The Other Side of the Sun
_Uniform with this
BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
WYMPS, AND OTHER FAIRY TALES. Illustrated by Mrs. PERCY DEARMER.
Miss SHARP has wit, wisdom, and imagination for her initial equipment,
but she possesses also what is rarer far--the accent and the point of
view. For instance, she would never introduce a bicycle into this
old-fashioned country. She knows perfectly well that if there should be
any occasion for hurry--which is rarely the case in Fairyland--naturally
you take a rocking-horse.--_The Academy._
ALL THE WAY TO FAIRYLAND. Illustrated by Mrs. PERCY DEARMER.
Far and away the best fairy tales are the old traditional stories of
Cinderella; Jack and the Beanstalk, and others. To these we add the
stories of Hans Andersen and Grimm; and now room must be made in that
select company for the tales of EVELYN SHARP.--_The St. James' Gazette._
_ALSO_
AT THE RELTON ARMS. A novel.
THE MAKING OF A PRIG. A novel.
THE MAKING OF A SCHOOL GIRL.
JOHN LANE, LONDON AND NEW YORK.
[Illustration]
The Other Side of the Sun
_Fairy Stories_
BY EVELYN SHARP
_Illustrated_
BY NELLIE SYRETT
JOHN LANE
THE BODLEY HEAD
LONDON AND NEW YORK
1900
COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY
JOHN LANE
University Press
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
_TO_
ALL THE CHILDREN I KNOW
ON
THIS SIDE OF THE SUN
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE WEIRD WITCH OF THE WILLOW-HERB 3
II. THE MAGICIAN'S TEA-PARTY 25
III. THE HUNDREDTH PRINCESS 49
IV. SOMEBODY ELSE'S PRINCE 71
V. THE TEARS OF PRINCESS PRUNELLA 103
VI. THE PALACE ON THE FLOOR 129
VII. THE LADY DAFFODILIA 147
VIII. THE KITE THAT WENT TO THE MOON 163
The Weird Witch of the Willow-Herb
The Weird Witch of the Willow-Herb lived in a pink cottage on the top of
a hill. She was merry and beautiful and wise and kind; and she was all
dressed in pink and green, and she had great eyes that were sometimes
filled with laughter and sometimes filled with tears, and her round soft
mouth looked as though it had done nothing but smile for hundreds and
hundreds of years. Her pink cottage was the most charming place in the
world to live in; the walls were made of the flower of the willow-herb,
and the roof was made of the green leaves, and the floors were made of
the white down; and all the little lattice windows were cobwebs, spun by
the spiders who live in Fairyland and make the windows for the Fairy
Queen's own palace. And no one but a wymp or a fairy could have said how
long the Weird Witch of the Willow-Herb had been living in her cottage
on the top of the hill.
Now, any one might think that this wonderful Witch was so sweet and so
wise that all sorts of people would be coming, all day long, to ask her
to help them; for, of course, that is what a witch is for. But this
particular Witch, who lived in her pink cottage on the top of the hill,
had not been living there all that time for nothing.
"If I did not keep a few spells lying about at the bottom of the hill, I
should never have a moment's peace," chuckled the Witch of the
Willow-Herb. And that is why most of the people who came to ask her for
spells never got so far as the pink cottage at all, for they found what
they wanted at the bottom of the hill; and no doubt that saved everybody
a great deal of trouble.
"Poor people!" said the Weird Witch, with her voice full of kindness;
"why should I make them climb up all this way, just to see me?"
Sometimes, however, it did happen that somebody got to the top of the
hill; or else it is clear that this story would never have been written.
For, one day, as the Witch sat on the doorstep of her pink cottage,
looking out over the world with her great eyes that saw everything, the
little Princess Winsome came running up the white path that twisted
round and round and up and up until it reached the cottage at the top;
and she did not stop running until she stood in front of the Weird Witch
herself. She looked as though she must have come along in a great hurry,
for she had lost one of her shoes on the way and there was quite an
important scratch on her dimpled chin; but, of course, it is difficult
to walk sedately when one is going to call on a witch.
"I am Princess Winsome," she announced, as soon as she had breath enough
to speak.
"To be sure you are," smiled the Weird Witch, who knew that before; "and
you have run away from home because--"
"Because I want to find the bravest boy in the world," interrupted the
Princess, who never liked to let anybody else do the talking.
"Are they all cowards in your country, then?" asked the Witch.
"Oh no," answered Princess Winsome; "the boys in my country are so brave
that it is no fun playing with them. They stop all the games by fighting
about nothing at all; and it's dreadfully dull when you're a girl, isn't
it?"
"Perhaps it is," smiled the Witch. "Then why are you looking for the
bravest boy of all?"
"Ah," said the little Princess, wisely, "the bravest boy of all would
never fight unless there was a reason, you see; and so we should have
lots of time to play. But how am I to find him?"
"The only way to find him is to let him find you," said the Weird Witch;
"and the best thing I can do for you is to shut you up in the middle of
an enchanted forest, where no one but the bravest boy in the world would
ever come to find any one. Now, make haste, or you won't get there in
time!"
And the Princess with the scratch on her chin must certainly have made
haste, for she had quite disappeared by the time the Witch's next
visitor came up the winding white path; and that happened the very next
minute. This time it was a boy who came along,--a tall, strong,
jolly-looking boy, with his hands in his pockets and his cap at the back
of his head, whistling a strange wild tune that was made up of all the
songs of all the birds in the air, so that, as he whistled it, every
bird for miles round stopped to listen.
"I am Kit the Coward," he said, pulling off his cap to the Witch.
"To be sure you are," smiled the Weird Witch, who knew that too; "and
you have run away from home because the other boys called you a coward,
and you want to show them that you are as brave as they are, only you
won't fight without a reason. Isn't that it?"
"Of course it is," answered Kit, who liked to have _his_ talking done
for him; "but how shall I find something worth fighting about?"
"That is not difficult," said the Weird Witch. "All you have to do is to
go to the court of King Hurlyburly, and ask him to give you something
brave to do. The King is always going to war about something, so you
will soon have as much fighting as you want. Now, be off with you, or
else someone will get there before you!"
"All right," said Kit. "Which is the way?"
"Any way you like," laughed the Weird Witch.
"But in what direction?" asked Kit.
"It doesn't matter," laughed the Weird Witch.
So Kit made her another bow and marched away again down the hill-side,
whistling the same tune as before; and all the birds of the air came
flying along when they heard it, and they flew in front of him to show
him the way, and he followed them over meadows and streams and orchards
and cornfields, until they brought him to the walls of King Hurlyburly's
city. And they would not have left him then, if he had not pointed out
to them, most politely, that although it was very obliging of them to
have come so far with him, he would find it a little inconvenient to
travel any further with so many companions. So they flew away again; and
Kit marched into the city and up to the gates of the King's palace.
"I have come to fight for the King," said Kit, when the guards came out
and asked him what he wanted. And he looked such a fine strong fellow,
that they took him at once to the King.
"You have come in the very nick of time," said King Hurlyburly, "for the
Commander-in-Chief of the royal forces has overslept himself so often
that I had him beheaded this morning before he was awake. The army is in
consequence without a head as well as the Commander-in-Chief; so if you
will become their General and invade the country of my neighbour King
Topsyturvy, I shall be much obliged to you."
"Why have I got to invade the country of King Topsyturvy?" demanded Kit.
The King pushed his crown on one side, which he always did when he felt
puzzled. "Now you come to mention it," he said, "I believe there _was_ a
reason, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was. However,
the reason is of no importance--"
"Oh yes, it is," interrupted Kit. "I can't possibly fight without a
reason, you know."
"That's awkward," said King Hurlyburly. "Perhaps the army will know."
And he sent a message round to the barracks to ask the soldiers why they
were going to war. But although the soldiers were all ready to begin
fighting, they had not the least idea what the war was about. So the
King's crown became more crooked than before.
"Won't it do if you invent a reason?" he asked Kit, for he could not
help thinking how nice it would be to stay at home while his soldiers
were being led to war by someone else. "You may marry the Princess
Winsome if you come back victorious," he added as an afterthought.
But Kit only shook his head. He had never heard of the Princess Winsome,
and he was not going to fight anybody without a very good reason for
it.
Then King Hurlyburly had a brilliant idea. "Go and declare war on the
enemy, to begin with," he said; "and perhaps _they_ will remember the
reason."
There was certainly no harm in declaring war; so Kit rode off at once on
one of the King's fastest horses, and arrived the next morning at the
court of King Topsyturvy, just as his Majesty was sitting down to
breakfast.
"I have come from King Hurlyburly to declare war," said Kit, who always
went straight to the point.
"What for?" asked King Topsyturvy.
"I don't know," said Kit. "That's what I want you to tell me."
The King ate two eggs before he replied.
"Well," he said presently, "I believe I said Hurlyburly was a shocking
old muddler. I suppose that's it. All right! When do you want to begin?"
"I don't want to begin at all," answered Kit. "Why did you say he was a
muddler?"
"Oh, just to make conversation," said King Topsyturvy, helping himself
to marmalade.
"Then you don't really think he is an old muddler?" asked Kit.
"Dear me, no," said King Topsyturvy. "I never think."
"Then write that down on a piece of paper, and there needn't be a war at
all!" cried Kit.
The King stroked his beard. "Perhaps there needn't," he agreed. "But I
never write."
"I do, though," said Kit, who had learned to write while all the other
boys were making catapults; "you've only got to sign your name here."
King Topsyturvy stopped eating his breakfast, just long enough to sign
the beautiful apology Kit had written on a sheet of note-paper; and then
Kit jumped on his horse again and rode back to the palace of King
Hurlyburly.
"Well," said his Majesty, "did you discover the reason?"
"There wasn't a reason, and there isn't going to be a war," answered
Kit; and he held out the beautifully written apology from King
Topsyturvy.
"What!" cried his Majesty, in alarm. "Do you mean to say you've stopped
the war?"
"Of course I have," said Kit. "And I have come back victorious, as you
see. Didn't you say something about a Princess?"
"But," stammered the King, "how am I to appease the army? The army has
set its heart on a war."
"So had I," answered Kit, sadly; "but I never can find anything worth
fighting about. Meanwhile, where is the Princess?"
"You have not won the Princess," said King Hurlyburly, who was now
thoroughly cross. "I believe you are a miserable coward!"
"That is what the other boys say," answered Kit, smiling. "It is not my
fault that there is nothing to fight about. Will you please send for the
Princess?"
"The Princess has run away from home, so I can't send for her," said the
King, irritably. "She is shut up in an enchanted forest, and surrounded
with wild beasts and magic spells and giants. It is not at all a nice
place for a Princess to be in, but how am I to get her away?"
"Why," exclaimed Kit, laughing, "here is something for your army to do.
Let it go and rescue the Princess."
"Nothing would induce the army to go near the place," explained the
King, sorrowfully; "the army is too much afraid of being bewitched."
"Hurrah!" shouted Kit, laughing more than ever. "At last I have found
something brave to do! _I_ will go and rescue the Princess."
So Kit the Coward started out on his travels once more; and no sooner
did he get outside the city gates than he began to whistle his wonderful
tune, and down swept all the birds of the air in hundreds, and they flew
in front of him as before and led him to the very edge of the enchanted
forest. There they left him, for no one can help anybody to go through
an enchanted forest, and Kit knew fast enough that he must find the
Princess by himself. He was not a bit afraid, though, and he plunged
straight into the wood without looking back.
He had not taken two steps before he had completely lost himself. The
trees were so thick overhead that not a streak of sunshine was able to
get through, and the forest was so full of wild beasts that it was
impossible to walk five yards without tumbling over a lion or a bear.
But this did not frighten Kit at all, for he had learned to talk the
language of the woods all the time that the other boys were knocking one
another on the head; and so he soon made friends with every animal in
the forest, and they told him the best places to find apples and nuts
and blackberries, and the bees brought him the very best honey they
could make, and he grew so happy and so contented that he quite forgot
he was enchanted and could not escape if he wanted to.
But it is impossible to be happy for long when one is bewitched; and,
one day, Kit found himself in a part of the forest that was more
horrible and more frightening than any dark passage that was ever
invented on the way to any nursery. It was not only dark, but it was
strangely silent as well; and a curious feeling of gloom and unhappiness
suddenly crept over Kit. If it had been a nice sort of silence, the sort
we find when we get away from the other boys and girls into a place
where it is quiet enough to hear the real sounds of the air, Kit would
still have been quite happy; but here there was nothing to be heard at
all, not even the brushing of the leaves, nor the blooming of the
flowers, nor the growing of the grass. But the most frightening thing of
all was when he clapped his hands together and stamped as hard as he
could on the ground, for not a sound did he make; and when he tried to
speak, he found he could only whisper; and when he burst out laughing,
he made no more noise than if he had been smiling. Still, he kept his
wits about him, for, of course, there was the Princess to be rescued,
and at last he thought of trying to whistle. At first he could not make
a note sound in the stillness, but he went on trying until the wonderful
tune he had learned long ago from the birds themselves began to echo
once more through the silent forest.
He did not get an answer at once, for really nice birds cannot be
expected to go out of their way to a place where there is no sunshine
and the flowers cannot enter into conversation with them; but after a
while a very fat blackbird, who certainly had impudence enough for
anything, came hopping along from branch to branch until he landed on
Kit's shoulder, and with him came sunshine and sound and merriment into
the very heart of the melancholy forest, for none of these things are
ever far off when a blackbird is near. Kit gave a shout of joy and
hastened after the blackbird, who was hopping along the ground in front
of him; and the next minute he found himself standing in a blaze of
sunlight in front of a high stone wall. Beyond the wall he could see the
tall towers of a great castle; but he did not trouble himself much about
the other side of the wall, for on the top of it, with the sunshine
pouring all over her, sat the most charming little girl he had ever
seen.
She had lost one of her shoes, and there was the faintest sign of a
scratch on her round, dimpled chin, and her long black hair flowed round
her shoulders in a way that some people might have called untidy; but
Kit was sure, directly he saw her, that she had come straight out of
Fairyland, and he was too amazed even to make her a bow.
"Dear me! What are you doing here?" asked the girl, in a tone of great
surprise.
Kit took a step nearer the wall, and pulled off his cap. Her voice
reminded him that, although she belonged to Fairyland, she was still a
little girl and would expect him to remember his manners. "I have come
to rescue the Princess," he said. "Can you tell me where she is?"
"She lives in the castle over there," answered the girl. "What are you
going to do when you have rescued her?"
"Well, I suppose I shall ask her to marry me," said Kit. "Do you think
she will?"
"Ah," she replied gravely, "that depends on whether you have _my_
permission. Tell me who you are, to begin with."
"I am Kit the Coward," he said simply; and he stared when she broke into
the merriest peal of laughter imaginable.
"What nonsense!" she cried. "If you were a coward, you would never have
got here at all."
"Is that true?" asked Kit eagerly. "Then do you think the Princess
_will_ marry me?"
The girl looked down at him for a moment, with her untidy little head on
one side. Then she bent and held out her two hands to him. "I think,
perhaps, the Princess will," she said softly. "If you will help me down
from this enormous high wall, we will go and ask her."
So Kit lifted her down from the wall, which was quite an easy matter,
for it was in reality no higher than he was and the little girl was
certainly the lightest weight he had ever held in his arms. "What are
you looking for?" he asked, when he had set her on the ground, for she
was kneeling down and turning over the dry leaves in a most distressed
manner.
"I am looking for my crown, of course," she said with a pout; "it
tumbled off my head just before you came, and I was too frightened to
jump all that long way to find it."
"Here it is," said Kit; and he picked up the little glittering crown and
set it gently on the top of her beautiful, rumpled hair. Then he started
back in surprise. "You are the Princess!" he shouted.
"Of course I am," laughed Princess Winsome, putting her hand in his;
"_I_ knew that, all the time! Shall we go home now?"
Kit did not reply immediately, for no one can do two things at once, and
it took him quite a long time to kiss the small soft hand that lay in
his own big one. And as for going home, when they did start they did not
get very far; for it must not be forgotten that they were still in an
enchanted forest, and it is easier to get into an enchanted forest than
to get out of it again. However, as they had everything in the world to
talk about, they would probably have been most annoyed if they had found
their way instead of losing it; so they just went on losing it as
happily as possible, until they could not walk another step because an
immense giant was occupying the whole of the roadway. There he sat,
smoking a great pipe that looked like a chimney-pot that wanted
sweeping; and when the Princess saw him, she was so frightened that she
hid herself behind Kit and peeped under his arm to see what was going to
happen.
"Hullo!" said the giant, in a huge voice that made the grass stand on
end with fright, just as it does after a hoar-frost; "what's this?
You're running away with the Princess!"
"To be sure I am," said Kit; "and if you don't let me pass, I shall have
to kill you."
"Oh, dear," sighed the giant, raising a wind that made the trees shiver
for miles round. "They all say that, and there's no peace for a poor
giant now-a-days. When I was a boy, the Prince was always put under a
spell as well as the Princess. However, I suppose I must make an end of
you, if you are determined to fight."
And he laid down his pipe and rose most unwillingly to his feet.
Kit laughed out loud with gladness, for at last he had found a good
reason for a fight, and no one would be able to call him a coward any
more. But before there was time to strike a single blow, the giant gave
a loud howl of alarm, took to his heels, and in another moment was
completely out of sight. Kit turned in amazement to his little Princess;
and then he saw what had frightened the giant, for all the animals of
the forest, all the lions and the tigers and the bears and the wolves,
stood there in rows, waiting to help him. So there is no doubt that that
giant would have been killed by somebody if he had not run away.
"Isn't it wonderful?" said the little Princess, in a whisper.
But Kit covered his face with his hands. "It is no use," he said in a
disappointed tone; "the other boys will never believe that I am not a
coward."
Princess Winsome came and pulled his hands away and laughed softly. "_I_
think you are the bravest boy in the world," she said.
"Of course he is!" chuckled a voice somewhere near. "How stupid some
people are, to be sure!" And there sat the Weird Witch under a tree, all
in her pink and green gown, with her great eyes brimful of fun and
nonsense. And as the boy and girl stood hand in hand before her and
caught the glance of her beautiful witch's eyes, all sorts of muddles
fell out of their heads, and they began to understand everything that
had been puzzling them for years and years and years. That only shows
what a witch can do when she is the right sort of witch!
"Dear little Princess," cried Kit, "it doesn't matter whether the other
boys believe me or not, so long as _you_ know I am not a coward."
"Besides," added Princess Winsome, "we are not going to try to make
anybody believe anything. I think we'll stay here, instead, for ever and
ever and always."
"A very good idea," smiled the Weird Witch of the Willow-Herb, as she
nodded at them both. "Always remain enchanted if you can."
So they had the nicest and the funniest wedding possible, on the spot;
and there was no time wasted in sending out invitations, for all the
guests were already waiting there in rows--with the exception of the
singing-birds; and Kit very soon summoned them by whistling a few notes
of his wonderful tune. The Princess laid her own wedding-breakfast under
the trees, and the wedding-guests helped her by bringing her everything
that was nice to eat in the forest, such as roasted chestnuts and
preserved fruits and truffles and barley-sugar-cane, and lots of
dewdrops and honey-drops and pear-drops; and the Weird Witch completed
the feast by turning a piece of rock that nobody wanted into a
wedding-cake, and every one will agree that it is better for a rock to
turn into a wedding-cake than for a wedding-cake to turn into a rock.
And all the flowers came of their own accord and arranged themselves on
the table, which they certainly did much more prettily than anybody else
could have done it for them; and when the wedding was over they just
walked away again instead of stopping until they were dead, which of
course is what they would have done at any other wedding. And although
the bride had lost her other shoe by the time she was ready to be
married, and although her beautiful hair was more untidy than ever and
her crown had tumbled off again and had to be brought to her by an
obliging lion, Kit never noticed any of these things and only felt quite
certain that he was marrying somebody who had come right out of
Fairyland and was not an ordinary Princess at all. No doubt, it was
because he was in an enchanted forest that he made such a mistake; and
no doubt, it is because he has never been disenchanted since that he is
making the same mistake to this day.
As for the Weird Witch of the Willow-Herb, she went back to her pink
cottage on the top of the hill, so as to be ready to make the next
person happy who came up the white winding path. But before she went,
she took care that all the singing-birds should fly back to Kit's home
and tell the other boys how brave he had been, which they did with the
greatest pleasure imaginable. It is said that the story became slightly
exaggerated; but when we know how much one little bird can tell, it is
not difficult to imagine the kind of story that could be told by
hundreds and hundreds of little birds.
The Magician's Tea-Party
[Illustration]
Little King Wistful slipped through the palace gates and went out into
his kingdom to look for something new. He was only eight years old, so
he was not a very big King; but he had been King as long as he could
remember, and he had been looking for something new the whole time. Now,
his kingdom was entirely made of islands, and in the days when the old
King and Queen were alive these islands were known as the Cheerful
Isles. But King Wistful changed their name soon after he came to the
throne, and insisted on their being called the Monotonous Isles. For,
strange as it may sound, this little King of eight years old thought his
kingdom was the dullest and the ugliest and the most wearisome place in
the world, and nothing that his nurses or his councillors could do ever
succeeded in making him laugh and play like other little boys.
"Only look at the stupid things!" muttered his Majesty impatiently, as
he stood and surveyed his kingdom from the top of a small, grassy
hillock. "Five round islands in a row; always five round islands in a
row! If only some of them were square, it would be something!"
At the bottom of the hill was a wood, one of those pale-green baby
woods, where the trees are young and slender and nothing grows very
plentifully except the bracken and the heather. And as the King stood
and felt sorry for himself at the top of the hill, out from the wood at
the bottom of the hill came the sound of a little girl's voice, singing
a quaint little song. And this was the song:--
"Sing-song! Don't be long!
Wistful, Wistful, come and play!
Sing-song! It's very wrong
To stay and stay and stay away!
The world is much too nice a place
To make you pull so long a face;
It's full of people being kind,
And full of flowers for you to find;
There's heaps of folks for you to tease
And all the naughtiness you please;
To sulk is surely waste of time
When all those trees are yours to climb!
Ting-a-ring! Make haste, King!
I've something really nice to say;
Ting-a-ring! A _proper_ King
Would not make me sing all day!"
King Wistful thrilled all over with excitement. Was something really
going to happen at last? He had hardly time to think, however, before
the little singer came out of the wood into the open. She wore a clean
white pinafore, and on her head was a large white sunbonnet, and under
the sunbonnet were two of the brightest brown eyes the King had ever
seen. He stepped down the hill towards her, wondering how anything so
pretty and so merry could have come into his kingdom; and at the same
instant the little girl saw the King and came running up the hill
towards him, so it was not long before they stood together, hand in
hand, half-way down the hillside.
"Where did you come from and who are you and how long have you been
here?" asked the King, breathlessly.
"I am Eyebright, of course," answered the little girl, smiling; "and
I've been here always."
"Who taught you to sing that song about me?" demanded the King.
"The magician," answered Eyebright; "and he told me to sing it every day
until you came. But you _have_ been a long time coming!"
"I'm very sorry," replied his Majesty, apologetically; "you see, the
magician did not tell me to come. In fact, I don't even know who the
magician is."
"Are you not the King, then?" asked Eyebright, opening her great brown
eyes as wide as they would go.
The little King felt it was hardly necessary to answer this; but he set
his heels together and took off his crown and made her the best bow he
had learned at his dancing-class, just to show beyond any doubt that he
was the King. Eyebright still looked a little doubtful.
"Then how is it that you do not know the magician?" she asked him. "What
is the use of being King, if you do not know everybody who lives in your
kingdom?"
"It isn't any use; I never said I wanted to be King, did I?" said his
Majesty, a little crossly. It was not pleasant to find that somebody
else, and only a little girl in a sunbonnet, knew more about his kingdom
than he did.
"What a very funny boy you are!" remarked Eyebright, without noticing
his crossness. "I always thought it must be so splendid to be a King,
and to have a banquet whenever you like, and never to go out without a
procession, and to wear a crown instead of a sunbonnet, and--"
"That's all you know about it," interrupted the King, somewhat
impolitely. "There aren't any banquets; and when there are, you only
have stupid things with long names to eat, and you never know whether to
eat them with a fork or a spoon, and it's always wrong whichever you do.
And if you ask for jumbles or chocolate creams or plum-cake, you're told
you mustn't spoil your dinner. And all the procession you ever get is a
procession of nurses, who won't even let you step in a puddle if you
want to!"
"Dear me," said Eyebright, "you're no better off than a little boy in an
ordinary nursery!"
The little King drew himself up on tiptoe with great dignity. "Some of
your remarks are most foolish," he said. "You forget that I have a
kingdom of my own as well as a nursery. To be sure," he added sadly, "it
is not much to boast of, for it is a very stupid kingdom, and nothing
nice ever happens in it."
"What do you mean?" exclaimed Eyebright. "Your kingdom is the nicest
kingdom in the whole world!"
King Wistful had managed to keep his temper so far, but this was more
than he could bear. "Rubbish!" he cried, completely forgetting his royal
manners. "You come up the hill with me, and I'll show you what a stupid
kingdom it is."
So they raced up to the top of the hill and looked down at the five
round islands in a row. "There!" said King Wistful. "Did you ever see
anything so dull?"
The little girl shook her head. "I think it is all as pretty as it can
be," she said. "Look how the sun glints on the cornfields, and see the
great red and blue patches of flowers--"
"But they're always the same flowers," complained his Majesty, yawning.
"They're supposed to be the same flowers, but they never are," answered
Eyebright. "If you were to pick them--"
"Kings never pick flowers," he replied haughtily.
"Perhaps that is why you know so little about them," retorted Eyebright;
and his Majesty began to feel he was not getting the best of it.
"Anyhow," he continued hastily, "you must own that the sea never
changes."
"Oh!" said Eyebright; "that is because you have not learned the sea
properly. It has ever so many different faces, and ever so many
different voices, too."
The King turned and stared at her. "Are you a witch?" he asked
wonderingly.
"No!" laughed Eyebright, merrily. "If I were, I would make you see
things right instead of wrong." Then she suddenly scampered down the
hill again. "Come along, _quick_!" she cried. "We'll go and ask the
magician to disenchant you."
King Wistful had to run his hardest to catch her, for the little girl in
the sunbonnet certainly knew how to put one foot in front of the other.
But then, a sunbonnet is not so apt to tumble off a person's head as a
crown, and that makes all the difference in a running race.
"Where does the magician live?" he panted, when he came up with her.
"In the middle island," she answered. "We'll find the boat and follow
the river down to the sea." She plunged into the wood as she spoke, and
threaded her way through the slender young trees, with his Majesty
close at her heels. Sometimes the bracken was as tall as she was, but
the boy behind could always see the sunbonnet bobbing up and down just
ahead of him, and he followed it until they came out at the other side
of the wood and found themselves on the banks of a charming little
river. A small round boat like a tub, lined with pink rose-leaves, was
waiting for them; and into this they both jumped.
"Oh, oh!" cried Eyebright, jumping up and down with delight. "The
fairies are out to-day! Look at them--the purple ones in the
loosestrife, and the pink and white ones in the comfrey, and--"
"You'll upset the boat if you don't sit still," interrupted the King,
who felt cross because he could not see the fairies. "Let me have the
oars and I'll take you down the stream."
"You need not do anything of the sort," said Eyebright; "for this is the
boat the magician gave me, and it always takes you wherever you want to
go."
So they just sat in the sunshine and floated lazily along, and they
dabbled their hands in the water and made their sleeves as wet as they
pleased, and they caught at the branches above as they passed under
them, and they leaned over the side and stretched after everything that
grew out of reach; and, in short, if they had not been in a fairy boat,
it is very certain that they would have tumbled into the water several
times before they reached their journey's end. Presently, the river
widened out into the big calm sea; and after that, the boat quickened
its speed and took them across to the middle island in no time at all,
for the fairies know well enough that nobody wants to dawdle about in an
open sea, where there are no tadpoles to catch and no trees that sweep
their branches down to meet the water.
When the boat stopped, they found themselves on the edge of a shore
covered with sea-lilac and yellow poppies, and wonderful shells that
sang without being put to any one's ear; and just a little way along the
beach was the magician's cave. There was no doubt about its being the
right cave, for over the door of it was written in square acid tablets:
"This is the magician's cave." Besides, the whole cave was dug out of a
solid almond rock; and of course, any other person's cave would have
been made of plain rock without any almonds in it.
"Come along," said Eyebright; and the two children walked up the beach
and knocked at the magician's door and went in.
Some people might think that a cave on the sea-shore would be full of
draughts and jellyfish and wet shrimps; but this particular cave was
just like the nicest room that ever belonged to a castle-in-the-air. The
wonder of it was, that whoever went into it found the very things he had
never had and always wanted, and none of the things that he had always
had and never wanted. So Eyebright immediately found a beautiful
story-book, with a coloured picture on every page, and all the sad
stories squeezed between the happy stories, so that no one who read it
could ever cry for long at a time; while the King found the inside of a
clock waiting to be picked to pieces, and an open pocket-knife with a
bit of firewood lying handy, and a full-rigged schooner ready to be
sailed. And they both saw the dear old magician, sitting in his
arm-chair and smiling at them.
He was dressed in a long cloak, that always began by being a green cloak
but changed every other minute to a different colour, according to the
mood the magician was in; and as he was always in a nice mood, whether
it was a sad or a merry one, his cloak always managed to be a nice
colour. On his head was a high pointed hat, with crackers sticking out
of it and a pattern worked all over it in caramels and preserved
cherries; and he wore furry foxgloves on his hands to keep them warm,
because he was not so young as he used to be. He had been practising as
a magician for over a thousand years, but he did not look very old, for
all that; he was what might be called pleasantly old, for he had soft
white hair and a curly white beard and a pink complexion like a
school-boy's. That is how a magician grows old when he has always been a
jolly magician.
Eyebright ran straight up to him and climbed on his knee and hugged him.
"I've brought the King to see you," she announced; "and we want you to
be a nice, kind, _lovely_ magician and help him to be disenchanted."
The magician stood up and shook hands with the King, just to make him
feel at home; and the boy did not feel shy another minute, and quite
forgot that he had never paid a visit before without a procession of
nurses to look after him.
"You are very good children to call on me at tea-time," said the
magician. "If there is one thing more than another that makes me feel
the ache in my bones, it is having tea by myself. Now, would you like to
have it on the floor, or shall I call up a table?"
The King, who had had his meals on a table all his life, voted for the
floor; but when Eyebright said it would be more fun to see what would
happen if they chose the table, he had to own that perhaps she was
right. What happened was very simple: the magician just stamped on the
floor, and a neat little table, covered with a nice white cloth, walked
in at the door like any person and took up its position in the middle of
the floor.
"Well!" exclaimed Eyebright; "I never knew tables could walk, before!"
"What do you suppose they have four legs for?" asked the magician,
smiling.
"My nursery table does not walk," observed the little King.
"Ah," said the magician, wisely, "some tables do not know how to put two
and two together. Now for some chairs!"
He stamped on the floor again, and two little arm-chairs bustled into
the room as fast as their fat little legs would carry them. "You must
excuse their being in such a hurry," said the magician; "they have been
playing at musical chairs all their lives, you see. Now, while you are
laying the table, I will boil the kettle. Crockery in the left-hand
cupboard, and eatables in the right-hand cupboard!"
So the magician set to work and lighted the fire with peppermint-sticks,
and the two children opened the doors of his wonderful cupboards. The
crockery in the left-hand cupboard was the right sort of crockery, for
none of it matched; so it did not take a minute to find a small pink cup
and a green saucer for Eyebright, and a big blue cup and a red saucer
for the magician, and a nice purple mug without any saucer at all for
King Wistful. As for the right-hand cupboard, the little King was
overjoyed when he found it stocked with jumbles and chocolate creams and
plum-cake. "I _am_ glad," he said with a sigh of relief, "that you don't
keep seed-cake in your cupboard. Seed-cake always reminds me of eleven
o'clock in the morning."
"Ah," said the magician, "the wymps saw to that, when they filled my
cupboard for me, centuries ago. There's never any bread-and-butter in
it, either--until you've had as much plum-cake as you can eat."
That was a delightful tea-party. The magician did not mind in the least
when they made polite remarks about the food and told him his jumbles
might have been kept a little longer with advantage, or that his
chocolate creams were not quite so soft as some they had known. But
they hastened to add that his tea was the nicest tea they had ever
tasted because it had only a grown-up amount of milk in it, so he would
have been rather a cross magician if he had minded. Nor did he raise any
objection when they walked about in the middle of tea and took a look at
the picture-book, or whittled away the piece of firewood, or danced
round the cave and shouted because everything was so nice. And after tea
there were all the magician's treasures to be turned out of odd nooks
and corners and left about on the floor, and all his new quill pens to
be tried, and his clean sheets of note-paper to be scribbled over. And
when they were tired of exploring the cave and had eaten as much
plum-cake as they wanted, the magician saw it was the right moment to
begin telling them really true stories; and as he was a magician, of
course his true stories were all fairy stories, which, as every one
knows, are the only true stories in the world worth believing. But even
the stories came to an end at last, and then both the children
remembered at once why they had come to see the magician.
"Well, what can I do for you?" he asked, before they had time to say
anything; for, truly, he would not have been a magician at all if he
had not known what they were thinking about. He smiled so encouragingly
that the little King answered him at once.
"It's like this," he began, "there's something wrong with the way I see
things."
"Of course there is," said the magician: "the wymps threw dust in your
eyes when you were a baby; and you cannot expect to see things in the
same light as other people when the wymps have once thrown dust in your
eyes."
"Why did they throw dust in my eyes?" asked little King Wistful.
"Usual reason," answered the magician, briefly. "They were not asked to
your christening, that's all. If people will persist in leaving the
wymps out when they give a party, they must take the consequences.
However, as you were not to blame in the matter, the wymps would be the
first to own that you ought not to be bewymped any longer. The best
thing you can do is to go up to Wympland yourself and ask them to take
away the spell."
The little King looked at Eyebright and hesitated. "It is a long way to
go all alone," he remarked; and Eyebright immediately stepped up to him
and took his hand.
"I'll come with you," she said; "I've always longed to go to the other
side of the sun. How are we to get there, magician?"
"Well," answered the magician, "the usual way is to climb up a sunbeam,
but that's not very quick and sunbeams are apt to be slippery in the dry
weather. Shall I send you up in a flash of lightning or on the spur of a
lark?"
"Spur of a lark!" echoed the King. "You mean on the spur of a moment,
don't you?"
"Not a bit of it," answered the magician; "you'd never get up to
Wympland on the spur of anything but a lark, I can tell you! You have to
get up there very early in any case, if you want to be even with the
wymps; so the best way is to rise with the lark. However, as it is
getting rather late in the day for larks, I had better send you up in a
lightning flash. Will you manage it alone, or shall I send a conductor
with it?"
"Would the conductor show us the way?" asked Eyebright.
"Dear me, no," said the magician. "Lightning conductors never show
anything but the stupidity of some people. Perhaps you'd better have the
lightning without a conductor; so stand on one side, while I pick you
out a nice quiet flash without any thunder hanging to it."
He took down a large sack, labelled _Storms_, from the shelf, untied the
top and plunged his head into it. Eyebright stole a little closer to the
King than before and hoped that nothing would go off with a bang.
"I say," said his Majesty, putting his arm round her, "it strikes me--"
"That is impossible," interrupted the magician in a stuffy voice from
the middle of the sack, "for I've got it in both hands, and it isn't
going to strike anybody so long as you treat it kindly. Now, off you go
in a flash!"
And off they did go in something, though they never knew what it was,
for they had no time to see anything before they found themselves
dropped with a thud on the other side of the sun. For a moment or two
they just lay where they had fallen without moving; then they sat up and
rubbed their eyes and looked round.
"Oh!" exclaimed Eyebright, clasping her hands tight; "I had no idea it
was like this."
Of course Eyebright knew no more about Wympland than she had learned in
her geography lessons, and we all know how little geography books ever
tell us about the really nice places in the world. So, although she
knew as well as any other little girl that Wympland has no physical
features and its inhabitants have no occupation, that its climate is
dull and foggy and its government is a sleeping monarchy, she was not in
the least prepared for what she did see.
"Well," said a voice somewhere near, "what do you think of it?"
Just in front of them a wymp was standing on his head, which is a wymp's
favourite way of resting his legs. He seemed to expect an answer, so the
King did his best to think of one that should be both polite and
truthful. As a matter of fact, he did not think much of Wympland at all.
"It--it is rather full of fog, isn't it?" he began, a little nervously.
The wymp looked distinctly hurt; but before he had time to get angry
Eyebright put things right in her quiet little way.
"I don't think it is yellow fog," she said; "it is more like dull
sunshine."
The wymp fairly wympled when he heard this.
"You've hit it!" he cried in a delighted tone; "that's what it is
really. It's the folks from the front of the sun who call it yellow fog;
they're blinded by their own sunshine, they are. This is the back of
the sun, you see, and the sunshine naturally loses a bit of its polish
by the time it has worked through."
"I think I like bright sunshine best," observed the King.
"That is absurd!" said the wymp. "Why, you can't look at it without
blinking, to begin with. In Wympland you get all the advantages of the
sun and none of the drawbacks,--no sunblinds or sunstrokes or sunspots!
You must be a stupid boy if you can't see that!"
"It is your fault, not mine," answered the King boldly; "you shouldn't
have thrown dust in my eyes if you wanted me to see Wympland in the
right light!"
The wymp turned several somersaults to show his amazement at the King's
words, and finally stood thoughtfully on one leg.
"That's serious," he said. "We didn't know you'd ever come up here, or
we shouldn't have done it. However, it can't be helped now, so you'd
better go back again. It doesn't matter if you _do_ see things wrong--at
the front of the sun."
"But it does matter!" they both exclaimed; "and that's why we want you
to take away the spell, please."
The wymp stood on his head again and shook it from side to side, which
no one but a wymp could have done, considering the awkwardness of the
position. "There's only one thing to be done," he said at last. "You
must exchange eyes."
They stared at the wymp and then at each other. The little King began to
think busily, but Eyebright spoke without thinking at all.
"Very well," she said. "How is it to be done?"
"Quite easy," answered the wymp, cheerfully. "All you've got to do is to
wish with all your might to have the King's eyes instead of your own,
and there you are!"
At that moment the King finished his thinking. "Stop!" he shouted. "If I
take her eyes away, _she_ will always see things wrong!"
But the King had spoken too late. Eyebright had already wished with all
her might, and her eyes had turned as blue as deep water while his
Majesty's were round and large and brown.
"What fun!" she cried, laughing happily. "Isn't it a nice change to have
somebody else's eyes?"
The little King, however, was far too furious to listen to her.
"Stand up and let me knock you down!" he cried, shaking his fist at the
wymp. "Look what you have done. She will see things wrong to the end of
her days!"
"Don't be a foolish little boy," said the wymp, calmly. "Take her home
and try to see things right yourself."
The King certainly did not take her home, nor himself either; but it is
the truth that they both found themselves, the very next minute,
standing on the top of the small green hillock and looking down at the
kingdom of the Monotonous Isles.
"Hurrah!" shouted King Wistful, waving his crown joyfully. "What a
beautiful kingdom I've got! Look how the sun glints on the cornfields,
and see the great red and blue patches of flowers! Don't you think it
_is_ a beautiful kingdom?" he added, turning to the little girl in the
sunbonnet.
Eyebright was distinctly puzzled. She _thought_ she only saw five round
islands in a row. But, of course, it was impossible that the King should
be mistaken. So she looked once more over the kingdom of the Monotonous
Isles and then back at the anxious face of the little King.
"Yes," she said softly, "it is, as you say, a beautiful kingdom." Then
she ran down the hill and disappeared among the slender trees of the
baby wood, and little King Wistful went home to bed.
There is a Queen now as well as a King of the Monotonous Isles. She has
black hair and blue eyes, and she wears a crown instead of a sunbonnet,
and she quite agrees with the King whenever he tells her how beautiful
their kingdom is. And if this should seem remarkable to some people, it
need only be remembered that the Queen sees everything with the King's
eyes.
The Hundredth Princess
There was once a King who was so fond of hunting that all the rabbits in
his kingdom were born with their hearts in their mouths. The King would
have been extremely surprised to hear this, for, of course, he never
hunted anything so small as a rabbit; but rabbits are foolish enough for
anything, as all the world knows, and it is certain that the rabbits of
the King's forest would never have had a happy moment to this day, if
the Green Enchantress had not suddenly taken it into her head to try and
bewitch the King.