THE BLUE MOUNTAIN
THE BLUE MOUNTAIN
TONY was young Tony, and old Tony was his grandfather. This story is about young Tony, and no human being believes a word of it, unless young Tony does.
Tony was born in the town of Antioch. This is not the same Antioch that you read about in history, but quite a different place. It was a place where nearly every one was very dark as to the complexion, and rather short as to the temper and figure. People who were fair in the face and easy in the temper were not thought much of in Antioch. When Tony’s mother saw that her baby was as fair as a daffodil and as good as gold, and laughed all day, she said, “Oh dear, oh dear, I suppose he takes after his grandfather, he is not in the least like my family,” and the matter annoyed her so much that she died.
Then there was only old Tony left to look after young Tony, because his father had been killed in the wars—-only a few weeks before.
The people of Antioch were always fighting the neighbouring tribes, red-faced savages who deserved no better fate than to be killed, only, of course, sometimes a few Antiochians had to be killed too, because that is part of the game, and if there were no danger there would be no glory, would there?
Little Tony’s hair remained yellow, and his habit of laughing grew with his years, and he learned his lessons and he learned his play. He was excellent company, and if it had not been for the yellowness of his hair and the gentleness of his nature, he would have been quite popular among his schoolmates.
His grandfather called him “gentle,” but the people of Antioch called him “lazy,” for they, as I said, were very black, and generally angry. They scurried up and down in their rocky little city, and always they seemed to be driven by most urgent affairs, hurrying to keep important appointments. They ran about all day long, attending to their business, and hardly stopping even for their dinner or their tea, and no one ever saw any of them asleep.
“Why is it, Grandfather?” young Tony asked one day, “what is it all about? why do they never sit down quietly like you and me?”
THE PEOPLE OF ANTIOCH WERE ALWAYS IN A HURRY AND GENERALLY ANGRY.
“It is the great heart of the Nation, my boy,” said old Tony, “it cannot be still; it is in the breed, you know, they can’t help it. They are all alike too, except you and me. Why, bless your heart, look at the King, he is more in a hurry than all the rest, and more—and more noble and active, bless him.”
The old man ended his speech in quite a different voice from the one he had begun with. This was because he suddenly caught the glitter of the King’s crown as the Monarch popped round the corner.
The King of Antioch was always in a hurry, always running somewhere or other, consequently he was seldom on his throne, and his loyal subjects had to look out very sharply, for he was always sure to be where they least expected him. You may think that they could have got over this little difficulty by always looking for the King where they least expected him, but if you try this simple experiment for yourself with your governess or tutor, or even your nurse, I think you will find that it is not so easy as it looks.
“Ha!” said the King, standing in the doorway and laughing cheerfully, “talking treason, eh? well, you know what the punishment for that is. Pinching with black pincers, you know, till—well—till you don’t feel the pinching any more.”
“Aha! your Majesty always has such a pleasant way with you,” said old Tony politely; and young Tony decided that when he grew up he would try not to have any pleasant ways at all.
The King rustled quickly round the little house, and looked at everything—dresser, chairs, plates and pots. He was sorry that there was nothing that he could find fault with, so he said, “Beware of Luxury,” and hurried off to make his presence felt in some other humble home. There was no pride about King Anthony XXIII. He just dropped in without an invitation and took his subjects as he found them.
“King Anthony XXIII. is the noblest of monarchs,” said old Tony, as he and his grandson sat down to their plain supper.
“It’s all right, grandfather, he has quite gone, he’s not listening—for a wonder!” said young Tony.
Meantime the King was hurrying in and out and up and down the crowded streets of his city, picking up little bits of information, and making his subjects feel that his kingship was not a mere matter of form, but that he was really interested in the most humble life among his people.
It was a strange town, all up-hill and down-hill, with steep rocks and precipices all mixed up with the public streets. The people, for all their busy habits, had no trade, or rather they did not manufacture anything. They built houses, and brought up their families. They wrapped their children up very snugly and carried them about at an earlier age than we consider safe, and they milked their cows, which were large and green and had wings, and they drank the milk, and they gathered the fruit of the trees that grew on the plain below the town, and they got on very well indeed. There was only one drawback to life in Antioch, and that was its uncertainty. At any moment an earthquake might occur, then down would go half the town, and the busy citizens had it all to build again. They soon did it, for they were nothing if not industrious. A much more awful thing was the storm of hot rain that now and then fell on the town, a blighting rain that killed all it touched. This was more dreaded than even the earthquakes, but fortunately it very seldom happened.
Old Tony was beadle and sexton and keeper of the town records; and very nicely he kept them too. There was not a speck of dirt on one of them. He used to spend hours and hours polishing the records, and he scoured the tombstones till they shone again; and he had most of the inscriptions by heart. After an earthquake he was always most careful to put the tombstones back in their proper places, and one day, when he was doing this, he came on a stone he did not remember to have seen before. He called to young Tony, who had had a Board School education, to see if he could read the bits of words that were carved upon it.
“It seems like a foreign language,” said he.
“I can’t make it out,” said young Tony, “it is not carved, it is in the stone somehow. Looks as if it were coming through from the other side.”
He turned the stone over, and there, on the other side, was an inscription which both of them had read a hundred times.
“HERE LIES HENRY BIRKBECK,
MAGICIAN TO THE INSTITUTE,
However humble he seems to you,
His last foretelling is going to come true.
P.S.—You see if it doesn’t.”
“Dear me,” said old Tony. “Poor old Henry Birkbeck, it seems like yesterday; yes, he was very respectable, but only in a small way of business. A magician he was by trade, but no one thought much of him, except perhaps the King, and he never gave him a lift. He used to do things with eggs and a hat. He broke the eggs as often as not. And the goldfish and handkerchief he hardly ever brought off.”
Old Tony began to lay down the tombstone, but young Tony held it up with one hand and tried to scrape the back of it with the other.
“There’s something here,” he said, “let’s set it upright instead of laying it down, and I will scrub it and see what the letters are. Poor old Mr. Birkbeck, I wonder what his last foretelling was. Was he good at prophesying, grandfather?”
“Not a bit,” said the sexton, “and to do him justice he almost gave it up in his later years. You see people laughed at him so, because the things that he foretold never happened. Towards the end he grew very feeble—hardly prophesied a single prophecy from one year’s end to another. Sometimes he would say, ‘I should not wonder if it rained before Sunday,’ but then he never wondered at anything. He was a calm old man, was poor Henry. It took a good deal to astonish him.”
Young Tony tried to interest his boy friends in the back of poor old Henry Birkbeck’s tombstone, but nobody cared. They were all in too much of a hurry to care for an occupation so slow as cleaning tombstones, but Tony worked away perseveringly. He cleaned it with soap, and he cleaned it with soda, with brickdust and vinegar, with rotten stone and washleather, with patience and elbow grease, and the last two, as you know, will clean almost anything. So after a time a few letters began to show distinctly here and there, and presently Tony found he could read whole words.
There was “milk” and “mountain,” and a word that looked like “Jilk,” only of course it could not be that. And the last word of all was “reign,” and the second word of all was “Tony.”
“It must be something to do with me,” said young Tony, “because of my name being in it.”
“It must have something to do with the King,” said old Tony, “because it says ‘reign,’ so you’d better cut off to the Palace, and look sharp about it, or His Majesty will know the reason why.”
So Tony looked sharp about it, and got to the Palace in less than five minutes. For a wonder the King was not engaged in dropping in on his subjects, but was on his throne amid his fussy black courtiers, who were all busy trying to make themselves as small as they could.
This was because the King was very short, though he did not like to say so. He always had himself described in the Census and the Palace Reports as a “powerful man of middle height,” though he was nowhere near the middle height, and no more powerful than other people.
“Well, boy,” said King Anthony XXIII., “what have you come here for?”
“There is a prophecy,” said Tony.
“There are a good many,” said King Anthony, “but they don’t amount to much since poor Henry Birkbeck died. He was something like a prophet,” he went on, turning to his courtiers; “he foretold, when I was only a baby, that if I grew up I should perhaps be king. The late King, my father, was very pleased, I remember.”
The courtiers all bowed, and said it was really wonderful. Tony said,
“Well, then you’d better come and have a look at this prophecy, because it is the late Mr. Birkbeck’s last one, and he said it’ll come true.”
“Bring it here, can’t you?” said the King.
“No, I can’t,” said the boy. “It’s on his tombstone, so there. I can’t carry tombstones about.”
“No,” said the King thoughtfully, “of course you are not powerfully built. You are nowhere near the medium height.”
“Come and look at it if you want to,” said Tony. “I’m in no hurry.”
“Well,” said King Anthony, “I don’t care if I do. I’m tired of sitting still.”
So off they all went, King, Court, heralds, men-at-arms, banner-bearers and spearmen, down the narrow, dark, crooked town streets, till they came to the churchyard where the tombstones were—both the upright and the flat kind.
Tony ran on ahead and knelt in front of the tombstone. Then he jumped up and called out,
“You hurry up, it’s as plain now as the nose on your face.”
“You should say the royal nose on your Majesty’s royal face,” said old Tony anxiously.
But the King was too interested to care about even his subjects’ manners.
OFF THEY ALL WENT, KING, COURT, AND MEN-AT-ARMS.
He came up to the tombstone, and on it he read, and Tony read, and all the courtiers read:—
“When Tony drinks the Blue Mountain’s milk
He shall wear a Sunday suit of silk.
He shall be tallest in all the Land,
And hold the town under his command.
He shall have greatness and we shall have grain;
Soon may it happen and long may he reign!
Hurrah.
H. T. Birkbeck.”
The King read this, and said—
“Well, I never!”
And all the courtiers said the same.
“Tony means Me,” said the King.
The courtiers said that of course it did.
“I am King Tony XXIII.,” said he.
And the courtiers said of course he was.
They all spoke at once like a chorus.
“I was christened Anthony, of course,” his restless Majesty went on, fidgeting with his gold collar; “but I know that my subjects have always spoken of me behind my back by the endearing diminutive.”
The courtiers assured the King that this was so.
“I suppose there’s no one else called Tony?” The King turned a threatening glance on the crowd, and every one hastened to say “No, there wasn’t.” But old Tony turned extremely pale, and hurrying into the vestry, he tampered with the register of births, and altered his own name to Sydney Cecil Ernest Watchett.
But young Tony spoke up. “My name’s Tony,” said he.
“Oh, is it?” said His Majesty. “We’ll soon see about that. Guards, seize him! Now, what is your name?”
“Tony,” said he.
“Your name is not Tony,” said the King, “your name is——” he could not think of a name at the moment, so he stopped.
Tony said, “My name is Tony.”
“Take him to the Parliament House,” said the King, beside himself with rage. “Give him a taste of the Mace,” and Tony tasted the Mace and was stamped on by the Great Seal, who was very fierce and lived in a cage at the Parliament House, until he was stiff and sore and sorry enough to be glad to say that his name was anything the King liked, except Tony, which of course it never, never could have been. He admitted at last that his name was William Waterbury Watchett, and was discharged with a caution.
TONY WAS STAMPED ON BY THE GREAT SEAL, WHO WAS VERY FIERCE.
“But my name is Tony after all,” he said to himself as he went home, full of sad memories of the Mace and the Great Seal. “I wonder where the Blue Mountain is?”
Young Tony thought a good deal about poor Henry Birkbeck’s prophecy. Perhaps the Great Seal had stamped it on his memory. Anyway he could not forget it, and all the next day he was wandering about on the steep edge of the town, looking out over the landscape below. It was not an interesting landscape. All round the brown hill where the town was lay the vast forests of green trees, something like bamboos, whose fruit the people ate; and beyond that one could see the beginnings of a still larger forest, where none of the people of Antioch had ever dared to go—the forest, whose leaves were a hundred times as big as the King himself, and the trunks of the trees as big as whole countries. Above all was the blue sky—but, look as Tony would, he could see no blue mountain.
Then suddenly he saw the largest forest shake and shiver—its enormous leaves swaying this way and that.
“It must be an earthquake,” said Tony, trembling, but he did not run away. And his valour was rewarded as valour deserves to be. The next moment the vast branches of the enormous forest parted, and a giant figure came out into the forest of bamboo-like trees. It was a figure more gigantic than Tony had ever imagined possible. It had long yellow hair. In its hand it carried a great white bowl, big enough to float a navy in. If such an expression did not sound rather silly, I should say that this figure gave Tony the idea of a little-girl-giant. It sat down among the bamboo forest, crushing millions of trees as it sat. With a spoon twice the length of the King’s banqueting hall, it began to eat out of the tremendous basin. Tony saw great lumps, like blocks of soft marble, balanced on the vast spoon, and he knew that the giant-little-girl was eating giant-bread-and-milk. And she wore a giant frock, and the frock was blue. Then Tony understood. This was the “Blue Mountain,” and in that big big sea of a basin there was milk—the Blue Mountain’s milk.
Tony stood still for a moment, then turned and ran as hard as he could straight into the Royal presence. To be more exact, he ran into the Royal waistcoat, for the King, in a hurry, as usual, was coming out of his palace gates with a rush. The King was extremely annoyed. He refused to listen to a word Tony had to say until Parliament had been called together, and had passed a Bill strengthening the enactments against cheek. Then he allowed Tony to tell his tale. And when the tale was told every one ran to the battlements of the town to look. There was no blue mountain to be seen.
THE GIANT-LITTLE-GIRL.
Then his Majesty told Tony what he thought of him, and it was not pleasant hearing.
“I am not a liar,” said Tony; “I am very sorry I told you anything about it; I might jolly well have gone and got it for myself. My name is——William——Waterbury——Watchett.” He stopped in confusion.
“I should think it was,” said the King; “if there is any mountain, which I don’t for a moment believe, you had better go and fetch me some of the milk (not that I think there is any) out of the mountain’s basin (which I cannot believe exists outside of your imagination). If you bring it to this address you will be suitably rewarded.”
“All right,” said Tony; “shall I fetch it in a jug, or will they lend me a can?”
“I will lend you my mug,” said the King; “and mind you bring it back full.”
So Tony took the mug. It had “For a good little King. A present from Antwerp,” on it. And he kissed his grandfather, and started off on his long, perilous journey.
“I suppose he will give me a reward if I get it,” he thought, “and if not, well, it’s an adventure, anyway.”
He passed through the crowded streets, where every one was rushing about in the usual frantic haste, and out at the town gates, and down the road into the forest. The trunks of the trees towered tall and straight above, and a subdued green light shone all about him.
The ground was very broken and uneven, and often Tony had to go a long way round to avoid some great rock or chasm. But he travelled fast, for he was a quick walker, and he did not miss the way once, although, of course, it was quite a strange country to him.
There had been evening classes at his school to teach the boys the art of finding their way in strange places, and Tony had attended all the lectures and taken notice as well as notes. And now he was able to practise what he had learned, and he was glad he had not wasted his time in drawing pictures of the masters, or playing nibs with the boys next him, and throwing ink pellets at more studious boys.
But the journey was longer than he expected, and the mug was rather in his way. He was very much afraid of breaking that mug: it is an awkward thing to break a mug with “A present for a good King” on it. It is so difficult to replace. There are very few of those mugs made nowadays. There is little or no demand for them.
But at last the green light of the forest began to grow brighter, and Tony saw that he was approaching a sort of clearing among the trees, so he put his best foot foremost, without stopping to think which was his worst foot—always a mistake when you are tired and footsore.
And now he came out from under the tall branches, and saw a round open space in the forest, where millions of fallen trees lay on the ground. And he knew that this was the spot where the mountain had sat down to eat its unimaginable enormous breakfast. But there was no mountain to be seen, and Tony knew that he could do nothing but sit down and wait, in the hope that the Blue Mountain would come next morning to eat its breakfast in the same place.
So he looked about for a place to rest safely in, and presently found just what he wanted—a little cave, whose walls and roof were of dried earth—and there he stayed all that day and night, eating the fruit of the fallen trees.
And next morning there was a rustling and a swaying of the trees, and the Blue Mountain came striding over the tall tree-tops, bending down the forest as she came on colossal black legs and massive shoes with monstrous ankle straps. Each shoe was big enough to have crushed a hundred Tonys at one step. So he hid in his cave, and presently knew by the shaking of the ground, like an earthquake, that the mountain had sat down.
Then he came out. He was too near to see the mountain properly, but he saw a great blue-fold of giant frock near him, and far above him towered the blue heights of the giant-little-girl’s knees. On the summit of these shone a vast white round—the great bread-and-milk basin.
Tony started to climb the blue-fold. It was stiff, starched—with giant starch, I suppose—and it bore his weight easily. But it was a long climb, and he drew a deep breath of thankfulness when he reached the broad table-land of the giant-little-girl’s knees—and now the smooth china roundness of the big basin was before him. He tried its polished surface again and again, and always fell back baffled. Then he saw that he might climb up the sleeve of the gigantic arm whose hand held the basin. With his heart in his mouth he began the ascent, slowly and carefully, holding the precious mug closely to his breast. His breath came faster and faster as he went up and up, and at last stood triumphantly on the edge of the great blue sleeve. From there to the edge of the basin it was easy to crawl, and now at last he stood on the giddy verge of the monstrous basin, and looked down at the lake of milk with the rocks of bread in it, many feet below. The great height made him giddy. He lost his footing, and still clasping the mug, he fell headlong into the giant-bread-and-milk. The bread rocks were fortunately soft. Tony picked himself up. He was wet, but no bones were broken, and the mug—oh, joy! the mug was safe. Tony looked it over anxiously as he sat on a rock, a sloppy and uncertain resting place. There was only one small crack near the handle, and Tony was almost sure that that had been there before.
“I don’t know however I shall get out again,” said Tony; “perhaps I never shall, but in case I do, I suppose I had better fill the mug”; so he stooped from the rocks and filled the mug from the lake of milk, which was much thicker than the milk of the green cows with wings, the only milk Tony was used to. He had just filled the mug and tied it down with a piece of parchment which he had taken from the Town Records and brought with him for the purpose, when a noise like thunder suddenly broke on his ear. And indeed it very nearly broke the ear itself, and so startled Tony that the precious mug all but slipped from his grasp. Then a wave of milk swept up almost over his head. The whole of the massive basin was moved sideways. Then came a shock like an earthquake. The basin was being set on the ground. Tony felt that the Blue Mountain had seen him and had screamed. What would the giant-little-girl do? Would she kill him? If so, how?
These questions afforded Tony food for some interesting reflections during the next few moments.
He looked round him for a way of escape. Everywhere towered the smooth white walls. The tremendous spoon which he had seen the Blue Mountain use had, unfortunately, not been left in the basin, or he could have climbed out by that. He gave himself up for lost. Then suddenly he saw the trunk of a slender tree appear at the edge of the basin. It was pushed down towards him. Yes on to the very bread-rock on which he crouched. Would it crush him? No! The end of it rested on the rock by his side; it gently moved towards him. He saw now that the Blue Mountain was not cruel. She was not bent on destroying him. She was offering him a way of escape. He eagerly climbed the tree. When he was half-way up, however, the giant-little-girl flung the tree aside, and with Tony still clinging to it, it fell crashing into the forest. When he came to himself he almost shouted for joy to find the mug still whole.
TONY AMONG THE ROCKS IN THE BREAD-AND-MILK BASIN.
He never knew how he got home.
When he took the mug to the King the monarch looked at it, and said—
“The milk’s very thick.”
“It’s giant cow’s milk,” said Tony, “you drink it up and let’s see what happens.”
“I don’t know,” said the King, suspiciously, “suppose it’s poison; I shall have it analysed.”
“Well, you promised me a reward,” said Tony, “and you wouldn’t grudge it if you knew what a time I’ve had of it. I might have been killed, you know.”
“Reward!” said the King, who had been looking at the mug, “reward! when you have cracked my mug—my own only mug, with ‘A present for a good King’ on it. Reward indeed! a stamp from the Great Seal would be more——”
But Tony was gone. He ran home to tell his grandfather—but his grandfather was not there—only a letter lay on the kitchen table.
“Dear grandson,” it said, “the King has found out that my name was entered in the register as Anthony Antrobus, and he refuses to believe that the alteration to Sydney Cecil Ernest Watchett was made at my birth. So I am seeking safety at a distance. I have only one piece of advice to give you. Do so too.—Your loving Grandfather.”
This seemed such good advice to Tony, whose name was also in the register, that he was just going to take it when the door was flung open, and in rushed the King and the Army. They hustled and bustled and rustled round the house, breaking and tearing everything, and when there was nothing more to spoil they carried Tony off to prison.
“So this is my reward for getting the milk for him,” said poor Tony to himself, as he sat in prison, loaded with chains, and waiting for his trial. “I wish I had drunk the milk myself. This is what comes of loyalty. But I don’t care, my name is Tony, and his is not, and I will say so too, if I hang for it.”
Acting on this resolution next day, at his trial, Tony said so, and what is more, he came very near indeed to hanging for it. For King Anthony XXIII. was furious. He absolutely danced with rage, and it took six Prime Ministers to restrain his emotion while the trial went on. Tony was tried for an attempt to murder the King. The whole thing, said the Public Persecutor, was nothing but a plot. The prophecy of Henry Birkbeck, which nobody had seen, till Tony found it; the Blue Mountain, which nobody but Tony had seen at all; the thick milk so mysteriously obtained, all pointed to dark treason and villainy. The crack in the mug was a peculiarly incriminating circumstance. (I cannot help the long words—Public Persecutors will use them.) It was a vile plot, the Persecutor said, but it had failed. The Public Analyst gave evidence that the milk was not milk at all, but some explosive substance too dangerous to analyse.
Tony looked at the Jury and he looked round the Court, and he saw that the case did indeed look black against himself. When he was asked what was his defence, he said—
“There is no pleasing some people.”
“It is my duty to caution you,” said the Persecutor, “that everything you say will be used against you.”
“I am sure it will,” said Tony, wearily, “but I can’t help that, everything I do is used against me too. I needn’t have told any one anything about it. I might have got the milk myself and been King, but I got it for him, and I did not crack the mug. At least, I am almost sure not. I only wish I had drunk the milk.”
“Make him drink it now,” shouted a thousand voices from the crowded Court.
“Don’t!” said the King, hastily, “it might not be poison after all.”
“You can’t have it both ways, your Majesty,” said the Persecutor bravely; “either it is poison, in which case the Prisoner deserves to drink it, or it is not poison, in which case the Prisoner leaves the Court without a stain upon his character.”
“It is poison!”
“EVERYTHING YOU SAY WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU,” SAID THE PUBLIC PERSECUTOR.
“It isn’t!”
“It is!”
“It is not!”
The shouts rose louder and louder.
“It is not poison, it is milk!” cried Tony, and suddenly seizing the mug of milk, which had been brought into the Court to give its evidence, he lifted it to his lips, and before the Jailer could prevent it, he drained the milk to the last drop and ran out of the Court. For every one was too astonished to stop him.
The moment he was outside, he felt a sudden and awful change in himself. He was growing, growing, growing. He hurried out of the town. He felt that it would soon be too small to hold him. Outside he got bigger and bigger till the trees of the nearer forest were like grass under his feet, and the mug ran out of his hand like a little grain of rape-seed. And there beside him stood the Mountain—a little girl in a blue dress—and he was taller than she was.
“Hullo!” said the Blue Mountain, “where did you spring from?”
“From the town down there,” said Tony.
“There?” said the Mountain, stooping, “that’s not a town, silly, you know it’s only an ant-heap, really.”
“It is my town,” said Tony, “and its name is Antioch, and——”
And then he told her the whole story. In the middle of it she sat down to listen better, crushing millions of trees as she sat. And Tony sat down, crushing other millions, only now it seemed to him that he had sat down on the grass. It makes a great deal of difference what size you are.
“And that is where I used to live,” said Tony, pointing to the town, “and my name is Tony.”
“I know that,” said the Blue Mountain, “but you live next door to us, you know you do, you always did, and that is only an ant-heap.”
And when Tony looked down again it seemed to him that perhaps it really was only an ant-heap.
All the same he knew the King when he saw him hurrying along the ramparts, and he picked the King up and put him on a cow’s ear. And the cow scratched its ear with its hind foot. And that was the end of the King.
“Don’t tease the ants,” said the Blue Mountain. “People pour boiling water sometimes, or dig up the heaps, but I think it’s cruel.”
HE WAS GROWING, GROWING, GROWING.
Tony remembered the hot rain and the earthquakes.
“It is a nice story,” she said, “of course the grass is like a forest to the ants, and the big forest is the hedge. Your Sunday suit is silk velvet, your aunt told mother so. Yes, it is a nice story, and an ant did drop into my bread and milk yesterday, though I don’t know how you knew.”
“You mayn’t believe it;” said Tony, “but I shall give them corn because it says so in Mr. Birkbeck’s prophecy, only I won’t ever give them any milk in case they grow big. They are too bad-tempered. Just think if the King had been our size!”
“Oh, come along home, do,” said the Blue Mountain, a little crossly. “I am tired. It is dinner time, it’s no use pretending about Kings and things. You know well enough you are only Tony-next-door.”
And whatever he may have been before, it is quite certain that since then he has been “Tony-next-door,” and nothing else whatever.
THE PRINCE, TWO MICE, AND SOME
KITCHEN-MAIDS
THE PRINCE, TWO MICE, AND
SOME KITCHEN-MAIDS
WHEN the Prince was born the Queen said to the King, “My dear, do be very, very careful about the invitations. You know what fairies are. They always come to the christening whether you invite them or not, and if you forget to invite one of them she always makes herself so terribly unpleasant.”
“My love,” said the King, “I will invite them all,” and he took out his diamond-pointed pen and wrote out the cards on the spot.
But just then a herald came in to bring news of war. So the King had to go off in a hurry. The invitations were sent out, but the christening had to be put off for a year. At the end of this time the King had subdued all his enemies, so he was very pleased with himself. The Prince was a year old, and he also was pleased with himself, as all good babies are, and found the little royal fingers and toes a fresh and ever-delightful mystery. And the Queen was pleased with herself, as all good mothers should be—so everything went merrily. The Palace was hung with cloth of silver and strewn with fresh daisies, in honour of the great day, and after all had eaten and drunk to their hearts’ content the fairies came near with the gifts they had brought to their godson the Prince.
“He shall have beauty,” said the first.
“And wit,” said the second.
“And a pretty sweetheart,” said the third; “who loves him,” said the fourth.
And so they went on, foretelling for him all sorts of happy and desirable things. And as each fairy gave her gift she stooped and kissed the baby Prince, and then spreading her fine gossamer-gauze wings, fluttered away across the rosy garden. The crowd of fairies grew less and less, and there were only three left when the Queen pulled the King’s sleeve and whispered, “My dear, where’s Malevola?”
“I sent her a card,” said the King, casting an anxious look round him.
“Then it must have been lost on the way,” said the Queen, “or she’d have been here——”
“She is here,” said a low voice in the Queen’s ear. Suddenly the room grew dark, grey clouds hid the sun, and all the daisies on the floor shut up quite close. The poor Queen gave a start and a scream, and the King, brave as he was, turned pale, for Malevola was a terrible fairy, and the dress she wore was not at all the thing for a christening. It was made of spiders’ webs matted together, dark and dank with the damp of the tomb and the dust of dungeons. Her wings were the wings of a great bat; spiders and newts crawled round her neck; a serpent coiled about her waist and little snakes twisted and writhed in her straight black hair.
She looked at the Queen so terribly that her poor Mother-Majesty cried out without meaning to.
“Oh don’t!” she cried, and flung both arms round the cradle. The Prince was quite happy, playing with his new coral and bells, and looking at the Palace cat, who sat at the foot of the cradle washing herself.
“Now listen,” said Malevola, still speaking in the low, even voice that was so terrible. “You did not invite me to the christening. I’ve read my fairy tales, and I know what’s expected of a fairy who is left out on an occasion like this. I intend to curse your son.”
Then all the Kings and Queens who had come to the christening wished they had stayed away, and they and all the Court fell on their knees and begged Malevola for mercy. As for the three good fairies who were left, they hid behind the window-curtains, and the Court ladies, peeping between their fingers, said—
“Fancy deserting their godson like this! How unfairy-like!”
But the Queen and the King only wept, and the Prince played with his rattle and looked at the cat.
Then Malevola said mockingly: “Great King and mighty Sovereign, Malevola was not good enough to be asked to your tea-party. But your family shall come down in the world; your son shall marry a kitchen-maid and marry a lady with four feet and no hands.”
A shiver of horror ran through the room, and Malevola vanished. Then, suddenly, the sun came out, and people lifted up their heads, and dared again to look at each other. And the daisies, too, opened their eyes again.
MALEVOLA’S DRESS WAS NOT AT ALL THE THING FOR A CHRISTENING.
Then the good fairies came out from behind the window-curtains, and the poor Queen fell on her knees before them.
“Can’t you do anything?” she asked. “Can’t you undo what she says, and make it untrue?”
“Not even a fairy can make a true thing untrue,” said the good fairies sadly. “Malevola’s words will come true; but the Prince has already many gifts, and our gifts are yet to give, and these you shall choose. Whatever you wish shall be his.”
Then the King, recovering a little from the terror into which the fairy Malevola had thrown him, and remembering how well he and his royal line had always borne them in battle, said at once—
“Let the boy be brave.”
“He is brave,” said one of the good fairies; “he fears nothing.”
And at this the Prince ceased to feel any fear of the Palace cat. He put out his hand and pulled her tail so merrily that Pussy turned and clawed the little arm till the blood ran.
“Oh, dear!” cried his mother, “he is fearless, as you say. I wish he were afraid of cats, poor darling.”
“He is,” said the second fairy; “you have your wish.” And, indeed, the Prince screamed, and hid his face, and shrank from the Palace cat with such horror that the King pulled out his pencil and note-book and wrote an edict then and there banishing all cats from his dominions. But, all the same, he was very angry.
“Your Majesty has wasted one wish,” he said very politely to the Queen; “let us now leave the last gift in the hands of the last fairy.”
The last fairy came and kissed the Prince, who was now sobbing sleepily.
“He shall be happy,” she said; “he shall have his heart’s desire.”
Then she too vanished; and the Kings and Queens took their leave when their gold coaches came for them. And presently the King and Queen were left alone with the silver hangings and the strewn daisies and the baby.
“Oh dear! oh dear!” said the Queen; “this is dreadful! A kitchen-maid!—and a lady with four feet and no hands!”
“At least we are not likely to have a kitchen-maid with less than two hands,” said the King.
“We might arrange only to have titled kitchen-maids,” said the Queen timidly.
“The very thing,” the King answered: “that would make the love affair all that one could wish. But there’s still the marriage.”
“Of course he’ll marry the lady he loves.”
“It’s not the way of the world,” said the King. “At any rate, let’s hope he’ll love the lady he marries. Otherwise——”
“Otherwise what?” said the Queen.
“We know nothing about otherwise, do we, my Queen?” he said, catching her round the waist. And in his love for his wife and his son the King felt almost happy again, for here they were all three together, and when your son is in his cradle his marriage seems very far off indeed.
But the Queen was anxious and frightened, and while the Prince was still a child she sent messengers to the Courts of all the neighbouring Kings and Queens to tell them what had been foretold, which, indeed, most of them knew, having been at the christening. And she begged such of them as had daughters to send them as kitchen-maids, that so the Prince might at least fall in love with a real Princess. And as the Prince grew up he was so handsome and so brave, fearing nothing but cats, which, of course, he never saw, though he dreamed of them often and woke screaming, and also so brilliant and good, that, his father’s kingdom, being beyond compare the finest in all the round world, the young daughters of Kings vied with each other as to who should find favour in the eyes of the Queen-Mother, and so get leave to serve in the kitchen, each nursing the hope that some day the Prince would see her and love her, and perhaps even marry her. And he was very good friends with all the noble kitchen-maids, but he loved none of them, till one day he saw, at a window of the tower where the kitchen was, a bright face and bright hair tied round with a scarlet kerchief. And as he looked at the face it was withdrawn—but the Prince had lost his heart. He kept his secret safe in the place where his heart had been, and schemed and plotted to see this fair lady again; for when he went among the royal kitchen-maids she was not there with them. And he looked morning, noon, and evening, but he never could see her. So then he said—
“I must watch o’ nights—perhaps she is kept in prison in the tower above the kitchen, and at night those who watch her may sleep, and so I shall be able to talk to her.”
So he dressed in dark clothes and hid in the shadow of the palace courtyard and watched all one night. And he saw nothing. But in the early morning, when the setting moon and the rising sun were mixing their lights in the sky, he heard a heavy bolt shot back, and the door of the kitchen tower opened slowly. The Prince crouched behind a buttress and watched, and he saw the fair maid with the bright hair under the red kerchief. She swept the doorstep, and she drew water from the well in the middle of the courtyard; and presently he crept to the kitchen window and saw her light the fire and wash the dishes, and make all neat and clean within. And the Prince’s eyes followed her in all she did, and the more he looked at her the more he loved her. And at last he heard sounds as of folks stirring above, so he crept away, keeping close to the wall, and so back to his own rooms. And this he did again on the next morning, and on the next. And on the third morning, as he stood looking through the window at the girl with the bright hair and the bright kerchief, the gold chain he wore clinked against the stone of the window-sill. The maid started, and the bowl she held dropped on to the brick floor of the kitchen and broke into twenty pieces; and then and there she sat down on the floor beside it, and began to cry bitterly.
The Prince ran in and knelt beside her.
“Don’t cry, dear,” he said, “I’ll get you another bowl.”
“It isn’t that,” she sobbed, “but now they’ll send me away.”
“Who will?”
“The noble Kitchen-Maids. They keep me to do the work because, being Kings’ daughters, they don’t know how to do anything; but the Queen doesn’t know that there is a Real Kitchen-maid here, and now you have found out they will send me away.”
And she went on crying.
“Then you are a Real Kitchen-maid, and not noble at all?” said the Prince.
She stopped crying for a minute to say “No.”
“Never mind,” said the Prince. “You are twice as pretty as all the Kings’ daughters put together and twenty times as dear.”
At that she stopped crying for good and all, and looked up at him from the floor where she sat.
“Yes you are,” he said, “and I love you with all my heart.”
And with that he caught her in his arms and kissed her; and the Real Kitchen-Maid laid her face against his, and her heart beat wildly, for she knew what the Prince did not, and what, indeed, all the folk knew except the Prince, that this had been foretold at his christening; but she knew also that though he loved her, he was not to marry her, since it was his dreadful destiny to marry some one with four feet and no hands.
“I wish I had no hands and four feet,” said the Real Kitchen-maid to herself. “I wouldn’t mind a bit, since it is me he loves.”
“What are you saying?” asked the Prince.
“I am saying that you must go,” said she. “If their Kitchen Highnesses find you here with me they’ll tear me into little pieces, for they all love you—to a Highness.”
“And you,” he whispered, “how much do you love me?”
“Oh,” she answered, “I love you better than my right hand and my left.”
And the Prince thought that a very strange answer. He went through that day in a happy dream; but he did not tell his dream to any one, lest some harm should come to the Real Kitchen-Maid. For he meant to marry her, and he had a feeling that his parents would not approve of the match.
Now that night, when the whole palace was asleep, the Real Kitchen-Maid got up and crept out past the sleepy sentinel and went home to her father the farmer and got one of his great white cart horses and rode away through the woods to the cavern where the Great White Rat sits sleeplessly guarding the Magic Cat’s-eye.
And every one wondered why he guarded it so carefully, for it seemed to have no great value. But the Great White Rat watched it constantly, without ever closing one of those round bright rat’-eyes of his, and when folk sought to lay hands on it he said—
“Be careful: it has the power to change you into a mouse.”
On which folk dropped it hastily and went their ways, leaving him still on guard.
To him now went the little Kitchen-Maid, and asked for help, for he was thousands of years old, and had more wisdom between his nose and ears than all the books in all the world. She told him all that had happened.
“Now what shall I do?” she said. And the Great White Rat, never shifting his eyes from the Magic Cat’s-eye, answered—
“Keep your own counsel and be contented. The Prince loves you.”
“But,” said the Real Kitchen-Maid, “he is not to marry me, but a horrible creature with four feet and no hands.”
“Keep your secret and be content,” the Great White Rat repeated, “and if ever you see him in danger from a lady with four feet and no hands, come straight to me.”
So the Real Kitchen-Maid went back to the Palace, and set to work to clean pots and pans, for now it was bright dewy daylight, and the night had gone. And before the rest were awake again her Prince came to her and vowed he loved her more than life; so she kept her secret and was content.
At the time of the Prince’s christening the King had banished all cats from the kingdom, because he could not bear to see his son show fear of anything. But now and then strangers, not knowing of the edict, brought cats to that country, and if the Prince saw one of these cats he was taken with a trembling and a paleness, standing like stone awhile, and presently, with shrieks of terror, fleeing the spot. And it was now a long time since he had seen a cat.
Now, soon after the Prince had found out how he loved the Real Kitchen-Maid, his father and mother died suddenly as they were sitting hand in hand, for they loved each other so much that it was not possible for either to stay here without the other.
So then the Prince wept bitterly, and would not be comforted, and the Court stood about him with a long face, wearing its new mourning. And as he sat there with his face hidden Something came through the Palace gate and up the marble stairs and into the great hall where the Prince sat on the steps of his father’s throne weeping. And, before the courtiers could draw breath or decide whether it was Court etiquette for them to do anything while the Prince was crying except to stand still and look sad, the creature came up to the Prince and began to rub itself against his arm. And he, still hiding his face, reached out his hand and stroked it!
Then all the Court drew a deep breath, for they saw that the thing that had come in was a great black Cat.
And the Prince raised his eyes, and they looked to see him shrink and shriek; but instead he passed his hand over the black fur and said—
“Poor Pussy, then!”
And at these words the whole Court fled—by window and door. The courtiers took horse, those who had carriages went away in them, those who had none went on foot, and in less than a minute the Prince and the Cat were left alone together.
For the Court was learned in witch law, and knowing the Prince’s horror of cats it saw at once that a cat he was not afraid of was no cat at all, but a witch in that shape. Therefore the courtiers and the whole Royal household fled trembling and hid themselves.
All but the little Real Kitchen-Maid. She saw with terror that the Cat, or rather the witch in Cat’s shape, had done what no one else could do—roused the Prince from his dull dream of grief. And then she remembered the fate which Malevola had foretold for him—that he should marry a lady with four feet and no hands.
“Alack-a-day!” she cried. “This witch has four feet and no hands; but she can have hands whenever she chooses, and be a woman by her magic arts as easily as she can be a cat. And then he will love her—and what will become of me? Or, worse, she may marry him only to torment him. She may shut him up in some enchanted dungeon far from the light of day. Such things have happened before now.”
So she stood, hidden by the blue arras, and wrung her hands, and the tears ran down her cheeks. And all the time the black Cat purred to the Prince, and the Prince stroked the black Cat, and any one could have seen that he was every moment becoming more deeply bewitched. And still the Real Kitchen-Maid crouched behind the arras, and her heart ached that it knew no way to save him. Then suddenly she remembered the words of the Great White Rat—
“If ever you see him in danger from a lady with four feet and no hands come straight to me.”
Now surely was the time, for the Prince, she knew, was in desperate danger.
The Real Kitchen-Maid crept silently down the marble stairs, but once she was out of the Palace she ran like the wind to the stable. No men were about there—all had followed the example of the Court, and had run away when they heard of the strange coming of the witch-Cat. And of all the many horses that had stood in the stable only one remained, for each man in his fright had saddled the first horse that came to hand and ridden off on it. And the one that still stayed there was the Prince’s own black charger. He had had no mind to be saddled in haste by a stranger, and had turned and bitten the stranger who had attempted it. So he was there alone.
Now the little Kitchen-Maid lifted the Prince’s gold-broidered saddle from its perch, and the weight of it was such that she could not have carried it but for the heavy heart she bore because of her love to the Prince and his danger, and that made all else seem light. She put the saddle on the charger, and the jewelled bridle. And he neighed with pleasure, for he understood, being a horse who could see as far into a stone wall as most people. And when he was saddled he knelt for her to mount, and then up and away like the wind, and she had no need to guide him with the reins, for he found the way and kept it. He galloped steadily on, and the sun went down and the night grew dark, and he went on, and on, and on without stumble or pause, till at moonrise he halted before the house of the Great White Rat.
Then, as the Real Kitchen-Maid sprang down, the Great White Rat came out from his house and spoke. “You’ve come for it, then?”
“For what?”
“The Magic Cat’s-eye. I’ve guarded it some thousands of years. I knew there would be a use for it at last. He may be saved yet, if some one should love him well enough to die for him.”
“I do that,” said the little Kitchen-Maid, and took the Cat’s-eye in her hands.
“Swallow it,” said the White Rat, “and you’ll turn into a mouse.”
The little maid swallowed it at once, and, behold! she was a little mouse.
“What am I to do?” she asked.
“I can’t tell you,” said the Great White Rat, “but Love will tell you.”
So the little Kitchen-Maid, in the form of the mouse, ran up one of the horse’s legs, and held tight on to the saddle with all her little claws.
And as the great horse galloped back towards the palace in the moonlight, she thought and thought, and at last she said to herself—
“The witch is in cat’s shape, and she must have cat nature, so she will run after a mouse. She will run after me, and if I can lead her to a running stream she will leap across it, and then she will have to take her own shape again. That must be what the Great White Rat meant me to do. And if the Cat catches me—well, at least if I can’t save my Prince I can die for him.”
And the thought warmed her heart as the great horse thundered on through the dawn-light.
When at last, creeping softly on little noiseless feet, the Mouse-Kitchen-Maid re-entered the great hall, she saw that she was only just in time, for the black Cat was purring and looking back at the Prince as she walked, waving her black tail towards the further door of the hall, and the Prince, more bewitched than ever, was slowly following her.
Then the Real-Kitchen-Maid-Mouse uttered a squeak, and rushed across the porphyry floor, and the black Cat, true to its cat nature, left purring at the Prince and sprang after the Mouse, and the Mouse at its best speed, made for the garden where ran the stream that fed the marble basins where the royal gold-fish lived. The Prince understood nothing save that the enchanting black furry creature was leaving him, and in an instant he was alone. He followed to the door, and saw the Cat springing along the passage down the stairs—he followed fast—then along another passage that passed the foot of the back stairs, and he saw that the back stairs were like a water-fall—water was running down in a torrent and meandering away down the brick passage and out into the faint new sunshine.
When the Mouse saw this stream, she thought, “I’m saved.” She never thought of wondering how a stream came to be running down the back stairs of the palace. When she came to think of it afterwards she always believed that the Great White Rat had managed it somehow. She never knew that it was really a great flood from the royal bathroom, where the royal housemaid, in her eagerness to run away from the witch, had left all the royal bath-taps full on.
The Mouse bounded across the stream—the Cat saw the danger, but she could not stop herself. She, too, crossed the stream, and as she crossed it she turned into the wicked fairy Malevola—cobwebs, and snakes, and newts, and bat’s-wings, and all.
The Prince put his hand to his head like one awakening from sleep, and the horrible fairy vanished suddenly and for ever.
Then the Mouse ran trembling to the Prince, and in its thin little mouse’s voice told him all.
“My love and my lady,” he said, holding the Mouse against his cheek. “I will marry you now. That will carry out the wicked fairy’s prophecy. Then we will go back to the Great White Rat, and you shall be changed into a Princess.”
So the Prince rang the church bells till all the people came out of their holes where they had been hiding, to see the strange spectacle of a Prince married to a Mouse.
And directly they were married they set off on the black charger, and when they reached the Great White Rat they told their tale.
“And now,” said the Prince joyously, “if you will change her into a lady again we will go home at once and begin living happily ever after.”
The Great White Rat looked at them gravely.
“It’s impossible,” he said. “I am sorry, but the effects of the Magic Cat’s-eye are permanent. Once a mouse, always a mouse, if you get moused by the Magic Cat’s-eye.”
The Prince and the Mouse looked sadly at each other. This was the last thing they had expected. The Great White Rat looked at them earnestly. Then he said—
“If it would be of any use to you, I’ve got another Magic Cat’s-eye.”
He held it out. The Prince took it gladly. Kingdom and the life of a king were nothing to him compared with the love and happiness of a Real-Kitchen-Maid disguised as a mouse. He put the stone to his lips.
“You know what’ll happen if you do,” said the Great White Rat.
“I shall change into a mouse and live happy ever after,” said the Prince gaily.
“Perhaps,” said the Great White Rat, “nothing is impossible if people love each other enough.”
“You mustn’t,” cried the Mouse, trying to get between his lips and the Cat’s-eye.
THERE STOOD UP A PRINCE AND A PRINCESS.
“My dear little Real Kitchen-Maid,” said the Prince tenderly, “you have saved my life—and you are my life. I would rather be a mouse with you than a king without you!” And with that he swallowed the Cat’s-eye, and two small mice stood side by side before the Great White Rat. Very kindly he looked at them. Then he pulled a hair from his left whisker and laid it across their little brown backs. And on the instant there stood up a Prince and a Princess and at their feet lay the little empty mouse-skins.
“It’s lucky for you,” said the Great White Rat, “that you chose to swallow the Cat’s-eye, because people who have been moused by that means can never be un-moused except in pairs. Nothing is impossible if people only love each other enough.”
So the Prince and his bride returned to the palace and lived happy ever after. They were as happy as if they had been mice—which, in a country where there are no cats, is saying a good deal. Of course the Prince is still afraid of cats. But the curious thing is that now his wife is afraid of them too. Perhaps she learnt that lesson when she was a mouse for his sake. He, when he was a mouse for hers, learned this lesson, which is also the moral of this story: “Nothing is impossible if people only love each other enough.”