The Field of Clover | Page 6

hands in token of allegiance. 'You are lord of the well!' they said, as they passed him each one to the next.
He came to the bottom of the well; under his feet, wherever he stepped upon its waters, hands came up and sustained him. The knowledge of everything that was there had become his. 'Give me,' he said, 'the crystal cup that is for him who holds kingship over you; so shall I be lord of you in all places wherever I go.'
A blue arm reached down and drew up from the water a small crystal, that burned through the darkness with a blue fire, and gave it to Noodle. 'Now I am your king, however far from you!' said Noodle. And they answered, chanting:
'Under Heaven, over Hell, You have broken the spell, You are lord of the Well.'
'Lift me up!' said he; and the blue arms caught him and lifted him up; from one to another they passed him in ascending circles, till he came to the mouth of the well.
There overhead was the old witch, crouching and looking in to know what had become of him; and her hair hung far down over her eyes into the well. He caught her to him by it over the brink. 'Old witch,' he said, 'you must change places with me now!' and he tossed her down to the bottom of the well.
She went like a falling shuttlecock, shrieking as she fell; and as she struck the water, the drowned bodies of the men she had sent there came to the surface, and caught her by the feet and hair, and drew her down, making an end of her, as she also had made of them.

[Illustration]
IV
THE PRINCESS MELILOT
When Noodle, carrying the crystal with him, set foot once more upon dry land, straightway he was again upon the back of the Galloping Plough, with the world flying away under him. But now weariness came over him, and his head weighed this way and that, so that earth and sky mixed themselves before his gaze, and he was so drugged with sleep that he had no wits to bid the Plough slacken from its speed. Therefore it happened that as they passed a wood, a hanging bough caught him, and brushed him like a feather from his place, landing him on a green bosom of grass, where he slept the sleep of the weary, nor ever lifted his head to see the Plough fast disappearing over hill and valley and plain, out of sound of his voice or sight of his eye.
When Noodle awoke and found that the Plough was gone, he was bitter against himself for his folly. 'So poor a use to make of so noble a steed!' he cried; 'no wonder it has gone from me to seek for a worthier master! If by good fortune I find it again, needs must I do great things by its aid to be worthy of its service.' So he set out, following the furrow of its course, determined, however far he must seek, to journey on till he found it.
For a whole year he travelled, till at length he came, footsore and weary, to a deserted palace standing in the midst of an overgrown garden. The great gates, which lay wide open, were overrun with creepers, and the paths were green with weeds. That morning he had thought that he saw far away on the hills the gleam of his silver Plough, and now hope rose high, for he could see by its track that the Plough had passed before him into the garden of the palace. 'O my moonbeam,' he thought, 'is it here I shall find you at last?'
Within the garden there was a sound of cross questions and crooked answers, of many talking with loud voices, and of one weeping apart from the rest. When he got quite close, he was struck still with awe, and joy, and wonder. For first there lay the Galloping Plough in the middle of a green lawn, and round it a score of serving-men, tugging at it and trying to make it move on. Near by stood an old woman, wringing her hands and begging them to leave it alone: 'For,' cried she, 'if the Plough touches but the feet of the Princess, she will be uprooted, and will presently wither away and die. Of what use is it to break one, if the other enchantments cannot be broken?'
In the centre of the lawn grew a bower of roses, and beneath the bower stood the loveliest princess that ever eye beheld; but she stood there motionless, and without sign of life. She seemed neither to hear, nor see, nor breathe; her feet were rooted to the ground; though they seemed only to rest