year before, and had lain ever since in its body, by which alone life
could be given back to the five senses of Melilot. Then drawing in its
head it lowered itself once more to the bottom of the pool; and Noodle,
feeling in his mouth the precious globule of air, fastened his lips
upon it and shot out for shore.
Against the weight of those leaden waters a longing to gasp possessed
him; but he knew that with the least breath the bubble would be lost,
and all his labour undone. Not too soon his feet caught hold of the
bank, and drew him free to land. He cast himself speechless across the
back of the Galloping Plough and clung.
The Plough gathered itself together and sprang away through space.
Remembering its master’s word it showed itself a miracle of speed; like
lightning became its flight.
The eye of Noodle grew blind to the passing of things; he could take no
count of the collapsing leagues. More and more grew the amazingness of
the Plough’s leaps, things only to be measured by miles, and counted
as joltings on the way; while fast to the back of it clung Noodle, and
endured, praying that shortness of breath might not overmaster him, or
the check of his lungs give way and burst him to the emptiness of a
drum. His senses rocked and swayed; he felt the gates of his resolve
slackening and forcing themselves apart; and still the Galloping Plough
plunged him blindly along through space.
But now the shrill crying of the crone struck in upon his ears, and
he stretched open his arms for the accomplishment of the deliverance.
Even in that nick of time was the end of the thing brought about; for
the Plough, guiding itself as a thread to the needle’s eye, gave the
uprooting stroke to the white feet of Melilot; and Noodle, swooning for
the last gasp, saw all at once her beauty swaying level to his gaze and
her body bending down upon his.
Then he fastened his lips upon hers, and loosed the bubble from his
mouth; and panting and sobbing themselves back to life they hung in
each other’s arms. She warmed and ripened in his embrace, opening upon
him the light of her eyes; and the greatness and beauty of the reward
abashed him and bore him down to earth.
He heard the old crone clucking and crowing, like a hen over its egg,
of the happiness that had come to her old years; till recognising the
youth’s state she covered him over with a cloak amid exclamations of
astonishment.
The Princess saw nothing but her lover’s face and the happy feasting of
his eyes. She bent her head nearer and nearer to his, and the story of
what he had done became a dream that she remembered, and that waking
made true. “O you Noodle,” she said, laughing, “you wise, wise Noodle!”
And then everything was finished, for she had kissed him!
So Noodle and the Princess were married, and came to the throne
together and reigned over a happy land. The Fire-eaters were their
friends, and the gifts of fortune were theirs. The Galloping Plough
made all the waste places fertile; and the water of the Thirsty Well
rose and ran in rivers through the land; and over the walls of their
palace, where they had planted it, grew the flower of the Burning Rose.
[Illustration]
THE RAT-CATCHER’S DAUGHTER
Once upon a time there lived an old rat-catcher who had a daughter, the
most beautiful girl that had ever been born. Their home was a dirty
little cabin; but they were not so poor as they seemed, for every night
the rat-catcher took the rats he had cleared out of one house and let
them go at the door of another, so that on the morrow he might be sure
of a fresh job.
His rats got quite to know him, and would run to him when he called;
people thought him the most wonderful rat-catcher, and could not make
out how it was that a rat remained within reach of his operations.
Now anyone can see that a man who practised so cunning a roguery was
greedy beyond the intentions of Providence. Every day, as he watched
his daughter’s beauty increase, his thoughts were: “When will she be
able to pay me back for all the expense she has been to me?” He would
have grudged her the very food she ate, if it had not been necessary
to keep her in the good looks which were some day to bring him his
fortune. For he was greedier than any gnome after gold.
Now all good gnomes have this about them: they love whatever is
beautiful, and hate to see harm happen to it. A gnome who lived far
away underground below where stood the rat-catcher’s house, said to his
fellows: “Up yonder is a man who has a daughter; so greedy is he, he
would sell her to the first comer who gave him gold enough! I am going
up to look after her.”
So one night, when the rat-catcher set a trap, the gnome went and got
himself caught in it. There in the morning, when the rat-catcher came,
he found a funny little fellow, all bright and golden, wriggling and
beating to be free.
“I can’t get out!” cried the little gnome. “Let me go!”
The rat-catcher screwed up his mouth to look virtuous. “If I let you
out, what will you give me?”
“A sack full of gold,” answered the gnome, “just as heavy as
myself--not a pennyweight less!”
“Not enough!” said the rat-catcher. “Guess again!”
“As heavy as you are!” cried the gnome, beginning to plead in a thin,
whining tone.
“I’m a poor man,” said the rat-catcher; “a poor man mayn’t afford to be
generous!”
“What is it you want of me?” cried the gnome.
“If I let you go,” said the rat-catcher, “you must make me the richest
man in the world!” Then he thought of his daughter: “Also you must make
the king’s son marry my daughter; then I will let you go.”
The gnome laughed to himself to see how the trapper was being trapped
in his own avarice as, with the most melancholy air he answered: “I can
make you the richest man in the world; but I know of no way of making
the king’s son marry your daughter, except one.”
“What way?” asked the rat-catcher.
“Why,” answered the gnome, “for three years your daughter must come and
live with me underground, and by the end of the third year her skin
will be changed into pure gold like ours. And do you know any king’s
son who would refuse to marry a beautiful maiden who was pure gold from
the sole of her foot to the crown of her head?”
The rat-catcher had so greedy an inside that he could not believe in
any king’s son refusing to marry a maiden of pure gold. So he clapped
hands on the bargain, and let the gnome go.
The gnome went down into the ground, and fetched up sacks and sacks of
gold, until he had made the rat-catcher the richest man in the world.
Then the father called his daughter, whose name was Jasomé, and bade
her follow the gnome down into the heart of the earth.
It was all in vain that Jasomé begged and implored; the rat-catcher was
bent on having her married to the king’s son. So he pushed, and the
gnome pulled, and down she went; and the earth closed after her.
The gnome brought her down to his home under the hill upon which stood
the town. Everywhere round her were gold and precious stones; the very
air was full of gold dust, so that when she remained still it settled
on her hands and her hair, and a soft golden down began to show itself
over her skin. So there in the house of the gnome sat Jasomé, and
cried; and, far away overhead, she heard the days come and go, by the
sound of people walking and the rolling of wheels.
The gnome was very kind to her; nothing did he spare of underground
commodities that might afford her pleasure. He taught her the legends
of all the heroes that have gone down into earth, and been forgotten,
and the lost songs of the old poets, and the buried languages that once
gave wisdom to the world: down there all these things are remembered.
She became the most curiously accomplished and wise maiden that ever
was hidden from the light of day. “I have to train you,” said the
gnome, “to be fit for a king’s bride!” But Jasomé, though she thanked
him, only cried to be let out.
In front of the rat-catcher’s house rose a little spring of salt water
with gold dust in it, that gilded the basin where it sprang. When he
saw it, he began rubbing his hands with delight, for he guessed well
enough that his daughter’s tears had made it; and the dust in it told
him how surely now she was being turned into gold.
And now the rat-catcher was the richest man in the world: all his traps
were made of gold, and when he went rat-hunting he rode in a gilded
coach drawn by twelve hundred of the finest and largest rats. This was
for an advertisement of the business. He now caught rats for the fun of
it, and the show of it, but also to get money by it; for, though he was
so rich, ratting and money-grubbing had become a second nature to him;
unless he were at one or the other, he could not be happy.
Far below, in the house of the gnome, Jasomé sat and cried. When the
sound of the great bells ringing for Easter came down to her, the gnome
said: “To-day I cannot bind you; it is the great rising day for all
Christians. If you wish, you may go up, and ask your father now to
release you.”
[Illustration]
So Jasomé kissed the gnome, and went up the track of her own tears,
that brought her to her father’s door. When she came to the light of
day, she felt quite blind; a soft yellow tint was all over her, and
already her hair was quite golden.
The rat-catcher was furious when he saw her coming back before her
time. “Oh, father,” she cried, “let me come back for a little while
to play in the sun!” But her father, fearing lest the gilding of her
complexion should be spoiled, drove her back into the earth, and
trampled it down over her head.
The gnome seemed quite sorry for her when she returned; but already,
he said, a year was gone--and what were three years, when a king’s son
would be the reward?
At the next Easter he let her go again; and now she looked quite
golden, except for her eyes, and her white teeth, and the nails on her
pretty little fingers and toes. But again her father drove her back
into the ground, and put a heavy stone slab over the spot to make sure
of her.
At last the third Easter came, and she was all gold.
She kissed the gnome many times, and was almost sorry to leave him,
for he had been very kind to her. And now he told her about her father
catching him in the trap, and robbing him of his gold by a hard
bargain, and of his being forced to take her down to live with him,
till she was turned into gold, so that she might marry the king’s son.
“For now,” said he, “you are so compounded of gold that only the
gnomes could rub it off you.”
So this time, when Jasomé came up once more to the light of day, she
did not go back again to her cruel father, but went and sat by the
roadside, and played with the sunbeams, and wondered when the king’s
son would come and marry her.
And as she sat there all the country-people who passed by stopped and
mocked her; and boys came and threw mud at her because she was all
gold from head to foot--an object, to be sure, for all simple folk to
laugh at. So presently, instead of hoping, she fell to despair, and sat
weeping, with her face hidden in her hands.
Before long the king’s son came that road, and saw something shining
like sunlight on a pond; but when he came near, he found a lovely
maiden of pure gold lying in a pool of her own tears, with her face
hidden in her hair.
Now the king’s son, unlike the country-folk, knew the value of gold;
but he was grieved at heart for a maiden so stained all over with it,
and more, when he beheld how she wept. So he went to lift her up;
and there, surely, he saw the most beautiful face he could ever have
dreamed of. But, alas! so discoloured--even her eyes, and her lips,
and the very tears she shed were the colour of gold! When he could
bring her to speak, she told him how, because she was all gold, all the
people mocked at her, and boys threw mud at her; and she had nowhere to
go, unless it were back to the kind gnome who lived underground, out of
sight of the sweet sun.
So the prince said, “Come with me, and I will take you to my father’s
palace, and there nobody shall mock you, but you shall sit all your
days in the sunshine, and be happy.”
And as they went, more and more he wondered at her great beauty--so
spoiled that he could not look at her without grief--and was taken with
increasing wonder at the beautiful wisdom stored in her golden mind;
for she told him the tales of the heroes which she had learned from the
gnome, and of buried cities; also the songs of old poets that have been
forgotten; and her voice, like the rest of her, was golden.
The prince said to himself, “I shut my eyes, and am ready to die loving
her; yet, when I open them, she is but a talking statue!”
One day he said to her, “Under all this disguise you must be the most
beautiful thing upon earth! Already to me you are the dearest!” and he
sighed, for he knew that a king’s son might not marry a figure of gold.
Now one day after this, as Jasomé sat alone in the sunshine and cried,
the little old gnome stood before her, and said, “Well, Jasomé, have
you married the king’s son?”
“Alas!” cried Jasomé, “you have so changed me: I am no longer human!
Yet he loves me, and, but for that, he would marry me.”
“Dear me!” said the gnome. “If that is all, I can take the gold off you
again: why, I said so!”
Jasomé entreated him, by all his former kindness, to do so for her now.
“Yes,” said the gnome, “but a bargain is a bargain. Now is the time
for me to get back my bags of gold. Do you go to your father, and let
him know that the king’s son is willing to marry you if he restores to
me my treasure that he took from me; for that is what it comes to.”
Up jumped Jasomé, and ran to the rat-catcher’s house. “Oh, father,” she
cried, “now you can undo all your cruelty to me; for now, if you will
give back the gnome his gold, he will give my own face back to me, and
I shall marry the king’s son!”
But the rat-catcher was filled with admiration at the sight of her, and
would not believe a word she said. “I have given you your dowry,” he
answered; “three years I had to do without you to get it. Take it away,
and get married, and leave me the peace and plenty I have so hardly
earned!”
Jasomé went back and told the gnome. “Really,” said he, “I must show
this rat-catcher that there are other sorts of traps, and that it isn’t
only rats and gnomes that get caught in them! I have given him his
taste of wealth; now it shall act as pickle to his poverty!”
So the next time the rat-catcher put his foot out of doors the ground
gave way under it, and, snap!--the gnome had him by the leg.
“Let me go!” cried the rat-catcher; “I can’t get out!”
“Can’t you?” said the gnome. “If I let you out, what will you give me?”
“My daughter!” cried the rat-catcher; “my beautiful golden daughter!”
“Oh no!” laughed the gnome. “Guess again!”
“My own weight in gold!” cried the rat-catcher, in a frenzy; but
the gnome would not close the bargain till he had wrung from the
rat-catcher the promise of his last penny.
So the gnome carried away all the sacks of gold before the
rat-catcher’s eyes; and when he had them safe underground, then at last
he let the old man go. Then he called Jasomé to follow him, and she
went down willingly into the black earth.
For a whole year the gnome rubbed and scrubbed and tubbed her to get
the gold out of her composition; and when it was done, she was the most
shiningly beautiful thing you ever set eyes on.
When she got back to the palace, she found her dear prince pining for
love of her, and wondering when she would return. So they were married
the very next day; and the rat-catcher came to look on at the wedding.
He grumbled because he was in rags, and because he was poor; he wept
that he had been robbed of his money and his daughter. But gnomes and
daughters, he said, were in one and the same box; such ingratitude as
theirs no one could beat.
THE TRAVELLER’S SHOES
A long while ago there lived a young cobbler named Lubin, who, when
his father died, was left with only the shop and the shoe-leather out
of which to make his fortune. From morning to night he toiled, making
and mending the shoes of the poor village folk; but his earnings were
small, and he seemed never able to get more than three days ahead of
poverty.
One day, as he sat working at his window-bench, the door opened, and in
came a traveller. He had on a pair of long red shoes with pointed ends;
but of one the seams had split, so that all his toes were coming out of
it.
The stranger, putting up one foot after the other, took off both shoes,
and giving that one which wanted cobbling to Lubin, he said: “To-night
I shall be sleeping here at the inn; have this ready in good time
to-morrow, for I am in haste to go on!” And having said this he put the
other shoe into his pocket, and went out of the door barefoot.
“What a funny fellow,” thought Lubin, “not to make the most of one shoe
when he has it!” But without stopping to puzzle himself he took up the
to-be-mended shoe and set to work. When it was finished he threw it
down on the floor behind him, and went on working at his other jobs. He
meant to work late, for he had not enough money yet to get himself his
Sunday’s dinner; so when darkness shut in he lighted a rushlight and
cobbled away, thinking to himself all the while of the roast meat that
was to be his reward.
It came close on midnight, and he was just putting on the last heel of
the last pair of shoes when he was aware of a noise on the floor behind
him. He looked round, and there was the red shoe with the pointed toe,
cutting capers and prancing about by itself in the middle of the room.
“Peace on earth!” exclaimed Lubin. “I never saw a shoe do a thing so
tipsy before!” He went up and passed his hand over it and under it,
but there was nothing to account for its caperings; on it went, up and
down, toeing and heeling, skipping and sliding, as if for a very wager.
Lubin could even tell himself the name of the reel and the tune that it
was dancing to, for all that the other foot was missing. Presently the
shoe tripped and toppled, falling heel up upon the floor; nor, although
Lubin watched it for a full hour, did it ever start upon a fresh jig.
Soon after daybreak, when Lubin had but just opened his shutters and
sat himself down to work, in came the traveller, limping upon bare
feet, with the shoe’s fellow pointing its red toe out of his pocket.
“Oh, so,” he said, seeing the other shoe ready mended and waiting for
him, “how much am I owing you for the job?”
“Just a gold piece,” said Lubin, carelessly, carrying on at his work.
“A gold piece for the mere mending of a shoe!” cried the stranger. “You
must be either a rogue or a funny fellow.”
“Neither!” said Lubin, “and for mending a shoe my charge is only
a penny; but for mending _that_ shoe, and for all the worry and
temptation to make it my own and run off with it--a gold piece!”
“To be sure, you are an honest fellow,” said the traveller, “and
honesty is a rare gift; though, had you made off with it, I should have
soon caught you. Still, you were not so wise as to know that, so here’s
your gold piece for you.” He pulled out a big bag of gold as he spoke,
pouring its contents out on to the window bench.
“That is a lot of money for a lonely man to carry about,” said Lubin.
“Are you not afraid?”
“Why, no,” answered the man. “I have a way, so that I can always follow
it up even if I lose it.” He took two of the gold pieces, and dropped
one into the sole of each shoe as he was putting them on. “There!”
said he, “now, if any man steal my money, I need only wait till it is
midnight; and then I have but to say to my shoes ‘Seek!’ and up they
jump, with me in them, and carry me to where my stolen property is,
were it to the world’s end. It is as if they had the nose and sagacity
of a pair of bloodhounds. Ah, son of a cobbler, had you run off with
the one I should have very soon caught you with the other; for if one
walks the other is bound to follow. But, as you were honest, we part
friends; and I trust God may bring you to fortune.” Then the traveller
did up his bag of gold, nodded to the cobbler from the doorway, and was
gone.
Lubin laid down his work, and went off to the inn. “Did anything
happen here last night?” he asked.
“Nothing of much note,” answered the innkeeper. “Three travelling
fiddlers were here, and afterwards a man came in barefoot, but with a
red shoe sticking out of his pocket. I thought of turning the fellow
away, till he let me see the colour of his gold. Presently the fiddlers
started to play and the other man to drink. At first when they called
on him to dance he excused himself for his feet’s sake; but presently,
what with the music and the liquor, he got so lively in his head that
he pulled on his one shoe and danced like three ordinary men put
together.”
“What time was that?” asked Lubin.
“Getting on for midnight,” answered the innkeeper.
“Ah!” said Lubin, and went home thinking much on the way.
Towards evening he found that he had run out of leather, and must go
into the town, ten miles off, to buy more. “Now my gold piece comes
in handy,” thought he; so he locked up the house, put the key in his
pocket, and set out.
Though it was the season of long days it was growing dark when he came
to a part of the road that led through the wood; but being so poor a
man he had no fear, nor thought at all about the robbers who were said
to be in those parts. But as he went, he saw all at once by the side of
the road two red spikes sticking up out of a ditch, their bright colour
making them plain to the eye. He came quite near and saw that they were
two red shoes with pointed toes; and then he saw more clearly that
along with them lay the traveller, his wallet empty and with a dagger
stuck through his heart.
The cobbler’s son was as sorry as he could be. “Alas, poor soul,”
thought he, “what good are the shoes to you now? Now that thieves have
killed you and taken away your gold, surely I do no harm if I give an
honest man your shoes!” He stooped down, and was about taking them off
when he saw the eyes of the dead man open. The eyes looked at him as if
they would remind him of something; and at once, when he loosed hold of
the shoes, they seemed satisfied. Then he remembered, and thought to
himself, “The world has many marvels in it; I will wait till midnight
and see.”
For over three hours he kept watch by the dead man’s side. “Only last
night,” he said to himself, “this poor fellow was dancing as merry a
measure as ever I saw, for the half of it surely I saw; and now!” Then
he judged that midnight must be come, so he bent over the shoes and
whispered to them but one word.
The dead man stood up in his shoes and began running. Lubin followed
close, keeping an eye on him, for the shoes made no sound on the earth.
They ran on for two hours, till they had come to the thickest part
of the forest; then some way before them Lubin began to see a light
shining. It came from a small square house in a court-yard, and round
the court-yard lay a deep moat; only one narrow plank led over and up
to the entrance.
The red shoes, carrying the dead man, walked over, and Lubin followed
them. When they were at the other side they turned, facing towards the
plank that they had crossed, and Lubin seemed to read in the dead man’s
eye what he was to do.
Then he turned and lifted the plank away from over the moat, so that
there was no longer any entrance or exit to the place. Through the
window of the house he could see the three fiddlers quarrelling over
the dead man’s gold.
The red shoes went on, carrying their dead owner, till they got to the
threshold, and there stopped. Then Lubin came and clicked up the latch,
and pushed open the door, and in walked the dead man with the dagger
sticking out of his heart.
The three fiddlers, when they saw that sight, dropped their gold and
leapt out of the window; and as they fled, shrieking, thinking to
cross the moat by the plank-bridge that was no longer there, one after
the other they fell into the water, and, clutching each other by the
throat, were drowned.
But the red shoes stayed where they were, and, tilting up his feet, let
the traveller go gently upon the ground; and when Lubin held down the
lantern to his face, on it lay a good smile, to tell him that the dead
man thanked him for all he had done.
So in the morning Lubin went and fetched a priest to pray for the
repose of the traveller’s soul, and to give him good burial; and to him
he gave all the dead man’s money, but for himself he took the red shoes
with the pointed toes, and set out to make his fortune in the world.
Walking along he found that however far he went he never grew tired.
When he had gone on for more than a hundred miles, he came to the
capital where the King lived with his Court.
All the flags of the city were at half-mast, and all the people were in
half-mourning. Lubin asked at the first inn where he stopped what it
all meant.