Part 5

This was exactly what Grognon wished. She crept up back of Graciosa, and as soon as the pit was uncovered, she pushed the Princess so that she fell down into it, and the stone was then allowed to fall back into its place.

At last the Queen was satisfied. She felt very sure that Graciosa could not escape from the pit, herself, and Grognon would see to it that no one went there to help her. She returned to the palace well pleased with her morning’s work.

As for Graciosa, she was in despair. “Alas, Percinet! Why did I not listen to you?” she wept. “Would that I might see you but once more before I perish, that I might tell you that at last I know the worth of all your love and devotion.”

Suddenly, as she thus bemoaned herself, Graciosa saw, in the side of the pit a little door which she had not noticed before. She opened it, and to her joy and amazement saw before her the same avenue of many-colored stones which she had followed when she was lost in the forest, and there, at the end of the avenue, was the shining castle that she knew as the one belonging to Finetta.

With a beating heart, Graciosa hurried along the avenue, and as she drew near the castle, the doors opened to her of their own accord, and standing within she saw the Fairy Finetta and Percinet.

They looked upon her smiling, and Finetta said, “So you have at last returned to us, Graciosa, and I hope with wisdom enough to value the love that Percinet still feels for you.”

“Indeed, Madam,” said the Princess, blushing, “my love is as great as that of Percinet himself, and my trust in him is as unbounded.”

With a cry of joy Percinet clasped her in his arms, while the fairy stood and smiled upon them.

There was no reason now why they should not be married at once, and fairies were bidden from far and near to come to the ceremony, which was celebrated with the greatest magnificence.

Among those who came was the fairy who had helped Grognon in her schemes against Graciosa. When she heard the story of the Princess and knew that she had all this time been under the protection of Prince Percinet, she became furious against Grognon. At once she mounted her chariot drawn by dragons, and flew to the palace of the King. Seeking Grognon out, she strangled her with a strand of the very silk that had been given to Graciosa, and so quick the fairy was about it that none of the courtiers had time to interfere.

As for the Princess and Percinet, they lived happy forever after, in a magnificent palace of their own which Finetta provided for them, but she would never allow Graciosa to return even for a visit to the King who had treated her so cruelly.

THE GIANT’S CLIFF

AN IRISH STORY

There was once a giant in Ireland, and his name was Mahon McMahon and he lived inside the cliffs that rose up straight from the sea. No one had ever seen door or window in the cliffs, and no one knew how the giant got in or out, but still it was said that he lived there, and there were those who told of how they had heard a strange sound of beating and the ringing of metal sounding from within, and had seen smoke rising up from the crevices.

Back from the sea, but yet not so very far from the cliffs, there was a fine big house, and a man by the name of Thomas Renardy lived in it. He was a married man, and he and his wife had one son, a pretty little boy named Philip, and he was the joy of their life and the light of their eyes.

With every year the boy grew handsomer and finer, till he was the admiration of all who saw him. All day he played about in the sun and the wind, and when his mother called him in to meals he came, and as soon as he had finished he was out again.

So he grew till he was seven years old, and then one day his mother called him, but he did not come. She hunted him high, and she hunted him low, but nowhere could she find him. Then the neighbors joined in the search. They were out hallooing over the hills and through the forest, and over by the cliffs where the sea beats high, but there was no answer to their calling, nor did they see aught of him, and his mother was left sorrowing.

A sad and smileless woman was she after that, and months rolled up into years, until the years were seven; and at the end of that time her grief for him was as green as at the beginning.

Now there was a blacksmith in that country who was a great reader of dreams. People came from far and near to tell him their dreams and to ask the meaning of them.

The name of the blacksmith was Robert Kelly, and he was a great hand at the forge.

One night the blacksmith had a dream of his own, and a curious dream it was.

He dreamed a little lad came riding up on a great white horse. He was a handsome little fellow, with yellow hair and blue eyes, and Robert took him, from his size and looks, to be about seven years old, but at the same time there was something curious about him that made the blacksmith think he might be older.

“Robert Kelly, do you remember me?” asked the lad.

“I can’t say that I do,” answered the blacksmith, “and yet there’s something about you that makes me feel I may have seen you before.”

“Then have you forgotten Phil Renardy that was lost away seven long years ago?”

Now the blacksmith knew of whom the boy had reminded him. It was of that little lost lad of the Renardys.

“But that was seven long years ago, as you said,” replied the blacksmith, “and by this time Phil would be about fourteen years old. You will never be him.”

“Nevertheless I am,” said the boy. “It was the giant Mahon McMahon that stole me away seven years ago when I was playing near the cliffs, and I have been living with him and serving him ever since, and in the halls of the giant we who serve him never grow old, but stay as we were when he first brought us there.”

Now all the while the blacksmith knew he was asleep, and he thought this dream of his was the strangest dream he had ever heard of.

“Now I will tell you why I have come here,” the boy went on; and he told Kelly how the very next night the seven years of his service were up. “Every seven years,” said he, “the giant’s door stands open from the stroke of midnight till cock’s crow the next morning. There is only one way to get to his door, and that is by way of the sea.”

The lad then begged and implored the blacksmith to get a boat and row out to the cliff the next night, and to wait there until midnight, when the house opened. The blacksmith was then to seek through it until he found the lad and then he was to bring him away with him.

“And to-morrow, when my first seven years of service is up, is the only time you can do it,” said he. “If you will not, then I can never escape, but must stay there in service to the giant for always.”

Then Kelly, who still knew he was asleep, said, “But after all, this is all in a dream, and when I waken I’ll think there’s no meaning to it.”

“Then I’ll give you a token to prove to you that this is no common dreaming,” said Philip.

With that he turned his horse about, and the horse lashed out at the blacksmith with his hind leg, and the hoof struck him on the forehead with such force that it seemed as though his head would be crushed in.

The blacksmith cried out with the blow and woke to find the blood streaming down his face, and when he had wiped it away and was able to examine his forehead, there was the mark of a horseshoe on it.

Robert said nothing to any one about his dream, not even when they saw the mark on his forehead and wondered about it, so they thought that in some way when he was shoeing a horse it must have managed to kick him. But that night he went secretly to a friend of his who had a boat and asked him whether he would row him out in front of the cliffs just before midnight.

The friend was loth to do it, for he had small liking for going out at night on the sea and to a place that was but ill thought of; for there were all these tales about sounds that had been heard from inside the cliff and that they might be made by Mahon McMahon.

However, in the end Robert persuaded him, and a little before midnight they set out. There was enough moonlight for them to see the way to go, and as they rowed toward the cliffs, Robert told his friend, for the first time, why he was coming there and what he hoped to do.

“And whether it was a dream or no I can’t tell you,” said he, “for I was sleeping, and yet here, all the same, is the mark of the horse’s hoof on my forehead.”

Well, the friend thought it a strange tale. “And it’s hard to believe there’s any truth in it,” said he; “but here we are in front of the cliffs, and this night will prove the worth of your dreaming.”

He held the boat there in front of the rocks with his oars, and the minutes slipped by, and neither of the men spoke, and everything was silent. Then from far away, and faintly, they heard the village clock strike twelve.

Again they waited, and then suddenly and without a sound the front of the cliff opened, and they saw a portico down almost on a level with the water, and a great door opening out upon it. Inside the door were steps cut in the rock and leading up and out of sight. A light shone out through the door and across the water, but it was not very bright.

“Here is where I chance it,” said the blacksmith. “Row me up close so that I may step out on the portico, for according to my dream, it’s in there I must go if I am to find little Philip Renardy.”

The whole matter was so strange that his friend tried to dissuade him from going, but the blacksmith would not listen to him.

“I’ve a sign from him on my forehead,” he said, “and go I must and will. Do you wait here for me till cock’s crow, and if I haven’t come by then, there’s no use in your waiting longer.”

His friend rowed him up close to the edge of the portico, and the blacksmith climbed out on it, and watchfully he crept over to the door and peered in. Everything was still, and he saw nothing but the steps leading upward, and they were so high, each one of them, that it was as much as he could do to climb them.

He carried a plowshare that he had brought with him from his smithy, for somehow he thought a plowshare might be a good weapon if he needed one. And anyhow, it gave him some sort of a feeling of courage to have hold of it.

He climbed the steps, one after another, and that took him some time, and then he came into a great hall, and in the center of it was a table hewn out of rock.

Around this table sat seven giants. They sat there bending forward as though they were consulting with each other, but none of them moved or spoke, or even so much as winked an eyelid. They might have been carven figures, for all the signs of life they gave.

At the head of the table sat a giant with a long beard, and he had been sitting there so long that his beard had grown into the slab of rock that was the top of the table.

Robert Kelly stood there looking at them for a while, and then, as none of them took any notice of him, he called in a loud voice, “Is any one among you named Mahon McMahon?”

At that the giant at the head of the table started up so suddenly that the pulling out of his beard split the rock of the table into pieces, but none of the others stirred nor looked at him.

“I am Mahon McMahon,” cried the giant. “And what do you come seeking me for?”

“I have come here in search of little Phil Renardy,” cried the blacksmith boldly, “and I have been told that you are the one who can tell me where to find him.”

The giant looked at him in silence for a bit, and then he said, “Yes, I can tell you where to find him, and better than that, I can even show you where he is.”

He then led the way into a great stone chamber on beyond the hall, and it was glowing with fires, and there in it were a great number of young lads. It seemed to the blacksmith that there were hundreds of them, and they were all busy at some kind or other of metal work.

When Mahon McMahon came in, they stopped their work and stood back against the wall, and the blacksmith saw that not one among them looked to be more than seven years old, and they were all so much alike that they might have been brothers.

“If you are a friend of Phil Renardy, no doubt you can choose him from all others,” said the giant. “And now look about you, and if you can tell me at the first telling which is he, then you may take him away with you, and no harm to any one. But if you cannot tell me, then it was an ill hour for you when you entered my house, for you’ll never go out again.”

This frightened the blacksmith, but still he kept his wits about him and looked carefully from one lad to the other, but for the life of him he could not tell of a surety which was Phil Renardy, for he had no clear remembrance of him.

In order to gain time he said to the giant, “And are all these fine lads servants of yours?”

“They are,” replied Mahon McMahon, “and it has taken me a long time to gather them together.”

“You must be a good master,” went on Robert Kelly, “for they all look rosy and in good condition, and I’m sure you treat them well, and they must be fond of you.” He thought by talking in this way he might flatter the giant and put him in a good humor.

“That is a true word you have spoken,” said the giant, “and I’m sure you must be an honest man, so let us shake hands upon it.”

He held out his hand to the blacksmith, but when Bob Kelly looked at it, it was so thick and broad and cruel looking that he was afraid to trust his own hand to it. “For if he were to take the fancy,” thought Bob, “he could crush it as easily as I could crush a rotten potato.” So, instead of putting his hand into the giant’s, he put the plowshare in it, and the giant shut his fingers tight on it, so that it crumpled up as though the iron had no more strength in it than a piece of paper.

“Praises be it was not my hand he was squeezing,” thought Robert Kelly.

“You have a strong hand,” said the giant, “but you need a stronger than that if you’re to shake hands with Mahon McMahon.”

Then all the little lads burst into laughter, but through their laughter he thought he heard some one sighing, “Robert Kelly! Robert Kelly! I am here behind you.”

He turned about quickly, and there behind him was one lad among them who was not laughing. And like a flash the blacksmith seized hold of him and cried out, “This is Phil Renardy, and the one I would take with me.”

“Bad cess to you!” cried the giant, “but you’ve chosen rightly.”

Then all grew dark, but Robert Kelly kept tight hold of the boy he had chosen, and he could hear many voices about him, crying, “Happy Philip Renardy! Happy Philip Renardy!”

The next he knew the sun was shining, and he was lying on the grass at the top of the cliff, and the little lad was watching beside him.

“And are you of a truth the little Philip Renardy that’s been lost for so long?” asked Kelly.

“I am that one,” replied the lad, “and it is you that have saved me; and now let us be up and off, for my heart is aching within me for a sight of my mother.”

So the blacksmith rose up, and took the little lad’s hand and led him to the big house of the Renardys, and the lad seemed to know the way better than he did. And no sooner did Mrs. Renardy see him than she knew the lad as her son and was like to have gone distracted with the joy of it. That was a comfort to Bob Kelly, too, for all the time he had kept wondering whether by chance he might not have brought back the wrong boy with him.

When he at last left them and went back to his smithy, he found quite a crowd gathered there, talking about him, for when he hadn’t come back to the boat his friend had made sure the cliff had closed on him, and that mortal eye would never again behold him.

But when the people who had gathered heard his tale, there was great rejoicing, and all the bells of the village were rung, and a great crowd hurried away to the Renardy’s house, to get a glimpse of the boy who had been stolen by the giant.

Soon after his return, the boy began to grow again, but he never became very big, and there was always something a bit strange about him, though after a while he married and had children of his own who were fine stout fellows, and all of them were wonderful workers in metals.

As for Robert Kelly, his adventures were the making of him, for people came from everywhere to have him do their work for them, so as to have a chance to hear him tell his story. Moreover, Philip taught him some of the secrets of working with metal that he had learned in the giant’s house, so that he became quite famous.

But the giant was never heard of again, and no more sounds came from within the cliff house, so it was supposed that he had left that part of the country and chosen some other place as his dwelling.

THE STORY OF CONN-EDA

AN IRISH TALE

King Conn of Ireland had one noble son named Conn-eda, and he was as dear to his father as the apple of his eye,--none dearer.

His mother had died while he was still a child, and after a while the King, his father, married again. He married the young daughter of his chief priest, but he did not marry her because he loved her, and that is the truth. He married her because his councilors told him that it was a wise thing for him to do, for this chief priest was very powerful.

The new Queen was a cruel woman, and her hatred of Conn-eda was bitter and deep. She hated him because he was so handsome and free-hearted, and she hated him because he was so dear to his father, but most of all she hated him because every one looked to him as the one who would sometime be their king, and there was no knowing how soon that would be, for already his father was old and feeble.

After a while the young Queen had a child of her own, and then she hated Conn-eda worse than ever and was always plotting how she could get rid of him, for she wanted the kingdom to come to her own son.

Now there was a woman who lived down back of the castle in a poor tumble-down hut, and it was said that she knew more than a little about magic, and every one was afraid of her. She was the hen-wife, and had charge of all the chickens that belonged to the castle. She was a handsome woman and a strange one, and no one could tell whether she were young or old, and she might have been either.

One day the Queen went by herself down to the hut to visit the hen-wife, for she wished to ask her advice. She was not ashamed to go, either, because of the woman being an enchantress.

“Queen Durfulla,” said the hen-wife, “I know why you have come to me, and what you are after wanting.”

That surprised the Queen, and she said, “What is it I am wanting, then?”

“You are wanting to rid yourself of young Conn-eda, and it is for my advice you have come hither. But I am not one to give something for nothing. What reward will I have if I give you my advice?”

“What reward will you be wanting?” asked the Queen.

“It’s none so much and none so little. Give me enough wool to fill the hole between my arm and body when I set my hand on my hip with my elbow out, and give me enough red wheat to fill the hole I shall bore with my distaff, and my advice is yours for the asking.”

Well, the Queen could not help smiling at that, for it seemed but a small reward for any one to ask, and she gladly agreed to give it.

“Then have the wool and the wheat brought here to-morrow,” said the hen-wife. “Twenty cartloads of wool, and twenty cartloads of wheat will be none too much to fill the hollow between my arm and body and the hole I’ll make.”

The Queen thought that was a strange thing to say, and that the hen-wife must be dreaming, but all the same she was back at the hen-wife’s door the next day, and close after her came twenty cartloads of wool and twenty cartloads of wheat, with the horses pulling and the carters cracking their whips.

The hen-wife stood in the doorway with her hand on her hip and her elbow out, and the men took an armful of wool and put it in the hollow of her arm, but it fell through the hollow and inside the house. They stuffed another armful in between her arm and body, and the same thing happened to it. Not until the house was so full of wool that it could hold no more were they able to fill the hollow of the hen-wife’s arm as she stood in the doorway.

“And now for the wheat,” said the hen-wife.

Then she led them to her brother’s house which was close by, and climbed up on the roof. The roof was of peat, and she bored a hole down through the peat with her distaff, so that as fast as they poured the wheat into the hole, it ran down into the house, and not until the house was so full that it could hold no more could they fill the hole, too.

“Now I am satisfied,” said the hen-wife, but that was more than the Queen could say, for she was a mean woman. However, if the hen-wife could tell her how to rid herself of Prince Conn-eda, it was more to her than all the wheat and wool that ever were grown.

“Now listen well to what I tell you,” said the hen-wife. “You have paid me faithfully and fully, and I am ready to keep my part of the bargain, too. Far and far enough from here, there lies a great dark lake, and the name of it is Lough Erne. Under its waters lives the King of the Fiborg race, a race that lives in the water most happily. There, in the King’s garden, grow three golden apples. In his stable stands a grand black steed. In his castle lies the puppy-hound Samur, and great are the magic powers of that hound. You must send Conn-eda to get these things for you, and to fetch them back within a year and a day and it’s not a living being who can seek those things and not lose his life in the seeking, unless he has magic to help him.”

“But how can I send Conn-eda?” asked the Queen, “for he is not a child that he must do my bidding.”

“That also I will tell you,” replied the hen-wife.

She then brought out a chessboard and chessmen and gave them to the Queen. “Do you take these home with you,” she said, “and call Conn-eda to come and play a game of chess with you. I have set a charm on the men, and I have set a charm on the board, so that you will be sure to win; but before you play you must make a bargain with the Prince that whichever loses shall pay a forfeit to the winner, and the forfeit you shall ask of him is that he fetch to you the three things I have told you of. But be sure that you play only the one game, for after that is played the charm will lose its power.”

The Queen was pleased with the advice the hen-wife gave her, and she took the chessboard and the chessmen and promised to do in all things as she had been told. Then she hastened back to the castle.

No sooner was she there than she sent for Conn-eda to come and have a game of chess, and he came at her command and sat down at the board with her.

“It is not for nothing we will play together this day,” said the Queen, “but whichever loses shall pay a forfeit to the other, and the forfeit shall be whatever the winner chooses to demand.”

To this Conn-eda agreed. He had it in his head that the Queen was planning some trick against him, but he did not fear her, for he made sure he could beat her at the game.

So they sat down to play, and Conn-eda was a good player, and the Queen was a poor one, but it seemed as though there were a mist before the Prince’s eyes, and when he thought he had made one play he found he had made another, and presently he saw he had lost the game, and the Queen was the winner.

Then she laughed aloud and pushed the board from her. “The game is mine, Conn-eda,” she cried, “and it is for you to pay the forfeit. Whatever I ask for, that shall you pay, no matter what be the cost.”

When the Prince heard that, his heart was troubled within him, and he said to her, “What is that forfeit that you will demand of me?”