The Goose Girl and Other Stories (41 page)

‘I never dreamt that such a thing could happen,' he cried. ‘Truly I loved her, and truly I hurried to be in time!'

‘Murderer and liar!' said the elder sister in a terrible voice. ‘An unkind thought could bruise her skin, you must have known that such neglect as yours would kill her. But I'm not easily hurt, and I'm not easily swayed by a handsome face and soft words. Be quiet, murderer, and hear your punishment. Oh, my sister, he who killed you will suffer more than you and ten thousand times as long!'

For a moment the squall was silent, and the dreadful nymph, whose face seemed to Perigot like broken water in its darkness, said in a clear hard voice, ‘The curse of Shepherd Alken be on you!'

Then the storm howled again, and under its wings the nymph took up her dead sister and carried her, over the broken flowers and bent grasses, back to the dark and sullen stream.

For more than a week Perigot lived in utter misery. His pipe was silent and his flock untended. Wolves stole a lamb or two, and he never heard the woeful bleating of the ewes. But his father, counting the sheep and finding several missing, rated his son with harsh and brutal words.

‘You're the fool of the family,' he shouted. ‘You've wasted your time cock-fighting and playing that idiot pipe of yours, and now you blubber for a week because a worthless undine jilts you. I'm ashamed and sick of the sight of you!'

‘Then let me go away from here,' said Perigot. ‘I'm tired of keeping your silly sheep. I must do something braver than that, something dangerous and great, to justify my wretched life and perhaps forget, in peril of my own death, the death of Cleophantis.'

‘H'mph!' said his father. ‘If you mean what you say—but I doubt it—you'd better go to Gargaphie. The King's in a pretty pickle, and shouting east and west for help.'

‘No, no!' cried Perigot's mother, ‘not there, he'd be killed as all the other young men have been killed, and to no purpose at all. You mustn't go there, Perigot!'

‘Tell me what is happening in Gargaphie,' said Perigot.

‘Oh, the usual thing,' said his father, that heartless man. ‘A dragon has gone off with the King's daughter, and killed a dozen young fools who've tried to rescue her. Do you fancy dragon-baiting? She's a well-made girl, I believe, and I suppose you could marry her if you got her away. That's the orthodox reward, isn't it?'

‘I shall never marry,' said Perigot bitterly. But the thought of so desperate an adventure made him resolute to go to Gargaphie, and when he remembered the sickle that Cleophantis had given him he felt confident of his ability to slay the monster who had stolen the
King's daughter; though so far he had never seen a dragon and had only a very vague idea of what one looked like.

His mother wept when he told her of his determination, but finding his intention fixed she made such preparation for his journey as seemed suitable. Perigot polished his magic sickle with a woollen cloth and felt happier than he had been since Cleophantis died. Only the memory of her sister's curse hung like a little cloud over his mind. He had told no one about it. He had, indeed, tried to forget it, and in his preoccupation with grief almost succeeded. But now, for the first time admitting his anxiety, he thought it advisable to discover all he could about the malediction with which he had been saddled.

His old nurse Dorcas was an aged woman with a great reputation for wisdom, and Perigot, on the evening before his journey to Gargaphie, went to the fireside-corner where she sat spinning, and said in a conversational way, ‘Tell me, Dorcas, have you ever heard of a shepherd called Alken?'

‘Indeed and I have, Master Perigot,' she answered, very glad of the opportunity to talk and show off her knowledge. ‘And a wicked old man he was, and hated everybody, and what with sitting by himself for days on end, and talking to serpents and owls and mandrakes, he invented the most horrible curse in the world, partly to punish his poor wife, who was almost as nasty as he was, and partly out of pure spite against all humanity.'

‘What was the curse?' asked Perigot.

‘Well, it was like this,' said Dorcas, putting aside her wheel and sucking her old gums. ‘Shepherd Aiken used to think a lot about the misery of his life, and indeed he'd hardships enough, what with sitting all day in the hot sun, and little to drink, while he watched his sheep; and lambing them while the snow was on the ground, and that's hard work; and always the danger of wolves; and knowing he'd be poor to the end of his days. But all he thought about his misery was little to what his wife said about hers, for she'd had eleven children, and those who didn't die brought shame and disgrace to her; and to keep her house clean was heart-breaking, for the fire smoked and the roof leaked and the hens came in through the broken door, so to tell the truth she had something to talk about. But the shepherd hated her for it, and thought his own life was far, far worse. So he made up a curse that turned her into a man, and he sent her out to keep the sheep while he sat at home. And he had the satisfaction of hearing her grumble louder than ever, for she could stand neither the heat nor the cold, and she was terribly frightened of wolves. But though it pleased him to hear her complaining so, he wasn't comfortable at
all, for there was no one to cook his supper, and the hens made the floor like a midden, and if there was no smoke in the house that was because the fire was always out. So he thought he would use another kind of curse on himself, and turn himself into a woman, and then housework would come easy and natural to him. Well, he spoke the words, and the very next morning he was a woman. But somehow he didn't like it, and every day he liked it less, and when, old though he was, he found himself in the family way, as they call it, he nearly went off his head altogether. So it seemed to him that if there was one thing harder than being a man it was being a woman; and the way his wife grumbled showed him that the only thing worse than a woman's life was a man's life. And then he thought that if he could put two curses into one handy-like little sentence he could do a lot of harm in the world with it, and that's what he wanted. Well, he talked to his friends the Owl and the Serpent and the Mandrake, and they helped him, and by and by he had it, and the first use he made of it was in his own house, and he and his wife changed places once again, and she bore her twelfth child and died of it. But the curse became famous, and wicked folk who know the way of it use it a lot, just saying “The curse of Shepherd Alken be on you”, and that signifies “If you're a man, become a woman. If you're a woman, become a man”. And that's enough to spread misery wherever it goes, as you'll learn, Master Perigot, when you're a little older—though there's nothing but good fortune I wish you, as you know.'

Perigot listened to this story with growing consternation, for he remembered that lately his voice had assumed, once or twice, a curious treble tone, and before he went to bed that night he examined himself anxiously to see if there were any further signs that the malediction was working. He discovered nothing, however, except a little plumpness about his chest, and even that he was not very sure of. The next morning he set off for Gargaphie.

He travelled for a week, and came by degrees to country more mountainous and savage than any he had seen before. In Gargaphie itself there were everywhere signs of grief and mourning faces, for the Princess Amoret had been popular as well as beautiful, and the thought of her durance in the dragon's cave caused great distress to young and old. As soon as Perigot made known his mission he was taken to the King, whose gloom visibly lightened when he heard Perigot's stout assertion of his intention to slay the monster and rescue its poor prisoner. But he was a fair-minded man, and he thought it his duty to warn Perigot of the danger he was about to face.

‘That wretched dragon has already killed twelve brave young men, all apt in war,' he said.

‘I am not afraid,' answered Perigot, and the King, seeing his bold attitude, his broad shoulders, and the stern light in his blue eyes, felt there was at least a possibility of his success.

‘I have promised my daughter's hand to her rescuer,' he said, ‘and though of course I speak with a father's partiality, I think I may say without fear of contradiction that she is the most beautiful girl in all Gargaphie.'

‘I shall never marry,' said Perigot in a grim way, ‘and I undertake this adventure without any hope of personal gain.'

‘I can show you a picture of her, if you don't believe me,' said the King, a little testily; but the Queen interrupted him, and said to Perigot, ‘Your attitude, sir, is a noble example to us all', while to the King she whispered rapidly, ‘Don't argue! Can't you see that he has had an unfortunate love affair, and will fight all the better for it, being careless of his life?' So the King, who appreciated his wife's good sense, said nothing more except to call very loudly for dinner, which had been put back because of Perigot's arrival.

In the morning the King and his courtiers led Perigot to a high rock from which he could see the dragon's den, and there they waited while he went forward alone, for such fear had the monster spread that none dared go within a mile of the waterfall behind which it lived. But Perigot, feeling perfectly confident, climbed down to the torrent-bed, and thence by a narrow path got to the dragon's lair. Lightly he sprang to a rock that the waterfall sprinkled with its high white splashing, and there, first easing the sickle in his belt, he sat down and began to play upon his pipe. First, in a whimsical mood, he played a serenade, but that had no effect, so he began a little taunting air, full of gay defiance, with shrill notes in it that suggested a small boy being impudent to his elder brother. And presently, through the rushing veil of the waterfall, Perigot saw two huge and shining eyes.

The dragon poked its head out, and when it snorted the waterfall divided and was blown to left and right in large white fans of mist. Perigot now played an inviting tune called
Tumble in the Hay,
and the dragon, amazed by his fearlessness and somewhat attracted by the melody, pushed farther through the waterfall, that now spread like a snowy cape about its shoulders. Its colour was a changing green, on which the sun glittered wildly, and its eyes were like enormous emeralds. Perigot was dazzled by them, and had he not been aware how exceptionally well he was playing, he would have been frightened. As it was, he changed his tune again, with a flourish of sharp leaping
notes, and what he played now was an irresistible ribald air called
Down, Wantons, Down.

The dragon, surprised, then tickled, then captured by delight, opened its enormous mouth and roared with joy. It plunged into the pool in front of the waterfall, and Perigot was soaked to the skin with the splash it made. But he continued to play, and the dragon rolled and floundered in its bath, and what with the sunlight on the waterfall, and the sun shining on its glimmering hide, it seemed as though someone were throwing great handfuls of diamonds, emeralds, and opals into the pool.

Perigot finished the ribald song and slid cunningly into a tune so honey-sweet, so whispering of drowsy passion, that one thought of nightingales, and white roses heavy with dew, and young love breathless and faint for love. The dragon stopped its whale-like gambols, and sighed luxuriously. It rolled over on to its back, and a dreamy look clouded its emerald eyes. It sighed again, like far-off thunder, and came closer to the rock on which Perigot sat. His pipe sang more sweetly still. A kind of foolish smile twisted the dragon's horrible mouth, and its eyes half-closed. Its head was touching the rock.

Sudden as lightning Perigot drew his moon-made sickle, and slashed fiercely at the monster's thick green throat. The blade went through its tough hide, through muscle and bone, as easily as an ordinary sickle goes through grass; and torrents of black blood stained the pool that the dragon's death-struggle made stormier than a tempest-twisted sea. When the headless body at last was still, and blackness lay like a film on the water, Perigot, first cleaning his sickle, climbed by a way he had discovered through the waterfall and into the cave behind it. There he found the Princess Amoret, tied to a rock but apparently unharmed.

He cut her loose and helped her out of the greenish cave that was full of the noise of falling water. She looked at the dead monster, turned away with a shudder, and still for a minute or two did not speak.

Then she said, ‘How can I express my gratitude? For words are such little things, mere symbols of conventional emotion that time has defaced. I need new words to thank you, but, alas, I am not a poet and can make none. You are an artist, though—I heard your music—and know how I feel.'

‘I am only too happy to have been of service to you,' said Perigot a little stiffly.

The Princess suddenly knelt and embraced his knees. ‘You have rid me of the most horrible fear in the world,' she said, and when she looked up her eyes were clouded with tears, and her face was
radiant with happiness because her life had been saved, and because her rescuer was so handsome, and so gifted a musician.

The path was narrow, and as the Princess was weary from long restraint, and as Perigot found that he could talk to her more easily and with more pleasure than to any girl he had ever met before, they took a long time to return to the rock on which the King and his courtiers waited so anxiously—for at that great distance they had been unable to perceive how the battle went. The King's joy at seeing his daughter again was overwhelming, but when he had satisfied himself that she was unhurt, and embraced her a score of times, and blessed all heaven for her deliverance, he remembered the necessity of thanking her rescuer, and did so very heartily.

‘And you thought you wouldn't want to marry her, eh?' he said. ‘Well, haven't you changed your mind by this time?'

As it happened, Perigot had; and no one who realised the excitement of his battle with the dragon, or observed the beauty of Princess Amoret, accused him of undue fickleness for so quickly forgetting his determination to respect in lifelong celibacy the memory of poor Cleophantis. Nor was he embarrassed by the reminder of what he had said, on the previous evening, about his views on marriage. He merely remarked with some dignity, ‘I had no wish to force my attentions on the Princess until I had ascertained the possibility of their welcome.'