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Twilight Land

H >> Howard Pyle >> Twilight Land



Twilight Land

by Howard Pyle




Table of Contents

Introduction
The Stool of Fortune
The Talisman of Solomon
Ill-Luck and the Fiddler
Empty Bottles
Good Gifts and a Fool's Folly
The Good of a Few Words
Woman's Wit
A Piece of Good Luck
The Fruit of Happiness
Not a Pin to Choose
Much Shall Have More and Little Shall Have Less
Wisdom's Wages and Folly's Pay
The Enchanted Island
All Things are as Fate Wills
Where to Lay the Blame
The Salt of Life




Introduction

I found myself in Twilight Land. How I ever got there I cannot
tell, but there I was in Twilight Land.

What is Twilight Land? It is a wonderful, wonderful place where
no sun shines to scorch your back as you jog along the way, where
no rain falls to make the road muddy and hard to travel, where no
wind blows the dust into your eyes or the chill into your marrow.
Where all is sweet and quiet and ready to go to bed.

Where is Twilight Land? Ah! that I cannot tell you. You will
either have to ask your mother or find it for yourself.

There I was in Twilight Land. The birds were singing their
good-night song, and the little frogs were piping "peet, peet."
The sky overhead was full of still brightness, and the moon in
the east hung in the purple gray like a great bubble as yellow as
gold. All the air was full of the smell of growing things. The
high-road was gray, and the trees were dark.

I drifted along the road as a soap-bubble floats before the wind,
or as a body floats in a dream. I floated along and I floated
along past the trees, past the bushes, past the mill-pond, past
the mill where the old miller stood at the door looking at me.

I floated on, and there was the Inn, and it was the Sign of
Mother Goose.

The sign hung on a pole, and on it was painted a picture of
Mother Goose with her gray gander.

It was to the Inn I wished to come.

I floated on, and I would have floated past the Inn, and perhaps
have gotten into the Land of Never-Come-Back-Again, only I caught
at the branch of an apple-tree, and so I stopped myself, though
the apple-blossoms came falling down like pink and white
snowflakes.

The earth and the air and the sky were all still, just as it is
at twilight, and I heard them laughing and talking in the
tap-room of the Inn of the Sign of Mother Goose--the clinking of
glasses, and the rattling and clatter of knives and forks and
plates and dishes. That was where I wished to go.

So in I went. Mother Goose herself opened the door, and there I
was.

The room was all full of twilight; but there they sat, every one
of them. I did not count them, but there were ever so many:
Aladdin, and Ali Baba, and Fortunatis, and Jack-the-Giant-Killer,
and Doctor Faustus, and Bidpai, and Cinderella, and Patient
Grizzle, and the Soldier who cheated the Devil, and St. George,
and Hans in Luck, who traded and traded his lump of gold until he
had only an empty churn to show for it; and there was Sindbad the
Sailor, and the Tailor who killed seven flies at a blow, and the
Fisherman who fished up the Genie, and the Lad who fiddled for
the Jew in the bramble-bush, and the Blacksmith who made Death
sit in his apple-tree, and Boots, who always marries the
Princess, whether he wants to or not--a rag-tag lot as ever you
saw in your life, gathered from every place, and brought together
in Twilight Land.

Each one of them was telling a story, and now it was the turn of
the Soldier who cheated the Devil.

"I will tell you," said the Soldier who cheated the Devil, "a
story of a friend of mine."

"Take a fresh pipe of tobacco," said St. George.

"Thank you, I will," said the Soldier who cheated the Devil.

He filled his long pipe full of tobacco, and then he tilted it
upside down and sucked in the light of the candle.

Puff! puff! puff! and a cloud of smoke went up about his head, so
that you could just see his red nose shining through it, and his
bright eyes twinkling in the midst of the smoke-wreath, like two
stars through a thin cloud on a summer night.

"I'll tell you," said the Soldier who cheated the Devil, "the
story of a friend of mine. Tis every word of it just as true as
that I myself cheated the Devil."

He took a drink from his mug of beer, and then he began.

"Tis called," said he--


The Stool of Fortune

Once upon a time there came a soldier marching along the road,
kicking up a little cloud of dust at each step--as strapping
and merry and bright-eyed a fellow as you would wish to see in a
summer day. Tramp! tramp! tramp! he marched, whistling as he
jogged along, though he carried a heavy musket over his shoulder
and though the sun shone hot and strong and there was never a
tree in sight to give him a bit of shelter.

At last he came in sight of the King's Town and to a great field
of stocks and stones, and there sat a little old man as withered
and brown as a dead leaf, and clad all in scarlet from head to
foot.

"Ho! soldier," said he, "are you a good shot?"

"Aye," said the soldier, "that is my trade."

"Would you like to earn a dollar by shooting off your musket for
me?"

"Aye," said the soldier, "that is my trade also."

"Very well, then," said the little man in red, "here is a silver
button to drop into your gun instead of a bullet. Wait you here,
and about sunset there will come a great black bird flying. In
one claw it carries a feather cap and in the other a round stone.
Shoot me the silver button at that bird, and if your aim is good
it will drop the feather cap and the pebble. Bring them to me to
the great town-gate and I will pay you a dollar for your
trouble."

"Very well," said the soldier, "shooting my gun is a job that
fits me like an old coat." So, down he sat and the old man went
his way.

Well, there he sat and sat and sat and sat until the sun touched
the rim of the ground, and then, just as the old man said, there
came flying a great black bird as silent as night. The soldier
did not tarry to look or to think. As the bird flew by up came
the gun to his shoulder, squint went his eye along the
barrel--Puff! bang!--

I vow and declare that if the shot he fired had cracked the sky
he could not have been more frightened. The great black bird gave
a yell so terrible that it curdled the very blood in his veins
and made his hair stand upon end. Away it flew like a flash--a
bird no longer, but a great, black demon, smoking and smelling
most horribly of brimstone, and when the soldier gathered his
wits, there lay the feather cap and a little, round, black stone
upon the ground.

"Well," said the soldier, "it is little wonder that the old man
had no liking to shoot at such game as that." And thereupon he
popped the feather cap into one pocket and the round stone into
another, and shouldering his musket marched away until he reached
the town-gate, and there was the old man waiting for him.

"Did you shoot the bird?" said he.

"I did," said the soldier.

"And did you get the cap and the round stone?"

"I did."

"Then here is your dollar."

"Wait a bit," said the soldier, "I shot greater game that time
than I bargained for, and so it's ten dollars and not one you
shall pay me before you lay finger upon the feather cap and the
little stone."

"Very well," said the old man, "here are ten dollars."

"Ho! ho!" thought the soldier, "is that the way the wind
blows?"--"Did I say ten dollars?" said he; " twas a hundred
dollars I meant."

At that the old man frowned until his eyes shone green. "Very
well," said he, "if it is a hundred dollars you want, you will
have to come home with me, for I have not so much with me.
Thereupon he entered the town with the soldier at his heels.

Up one street he went and down another, until at last he came to
a great, black, ancient ramshackle house; and that was where he
lived. In he walked without so much as a rap at the door, and so
led the way to a great room with furnaces and books and bottles
and jars and dust and cobwebs, and three grinning skulls upon the
mantelpiece, each with a candle stuck atop of it, and there he
left the soldier while he went to get the hundred dollars.

The soldier sat him down upon a three-legged stool in the corner
and began staring about him; and he liked the looks of the place
as little as any he had seen in all of his life, for it smelled
musty and dusty, it did: the three skulls grinned at him, and he
began to think that the little old man was no better than he
should be. "I wish," says he, at last, "that instead of being
here I might be well out of my scrape and in a safe place."

Now the little old man in scarlet was a great magician, and there
was little or nothing in that house that had not some magic about
it, and of all things the three-legged stool had been conjured
the most.

"I wish that instead of being here I might be well out of my
scrape, and in a safe place." That was what the soldier said; and
hardly had the words left his lips when--whisk! whir!--away
flew the stool through the window, so suddenly that the soldier
had only just time enough to gripe it tight by the legs to save
himself from falling. Whir! whiz!--away it flew like a bullet.
Up and up it went--so high in the air that the earth below
looked like a black blanket spread out in the night; and then
down it came again, with the soldier still griping tight to the
legs, until at last it settled as light as a feather upon a
balcony of the king's palace; and when the soldier caught his
wind again he found himself without a hat, and with hardly any
wits in his head.

There he sat upon the stool for a long time without daring to
move, for he did not know what might happen to him next. There he
sat and sat, and by-and-by his ears got cold in the night air,
and then he noticed for the first time that he had lost his head
gear, and bethought himself of the feather cap in his pocket. So
out he drew it and clapped it upon his head, and then--lo and
behold!--he found he had become as invisible as thin air--not
a shred or a hair of him could be seen. "Well!" said he, "here is
another wonder, but I am safe now at any rate." And up he got to
find some place not so cool as where he sat.

He stepped in at an open window, and there he found himself in a
beautiful room, hung with cloth of silver and blue, and with
chairs and tables of white and gold; dozens and scores of
waxlights shone like so many stars, and lit every crack and
cranny as bright as day, and there at one end of the room upon a
couch, with her eyelids closed and fast asleep, lay the prettiest
princess that ever the sun shone upon. The soldier stood and
looked and looked at her, and looked and looked at her, until his
heart melted within him like soft butter, and then he kissed her.

"Who is that?" said the princess, starting up, wide-awake, but
not a soul could she see, because the soldier had the feather cap
upon his head.

"It is I," said he, "and I am King of the Wind, and ten times
greater than the greatest of kings here below. One day I saw you
walking in your garden and fell in love with you, and now I have
come to ask you if you will marry me and be my wife?"

"But how can I marry you?" said the princess, "without seeing
you?"

"You shall see me," said the soldier, "all in good time. Three
days from now I will come again, and will show myself to you, but
just now it cannot be. But if I come, will you marry me?"

"Yes I will," said the princess, "for I like the way you
talk--that I do!"

Thereupon the soldier kissed her and said good-bye, and then
stepped out of the window as he had stepped in. He sat him down
upon his three-legged stool. "I wish," said he, "to be carried to
such and such a tavern." For he had been in that town before, and
knew the places where good living was to be had.

Whir! whiz! away flew the stool as high and higher than it had
flown before, and then down it came again, and down and down
until it lit as light as a feather in the street before the
tavern door. The soldier tucked his feather cap in his pocket,
and the three-legged stool under his arm, and in he went and
ordered a pot of beer and some white bread and cheese.

Meantime, at the king's palace was such a gossiping and such a
hubbub as had not been heard there for many a day; for the pretty
princess was not slow in telling how the invisible King of the
Wind had come and asked her to marry him; and some said it was
true and some said it was not true, and everybody wondered and
talked, and told their own notions of the matter. But all agreed
that three days would show whether what had been told was true or
no.

As for the soldier, he knew no more how to do what he had
promised to do than my grandmother's cat; for where was he to get
clothes fine enough for the King of the Wind to wear? So there he
sat on his three-legged stool thinking and thinking, and if he
had known all that I know he would not have given two turns of
his wit upon it. "I wish," says he, at last--"I wish that this
stool could help me now as well as it can carry me through the
sky. I wish," says he, "that I had a suit of clothes such as the
King of the Wind might really wear."

The wonders of the three-legged stool were wonders indeed!

Hardly had the words left the soldier's lips when down came
something tumbling about his ears from up in the air; and what
should it be but just such a suit of clothes as he had in his
mind--all crusted over with gold and silver and jewels.

"Well," says the soldier, as soon as he had got over his wonder
again, "I would rather sit upon this stool than any I ever saw."
And so would I, if I had been in his place, and had a few minutes
to think of all that I wanted.

So he found out the trick of the stool, and after that wishing
and having were easy enough, and by the time the three days were
ended the real King of the Wind himself could not have cut a
finer figure. Then down sat the soldier upon his stool, and
wished himself at the king's palace. Away he flew through the
air, and by-and-by there he was, just where he had been before.
He put his feather cap upon his head, and stepped in through the
window, and there he found the princess with her father, the
king, and her mother, the queen, and all the great lords and
nobles waiting for his coming; but never a stitch nor a hair did
they see of him until he stood in the very midst of them all.
Then he whipped the feather cap off of his head, and there he
was, shining with silver and gold and glistening with
jewels--such a sight as man's eyes never saw before.

"Take her," said the king, "she is yours." And the soldier looked
so handsome in his fine clothes that the princess was as glad to
hear those words as any she had ever listened to in all of her
life.

"You shall," said the king, "be married to-morrow."

"Very well," said the soldier. "Only give me a plot of ground to
build a palace upon that shall be fit for the wife of the King of
the Wind to live in."

"You shall have it," said the king," and it shall be the great
parade ground back of the palace, which is so wide and long that
all my army can march round and round in it without getting into
its own way; and that ought to be big enough."

"Yes," said the soldier, "it is." Thereupon he put on his feather
cap and disappeared from the sight of all as quickly as one might
snuff out a candle.

He mounted his three-legged stool and away he flew through the
air until he had come again to the tavern where he was lodging.
There he sat him down and began to churn his thoughts, and the
butter he made was worth the having, I can tell you. He wished
for a grand palace of white marble, and then he wished for all
sorts of things to fill it--the finest that could be had. Then he
wished for servants in clothes of gold and silver, and then he
wished for fine horses and gilded coaches. Then he wished for
gardens and orchards and lawns and flower-plats and fountains,
and all kinds and sorts of things, until the sweat ran down his
face from hard thinking and wishing. And as he thought and
wished, all the things he thought and wished for grew up like
soap-bubbles from nothing at all.

Then, when day began to break, he wished himself with his fine
clothes to be in the palace that his own wits had made, and away
he flew through the air until he had come there safe and sound.

But when the sun rose and shone down upon the beautiful palace
and all the gardens and orchards around it, the king and queen
and all the court stood dumb with wonder at the sight. Then, as
they stood staring, the gates opened and out came the soldier
riding in his gilded coach with his servants in silver and gold
marching beside him, and such a sight the daylight never looked
upon before that day.

Well, the princess and the soldier were married, and if no couple
had ever been happy in the world before, they were then. Nothing
was heard but feasting and merrymaking, and at night all the sky
was lit with fireworks. Such a wedding had never been before, and
all the world was glad that it had happened.

That is, all the world but one; that one was the old man dressed
in scarlet that the soldier had met when he first came to town.
While all the rest were in the hubbub of rejoicing, he put on his
thinking-cap, and by-and-by began to see pretty well how things
lay, and that, as they say in our town, there was a fly in the
milk-jug. "Ho, ho!" thought he, "so the soldier has found out all
about the three-legged stool, has he? Well, I will just put a
spoke into his wheel for him." And so he began to watch for his
chance to do the soldier an ill turn.

Now, a week or two after the wedding, and after all the gay
doings had ended, a grand hunt was declared, and the king and his
new son-in-law and all the court went to it. That was just such a
chance as the old magician had been waiting for; so the night
before the hunting-party returned he climbed the walls of the
garden, and so came to the wonderful palace that the soldier had
built out of nothing at all, and there stood three men keeping
guard so that no one might enter.

But little that troubled the magician. He began to mutter spells
and strange words, and all of a sudden he was gone, and in his
place was a great black ant, for he had changed himself into an
ant. In he ran through a crack of the door (and mischief has got
into many a man's house through a smaller hole for the matter of
that). In and out ran the ant through one room and another, and
up and down and here and there, until at last in a far-away part
of the magic palace he found the three-legged stool, and if I had
been in the soldier's place I would have chopped it up into
kindling-wood after I had gotten all that I wanted. But there it
was, and in an instant the magician resumed his own shape. Down
he sat him upon the stool. "I wish," said he, "that this palace
and the princess and all who are within it, together with its
orchards and its lawns and its gardens and everything, may be
removed to such and such a country, upon the other side of the
earth."

And as the stool had obeyed the soldier, so everything was done
now just as the magician said.

The next morning back came the hunting-party, and as they rode
over the hill--lo and behold!--there lay stretched out the great
parade ground in which the king's armies used to march around and
around, and the land was as bare as the palm of my hand. Not a
stick or a stone of the palace was left; not a leaf or a blade of
the orchards or gardens was to be seen.

The soldier sat as dumb as a fish, and the king stared with eyes
and mouth wide open. "Where is the palace, and where is my
daughter?" said he, at last, finding words and wit.

"I do not know," said the soldier.

The king's face grew as black as thunder. "You do not know?" he
said, "then you must find out. Seize the traitor!" he cried.

But that was easier said than done, for, quick as a wink, as they
came to lay hold of him, the soldier whisked the feather cap from
his pocket and clapped it upon his head, and then they might as
well have hoped to find the south wind in winter as to find him.

But though he got safe away from that trouble he was deep enough
in the dumps, you may be sure of that. Away he went, out into the
wide world, leaving that town behind him. Away he went, until
by-and-by he came to a great forest, and for three days he
travelled on and on--he knew not whither. On the third night, as
he sat beside a fire which he had built to keep him warm, he
suddenly bethought himself of the little round stone which had
dropped from the bird's claw, and which he still had in his
pocket. "Why should it not also help me," said he, "for there
must be some wonder about it." So he brought it out, and sat
looking at it and looking at it, but he could make nothing of it
for the life of him. Nevertheless, it might have some wishing
power about it, like the magic stool. "I wish," said the soldier,
"that I might get out of this scrape." That is what we have all
wished many and many a time in a like case; but just now it did
the soldier no more good to wish than it does good for the rest
of us. "Bah!" said he, "it is nothing but a black stone after
all." And then he threw it into the fire.

Puff! Bang! Away flew the embers upon every side, and back
tumbled the soldier, and there in the middle of the flame stood
just such a grim, black being as he had one time shot at with the
silver button.

As for the poor soldier, he just lay flat on his back and stared
with eyes like saucers, for he thought that his end had come for
sure.

"What are my lord's commands?" said the being, in a voice that
shook the marrow of the soldier's bones.

"Who are you?" said the soldier.

"I am the spirit of the stone," said the being. "You have heated
it in the flame, and I am here. Whatever you command I must
obey."

"Say you so?" cried the soldier, scrambling to his feet. "Very
well, then, just carry me to where I may find my wife and my
palace again."

Without a word the spirit of the stone snatched the soldier up,
and flew away with him swifter than the wind. Over forest, over
field, over mountain and over valley he flew, until at last, just
at the crack of day, he set him down in front of his own palace
gate in the far country where the magician had transported it.

After that the soldier knew his way quickly enough. He clapped
his feather cap upon his head and into the palace he went, and
from one room to another, until at last he came to where the
princess sat weeping and wailing, with her pretty eyes red from
long crying.

Then the soldier took off his cap again, and you may guess what
sounds of rejoicing followed. They sat down beside one another,
and after the soldier had eaten, the princess told him all that
had happened to her; how the magician had found the stool, and
how he had transported the palace to this far-away land; how he
came every day and begged her to marry him--which she would
rather die than do.

To all this the soldier listened, and when she had ended her
story he bade her to dry her tears, for, after all, the jug was
only cracked, and not past mending. Then he told her that when
the sorcerer came again that day she should say so and so and so
and so, and that he would be by to help her with his feather cap
upon his head.

After that they sat talking together as happy as two
turtle-doves, until the magician's foot was heard on the stairs.
And then the soldier clapped his feather cap upon his head just
as the door opened.

"Snuff, snuff!" said the magician, sniffing the air, "here is a
smell of Christian blood."

"Yes," said the princess, "that is so; there came a peddlar
to-day, but after all he did not stay long."

"He'd better not come again," said the magician, "or it will be
the worse for him. But tell me, will you marry me?"

"No," said the princess, "I shall not marry you until you can
prove yourself to be a greater man than my husband."

"Pooh!" said the magician, "that will be easy enough to prove;
tell me how you would have me do so and I will do it."

"Very well," said the princess, "then let me see you change
yourself into a lion. If you can do that I may perhaps believe
you to be as great as my husband."

"It shall," said the magician, "be as you say. He began to mutter
spells and strange words, and then all of a sudden he was gone,
and in his place there stood a lion with bristling mane and
flaming eyes--a sight fit of itself to kill a body with terror.

"That will do!" cried the princess, quaking and trembling at the
sight, and thereupon the magician took his own shape again.

"Now," said he, "do you believe that I am as great as the poor
soldier?"

"Not yet," said the princess; "I have seen how big you can make
yourself, now I wish to see how little you can become. Let me see
you change yourself into a mouse."

"So be it," said the magician, and began again to mutter his
spells. Then all of a sudden he was gone just as he was gone
before, and in his place was a little mouse sitting up and
looking at the princess with a pair of eyes like glass beads.

But he did not sit there long. This was what the soldier had
planned for, and all the while he had been standing by with his
feather hat upon his head. Up he raised his foot, and down he set
it upon the mouse.

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