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Title: The Old Nurse's Stocking-Basket
Author: Farjeon, Eleanor (1881-1965)
Date of first publication: 1931
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   London: Oxford University Press, 1965
Date first posted: 27 January 2016
Date last updated: 27 January 2016
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1297

This ebook was produced by Al Haines


PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Italics in the original printed edition are indicated _thus_.

As part of the conversion of the book to its new digital
format, we have made certain minor adjustments in its layout.

Because of copyright considerations, the illustrations
by Edward Ardizzone (1900-1979) have been omitted from
this etext.






  The Old
  Nurse's Stocking-Basket

  ELEANOR FARJEON



  Illustrated by Edward Ardizzone


  London
  OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
  1965




  Oxford University Press, Amen House, London E.C.4

  GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON
  BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI LAHORE DACCA
  CAPE TOWN SALISBURY NAIROBI IBADAN
  KUALA LUMPUR HONG KONG

  First published in 1931
  First published in this edition 1965



  PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
  WESTERN PRINTING SERVICES LTD., BRISTOL




  Contents

  1 THE OLD NURSE
  2 BERTHA GOLDFOOT
  3 THE BLUE LOTUS
  4 THE PROUD INFANTA
  5 CAN MEN BE SUCH FOOLS AS ALL THAT?
  6 THE VEIL OF IRAZADE
  7 LIPP THE LAPP
  8 THE ROOF-TREE
  9 YOU CAN'T DARN _THAT_ HOLE
  10 THE PRINCESS OF CHINA
  11 THE GOLDEN EAGLE
  12 THE TWO BROTHERS
  13 THE SEA-BABY




1

THE OLD NURSE

The Old Nurse was putting the children to bed by the fire.  The
night-nursery was such a big one that each of the four children had a
bed to itself, and still there was plenty of room to play and hide in.
The fire in the big old-fashioned fire-place threw a dancing red light
into the many corners made by the shape of the room itself, and also by
the tall dark wooden chests and presses against the walls, and by the
queer sloping ceiling, which in some places almost touched the floor.
For the night-nursery was really a great attic at the top of the house
in which the children lived.

The names of the children were Doris, Ronald, Roland, and Mary Matilda.
Mary Matilda was the baby, and she was three and a half.  Ronald and
Roland were twins, and they were five--they looked so much alike that
you could hardly tell which was which, till you discovered that Ronald
had a tiny brown mole tucked into the left side of his nose, while
Roland's mole (for he had to have one too) was tucked into his right
nostril.  Even then you couldn't always remember whether it was Ronald
whose mole was on the left and Roland's on the right, or the other way
round.  Their very names were so much alike that it was a bother; till
people fell into the way of calling them Ronnie and Roley, which made a
little more difference.  As for Doris, she was the eldest, and felt
very old indeed, because she was seven.  But even so, she wasn't nearly
or _nearly_ as old as the Old Nurse.

Nobody knew how old the Old Nurse was.  She had been their nurse ever
since Doris could remember.  And before that, she had been Mother's
nurse, ever since _she_ could remember.  And when Granny came to see
them (and she was a _very_ old lady, with her hair turning grey), she
would say to the Old Nurse,

'Well, Nanny, how are you feeling today?'

And the Old Nurse would answer, 'As spry as a kitten, my dear.  And I
hope you've been behaving yourself, though I dare say you haven't since
I stopped keeping my eye on you!  Ah, you were one of my bad children,
you were!'

The first time Doris heard the Old Nurse say this, she asked in
surprise, 'Were you Granny's nurse, too, Nanny?'

'Dear, dear, wasn't I!' said the Old Nurse.  'And a rare handful she
was.  But she hasn't turned out so bad, after all, though one never
knows, even yet.  I dare say she'll do, in the long run.  For I gave
her a good start.'

'What sort of a start, Nanny?' asked Ronnie.  'Did you jump out at her
from behind the door and say _Boo_?'

'Oh, you stupid!' cried Doris.  'Nanny doesn't mean _that_ kind of a
start at all.  She means she brought Granny up nicely to be a good
little girl, like she's bringing up me and you.'

'I'm _not_ stupid,' said Ronnie, frowning, 'and I _won't_ be brought up
like a good little girl.'

'Stupid!' said Doris again.  'You know what I mean.'

'I know what you _said_,' snapped Ronnie.  'And you're stupid.'

'Children,' said the Old Nurse, 'stop quarrelling, or you know what.'

The children did know what, and when the Old Nurse said this, they
nearly always stopped quarrelling at once.  For it meant that there
would be no story that night, after they were in bed.  And the Old
Nurse's stories were one of the best bits of the day, when they were
sitting or lying under the cool sheets and snug blankets, munching
their supper-biscuits, and drinking their milk, before they brushed
their teeth, last thing of all, and the Old Nurse turned out the gas.

There was no end to the Old Nurse's stories; her memory went back such
a long way that she never need tell the same tale twice, only sometimes
they asked her to, if they remembered a special favourite.  And she
might answer, 'Yes, I'll tell you that tale tonight, for it's just the
size of the hole in this stocking,' or she might say, 'No, that tale is
too big, and the hole in this stocking is too little; they won't fit.
I must tell you something else.'

For you must know that while the children had their supper, the Old
Nurse did a bit of darning; her stocking-basket was always full of the
four children's stockings, with holes in the toes and heels, and even
in the knees.  And the Old Nurse would fish out a pair by chance, and
draw it down over her left hand, and turn it this way and that, looking
for the hole.  And then, while she threaded her darning-needle with the
right worsted, she would fish about in her memory for a tale to fit the
hole, and when the hole was finished, the tale was done.  The children
always watched anxiously when she was looking at the stocking for the
hole in it, because a little hole only meant a little story, and a big
hole meant a longer story.  Sometimes Ronnie and Roley would fall down
on the gravel on purpose, and scrape up a hole in the stocking-knee
that would be sure to mean a long story when the Old Nurse came to darn
it.  But Doris, who was rather a good little girl, never did this; her
stocking-holes were mostly in the toes and heels, where her shoes had
rubbed them or her toe-nails were too long.  As for Mary Matilda, the
tiny holes in her socks meant very little stories indeed.  So Roley
would sometimes sneak her socks out of the stocking-basket, and hide
them before bedtime.

On this particular night, when the children were in bed, the Old Nurse
rummaged as usual in the basket, and drew out one of Doris's long brown
stockings, and found quite a nice-sized hole in the heel of it; and as
she flattened the worsted right round the darning-needle, before
passing it through the long eye, she said thoughtfully,

'Well, well, that's just the size of the hole little Bertha Goldfoot
always made in her heel when I was her nurse in Germany.'

'How long ago, Nanny?' asked Doris.

'Let me think, now,' said the Old Nurse.  'Was it a hundred years ago,
or two?  I know it was long before I nursed the Brothers Grimm, because
they were always teasing me to tell them the tale, when _they_ were
little boys, but for some reason I never told them that one.  I expect
they'd been too naughty or something, so it never got put down in their
book later on.  They were nice boys but I had to spank 'em sometimes.'

'But what about Bertha Goldfoot, Nanny?' asked Doris again, for when
the Old Nurse went rambling on like that you sometimes missed the story
altogether.

'Oh, Bertha.  Well, I dare say it happened about five hundred years
ago--or seven.  One can't be too particular.  Now be quiet, children,
while I get this hole started.'




2

BERTHA GOLDFOOT

I had been nurse to Bertha Goldfoot's father when he was a little boy,
and after he grew up and was married, I stayed on in his castle until
Bertha was born, and then I became _her_ nurse.  Bertha's father was a
baron.  He had a castle on the banks of the Rhine, or rather, on a rock
above the bank; and under his castle on the edge of the water nestled
the little village that paid him tribute, where the villagers led happy
lives in their little houses with pointed red roofs, and in the
vineyards on the hills between the village and the castle.  For their
baron was a fairly kind baron, which all the German barons in those
times and parts were not.  But then, I couldn't have the upbringing of
_all_ of them.  It was the custom for every villager to bring the Baron
a gold piece a year; and even in the hard years he could not let them
off, because he himself had to pay tribute to the King.  If he failed
to do so the King might come down on him and seize his castle, and
lands, and everything he had.  And the villagers themselves would not
have been so well off under anyone else as under their own baron; so
they were as anxious as he was to keep the King in a good temper.
Nobody had ever seen the King in those parts, but it was whispered that
he only cared for money and dancing, and if he were denied them could
show a very bad temper when he liked.  Like some little boys I know
(said the Old Nurse, darting a sudden look at Ronnie and Roley).

When Bertha was born, there was a christening, of course, and all the
noblemen and noblewomen of the countryside came to it, and also, of
course, all the chief fairies.  The Baron and his wife tried to
remember every fairy of importance, for they knew something bad might
happen to their child if one was forgotten.  They even invited the
Lorelei, the lovely water-nymph who sits and sings on a rock in the
middle of the Rhine, and with her magic song draws men to their death.
Many a friend of the Baron had been drowned at the foot of the
Lorelei's rock, but the Baron did not dare leave her out, all the same.
She did not appear, however, until the feast was over, and everybody
had presented his gift and departed.  Then, as the Baron and his wife
and I were alone with little Bertha in her cradle, the doors of the
great hall swung open, and the lovely Lorelei glided in, with her
mantle of gold hair flowing about her like the golden waters of the
Rhine.  And like the river, it was wet, and so were her green garments,
and her white skin.  She stepped up to the cradle, and leaning over
touched the baby's right foot with her wet finger, saying,

'Child, men shall call you Bertha Goldfoot.  The Lorelei gives you a
foot of gold from the day you are able to walk.'

Then she glided out of the hall, leaving a trail of water on the floor
behind her.  And none of us knew what she meant by her gift.  While we
were wondering, we heard a horrid little chuckle, and up through the
floor popped Rumpelstiltskin, the Stocking-Elf.  Everyone knows what a
nasty little creature he is, and the Baron had not even thought of
inviting him to the christening, because he is not of any great
importance in the fairy world.  Even if he was offended, it was not in
his power to do much harm, but we all felt uneasy as he hopped over to
the cradle, and pointed his finger at Bertha's left foot.

'Child,' he croaked, 'you shall always have a hole in your left
stocking as long as you live.  That's what Rumpelstiltskin gives you
for a christening-gift!'

With that he disappeared as suddenly as he had come.  The Baron said,
'It's bad enough, but it might have been much worse;' but I myself
wasn't so sure, for it's the little things that matter most.  And the
Baron's wife said, 'For my part, I think the Lorelei's gift was the
worse of the two.  If the child grows up with a gold foot, how shall we
ever get her married?  Nobody would want a wife with such an oddity
about her.'

'We must keep her foot covered up all the time, so that nobody shall
guess,' said the Baron.  'See to it for us, Nanny,' he added, turning
to me.  'Luckily the guests have all gone, and the three of us can keep
Bertha's gold foot a secret between us until she is married.'

The first year of the baby's life, I spent all my spare time in
knitting stockings for her, against the day when she would be able to
walk; for it was then that she was to get her gold foot.  The first
time I saw her totter on to her little feet, to try to run from me to
her mother, I caught the child up, and pulled on her stockings, so that
the whole of her feet and ankles were covered; for if a maid or a page
had happened to catch a glimpse of the golden foot, the story would
travel through the land.  Then we let little Bertha begin to toddle as
she pleased; but from that day she wore no more socks, because socks
can slip down to the ankle--as Mary Matilda knows!

Bertha even had to sleep in her stockings; and I was careful always to
change them at night in the dark, so that even I never saw her right
foot after she was one year old.  Her left foot, on the other hand,
everybody saw; at least, they saw a part of it.  For almost as soon as
her left stocking was on, a big hole came in the heel like magic.  It
was no use scolding her, or watching to see how it happened--there the
hole was!  At first I would change the stocking at once, but five
minutes later I had to change it again, and at last I said to the Baron
and his wife, 'It's no manner of good, my dears.  We can't keep the
holes from coming, so the child will have to wear boots.'  And from the
time she was about two, Bertha did.  It wasn't very pleasant for her to
have to wear boots from morning to night, no matter what she was doing,
but it couldn't be helped.  Boots she wore, from her babyhood to her
eighteenth birthday, when she was as beautiful a young woman as any
baron's daughter on the Rhine.  Moreover, everybody loved her, from her
parents to the barefoot boat-boy in the village, with whom she had
often played in her childhood.  As she grew older, suitors for her hand
began to present themselves, but she cared for none of them.

Now this year was, as it happened, a terribly bad one for the
vine-harvest.  The blight had got into it somehow; the grapes rotted,
and the peasants in the village were as poor as church mice in
consequence.  At the end of the season they came weeping to the castle
door and asked audience of the Baron.

'My lord,' said the Chief Vine-grower, 'our hearts are broken and our
pockets too.  We cannot pay you the tribute this year.'

'If you do not,' said the Baron, 'both you and I will be ruined.  For
the bad year has hit me as well as you, and if I do not pay him the
King will descend on us in wrath.'

'My lord,' said the peasants, 'our children are starving, and we have
nothing left.  We would pay you gladly if we could; but who can pay
what he has not got?'

The Baron was very angry, for he was not always a reasonable man; and
kind as he really was, he was prepared to punish them, when Bertha, who
was sitting at his feet, looked up at him, saying, 'They cannot help
it, Father.  Let us hope for the best, and heaven will soften the
King's heart or will send us the means to pay him.'

Her smile was so sweet that the Baron could not resist it, and he said
to the peasants, 'Well, then, whatever bad fortune may fall upon us, we
will share it together.'  And the peasants returned to the village,
thanking him and blessing his daughter.

But heaven did not soften the King's heart.  He came riding in wrath,
with his soldiers behind him, to demand the reason why the Baron had
not paid him the tribute.  The Baron pointed out to him the blighted
vines, saying, 'There, sire, lies all my fortune, in ruins.  The grapes
were my gold, and gave me the gold I gave you.'

'And gold I will have!' said the King.  'I care not for your reasons.
If you cannot pay me, I will take your castle, your village, and all
you possess.'

As he spoke, Bertha came into the hall.  Her mother and I had dressed
her in a gown of white silk, and crowned her head with her golden
plaits, hoping that her beauty might win the King's heart, and save the
day.  Indeed, he stood amazed with admiration, as I knew he would, and
turning to the Baron said, 'Who is this maiden?'

'My daughter, sire,' he answered.

'In that case, Baron,' said the King, 'I will marry your daughter, and
her wedding-portion shall be the debt you owe me.'

I could see that the Baron was overjoyed, and so was his wife.  Bertha,
poor child, turned as pale as her gown, and cast down her eyes before
the King, who was admiring her from top to toe.  But when his gaze
_did_ reach her toes, he frowned a little, and asked, 'Why does she
wear boots?'

The Baron stammered hastily, 'She has been out walking, and has only
just come in.'

'Put on your shoes,' said the King to Bertha, 'for I would like to see
how my bride can dance.'

'I have no shoes, Your Majesty,' said Bertha; and this was true--she
had never had a pair of shoes since she was a baby.

'Then I will dance with you in your stocking-feet,' said the King.  And
it was no use protesting.  Bertha had to take off her boots before him,
and there, in the heel of her left stocking, was an enormous hole.  The
King looked surprised, and bade her go and change her stockings.  But
what was the use?  She came back with a hole as big as before.  A third
time she tried, and still her rosy left heel was bare to everybody's
view, and her cheeks were rosier still, as she hung her head and
blushed for shame.

The King's admiration now turned to scorn, and he said to the Baron,
'Beautiful as your daughter is, I cannot have a slattern for my queen.
Farewell; but if the money is not paid by tomorrow, I will turn you out
of your castle.'  So saying, he rode away.

The Baron now turned in anger on his daughter.  'It is you, with your
wretched gift, who have brought me to this!' he cried.  'You are not
fit to be my daughter, you slattern!  Go away from my castle for ever,
but go barefoot.  It is better for the world to see your gold foot at
last, than to see you with a hole in your stocking.'

He himself pulled off her stockings; and when he uncovered her right
foot, lo and behold! it was as white as her left.  It surprised us all,
for if Bertha's foot was not gold, what did the Lorelei mean by the
gift?  But the Baron was in too much of a rage to care about this; he
lifted her in his arms and bore her down to the village, crying, 'My
peasants, thanks to my daughter, I am now a beggar like yourselves.
Who wants a beggar's daughter for his wife?'

While the people stood round amazed, the bare-footed boat-boy, whom
Bertha had played with as a child, stepped forward and said modestly,
'I want her, my lord, if she will have me.'  And Bertha nodded her
golden head, and the Baron, with a harsh laugh, gave her into the boy's
arms and strode away.  The boy called to the priest to ring the
wedding-bell at once, and set Bertha down on the ground; and for the
first time since she was a year old, Bertha's bare foot touched the
earth, and they walked to church together.  But here is the strange
thing.  Wherever her right foot stepped, it left behind it a piece of
gold.  So that the whole of her way into church and out again was
marked by a double line of shining coins.  And the people following
after cried in astonishment, 'Bertha Goldfoot!  Look, there goes Bertha
Goldfoot!'  So it was for the rest of the day; the fiddler and piper
struck up for the wedding-dance, and the people danced in their shoes,
with the barefoot bride and groom in their midst.  And wherever Bertha
danced, the gold danced under her very toes.  By midnight there was so
much gold on the ground that the peasants were kept busy sweeping it
up; and in the morning they carried it in a sack to the Baron and said,
'Here is our tribute, my lord.  The village is saved.'

The Baron was now as joyful as he had been angry; he sent the gold
post-haste to the King, and asked how it had all come about.  And when
he heard that it was due to the wonderful gift of his own daughter, he
hastened down to the village and forgave her.

'Come back to the castle with me, my darling child!' he said.

But Bertha shook her golden head and laughed.  'I cannot, Father.  I am
married now, and must live with my husband.  Besides,' said she, 'I can
never wear stockings again, for my gold foot loses its power unless it
goes bare.  But neither you nor the peasants need fear poverty any
more.'

Her father embraced her, and saw that it must be so.  And from then to
the end of her days, Bertha and her husband, and all their children,
too, lived barefoot--so _she_ had no stockings to darn (said the Old
Nurse).




3

THE BLUE LOTUS

Ronnie had been naughty.  He knew he had and he went to bed crying,
while the other children went to bed the same as usual, without taking
very much notice.  For they were sometimes naughty too, and they knew
that when you've been naughty you've just got to get over it.  The Old
Nurse sat darning away by the fire, and did not try to tell a story
yet; but she kept an ear on Ronnie, and first his crying sounded angry,
and the Old Nurse said to herself, 'Ah, _those_ tears won't wash very
much away!'  But presently the angry sound changed to a sorry sound,
and then the Old Nurse said to herself, 'It will soon be washed away
now.'  As Ronnie's crying grew less, she heard him get out of bed and
go across the room, and get into Roley's bed; for it was Roley to whom
he had been naughty.  The Old Nurse looked round and said, 'There's a
tight fit!  Do you think you can manage to have your suppers side by
side?  Don't get your knees mixed up, and don't knock your elbows into
each other, and don't make too many crumbs in the sheets.'  She brought
Ronnie's supper over to him, and got a big sponge, and washed his face,
saying, 'I haven't washed off so many tear-stains since I washed the
Prince of India's face by the Lotus Lake.'

'When, Nanny?' asked Roley; while Ronnie asked, 'Did the Prince of
India have _many_ more tears than me?'

'Yes, he did, and needed them too!  Let me see when it was.  It was
before I was nurse to the Inca of Peru, but after I was nurse to the
Sphinx of Egypt--or else it was the other way round.  A body can't
remember.  Anyhow, it was a very long time ago.'


The Prince of India began by being the very worst boy I ever nursed in
my life.  He cried about everything, and got into fearful tempers; and
even his gentle mother, the Ranee, could do nothing with him, much as
she loved him, and much as he loved her.  In between his fits of temper
he was quite a nice boy, though, and one day he asked his mother, 'Why
do I cry so much?'

'I don't know,' she said.  'Perhaps it is your heart makes you cry,
when you have been in a temper.'

'Then I won't have a heart!' said the Prince of India.

'Oh,' begged his mother, 'don't say that!  It would be better not to
have a temper than not to have a heart.'

'No, it wouldn't,' said the little Prince haughtily.  'I _like_ my
temper, and I don't like my heart.'

So he sent for his Magician and told him to take away his heart.  The
poor Ranee, his mother, said to the Magician, 'You must not do this--I
forbid it.'  And at once the Prince flew into another of his tempers
and said to his Magician, 'Turn my mother into a White Elephant!'  And
as the Prince was greater in the land even than his mother, the
Magician had to obey him.  He turned the Ranee into a White Elephant,
and took away the Prince's heart; so the Prince had not time to be
sorry for what he had done, and he let the White Elephant go sadly out
of the palace into the jungle, and didn't care a bit.

Then he said to the Magician, 'You mustn't hurt my heart, or I would
die; but you must put it somewhere quite safe, where I can't get at it,
and nobody will know where it is.'

The Magician bowed three times, and went away with the Prince of
India's heart.  He carried it to a pool in the middle of the jungle,
and laid the heart inside a blue lotus-flower that grew in the middle
of the pool.  Then he cast a magic spell on the water of the pool, so
that whoever touched a drop of its water would die; and so the Prince's
heart was kept safe from the hands of men.  The only one who heard the
spell was the White Elephant, who had followed the Magician to see what
he would do with the heart of her son.  And every morning and evening
she came down to the pool and plucked with her long trunk a
forest-flower whose cup was full of dew.  Then she stretched her trunk
over the pool, and tilted the cup so that the sweet dew fell on the
Prince's heart, and kept it refreshed.

Meanwhile a year went by, and the Prince's temper grew worse than ever;
and all the worse because now he never cried.  He only stormed and
raged when he wanted anything he could not have.  So in the end he had
everything he wanted, and then he wanted something else.

One day he said he would go tiger-hunting in the jungle, so a great
party was made, with the Prince riding on one elephant, and me on
another, and other people on horses, and still others on foot.  But
there seemed to be no tigers in the jungle that day, and we went on and
on till we came in the evening to the pool, which the Prince had never
seen before.  As soon as he set eyes on the beautiful Blue Lotus
standing up on its tall stem in the water, he forgot all about tigers
and cried,

'Oh, what a lovely flower!  I want it.'

And he jumped down off his elephant and rushed to the edge of the pool.

Just at that moment, the White Elephant also approached the pool, with
the flower-cup of dew in her trunk.  She alone knew that the water of
the pool was poisoned, and that if her son touched it he would die.
Casting away the flower, she quickly stretched her trunk across the
pool, plucked the Blue Lotus off its stem and laid it at her son's feet
without wetting it by a single drop.  But alas! though the Lotus had
escaped the touch of the water, her trunk had not; and no sooner had
she dropped the Lotus into the Prince's hands, than the White Elephant
lay down and died.

The Prince picked up the Lotus with his heart in it, as fresh as it had
been when he was born, and as he held it, looking down on the White
Elephant whom he knew to be his mother, he began to weep for the first
time in a year.  He wept and wept and wept--you could not have counted
his tears if you had tried for a month.  He wept all over his mother's
body, and as his tears fell upon it, the tough white hide began to
shrivel, like old leaves wasted by the rain.  And at the end of an hour
it was all washed away, and the Ranee, his mother, stepped out, living,
as lovely as ever.  And she and the Prince did not stop hugging each
other for another hour.

Then the Prince called his Magician and said, 'Put back my heart and
take away my temper.'  So the Magician did, and he dropped the Prince's
temper to the bottom of the pool, where nobody could get at it any
more.  And then I got off my elephant, and wiped the tear-stains off
the Prince of India's face; and it took me just as long to get it clean
as it has taken me to tell you this story.




4

THE PROUD INFANTA

'Oh, Nanny,' said Doris, as the Old Nurse pulled one of her long
pale-pink stockings out of the basket, 'please don't darn that one!'

'Why not, my dear?' asked the Old Nurse.  'It needs darning very badly.
There's a wide ladder all down the front of the leg.'

'Yes, Nanny, I know there is, just where it will show and look horrid.
Do throw it away.'

'But it's your very Sunday-best silk party stocking, dear.  What will
you do at the next party if you've only one stocking to wear?'

Doris pouted.  'I'd rather not go to the party than wear _that_
stocking.  Everybody would look, and I'd feel horrid.'

'Now, my dear, don't you go getting proud,' said the Old Nurse,
threading a very fine needle with very fine silk.  'Pride is one of the
worst spoilsports in the world, nearly as bad as envy, but not quite.
If you're going through life ashamed to wear a darned stocking, I'll
say you are no better than the Infanta of Spain I once was nurse to,
who was proud of all the wrong things and ashamed of all the right
ones.'

'What was she proud of, Nanny?' asked Doris.

'Well, that's just what I used to say,' said the Old Nurse, 'when she
got so proud that there was no bearing with her.  She was too proud to
say thank you to the footman who picked up her handkerchief for her,
and too proud to eat her dinner off a silver plate instead of a golden
one, and too proud to have her coach drawn by anything but a milk-white
horse with blue eyes, a silver bridle, and an azure plume, and a jet
horse with scarlet eyes, a golden bridle, and a scarlet plume.  If
there was one white hair in the black horse's tail, or one black hair
in the white horse's mane, she had them banished out of Spain.'


'What are you so proud of?' I asked her time and again.

'I wonder you can ask, Nanny,' she would answer haughtily.  'Am I not
the Infanta of Spain?  Have I not the widest golden dress sewn with the
costliest pearls in Europe?  Must not everybody bow to me as I pass by?
Will not the greatest kings in the world beg one day to marry me?  Has
not my father more money in his chests, and more lands in foreign
parts, and more ships on the sea, than any other ruler upon earth?  And
will not all these be mine one day?  I wonder at you, for asking why I
am proud.'

'Well, well, so do I!' I told my young lady.  'For I see you can't help
it.'

That afternoon we went for a ride in the Infanta's gold coach, drawn by
the jet and ivory horses.  A little way out of the town we came to a
small village, and outside the village bake-shop we saw a peasant woman
sitting with her naked baby on her knee, a chubby, laughing baby, as
brown as a berry.  The mother was dancing him up and down, singing to
him,

  '_Oh dear me, how proud I feel!
  I'm the proudest woman in all Castile!
  I can bake the best loaf from the miller's corn,
  And I've got the best baby that ever was born!_'


The Infanta leaned out of the window to listen to the song, and when it
was done her eyes flashed with anger.  She jumped out of the coach, and
ran up to the woman and said, 'That song of yours is full of lies.  _I_
am the proudest one in all Castile.  I am the Infanta of Spain, and
that is something that nobody else can be.  But _any_body can bake a
loaf and have a baby.'

The happy peasant laughed gaily, showing her beautiful white teeth.
'Ah, little lady,' she cried, 'but not the best loaf, and not the best
baby.  Can they, my pet?'  And she buried her face in her baby's fat
neck, and filled the creases with kisses.

'Yes, they can!' cried the proud Infanta.  And she jumped back into the
coach, told the coachman to drive home to the palace, went straight to
the kitchen, and demanded flour and a basin of the astonished cook.
When she had got them, she poured some water on the flour and pressed
it together into a big hard ball with her angry little hands, and told
the cook to put it in the oven till it was done, and then to send it up
for her father's supper.  When it came to table, you never saw such a
loaf!  It was as hard as a stone.

'What's this, what's this?' asked the King of Spain.

'It's a loaf for your supper, Father,' said the little Infanta proudly.
'I made it myself with my own hands.'

The King tried to cut it with a knife, and then with his sword; then he
burst out laughing and said to the Head Carver, 'Send this to the
Commander-in-Chief with the King's compliments, and tell him to use it
for a cannon-ball when next he fights the Moors.'

The Infanta got as red as a turkey-cock; she left the table and the
room with her chin in the air, and refused all supper and comfort.  The
next morning she said she would go for a drive all by herself; I could
see she was still much upset, and wanted to go with her, but she would
not let me.  Every day for a month she went out by herself in her grand
coach, and told nobody where she went to; and when we asked the
coachman, he said she had given him orders to hold his tongue.

Then one night at supper-time, as the King and the Infanta sat together
at table, another loaf was brought in on a golden salver, as before;
and it smelled so hot and crusty, and looked such a beautiful golden
brown, that the King instantly cut a big slice, and ate it without
butter.  When he had eaten it, he exclaimed, 'What bread!  What
delicious bread!  I've never tasted such a good loaf in all my life.'

And the Infanta of Spain once more got as red as a turkey-cock, but
this time with pleasure, as she said, 'I made it myself, Father, with
my own two hands.  It is not yet quite as good as the loaf the baker's
wife in the village bakes, but she says that one day she wouldn't
wonder if I baked even better than she does.'

The King of Spain opened his arms to his daughter, and said, 'I am
proud of a daughter who can bake such a loaf!'

And the Infanta went and took his kiss, looking prouder than I had ever
seen her look before.

But I saw her look still prouder, years after, when she sent for me to
come and be nurse to her first baby.  She had married the King of
France, and I had not seen her since her wedding-day.  She came herself
to meet me at the palace door, and when I had embraced her I asked,
'Well, and what is the baby like, my dear?'

'Oh, Nanny!' she said joyously.  'I'm the proudest woman in the world.
I've got the best baby that ever was born.  _That's_ something to be
proud of, isn't it?'




5

CAN MEN BE SUCH FOOLS AS ALL THAT?

'Look at that now!' said the Old Nurse, holding up a pair of thick grey
stockings that looked less like stockings than a bunch of rags.  'It
isn't even a hole--it's nothing but tatters.  Aren't you ashamed of
yourself, Roley?'

'Those aren't Roley's stockings, they're mine,' said Ronnie.  'I did it
getting through a wire fence.'

'And whose stockings are these, then?' asked the Old Nurse, holding up
another thick grey pair, just as ragged as the others.

'Oh, those are mine,' said Roley.  'I did it when I got through the
fence after Ronnie.'

The Old Nurse shook her head.  'There's no telling you boys apart;
whether by your faces, your stockings, or the things you do,' she said.
'You are almost as much alike as the little Duke of Chinon and the
Rag-picker's Son.'

'Who were they?' asked Ronnie.  'Were you the Rag-picker's Son's nurse,
Nanny?'

'No,' said the Old Nurse, 'the Rag-picker was so poor that his son had
to bring himself up; which he did quite happily, with old clothes to
wear, bread and garlic to eat, and a little mongrel dog called Jacques
to play with on the banks of the River Loire.'


But I was nurse to the little Duke of Chinon, who lived in the great
grim castle on the hill above the town where the Rag-picker's Son
lived.  The little Duke, of course, had everything that the poor boy
hadn't: fine clothes to wear, white bread and chicken to eat, and a
pedigree spaniel called Hubert for a playfellow.

Except for all these differences, the two boys were as like as two
peas; when I took the little Duke walking by the river, and we happened
to meet the Rag-picker's Son, you could not have told one from the
other, if one hadn't worn satin and the other rags, while one had a
dirty face and hands and the other was as clean as a new pin.
Everybody remarked on it.

The little Duke used to look longingly at the poor boy, though, for he
was allowed to splash about in the water of the river as he pleased;
and the water of the Loire is more beautiful to splash about in than
any water in France, for it is as clear as honey, and has the brightest
gold sand bed you can imagine; and when you get out of the town, it
runs between sandy shores, where green willows grow, and flowers of all
sorts.  But it was against my orders to let the little Duke play in the
water, and I had to obey them, though I was sorry for him; for I knew
what boys like.

One day as we were out walking, the Duke's spaniel Hubert ran up to the
Rag-picker's Son's mongrel, Jacques, and they touched noses and made
friends.  And the Duke and the poor boy smiled at each other and said,
'Hullo!'  After that, when we met, the boys always nodded, or winked,
or made some sign of friendship; and one day the Rag-picker's Son
jerked his thumb at the river, as much as to say, 'Come in and play
with me!'  The Duke looked at me, and I shook my head, so the Duke
shook his.  But he was cross with me for the rest of the day.

The next day I missed him, and there was a great hullabaloo all over
the castle.  I and his guardian and all his attendants went down to the
town to find him, and asked everybody we met if they had seen him; and
presently we met the Rag-picker, who said, 'Yes, I saw him an hour ago,
going along the river-bank with my son.'  And we all ran along the
bank, the Rag-picker too, and most of the townsfolk behind us.

A mile along the bank, there they were, the two boys, standing in the
middle of the river as bare as when they were born, splashing about and
screaming with laughter; and on the shore lay a little heap of clothes,
rags and fine linen all thrown down anyhow together.  We were all very
angry with the boys, and called and shouted to them to come out of the
water; and they shouted back that they wouldn't.  At last the
Rag-picker waded in and fetched them out by the scruffs of their necks.
And there they stood before us, naked and grinning and full of fun, and
just as the Duke's guardian was going to scold his charge, and the
Rag-picker to scold his son, they suddenly found themselves in a
pickle!  For without their clothes, washed clean by the river, they
were so exactly alike, that we didn't know which was which.  And the
boys saw that we didn't, and grinned more than ever.

'Now then, my boy!' said the Rag-picker to one of them.  But the boy he
spoke to did not answer, for he knew if he talked it would give the
game away.

And the Duke's guardian said to the other boy, 'Come, monseigneur!'
But that boy too shook his head and kept mum.

Then I had a bright idea, and said to the boys, 'Put on your clothes!'
for I thought that would settle it.  But the two boys picked up the
clothes as they came: one of them put on the ragged shirt and the satin
coat, and the other put on the fine shirt and the ragged coat.  So we
were no better off than before.

Then the Rag-picker and the Duke's guardian lost their tempers, and
raised their sticks and gave each of the boys three strokes, thinking
that might help; but all it did was to make them squeal, and when a boy
squeals it doesn't matter if he's a Duke or a beggar, the sound is just
the same.

'This is dreadful,' said the Duke's guardian: 'for all we know, we
shall get the boys mixed for ever, and I shall take the Rag-picker's
Son back to the castle, and the Duke will grow up as the Rag-picker's
Son.  Is there _no_ way of telling which is which?  Can we all be such
fools as that?'

Just as we were scratching our heads and cudgelling our brains, and
wondering what on earth to do next, there came a sound of yelps and
barks; and out of the willows ran Jacques and Hubert, who had been off
on their own, playing together.  They came racing towards us joyously,
and straight as a die Jacques jumped up and licked the face of the boy
in the satin coat, while Hubert licked the boy in the ragged jacket.

So then there was no doubt about it.  We made the boys change their
coats, and the Rag-picker marched his son home to bed, and the guardian
did the same with the Duke.  And that night the Duke and the poor boy
had exactly the same supper to go to sleep on; in other words, nothing
and plenty of it.

But how had the dogs known in the twink of an eye what we hadn't known
at all?  Can men be such fools as all that?




6

THE VEIL OF IRAZADE

'Who was the strongest baby you ever nursed, Nanny?' asked Roley, as
the Old Nurse fished about in her basket for a stocking with a sensible
hole in it.  'Was it me?'  For Roley was beginning to be rather pleased
with himself, because he could do dumb-bell exercises with heavier
dumb-bells than Ronnie.

'Oh dear, no,' said the Old Nurse, 'it wasn't you, and not nearly you.
I think it was that boy called Hercules, though it might have been that
other one called Samson.  They were both strong babies, and I was proud
to show 'em off to people when they called.'

'And who was the most beautiful baby?' asked Doris.  (Doris did not
like to add, like Roley, 'Was it me?' but she had sometimes heard
people say, 'What a pretty little girl!' so she rather hoped Nanny
might say it was her).

'Ah, there's no doubt at all about that!' said the Old Nurse, starting
on a stocking.


The most beautiful baby I ever nursed was the Princess Irazade of
Persia.  They may talk as much as they like of the beauty of Queen
Helen of Troy, but the Princess Irazade was more beautiful than all the
queens of the world rolled into one.  She was so beautiful, that it was
hardly safe to look at her.  From the time she was a baby, she was
followed wherever she went; the servants would be on the stairs in wait
for her to come up or down, so that they might catch the tiniest
glimpse of her.  Her father neglected the business of his kingdom, to
stand and gaze at her by the hour together.  When Irazade passed
through the streets, the whole city followed her until she reached the
palace again.  When she sat among the tulips in her father's garden,
all the birds of the air flew down to see.

As she grew older, there was not a prince or a king on the face of the
earth who did not offer himself as a husband for her.  None of them had
seen her, but the story of her beauty had spread through the world.
Men spoke of it, birds sang of it, the winds of heaven breathed it, and
the seas murmured it on every shore.  Travelling from the two
hemispheres, the kings and princes assembled together on a certain day
in her father's palace in Persia, and she was brought among them to
choose which pleased her best.  Her beauty made all hearts stand still
as she stood there, gazing round upon her suitors.  But it raised such
jealousy among the kings, that no sooner had her glance fallen upon one
than his neighbour turned and slew him, lest he should find favour with
the beautiful Irazade.  And in the end the hall was filled with the
dead, for the last two killed each other.

But even this made no difference.  There was now a new king in every
country in the world, and every one of these too proposed to wed the
Persian Princess.  We were all much troubled about it, 'For,' said the
King of Persia, 'the same thing will happen again.  Nobody can look
upon Irazade without desiring her so much that his desires will turn
him mad.'

At last we decided that for the safety of the world her beauty must be
veiled for ever, even from her husband; her beauty was for everyone, or
for none.  We put a veil over Irazade's face; and when next the kings
came to woo her, she was brought among them so that no man could see
her face.

'Here is my daughter,' said the King of Persia, 'and the man who weds
her must swear never to look upon her, or to let any other look upon
her, all the days of her life.  Who now among you wants to marry her?'

Then one king and another looked at the veiled figure, and they began
to murmur among themselves.  They did not like the King of Persia's
condition, and they began to doubt the veiled figure of the Princess.

'Who knows if it is the Princess Irazade herself?' said one.  'How easy
it would be to pass off upon us some other woman under the veil.'

'And even if it is the Princess Irazade,' said another, 'how do we know
that the tale of her beauty is true?  Perhaps under the veil she is as
ugly as a witch.'

'And even if she is the Princess, and is as beautiful as people say,'
said a third, 'what husband wishes to be denied the joy of his wife's
beauty?  Who would wed a wife under a veil?'

So one and another spoke and went away.  At last the hall was empty,
and when the King of Persia's condition became known no one ever came
again to ask the hand of the beautiful Irazade of Persia.

Time passed; the King and Queen of Persia died, and there was another
ruler in the land; and the old families died out, and others took their
places.  But in her room in the palace Irazade lived on, unseen by
anyone but me.  She was so beautiful that she could not die; and I
alone knew that the figure under the veil never lost its youth or its
loveliness.  They thought that Irazade must by now be an old woman, and
the story of her beauty became a legend.

At last Persia was conquered by another country; the conqueror drove
all the Persians out of the palace, and when they went, the veiled
Princess went too.  But where she went to no one knows.  Only I know,
that because such beauty cannot die, she is still wandering somewhere
in the world under a veil.




7

LIPP THE LAPP

'And who was the littlest baby you ever nursed, Nanny?' asked Doris.
'Was it the Princess of China?'

'No,' said the Old Nurse, examining one of Mary Matilda's tiny socks
for a hole.  'No, it wasn't the Princess of China.  Little though she
was, Lipp was littler still.'

'Who was Lipp?' asked Ronnie.

'Lipp was a Lapp, and was born in Lapland.  At least, I heard he was.
I was sent for in a great hurry one day, because they said that a baby
had been born in Lapland who was so little that his mother couldn't
find him.  And would I come quick, and see what I could do?  So I did.
But _I_ never found him either.'

'Then what happened?' asked Roley.

'Nothing.'

'But what is the story about Lipp?'

'There isn't a story about Lipp.  And if you ask me,' said the Old
Nurse mysteriously, 'I don't believe there was any Lipp at all.  Any
more than there's any hole at all in Mary Matilda's sock.  How it got
into my basket _I_ can't think!'




8

THE ROOF-TREE

'Here's a hole in a little girl's sole,' said the Old Nurse as she
dipped into her basket and came up with one of Doris's stockings.  'So
tonight I'll tell you a tale about a little girl whose stockings I not
only darned, but knitted, when I was her nurse in Switzerland.'


Her name was Liesel, and she was the Forester's daughter.  Her father
lived on the mountain-side, in a beautiful chalet just outside a great
forest of pines and fir-trees.  The forest lay against the mountain, as
black as a bearskin spread on a marble floor; and high above the
tree-tops the peaks of the snow-mountains glittered white against the
sky when it was sunny, or grew dark when it was stormy, or rosy when
the sun went down, or golden when it came up.  And when the mists drew
round them, the mountains disappeared altogether.

But Liesel was as much at home in the forest among the mountains as you
are in your own garden.  She had no brothers or sisters, and she made
playfellows of all the things that grew in the forest.  One of the
tallest trees she named after her father, the Forester, and one of the
little baby fir-trees she named after herself.  She would run out at
least once a day to have a chat with it, and see how it was getting on,
and once, as she and I were going home, she pulled the pink ribbon off
one of her two plaits and said, 'I've got two bows, and Liesel's tree
has none.  I'll give her one of mine.'  And laughing, she tied the pink
bow on the very tip-top branch.

The next day she ran to see if the wind had blown it off, and to her
delight it was still there.  But the day after that she came back
crying.

'What's the matter, Liesel?' I asked.  'Has the wind stolen the pink
ribbon after all?'

'Oh, Nanny,' she sobbed, 'it's worse than that.  The ribbon is gone,
and the little tree too.  Somebody has cut it down.'

I could hardly comfort her, and while I was trying to, her father, the
tall Forester, came into the room with a pleasant-faced young fellow
whom I knew to be the son of Peter Gimsel, the chief peasant in the
valley below us.  Peter Gimsel was a rich man, and was now building
himself a fine new chalet, which he intended one day for his son, Hans,
when the boy was a few years older and got married.  Hans had come up
to tell the Forester that tomorrow they were going to put the roof on
the chalet, and that the work would stop for a while while his father
gave a big feast to all the workmen, and to his friends.  For that was
the custom in Switzerland, and it still is, whenever a house is being
built.  As the roof goes on, the work rests, the workmen eat, drink,
and make merry, and the householder's friends come to bless and wish
happiness to the life that will be led under the roof.  It is called
the Roof-raising Feast.

This Hans was a nice lad, and when he saw Liesel crying, he stooped and
smiled at her, and said, 'Don't cry, now, little one.  Wouldn't you
like to come to the party?'

'Oh, come, the child's too young,' said the Forester; 'you don't want
to be bothered with children.'

But Liesel's face had cleared its clouds under the sunny smile of Hans,
and he insisted.  'Yes, Forester, we want everybody, children and old
folk too.  So you'll come, Nanny, won't you?'

I said I would, and would bring Liesel with me, and take her home if
the party went on past her bedtime; which it was very likely to do.

The next day we all put on our best; the Forester had his green suit
with leather bindings, and an eagle's feather in his cap; I had on a
dark-red stuff dress with a gaily coloured kerchief round my shoulders,
and a black silk apron tied round my waist.  And Liesel looked a
picture in her fine white tucked chemise, her little blue skirt and
black velvet bodice, and the tinkling silver chains that dangled from
the embroidered collar round her neck.  So, feeling very grand, we all
went down to the valley, where there was already a great gathering of
people about the new house; long tables, spread with good food, were
set inside and outside, the fiddler was scraping away, and folk were
talking, laughing, dancing, eating, and casting away all care.  As we
approached, big Peter Gimsel got up from a table and shouted, 'Welcome,
Forester, welcome!'  And young Hans came running forward and took
Liesel's hand and said, 'Welcome, little one!  Look up there--we've
just put up the Roof-tree!'  For you must know that when the new roof
goes on, it is the custom to set a little tree at the very top of the
gable, as a sign that the house will grow in prosperity and happiness.
Liesel's eyes followed where Hans was pointing, and there, on the top
of the roof, as gay as a child in the sunshine, was her own little
fir-tree, with the perky pink bow on the very tip-top.

'Oh, Nanny!' she cried.  'It is Liesel's tree.'

'Your tree, Liesel?' said Hans; and I told him what she meant.  He
laughed aloud and said, 'You must forgive me for stealing your tree for
my house, little one.  But it is your own fault, you know.  When I went
up to the forest to cut one, how could I help seeing the prettiest tree
of all, when you had dressed it up in your own pink ribbon?  That was
the very reason why I cut it down.  I thought the fairies had had a
hand in it.  Will you forgive me?'

Liesel blushed and smiled and said, 'Yes.  I hope Liesel's tree will
make your house very happy always, Master Hans.'

And so it did.  For six years later, when Liesel was sixteen and Hans
twenty-two, he brought her home to his house as his bride.  And on the
day of the wedding she wore in her hair the very pink bow she had tied
on the little tree.  For Hans had taken it off and kept it in his
pocket for six years.




9

YOU CAN'T DARN _THAT_ HOLE

'Well, well!' said the Old Nurse, putting her fist through the knee-cap
of somebody's stocking.  'That's a hole and a half to be sure!  Looks
almost as if it were done a-purpose.'

'No, Nanny, I didn't, really!' cried Roley earnestly.

'And if you had done,' said the Old Nurse, 'I once knew a very great
king who did likewise.'

'Were you his nurse, Nanny?' asked Doris.

'At one time; but he made the knee-hole I'm talking of when he was a
hoary old man.  Ah, well!'--the Old Nurse drew the stocking-leg over
her hand--'Where there's a hole, a darn can follow.'

'Was there ever a hole you couldn't darn, Nanny?' asked Doris.

'Only one that I can put a mind to.'

'What country was _that_ in?' asked Ronnie.

'No country at all, in a manner of speaking.  It was on the sea,' said
the Old Nurse, 'where I happened to be sailing on a Norwegian
merchantman, as nurse to Astrid, the Skipper's daughter.'

'Did you darn all the Norwegian sailors' socks, Nanny?' asked Roley.

'The Norwegian sailors had no socks to darn.  But I darned the
Skipper's socks, and he seemed to think I was one of the Seven Wonders
of the world.  And he thought his little daughter was the other six.
Whatever she wanted, Olaf let her have.  Fair spoiled her, as I often
told him.'


Well, it happened one day that the Mate came along with a very grave
face.

'Something serious to report, Skipper,' says he.

'Report away,' says the Skipper.

'It's something we found in the bilge,' says the Mate.

'A whale?' asks the Skipper.

'Not exactly,' says the Mate.

'A shrimp?' says the Skipper.

'Wrong again,' says the Mate.

'Speak up, man,' says the Skipper, 'and let's hear what you _did_ find.'

'This is it,' says the Mate; and holds out on the palm of his hand a
beautiful little baby, as transparent as a jelly-fish, but not so
floppy.  It squirmed like a sand-eel, and let out a sound like the high
note of a singing shell.

The Skipper scratched his head.  'This looks more like your job than
mine, Nanny,' he said.  'What do you advise?'

'Throw it back,' I told him.  'Believe me, there'll be trouble if you
don't.'

At that moment up came little Astrid, and as she peered into the cradle
of the Mate's brown hand, she cried, 'Let me look!  Oh, the pretty
little thing!  You must not throw it back, Father; I want to keep it.'

'There'll be trouble,' I warned him again.  But as I said before, Olaf
could refuse his daughter nothing; and he said, 'Don't fuss, Nanny; let
the child have her way.'

That night a big storm blew up out of nowhere.  There hadn't been a
sign of it on sea or sky for twenty-four hours ahead; yet the lightning
flashed, the thunder crashed, the rainfall splashed, and the big waves
dashed all over the tossing ship.  It looked as though at any moment
she must go to pieces.  In the very height of the storm, a bearded
figure rose up out of the tallest wave, and roared as loud as a
thousand lions in one:

'Give back my baby, or I'll sink the ship!'

'What did I tell you?' I said to the Skipper.  'You've stolen Old King
Neptune's child, and here he comes after you.'  For I knew King Neptune
well, and he knew me.  So I nodded pleasantly to him for old time's
sake, and said, 'Come, come, if you sink the ship you'll sink me too.'

'What, are you there, Nanny?' says Old King Neptune.

'There I am,' said I.

'Still darning, I see,' said he, 'and as well as ever.'

'There's nothing she can't darn,' said the Skipper.

'I wonder,' said Old Neptune.

'I'll go bail for it,' said the Skipper.

'Never mind my darning,' I told them; 'simmer down and talk business.'

Old Neptune calmed the waves while Astrid was sent for.  She came,
carrying the baby like the treasure of her heart, and when she heard
she must give it up she burst into tears and said, 'I won't!'

'Then the ship will go down, darling,' I said.

'Let it!' cried Astrid.  'I won't!'

'And we'll all be drowned,' said the Mate.

'I don't care--I _won't_!' stormed Astrid.  And so upset was she that
her great fool of a father shook his fist in Neptune's face and said,
'She shan't!  Do your worst!'

Neptune scratched his chin, and looked from Astrid to the Skipper, and
from the Skipper to me.

'Hark ye, friend Olaf, I'll drive a bargain with you,' he said.  'You
went bail just now that there was nothing old Nanny here couldn't darn.'

'I'll lay to that,' said the Skipper.

'Well, then, I say I can make a hole that's one too many for her.'

'I say you can't.'

'I say I can.'

'By Odin and Thor!' cried Olaf.  'If you can do that, you shall have
your brat back, let mine squall as she pleases.'  He winked at me, for
such was his faith in me that he was sure the day was saved.  And Old
Neptune also winked, and I wondered what he had up his sleeve.  For
well he knew the skill of my needle.

Suddenly he sinks out of sight under the water, and a moment later
thrusts his gigantic knee up through the sea again; and when he drew it
back, there was the sucking whirlpool which today men call the
Maelstrom, in the very place where his knee had made the hole.  The
ship and all would have been sucked into it straightaway, if with his
enormous hand Neptune had not pushed it out of danger.  At the same
moment, his dripping head appeared over the ship's side, and he said,

'There you are, Nanny!  Darn _that_ hole!'

'Take me to it, then,' I bade him, and he bore me on his shoulder to
the brim of the whirlpool, where I threaded my needle at a flying jet
of brine.

But could I draw it across the hole from edge to edge?  Not I!  No
sooner was the first thread laid than it was whirled away into the
vortex; and at last I patted old Neptune's top-knot (which I'd
water-curled many a time in his babyhood), and said, 'Well, boy, you've
beaten your Nanny for once.'

So he took me back to the ship, where the Skipper looked very glum at
me, and handed the baby over.  And before Astrid could blow up a
squall, Old Neptune laid in her lap the deep shell of an oyster, and in
it was curled the loveliest little pearl baby you can possibly imagine.
So _she_ was satisfied, and Neptune was satisfied, and the ship was
saved.  But Olaf never thought quite so highly of me afterwards.


'There!' said the Old Nurse, biting off her thread, and holding Roley's
stocking up; 'it was a bad hole, right enough--but it was easier to
darn than the one King Neptune made when he put his kneecap through the
sea.'




10

THE PRINCESS OF CHINA

'Here's a tiny hole, then!' said the Old Nurse, picking out Mary
Matilda's little sock.  'Just a speck in the toe, and nothing more.
But what would you expect of a baby, with a foot no bigger than that of
the Princess of China?'


I was nurse to the Princess of China before England was old enough to
know it had a name.  I had been nurse before that to her mother, the
Queen, who was now a widow.  The Princess was the tiniest and most
enchanting little creature in the world--as light as a butterfly, and
as fragile as glass.  A silver spoonful of rice made a big meal for
her, and when she said, 'Oh, Nanny, I _am_ so thirsty!' I would fill my
thimble with milk and give it to her to drink; and then she left half
of it.  I made up her bed in my work-box, and cut my
pocket-handkerchief in two for a pair of sheets.  Her laugh was like
the tinkle of a raindrop falling on a glass bell.  Really, when I went
out walking I was afraid of losing her!  So I slipped her into my
purse, and left it open, and carried her like that.  And as we walked
through the streets of Pekin, she would peep out of the purse and say,
'What a lot of big people there are in the world, Nanny!'  But when we
walked in the rice-fields, and she saw the butterflies at play, she
cried, 'Oh, Nanny! who are all those darling little people, and why do
they never come to see me in the palace?'

One day a message came to the Queen of China that the Emperor of
Tartary was coming to marry her daughter; and when the Princess had
been told the news, she never stopped asking me a string of little
questions.  'Where is Tartary, Nanny?  Will I like Tartary?  Are the
people little there, or big?  What is the Emperor like?  Will I like
him?  Is he very enormous?  Is he nice and tiny?  What will he wear?'

I couldn't answer most of her questions, but when she came to the last
one, I said, 'He'll wear purple, pet, like every other emperor.'

'Purple!' said she.  'How pretty!  Now I shall know him when I see him,
my pretty little Purple Emperor!'  And the Princess of China clapped
her tiny hands.

She grew very excited about her Purple Emperor, and the day he was
expected she said suddenly, 'Nanny, I must have a new dress!'

'Why, poppet, you have seven hundred new dresses,' I told her, for
hadn't I been kept busy sewing the tiny garments ever since the news
came?

'I don't mean _those_,' said she, stamping her foot on my thumb-nail,
where she was standing at the time.  'I mean a dress that is _really_
beautiful enough for a Purple Emperor.'

'Where shall we find it?' I asked her.

'We'll look for it in the rice-fields,' said she.  So I popped her into
my purse, and we set out.  The rice-fields were as hot as ever, and as
full of butterflies, and in them, besides ourselves, was a little
Chinese boy, in a blue cotton shirt, chasing the butterflies.  Just as
we came up, he clapped his two hands together over such a little
beauty, as delicate and gay as a flower, and when he parted his hands,
the pretty thing fell dead at our feet.  The Princess of China wept
with rage.

'Make the boy stand still while I pull his hair!' she cried.  And the
boy had to come close and bend down his head, and she took hold of two
of his hairs and pulled them as hard as she could, while he blinked his
eyes a little.  '_There!_' said she.  'Now go away.  I'm never going to
look at you again.'

When the boy had gone, the Princess of China said to me, 'Give me the
poor little lady, Nanny.'  So I picked up the butterfly and gave it to
her, and she fondled its soft bloomy wings, and cried a little, and
cuddled down inside the purse with it, so deep that I couldn't see her.

'Best let her get over her little fit by herself,' I thought; and
looked about for a bit of shade to sit in till she was happy again.
And there I rested, watching the butterflies dancing in the heat-haze
beyond the shadow; and especially one big fine fellow, the handsomest
butterfly I had ever seen, who kept hovering in and out of the shadow,
as though he couldn't keep away from us.  At last, as I sat very still,
he settled on my purse, and remained there quite a long while, moving
his long slender feelers this way and that; so that I imagined he was
saying something, if only I'd had ears tiny enough to hear him.

Whether I dozed or not, who can say?  Perhaps I only nodded for a
second or so.  But when I next looked, I saw the handsome butterfly
just spreading his wings to fly, and beside him was another butterfly,
much smaller, and of the same gay, delicate sort that the boy had
killed.  They rose together, their wings touching, and flew out into
the sunshine, where they danced awhile, and then disappeared in the
haze.

I thought it was now time to return, in case the Emperor of Tartary
should be arriving, so I called into my purse, 'Come, poppet, we're
going home!'  There was no answer, and I supposed she was asleep; so I
got up and walked home quietly, not to wake her.

When I reached the palace, the Queen ran out to meet me in a fluster.
'Oh, there you are, Nanny!' said she.  'The Emperor is just entering
the city, and we couldn't find you or the Princess anywhere.'

'Here she is, safe in my purse,' I said; and we opened the purse, and
it was as empty as an air-balloon.  We searched every corner of it in
vain; and then we ran back together to the rice-fields, looking for her
in the dust on the way, though I knew she could not have fallen out as
I came home without my seeing it.  When we came to the shadow where I
had been sitting, we searched the ground thoroughly, but there was not
a sign of her.  There was nothing but the two butterflies, who had come
back, and settled first upon my hand, and then upon the Queen's.  And
the little gay one fluttered her wings at me, as though to say, 'See my
lovely new dress!'  Then it struck me, all of a sudden, and I said to
the Queen, who was weeping, 'What sort of a butterfly is this?'

'What a time to ask, Nanny!' wailed the Queen.  'I don't know what sort
it is.  The big one's a Purple Emperor.  But what a time to ask!'

'Dry your eyes,' I said.  'It's useless to look any more.  The Princess
of China is gone where she'll never come back from.'  And I shook the
two butterflies off my hand, and led the Queen home.

We were met at the palace-gates by an excited crowd.  The Emperor of
Tartary had arrived, and there was no bride to greet him.  But as we
appeared, the crowd cried, 'Here they are!  Here's the Princess's
Nurse!' and down the steps strode the Emperor of Tartary himself, a
great big handsome man, in a royal purple mantle.  He came straight to
the Queen and hugged her, saying, 'My Princess!  My Bride!  My
Beautiful One!'

It took the Queen's breath away, and ours too.  But as soon as she
could, she made a sign to me to say nothing, and while the Emperor
embraced her again I signed to the crowd.  They all understood, and
folded their hands in their sleeves, and stood with downcast eyes as
the Emperor of Tartary led his bride into the palace.  And where was
the harm of it?  What would he have done with my tiny Princess of China
for a bride?  He was much better off as he was.


'I thought it was going to be a tinier tale than that, Nanny,' said
Doris, 'because the hole in Mary Matilda's sock was so tiny.'

'Ah,' said the Old Nurse, 'but tiny holes take very fine darning.'




11

THE GOLDEN EAGLE

'However you boys manage to get these holes in your stocking-knees,'
said the Old Nurse, taking a pair of stockings out of her basket, 'I
really can't think!  You've been climbing trees again, I know!  Just
like Lionello, who climbed his father's olive-tree to catch a golden
eagle.'

'Who was Lionello, Nanny?' asked Roley.  'Is he a big enough story to
go into that hole?'  He hoped Lionello _was_, for then he would be a
very long story indeed.  The Old Nurse had just put the whole of her
fist through the hole in his stocking-knee.

'Yes,' said she, 'Lionello will just about fit this hole.'  And having
threaded her darning-needle, she began.


Lionello lived in Italy, and his father was the gardener to the big
house where I was then staying as nurse.  So, though I was not
Lionello's nurse, I knew all about him, and saw him every day.  He was
a very gay, happy sort of boy, and rather fond of boasting.  The master
of the house was a count, and the gardens were splendid; but the Count
himself was a quiet little man, and slipped about the place like a
shadow, while Master Lionello strutted up and down between the roses
and the fig-trees, the statues and the fountains, as though he owned
the place.  And often I heard him speak to his little friends, the
children of the peasants round about, in some such words as these:

'You ought to see _our_ garden!  In garden the figs are as big as
melons, and each rose is as big as a whole bouquet!  In _our_ garden
the fountains aren't filled with water, but with champagne!  In _our_
garden, the statues are so fine, that the King of Italy has none so
beautiful!  In _our_ garden, this, that, and the other thing!'--I
couldn't tell you all the wonders Lionello invented about the garden
that didn't belong to him.

Well, that's by the way, just to show you the sort of boy he was.

One day I met him at the foot of the garden, where his father's cottage
was, and the little bit of land that the Count let him have for
himself.  Lionello had a net in his hand, and was prancing along
looking very bold and daring.

'Well, Lionello,' I said, 'you look as though you were going to meet a
dragon.'

'Oh, no,' he said carelessly, 'I'm just going to catch a golden eagle.'

'Indeed,' said I, 'and where will you find one?'

'In my father's olive-tree,' said Lionello.  'That's where they always
are.'

Off he went, and I followed him to see what happened.  Soon I heard a
great squawking from the top of one of the trees, and a flurry of wings
and feathers, and Lionello's voice shouting--all the noises were mixed
up together, so that a great adventure seemed to be afoot.  By the time
I reached the tree, Lionello was coming down it, with his shirt torn,
and a great hole in his stocking, a scratch on his cheek, and his
mother's old yellow hen under his arm.  We met at the bottom of the
tree, and I said, 'Well, Lionello, so you caught your golden eagle,
then?'

'Yes,' he said carelessly, 'there she goes!'  And he tossed the hen
from him, as much as to say, 'Really, we have so many golden eagles
about, they're hardly worth keeping.'  Well, that's by the way, but it
shows you the sort of boy Lionello was.

Before Lionello grew up, I left the Count to go to be a nurse to the
children of a Cannibal King for a while; but a few years later I
happened to be in that part of Italy again, and went to see the
children of the Count, for I never forget any of the boys and girls
I've nursed.  The Count's children were grown up now, and the son of
the house was about to be married to the most beautiful girl in the
neighbourhood.  His young bride was there; I had remembered her as a
lovely little girl, and kissed her and approved of her.  Then I said,
'By the way, what has happened to Lionello?'

'He is still in the same cottage,' smiled the Count's son, 'and he is
our gardener now, for his father is dead.  Lionello got married last
week.'

'Really,' I said.  'And whom did he marry?'

'He married the charcoal-seller's daughter, Anita.'

'I remember,' I said; 'a nice little girl with a big mouth and a
turned-up nose!'

When I had taken leave of the happy young couple, I went down through
the gardens to find Lionello.  He was watering the roses at the foot of
the terrace, and called out gaily to me from a distance.

'Ol, Nanny!  How glad I am to see you again.'

'I'm glad to see you too, Lionello, and glad you have not forgotten me.'

'As if I could forget you!' laughed the handsome young fellow.  'You
haven't changed a bit.'

'And I don't think you have either, Lionello,' I said, for though of
course he was taller and bigger, he had the same gay air and bright
dark eyes as when he was a boy.  But at my words he laughed, and said,

'Not changed, Nanny?  Haven't I, though!  I hope I have.  Do you
remember how I used to deceive myself when I was a little boy?  Why, I
used to think my mother's old yellow hen was a golden eagle.  Ha, ha,
ha!  Don't you remember that?  I thought I was taking you all in, and
all the time I was only taking myself in.'

'Well, it kept you happy,' I said.

'Oh, yes, I was happy enough; and in that, at least, I'm not changed.
I'm happier than ever now!'  He looked at me, smiled, and said gaily,
'I got married last week.'

'Did you, Lionello?'

'Yes, it's true; and whom do you think I've married, Nanny?  Why, the
most beautiful girl in Italy.'

'Really, Lionello?'

'Really, Nanny!  I'll tell you a funny thing.  The young Count up at
the house is getting married too; but he couldn't make up his mind to,
until I'd married Anita.  Then, all of a sudden, as though he knew he'd
missed the best, he took the next best; and a charming girl she is--but
not like Anita.  You must come along and see her now.'

I walked down to the old cottage with Lionello, wondering how time had
turned the plain little Anita into such a beauty.  She came out of the
cottage as we approached, and ran to greet me, smiling very sweetly at
me, and more sweetly still at Lionello.

The smile so brightened her face, that it didn't matter that she had
grown up plainer than ever, and that her nose still turned up.  And
Lionello beamed upon her, and whispered in my ear, 'There, Nanny, what
did I tell you?  The most beautiful girl in Italy!'


'Oh, Nanny,' cried Roley, as the Old Nurse cut off the thread, 'the
tale can't be done by now!  The hole was _much_ bigger than that.'

'Yes, it looked like it,' said the Old Nurse, 'but some holes, my dear,
are so big, that they can only be cobbled.'




12

THE TWO BROTHERS

'Ah!' said the Old Nurse, shaking her head over the heap of undarned
stockings in her basket, 'the boys and girls in Greece once wore no
stockings, and very glad their mothers would have been, if they could
have known what they'd been spared.'

'Couldn't you tell them, Nanny?' asked Doris.

'I didn't know myself, my dear, at that time, when I was nurse to the
little Thalia' (the Old Nurse said Thalia to rhyme with Maria).
'Nobody had begun to think of stockings then.  Thalia had but one
garment to wear--a little white tunic, that left her arms and legs and
neck bare.  Her only other adornment was a girdle of green leaves,
which she would weave for herself in the woods, and a wreath of
flowers, which she plucked in the meadows.  She was the only daughter
of the Duke of Athens, and she had two brothers, ten years older than
herself, who were twins like Ronnie and Roley.  Only they were much
older than Ronnie and Roley are; they were twenty years old when Thalia
was ten.'


The names of these brothers were Cymon and Damon, and they were both so
fond of their little sister that they were jealous of each other,
though they had loved each other dearly as boys.  But when their baby
sister was no longer a baby, and had grown into a charming little girl,
Damon and Cymon vied with each other as to which could please her best,
and win her tenderest signs of affection.  And the day she seemed to
prefer Cymon, Damon was dark and unhappy; and the day she clung most to
Damon, Cymon drew apart, and would not speak to his brother.

One day Thalia disappeared.  She had run out of the palace when I was
not looking, but this she often did, so at first we were not much
alarmed.  But when she had been missing for a few hours, we started to
search for her in good earnest, and soon it was plain that she was not
in the palace, or in the city either.  The Duke sent messengers into
every quarter of Athens, where everybody knew and was proud of the
little Thalia.  They would not have harmed a hair of her head.  But no
one had seen her.  So then we began to search outside the city, and at
last on the mountain we found an old shepherd carrying a lamb back to
the fold.  We asked him if he had seen a child that day, and he
answered,

'Yes.  A little girl came my way this morning, and stayed to play with
my young lambs.  I did not know who she was, but the lambs were not
afraid of her, so I let her stay.  After a while, I saw the shadow of
wings passing overhead.  I feared it might be an eagle, come to swoop
down on my flock, and hastened to gather them in.  But then I saw it
was no eagle, but the bright figure of a god on winged feet, who flew
down to earth and gathered up, not my lambs, but the little girl you
are seeking.'

We knew by the old man's tale that our little Thalia had been stolen by
Hermes, who alone among the gods has wings on his feet.  Damon cried
out, 'I will find my sister or die!'  And at the same moment Cymon
cried, 'I will not live unless I find Thalia!'

'Are you her brothers?' asked the old shepherd.

'Yes,' they answered together.

'Then,' said the shepherd, 'I have a message for you.  When he was some
twenty foot in air above my head, Hermes stopped and called to me:
"When the two brothers of this child come seeking her, tell them that I
will restore her to the one who will give up most for her.  And let
them say in your hearing what they are ready to give up, for, invisible
though I shall be, I will be near to hear them."'

'O Hermes!' cried Damon.  'Wherever you may be, listening to me now,
restore my sister to me, and I will give up my strength, even though it
means that I shall never be able to touch her soft cheek again.'

'O Hermes!' cried Cymon.  'I will give up not only my strength, but
also my speech, so that I may not even speak her name to her.'

'O Hermes!' said Damon.  'I will give up not only my strength and my
speech, but my sight, so that I can neither touch her, nor call to her,
nor see her.'

'O Hermes!' cried Cymon.  'I will give up my strength, my speech, my
sight, and also my hearing, so that I cannot touch or see her, or call
her, or hear her call me.'

'As well as all this,' then said Damon, 'I will give up my life if
Thalia is safe restored.'

'And I, too, Hermes,' cried Cymon eagerly; 'I, too, will gladly die, to
save my sister.'

And he and Damon glared at one another, each fearful lest his brother
should give up something he had not thought of.  And it seemed to both
of them that when they had given up their lives, they had given up all
they could.  So they waited, hoping to see their sister once again
before they died.

But nothing happened.  The god did not appear, and their sister seemed
lost for ever.  Then at the same instant tears sprang into their eyes,
the look of hate in them was softened by sorrow, and the brothers held
out their hands to one another.  And they said, in the same breath, in
the same words,

'Brother, our sister is lost to us both; but if only she could be
restored to us I would give up my jealousy for ever, and give her to
you gladly.'

Even as they said these words, the old shepherd breathed thrice upon
the lamb in his arms, and there stood the little Thalia once more, as
lovely and laughing as ever.  And as she ran into the arms of her two
brothers, the shepherd's age fell from him; before their eyes he took
the shape of a glorious youth with wings upon his feet, and he rose up
into the air like a bright bird, and vanished out of sight.




13

THE SEA-BABY

The stocking-basket was empty.  For once there was nothing to darn.
The Old Nurse had told so many stories, that she had mended all the
holes made by Doris and Mary Matilda, and even by Ronnie and Roley.
Tomorrow they would make some more, of course, but tonight the Old
Nurse sat with her hands folded in her lap, and watched the children
fall asleep by fire-light.

Only one of them kept awake.  Mary Matilda would not go to sleep.  She
was not cross, she was not ill, there was no reason at all except that
she was wide awake.  She kept on standing up in her cot and laughing at
the Old Nurse over the bars.  And when the Old Nurse came and laid her
down and tucked her up, she turned over and laughed at the Old Nurse
_between_ the cot-bars.

'Go to sleep, Mary Matilda,' said the Old Nurse in her hush-hush voice.
'Shut your eyes, my darling, and go to sleep.'

But Mary Matilda couldn't, or if she could, she wouldn't.  And at last
the Old Nurse did what she very seldom did: she came over to Mary
Matilda, and took her out of the cot, and carried her to the fire, and
rocked her on her knee.

'Can't you go to sleep, baby?' she crooned.  'Can't you go to sleep,
then?  Ah, you're just my Sea-Baby over again!  _She_ never went to
sleep, either, all the time I nursed her.  And she was the very first I
ever nursed.  I've never told anybody about her since, but I'll tell
you, Mary Matilda.  So shut your eyes and listen, while I tell about my
Sea-Baby.'


I couldn't tell you when it happened: it was certainly a long time
after the Flood, and I know I was only about ten years old, and had
never left the Norfolk village on the sea-coast where I was born.  My
father was a fisherman, and a tiller of the land; and my mother kept
the house and span the wool and linen for our clothes.  But that tells
us nothing, for fathers have provided the food, and mothers have kept
the house, since the beginning of things.  So don't go asking any more
when it was that I nursed my very first baby.

It happened like this, Mary Matilda.  Our cottage stood near the edge
of the cliff, and at high tide the sea came right up to the foot, but
at low tide it ran so far back that it seemed almost too far to follow
it.  People said that once, long ago, the sea had not come in so close;
and that the cliff had gone out many miles farther.  And on the far end
of the cliff had stood another village.  But after the Flood all that
part of the cliff was drowned under the sea, and the village along with
it.  And there, said the people, the village still lay, far out to sea
under the waves; and on stormy nights, they said, you could hear the
church bells ringing in the church tower below the water.  Ah, don't
you start laughing at your old Nanny now!  We knew it was true, I tell
you.  And one day something happened to prove it.

A big storm blew up over our part of the land; the biggest storm that
any of us could remember, so big that we thought the Flood had come
again.  The sky was as black as night all day long, and the wind blew
so hard that it drove a strong man backwards, and the rain poured down
so that you only had to hold a pitcher out of the window for a second,
and when you took it in it was flowing over, and the thunder growled
and crackled so that we had to make signs to each other, for talking
was no use, and the lightning flashed so bright that my mother could
thread her needle by it.  That _was_ a storm, that was!  My mother was
frightened, but my father, who was weather-wise, watched the sky and
said from time to time, 'I think that'll come out all right.'  And so
it did.  The lightning and thunder flashed and rolled themselves away
into the distance, the rain stopped, the wind died down, the sky
cleared up for a beautiful evening, and the sun turned all the vast wet
sands to a sheet of gold as far as the eye could see.  Yes, and
farther!  For a wonder had happened during the storm.  The sea had been
driven back so far that it had vanished out of sight, and sands were
laid bare that no living man or woman had viewed before.  And there,
far, far across the golden beach, lay a tiny village, shining in the
setting sun.

Think of our excitement, Mary Matilda!  It was the drowned village of
long ago, come back to the light of day.

Everybody gathered on the shore to look at it.  And suddenly I began to
run towards it, and all the other children followed me.  At first our
parents called, 'Come back!  Come back!  The sea may come rolling in
before you can get there.'  But we were too eager to see the village
for ourselves, and in the end the big folk felt the same about it; and
they came running after the children across the sands.  As we drew
nearer, the little houses became plainer, looking like blocks of gold
in the evening light; and the little streets appeared like golden
brooks, and the church spire in the middle was like a point of fire.

For all my little legs, I was the first to reach the village.  I had
had a start of the others, and could always run fast as a child and
never tire.  We had long stopped running, of course, for the village
was so far out that our breath would not last.  But I was still walking
rapidly when I reached the village and turned a corner.  As I did so, I
heard one of the big folk cry, 'Oh, look!  Yonder lies the sea.'  I
glanced ahead, and did see, on the far horizon beyond the village, the
shining hue of the sea that had gone so far away.  Then I heard another
grown-up cry, 'Take care!  Take care!  Who knows when it may begin to
roll back again?  We have come far, and oh, suppose the sea should
overtake us before we can reach home!'  Then, peeping round my corner,
I saw everybody take fright and turn tail, running as hard as they
could across the mile or so of sands they had just crossed.  But nobody
had noticed me, or thought of me; no doubt my own parents thought I was
one of the band of running children, and so they left me alone there,
with all the little village to myself.

What a lovely time I had, going into the houses, up and down the
streets, and through the church.  Everything was left as it had been,
and seemed ready for someone to come to; the flowers were blooming in
the gardens, the fruit was hanging on the trees, the tables were spread
for the next meal, a pot was standing by the kettle on the hearth in
one house, and in another there were toys upon the floor.  And when I
began to go upstairs to the other rooms, I found in every bed someone
asleep.  Grandmothers and grandfathers, mothers and fathers, young men
and young women, boys and girls: all so fast asleep, that there was no
waking them.  And at last, in a little room at the top of a house, I
found a baby in a cradle, wide awake.

She was the sweetest baby I had ever seen.  Her eyes were as blue as
the sea that had covered them so long, her skin as white as the foam,
and her little round head as gold as the sands in the evening sunlight.
When she saw me, she sat up in her cradle, and crowed with delight.  I
knelt down beside her, held out my arms, and she cuddled into them with
a little gleeful chuckle.  I carried her about the room, dancing her up
and down in my arms, calling her my baby, my pretty Sea-Baby, and
showing her the things in the room and out of the window.  But as we
were looking out of the window at a bird's nest in a tree, I seemed to
see the shining line of water on the horizon begin to move.

'The sea is coming in!' I thought.  'I must hurry back before it
catches us.'  And I flew out of the house with the Sea-Baby in my arms,
and ran as hard as I could out of the village, and followed the crowd
of golden footsteps on the sands, anxious to get home soon.  When I had
to pause to get my breath, I ventured to glance over my shoulder, and
there behind me lay the little village, still glinting in the sun.  On
I ran again, and after a while was forced to stop a second time.  Once
more I glanced behind me, and this time the village was not to be seen:
it had disappeared beneath the tide of the sea, which was rolling in
behind me.

Then how I scampered over the rest of the way!  I reached home just as
the tiny wavelets, which run in front of the big waves, began to lap my
ankles, and I scrambled up the cliff, with the Sea-Baby in my arms, and
got indoors, panting for breath.  Nobody was at home, for as it
happened they were all out looking for me.  So I took my baby upstairs,
and put her to bed in my own bed, and got her some warm milk.  But she
turned from the milk, and wouldn't drink it.  She only seemed to want
to laugh and play with me.  So I did for a little while, and then I
told her she must go to sleep.  But she only laughed some more, and
went on playing.

'Shut your eyes, baby,' I said to her, 'hush-hush!  Hush-hush!' (just
as my own mother said to me).  But the baby didn't seem to understand,
and went on laughing.

Then I said, 'You're a very naughty baby' (as my mother sometimes used
to say to me).  But she didn't mind that either, and just went on
laughing.  So in the end I had to laugh too, and play with her.

My mother heard us, when she came into the house; and she ran up to
find me, delighted that I was safe.  What was her surprise to find the
baby with me!  She asked me where it had come from, and I told her; and
she called my father, and he stood scratching his head, as most men do
when they aren't quite sure about a thing.

'I want to keep it for my own, Mother,' I said.

'Well, we can't turn it out now it's in,' said my mother.  'But you'll
have to look after it yourself, mind.'

I wanted nothing better!  I'd always wanted to nurse things, whether it
was a log of wood, or a kitten, or my mother's shawl rolled into a
dumpy bundle.  And now I had a little live baby of my own to nurse.
How I did enjoy myself that week!  I did everything for it; dressed and
undressed it, washed it, and combed its hair; and played and danced
with it, and talked with it and walked with it.  And I tried to give it
its meals, but it wouldn't eat; and I tried to put it to sleep, but it
wouldn't shut its eyes.  No, not for anything I could do, though I sang
to it, and rocked it, and told it little stories.

It didn't worry me much, for I knew no better: but it worried my
mother, and I heard her say to my father, 'There's something queer
about that child.  I don't know, I'm sure!'

On the seventh night after the storm, I woke up suddenly from my
dreams, as I lay in bed with my baby beside me.  It was very late, my
parents had long gone to bed themselves, and what had wakened me I did
not know, for I heard no sound at all.  The moon was very bright, and
filled the square of my window-pane with silver light; and through the
air outside I saw something swimming--I thought at first it was a white
cloud, but as it reached my open window I saw it was a lady, moving
along the air as though she were swimming in water.  And the strange
thing was that her eyes were fast shut; so that as her white arms moved
out and in she seemed to be swimming not only in the air, but in her
sleep.

She swam straight through my open window to the bedside, and there she
came to rest, letting her feet down upon the floor like a swimmer
setting his feet on the sands under his body.  The lady leaned over the
bed with her shut eyes, and took my wide-awake baby in her arms.

'_Hush-hush!  Hush-hush!_' she said; and the sound of her voice was not
like my mother's voice when she said it, but like the waves washing the
shore on a still night; such a peaceful sound, the sort of sound that
might have been the first sound made in the world, or else the last.
You couldn't help wanting to sleep as you heard her say it.  I felt my
head begin to nod, and as it grew heavier and heavier, I noticed that
my Sea-Baby's eyelids were beginning to droop too.  Before I could see
any more, I fell asleep; and when I awoke in the morning my baby had
gone.  'Where to, Mary Matilda?  Ah, you mustn't ask me that!  I only
know she must have gone where all babies go when they go to sleep.  Go
to sleep.  Hush-hush!  _Hush-hush!  Go to sleep!_'


Mary Matilda had gone to sleep at last.  The Old Nurse laid her softly
in her cot, turned down the light, and crept out of the nursery.






[End of The Old Nurse's Stocking-Basket, by Eleanor Farjeon]
