Compositions: A Random Collection

The Snow Queen

STORY THE FIFTH

The Little Robber Girl

They were driving through the dark forest, but the coach shone like a blaze, and dazzled the eyes of the robbers and they couldn't stand it. "It's gold, it's gold!" they shouted, and dashed out and seized the horses, killed the little postilions and the coachman, and the servants, and dragged little Gerda out of the carriage.

"She's fat, she's dainty, she's been fed up with nut kernels," said the old robber woman, who had a long coarse beard and eye-brows that hung down over her eyes; "she's as good as a little house-lamb; aha, how good she'll taste!" With that she drew her bright knife, and it shone frightfully.

"Ow!" said the old hag all at once. She'd been bitten in the ear by her own little daughter, who was hanging on her back, and was so wild and rough as never was. "Nasty brat!" said her mother, and had no time to kill Gerda.

"She shall play with me," said the little robber girl, "she will give me her muff and her nice frock and sleep with me in my bed." She gave her mother another bite, so that the old hag jumped in the air and twisted right round, and all the robbers laughed and said: "Look at her dancing with her young 'un."

"I'm going to go in the coach," said the little robber girl, and she must and would have her way, so spoilt and obstinate she was. She and Gerda sat in it and drove over stumps and thorn-bushes, deep into the forest. The little robber girl was as big as Gerda, but stronger, broader in the shoulders and dark-skinned. Her eyes were quite black and had a rather sorrowful expression. She put her arm about little Gerda and said: "They shan't kill you as long as I don't get cross with you: of course, you're a Princess?"

"No," said little Gerda, and told her everything that had happened to her, and how fond she was of little Kay. The robber girl looked at her very gravely and nodded her head and said: "They shan't kill you even if I do get cross with you; I'll do it myself." And she dried Gerda's eyes and put both her hands into the pretty muff that was so soft and warm.

The coach stopped. They were in the court of a robber's castle. It had split from top to bottom. Ravens and crows flew out of the holes in the wall, and the big bulldogs, each of which looked as if he could swallow a man, leapt high in the air but didn't bark, for they weren't allowed to. In the great old sooty hall a large fire was burning in the middle of the stone floor; the smoke mounted to the vault and had to find its own way out. A large copper was on the boil, with soup, and hares and rabbits were turning on the spit.

"You shall sleep to-night with me and all my pets," said the robber girl. They had something to eat and drink, and then went off into a corner where straw and blankets were lying: up above, about a hundred pigeons were perched on laths and poles. They seemed to be all asleep, but they stirred a little when the girls came there.

"Those are all mine," said the little robber girl. She seized one of the nearest and held it by the legs and shook it till it flapped its wings. "Kiss it," she cried, buffeting Gerda in the face with it. "There sit the wood rubbish," she went on, pointing behind a number of slats nailed in front of a hole higher up. "Wood rubbish they are, those two. They'd fly off at once if they hadn't been locked up safe; and there's my own old sweetheart Bae." She pulled out a reindeer by the horn: he had a bright ring of copper on his neck and was tethered up. "We have to keep him tight too, else he'd go bounding away from us. Every blessed night I tickle him in the neck with my sharp knife, and it frightens him awfully," and the little girl pulled a long knife out of a crack in the wall and slid it along the reindeer's neck. The poor beast kicked out with his legs and the robber girl laughed, and then pulled Gerda into bed with her.

"Do you want the knife with you when you go to sleep?" Gerda asked, looking at it rather nervously.

"I always sleep with my knife by me," said the little robber girl, "you never know what may happen. But now tell me again what you told me about little Kay, and why you've come out into the wide world." So Gerda told it again from the beginning, and the wood-pigeons cooed up in their cage, and the other pigeons slept. The little robber girl put her arms round Gerda's neck, holding her knife in her other hand, and slept-you could hear her-but Gerda couldn't even shut her eyes; she didn't know whether she was to live or die. The robbers sat round the fire and sang and drank, and the old hag turned head over heels. It was a frightful sight for the little girl to see.

Then the wood-pigeons said: "Coo, Coo! We have seen little Kay. A white hen was carrying his sledge, and he was sitting in the Snow Queen's carriage which was flying low above the forest where we lay in the nest. She breathed on us young ones and all of them died but us two. Coo! Coo!" "What are you saying up there?" cried Gerda. "Where did the Snow Queen drive to? Do you know anything about it?"

"She drove to Lapland for sure, for there's always snow and ice there. Just ask the reindeer that's tied by the rope there."

"There is ice and snow, it's lovely and pleasant there," said the reindeer. "There you can run about free in the great shining valleys. The Snow Queen has her summer pavilion there, but her strong castle is up by the North Pole, on the island that's called Spitzbergen."

"Oh, Kay, dear little Kay!" sighed Gerda.

"Now just you lie still," said the robber girl, "else you'll get a knife in your belly." In the morning Gerda told her everything the wood-pigeons had said, and the little robber girl looked very grave, but nodded and said: "It's all one, it's all one. Do you know where Lapland is?" she asked the reindeer.

"Who should know better than I?" said the beast, his eyes dancing in his head. "I was bred and born there, and it's there I used to bound over the snowfields."

"Look here," said the robber girl to Gerda, "all our menfolk are out, you see, but mother's here still and here she'll be; but later in the morning she'll drink out of the big bottle and have a little nap after; and then I'll do something for you." She jumped out of bed, ran across to her mother and pulled her by the beard, and said, "Good morning to my own dear nanny goat". And her mother flipped her under the nose till it turned red and blue, but it was all done out of pure affection.

Well, when her mother had had a drink out of the bottle and was taking a little nap, the robber girl went to the reindeer and said: "I should awfully like to give you a lot more ticklings with my sharp knife, for you're very funny when I do; but no matter for that, I'm going to loose your tether and help you off, so that you can run to Lapland. But you must put your best foot foremost and take the little girl for me to the Snow Queen's palace where her playfellow is. You've heard what she told me, for she talked quite loud enough, and you were eavesdropping."

The reindeer jumped for joy. The robber girl lifted little Gerda up and had the forethought to tie her fast, and even give her a little pad to sit on. "It don't matter," said she. "Here are your fur boots, for it'll be cold, but your muff I shall keep, it's much too pretty. All the same, you shan't be frozen. Here's my mother's big mittens that reach up to your elbow, shove 'em on. Now your hands look just like my ugly old mother's."

Gerda cried for joy.

"I hate your whimpering," said the little robber girl. "Why, you ought to look really happy; and there's two loaves for you, and a ham, so you shan't starve." Both these were tied to the reindeer's back. The little robber girl opened the door, and called in all the big dogs, and then she cut the rope with her knife and said to the reindeer: "Off you go, but take good care of the little girl." Gerda stretched out her hands in the big mittens to the robber girl, and said "Good-bye", and then the reindeer bounded off over bushes and stumps through the great forest, over marsh and moor, as fast as ever he could. The wolves howled and the ravens screamed. In the sky there was a noise, "Fut, fut!" It seemed as if someone were sneezing red. "Those are my dear Northern Lights," said the reindeer, "look how they shine." Faster and faster he ran, through day and night alike. The loaves were eaten up and the ham too, and then-they were in Lapland.