A Double Story | Page 7

in the
darkness even, look sheltering. So the princess is not to be blamed that
she was very much frightened. She is hardly to be blamed either that,
assured the wise woman was an ogress carrying her to her castle to eat
her up, she began again to kick and scream violently, as those of my
readers who are of the same sort as herself will consider the right and
natural thing to do. The wrong in her was this--that she had led such a
bad life, that she did not know a good woman when she saw her; took
her for one like herself, even after she had slept in her arms.
Immediately the wise woman set her down, and, walking on, within a
few paces vanished among the trees. Then the cries of the princess rent
the air, but the fir-trees never heeded her; not one of their hard little
needles gave a single shiver for all the noise she made. But there were
creatures in the forest who were soon quite as much interested in her
cries as the fir-trees were indifferent to them. They began to hearken
and howl and snuff about, and run hither and thither, and grin with their
white teeth, and light up the green lamps in their eyes. In a minute or
two a whole army of wolves and hyenas were rushing from all quarters
through the pillar like stems of the fir-trees, to the place where she
stood calling them, without knowing it. The noise she made herself,
however, prevented her from hearing either their howls or the soft
pattering of their many trampling feet as they bounded over the fallen
fir needles and cones.
One huge old wolf had outsped the rest--not that he could run faster,
but that from experience he could more exactly judge whence the cries
came, and as he shot through the wood, she caught sight at last of his
lamping eyes coming swiftly nearer and nearer. Terror silenced her.
She stood with her mouth open, as if she were going to eat the wolf, but
she had no breath to scream with, and her tongue curled up in her

mouth like a withered and frozen leaf. She could do nothing but stare at
the coming monster. And now he was taking a few shorter bounds,
measuring the distance for the one final leap that should bring him
upon her, when out stepped the wise woman from behind the very tree
by which she had set the princess down, caught the wolf by the throat
half-way in his last spring, shook him once, and threw him from her
dead. Then she turned towards the princess, who flung herself into her
arms, and was instantly lapped in the folds of her cloak.
But now the huge army of wolves and hyenas had rushed like a sea
around them, whose waves leaped with hoarse roar and hollow yell up
against the wise woman. But she, like a strong stately vessel, moved
unhurt through the midst of them. Ever as they leaped against her cloak,
they dropped and slunk away back through the crowd. Others ever
succeeded, and ever in their turn fell, and drew back confounded. For
some time she walked on attended and assailed on all sides by the
howling pack. Suddenly they turned and swept away, vanishing in the
depths of the forest. She neither slackened nor hastened her step, but
went walking on as before.
In a little while she unfolded her cloak, and let the princess look out.
The firs had ceased; and they were on a lofty height of moorland, stony
and bare and dry, with tufts of heather and a few small plants here and
there. About the heath, on every side, lay the forest, looking in the
moonlight like a cloud; and above the forest, like the shaven crown of a
monk, rose the bare moor over which they were walking. Presently, a
little way in front of them, the princess espied a whitewashed cottage,
gleaming in the moon. As they came nearer, she saw that the roof was
covered with thatch, over which the moss had grown green. It was a
very simple, humble place, not in the least terrible to look at, and yet,
as soon as she saw it, her fear again awoke, and always, as soon as her
fear awoke, the trust of the princess fell into a dead sleep. Foolish and
useless as she might by this time have known it, she once more began
kicking and screaming, whereupon, yet once more, the wise woman set
her down on the heath, a few yards from the back of the cottage, and
saying only, "No one ever gets into my house who does not knock at
the door,