Yellow-Cap and Other Fairy-Stories For Children

by Julian Hawthorne

CHAPTER IV.

NO TIME TO BE LOST.

Princess Hilda and Prince Harold sat down on a heap of rubbish that happened to be near them, and cried heartily. Tom the Cat sat before them, moving the end of his tail first one way and then the other, and looking very sorrowful out of his yellow eyes. But presently he said:

'Crying will not get poor Hector back again.'

'Can we ever get him back?' sobbed Harold.

'I would do anything!' whimpered Hilda.

'If our Fairy Aunt were only here,' said Harold, 'perhaps she could tell us what we ought to do.'

'You will not see the Fairy Aunt again,' Tom replied, 'until you have got Hector out of the grey tower, where he is at this moment standing, with his face to the wall and his hands behind his back, in the one-hundred-and-first corner.'

'But what can we do?' cried Hilda, beginning to weep afresh. 'We are nothing but little children.'

'Perhaps you may be able to do more than if you were grown up,' Tom replied. 'It depends a good deal upon how much you love Hector.'

'Oh!' exclaimed both the children at once; and as they could not think of anything big enough to compare their love for Hector to, they said nothing more.

'Listen to me, then,' said Tom, 'and all may yet be well. But in the first place get on my back, so that I may take you out of this desert and into the great forest, where we can lay our plans without being interrupted.'

So saying Tom rose and curved his back: the two children jumped upon it; off they all went, and, in less time than it takes to tell it, they were in the midst of that great Forest of Mystery which they had so often seen from the window of their chamber, but which, until now, they had never entered. It was quite still, except a faint chopping noise that seemed to come from a long way off.

'What makes that noise?' Hilda asked.

'That is Rumpty-Dudget cutting down the trees,' Tom replied; 'and unless we can stop him he will cut down every one of them. However, he will hardly get so far as this to-night. Now, children, sit down and listen.'

The children accordingly seated themselves on a cushion of moss at the foot of one of the tallest pine-trees in the forest, and the cat sat down in front of them, with his thick tail curled round his toes.

'The first thing to be done,' said Tom, looking at the children with his yellow eyes, which burned as brightly as lamps in the gloom of the forest, 'the first thing to be done is, of course, to get the Golden Ivy-seed and the Diamond Waterdrop. After that the rest is easy.'

'And where are the Golden Ivy-seed and the Diamond Waterdrop to be found?' inquired the two children hopefully.

'The Golden Ivy-seed must be sought in the centre of the earth, where the King of the Gnomes reigns,' replied the cat; 'and the Diamond Waterdrop is to be asked for in the kingdom of the Air Spirits, above the clouds.'

'But how are we to get up to the Air Spirits and down to the Gnomes?' asked the children disconsolately.

'We will see about that,' replied the cat. 'But before starting we must build the enchanted bonfire.'

'What good will that do?' demanded the children.

'We could never get on without it,' replied Tom. 'For since Hector has been put into the one-hundred-and-first corner the sun has caught fire and the moon has frozen up, and this fire will be all we can have to warm and light us on our journey.'

'But what if it should go out while we are away?' said the children.

'In order to prevent that one of you must stay by it, while the other goes with me on the journey,' said Tom. 'Harold, you shall be the one to stay. Be sure and not let the fire go out whatever happens; for if it does, Rumpty-Dudget will take the blackened logs and rub Hector's face all over with them, and then we should never be able to get him out of the tower at all. Now do you two run about and pick up all the dried sticks you can find, and pile them together in a heap, while I get the touchwood ready.'

In a few minutes—so diligently did Hilda and Harold work—a heap of faggots had been gathered together as high as the top of Hilda's head. Meanwhile Tom the Cat had not been idle. He had drawn on the ground with the tip of his tail a large circle, in the centre of which was the heap of faggots. It had now become quite dark, and the children could not have seen their way about had it not been for Tom's yellow eyes, which burned as brightly as two carriage-lamps.

'Come inside the circle, children,' said he at length. 'I am now going to light the touchwood.'

In they came accordingly, and sat down again on the moss cushion at the foot of the tall pine-tree. The cat then put the touchwood on the ground and crouched down in front of it, with his nose resting against it; and he stared and stared at it with his flaming yellow eyes, and by and by it began to smoke and smoulder, and at last it caught fire and burned away famously.

'That will do nicely,' said the cat; 'now put on some sticks.'

Hilda and Harold heaped on the dry sticks in handfuls; and so the enchanted fire was fairly started, and it burned blue, red, and yellow.

'And now there is no time to be lost,' said Tom the Cat. 'Harold, you will stay beside this fire, and keep it burning until I come back with Hilda from the kingdoms of the Air Spirits and of the Gnomes. Remember, that if you let the fire go out it can never again be lighted, and all will be lost. Nevertheless, you must on no account go outside the circle to gather more faggots, if those which are already inside get used up before we return. You may, perhaps, be tempted to do so; but if you yield to the temptation all will go wrong. Your brother Hector will then be in greater danger than ever, and the only way you can save him will be to get into the fire yourself and burn!'

Prince Harold did not much like the idea of being left alone in the woods all night, with the sound of Rumpty-Dudget's axe coming ever nearer and nearer. Still, since it was for his little brother Hector's sake, he never dreamed of refusing. But he made up his mind to be particularly careful not to use up the faggots too fast, so that he would not be tempted to go outside the ring.

Hilda and Tom kissed him, and bade him farewell; then Hilda got on the cat's back, and nestled down amidst the warm white fur. Tom sprang on to the trunk of the tall pine-tree, and away! straight upwards they went, and were out of sight in the twinkling of an eye.

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