Читать книгу Rumpty-Dudget's Tower: A Fairy Tale - Julian Hawthorne - Страница 4

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LONG ago, before the sun caught fire, before the moon froze up, and before you were born, a Queen had three children, whose names were Princess Hilda, Prince Frank, and Prince Henry. Princess Hilda, who was the eldest, had blue eyes and golden hair; Prince Henry, who was the youngest, had black eyes and black hair; and Prince Frank, who was neither the youngest nor the eldest, had hazel eyes and brown hair. They were the best children in the world, and the prettiest, and the cleverest of their age; they lived in the most beautiful palace ever built, and the garden they played in was the loveliest that ever was seen.

This palace stood on the borders of a great forest, on the other side of which was Fairy Land. But there was only one window in the palace that looked out upon the forest, and that was the round window of the room in which Princess Hilda, Prince Frank, and Prince Henry slept. And since this window was never open except at night, after the three children had been put to bed, they knew very little about how the forest looked, or what kind of flowers grew there, or what kind of birds sang in the branches of the trees. Sometimes, however, as they lay with their heads on their little pillows, and their eyes open, waiting for sleep to come and fasten down their eyelids, they saw stars, white, blue, and red, twinkling in the sky overhead; and below amongst the tree-trunks, other yellow stars, which danced about, and flitted to and fro. These flitting stars were called, by grown-up people, will-o’-the-wisps, jack-o’-lanterns, fire-flies, and such like names; but the children knew them to be the torches carried by the elves, as they ran hither and thither about their affairs. They often wished that one of these elves would come through the round window of their chamber, and make them a visit; but if this ever happened, it was not until after the children had fallen asleep, and could know nothing of it.

The garden was on the opposite side of the palace to the forest, and was full of flowers, and birds, and fountains, in the basins of which gold-fishes swam. In the center of the garden, was a broad green lawn for the children to play on; and on the further edge of this lawn was a high hedge, with only one round opening in the middle of it. But through this opening no one was allowed to pass; for the land on the other side belonged to a dwarf, whose name was Rumpty-Dudget, and whose only pleasure was in doing mischief. He was an ugly little dwarf, about as high as your knee, and all gray from head to foot. He had a gray beard and wore a broad-brimmed gray hat, and a gray cloak, that was so much too long for him that it dragged on the ground as he walked; and on his back was a small gray hump, that made him look even shorter than he was. He lived in a gray tower, whose battlements could be seen from the palace windows. In this tower was a room with a thousand and one corners in it. In each of these corners stood a little child, with its face to the wall, and its hands behind its back. They were children that Rumpty-Dudget had caught trespassing on his grounds, and had carried off with him to his tower. In this way he had filled up one corner after another, until only one corner was left unfilled; and if he could catch a child to put in that corner, then Rumpty-Dudget would become master of the whole country, and the beautiful palace would disappear, and the lovely garden would be changed into a desert, covered over with gray stones and brambles. You may be sure, therefore, that Rumpty-Dudget tried very hard to get hold of a child to put in the thousand and first corner; but all the mothers were so careful, and all the children so obedient, that for a long time that thousand and first corner had remained empty.

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