{"collection":"folklore-oral-tradition","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_52402/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_52402","id":"gutenberg_52402","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/52402","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Novels","Fairy tales","Fantasy fiction","Manners and customs -- Fiction","Short stories, American"],"text":"By Margaret Sherwood\n\n\n    =THE PRINCESS POURQUOI.= Illustrated. $1.50.\n\n    =THE COMING OF THE TIDE.= With frontispiece. 12mo, $1.50.\n\n    =DAPHNE=: An Autumn Pastoral. 12mo, $1.00.\n\n\n                        HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.\n                          BOSTON AND NEW YORK\n\n\n\n\n                                  THE\n\n                           PRINCESS POURQUOI\n\n                             [Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n           [Illustration: EVERY DAY HER BIG EYES GREW WISER]\n\n\n\n\n                              THE PRINCESS\n                                POURQUOI\n\n                                   BY\n\n                           MARGARET SHERWOOD\n\n                              ILLUSTRATED\n\n                             [Illustration]\n\n\n                          BOSTON AND NEW YORK\n                      HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY\n                               MDCCCCVII\n\n\n\n\n           COPYRIGHT 1902 AND 1903 BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS\n\n                COPYRIGHT 1907 BY THE S. S. McCLURE CO.\n\n           COPYRIGHT 1906 AND 1907 BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.\n\n                  COPYRIGHT 1907 BY MARGARET SHERWOOD\n\n\n                          ALL RIGHTS RESERVED\n\n                        _Published October 1907_\n\n\n\n\n                                CONTENTS\n\n\n    THE PRINCESS POURQUOI                                          1\n\n    THE CLEVER NECROMANCER                                        43\n\n    THE PRINCESS AND THE MICROBE                                  81\n\n    THE SEVEN STUDIOUS SISTERS                                   131\n\n    THE GENTLE ROBBER                                            175\n\n\n    [asterism] The Princess Pourquoi, The Princess and the Microbe,\n    and The Seven Studious Sisters appeared first in _Scribner's\n    Magazine_, The Clever Necromancer in the _Atlantic Monthly_, and\n    The Gentle Robber in _McClure's Magazine_. They are here\n    reprinted by the courteous permission of the publishers of those\n    magazines.\n\n\n\n\n                             ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n    EVERY DAY HER BIG EYES GREW WISER                 _Frontispiece_\n\n    SIDE BY SIDE THEY WALKED TOGETHER                             22\n\n    \"IT'S GOT TO BE KILLED,\" SAID THE PRINCESS STURDILY          101\n\n    \"WHAT!\" THUNDERED HIS MAJESTY                                142\n\n    CAME RIDING FROM ALL PARTS OF THE KINGDOM                    148\n\n    HE BEGAN TO WEAR THE LOOK OF THOSE WHO SEE MORE\n        THAN MEETS THE EYE                                       185\n\n    FOR SOME HALF SMILED AND HID THEIR SMILES AS\n        BEST THEY COULD                                          203\n\n    A GLIMPSE OF AN HERETIC BEING BURNED TO DEATH                210\n\n\n\n\n                         THE PRINCESS POURQUOI\n\n\n\n\n                                  THE\n\n                           PRINCESS POURQUOI\n\n                             [Illustration]\n\n\nOnce upon a time, in a country very far away, a new princess was born.\nAs is usual in such cases, the King, her father, and the Queen, her\nmother, held a great christening feast, to which were invited all the\ncrowned heads for miles around, all the nobility of their own kingdom,\nand the fairies whose good wishes were considered desirable. In the\nmiddle of the ceremony, as is also customary, a very angry little old\nlady, with a nose like a beak, burst into the room.\n\n\"May I ask why I was not invited?\" she demanded. \"These are here,\" and\nshe pointed to the fairy who rules the hearts of men, and to the fairy\nwho rules circumstance. She herself was the fairy who rules men's minds.\n\n\"You!\" stammered his Majesty. \"Why, it is only a girl. We--we thought\nyou would be offended. Later, if a son should be born\"--\n\n\"You thought!\" shrieked the enraged little creature, gathering her\nshoulder-shawl about her. \"You thought nothing whatever about it. I am\ninsulted, and I shall be revenged. Before anything yet has been given to\nthis child I shall curse her\"--\n\n\"Oh!\" begged the crowned heads and the nobility.\n\n\"Yes,\" said the fairy, stamping and growing angrier, \"I shall curse her\nwith a _mind_.\"\n\n\"Anything but that,\" groaned his Majesty.\n\n\"Not that for a woman-child,\" moaned the mother, from under her silken\ncoverlid.\n\n\"Yes,\" said the fairy, and her wicked black eyes snapped over her\nwithered red cheeks. \"She is a woman-child, and yet she shall think. She\nshall be alien to her own sex, and undesired by the other. She shall ask\nand it will not be given her. She shall achieve and it shall count her\nfor naught. Men shall point the finger at her like this\" (and she\npointed one skinny forefinger at the King), \"and shall whisper, 'There\ngoes the woman with brains, poor thing!' As for your Majesty, in her\nshall you find your punishment. She shall think what you do not know,\nand divine what you cannot find out. Now,\" added the wicked fairy,\nturning to the two godmothers who stood by the child's cradle, \"see if\nyou, with all your giving, can do anything to lessen the curse that I\nhave spoken,\" and she rushed away like a whirlwind, leaving every face\ndismayed.\n\nThe fairy who rules circumstance stood by the cradle and spoke. Her face\nwas the face of one who wavers two ways, and her voice was unsure.\n\n\"The child shall have fortune,\" she said, \"good-fortune, so far as is\nconsistent with what has already been given. I wish,\" she added\napologetically, \"that I had spoken first.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you?\" grumbled his Majesty under his whiskers, but he dared\nnot speak aloud, for he was afraid of circumstance, being a king.\n\nThe other fairy stood silent, looking down into the child's face.\n\n\"But she shall know love,\" she said softly, after a little time. The\nsleeping princess smiled.\n\nFrom the time that it was spoken the curse was felt. Before the baby\ncould talk, she would lie in the royal cradle, fixing upon the King, her\nfather, and the Queen, her mother, when they came to see her, eyes so\nbig, so wise, so full of question, that his Majesty fled, and her\nMajesty covered her face with her hands, wondering what it could be that\nthe child remembered and she forgot. The first word the Princess uttered\nwas \"Why.\" She said it so often that presently, through the whole length\nand breadth of the kingdom, she was known as the \"Princess Pourquoi,\"\nthough her real name was Josefa Maria Alexandra Ren\u00e9e Naftaline.\n\n\"Why,\" she asked, when she was very small, \"did trees grow this way,\ninstead of the other end up? Why did people stand on their feet instead\nof on their heads? Why did you like some people better than others, and\nwhy couldn't it be just as easy to like them all alike?\"\n\nShe was a good little girl, but she had all the credit of being a bad\none. She saw through what she was not intended to see through; she heard\nwhat she was not meant to hear; she understood what others wished to\nkeep hidden. Therefore it came to pass that she was very lonely. She had\na way of climbing affectionately up to the neck of some favored person,\ndrawing down the head for a loving embrace, and then asking some\nterrible question, whereupon she was quickly put down on the floor and\nleft alone. There she would sit, with so grieved a look in her big blue\neyes that the next one who entered would pity the golden-haired baby,\nand would take her up, only to become a victim to some other\nunanswerable inquiry.\n\nWhen she was four and five, her questions were theological or\nphilosophical. \"Why was she made at all, if she were as naughty as\npeople said? Wouldn't it have been less trouble not to have made her, or\nto have made her good? Why were you you, and I I? Who was going to bury\nthe last man?\" The king's philosophers stood about in silence and gnawed\ntheir beards. They were terribly afraid of the little girl with chubby\nlegs and dimples. As she grew older, her questioning turned more toward\nsocial matters and practical affairs. \"Why,\" she asked his Majesty, her\nfather, who also was afraid of her, \"did he say that he loved his\nneighbor and yet make war? Why was he king? Was it because he was wiser\nand better than other people?\" She looked at him so long and so\ndoubtfully that his Majesty wriggled in the royal chair. He felt that\nthis wretched child was endangering his power. Sometimes he was so\nmiserable that he would willingly have abdicated, but he could not\nabdicate his little daughter. Besides, he was a king, and he did not\nhave any place to go. Other children had been granted him, a line of\nlittle princesses, who wore long, stiff embroidered robes; and a nice,\nfat, stupid little prince, who was a great comfort to his father. All\nthese other princelets obeyed the court etiquette and wore the court\nclothes, and never felt the ripple of an idea across their little minds,\nbut they could not atone to the King for the thorn in his flesh known as\nJosefa Maria Alexandra Ren\u00e9e Naftaline.\n\nThe Princess Pourquoi objected to wearing a stomacher, for she liked to\nlie flat on her face in the park, watching the ants. She objected to\nmaking the court bow, and smiling the court smile, and putting out her\nhand to be kissed. Why should she? The ladies-in-waiting could only tell\nher, \"It was so.\" She objected to taking mincing walks in the royal\ngardens among the peacocks, and sometimes, to the horror of all the\ncourt, escaped and played games with peasant children outside. She\ndisliked her lessons. Why should she say, like a parrot, what her\ngoverness told her to, when there were birds and beasts and creeping\nthings outside to study, and a library inside full of things really\nworth learning? So she went her own way, growing wistful and more\nlonely, and every day her big eyes grew wiser and fuller of secrets.\nThose who saw her crossed themselves and murmured, \"The Curse!\"\n\nOnce his Majesty held a great festival to celebrate the thousandth\nanniversary of the founding of his kingdom by his imperial ancestor,\nMultus Pulvius Questus, who had conquered 500,000 men with his own arm,\nand had laid the cornerstone of a great principality. The festival was a\nbrilliant one, and all the royal neighbors came. Just before the\nceremonies began, in the large audience chamber, the governess of the\nPrincess Pourquoi, stung by questions she could not answer regarding the\nachievements of Multus Pulvius, burst out with:\n\n\"You are a naughty little girl, and if you act this way, the fairy\nprince will never come.\"\n\n\"I don't want a fairy prince,\" replied the Princess proudly, looking at\nher governess with steady blue eyes. \"I want a real one.\"\n\nA little prince standing near, in a red velvet suit, looked at her very\nhard.\n\nAs time went on, the Princess Pourquoi was not quite content. She was\ntoo eager for that.\n\n\"I shall be happy when I find out,\" she said sadly one day.\n\n\"Find out what, your Highness?\" asked the chief philosopher.\n\n\"It,\" answered the girl, and she pointed toward the horizon. \"What it\nmeans, where we came from, what you are for and I am for.\"\n\nThe chief philosopher took a golden goblet of wine that a page had\nbrought him and drank it to its dregs. Perhaps he meant this for an\nanswer. Then he winked at his fellow-philosopher, and the two went arm\nin arm down a long path between box hedges in the garden. The Princess\nentered the royal palace and knelt at the feet of the King.\n\n\"Your Majesty,\" she asked, \"why are people who do not know anything\ncalled wise men and philosophers?\"\n\nIt was soon after this that the King made a great proclamation, offering\nthe hand of his daughter to any one who would answer one of her\nquestions satisfactorily. Suitors came by scores, although her\nunfortunate propensity was known, for the Princess was growing to be\nvery beautiful, and his Majesty the King was very rich. The aspirant to\nher hand usually stood before the royal throne in the presence of the\ncourt, and the Princess was ushered in by the major domo. The Princess\nPourquoi did not trouble herself to find new questions; she only asked\nsome of the old ones over again, and the Crown Prince of Kleptomania,\nthe Heir Apparent to the throne of Rumfelt Holstein, the reigning King\nof Nemosapientia, besides dozens of others, went sorrowfully back to\ntheir homes, rejected. When it was found that the ordeal was terrible,\nand the result always the same, the suitors gradually ceased coming, and\nthe Princess Pourquoi remained a great matrimonial problem, aged\nfifteen, on the hands of her parents.\n\nIt was at this time that the Princess resolved to study, and to achieve\nsomething that was really her own. People should respect her, not\nbecause she was a princess, but because she could do great things. She\npleaded with his Majesty until he ordered the greatest scholar in his\nkingdom to act as tutor for her, the greatest sculptor to teach her\nmodeling, the greatest painter to teach her how to draw. For five long\nyears the Princess worked and was happy, but the eyes of her mother were\nfull of pity when they rested on her, and the passers-by in the streets\nwhispered, \"Poor thing!\" Mothers drew their little ones closer to them\nwhen they saw her, and said: \"Take care! It is the woman with a mind!\"\nAnd the young ladies of the court, when they came out into the park with\ntheir long trains, and saw the Princess seated by herself with a book\nunder a tree, said to themselves, under their breath: \"Like that, too,\nbut for the grace of God!\"\n\nAt one of the annual exhibitions of works of art in the city was a\nstatue, anonymously exhibited, that won great praise. It was of white\nmarble, and represented a woman standing on tiptoe and reaching up and\nout with one hand. The fingers closed on nothing, and the look of the\nface was disappointed. Perhaps the greatest skill was shown in the\nrendering of the eyes. Their expression was baffling, and no one could\nsay whether the woman was blind or not.\n\n\"What masculine strength of handling!\" said the artists.\n\n\"What wonderful inner meaning!\" said the philosophers.\n\nThe Princess Pourquoi came one day to visit it, and stood a long time\nwatching the people who saw it. The outspoken praise made her eyes\nglisten. A workingman, in a peasant's blue blouse, strolled near. There\nwas fine powder of chipped stone upon his sleeve.\n\n\"There is great power there,\" said the workingman, \"but the work is\ncrude.\"\n\nThe peasant was hustled out of the room, and an admiring crowd gathered\nabout the statue of the groping woman. Some one whispered that it was\nnot a man's work at all, but the work of a woman. Surprise, incredulity,\ndisapproval passed in waves over the faces of the crowd. The rumor was\nestablished as a fact, though the woman's name was withheld. Every one\ncould see faults now.\n\n\"We suspected it from the first,\" said the philosophers. \"The lack of\nvirility is apparent.\"\n\n\"You can see the woman's carelessness in regard to details in every fold\nof the drapery!\" said the artists.\n\nThe Princess Pourquoi listened. Presently she faced the crowd.\n\n\"It is my work,\" she said simply. Then she summoned her lackeys and\nordered her carriage, and disappeared before artists or philosophers\ncould find any knot-holes to crawl through.\n\nTheir Majesties, the royal parents, were greatly pleased when they heard\nof this scene. Perhaps this condemnation of her statue would bring their\ndaughter to her senses.\n\nIt was very fortunate that just at this time there came rumors of the\nadvent of the Fairy Prince. From Bobitania, a kingdom leagues away, he\nwas reported to be approaching, presumably to woo the Princess Pourquoi.\nThe King and the Queen chuckled in secret together the day a messenger\narrived to announce the advent of his Royal Highness, Prince Ludwig\nJerome Victor Christian Ernst, Heir-Apparent to the throne of Bobitania.\nThis was a very great principality, indeed. Surely the Princess would\nfor once act like other people, and would, for the sake of all that was\nto be gained, profess herself satisfied in regard to her questions.\n\nThe royal household was ordered into its very best clothing. The King\nand the Queen, the Prince and the Princesses, shimmered in velvet and\njewels. The pages were resplendent in yellow and silver. The\nphilosophers were profound in rich black. The woolly white dogs of the\nladies-in-waiting were combed and tied with the colors of Bobitania,\ncrimson and black. Everywhere, in jewels, in flower devices, among the\nhangings on the wall, were displayed the arms of Bobitania, a crimson\nstar on a dusky background.\n\nAfter the ceremonies of greeting were over, when Prince Ludwig Jerome\nVictor had bent before the King and the Queen on their throne, and had\nhad presented to him all the royal offspring, the Princess Pourquoi was\nrequested to show his Highness the garden of flowers, that his eyes\nmight be refreshed after his long journey. So side by side they walked,\ntalking together, between long rows of stately chrysanthemums, white,\nyellow, and red, she very erect in her brocaded gown, whose deep blue\nfolds swept the grass, he all smiles and obeisance, in a slashed suit of\nscarlet and black. The waiting-women, by two and two, came on behind.\n\n           [Illustration: SIDE BY SIDE THEY WALKED TOGETHER]\n\nAs they paced the garden, the peacocks retreated slowly, a statelier\nprocession than they. They passed a fountain where a single workman was\nbusy sculpturing a figure from a block of gray granite. His face was\nshaded by a cap, but the splendid action of strong arms and muscular\nshoulders was visible. The Princess paused, and the waiting-women\nturned, pretending to be busy with the box of the hedges or the\npink-tipped daisies at their feet. The face of Prince Ludwig Jerome\nVictor grew uneasy, for he felt that the hour for his questioning had\ncome. But the Princess was not thinking of him, for her eyes were\nfollowing the workman's fingers.\n\n\"Why blue jean for one man's arm and velvet with pearls for another?\"\nshe said half to herself. \"Why hunger for that man, and for me surfeit?\"\n\n\"Most gracious Princess,\" answered Prince Ludwig Jerome Victor, secure\nin his reply, \"the earth with all upon it is glad to lie as dirt beneath\nthe feet of the most beautiful lady in the world.\"\n\nHe fell upon one knee and kissed her hand. She looked down intently into\nhis narrow, upraised face.\n\n\"Queen among princesses,\" he begged, \"question me and accept my answer.\nFrom far Bobitania I have come to woo, and if I fail, I die. What is the\nquestion I must answer?\"\n\n\"You have answered,\" said the Princess. \"Rise.\"\n\nThe hand of the workman had paused, uplifted, with a sculptor's hammer\nin its grasp. There was a queer little smile upon his face below the\nshadow of the cap.\n\nThe waiting-women paced in silence behind the Princess back to the\npresence of the King.\n\n\"Most august Sovereign,\" said the Prince, bending his knee in the royal\npresence, \"I have come to place my kingdom at your daughter's feet.\nDeign to ask her if I have found favor in her eyes.\"\n\n\"What say you, my daughter?\" asked the King, his delight shining through\nhis face. \"Is it not a noble prince and a fair offer?\"\n\n\"My Lord and Father,\" said the Princess Pourquoi, bending in courtesy,\nthen standing erect, more haughty than before, \"it is no prince, but a\nman with a lackey's soul. He may come to reign, but a king he can never\nbe. As for my hand, he may not again touch it. I go to make it clean.\"\n\nThen she turned and walked, in a great silence, between the parted lines\nof frightened people, out of the audience-chamber and away.\n\nHow Prince Ludwig Jerome Victor Christian Ernst went away in great\nanger, how the royal apologies were presented in vain, how the Princess\nPourquoi was imprisoned for three days in her chamber with no books to\nread and was held in deep disgrace by all the court, is a long story,\nand one that would take much time to tell. But the Princess only smiled\nserenely, presented her duty to her parents, saying that she was deeply\ngrieved if her necessary words had hurt them, and, the first day she was\nfree, went walking in the royal garden alone.\n\nThe artisan was there at the fountain, working at the same stone figure.\nThe Princess stood in silence and watched him. At her approach he had\ntaken off his cap and had laid it on the grass. Yellow autumn leaves\nfell on his blue blouse and on her crimson velvet robe.\n\n\"Do you like to work?\" asked the Princess Pourquoi timidly.\n\nA look of amusement crept into the man's keen, dark eyes, and his lips\nquivered with a suppressed smile.\n\n\"Yes, your Highness,\" he answered, making an inclination of his head.\nAnd he went on working.\n\n\"Why?\" asked the Princess Pourquoi.\n\n\"Gracious Lady and Princess,\" replied the artisan, \"I do not know.\"\n\nThe Princess stared at his deft fingers and the quivering muscles of his\narms. Then she strolled away to pick a late white rose, and presently\nwandered back, as if forgetful where her feet were going.\n\n\"I have seen you before,\" she remarked absent-mindedly.\n\nHe bent again, and murmured something respectful that she could not\nhear. The chance given him to continue the subject he did not improve.\n\n\"Once,\" continued the Princess, \"in a hovel among other hovels at the\nfoot of the hill. Through the open door of the sick-room where I stood,\nI saw you sitting at a poor man's table, sharing his black bread and\nmuddy ale. Why were you there?\"\n\n\"He was my friend,\" said the artisan. \"His hut was then my home.\"\n\n\"Why do you wear a workingman's blouse and carve in stone?\" demanded the\nPrincess abruptly.\n\n\"Madame and Princess,\" replied the man, \"it is the work that I have\nchosen,\" and he went on chipping away fine flakes of stone.\n\nThe lady walked away again, this time following a wayward peacock across\nthe grass. The workingman paused to look after her, with the sunshine\nfalling on her brown hair. Then he picked up a chisel that he had\ndropped, and, in doing so, bent to kiss the grass where her feet had\nrested, for she had trodden very close.\n\nWhen the Princess came back the next time, she spoke with the quiet air\nof one who is greeting an old friend.\n\n\"You criticised my statue,\" she remarked. \"You called it crude.\"\n\n\"Whoever reported my poor opinion to the Princess,\" said the man, \"had\nevidently heard but part of what I said.\"\n\nThe Princess showed no curiosity as to the rest.\n\n\"Why were the others so unjust?\" she demanded. \"They praised my work\nwhen they thought it was a man's. They turned upon it and called it bad\nwhen they knew a girl had done it, and did not yet know that it was a\nprincess. What can one do when it is all so unfair?\"\n\nThe artisan answered not a word, but went on chipping, chipping, bending\nall his energy to the curve of a finger. The Princess watched with eyes\nin which all the blue of the autumn sky and all the shining of the\nautumn sun seemed centred. When the young man at length looked at her,\nher head was thrown back, and her face wore the look of one who feels\nher blood to be royal.\n\n\"Do you know,\" she asked sternly, though the expression of her eyes was\nof one who pleads, \"what fate is reserved for the man who answers even\none of my questions satisfactorily.\"\n\n\"Gracious Lady and Princess,\" he said humbly, \"I have answered nothing,\nfor I did not know. My mind, too, has questioned ceaselessly into the\ninjustice of many things. I only\"--\n\n\"You only,\" said the Princess, with a sweep of her hand,--\"you only\n_kept on working_! Come!\"\n\nRefusing to walk at her side, he followed at a little distance, stepping\nunsurely, as one would walk in a dream. The lackeys looked at him and\nsneered as he went. His Majesty the King and her Majesty the Queen\nlooked down in impatience from the throne when they saw the Princess\nPourquoi leading in a peasant clad in blue jean.\n\n\"Some injury to redress!\" muttered his Majesty. \"Always a new grievance!\nI never have time to sleep or think.\"\n\nThe Princess swept across the audience-chamber with the air of one whom\nnature, not circumstance alone, had made a queen. She bent before her\nroyal parents, then laid her hand upon that of the artisan.\n\n\"Your Majesties will remember,\" she said, \"the decree made regarding me\nwhen I was fifteen years old. This man alone has answered one question\nof mine to my satisfaction. I come to beg\"--and her face wore a\nfrightened look, yet shone with a sudden gleam of mischief--\"I come to\nbeg that he incur the penalty.\"\n\nHer Majesty fainted and was carried from the room. His Majesty\nturned purple, and the calves of his legs swelled with rage. The\nladies-in-waiting hid their faces behind their hands and whispered,\n\"Shameless!\" The philosophers shook their heads and muttered, \"The\nCurse!\" As soon as the King could find his voice he thundered: \"Away\nwith him to the donjon keep! Let the executioner come and do his duty!\nCut off the head of the impostor who would steal my daughter's hand!\"\n\n\"He is no impostor,\" said the Princess scornfully. \"Whatever his birth\nmay be, his soul is royal.\"\n\nThe men-at-arms came forward to seize him, but the Princess flung\nherself between him and them. He put her gently aside, and stepped\nforward to defy them all, but his eyes rested all the while on her with\na look that made great throbbings in her wrists. The clash of arms in\nthe chamber was interrupted by the sound of commotion outside. Shouts of\n\"Make way!\" were heard. Then there were cries of: \"A messenger, a\nmessenger from his Grace of Bobitania!\" Free way was left in the crowded\nhall for a man in a travel-stained riding-costume, who entered and\nhurried toward the throne.\n\n\"May it please your Grace,\" he panted, \"his Majesty the King of\nBobitania desires to make known that the Heir-Apparent to the throne,\nwho disappeared many weeks ago, has not been discovered. News has just\nreached Bobitania that his valet, who stole much of the Prince's\nclothing after his disappearance, has been here representing himself to\nbe the Prince. Let it therefore be known that the person who of late\ncalled himself Prince Ludwig Jerome Victor Christian Ernst of Bobitania\nis an impostor, being the son of a liberated serf, and the grandson of a\nswineherd.\"\n\nThe nobles, the ladies-in-waiting, the philosophers crowded about the\nmessenger. While he was explaining that Prince Ludwig Jerome Victor was\neccentric, though deeply loved by every man, woman, and child in\nBobitania; how he had insisted on learning a trade; how he had often\ndisappeared for a time, living in disguise among his poorest\nsubjects--the Princess was looking at the stone-cutter's face and\nsmiling. She forbore to cast one glance of triumph upon the King.\n\nThe messenger took his leave of his Majesty and turned to go. Suddenly\nhe fell upon his knees and kissed the hand of the peasant.\n\n\"My Lord the Prince!\" he cried. And the vaulted ceiling gave back the\ncry, for all the people in waiting took it up and shouted for the Prince\nwho wore blue jean.\n\n                               * * * * *\n\n\"Why did you do it?\" asked the Princess Pourquoi, two hours later, when\nshe stood in the garden with her betrothed, the real Ludwig Jerome\nVictor Christian Ernst, Heir-Apparent to the throne of Bobitania.\n\n\"Gracious Lady and Princess,\" he answered, laughing, \"I wanted to be\nreal.\"\n\nThen he told her how, many years ago, he, a tiny princeling, had heard a\nnaughty little princess, in that very audience-chamber, demanding, not a\nfairy prince, but a real one.\n\n\"I took the only way I knew to become real,\" he said. \"Have I found\nfavor in your eyes, O beloved of my heart?\"\n\n\"How long beloved?\" asked the Princess anxiously, for she was much\nashamed of the way in which she had wooed him.\n\n\"All my life long,\" he answered. And the peacocks never told how he\nkissed her.\n\nHis Majesty the King and her Majesty the Queen were delighted with the\nmatch. The royal father spent hours in telling the young Prince how\ngreat a delight his daughter's mind had always been to him, and how he\nshould miss companionship with her when she was far away in Bobitania.\nAll the court agreed with their Highnesses that they had had suspicions\nof the valet-prince from the very first, and the lackeys mentioned to\nthe Princess the fact that from the first they had suspected the\nstone-cutter to be something more than appeared on the outside. The\nPrincess Pourquoi became very popular up and down the length and breadth\nof the kingdom, and the philosophers, as they sipped their wine in the\nafternoon sunshine, said over and over what a wonderful child she had\nbeen, and how they had always prophesied a great destiny for her.\n\nSo there was a great wedding, the preparations for which shook\nChristendom to its foundations. All the crowned heads that were known\nwere there. Barbaric kings from beyond Bobitania graced the ceremony in\ngorgeous embroidered robes sewn with diamonds and rubies and pearls. No\ncolors that are known could paint the procession with its rainbow tints\nof banners and of clothing. Man has not senses enough to take in a\ndescription of the food that was provided. Peacocks' brains, served in\ngolden dishes, were the simplest viands there.\n\nThe Princess Pourquoi was attired in white velvet, with a train eleven\nfeet and six inches long; her lord and master glowed like a tropical\nbird in scarlet, and Christendom exclaimed that there had never been so\nbeautiful a pair. While the trumpets were blowing and the dishes were\nrattling, and the after-dinner speeches of the philosophers were\nreaching their most blatant point, Prince Victor was quietly telling his\nbride that he had no intention of giving up his occupation of\nstone-cutter, and none of sitting upon his father's throne unless\nrequested to by all the inhabitants of Bobitania. They talked in\nsnatched whispers about the drawing-schools they would establish for the\npoor, and the model cottages that should be built from end to end of\nBobitania, and they made great plans for the Princess's further work in\nsculpture. What else they said in sweet whispers, I shall not tell, for\nit was no one's affair but their own.\n\nThe most magnificent guest of all was the fairy godmother who had cursed\nthe bride in her cradle. This wicked person was attired in black samite,\nmade with incredible puffs and a train. She had a stomacher picked out\nwith jet, and wore a very stiff ruff underneath her hooked chin. Her\ngeneral expression was very fierce, but once she was heard to murmur,\nhiding a pleased smile behind her bony hand:--\n\n\"A pretty age of the world, when not even the curse of a mind can harm a\nwoman!\"\n\n\n\n\n                         THE CLEVER NECROMANCER\n\n\n\n\n                         THE CLEVER NECROMANCER\n\n                             [Illustration]\n\n\nOnce, a long, long, long, long, _long_ time ago, there was a city by the\nsea, and it was called Marmorante. Little gray mists floated down the\ngray streets, past the tall gray houses with carven windows and doors;\npale, silvery fogs wrapped tower and spire, and oftentimes low, dark\nclouds hung sullenly for days together over gabled roofs and dull red\nchimneys; nor could the bravest winds that blew nor the swiftest golden\nsunbeams drive mist and cloud and fog away.\n\nIn Marmorante lived all manner of folk: a duke, a count, two marquises,\nand several squires; there were merchants many, with white-sailed ships\nthat cut the waves; there were wool-combers and flax-beaters and\nhaberdashers and marketmen; but most of all there were women:\ncountesses, duchesses, and stately marchionesses; wives of merchants,\nwool-combers, haberdashers, flax-beaters,--women, women, women, maidens\ninnumerable, and hosts of little girls. There were little girls with\nflaxen ringlets, little girls with long braids of yellow hair;\ndark-haired, slender maidens, maidens with white arms, maidens with blue\neyes, brown eyes, or gray--every kind of maiden that ever lived, in life\nor in story.\n\nLife went on quietly in the city by the sea. In the gray mornings count\nand countess talked amicably together in their great hall, and\nwool-carder and his wife gossiped cheerily as they rolled and carded the\nwhite fleece; in the gray afternoons Sir Knight walked in the castle\ngarden among the flowers with my lady, and the butcher's 'prentice met\nhis maid by the postern door: by embroidery frame and spinning-wheel, by\ntiring-room and kitchen spit, all was gray peace.\n\nThen one day, when the clouds hung low, a raven croaked above the castle\nwall; black rooks cawed dismally with hints of coming disaster; and\nbats, mistaking clouded noon for night, flew out with squeaks and\ngibberings at noonday--yet nothing happened. Peasants' carts came\ncreaking, as was their wont, to the city gate, with blue-smocked Jean or\nyellow-trousered Pierrot driving roan mare or piebald steed, and\nbringing bags of grain and great rolls of tanned skins to market. Old\nwomen with their flower baskets on their arms came nodding and\ncourtesying, giving hollyhock or rose for toll to the porter, who would\nnot say them nay because of their skinny arms and hungry faces. At last\ncame one who was not of the line of sun-browned farmers, withered dames,\nor ruddy boys who drove in flocks of sheep.\n\nIt was a man, tall and long, and thin of face, clad in doublet and hose\nof sober drab, and he had naught with him save three small, transparent\nbags or bladders, one rose-colored, one purple, and one yellow, which\nseemed to be filled with but empty air.\n\n\"What bringest hither?\" asked the porter, in a surly voice.\n\n\"Naught save my rattle,\" answered the tall man in drab; and with that he\nstruck the bags together, so that there came out a tinkling sound\nwondrous cunning and small.\n\n\"Is danger therein?\" said the man at the gate, holding back. \"Mayhap\nthey go off, like powder, and do harm.\"\n\nThen the tall man smiled a strange, three-cornered smile, for his chin\nwas long and protruding, and strained his lips that way.\n\n\"Ay,\" he confessed, \"they go off, but they do no hurt;\" then he paid his\npenny toll and went unmolested in. The porter stood long, with arms\nakimbo, and looked after him.\n\n\"'Tis some fool,\" said the porter, and went back to his mug of ale.\n\nThe sad-hued man went on through the narrow streets that let in only a\nstrip of the sky's blue, and anon he came to the open market-place,\nwhere little was doing that day, for the flowers were wilted, and the\nvegetables for the most part gone; only the lambs that were left bleated\npiteously now and then. The stranger sprang upon a counter where wheat\nhad been sold, and he struck his little bags together, so that they\nrattled merrily as he called aloud:--\n\n\"Come, hear, hear, hear! Come, hear the words of wisdom I shall say, the\ngreatest words that shall ever meet your ears. Come, hear, hear, hear!\nTo-day I speak, and to-morrow I may not: 'tis the chance of a lifetime,\nand not to be overlooked. Come, hear, hear, hear!\"\n\nNow with the rattling of the bags, and the rattling of the man's voice,\nmany people came running hither: squire and 'prentice and count,\nmarchioness and merchant's lady, and the cook from the castle, all\nhurrying toward the empty sound. Soon a great crowd was gathered, of men\nand of maidens, of women with white wimples and folded kerchiefs, and of\nlittle girls with yellow hair.\n\n\"Come, hear, hear, hear!\" repeated the man, in slow singsong, watching\nthe people with his narrow blue eyes which were rimmed with red; then,\nso swiftly that none could see, he bent his head and touched his lips to\nthe transparent bags. He spoke, and lo! a miracle, for out of his mouth\ncame a beautiful, iridescent mist of words that floated and floated and\nbroke against the gray fog, and rested across the eyes of an elderly\nwoman who stood buxom and comely, and fell like a halo upon the fair\nhair of a young girl standing bareheaded in the sun, and flashed like an\nopal, flickered like a flame, so that at last the whole market-place was\nfull of floating color; yet all that the man had said was, \"Be good and\nyou will be happy,\" with variations.\n\n\"A necromancer!\" said the red-faced butcher under his breath.\n\n\"A prophet!\" cried the countess, as a floating bit of the colored mist\nlighted on her lips.\n\n\"I never heard such truth,\" said the fair-haired maiden, with a bar of\niridescent cloud across her eyes.\n\nWatching and silent the Necromancer stood, the three-cornered smile upon\nhis lips. They prayed him to do his trick again, but he shook his head\nand would not.\n\n\"To-morrow,\" he said, \"at two P.M.;\" and he smiled at the shower of\ngolden coin that rained into his bell-crowned hat.\n\nWhen they were sure that nothing more was forthcoming, they went\nmarveling away; but all about the silvery fog that clung to the\nsteeples, and the gray mists that lay along the streets, and the clouds\nthat hung sullenly above, still hovered little rosy flecks of flame and\nhints of rainbow color.\n\nDay after day the Necromancer stood in the market-place, and put his\nlips secretly to his colored bags, and spoke. He had searched all the\ncopy-books of the kingdom, and had taken familiar truths, such as: \"The\ngood die young;\" \"To be selfish is to be miserable;\" \"Haste makes\nwaste;\" \"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush;\" and he clothed\nthem in rainbow colors and breathed his mist about them, so that they\nstalked in beauty wonderful and strange, and the folk who listened did\nnot know their own ideas when they met them face to face, because of the\ngarment of many-colored words in which they came. Then the women went\nmad throughout the city, mad for the loud-sounding voice and the rattle\nof the bags, rose-colored, purple, and yellow. By her broidery frame the\nCountess Ang\u00e9lique forgot to draw green thread of silk through the dim\nweb, and in her lap her white hands lay idle. Walking to and fro by her\nspinning-wheel, little Jeanne wove into the blue yarn the glittering\nphrases of yesterday, so that the strands tangled and knotted at the\nspindle. Margot, the cook, forgot her chickens roasting on the spit, but\nturned and turned them by the glowing coals till they were burned and\nblack; and Joan the butcher's wife could no longer tell haunch of\nvenison from flitch of bacon, but greeted customers with a vacant stare,\nfor her mind was quite gone, gone the way of the wind, after the\nwonderful bits of colored fog.\n\nNow the fair-haired maid who had stood awed in the market-place on the\nday when the enchanter came was a rich merchant's daughter, and her\ngiven name was Blanche. She was betrothed to one Hugh of a neighboring\ncity, and he came often to Marmorante, lodging always at the sign of the\nRed Dragon. Thus had been his wooing, as he stood one day with the maid\nand her father by the lattice that looked forth on the street.\n\n\"Wilt have me?\" he asked, and the words cost him much, for he was a man\nof plain speech, and oft of no speech at all.\n\nThe maid stood in the sunshine and looked upon him, and he thought her a\ngoodly sight. Green was her gown, and cut square at the throat, and with\nit the color of her eyes seemed green, and he knew not if her hand or\nher neck were whiter.\n\n\"I could give thee white velvet to thy train,\" he stammered, and the old\nman, her father, stood and watched.\n\n\"Dost love me?\" asked the maid, for she was one that had heard old\nballads sung; and the man opened wide his honest eyes.\n\n\"Ay, surely, else had I not asked thee to wife.\"\n\n\"Then will I wed thee,\" said the maid, and the wooer stood gazing at\nher, not daring the kiss that was in his mind.\n\n\"'Tis a good chaffer,\" said young Hugh. \"We shall get on rarely\ntogether;\" and thereafter, as heretofore, he had no eyes for aught save\nthe maiden's face. All this was a month agone, and to-day, when he came\nagain, the maid would have it that he must needs go forth with her to\nthe market-place to listen to this wonder; and he followed, willing\nenough, for he would have gone into the very dragon's teeth after the\nhem of her gown. Howsoever, the thought of going to listen to mere\nspeech seemed to him but folly.\n\nWhen they came to the open place, and he saw what was there, his eyes\nopened wide, and he whistled softly for sheer amazement, for never yet\nhad he seen so great a concourse gathered together. There were women in\nvelvet and in satin, women in homespun and in blue jean, even women in\nrags; and there were maidens as many and as lovely as the leaves upon\nthe maple tree when it turns to rosy color in the fall, maidens dull or\nbright of hair as the case might be, but always bright of eye and of\ncheek. Far and near they gathered, crowding close together; many stood\non bench or on counter, straining white necks forward; and all the\nwindows that looked upon the market were crowded with fair faces.\nPresently, with long and pensive stride, came the lean man in drab; and\nas he came, honest Hugh heard the sudden, sharp breathing of the maid at\nhis side, and felt her lean forward as if she were one quivering ear.\n\nWhat followed puzzled the young man sorely. It was one of the great days\nof the Necromancer: forth from his mouth came a violet speech in the\nform of a bubble, and it floated over the heads of the people in lovely\nchanging shades that ranged all the way from deep purple to the palest\ntint that is not yet white. Midway across the gray cloud it burst, and\nits gleaming bits drifted hither and yon, and the speaker smiled as he\nsaw the eager fingers raised to catch the tiny vapors which melted as\nsoon as touched. Forth came another and another; it was a day of\nloveliest froth. Anon came a speech of the color of gold that shimmered\nand shone in the sunlight, and burst into sparkles a thousand ways, and\nso golden bubble followed golden bubble. All the little girls with\nfloating hair or yellow braids ran after them, with hands lifted high to\ncatch them before they burst, and the least maids wept because the\ntaller ones caught more than they.\n\nYoung merchant Hugh stood watching, with his hand upon his chin.\n\n\"'Tis a strange sight,\" he murmured to himself. \"Jugglers enow have I\nseen in the East, and many of their devices have I learned, but I have\nseen naught like this.\"\n\nThen he turned to his betrothed.\n\n\"Dost know the trick, Blanche?\" he asked, but when he saw her face, he\nknew that there was somewhat amiss with his words. All awed was she, and\nin her eyes was the look of one who had seen a vision; and, glancing\nabout, he saw that the other women and maids wore the same expression.\nHe came home pondering, having noted the shower of coin that had fallen\ninto the Necromancer's hat; nor could he understand, for he gave ever\ngood measure for the gold that was given him. Also he was sore troubled,\nfor his betrothed had no words for him, only looks of high disdain.\n\n\"Well, daughter,\" said the old merchant, as the two came in, \"what saith\nthe prophet to-day?\"\n\n\"Oh!\" cried the maiden, \"all was wonderful and full of beauty. Each day\nis his discourse more marvelous than yesterday's.\"\n\n\"But what was it all about?\" he asked, laying his hand upon her hair,\nfor he was tender of her.\n\n\"How could I presume to tell?\" she asked, with a grieved red lip. \"'Twas\ntoo wonderful to put into words;\" and she swept from the room, with no\nglance for her lover.\n\nYoung merchant Hugh, to whom the very rushes on which the maiden stepped\nwere dear because of his great speechless love, gazed after her, jealous\nof the look upon her face, and cruelly wounded by her scorn.\n\n\"I will find out the trick,\" said the young man to himself, between set\nteeth; and he was one who ever made good his words.\n\nNow the maiden Blanche was glad when her lover begged to go forth with\nher the next day and the next, at two P.M.\n\n\"Mayhap he may learn something of this wondrous speech,\" she said\nwistfully, thinking to herself that it would be sweet to be wooed in\nviolet words and words of the color of gold. When he bent shyly to kiss\nher before they went, with lips that trembled for the great love they\nmight not say, she drew stiffly back, nor would she thereafter permit\ntouch or caress, and much she spoke of the joy of a maiden's life that\nwould leave time free for thought; yet she took him gladly with her for\na week of days. Ever he listened, as one spellbound, nor once removed\nhis glance from the Necromancer's face; and he was keen of eye, and wont\nin traffic to detect word or look of fraud, and he saw what no one else\nhad seen.\n\n\"I have it!\" he cried, and he slapped his fist upon the palm of his left\nhand. \"Those be bags of many-colored words that he hath with him, and he\nbut sucks them up and breathes them forth.\"\n\nThat day he sent his sweetheart home with Dame Cartelet, that lived hard\nby, and was as besotted as she on the man with the magic words; then he\nwent and lay in wait in the street through which the Necromancer passed\neach day in going home; and as he waited, he turned back his velvet\ncuffs, and felt lovingly of the muscle of shoulder and arm. So it was\nnot long before a tall man in drab went running through the narrow\nstreets on the outskirts of the town, crying and wringing his hands, and\nthe rattling bags of rose color, and purple, and gold were gone from his\nneck.\n\n\"Oh, my vocabulary!\" he wailed. \"Oh, my bags, my bags, my bags! What am\nI but a man undone without my bag of adjectives!\"\n\nThe dogs and the children that ran at his heels did not understand, nor\ndid smith and weaver as they stood in their doorways.\n\n\"Oh, my other bag, my bag of epithets, of polysyllabic epithets!\" cried\nthe fugitive as he ran.\n\nA squealing pig joined the chase, and the men children and maid children\nwho ran after laughed aloud. The women who watched from lattice or stone\ndoorstep were of those who, by means of ten skillfully selected\nadjectives from the rose-colored bag, and a dozen golden epithets from\nthe bag of yellow, had been made to gape and quiver with the sense of\nthe birth of new truth, yet they failed to recognize the juggler, for\niridescent mist and ruddy vapor had vanished from his head and\nshoulders, and they saw naught save a lean and ugly man fleeing under a\ngray sky; and, hearing, they yet did not understand his cry of deep\ndismay.\n\n\"Oh, my exclamation points, my lost exclamation points! Oh, my pet\nhiatus that laid all low when nothing else would avail!\"--and so he\npassed out of their sight, and out of the city of Marmorante.\n\nAt the sign of the Red Dragon that afternoon, young merchant Hugh was\nclosely locked in his room. Behind great iron bolts he sat upon a\nthree-legged stool, and worked with the colored, rattling bags.\n\n\"'Tis well that men have devised this thing,\" he said, holding a mirror\nbefore his face, as he sucked air from the bag of rose; \"else could I\nnot see if all goes well.\" And his heart was well-nigh bursting with joy\nwhen he saw that the breath of his mouth was even as the breath of the\nNecromancer upon the air. Then he slipped downstairs and begged for a\ncup of ale, and as the maid served him in the kitchen, he blew out a\nwhiff from the bag of gold, and of a sudden her face became as the faces\nof the women who stood in the market-place under the spell of the\njuggler, and Hugh was glad.\n\nThe next day he hid the bags in a neckerchief of fine silk, and went to\nthe house of his sweetheart, asking to see her; but when she came, it\nwas with a face set and cold, and she paused with the great oaken table\nbetween them.\n\n\"Hugh,\" she said, unsmiling, \"I have been thinking.\"\n\n\"'Tis foolish work for a woman,\" he answered stoutly.\n\n\"That which thou dost say but confirms my thought,\" she answered, still\nmore coldly. \"We cannot be wed; waking and sleeping have I considered\nthis matter, and thus have I resolved.\"\n\n\"Now, why?\" cried honest Hugh bluntly.\n\n\"We have so little in common,\" said Blanche.\n\n\"Thou shalt have all,\" he stammered, forgetting, in his hurt, the magic\nbags. \"Why, 'tis for thee I send forth all my ships. I will be but thy\npensioner.\"\n\nA shadow of pain passed over the maiden's face.\n\n\"I mean not goods nor possessions, nor any manner of vulgar things; 'tis\nof mind and soul I speak, and ours be far apart.\"\n\n\"My goods be not vulgar!\" cried young merchant Hugh. \"Rare silks and\ncloths from the East have I, and purest pearls, for thy white throat. No\ncommon thing is there in all my store.\"\n\nThen the little foot of Blanche tapped impatiently on the stone floor.\n\n\"'Tis of no avail that I try to make thee understand! I say there be\ndepths in my nature that thou mayst not satisfy; also am I full busy\nthis morning and must beg to be excused\"--and with that she drew open\nthe heavy oaken door, leaving him in the long room as one dazed.\n\nThen he bethought him of his bags, and drew them out too late, taking a\nwhiff from each as a sob rose in his throat. Suddenly the fair hair of\nBlanche appeared again in the doorway, and she smiled as a stranger upon\nhim.\n\n\"I forgot to say that I wish thee all manner of good, and great\nprosperity,\" she said amiably.\n\nThen out of Hugh's mouth came a purple speech, and a speech of the color\nof gold; and little iridescent mists floated through the air, while a\nrose-colored bubble rested for a moment on the white eyelids of the\nmaiden. The dull-paneled room was as the breaking of a rainbow; yet all\nhe had said was, \"Wilt not wed me, Blanche?\" But he said it in rose\ncolor and purple and gold.\n\n\"What have I done?\" cried the maiden sorrowfully; and he rejoiced to see\nthat the look upon her face was as it had been when she had listened to\nthe Necromancer's philosophies and faiths.\n\nThen he turned and smiled, saying: \"I love thee, Blanche,\" and he spoke\nin the juggler's speech, which made a glory on the maiden's hair, and\nabout her gown of green. With outstretched hands she came toward him,\nand she laid her head upon his breast, smiling up at him.\n\n\"I was mad but now, Hugh,\" she breathed. \"Our two souls be but one.\"\n\n\"Wilt come with me to the market-place this afternoon?\" he asked.\n\n\"Nay,\" sighed the maiden. \"I care not for the market-place, for I am\nhappy here, where I have found my home.\"\n\n\"I speak there,\" he said bluffly, \"at two P.M.\"\n\n\"Thou!\" and the maiden's laughter rang out like the touch of silver\nbells, \"and of what?\"\n\n\"Of phases of occult thought,\" he answered gravely.\n\n\"Ay,\" cried Blanche, and she raised her face to kiss him. \"Ay, Hugh, be\nsure that I shall be there when thou dost talk philosophies.\"\n\nThe young merchant was good as his word, and that afternoon he stood in\nthe market-place upon a counter, rattling the juggler's bags as he\nwaited. As before, men, women, and maidens came, by tens, by twenties,\nby hundreds, till there was no spot where he could look without meeting\na pair of wistful eyes.\n\n\"It looks to be but plain Hugh, the merchant,\" whispered one to another.\n\n\"Hath he undertaken to sell his wares here?\" asked one.\n\n\"He hath choice pearls,\" whispered a maiden who was not yet wholly given\nover to occult thought.\n\nBut Hugh had begun to speak, and faces of wonder were lifted to him, for\nhe was strong of lung, and the breath from the magic bags went farther\nthan ever before.\n\n\"Our friend the Necromancer is indisposed, and I must take his place,\"\nhe began. \"Like him, I have chosen a theme from the depths of human\nthought; and now, hear! hear! hear!\"\n\nThen eloquence poured forth from the man's lips so fast, so full a\nstream, that the very welkin was rose-tinted, and a great rainbow seemed\nto overspread the sky. Gray clouds above the tallest spires broke into\ntints of opal, and all the air shaded into the violet and purple of\nexclamation points, and of the pet hiatus, which was hard to work, but\ncame well off. Golden glory haunted carven door and window, and words of\nflame crept around the tracery of arch and gable. Women sobbed for very\njoy; others wrote madly on their tablets; maidens gasped with red lips\nslightly opened; never, during the whole lecture season, had come so big\na wind from out the bags, and honest Hugh blushed with mingled shame and\ntriumph when he saw the face of his betrothed, for it wore the look of\none who had seen the white vision of naked truth.\n\nFollowing the fashion of the Necromancer, he had taken a maxim, and had\ndressed it up so that men knew it not, and so that it came forth as\nrevelation. All that he had said from the first to the last was the\ntruth that he knew best: \"Honesty is the best policy;\" but this was the\nway in which he had said it, with constantly shifting color:\n\n\"Glory awaits the equable! All-hails are the portion of him, who,\nunswerving, with eyes upon the path ahead, with lofty head erect,\nperambulates his chosen path through this world's tangled wilderness,\nturning neither to the right hand nor to the left, though golden cohorts\nbeckon. The goal is for the upright feet. The crown waits.... What\nmatter if the victor be sobbing and breathless, so that he be\nconqueror?\" (Observe the hiatus.) \"So saith golden-tongued Plato; so\nsaith heavy-browed Aristotle of persuasive speech; so saith Aulus\nGellius, withdrawn in his inner truth, and his brother, Currant Gellius,\nwhose essence clings; so say the holy fathers, subtle Basil,\nmyriad-minded Chrysostom; so saith the copy-book.\"\n\nWhen the speech was over, and the bags hidden away, Hugh bore as best he\nmight the tears and congratulations of the women, their murmured\nplaudits, and inspired looks.\n\n\"'Tis the first time I have ever failed to give honest measure,\" he said\nshamefacedly to himself as they flocked about him.\n\nThat night, as he sat with the maiden and her father, he spoke of\ndeparting on the morrow with a ship that would sail for Morocco to be\ngone many months, and his sweetheart came to him, creeping into his\narms.\n\n\"Do not leave me, Hugh,\" she pleaded. \"It is so far away.\"\n\n\"I must go, little one,\" he answered, smoothing her fair hair. \"Men sit\nnot ever by the fire to hear tabby purr.\"\n\n\"Say them again,\" she pleaded, \"say again the words thou didst speak\nthis morning, that I may have them with me when thou art far away.\"\n\n\"Far in illimitable recesses of time and of space,\" he began\nshamefacedly, \"before phenomena existed, thy bodiless soul and mine met\nand mingled as one\"--\n\n\"Where hast learned that jargon, Hugh?\" asked the old merchant, with a\nloud guffaw.\n\n\"Hush!\" said Hugh, with loving hands upon the maiden's ears so that she\nmight not hear. \"All is fair in love, father!\"\n\nBut Hugh was still an honest merchant, and never in his long and happy\nlife did he use the stolen vocabulary in bargaining, or to gain\ndishonest advantage in trade. Only, when the face of Blanche, his wife,\ngrew sad, he would take out the colored bags, which he kept secretly\nlocked in an iron chest, and then the old smiles would come back to her\nbeautiful face, and with them the look of awe wherewith she regarded her\nhusband, as the mist of purple, and the flecks of rose color, and the\nbubbles of gold, fell on hair and eye and ear.\n\n\n\n\n                              THE PRINCESS\n                            AND THE MICROBE\n\n\n\n\n                                  THE\n                        PRINCESS AND THE MICROBE\n\n                             [Illustration]\n\n\nThe Princess Olivera Rinalda Victorine sat on a stone seat by the\nmermaid fountain in the royal gardens, crying bitterly because she was\nnot a prince. The sun was warm, the water splashed merrily over the\nmermaids' tails, and not far away two infant counts, an archduckling,\nand a baby baroness were playing on the green grass, but the Princess\nwould have none of their game of tag. She only howled with her mouth\nopen, and paused for breath, and howled again. Then Lady Marie Fran\u00e7oise\nGodolphin and the Duchess Louise of Werthenheim, who were pacing the\ngarden paths by box hedge and rose bed (Lady Marie was superb in pink\nchiffon over white silk, and the Duchess wore blue embroidered tulle\nlooped with clusters of artificial lilies), frowned and whispered to\neach other that the naughty child ought to be punished, which was\nmanifestly unfair, as it was all their fault. Never would the Princess\nOlivera Rinalda Victorine have thought of being wickedly ungrateful for\nthe privilege of being a girl, if the following conversation had not\nreached her through the box hedge:--\n\n_Lady Marie_: His Majesty will be _so_ relieved that it is a son. Think,\nthe boy will be Auguste Philippe the Twenty-fourth!\n\n_The Duchess_: I distinctly remember the grief of both the King and\nQueen when the Princess turned out to be a girl.\n\nIt was then that the Princess Victorine, who had been dandling her doll\nand gaining great comfort from this distinctly feminine occupation,\nthrew this same doll from her with violence, unconscious of the symbolic\ncharacter of the act, and digging her little fists into her eyes, burst\ninto weeping so loud that Lady Marie Fran\u00e7oise and Duchess Louise\ndragged their buckram-stiffened trains away over the grass to escape\nfrom their victim's cries.\n\nPresently sobbing became hard work, and the Princess sat still in the\nsunshine, thinking. Her blue eyes had red rims about them, her yellow\nhair was dried in wisps on her forehead, her fat legs hung dejectedly\ndown. She was reaching back farther and farther into her dim little\nconsciousness, trying to remember how she ever came to make that\ndreadful initial mistake. She had disappointed the Queen, her\nmother--here the sobs began again, for the Princess loved that royal\nlady; she had chosen, though she could not remember when, and had chosen\nwrongly. Then she began to wonder what it was to be this thing that the\nKing and Queen and Lady Marie and the Duchess were so grateful for, a\nboy. She candidly thought that she was nicer than the two little counts\nand the archduckling, and she found her riddle hard to read, for no one\nhad ever before suggested to her, much less explained, the disgrace of\nsex.\n\nCrying was difficult, and thinking was harder still--for the Princess.\nPresently she jumped down from her bench and trotted away almost\njoyfully, for a happy thought had struck her. The Princess was the\nsweetest, most obliging little soul in the world, and helpful withal. A\nway of escape had suggested itself to her: she would find out what boys\nwere like and be one. The Queen, her mother, should be no longer\ndisappointed in her, nor should any ladies of the court make invidious\nremarks through box hedges. Whatever happened, she would never again\nturn out to be a girl. So, in an unfortunate comparison, made by two\npeople who could obviously ill afford to be critics, began the evolution\nof that unnatural monster, more \"fell than hunger, anguish, or the sea,\"\na mannish woman.\n\nAt first the Princess Victorine prayed about it. Every night, in her\nlittle golden crib, which had the arms of her house--a spotless leopard,\n_couchant_--embroidered on the blue satin hangings, she shut her eyes\nand begged to be made into a prince with yellow love-locks and scarlet\ndoublet and pink hose. Would he be Olivero Rinaldo Victor the\nTwenty-fourth, she wondered? But every morning she wakened with\nindignation to the fact that she was still a girl. As her faith in\nmiracle weakened, her determination to succeed by her own efforts grew\nstronger, and she never doubted that she could do it if she tried hard\nenough. Her face took on an expression of firmness, \"most unfeminine,\"\nsaid Lady Marie, who was her governess.\n\n\"Do not run, my dear--it is so masculine,\" said Lady Marie, often; or\n\"Do not climb trees, your Highness--such rough playing is fit only for\nboys.\"\n\nThen the Princess would look at her with non-committal, wide-opened eyes\nand say nothing. She had a secret, inner knowledge, dating from that\nmoment of revelation in the garden, of the superiority of being a boy,\nand henceforward nothing could take it from her, not precept, nor\nexample, nor soft insinuation of the beauty and propriety of\nwomanliness. She knew that people were trying to deceive her; she had\nheard of conspiracies before--but she never let them see that she knew.\nOn occasions like this she had a way of looking stupid which was nearer\ncleverness than anything else that she ever did.\n\nNow, there are people for whom one idea, with variations, will last a\nlifetime, and the Princess Olivera Rinalda Victorine was one of them. As\nto questions about the whys and wherefores of things, she never asked\none in her life, nor answered one. Very systematically she set about her\nlife-work. As his Highness, her baby brother, grew up, she imitated him.\nOnce she was found standing with her sturdy legs apart and her arms\nakimbo, whistling. Lady Marie and the Queen both wept, and deprived the\nPrincess that day of her bread and jam, but to no effect. She seemed\ninspired by the energy of the small boy or the demon. Her legs could not\nkeep still; she ran, she jumped, she leaped, she climbed, she played all\nboyish games, and once, but my ink blushes red in recording this, she\nwas caught by the Duchess turning somersaults in the garden. Terrible\nwere the reproaches heaped upon her, and her misdeeds seemed greater\nbecause they went unexplained. On this occasion Lady Marie and the\nDuchess were both sent to discipline her. (Lady Marie was attired in\nrose satin covered with black lace, and the Duchess was charming in\nNile-green brocade, with pearls.) When Lady Marie said, with her scented\nhandkerchief at her eyes: \"My dear, your actions are bringing me into\ndisrepute; what will their Majesties think of me?\" the Princess, who\ndetested scents, only turned red and said nothing. Not once did she\nretort that she never would have tried to be a boy if these two had not\ntaught her the desirability of it; she only trudged on in her own way\ntoward the longed-for goal, sure that the scoldings, the reproaches,\nand, saddest of all, her mother's tears, came because she had not tried\nhard enough and had not succeeded.\n\nThere were times when the Princess Victorine surpassed Auguste Philippe.\nOne sunshiny morning, when the two were playing knight and ogre in the\ncourtyard, the Prince announced that he meant to climb the castle wall.\nHe did it only out of bravado, for, being a boy, with a boy's common\nsense, he knew that it was impossible.\n\n\"I'm going to climb it, too,\" said Olivera Rinalda Victorine stubbornly.\n\n\"Pshaw, you can't! You're only a girl,\" said Auguste Philippe, strutting\nup and down in his slashed velvet doublet and his feathered cap.\n\n\"And you are only a boy,\" said the Princess, meditatively eying him. She\ndid not say it to be saucy--she was only thinking. Then she deliberately\ntook the hem of her embroidered blue satin skirt in her teeth and began\nto climb the wall, while Auguste Philippe watched from below with wrath\nand terror in his eyes. By means of a niche here, a clinging ivy vine\nthere, a window ledge, and, now and then, a friendly, grinning gargoyle,\nthe Princess succeeded, and stood at last triumphant upon the\nbattlements, waving her blue skirt for a flag. But all that she got for\nit was a scolding, and, to the day of his death, Auguste Philippe never\nadmitted that it was true. In fact, he never entirely believed it,\nthough he had watched every step from the courtyard below.\n\nBetter even than boyish sports, the Princess loved stories of knightly\ndeeds, and the very pith and marrow of chivalry entered into her bones.\nShe could not read, but that did not matter, for the story-tellers could\nnot write, but oh! they could tell tales. Stories of dragons slain and\nogres vanquished, stories of maidens rescued, enchanters caught and\nprisoned, stories of caitiff knights thrust through at the moment of\ntheir greatest villainy by the swords of heroes, all these the Princess\nVictorine drank up with greedy ears and mind, and her heroic little\nheart throbbed within her. Often--it was most unmaidenly--she furtively\nfelt of her muscle in leg or arm, wondering when she would be strong\nenough to go forth in quest, for not one tale roused in her the desire\nto become a teller of stories herself--she only wanted to act one. Once\nshe took Auguste Philippe aside, saying:--\n\n\"I'll tell you a secret, if you won't tell.\"\n\n\"Go ahead!\" said Auguste Philippe graciously. He had doubly the air of a\nsovereign, being at once a brother and heir presumptive.\n\n\"I'm going out to find and fight a dragon,\" said Princess Victorine.\n\n\"Huh!\" sneered the Prince. \"There aren't any dragons any more. You are\nbehind the times.\"\n\n\"Aren't any dragons!\" cried the Princess. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"There haven't been any for a long time,\" remarked Auguste Philippe\nnonchalantly, his hands in his pockets. But the Princess would not have\nthe foundations of her faith shaken too easily.\n\n\"What do they mean by telling us about them all the time?\" she demanded.\n\"Every minstrel that comes here does, and so does old Lord Jean, and the\nCountess Madeline, and everybody nice.\"\n\n\"I don't care,\" asserted the Prince. \"There aren't any--there's only the\nMicrobe.\"\n\n\"What's the Microbe?\" gasped the Princess.\n\n\"It's worse than dragons, that's what it is,\" said Auguste Philippe\nviciously.\n\n\"What does it do?\" asked the Princess.\n\n\"It bites,\" answered the Prince. \"It stays somewhere in the woods and\nswamps, and every year it eats a great number of youths and maidens, and\nold men and children. It's always hungry.\"\n\n\"Why doesn't somebody go and kill it?\" said the Princess.\n\n\"Dunno!\" answered Auguste Philippe.\n\n\"What does it look like?\"\n\n\"It has one great eye,\" answered the Prince unhesitatingly, knowing that\nlife demanded that he should instruct the feminine mind whether he had\ninformation or not; \"it has ten great rows of teeth, and what it does\nnot bite with one set it bites with another. It never roars--that makes\nit worse than a dragon, for you can't tell when it is coming. And it has\na hundred thousand claws reaching everywhere.\"\n\nThe Princess went and sat by a rosebush, wearing her most enigmatical\nexpression. If she was overawed, she was too plucky to show it. Prince\nAuguste Philippe looked at her, not without remorse. He was aware that\nhe knew nothing of the Microbe save its name, but he decided not to\nconfess--it would only shake a sister's confidence, so he went away to\nfly his kite.\n\nNow, years flew past, and every day the Princess's bosom swelled with\nknightly ardor, and every waking thought was of the slaying of the\nMicrobe. The words of Auguste Philippe that day by the rosebush became\nthe second inspiration of her life, and the second only completed and\nstrengthened the first. At eighteen, as at six, the Princess Olivera\nRinalda Victorine was round of face and pink of cheek. Her big blue\neyes, set in the baby fairness of her face under the yellow hair, had\nthe confiding look of a little child. All this was very pretty, but\nmanly sports had developed her physique far beyond the bounds of\nfeminine propriety. There were muscles on her lovely shoulders, and they\nmade her tiring-women weep. As for her biceps, she had always to wear\nloose, flowing sleeves, for the strong arms broke through the embroidery\nof tight ones. She was taller than she should have been, and her waist\nrefused to taper. If her sex had been different, the royal parents would\nhave gloried in her strength and her agility, but as it was, they cast\ndown their eyes in her presence and begged her, if she had any filial\nreverence, to talk mincingly and small, at least in their presence.\n\nOne day the Princess Olivera Rinalda Victorine sought out Lady Marie.\n\n\"I am going on a quest, to find and fight the Microbe,\" she remarked\nbriefly. Lady Marie gave her one look, and fainted, and the Princess\nrevived her by means of her vinaigrette.\n\n\"My dear!\" whimpered Lady Marie, \"think how many gray hairs you are\nbringing down in sorrow. I do not mean mine,\" she added hastily; and,\nin truth, hers were no longer gray.\n\n\"It's got to be killed,\" said the Princess sturdily. \"It's a pest.\"\n\n  [Illustration: \"IT'S GOT TO BE KILLED,\" SAID THE PRINCESS STURDILY]\n\n\"But what is it?\" whispered Lady Marie, blushing through her rouge. \"Is\nit a thing that a young girl ought to know about?\"\n\nThere was hubbub in the court for ten days. Counts, marchionesses,\ndukes, and earls gathered in corners and talked under their breath. Some\nthought that the Princess should be imprisoned in a dungeon; others\nspoke of her with pity, believing her mad. One party, headed by old Lord\nJean and the Countess Madeline, said that it was all nonsense. Everybody\nknew that there was no such thing as the Microbe; it was only a new\nheresy, wickedly devised to shake the established faith in dragons. The\nPrincess might just as well be allowed to go the way of her folly and\nfind out the truth. Another faction, made up of believers, spoke darkly\nof the mystery that enshrouded the foe, for he lived in a fog, and went\nout to kill veiled in cloud, and they hinted that if the Princess went\nto find him, she would not return alive. His Majesty and her Majesty,\nbewildered, agreed with both parties, wept, protested, but did not\nforbid the Princess to go, for fear that she would not mind. Auguste\nPhilippe said a bad word.\n\nAt first the Princess tried to reason with them--an unwonted occupation\nfor her.\n\n\"It really is a combat that a lady could very well engage in,\" she said\nearnestly. \"It isn't as if it were a dragon, you know.\" But they only\npooh-poohed and ha-haed until she shut her lips very tightly together,\nand went on her way as usual, unexplained.\n\nJust here attention was diverted from her, for his Majesty, who had been\nhurt in hunting, sickened and died, and amid sobs and whisperings and\ndiscussions, Auguste Philippe the Twenty-fourth came to the throne.\nThere were many rumors and whispers of how the late King had come to his\ndeath: some said that it was a fall from his steed; others hinted the\nMicrobe, shivering with horror at the name. No one was sure of anything,\nand the court physicians very cleverly gave out that they could not\nexplain at length his Majesty's ailment because nobody knew enough to\nunderstand.\n\nBut the Princess Victorine, who was not a person of doubts, was\nconvinced from the first. With her head held very erect, she went to the\ncourt armorer, and gave orders that he dared not disobey; then she went\nto the royal stables and made her choice, while all stood still to watch\nher, spellbound, no one venturing to lift a hand. Her Majesty was too\nmuch overcome with grief to care what happened; Lady Marie and the\nDuchess were absorbed and happy getting the court into mourning, and so\nthere was no one but Auguste Philippe to say good-by to the Princess\nwhen she went away. He had risen very early, and stood upon the\nbattlements to see her go.\n\nIt was one brave June day when the Princess Olivera Rinalda Victorine,\narmed _cap-\u00e0-pie_, went forth to war. She was mounted on a charger of\ndapple gray; a palfrey she would not have. On her head was a shining\nsteel helmet, through the back of which her tawny hair floated down her\nback--there was not room to do it high. Through her visor her blue eyes\nsparkled with a steady light. On her arm she carried a blue shield, for\neven in her battle mood she could not forget what color was becoming. It\nbore the device that she had chosen for herself, a virgin _rampant_,\ngules. The armor that covered her from head to foot was of wrought rings\nof finest steel, made with a flowing skirt that fell in protecting folds\nabout her feet. Her right hand held a spear; with her left she guided\nher steed.\n\n\"Good-by, dear!\" called the Princess, waving her hand to Auguste\nPhilippe.\n\n\"You are a silly thing,\" he remarked, affectionately, from the\nbattlements. \"You won't do anything but tear your clothes.\"\n\nHe did not try to stop her. In the strain of becoming Auguste Philippe\nthe Twenty-fourth he found that there were many things he was not so\nsure of as he had been before. The flame in his sister's eyes he did not\nunderstand, and he wondered why she was not content to stay at home and\nplay at quoits and dance to music, as he was; but he resolved that\nVictorine should make a fool of herself in her own way, and that it\nshould not cost her too dear. So he stood long watching her as she went\nshining across the great green plain with the light flashing from a\nthousand glittering points on her armor.\n\nNow, the Princess rode by night and day, and not once did her courage\nfail or her arm grow weary. She left behind the green plain and the\npleasant trees, and traveled in a grievous waste beyond the songs of\nbirds, and anon she came to a woodland that was dark and old. She was\nsorely puzzled as to the habitat of the Microbe, for in his raids he\ncame from east and west and north and south, and no one could tell if he\nhad a permanent abiding-place. Often in the dusky shadows of the wood,\nshe stopped to call a challenge: \"What, ho! Come out and try thy skill!\"\nBut that was not his way of fighting, and he stayed hidden. Sometimes\nshe inquired at a cottage door or at a shepherd's hut on the edge of the\nwood, but all thought that the lovely lady in armor was surely mad,\nwearing such strange clothing and asking such strange questions. Once\nshe came upon a witch-wife who was gathering simples by a swamp in the\nwood.\n\n\"Is the pretty lady looking for the pretty knight that passed this way\nyestere'en?\" asked the witch-wife, with a horrible leer of her sunken\neyes.\n\nThe Princess elevated her eyebrows with a look of scorn.\n\n\"No,\" she answered coldly; \"I am looking for the Microbe.\"\n\n\"How?\" asked the witch-woman, with her hand behind her ear.\n\n\"The Microbe!\" shouted the Princess.\n\n\"Is it a man, or a lady, or a place?\"\n\n\"It's a monster!\" shrieked the Princess. \"It kills, and eats, and\ndestroys.\" And then followed a faithful repetition of Auguste Philippe's\ndescription of the beast. The witch-wife laughed and rocked to and fro,\nher yellow teeth showing in her shrunken gums.\n\n\"Oh, deary, deary, deary!\" she said, \"there ain't any such critter,\ntruly there ain't. I've lived here in the swamp seventy-nine year; I\nnever saw one, and I sees pretty nigh everything.\"\n\n\"Who eats the youths and the maidens, and the old men and the children?\"\ndemanded the Princess sternly.\n\n\"How do I know? How do I know?\" cackled the old woman. \"_I_ don't.\"\n\nThe Princess Victorine rode away, and behind her the witch-wife laughed.\n\n\"That's the way the pretty knight went,\" she called. \"You'll find him\nfurther on.\"\n\nThe Princess indignantly turned her charger and rode in the opposite\ndirection. That morning came her moment of great reward, for, by the\nside of a noxious swamp, a gray mist met her, blinding her eyes, and she\nthought she heard sounds of gurgling and lashing and clawing. Once she\ncaught sight of the great shining eye of which Auguste Philippe had told\nher, and then she dimly detected the grin of teeth. Olivera Rinalda\nVictorine was sure that she had met the Microbe at last. With lifted\nspear, and with the shout, \"A maiden to the rescue!\" she rode into the\nfloating cloud and thrust it through and through. Her spear crashed\non--something; her charger seemed to trample a living creature under\nfoot, and snorted with terror. Thrice came swift blows upon the\nPrincess's shield, but whether they were of claws or tail, she could not\ntell. Her ears were deafened by the noise; her armor ripped in the\ngathers at the waist; her good steed for a moment lost his footing in\nthe morass, but she reined him up, and, mad with the thrill of victory,\nstruck out again and again with more than woman's strength. Then, was it\nfancy, or did she hear a roar as of mortal pain? Did she catch the sound\nof swift retreat of a hundred thousand wounded legs?\n\nAt home, upon the battlements, that morning, stood Auguste Philippe with\nsome ladies of the court. (Lady Marie was lovely in deepest cr\u00eape, and\nthe Duchess was looking her best in heavy mourning.)\n\n\"It was in that direction that she went, did you say?\" sobbed the\nDuchess, with a black-bordered handkerchief at her eyes.\n\nThe young king nodded.\n\n\"How can I bear it?\" asked Lady Marie, raising her clasped hands to\nheaven. \"Oh, your Highness, send out a searching party! Send fifty armed\nknights! Think what may happen at any moment!\"\n\n\"Pshaw!\" said Auguste Philippe the Twenty-fourth, \"Victorine can take\ncare of herself. She is four inches taller than I, and her arms are like\niron. Let her be. She is foolish, but she has got to have her fling.\"\n\n\"In my day,\" said Lady Marie, \"no modest girl would have suggested such\na thing.\"\n\n\"I dare say,\" sighed his Majesty; \"but the thing has got to come; they\nmust sow their wild oats! She will come back all right.\"\n\nThough Lady Marie did not know it, his Majesty Auguste Philippe then, as\nalways, spoke the truth.\n\nAt that very moment, beyond the wide green plain, and beyond the sandy\nwaste, a young knight, riding slowly, with his head bent down upon his\nbreast, came upon a maiden sitting at the edge of a wood. Near her,\ncropping the grass, strayed a gray charger, with his bridle falling\nloose upon his neck. The maiden was curiously clad in shining armor,\nonly her helmet was off, and tears were trickling down her cheeks. Now\nand then she dried them with strands of her yellow hair, and then she\nshuddered, gazing at a bloody spear that she held in her left hand.\n\n\"Fair lady,\" said the Knight, riding toward her, \"tell me your trouble,\nthat I may help you.\"\n\nThe Princess Olivera Rinalda Victorine looked up at him and sobbed, and\nher chain armor rose and fell upon her bosom. She had not cried this way\nsince that memorable day on the stone bench in the garden, twelve years\nago.\n\n\"I've--I've killed the Microbe!\" gasped Princess Victorine.\n\n\"Indeed?\" said the Knight, raising his visor and showing a pleasant\nsmile upon a pale face. \"And are you not glad?\"\n\n\"Ye-es!\" said the Princess, with a great heave of her bosom as she\nlooked at the disfigured spear.\n\nThe stranger alighted from his horse and came slowly toward the\nPrincess. He was tall and strongly built, but he walked as one to whom\nevery motion brings pain.\n\n\"Are you quite sure that the beast is dead?\"\n\nThe Princess nodded.\n\n\"Quite.\"\n\n\"I wonder,\" said the Knight meditatively, \"if you brought away his head\nor a claw?\"\n\n\"No, I didn't; but I feel very sure. Men are so skeptical!\" said the\nPrincess, with some heat.\n\n\"Not at all,\" answered the Knight courteously, \"only your quest is the\nsame as mine, and I should be glad to know that it is over. I, too, am\nhunting him.\"\n\nA beautiful expression swept over the Princess's face and into her blue\neyes. She looked less like a baby than she had done at any time for\nseventeen years.\n\n\"I thought men didn't care.\"\n\n\"Some do.\"\n\n\"Auguste Philippe doesn't--he only laughs, and so does old Lord Jean;\nbut I think that this will convince them,\" and Princess Victorine\ntriumphantly brandished her spear.\n\n\"Ah!\" said the Knight, looking at it with sudden interest, \"may I see\nyour point?\" But as he moved to take it, he gave a sudden groan and\nfainted at the Princess's feet.\n\n\"Oh, oh, oh!\" cried Olivera Rinalda Victorine. In a trice she unlaced\nthe Knight's helmet and corselet, and was horrified to find blood\nflowing from an open wound in his shoulder. Hastily she brought water in\nher helmet from a spring hard by, and bathed his forehead and eyes, and\nthen ran for more to pour on the wound, saying, as she went, something\nunpleasant about her skirt of chain armor, which kept getting in her\nway. As she worked, the eyelids fluttered, and the dark eyes slowly\nopened.\n\n\"Are you hurt?\" asked the Princess eagerly.\n\n\"I'm afraid that I am rather badly cut up,\" he answered, with a groan.\n\n\"Did that--Beast do it?\" asked the Princess.\n\n\"It may be,\" said the Knight.\n\nThe Princess rose and put on her helmet.\n\n\"Where are you going?\" asked the Knight.\n\n\"After It,\" said Victorine sternly.\n\n\"Lovely lady,\" he said feebly, \"don't you think you ought to wait until\nI am better?\"\n\n\"I'm not a lovely lady, I'm a warrior,\" said the Princess; \"but of\ncourse I'll stay if you want me to.\"\n\n\"You are both,\" said the Knight. \"Do you know I think that it would make\nme forget my pain if you should tell me of your fight.\"\n\nSo the Princess, with a shining face, told him of her battle in the\nmist, and of the monster with the great, glowing eye, and as she talked,\nshe failed to see that the wounded man kept looking toward the spot\nwhere his gleaming helmet lay.\n\n\"And now,\" said the Princess reproachfully, with red flushing her\ncheeks, \"tell me how you were wounded. Do you mind explaining how you\ncame to be hurt in the back?\"\n\n\"Somebody or something attacked me from behind,\" said the Knight, with a\nsmile half hiding the look of pain on his face.\n\n\"The coward!\" cried the Princess Victorine, in great anger.\n\n\"It may have been some one who did not know the rules of the game,\" said\nthe Knight.\n\n\"That makes _no_ difference,\" said Princess Victorine loftily.\n\n\"Well, it was a strange combat,\" remarked the Knight, \"and the blows\nwere the oddest I ever received. They came thrashing from all sides, in\ndefiance of all the laws of fighting. Whether they came from man or\nbeast I could not see--you know yourself that it is foggy in the woods,\nand I was disabled by the blow in the back.\"\n\n\"I know,\" nodded the Princess sympathetically. \"You've been fighting\nthat same monster that I killed.\" And for the life of her, she could not\nhelp a little feeling of triumph that the beast had gone down before her\nrather than before him.\n\n\"When did you kill him?\" asked the wounded man.\n\n\"This morning,\" beamed the Princess. \"When were you hurt?\"\n\n\"Oh, I believe it was this morning,\" said the Knight carelessly.\n\n\"I wish, for your sake, I had done it sooner,\" said Victorine\nregretfully. One of her greatest charms was her slowness in putting two\nand two together. Now she had little time for it, for the Knight fainted\nagain. For the first time in her life, the Princess repented of her\naversion to smelling-salts. However, there was plenty of water in the\nspring, and she kept her best lawn handkerchief, which she had carried\nup her sleeve, wet upon the sick man's brow. Through the fever of that\nday she watched him, and all night, and again a second one, and on the\nthird day there was a look of weariness upon her face that had never\nbeen there before. As the fever abated, and the Knight was aware of the\ntender nursing that he was receiving, he watched the Princess with eyes\nfull of gratitude. She had laid aside her armor, and was becomingly\nattired in blue brocade, which she had worn underneath the steel. The\nsun shone pleasantly on her yellow hair, and if the color in her cheeks\nwas less pink than it had been, it meant, with the dark shadows under\nher eyes, only new beauty. When he spoke his thanks, she turned red as a\nboy would have done, and asked him please to stop, which he did.\n\nThat afternoon the Princess grew confidential. She was sitting near the\ninvalid, who was propped up on a mossy pillow, supported from underneath\nby her armor and her shield.\n\n\"Just feel my muscle!\" said the Princess impulsively.\n\n\"I have!\" said the sick Knight gravely.\n\n\"Why, when?\" demanded the Princess. \"Oh, you mean when I lifted your\nhead. But look how it stands out.\"\n\nHe did so.\n\n\"You see,\" said Olivera Rinalda Victorine, \"I am so unfeminine. I ought\nto have been a boy.\"\n\n\"Never!\" cried the Knight vehemently.\n\nThe Princess looked at him in surprise.\n\n\"I'm very sure,\" she said gently. \"I've known it ever since I was so\nhigh,\" and she measured off the stature of six years by holding her\nwhite hand above the ground.\n\n\"I don't agree with you,\" said the Knight. \"You're not in the least like\na boy, really. You do not look like one, nor use your arms like one.\"\n\n\"When have you noticed that?\" asked the Princess, in surprise.\n\n\"Oh, lots of times,\" he answered evasively. \"But tell me why you think\nso.\"\n\nSitting beside him, with the beech leaves making a flickering shade on\nher face and throat, the Princess told him all the tragedy of her life,\nher discovery of her initial great mistake, her unavailing efforts to\nset it right, and the persecutions she had suffered because she was not\nladylike. It was the first confidence that she had made in all her life,\nand her cheeks flushed deep red. Overhead sang thrush and sparrow, and a\nlittle breeze came and played with her floating hair. Suddenly the\nKnight reached out and took the white hand in his and kissed it.\n\n\"Why did you do that?\" asked the Princess softly. \"To comfort me for not\nbeing a boy?\"\n\n\"No,\" growled the sick man.\n\n\"Then why?\" she persisted, drawing it away.\n\n\"Oh, I can't tell you,\" he groaned, \"until I know whether I shall get\nwell of this beastly wound.\"\n\nBut the Princess, taking both hands to arrange the wet handkerchief,\nsuddenly found them prisoned and covered with kisses.\n\n\"It is because I love you,\" he moaned. \"Don't you understand?\"\n\nPrincess Victorine eyed him with curiosity, and shook her head.\n\n\"No,\" she answered, kneeling down and looking at him, \"I'm afraid I\ndon't. Nobody ever did before.\"\n\nThe Knight laughed out from the mossy green pillow.\n\n\"That's just what makes you so adorable.\"\n\n\"Won't you try to make me understand?\" said the Princess. \"I am very\nslow, but when I once learn, I never forget.\"\n\n\"Victorine,\" said the Knight, fixing his dark eyes on her, \"I love you,\nand I need you. I love your hair and your eyes and the touch of your\nhands, and I want you to be my queen. You are a princess, I know, but\nthen I am a prince.\"\n\nOlivera Rinalda Victorine was silent a long time, kneeling on the moss.\n\n\"Are you angry?\" asked the Knight, at length.\n\n\"No,\" said the Princess, in a whisper. \"I think I like it.\" Then he\nsmiled up at her, but did not even touch her hand.\n\n\"Tell me truly,\" said the Princess, \"don't you mind my climbing trees\nand doing all those things?\"\n\n\"Not a bit.\"\n\n\"Nor the device on my shield?\"\n\nHe laughed and shook his head.\n\n\"Nor my wanting to go on a quest, and do all those unfeminine things?\"\n\n\"Victorine,\" said the Knight, \"it is the brave soul of you that I love.\nWe will go on and fight together.\"\n\nThen there was a sudden shining that was neither from the sun nor the\nPrincess's hair, but from the light that sprang into her face, and when\nthe wounded man lifted his arms and drew her toward him, she bent and\nkissed him on the eyes, and no one ever knew, she least of all, where\nshe had learned that.\n\nThree days more and three nights they stayed there, and the sick man's\nstrength came slowly back. In the quiet they talked of many things in\nthe past and many yet to come. Only once in all that time did Princess\nVictorine looked troubled.\n\n\"Dear,\" she said one day, \"there are moments when I am afraid that you\ndo not quite believe in me. I am not sure that you are convinced that I\nhave really killed the Microbe.\"\n\n\"Beloved,\" said the Knight, putting down a piece of his armor, where he\nhad been idly fitting the point of the Princess's spear into a great\nhole, \"I believe in you utterly, only, there may be more than one, you\nknow, and so our quest is not over.\"\n\nOn the fourth day they put their armor on, caught their steeds, and rode\naway. On the Princess's shield the maiden stood out bravely against the\nblue; the stranger Knight carried the device of an ugly worm transfixed\nby a glittering sword, and the motto was \"I search.\" The maiden knight\nand the man looked at each other from under their visors.\n\n\"To the death!\" he cried, and he spurred his steed.\n\n\"To the death!\" echoed the Princess, dashing after him, and so they rode\ngallantly away. Whether they have found and fought the Microbe none can\nsay, but this is known, that they are happy in the quest.\n\n\n\n\n                               THE SEVEN\n                            STUDIOUS SISTERS\n\n\n\n\n                               THE SEVEN\n\n                            STUDIOUS SISTERS\n\n                             [Illustration]\n\n\nHis Majesty the King was in a terrible state of mind. Leaning back,\nspeechless, upon his throne, with his crown over one ear, his fists\nclenched, he strove in vain to speak, but only an inarticulate gurgling\nmade its way from the royal throat. Behind him stood his Jester, merry\nin cap and bells; on the right, the court philosophers, with puckered\nbrows and sagely folded arms; and all about knights-at-arms and\nladies-in-waiting silent and dismayed.\n\nBefore the King, on the lowest step of the throne, almost under the\ngold-brocaded canopy, knelt, with clasped hands and beseeching eyes,\nSylvie, Natalie, Amelie, Virginie, Sidonie, Doroth\u00e9e, and Clementine,\nthe seven beautiful daughters of old Count Beno\u00eet of Verdennes, all\nbadly frightened, but intrepid.\n\n\"Speak!\" thundered the King at last. \"No, do not speak! Every word will\nbe used against you!\"\n\n\"Your Majesty,\" began Sylvie, who was the eldest and had black hair, \"we\ncame to beg,\"--\n\n\"With great earnestness,\" continued Natalie, who had brown hair,--\n\n\"That you will give us the opportunity,\" said golden-haired Amelie,\nshivering,--\n\n\"To study,\" said Virginie, who had brown eyes,--\n\n\"And grow wise,\" said Sidonie, whose eyes were blue,--\n\n\"And so we ask,\" said Doroth\u00e9e, who had gray eyes,--\n\n\"That we may enter the university,\" said little Clementine, who had\ndimples.\n\nIt was sad for the youngest to say the hardest part of all, yet perhaps\nit was only fair, as it was the strong will of Clementine that had led\nthem there, and the courage of Clementine that had kept them from\nfaltering by the way.\n\nThey were simply repeating what they had just said; the parts had been\narranged before coming, in hope that his Majesty could not resist. Never\nin their worst forebodings, when they had talked it over as they braided\none another's hair in the tiring-room of the castle, had they dreamed of\nanything so terrible as this.\n\n\"Wh-what put this idea into your heads?\" thundered his Majesty.\n\nThen the seven answered as one maiden: \"The Princess Pourquoi.\"\n\nThe King groaned aloud, and the knights-at-arms and the\nladies-in-waiting groaned with him. Was it not enough for him to have\nhad a daughter whose useless thinking had embittered his reign? She,\nwith her quick intellect and ready questions, had made his throne totter\nunder him; and now, when she was safely married and away--ay, and had\nmade as good a match as the dullest maid in Christendom, must the spirit\nof inquiry come back to him in seven shapes? Since she was gone, all had\nbeen peace; he had been able to sleep most of the other half of the day\nalso. His Majesty fidgeted under his purple robe. The Church had taught\nhim that it was right for the sins of the fathers to be visited upon the\nchildren, but nothing about the sins of the children being visited upon\nthe fathers, and he could not understand.\n\nSylvie, Natalie, Amalie, Virginie, Sidonie, Doroth\u00e9e, and little\nClementine looked at him with begging eyes. Now brown eyes and blue eyes\nand gray eyes and black hair and brown hair and golden hair and dimples\nall appealed strongly to the King, and he was surprised at himself for a\nmoment for not being able to act as ugly as he thought he felt.\n\n\"What do you want to study for?\" he demanded, his hands slowly\nunclenching.\n\n\"I don't know,\" faltered little Clementine, blushing into her dimples.\nSomewhere there was a faint ripple of laughter, and yet the Jester's\nface was perfectly sober when he lifted his head.\n\n\"To be wise and know things,\" said Sidonie. The King stamped.\n\n\"To be a power,\" said Natalie.\n\n\"Pshaw!\" said the King.\n\n\"To understand all things,\" said Virginie. The King groaned.\n\n\"So that people will like us,\" said Amelie. Then came again that echo of\nmocking laughter, and the Jester muttered from behind the throne:--\n\n\"Now are there some here that are greater fools than I; for the whole\nworld knows that a woman is better beloved for what she understands not\nthan for what she understands.\"\n\nThe King looked desperately about him, for he was at his wits' end, but\nnone came to his aid. The philosophers, with their eyes cast down, were\nstroking their beards; the ladies-in-waiting were looking away, as\ndelicacy demanded, after so shocking a request; the knights-at-arms were\nfrankly gazing at blue eyes or brown, as taste suggested. Then the King\nspoke hoarsely:--\n\n\"This is treason. The lowest dungeon in my castle is not too hard a\npunishment for such offense. At any cost this spirit must be\nquenched--at any cost.\"\n\nTears flowed softly down the cheeks of the seven maidens, and fell on\ntheir clasped hands, and the drops from Virginie's brown eyes sparkled\nlike jewels on Amelie's golden hair. Then, in the sorrowful pause, the\nKing's Jester stepped softly forward, and the little bells upon his\npatches rang as he came.\n\n\"Sire,\" said he, \"I could tell a remedy more potent than this and less\nsavage.\"\n\n\"Speak, Fool!\" said the King.\n\n\"Not afore folks,\" answered the Jester, with a smile.\n\n\"They understand not your folly,\" said the King.\n\n\"Ay, but they might, for none can tell when words of wisdom may begin to\npenetrate dull brains. Clear me the room of these philosophers and the\nothers, and let the maidens begone, for I cannot abide a woman's tears.\"\n\n\"Go!\" said his Majesty.\n\nThen the weeping maidens and the ladies-in-waiting passed out in a\nshimmer of gold color, and crimson, and blue, and rich green; and after\nthem, like a shadow, crept the philosophers in garments of black; and\nthen, with a clash of steel and flashing of wrought armor, went the\nknights-at-arms, and the presence chamber was empty, save for the King\non the throne and the Jester, who stood before him in the posture of the\nphilosophers, with folded arms and head bent low.\n\n\"Sire,\" said the Fool, \"when women grow wise\"--\n\n\"The kingdom is lost,\" said his Majesty. \"Little enough comfort is there\nnow.\"\n\n\"They will outstrip their brothers,\" said the Jester.\n\n\"They will meddle with matters of state,\" said the King.\n\n\"They will see through us all,\" continued the Fool. \"For my part, I\nwould keep them the sweet, blind creatures that they are. 'Tis enough\nfor me that I see through myself. Now there is one way, and one only, to\ncheck the growing intellect of women.\"\n\n\"And what may that be?\" asked the King, the sadness lifting from his\nface.\n\n\"Forsooth, they must have a university of their own,\" answered the\nJester.\n\n\"What!\" thundered his Majesty.\n\n             [Illustration: \"WHAT!\" THUNDERED HIS MAJESTY]\n\n\"Ay!\" said the Fool, nodding; \"there is no other way. The Princess\nPourquoi has lighted in this land a fire that can be put out in only one\nfashion. Let a foundation be made; let walls arise; let lecturers come.\nNaught save a university curriculum will avail now to dull the wits and\ndivert the minds and check the thought of women.\"\n\n\"In truth you have a pretty wit,\" said the King, and he smiled. \"But who\nwill take charge of this undertaking and plan me the work that it may\navail?\"\n\n\"I,\" said the Jester. \"Who else? Cap and gown would become me well, and\nthough the King may lose his fool, he will gain My Lord Rector, who will\nspeak bravely in the Latin tongue.\"\n\n\"And whom can we trust to aid in the work?\" asked his Majesty.\n\n\"Lend me but the philosophers,\" said the Jester, with a wink, \"and their\nnatural parts shall prevail where intent might come badly off in this\ngreat task of dulling women's wits.\"\n\nThen the two spoke long between themselves, and when they had finished,\nthe Jester went and called the pages, and the great doors were thrown\nopen, so that all entered as they had gone, and there was shimmer of\nsilk and shining of jewels and gleaming of armor. The seven maidens came\ntrembling in every limb, not knowing but their heads should fall, and\nthey knelt as before at the foot of the throne, only now they had\nnothing to say. Then the King lifted up his voice and, smiling, said\nthat it should be even as they had desired, and that learning and wisdom\nshould be theirs. In one thing only should change be made: they should\nnot mingle with the herd of men, but should have, sequestered and apart,\na place of learning for womankind. When they heard this, Sylvie leaned\nher face upon the head of Natalie and wept for joy; and Natalie hers\nupon the head of Amelie, and Amelie upon Virginie, and Virginie upon\nSidonie, and Sidonie upon Doroth\u00e9e, and Doroth\u00e9e upon little Clementine,\nand because Clementine had nowhere to lean her head, she wept into her\nown dimples.\n\nThen the King's Fool went away and did not come again, and of this there\nwas great talk for three days, and then all was forgotten, for another\njester filled his place. One day appeared at court a grave gentleman\nclad all in flowing black, bearded, and with eyes cast down in a sort of\ninward look. All called him My Lord Rector, and none knew him for the\nKing's Jester because he had changed his cap. He spoke but little, and\nthat in Latin, as \"_Verbum sat sapienti; depressus extollor; veni, vidi,\nvici_;\" and if he made gibe or jest, there were none who could\nunderstand.\n\nThere was upon the outskirts of the city a great building that had once\nbeen the Palace of Justice, but was no longer used because a loftier one\nhad been erected in the square where the minster rose. This stood not\nfar from the river-bank, and was all of gray stone that had crumbled\nsomewhat, so that the tracery of leaf and flower in the Gothic windows\nand the faces and claws of the gargoyles that peered from roof and\ncorner were in many places worn away. It was built on three sides of a\ngreat court, where now grass and vine and flower grew unchecked, on the\nspot once worn by the feet of gathering citizens and the tramp of\nsteeds. Bluebird and swallow and wren had entered through the broken\nwindows, and had built about the window niches and in the crannies of\nthe carven vine. This, said the King, should be the place of learning\nconsecrated to the maidens, for it was not meet that they should gather\nin the market square or on the hill beyond the minster, as young men did\nin those days when thousands came together to listen to philosophical\ndisputes, and no roof was sufficient to cover them. Workmen came and\nmended broken arch and column, and cleared away the tangled vines of the\ncourt, but left growing grass and flower, and did not touch the nesting\nbirds, for the seven lovely sisters begged that they might stay. Hither\nflocked innumerable damsels, who came riding from all parts of the\nkingdom, with squires before them and waiting-maids behind. They came on\nblack jennet and white palfrey and pony of dapple gray; maiden madness\nhad run throughout the kingdom, and all who could sit on saddle or hold\nrein rushed hither for their share of the new learning. Many were\npursued by father or brother, by maiden aunt or widowed mother, begging\nthem to abide at home in safety as modest maidens should.\n\n       [Illustration: CAME RIDING FROM ALL PARTS OF THE KINGDOM]\n\nIt was noised abroad that the Lord Rector would deliver the first\nlecture when the new work began, and all were eager to hear; so it came\nto pass one day that a huge company passed in procession under the\ncarven Gothic gate and into the great hall whose stained windows looked\none way on the river and the other way on the court. First, in gown of\nvelvet and of silk, came My Lord Rector, muttering in his beard; after\nhim followed the philosophers, with stately step and slow; and then\nyoung squires a-many, who were eager to see what would befall; and lords\nand ladies in gay clothing, rarely embroidered in choice colors. There\nwere maiden students also, many score, and at their head Sylvie, in\nscarlet silken gown, and Natalie in green; Amelie in brown velvet,\ncuriously slashed, and Virginie in yellow; Sidonie in blue samite, and\nDoroth\u00e9e in silver, and little Clementine in white, as befitted her\ntender years. Now behold! within the great hall the King was already\nwaiting in a chair of state under a velvet canopy, and My Lord Rector\nand the philosophers of the new faculty bowed low to him as they\nentered. Then the Rector mounted upon a platform, and bowing to the King\nwith \"_Rex augustissimus_\" he winked in his old fashion and fell\na-coughing, and the King winked back and then fell a-sneezing, to hide\nthe smile that his beard only half concealed.\n\n\"_Viri illustrissimi_,\" continued the Rector, bowing again before his\naudience and speaking in a solemn voice: \"_mutatis mutandis, horresco\nreferens, da locum melioribus, dux femina facti, humanum est errare, nil\nnisi cruce, graviora manent, post nubila Phoebus, sunt lachrimae rerum,\nvae victis_.\"\n\nThe last words came with a quiver of the voice, and many wept, for they\ndid not understand his folly. Then My Lord Rector turned to the fair\nbody of women students and spoke, seeing only the face of little\nClementine:--\n\n\"_Feminae praeclarissimae, credo quia impossibile est, inest Clementia\nforti, crede quod habes et habeo, sic itur ad astra, toga virilis, vita\nsine literis mors est, varium et mutabile semper femina, vade in\npace_,\" and with this there was hardly a dry eye in the house. So the\nnew university was opened.\n\nNeedless to say, the success of the undertaking was great. Throughout\nthe land, bower and hall and dell were left empty, for the maidens had\nall gone to the capital to get learning. They no longer wrought fair\nfigures in the embroidery frames in the great halls of their ancestral\ncastles, or polished the armor of father and brother, or brewed cordials\nfor the sick over the glowing coals. They no longer wandered in gowns of\ngreen on their palfreys by hill or dale for the joy of going. By\nhundreds they bowed their fair heads before the philosophers as they\nlectured, taking notes upon the tablets of their minds, for they did not\nknow how to write. My Lord Rector, when he spoke, could find no room\nlarge enough to contain his audiences, so he lectured only on sunshiny\ndays, and stood on a platform in the centre of the great court; and\nwords of grave nonsense fell from his lips as the light fell on golden\nhair or brown. So intently did the maidens listen that they did not\nsmell the fragrance of the flowers crushed beneath their feet, wild rose\nand lily and violet, nor did they hear the beat of the wings of startled\nbirds, nor see red crest, or golden wing, or blue, flash across the sky.\n\nBeing a cunning man and keen, My Lord Rector had left to the flocking\nstudents the choice of the lectures that they should pursue.\n\n\"Let them but manage it themselves,\" he said, smiling wickedly, at a\nprivate audience with the King, \"and we shall see great things.\"\n\nSo the maidens met in assembly and consulted gravely together, and\nconferred with Rector and with faculty, and presently many branches of\nlearning were established and all was going with great vigor. Each\nstudent chose for herself what course she should pursue, and it was\npretty to see how maiden whims worked out into hard endeavor.\nBlack-haired Sylvie specialized in dramatics, for she made, with her\nsweeping locks, an excellent tragedy queen; Natalie in athletics, and\nshe took the standing high-jump better than any knight in Christendom;\ngolden-haired Amelie devoted all her time to fiddling and giglology, and\nsoon became proficient; Virginie, of the brown eyes, took ping-pong and\nfudge; blue-eyed Sidonie, acrostics and charades; Doroth\u00e9e took\nchattering and cheering, and soon her sweet voice could be heard above\nthe noise of building, or the roar of battle; while little Clementine\nworked at all branches of frivology, and became a great favorite, for in\nlooks and in manner and in taste she represented that which is most\npleasing in woman.\n\nTo tell of all they did and learned and thought would be too long a\ntale, and, moreover, the records of much of it have perished, but men\nsay that their life was both strenuous and merry, and that womankind\nblossomed out into new beauty of face and form and mind. The infinite\nrange of opportunity has been but faintly shadowed forth in the hints\nalready given; and to those who philosophized and those who poetized,\nthose who took societies and those who took cuts, life was one long\nburst of irrelevant, joyous activity. Most zealous of all the students\nwas little Clementine. Ceaselessly alert, she listened with upturned\nface to lectures in the great flower-grown court; with infantile\naudacity she ventured out into vast unknown realms of thought, and\npuckered her white forehead in trying to work out the unutterable\nsyllable. Now she walked the cloisters where the shadow of carven leaf\nand tendril fell on her hair, studying a parchment; and again, in\nmoments of relaxation, she rode her dog-eared pony fast and furiously.\nTo some this animal may seem strange, but there were many queer\ncreatures in those days, as Sir John Maundeville tells.\n\nIt came to pass, no one knows how, that nothing done by little\nClementine escaped the notice of My Lord Rector, for his eyes followed\nher always. When he lectured, he lectured to Clementine; whether he said\nwords of Latin or of the vulgar tongue, he spoke them to her eyes; and\nhe was ashamed of the learned nonsense he was speaking when he gazed on\nClementine. Sleeping, he saw her walking so-and-so under the shadow of\nGothic arch with leaf shadows on her face, and he dreamed of taking the\nparchment from her white fingers and--But here he always woke, though he\ntried to dream farther. Clearly, something had happened to him that\nneither his experience as Sir Fool nor as Lord Rector had prepared him\nto understand.\n\nSave for this haunting thought, he was very gay behind a solemn face.\nDearly he loved his task, and none but the King and himself heard the\nfaint tinkle of bells from under his scholar's cap. Always they greeted\neach other with Latin words, and they had many conferences wherein they\nchuckled together over the success of their plan, for they knew that\nthey had drawn all these women forth to follow after the very shadow of\nlearning, and that the end would leave them more ignorant than before.\nAlways, however, in these moments of mirth, like a stab at the heart\ncame to the Lord Rector the thought of deception practiced upon\nClementine. Her trusting eyes, lifted to him in uttermost faith,\nreproached him by night and by day. If, by force, he put his conscience\nfrom him, he was sure to see her face as she listened, hiding in the\nrecesses of her heart the silly words he said. Once, as she went alone\ntoward the lodgings, and he followed at a great distance, a foot-pad set\nupon her in a dark corner, where a stone stairway gave shelter to\nthieves, and My Lord Rector, rushing forward, struck lustily about him\nright and left and felled the knave, taking from him the lady's netted\npurse and giving it back to her. She said no word save one of thanks,\nbut after, when her eyes were raised, he saw that a new light had been\nadded to the old, and that little Clementine reverenced him not only as\na learned man, but as a brave one, too.\n\nSo weeks drifted by, and months, and then came a great event, for the\nmaidens had determined to carry out a custom that belonged to that olden\ntime and formed the final test of the scholar. All agreed that\nClementine, brave, childish, perverse little Clementine, should initiate\nthe new audacity. Therefore, one early morning, when the first rays of\nthe sun were just peeping over the high stone city wall, she might have\nbeen observed stealing in academic garb of black over her white dress to\nthe great oak, iron-studded door of the old Palace of Justice. Here,\nwith a stone, she hammered a long parchment, and she established herself\nhard by, so that all who saw her knew that she was there to defend\nagainst all comers the theses she had nailed up. Now there were eight,\nand they ran as follows:--\n\n1. That the ineffable and the intangible are not the same.\n\n2. That all that is not, is, and all that seems to be, is not.\n\n3. That--but it would be foolish to transcribe all the theses that\nlittle Clementine defended, for no one would understand. Suffice it to\nsay that they were subtle beyond the mind of man, and clothed in words\ndrawn from the deep abyss of the inane, where unborn thought goes ever\ncrying for birth. One by one her six sisters came against her and\nargued, but to no avail, for little Clementine, no less skillful than\nDavid of yore, gathered together verb and adjective and slung them so\nunerringly that antagonist after antagonist went down, and she, often\nsnubbed as being but the youngest, stood forth in the eyes of the\nadmiring crowd a victor.\n\nThe picture that she made, standing against that gray stone wall flecked\nwith green moss, with a grinning gargoyle leaning down toward her, was\nvery sweet. In little Clementine the brown hair and the golden hair, the\nbrown eyes and the gray eyes, of the family met in a peculiarly\nbewitching combination that had a chameleon quality of color constantly\nchanging. Moreover, as she argued in well-chosen words, she was\nunconsciously establishing the unspoken thesis:--\n\nThat four dimples may exist at the same time in a maiden's face without\nseeming too many.\n\nThis My Lord Rector saw, and something gave way within him. When the\nargument was over and the audience was departing, he called Clementine\nto him inside the gate as one who would ask something, and then stood\nspeechless. The maiden, who was flushed and weary, lifted her scholar's\ncap, and he saw, in the locks of hair that were neither brown nor gold,\npearls woven; and above the collar of the gown showed the embroidered\nwhite samite of her dress.\n\n\"Little Clementine,\" said My Lord Rector, \"your student life is almost\ndone. Does that fact cause rejoicing?\"\n\n\"Nay,\" said Clementine, casting down her eyes.\n\n\"Shall you grieve for anything left behind?\"\n\n\"Ay,\" said the maiden.\n\n\"And what?\" asked My Lord Rector.\n\n\"The learned lectures, the dissertations, the wise words,\" said\nClementine, looking up and dimpling.\n\n\"And any special ones?\" asked he, wondering if she heard about him the\njingle of bells.\n\n\"Ay,\" said Clementine, smoothing her gown with slim white fingers and\nsetting her lips together. Not another word would she say, though the\ngreat man begged humbly.\n\n\"Clementine,\" asked My Lord Rector, changing the subject, \"shall you\never wed?\"\n\n\"If the right man comes,\" said the maiden.\n\n\"And what must he be?\"\n\n\"He must be very wise.\"\n\n\"Am I wise, little one?\" asked the Rector.\n\n\"Wisest of all,\" answered the maiden, whispering.\n\nThen he took her white hand in his and said softly, \"_Amo. Amas?_\" but\nClementine did not understand a word of Latin. Looking up, however, she\nsaw something she did understand, and then My Lord Rector bent and\nkissed her hand, wisely using the old, old way of wooing that was found\nbefore words, Latin or other, were invented.\n\nThen Clementine drew back trembling and looked, and behold, he who had\nbeen but a wonderful voice was changed, and she saw that he was a man,\nand young, and comely, with merry eyes touched with sadness, and a mouth\nwhose curves were both cynical and sweet.\n\n\"Why, why should you choose me?\" asked the maiden, in a voice that shook\nfor reverence.\n\n\"Because you are so adorably foolish!\" cried the lover, forgetting, and\nthat was a mistaken speech, which mere words could not explain away.\n\nIt was agreed between them that none should know what had befallen until\nthe day when old Count Beno\u00eet and his Lady Myriel came up to the city to\ntake home their seven daughters, for their work was counted done. So the\ntwo lived a glad life, though they spoke but seldom; often a glance of\nthe eyes made food for both day and night. All the time My Lord Rector's\nconscience pricked him more and more, until he could no longer bear it,\nand one day, coming upon Clementine where she passed the path by the\nrippling river, near three willow trees that were freshly leaved out,\nfor it was spring, he told her the tale of how he and the King had\ndeceived womankind, and, with torture of spirit, confessed himself the\nKing's Fool. Then Clementine looked up at him with eyes where the gray\nand the brown seemed flecked with green, perchance from the shadow of\nthe willows, and said firmly:--\n\n\"I have always seen that they who call themselves fools are the least\nso,\" nor could he ever after by any words of confession shake her\nsteadfast faith in his wisdom.\n\nAt last came the day when Count Beno\u00eet arrived, and with him cousins and\nother kin from far and near, for all would know something of the strange\nnew ways in the city. At lecture hour all crowded together in the great\nhall, and again the King was there upon the dais, solemn of look, but\nmerry of heart, for his eyes twinkled under his heavy eyebrows as he\nlooked at the fair, fresh faces before him, innocent of thought as any\nother maidens' faces, and he chuckled to think how he and his dear Fool\nhad outwitted them all. Then he looked with affection at his trusty\nphilosophers who stood near in silk robes with slashes of velvet and\nhoods of rainbow colors, and he thanked heaven that had given him strong\nsupporters in the crisis that had threatened his kingdom. Gazing upon\nthe assembled audience of friends and kinsfolk, he rejoiced to think\nthat for them, as for him, the country had been saved.\n\nBut My Lord Rector was speaking in the Latin tongue, \"_ad hoc gradum\nadmitto ..._,\" and Sylvie, Natalie, Amelie, Virginie, Sidonie, Doroth\u00e9e,\nand little Clementine, with all the other maidens who had frolicked with\nthem merrily so long a time, arose, as pretty a sight to see as ever\nking in Christendom had before him, and their new honors fell upon\nuntroubled white foreheads. Then there was sound of rejoicing, and light\nshone through the stained windows on the glad faces and gay garments of\nthe people assembled there; and suddenly, lo! My Lord Rector stepped\nfrom his high place and went to take the hand of little Clementine. With\neyes cast down she followed him, and now she was rosy and now pale, and\nso the two kneeled at the feet of the king under the canopy.\n\n\"We two do crave your Majesty's blessing,\" said My Lord Rector, \"on our\nbetrothal.\"\n\nThen a ripple of wonder and of laughter ran through the great hall, and\nhis Majesty, smiling, blessed them with extended hands, and as they\nrose, he bent forward with a twinkle, whispering:--\n\n\"You have done well, My Lord Rector, in carrying out your purpose. It is\npity that you may not marry them all.\"\n\nFor the first time he found no answering jest in his favorite's eyes,\nand would have inquired why, but the philosopher who stood nearest, and\nhad caught the whisper, smiled, and taking Sylvie's hand, led her to the\nfoot of the throne, saying:--\n\n\"But I, your Majesty, may wed this lady with the King's consent, for she\nhas given hers.\" Then a second philosopher led forth Natalie, and a\nthird Amelie, and a fourth Virginie, and a fifth Sidonie, and a sixth\nDoroth\u00e9e, and behold! the seven sisters were again kneeling before the\nthrone awaiting the King's blessing, but with their lovers at their\nsides.\n\nThen his Majesty leaned back his head and roared with laughter till the\nvaulted ceiling re\u00ebchoed, and tears of mirth ran down his cheeks and\nshone upon his beard, and all laughed with him, though they knew not\nwhy, all save My Lord Rector, whose face wore the saddest look a man may\nwear.\n\n\"Now, was this planned among you?\" asked his Majesty.\n\nThen they shook their heads, and each philosopher said:--\n\n\"Forsooth, I thought I was the only one,\" and with that the King roared\nagain.\n\nIn the bustle that followed, when old Count Beno\u00eet and his Lady Myriel\nhung upon the necks of their seven daughters in turn, the King tapped\nthe Lord Rector upon the arm.\n\n\"You have builded even better than the promise said,\" whispered his\nMajesty. \"From this blow shall the aggressive intellect of woman not\narise.\"\n\nBut the Rector looked gloomily upon him and knelt again, and begged that\nhis Majesty would release him from further service that he might go to\nthe wars.\n\n\"Two parts of the Fool have I played for your Majesty,\" said the man\nbitterly, \"and from both I would be released, for you and I have done a\ngreat wrong.\"\n\nLittle Clementine had drawn nearer, and many-colored light of purple and\ncrimson and gold fell on her fair face and parted lips as she looked in\nwonder at her lover. Then the King saw and understood, and he was\nashamed.\n\n\"Nay, My Lord Rector,\" he said, bending low, \"what we have done of wrong\nwe will right. You shall even go on with the task set before you, and\nthat that you do lack of a wise man shall this woman's faith make good.\"\n\n\n\n\n                           THE GENTLE ROBBER\n\n\n\n\n                                  THE\n\n                             GENTLE ROBBER\n\n                             [Illustration]\n\n\nOnce there was a robber bold--not that he looked bold, for he had the\ngentlest of manners and the most persuasive tongue. It was with a\ncertain manly shyness that he approached his victims, and his voice was\nvery low and soft as he convinced them how greatly to their interest it\nwould be to hand over their purses, so that many went on through the\ngreen forest paths with empty pockets, it is true, but with eyes full of\ntears of gratitude for the benefactor who had held them up.\n\n\"Pray don't mention it!\" said the Robber Chief, as he deprecatingly\nthrust into his wallet the purses he had taken and heard the outpoured\nthanks. \"It is nothing, nothing! You would have done as much for me at\nany time if you had\"--he never finished his sentence, but the wistful\nadmiration of the man with empty pockets always added the right\nclause--\"if you had had the brains.\"\n\nNow the Gentle Robber, it need hardly be said, was highly successful in\nhis chosen calling, or, as he put it, \"the holy saints had given him\nrich possessions.\" He had started out moderately in a remote corner of\nthe forest, as became a young and unassuming retail cut-purse, but soon\nhis domain extended from his own retired dell to the adjacent glade, and\nthe merry outlaw who had prospered there gave up the business and became\na scrivener's clerk. It was not long before the Robber Chief owned the\nwhole forest: the title-deeds, to be sure, belonged to the Abbey, which\nlay in a fat green meadow at the edge of the wood, but the monks could\nnot work the forest as the robber could, and whatever harvest of gold\nand of silver, of jewels, of rich cloths from the packs of merchants of\nthe East was to be gathered there, this one man reaped in his own\napologetic way, which always seemed to beg pardon of those who were\ndespoiled, for doing them so much good at one time. Soon the country\nround the forest was his, and yokel, franklin, and squire, Sir Bertram\nfrom the Castle, and the Prior from the Abbey, began to render him\naccounts, and it came to pass that the Bishop at the capital city,\nMertoun, and the King upon his throne, and the strong nobles about him\ntrembled at the robber's name, for the waves of his power flowed out\nuntil they met the waves of the sea.\n\nDearly the Gentle Robber loved his work in all its aspects, and he was\nmaster of its least details. A brave fight with a sturdy yeoman going\nhome from market with a half-year's gains was joy to him, and merry in\nhis ears was the sound of the thwack, thwack, thwack of the oaken staves\nas they fell on head and shoulders; an encounter with a rich merchant's\ntrain brought him naught but exhilaration, and the deft, swift hand that\nemptied the pack and purse thrilled as it went about its chosen task.\nThere was slow, sensuous pleasure in stripping off the garments of\nknight and of squire and leaving their limbs uncovered to the cold.\nDaintiest amusement of all was the spoiling of widow and of orphan:\nsomething of the ascetic lingered in the bosom of the Robber Chief, and\nrare and delicate was the task of emptying the scantily furnished\nlarder, of carrying away the worn clothes, and the single jewel saved\nfrom the wreck of happier days. He found delight in feeling about his\nknees the clasp of the thin arms of the naked orphan as it wept for\nfood, for genius knows no distinction of small and great, and yeoman and\nsquire, knight and merchant, widow and orphan alike, thrilled him with a\nsense of his power, and through their cries sang in his ear the word\n\"success.\"\n\nIn the course of time it came to pass that he became the chief support\nof the kingdom which he had caused to totter as he swept its riches into\nhis own bulging pockets. When he came to court, as he sometimes did,\nwearing grave apparel and showing a modest face, the King leaned\nlovingly upon him; was he not financing the war with Binnamere and\ncausing a half-dozen universities, which had but lately come into\nfashion, to rise in different parts of the land? The Bishop conferred\nweightily with him in quiet corners; was he not building the great\ncathedral which was to be the glory of the city throughout coming ages?\n\n\"Nay, nay, nay!\" said the Bishop, waving a white, jeweled hand as the\nChief began to divulge some of his larger plans. \"Tell me not of thy\nwicked schemes! Thy methods I must condemn utterly, but if thou bringest\nme the money, well, I can at least see to it that it be not used for bad\npurposes. And speaking of money, we need for the walls of the apse a\nhundred bags of gold. Dost thou think thou couldst manage it?\"\n\n\"Ay,\" said the Gentle Robber, and that night he despoiled nine men,\nkilling three that resisted longest, for he was a great lover of Holy\nChurch, and a devout believer, nor could she ask of him any service that\nhe would not perform.\n\nNow the lust for gold is a strange thing. There be that gather it\ntogether into stockings and go hungry and dirty to the day's end for\ngold, and that is the miser's lust. There be that win it and spend it\nagain freely for delicate food and fiery drink, and this is the\nsensualist's lust. There be that get it by cruel means and scatter it\nabroad on church and hospital, and this is the philanthropist's lust,\nwhich possessed the Robber Chief. Gold and jewels were piled so high in\nhis forest cave that he could not see out of its window, and he hardly\nknew whether winter snow or the shadow of flickering leaves lay on the\nground, nor could hungry church nor greedy halls of learning lessen his\npiles of treasure enough to let the sunlight in.\n\nFar on the edge of the kingdom to eastward lived blunt Sir Guy of\nLamont, and his son and heir was a young squire, Louis by name, who had\ngrown up much alone, wandering in the greenwood that circled the castle.\nStrong of arm and lusty he grew, yet cared not for the hunt, for he was\nfriend to fox and hare, and the wild deer knew and loved him. Living\nclose to spreading oak and delicate beech, among green leaves and\nnesting things, he began to wear the look of those who see more than\nmeets the eye, and knight and franklin chaffed him as he sat apart while\nthey grew merry over mug of ale or glass of wine in his father's hall.\nAs he dreamed his dreams and thought his thoughts, rumors of the deeds\nof the Robber Chief floated to his ears, and he was sorely puzzled. It\nwas a wandering merchant who brought the tale, spreading out his stuffs\nof velvet and of silk over table and settle and chair, and showing three\ngreat fresh sword-cuts on his arm as he spoke:--\n\n\"Andrew, my brother, lost his head in the encounter, and it was severed\nby a single blow, but I escaped, though there be few that may.\"\n\n  [Illustration: HE BEGAN TO WEAR THE LOOK OF THOSE WHO SEE MORE THAN\n                             MEETS THE EYE]\n\nWith that he recounted all the tales that he had heard in his wanderings\nof the wrong-doing of this man, and they were many. Sir Guy listened\nwith \"Zounds!\" and \"'Sdeath!\" but the youth said never a word of pity or\nof blame; yet, when the story-teller had finished, he marveled at the\nlad's eyes. They were gray eyes, with lashes dark and long, and the look\nin them was as the look in the eyes of a gentle beast when he is hurt to\nthe death; then came to them the sudden fire of the avenger of misdeeds.\n\n\"My hour has come to fight,\" said young Louis of Lamont to the great\nstag that licked his hand that evening in the forest as the sun went\ndown in golden haze. \"Men do not know this cruel wrong; I must go to\ntell them, and mayhap lead them forth with banner and with sword.\"\n\nEarly the next morning, when all were making merry at the hunt, he set\nthe face of his snow-white steed to westward and rode down long, green,\nleafy ways and across a great level plain toward the setting of the sun.\nIn doublet and hose of scarlet, laced with gold thread, he was comely to\nsee, with a white plume in his velvet cap, and thick hair of yellow,\nclipped evenly at his neck, and on his face the beauty that shines out\nfrom a light within. All day he journeyed on, yearning to meet alone the\nRobber Chief, whom he pictured as a man brawny of arm and of evil\ncountenance, wherein black brows hid the sinister eyes, and a black\nbeard covered a cruel mouth; and the lad longed with the lusty strength\nof untried youth to measure swords with this terrible foe. That night a\nwoman gave him shelter at a wayside hut, and told a tale of the Chief\nthat chilled the young man's blood; the next night, as he lodged at a\nhall, deeds yet more cruel were recounted to him; and ever as he came\nnearer the heart of the kingdom, he found the air more rife with tidings\nof the Robber Chief's ill doings.\n\n\"They do not know,\" he said, lightly touching spur to his steed. \"The\nKing and the Bishop do not know of these wicked things. Pray God that I\nmay come in time to lead men forth!\"\n\nAt the edge of a great forest he met, one day, a tired-looking man on a\ntired horse. The rider was neatly clad in sober gray, and was both\nfreshly shaven and neatly combed. Across his saddle lay a great bag of\nsomething that was wondrous heavy.\n\n\"Halt!\" said the man, with a pleasant glance from his mild blue eyes.\nThen blood rose red to the young squire's cheek, and anger too great for\nany words lighted in his eyes, as his hand went to his dagger, and he\nurged his horse forward. It was a brave fight that he made, while the\ntwo steeds drew near and parted and drew near again, but a slender white\nhand with an iron grip reached deftly and snatched the dagger from his\nhand, nor could he reach the short sword which he had so proudly belted\nto his side; and the strength of his adversary was as the strength of\nten.\n\n\"Nay, be not foolish,\" said a soft voice, as the lad struck out with\nstinging fist; \"'tis but thy purse I ask, and it would grieve me to do\nthee wrong. The purses of the kingdom belong to me.\"\n\n\"Now, by what right?\" cried Louis of Lamont, between set teeth, his\ncheeks flaming deeper red.\n\n\"By the right of having wit enough to get them,\" answered the robber.\nThen he pinioned the lad's arm to his side and thrust a deft hand into\nhis pocket, drawing out a purse of wrought gold.\n\n\"It will be to thy best advantage if thou canst but see it that way,\" he\nsaid courteously.\n\nIn the mind of the other the vision of dark, beetling brows and red,\nhairy cheeks was fading.\n\n\"Thou--thou art the Robber Chief,\" he stammered. His adversary bowed.\n\n\"It is thou who didst murder Baron Divonne, and who didst starve the\nSquire's daughter of Yverton with her seven children, and\"--So great was\nhis horror of the tales that flocked to his tongue that he failed to\nspeak them, but a light as from the wings of the Angel of Judgment shone\nfrom his eyes and brow.\n\n\"The question is not, 'Shall I take thy purse?'\" the Chief said gently.\n\"I have it. The question is, 'How shall I dispose of it to the best\nadvantage?'\"\n\n\"It isn't that! I do not want the purse,\" said the young man scornfully;\n\"but how canst thou traffic in crime?\"\n\n\"I have little time for talking,\" said the Gentle Robber, with a hurt\nlook on his face; he was extremely sensitive to adverse criticism. \"Now\nI must be off. This great bag of gold is for the orphan hospital at the\nAbbey. If I may mention it without boasting, it derives most of its\nsupplies from me,\" and he looked wistfully for approval.\n\n\"Its supplies of orphans?\" demanded Louis of Lamont, with his stern\nyoung lip curved in scorn; but the face of the other was as the face of\na man who has failed to teach a great lesson of good.\n\nAs the lad rode on through the forest, his head was bent as if a hand\nhad struck it and had laid it low, but coming into the open, he saw far\noff, across the valley, the spires of the capital city, Mertoun, and its\nmany red roofs gleaming by the blue river, and his heart throbbed within\nhim for thankfulness and joy.\n\n\"Hasten!\" he cried to the beast that bore him. \"Yonder in that strong\ncity be strong men to help me right ill deeds, and a minute gained may\nsave some woman's life, or spare the bitter crying of a child.\"\n\nHis eyes were filled with a vision of the knights that would go out with\nhim to war for the right, with the waving of plumes and the flaming of\nbanners, in their hearts the anger of God for cruel wrong; and a\nyearning for coming combat tugged at the muscles of shoulder and of arm.\n\nThe palace of the Bishop was moated, and there was a drawbridge there,\nand within, as on a green island, rose walls of fine gray stone, with\nwindow arch and doorway delicately carved. There was one at hand who\ntook his steed, and one who led the way for him, and anon he found\nhimself in a sunlit chamber where the Bishop stood looking out upon the\ngreat cathedral which was rising stone by stone, with its blue-clad\nworkmen standing against a bluer sky.\n\n\"What is it, my son?\" asked the Bishop, when he saw a young squire\nstanding before him, worn, dust-stained, with anger burning in his eyes.\n\n\"Sire,\" said the guest, bending low, \"I have hasted thither to tell thee\nof great wrongs.\"\n\n\"They shall be redressed,\" said the Bishop, laying his hand upon the\nlad's head.\n\n\"There is a man,\" said Louis of Lamont, kneeling, his lips white with\nwrath, \"who doeth cruel wrong and bringeth folk to death, and it must\nneeds be that none in high places know, for he goeth unpunished.\"\n\n\"He shall be found and placed in my lowest dungeon,\" said the Bishop\nfiercely. \"Now tell me what he hath done.\"\n\n\"On my way hither I lodged with a poor woman who told me that he had\nslain before her eyes her husband and her sons, and all for a cup of\nsilver coin that stood upon the mantel.\"\n\n\"A mere cup of silver coin!\" groaned the Bishop. \"He shall hang.\"\n\nThen he told of the murder of Baron Divonne, and of the Squire's\ndaughter of Yverton, who was starved with her seven children; and he\ntold all the tales that the wandering merchant had brought with his\ncloths of cashmere and of silk. As he spoke longer, the face of his host\ngrew anxious, and when he finished, saying, \"Men call him the Gentle\nRobber,\" black care sat upon the brow of the host.\n\n\"Delay not,\" pleaded Louis. \"Give me armed men, for thou hast said that\nhe shall die for his sins, and I have the blood of fighters in my\nveins.\"\n\n\"Nay, child,\" said the Bishop. \"Not so.\"\n\n\"Thou hast promised!\" he cried in amaze.\n\n\"Ay,\" he made answer, \"but I knew not then that the offenses were so\nmany and so great, or that the enterprise was--ahem!--planned upon so\nlarge a scale. That makes all different.\"\n\n\"That makes the need to punish him a thousandfold greater,\" stammered\nthe lad.\n\n\"Tut, tut!\" said the Bishop, with the solemn smile he wore. \"Thou dost\nnot understand: logic is ever lacking in the young.\"\n\n\"Should not stripes be laid upon him for each cry he hath drawn forth?\nShould he not lay down his life, if that were possible, for each life he\nhath taken?\"\n\n\"I had thought, when I heard the first tale, that he should die for the\nsingle crime,\" the Bishop made answer, \"but the case is altered by the\nlater facts. 'A life for a life,' saith the Scripture, but naught of a\nlife for a dozen or threescore, or an hundred, as the case may be.\"\n\nThen a flame of anger shone out in the lad's face, and he waited.\n\n\"My son,\" said the Bishop tenderly, \"thou art young and ignorant, yet\nwill I try to teach thee something of right ways of thought. In judging,\nall depends upon the point of view, and matters that look often black at\nfirst statement grow white or gray when thoroughly understood. Let us\nlook upon this question in another aspect. Dost see yonder great\ncathedral rising?\"\n\nThough the youth made no answer, the Bishop saw that he was looking at\nthe gray stones and at the blue-clad workmen.\n\n\"'Tis God's house,\" said the Bishop, \"nor may it arise save through the\ngifts of this man. Wrong hath he done, but all is forgiven for that his\ngold is bent to holy purposes.\"\n\n\"But wrong he doeth still,\" said Louis of Lamont, in the stern voice of\nyouth.\n\nThe Bishop coughed behind his hand even while he spoke.\n\n\"There is much in the ways of Providence that we may not comprehend. God\nmoveth in a mysterious way.\"\n\n\"Had the Robber Chief ceased from his crime and shown true\npenitence\"--began the lad, but the Bishop interrupted.\n\n\"God hath need of the man and of all the gold that he will bring, that\ninstitutions of learning and holy places may arise in the land.\"\n\n\"God may be worshiped by wood and stream,\" said the youth, in the still,\nsmall voice of one who knew; \"nor hath He need of gold that is the price\nof suffering and pain and tears;\" and so he turned and went down the\nsteps, worn and weary, with dust on his crimson garments, and shame on\nhis spirit, and the light of his face grown dim.\n\nIt had come back to its shining, however, the next day, when he went\nbefore the King.\n\n\"It may well be that there is one bad man who hath power,\" he said to\nhimself, \"and he the Bishop; but God would not grant that all be so,\"\nand hope beamed again from his eyes.\n\n\"'Tis the son of my old friend, Guy of Lamont, sayest thou?\" cried the\nKing, as he raised the lad's chin with one royal finger. \"By my troth,\n'tis his father's face again, but different.\"\n\n\"Sire,\" said Louis, as he did reverence, \"I have come to tell of cruel\nwrong, and to win from thee a promise of redress.\"\n\n\"Thou shalt have it!\" cried the King, with his hand upon his sword.\n\"Friend or child of my friend went never yet uncomforted from the foot\nof my throne. Speak thy wrong.\"\n\nThen the youth told him all that he had told the Bishop, and added\nthereto other tales, and hope shone sternly in his eyes.\n\n\"Send forth with me a band of thy men-at-arms,\" prayed the suppliant.\n\"Even now, perchance, are orphans made that might have grown tall in\nhappiness save for this man's lust for gold.\"\n\nThen the King looked about, and his face grew dark with anger, for some\nhalf smiled and hid their smiles as best they could with jeweled hand or\nvelvet sleeve; some showed fear at seeing this thing, which was not\nbreathed at court, boldly brought to light.\n\n [Illustration: FOR SOME HALF SMILED AND HID THEIR SMILES AS BEST THEY\n                                 COULD]\n\n\"Boy,\" said the King sternly, \"hast no respect for them that be\nappointed to sit in high places, nor awe before an anointed King?\"\n\n\"Yea, sire,\" answered Louis, marveling.\n\n\"Dost come before my throne with slanderous tales of one on whom I lean\nheavily and lovingly?\"\n\n\"Sire,\" he said bravely, \"thou dost not know his cruel deeds. He hath\nrobbed and killed to the sickening of the heart.\"\n\n\"Mayhap,\" said the King, \"but he hath carried all before him with great\nsuccess, and so is the case altered. 'Tis a man of whom we have great\nneed, and the young should not speak ill of older folk.\"\n\nThen Louis of Lamont said never a word, but rose to his feet staggering,\nfor the knowledge he had gained of men came as hard blows about the\nears, and bending low, he turned away.\n\n\"Stay!\" cried the King. \"Thy offense is great: thou hast spoken ill of a\npublic benefactor, yet if thou wilt hold thy tongue, nor repeat thy\nsilly tales, I will make thee one of my courtiers, and thou shalt go\nbrave in velvet and in jewels.\"\n\nBut the youth shook his head and went forth alone from the\npresence-chamber; all looked after him, with smiles and jeers and\nwhispered words of scorn.\n\n\"'Sdeath!\" cried the King. \"'Tis a madman fit but for a dungeon, yet,\nfor the sake of my old friend, Guy of Lamont, can I not cast him there.\"\n\nThe lad groped his way unevenly down the marble steps of the palace as\none gropes in a path that is full of pitfalls and has suddenly grown\ndark, and he wandered, not knowing where, through the dark streets,\nuntil he found himself in the square before the great cathedral. Here\nmany were passing with hands full of flowers, red roses and tall white\nlilies and blue blossoms that grow pale among the wheat, for it was the\nfeast day of a saint, and they went to deck the altar which stood within\nunfinished walls, that men might worship there under the blue sky.\n\n\"I will tell them,\" said the lad; so he stood upon the cathedral steps\nand repeated all the tale, and blossoms red and blossoms white were\ndropped at his feet, as men and women clustered about to hear.\n\n\"Ay!\" they cried out, \"we go hungry for this man, but who shall deliver\nus from him? Horses and armor could we find, perchance. Wilt lead us to\nhim?\"\n\nThen of a sudden he smiled, and ceased speaking because of the choking\nin his throat; but after, he took up the tale and told it in the\nmarket-place and before the Palace of Justice and wherever he could\ngather folk together.\n\nAs days passed, all this came to the ears of the King and of the Bishop\nand of the nobles of the court, and grave head met with grave head, and\nboth were shaken solemnly in conference over this new peril which\nthreatened the kingdom. One morn there went throughout the city a crier,\nwho called aloud and read from a parchment in his hand to let men know\nthat Louis of Lamont, son of Sir Guy, was cast out from Holy Church for\nslander of one of her greatest sons. Henceforward no man should give him\nshelter, no woman food or drink, lest they too come under the ban; and\nshould he speak future evil words, his life would be forfeit.\n\nYet one who loved him--and there were many--hid him; and the next day\nand the next he wandered in the streets, begging men to rise in\nvengeance against the Robber Chief. On the third day he was taken by\narmed men, and the decree went forth that Louis of Lamont should, after\nthree days, be burned at the stake in the square of the Palace of\nJustice. The youth smiled when he heard his doom; almost he was glad to\nescape from a world which he had not logic enough to understand.\n\nSo the day came when he should die, and it was a Friday of midsummer. In\nthe centre of the square stood an iron post to which criminals were wont\nto be tied, and to this they bound him. Close about him were heaped\nfagots of wood and dried branches, and within he stood in a motley\ngarment, and the look upon his face was as the coming of the day. All\nabout was a great press of people, merchant and butcher and\ncloth-spinner, and peasant folk from the country round; and on a dais,\nbuilt high for better seeing, were knights and ladies and nobles of the\ncourt, with the King himself, and the Gentle Robber at his side, trimly\nclad in sober gray and gently smiling.\n\nIt was a soft day of golden sun, and the sky was blue above the place,\nand the least wind sighed softly as if for pity as it breathed about the\niron stake and played with the yellow locks of the young Squire's hair\nand moved the red folds of the shameful garment that they had placed\nupon him. Lifting his face, he leaned his cheek against the wind, for it\nseemed to him a breeze that had played among the beech leaves in the\nancient forest by his father's hall, and in taking leave of it he said\nfarewell to his hound and to the woodland paths and to his father's\nface.\n\nNow came a ghostly father, with a torch that flamed backward against the\nblue day, and in the name of God and Holy Church he bent and kindled the\nfagots. Then was there quick tumult and rush and stir through the\nsquare, for all rushed forward to see and to hear, and little maids were\nsorely trampled in the press by the great feet of smith and of\nhusbandman, and women's aprons were badly torn. None cared, for all knew\nthat saving grace was to be won for their own souls if their eyes but\ncaught a glimpse of an heretic that was being burned to death, and when\nthe fire leaped high into the air, they gave God thanks. There was a\nflame in the young martyr's face that was not as the flame that leaped\nabout him; but smoke and fire were speedy with their work, and his head\nbent over his breast, his body over the chain that bound him, and as his\nsoul went free, folk breathed deeply in relief, saying that an evil-doer\nwas dead. Upon the dais the King's broad face showed satisfaction; the\nBishop lifted his eyes to heaven, thanking God, then let them rest on\nthe gray stone walls of the cathedral, glad that now naught should\nprevent the walls of God's house from rising. In all the great crowd,\nnone other was so devout and so thankful as the Gentle Robber, and his\nmild blue eyes were moist with tears as he whispered to the King:--\n\n\"'Tis marvelous, the ways by which Providence brings evil-doers to\njustice; ever the right prevails.\"\n\n[Illustration: A GLIMPSE OF AN HERETIC BEING BURNED TO DEATH]\n\nThen all went to the cathedral, knight, squire, and lady in velvet and\nin silk, the Bishop in holy robes of purple and of white, and common\nfolk in blue jean and plain linen, that special service might be held in\npraise for this great deliverance, and the _Te Deum_ sung.\n\n\n\n\n                          The Riverside Press\n                       CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS\n                               U . S . A\n\n\n\n\n                           Transcriber Notes:\n\nPassages in italics were indicated by _underscores_.\n\nPassages in bold were indicated by =equal signs=.\n\nSmall caps were replaced with ALL CAPS.\n\nThroughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the\nspeakers. Those words were retained as-is.\n\nThe illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up\nparagraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate.\n\nErrors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected\nunless otherwise noted.\n\nOn page 97, a single quotation mark was replaced with a double quotation\nmark.","title":"The Princess Pourquoi","tradition":"folklore-oral-tradition","translated_text":null,"word_count":25052}