The Fairy Ring Part 24

"Fie, madam! I am far too brave for that. It is better to die than to be a coward."

Then he a.s.sembled all his armed men, and after bidding the Queen a tender farewell, he mounted his splendid horse and rode away. When he was lost to sight the Queen could do nothing but weep and wring her hands and cry.

"Alas! If the King is killed, what will become of me and of my little daughter?" and she was so sorrowful that she could neither eat nor sleep.

The King sent her a letter every day, but at last, one morning, as she looked out of the palace window, she saw a messenger approaching in hot haste.

"What news, courier? What news?" cried the Queen, and he answered:

"The battle is lost and the King is dead, and in another moment the enemy will be here."

The poor Queen fell back insensible, and all her ladies carried her to bed, and stood round her weeping and wailing. Then began a tremendous noise and confusion, and they knew that the enemy had arrived, and very soon they heard the King himself stamping about the palace seeking the Queen. Then her ladies put the little Princess into her arms, and covered her up, head and all, in the bedclothes, and ran for their lives, and the poor Queen lay there shaking and hoping she would not be found. But very soon the wicked King clattered into the room, and in a fury because the Queen would not answer when he called to her, he tore back her silken coverings and tweaked off her lace cap, and when all her lovely hair came tumbling down over her shoulders, he wound it three times round his hand and threw her over his shoulder, where he carried her like a sack of flour.

The poor Queen held her little daughter safe in her arms and shrieked for mercy, but the wicked King only mocked her, and begged her to go on shrieking, as it amused him, and so mounted his great black horse, and rode back to his own country. When he got there he declared that he would have the Queen and the little Princess hanged on the nearest tree; but his courtiers said that seemed a pity, for when the baby grew up she would be a very nice wife for the King's only son.

The King was rather pleased with this idea, and shut the Queen up in the highest room of a tall tower, which was very tiny, and miserably furnished with a table and a very hard bed upon the floor. Then he sent for a fairy who lived near his kingdom, and after receiving her with more politeness than he generally showed, and entertaining her at a sumptuous feast, he took her up to see the Queen. The fairy was so touched by the sight of her misery that when she kissed her hand she whispered:

"Courage, madam! I think I see a way to help you."

The Queen, a little comforted by these words, received her graciously, and begged her to take pity upon the poor little Princess, who had met with such a sudden reverse of fortune. But the King got very cross when he saw them whispering together, and cried harshly:

"Make an end of these fine speeches, madam. I brought you here to tell me if the child will grow up pretty and fortunate."

Then the fairy answered that the Princess would be as pretty and clever and well brought-up as it was possible to be, and the old King growled to the Queen that it was lucky for her that it was so, as they would certainly have been hanged if it were otherwise. Then he stamped off, taking the fairy with him, and leaving the poor Queen in tears.

"How can I wish my little daughter to grow up pretty if she is to be married to that horrid little dwarf, the King's son," she said to herself, "and yet, if she is ugly we shall both be killed. If I could only hide her away somewhere, so that the cruel King could never find her."

As the days went on, the Queen and the little Princess grew thinner and thinner, for their hard-hearted jailer gave them every day only three boiled peas and a tiny morsel of black bread, so that they were always terribly hungry.

At last, one evening, as the Queen sat at her spinning wheel--for the King was so avaricious that she was made to work day and night--she saw a tiny, pretty little mouse creep out of a hole, and said to it:

"Alas, little creature! what are you coming to look for here? I have only three peas for my day's provision, so unless you wish to fast you must go elsewhere."

But the mouse ran hither and thither, and danced and capered so prettily, that at last the Queen gave it her last pea, which she was keeping for her supper, saying: "Here, little one, eat it up; I have nothing better to offer you, but I give this willingly in return for the amus.e.m.e.nt I have had from you."

She had hardly spoken when she saw upon the table a delicious little roast partridge, and two dishes of preserved fruit. "Truly," said she, "a kind action never goes unrewarded"; and she and the little Princess ate their supper with great satisfaction, and then the Queen gave what was left to the little mouse, who danced better than ever afterwards.

The next morning came the jailer with the Queen's allowance of three peas, which he brought in upon a large dish to make them look smaller; but as soon as he set it down the little mouse came and ate up all three, so that when the Queen wanted her dinner there was nothing left for her. Then she was quite provoked, and said:

"What a bad little beast that mouse must be! If it goes on like this I shall be starved." But when she glanced at the dish again it was covered with all sorts of nice things to eat, and the Queen made a very good dinner and was gayer than usual over it. But afterwards as she sat at her spinning wheel she began to consider what would happen if the little Princess did not grow up pretty enough to please the King, and she said to herself:

"Oh, if I could only think of some way of escaping!"

As she spoke she saw the little mouse playing in a corner with some long straws. The Queen took them and began to plait them, saying:

"If only I had straws enough I would make a basket with them, and let my baby down in it from the window to any kind pa.s.ser-by who would take care of her."

By the time the straws were all plaited the little mouse had dragged in more and more, until the Queen had plenty to make her basket, and she worked at it day and night, while the little mouse danced for her amus.e.m.e.nt; and at dinner and supper time the Queen gave it the three peas and the bit of black bread, and always found something good in the dish in their place. She really could not imagine where all the nice things came from. At last one day when the basket was finished, the Queen was looking out of the window to see how long a cord she must make to lower it to the bottom of the tower, when she noticed a little old woman who was leaning upon her stick and looking up at her. Presently she said:

"I know your trouble, madam. If you like, I will help you."

"Oh, my dear friend," said the Queen; "if you really wish to be of use to me you will come at the time that I will appoint, and I will let down my poor little baby in a basket. If you will take her and bring her up for me, when I am rich I will reward you splendidly."

"I don't care about the reward," said the old woman, "but there is one thing I should like. You must know that I am very particular about what I eat, and if there is one thing that I fancy above all others, it is a plump, tender little mouse. If there is such a thing in your garret just throw it down to me, and in return I will promise that your little daughter shall be well taken care of."

The Queen when she heard this began to cry, but made no answer, and the old woman after waiting a few minutes asked her what was the matter.

"Why," said the Queen, "there is only one mouse in this garret, and that is such a dear, pretty little thing that I cannot bear to think of its being killed."

"What!" cried the old woman in a rage. "Do you care more for a miserable mouse than for your own baby? Good-by, madam! I leave you to enjoy its company, and for my own part I thank my stars that I can get plenty of mice without troubling you to give them to me."

And she hobbled off grumbling and growling. As to the Queen, she was so disappointed that, in spite of finding a better dinner than usual, and seeing the little mouse dancing in its merriest mood, she could do nothing but cry. That night when her baby was fast asleep she packed it into the basket, and wrote on a slip of paper, "This unhappy little girl is called Delicia!" This she pinned to its robe, and then very sadly she was shutting the basket when in sprang the little mouse and sat on the baby's pillow.

"Ah! little one," said the Queen, "it cost me dear to save your life.

How shall I know now whether my Delicia is being taken care of or not?

Anyone else would have let the greedy old woman have you and eat you up, but I could not bear to do it." Whereupon the mouse answered:

"Believe me, madam, you will never repent of your kindness."

The Queen was immensely astonished when the mouse began to speak, and still more so when she saw its little sharp nose turn to a beautiful face, and its paws to hands and feet; then it suddenly grew tall, and the Queen recognized the fairy who had come with the wicked King to visit her.

The fairy smiled at her astonished look, and said:

"I wanted to see if you were faithful and capable of feeling a real friendship for me, for you see we fairies are rich in everything but friends, and those are hard to find."

"It is not possible that you should want for friends, you charming creature," said the Queen, kissing her.

"Indeed it is so," the fairy said. "For those who are only friendly with me for their own advantage, I do not count at all. But when you cared for the poor little mouse you could not have known there was anything to be gained by it, and to try you further I took the form of the old woman whom you talked to from the window, and then I was convinced that you really loved me." Then, turning to the little Princess, she kissed her rosy lips three times, saying:

"Dear little one, I promise that you shall be richer than your father, and shall live a hundred years, always pretty and happy, without fear of old age and wrinkles."

The Queen, quite delighted, thanked the fairy gratefully, and begged her to take charge of the little Delicia and bring her up as her own daughter. This she agreed to do, and then they shut the basket and lowered it carefully, baby and all, to the ground at the foot of the tower. The fairy then changed herself back into the form of a mouse, and this delayed her a few seconds, after which she ran nimbly down the straw rope, only to find when she got to the bottom that the baby had disappeared.

In the greatest terror she ran up again to the Queen, crying:

"All is lost! my enemy Cancaline has stolen the Princess away. You must know that she is a cruel fairy who hates me, and as she is older than I am and has more power, I can do nothing against her. I know no way of rescuing Delicia from her clutches."

When the Queen heard this terrible news she was heartbroken, and begged the fairy to do all she could to get the poor little Princess back again. At this moment in came the jailer, and when he missed the little Princess he at once told the King, who came in a great fury, asking what the Queen had done with her. She answered that a fairy, whose name she did not know, had come and carried her off by force. Upon this the King stamped upon the ground, and cried in a terrible voice:

"You shall be hung! I always told you you should." And without another word he dragged the unlucky Queen out into the nearest wood, and climbed up into a tree to look for a branch to which he could hang her. But when he was quite high up, the fairy, who had made herself invisible and followed them, gave him a sudden push, which made him lose his footing and fall to the ground with a crash and break four of his teeth, and while he was trying to mend them the fairy carried the Queen off in her flying chariot to a beautiful castle, where she was so kind to her that but for the loss of Delicia the Queen would have been perfectly happy.

But though the good little mouse did her very utmost, they could not find out where Cancaline had hidden the little Princess.

Thus fifteen years went by, and the Queen had somewhat recovered from her grief, when the news reached her that the son of the wicked King wished to marry the little maiden who kept the turkeys, and that she had refused him; the wedding dresses had been made, nevertheless, and the festivities were to be so splendid that all the people for leagues round were flocking in to be present at them. The Queen felt quite curious about a little turkey maiden who did not wish to be a queen, so the little mouse conveyed herself to the poultry yard to find out what she was like.

She found the turkey maiden sitting upon a big stone, barefooted and miserably dressed in an old, coa.r.s.e, linen gown and cap; the ground at her feet was all strewn with robes of gold and silver, ribbons and laces, diamonds and pearls, over which the turkeys were stalking to and fro, while the king's ugly, disagreeable son stood opposite her, declaring angrily that if she would not marry him she should be killed.

The turkey maiden answered proudly:

"I never will marry you! You are too ugly and too much like your cruel father. Leave me in peace with my turkeys, which I like far better than all your fine gifts."