Read Ebook: Harper's Round Table October 20 1896 by Various

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Ebook has 540 lines and 32528 words, and 11 pages

The next morning the Princess set to work to find a dress in which she could dig potatoes. But none of her own were simple enough; and when she asked her maids of honor if they had any old clothes, they were quite offended, and said they had never had such a thing in their lives. So she called her little page, who was teaching the cat to stand on its head in the anteroom; and she promised him a real sword in a gold sheath if he would find her an old dress to wear. But the little page came back again, in an hour's time, and said there was not an old dress to be had in the palace.

"What am I to do?" said the Princess, who had never been thwarted in her life before. "How do dresses grow old, I wonder, and why has no one in the palace got an old dress that I can wear?"

"Please your Highness, I think it is because none of the ladies in the palace slide down the balusters," said the little page. "That is the way I tear my coats and make them old. But I have heard, your Highness, that there are some people outside the palace gates who wear old clothes sometimes, only his Majesty does not like us to mix with such people, and I do not know where they live, your Highness."

"Oh dear! oh dear!" sighed the Princess. "I wonder how long it would take to wear out my dress and make it old enough to dig potatoes in?"

The little page shook his head.

"I do not think it will ever be an old dress, please your Highness," he said; "but perhaps the White Witch of the Waterfall could help you to find one."

"Who is the White Witch of the Waterfall?" asked Princess Gyldea.

"She lives by the waterfall in the wood that skirts the edge of your garden," said the little page; "and she appears to those who call her name three times, and grants them but one wish. At least that is what folk say, but I have never dared to seek her myself, your Highness."

So Princess Gyldea sent her page back to play with the other pages in the anteroom, and she slipped out of the palace, and hastened across to the wood, away from the high prickly hedge with the hole in it, and arrived at last before the shimmering, glistening waterfall. Then she raised her voice and called three times for the White Witch. And out of the rushing, dancing water came a white mist, and out of the white mist, stepped a wonderful, tall witch-woman, who looked as though the rivers and the dew and the sunshine had all helped one another to make her.

"Only one wish I can grant you, Princess, so think well before you ask," she said.

But the Princess Gyldea answered at once, without thinking at all.

"Turn my silk robes into an old dress so that I can go and dig potatoes," she begged.

"As you like," answered the White Witch; "but for that you must give me one of three gifts."

"Tell me," said the Princess, "is it my crown, or my jewels, or my wealth? You may have them all if you care for them, only give me an old dress quickly."

"I must have either your beauty or your strength or your happiness," said the White Witch, with a smile. "That is my price for an old dress."

"Will not all my wealth do as well?" she asked.

"No," said the witch-woman, "for that is of no use to me, nor is it yours to give. I must have something that is your very own."

"I cannot let my beauty go," thought the Princess, as she looked at her reflection in the clear mantle of the White Witch; "and if I lose my strength I shall never be able to dig potatoes at all. No, it must be my happiness; for, after all, I am very dull, and it will not be a big gift to give."

So she gave the White Witch her happiness; and the wonderful witch-woman laughed like the trickling of water over stones; and her laugh mingled with the rush of the waterfall; and she stepped back into the white mist again and was gone. And Princess Gyldea looked down at her dress, and it was no longer woven of silk and covered with precious jewels, nor was it plain and clean, as she had fancied an old dress would be; but it was soiled and ugly and torn; and she shivered with cold as she stood in it, and put her hands over her eyes to shut out the ugliness of it. And she walked back into her garden very slowly, and went down the path with her head bent, for she felt heavy-hearted and downcast. The little page ran across her path just behind her as she went, and he stopped and stared after her.

"What fun!" he cried. "Here is an old beggar-woman in the Princess's garden!" and he took up a stone and threw it at her. But a red rose bush caught the stone and stopped it, and the little page went singing back to the palace, while the Princess crept sobbing towards the hole in the hedge.

"Look at us, Princess," whispered the flowers, "for we are very beautiful."

And the Princess stooped and picked a handful, and fastened them in her torn, ragged dress.

"Help me over. I'm so unhappy," she said, through the hedge, and stretched out her hands to the tall man. And the tall man dropped his spade and came and lifted her right over; and there she stood before him, a woe-begone, tear-stained little figure in a ragged gown.

"What have you come for?" he asked, and smiled at her.

"I knew you would only laugh," she said, indignantly, "and now I can't get back again."

"So you want to go back again already? I suppose it is a nice new game to wear an old dress and pretend to dig potatoes," said the tall man.

"It is not a game," said the Princess, humbly. "I gave the White Witch my happiness for an old dress so that I might come and dig potatoes and you could go and learn to dance, and now you only laugh at me!"

"So you have been to the White Witch too?" said the tall man. "Then you shall come, if you like, and dig potatoes while I go and learn to dance."

So she took the spade and dug all day until the night-time, and then she lay down under the high prickly hedge and went to sleep in the starlight. And in the morning the tall man came back again and spoke with her.

"Are you tired of your new game yet?" he asked.

"It is not a game," she said, and looked at the blisters and the scratches on her soft white hands.

Then the tall man took up the potatoes she had dug and went away for another day.

And every morning he came and asked the same question, and every morning the Princess gave him the same answer; and after that he took away the potatoes she had dug.

At the end of a month the Princess was so tired with digging all day, and her hands were so sore with holding the heavy spade, that she felt she could do no more.

"I am sure I must be going to die," she said, as she looked up at the stars. But she did not die, and the next morning the tall man came as before.

"But you have dug no potatoes since yesterday, Gyldea," he said to her.

"I am too tired; look at my hands," she said, and held them out to him.

Then the tall man knelt down beside her and kissed her two hands, and as he kissed them all the sore places were suddenly healed, and the ugly scars vanished, and they grew white and soft again.

"I shall be able to dig now," she said, joyfully.

"There are no more potatoes to dig," said the tall man.

Then she looked round and saw that all the potatoes were gone, and that everything was covered with flowers, instead, as far as she could see.

"Oh, how beautiful!" she exclaimed, and then looked down at her rags. "Everything is beautiful except me."

"And me," added the tall man.

"Yet you look different somehow," she said, wonderingly, and put her hand on his face where the wrinkles had been a month ago.

"I have been learning to dance for a whole month, you see," he said, and laughed merrily. "It is my turn to work again now, and you shall go back to the palace."

The Princess did not look at all pleased at that.

"I don't want to go back a bit," she said, "and besides, I can't go to the palace in this ragged dress, can I?"

"The White Witch will give you back your fine clothes," he said.

"Oh no! because, you see, I have cheated the White Witch out of her gift," cried Gyldea, laughing.

"How?" he asked.

"Because I gave her my happiness, and you have made it come back to me," said the Princess, and laughed again.

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