The All Sorts Of Stories Book E-Book

Andrew Lang

• Herausgeber: Jazzybee Verlag
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Seitenzahl: 556

Beschreibung

For a generation Andrew Lang has delighted the children, and grown-ups too for that matter, with his fairy books. This is of a new sort, for the tales are of many different kinds. Some are true, like the history of the man who met in America the other man whom he had seen hanged for murdering in England. Then we have several stories of adventure that happened to historic personages, besides stories of treasure hunts, Greek mythology, wild witches and red Indians. " There are no more delightful fairy tales than those written, translated and adapted by Andrew Lang. He has eliminated the gruesomeness from the old best loved fairy tales, and introduced many less familiar tales of other lands, equally fascinating. These books should be given to every child." - American Motherhood. This book is fully illustrated and annotated with a rare extensive biographical sketch of the author, Andrew Lang, written by Sir Edmund Gosse, CB, a contemporary poet and writer.

Leseprobe

The All Sorts Of Stories Book

Andrew Lang

Contents:

Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

The All Sorts Of Stories Book

Preface

How A Boy Became First A Lamb And Then An Apple

The Battle Of The White Bull.

The Serpents' Gift.

Meleager The Hunter

The Vanishing Of Bathurst

In The Shadow Of The Guillotine

The Flight Of The King

The Real Robinson Crusoe

How The Russian Soldier Was Saved

Marbot And The Young Cossack

Heracles The Drago -Killer.

Old Jeffery

The Adventures Of A Prisoner

Aunt Margaret's Mirror

The Prisoner Of The Chateau D'if

The Hunt For The Treasure

The Story Of The Gold Beetle

Loreta Velazquez The Military Spy

The Farmers Dream

The Sword Of D'artagnan

The Bastion Saint-Gervais

Little General Monk

The Horse With Wings

The Prize Of Jeanne Jugan

Unlucky John - A Fairy Legend

How The Siamese Ambassadors Reached The Cape

The Strange Tale Of Ambrose Qwinett

With The Redskins

The Wreck Of The 'Drake'

The All Sorts Of Stories Book, A. Lang

Jazzybee Verlag Jürgen Beck

86450 Altenmünster, Loschberg 9

Germany

ISBN: 9783849607524

www.jazzybee-verlag.de

[email protected]

ANDREW LANG (1844-1912)

Biographical Sketch from "Portraits And Sketches" by Edmund Gosse

INVITED to note down some of my recollections of Andrew Lang, I find myself suspended between the sudden blow of his death and the slow development of memory, now extending in unbroken friendship over thirty-five years. The magnitude and multitude of Lang's performances, public and private, during that considerable length of time almost paralyse expression; it is difficult to know where to begin or where to stop. Just as his written works are so extremely numerous as to make a pathway through them a formidable task in bibliography, no one book standing out predominant, so his character, intellectual and moral, was full of so many apparent inconsistencies, so many pitfalls for rash assertion, so many queer caprices of impulse, that in a whole volume of analysis, which would be tedious, one could scarcely do justice to them all. I will venture to put down, almost at haphazard, what I remember that seems to me to have been overlooked, or inexactly stated, by those who wrote, often very sympathetically, at the moment of his death, always premising that I speak rather of a Lang of from 1877 to 1890, when I saw him very frequently, than of a Lang whom younger people met chiefly in Scotland.

When he died, all the newspapers were loud in proclaiming his "versatility." But I am not sure that he was not the very opposite of versatile. I take "versatile" to mean changeable, fickle, constantly ready to alter direction with the weather-cock. The great instance of versatility in literature is Ruskin, who adopted diametrically different views of the same subject at different times of his life, and defended them with equal ardour. To be versatile seems to be unsteady, variable. But Lang was through his long career singularly unaltered; he never changed his point of view; what he liked and admired as a youth he liked and admired as an elderly man. It is true that his interests and knowledge were vividly drawn along a surprisingly large number of channels, but while there was abundance there does not seem to me to have been versatility. If a huge body of water boils up from a crater, it may pour down a dozen paths, but these will always be the same; unless there is an earthquake, new cascades will not form nor old rivulets run dry. In some authors earthquakes do take place as in Tolstoy, for instance, and in S. T. Coleridge but nothing of this kind was ever manifest in Lang, who was extraordinarily multiform, yet in his varieties strictly consistent from Oxford to the grave. As this is not generally perceived, I will take the liberty of expanding my view of his intellectual development.

To a superficial observer in late life the genius of Andrew Lang had the characteristics which we are in the habit of identifying with precocity. Yet he had not been, as a writer, precocious in his youth. One slender volume of verses represents all that he published in book-form before his thirty-fifth year. No doubt we shall learn in good time what he was doing before he flashed upon the world of journalism in all his panoply of graces, in 1876, at the close of his Merton fellowship. He was then, at all events, the finest finished product of his age, with the bright armour of Oxford burnished on his body to such a brilliance that humdrum eyes could hardly bear the radiance of it. Of the terms behind, of the fifteen years then dividing him from St. Andrews, we know as yet but little; they were years of insatiable acquirement, incessant reading, and talking, and observing gay preparation for a life to be devoted, as no other life in our time has been, to the stimulation of other people's observation and talk and reading. There was no cloistered virtue about the bright and petulant Merton don. He was already flouting and jesting, laughing with Ariosto in the sunshine, performing with a snap of his fingers tasks which might break the back of a pedant, and concealing under an affectation of carelessness a literary ambition which knew no definite bounds.

In those days, and when he appeared for the first time in London, the poet was paramount in him. Jowett is said to have predicted that he would be greatly famous in this line, but I know not what evidence Jowett had before him. Unless I am much mistaken, it was not until Lang left Balliol that his peculiar bent became obvious. Up to that time he had been a promiscuous browser upon books, much occupied, moreover, in the struggle with ancient Greek, and immersed in Aristotle and Homer. But in the early days of his settlement at Merton he began to concentrate his powers, and I think there were certain influences which were instant and far-reaching. Among them one was pre-eminent. When Andrew Lang came up from St. Andrews he had found Matthew Arnold occupying the ancient chair of poetry at Oxford. He was a listener at some at least of the famous lectures which, in 1865, were collected as "Essays in Criticism"; while one of his latest experiences as a Balliol undergraduate was hearing Matthew Arnold lecture on the study of Celtic literature. His conscience was profoundly stirred by "Culture and Anarchy" (1869); his sense of prose-form largely determined by "Friendship's Garland" (1871). I have no hesitation in saying that the teaching and example of Matthew Arnold prevailed over all other Oxford influences upon the intellectual nature of Lang, while, although I think that his personal acquaintance with Arnold was very slight, yet in his social manner there was, in early days, not a little imitation of Arnold's aloofness and superfine delicacy of address. It was unconscious, of course, and nothing would have enraged Lang more than to have been accused of "imitating Uncle Matt."

The structure which his own individuality now began to build on the basis supplied by the learning of Oxford, and in particular by the study of the Greeks, and "dressed" by courses of Matthew Arnold, was from the first eclectic. Lang eschewed as completely what was not sympathetic to him as he assimilated what was attractive to him. Those who speak of his "versatility" should recollect what large tracts of the literature of the world, and even of England, existed outside the dimmest apprehension of Andrew Lang. It is, however, more useful to consider what he did apprehend; and there were two English books, published in his Oxford days, which permanently impressed him: one of these was "The Earthly Paradise," the other D. G. Rossetti's " Poems." In after years he tried to divest himself of the traces of these volumes, but he had fed upon their honey-dew and it had permeated his veins.

Not less important an element in the garnishing of a mind already prepared for it by academic and aesthetic studies was the absorption of the romantic part of French literature. Andrew Lang in this, as in everything else, was selective. He dipped into the wonderful lucky-bag of France wherever he saw the glitter of romance. Hence his approach, in the early seventies, was threefold: towards the mediaeval lais and chansons, towards the sixteenth-century Pleiade, and towards the school of which Victor Hugo was the leader in the nineteenth century. For a long time Ronsard was Lang's poet of intensest predilection; and I think that his definite ambition was to be the Ronsard of modern England, introducing a new poetical dexterity founded on a revival of pure humanism. He had in those days what he lost, or at least dispersed, in the weariness and growing melancholia of later years a splendid belief in poetry as a part of the renown of England, as a heritage to be received in reverence from our fathers, and to be passed on, if possible, in a brighter flame. This honest and beautiful ambition to shine as one of the permanent benefactors to national verse, in the attitude so nobly sustained four hundred years ago by Du Bellay and Ronsard, was unquestionably felt by Andrew Lang through his bright intellectual April, and supported him from Oxford times until 1882, when he published " Helen of Troy." The cool reception of that epic by the principal judges of poetry caused him acute disappointment, and from that time forth he became less eager and less serious as a poet, more and more petulantly expending his wonderful technical gift on fugitive subjects. And here again, when one comes to think of it, the whole history repeated itself, since in " Helen of Troy " Lang simply suffered as Ronsard had done in the "Franciade." But the fact that 1882 was his year of crisis, and the tomb of his brightest ambition, must be recognised by every one who closely followed his fortunes at that time. Lang's habit of picking out of literature and of life the plums of romance, and these alone, comes to be, to the dazzled observer of his extraordinarily vivid intellectual career, the principal guiding line. This determination to dwell, to the exclusion of all other sides of any question, on its romantic side is alone enough to rebut the charge of versatility. Lang was in a sense encyclopaedic; but the vast dictionary of his knowledge had blank pages, or pages pasted down, on which he would not, or could not, read what experience had printed. Absurd as it sounds, there was always something maidenly about his mind, and he glossed over ugly matters, sordid and dull conditions, so that they made no impression whatever upon him. He had a trick, which often exasperated his acquaintances, of declaring that he had " never heard " of things that everybody else was very well aware of. He had " never heard the name " of people he disliked, of books that he thought tiresome, of events that bored him; but, more than this, he used the formula for things and persons whom he did not wish to discuss. I remember meeting in the street a famous professor, who advanced with uplifted hands, and greeted me with " What do you think Lang says now? That he has never heard of Pascal! " This merely signified that Lang, not interested (at all events for the moment) in Pascal nor in the professor, thus closed at once all possibility of discussion.

It must not be forgotten that we have lived to see him, always wonderful indeed, and always passionately devoted to perfection and purity, but worn, tired, harassed by the unceasing struggle, the lifelong slinging of sentences from that inexhaustible ink-pot. In one of the most perfect of his poems, " Natural Theology," Lang speaks of Cagn, the great hunter, who once was kind and good, but who was spoiled by fighting many things. Lang was never " spoiled," but he was injured; the surface of the radiant coin was rubbed by the vast and interminable handling of journalism. He was jaded by the toil of writing many things. Hence it is not possible but that those who knew him intimately in his later youth and early middle-age should prefer to look back at those years when he was the freshest, the most exhilarating figure in living literature, when a star seemed to dance upon the crest of his already silvering hair. Baudelaire exclaimed of Theophile Gautier: " Homme heureux! homme digne d'envie! il n'a jamais aimé que le Beau!" and of Andrew Lang in those brilliant days the same might have been said. As long as he had confidence in beauty he was safe and strong; and much that, with all affection and all respect, we must admit was rasping and disappointing in his attitude to literature in his later years, seems to have been due to a decreasing sense of confidence in the intellectual sources of beauty. It is dangerous, in the end it must be fatal, to sustain the entire structure of life and thought on the illusions of romance. But that was what Lang did he built his house upon the rainbow.

The charm of Andrew Lang's person and company was founded upon a certain lightness, an essential gentleness and elegance which were relieved by a sharp touch; just as a very dainty fruit may be preserved from mawkishness by something delicately acid in the rind of it. His nature was slightly inhuman; it was unwise to count upon its sympathy beyond a point which was very easily reached in social intercourse. If any simple soul showed an inclination, in eighteenth-century phrase, to " repose on the bosom " of Lang, that support was immediately withdrawn, and the confiding one fell among thorns. Lang was like an Angora cat, whose gentleness and soft fur, and general aspect of pure amenity, invite to caresses, which are suddenly met by the outspread paw with claws awake. This uncertain and freakish humour was the embarrassment of his friends, who, however, were preserved from despair by the fact that no malice was meant, and that the weapons were instantly sheathed again in velvet. Only, the instinct to give a sudden slap, half in play, half in fretful caprice, was incorrigible. No one among Lang's intimate friends but had suffered from this feline impulse, which did not spare even the serenity of Robert Louis Stevenson. But, tiresome as it sometimes was, this irritable humour seldom cost Lang a friend who was worth preserving. Those who really knew him recognised that he was always shy and usually tired.

His own swift spirit never brooded upon an offence, and could not conceive that any one else should mind what he himself minded so little and forgot so soon. Impressions swept over him very rapidly, and injuries passed completely out of his memory. Indeed, all his emotions were too fleeting, and in this there was something fairy-like; quick and keen and blithe as he was, he did not seem altogether like an ordinary mortal, nor could the appeal to gross human experience be made to him with much chance of success. This, doubtless, is why almost all imaginative literature which is founded upon the darker parts of life, all squalid and painful tragedy, all stories that " don't end well" all religious experiences, all that is not superficial and romantic, was irksome to him. He tried sometimes to reconcile his mind to the consideration of real life; he concentrated his matchless powers on it; but he always disliked it. He could persuade himself to be partly just to Ibsen or Hardy or Dostoieffsky, but what he really enjoyed was Dumas pêre, because that fertile romance-writer rose serene above the phenomena of actual human experience. We have seen more of this type in English literature than the Continental nations have in theirs, but even we have seen no instance of its strength and weakness so eminent as Andrew Lang. He was the fairy in our midst, the wonder-working, incorporeal, and tricksy fay of letters, who paid for all his wonderful gifts and charms by being not quite a man of like passions with the rest of us. In some verses which he scribbled to R.L.S. and threw away, twenty years ago, he acknowledged this unearthly character, and, speaking of the depredations of his kin, he said:

Faith, they might steal me, w? ma will,

And, ken'd I ony fairy hill

I#d lay me down there, snod and still,

Their land to win;

For, man, I maistly had my fill

O' this world's din

His wit had something disconcerting in its impishness. Its rapidity and sparkle were dazzling, but it was not quite human; that is to say, it conceded too little to the exigencies of flesh and blood. If we can conceive a seraph being fanny, it would be in the manner of Andrew Lang. Moreover, his wit usually danced over the surface of things, and rarely penetrated them. In verbal parry, in ironic misunderstanding, in breathless agility of topsy-turvy movement, Lang was like one of Milton's " yellow-skirted fays," sporting with the helpless, moon-bewildered traveller. His wit often had a depressing, a humiliating effect, against which one's mind presently revolted. I recollect an instance which may be thought to be apposite: I was passing through a phase of enthusiasm for Emerson, whom Lang very characteristically detested, and I was so ill-advised as to show him the famous epigram called " Brahma." Lang read it with a snort of derision (it appeared to be new to him), and immediately he improvised this parody:

If the wild bowler thinks he bowls,

Or if the batsman thinks he's bowled,

They know not, poor misguided souls,

They, too, shall perish unconsoled.

I am the batsman and the bat,

I am the bowler and the ball,

The umpire, the pavilion cat,

The roller, pitch and stumps, and all

This would make a pavilion cat laugh, and I felt that Emerson was done for. But when Lang had left me, and I was once more master of my mind, I reflected that the parody was but a parody, wonderful for its neatness and quickness, and for its seizure of what was awkward in the roll of Emerson's diction, but essentially superficial. However, what would wit be if it were profound? I must leave it there, feeling that I have not explained why Lang's extraordinary drollery in conversation so often left on the memory a certain sensation of distress.

But this was not the characteristic of his humour at its best, as it was displayed throughout the happiest period of his work. If, as seems possible, it is as an essayist that he will ultimately take his place in English literature, this element will continue to delight fresh generations of enchanted readers. I cannot imagine that the preface to his translation of " Theocritus," "Letters to Dead Authors," "In the Wrong Paradise," " Old Friends," and " Essays in Little " will ever lose their charm; but future admirers will have to pick their way to them through a tangle of history and anthropology and mythology, where there may be left no perfume and no sweetness. I am impatient to see this vast mass of writing reduced to the limits of its author's delicate, true, but somewhat evasive and ephemeral. genius. However, as far as the circumstances of his temperament permitted, Andrew Lang has left with us the memory of one of our most surprising contemporaries, a man of letters who laboured without cessation from boyhood to the grave, who pursued his ideal with indomitable activity and perseverance, and who was never betrayed except by the loftiness of his own endeavour. Lang's only misfortune was not to be completely in contact with life, and his work will survive exactly where he was most faithful to his innermost illusions.

THE ALL SORTS OF STORIES BOOK

PREFACE

(N.B. There are stories in this Preface)

THIS new Story Book is of a, new sort, for the tales are of many different kinds; some are true, like the history of the man who met in America the other man whom he had been hanged for murdering in England. This may to any unthinking person seem all very natural, but if you think hard you will wonder how the first man got to America after being hanged in England, and how the second man, after being murdered in England, arrived in America. Neither event seems possible, yet both actually occurred. But this happened a hundred and fifty years ago, and could not happen now, when people do not hang a person for murder before they are quite certain that somebody has been murdered that the man said to have been slain is really dead. Again, the man who was hanged would, in our time, have been buried as soon as he was believed to be dead; but in tunes not so very far from ours a murderer, when once thought dead, was suspended in iron chains in a conspicuous place, so that his crime and punishment might not be forgotten.

If you read The Fair child Family, by Mrs. Sherwood, who wrote about eighty years ago, you will find that good Mr. Fairchild took his naughty children to see a body of a murderer hanging in irons, so that they might know what to expect if they let their angry passions rise. This was what people call an 'object lesson,' but your dear papa cannot give you this kind of lesson now, because in our fields there are now no such disgusting objects.

Come, now, I will tell another true story about a man who was hanged, but escaped. It was in the year 1429, when the English were fighting in France, and the Scots were on the French side. The English were strong in Brittany, and a Scot named Michael Hamilton, from Bothwell in Lanarkshire, went with other Scots and French to burn and plunder in Brittany. Near a place called Clisson they found an empty tower, and there they dwelt and did all sorts of mischief. They caught, one day, a Breton who was spying on them and tortured him cruelly till he told them about the intentions of the English soldiers. They learned that a great company or the English were going to attack their tower on that very night. So they determined to mount and ride; but Michael Hamilton went for his horse later than the others because he could not deny himself the pleasure of hanging the prisoner from the bough of a tree. Just as he had finished he saw the English coming up; they were between him and the stables; he could not reach his horse and was obliged to run away. But he was in full armour, and nobody can run fast when he is wearing things like steel cricket-pads on his legs. The country people who were with the English wore no armour; they ran after Michael and threw the noose of a rope over his neck. At that moment Michael prayed a prayer to the holy Saint Catherine, the patron of his village church at home. He vowed that if she would help him now he would make a pilgrimage to her chapel at Fierbois, in France. In spite of his prayer he was hanged by the son of the man whom he had hanged himself , and now you might think that all was over with Michael. However, he lived and made his pilgrimage to Fierbois, and told his story to the priest of the chapel, who wrote it down in a book, which you may read in printed English.

Michael's story was this. On the night of his hanging, the night of Maundy Thursday, the priest of Clisson was going to bed, when he heard a clear voice in his room saying, 'Go and cut down the Scottish soldier who was hanged, for he is still alive.'

The priest thought he was dreaming or that someone was playing a trick on him. The voice kept on speaking, and the priest looked into his cupboard, and up the chimney, and under the bed, and everywhere, but he could find no speaker. So the holy man went to bed, and slept soundly, and next day did his services for Good Friday. Then about noon he told the sexton to go and look at the Scot, and find out whether he were alive or dead. The sexton walked away whistling for joy at the death of a Scot, but he came back running with a very white face.

He could scarcely speak for fear, but his story was that he had found the Scot, and, to try whether he were alive or not, had taken out his knife and sliced one of his toes. The blood came, and the foot kicked!

The priest therefore, with other people, went to the wood and cut Michael down, and poured wine into his mouth, till he sat up and swore just like himself. The son of the man whom Michael had hanged was looking on; he drew his sword and dealt a blow at Michael's head, cutting off one of his ears. This is quite true, for when Michael came to Fierbois he had only one ear, also a great scar on his toe where the sexton sliced it.

The priest and the others rushed on the man with the sword, disarmed him, and drove him out of the house.

Michael was then taken to a kind Abbess, who nursed him till he was well; but he was in no hurry to fulfil his vow and make his pilgrimage. On the other hand, he went into barracks with other soldiers, and misbehaved as usual. But one night, as he lay in bed in a room where other soldiers lay, he received a sounding slap in the face, though he could see nobody near him, and heard a voice say, ' Wilt thou never remember thy pilgrimage? '

On this Michael borrowed or stole a horse, and rode to Fierbois, where he told his story, and it was written down in the book of the chapel.

Thus we see that very strange things may happen. Can you imagine anything more strange than the story called ' What became of Old Mr. Harrison '? In this tale two people were hanged for the murder of a man who was alive and well, and one of them confessed his guilt. This proves once more that it is a mistake to punish one man for killing another before we are quite sure that the other is dead. The law does not now allow this to be done; but in the reign of Charles II., when old Mr. Harrison 'softly and suddenly vanished away,' the law was not so particular, at least in country places. Nobody can even guess why old Mr. Harrison vanished away, from a place close to his own house, and why he stayed away for years, and why he came back, and where he had been, and how nobody ever saw him at all, going or coming back. Lastly, nobody can believe a word of the story which he told about his adventures in foreign parts; it is like a confused dream. Yet, except Mr. Harrison's own tremendous fibs, the rest of the story is all quite true; it was printed at the time.

Then take the tale called ' The Vanishing of Bathurst.' In a moment, under the eyes of several persons, as he stood (in the dusk) at the heads of the horses of his carriage, Mr. Bathurst disappeared. If you have read The Hunting of the Snark, you may think that Mr. Bathurst met a Boojum and ' softly and suddenly vanished away.' People at the Zoological Gardens may tell you that there are no Boojums, and certainly they have none there. But this is a foolish argument, for, while many people have seen Boojums, of course they cannot describe these creatures, for they themselves vanish away, and are not able to speak or write.

There is a true story of a Boojum which, as you have not heard it before, I nowproceed to narrate. In a village in Dorset, about a hundred years ago, there lived an old tailor named Owen Parfitt. He had long been paralysed; that is, he could not use his legs, but had to be carried about by his maid-servant, and a sister even older than himself. On a fine afternoon in summer they took his great armchair out of doors into the sun, laid his great-coat, folded up, on the chair, in case the old man felt chilly, and then carried him downstairs, and made him comfortable in the chair, as they had often done before. There he used to sit and watch the chickens and cats, and gossip to any neighbour who bade him good-day.

About a quarter of an hour later his old sister wanted to say something to him. She cried from the upper window, ' Owen! ' but there was no answer. He might be asleep, he might even be dead, so the old woman hobbled downstairs to the door. There was Owen's chair, there was his great-coat where she had placed it, but Owen was never seen again!

Remember that he could not move, he had no power in his legs, he had to be carried about. Nobody wanted to steal old Owen. He had simply vanished away, and it is perfectly clear that he must have seen a Boojum. You cannot explain the thing in any other way. Even if Owen had by a miracle recovered the use of his legs, people must have seen him in the neighbourhood, if he had marched off. But, in spite of all search, nobody ever saw Owen Parfitt again, and there were then no railways, no means of getting quickly away.

As to Mr. Bathurst, his trousers were discovered after his disappearance; but never a trouser or hat or anything of Owen's could be found.

The stories which I have mentioned, though true, are not tiresome, I hope. The story of 'Old Jeffery' is another kind of tale, also quite true. We read it in the letters written at the time by the Wesley family, who were so much puzzled and bored by what they called ' Old Jeffery.' They were not only good and truthful, but very intelligent people. Who can explain what they tell us? Not I, for one. You cannot even call the story a ghost story. Nobody who was likely to play the tricks had died, so there was nobody to be the ghost of. Some people think that Miss Hetty Wesley, a very pretty, lively girl, played the tricks, but how could she? Anybody may try who likes: the tricks are not so easy.

People who believe that there are Boojums also think that there are Brownies; if they are right, Old Jeffery was a playful, not an industrious, Brownie.

Besides these stories we give a few fairy tales, such as ' How a Boy became first a Lamb and then an Apple.' There are Highland stories, too, like ' The Battle of the White Bull,' and there are some fairy tales that the old Greeks told each other so long, long ago, even before Homer made the Iliad and the Odyssey. Homer mentions ' Meleager the Hunter,' but not the story of the Brand; and he also mentions Melampus and Bias in ' The Serpents' Gift,' but only just alludes to them, as if everyone knew all about them already. Of ' Heracles the Dragon-Killer ' you must have heard; here are many of his tremendous adventures.

Then we have several stories of adventures that happened to real people, such as Charles II., while he wandered in England with Noll Cromwell's hounds at his heels. ' My Aunt Margaret's Mirror,' though a very strange story, really happened to the grandmother of the aunt of Sir Walter Scott. Then you have the best stories of treasure-hunts, and some of the pick of the adventures of the glorious Three Musketeers Porthos, Athos, and Aramis, who were real men and Musketeers, as was d'Artagnan their friend. But these stories are not necessarily in all points true, as they were written by the greatest of all story-tellers, Alexandre Dumas.

So, with other stories of wrecks and Red Indians, I hope you will find something to your taste in The All Sorts of Stories Book.

The stories were written, as they are given here, by Mrs. Lang; we hunted for and caught them in all sorts of books.

HOW A BOY BECAME FIRST A LAMB AND THEN AN APPLE

ONCE upon a time there lived a woman who had two children, a boy named Asterinos, and a daughter called Pulja. Her husband was a huntsman, and spent most of his days in the woods and hills round the cottage, generally bringing back something nice to cook for supper.

One evening he came home earlier than usual, carrying in his wallet a pigeon which he had just shot. The woman took it out, and after she had plucked it, hung it on a nail so that it might be handy to put into the pot at the proper moment. Then she went next door to have a chat with her neighbour and thought no more about the pigeon till it was getting near the dinner hour.

Unluckily, when she left the house, the woman had never noticed the cat, who was curled up under a chair, pretending to be sound asleep, and on his part he was very careful not to stir or to remind her that he was there. But as soon as she was safely out of the way the cat stepped briskly from his hiding-place, sprung at the pigeon which was hanging from the nail, and bringing it to the ground, ate it all up. When nothing of it was left but a few bits of bones, he got up and arched his back with satisfaction, and vanished through the door which the woman had left open.

Scarcely had the cat disappeared when in she came, and walked over to the place where the pigeon should have been hanging. The empty nail and the scattered bones told their own tale, and the woman shivered with fright lest her husband, angry at the loss of his dinner, should give her a beating.

' What am I to do? ' she cried, ' the larder is empty! ' and in despair she cut off part of the calf of her leg and threw it into the pot.

' Is dinner ready? ' asked the man, when by-and-by he returned from a nap in the sun.

' Yes, here it is ' said the wife, and the man sat down.

' That was very good! What was it? ' inquired the husband when he had finished, and his wife told him all that had happened.

''Well, now we can eat the children,' said he; 'they will make us a fine dinner tomorrow,' and away he went, leaving the poor woman half dead with fear and sorrow. She dared not disobey him, she knew, if he told her to kill them, for she was terribly afraid of her husband, and if she did not do it he would; and in her despair the poor woman dragged herself wearily upstairs and threw herself on her bed.

Happily for the children, who were already fast asleep, the dog, who was stretched out in front of the fire with his ears cocked, had overheard the conversation, and as soon as all was still in the cottage he crept to the corner where the brother and sister lay, and put his cold nose against their cheeks.

' Get up! get up! and run away as fast as you can, or your mother will kill you,' he whispered; but the children sleepily pushed his nose away, and turned over on their other sides.

' Get up! get up! there is no time to lose,' repeated the dog, and taking a curl of the little girl's hair between his teeth, he began to draw her gently out of bed.

' You must be quick,' he said again, when lie had explained their danger. ' Wake your brother, and go with him into the forest, and above all make no noise.' The girl did as she was bid, and in another instant the boy stood on the floor beside her.

' What shall we take with us? ' asked he.

' What shall we take? I'm sure I don't know, Asterinos. Yet, stay! We will take a knife, a comb, and a handful of salt. And the dog too, of course! ' So putting the knife and comb in the pockets of their two little coats they ran into the wood, the girl grasping the salt tight in her hand. But quiet as they fancied they had been, their mother had heard them, and when the dog glanced back along the path he saw that she was following.

' Look! ' he cried to the children, and they looked and froze with fear.

' She will catch us! ' screamed Asterinos, but his sister answered:

' No, no! Never. Run quicker! Run! '

' She is close to us, Pulja,' he panted, a few minutes later.

' Throw the knife behind you,' said she, and he threw it. Then a wide stony plain appeared lying between her and them, so wide and stony that it seemed as if it would take days to cross it, but the woman bounded from one rock to another, gaining on them with every stride.

' She is very near now,' whispered the boy again.

' Run faster,' replied his sister, ' she shall never catch us.'

' But she must,' he gasped. ' I can ran no quicker.'

' Here is the comb; throw it behind you,' said she, and he threw it, and behind them rose a thick, black forest. But step by step the mother fought her way through the trees, and for the third time she had almost reached the children, when Pulja turned and let fall the salt in her hand, and immediately a wide sea covered the land, with the mother on one shore and the children on the other.

' Come back! Come back! I will not hurt you,' cried she, but as they hesitated she grew angry and struck herself on the breast. This frightened them, and they turned away and ran on faster than ever.

They had gone quite a long distance, when Asterinos, who was the younger of the two, suddenly stopped.

' I am so thirsty, Pulja,' said he.

' Go on a little longer,' answered she, ' for straight in front is the king's fountain and you can drink there.' But they had only gone a little way further when Asterinos dropped behind, and called out a second time:

' I shall faint; I want some water,' and as he spoke his eyes fell on the print of a wolf's hoof, where water had settled.

' Ah! ' he shouted joyfully; ' here is some, I'll drink that.'

' No, no! ' cried Pulja, pulling him away as he was stooping down; ' if you drink that you will turn into a wolf and will eat me. Come on a little further.'

' Do you really think I should become a wolf? ' asked Asterinos, full of wonder. ' Well, perhaps I might, but I don't believe I should ever want to eat you, even if I was a tiger,' and the two walked on till they reached a sheep track which was full of water.

' I can't go on any longer; I must drink this.' said the boy.

' No, no! ' replied his sister, ' you will turn into a lamb, and then someone will eat you! '

'They must eat me then, for I shall die of thirst,' answered the boy, throwing himself down beside the water. But hardly had he swallowed the first mouthful when his hair grew soft and woolly and covered all his body; his legs and arms became the same length, and he was no more Asterinos but a little lamb.

He ran up to his sister, who was standing with her eyes fixed on the path before her; she had known what would happen, and could not bear to see it.

' Baa! Pulja, Baa! Pulja,' was all he could say,

though he could understand what was said to him as well as he could before.

' Come with me,' she called sadly, and on they went till they reached the king's fountain, which was sheltered from the sun by a big cypress tree. Here the girl knelt down and took a long drink, but the lamb was not thirsty any more. When she had finished she stood up.

' Stay here with the dog till I return. And while he grazed peacefully she went out of sight behind the great cypress, and climbed and climbed and climbed up its branches till at the very top she found a beautiful golden throne, and sat herself down on it.

Soon there was heard the tramp of hoofs, and one of the king's servants appeared leading two horses to the well to drink. But as they approached the cypress tree the rays which streamed from Pulja and her throne were so bright that the horses shied and broke away, fearing they knew not what. The man looked upwards to see where the light came from, and when he beheld a beautiful maiden on the topmost boughs he said:

' Come down, for the horses must drink, and the sight of you frightens them.'

' No; I shall stay where I am,' answered she; ' I am not hurting you. The horses can drink as much as they like.'

' Come down! ' called the man louder than before, but Pulja paid no heed to him, and did not stir.

Then the servant went to the king's son, and told him that a maiden of wondrous beauty was sitting in the cypress tree, and that the bright beams of light which she shed had so frightened the horses that they had refused to drink at the well, and had run away.

So the prince hastened to the well, and standing under the boughs thrice bade the maiden come down, but she would not.

' If you will not do as you are told we shall have to cut down the tree.' he said at last.

' Well, cut it down,' answered she. ' I mean to stay where I am.'

The young man felt that further talking was useless, so he sent a messenger to bring some wood-cutters from the forest. They struck hard at the trunk with their axes, but the lamb slipped unseen to the other side, and licked the tree, so that it suddenly grew twice as thick, and all the axes could do was to pierce the bark. At length the prince lost his patience, and bade the wood-cutters return home, for they were useless fellows, and went himself in search of an old woman who was held to be very wise.

' Fetch me down that girl from the tree,' he said to her, ' and I will give you your hood full of gold.'

' Oh, I will fetch her,' answered the old woman, and taking from a cupboard a bowl, a sieve and a sack of meal followed the prince to the tree.

Standing where she knew the girl must see her, the old woman turned the bowl upside down on the ground, and holding the sieve the wrong way up in her hand began to rub some meal through it, which ought to have fallen into the bowl underneath. She had done this for a little while when suddenly she heard a voice saying:

' That is not the way; you are all wrong.'

' Is that anyone speaking to me? ' asked the old woman, pretending to look about. ' Where are you? ' but the girl only repeated her words.

' Come and show me how to do it, and I will bless you for ever,' cried the old woman at last, and the maiden rose slowly from the golden throne and climbed down the tree. The moment her feet touched the ground the prince, who had remained hidden, sprang forward and catching her in his arms swung her on to his shoulder, carried her off to the castle, the dog and the lamb following behind them. In a few days they were married, and the people declared that never had there been so beautiful a bride.

Now Princess Pulja was so pretty and pleasant that she won the hearts of everybody in the palace, beginning with the king; and the queen, who loved admiration, became very jealous and spiteful. She did, not dare to say anything as long as the prince was there, but one day, when he had gone to hunt with his father she ordered her attendants to seize the princess, who was wandering in the garden, and to throw her into the river.

' That is a good riddance,' said the queen, when th< v told her that her commands had been obeyed, and she waited with a beaming face till her son returned in the evening.

' Where is my wife? ' asked the prince as he entered the palace.

' Your wife? Oh! she went out for a walk,' answered the queen, and the prince hastened to the garden to look for her. As soon as he was out of sight the queen said to her attendants:

' Now that my daughter-in-law is out of the way we can kill that lamb.'

' Very well, madam,' answered they, but the lamb happened to be under the windows and overheard, and he stole away behind some bushes down to the river.

' Pulja, Pulja! they are going to kill me,' cried he in his own language, and though most people would have thought he was saying nothing but ' baa,' Pulja understood.

' Never fear, dear child; they cannot hurt you,' whispered she, through the gurgling of the brook, but the lamb cried again:

' But, Pulja, do you hear? they are going to kill me!'

' No, no! do not be frightened. They shall not hurt you! '

' But, Pulja, even now they are sharpening the knife, and have begun to seek me,' and then with a shriek: ' Pulja, Pulja! they have got me! Pulja! ' And Pulja heard, and with one bound burst the bonds which held her in the brook, and rushed to the lamb, who was struggling in the hands of his captors.

With tears and prayers she implored them to let him go. but it was too late. One blow, and he lay dead at her feet.

' My lamb, my lamb! ' screamed Pulja, flinging herself on the ground beside him, and the king, who was walking in the garden, heard the noise and came to see what was the matter.

' Poor girl, poor girl! ' said he, ' can I do nothing to comfort you? Shall I have his likeness made in gold? '

' What good would that do? ' she asked. ' My lamb, my lamb! '

And the king could think of nothing to say but ' What is done, is done.'

The lamb was roasted whole and placed on the table, and the servants, who did not know that it had ever been anything except a lamb, called to Pulja to sit down and eat.

But the girl refused.

' Come, princess, come,' they urged again, but still she would not listen, so at last they sat down to eat themselves. When they had finished, Pulja gathered up the bones, and put them in a basket, and buried them in the garden. And over the place there sprung up a great apple tree, bigger than any that ever was seen, and on its boughs a golden apple. Many people came by that way and tried to pluck it, but just as it seemed within reach of their hands they somehow found it was a little above them, and jump as they would it was always out of their reach.

When everyone about the palace had sought to gather the apple and failed, Pulja said to the king:

' Now it is my turn; I will see what I can do.'

' But where so many have tried in vain, is it likely you will succeed? ' asked he.

' Perhaps not; but with your permission I should like to try,' answered she.

' Then luck be with you,' said he. So she went straight to the tree, and looked up at the golden apple shining high over her head. And as she looked the apple sank lower and lower, till at length it was within reach of her hand, and a voice whispered, ' Now you can pluck me.' When her fingers had closed tightly over her prize she put it in her pocket, and returning to the palace she said:

' Farewell, my husband and my father-in-law who have been so kind to me; and you, my mother-in-law, may you suffer all the ill-fortune you deserve. As for me, you will nevermore behold me.' With that she went through the gate into the world, and whether the apple in her pocket ever turned into her brother Asterinos no man can tell.

THE BATTLE OF THE WHITE BULL.

IF, when you are travelling through countries where wolves are to be heard on winter nights, you should happen to ask a peasant something about them, he will tell you many strange stories of their cleverness, and of the way one wolf will help another to outwit his enemies. If you read this tale you will learn what happened in the Highlands of Scotland in the good old times.

Many herds were feeding in Glen-Ampul, and fine beasts they were, but among them all none was as big and strong as the great white bull, the pride of his master's heart. Bare were the hills, and little shade they gave from the heat of the sun or the fierce storms which beat over them, therefore down below by the side of the burn a hut of turf had been built with a wide door, so that the cattle or their herdsmen might find rest and shelter if they needed it.

One day when the sun streamed hot down the hillside where young Angus was walking with a heavy, old-fashioned gun over his shoulder, he noticed a large wolf coming towards him. Perhaps the gun was more for show than for use, or it may have played Angus some bad tricks before now, for certain it is that, instead of aiming at the wolf who had so suddenly made his appearance at a time of year when he was never looked for, the young man scrambled noiselessly down hi to the burn, so that he might destroy his scent, and the wolf should not follow him. As it happened, the wolf had not noticed him at all; but Angus did not know that, and made his way through the water, hi the direction of the hut, expecting every moment to hear the baying sound which no one ever forgets who has once listened to it. But all was still, and Angus moved warily on till he came exactly opposite the hut, when he dashed up the bank, and without looking to the right or to the left made straight for the place where he knew the front door to be.

Now, unluckily for him, the great white bull was standing there, enjoying himself after a good dinner which had lasted ever since breakfast. He was thinking of nothing in particular, unless it was where it would be best to go for supper, when suddenly something heavy tumbled across his face. The bull drew back angrily and snorted, and Angus, who had tripped over a hillock and fallen almost on the horns of the bull, began to wonder if this second danger was not worse than the first, when he perceived a clump of clover growing close by, such as all bulls love. Stooping hastily he picked up a handful and thrust it under the bull's nose, nervously watching the creature's eyes, so that he might not be taken unawares. One sniff and the bull lowered his head to examine the clover more narrowly, but soon decided that there was no occasion to eat it in a hurry. This was a great disappointment to Angus, who had hoped that the bull might have shifted his position a little so as to enable him to slip past into the hut, but as the big beast seemed to have forgotten him altogether he stepped cautiously towards the door. Quiet as he was, the bull heard him and looked round. His rolling eyes and quivering nostrils warned Angus to give up his attempt, so he resolved to try if there was any way of entering by the back.

' Oh, this is luck,' thought he, as he beheld a pile of logs standing against the wall to dry. In a moment more he had swung himself up, and lying hidden on the slope of the roof, with his gun by his side, peered over the top, that he might see what the wolf was doing.

It was a good thing for Angus that he had reached the hut, for the wind had suddenly changed, and had blown the scent of man and beast right into the wolf's nose.

' Fee, fo, fum,' said the wolf to himself, for he had often been told the story of Jack the Giant Killer by his grandmother. 'Fee, fo, fum,' and he crossed the stream at the very spot under the hut by which Angus had passed only a few minutes before. Then he stretched himself out at full length till he looked like one of the bare grey rocks scattered round, only keeping his nose in the air, as he crept silently along, sniffing, sniffing.

Soon he was too close under the hut for Angus to watch him, and he waited with a beating heart, his ears strained to catch the first sound. Then yap, yap! a roar and a skirling noise, a grey kicking thing flashing through the air, and the wolf was on the further side of the stream, with the bull standing on the other bank pawing the ground and lashing his tail.

' Don't come here again! ' he seemed to be saying, and the wolf, who quite understood that ' he who fights and runs away shall live to fight another day,' bounded up the hillside and never stopped to take breath till he had reached the top. Giving a sidelong glance at the bull and breathing a sigh of relief that the stream was still between them, he lay down to rest, with his face towards the hut, on the roof of which Angus was watching.

Like many men whose lives are spent in the open air Angus could see things quite clearly which are hidden from dwellers in houses. Thus he noticed plain signs that the wolf had had the worst of it in his battle with the bull. Every now and then he leaned over and licked Ids side, as if he was wounded there, and sometimes he shook his paw, as if it hurt him. But after all

he could not have been very bad, for in a little while he got up and limped away in the direction of a fir-wood, standing thick and black not far behind the hut.

When the wolf could no longer be seen Angus turned to the match with which he set fire to his clumsy old gun, and found to his dismay that it had got wet while he was climbing up the dripping logs, and would not light. Of course it was not in the least like our lucifer matches, but was paper soaked in saltpeter, and set alight by a flint, and only burned very slowly. But in spite of all his efforts the powder would not catch, and at length he gave it up in despair.

In this manner half an hour passed away and Angus began to think that his enemy must have gone for good, and that he might do so likewise, when, as he gave one last look up and down the glen before getting down off the roof, he was startled to see two large black wolves come out of the wood. So exactly did they keep step, that at first Angus thought they were but one, but as they drew nearer he noticed that the one who limped had a stick in his mouth, the other end of which was held by the second beast.

' Why, he must be blind! ' exclaimed the young man, and so he was. But blind or not, he made straight for the hut, and then Angus managed to perceive that when they were within a few paces of the hut they dropped the stick and sprang forward. Again they disappeared, and once more the battle with the bull raged, but this time with greater fierceness than before.

One noise succeeded the other, till Angus's head was in a whirl. Cries, bellows, roars, growlings, then at last a rush and a spring and a heavy fall against the door which shook the hut. After that all was silent, save for angry mumblings of the bull.

' But what became of the wolves? ' asked the young man to whom the old Highlander had told his story.

' Heaven knows,' he answered solemnly, ' but no man saw them after that. And Angus just lay on the roof a while longer till he made sure they would not come out again. Then he was off through the heather like a deer, taking care to keep the hut between himself and the bull.

THE SERPENTS' GIFT.

MELAMPUS, son of Amythaon and grandson of Eidomene the Wise, lived at Pylos, not far from the famous plain of Olympia, where the Greeks in later times held their celebrated sports. Near his house was a wood, and just outside his door was an oak tree where two serpents had built their nest. Now the servants of Melampus feared the old serpents which reared themselves up and hissed and darted out their tongues when they heard steps below the tree, and at length the terror of both men and women grew so great that they took sticks and killed the snakes. But Melampus would not suffer them to slay the little serpents, as they wished, but gave them milk to drink, which snakes love, and put a warm cloth round the branch when the nights were cold. And the little serpents were grateful and asked each other if there was nothing they could do for him.

For long they pondered in vain, and the months went by, and they grew to be as large as their dead parents. Then at last they thought of a gift which would be dear to the heart of Melampus, a gift that no other man in the land possessed. He should understand the language of birds and of beasts, and some day that knowledge might save his life, as he had saved theirs.

So that night when Melampus slept the three snakes wriggled down from the tree and wriggled in through the open door, and each in turn approached him where he lay on his back, and licked the insides of his ears, though he knew it not. And when he awoke in the morning and heard the birds talking and asking each other where the best food was to be found, and if the still hot air meant a storm before nightfall, he wondered what had befallen him. And he wondered still more when he listened to the talk of the goats and the murmurs of the dogs who grumbled to each other at having to follow their master when they would rather lie in the sun, and at not being allowed to follow him when he went to the temple.