It was early dawn, and nobody was awake in the hotel except the Boots, who was blacking his namesakes in the back hall. He saw the King come down, and thought he had come to get his boots; but the monarch paid no attention to him, quietly unbolted the front door, and slipped out into the garden. Was he too late? Had the bird flown? No, the magic song still rose from the vines outside his chamber-window. But even now, as the King approached, a fluttering was heard, and the Golden-breasted Kootoo, spreading its wings, flew slowly away over the garden wall, and away towards the mountain which rose just behind the hotel. The King followed, clambering painfully over the high wall, and leaving fragments 41 of his brocade dressing-gown on the sharp spikes which garnished it. Once over, he made all speed, and found that he could well keep the bird in sight, for it was flying very slowly. A provoking bird it was, to be sure! It would fly a little way, and then, alighting on a bush or hanging spray, would pour forth a flood of melody, as if inviting its pursuer to come nearer; but before the unhappy King could get within gunshot, it would flutter slowly onward, keeping just out of reach, and uttering a series of mocking notes, which seemed to laugh at his efforts. On and on flew the bird, up the steep mountain; on and on went the King in pursuit. It is all very well to fly up a mountain; but to crawl and climb up, with a heavy gun in one’s hand, and one’s dressing-gown catching on every sharp point of rock, and the tassel of one’s nightcap bobbing into one’s eyes, is a very different matter, I can tell you. But the King never thought of stopping for an instant; not he! He lost first one slipper, and then the other; the cord and tassels of his dressing-gown 42 tripped him up, so that he fell and almost broke his nose; and finally his gun slipped from his hold and went crashing down over a precipice; but still the King climbed on and on, breathless but undaunted.
At length, at the very top of the mountain, as it seemed, the bird made a longer pause than usual. It lighted on a point of rock, and folding its wings, seemed really to wait for the King, singing, meanwhile, a song of the most inviting and encouraging description. Nearer and nearer crept the King, and still the bird did not move. He was within arm’s-length, and was just stretching out his arm to seize the prize, when it fluttered off the rock. Frantic with excitement, the King made a desperate clutch after it, and —
At eight o’clock the landlady knocked at the King’s door. “Hot water, Your Majesty,” she said. “Shall I bring the can in? And the Band desires his respects, and would you wish him to 43 play while you are a-dressing, being as you didn’t bring a music-box with you?”
Receiving no answer, after knocking several times, the good woman opened the door very cautiously, and peeped in, fully expecting to see the royal nightcap reposing calmly on the pillow. What was her amazement at finding the room empty; no sign of the King was to be seen, although his pink-silk knee-breeches lay on a chair, and his ermine mantle and his crown were hanging on a peg against the wall.
The landlady gave the alarm at once. The King had disappeared! He had been robbed, murdered; the assassins had chopped him up into little pieces and carried him away in a bundle-handkerchief! “Murder! police! fire!!!!”
In the midst of the wild confusion the voice of the Boots was heard. “Please, ’m, I see His Majesty go out at about five o’clock this morning.”
Again the chorus rose: he had run away; he had gone to surprise and slay the King of Coringo 44 while he was taking his morning chocolate; he had gone to take a bath in the river, and was drowned! “Murder! police!”
The voice of the Boots was heard again. “And please, ’m, he’s a sittin’ out in the courtyard now; and please, ’m, I think he’s crazy!”
Out rushed everybody, pell-mell, into the courtyard. There, on the ground, sat the King, with his tattered dressing-gown wrapped majestically about him. An ecstatic smile illuminated his face, while he clasped in his arms a large bird with shining plumage.
“Bless me!” cried the poultry-woman. “If he hasn’t got my Shanghai rooster that I couldn’t catch last night!”
The King, hearing voices, looked round, and smiled graciously on the astonished crowd. “Good people,” he said, “success has crowned my efforts. I have found the Golden-breasted Kootoo! You shall all have ten pounds apiece, in honor of this joyful event, and the landlady shall be made a baroness in her own right!”
“But,” said the poultry-woman, “it is my Shang – ”
“Be still, you idiot!” whispered the landlady, putting her hand over the woman’s mouth. “Do you want to lose your ten pounds and your head too? If the King has caught the Golden-breasted Kootoo, why, then it is the Golden-breasted Kootoo, as sure as I am a baroness!” and she added in a still lower tone, “There hasn’t been a Kootoo seen in the Vale for ten years; the birds have died out.”
Great were the rejoicings at the palace when the King returned in triumph, bringing with him the much-coveted prize, the Golden-breasted Kootoo. The bands played until they almost killed themselves; the cooks waved their ladles and set to work at once on the pie; the huntsmen sang hunting-songs. All was joy and rapture, except in the breast of one man; that man was the Second Musician, or, as we should now call him, the Chief Musician. He felt no thrill of joy at sight of the wondrous bird; on the contrary, he made his 46 will, and prepared to leave the country at once; but when the pie was finished, and he saw its huge dimensions, he was comforted. “No man,” he said to himself, “can eat the whole of that pie and live!”
Alas! he was right. The unhappy King fell a victim to his musical ambition before he had half finished his pie, and died in a fit. His subjects ate the remainder of the mighty pasty, with mingled tears and smiles, as a memorial feast; and if the Golden-breasted Kootoo was a Shanghai rooster, nobody in the kingdom was ever the wiser for it.
CHAPTER III
THE raccoon’s story was received with general approbation; and the grandmother, in particular, declared she had not passed so pleasant an hour for a very long time. The good woman was gradually becoming accustomed to her strange visitors, and ventured to address them with a little more freedom, though she still trembled and clutched her knitting-needles tighter when she heard the bear’s deep tones.
“It is really very good of you all,” she said, “to take compassion upon my loneliness. Before I came to this cottage I lived in a large town, where I had many friends, and I find the change very great, and the life here very solitary. Indeed, if it were not for my dear little Toto, I should lead quite the life of a hermit.”
“What is a hermit?” asked the bear, who had 48 an inquiring mind, and liked to know the meaning of words.
“It is a crab,” said the parrot. “I have often seen them in the West Indies. They get into the shells of other crabs, and drive the owners out. A wretched set!”
“Oh, dear!” cried the grandmother. “That is not at all the kind of hermit I mean. A hermit in this country is a man who lives quite alone, without any companions, in some uninhabited region, such as a wood or a lonely hillside.”
“Is it?” exclaimed the bear and the squirrel at the same moment. “Why, then, we know one.”
“Certainly,” the squirrel went on; “Old Baldhead must be a hermit, of course. He lives alone, and in an uninhabited region; that is, what you would call uninhabited, I suppose.”
“How very interesting! Where does he live?” asked Toto. “Who is he? How is it that I have never seen him?”
“Oh, he lives quite at the other end of the wood!” replied the squirrel; “some ten miles or 49 more from here. You have never been so far, my dear boy, and Old Baldhead isn’t likely to come into our part of the wood. He paid us one visit several years ago, and that was enough for him, eh, Bruin?”
“Humph! I think so!” said Bruin, smiling grimly. “He seemed quite satisfied, I thought.”
“Tell us about his visit!” cried Toto eagerly. “I have never heard anything about him, and I know it must be funny, or you would not chuckle so, Bruin.”
“Well,”