'Well, then,' said the archer, 'I have got the jewel here that the fly
stole from you, and I will lend it to you, and you can wish yourself
Princess-size again, and then you must give me back the jewel.'
'Why, the jewel was stolen! You've no right to it. I shall call the
guard,' said Pandora angrily.
'They wouldn't hear you, little Princess, if you did call,' said the
archer; 'but I'll call them for you if you like. Only you promised.'
'So I did,' said the Princess. 'Well, lend me the jewel.'
He took it off his arm and laid it upon the table, and as soon as the
Princess touched it, it grew small, small, small, so that she could put
it on her finger. Then she said:
'I wish I were my right size again!'
And the archer rubbed his eyes, for there on the table stood the
dazzling figure of a real, full-sized Princess in a cloth-of-silver
gown, and a face more beautiful than the morning.
'Oh, how lovely you are!' he said, and gave her his hand to help her
down.
She jumped lightly from the table and stood before him, laughing with
joy at being her own real right size once more.
'Oh, thank you! thank you!' she cried; 'I must run and show my father
this very minute.'
'The jewel?' said the archer.
'Oh!' said Pandora. 'Well, yes, I did promise, but--well, I'm a Princess
of my word. Here it is.'
She held it out, but he did not take it.
'You may keep it for ever and ever, Princess dear,' he said, 'if you
will only marry me.'
'Oh, I can't!' she cried. 'I'm never going to marry anyone unless I love
him more than all the world.'
'I feel as if I'd loved you all my lives,' said Muscadel--'all my life,
I mean. Couldn't you wish to love me?'
'I don't think I want to,' said the Princess doubtfully.
'Then I must have the jewel. I'll find some way yet of making you love
me, and then you shall have it for ever and ever.'
'If I loved you,' said she, 'I suppose I shouldn't mind your having red
hair, and a red face, and red ears, and red hands, should I?'
'Not a bit,' said the archer cheerfully.
She stood there, twisting the magic jewel round and round on her Royal
finger.
'I suppose it's more important than anything else to love someone?' she
said.
'Much,' said he.
'Well, then,' said she, 'but are you the sort of person I ought to
love?'
'No,' said he, 'I'm not half good enough for you. But then nobody is.'
'That's nice of you, anyhow,' she said. 'I'll do it. I wish I loved
you!'
There was a silence. Then Pandora said:
'Nothing's happened. I don't love you. I feel just the same as usual.
Your hair, and hands, and face, and ears are redder than ever. You'll
excuse my candour, won't you?'
'Then there's nothing for it but for me to wish not to love you,' said
Muscadel, 'for I really can't bear loving you to this desperate degree
when you don't care a snap of your Royal fingers for me. Lend me the
jewel a moment. You shall have it back. If you don't care for me, I
don't want to care for anything. I'll live and die a red-faced,
red-eared, red-haired, red-handed archer, so I will.'
The Princess lent him the jewel, and he wished and waited. Then, 'It's
no good,' he said; 'I adore you as much as ever--more, if possible.'
'Ah, I see,' said the Princess; 'there _is_ one thing that the magic
ring won't touch. I suppose that's love. How funny!'
'I don't think it's funny at all,' said he. 'I suppose really it's
because you're not the sort of person that could love the sort of person
I am.'
'Well, then,' said she, 'I'll wish I was the sort of person who _could_.
I won't be made a silly of by a stupid magic jewel. Only let me call my
father, because goodness knows what sort of person the person who could
love you would be like. _I_ can't imagine anyone who could!'
'You may be as cruel as you like now,' said Muscadel, 'if only somehow
or other you'll get to love me afterwards. I will call the King.'
So he went to the door and shouted:
'Hi, your Majesty! Step this way for a moment, will you, please?'
And His Majesty stepped.
'Look here, daddy,' said the Princess, 'I'm real Princess size again, so
give me a kiss!'
[Illustration: 'A blowzy, frowzy dairymaid.' Page 363.]
When this was done she said very quickly, and before the King could stop
her:
'I wish I was the kind of person that could love this archer.'
And then and there, before the horrified eyes of the other two, the
Princess turned into the kind of person who could love the archer.
'Bless my soul and body!' said the King, turning purple.
'Oh, my heart!' said Muscadel, turning white.
For the kind of person the Princess had changed into was a blowzy,
frowzy dairymaid, with oily black hair and shining red cheeks, and
little black eyes like the currant eyes in gingerbread pigs. Her hands
were fat and red, and her feet would not bear looking at for a moment.
'Good old Muscadel!' said the dairymaid that Pandora had turned into;
'now we'll be married and live as happy as two mice in a cheese!'
'Never in this world!' cried Muscadel, snatching the ring from her hand,
which was not manners, but we must remember that he was very much upset.
He snatched the ring, and he rushed out of the room and out of the
palace, and when he got to the archers' quarters he flung himself face
down among the rushes on the floor, and lay there till his comrades
began to mock him and even to kick him as he lay; and then he got up and
fought them with his red fists, one down, t'other come on, till seven of
them had owned that they did not want any more.
'Oh dear! oh dear!' said the King in his palace; 'I'd rather have had
you flower-fairy size for life than like this! We must get back the
jewel and make you into your old self.'
'Not a bit of it,' said the dairymaid Princess. 'I never was so happy in
my life. I love that lovely archer, and if I'm a Princess you can order
him to marry me, and he'll have to.'
'Lackaday!' said the King. 'Dairymaids don't seem to love like
Princesses do.'
'I dare say not,' said she, 'but we know our own minds. I tell you I'm
happy, governor, and I'll stay as I am.'
The dairymaid Princess called for cold pork and cheese and beer, and,
having had quite enough of all three, she went to bed in the Princess's
green and white bedroom.
Now, when all the archers had gone to sleep poor Muscadel stole out and
wandered through the palace gardens, and looked at the white fountains
rising and falling in the moonlight. He saw the white lilies sleeping
standing up, just like real live sentinels. He saw the white pea-cocks
roosting in the yew-trees, and the white swans cuddled up among the
reeds by the lake. He went hither and thither through the cold white
beauty of the night, and he thought and thought, but he could not think
any thought that was worth the trouble of thinking.
And at last he sat down on a marble bench and very nearly wished that he
were dead. Not quite, of course, because people very seldom do that; and
if he had there would have been an end to this story.
The silence and the moonlight soothed him; his poor brain felt clearer
and brighter, and at last he had the sense to say, without at all
knowing that he was saying anything sensible, 'I wish I was clever.'
And instantly he was.
The change was so great, so sudden, and so violent that it nearly choked
him. He drew two or three difficult breaths, and then he said:
'Oh, I see! How stupid of me! I wish I were the kind of person the real
Princess could love.'
And he felt his body change. He grew thinner, and his face seemed to
grow a different shape. He hastened to the lake and leaned over it, and
saw by the moonlight the reflection of his own face in the water. It was
not particularly handsome, but he was not ashamed of the deep-set eyes,
largish nose, and firm lips and chin.
'So that's the sort of man she could love!' he said, and went home to
bed like a sensible person.
Early in the morning he went out into the palace garden, and it was not
all gray and white, as it had been the night before, with moonlight and
white lilies, but gold and red, with sunshine and roses, and hollyhocks
and carnations.
He went and waited under the Princess's window, for he had grown clever
enough to know that the Princess, since she was now a dairymaid, would
be awake betimes. And sure enough the green silk curtains were presently
drawn back, and the drowsy, blowzy, frowzy face of the dairymaid looked
out.
'Halloa!' she said to Muscadel, among the roses, 'what are _you_ up to?'
'I am the archer you love,' said Muscadel, among the roses.
'Not you,' she said.
'But indeed!' said he.
[Illustration: '"You've got a face as long as a fiddle."'--Page 367.]
'Lawks!' said the dairymaid.
'Don't you love me like this?' said Muscadel.
'Not a bit,' said she; 'go along, do! You've got a face as long as a
fiddle, and I never could abide black hair.'
'I'm going to stay like this,' said he.
'Then what's to become of me?' she asked, and waited for an answer with
her mouth half open.
'I'll tell you,' said Muscadel. 'You can stay as you are all your life,
and go on loving an archer who isn't anywhere at all, or I'll lend you
the magic jewel, and then you can change back into the Princess. And
when you're the Princess, you'll love me ever so much more than you ever
loved the archer.'
'Humph!' said the dairymaid, fingering the Princess's pearl necklace.
'Well, if my dear archer really isn't any more, anywhere---- As you say,
the really important thing is to love someone.' Although she was a silly
dairymaid she had the sense to see that. 'Give me the jewel,' she said.
He threw it up, and she caught it overhand, put it on, and said:
'I wish I was the Princess again.'
And there was the Princess leaning out of the window and covering her
face with her hands.
'Look at me,' said Muscadel; 'am I the sort of person you could love?'
'I don't know,' said Pandora, peeping at him between her rosy
finger-tips. 'You had better ask papa.'
'I'd rather ask you,' said Muscadel, as he climbed up the palace ivy and
leaned in at her window-sill to ask her.
And she leaned out to answer him.
* * * * *
They were married the very next day, and everyone in the kingdom, rich
and poor, had roast beef and plum-pudding for dinner.
And as soon as the wedding was over, Muscadel and his bride went down to
the lake, and he threw the magic jewel far, far out. It gleamed redly as
it flew through the sunlit air and with a tiny splash sank in the lake,
and there it is to this day. You might try to find it one of these days
when you have nothing better to do. I dare say you often feel that you
would like to change from what you are into something else, and, for
anything I know, it might be a very good thing for you, and for the rest
of the world.
But Pandora and Muscadel were so happy at belonging to each other that
they never wished to change at all, so they did not want the magic ring,
and that is why they threw it away. For, as all good housekeepers know,
it is very foolish to keep useless things about--just to litter the
house up.