Chapter 7

"Well, well," says Jack, says he, "he must have been a grand fellow entirely. It is a pity I was not there, but I had to go on a message for the King."

"Poor Hookedy-Crookedy," says she, "what could you do if you were there yourself?"

Jack went to the wood again next morning, and consulted with the mare.

"Jack," said the mare, "look in the inside of my left ear, and see what you will see," and Jack took out of her left ear a soldier's suit, done off with silver, the grandest ever seen, and at the mare's advice he put the suit on, and mounted on her back, and the three of them went off to the battle. Every one was admiring the beautiful, dashing fellow that was riding to the battle this day, and word came to the King, and the King came to speak to him and welcomed him heartily.

He said, "Your brother came with us the last day we went into the battle. Your brother is a very handsome, fine-looking fellow. What side are you going to fight on?"

Says Jack, "I will strike no stroke on any side but yours this day."

The King thanked him very heartily, and into the battle they went with Jack at their head, and Jack struck east and west and in all directions, and the wind of the strokes blew down forests in the other end of the world, and very soon the King of the East, with all his soldiers that were still alive, drew off from the battle.

Then the King thanked Jack and invited him to his castle; where he would give a feast in his honor. But Jack said he could not go, for they did not know at home where he was, and they would be uneasy about him until he reached home again.

"Then," says the King, "the least I can do for you is to give you a present. Here is a purse, and no matter how often and how much you pay out of it, it will never be empty."

Jack took it, and thanked him, and rode away. In the wood he left the mare and the bear, and was again changed into Hookedy-Crookedy, and went home to his garden. The Yellow Rose came out, and told him about the great victory a brave and beautiful soldier, brother to the fine fellow of the day before, had won for her father.

"Well, well," says Jack, says he, "that was very wonderful entirely. I am sorry I was not there, but I had to be away on a message for your father."

"But, my poor Hookedy-Crookedy," says she, "it was better so, for what could you do?"

Three days after that the King of the East took courage to come to battle again. The morning of the battle Jack went to the wood to consult the mare.

"Look into my left ear, Jack, and see what you will see," and from the mare's left ear Jack drew out a most gorgeous soldier's suit, done off with gold braiding and ornaments of every sort. By the mare's advice he put it on, and himself, the mare, and the bear went off to the war.

The King soon heard of the wonderfully grand fellow that was riding to the war to-day with the mare and the bear, and he came to Jack and welcomed him and told him how his two brothers had won the last two victories for him. He asked Jack on what side he was going to fight.

"I will strike no stroke this day," says Jack, "only on the King of Scotland's side."

The King thanked him heartily, and said, "We will surely win the victory," and then into the battle they rode with Jack at their head, and Jack struck east and west and in all directions, and the wind of the strokes tumbled mountains at the other end of the world, and very soon the King of the East with all his soldiers that were left alive took to their heels and never stopped running until they went as far as the world would let them.

Then the King came to Jack and thanked him over and over again, and said he would never be able to repay him. He then invited him to come to his castle, where he would give a little feast in his honour, but Jack said they didn't know at home where he was and they would be uneasy about him, and so he could not go with the King.

"But," says he, "I and my brothers will come to the feast with you at any other time."

"What day will the three of you come?" said the King.

"Only one of us can leave home in one day," said Jack. "I will come to feast with you to-morrow, and my second brother the day after, and my third brother the day after that."

The King agreed to this and thanked him. "And now," said the King, "let me give you a present," and he gave him a comb, such that every time he combed his hair with it he would comb out of it bushels of gold and silver, and it would transform the ugliest man that ever was into the nicest and handsomest. Jack took it and thanked the King and rode away.

On this day, as on the other two days after the battle, they cured the dead and the wounded with the bottles of Ioca, and all were well again. When Jack went to the wood, he left the mare and the bear in it and became Hookedy-Crookedy again, and went home and to his garden. The Yellow Rose came to him and had wonderful news for him this day about the terrible grand fellow entirely, who had won the battle for her father that day; brother to the two brave fellows who had won the battles on the other two days.

"Well," says Jack, says he, "those must be wonderful chaps. I wish I had been there; but I had to be away on a message for your father all day."

"Oh, my poor Hookedy-Crookedy," says she, "it was better so, for what could you do?"

The next day, when it was near dinner time, he went off to the wood to the mare and the bear and got on the suit he had worn the day before in the battle, and mounted the mare and rode for the castle, and when he came there all the gates happened to be closed, but he put the mare at the walls, which were nine miles high, and leaped them.

The King scolded the gate-keepers, but Jack said a trifle like that didn't harm him or his mare. After dinner the King asked him what he thought of his two daughters and their husbands. Jack said they were very good and asked him if he had any more daughters in his family.

The King said he used to have another, the youngest, but she would not consent to marry as he wished, and he had banished her out of his sight.

Jack said he would like to see her.

The King said he never wished to let her enter company again, but he could not refuse Jack; so the Yellow Rose was sent for.

Jack fell a-chatting with her and used all his arts to win her; and of course, in this handsome Jack she did not recognize ugly little Hookedy-Crookedy. He told her he had heard that she had the very bad taste to fall in love with an ugly, crooked, wee fellow in her father's garden.

"I am a handsome fellow, and a rich prince," says Jack, "and I will give you myself and all I possess if you will only say you will accept me."

She was highly insulted, and she showed him that very quickly. She said, "I won't sit here and hear the man I love abused," and she got up to leave.

"Well," says Jack, "I admire your spirit; but before you go," says he, "let me make you a little present," and he handed her a tablecloth. "There," says he, "if you marry Hookedy-Crookedy, as long as you have this tablecloth, you will never want eating and drinking of the best."

The other two sisters grabbed to get the tablecloth from her but Jack put out his hands and pushed them back.

At dinner time the next day Jack came in the dress in which he had gone into the second battle, and with the mare he cleared the walls as on the day before.

The King was enraged at the gate-keepers and began to scold them, but Jack laughed at them and said a trifle like that was nothing to him or his mare.

After dinner was over the King asked what he thought of his two daughters and their husbands.

Jack said they were very good, and asked him if he had any more daughters in his family.

The King said, "I have no more except one who won't do as I wish and who has fallen in love with an ugly, crooked, wee fellow in my garden, and I ordered her never to come into my sight."

But Jack said he would very much like to see her.

The King said that on Jack's account he would break his vow and let her come in. So the Yellow Rose was brought in, and Jack fell to chatting with her. He did all he could to make her fall in love with him, and told her of all his great wealth and possessions and offered himself to her, and said if she only would marry him she should live in ease and luxury and happiness all the days of her life, as she never could do with Hookedy-Crookedy.

But Yellow Rose got very angry, and said: "I won't sit here and listen to such things," and she got up to leave the room.

"Well," says Jack, "I admire your spirit, and before you go let me make you a little present."

So he handed her a purse. "Here," says he, "is a purse, and all the days yourself and Hookedy-Crookedy live you will never want for money, for that purse will never be empty."

Her sisters made a grab to snatch it from her, but Jack shoved them back, and went out. And Jack rode away with the mare after dinner and left her in the wood.

When he came back to his garden he always came in the Hookedy-Crookedy shape and always pretended he had been off on a message for the King.

The third day he went to the wood again. He dressed in the suit in which he had gone to the first battle, and when he came back he went to the castle and cleared the walls, and when the King scolded the gate-keepers Jack told him never to mind, as that was a small trifle to him and his mare.

A very grand dinner indeed Jack had this day, and when they chatted after dinner the King asked him how he liked his two daughters and their husbands.

He said he liked them very well, and asked him if he had any more daughters in his family.

The King said no, except one foolish one who wouldn't do as he wished, and who had fallen in love with an ugly, crooked, wee fellow in his garden, and she was never to come within his sight again.

Says Jack, "I would like to see that girl."

The King said he could not refuse Jack any request he made; so he sent for the Yellow Rose. When she came in, Jack fell into chat with her, and did his very, very best to make her fall in love with him. But it was of no use. He told her of all his wealth and all his grand possessions, and said if she would marry him she should own all these, and all the days she should live she should be the happiest woman in the wide world, but if she married Hookedy-Crookedy, he said, she would never be free from want and hardships, besides having an ugly husband.

If the Yellow Rose was in a rage on the two days before, she was in a far greater rage now. She said she wouldn't sit there to listen. She told Jack that Hookedy-Crookedy was in her eyes a far more handsome and beautiful man than he or than any king's son she had ever seen. She said to Jack, that if he were ten times as handsome and a hundred times as wealthy, she wouldn't give Hookedy-Crookedy's little finger for himself or for all his wealth and possessions, and then she got up to leave the room.

"Well," says Jack, says he, "I admire your spirit very much and," says he, "I would like to make you a little present. Here is a comb," he said, "and it will comb out of your hair a bushel of gold and a bushel of silver every time you comb with it, and, besides," says he, "it will make handsome the ugliest man that ever was."

When the other sisters heard this they rushed to snatch the comb from her, but Jack threw them backwards so very roughly that their husbands sprang at him. With a back switch of his two hands Jack knocked the husbands down senseless. The King flew into a rage, and said, "How dare you do that to the two finest and bravest men of this world?"

"Fine and brave, indeed!" said Jack. "One and the other are worthless creatures, and not even your lawful sons-in-law."

"How dare you say that?" says the King.

"Strip their backs where they lie and see for yourself." And there the King saw written, "An unlawfully married man."

"What is the meaning of this?" says the King. "They were lawfully married to my two daughters, and they have the golden tokens of the marriage."

Jack drew out from his pocket the golden balls and handed them to the King, and said, "It is I who have the tokens."

The Yellow Rose had gone off to the garden in the middle of all this. Jack made the King sit down, and told him all his story, and how he came by the golden balls. He told him how he was Hookedy-Crookedy, and that it reflected a great deal of honour on his youngest daughter that she whom the King thought so worthless should refuse to give up Hookedy-Crookedy for the one she thought a wealthy prince. The King, you may be sure, was now highly delighted to grant him all he desired. A couple of drops of Ioca brought the King's two sons-in-law to their senses again, and at Jack's request, they were ordered to go and live elsewhere. Jack went off, left his mare in the wood, and came into the garden as Hookedy-Crookedy. He told the Yellow Rose he had been gathering bilberries.

"Oh," says she, "I have something grand for you. Let me comb your hair with this comb."

Hookedy-Crookedy put his head in her lap, and she combed out a bushel of gold and silver; and when he stood up again, she saw Hookedy-Crookedy no more, but instead the beautiful prince that had been trying to win her in her father's drawing-room for the last three days; and then and there to her Jack told his whole story, and it's Yellow Rose who was the delighted girl.

With little delay they were married. The wedding lasted a year and a day, and there were five hundred fiddlers, five hundred fluters and a thousand fifers at it, and the last day was better than the first.

Shortly after the marriage, Jack and his bride were out walking one day. A beautiful young woman crossed their path. Jack addressed her, but she gave him a very curt reply.

"Your manners are not so handsome as your looks," said Jack to her.

"And bad as they are, they are better than your memory, Hookedy-Crookedy," says she.

"What do you mean?" says Jack.

She led Jack aside, and she told him, "I am the mare who was so good to you. I was condemned to that shape for a number of years, and now my enchantment is over. I had a brother who was enchanted into a bear, and whose enchantment is over now also. I had hopes," she says, "that some day you would be my husband, but I see," she says, "that you quickly forgot all about me. No matter now," she says; "I couldn't wish you a better and handsomer wife than you have got. Go home to your castle, and be happy and live prosperous. I shall never see you, and you will never see me again."

_Arndt's Night Underground_

It was on a dreary winter's night, just such a one as it may be now--only you cannot see it for your closed shutters and curtains--that two children were coming home from their daily work, for their parents were poor, and Arndt and Reutha had already to use their little hands in labour. They were very tired, and as they came across the moor the wind blew in their faces, and the distant roaring of the Baltic sea, on whose shore they lived, sounded gloomy and terrible.

"Dear Arndt, let me sit down and rest for a minute, I can go no farther," said Reutha, as she sank down on a little mound that seemed to rise up invitingly, with its shelter of bushes, from the midst of the desolate moor.

The elder brother tried to encourage his little sister, as all kind brothers should do; he even tried to carry her a little way; but she was too heavy for him, and they went back to the mound. Just then the moon came out, and the little hillock looked such a nice resting-place, that Reutha longed more than ever to stay. It was not a cold night, so Arndt was not afraid; and at last he wrapped his sister up in her woollen cloak, and she sat down.

"I will just run a little farther and try if I can see the light in father's window," said Arndt. "You will not be afraid, Reutha?"

"Oh, no! I am never afraid."

"And you will not go to sleep?"

"Not I," said Reutha; and all the while she rubbed her eyes to keep them open, and leaned her head against a branch which seemed to her as soft and inviting as a pillow.

Arndt went a little way, until he saw the light which his father always placed so as to guide the children over the moor. Then he felt quite safe and at home, and went back cheerfully to his sister.

Reutha was not there! Beside the little mound and among the bushes did poor Arndt search in terror, but he could not find his sister. He called her name loudly--there was no answer. Not a single trace of her could be found; and yet he had not been five minutes away.

"Oh! what shall I do?" sobbed the boy; "I dare not go home without Reutha!" And there for a long time did Arndt sit by the hillock, wringing his hands and vainly expecting that his sister would hear him and come back. At last there passed by an old man, who travelled about the country selling ribbons and cloths.

"How you are grown since I saw you last, my little fellow!" said the man. "And where is your sister Reutha?"

Arndt burst into tears, and told his friend of all that had happened that night. The peddler's face grew graver and graver as the boy told him it was on this very spot that he lost his little sister.

"Arndt," whispered he, "did you ever hear of the Hill-men? It is they who have carried little Reutha away."

And then the old man told how in his young days he had heard strange tales of this same moor; for that the little mound was a fairy-hill, where the underground dwarfs lived, and where they often carried off young children to be their servants, taking them under the hill, and only leaving behind their shoes. "For," said the peddler, "the Hill-people are very particular, and will make all their servants wear beautiful glass shoes instead of clumsy leather."

So he and Arndt searched about the hill, and there, sure enough, they found Reutha's tiny shoes hidden under the long grass. At this her brother's tears burst forth afresh.

"Oh! what shall I do to bring back my poor sister? The Hill-men and women will kill her!"

"No," said the old man, "they are very good little people, and they live in a beautiful palace underground. Truly, you will never see Reutha again, for they will keep her with them a hundred years; and when she comes back you will be dead and buried, while she is still a beautiful child."

And then, to comfort the boy, the peddler told him wonderful stories of the riches and splendour of the Hill-people, how that sometimes they had been seen dancing at night on the mounds, and how they wore green caps, which, if any mortal man could get possession of, the dwarfs were obliged to serve him and obey him in everything. All this Arndt drank in with eager ears; and when the peddler went away he sat a long time thinking.

"I will do it," at last he said aloud. "I will try to get my dear Reutha safe back again."

And the boy stole noiselessly to the mound which the Hill-men were supposed to inhabit. He hid himself among the surrounding bushes, and there he lay in the silence and darkness, his young heart beating wildly, and only stilled by one thought that lay ever there, that of the lost Reutha. At last a sudden brightness flashed upon the boy's eyes; it could not be the moon, for she had long set. No; but it was a sight more glorious than Arndt had ever dreamed of.

The grassy hill opened, and through this aperture the boy saw a palace underground, glittering with gold and gems. The Hill-men danced about within it, dressed like tiny men and women. Arndt thought how beautiful they were, though they seemed no bigger than his own baby sister of six months old. One by one they rose out of the opening, and gambolled on the snow-covered mound; but wherever they trod flowers sprang up, and the air grew light and warm as summer. After a while they ceased dancing and began ball-playing, tossing their little green caps about in great glee. And lo and behold! one of these wonderful caps, being tossed farther than usual, lighted on the very forehead of the peeping boy!

In a moment he snatched it and held it fast, with a cry of triumph. The light faded--the scene vanished--only Arndt heard a small weak voice whispering, humbly and beseechingly in his ear.

"Please, noble gentleman, give me my cap again."

"No, no, good Hill-man," answered the courageous boy; "you have got my little sister, and I have got your cap, which I shall keep."

"I will give you a better cap for it--all gold and jewels--oh, so beautiful!" said the Hill-man, persuasively.

"I will not have it. What good would it do me? No, no, I am your master, good dwarf, as you very well know, and I command you to take me down in the hill with you, for I want to see Reutha."

There shone a dim light on the grass, like a glowworm, and then Arndt saw the elfin mound open again; but this time the palace looked like a dim, gloomy staircase. On the top stair stood the little Hill-man, holding the glowworm lamp, and making many low bows to his new master. Arndt glanced rather fearfully down the staircase; but then he thought of Reutha, and his love for her made him grow bold. He took upon himself a lordly air, and bade his little servant lead the way.

The Hill-man took him through beautiful galleries, and halls, and gardens, until the boy's senses were intoxicated with these lovely things. Every now and then he stopped, and asked for Reutha: but then there was always some new chamber to be seen, or some dainty banquet to be tasted; until, by degrees, Arndt's memory of his little sister grew dimmer, and he revelled in the delights of the fairy palace hour after hour. When night came--if so it could be called in that lovely place, where night was only day shadowed over and made more delicious--the boy felt himself lulled by sweet music to a soft dreaminess, which was all the sleep that was needed in that fairy paradise.

Thus, day after day passed in all gay delights, the elfin people were the merriest in the world, and they did all their little master desired. And Arndt knew not that while they surrounded him with delights it was only to make him forget his errand. But one day, when the boy lay on a green dell in the lovely fairy-garden, he heard a low, wailing song, and saw a troop of little mortal children at work in the distance. Some were digging ore, and others making jewellery, while a few stood in the stream that ran by, beating linen, as it seemed. And among these poor little maidens, who worked so hard and sang so mournfully, was his own sister Reutha.

"No one cares for me," she murmured; and her song had in it a plaintive sweetness, very different from the way in which the little Danish maiden spoke on earth. "Reutha is alone--her hands are sore with toil--her feet bleed--but no one pities her. Arndt sleeps in gorgeous clothes, while Reutha toils in rags. Arndt is the master--Reutha is the slave! Poor Reutha is quite alone!"

Even amidst the spells of fairyland that voice went to the brother's heart. He called the Hill-people, and bade them bring Reutha to him. Then he kissed her, and wept over her, and dressed her in his own beautiful robes, while the Hill-men dared not interfere. Arndt took his sister by the hand, and said--

"Now, let us go; we have stayed long enough. Good Hill-man, you shall have your cap again when you have brought Reutha and me to our own father's door."

But the Hill-man shook his tiny head, and made his most obsequious bow. "Noble master, anything but this! This little maid we found asleep on our hill, and she is ours for a hundred years."

Here Arndt got into a passion; for, convinced of the power the little green cap gave him over the dwarfs, he had long lost all fear of them. He stamped with his foot until the little man leaped up a yard high, and begged his master to be more patient.