



Produced by Charles Aldarondo.  HTML version by Al Haines.








A DOUBLE STORY


BY GEORGE MACDONALD.


NEW YORK:






A DOUBLE STORY



I.


There was a certain country where things used to go rather oddly. For
instance, you could never tell whether it was going to rain or hail, or
whether or not the milk was going to turn sour. It was impossible to
say whether the next baby would be a boy, or a girl, or even, after he
was a week old, whether he would wake sweet-tempered or cross.

In strict accordance with the peculiar nature of this country of
uncertainties, it came to pass one day, that in the midst of a shower
of rain that might well be called golden, seeing the sun, shining as it
fell, turned all its drops into molten topazes, and every drop was good
for a grain of golden corn, or a yellow cowslip, or a buttercup, or a
dandelion at least;--while this splendid rain was falling, I say, with
a musical patter upon the great leaves of the horse-chestnuts, which
hung like Vandyke collars about the necks of the creamy, red-spotted
blossoms, and on the leaves of the sycamores, looking as if they had
blood in their veins, and on a multitude of flowers, of which some
stood up and boldly held out their cups to catch their share, while
others cowered down, laughing, under the soft patting blows of the
heavy warm drops;--while this lovely rain was washing all the air clean
from the motes, and the bad odors, and the poison-seeds that had
escaped from their prisons during the long drought;--while it fell,
splashing and sparkling, with a hum, and a rush, and a soft
clashing--but stop! I am stealing, I find, and not that only, but with
clumsy hands spoiling what I steal:--

    "O Rain! with your dull twofold sound,
     The clash hard by, and the murmur all round:"

--there! take it, Mr. Coleridge;--while, as I was saying, the lovely
little rivers whose fountains are the clouds, and which cut their own
channels through the air, and make sweet noises rubbing against their
banks as they hurry down and down, until at length they are pulled up
on a sudden, with a musical plash, in the very heart of an odorous
flower, that first gasps and then sighs up a blissful scent, or on the
bald head of a stone that never says, Thank you;--while the very sheep
felt it blessing them, though it could never reach their skins through
the depth of their long wool, and the veriest hedgehog--I mean the one
with the longest spikes--came and spiked himself out to impale as many
of the drops as he could;--while the rain was thus falling, and the
leaves, and the flowers, and the sheep, and the cattle, and the
hedgehog, were all busily receiving the golden rain, something
happened. It was not a great battle, nor an earthquake, nor a
coronation, but something more important than all those put together. A
BABY-GIRL WAS BORN; and her father was a king; and her mother was a
queen; and her uncles and aunts were princes and princesses; and her
first-cousins were dukes and duchesses; and not one of her
second-cousins was less than a marquis or marchioness, or of their
third-cousins less than an earl or countess: and below a countess they
did not care to count. So the little girl was Somebody; and yet for all
that, strange to say, the first thing she did was to cry. I told you it
was a strange country.

As she grew up, everybody about her did his best to convince her that
she was Somebody; and the girl herself was so easily persuaded of it
that she quite forgot that anybody had ever told her so, and took it
for a fundamental, innate, primary, first-born, self-evident,
necessary, and incontrovertible idea and principle that SHE WAS
SOMEBODY. And far be it from me to deny it. I will even go so far as to
assert that in this odd country there was a huge number of Somebodies.
Indeed, it was one of its oddities that every boy and girl in it, was
rather too ready to think he or she was Somebody; and the worst of it
was that the princess never thought of there being more than one
Somebody--and that was herself.

Far away to the north in the same country, on the side of a bleak hill,
where a horse-chestnut or a sycamore was never seen, where were no
meadows rich with buttercups, only steep, rough, breezy <DW72>s, covered
with dry prickly furze and its flowers of red gold, or moister, softer
broom with its flowers of yellow gold, and great sweeps of purple
heather, mixed with bilberries, and crowberries, and cranberries--no, I
am all wrong: there was nothing out yet but a few furze-blossoms; the
rest were all waiting behind their doors till they were called; and no
full, slow-gliding river with meadow-sweet along its oozy banks, only a
little brook here and there, that dashed past without a moment to say,
"How do you do?"--there (would you believe it?) while the same cloud
that was dropping down golden rain all about the queen's new baby was
dashing huge fierce handfuls of hail upon the hills, with such force
that they flew spinning off the rocks and stones, went burrowing in the
sheep's wool, stung the cheeks and chin of the shepherd with their
sharp spiteful little blows, and made his dog wink and whine as they
bounded off his hard wise head, and long sagacious nose; only, when
they dropped plump down the chimney, and fell hissing in the little
fire, they caught it then, for the clever little fire soon sent them up
the chimney again, a good deal swollen, and harmless enough for a
while, there (what do you think?) among the hailstones, and the
heather, and the cold mountain air, another little girl was born, whom
the shepherd her father, and the shepherdess her mother, and a good
many of her kindred too, thought Somebody. She had not an uncle or an
aunt that was less than a shepherd or dairymaid, not a cousin, that was
less than a farm-laborer, not a second-cousin that was less than a
grocer, and they did not count farther. And yet (would you believe it?)
she too cried the very first thing. It WAS an odd country! And, what is
still more surprising, the shepherd and shepherdess and the dairymaids
and the laborers were not a bit wiser than the king and the queen and
the dukes and the marquises and the earls; for they too, one and all,
so constantly taught the little woman that she was Somebody, that she
also forgot that there were a great many more Somebodies besides
herself in the world.

It was, indeed, a peculiar country, very different from ours--so
different, that my reader must not be too much surprised when I add the
amazing fact, that most of its inhabitants, instead of enjoying the
things they had, were always wanting the things they had not, often
even the things it was least likely they ever could have. The grown men
and women being like this, there is no reason to be further astonished
that the Princess Rosamond--the name her parents gave her because it
means Rose of the World--should grow up like them, wanting every thing
she could and every thing she couldn't have. The things she could have
were a great many too many, for her foolish parents always gave her
what they could; but still there remained a few things they couldn't
give her, for they were only a common king and queen. They could and
did give her a lighted candle when she cried for it, and managed by
much care that she should not burn her fingers or set her frock on
fire; but when she cried for the moon, that they could not give her.
They did the worst thing possible, instead, however; for they pretended
to do what they could not. They got her a thin disc of brilliantly
polished silver, as near the size of the moon as they could agree upon;
and, for a time she was delighted.

But, unfortunately, one evening she made the discovery that her moon
was a little peculiar, inasmuch as she could not shine in the dark. Her
nurse happened to snuff out the candles as she was playing with it; and
instantly came a shriek of rage, for her moon had vanished. Presently,
through the opening of the curtains, she caught sight of the real moon,
far away in the sky, and shining quite calmly, as if she had been there
all the time; and her rage increased to such a degree that if it had
not passed off in a fit, I do not know what might have come of it.

As she grew up it was still the same, with this difference, that not
only must she have every thing, but she got tired of every thing almost
as soon as she had it. There was an accumulation of things in her
nursery and schoolroom and bedroom that was perfectly appalling. Her
mother's wardrobes were almost useless to her, so packed were they with
