
the prance.
There was such rhythm in them, and such sweetness in the voice, that
his heart was out of him before he could harness it to the number ten,
and he came out of the water the most natural and forlorn of lovers.
Before he was dressed the green feet and the voice were gone, and
before he got home his health and his appetite seemed to have gone
also. He pined industriously from day to day, and spent all his hours
in searching among the woods by the river side for his lady of the
dear green feet. He did not know so much as the size or colour of her
face; the sound of her voice alone, and the running up and down of her
feet, had, as he told his mother, 'decimated his 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 who held that they had only gone
elsewhere to seek the fortune that the Wishing-Pot had shown to them.
Nevertheless, for the most part the wise woman and her Wishing-Pot had
an ill name in that neighbourhood.
To a 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 though heat 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 got to 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 was there before
him, though invisible to the eye.
The Pot, now he was in it, seemed bigger than the biggest dome in the
world; to run all round it took him two or three minutes. Away in the
centre of its base stood a great opal knob, like the axle to a wheel
round which he and the green feet kept circling.
However much he wished and wished, the green feet still kept their
distance, for now he was _in_ the Wishing-Pot wishes availed him
nothing. The green feet 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 now
the purple of grapes spurted across the path like spilled wine. The
sound of the green feet and the running of overhead laughter, as they
distanced him in front, came nearer and nearer behind him from across
the hall. He felt that he must follow and not turn, however beaten he
might be.
Presently a voice, that he knew was his 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!'
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 he clasped was a gust
of air; and he saw the green feet scudding out and away on a fresh
start before him.
Again, with laughter, the voice cried,--
'Lap for lap you must wind me:
Equal, before you can 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 into Tulip'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 all the
secret wonders of the Wishing-Pot were opened and revealed to his
gaze.
Crowds and crowds of faces were what he most saw; everywhere that he
turned he saw old friends and neighbours who, he thought, had been
dead and gone, looking sadly, and shaking long sorrowful faces at
him. 'You here too, Tulip?' they seemed forever to be saying. 'Always
another, and another; and now you here too!'
There was the 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 like dead 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.