VIII
Once more the Votaresses assembled on Share-spoil to discuss what was to be done about Primrose. They saw that they were weaker than he.
Moreover, they were getting tired of flying to Share-spoil and back and conferring about Primrose, and so they were very angry.
“Well, we will poison the child. Neither spells nor cunning shall help him now,” they resolved. And straightaway one of them took a wooden platter and hurried off to a certain meadow in the Mountain to gather poison berries.
But Primrose, never dreaming that anybody should be talking about him or worrying their brains about him, walked gaily over the Mountain, cooing softly to himself like a little dove.
Presently he came to the poison meadow. The path led through the middle of it. On one side of the path the meadow was covered with red berries and on the other side with black. Both were poisonous, and whoever ate of either the one or the other was sure to die.
But how was Primrose to know that there was such a thing as poison in the world, when he had never known any food but what his mother gave him?
Primrose was hungry, and he liked the look of the red berries in the meadow. But he saw someone over there in front of him on the red side picking berries and seemingly in a great hurry, for she never raised her head. It was the Votaress, and she was gathering red berries to poison Primrose.
“That is her side,” thought Primrose, and went over to the black berries, because he had never been taught to take what belonged to another. So he sat down among the black berries and began to eat; and the Fairy wandered far away among the red berries and never noticed that Primrose had already come up and was eating black ones.
When Primrose had eaten enough he got up to go on. But, oh dear! a mist rose before his eyes; his head began to ache most dreadfully, and the earth seemed to rock beneath his feet.
That was because of the black poison.
Poor little Primrose! indeed you know neither spells nor cunning, and how are you going to save yourself from this new danger?
But Primrose struggled on all the same, because he thought it was nothing that a mist should rise before his eyes and the ground rock beneath his feet!
And so he came up with the Fairy where she was picking berries. The Votaress caught sight of Primrose, and at once she ran on to the path in front of him with her plateful of red berries. She laid down the platter before him and invited him by signs to eat.
The Votaress did not know that Primrose had already eaten of the black berries; and if she had known, she would never have offered him red ones, but would have let him die of the black poison.
Primrose did not care for any more berries, because his head ached cruelly; but his mother used to say to him: “Eat, darling, when I offer you something, and don’t grieve your mother.”
Now this was neither spell nor cunning what Primrose had been taught by his mother. But it was in a good hour that Primrose did as his mother had taught him.
He took the plate and ate of the red berries; and as he ate, the mist cleared before his eyes, his head and his heart stopped aching, and the ground no longer rocked beneath his feet.
The red poison killed the black in Primrose’s veins. He merrily clapped his hands and went on his way as sound as a bell and as happy as a grig.
And now he could see the top of the Mountain ahead of him, and Primrose thought:
“This is the end of the world. There is nothing beyond the top. There I shall find Lavender.”