‘Good, good!’ said the King laughing. ‘I know what it is! Make him come in, and put him with the turkeys and chickens.’
The porter descends.
‘Have the goodness to enter.’
‘Good!’ says Drakestail to himself, ‘I shall now see how they eat at court.’
‘This way, this way,’ says the porter. ‘One step further. . . . There, there you are.’
‘How? what? in the poultry yard?’
Fancy how vexed Drakestail was!
‘Ah! so that’s it,’ says he. ‘Wait! I will compel you to receive me. Quack, quack, quack, when shall I get my money back?’ But turkeys and chickens are creatures who don’t like people that are not as themselves. When they saw the new-comer and how he was made, and when they heard him crying too, they began to look black at him.
‘What is it? what does he want?’
Finally they rushed at him all together, to overwhelm him with pecks.
‘I am lost!’ said Drakestail to himself, when by good luck he remembers his comrade friend Fox, and he cries:
‘Reynard, Reynard, come out of your earth, Or Drakestail’s life is of little worth.’
Then friend Fox, who was only waiting for these words, hastens out, throws himself on the wicked fowls, and quick! quack! he tears them to pieces; so much so that at the end of five minutes there was not one left alive. And Drakestail, quite content, began to sing again, ‘Quack, quack, quack, when shall I get my money back?’
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DRAKESTAIL, WITH HIS FRIENDS STOWED AWAY IN HIS GIZZARD, DEMANDS SPEECH OF THE KING.
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When the King who was still at table heard this refrain, and the poultry woman came to tell him what had been going on in the yard, he was terribly annoyed.
He ordered them to throw this tail of a drake into the well, to make an end of him.
And it was done as he commanded. Drakestail was in despair of getting himself out of such a deep hole, when he remembered his lady friend, the Ladder.
‘Ladder, Ladder, come out of thy hold,
Or Drakestail’s days will soon be told.’
My friend Ladder, who was only waiting for these words, hastens out, leans her two arms on the edge of the well, then Drakestail climbs nimbly on her back, and hop! he is in the yard, where he begins to sing louder than ever.
When the King, who was still at table and laughing at the good trick he had played his creditor, heard him again reclaiming his money, he became livid with rage.
He commanded that the furnace should be heated, and this tail of a drake thrown into it, because he must be a sorcerer.
The furnace was soon hot, but this time Drakestail was not so afraid; he counted on his sweetheart, my friend River.
‘River, River, outward flow,
Or to death Drakestail must go.’
My friend River hastens out, and errouf! throws herself into the furnace, which she floods, with all the people who had lighted it; after which she flowed growling into the hall of the palace to the height of more than four feet.
And Drakestail, quite content, begins to swim, singing deafeningly, ‘Quack, quack, quack, when shall I get my money back?’
The King was still at table, and thought himself quite sure of his game; but when he heard Drakestail singing again, and when they told him all that had passed, he became furious and got up from table brandishing his fists.
‘Bring him here, and I’ll cut his throat! bring him here quick!’ cried he.
And quickly two footmen ran to fetch Drakestail.
‘At last,’ said the poor chap, going up the great stairs, ‘they have decided to receive me.’
Imagine his terror when on entering he sees the King as red as
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a turkey cock, and all his ministers attending him standing sword in hand. He thought this time it was all up with him. Happily, he remembered that there was still one remaining friend, and he cried with dying accents:
‘Wasp’s-nest, Wasp’s-nest, make a sally,
Or Drakestail nevermore may rally.’
Hereupon the scene changes. ‘Bs, bs, bayonet them! ‘The brave Wasp’s-nest rushes out
with all his wasps. They threw themselves on the infuriated King and his ministers, and stung them so fiercely in the face that they lost their heads, and not knowing where to hide themselves they all jumped pell-mell from the window and broke their necks on the pavement.
Behold Drakestail much astonished, all alone in the big saloon and master of the field. He could not get over it.
Nevertheless, he remembered shortly what he had come for to the palace, and improving the occasion, he set to work to hunt for
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his dear money. But in vain he rummaged in all the drawers; he found nothing; all had been spent.
And ferreting thus from room to room he came at last to the one with the throne in it, and feeling fatigued, he sat himself down on it to think over his adventure. In the meanwhile the people had found their King and his ministers with their feet in the air on the pavement, and they had gone into the palace to know how it had occurred. On entering the throne-room, when the crowd saw that there was already someone on the royal seat, they broke out in cries of surprise and joy:
‘The King is dead, long live the King!
Heaven has sent us down this thing.’
Drakestail, who was no longer surprised at anything, received the acclamations of the people as if he had never done anything else all his life.
A few of them certainly murmured that a Drakestail would make a fine King; those who knew him replied that a knowing Drakestail was a more worthy King than a spendthrift like him who was lying on the pavement. In short, they ran and took the crown off the head of the deceased, and placed it on that of Drakestail, whom it fitted like wax.
Thus he became King.
‘And now,’ said he after the ceremony,; ladies and gentlemen, let’s go to supper. I am so hungry!’15
15Contes of Ch. Marelles.
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THE RATCATCHER
A VERY long time ago the town of Hamel in Germany was invaded by bands of rats, the like of which had never been seen before nor will ever be again.
They were great black creatures that ran boldly in broad daylight through the streets, and swarmed so, all over the houses, that people at last could not put their hand or foot down anywhere without touching one. When dressing in the morning they found them in their breeches and petticoats, in their pockets and in their boots; and when they wanted a morsel to eat, the voracious horde had swept away everything from cellar to garret. The night was even worse. As soon as the lights were out, these untiring nibblers set to work. And everywhere, in the ceilings, in the floors, in the cupboards, at the doors, there was a chase and a rummage, and so furious a noise of gimlets, pincers, and saws, that a deaf man could not have rested for one hour together.
Neither cats nor dogs, nor poison nor traps, nor prayers nor candles burnt to all the saints — nothing would do anything. The more they killed the more came. And the inhabitants of Hamel began to go to the dogs (not that they were of much use), when one Friday there arrived in the town a man with a queer face, who played the bagpipes and sang this refrain:
‘Qui vivra verra:
Le voilà,
Le preneur des rats.’
He was a great gawky fellow, dry and bronzed, with a crooked nose, a long rat-tail moustache, two great yellow piercing and mocking eyes, under a large felt hat set off by a scarlet cock’s feather. He was dressed in a green jacket with a leather belt and red breeches, and on his feet were sandals fastened by thongs passed round his legs in the gipsy fashion.
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That is how he may be seen to this day, painted on a window of the cathedral of Hamel.
He stopped on the great market-place before the town hall, turned his back on the church and went on with his music, singing:
‘Who lives shall see:
This is he,
The ratcatcher.’
The town council had just assembled to consider once more this plague of Egypt, from which no one could save the town.
The stranger sent word to the counsellors that, if they would make it worth his while, he would rid them of all their rats before night, down to the very last.
‘Then he is a sorcerer!’ cried the citizens with one voice; ‘we must beware of him.’
The Town Counsellor, who was considered clever, reassured them.