"Then I'll tak' ye into court," said Peter.
THE CHRISTENING OF THE FIFTEEN PRINCESSES
A MODERN FAIRY TALE
Once upon a time there was a village called Lew, and it was perched on the top of a hill 999 feet, 11 inches high. That is the way fairy-tales have to begin; they insist upon going back into the remote past; but unfortunately the village of Lew has come down to our own days, and so has the big hill on which it stands. If we start over again with, "Once upon a time there was a man of Lew who had fifteen daughters," we are confronted by exactly the same difficulty; for the man is still alive, and the fifteen daughters look as if they never would, nor could, belong to the period when little pixy maids were to be seen any night running round and round the furze-bushes. The only way out of the difficulty is to be courageous, to tell the truth, and say: At the top of a hill 999 feet, 11 inches high—some say it is 1,000 feet, but that is not true—stands the village of Lew, where dwells a man named Heathman, who has fifteen daughters and not a single son; and the daughters are all princesses, although it is not easy to say why; but as they are pretty, and this is a fairy-tale, they must be.
The little village lies within a kind of ring-fence of ash and sycamores, which shelter the cob houses from the furious gales which boom and bluster over the Dartmoor tors. The wind is always sighing and moaning. It is cool upon the hottest day in August, and probably that is why Lew imports weak-chested people in some quantity. A regular business is done with big, smoky Bristol. Lew says to Bristol in its own language, "Us ha' butiful air up over in Demshur, and us ha' a proper plenty o' cream and butter and suchlike, but us ain't got much golden money. If yew sends us sickly volk, they can buy our cream and butter, and us will send 'em back strong." Bristol sees the force of this argument, and packs up and sends off its weak-chested folk, who reason, quite sensibly, "What's the use of being ill when we can go to the top of Lew hill and get well?" There is a tariff, of course, for Lew does not believe in free imports. The weak-chested folk must buy cream and butter and suchlike in vast quantities, or they would be promptly deported under the local Aliens Act. As a matter of fact, they buy Lew produce without any grumbling; they do even more than they are wanted to, and are actually spoiling Lew—where tips are unknown and a man will do an extraordinary lot of work for two shillings—by raising the prices. They get absurdly grateful, these visitors, who enter Lew weak and thin, and are exported brown and fat and sleek, like porpoises.
It is the importation of so much foreign raw material that has built up the fortunes of the fairy family called Heathman. His Majesty, the father—hereinafter called King Heathman—was village cobbler before he came to the throne. After his accession he procured a horse and cart, and conveyed people to and from the distant station. He also annexed several acres of grass territory, by a process of peaceful penetration, and went in for cows and dairy produce. These two businesses developed so wonderfully that he dropped the cobbling, at which it must be owned he was always rather a poor hand. The weak-chested imports have to be brought up from the station ill, and taken back well; and while they are on the top of Lew hill they pass the time consuming cream, butter, milk, and eggs, which are provided by King Heathman, and delivered morning and evening by the golden-haired princesses. Their Majesties of the Palace—two cottages of red cob knocked into one—are busy people, and have no time for boasting; nor do they appear to think they have done anything out of the way in bringing up fifteen model princesses, not one of whom has ever given her parents an hour's anxiety. Sickness, some one will suggest; but that is a ridiculous idea, for the residents of Lew are never ill, and they live just as long as they like. Mrs. Heathman—hereinafter called Queen Heathman—looks the picture of health and strength, and only last Revel Week was footing it merrily after a long day's work, and dancing one or two anæmic young maids from foreign lands like Plymouth to a standstill. Old Grandfather Heathman, His Majesty's father, who is so much addicted to Lew that he won't die, had the impertinence to be dancing too. He must be nearly a hundred, though he neither knows nor cares about his age, and will merely state in the course of conversation that he intends to live out the present century, because he is so fond of the place. Old Grandfather Heathman is probably the only man now living in England who has witnessed a fatal duel, which was fought some time in the dark ages between the son of the then rector of Lew and a young doctor, a lady being of course the cause. The unfortunate young doctor, who very likely had never handled a sword before, was quickly killed by his opponent, who was an army officer. A stone still marks the spot, but it has become so overgrown with brambles that only Grandfather Heathman knows where to look for it.
The crown princess is just twenty-three. The girls are nicely dressed, well educated, and speak and behave like little angels. If Romney were alive, he would want to paint them all. They are so pretty, these fifteen princesses of Lew. Each has a slender figure, wild-rose complexion, shy eyes, and fair hair. But it must not be imagined they are dancing princesses. One plays the American organ (which was alluded to with less respect as the harmonium twenty years ago) in the church; another is pupil-teacher; another manages the Sunday-school. They milk the cows and attend to the dairy work. All of them love animals; each has her dog, or cat, or bird, generally with her in work or in play. When you meet a pretty, well-dressed girl in Lew, you will not—unless you are the latest importation—ask her name. You will say, "And what is your number?" She will blush delightfully, lower her shy eyes, put her hands behind her back, and tell you.
When the first child was born the neighbours offered their congratulations, and said, "Of course you will call her Annie." In this part of the country it is absolutely necessary to have a girl in the family of that name, and it is most unorthodox to call the first girl anything else. But King Heathman rebelled against custom. He did not care for the name Annie. He liked something daintier, something more unusual and fanciful. No doubt there is a vein of poetry somewhere in His Majesty's system. King Heathman stated plainly he would not hare his daughter named Annie. He would go to the rector and ask him to supply a name. The good people of Lew were horrified at such heresy. They pointed out what a great risk he was running. It was quite possible he would not have another daughter, and thus his family would be branded with the disgrace of having no Annie. But King Heathman hardened his heart yet more, and tramped off to the rectory.
The rector of Lew is a scholar of the old type, an unconscious pedant who can hardly open his lips without quoting Latin or Greek, a type which before another twenty years have gone will be as extinct as the pixies. The rector of Lew is almost as much a curiosity of the past as Grandfather Heathman, only when people plant themselves on the top of the big hill 999 feet, 11 inches high, it never seems to occur to them that they are mortal. The rector solved the royal difficulty at once, and in the most natural way possible. "She is the first child. Let us call her either Prima or Una," he said. "Una is a pretty name."