Читать книгу The Starlight Wonder Book - Henry Beston - Страница 5

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Once upon a time, during a great battle which was fought through the night in a tempest of lightning and rain, a brave young grenadier came upon one of the enemy lying sorely wounded on the field. Taking pity upon his foeman, the soldier bound up his wounds and carried him from the battle to the shelter of a little wood. Scarce had the wounded youth opened his eyes, when amid a blinding flash of lightning and a peal of tumbling thunder, a green chariot drawn by green dragons rushed downward through the hurrying clouds and sank to earth at the soldier’s side. Bidding the dragons be still, a tall, dark, and stately man wearing a long green mantle descended from the chariot, took the wounded lad in his arms, and thus addressed the grenadier:—

“Generous friend, to you I owe the life of my youngest son. I am the Enchanter of the Green Glen. Take you this little green wand in memory of the great debt I owe you. Whatsoever you strike once with it will continue to grow larger till you cry ‘stop’; whatsoever you strike twice with it will grow smaller till you bid the magic cease. Farewell, brave soldier, and may good fortune walk forever by your side.”

Then, wrapping his wide green mantle about the body of his son, the Wizard bade his scaly, yellow-eyed dragons be on their way, and vanished on high in the tempest and the dark.

And now the wars were over and done, and the soldier found himself mustered out and turned loose to earn his living in the world. Still clad in his grenadier’s uniform, and wearing his blue greatcoat buttoned close about him, he slung his knapsack to his shoulder, fastened it to his belt in front by crossed straps of white leather, put on his big shiny hat, and turned from the camp over the hills and far away.

It was the early autumn of the year: great roaring gusts swept by overhead, singing shrilly through the withered leaves still clinging to the branches, apples lay red ripe in the frost-nipped grass, and the country folk were gleaning in the stubble of the fields. On through the villages went the soldier, hoping to find work for the winter among the farms; he knocked at this door and at that, but ever in vain. Presently the mighty summits of the Adamant Mountains, gleaming with new-fallen snow, rose beyond the bare woods and the lonely fields. Following the great royal road, the soldier tramped on into the very heart of the mountain mass.

“Perhaps I shall meet with better luck in the kingdoms beyond the peaks,” thought the grenadier, as he trudged along. How still it was! Now the soldier could hear the roaring of the river in the gorge below the road, now the cry of the eagles circling high above some desolate crag.

At high noon on the third day, the soldier arrived at the brazen column which marks the descent of the royal road to the kingdoms beyond the hills. A biting wind, keen with the smell of snow, blew from the surrounding peaks, and made the soldier very hungry indeed. Sheltering himself against the giant column, he slipped his knapsack from his shoulder, and looked within for the last of the bread and cheese which a good wife of the mountain villages had given him the day before. Alas, there was but the tiniest crust of bread to be found, and the littlest crumb of cheese! Suddenly, as he fished about in the sack, the grenadier discovered the little green wand. He had quite forgotten it. A notion came into his head to try the magic, and he struck the bit of bread one smart tap.

The moment he did so, the fragment of bread bounced a few inches into the air, and fell back to the ground; soon it was the size of a loaf of bread; a moment or two later the loaf had grown to the size of a table; soon the mass of bread was the size of a small house. And it was growing, growing, growing.

“Stop!” cried the soldier. The magic ceased. The soldier struck the mountain of bread twice.

Again it leaped into the air, but this time it began to grow less. Like to a candle end in the fire, it began to vanish before the soldier’s eyes. Presently it was once more the size of a generous loaf, and thus the soldier bade it remain. Next he enchanted the bit of cheese to an ample size, and found himself provided with victuals fit for a king. Later, when he had eaten his fill, he amused himself by enchanting a pebble into a great rock. And that rock may be seen in the Adamant Mountains to this very day!

At the end of a week’s journey the soldier reached the Golden Plain, which lies between the Adamant Mountains and the sea.

Now at the time of the soldier’s arrival, the people of the Golden Plain were being day by day swept to hunger and ruin by the devastation wrought throughout their land by a hippodrac. Driven by hunger, so some thought, from its stony lair in the forests of the sun, this terrible creature had suddenly swooped down on the harvest fields a month before, and had roamed the land till the precious grain had for the most part been consumed or destroyed. Worse yet, the hippodrac was even then breaking open the royal granaries, in which lay such grain as the citizens had been able to store away.

This terrible creature, I must tell you, was a kind of fearsome winged horse. It was larger than any earthly animal, black as midnight in color, and armored over the chest and head with a sheath of dragon’s scales. Add to this a pair of giant wings, black and lustrous as a raven’s, a wicked horse-like head with huge jaws, hoofs of blue steel, and an appetite like a devouring flame, and you will see that the people of the Golden Plain had true cause for alarm. Black wings outspread, blue hoofs plunging, roaring from the fiery pits of its violet nostrils, the hippodrac was master in the land.

In the hope of ridding themselves of the monster, the people of the Golden Plain offered a huge treasure to whosoever might conquer the invader. In true soldier fashion the grenadier resolved to fight the hippodrac, and win fame and fortune at a blow.

Now the Lord Chancellor of the realm, who ruled the land during the minority of the Princess Mirabel, had no intention whatever of paying the promised reward. Not only had this wicked man stolen so much money from the royal treasury that scarce was a penny left, but also was he miserly, cruel, and avaricious. Torn between fear of the hippodrac and fear of having to empty his own money-bags of the stolen gold in order to pay the reward, the Chancellor wandered back and forth all day through the castle halls. Thus far, however, no one had ever returned to claim the treasure.

After talking with some who had seen the hippodrac, the soldier retired to a little inn to make his plans. Sitting alone in a great settle by the fire, he watched the flames grow ruddier as the afternoon sun sank below the western hills. Presently it was night, a night quiet, cool, and bright with great winter stars.

The grenadier made his way unobserved out of the royal city, and soon arrived in the midst of the ruined and trampled fields. Here the grain had been gathered, bound in sheaves, and left to perish when the harvesters fled; here the uncut stalks had withered in the ground; here stood a house from which everyone had run for his life. Presently the soldier beheld, standing apart on a lonely hill, the crumbling towers of the ruined castle which served as the hippodrac’s den.

A late, wasted, half-moon began to rise. The soldier made his way up the slope, and peered through the doorless portal into the moonlit ruin.

At the end of the great entrance-hall of the castle, its monstrous head resting on the lowest step of the winding stair which led to the roofless banqueting-hall above, lay the monster. The rays of the waning moon, slanting through the broken tracery of a great window, fell on its vast bulk; a rumbling breathing alone disturbed the starry silence of the night.

“I must make my way down those stairs,” said the grenadier to himself, and crept off to seek a way to the banqueting hall above. Finally he managed to find a little stairway in a ruined turret. Creeping along softly, ever so softly, over the floor of the banqueting hall, he reached the head of the great stair and looked down its curving steps to the monster asleep below. Then, step by step by step, the grenadier approached the hippodrac.

Suddenly the soldier’s foot dislodged a piece of clattering stone. The hippodrac awoke with a scream, but the soldier struck it two swift taps with the little green wand.

The instant he did so, the hippodrac uttered a cry of fright and rage which waked the good folk of the city in their beds, and bounced, wings beating wildly, in the air. The grenadier took refuge at the head of the balustrade. Smaller and smaller grew the furious and bewildered beast. Now it had shrunk to the size of a pony, now it had dwindled to the size of a dog, now it was scarce larger than a kitten.

“Stop!” cried the grenadier. Wild with fright, the tiny monster took wing, and fluttered like a terrified bird into a corner of the ruins. And there, beating about and flapping its wings madly, the grenadier caught it in his high hat, and shook it into his knapsack. This done, he walked swiftly back to the inn, and went to bed.

Now one of the Lord Chancellor’s rascals had been on watch for his return, and when the grenadier returned with the light of victory in his eyes, this spy ran to inform his rogue of a master. Suspecting magic of some kind, the wicked Chancellor made his way to the inn, and stole the green wand while the soldier slept.

Suddenly the soldier’s foot dislodged a piece of clattering stone, and the hippodrac awoke

Early the next morning, the soldier sent word to the counselors of court that he had mastered the hippodrac, and waited their good pleasure to prove the truth of his word. Within a very short time a royal messenger appeared, summoning him before the assembled court at the tenth hour.

And now the soldier, carrying the tiny hippodrac in his knapsack, was led to the judgment hall of the royal palace. The Princess Mirabel sat on the throne of the realm, whilst the Lord Chancellor stood by her side, a smile of triumph on his wicked lips. But the soldier had eyes only for the young Princess, who was as fair as the first wild rose of the year. As for the Princess, it must be confessed that she thought the stalwart young grenadier with the black hair and the blue eyes quite the most pleasant person she had ever seen.

Simply and modestly the grenadier told the story of his capture of the hippodrac. Leaning forward a little, the Princess listened eagerly.

“And your proof of this—?” questioned the Lord Chancellor.

“Is here,” replied the grenadier, and opening his knapsack, he took from it the hippodrac and placed it on the carpet just before the throne. As the soldier had taken the precaution to clip the monster’s wings, the tiny thing could do naught but dance with rage on its little blue hoofs, and lash out madly right and left in a frenzy of fear. A murmur of astonishment rose from the assembly. There was a great craning of necks. All present looked at the Lord Chancellor to hear what he might say.

“That little thing, the great hippodrac?” said the Lord Chancellor, evilly. “Pooh! ’T is a juggler’s kitten, rather. I shall give no reward for this.”

“You dare?” cried the grenadier fiercely. “Wait!” And he reached in his pocket for the little green wand, but, alas, the little green wand was gone.

“Pooh!” said the Chancellor again, watching, with contented eyes, the poor grenadier madly thrusting his hands into every pocket, “You see he cannot do as he pretends. The fellow is an impostor. Ho, guards! Take this rogue and his dancing kitten off to prison.”

“But it looks like the hippodrac,” protested the Princess.

“No! Not a bit of it, not a bit of it!” roared the Chancellor. And he quickly silenced all those who were fain to see justice done, by threatening to send any objector to the royal diamond-mines in the Adamant Mountains.

Left to himself in a lonely cell of the royal prison, the poor grenadier awaited the day of his departure for the mines. Finding the time hang heavy on his hands, he amused himself by trying to tame the tiny hippodrac. To his surprise and pleasure, the fierce little creature made a swift response. Soon it was eating crumbs from his hand. In a fortnight it could spell out words and letters by tapping the floor with its right foreleg! And day by day, its clipped wings grew once more to full size.

“Oh, if you could only get me my green wand again!” said the soldier one morning.

At these words, the hippodrac beat an excited tattoo on the table, and before the soldier could seize it, spread its little gleaming wings, and fled through the barred window out into the world.

All day long the soldier waited its return. “It has flown away forever,” he thought, as twilight fell. A moment later, however, he heard a whir of tiny wings, and the hippodrac returned, the little green wand in its jaws. You may well believe that the soldier was overjoyed! That very night he found means to send a petition to the Princess, asking to be brought before her that he might at last prove the truth of his story.

Now the Chancellor, knowing that his wicked scheme had succeeded, and never dreaming of the possibility of the grenadier’s escape, had gone a-hunting: so the Princess took matters into her own hands, and next morning summoned the grenadier before the court. Alas! Just as the grenadier reached the throne, the Chancellor, hastily summoned by another of his rascally spies, came striding angrily into the judgment hall.

“What means this?” he roared. “How came that fellow to be out of prison? Ho, guards, take him back at once!”

“No!” said the little Princess bravely. “I believe in him, and he shall have justice in my realm!”

“Do you dare defy me?” cried the Chancellor. “Guards, do your duty! I am Regent here.”

A handful of soldiers strode toward the grenadier. With a smile on his lips and in his eyes, the grenadier struck the hippodrac one smart tap with the magic wand.

The creature bounced, and instantly began to increase in size; suddenly it snorted fiercely and reared on its hind legs; once again it screamed even such a scream as it had uttered when the grenadier enchanted it in the ruined castle. People began to fly pell-mell in every direction. Only Mirabel, who was a lass of spirit, stood her ground.

When the hippodrac had reached its full size, the soldier cried “Stop!” Then, for a moment, the monster and the man gazed directly into each other’s eyes. The soldier still smiled.

The hippodrac had understood.

Uttering now the angriest cry of all, the creature darted forward, and seized the Lord Chancellor by the scruff of his ugly neck. Then opening wide its giant wings, it leaped up on all four legs, and flying down the vast hall, crashed through a great window and out into the freedom of the cloudless sky. So terrified was it by its experiences, that it flew back to its lair in the forests of the sun, and never bothered anybody any more.

On the way home, while flying at a great height, it got bored with carrying the Lord Chancellor and let him drop. No one has since heard of this personage. No one ever will.

When the excitement subsided, the citizens hailed the grenadier as the preserver of their country and offered him the treasure which the Chancellor had stolen away. But the grenadier had already found a treasure much more to his liking—the Princess Mirabel. The handsome young couple were married with great pomp and ceremony on New Year’s day.

And thus the brave grenadier became a king, and with Mirabel by his side, ruled over the Golden Plain for many a long and happy year.