The Little Bookroom by Eleanor Farjeon Page A

we know, Westwoods is a desolate waste, inhabited by witches.’
    â€˜Perhaps it is a rich green land, peopled by lovely Princesses,’ said the King. ‘Tomorrow I will hunt Westwoods, and find out.’
    â€˜Sire! it is forbidden!’ the Ministers cried in alarm.
    â€˜Forbidden!’ repeated John thoughtfully; and then he remembered what he had forgotten since he grew up, how in his childhood he had been warned by his parents against ever venturing into Westwoods.
    â€˜Why?’ he asked his mother.
    â€˜They are full of danger,’ she had told him.
    â€˜What danger, Mother?’
    â€˜That I can’t tell you, because I don’t know,’ said she.
    â€˜Then how do you know there is any danger, Mother?’
    â€˜Everyone knows it. Every mother in the land warns her child of it, as I am warning you. There is something very strange in Westwoods.’
    â€˜Perhaps it isn’t dangerous, though,’ said the Prince, as he then was; and the strange thing in Westwoods that nobody knew stayed in his thoughts, and he longed for it. So much, that one day he ran away and tried to get into the woods; but when he reached them he discovered a tall wooden fence, too high for a child to see over, and too close for a child to peep through. It hid the whole of that side of Westwoods which touched his father’s kingdom. All along this fence, which looked as old as time, children were prying and peeping, stooping low, and standing on tiptoe, trying to find a crack, trying to be taller. The little Prince, too, stooped and peeped, and strained and peered. But all in vain—the fence was built too high and knit too close. He went back to the palace full of bitter disappointment, and sought his mother.
    â€˜Who put the fence round Westwoods, Mother?’ he asked.
    â€˜Oh,’ she cried in dismay, ‘have you, too, been there? Nobody knows who put the fence up, or when. It is out of man’s memory.’
    â€˜I want it pulled down,’ said the Prince.
    â€˜It is there to protect you,’ said she.
    â€˜Protect me from what?’ asked the little Prince.
    But as she did not know, she could not tell him; so she shook her head, and put her finger on her lips.
    In spite of this protection of the fence, the mothers of Workaday had always warned their children of the dangers that lay beyond it; and the children had always run at once to try to find cracks to look through. No Workaday child ever lost its wish to get into Westwoods until it grew up and got married and had a child of its own. And then it warned its own child of the dangers it had never seen.
    It was no wonder, then, that when John declared he would go hunting in Westwoods, the Ministers were afraid for their children. They cried out again, ‘It is forbidden!’
    â€˜So my mother told me when I was a boy,’ said John. ‘We will hunt Westwoods tomorrow.’
    â€˜Your Majesty! all the fathers and mothers in the land will rise against you if you pull down the fence.’
    â€˜We will jump over the fence,’ said the young King, ‘and we will hunt Westwoods tomorrow.’
    He went to tell Selina to put out his things, and found her leaning on her broom over his desk, reading what he had been writing. ‘Don’t do that!’ said the King sharply.
    â€˜Oh, all right,’ said Selina. She moved off, and began dusting the mantelpiece.
    The King waited for her to say something else, but as she didn’t he had to. He said rather coldly, ‘I’m going hunting tomorrow. I want you to put out my things.’
    â€˜What things?’ asked Selina.
    â€˜My hunting things, of course,’ said the King; and thought, ‘she really is the stupidest girl I know.’
    â€˜All right,’ said Selina. ‘So you’re going hunting, then.’
    â€˜Didn’t I tell you so?’
    â€˜Where are you hunting?’
    â€˜In