The Blue Mountainspage 4 / 9
The princess then told the Irishman that she must go away for a little while, but would come back for him in a few days in a carriage drawn by four gray horses. He told her to "be aisy" and not speak like that to him. "I have paid dear for you the last three nights," he said, "if I have any share of you now"; but in the twinkling of an eye she had gone. He did not know what to do with himself when he saw that she was gone, but before she went, she had given him a little rod, with which he could, when he pleased, waken the men who had been sleeping there, some of them for sixteen years. After being thus left alone, he went in and stretched himself on three chairs that were in the room, when what does he see coming in at the door but a little fair-haired boy!
"Where did you come from, my lad?" said the Irishman. "I came to make ready your food for you," said he. "Who told you to do that?" said the Irishman. "My mistress," answered the lad- "the princess that was under the spell and is now free."
By this the Irishman knew that she had sent the lad to wait on him. The lad also told him that his mistress wished him to be ready the next morning at nine o'clock, when she would come for him with the carriage, as she promised. He was greatly pleased at this, and next morning, when the time was drawing near, went out into the garden. But the little fair-haired boy took a big pin out of his pocket and stuck it into the back of the Irishman's coat without his noticing it, and he fell sound asleep.
Before long the princess came back with the carriage and four horses and asked the boy whether his master was awake. He said that he wasn't. "It is bad for him," said she, "when the night is not long enough for him to sleep. Tell him that if he doesn't meet me this time tomorrow it is not likely that he will ever see me again all his life."
As soon as she was gone the fair-haired boy took the pin out of his master's coat, who instantly awoke. The first word he said to the lad was: "Have you seen her?" "Yes," said he, "and she told me to tell you that if you don't meet her at nine o'clock tomorrow you will never see her again."