The Wise Woman by George MacDonald (audio ebook reader TXT) 📕

“Indeed he ought,” said the queen.

To this they returned no answer, for they had none ready.

“Why did you not bring her at once to the palace,” pursued the king, “whether you knew her to be a princess or not? My proclamation left nothing to your judgment. It said every child.

“We heard nothing of the proclamation, sire.”

“You ought to have heard,” said the king. “It is enough that I make proclamations; it is for you to read them. Are they not written in letters of gold upon the brazen gates of this palace?”

“A poor shepherd, your majesty—how often must he leave his flock, and go hundreds of miles to look whether there may not be something in letters of gold upon the brazen gates? We did not know that your majesty had made a proclamation, or even that the princess was lost.”

“You ought to have known,” said the king.

The shepherd held his peace.

“But,” said the queen, taking up the word, “all that is as nothing, when I think how you misused the darling.”

The only ground the queen had for saying this, was what Agnes had told her as to how the princess was dressed; and her condition seemed to the queen so miserable, that she had imagined all sorts of oppression and cruelty.

But this was more than the shepherdess, who had not yet spoken, could bear.

“She would have been dead, and not buried, long ago, madam, if I had not carried her home in my two arms.”

“Why does the woman say her two arms?” said the king to himself “Has she more than two? Is there treason in that?”

“You dressed her in cast-off clothes,” said the queen.

“I dressed her in my own sweet child’s Sunday clothes. And this is what I get for it!” cried the shepherdess, bursting into tears.

“And what did you do with the clothes you took off her? Sell them?”

“Put them in the fire, madam. They were not fit for the poorest child in the mountains. They were so ragged that you could see her skin through them in twenty different places.”

“You cruel woman, to torture a mother’s feelings so!” cried the queen, and in her turn burst into tears.

“And I’m sure,” sobbed the shepherdess, “I took every pains to teach her what it was right for her to know. I taught her to tidy the house, and”

“Tidy the house!” moaned the queen. “My poor wretched offspring!”

“And peel the potatoes, and–”

“Peel the potatoes!” cried the queen. “Oh, horror!”

“And black her master’s boots,” said the shepherdess.

“Black her master’s boots!” shrieked the queen.

“Oh, my white-handed princess! Oh, my ruined baby!”

“What I want to know,” said the king, paying no heed to this maternal duel, but patting the top of his sceptre as if it had been the hilt of a sword which he was about to draw, “is, where the princess is now.”

The shepherd made no answer, for he had nothing to say more than he had said already.

“You have murdered her!” shouted the king. “You shall be tortured till you confess the truth; and then you shall be tortured to death, for you are the most abominable wretches in the whole wide world.”

“Who accuses me of crime?” cried the shepherd, indignant.

“I accuse you,” said the king; “but you shall see, face to face, the chief witness to your villainy. Officer, bring the girl.”

Silence filled the hall while they waited. The king’s face was swollen with anger. The queen hid hers behind her handkerchief The shepherd and shepherdess bent their eyes on the ground, wondering. It was with difficulty Rosamond could keep her place, but so wise had she already become that she saw it would be far better to let everything come out before she interfered.

At length the door opened, and in came the officer, followed by Agnes, looking white as death, and mean as sin.

“The shepherdess gave a shriek, and darted towards her with arms spread wide; the shepherd followed, but not so eagerly.

“My child! my lost darling! my Agnes!” cried the shepherdess.

“Hold them asunder,” shouted the king. “Here is more villainy! What! have I a scullery-maid in my house born of such parents? The parents of such a child must be capable of anything. Take all three of them to the rack. Stretch them till their joints are torn asunder, and give them no water. Away with them!”

The soldiers approached to lay hands on them. But, behold! a girl, all in rags, with such a radiant countenance that it was right lovely to see, darted between, and careless of the royal presence, flung herself upon the shepherdess, crying,—

“Do not touch her. She is my good, kind mistress.”

But the shepherdess could hear or see no one but her Agnes, and pushed her away. Then the princess turned, with the tears in her eyes, to the shepherd, and threw her arms about his neck and pulled down his head and kissed him. And the tall shepherd lifted her to his bosom and kept her there, but his eyes were fixed on his Agnes.

“What is the meaning of this?” cried the king, starting up from his throne. “How did that ragged girl get in here? Take her away with the rest. She is one of them, too.”

But the princess made the shepherd set her down, and before any one could interfere she had run up the steps of the dais and then the steps of the king’s throne like a squirrel, flung herself upon the king, and begun to smother him with kisses.

All stood astonished, except the three peasants, who did not even see what took place. The shepherdess kept calling to her Agnes, but she was so ashamed that she did not dare even lift her eyes to meet her mother’s, and the shepherd kept gazing on her in silence. As for the king, he was so breathless and aghast with astonishment, that he was too feeble to fling the ragged child from him as he tried to do. But she left him, and running down the steps of the one throne and up those of the other, began kissing the queen next. But the queen cried out,—

“Get away, you great rude child!—Will nobody take her to the rack?”

Then the princess, hardly knowing what she did for joy that she had come in time, ran down the steps of the throne and the dais, and placing herself between the shepherd and shepherdess, took a hand of each, and stood looking at the king and queen.

CHAPTER XV.

Their faces began to change. At last they began to know her. But she was so altered—so lovelily altered, that it was no wonder they should not have known her at the first glance; but it was the fault of the pride and anger and injustice with which their hearts were filled, that they did not know her at the second.

The king gazed and the queen gazed, both half risen from their thrones, and looking as if about to tumble down upon her, if only they could be right sure that the ragged girl was their own child. A mistake would be such a dreadful thing!

“My darling!” at last shrieked the mother, a little doubtfully.

“My pet of pets!” cried the father, with an interrogative twist of tone.

Another moment, and they were half way down the steps of the dais.

“Stop!” said a voice of command from somewhere in the hall, and, king and queen as they were, they stopped at once half way, then drew themselves up, stared, and began to grow angry again, but durst not go farther.

The wise woman was coming slowly up through the crowd that filled the hall. Every one made way for her. She came straight on until she stood in front of the king and queen.

“Miserable man and woman!” she said, in words they alone could hear, “I took your daughter away when she was worthy of such parents; I bring her back, and they are unworthy of her.

That you did not know her when she came to you is a small wonder, for you have been blind in soul all your lives: now be blind in body until your better eyes are unsealed.”

She threw her cloak open. It fell to the ground, and the radiance that flashed from her robe of snowy whiteness, from her face of awful beauty, and from her eyes that shone like pools of sunlight, smote them blind.

Rosamond saw them give a great start, shudder, waver to and fro, then sit down on the steps of the dais; and she knew they were punished, but knew not how. She rushed up to them, and catching a hand of each, said—

“Father, dear father! mother dear! I will ask the wise woman to forgive you.”

“Oh, I am blind! I am blind!” they cried together. “Dark as night! Stone blind!”

Rosamond left them, sprang down the steps, and kneeling at her feet, cried, “Oh, my lovely wise woman! do let them see. Do open their eyes, dear, good, wise woman!”

The wise woman bent down to her, and said, so that none else could hear,—

“I will one day. Meanwhile you must be their servant, as I have been yours. Bring them to me, and I will make them welcome.”

Rosamond rose, went up the steps again to her father and mother, where they sat like statues with closed eyes, half-way from the top of the dais where stood their empty thrones, seated herself between them, took a hand of each, and was still.

All this time very few in the room saw the wise woman. The moment she threw off her cloak she vanished from the sight of almost all who were present. The woman who swept and dusted the hall and brushed the thrones, saw her, and the shepherd had a glimmering vision of her; but no one else that I know of caught a glimpse of her. The shepherdess did not see her. Nor did Agnes, but she felt her presence upon her like the heat of a furnace seven times heated.

As soon as Rosamond had taken her place between her father and mother, the wise woman lifted her cloak from the floor, and threw it again around her. Then everybody saw her, and Agnes felt as if a soft dewy cloud had come between her and the torrid rays of a vertical sun. The wise woman turned to the shepherd and shepherdess.

“For you,” she said, “you are sufficiently punished by the work of your own hands. Instead of making your daughter obey you, you left her to be a slave to herself; you coaxed when you ought to have compelled; you praised when you ought to have been silent; you fondled when you ought to have punished; you threatened when you ought to have inflicted—and there she stands, the full grown result of your foolishness! She is your crime and your punishment. Take her home with you, and live hour after hour with the pale-hearted disgrace you call your daughter. What she is, the worm at her heart has begun to teach her. When life is no longer endurable, come to me.”

“Madam,” said the shepherd, “may I not go with you now?”

“Husband! husband!” cried the shepherdess, “how are we two to get home without you?”

“I will see to that,” said the wise woman. “But little of home you will find it until you have come to me. The king carried you hither, and he shall carry you back. But your husband shall not go with you. He cannot now if he would.”