The charcoal-burner and his wife both stared at him for a moment, as if they could hardly believe their ears; and, indeed, it was not to be wondered at! Then they found their tongues, and exclaimed together:
"Oh, yes, yes, my lord! we will do everything you tell us. How could we be so ungrateful as to disobey you, when you are so kind?"
The king smiled, and his eyes twinkled.
"Well, let us start at once," said he. "Lock your door, and put the key in your pocket."
The woman looked as if she thought this was needless, seeing it was quite, quite certain they would never come back. But she dared not say so, and did as the king told her.
After walking through the forest for a couple of miles, they all three reached the palace, and by the king"s orders servants led the charcoal-burner and his wife into rooms filled with beautiful things such as they had never even dreamed of. First they bathed in green marble baths where the water looked like the sea, and then they put on silken clothes that felt soft and pleasant. When they were ready, one of the king"s special servants entered, and took them into a small hall, where dinner was laid, and this pleased them better than anything else.
They were just about to sit down to the table when the king walked in.
"I hope you have been attended to properly," said he, "and that you will enjoy your dinner. My steward will take care you have all you want, and I wish you to do exactly as you please. Oh, by the bye, there is one thing! You notice that soup-tureen in the middle of the table? Well, be careful on no account to lift the lid. If once you take off the cover, there is an end of your good fortune." Then bowing to his guests, he left the room.
"Did you hear what he said?" inquired the charcoal-burner in an awe-stricken voice. "We are to have what we want, and do what we please.
Only we must not touch the soup-tureen."
"No, of course we won"t," answered the wife. "Why should we wish to? But all the same it is rather odd, and one can"t help wondering what is inside."
For many days life went on like a beautiful dream to the charcoal-burner and his wife. Their beds were so comfortable, they could hardly make up their minds to get up, their clothes were so lovely they could scarcely bring themselves to take them off; their dinners were so good that they found it very difficult to leave off eating. Then outside the palace were gardens filled with rare flowers and fruits and singing birds, or if they desired to go further, a golden coach, painted with wreaths of forget-me-nots and lined with blue satin, awaited their orders.
Sometimes it happened that the king came to see them, and he smiled as he glanced at the man, who was getting rosier and plumper each day. But when his eyes rested on the woman, they took on a look which seemed to say "I knew it," though this neither the charcoal-burner nor his wife ever noticed.
"Why are you so silent?" asked the man one morning when dinner had pa.s.sed before his wife had uttered one word. "A little while ago you used to be chattering all the day long, and now I have almost forgotten the sound of your voice."
"Oh, nothing; I did not feel inclined to talk, that was all!" She stopped, and added carelessly after a pause, "Don"t you ever wonder what is in that soup-tureen?"
"No, never," replied the man. "It is no affair of ours," and the conversation dropped once more, but as time went on, the woman spoke less and less, and seemed so wretched that her husband grew quite frightened about her. As to her food, she refused one thing after another.
"My dear wife," said the man at last, "you really _must_ eat something.
What in the world is the matter with you? If you go on like this you will die."
"I would rather die than not know what is in that tureen," she burst forth so violently that the husband was quite startled.
"Is _that_ it?" cried he; "are you making yourself miserable because of _that_? Why, you know we should be turned out of the palace, and sent away to starve."
"Oh no, we shouldn"t. The king is too good-natured. Of course he didn"t mean a little thing like this! Besides, there is no need to lift the lid off altogether. Just raise one corner so that I may peep. We are quite alone: n.o.body will ever know."
The man hesitated: it _did_ seem a "little thing," and if it was to make his wife contented and happy it was well worth the risk. So he took hold of the handle of the cover and raised it very slowly and carefully, while the woman stooped down to peep. Suddenly she started back with a scream, for a small mouse had sprung from the inside of the tureen, and had nearly hit her in the eye. Round and round the room it ran, round and round they both ran after it, knocking down chairs and vases in their efforts to catch the mouse and put it back in the tureen. In the middle of all the noise the door opened, and the mouse ran out between the feet of the king. In one instant both the man and his wife were hiding under the table, and to all appearance the room was empty.
"You may as well come out," said the king, "and hear what I have to say."
"I know what it is," answered the charcoal-burner, hanging his head.
"The mouse has escaped."
"A guard of soldiers will take you back to your hut," said the king.
"Your wife has the key."
"Weren"t they _silly_?" cried the grandchildren of the charcoal-burners when they heard the story. "How we wish that _we_ had had the chance!
_We_ should never have wanted to know what was in the soup-tureen!"
From "Litterature Orale de l"Auvergne," par P. Sebillot.
_HOW BRAVE WALTER HUNTED WOLVES_
A LITTLE back from the high road there stands a house which is called "Hemgard." Perhaps you remember the two beautiful mountain ash trees by the reddish-brown palings, and the high gate, and the garden with the beautiful barberry bushes which are always the first to become green in spring, and which in summer are weighed down with their beautiful berries.
Behind the garden there is a hedge with tall aspens which rustle in the morning wind, behind the hedge is a road, behind the road is a wood, and behind the wood the wide world.
But on the other side of the garden there is a lake, and beyond the lake is a village, and all around stretch meadows and fields, now yellow, now green.
In the pretty house, which has white window-frames, a neat porch and clean steps, which are always strewn with finely-cut juniper leaves, Walter"s parents live. His brother Frederick, his sister Lotta, old Lena, Jonas, Caro and Bravo, Putte and Murre, and Kuckeliku.
Caro lives in the dog house, Bravo in the stable, Putte with the stableman, Murre a little here and a little there, and Kuckeliku lives in the hen house, that is his kingdom.
Walter is six years old, and he must soon begin to go to school. He cannot read yet, but he can do many other things. He can turn cartwheels, stand on his head, ride see-saw, throw s...o...b..a.l.l.s, play ball, crow like a c.o.c.k, eat bread and b.u.t.ter and drink sour milk, tear his trousers, wear holes in his elbows, break the crockery in pieces, throw b.a.l.l.s through the windowpanes, draw old men on important papers, walk over the flower-beds, eat himself sick with gooseberries, and be well after a whipping. For the rest he has a good heart but a bad memory, and forgets his father"s and his mother"s admonitions, and so often gets into trouble and meets with adventures, as you shall hear, but first of all I must tell you how brave he was and how he hunted wolves.
Once in the spring, a little before Midsummer, Walter heard that there were a great many wolves in the wood, and that pleased him. He was wonderfully brave when he was in the midst of his companions or at home with his brothers and sister, then he used often to say "One wolf is nothing, there ought to be at least _four_."
When he wrestled with Klas Bogenstrom or Frithiof Waderfelt and struck them in the back, he would say: "That is what I shall do to a wolf!" and when he shot arrows at Jonas and they rattled against his sheepskin coat he would say "That is how I should shoot you if you were a wolf!"
Indeed, some thought that the brave boy boasted a little; but one must indeed believe him since he said so himself. So Jonas and Lena used to say of him "Look, there goes Walter, who shoots the wolves." And other boys and girls would say: "Look, there goes brave Walter who is brave enough to fight with four."
There was no one so fully convinced of this as Walter himself, and one day he prepared himself for a real wolf hunt. He took with him his drum, which had holes in one end, since the time he had climbed up on it to reach a cl.u.s.ter of rowan berries, and his tin sabre, which was a little broken because he had with incredible courage fought his way through a whole unfriendly army of gooseberry bushes.
He did not forget to arm himself quite to the teeth with his pop-gun, his bow, and his air-pistol. He had a burnt cork in his pocket to blacken his moustache, and a red c.o.c.k"s feather to put in his cap to make himself look fierce. He had besides in his trouser pocket a clasp-knife with a bone handle, to cut off the ears of the wolves as soon as he had killed them, for he thought it would be cruel to do that while they were still living.
It was such a good thing that Jonas was going with corn to the mill, for Walter got a seat on the load, while Caro ran barking beside them. As soon as they came to the wood Walter looked cautiously around him to see perchance there was a wolf in the bushes, and he did not omit to ask Jonas if wolves were afraid of a drum. "Of course they are" (that is understood) said Jonas. Thereupon Walter began to beat his drum with all his might while they were going through the wood.
When they came to the mill Walter immediately asked if there had been any wolves in the neighbourhood lately.
"Alas! yes," said the miller, "last night the wolves have eaten our fattest ram there by the kiln not far from here."
"Ah!" said Walter, "do you think that there were many?"