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THE WISE WOMAN
THE WISE WOMAN
a yara&U
By GEORGE MAC DONALD
>.i^S,^
STRAHAN & CO, PUBLISHERS
34. PATERNOSTER KOW, LONDON
i!7S
^Sl . a . bo.
CHAPTER I.
T^HERE was a certain country where things
used to go rather oddly. For instance, you
could never tell whether it was going to rain or
hail, or whether or not the milk was going to turn
sour. It was impossible to say whether the next
baby would be a boy or a girl, or, even after he
was a week old, whether he would wake sweet-
tempered or cross.
In strict accordance with the peculiar nature of
this, country of uncertainties, it came to pass one
day that, in the midst of a shower of rain that
might well be called golden, seeing the sun, shining
B
THE WISE WOMAN.
as it fell, turned all its drops into molten topazes,
and every drop was good for a grain of golden
corn, or a yellow cowslip, or a buttercup, or a dan-
delion at least, — ^while this splendid rain was
falling, I say, with a musical patter upon the great
leaves of the horse-chestnuts, which hung like
Vandyke, collars about the necks of the creamy,
red-spotted blossoms, and on the leaves of the syca-
mores, looking as if they had blood in their veins,
and on a multitude of flowers, of which some stood
up and boldly held out their cups to catch their
share, while others cowered down laughing under
the soft patting blows of the heavy warm drops ; —
while this lovely rain was washing all the air clean
from the motes, and the bad odours, and the poison-
seeds that had escaped from their prisons during
the long drought — ^while it fell, splashing, and
sparkling, with a hum, and a rush, and a soft
clashing — ^but stop — I am stealing, I find, and not
A PARABLE.
that only, but with clumsy hands spoiling what I
steal : —
'^ O Rain, with your dull two-fold sound,
The clash hard-by, and the murmur all round ; *'
— there ! take it, Mr. Coleridge ; — ^while, as I was
saying, the lovely little rivers whose fountains are
the clouds, and which cut their own channels
through the air, and make sweet noises rubbing
against their banks as they hurry down and down,
until at length they are pulled up on a sudden,
with a musical plash, in the very heart of an
odorous flower, that first gasps and then sighs up a
blissful scent, or on the bald head of a stone that
never says thank you ; — while the very sheep felt it
blessing them, though it could never reach their
skins through the depth of their long wool, and the
veriest hedgehog — I mean the one with the longest
spikes — came and spiked himself out to impale as
many of the drops as he could ; — while the rain
THE WISE WOMAN.
was thus falling, and the leaves, and the flowers^
and the sheep, and the cattle, and the hedgehog,
were all busily receiving the golden rain, something
happened. It was not a great battle, nor an earth-
quake, nor a coronation, but something more
important than all those put together : a baby-girl
was bom — and her father was a king, and her
mother was a queen, and her uncles and aunts were
princes and princesses, and her first cousins were
dukes and duchesses, and not one of her second
cousins was less than a marquis or marchioness;
or of her third cousins less than an earl or
countess, and below a countess they did not care to
count So the little girl was Somebody ; and yet
for all that, strange to say, the first thing she did
was to cry ! I told you it was a strange country.
As she grew up, everybody about her did his
best to convince her that she was Somebody, and
the girl herself was so easily persuaded of it that
A PARABLE.
she quite forgot that anybody had ever told her so,
and took it for a fundamental, innate, primary, first-
bom, self-evident, necessary, and incontrovertible
idea and principle that slu was Somebody, And far
be it from me to deny it ! I will even go so far as
to assert that in this odd country there was a huge
number of Somebodies. Indeed, it was one of its
oddities that every boy and girl in it was rather too
ready to think he or she was Somebody ; and the
worst of it was that the princess never thought of
there being more than one Somebody — and that
was herself.
Far away to the north in the same country, on
the side of a bleak hill, where a horse-chestnut or a
sycamore was never seen, where were no meadows
rich with buttercups, only steep, rough, breezy
slopes, covered with dry prickly furze and its
flowers of red gold, or moister, softer broom with its
flowers of yellow gold, and great sweeps of purple
THE WISE WOMAN.
heather, mixed with bilberries, and crowberries,
and cranberries — no, I am all wrong — there was
nothing out yet but a few furze blossoms, the rest
were all waiting behind their doors till they were
called ; — and no full, slow-gliding river with
meadow-sweet along its oozy banks, only a little
brook here and there, that dashed past without a
moment to say " How do you do ? " — there — would
you believe it? — while the same cloud that was
dropping down golden rain all about the queen's
new baby, was dashing huge fierce handfuls of hail
upon the hills, with such force that they flew
spinning off the rocks and stones, went burrowing
in the sheep's wool, stung the cheeks and chin of
the shepherd with their sharp spiteful little blows,
and made his dog wink and whine as they bounded
off his hard wise head and long sagacious nose ; —
only, when they dropped plump down the chimney,
and fell hissing in the little fire, they caught it
A PARABLE.
then, for the clever little fire soon sent them up the
chimney again, a good deal swollen, and harmless
enough for a while ! — there — what do you think ? —
among the hailstones, and the heather, and the
cold mountain air, another little girl was bom,
whom the shepherd her father, and the shepherdess
her mother, and a good many of her kindred too,
thought Somebody. She had not an uncle or an
aunt that was less than a shepherd or dairymaid,
not a cousin that was less than a farm-labourer, not
a second cousin that was less than a grocer, and
they did not count farther. And yet, would you
believe it ? she too cried the very first thing. It
zvas an odd country ! And what is still more
surprising, th^ shepherd and shepherdess and the
dairymaids and the labourers were not a bit wiser
than the king and the queen and the dukes and the
marquises and tlie earls, for they too, one and all,
so constantly taught the little woman that she was
8 THE WISE WOMAN.
Somebody, that she also forgot that there were a
great many more Somebodies besides herself in the
world.
It was, indeed, a peculiar country — very different
from ours — so different that my reader must not be
too much surprised when I add the amazing fact,
that most of its inhabitants, instead of enjoying the
things they had, were always wanting the things
they had not, often even the things it was least
likely they ever could have. The grown men and
women being like this, there is no reason to be
further astonished that the Princess Rosamond —
the name her parents gave her because it means
Rose of the World — should grow up like them,
wanting everything she could and everything she
couldn't have. The things she could have were a
great many too many, for her foolish parents
always gave her what they could ; but still there
remained a few things they couldn't give her, for
A PARABLE.
they were only a common king and queen. They
could and did give her a lighted candle when she
cried for it, and managed by much care that she
should not burn her fingers or set her frock on fire ;
but when she cried for the moon, that they could
not give her. They did the worst thing possible
instead, however, for they pretended to do what
they could not: — they got her a thin disc of
brilliantly polished silver, as near the size of the
moon as they could agree upon, and for a time she
was delighted.
But, unfortunately, one evening she made the
discovery that her moon was a little peculiar,
inasmuch as she could not shine in the dark. Her
nurse happened to snuff out the candles as she was
playing with it, and instantly came a shriek of rage,
for her moon had vanished. Presently, through the
opening of the curtains, she caught sight of the
real moon, far away in the sky, and shining quite
lO THK WISE WOMAN.
calmly, as if she had been there all the time ; and
her rage increased to such a degree that if it had
not passed off in a fit, I do not know what might
have come of it.
As she grew up it was still the same — with this
difference, that not only must she have everything,
but she got tired of everything almost as soon as
she had it. There was an accumulation of things
in her nursery, and schoolroom, and bedroom that
was perfectly appalling. Her mother's wardrobes
were almost useless to her, so packed were they
with things of which she never took any notice.
When she was five years old, they gave her a
splendid gold repeater, so close set with diamonds
and rubies that the back was just one crust of
gems : in one of her little tempers as they called
her hideously ugly rages, she dashed it against the
back of the chimney, after which it never gave a
single tick, and some of the diamonds went to the
A PARABLE. II
ash-pit. As she grew older still, she became fond
of animals, not in a way that brought them much
pleasure, or herself much satisfaction. Wheii
angry, she would beat them and try to pull them to
pieces, and as soon as she became a little used to
them, would neglect them altogether. Then,' if
they could, they would run away, and she was
furious. Some white mice, which she had ceased
feeding altogether, did so, and soon the palace was
swarming with white mice. Their red eyes might
be seen glowing, and their white skins gleaming,
in every dark comer; but when it came to the
king's finding a nest of them in his second-best
crown, he was angry, and ordered them to be
drowned. The princess heard of it, however, and
raised such a clamour that there they were left
until they should run away of themselves, and the
poor king had to wear his best crown every day
till then. Nothing that was the princess's property.
12 THE WISE WOMAN.
whether she cared for it or not, was to be meddled
with.
Of course as she grew, she grew worse, for she
never tried to grow better. She became more and
more peevish and fretful every day — dissatisfied
not only with what she had, but with all that was
around her, and constantly wishing things in
general to be different. She found fault with
everything and everybody and all that happened,
and grew more and more disagreeable to everyone
who had to do with her. At last, when she had
nearly killed her nurse, and had all but succeeded
in hanging herself, and was miserable from morning
to night, her parents thought it time to do
something.
A long way from the palace, in the heart of a
deep wood of pine-trees, lived a wise woman. In
some countries she would have been called a witch,
but that would have been a mistake, for she never
A PARABLE. 1 3
did anything wicked, and had more power than any
witch could have. As her fame was spread
through all the country, the king heard of her, and,
thinking she might perhaps be able to suggest
something, sent for her. In the dead of the night,
lest the princess should know it, the king's
messenger brought into the palace a tall woman,
muffled from head to foot in a cloak of black cloth.
In the presence of both their majesties, the king, to
do her honour, requested her to sit, but she
declined, and stood waiting to hear what they had
to say. Nor had she to wait long, for almost
instantly they began to tell her the dreadful trouble
they were in with their only child — first the king
talking, then the queen interposing with some yet
more dreadful fact, and at times both letting out
a torrent of words together, so anxious were they
to show the wise woman that their perplexity
was real, and their daughter a very terrible one
14 THE WISE WOMAN.
For a long while there appeared no sign of
approaching pause. But the wise woman stood
patiently folded in her black cloak, and listened
without word or motion. At length silence fell, for
•they had talked themselves tired, and could not
think of anything more to add to the list of their
.child's enormities.
. After a minute, the wise woman unfolded her
.arms, and her cloak dropping open in front, dis-
closed a garment made of a strange stuff, which an
.old poet who knew her well has thus described:
All lilly white, withoutten spot or pride,
That seemd like silke and silver woven neare ;
But neither silke nor silver therein did appeare.
"How very badly you have treated her!" said
the wise woman : " Poor child."
"What! Treated her badly?" gasped the king.
" She IS a very wicked child," said the queen ;
and both glared with indignation.
A PARABLE. I 5
•
"Yes, indeed," returned the wise woman; "she is
very naughty indeed, and that she must be made
to feel; but it is half your fault too."
"What!" stammered the king. "Haven't we
given her every mortal thing she wanted ?"
"Surely," said the wise woman. "What else
could have all but killed her! You should have
given her a few things of the other sort But you
are far too dull to understand me."
"You are very polite!" remarked the king, with
royal sarcasm on his thin, straight lips.
The wise woman made no answer beyond a
deep sigh, and the king and queen sat silent also
in their anger, glaring at the wise woman. The
silence lasted again for a minute, and then the
wise woman folded her cloak around her, and her
shining garment vanished like the moon when a
great cloud comes over her. Yet another minute
passed and the silence endured, for the smouldering
1 6 THE WISE WOMAN.
wrath of the king and queen choked tlie channels
of their speech. Then the wise woman turned her
back on them, and so stood. At this the rage of
the king broke forth, and he cried to the queen,
stammering in his fierceness :
"How should such an old hag as that teach
Rosamond good manners } She knows nothing of
them herself! Look how she stands! Actually
with her back to us ! "
At the word the wise woman walked from the
room. The great folding doors fell to behind her,
and the same moment the king and queen were
quarrelling like apes as to which of them was to
blame for her departure. Before their altercation
was over, for it lasted till the early morning, in
rushed Rosamond, clutching in her hands a poor
little white rabbit of which she was Very fond, and
from which, only because it would not come to her
when she called it, she was pulling handfuls of fur,
A PARABLE. I 7
In the attempt to tear the squealing, pink-eared,
red-eyed thing to pieces.
•'Rosa! Rosaw^w^/" cried the queen; — ^where-
upon Rosamond threw the rabbit in her mother's
face. The king started up in a fury, and ran to
seize her. She darted shrieking from the room.
The king rushed after her, but, to his amazement,
she was nowhere to be seen; the huge hall was
empty. — ^No; just outside the door, close to the
threshold, with her back to it, sat the figure of the
wise woman, muffled in her dark cloak, with her
head bowed over her knees. As the king stood
looking at her she rose slowly, crossed the hall,
and walked away down the marble staircase. The
king called to her, but she never turned her head,
or gave the least sign that she heard him. So
quietly did she pass down the wide marble stair,
that the king was all but persuaded he had seen
only a shadow gliding across the white steps.
1 8 THE WISE WOMAN.
For the princess, she was nowhere to be found
The queen went into hysterics, and the rabbit ran
away. The king sent out messengers, but in vain.
In a short time the palace was quiet — as quiet as
it used to be before the princess was born. The
king and queen cried a little now and then, for the
hearts of parents were in that country strangely
fashioned ;— and yet I am afraid the first move-
ment of those very hearts would jiave been a jump of
terror if the c^rs above them had .heard the voice of
Rosamond in one of the corridors^. As for the rest
of the household, they could not have made up a
single tear, amongst them. They thought, what-
ever it might be for the princess, it was for every
one else the best thing that could have happened ;
and as to what had become of her, if their heads
were puzzled, their hearts took no interest in the
question. The Lord Chancellor alone had an idea
about it, but he was far too wise to utter it
CHAPTER n.
T^HE fact, as is plain, was, that the princess had
disappeared in the folds of the wise woman's
cloak : when she rushed from the room, the wise
woman caught her to her bosom and flung the
black garment around her. The princess struggled
wildly, for she was in fierce terror, and screamed as
loud as choking fright would permit her ; but her
father, standing in the door, and looking down
upon the wise woman, saw never a movement of
the cloak, so tight was she held by her captor.
He was indeed aware of a most angry crying,
which reminded him of his daughter, but it sounded
20 THE WISE WOMAN.
to him so far away, that he took it for the passion
of some child in the street, outside the palace-
gates. Hence, unchallenged, the wise woman
carried the princess down the marble-stairs, out at
the palace-door, down a great flight of steps
outside, across a paved court, through the brazen
gates, along half-roused streets where people were
opening their shops, through the huge gates of the
city, and out into the wide road vanishing north-
wards — ^the princess struggling and screaming all
the time, and the wise woman holding her tight
When at length she was too tired to struggle or
scream any more, the wise woman unfolded her
cloak and set her down, and the princess saw the
light and opened her swollen eyelids. There was
«
nothing in sight that she had ever seen before!
City and palace had disappeared. They were
upon a wide road going straight on, with a ditch
on each side of it, that, behind them, widened into
A PARABLE. 21
the great moat surrounding the city. She cast up
a terrified look into the wise woman's face that
gazed down upon her gravely and kindly. Now
the princess did not in the least understand kind-
ness. She always took it for a sign either of
partiality or fear. So when the wise woman looked
kindly upon her, she rushed at her, butting with her
head like a ram. But the folds of the cloak had
closed around the wise woman, and when the
princess ran against it, she found it hard as the
cloak of a bronze statue, and fell back upon the
road with a great bruise on her head. The wise
woman lifted her again, and put her once more
under the cloak, where she fell asleep, and where
she awoke again only to find that she was still
being carried on and on.
When at length the wise woman again stopped
and set her down, she saw around her a bright
moonlit night, on a wide heath, solitary and
22 THE WISE WOMAN.
houseless. Here she felt more frightened than
beibroi nor was her terror assuaged when, looking
up)' she' saw a stem, immovable countenance, with
cold eyes fixedly regarding her. All she knew of
the world being derived from nursery tales, she
concluded that the wise woman was an ogress
carrying her home to eat her.
I have already said that the princess was, at this
time of her life, such a low-minded creature, that
severity had greater influence over her than kind-
ness. She understood terror better far than
tenderness. When the wise woman looked at her
thus, she fell on her knees and held up her hands
to her, crying,
" Oh, don't eat me ! don't eat me ! "
Now this being the best slie could do, it was a
sign she was a low creature. Think of it — to kick
at kindness and kneel from terror ! But the stern-
ness on the face of the wise woman came from the
A PARABLE. 2}
same heart and the same feeling as the kindness
that had shone from it before : the only thing that
could s&ve the princess from her hatefulness was
tliat she should be made to mind somebody else
than her own miserable Somebody.
Without saying a word, the wise woman reached
down her hand, took one of Rosamond's, and,
lifting her to her feet, led her along through the
moonlight Every now and then a gush of
obstinacy would well up in the heart of the prin-
cess, and she would give a great ill-tempered tug,
and pull her hand away. But then the wise
woman would gaze down upon her with such a
look, that she instantly sought again the hand she
had rejected — in pure terror lest she should be
eaten upon the spot And so they would walk on
again, and when the wind blew the folds of the
cloak against the prificess, she found them soft as
her mother's camel-hair shawL
24 IHK WISE WOMAN.
After a Kttle while the wise woman began to
sing to her, and the princess could not help listen-
ing, for the soft wind amongst the low dry bushes
of the heath, the rustle of their own steps, and the
trailing of the wise woman's cloak, were the only
sounds beside.
And this is the song she sang :—
Out in the cold,
With a thin-worn fold
Of withered gold
Around her rolled,
Hangs in the air the weary moon.
She is old, old, old ;
And her bones all cold,
And her tales all told,
And her things all sold.
And she has no breath to croon.
Like a castaway clout,
She is quite shut out !
She might call and shout.
But no one about
Would ever call back — ^Who's there ?
There is never a hut.
Not a door to shut.
Not a footpath or rut.
Long road or short cut.
Leading to anywhere I
A PARABLE. 25
She is all alone
Like a dog-picked bone,
The poor old crone !
She fain would groan.
But she cannot find the breath.
She once had a fire,
But she built it no higher,
And only sat nigher
Till she saw it expire;
And now she is cold as death.
She never will smile
All the lonesome while.
Oh, the mile after mile,
And never a stile !
And never a tree or a stone I
She has not a tear :
Afar and anear
It is all so drear,
But she does not care,
Her heart is as dry as a bone.
None to come near her !
No one to cheer her !
No one to jeer her I
No one to hear her I
Not a thing to lift and hold t
She is always awake.
But her heart will not break;
She can only quake,
Shiver and shake —
The old woman is very cold.
As strange as the song, was the crooning, wailing
26 THE WISE WOMAN.
•tune that the wise woman sung. At the first note
^most, you would have thought * she wanted to
frighten the princess, and so indeed she did. For
-when people will be naughty, they have to be
tfrightened, and they are not expected to like it
The princess grew angry, pulled her hand away,
and cried, —
" Yoti are the ugly old woman. I hate you."
Therewith she stood still; expecting the w^ise
woman to stop also, perhaps coax her to go on :
if she did, she was determined ndt to move a step.
JBut the wise woman never even looked about ; she
liept walking on steadily, the same pace as before.
Little Obstinate thought for certain she would
turn, for she regarded herself as much too precious
to be left behind ; but on and on the wise woman
went, until she had vanished away in the dim moon-
light Then all at once the princess perceived
that she was left alone with the rtiodn — ^looking
A PARABLE. 27
down on her from the height of her loneliness.
She was horribly frightened, and began to run
after the wise woman, calling aloud. But the song
she had just heard came back to the sound of her
own running feet — *
All all alone
Like a dog-picked bone !
end again.
She might call and shont,
And no one about
Wonld ever call back — Who's there ?
and she screamed as she ran. How she wished
she knew the old woman's name, that she might
call it after her through the moonlight !
But the wise woman had in truth heard the first
sound of her running feet, and stopped and turned,
waiting. What with running and crying, however,
and a fall or two as she ran, the princess never saw
her until she fell right into her arms — and the
same moment into a fresh rage; for as soon as
any trouble was over, the princess was always
28 THE WISE WOMAN.
ready to begin another. The wise woman there-
fore pushed her away, and walked on, while the
princess ran scolding and storming after her. She
had to run till, from very fatigue, her rudeness
ceased. Her heart gave way, she burst into tears,
and ran on silently weeping.
A minute more and the wise woman stooped,
and lifting her in her arms, folded her cloak around
her. Instantly she fell asleep, and slept as soft and
as soundly as if she had been in her own bed.
She slept till the moon went down ; she slept till
the sun rose up ; she slept till he climbed the top-
most sky ; she slept till he went down again, and
the poor old moon came peaking and peering out
once more; and all that time the wise woman
went walking on and on very fast And now they
had reached a spot where a few fir-trees came to
meet them through the moonlight
At the same time the princess awaked, and
A PARABiE. 29
popping her head out between the folds of the
wise woman's cloak — a very ugly little owlet she
looked — saw that they were entering the wood.
Now there is something awful about every wood,
especially in the moonlight, and perhaps a fir-wood
is more awful than other woods : for one thing, it
lets a little more light through, rendering the dark-
ness a little more visible, as it were ; and then the
trees go stretching away up towards the moon, and
look as if they cared nothing about the creatures
below them — not like the broad trees with soft
wide leaves that, in the darkness even, look
sheltering. So the princess is not to be blamed
that she was very much frightened. She is hardly
to be blamed either that, assured the wise woman
was an ogress carrying her to her castle to eat her
up, she began again to kick and scream violently,
as those of my readers who are of the same sort as
herself, will consider the right and natural thing to
30 THE WISE WOMAN.
do. The wrong in her was this — ^that she had led
such a bad life, that she did not know a good
woman when she saw her — took her for one li!;?e
herself, even after she had slept in her arms.
Immediately the wise woman set her down, and^
walking on, within a few paces vanished among the
trees. Then the cries of the princess rent the aSr,
but the fir-trees never heeded her ; not one of their
hard little needles gave a single shiver for all the
noise she made. But there were creatures in the
forest who were soon quite as much interested in
her cries as the fir-trees were indifferent to them.
They began to harken and howl and snuff about^
and run hither and thither, and grin with their
white teeth, and light up the green lamps in their
€yes. In a minute or two a whole army of wolves
and hyaenas were rushing from all quarters through
the pillar-like stems of the fir-trees, to the place
where she stood calling them without knowing it
A PAR.\BIJt. 31
The noise she made herself, however, prevented her
from hearing either their howls or the soft pattering
of their many trampling feet as they bounded over'
the fallen fir-needles and cones.
One huge old wolf had cutsped the rest — not
that he could run faster, but that from experience-
he could more exactly judge whence the cries came,,
and as he shot through the wood, she caught sight
at last of his lamping eyes, coming swiftly nearer*
and nearer. Terror silenced her. She stood with-.
her mouth open as if she were going to eat the:
wolf, but she had no breath to scream with, and
her tongue curled up in her mouth like a withered
and frozen leaf. She could do nothing but stare at
tlie coming monster. And now he was taking a.
few shorter bounds, measuring the distance for the
one final leap that should bring him upon her,
when out stepped the wise woman from behind the
very tree by which she had set the princess down^.
32 THE WISE WOMAN.
caught the wolf by the throat half-way in his last
springy shook him once, and threw him from her
dead* Then she turned towards the princess, who
flung herself into her arms, and was instantly
lapped in the folds of her cloak.
But now the huge army of wolves and hyaenas
had rushed like a sea around them, whose waves
leaped with hoarse roar and hollow yell up against
the wise woman. But she, like a strong stately
vessel, moved unhurt through the midst of them.
Ever as they leaped against her cloak, they
dropped and slunk away back through the crowd.
Others ever succeeded, and ever in their turn fell
and drew back confounded. For some time she
walked on attended and assailed on all sides by the
howling pack. Suddenly they turned and swept
away, vanishing in the depths of the forest She
neither slackened nor hastened her step, but went
walking on as before.
A PARABLE. 33
In a little while she unfolded her cloak, md let
the princess look out. The firs had ceased, and
they were on a lofty height of moorland, stony, and
bare, and dry, with tufts of heather and a few small
plants here and there. About the heath, on every
side, lay the forest, looking in the moonlight like a
I
cloud ; and above the forest, like the shaven crown
of a monk, rose the bare moor over which they
were walking. Presently, a little way in front of
them, the princess espied a white-washed cottage,
gleaming in the moon. As they came nearer, she
saw that the roof was covered with thatch, over
which the moss had grown green. It was a very
simple, humble place, not in the least terrible to
look at, and yet, as soon as she saw it, her fear
again awoke, and always as soon as her fear awoke,
the trust of the princess fell into a dead sleep.
Foolish and useless as she might by this time have
known it, she once more began kicking and
D
34 THE WISE WOMAN.
screaming, whereupon yet once more the wise
woman set her down on the heath, a few yards
from the back of the cottage, and saying only, " No
one ever gets into my house who does not knock
at the door and ask to come in," disappeared round
the comer of the cottage, leaving the princess
alone with the moon — ^two white faces in the cone
of the night
CHAPTER IIL
T^HE moon stared at the princess, and the
princess stared at the moon; but the moon
had the best of it, and the princess began to cry.
And now the question was between the moon and
the cottage. The princess thought she knew the
worst of the moon, and she knew nothing at all
about the cottage, therefore she would stay with the
moon. Strange, was it not, that she should have
been so long with the wise woman and yet know
nothing about that cottage? As for the moon,
she did not by any means know the worst of her,
or even that, if she were to fall asleep where she
36 THE WISE WOMAN.
could find her, the old witch would certainly do
her best to twist her face.
But she had scarcely sat a moment longer before
she was assailed by all sorts of fresh fears. First
of all, the soft wind blowing gently through the
dry stalks of the heather and its thousands of little
bells raised a sweet rustling, which the princess
took for the hissing of serpents, for you know she
had been naughty for so long that she could not in
a great many things tell the good from the bad.
Then nobody could deny that there, all round about
the heath, like a ring of darkness, lay the gloomy
fir-wood, and the princess knew what it was full of,
and every now and then she thought she heard the
howling of its wolves and hyaenas. And who
could tell but some of them might break from
their covert and sweep like a shadow across the
heath .^ Indeed, it was not once nor twice that for a
moment she was fully persuaded she saw a great
A PARABLE. 37
beast coming leaping and bounding through the
moonlight, to have her all to himself. She did not
know that not a single evil creature dared set foot
on that heath, or that, if one should do so, it would
that instant wither up and cease. If an army of
them had rushed to invade it, it would have melted
away on the edge of it, and ceased like a dying
wave. — She even imagined that the moon was
slowly coming nearer and nearer down the sky, to
take her and freeze her to death in her arms. The
wise woman, too, she felt sure, although her cottage
looked asleep, was watching her at some little
window. In this, however, she would have been
quite right if she had only imagined enough —
namely, that the wise woman was watching over
her from the little window. But after all, somehow,
the thought of the wise woman was less frightful
than that of any of her other terrors, and at length
she began to wonder whether it might not turn out
€
/
38 THE WISE WOMAN.
that she was no ogress, but only a rude, ill-bred,
tyrannical, yet on the whole not altogether ill-
meaning person. Hardly had the possibility arisen
in her mind, before she was on her feet: if the
woman was anytliing short of an ogress, her
cottage must be better than that horrible loneliness,
with nothing in all the world but a stare; and even
an ogress had at least the shape and look of a
human being.
She darted round the end of the cottage to find
the front But to her surprise she came only to
another back, for no door was to be seen. She
tried the further end, but still no door ! She must
have passed it as she ran — ^butno — neither in gable
nor in side was any to be found !
A cottage without a door ! — ^she rushed at it in a
rage and kicked at the wall with her feet But the
wall was hard as iron, and hurt her sadly through
her gay silken slippers. She threw herself on the
A PARABLE. 39
heath, which came up to the walls of the cottage
on every side, and roared and screamed with rage.
Suddenly, however, she remembered how her
screaming had brought the horde of wolves and
hyaenas about her in the forest, and, ceasing at
once, lay still, gazing yet again at the moon. And
then came the thought of her parents in the palace
at home. In her mind's eye she saw her mother
sitting at her embroidery with the tears dropping
upon it, and her father staring into the fire as if he
were looking for her in its glowing caverns. It is
• true that if they had both been in tears by her side
because of her naughtiness, she would not have
cared a straw ; but now her own forlorn condition
somehow helped her to understand their grief at
having lost her, and not only a great longing to be
back in her comfortable home, but a feeble flutter
of genuine love for her parents awoke in her heart
as well, and she burst into real tears — ^soft.
40 THS WISE WOMAN.
mournful tears— very different from those of rage
and disappointment to which she was so much
used And another very remarkable thing was
that the moment she began to love her father and
mother, she began to wish to see the wise woman
again. The idea of her being an ogress vanished
utterly, and she thought of her only as one to take
her in from the moon, and the loneliness, and the
terrors of the forest-haunted heath, and hide her in
a cottage with not even a door for the horrid
wolves to howl against
But the old woman — as the princess called her,
not knowing that her real name was the Wise
Woman — ^had told her that she must knock at the
door : how was she to do that when there was no
door.^ But again she bethought herself — that, if
she could not do all she was told, she could at least
do a part of it : if she could not knock at the door,
she could at least knock — say on the wall, for there
A PARABLE. 4 I
was nothing else to knock upon — and perhaps the
old woman would hear her and lift her in by some
window. Thereupon she rose at once to her feet,
and picking up a stone, began to knock on the
wall with it A loud noise was the result, and she
found she was knocking on the very door itself.
For a moment she feared the old woman would
be offended, but the next there came a voice
saying,
" Who IS there ? "
The princess answered,
" Please, old woman, I did not mean to knock so
loud"
To this there came no reply.
Then the princess knocked again, this time with
her knuckles, and the voice came again, saying,
"Who is there?"
And the princess answered,
" Rosamond."
42 THE WISE WOMAN.
Then a second time there was silence. But
the princess soon ventured to knock a third time.
" What do you want ? " said the voice.
" Oh, please, let me in ! " said the princess. " The
moon will keep staring at me; and I hear the
wolves in the wood."
Then the door opened, and the princess entered.
She looked all around, but saw nothing of the wi^
woman.
It was a single bare little room, with a white
deal table, and a few old wooden chairs, a fire of
fir-wood on the hearth, the smoke of which smelt
sweet, and a patch of thick-growing heath in one
corner. Poor as it was, compared to the grand
place Rosamond had left, she felt no little satisfac-
tion as she shut the door, and looked around her.
And what with the sufferings and terrors she had
left outside, the new kind of tears she had shed,
the love she had begun to feel for her parents, and
A PARABLE. 43
the trust she had begun to place in the wise
woman, it seemed to her as if her soul had grown
larger of a sudden, and she had left the days of
her childishness and naughtiness far behind her.
People are so ready to think themselves changed
when it is only their mood that is changed.
Those who are good-tempered because it is a fine
day, will be ill-tempered when it rains : their selves
are just the same both days ; only in the one case
the fine weather has got into them, in the other tlie
rainy. Rosamond, as she sat warming herself by
the glow of the peat-fire, turning over in her mind
all that had passed, and feeling how pleasant the
change in her feelings was, began by degrees to
think how very good she had grown, and how very
good she was to have grown good, and how
extremely good she must always have been that
she was able to grow so very good as she now felt
she had grown; and she became so absorbed in
44 1*H£ WISE WOMAN.
her self-admiration as never to notice either that
the fire was dying, or that ^ heap of fir-cones lay
in a comer near it Suddenly, a great wind came
roaring down the chimney, and scattered the ashes
about the floor; a tremendous rain followed, and
fell hissing on the embers; the moon was swal-
lowed up, and there was darkness all about her.
Then a flash of lightning, followed by a peal of
thunder, so terrified the princess, that she cried
aloud for the old woman, but there came no
answer to her cry.
Then in her terror the princess grew angry, and
saying to herself, "She must be somewhere in the
place, else who was there to open the door to me ?**
began to shout and yell, and call the wise woman
all the bad names she had been in the habit of
throwing at her nurses. But there came not a
single sound in reply.
Strange to say, the princess never thought of
A PARABLE. 45
telling herself now how naughty she was, though
that would surely have been reasonable. On the
contrary, she thought she had a perfect right to be
suigry, for was she not most desperately ill-used —
and a princess too ? But the wind howled on, and
the rain kept pouring down the chimney, and
every now and then the lightning burst out, and
the thunder rushed after it, as if the great lumber-
ing sound could ever think to catch up with the
swift light !
At length the princess had again grown so
angry, frightened, and miserable, all together, that
she jumped up and hurried about the cottage with
outstretched arms, trying to find the wise woman.
But being in a bad temper always makes people
stupid, and presently she struck her forehead such
a blow against something — ^she thought herself it
felt like the old woman's cloak — ^that she fell back
— not on the floor though, but on the patch of
46 THE WISE WOMAN.
heather, which felt as soft and pleasant as any bed
in the palace. There, worn out with weeping and
rage, she soon fell fast asleep.
She dreamed that she was the old cold woman
up in the sky, with no home and no friends, and no
nothing at all, not even a pocket ; wandering,
wandering for ever over a desert of blue sand,
nev^r to get to anywhere, and never to lie down or
die. It was no use stopping to look about her, for
what had she to do but for ever look about her as
she went on and on and on — never seeing anything,
and never expecting to see anything ! The only
shadow of a hope she had was, that she might by
slow degrees grow thinner and thinner, until at last
she wore away to nothing at all ; only, alas ! she
could not detect the least sign that she had yet
begun to grow thinner. The hopelessness grew at
length so unendurable that she woke with a start
Seeing the face of the wise woman bending over
A PARABLE. 47
her, she threw her arms around her neck and held
up her mouth to be kissed. And the kiss of the
wise woman was like the rose-gardens of Da-
mascus.
CHAPTER IV.
nPHE wise woman lifted the princess tenderly,
and washed and dressed her far more care-
fully than even her nurse. Then she set her down
by the fire, and prepared her breakfast She was
very hungry, and the bread and milk as good as it
could be, so that she thought she had never in her
life eaten anything nicer. Nevertheless, as soon as
she began to have enough, she said to herself, —
" Ha ! I see how it is ! The old woman wants to
fatten me ! That is why she gives me such nice
creamy milk ! She doesn't kill me now because she's
going to kill me then! She is an ogress after all ! **
A PARABLE. 49
Thereupon she laid down her spoon, and would
not eat another mouthful — only followed the basin
with longing looks as the wise woman carried it
away.
When she stopped eating, her hostess knew
exactly what she was thinking ; but it was one
thing to understand the princess, and quite another
to make the princess understand her : that would
require time. For the present she took no notice,
but went about the affairs of the house, sweeping
the floor, brushing down the cobwebs, cleaning the
hearth, dusting the table and chairs, and watering
the bed to keep it fresh and alive — for she never
had more than one guest at a time, and never
would allow that guest to go to sleep upon any-
thing that had no life in it All the time she
was thus busied, she spoke not a word to the
princess, which, with the princess, went to confirm
her notion of her purposes. But whatever she
50 THE WISE WOMAN.
might have said would have been only perverted by
the princess into yet stronger proof of her evil
designs, for a fancy in her own head would out-
weigh any multitude of facts in another's. She
kept staring at the fire, and never looked round to
see what the wise woman might be doing.
By and by she came close up to the back of her
chair, and said, "Rosamond !"
But the princess had fallen into one of her sulky
moods, and shut herself up with her own ugly
Somebody; so she never looked round, or even
answered the wise woman.
"Rosamond," she repeated, "I am going out If
you are a good girl, that is, if you do as I tell
you, I will carry you back to your father and
mother the moment I return.'
The princess did not take the least notice.
" Look at me, Rosamond," said the wise
woman.
A PARABLE. 5 I
But Rosamond never moved — never even shrug-
ged her shoulders — ^perhaps because they were
already up to her ears and could go no further.
"I want to help you to do what I tell you," said
the wise woman. "Look at me."
Still Rosamond was motionless and silent,
saying only to herself, " I know what she*s after !
She wants to show me her horrid teeth. But I
won't look. Fm not going to be frightened out of
my senses to please her."
"You had better look, Rosamond. Have you
forgotten how you kissed me this morning }*'
But Rosamond now regarded that little throb of
affection as a momentary weakness into which the
deceitful ogress had betrayed her, and almost de-
spised herself for it She was one of those who the
more they are coaxed are the more disagreeable.
For such the wise woman had an awful punishment,
but she remembered that the princess had been
52 THE WISE WOMAN.
very ill brought up, and therefore wished to try her
with all gentleness first
She stood silent for a moment, to see what
effect her words might have. But Rosamond only
said to herself, —
"She wants to fatten and eat me."
And it was such a little while since she had
looked into the wise woman's loving eyes, thrown
her arms round her neck, and kissed her !
"Well," said the wise woman, gently, after
pausing as long as it seemed possible she might
bethink herself, "I must tell you then without;
only whoever listens with her back turned, listens
but half and gets but half the help."
" She wants to fatten me," said the princess.
" You must keep the cottage tidy while I am out
When I come back, I must see the fire bright, the
hearth swept, and the kettle boiling ; no dust on
the table or chairs, the windows clear, the floor
A PARABLE. 53
clean, and the heather in blossom — ^which last
comes of sprinkling it with water three times a-day.
When you are hungry, put your hand into that
hole in the wall, and you will find a meal.'*
** She wants to fatten me," said the princess.
" But on no account leave the house till I come
back," continued the wise woman, "or you will
grievously repent it Remember what you have
already gone through to reach it Dangers lie all
around this cottage of mine ; but inside, it is the
safest place — in fact the only quite safe place in all
the country."
" She means to eat me," said the princess,
" and therefore wants to frighten me from running
away."
She heard the voice no more. Then, suddenly
startled at the thought of being alone, she looked
hastily over her shoulder. The cottage was indeed
empty of all visible life. It was soundless, too ;
i
54 THE WISE WOMAN.
there was not even a ticking clock or a flapping
flame. The fire burned still and smouldering-wise ;
but it was all the company she had, and she turned
again to stare into it.
Soon she began to g^ow weary of having nothing
to do. Then she remembered that the old woman,
as she called her, had told her to keep the house
tidy.
"The miserable little pig-sty!" she said: "Where's
the use of keeping such a hovel clean ? "
But in truth she would have been glad of the
employment, only just because she had been told
to do it she was unwilling ; for there are people-^
however unlikely it may seem — who object to
doing a thing for no other reason than that it is
required of them.
"I am a princess," she said, "and it is very
improper to ask me to do such a thing."
She might have judged it quite as suitable for a
A PARABLE. 55
princess to sweep away the dust as to sit the centre
of a world of dirt But just because she ought, she
wouldn't Perhaps she feared that if she gave in to
doing her duty once, she might have to do it
always — ^which was true enough — for that was the
very thing for which she had been specially bom.
Unabk, however, to feel quite comfortable in the
resolve to neglect it, she said to herself, " I'm sure
there's time enough for such a nasty job as that!*
and sat on, watching the fire as it burned away, the
glowing red casting off white flakes, and sinking
lower and lower on the hearth.
By and by, merely for want of sometliing to do,
she would see what the old woman had left for her
in the hole of the wall. But when she put in her
hand she found nothing there, except the dust
which she ought by this time to have wiped away.
Never reflecting that the wise woman had told her
she would find food there what she was hungry^
56 THE WISE WOMAN.
she flew into one of her furies, calling her a cheat,
and a thief, and a liar, and an ugly old witch, and
an ogress, and I do not know how many wicked
names besides. She raged until she was quite
exhausted, and then fell fast asleep on her chair.
When she awoke, the fire was out
By this time she was hungry ; but without look-
ing in the hole, she began again to storm at the
wise woman, in which labour she would no doubt
have once more exhausted herself, had not some-
thing white caught her eye : it was the corner of a
napkin hanging from the hole in the wall. She
bounded to it, and there was a dinner for her of
something strangely good — one of her favourite
dishes, only better than she had ever tasted it before.
This might surely have at least changed her mood
towards the wise woman ; but she only grumbled
to herself that it was as it ought to be, ate up the
food, and lay down on the bed, never thinking of
fire or dust, or water for the heather.
A PARABLE. 57
The wind began to moan about the cottage, and
grew louder and louder, till a great gust came down
the chimney, and again scattered the white ashes
all over the place. But the princess was by this
time fast asleep, and never woke till the wind had
sunk to silence. One of the consequences, how-
ever, of sleeping when one ought to be awake, is
waking when one ought to be asleep; and the
princess awoke in the black midnight, and found
enough to keep her awake. For although the
wind had fallen, there was a far more terrible
howling than that of the wildest wind all about the
cottage. Nor was the howling all ; the air was full
of strange cries, and everywhere she heard the
noise of claws scratching against the house, which .
seemed all doors and windows, so crowded were
the sounds, and from so many directions. All the
night long she lay half swooning, yet listening
to the hideous noises. But with the first glimmer
of morning they ceased.
58 THE WISE WOMAN.
Then she said to herself, " How fortunate it v/as
that I woke ! They would have eaten me up if I
had been asleep." The miserable little wretch
actually talked as if she had kept them out ! If
she had done her work in the day, she would have
slept through the terrors of the darkness, and
awaked fearless; whereas now, she had in the
storehouse of her heart a whole harvest of agonies,
reaped from the dun fields of the night!
They were neither wolves nor hyaenas which had
caused her such dismay, but creatures of the air,
more frightful still, which, as soon as the smoke of
the burning fir-wood ceased to spread itself abroad,
and the sun was a sufficient distance down the sky,
and the lone cold woman was out, came flying and
howling about the cottage, trying to get in at every
door and window. Down the chimney they would
have got, but that at the heart of the fire there
always lay a certain fir-cone, which looked like
A PARABLE. 59
solid gold red-hot, and which, although it might
easily get covered up with ashes, so as to be quite
invisible, was continually in a glow fit to kindle all
the fir-cones in the world : this it was which had
kept the horrible birds — some say they have a claw
at the tip of every wing feather — from tearing tlie
poor naughty princess to pieces, and gobbling her
up.
When she rose and looked about her, she was
dismayed to see what a state the cottage was in.
The fire was out, and the windows were all dim
with the wings and claws of the dirty birds, while
the bed from which she had just risen was brown
and withered, and half its purple bells had fallen.
But she consoled herself that she could set all to
rights in a few minutes — only she must breakfast
first. And, sure enough, there was a basin of the
delicious bread and milk ready for her in the hole
of the wall !
6o THE WISE WOMAN.
After she had eaten it, she felt comfortable, and
sat for a long time building castles in the air — ^till
she was actually hungry again, without having
done an atom of work. She ate again, and was
idle again, and ate again. Then it grew dark, and
she went trembling to bed, for now she remembered
the horrors of the last night. This time she never
slept at all, but spent the long hours in grievous
terror, for the noises were worse than before. She
vowed she would not pass another night in such a
hateful haunted old shed for all the ugly women^
witches, and ogresses in the wide world. In the
morning, however, she fell asleep, and slept late.
Breakfast was of course her first thought, after
which she could not avoid that of work. It made
her very miserable, but she feared the consequences
of being found with it undone. A few minutes
before noon, she actually got up, took her pinafore
for a duster, and proceeded to dust the table. But
A PARABLE. 6l
the wood-ashes flew about so, that it seemed use-
less to attempt getting rid of them, and she sat
down again to think what was to be done. But
there is very little indeed to be done when we will
not do that which we have to do.
Her first thought now was to run away at once
while the sun was high, and get through the forest
before night came on. She fancied she could
easily go back the way she had come, and get
home to her father's palace. But not the most
experienced traveller in the world can ever go back
the way the wise woman has brought him.
She got up and went to the door. It was
locked ! What could the old woman have meant
by telling her not to leave the cottage ? She was
indignant
The wise woman had meant to make it difficult,
but not impossible. Before the princess, however,
could find the way out, she heard a hand at the
62 THE WISE WOMAN.
door, and darted in terror behind it The wise
woman opened it, and, leaving it open, walked
straight to the hearth. Rosamond immediately
slid out, ran a little way, and then laid herself
down in the long heather.
CHAPTER V.
'T'HE wise woman walked straight up to tlie
hearth, looked at the fire, looked at the bed^
glanced round the room, and went up to the table.
When she saw the one streak in the thick dust
which the princess had left there, a smile, half-sad,,
half-pleased, like the sun peeping through a cloud
on a rainy day in spring, gleamed over her face.
She went at once to the door, and called in a loud
voice, —
" Rosamond, come to me."
All the wolves and hyaenas, fast asleep In the
wood, heard her voice, and shivered in their
64 THE WISE WOMAN.
dreams. No wonder then that the princess trem-
bled, and found herself compelled, she could not
understand how, to obey the summons. She rose
like the guilty thing she felt, forsook of herself the
hiding-place she had chosen, and walked slowly
back to the cottage she had left full of the signs of
her shame. When she entered she saw the wise
woman on her knees, building up the fire with fir-
cones. Already the flame was climbing through
the heap in all directions, crackling gently, and
sending a sweet aromatic odour through the dusty
cottage.
" That is my part of the work," she said, rising.
" Now you do yours. But first let me remind you
that if you had not put it off, you would have found
it not only far easier, but by and by quite pleasant
work, much more pleasant than you can imagine
now; nor would you have found the time go
wearily ; you would neither have slept in the day
A PARABLE. 65
and let the fire out, nor waked at night and heard
the howling of the beast-birds. More than all,
you would have been glad to see me when I
came back ; and would have leaped into my arms
instead of standing there, looking so ugly and
foolish."
As she spoke, suddenly she held up before the
princess a tiny mirror, so clear that nobody looking
into it could tell what it was made of, or even see it
at all — only the thing reflected in it Rosamond
saw a child with dirty fat cheeks, greedy mouth,
cowardly eyes — ^whtch, not daring to look forward,
seemed trying to hide behind an impertinent nose
— stooping shoulders, tangled hair, tattered clothes,
and smears and stains everywhere. That was
what she had made herself ! And to tell the truth,
she was shocked at the sight, and immediately
began in her dirty heart to lay the blame on the
wise woman, because she had taken her away from
66 THE WISE WOMAN.
her nurses and her fine clothes ; while all the time
she knew well enough that, close by the heather
bed, was the loveliest little well, just big enough to
wash in, the water of which was always springing
fresh from the ground, and running away through
the wall. Beside it lay the whitest of linen towels,
with a comb made of mother-of-pearl, and a brush
of fir-needles, any one of which she had been far
too lazy to use. She dashed the glass out of the
wise woman's hand, and there it lay, broken into a
thousand pieces !
Without a word, the wise woman stooped and
gathered the fragments — did not leave searching
until she had gathered the last atom, after which
she laid them all carefully, one by one, in the fire,
now blazing high on the hearth. Then she stood
up and looked at the princess, who had been
watching her sulkily.
" Rosamond/^ she said, with a countenance awful
A PARABLE. 67
in its Sternness, "until you have cleansed this
room "
"She calls it a room!" sneered the princess
to herself.
" You shall have no morsel to eat You may
drink of the well, but nothing else you shall have.
When the work I set you is done, you will find
food in the same place as before. I am going from
home again ; and again I warn you not to leave tlie
house."
" She calls it a house ! — It*s a good thing she's
going out of it anyhow ! " said the princessy turning
her back for mere rudeness, for she was one who,
even if she liked a thing before, would dislike it the
moment any person in authority over her desired
her to do it.
When she looked again, the wise woman had
vanished.
Thereupon the princess ran at once to the door,
68 THE WISE WOMAN.
and tried to open it ; but open it would not She
searched on all sides, but could discover no way of
getting out The windows would not open — at
least she could not open them ; and the only
outlet seemed the chimney, which she was afraid
to try because of the fire, which looked angry, she
thought, and shot out green flames, when she went
near it So she sat down to consider. One may
well wonder what room for consideration there
was — ^with all her work lying undone behind her.
She sat thus, however, considering, as she called it,
until hunger began to sting her, when she jumped
up and put her hand as usual in the hole of the
wall : there was nothing there ! She fell straight
into one of her stupid rages ; but neither her
hunger nor the hole in the wall heeded her rage.
Then, in a burst of self-pity, she fell a- weeping, but
neither the hunger nor the hole cared for her tears.
The darkness began to come on, and her hunger
A PARABLE. 69
grew and grew, and the terror of the wild noises of
the last nights invaded her. Then she began to
feel cold, and saw that the fire was dying. She
darted to the heap of cones and fed it It blazed
up cheerily, and she was comforted a little. Then
she thought with herself it would surely be better
to give in so far, and do a little work, than die of
hunger. So catching up a duster, she began upon
the table. The dust flew about and nearly choked
her. She ran to the well to drink, and was
refreshed and encouraged. Perceiving now that it
was a tedious plan to wipe the dust from the table
on to the floor, whence it would have all to be
swept up again, she got a wooden platter, wiped
the dust into that, carried it to the fire, and threw
it in. But all the time she was getting more and
more hungry, and although she tried the hole again
and again, it was only to become more and more
certain that work she must if she would eat.
THE WISE WOMAN,
At length all the furniture was dusted, and she
began to sweep the floor, which happily she thought
of sprinkling with water, as from the window she
had seen them do to the marble court of the palace.
That swept, she rushed again to the hole — but
still no food! She was on the verge of another
rage, when the thought came that she might have
forgotten something. To her dismay she found
that table and chairs and everything was again
covered with dust, — not so badly as before, how-
ever. Again she set to work, driven by hunger,
and drawn by the hope of eating, and yet again,
after a second careful wiping, sought the hole.
But no ! nothing was there for her ! What could
it mean ?
Her asking this question was a sign of progress :
it showed that she expected the wise woman to
keep her word. Then she bethought her that she
had forgotten the household utensils, and the
A PARABLE. 7 1
dishes and plates, some of which wanted to be
v/ashed as well as dusted.
Faint with hunger, she set to work yet again.
One thing made her think of another, until at
length she had cleaned everything she could
think of. Now surely she must find some food in
the hole !
When this time also there was nothing, she
began once more to abuse the wise woman as false
and treacherous; — ^but ah! there was the bed
miwatered! That was soon amended. — Still no
supper ! — Ah ! there was the hearth unswept, and
the fire wanted making up ! — Still no supper ! What
else could there be ? She was at her wits' end, and
in very weariness, not laziness this time, sat down
and gazed into the fire. There, as she gazed, she
spied something brilliant — shining even in the
midst of the fire : it was the little mirror all
whole again ; but little she knew that the dust
7^ THE WISE WOSAN.
which she had thrown into the fire had helped to
heal it
She drew it out carefully, and, looking into it;
saw, not indeed the ugly creature she had seen
there before, but still a very dirty little animal ;
whereupon she hurried to the well, took off her
clothes, plunged into it, and washed herself clean.
Then she brushed and combed her hair, made her
clothes as tidy as might be, and ran to the hole in
the wall : there was a huge basin of bread and
milk!
Never had she eaten anything with half the
relish ! Alas ! however, when she had finished,
she did not wash the basin, but left it as it was,
revealing how entirely all the rest had been done
only from hunger. Then she threw herself on the
heather, and was fast asleep in a moment. Never
an evil bird came near her all that night, nor had
she so much as one troubled dream.
A PARABLE. 73
In the morning, as she lay awake before
getting up, she spied what seemed a door behind
the tall eight-day clock that stood silent in the
comer.
" Ah ! " she thought, " that must be the way
out ! *' and got up instantly. The first thing she
did, however, was to go to the hole in the wall.
Nothing was there.
"Well, I am hardly used ! " she cried aloud. "All
that cleaning for the cross old woman yesterday,
and this for my trouble — nothing for breakfast?
Not even a crust of bread ! Does Mistress Ogress
fancy a princess will bear that ! "
The poor foolish creature seemed to think that
the work of one day ought to serve for the next
day too! But that is nowhere the way in the
whole universe. How could there be a universe in
that case ? And even she never dreamed of apply-
ing the same rule to her breakfast.
74 THE WISE WOMAN.
" How good I was all yesterday ! " she said, " and
how hungry and ill-used I am to day ! "
But she would not be a slave, and do over again
to-day what she had done only last night! Site
didn't care about her breakfast ! She might have
it, no doubt, if she dusted all the wretched place
again, but she was not going to do that — at least,
without seeing first what lay behind the clock !
Off she darted, and, putting her hand behind the
clock, found the latch of a door. It lifted, and the
door opened a little way. By squeezing hard, she
managed to get behind the clock, and so through
the door. But how she stared, when, instead of
the open heath, she found herself on the marble
floor of a large and stately room, lighted only from
above. Its walls were strengthened by pilasters,
and in every space between was a large picture,
from cornice to floor. She did not know what to
make of it Surely she had run all round the
A PARABLE. 75
cottage, and certainly had seen nothing of this size
near it ! She forgot that she had also run round
what she took for a hay-mow, a peat-stack, and
several other things which looked of no consequence
in the moonlight !
" So then," she cried, " the old woman is a cheati
I believe she's an ogress after all, and lives in a
palace — though she pretends it's only a cottage,
to keep people from suspecting that she eats good
little children like me ! "
Had the princess been tolerably tractable, she
would by this time have known a good deal about
the wise woman's beautiful house, whereas she had
never till now got further than tlie porch. Neither
was she at all in its innermost places now.
But, king's daughter as she was, she was not a
little daunted when, stepping forward from the
recess of the door, she saw what a great lordly hall
it was. She dared hardly look to the other end,
y6 THE WISE WOMAN.
it seemed so far off; so she began to gaze at the
things near her, and the pictures first of all, for she
had a great liking for pictures. One in particular
attracted her attention. She came back to it
several times, and at length stood absorbed in it
A blue summer sky, with white fleecy clouds
floating beneath it, hung over a hill green to the
very top, and alive with streams darting down its
sides toward the valley below. On the face of the
hill strayed a flock of sheep feeding, attended by a
shepherd and two dogs. A little way apart, a girl
stood with bare feet in a brook, building across it a
bridge of rough stones. The wind was blowing
her hair back from her rosy face. A lamb was
feeding close beside her, and a sheep-dog was try-
ing to reach her hand to lick it
" Oh how I wish I were that little girl ! " said the
princess aloud. "I wonder how it is that some
people are made to be so much happier than others I
A PARABLE. ^^
If I were that little girl, no one would ever call me
naughty."
She gazed and gazed at the picture. At length
she said to herself, —
" I do not believe it is a picture. It is the real
country, with a real hill, and a real little girl upon
it I shall soon see whether this isn't another of
the old witch's cheats !"
She went close up to the picture, lifted her foot,
and stepped over the frame.
"I am free! I am free!" she exclaimed, and she
felt the wind upon her cheek.
The sound of a closing door struck on her ear.
She turned — and there was a blank wall, without
door or window, behind her! The hill with the
sheep was before her, and she set out at once to
reach it
Now if I am asked how this could be, I can only
answer that it was a result of the interaction of
78 THE WISE WOMAN.
tilings outside and things inside, of the wise
woman's skill, and the silly child's folly. If this
does not satisfy my questioner, I can only add, that
the wise woman was able to do far more wonderful
things than this.
CHAPTER VI.
TVyr EANTIME the wise woman was busy — as she
always was ; and her business now was with
the child of the shepherd and shepherdess, away in
the north. Her name was Agnes.
Her father and mother were poor, and could not
give her many things. Rosamond would have
utterly despised the rude simple playthings she
had. Yet in one respect they were of more value
far than hers: the king bought Rosamond's with
his money; Agnes's father made hers with his
hands.
And while Agnes had but few things — not see-
80 THE WISE WOMAN.
ing many things about her, and nbt even knowing
that there were many things anywhere, she did not
wish for many things, and was therefore neither
covetous nor avaricious.
She played with the toys her father made her,
and thought them the most wonderful things in
the world — ^windmills, and little crooks, and water-
wheels, and sometimes lambs made all of wool,
and dolls made out of the leg-bones of sheep,
which her mother dressed for her ; and of such
playthings she was never tired. Sometimes, how-
ever, she preferred playing with stones, which were
plentiful, and flowers, which were few, or the brooks
that ran do\vn the hill, of which, although they
were many, she could only play with one at a time,
and that indeed troubled her a little — or live lambs
^that were not all wool, or the sheep-dogs, which
were very friendly with her, and the best of play-
fellows, as she thought, for she had no human ones
A PARABLE. Si
to compare them with. Neither was she greedy
after nice things, but content, as well she might be,
with the homely food provided for her. Nor was
she by nature particularly self-willed or disobedient ;
she generally did what her father and mother
wished, and believed what they told her. But by
degrees they had spoiled her. And this was the
way : they were so proud of her that they always
repeated everything she said, and told everything
she did, even when she was present ; and so full of
admiration of their child were they, that they
wondered and laughed at and praised things in her
which in another child would never have struck them
as the least remarkable, and some things even
which would in another have disgusted them
altogether. Impertinent and rude things done by
tAeir child they thought so clever ! laughing at them
as something quite marvellous ; her commonplace
speeches were said over again as if they had been
£2 THE WISE WOMAN.
the finest poetry ; and the pretty ways which every
moderately good child has were extolled as if the
result of her excellent taste, and the choice of her
judgment and will. They would even say some-
times that she ought not to hear her own praises
for fear it should make her vain, and then whisper
them behind their hands, but so loud that she
could not fail to hear every word. The consequence
was that she soon came to believe — so soon that
she could not recall the time when she did not
believe — as the most absolute fact in the universe,
that she was Somebody; that is, she became
immoderately conceited.
Now as the least atom of conceit is a thing to
be ashamed of, you may fancy what she was like
with such a quantity of it inside her ! At first it
did not show itself outside in any very active form,
but the wise woman had been to the cottage, and
had seen her sitting alone with such a smile of
A PARABLE. 83
self-satisfaction upon her face as would have been
quite startling to her, if she had ever been startled
at anything. For through that smile she could see
lying at the root of it the worm that made it For
some smiles are like the ruddiness of certain apples,
which is owing to a centipede, or other creeping
thing, coiled up at the heart of them. Only her
worm had a face and shape the very image of her
own ; and she looked so simpering, and mawkish,
and self-conscious, and silly, that she made the
wise woman feel rather sick.
Not that the child was a fool. Had she been,
the wise woman would have only pitied and loved
her, instead of feeling sick when she looked at her.
She had very fair abilities, and were she once but
made humble, would be capable not only of doing
a good deal in time, but of beginning at once to
grow to no end. But if she were not made humble,
her growing would be to a mass of distorted shapes
84 THE WISE WOMAN.
all huddled together ; so that, although the body
she now showed might grow up straight and well-
shaped and comely to behold, the new body that
was growing inside of it, and would come out of it
when she died, would be ugly, and crooked this
way and that, like an aged hawthorn that has lived
hundreds of years exposed upon all sides to salt
sea-winds.
As time went on, this disease of self-conceit
went on too, gradually devouring the good that
was in her. For there is no fault that does not
bring its brothers and sisters and cousins to live
with it By degrees, from thinking herself so
clever, she came to fancy that whatever seemed to
her, must of course be the correct judgment, and
whatever she wished, the right thing ; and grew so
obstinate, that at length her parents feared to
thwart her in anything, knowing well that she
would never give in. But there are victories far
A PARABLE. 85
worse than defeats ; and to overcome an angel too
gentle to put out all his strength, and ride away in
triumph on the back of a devil, is one of the
poorest
So long as she was left to take her own way and
do as she would, she gave her parents little trouble.
She would play about by herself in the little gar-
den with its few hardy flowers, or amongst the
heather where the bees were busy ; or she would
wander away amongst the hills, and be nobody
knew where, sometimes from morning to night;
nor did her parents venture to find fault with
her.
She never went into rages like the princess ; and
would have thought Rosamond — oh, so ugly and
vile ! if she had seen her in one of her passions.
But she was no better for all that, and was quite as
wgly in the eyes of the wise woman, who could not
only see but read her face. What is there to
86 TIIK WISE WOMAN.
choose betAveen a face distorted to hideousness by
anger, and one distorted to silliness by self-com-
placency ? True, there is more hope of helping the
angry child out of her form of selfishness than the
conceited child out of hers ; but on the other hand,
the conceited child was not so terrible or dangerous
as the wrathful one. The conceited one, however,
was sometimes very angry, and then her anger was
more spiteful than the other's; and, again, the
wrathful one was often very conceited too. So
that, on the whole, of two very unpleasant creatures,
I would say that the king's daughter would have
been the worse, had not the shepherd's been quite
as bad.
But, as I have said, the wise woman had her eye
upon her : she saw that something special must be
done, else she would be one of those who kneel to
their own shadows till feet grow on their knees ;
then go down on their hands till their hands grow
A PARABLE. 87
into feet ; then lay their faces on the ground till
they grow into snouts ; when at last they are a
hideous sort of lizards, each of which believes
himself the best, wisest, and loveliest being in the
world, yea, the very centre of the universe. And
so they run about for ever looking for their own
shadows that they may worship them, and miser-
able because they cannot find them, being them-
selves too near the ground to have any shadows ;
and what becomes of them at last, there is but one
who knows.
The wise woman, therefore, one day walked up
to the door of the shepherd's cottage, dressed like a
poor woman, and asked for a drink of water. The
shepherd's wife looked at her, liked her, and
brought her a cup of milk. The wise woman took
it, for she made it a rule to accept every kindness
that was offered her.
Agnes was not by nature a greedy girl, as I have
8S THE WISE WOMAN.
said ; but self-conceit will go far to generate every
other vice under the sun. Vanity, which is a form
of self-conceit, has repeatedly shown itself as the
deepest feeling in the heart of a horrible mur-
deress.
That morning, at breakfast, her mother had
stinted her in milk — just a little — that she might
have enough to make some milk-porridge for their
dinner. Agnes did not mind it at the time, but
when she saw the milk now given to a beggar, as
she called the wise woman — though surely one
might ask a draught of water, and accept a
draught of milk, without being a beggar in any such
sense as Agnes's contemptuous use of the word
implied — a cloud came upon her forehead, and a
double vertical wrinkle settled over her nose. The
wise woman saw it, for all her business was with
Agnes though she little knew it, and, rising, went
and offered the cup to the child, where she sat with
A PARABLE. 89
lier knitting in a comer. Agnes looked at it, did
not want it, was inclined to refuse it from a beggar,
but thinking it would show her consequence to
assert her rights, took it and drank it up. For
«
whoever is possessed by a devil judges with the
mind of that devil ; and hence Agnes was guilty of
•such a meanness as many who are themselves
•capable of something just as bad will consider
incredible.
The wise woman waited till she had finished it
— then, looking into the empty cup, said :
" You might have given me back as much as you
had no claim upon !"
Agnes turned away and made no answer — far
less from shame than indignation.
The wise woman looked at the mother.
" You should not have offered it to her if you did
not mean her to have it," said the mother, siding
with the devil in her child against the wise woman
90 THE WISE WOMAN.
and her child too. Some foolish people think they
take another's part when they take the part he
takes.
The wise woman said nothing, but fixed her eyes
upon her, and soon the mother hid her face in her
apron weeping. Then she turned again to Agnes,
who had never looked round but sat with her back
to both, and suddenly lapped her in the folds of
her cloak. When the mother again lifted her eyes,
she had vanished.
Never supposing she had carried away her child,
but uncomfortable because of what she had said to
the poor woman, the mother went to the door, and
called after her as she toiled slowly up the hill.
But she never turned her head ; and the mother
went back into her cottage.
The wise woman walked close past the shepherd
and his dogs, and through the midst of his flock of
sheep. The shepherd wondered where she could
A PARABLE. 9^
be going — right up the hill. There was something
strange about her too, he thought ; and he followed
her with his tyes as she went up and up.
It was near sunset, and as the sun went down, a
gray cloud settled on the top of the mountain,
which his last rays turned into a rosy gold.
Straight into this cloud the shepherd saw the
woman hold her pace, and in it she vanished. He
little imagined that his child was under her cloak.
He went home as usual in the evening, but
Agnes had not come in. They were accustomed to
such an absence now and then, and were not at
first frightened ; but when it grew dark and she did
not appear, the husband set out with his dogs in
one direction, and the wife in another, to seek their
child. Morning came and they had not found her.
Then the whole country-side arose to search for the
missing Agnes; but day after day and night after
night passed, and nothing was discovered of or
92 THE WISE WOMAN.
concerning her, until at length all gave up the
search in despair except the mother, although she
was nearly convinced now that the poor woman
had carried her off.
One day she had wandered some distance from
her cottage, thinking she might come upon the
remains of her daughter at the foot of some cliff,
when she came suddenly instead upon a discon-
solate-looking creature sitting on a stone by the
side of a stream. Her hair hung in tangles from
her head ; her clothes were tattered, and through
the rents her skin showed in many places.; her
cheeks were white, and worn thin with hunger ; th6
hollows were dark under her eyes, and they stood
out scared and wild. When she caught sight of
the shepherdess, she jumped to her feet, and would
have run away, but fell down in a faint.
At first sight the mother had taken her for her
own child, but now she saw, with a pang of dis-
A PARABLE. 93
appointment, that she had mistaken. Full of com-
pasision nevertheless, she said to herself :
" If she is not my Agnes, she is as much in
need of help as if she were. If I cannot be good
to my own, I will be as good as I can to some
other w^oman's ; and though I should scorn to be
consoled for the loss of one by the presence of
another, I yet may find some gladness in rescuing:
one child from the death which has taken the
other."
Perhaps her words were not just like these,,
but her thoughts were. She took up the child,,
and carried her home. And this is how Rosamond*
came to occupy the place of the little girl whom'
she had envied in the picture.
CHAPTER VIL
TNJOTWITHSTANDING the differences be-
tween the two girls, which were, indeed, so
many that most people would have said they were
not in the least alike, they were the same in this,
that each cared more for her own fancies and
desires than for anything else in the world. But I
will tell you another difference : the princess was
like several children in one — such was the variety
of her moods ; and in one mood she had no
recollection or care about anything whatever
belonging to a previous mood — not even if it had
left her but a moment before, and had been so
A PARABLE. 95
violent as to make her ready to put her hand in
the fire to get what she wanted. Plainly she was
the mere puppet of her moods, and more than that,
any cunning nurse who knew her well enough could
call or send away those moods almost as she
pleased, like a showman pulling strings behind a
show. Agnes, on the contrary, seldom changed
her mood, but kept that of calm assured self-
satisfaction. Father nor mother had never by wise
punishment helped her to gain a victory over
herself, and do what she did not like or choose ;
and their folly in reasoning with one unreasonable
had fixed her in her conceit. She would actually
nod her head to herself in complacent pride that
she had stood out against them. This, however,
was not so difficult as to justify even the pride of
having conquered, seeing she loved them so little,
and paid so little attention to the arguments and
persuasions they used. Neither, when she found
g6 THE WISE WOMAN.
herself wrapped in the dark folds of the wise
woman's cloak, did she behave in the least like the
princess, for she was not afraid. " She'll soon set
me down," she said, too self-important to suppose
that any one would dare to do her an injury.
Whether it be a good thing or a bad not to be
afraid depends on what the fearlessness is founded
upon. Some have no fear because they have no-
knowledge of the danger : there is nothing fine ia
that Some are too stupid to be afraid : there is
nothing fine in that. Some who are not easily
frightened would yet turn their backs and run the
moment they were frightened : such never had
more courage than fear. But the man who will do
his work in spite of his fear is a man of true courage.
The fearlessness of Agnes was only ignorance :
she did not know what it was to be hurt ; she had
never read a single story of giant or ogress or wolf;
and her mother had never carried out one of her
A PARABLE. 97
threats of punishment If the wise woman had
but pinched her, she would have shown herself an
abject little coward, tremtfling with fear at every
change of motion so long as she carried her.
Nothing such, however, was in the wise woman's
plan for the curing of her. On and on she carried
her without a word. She knew that if she set her
down she would never run after her like the
princess, at least not before the evil thing was
already upon her. On and on she went, never
halting, never letting the light look in, or Agnes
look' out. She walked very fast, and got home
to her cottage very soon after the princess had
gone from it.
But she did not set Agnes down either in the
cottage or in the great hall. She had other places,
none of them alike. The place she had chosen for
Agnes was a strange one — such a one as is to be
found nowhere else in the wide world.
H
98 THE WISE WOMAN.
It was a great hollow sphere, made of a substance
similar to that of the mirror which Rosamond had
broken, but diflferently compounded. That sub-
stance no one could see by itself. It had neither
door, nor window, nor any opening to break its
perfect roundness.
The wise woman carried Agnes into a dark room,
there undressed her, took from her hand her
knitting needles, and put her, naked as she was
born, into the hollow sphere.
What sort of place it was she could not tell.
She could see nothing but a faint, cold, bluish light
all about her. She could not feel that anything
supported her, and yet she did not sink. She
stood for a while, perfectly calm, then sat down.
Nothing bad could happen to her — she was so
important ! And, indeed, it was but this : she had
cared only for Somebody, and now she was going
to have only Somebody. Her own choice was
1
A PARABLE. 99
going to be carried a good deal farther for her
than she would have knowingly carried it for
herself.
After sitting a while, she wished she had
something to do, but nothing came. A little
longer, and it grew wearisome. She would see
whether she could not walk out of the strange
luminous dusk that surrounded her.
Walk she found she could, well enough, but
walk out she could not On and on she went
keeping as much in a straight line as she might,
but after walking until she was thoroughly tired,
a
she found herself no nearer out of her prison than
before. She had not, indeed, advanced a single
step; for, in whatever direction she tried to go,
the sphere turned round and round, answering her
feet accordingly. Like a squirrel in his cage, she
but kept placing another spot of the cunningly sus-
pended sphere under her feet, and she would have
lOO THE WISE WOMAN.
been still only at its lowest point after walking
for ages.
At length she cried aloud ; but there was no
answer. It grew dreary and drearier — in her, that
is ; outside there was no change. Nothing was
overhead, nothing under foot, nothing on either
handy but the same pale, faint, bluish glimmer.
She wept at last, then grew very angry, and then
sullen; but nobody heeded whether she cried or
laughed. It was all the same to the cold unmoving
twilight that rounded her. On and on went the
dreary hours — or did they go at all ? — " no change,
no pause, no hope ;"— on and on till she /^// she
was forgotton, and then she grew strangely still and
fell asleep.
The moment she was asleep the wise woman
came, lifted her out, and laid her in her bosom ; fed
her with a wonderful milk, which she received
without knowing it ; nursed her all the night long,
A PARABLE. lOI
and, just ere she awoke, laid her back in the blue
sphere again.
When first she came to herself, she thought the
horrors of the preceding day had been all a dream
of the night But they soon asserted themselves
as facts, for here they were ! — nothing to see but a
cold blue light, and nothing to do but see it ! Oh,
how slowly the hours went by ! She lost all notion
of time. If she had been told that she had been
there twenty years, she would have believed it — or
twenty minutes — it would have been all the same :
except for weariness, time was for her no more.
Another night came, and another still, during
both of which the wise woman nursed and fed
her. But she knew nothing of that, and the same
one dreary day seemed ever brooding over her.
All at once, on a third day, she was aware that a
naked child was seated beside her. But tjiere was
something about the child that made her shudder.
102 THE WISE WOJfAX.
Sie never looked at Agnes, but sat with her chin
sunk on her chest, and her e>-es staring at her own
toes. She was the colour of paJe earth, with a
pinched nose, and a mere slit in her face for a
mouth.
" How i^Iy she is ! "* thought Agnes. ** What
bu^ness has she be^dc me * "
But it was so lonely that she would ha\-e been
l^ad to play -n-ith a serpent, and put out her hand
to touch her. She touched nothii^. The child
also put out her hand — but in the direction away
from Agnes. And that was well, for if ^e had
touched Agnes it would have killed her. Then
Agata said, "Who are you ?" And the litUe girt
said. "Who are j-ou?" "I am i^es," ssud
and the little girt said, "I am Agnes."
I thought she was mocking her, and
pYou are ugly ; " «nd the Uttle girl said.
A PARABLE. IO3
Then Agnes lost her temper, and put out her
hands to seize the little girl ; but lo ! the little
girl was gone, and she found herself tugging at her
own hair. She let go, and there was the little girl
again ! Agnes was furious now, and flew at her to
bite her. But she found her teeth in her own arm,
and the little girl was gone— only to return again ;
and each time she came back she was tenfold
uglier than before. And now Agnes hated her
with her whole heart.
The moment she hated her, it flashed upon her
with a sickening disgust that the child was not
another, but her Self, her Somebody, and that she
was now shut up with her for ever and ever — no
more for one moment ever to be alone. In her
agony of despair, sleep descended, and she slept
When she woke, there was the little girl, heed-
less, ugly, miserable, staring at her own toes. All
at once, the creature began to smile, but with such
THS WISX WOUAN.
an odious self-satisfied expression, that Agnes felt
ashamed of seeing her. Then she began to pat her
own cheeks, to stroke her own body, and examine
her finger-ends, nodding her head with satisfaction.
Agnes felt that there could not be such another
hateful, ape-like creature, and at the same time
was perfectly aware she was only doing outside o(
her what she herself had been doing, as long as she
could remember, inside of her.
She turned sick at herself, and would gladly
have been put out of existence, but for three daj-s
the odious companionship went on. By the third
day, Agnes was not merely sick but ashamed of
the life she had hitherto led, was despicable in her
onti eyes, and astonished that she had never seen
the truth concerning herself before.
The next morning she wok-e in the arms of the
woman; the horror had vanished from her
and two heavenly eyes were gazing upon
A PARABLE. I 05
her. She wept and clung to her, and the more she
clung, the more tenderly did the great strong arms
close around her.
When she had lain thus for a while, the wise
woman carried her into her cottage, and washed
her in the little well; then dressed her in clean gar-
ments, and gave her bread and milk. When she
had eaten it, she called her to her, and said very
solemnly, —
"Agnes, you must not imagine you are cured.
That you are ashamed of yourself now is no sign
that the cause for such shame has ceased. In new
circumstances, especially after you have done well
for a while, you will be in danger of thinking just
as much of yourself as before. So beware of your-
self I am going from home, and leave you in
charge of the house. Do just as I tell you till my
return."
She then gave her the same directions she had
106 TH£ WISE WOMAN.
formerly given Rosamond — ^with this difference,
that she told her to go into the picture hall when
she pleased, showing her the entrance, against
which the clock no longer stood — ^and went away,
closing the door behind her.
CHAPTER VIII.
A S soon as she was left alone, Agnes set to work
tidying and dusting the cottage, made up the
fire, watered the bed, and cleaned the inside of the
windows : the wise woman herself always kept the
outside of them clean. When she had done, she
found her dinner — of the same sort she was used to
at. home, but better — in the hole of the wall. When
she had eaten it, she went to look at the pictures.
By this time her old disposition had begun to
rouse again. She had been doing her duty, and
had in consequence begun again to think herself
Somebody. However strange it may well seem, to
I08 THE WISE WOMAN.
do one's duty will make any one conceited who only
does it sometimes. Those who do it always would
as soon think of being conceited of eating their
dinner as of doing their duty. What honest boy
would pride himself on not picking pockets? A
thief who was trying to reform would. To be con-
ceited of doing one's duty is then a sign of how
little one does it, and how little one sees what a
contemptible thing it is not to do it Could any
but a low creature be conceited of not being con-
temptible ? Until our duty becomes to us common
as breathing, we are poor creatures.
So Agnes began to stroke herself ooce more,
forgetting her late self-stroking companion, and
never reflecting that she was now doing what she
had then abhorred. And in this mood she went
into the picture gallery.
The first picture she saw represented a square in
a great city, one side of which was occupied by a
A PARABLE. • IO9
splendid marble palace, with great flights of broad
steps leading up to the door. Between it and the
square was a marble-paved court with gates of brass,
at which stood sentries in gorgeous uniforms, and
to which was affixed the following proclamation in
letters of gold, large enough for Agnes to read : —
^^ By tJie will of tJie King^ from this time until
furtJur notice^ every stray child found in the realm
sltall be brought wit/tout a moments delay to tJu^
palace. Wlwever shall be found having done other-
wise shall straightway lose his head by the Jiand of
t/te public execntionerr
Agnes's heart beat loud, and her face flushed.
"Can there be such a city in the world?" she
said to herself. ** If I only knew where it was, I
should set out for it at once. There would be the
place for a clever girl like me ! "
Her eyes fell on the picture which had so enticed
Rosamond. It was the very country where her
no THE WISE WOMAN.
father fed his flocks. Just round the shoulder of
the hill was the cottage where her parents lived,
where she was bom and whence she had been
carried by the beggar-woman.
"Ah!" she said, "they didn't know me there!
They little thought what I could be if I had the
chance. If I were but in this good, kind, loving,
generous king's palace, I should soon be such a
great lady as they never saw! Then they would
understand what a good little girl I had always
been! And I shouldn't forget my poor parents
like some I have read of / would be generous. /
should never be selfish and proud like girls in
story-books ! "
As she said this, she turned her back with
disdain upon the picture of her home, and setting
herself before the picture of the palace, stared at it
with wide ambitious eyes, and a heart whose every
beat was a throb of arrogant self-esteem.
A PARABLE. Ill
The shepherd-child was now worse than ever the
poor princess had been. For the wise woman had
given her a terrible lesson, one of which the
princess was not capable, and she had known what
it meant; yet here she was as bad as ever, therefore
worse than before. The ugly creature, whose
presence had made her so miserable, had indeed
crept out of sight and mind too — but where was
she ? Nestling in her very heart, where most of all
she had her company, and least of all could see
her. The wise woman had called her out that
Agnes might see what sort of creature she was
herself; but now she was snug in her soul's
bed again, and she did not even suspect she was
there.
After gazing a while at the palace picture,
during which her ambitious pride rose and rose,
she turned yet again in condescending mood and
honoured the home picture with one stare more.
112 THE WISE WOMAN.
"What a poor miserable spot it is, compared
with this lordly palace ! " she said.
But presently she spied something in it she had
not seen before, and drew nearer. It was the form
of a little girl, building a bridge of stones over one
of the hill-brooks.
"Ah, there I am myself!" she said. "That is
just how I used to do. — ^No!" she resumed, "it is
not me. That snub-nosed little fright could never
be meant for me ! It was the frock that made me
think so. But it is a picture of the place. I
declare I can see the smoke of the cottage rising
from behind the hill ! What a dull, dirty, insignifi-
cant spot it is ! And what a life to lead there ! '*
She turned once more to the city picture. And
now a strange thing took place. In proportion as
the other, to the eyes of her mind, receded into the
back-ground, this, to her present bodily eyes,,
appeared to come forward and assume reality. At
A PARABLE. II3
last, after it had been in this way growing upon
her for some time, she gave a cry of conviction,
and said aloud —
" I do believe it is real ! That frame is only a
trick of the woman to make me fancy it a picture,
lest I should go and make my fortune. She is a
witch, the ugly old creature ! It would serve her
right to tell the king and have her punished for not
taking me to the palace— one of his poor lost
children he is so fond of! I should like to see her
ugly old head cut off. Anyhow I will try my luck
without asking her leave. How she has ill-used
me ! ".
But at that moment she heard the voice of the
wise woman calling, " Agnes !" and, smoothing her
face, she tried to look as good as she could, and
walked back into the cottage. There stood the
wise woman, looking all round the place and
examining her work. She fixed her eyes upon
I
114 THE WISE WOMAN.
Agnes in a way that confused her, and made her
cast hers down, for she felt as if she were reading
her thoughts. The wise woman, however, asked
no questions, but began to talk about her work,
approving of some of it, which filled her with
arrogance, and showing how some of it might have
been done better, which filled her with resentment.
But the wise woman seemed to take no care of
what she might be thinking, and went straight on
with her lesson. By the time it was over, the
power of reading thoughts would not have been
necessary to a knowledge of what was in the mind
of Agnes, for it had all come to the surface — that
is> up into her face, which is the surface of the
mind. Ere it had time to sink down again, the
wise woman caught up the little mirror and held it
before her: Agnes saw her Somebody — ^the very
embodiment of miserable conceit and ugly ill-
temper. She gave such a scream of horror that
f
A PARABLE. II5
the wise woman pitied her, and laying aside the
mirror, took her upon her knees, and talked to her
most kindly and solemnly ; in particular about the
necessity of destroying the ugly things that come
out of the heart — so ugly that they make the very
face over them ugly also.
And what was Agnes doing all the time the wise
woman was talking to her ? Would you believe
it ? — instead of thinking how to kill the ugly things
in her heart, she was with all her might resolving
to be more careful of her face, that is, to keep
down the things in her heart so that they should
not show in her face ; she was resolving to be a
hypocrite as well as a self-worshipper. Her heart
was wormy, and the worms were eating very fast
at it now.
Then the wise woman laid her gently down
upon the heather-bed, and she fell fast asleep, and
had an awful dream about her Somebody.
Il6 THE WISE WOMAN.
When she woke in the morning, instead of
getting up to do the work of the house, she lay
thinking — to evil purpose. In place of taking her
dream as a warning, and thinking over what the
wise woman had said the night before, she
communed with herself in this fashion : —
" If I stay here longer, I shall be miserable. It
is nothing better than slavery. The old witch
shows me horrible things in the day, to set me
dreaming horrible things in the night If I don't
run away, that frightful blue prison and the
disgusting girl will come back, and I shall go out
of my mind. How I do wish I could find the way
to the good king's palace ! I shall go and look at
the picture again — if it be a picture — as soon as
I've got my clothes on. The work can wait It's
not my work. It's the old witch's, and she ought
to do it herself."
She jumped out of bed, and hurried on her
A PARAtiLE. 117
clothes. There was no wise woman to be seen,
and she hastened into the hall. There was the
picture, with the marble palace, and the procla-
mation shining in letters of gold upon its gates of
brass! She stood before it and gazed and gazed;
and all the time it kept growing upon her in some
strange way until at last she was fully persuaded
that it was no picture, but a real city, square, and
marble palace, seen through a framed opening in
the wall. She ran up to the frame, stepped over it,
felt the wind blow upon her cheek, heard the sound
of a closing door behind her, and was free. Free
was she ? — with that creature inside her ?
The same moment a terrible storm of thunder
and lightning, wind and rain, came on. The
uproar was appalling. Agnes threw herself upon
the ground, hid her face in her hands, and there
lay until it was over. As soon as she felt the sun
shining on her, she rose. There was the city far
Il8 THE WISE WOMAN.
away on the horizon ! Without once turning to
take a farewell look at the place she was leaving,
she set off, as fast as her feet would carry her, in
the direction of the city. So eager was she that
again and again she fell, but only to get up and
run on faster than before.
CHAPTER IX.
TTHE shepherdess carried Rosamond home, gave
her a warm bath in the tub in which she
washed her linen, made her some bread-and-milk,
and after she had eaten it, put her to bed in
Agnes*s crib, where she slept all the rest of that
day and all the following night.
When at last she opened her eyes, it was to see
around her a far poorer cottage than the one she
had left — ^very bare and uncomfortable indeed, she
might well have thought; but she had come
through such troubles of late, in the way of hunger
and weariness and cold and fear, that she was not
120 THE WISE WOMAN.
altogether in her ordinary mood of fault-finding,
and so was able to lie enjoying the thought that at
length she was safe, and going to be fed and kept
warm. The idea of doing anything in return for
shelter and food and clothes, did not, however, even
cross her mind.
But the shepherdess was one of that plentiful
number who can be wiser concerning other women's
children than concerning their own. Such will
often give you very tolerable hints as to how you
ought to manage your children, and will find fault
neatly enough with the system you are trying to
carry out ; but all their wisdom goes off in talking,
and there is none left for doing what they have
themselves said. There is one road talk never finds,
and that is the way into the talker's own hands and
feet And such never seem to know themselves —
not even when they are reading about themselves
in print. Still, not being specially blinded in any
A PARABLE. 121
direction but their own, they can sometimes even
act with a little sense towards children who are not
theirs. They are affected with a sort of blindness
like that which renders some people incapable of
seeing except sideways.
She came up to the bed, looked at the princess,
and saw that she was better. But she did not like
her much. There was no mark of a princess about
her, and never had been since she began to run
alone. True, hunger had brought down her fat
cheeks, but it had not turned down her impudent
nose, or driven the sullenness and greed from her
mouth. Nothing but the wise woman could do
that — and not even she, without the aid of the
princess herself. So the shepherdess thought what
a poor substitute she had got for her own lovely
Agnes — ^who was in fact equally repulsive, only in
a way to which she had got used ; for the sel-
fishness in her love had blinded her to the thin
122 THE WISE WOMAN.
pinched nose and the mean self-satisfied mouth.
It was well for the princess, though, sad as it is to
say, that the shepherdess did not take to her, for
then she would most likely have only done her
harm instead of good.
" Now, my girl," she said, "you must get up and
do something. We can't keep idle folk here."
" I'm not a folk," said Rosamond ; " Tm a
princess."
" A pretty princess — with a nose like that ! And
all in rags too ! If you tell such stories, I shall
soon let you know what I think of you."
Rosamond then understood that the mere calling
herself a princess, without having anything to show
for it, was of no use. She obeyed and roge, for she
was hungry ; but she had to sweep the floor ere she
had anything to eat.
The shepherd came in to breakfast, and was
kinder than his wife. He took her up in his arms
A PARABLE. 123
and would have kissed her ; but she took it as an
insult from a man whose hands smelt of tar, and
kicked and screamed with rage. The poor man,
finding he had made a mistake, set her down at
once. But to look at the two, one might well have
judged it condescension rather than rudeness in
such a man to kiss such a child. He was tall, and
almost stately, with a thoughtful forehead, bright
eyes, eagle nose, and gentle mouth ; while the
princess was such as I have described her.
Not content with being set down and let alone,
she continued to storm and scold at the shepherd,
crying she was a princess, and would like to know
what right he had to touch her! But he only
looked down upon her from the height of his tall
person with a benignant smile, regarding her as a
spoiled little ape whose mother had flattered her by
calling her a princess.
" Turn her out of doors, the ungrateful hussy ! "
124 THE WISE WOMAN.
cried his wife. " With your bread and your milk
inside her ugly body, this is what she gives you for
it! Troth, I'm paid for carrying home such an
ill-bred tramp in my arms ! My own poor angel
Agnes ! As if that ill-tempered toad were one '
hair like her ! "
These words drove the princess beside herself ;
for those who are most given to abuse can least
endure it. With fists and feet and teeth, as was
her wont, she rushed at the shepherdess, whose
hand was already raised to deal her a sound box
on the ear, when a better appointed minister of
vengeance suddenly showed himself. Bounding in
at the cottage door came one of the sheep-dogs,
who was called Prince, and whom I shall not refer
to with a whichf because he was a very superior
animal indeed, even for a sheep-dog, which is the
most intelligent of dogs : he flew at the princess,
knocked her down, and commenced shaking her so
A PARABLE. I25
violently as to tear her miserable clothes to pieces.
Used, however, to mouthing little lambs, he took
care not to hurt her much, though for her good he
left her a blue nip or two, by way of letting her
imagine what biting might be. His master,
knowing he would not injure her, thought it better
not to call him off, and in half a minute he left her
of his own accord, and, casting a glance of indignant
rebuke behind him as he went, walked slowly to
the hearth, where he laid himself down with his tail
towards her. She rose, terrified almost to death,
«
and would have crept again into Agnes*s crib for
refuge ; but the shepherdess cried —
" Come, come, princess ! Til have no skulking to
bed in the good daylight ' Go and clean your
master's Sunday boots there."
"I will not!" screamed the princess, and ran
from the house.
" Prince ! " cried the shepherdess, and up jumped
126 THE WISE WOMAN.
the dog, and looked in her face, wagging his
bushy tail.
" Fetch her back," she said, pointing to the door.
With two or three bounds Prince caught the
princess, again threw her down, and taking her by
her clothes dragged her back into the cottage, and
dropped her at his mistress* feet, where she lay like
a bundle of rags.
" Get up," said the shepherdess.
Rosamond got up, as pale as death.
" Go and clean the boots."
" I don't know how."
" Go and try. There are the brushes, and yonder
is the blacking pot."
Instructing her how to black boots, it came into
the thought of the shepherdess what a fine thing it
would be if she could teach this miserable little
wretch, so forsaken and ill-bred, to be a good,
well-behaved, respectable child. She was hardly
A PARABLE. 12/
the woman to do it, but everything well meant is a
help, and she had the wisdom to beg her husband
to place Prince under her orders for a while, and
not take him to the hill as usual, that he might help
her in getting the princess into order.
When her husband was gone, and his boots, with
the aid of her own finishing touches, at last quite
respectably brushed, the shepherdess told the
princess that she might go and play for a while,
only she must not go out of sight of the cottage
door.
The princess went right gladly, with the firm
intention, however, of getting out of sight by slow
degrees, and then at once taking to her heels.
But no sooner was she over the threshold than the
shepherdess said to the dog, " Watch her ; " and
out shot Prince.
The moment she saw him, Rosamond threw
herself on her face, trembling from head to foot
128 THE WISE WOMAN.
But the dog had no quarrel with her, and of the
violence against which he always fdt bound to
protest in dog fashion, there was no sign in the
prostrate shape before him ; so he poked his nose
under her, turned her over, and began licking her
face and hands. When she saw that he meant to
be friendly, her love for animals, which had had no
indulgence for a long time now, came wide awake,
and in a little while they were romping and
rushing about, the best friends in the world.
Having thus seen one enemy, as she thought,
wchanged to a friend, she began to resume her former
plan, and crept cunningly farther and farther. At
length she came to a little hollow, and instantly
rolled down into it. Finding then that she was
•v.
out of sight of the cottage, she ran off at full speed.
But she had not gone more than a dozen paces
when she heard a growling rush behind her, and
4Jie next instant was on the ground, with the dog
A PARABLE. 129
Standing over her, showing his teeth, and flaming
at her with his eyes. She threw her arms round
his neck, and immediately he licked her face, and
let her get up. But the moment she would have
I
moved a step farther from the cottage, there he
was in front of her, growling and showing his teeth.
She saw it was of no use, and went back with him.
Thus was the princess provided with a dog for a
private tutor — just the right sort for her.
Presently the shepherdess appeared at the door
and called her. She would have disregarded the
summons, but Prince did his best to let her know
that, until she could obey herself, she must obey
him. So she went into the cottage, and there the
shepherdess ordered her to peel the potatoes for
dinner. She sulked and refused. Here Prince
could do nothing to help his mistress, but she had
not to go far to find another ally.
"Very well, Miss Princess!" she said; "we shall
K
i
130 THE WISE WOMAN.
soon see how vou like to go without when dinner-
time comes."
Now, the princess had very little foresight, and the
idea of future hunger would have moved her little ;
but happily, from her game of romps with Prince,
she had begun to be hungry already, and so the
threat had force. She took the knife and began Jto
peel the potatoes.
By slow degrees the princess improved a little.
A flew more outbreaks of passion, and a few more
savage attacks from Prince, and she had learned to
try to restrain herself when she felt the passion
coming on ; while a few dinnerless afternoons
entirely opened her eyes to the necessity of working
in order to eat. Prince was her first, and Hunger
her second dog-counsellor.
But a still better thing was that she soon grew
very fond of Prince. Towards the gaining of her
affections, he had three advantages : first, his nature
A PARABLE. I3I
was inferior to hers ; next, he was a beast ; and last,
she was afraid of him ; for so spoiled was she that
she could more easily love what was below than
what was above her, and a beast than one of her
own kind, and indeed could hardly have ever come
to love anything much that she had not first learned
to fear, and the white teeth and flaming eyes of the
angry Prince were more terrible to her than any-
thing had yet been, except those of the wolf, which
she had now forgotten. Then, again, he was such a
delightful playfellow, that, so long as she neither
lost her temper, nor went against orders, she might
do almost anything she pleased with him. In fact,
such was his influence upon her, that she who had
scoffed at the wisest woman in the whole world, and
derided the wishes of her own father and mother,
came at length to regard this dog as a superior
being, and to look up to him as well as love him.
And this was best of all.
I
y^
132 THE WISE WOMAK.
The improvement upon her, in the course of a
month, was plain. She had quite ceased to go into
passions, and had actually begun to take a little
interest in her work and try to do it well.
Still, the change was mostly an outside one. I
do not mean that she was pretending. Indeed she
had never been given to pretence of any sort But
the change was not in Aer, only in her mood A
second change of circumstances would have soon
brought a second change of behaviour; and so long
as that was possible, she continued the same sort
of person she had always been. But if she had
not gained much, a triSe had been gained for her :
a little quietness and order of mind, and hence a
somewhat greater possibility of the first idea of
right arising in it, whereupon she would b^in to
see what a wretched creature she was, and must
continue until she herself was right
Meantime the wise woman had been watching
A PARABLE. 1 33
her when she least fancied it^ and taking note of the
change that was passing upon her. Out of the
large eyes of a gentle sheep she had been watching
her — a sheep that puzzled the shepherd ; for every
now and then she would appear in his flock, and he
would catch sight of her two or three times in a
day, sometimes for days together, yet he never saw
her when he looked for her, and never when he
counted the flock into the fold at night He knew
she was not one of his ; but where could she come
from, and where could she go to ? For there was
no other flock within many miles, and he never
could get near enough to her to see whether or not
she was marked. Nor was Prince of the least use
to him for the unravelling of the mystery; for
r
although, as often as he told him to fetch the
strange sheep, he went bounding to her at once, it
was only to lie down at her feet
At length, however, the wise woman had made
134 THE WISE WOMAN.
up her mind, and after that the strange sheep no
longer troubled the shepherd.
As Rosamond improved, the shepherdess grew
kinder. She gave her all Agnes's clothes, and
began to treat her much more like a daughter.
Hence she had a great deal of liberty after the
little work required of her was over, and would
often spend hours at a time with the shepherd,
watching the sheep and the dogs, and learning a
little from seeing how Prince, and others as well,
managed their charge — how they never touched
the sheep that did as they were told and turned
when they were bid, but jumped on a disobedient
flock, and ran along their backs, biting, and
barking, and half choking themselves with mouth-
fuls of their wool.
Then also she would play with the brooks, and
learn their songs, and build bridges over them.
And sometimes she would be seized with such
A PARABLE. 1 35
delight of heart that she would spread out her
arms to the wind, and go rushing up the hill
till her breath left her, when she would tumble
down in the heather and lie there till it came back
again.
A noticeable change had by this time passed
also on her countenance. Her coarse, shapeless
mouth had begun to show a glimmer of lines and
curves about it, and the fat had not returned with
the roses to her cheeks, so that her eyes looked
larger than before ; while, more noteworthy still,
the bridge of her nose had grown higher, so that it
was less of the impudent, insignificant thing in-
herited from a certain great-great-great-grand-
mother, who had little else to leave, her. For a
long time it had fitted her very well, for it was just
like her ; but now there was ground for alteration,
and already the granny who gave it her would not
have recognized it. It was growing a little liker
136 THE WISE WOMAX.
Prince's, and Prince's was a long, perceptive,
sagacious nose — one that was seldom mistaken.
One day, about noon, while the sheep were
mostly lying down, and the shepherd, having left
them to the care of the dogs, was himself stretched
under the shade of a rock a little way apart, and
the princess sat knitting, with Prince at her feet,
lying in wait for a snap at a great fly — for even he
had his follies — Rosamond saw a poor woman
come toiling up the hill, but took little notice of
her until she was passing, a few yards off, when she
heard her utter the dog's name in a low voice.
Immediately on the summons. Prince started up
and followed her — ^with hanging head, but gently
wagging tail. At first the princess thought he was
merely taking observations, and consulting with his
nose whether she was respectable or not, but she
soon saw that he was following her in meek
submission. Then she sprung to her feet and
A PARABLE. 1 37
cried, " Prince ! Prince ! " But Prince only turned
his head and gave her an odd look, as if he were
trying to smile and could not Then the princess
grew angry, and ran after him, shouting, " Prince,
come here directly." Again Prince turned his
head, but this time to growl and show his teeth.
The princess flew into one ofherforgotton rages,
and picking up a stone, flung it at the woman.
Prince turned and darted at her, with fury in his
eyes, and his white teeth gleaming. At the awful
sight the princess turned also, and would have fled, '
but he was upon her in a moment, and threw her
to the ground, and there she lay.
It was evening when she came to herself A
cool twilight wind, that somehow seemed to come
all the way from the stars, was blowing upon her.
The poor woman and Prince, the shepherd and his
sheep, were all gone, and she was left alone with
the wind upon the heather.
138 THE WISE WOMAN.
She felt sad, weak, and, perhaps for the first time
in her life, a little ashamed. The violence of which
she had been guilty had vanished from her spirit,
and now lay in her memory with the calm morning
behind it, while in front the quiet dusky night was
now closing in the loud shame betwixt a double
peace. Between the two her passion looked ugly.
It pained her to remember. She felt it was hateful,
and hers.
But, alas. Prince was gone ! That horrid woman
had taken him away ! The fury rose again in her
heart, and raged — until it came to her mind how
her dear Prince would have flown at her throat if
he had seen her in such a passion. The memory
calmed her, and she rose and went home. There,
perhaps, she would find Prince, for surely he could
never have been such a silly dog as to go away
altogether with a strange woman !
She opened the door and went in. Dogs were
A PARABLE. 1 39
asleep all about the cottage, it seemed to her, but
nowhere was Prince. She crept away to her little
bed, and cried herself asleep.
In the morning the shepherd and shepherdess
were indeed glad to find she had come home, for
they thought she had run away.
" Where is Prince ? " she cried, the moment she
waked.
" His mistress has taken him," answered the
shepherd. :'.
** Was that woman his mistress ? "
"I fancy so. He followed her as if he had
known her all his life. I am very sorry to lose him,
though."
The poor woman had gone close past the rock
where the shepherd lay. He saw her coming, and
thought of the strange sheep which had been
feeding beside him when he lay down. "Who can
she be ? " he said to himself; but when he noted
143 THE WISE WOMAN.
how Prince followed her, without even looking up
at him as he passed, he remembered how Prince
liad come to him. And this was how : as he lay
in bed one fierce winter morning, just about to rise^
he heard the voice of a woman call to him through
the storm, " Shepherd, I have brought you a dog.
Be good to him. I will come again and fetch him
away." He dressed as quickly as he could, and
went to the door. It was half snowed up, but on
the top of the white mound before it stood Prince,
And now he had gone as mysteriously as he had
come, and he felt sad.
Rosamond was very sorry too, and hence when
she saw the looks of the shepherd and shepherdess,
she was able to understand them. And she tried
for a while to behave better to them because of
their sorrow. So the loss of the dog brought them
all nearer to each other.
I
CHAPTER X.
A FTER the thunder-storm Agnes did not meet
with a single obstruction or misadventure.
Everybody was strangely polite, gave her whatever
she desired, and answered her questions, but asked
none in return, and looked all the time as if her
departure would be a relief. They were afraid, in
fact, from her appearance, lest she should tell them
that she was lost, when they would be bound,,
on pain of public execution, to take her to the
palace.
But no sooner had she entered the city than
she saw it would hardly do to present herself as a
142 THE WISE WOMAN.
lost child at the palace gates ; for how were they
to know that she was not an impostor, especially
since she really was one, having run away from the
wise woman ? So she wandered about looking at
everything until she was tired, and bewildered by
the noise and confusion all around her. The
wearier she got, the more was she pushed in every
direction. Having been used to a whole hill to
wander upon, she was very awkward in the crowded
streets, and often on the point of being run over by
the horses, which seemed to her to be going every
way like a frightened flock. She spoke to several
persons, but no one stopped to answer her ; and at
length her courage giving way, she felt lost indeed,
and began to cry. A soldier saw her, and asked
what was the matter.
" IVe nowhere to go to," she sobbed.
"Where's your mother ? " asked the soldier.
" I don't know," answered Agnes. " I was
A PARABLE. I43
carried off by an old woman, who then went away
and left me. I don*t know where she is, or where
I am myself."
" Come," said the soldier, " this is a case for his
Majesty."
So saying he took her by the hand, led her to
the palace, and begged an audience of the king and
queen. The porter glanced at Agnes, immediately
admitted them, and showed them into a great
splendid room, where the king and queen sat every
day to review lost children, in the hope of one day
thus finding their Rosamond. But they were by
this time beginning to get tired of it. The moment
they cast their eyes upon Agnes, the queen threw
back her head, threw up her hands, and cried
*' What a miserable, conceited, white-faced little
ape ! " and the king turned upon the soldier in
wrath, and cried, forgetting his own decree, " What
do you mean by bringing such a dirty, vulgar-
144 ^HK ^ISS WOMAN.
looking, pert creature into my palace ? The dullest
soldier in my army could never for a moment
imagine a child like that^ one hair's-breadth like the
lovely angel we lost ? "
" I humbly beg your Majesty's pardon," said the
soldier, "but what was I to do? There stands
your Majesty's proclamation in gold letters on the
brazen gates of the palace."
"I shall have it taken down," said the king..
« Remove the child."
"Please your Majesty, what am I to do with
her ? "
" Take her home with you."
" I have six already, sire, and do not want her.'*
" Then drop her where you picked her up."
" If I do, sire, some one else will find her, and
bring her back to your Majesties."
" That will never do," said the king. " I cannot
bear to look at her."
A PARABLE. I4S
" For all her ugliness," said the queen, " she is
plainly lost, and so is our Rosamond."
" It may be only a pretence, to get into the
palace," said the king.
" Take her to the head scullion, soldier," said the
queen, " and tell her to make her useful. If she
should find out she has been pretending to be lost,
she must let me know."
The soldier was so anxious to get rid of her, that
he caught her up in his arms, hurried her from the
room, found his way to the scullery, and gave her,
trembling with fear, in charge to the head maid,
with the queen's message.
As it was evident that the queen had no favour
for her, the servants did as they pleased with her,
and often treated her harshly. Not one amongst
them liked her; nor was it any wonder, seeing that,
with every step she took from the wise woman's
house, she had grown more contemptible, for she
146 THE WISE WOMAN.
had grown more conceited. Every civil answer
given her, she attributed to the impression she
made, not to the desire to get rid of her ; and every
kindness, to approbation of her looks and speech^
instead of friendliness to a lonely child. Hence by
this time she was twice as odious as before ; for
whoever has had such severe treatment as the wise
woman gave her, and is not the better for it, always
grows worse than before. They drove her about,
boxed her ears on the smallest provocation, laid
everything to her charge, called her all manner of
contemptuous names, jeered and scoffed at her
awkwardnesses, and made her life so miserable that
she was in a fair way to forget everything she had
learned, and know nothing but how to clean sauce-
pans and kettles.
They would not have been so hard upon her,
however, but for her irritating behaviour. She
dared not refuse to do as she was told, but she
A PARABLE. 1 47
obeyed now with a pursed-up mouth, and now
with a contemptuous smile. The only thing that
sustained her was her constant contriving how to
get out of the painful position in which she found
herself. There is but one true way, however, of
getting out of any position we may be in, and that
is, to do the work of it so well that we grow fit for
a better: I need not say this was not the plan
upon which Agnes was cunning enough to fix.
She had soon learned from the talk around her
the reason of the proclamation which had brought
her hither.
" Was the lost princess so very beautiful } " she
said one day to the youngest of her fellow-servants.
" Beautiful ! " screamed the maid ; "she was just
the ugliest little toad you ever set eyes upon."
" What was she like ? " asked Agnes.
"She was about your size, and quite as ugly,
only not in the same way ; for she had red cheeks,
148 THE VISE WOMAN.
and a cocked little nose, and the biggest, ugliest
mouth you ever saw."
Agnes fell a thinking.
"Is there a picture of her anywhere in the
palace ? " she asked.
" How should I know ? You can ask a house-
maid."
Agnes soon learned that there was one, and
contrived to get a peep of it Then she was
certain of what she had suspected from the
description given of her, namely, that she was the
same she had seen in the picture at the wise
woman's house. The conclusion followed, that the
lost princess must be staying with her father and
mother, for assuredly in the picture she wore one of
her frocks.
She went to the head scullion, and, with humble
manner but proud heart, bagged her to procure for
her the favour of a word with the queen.
A PARABLE. 149
"A likely thing indeed!" was the answer,
accompanied by a resounding box on the ear.
She tried the head cook next, but with no better
success, and so was driven to her meditations again,
the result of which was that she began to drop
hints that she knew something about the princess.
This came at length to the queen's ears, and she
sent for her.
Absorbed in her own selfish ambitions, Agnes
never thought of the risk to which she was
about to expose her parents, but told the queen
that in her wanderings she had caught sight of just
such a lovely creature as she described the princess,
only dressed like a peasant — saying that, if the
king would permit her to go and look for her, she
had little doubt of bringing her back safe and
sound within a few weeks.
But although she spoke the truth, she had such a
look of cunning on her pinched face that the queen
150 THE WISE WOMAX.
could not possibly trust her, but believed thstt she
made the proposal merely to get away, and have
money given her for her journey. Still there was a
chance, and she would not say anything until she
had consulted the king.
Then they had Agnes up before the lord
chancellor, who, after much questioning of her,
arrived at last, he thought, at some notion of the
part of the country described by her — that was, if
she spoke the truth, which, from her looks and
behaviour, he also considered entirely doubtful.
Thereupon she was ordered back to the kitchen,
and a band of soldiers, under a clever la\vyer, sent
out to search every foot of the supposed region.
They were commanded not to return until they
brought with them, bound hand and foot, such a
shepherd-pair as that of which they received a full
description.
And now Agnes was worse off than before. For
A PARABLE. I5I
to her other miseries was added the fear of what
would befall her when it was discovered that the
persons of whom they were in quest, and whom she
was certain they must find, were her own father and
mother.
By this time the king and queen were so tired of
seeing lost children, genuine or pretended — for they
cared for no child any longer than there seemed a
chance of its turning out their child — that, with
this new hope, which, however poor and vague at
first, soon began to grow upon such imaginations
as they had, they commanded the proclamation to
be taken down from the palace gates, and directed
«
the various sentries to admit no child whatever,
lost or found, be the reason or pretence what it
might, until further orders.
"I'm sick of children!" said the king to his
secretary, as he finished dictating the direction.
CHAPTER XI.
A FTER Prince was gone, the princess, by de-
gfrees, fell back into some of her old bad ways,
from which only the presence of the dog, not her
own betterment, had kept her. She never grew
nearly so selfish again, but she began to let her
«
angry old self lift up its head once more, until by
and by she grew so bad that the sheperdess de-
clared she should not stop in the house a day
longer, for she was quite unendurable.
" It is all very well for you, husband," she said,
" for you haven't her all day about you, and only
see the best of her. But if you had her in work
A PARABLE. I53
instead of play hours, you would like her no better
than I do. And then it's not her ugly passions
only, but when she's in one of her tantrums, its im-
possible to get any work out of her. At such
times she's just as obstinate as — as — as — "
She was going to say "as Agnes," but the
feelings of a mother overcame her, and she could
not utter the words.
" In fact," she said instead, " she makes my life
miserable."
The shepherd felt he had no right to tell his wife
she must submit to have her life made miserable,
and therefore, although he was really much at-
tached to Rosamond, he would not interfere ; and
the sheperdess told her she must look out for
another place.
The princess was, however, this much better
than before, even in respect of her passions, that
they were not quite so bad, and after one was over,
154 THE WISE WOMAN.
she was really ashamed of it But not once, ever
since the departure of Prince, had she tried to
check the rush of the evil temper when it came
upon her. She hated it when she was out of it,
and that was something ; but while she was in it,
she went full swing with it, wherever the prince of
the power of it pleased to carry her. Nor was this
all : although she might by this time have known
well enough that as soon as she was out of it she
was certain to be ashamed of it, she would yet
justify it to herself with twenty different arguments
that looked very good at the time, but would have
looked very poor indeed afterwards, if then she had
ever remembered them.
She was not sorry to leave the shepherd's cot-
tage, for she felt certain of soon finding her way
back to her father and mother; and she would,
indeed, have set out long before, but that her foot
had somehow got hurt when Prince gave her his
A PARABLE. I 55
last admonition, and she had never since been able
for long walks, which she sometimes blamed as
the cause of her temper growing worse. But if
people are good-tempered only when they are
comfortable, what thanks have they.? Her foot
was now much better; and as soon as the shep-
herdess had thus spoken, she resolved to set out
at once, and work or beg her way home. At the
moment she was quite unmindful of what she owed
the good people, and, indeed, was as yet incapable
of understanding a tenth part of her obligation to
them. So she bade them good-bye without a tear,
and limped her way down the hill, leaving the
shepherdess weeping, and the shepherd looking
very grave.
When she reached the valley, she followed the
course of the stream, knowing only that it would
lead her away from the hill where the sheep fed,
into richer lands where were farms and cattle.
156 THE WISE WOMAN.
Rounding one of the roots of the hill, she saw
before her a poor woman walking slowly along the
road with a burden of heather upon her back, and
presently passed her, but had gone only a few
paces farther when she heard her calling after her
in a kind old voice —
" Your shoe-tie is loose, my child."
But Rosamond was growing tired, for her foot
had become painful, and so she was cross, and
neither returned answer, nor paid heed to the
warning. For when we are cross, all our other
faults grow busy, and poke up their ugly heads
like maggots, and the princess's old dislike to
doing anything that came to her with the least air
of advice about it returned in full force.
" My child," said the woman again, " if you don't
fasten your shoe-tie, it will make you fall."
"Mind your own business," said Rosamond^
without even turning her head, and had not gone
A PARABLE. 1 57
more than three steps when she fell flat on her face
on the path. She tried to get up, but the effort
forced from her a scream, for she had sprained the
ankle of the foot that was already lame.
The old woman was by her side instantly.
"Where are you hurt, child ? " she asked, throwing
down her burden and kneeling beside her.
'* Go away," screamed Rosamond. " You made
me fall, you bad woman ! "
The woman made no reply, but began to feel
her joints, and soon discovered the sprain. Then,
in spite of Rosamond's abuse, and the violent
pushes and even kicks she gave her, she took the
hurt ankle in her hands, and stroked and pressed
it, gently kneading it, as it were, with her thumbs,
as if coaxing every particle of the muscles into its
right place. Nor had she done so long before Rosa
mond lay still. At length she ceased, and said : —
" Now, my child, you may get up."
158 THE WISE WOMAN.
" I can't get up, and I'm not your child," cried
Rosamond. " Go away."
Without another word the woman left her, took
up her burden, and continued her journey.
In a little while Rosamond tried to get up, and
not only succeeded, but found she could walk, and,
indeed, presently discovered that her ankle and foot
also were now perfectly well.
" I wasn't much hurt after all," she said to her-
self, nor sent a single grateful thought after the
poor woman, whom she speedily passed once more
upon the road without even a greeting.
Late in the afternoon she came to a spot where
the path divided into two, and was taking the one
she liked the look of better, when she started at
the sound of the poor woman's voice, whom she
thought she had left far behind, again calling her.
She looked round," and there she was, toiling under
her load of heather as before.
A PARABLE.
IS9
"You are taking the wrong turn, child/' she
cried.
" How can you tell that ?" said Rosamond. " You
know nothing about where I want to go."
"I know that road will take you where you
don't want to go," said the woman.
" I shall know when I get there, then," returned
Rosamond, " and no thanks to you."
She set off running. The woman took the other
path, and was soon out of sight.
By and by, R6samond found herself in the midst
of a peat-moss — a flat, lonely, dismal, black country.
She thought, however, that the road would soon
lead her across to the other side of it among the
farms, and went on without anxiety. But the
stream, which had hitherto been her guide, had now
vanished ; and when it began to grow dark,
Rosamond found that she could no longer dis-
tinguish the track. She turned, therefore, but only
l60 THK WISK WOMAN.
to find that the same darkness covered it behind
as well as before. Still she made the attempt to
go back by keeping as direct a line as she could,
for the path was straight as an arrow. But she
could not see enough even to start her in a line^
and she had not gone far before she found herself
hemmed in, apparently on every side, by ditches
and pools of black, dismal, slimy water. And now
it was so dark that she could see nothing more
than the gleam of a bit of clear sky now and then
in the water. Again and again she stepped knee-
deep in black mud, and. once tumbled down in the
shallow edge of a terrible pool ; after which' she
gave up the attempt to escape the meshes of the
watery net, stood still, and began to cry bitterly,
despairingly. She saw now that her unreasonable
anger had made her foolish as well as rude, and
felt tliat she was justly punished for her wickedness
to the poor woman who had been so friendly to
A PARABLE. l6l
her. What would Prince think of her, if he knew ?
She cast herself on the ground, hungry, and cold,
and weary.
Presently, she thought she saw long creatures
come heaving out of the black pools. A toad
jumped upon her, and she shrieked, and sprang to
her feet, and would have run away headlong, when
she spied in the distance a faint glimmer. She
thought it was a Will-o'-the-wisp. What could he
be after? Was he looking for her? She dared
not run, lest he should see and pounce upon her.
The light came nearer, and grew brighter and
larger. Plainly, the little fiend was looking for her
— ^he would torment her. After many twistings and
turnings among the pools, it came straight towards
her, and she would have shrieked, but that terror
made her dumb.
It came nearer and nearer, and lo ! it was borne
by a dark figure, with a burden on its back : it was
M
1 62 THE WISE WOMAN.
the poor woman, and no demon, that was looking
for her! She gave a scream of joy, fell down
weeping at her feet, and clasped her knees. Then
the poor woman threw away her burden, laid down
her lantern, took the princess up in her arms^ folded
her cloak around her, and having taken up her
lantern again, carried her slowly and carefully
through the midst of the black pools, winding
hither and thither. AH night long she carried her
thus, slowly and wearily, until at length the dark-
ness grew a little thinner, an uncertain hint of
light came from the east, and the poor woman,
stopping on the brow of a little hill, opened her
cloak, and set the princess down.
" I can carry you no farther," she said. " Sit
there on the grass till the light comes. I will
stand here by you."
Rosamond had been asleep. Now she rubbed
her eyes and looked, but it was too dark to see
A PARABLE. 163
anything more, than that there was a sky over her
head. Slowly the light grew, until she could see
the form of the poor woman standing in front of
her; and as it went on growing, she began to
think she had seen her somewhere before, till all
at once she thought of the wise woman, and saw it
must be she. Then she was so ashamed that she
bent down her head, and could look at her no
longer. But the poor woman spoke, and the voice
was that of the wise woman, and every word went
deep into the heart of the princess.
" Rosamond," she said, "all this time, ever since
I carried you from your father's palace, I have
been doing what I could to make you a lovely
creature : ask yourself how far I have succeeded."
AH her past story, since she found herself first
under the wise woman's cloak, arose, and glided
past the inner eyes of the princess, arid she
saw, and in a measure understood it alL But
164 THE WISE WOMAN.
she sat with her eyes on the ground, and made no
sign.
Then said the wise woman :—
** Below there is the forest which surrounds my
house. I am going home. If you please to come
there to me, I will help you, in a way I could not
do now, to be good and lovely. I will wait you
there all day, but if you start at once, you may be
there long before noon. I shall have your break-
fast waiting for you. One thing more : the beasts
have not yet all gone home to their holes ; but J
give you my word, not one will touch you so long
as you keep coming nearer to my house."
She ceased. Rosamond sat waiting to hear
something more; but nothing came. She looked
up; she was alone.
Alone once more! Always being left alone,
because she would not yield to what was right I
Oh, how safe she had felt under the wise woman's
A PARABLE. 165
cloak ! She had indeed been good to her, and she
had in return behaved like one of the hyaenas of
the awful wood ! What a wonderful house it was
she lived in ! And again all her own story came
up into her brain from her repentant heart
**Why didn't she take me with her ?" she said,
*' I would have gone gladly." And she wept. But
her own conscience told her that, in the very
middle of her shame and desire to be good, she had
returned no answer to the words of the wise
woman ; she had sat like a tree-stump, and done
nothing. She tried to say there was nothing to be
done ; but she knew at once that she could have
told the wise woman she had been very wicked,
and asked her to take her with her. Now there was
nothing to be done.
"Nothing to be done!" said her conscience;
"Cannot you rise, and walk down the hill, and
through the wood ? "
l66 THE WISE WOMAN.
"But the Wild beasts!"
" There it is ! You don't believe the wise woman
yet! Did she not tell you the beasts would not
touch you?*'
" But they are so horrid ! **
"Yes, they are ; but it would be far better to be
eaten up alive by them than live on such a worth-
less creature as you are. Why, you're not fit to be
thought about by any but bad ugly creatures."
This was how herself talked to her.
CHAPTER XII.
A LL at once she jumped to her feet, and ran. at
full speed down the hill and into the wood.
She heard howlings and yellings on all sides of her,
but she ran straight on, as near as she could judge.
Her spirits rose as she ran. Suddenly she saw
before her, in the dusk of the thick wood, a group
of some dozen wolves and hyaenas, standing all
together right in her way, with their green eyes
fixed upon her staring. She faltered one step, then
bethought her of what the wise woman had
promised, and keeping straight on, dashed right
into the middle of them. They fled howling, as if
l68 THK WISE WOMAN.
she had struck them with fire. She was no more
afraid after that, and ere the sun was up she was
out of the wood and upon the heath, which no bad
thing could step upon and live. With the first
peep of the sun above the horizon, she saw the
little cottage before her, and ran as fast as she
could run towards it When she came near it, she
saw that the door was open, and ran straight into
the outstretched arms of the wise woman.
The wise woman kissed her and stroked her hair,
set her down by the fire, and gave her a bowl of
bread and milk.
When she had eaten it, she drew her before her
where she sat, &nd spoke to her thus :
" Rosamond, if you would be a blessed creature
instead of a mere wretch, you must submit to be
tried."
" Is that something terrible ? " asked the princess,
turning white.
i
A PARABLE. 1 69
" No, my child ; but it is something very difficult
to come well out of. Nobody who has not been
tried knows how difficult it is ; but whoever has
come well out of it, and those who do not overcome
never do come out of it, always looks back with
horror, not on what she has come through, but on
the very idea of the possibility of having failed,
and being still the same miserable creature as
before."
" You will tell me what it is before it begins ? '*
said the princess.
" I will not tell you exactly. But I will tell you
some things to help you. One great danger is that
perhaps you will think you are in it before it has
really begun, and say to yourself, 'Oh! this is
really nothing to me. It may be a trial to some,
but for me I am sure it is not worth mentioning.'
And then, before you know, it will be upon you,
and you will fail utterly and shamefully."
I TO THE WISE WOXAK.
" I will be very, very careful,'* said the princess.
** Only don't let me be frightened."
" You shall not be frightened, except it be your
own doing. You are already a brave girl, and
there is no occasion to try you more that way. I
saw how you rushed into the middle of the ugly
creatures; and as they ran from you, so will all
kinds of evil things, as long as you keep them
outside of you, and do not open the cottage of your
heart to let them in. I will tell you something
more about what you will have to go through.
" Nobody can be a real princess— do not imagine
you have yet been anything more than a mock one
— until she is a princess over herself, that is, until,
when she finds herself unwilling to do the thing
that is right, she makes herself do it So long as
any mo6d she is in makes her do the thing she will
be sorry for when that mood is over, she is a slave^
and no princess. A princess is able to do what is
A PARABLE. I7I
right even should she unhappily be in a mood that
would make another unable to do it. For instance^
if you should be cross and angry, you are not a
whit the less bound to be just, yes, kind even — a
thing most difficult in such a mood— though ease
itself in a good mood, loving and sweet Whoever
does what she is bound to do, be she the dirtiest
little girl in the street, is a princess, worshipful^
honourable. Nay, more; her might goes farther
than she could send it, for if she act so, the evil
mood will wither and die, and leave her loving and
clean. Do you understand me, dear Rosamond ? ""
As she spoke, the wise woman laid her hand on
her head, and looked — oh, so lovingly! — into her
eyes.
" I am not sure," said the princess, humbly.
" Perhaps you will understand me better if I say
it just comes to this, that you must not do what is
wrong, however much you are inclined to do it, and
172 THE WISE WOMAN.
you must do what is right, however much you are
disinclined to do it"
'' I understand that/' said the princess.
"I am going, then, to put you in one of the
mood-chambers of which I have many in the house.
Its mood will come upon you, and you will have to
deal with it"
She rose and took her by the hand. The princess
trembled a little, but never thought of resisting.
The wise woman led her into the great hall with
the pictures, and through a door at the farther end,
opening upon another large hall, which was
circular, and had doors close to each other all
round it Of these she opened one, pushed the
princess gently in, and closed it behind her.
The princess found herself in her old nursery.
Her little white rabbit came to meet her in a
lumping canter as if his back were going to tumble
over his head. Her nurse, in her rocking-chair by
\
A PARABLE. 1 73
•I
the chimney comer, sat just as she had used. The
fire burned brightly, and on the table were many of
her wonderful toys, on which, however, she now
looked with some contempt. Her nurse did not
seem at all surprised to see her, any more than if
the princess had but just gone from the room and
returned again.
"Oh! how different I am from what I used to
be ! " thought the princess to herself, looking from
her toys to her nurse. " The wise woman has done
me so much good already! I will go and see
mamma at once, and tell her I am very glad to be
at home again, and very sorry I was so naughty."
She went towards the door.
" Your queen-mamma, princess, cannot see you
now," said her nurse.
*' I have yet to learn that it is my part to take
orders from a servant," said the princess, with
temper and dignity.
174 "^HE WISE WOMAN.
"I beg your pardon, princess." returned her
tiurse, politely ; " but it is my duty to tell you that
your queen-mamma is at this moment engaged.
She is alone with her most intimate friend, the
Princess of the Frozen Regions."
"I shall see for myself," returned the princess^
l)ridling, and walked to the door.
Now little bunny, leap-frogging near the door,
happened that moment to get about her feet, just
as she was going to open it, so that she tripped and
fell against it, striking her forehead a good blow^
She caught up the rabbit in a rage, and, crying, " It
is all your fault, you ugly old wretch!" threw it
with violence in her nurse's face.
Her nurse caught the rabbit, and held it to her
face, as if seeking to sooth its fright But the^
rabbit looked very limp and odd, and, to her
amazement, Rosamond presently saw that the
thing was no rabbit, but a pocket-handkerchief.
A PARABLE. 1 75
The next moment she removed it from her face,
and Rosamond beheld — not her nurse, but the wise
woman — standing on her own hearth, while she
herself stood by the doof leading from the cottage
into the hall.
"First trial a failure," said the wise woman
quietly.
Overcome with shame, Rosamond ran to her, fell
down on her knees, and hid her face in her dress.
" Need I say anything } " said the wise woman,
stroking her hair.
" No, no," cried the princess. " I am horrid."
" You know now the kind of thing you have to
meet : are you ready to try again ? "
'*May I try again ?" cried the princess, jumping up,
*' Vm ready. I do not think I shall fail this time."
" The trial will be harder."
Rosamond drew in her breath, and set her teeth.
The wise woman looked at her pitifully, but took
176 THE WISE WOMAK.
her by the hand, led her to the round hall, opened
the same door, and closed it after her.
The princess expected to find herself again in
the nursery, but in the wise woman's house no one
ever has the same trial twice. She was in a
beautiful garden, full of blossoming trees and the
loveliest roses and lilies. A lake was in the middle
of it, with a tiny boat. So delightful was it that
Rosamond forgot all about how or why she had
come there, and lost herself in the joy of the
flowers and the trees and the water. Presently
came the shout of a child, merry and glad, and
from a clump of tulip-trees rushed a lovely little
boy, with his arms stretched out to her. She was
charmed at the sight, ran to meet him, caught him
up in her arms, kissed him, and could hardly let
him go again. But the moment she set him down
he ran from her towards the lake, looking back as
he ran, and crying " Come, come."
A PARABLE. 1 77
She followed. He made straight for the boat,
clambered into It, and held out his hand to help
her in. Then he caught up the little boat-hook,
and pushed away from the shore : there was a great
white flower floating a few yards off, and that was
the little fellow's goal. But, alas ! no sooner had
Rosamond caught sight of it, huge and glowing as
a harvest moon, than she felt a great desire to have
it herself. The boy, however, was in the bows of
the boat, and caught it first. It had a long stem,
reaching down to the bottom of the water, and for
a moment he tugged at it in vain, but at last it
gave way so suddenly, that he tumbled back with
the flower into the bottom of the boat. Then
Rosamond, almost wild at the danger it was in as
he struggled to rise, hurried to save it, but somehow
between them it came in pieces, and all its petals
of fretted silver were scattered about the boat
When the boy got up, and saw the ruin his com-
N
lyS THE WISE WOMAN.
panion had occasioned, he burst into tears, and
having the long stalk of the flower still in his hand,
.struck her with it across the face. It did not hurt
her much, for he was a very little fellow, but it was
wet and slimy. She tumbled rather than rushed
at him, seized him in her arms, tore him from his
frightened grasp, and flung him into the water.
His head struck on the boat as he fell, and he sank
at once to the bottom, where he lay looking up at
her with white face and open eyes.
The moment she saw the consequences of her
deed she was filled with horrible dismay. She
tried hard to reach down to him through the water,
but it was far deeper than it looked, and she could
not. Neither could she get her eyes to leave the
white face : its eyes fascinated and fixed hers ; and
there she lay leaning over the boat and staring at
the death she had made. But a voice crying,.
"Ally ! Ally!" shot to her heart, and, springing to.
A PARABLE. I 79
her feet she saw a lovely lady come running down
the grass to the brink of the water with her hair
flying about her head.
" Wher^ is my Ally ? " she shrieked.
But Rosamond could not answer, and only stared
at the lady, as she had before stared at her drowned
boy.
Then the lady caught sight of the dead thing at
the bottom of the water, and rushed in, and, plung-
ing down, struggled and groped until she reached
it. Then she rose and stood up with the dead
body of her little son in her arms, his head hanging
back, and the water streaming from him.
" See what you have made of him, Rosamond ! "
she said, holding the body out to her ; " and this is
your second trial, and also a failure."
The dead child melted away from her arms, and
there she stood, the wise woman, on her own
hearth, while Rosamond found herself beside the
I So THE WISE WOMAN.
little well on the floor of the cottage, with one arm
wet up to the shoulder. She threw herself on the
heather-bed and wept from relief and vexation
both.
The wise woman walked out of the cottage, shut
the door, and left her alone. Rosamond was
sobbing, so that she did not hear her go. When,
at length she looked up, and saw that the wise
woman was gone, her misery returned afresh and
tenfold, and she wept and wailed. The hours
passed, the shadows of evening began to fall, and
the wise woman entered
CHAPTER XIII.
C HE went straight to the bed, and, taking Rosa-
mond in her arms, sat down with her by the fire.
" My poor child ! " she said. " Two terrible
failures! And the more the harder! They get
stronger and stronger. What is to be done ? "
" Couldn't you help me ? " said Rosamond pite-
ously.
" Perhaps I could, now you ask me," answered
the wise woman. "When you are ready to try
again, we shall see.**
" I am very tired of myself," said the princess.
*' But I can't rest till I try again."
1 82 THE WISE WOMAN.
" That is the only way to get rid of your weary,
shadowy self, and find your strong, true self.
Come, my child ; I will help you all I can, for now
I can help you."
Yet again she led her to the same door, and
seemed to the princess to send her yet again alone
into the room. She was in a forest, a place half
wild, half tended. The trees were grand, and full
of the loveliest birds, of all glowing gleaming, and
radiant colours, which, unlike the brilliant birds we
know in our world, sang deliciously, every one
according to his colour. The trees were not at all
crowded, but their leaves were so thick, and their
boughs spread so far, that it was only here and
there a sunbeam could get straight through. All
the gentle creatures of a forest were there, but no
creatures that killed, not even a weasel to kill the ^
rabbits, or a beetle to eat the snails out of their
striped shells. As to the butterflies, words would
A PARABLE. I 83
but wrong them if they tried to tell how gorgeous
they were. The princess's delight was so great
that she neither laughed nor ran, but walked about
with a solemn countenance and stately step.
" But where are the flowers? " she said to herself
at length.
They were nowhere. Neither on the high trees,
nor on the few shrubs that grew here and there
amongst them, were there any blossoms ; and in
the grass that grew everywhere there was not a
single flower to be seen.
" Ah, well ! " said Rosamond again to herself,
"where all the birds and butterflies are living
flowers, we can do without the other sort."
Still she could not help feeling that flowers were
wanted to make the beauty of the forest complete.
Suddenly she came out on a little open glade ;
and there, on the root of a great oak, sat the
loveliest little girl, with her lap full of flowers of all
184 THE WISE WOMAN.
colours, but of such kinds as Rosamond had never
before seen. She was playing with them — ^burying
her hands in them, tumbling them about, and every
now and then picking one from the rest, and throw-
ing it away. All the time she never smiled, except
with her eyes, which were as full as they could hold
of the laughter of the spirit — a laughter which in
this world is never heard, only sets the eyes alight
with a liquid shining. Rosamond drew nearer, for
the wonderful creature would have drawn a tiger
to her side, and tamed him on the way. A few
yards from her, she came upon one of her cast-
away flowers and stooped to pick it up, as well she
might where none grew save in her own longing.
But to her amazement she found, instead of a
flower thrown away to wither, one fast rooted and
quite at home. She left it, and went to another ;
but it also was fast in the soil, and growing com-
fortably in the warm grass. What could it mean ?
A PARABLK. 1 85
One after another she tried, until at length she was
satisfied that it was the same with every flower the
little girl threw from her lap.
She watched then until she saw her throw one,
and instantly bounded to the spot But the flower
had been quicker than she : there it grew, fast fixed
in the earth, and, she thought, looked at her
roguishly. Something evil moved in her, and she
plucked it
" Don't ! don't ! " cried the child. " My flowers
cannot live in your hands.'
Rosamond looked at the flower. It was withered
already. She threw it from her, offended. The
child rose, with difficulty keeping her lapful to-
gether, picked it up, carried it back, sat down again,
spoke to it, kissed it, sang to it — oh! such a sweet,
childish little song! — the princess never could recall
a word of it — and threw it away. Up rose its little
head, and there it was, busy growing again !
f>
f83 THE WISE WOMAN.
Rosamond's bad temper soon g^ve way: the
beauty and sweetness of the child had overcome it ;
and, anxious to make friends with her, she drew
near, and said :
" Won't you give me a little flower, pleas^ you
beautiful child ? "
"There they are; they are all for you," answered
the child, pointing with her outstretched .arm and-
forefinger all round.
'* But you told me, a minute agp, not to touch
them."
" Yes, indeed, I did."
** They can't be mine, if I'm not to touch thenru*'
" If, to call them yours, you must kill them, then
they are not yours, and never, never can be yours.
They are nobody's when they are dead."
" But you don't kill them."
" I don't pull them ; I throw them away. I live
them."
A PARABLE. I 87
9f
" How is it that you make them grow ? "
" I say, * You darling ! ' and throw it away, and
there it is."
" Where do you get them ? '*
" In my lap."
" I wish you would let me throw one away."
"Have you got any in your lap ? Let me see.'
" No ; I have none."
" Then you can't throw one away, if you haven't
got one."
" You are mocking me ! " cried the princess.
** I am not mocking you," said the child, looking
her full in the face, with reproach in her large blue
eyes.
" Oh, that's where the flowers come from ! " said
the princess to herself, the moment she saw them,
hardly knowing what she meant
Then the child rose as if hurt, and quickly threw
iway all the flowers she had in her lap, but one by
1 88 THE WISE WOXAX.
one, and without any sign of anger. When thqr
were all gone, she stood a moment, and then, in a
kind of chanting cry, called, two or three times^
"Peggy! Peggy! Pefgy!"
A low, glad cry, like the whinny of a horsey
answered, and, presently, out of the wood on the
opposite side of the glade, came gently trotting the
loveliest little snow-white pony, with great shining
blue wings, half-lifted from his shoulders. Straight
towards the little girl, neither hurrying nor linger-
ing, he trotted with light elastic tread.
Rosamond*s love for animals broke into a perfect
passion of delight at the vision. She rushed to
meet the pony with such haste, that, although
clearly the best trained animal under the sun, he
started back, plunged, reared, and struck out with
his fore feet ere he had time to observe what sort of
a creature it was that had so startled him. When
he perceived it was a little girl, he dropped instantly
A PARABLE. 1 89
upon all-fours, and content with avoiding her, re-
sumed his quiet trot in the direction of his mistress.
Rosamond stood gazing after him In miserable dis-
appointment.
When he reached the child, he laid his head
on her shoulder, and she put her arm up round
his neck ; and after she had talked to him a
little, he turned and came trotting back to the
princess.
Almost beside herself with joy, she began caress-
ing him in the rough way which, notwithstanding
her love for them, she was in the habit of using
with animals ; and she was not gentle enough, in
herself even, to see that he did not like it, and was
only putting up with it for the sake of his mistress.
But when, that she might jump upon his back, she
laid hold of one of his wings, and ruffled some of
the blue feathers, he wheeled suddenly about, gave
his long tail a sharp whisk which threw her flat on
190 THE WISS WOMAN.
the grass, and, trotting back to his mistress, bent
down his head before her as if asking- excuse for
ridding himself of the unbearable.
The princess was furious. She had forgotten all
her past life up to the time when she first saw the
child : her beauty had made her foi^t, and yet she
was now on the very borders of hating her. What
she might have' done, or rather tried to do, had not
Peggy's tail struck her down with such force that
for a moment she could not rise, I cannot tell.
But while she lay half-stunned, her eyes fell on a
little flower just under them. It stared up in her
face like the living thing it was, and she could not
take her eyes off its face. It was like a primrose
trying to express doubt instead of confidence. It
seemed to put her half in mind of something, and
she felt as if shame were coming. She put out her
hand to pluck it; but the moment her fingers
touched it, the flower withered up, and hung as
A PARABLE. igh
dead on its stalk as if a flame of fire had passed
over it
Then a shudder thrilled through the heart of the
princess, and she thought with herself, saying —
•' What sort of a creature am I that the flowers
wither when I touch them, and the ponies despise
me with their tails ? What a wretched, coarse,,
ill-bred creature I must be ! There is that lovely-
child giving life instead of death to the flowers, and
a moment ago I was hating her! I am made
horrid, and I shall be horrid, and I hate myself, and
yet I can't help being myself! "
She heard the sound of galloping feet, and there
was the pony, with the child seated betwixt his wings,
coming straight on at full speed for where she lay.
"I don't care," she said. "They may trample
me under their feet if they like. I am tired and
sick of myself — a creature at whose touch the-
flowers wither ! "
192 THE WISE WOMAN.
On came the winged pony. But while yet some
distance off, he gave a great bound, spread out his
living sails of blue, rose yards and yards above
her in the air, and alighted as gently as a bird,
just a few feet on the other side of her. The
child slipped down and came and kneeled over
her.
"Did my pony hurt you ?" she said. "I am so
sorry!"
" Yes, he hurt me," answered the princess, " but
not more than I deserved, for I took liberties with
him, and he did not like it"
" Oh, you dear ! " said the little girl. " I love you
for talking so of my Peggy. He is a good pony,
though a little playful sometimes. Would you like
a ride upon him?"
" You darling beauty!" cried Rosamond, sobbing.
" I do love you so, you are so good. How did you
become so sweet?"
A PARABLE. 1 93
"Would you like to ride my pony?" repeated
the child, with a heavenly smile in her eyes,
" No, no ; he is fit only for you. My clumsy
body would hurt him," said Rosamond.
" You don't mind me having such a pony ? " said
the child.
"What! mind it?" cried Rosamond, almost
indignantly. Then remembering certain thoughts
that had but a few moments before passed through
her mind, she looked on the gjround and was silent
" You don't mind it, then ?" repeated the child,
" I am very glad there is such a you and such a
pony, and that such a you has got such a pony,**
said Rosamond, still looking on the ground. " But
I do wish the flowers would not die when I touch ^
them. I was cross to see you make them grow,
but now I should be content if only I did not make
them wither."
As she spoke, she stroked the little girl's bare
i
194 THE WISE WOMAN.
feet, which were by her, half buried in the soft
moss, and as she ended she laid her cheek on them
and kissed them.
" Dear princess," said the little girl, " the
flowers will not allways wither at your touch.
Try now — only do not pluck it Flowers ought
never to be plucked except to give away. Touch
It gently."
A silvery flower, something like a snowdrop,
grew just within her reach. Timidly she stretched
out her hand and touched it. The flower trem-
bled, but neither shrank nor withered,
" Touch it again," said the child.
It changed colour a little, and Rosamond fancied
it grew larger.
" Touch it again," said the child.
It opened and grew until it was as large as a
narcissus, and changed and deepened in colour
till it was a red glowing gold.
A PARABLE. 1 95
Rosamond gazed motionless. When the trans-
figuration of the flower was perfected, she sprang
to her feet with clasped hands, but for very ecstasy
of jdy stood speechless, gazing at the child.
" Did you never see me before, Rosamond ? " she
asked.
•* No, never," answered the princess. " I never
saw anything half so lovely."
" Look at me," said the child.
And as Rosamond looked, the child began, like
the flower, to grow larger. Quickly through every
gradation of growth she passed, until she stood
before her a woman perfectly beautiful, neither old
nor young ; for hers was the old age of everlasting
youth.
Rosamond was utterly enchanted, and stood
gazing without word or movement, until she could
endure no more delight Then her mind collapsed
to the thought — had the pony grown too ? She
10 THE WISE WOMAN.
glanced round. There was no pony, no grass, no
flowers, no bright-birded forest — ^but the cottage of
the wise woman — and before her, on the hearth of
it, the goddess-child, the only thing unchanged.
She gasped with astonishment
" You must set out for your father's palace im-
mediately," said the lady.
" But where is the wise woman } " asked Rosa*
mond, looking all about
"Here!" said the lady.
And Rosamond, looking again, saw the wise
woman, folded as usual in her long dark cloak.
"It was you, then, after all!" she cried in de-
light, and kneeled before her, bur}''ing her face in
her garments.
" It always is me, after all," said the wise woman,
smiling.
"And it was you all the time.?"
** It always is me all the time*"
A PARABLE. 1 97
"But which is the real you ?" asked Rosamond ;
•* this or that ? -
" Or a thousand others ? " returned the wise
woman. " But the one you have just seen is the
likest to the real me that you are able to see just
yet — but — . And that me you could not have
seen a little while ago. — But, my darling child,"
she went on, lifting her up and clasping her to
her bosom, " you must not think, because you have
seen me once, that therefore you are capable of
seeing me at all times. No; there are many
things in you yet that must be changed before
that can be. Now, however, you will seek me.
Every time you feel you want me, that is a sign
I am wanting you. There are yet many rooms
in my house you may have to go through ; but
when you need no more of them, then you will
be able to throw flowers like the little girl you saw
in the forest"
198 THE WISE WOMAN.
The princess gave a sigh.
"Do not think," the wise woman went on,
" that the things you have seen in my house are
mere empty shows. You do not know; you cannot
yet think, how living and true they are. Now you
must go."
She led her once more into the great hall, and
there showed her the picture of her father's capital,
and his palace with the brazen gates.
" There is your home," she said. " Go to it."
The princess understood, and a flush of shame
rose to her forehead. She turned to the wise
woman and said : —
" Will you forgive all my naughtiness, and all
the trouble I have given you ?"
" If I had not forgiven you, I would never have
taken the trouble to punish you. If I had not
loved you, do you think I would have carried you
away in my cloak ? "
A PARABLE. 1 99
" How could you love such an ugly, ill-tem-
pered, rude, hateful little wretch?"
" I saw, through it all, what you were going to
be," said the wise woman, kissing her. " But re-
member you have yet only begun to be what I saw."
*'I will try to remember," said the princess,
holding her cloak, and looking up in her face.
" Go, then," said the wise woman.
Rosamond turned away on the instant, ran to
the picture, stepped over the frame of it, heard a
door close gently, gave one glance back, saw
behind her the loveliest palace-front of alabaster,
gleaming in the pale-yellow light of an early
summer-morning, looked again to the eastward,
saw the faint outline of her father's city against
the sky, and ran off to reach it.
It looked much further off now than when it
seemed a picture, but the sun was not yet up, and
she had the whole of a summer-day before her.
4
CHAPTER XIV.
'T'HE soldiers sent out by the king, had no great
difficulty in finding Agnes's father and mother,
of whom they demanded if they knew anything of
such a young princess as they described. The
honest pair told them the truth in every point —
that, having lost their own child and found
another, they had taken her home, and treated her
as their own ; that she had indeed called herself a
princess, but they had not believed her, because she
did not look like one ; that, even if they had, they
did not know how they could have done differently,
seeing they were poor people, who could not afford
A PARABLE. 201
to keep any idle person about the place ; that they
had done their best to teach her good ways, and
had not parted with her until her bad temper ren-
dered it impossible to put up with her any longer ;
that, as to the king's proclamation, they heard
little of the world's news on their lonely hill,
and it had never reached them ; that if it had,
they did not know how either of them could
have gone such a distance from home, and left
their sheep or their cottage, one or the other, un-
cared for.
" You must learn, then, how both of you can go,
and your sheep must take care of your cottage,"
said the lawyer, and commanded the soldiers to
bind them hand and foot
Heedless of their entreaties to be spared such an
indignity, the soldiers obeyed, bore them ro a cart,
and set out for the king's palace, leaving the cot-
tage door open, the fire burning, the pot of potatoes
i
202 THE WISE WOMAN.
boiling upon it, the sheep scattered over the hill,
and the dogs not knowing what to do.
Hardly were they gone, however, before the wise
woman walked up, with Prince behind her, peeped
into the cottage, locked the door, put the key in
her pocket, and then walked away up the hill. In
a few minutes there arose a great battle between
Prince and the dog which filled his former place —
a well-meaning but dull fellow, who could fight
better than feed. Prince was not long in showing
him that he was meant for his master, and then, by
his efforts, and directions to the other dogs, the
sheep were soon gathered again, and out of danger
from foxes and bad dogs. As soon as this was
done, the wise woman left them in charge of
Prince, while she went to tlie next farm to arrange
for the folding of the sheep, and the feeding of
the dogs.
When the soldiers reached the palace, they were
A PARABLE. 203
ordered to carry their prisoners at once into the
presence of the king and queen, in the throne
room. Their two thrones stood upon a high dais
at one end, and on the floor, at the foot of the dais,
the soldiers laid their helpless prisoners. The
queen commanded that they should be unbound,
and ordered them to stand up. They obeyed with
the dignity of insulted innocence, and their bearing
offended their foolish majesties.
Meantime the princess, after a long day*s jour-
ney, arrived at the palace, and walked up to the
sentry at the gate.
" Stand back," said the sentry.
" I wish to go in, if you please," said the princess
gently.
" Ha ! ha ! ha ! " laughed the sentry, for he was
one of those dull people who form their judgment
from a person's clothes, without even looking in his
eyes ; and as the princess happened to be in rags,
204 THE WISK WOMAN.
her request was amusing, and the booby thought
himself quite clever for laughing at her so
thoroughly.
*' I am the princess," Rosamond said quietly,
** What princess ? " bellowed the man.
*'The princess Rosamond. Is there another?*
she answered and asked.
But the man was so tickled at the wondrous idea
of a princess in rags, that he scarcely heard what
she said for laughing. As soon as he recovered a
little, he proceeded to chuck the princess under the
chin, saying —
"•YouVe a pretty girl, my dear, though you ain't
no princess."
Rosamond drew back with dignity.
" You have spoken three untruths at once," she
said. " I am not pretty, and I am a princess, and
if I were dear to you, as I ought to be, you would
not laugh at me because I am badly dressed, but
A PARABLE. 205
stand aside, and let me go to my father and
mother."
The tone of her speech, and the rebuke she gave
him, made the man look at her ; and looking at
her, he began to tremble inside his foolish body,
and wonder whether he might not have made a
mistake. He raised his hand in salute, and said —
" I beg your pardon, Miss, but I have express
orders to admit no child whatever within the palace
gates. They tell me his majesty the king says he
IS sick of children."
" He may well be sick of me ! " thought the prin-
cess ; " but it can't mean that he does not want me
home again. — I don't think you can very well call me
a child," she said, looking the sentry full in the face.
" You ain't very big. Miss," answered the soldier,
" but so be you say you ain't a child, I'll take the
risk. The king can only kill me, and a man must
die once."
i
206 THE WISE WOMAN.
He opened the gate, stepped aside, and allowed
her to pass. Had she lost her temper, as every one
but the wise woman would have expected of her,
he certainly would not have done so.
She ran into the palace, the door of which had
been left open by the porter when he followed the
soldiers and prisoners to the throne-room, and
bounded up the stairs to look for her father and
mother. As she passed the door of the throne-room
she heard an unusual noise in it, and running to
the king's private entrance, over which hung a
heavy curtain, she peeped past the edge of it, and
saw, to her amazement, the shepherd and shep-
herdess standing like culprits before the king and
queen, and the same moment heard the king say —
" Peasants, where is the princess Rosamond ? "
"Truly, sire, we do not know," answered the
shepherd.
" You ought to know," said the king.
A PARABLE. 207
" Sire, we could keep her no longer."
" You confess, then," said the king, suppressing
the outbreak of the wrath that boiled up in him,
" that you turned her out of your house ? "
For the king had been informed by a swift
messenger of all that had passed long before the
arrival of the prisoners.
" We did, sire ; but not only could we keep her
no longer, but we knew not that she was the
princess."
**You ought to have known, the moment you
cast your eyes upon her," said the king. "Any one
who does not know a princess the moment he sees
her, ought to have his eyes put out."
" Indeed he ought," said the queen.
To this they returned no answer, for they had
none ready.
"Why did you not bring her at once to the
palace," pursued the king, "whether you knew her
208 THE WISE WOMAN.
to be a princess or not ? My proclamation left
nothing to your judgment It said every child'*
** We heard nothing of the proclamation, sire."
" You ought to have heard," said the king. " It
IS enough that I make proclamations ; it is for you
to read them. Are they not written in letters of
gold upon the brazen gates of this palace ? "
"A poor shepherd, your majesty — ^how often
must he leave his flock, and go hundreds of miles
to look whether there may not be something in
letters of gold upon the brazen gates } We did not
know that your majesty had made a proclamation,
or even that the princess was lost."
" You ought to have known," said the king.
The shepherd held his peace.
" But," said the queen, taking up the word, " all
that is as nothing, when I think how you misused
the darling."
The only ground the queen had for saying this,
A PARABLE. 209
was what Agnes had told her as to how the princess
was dressed; and her condition seemed to the
queen so miserable, that she had imagined all sorts
of oppression and cruelty.
But this was more than the shepherdess, who
had not yet spoken, could bear.
" She would have been dead, and not buried, long
ago, madam, if I had not carried her home in my
two arms."
"Why does the woman say her two arms ? *' said
the king to himself. "Has she more than two?
Is there treason in that ?"
" You dressed her in cast-off clothes," said the
queen.
•' I dressed her in my own sweet child's Sunday
clothes. And this is what I get for it j " cried the
shepherdess, bursting into tears.
" And what did you do with the clothes you took
off her .> Sell them?"
2IO TllE WISE WOMAN.
"Put them in the fire, madam. They were. not
fit for the poorest child in the mountains. « They
were so ragged that you could see licr skin tlirpugh
them in twenty difTcrent places."
"You cruel woman, to torture a mother's feelings
so!" cried the queen, and in her .turn burst, into
tears.
"And I'm sure," sobbed the sh^pherdes?^ . " I
took every pains to teach her what it was right for
her to know. I taught her to tidy the house,,
and "
" Tidy the house ! " moaned the queen. " My
poor wretched offspring ! "
" And peel the potatoes, and —
»»
" Peel the potatoes ! " cried the queen, " Oh,,
horror ! "
" And black her master's boots," aaid the sfecp-
hcrdess.
" Elack her master's hoots ! " shrieked the queeru
A PARABLE. 2 1 1
" Oh, my whitG-handed princess ! Oh, my ruined
baby!"
" What I want to know," said the king, paying
no heed to this maternal duel, but patting the top
of his sceptre as if it had been the hilt of a sword
which he was about to draw, " is, where tlic princess
is now."
The shepherd made no answer, for he had nothing
to say more than he had said already.
"You have murdered her!" shouted the king.
** You shall be tortured till you confess the truth ;
and then you shall be tortured to death, for you
are the most abominable wretches in the whole
v.ide world."
" Who accuses me of crime .^" cried the shepherJ.,
indignant
" I accuse you," said the king ; " but you shall
see, face, to face, the chief witness to your villainy.
Ofiicer, bring the girl."
212 TH2 WISE WOMAN.
Silence filled the hall while they waited. The
king's face was swollen with anger. The queen hid
hers behind her handkerchief. The shepherd and
shepherdess bent their eyes on the ground, wonder-
ing. It was with difficulty Rosamond could keep
her place, but so wise had she already become that
she saw it would be far better to let everything
come out before she interfered.
At length the door opened, and in came the
officer, followed by Agnes, looking white as death,
and mean as sin.
"The shepherdess gave a shriek, and darted
towards her with arms spread wide ; the shepherd
followed, but not so eagerly,
"My child! my lost darling ! my Agnes!" cried
the shepherdess.
" Hold them asunder," shouted the king. "Here
is more villainy ! " What ! have I a scullery-maid
in my house born of such parents ? The parents
\
A PARABLE. 213
of such a child must be capable of anything. Take
all three of them to the rack. Stretch them till
their joints are torn asunder, and give them no
water. Away with them ! "
The soldiers approached to lay hands on them.
But, behold ! a girl, all in rags, with such a radiant
countenance that it was right lovely to see, darted
between, and careless of the royal presence, flung
herself upon the shepherdess, crying, —
"Do not touch her. She is my good, kind
mistress."
But the shepherdess could hear or see no one but
her Agnes, and pushed her away. Then the princess
turned, with the tears in her eyes, to the shepherd,
and thiew her arms about his neck and pulled
down his head and kissed him. And the tall shep-
herd lifted her to his bosom and kept her there,
but his eyes were fixed on his Agnes.
" What is the meaning of this } " cried the king,
214 THE WISE WOMAN.
Starting up from his throne. "How did that
ragged girl get in here ? Take her away with the
rest She is one of them, too."
But the princess made the shepherd set her
down, and before any one could interfere she had
run up the steps of the dais and then the steps
of the king s throne like a squirrel, flung herself
upon the king, and begun to smother him with
kisses.
All stood astonished, except the three peasants,
who did not even see what took place. The
shepherdess kept calling to her Agnes, but she was
so ashamed that she did not dare even lift her eyes
to meet her mother's, and the shepherd kept gazing
on her in silence. As for the king, he was so
breathless and aghast with astonishment, that he '
was too feeble to fling the ragged child from him
as he tried to do. But she left him, and running
down the steps of the one throne and up those of
A PARABLE. 21 5
the other, began kissing the queen next But the
queen cried out, —
" Get away, you great rude child ! — Will nobody
take her to the rack ? "
Then the princess, hardly knowing what she did
for joy that she had come in time, ran down the
steps of the throne and the dais, and placing herself
between the shepherd and shepherdess, took ^a hand
of each, and stood looking at the king and queen.
I
CHAPTER XV.
T^HEIR faces began to change. At last they
began to know her. But she was so altered — so
lovelily altered, that it was no wonder they should
not have known her at the first glance ; but it was
the fault of the pride and anger and injustice with
which their hearts were filled, that they did not
know her at the second.
The king gazed and the queen gazed, both half
risen from their thrones, and looking as if about to
tumble down upon her, if only they could be right
sure that the ragged girl was their own child. A
mistake would be such a dreadful thing !
A PARABLE. 21/
"My darling!" at last shrieked the mother, a
little doubtfully,
" My pet of pets ! " cried the father, with an
interrogative twist of tone.
Another moment, and they were half way down
the steps of the dais.
" Stop ! " said a voice of command from some-
where in the hall, and, king and queen as they
were, they stopped at once half way, then drew
themselves up, stared, and began to grow angry
again, but durst not go farther.
The wise woman was coming slowly up through
the crowd that filled the hall. Every one made
way for her. She came straight on until she stood
in front of the king and queen.
'* Miserable man and woman ! " she said, in
words they alone could hear, "I took your daughter
away when she was worthy of such parents ; I
bring her back, and they are unworthy of her.
i
2l8 THE WISE WOMAN.
That you did not know her when she came to you
IS a small wonder, for you have been blind in soul '
all your lives : now be blind in body until your
better eyes are unsealed."
She threw her cloak open. It fell to the ground,
and the radiance that flashed from her robe of
snowy whiteness, from her face of awful beauty,
arid from her eyes that shone like pools of sunlightV
smote them blind.
Rosamond saw them give a great start, shudder,
waver to and fro, then sit down on the steps of the
dais ; and she knew they were punished, but knew
not how. She rushed up to them, and catching a
hand of each, said —
" Father, dear father ! mother dear ! I will ask
the wise woman to forgive you."
" Oh, I am blind ! I am blind ! " they cried
together. " Dark as night ! Stone blind ! "
Rosamond left them, sprang down the steps, and
^
A PARABLE. 219
kneeling at her feet, cried, "Oh, my lovely wise
woman ! do let theni see. Do open their eyes,
dear, good, wise woman T'
The wise woman bent down to her, and said, so
that none else could hear, —
" I will one day. Meanwhile you must be their
servant, as I have been yours. Bring them to me,
and I will make them welcome."
Rosamond rose, went up the steps again to her
father and motlier, where they sat like statues with
closed eyes, half-way from the top of the dais where
stood their empty thrones, seated herself between
them, took a hand of each, and was still.
All this time very few in the room saw the wise
woman. The moment she threw off her cloak she
vanished from the sight of almost all who were
present. The woman who swept and dusted the
hall and brushed the thrones, saw her, and the
shepherd had a glimmering vision of her ; but no
/
220 THE WISE WOMAN.
one else that I know of caught a glimpse of her.
The shepherdess did not see her. Nor did Agnes,
but she felt her presence upon her like the heat of
a furnace seven times heated.
As soon as Rosamond had taken her place
between her father and mother, the wise woman
lifted her cloak from the floor, and threw it again
around her. Then everybody saw her, and Agnes
felt as if a soft dewy cloud had come between her
and the torrid rays of a vertical sun. The wise
woman turned to the shepherd and shepherdess.
" For you," she said, " you are sufficiently pun-
ished by the work of your own hands. Instead of
making your daughter obey you, you left her to be
a slave to herself; you coaxed when you ought
to have compelled ; you praised when you ought
to have been silent ; you fondled when you ought
to have punished ; you threatened when you ought
to have inflicted — and there she stands, the full-
A PARABLE. 221
grown result of your foolishness ! She is your
crime and your punishment. Take her home with
you, and live hour after hour with the pale-hearted
disgrace you call your daughter. What she ig, the
worm at her heart has begun to teach her. When
life is no longer endurable, come to me."
"Madam," said the shepherd, "may I not go
with you now ? "
"You shall," said the wise woman.
"Husband! husband!" cried the shepherdess,
*how are we two to get home without you ? "
" I will see to that," said the wise woman. " But
little of home you will find it until you have come
to me. The king carried you hither, and he shall
carry you back. But your husband shall not go
with you. He cannot now if he would."
The shepherdess looked, and saw that the shep-
herd stood in a deep sleep. She went to him and
sought to rouse him, but neither tongue nor hands
were of the slightest avail
/
222 THE WISF WOilAX.
The wise woman turned to Rosamond.
" My child," she said, " I shall never be far from
you. Come to me when you will. Bring them to
me.
Rosamond smiled and kissed her hand, but kept
her place by her parents. They also were now in
a deep sleep like the shepherd.
The wise woman too!: the shepherd by the hand,
and led him away.
" And that is all my double story. How double
it is, if you care to know, you must find out. If
you think it is not finished — I never knew a story
that was. I could tell you a great deal more
concerning them all, but I have already told more
than is good for those who road but with their
foreheads, and enough for those whom it has made
look a little solemn, and sigh as they v:lo.se the
book.
i
214 THE WISE WOMAX.
Starting up from his throne. "How did that
ragged girl get in here ? Take her away with the
rest She is one of them, too."
But the princess made the shepherd set her
down, and before any one could interfere she had
run up the steps of the dais and then the steps
of the king s throne like a squirrel, flung herself
upon the king, and beg^n to smother him with
kisses.
All stood astonished, except the three peasants,
who did not even see what took place. The
shepherdess kept calling to her Agnes, but she was
so ashamed that she did not dare even lift her eyes
to meet her mother's, and the shepherd kept gazing
on her in silence. As for the king, he was so
breathless and aghast with astonishment, that he '
was too feeble to fling the ragged child from him
as he tried to do. But she left him, and running
down the steps of the one throne and up those of
A PARABLE. 2I5
the Other, began kissing the queen next. But the
queen cried out, —
" Get away, you great rude child ! — Will nobody
take her to the rack ? "
Then the princess, hardly knowing what she did
for joy that she had come in time, ran down the
steps of the throne and the dais, and placing herself
between the shepherd and shepherdess, took 'a hand
of each, and stood looking at the king and queen.
CHAPTER XV.
T^HEIR faces began to change. At last they
began to know her. But she was so altered — so
lovelily altered, that it was no wonder they should
not have known her at the first glance ; but it was
the fault of the pride and anger and injustice with
which their hearts were filled, that they did not
know her at the second.
The king gazed and the queen gazed, both half
risen from their thrones, and looking as if about to
tumble down upon her, if only they could be right
sure that the ragged girl was their own child. A
mistake would be such a dreadful thing !
A PARABLE. 21/
"My darling!" at last shrieked the mother, a
little doubtfully.
" My pet of pets ! " cried the father, with an
interrogative twist of tone.
Another moment, and they were half way down
the steps of the dais.
" Stop ! " said a voice of command from some-
where in the hall, and, king and queen as they
were, they stopped at once half way, then drew
themselves up, stared, and began to grow angry
again, but durst not go farther.
The wise woman was coming slowly up through
the crowd that filled the hall. Every one made
way for her. She came straight on until she stood
in front of the king and queen.
" Miserable man and woman ! " she said, in
words they alone could hear, "I took your daughter
away when she was worthy of such parents ; I
bring her back, and they are unworthy of her.
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