ble
a steed!' he cried; 'no wonder it has gone from me to seek for a
worthier master! If by good fortune I find it again, needs must I do
great things by its aid to be worthy of its service.' So he set out,
following the furrow of its course, determined, however far he must
seek, to journey on till he found it.

For a whole year he travelled, till at length he came, footsore and
weary, to a deserted palace standing in the midst of an overgrown
garden. The great gates, which lay wide open, were overrun with
creepers, and the paths were green with weeds. That morning he had
thought that he saw far away on the hills the gleam of his silver
Plough, and now hope rose high, for he could see by its track that
the Plough had passed before him into the garden of the palace. 'O my
moonbeam,' he thought, 'is it here I shall find you at last?'

Within the garden there was a sound of cross questions and crooked
answers, of many talking with loud voices, and of one weeping apart
from the rest. When he got quite close, he was struck still with awe,
and joy, and wonder. For first there lay the Galloping Plough in the
middle of a green lawn, and round it a score of serving-men, tugging
at it and trying to make it move on. Near by stood an old woman,
wringing her hands and begging them to leave it alone: 'For,' cried
she, 'if the Plough touches but the feet of the Princess, she will be
uprooted, and will presently wither away and die. Of what use is it to
break one, if the other enchantments cannot be broken?'

In the centre of the lawn grew a bower of roses, and beneath the bower
stood the loveliest princess that ever eye beheld; but she stood there
motionless, and without sign of life. She seemed neither to hear, nor
see, nor breathe; her feet were rooted to the ground; though they
seemed only to rest lightly under her weight upon the grass, no man,
nor a hundred men, could stir her from where she stood. And, as the
spell that held her fast bound to the spot, even so was the spell that
sealed her senses,--no man might lift it from her. When Noodle set
eyes upon her he knew that for the third time his heart had been
stolen from him, and that to be happy he must possess her, or die.

He ran quickly to the old woman, who, unregarded by the serving-men,
stood weeping and wringing her hands. 'Tell me, said Noodle, 'who is
this sleeper who stands enchanted and rooted like a flower to earth?
And who are you, and these others who work and