Part 4

“You can try,” said their mother. “But what about your brothers, the leaves? You know how lazy they are. And you can’t come out without them. You _would_ look funny.”

The little pink buds did all they could. They caught every bit of sunshine, they sucked up every drop of moisture, they grew and grew. But their lazy brothers would not bestir themselves. They kept tight folded in their winter jackets.

“It’s too cold,” they said. “Br-r-r. Why should we hurry?” And so, when the Queen’s birthday came, of course they were not ready, though the pink blossoms were all waiting to burst into bloom. Presently the Queen came riding through the forest on her white rabbit. The sun was shining and the sky was blue. She halted under the almond-tree and sighed a little.

“I’ve had some lovely presents,” she said. “A necklace of dewdrops from the early morning, a blue velvet cloak from the night, and a basketful of perfumed kisses from the south wind, who came such a long, long way to bring them. I should be perfectly happy if only I had some pink flowers.”

The buds of the almond blossom heard her and quivered with excitement. They could wait no longer. With one accord they all burst forth into full bloom. The scent of them was like the smell of honey.

The Queen looked up.

“Oh, you darlings,” she said. “You darlings. I’ll have my birthday party under your tree. It will be the prettiest spring party I have ever had.”

And ever since that day the pink blossoms have always come out in time for the Queen’s first spring birthday without waiting for their lazy little brothers. And every year the fairies hold their earliest revels under the blossoming boughs of the almond-tree.

ELEVEN

The Rondel

There was once a princess who dwelt in a castle in the midst of a great park. She lived hidden away from the world in her quiet home and was scarcely ever seen by strangers.

Rumours of her charm and loveliness, and of her wonderful golden hair, spread far and wide over the land, and she was always known and spoken of as Princess Golden-bright. But her real name was Gentle.

All round the castle were lovely pleasure-gardens in which were gay flower-beds and slender, dancing fountains. But the princess’s favourite spot was a circle of ash-trees which stood in the park some small distance away from the castle on a little grassy hill with a path leading up to it.

It was called the Rondel.

In the middle of the circle of trees stood a table with a seat running round it; the ground was carpeted with soft moss, and the tree-trunks stood up straight and tall like marble pillars.

The princess loved nothing better than to sit in the Rondel in the warm weather with her books and embroidery.

It was like being in a little house with a high green roof to it.

Moreover it was a fairy place, and the ash-trees would often tell her the most delightful stories of what was going on outside the walls of the park, for they were so tall that they could see a long way.

They learnt many things, too, from the birds, who loved to perch among their branches and to chatter away to one another about their adventures in the big world.

The princess very rarely went beyond the walls of the park, for she was quite happy among the birds and flowers. But because the beauty of Princess Golden-bright was famed throughout the land, many princes sent to ask for her hand in marriage.

Some of them even came in person, but the princess would have nothing to do with any of them.

“I am quite happy,” she said; “I do not want a husband.” However, when she was twenty years old, her fairy god-mother came to pay her a visit, and talked to her most earnestly upon this very subject of getting married, telling her that it was exceedingly foolish of her to refuse to see any of these suitors. “My dear Gentle,” she said, “whoever heard of a princess who was an old maid? I don’t say you need choose in a hurry, but I certainly think you ought at least to see these gentlemen. You may very possibly find one among them whom you like, and the ash-trees will help you to choose if you should be in doubt.”

So the princess promised to do as her god-mother wished, and after her departure she made it known by proclamation that Princess Golden-bright was willing to receive any suitable person who might wish to pay her his addresses.

The day after this was done she went as usual to sit in the Rondel, and while she busied herself with her embroidery she talked over this matter of the suitors with her beloved ash-trees.

“How shall I know whom to choose?” said the princess. “I have no experience at all. If I must have a husband I should like to be sure that he is the right one.”

“Do not be afraid, dear princess,” replied the ash-trees. “You know that whosoever stands beneath our boughs is bound to speak the truth. You need ask but one question of each of the suitors. According to his answer you will be able to judge of his suitability as a husband.”

“What shall I ask him?” said the princess.

“Ask him,” replied the ash-trees, “what he most desires in a wife. That will be quite sufficient.”

So the princess sat and waited.

Presently she heard a whispering among the leaves over her head.

“There’s one coming,” they said. “We can see him riding along the high road.”

“Oh, what is he like?” said the princess.

“He is a very fine-looking gentleman indeed,” said the ash-trees. “He rides on a great black prancing horse, and a company of twenty knights rides behind him. He wears shining armour. The harness of his horse is studded with jewels and the hilt of his sword blazes in the sunshine.”

“It sounds very exciting,” said the princess, and she put down her stitching and smoothed her golden hair and spread out the folds of her flower-embroidered gown, for naturally she wanted to look her best.

Before long the prince arrived at the castle gates, and a messenger came out into the park to tell the princess that he had come from a neighbouring kingdom to seek her hand.

“I will see him here,” said the princess.

So the prince came riding through the park with his knights all jingling behind him, each of them bearing a golden casket containing a present for the princess.

When the prince reached the foot of the little hill on which the Rondel stood and saw the princess under the trees, he dismounted from his horse and came on foot to where she sat.

The knights waited at the bottom of the hill.

The princess received him graciously, and he stood before her in the shadow of the ash-trees and asked if she would marry him.

“I have a great kingdom,” said he, “great riches and great power, and my enemies all fear me.”

“I am much honoured,” said the princess, “but I should like to ask you one question. What do you most desire in a wife?”

“Obedience,” said the prince without an instant’s hesitation, for he was obliged to speak the truth.

The princess smiled a little.

“And what would you do if your wife disobeyed you?” she asked.

“Whip her,” said the prince.

“I am much obliged to you,” said the princess, “but I am afraid that I might not always be obedient, and I should not like to be whipped. Good-day.”

So the prince rode away home again with his knights, and the princess went on with her sewing.

Before long she again heard a whispering among the trees.

“Another suitor is riding along the road,” they said.

“Oh, and what is _he_ like?” said the princess.

“He rides on a white horse,” said the ash-trees, “and he wears a blue velvet cap with a white feather in it. He carries a bunch of roses in his hand, and behind him ride six gentlemen in gaily coloured mantles with guitars slung over their shoulders. He has auburn hair and blue eyes. They ride at the trot.”

“He sounds rather pleasing,” said the princess, and she picked a flower from the syringa bush which grew at the entrance to the Rondel and stuck it in her hair.

The blue-eyed prince was also bidden to come out to the Rondel, and he too dismounted from his horse at the foot of the little hill and came gaily walking up the path till he stood beneath the branches of the ash-trees.

He bowed low before the princess and laid his bunch of roses on the table in front of her.

She smiled graciously, for he was a comely young man, and he thereupon offered her his hand in exceedingly beautiful language.

“If you will marry me,” he said, “I will spend my days making verses about you. They will be sung throughout my kingdom. I will make a whole book of them. It shall be called ‘Songs of Queen Golden-bright.’” The princess thought this sounded rather attractive. One does not so often come across a prince who is also a poet.

But the ash-trees rustled softly above her head, and she remembered the question that she was to ask.

“Will you tell me what you most desire in a wife?” she said.

“Beauty,” said the prince promptly.

“But supposing,” said the princess, “that your wife fell downstairs and broke her nose, so that her beauty was spoilt. What then?”

“Oh, then of course I shouldn’t be able to make up any more verses about her,” said the prince. “I should get very irritable. How could I bear to look at a wife with a crooked nose? She would certainly have to be most careful not to break her nose.”

The princess laughed.

“I think you’d better get married to a waxen lady,” she said. “If you kept her in a glass case out of the sun she would remain beautiful for ever, and there would be no fear of her nose getting broken. Thank you very much for coming. I fear that we are not quite suited to one another. Good-day.”

The prince bowed low, picked up his bunch of roses, and rode off again through the park with his white feather streaming behind him in the wind.

“I’m sorry,” said the princess. “He looked so very nice, and I’m sure he must make lovely songs. But I should always have been afraid of breaking my nose.” And she laughed again and took up her embroidery.

Several more suitors came during the day to ask for the hand of the princess, but not one of them gave a satisfactory answer to the question.

One of them thought it above all things desirable in a wife that she should be able to make a good pudding; another required that she should talk very little--“which I _certainly_ couldn’t promise,” said the princess; another considered it most important that she should have twelve bags full of gold pieces! They all had to tell the truth when they stood under the branches of the ash-trees, and some of them really had the most curious ideas.

At last, just as the sun was going down, there came a prince riding on a chestnut horse and attended only by one squire. He had come a long way, from a far-off country, and he had ridden hard, for he had heard much about the lovely Princess Golden-bright and was afraid that he might be too late.

In spite of his dusty and travel-stained appearance the princess was pleased with the look of him, for he was tall and slender and had dark curling hair and pleasant grey eyes, and she hoped very much that he would answer the question satisfactorily.

When he came to the top of the little hill and saw the princess he fell on his knee and could find no word to say, she was so much more beautiful than he could ever have imagined.

But she smiled kindly at him, and he took courage and told her how for a long time he had wanted to come to see her, and that now he feared he had come too late.

The princess asked him many questions, but she hesitated to ask the most important of all, for she liked him better every minute and was afraid he might not give the right answer.

The ash-trees rustled and rustled as if a wind were blowing through them, and at last she felt she must wait no longer.

“Will you tell me,” she said softly, “what it is that you most desire in a wife?”

The prince was perplexed; truly he had never thought about the matter. He looked down at the ground and then he looked up at the trees, and as he did so they all began to whisper softly. “Gentle, Gentle, Gentle,” they said.

“Why, of course,” said the prince, and he looked again at the princess and smiled. “There is one thing I desire above all else in a wife. _She must be Gentle._”

And what better answer could he have given? For Gentle indeed she was.

The princess stood up and held out her hands to him. Her embroidery fell to the ground.

“He’ll do, he’ll do,” rustled the ash-trees.

But the princess didn’t even hear them. She had already made up her mind.

TWELVE

Jan and the Magic Pencil

There was once a little boy called Jan, who lived in a country village. One day he had the good luck to be able to help a fairy out of a ditch, where she had got stuck in the mud.

The fairy was very grateful to Jan, and promised him, as a reward for his kindness, that he should have what he most wished for in the world.

Jan was not a very clever boy, and at first he couldn’t think of anything to wish for. His father was a farmer, and Jan had a good home and plenty to eat and drink; his only real trouble was that he was always at the bottom of his class at school. His father scolded and his mother wept, but Jan always stopped at the bottom. He wasn’t so bad at reading and writing, but he simply could not do arithmetic. His sums were always wrong, even the quite easy ones.

So when he had thought for a few minutes and the fairy was beginning to grow impatient, he decided that the best thing for him to wish for was that he might be able to get his sums right. The fairy accordingly gave him a magic slate pencil which possessed the power of being able to do any kind of arithmetic without ever making any mistake. You simply held it in your hand and it would write down the answer on your slate almost before you had time to read over the figures.

Jan was delighted with his present, which he put carefully away in his pencil-box. He could hardly believe that it would do such wonderful things; but, sure enough, he found he could do all his sums without the slightest effort, and that every one of them was right.

Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication--it made nothing of them all. Even those dreadful Long Division sums were no trouble to the magic pencil: it danced nimbly down the slate without stopping even for a second, and the answers were always right. Jan’s schoolmaster was astonished, so were his parents, and delighted too, when by the end of the week Jan had risen to the top of the school.

“What a good teacher I am, after all!” said the schoolmaster to himself. “I have even been able to teach arithmetic to a boy who was so hopelessly stupid over it that he couldn’t add up two and two correctly.”

He was so proud of this that he actually invited the principal people in the neighbourhood to come in and see his wonderful scholar.

And so it happened that the doctor, the lawyer, the priest, the mayor and one or two other important folk from round about arrived at the schoolhouse one fine day, all agog to see the schoolmaster’s wonderful pupil.

“Come here, Jan,” said the schoolmaster, “and show these gentlemen what you can do.” And he wrote out a long sum on the blackboard--an addition sum in twenty rows, all bristling with eights and nines. Poor Jan came forward in fear and trembling.

“I’d rather do it on my slate,” he said.

But his schoolmaster wouldn’t hear of that.

So Jan had to stand up in front of the blackboard with a piece of chalk in his hand. Of course he couldn’t do the sum at all. It took him a dreadfully long time and not one figure was right.

“The boy’s nervous,” said the doctor. “You’ve been overtaxing him.”

The lawyer smiled and took a pinch of snuff. “I had an idea that our friend the schoolmaster was rather drawing the long bow,” he whispered to the mayor. The priest came and patted Jan’s head.

“Try again, my child,” he said. “You’ll do better next time.”

But Jan did no better the next time. If anything, he did even worse. The schoolmaster was much annoyed. It made him look so foolish. When the visitors had gone he gave Jan a good caning and sent him home in disgrace.

His father and mother were very disappointed, too, when they heard what had happened.

“I always knew the lad was a dullard,” said his father.

Jan wandered disconsolately out into the sunshine. It’s not nice to be called a dullard, particularly when you’ve been top of your school for a whole month. His mother came after him.

“You shall have a hot apple pasty for your supper,” she said; “it’s in the oven now.”

But even apple pasty couldn’t console Jan.

He went into the lane and sat down near the place where he had seen the fairy. He rather hoped he might see her again. Sure enough, he hadn’t been there five minutes when he felt a light touch on his shoulder, and there she was, perched on a swaying wild-rose spray in the hedge close beside him.

“Oh, come,” she said when Jan had told her his trouble, “we can soon remedy that.” And she gave him a piece of chalk to keep in his pencil-box together with his fairy slate pencil. “Now you will be able to do sums on the blackboard as well as on your slate,” she said.

Jan thanked her and went home feeling quite happy, so that he was able thoroughly to enjoy his supper and his apple pasty.

Things went swimmingly for a while. Jan did more wonderful sums than ever, both on the blackboard and on his slate. The schoolmaster was more careful this time; but he called in first one person and then another to see what Jan could do, and now he was no longer disappointed. Even the lawyer had to acknowledge that the boy was indeed a marvel.

But alas and alas! After a little time Jan became so conceited that he was quite unbearable. He gave himself the most extraordinary airs. He would hardly condescend to speak to the other boys. He even patronised his own father and mother.

“No boy in the whole country is as clever as I,” he said. “The King ought to see what I can do. I must certainly go to the Court. How they will open their eyes!”

And so one fine day he prepared to set off to the Court to show the King what he could do.

Now the King of that country was a rather cantankerous old gentleman, and made short work of any one who displeased him. Jan’s mother didn’t very much like the idea of his going, but Jan would not be dissuaded.

“You will see, mother,” he said, “I shall come home with a bagful of gold, and perhaps the King will want me to stay at his Court. When I am grown up I shall marry one of the Princesses, and you will be able to ride in a golden coach and to wear a mantle of blue velvet trimmed with ermine. All the neighbours will curtsey to you and call you Madam. Wouldn’t you like that?”

His mother couldn’t imagine that she would like that very much, but she thought it was rather sweet of Jan to think so much of his mother, and she gave him a kiss and one of his father’s best linen shirts, and bade him be sure not to get his feet wet.

So Jan set off to the palace, and when he got there he sent in a message by the beautiful footman who opened the door that Jan, the Arithmetical Wonder, had come to show the Royal Family what he could do. It was a dull rainy afternoon, and it so happened that the King, Queen, and the two Princesses were sitting at home in their State apartments feeling rather bored. The Lord Chamberlain, who generally amused them on wet days by asking them riddles, had gone to bed with a very bad cold in his head, and they had nothing to do.

“Shall we have him in?” said the King to the Queen.

“He sounds very dull,” said the younger Princess, who was busy making pale blue rosettes for her bedroom slippers.

“Better than nothing,” said her sister, who had just finished reading all the love-letters that had come by the morning’s post, and was pasting the prettiest ones into an album which she kept for that purpose.

So Jan was ushered into the royal apartments, and he told the King and Queen of his attainments--how he could do any sum, however difficult, as quickly as it could be written down, almost more quickly, indeed. He was a nice-looking lad and he had no end of assurance, and brought with him, moreover, letters from all manner of important personages who had tested his wonderful powers.

An attendant was sent to fetch the great Court account tablets, which were made of ivory inlaid with silver, and the King offered Jan his own golden pencil with rubies and diamonds round the top.

“Thank you very much,” said Jan, “I prefer a plain slate or a blackboard, and I always use my own pencil.”

“_Prefer_, indeed,” said the King, with a great black frown. “What business have you to prefer anything? Slates and blackboards! I’d have you know that this is the King’s Palace and not a village schoolhouse. If a gold pencil and ivory tablets are not good enough for you, you can go and do your sums on the dungeon walls.”

Jan was very frightened. He didn’t at all like the idea of a dungeon, so there was nothing for it but to brave it out as best he might.

One of the lords-in-waiting was bidden to write down the sums, and poor miserable Jan wildly scribbled down the answers as fast as he could, with the eyes of the King, the Queen and of their two lovely daughters and all the lords- and ladies-in-waiting riveted upon him.

But as it happened, the only person at the Court who was any good at arithmetic was the Lord Chamberlain, and he, as you know, was in bed with a cold. It is much easier to put down sums than to work them out, and not one member of the Royal Family had the faintest idea as to whether Jan’s answers were right or wrong.

The King looked as wise as he could. “Very good, very good,” he kept saying. The Princesses clapped their hands. _They_ had never been able to get their sums right; but after all, what does it matter whether a princess can do arithmetic or not?

If one or two of the Court ladies and gentlemen had a suspicion that the figures were not quite correct they daren’t suggest such a thing. If the King said the answers were right it was as much as their lives were worth to say they were wrong. But of course Jan knew nothing of all this. He wrote on and on, and all the time only one thought was in his mind.

“How wonderful, how wonderful!” he kept saying to himself. “I have grown so clever that I can do the sums by myself. I shall never need to bother again about the stupid old pencil and chalk. I really am the cleverest boy in the whole kingdom.”

He did not stay very long at the palace, and he was a little disappointed to find that no one offered him a post at Court and that he was not even presented with a bag of gold pieces.

Every one thanked him politely and he was given a good tea in the housekeeper’s room, and the King and Queen shook hands with him and gave him a pretty silver brooch to wear in his cap, while the Princesses smiled pleasantly and wished him a good journey.

But he was buoyed up by his wonderful discovery. He went singing along the road, and when he presently came to a deep pond he threw his slate pencil and his bit of chalk into the middle of it, and continued gaily on his way.

You may imagine how badly he wanted them back again the next day, and for many, many days after: for of course he was as bad as ever at arithmetic, and went straight to the bottom of the class, where he stayed. Many times he went to the place where he had met the fairy, but she never came again, for if you once throw away fairy gifts you never, never get them back again.

THIRTEEN

The Lamb that Went to Fairyland

There was once a fairy who took a great fancy to a tiny white lamb. He really was a dear little creature, and I don’t wonder she fell in love with him. She used often to come and visit him in the meadow where he lived with his mother, and she was very anxious to take him to a fairy party some evening.

The little lamb was shy. “What do you do at the parties?” he asked.