“Why?” asked the princess.
“Because it has always been so,” he answered, whisking his tail excitedly and jumping out of the window so that the princess could not ask him any more questions.
That afternoon as Katrina began embroidering once more upon her scarlet-and-gold tapestry, her thoughts were even busier than her fingers. What did her nurse mean by writing that puzzling sentence: “I go away from the castle to help you?” Over and over again, Katrina turned these words in her mind. But she felt comforted and hopeful.
When darkness fell, the princess put her two candles at the window, and said to herself: “Perhaps the gray owl will come again to the oak-tree.” For a long time she waited with her tender face pressed against the iron bars. By and by she heard a soft whirr-r of wings, and the gray owl settled upon a branch below the window.
Katrina looked eagerly into the round, blinking eyes: “I wish you could speak,” she said, half-aloud.
The gray owl stepped so near the light that the little black line almost faded out of his yellow eyes. Katrina was surprised at the owl’s great size, and even more surprised to hear a muffled voice say: “Keep a good heart. I will save you.” Then the owl spread its soft wings and flew noiselessly away.
It was soon after that the princess heard a faint, regular sound, as of iron striking against stone; and the sound lasted all night,—as long as she stayed awake, which was a long time, for she kept asking herself over and over again: “Will the gray owl really save me from this dungeon?” The squirrel had said the owl would do this, and now the owl himself said so.
In the days of Princess Katrina, the world of mankind had not moved very far away from fairyland. The princess was not half so much astonished to hear a squirrel and an owl speak as a princess would be to-day. Katrina’s old nurse had told her many a tale of wonder; the nurse had that very day sent the message, “Keep a good heart;” and the gray owl had repeated the same words, “Keep a good heart.” By and by Katrina fell asleep, still puzzled, but happy in having such good friends as the nurse, the squirrel and the owl.
The next morning, when the squirrel came as usual, Katrina asked his opinion about the owl and the strange noise; but all the squirrel would say was: “Owls are very strong. Owls have sharp, strong beaks.” Then he whisked away, as if in haste. So Katrina stopped talking to the squirrel about the owl after that, for the subject seemed to offend him.
Every night, regularly, when darkness fell, Katrina heard the faint pick! pick! of iron upon stone, and every night, as she leaned against the window-bars, after the pick! pick! began, she heard the muffled words, “Keep a good heart!” She did not always see the owl, but on those nights she thought the owl must have perched upon a branch much lower than her window, for, straining her eyes, she could see a gray shape below.