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THE CHILDREN’S LIBRARY

THE FEATHER




_THE CHILDREN’S LIBRARY._


    THE BROWN OWL.
    A CHINA CUP, AND OTHER STORIES.
    STORIES FROM FAIRYLAND.
    TALES FROM THE MABINOGION.
    THE STORY OF A PUPPET.
    THE LITTLE PRINCESS.
    IRISH FAIRY TALES.
    AN ENCHANTED GARDEN.
    LA BELLE NIVERNAISE.
    THE FEATHER.

    (_Others in the Press._)

[Illustration: “BUT THE EAGLE HAD THE BEST OF IT AFTER ALL.”]




THE FEATHER

    BY
    FORD H. MADOX HUEFFER
    AUTHOR OF ‘THE BROWN OWL’


    _WITH FRONTISPIECE BY
    F. MADOX BROWN_


    LONDON
    T. FISHER UNWIN
    1892

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_TO JULIET_


              ‘_True, I talk of dreams,
    Which are the children of an idle brain,
    Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
    Which is as thin of substance as the air._’




THE FEATHER


ONCE upon a time there was a King who reigned over a country as yet,
for a reason you may learn later on, undiscovered—a most lovely
country, full of green dales and groves of oak, a land of dappled
meadows and sweet rivers, a green cup in a circlet of mountains, in
whose shadow the grass was greenest; and the only road to enter the
country lay up steep, boiling waterfalls, and thereafter through rugged
passes, the channels that the rivers had cut for themselves. Therefore,
as you may imagine, the dwellers in the land were little troubled by
inroads of hostile nations; and they lived peaceful lives, managing
their own affairs, and troubling little about the rest of the world.

Now this King, like many kings before and after him, had a daughter
who, while very young, had, I am sorry to say, been very self-willed;
and the King, on the death of his wife, finding himself utterly unable
to manage the Princess, handed her over to the care of an aged nurse,
who, however, was not much more successful—but that is neither here nor
there.

For years everything went on smoothly, and it seemed as if everything
intended to go on smoothly until doomsday, in which case this history
would probably never have been written. But one evening in summer
the Princess and her nurse, who had by this time become less able
than ever to manage her charge, sat on a terrace facing the west. The
Princess had been amusing herself by pelting the swans swimming in the
river with rose-leaves, which the indignant swans snapped up as they
fluttered down on the air or floated by on the river.

But after a time she began to tire of this pastime, and sitting down,
looked at the sun that was just setting, a blinding glare of orange
flame behind the black hills. Suddenly she turned to the nurse and said:

‘What’s on the other side of the hills?’

‘Lawk-a-mussy-me, miss!’ answered the nurse, ‘I’m sure I don’t know.
What a question to ask!’

‘Then why don’t you ask some one who has been there?’

‘Because no one ever has, miss.’

‘But why not?’

‘Because there’s a fiery serpent that eats every one who comes near
the hills; and if you’re not eaten up, you’re bound to tumble down a
precipice that’s nearly three miles deep, before you can get over the
hills.’

‘Oh, what fun! Let’s go,’ said the Princess, by no means awed. But the
nurse shook her head.

‘No, miss, I won’t go