‘Oh, you needn’t be afraid, miss, they won’t hurt you,’ he said; but all the same, she didn’t care to go too near them. ‘They’ve just been frightened by Wopole, King Mumkie’s falconer,’ he went on. ‘Wopole came running round the corner suddenly, and almost knocked Lightfoot – that’s the dun cow – over. He was roaring out “Where is she?” awfully loud. I pity her when he gets her, whoever she is.’
‘But who is she?’ asked the Princess.
‘I don’t know – how should I?’
‘Oh, I only thought you might know. But what will he do with her when he gets her?’
‘I don’t know; fry her in lard or something – that’s what they generally do to strangers in the town now.’
‘Oh dear!’ said the Princess; ‘how am I to get away from him?’
The old man looked at her curiously.
‘Oh! you’re her,’ he said.
‘I rather think I am. But how am I to get away?’ she answered.
‘If you’ll come with me I’ll take you to my cottage over there, and they’ll never think of looking for you there.’
But the Princess did not exactly like the idea.
‘Aren’t you one of these people?’ she asked; ‘because I don’t relish being fried in lard, or oil, or anything else.’
But the old man shook his head.
‘Good gracious me, no!’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t let them roast the last stranger that came to the town, and so they turned me out.’
‘Oh,’ said the Princess, ‘then you must be King Abominable.’
‘I am Abbonamento.’
‘Then I suppose I shall be safe with you?’
‘Quite safe, if you like to come; only just help me to drive the cows.’ And the old man called to his animals who were browsing in the grass at the wayside, and they trudged quietly on till they came to a gate in the hedge. This they waited for the old man to open for them, and then went through the meadow until they came to a little farmhouse half hidden by trees.
‘This is my house,’ the King said. ‘Just wait a moment till I have put the cows in the byre, and then I’ll come back and let you in; for you see my wife’s away at the market, and there’s no one else at home.’
So the Princess stopped where she was, and the old man went whistling round to the back of the house driving his cows before him.
It was a very small house, with the thatched roof coming so low down that you could touch it almost with your hand, and the windows were quite overshadowed by it. Over a little arbour of trellis-work before the door ran a rose-tree of deep red flowers, and the roses were full of bees that came from the hives arranged on benches under the eaves, and a few chickens were asleep on one leg under the porch.
In two or three minutes the door opened, and the old man appeared, and the chickens walked lazily away.
‘I entered by a back door,’ he explained. ‘Come in and make yourself at home.’
The inside of the house was just as small and homely as the outside, and the rooms were refreshingly shady and cool after the hot sunlight without.
‘Sit down,’ said the old man, pointing to an arm-chair; and the Princess did as she was told.
‘Now,’ said he, ‘if you will tell me where you come from, I will try to find out how to take you back.’
So she told him all her story, and he listened very attentively. When she had finished he said:
‘It’s lucky for you that Wopole forgot the eagle, or goodness knows what would have happened to you; but how you’re to get back I don’t know. It’s my opinion you never will, for no one was ever known to pass those mountains safely yet.’
I don’t know what else he would have gone on to say, but by this time the Princess had begun to cry bitterly.
‘Oh dear me!’ said the old man, ‘what a fool I was to go and tell her all that. Now goodness knows what’ll happen. Oh dear, oh dear, Princess, don’t go on weeping like that, or you’ll melt altogether; do leave off.’
But the Princess did not seem at all inclined to leave off, and she might have melted altogether, only just then the door opened, and an old woman with a market-basket on her arm and a big umbrella in her hand came into the room, but stood transfixed with her eyes and mouth wide open when she saw the Princess.
‘My! Abbonamento, what’s the little girl crying for? and where does she come from? and what does it all mean?’
And she picked up her umbrella, which she had dropped, and leaned it against the table, and put her market-basket on a chair. This she did very slowly, and all the while the old king was telling her what had happened, so that by the time she had finished her preparations she knew nearly as much about it as he did. When he had finished she shook her head.
‘Poor girl! poor girl! So you come from the land on the other side of the mountains. I know it.’
The Princess had by this time left off crying, and when she heard the old lady say ‘I know it’ she said:
‘“Kennst du das Land
Wo die Citronen blühen?”’
But the old lady shook her head.
‘That’s Greek, and I never could understand Greek. If it had been German or French now – but just translate it for me, will you?’
So the Princess translated it for her.
‘“Knowest thou the land where blooms the lemon-flower?”’
But the old lady shook her head.
‘I don’t know so much about the lemon-flower; but my grand-aunt Thompson had a sister whose daughter had a servant who’d seen the dragon eat up the last man that ever tried to cross the mountains.’
‘But I don’t see how that is to help me to get back – do you?’
‘No, I don’t exactly; but perhaps something will turn up to help you. Won’t it, Abbonamento?’
Abbonamento nodded.
‘But what shall I do in the meanwhile?’ said the Princess; ‘for, you see, I don’t want to be fried in lard, as you say the townsmen are in the habit of doing.’
‘You’d better stop with us,’ said Abbonamento. ‘Eh, wife, what do you say?’
And his wife said:
‘Oh yes, certainly; it’s the only thing to do. Do stop.’
‘Well, I suppose I must,’ said the Princess. ‘Only, shan’t I be rather in the way?’
But the King answered:
‘Oh, not at all, quite the other way. You’ll be very useful. You can milk the cows, and pluck the fowls, and feed the pigs, and all sorts of things.’
‘But what will the people of the town say if they see me?’ asked the Princess.
‘The people of the town – oh, they never come near me, although they are glad to buy butter and milk and eggs of me in the market. They think it seems grand to say they buy their things of a king; but they never trouble about me at all except for that.’
Just at this moment the old lady, thinking it her turn to say something, said:
‘By the bye, you have not told us your name yet.’
‘Would you like it in full, or only what I’m generally called?’ asked the Princess.
‘Oh, say it in full, unless you’ve any objection.’
‘Well, you see, it’s rather long; it generally takes about a quarter of an hour