Part 6

“Ah! you talk, you talk!” said the innkeeper. “How? The King has offered half his kingdom to anyone who can tell him how the mischief is done; and the other half to the man who will put an end to it. To put it shortly, if you believe yourself a clever enough man, you may have the King for your father-in-law, with the pick of his daughters for your bride, and be his heir and lord of all when he dies!”

“For such a reward,” said Lubin, “has no man made the attempt?”

“Aye, one a month; every time there has been some man fool enough to think himself so clever; and he has been turned out of the palace next day with his ears cropped.”

“I will risk having my ears cropped,” said Lubin; for his heart was sorry for the young Princesses, and the vanishing of their beauty. So he went up and knocked at the gates of the palace.

They went and told the King that a new man had come willing and wanting to have his ears cropped on the morrow. “Well, well,” said the King, “let the poor fool in!” for indeed he had given up all hope. From the King Lubin heard the whole story over again. The old man sighed so, it took him whole hours to tell it.

“I would be glad to be your son,” said Lubin, when the King had ended; “but I would like better to make you rid of your sorrow.”

“That is kind of you,” said the King. “Perhaps I will only crop one of your ears to-morrow.”

“When may one see the Princesses?” asked Lubin.

“They will be down to supper, presently,” answered the King; “then you shall see them, what there is left of them.”

Though it was reckoned that the next day Lubin would have to be drummed out of the palace with his ears cropped short, on this day he was to be treated like an honoured guest. When they went in to supper the King made him sit upon his right hand.

The twelve Princesses came in, their heads bowed down with weeping; all were fair, but ten of them were thin and pale, and wore white wimples over their heads like nuns; only the Princess Royal, who was the eldest, and Princess Lyneth, who was the youngest, had gold hair down to their feet, and were both so shiningly beautiful that the poor cobbler was altogether dazzled by the sight of them.

The King looked out of the window and said: “Heigho! There is the full moon beginning to rise.” Then they all said grace, and sat down.

But when the viands were handed round, all the Princesses sat weeping into their plates, and seemed unable to eat anything. For the pale and thin ones said: “To-night another of our sisters will lose her golden hair and her good looks, and be like us!” Therefore they wept.

And Lyneth said: “To-night, either my dear sister or myself will fall under the spell!” Therefore she wept more than the other ten. But the Princess Royal sat trembling, and crying:

“To-night I know that the curse is to fall upon me, and me only!” Therefore she wept more than all.

Lubin sat, and watched, and listened, with his head bent down over his golden plate. “Which of these two shall I try most to save?” he thought. “How shall I test them, so as to know? If I could only tell which of them was to lose her hair to-night, then I might do something.”

He saw that the youngest sister cried so much that she could eat nothing; but the Princess Royal, between her bursts of grief, picked up a morsel now and again from her plate, and ate it as though courage or despair reminded her that she must yet strive to live.

When the meat-courses were over, the King said to the Princesses: “I wish you would try to eat a little pudding! Here is a very promising youth, who is determined by all that is in him that harm shall happen to none of you to-night.”

“To-morrow he will be sent away with his ears cut short!” said Princess Lyneth; and her tears, as she spoke, ran down over the edge of her plate on to the cloth.

When supper was over the Princess Royal came up to Lubin, and said: “Do not be angry with my sister for what she said! It has only been too true of many who came before; to-night, unless you do better than them all, I shall lose my hair. It has been a wonder to me how I have been spared so long, seeing that I am the eldest, and, as some will have it, the fairest. Will you keep a good guard over me to-night, as though you knew for certain that I am to be the one this time to suffer?”

“I will guard you as my own life,” said Lubin, “if you will but do as I ask you.”

“Pledge yourself to me, then, in this cup!” said she, and lifted to his lips a bowl of red wine. Over the edge of it her eyes shone beautifully; he drank, gazing into their clear depth.

“Where am I to be for the night,” he asked of the King, “so that I may watch over the two Princesses?”

The King took him to a chamber with two further doors that opened out of it. “Here,” said the King, “you are to sleep, and in the inner rooms sleep the Princess Royal and the Princess Lyneth. There is no entrance or exit to them but through this; therefore, when you are here with your door bolted, one would suppose that you had them safe. Alas! ten other men have tried like you to ward off the harm, and have failed; and so to-day I have ten daughters with no looks left to them, and no hair upon their heads.”

As they were speaking, the two Princesses, with their sisters, came up to bed. And the pale ones, wearing their white wimples, came and kissed the golden hair of the other two, crying over it, and saying, “To one of you we are saying good-bye; to-morrow one of you will be like us!” Then they went away to their sleeping-place, and the Princess Royal and Lyneth kissed each other, and parted weeping, each into her own chamber.

“Watch well over us!” said Lyneth to Lubin, as she passed through. “Watch over me!” said the Princess Royal. And then the two doors were closed.

Lubin said to the King, “Could I now see the two Princesses, without being seen by them, it would help me to know what to do.”

“Come down to my cabinet,” said the King. “I have an invisible cap there, that I can lend you if you think you can do any good with it.” So they went; and the King reached down the cap from the wall and gave it to Lubin.

“Now, good-night, your Majesty,” said Lubin; “I will do for you all I can.”

The King answered, “Either you shall be my son-in-law to-morrow, or you shall have no ears. My wishes are with you that the former state may be yours.”

Lubin went into his chamber and closed and bolted the door; then he put the bed up against it. “Now, at least,” he thought, “there are three of us, and no more!” He put on his invisible cap, and going softly to the Princess Royal’s door, opened it and peeped in.

She stood up before her glass, combing out her long gold hair, and smiling proudly because of its beauty. She gathered it up by all its ends and kissed it; then, letting it fall, she went on combing as before.

Lubin went out, closing the door again; then he took off his cap and knocked, and presently he heard the Princess Royal saying, “Come in!” She was lying down upon the bed, squeezing her eyes with her hands.

“Princess,” he said, “I will watch over you like my own life, if you will do what I bid you. I am but a poor man, and the best that I can do is but poor; but I think, if you will, I can save your head from becoming as bare as a billiard ball.”

The Princess asked him how.

“You know,” said he, “that to-night something is to happen to one of you” (“To me?” said the Princess), “and all your hair will be stolen in such a way that nothing will ever make it grow again. See, here I have a pair of common scissors; let me but cut your hair close off all over your head, and then who can steal it? For a few months you will be a fright, but it can grow again.”

“I think you are a silly fellow!” said the Princess. “Better for you to get to bed, and have your ears cropped quietly in the morning! After all, it may be my sister’s turn to lose her hair, not mine. I shall not make myself a fright for a year of my life in order to save you.”

“If you think so poorly of my offer,” said Lubin, “I had better go to bed and sleep, and not trouble the Princess Lyneth at all with it.”

“No, indeed!” said the Princess Royal. “Go to bed and sleep, poor fool!” And, in truth, Lubin was feeling so sleepy that he could hardly keep open his eyes.

Then he left her, and, pulling the invisible cap once more over his head, crept softly into Princess Lyneth’s chamber.

She was standing before her glass with all her beautiful hair flowing down from shoulders to feet; and tears were falling fast out of her eyes as she kept drawing her hair together in her hands, kissing and moaning over it.

Then Lubin went out again, and, taking off his cap, knocked softly at the door.

“Come in!” said the Princess; and when he went in she was still standing before the glass weeping and moaning for her beautiful hair, that might never see another day. On the bed was lying a white wimple, ready for her to put on when her head was become bald.

“Princess,” said Lubin, very humbly, “will you help me to save your beautiful hair, by doing what I ask?”

“What is it that you ask?” said she.

“Only this,” he answered; “I am a poor man, and cannot do much for you, but only my best. To-night you or your sister must lose your hair; and we know that afterwards, if that happen, it can never grow again. Now, come, here I have a common pair of scissors; if I could cut your hair quite short, in a few months it will grow again, and there will be nothing to-night that the Fates can steal. Will you let me do this for you in true service?”

The Princess looked at him, and looked at her glass. “Oh, my hair, my hair!” she moaned. Then she said, “What matters it? You mean to be good to me, and a month is the most that my fortune can last. If I do not lose it to-night, I lose it at the next full moon!” Then she shut her eyes and bade him take off all he wished. When he had finished, she picked up the wimple and covered her head with it; but Lubin took up the long coil of gold hair and wound it round his heart.

He knelt down at her feet. “Princess,” he said, “be sure now that I can save you! Only I have one other request to make.”

“What is that?” asked the Princess.

He took off one of his red shoes with the pointed toes. “Will you, for a strange thing, put on this shoe and wear it all to-night in your sleep? And in the morning I will ask you for it again.”

The Princess promised faithfully that she would do so. Even before he had left the room she had put foot in it, promising that only he should take it off again.

Lubin’s eyes were shut down with sleep as he groped his way to bed; he lay down with the other red shoe upon his foot. “Watch for your fellow!” he said to it; and then his senses left him and he was fast asleep.

In the middle of the night, while he was deep in slumber, the red shoe caught him by the foot and yanked him out of bed; he woke up to find himself standing in the middle of the room, and there before him stood the two doors of the inner chambers open; through that of the Princess Royal came a light. He heard the Princess Lyneth getting very softly out of her bed, and presently she stood in the doorway, with her hands out and her eyes fast shut; and the red shoe was on one foot, and the white wimple on her head. Little tears were running down from under her closed lids; and she sighed continually in her sleep. “Have pity on me!” she said.

She crossed slowly from one door to the other; and Lubin, putting on his invisible cap, crept softly after her. The Princess Royal’s chamber was empty, but her glass was opened away from the wall like a door, and beyond lay a passage and steps. At the top of the steps was another door, and through it light came, and the sound of a soft voice singing.

Princess Lyneth, knowing nothing in her sleep, passed along the passage and up the steps till she came to the further doorway. Looking over her shoulder Lubin saw the Princess Royal sitting before a loom. In it lay a great cloth of gold, like a bride’s mantle, into which she was weaving the last threads of her skein. Close to her side lay a pair of great shears that shone like blue fire; and while she sang they opened and snapped, keeping time to the music she made.

Without ever turning her head the Princess Royal sat passing her fingers along the woof and crying:

“Sister, sister, bring me your hair, Of our Mother’s beauty give me your share. You must grow pale, while I must grow fair!”

And while she was so singing, Lyneth drew nearer and nearer, with her eyes fast shut, and the white wimple over her head. “Have pity on me!” she said, speaking in her sleep.

As soon as the Princess Royal heard that she laughed for joy, and catching up the great flaming shears, turned herself round to where Lyneth was standing. Then she opened the shears, and took hold of the wimple, and pulled it down.

All in a moment she was choking with rage, for horrible was the sight that met her eye. “Ah! cobbler’s son,” cried she, “you shall die for this! To-morrow not only shall you have your two ears cropped, but you shall die: do not be afraid!”

Lubin looked at her and smiled, knowing how little she thought that he heard her words. “Ah! Princess Royal,” he said to himself, “there is another who should now be afraid, but is not.”

Then for very spite the Princess began slapping her sister’s face. “Ah! wicked little sister,” she cried, “you have cheated me this time! But go back and wait till your hair has grown, and then my gown of gold shall be finished, although this once you have been too sly!” She threw down the shears, and drove her sister back by stair and passage, and through the looking-glass door at the other end.

Lubin following, stayed first to watch how by a secret spring the Princess Royal closed the mirror back into the wall; then he slipped on before, and taking off his cap, lay down on his bed pretending to be fast asleep. He heard Princess Lyneth return to her couch, and then came the Princess Royal and ground her teeth at him in the darkness.

Presently she, too, returned to her bed and lay down; and an hour after Lubin got up very softly and went into her chamber. There she lay asleep, with her beautiful hair all spread out upon the pillow; but Lubin had Princess Lyneth’s hair wound round his heart. He touched the secret spring, so that the mirror opened to him, and he passed through toward the little chamber where stood the loom.

There hung the cloth of gold, all but finished; beside it the shears opened and snapped, giving out a blue light. He took up the shears in his hand, and pulled down the gold web from the loom, and back he went, closing the mirror behind him.

Then he came to the Princess Royal as she lay asleep; and first he laid the cloth of gold over her, and saw how at once she became ten times more fair than she was by rights, as fair almost as her dead mother, lacking one part only. But her beauty did not win him to have pity on her.

“There can be thieves, it seems, in high places!” he said; and with that he opened the shears over her head and let them snap: then all her long hair came out by the roots, and she lay white and withered before his eyes, and as bald as a stone.

He gathered up all her hair with one hand, and the cloth of gold with the other, and went quietly away. Then, hiding the shears in a safe place, first he burnt the Princess Royal’s hair, till it became only a little heap of frizzled cinders; and after that he went to the chamber of the ten Princesses, whose hair and whose sweet youth had been stolen from them. There they lay all in a row in ten beds, with pale, gentle faces, asleep under their white wimples.

He went to the first, and, laying the cloth of hair over her, cried:

“Sister, sister, I bring you your hair, Of your Mother’s beauty I give you your share. One must grow pale, but you must grow fair!”

And as he said the words one part of the cloth unwove itself from the rest, and ran in ripples up the coverlet, and on to the pillow where the Princess’s head lay. There it coiled itself under the wimple, a great mass of shining gold, and the face of the Princess flushed warm and lovely in her sleep.

Lubin passed on to the next bed, and there uttered the same words; and again one part of the web came loose, and wound itself about the sleeper’s face, that grew warm and lovely at its touch. So he went from bed to bed, and when he came to the end there was no more of the web left.

He went back into his own chamber, laughing in his heart for joy, and there he dropped himself between the sheets and fell into a sound slumber.

He was wakened in the morning by the King knocking and trying to get into the room. Lubin pulled back the bed, and in came the King with a mournful countenance.

“Which of them is it?” said he.

“Go and ask them!” said Lubin.

The King went over and knocked at the Princess Royal’s door; the knocking opened her eyes. Lubin heard her suddenly utter a yell. “Ah! now she has looked at herself in the glass,” thought he.

“What is the matter?” called the King. “Come out and let me look at you!” But the Princess Royal would not come out. She ran quick to her mirror, and touched the secret spring. “At least,” she thought, “though fiends have robbed me of all my beauty, I can get it back by wearing the cloth woven from my sisters’ hair!” She skipped along the passage and up the steps to the little chamber where the loom was.

The King, getting no answer, went across and knocked at Lyneth’s door; she came out, all fresh in her beauty, but wearing upon her head the wimple. “Ah!” said the King dolorously; and he snipped his fingers at Lubin.

Lubin laughed out. “But look at her face!” he said. “Surely she is beautiful enough?”

The Princess lifted up her wimple, and showed the King her hair all short beneath. “That was my doing,” said Lubin; “’twas the way of saving it.”

“What a Dutchman’s remedy!” cried the King; and just then the Princess Royal’s door flew open.

She came out tearing herself to pieces with rage; her face was pale and thin, and her head was as bare as a billiard ball. “Have that clown of a cobbler killed!” she cried in a passion. “That fool, that numbskull, that cheat! Have him beheaded, I say!”

“No, no, I am only to have one of my ears cropped off!” said Lubin, looking hard at her all the time.

“I am not at all sure,” said the King. “You have done foolishly and badly, for not only have you let the disease go on, but your very remedy is as bad. Two heads of hair gone in one night! You had better have kept away. If the Princesses wish it, certainly I will have you put to death.”

“Will you not see the other Princesses too?” asked Lubin. “Let them decide between them whether I am to live or die!”

The King was just going to call for them, when suddenly the ten Princesses opened the door of their chamber, and stood before him shining like stars, with all their golden hair running down to their feet.

“Now put me to death!” said Lubin; and all the time he kept his eye upon the Princess Royal, who turned flame-coloured with rage.

“No, indeed!” cried the King. “Now you must be more than pardoned! You see, my dears,” he said to Lyneth and the Princess Royal, “though you have suffered, your sisters have recovered all that they lost. They are ten to two; and I can’t go back on arithmetic; I am bound to do even more than pardon him for this.”

“Indeed and indeed yes!” replied the Princess Lyneth. “He has done ten times more than we thought of asking him!” And she went from one to another of her recovered sisters, kissing their beautiful long hair for pure gladness of heart. But when she came to the Princess Royal, she kissed her many times, and stooped down her face upon her shoulder, and cried over her.

“Tell me now,” said the King to Lubin, “for you are a very wonderful fellow, how did it all happen?”

Lubin looked at the Princess Royal; after all he could not betray a lady’s secret. “I cannot tell you,” he said; “if I did, there would be a death in the family.”

“Well,” said the King, “however you may have done it, I own that you have earned your reward. You have only to choose now with which of my daughters you will become my son-in-law. From this day you shall be known as my heir.” He ranged all the Princesses in line, according to their ages. “Now choose,” said the King, “and choose well!”

Lubin went up to the Princess Royal. “I won’t have you!” he said, looking very hard at her; and the Princess Royal dropped her eyes. Then he went on to the next. “Sweet lady,” he said, “I dare not ask one with such beautiful hair as yours to marry me, who am a poor cobbler’s son.” But all the while he had the Princess Lyneth’s hair bound round his heart.