Soap-Bubble Stories Part 23

Dame Fossie sat sleeping peacefully in a large rush-bottomed chair by the fireplace--and Granny Pyetangle, on her bed under the chintz curtains, was sleeping too.

'Zekiel laid the Fozzy-gog's leaf carefully on her forehead, and creeping from the room, threw himself on his own little bed, and was soon as fast asleep as the two old women.

The next morning, when Granny Pyetangle awoke, she said she felt considerably better, and so energetic was she that Dame Fossie had great difficulty in persuading her not to get up.

Dame Fossie tidied up the place, and was much annoyed to find a dead leaf sticking to Granny Pyetangle's scanty grey hair. "How a rubbishy leaf o' dog-wood came to get there, is more nor _I_ can account for,"

she said crossly, as she swept it away into the fire, before 'Zekiel could interfere to rescue it.

Granny Pyetangle's recovery was wonderfully rapid. Every day she was able to do a little more, and 'Zekiel's triumph was complete when he was allowed to help her down the stairs into the kitchen, and seat her quavering, but happy, on the great chair in the chimney corner.

"Well, it do seem pleasant to be about agin," said Granny Pyetangle, smoothing her white linen ap.r.o.n. "No'but you have kept the place clean, 'Zekiel, like a good lad. There's those things in corner cupboard as bright as chaney can be! and that chaney dog o' yours sitting as life-like as you please! It wouldn't want much fancy to say he was wagging his tail and looking at me quite welcoming!"

The wood fire blazed and crackled, the kettle sang on its chain in the wide chimney. Granny Pyetangle was almost well, and quite happy; and 'Zekiel felt his heart overflowing with grat.i.tude towards the Fozzy-gog.

"I'll never forget him. Never!" said 'Zekiel to himself, "and I wouldn't tell upon him not if anyone was to worrit me ever so!"--and indeed he never did.

Years pa.s.sed, and Dame Fossie's shop was shut, and Dame Fossie herself was laid to rest. Her daughter inherited most of her possessions; but--"to my young friend 'Zekiel Pyetangle, I will and bequeath my china dog, hoping as he'll be a kind friend to it," stood at the end of the sheet of paper which did duty as her will. And so 'Zekiel became the owner of the Fozzy-gog after all!

Granny Pyetangle has long since pa.s.sed away, but the little thatched cottage is still there, with the garden full of lavender bushes and sweet-smelling flowers. From the gla.s.s door of the corner cupboard the Fozzy-gog and his companion look out upon the world with the same inscrutable expression; and 'Zekiel himself, old and decrepit, but still cheerful, may at this moment be sitting in the cottage porch, watching his little grandchildren play about the cobblestone pathway, or talking over old times with Eli and Hercules Colfox, who, hobbling in for a chat, take a pull at their long pipes, and bemoan the inferiority of everything that does not belong to the time when "us were all lads together."

PRINCESS SIDIGUNDA'S GOLDEN SHOES.

Princess Sidigunda lived with her parents in a beautiful old castle by the sea. It was so near that the royal gardens sloped down gradually to the sh.o.r.e, and from its battlements--where the little Princess was allowed to walk sometimes on half-holidays--she could watch the s.h.i.+ps with their gaily-painted prows and golden dragons' heads, sweeping over the water in quest of new lands and fresh adventures.

Princess Sidigunda was an only child, and at her christening every gift you can imagine had been showered upon her.

The Trolls of the Woods gave her beauty; the Trolls of the Water, a free, bright spirit; the Mountain-Trolls, good health; and last, but not least, her chief G.o.dfather, the Troll of the Seash.o.r.e, had given her a beautiful little pair of golden slippers.

"Never let the child take them off her feet," said the old Troll. "As long as she keeps them she will be happy. If ever they are lost the Princess's troubles will begin."

"But they will grow too small for her!" said the Queen anxiously.

"Oh no, they won't!" said the old Troll. "They will grow as she grows, so you needn't trouble about that."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Time went on, and the little Princess grew to be ten years old.

The old Troll's promise was fulfilled, and her life had been a perfectly happy one. Watched by her faithful nurse, she had never had any opportunity of losing her magic shoes; and though she often bathed and played about the sh.o.r.e with her young companions, she was never allowed to be without one of her attendants, in case she should forget her G.o.dfather's caution.

One fine summer afternoon, the Princess, with some of her friends, ran down to the sands from the little gate in the castle wall.

The sea looked green and beautiful, light waves curling over on the narrow strip of yellow sh.o.r.e.

"Let's wade!" cried the Princess. "My nurse is ill in bed, and my two ladies think we are playing in the garden. We'll have a little treat of being alone, and enjoy ourselves!"

"We must take our slippers off," said one of the children, as they raced along.

"Oh, I wish _I_ could!" cried the Princess. "I don't believe _once_ would matter. I'll put them in a safe place where the sea can't get at them," and as she spoke she pulled off her golden shoes, and hid them in a great hurry behind a sand-bank.

The Princess's little friends ran off laughing; while she followed, her hair streaming, her bare feet twinkling in the sunlight.

"How nice it is to be free, without those tiresome shoes!" cried the Princess.

The children paddled in the water until they were tired, and then Sidigunda thought it was time to put on her slippers again. She ran to the bank, but gave a cry of astonishment--she could only find one of her golden shoes! Tears sprang to her eyes as she looked about her wildly.

"Oh what shall I do?" she cried. "My shoe! My G.o.dfather's shoe!"

The children gathered round her eagerly.

"It must be there. Who can have taken it?"

They searched the low sand dunes up and down, but not a trace of the lost slipper could be found. It was gone as entirely as if it had never existed; and as the Princess drew on the remaining one, the tears rolled down her face, and fell upon the sand-hill by which she was sitting.

"Oh, G.o.dfather! dear G.o.dfather! come and help me!" she wailed. "Do come and help me!"

At her cry, the sand-hill began to quiver and shake strangely. It heaved up, and an old man's head, with a long grey beard, appeared in the middle; followed slowly by a little brown-coated body.

"What is the matter, G.o.d-daughter? Your tears trickled down to me and woke me up, just as I was comfortably sleeping," he said querulously.

"They're saltier than the sea, and I can't stand them."

"My shoe's gone! Oh! whatever am I to do? I'm _so_ sorry, G.o.dfather!"

"So you ought to be!" said the old man sharply. "I told you something bad would happen if you ever took them off. The question is now, Where's the shoe gone to?"

He leant his elbows on the mound, and looked out to sea.

"Just what I thought!" he exclaimed. "The Sea-children have taken it for a boat. I _must_ speak to the Sea-grandmother about them, and get her to keep them in better order."

"Oh, it's gone then, and I shall never get it back again!" wept the Princess. "What am I to do, G.o.dfather?"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Have you courage enough to go and find your shoe by yourself?"

"If that's the only way to get it back," said the Princess bravely.

"Well, then, you must start immediately, or the Sea-children will have hidden it away somewhere. You will be obliged to have a pa.s.sport, but I'll tell you how to get that. Take this veil"--and he drew a thin, transparent piece of silvery gauze from his pocket--"and throw it over your head whenever you go under the water. With it you will be able to breathe and see, as well as if you were on dry land. From this flask"--and he handed Sidigunda a curious little gold bottle--"you must pour a few drops on to your remaining shoe, and whenever you do so it will change in a moment into a boat, a horse, or a fish, as you desire it."

"How am I to start, and where am I to go to?" asked the Princess, trying not to feel frightened at the prospect before her.

"Launch your shoe as a boat, and float on till you meet the Sea-Troll, who is an old friend of mine. Explain your errand to him, and say I begged him to direct you and give you a pa.s.sport. And now one last word before I leave you. Never, _whatever_ happens, cry again; for there is nothing worries me so much, and I want to finish my sleep comfortably."

With these words the old Troll collected his long grey beard which had strayed over the sand-hill; and folding it round him, he disappeared in the hole again.

Princess Sidigunda did not give herself time to think. She ran down to the edge of the water, took off her golden shoe, and poured some of the contents of her G.o.dfather's flask over it.