X.
After the thunder-storm, Agnes did not meet with a single obstructionor misadventure. Everybody was strangely polite, gave her whatever shedesired, and answered her questions, but asked none in return, andlooked all the time as if her departure would be a relief. They wereafraid, in fact, from her appearance, lest she should tell them thatshe was lost, when they would be bound, on pain of public execution, totake her to the palace.
But no sooner had she entered the city than she saw it would hardly doto present herself as a lost child at the palace-gates; for how werethey to know that she was not an impostor, especially since she reallywas one, having run away from the wise woman? So she wandered aboutlooking at every thing until she was tired, and bewildered by the noiseand confusion all around her. The wearier she got, the more was shepushed in every direction. Having been used to a whole hill to wanderupon, she was very awkward in the crowded streets, and often on thepoint of being run over by the horses, which seemed to her to be goingevery way like a frightened flock. She spoke to several persons, but noone stopped to answer her; and at length, her courage giving way, shefelt lost indeed, and began to cry. A soldier saw her, and asked whatwas the matter.
"I've nowhere to go to," she sobbed.
"Where's your mother?" asked the soldier.
"I don't know," answered Agnes. "I was carried off by an old woman, whothen went away and left me. I don't know where she is, or where I ammyself."
"Come," said the soldier, "this is a case for his Majesty."
So saying, he took her by the hand, led her to the palace, and beggedan audience of the king and queen. The porter glanced at Agnes,immediately admitted them, and showed them into a great splendid room,where the king and queen sat every day to review lost children, in thehope of one day thus finding their Rosamond. But they were by this timebeginning to get tired of it. The moment they cast their eyes uponAgnes, the queen threw back her head, threw up her hands, and cried,"What a miserable, conceited, white-faced little ape!" and the kingturned upon the soldier in wrath, and cried, forgetting his own decree,"What do you mean by bringing such a dirty, vulgar-looking, pertcreature into my palace? The dullest soldier in my army could never fora moment imagine a child like THAT, one hair's-breadth like the lovelyangel we lost!"
"I humbly beg your Majesty's pardon," said the soldier, "but what was Ito do? There stands your Majesty's proclamation in gold letters on thebrazen gates of the palace."
"I shall have it taken down," said the king. "Remove the child."
"Please your Majesty, what am I to do with her?"
"Take her home with you."
"I have six already, sire, and do not want her."
"Then drop her where you picked her up."
"If I do, sire, some one else will find her and bring her back to yourMajesties."
"That will never do," said the king. "I cannot bear to look at her."
"For all her ugliness," said the queen, "she is plainly lost, and so isour Rosamond."
"It may be only a pretence, to get into the palace," said the king.
"Take her to the head scullion, soldier," said the queen, "and tell herto make her useful. If she should find out she has been pretending tobe lost, she must let me know."
The soldier was so anxious to get rid of her, that he caught her up inhis arms, hurried her from the room, found his way to the scullery, andgave her, trembling with fear, in charge to the head maid, with thequeen's message.
As it was evident that the queen had no favor for her, the servants didas they pleased with her, and often treated her harshly. Not oneamongst them liked her, nor was it any wonder, seeing that, with everystep she took from the wise woman's house, she had grown morecontemptible, for she had grown more conceited. Every civil answergiven her, she attributed to the impression she made, not to the desireto get rid of her; and every kindness, to approbation of her looks andspeech, instead of friendliness to a lonely child. Hence by this timeshe was twice as odious as before; for whoever has had such severetreatment as the wise woman gave her, and is not the better for it,always grows worse than before. They drove her about, boxed her ears onthe smallest provocation, laid every thing to her charge, called herall manner of contemptuous names, jeered and scoffed at herawkwardnesses, and made her life so miserable that she was in a fairway to forget every thing she had learned, and know nothing but how toclean saucepans and kettles.
They would not have been so hard upon her, however, but for herirritating behavior. She dared not refuse to do as she was told, butshe obeyed now with a pursed-up mouth, and now with a contemptuoussmile. The only thing that sustained her was her constant contrivinghow to get out of the painful position in which she found herself.There is but one true way, however, of getting out of any position wemay be in, and that is, to do the work of it so well that we grow fitfor a better: I need not say this was not the plan upon which Agnes wascunning enough to fix.
She had soon learned from the talk around her the reason of theproclamation which had brought her hither.
"Was the lost princess so very beautiful?" she said one day to theyoungest of her fellow-servants.
"Beautiful!" screamed the maid; "she was just the ugliest little toadyou ever set eyes upon."
"What was she like?" asked Agnes.
"She was about your size, and quite as ugly, only not in the same way;for she had red cheeks, and a cocked little nose, and the biggest,ugliest mouth you ever saw."
Agnes fell a-thinking.
"Is there a picture of her anywhere in the palace?" she asked.
"How should I know? You can ask a housemaid."
Agnes soon learned that there was one, and contrived to get a peep ofit. Then she was certain of what she had suspected from the descriptiongiven of her, namely, that she was the same she had seen in the pictureat the wise woman's house. The conclusion followed, that the lostprincess must be staying with her father and mother, for assuredly inthe picture she wore one of her frocks.
She went to the head scullion, and with humble manner, but proud heart,begged her to procure for her the favor of a word with the queen.
"A likely thing indeed!" was the answer, accompanied by a resoundingbox on the ear.
She tried the head cook next, but with no better success, and so wasdriven to her meditations again, the result of which was that she beganto drop hints that she knew something about the princess. This came atlength to the queen's ears, and she sent for her.
Absorbed in her own selfish ambitions, Agnes never thought of the riskto which she was about to expose her parents, but told the queen thatin her wanderings she had caught sight of just such a lovely creatureas she described the princess, only dressed like a peasant--saying,that, if the king would permit her to go and look for her, she hadlittle doubt of bringing her back safe and sound within a few weeks.
But although she spoke the truth, she had such a look of cunning on herpinched face, that the queen could not possibly trust her, but believedthat she made the proposal merely to get away, and have money given herfor her journey. Still there was a chance, and she would not say anything until she had consulted the king.
Then they had Agnes up before the lord chancellor, who, after muchquestioning of her, arrived at last, he thought, at some notion of thepart of the country described by her--that was, if she spoke the truth,which, from her looks and behavior, he also considered entirelydoubtful. Thereupon she was ordered back to the kitchen, and a band ofsoldiers, under a clever lawyer, sent out to search every foot of thesupposed region. They were commanded not to return until they broughtwith them, bound hand and foot, such a shepherd pair as that of whichthey received a full description.
And now Agnes was worse off than before. For to her other miseries wasadded the fear of what would befall her when it was discovered that thepersons of whom they were in quest, and whom she was certain they mustfind, were her own father and mother.
By this time the king and queen were so tired of seeing lost children,genuine or pretended-
-for they cared for no child any longer than thereseemed a chance of its turning out their child--that with this newhope, which, however poor and vague at first, soon began to grow uponsuch imaginations as they had, they commanded the proclamation to betaken down from the palace gates, and directed the various sentries toadmit no child whatever, lost or found, be the reason or pretence whatit might, until further orders.
"I'm sick of children!" said the king to his secretary, as he finisheddictating the direction.