their wings. Yet there they were, making their fearless way through the sky.
Prince Dolor looked at them as one after the other they glided past him; and they looked at him–those pretty swallows, with their changing necks and bright eyes–as if wondering to meet in mid-air such an extraordinary sort of bird.
“Oh, I wish I were going with you, you lovely creatures! I’m getting so tired of this dull plain, and the dreary and lonely tower. I do so want to see the world! Pretty swallows, dear swallows! tell me what it looks like–the beautiful, wonderful world!”
But the swallows flew past him–steadily, slowly pursuing their course as if inside each little head had been a mariner’s compass, to guide them safe over land and sea, direct to the place where they wished to go.
The boy looked after them with envy. For a long time he followed with his eyes the faint, wavy black line as it floated away, sometimes changing its curves a little, but never deviating from its settled course, till it vanished entirely out of sight.
Then he settled himself down in the center of the cloak, feeling quite sad and lonely.
“I think I’ll go home,” said he, and repeated his “Abracadabra, tum tum ti!” with a rather heavy heart. The more he had, the more he wanted; and it is not always one can have everything one wants–at least, at the exact minute one craves for it; not even though one is a prince, and has a powerful and beneficent godmother.
He did not like to vex her by calling for her and telling her how unhappy he was, in spite of all her goodness; so he just kept his trouble to himself, went back to his lonely tower, and spent three days in silent melancholy, without even attempting another journey on his
traveling-cloak.
CHAPTER VI
The fourth day it happened that the
deaf-mute paid his accustomed visit, after which Prince Dolor’s spirits
rose. They always did when he got
the new books which, just to relieve his conscience, the King of Nomansland regularly sent to his nephew; with many new toys also, though the latter were disregarded now.
“Toys, indeed! when I’m a big boy,” said the Prince, with disdain, and would scarcely condescend to mount a rocking-horse which had come, somehow or other,–I can’t be expected to explain things very exactly,–packed on the back of the other, the great black horse, which stood and fed contentedly at the bottom of the tower.
Prince Dolor leaned over and looked at it, and thought how grand it must be to get upon its back–this grand live steed–and ride away, like the pictures of knights.
“Suppose I was a knight,” he said to himself; “then I should be obliged to ride out and see the world.”
But he kept all these thoughts to himself, and just sat still, devouring his new books till he had come to the end of them all. It was a repast not unlike the Barmecide’s feast which you read of in the “Arabian Nights,” which
consisted of very elegant but empty dishes, or that supper of Sancho Panza in “Don Quixote,” where, the minute the smoking dishes came on the table, the physician waved his hand and they were all taken away.
Thus almost all the ordinary delights of boy- life had been taken away from, or rather never given to this poor little prince.
“I wonder,” he would sometimes think–“I wonder what it feels like to be on the back of a horse, galloping away, or holding the reins in a carriage, and tearing across the country, or jumping a ditch, or running a race, such as I read of or see in pictures. What a lot of things there are that I should like to do! But first I should like to go and see the world. I’ll try.”
Apparently it was his godmother’s plan always to let him try, and try hard, before he gained anything. This day the knots that tied up his traveling-cloak were more than usually troublesome, and he was a full half-hour before he got out into the open air, and found himself floating merrily over the top of the tower.
Hitherto, in all his journeys, he had never let himself go out of sight of home, for the dreary building, after all, was home–he remembered no other; but now he felt sick of the very look of his tower, with its round smooth walls and level battlements.
“Off we go!” cried he, when the cloak stirred itself with a slight, slow motion, as if waiting his orders. “Anywhere anywhere, so that I am away from here, and out into the world.”
As he spoke, the cloak, as if seized suddenly with a new idea, bounded forward and went skimming through the air, faster than the very fastest railway train.
“Gee-up! gee-up!” cried Prince Dolor in great excitement. “This is as good as riding a race.”
And he patted the cloak as if it had been a horse–that is, in the way he supposed horses ought to be patted–and tossed his head back to meet the fresh breeze, and pulled his coat collar up and his hat down as he felt the wind grow keener and colder–colder than anything he had ever known.
“What does it matter, though?” said he. “I’m a boy, and boys ought not to mind anything.”
Still, for all his good-will, by and by, he began to shiver exceedingly; also, he had come away without his dinner, and he grew frightfully hungry. And to add to everything, the sunshiny day changed into rain, and being high
up, in the very midst of the clouds, he got soaked through and through in a very few minutes.
“Shall I turn back?” meditated he.
“Suppose I say `Abracadabra?’ “
Here he stopped, for already the cloak gave an obedient lurch, as if it were expecting to be sent home immediately.
“No–I can’t–I can’t go back! I must go forward and see the world. But oh! if I had but the shabbiest old rug to shelter me from the rain, or the driest morsel of bread and cheese, just to keep me from starving! Still, I don’t much mind; I’m a prince, and ought to be able to stand anything. Hold on, cloak, we’ll make the best of it.”
It was a most curious circumstance, but no sooner had he said this than he felt stealing over his knees something warm and soft; in fact, a most beautiful bearskin, which folded itself round him quite naturally, and cuddled him up as closely as if he had been the cub of the kind old mother-bear that once owned it. Then feeling in his pocket, which suddenly stuck out in a marvelous way, he found, not exactly bread and cheese, nor even sandwiches, but a packet of the most delicious food he had ever tasted. It was not meat, nor pudding, but a combination of both, and it served him excellently for both. He ate his dinner with the greatest gusto imaginable, till he grew so thirsty he did not know what to do.
“Couldn’t I have just one drop of water, if it didn’t trouble you too much, kindest of godmothers?”
For he really thought this want was beyond her power to supply. All the water which supplied Hopeless Tower was pumped up with difficulty from a deep artesian well–there were
such things known in Nomansland–which had been made at the foot of it. But around, for miles upon miles, the desolate plain was perfectly dry. And above it, high in the air, how
could he expect to find a well, or to get even a drop of water?
He forgot one thing–the rain. While he spoke, it came on in another wild burst, as if the clouds had poured themselves out in a passion of crying, wetting him certainly, but leaving behind, in a large glass vessel which he had never noticed before, enough water to quench the thirst of two or three boys at least. And it was so fresh, so pure–as water from the clouds always is when it does not catch the soot from city chimneys and other defilements–that he drank it, every drop, with the greatest delight and content.
Also, as soon as it was empty the rain filled it again, so that he was able to wash his face and hands and refresh himself exceedingly. Then the sun came out and dried him in no time. After that he curled himself up under the bear- skin rug, and though he determined to be the most wide-awake boy imaginable, being so exceedingly snug and warm and comfortable, Prince Dolor condescended to shut his eyes just for one minute. The next minute he was sound asleep.
When he awoke, he found himself floating over a country quite unlike anything he had ever seen before.
Yet it was nothing but what most of you children see every day and never notice it–a pretty country landscape, like England, Scotland, France, or any other land you choose to name. It had no particular features–nothing in it grand or lovely–was simply pretty, nothing more; yet to Prince Dolor, who had never gone beyond his lonely tower and level plain, it appeared the most charming sight imaginable.
First, there was a river. It came tumbling down the hillside, frothing and foaming, playing at hide-and-seek among the rocks, then
bursting out in noisy fun like a child, to bury itself in deep, still pools. Afterward it went steadily on for a while, like a good grown-up person, till it came to another big rock, where it misbehaved itself extremely. It turned into a cataract, and went tumbling over and over, after a fashion that made the prince–who had never seen water before, except in his bath or his drinking-cup–clap his hands with delight.
“It is so active, so alive! I like things active and alive!” cried he, and watched it shimmering and dancing, whirling and leaping, till, after a few windings and vagaries, it settled into a respectable stream. After that it went along, deep and quiet, but flowing steadily on, till it reached a large lake, into which it slipped and so ended its course.
All this the boy saw, either with his own naked eye or through his gold spectacles. He saw also as in a picture, beautiful but silent, many other things which struck him with
wonder, especially a grove of trees.
Only think, to have lived to his age (which he himself did not know, as he did not know his own birthday) and never to have seen trees! As he floated over these oaks, they seemed to him–trunk, branches, and leaves–the most curious sight imaginable.
“If I could only get nearer, so as to touch them,” said he, and immediately the obedient cloak ducked down; Prince Dolor made a
snatch at the topmost twig of the tallest tree, and caught a bunch of leaves in his hand.
Just a bunch of green leaves–such as we see in myriads; watching them bud, grow, fall, and then kicking them along on the ground as if they were worth nothing. Yet how wonderful they are–every one of them a little different. I don’t suppose you could ever find two leaves exactly alike in form, color, and size–no more than you could find two faces alike, or two characters exactly the same. The plan of this world is infinite similarity and yet infinite variety.
Prince Dolor examined his leaves with the greatest curiosity–and also a little caterpillar that he found walking over one of them. He coaxed it to take an additional walk over his finger, which it did with the greatest dignity and decorum, as if it, Mr. Caterpillar, were the most important individual in existence. It amused him for a long time; and when a sudden gust of wind blew it overboard, leaves and all, he felt quite disconsolate.
“Still there must be many live creatures in the world besides caterpillars. I should like to see a few of them.”
The cloak gave a little dip down, as if to say “All right, my Prince,” and bore him across the oak forest to a long fertile valley–called in Scotland a strath and in England a weald, but what they call it in the tongue of Nomansland I do not know. It was made up of cornfields, pasturefields, lanes, hedges, brooks, and ponds. Also, in it were what the prince desired to see –a quantity of living creatures, wild and tame. Cows and horses, lambs and sheep, fed in the meadows; pigs and fowls walked about the farm-yards; and in lonelier places hares scudded, rabbits burrowed, and pheasants and partridges, with many other smaller birds, inhabited the fields and woods.
Through his wonderful spectacles the Prince could see everything; but, as I said, it was a silent picture; he was too high up to catch anything except a faint murmur, which only aroused his anxiety to hear more.
“I have as good as two pairs of eyes,” he thought. “I wonder if my godmother would give me a second pair of ears.”
Scarcely had he spoken than he found lying on his lap the most curious little parcel, all done up in silvery paper. And it contained–what do you think? Actually a pair of silver ears, which, when he tried them on, fitted so exactly over his own that he hardly felt them, except for the difference they made in his hearing.
There is something which we listen to daily and never notice. I mean the sounds of the visible world, animate and inanimate. Winds blowing, waters flowing, trees stirring, insects whirring (dear me! I am quite unconsciously writing rhyme), with the various cries of birds and beasts,–lowing cattle, bleating sheep, grunting pigs, and cackling hens,–all the infinite discords that somehow or other make a beautiful harmony.
We hear this, and are so accustomed to it that we think nothing of it; but Prince Dolor, who had lived all his days in the dead silence of Hopeless Tower, heard it for the first time. And oh! if you had seen his face.
He listened, listened, as if he could never have done listening. And he looked and looked, as if he could not gaze enough. Above all, the motion of the animals delighted him: cows walking, horses galloping, little lambs and calves running races across the meadows, were such a treat for him to watch–he that was always so quiet. But, these creatures having four legs, and he only two, the difference did not strike him painfully.
Still, by and by, after the fashion of children, –and I fear, of many big people too,–he began to want something more than he had, something fresh and new.
“Godmother,” he said, having now begun to believe that, whether he saw her or not, he could always speak to her with full confidence that she would hear him–“Godmother, all these creatures I like exceedingly; but I should like better to see a creature like myself. Couldn’t you show me just one little boy?”
There was a sigh behind him,–it might have been only the wind,–and the cloak remained so long balanced motionless in air that he was half afraid his godmother had forgotten him, or was offended with him for asking too much. Suddenly a shrill whistle startled him, even through his silver ears, and looking downward, he saw start up from behind a bush on a common, something—-
Neither a sheep nor a horse nor a cow–nothing upon four legs. This creature had only
two; but they were long, straight, and strong. And it had a lithe, active body, and a curly head of black hair set upon its shoulders. It was a boy, a shepherd-boy, about the Prince’s own age–but, oh! so different.
Not that he was an ugly boy–though his face was almost as red as his hands, and his shaggy hair matted like the backs of his own sheep. He was rather a nice-looking lad; and seemed so bright and healthy and good-tempered– “jolly” would be the word, only I am not sure if they have such a one in the elegant language of Nomansland–that the little Prince watched him with great admiration.
“Might he come and play with me? I would drop down to the ground to him, or fetch him up to me here. Oh, how nice it would be if I only had a little boy to play with me.”
But the cloak, usually so obedient to his wishes, disobeyed him now. There were evi- dently some things which his godmother either could not or would not give. The cloak hung stationary, high in air, never attempting to descend. The shepherd-lad evidently took it for a large bird, and, shading his eyes, looked up at it, making the Prince’s heart beat fast.
However, nothing ensued. The boy turned round, with a long, loud whistle–seemingly his usual and only way of expressing his feelings. He could not make the thing out exactly–it was a rather mysterious affair, but it did not trouble him much–he was not an “examining” boy.
Then, stretching himself, for he had been evidently half asleep, he began flopping his shoulders with his arms to wake and warm himself; while his dog, a rough collie, who had been guarding the sheep meanwhile, began to jump upon him, barking with delight.
“Down, Snap, down: Stop that, or I’ll thrash you,” the Prince heard him say; though with such a rough, hard voice and queer pronunciation that it was difficult to make the words out. “Hollo! Let’s warm ourselves by a race.”
They started off together, boy and dog–barking and shouting, till it was doubtful which made the more noise or ran the faster. A regular steeplechase it was: first across the level common, greatly disturbing the quiet sheep; and then tearing away across country, scrambling through hedges and leaping ditches, and tumbling up and down over plowed fields. They did not seem to have anything to run for–but as if they did it, both of them, for the mere pleasure of motion.
And what a pleasure that seemed! To the dog of course, but scarcely less so to the boy. How he skimmed along over the ground–his cheeks glowing, and his hair flying, and his legs –oh, what a pair of legs he had!
Prince Dolor watched him with great intentness, and in a state of excitement almost equal to that of the runner himself–for a while. Then the sweet, pale face grew a trifle paler, the lips began to quiver, and the eyes to fill.
“How nice it must be to run like that!” he said softly, thinking that never–no, never in this world–would he be able to do the same.
Now he understood what his godmother had meant when she gave him his traveling-cloak, and why he had heard that sigh–he was sure it was hers–when he had asked to see “just one little boy.”
“I think I had rather not look at him again,” said the poor little Prince, drawing himself back into the center of his cloak, and resuming his favorite posture, sitting like a Turk, with his arms wrapped round his feeble, useless legs.
“You’re no good to me,” he said, patting them mournfully. “You never will be any good to me. I wonder why I had you at all. I
wonder why I was born at all, since I was not to grow up like other boys. Why not?”
A question so strange, so sad, yet so often occurring in some form or other in this world –as you will find, my children, when you are older–that even if he had put it to his mother she could only have answered it, as we have to answer many as difficult things, by simply saying, “I don’t know.” There is much that we do not know and cannot understand–we big folks no more than you little ones. We have to accept it all just as you have to accept anything which your parents may tell you, even though you don’t as yet see the reason of it. You may sometime, if you do exactly as they tell you, and are content to wait.
Prince Dolor sat a good while thus, or it appeared to him a good while, so many thoughts came and went through his poor young mind– thoughts of great bitterness, which, little though he was, seemed to make him grow years older in a few minutes.
Then he fancied the cloak began to rock gently to and fro, with a soothing kind of motion, as if he were in somebody’s arms: somebody who did not speak, but loved him and comforted him without need of words; not by deceiving him with false encouragement or hope,
but by making him see the plain, hard truth in all its hardness, and thus letting him quietly face it, till it grew softened down, and did not seem nearly so dreadful after all.
Through the dreary silence and blankness, for he had placed himself so that he could see nothing but the sky, and had taken off his silver ears as well as his gold spectacles–what was the use of either when he had no legs with which to walk or run?–up from below there rose a delicious sound.
You have heard it hundreds of times, my children, and so have I. When I was a child I thought there was nothing so sweet; and I think so still. It was just the song of a skylark, mounting higher and higher from the ground, till it came so close that Prince Dolor could distinguish his quivering wings and tiny body, almost too tiny to contain such a gush of music.
“Oh, you beautiful, beautiful bird!” cried he; “I should dearly like to take you in and cuddle you. That is, if I could–if I dared.”
But he hesitated. The little brown creature with its loud heavenly voice almost made him afraid. Nevertheless, it also made him happy; and he watched and listened–so absorbed that he forgot all regret and pain, forgot everything in the world except the little lark.
It soared and soared, and he was just wondering if it would soar out of sight, and what in the world he should do when it was gone, when it suddenly closed its wings, as larks do when they mean to drop to the ground. But, instead of dropping to the ground, it dropped right into the little boy’s breast.
What felicity! If it would only stay! A tiny, soft thing to fondle and kiss, to sing to him all day long, and be his playfellow and companion, tame and tender, while to the rest of the world it was a wild bird of the air. What a pride, what a delight! To have something that nobody else had–something all his own. As the traveling-cloak traveled on, he little heeded where, and the lark still stayed, nestled down in his bosom, hopped from his hand to his shoulder, and kissed him with its dainty beak, as if it loved him, Prince Dolor forgot all his grief, and was entirely happy.
But when he got in sight of Hopeless Tower a painful thought struck him.
“My pretty bird, what am I to do with you? If I take you into my room and shut you up there, you, a wild skylark of the air, what will become of you? I am used to this, but you are not. You will be so miserable; and suppose my nurse should find you–she who can’t bear the sound of singing? Besides, I remember her once telling me that the nicest thing she ever ate in her life was lark pie!”
The little boy shivered all over at the thought. And, though the merry lark immediately broke into the loudest carol, as if saying derisively that he defied anybody to eat him, still, Prince Dolor was very uneasy. In another minute he had made up his mind.
“No, my bird, nothing so dreadful shall happen to you if I can help it; I would rather do without you altogether. Yes, I’ll try. Fly away, my darling, my beautiful! Good-by, my merry, merry bird.”
Opening his two caressing hands, in which, as if for protection, he had folded it, he let the lark go. It lingered a minute, perching on the rim of the cloak, and looking at him with eyes of almost human tenderness; then away it flew, far up into the blue sky. It was only a bird.
But some time after, when Prince Dolor had eaten his supper–somewhat drearily, except for the thought that he could not possibly sup off lark pie now–and gone quietly to bed, the old familiar little bed, where he was accustomed to sleep, or lie awake contentedly thinking– suddenly he heard outside the window a little faint carol–faint but cheerful–cheerful even though it was the middle of the night.
The dear little lark! it had not flown away, after all. And it was truly the most extraordinary bird, for, unlike ordinary larks, it
kept hovering about the tower in the silence and darkness of the night, outside the window or over the roof. Whenever he listened for a moment, he heard it singing still.
He went to sleep as happy as a king.
CHAPTER VII
Happy as a king.” How far kings
are happy I cannot say, no more
than could Prince Dolor, though he
had once been a king himself. But
he remembered nothing about it, and there was nobody to tell him, except his nurse, who had been forbidden upon pain of death to let him know anything about his dead parents, or the king his uncle, or indeed any part of his own history.
Sometimes he speculated about himself, whether he had had a father and mother as other little boys had what they had been like, and why he had never seen them. But, knowing nothing about them, he did not miss them–only once or twice, reading pretty stories about little children and their mothers, who helped them when they were in difficulty and comforted them when they were sick, he feeling ill and dull and lonely, wondered what had become of his mother and why she never came to see him.
Then, in his history lessons, of course he read about kings and princes, and the governments of different countries, and the events that happened there. And though he but faintly took in all this, still he did take it in a little, and worried his young brain about it, and perplexed his nurse with questions, to which she returned sharp and mysterious answers, which only set him thinking the more.
He had plenty of time for thinking. After his last journey in the traveling-cloak, the journey which had given him so much pain, his desire to see the world somehow faded away. He contented himself with reading his books, and looking out of the tower windows, and listening to his beloved little lark, which had come home with him that day, and never left him again.
True, it kept out of the way; and though his nurse sometimes dimly heard it, and said “What is that horrid noise outside?” she never got the faintest chance of making it into a lark pie. Prince Dolor had his pet all to himself, and though he seldom saw it, he knew it was near him, and he caught continually, at odd hours of the day, and even in the night, fragments of its delicious song.
All during the winter–so far as there ever was any difference between summer and winter in Hopeless Tower–the little bird cheered and amused him. He scarcely needed anything
more–not even his traveling-cloak, which lay bundled up unnoticed in a corner, tied up in its innumerable knots.
Nor did his godmother come near him. It seemed as if she had given these treasures and left him alone–to use them or lose them, apply them or misapply them, according to his own choice. That is all we can do with children when they grow into big children old enough to distinguish between right and wrong, and too old to be forced to do either.
Prince Dolor was now quite a big boy. Not tall–alas! he never could be that, with his poor little shrunken legs, which were of no use, only an encumbrance. But he was stout and strong, with great sturdy shoulders, and muscular arms, upon which he could swing himself about almost like a monkey. As if in compensation for his useless lower limbs, Nature had given to these extra strength and activity. His face, too, was very handsome; thinner, firmer, more manly; but still the sweet face of his childhood –his mother’s own face.
How his mother would have liked to look at him! Perhaps she did–who knows?
The boy was not a stupid boy either. He could learn almost anything he chose–and he did choose, which was more than half the battle. He never gave up his lessons till he had learned them all–never thought it a punishment that he had to work at them, and that they cost him a deal of trouble sometimes.
“But,” thought he, “men work, and it must be so grand to be a man–a prince too; and I fancy princes work harder than anybody– except kings. The princes I read about generally turn into kings. I wonder”–the boy was always wondering–“Nurse,”–and one day he
startled her with a sudden question,–“tell me– shall I ever be a king?”
The woman stood, perplexed beyond expression. So long a time had passed by since her
crime–if it were a crime–and her sentence, that she now seldom thought of either. Even her punishment–to be shut up for life in Hopeless Tower–she had gradually got used to.
Used also to the little lame Prince, her charge –whom at first she had hated, though she carefully did everything to keep him alive, since
upon him her own life hung.
But latterly she had ceased to hate him, and, in a sort of way, almost loved him–at least, enough to be sorry for him–an innocent child, imprisoned here till he grew into an old man, and became a dull, worn-out creature like herself. Sometimes, watching him, she felt more sorry for him than even for herself; and then, seeing she looked a less miserable and ugly woman, he did not shrink from her as usual.
He did not now. “Nurse–dear nurse,” said he, “I don’t mean to vex you, but tell me what is a king? shall I ever be one?”
When she began to think less of herself and more of the child, the woman’s courage
increased. The idea came to her–what harm would it be, even if he did know his own history? Perhaps he ought to know it–for there had been various ups and downs, usurpations, revolutions, and restorations in Nomansland, as in most other countries. Something might happen –who could tell? Changes might occur. Possibly a crown would even yet be set upon those pretty, fair curls–which she began to think prettier than ever when she saw the imaginary coronet upon them.
She sat down, considering whether her oath, never to “say a word” to Prince Dolor about himself, would be broken if she were to take a pencil and write what was to be told. A mere quibble–a mean, miserable quibble. But then she was a miserable woman, more to be pitied than scorned.
After long doubt, and with great trepidation, she put her fingers to her lips, and taking the Prince’s slate–with the sponge tied to it, ready to rub out the writing in a minute–she wrote:
“You are a king.”
Prince Dolor started. His face grew pale, and then flushed all over; he held himself erect. Lame as he was, anybody could see he was born to be a king.
“Hush!” said the nurse, as he was beginning to speak. And then, terribly frightened all the while,–people who have done wrong always are frightened,–she wrote down in a few hurried sentences his history. How his parents had died–his uncle had usurped his throne, and sent him to end his days in this lonely tower.
“I, too,” added she, bursting into tears. “Unless, indeed, you could get out into the world, and fight for your rights like a man. And fight for me also, my Prince, that I may not die in this desolate place.”
“Poor old nurse!” said the boy compassion- ately. For somehow, boy as he was, when he heard he was born to be a king, he felt like a man –like a king–who could afford to be tender because he was strong.
He scarcely slept that night, and even though he heard his little lark singing in the sunrise, he barely listened to it. Things more serious and important had taken possession of his mind.
“Suppose,” thought he, “I were to do as she says, and go out in the world, no matter how it hurts me–the world of people, active people, as that boy I saw. They might only laugh at me– poor helpless creature that I am; but still I might show them I could do something. At any rate, I might go and see if there were anything for me to do. Godmother, help me!”
It was so long since he had asked her help that he was hardly surprised when he got no answer–only the little lark outside the window sang louder and louder, and the sun rose, flooding the room with light.
Prince Dolor sprang out of bed, and began dressing himself, which was hard work, for he was not used to it–he had always been accustomed to depend upon his nurse for everything.
“But I must now learn to be independent,” thought he. “Fancy a king being dressed like a baby!”
So he did the best he could,–awkwardly but cheerily,–and then he leaped to the corner where lay his traveling-cloak, untied it as before, and watched it unrolling itself–which it did rapidly, with a hearty good-will, as if quite tired of idleness. So was Prince Dolor–or felt as if he were. He jumped into the middle of it, said his charm, and was out through the skylight immediately.
“Good-by, pretty lark!” he shouted, as he passed it on the wing, still warbling its carol to the newly risen sun. “You have been my pleasure, my delight; now I must go and work. Sing to old nurse till I come back again. Perhaps she’ll hear you–perhaps she won’t–but
it will do her good all the same. Good-by!”
But, as the cloak hung irresolute in air, he suddenly remembered that he had not determined where to go–indeed, he did not know,
and there was nobody to tell him.
“Godmother,” he cried, in much perplexity, “you know what I want,–at least, I hope you do, for I hardly do myself–take me where I ought to go; show me whatever I ought to see– never mind what I like to see,” as a sudden idea came into his mind that he might see many painful and disagreeable things. But this journey was not for pleasure as before. He was not a baby now, to do nothing but play–big boys do not always play. Nor men neither–they work. Thus much Prince Dolor knew–though very little more.
As the cloak started off, traveling faster than he had ever known it to do,–through sky-land and cloud land, over freezing mountain-tops, and desolate stretches of forest, and smiling cultivated plains, and great lakes that seemed to him almost as shoreless as the sea,–he was often rather frightened. But he crouched down, silent and quiet; what was the use of making a fuss? and, wrapping himself up in his bear-skin, waited for what was to happen.
After some time he heard a murmur in the distance, increasing more and more till it grew like the hum of a gigantic hive of bees. And, stretching his chin over the rim of his cloak, Prince Dolor saw–far, far below him, yet, with his gold spectacles and silver ears on, he could distinctly hear and see–what?
Most of us have some time or other visited a great metropolis–have wandered through its network of streets–lost ourselves in its crowds of people–looked up at its tall rows of houses, its grand public buildings, churches, and squares. Also, perhaps, we have peeped into its miserable little back alleys, where dirty children play in gutters all day and half the night– even young boys go about picking pockets, with nobody to tell them it is wrong except the policeman, and he simply takes them off to prison.
And all this wretchedness is close behind the grandeur–like the two sides of the leaf of a book.
An awful sight is a large city, seen any how from any where. But, suppose you were to see it from the upper air, where, with your eyes and ears open, you could take in everything at once? What would it look like? How would you feel about it? I hardly know myself. Do you?
Prince Dolor had need to be a king–that is, a boy with a kingly nature–to be able to stand such a sight without being utterly overcome. But he was very much bewildered–as bewildered as a blind person who is suddenly made to see.
He gazed down on the city below him, and then put his hand over his eyes.
“I can’t bear to look at it, it is so beautiful– so dreadful. And I don’t understand it–not one bit. There is nobody to tell me about it. I wish I had somebody to speak to.”
“Do you? Then pray speak to me. I was always considered good at conversation.”
The voice that squeaked out this reply was an excellent imitation of the human one, though it came only from a bird. No lark this time, however, but a great black and white creature that flew into the cloak, and began walking round and round on the edge of it with a dignified stride, one foot before the other, like any unfeathered biped you could name.
“I haven’t the honor of your acquaintance, sir,” said the boy politely.
“Ma’am, if you please. I am a mother bird, and my name is Mag, and I shall be happy to tell you everything you want to know. For I know a great deal; and I enjoy talking. My family is of great antiquity; we have built in this palace for hundreds–that is to say, dozens of years. I am intimately acquainted with the king, the queen, and the little princes and princesses–also the maids of honor, and all the inhabitants of the city. I talk a good deal, but I always talk sense, and I daresay I should be ex- ceedingly useful to a poor little ignorant boy like you.”
“I am a prince,” said the other gently.
“All right. And I am a magpie. You will find me a most respectable bird.”
“I have no doubt of it,” was the polite answer –though he thought in his own mind that Mag must have a very good opinion of herself. But she was a lady and a stranger, so of course he was civil to her.
She settled herself at his elbow, and began to chatter away, pointing out with one skinny claw, while she balanced herself on the other, every object of interest, evidently believing, as no doubt all its inhabitants did, that there was no capital in the world like the great metropolis of Nomansland.
I have not seen it, and therefore cannot describe it, so we will just take it upon trust, and suppose it to be, like every other fine city, the finest city that ever was built. Mag said so– and of course she knew.
Nevertheless, there were a few things in it which surprised Prince Dolor–and, as he had said, he could not understand them at all. One half the people seemed so happy and busy– hurrying up and down the full streets, or driv- ing lazily along the parks in their grand carriages, while the other half were so wretched and miserable.
“Can’t the world be made a little more level? I would try to do it if I were a king.”
“But you’re not the king: only a little goose of a boy,” returned the magpie loftily. “And I’m here not to explain things, only to show them. Shall I show you the royal palace?”
It was a very magnificent palace. It had terraces and gardens, battlements and towers. It extended over acres of ground, and had in it rooms enough to accommodate half the city. Its windows looked in all directions, but none of them had any particular view–except a small one, high up toward the roof, which looked out on the Beautiful Mountains. But since the queen died there it had been closed, boarded up, indeed, the magpie said. It was so little and inconvenient that nobody cared to live in it. Besides, the lower apartments, which had no view, were magnificent–worthy of being inhabited by the king.
“I should like to see the king,” said Prince Dolor.
CHAPTER VIII
What, I wonder, would be
people’s idea of a king? What was
Prince Dolor’s?
Perhaps a very splendid personage,
with a crown on his head and a scepter in his hand, sitting on a throne and judging the people. Always doing right, and never wrong –“The king can do no wrong” was a law laid down in olden times. Never cross, or tired, or sick, or suffering; perfectly handsome and well dressed, calm and good-tempered, ready to see and hear everybody, and discourteous to nobody; all things always going well with him, and nothing unpleasant ever happening.
This, probably, was what Prince Dolor expected to see. And what did he see? But I must tell you how he saw it.
“Ah,” said the magpie, “no levee to-day. The King is ill, though his Majesty does not wish it to be generally known–it would be so very inconvenient. He can’t see you, but perhaps you might like to go and take a look at him in a way I often do? It is so very amusing.”
Amusing, indeed!
The prince was just now too much excited to talk much. Was he not going to see the king his uncle, who had succeeded his father and
dethroned himself; had stepped into all the pleasant things that he, Prince Dolor, ought to have had, and shut him up in a desolate tower? What was he like, this great, bad, clever man? Had he got all the things he wanted, which another ought to have had? And did he enjoy them?
“Nobody knows,” answered the magpie, just as if she had been sitting inside the prince’s heart, instead of on the top of his shoulder. “He is a king, and that’s enough. For the rest nobody knows.”
As she spoke, Mag flew down on to the palace roof, where the cloak had rested, settling down between the great stacks of chimneys as
comfortably as if on the ground. She pecked at the tiles with her beak–truly she was a wonderful bird–and immediately a little hole opened, a sort of door, through which could be seen distinctly the chamber below.
“Now look in, my Prince. Make haste, for I must soon shut it up again.”
But the boy hesitated. “Isn’t it rude?– won’t they think us intruding?”
“Oh, dear no! there’s a hole like this in every palace; dozens of holes, indeed. Everybody knows it, but nobody speaks of it. Intrusion! Why, though the royal family are supposed to live shut up behind stone walls ever so thick, all the world knows that they live in a glass house where everybody can see them and throw a stone at them. Now pop down on your knees, and take a peep at his Majesty
His Majesty!
The Prince gazed eagerly down into a large room, the largest room he had ever beheld, with furniture and hangings grander than anything he could have ever imagined. A stray sunbeam, coming through a crevice of the darkened windows, struck across the carpet, and it was the loveliest carpet ever woven–just like a bed of flowers to walk over; only nobody walked over it, the room being perfectly empty and silent.
“Where is the King?” asked the puzzled boy.
“There,” said Mag, pointing with one wrinkled claw to a magnificent bed, large enough to contain six people. In the center of it, just visible under the silken counterpane,–quite straight and still,–with its head on the lace pillow, lay a small figure, something like wax- work, fast asleep–very fast asleep! There was a number of sparkling rings on the tiny yellow hands, that were curled a little, helplessly, like a baby’s, outside the coverlet; the eyes were shut, the nose looked sharp and thin, and the long gray beard hid the mouth and lay over the breast. A sight not ugly nor frightening, only solemn and quiet. And so very silent–two little flies buzzing about the curtains of the bed being the only audible sound.
“Is that the King?” whispered Prince Dolor.
“Yes,” replied the bird.
He had been angry–furiously angry–
ever since he knew how his uncle had taken the crown, and sent him, a poor little helpless child, to be shut up for life, just as if he had been dead. Many times the boy had felt as if, king as he was, he should like to strike him, this great, strong, wicked man.
Why, you might as well have struck a baby! How helpless he lay, with his eyes shut, and his idle hands folded: they had no more work to do, bad or good.
“What is the matter with him?” asked the Prince.
“He is dead,” said the Magpie, with a croak.
No, there was not the least use in being angry with him now. On the contrary, the Prince felt almost sorry for him, except that he looked so peaceful with all his cares at rest. And this was being dead? So even kings died?
“Well, well, he hadn’t an easy life, folk say, for all his grandeur. Perhaps he is glad it is over. Good-by, your Majesty.”
With another cheerful tap of her beak, Mistress Mag shut down the little door in the tiles, and Prince Dolor’s first and last sight of his uncle was ended.
He sat in the center of his traveling-cloak, silent and thoughtful.
“What shall we do now?” said the magpie. “There’s nothing much more to be done with his majesty, except a fine funeral, which I shall certainly go and see. All the world will. He interested the world exceedingly when he was alive, and he ought to do it now he’s dead–just once more. And since he can’t hear me, I may as well say that, on the whole, his majesty is much better dead than alive–if we can only get somebody in his place. There’ll be such a row in the city presently. Suppose we float up again and see it all–at a safe distance, though. It will be such fun!”
“What will be fun?”
“A revolution.”
Whether anybody except a magpie would have called it “fun” I don’t know, but it certainly was a remarkable scene.
As soon as the cathedral bell began to toll and the minute-guns to fire, announcing to the kingdom that it was without a king, the people
gathered in crowds, stopping at street corners to talk together. The murmur now and then rose into a shout, and the shout into a roar. When Prince Dolor, quietly floating in upper air, caught the sound of their different and opposite cries, it seemed to him as if the whole city had gone mad together.
“Long live the king!” “The king is dead– down with the king!” “Down with the crown, and the king too!” “Hurrah for the republic!” “Hurrah for no government at all!”
Such were the shouts which traveled up to the traveling-cloak. And then began–oh, what a scene!
When you children are grown men and women –or before–you will hear and read in books about what are called revolutions–earnestly I trust that neither I nor you may ever see one. But they have happened, and may happen again, in other countries besides Nomansland, when wicked kings have helped to make their people wicked too, or out of an unrighteous nation have sprung rulers equally bad; or, without either of these causes, when a restless country has fancied any change better than no change at all.
For me, I don’t like changes, unless pretty sure that they are for good. And how good can come out of absolute evil–the horrible evil that went on this night under Prince Dolor’s very eyes–soldiers shooting down people by hundreds in the streets, scaffolds erected, and heads dropping off–houses burned, and women and children murdered–this is more than I can understand.
But all these things you will find in history, my children, and must by and by judge for yourselves the right and wrong of them, as far as
anybody ever can judge.
Prince Dolor saw it all. Things happened so fast one after another that they quite confused his faculties.
“Oh, let me go home,” he cried at last, stopping his ears and shutting his eyes; “only let me go home!” for even his lonely tower seemed home, and its dreariness and silence absolute paradise after all this.
“Good-by, then,” said the magpie, flapping her wings. She had been chatting incessantly all day and all night, for it was actually thus long that Prince Dolor had been hovering over the city, neither eating nor sleeping, with all these terrible things happening under his very eyes. “You’ve had enough, I suppose, of seeing the world?”
“Oh, I have–I have!” cried the prince, with a shudder.
“That is, till next time. All right, your royal highness. You don’t know me, but I know you. We may meet again some time.”
She looked at him with her clear, piercing eyes, sharp enough to see through everything, and it seemed as if they changed from bird’s eyes to human eyes–the very eyes of his godmother, whom he had not seen for ever so long.
But the minute afterward she became only a bird, and with a screech and a chatter, spread her wings and flew away.
Prince Dolor fell into a kind of swoon of utter misery, bewilderment, and exhaustion, and when he awoke he found himself in his own room –alone and quiet–with the dawn just breaking, and the long rim of yellow light in the horizon glimmering through the window-panes.
CHAPTER IX
When Prince Dolor sat up in bed,
trying to remember where he was,
whither he had been, and what he
had seen the day before, he
perceived that his room was empty.
Generally his nurse rather worried him by breaking his slumbers, coming in and “setting things to rights,” as she called it. Now the dust lay thick upon chairs and tables; there was no harsh voice heard to scold him for not getting up immediately, which, I am sorry to say, this boy did not always do. For he so enjoyed lying still, and thinking lazily about everything or nothing, that, if he had not tried hard against it, he would certainly have become like those celebrated
“Two little men
Who lay in their bed till the clock struck ten.”
It was striking ten now, and still no nurse was to be seen. He was rather relieved at first, for he felt so tired; and besides, when he stretched out his arm, he found to his dismay that he had gone to bed in his clothes.
Very uncomfortable he felt, of course; and just a little frightened. Especially when he began to call and call again, but nobody answered. Often he used to think how nice it would be to get rid of his nurse and live in this tower all by himself–like a sort of monarch able to do everything he liked, and leave undone all that he did not want to do; but now that this seemed really to have happened, he did not like it at all.
“Nurse,–dear nurse,–please come back!” he called out. “Come back, and I will be the best boy in all the land.”
And when she did not come back, and nothing but silence answered his lamentable call, he very nearly began to cry.
“This won’t do,” he said at last, dashing the tears from his eyes. “It’s just like a baby, and I’m a big boy–shall be a man some day. What has happened, I wonder? I’ll go and see.”
He sprang out of bed,–not to his feet, alas! but to his poor little weak knees, and crawled on them from room to room. All the four chambers were deserted–not forlorn or untidy, for everything seemed to have been done for his comfort –the breakfast and dinner things were laid, the food spread in order. He might live “like a prince,” as the proverb is, for several days. But the place was entirely forsaken–there was evidently not a creature but himself in the solitary tower.
A great fear came upon the poor boy. Lonely as his life had been, he had never known what it was to be absolutely alone. A kind of despair seized him–no violent anger or terror, but a sort of patient desolation.
“What in the world am I to do?” thought he, and sat down in the middle of the floor, half inclined to believe that it would be better to give up entirely, lay himself down, and die.
This feeling, however, did not last long, for he was young and strong, and, I said before, by nature a very courageous boy. There came into his head, somehow or other, a proverb that his nurse had taught him–the people of Nomansland were very fond of proverbs:
“For every evil under the sun
There is a remedy, or there’s none; If there is one, try to find it–
If there isn’t, never mind it.”
“I wonder is there a remedy now, and could I find it?” cried the Prince, jumping up and looking out of the window.
No help there. He only saw the broad, bleak, sunshiny plain–that is, at first. But by and by, in the circle of mud that surrounded the base of the tower, he perceived distinctly the marks of a horse’s feet, and just in the spot where the deaf-mute was accustomed to tie up his great black charger, while he himself ascended, there lay the remains of a bundle of hay and a feed of corn.
“Yes, that’s it. He has come and gone, taking nurse away with him. Poor nurse! how glad she would be to go!”
That was Prince Dolor’s first thought. His second–wasn’t it natural?–was a passionate indignation at her cruelty–at the cruelty of all the world toward him, a poor little helpless boy. Then he determined, forsaken as he was, to try and hold on to the last, and not to die as long as he could possibly help it.
Anyhow, it would be easier to die here than out in the world, among the terrible doings which he had just beheld–from the midst of which, it suddenly struck him, the deaf-mute had come, contriving somehow to make the nurse understand that the king was dead, and she need have no fear in going back to the capital, where there was a grand revolution, and everything turned upside down. So, of course, she had gone. “I hope she’ll enjoy it, miserable woman–if they don’t cut off her head too.”
And then a kind of remorse smote him for feeling so bitterly toward her, after all the years she had taken care of him–grudgingly, perhaps, and coldly; still she had taken care of him, and that even to the last: for, as I have said, all his four rooms were as tidy as possible, and his meals laid out, that he might have no more trouble than could be helped.
“Possibly she did not mean to be cruel. I won’t judge her,” said he. And afterward he was very glad that he had so determined.
For the second time he tried to dress himself, and then to do everything he could for himself– even to sweeping up the hearth and putting on more coals. “It’s a funny thing for a prince to have to do,” said he, laughing. “But my godmother once said princes need never mind doing anything.”
And then he thought a little of his godmother. Not of summoning her, or asking her to help him,–she had evidently left him to help himself, and he was determined to try his best to do it, being a very proud and independent boy, –but he remembered her tenderly and regret- fully, as if even she had been a little hard upon him–poor, forlorn boy that he was. But he seemed to have seen and learned so much within the last few days that he scarcely felt like a boy, but a man–until he went to bed at night.
When I was a child, I used often to think how nice it would be to live in a little house all by my own self–a house built high up in a tree, or far away in a forest, or halfway up a hillside so deliciously alone and independent. Not a lesson to learn–but no! I always
liked learning my lessons. Anyhow, to choose the lessons I liked best, to have as many books to read and dolls to play with as ever I wanted: above all, to be free and at rest, with nobody to tease or trouble or scold me, would be charming. For I was a lonely little thing, who liked quietness–as many children do; which other children, and sometimes grown-up people even, cannot understand. And so I can understand Prince Dolor.
After his first despair, he was not merely comfortable, but actually happy in his solitude, doing everything for himself, and enjoying everything by himself–until bedtime. Then he did not like it at all. No more, I suppose, than other children would have liked my im- aginary house in a tree when they had had sufficient of their own company.
But the Prince had to bear it–and he did bear it, like a prince–for fully five days. All that time he got up in the morning and went to bed at night without having spoken to a
creature, or, indeed, heard a single sound. For even his little lark was silent; and as for his traveling-cloak, either he never thought about it, or else it had been spirited away– for he made no use of it, nor attempted to do so.
A very strange existence it was, those five lonely days. He never entirely forgot it. It threw him back upon himself, and into himself –in a way that all of us have to learn when we grow up, and are the better for it; but it is somewhat hard learning.
On the sixth day Prince Dolor had a strange composure in his look, but he was very grave and thin and white. He had nearly come to the end of his provisions–and what was to happen next? Get out of the tower he could not: the ladder the deaf-mute used was always carried away again; and if it had not been, how could the poor boy have used it? And even if he slung or flung himself down, and by miraculous chance came alive to the foot of the tower, how could he run away?
Fate had been very hard to him, or so it seemed.
He made up his mind to die. Not that he wished to die; on the contrary, there was a great deal that he wished to live to do; but if he must die, he must. Dying did not seem so very dreadful; not even to lie quiet like his uncle, whom he had entirely forgiven now, and neither be miserable nor naughty any more, and escape all those horrible things that he had seen going on outside the palace, in that awful place which was called “the world.”
“It’s a great deal nicer here,” said the poor little Prince, and collected all his pretty things round him: his favorite pictures, which he thought he should like to have near him when he died; his books and toys–no, he had ceased to care for toys now; he only liked them because he had done so as a child. And there he sat very calm and patient, like a king in his castle, waiting for the end.
“Still, I wish I had done something first– something worth doing, that somebody might remember me by,” thought he. “Suppose I
had grown a man, and had had work to do, and people to care for, and was so useful and busy that they liked me, and perhaps even forgot I was lame? Then it would have been nice to live, I think.”
A tear came into the little fellow’s eyes, and he listened intently through the dead silence for some hopeful sound.
Was there one?–was it his little lark, whom he had almost forgotten? No, nothing half so sweet. But it really was something–something which came nearer and nearer, so that there was no mistaking it. It was the sound of a trumpet, one of the great silver trumpets so admired in Nomansland. Not pleasant music, but very bold, grand, and inspiring.
As he listened to it the boy seemed to recall many things which had slipped his memory for years, and to nerve himself for whatever might be going to happen.
What had happened was this.
The poor condemned woman had not been such a wicked woman after all. Perhaps her courage was not wholly disinterested, but she had done a very heroic thing. As soon as she heard of the death and burial of the King and of the changes that were taking place in the country, a daring idea came into her head–to set upon the throne of Nomansland its rightful heir. Thereupon she persuaded the deaf-mute to take her away with him, and they galloped like the wind from city to city, spreading everywhere the news that Prince Dolor’s death and burial had been an invention concocted by his wicked uncle that he was alive and well, and the noblest young prince that ever was born.
It was a bold stroke, but it succeeded. The country, weary perhaps of the late King’s harsh rule, and yet glad to save itself from the horrors of the last few days, and the still further horrors of no rule at all, and having no particular interest in the other young princes, jumped at the idea of this Prince, who was the son of their late good King and the beloved Queen Dolorez.
“Hurrah for Prince Dolor! Let Prince
Dolor be our sovereign!” rang from end to end of the kingdom. Everybody tried to remember what a dear baby he once was–how like his mother, who had been so sweet and kind, and his father, the finest-looking king that ever reigned. Nobody remembered his lameness– or, if they did, they passed it over as a matter of no consequence. They were determined to have him reign over them, boy as he was– perhaps just because he was a boy, since in that case the great nobles thought they should be able to do as they liked with the country.
Accordingly, with a fickleness not confined to the people of Nomansland, no sooner was the late King laid in his grave than they
pronounced him to have been a usurper; turned all his family out of the palace, and left it empty for the reception of the new sovereign, whom they went to fetch with great rejoicing, a select body of lords, gentlemen, and soldiers traveling night and day in solemn procession through the country until they reached Hopeless Tower.
There they found the Prince, sitting calmly on the floor–deadly pale, indeed, for he expected a quite different end from this, and was resolved, if he had to die, to die courageously, like a Prince and a King.
But when they hailed him as Prince and King, and explained to him how matters stood, and went down on their knees before him, offering the crown (on a velvet cushion, with four golden tassels, each nearly as big as his head),–small though he was and lame, which lameness the courtiers pretended not to notice, –there came such a glow into his face, such a dignity into his demeanor, that he became beautiful, king-like.
“Yes,” he said, “if you desire it, I will be your king. And I will do my best to make my people happy.”
Then there arose, from inside and outside the tower, such a shout as never yet was heard across the lonely plain.
Prince Dolor shrank a little from the deafening sound. “How shall I be able to rule all this great people? You forget, my lords, that I am only a little boy still.”
“Not so very little,” was the respectful answer. “We have searched in the records, and found that your Royal Highness–your Majesty, I mean–is fifteen years old.”
“Am I?” said Prince Dolor; and his first thought was a thoroughly childish pleasure that he should now have a birthday, with a whole nation to keep it. Then he remembered that his childish days were done. He was a monarch now. Even his nurse, to whom, the moment he saw her, he had held out his hand, kissed it reverently, and called him ceremoniously “his Majesty the King.”
“A king must be always a king, I suppose,” said he half-sadly, when, the ceremonies over, he had been left to himself for just ten minutes, to put off his boy’s clothes and be reattired in magnificent robes, before he was conveyed away from his tower to the royal palace.
He could take nothing with him; indeed, he soon saw that, however politely they spoke, they would not allow him to take anything. If he was to be their king, he must give up his old life forever. So he looked with tender farewell on his old books, old toys, the furniture he knew so well, and the familiar plain in all its levelness– ugly yet pleasant, simply because it was familiar.
“It will be a new life in a new world,” said he to himself; “but I’ll remember the old things still. And, oh! if before I go I could but once see my dear old godmother.”
While he spoke he had laid himself down on the bed for a minute or two, rather tired with his grandeur, and confused by the noise of the trumpets which kept playing incessantly down below. He gazed, half sadly, up to the skylight, whence there came pouring a stream of sunrays, with innumerable motes floating there, like a bridge thrown between heaven and earth. Sliding down it, as if she had been made of air, came the little old woman in gray.
So beautiful looked she–old as she was–that Prince Dolor was at first quite startled by the apparition. Then he held out his arms in eager delight.
“Oh, godmother, you have not forsaken me!”
“Not at all, my son. You may not have seen me, but I have seen you many a time.”
“How?”
“Oh, never mind. I can turn into anything I please, you know. And I have been a bearskin rug, and a crystal goblet–and sometimes I have changed from inanimate to animate nature, put on feathers, and made myself very comfortable as a bird.”
“Ha!” laughed the prince, a new light breaking in upon him as he caught the infection{sic} of her tone, lively and mischievous. “Ha! ha! a lark, for instance?”
“Or a magpie,” answered she, with a capital imitation of Mistress Mag’s croaky voice. “Do you suppose I am always sentimental, and never funny? If anything makes you happy, gay, or grave, don’t you think it is more than likely to come through your old godmother?”
“I believe that,” said the boy tenderly, holding out his arms. They clasped one another in a close embrace.
Suddenly Prince Dolor looked very anxious. “You will not leave me now that I am a king? Otherwise I had rather not be a king at all. Promise never to forsake me!”
The little old woman laughed gayly. “Forsake you? that is impossible. But it is just
possible you may forsake me. Not probable though. Your mother never did, and she was a queen. The sweetest queen in all the world was the Lady Dolorez.”
“Tell me about her,” said the boy eagerly. “As I get older I think I can understand more. Do tell me.”
“Not now. You couldn’t hear me for the trumpets and the shouting. But when you are come to the palace, ask for a long-closed upper room, which looks out upon the Beautiful Mountains; open it and take it for your own. Whenever you go there you will always find me, and we will talk together about all sorts of things.”
“And about my mother?”
The little old woman nodded–and kept nodding and smiling to herself many times, as the boy repeated over and over again the sweet words he had never known or understood–“my mother–my mother.”
“Now I must go,” said she, as the trumpets blared louder and louder, and the shouts of the people showed that they would not endure any delay. “Good-by, good-by! Open the window and out I fly.”
Prince Dolor repeated gayly the musical rhyme–but all the while tried to hold his godmother fast.
Vain, vain! for the moment that a knocking was heard at his door the sun went behind a cloud, the bright stream of dancing motes vanished, and the little old woman with them– he knew not where.
So Prince Dolor quitted his tower–which he had entered so mournfully and ignominiously as a little helpless baby carried in the deaf-mute’s arms–quitted it as the great King of Nomansland.
The only thing he took away with him was something so insignificant that none of the lords, gentlemen, and soldiers who escorted him with such triumphant splendor could possibly notice it–a tiny bundle, which he had found lying on the floor just where the bridge of sunbeams had rested. At once he had pounced upon it, and thrust it secretly into his bosom, where it dwin- dled into such small proportions that it might have been taken for a mere chest-comforter, a bit of flannel, or an old pocket-handkerchief. It was his traveling-cloak!
CHAPTER X
Did Prince Dolar become a great king? Was he, though little more than a
boy, “the father of his people,” as all kings ought to be? Did his reign
last long–long and happy? and what were the principal events of it, as chronicled in the history of Nomansland?
Why, if I were to answer all these questions I should have to write another book. And I’m tired, children, tired–as grown-up people sometimes are, though not always with play. (Besides, I have a small person belonging to me, who, though she likes extremely to listen to the word-of-mouth story of this book, grumbles much at the writing of it, and has run about the house clapping her hands with joy when mamma told her that it was nearly finished. But that is neither here nor there.)
I have related as well as I could the history of Prince Dolor, but with the history of Nomansland I am as yet unacquainted. If anybody
knows it, perhaps he or she will kindly write it all down in another book. But mine is done.
However, of this I am sure, that Prince Dolor made an excellent king. Nobody ever does anything less well, not even the commonest duty of common daily life, for having such a godmother as the little old woman clothed in gray, whose name is–well, I leave you to guess. Nor, I think, is anybody less good, less capable of both work and enjoyment in after-life, for having been a little unhappy in his youth, as the prince had been.
I cannot take upon myself to say that he was always happy now–who is?–or that he had no cares; just show me the person who is quite free from them! But whenever people worried and bothered him–as they did sometimes, with state etiquette, state squabbles, and the like, setting up themselves and pulling down their neighbors– he would take refuge in that upper room
which looked out on the Beautiful Mountains, and, laying his head on his godmother’s shoulder, become calmed and at rest.
Also, she helped him out of any difficulty which now and then occurred–for there never was such a wise old woman. When the people of Nomansland raised the alarm–as sometimes they did–for what people can exist without a little fault-finding?–and began to cry out, “Un- happy is the nation whose king is a child,” she would say to him gently, “You are a child. Accept the fact. Be humble–be teachable. Lean upon the wisdom of others till you have gained your own.”
He did so. He learned how to take advice before attempting to give it, to obey before he could righteously command. He assembled
round him all the good and wise of his kingdom –laid all its affairs before them, and was guided by their opinions until he had maturely formed his own.
This he did sooner than anybody would have imagined who did not know of his godmother and his traveling-cloak–two secret blessings, which, though many guessed at, nobody quite understood. Nor did they understand why he loved so the little upper room, except that it had been his mother’s room, from the window of which, as people remembered now, she had used to sit for hours watching the Beautiful Mountains.
Out of that window he used to fly–not very often; as he grew older, the labors of state prevented the frequent use of his traveling-cloak; still he did use it sometimes. Only now it was less for his own pleasure and amusement than to see something or investigate something for the good of the country. But he prized his godmother’s gift as dearly as ever. It was a comfort to him in all his vexations, an enhancement of all his joys. It made him almost forget his lameness–which was never cured.
However, the cruel things which had been once foreboded of him did not happen. His misfortune was not such a heavy one, after all. It
proved to be of much less inconvenience, even to himself, than had been feared. A council of eminent surgeons and mechanicians invented for him a wonderful pair of crutches, with the help of which, though he never walked easily or gracefully, he did manage to walk so as to be quite independent. And such was the love his people bore him that they never heard the sound of his crutches on the marble palace floors without a leap of the heart, for they knew that good was coming to them whenever he approached.
Thus, though he never walked in processions, never reviewed his troops mounted on a magnificent charger, nor did any of the things which make a show monarch so much appreciated, he was able for all the duties and a great many of the pleasures of his rank. When he held his levees, not standing, but seated on a throne in- geniously contrived to hide his infirmity, the people thronged to greet him; when he drove out through the city streets, shouts followed him wherever he went–every countenance brightened as he passed, and his own, perhaps, was the brightest of all.
First, because, accepting his affliction as inevitable, he took it patiently; second, because, being a brave man, he bore it bravely, trying to forget himself, and live out of himself, and in and for other people. Therefore other people grew to love him so well that I think hundreds of his subjects might have been found who were almost ready to die for their poor lame king.
He never gave them a queen. When they implored him to choose one, he replied that his country was his bride, and he desired no other. But perhaps the real reason was that he shrank from any change; and that no wife in all the world would have been found so perfect, so lovable, so tender to him in all his weaknesses as his beautiful old godmother.
His twenty-four other godfathers and
godmothers, or as many of them as were still alive, crowded round him as soon as he ascended the throne. He was very civil to them all, but adopted none of the names they had given him, keeping to the one by which he had been always known, though it had now almost lost its meaning; for King Dolor was one of the happiest and cheerfulest men alive.
He did a good many things, however, unlike most men and most kings, which a little
astonished his subjects. First, he pardoned the condemned woman who had been his nurse, and ordained that from henceforth there should be no such thing as the punishment of death in Nomansland. All capital criminals were to be sent to perpetual imprisonment in Hopeless Tower and the plain round about it, where they could do no harm to anybody, and might in time do a little good, as the woman had done.
Another surprise he shortly afterward gave the nation. He recalled his uncle’s family, who had fled away in terror to another country, and restored them to all their honors in their own. By and by he chose the eldest son of his eldest cousin (who had been dead a year), and had him educated in the royal palace, as the heir to the throne. This little prince was a quiet,
unobtrusive boy, so that everybody wondered at the King’s choosing him when there were so many more; but as he grew into a fine young fellow, good and brave, they agreed that the King judged more wisely than they.
“Not a lame prince, either,” his Majesty observed one day, watching him affectionately; for he was the best runner, the highest leaper, the keenest and most active sportsman in the country. “One cannot make one’s self, but one can sometimes help a little in the making of somebody else. It is well.”
This was said, not to any of his great lords and ladies, but to a good old woman–his first homely nurse whom he had sought for far and wide, and at last found in her cottage among the Beautiful Mountains. He sent for her to visit him once a year, and treated her with great honor until she died. He was equally kind, though somewhat less tender, to his other nurse, who, after receiving her pardon, returned to her native town and grew into a great lady, and I hope a good one. But as she was so grand a personage now, any little faults she had did not show.
Thus King Dolor’s reign passed year after year, long and prosperous. Whether he were happy–“as happy as a king”–is a question no human being can decide. But I think he was, because he had the power of making everybody about him happy, and did it too; also because he was his godmother’s godson, and could shut himself up with her whenever he liked, in that quiet little room in view of the Beautiful Mountains, which nobody else ever saw or cared to see. They were too far off, and the city lay so low. But there they were, all the time. No change ever came to them; and I think, at any day throughout his long reign, the King would sooner have lost his crown than have lost sight of the Beautiful Mountains.
In course of time, when the little Prince, his cousin, was grown into a tall young man, capable of all the duties of a man, his Majesty did one of the most extraordinary acts ever known in a sovereign beloved by his people and prosperous in his reign. He announced that he wished to