The Enchanted Castle | Page 8

said, "and I'll show you all my lovely
jewels and things. Wouldn't you like that?"
"Yes, said Gerald with very plain hesitation. "But "
"But what?" The Princess's tone was impatient.
"But we're most awfully hungry." "Oh, so am I!" cried the Princess.
"We've had nothing to eat since breakfast."
"And it's three now," said the Princess, looking at the sun-dial. "Why,

you've had nothing to eat for hours and hours and hours. But think of
me! I haven't had anything to eat for a hundred years." Come along to
the castle.
"The mice will have eaten everything," said Jimmy sadly. He saw now
that she really was a Princess.
"Not they," cried the Princess joyously. "You forget everything's
enchanted here. Time simply stood still for a hundred years. Come
along, and one of you must carry my train, or I shan't be able to move
now it's grown such a frightful length."
When you are young so many things are difficult to believe, and yet the
dullest people will tell you that they are true such things, for instance,
as that the earth goes round the sun, and that it is not flat but round. But
the things that seem really likely, like fairy-tales and magic, are, so say
the grown-ups, not true at all. Yet they are so easy to believe, especially
when you see them happening. And, as I am always telling you, the
most wonderful things happen to all sorts of people, only you never
hear about them because the people think that no one will believe their
stories, and so they don't tell them to any one except me. And they tell
me, because they know that I can believe anything.
When Jimmy had awakened the Sleeping Princess, and she had invited
the three children to go with her to her palace and get something to eat,
they all knew quite surely that they had come into a place of magic
happenings. And they walked in a slow procession along the grass
towards the castle. The Princess went first, and Kathleen carried her
shining train; then came Jimmy, and Gerald came last. They were all
quite sure that they had walked right into the middle of a fairy-tale, and
they were the more ready to believe it because they were so tired and
hungry. They were, in fact, so hungry and tired that they hardly noticed
where they were going, or observed the beauties of the formal gardens
through which the pink-silk Princess was leading them. They were in a
sort of dream, from which they only partially awakened to find
themselves in a big hail, with suits of armour and old flags round the
walls, the skins of beasts on the floor, and heavy oak tables and
benches ranged along it.

The Princess entered, slow and stately, but once inside she twitched her
sheeny train out of Jimmy's hand and turned to the three.
"You just wait here a minute," she said, "and mind you don't talk while
I'm away. This castle is crammed with magic, and I don't know what
will happen if you talk." And with that, picking up the thick goldy-pink
folds under her arms, she ran out, as Jimmy said afterwards, "most
unprincesslike," showing as she ran black stockings and black strap
shoes.
Jimmy wanted very much to say that he didn't believe anything would
happen, only he was afraid something would happen if he did, so he
merely made a face and put out his tongue. The others pretended not to
see this, which was much more crushing than anything they could have
said. So they sat in silence, and Gerald ground the heel of his boot upon
the marble floor. Then the Princess came back, very slowly and kicking
her long skirts in front of her at every step. She could not hold them up
now because of the tray she carried.
It was not a silver tray, as you might have expected, but an oblong tin
one. She set it down noisily on the end of the long table and breathed a
sigh of relief..
"Oh! it was heavy," she said. I don't know what fairy feast the
children's fancy had been busy with. Anyhow, this was nothing like it.
The heavy tray held a loaf of bread, a lump of cheese, and a brown jug
of water. The rest of its heaviness was just plates and mugs and knives.
"Come along," said the Princess hospitably. "I couldn't find anything
but bread and cheese but it doesn't matter, because everything's magic
here, and unless you have some dreadful secret fault the bread and
cheese will turn into anything you like. What would you like?" she
asked Kathleen.
"Roast chicken," said Kathleen, without hesitation.
The pinky Princess cut a slice