For, as the Fairy waved her wand over him, he felt himself rising off the ground, and fluttering up against the door, and then, as if a screw ran into his stomach, he felt a dreadful pain there, and was pinned to the door; and then his arms flew up over his head;and his legs, after writhing about wildly, twisted under his body;and he felt cold, cold, growing over him, as if he was turning into metal; and he said, "Oh--o--h'm!" and could say no more, because he was dumb.
He WAS turned into metal! He was, from being BRAZEN, BRASS! He was neither more nor less than a knocker! And there he was, nailed to the door in the blazing summer day, till he burned almost red-hot; and there he was, nailed to the door all the bitter winter nights, till his brass nose was dropping with icicles. And the postman came and rapped at him, and the vulgarest boy with a letter came and hit him up against the door. And the King and Queen (Princess and Prince they were then) coming home from a walk that evening, the King said, "Hullo, my dear! you have had a new knocker put on the door. Why, it's rather like our porter in the face!
What has become of that boozy vagabond?" And the housemaid came and scrubbed his nose with sand-paper; and once, when the Princess Angelica's little sister was born, he was tied up in an old kid-glove; and, another night, some LARKING young men tried to wrench him off, and put him to the most excruciating agony with a turn screw. And then the Queen had a fancy to have the color of the door altered; and the painters dabbed him over the mouth and eyes, and nearly choked him, as they painted him pea-green. I warrant he had leisure to repent of having been rude to the Fairy Blackstick!
As for his wife, she did not miss him; and as he was always guzzling beer at the public-house, and notoriously quarrelling with his wife, and in debt to the tradesmen, it was supposed he had run away from all these evils, and emigrated to Australia or America.
And when the Prince and Princess chose to become King and Queen, they left their old house, and nobody thought of the porter any more.
V. HOW PRINCESS ANGELICA TOOK A LITTLE MAID.
One day, when the Princess Angelica was quite a little girl, she was walking in the garden of the palace, with Mrs. Gruffanuff, the governess, holding a parasol over her head, to keep her sweet complexion from the freckles, and Angelica was carrying a bun, to feed the swans and ducks in the royal pond.
They had not reached the duck-pond, when there came toddling up to them such a funny little girl! She had a great quantity of hair blowing about her chubby little cheeks, and looked as if she had not been washed or combed for ever so long. She wore a ragged bit of a cloak, and had only one shoe on.
"You little wretch, who let you in here?" asked Mrs. Gruffanuff.
"Div me dat bun," said the little girl, "me vely hungy.""Hungry! what is that?" asked Princess Angelica, and gave the child the bun.
"Oh, Princess!" says Mrs. Gruffanuff, "how good, how kind, how truly angelical you are! See, Your Majesties," she said to the King and Queen, who now came up, along with their nephew, Prince Giglio, "how kind the Princess is! She met this little dirty wretch in the garden--I can't tell how she came in here, or why the guards did not shoot her dead at the gate!--and the dear darling of a Princess has given her the whole of her bun!""I didn't want it," said Angelica.
"But you are a darling little angel all the same," says the governess.
"Yes; I know I am," said Angelica. "Dirty little girl, don't you think I am very pretty?" Indeed, she had on the finest of little dresses and hats; and, as her hair was carefully curled, she really looked very well.
"Oh, pooty, pooty!" says the little girl, capering about, laughing, and dancing, and munching her bun; and as she ate it she began to sing, "O what fun to have a plum bun! how I wis it never was done!"At which, and her funny accent, Angelica, Giglio, and the King and Queen began to laugh very merrily.
"I can dance as well as sing," says the little girl. "I can dance, and I can sing, and I can do all sorts of ting." And she ran to a flower-bed, and pulling a few polyanthuses, rhododendrons, and other flowers, made herself a little wreath, and danced before the King and Queen so drolly and prettily, that everybody was delighted.
"Who was your mother--who were your relations, little girl?" said the Queen.
The little girl said, "Little lion was my brudder; great big lioness my mudder; neber heard of any udder." And she capered away on her one shoe, and everybody was exceedingly diverted.
So Angelica said to the Queen, "Mamma, my parrot flew away yesterday out of its cage, and I don't care any more for any of my toys; and I think this funny little dirty child will amuse me. Iwill take her home, and give her some of my old frocks--""Oh, the generous darling!" says Mrs. Gruffanuff.
"--Which I have worn ever so many times, and am quite tired of,"Angelica went on; "and she shall be my little maid. Will you come home with me, little dirty girl?"The child clapped her hands, and said, "Go home with you--yes! You pooty Princess! Have a nice dinner, and wear a new dress!"And they all laughed again, and took home the child to the palace, where, when she was washed and combed, and had one of the Princess's frocks given to her, she looked as handsome as Angelica, almost. Not that Angelica ever thought so; for this little lady never imagined that anybody in the world could be as pretty, as good, or as clever as herself. In order that the little girl should not become too proud and conceited, Mrs. Gruffanuff took her old ragged mantle and one shoe, and put them into a glass box, with a card laid upon them, upon which was written, "These were the old clothes in which little BETSINDA was found when the great goodness and admirable kindness of Her Royal Highness the Princess Angelica received this little outcast." And the date was added, and the box locked up.
