The Wise Woman | Page 4

stood. At this the rage of the king broke forth, and he cried to the queen, stammering in his fierceness:
"How should such an old hag as that teach Rosamond good manners? She knows nothing of them herself! Look how she stands! Actually with her back to us!"
At the word the wise woman walked from the room. The great folding doors fell to behind her, and the same moment the king and queen were quarreling like apes as to which of them was to blame for her departure. Before their altercation was over, for it lasted till the early morning, in rushed Rosamond, clutching in her hands a poor little white rabbit of which she was very fond, and from which, only because it would not come to her when she called it, she was pulling handfuls of fur, in the attempt to tear the squealing, pink-eared, red-eyed thing to pieces.
"Rosa! Rosamond!" cried the queen;--whereupon Rosamond threw the rabbit in her mother's face. The king started up in a fury, and ran to seize her. She darted shrieking from the room. The king rushed after her, but, to his amazement, she was nowhere to be seen; the huge hall was empty.--No; just outside the door, close to the threshold, with her back to it, sat the figure of the wise woman, muffled in her dark cloak, with her head bowed over her knees. As the king stood looking at her she rose slowly, crossed the hall, and walked away down the marble staircase. The king called to her, but she never turned her head, or gave the least sign that she heard him. So quietly did she pass down the wide marble stair, that the king was all but persuaded he had seen only a shadow gliding across the white steps.
For the princess, she was nowhere to be found. The queen went into hysterics, and the rabbit ran away. The king sent out messengers, but in vain.
In a short time the palace was quiet--as quiet as it used to be before the princess was born. The king and queen cried a little now and then, for the hearts of parents were in that country strangely fashioned;--and yet I am afraid the first movement of those very hearts would have been a jump of terror if the ears above them had heard the voice of Rosamond in one of the corridors. As for the rest of the household, they could not have made up a single tear amongst them. They thought, whatever it might be for the princess, it was for every one else the best thing that could have happened; and as to what had become of her, if their heads were puzzled, their hearts took no interest in the question. The Lord Chancellor alone had an idea about it, but he was far too wise to utter it.
CHAPTER II.

The fact, as is plain, was, that the princess had disappeared in the folds of the wise woman's cloak: when she rushed from the room, the wise woman caught her to her bosom and flung the black garment around her. The princess struggled wildly, for she was in fierce terror, and screamed as loud as choking fright would permit her; but her father, standing in the door, and looking down upon the wise woman, saw never a movement of the cloak, so tight was she held by her captor. He was indeed aware of a most angry crying, which reminded him of his daughter, but it sounded to him so far away, that he took it for the passion of some child in the street, outside the palacegates. Hence, unchallenged, the wise woman carried the princess down the marble-stairs, out at the palace-door, down a great flight of steps outside, across a paved court, through the brazen gates, along half-roused streets where people were opening their shops, through the huge gates of the city, and out into the wide road vanishing northwards--the princess struggling and screaming all the time, and the wise woman holding her tight. When at length she was too tired to struggle or scream any more, the wise woman unfolded her cloak and set her down, and the princess saw the light and opened her swollen eyelids. There was nothing in sight that she had ever seen before! City and palace had disappeared. They were upon a wide road going straight on, with a ditch on each side of it, that, behind them, widened into the great moat surrounding the city. She cast up a terrified look into the wise woman's face that gazed down upon her gravely and kindly. Now the princess did not in the least understand kindness. She always took it for a sign either of partiality or fear. So when the wise woman looked kindly