officers to make Celia a prisoner and carry her off to his palace. All day long the remembrance of what she had said annoyed him, but as he loved her he could not make up his mind to have her punished.
One of the Prince’s favourite companions was his foster-brother, whom he trusted entirely; but he was not at all a good man, and gave Prince Darling very bad advice, and encouraged him in all his evil ways. When he saw the Prince so downcast he asked what was the matter, and when he explained that he could not bear Celia’s bad opinion of him, and was resolved to be a better man in order to please her, this evil adviser said to him:
‘You are very kind to trouble yourself about this little girl; if I were you I would soon make her obey me. Remember that you are a king, and that it would be laughable to see you trying to please a shepherdess, who ought to be only too glad to be one of your slaves. Keep her in prison, and feed her on bread and water for a little while, and then, if she still says she will not marry you, have her head cut off, to teach other people that you mean to be obeyed. Why, if you cannot make a girl like that do as you wish, your subjects will soon forget that they are only put into the world for our pleasure.’
‘But,’ said Prince Darling, ‘would it not be a shame if I had an innocent girl put to death? For Celia really has done nothing to deserve punishment.’
‘If people will not do as you tell them they ought to suffer for it,’ answered his foster-brother; ‘but even if it were unjust, you had better be accused of that by your subjects than that they should find out that they may insult and thwart you as often as they please.’
In saying this he was touching a weak point in his brother’s character; for the Prince’s fear of losing any of his power made him at once abandon his first idea of trying to be good, and resolve to try and frighten the shepherdess into consenting to marry him.
His foster-brother, who wanted him to keep this resolution, invited three young courtiers, as wicked as himself, to sup with the Prince, and they persuaded him to drink a great deal of wine, and continued to excite his anger against Celia by telling him that she had laughed at his love for her; until at last, in quite a furious rage, he rushed oft to find her, declaring that if she still refused to marry him she should be sold as a slave the very next day.
But when he reached the room in which Celia had been locked
