St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 | Page 8

suit, the king will be so offended at his presumption that he will speedily dismiss him from the court."
This plan was greatly approved. Dyvorer sought out Ranier, to whom he professed great friendship, with many regrets for all he might have said or done in the past calculated to give annoyance. As Dyvorer was a great dissembler, and Ranier was frank and unsuspicious, they became very intimate. At length, one day when they were together, Dyvorer said:
"Have you ever solicited the king for the favor he promised?"
And Ranier answered, "No!"
"Then," said Dyvorer, "it is a pity that you do not love the Princess Isaur��."
"Why?" inquired Ranier.
"Because," replied Dyvorer, "the princess not only favors you, but, I think, from what my sister Zanthe has said, that the king has taken this mode of giving her to you at her instance."
Ranier knew that the Lady Zanthe was the favorite maiden of the princess, and, as we are easily persuaded in the way our inclinations run, he took heart and determined to act upon Dyvorer's counsel.
About a week afterward, as the king was walking in the court-yard of his palace, as he did at times, he met with Ranier.
"You have never asked of me the favor I promised, good baron," said King Dagobert.
"It is true, your majesty," said Ranier; "but it was because I feared to ask what I most desired."
[Illustration: THE COMBAT WITH SIR PAUL.]
"Speak," said the king, "and fear not."
Therefore Ranier preferred his request for the hand of the princess.
"Baron," replied the king, frowning, "some crafty enemy has prompted you to this. The daughter of a king should only wed with the son of a king. Nevertheless, there is an ancient law, never fulfilled, since the conditions are impossible, which says that any one of noble birth, who has saved the king's life, vanquished the king's enemies in battle, and built a castle forty cubits high in a single night, may wed the king's daughter. Though you have saved my life and vanquished my enemies, yet you are not of noble birth, nor, were you so, could you build such a castle in such a space of time."
"I am of noble blood, nevertheless," said Ranier, proudly, "although I have been a wood-chopper. My father, who died in banishment, was the Duke of Manylands, falsely accused of having conspired against the late king, your august father; and I can produce the record of my birth. Our line is as noble as any in your realm, sire, and nobler than most."
"If that be true, and I doubt it not," answered King Dagobert, "the law holds good for you. But you must first build a palace where we stand, and that in a single night. So your suit is hopeless."
The king turned and entered the palace, leaving Ranier in deep sorrow, for he thought the condition impossible. As he stood thus, the fairy, Rougevert, appeared.
"Be not downcast," she said; "but build that castle to-night."
"Alas!" cried Ranier, "it cannot be done."
"Look at your ax," returned the fairy. "Do you not see that the back of the blade is shaped like a hammer?"
So she taught Ranier what words to use, and vanished.
When the sun was down, Ranier came to the court-yard, and raising his ax with the blade upward, he said aloud: "Ax! ax! hammer! hammer! and build for my profit!" The ax at once leapt forward with the hammer part downward, and began cracking the solid rock on which the court-yard lay, and shaping it into oblong blocks, and heaping them one on the other. So much noise was made thereby that the warders first, and then the whole court, came out to ascertain the cause. Even the king himself was drawn to the spot. And it seemed to them, all through the magic of the fairy, that there were hundreds on hundreds of workmen in green cloth hose and red leather jerkins, some engaged in quarrying and shaping, and others in laying the blocks, and others in keying arches, and adjusting doors and windows, and making oriels and towers and turrets. And still as they looked, the building arose foot by foot, and before dawn a great stone castle, with its towers and battlements, its portcullis, and its great gate, forty cubits high, stood in the court-yard.
When King Dagobert saw this, he embraced Ranier, continued to him the title of his father, whose ducal estates he restored to the son, and sending for the Princess Isaur��, who appeared radiant with joy and beauty, he betrothed the young couple in the presence of the court.
So Ranier and Isaur�� were married, and lived long and happily; and, on the death of Dagobert, Ranier reigned. As for the ax, that is lost, somehow, and although I have made diligent inquiry, I have never been able to find