"Is it you, my Prince?" she said. "How long you have kept me waiting!"
CHAPTER XI
IN that very moment the charm was broken and the castle awoke.
Instead of the profound silence there came a hustle and confusion of noise. Clocks began to strike, doors began to slam, dogs began to bark, cocks began to crow and hens to cluck; a breeze sprang up outside and set the branches of the trees swaying and creaking; the doves began to coo upon the roofs, the swallows to twitter under the eaves, flies came out and buzzed about the window, mice squeaked in the wainscot and ran scampering along the rafters. The fountain in the garden leapt up sixty feet into the air, and the goldfish swam among the water-lily leaves; ants left their nests and foraged about the paths, the butterflies danced and fluttered over the flowers, which lifted their heads as though to drink in the rays of the sun. In every tree in the garden a thrush woke up and began to sing; sparrows chirped, jays screamed, blue-tits chattered, and the chiff-chaff uttered his strange note. In the woods a cuckoo called and blackbird fluted to blackbird in the hedge. In the stables the horses awoke and champed at their stalls; the cat jumped down and ran after a mouse which crept out from under the straw. The sentry at the courtyard gate woke up and rubbed his eyes and came smartly to attention, looking round uneasily, for he thought he had only been asleep for a few minutes and was afraid that somebody might have seen him who would report him to the sergeant. The pikemen also woke with a start, and the sergeant woke too, and bellowed an order in a loud and angry voice, for he was ashamed of himself for sleeping in front of his men. The young squire who was going hawking fitted his falcon's hood and mounted his steed; the page-boy with the hound went off to his master. On the topmost tower of the castle the royal standard, which had been drooping against the flagstaff, filled out and waved freely in the breeze.
The hedge which had grown up to surround the enchanted castle broke in and disappeared; peacocks squalled and strutted on the lawns, martins flitted to and from their nests under the eaves, pigs began to grunt, oxen to low, sheep to bleat, rooks to caw and children to laugh and sing. In short, all the sounds which we hear every day and all the time and never notice, began again and seemed so loud in contrast to the deadly silence that they almost cracked the ears.
And in every room in the castle the people who had been lying asleep for a hundred years woke up and went on with what they had been doing just as though nothing had happened. In the kitchen the flames of the fire leapt up with a hiss and a roar. The kettle began to boil, the stew-pot to bubble, and the meat before the fire to steam and hiss as the little boy turned the spit.