"Perhaps you don't know what you're coming to, my fine young gentleman. You're coming to be an ignorant man, more ignorant than many a peasant's son, as ignorant as a gypsy. And it's a bad man you're going to make,—a spendthrift, a drunkard, a sluggard, a ne'er do well, a villain, like enough. No one will respect you, no one trust you, no one love you, except your father and mother and Nanette, whose hearts you have crushed, and whose names you have disgraced."
Although Rick did not understand all the words she used, his imagination pictured even a worse prophecy, if possible, than their true meaning. He felt as if his future was pronounced, and was a terrible doom, which also involved his parents and Nanette in disgrace and ruin.
He fell upon his knees, and burst into a fresh flood of tears. Though he tried to speak, and beg the fairy to take back the dreadful words, he was so frightened and grief-stricken that he could utter nothing but convulsive sobs.
"What is the matter?" asked the fairy.
"Oh! oh!" sobbed Rick. "Don't let it happen to me! don't let it happen to my father and mother and Nanette!"
"How can I help it, silly boy? No one can help it but yourself. You might prevent it, if you would, but there is no use in supposing you ever will: you would rather have your own way, and go to destruction, than cross your own wishes, and come to a good end. I could tell you how you could change your fortune, and, instead of all this, grow up a good and noble man, of whom your father and mother would be proud. But to do that, you would have to change your present course entirely; and that you would not do."
"Oh, yes, I will! I will!" cried Rick eagerly. "Tell me how I can change my fortune!"
"Very well, I can tell you, although it will be only a waste of words. But you sha'n't have it to say it wasn't told you, and so you will have no one to blame but yourself, for going to destruction. There's Herr Schuler, in the village, who has taught many a peasant's son more than you are ever likely to know, and taught many a gentleman's son besides; so that it's been well said that the boy who has begun to learn under Herr Schuler never can grow up a dunce. If you will give up your play and nonsense from morning to night, and your lazy, lounging ways, and go over to Herr Schuler's, to learn to read, write, and cipher, to talk like a well-educated young gentleman, and to get a dressing with his long whip once in a while, to mend your ways and your manners, there'll be a chance for you yet."
"I'll go to-morrow!" cried Rick joyfully.
"A likely story, that! If I show you your way home, when you get there, safe and sound, that'll be the last you'll think of Zenia, and the good advice she gave you."