The Wise Woman | Page 6

turn, for she regarded herself as much too precious to be left behind; but on and on the wise woman went, until she had vanished away in the dim moonlight. Then all at once the princess perceived that she was left alone with the moon--looking down on her from the height of her loneliness. She was horribly frightened, and began to run after the wise woman, calling aloud. But the song she had just heard came back to the sound of her own running feet--
All all alone
Like a dog-picked bone!
and again,
She might call and shout,
And no one about
Would ever call back--Who's there?
and she screamed as she ran. How she wished she knew the old woman's name, that she might call it after her through the moonlight!
But the wise woman had in truth heard the first sound of her running feet, and stopped and turned, waiting. What with running and crying, however, and a fall or two as she ran, the princess never saw her until she fell right into her arms--and the same moment into a fresh rage; for as soon as any trouble was over, the princess was always ready to begin another. The wise woman therefore pushed her away, and walked on, while the princess ran scolding and storming after her. She had to run till, from very fatigue, her rudeness ceased. Her heart gave way, she burst into tears, and ran on silently weeping.
A minute more and the wise woman stooped, and lifting her in her arms, folded her cloak around her. Instantly she fell asleep, and slept as soft and as soundly as if she had been in her own bed. She slept till the moon went down; she slept till the sun rose up; she slept till he climbed the topmost sky; she slept till he went down again, and the poor old moon came peaking and peering out once more; and all that time the wise woman went walking on and on very fast. And now they had reached a spot where a few fir-trees came to meet them through the moonlight.
At the same time the princess awaked, and popping her head out between the folds of the wise woman's cloak--a very ugly little owlet she looked--saw that they were entering the wood. Now there is something awful about every wood, especially in the moonlight, and perhaps a fir-wood is more awful than other woods: for one thing, it lets a little more light through, rendering the darkness a little more visible, as it were; and then the trees go stretching away up towards the moon, and look as if they cared nothing about the creatures below them--not like the broad trees with soft wide leaves that, 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 harken 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 hy?nas 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