PRINCE FLORIMEL MEETS THE BROWNIES
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Prince Florimel gave a great shudder of fright when the gift of his
ex-fairy godmother so utterly failed him in that moment of terrible
danger. As the savage beasts, screaming for his blood, came toward him,
he turned and fled, without relaxing his hold upon the treacherous bow.
He made a frantic leap for the trunk of the tree, and grasping one of
the low branches pulled himself up with desperate haste as far as he
could.
The beasts with thunderous roars and sharp teeth showing sprang up at
him, and a lion with knife-like claws just grazed the skin of one of his
legs, and tore off a portion of his garment.
Florimel climbed up further, and still further, for safety, while the
animals roaring their defeat continued to hurl themselves at the tree
until it shook and shook again.
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Finally they took to fighting among themselves, with outcries that were
terrible, and finished by slinking or limping away discomfited.
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The eaglets disturbed by all this clamor perched on the edges of their
nest as though deliberating upon the hazard of trying for the first
time their wings in the dizzy space of blue. High overhead their angry
parents soared screaming their protests at what seemed to them an
unwarrantable intrusion.
Still retaining the bow, Florimel climbed out toward the nest, intending
to usurp possession of it, and with timid flaps of their untried wings
the eaglets essayed flight. Finding they could fly, they soon gained
confidence, and joined the parent-birds who led them a mad aerial chase.
Soon Florimel was the sole tenant of the nest, and, after he had
established himself comfortably in his new quarters, he set about to
repair the damage to the bow.
He tied the broken cord securely, and drew it taut, pulling it back as
far as he could repeatedly, but he did not waste in a trial one of the
remaining arrows in his quiver. For, though it had already brought to
him one grievous disappointment, he still had faith in his ex-fairy
godmother's gift.
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The eagles resenting his possession of their home kept flying
threateningly at him, but every time they came near he menaced them
with the bow and drove them away. Finally they alighted on another
limb of the tree, where they all sat in a row viewing him with silent
moody protest.
Worn by fatigue and excitement Florimel closed his eyes in sleep, with
an arm bared to the elbow hanging from the nest. When at last he was
awakened by a confused babel of voices from below, dusk had fallen, and
a crescent moon hung low in the sky.
The eagles young and old in agitated manner once more were circling the
darkening sky, and leaning over the nest and looking down Florimel was
astounded by what he saw.
And no less astounded than he was were a band of little people who had
caught a glimpse of that rounded human arm sticking from an eagles' nest
with consequent and complete mystification to all.
In a ring and with characteristic postures they stood gabbling among
themselves and pointing up--a queer, very queer race, all males, with
round fat little pot-bellies, thin, spindling shanks, long, tapering
feet, and babyish-looking heads set on their shoulders apparently
without connecting necks. And these heads had large ears, wide mouths,
and pop eyes--a combination that ordinarily would make the possessor of
them ugly, but which in their case contributed general results that made
them unusually winning and attractive.
As Florimel looked down he could note that there were many of one
type--tiny fellows who wore the same kinds of caps and jackets.
But there were others too--one of each kind--a Policeman with a
club, a Sailor with a spy-glass, an Indian, a Cowboy, and a single
representative from every country of importance in the world. England,
Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, Russia, Switzerland, Austria,
Italy, Turkey, Greece, Spain, Portugal, China, Japan, the United
States, Canada, and other lands had their delegates whom Florimel could
distinguish by means of a strange human picture-book in the museum
of the kingdom from which he had flown, and which often he had been
permitted to see. And, while he marveled and wondered thereat, his keen
eye alighted on another too--a tiny chap with high-topped, bell-crowned
hat, black clothes with swallow-tail, a wide expanse of spotless white
shirt-bosom, spats, and glistening patent-leather shoes--a pompous,
vain, conceited, immaculate-looking little fellow who carried a cane
that seemed a part of him, and who wore a round piece of glass over one
of his eyes.
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In order to obtain a better view Florimel leaned further over, and so
disturbed the architecture of the nest, from which the sticks began to
fall, until he felt the whole foundation going. But so suddenly did this
occur that he did not have a chance to grasp a saving branch, and in a
trice plunged through the bottomless structure down--down--down--
He closed his dizzy frightened eyes, struck the waters of the lake, then
disappeared from sight.
The curious band watching him were quick to realize his predicament.
Without loss of time they ran to a shelf of rock that over-hung the
lake, and one and all jumped in after him.
Ker-splash! ker-splash! resounded on all sides until the water was
dotted with bobbing heads.
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As Florimel came to the surface, blinded and choking, someone quickly
grasped him, and, while the rest formed a living chain, he was passed on
from one to another, until the last dragged him safely to shore.
Soon they were all gathered about in a ring, with Florimel in the
centre, and, while the soft wind dried their dripping clothes, they
looked at him, and he at them, with wonder and surprise on all their
faces.
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"Avast there, messmates!" said the Sailor to the rest. "What did I tell
you? He can see us!"
And the cry was taken up all around the ring:
"He can see us! He can see us!"
"Why shouldn't I be able to see you?" said Florimel, rather impatiently.
"I have eyes."
"Yes," said one who wore a long black gown, and who had a tasseled
mortarboard on his head, "but so have other people. It takes second
sight to see the Brownies."
The Brownies! Florimel's heart gave a sudden bound.
"Much am I beholden to you all," he said, "for having rescued me. If you
had not saved me I should have been obliged to save myself."
"Can you swim?" asked the Sailor, while all looked much chagrined.
"Like any duck!" was Florimel's response. "But are you mortal?"
questioned the Uncle Sam Brownie. "No mortal eye has ever yet beheld
us."
"My ex-fairy godmother at my christening bestowed on me the gift of
second sight," explained Florimel, "so that I have always been able to
see things no one else could."
"Ah, that accounts for it," said the Irish Brownie, while the faces of
all the others showed that a great mystery had suddenly been cleared
away. "You must have supernatural powers."
"Of that I am not sure," said Florimel, "but of this much I am, that
right gladly would I be one of you, to work and toil while weary
households sleep, to delight in harmless pranks and helpful deeds, and
never be seen by mortal eye."
They looked at each other, evidently embarrassed by so bold a hint, and
the Brownie Dude voiced the thought that was in all minds when he
fervently remarked:
"I wish King Stanislaus were here!"
"But you are not a Brownie!" said the Chinaman to Florimel in a most
decided tone. "How could you join the band? You don't look like a
Brownie. What have you ever done?"
"Nothing, I fear," confessed Florimel. "It is not what I have not done,
but what I hope to do, that makes me so presumptuous as to beg the honor
to be one of you. And, if I were fortunate enough to be taken in by you,
I would ever strive to be helpful, faithful, and true, like a Brownie."
These words, delivered with earnest, manly spirit, created their
impression.
"It may be you have supernatural powers, as the Irishman remarked," said
the Student Brownie doubtfully. "Have you ever tried to put them to a
test?" Prince Florimel sighed.
What could he do to gain the confidence and esteem of these little
people whom already he was beginning to love? How could he make them all
his friends?
In his doubt and uncertainty his eye strayed to the bow in his hand.
A sudden thought came to him. In this extremity it might be of aid.
But it had failed him once--would it fail him again?
Without a word he took an arrow from the quiver and placed it to the
bow. The Brownies watched his every movement with the keenest interest.
He gazed about seeking some difficult target at which to aim. With their
pop eyes the Brownies gazed where he did.
He saw the crescent moon hanging low in the deepening sky, like a
hunter's horn, and pointed the arrow at it.
He pulled back the cord with all his strength, and to his great relief
it held. The arrow whistled away in its swift flight, and was lost in
the violet atmosphere.
But almost the next moment a great cry of surprise went up from all the
Brownies. The arrow that Florimel had shot was sticking through the
moon!
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