“THE STORY OF THE ENCHANTED HIGHWAYMAN.”
When I was a young man (said the King of Wen), I left my father’s castle one morning for a day’s hunting in the forest. Late in the afternoon it chanced that I had wandered away from my attendants, and being warm and weary I threw myself down upon the moss to rest. I had lain there but a moment when I saw, not far off among the trees, a fine buck, the only game I had come upon that day. I crept cautiously in his direction, and soon came within easy bowshot of him; but just as I was fitting my arrow to the string he tossed his head and trotted off into the forest and disappeared.
I made off after him as fast as I could, marking his trail by a broken branch here and there and an occasional hoof-print in the damp earth, and presently I found myself deep in a considerable thicket of underwood, and from this thicket I came out, to my surprise, upon a forest road.
A Voice from Nowhere Bids the Prince Stop
I stood for a moment looking up and down curiously. The deer was nowhere to be seen. The road was arched in a charming manner by the branches of the trees, and at no great distance lost itself in the shadowy forest. I wondered that I had never heard of this road before, and after pondering this for a moment I began to cross the road, looking carefully for the deer’s tracks in the dust. I saw no trace of him, and I was about to push into the forest on the other side, when suddenly a voice, a low but clear voice, said distinctly in my ear, “Stop!”
I looked about me, but I could see no one. There was positively no living creature near me,—unless I except a wasp which at the moment was flying about my head, and which I struck away with my hand.
I walked down the road some twenty paces, peering about for the person who had spoken, and becoming more and more perplexed; and as I was about to enter the forest the same voice, still low but quite distinct, spoke again close into my ear: “Stop!”
I stopped in bewilderment. The forest was silent as the sky; no living creature, not even a bird, could I see anywhere; there was nothing;—nothing, indeed, except the wasp which was still flying about my head and which now began to annoy me exceedingly.
I went on again, striking out at the wasp, and in a moment (I assure you I began to doubt my senses), the same voice spoke again, this time close into my left ear.
“Stop! Just a moment!” it said. “Look, if you please! On your left shoulder!”
I craned my neck about, and there was nothing on my left shoulder except the wasp. The wasp was there, indeed, and I made as if to brush him off; but the voice said, “Don’t, if you please!” and I stayed my hand.
You may imagine that I was more astonished than ever. I gazed at the wasp intently, and as I did so the voice began to murmur, in a kind of rapid, buzzing drone, into my left ear.
“Mercy on us!” I cried. “It’s the wasp that’s talking!”
It was true, beyond a doubt. “Yes!” said the voice. “Please listen! If you’d only be so good—I really wish you would!”
The Prince Listens to a Curious Discourse
I stood perfectly still in the roadway, and I know that my mouth hung open as I listened. The wasp buzzed into my ear a kind of rapid, droning song, so low that I had to strain my attention a little to catch it all, and these were the words I heard:
“I know it’s rude to speak to you, it’s something I but seldom do,
to speak before I’m spoken to,
Or buttonhole a stranger;
Excuse me if I do not pause to think just now of social laws, I can
not spare the time, because
I’m in the gravest danger;
In gravest danger, yes, it’s true, I’m sure I don’t know what I’ll
do, I’ll positively die if you
Refuse me your assistance;
Come, follow me without delay, I pray you do not say me nay,
it’s life or death,—and anyway
It’s scarcely any distance.
“My lot is sad in the extreme, I really am not what I seem,
I once was held in high esteem
By every friend and neighbor:
A man entirely free of guile, who lived but in his children’s smile,
and kept them all in modest style
By hard and patient labor,
A man of pleasing manners who, whatever other men might do,
spoke seldom unless spoken to,
A practice much commended;
My trade in such a way I plied upon the highway far and wide
(I say it with a modest pride)
I scarcely once offended.
“It used to be my pleasant way (it always made my work seem
play) to take the air from day to day,—
Unless, of course,’twas raining,—
Upon the road to watch and wait from early morn to rather late,
but always coming home by eight
(Such was my early training),
I used to watch and wait, I say, and when a trav’ler came my
way, which happened every other day
Unless too cold or sunny,
I never spoke a word, not I, I merely breathed a patient sigh,
and held my trusty blade on high
And took from him his money.
“’Twas thus I kept my children ten, a decent, worthy citizen,
the happiest of mortal men
My humble sphere adorning,
The father of ten daughters fair who needed tons of clothes to
wear, and that was why I took the air
Upon the road each morning,
But oh, alas for them and me, it’s over now, as you may see,
and you are incontestably
Our only hope remaining;
And all our truly dreadful plight is just because one rainy night
I simply for a moment quite
Forgot my early training.
“I held my trusty blade on high
And took from him his money”
“’Twas rainy and ’twas after eight, I knew that I was out too
late, but when your trade’s in such a state
You hardly know what cash is,
You cannot stop because you get your feet all muddy, cold and wet,
I knew I should be ill, and yet,—
My children needed sashes.
I shivered with the wet and cold, I counted twenty times all told
I’d meant to have my shoes half-soled
And still they’d not been cobbled,
‘I’ll certainly,’ I thought, ‘be sick,’—and then from out the darkness
thick an ancient woman with a stick
In fearsome silence hobbled.
“She was an ancient, crooked crone, an ugly thing of skin and
bone, she passed me silent as a stone
(I thought it rather funny),
But I could hear my children cry, ‘Oh, buy us ribbons, father, buy,’
and stopping her, my blade on high,
I shouted, ‘Stand! Your money!’
Ah, that was just where I did make a most unfortunate mistake,
for she with mirth began to shake
(It made my blood run colder),
And up she raised her crooked staff, she gave a most unearthly
laugh, a thing I did not like by half,
And touched me on the shoulder.
“She stood, she looked me through and through, she said not even
‘How d’ye do,’ she merely gave a laugh or two,
And munched her gums together:
A witch, a sorceress of the wood! I nearly fainted where I stood,
I really truly think you could
Have felled me with a feather.
A witch, as sure, as sure could be! You see what she has done to
me! And all because I carelessly
Forgot my early training.
From which you learn this lesson true, that it will never, never
do to speak before you’re spoken to
Or stay out when it’s raining.”
The voice stopped, and the wasp flew off, directly before my nose, as if leading me away.
“Why, dear me!” interrupted the Queen. “I believe this wasp was nothing more nor less than a Highwayman.”
“What I don’t understand is,” said the King, “how a Highwayman could have learned to make up verses.”
“In the Forest of Wen, your majesty,” said Solario, “the Highwaymen always talked in that fashion. It was their regular custom. I am told that no Highwayman could get his certificate until he had passed an examination in arithmetic, swordplay, and composition; and of course composition included verse making.”
“Well,” said the King, “I don’t see what that had to do with making a good Highwayman of him; but then I don’t pretend to understand these notions about education. As far as I’m concerned, if I had to pass an examination in arithmetic in order to be a King, I’d simply have to look about for something else to do. I never could see the sense in teaching a King arithmetic, and I don’t see the sense in teaching a Highwayman how to make verses. I know it’s done in some places; it’s gotten to be quite the thing, I understand that perfectly well; but I don’t see any sense in it.”
“My dear,” said the Queen, “you mustn’t forget that a Highwayman has to know a great deal more than a King. It’s so very much harder to be a good Highwayman. But I don’t think I should like to be married to one.”
“This one was a widower, evidently,” said the King. “I know I shouldn’t like to be a widower with ten daughters on my hands. I don’t see how any human being could keep ten daughters in ribbons and—”
“When Dorobel was little,” said the Queen, “I always had the most terrible time to make her remember that she mustn’t speak until she was spoken to. I don’t wonder the poor man forgot it, when he was so worried about sashes for his dear children,—and out so late at night, and in the rain, too!”
“Why don’t you let the man go on with his story?” said the King. “We’ll never get to bed at this rate. Solario, be kind enough to proceed.”
The wasp flew off (said the King of Wen), directly before my nose, as if leading me away; and I followed him down the road.
We had gone about a mile, when the wasp turned off into the forest. I hesitated a moment, but I was curious to know what this unfortunate Highwayman intended, and I pushed on after him into a portion of the forest which was wilder and gloomier than any I had yet seen. The branches of the trees hung low, and the ground was thick with underbrush; I had to part the bushes and branches with my hands in order to get through.
The wasp flew within a foot of my nose, and I kept on after him thus for more than half an hour. He seemed to know the way, but for my part I began to wonder whether I should ever be able to find my way back. Suddenly he flew off, and I saw him no more.
The Prince, Alone in the Forest, Hears the Bark of a Dog
I was at this moment in an uncommonly thick part of the forest. The trees were perhaps less close, but the underbrush was taller; so tall that I could not see through. I stopped for a moment, and listened. All was still. Not a bird twittered among the leaves overhead. I was vexed that I had allowed myself to be drawn upon such a wild-goose chase, and I decided that I had better begin to make my way back to the road; and as I was considering this, I heard the bark of a dog.
It was a single, sharp bark, and it stopped abruptly, as if a hand had been clapped over the animal’s mouth. I listened again, but it came no more. “What should a dog be doing here?” I thought; and full of curiosity I pushed on through the underbrush in the direction of the sound. In a moment I had broken through the tanglewood, and I was standing at the edge of a clearing, in the midst of which was a little house.
It was a very tiny house indeed,—not much more, in fact, than a hut. Its door was closed, and the window beside the door was barred with shutters. I listened intently, thinking to hear again the bark of a dog, but I heard nothing. Evidently the place was deserted.
I crossed the open space before the door, and as I did so I noticed, clinging to the trunk and lower branches of a tree at the side of the clearing, what appeared to be a wasp’s nest; but an enormous wasp’s nest, big enough, in all conscience, to contain a man if need be; a wasp’s nest greater than I should have thought could exist in the world. I looked at it curiously, and coming nearer I saw, crawling over it, a number of wasps. I counted them, and there were eleven.
They arose with one accord and flew in great agitation about my head; and at the same time I heard a voice from inside the wasp’s nest,—the voice of a human being, but not the one I had already heard; a voice much stronger and louder. I put my ear against the wasp’s nest, and from within came these words:
“Don’t speak before you’re spoken to!”
“Who is it?” I said. “Where are you?”
“Beware the dog!” said the voice again.
“But who—what—?” I began.
The Prisoner Inside the Wasp’s Nest
“I can’t get out! I’m imprisoned inside the wasp’s nest! Do as you’re bid, and don’t speak before you’re spoken to. Beware the dog!”
At this moment I heard the click of a latch, and I turned round in time to see the door of the hut open.
In the doorway was standing an old woman, and by her side a dog. She was a hideous old crone, wrinkled and bent, with little, beady eyes and a hooked nose and no teeth. She stood there munching her gums and blinking her eyes at me, and I noticed that she wore about her neck a string of what looked like ivory buttons, ten of them, white and flat.
With her left hand she leaned on a crooked stick, and with her right hand she held, by a leather thong, the biggest and fiercest-looking dog I had ever seen in my life. His head came nearly to the old woman’s shoulder. He was chocolate brown in color, and his skin was entirely naked of hair, except for a patch of long wiry hair which fringed his neck. He bared his sharp, white teeth at me and growled. I felt decidedly uneasy.
The eleven wasps were flying about my head in violent agitation. The old woman said nothing, but continued to blink at me and munch her gums. Suddenly the dog barked, and without a word the old woman flung the thong from her hand. The dog gave a bound toward me and crouched for a spring, growling and bristling. In another instant I knew that I would be torn to pieces. I started back and cried out in alarm.
“Call him off!” I shouted. “Stop him! Call him off!”
At these words, a groan came from inside the wasps’ nest. At the same time one of the eleven wasps, which were flying directly before my face, dropped to the ground at my feet as if dead. I realized that I had spoken before being spoken to, and one of the wasps—one of the Highwayman’s daughters, in fact,—had suffered for my error. But the worst consequence was now to come.
The old woman shook her stick and danced up and down in hideous glee.
“He’s spoken!” she cried. “Ha! ha! Spoken before he was spoken to! He’s done for himself now! At him, dog, he’s helpless! Seize him, dog, destroy him!”
The Dog Leaps Upon Him to Devour Him
Before I could turn, the dog was upon me. No man on earth could have stood up under such an attack. With one leap he was upon my breast, and bore me to the ground; and as I fell his sharp teeth sank into my shoulder, and I nearly fainted with pain and terror.
“A hair of the dog that bit you!” It was the voice from within the wasp’s nest, and it was crying: “A hair of the dog that bit you!”
My senses were slipping away, and I hardly knew what I did; but somehow or other I put my hand on the beast’s neck, and plucked from it a long hair; and as I did so the dog bounded away from me and stood cowering and quivering, as if in fear.
“At him!” screamed the witch—for it was a witch, beyond a doubt; and she rushed upon the dog and began to beat him violently with her stick. “At him again!” she screamed, but to my amazement the dog turned upon her, snarling; and at that moment the voice came again from the wasp’s nest, and it cried:
“A ring of the hair! Make a ring of the hair for your finger!”
I sat up and quickly wound about my finger, in a ring, the hair which I had plucked from the dog’s neck. The effect of this was startling. The witch shrieked, plainly in terror, and sprang away from the dog; and the brute came to me and cringed before me on the ground and whined; and behold, all the pain was gone from my shoulder.
“Command him to be himself again!” cried the voice from the wasp’s nest.
“Be yourself again!” I cried, not knowing what I said.
The Prince, Sitting on the Ground, Looks Up at a Genie
Instantly, in the flash of an eye, the dog was gone; and in his place stood, towering above me full seven yards or more, a monstrous creature in the shape of a man, chocolate brown in color, baldheaded except for a fringe of long hair at the base of his skull, and bare except for a cloth twisted about his middle, in which hung a gleaming scimitar. It was a genie. He was panting with anger or some other strong emotion, and as he panted jets of fire shot forth from his nostrils. His mighty chest heaved, and I shrank back in alarm; but he spread out his hands and bowed low before me. I remembered the ring of hair on my finger, and grew bolder.
The witch was creeping quietly away, stick in hand, toward the door of her hut; but as she reached it the genie stooped and caught her in his hand and held her fast. I sprang to my feet.
“Set free your victims!” I cried to her. “The wasps and the prisoner inside the nest! Release them! or by the power of the genie’s hair, I will command him to destroy you!”
She kicked and squirmed and shrieked, but all in vain. There was no escaping from that terrible grasp. She grew quiet, and began to mutter to herself. “I will count ten,” I cried, “and if at the tenth—” But she did not wait for me to count. With one look up at the genie’s face she waved her crooked stick in the air and began to pour out strange words, and then, giving a despairing cry, she let the stick fall to the ground; and as it touched the ground, there came from the wasp’s nest—I assure you it was an extraordinary sight—I scarcely know how to tell you, it all happened so quickly—
The One-Armed Sorcerer Appears from Within the Wasp’s Nest
Well, the wasp’s nest opened from top to bottom, and inside it was sitting a young man, who leaped down with a laugh and stood before me, bowing. I noticed that he had but one arm, the left; his eyes were blue, and his skin was fair and rosy; and he wore a long blue gown spangled with silver stars.
The Highwayman and Nine of His Daughters Appear in Proper Person
Almost at the same instant there were standing before me nine young maidens, all of extraordinary beauty; and in their midst an elderly man with a gray beard and a long thin face, and spindly legs. The nine maidens were gazing at an object on the ground, and the elderly man looked down at it also, and they all began to wring their hands together and moan.
“Oh!” said the elderly man, sniffling,—
“Just see what he has gone and done, he can’t deny it, he’s the
one, he ought to hide his head where none
Could ever look upon it,
He knew, he did, he surely knew, I told him it would never do
to speak before you’re spoken to,
And now he’s gone and done it.”
“I warned him,” said the one-armed young man, “but he was frightened, and he forgot.”
“Oh, yes,” said the elderly man, wiping his tears away with the back of his hand,—
“Oh, yes, it’s well enough to say it slipped his mind a bit to-day
and in an absent sort of way
He slew my darling daughter;
But that will hardly, hardly do, I really can’t agree with you, it’s
simply from my point of view
A case of plain manslaughter.”
“Oh, sister! sister!” cried the nine maidens. “Isn’t it terrible? It’s too terrible! It is terrible, isn’t it?”
“Let me go!” screamed the witch, struggling in the hand of the genie.
He Sees the Highwayman’s Tenth Daughter
I pushed into the group around the elderly Highwayman, and there at his feet I saw what made my heart stand still with grief and remorse. On the ground was lying a maiden, far lovelier than any of the others; and she was dead. Her eyes were closed, her face was pale, she did not breathe; and her hair lay about her like a shower of gold. Alas, that my carelessness had brought her to this sorrowful end! If she had only lived! How I should have rejoiced to be her friend, and in the course of time, perhaps, persuade her to smile upon me—Alas! alas! At that moment, if she could but have cast one look upon me, I would have laid at her feet all that I—
I knelt beside her and took her cold hand in mine. I stooped over her, and in an excess of pity, and of more, far more than pity, I kissed her softly on the lips.
Oh, wonderful! Her eyelids quivered. A faint flush came into her cheeks. Her eyes opened, and she looked straight into my own. She smiled, and it was like the evening sky after rain. I put my arm beneath her shoulder, and helped her to stand up. She rubbed her eyes and swayed a little, and I kept my arm about her. We gazed at each other, smiling.
“Is it—?” said she.
“It is, beloved!” I cried, and folded her, unresisting, to my heart.
“Oh, isn’t it just too perfectly sweet?” cried her nine sisters, clapping their hands and laughing merrily, all together. “It is sweet, isn’t it? It’s love at first sight! It’s just the sweetest thing ever! Isn’t it just too sweet for anything, though?”
But while they were still running on in this fashion, and the elderly Highwayman was cheering faintly and the one-armed young man was cheering lustily, a loud roar came from the genie, and we saw that the witch had slipped from his grasp and was even now dashing in at the door of the hut. She shut it behind her with a bang, and the one-armed youth pounded against it in vain.
“The stolen hair!” he cried. “The genie’s hair which she stole from me! I must get it back! Don’t let her get away!”
The Genie Breathes Fire Upon the Witch’s Hut
The genie opened his great mouth and roared with anger; then he stooped down over the hut, and I saw that he was breathing fire upon the roof from his nostrils; and as the sparks caught in the dry thatch, he began to walk around the hut, bending and breathing fire upon its roof from place to place. In a few moments it was ablaze from end to end; the walls caught; and as I held my fair lady trembling close beside me, the house arose in flames, crackling and roaring, and showering sparks upward into the twilight sky.
“Oh!” said my fair one, clinging to my arm. “The poor witch! Save her! She will be burned to death!” But the genie’s thunderous laugh was her only answer.
We watched until the fire was out, and there remained only a heap of smoking ashes; and the witch was gone.
“Oh, the poor thing!” said my beautiful lady.
“Isn’t it terrible?” said her nine sisters, among themselves. “It’s just too terrible for anything! It is terrible, isn’t it? It’s simply terrible, it is, isn’t it?”
The one-armed youth stepped up to the ruin and appeared to be looking among the ashes near what was once the door. He looked for a long time, and then he suddenly straightened up and cried, “Ah!”
He came toward us, and he was holding up in his hand what seemed to be a necklace.
“See!” he said, and I saw that it was a string of buttons, of large flat buttons, eleven of them, threaded on what seemed to be a hair; the same I had seen about the witch’s neck.
“It is the genie’s hair,” said the young man, “the same that she stole from me; and it was this hair which gave her power to turn my genie to a dog and imprison me in the wasp’s nest. Now let me see these buttons; I must look at them with care.”
He examined each one minutely; and when he had examined them all, he placed his finger on his lips and smiled knowingly; and while I held the hair he broke it and slipped off the eleventh button, inviting me to look at it closely. I looked and saw upon it, near the rim, a crooked black line, much like the imprint of a tiny, crooked stick.
The One-Armed Sorcerer Performs Upon a Button
He threw the button upon the ground, laughing, and took from within his gown a leather pouch, from which he sprinkled upon the button a black powder; and then he began to speak, in a loud voice, words which I could not understand, in the midst of which he picked up the button, now crusted with black; and still repeating his strange words, he swung his arm, and with a loud cry flung the button into the branches of the nearest tree; and there, hanging on to a branch of the tree, trying desperately to keep from toppling off, was the old witch herself.
Instantly the young man took the threaded buttons from me and slipped them off the hair; he wound the hair about his finger and cried,—
“Off with her! Off with her to the Forest Kingdom, far from here, and see that she never comes back again! Off with her, I say, to the Kingdom of the Great Forest!”
At these words the genie strode over to the witch and—
“Well, bless my soul,” interposed the King, “what business did he have to send that witch here, I’d like to know? So that’s how she came to live in my Forest! A fine piece of work, I must say! A pretty how-d’ye-do, to send their cast-off witches over here! What business had he to—”
“Never mind, grandfather” said Bojohn, “do let him go on with his story.”
“A fine piece of work!” said the King. “Of all the high-handed, brazen-faced—”
“My dear!” said the Queen.
The genie strode over to the witch in three steps and plucked her down with one hand. He then tucked her under his arm like a sack of corn, and stood before the one-armed youth.
“Stoop down!” said the young man.
The genie bowed low, and the young man, to my surprise, reached up and pulled from the back of his head, at the neck, ten long hairs, one by one.
“Away!” cried the one-armed youth.
The Genie Flies Away With the Witch
The genie stood up, and opening his great mouth in a silent laugh, stamped upon the earth so that it shook, and leaped straight up. He rose in the air in a wide curve; and before we could blink again he was gone like an arrow over the treetops, with the witch under his arm, and was no more than a speck in the evening sky.
The young man tucked the ten hairs away inside his gown.
“Now,” said he, “she’s gone. And good riddance, too, I should say.”
“Sir,” said I to him, “will you tell us who you are, and what brings you here?”
“I am a sorcerer,” said he, “and I dwell in an island far out in the Great Sea. I am known there as the One-Armed Sorcerer. I came here, with the genie whom I command by virtue of a ring of his hair, in order to prove my skill against the witch. I undertook to release our good friend the Highwayman and his ten fair daughters, but I am bound to say that I managed it badly; so badly that the witch got the genie’s hair away from me, and by means of that hair turned him into a dog and shut me up inside the wasp’s nest. And all because I didn’t know the rule, that you mustn’t speak before you’re spoken to.”
“A pretty good rule,” said I, “but if everybody observed it, who would ever talk?”
“Well, anyway,” said the One-Armed Sorcerer, “here I have ten buttons, and here I have ten threads from the genie’s head. I propose to make you a doublet, sir; a magic doublet; and for the cloth, the wasp’s nest will be the very thing. It will be a doublet worth having; and to you, sir, who have so nobly preserved us all, I will present it on—er—ahem!—on your wedding day.”
“Hurrah!” piped up the elderly Highwayman, and the lady on my arm blushed.
“Oh, isn’t that sweet of him?” cried her nine sisters. “Isn’t it just too sweet for anything? It’s really the sweetest thing, now isn’t it? Too perfectly sweet for words, it is, really!”
The One-Armed Sorcerer, stepping over to the wasp’s nest, pulled it down from the tree without breaking it, and slung it on his back.
“Come with me!” I cried. “You shall all return with me to my father’s castle. Will you consent to that?”
“Well,” said the elderly Highwayman,—
“Though anxious to accommodate, I fear it’s growing rather late,
I seldom stay out after eight—”
“Oh, father!” cried his daughters, nine of them, together, “it would be perfectly jolly!”
“It would suit me to perfection,” said the One-Armed Sorcerer.
“Oh, won’t it be jolly? It will be jolly, won’t it? Wouldn’t it be perfectly jolly?” cried the nine young damsels, clapping their hands.
“Will you come home with me?” I whispered to the fairest of the ten, who had said nothing.
“If you wish it,” she whispered, blushing again.
“Oh, aren’t they just the dearest things?” cried her nine sisters. “It’s love at first sight—oh, the dear things! Aren’t they just simply too dear for anything? They are perfectly dear, now, aren’t they? Really now, aren’t they just too perfectly dear?”
The Prince Leads His Beloved Home
Well, the long and the short of it is, we reached my father’s castle late that night, under a starry sky. The attendants whom I had left in the forest had returned without me, and the castle was a-twitter with anxiety. But when I led my fair lady into the great hall and presented her to my father, the King, and her nine sisters and the elderly Highwayman and the One-Armed Sorcerer stood bowing behind us, there was joy, I can tell you, and the rafters rang again.
My father, after a long look at the beautiful damsel at my side, and then at me, gave a long, slow whistle, without making a sound, and stooped and kissed her on both cheeks, nudging me with his elbow at the same time.
A cheer went up again, and my father took me aside and whispered in my ear.
“You rascal,” said he, “I never thought you had it in you to— Really! You don’t say so! You astonish me! A Highwayman’s daughter! Well, well, think of that! Very original of you, my son; I’m sure I never would have thought of such a thing at your age. She’s got a fine eye, my boy; there’s a look in it I’ve seen in your mother’s eye; a will of her own, you can’t fool me about that look,—yes, yes, very beautiful,—but a will of her own, remember I told you. A Highwayman’s daughter! That’s good. Highly original. Well, well, it might have been the Hangman’s daughter—but remember what I told you about that look in the eye, I’ve seen it before,—your mother used to—but she’s certainly beautiful all the same—when does the wedding come off?”
The Magic Doublet Is Presented at the Wedding
We were married on the morning of the third day. Such feasting, such dancing, such merriment,—and gifts innumerable; but the best gift of all was a doublet, made with his left hand by the One-Armed Sorcerer from the skin of the witch’s wasp’s nest, fastened by the witch’s ten buttons sewed on with the genie’s hair; a doublet to preserve the wearer from all harm. And this, as the wedding dinner was nearing its end, the One-Armed Sorcerer, rising in his place, presented to me with a pretty speech, for which I thanked him.
“Sir,” said my father, addressing the One-Armed Sorcerer, “I invite you to remain with me at my court, to instruct my son in the mystery of handling a wife. Nobody but a sorcerer should undertake such a job. Will you try it?”
“Alas, your majesty,” said the One-Armed Sorcerer, “it is far beyond my powers. And besides, I must return to my island home, on pressing business.”
“Very well, then,” said my father. He took my bride’s hand in his and patted it, while she looked down in confusion. “My dear,” said he to her, “you must persuade your sisters to remain here with us. And as for your father, I design to appoint him Lord Treasurer of my kingdom. I think a Highwayman ought to be a good man to take charge of my money. Will you persuade him to accept that office?”
“Oh!” cried the nine sisters, without giving my bride a chance to speak. “That would be jolly! Oh, wouldn’t it be jolly? It will be just too perfectly jolly for anything, won’t it? But really, though, won’t it be jolly? Just too simply, perfectly, adorably jolly!”
“Your majesty,” said my father-in-law the Highwayman, rising up on his elderly legs,—
“Although I am not confident that I’m entirely competent, I thank
you for the compliment,
I thank you most sincerely;
I fear I am not very quick in matters of arithmetic, but often when
the answers stick
I get them,—very nearly;
And if at first I don’t succeed I try again, although indeed I
cannot say I always heed
Each wretched little fraction;
And anyway you must agree if one but knows his Rule of Three
there’s hardly any need to be
Acquainted with subtraction.
“I do not wish to seem to boast, of all things I detest it most,
and yet I think I’d fill the post
Not very ill, not very:
From early youth I did betray, I’ve often heard my mother say,
a really rather taking way
In matters monetary;
A simple little rule or two I always try to keep in view, to do
what I am told to do,
And always speak politely,
And never make a saucy joke behind the backs of other folk, a rule
which I have seldom broke,
If I remember rightly.
“My motto is a simple one, that happiness depends upon the consciousness
of duty done
(Unless it’s too unpleasant),
I value virtue more than wit, and as for riches, I admit I do not
value them a bit
(At least, not just at present),
I think, however, I should state, that though I don’t mind working
late, I like to be at home by eight,
When supper’s on the table;
And thus, in words of simple art, I thank you, Sir, with all my
heart, and promise I will do my part
(At least, as far as able).”
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.