The King had given orders that they should seek high and low for the
plum-seller, but in spite of all their pains, he was nowhere to be
found.
When the little soldier discovered that their patience was worn out, he
pressed the juice of the green Queen Claude plums into a small phial,
bought a doctor’s robe, put on a wig and spectacles, and presented
himself before the King of the Low Countries. He gave himself out as a
famous physician who had come from distant lands, and he promised that
he would cure the Princess if only he might be left alone with her.
‘Another madman determined to be hanged,’ said the King. ‘Very well,
do as he asks; one should refuse nothing to a man with a rope round his
neck.’
As soon as the little soldier was in the presence of the Princess he
poured some drops of the liquid into a glass. The Princess had scarcely
tasted it, when the tip of the horns disappeared.
‘They would have disappeared completely,’ said the pretended doctor,
‘if there did not exist something to counteract the effect. It is only
possible to cure people whose souls are as clean as the palm of my hand.
Are you sure you have not committed some little sin? Examine yourself
well.’
Ludovine had no need to think over it long, but she was torn in pieces
between the shame of a humiliating confession, and the desire to be
unhorned. At last she made answer with downcast eyes,
‘I have stolen a leather purse from a little soldier.’
‘Give it to me. The remedy will not act till I hold the purse in my
hands.’
It cost Ludovine a great pang to give up the purse, but she remembered
that riches would not benefit her if she was still to keep the horns.
With a sigh, she handed the purse to the doctor, who poured more of the
liquid into the glass, and when the Princess had drunk it, she found
that the horns had diminished by one half.
‘You must really have another little sin on your conscience. Did you
steal nothing from this soldier but his purse?’
‘I also stole from him his cloak.’
‘Give it me.’
‘Here it is.’
This time Ludovine thought to herself that when once the horns had
departed, she would call her attendants and take the things from the
doctor by force.
She was greatly pleased with this idea, when suddenly the pretended
physician wrapped himself in the cloak, flung away the wig and
spectacles, and showed to the traitress the face of the Little Soldier.
She stood before him dumb with fright.
‘I might,’ said John, ‘have left you horned to the end of your days, but
I am a good fellow and I once loved you, and besides--you are too like
the devil to have any need of his horns.’
X
John had wished himself in the house of the Seagull. Now the Seagull was
seated at the window, mending her net, and from time to time her eyes
wandered to the sea as if she was expecting someone. At the noise made
by the little soldier, she looked up and blushed.
‘So it is you!’ she said. ‘How did you get here?’ And then she added in
a low voice, ‘And have you married your Princess?’
Then John told her all his adventures, and when he had finished, he
restored to her the purse and the mantle.
‘What can I do with them?’ said she. ‘You have proved to me that
happiness does not lie in the possession of treasures.’
‘It lies in work and in the love of an honest woman,’ replied the little
soldier, who noticed for the first time what pretty eyes she had. ‘Dear
Seagull, will you have me for a husband?’ and he held out his hand.
‘Yes, I will,’ answered the fisher maiden, blushing very red, ‘but only
on condition that we seal up the purse and the mantle in the copper
vessel and throw them into the sea.’
And this they did.
Charles Deulin.