Transcriber's Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

THE JUVENILE

Englishman’s Library.

II.

“Not so Master Marmozet, sweet little boy,

Mrs. Danglecub’s hope, her delight, and her joy.

* * * * *

His jacket’s well laced, and the ladies protest

Master Marmozet dances as well as the best;

Yet some think the boy would be better at school.”

Anstey.

THE
HOPE
OF THE
KATZEKOPFS;
OR, THE
SORROWS
OF
SELFISHNESS.
A Fairy Tale.

SECOND EDITION.

LONDON:

JOSEPH MASTERS.

JAMES BURNS.

1846.

· LONDON ·

PRINTED BY JOSEPH MASTERS,

ALDERSGATE STREET.

PREFACE.

The former edition of this little tale was put forth with an Introduction (which was intended to be in keeping with it) from the pen of an imaginary author,—that William Churne, of whom Bishop Corbet writes, and who, two centuries since, seems to have been the great authority on all matters connected with Fairy-land.

In this introduction, the object with which the “Hope of the Katzekopfs” was written was stated. It was an attempt, under the guise of a Fairy-tale, to lead young minds to a more wholesome train of thought than is commonly found at the present day in popular juvenile literature. The Author’s aim was to excite the sympathies of the young in behalf of others, and to set before them in its true colours the hideous sin of selfishness. And the book was put forth as an experiment, to ascertain whether the youth of the present generation had patience to glean the lessons which lurk beneath the surface of legendary tales, and the chronicles of the wild and supernatural; whether their hearts could be moved to noble and chivalrous feelings, and to shake off the hard, cold, calculating, worldly, selfish temper of the times, by being brought into more immediate contact with the ideal, the imaginary, and the romantic, than has been the fashion of late years,—whether, in short, a race that has been glutted with Peter Parley, and Penny Magazines, and such like stories of (so called) useful knowledge, would condescend to read a Fable and its Moral, and learn wisdom from a tale of enchantment.

The early call for a Second Edition seems to show that the experiment was not made in vain, and at the request of the Publisher, the Author appends his name.

FRANCIS E. PAGET.

Elford Rectory,

September, mdcccxlvi.

CONTENTS.

Introduction.

“‘A Fairy tale, by William Churne of Staffordshire!’ And who may he be? I am sure I never heard of him before.”

“Say you so, gentle Reader? Well, perhaps, after all, there is nothing very extraordinary in the fact that a man who was born some two hundred and fifty years ago should be forgotten. Well I wot that William Churne is not the only one who is in that predicament. And yet my name has had a better chance of being remembered than that of many of my cotemporaries, who, in their day, were more illustrious than ever I was; for it has been wedded, look you, to immortal verse. Doctor Corbet, Bishop of Norwich,—‘the wittie Bishop,’ as King James the First was wont to call him—conferred on me the title of Registrar-General to the Fairies. Have you never read his ‘Fairies’ Farewell’? They say, indeed, that his poems, like many better things, are little read now-a-days; but you will find it among the ballads collected by a congenial spirit (a prelate likewise), Bishop Percy of Dromore. His ‘Reliques of Ancient Poetry,’ you are surely conversant withal? But stay, I see you have forgotten the passage, which my vanity, perhaps, has preserved in my memory for so many years. Thus, then, Richard Corbet speaks of me in connection with those merry elves, whom he supposes to have taken their final farewell of that land, which, since their presence was withdrawn, has deserved the name of merry England no longer:—

‘Now, they have left our quarters;

A registrar they have,

Who can preserve their charters;

A man both wise and grave.

An hundred of their merry pranks

By one that I could name,

Are kept in store; con twenty thanks

To William for the same.

‘To William Churne, of Staffordshire,

Give laud and praises due,

Who, every meale, can mend your cheare

With tales both old and true;

To William all give audience,

And pray ye for his noddle,

For all the Fairies’ evidence

Were lost if it were addle.’

There, gentle reader, that was the way in which the Bishop-Poet spake of me. I warrant you, my cheeks tingle still as I repeat the lines.”

“Indeed? cheeks that blushed for the first time two centuries and a half ago, must, I should think, have nearly blushed their last by this time. I cannot read your riddle. You would not have us believe, would you, that a man who was born in the sixteenth century, was story-telling in the nineteenth? I fear you must be story-telling in more senses than one, or else that the event so much deprecated by the Bishop of Norwich, hath befallen you, and that the ‘noddle’ is ‘addle.’”

“Ah, gentle reader, is it even so? Can you think of no other solution of the difficulty? I fear me that you have a larger share of the unbelief of this dull, plodding, unimaginative, money-getting, money-loving nineteenth century, than of the humour, and simplicity, and romance of the seventeenth.”

“Come then, I will hazard a solution. What if the fairies, whose official you have admitted yourself to be, carried you off some moonlight night, two hundred years ago, and hid you for that space in their secret chambers, amid the recesses of the grassy hills?”

“Hush! hush! kind reader; speak not so loudly. You know not who may be listening. However, I do not say but that it may be even as you suppose. Perhaps, while time and change have worked their will on others, I have been exempted from their influence.”

“How? What? Can such things be? Dear Sir, how much I should like to make your acquaintance. Two hundred and fifty years old! Why, your face must be a wilderness of wrinkles! And your dress, how strange and antiquated must be its cut! Are you not greatly incommoded, as you walk the streets, by the curiosity of the populace?”

“Nay, my friend, if that which I have hinted be the case, it is more than probable that I have the secret of fern-seed, and walk invisible.”

“What changes you must find among us! What advances have been made since you went to Fairy-land!”

“Changes, indeed! and advances, too, for that matter! but whether on the right road is another question. However, of this I can assure you, gentle reader, that I would I were back again in Fairy-land. I see nothing here to tempt me to linger among you.”

“Then why do you linger?”

“I only wait to see if it be a hopeless task to speak to the youth of the rising generation, as I spake to their forefathers. I would fain learn whether it be possible to excite their sympathies in behalf of anything but themselves; whether they have yet patience to glean the lessons of wisdom, which lurk beneath the surface of legendary tales, and the chronicles of the wild and supernatural; whether their hearts can be moved to noble and chivalrous feelings, and to shake off the hard, cold, calculating, worldly, selfish temper of the times, by being brought into more immediate contact with the ideal, the imaginary, and the romantic, than has been the fashion of late years.”

“In plain English, then, good Master Churne, you desire to ascertain whether a race that has been glutted with Peter Parley and Penny Magazines, and such like stores of (so called) useful knowledge, will condescend to read a Fable and its moral, or to interest themselves with the grotesque nonsense, the palpable, fantastic absurdities, the utter impossibilities of a Tale of Enchantment?”

“Such is my object.”

“Well, we have lived to see a tunnel under the Thames, and they are talking of a canal across the isthmus of Darien. But your scheme is a wild one.”

“I do not think so.”

“And suppose you can find readers, is it your object to retail those ‘hundred merry pranks’ of Fairy-land, of which Bishop Corbet tells us that you are the depositary?”

“I shall be better able to answer your question, gentle reader, when I know how far your patience has carried you through the ensuing pages. Till then farewell.”

CHAPTER I.
The Heir and many Friends.

“This little one shall make it holy day.”

Shakespeare.

“Unheard and unespied,

Through keyholes we do glide;

Over tables, stools, and shelves;

We trip with our fairy elves.”

Poole’s English Parnassus.

CHAPTER I.

Never were such rejoicings heard of before as those which took place at the Court of King Katzekopf when it was announced that Queen Ninnilinda had got a little boy. It was what everybody had been wishing for, hoping for, expecting, year after year, but no little boy came; and so, at length, folks began to despair, and to settle it in their own minds that, whenever King Katzekopf died, the crown would go to his second cousin nine times removed, one of the Katzekopfs of Katzenellenbogen-Katzevervankotsdarsprakenluftschlosser, whom nobody knew or cared about.

So when Queen Ninnilinda had an heir, the nation almost went beside itself with joy. The church bells rang till they cracked; the guns of the citadel were fired till they grew so hot that they went off of themselves; oxen were roasted whole in the great square (my dear reader, never attempt to roast an ox whole, either on your own birthday, or on that of anybody else; the thing is an impossibility, half the meat is sure to be raw, and the other half burnt, and so good beef is spoiled); the two chief conduits of the city no longer poured forth water, but one spouted out cowslip-wine, and the other raspberry-vinegar; the lake in front of the palace was filled with small beer (this, however, was a failure, as it killed the fish, and folks said that the beer tasted muddy); an air-balloon hovered over the principal streets, and showered down carraway comfits and burnt almonds; Punch was exhibited all day for nothing; the prisons were all thrown open, and everybody paid the debts of everybody else.

Such being the state of things out of doors, you will readily believe that within the palace, the joy was of the most exuberant kind. Everything was in confusion; people ran up-stairs and down-stairs, jostling against one another, and always forgetting whither they were going, and for what they had been sent. Some were laughing, and some were crying, but the greater part were all talking at once, each making his own remarks, and nobody listening to his neighbour. The lords of the bed-chamber were laying wagers upon the likelihood of a new creation of peers; the maids of honour were discussing the probable colour of the infant prince’s eyes; the pages were speculating upon an increase of salary; nay, the very scullions were counting on a brevet for the kitchen.

But if all his court were thus in such a frenzy of pleasurable emotion, what must have been the condition of King Katzekopf himself? It must be confessed, that, in the main, his Majesty was one of those easy, indolent, careless sort of folks, who are content to let things take their own course, and who can very seldom be roused to make an exertion of any kind. But the birth of an heir had thrown even him into a state of excitement. Happily, he was a king, and so he had it in his power to give vent to his emotions in the manner which was most agreeable to him, for if such unwonted exhilaration had been pent up too long, there is no saying what the consequences might not have been. Fortunately, however, there was a safety-valve, through which he was enabled to let off the steaming overflow of his spirits.

So first he sent for the Yeoman of the Mouth, and bespoke a roast goose, with plenty of sage and onions, for his dinner; then he summoned the Master of the Robes, and ordered himself four new suits of clothes; then the head Confectioner was commanded to prepare materials for the manufacture of the largest christening-cake that the world had ever seen; and, lastly, he called together his Privy Council, and having created the new born infant Commander in Chief, and Lord High Admiral, Inspector General of everything and everybody, and settled on him the Crown revenues accruing from the sale of shrimps and periwinkles, his Majesty in a fervour of patriotism and paternal pride, rang the bell, and desired that the nurse, Mrs. Yellowlily, should bring the heir apparent into the Council-chamber.

Accordingly, in a few moments, the folding doors were thrown open, and nurse Yellowlily appeared with her precious charge swathed in a mantle of sky-blue taffety and silver, supported by two of the royal rockers.

“No indeed!” said the Lord Chancellor, dropping his mace and the great seal, and clasping his hands, as he fixed his eyes on the ceiling, “never was such a lovely infant seen!”

“Wait a moment, my Lord,” said nurse Yellowlily, “and you shall have a peep at his Royal Highness:”—for as yet the Chancellor had not beheld him.

With that she gently turned back the mantle, and the Privy Councillors crowded round her. “There, my Lord,” she exclaimed, “you can now see his blessed little nose.”

Everybody was delighted: it was the most exquisite nose ever beheld. The King was so gratified, that he instantly created the nurse a Baroness in her own right; upon which she curtsied three times, walked backwards till she trod upon the Lord Chamberlain’s gouty foot, and then retired with the rockers, who, as they proceeded down the corridor, chanted the softest of lullabies.

The Privy Councillors listened till the last faint echoes of the melody had died away, when King Katzekopf thus addressed them.

“My Lords,” said he, “I have called you together on the present auspicious occasion, for the purpose of making you acquainted with certain measures which I am about to take with reference to the Prince, my son. And first, my Lord Chamberlain, I have to announce to you my intention of giving a most magnificent fête on the occasion of his Royal Highness’s christening. You will be pleased to send out cards of invitation according to this list, which I believe contains the name of every person of reputation in the kingdom.”

Here his Majesty handed a book to the Lord Chamberlain, which that functionary received with reverence, and proceeded to inspect with great attention. Having turned over five or six pages, the Chamberlain suddenly nodded his head as if a thought had struck him. This was so uncommon an event that the Lord Steward of the Household immediately inquired in a whisper what it was that had attracted his attention. The Chamberlain pointed to the list of names, and said in an under tone, “Look through the A’s, my Lord, and see if there is not a very important name omitted.”

At this moment King Katzekopf’s attention was attracted by the whispering, and he graciously exclaimed, “Well, my Lords, what’s the matter?”

“I apprehend,” said the Chamberlain with becoming diffidence, “that your Majesty has caused these names to be written in alphabetical order.”

“Certainly, my Lord,” replied the King.

“I speak with all possible deference,” rejoined the Chamberlain, “but I presume that your Majesty did not intend that the Lady Abracadabra should be excluded from the invitations.”

“Humph,” said the King, “I never thought about her.”

“But she is your Majesty’s consort’s great aunt,” observed the Chamberlain.

“And a very powerful Fairy,” suggested the Steward of the Household.

“And, if I may say it without offence, rather capricious in her temper at times; at least she turned an acquaintance of mine into a tadpole,” remarked the Groom of the Stole.

“And your Majesty,” said the Keeper of the Records, interposing, “cannot have forgotten the very untoward event which took place in your Majesty’s family, some centuries ago, when all the misfortunes that occurred to your Majesty’s ancestress, the Sleeping Beauty, arose from her Fairy relative not being invited to the christening.”

King Katzekopf would have rather preferred the Lady Abracadabra’s room to her company, for he was very much afraid of the Fairies, but then, on the other hand, the bare thought of having the Hope of his House turned into a tadpole, or put to sleep in a castle in a wood for a hundred and fifty years, was most alarming. His Majesty grew red and pale alternately, shifted from one side of his throne to the other, and was evidently in a state of great anxiety.

“But how is the Lady Abracadabra to be found?” said he at length. “Who can tell where to look for her? One moment she may be a thousand miles off, and the next she may bob up through a crack in the floor, as if she had passed the night in the cellar.”

“He! he! he!” cried a shrill tiny voice in the distance, as though the owner of the said voice was greatly amused at something it had just heard.

“How the mice are squeaking behind the arras to-day!” exclaimed the King. “My Lord Chamberlain, you must send for a cat, and when she has caught the mice, we will set her to catch the Lady Abracadabra. Ha! ha! ha!” continued his Majesty, laughing at his own wit.

But the Keeper of the Records, who, from his study of the archives of the kingdom, knew better than most people what a dangerous thing it is to speak disrespectfully of the Fairies, and who was supposed to have acquired a smattering of the black art himself, immediately endeavoured to repress King Katzekopf’s laughter, by saying,—“So please you, my Liege, I apprehend that there would be little difficulty in sending an invitation to the Lady Abracadabra. If one of the Government messengers will bury it under a fairy-hill, next Wednesday morning, any time before noon, turning his face to the East, and calling her by her name three times....”

At this point the Keeper of the Records stopped short, for all of a sudden, a very strange sound was heard at the keyhole of the Council-chamber door, a scratching, rustling, noise, followed by a violent blast, such as might issue from the nozzle of a blacksmith’s bellows.

The President of the Council looked up to see what was the matter, but was immediately struck on the nose by a pellet of closely squeezed paper, which was immediately followed by another, and another, as the blowing at the keyhole was repeated. At length, when another blast had produced a shrill whistle, which showed that the aperture was clear, a little object, about the size of a hornet, darted through it, and increasing instantaneously in dimensions, presented the appearance of an old woman, some three feet high, by the time it had reached the floor.

Whether the Lady Abracadabra (for of course it was she) had been a beauty in the days of her youth, some eight or nine hundred years before, there is, at present, no means of ascertaining; but certainly, when she stood upon the floor of the Council-chamber, her appearance was anything but prepossessing. Perhaps, gentle reader, you have been in the habit of supposing that all the Fairies are dainty, little, airy beings, with butterfly wings, and vests of green and gold, who hide themselves in a blue-bell, and lose themselves among the petals of a peony. And such, no doubt, are the elves that live among the green hills, and who love to dance by moonlight, in the glades of the forest, or beside the pleasant water-courses. But there are others who mingle more with the human race, and adopt their habits, and hence, it may be, they become more subject to the changes which affect mortals. Perhaps this was the cause why the Lady Abracadabra’s face had become so brown, and shrunken, and covered with deep-set wrinkles; or perhaps it was the having had her own way so much; or those long journeys in which she travelled at the rate of a thousand miles a minute, might have spoiled her complexion; or perhaps, having arrived at (what even among the Fairies is allowed to be) a certain age, she could not help looking like an old woman. But be this as it may, she did look very old, and the effect of her short black velvet jacket, and yellow satin petticoat, did not mend matters. She wore on her head a tall, steeple-crowned hat, of the same material as her jacket; had high-heeled shoes with diamond buckles, and bore in her hand a pliant rod of ebony, with a small star of living light at each end of it.

It was evident that she was very angry, for she scowled at the Privy Councillors, stamped vehemently on the floor, and every muscle of her face quivered with passion, as she addressed the King.

“So, nephew! you are determined to keep me out of your palace at any rate, I see. Let who will come to court, I am to be excluded. There is always greater difficulty in getting into your house than anybody’s else.”

King Katzekopf stammered forth an apology, assured his kinswoman that he was delighted to see her, that he had just been speaking of sending her an invitation, and that he had given general orders that she should be admitted at all times.

“No such thing!” cried the little lady angrily. “You use me abominably. You know I always make it a rule to come through the keyhole, and there it is that you always try to stop me. Either I find a plate of metal over the opening, or else the key is left in the lock, and so my ruff gets crumpled to pieces. But the insult you have exposed me to to-day is intolerable: blocking up the passage with scraps of dirty paper, squeezed together by fingers of some greasy yeoman of the guard.—Oh it’s atrocious!” And the Lady Abracadabra shook her quilted petticoat as if she never should be clean again.

The King looked at his Ministers, and the Ministers looked at the King; but neither seemed to know how to excuse themselves. At length, the President of the Council, trembling exceedingly (for he expected to be changed into a tadpole, or some such reptile), ventured to assure the Lady, that he was the person in fault; for that, finding that the door-keeper had got into the habit of applying his ear to the keyhole of the Council-chamber, and fearing lest state-secrets should thus get wind prematurely, he had himself obstructed the passage in the manner already described.

“The varlet! the knave!” exclaimed the Fairy, as she heard of the door-keeper’s delinquency, “I’ve a great mind to hang him up by his ears to the vane of the church steeple. Go look for him, my Lord, and tell him from me, that if ever he puts his ear to a keyhole again, I’ll blow mushroom spawn into his brains, and cause his ears to vegetate, instead of to listen.”

Fairies, as all the world knows, are hasty and capricious; but it is only a very few who are spiteful and malignant. And to this class the Lady Abracadabra had never belonged. If she was angry one moment, she was pacified the next, and she much more frequently used her supernatural powers in acts of kindness, than to gratify her freaks of mischief.

It was so on the present occasion. After the little ebullition just recorded, she speedily recovered her equanimity. Her eyes no longer sparkled with passion, and so agreeable an expression came over her countenance, that nobody thought about her wrinkles, or the unbecomingness of her yellow petticoat.

“I was taking an airing on Mount Caucasus a quarter of an hour ago,” said she, “when one of our people told me of your good fortune; so here I came wind-speed to congratulate you, and to see if I could not find some lucky gifts for my great-great-nephew.”

King Katzekopf thanked her for her condescension, and immediately proposed to escort her to the royal nursery.

“Ha! ha! ha!” cried the Lady Abracadabra, almost choking with laughter at the absurdity of the suggestion. “You don’t suppose I came to talk to you before I had seen the baby, do you? Why, I’ve been sitting by his cradle these ten minutes!”

“You have?” exclaimed the King in astonishment.

“Aye, marry,” said the lady, “and have pulled the chair from under the Baroness Yellowlily, and, he! he! he! have given her such a bump. She was going to feed the child with pap that would have scalded it; but it will be cool enough, I warrant me, now, before she has done rubbing her bruised elbows. Well, nephew, and so you’re going to have a grand christening, are you? Who are to be sponsors besides myself?”

It had never entered into King Katzekopf’s imagination to ask the Lady Abracadabra to be godmother to the young prince. And now she had taken it as a matter of course, and it would never do to affront her! Was there ever such a distress? And what would Queen Ninnilinda say, and what would the Arch-duchess of Klopsteinhesseschloffengrozen say, when, after a direct invitation, she found an old Fairy was to be substituted in her place?

The King was so nervous and frightened that he did not know what to answer. He could only stammer out something about final arrangements being as yet undetermined.

“Well, but, at any rate, I suppose you have settled the child’s name,” continued the Lady Abracadabra, approaching the Council-table. “Hoity toity! what is this?” she added, snatching up one of his Majesty’s memoranda: “Conrad-Adalbert-Willibald-Lewis-Hildebrand-Victor-Sigismund-Belvidere-Narcissus-Adonis Katzekopf? I never heard such a string of silly, conceited names in my life. I shan’t allow it, I can tell you that,” and she stamped on the floor till her diamond buckles glanced like lightning. “If I am to have anything to do with the child, I shall give him what name I think proper. Stay; I’ve watched him for ten minutes, and can read his whole character, and a more wilful little brat I never saw. You shall call him Eigenwillig. There! that’s to be his name; Eigenwillig, and nothing else!”[^[1]]

[1]. It is mentioned in the Chronicle of Carivaldus of Cologne, from which this veracious tale has been extracted, that the word “Eigenwillig,” in the ancient Teutonic tongue, bears the meaning of Self-willed; a statement which is the more credible, since it has a corresponding signification in the modern language of Germany.

And then, not waiting for a reply, the Lady Abracadabra gathered her yellow satin habiliments round her, threw out her arms, brought them together above her head, sprung from the floor, shrunk up to nothing in a moment, and darted through the keyhole of the Council-chamber door.

CHAPTER II.
The Hunting of the Heir.

“You parents all that children have,

And you that have got none,

If you would keep them safe abroad,

Pray keep them safe at home.”

Nursery Rhyme.

CHAPTER II

And Eigenwillig he was called. There was no help for it. Even Queen Ninnilinda soon saw that. She flew into a violent passion, indeed, and called her husband an old goose, and told him that if he had as much sense in his whole body as a mite has in the tip of its tail, he would have contrived to have got rid of the Lady Abracadabra without affronting her.

“Shall I send her an excuse, my dear?” asked King Katzekopf meekly.

“Send her a fiddlestick!” cried the Queen indignantly, at the same time kicking over her footstool, and upsetting a basin of caudle, scalding hot, into her husband’s lap.—“How can you make such a ridiculous proposition? What but mischief can come of offending her? Will she not vent her spite on me, or the Arch-duchess? Or may not she make the poor dear baby a victim? May she not dart through the keyhole, and carry him off to Fairy-land, and substitute in his place some frightful, wide mouthed, squinting, red haired changeling, as much like your Majesty, and as little like me, as possible? Oh it is too vexatious, and ridiculous, and shocking, and foolish!”

And then Ninnilinda burst out a crying. But her Majesty’s tears and rages were so frequent that they had lost their effect. Nobody thought much about them; and besides, King Katzekopf was trying to take out the stains of the caudle, which had sadly damaged the appearance of the pea-green brocade that covered his knees.

So when her Majesty was tired of crying, she ceased: and, in the course of the afternoon, wrote a note to her “dearest Lady Abracadabra,” expressing the intensity of her satisfaction at the fact that her sweet baby had secured the protection of such an amiable and powerful patroness.

Then she sent for the Baroness Yellowlily, and told her that, as she had reason to fear that a malicious old Fairy was disposed to do the child a mischief, and, perhaps, carry him off altogether, she must immediately anoint him all over with an unguent, made of three black spiders, the gall of a brindled cat, the fat of a white hen, and the blood of a screech owl; and that his cradle must be watched night and day until after the christening. It was lucky for Queen Ninnilinda that the Lady Abracadabra wished nothing but well to the little prince, and knew nothing of these proceedings.

It is not necessary to fatigue the reader with the details of the fête, which was given a few weeks after the events which have just been recorded. There were firing of cannon, and ringing of bells, and beating of drums, and blowing of trumpets. And there were long processions of high officers of state, and nobles, and foreign ambassadors, dressed in gorgeous robes, and glittering with gold and jewels. And there was the arrival of the Fairy sponsor, in a coach made of a single pearl, and drawn by a matchless pair of white cockatrices from the mountains of Samarcand; and there was the flight of birds of Paradise that accompanied her, each bearing round its neck a chain of gold and diamonds, from which depended a casket, containing some costly offering for the Hope of the House of Katzekopf. And there was the Lady Abracadabra herself, no longer stamping the floor with anger, and wearing that frightful, unbecoming, ill-tempered dress of yellow and black, but arrayed in the most delicate fabrics of the fairy-loom, and bearing upon her shoulders a mantle of gossamer, spangled all over with dew-drops, sparkling with the colours of a hundred rainbows. No look of age or ill-nature had she. The refulgence of her veil had obliterated her wrinkles, and as she passed along the gallery of the palace, side by side with the Arch-duchess of Klopsteinhesseschloffengrozen, even Queen Ninnilinda herself was forced to confess that she looked very amiable, that her manners were exceedingly good, and that, on the whole, she was a captivating person,—when she chose it.

When the child was to be named, the Queen gave a supplicatory glance at her kinswoman, and gently whispered in an appealing tone, “Have you really any objection to the charming name originally proposed? Conrad-Adalbert-Willibald....”

But the Lady Abracadabra cut the catalogue short, with saying the word “Eigenwillig” in so decided a tone, that the prince was named Eigenwillig directly, and there was an end of the matter.

And then followed the royal banquet, and then a ball, and then the town was illuminated, and at midnight the fête terminated with a most magnificent display of fireworks.

Just, however, before the amusements of the evening were concluded, the old Fairy called her niece and the King into the royal closet, and thus addressed them: “Kinsmen mine,” said she, “I have shown you this day that I bear a most hearty good-will both to you and yours; and therefore if ye be wise,—which I think ye are not—you will listen to what I now say to you. You have got a fair son: for that you must thank Providence; and your son has got the fairest gifts that were to be found in all Fairy-land: for them you must thank me. But if, in spite of these gifts, your son turns out a wilful, disagreeable, selfish monkey, for that you will have to thank yourselves. Queen Ninnilinda, if ever I saw a mother that was likely to spoil a child, you are that person. King Katzekopf, if ever I saw a father who was likely to let his son lead him by the nose, you are that man. But attend to what I say,” continued the Fairy, with a look of great severity, “I don’t intend to have my godchild a selfish little brat, who shall be a bad man, and a bad king, and a bad son, whom everybody shall dislike, and whose faults shall be all attributed to his having a Fairy godmother. No: I have named the child according to his natural temper. I have called him Eigenwillig, because his disposition is to be self-willed. And of this it is fit that you should be reminded continually, even by his name, in order that you may discipline his mind, and make him the reverse of what he is now called. Poor child! he has everything around him to make him selfish. Let it be the object of your life, to make him unselfish. This is my injunction, and remember I have both the will and the power to enforce it. I am his godmother, and I am a Fairy besides, so I have a right to insist. And mark my words, I shall do my duty by the prince, let who will neglect theirs. I shall watch over him night and day, and shall be among you when least you expect me. If you manage him properly, you may expect my help; if you show yourselves unfit for the charge, I shall take the reins of discipline into my own hands; and if you then resist me ... but I will not allow myself to imagine that such infatuation and insanity were possible. Sweet niece, I must take my leave. May I trouble your Majesty to open the window. Kiss my godchild for me. Good night.”

As the Lady Abracadabra took her leave, there was a rustling of wings in the air, the chariot of pearl, with its attendant cockatrices, appeared on a level with the window: the Fairy sprung into her seat, and, preceded by a cloud of lantern flies, each insect sparkling with a different coloured flame, blue, or crimson, or violet, or green, and followed by myriads of elves, each crowned with asteroids of lambent light, she wended on her way to Fairy-land, her track through the sky being marked by a long train of sparks, whose dazzling brilliancy waxed fainter and fainter as she receded from earth, till it mingled with, and became lost in the pallid hues of the Milky Way.

It is needless to say that Queen Ninnilinda did not relish the parting admonitions of her Fairy kinswoman. First, she (being a Queen) did not like to submit to dictation; next, she persuaded herself that she had a full right to do as she pleased, and to spoil her own child as much as she liked; lastly, being rather timid, she felt very uncomfortable at the notion of being watched by a Fairy, and still more so at the possibility of incurring that Fairy’s vengeance. So, as usual, she vented all her anger on her husband, and then went to bed and sobbed herself to sleep. King Katzekopf was not easily disturbed; and the chronicles of the kingdom assure us that he slept as well as usual on the night after the fête; but upon awaking next morning he felt the necessity of something being done, and therefore called together once more his trusty councillors, who, after much grave discussion, determined that the best method of securing the further favour of the Lady Abracadabra would be, by immediately appointing proper instructors for the royal infant.

Accordingly, a commission was issued to inquire who would be the proper persons to undertake so responsible an office, and after a year and a half of diligent investigation, it was decided that the three cleverest women in the kingdom should be charged with the prince’s education until such time as he should exchange his petticoats for jacket and trousers. So the Lady Brigida was appointed to teach him how to feed himself, and to instruct him in Belles Lettres, and the —ologies: the Lady Rigida was to make him an adept in prudence and etiquette: while the Lady Frigida was directed to enlighten his mind on the science of political economy, and to teach him the art of governing the country.

But alas! nobody thought of appointing a preceptress, who should instruct him in the art of governing himself.

Meanwhile, Queen Ninnilinda, finding that her husband had become highly popular in consequence of the pains he was taking to have his heir properly educated, determined that she would do something which should set her own character in a favourable light as a wise and discreet mother. She, therefore, after much careful consideration, drew up the following rules for the nursery, which were immediately printed in an Extraordinary Gazette, and which were received with so much applause, that almost all the ladies in the kingdom adopted them immediately in their own families, and have, in fact, been guided by them ever since, even though they have not followed Queen Ninnilinda’s plan of having them framed and glazed.

RULES FOR THE NURSERY.

1. The Prince Eigenwillig is never to be contradicted; for contradiction is depressing to the spirits.

2. His Royal Highness is to have everything he cries for; else he will grow peevish and discontented.

3. He is to be allowed to eat and drink when, what, and as much he pleases; hunger being a call of nature, and whatever nature dictates is natural.

4. His Royal Highness is to be dissuaded from speaking to any one below the rank of Baron; as it is highly desirable that he should acquire a proper pride.

5. It is to be impressed upon the Prince’s mind continually that he is an object of the first consequence, and that his first duty is to take good care of himself.

Such being the plan laid down for Prince Eigenwillig’s education, it is not to be wondered at that, by the time he was two years old, he had a very fair notion of the drift of his mother’s rules, and that they found great favour in his eyes; insomuch that at three, when the Ladies Brigida, Frigida, and Rigida commenced the task of tuition, he contrived to inspire them with the notion that their office, for the present, at least, was likely to be a sinecure. He even resisted the efforts which the Lady Brigida made to induce him to feed himself with a fork and a spoon, and adhered upon principle to the use of his fingers, lest, by yielding the point, he should seem to allow himself to be contradicted.

At four years old the precocity of his talents had greatly developed themselves. He had mingled mustard with the Lady Frigida’s chocolate; he had pulled the chair from under his father, just as the King was about to sit down, whereby his Majesty got a tumble, and the Prince got his ears boxed; he had killed nurse Yellowlily’s cockatoo by endeavouring to ascertain whether it was as fond of stewed mushrooms as he was himself, and he had even gone the length of singing in her presence, and of course in allusion to her bereavement,

“Dame what made your ducks to die?

Ducks to die? ducks to die? ducks to die?

Eating o’ polly-wigs! Eating o’ polly-wigs.”

But if the truth must be told, the prince had acquired by this time many worse habits than that of mischief. And these had their origin in his being permitted to have his own way in everything. For, indeed, it might be said, that this spoilt child was the person who ruled the entire kingdom. The prince ruled his nurse, and his three instructresses; they ruled the Queen; the Queen ruled the King; the King ruled his Ministers; and the Ministers ruled the country.

O Lady Abracadabra, Lady Abracadabra, how could you allow things to come to such a pass? You must have known right well that Queen Ninnilinda was very silly; and that King Katzekopf was one of those folks who are too indolent to exert themselves about anything which is likely to be troublesome or unpleasant; and you must have been quite sure that the nurses and governesses were all going the wrong way to work; you must have foreseen that at the end of four years of mismanagement the poor child would be a torment to himself and to everybody else. Why did you not interfere?

This is a hard question to answer; but perhaps the Lady Abracadabra’s object was to convince both parties of this fact by actual experience, as being aware that in such experience lay the best hope of a remedy.

A torment, however, the child was; there could be no mistake about that. Though he had everything he asked for, nothing seemed to satisfy him; if he was pleased one moment, he was peevish the next: he grew daily more and more fractious, and ill-humoured, and proud, and greedy, and self-willed, and obstinate. It is very shocking to think of so young a child having even the seeds of such evil tempers; but how could it be otherwise, when he was taught to think only of himself, and when he was allowed to have his own way in all things? Unhappy child! yet happy in this, that he was likely to find out for himself that, in spite of having all he wished for, he was unhappy! Unhappy parents! yet happy in this, that, if so disposed, they might learn wisdom, from the obvious failure of their foolish system of weak indulgence!

Prince Eigenwillig had nearly completed his fifth year, when, one day that the Lady Rigida was endeavouring to explain to his Royal Highness her cleverest theory on the subject of the Hyscos, or Shepherd Kings (he, meanwhile, being intently absorbed in a game of bilboquet), a Lord of the Bedchamber entered the apartment, and announced that the Queen desired the Prince’s presence in her boudoir.

“Ha!” exclaimed the little boy, with a start of pleasure and surprise, as he entered the apartment, “what a beautiful creature you’ve got in that cage. Whose is it? I should like to have it.”

“Well, my sweet pet,” replied his mother, “so you shall, if you wish for it.”

“Of course I do,” said the Prince; “what a sleek gray coat! what strange, orange-coloured eyes! what curious rings of black and white fur on its tail! What is it?”

“It is a ring-tailed macauco, love,” answered the Queen, “your papa has just made me a present of it. I don’t know how much money he gave for it.”

“Well, mamma, it’s mine now; that’s one comfort,” observed the Prince. “Let it out,” continued he, addressing the Lord of the Bedchamber.

“I am afraid, sir,” replied Baron Puffendorf, “that it might do mischief. I believe it isn’t tamed yet.”

“Oh, we’ll tame it, then,” replied the Prince; “call Lady Rigida; she’ll tame it directly, I’m sure. Lady Rigida, here’s a monkey wants taming; talk to it about the shepherd kings, will you?”

The Lady Rigida drew up with offended dignity.

“Ha! ha! my good Rigida,” said the Queen, laughing, “you mustn’t be angry with these sallies of wit. What a clever child it is!”

“Is nobody going to open the door of the cage?” asked the boy impatiently. “I want to see the creature loose.”

“Oh, my sweet child, leave it where it is. You’ll frighten me to death, if you let it out,” cried the Queen in alarm.

The Prince immediately threw himself down on the floor, and began to roar.

“Don’t cry, there’s a love,” said his wise mother, soothingly, “and the Baron shall see if he can’t hold it while you look at it. Wrap your handkerchief round your hand, Baron; it won’t bite, I’m sure.”

The Baron did as he was bid, and, in considerable trepidation, opened the door of the cage, and made an effort to seize the macauco. The animal immediately darted at his hand, bit it with all its strength, and dashed out of the cage in an instant. “Sess! sess! sess!” cried Prince Eigenwillig, springing up from the floor, and clapping his hands. “Now for a chase! Sess! macauco! Hie at them! Good monkey! Bite Rigida! Bite Puffendorf!”

Away ran the instructress, away ran the Lord of the Bedchamber, and after them pursued the macauco round and round the room, now biting at the Baron’s heels, and now at the Lady Rigida’s; while the Queen ran screaming out of the apartment, and the author of all the mischief stood in the midst, laughing with all his might. In another moment, the agile monkey had scrambled up the Lady Rigida’s back, and, having half strangled her in its attempts to tear off her head-dress, took a flying leap to the top of a cabinet, whence, having dashed down a most precious vase of rose-coloured chrystal, it proceeded to tear the cap to tatters.

But Prince Eigenwillig was too highly delighted with the more active freaks of the animal, and too much pleased at the opportunity of terrifying and tormenting the Lady Rigida, to allow it to remain long at the top of the cabinet. So snatching up a book which lay on a table beside him, he threw it at the macauco for the purpose of dislodging it.

And therein he succeeded, but at a cost which by no means entered into his calculations, for the animal, irritated by the blow, now turned on the naughty boy, and springing on his shoulders, laid hold of one of his ears with his teeth.

It was now the Prince’s turn to scream, and the more he screamed and struggled, the more the macauco bit him, and the child would soon have fainted with fright and pain; but, just at the critical moment, when he had fallen to the ground, the sound of many voices was heard outside the door, which was immediately flung open, and, together with a number of members of the household, in rushed a great black mastiff, which immediately flew at the monkey, who, thereupon, quitted its hold of the Prince’s ear, and retreated to its cage.

The whole palace was by this time in confusion; messengers were rushing in all directions for surgeons and physicians; and even King Katzekopf, who had now grown so fat, that he never left his arm-chair when he could help it, ran up-stairs, three steps at a time, to know what was the matter.

“Ah!” exclaimed the Lord Chamberlain, as soon as he had recovered sufficient presence of mind to shake his head. “Ah,” quoth he.

“Yea, forsooth!” replied the Chancellor, with the air of one who could say a great deal if he chose.

The Arch-Treasurer of the Empire, who never spoke at all, if he could help it, and who never allowed his countenance to indulge itself in any particular expression, shrugged his shoulders slightly, but with what particular intention no one ventured to imagine.

The old ladies of the household (including his grace the Keeper of the Records) were, however, by no means so prudent or taciturn.

“I knew how it would be!” cried one.

“I always guessed as much,” rejoined another.

“I anticipated it from the first,” ejaculated the third.

“This comes of Fairy-godmothers,” groaned forth he of the Records.

“No doubt, it is some malicious prank of hers!” said Nurse Yellowlily, with a shudder.

“I shouldn’t be surprised if henceforth the poor child were possessed,” added the first speaker.

“Or squinting and blear-eyed,” continued the second.

“Or if his ears mortified, and turned into pigs’ feet!” sobbed out the third.

“Oh, too true! too true!” exclaimed the Queen. “I see it all. Unhappy mother that I am! All the poor child’s misfortunes, past, present, and to come, are owing to my peevish, spiteful, malicious, capricious, old, ugly witch of an aunt, Lady Abracadabra! Oh, that I had been turned into a tadpole, and the Grand Duchess of Klopsteinhesseschloffengrozen had been the only sponsor!”

It was a long while before anything like tranquillity was restored; but when the King and the Queen had been assured by the medical attendants that the Prince’s wound was by no means serious, and the child himself had ceased screaming, and the macauco had been hanged, the black mastiff began to attract attention.

“Whose dog is it?” asked one.

“Where did it come from?” said another.

But nobody could answer the question. At this moment the King called the hound to him, for the purpose of patting it. The mastiff approached, and laid its heavy fore-paws on the royal knee, and looked very wisely at the King; and then his Majesty looked as wisely as ever he could (how could he do less?) at the dog. But what was the King’s amazement, when, all of a sudden, he perceived the tan portion of the glossy hide changing into a yellow satin petticoat, and the black part into a black velvet jacket; the canine features resolving themselves into a human countenance; the fore-paws becoming hands, and hind-paws a woman’s feet, enveloped in high-heeled shoes fastened with diamond buckles?

It was even so. The Lady Abracadabra stood before him, not, however, as when he last beheld her, all smiles and affability, but stern, grave, and angry. Her eyes gleamed like coals of fire, her wrinkles were deeper than ever, and gave her face a most harsh and severe expression,—nay, her black jacket had acquired a most ominous sort of intensity, and the yellow petticoat seemed shot with a lurid flame-colour.

“So!” said she, “you have not only disobeyed all my injunctions, neglected my advice, and thwarted all my benevolent intentions, but now, when you are reaping the fruit of your misconduct, you have audacity enough to charge me with being the cause of it!”

King Katzekopf declared that he had never suspected her ladyship of anything but good will towards the prince; and had never attributed to her agency the mishaps of a spoilt boy.

“Spoilt boy!” she exclaimed with indignation, “and how comes he to be spoilt? Yes,” she continued with increasing vehemence, “who has spoilt him? What is it that makes everybody dislike him? What makes him a plague and a torment to himself and everybody else? Why is he impatient, and greedy, and wilful, and ill-tempered, and selfish? Is it not because Queen Ninnilinda encourages him in all these vices, and because King Katzekopf, though he knows that everything is going wrong, is too lazy and indolent to interfere and set them right? You are neither of you fit to be trusted with your own child. You are doing all you can to make him wicked and miserable, a bad man, and a bad king.”

“I’m sure there’s not a child in the kingdom that has such pains taken with him,” replied the Queen angrily. “He has instructors in all the different branches of useful knowledge, and if he is a little mischievous, or self-willed at times, are not all children so?”

“Niece, niece,” replied the Fairy, “you speak like a fool. What good is there in knowledge, unless a right use be made of it? And how is he likely to make a right use of it, if he be mischievous and self-willed? And how can you expect him to be otherwise than mischievous and self-willed, if you encourage, instead of checking, his propensities that way?”

“I’m sure I cannot check his propensities,” retorted Ninnilinda in a huff.

“I never thought you could,” said Lady Abracadabra quietly, “for you have not yet learned to control your own temper.”

The Queen coloured and bit her lip.

“I wish, kinswoman,” said the King in a conciliating tone, “since you thought the Prince was being so ill brought up, that you would have told us so a little sooner?”

“And where would have been the good of that? You know very well that you would not have listened to me. Nay, I don’t believe that you will listen to me now. No, no, when I promised to befriend your child, I ought to have taken the matter into my own hands at once, and carried him off to Fairy-land, and superintended his education there.”

When the Queen heard these words, she trembled from head to foot, and threw herself on her knees before her aunt, exclaiming—“Nay, Lady Abracadabra, anything but that! anything but that! I know your power, but oh! as you are powerful, be merciful likewise, and do not take my child from me!”

The Fairy saw that Queen Ninnilinda was now in a disposition to submit to any conditions which might be imposed upon her, and therefore she answered her kindly:

“I do not want to separate you from your child, if only you will do your duty by him.”

“I will do anything you desire, aunt!”

“Teach him not to be selfish, then!” replied the Lady Abracadabra. “If you really are in earnest, I will give you one more trial; but remember it is the last.”

The Queen grew more frightened than ever, for she felt as if she were a fly in a spider’s web; that the Lady Abracadabra was spreading toils for her, and that the little Eigenwillig was already as good as lost to her.

“But how can I teach him not to be selfish?” she asked at length.

“By making him consider others as much as himself; by teaching him to bear contradiction, and to yield up his own wishes and inclinations; and by letting him associate with his equals.”

“You forget he is a prince, Lady,” replied the Queen proudly.

“No, I do not,” answered the Fairy. “A prince may have his equals in age, I suppose, if not in rank.”

“Ah! Lady Abracadabra!” cried King Katzekopf. “I believe you have hit the right nail on the head. I’ve often wished the boy could have had somebody to play with,—somebody who would set him a good example, and would not flatter him, as these courtiers do.”

“Suppose I could find such a companion for him,” said the Fairy, “would you befriend him, and treat him as you do your own child?”

“Gladly will I,” answered the King. The Queen could not bring herself to say that she would do it gladly, but she submitted with as good a grace as she could.

“Well then,” said the Lady Abracadabra, “upon those terms I will give you a fresh trial. I know a fair, gentle boy, whose temper and disposition the Prince will do well to imitate. His father, foolish man! is anxious to get him a place at court,—little knowing what he desires for him. Methinks it would be well that he should see the experiment tried. It may be of benefit to both parties. So I shall set about it at once.”

And thereupon the Lady Abracadabra gradually faded away, or at any rate seemed to do so, till she wholly disappeared.

CHAPTER III.
Another Heir Started.

“More swift than lightning can I flye

About this aery welkin soone,

And in a minute’s space descrye

Each thing that’s done below the moone.”

Ben Jonson.

CHAPTER III.

Many and many a mile from King Katzekopf’s Court,—in a valley among those Giant Mountains, which separated his territories from the neighbouring kingdoms, stood the Castle of Taubennest, in which, at the date of our tale, dwelt Count Rudolf and his family.

And a happy family they were, all except the Count, who was a discontented man. He had spent his youth in cities, and so the country had no charms for him. He was ambitious, and a time-server. He was never so happy as among great people, and he longed to meddle with the intrigues of state, and to be talked of as among the eminent men of the kingdom.

He was a very poor man when the Castle and its broad lands were bequeathed him by a distant relation, and so he was glad enough to take possession of them, even though he found the bequest coupled with the condition that he should live on his domains continually.

Now if, on acquiring this property, the Count had set himself in earnest to the discharge of the duties for which the possession of that property rendered him responsible,—if he had turned his talents to bettering the condition of his vassals, improving his estates, and benefiting his neighbourhood generally, he would not only have spent his days happily, but would, in all probability, have arrived at the object of his desires, and acquired an illustrious name. But instead of this, he spent his years in murmurs and repinings; now railing at the blindness of Fortune, who had condemned one of his genius for rising in the world to a sphere of inactivity, now complaining that he was imprisoned for life amid the mountains. What a sad thing it is, when people neglect their present duties, for no wiser reason than because they choose to imagine that if their duties were of some different kind, they could discharge them better! Our trial in life consists in our being required to do our best in whatever circumstances we are placed. If we were to choose those circumstances for ourselves, there would be an end of the trial, and the main object for which life is given us would be lost.

Happily for her children and dependents, the character of the Countess Ermengarde was a complete contrast to that of her husband. She was one of those people who seem only to find happiness in doing good to those around them. Had her destiny placed her in the midst of a court, she would have added to its dignity and honour by the lustre of her example. But that example was not lost because her days were spent in comparative seclusion. The Castle of Taubennest was at a great distance from the metropolis, but it did not rear its head in a solitary desert. And the Countess, as she stood on the stone platform, which opened out of her withdrawing room, and led to the garden below, and gazed at the wide and fertile valley which lay stretched before her, could count hamlet after hamlet, the inhabitants of which were tenants to her husband, and over whom, therefore, she felt that it was in her power to exercise an influence for good. But the Countess Ermengarde had yet dearer ties, to whom she well knew that all her care and tenderness were due. There were her two little girls, Ediltrudis and Veronica, and her son, a boy of seven years old, the gentle, yet noble-spirited Witikind. In educating these her treasures, disciplining their youthful minds, and training them for the duties and trials of active life, the greater part of her time was spent, and so fully absorbed was she in this labour of love, that never an hour hung heavy on her hands, and not days only, but months and years seemed to glide on without her having a wish or a thought beyond her children, and the vassals of her husband’s house.

“What a happy family should we be!” exclaimed the Count, as, in spite of himself, he stood enjoying the evening breeze, and watching his lovely children in their play, “What a happy family we should be, my Ermengarde, if we were not condemned to wear out our existence in this dull wilderness!”

“I would you were in any place that could bring you a greater measure of enjoyment than you find here, my dearest Rudolf,” replied the Countess, soothingly, “and yet, methinks, our lot might have been cast in a less fair scene than this. What if the setting sun, instead of throwing its rosy lustre on yonder mountain peaks, and illumining with its declining rays those verdant meadows, through which our glassy river flows, and the fields yellow with the ripening corn, and the purple vineyards, and the deep umbrageous forest, were to light up for us no more joyous scene than a desert of interminable sand? What if, instead of looking forth, and seeing nothing so far as eye can reach which does not call you master, we were landless, houseless wanderers, without bread to eat, or a roof to cover us, should we not have less to be thankful for, than is the case now?”

“Doubtless,” answered the Count; but he made the reply impatiently, and as if his wife were putting the matter before him in an unfair point of view. Without being the least aware of it, he was unthankful for all the blessings which he actually possessed, because a single ingredient which he supposed necessary to fill up his cup of happiness was wanting. So long as he had not that, all else went for nothing. “Doubtless,” said the Count; “but, say what you will, this place will never be any better than a wilderness in my eyes. Is it possible to conceive a more monotonous life than I pass? nothing to interest one, not a soul within twenty miles that one cares to speak to!”

The Countess smiled. “Nay, nay, Rudolf,” she cried gaily, “you shall not persuade me that the children and I do not make very agreeable society!”

“The children! there again! what a distressing subject is that! Poor things, they will not have common justice done them! They have not a chance of getting on in the world.”

“For my part,” replied the Countess, “I don’t see what is the necessity for their ‘getting on in the world.’ They will do very well as they are.”

“How can you talk such nonsense as that, Ermengarde?” exclaimed the Count in a tone of pique. “Why, what is to become of the girls, when they grow up to womanhood?”

“Oh,” answered the Countess, “we need scarcely make that a cause of anxiety at present. Years must elapse before they will be women, and when they are grown up, I don’t know why they may not become the wives of honest men, or why they may not find happiness in a single life, if they prefer it.”

“Really, Ermengarde, you sometimes provoke one past all patience. ‘Wives of honest men,’ forsooth! I believe you would be satisfied if you could see them making cheese on the next farm, or wedded to the huntsman, or the woodreve. You forget,” added he proudly, “that their birth entitles them to some splendid connexion, and less than a splendid connexion shall never satisfy me.”

“Why, what is it that you covet for them?”

“That they should see something of courts and cities, instead of being immured in this mountain-dungeon; that they should take that place in the world to which their rank entitles them, and that they should be followed by a host of admirers, and that their cotemporaries should have cause to envy their good fortune. Yes,” continued he, warming with his subject, and falling unconsciously into one of those day-dreams in which he was continually indulging, “I should like to waken and find myself at the court, with Ediltrudis at my side, the admired of all beholders, princes and peers struggling to obtain the honour of her hand, while I, with watchful eyes, would be ascertaining which of her many suitors it would be most prudent to encourage, and which to reject. Can you conceive anything more interesting, more delightful to a parent’s feelings?”

“Yes, indeed, my Lord,” replied the Lady Ermengarde, “to me it would afford more satisfaction, if I were permitted to see my child growing up to maturity, unspotted by the world, and saved from exposure to its poisonous breath, and from the temptation to yield to its evil influences. I would rather see her innocent and happy here, than the star and favourite of a court.”

Had Count Rudolf listened to this speech it would have probably made him very angry, but he was too much occupied with his castles in the air to attend to it.

“And then my pretty little Veronica,” he continued, “your career shall be no less brilliant than your sister’s. Come hither,” said he, calling the child, “and tell us what destiny you would choose. Would you not like to be a Maid of Honour to the Queen, and to be glittering with silks and jewels, and to live in a royal palace, and to spend your time in all manner of pleasures?”

The little girl seemed puzzled, and did not answer immediately. After a pause she said, “Must I leave Taubennest, if I were to be Maid of Honour to the Queen?”

“Yes, my child, that must you, for where the King lives is many a mile from Taubennest.”

“Nay, then, dear father, I would rather be where I am. I should like to see the royal palace, and all the things you mention, but I should prefer to live here. Ah! we never could be so happy as we are here, could we, Witikind? We never could find such pretty walks as we have here among the hills, nor play such merry games in a palace, as now we do in the meadows by the river side. And besides, I dare say I should not be allowed to take my kid with me, nor my birds, nor perhaps,” added the child in a tone of dismay,—her eyes brimming with tears as the thought occurred to her—“perhaps you, and Ediltrudis, and nurse, and papa, and mamma might not be with me. Oh, no, no; I would rather stay where I am; would not you, Witikind?”

“Why, what folly!” exclaimed Count Rudolf, interposing. “Even you, Veronica, must be old enough to know that a boy cannot pass through life beside his nurse’s apron-string. Witikind must see the world, and learn to be bold and manly.”

“Can I not be bold and manly, father, unless I see the world?” asked the boy rather timidly.

“No, to be sure not!” answered the Count.

“Well then of course I must go,” replied Witikind with a sigh. “But I never can be so happy elsewhere as I am here.”

“Pooh! you are but a child;” rejoined his father, “you don’t know what real happiness is.”

“Did you find real happiness, father, in living among courts and cities?”

“Certainly, I did,” said the Count; and then, after some hesitation he added, “At least I should have found it, if I had not been a poor man, as I was in those days. Ah! what would I have given for such advantages as you have, my boy?”

“Is it possible that there can be so much pleasure to be found away from home and friends?” asked Witikind, still somewhat doubtfully, and looking up with anxiety at the expression of sadness which seemed to spread itself over his mother’s face.

“Possible, Witikind? I would I had the opportunity of enabling you to make the experiment this very moment! How I should like to see you a Page of Honour to the King, It would make a man of you at once.”

Witikind thought it would be a very fine thing to be made a man of at once, and his heart was more inclined to a change than it had yet been. “And I suppose then, father, I should ride a horse instead of a pony, and wear a sword, and be treated by every body as if I were a man.”

“Of course, you would,” replied the Count,—“at least, in a very short time.”

“Then, father, I do think that I should like to go and live at court.”—The Count kissed the boy and withdrew.

It is a very well known, but at the same time a most remarkable circumstance in the natural history of Fairies, that they are not only sure to be found in the most unexpected places, but they are certain to arrive in the very nick of time, for the purpose of overhearing some conversation which was never intended for their ears, but which they never fail to turn to account in some manner for which the speakers are wholly unprepared. It was so on the present occasion.

Our friend, the Lady Abracadabra, who had been paying a visit to some old acquaintances among the Gnomes who inhabited the silver mines in the mountains, in the immediate vicinity of Count Rudolf’s castle, had heard from her subterranean hosts such an interesting account of the goodness and benevolence of Countess Ermengarde, that she had resolved to introduce herself to her. And as she had been led to believe that to be poor, or afflicted, was a ready passport to that lady’s presence, she assumed the garb and appearance of a lame beggar-woman, and in this disguise entered the domain of Taubennest, and approached the castle. No gate was closed against her, no insolent, pampered menial thrust her from the door. The Countess had long since forbidden her servants to turn away one who sought relief at her hands. “We have enough for all,” she was wont to say, “and, therefore, if we give not according to our ability, we may expect that the ability to give, will be taken away from us. If we do not make a good use of our money; our money is like to make itself wings, and fly elsewhere.”

Of course where so much was given, there must have been some unworthy recipients of her bounty. And when this was urged upon her by some of her less liberal friends, she made no attempt to deny the probability of the assertion; “but,” said she, “I would rather bestow my alms on a hundred unworthy recipients, than miss an opportunity of aiding one poor creature who needed my bounty.”

And so the weary traveller, and the needy applicant, were under no fears of being repulsed when they approached the portals of Taubennest, and thus it happened that the Lady Abracadabra wandered forward unobserved, or, if observed, unchecked, until she came close to the platform on which the conversation which has been recorded, took place.

“And so you would like to see the court, would you, my pretty master?” said she, as soon as little Witikind had expressed his wish on the subject.

The boy started at the sudden inquiry, “What is it you want, good mother?” he asked after a little hesitation.

“Nay,” replied the Fairy, “I have expressed no want. I desire to learn what it is that you want?”

“Oh! I want some good Fairy to carry me over hill and dale to the court of King Katzekopf.”

“Are you quite sure of that?” asked the lame woman.

“Aye marry, am I,” replied the boy, laughing. “Will you show me the way to Fairy-land?”

“May be I will, and may be I won’t,” answered the Fairy. “I must first see what metal you are made of. Will you go with me to court?”

“I shouldn’t like your pace, mother,” said Witikind. “I should never get there, if I kept by the side of your crutches.”

“Don’t be too sure of that,” rejoined the beggar. “There’s many a worse hobbyhorse than my crutch. Can you ride, sir boy?”

“To be sure I can,” replied Witikind, “I were fit for little, if I could not.”

“Then let me see how you can sit this nag of mine,” said the Fairy; and seating herself sideways on one crutch, she waved the other; when, in an instant, that on which she was seated became a living cockatrice, which mounted up into the air with its burden, and, after three or four circumvolutions, descended on the platform, to which allusion has been made, and then stood still; while the Lady Abracadabra, no longer disguised as a beggar-woman, but wearing her usual Fairy garb, dismounted and approached the astonished Countess and her terrified children.

“I ought to apologize for this intrusion,” said she, “but a Fairy, who comes with purposes of kindness, can scarcely conceive herself to be unwelcome. You do not know me, Countess, for I quarrelled with your father before you were born; but your mother Frideswida and I were well known to one another. I doubt not you have heard her speak of Abracadabra of Hexenberg.”

The Countess intimated her assent.

“I recognize in you, Lady,” said the Fairy, “a transcript of her beauty of feature, and if fame do not greatly misrepresent you, the beauty of her mind has descended to you. I hear you spoken of as the blessing of these valleys, and that your days are spent in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick.”

“I live among my own people,” replied Ermengarde, “and they are a simple race, who are satisfied with little, and whom small kindnesses gratify largely.”

“You are modest,” rejoined the Lady Abracadabra, “but if, as I believe, you have the means of doing good, and find pleasure in doing it, why should you be dissatisfied with your abode?”

“I dissatisfied, Lady?” exclaimed the Countess, “I would gladly live and die here.”

“Then, what was the meaning of what I heard no long time since? Methought as I listened to your converse, your boy seemed to say that he should like to go and live at court. You would hardly send him to face such perils alone? That were as unnatural as wicked.”

The Countess knew not what to answer. The thought of separation from Witikind had already filled her with sorrow and dismay, but she was unwilling to excuse herself at the cost of inculpating her husband. She therefore remained silent, but the tears gushed from her eyes in spite of her.

“And how comes it that you, sir boy,” asked the Fairy, addressing Witikind, “are so eager to leave your home? Can you not be happy here?”

“Yes, Lady, I am happy as the day is long; but my father assures us often and often, that our best happiness here is grief and dulness, compared with what we should find, if we went to the great City, and lived in King Katzekopf’s court?”