As for the king, in three days he was back to his fishing again, lying on the bank of the great pond, as happy as ever he was in the old times when he was only "My Lord Lackaday." He said the land was too much trouble for him; Lilias and Lionel might rule it as they thought fit. And so these two really carried out all he had promised to do.
The good little fairy-body rarely appeared in the country after Lionel's wedding-day; for the people were all happy now, "and," as she declared, "had no need of her."
And then it happened that one day at noontide, when the sun was shining overhead with a dazzling heat, and all the air was warm and drowsy, the king, who had been angling since early morning, without catching the smallest minnow, and had fallen fast asleep, lost his balance, and rolled down the sloping bank into the water, and disappeared. They dredged the lake for his body in vain. No trace of him was to be discovered, although they sent the most expert divers down to search.
But, strange to say, every evening from that time forward, just about sunset, a little bird with plumage gay, called "The Kingfisher," might be seen to haunt the margin of the lake, ready, with its pointed beak, to hook up the tiny fishes, that glided in shoals at nightfall near the surface of the water.
III.
Caspar the Cobbler, of Cobweb Corner.
In the centre of a certain old city in the Land of Langaffer stood a king's castle, surrounded by a high turreted wall, with many little gablets and long windows, and balconies adorned with flowers. A courtyard full of soldiers was inside. Like the city, the castle was picturesque, with its quaint architecture, its nooks and turns, its solid masonry and stone-carving. The interior must have been beautiful indeed; for the king, who had a very excellent taste, could scarcely be induced to leave his royal home even for an hour, so much did he love it. He was wont to inhale the fresh air every morning on the southern parapet where the clematis trailed over the antique coping, and, in the long summer twilight he would enjoy gazing at the east, where the sinking sun had spread its golden hue over his dominions, from the tiny top turret pointing to the woods and mountains that lay away beyond the city.
Now, in close proximity to the castle were some of the darkest and narrowest streets of the city. One of these was Cobweb Corner; and here, in a small attic, dwelt a humpbacked, plain-visaged little man, who the whole day long loved to think about the king. He was called "Caspar the Cobbler, of Cobweb Corner."
The people all knew Caspar, but they did not know that Caspar's secret ambition was to become some day cobbler to the king.
Caspar's father and mother had been poor folk, like himself; and when he came into the world, a sickly, plain-featured babe, his mother sent for the very last of the fairies in the land to be her child's godmother, and to bequeath him some wonderful gift which might make up for his lack of strength and beauty.
"What an ugly child," said the fairy; "yet somebody will love him, and he may become beautiful—and, when all else forsake him, why, then the most graceful of the birds shall be his friends."