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whereon the others said, "Such people always want to be wiser than everybody
else."

They now let him go on alone; and as he went, his breast was filled more and
more with the forest solitude; but he still heard the little bell with which
the others were so satisfied, and now and then, when the wind blew, he could
also hear the people singing who were sitting at tea where the confectioner
had his tent; but the deep sound of the bell rose louder; it was almost as if
an organ were accompanying it, and the tones came from the left hand, the side
where the heart is placed. A rustling was heard in the bushes, and a little
boy stood before the King's Son, a boy in wooden shoes, and with so short a
jacket that one could see what long wrists he had. Both knew each other: the
boy was that one among the children who could not come because he had to go
home and return his jacket and boots to the innkeeper's son. This he had done,
and was now going on in wooden shoes and in his humble dress, for the bell
sounded with so deep a tone, and with such strange power, that proceed he
must.

"Why, then, we can go together," said the King's Son. But the poor child that
had been confirmed was quite ashamed; he looked at his wooden shoes, pulled at
the short sleeves of his jacket, and said that he was afraid he could not walk
so fast; besides, he thought that the bell must be looked for to the right;
for that was the place where all sorts of beautiful things were to be found.

"But there we shall not meet," said the King's Son, nodding at the same time
to the poor boy, who went into the darkest, thickest part of the wood, where
thorns tore his humble dress, and scratched his face and hands and feet till
they bled. The King's Son got some scratches too; but the sun shone on his
path, and it is him that we will follow, for he was an excellent and resolute
youth.

"I must and will find the bell," said he, "even if I am obliged to go to the
end of the world."

The ugly apes sat upon the trees, and grinned. "Shall we thrash him?" said
they. "Shall we thrash him? He is the son of a king!"

But on he went, without being disheartened, deeper and deeper into the wood,
where the most wonderful flowers were growing. There stood white lilies with
blood-red stamina, skyblue tulips, which shone as they waved in the winds, and
apple-trees, the apples of which looked exactly like large soapbubbles: so
only think how the trees must have sparkled in the sunshine! Around the nicest
green meads, where the deer were playing in the grass, grew magnificent oaks
and beeches; and if the bark of one of the trees was cracked, there grass and
long creeping plants grew in the crevices. And there were large calm lakes
there too, in which white swans were swimming, and beat the air with their
wings. The King's Son often stood still and listened. He thought the bell
sounded from the depths of these still lakes; but then he remarked again that

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