Hereward, the Last of the English by Charles Kingsley (best self help books to read .txt) 📗

spell was cast over them again. You ought to thank your stars that no worse has happened yet; that the enchanter, in fleeing, has not wrung your neck as he went out, or cast a spell on you, which will fire your barns, lame your geese, give your fowls the pip, your horses the glanders, your cattle the murrain, your children the St. Vitus’ dance, your wife the creeping palsy, and yourself the chalk-stones in all your fingers.”

“The Lord have mercy on me! If the half of this be true, I will turn Christian. I will send for a priest, and be baptized to-morrow!”

“O my sister, my sister! Dost thou not know me? Dost thou answer my caresses with kicks? Or is thy heart, as well as thy body, so enchained by that cruel necromancer, that thou preferest to be his, and scornest thine own salvation, leaving me to eat grass till I die?”

“I say, Prince,—I say,—What would you have a man to do? I bought the mare honestly, and I have kept her well. She can’t say aught against me on that score. And whether she be princess or not, I’m loath to part with her.”

“Keep her then, and keep with her the curse of all the saints and angels. Look down, ye holy saints” (and the thing poured out a long string of saints’ names), “and avenge this catholic princess, kept in bestial durance by an unbaptized heathen! May his—”

“Don’t! don’t!” roared Dirk. “And don’t look at me like that” (for he feared the evil eye), “or I’ll brain you with my staff!”

“Fool, if I have lost a horse’s figure, I have not lost his swiftness. Ere thou couldst strike, I should have run a mile and back, to curse thee afresh.” And the thing ran round him, and fell on all-fours again, and ate grass.

“Mercy, mercy! And that is more than I ever asked yet of man. But it is hard,” growled he, “that a man should lose his money, because a rogue sells him a princess in disguise.”

“Then sell her again; sell her, as thou valuest thy life, to the first Christian man thou meetest. And yet no. What matters? Ere a month be over, the seven years’ enchantment will have passed, and she will return to her own shape, with her son, and vanish from thy farm, leaving thee to vain repentance, and so thou wilt both lose thy money and get her curse. Farewell, and my malison abide with thee!”

And the thing, without another word, ran right away, neighing as it went, leaving Dirk in a state of abject terror.

He went home. He cursed the mare, he cursed the man who sold her, he cursed the day he saw her, he cursed the day he was born. He told his story with exaggerations and confusions in plenty to all in the house; and terror fell on them likewise. No one, that evening, dare go down into the fen to drive the horses up; and Dirk got very drunk, went to bed, and trembled there all night (as did the rest of the household), expecting the enchanter to enter on a flaming fire-drake, at every howl of the wind.

The next morning, as Dirk was going about his business with a doleful face, casting stealthy glances at the fen, to see if the mysterious mare was still there, and a chance of his money still left, a man rode up to the door.

He was poorly clothed, with a long rusty sword by his side. A broad felt hat, long boots, and a haversack behind his saddle, showed him to be a traveller, seemingly a horse-dealer; for there followed him, tied head and tail, a brace of sorry nags.

“Heaven save all here,” quoth he, making the sign of the cross. “Can any good Christian give me a drink of milk?”

“Ale, if thou wilt,” said Dirk. “But what art thou, and whence?”

On any other day, he would have tried to coax his guest into trying a buffet with him for his horse and clothes; but this morning his heart was heavy with the thought of the enchanted mare, and he welcomed the chance of selling her to the stranger.

“We are not very fond of strangers about here, since these Flemings have been harrying our borders. If thou art a spy, it will be worse for thee.”

“I am neither spy nor Fleming; but a poor servant of the Lord Bishop of Utrecht’s, buying a garron or two for his lordship’s priests. As for these Flemings, may St. John Baptist save from them both me and you. Do you know of any man who has horses to sell hereabouts?”

“There are horses in the fen yonder,” quoth Dirk, who knew that churchmen were likely to give a liberal price, and pay in good silver.

“I saw them as I rode up. And a fine lot they are; but of too good a stamp for my short purse, or for my holy master’s riding,—a fat priest likes a quiet nag, my master.”

“Humph. Well, if quietness is what you need, there is a mare down there, a child might ride her with a thread of wool. But as for price,—and she has a colt, too, running by her.”

“Ah?” quoth the horseman. “Well, your Walcheren folk make good milk, that’s certain. A colt by her? That’s awkward. My Lord does not like young horses; and it would be troublesome, too, to take the thing along with me.”

The less anxious the dealer seemed to buy, the more anxious grew Dirk to sell; but he concealed his anxiety, and let the stranger turn away, thanking him for his drink.

“I say!” he called after him. “You might look at her as you ride past the herd.”

The stranger assented, and they went down into the fen, and looked over the precious mare, whose feats were afterwards sung by many an English fireside, or in the forest, beneath the hollins green, by such as Robin Hood and his merry men. The ugliest, as well as the swiftest, of mares, she was, say the old chroniclers; and it was not till the stranger had looked twice at her, that he forgot her great chuckle head, greyhound-flanks, and drooping hind-quarters, and began to see the great length of those same quarters,—the thighs let down into the hocks, the arched loin, the extraordinary girth through the saddle, the sloping shoulder, the long arms, the flat knees, the large, well-set hoofs, and all the other points which showed her strength and speed, and justified her fame.

“She might carry a big man like you through the mud,” said he, carelessly, “but as for pace, one cannot expect that with such a chuckle head. And if one rode her through a town, the boys would call after one, ‘All head and no tail.’ Why, I can’t see her tail for her quarters, it is so ill set on.”

“Ill set on, or none,” said Dirk, testily; “don’t go to speak against her pace till you have seen it. Here, lass!”

Dirk was, in his heart, rather afraid of the princess; but he was comforted when she came up to him like a dog.

“She’s as sensible as a woman,” said he; and then grumbled to himself, “may be she