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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; and I’m sure your pa won’t let you go.’

‘Oh yes, he will; let’s go and ask him.’

But at that moment a black shadow came across the sun, and the swans,
with a terrified ‘honk, honk,’ darted across the water to hide
themselves in the reeds on the other side of the river, churning dark
tracks in the purple of the sunlit water’s glassy calmness.

‘Oh dear! oh dear! it’s a boggles, and it’s coming this way,’ cried the
nurse.

‘But what is a boggles, nurse?’

‘Oh dear, it’s coming! Come into the house and I’ll tell you—come.’

‘Not until you tell me what a boggles is.’

The nurse perforce gave in.

‘A boggles is a thing with a hooked beak and a squeaky voice, with hair
like snakes in corkscrews; and it haunts houses and carries off things;
and when it once gets in it never leaves again—oh dear, it’s on us!
Oh-h-h!’

Her cries only made the thing see them sooner. It was only an eagle,
not a boggles; but it was on the look-out for food, and the sun shining
on the Princess’s hair had caught its eyes, and in spite of the cries
of the nurse it swooped down, and, seizing the Princess in its claws,
began to carry her off. The nurse, however, held on to her valiantly,
screaming all the while for help; but the eagle had the best of it
after all, for it carried up, not only the Princess, but the nurse also.

The nurse held on to her charge for some seconds, but finding the
attempt useless she let go her hold; and since it happened that at the
moment they were over the river, she fell into it with a great splash,
and was drifted on shore by the current.

Thus the Princess was carried off; and although the land far and wide
was searched, no traces of her were discoverable. You may imagine for
yourself what sorrow and rage the King indulged in. He turned the nurse
off without warning, and even, in a paroxysm of rage, kicked one of his
pages downstairs; nevertheless that did not bring back the Princess.

As a last resource he consulted a wise woman (ill-natured people called
her a witch) who lived near the palace. But the witch could only say
that the Princess would return some day, but she couldn’t or wouldn’t
say when, even though the King threatened to burn her. So it was all
of no use, and the King was, and remained, in despair. But, since his
Majesty is not the important personage in the story, we may as well
leave him and return to the Princess.

She, as you can think, was not particularly happy or comfortable,
for the claws of the eagle pinched her, and besides, she was very
frightened; for, you see, she didn’t know that it wasn’t a boggles, as
the nurse had called it, and a boggles is a great deal worse than the
worst eagle ever invented.

Meanwhile the eagle continued flying straight towards the sun, which
was getting lower and lower, so that by the time they reached the
mountains it was dark altogether. But the eagle didn’t seem at all
afraid of the darkness, and just went on flying as if nothing had
happened, until suddenly it let the Princess down on a rock—at least,
that was what it seemed to her to be. Not knowing what else to do, she
sat where the eagle had let her fall, for she remembered something
about the precipice three miles deep, and she did not at all wish to
tumble down that.

She expected that the eagle would set to and make a meal off her at
once. But somehow or other, either it had had enough to eat during the
day, or else did not like to begin to have supper so late for fear of
nightmare; at any rate, it abstained, and that was the most interesting
matter to her. Everything was so quiet around that at last, in spite
of herself, she fell asleep. She slept quite easily until daylight,
although the hardness of the rock was certainly somewhat unpleasant.
When she opened her eyes it was already light, and the sun at her back
was darting black shadows of the jagged mountains on to the shimmering
gray sea of mist that veiled the land below. Her first thought was
naturally of the eagle, and she did not need to look very far for him,
since he was washing himself in a little pool close by, keeping an eye
on her the while.

As soon as he saw her move he gave himself a final shake, so that
the water flew all around, sparkling in the sunlight; after which he
came towards her by hops until he was quite close—rather too close,
she thought. Nevertheless she did not move, having heard somewhere
that, under the circumstances, that is the worst thing to do; she also
remembered animals cannot stand being looked at steadily by the human
eye, therefore she looked very steadfastly at the eyes of the eagle.
But the remedy did not seem to work well in this case, for the glassy
yellow eyes of the bird looked bad-tempered, and it winked angrily,
seeming to say, ‘Whom are you staring at?’ And then it began to stretch
out its bill towards her until it was within a few inches of her face.
This was more than she could stand, and she said sharply, ‘Take your
head away.’

The eagle, however, took no notice whatever of this; and seeing nothing
better to do, she lifted up her hand and gave it a smart box on the
ear, or rather on the place where its ear should have been. The eagle
drew back its beak in a hurry and scratched its head with one claw as
if it were puzzled. After a moment’s reflection it put out its head
again, and once more the Princess lifted up her hand; but when the
eagle saw that it jumped backwards in a hurry, as if it did not care to
receive a second box on the ear, and began to stride sulkily away as if
it thought it better to wait a while. When it reached the edge of the
rock—for I have forgotten to tell you that they were on a flat rock at
the top of a mountain—it sat preening its feathers in a sulky manner,
as if it imagined itself a very ill-used bird; moreover, although it
seemed inclined to remain there a long time, I need not tell you
that the Princess had no objections. However, after a time even the
waiting began to grow unpleasant; but suddenly a peculiar sound, as of
something shooting through the air, came from below, and the eagle gave
a leap and fell down a mass of tumbled feathers with an arrow quivering
in their centre, and, with hardly a shudder, it was dead.

The Princess, as you may imagine, was a good deal startled by this
sudden occurrence, but I cannot say she was very sorry for the eagle;
on the contrary, she was rather glad to be rid of him, and it suddenly
came into her head that the man who had shot the arrow might possibly
be somewhere below, and in that case might come up and save her if she
called to him. So she tried to get up, but she was so stiff that she
could hardly move, and when she did stand up she had pins and needles
in one of her feet, and had to stamp hard on the ground before it would
go away. So that it was some time before she got to the edge and looked
over. Now it happened that, just as she bent carefully forward to look
down the side, the head of a man appeared over the edge, and his hands
were so near her that he almost caught hold of her foot as he put them
up to help himself. As she drew back a little to let him have room, he
suddenly noticed her, and almost let go his hold in astonishment.

‘Hullo, little girl,’ he said; ‘how did you come here? It’s rather
early in the morning for you to be up. But who are you when you’re at
home?’

‘I’m the daughter of King Caret.’

‘King how much?’

‘King Caret, I said; and I should be glad if you would help me down
from this height, and show me the way back.’

‘How on earth can I show you the way back when I don’t know who King
Caret is?’

‘But surely you must know who he is?’

‘Never heard of him. What’s