Fairy Tales for Young Readers (10 page)

So then they knew.

“Send for Benevola,” moaned the Queen. “Oh, send for Benevola—do!” And the King tried to drown his grief by giving orders about the bed his child was to lie on during her long sleep, as many another father has done before and since.

They laid the white Princess on a bed of carved ebony hung with curtains of silver cloth, and over her body they
laid a coverlet of cloth of gold that fell to the ground on both sides in folds that looked like folds carved in the solid metal. And they put a pink rose and a white rose and a yellow rose on her breast, and crossed her hands above them; and over all they laid a veil of white gauze that covered her from head to feet, and they shut the door and went away and left her.

And then Benevola came. The poor Queen rushed down the throne steps and along the great hall to meet her, and—

“Oh, my girl!” she cried. “Oh, my pretty little baby! She will sleep for a hundred years, and I shall be dead long, long years before she wakes up, and I shall never see her pretty eyes or her dear smile or hear her call me mother ever again.”

And with that she broke once more into wild weeping. Benevola put her arms round the Queen's neck and kissed her.

“You poor dear!” she said. “Don't grieve so. Your daughter must sleep for a hundred years. But what of that?
So shall you.
Yes, and the King her father, and all the courtiers and waiting-maids, and knights and men-at-arms—and the very dogs and cats. And when she wakes you shall all waken too, and, in the light of the happiness you will know when you feel her loving arms round you again all this present sorrow will be to you as a dream is when one wakes to see the brave sun shining.”

“You are sure she
will
wake?” said the mother Queen, clinging to her.

“When the hundred years are over a prince shall come and wake her,” said the fairy. “He will love her very much, and he shall be her husband.”

“Then I shall lose her anyway,” sighed the Queen.

“That's what mothers are born to,” said the fairy. “Come, eat and drink a little, all of you, before you go to sleep.”

So the tables were set, and every one ate and drank, though it was with a heavy heart. And as the dinner was
drawing to an end the fairy suddenly spoke the spell, and everyone in the palace fell asleep in his place. The King and Queen at the high table, the page filling the wine cup, the butler carrying fruit on a salver, the servants cleaning pots in the kitchen, the huntsman feeding his hounds, the hounds leaping round him, the cat basking on the terrace, the pigeons cuddled on the roof tiles—all were struck into sleep just as they were, so that the palace looked as though it were peopled with waxworks instead of living folk.

The fairy sighed and smiled, and sighed again. Then she laid a spell on the place so that no dust or decay should come near it in those hundred long years. And she laid a spell on the gardens, that no weeds should grow, and that all the flowers should stay just as they were, to the last least leaf or bud. The wood, too, she laid a spell on, and at once the branches grew thick and many, the briars and creepers wound in and out among the branches, and in a moment there was a thicket round the garden as tough and unpassable as any old quickset hedge.

There was one more spell to lay, and Benevola laid it. It was on the people, so that they should not seek to find or to bring back their King and Queen. She laid a spell to make them all Republicans for a hundred years, when they should become loyal again the moment the King awoke—which was really quite a good idea, and met every possible difficulty.

So a year went by, and the seasons changed the face of the country from brown to green, and from green to yellow, and from yellow to russet, and from russet to white. But in the garden within the ring of the wood nothing changed at all. There it was always high midsummer, and the roses flamed in the sunshine, and the jasmine flowers shone like stars in the twilight. And the years went on and on, and people were born and grew up, and married, and died, and still all was summer and sleep and silence in the palace in the wood.

And at long last the hundred years were all but accomplished. There remained but one day of all their many, many, many days.

And on that day a prince came riding through the town. He stopped in the market-place, and said:

“Where is the country palace of your king?”

“We have no king,” a stout grazier answered him; “we're a free and happy Republic, we are.”

“But you had a king once,” said the Prince. “Where was his country palace?”

“I've heard Granfer tell it was out yonder,” said the grazier, “beyond the wood that no man can pass.”

So the Prince went on, and by asking his way of all the old people he met on the country road he came at last to the wood that no man could pass.

“It ain't no good, master,” said an old shepherd, who could just remember hearing that there
was
a palace inside there; “you'll never get through. What's set you on finding out a place that's dead and gone, and clean forgot?”

“I dreamed,” said the Prince, “three happy nights I dreamed that within your king's country palace I should find the light of my eyes and the desire of my heart.”

“And what are they?” the shepherd asked.

“I do not know yet,” said the Prince, “but I shall know.”

“I'd turn back and get me home along, if I was you,” said the shepherd. “Why, suppose it was lions inside there, or dragons? There'd be a pretty how-de-do!”

“I can't turn back,” said the Prince; “my dream is calling me, and I must follow. You take my horse and be good to him. If I come back safe to my own kingdom, I will pay you. If not, then you have a good horse for your pains.”

So saying, he dismounted, drew his sword, and went forward to the wood.

“
You
'
ll
never get through,” said the old shepherd. “A many's tried that. Why, the boys is always at it. They never gets nothing but scratched faces and torn hands to show for it. What do
you
expect to get?”

“I don't know,” said the Prince again; “but I
shall
know.”

And he struck with his sword at the great twisted branches interwoven with briars and thick honeysuckle and thorny eglantine. And though they were so hard and thorny, at the touch of his sword they grew soft as dandelion stalks, so that he cut his way through them as easily as a man mows young grass with a scythe.

“Well, if ever I did!” said the old shepherd.

The Prince went on deeper and deeper to find the heart of the wood, and when he found the heart it was a green garden, all bright and fair and orderly, with rolled grass plots and smooth paths, and roses of all the colours there are, and starry tangles of jasmine. And in the middle of the wood's heart was the palace of his dreams. The garden was so still that it seemed to him as though he might even yet be dreaming, so he plucked a red rose, and smelt it, and knew that it all was real, and no dream.

On he went, up the terraces and through the hall, where, at the table, and at their service, King, Queen and courtiers slept, looking like life-sized figures in wax. At the end of the hall were golden curtains, and it was from behind them that his dream beckoned to him. He parted the curtains and went in. There on the carved ebony bed lay the Princess, between the silver cloth curtains, covered with cloth of gold, and with the veil of white gauze laid over her from head to feet. He turned down the veil, and set his red rose beside the others that lay at her breast, fresh and dewy as when they had been plucked a hundred years ago.

“Waken,” he said softly, “oh, waken! Light of my eyes! Desire of my heart!”

But the Princess did not awake. Then he put his hand on the silver cloth pillow, and leaned over and kissed her softly, and she put up her arm sleepily round his neck, and kissed him back.

Then she woke, and jumped up, throwing back the golden coverlet.

“Oh, is it you?” she cried. “What a long time you've been! I've been dreaming about you for a hundred years!”

Then they went out into the hall, hand in hand, to tell the King and Queen that they were engaged to be married. And of course the King and Queen were awake, and the courtiers. The page finished filling the cup, the butler set the fruit on the table; down at the kennels the huntsman went on feeding the hounds; the cat scratched herself and yawned; and the pigeons circled round the little turrets that were like pepper-pots.

“Mother dear,” said Princess Benevola, running up to the Queen and whispering in her ear, “this is my dear Prince who came and woke me up—and I'm going to marry him, and we've never been introduced, and I don't even know his name!”

So they were married, and all the people in the country forgot their Republican dream, and woke up as loyal as ever, and all the bells were set a-ringing, and all the children scattered roses of all the colours there are for the bride to walk on as she came out of church.

And when Malevola heard of it she lay down and died of sheer spite to think that anyone in the world was so happy as the Prince, and his bride who had been for a hundred years the Sleeping Beauty in the wood!

T
HERE WAS ONCE a king who attended very thoroughly to all his duties, and took a great pleasure and interest in the business of kingship. He brought up his sons very carefully, and had them trained by the best masters, so that when he should be tired of the cares of state his sons should be able to take up the burden, and rule the land as wisely as their father had done. And everything turned out as he wished. When their education was completed they were three as promising princes as any Prime Minister could wish to do business with. The only drawback was that the King still wished to do business with his Prime Ministers himself. Children do grow up so quickly, and when the princes were of an age to become kings the King himself was not nearly so tired as he expected to be, and did not at all want to retire from trade. And his trade—kingship—was the only trade his sons had learned. And it is not good for anyone, even princes, not to work at some trade or other. The King knew this as well as you or I do; but he could not make up his mind to retire. So he called his sons into his counting-house one day, and said:

“My dear boys, you have worked very hard, and passed all your exams with the utmost brilliancy and distinction. I am very pleased with you.”

“Thank you, sir,” said all the princes, and waited to hear that their brilliancy and distinction were to be rewarded with a share in the government of the kingdom.

No such thing.

“You must all be very tired,” said the King, “after working so hard all these years. You need a holiday. So I propose to make each of you a little present of a nice convenient castle, a thousand men-at-arms, and a duenna to receive your girl friends, so that you can have dances and banquets and festivities of all sorts. And here are ten sacks of gold for each of you. So now run away and play. Be good boys, and enjoy yourselves. Youth's the season for enjoyment, and the old man's good for a few more years yet.”

The two elder sons, who in fairy tales are always much more silly than the youngest, were delighted. They thanked their father warmly; so did the youngest, because he was both polite and affectionate. Then they all retired from the presence, and the King breathed a sigh of relief, and, taking the royal pen from the royal ear, plunged once more into the joyous labyrinth of the royal accounts. Artemesius and Demetrius set off at once for their castles, and did exactly as their father had told them, enjoying themselves in every luxurious way possible to clever, handsome young men with more money than they could spend. But Hyacinth, the youngest son, did otherwise. He went to his castle, sent a large order to his bookseller, and divided his time between study, sport, and the management of his estates. He found out everything about all his tenants, reduced rents when they were too high, rethatched the labourers' cottages, rebuilt the barns and stables, saw to it that everyone on his land had work to do, and good wages for his work, so that in a short time everyone on his estate was busy and happy, and wherever he went he met only loving and contented faces.

Demetrius and Artemesius did not make their retainers contented. They were not even contented themselves. In spite of all the pleasures, they were always grumbling, and saying that it was time the old man gave up business and let them be kings. And of course there were plenty of
ill-natured gossips to carry the news of their discontent to their father. There were good-natured gossips too, and they brought the tale of the youngest son's doings.

Then the King thought, “If I give up my kingdom and divide it among my three sons, two-thirds of it will be ill-governed and neglected”—he was always good at arithmetic, this king—”and I can't give the whole kingdom to Hyacinth, though I should like to, because if I did the other two would be really annoyed. Let me put on my considering cap.”

He got it out of the drawer where it always lay, wrapped in tissue paper, so that the gold embroidery on it should not tarnish, put it on, and sat thinking till thinking grew into sleep. When he woke up he instantly wrote to his three boys to come home.

Of course they came. And when they had all had supper he said:

“My dear boys, it seems a pity to divide up a handsome kingdom like this. And unsportsmanlike. I should prefer to put all my money on one horse, as they say in circles in which I have not moved. Now, do you agree to this? The one who brings me the nicest little dog within a year shall have the kingdom, and the other two shall have the nice castles they've got already.”

Hyacinth agreed, he was always ready to please his father. The other two agreed because each in his greedy heart wanted the whole kingdom, and hoped by this means to get it.

The two eldest went back to their castles, and paid men to travel into all the countries of the world looking for pretty little dogs. But Hyacinth went himself to look for the kind of little dog his father wanted. He did not find it. Instead he found himself lost in a dark wood on a rainy night. His horse, frightened by the sudden whirr of a cock pheasant, who was frightened too, bolted, and Hyacinth was swept from his saddle by the bough of a tree. Bruised, muddy, wet, breathless, and extremely uncomfortable, he
heard his horse's hoofs splashing along the wet path, fainter and fainter, and perceived that, for the first time in his life, he was alone, with no friends, no servants, no horse, no map, and no matches. It was a dismal moment. But he did not lose courage.