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(illustration)
BY
WITH TWENTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. McL.
RALSTON
LONDON
DALDY, ISBISTER, & CO.
56, LUDGATE HILL
1875
[The Right of Translation is reserved.]
(printer)
LONDON:
PRINTED BY VIRTUE AND CO., CITY ROAD.
(dedication)
Inscribed, with deep tenderness, to a dear little boy I know.
Of course, being a prince, people said this: but it was true
besides. When he looked at the candle, his eyes had an expression of
earnest inquiry quite startling in a new-born baby. His
nose--there was not much of it certainly, but what there was seemed an
aquiline shape; his complexion was a charming, healthy purple; he was round
and
fat, straight-limbed and long--in fact, a splendid baby, and everybody was exceedingly proud of him, especially his father and mother, the King and Queen of Nomansland, who had waited for him during their happy reign of ten years--now made happier than ever, to themselves and their subjects, by the appearance of a son and heir.
The only person who was not quite happy was the king's brother,
the heir-presumptive, who would have been king one day had the baby
not been born. But as his Majesty was very kind to him, and even rather
sorry for him--insomuch that at the Queen's request he gave him
a dukedom almost as big as a county--the Crown Prince, as he was
called, tried to seem pleased also; and let us hope he succeeded.
The Prince's christening was to be a grand affair. According to
the custom of the country, there were chosen for him
four-and-twenty godfathers and godmothers, who each had to
give him a name, and promise to do their utmost for him. When he came of
age, he himself had to choose the name--and the godfather or
godmother--that he liked the best, for the rest of his days.
Meantime, all was rejoicing. Subscriptions were made among the rich to
give pleasure to the poor; dinners in town-halls for the working
men; tea-parties in the streets for their wives; and milk and bun
feasts for the children in the schoolrooms. For Nomansland, though I cannot
point it out in any map, or read of it in any history, was, I believe, much
like our own or many another country.
As for the Palace--which was no different from other
palaces--it was clean "turned out of the windows," as
people say, with the preparations going on. The only quiet place in it was
the room which, though the Prince was six weeks old, his mother the Queen
had never quitted. Nobody said she was ill, however; it would have been so
inconvenient; and as she said nothing about it herself, but lay pale and
placid, giving no trouble to anybody, nobody thought much about her. All
the world was absorbed in admiring the baby.
The christening-day came at last, and it was as
lovely as the Prince himself. All the people in the palace were lovely too--or thought themselves so--in the elegant new clothes which the Queen, who thought of everybody, had taken care to give them, from the ladies-in-waiting down to the poor little kitchenmaid, who looked at herself in her pink cotton gown, and thought, doubtless, that there never was such a pretty girl as she.
By six in the morning all the royal household had dressed itself in its
very best; and then the little Prince was dressed in his best--his
magnificent christening-robe; which proceeding his Royal Highness
did not like at all, but kicked and screamed like any common baby. When he
had a little calmed down, they carried him to be looked at by the Queen his
mother, who, though her royal robes had been brought and laid upon the bed,
was, as everybody well knew, quite unable to rise and put them on.
She admired her baby very much; kissed and blessed him, and lay looking
at him, as she did for hours sometimes, when he was placed beside her fast
asleep; then she gave him up with a
gentle smile, and, saying "she hoped he would be very good, that it would be a very nice christening, and all the guests would enjoy themselves," turned peacefully over on her bed, saying nothing more to anybody. She was a very uncomplaining person,--the Queen, and her name was Dolorez.
Everything went on exactly as if she had been present. All, even the
King himself, had grown used to her absence, for she was not strong, and
for years had not joined in any gaieties. She always did her royal duties,
but as to pleasures, they could go on quite well without her, or it seemed
so. The company arrived: great and notable persons in this and
neighboring countries; also the four-and-twenty godfathers
and godmothers, who had been chosen with care, as the people who would be
most useful to his Royal Highness, should he ever want friends, which did
not seem likely. What such want could possibly happen to the heir of the
powerful monarch of Nomansland?
They came, walking two and two, with their
coronets on their heads--being dukes and duchesses, princes and princesses, or the like; they all kissed the child and pronounced the name each had given him. Then the four-and-twenty names were shouted out with great energy by six heralds, one after the other, and afterwards written down, to be preserved in the state records, in readiness for the next time they were wanted, which would be either on his Royal Highness's coronation or his funeral. Soon the ceremony was over, and everybody satisfied; except, perhaps, the little Prince himself, who moaned faintly under his christening robes, which nearly smothered him.
In truth, though very few knew, the Prince in coming to the chapel had
met with a slight disaster. His nurse,--not his ordinary one, but the
state nursemaid, an elegant and fashionable young lady of rank, whose duty
it was to carry him to and from the chapel, had been so occupied in
arranging her train with one hand, while she held the baby with the other,
that she stumbled and let him fall, just at the foot of the marble
staircase. To be sure, she contrived to pick him up again the
next minute; and the accident was so slight it seemed hardly worth speaking of. Consequently, nobody did speak of it. The baby had turned deadly pale but did not cry, so no person a step or two behind could discover anything wrong; afterwards, even if he had moaned, the silver trumpets were loud enough to drown his voice. It would have been a pity to let anything trouble such a day of felicity.
So, after a minute's pause, the procession had moved on. Such a
procession! Heralds in blue and silver; pages in crimson and gold; and a
troop of little girls in dazzling white, carrying baskets of flowers, which
they strewed all the way before the nurse and child,--finally the
four-and-twenty godfathers and godmothers, as proud as
possible, and so splendid to look at that they would have quite
extinguished their small godson--merely a heap of lace and muslin with
a baby-face inside--had it not been for a canopy of white satin
and ostrich feathers, which was held over him wherever he was carried.
Thus, with the sun shining on them through the
painted windows, they stood; the King and his train on one side, the Prince and his attendants on the other, as pretty a sight as ever was seen out of fairyland.
"It's just like fairyland," whispered the eldest
little girl to the next eldest, as she shook the last rose out of her
basket; "and I think the only thing the Prince wants now is a fairy
godmother."
"Does he?" said a shrill but soft and not unpleasant voice
behind; and there was seen among the group of children somebody,--not
a child,--yet no bigger than a child: somebody whom nobody had
seen before, and who certainly had not been invited, for she had no
christening clothes on.
She was a little old woman dressed all in grey: grey gown; grey
hooded cloak, of a material excessively fine, and a tint that seemed
perpetually changing, like the grey of an evening sky. Her hair was grey,
and her eyes also--even her complexion had a soft grey shadow over it.
But there was nothing unpleasantly old about her, and her smile was as
sweet and childlike as
the Prince's own, which stole over his pale little face the instant she came near enough to touch him.
"Take care. Don't let the baby fall again."
The grand young lady nurse started, flushing angrily.
"Who spoke to me? How did anybody know?--I mean, what
business has anybody--?" Then frightened, but still speaking in
a much sharper tone than I hope young ladies of rank are in the habit of
speaking--"Old woman, you will be kind enough not to say
'the baby,' but 'the Prince.' Keep away; his Royal
Highness is just going to sleep."
"Nevertheless, I must kiss him. I am his godmother."
"You!" cried the elegant lady nurse.
"You!" repeated all the gentlemen and ladies in waiting.
"You!!!" echoed the heralds and pages--and they began
to blow the silver trumpets, in order to stop all further conversation.
The Prince's procession formed itself for
re-
turning,--the King and his train having already moved off toward the palace,--but on the topmost step of the marble stairs, stood, right in front of all, the little old woman clothed in grey.
She stretched herself on tiptoe by the help of her stick, and gave the
little Prince three kisses.
"This is intolerable," cried the young lady nurse, wiping
the kisses off rapidly with her lace handkerchief. "Such an insult to
his Royal Highness! Take yourself out of the way, old woman, or the King
shall be informed immediately."
"The King knows nothing of me, more's the pity,"
replied the old woman, with an indifferent air, as if she thought the loss
was more on his Majesty's side than hers. "My friend in the
palace is the King's wife."
"Kings' wives are called queens," said the lady nurse,
with a contemptuous air.
"You are right," replied the old woman. "Nevertheless
I know her Majesty well, and I love her and her child. And--since you
dropped him on the marble stairs (this she said in a mysterious whisper,
which made the young lady tremble in spite of her anger)--I choose to
take him for my own. I am his godmother, ready to help him whenever he
wants me."
"You help him!" cried all the group, breaking into shouts of
laughter, to which the little old
woman paid not the slightest attention. Her soft grey eyes were fixed on the Prince, who seemed to answer to the look, smiling again and again in the causeless, aimless fashion, as babies do smile.
"His Majesty must hear of this," said a
gentleman-in-waiting.
"His Majesty will hear quite enough news in a minute or
two," said the old woman sadly. And again stretching up to the little
Prince, she kissed him on the forehead solemnly.
"Be called by a new name which nobody has ever thought of. Be
Prince Dolor, in memory of your mother Dolorez."
"In memory of!" Everybody started at the ominous phrase, and
also at a most terrible breach of etiquette which the old woman had
committed. In Nomansland, neither the king nor the queen was supposed to
have any Christian name at all. They dropped it on their coronation day,
and it never was mentioned again till it was engraved on their coffins when
they died.
"Old woman, you are exceedingly ill-bred," cried the
eldest lady in waiting, much horrified.
"How you could know the fact passes my comprehension. But even if you did know it, how dared you presume to hint that her most gracious Majesty is called Dolorez?"
"Was called Dolorez," said the old woman, with
a tender solemnity.
The first gentleman, called the
Gold-stick-in-waiting, raised it to strike her, and
all the rest stretched out their hands to seize her; but the grey mantle
melted from between their fingers like air; and, before anybody had time to
do anything more, there came a heavy, muffled, startling sound.
The great bell of the palace--the bell which was only heard on the
death of some one of the Royal family, and for as many times as he or she
was years old--began to toll. They listened, mute and
horror-stricken. Some one counted:
one--two--three--four--up to nine and twenty--just
the Queen's age.
It was, indeed, the Queen. Her Majesty was dead! In the midst of the
festivities she had slipped away, out of her new happiness and her
old sufferings, not few nor small. Sending away all her women to see the sight,--at least they said afterward, in excuse, that she had done so, and it was very like her to do it,--she had turned with her face to the window, whence one could just see the tops of the distant mountains--the Beautiful Mountains, as they were called--where she was born. So gazing, she had quietly died.
When the little Prince was carried back to his mother's room,
there was no mother to kiss him. And, though he did not know it, there
would be for him no mother's kiss any more.
As for his Godmother,--the little old woman in grey who called
herself so,--whether she melted into air, like her gown when they
touched it, or whether she flew out of the chapel window, or slipped
through the doorway among the bewildered crowd, nobody knew--nobody
ever thought about her.
Only the nurse, the ordinary homely one, coming out of the
Prince's nursery in the middle of the night in search of a cordial to
quiet his
continual moans, saw, sitting in the doorway, something which she would have thought a mere shadow, had she not seen shining out of it two eyes, grey and soft and sweet. She put her hand before her own, screaming loudly. When she took them away the old woman was gone.
It could not be said that the Prince missed his mother; children of his
age cannot do that; but somehow after she died everything seemed to go
wrong with him. From a beautiful baby he became sickly and pale, seeming to
have almost ceased growing, especially in his legs, which had
been so fat and strong. But after the day of his christening they withered and shrank; he no longer kicked them out either in passion or play, and when, as he got to be nearly a year old, his nurse tried to make him stand upon them, he only tumbled down.
This happened so many times, that at last people began to talk about it.
A prince, and not able to stand on his own legs! What a dreadful thing!
what a misfortune for the country!
Rather a misfortune to him also, poor little boy! but nobody seemed to
think of that. And when, after a while, his health revived, and the old
bright look came back to his sweet little face, and his body grew larger
and stronger, though still his legs remained the same, people continued to
speak of him in whispers, and with grave shakes of the head. Everybody
knew, though nobody said it, that something, impossible to guess what, was
not quite right with the poor little Prince.
Of course, nobody hinted this to the King his father: it does not
do to tell great people any-
thing unpleasant. And besides, his Majesty took very little notice of his son, or of his other affairs, beyond the necessary duties of his kingdom. People had said he would not miss the Queen at all, she having been so long an invalid: but he did. After her death he never was quite the same. He established himself in her empty rooms, the only rooms in the palace whence one could see the Beautiful Mountains, and was often observed looking at them as if he thought she had flown away thither, and that his longing could bring her back again. And by a curious coincidence, which nobody dared inquire into, he desired that the Prince might be called, not by any of the four-and-twenty grand names given him by his godfathers and godmothers, but by the identical name mentioned by the little old woman in grey,--Dolor, after his mother Dolorez.
Once a week, according to established state custom, the Prince, dressed
in his very best, was brought to the King his father for
half-an-hour, but his Majesty was generally too ill and too
melancholy to pay much heed to the child.
Only once, when he and the Crown Prince, who was exceedingly attentive
to his royal brother, were sitting together, with Prince Dolor playing in a
corner of the room, dragging himself about with his arms rather than his
legs, and sometimes trying feebly to crawl from one chair to another, it
seemed to strike the father that all was not right with his son.
"How old is his Royal Highness?" said he suddenly to the
nurse.
"Two years, three months, and five days, please your
Majesty."
"It does not please me," said the King, with a sigh.
"He ought to be far more forward than he is now, ought he not,
brother? You, who have so many children, must know. Is there not something
wrong about him?"
"Oh, no," said the Crown-Prince, exchanging meaning
looks with the nurse, who did not understand at all, but stood frightened
and trembling with the tears in her eyes. "Nothing to make your
Majesty at all uneasy. No doubt his Royal Highness will outgrow it in
time."
"Outgrow--what?"
"A slight delicacy--ahem!--in the spine; something
inherited, perhaps, from his dear mother."
"Ah, she was always delicate; but she was the sweetest woman that
ever lived. Come here, my little son."
And as the Prince turned round upon his father a small, sweet, grave
face,--so like his mother's,--his Majesty the King smiled
and held out his arms. But when the boy came to him, not running like a
boy, but wriggling awkwardly along the floor, the royal countenance clouded
over.
"I ought to have been told of this. It is terrible--terrible!
And for a prince too. Send for all the doctors in my kingdom
immediately."
They came, and each gave a different opinion and ordered a different
mode of treatment. The only thing they agreed in was what had been pretty
well known before: that the Prince must have been hurt when he was an
infant--let fall, perhaps, so as to injure his spine and lower limbs.
Did nobody remember?
No, nobody. Indignantly, all the nurses denied that any such accident
had happened, was possible to have happened, until the faithful country
nurse recollected that it really had happened, on the day of the
christening. For which unluckily good memory, all the others scolded her so
severely that she had no peace of her life,
and soon after, by the influence of the young lady nurse who had carried
the baby that fatal day, and who was a sort of connection of the Crown
Prince, being his wife's second cousin once removed--the poor
woman was pensioned off, and sent to the Beautiful Mountains, from whence
she came, with orders to remain there for the rest of her days.
But of all this the King knew nothing, for, indeed, after the first
shock of finding out that his son could not walk, and seemed never likely
to walk, he interfered very little concerning him. The whole thing was too
painful, and his Majesty never liked painful things. Sometimes he inquired
after Prince Dolor, and they told him his Royal Highness was going on as
well as could be expected, which really was the case. For, after worrying
the poor child and perplexing themselves with one remedy after another, the
Crown Prince, not wishing to offend any of the differing doctors, had
proposed leaving him to nature; and nature, the safest doctor of all, had
come to his help and done her best. He could not walk, it is true; his
limbs were mere useless additions to his body; but the body itself was
strong and sound. And his face was the same as ever--just his
mother's face, one of the sweetest in the world!
Even the King, indifferent as he was, sometimes looked at the little
fellow with sad tenderness, noticing how cleverly he learned to crawl, and
swing himself about by his arms, so that in his
own awkward way he was as active in motion as most children of his age.
"Poor little man! he does his best, and he is not
unhappy--not half so unhappy as I, brother," addressing the
Crown Prince, who was more constant than ever in his attendance upon the
sick monarch. "If anything should befall me, I have appointed you as
Regent. In case of my death, you will take care of my poor little
boy?"
"Certainly, certainly; but do not let us imagine any such
misfortune. I assure your Majesty--everybody will assure
you--that it is not in the least likely."
He knew, however, and everybody knew, that it was likely, and soon after
it actually did happen. The King died as suddenly and quietly as the Queen
had done--indeed, in her very room and bed; and Prince Dolor was left
without either father or mother--as sad a thing as could happen, even
to a prince.
He was more than that now, though. He was a king. In Nomansland, as in
other countries, the people were struck with grief one day and
revived the next. "The king is dead--long live the king!"
was the cry that rang through the nation, and almost before his late
Majesty had been laid beside the queen in their splendid
mausoleum, crowds came thronging from all parts to the royal palace, eager
to see the new monarch.
They did see him,--the Prince Regent took care they
should,--sitting on the floor of the council chamber, sucking his
thumb! And when one of the gentlemen-in-waiting lifted him up
and carried
him--fancy carrying a king!--to the chair of state, and put the crown on his head, he shook it off again, it was so heavy and uncomfortable. Sliding down to the foot of the throne he began playing with the golden lions that supported it, stroking their paws and putting his tiny fingers into their eyes, and laughing--laughing as if he had at last found something to amuse him.
"There's a fine king for you!" said the first
lord-in-waiting, a friend of the Prince Regent's (the
Crown Prince that used to be, who, in the deepest mourning, stood silently
beside the throne of his young nephew. He was a handsome man, very grand
and clever looking). "What a king! who can never stand to receive his
subjects, never walk in processions, who to the last day of his life will
have to be carried about like a baby. Very unfortunate!"
"Exceedingly unfortunate," repeated the second lord.
"It is always bad for a nation when its king is a child; but such a
child--a permanent cripple, if not worse."
"Let us hope not worse," said the first lord
in a very hopeless tone, and looking toward the Regent, who stood erect and pretended to hear nothing. "I have heard that these sort of children with very large heads, and great broad foreheads and staring eyes, are--well, well, let us hope for the best and be prepared for the worst. In the meantime--"
"I swear," said the Crown Prince, coming forward and kissing
the hilt of his sword--"I swear to perform my duties as Regent,
to take all care of his Royal Highness--his Majesty, I mean,"
with a grand bow to the little child, who laughed innocently back again.
"And I will do my humble best to govern the country. Still, if the
country has the slightest objection--"
But the Crown Prince being generalissimo, and having the whole army at
his beck and call, so that he could have begun a civil war in no time, the
country had, of course, not the slightest objection.
So the king and queen slept together in peace, and Prince Dolor reigned
over the land--that is, his uncle did; and everybody said what a
fortu-
nate thing it was for the poor little Prince to have such a clever uncle to take care of him. All things went on as usual; indeed, after the Regent had brought his wife and her seven sons, and established them in the palace, rather better than usual. For they gave such splendid entertainments and made the capital so lively, that trade revived, and the country was said to be more flourishing than it had been for a century.
Whenever the Regent and his sons appeared, they were received with
shouts--"Long live the Crown Prince!" "Long live the
Royal family!" And, in truth, they were very fine children, the whole
seven of them, and made a great show when they rode out together on seven
beautiful horses, one height above another, down to the youngest, on his
tiny black pony, no bigger than a large dog.
As for the other child, his Royal Highness Prince Dolor,--for
somehow people soon ceased to call him his Majesty, which seemed such a
ridiculous title for a poor little fellow, a helpless cripple, with only
head and trunk, and no legs
to speak of,--he was seen very seldom by anybody.
Sometimes people daring enough to peer over the high wall of the palace
garden, noticed there,
carried in a footman's arms, or drawn in a chair, or left to play on
the grass, often with nobody to mind him, a pretty little boy, with a
bright, intelligent face, and large, melancholy eyes--no
not exactly melancholy, for they were his mother's, and she was by no means sad-minded, but thoughtful and dreamy. They rather perplexed people, those childish eyes; they were so exceedingly innocent and yet so penetrating. If anybody did a wrong thing, told a lie, for instance, they would turn round with such a grave, silent surprise--the child never talked much--that every naughty person in the palace was rather afraid of Prince Dolor.
He could not help it, and perhaps he did not even know it, being no
better a child than many other children, but there was something about him
which made bad people sorry, and grumbling people ashamed of themselves,
and ill-natured people gentle and kind. I suppose, because they were
touched to see a poor little fellow who did not in the least know what had
befallen him, or what lay before him, living his baby life as happy as the
day is long. Thus, whether or not he was good himself, the sight of him and
his affliction made other people good, and, above all, made everybody love
him. So much so, that his
uncle the Regent began to feel a little uncomfortable.
Now, I have nothing to say against uncles in general. They are usually
very excellent people, and very convenient to little boys and girls.
Even the "cruel uncle" of "The Babes in the
Wood" I believe to be quite an exceptional character. And this
"cruel uncle" of whom I am telling was, I hope, an exception,
too.
He did not mean to be cruel. If anybody had called him so, he would have
resented it extremely: he would have said that what he did was done
entirely for the good of the country. But he was a man who had always been
accustomed to consider himself first and foremost, believing that whatever
he wanted was sure to be right, and, therefore, he ought to have it. So he
tried to get it, and got it too, as people like him very often do. Whether
they enjoy it when they have it is another question.
Therefore, he went one day to the council-chamber, determined on
making a speech and informing the ministers and the country at large
that the young King was in failing health, and that it would be advisable to send him for a time to the Beautiful Mountains. Whether he really meant to do this; or whether it occurred to him afterward that there would be an easier way of attaining his great desire, the crown of Nomansland, is a point which I cannot decide.
But soon after, when he had obtained an order in council to send the
King away--which was done
in great state, with a guard of honor composed of two whole regiments of
soldiers,--the nation learnt, without much surprise, that the poor
little Prince--nobody ever called him king now--had gone a much
longer journey than to the Beautiful Mountains.
He had fallen ill on the road and died within a few hours; at least so
declared the physician in attendance, and the nurse who had been sent to
take care of him. They brought his coffin back in great state, and buried
it in the mausoleum with his parents.
So Prince Dolor was seen no more. The country went into deep mourning
for him, and then forgot him, and his uncle reigned in his stead. That
illustrious personage accepted his crown with great decorum, and wore it
with great dignity, to the last. But whether he enjoyed it or not, there is
no evidence to show.
Not everybody. There were a few kind souls, mothers of families, who had
heard his sad story, and some servants about the palace, who had been
familiar with his sweet ways--these many a time sighed and said,
"Poor Prince Dolor!" Or, looking at the Beautiful Mountains,
which were visible all over Nomansland, though few people ever visited
them, "Well, perhaps his Royal Highness is better where he is than
even there."
They did not know--indeed, hardly anybody did know--that
beyond the mountains, between them and the sea, lay a tract of country,
barren, level, bare, except for short stunted grass, and here and there a
patch of tiny flowers. Not a bush--
not a tree--not a resting-place for bird or beast was in that dreary plain. In summer the sunshine fell upon it hour after hour with a blinding glare; in winter the winds and rains swept over it unhindered, and the snow came down steadily, noiselessly, covering it from end to end in one great white sheet, which lay for days and weeks unmarked by a single footprint.
Not a pleasant place to live in--and nobody did live there,
apparently. The only sign that human creatures had ever been near the spot
was one large round tower which rose up in the centre of the plain, and
might be seen all over it--if there had been anybody to see, which
there never was. Rose, right up out of the ground, as if it had grown of
itself, like a mushroom. But it was not at all mushroom-like; on the
contrary, it was very solidly built. In form, it resembled the Irish round
towers, which have puzzled people for so long, nobody being able to find
out when, or by whom, or for what purpose they were made; seemingly for no
use at all, like this tower. It was circular, of very firm brickwork, with
neither doors nor
windows, until near the top, when you could perceive some slits in the wall through which one might possibly creep in or look out. Its height was nearly a hundred feet high, and it had a battlemented parapet, showing sharp against the sky.
As the plain was quite desolate--almost like a desert, only without
sand, and led to nowhere except the still more desolate
sea-coast--nobody ever crossed it. Whatever mystery there was
about the tower, it and the sky and the plain kept their secret to
themselves.
It was a very great secret indeed,--a state secret,--which
none but so clever a man as the present King of Nomansland would ever have
thought of. How he carried it out, undiscovered, I cannot tell. People
said, long afterward, that it was by means of a gang of condemned
criminals, who were set to work, and executed immediately after they had
done, so that nobody knew anything, or in the least suspected the real
fact.
And what was the fact? Why, that this tower, which seemed a mere mass of
masonry, utterly forsaken and uninhabited, was not so at all.
Within twenty feet of the top, some ingenious architect had planned a perfect little house, divided into four rooms--as by drawing a cross within a circle you will see might easily be done. By making skylights, and a few slits in the walls for windows, and raising a peaked roof which was hidden by the parapet, here was a dwelling complete; eighty feet from the ground, and as inaccessible as a rook's nest on the top of a tree.
A charming place to live in! if you once got up there, and never wanted
to come down again.
Inside--though nobody could have looked inside except a bird, and
hardly even a bird flew past that lonely tower--inside it was
furnished with all the comfort and elegance imaginable; with lots of books
and toys, and everything that the heart of a child could desire. For its
only inhabitant, except a nurse of course, was a poor little solitary
child.
One winter night, when all the plain was white with moonlight, there was
seen crossing it a great tall black horse, ridden by a man also big and
equally black, carrying before him on the saddle a
woman and a child. The woman--she had a sad, fierce look, and no
wonder, for she was a criminal
under sentence of death, but her sentence had been changed to almost as
severe a punishment. She
was to inhabit the lonely tower with the child, and was allowed to live as long as the child lived--no longer. This, in order that she might take the utmost care of him; for those who put him there were equally afraid of his dying and of his living. Yet he was only a little gentle boy, with a sweet, sleepy smile--he had been very tired with his long journey--and clinging arms, which held tight to the man's neck, for he was rather frightened, and the face, black as it was, looked kindly at him. And he was very helpless, with his poor, small shriveled legs, which could neither stand nor run away--for the little forlorn boy was Prince Dolor.
He had not been dead at all--or buried either. His grand funeral
had been a mere pretense: a wax figure having been put in his place,
while he himself was spirited away under charge of these two, the condemned
woman and the black man. The latter was deaf and dumb, so could neither
tell nor repeat anything.
When they reached the foot of the tower, there was light enough to see a
huge chain dangling
from the parapet, but dangling only halfway.
The deaf-mute took from his saddle-wallet a sort of ladder,
arranged in pieces like a puzzle, fitted it together, and lifted it up to
meet the chain. Then he mounted to the top of the tower, and slung from it
a sort of chair, in which the woman and the child placed themselves and
were drawn up, never to come down again as long as they lived. Leaving them
there, the man descended the ladder, took it to pieces again and packed it
in his pack, mounted the horse and disappeared across the plain.
Every month they used to watch for him, appearing like a speck in the
distance. He fastened his horse to the foot of the tower, and climbed it,
as before, laden with provisions and many other things. He always saw the
Prince, so as to make sure that the child was alive and well, and then went
away until the following month.
While his first childhood lasted, Prince Dolor was happy enough. He had
every luxury that even a prince could need, and the one thing
wanting,--love, never having known, he did not miss. His nurse was
very kind to him though she was a wicked woman. But either she had not been
quite so wicked as people said, or she grew better through being shut up
continually with a little innocent child, who was dependent upon her for
every comfort and pleasure of his life.
It was not an unhappy life. There was nobody to teaze or ill-use
him, and he was never ill. He played about from room to room--there
were four rooms, parlor, kitchen, his nurse's bedroom, and his own;
learnt to crawl like a fly, and to jump like a frog, and to run about on
all-fours almost as
fast as a puppy. In fact, he was very much like a puppy or a kitten, as thoughtless and as merry--scarcely ever cross, though sometimes a little weary.
As he grew older, he occasionally liked to be quiet for a while, and
then he would sit at the slits of windows, which were, however, much
bigger than they looked from the bottom of the tower--and watch the
sky above and the ground below, with the storms sweeping over and the
sunshine coming and going, and the shadows of the clouds running races
across the blank plain.
By-and-by he began to learn lessons--not that
his nurse had been ordered to teach him, but she did it partly to amuse herself. She was not a stupid woman, and Prince Dolor was by no means a stupid boy; so they got on very well, and his continual entreaty, "What can I do? what can you find me to do?" was stopped; at least for an hour or two in the day.
It was a dull life, but he had never known any other; anyhow, he
remembered no other, and he did not pity himself at all. Not for a long
time, till he grew quite a big little boy, and could read quite easily.
Then he suddenly took to books, which the deaf-mute brought him from
time to time--books which, not being acquainted with the literature of
Nomansland, I cannot describe, but no doubt they were very interesting; and
they informed him of everything in the outside world, and filled him with
an intense longing to see it.
From this time a change came over the boy. He began to look sad and
thin, and to shut himself up for hours without speaking. For his nurse
hardly spoke, and whatever questions he
asked beyond their ordinary daily life she never answered. She had, indeed, been forbidden, on pain of death, to tell him anything about himself, who he was, or what he might have been. He knew he was Prince Dolor, because she always addressed him as "my prince" and "your royal highness," but what a prince was he had not the least idea. He had no idea of anything in the world, except what he found in his books.
He sat one day surrounded by them, having built them up round him like a
little castle wall. He had been reading them half the day, but feeling all
the while that to read about things which you never can see is like hearing
about a beautiful dinner while you are starving. For almost the first time
in his life he grew melancholy: his hands fell on his lap; he sat
gazing out of the window-slit upon the view outside--the view
he had looked at every day of his life, and might look at for endless days
more.
Not a very cheerful view,--just the plain and the sky,--but he
liked it. He used to think, if he could only fly out of that window, up to
the sky or
down to the plain, how nice it would be! Perhaps when he died--his nurse had told him once in anger that he would never leave the tower till he died--he might be able to do this. Not that he understood much what dying meant, but it must be a change, and any change seemed to him a blessing.
"And I wish I had somebody to tell me all about it; about that and
many other things; somebody that would be fond of me, like my poor white
kitten."
Here the tears came into his eyes, for the boy's one friend, the
one interest of his life, had been a little white kitten, which the
deaf-mute, kindly smiling, once took out of his pocket and gave
him--the only living creature Prince Dolor had ever seen. For four
weeks it was his constant plaything and companion, till one moonlight night
it took a fancy for wandering, climbed on to the parapet of the tower,
dropped over and disappeared. It was not killed, he hoped, for cats have
nine lives; indeed, he almost fancied he saw it pick itself up and scamper
away; but he never caught sight of it more.
"Yes, I wish I had something better than a kitten--a person,
a real live person, who would be fond of me and kind to me. Oh, I want
somebody--dreadfully, dreadfully!"
As he spoke, there sounded behind him a slight
tap-tap-tap, as of a stick or a cane, and twisting himself
round, he saw--what do you think he saw?
Nothing either frightening or ugly, but still exceedingly curious. A
little woman, no bigger than he might himself have been had his legs grown
like those of other children; but she was not a child--she was an old
woman. Her hair was grey, and her dress was grey, and there was a grey
shadow over her wherever she moved. But she had the sweetest smile, the
prettiest hands, and when she spoke it was in the softest voice
imaginable.
"My dear little boy,"--and dropping her cane, the only
bright and rich thing about her, she laid those two tiny hands on his
shoulders,--"my own little boy, I could not come to you until
you had said you wanted me; but now you do want me, here I am."
"And you are very welcome, madam," replied the Prince,
trying to speak politely, as princes always did in books; "and I am
exceedingly obliged to you. May I ask who you are? Perhaps my
mother?" For he knew that little boys usually had a mother, and had
occasionally wondered what had become of his own.
"No," said the visitor, with a tender, half-sad
smile, putting back the hair from his forehead, and looking right into his
eyes--"No, I am not your mother, though she was a dear friend of
mine; and you are as like her as ever you can be."
"Will you tell her to come and see me, then?"
"She cannot; but I dare say she knows all about you. And she loves
you very much--and so do I; and I want to help you all I can, my poor
little boy."
"Why do you call me poor?" asked Prince Dolor, in
surprise.
The little old woman glanced down on his legs and feet, which he did not
know were different from those of other children, and then at his sweet,
bright face, which, though he knew not that either,
was exceedingly different from many children's faces, which are often so fretful, cross, sullen. Looking at him, instead of sighing, she smiled. "I beg your pardon, my Prince," said she.
"Yes, I am a prince, and my name is Dolor; will you tell me yours,
madam?"
The little old woman laughed like a chime of silver bells.
"I have not got a name--or, rather, I have so many names that
I don't know which to choose. However, it was I who gave you yours,
and you will belong to me all your days. I am your godmother."
"Hurrah!" cried the little prince; "I am glad I belong
to you, for I like you very much. Will you come and play with
me?"
So they sat down together and played. By-and-by they began
to talk.
"Are you very dull here?" asked the little old woman.
"Not particularly, thank you, godmother. I have plenty to eat and
drink, and my lessons to do, and my books to read--lots of
books."
"And you want nothing?"
"Nothing. Yes--perhaps--If you please, godmother, could
you bring me just one more thing?"
"What sort of thing?"
"A little boy to play with."
The old woman looked very sad. "Just the thing, alas, which I
cannot give you. My child, I cannot alter your lot in any way, but I can
help you to bear it."
"Thank you. But why do you talk of bearing it? I have nothing to
bear."
"My poor little man!" said the old woman in the very
tenderest tone of her tender voice. "Kiss me!"
"What is kissing?" asked the wondering child.
His godmother took him in her arms and embraced him many times.
By-and-by he kissed her back again--at first awkwardly
and shyly, then with all the strength of his warm little heart.
"You are better to cuddle than even my white kitten, I think.
Promise me that you will never go away,"
"I must; but I will leave a present behind me,--something as
good as myself to amuse you--something that will take you wherever you
want to go, and show you all that you wish to see."
"What is it?"
"A travelling-cloak."
The Prince's countenance fell. "I don't want a cloak,
for I never go out. Sometimes nurse hoists me on to the roof, and carries
me round by the parapet; but that is all. I can't walk, you know, as
she does."
"The more reason why you should ride; and besides, this
travelling-cloak--"
"Hush!--she's coming."
There sounded outside the room door a heavy step and a grumpy voice, and
a rattle of plates and dishes.
"It's my nurse, and she is bringing my dinner; but I
don't want dinner at all--I only want you. Will her coming drive
you away, godmother?"
"Perhaps; but only for a little while. Never mind; all the bolts
and bars in the world couldn't keep me out. I'd fly in at the
window, or down
through the chimney. Only wish for me, and I come."
"Thank you," said Prince Dolor, but almost in a whisper, for
he was very uneasy at what might happen next. His nurse and his
godmother--what would they say to one another? how would they look at
one another?--two such different faces: one harsh-lined,
sullen, cross, and sad; the other, sweet and bright and calm as a summer
evening before the dark begins.
When the door was flung open, Prince Dolor shut his eyes, trembling all
over; opening them again, he saw he need fear nothing; his lovely old
godmother had melted away just like the rainbow out of the sky, as he had
watched it many a time. Nobody but his nurse was in the room.
"What a muddle your Royal Highness is sitting in," said she
sharply. "Such a heap of untidy books; and what's this
rubbish?" knocking a little bundle that lay beside them.
"Oh, nothing, nothing--give it me!" cried the prince,
and, darting after it, he hid it under his pinafore, and then pushed it
quickly into his
pocket. Rubbish as it was, it was left in the place where she sat, and might be something belonging to her--his dear, kind godmother, whom already he loved with all his lonely, tender, passionate heart.
It was, though he did not know this, his wonderful
travelling-cloak.
Stay, and I'll tell you all about it.
Outside it was the commonest-looking bundle
imaginable--shabby and small; and the instant Prince Dolor touched it,
it grew smaller still, dwindling down till he could put it in his trousers
pocket, like a handkerchief rolled up into a ball. He did this at once, for
fear his nurse should see it, and kept it there all day--all night,
too. Till after his next morning's lessons he had no opportunity of
examining his treasure.
When he did, it seemed no treasure at all; but a mere piece of
cloth--circular in form, dark green in color, that is, if it had any
color at all, being
so worn and shabby, though not dirty. It had a split cut to the centre, forming a round hole for the neck--and that was all its shape; the shape, in fact, of those cloaks which in South America are called ponchos--very simple, but most graceful and convenient.
Prince Dolor had never seen anything like it. In spite of his
disappointment he examined it curiously; spread it out on the floor, then
arranged it on his shoulders. It felt very warm and comfortable; but it was
so exceedingly shabby--the only shabby thing that the Prince had ever
seen in his life.
"And what use will it be to me?" said he sadly. "I
have no need of outdoor clothes, as I never go out. Why was this given me,
I wonder? and what in the world am I to do with it? She must be a rather
funny person, this dear godmother of mine."
Nevertheless, because she was his godmother, and had given him the
cloak, he folded it carefully and put it away, poor and shabby as it was,
hiding it in a safe corner of his toy-cupboard, which his
nurse never meddled with. He did not want her to find it, or to laugh at it, or at his godmother--as he felt sure she would, if she knew all.
There it lay, and by-and-by he forgot all about it; nay, I
am sorry to say, that, being but a child, and not seeing her again, he
almost forgot his sweet old godmother, or thought of her only as he did of
the angels or fairies that he read of in his books, and of her visit as if
it had been a mere dream of the night.
There were times, certainly, when he recalled her; of early mornings
like that morning when she appeared beside him, and late evenings, when the
grey twilight reminded him of the color of her hair and her pretty soft
garments; above all, when, waking in the middle of the night, with the
stars peering in at his window, or the moonlight shining across his little
bed, he would not have been surprised to see her standing beside it,
looking at him with those beautiful tender eyes, which seemed to have a
pleasantness and comfort in them different from anything he had ever
known.
But she never came, and gradually she slipped
out of his memory--only a boy's memory, after all; until something happened which made him remember her, and want her as he had never wanted anything before.
Prince Dolor fell ill. He caught--his nurse could not tell
how--a complaint common to the people of Nomansland, called the
doldrums, as unpleasant as measles or any other of our complaints; and it
made him restless, cross, and disagreeable. Even when a little better, he
was too weak to enjoy anything, but lay all day long on his sofa, fidgeting
his nurse extremely--while, in her intense terror lest he might die,
she fidgeted him still more. At last, seeing he really was getting well,
she left him to himself--which he was most glad of, in spite of his
dulness and dreariness. There he lay, alone, quite alone.
Now and then an irritable fit came over him, in which he longed to get
up and do something, or to go somewhere--would have liked to imitate
his white kitten--jump down from the tower and run away, taking the
chance of whatever might happen.
Only one thing, alas! was likely to happen; for
the kitten, he remembered, had four active legs, while he--
"I wonder what my godmother meant when she looked at my legs and
sighed so bitterly? I wonder why I can't walk straight and steady
like my nurse--only I wouldn't like to have her great, noisy,
clumping shoes. Still it would be very nice to move about
quickly--perhaps to fly, like a bird, like that string of birds I saw
the other day skimming across the sky,--one after the
other."
These were the passage-birds--the only living creatures that
ever crossed the lonely plain; and he had been much interested in them,
wondering whence they came and whither they were going.
"How nice it must be to be a bird. If legs are no good, why cannot
one have wings? People have wings when they die--perhaps: I wish
I were dead, that I do. I am so tired, so tired; and nobody cares for me.
Nobody ever did care for me, except perhaps my godmother. Godmother, dear,
have you quite forsaken me?"
He stretched himself wearily, gathered himself
up, and dropped his head upon his hands; as he did so, he felt somebody kiss him at the back of his neck, and, turning, found that he was resting, not on the sofa pillows, but on a warm shoulder--that of the little old woman clothed in grey.
How glad he was to see her! How he looked
into her kind eyes and felt her hands, to see if she were all real and
alive! then put both his arms round her neck, and kissed her as if he would
never have done kissing!
"Stop, stop!" cried she, pretending to be
smothered. "I see you have not forgotten my teachings. Kissing is a good thing--in moderation. Only just let me have breath to speak one word."
"A dozen!" he said.
"Well, then, tell me all that has happened to you since I saw
you--or, rather, since you saw me, which is quite a different
thing."
"Nothing has happened--nothing ever does happen to me,"
answered the Prince dolefully.
"And are you very dull, my boy?"
"So dull, that I was just thinking whether I could not jump down
to the bottom of the tower like my white kitten."
"Don't do that, not being a white kitten."
"I wish I were!--I wish I were anything but what I
am!"
"And you can't make yourself any different, nor can I do it
either. You must be content to stay just what you are."
The little old woman said this--very firmly, but gently,
too--with her arms round his neck and her lips on his forehead. It was
the first time the boy
had ever heard any one talk like this, and he looked up in surprise--but not in pain, for her sweet manner softened the hardness of her words.
"Now, my prince,--for you are a prince, and must behave as
such,--let us see what we can do; how much I can do for you, or show
you how to do for yourself. Where is your
travelling-cloak?"
Prince Dolor blushed extremely. "I--I put it away in the
cupboard; I suppose it is there still."
"You have never used it; you dislike it?"
He hesitated, no; wishing to be impolite. "Don't you think
it's--just a little old and shabby for a prince?"
The old woman laughed--long and loud, though very sweetly.
"Prince, indeed! Why, if all the princes in the world craved for
it, they couldn't get it, unless I gave it them. Old and shabby!
It's the most valuable thing imaginable! Very few ever have it; but I
thought I would give it to you, because--because you are different
from other people."
"Am I?" said the Prince, and looked first with
curiosity, then with a sort of anxiety, into his godmother's face, which was sad and grave, with slow tears beginning to steal down.
She touched his poor little legs. "These are not like those of
other little boys."
"Indeed!--my nurse never told me that."
"Very likely not. But it is time you were told; and I tell you,
because I love you."
"Tell me what, dear godmother?"
"That you will never be able to walk or run or jump or
play--that your life will be quite different from most people's
lives: but it may be a very happy life for all that. Do not be
afraid."
"I am not afraid," said the boy; but he turned very pale,
and his lips began to quiver, though he did not actually cry--he was
too old for that, and, perhaps, too proud.
Though not wholly comprehending, he began dimly to guess what his
godmother meant. He had never seen any real live boys, but he had seen
pictures of them; running and jumping; which he had admired and tried hard
to imitate, but always failed. Now he began to understand why he failed,
and that he always should fail-- that, in fact, he was not like other little boys; and it was of no use his wishing to do as they did, and play as they played, even if he had had them to play with. His was a separate life, in which he must find out new work and new pleasures for himself.
The sense of the inevitable, as grown-up people call
it--that we cannot have things as we want them to be, but as they are,
and that we must learn to bear them and make the best of them--this
lesson, which everybody has to learn soon or late--came, alas! sadly
soon, to the poor boy. He fought against it for a while, and then, quite
overcome, turned and sobbed bitterly in his godmother's arms.
She comforted him--I do not know how, except that love always
comforts; and then she whispered to him, in her sweet, strong, cheerful
voice-- "Never mind!"
"No, I don't think I do mind--that is, I
won't mind," replied he, catching the courage of
her tone and speaking like a man, though he was still such a mere boy.
"That is right, my prince!--that is being like a prince. Now
we know exactly where we are; let us put our shoulders to the wheel
and--"
"We are in Hopeless Tower" (this was its name, if it had a
name), "and there is no wheel to put our shoulders to," said
the child sadly.
"You little matter-of-fact goose! Well for you that
you have a godmother called--"
"What?" he eagerly asked.
"Stuff-and-nonsense."
"Stuff-and-nonsense! What a funny name!"
"Some people give it me, but they are not my most intimate
friends. These call me--never mind what," added the old woman,
with a soft twinkle in her eyes. "So as you know me, and know me
well, you may give me any name you please; it doesn't matter. But I
am your godmother, child. I have few godchildren; those I have love me
dearly, and find me the greatest blessing in all the world."
"I can well believe it," cried the little lame Prince, and
forgot his troubles in looking at her--as her figure dilated, her eyes
grew lustrous as stars, her very raiment brightened, and
the whole room seemed filled with her beautiful and beneficent presence like light.
He could have looked at her for ever--half in love, half in awe;
but she suddenly dwindled down into the little old woman all in grey, and,
with a malicious twinkle in her eyes, asked for the
travelling-cloak.
"Bring it out of the rubbish cupboard, and shake the dust off it,
quick!" said she to Prince Dolor, who hung his head, rather ashamed.
"Spread it out on the floor, and wait till the split closes and the
edges turn up like a rim all round. Then go and open the
skylight,--mind, I say open the skylight--set
yourself down in the middle of it, like a frog on a water-lily leaf;
say 'Abracadabra, dum dum dum,' and--see what will
happen!"
The prince burst into a fit of laughing. It all seemed so exceedingly
silly; he wondered that a wise old woman like his godmother should talk
such nonsense.
"Stuff-and-nonsense, you mean," said she,
answering, to his great alarm, his unspoken thoughts.
"Did I not tell you some people called me by that name? Never mind; it doesn't harm me."
And she laughed--her merry laugh--as child-like as if
she were the prince's age instead of her own, whatever that might be.
She certainly was a most extraordinary old woman.
"Believe me or not, it doesn't matter," said she.
"Here is the cloak: when you want to go travelling on it, say
Abracadabra, dum, dum, dum; when you want to come back again,
say Abracadabra, tum tum ti. That's all;
good-bye."
A puff of most pleasant air passing by him. and making him feel for the
moment quite strong and well, was all the Prince was conscious of. His most
extraordinary godmother was gone.
"Really now, how rosy your Royal Highness's cheeks have
grown! You seem to have got well already," said the nurse, entering
the room.
"I think I have," replied the Prince very gently--he
felt gently and kindly even to his grim nurse. "And now let me have
my dinner, and go you to your sewing as usual."
The instant she was gone, however, taking with
her the plates and dishes, which for the first time since his illness he had satisfactorily cleared, Prince Dolor sprang down from his sofa, and with one or two of his frog-like jumps, not graceful but convenient, he reached the cupboard where he kept his toys, and looked everywhere for his travelling-cloak.
Alas! it was not there.
While he was ill of the doldrums, his nurse, thinking it a good
opportunity for putting things to rights, had made a grand clearance of all
his "rubbish," as she considered it: his beloved headless
horses, broken carts, sheep without feet,
and birds without wings--all the treasures of his baby days, which he could not bear to part with. Though he seldom played with them now, he liked just to feel they were there.
They were all gone! and with them the travelling-cloak. He sat
down on the floor, looking at the empty shelves, so beautifully clean and
tidy, then burst out sobbing as if his heart would break.
But quietly--always quietly. He never let his nurse hear him cry.
She only laughed at him, as he felt she would laugh now.
"And it is all my own fault!" he cried. "I ought to
have taken better care of my godmother's gift. Oh, godmother, forgive
me! I'll never be so careless again. I don't know what the
cloak is exactly, but I am sure it is something precious. Help me to find
it again. Oh, don't let it be stolen from me--don't,
please!"
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed a silvery voice. "Why, that
travelling-cloak is the one thing in the world which nobody can
steal. It is of no use to anybody except the owner. Open your eyes, my
prince, and see what you shall see."
His dear old godmother, he thought, and turned eagerly round. But no; he
only beheld, lying in a corner of the room, all dust and cobwebs, his
precious travelling-cloak.
Prince Dolor darted toward it, tumbling several times on the
way,--as he often did tumble, poor boy! and pick himself up again,
never complaining. Snatching it to his breast, he hugged
and kissed it, cobwebs and all, as if it had been something alive. Then he began unrolling it, wondering each minute what would happen. What did happen was so curious that I must leave it for another chapter.
Having said this, I return to Prince Dolor, that little lame boy whom
many may think so exceedingly to be pitied. But if you had seen him as he
sat patiently untying his wonderful cloak, which was done up in a very
tight and perplexing parcel, using skilfully his deft little hands, and
knitting his brows with firm determination, while
his eyes glistened with pleasure and energy and eager anticipation--if you had beheld him thus, you might have changed your opinion.
When we see people suffering or unfortunate, we feel very sorry for
them; but when we see them bravely bearing their sufferings and making the
best of their misfortunes, it is quite a different feeling. We respect, we
admire them. One can respect and admire even a little child.
When Prince Dolor had patiently untied all the knots, a remarkable thing
happened. The cloak began to undo itself. Slowly unfolding, it laid itself
down on the carpet, as flat as if it had been ironed; the split joined with
a little sharp crick-crack, and the rim turned up all round till it
was breast-high; for meantime the cloak had grown and grown, and
become quite large enough for one person to sit in it, as comfortable as if
in a boat.
The Prince watched it rather anxiously; it was such an extraordinary,
not to say a frightening thing. However, he was no coward, but a thorough
boy, who, if he had been like other boys, would doubtless have grown up
daring and
adventurous--a soldier, a sailor, or the like. As it was, he could only show his courage morally, not physically, by being afraid of nothing, and by doing boldly all that it was in his narrow powers to do. And I am not sure but that in this way he showed more real valor than if he had had six pairs of proper legs.
He said to himself: "What a goose I am ! As if my dear
godmother would ever have given me anything to hurt me. Here
goes!"
So, with one of his active leaps, he sprang right into the middle of the
cloak, where he squatted down, wrapping his arms tight round his knees, for
they shook a little and his heart beat fast. But there he sat, steady and
silent, waiting for what might happen next.
Nothing did happen, and he began to think nothing would, and to feel
rather disappointed, when he recollected the words he had been told to
repeat--"Abracadabra, dum dum dum!"
He repeated them, laughing all the while, they seemed such nonsense. And
then--and then--
Now I don't expect anybody to believe what I
am going to relate, though a good many wise people have believed a good
many sillier things.
And as seeing's believing, and I never saw it, I cannot be expected
implicitly to believe it myself,
except in a sort of a way; and yet there is truth in it--for some people.
The cloak rose, slowly and steadily, at first only a few inches, then
gradually higher and higher, till it nearly touched the skylight. Prince
Dolor's head actually bumped against the glass, or would have done so
had he not crouched down, crying "Oh, please don't hurt
me!" in a most melancholy voice.
Then he suddenly remembered his godmother's express
command--"Open the skylight!"
Regaining his courage at once, without a moment's delay he lifted
up his head and began searching for the bolt, the cloak meanwhile remaining
perfectly still, balanced in the air. But the minute the window was opened,
out it sailed--right out into the clear, fresh air, with nothing
between it and the cloudless blue.
Prince Dolor had never felt any such delicious sensation before! I can
understand it. Cannot you? Did you never think, in watching the rooks going
home singly or in pairs, oaring their way across the calm evening sky, till
they vanish
like black dots in the misty grey, how pleasant it must feel to be up there, quite out of the noise and din of the world, able to hear and see everything down below, yet troubled by nothing and teased by no one--all alone, but perfectly content?
Something like this was the happiness of the little lame Prince when he
got out of Hopeless Tower, and found himself for the first time in the pure
open air, with the sky above him and the earth below.
True, there was nothing but earth and sky; no houses, no trees, no
rivers, mountains, seas--not a beast on the ground, or a bird in the
air. But to him even the level plain looked beautiful; and then there was
the glorious arch of the sky, with a little young moon sitting in the west
like a baby queen. And the evening breeze was so sweet and fresh, it kissed
him like his godmother's kisses; and by-and-by a few
stars came out, first two or three, and then quantities--quantities!
so that, when he began to count them he was utterly bewildered.
By this time, however, the cool breeze had become cold, the mist
gathered, and as he had,
as he said, no outdoor clothes, poor Prince Dolor was not very comfortable. The dews fell damp on his curls--he began to shiver.
"Perhaps I had better go home," thought he.
But how?--For in his excitement the other words which his godmother
had told him to use had slipped his memory. They were only a little
different from the first, but in that slight difference all the importance
lay. As he repeated his "Abracadabra," trying ever so many
other syllables after it, the cloak only went faster and faster, skimming
on through the dusky empty air.
The poor little Prince began to feel frightened. What if his wonderful
travelling-cloak should keep on thus travelling, perhaps to the
world's end, carrying with it a poor, tired, hungry boy, who, after
all, was beginning to think there was something very pleasant in supper and
bed?
"Dear godmother," he cried pitifully, "do help me!
Tell me just this once and I'll never forget again."
Instantly the words came rushing into his head--"Abracadabra,
tum tum ti!" Was that it?
Ah! yes--for the cloak began to turn slowly. He repeated the charm again, more distinctly and firmly, when it gave a gentle dip, like a nod of satisfaction, and immediately started back, as fast as ever, in the direction of the tower.
He reached the skylight, which he found exactly as he had left it, and
slipped in, cloak and all, as easily as he had got out. He had scarcely
reached the floor, and was still sitting in the middle of his
travelling-cloak--like a frog on a water-lily leaf, as
his godmother had expressed it--when he heard his nurse's voice
outside.
"Bless us! what has become of your Royal Highness all this time?
To sit stupidly here at the window till it is quite dark, and leave the
skylight open, too. Prince! what can you be thinking of? You are the
silliest boy I ever knew."
"Am I?" said he absently, and never heeding her crossness;
for his only anxiety was lest she might find out anything.
She would have been a very clever person to have done so. The instant
Prince Dolor got off it, the cloak folded itself up into the tiniest
possible
parcel, tied all its own knots, and rolled itself of its own accord into the farthest and darkest corner of the room. If the nurse had seen it, which she didn't, she would have taken it for a mere bundle of rubbish not worth noticing.
Shutting the skylight with an angry bang, she brought in the supper and
lit the candles with her usual unhappy expression of countenance. But
Prince Dolor hardly saw it; he only saw, hid in the corner where nobody
else would see it, his wonderful travelling-cloak. And though his
supper was not particularly nice, he ate it heartily, scarcely hearing a
word of his nurse's grumbling, which to-night seemed to have
taken the place of her sullen silence.
"Poor woman!" he thought, when he paused a minute to listen
and look at her with those quiet, happy eyes, so like his mother's.
"Poor woman! she hasn't got a
travelling-cloak!"
And when he was left alone at last, and crept into his little bed, where
he lay awake a good while, watching what he called his
"sky-garden," all planted with stars, like flowers, his
chief thought
was--"I must be up very early to-morrow morning, and get my lessons done, and then I'll go travelling all over the world on my beautiful cloak."
So next day he opened his eyes with the sun, and went with a good heart
to his lessons. They had hitherto been the chief amusement of his dull
life; now, I am afraid, he found them also a little dull. But he tried to
be good--I don't say Prince Dolor always was good, but he
generally tried to be--and when his mind went wandering after the
dark, dusty corner where lay his precious treasure, he resolutely called it
back again.
"For," he said, "how ashamed my godmother would be of
me if I grew up a stupid boy."
But the instant lessons were done, and he was alone in the empty room,
he crept across the floor, undid the shabby little bundle, his fingers
trembling with eagerness, climbed on the chair, and thence to the table, so
as to unbar the skylight--he forgot nothing now--said his magic
charm, and was away out of the window, as children say, "in a few
minutes less than no time!"
Nobody missed him. He was accustomed to sit so quietly always that his
nurse, though only in the next room, perceived no difference. And besides,
she might have gone in and out a dozen times, and it would have been just
the same; she never could have found out his absence.
For what do you think the clever godmother did? She took a quantity of
moonshine, or some equally convenient material, and made an image, which
she set on the window-sill reading, or by the table drawing, where
it looked so like Prince Dolor that any common observer would never have
guessed the deception; and even the boy would have been puzzled to know
which was the image and which was himself.
And all this while the happy little fellow was away, floating in the air
on his magic cloak, and seeing all sorts of wonderful things--or they
seemed wonderful to him, who had hitherto seen nothing at all.
First, there were the flowers that grew on the plain, which, whenever
the cloak came near enough, he strained his eyes to look at; they were very
tiny, but very beautiful--white saxifrage, and yellow lotus, and ground-thistles, purple and bright, with many others the names of which I do not know. No more did Prince Dolor, though he tried to find them out by recalling any pictures he had seen of them. But he was too far off; and though it was pleasant enough to admire them as brilliant patches of colour, still he would have liked to examine them all. He was, as a little girl I know once said of a playfellow, "a very examining boy."
"I wonder," he thought, "whether I could see better
through a pair of glasses like those my nurse reads with, and takes such
care of. How I would take care of them, too! if I only had a
pair!"
Immediately he felt something queer and hard fixing itself on to the
bridge of his nose. It was a pair of the prettiest gold spectacles ever
seen; and looking downward, he found that, though ever so high above the
ground, he could see every minute blade of grass, every tiny bud and
flower--nay, even the insects that walked over them.
"Thank you, thank you!" he cried, in a gush of
gratitude--to anybody or everybody, but especially
to his dear godmother, who he felt sure had given him this new present. He amused himself with it for ever so long, with his chin pressed on the rim of the cloak, gazing down upon the grass, every square foot of which was a mine of wonders.
Then, just to rest his eyes, he turned them up to the sky--the
blue, bright, empty sky, which he had looked at so often and seen
nothing.
Now surely there was something. A long, black, wavy line, moving on in
the distance, not
by chance, as the clouds move apparently, but deliberately, as if it were alive. He might have seen it before--he almost thought he had; but then he could not tell what it was. Looking at it through his spectacles, he discovered that it really was alive; being a long string of birds, flying one after the other, their wings moving steadily and their heads pointed in one direction, as steadily as if each were a little ship, guided invisibly by an unerring helm.
"They must be the passage-birds flying seawards!"
cried the boy, who had read a little about them, and had a great talent for
putting two and two together and finding out all he could. "Oh, how I
should like to see them quite close, and to know where they come from, and
whither they are going! How I wish I knew everything in all the
world!"
A silly speech for even an "examining" little boy to make;
because, as we grow older, the more we know, the more we find out there is
to know. And Prince Dolor blushed when he had said it, and hoped nobody had
heard him.
Apparently somebody had, however; for the cloak gave a sudden bound
forward, and presently he found himself high in the air, in the very middle
of that band of ærial travelers, who had mo magic cloak to travel
on--nothing except 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 centre 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
travelling-cloak.
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
travelling-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 bearskin 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 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, colour, 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 farmyards; 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 downwards, 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 shepherdboy, 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 evidently some things which his godmother either could not or
would not give. The cloak hung stationary, high in air, never attempting to
descend. The shepherdlad 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
travelling-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 centre 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 some time, 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
with-
out 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 its 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 travelling-cloak travelled
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-bye, 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.
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
travelling-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
travelling-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
wonder-
ing--"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 hersel