Ah, this time he did believe her,—poor Caspar! And so he must tell her all his secret. "I love you, little Mabel, oh so much! And oh, if some day you could marry me, I should keep you in darling little crimson shoes all your life! And who knows—perhaps through your love Mabel—I might grow better-looking. They said my godmother promised it."
"I love you as you are, plain or handsome, you dear, good Caspar," cried little Mabel, "and I will marry you just as soon as my mother, Dame Dimity, gives her consent!"
Alas! True love is ever doomed to be crossed, else this little tale of ours had been a good deal shorter; had, perhaps, even ended here!
Dame Dimity would on no account yield her consent to the union of her daughter, the beauty of the town, with the cobbler of Cobweb Corner. Why, if it came to that, there was Christopher Clogs, the wooden shoemaker, who was a good figure and a wealthy man to boot! He lived in the Market Place, and drove a thriving business, whilst Caspar was known to have only one coat to his back. Really the effrontery of Cobweb Corner was astounding!
Poor Mabel's eyes were now often dimmed with tears; yet once every day she passed through the narrow street near the castle wall, and gazed up at Caspar's gable-window, until she saw the little shoemaker smile down at her. After she had vanished, Caspar would feel very lonely; yet he said to himself, "When I want to see her blue eyes, then I must look at the sky. She'll always have blue eyes, and she'll always be my Mabel."
These days Caspar rarely left his workshop in the old garret. He was very poor, and had nothing to buy with; so he went to no shops, and he avoided the neighbours, as they were beginning to make merry about him, and Mabel, and Dame Dimity. He could not bear to hear them say that Mabel was betrothed to Christie Clogs, the wooden shoemaker. Anything but that!
When he had nobody to talk to, why, he opened his window to converse with the swallows, and asked them every evening what was the news—for Caspar could not afford to take in a newspaper.
"Oh, what do you think!" they cried one night, swirling round his head in circles, as their custom was, "here is something to interest you, Caspar! The king has got sore feet—from wearing tight boots, they say,—and sits in an arm-chair with his feet wrapped up in a flannel. We saw it all just a while ago."
"I took stock of His Majesty's feet that day," said Caspar promptly, "the day he was out on the 'Green.' I can't help measuring people's feet with my eye," he added apologetically to the swallows; "you see, it's my trade, and it is the only thing I am good at."
But ere he had finished speaking, the friendly swallows had described their last swift circle in the air, and, with a sharp scream of "Goodnight," had darted into their nests under the old pointed roof.