Chapter 2

“Houses,” George replied. “Those are houses. Don’t you recognise the capital of the Duchy of Clarides, little sister? After all, it is a great city; it has three streets, and one can drive through one of them. Don’t you remember that we passed through it last week when we went to the Hermitage?”

“And what is that winding brook?”

“That is the river. See the old stone bridge down there?”

“The bridge under which we fished for crayfish?”

“That’s the one; and in one of the niches stands the statue of the ‘Woman without a Head.’ One cannot see her from here because she is too small.”

“I remember. But why hasn’t she got a head?”

“Probably because she has lost it.”

Without saying if this explanation was satisfactory, Honey-Bee gazed at the horizon.

“Little brother, little brother, just see what sparkles by the side of the blue mountains? It is the lake.”

“It is the lake.”

They then remembered what the Duchess had told them of these beautiful and dangerous waters where the nixies dwell.

“We will go there,” said Honey-Bee.

George was aghast. He stared at her with his mouth wide open.

“But the Duchess has forbidden us to go out alone, so how can we go to this lake which is at the end of the earth?”

“How can we go? I don’t know. It’s you who ought to know, for you are a man and you have a grammar-master.”

This piqued George who replied that one might be a man, and even a very brave man, and yet not know all the roads on earth. Whereupon Honey-Bee said drily with a little air of scorn which made him blush to his ears:

“I never said _I_ would conquer the blue mountains or take down the moon. I don’t know the way to the lake, but I mean to find it!”

George pretended to laugh.

“You laugh like a cucumber.”

“Cucumbers neither laugh nor cry.”

“If they did laugh they would laugh like you. I shall go along to the lake. And while I search for the beautiful waters in which the nixies live you shall stay alone at home like a good girl. I will leave you my needle-work and my doll. Take care of them, George, take good care of them.”

George was proud, and he was conscious of the humiliation with which Honey-Bee covered him.

Gloomily and with head bowed he cried in a hollow voice:

“Very well, then, we will go to the lake.”

VII

In which is described how George and Honey-Bee went to the lake

The next day after the midday meal, the Duchess having gone to her own room George took Honey-Bee by the hand. “Now come!” he said. “Where?” “Hush!”

They crept down stairs and crossed the courtyard. After they had passed the postern, Honey-Bee again asked where they were going.

“To the lake,” George said resolutely. Honey-Bee opened her mouth wide but remained speechless. To go so far without permission and in satin shoes! For her shoes were of satin. There was no sense in it.

“We must go and there is no need to be sensible.”

Such was George’s proud reply. She had once humiliated him and now she pretended to be astonished.

This time it was he who disdainfully sent her back to her dolls. Girls always tempt one on to adventures and then run away. So mean! She could remain. He’d go alone.

She clung to his arm; he pushed her away.

She hung about his neck.

“Little brother,” she sobbed, “I will follow you.”

He allowed himself to be moved by such touching repentance.

“Come then, but not through the town; we may be seen. We will follow the ramparts and then we can reach the highway by a cross road.”

And so they went hand in hand while George explained his plans.

“We will follow the road we took to the Hermitage and then we shall be sure to see the lake, just as we did the other day, and then we can cross the fields in a bee line.”

“A bee line” is the pretty rustic way of saying a straight line; and they both laughed because of the young girl’s name which fitted in so oddly.

Honey-Bee picked flowers along the ditches; she made a posy of marshmallows, white mullein, asters and chrysanthemums; the flowers faded in her little hands and it was pitiful to see them when Honey-Bee crossed the old stone bridge. As she did not know what to do with them she decided to throw them into the water to refresh them, but finally she preferred to give them to the “Woman without a head.”

She begged George to lift her in his arms so as to make her tall enough, and she placed her armful of wild flowers between the folded hands of the old stone figure.

After she was far away she looked back and saw a pigeon resting on the shoulder of the statue.

When they had been walking some time, said Honey-bee, “I am thirsty.”

“So am I,” George replied, “but the river is far behind us, and I see neither brook nor fountain.”

“The sun is so hot that he has drunk them all up. What shall we do?”

So they talked and lamented when they saw a peasant woman approach who carried a basket of fruit.

“Cherries!” cried George. “How unlucky: I have no money to buy any.”

“I have money,” said Honey-Bee.

She pulled out of her pocket a little purse in which were five pieces of gold.

“Good woman,” she said to the peasant, “will you give me as many cherries as my frock will hold?”

And she raised her little skirt with her two hands. The woman threw in two or three handfuls of cherries. With one hand Honey-Bee held the uplifted skirt and with the other she offered the woman a gold piece.

“Is that enough?”

The woman clutched the gold piece which would amply have paid not only for the cherries in the basket but for the tree on which they grew and the plot of land on which the tree stood.

The artful one replied:

“I’m satisfied, if only to oblige you, little princess.”

“Well then, put some more cherries in my brother’s cap,” said Honey-Bee, “and you shall have another gold piece.”

This was done. The peasant woman went on her way meditating in what old stocking or under what mattress she should hide her two gold pieces.

And the two children followed the road eating the cherries and throwing the stones to the right and the left. George chose the cherries that hung two by two on one stem and made earrings for his little sister, and he laughed to see the lovely twin fruit dangle its vermillion beauty against her cheeks.

A pebble stopped their joyous progress. It had got into Honey-Bee’s little shoe and she began to limp. At every step she took, her golden curls bobbed against her cheek, and so limping she sat down on a bank by the roadside. Her brother knelt down and took off the satin shoe. He shook it and out dropped a little white pebble.

“Little brother,” she said as she looked at her feet, “the next time we go to the lake we’ll put on boots.”

The sun was already sinking against the radiant sky; a soft breeze caressed their cheeks and necks, and so, cheered and refreshed, the two little travellers proceeded on their way. To make walking easier they went hand in hand, and they laughed to see their moving shadows melt together before them. They sang:

Maid Marian, setting forth to find The mill, with sacks of corn to grind, Her donkey, Jan, bestrode. My dainty maiden, Marian, She mounted on her donkey, Jan, And took the mill-ward road.*

* Marian’ s’en allant au moulin, Pour y faire moudre son grain, Ell monta sur son âne, Ma p’tite mam’sell’ Marianne! Ell’ monta sur son âne Martin Pour aller au moulin.

But Honey-Bee stopped:

“I have lost my shoe, my satin shoe,” she cried. And so it was. The little shoe, whose silken laces had become loose in walking, lay in the road covered-with dust. Then as she looked back and saw the towers of the castle of Clarides fade into the distant twilight her heart sank and the tears came to her eyes.

“The wolves will eat us,” she cried, “and our mother will never see us again and she will die of grief.”

But George comforted her as he put on her shoe.

“When the castle bell rings for supper we shall have returned to Clarides. Come!”

The miller saw her coming nigh And could not well forbear to cry, Your donkey you must tether. My dainty maiden, Marian, Tether you here your donkey, Jan, Who brought us twain together.*

* Le meunier qui la voit venir Ne peut s’empêcher de lui dire: Attachez là votre âne, Ma p’tite Mam’sell’ Marianne, Attachez là votre âne Martin Qui vous mène au moulin.

“The lake, Honey-Bee! See the lake, the lake, the lake!”

“Yes, George, the lake!”

George shouted “hurrah” and flung his hat in the air. Honey-Bee was too proper to fling hers up also, so taking off the shoe that wouldn’t stay on she threw it joyfully over her head.

There lay the lake in the depths of the valley and its curved and sloping banks made a framework of foliage and flowers about its silver waves. It lay there clear and tranquil, and one could see the swaying of the indistinct green of its banks.

But the children could find no path through the underbrush that would lead to its beautiful waters.

While they were searching for one their legs were nipped by some geese driven by a little girl dressed in a sheepskin and carrying a switch. George asked her name.

“Gilberte.”

“Well, then, Gilberte, how can one go to the lake?”

“Folks doesn’t go.”

“Why?”

“Because...”

“But supposing folks did?”

“If folks did there’d be a path, and one would take that path.”

George could think of no adequate reply to this guardian of the geese.

“Let’s go,” he said, “farther on we shall be sure to find a way through the woods.”

“And we will pick nuts and eat them,” said Honey-Bee, “for I am hungry. The next time we go to the lake we must bring a satchel full of good things to eat.”

“That we will, little sister,” said George. “And I quite agree with Francoeur, our squire, who when he went to Rome, took a ham with him, in case he should hunger, and a flask lest he should be thirsty. But hurry, for it is growing late, though I don’t know the time.”

“The shepherdesses know by looking at the sun,” said Honey-Bee; “but I am not a shepherdess. Yet it seems to me that when we left the sun was over our head, and now it is down there, far behind the town and castle of Clarides. I wonder if this happens every day and what it means?”

While they looked at the sun a cloud of dust rose up from the high road, and they saw some cavaliers with glittering weapons ride past at full speed. The children hid in the underbrush in great terror. “They are thieves or probably ogres,” they thought. They were really guards sent by the Duchess of Clarides in search of the little truants.

The two little adventurers found a footpath in the underbrush, not a lovers’ lane, for it was impossible to walk side by side holding hands as is the fashion of lovers. Nor could the print of human footsteps be seen, but only indentations left by innumerable tiny cloven feet.

“Those are the feet of little devils,” said Honey-Bee.

“Or deer,” suggested George.

The matter was never explained. But what is certain is that the footpath descended in a gentle slope towards the edge of the lake which lay before the two children in all its languorous and silent beauty. The willows surrounded its banks with their tender foliage. The slender blades of the reeds with their delicate plumes swayed lightly over the water. They formed tremulous islands about which the water-lilies spread their great heart-shaped leaves and snow-white flowers. Over these blossoming islands dragon-flies, all emerald or azure, with wings of flame, sped their shrill flight in suddenly altered curves.

The children plunged their burning feet with joy in the damp sand overgrown with tufted horse-tails and the reed-mace with its slender lance. The sweet flag wafted towards them its humble fragrance and the water plantain unrolled about them its filaments of lace on the margin of the sleeping waters which the willow-herb starred with its purple flowers.

VIII

Wherein we shall see what happened to George of Blanchelande because he approached the lake in which the nixies dwel

Honey-Bee crossed the sand between two clumps of willows, and the little spirit of the place leaped into the water in front of her, leaving circles that grew greater and greater and finally vanished. This spirit was a little green frog with a white belly. All was silent; a fresh breeze swept over the clear lake whose every ripple had the gracious curve of a smile.

“This lake is pretty,” said Honey-Bee, “but my feet are bleeding in my little torn shoes, and I am very hungry. I wish I were back in the castle.”

“Little sister,” said George, “sit down on the grass. I will wrap your feet in leaves to cool them; then I will go in search of supper for you. High up along the road I saw some ripe blackberries. I will fetch you the sweetest and best in my hat. Give me your handkerchief; I will fill it with strawberries, for there are strawberries near here along the footpath under the shade of the trees. And I will fill my pockets with nuts.”

He made a bed of moss for Honey-Bee under a willow on the edge of the lake, and then he left her.

Honey-Bee lay with folded hands on her little mossy bed and watched the light of the first stars tremble in the pale sky; then her eyes half closed, and yet it seemed to her as if overhead she saw a little dwarf mounted on a raven. It was not fancy. For having reined in the black bird who was gnawing at the bridle, the dwarf stopped just above the young girl and stared down at her with his round eyes. Whereupon he disappeared at full gallop. All this Honey-Bee saw vaguely and then she fell asleep.

She was still asleep when George returned with the fruit he had gathered, which he placed at her side. Then he climbed down to the lake while he waited for her to awaken. The lake slept under its delicate crown of verdure. A light mist swept softly over the waters. Suddenly the moon appeared between the branches, and then the waves were strewn as if with countless stars.

But George could see that the lights which irradiated the waters were not all the broken reflections of the moon, for blue flames advanced in circles, swaying and undulating as if in a dance. Soon he saw that the blue flames flickered over the white faces of women, beautiful faces rising on the crests of the waves and crowned with sea-weeds and sea-shells, with sea-green tresses floating over their shoulders and veils flowing from under their breasts that shimmered with pearls. The child recognised the nixies and tried to flee. But already their cold white arms had seized him, and in spite of his struggles and cries he was borne across the waters along the galleries of porphyry and crystal.

IX

Wherein we shall see how Honey-Bee was taken to the dwarfs

The moon had risen over the lake and the water now only showed broken reflections of its disc. Honey-Bee still slept. The dwarf who had watched her came back again on his raven followed this time by a crowd of little men. They were very little men. Their white beards hung down to their knees. They looked like old men with the figures of children. By their leathern aprons and the hammers which hung from their belts one could see that they were workers in metals. They had a curious gait, for they leaped to amazing heights and turned the most extraordinary somersaults, and showed the most inconceivable agility that made them seem more like spirits than human beings.

Yet while cutting their most foolhardy capers they preserved an unalterable gravity of demeanour, to such a degree that it was quite impossible to make out their real characters.

They placed themselves in a circle about the sleeping child.

“Now then,” said the smallest of the dwarfs from the heights of his plumed charger; “now then, did I deceive you when I said that the loveliest of princesses was lying asleep on the borders of the lake, and do you not thank me for bringing you here?”

“We thank you, Bob,” replied one of the dwarfs who looked like an elderly poet, “indeed there is nothing lovelier in the world than this young damsel. She is more rosy than the dawn which rises on the mountains, and the gold we forge is not so bright as the gold of her tresses.”

“Very good, Pic, nothing can be truer,” cried the dwarfs, “but what shall we do with this lovely little lady?”

Pic, who looked like a very elderly poet, did not reply to this question, probably because he knew no better than they what to do with this pretty lady.

“Let us build a large cage and put her in,” a dwarf by the name of Rug suggested.

Against this another dwarf called Dig vehemently protested. It was Dig’s opinion that only wild beasts were ever put into cages, and there was nothing yet to prove that the pretty lady was one of these.

But Rug clung to his idea for the reason possibly that he had no other. He defended it with much subtlety. Said he:

“If this person is not savage she will certainly become so as a result of the cage, which will be therefore not only useful but indispensable.”

This reasoning displeased the dwarfs, and one of them named Tad denounced it with much indignation. He was such a good dwarf. He proposed to take the beautiful child back to her kindred who must be great nobles.

But this advice was rejected as being contrary to the custom of the dwarfs.

“We ought to follow the ways of justice not custom,” said Tad.

But no one paid any further attention to him and the assembly broke into a tumult as a dwarf named Pau, a simple soul but just, gave his advice in these terms:

“We must begin by awakening this young lady, seeing she declines to awake of herself; if she spends the night here her eyelids will be swollen to-morrow and her beauty will be much impaired, for it is very unhealthy to sleep in a wood on the borders of a lake.”

This opinion met with general approval as it did not clash with any other.

Pic, who looked like an elderly poet burdened with care, approached the young girl and looked at her very intently, under the impression that a single one of his glances would be quite sufficient to rouse the dreamer out of the deepest sleep. But Pic was quite mistaken as to the power of his glance, for Honey-Bee continued to sleep with folded hands.

Seeing this the good Tad pulled her gently by her sleeve. Thereupon she partly opened her eyes and raised herself on her elbow. When she found herself lying on a bed of moss surrounded by dwarfs she thought what she saw was nothing but a dream, and she rubbed her eyes to open them, so that instead of this fantastic vision she should see the pure light of morning as it entered her little blue room in which she thought she was. For her mind, heavy with sleep, did not recall to her the adventure of the lake. But indeed, it was useless to rub her eyes, the dwarfs did not vanish, and so she was obliged to believe that they were real.

Then she looked about with frightened eyes and saw the forest and remembered.

“George! my brother George!” she cried in anguish. The dwarfs crowded about her, and for fear of seeing them she hid her face in her hands.

“George! George! Where is my brother George?” she sobbed.

The dwarfs could not tell her, for the good reason that they did not know. And she wept hot tears and cried aloud for her mother and brother.

Pau longed to weep with her, and in his efforts to console, he addressed her with rather vague remarks.

“Do not distress yourself so much,” he urged, “it would be a pity for so lovely a young damsel to spoil her eyes with weeping. Rather tell us your story, which cannot fail to be very amusing. We should be so pleased.”

She did not listen. She rose and tried to escape. But her bare and swollen feet caused her such pain that she fell on her knees, sobbing most pitifully. Tad held her in his arms, and Pau tenderly kissed her hand. It was this that gave her the courage to look at them, and she saw that they seemed full of compassion.

Pic looked to her like one inspired, and yet very innocent, and perceiving that all these little men were full of compassion for her, she said:

“Little men, it is a pity you are so ugly; but I will love you all the same if you will only give me something to eat, for I am so hungry.”

“Bob,” all the dwarfs cried at once, “go and fetch some supper.”

And Bob flew off on his raven. All the same, the dwarfs resented this small girl’s injustice in finding them ugly. Rug was very angry. Pic said to himself, “She is only a child, and she does not see the light of genius which shines in my eyes, and which gives them the power which crushes as well as the grace which charms.”

As for Pau, he thought to himself: “Perhaps it would have been better if I had not awakened this young lady who finds us ugly.” But Tad said smiling:

“You will find us less ugly, dear young lady, when you love us more.”

As he spoke Bob re-appeared on his raven. He held a dish of gold on which were a roast pheasant, an oatmeal cake, and a bottle of claret. He cut innumerable capers as he laid this supper at the feet of Honey-Bee.

“Little men,” Honey-Bee said as she ate, “your supper is very good. My name is Honey-Bee; let us go in search of my brother, and then we will all go together to Clarides where mama is waiting for us in great anxiety.”

But Dig, who was a kind dwarf, represented to Honey-Bee that she was not able to walk; that her brother was big enough to find his own way; that no misfortune could come to him in a country in which all the wild beasts had been destroyed.

“We will make a litter,” he added, “and cover it with leaves and moss, and we will put you on it, and in this way we will carry you to the mountain and present you to the King of the Dwarfs, according to the custom of our people.”

All the dwarfs applauded. Honey-Bee looked at her aching feet and remained silent. She was glad to learn that there were no wild beasts in the country. And on the whole she was willing to trust herself to the kindness of the dwarfs.

They were already busy constructing the litter. Those with hatchets were felling two young fir trees with resounding blows. This brought back to Rug his original suggestion.

“If instead of a litter we made a cage,” he urged.

But he aroused a unanimous protest. Tad looked at him scornfully.

“You are more like a human being than a dwarf, Rug,” he said. “But at least it is to the honour of our race that the most wicked dwarf is also the most stupid.”

In the meantime the task had been accomplished. The dwarfs leaped into the air and in a bound seized and cut the branches, out of which they deftly wove a basket chair. Having covered it with moss and leaves, they placed Honey-Bee upon it, then they seized the two poles, placed them on their shoulders and, then! off they went to the mountain.

X

In which we are faithfully told how King Loc received Honey- Bee of Clarides

They climbed a winding path along the wooded slope of the hill. Here and there granite boulders, bare and blasted, broke through the grey verdure of the dwarf oaks, and the sombre purple mountain with its bluish ravines formed an impassable barrier about the desolate landscape.

The procession, preceded by Bob on his feathered steed, passed through a chasm overgrown with brambles. Honey-Bee, with her golden hair flowing over her shoulders, looked like the dawn breaking on the mountains, supposing, of course, that the dawn was ever frightened and called her mother and tried to escape, for all these things she did as she caught a confused glimpse of dwarfs, armed to the teeth, lying in ambush along the windings of the rocks.

With bows bent or lance at rest they stood immovable. Their tunics of wild beast skins and their long knives that hung from their belts gave them a most terrible appearance. Game, furred and feathered, lay beside them. And yet these huntsmen, to judge only by their faces, did not seem very grim; on the contrary, they appeared gentle and grave like the dwarfs of the forest, whom they greatly resembled.