The Wise Woman | Page 7

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 no breath to scream with, and her tongue curled up in her
mouth like a withered and frozen leaf She could do nothing but stare at
the coming monster. And now he was taking a few shorter bounds,
measuring the distance for the one final leap that should bring him
upon her, when out stepped the wise woman from behind the very tree
by which she had set the princess down, caught the wolf by the throat
half-way in his last spring, shook him once, and threw him from her
dead. Then she turned towards the princess, who flung herself into her
arms, and was instantly lapped in the folds of her cloak.
But now the huge army of wolves and hy¾nas had rushed like a sea
around them, whose waves leaped with hoarse roar and hollow yell up
against the wise woman. But she, like a strong stately vessel, moved
unhurt through the midst of them. Ever as they leaped against her cloak,

they dropped and slunk away back through the crowd. Others ever
succeeded, and ever in their turn fell and drew back confounded. For
some time she walked on attended and assailed on all sides by the
howling pack. Suddenly they turned and swept away, vanishing in the
depths of the forest. She neither slackened nor hastened her step, but
went walking on as before.
In a little while she unfolded her cloak, and let the princess look out.
The firs had ceased, and they were on a lofty height of moorland, stony,
and bare, and dry, with tufts of heather and a few small plants here and
there. About the heath, on every side, lay the forest, looking in the
moonlight like a cloud; and above the forest, like the shaven crown of a
monk, rose the bare moor over which they were walking. Presently, a
little way in front of them, the princess espied a white-washed cottage,
gleaming in the moon. As they came nearer, she saw that the roof was
covered with thatch, over which the moss had grown green; It was a
very simple, humble place, not in the least terrible to look at, and yet,
as soon as she saw it, her fear again awoke, and always as soon as her
fear awoke, the trust of the princess fell into a dead sleep. Foolish and
useless as she might by this time have known it, she once more began
kicking and screaming, whereupon yet once more the wise woman set
her down on the heath, a few yards from the back of the cottage, and
saying only, "No one ever gets into my house who does not knock at
the door and ask to come in," disappeared round the corner of the
cottage, leaving the princess alone with the moon--two white faces on
the cone of the night.
CHAPTER III.

The moon stared at the princess, and the princess stared at the moon;
but the moon had the best of it, and the princess began to cry. And now
the question was between the moon and the cottage. The princess
thought she knew the worst of the moon, and she knew nothing at all
about the cottage, therefore she would stay with the moon. Strange, was
it not, that she should have been so long with the wise woman and yet
know nothing about that cottage? As for the moon, she did not by any

means know the worst of her, or even that, if she were to fall asleep
where she could find her, the old witch would certainly do her best to
twist her face.
But she had scarcely sat a moment longer before she was assailed by all
sorts of fresh fears. First of all the soft wind blowing gently through the
dry stalks of the heather and its thousands of little bells raised a sweet
rustling, which the princess took for the hissing of serpents, for you
know she had been naughty for so long that she could not in a great
many things tell the good from the bad. Then nobody could deny that
there, all round about the heath, like a ring of darkness, lay the gloomy
fir-wood, and the princess