"We will wait a while, and see if some way cannot be found to coax him to be a scholar. Before he is much older, I may come across a tutor who will suit him, and make it pleasant for him to learn."
Rick's mother was so fond of him, that she would not have him crossed in any thing, if she could help it. She, too, wanted him to learn something, and often tried to persuade him to say his lessons to her or Nanette; but his attention could seldom be gained for fifteen minutes at a time. As for persuading him to go to school, it would have been as well for her to try to persuade a young lion to go there.
Nanette had more influence over him than either his father or mother. She was a very bright and sensible young woman, and had helped to take care of Rick ever since he was a baby. Although he would not mind Nanette unless he pleased, he was more willing to obey her than any one else; and as she was a very good story-teller, and had a particular gift at telling fairy-stories, she could often persuade him to do as she wished, by the promise of one of her wonderful tales. The fairies she told about were generally old women who lived in the woods, and could make persons rich and beautiful, or poor and ugly, and tell what would happen to any one, and make every thing turn out to suit themselves.
Rick had sometimes asked Nanette if there were any fairies about the castle, and she had told him she knew of no better place for them than in those wild mountains; but as they never came near houses, that she knew of, and she did not go into the mountains, she had never seen any herself.
One day Rick had a bright idea. Why did he always ride up and down the river-road which he knew so well, instead of striking off across the mountains, at one of the many lanes which he had sometimes followed a little way until he found they led into the forests? What might there not be beyond those hills that was new and strange?
Beyond those mountains must he go, and that right speedily.
He at first told his mother of his intention, not expecting any worse opposition than that she might insist upon his being accompanied by the groom. But his mother, for once, replied "No," with some decision: it was a wild region, she said; there was nothing behind the mountains but other mountains, which ended she knew not where. She never had crossed those mountains herself; his father had never crossed them; no one would think of attempting it. Sometime, when he was older, his father would take him around to the other side of the mountains, by the cars or some other conveyance; but even a grown man would not try to cross them.
Rick made no reply, but simply resolved to investigate for himself. He had sometimes known his mother to represent dangers far worse than he knew them to be, in order to keep him away from them: he thought, as likely as not, it was a far more easy and common thing to cross those mountains than she had represented.
So, what did this venturesome youth do but start off the very next day, ostensibly for a ride up the river, but with the real intention of penetrating into the mountains by one of the mysterious paths, to test the correctness of his mother's statement.
Gayly he rode along the beautiful river-road; and his mother, from the castle-window, watched him until he was out of sight.