CHAPTER VII
“Happy as a king.” How far kings are happy I
cannot say, no more than could Prince Dolor, though he had once been a king
himself. But he remembered nothing about it, and there was nobody to tell him,
except his nurse, who had been forbidden upon pain of death to let him know
anything about his dead parents, or the king his uncle, or indeed any part of
his own history.
Sometimes he speculated about himself, whether he
had had a father and mother as other little boys had what they had been like,
and why he had never seen them. But, knowing nothing about them, he did not
miss them—only once or twice, reading pretty stories about little children and
their mothers, who helped them when they were in difficulty and comforted them
when they were sick, he feeling ill and dull and lonely, wondered what had
become of his mother and why she never came to see him.
Then, in his history lessons, of course he read
about kings and princes, and the governments of different countries, and the
events that happened there. And though he but faintly took in all this, still
he did take it in a little, and worried his young brain about it, and perplexed
his nurse with questions, to which she returned sharp and mysterious answers,
which only set him thinking the more.
He had plenty of time for thinking. After his last
journey in the traveling-cloak, the journey which had given him so much pain,
his desire to see the world somehow faded away. He contented himself with
reading his books, and looking out of the tower windows, and listening to his
beloved little lark, which had come home with him that day, and never left him
again.
True, it kept out of the way; and though his nurse
sometimes dimly heard it, and said “What is that horrid noise outside?” she
never got the faintest chance of making it into a lark pie. Prince Dolor had
his pet all to himself, and though he seldom saw it, he knew it was near him,
and he caught continually, at odd hours of the day, and even in the night,
fragments of its delicious song.
All during the winter—so far as there ever was any
difference between summer and winter in Hopeless Tower—the little bird cheered
and amused him. He scarcely needed anything more—not even his traveling-cloak,
which lay bundled up unnoticed in a corner, tied up in its innumerable knots.
Nor did his godmother come near him. It seemed as
if she had given these treasures and left him alone—to use them or lose them,
apply them or misapply them, according to his own choice. That is all we can do
with children when they grow into big children old enough to distinguish
between right and wrong, and too old to be forced to do either.
Prince Dolor was now quite a big boy. Not
tall—alas! he never could be that, with his poor little shrunken legs, which
were of no use, only an encumbrance. But he was stout and strong, with great
sturdy shoulders, and muscular arms, upon which he could swing himself about
almost like a monkey. As if in compensation for his useless lower limbs, Nature
had given to these extra strength and activity. His face, too, was very
handsome; thinner, firmer, more manly; but still the sweet face of his
childhood—his mother's own face.
How his mother would have liked to look at him!
Perhaps she did—who knows?
The boy was not a stupid boy either. He could
learn almost anything he chose—and he did choose, which was more than half the
battle. He never gave up his lessons till he had learned them all—never thought
it a punishment that he had to work at them, and that they cost him a deal of
trouble sometimes.
“But,” thought he, “men work, and it must be so
grand to be a man—a prince too; and I fancy princes work harder than
anybody—except kings. The princes I read about generally turn into kings. I
wonder”—the boy was always wondering—“Nurse,”—and one day he startled her with
a sudden question,—“tell me—shall I ever be a king?”
The woman stood, perplexed beyond expression. So
long a time had passed by since her crime—if it were a crime—and her sentence,
that she now seldom thought of either. Even her punishment—to be shut up for
life in Hopeless Tower—she had gradually got used to. Used also to the little
lame Prince, her charge—whom at first she had hated, though she carefully did
everything to keep him alive, since upon him her own life hung.
But latterly she had ceased to hate him, and, in a
sort of way, almost loved him—at least, enough to be sorry for him—an innocent
child, imprisoned here till he grew into an old man, and became a dull,
worn-out creature like herself. Sometimes, watching him, she felt more sorry
for him than even for herself; and then, seeing she looked a less miserable and
ugly woman, he did not shrink from her as usual.
He did not now. “Nurse—dear nurse,” said he, “I
don't mean to vex you, but tell me what is a king? shall I ever be one?”
When she began to think less of herself and more
of the child, the woman's courage increased. The idea came to her—what harm
would it be, even if he did know his own history? Perhaps he ought to know
it—for there had been various ups and downs, usurpations, revolutions, and
restorations in Nomansland, as in most other countries. Something might
happen—who could tell? Changes might occur. Possibly a crown would even yet be
set upon those pretty, fair curls—which she began to think prettier than ever
when she saw the imaginary coronet upon them.
She sat down, considering whether her oath, never
to “say a word” to Prince Dolor about himself, would be broken if she were to
take a pencil and write what was to be told. A mere quibble—a mean, miserable
quibble. But then she was a miserable woman, more to be pitied than scorned.
After long doubt, and with great trepidation, she
put her fingers to her lips, and taking the Prince's slate—with the sponge tied
to it, ready to rub out the writing in a minute—she wrote:
“You are a king.”
Prince Dolor started. His face grew pale, and then
flushed all over; he held himself erect. Lame as he was, anybody could see he
was born to be a king.
“Hush!” said the nurse, as he was beginning to
speak. And then, terribly frightened all the while,—people who have done wrong
always are frightened,—she wrote down in a few hurried sentences his history.
How his parents had died—his uncle had usurped his throne, and sent him to end
his days in this lonely tower.
“I, too,” added she, bursting into tears. “Unless,
indeed, you could get out into the world, and fight for your rights like a man.
And fight for me also, my Prince, that I may not die in this desolate place.”
“Poor old nurse!” said the boy compassionately.
For somehow, boy as he was, when he heard he was born to be a king, he felt
like a man—like a king—who could afford to be tender because he was strong.
He scarcely slept that night, and even though he
heard his little lark singing in the sunrise, he barely listened to it. Things
more serious and important had taken possession of his mind.
“Suppose,” thought he, “I were to do as she says,
and go out in the world, no matter how it hurts me—the world of people, active
people, as that boy I saw. They might only laugh at me—poor helpless creature
that I am; but still I might show them I could do something. At any rate, I
might go and see if there were anything for me to do. Godmother, help me!”
It was so long since he had asked her help that he
was hardly surprised when he got no answer—only the little lark outside the
window sang louder and louder, and the sun rose, flooding the room with light.
Prince Dolor sprang out of bed, and began dressing
himself, which was hard work, for he was not used to it—he had always been
accustomed to depend upon his nurse for everything.
“But I must now learn to be independent,” thought
he. “Fancy a king being dressed like a baby!”
So he did the best he could,—awkwardly but
cheerily,—and then he leaped to the corner where lay his traveling-cloak,
untied it as before, and watched it unrolling itself—which it did rapidly, with
a hearty good-will, as if quite tired of idleness. So was Prince Dolor—or felt
as if he were. He jumped into the middle of it, said his charm, and was out
through the skylight immediately.
“Good-by, pretty lark!” he shouted, as he passed
it on the wing, still warbling its carol to the newly risen sun. “You have been
my pleasure, my delight; now I must go and work. Sing to old nurse till I come
back again. Perhaps she'll hear you—perhaps she won't—but it will do her good
all the same. Good-by!”
But, as the cloak hung irresolute in air, he
suddenly remembered that he had not determined where to go—indeed, he did not
know, and there was nobody to tell him.
“Godmother,” he cried, in much perplexity, “you
know what I want,—at least, I hope you do, for I hardly do myself—take me where
I ought to go; show me whatever I ought to see—never mind what I like to see,”
as a sudden idea came into his mind that he might see many painful and
disagreeable things. But this journey was not for pleasure as before. He was
not a baby now, to do nothing but play—big boys do not always play. Nor men
neither—they work. Thus much Prince Dolor knew—though very little more.
As the cloak started off, traveling faster than he
had ever known it to do,—through sky-land and cloud land, over freezing
mountain-tops, and desolate stretches of forest, and smiling cultivated plains,
and great lakes that seemed to him almost as shoreless as the sea,—he was often
rather frightened. But he crouched down, silent and quiet; what was the use of
making a fuss? and, wrapping himself up in his bear-skin, waited for what was
to happen.
After some time he heard a murmur in the distance,
increasing more and more till it grew like the hum of a gigantic hive of bees.
And, stretching his chin over the rim of his cloak, Prince Dolor saw—far, far
below him, yet, with his gold spectacles and silver ears on, he could
distinctly hear and see—what?
Most of us have some time or other visited a great
metropolis—have wandered through its network of streets—lost ourselves in its
crowds of people—looked up at its tall rows of houses, its grand public
buildings, churches, and squares. Also, perhaps, we have peeped into its
miserable little back alleys, where dirty children play in gutters all day and
half the night—even young boys go about picking pockets, with nobody to tell them
it is wrong except the policeman, and he simply takes them off to prison. And
all this wretchedness is close behind the grandeur—like the two sides of the
leaf of a book.
An awful sight is a large city, seen any how from
any where. But, suppose you were to see it from the upper air, where, with your
eyes and ears open, you could take in everything at once? What would it look
like? How would you feel about it? I hardly know myself. Do you?
Prince Dolor had need to be a king—that is, a boy
with a kingly nature—to be able to stand such a sight without being utterly
overcome. But he was very much bewildered—as bewildered as a blind person who
is suddenly made to see.
He gazed down on the city below him, and then put
his hand over his eyes.
“I can't bear to look at it, it is so beautiful—so
dreadful. And I don't understand it—not one bit. There is nobody to tell me
about it. I wish I had somebody to speak to.”
“Do you? Then pray speak to me. I was always
considered good at conversation.”
The voice that squeaked out this reply was an
excellent imitation of the human one, though it came only from a bird. No lark
this time, however, but a great black and white creature that flew into the
cloak, and began walking round and round on the edge of it with a dignified
stride, one foot before the other, like any unfeathered biped you could name.
“I haven't the honor of your acquaintance, sir,”
said the boy politely.
“Ma'am, if you please. I am a mother bird, and my
name is Mag, and I shall be happy to tell you everything you want to know. For
I know a great deal; and I enjoy talking. My family is of great antiquity; we
have built in this palace for hundreds—that is to say, dozens of years. I am
intimately acquainted with the king, the queen, and the little princes and
princesses—also the maids of honor, and all the inhabitants of the city. I talk
a good deal, but I always talk sense, and I daresay I should be exceedingly
useful to a poor little ignorant boy like you.”
“I am a prince,” said the other gently.
“All right. And I am a magpie. You will find me a
most respectable bird.”
“I have no doubt of it,” was the polite
answer—though he thought in his own mind that Mag must have a very good opinion
of herself. But she was a lady and a stranger, so of course he was civil to
her.
She settled herself at his elbow, and began to
chatter away, pointing out with one skinny claw, while she balanced herself on
the other, every object of interest, evidently believing, as no doubt all its
inhabitants did, that there was no capital in the world like the great
metropolis of Nomansland.
I have not seen it, and therefore cannot describe
it, so we will just take it upon trust, and suppose it to be, like every other
fine city, the finest city that ever was built. Mag said so—and of course she
knew.
Nevertheless, there were a few things in it which
surprised Prince Dolor—and, as he had said, he could not understand them at
all. One half the people seemed so happy and busy—hurrying up and down the full
streets, or driving lazily along the parks in their grand carriages, while the
other half were so wretched and miserable.
“Can't the world be made a little more level? I
would try to do it if I were a king.”
“But you're not the king: only a little goose of a
boy,” returned the magpie loftily. “And I'm here not to explain things, only to
show them. Shall I show you the royal palace?”
It was a very magnificent palace. It had terraces
and gardens, battlements and towers. It extended over acres of ground, and had
in it rooms enough to accommodate half the city. Its windows looked in all
directions, but none of them had any particular view—except a small one, high
up toward the roof, which looked out on the Beautiful Mountains. But since the
queen died there it had been closed, boarded up, indeed, the magpie said. It
was so little and inconvenient that nobody cared to live in it. Besides, the
lower apartments, which had no view, were magnificent—worthy of being inhabited
by the king.
“I should like to see the king,” said Prince
Dolor.
CHAPTER VIII
What, I wonder, would be people's idea of a king?
What was Prince Dolor's?
Perhaps a very splendid personage, with a crown on
his head and a scepter in his hand, sitting on a throne and judging the people.
Always doing right, and never wrong—“The king can do no wrong” was a law laid
down in olden times. Never cross, or tired, or sick, or suffering; perfectly
handsome and well dressed, calm and good-tempered, ready to see and hear
everybody, and discourteous to nobody; all things always going well with him,
and nothing unpleasant ever happening.
This, probably, was what Prince Dolor expected to
see. And what did he see? But I must tell you how he saw it.
“Ah,” said the magpie, “no levee to-day. The King
is ill, though his Majesty does not wish it to be generally known—it would be
so very inconvenient. He can't see you, but perhaps you might like to go and
take a look at him in a way I often do? It is so very amusing.”
Amusing, indeed!
The prince was just now too much excited to talk
much. Was he not going to see the king his uncle, who had succeeded his father
and dethroned himself; had stepped into all the pleasant things that he, Prince
Dolor, ought to have had, and shut him up in a desolate tower? What was he
like, this great, bad, clever man? Had he got all the things he wanted, which
another ought to have had? And did he enjoy them?
“Nobody knows,” answered the magpie, just as if
she had been sitting inside the prince's heart, instead of on the top of his
shoulder. “He is a king, and that's enough. For the rest nobody knows.”
As she spoke, Mag flew down on to the palace roof,
where the cloak had rested, settling down between the great stacks of chimneys
as comfortably as if on the ground. She pecked at the tiles with her beak—truly
she was a wonderful bird—and immediately a little hole opened, a sort of door,
through which could be seen distinctly the chamber below.
“Now look in, my Prince. Make haste, for I must
soon shut it up again.”
But the boy hesitated. “Isn't it rude?—won't they
think us intruding?”
“Oh, dear no! there's a hole like this in every
palace; dozens of holes, indeed. Everybody knows it, but nobody speaks of it.
Intrusion! Why, though the royal family are supposed to live shut up behind
stone walls ever so thick, all the world knows that they live in a glass house
where everybody can see them and throw a stone at them. Now pop down on your
knees, and take a peep at his Majesty.”
His Majesty!
The Prince gazed eagerly down into a large room,
the largest room he had ever beheld, with furniture and hangings grander than
anything he could have ever imagined. A stray sunbeam, coming through a crevice
of the darkened windows, struck across the carpet, and it was the loveliest
carpet ever woven—just like a bed of flowers to walk over; only nobody walked
over it, the room being perfectly empty and silent.
“Where is the King?” asked the puzzled boy.
“There,” said Mag, pointing with one wrinkled claw
to a magnificent bed, large enough to contain six people. In the center of it,
just visible under the silken counterpane,—quite straight and still,—with its
head on the lace pillow, lay a small figure, something like wax-work, fast
asleep—very fast asleep! There was a number of sparkling rings on the tiny
yellow hands, that were curled a little, helplessly, like a baby's, outside the
coverlet; the eyes were shut, the nose looked sharp and thin, and the long gray
beard hid the mouth and lay over the breast. A sight not ugly nor frightening,
only solemn and quiet. And so very silent—two little flies buzzing about the
curtains of the bed being the only audible sound.
“Is that the King?” whispered Prince Dolor.
“Yes,” replied the bird.
He had been angry—furiously angry—ever since he
knew how his uncle had taken the crown, and sent him, a poor little helpless
child, to be shut up for life, just as if he had been dead. Many times the boy
had felt as if, king as he was, he should like to strike him, this great,
strong, wicked man.
Why, you might as well have struck a baby! How
helpless he lay, with his eyes shut, and his idle hands folded: they had no
more work to do, bad or good.
“What is the matter with him?” asked the Prince.
“He is dead,” said the Magpie, with a croak.
No, there was not the least use in being angry
with him now. On the contrary, the Prince felt almost sorry for him, except
that he looked so peaceful with all his cares at rest. And this was being dead?
So even kings died?
“Well, well, he hadn't an easy life, folk say, for
all his grandeur. Perhaps he is glad it is over. Good-by, your Majesty.”
With another cheerful tap of her beak, Mistress
Mag shut down the little door in the tiles, and Prince Dolor's first and last
sight of his uncle was ended.
He sat in the center of his traveling-cloak,
silent and thoughtful.
“What shall we do now?” said the magpie. “There's
nothing much more to be done with his majesty, except a fine funeral, which I shall
certainly go and see. All the world will. He interested the world exceedingly
when he was alive, and he ought to do it now he's dead—just once more. And
since he can't hear me, I may as well say that, on the whole, his majesty is
much better dead than alive—if we can only get somebody in his place. There'll
be such a row in the city presently. Suppose we float up again and see it
all—at a safe distance, though. It will be such fun!”
“What will be fun?”
“A revolution.”
Whether anybody except a magpie would have called
it “fun” I don't know, but it certainly was a remarkable scene.
As soon as the cathedral bell began to toll and
the minute-guns to fire, announcing to the kingdom that it was without a king,
the people gathered in crowds, stopping at street corners to talk together. The
murmur now and then rose into a shout, and the shout into a roar. When Prince
Dolor, quietly floating in upper air, caught the sound of their different and
opposite cries, it seemed to him as if the whole city had gone mad together.
“Long live the king!” “The king is dead—down with
the king!” “Down with the crown, and the king too!” “Hurrah for the republic!”
“Hurrah for no government at all!”
Such were the shouts which traveled up to the
traveling-cloak. And then began—oh, what a scene!
When you children are grown men and women—or
before—you will hear and read in books about what are called
revolutions—earnestly I trust that neither I nor you may ever see one. But they
have happened, and may happen again, in other countries besides Nomansland,
when wicked kings have helped to make their people wicked too, or out of an
unrighteous nation have sprung rulers equally bad; or, without either of these
causes, when a restless country has fancied any change better than no change at
all.
For me, I don't like changes, unless pretty sure
that they are for good. And how good can come out of absolute evil—the horrible
evil that went on this night under Prince Dolor's very eyes—soldiers shooting
down people by hundreds in the streets, scaffolds erected, and heads dropping
off—houses burned, and women and children murdered—this is more than I can
understand.
But all these things you will find in history, my
children, and must by and by judge for yourselves the right and wrong of them,
as far as anybody ever can judge.
Prince Dolor saw it all. Things happened so fast
one after another that they quite confused his faculties.
“Oh, let me go home,” he cried at last, stopping
his ears and shutting his eyes; “only let me go home!” for even his lonely
tower seemed home, and its dreariness and silence absolute paradise after all
this.
“Good-by, then,” said the magpie, flapping her
wings. She had been chatting incessantly all day and all night, for it was
actually thus long that Prince Dolor had been hovering over the city, neither
eating nor sleeping, with all these terrible things happening under his very
eyes. “You've had enough, I suppose, of seeing the world?”
“Oh, I have—I have!” cried the prince, with a
shudder.
“That is, till next time. All right, your royal
highness. You don't know me, but I know you. We may meet again some time.”
She looked at him with her clear, piercing eyes,
sharp enough to see through everything, and it seemed as if they changed from
bird's eyes to human eyes—the very eyes of his godmother, whom he had not seen
for ever so long. But the minute afterward she became only a bird, and with a
screech and a chatter, spread her wings and flew away.
Prince Dolor fell into a kind of swoon of utter
misery, bewilderment, and exhaustion, and when he awoke he found himself in his
own room—alone and quiet—with the dawn just breaking, and the long rim of
yellow light in the horizon glimmering through the window-panes.
CHAPTER IX
When Prince Dolor sat up in bed, trying to
remember where he was, whither he had been, and what he had seen the day
before, he perceived that his room was empty.
Generally his nurse rather worried him by breaking
his slumbers, coming in and “setting things to rights,” as she called it. Now
the dust lay thick upon chairs and tables; there was no harsh voice heard to
scold him for not getting up immediately, which, I am sorry to say, this boy
did not always do. For he so enjoyed lying still, and thinking lazily about
everything or nothing, that, if he had not tried hard against it, he would
certainly have become like those celebrated
“Two
little men
Who lay
in their bed till the clock struck ten.”
It was striking ten now, and still no nurse was to
be seen. He was rather relieved at first, for he felt so tired; and besides,
when he stretched out his arm, he found to his dismay that he had gone to bed
in his clothes.
Very uncomfortable he felt, of course; and just a
little frightened. Especially when he began to call and call again, but nobody
answered. Often he used to think how nice it would be to get rid of his nurse
and live in this tower all by himself—like a sort of monarch able to do
everything he liked, and leave undone all that he did not want to do; but now
that this seemed really to have happened, he did not like it at all.
“Nurse,—dear nurse,—please come back!” he called
out. “Come back, and I will be the best boy in all the land.”
And when she did not come back, and nothing but
silence answered his lamentable call, he very nearly began to cry.
“This won't do,” he said at last, dashing the
tears from his eyes. “It's just like a baby, and I'm a big boy—shall be a man
some day. What has happened, I wonder? I'll go and see.”
He sprang out of bed,—not to his feet, alas! but
to his poor little weak knees, and crawled on them from room to room. All the
four chambers were deserted—not forlorn or untidy, for everything seemed to
have been done for his comfort—the breakfast and dinner things were laid, the
food spread in order. He might live “like a prince,” as the proverb is, for
several days. But the place was entirely forsaken—there was evidently not a
creature but himself in the solitary tower.
A great fear came upon the poor boy. Lonely as his
life had been, he had never known what it was to be absolutely alone. A kind of
despair seized him—no violent anger or terror, but a sort of patient
desolation.
“What in the world am I to do?” thought he, and
sat down in the middle of the floor, half inclined to believe that it would be
better to give up entirely, lay himself down, and die.
This feeling, however, did not last long, for he
was young and strong, and, I said before, by nature a very courageous boy.
There came into his head, somehow or other, a proverb that his nurse had taught
him—the people of Nomansland were very fond of proverbs:
“For
every evil under the sun
There
is a remedy, or there's none;
If
there is one, try to find it—
If
there isn't, never mind it.”
“I wonder is there a remedy now, and could I find
it?” cried the Prince, jumping up and looking out of the window.
No help there. He only saw the broad, bleak,
sunshiny plain—that is, at first. But by and by, in the circle of mud that surrounded
the base of the tower, he perceived distinctly the marks of a horse's feet, and
just in the spot where the deaf-mute was accustomed to tie up his great black
charger, while he himself ascended, there lay the remains of a bundle of hay
and a feed of corn.
“Yes, that's it. He has come and gone, taking
nurse away with him. Poor nurse! how glad she would be to go!”
That was Prince Dolor's first thought. His
second—wasn't it natural?—was a passionate indignation at her cruelty—at the
cruelty of all the world toward him, a poor little helpless boy. Then he
determined, forsaken as he was, to try and hold on to the last, and not to die
as long as he could possibly help it.
Anyhow, it would be easier to die here than out in
the world, among the terrible doings which he had just beheld—from the midst of
which, it suddenly struck him, the deaf-mute had come, contriving somehow to
make the nurse understand that the king was dead, and she need have no fear in
going back to the capital, where there was a grand revolution, and everything
turned upside down. So, of course, she had gone. “I hope she'll enjoy it,
miserable woman—if they don't cut off her head too.”
And then a kind of remorse smote him for feeling
so bitterly toward her, after all the years she had taken care of
him—grudgingly, perhaps, and coldly; still she had taken care of him, and that
even to the last: for, as I have said, all his four rooms were as tidy as
possible, and his meals laid out, that he might have no more trouble than could
be helped.
“Possibly she did not mean to be cruel. I won't
judge her,” said he. And afterward he was very glad that he had so determined.
For the second time he tried to dress himself, and
then to do everything he could for himself—even to sweeping up the hearth and
putting on more coals. “It's a funny thing for a prince to have to do,” said
he, laughing. “But my godmother once said princes need never mind doing
anything.”
And then he thought a little of his godmother. Not
of summoning her, or asking her to help him,—she had evidently left him to help
himself, and he was determined to try his best to do it, being a very proud and
independent boy,—but he remembered her tenderly and regret-fully, as if even
she had been a little hard upon him—poor, forlorn boy that he was. But he
seemed to have seen and learned so much within the last few days that he
scarcely felt like a boy, but a man—until he went to bed at night.
When I was a child, I used often to think how nice
it would be to live in a little house all by my own self—a house built high up
in a tree, or far away in a forest, or halfway up a hillside so deliciously
alone and independent. Not a lesson to learn—but no! I always liked learning my
lessons. Anyhow, to choose the lessons I liked best, to have as many books to
read and dolls to play with as ever I wanted: above all, to be free and at
rest, with nobody to tease or trouble or scold me, would be charming. For I was
a lonely little thing, who liked quietness—as many children do; which other
children, and sometimes grown-up people even, cannot understand. And so I can
understand Prince Dolor.
After his first despair, he was not merely
comfortable, but actually happy in his solitude, doing everything for himself,
and enjoying everything by himself—until bedtime. Then he did not like it at
all. No more, I suppose, than other children would have liked my imaginary
house in a tree when they had had sufficient of their own company.
But the Prince had to bear it—and he did bear it,
like a prince—for fully five days. All that time he got up in the morning and
went to bed at night without having spoken to a creature, or, indeed, heard a
single sound. For even his little lark was silent; and as for his
traveling-cloak, either he never thought about it, or else it had been spirited
away—for he made no use of it, nor attempted to do so.
A very strange existence it was, those five lonely
days. He never entirely forgot it. It threw him back upon himself, and into
himself—in a way that all of us have to learn when we grow up, and are the
better for it; but it is somewhat hard learning.
On the sixth day Prince Dolor had a strange
composure in his look, but he was very grave and thin and white. He had nearly
come to the end of his provisions—and what was to happen next? Get out of the
tower he could not: the ladder the deaf-mute used was always carried away
again; and if it had not been, how could the poor boy have used it? And even if
he slung or flung himself down, and by miraculous chance came alive to the foot
of the tower, how could he run away?
Fate had been very hard to him, or so it seemed.
He made up his mind to die. Not that he wished to
die; on the contrary, there was a great deal that he wished to live to do; but
if he must die, he must. Dying did not seem so very dreadful; not even to lie
quiet like his uncle, whom he had entirely forgiven now, and neither be
miserable nor naughty any more, and escape all those horrible things that he
had seen going on outside the palace, in that awful place which was called “the
world.”
“It's a great deal nicer here,” said the poor
little Prince, and collected all his pretty things round him: his favorite
pictures, which he thought he should like to have near him when he died; his
books and toys—no, he had ceased to care for toys now; he only liked them
because he had done so as a child. And there he sat very calm and patient, like
a king in his castle, waiting for the end.
“Still, I wish I had done something
first—something worth doing, that somebody might remember me by,” thought he.
“Suppose I had grown a man, and had had work to do, and people to care for, and
was so useful and busy that they liked me, and perhaps even forgot I was lame?
Then it would have been nice to live, I think.”
A tear came into the little fellow's eyes, and he
listened intently through the dead silence for some hopeful sound.
Was there one?—was it his little lark, whom he had
almost forgotten? No, nothing half so sweet. But it really was
something—something which came nearer and nearer, so that there was no
mistaking it. It was the sound of a trumpet, one of the great silver trumpets
so admired in Nomansland. Not pleasant music, but very bold, grand, and
inspiring.
As he listened to it the boy seemed to recall many
things which had slipped his memory for years, and to nerve himself for
whatever might be going to happen.
What had happened was this.
The poor condemned woman had not been such a
wicked woman after all. Perhaps her courage was not wholly disinterested, but
she had done a very heroic thing. As soon as she heard of the death and burial
of the King and of the changes that were taking place in the country, a daring
idea came into her head—to set upon the throne of Nomansland its rightful heir.
Thereupon she persuaded the deaf-mute to take her away with him, and they
galloped like the wind from city to city, spreading everywhere the news that Prince
Dolor's death and burial had been an invention concocted by his wicked uncle
that he was alive and well, and the noblest young prince that ever was born.
It was a bold stroke, but it succeeded. The
country, weary perhaps of the late King's harsh rule, and yet glad to save
itself from the horrors of the last few days, and the still further horrors of
no rule at all, and having no particular interest in the other young princes,
jumped at the idea of this Prince, who was the son of their late good King and
the beloved Queen Dolorez.
“Hurrah for Prince Dolor! Let Prince Dolor be our
sovereign!” rang from end to end of the kingdom. Everybody tried to remember
what a dear baby he once was—how like his mother, who had been so sweet and
kind, and his father, the finest-looking king that ever reigned. Nobody
remembered his lameness—or, if they did, they passed it over as a matter of no
consequence. They were determined to have him reign over them, boy as he
was—perhaps just because he was a boy, since in that case the great nobles
thought they should be able to do as they liked with the country.
Accordingly, with a fickleness not confined to the
people of Nomansland, no sooner was the late King laid in his grave than they
pronounced him to have been a usurper; turned all his family out of the palace,
and left it empty for the reception of the new sovereign, whom they went to
fetch with great rejoicing, a select body of lords, gentlemen, and soldiers
traveling night and day in solemn procession through the country until they
reached Hopeless Tower.
There they found the Prince, sitting calmly on the
floor—deadly pale, indeed, for he expected a quite different end from this, and
was resolved, if he had to die, to die courageously, like a Prince and a King.
But when they hailed him as Prince and King, and
explained to him how matters stood, and went down on their knees before him,
offering the crown (on a velvet cushion, with four golden tassels, each nearly
as big as his head),—small though he was and lame, which lameness the courtiers
pretended not to notice,—there came such a glow into his face, such a dignity
into his demeanor, that he became beautiful, king-like.
“Yes,” he said, “if you desire it, I will be your
king. And I will do my best to make my people happy.”
Then there arose, from inside and outside the
tower, such a shout as never yet was heard across the lonely plain.
Prince Dolor shrank a little from the deafening
sound. “How shall I be able to rule all this great people? You forget, my
lords, that I am only a little boy still.”
“Not so very little,” was the respectful answer.
“We have searched in the records, and found that your Royal Highness—your
Majesty, I mean—is fifteen years old.”
“Am I?” said Prince Dolor; and his first thought
was a thoroughly childish pleasure that he should now have a birthday, with a
whole nation to keep it. Then he remembered that his childish days were done.
He was a monarch now. Even his nurse, to whom, the moment he saw her, he had
held out his hand, kissed it reverently, and called him ceremoniously “his
Majesty the King.”
“A king must be always a king, I suppose,” said he
half-sadly, when, the ceremonies over, he had been left to himself for just ten
minutes, to put off his boy's clothes and be reattired in magnificent robes,
before he was conveyed away from his tower to the royal palace.
He could take nothing with him; indeed, he soon
saw that, however politely they spoke, they would not allow him to take
anything. If he was to be their king, he must give up his old life forever. So
he looked with tender farewell on his old books, old toys, the furniture he
knew so well, and the familiar plain in all its levelness—ugly yet pleasant,
simply because it was familiar.
“It will be a new life in a new world,” said he to
himself; “but I'll remember the old things still. And, oh! if before I go I
could but once see my dear old godmother.”
While he spoke he had laid himself down on the bed
for a minute or two, rather tired with his grandeur, and confused by the noise
of the trumpets which kept playing incessantly down below. He gazed, half
sadly, up to the skylight, whence there came pouring a stream of sunrays, with
innumerable motes floating there, like a bridge thrown between heaven and
earth. Sliding down it, as if she had been made of air, came the little old
woman in gray.
So beautiful looked she—old as she was—that Prince
Dolor was at first quite startled by the apparition. Then he held out his arms
in eager delight.
“Oh, godmother, you have not forsaken me!”
“Not at all, my son. You may not have seen me, but
I have seen you many a time.”
“How?”
“Oh, never mind. I can turn into anything I
please, you know. And I have been a bearskin rug, and a crystal goblet—and
sometimes I have changed from inanimate to animate nature, put on feathers, and
made myself very comfortable as a bird.”
“Ha!” laughed the prince, a new light breaking in
upon him as he caught the infection of her tone, lively and mischievous. “Ha!
ha! a lark, for instance?”
“Or a magpie,” answered she, with a capital
imitation of Mistress Mag's croaky voice. “Do you suppose I am always
sentimental, and never funny? If anything makes you happy, gay, or grave, don't
you think it is more than likely to come through your old godmother?”
“I believe that,” said the boy tenderly, holding
out his arms. They clasped one another in a close embrace.
Suddenly Prince Dolor looked very anxious. “You
will not leave me now that I am a king? Otherwise I had rather not be a king at
all. Promise never to forsake me!”
The little old woman laughed gayly. “Forsake you?
that is impossible. But it is just possible you may forsake me. Not probable
though. Your mother never did, and she was a queen. The sweetest queen in all
the world was the Lady Dolorez.”
“Tell me about her,” said the boy eagerly. “As I
get older I think I can understand more. Do tell me.”
“Not now. You couldn't hear me for the trumpets
and the shouting. But when you are come to the palace, ask for a long-closed
upper room, which looks out upon the Beautiful Mountains; open it and take it
for your own. Whenever you go there you will always find me, and we will talk
together about all sorts of things.”
“And about my mother?”
The little old woman nodded—and kept nodding and
smiling to herself many times, as the boy repeated over and over again the
sweet words he had never known or understood—“my mother—my mother.”
“Now I must go,” said she, as the trumpets blared
louder and louder, and the shouts of the people showed that they would not
endure any delay. “Good-by, good-by! Open the window and out I fly.”
Prince Dolor repeated gayly the musical rhyme—but
all the while tried to hold his godmother fast.
Vain, vain! for the moment that a knocking was
heard at his door the sun went behind a cloud, the bright stream of dancing
motes vanished, and the little old woman with them—he knew not where.
So Prince Dolor quitted his tower—which he had
entered so mournfully and ignominiously as a little helpless baby carried in
the deaf-mute's arms—quitted it as the great King of Nomansland.
The only thing he took away with him was something
so insignificant that none of the lords, gentlemen, and soldiers who escorted
him with such triumphant splendor could possibly notice it—a tiny bundle, which
he had found lying on the floor just where the bridge of sunbeams had rested.
At once he had pounced upon it, and thrust it secretly into his bosom, where it
dwindled into such small proportions that it might have been taken for a mere
chest-comforter, a bit of flannel, or an old pocket-handkerchief. It was his
traveling-cloak!
