"Well, Milly, I don"t think you know any more about it, except that you _tell_ the rain to go there. Don"t you know by this time that the rain never does what it"s told? Really, very little rain goes to Spain, and in some parts of the country the people would be very glad indeed if we could send them some of the rain we don"t want at Ravensnest. But now, you mustn"t interrupt me, or I shall forget my story--Well there was once a king who lived in a _very_ hot part of Spain, where they don"t have much rain, and where it hardly ever snows or freezes. And this king had a beautiful wife, whom he loved very much. But, unluckily, this beautiful wife had one great fault. She was always wishing for the most unreasonable and impossible things, and though the king was always trying to get her what she wanted she was never satisfied, and every day she seemed to grow more and more discontented and exacting. At last, one day in the winter, a most extraordinary thing happened. A shower of snow fell in Cordova, which was the name of the town where the king and queen lived, and it whitened the hills all around the town, so that they looked as if somebody had been dusting white sugar over them. Now snow was hardly ever seen in Cordova, and the people in the town wondered at it, and talked about it a great deal. But after she had looked at it a little-while the queen began to cry bitterly. None of her ladies could comfort her, nor would she tell any of them what was the matter. There she sat at her window, weeping, till the king came to see her. When he came he could not imagine what she was crying about, and begged her to tell him why. "I am weeping," she said, sobbing all the time, "because the hills--are not always--covered with snow. See how pretty they look!
And yet--I have never, till now, seen them look like that. If you really loved me, you would manage some way or other that it should snow once a year at any rate."
""But how can I make it snow?" cried the king in great trouble, because she would go on weeping and weeping, and spoiling her pretty eyes.
""I"m sure I don"t know," said the queen, crossly, "but you can"t love me a bit, or you"d certainly try."
"Well, the king thought and thought, and at last he hit upon a beautiful plan. He sent into all parts of Spain to buy almond trees, and planted them on the hills all round the town. Now the almond tree, as you know, has a lovely pinky-white blossom, so when the next spring arrived all these thousands of almond trees came out into bloom all over the hills round Cordova, so that they looked at a distance as if they were covered with white snow. And for once the queen was delighted, and could not help saying a nice "Thank you" to the king for all the trouble he had taken to please her. But it was not very long before she grew discontented again, and began once more to wish for all kinds of ridiculous things. One day she was sitting at her window, and she saw some ragged little children playing by the river that ran round the palace. They were dabbling in the mud at the side, sticking their little bare feet into it, or scooping up pieces which they rolled into b.a.l.l.s and threw at one another. The queen watched them for some time, and at last she began to weep bitterly. One of her maidens ran and told the king that the queen was weeping, and he came in a great hurry to see what was the matter.
""Just look at those children down there!" said the queen, sobbing and pointing to them. "Did you ever see anybody so happy? Why can"t I have mud to dabble in too, and why can"t I take off my shoes and stockings, and amuse myself like the children do, instead of being so dull and stuck-up all day long?"
""Because it isn"t proper for queens to dabble in the mud," said the poor king in great perplexity, for he didn"t at all like the idea of his beautiful queen dabbling in the mud with the little ragged children.
""That"s just like you," said the queen, beginning to cry faster than ever," you never do anything to please me. What"s the good of being proper? What"s the good of being a queen at all?"
"This made the king very unhappy, and again he thought and thought, till at last he hit upon a plan. He ordered a very large shallow bath of white marble to be made in the palace-garden. Then he poured into it all kinds of precious stones, and chips of sweet-smelling wood, besides a thousand cartloads of rose-leaves and a thousand cartloads of orange flowers. All these he ordered to be stirred up together with a great ivory spoon, till they made a kind of wonderful mud, and then he had the bath filled up with scented water.
""Now then," he said to the queen, when he had brought her down to look at it, "you may take off your shoes and stockings and paddle about in this mud as much as you like." You may imagine that this was a very pleasant kind of mud to dabble in, and the queen and her ladies amused themselves with it immensely for some time. But nothing could keep this tiresome queen amused for long together, and in about a fortnight she had grown quite tired of her wonderful bath. It seemed as if the king"s pains had been all thrown away. She grew cross and discontented again, and her ladies began to say to each other, "What will she wish for next, I wonder? The king might as well try to drink up the sea as try to get her all she wants." At last, one day, when she and her ladies were walking near the palace, they met a shepherdess driving a flock of sheep up into the hills. The shepherdess looked so pretty and bright in her red petticoat and tall yellow cap, that the queen stopped to speak to her.
""Where are you going, pretty maiden, with your woolly white sheep?" she asked.
""I am going up to the hills," said the shepherdess. "Now the sun has scorched up the fields down below we must take our sheep up to the cool hills, where the gra.s.s is still fresh and green. Good-day, good-day, the sheep are going so fast I cannot wait." So on she tripped, singing and calling to her sheep, who came every now and then to rub their soft coats against her, as if they loved her. The queen looked after her, and her face began to pucker up.
""Why am I not a shepherdess?" she exclaimed, bursting into tears. "I _hate_ being a queen! I never sang as merrily as that little maiden in all my life. I must and will be a shepherdess, and drive sheep up into the mountain, or I shall die!"
"And all that night the foolish queen sat at her window crying, and when the morning came she had made herself look quite old and ugly. When the king came to see her he was dreadfully troubled, and begged her to tell him what was the matter now.
""I want to be a shepherdess, and drive sheep up into the mountains,"
sobbed the queen. "Why should the little shepherdess girls look always so happy and merry, while I am dying of dulness?"
"The king thought it was very unkind of her to say she was dying of dulness when he had taken so much trouble to get her all she wanted; but he knew it was no good talking to her while she was in such a temper. So all he said was:
""How can I turn you into a shepherdess? These shepherdesses stay out all night with their sheep on the hills, and live on water and a crust of bread. How would you like that?"
""Of course I-should like it," said the queen, "anything for a change.
Besides, nothing could be nicer than staying out of doors these lovely nights. And as for food, you know very well that I am never hungry here, and that it doesn"t matter in the least to me what I eat!"
""Well," said the king, "you shall go up to the hills, if you promise to take your ladies with you, and if you will let me send a tent to shelter you at night, and some servants to look after you."
""As if that would give me any pleasure!" said the queen, "to be followed about and waited upon is just what I detest. I will go alone; just like that pretty little shepherdess, if I go at all."
"But the king declared that nothing would induce him to let her go alone. So the queen set to work to cry, and she cried for two days and two nights without stopping, and at the end of that time the poor king was ready to let her go anywhere or do anything for the sake of a little peace.
"So she had her own way. They found her a flock of the loveliest white sheep, all with blue ribbons round their necks, and blue rosettes on their little white tails; and the queen dressed herself up in a red silk petticoat and a cap embroidered in gold and silver, and then she set out by herself.
"At first it was all delightful. She drove the sheep up the soft green hillsides, and laughed with delight to see them nibbling the fresh gra.s.s, and running hither and thither after her, and after each other.
The evening sun shone brightly, and she sat herself down on a rock and sang all the tunes she knew, that she might be just like the little shepherdess. But while she was singing the sheep strayed away, and she had to run after them as fast as she could, to catch them up. This made her hot and tired, so she tried to make them lie down under a chestnut tree, that she might rest beside them. But the sheep were not a bit tired, and had no mind to rest at all. While she was calling one set of them together the other set ran scampering off, and the queen found out that she must just give up her way for once and follow theirs. On went the sheep, up hill and down dale, nibbling and frisking and trotting to their hearts" content, till the queen was worn out.
"At last, by the time the sun was setting, the poor queen was so tired that she could walk no longer. Down she sat, and the ungrateful sheep kicked up their little hind legs and trotted away out of sight as fast as they could trot. There she was left on the hillside all alone. It began to get dark, and the sky, instead of being blue and clear as it had been, filled with black clouds.
""Oh dear! oh dear!" sighed the queen, "here is a storm coming. If I could only find my way down the hill, if I could only see the town!"
"But there were trees all about her, which hid the view, and soon it was so dark there was nothing to be seen, not even the stars. And presently, crash came the thunder, and after the thunder the rain--such rain! It soaked the queen"s golden cap till it was so heavy with water she was obliged to throw it away, and her silk petticoat was as wet as if she had been taking a bath in it. In vain she ran hither and thither, trying to find a way through the trees, while the rain blinded her, and the thunder deafened her, till at last she was forced to sink down on the ground, feeling more wretched and frightened and cold than any queen ever felt before. Oh, if she were only safe back in her beautiful palace! If only she had the tent the king wanted to send with her! But there all night she had to stay, and all night the storm went on, till the queen was lying in a flood, and the owls and bats, startled out of their holes, went flying past her in the dark, and frightening her out of her senses. When the morning came there was such a shivering, crumpled up queen sitting on the gra.s.s, that even her own ladies would scarcely have known her.
""Oh, husband! husband!" she cried, getting up and wringing her cold little hands. "You will never find me, and your poor wicked wife will die of cold and hunger."
"Tirra-lirra! tirra-lirra! What was that sounding in the forest?
Surely--surely--it was a hunting horn. But who could be blowing it so early in the cold gray morning, when it was scarcely light? On ran the queen toward where the sound came from. Over rocks and gra.s.s she ran, till, all of a sudden, stepping out from behind a tree, came the king himself, who had been looking for her for hours. And then what do you think the discontented queen did? She folded her hands, and hung her head, and said, quite sadly and simply:
""Oh, my lord king, make me a shepherdess really. I don"t deserve to be a queen. Send me away, and let me knit and spin for my living. I have plagued you long enough."
"And suddenly it seemed to the king as if there had been a black speck in the queen"s heart, which had been all washed away by the rain; and he took her hands, and led her home to the palace in joy and gladness. And so they lived happy ever afterward."
"Thank you _very_ much, mother," said Milly, stretching up her arms and drawing down Mrs. Norton"s face to kiss her. "Do you really think the queen was never discontented any more?"
"I can"t tell you any more than the story does," said Mrs. Norton. "You see there would always be that dreadful night to think about, if she ever felt inclined to be; but I daresay the queen didn"t find it very easy at first."
"I would have made her be a shepherdess," said Olly, shaking his head gravely. "She wasn"t nice, not a bit."
"Little Mr. Severity!" said Aunt Emma, pulling his brown curls. "It"s your turn next, Olly."
"Then Milly must kiss me first," said Olly, looking rather scared, as if something he didn"t quite understand was going to happen to him.
So Milly went through the operation of kissing him three times on the back of the head, and then Olly"s eyes, finding it did no good to stare at Aunt Emma or mother, went wandering all round the room in search of something else to help him. Suddenly they came to the window, where a brown speck was dancing up and down, and then Olly"s face brightened, and he began in a great hurry:
"Once upon a time there was a daddy-long-legs--"
"Well," said Milly, when they had waited a little while, and nothing more came.
"I don"t know any more," said Olly.
"Oh, that _is_ silly," said Milly, "why, that isn"t a story at all. Shut your eyes tight, that"s much the best way of making a story."
So Olly shut his eyes, and pressed his two hands tightly over them, and then he began again:
"Once upon a time there was a daddy-long-legs--"
Another stop.
"Was it a _good_ daddy-long-legs?" asked Milly, anxious to help him on.
"Yes," said Olly, "that"s it, Milly. Once upon a time there was a good daddy-long-legs--"
"Well, what did he do?" asked Milly, impatiently.
"He--he--flewed on to father"s nose!" said Olly, keeping his hands tight over his eyes, while his little white teeth appeared below in a broad grin.
"And father said, "Who"s that on my nose?" and the daddy-long-legs said, "It"s me, don"t you know?" And father said, "Get away off my nose, I don"t like you a bit." And the daddy-long-legs said, "I shan"t go away.
It"s hot on the window, the sun gets in my eyes. I like sitting up here best." So father took a big sofa-cushion and gave his nose _ever_ such a bang! And the daddy-long-legs tumbled down dead. And the cushion tumbled down dead. And father tumbled down dead. And that"s all," said Olly opening his eyes, and looking extremely proud of himself.