Oswald Bastable and Others

by E. Nesbit

  THE WHITE HORSE

  'Please, father,' Diggory said, 'I want to go out and seek my fortune.'

  'Seek your grandmother,' said his father, but not unkindly. He wassmoking a pipe outside his cottage door, and he had a red-spottedhandkerchief over his head because of the flies. There were fliesthen, just the same as there are now, though it was a hundred years agoby the church clock.

  'I wasn't thinking of my grandmother,' said Diggory; 'I was thinking ofmy Uncle Diggory. He was the third son of a woodcutter, just like I am,and he saw right enough that that's the sort that _has_ to go out andseek its fortune. And I'm getting on, father; I shall be twenty beforeyou know where you are.'

  'You'll have to be twenty and more before I agree not to know where_you_ are,' said his father. 'Your Uncle Diggory did well for himself,sure enough, and many a turkey and chine he's sent us atChristmas-time; but he started a-horseback, he did. He got the horsefrom _his_ Uncle Diggory, and he was a rover too. Now, if you went,you'd have to go on Shank's mare, and them that go a-foot comes backa-foot.'

  'Will you let me go, then, if I can get a horse?' said Diggorycoaxingly. 'Do say yes, dad, and then I won't say another word about ittill I've got the horse.'

  'Drat the lad--_yes_, then!' shouted the father.

  Diggory jumped up from the porch seat.

  'Then farewell home and hey for the road,' cried he, 'for I've got thehorse, dad. My Uncle Diggory sent it to me this very day, and it's tiedup behind the lodge; white it is, and a red saddle and bridle fit for aKing.'

  The woodcutter grumbled, but he was a woodcutter of honour, and havingsaid 'Yes,' he had to stick to yes.

  So Diggory rode off on the white horse with the scarlet saddle, and allthe village turned out to see him go. He had on his best white smock,and he had never felt so fine in all his days.

  So he rode away. When he came to the round mound windmill he stopped,for there was Joyce taking in the clean clothes from the hedge, becauseit was Monday evening.

  He told her where he was going.

  'You might take me with you,' she said. 'I'm not so very heavy but whatwe could both ride on that great big horse of yours.' And she held up aface as sweet as a bunch of flowers.

  But Diggory said, 'No, my dear. Why, you little silly, girls can't go toseek their fortunes. You'd only be in my way! Wish me luck, child.'

  So he rode on, and she folded up the linen all crooked, and damped itdown with her tears, so that it was quite ready for ironing.

  Diggory rode on, and on, and on. He rode through dewy evening, andthrough the cool black night, and right into the fresh-scented pinkypearly dawning. And when it was real live wide-awake morning, Diggoryfelt very thin and empty inside his smock, and he remembered that he hadhad nothing to eat since dinner-time yesterday, and then it was pork andgreens.

  He rode on, and he rode on, and by-and-by he came to a red brick wall,very strong and stout, with big buttresses and a stone coping. His horse(whom he had christened Invicta, and perhaps if he had known as muchLatin as you do he would have called him something different) was avery high horse indeed, and by standing up in his stirrups Diggory couldsee over the wall. And he saw that on the other side was an orchard fullof trees full of apples, red, and yellow, and green. He reined Invictain close under the wall and said, 'Woa, there! stand still, will 'e?'And he stood up on the broad saddle and made a jump and caught at thestone coping of the wall, and next moment he had hung by his hands anddropped into the orchard. And it was a very long drop indeed. For he hadquite made up his mind to take some of the apples. First, because he washungry, and, secondly, because boys _will_ take apples--in stories thatis, of course; _really_, they would never think of such a thing.

  With a practised eye, Diggory chose the tree with the fattest, rosiestapples on it. He climbed the tree, and had just settled himself astridea convenient bough when he heard a voice say: 'Hi! You up there!'

  And, looking down, he saw a flat-faced old man with a red flannelwaistcoat standing under the tree looking up spitefully.

  'Good-morning, my fine fellow,' said the old man. 'You seem a nicehonest lad, and I'm sorry for your sake that apple stealing's punishedso severely in these parts.'

  'I've not had any apples yet,' said Diggory. 'Look here, I'll go away ifyou like, and we'll say no more about it.'

  'That's a handsome offer, very,' said the nasty old man; 'but this is anenchanted orchard, and you can't go away without with your leave or byyour leave, as you came in. Why, you can't even get out of the tree--andas for climbing the wall, no one can do it without a white horse to helphim. So now where are you?'

  Diggory knew very well where he was, and he tried at once to besomewhere else, but the old man was right. He could move all about thetree from branch to branch, but the tree felt wrong way up and he feltwrong way up; that is to say, he could not get to the ground except byjumping much harder than he knew how to, and then he knew he would onlyhave fallen back again, just as you would fall back if you jumped up tothe ceiling. He could have fallen off the tree the other way, of course,but then he would have fallen up into the sky, and there seemed to benothing there to stop his falling for ever and ever. So he held tightand looked at the old man. And Diggory thought he looked nastier thanever.

  So he said: 'Well?'

  And the old man said: 'Not at all! However, since you had the sense notto fall off wrong way, I suppose you're the boy I want. Now, look here,you throw me down those ten big apples, one by one, so that I can catchthem, and I'll let you go out by the Apple Door that no one but me hasthe key of.'

  'Why don't you pick them yourself?' Diggory asked.

  'I'm too old; you know very well that old men don't climb trees. Come,is it a bargain?'

  'I don't know,' said the boy; 'there are lots of apples you can reachwithout climbing. Why do you want these so particularly?'

  As he spoke, he picked one of the apples and threw it up and caught it.I say up, but it was down instead, because of the apple-tree being sovery much enchanted.

  'Oh, _don't_!' the old man squeaked like a rat in a trap--'_don't_ dropit! Throw it down to me, you nasty slack-baked, smock-frocked son of aspeckled toad!'

  Diggory's blood boiled at hearing his father called a toad.

  '"Take that," cried he, aiming an apple at the old man'shead.'--Page 307.]

  'Take that!' cried he, aiming the apple at the old man's head.' I wish Icould get out of this tree.'

  The apple hit the old man's head and bounced on to the grass, and themoment that apple touched the ground Diggory found that he _could_ getout of the tree if he liked, for he felt that he was now the proper wayup once more, and so was the tree.

  'So,' he said, 'these are wish-apples, are they?'

  'No, no, no, no!' shrieked the old man so earnestly that Diggory knew hewas lying. 'I've just disenchanted you, that's all. You see, most peoplefall up out of the tree and you didn't, so I thought I'd let you go,because I'm a nice kind old man, I am, and I wouldn't so much as hurt afly. They aren't wish-apples, indeed they aren't.'

  'Really,' said Diggory. 'I wish you'd speak the truth.'

  With that he picked the second apple and threw it. And the old man beganto speak the truth as hard as ever he could speak. It was like a childsaying a lesson it has just learned, and is afraid of forgetting beforeit can get it said.

  'I am a wicked magician. I have turned hundreds of people's heads inthat tree so that they fall into the sky, and when they fall back again,as they have to do when the tide turns, I make them into apple-trees. Idon't know why I do, but I like to. I suppose it's because I'm wicked. Inever did anything useful with my magic, but I can hurt. And there'sonly one way out of this, and I don't mean to show it you.'

  'It's a pity you're so wicked,' said Diggory. 'I wish you were good.'

  He threw down another apple, and instantly the magician became so goodthat he could do nothing but sit down and cry to think how wicked he hadbeen. He was now perfectly useless. But Diggory was no longer afraid ofhim,
so he gathered the ten apples that were left and put them insidehis shirt, and came down the tree.

  The old man couldn't tell him how to get out, and he couldn't disenchantthe fruit-trees or anything. So Diggory had to spend three wish-apples.First he spent one on making the old man happy. This was done as it isin Miss Edgeworth's stories--by giving him a thatched cottage and agarden, and a devoted grand-daughter to look after him. The next appleshowed Diggory the Apple Door, which he had not been able to find, andhe went out by it. You, of course, can find it on the map, but he had nomap, and, besides, it is spelt differently. Before he went out of theorchard he threw down another apple, and wished the apple-trees to bedisenchanted. And they were. And then the red-walled orchard was full ofKings and Princesses, and swineherds and goosegirls, and statesmen andstevedores, and every kind of person you can or can't think of.

  Diggory left them to find their own ways home--some of them lived everso long before, and ever so far away--and he himself went out by theApple Door, and found his good white horse, who had been eating grassvery happily all the time he had been in the company of the magician,and that had been two days and a night.

  So Invicta was not hungry, but Diggory was; and, in fact, he was sohungry that he had to use a wish-apple to get his supper, and that wasvery, very wasteful of him, and he often regretted it in after years. Itis true that he wished for the best supper in the world, and had it; butit was only bread-and-milk! If he had wished for the nicest supper itwould have been different, no doubt.

  Diggory rode on anxiously, arranging what wishes he should have withthe rest of the apples, but in the dusk he missed his way and was nearlydrowned in a rain-flooded ford, and poor white Invicta was quite carriedaway.

  Then Diggory took off his shirt to wring the water out, and as he tookit off he said: 'I wish I had my good white horse again.'

  And as he said it all the apples but one tumbled out of his shirt on tothe ground, and he heard soft neighings and stampings and hustlings andrustlings all round him in the dark, and when the moon rose he saw thathe had had his wish--he had his good white horse back again. But as hehad dropped eight apples, he had his good white horse back eight times,and as eight times one is eight, he had now eight good white horses, allcalled Invicta.

  'Well, eight horses are better than nothing!' he said; and when he hadtethered the horses he went to sleep, for he felt strangely feeble andtired.

  In the morning he woke with pains in every limb. He thought it was acold from the wetting in the ford, but it was really rheumatism. And hecould not get rid of it. He tied seven horses together and led them,riding on the eighth.

  'Eight horses are a pretty good fortune for a woodcutter's son,' he saidto himself, 'and, anyway, I'm too tired to go looking for any betterone.'

  So he rode home.

  He knew the roads well enough, and yet they seemed different; they weremuch better roads to ride over, for one thing, and the hedges and treeswere odd somehow. And the big wood near his father's house seemed verysmall as he looked down on it from the hill. But when he got to thevillage he thought he must have gone mad, for in the day and two nightsand a day that he had been away the village had grown big and ugly andyellow-bricky, and there were eight shops and six public-houses besidesthe Bill and Billet, and many more people than there used to be, all inugly, untidy clothes, and the Round Mound windmill was _gone_! Thepeople came crowding round him.

  'What's become of the mill?' he asked, trembling all over.

  The boys and girls and men and women stared, and a very old man steppedout of the crowd.

  'It were pulled down,' he said, 'when I were a boy.'

  'And the woodcutter's cottage?'

  'That were burnt down a matter of fifty year ago. Was you a native ofthese parts, old man?'

  There was a large plate-glass shop-window just opposite the crowd thatsurrounded Diggory. A dark blind was pulled down inside, because it wasWednesday and early-closing day. This made a fine mirror, and Diggoryhappened to look in it, and there he saw himself--an old, oldwhite-haired man on a white horse. He had a white beard, too, but it wasquite short, because it had only had since bedtime last night to growin.

  He almost tumbled off his horse. The landlord of the Ship led him into sit by the fire in the bar parlour, and the eight horses were put upin the stable.

  The old man who had told him about the mill came and sat by him, andpoor old Diggory asked questions till he grew tired of hearing theanswer, which was always the same: 'Dead, dead, dead!'

  Then he sat silent, and the people in the bar talked about his horses,and a young man said:

  'I wish I'd got e'er a one on 'em. I'd do a tidy bit in fish, an' set upfor myself--so I would.'

  'Young man,' said Diggory, 'you may take one of them; its name isInvicta.'

  The young man could hardly believe his fortunate ears. Diggory felt hisheart warm to think that he had made someone else so happy. He feltactually younger. And next morning he made up his mind to give away allthe horses but one. That one he would sell, and its price would keep himfor the rest of his life: he hoped that would not be long, for he didnot care to go on living now that he had seen the tombstones in thechurchyard with the names of his father and brothers and little Joyce ofthe mill.

  He led his horses away next day. He did not want to give them all awayin one village, because that would have lessened the value of his giftto the young man who was going into fish, and, besides, it would havebeen awkward to have so many horses of the same name in one village.

  He gave away a horse at each village he passed through, and with everyhorse he gave away he felt happier and lighter. And when he had givenaway the fourth his rheumatism went, and when he had given away theseventh his beard was gone.

  'Now,' he said to himself, 'I will ride home and end my days in my ownvillage, and be buried with my own people.'

  So he turned his horse's head towards home, and he felt so gay andlight-limbed he could hardly believe that he was really an old, old man.And he rode on.

  And at the end of the village he stopped and rubbed his eyes, for therestood the Round Mound windmill, and on the slope was Joyce, lookingprettier than ever in a russet petticoat and a white neckerchief and apink print gown with little red rosebuds on it.

  'Oh, Diggory, Diggory,' she cried, 'you've come back, then! You'll takeme with you now, won't you?'

  'Have you got a looking-glass, my dear?' said he. 'Then run in and fetchit.'

  She ran. He took it and looked in it. And he saw the same young brownface and the same bright brown hair that he had always known for _him_,and he was not old any more. And there was Joyce holding up a face assweet as a bunch of flowers.

  'Will you take me?' said she.

  He stooped down and kissed the face that was so sweet.

  'I'll take you,' said he.

  And as they went along to his home he told her all the story.

  'Well, but,' she said, 'you've got one wish-apple left.'

  'Why, so I have,' said he; 'if I hadn't forgotten it!'

  'We'll make that into the fortune you went out to find. Do, do let melook at it!'

  He pulled out the apple, and she took it in her hand as she sat behindhim on the big white horse.

  'Yes, our fortune's made,' he said; 'but I do wish I knew why I turnedold like that.'

  Just then Invicta stumbled, and Joyce caught at her lover to saveherself from falling, and as she caught at him the apple slipped fromher hand and the last wish was granted. For as it bounced on the roadDiggory did know why he had grown old like that. He knew that themagician had arranged long before that every wish-apple that was usedoutside the orchard should add ten years to the wisher's age. So thatthe eight horses had made him a hundred years old, and the spell couldonly be undone by the wisher's giving away what he'd wished for. So thatit was Diggory's generosity in giving away the horses that had taken himback to the proper age for being happy in. I don't want to be moral, andI'm very sorry--but it really was that.

&nb
sp; He carried Joyce home to his father's house. They were much too pleasedwith each other to bother about the wasted wish-apples.

  'You're soon back, my son,' said the woodcutter, laughing.

  'Yes,' said Diggory.

  'Have you found your fortune?'

  'Yes,' said Diggory; 'here she is!'

  And he presented Joyce. The woodcutter laughed more than ever, for themiller's daughter was a bit of an heiress.

  'Well, well!' he said.

  So they were married, and they had a little farm, and the white horsewas put to the plough, and to the cart, and the harrow, and the waggon;and he worked hard, and they worked hard, so that they all throve andwere very happy as long as ever they lived.

  Said Joyce one day to Diggory, 'How was it you wanted to take me withyou directly you came back, and when you were going away you didn't.'

  'I've often wondered about that myself,' he said; 'I think it must havebeen the bread-and-milk. You see, it was one of the wish-apple things,just like the horses were, only they were outside things, so they mademe old outside; but the bread-and milk----'

  'Was an inside thing, of course--quite inside.'

  'Yes, so it made me old inside of my mind, just old enough to have thesense to see that _you_ were all the fortune I wanted, and more than Ideserved.'

  'I didn't have to be so very old to know what fortune _I_ wanted,' saidJoyce, 'but, then, I was a girl. Boys are always much stupider thangirls, aren't they?'

  * * * * *

  The only person in this story you are likely to have heard of is, ofcourse, Invicta, and he is better known as the White Horse of Kent.

  You can see pictures of him all over his county: on brewers circularsand all sorts of documents, and carved in stone on buildings, and evenon the disagreeable, insulting fronts of traction-engines.Traction-engines pretend to despise horses, but they carry the image ofthe White Horse on their hearts. And his name is generally putunderneath his picture, so that there shall be no mistake.