ed to proceed to one of the four
quarters of the globe, and then it would become manifest which of them
was favoured by fortune. Every one took a sausage-peg, so as to keep
in mind the object of the journey. The stiff sausage-peg was to be to
them as a pilgrim's staff.

It was at the beginning of May that they set out, and they did not
return till the May of the following year; and then only three of them
appeared. The fourth did not report herself, nor was there any
intelligence of her, though the day of trial was close at hand.

"Yes, there's always some drawback in even the pleasantest affair,"
said the Mouse King.

And then he gave orders that all mice within a circuit of many miles
should be invited. They were to assemble in the kitchen, where the
three travelled mice would stand up in a row, while a sausage-peg,
shrouded in crape, was set up as a memento of the fourth, who was
missing. No one was to proclaim his opinion till the mouse king had
settled what was to be said. And now let us hear.

II.

_What the first little Mouse had seen and learnt in her travels._

"When I went out into the wide world," said the little Mouse, "I
thought, as many think at my age, that I had already learnt
everything; but that was not the case. Years must pass before one gets
so far. I went to sea at once. I went in a ship that steered towards
the north. They had told me that the ship's cook must know how to
manage things at sea; but it is easy enough to manage things when one
has plenty of sides of bacon, and whole tubs of salt pork, and mouldy
flour. One has delicate living on board; but one does not learn to
prepare soup on a sausage-peg. We sailed along for many days and
nights; the ship rocked fearfully, and we did not get off without a
wetting. When we at last reached the port to which we were bound, I
left the ship; and it was high up in the far north.

"It is a wonderful thing, to go out of one's own corner at home, and
sail in a ship, where one has a sort of corner too, and then suddenly
to find oneself hundreds of miles away in a strange land. I saw great
pathless forests of pine and birch, which smelt so strong that I
sneezed, and thought of sausage. There were great lakes there too.
When I came close to them the waters were quite clear, but from a
distance they looked black as ink. Great swans floated upon them: I
thought at first they were spots of foam, they lay so still; but then
I saw them walk and fly, and