{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_41921/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_41921","id":"gutenberg_41921","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41921","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Short Stories","Fables","Fairy tales"],"text":"[Illustration: [See page 48\n\nOFTEN SHE WOULD LIFT THE LID OF THE GOLDEN COFFER AND LOOK AT THE\nTATTERED ROBE]\n\n\n\n\n  THE\n\n  MAKER OF RAINBOWS\n\n  AND OTHER FAIRY-TALES AND FABLES\n\n  BY\n  RICHARD LE GALLIENNE\n\n  AUTHOR OF\n  \"AN OLD COUNTRY HOUSE\"\n\n  WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY\n  ELIZABETH SHIPPEN GREEN\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n  HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS\n  NEW YORK AND LONDON\n  MCMXII\n\n\n  COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY HARPER & BROTHERS\n\n  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA\n  PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1912\n\n  I \u00b7 M\n\n\n     THAT THIS VOLUME SHALL BE ENTIRELY IN KEEPING WITH ITS FAIRY-TALE\n     CONTENTS, I DEDICATE IT TO MY GOOD FRIENDS, ITS PUBLISHERS, MESSRS.\n     HARPER & BROTHERS IN REMEMBRANCE OF KINDLY RELATIONS BETWEEN THEM\n     AND ITS WRITER SELDOM FOUND OUT OF A FAIRY-TALE\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n  CHAP.                                     PAGE\n\n  I. THE OLD COAT OF DREAMS                    1\n\n  II. THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS                    7\n\n  III. THE MAN WITH SOMETHING IN HIS EYE      14\n\n  IV. MOTHER-OF-PEARL                         17\n\n  V. THE MER-MOTHER                           27\n\n  VI. THE SLEEPLESS LORD                      29\n\n  VII. THE MAN WITH NO MONEY                  39\n\n  VIII. THE RAGS OF QUEEN COPHETUA            42\n\n  IX. THE WIFE FROM FAIRY-LAND                51\n\n  X. THE BUYER OF SORROWS                     54\n\n  XI. THE PRINCESS'S MIRROR                   60\n\n  XII. THE PINE LADY                          73\n\n  XIII. THE KING ON HIS WAY TO BE CROWNED     75\n\n  XIV. THE STOLEN DREAM                       88\n\n  XV. THE STERN EDUCATION OF CLOWNS          103\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n  OFTEN SHE WOULD LIFT THE LID OF THE GOLDEN COFFER\n  AND LOOK AT THE TATTERED ROBE                         _Frontispiece_\n\n  A SUDDEN STRANGE NEW LIGHT WOULD SHINE OUT OF ITS\n  PAGES                                                 _Facing p._ 30\n\n  HE WENT FORTH INTO THE DAWN SLEEPLESS                      \"      36\n\n  THE HERALD ONCE MORE SET THE TRUMPET TO HIS LIPS AND BLEW  \"      56\n\n  HER ONLY CARE WAS TO GAZE ALL DAY AT HER OWN FACE          \"      60\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE MAKER OF\nRAINBOWS\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE OLD COAT OF DREAMS\n\nA PROLOGUE\n\n\nPeople in London--not merely literary folk, but even those \"higher\nsocial circles\" to which a certain publisher, whose name--or race--it is\nhardly fair to mention, had so obsequiously climbed--often wondered\nwhence had come the wealth that enabled him to maintain such an\nestablishment, give such elaborate \"parties,\" have so many automobiles,\nand generally make all that display which is so convincing to the modern\nmind.\n\nOf course they were not seriously concerned, because, so long as it is a\nparty, and the _chef_ is paid so much, and the wines are as old as they\nshould be, not even the rarest blossom on the most ancient and\ndistinguished genealogical tree cares whose party it is, or, indeed,\nwith whom she dances. There is only one democracy, and that is\ncontrolled by gentlemen with names that hardly sound beautiful enough\nto mention in fairy tales--that democracy of money to which the fairest\nflower of our aristocracy now bows her coroneted head.\n\nStrange--but we all know that so it is. Therefore, all sorts of\ndistinguished and beautiful people came to the publisher's \"parties.\"\n\nIt would have made no difference, really, to their hard hearts, could\nthey have known where all the champagne and conservatories and music\ncame from--they would have gone on dancing all the same, and eating\n_p\u00e2t\u00e9 de foie gras_ and sherbets; yet it may interest a sad heart here\nand there to know how it was that that publisher--whose name I forget,\nbut whose nose I can never forget--was able to pay for all that music\nand dancing, strange flowers, and enchanted food, none of which he, of\ncourse, understood.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAristocrats in London, of course, know nothing of a northern district of\nNew York City called Harlem, with so many streets that a learned\narithmetician would be needed to number them: a district which, at the\nfirst call of spring, becomes vocal with children on door-steps and\nvenders of every vegetable in every language. In this district, too, you\nhear strange trumpets blow, announcing knife and scissors grinders, and\nstrange bells ringing from strings suspended across carts, whose\nmerchandise is bottles and old newspapers. You will hear, too, just when\nthe indomitable sweet smells from the terrible eternal spring are\nblowing in at your window, and the murmur of rich happy people going\naway is heard in the land, a raucous cry in the hot street--a cry full\nof melancholy, even despair: it goes something like this--\"Cash clo'!\nCash clo'!\"\n\nWell, it was just then that a young poet, living in one of those highly\narithmetical streets, was wondering, as all the sad spring murmur came\nto his ears, how he could possibly buy a rose for the bosom of his\nsweetheart, with whom he was to dance that night at a local ball.\nEverything he had in the world had gone. He had sold everything--except\nhis poems. All his precious books had gone, sad one by one. Little\npaintings that once made his walls seem like the Louvre had gone. All\nhis old silver spoons and all the little intaglios he loved so well, and\nyes! he had even sold the old copper chest of the Renaissance, all\nstudded nails, with three locks, in which ... well, all had gone. Only,\nwhere was that rose for the bosom of his sweetheart--where was it\ngrowing? Where and how was it to be bought?\n\nJust as he was at his wit's end, he heard a cry through the window. It\nhad meant nothing to him before. Now--strange as it may sound--it meant\na rose!\n\n\"Cash clo'! Cash clo'!\"\n\nHe had an old dress-suit in his wardrobe. Perhaps that would buy a rose!\nSo, leaning through the window, he called down to the voice to \"come\nup.\"\n\nThe gentleman from Palestine came up.\n\nIt would be easy to describe the contempt with which he surveyed the\ndistinguished though somewhat ancient garments thus offered to him--in\nexchange for a rose!--how he affected to examine linings and seams,\nknowing all the time the distinguished tailor that had made them, and\nwhat a bargain he was about to drive.\n\nOf course, they weren't, well ... really ... practically ... they\nweren't worth buying....\n\nThe poet wondered a moment about the cost of a rose.\n\n\"Are they worth the price of a rose?\" he asked.\n\nThe gentleman from Palestine didn't, of course, understand.\n\n\"You see,\" said he, finally; \"I'd like to give you more, but you know\nhow it is ... look at these linings and buttonholes! Honestly, I don't\nreally care about them at all--but--really a dollar and a half is the\nbest I can do on them....\" And he eyed the poet's clothes with contempt.\n\n\"A dollar seventy-five,\" said the poet, standing firm.\n\n\"All right,\" at last said the gentleman from Palestine, \"but I don't see\nwhere I am to make any profit; however--\" And he handed out the small,\ndirty money.\n\nThen the poet bowed him out gently, saying in his heart:\n\n\"Now I can buy my rose!\"\n\nWhen the Palestinian dealer in old dress-suits went home--after sadly\nleaving behind him that dollar seventy-five--he made an astonishing\ndiscovery.\n\nIn the necessary process of re-examining the \"goods,\" something fell out\nof one of the pockets, something the poet, after his nature, had quite\nforgotten. The old-clothes man, now a publisher, picked them up from the\nfloor and gazed at them in delight. The poet, in his grandiose\ncarelessness, had forgotten to empty his pockets of various old dreams!\n\nNow, to be fair to the gentleman from Palestine, he belonged to a race\nthat loves dreams, and, to do him justice, he forgot all about the\nprofit he was to make of the poor poet's clothes, as he sat,\ncross-legged, on the floor, and read the dreams that had fallen from the\npocket of the poet's old dress-suit. He read on and read on, and laughed\nand cried--such a curious treasure-trove, such an odd medley of fairy\ntales and fables and poems had fallen out of the poet's pocket--and it\nwas only later that the thought came to him that he might change from an\nold-clothes man into a publisher of dreams.\n\nNow, these are some of the dreams that fell out of the poet's pocket.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MAKER OF RAINBOWS\n\n\nIt was a bleak November morning in the dreary little village of\nTwelve-trees. Nature herself seemed hopeless and disgusted with the\nuniverse, as the chill mists stole wearily among the bare trees, and the\nboughs dripped with a clammy moisture that had nothing of the energy of\ntears.\n\nTwelve-trees was a poor little village at the best of times, but the\npast summer had been more than usually unkind to it, and the lean\nwheat-fields and the ragged orchards had been leaner and more ragged\nthan ever before--so said the memory of the oldest villagers.\n\nThere was very little to eat in the village of Twelve-trees, and\npractically no money at all. Some of the inhabitants found consolation\nin the fact that at the Inn of the Blessed Rood the cider-kegs still\nheld out against despair.\n\nBut this was no comfort to the gaunt and shivering children left to\nthemselves on the chill door-steps, half-heartedly trying to play their\ninnocent little games. Even the heart of childhood felt the shadows that\nNovember morning in the dreary little village of Twelve-trees, and even\nthe dogs and the cats of the village seemed to be under the same spell\nof gloom, and moved about with a dank hopelessness, evidently expecting\nnothing in the shape of discarded fish or transfiguring smells.\n\nThere was no life in the long, disheveled High Street. No one seemed to\nthink it worth while to get up and work. There was nothing to get up\nfor, and no work worth doing. So, naturally, in all this echoing\nemptiness, this lack of excitement, anything that happened attracted a\ngratefully alert attention--even from those cats and dogs so sadly\nprowling amid the dejected refuse of the village.\n\nPresently, amid all the November numbness, the blank nothingness of the\ndamp, deserted street, there was to be seen approaching from the south a\ncurious little figure of an old man, trundling at his side a strange\napparatus resembling a knife-grinder's wheel, and he carried some\nforlorn old umbrellas under one arm. Evidently he was an itinerant\nknife-grinder and umbrella-mender. As he proceeded up the street, he\ncalled out some strange sing-song, the words of which it was impossible\nto distinguish.\n\nBut, though his cry was melancholy, his old puckered and wizened face\nseemed to be alight with some inner and inextinguishable gladness, and\nhis electrical blue eyes, startlingly set in a network of wrinkles, were\nas full of laughter as a boy's. His cry attracted a weary face here and\nthere at window and door; but, seeing nothing but an old knife-grinder,\nthe faces lost interest and immediately disappeared. The children,\nhowever, being less sophisticated, were filled with a grateful curiosity\ntoward the stranger, and left the chill door-steps and trooped about him\nin wonder.\n\nA little girl, with tears making channels down her pale, unwashed face,\ncaught the old man's eye.\n\n\"Little one,\" he said, with a magical smile, and a voice all reassuring\nlove, \"give me one of those tears, and I will show you what I can make\nof it.\"\n\nAnd he touched the child's face with his hand, and caught one of her\ntears on his finger, and placed it, glittering, on his wheel. Then,\nworking a pedal with his foot, the wheel began to move so swiftly that\none could see nothing but its whirling; and as it whirled, wonderful\ncolored rays began to rise from it, so that presently the dreary street\nseemed full of rainbows. The sad houses were lit up with a fairy\nradiance, and the faces of the children were all laughter again.\n\n\"Well, little one,\" he said, when the wheel stopped whirling, \"did you\nlike what I made out of that sad little tear?\"\n\nAnd the children laughed, and begged him to do some other trick for\nthem.\n\nAt that moment there came down the street a poor old half-witted woman,\nindescribably dirty and bedraggled, talking to herself and laughing in a\ncreepy way. The village knew her as Crazy Sal, and the children were\naccustomed to make cruel sport of her. As she came near they began to\njeer at her, with the heartlessness of young, unknowing things.\n\nBut the strange old man who had made rainbows out of the little girl's\ntear suddenly stopped them.\n\n\"Stay, children,\" he said, \"and watch.\"\n\nAnd, as he said this, his wheel went whirling again; and as it whirled a\nlight shot out from it, so that it illuminated the poor old woman, and\nin its radiance she became strangely transfigured. In place of Crazy\nSal, whom they had been accustomed to mock, the children saw a\nbeautiful young girl, all blushes and bright eyes and pretty ribbons;\nand so great was the murmur of their surprise that it drew to the\ndoor-steps their fathers and mothers, who also saw Crazy Sal as none of\nthem had ever seen her before--except a very old man who remembered her\nas a beautiful young girl, and remembered, too, how her mind had gone\nfrom her as the news came one day that her sweetheart, a sailor, had\nbeen drowned in the North Sea.\n\n\"Who and what are you?\" said this old man, stepping out a little in\nfront of the gathering crowd. \"Are you a wizard, that you change a\nchild's tears into laughter, and turn an old half-witted woman back to a\nyoung girl? You must be of the devil....\"\n\n\"Give me an ear of corn from your last harvest,\" answered the old\nknife-grinder, \"and let me put it on my wheel.\"\n\nAn ear of corn was brought to him, and once more his wheel went\nwhirring, and again that strange light shot out from it, and spread far\npast the houses over the fields beyond; and, lo! to the astonished sad\neyes of the weary farmers, they appeared waving with golden grain,\nwaiting for the scythe.\n\nAnd again, as the wheel stopped whirring, the old man who had\nremembered Crazy Sal as a young girl spoke to the knife-grinder; again\nhe asked:\n\n\"What and who are you? Are you a wizard that you change a child's tears\ninto laughter, and turn an old half-witted woman back to a young girl,\nand make of a barren glebe a waving corn-field?\"\n\nAnd the man with the strange wheel answered:\n\n\"I am the maker of rainbows. I am the alchemist of hope. To me November\nis always May, tears are always laughter that is going to be, and\ndarkness is light misunderstood. The sad heart makes its own sorrow, the\nhappy heart makes its own joy. The harvest is made by the\nharvestman--and there is nothing hard or black or weary that is not\nwaiting for the magic touch of hope to become soft as a spring flower,\nbright as the morning star, and valiant as a young runner in the dawn.\"\n\nBut the village of Twelve-trees was not to be convinced by such words\nmade out of moonshine. Only the children believed in the laughing old\nman with the strange wheel.\n\n\"Rainbows!\" mocked their fathers and mothers--\"rainbows! Much good are\nrainbows to a starving village.\"\n\nThe old maker of rainbows took their taunts in silence, and made ready\nto go his way; but as he started once more along the road he said, with\na cynical smile:\n\n\"Have you never heard that there is a pot of gold at the end of the\nrainbow?...\"\n\n\"A pot of gold?\" cried out the whole village of Twelve-trees.\n\n\"Yes,\" he answered, \"a pot of gold! I know where it is, and I am going\nto find it.\"\n\nAnd he moved on his way.\n\nThen the villagers looked at one another, and said over and over again,\n\"A pot of gold!\"\n\nAnd they took cloaks and walking-staves and set out to accompany the old\nvisitor; but when they reached the outskirts of the village there was no\nsign of him. He had mysteriously disappeared.\n\nBut the children never forgot the rainbows.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MAN WITH SOMETHING IN HIS EYE\n\n\nOnce on a time toward the end of February, when the snow still festered\nin the New York streets, and the wind blew cruelly from river to river,\na strange figure made a somewhat storm-tossed progress along\nForty-second Street, walking toward the East Side. He was a tall,\ndistinguished, curiously sad-looking man, with longish hair growing\ngray, and clothes which, though they had been brushed many times, still\nproclaimed aloud a Bond Street tailor. As he walked along he had\nevidently some trouble with one of his eyes, which he rubbed from time\nto time, as though a cinder, perhaps, from the Elevated Railroad had\nlodged there, and at last he held a handkerchief to it as he walked\nalong. But whatever the trouble was, it did not seem to interfere with a\nkeen and kindly vision that noted every object and character of the\nthronged street. Now and again, strangers in that noisy and bewildering\nquarter would ask direction from him, and he never failed to stop with\nan aristocratic painstaking courtesy and set them on their way. Nervous\nold women with bundles at perilous crossings found his arm ready to\npilot them safely to the other side. There was about him a curious\ngentleness which, after a while, did not fail to attract the attention\nof enterprising boys and observing beggars, for whom, as he walked\nalong, evidently sorely troubled with his eye, he did not fail to find\npennies and kind words.\n\nAt last he had become so noticeable for these oddities of behavior that,\nas he went along, he had collected quite an escort of miscellaneous\nindividuals, ragged children with pale, precocious faces, voluble old\nIrishwomen with bedraggled petticoats, sturdy beggars on crutches, and a\nsprinkling of so-called \"respectable\" people, curiously hovering on the\nskirts of the strange crowd. From some of these last came at length\nunkindly comments. The man was evidently crazy--more probably he was\ndrunk. But it was plainly evident that he had something the matter with\nhis eye.\n\nAt last a kindly individual suggested that he should go to a drug-store\nand get the drug clerk to look at his eye. To this the stranger\nassented, and, accompanied by his motley escort, he entered a\ndrug-store and put himself into the hands of the clerk, while the crowd\nthronged the door and glared through the windows, wondering what was the\nmatter with the eccentric gentleman, who, after all, was very free with\nhis pence and had so kind a tongue. A policeman did not, of course, fail\nto elbow himself into the store, to inquire what was the matter.\n\nMeanwhile the drug clerk proceeded to lift up the stranger's eyelid in a\nprofessional manner, searching for the extraneous particle of pain.\n\nAt last he found something, and made a strange announcement. The\nsomething in the stranger's eye was--Pity.\n\nNo wonder it had caused such a sensation in the most pitiless city in\nthe world.\n\n\n\n\nMOTHER-OF-PEARL\n\n\nThere was once a poet who lived all alone by the sea. He had built for\nhimself a little house of boulders mortised in among the rocks, so\nhidden that it was seldom that any wayfarer stumbled upon his retreat.\nWayfarers indeed were few in that solitary island, which was for the\nmost part covered with thick beech woods, and had for its inhabitants\nonly the wild creatures of wood and water and the strange unearthly\nshapes that none but the poet's eyes could see. The nearest village was\nmiles away on the mainland, and for months at a time the solitude would\nbe undisturbed by sound of human voice or footstep--which was the poet's\nidea of happiness. The world of men had seemed to him a world of sorrow\nand foolishness and lies, and so he had forsaken it to dwell with\nsilence and beauty and the sound of the sea.\n\nFor him the world had been an uncompanioned wilderness. Here at last his\nspirit had found its home and its kindred. The speech of men had been\nto him a vain confusion, but here were the voices he had been born to\nunderstand, the elemental voices of earth and sea and sky, the secret\nwisdom of the eternal. From morning till night his days were passed in\nlistening to these voices, and in writing down in beautiful words the\nmessages of wonder they brought him. So his little house grew to be\nfilled with the lovely songs that had come to him out of the sky and the\nsea and the haunted beeches. He had written them in a great book with\nsilver clasps, and often at evening, when the moon was rising over the\nsea, he would sing them to himself, for joy in the treasure which he had\nthus hoarded out of the air, as a man might weigh the grains of gold\nsifted from some flowing river.\n\nOne night, as he thus sat singing to himself in the solitude, he was\nstartled by a deep sigh, as of some human creature near at hand, and\nlooking around he was aware of a lovely form, half in and half out of\nthe water, gazing at him with great moonlit eyes from beneath masses of\ngolden hair. In awe and delight he gazed back spellbound at the\nunearthly vision. It was a fairy woman of the sea, more beautiful than\ntongue can tell. Over her was the supernatural beauty of dreams and as\nhe looked at her the poet's heart filled with that more than mortal\nhappiness that only comes to us in dreams.\n\n\"Beautiful spirit,\" at length he cried, stretching out his arms to the\nvision; but as he did so she was gone, and in the place where she had\nbeen there was nought but the lonely moonlight falling on the rocks.\n\n\"It was all a trick of the moonlight,\" said the poet to himself, but,\neven as he said it, there seemed to come floating to him the cadences of\nan unearthly music of farewell.\n\nIn his heart the poet knew that it had not been the moonlight, but that\nnature had granted him one of those mystic visitations which come only\nto those whose loving meditation upon her secrets have opened the hidden\ndoors. She had drawn aside for a moment the veil of her visible beauty,\nand vouchsafed him a glimpse of her invisible mystery. But the veil had\nbeen drawn again almost instantly, and the poet's eyes were left empty\nand hungered for the face that had thus momentarily looked at him\nthrough the veil. Yet his heart was filled with a high happiness, for,\nthe vision once his, would it not be his again? Did it not mean that\nthrough the long initiation of his solitary contemplation he had come at\nlength to that aery boundary where the wall between the seen and the\nunseen grows transparent and the human meets the immortal face to face?\n\nStill, days passed, and the poet watched in vain for the beautiful woman\nof the sea. She came not again for all his singing, and his heart grew\nheavy within him; but one day, as he walked the seashore at dawn, it\ngave a great bound of joy, for there in mystical writing upon the silver\nsand was a message which no eyes but his could have read. But the poet\nwas skilled in the secret script of the elements. To him the patterns of\nleaves and flowers, the traceries of moss and lichen, the markings on\nrocks and trees, which to others were but meaningless decorations, were\nthe letters of nature's hidden language, the spell-words of her runic\nwisdom. To other eyes the message he had found written on the sand would\nhave seemed but a tangle of delicate weeds and shells cast up by the\nsea. To him, as he turned it into our coarser human speech, it said:\n\n    \"Seek me not,--unsought I come,--\n    Daughter of the moonlit foam,\n    Near and far am I to thee,\n    Near and far as earth and sea,\n    As wave to wave, as star to star,\n    Near and far, near and far.\"\n\nAnd that night, when the poet sat and sang, with full heart, in the\nmoonlight--lo! the vision was there once more.... But again, as he\nstretched out his arms, she was gone. But this time the poet did not\ngrieve as before, for he knew that she would come again, as indeed it\nbefell. When she appeared to him the third time she had stolen so near\nto his side that he could gaze deep into her strange eyes, as into the\nfathomless, moonlit sea, and at the ending of his song she did not fade\naway as before, but her long hair fell all about him like a net of\nmoonbeams, and she lay like the moon herself in his enraptured arms.\n\nTo the passionate lover of nature, the anchorite of her solitudes, there\noften comes, in the very hour of his closest approach to her, an aching\nsense of incomplete oneness with her, a human desire for some responsive\nembodiment of her mysterious beauty; and there are ecstatic moments in\nwhich nature seems on the tremulous verge of sending us a magic\nanswer--moments of intense reverie when the woods seem about to reveal\nto us the inner heart of their silence, in some sudden shape of\nunimaginable enchantment, or the infinite of the starry night take form\nat our side in some companionable radiance. We long, as it were, to\npress our lips to the forehead of the dawn, to crush the leafy abundance\nof summer to our breast, and to fold the infinite ocean in our embrace.\n\nTo the poet, reward of his lonely vigils and endless longing, nature had\ngranted this marvel. How often, as he had gazed at the moon rising out\nof the sea, had he dreamed of a shining shape that came to him along her\nsilver pathway. And to-night the mystery of the moonlit sea was in his\narms. No longer a lovely vision calling him from afar--an unapproachable\nwonder, a voice, a gleam--but a miraculously embodied spirit of the\nelements, supernaturally fair.\n\nThe poet was, more than all men, learned in beautiful words, but he\ncould find no words for this strange happiness that had befallen him;\nindeed, he had now passed beyond the world of words, and as he gazed\ninto those magic eyes, that seemed like sea-flowers growing out of the\nair, they spoke to each other as wave talks to wave, or the leaves\nwhisper together on the trees.\n\nSo it was that the poet ceased to be alone in his solitude, and the\nfairy woman from the sea became his wife, and very wonderful was their\nhappiness. But, as with all happiness, theirs, too, was not without its\ntouch of sorrow. For, marvelously wedded though they were, so closely\nunited that they seemed veritably one rather than two beings, there had\nbeen a deep meaning to that little song which the poet had found written\nin seaweed upon the sand:\n\n    \"Near and far am I to thee,\n    Near and far as earth and sea,\"\n\nit had said,\n\n    \"Near and far, near and far.\"\n\nFor not even their love could cast down for them one eternal barrier.\nThey could meet and love across it, but it was still there. They were\nchildren of two diverse elements, and neither could cross from one into\nthe other--she a child of the blue sea, he a child of the green earth.\nShe must always leave him at the edge of the mysterious woods in which\nher heart ached to wander, and, however far out into the wide waters he\nwould swim at her side, there would always be those deep-sea grottoes\nand flower-gardens whither he could never follow. Down into these\nenchanted depths he would watch her glide her shimmering way, but never\nmight he follow her to the hidden kingdoms of the sea. He must await her\nout there, an alien, in the upper sunshine, and watch her glittering\nkindred stream in and out the rainbowed portals--till again she was at\nhis side, her hands filled for his consolation with the secret treasures\nof the sea.\n\nSo would she, from the shore, with despair in her eyes, watch him\ndisappear among the beech-trees to gather for her the waxen flowers and\nthe sweet-smelling green leaves and grasses she loved more than any that\ngrew in the sea. Thus across their barrier would they make exchange of\nthe marvels that grew on either side, and thus, indeed, the barrier grew\nless and less by reason of their love. Sometimes they asked each other\nif that other mystery, Death, would remove the barrier altogether....\n\nBut at the heart of the woman Life was already whispering another\nanswer.\n\n\"What,\" said she, as they watched the solemn stars in the still water\none summer night, \"what if a little being were born to us that should\nbelong to both our worlds, to your green earth and to my blue sea? Would\nyou seem so lonely then? A little being that could run by your side in\nthe meadows, and swim with me into the depths of the sea!...\"\n\n\"Would you be so lonely then?\" he echoed.\n\nAnd lo! after a season, it was this very marvel that came to pass; for\none night, as she came along the moon-path to his side, she was not\nalone, but a tiny fairy woman was with her--a little radiant creature\nthat, as her mother had dreamed, could gather with one hand the flowers\nthat grow in the deeps of the wood and with the other the flowers that\ngrow in the deeps of the sea.\n\nLike any other mortal babe she was, save for this: around her waist ran\na shimmering girdle--of mother-of-pearl.\n\nSo the poet and his wife called her Mother-of-Pearl; and she became for\nthem, as it were, a baby-bridge between two elements. In her mysterious\nlife their two lives became one, as never before. So near she brought\nthem to each other that often there seemed no barrier at all. And thus\ndays and years passed, and very wonderful was their happiness.\n\nBut by this the world which the poet had forgotten had grown curious\nregarding the life which he lived alone among the rocks. Many of his\nsongs, as songs will, had escaped from his solitude, and floated singing\namong men; and weird rumors grew of the strange happiness that had come\nto him. Some of the more curious had spied upon him in his seclusion,\nand had brought back to the town marvelous accounts of having seen him\nin the moonlight with his fairy wife and child at his side. And, after\nits fashion, the world had decided that here was plainly the work of the\ndevil, and that the poet was a wizard in league with the powers of\ndarkness. So the ignorant world has ever interpreted the beauty it could\nnot understand, and the happiness it could not give.\n\nThus a cloud began to gather of which the poet and his mer-wife and\nlittle Mother-of-Pearl knew nothing, and one evening at moonrise, as\nthey were disporting themselves in their innocent happiness by the sea,\nit burst upon them from the beech-trees with a gathering murmur and a\nsudden roar.\n\nA great mob, uttering cries and waving torches, broke from the wood and\nran toward them.\n\n\"Death to the wizard!\" they cried. \"Death! Death!\"\n\nAs the poet heard them, he turned to his wife and little\nMother-of-Pearl. \"Fear not,\" he cried, \"they cannot hurt us.\"\n\nThen, as again the cry went up, \"Death to the wizard!\" a sudden light\nshone in his face.\n\n\"Death ... yes! That is the last door of the barrier....\" and he plunged\ninto the moonlit water.\n\nAnd when the rabble at length reached the shore with their torches, the\npoet and his loved ones were already lost in the silver pathway that\nleads to the hidden kingdoms of the sea.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MER-MOTHER\n\n\n    One day, walking by the sea,\n    I heard a sweet voice calling me:\n    I looked--but nothing could I see;\n    I listened--but no more I heard;\n    Only the sea and the sea-bird\n    And the blue sky were there with me.\n\n    But on another happier day,\n    When all the sea was sun and spray,\n    And laughing shout of wind and foam,\n    I seemed to hear the voice once more,--\n    Wilder and sweeter than before,\n    O wild as love and sweet as home.\n\n    I looked, and lo! before me there\n    A maiden sat in seaweeds drest,\n    Sea-flowers hiding in her breast,\n    And with a comb of deep-sea pearl\n    She combed, like any other girl,\n    Her golden hair--her golden hair.\n\n    And, as each shining yellow curl\n    Flickered like sunshine through the pearl,\n    She laughed and sang--but not for me:\n    Three little babies of the sea\n    Were diving in and out for joy--\n    Two mer-girls and a small mer-boy.\n\n    That fairy song was not for me,\n    Nor those green eyes, nor that gold hair;\n    Deep in the caves beneath the foam\n    There was a husband and a home--\n    It was a mermaid taking care\n    Of her small children of the sea.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nTHE SLEEPLESS LORD\n\n\nThere was once a great lord. He was lord of seven castles, and there\nwere seven coronets upon his head. He was richer than he ever gave\nhimself the trouble to think of, for, north, south, east, and west, the\nhorizon even set no bounds to his estates. A thousand villages and ten\nthousand farms were in the hollow of his hand, and into his coffers\nflowed the fruitfulness and labor of all these. Therefore, as you can\nimagine, he was a very rich lord. He had more beautiful titles, denoting\nthe various principalities over which he was lord, than the\ndeepest-lunged herald could proclaim without taking breath at least\nthree times. In person he was most noble and beautiful to look upon, and\nhis voice was like the rippling of waters under the moon, save when it\nwas like the call of a golden trumpet. He stood foremost in the counsels\nof his realm, not only for his eloquence, but for his wisdom. Also, God\nhad given him a good heart.\n\nOnly one gift had been denied him--the gift of sleep. By whatever means\nhe might weary himself in the day--in study, in sport, in recreation, or\nin the business of the realm--night found him sleepless, and all the\ndark hours the lights burned in his bedchamber and in his library, as he\nwould pace from one to the other, with eyes tragically awake and brain\ntorturingly alert and clear.\n\nEvery means known to science by which to bring sleep to the eyes of\nsleepless men had been tried in vain. Learned physicians from all parts\nof the world had come to my lord's castle, and had gone thence,\nconfessing that their skill had availed nothing. All strange and\nterrible drugs that have power over the spirit of man had failed to\nconquer those stubborn eyelids. My lord still paced from his bedchamber\nto his library, from his library to his bedchamber--sleepless.\n\n[Illustration: A SUDDEN STRANGE NEW LIGHT WOULD SHINE OUT OF ITS PAGES]\n\nSometimes in his anguish he had thrown himself on his knees in prayer\nbefore a God whom he had not always remembered--the God who giveth His\nbeloved sleep--but his prayers had remained unanswered; and in his\ndarkest moments he had dreamed of snatching by his own hands that sleep\nperpetual of which a great Latin poet he loved had sung. Often, as he\npaced his library, he would say over and over to himself, _Nox est\nperpetua una dormienda_--and in the still night the old words would\noften sound like soft dark voices calling him away into the endless\nnight of the endless sleep. But he was not the man to take that way of\nescape. No; whatever the suffering might be, he would fight it out to\nthe end, and so he continued sleepless, trying this resource and that,\nbut, most of all, that first and last resource--courage. It is seldom\nthat courage fails to wrest for us some recompense from the hardest\nsituation, and the sleepless man, as night after night he fought with\nhis fate, did not miss such hard-wrung rewards. Often, as in the deepest\nhush of the night he wearily took up some great old book of philosopher\nor poet familiar to him from his youth, a sudden strange new light would\nshine out of its pages, as of some inner radiance of truth which he had\nmissed in his daylight reading. At such times an exaltation would come\nover him, and it would almost seem as though the curse upon him was\nreally a blessing of initiation into the world of a deeper wisdom, the\ngate of which is hidden by the glare of the sun. In the daylight the\neternal voices are lost in the transitory clamor of human business; it\nis only when the night falls, and the stars rise, and the noise of men\ndies down like the drone of some sleeping insect, that the solemn\nthoughts of God may be heard.\n\nOther compensations he found when, weary of his books and despairing of\nsleep, he would leave his house and wander through the silent city,\nwhere the roaring thoroughfares of the daytime were silent as the\npyramids, and the great warehouses seemed like deserted palaces haunted\nby the moon. Night-walkers like himself grew to find his figure\nfamiliar, and would say to themselves, or to each other, \"There goes the\nlord who never sleeps\"; and the watchmen on their rounds all knew and\nsaluted the man whose eyelids never closed. Enforced as these nocturnal\nrambles were, they revealed to him much beautiful knowledge which those\nmore fortunate ones asleep in their beds must ever miss. Thus he came in\ncontact with all the vast nocturnal labor of the world, the toil of\nsleepless men who keep watch over the sleeping earth, and work through\nthe night to make it ready for the new-born day; all that labor which is\nput away and forgotten with the rising of the sun, and of which the day\nasks no questions, so that the result be there. This brought him very\nnear to humanity and taught him a deep pity for the grinding lot of\nman.\n\nThen--was it no compensation for this sleepless one that he thus became\na companion of all the ensorceled beauty of Night, walking by her side,\na confidant of her mystic talk, as he gazed into her everlasting eyes?\nWas it nothing to be the intimate of all her sibylline moods, learned in\nevery haunted murmur of her voice, intrusted with her lunar secrets, and\na friend of all her stars?\n\nYes! it was much indeed, he often said to himself, as he turned homeward\nwith the first flush of morning, and met the great sweet-smelling wains\ncoming from the country, laden with fruits and flowers, and making their\nway like moving orchards and meadows through the city streets.\n\nThe big wagoners, too, were well acquainted with the great lord who\nnever slept, and would always stop when they saw him, for it was his\ncustom to buy from them a bunch of country flowers.\n\n\"The country dew is still on them,\" he would say; \"it will have dried\nlong since when the people sleeping yonder come to buy them,\" and, as he\nslipped back into his house, he would often feel a sort of pity for\nthose who slept so well that they never saw the stars set and the sun\nrise.\n\nSuch were some of the compensations with which he strove to strengthen\nhis soul--not all in vain. So time passed; but at length the strain of\nthose interminable nights began to tell upon the sleepless man, and\nstrange fancies began to take possession of him. His vigils were no\nlonger lonely, but inhabited by spectral voices and shadowy faces.\nRebellion against his fate began to take the place of courage; and one\nnight, in anger against his unending ordeal, he said to himself: \"Am I\nnot a great lord? It is intolerable that I should be denied that simple\nthing which the humblest and poorest possess so abundantly. Am I not\nrich? I will go forth and buy sleep.\"\n\nSo saying, he took from a cabinet a great jewel of priceless value. \"It\nis worth half my estate,\" he said. \"Surely with this I can buy sleep.\"\nAnd he went out into the night.\n\nAs if in irony, the night was unusually wide-awake with stars, and the\nmoon was almost at its full. As the sleepless one looked up into the\nfirmament, it almost seemed as though it mocked him with his brilliant\nwakefulness. From horizon to horizon, in all the heaven, there was to be\nseen no downiest feather of the wings of sleep. To his upturned eyes,\npleading for the mercy of sleep, the stars sent down an answer of\npolished steel. And so he turned his eyes again upon the earth.\nEverything there also, even the keenly cut shadows, seemed pitilessly\nawake. It almost seemed as though God had withdrawn the blessing of\nsleep from His universe.\n\nBut no! Suddenly he gave a cry of joy, as presently, by the riverside,\nstretched in an angle of its granite embankment, as though it had been a\nbed of down, he came upon a great workman fast asleep, with his arms\nover his head and his face full in the light of the moon. His breath\ncame and went with the regularity of a man who has done his days work\nand is healthily tired out. He seemed to be drinking great draughts of\nsleep out of the sky, as one drinks water from a spring. He was poorly\nclad, and evidently a wanderer on the earth; but, houseless as he was,\nto him had been granted that healing gift which the great lord who gazed\nat him had prayed for in vain for months and years, and for which this\nnight he was willing to surrender half--nay, the whole--of his wealth,\nif needs be--\n\n    Only a little holiday of sleep,\n    Soft sleep, sweet sleep; a little soothing psalm,\n    Of slumber from Thy sanctuaries of calm.\n    A little sleep--it matters not how deep;\n    A little falling feather from Thy wing:\n    Merciful Lord--is it so great a thing?\n\nThe sleepless one gazed at the sleeper a long time, fascinated by the\nmystery and beauty of that strange gift that had been denied him. Then\nhe took the jewel in his hand and looked at it, picturing to himself the\nsleeping man's surprise when he awoke in the morning and found so\nunexpected a treasure in his possession, and all that the sudden\nacquisition of such wealth would mean to him. But, as I said at the\nbeginning, God had given him a good heart, and, as he gazed on the man's\nsleep again, a pang of misgiving shot through him. After all, what were\nworldly possessions compared with this natural boon of which he was\nabout to rob the sleeping man? Would all his castles be a fair exchange\nfor that? And was he about to subject a fellow human being to the\ntorture which he had endured to the verge of madness?\n\nFor a long time he stood over the sleeper struggling with himself.\n\n\"No!\" at last he said. \"I cannot rob him of his sleep,\" and turned and\npassed on his way.\n\n[Illustration: HE WENT FORTH INTO THE DAWN SLEEPLESS]\n\nPresently he came to where a beautiful woman lay asleep with a little\nchild in her arms. They were evidently poor outcasts, yet how tranquilly\nthey lay there, as if all the riches of the earth were theirs, and as if\nthere was no hard world to fight on the morrow. If sleep had seemed\nbeautiful on the face of the sleeping workman, how much more beautiful\nit seemed here, laying its benediction upon this poor mother and child.\nHow trustfully they lay in its arms out there in the shelterless night,\nas though relying on the protection of the ever-watchful stars. Surely\nhe could not violate this sanctuary of sleep, and think to make amends\nby exchange of his poor worldly possessions. No! he must go on his way\nagain. But first he took a ring from his finger and slipped it gently\ninto the baby's hand. The tiny hand closed over it with the firmness of\na baby's clutch. \"It will be safe there till morning,\" he said to\nhimself, and left them to their slumbers.\n\nSo he passed along through the city, and everywhere were sleeping forms\nand houses filled with sleepers, but he could not bring himself to carry\nout his plan and buy sleep. Sleep was too beautiful and sacred a thing\nto be bought with the most precious stone, and man was so piteously in\nneed of it at each long day's end.\n\nThus he went on his way, and at last, as the dawn was showing faint in\nthe sky, he found himself in a churchyard, and above one of the graves\nwas growing a shining silver flower.\n\n\"It is the flower of sleep,\" said the sleepless one, and he bent over\neagerly to gather it; but as he did so his eyes fell upon an inscription\non the stone. It was the grave of a beautiful girl who had died of\nheart-break for her lover.\n\n\"I may not pluck it,\" he said. \"She needs her sleep as well.\"\n\nAnd he went forth into the dawn sleepless.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MAN WITH NO MONEY\n\nA FABLE FOR CAPITALISTS\n\n\nOnce upon a time there was a man who found himself, suddenly and sadly,\nwithout any money. I am aware that in these days it is hard to believe\nsuch a story. Nowadays, everybody has money, and it may seem like a\nstretch of the imagination to suggest a time when a man should search\nhis pockets and find them empty. But this is merely a fairy tale; so, I\ntrust that the reader will help me out by taking so apparently\npreposterous a statement for granted.\n\nThe man had been a merchant of butterflies in Ispahan, and, though his\nbutterflies had flitted all about the flowered world, the delight of\nmany-tongued and many-colored nations, he found himself at the close of\nthe day a very poor and weary man.\n\nHe had but one consolation and companion left--a strange, black\nbutterfly, which he kept in a silver cage, and only looked at now and\nagain, when he was quite sure that he was alone. He had sold all his\nother butterflies--all the rainbow wings--but this dark butterfly he\nwould keep till the end.\n\nKings and queens, in sore sorrow and need, had offered him great sums\nfor his black butterfly, but it was the only beautiful thing he had\nleft--so, selfishly, he kept it to himself. Meanwhile, he starved and\nwandered the country roads, homeless and foodless: his breakfast the\nmorning star, his supper the rising moon. But, sad as was his heart, and\nempty as was his stomach, laughter still flickered in his tired eyes;\nand he possessed, too, a very shrewd mind, as a man who sells\nbutterflies must. Making his breakfast of blackberries one September\nmorning, in the middle of an old wood, with the great cages of bramble\noverladen with the fruit of the solitude, an idea came to him. Thereupon\nhe sought out some simple peasants and said: \"Why do you leave these\nberries to fall and wither in the solitude, when in the markets of the\nworld much money may be made of them for you and for your household?\nGather them for me, and I will sell them and give you a fair return for\nyour labor.\"\n\nNow, of course, the blackberries did not belong to the dealer in\nbutterflies. They were the free gift of God to men and birds. But the\nsimple peasants never thought of that. Instead, they gathered them, east\nand west, into bushel and hogshead, and the man that had no money, that\nSeptember morning, smiled to himself as he paid them their little wage,\nand filled his pockets, that before had been so empty, with the money\nthat God and the blackberries and the peasants had made for him.\n\nThus he grew so rich that he seldom looked at the dark butterfly in the\nsilver cage--but sometimes, in the night, he heard the beating of its\nwings.\n\n\n\n\nTHE RAGS OF QUEEN COPHETUA\n\n\nWhen the first dazzle of bewildered happiness in her new estate had\nfaded from her eyes, and the miracle of her startling metamorphosis from\na wandering beggar-maid to a great Queen on a throne was beginning to\nlose a little of its wonder and to take its place among the accepted\nrealities of life, Queen Cophetua became growingly conscious of some dim\ndissatisfaction and unrest in her heart.\n\nIndeed, she had all that the world could give, and surely all that a\nwoman's heart is supposed to desire. The King's love was still hers as\nwhen he found her at dawn by the pool in the forest; and, in exchange\nfor the tattered rags which had barely concealed the water-lily\nwhiteness of her body, countless wardrobes were filled with garments of\nevery variety of subtle design and exquisite fabric, textures light as\nthe golden sun, purple as the wine-dark sea, iridescent as the rainbow,\nand soft as summer clouds--the better to set off her strange beauty for\nthe eyes of the King.\n\nAnd, every day of the year, the King brought her a new and priceless\njewel to hang about her neck, or wear upon her moonbeam hands, or to\nshine in the fragrant night of her hair.\n\nAh! what a magical wooing that had been in the depths of the forest,\nthat strange morning! The sun was hardly above the tops of the trees\nwhen she had awakened from sleep at the mossy foot of a giant beech, and\nits first beams were casting a solemn enchantment across a great pool of\nwater-lilies and filling their ivory cups with strange gold. She had\nlain still a while, watching through her sleepy eyelids the unfolding\nmarvel of the dawn; and then rousing herself, she had knelt by the pool,\nand letting down her long hair that fell almost to her feet had combed\nand braided it, with the pool for her mirror--a mirror with water-lilies\nfor its frame. And, as she gazed at herself in the clear water, with a\ngirlish happiness in her own beauty, a shadow fell over the pond; and,\nstartled, she saw beside her own face in the mirror the face of a\nbeautiful young knight, so it seemed, bending over her shoulder. In fear\nand maiden modesty--for her hair was only half braided, and, whiter than\nany water-lily in the pond, her bosom glowed bare in the morning\nsunlight--she turned around, and met the eyes of the King.\n\nWithout moving, each gazed at the other as in a dream--eyes lost\nfathom-deep in eyes.\n\nAt last the King found voice to speak.\n\n\"You must be a fairy,\" he had said, \"for surely you are too beautiful to\nbe human!\"\n\n\"Nay, my lord,\" she had answered, \"I am but a poor girl that wanders\nwith my lute yonder from village to village and town to town, singing my\nlittle songs.\"\n\n\"You shall wander no more,\" said the King. \"Come with me, and you shall\nsit upon a throne and be my Queen, and I will love you forever.\"\n\nBut she could not answer a word, for fear and joy.\n\nAnd therewith the King took her by the hand, and set her upon his horse\nthat was grazing hard by; and, mounting behind her, he rode with her in\nhis arms to the city, and all the while her eyes looked up into his\neyes, as she leaned upon his shoulder, and his eyes looked deep down\ninto hers--but they spake not a word. Only once, at the edge of the\nforest, he had bent down and kissed her on the lips, and it seemed to\nboth as if heaven with all its stars was falling into their hearts.\n\nAs they rode through the city to the palace, surrounded by wondering\ncrowds, she nestled closer to his side, like a frightened bird, and like\na wild birds were her great eyes gazing up into his in a terror of joy.\nNot once did she move them to right or left, for all the murmur of the\npeople about them. Nor did the King see aught but her water-lily face as\nthey wended thus in a dream through the crowded streets, and at length\ncame to the marble steps of the palace.\n\nThen the King, leaping from his horse, took her tenderly in his arms and\ncarried her lightly up the marble steps. Upon the topmost step he set\nher down, and taking her hand in his, as she stood timidly by his side,\nhe turned his face to the multitude and spake.\n\n\"Lo! my people,\" he said, \"this is your Queen, whom God has sent to me\nby a divine miracle, to rule over your hearts from this day forth, as\nshe holds rule over mine. My people, salute your Queen!\"\n\nAnd therewith the King knelt on one knee to his beggar-maid and kissed\nher hand; and all the people knelt likewise, with bowed heads, and a\ngreat cry went up.\n\n\"Our Queen! Our Queen!\"\n\nThen the King and Queen passed into the palace, and the tiring-maids led\nthe little beggar-maid into a great chamber hung with tapestries and\nfurnished with many mirrors, and they took from off her white body the\ntattered gown she had worn in the forest, and robed her in perfumed\nlinen and cloth of gold, and set jewels at her throat and in her hair;\nand at evening in the cathedral, before the high altar, in the presence\nof all the people, the King placed a sapphire beautiful as the evening\nstar upon her finger, and the twain became man and wife; and the moon\nrose and the little beggar-maid was a Queen and lay in a great King's\narms.\n\nOn the morrow the King summoned a famous worker in metals attached to\nhis court, and commanded him to make a beautiful coffer of beaten gold,\nin which to place the little ragged robe of his beggar-maid; for it was\nvery sacred to him because of his great love. After due time the coffer\nwas finished, and it was acclaimed the masterpiece of the great\nartificer who had made it. About its sides was embossed the story of the\nKing's love. On one side was the pool with the water-lilies and the\nbeggar-maid braiding her hair on its brink. And on another she was\nriding on horseback with the King through the forest. And on another\nshe was standing by his side on the steps of the palace before all the\npeople. And on the fourth side she was kneeling by the King's side\nbefore the high altar in the cathedral.\n\nThe King placed the coffer in a secret gallery attached to the royal\napartments, and very tenderly he placed therein the little tattered gown\nand the lute with which his Queen was wont to wander from village to\nvillage and town to town, singing her little songs.\n\nOften at evening, when his heart brimmed over with the tenderness of his\nlove, he would persuade his Queen to doff her beautiful royal garments\nand clothe herself again in that little tattered gown, through the rents\nof which her white body showed whiter than any water-lilies. And,\nhowever rich or exquisite the other garments she wore, it was in those\nbeloved rags, the King declared, that she looked most beautiful. In them\nhe loved her best.\n\nBut this had been a while ago, and though, as has been said, the King's\nlove was still hers as when he had met her that strange morning in the\nforest, and though every day he brought her a new and priceless jewel to\nhang about her neck, or wear upon her moonbeam hands, or to shine in\nthe fragrant night of her hair, it was many months since he had asked\nher to wear for him the little tattered gown.\n\nWas the miracle of their love beginning to lose a little of its wonder\nfor him, too; was it beginning to take its place among the accepted\nrealities of life?\n\nSometimes the Queen fancied that he seemed a little impatient with her\nelfin bird-like ways, as though, in his heart, he was beginning to wish\nthat she was more in harmony with the folk around her, more like the\nworldly court ladies, with their great manners and artificial smiles.\nFor, though she had now been a Queen a long while, she had never\nchanged. She was still the wild gipsy-hearted child the King had found\nbraiding her hair that morning by the lilied pool.\n\nOften she would steal away by herself and enter that secret gallery, and\nlift the lid of the golden coffer, and look wistfully at the little\ntattered robe, and run her hands over the cracked strings of her little\nlute.\n\nThere was a long window in the gallery, from which, far away, she could\nsee the great green cloud of the forest; and as the days went by she\noften found herself seated at this window, gazing in its direction, with\nvague unformed feelings of sadness in her heart.\n\nOne day, as she sat there at the window, an impulse came over her that\nshe could not resist, and swiftly she slipped off her beautiful\ngarments, and taking the little robe from the coffer, clothed herself in\nthe rags that the King had loved. And she took the old lute in her\nhands, and sang low to herself her old wandering songs. And she danced,\ntoo, an elfin dance, all alone there in the still gallery, danced as the\napple-blossoms dance on the spring winds, or the autumn leaves dance in\nthe depths of the forest.\n\nSuddenly she ceased in alarm. The King had entered the gallery\nunperceived, and was watching her with sad eyes.\n\n\"Are you weary of being a Queen?\" said he, sadly.\n\nFor answer she threw herself on his breast and wept bitterly, she knew\nnot why.\n\n\"Oh, I love you! I love you,\" she sobbed, \"but this life is not real.\"\n\nAnd the King went from her with a heavy heart.\n\nAnd from day to day an unspoken sorrow lay between them; and from day to\nday the King's words haunted the Queen with a more insistent refrain:\n\n\"Are you weary of being a Queen?\"\n\nWas she weary of being a Queen?\n\nAnd so the days went by.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOne day as the Queen passed down the palace steps she came upon a\nbeautiful girl, clothed in tatters as she had once been, seated on the\nlowest step, selling flowers--water-lilies.\n\nThe Queen stopped.\n\n\"Where did you gather your water-lilies, child?\" she asked.\n\n\"I gathered them from a pool in the great forest yonder,\" answered the\ngirl, with a curtsey.\n\n\"Give me one of them,\" said the Queen, with a sob in her voice, and she\nslipped a piece of gold into the girl's hand, and fled back into the\npalace.\n\nThat night, as she lay awake by her sleeping King, she rose silently and\nstole into the secret gallery. There, with tears running down her\ncheeks, she dressed herself in the little tattered gown and took the\nlute in her hand, and then stole back and pressed a last kiss on the\nbrow of her sleeping King, who still slept on.\n\nBut at sunrise the King awoke, with a sudden fear in his heart, and lo!\nwhere his Queen had lain was only a white water-lily.\n\nAnd at that moment, in the depths of the forest, a beggar-maid was\nbraiding her hair, with a pool of water-lilies for her mirror.\n\n\n\n\nTHE WIFE FROM FAIRY-LAND\n\n\n    Her talk was of all woodland things,\n      Of little lives that pass\n    Away in one green afternoon,\n      Deep in the haunted grass.\n\n    For she had come from fairy-land,\n      The morning of a day\n    When the world that still was April\n      Was turning into May.\n\n    Green leaves and silence and two eyes--\n      'Twas so she seemed to me;\n    A silver shadow of the woods,--\n      Whisper and mystery.\n\n    I looked into her woodland eyes,\n      And all my heart was hers;\n    And then I led her by the hand\n      Home up my marble stairs.\n\n    And all my granite and my gold\n      Was hers for her green eyes,\n    And all my sinful heart was hers,\n      From sunset to sunrise.\n\n    I gave her all delight and ease\n      That God had given to me,\n    I listened to fulfil her dreams,\n      Rapt with expectancy.\n\n    But all I gave and all I did\n      Brought but a weary smile\n    Of gratitude upon her face--\n      As though, a little while,\n\n    She loitered in magnificence\n      Of marble and of gold,\n    And waited to be home again,\n      When the dull tale was told.\n\n    Sometimes, in the chill galleries,\n      Unseen, she deemed, unheard,\n    I found her dancing like a leaf,\n      And singing like a bird.\n\n    So lone a thing I never saw\n      In lonely earth and sky;\n    So merry and so sad a thing--\n      One sad, one laughing, eye.\n\n    There came a day when on her heart\n      A wild-wood blossom lay,\n    And the world that still was April\n      Was turning into May.\n\n    In her green eyes I saw a smile\n      That turned my heart to stone,--\n    My wife that came from fairy-land\n      No longer was alone.\n\n    For there had come a little hand\n      To show the green way home,\n    Home through the leaves, home through the dew,\n      Home through the greenwood--home.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nTHE BUYER OF SORROWS\n\n\nOn an evening of singular sunset, about the rich beginning of May, the\nlittle market-town of Beethorpe was startled by the sound of a trumpet.\n\nBeethorpe was an ancient town, mysteriously sown, centuries ago, like a\nwandering thistle-down of human life, amid the silence and the nibbling\nsheep of the great chalk downs. It stood in a hollow of the long smooth\nbillows of pale pasture that suavely melted into the sky on every side.\nThe evening was so still that the little river running across the\nthreshold of the town, and encircling what remained of its old walls,\nwas the noisiest thing to be heard, dominating with its talkative murmur\nthe bedtime hum of the High Street.\n\nSuddenly, as the flamboyance of the sky was on the edge of fading, and\nthe world beginning to wear a forlorn, forgotten look, a trumpet sounded\nfrom the western heights above the town, as though the sunset itself\nhad spoken; and the people in Beethorpe, looking up, saw three horsemen\nagainst the lurid sky.\n\nThree times the trumpet blew.\n\nAnd the simple folk of Beethorpe, tumbling out into the street at the\nsummons, and looking to the west with sleepy bewilderment, asked\nthemselves: Was it the last trumpet? Or was it the long-threatened\ninvasion of the King of France?\n\nAgain the trumpet blew, and then the braver of the young men of the town\nhastened up the hill to learn its meaning.\n\nAs they approached the horsemen, they perceived that the center of the\nthree was a young man of great nobility of bearing, richly but somberly\ndressed, and with a dark, beautiful face filled with a proud melancholy.\nHe kept his eyes on the fading sunset, sitting motionless upon his\nhorse, apparently oblivious of the commotion his arrival had caused. The\nhorseman on his right hand was clad after the manner of a herald, and\nthe horseman on his left hand was clad after the manner of a steward.\nAnd the three horsemen sat motionless, awaiting the bewildered\nambassadors of Beethorpe.\n\nWhen these had approached near enough the herald once more set the\ntrumpet to his lips and blew; and then, unfolding a parchment scroll,\nread in a loud voice:\n\n\"To the Folk of Beethorpe--Greeting from the High and Mighty Lord,\nMortimer of the Marches:\n\n\"Whereas our heart had gone out toward the sorrows of our people in the\ncounties and towns and villages of our domain, we hereby issue\nproclamation that whosoever hath a sorrow, let him or her bring it\nforth; and we, out of our private purse, will purchase the said sorrow,\naccording to its value--that the hearts of our people be lightened of\ntheir burdens.\"\n\nAnd when the herald had finished reading he blew again upon the trumpet\nthree times; and the villagers looked at one another in\nbewilderment--but some ran down the hill to tell their neighbors of the\nstrange proposal of their lord. Thus, presently, nearly all the village\nof Beethorpe was making its way up the hill to where those three\nhorsemen loomed against the evening sky.\n\nNever was such a sorrowful company. Up the hill they came, carrying\ntheir sorrows in their hands--sorrows for which, in excited haste, they\nhad rummaged old drawers and forgotten cupboards, and even ran hurriedly\ninto the churchyard.\n\n[Illustration: THE HERALD ONCE MORE SET THE TRUMPET TO HIS LIPS AND\nBLEW]\n\nLord Mortimer of the Marches sat his horse with the same austere\nindifference, his melancholy profile against the fading sky. Only those\nwho stood near to him noted a kindly ironic flicker of a smile in his\neyes, as he saw, apparently seeing nothing, the poor little raked-up\nsorrows of his village of Beethorpe.\n\nHe was a fantastic young lord of many sorrows. His heart had been broken\nin a very strange way. Death and Pity were his closest friends. He was\nso sad himself that he had come to realize that sorrow is the only\nsincerity of life. Thus sorrow had become a kind of passion with him,\neven a kind of connoisseurship; and he had come, so to say, to be a\ncollector of sorrows. It was partly pity and partly an odd form of\ndilettanteism--for his own sad heart made him pitiful for and\ncompanionable with any other sad heart; but the sincerity of his sorrow\nmade him jealous of the sanctity of sorrow, and at the same time sternly\ncritical of, and sadly amused by, the hypocrisies of sorrow.\n\nSo, as he sat his horse and gazed at the sunset, he smiled sadly to\nhimself as he heard, without seeming to hear, the small, insincere\nsorrows of his village of Beethorpe--sorrows forgotten long ago, but\nsuddenly rediscovered in old drawers and unopened cupboards, at the\nsound of his lordship's trumpet and the promise of his strange\nproclamation.\n\nWas there a sorrow in the world that no money could buy?\n\nIt was to find such a sorrow that Lord Mortimer thus fantastically rode\nfrom village to village of his estates, with herald and steward.\n\nThe unpurchasable sorrow--the sorrow no gold can gild, no jewel can buy!\n\nFar and wide he had ridden over his estates, seeking so rare a sorrow;\nbut as yet he had found no sorrow that could not be bought with a little\nbag of gold and silver coins.\n\nSo he sat his horse, while the villagers of Beethorpe were paid out of a\ngreat leathern bag by the steward--for the steward understood the mind\nof his master, and, without troubling him, paid each weeping and\nwhimpering peasant as he thought fit.\n\nIn another great bag the steward had collected the sorrows of the\nVillage of Beethorpe; and, by this, the moon was rising, and, with\nanother blast of trumpet by way of farewell, the three horsemen took the\nroad again to Lord Mortimer's castle.\n\nWhen, out of the great leathern bag, in Lord Mortimer's cabinet they\npoured upon the table the sorrows of Beethorpe, the young lord smiled to\nhimself, turning over one sorrow after the other, as though they had\nbeen precious stones--for there was not one genuine sorrow among them.\n\nBut, later, there came news to him that there was one real sorrow in\nBeethorpe; and he rode alone on horseback to the village, and found a\nbeautiful girl laying flowers on a grave. She was so beautiful that he\nforgot his ancient grief, and he thought that all his castles would be\nbut a poor exchange for her face.\n\n\"Maiden,\" said he, \"let me buy your sorrow--with three counties and\nseven castles.\"\n\nAnd the girl looked up at him from the grave, with eyes of\nforget-me-not, and said: \"My lord, you mistake. This is not sorrow. It\nis my only joy.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE PRINCESS'S MIRROR\n\n\nThe sun was scarcely risen, but the young princess was already seated by\nher window. Never did window open upon a scene of such enchantment.\nNever has the dawn risen over so fair a land. Meadows so fresh and grass\nso green, rivers of such mystic silver and far mountains so majestically\npurple, no eye has seen outside of Paradise; and over all was now\noutspread the fairy-land of the morning sky.\n\nEven a princess might rise early to behold so magic a spectacle.\n\nYet, strangely enough, it was not upon this miracle that the eyes of the\nprincess were gazing. In fact, she seemed entirely oblivious of it\nall--oblivious of all that was passing in the sky, and of all the dewy\nawakening of the earth.\n\nHer eyes were lost in a trance over what she deemed a rarer beauty, a\nstranger marvel. The princess was gazing at her own face in a golden\nmirror.\n\n[Illustration: HER ONLY CARE WAS TO GAZE ALL DAY AT HER OWN FACE]\n\nAnd indeed it was a beautiful face that she saw there, so beautiful that\nthe princess might well be pardoned for thinking it the most beautiful\nface in the world. So fascinated had she become by her own beauty that\nshe carried her mirror ever at her girdle, and gazed at it night and\nday. Whenever she saw another beautiful thing she looked in her mirror\nand smiled to herself.\n\nShe had looked at the most beautiful rose in the world, and then she had\nlooked in her mirror and said, \"I am more beautiful.\"\n\nShe had looked at the morning star, and then she had looked in her\nmirror and said, \"I am more beautiful.\"\n\nShe had looked at the rising moon, and then she had looked in her mirror\nand still she said, \"I am more beautiful.\"\n\nWhenever she heard of a beautiful face in her kingdom she caused it to\nbe brought before her, and then she looked in her mirror, and always she\nsmiled to herself and said, \"I am more beautiful.\"\n\nThus it had come about that her only care was to gaze all day at her own\nface. So enamored had she become of it, that she hated even to sleep;\nbut not even in sleep did she lose the beautiful face she loved, for it\nwas still there in the mirror of dreams. Yet often she would wake in\nthe night to gaze at it, and always she arose at dawn that, with the\nfirst rays of the sun, she might look into her mirror. Thus, from the\nrising sun to the setting moon, she would sit at her window, and never\ntake her eyes from those beautiful eyes that looked back at her, and the\nlongest day in the year was not long enough to return their gaze.\n\nThis particular morning was a morning in May--all bloom and song, and\ncrowding leaves and thickening grass. The valley was a mist of blossom,\nand the air thrilled with the warbling of innumerable birds. Soft dewy\nscents floated hither and thither on the wandering breeze. But the\nprincess took no note of these things, lost in the dream of her face,\nand saw the changes of the dawn only as they were reflected in her\nmirror and suffused her beauty with their rainbow tints. So rapt in her\ndream was she that, when a bird alighted near at hand and broke into\nsudden song, she was so startled that--the mirror slipped from her hand.\n\nNow the princess's window was in the wall of an old castle built high\nabove the valley, and beneath it the ground sloped precipitately,\ncovered with underbrush and thick grasses, to a highroad winding far\nbeneath. As the mirror slipped from the hand of the princess it fell\namong this underbrush and rolled, glittering, down the slope, till the\nprincess finally lost sight of it in a belt of wild flowers overhanging\nthe highroad.\n\nAs it finally disappeared, she screamed so loudly that the\nladies-in-waiting ran to her in alarm, and servants were instantly sent\nforth to search for the lost mirror. It was a very beautiful mirror, the\nwork of a goldsmith famous for his fantastic masterpieces in the\nprecious metals. The fancy he had skilfully embodied was that of beauty\nas the candle attracting the moths. The handle of the mirror, which was\nof ivory, represented the candle, the golden flame of which swept round\nin a circle to hold the crystal. Wrought here and there, on the golden\nback of the mirror, were moths with wings of enamel and precious stones.\nIt was a marvel of the goldsmith's art, and as such was beyond price.\nYet it was not merely for this, as we know, that the princess loved it,\nbut because it had been so long the intimate of her beauty. For this\nreason it had become sacred in her eyes, and, as she watched it roll\ndown the hillside, she realized that it had gained for her also a\nsuperstitious value. It almost seemed as if to lose it would be to lose\nher beauty too. She ran to another mirror in panic. No! her beauty still\nremained. But no other mirror could ever be to her like the mirror she\nhad lost. So, forgetting her beauty for a moment, she wept and tore her\nhair and beat her tiring-maids in her misery; and when the men returned\nfrom their searching without the mirror, she gave orders to have them\nsoundly flogged for their failure.\n\nMeanwhile the mirror rested peacefully among the wild flowers and the\nhumming of bees.\n\nA short while after the serving-men had been flogged and the\ntiring-maids had been beaten, there came along the white road at the\nfoot of the castle a tired minstrel. He was singing to himself out of\nthe sadness of his heart. He was forty years old, and the exchange that\nlife had given him for his dreams had not seemed to him a fair\nequivalent. He had even grown weary of his own songs.\n\nHe sat, dejected, amid the green grasses, and looked up at the ancient\nheaven--and thought to himself. Then suddenly he turned his tired eyes\nagain to earth, and saw the daisies growing there, and the butterflies\nflitting from flower to flower. And the road, as he looked at it, seemed\nlong--longer than ever. He took his old lute in his hand--wondering to\nhimself if they could play another tune. They were so in love with each\nother--and so tired of each other.\n\nHe played one of his old songs, of which he was heartily weary, and, as\nhe played, the butterflies flitted about him and filled his old hair\nwith blue wings.\n\nHe was forty years old and very weary. He was alone. His last\nnightingale had ceased singing. The time had come for him when one\nthinks, and even dreams, of the fireside, the hearth, and the beautiful\nold memories.\n\nHe had, in short, arrived at that period of life when one begins to\nperceive the beauty of money.\n\nAs a boy he had never given a thought to gold or silver. A butterfly had\nseemed more valuable to him than a gold piece. But he was growing old,\nand, as I have said, he was beginning to perceive the beauty of money.\n\nThe daisies were all around him, and the lark was singing up there in\nthe sky. But how could he cash a daisy or negotiate a lark?\n\nDreams, after all, were dreams.... He was saying this to himself, when\nsuddenly his eye fell upon the princess's mirror, lying there in the\ngrass--so covered with butterflies, looking at themselves, that no\nwonder the serving-men had been unable to find it.\n\nThe mirror of the princess, as I have said, was made of gold and ivory,\nand wonderful crystal and many precious stones.\n\nSo, when the minstrel took it in his hands out of the grass, he\nthought--well, that he might at least buy a breakfast at the next town.\nFor he was very hungry.\n\nWell, he caught up the mirror and hid it in his faded doublet, and took\nhis way to a wood of living green, and when he was alone--that is, alone\nwith a few flowers and a bird or two, and a million leaves, and the soft\nsinging of a little river hiding its music under many boughs--he took\nout the mirror from his doublet.\n\nShame upon him! he, a poet of the rainbow, had only one thought as he\ntook up the mirror--the gold and ivory and the precious stones. He was\nmerely thinking of them and his breakfast.\n\nBut when he looked into the mirror, expecting to see his own ancient\nface--what did he see? He saw something so beautiful that, just like the\nprincess, he dropped the mirror. Have you ever seen the wild rose as it\nopens its heart to the morning sky; have you ever seen the hawthorn\nholding in its fragrant arms its innumerable blooms; have you seen the\nrising of the moon, or looked in the face of the morning star?\n\nThe minstrel looked in the mirror and saw something far more wonderful\nthan all these wonderful things.\n\nHe saw the face of the princess--eternally reflected there; for her love\nof her own beautiful face had turned the mirror into a magic glass. To\nworship oneself is the only way to make a beautiful face.\n\nAnd as the minstrel looked into the mirror he sadly realized that he\ncould never bring himself to sell it--and that he must go without his\nbreakfast. The moon had fallen into his hand out of the sky. Could he, a\npoet, exchange this celestial windfall for a meal and a new doublet? As\nthe minstrel gazed and gazed at the beautiful face, he understood that\nhe could no more sell the mirror than he could sell his own soul--and,\nin his pilgrimage through the world, he had received many offers for his\nsoul. Also, many kings and captains had vainly tried to buy from him his\ngift of courage.\n\nBut the minstrel had sold neither. And now had fallen out of the sky one\nmore precious thing to guard--the most beautiful face in the world. So,\nas he gazed in the mirror, he forgot his hunger, forgot his faded\ndoublet, forgot the long sorrow of his days--and at length there came\nthe setting sun. Suddenly the minstrel awoke from his dream at the sound\nof horsemen in the valley. The princess was sending heralds into every\ncorner of her dominions to proclaim the loss of the mirror, and for its\nreturn a beautiful reward--a lock of her strange hair.\n\nThe minstrel hid himself, with his treasure, amid the fern, and, when\nthe trumpets had faded in the distance, found the highroad again and\nwent upon his way.\n\nNow it chanced that a scullery-maid of the castle, as she was polishing\na copper saucepan, had lifted her eyes from her work, and, looking down\ntoward the highroad, had seen the minstrel pick up the mirror. He was a\nvery well known minstrel. All the scullery-maids and all the princesses\nhad his songs by heart.\n\nEven the birds were fabled to sing his songs, as they flitted to and fro\non their airy business.\n\nThus, through the little scullery-maid, it became known to the princess\nthat the mirror had been found by the wandering minstrel, and so his\nlife became a life of peril. Bandits, hoping for the reward of that lock\nof strange hair, hunted him through the woodland, across the marshes,\nand over the moors.\n\nJews with great money-bags came to buy from him--the beautiful face.\nSometimes he had to climb up into trees to look at it in the sunrise,\nthe woods were so filled with the voices of his pursuers.\n\nBut neither hunger, nor poverty, nor small ferocious enemies were able\nto take from him the beautiful face. It never left his heart. All night\nlong and all the watching day it was pressed close to his side.\n\nMeanwhile the princess was in despair. More and more the fancy possessed\nher that with the lost mirror her beauty too was lost. In her\nunhappiness, like all sad people, she took strange ways of escape. She\nconsulted the stars, and empirics from the four winds settled down upon\nher castle. Each, of course, had his own invaluable nostrum; and all\nwent their way. For not one of these understood the heart of a poet.\n\nHowever, at last there came to the aid of the princess a reverend old\nman of ninety years, a famous seer, deeply and gently and pitifully\nlearned in the hearts of men. His was that wisdom which comes of great\ngoodness. He understood the princess, and he understood the minstrel;\nfor, having lived so long alone with the Infinite, he understood the\nFinite.\n\nTo him the princess was as a little child, and his old wise heart went\nout to her.\n\nAnd, as I have said, his heart understood the minstrel too.\n\nTherefore he said to the princess: \"I know the hearts of poets. In seven\ndays I will bring you back your mirror.\"\n\nAnd the old man went, and at length found the poet eating wild berries\nin the middle of the wood.\n\n\"That is a beautiful mirror you have by your side,\" said the old man.\n\n\"This mirror,\" answered the poet, \"holds in its deeps the most beautiful\nface in the world.\"\n\n\"It is true,\" said the wise old man. \"I have seen the beautiful face ...\nbut I too possess a mirror. Will you look into it?\"\n\nAnd the poet took the mirror from the old man and looked; and, as he\nlooked, the mirror of the princess fell neglected in the grass....\n\n\"Why,\" said the wise old man, \"do you let fall the princess's mirror?\"\n\nBut the poet made no answer--for his eyes were lost in the strange\nmirror which the wise old man had brought him.\n\n\"What do you see in the mirror,\" said the old man, \"that you gaze so\nearnestly in it?\"\n\n\"I see,\" answered the minstrel, \"the infinite miracle of the universe, I\nsee the august and lonely elements, I see the solitary stars and the\nuntiring sea, I see the everlasting hills--and, as a crocus raises its\nrainbow head from the black earth in springtime, I see the young moon\ngrowing like a slender flower out of the mountains....\"\n\n\"Yet, look again,\" said the old man, \"into this other mirror, the mirror\nof the princess. Look again.\"\n\nAnd the poet looked--taking the two mirrors in his hands, and looking\nfrom one to the other.\n\n\"At last,\" he said, gazing into the face he had fought so long to\nkeep--\"at last I understand that this is but a fleeting phantom of\nbeauty, a fluttering flower of a face--just one beautiful flower in the\ninnumerable meadows of the Infinite--but here....\"\n\nAnd he turned to the other mirror--\n\n\"Here is the Eternal Beauty, the Divine Harmony, the Sacred Unfathomable\nAll.... Would a man be content with one rose, when all the roses of all\nthe rose-gardens of the world were his?...\"\n\n\"You mean,\" said the wise old man, smiling to himself, \"that I may take\nthe mirror back to the princess.... Are you really willing to exchange\nher face for the face of the sky?\"\n\n\"I am,\" answered the minstrel.\n\n\"I knew you were a poet,\" said the sage.\n\n\"And I know that you are very wise,\" answered the minstrel.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nYet, after all, the princess was not so happy to have her mirror back\nagain as she had expected to be; for had not a wandering poet found\nsomething more beautiful than her face!\n\n\n\n\nTHE PINE LADY\n\n\n    O have you seen the Pine Lady,\n    Or heard her how she sings?\n    Have you heard her play\n    Your soul away\n    On a harp with moonbeam strings?\n    In a palace all of the night-black pine\n    She hides like a queen all day,\n    Till a moonbeam knocks\n    On her secret tree,\n    And she opens her door\n    With a silver key,\n    While the village clocks\n    Are striking bed\n    Nine times sleepily.\n\n    O come and hear the Pine Lady\n    Up in the haunted wood!\n    The stars are rising, the moths are flitting,\n    The owls are calling,\n    The dew is falling;\n    And, high in the boughs\n    Of her haunted house,\n    The moon and she are sitting.\n\n    Out on the moor the night-jar drones\n    Rough-throated love,\n    The beetle comes\n    With his sudden drums,\n    And many a silent unseen thing\n    Frightens your cheek with its ghostly wing;\n    While there above,\n    In a palace builded of needles and cones,\n    The pine is telling the moon her love,\n    Telling her love on the moonbeam strings--\n    O have you seen the Pine Lady,\n    Or heard her how she sings?\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nTHE KING ON HIS WAY TO BE CROWNED\n\n\nIn a green outlying corner of the kingdom of Bohemia,\none summer afternoon, the Grand Duke Stanislaus was busy in his garden,\nswarming a hive of bees. He was a tall, middle-aged man of a scholarly,\nalmost priest-like, type, a gentle-mannered recluse, living only in his\nbooks and his garden, and much loved by the country-folk for the simple\nkindness of his heart. He had the most winning of smiles, and a playful\nwisdom radiated from his wise, rather weary eyes. No man had ever heard\nhim utter a harsh word; and, indeed, life passed so tranquilly in that\ngreen corner of Bohemia that even less peaceful natures found it hard to\nbe angry. There was so little to be angry about.\n\nTherefore, it was all the stranger to see the good duke suddenly lose\nhis temper this summer afternoon.\n\n\"Preposterous!\" he exclaimed; \"was there ever anything quite so\npreposterous! To think of interrupting me, at such a moment, with such\nnews!\"\n\nHe spoke from inside a veil of gauze twisted about his head, after the\nmanner of beekeepers; and was, indeed, just at that moment, engaged in\nthe delicate operation of transferring a new swarm to another hive.\n\nThe necessity of keeping his mind on his task somewhat restored his\ncalm.\n\n\"Give the messenger refreshment,\" he said, \"and send for Father\nScholasticus.\"\n\nFather Scholasticus was the priest of the village, and the duke's very\ndear friend.\n\nThe reason for this explosion was the news, brought by swiftest courier,\nthat Duke Stanislaus' brother was dead, and that he himself was thus\nbecome King of Bohemia.\n\nBy the time Father Scholasticus arrived, the bees were housed in their\nnew home, and the duke was seated in his library, among the books that\nhe loved no less than his bees, with various important-looking\nparchments spread out before him: despatches of state brought to him by\nthe courier, which he had been scanning with great impatience.\n\n\"I warn you, my friend,\" he said, looking up as the good father\nentered, \"that you will find me in a very bad temper. Ferdinand is\ndead--can you imagine anything more unreasonable of him? He was always\nthe most inconsiderate of mortals; and now, without the least warning,\nhe shuffles his responsibilities upon my shoulders.\"\n\nThe priest knew his friend and the way of his thought, and he could not\nhelp smiling at his quaint petulance.\n\n\"Which means that you are King of Bohemia ... sire!\" said he, with a\nhalf-whimsical reverence. Where on earth--he was wondering--was there\nanother man who would be so put out at being made a king?\n\n\"Exactly,\" answered the duke. \"Do you wonder that I am out of temper?\nYou must give me your advice. There must be some way out of it.\nWhat--what am I to do?\"\n\n\"I am afraid there is nothing for you to do but--reign ... your\nMajesty,\" answered the priest. \"I agree with you that it is a great\nhardship.\"\n\n\"Do you really understand how great a hardship it is?\" retorted the king\nto his friend. \"Will you share it with me?\"\n\n\"Share it with you?\" asked the priest.\n\n\"Yes! as it appears that I must consent to be Head of the World\nTemporal--will you consent to be the Head of the World Spiritual? In\nshort, will you consent to be Archbishop of Bohemia?\"\n\n\"Leave the little church that I love, and the kind, simple hearts in my\ncare, given into my keeping by the goodness of God....\" asked the\npriest.\n\n\"To be the spiritual shepherd,\" answered the king, not without irony,\n\"of the sad flocks of souls that wander, without pastor, the strange\nstreets of lost cities....\"\n\nThe king paused, and added, with his sad, understanding smile, \"and to\nsit on a gold throne, in a great cathedral, filled with incense and\ncolored windows.\"\n\nAnd the priest smiled back; for the king and the priest were old friends\nand understood and loved each other.\n\nAt that moment there came a sound of trumpets through the quiet boughs,\nand the priest, rising and looking through the window, saw a procession\nof gilded carriages, from the first of which stepped out a dignified man\nwith white hair and many years, and robed in purple and ermine.\n\n\"It is your Prime Minister, and your court,\" answered the priest to the\nmute question of the king. And again they smiled together; but the\nsmile on the face of the king was weary beyond all human words: because\nof all the perils that beset a man, the one peril he had feared was the\nperil of being made a king, of all the sorrows that sorrow, of all the\nfoolishness that foolishness; for vanity had long since passed away from\nhis heart, and the bees and the blossoms of his garden seemed just as\nworthy of his care as that swarming hive of ambitious human wasps and\nearwigs over which he was thus summoned by sound of trumpet, that happy\nsummer afternoon--to be the king. Think of being the king of so foul a\nkingdom--when one might be the king--of a garden.\n\nBut in spite of his reluctance, the good duke at length admitted the\ntruth urged upon him by the good priest--that there are sacred duties\ninherited by those born in high places and to noble destinies from which\nthere is no honorable escape, and, on the priest agreeing to be the\nArchbishop of Bohemia, he resigned himself to being its king. Thereupon\nhe received all the various dignitaries and functionaries that could so\nlittle have understood his heart--having in the interval recovered his\nlost temper--with all the graciousness for which he was famous, and\nappointed a day--as far off as possible--when he would set out, with all\nhis train, for his coronation in the capital, a journey of many\nleagues.\n\nHowever, when the day came, and, in fact, at the very moment of the\nstarting out of the long and glittering cort\u00e8ge, all the gilded\ncarriages were suddenly brought to a halt by news coming to the duke of\nthe sickness and imminent death of a much loved dependent of his, an old\nshepherd with whom as a boy he was wont to wander the hills, and listen\neagerly to the lore of times and seasons, of rising and setting stars,\nand of the ways of the winds, which are hidden in the hearts of tanned\nand withered old men, who have spent their lives out-of-doors under sun\nand rain.\n\nBut, to the great impatience of the court ladies and the great bewigged\nand powdered gentlemen, the old shepherd lived on for several days,\nduring which time the duke was constantly at his side. At last, however,\nthe old shepherd went to his rest, and the procession, which he, humble\nsoul, would not have believed that he could have delayed, started on its\nmagnificent way again, with flutter of pennant and feather and song of\ntrumpet and ladies' laughter.\n\nBut it had traveled only a few leagues when it was again brought to a\nstandstill by the duke--who was thus progressing to his\ncoronation--catching sight from his carriage window, as it flitted\npast, of an extremely lovely and uncommon butterfly. The duke had, all\nhis days, been a passionate entomologist, and this particular butterfly\nwas the one that so far he had been unable to add to his collection.\nTherefore he commanded the trumpets to call a halt, and had his\nbutterfly-net brought to him; and he and several of his gentlemen went\nin pursuit of the flitting painted thing; but not that day, nor the\nnext, was it captured in the royal net, not, in fact, till a whole week\nhad gone by; and meanwhile the carriages stood idly in the stables, and\nthe postilions kicked their heels, and the great ladies and gentlemen\nfumed at their enforced exile amid country ways and country freshness,\npining to be back once more in that artificial world where alone they\ncould breathe.\n\n\"To think of a man chasing a butterfly--with a king's crown awaiting\nhim--and even perhaps a kingdom at stake!\" said many a tongue--for\nrumors came on the wind that a half-brother of the dead king was\nmeditating usurpation of the throne, and was already gathering a large\nfollowing about him. Urgent despatches were said to have come from the\nimperial city begging that his Majesty, for the good of his loyal\nsubjects, continue his journey with all possible expedition. His\nkingdom was at stake!\n\nThe good duke smiled on the messenger and said, \"Yes! but look at my\nbutterfly--\" and no one but his friend the priest, of course, had\nunderstood. Murmurs began to arise, indeed, among the courtiers, and\nhints of plots even, as the duke pursued his leisurely journey, turning\naside for each wayward fancy.\n\nOne day it would be a turtle crossing the road, with her little ones,\nwhich would bring to a respectful halt all those beautiful gold coaches\nand caracoling horses. Tenderly would the good duke step from his\ncarriage and watch her with his gentle smile--not, doubtless, without\nsly laughter in his heart, and an understanding glance from the priest,\nthat so humble and helpless a creature should for once have it in its\npower thus to delay so much worldly pomp and vanity.\n\nOn another occasion, when they had journeyed for a whole day without any\nsuch fanciful interruptions, and the courtiers began to think that they\nwould reach the imperial city at last, the duke decided to turn aside\nseveral long leagues out of their course, to visit the grave of a great\npoet whose songs were one of the chief glories of his land.\n\n\"I may have no other opportunity to do him honor,\" said the duke.\n\nAnd when his advisers ventured to protest, and even to murmur, urging\nthe increasing jeopardy of his crown, he gently admonished them:\n\n\"Poets are greater than kings,\" he said, \"and what is my poor crown\ncompared with that crown of laurel which he wears forever among the\nimmortals?\"\n\nThere was no one found to agree with this except the good priest, and\none other, a poor poet who had somehow been included in the train, but\nwhom few regarded. The priest kept his thoughts to himself, but the poet\ncreated some amusement by openly agreeing with the duke.\n\nBut, of course, the royal will had to be accepted with such grace as the\ncourtiers could find to hide their discontented--and even, in the case\nof some, their disaffected--hearts; for some of them, at this new whimsy\nof the duke's, secretly sent messengers to the would-be usurper\npromising him their allegiance and support.\n\nSo, at length, after a day's journey, the peaceful valley was reached\nwhere the poet lay at rest among the simple peasants whom he had\nloved--kindly folk who still carried his songs in their hearts, and sang\nthem at evening to their babies and sweethearts, and each day brought\nflowers to his green, bird-haunted grave.\n\nWhen the duke came and bowed his head in that quiet place, carrying in\nhis hands a wreath of laurel, his heart was much moved by their simple\nflowers lying there, fresh and glittering, as with new-shed tears; and,\nas he reverently knelt and placed the wreath upon the sleeping mound, he\nsaid aloud, in the humility of his great heart:\n\n\"What is such an offering as mine, compared with these?\"\n\nAnd a picture came to him of the peaceful valley he had left behind, and\nof the simple folk he loved who were his friends, and more and more his\nheart missed them, and less and less it rejoiced at the journey still\nbefore him, and still more foolish seemed his crown.\n\nSo, with a great sigh, he rose from the poet's grave, and gave word for\nthe carriages once more to move along the leafy lanes.\n\nAnd, to the great satisfaction of the courtiers, the duke delayed them\nno more, for his heart grew heavier within him, and he sat with his head\non his breast, speaking little even to his dear friend the priest, who\nrode with him, and scarcely looking out of the windows of his carriage,\nfor any wonder of the way.\n\nAt length the broad walls and towers of the city came in sight,--a city\nset in a fair land of meadow and stream. The morning sun shone bright\nover it, and the priest, looking up, perceived how it glittered upon a\ngreat building of many white towers, whose gilt pinnacles gleamed like\nso many crowns of gold.\n\n\"Look, your Majesty,\" he said, with a sad attempt at gaiety, \"yonder is\nyour palace.\"\n\nAnd the duke looked up from a deep reverie, and saw his palace, and\ngroaned aloud.\n\nBut presently there came a sad twinkle in his sad eyes, as he descried\nanother building of many peaks and pinnacles glittering in the sun.\n\n\"Look up, my Lord Archbishop,\" he said, turning to his friend, \"yonder\nis _your_ palace.\"\n\nAnd as the good priest looked, his face was all sorrow, and the tears\noverflowed his eyes, as he thought of the simple souls once in his\nkeeping, in his parish far away.\n\nBut presently the king, looking again toward the palace, descried a flag\nfloating from one of the towers, covered with heraldic devices.\n\nAs he looked, it seemed that ten years of weariness fell from his face,\nand a great joy returned.\n\n\"Look,\" he said, almost in a whisper, to the priest, \"those are not my\narms!...\"\n\nThe priest looked, and then looked again into the duke's eyes, and ten\nyears of weariness fell from his face also, and a great joy returned.\n\n\"Thank God! we are saved,\" the duke and the priest exclaimed together,\nand fell laughing upon each other's shoulders. For the arms floating\nfrom the tower of the palace were the arms of the usurper, and the king\nthat cared not to be a king had lost his kingdom.\n\nAnd, while they were still rejoicing together, there came the sound of\nmany horsemen from the direction of the city, a cavalcade of many\nglittering spears. The duke halted his train to await their coming, and\nwhen they had arrived where the duke was, a herald in cloth of gold\nbroke from their ranks and read aloud from a great parchment many\nsounding words--the meaning of which was that the good Duke Stanislaus\nhad been deposed from his kingdom, and that the High and Mighty Prince,\nthe usurper, reigned in his stead.\n\nWhen the herald had concluded the duke's voice was heard in reply:\n\n\"It is well--it is very well!\" he said. \"Gather yonder white flower and\ntake it back to your master, and say that it is the white flower of\npeace betwixt him and me.\"\n\nAnd astonishment fell on all, and no one, of course, except the priest,\nunderstood. All thought that the good duke had lost his wits, which,\nindeed, had been the growing belief of his courtiers for some time.\n\nBut the herald gathered the white flower and carried it back to the\ncity, with sound of many trumpets. Need one say that the usurper least\nof all understood?\n\nWith the herald went all the gilded coaches and the fine ladies and\ngentlemen, complaining sadly that they had had such a long and tedious\njourney to no purpose, and hastening with all speed to take their\nallegiance to the new king.\n\nThe duke's own people alone remained with him, and, when all the rest\nhad gone, the duke gave orders for the horses' heads to be turned\nhomeward, to the green valley in which alone he cared to be a king.\n\n\"Back to the bees and the books and the kind country hearts,\" cried the\nduke to his friend.\n\n\"Back to the little church among the quiet trees,\" added the priest, who\nhad cared as little for an archbishop's miter as the duke for a kingly\ncrown.\n\nSince then the duke had been left to hive his bees in peace, and it may\nbe added that he has never been known to lose his temper again.\n\n\n\n\nTHE STOLEN DREAM\n\n\nThe sun was setting, and slanting long lanes of golden light through the\ntrees, as an old man, borne done by a heavy pack, came wearily through\nthe wood, and at last, as if worn out with the day's travel,\nunshouldered his burden and threw himself down to rest at the foot of a\ngreat oak-tree. He was very old, older far he seemed than the tree under\nwhose gnarled boughs he was resting, though that looked as if it had\nbeen growing since the beginning of the world. His back was bent as with\nthe weight of years, though really it had become so from the weight of\nthe pack that he carried; his cheeks were furrowed like the bark of a\ntree, and far down upon his breast fell a beard as white as snow. But\nhis deep-set eyes were still bright and keen, though sly and cruel, and\nhis long nose was like the beak of a hawk. His hands were like roots\nstrong and knotted, and his fingers ended in talon-like nails. In\nrepose, even, they seemed to be clutching something, something they\nloved to touch, and would never let go. His clothes were in rags and his\nshoes scarce held to his feet. He seemed as abjectly poor as he was\nabjectly old.\n\nPresently, when he had rested awhile, he turned to his pack, and,\nfurtively glancing with his keen eyes up and down the wood, to make sure\nthat he was alone, he drew from it a sack of leather which was evidently\nof great weight. Its mouth was fastened by sliding thongs, which he\nloosened with tremulous, eager hands. First he took from the bag a\nsquare of some purple silk stuff, which he spread out on the turf beside\nhim, and then, his eyes gleaming with a wild light, he carefully poured\nout the contents of the bag on to the purple square, a torrent of gold\nand silver coins and precious stones flashing like rainbows--a king's\ntreasure. The setting sun flashed on the glittering heap, turning it\ninto a dazzle of many-colored fire. The treasure seemed to light up the\nwood far and near, and the gaudy summer flowers, that a moment before\nhad seemed so bright and splendid, fell into shadow before its radiance.\n\nThe old man bathed his claw-like hands in the treasure with a ghoulish\necstasy, and let the gold and silver pour through his fingers over and\nover again, streams of jeweled light gleaming and flashing in the level\nrays of the sun. As he did so, he murmured inarticulately to himself,\ngloating and gurgling with a lonely, hideous joy.\n\nSuddenly a look of fear came over his face; he seemed to hear voices\ncoming up the wood, and, huddling his treasure swiftly back again into\nthe leathern bag, and the bag into the folds of his pack, he rose and\nsought some bushes near by to hide himself from the sight of whomsoever\nit was that approached. But, as he shouldered his pack, he half\nstaggered, for the pack was of great weight and he heaved a deep sigh.\n\n\"It grows heavier and heavier,\" he muttered. \"I cannot carry it much\nlonger. I shall never be able to carry it with me to the grave.\"\n\nAs he disappeared among the bushes, a young man and a young woman, with\narms twined round each other, came slowly up the glade and presently sat\ndown at the foot of the tree where the old man had been resting a moment\nor two before.\n\n\"Why, what is this?\" presently exclaimed the young girl, picking up\nsomething bright out of the grass. It was a gold coin, which, in his\nhaste, the old man had let slip through his fingers.\n\n\"Gold!\" they both exclaimed together.\n\n\"It will buy you a new silk gown,\" said the lover. \"Who ever heard of\nsuch luck?\" And then he sighed.\n\n\"Ah! dear heart,\" he said, \"if only we had more like that! Then we could\nfulfil our dream.\"\n\nAs the sun poured its last rays over them there at the foot of the oak,\nit was to be seen that they were very poor. Their clothes were old and\nweather-stained, and they had no shoes to their feet; but the white feet\nof the girl shone like ivory flowers in the grass, and her hair was a\nsheaf of ruddy gold. Nor was there a jewel in all the old man's treasure\nas blue as her eyes. And the young man, in his manly fashion, was no\nless brave and fair to look upon.\n\nIn a little while they turned to a poor wallet at the young man's side.\n\"Let us eat our supper,\" they said.\n\nBut there was little more than a crust or two, a few morsels of cheese,\nand a mouthful or two of sour wine. Still, they were accustomed to being\nhungry, and the thought of the gold coin cheered their hearts. So they\ngrew content, and after a while they nestled close into each other's\narms and fell asleep, while slowly and softly through the woods came the\nlight of the moon.\n\nNow all this time the old man had lain hidden, crouched down among the\nbushes, afraid almost to draw his breath, but from where he was he could\nhear and see all, and had overheard all that had been said. At length,\nafter the lovers had been silent for a long time, he took courage to\npeer out from his hiding-place, and he saw that they were asleep. He\nwould wait a little longer, though, till their sleep was sounder, and\nthen he might be able perhaps to creep away unheard. So he waited on,\nand the moon grew brighter and brighter, and flooded the woods with its\nstrange silver. And the lovers fell deeper and deeper asleep.\n\n\"It will be safe now,\" said the old man, half rising and looking out\nfrom his bushes. But this time, as he looked out, he saw something,\nsomething very strange and beautiful.\n\nHovering over the sleeping lovers was a floating, flickering shape that\nseemed made of moonbeams, with two great shining stars for its eyes. It\nwas the dream that came nightly to watch over the sleep of the lovers;\nand, as the miser gazed at it in wonder, a strange change came over his\nsoul, and he saw that all the treasure he had hoarded so long--gathered\nby the cruel practices of years, and with carrying which about the world\nhis back had grown bent--was as dross compared with this beautiful\ndream of two poor lovers, to whom but one of all his gold pieces had\nseemed like a fortune.\n\n\"What, after all, is it to me but a weary burden my shoulders grow too\nold to carry,\" he murmured, \"and for the sake of which my life is in\ndanger wherever I go, and to guard which I must hide away from the eyes\nof men?\"\n\nAnd the longer he gazed on the fair, shining vision, the more the\nlonging grew within him to possess it for himself.\n\n\"They shall have my treasure in exchange,\" he said to himself,\napproaching nearer to the sleepers, treading softly lest he should\nawaken them. But they slept on, lost in the profound slumber of innocent\nyouth. As he drew near, the dream shrank from him, with fear in its\nstarry eyes; but it seemed the more beautiful to the old man the closer\nhe came to it and saw of what divine radiance it was made; and, with his\ndesire, his confidence grew greater. So, softly placing his leather bag\nin the flowers by the side of the sleepers, he thrust out his talon-like\nfingers and snatched the dream by the hand, and hurried away, dragging\nit after him down the wood, fearfully turning now and again to see that\nhe was not pursued.\n\nBut the sleepers still slept on, and by morning the miser was far away,\nwith the captive dream by his side.\n\nAs the earliest birds chimed through the wood, and the dawn glittered on\nthe dewy flowers, the lovers awoke and kissed each other and laughed in\nthe light of the new day.\n\n\"But what is this?\" cried the girl, and her hands fell from the pretty\ntask of coiling up the sunrise of her hair.\n\nWith a cry they both fell upon the leather bag, lying there so\nmysteriously among the wood-lilies in the grass. With eager fingers they\ndrew apart the leather thongs, and went half-mad with wonder and joy as\nthey poured out the glittering treasure in the morning sun.\n\n\"What can it all mean?\" they cried. \"The fairies must have been here in\nthe night.\"\n\nBut the treasure seemed real enough. The jewels were not merely dewdrops\nturned to diamonds and rubies and amethysts by the magic beams of the\nsun, nor was the gold mere gold of faerie, but coins bearing the image\nof the king of the land. Here were real jewels, real gold and silver.\nLike children, they dabbled their hands in the shining heap, tossing\nthem up and pouring them from one hand to the other, flashing and\nshimmering in the morning light.\n\nThen a fear came on them.\n\n\"But folk will say that we have stolen them,\" said the youth; \"they will\ntake them from us, and cast us into prison.\"\n\n\"No, I believe some god has heard our prayer,\" said the girl, \"and sent\nthem down from heaven in the night. He who sent them will see that we\ncome to no harm.\"\n\nAnd again they fell to pouring them through their fingers and babbling\nin their delight.\n\n\"Do you remember what we said last night when we found the gold piece?\"\nsaid the girl. \"If only we had more of them! Surely our good angel heard\nus, and sent them in answer.\"\n\n\"It is true,\" said the young man. \"They were sent to fulfil our dream.\"\n\n\"Our poor starved and tattered dream!\" said the girl. \"How splendidly we\ncan clothe and feed it now! What a fine house we can build for it to\nlive in! It shall eat from gold and silver plate, and it shall wear\nrobes of wonderful silks and lawns like rainbows, and glitter with\njewels, blue and yellow and ruby, jewels like fire fountains and the\ndepths of the sea.\"\n\nBut, as they spoke, a sudden disquietude fell over them, and they looked\nat each other with a new fear.\n\n\"But where _is_ our dream?\" said the girl, looking anxiously around. And\nthey realized that their dream was nowhere to be seen.\n\n\"I seemed to miss it once in the night,\" answered the young man in\nalarm, \"but I was too sleepy to heed. Where can it be?\"\n\n\"It cannot be far away,\" said the girl. \"Perhaps it has wandered off\namong the flowers.\"\n\nBut they were now thoroughly alarmed.\n\n\"Where can it have gone?\" they both cried. And they rose up and ran to\nand fro through the wood, calling out aloud on their dream. But no voice\ncame back in reply, nor, though they sought high and low in covert and\nbrake, could they find a sign of it anywhere. Their dream was lost. Seek\nas they might, it was nowhere to be found.\n\nAnd then they sat down by the treasure weeping, forgetting it all in\nthis new sorrow.\n\n\"What shall we do?\" they cried. \"We have lost our dream.\"\n\nFor a while they sat on, inconsolable. Then a thought came to the girl.\n\n\"Some one must have stolen it from us. It would never have left us of\nits own accord,\" said she.\n\nAnd, as she spoke, her eyes fell on the forgotten treasure.\n\n\"What use are these to us now, without our dream?\" she said.\n\n\"Who knows?\" said the young man; \"perhaps some one has stolen our dream\nto sell it into bondage. We must go and seek it, and maybe we can buy it\nback again with this treasure.\"\n\n\"Let us start at once,\" said the girl, drying her tears at this ray of\nhope; and so, replacing the treasure in the bag, the young man slung it\nat the end of his staff, and together they set off down the wood,\nseeking their lost dream.\n\nMeanwhile, the old man had journeyed hastily and far, the dream\nfollowing in his footsteps, sorrowing; and at length he came to a fair\nmeadow, and by the edge of a stream he sat down to rest himself, and\ncalled the dream to his side.\n\nThe dream shone nothing like so brightly as in the moonlit woodland, and\nits eyes were heavy as with weeping.\n\n\"Sing to me,\" said the old man, \"to cheer my tired heart.\"\n\n\"I know no songs,\" said the dream, sadly.\n\n\"You lie,\" said the old man. \"I saw the songs last night in the depths\nof your eyes.\"\n\n\"I cannot sing them to you,\" said the dream. \"I can only sing them to\nthe simple hearts I made them for, the hearts you stole me from.\"\n\n\"Stole you!\" said the old man. \"Did I not leave my treasure in\nexchange?\"\n\n\"Your treasure will be nothing to them without me,\" said the dream.\n\n\"You talk folly,\" said the old man. \"With my treasure they can buy other\ndreams just as fair as you are. Do you think that you are the only dream\nin the world? There is no dream that money cannot buy.\"\n\n\"But I am their own dream. They will be happy with no other,\" said the\ndream.\n\n\"You shall sing to me, all the same,\" said the old man, angrily. But the\ndream shrank from him and covered its face.\n\n\"If I sang to you, you would not understand. Your heart is old and hard\nand cruel, and my songs are all of youth and love and joy.\"\n\n\"Those are the songs I would hear,\" said the old man.\n\n\"But I cannot sing them to you, and if I sang them you could not hear.\"\n\n\"Sing,\" again cried the old man, harshly; \"sing, I bid you.\"\n\n\"I can never sing again,\" said the dream. \"I can only die.\"\n\nAnd for none of the old man's threats would the dream sing to him, but\nsat apart, mourning the loved ones it had lost.\n\nSo several days passed by, and every day the dream was growing less\nbright, a creature of tears and sighs, more and more fading away, like a\nwithering flower. At length it was nothing but a gray shadow, a weary\nshape of mist that seemed ready to dissolve and vanish at any breath of\nwind. No one could have known it for that radiant vision that had\nhovered shimmering with such a divine light over the sleep of the\nlovers.\n\nAt length the old man lost patience, and began to curse himself for a\nfool in that he had parted with so great a treasure for this worthless,\nwhimpering thing. And he raved like a madman as he saw in fancy all the\ngold and silver and rainbow-tinted jewels he had so foolishly thrown\naway.\n\n\"Take me back to them,\" said the dream, \"and they will give you back\nyour treasure.\"\n\n\"A likely thing,\" raged the old man, \"to give back a treasure like that\nfor such a sorry phantom.\"\n\n\"You will see,\" said the dream.\n\nAs there was nothing else to be done, the old man took up his staff.\n\n\"Come along, then,\" said he, and started off in the direction of the\nwood, and, though it was some days' journey, a glow flushed all through\nthe gray shape of the dream at the news, and its eyes began to shine\nagain.\n\nAnd so they took their way.\n\nBut meanwhile the two lovers had gone from village to village, and city\nto city, vainly asking news of their dream. And to every one they asked\nthey showed their treasure and said:\n\n\"This is all yours if you can but give us back our dream.\"\n\nBut nowhere could they learn any tidings, but gleaned only mockery and\nderision.\n\n\"You must be mad,\" said some, \"to seek a dream when you have all that\nwealth in your pack. Of what use is a dream to any one? And what more\ndream do you want than gold and precious stones?\"\n\n\"Ah! our dream,\" said the lovers, \"is worth all the gold and jewels in\nthe world.\"\n\nSometimes others would come, bringing their own dreams.\n\n\"Take this,\" they would say, \"and give us your treasure.\"\n\nBut the lovers would shake their heads sadly.\n\n\"No, your dreams are not so beautiful as ours. No other dream can take\nits place. We can only be happy with our own dream.\"\n\nAnd, indeed, the dreams that were brought to them seemed poor, pitiful,\nmake-believe things, often ignoble, misbegotten, sordid, and cruel. To\nthe lovers they seemed not dreams at all, but shapes of greed and\nselfish desire.\n\nSo the days passed, bringing them neither tidings nor hope, and there\ncame at length an evening when they turned their steps again to the\nwoodland, and sat down once more under the great oak-tree in the sunset.\n\n\"Perhaps our dream has been waiting for us here all the time,\" they\nsaid.\n\nBut the wood was empty and echoing, and they sat and ate their supper as\nbefore, but silently and in sorrow, and as the sun set they fell asleep\nas before in each other's arms, but with tears glittering on their\neyelids.\n\nAnd again the moon came flooding the spaces of the wood, and nothing was\nheard but their breathing and the song of a distant nightingale.\n\nBut presently while they slept there was a sound of stealthy footsteps\ncoming up the wood.\n\nIt was the old man, with the dream shining by his side, and ever and\nanon running ahead of him in the eagerness of its hope. Suddenly it\nstopped, glowing and shimmering like the dancing of the northern\nlights, and placed a starry finger on its lips for silence.\n\n\"See,\" it whispered, and there were the lovers, lying lost in sleep.\n\nBut the old man's wolfish eyes saw but one thing. There lay the leather\nbag of his treasure just as he had left it. Without a word, he snatched\nit up and hastened off with it down the wood, gurgling uncouthly to\nhimself.\n\n\"Oh, my beauties!\" he cried, as he sat himself down afar off and poured\nout the gold and the silver and the gleaming stones into the moonlight.\n\"Oh, my love, my life, and my delight! What other dream could I have but\nyou?\"\n\nMeanwhile, the lovers stirred in their sleep, and murmured to each\nother.\n\n\"I seemed to hear singing,\" each said.\n\nAnd, half opening their eyes, they saw their dream shining and singing\nabove them in the moonbeams, lovelier than ever before, a shape of\nheavenly silver, with two stars for its eyes.\n\n\"Our dream has come back!\" they cried to each other. \"Dear dream, we had\nto lose you to know how beautiful you are!\"\n\nAnd with a happy sigh they turned to sleep again, while the dream kept\nwatch over them till the dawn.\n\n\n\n\nTHE STERN EDUCATION OF CLOWNS\n\n\nA clown out of work for many weeks had trudged the country roads,\nfootsore and hungry, vainly seeking an engagement. At length, one\nafternoon, he arrived at a certain village and spied the canvas tent and\nthe painted wagons of a traveling circus. This sight put a pale hope\ninto his sad heart, and he approached the tent as bravely as he could to\nfind the proprietor of the show. Sad as was his heart, his face looked\nsadder; and he did not, it is to be feared, make a very impressive\nappearance, as at last he found the proprietor sitting on the side of\nthe sawdust ring, eating lunch with the Columbine. The circus proprietor\nwas large and swarthy and brutal to look on, and his sullen, cruel eyes\nlooked sternly at the little clown, who, between a sad heart and a\nlong-empty stomach, had very little courage left in his frame.\n\n\"Well!\" roared the proprietor. \"What is it?\"\n\nThe little clown explained his profession and his need of an engagement;\nand stood there, hat in hand, with tremulous knees.\n\nThe circus proprietor looked at him a long time in contemptuous silence,\nand then, with an ugly sneer, said:\n\n\"Have you ever had your heart broken?\"\n\n\"Indeed I have,\" answered the clown. \"For to have your heart broken is\npart of the business of a clown.\"\n\n\"How many times?\"\n\n\"Six.\"\n\n\"Not enough,\" answered the proprietor, roughly, turning again to his\nlunch with the Columbine. \"Get it broken again and come back; then\nperhaps we can talk business.\"\n\nAnd the little clown went away; but he had hardly gone a few yards\nbefore his heart broke for the seventh time--because of the bitterness\nof the world.\n\nYet, being wise, he waited a day or two, living as best he could along\nthe country roads, and then at length he came back about noon to the\ncircus, and again the proprietor was eating lunch with the Columbine,\nand again he looked up, sullen and sneering, and said:\n\n\"Well?\"\n\nThe clown explained that his heart had been broken for the seventh time.\n\n\"Good,\" said the circus proprietor. \"Wait till I have eaten lunch and we\nwill talk business.\"\n\nAnd the clown sat at the side of the ring, and the proprietor and the\nColumbine ate and laughed as if he were not there.\n\nAt length, finishing a tankard of ale, and wiping his mouth on the back\nof his hand, the circus proprietor arose and beckoned the clown to come\nto him.\n\nAt the same time he took a long ringmaster's whip, and the Columbine\ntook one end of a skipping-rope, while he held the other.\n\n\"Now,\" said the circus proprietor, \"while we twirl the skipping-rope you\nare to dance over it, and at the same time I will lash your shins with\nthis whip; and if, as you skip over the rope, you can laugh and\nsing--like a child dancing on blue flowers in a meadow--I will give\nyou\"--the proprietor hesitated a moment--\"six dollars a week.\"\n\nSo it was that the clown at last got an engagement.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n  Transcriber's note:\n\n  _Underscores_ have been used to indicate _italic_ fonts.","title":"The Maker of Rainbows, and Other Fairy-tales and Fables","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":20798}