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The Little Soldier
by
Her women ran at the sound of her screams, and tried to wrench off the horns, but it was of no use, and they only gave her a violent headache.
The King then sent round a herald to proclaim that he would give the hand of the Princess to anyone who would rid her of her strange ornaments. So all the doctors and sorcerers and surgeons in the Low Countries and the neighbouring kingdoms thronged to the palace, each with a remedy of his own. But it was all no good, and the Princess suffered so much from their remedies that the King was obliged to send out a second proclamation that anyone who undertook to cure the Princess, and who failed to do it, should be hanged up to the nearest tree.
But the prize was too great for any proclamation to put a stop to the efforts of the crowd of suitors, and that year the orchards of the Low Countries all bore a harvest of dead men.
IX
The King had given orders that they should seek high and low for the plum-seller, but in spite of all their pains, he was nowhere to be found.
When the little soldier discovered that their patience was worn out, he pressed the juice of the green Queen Claude plums into a small phial, bought a doctor’s robe, put on a wig and spectacles, and presented himself before the King of the Low Countries. He gave himself out as a famous physician who had come from distant lands, and he promised that he would cure the Princess if only he might be left alone with her.
‘Another madman determined to be hanged,’ said the King. ‘Very well, do as he asks; one should refuse nothing to a man with a rope round his neck.’
As soon as the little soldier was in the presence of the Princess he poured some drops of the liquid into a glass. The Princess had scarcely tasted it, when the tip of the horns disappeared.
‘They would have disappeared completely,’ said the pretended doctor, ‘if there did not exist something to counteract the effect. It is only possible to cure people whose souls are as clean as the palm of my hand. Are you sure you have not committed some little sin? Examine yourself well.’
Ludovine had no need to think over it long, but she was torn in pieces between the shame of a humiliating confession, and the desire to be unhorned. At last she made answer with downcast eyes,
‘I have stolen a leather purse from a little soldier.’
‘Give it to me. The remedy will not act till I hold the purse in my hands.’
It cost Ludovine a great pang to give up the purse, but she remembered that riches would not benefit her if she was still to keep the horns.
With a sigh, she handed the purse to the doctor, who poured more of the liquid into the glass, and when the Princess had drunk it, she found that the horns had diminished by one half.
‘You must really have another little sin on your conscience. Did you steal nothing from this soldier but his purse?’
‘I also stole from him his cloak.’
‘Give it me.’
‘Here it is.’
This time Ludovine thought to herself that when once the horns had departed, she would call her attendants and take the things from the doctor by force.
She was greatly pleased with this idea, when suddenly the pretended physician wrapped himself in the cloak, flung away the wig and spectacles, and showed to the traitress the face of the Little Soldier.
She stood before him dumb with fright.
‘I might,’ said John, ‘have left you horned to the end of your days, but I am a good fellow and I once loved you, and besides– you are too like the devil to have any need of his horns.’
X
John had wished himself in the house of the Seagull. Now the Seagull was seated at the window, mending her net, and from time to time her eyes wandered to the sea as if she was expecting someone. At the noise made by the little soldier, she looked up and blushed.
‘So it is you!’ she said. ‘How did you get here?’ And then she added in a low voice, ‘And have you married your Princess?’
Then John told her all his adventures, and when he had finished, he restored to her the purse and the mantle.
‘What can I do with them?’ said she. ‘You have proved to me that happiness does not lie in the possession of treasures.’
‘It lies in work and in the love of an honest woman,’ replied the little soldier, who noticed for the first time what pretty eyes she had. ‘Dear Seagull, will you have me for a husband?’ and he held out his hand.
‘Yes, I will,’ answered the fisher maiden, blushing very red, ‘but only on condition that we seal up the purse and the mantle in the copper vessel and throw them into the sea.’
And this they did.
Charles Deulin.