The Brown Fairy Book. Lang Andrew

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СКАЧАТЬ happiness as he looked around him, and sitting down on a heap of stones, he ate till he could eat no more. Trout, salmon, turbot, soles, and a hundred other fishes whose names he did not know, lay boiled, fried, and grilled within reach of his hands. As the Holy Man had said, he had never eaten such a dinner; still, when he had done, he shook his head, and grumbled; ‘Yes, there is plenty to eat, of course, but it only makes me thirsty, and there is not a drop to drink anywhere.’

      Yet, somehow, he could never tell why, he looked up and saw the tavern in front of him, which he thought was miles, and miles, and miles away.

      ‘Bring the best wine you have got, and two glasses, good mother,’ he said as he entered, ‘and if you are fond of fish there is enough here to feed the house. Only there is no need to chatter about it all over the place. You understand? Eh?’ And without waiting for an answer he whispered to the basket: ‘Little basket, little basket, do your duty.’ The innkeeper and his wife thought that their customer had gone suddenly mad, and watched him closely, ready to spring on him if he became violent; but both instinctively jumped backwards, nearly into the fire, as rolls and fishes of every kind came tumbling out of the basket, covering the tables and chairs and the floor, and even overflowing into the street.

      ‘Be quick, be quick, and pick them up,’ cried the man. ‘And if these are not enough, there are plenty more to be had for the asking.’

      The innkeeper and his wife did not need telling twice. Down they went on their knees and gathered up everything they could lay hands on. But busy though they seemed, they found time to whisper to each other:

      ‘If we can only get hold of that basket it will make our fortune!’

      So they began by inviting Father Grumbler to sit down to the table, and brought out the best wine in the cellar, hoping it might loosen his tongue. But Father Grumbler was wiser than they gave him credit for, and though they tried in all manner of ways to find out who had given him the basket, he put them off, and kept his secret to himself. Unluckily, though he did not speak, he did drink, and it was not long before he fell fast asleep. Then the woman fetched from her kitchen a basket, so like the magic one that no one, without looking very closely, could tell the difference, and placed it in Father Grumbler’s hand, while she hid the other carefully away.

      It was dinner time when the man awoke, and, jumping up hastily, he set out for home, where he found all the children gathered round a basin of thin soup, and pushing their wooden bowls forward, hoping to have the first spoonful. Their father burst into the midst of them, bearing his basket, and crying:

      ‘Don’t spoil your appetites, children, with that stuff. Do you see this basket? Well, I have only got to say, “Little basket, little basket, do your duty,” and you will see what will happen. Now you shall say it instead of me, for a treat.’

      The children, wondering and delighted, repeated the words, but nothing happened. Again and again they tried, but the basket was only a basket, with a few scales of fish sticking to the bottom, for the innkeeper’s wife had taken it to market the day before.

      ‘What is the matter with the thing?’ cried the father at last, snatching the basket from them, and turning it all over, grumbling and swearing while he did so, under the eyes of his astonished wife and children, who did not know whether to cry or to laugh.

      ‘It certainly smells of fish,’ he said, and then he stopped, for a sudden thought had come to him.

      ‘Suppose it is not mine at all; supposing – Ah, the scoundrels!’

      And without listening to his wife and children, who were frightened at his strange conduct and begged him to stay at home, he ran across to the tavern and burst open the door.

      ‘Can I do anything for you, Father Grumbler?’ asked the innkeeper’s wife in her softest voice.

      ‘I have taken the wrong basket – by mistake, of course,’ said he. ‘Here is yours, will you give me back my own?’

      ‘Why, what are you talking about?’ answered she. ‘You can see for yourself that there is no basket here.’

      And though Father Grumbler did look, it was quite true that none was to be seen.

      ‘Come, take a glass to warm you this cold day,’ said the woman, who was anxious to keep him in a good temper, and as this was an invitation Father Grumbler never refused, he tossed it off and left the house.

      He took the road that led to the Holy Man’s cave, and made such haste that it was not long before he reached it.

      ‘Who is there?’ said a voice in answer to his knock.

      ‘It is me, it is me, Holy Man. You know quite well. Father Grumbler, who has as many children as sparrows in the garden.’

      ‘But, my good man, it was only yesterday that I gave you a handsome present.’

      ‘Yes, Holy Man, and here it is. But something has happened, I don’t know what, and it won’t work any more.’

      ‘Well, put it down. I will go and see if I can find anything for you.’

      In a few minutes the Holy Man returned with a cock under his arm.

      ‘Listen to me,’ he said, ‘whenever you want money, you have only to say: “Show me what you can do, cock,” and you will see some wonderful things. But, remember, it is not necessary to let all the world into the secret.’

      ‘Oh no, Holy Man, I am not so foolish as that.’

      ‘Nor to tell everybody that I gave it to you,’ went on the Holy Man. ‘I have not got these treasures by the dozen.’

      And without waiting for an answer he shut the door.

      As before, the distance seemed to have wonderfully shortened, and in a moment the tavern rose up in front of Father Grumbler. Without stopping to think, he went straight in, and found the innkeeper’s wife in the kitchen making a cake.

      ‘Where have you come from, with that fine red cock in your basket,’ asked she, for the bird was so big that the lid would not shut down properly.

      ‘Oh, I come from a place where they don’t keep these things by the dozen,’ he replied, sitting down in front of the table.

      The woman said no more, but set before him a bottle of his favourite wine, and soon he began to wish to display his prize.

      ‘Show me what you can do, cock,’ cried he. And the cock stood up and flapped his wings three times, crowing ‘coquerico’ with a voice like a trumpet, and at each crow there fell from his beak golden drops, and diamonds as large as peas.

      This time Father Grumbler did not invite the innkeeper’s wife to pick up his treasures, but put his own hat under the cock’s beak, so as to catch everything he let fall; and he did not see the husband and wife exchanging glances with each other which said, ‘That would be a splendid cock to put with our basket.’

      ‘Have another glass of wine?’ suggested the innkeeper, when they had finished admiring the beauty of the cock, for they pretended not to have seen the gold or the diamonds. And Father Grumbler, nothing loth, drank one glass after another, till his head fell forward on the table, and once more he was sound asleep. Then the woman gently coaxed the cock from the basket and carried it off to her own poultry yard, from which she brought one exactly like it, and popped it in its place.

      Night was falling when the man awoke, and throwing СКАЧАТЬ