The bear said, "I was also afraid of you when I saw that gentleman
setting you down from the carriage. I thought you would have guns with
you, and that you would not mind killing me if you saw me; but when I
saw the gentleman going away with the carriage, and leaving you behind
by yourself, I made bold to come to you, to see who you were, and now I
know who you are very well. Are you not the king's youngest son? I have
seen you and your brothers and lots of other gentlemen in this wood many
times. Now before we go from here, I must tell you that I am in
disguise; and I shall take you where we are stopping."
The young Prince tells him everything from first to last, how he started
in search of the apples, and about the three old men, and about the
castle, and how he was served at last by his father after he came home;
and instead of the headsman taking his head off, he was kind enough to
leave him his life, "and here I am now, under your protection."
The bear tells him, "Come on, my brother; there shall no harm come to
you as long as you are with me."
So he takes him up to the tents; and when they see 'em coming, the girls
begin to laugh, and say, "Here is our Jubal coming with a young
gentleman." When he advanced nearer the tents, they all knew that he was
the young Prince that had passed by that way many times before; and when
Jubal went to change himself, he called most of them together into one
tent, and told them all about him, and to be kind to him. And so they
were, for there was nothing that he desired but what he had, the same as
if he was in the palace with his father and mother. Jubal, after he
pulled off his hairy coat, was one of the finest young men amongst them,
and he was the young Prince's closest companion. The young Prince was
always very sociable and merry, only when he thought of the gold watch
he had from the young Princess in the castle, and which he had lost he
knew not where.
He passed off many happy days in the forest; but one day he and poor
Jubal were strolling through the trees, when they came to the very spot
where they first met, and, accidentally looking up, he could see his
watch hanging in the tree which he had to climb when he first saw poor
Jubal coming to him in the form of a bear; and he cries out, "Jubal,
Jubal, I can see my watch up in that tree."
"Well, I am sure, how lucky!" exclaimed poor Jubal; "shall I go and get
it down?"
"No, I'd rather go myself," said the young Prince.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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