The Sleeping Beauty

by C. S. Evans

Not a sound broke the deep and awful silence. No bird sang, no insect droned; there was no scurry of woodland creatures among the leaves, no sigh of wind in the trees. In all that place only the thorn hedge seemed threateningly alive, waiting to destroy the intruder who should attempt to force the secret it guarded.

Who would blame the Prince if for a moment his heart had almost failed him? There was no gap in that hedge, and the great thorns were sharp as dagger blades to stab his flesh. But if the Prince hesitated it was not for long. "Have I come so far to turn back now?" he thought. "These others who have died were brave men, and though they failed, with a courage as great as theirs I may succeed." And without wasting another moment the Prince began to force his way through the hedge.

And now he noticed with surprise that those thorns which looked so sharp and cruel became soft as thistledown as soon as he touched them, and the trailing bramble branches did not entangle him but bent aside at his touch as though they had been stems of grass. The hedge opened before him, and as he went through it pink blossoms of wild roses bloomed on the branches, until the tangled wall became a mass of flowers.

At last the Prince found himself on the other side of the hedge in the gardens of the castle. Before him he could see the high towers and turrets bathed in the fresh light of the morning sun, and as he hastened towards them he noticed that the gardens were as trim and tidy as though they had just been tended by the gardeners. There was no moss or weed upon the smooth paths, the turf on the lawns was as short and firm as though it had just been mown, and in the flower-beds everything was in the most careful order. Spring flowers were blooming there, but they bowed their heads upon their stalks, and even the trees seemed to hang their arms as though asleep.

Everywhere there was the same deep silence. The air, which should have been full of the twittering of birds, was heavy and languorous. There was no flutter of butterfly-wings or darting of flies; the fountains on the lawns were not playing, and as the Prince glanced over the edge of the marble basin of one of them he could see the goldfish beneath the water-lily leaves lying still, with never a wave of the tail or flicker of fin.

So he went on over the lawns and terraces and never a waking thing did he see, but when he came to the courtyard he saw a soldier standing there, leaning on his pike with his head bent upon his chest. At first the Prince thought that he was dead, but his cheek was fresh and ruddy and it was quite plain to see that he was merely asleep. In the courtyard itself were other human forms, all still and silent. A row of pikemen leaned against the wall and in front of them, stretched out upon the ground, snored the sergeant who had been drilling them when the spell came upon the castle. A young squire, with a sleeping hawk upon his wrist, slept leaning against a sleeping horse which he had been about to mount. Near by lay a page with a hound in leash, both sleeping as soundly as though they never would awake, and through a window in the stables the Prince saw a groom lying with a straw in his mouth.

In the stables themselves a like condition of things prevailed. The horses slept at their stalls with their noses to the mangers, standing on their four legs just as they were when they were enchanted a hundred years before, and on the back of one of them sat the stable-cat. Here and there upon the ground lay grooms and ostlers, fast asleep among the straw.

From the stables the Prince made his way to the great kitchen where he saw equally strange sights, and he could not help smiling when he came upon the cook with her hand still outstretched to clout the head of the unhappy scullion whom she had by the ear. Before the fires hung the spitted partridges and fowls that were cooking for the Princess's birthday feast, and at the table a maid had fallen asleep with her hands in a large trough full of dough. She had been making the pastry for a pie when the sleep fell upon her, and by her side was another maid who had been plucking a black hen. At the sink a kitchen-knave was leaning over the pot he had been scouring.