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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Faery Tales of Weir, by Anna McClure Sholl
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Faery Tales of Weir
+
+Author: Anna McClure Sholl
+
+Posting Date: November 5, 2011 [EBook #9952]
+Release Date: February, 2006
+First Posted: November 4, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FAERY TALES OF WEIR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Mary Meehan, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Faery Tales of Weir
+
+By Anna McClure Sholl
+
+1908
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+THE FAERY TALES OF WEIR
+
+THE TALE OF THE BLUE GLOVE
+
+THE INVISIBLE WALL
+
+THE TREE IN THE DARK WOOD
+
+THE CAT THAT WINKED
+
+THE MAGIC TEARS
+
+THE GOLDEN ARCHER
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE TOWN OF WEIR]
+
+
+
+
+THE FAERY TALES OF WEIR
+
+
+Only in far-away towns are the real faery tales told in shadowy nurseries
+whose windows in summer open upon shimmering gardens and on whose walls
+in winter the fire-goblins dance. Weir is one of these towns--a sweet,
+hushed place, lying where the hills spread broadly to the south sun, and
+the trees are thick as in a painting.
+
+There are shops, too, with bulging windows through which you can scarcely
+see the toys or the flowers or the sweetmeats, because Time has
+finger-marked the glass with violet and crimson stains that shift and
+merge so that the contents of the windows are seen as through wavering
+sea-water. Beyond the shops are the houses asleep beneath great trees,
+their warm red bricks showing where the ivy has thinned. Their stacked
+chimneys send out faint blue spirals of smoke, to let you know that the
+fires are on the hearths and about the hearths the children are gathered.
+
+The little old churches placed where Weir drowses out into the country,
+have hoarse, sweet bells like the voices of old women who whisper of the
+Christ Child at Christmas time; and in the churches are windows as full
+of color as the gardens of Weir.
+
+The sleepy, forgotten town was famous for nothing but its faery tales
+told long ago to children whose bright eyes have looked by now on wider
+scenes, and whose voices have died away on that wind upon which all
+voices sink from hearing at last. I sometimes wonder whether in
+imagination they all troop back at the twilight hour: Hubert to cuddle up
+in the wing-chair; James to stretch out on the hearth-rug; Veronica and
+little Eve to nurse their dolls and gaze through the nursery window half
+fearfully at the striding dusk, or to listen to the tap upon the panes of
+flying leaves when the great winds rise. Where is Richard who always
+wanted "a tale never told before," and small Spencer with his dreaming
+eyes and baby mouth? Where is quaint Matilda with her plaid dress and her
+straight black hair; where is Ruth?
+
+Wherever they are, I like to think that to them Weir is always their true
+home; and their hearts really live in that broad shadowy house where the
+steps of the staircase were so wide and shallow that each was a little
+landing in itself; and where the candles flamed at night in high sconces;
+and in the halls was a rustling of silk; and in the air the smell of
+flowers and burning wood. The nursery was high up under the eaves, so
+that the rest of the house seemed far-away--a wonderful region where
+music might sound, or where, by stealing down, one might see fair ladies
+like the princesses of the tales smiling at gallant gentlemen. One's own
+mother might turn, indeed, into a princess just before it was time to go
+to bed, with white arms and jewels upon her neck.
+
+Then one fell asleep knowing that no day in Weir could be without its
+enchantment, whether the clouds seemed caught in the tree-tops, or the
+snow flew and made the red roofs white; or whether the sun danced on the
+green lawns, for each day ended with a faery tale, and these are the
+tales of Weir.
+
+
+
+
+THE TALE OF THE BLUE GLOVE
+
+
+The King of the South country was not as happy as a king ought to be
+whose subjects are both peaceful and industrious. Every night when the
+moths were flying and the tall candles were lit in the hall, when the
+soft air was musical with the strumming of harps, and the sweet
+complaint of violins, he would walk out on the great parapet with one
+hand under his chin and his head drooping; then the courtiers would say,
+"The King is sad."
+
+If he looked out he could see town after town, like strings of pearls and
+corals, with blue smoke coming from the chimneys of red-roofed houses,
+and beyond the towns the sea like a green bowl. If he looked straight
+down he could see a rush of color, as if the flowers were coming up to
+him in billowy waves.
+
+But the King was not happy, for the reason that he wanted to marry his
+three sons, and he didn't know of any princesses who would, so to speak,
+fill the bill. He had journeyed over the mountains to inspect several
+little ladies who were brought to him, in their stiff satin gowns to
+make their curtsey and smile their prettiest, but none of them seemed
+desirable for a daughter. The King knew, indeed, very much what he
+wanted. She mustn't chatter and she mustn't be too fond of chocolates in
+gold and enameled boxes; and she mustn't have likes and dislikes; and
+she must be patient, for all really royal people know how to wait; and
+she must possess the beautiful art of smiling. The King had seen her in
+the frames of old paintings, still and sweet and jeweled, but never
+alive and lovely.
+
+On the evening when this tale begins the King was watching the three
+princes play at ball. The ball was of scented Spanish leather covered
+with crimson silk on which was stamped the sporting dolphin of the royal
+house. Sometimes it would drop to the green turf where the parrots would
+peck at it, thinking it a gorgeous apple. The hooded falcon on the
+jester's arm knew better, for the jester fed him real apples.
+
+Prince Hugh, Prince Merlin, and Prince Richard were as supple as willows,
+as straight as pines, as graceful as silver birches. Their blond hair
+hung thick and straight against their necks and was cut square above
+their level brows. Their manners were so good that their father didn't
+quite know their characters; and that made the problem of their marriages
+more difficult.
+
+All at once, as on a stage, they stopped playing ball and began to look
+at something or someone. The King followed their eyes, and saw a strange
+sight. A young girl with a great dog at her side was coming slowly over
+the grass, her hands clasped above her breast, her long golden hair
+hanging nearly to the hem of her gown which was of coarse brown wool. She
+had no stockings, and on her feet she wore wooden shoes.
+
+That a peasant girl should walk across the royal gardens was enough to
+make the princes stare. Then the King saw that they were looking at
+the girl's hands, of which one was bare. On the other was a glove of
+blue cut-velvet, heavily embroidered with a design of flowers which
+circled themselves about a tiny mirror set exactly on the wrist; no
+glove for a peasant!
+
+She came slowly up the great stairs of the terrace as if she were
+expected. By this time the court-lackeys had rushed out, full of
+officiousness, to stop the outrage; but the King, at the end of a puzzled
+day, was in no mood to hinder the least diversion. He advanced to meet
+the visitor, who raised to him a pair of beautiful blue eyes and smiled.
+
+"Where did she learn to smile?" thought the King, conscious that the gaze
+of the three princes was still upon the girl.
+
+She held out the gloved hand. "King Cuthbert, I am sent to your court by
+King Luke. Will you be pleased to look in my mirror?"
+
+Her wrist was raised to the level of his eyes. "What do you see?" she
+asked in a soft, solicitous voice.
+
+"Myself, maiden," he replied.
+
+She sighed, and the tears came in her eyes.
+
+"Who else could I see?" he exclaimed.
+
+She smiled and shook her head, then she nodded towards the three straight
+boys on the lawn. "Those are your sons?"
+
+"Mine, indeed, maiden."
+
+"I am sent to make their acquaintance. I am the niece of King Luke, the
+Princess Myrtle."
+
+King Cuthbert could not believe his ears, nor trust his eyes, for the
+Princess Myrtle had great vaults of gold under the thousand-year-old
+turrets of her castle; and pearls like pigeon eggs in the renowned
+diadem with which the generations of her royal race were crowned kings
+or queens.
+
+"My uncle sends me as a beggar-maid so that I can make a true marriage. I
+desire to be loved for myself alone. Speak not of me to the court, but
+deal with me as I appear to be."
+
+King Cuthbert gazed in admiration at her, for she had the voice of one
+who thinks more than she speaks and feels more than she thinks, which is
+the proper order for great and little ladies. "Here," thought he, "is the
+child I have been seeking. I will not tell the three straight-limbed lads
+so beautifully mannered who or what she is, but I will say that a friend
+hath sent an orphaned girl to be protected by me; then I will watch how
+they treat her, and learn at last what my sons are."
+
+"Princess Myrtle," he said, "I will henceforth treat you as an orphaned
+and poor girl. Is that to your liking?"
+
+"It is my wish, Sir," she answered, and suddenly a rising wind blew all
+the strands of her hair into a cloud of gold, so that her coarse wool
+dress appeared brocaded; and while she was thus sumptuously clothed a
+great peacock in iridescent array strutted by her, and she placed her
+gloved hand for a moment on his shining feathers, looking, indeed, a
+princess. Back of her the courtiers stared and rubbed their eyes. The
+three slim boys on the lawn were smiling.
+
+Prince Hugh tossed the scarlet ball to her and she caught it lightly as
+if she were making a curtsey.
+
+"Take the ball back to him," said the King, "and tell him I sent you."
+
+As she went down through the parterres of flowers she was as straight
+as a delphinium and fresh-colored as a rose. Where the great trees
+clouded into the sky she looked as little as a floating petal; but when
+she stepped upon the sward, she seemed to grow tall like an upward
+soaring flame.
+
+Though she walked with such courage towards the three slim lads her heart
+was beating fast, because she was afraid they would not be as noble as
+they looked. For at court nearly everyone looks noble, and the Princess
+Myrtle had learned how easy it is to keep your eyes level, and your head
+high, and your bearing proud; and how hard it is to preserve a sweet
+heart like a rose, within the shadow of this grandeur.
+
+So she went to meet the princes with a shy, hopeful manner, the scarlet
+ball in her hand, and her blue eyes addressed to theirs.
+
+"I am commanded by your royal father to return to you this ball," she
+said.
+
+"I pray you tell me," said Prince Hugh, "how you, being a beggar-maid,
+walk as if possessed of wealth?"
+
+She smiled. "All people are rich. Some know it. Some do not."
+
+The princeling gave a royal whistle, and smiled at his brother Richard,
+who picked a white carnation and began to pull its petals. "Tell me,
+maid, why you wear the blue glove?" he asked.
+
+"To cover a hand still my own," she returned proudly.
+
+Merlin said nothing at all. He took the scarlet ball, bowed, and turned
+from her. She raised her eyes to the heights where the turrets cut the
+sky, black against gold, and the whirling sea-birds beat down the seaward
+rushing wind. Then stepping softly, she followed Merlin, who walked on to
+a place where the arching trees made a green cave, and in the depths of
+the cave was a fountain of marble sunk into a round of ferns. At the edge
+the prince paused, then he dropped the ball into the water, and it sank,
+for it was solid and heavy.
+
+[Illustration: MERLIN DROPS THE BALL INTO THE FOUNTAIN]
+
+"Why did you do that?" cried the Princess.
+
+He wheeled about, and looked upon her coldly. "Why have you followed
+me?" he asked.
+
+"To pick up the ball, should you drop it."
+
+"The ball is drowned," he said.
+
+"Why did you put it in the water?" she asked.
+
+"Because you touched it," he replied.
+
+She was very sad then. "You scorn to touch what a beggar-maid has
+handled?" she asked.
+
+To this he made no reply, but strolled away into the green wood, while
+wearily she turned back. The stag-hounds, with their collars of jade,
+came to meet her, and the three enormous Persian cats whose tails were
+like long plumes. She stooped to caress them, and to hide her tears, for
+Prince Hugh and Prince Richard were coming towards her, and she did not
+wish them to know she was sad.
+
+They stood like twin trees regarding her, then Prince Richard spoke.
+"Will you sell your glove, beggar-maid?" and he drew a piece of gold from
+his purse.
+
+She replied: "I have more need of my glove than of your gold."
+
+"If you were a court lady," said Prince Hugh, "you would know that one
+glove is of no use to anyone."
+
+"If you were a beggar, Sir," she replied, "you would be glad to have one
+hand warm."
+
+"I shall never be a beggar," returned the Prince proudly.
+
+"Yet you begged your father for a cloth-of-silver falcon hood this
+morning."
+
+Prince Richard laughed and his brother stared. "Are you a witch?" asked
+the latter.
+
+"No, I am not a witch. I lost my way in the gardens before I found the
+right path. You were talking in the arbor by the edge of the lake, and
+you implored your father, the King, like a beggar on the street corner."
+
+Prince Hugh's cheeks were red as peonies. "Your words are too bold,
+beggar-maid. If you will not sell your glove, I will take it."
+
+She stretched out her arm. "You will not be able to take what is
+not yours!"
+
+"Will I not!" and he rushed at her and began to tug at the glove. His
+face grew redder and redder, but he could not strip off the glove, which
+seemed to have grown to the maid's arm. Suddenly he caught sight of his
+fiery countenance in the little round mirror, and he left off pulling at
+the glove, but his failure aroused emulation in the heart of Prince
+Richard, who now began to tug at the glove as if it were heavy armor.
+
+The Princess Myrtle grew as white as a snow-drop in pale wintry sunshine,
+for it seemed to her that all three of the princes were of base metal
+beneath their noble bearing. "Look in the mirror," she said pitifully,
+"and tell me what you see!"
+
+"His own red face, I warrant, as I saw mine," cried Prince Hugh; then
+Prince Richard seeing how flushed his face was, drew away sulkily; and
+the Princess walked from them up and up through the parterres of flowers
+to the terrace where the King stood in the evening light, his cloak blown
+out, so that the satin lining showed like a great magnolia petal. His
+long fingers rested on the marble balustrade, and the royal rings winked
+wickedly at the Princess.
+
+The King said to her, "What did my sons say and do to you?"
+
+Then she related everything.
+
+The King frowned. "But how do I know whether you are really the Princess
+Myrtle? You may for all that be but a goose-girl or a beggar-maid."
+
+She replied, "Let me remain in your court three days as a beggar-maid. If
+at the end of that time you are not sure, turn me out. I, too, will be
+sure of something at the end of three days."
+
+"Of what will you be sure?" asked the King.
+
+"Which of you is the real king here."
+
+Then King Cuthbert grew red like old leather, and laughed and sighed and
+frowned. "God knows, I should myself like that knowledge." Then he
+signed to a court lady, who was looking on with proud eyes. "Come, Dame
+Caecilia, take this beggar-maid to one of the suites in the palace, and
+put fair clothes on her, and conduct her to the dining-hall when the
+hour strikes."
+
+The court lady smiled to hide her anger, for she dared not disobey, and
+she beckoned the Princess Myrtle to follow her. They went through a vast
+door into a corridor that ran beneath heavy arches, and the walls of this
+passage moved as if alive, but it was only the draught swaying the
+tapestries with their gray trees and knights who rode among the trees
+like heavy shadows, and long-haired women who watched the knights ride
+while they wove flower-wreaths.
+
+Then the proud court lady took the Princess up a winding stair, like the
+twisted ways of life, down more corridors, then into a room, through
+whose windows high cypresses looked, and upon whose ceiling little cupids
+flew about.
+
+"Now, beggar," she said angrily, throwing open the door of a wardrobe
+where hung silken things, "make the most of your luck. What will you
+wear? Here is mallow satin sewn with pearls, and with a running border of
+jasmine flowers done in sweet embroidery silks. Will it please you? Here
+is a silver cloth, studded with little coral beads over a petticoat of
+ancient lace. Here is black velvet softly lined with apricot brocade!"
+
+"Nay, none of these will I wear, but my gown of good wool, and in my
+bundle are changes of linen, for I want no lace on my limbs. Send me
+fresh flowers for my hair, I entreat you, and I will bathe and so prepare
+myself for the court dinner."
+
+Dame Caecilia stared at her, and moved the golden combs and mirrors
+about angrily on the dressing-table. "You will lose me my place at
+court," she cried.
+
+"Perhaps it is already lost," answered the Princess.
+
+"You speak not at all like a beggar."
+
+"You never took the trouble to learn what a beggar really says," the
+Princess replied as she stripped the blue glove from her hand.
+
+Curiosity got the better of the court lady's anger. "What person gave you
+that glove in place of alms?" she asked.
+
+"My godmother out of faery land!"
+
+"Nonsense!" cried the Dame, and she departed for the flowers with a face
+like a withered leaf.
+
+The little Princess leaned against the sill of the window and sighed, and
+looked into the blue sphere of the night and wondered on what altar the
+high stars were lit. She thought of Merlin who had drowned his ball
+because her touch was on it, and her heart throbbed as if a hand were
+drawing it from her breast to place it out of her reach. She had seen
+little maids among the golden shadows of her own court with their white
+hands outstretched towards a heart someone had taken. Now the thrilling
+touch of that theft was upon her own spirit. Her thoughts followed Merlin
+as if her substance had been changed into his shadow.
+
+All the court had assembled for dinner, when she entered the banquet
+hall behind the shame-faced Dame Caecilia, who made a curtsey to the
+floor as she explained to the King that the beggar-maid, being lacking
+in art, refused the silken clothes. "She would wear only this crown of
+wood violets."
+
+Then the Princess curtsied, and all the courtiers laughed, but the King
+gravely bowed to her; and called, "Prince Hugh."
+
+Prince Hugh came forward, looking noble as was his wont in the presence
+of his father. "What is your will, Sire?"
+
+"I desire you to lead this maiden to the banquet."
+
+"Sire, I have already asked the Lady Diana," he said and blushed a
+little, for he was lying.
+
+The King then asked a lackey to summon Prince Richard, who came looking
+noble as was his custom, also, in the presence of his father.
+
+"I desire you to lead this maiden to the banquet."
+
+Prince Richard still endeavored to look noble. "Sire," he replied, "I am
+not dining to-night. I have a headache."
+
+Then King Cuthbert sent for Prince Merlin. Now when the Princess Myrtle
+heard his name, it seemed to her as if musicians had begun to play in a
+far-off room. She drooped her head a little lest she should show tears in
+her eyes when he, too, refused her. He came up white and grave with a
+look that was not patient. When his father made the request of him that
+he made of his other sons, Prince Merlin bowed and extended his arm to
+the beggar-girl, but he was as silent as a wood before a storm. Only the
+Princess quivered like a leaf that expects a great wind to pass.
+
+"Did you obey your father because you are sorry for me?" she whispered.
+
+"No, I obeyed him because he is the King, not I. I am sorry for myself
+rather than you."
+
+Then the Princess felt her soul sink into a gulf, but she smiled and
+ate the food that was offered her, and made no attempt to speak to
+Prince Merlin.
+
+All the next day she wandered in the rose-alleys, through marvelous
+terraces, and under the great trees, but no one spoke to her, nor could
+she see anything but vanishing forms; and so it was until evening, when
+wearied, she sat down on a bench and gazed into her mirror and gave a cry
+of joy. "Now," said she, "I love truly. By this sign I know I love truly,
+for I see Merlin's face in the mirror and not my own."
+
+Then she went alone to her rooms through the vast corridors, and stood
+before the long mirrors which were not magic, but only meant to
+reflect earthly vanities; and from the shining marble floor came up a
+kind of radiance about her. She opened the cedar doors of the
+wardrobes, and there issued a scent as of costly silk that has been
+perfumed with iris root.
+
+The temptation was heavy upon her to clothe herself delicately that she
+might please Merlin; and never before had beautiful clothes seemed so
+wonderful to her. She ran her long white fingers through the folds of
+silk, and let the laces cascade over her arms; but in the end she changed
+only her wooden shoes for little dancing slippers of violet velvet, and
+again she put fresh violets in her hair.
+
+When she entered the banquet hall, she found the King on the dais, and on
+one side of him stood Prince Hugh in a rose-satin dancing dress; and on
+the other Prince Richard in a garb of yellow velvet. Both wore jeweled
+girdles to which were attached little shining swords with opals in the
+hilts. About the throne were grouped the courtiers; and beyond the
+courtiers were the knights and ladies of the frescoed walls which bore
+the history of King Cuthbert's ancestors; girls like drifting blossoms,
+matrons like sweet fruit, and knights like strong trees.
+
+The white velvet curtains before the tall casements shut out the stars,
+but all the heavens seemed recorded by the glowing wax-candles. Down the
+center of the room ran the banquet-table with dishes of gold; and plumage
+of rare birds nesting strange viands; and the sweet cheeks of summer
+fruits showing through the heaped blossoms of rose, gardenia, and
+honeysuckle. There were sweetmeats on dishes of pierced silver and
+between these played into broad glass bowls jets of scented water, making
+a lake where tiny swans swam.
+
+But all this beauty was nothing to Princess Myrtle, because she did not
+see Prince Merlin in the room; nor at the banquet did he appear. So she
+could eat but a little fruit, and that was without taste to her.
+
+After the banquet the court repaired to the dancing-hall, where already
+the musicians were strumming upon their instruments, so that everyone's
+feet began to move rhythmically. Then King Cuthbert beckoned the Princess
+Myrtle to him and said: "I see that you have put on dancing-slippers.
+With whom will you dance?"
+
+"With myself, Sire, should I have no partner," she replied smiling.
+
+At that moment Prince Merlin approached the throne clothed all in black
+silk, more appropriate for a scene of mourning than of festivity; and the
+King said to him: "Wilt thou lead this beggar-maid in the dance?"
+
+The Prince's face grew as white for a moment as the lace of his collar,
+but he replied proudly, "At a ball a man chooses his own partners."
+
+Then the Princess Myrtle's heart felt as weary as feet on a long road;
+but she awaited patiently the King's next word, which was spoken to
+Prince Richard and Prince Hugh, inviting them to dance with the
+beggar-maid. Each made an excuse. Then King Cuthbert addressed her.
+"Dance with yourself, beggar-girl," and he had the heralds proclaim
+that this stranger who wore brown wool in court would go on the floor
+alone. Everyone laughed and clapped their hands, only Prince Merlin bit
+his lip and looked prouder than ever, which, when she saw, the Princess
+Myrtle thought, "I will dance so beautifully that he will ask me to be
+his partner."
+
+Then she let down her hair from beneath her crown of flowers, and went
+into the center of the circle that the court had formed, and began to
+sway a little like a flower in the breeze. Soon the court found itself
+swaying with her, so that it was like a garden when the wind rises. But
+when all were moving, the Princess saw that Prince Merlin stood like a
+pine-tree that will not bend its head unless the tempest comes out of
+the North. So she changed from a flower to a butterfly and began a
+fluttering, glancing motion, and threw back her golden locks like
+wings. Everyone watching her became very still, only Prince Merlin
+moved restlessly, and once he put his hand across his eyes as if the
+sun were in them.
+
+When she had finished the King cried "Bravo," and then the court crowded
+about her, and Prince Hugh and Prince Richard asked her to dance with
+them; but Prince Merlin did not ask her, though he led out many ladies;
+and because of that it was as if she were dancing in the snow and rain,
+or on sharp stones.
+
+The pain in her heart grew violent, and drove her at last to the
+orange-tree near which he stood. On the edge of its marble tub she sat
+down to rest, and all at once a golden orange dropped in her lap. She
+held it out to him. "You have drowned your scarlet ball, take this."
+
+"Nay, for it is perishable," he said.
+
+Then tears like pearls came slowly from her eyes and she was driven
+to say: "You alone have not asked me to dance. Did not my dancing
+please you?"
+
+He replied, "I am not like my brothers," and he bowed and left her.
+
+That night she lay on her broad bed beneath silken covers and sobbed
+bitterly because her heart told her that Prince Merlin was noble; yet her
+memory stung her with his cold words and averted eyes. Soon the third day
+would be over, and she would have to leave the court; for even if King
+Cuthbert acknowledged that she was a princess, what did that matter if
+Merlin did not know that she was his queen?
+
+All next day she sat on the terrace which looks seaward and counted the
+sails coming up over the horizon like white petals blown from an
+invisible garden; and she would say, "If five come within a space of half
+an hour there will be hope for me"; but she always lost count, in
+thinking of his face.
+
+That night she took off her woolen dress and she clothed herself in laces
+and over the laces she put on a cream silk gown all woven with apple
+blossoms, and she placed flowers upon her hair; then flashed before the
+mirror and smiled to see herself so beautiful. "Surely," she thought, "he
+will not turn from me to-night."
+
+Then she put on her dancing-slippers; and went down. When she entered
+the banquet hall there was a stir and a murmur; and even King Cuthbert
+was silent with amazement over her beauty. Prince Hugh and Prince
+Richard came forward to meet her, and they bowed low, and looked very
+noble, indeed.
+
+"Our father has played a merry jest upon us," they said. "You are,
+indeed, a princess and no beggar-maid." Then they began to dispute which
+should take her in to dinner. But her eyes were all for Prince Merlin,
+who, when the courtiers crowded about her and proclaimed her a princess,
+looked straight away from her. This was as a little sword in her heart,
+but the grief that dimmed her eyes made her appear even more beautiful.
+
+After the banquet all proceeded to the dancing-hall, and King Cuthbert
+gave his arm to her. "Now I know thou art the Princess Myrtle. Which of
+my sons hast thou chosen?"
+
+"A woman is chosen; she does not choose," she replied, for her heart was
+heavy. "To-night I must leave your court."
+
+"Wilt thou continue thy search, Princess Myrtle?" the King said
+anxiously.
+
+"No, I will return to my Kingdom."
+
+"And what wilt thou do there?"
+
+"I will weep," she answered.
+
+She danced a measure with Prince Hugh and a measure with Prince Richard;
+then she saw that though Prince Merlin was in white satin and gold he did
+not dance, but stood alone by the orange-tree.
+
+When she was free she sent a herald to fetch him, for now she desired no
+longer to play a part, but to be herself. He came slowly to where she
+stood, and bowed before her in silence.
+
+"Tell me, Prince Merlin," she said, "if you agree with these courtiers
+that to-night I am become a princess?"
+
+"I do not agree with them," he answered. "Clothes do not make a
+princess."
+
+Then they looked at each other. "Will you meet me," she said, "on the
+edge of the wild forest in half an hour's time?"
+
+"I am your servant," he replied.
+
+She stole away to her rooms, where the moonlight lay athwart the
+tessellated marble floor, and opened the casement and placed the lamp
+there, which was to be the signal for her attendants to have her horses
+ready on the edge of the wild forest. Then she put on the gown she had
+worn as a beggar-girl, and her wooden shoes, and let her hair down over
+her shoulders.
+
+The way to the wild forest was haunted with shadows and little fleeing
+things; and the night-owls called, but she remembered the look in
+Merlin's eyes, and conquered her fears.
+
+And there he was waiting, with the moonlight gleaming on his white satin;
+and his face turned to the path up which she came.
+
+She held out her hand to him with the blue velvet glove upon it, and she
+said softly, "Will you look into my mirror, Prince Merlin?"
+
+"I am your servant," he said again, then looked.
+
+His eyes became full of light. "I see your face," he cried; and sank upon
+one knee. She gave him both her hands.
+
+"What am I to you?" she asked. "A princess?"
+
+"No," he whispered.
+
+"A beggar-girl?"
+
+"No," he whispered.
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Thou art my love."
+
+Then all the birds in all the world sang in her heart. "Tell me," she
+said, "why, then, didst thou sink thy ball?"
+
+"That no hands should ever touch it after thine."
+
+"And why didst thou say when thou didst lead me in to dinner, that thou
+wast sorry not for me, but for thyself?"
+
+"I feared that thou wouldst never love me."
+
+Then she laughed joyfully and asked, "Why didst thou say 'I am not like
+my brothers' when I asked thee to dance?"
+
+"I wanted thee for thyself, not for thy dancing."
+
+And now the stars moved all to nuptial music. "One question more," she
+cried. "Why didst thou say 'Clothes do not make a princess'?"
+
+"Because I knew thou wast a princess the first hour I saw thee."
+
+"Rise up, my Prince," she said. "We have a long journey before us."
+
+"I hear the neighing of horses," he said, "and the moving of feet."
+
+"My attendants," she replied. "My foster-mother rides with them. She gave
+me the blue glove, and told me he should be my husband who should see not
+his own face in the mirror, but mine."
+
+"I see thy face everywhere," cried Prince Merlin.
+
+So he kissed her, and they rode away with all her train through the
+sighing night-wind and beneath the summer stars to the land of their joy.
+
+
+
+
+THE INVISIBLE WALL
+
+
+On the edge of the Dark Wood dwelt for a time a Wizard, whose life had
+been spent in the acquirement of many wonderful arts. As a young man he
+had wandered over Europe from university to university, until one day he
+became aware of the true secret of education and burnt his books.
+
+Then he dwelt for many years in the mountains, gazing into the dark
+mirror of his heart, plumbing the blue ocean of the sky until the hour
+for which he longed arrived, bringing Wisdom, who appeared to him as a
+young, fair being in the twilight.
+
+Leaving his hut he came forth to meet her. "I had thought to greet you at
+noonday," said he.
+
+"That is because you live in an age which thinks that to know is to be
+wise; but only those see who shut their eyes. Not in the glare of noon,
+but at twilight will you find me."
+
+"You are a beautiful maid, Wisdom," said he who was on his way to
+be a wizard. "But why do you wear coarse linen who should be
+clothed in satins?"
+
+"To travel light," she replied.
+
+"And why do you smile who should look sad?"
+
+"To be wise is to be happy."
+
+"And what will you have me do?"
+
+"Remove from here to the village that is near the Dark Wood. Go through
+all the countryside proclaiming that King Theophile will shortly make war
+upon the inhabitants, but bid them feel no terror; only they are to build
+an invisible wall."
+
+"By the books that I burned, that is a strange command!" cried the
+Wizard. "Of what materials is this wonderful wall to be built?"
+
+"Of their sacrifices, their renouncements, their good deeds,"
+replied Wisdom.
+
+"But they will call me mad," cried the Wizard.
+
+Wisdom smiled. "Did you expect to be really wise, and yet thought
+sane?" she made answer. "Have the courage of all great follies and you
+will yet save The Kingdom of the Dark Wood, which is the fairland of
+the Princess Myrtle."
+
+Upon which the Wizard took heart, for he knew that to be fearless is to
+be in the class of masters, and to be fearful is to be in the class of
+slaves; and the whole world is divided into these two classes, nor is
+there other aristocracy, or dependency.
+
+"Sweet Wisdom, I will play the fool for your sake," he answered.
+
+Then she smiled and blessed him and vanished into the shadows of the
+forest. The Wizard was not of those who say, "To-morrow I will do thus
+and thus"; but being truly wise he put all his power into the present
+moment. So he took his flask of water and his loaf of bread, for like
+Wisdom, he would travel light, and he set forth for The Kingdom of the
+Dark Wood.
+
+There he rented a little cottage in the village near the wood, and set up
+a shoemaker's bench, for he knew how to make shoes--and good ones, too.
+Being a Wizard he knew that if he showed people he could do one thing
+well, they would be the more ready to listen to his words. A fine,
+comfortable shoe is a wonderful argument, so the Wizard set to work. The
+dewy dawns found him at his bench, and when the air at evening was full
+of heliotrope mists and homeward flying birds his little candle burned
+yellow to light his labors.
+
+Soon all the inhabitants had comfortable foot-wear, which put them all in
+fine humor. Then the Wizard began to proclaim a great war and the coming
+of King Theophile. He stood on the green, near the town-pump, and at
+first only the geese listened to him, stretching out their long necks and
+opening their red bills. But this did not discourage the Wizard, for he
+knew that after geese come men.
+
+[Illustration: THE WIZARD'S FIRST AUDIENCE]
+
+"What's this! What's this!" cried the tailor who was the first to get the
+message, "A war? I must run right home and polish up my old gun."
+
+"Nay," said the Wizard. "But go home and kiss your wife--for you haven't
+kissed her in five years."
+
+"If she would comb her hair and look attractive I might kiss her,"
+growled the tailor.
+
+"If you'd buy her a ribbon occasionally," advised the Wizard, "she might
+have the desire to make herself look pretty."
+
+"What has all this to do with war?" inquired the tailor.
+
+"Your kiss will make a stone in the invisible wall which is to keep out
+the enemy," the Wizard answered. "And if you stop your everlasting work
+and take your poor wife on an outing, that will be another stone. Every
+sacrifice you make, every good deed you do, will be a guarding stone in
+the wall."
+
+The tailor rubbed his ear. "Am I crazy, or are you?"
+
+"Am I asking you to do much for your country?" demanded the Wizard.
+"Think how mean you would feel if the invisible wall got built without
+one stone of your donating."
+
+"I'll go right home and kiss Matilda," said the tailor with a skip; and
+off he ran. In a few minutes he was back again. "She blushed so and
+looked so pretty and pleased that I kissed her three times, and to-morrow
+we are going to see her mother. Put me down for four stones."
+
+"Good!" said the Wizard.
+
+By this time quite a crowd had collected, all anxious to hear about the
+war. A rich miller took the news very seriously, because his mills lay to
+the eastward, from which horizon King Theophile would appear. He sent to
+the bank for bags of gold and laid them at the feet of the Wizard. "These
+will buy much gunpowder," he said.
+
+"The wall will never be built of gold," replied the Wizard. "There is
+no gold minted that will overcome an enemy, or keep him out if he wants
+to get in, or put mercy into his heart when vengeance is flaming there.
+The real weapons are unseen. If you wish to help build the invisible
+wall, stop grinding the faces of the poor and charging famine prices
+for your grain."
+
+Then the miller grew red in the face, and took up his bags of gold and
+went away. But next day everyone bought wheat at a lower price than it
+had been for many a long year, so that people knew the Wizard's words had
+taken effect. This made him very popular, and when he again proclaimed
+the danger of war and the necessity of building an invisible wall nearly
+all the village came forward to ask him what they could do to insure a
+stone in that guarding structure. Some of them whispered in his ear,
+because they hated to have their secret faults proclaimed to their
+neighbors.
+
+Old Peter was among those who made inquiry as to what sacrifice they
+should offer to avert the threatening danger. "I have," said he, "a pet
+bird that pines in his cage. If I give him his liberty will that help
+build up the wall?"
+
+"Yes, Peter," said the Wizard. "For no good man keeps anything captive
+that has the desire for freedom."
+
+Some people paid their debts to help build the wall. Others began to go
+to church after staying away for years and years. Others made up
+long-standing quarrels with their relatives and old-time friends, and
+these stones of reconciliation were, the Wizard proclaimed, the strongest
+of all, since unity and love are the only impregnable fortresses.
+
+Of course, there was some doubt about the wall, since nobody could prove
+that it really existed. But the Wizard declared he saw it to the eastward
+growing ever stronger and wider; and he traveled up and down the land
+prophesying war and the necessity of making the invisible wall strong and
+high by good works. He met with greatest success in the villages and
+towns, but when he entered the region of the high castles, where the
+knights and ladies dwelt, he was much laughed at and some would have had
+him locked up at once.
+
+Now, being a Wizard, he knew how powerful fashion is in this world, and
+how a wandering breath may bring it into being, so he said to himself: "I
+will go direct to the court of the Princess Myrtle, who has married the
+Prince Merlin, and will gain her ear. When she knows the invisible wall
+is to protect her kingdom, she will be gracious and set the fashion of
+providing stones."
+
+So he journeyed all day and all night and came at last to the grim city
+of green stones with towers like aged fingers of gnarled wood in the
+midst of which the Princess Myrtle held her court in an old red castle
+set about with small, stiff trees. Now the Princess had not long been
+married to the Prince Merlin. So full of love were they for each other
+that for them many days had drifted away like the dreams of a night; and
+so sweet was their converse, and so softly the minstrels sang that all
+the court lived in a kind of trance.
+
+The day the Wizard reached the castle it was drowsy noon; and the
+golden-woven curtains were softly swaying in the breeze; while upon the
+dim walls the greenish tapestries looked like mysterious forests. The
+Prince and Princess sat upon their thrones like painted figures, and all
+around them sat their courtiers in their golden dreams while the
+minstrels sang:
+
+"The waves are beating on the yellow sands,
+  The moon in a black vault rides white and high.
+Let us go forth, from these most desolate lands,
+  Led by the spirit's cry."
+
+"You are quite right," said the Wizard. "Your lands will be desolate
+unless you help build the invisible wall."
+
+At that all the courtiers whose eyelids had been drooping with the summer
+heat and with dreams of romance, looked up, and the Princess Myrtle
+withdrew her gaze from Prince Merlin, and fastened her sweet eyes upon
+the Wizard. "You must not care what the minstrels sing," she said. "We
+are all so happy here, that we love songs of sorrow."
+
+"Sweet Princess," said the Wizard, "King Theophile intends to make war
+upon you, and I have come to tell you that already your subjects have
+built a fine invisible wall of good deeds and sacrifices; but they must
+not perform all the labor and have all the pain while the nobles jest and
+feast. For the wall must have a stone in it from every kind of man, rich
+or poor, high or low, else it will not endure. And you, the Princess,
+must put in the strongest stone of all, since the ruler of a country must
+be its protector."
+
+All the courtiers smiled at this, but the Princess did not smile, because
+she was as wise as she was fair. She looked down at her peach-colored
+robe of satin and her little slippers embroidered with seed-pearls, and
+she drew a long-stemmed rose from the jade bowl near her throne to pass
+back and forth across her lips, as was her manner when thinking.
+
+"Prince Merlin," she said at last, "if this strange tale be true, what
+stone wilt thou place in the invisible wall?"
+
+"I will go for a month to the Council Chamber instead of lingering near
+thee while the minstrels sing," replied her husband.
+
+"Spoken like a prince!" cried the Wizard. "And what wilt thou do,
+Princess?"
+
+"I will go to the Council Chamber with milord," she answered. "And
+read most heavy papers of State; for if he shares my play I must share
+his work."
+
+"To attend to the duties of sovereignty instead of listening to minstrels
+in a scented room is a fitting stone for the Princess to place in the
+invisible wall," commented the Wizard; then he looked around at the
+courtiers.
+
+Now after the manner of courtiers they wanted to imitate their Prince and
+Princess, but they thought this invisible wall a great joke not worth
+making sacrifices for. The Wizard read their thoughts and said to them:
+"If the ruler works alone, he is like a bird with a crippled wing. He can
+only rule wisely and well if all the wisest and best help him. You are
+placed high that you may serve. Give me each his vow of sacrifice that
+the wall may be strong!"
+
+The knights and nobles looked at each other, then at the Princess Myrtle;
+and she bowed her head and thus addressed them:
+
+"If our weapons against an enemy must be our unity, our mutual love and
+service, instead of roaring guns and flaming cannon, surely it is easy to
+provide them. Nevertheless," she added, turning to the military
+commander, "see that the army is made ready."
+
+The Wizard smiled. "Well and good, if you remember, dear Princess, that
+an army can never be greater or stronger than the nation back of it. For
+every gun manufactured there must be a noble desire forged, or a high
+ideal realized; or else the weapons will be but a mask of courage on a
+weak face."
+
+The military commander shrugged his shoulders. "I'll go and see if the
+gunpowder is dry," he commented, "as my contribution to yon stranger's
+invisible wall."
+
+Then one by one the nobles at the command of the Princess Myrtle came
+forward to register each his vow of sacrifice. One said that he would
+write no more poetry for a year; another that he would eat no truffles
+for a fortnight; a third proclaimed that he would sell his jeweled sword
+to buy bread for the poor.
+
+The Wizard listened and shook his head. "This layer of stones is going to
+be very weak," he said. "Why don't you all stop and think, while the
+ladies make their vows?"
+
+The maids-of-honor crowded forward like a nose-gay of sweet-scented
+flowers, eager to do better than the knights in the construction of this
+invisible wall; for being women they were quicker than their brothers and
+husbands to understand what the Wizard meant. Yet they, too, were not
+quite clear in their minds, for one said she would wear linen instead of
+satin; another that she would give up perfumes for six months; another
+that she would read no novels for that time.
+
+The Wizard began to look discouraged. At last a beautiful young girl
+came forward to register her vow. "I don't care enough about jewels and
+scents and satins to give them up, Sir Stranger," she said; "but I
+should like to win the love of the poor; so I will visit them, and be as
+one of them."
+
+At this the Wizard clapped his hands. "This stone is most strong," he
+said. "Now, Sir Knights, return and make new vows."
+
+Then the knights came forward. "I will be reconciled with my brother,"
+said one. "I will build a new cottage for an aged tenant," proclaimed
+another; while a third, who was in love with the beautiful girl who
+wanted the love of the poor, said, "I will make a great supper for the
+hungry and will feast with them."
+
+"Ah," cried the Wizard, "that will be, indeed, a great feast! The bread
+of charity chokes the receiver because the hand that gives it will not
+break it with him. We must have communion, not patronage; or the
+invisible wall will never be built."
+
+The Princess Myrtle listened as one who hears a new gospel; and she
+remembered that she had never broken bread with the poor, but only
+bestowed benefits upon them, which is no way to become acquainted. And
+she sighed--a little sigh of love and regret and hope of doing better,
+which the Wizard said afterwards became one of the strongest stones in
+the invisible wall.
+
+Such a change in the kingdom! People making up quarrels that had withered
+hearts for generations. Court ladies running with warm loaves to the
+cottages and staying to eat some of the bread. Knights helping old men
+with the harvest; minstrels sent to sing to the bedridden instead of to
+an assemblage of bored ladies and gentlemen in a tapestried gallery. Much
+less talk of love and many more loving deeds. People wild to serve each
+other instead of themselves. All the land silent and helpful, instead of
+chattering and selfish! Such a change in the kingdom!
+
+The Wizard was everywhere, for the wall was beginning to be a real
+defense, and he spared no pains to see that every stone was strong.
+
+Now the fame of this wall reached King Theophile--for this was in the
+days of his warring--and he laughed on his throne and said, "Oh, little
+Nation, I will make mincemeat of thee, for I have every kind of weapon
+that is made, and many officials who do nothing all day but spy on other
+people and brandish their swords. What have you to oppose to such
+strength? Little kingdom, you will be but a road to my glory."
+
+So he made great preparations for war, and gathered together all the
+weapons that shed blood. There were many of these and he prided himself
+upon them, but in all his arsenal was not one instrument that could put
+shed blood back again into the veins of a man, which shows that
+ironworkers do not know everything.
+
+One fine day the King and all his armies came across the rocking waves
+and drove their boats upon the shores of The Kingdom of the Dark Wood
+which lay fair before them like a green and purple map edged with white
+where the breakers drove high. The land wind brought to their senses the
+odors of grapes, and the scent of apples and ripe grain. And the soldiers
+said to each other, "We will kill, then we will feast."
+
+They were impatient to overrun the land. Now the air-spies reported that
+but a small army had massed to meet the intruders, and that back of their
+ranks the inhabitants were peacefully at work gathering in the harvest.
+This seemed incredible. Then King Theophile gave his command to the army,
+"March forward"; and to the air-spies, "Fly on and drop burning brands on
+the fields."
+
+The army immediately set out. Far away the air-spies were seen beating
+the air like black rooks, but strangely enough they always remained in
+sight and seemed to get no further. At last they went high up into the
+clouds and disappeared.
+
+But the soldiers pressed on joyfully, for the sweet odors of vineyard and
+garden grew ever more ravishing; and now the land lay at their feet in a
+shimmering haze, through which the forests rose like deep cool islands
+with here and there a red roof, or a white church spire to tell of human
+habitation. And up through the haze like released spirits in paradise
+came with soft, steady motion, phalanxes of soldiers smiling.
+
+"By my sword that never sleeps," cried King Theophile, "their faces shall
+be gray ere nightfall, and they shall smile no more."
+
+Then all his soldiers made their swords sing and flash like waving grain
+of death; and they chanted together a song without joy. Suddenly the
+black dam of their war fury broke and, with the wild roar of an untamed
+cataract, they swept forward towards these still and smiling knights,
+with King Theophile on a high dark horse at their head.
+
+In his rage of conquest he dug his golden spurs into his horse's side,
+and the beast with quivering nostrils, leaped through space, then
+suddenly paused, quivering; nor could cry, or whip, or spur move him.
+Then King Theophile leaped down and rushed forward to see what was
+frightening the animal; and all at once he crashed against something
+hard, and his broken right arm fell to his side. He grew gray, not with
+pain but with sheer terror, for he could see nothing, yet his arm had
+been broken upon a substance that felt like granite.
+
+As he gazed wildly about him, he saw the first phalanx of his army pitch
+back with bleeding foreheads; and their eyes rolled in amazement, for
+they could see nothing, yet they had driven themselves against stones.
+
+"On! On!" cried King Theophile, for he trusted again to his senses which
+revealed only a peaceful landscape and in the distance, haloed with the
+mists, a calm army waiting and smiling. That smile of the foe was like
+poison in the King's veins, and again he rushed forward, this time to
+bruise and cut his head, so that the blood poured over his white mantle.
+
+Then he grew faint with fear as he beheld his soldiers clawing the
+empty airs and turning horror-stricken countenances to him. "Sire,"
+they whispered, "something is holding us back. Something is here that
+we do not see!"
+
+At that moment the air-spies dropped to the ground like tired birds. "The
+wind holds us back," cried one. "No!" exclaimed another, "we broke our
+machines against a wall miles in the air! This is a bewitched country."
+
+"We will wait and try again," said King Theophile.
+
+So they encamped on the spot, and far off in the haze they saw the other
+army pitch its tents, and they heard the soldiers singing. All night
+their banners waved in the wind and the faint music continued.
+
+At dawn King Theophile's army was astir, and those air-spies whose
+vehicles were still unbroken, began their flight violently--and were as
+violently pitched back. The phalanxes were ordered to advance, but some
+fell dead with horror as they drove their limbs against an unseen
+barrier. For the limpid air revealed only the placid fields; and in the
+distance among the golden shadows, men smiling like the still saints in
+paradisal meadows. "These be happy warriors," sighed the King, and for
+once in his life he longed to call the foe "brother" and ask how the
+harvest went; and to pillow his head on the same knapsack with a soldier,
+and so sleep sweet and brotherly.
+
+But the wall which shut out his hate, now shut out also his love, so that
+he could not walk across the fields and embrace those smiling warriors
+waiting in the sunshine for a battle that was never to take place.
+
+So sadly one day he turned his army back to the sea-strand, and the
+rocking boats, and away from the vision of calm eyes gazing at him
+through golden shadows, where the land lay fair and open.
+
+Now when the last of the fleet had disappeared below the horizon the
+people of the Dark Wood kingdom went mad with joy; and the Wizard was
+escorted to the palace by all the army. The Princess Myrtle and Prince
+Merlin met him at the entrance to the throne-room, and pages scattered
+flowers beneath his feet.
+
+"O Wise Man," cried the Princess, "how shall we reward thee for
+thy wisdom?"
+
+"Only children crave rewards," replied the Wizard. "It will be pleasure
+enough for me to return to my little hut and to hear the woodpeckers in
+the eaves; and to see the white owls fly when the stars glow above the
+dark forest branches."
+
+Now the Military Commander was the only person in the kingdom who was
+not sharing the general joy. He was grumpy because he had lost all the
+honor of winning a bloody battle. Even the sight of all his army alive
+and well could not soothe the wound to his vanity; so when the Princess
+and the Wizard were exchanging the last courtesies, he strode forward,
+bowed, and said:
+
+"Your Highness, this invisible wall is all very well, but how will our
+people reach the seacoast through this perpetual barrier? Can this mighty
+Wizard destroy what he has erected?"
+
+Then all the court looked at the Wizard, who asked to be led at once to
+the great concourse where the people were assembled. "This is a question
+to be settled by the nation and not by the court," he averred.
+
+So the knights and ladies moved like living flowers to the concourse
+where the people were assembled--the pure grain of the kingdom. And the
+Wizard called in a loud voice to them, "Men and women, is it your will
+that your good deeds be destroyed or remain in everlasting remembrance?
+For this wall will never keep any true soul from the sea, nor any honest
+man; but he that is a rogue will beat in vain against it!"
+
+Then the people shouted, "We will keep this wall which we have built with
+our good deeds."
+
+So the wall stood forever, but the Wizard journeyed home, and knew the
+joy of the tired traveler who sees his own little nook again. That night
+he ate his bread and drank his draught of water on his own doorstone; and
+watched the white owls fly, hoping that Wisdom would let him be quiet
+awhile in the arms of the forest before she sent him out again to teach
+the restless hearts of men.
+
+
+
+
+THE TREE IN THE DARK WOOD
+
+
+In the kingdom of the Princess Myrtle were many forests cut through with
+roaring streams which dashed and danced their way over immense shining
+black bowlders that looked like ebony bears lying in the current. So high
+were the trees of these woods that they shut out the sun, and he who
+walked through them felt himself among the columns of a gigantic temple.
+
+In the darkest wood of all people sometimes lost their way on bitter
+nights when the white stars hung just above the tree-tops and the
+frost-fairies filled the air with the little snaps and crackles of their
+orchestra--the queer, marred music of winter. The reddening of dawn found
+these poor adventurers frozen unless they had the good fortune to find
+what all the countryside knew as "The Tree in the Dark Wood."
+
+The whispers of generations had established the fact of the existence
+of this tree since the hour when the woodcutter, Peter Garland, had
+wandered too far into the forest, and had been benighted on the feast
+of St. Stephen when the air sometimes sings with snow. He had become
+half paralyzed with the cold, his poor lantern had gone out, and he was
+about to say his last prayers thinking he would never live until
+morning, when suddenly, in the midst of the whirling snow, he saw
+extended the limbs of a most beautiful tree. It was not so tall as the
+others, and shining fruit of a delicious appearance hung upon its
+branches amidst its thick foliage.
+
+Best of all, poor, half-frozen Peter felt a wonderful warmth glowing from
+its trunk, and with the warmth came a soft crimson light; so he stole up
+to it as if he were a little boy and this tree were his beautiful Mother;
+and he cuddled down in the arms of its great roots and went to sleep.
+
+When he woke up it was morning; and the sun was turning the surface of
+the snow into sheets of iridescent light. He yawned and stretched out his
+arms, then remembering his wonderful rescue of the evening before, he
+gazed upward, but saw only a tall pine tree with shining brownish cones
+pendant from its branches. Where was the beautiful green summer-tree hung
+with crimson fruit? Where was the light like the sun's rays through
+painted glass?
+
+"But here am I alive and warm," thought Peter. "And the night was bitter.
+This tree must change its shape at the footfall of evening; and I will
+mark it, lest it should be lost to us."
+
+So taking out his knife he cut three crosses in the bark of the tree;
+then setting his face to the sun, for his cottage lay to the east of the
+Dark Wood, he hacked the trees all along the way; and at last emerged in
+the path which led to his dwelling. His wife and all the neighbors, who
+had given him up for dead, came running to meet him with cries of joy;
+but when he told them what had happened they tapped their foreheads and
+glanced at each other. "Poor man," they said, "the frost-king hath stolen
+his wits."
+
+"But I marked the tree with three crosses," he cried, "and I can lead you
+straight to it."
+
+They laughed, but to humor him they said he might take them to his
+wonderful tree after dinner, when hot soup had given them all courage; so
+that afternoon there was a long procession of people trudging through the
+Dark Wood with Peter at their head. By the time he arrived at the tree he
+was trembling like a leaf with excitement. There, sure enough, stood a
+tall pine-tree marked with the three crosses, but it was otherwise in no
+way different from its fellows. "Yes, but wait for evening; then you will
+see it change," said Peter.
+
+They laughed a little and grumbled a little; but most of them had filled
+their lanterns and brought bread and cheese against a hungry time, and
+after all, it was not so cold in the forest, for the North Wind with his
+blue ballooned cheeks could not blow hard down those long avenues. Peter
+was full of excitement, for he was sure that the tree would become
+magical as soon as the sun set.
+
+When the last splashes of crimson had faded from the topmost boughs he
+began anxiously to watch the tree about which all the villagers had
+seated themselves in a circle after first scraping the snow from the dead
+leaves. Darker and darker grew the air, and brighter the stars, while far
+off in the forest the great cats began to talk to each other, and the
+owls hooted and flew. Suddenly Peter gave a cry of joy. "See! See! the
+wonderful fruit, the glowing leaves!"
+
+"Nonsense!" said his wife. "O, poor loon, he will never be right again!"
+and she began to weep into her apron.
+
+"It is true! It is true!" cried another voice, that of hard-worked Bennie
+Brown, who supported an old father and mother and a crippled sister by
+his labors.
+
+"Yes, it is the most beautiful tree," said a young girl, who had once
+sold her golden hair to buy bread for a mother with a new-born child. "O
+the wonderful fruit! the sweet warmth."
+
+The others stared and rubbed their eyes; and looked angry. "You lie,
+Bennie!" one cried; "You are a silly girl, Elsa," shrieked another.
+
+"They speak truth. See you not the crimson light?" spoke grave Henry
+Baird, who had rescued many from drowning in the mountain streams.
+
+Those who did not see grew more and more furious. "Crazy people," they
+cried. "Loons! silly babblers! will you teach us?" Then some began to
+beat Peter; others to belabor young Elsa, at which Bennie ran to her
+rescue, and being as brave as he was good, laid about him with his fists,
+and cried "Shame on you, to hurt a woman, because your own eyes are
+blind." Soon everyone was fighting, but those who saw the tree felt a
+great strength in all their limbs, and warmth and joy; so that they soon
+escaped from the brawling disappointed ones and ran lightly homeward with
+singing hearts.
+
+But the dispute thus started went on through many months until half the
+village refused to speak to the other half. Finally a good old hermit
+traveled over the ridges of the mountains and forded many streams to
+reach a place which had become famous by its quarrel. He arrived in
+harvest time. Those who knew that the tree glowed with life were in the
+fields quietly at work, for what had they to trouble them who had found
+the truth? but the others who could not see were leaning over each
+other's fences with their neglected gardens at their impatient heels; and
+arguing and arguing the matter.
+
+The hermit being a wise man asked no direct questions concerning the
+tree, but went himself that evening into the forest and there beheld
+the miracle.
+
+Next day he made friends with the villagers; and because warm words open
+the heart, soon the good hermit had the life histories of all the
+inhabitants, as well as the names of those who had seen the tree and
+those whose sight was blinded.
+
+After which he retired into the wood to think upon what he had learned;
+and to sort out his people like little colored beads. What he discovered
+was this: that all those who had made sacrifices for their fellows, like
+Bennie Brown and young Elsa, were able to see the tree, but the selfish
+and the hard-hearted and the indifferent could not behold it.
+
+When he was quite sure of this he went calmly back to the village and
+calling together all the inhabitants he told them exactly why some saw
+the tree and why it was hidden from the sight of others. These latter
+only laughed at his words, though some of them were cut to the heart, but
+they were too proud to reveal the wound.
+
+The hermit's explanation, however, was accepted by many; and rumor
+carried it far beyond the borders of the village, so that after a while
+the nobility heard of it, and the burghers in the walled towns where
+beautiful tapestries were always drowsing into wonderful life on looms
+that could weave dreams. The result was that it grew quite fashionable to
+journey to the tree to make a test of one's character, as people go to
+physicians to have their blood examined. In the bright summer evenings
+long processions could be seen winding like a varicolored serpent among
+the gray trees. Swords flashed, banners flew, troubadours sang snatches
+of little lilting airs like the rise and dip of birds' wings, and
+beautiful ladies jingled the golden bridles of their steeds.
+
+Few of these ladies brought their betrothed with them, lest they should
+be made ashamed by not being able to see the tree; and should thereby be
+discovered as possessing hard hearts beneath their sweet manners. It was
+rumored, indeed, that people known to be selfish and cruel had
+proclaimed, nevertheless, that they beheld a glorious tree, so that liars
+were made, and hypocrites. Others said this was but the jealousy of
+disappointed ones whose own lives had blurred their eyesight.
+
+Now in the realm dwelt a splendid young knight whose name was Sir
+Godfrey, and who took pleasure in all manner of chivalrous deeds towards
+the ladies of his own rank. He was tall and strong-limbed, with clear
+blue eyes, and a fresh skin, and when he wore his golden armor he looked
+like the pictures of St. George. His home was a low-set castle of aged
+stones held together by a vast ivy vine, and around the castle was a moat
+so deep that it gave back a midnight darkness to the noon sky.
+
+Now Sir Godfrey was in love with the Lady Beatrice whose lands adjoined
+his. She was pale and slender as any lily, with black heavy hair that had
+no light in it, but in her heart was much light; and because her soul
+mirrored more than her eyes, she did not love easily, which reluctance of
+hers was a grief to Sir Godfrey, who pressed his suit in vain.
+
+One day when the roses were full-blown and all the little lambs were
+skipping in the broad green fields, Sir Godfrey rode on his great white
+horse towards the castle of the Lady Beatrice which was high up on a
+hill, and faced the dawn. And he proudly rode because he saw that she was
+watching him from the rose-terraces. But after a while he beheld her no
+more, and he thought, "She knows I know she was watching." Pride put a
+smile on his lips, because she had never watched for him before.
+
+He spurred his horse to reach her the quicker while she was in this mood.
+Now just before he gained the gate of the castle a goose-girl with her
+geese blocked the road, and he cried impatiently, "Out of the way! out of
+the way!" and scarcely reined in his horse, so that there was danger of
+the girl's being hurt. She was quick on her feet, however, and sprang
+aside, but one poor bird was trampled under the steed's hoofs, at which
+the girl gave a sob and called out, "You are wicked, wicked!" Then he put
+his hand in his purse and drew out some gold pieces and flung them
+towards her; but she did not see them, for her face was buried in the
+down of the bird, which was a pet.
+
+When he reached the gate, there in the shadow of the arch stood the Lady
+Beatrice. Her face was as white as a gardenia flower, and she did not
+smile when she greeted him. He wondered what he had done to offend her,
+and after a page had led away his horse he employed all his graceful arts
+to win the smile he craved as a thirsty man longs for water. Sometimes
+she glanced at him from beneath her lashes as if seeking to read his
+soul; and once he saw her lips tremble, but the smile did not come.
+
+They were pacing up and down between the nodding roses that seemed to be
+saying to Sir Godfrey, "Kiss her! kiss her!" until no longer could he
+bear it, and he sank on one knee before her and poured out his heart.
+
+She listened like a maiden turned to snow. Then when he was silent she
+spoke thus to him: "Will you go with me and my ladies to the Tree in the
+Dark Wood this very night? If you can behold the Tree filled with fruit
+and rosy flame I will marry you, if not I cannot be your bride. But you
+must promise me upon the cross-hilt of your sword that you will speak
+truthfully. You must not deceive me to gain my hand."
+
+Then Sir Godfrey gave his word joyfully, for he was sure that he would
+behold the magical Tree. He thought of all his noble deeds and the
+beautiful ladies for whose sake he had tilted in tourney; and of all his
+prowess as a knight in king's courts.
+
+So when the sun was low, he with Lady Beatrice and her train of ladies
+rode forth from the gates towards the Dark Wood which lay like a cloud
+in the distance; and Sir Godfrey was full of song and jest, for he
+never doubted that soon he would be the betrothed of his beautiful
+lady; but she was silent and looked often towards the west where the
+rosy clouds slept.
+
+When the procession entered the wood it was as if the gray spaces had
+turned all at once into a garden. Flashes of jewels and silks threw magic
+colors on the twilight, and the troubadours in the train sang so sweetly
+that all the birds were mute. As night came on the, pretty little
+lanterns were lit and swung at the horses' bridles.
+
+The Tree was nearly reached when Lady Beatrice halted her procession and
+bade it await her and Sir Godfrey, for she loved him too well to have him
+mortified before other people; and she feared that he would not behold
+the glowing fruit-bearing Tree. But never a doubt crossed his mind, for
+he remembered all his noble deeds that he had performed beneath the eyes
+of gallant knights and fair ladies.
+
+So they rode on to the Tree, and he unhooked the lantern from his saddle
+and held it high.
+
+"Why do you do that?" asked the Lady Beatrice.
+
+"To find the three crosses," he said.
+
+"But the Tree is glowing like a jewel," she cried.
+
+Then he grew gray as the ashes of a long-spent fire, for he knew that he
+had failed; and his pride suffered a mortal wound, since it was greater
+than his love. "You are deceived, Lady Beatrice, like all the rest," he
+said. "There is no magic Tree."
+
+For answer she turned her horse and rode sadly away. Her heart was too
+heavy for speech. As he saw her going the sense of loss cut like a
+knife into his spirit, and his pain was keen, for he still loved for
+his sake and not for hers. She, seeing that he suffered, longed to
+comfort him, but she was not one of those who live for the moment, and
+she held her peace.
+
+When they reached the waiting procession everyone looked at Sir Godfrey,
+and his pride was, by the challenge of their eyes, again aroused, for he
+could do nothing, nor feel nothing unless he was before a mirror. So he
+began to be very gay; and though he would have scorned to speak a lie, he
+acted one that everyone might believe he had seen the magic Tree. But the
+Lady Beatrice remained silent and sad. When they reached her gates he
+asked her permission to enter; then she said: "Some day, not now."
+
+He rode away without a jest, for she had never before refused him any
+courtesy, and his heart was heavy within him. That night he could not
+sleep, but tossed upon his bed, sometimes grieving because he had not
+seen the magic Tree and so had been made of no worth in the Lady
+Beatrice's eyes; sometimes in anguish because she had not allowed him to
+enter her gates.
+
+But in all this he loved himself, so the pain was but transitory, and
+next day he put on his finest doublet of leaf-green satin lined with
+primrose silk and edged with pale corals, and rode to her gates. There
+the porter brought back word that the Lady Beatrice could not see him.
+
+Sir Godfrey was angry then, and he sought to make her jealous. Next day
+when at the jousts, he sat at the feet of her cousin, Lady Alladine, nor
+did he look towards the Lady Beatrice.
+
+But all that only heaped fire on his own heart, and he rode home to his
+castle with his brow dark. The singing birds seemed to mock him, and he
+thought he heard the shrill laughter of the goblin-men, who live in the
+deep dells. That night he could not sleep; but murmured again and again
+that she was his own love, and not the Lady Alladine.
+
+So full of meekness he rode next day to the castle of his heart's life,
+but the porter brought back to him the same message, and Sir Godfrey
+departed full of anguish. His pain, like a scourge, drove him on and on
+until he was far off in the desert amid the tangled and tripping briers
+and the keen-edged stones. The rain beat upon his head and upon his
+silken clothes, but he was unmindful of it, because he had begun to
+grieve not for himself, but for his sweet lost love.
+
+The days went by and he grew thin and worn with his grieving; and because
+he learned how salt is the taste of tears he began to pity everything
+that suffered. He was well-nigh worn out with his memories, for now he
+never thought of his noble deeds, but of the times when he had given pain
+to others. Often he remembered the poor goose-girl and her birds. At
+first he would say, "I gave her gold"; then a voice in his heart
+answered, "Gold cannot pay for life."
+
+So one day he went to the market-place and bought a fine gray goose with
+a bill as red as a cardinal's robe; and he tucked the bird under his arm,
+though the people jeered to see a noble knight carrying a goose. But Sir
+Godfrey cared not. He went straight to the village green where the
+goose-girl was leading her birds around, and bowed low before her as if
+she were a great lady.
+
+"I am sorry that I killed one of your flock," he said. "Will you take
+this fellow for forgiveness's sake?"
+
+Then the tears came into her eyes, and she took into her arms from his
+the gray goose whose bill was red as a cardinal's robe; and stroked
+his feathers.
+
+"Why do you cry?" asked Sir Godfrey.
+
+"I am glad you are a true knight," she answered.
+
+Then Sir Godfrey wished with all his heart that he might bring tears to
+the eyes of the Lady Beatrice, for he felt that never more would she
+believe him a true knight.
+
+The world was full of flying leaves, for it was autumn; then the winds
+died and the snows came. Bitter winter chained the mountain streams and
+laid the forests asleep. The stars shone blue, and on the windowpanes
+were fairy pictures.
+
+Now the time drew near the birth of Christ, and one day Sir Godfrey
+was overjoyed to receive a message from the Lady Beatrice, bidding him
+to a feast on Christmas Eve. It seemed to him that he could not wait
+for the hour to come, and all that day he thought upon the joy of
+beholding her again.
+
+Towards nightfall the wind rose and the snow began to fly, but to Sir
+Godfrey it was as if the air were full of dainty flowers. Nor did he
+regard the cold nor the whistling tempest, but rode in deep joy and
+humility to the castlegate of the Lady Beatrice.
+
+When he had nearly reached it he heard a feeble voice crying: "Stop, Sir
+Knight; for the love of heaven, stop!" and looking down he saw a bent old
+woman holding her hands out to him in supplication.
+
+Every moment's delay was as the point of a sharp sword against his heart,
+but he had himself suffered too much to turn from the voice of pain; and
+leaning from his saddle he said, "What can I do for you, Mother?"
+
+"Sir Knight," she replied, "my home lies on the farther side of the Dark
+Wood, and the neighbor who was to convey me thither has no doubt
+forgotten his promise. I have a sick son there for whose sake I made this
+journey. Wilt thou, for the love of heaven, take me up behind thee and
+convey me through the Dark Wood to my dwelling? I cannot walk through
+this tempest, and my son may die."
+
+Then Sir Godfrey was as a man turned into marble by enchantment, and his
+heart was sore with struggle. Before him were the lights of the castle
+which held his love. If he carried this woman to her home, he could not
+see his Lady Beatrice, who, perhaps, would never forgive him for not
+appearing at her summons.
+
+The thought was as death to him, and he looked broodingly down at the
+poor woman. "I am bidden to a feast, Mother," he said, "the porter of
+this castle will give you shelter for the night, and in the morning I
+will convey you through the Dark Wood to your home."
+
+"The morning may be too late, Sir Knight," she said sadly.
+
+Then without a word Sir Godfrey turned his horse, and though his heart
+was like lead, he bent a cheerful countenance to the stranger, and
+assisted her to the place behind the saddle, and off they rode together
+through the night and storm.
+
+Sir Godfrey spoke but little, since his thoughts were with the Lady
+Beatrice and the empty chair at the feast which should have been his. He
+saw her face imprinted on the night's dark veil and heard her voice
+calling him on the whistling wind. The old woman behind him muttered of
+the storm while on and on they rode.
+
+At last they entered the Dark Wood, and here they made slower progress,
+for the light of Sir Godfrey's little lantern was feeble and the trees
+cast confusing shadows. By and by the old woman began to moan that she
+was cold, that she felt herself dying of the cold. "O would that we could
+reach the Tree which sheds warmth and bears fruit even in this bitter
+weather," she cried. "O Knight, hasten forward to the Tree."
+
+But Sir Godfrey made no answer, for he was now sure that he should never
+be holy enough to behold the Tree; and he, too, felt the sorrow and cold
+of death creep upon him, and a dreadful fear that never again should he
+leave the Dark Wood alive, but would perish there miserably. He could no
+longer see the path, and the arms of the old woman clinging to him were
+like the touch of ice. "O Mother!" he cried, "Pray for our deliverance,
+for I have lost the road."
+
+At that moment his lantern went out, and he gave a cry of despair, for he
+had nothing wherewith to relight it.
+
+"Fear not," cried the old woman, "but press on."
+
+So through the dark he urged his horse, seeing nothing and feeling more
+dead than alive; for he now knew that both he and his passenger must
+perish of the cold.
+
+But even as he was resigning his heart to the will of heaven, he saw afar
+off a beautiful, clear, rosy light shedding long rays over the snow, and
+where the light lay the snowflakes fell no more, but a delicate breeze,
+soft and caressing, issued like a breath of spring from that circle. The
+old woman cried, "The Tree! the Tree!"
+
+Sir Godfrey's heart leaped with joy. He could not believe that he was
+at last worthy to behold the Tree, yet there it rose, oh, so glorious!
+its trunk glowing with a sweet, warm fire, its branches covered with
+lights and heavy with delicious fruit. He laughed with joy, while the
+old woman softly wept. Even the horse saw the fine sight, for he
+whinnied his pleasure.
+
+Then the knight dismounted and turned to lift the old woman down, when
+suddenly she threw back her hood, and straightened herself; and there,
+smiling into his eyes, was his own love, the Lady Beatrice. "O my true
+Knight," she cried. "For the sake of a stranger thou didst brave death.
+Now with thy love shalt thou live."
+
+Then Sir Godfrey cried out with joy and took her in his arms and kissed
+her many times, while from behind the Tree came running all the
+true-hearted nobles and peasants who had been able to see its wonders,
+and they all circled Sir Godfrey and the Lady Beatrice while they
+plighted their troth. Then all ate the fruit, and made merry in the rosy
+warmth until the Christmas morning dawned, when they went back in the
+sunshine to celebrate the marriage of Sir Godfrey and the Lady Beatrice,
+who lived happily ever afterwards; for how otherwise could it be with
+lovers that had together beheld the Tree in the Dark Wood?
+
+
+
+
+THE CAT THAT WINKED
+
+
+Once there was an old woman who lived on the edge of the Dark Wood in a
+small cottage all covered with thick thatch and over the thatch grew a
+honeysuckle vine; but at the gable where the chimneys clustered, the
+wisteria flung purple flowers in May.
+
+On the topmost chimney was a stork's nest, and there dear grandfather
+stork stood on one leg, unless he was wanted to carry a little baby to
+some house in the village; when he flapped his wings and flew away over
+the tree-tops to the Land of Little Souls.
+
+Now the old woman loved her home, because she had lived there many years
+with her husband. She loved the two worn chairs on each side of the great
+hearth, and her pewter dishes, and her big china water-pitcher with
+flowers shining on it--not for themselves, but for the reason that once
+someone had used them and admired them with her.
+
+Into the little latticed windows the roses peeped, and these Mother
+Huldah loved too, and tended carefully all through the sweet-smelling
+summer-time. But perhaps she liked best the long winter evenings when she
+spun by the fire and sang little songs like these:
+
+"My heart as a bird has flown away,
+  (Princess, where? Princess, where?)
+Into the land that is always gay,
+  Out of the land of care.
+
+"But no bird flies alone to bliss,
+  (Princess, why? Princess, why?)
+I have no answer but a kiss,
+  And then the open sky."
+
+Nobody listened but Tommie, who was an immense black cat, held in great
+reverence by the villagers, for he had the greenest eyes and the longest
+whiskers and the heaviest fur of any cat in the kingdom. Moreover, he had
+hundreds of mice to his credit and no birds, for he was a good and wise
+grimalkin. Sometimes he talked with his tail and sometimes he opened his
+pink mouth and said just as plain as words that he had been stalking
+through the moonlight and had seen old Egbert go limping home as if he
+had the rheumatism.
+
+So next day Mother Huldah with her little bag of medicines and ointments
+would go to old Egbert's hut, and sure enough, find him bedridden; or
+Tommie would tell her that Charlemagne the stork had carried a baby to a
+poor mother who had no clothes for it. Then Mother Huldah would go to her
+great cedar chest and take out linen that smelled all sweetly of
+lavender, and carry it with some good food to the poor woman.
+
+Mother Huldah was so kind and generous that everybody got in the habit of
+taking things from her without sometimes so much as a "thank you," or an
+inquiry as to her own health. But the little children loved her because
+she made them pretty cakes; and told them the stories she used to tell
+her own children, her two fine sons who were soldiers. These sons sent
+her the money upon which she lived and out of which she made her little
+charities, and they wrote her fine brave letters, and every year they
+came home to see her, bearing beautiful presents from foreign lands,
+ivory toys and shining silks (which she always gave to some bride) and
+workboxes of sweet-scented wood richly carved--to show how much they
+loved her.
+
+One dreadful year a great war broke out, and not long after Mother Huldah
+heard that her two sons had been killed, and she herself thought she
+would follow them through grief. But she lived on and as she grew more
+sorrowful she went less and less to the village, and people began to
+forget her. Even the little children stayed away since she had no longer
+the heart to tell them the tales she had once told her sons; and she must
+no longer bake the little cakes since every day saw her small hoard of
+money diminishing.
+
+At last, when the winter tempests were raging, and the sleet was beating
+upon the thatch, there came a day when no food remained in the cottage;
+and Mother Huldah felt too weak and sick to go out in quest of it. Nor
+did she wish to tell her neighbors that no food remained in the cottage.
+
+So full of weary dreams and old sad thoughts she sat down in one of the
+armchairs before the fire, and whether she nodded from drowsiness, or
+whether Tommie nodded at her she never knew, but he moved his black head
+and opened his pink mouth, and said he, "Suppose I fetch you a bird just
+this once."
+
+She was much surprised, for Tommie had never talked to her before, but
+she did not show how astonished she was because she was always very
+polite to him. So she replied, "Bless your whiskers! Tommie! but we won't
+break through our rule. Maybe some neighbor will fetch me a loaf!"
+
+"Maybe they will and perhaps they won't," said Tommie, "they're an
+ungrateful lot."
+
+"They think I am still rich, my dear," she answered.
+
+"So you are, but not in the way they mean," Tommie said. "And,
+Mother Huldah, if they neglect you a day longer it won't be your
+Tommie's fault."
+
+Then Mother Huldah shook her finger at him. "You switch your tail just as
+if you were going to steal something. Tommie, I brought you up better
+than that."
+
+"Steal! nonsense!" cried Tommie. "Most of 'em have more than they
+need, anyway."
+
+"Tommie, I believe you're hungry, or your morals wouldn't be so queer!"
+Mother Huldah said reprovingly.
+
+"Hungry!" exclaimed Tommie. "I dream of lobster claws and chicken wings
+and blue saucers full of yellow wrinkled cream, twelve in a row. No
+wonder my morals are queer!"
+
+Then what happened was that poor Mother Huldah dozed off to sleep and
+when she awoke there was Tommie staring into the fire, his green eyes
+like two lanterns and his whiskers standing out very stiff and knowing,
+and at Mother Huldah's' feet was a wicker basket from which issued a most
+appetizing odor. "Why, Thomas" (she always called him Thomas in solemn
+moments), "what's this?"
+
+"Your dinner," said Tommie, and yawned like a gentleman who lights a
+cigarette and says, "O hang it all! what a beastly bore life is."
+
+"Thomas," questioned Mother Huldah solemnly, "where did you get this
+dinner?" for she had taken the cover off the basket and found a small
+roast chicken with vegetables and a bread pudding.
+
+"Why, I was strolling down the gray lane when I met a woman carrying that
+basket and I smelled chicken; so up I stood on my hind legs, and winked
+at her and I said, 'Thank you, I know you are taking that to Mother
+Huldah; let me carry it the rest of the way.'"
+
+But Mother Huldah cried, "Maybe the dinner wasn't for me, and you
+frightened her so she had to give it to you."
+
+Tommie yawned again. "Don't you think that the best thing you can do with
+a good dinner is to eat it?"
+
+So Mother Huldah ate her dinner, hoping all the while that she was making
+an honest meal; then, when she had fed Thomas, she asked him if
+Charlemagne was on the roof. "Indeed, no!" cried he. "Charlemagne has
+flown to the war country to fetch you a baby!"
+
+"Alas!" cried Mother Huldah. "I pity the poor babes, but how can I bring
+up a baby?"
+
+"It is your granddaughter," said Tommie. "Charlemagne told me that a year
+ago your son Rupert married, but he meant to bring his bride home as a
+surprise to you. Then the war broke out and--"
+
+"O poor little daughter-in-law!" cried Mother Huldah. "Did she break
+her heart?"
+
+"Yes, and so she followed Rupert to the Country of the Brave Souls; but
+Charlemagne is fetching the baby in a warm woolen napkin tied up at the
+four corners; and when his wings get tired from flying he puts a bit of
+sugar and a drop of water in the baby's mouth and leans his feathery
+breast against its little feet to keep them warm!"
+
+"Yes! yes!" said Mother Huldah, "a baby's feet should be always kept
+warm--but, dear me, dear me, the Sweet One will need milk before long,
+and the grain of the whole wheat to help her grow! I have no money to buy
+her food."
+
+Tommie looked very wise. "Mother Huldah," he said as he drew a black paw
+knowingly over one ear, "don't you know that wherever a baby comes, help
+comes? Open the linen chest and get your shining shears and begin to make
+little shirts and dresses. I think I'll take a look at the weather."
+
+He made the last remark carelessly like a young gentleman who will stroll
+out and leave the women-folk to their devices.
+
+"O Tommie!" said Mother Huldah, "you are not going to do anything
+impulsive?"
+
+"Mother Huldah," replied Tommie, "did you ever know a cat to do anything
+impulsive unless he saw a bird, or a mouse?"
+
+With that he left her, and she watched him walk away down the forest path
+with the sunlight glistening on his coat and his tail held high and
+straight. Sometimes he would pause and lift one foot daintily, the toes
+curling in. Mother Huldah always said that Tommie heard not with his ears
+but with his whiskers, and perhaps it was true.
+
+Tommie himself was making his own plans as he went along. "If I tell
+these villagers outright that Mother Huldah is in need, each person will
+think, 'O well, Neighbor Jude, or Gossip Dorcas has more to spare than I.
+Someone else will take care of the poor old lady, I am sure.' And it will
+end in her getting nothing at all. I will not talk about her, but to each
+person I will talk about himself, for that is the way to get people
+interested."
+
+At which Tommie smiled, and because his great-grandfather was a Cheshire
+Cat, his smile gave him a wise and jovial look, as if the Sphinx of Egypt
+should suddenly see a joke. With a good heart he went daintily on his
+way, shaking the snow from his paws at times, until he reached the
+village green. Now in the middle of the green stood the pump, made of
+wood with a flat top. On this Tommie seated himself, put his paws neatly
+together, folded his tail about them, made his green eyes perfectly
+round, and stared straight ahead of him.
+
+Now even a cat when he looks as if he could think for himself will draw
+people's attention; especially if he seems to enjoy his thoughts. And
+Tommie, seated on the pump in the bright winter sunshine, looked as if he
+had something in his mind that pleased him.
+
+"Heigh-O," said one of the passers-by. "Here's a witch-cat!"
+
+"You are mistaken," replied Tommie with a wink. "I belong to Mother
+Huldah, and she is the best woman in the village."
+
+The man was so astonished that he dropped a parcel of eggs he was
+carrying, and they were all broken.
+
+"That's what comes," said Tommie, "of imagining evil where none exists."
+
+The man was so angry that he made some snowballs hastily and began to
+pelt Tommie with them; but Tommie understood the beautiful art of
+dodging--which some people never learn all their lives--so he didn't get
+hit. By this time a crowd had gathered about the angry man, and were
+asking him what was the matter.
+
+"Matter!" he shrieked, "that black object on the pump gave me impudence!"
+
+"Heigh-O!" cried little Elsa. "How could a cat give thee impudence!"
+
+"Ask him then," said the man. "He can talk like any Christian."
+
+At which the crowd all looked at Tommie, who winked at them and said,
+"Does anybody here want to ask me any questions? I'll tell him what he
+wants to know in perfect confidence between him and me and the pump. If
+my answer pleases him, he can give me a silver piece. If my reply make
+his heart go pit-a-pat with joy he can give me a gold piece. If he
+doesn't like my answers, he needn't give me anything. Now that's fair,
+isn't it?"
+
+Then everybody looked at everybody else, and dropped their jaws and
+rubbed their eyes. Nobody stirred for a minute, then a fine young fellow
+stepped forward, blushing. This was Carl, the miller's son, who was
+straight as a birch-tree, and had blue eyes like deep lakes, and he
+walked right up to the pump, and bowed, then he whispered into Tommie's
+ear, "Does Lucia love me?"
+
+Tommie winked his right eye and smiled. "Carl," he replied, "get up
+your courage and ask her to-day, for she loves you better than anyone
+in the world."
+
+Then Carl felt his heart go pit-a-pat, and all the snow wreaths on the
+trees seemed to turn to bridal flowers. "Thanks, dear and wise Pussy," he
+said, and took out his handkerchief and spread it at Tommie's feet and on
+it he placed not one, but three gold pieces.
+
+When the villagers saw the gold pieces glittering in the sun and beheld
+the radiant face of Carl, they all began to wonder, and each person
+wanted to try his own luck. "After all," said each one to himself, "if I
+don't like what the cat says I needn't pay him anything."
+
+The next person to go up was the village tanner, whose skin was like
+leather and whose eyes were little like a pig's. Tommie was already
+acquainted with him, having been kicked out of his tannery once when on
+an innocent mousing expedition.
+
+"Say," said the tanner, "will my Uncle Jean leave me his farm?"
+
+"No," answered Tommie, winking his left eye. "That he won't! He knows you
+are always wishing he would die!"
+
+The tanner was so angry that he snarled: "Don't you ever let me catch you
+around the tannery again, or I'll make you into a muff for my daughter."
+
+"Black furs are not fashionable this winter," said Tommie. "Next?"
+
+Everybody laughed when they saw that the tanner hadn't paid money for
+his information, and so, presumably, didn't like it. But strangely
+enough, instead of discouraging this led them on to try their luck; and
+the next person who came to ask Tommie a question was poor, old,
+half-blind Henley the miser. He put his mouth close to the cat's ear, so
+the people behind him wouldn't catch what he said, and in a hoarse voice
+he asked, "Say, old whiskers, will my fine ship loaded with dates and
+spices reach Norway safely?"
+
+"Yes, it will," said Tommie, "long before your withered old soul will
+reach a haven of peace."
+
+Henley was so excited over the first words that he didn't even hear the
+last ones. He hopped about on one leg, and was rushing off at last when
+Tommie cried, "Heigh-O, you haven't paid me!"
+
+The miser felt in his pockets and drew out a silver coin and laid it on
+the handkerchief.
+
+"Not at all," said Tommie. "Remember the Worth of that cargo! Gold
+or nothing."
+
+Henley began to whine. "I'm a poor old man, Tommie. I'll leave the cream
+jug on the doorstep every day and no questions will be asked!"
+
+"I'm not a thief," answered Tommie. "Mother Huldah brought me up better
+than that. Come, you don't want to have any quarrel with a black cat."
+
+Whereupon Henley reluctantly drew from his pocket a gold piece, while all
+the villagers opened their eyes very wide, and wondered what Tommie could
+have told the old gentleman to make him so liberal.
+
+The next person to come up was a little shy girl named Clara. She had big
+brown eyes and fair floating hair, and under her white chin and about her
+little white wrists were soft furs; for her father was a wealthy
+moneylender. She came close to Tommie and whispered, "Tell me, beautiful
+Pussy, if I shall ever win the love of Joseph Grange."
+
+Tommie winked his right eye several times and replied, "My dear, I see
+it coming!"
+
+She flushed with joy. "And what shall I do to hasten it?"
+
+Tommie reflected a moment. "Be pleasant, but not anxious. A lady with
+an anxious expression has little chance of winning a lover! Don't
+invite him too often; don't talk too much. Now I haven't hurt your
+feelings, have I?"
+
+"No, indeed," she said, for she was a young lady of good sense. "And
+Tommie, dear, will you take these gold pieces to Mother Huldah. She was
+so good to me when I was a little girl, and because I have been so
+absorbed in my own affairs I haven't been to see her lately."
+
+"That's the trouble with being in love," said Tommie, "it's apt to make
+people selfish, and it should make them love and remember everybody. It
+does when it's the real thing."
+
+Little Clara clasped her hands earnestly. "I will come to see Mother
+Huldah this afternoon," she said, "and bring her some cakes of my
+own baking."
+
+After Clara one person and another came up. Some asked foolish questions,
+some wise. Some paid down money, others didn't, but the pile of gold and
+silver at Tommie's feet grew steadily.
+
+Now all novelties, even talking cats, soon cease to be novelties, and
+towards afternoon when the villagers saw how much of their money lay at
+Tommie's feet, some of them began to be discontented. Of these the tanner
+was the ringleader, and he said to the other grumblers, "If we can get
+that lying cat off the pump, we can then take his money. I have three big
+rats in the trap at the tannery, and I know Tommie is starving hungry by
+this time. We'll let 'em loose on the ground in front of the pump. When
+he makes a spring one of you grab the money and run."
+
+Now the tanner had guessed right. Tommie was hungry, but he was
+determined to keep his post until sundown. After a while no more people
+came, and he was just thinking he would take up the handkerchief by the
+four corners and go home, when he espied a group of people approaching.
+Suddenly, oh, me, oh, my! three dinners were scampering towards him, such
+rats, such big, splendid rats in fine condition. Tommie had never used
+such self-control in all his nine lives, but he sat tight and though his
+whiskers showed his agitation he never budged.
+
+The tanner was mad clear through, and he cried out, "He's a wizard; he
+ought to be killed" because some people can't see others controlling
+themselves without thinking there's something wrong with them. Then he
+began to make snowballs and to pelt poor Tommie. Now Tommie, as has been
+said, was a good dodger, but nevertheless when it rains snowballs it's
+hard not to get hit. It might have fared badly with him had not some
+knights and ladies at that moment appeared on the scene in the train of
+the beautiful Princess Yolande, one of the fairest princesses in all the
+realm. She rode a great white horse, and she was robed in cream velvet
+and white furs, while about her slender waist was a girdle of gold set
+with sapphires which were as blue as her eyes. By her side rode Lord
+Mountfalcon. He was all in black armor, for he was mourning a brother who
+had died in the distant war.
+
+Love as well as grief filled his heart, for his dark eyes were
+continually upon the beautiful Princess, who now reined in her horse and
+cried out in a sweet voice, "Shame upon you men to hurt a poor cat."
+
+"He is a wizard and he belongs to a witch," called out the tanner.
+
+"O what a wicked lie," said Tommie. "I don't care what names you call me,
+but my mistress is one of the best women in the land. She has come to
+poverty in her old age. For her sake and to get her a little money, I've
+sat here all day answering truthfully all questions. Now, dear Princess
+Yolande, believe me, for I am a true cat."
+
+The Princess was so astonished that she couldn't speak for a moment. At
+last she turned to Lord Mountfalcon and said: "Truly, we have come to
+wonderland. I'd rather believe the cat than the people who were pelting
+him, and I have a mind to test his powers. Let us alight and ask him
+questions."
+
+Then they all dismounted and with the pages and the ladies and the
+gentlemen in armor the scene was as gay as the stage of an opera.
+Everybody chatted and laughed, and some of the court ladies stroked
+Tommie's fur with their pretty white hands; and one took off her bracelet
+and hung it about his neck.
+
+But when the Princess Yolande went forward to ask her question, everyone
+fell back. Then with sweet dignity, as became a princess, she stood
+before Tommie and said, "Tell me if Lord Mountfalcon love me truly."
+
+Tommie didn't wink, for he knew the ways of court, his grandfather having
+been chief mouser to old King Adelbert; but he purred a warm good purr,
+like a mill grinding out pure white grain.
+
+"If the sky in heaven be blue,
+Then Mountfalcon loves you true;
+If the sun set in the West,
+Lord Mountfalcon loves you best."
+
+"You see," he added, "I'm not much of a poet, but those are the facts."
+
+"Never was bad verse so sweet to me," cried the Princess and she put down
+a whole bag of gold at Tommie's feet.
+
+After her came Lord Mountfalcon himself with that sad grace of his, and
+all his spirit shadowed with love and grief. "Sir Puss," he said, "shall
+I wed ever the Princess Yolande?"
+
+"Before there are violets in the vales of the kingdom," replied Tommie.
+
+"Two saddlebags will not hold the gold I shall give thee," exclaimed
+the nobleman.
+
+"Bring them to the cottage where Mother Huldah lives," said Tommie. "And
+I ask this further favor: When you leave this spot will you take me up
+behind you and give this money to a page to convey; and so bring me
+safely home with the wealth, for I fear mischief from the tanner."
+
+"Most willingly," said Mountfalcon. "I will present your request to the
+Princess."
+
+After him all the court came with questions; so when the page advanced
+to gather up the money the load was almost more than he could carry.
+Then Tommie jumped down from his perch, and another page lifted him
+safely on to the big warm back of Lord Mountfalcon's horse, which felt
+fine and comforting to poor Tommie's feet. He was so tired that he took
+forty winks after he had told the Princess how to reach the cottage of
+Mother Huldah.
+
+When he woke they were all in the dim forest and the Princess Yolande and
+Lord Mountfalcon were talking in low tones like the whisper of the wind
+through flowers; and it seemed as if their talk were all of love and
+dreams and far-away griefs and tears that must fall.
+
+At last they reined in their horses where Mother Huldah stood at her gate
+peering into the forest. When she saw the beautiful lady and the noble
+knight and Tommie on the horse's back, she cried out, "O bless you, Sir
+Knight, for bringing him home."
+
+"And I've brought a fortune with me, Mother Huldah," cried Tommie.
+
+At this Mother Huldah looked troubled. "Gracious Lady," she addressed the
+Princess, "I hope my cat has not been up to mischief."
+
+"No, bless him," replied the Princess; then she told all that Tommie had
+done. "And fear not to take the money, Mother," she added, "for those who
+gave it did so of their free-will."
+
+"Alas! I would not take it," sighed Mother Huldah, "had not my Rupert and
+my Hugh died in the great war; and Rupert's wife went with him to the
+Kingdom of the Brave Souls; and I expect Charlemagne to-night with their
+little baby."
+
+"Rupert? what Rupert?" asked Lord Mountfalcon, leaning down from
+his horse.
+
+"Rupert Gordon; I am Huldah Gordon, his bereaved mother!"
+
+Then Mountfalcon removed his cap, alighted from his horse and bowed low
+before Mother Huldah. "He died gloriously. He died trying to remove my
+poor brother from danger," he said. "Now let me be as a son to you, for
+sweet memory's sake."
+
+[Illustration: CHARLEMAGNE BRINGS THE BABY TO MOTHER HULDAH]
+
+Then they all wept softly, for even to hear of those battles and those
+Silent Ones in the Kingdom of the Brave Souls was to behold the world
+through tears. And the Princess Yolande alighted and kissed Mother
+Huldah's hands and promised to visit her often.
+
+So with many true words they parted at last, and Mother Huldah was left
+alone with Tommie and the bags of gold and silver, which she took indoors
+and then returned to scan the sky where now the white stars hung and a
+thin half-circle of a moon. Tommie romped in the snow for the joy of
+stretching his legs. After a while he said, "Listen, don't you hear
+something, Mother Huldah?"
+
+"I would I heard wings!" she cried.
+
+"But I hear wings," said Tommie. "Watch! watch where the North
+Star burns!"
+
+So Mother Huldah watched, and soon she saw the great outspread wings
+of Charlemagne and saw his long bill with something hanging from the
+end of it.
+
+"My word, here's the baby," called out Tommie. "Hello, Charlemagne, you
+old Grandpa! have you kept that precious infant warm?"
+
+But Charlemagne alighted on his feet and walked solemnly to Mother Huldah
+and laid in her arms the softest, sweetest, pinkest little baby that she
+had ever seen. There was golden down on its head, and its little hands
+were folded like rosebuds beneath its tiny chin.
+
+Mother Huldah felt its feet to know if they were warm; then she cried
+and sobbed and held the little thing to her breast; and trembled for
+love of it.
+
+"Take it before the fire," said Tommie. "We're all tired to-night and
+it will be good to drowse and dream. Good-night, Charlemagne. The
+chimney's warm."
+
+So the stork flew up to the roof, and Mother Huldah took her treasure and
+held it in her warm, ample lap before the fire; and Tommie winked and
+dozed and looked at the baby with his great green eyes, while Mother
+Huldah sang:
+
+"The gold of the world will fade away,
+  Baby sleep! Baby sleep!
+But thou wilt live in my heart alway,
+  Sleep, my darling, sleep.
+
+"The gold of the world it comes and goes,
+  Baby sleep! Baby sleep!
+But thou wilt bloom like a summer rose,
+  Cease my soul to weep."
+
+
+
+
+THE MAGIC TEARS
+
+
+There was once a king named Theophile who lived in a dim castle on the
+edge of the ocean, but so far above the water that the flying spray never
+reached its lowest terrace; and only the strongest-winged seagulls could
+circle its towers and turrets. It was a strange, melancholy, beautiful
+place, where the light shimmered on the walls like the ripple of water,
+and in the shadows of the massive walls the flowers waved all day in the
+sea-wind like little princesses who would dance before they died.
+
+King Theophile had led many armies to victory, driving his golden
+white-sailed boats upon far-off coasts, but from each conquest he
+returned the sadder because he had made many people hate him, and had won
+no one's love. Nor could he find a woman who would wed him, because of
+the sorrows of his line, which were great.
+
+When he was not at war he would labor for his kingdom until sunset, and
+at that hour he would leave his Council Chamber to pace the terraces and
+gaze seaward over the rocking blue-green waves, while his minstrels sang
+to him. Only music could drive away his care, so always a page with a
+golden harp followed him. Sometimes he would bid everyone be gone but
+this boy, and the two would glide like shadows through the long galleries
+where the bluish tapestries hung; or brood together by the roaring fire
+when the sleet rattled on the casements.
+
+One spring day when it seemed as if even the ocean air wafted the
+fragrance of little pale flowers and the sun shone warmly on the old gray
+walls of the castle, the King and the boy wandered into the garden of the
+white lilacs; where, on a marble bench, King Theophile seated himself,
+and listened while the boy sang:
+
+"My love came out of an old dream,
+  And took away my peace;
+And now I dare not sleep again,
+  Until this heartache cease."
+
+"Did he ever know slumber again, I wonder," said the King. "O boy, of
+what use are your love-songs!"
+
+"To arouse love in your heart, Sire!"
+
+"What good is that when I have no maiden to love!"
+
+"Listen, Sire," said the boy. "You are going to war with King Mace who
+has a most beautiful daughter, the Princess Elene. When you have
+overthrown him, bring her to your kingdom and wed her."
+
+"A strange way to win the love of a woman," said the King, "by invading
+her father's kingdom. Nevertheless, I will have regard to the maiden."
+
+"I have heard," said the page, "that they who once behold her are
+restless ever afterwards from the wound of her beauty."
+
+The King nodded wearily. "There are women like that--gleams from lost
+stars; faces seen at sunset; or where the light is lifting after a storm.
+I have never cast eyes on such a maid."
+
+"When you see the Princess Elene you will behold her," said the page.
+
+"I will set forth to war immediately," announced the King.
+
+Soon thereafter he sailed away, and over the rocking billows went the
+golden boats until they drove upon the coasts of King Mace's land, where
+bitter battles were fought and many men laid asleep with the sword. Then
+came a day when all was quiet, and even King Mace pillowed his royal head
+on his dead horse, and woke no more.
+
+Then King Theophile entered the little sunny palace where all was so
+silent, and strode through the echoing corridors to the throne room.
+There alone, beneath a canopy of azure satin, on the great throne sat a
+woman whose face was like a gleam from a lost star. She had proud lips,
+and hair that was like cloth of gold about her, and eyes that were wells
+of sorrow. When he beheld her, King Theophile's limbs became as weak as a
+new-born child's, and he heard the sound of a far-off wind that had
+traveled from the Kingdom of Lost Hope. He knew that henceforth for him
+there must be either love or death.
+
+"O Princess," he cried, "they are all asleep. But thou and I are awake."
+
+"Nay," she replied, "they are awake. Their spirits crowd this hall to
+wring my heart with pity; but thou art asleep."
+
+Her words were like a sword in his breast, and kneeling before her, he
+cried: "Come with me to my Kingdom. Thou art my only Love."
+
+"Thou mayst force me to wed thee," she replied, "but the sword which can
+slay, can never wake love to life. Thou hast come to the end of thy
+conquests."
+
+Then King Theophile tasted the bitterness of death as the men who slept
+from the stroke of his sword could never taste it. And because he was not
+a man to put his soul into the keeping of his tongue, he made no answer,
+but in his secret heart he resolved to win her love, though the adventure
+cost him years of pain.
+
+So while he lingered in her kingdom, building costly monuments to the
+dead, and showering gold on the wounded, and sending into fine houses the
+homeless whose hearts ached for vanished humble hearths; while he worked
+to draw life out of death, he spared no effort to bring a smile to the
+lips of the Princess Elene.
+
+But she never smiled, and though her heart was breaking, she could not
+weep. Often she said to her women, "Pray that I may have the gift of
+tears," but always her eyes remained dry, like the vision of those who
+have gazed too long on fire.
+
+To King Theophile she seemed the very Beauty of the World, as in her
+black robes she sat in her garden at her tapestry frame, or listened with
+veiled eyes to the singing of his minstrels. And in his heart was a
+battle greater than any he had ever waged in desolated lands, for his
+nobler self told him he had no right to wed her. But his wild love drove
+like a tempest across these whispers.
+
+[Illustration: KING THEOPHILE AND QUEEN ELENE]
+
+So at last he married her in the dim cathedral church of her dead
+father's kingdom, with pomp of flowers and lights and nuptial music, and
+she was as pale as those who live long underground.
+
+Then the golden boats drove home across the rocking billows, and one day
+the Queen Elene, as she was now titled, lifted her eyes and beheld the
+gaunt castle of King Theophile cutting the sky. A mist seemed to hang all
+its turrets with fog and vapor. Elene remembered the shining happy little
+castle of her vanished kingdom, and her heart was bitter with tears, but
+she could not shed them.
+
+King Theophile, gazing upon her face, read her thoughts, for he had the
+second-sight of lovers; and his heart was as lead in his breast. He was
+jealous of the very years when he had not known her. Her beauty troubled
+him like a half remembered name, and when he was in her presence he had
+the trembling of illness upon him, and when away from her he was as
+restless as a fallen leaf that the wind blows.
+
+Through many days and weeks he wooed her to bring the smile to her lips,
+but always she grew whiter and more desolate; so that when she walked the
+terraces above the boiling surf, she seemed like a white flower torn of
+its petals and tossed up by the bitter waves.
+
+At the end of a year there came a daughter from the Kingdom of the Little
+Souls, and lay like a white bud on the Queen's bosom. Then at last Elene
+smiled and wept, but her strength was gone; and soon afterwards she
+closed her eyes and went to sleep.
+
+King Theophile's heart was broken, for the baby, and not he, himself, had
+made Elene smile and weep. When the days of the court mourning were over
+the little daughter was christened, and to her christening came all the
+wise women of the kingdom. Each told what this child would be. One said,
+"She will have the beauty of shimmering rainbows"; another, "She will be
+as wise as she is good." But the Wisest Woman of all said, "Every person
+will read his future in her tears."
+
+Now this prophecy troubled King Theophile and awoke love in his heart for
+his little daughter, who was already showing how beautiful she would be
+some day. So he watched over her, and made one of his echoing rooms into
+the royal nursery.
+
+Now the nurses knew what the Wisest Woman had said--that the tears of
+this Princess would be a magic mirror of the future; and one day when
+the child was two years old, the head nurse, who had a sweetheart and
+wished to know whether she would marry him, resolved to make the
+little girl cry.
+
+Now she was puzzled how to do this, for the royal maid was sweet-tempered
+and obedient; but the nurse knew that Elene loved most dearly a beautiful
+doll as big as herself, so one afternoon, when the Princess was clasping
+this treasure to her little breast, the nurse making sure first that no
+one was looking, snatched it from her and threw it into the sea.
+
+[Illustration: THE NURSE SEES HER WEDDING IN THE PRINCESS'S TEARS]
+
+The baby-princess when she saw her darling doll falling into the water
+began to wail, and tears came into her eyes. Then her nurse knelt before
+her, and saw in those tears her own wedding. So happy was she over this
+sight that she jumped up and began to caper about, heeding not the sobs
+of the poor little Princess.
+
+But King Theophile heard them and came out with a face of thunder.
+"Woman," he cried, "why do you dance when a princess weeps?"
+
+Then the nurse came to her senses and grew gray with fear. She tried to
+mutter some excuse, but King Theophile dismissed her on the spot and
+gathering up his baby into his arms, took her into the nursery, and wiped
+away her tears. Yet her sobs did not cease and she was too little to tell
+him of her woe.
+
+The nurse, though she left the King's service, did marry immediately; and
+began to whisper how she had seen her wedding in the tears of the
+Princess Elene, which word was to work out cruelly for the royal child.
+From that day on those about her, though they loved her dearly, could not
+refrain from trying their fortune in her tears. As she grew older and
+more understanding it was a difficult matter to know how to make her cry
+without incurring suspicion.
+
+But even a wrong will finds its way, and little Elene grew up wondering
+why people were so unkind to her; and why there was so much sadness in
+the world, for when all else failed the minstrels could make her weep by
+singing of "old, unhappy far-off things, and battles long-ago."
+
+King Theophile did not know of these troubles of his little daughter, for
+she had learned early that her tears hurt him, so she concealed them from
+him. All his joy was now in her, for she was the very image of her dead
+mother, and beautiful as a dawn of May day. When she danced she was like
+the light that ripples over the flowers; when she sang the souls of all
+young birds seemed to float on her voice.
+
+The fame of her beauty went through many kingdoms, and with the legend of
+her loveliness was told the strange tale of her magic tears.
+
+Now three young princes from three great States, fell ardently in love
+with Elene from the mere breath of the rumor of her charms. The first was
+Prince Tristan, the second Prince Martin, the third Prince Lorenzo; and
+both Prince Tristan and Prince Martin were sure of winning.
+
+But Prince Lorenzo was not at all sure, because he had lost much in his
+short life, and knew that love is like the wind that comes and goes; like
+the fire that leaps into the night and is seen no more; like the star
+that flashes across the dark zenith and then vanishes.
+
+One May morning the three Princes arrived to try their fortunes and to
+sue for the hand of the Princess Elene. Prince Tristan, who was straight
+and handsome, put on his best white satin doublet and stuck a rose behind
+his ear. Prince Martin put on glittering armor like a knight going to
+battle; but Prince Lorenzo was so consumed with love that he thought not
+at all of what he wore.
+
+King Theophile himself led them into the presence of the Princess Elene,
+who was clad in a silk robe that shimmered like a rainbow, and who looked
+so beautiful that for an instant Prince Lorenzo put his hand before his
+eyes. The two other princes gazed straight at the lady; then made grand
+sweeping bows.
+
+"May I tell you," said Prince Tristan, holding out his rose, "that you
+are the most beautiful princess I have ever seen?"
+
+"May I tell you," said Prince Martin, "that your eyes are like stars?"
+
+Prince Lorenzo remained mute because his heart was too full for speech,
+and King Theophile looked coldly upon him; but the Princess Elene gazed
+at him until he blushed. Then she seated herself on her throne and bade
+the princes speak to her of what pleased them best.
+
+Prince Tristan began at once to tell her of his hunting exploits, and
+what joy he took in the chase. But the Princess's face grew colder and
+colder as she listened, for she loved all living things, and could not
+bear to see any of them hurt. Tristan did not observe this, for like all
+vain people, he was thinking of his own charms, and so was unaware of the
+effect he was producing.
+
+He finished with a flourish, and Prince Martin stumbled in on the last
+words, so eager was he to render in his turn a glowing account of all his
+fine deeds. These were not few, for he was a brave lad, so for an hour he
+discoursed upon tourneys and battles; nor did he observe that the
+Princess Elene grew pale--and trembled, for her mother's sorrow over war
+lived again in her heart.
+
+To her relief he came at last to the end of his recital; then with a sigh
+Elene turned her beautiful eyes upon Prince Lorenzo. "And what have you
+to tell me, my Prince?"
+
+For answer he said to a page, "Give me thy harp"; and when it was
+delivered to him he struck the strings and sang:
+
+"In the hour of the white moths flying
+   Beneath the great gray moon,
+My sad heart was a-sighing
+   Lest love should come too soon.
+
+"In the hour of the dawn-birds flying
+   Each to his feathery mate,
+ My sad heart was a-sighing
+   Lest love should come too late.
+
+"Thy spirit heard my voicing,
+   And bade me cease from fears,
+ And follow thee, rejoicing,
+   Beyond all time and tears."
+
+"It is a beautiful song," said the Princess. "And it would be sweet to
+follow someone beyond time and tears."
+
+Then Prince Tristan and Prince Martin looked enviously at Prince Lorenzo;
+and Prince Martin said contemptuously, "I did not know that thou wert a
+minstrel."
+
+"Thou mayst yet discover that I am a shoemaker," returned Lorenzo. "Also,
+if there were no carpenters in the world we should all be houseless. A
+carpenter may, indeed, be of more use than a princeling."
+
+Tristan looked at Elene to see how she bore the shock of hearing such
+people mentioned as carpenters and shoemakers; but she was smiling as if
+Lorenzo's words pleased her.
+
+The three princes stayed on at the Castle, and the court was very gay.
+Only King Theophile's heart was heavy, for he knew that he must lose his
+most beautiful daughter. She was equally kind to all her suitors, and he
+could not discover which prince she favored. So one evening he came to
+her in her octagon room, which was of white ivory and whose windows were
+hung with coral silk; and he found her spinning with her maidens. Her
+robe of lace rippled about her little feet, and the band of sapphires
+which held back her yellow hair were not as blue as her eyes.
+
+King Theophile dismissed the maidens, and seating himself beside his
+daughter he took her hand and said:
+
+"O ray of sunlight out of a great sorrow, tell me in the name of thy dead
+mother, to whom thou hast given thine heart?"
+
+But the Princess veiled her eyes and drooped her head, for a burden was
+upon her soul. "My father," she said, "a prince can not easily be a
+lover, for love has but one object, and in the life of a prince are many
+objects. I would be loved, but fine words are no proof of a heart."
+
+"Prince Tristan is a noble youth."
+
+"He is too fond of killing," replied Elene.
+
+King Theophile's cheeks grew pale, for he thought of the long-ago wars
+and men asleep in crimson meadows that had once been green.
+
+"Prince Martin is a gallant lad."
+
+"He would rather contend with others than with himself," said the
+Princess.
+
+"As for Prince Lorenzo, he dreams too much."
+
+"Dreamers oft know more than those who are awake," replied Elene.
+
+King Theophile sighed, for when his Princess spoke in this wise she
+seemed to pass from his arms into the arms of her dead mother. Now when
+Elene heard him sigh her heart was touched, for she loved him dearly.
+
+"King-Father, do not sigh. I will make my choice, and this will be the
+manner of my choosing. Thou knowst my tears can show the future."
+
+Then the King grew pale, for he thought of the mother who could not weep
+until the little daughter was laid upon her breast.
+
+"My three suitors may try their fortunes through my tears one week from,
+this night; that is--" she added, "if they have power to make me weep. He
+who beholds me weep, him will I wed."
+
+The King was sad when he heard this, but he saw it was her will and
+refrained from protest. Next day he announced to the court and to
+the three suitors through what means the Princess Elene would make
+her decision.
+
+From that day on Elene saw little of the three princes, for Prince
+Lorenzo was wandering off in the forests alone and Prince Martin and
+Prince Tristan were trying pathos on the maids of honor, each vying with
+the other to tell the saddest tales. They succeeded so well that the
+noble maidens nearly cried their eyes out. King Theophile was much
+embarrassed to come, in his walks, upon a little maid of honor weeping
+into her handkerchief, while a Prince discoursed at her feet.
+
+At last the week wore away, and the court assembled for what someone
+called the Trial of Tears. A thousand wax candles were lit in the
+glittering throne room. King Theophile sat upon his throne, and on his
+right hand was the Princess Elene, crowned with white roses, and robed in
+white silk which had a shimmer of gold in its folds. At the foot of the
+throne sat the three princes.
+
+When all were assembled the King arose and announced the intention of
+the Princess to give her hand to him who should behold in her tears
+her wedding.
+
+Prince Tristan was the first to try his fortune. He had chosen the tale
+of a young girl cruelly turned adrift in a forest and left there to die,
+and he related it with every circumstance that could render it more
+piteous. Soon every lady in the court was weeping, but to the eyes of the
+Princess Elene came no tears, which made Prince Tristan angry, so that he
+finished his tale in a sullen muttering voice.
+
+Then Prince Martin rose and told a story of little children who had
+climbed into a boat which the rising tide seized and carried out to sea.
+They were too little to be afraid, and only when starvation seized them
+did they begin to wail for their mothers.
+
+This story, related in a soft, melancholy voice, touched all hearts, and
+through the court there was the sound of weeping, but the Princess gazed
+straight before her, and her eyes were dry.
+
+Prince Martin ended his tale with real sadness, for he saw that the
+Princess Elene was unmoved by his narrative, and with drooping head he
+returned to his seat.
+
+Then rose Prince Lorenzo and bowed low before the Princess. "Even to win
+you," he said, "I would not have you shed tears, for you have been made
+to shed too many in your short life."
+
+He had scarcely uttered these words when the Princess's lip quivered like
+that of a little child and sudden tears welled up in her eyes. As they
+fell Lorenzo went quickly to her, and gazing upon her face, gave a cry of
+joy. "O my Love!" he exclaimed. "I see thee all in a white veil and I am
+by thy side!"
+
+Then smiling through her tears, she arose and held out her hand to him,
+and the court knew that he was the chosen one. He knelt before her and
+kissed her hand, while the heralds proclaimed him the victor.
+
+So they were married and lived happily ever afterwards, for she was a
+true Princess and he was a true Prince.
+
+
+
+
+THE GOLDEN ARCHER
+
+
+In the midst of a plain stood a great church built of white stones, with
+a massive tower. On this tower was a weather vane in the shape of a
+golden man who rode a golden horse, and made ready to shoot a golden
+arrow. Only the arrow never left the bow, but pointed always to the
+direction from which the wind blew--north from the mountains; east from
+the sea; west from the plain; south from the waving forests.
+
+Now the Archer looked very small from the court in front of the cathedral
+because he was up so high in the air; so high, indeed, that often the
+lightning passed through his body. In reality he was not small, but
+life-size, and he had once been a man, but now he was a weather vane
+because he had made a vow to dwell forever on the tower and show the
+people from which direction came the life-bringing winds.
+
+For the reason that he had a man's heart in his golden body, life was not
+always easy for him up there in the high place, and his eyes would sweep
+the far horizons in search of someone to companion him, but no living
+thing passed by him but the beautiful sea-birds who had learned that his
+golden arrow would never pierce their breasts--and so they loved him, and
+perched upon his arm that drew the bow.
+
+Even the winds were kind to him because he moved so easily at their
+behest, but all winds were not alike to him who had the heart of a man.
+When spring came and the breezes blew from the south, heavy with the
+scent of magnolia, of lilacs, and blue violets, the heart of the Golden
+Archer ached with a strange hurt out of vanished years that he couldn't
+quite remember. When summer brought to him the delicious odor of grapes
+and berries and strong bright flowers, he longed to go down from the
+tower and wander after the fireflies' lanterns among the loaded vines, or
+pillow his head on sweet hay and let the winds put him to sleep forever.
+
+When autumn came, and the flying leaves, as golden as his own steed,
+looked like yellow butterflies too tired to move their wings, the Archer
+would think of fires on hearths only half remembered, and he wished he
+could stable his golden horse while he joined some group about the
+dancing flames.
+
+Winter was hardest of all to him, for all the world went in-doors and
+left him lonely. The frost-fairies, that glided down the blue rays of the
+winter-moon with their little lanterns that gave much color but no heat,
+these little creatures could not comfort him, because though he rode so
+high and was so straight, still he had the heart of a man. Sometimes the
+wild snows came and blinded his steady, sorrowful eyes; and in blackest
+midnight, when the sleet rattled against the golden sides of his horse,
+then, indeed, he felt alone and forgotten.
+
+For the people on the plain, though they looked to his guiding arrow did
+not love him because they thought him only a weather vane.
+
+So the years drove on and the Golden Archer grew lonelier and lonelier.
+Came at last a spring when the scent of peach-blossom was like the hurt
+of too great joy, and far-away the peach-orchards splashed the land with
+pink. High up in the air the Archer looked wistfully southward and
+pointed his bow towards clouds of sweetness and rose-color. How he longed
+to leave the great white stones of the tower and go wandering through
+those creamy orchards and down the green aisles of the forests by bright
+refreshing streams.
+
+As he was gazing one day over the fertile plain he saw moving upon it
+what looked to him from that height like a very little girl. But he knew
+that she must be really a tall, slender maiden. That she had golden hair
+he also knew because it gleamed in the sun.
+
+Then his lonely heart desired her company and he sent out thoughts to
+her, for being an Archer he could do this. Thoughts were his real arrows.
+
+So this thought he sent towards her: "I do not know who you are, but I
+am a lonely Archer on the great cathedral where I have made a vow to
+tell forever the wandering of the wind. I cannot come to thee, but
+climb the winding stairs to this high place that I may gaze upon thee.
+I am lonely."
+
+Now the young girl was walking at sunset in the orchards with her
+betrothed when through the air this message came to her, and, lifting up
+her eyes, she said: "See where the last light lies on the Golden Archer.
+How graceful he is, like a bit of flame above the old white church."
+
+"They say the view is fine from there," answered her sweetheart.
+
+"Let us climb up to-morrow," proposed the maid, whose name was Felice.
+
+So next day at sunset she and her betrothed climbed the winding stair of
+the cathedral, and emerged on the roof near the Golden Archer, who, when
+he saw the maiden, felt an old rapture sweep over him. For a moment he so
+forgot his vow that he stood quite still, though the wind was veering.
+How beautiful she was with all the beauty of the sweet earth from which
+he had been so long removed. Her hair was like harvest-corn, and her eyes
+were like dim places where violets hide. The soft voice of her was as
+music in the Archer's ears, who had heard too long the jangling of iron
+bells in the towers beneath him.
+
+And now she was looking at him. Old memories stirred in him beneath the
+armor that hid his manhood. He wanted to get down from his golden horse
+and lay aside his bow and arrow, and take her in his arms.
+
+"What a beautiful Archer," she was saying, "how crisp his hair, how clear
+and firm his lips, how pure his profile."
+
+Now her betrothed could be jealous even of a weather vane, so he said:
+"Anyone can be beautiful who is made of metal."
+
+"It is an imperishable beauty," she replied. "Flesh and blood decay."
+
+The Golden Archer was so agitated that he turned his eyes upon her, and
+all at once she knew that he was alive and her heart was aflame with
+love for him.
+
+Next day she came alone to the tower. She found him pointing north and
+looking away from her, for the vow had gripped him again like the frosts
+of winter. But she spoke softly and said, "Beloved, the spring is here."
+
+Then the south wind came, and against his will he veered and looked at
+her. She came close to his golden horse and touched the arm that held the
+bow. "You drew me to you, and now you do not look at me," she said.
+
+"I am afraid to look at you," he replied and dropped his golden eyelids.
+
+"Yet you are not afraid to gaze into the sky," she ventured.
+
+"Out of the sky will come nothing to harm me," he answered.
+
+"Could I harm you, soul of my soul?" she cried.
+
+"You could make me love you," was his answer.
+
+So they were quiet for a while. She watched the sea-birds circle about
+his shining horse which seemed ever ready to plunge from the cathedral
+tower into the spaces of the air, yet remained always the toy of the
+winds. She listened to the hoarse voices of the huge bells that swung
+beneath her.
+
+At last she rose and unbound her hair so that it floated like a golden
+banner in the wind. "Come," she whispered.
+
+Then the Golden Archer felt all the pain of those who must turn away from
+the voice of love. His eyes looked towards the sunset, but his heart
+seemed drowning in a strange, sweet, throbbing darkness. "Come nearer,"
+he whispered.
+
+So she went so near that her golden hair floated all about him and he saw
+the landscape through a yellow cloud. "Kiss me," she said.
+
+But he set his lips steadfastly, and tried to turn to the north, which he
+could not do, for the wind was steadily from the south.
+
+"I am cold," she whispered. "Let us go down to the warm orchards."
+
+"Go!" he answered, "for your words pierce my heart, and I have made a vow
+to tell the people about the coming and going of the great winds."
+
+"My love is a great wind," she said.
+
+Then sadly she left him. He was alone on his tower and night was coming.
+
+He tried to think of his vow, but her eyes called him, her lips brushed
+his like the light wing of a nesting bird. Hour after hour he endured the
+pain--and at last tears rolled from his eyes and melted his armor. The
+Golden Archer felt his old humanity return like a flood and set him free;
+and in the silence that comes before the dawn, he got down from his
+horse. The limbs of the golden animal were moving also; and stealthily,
+with the cramped action of those too long in one position, horse and man
+went down the stairs of the church, through the stone vestibule and out
+into the sweet, warm plain.
+
+The Golden Archer knelt beneath the stars and wept himself back to his
+old beautiful manhood, then, mounting his horse, he galloped to the edge
+of the forest where in a cottage smothered beneath roses and honeysuckle
+Felice lived; once at her window he whispered: "The Golden Archer has
+come for thee, dearest."
+
+Then she came out trembling, and in the gray light he took her in his
+arms and comforted her. "We will ride away and be married," he said. Then
+he lifted her on his horse, and they rode away through the forest, she
+lying quite still against his heart, and gazing with wide-open eyes into
+the green dimness. So they came to a church and were married.
+
+That night they went to an inn on the borders of the forest, an old house
+with nine gables, deep moss on the roof, and a creaking signboard with a
+crowing bird painted on it; and the inn was called "The Crowing Cock."
+
+Now there were many countrymen seated in the inn-parlor, and as the
+Golden Archer entered the room everyone rose and bowed; and as they
+passed through, Felice heard a peasant say, "How strange that a prince
+should marry a farm-girl."
+
+Then the hot color came into her face, for Felice was very proud, and did
+not like to be thought inferior to her husband. When they were alone
+together she related what she had heard. The Golden Archer looked
+puzzled, for he thought that she loved him too well to care for such
+trifles. "We are one because we are dear to each other," he cried, and
+took her in his arms and cherished her.
+
+Next day came the Mistress of the Inn to set the room in order, and
+as she bustled about she said, "From what kingdom comes your husband,
+the Prince?"
+
+"My husband is not a prince," said Felice.
+
+"He talks and acts like one," remarked the Hostess. "What is he then?"
+
+The little Felice felt her cheeks burn. She could not say that her
+husband had been a weather vane, and was now a man, so she replied, "He
+occupied a very high position of trust."
+
+"Yet he seems to know as little of real life as a prince," mused the
+Hostess. "He has asked me strange questions about quite ordinary things."
+
+Felice grew pinker than ever; and when the Golden Archer came into the
+room he found her in tears.
+
+"Heart's dearest, why do you weep?" he said.
+
+Then she told him her trouble. He must act like other people, she said,
+or tongues would begin to wag. He must forget that he had ever been a
+weather vane and must learn the ways of the world. The Golden Archer's
+heart was wounded by her words.
+
+"Do you remember," he said, "that you called your love for me a
+great wind."
+
+"Yes, I remember."
+
+"A great wind blows everything before it, even the words of men."
+
+Now Felice was a woman who catches up phrases too easily and speaks them
+too trippingly. So she answered, "If you love me you will do anything for
+me," for that was her test of love, that whoever cared for her should
+bend ever to her will.
+
+"We must serve each other," said the Archer, to whom the winds in all
+those years had whispered many secrets. "When equality in love or
+friendship ceases the end of joy is near. But remove the cloud from
+your forehead, dear love, and let us hunt the blue gentians in the
+forest glades."
+
+"Oh, no! let us go to the village fair," said Felice.
+
+"What! Exchange those cool, dim places, flower-scented, for the glare and
+noise of a fair?"
+
+"No one can see me in the forest," remarked Felice, turning her head from
+side to side and gazing in a mirror.
+
+"But I see you! Isn't that enough!"
+
+Felice sighed, for she liked admiration, and the Golden Archer said no
+more about gathering gentians, but went with her to the fair, which was a
+sacrifice, for he loved fresh air and solitude; and the crowds, the heat,
+and the dust made his head ache. Then, too, he was not used to fairs, and
+more than once made Felice uncomfortable by the questions he asked. She
+was always afraid that he would betray his origin when anyone spoke of
+the wind. Someone, indeed, said it was south, and the Golden Archer with
+a smile corrected him. "It is east," he remarked. "Oh, what difference
+does it make!" Felice cried crossly.
+
+Her ill-temper increased because people looked more at her husband than
+at her. The Golden Archer was, indeed, very handsome, and he had lived so
+much in the skies that he had a fine, free air. People could take long
+breaths in his presence, instead of feeling choked and cramped, so they
+wanted to talk with him.
+
+He would have been glad to gratify them, but his wife's drooping lips
+closed his own; and after a while both went sadly back to the inn,
+wondering why all the glory was gone from the day.
+
+But in their room he drew her into his arms, and loved her anew, and
+talked to her of all the wonderful things that would come to them if they
+were faithful.
+
+"Don't you know, sweet Felice," he said, "that love is like the seed in
+the ground, which comes up a little frail and tender plant; but through
+storm and sunshine grows into a great tree. We must be patient with
+each other."
+
+Felice was of those who want their trees full-grown, and she began to
+wonder why she had married the Golden Archer instead of her own man, whom
+she could understand; and she wished that she had never climbed to the
+top of the tower and lost her heart to the Archer.
+
+The days of their honeymoon dragged, for the Archer in addition to the
+hurt of his love had now to suffer the pain of estrangement. The more he
+cared for Felice the harder it was to see her restless and unhappy. "It
+will be different when we are in our own home," he would say to himself.
+
+So one day they left the inn and went to their own cottage which stood on
+a little hill, and from the window could be seen the tower of the great
+white church. Now the Golden Archer used often to gaze at this tower,
+which made Felice ask him if he were homesick.
+
+"No; but I miss the great winds," he replied.
+
+"Do you know what people say?" she asked him.
+
+"What do they say?"
+
+"That you were struck by lightning--and all melted away."
+
+"I was struck by lightning," he answered. "Love slew me."
+
+This pleased her. For awhile she showed herself loving and tender, but
+because she obeyed moods and not a strong, steadfast will, the old
+unhappiness came back. The Golden Archer felt more lonely than ever he
+had done on the high white tower, and loneliest of all when he held her
+in his arms.
+
+One day he found her crying. "Why do you cry, Beloved?" he asked her.
+
+"I am lonely," she said.
+
+"With me?"
+
+"Yes," she sobbed, "with you. What have you to tell me but your tales of
+the great winds? Other men have had their friends, their adventures. They
+can relate stories of their boyhood, of their early life, but you came
+from a far-off tower and know nothing of the world."
+
+"It is true," he murmured. "I can only tell you of the skies; for all the
+time of my former days on earth is dim to me."
+
+That night they sat before the fire, for it was now autumn, and the
+leaping flames showed her gold hair and her eyes like dark pools. Upon
+the Golden Archer they shone, too, where he sat still and hurt, but
+unable to tell his pain, because he had lived too high above the world.
+The low, hoarse winds drove the flying leaves against the window glass
+and whistled in the keyhole; at which Felice would shiver and cast
+sidelong glances at her strange husband.
+
+All at once on the wind came a caroling voice. Felice rushed to the
+window and peered out. The voice sang:
+
+"All that I knew of thee, my Love,
+   The great winds bore away.
+ When they are hushed wilt thou return
+  To bless the close of day?
+
+"In that still hour come back to me,
+  And find thy longed-for rest.
+ Poor petal blown too near the sun,
+  Float downward to my breast."
+
+"Ah," cried Felice, "it is my old Love."
+
+"My love for thee is older than the moon," said the Golden Archer. "Can
+you not rest by our hearth?"
+
+Then she knelt by him and pressed her face against his knees. And his
+heart grew as heavy as a weary dream before a sultry dawn when the
+thunder hangs in the hills. Her grief weighed all the more upon him
+because he knew she was trying to love him; and when that hour of effort
+comes death is under its cloak.
+
+But the next day she was cheerful and sang about her tasks. The Golden
+Archer saddled his horse and rode miles through the forest upon the crisp
+red leaves; and he knew that goodness would not hold her, nor kindness,
+nor fidelity, nor service, for love like hers is held prisoner to nothing
+once its wings are outstretched, nor does it know good from evil.
+
+[Illustration: THE GOLDEN ARCHER AND FELICE]
+
+When he rode home the stars were peeping through the forest branches, and
+the white owls were flying. But the frost that silvered the red leaves
+was not so sharp and glistening as the memory of her tears.
+
+As he reached his door he saw that it was open and the light from the
+fire shone out upon the dark paths of the forest. But the room was empty
+of her presence.
+
+He called her name, but no answer was returned; then on a tablet upon the
+table he saw words written and brought them to the fire and read them.
+
+"O Golden Archer, go back to thy tower, for the great winds have taken me
+on a long journey, and I shall never see thee again."
+
+Then he knew that not his faithful winds, but the voice of old memories
+had called her, and he bowed his head in an imperishable sorrow.
+
+Because his heart was broken he desired to cease from his humanity and
+return to the old white tower. As once his warm tears had thawed his
+shining armor and made him an inhabitant of the world, so now his cold
+and bitter tears encased him again in hard metal.
+
+Walking wearily and with stiff footsteps he went to the stable, brought
+out his horse and rode across the plain to the great white church upon
+which the midnight moon was shining. He knocked on its west door, and
+from the vaults came the echoes.
+
+"You cannot return, Golden Archer, for you have broken your vow!"
+
+"But I have broken my heart also," he answered; "therefore, let me in."
+
+"But you will come down again from the tower," cried the echoes.
+
+"Nay, for only the broken-hearted know how to keep their vows," he
+answered.
+
+So the doors swung open, and up the dim spiral stairs rode the Golden
+Archer, through bars of moonlight to the region of the great winds where
+again he mounted the tower. But always there is one dream left to the
+sorrowful, and his was, that some night the great winds would drive her
+soul against his breast.
+
+Then he became very still and turned his arrow northward, for the wind
+was coming from the far circles of the Arctic ice.
+
+Next day the sun rose red and glorious and made fires on the armor of the
+Golden Archer, and all the people upon the plain rubbed their eyes and
+cried out:
+
+"There's a new Archer on the Cathedral. Now we shall know from which
+horizon comes the wind!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Faery Tales of Weir, by Anna McClure Sholl
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Faery Tales of Weir, by Anna McClure Sholl
+
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+Title: The Faery Tales of Weir
+
+Author: Anna McClure Sholl
+
+Release Date: February, 2006  [EBook #9952]
+[This file was first posted on November 4, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE FAERY TALES OF WEIR ***
+
+
+
+
+E-text prepared by Charles Aldarondo, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Faery Tales of Weir
+
+By Anna McClure Sholl
+
+1908
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+THE FAERY TALES OF WEIR
+
+THE TALE OF THE BLUE GLOVE
+
+THE INVISIBLE WALL
+
+THE TREE IN THE DARK WOOD
+
+THE CAT THAT WINKED
+
+THE MAGIC TEARS
+
+THE GOLDEN ARCHER
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE TOWN OF WEIR]
+
+
+
+
+THE FAERY TALES OF WEIR
+
+
+Only in far-away towns are the real faery tales told in shadowy nurseries
+whose windows in summer open upon shimmering gardens and on whose walls
+in winter the fire-goblins dance. Weir is one of these towns--a sweet,
+hushed place, lying where the hills spread broadly to the south sun, and
+the trees are thick as in a painting.
+
+There are shops, too, with bulging windows through which you can scarcely
+see the toys or the flowers or the sweetmeats, because Time has
+finger-marked the glass with violet and crimson stains that shift and
+merge so that the contents of the windows are seen as through wavering
+sea-water. Beyond the shops are the houses asleep beneath great trees,
+their warm red bricks showing where the ivy has thinned. Their stacked
+chimneys send out faint blue spirals of smoke, to let you know that the
+fires are on the hearths and about the hearths the children are gathered.
+
+The little old churches placed where Weir drowses out into the country,
+have hoarse, sweet bells like the voices of old women who whisper of the
+Christ Child at Christmas time; and in the churches are windows as full
+of color as the gardens of Weir.
+
+The sleepy, forgotten town was famous for nothing but its faery tales
+told long ago to children whose bright eyes have looked by now on wider
+scenes, and whose voices have died away on that wind upon which all
+voices sink from hearing at last. I sometimes wonder whether in
+imagination they all troop back at the twilight hour: Hubert to cuddle up
+in the wing-chair; James to stretch out on the hearth-rug; Veronica and
+little Eve to nurse their dolls and gaze through the nursery window half
+fearfully at the striding dusk, or to listen to the tap upon the panes of
+flying leaves when the great winds rise. Where is Richard who always
+wanted "a tale never told before," and small Spencer with his dreaming
+eyes and baby mouth? Where is quaint Matilda with her plaid dress and her
+straight black hair; where is Ruth?
+
+Wherever they are, I like to think that to them Weir is always their true
+home; and their hearts really live in that broad shadowy house where the
+steps of the staircase were so wide and shallow that each was a little
+landing in itself; and where the candles flamed at night in high sconces;
+and in the halls was a rustling of silk; and in the air the smell of
+flowers and burning wood. The nursery was high up under the eaves, so
+that the rest of the house seemed far-away--a wonderful region where
+music might sound, or where, by stealing down, one might see fair ladies
+like the princesses of the tales smiling at gallant gentlemen. One's own
+mother might turn, indeed, into a princess just before it was time to go
+to bed, with white arms and jewels upon her neck.
+
+Then one fell asleep knowing that no day in Weir could be without its
+enchantment, whether the clouds seemed caught in the tree-tops, or the
+snow flew and made the red roofs white; or whether the sun danced on the
+green lawns, for each day ended with a faery tale, and these are the
+tales of Weir.
+
+
+
+
+THE TALE OF THE BLUE GLOVE
+
+
+The King of the South country was not as happy as a king ought to be
+whose subjects are both peaceful and industrious. Every night when the
+moths were flying and the tall candles were lit in the hall, when the
+soft air was musical with the strumming of harps, and the sweet
+complaint of violins, he would walk out on the great parapet with one
+hand under his chin and his head drooping; then the courtiers would say,
+"The King is sad."
+
+If he looked out he could see town after town, like strings of pearls and
+corals, with blue smoke coming from the chimneys of red-roofed houses,
+and beyond the towns the sea like a green bowl. If he looked straight
+down he could see a rush of color, as if the flowers were coming up to
+him in billowy waves.
+
+But the King was not happy, for the reason that he wanted to marry his
+three sons, and he didn't know of any princesses who would, so to speak,
+fill the bill. He had journeyed over the mountains to inspect several
+little ladies who were brought to him, in their stiff satin gowns to
+make their curtsey and smile their prettiest, but none of them seemed
+desirable for a daughter. The King knew, indeed, very much what he
+wanted. She mustn't chatter and she mustn't be too fond of chocolates in
+gold and enameled boxes; and she mustn't have likes and dislikes; and
+she must be patient, for all really royal people know how to wait; and
+she must possess the beautiful art of smiling. The King had seen her in
+the frames of old paintings, still and sweet and jeweled, but never
+alive and lovely.
+
+On the evening when this tale begins the King was watching the three
+princes play at ball. The ball was of scented Spanish leather covered
+with crimson silk on which was stamped the sporting dolphin of the royal
+house. Sometimes it would drop to the green turf where the parrots would
+peck at it, thinking it a gorgeous apple. The hooded falcon on the
+jester's arm knew better, for the jester fed him real apples.
+
+Prince Hugh, Prince Merlin, and Prince Richard were as supple as willows,
+as straight as pines, as graceful as silver birches. Their blond hair
+hung thick and straight against their necks and was cut square above
+their level brows. Their manners were so good that their father didn't
+quite know their characters; and that made the problem of their marriages
+more difficult.
+
+All at once, as on a stage, they stopped playing ball and began to look
+at something or someone. The King followed their eyes, and saw a strange
+sight. A young girl with a great dog at her side was coming slowly over
+the grass, her hands clasped above her breast, her long golden hair
+hanging nearly to the hem of her gown which was of coarse brown wool. She
+had no stockings, and on her feet she wore wooden shoes.
+
+That a peasant girl should walk across the royal gardens was enough to
+make the princes stare. Then the King saw that they were looking at
+the girl's hands, of which one was bare. On the other was a glove of
+blue cut-velvet, heavily embroidered with a design of flowers which
+circled themselves about a tiny mirror set exactly on the wrist; no
+glove for a peasant!
+
+She came slowly up the great stairs of the terrace as if she were
+expected. By this time the court-lackeys had rushed out, full of
+officiousness, to stop the outrage; but the King, at the end of a puzzled
+day, was in no mood to hinder the least diversion. He advanced to meet
+the visitor, who raised to him a pair of beautiful blue eyes and smiled.
+
+"Where did she learn to smile?" thought the King, conscious that the gaze
+of the three princes was still upon the girl.
+
+She held out the gloved hand. "King Cuthbert, I am sent to your court by
+King Luke. Will you be pleased to look in my mirror?"
+
+Her wrist was raised to the level of his eyes. "What do you see?" she
+asked in a soft, solicitous voice.
+
+"Myself, maiden," he replied.
+
+She sighed, and the tears came in her eyes.
+
+"Who else could I see?" he exclaimed.
+
+She smiled and shook her head, then she nodded towards the three straight
+boys on the lawn. "Those are your sons?"
+
+"Mine, indeed, maiden."
+
+"I am sent to make their acquaintance. I am the niece of King Luke, the
+Princess Myrtle."
+
+King Cuthbert could not believe his ears, nor trust his eyes, for the
+Princess Myrtle had great vaults of gold under the thousand-year-old
+turrets of her castle; and pearls like pigeon eggs in the renowned
+diadem with which the generations of her royal race were crowned kings
+or queens.
+
+"My uncle sends me as a beggar-maid so that I can make a true marriage. I
+desire to be loved for myself alone. Speak not of me to the court, but
+deal with me as I appear to be."
+
+King Cuthbert gazed in admiration at her, for she had the voice of one
+who thinks more than she speaks and feels more than she thinks, which is
+the proper order for great and little ladies. "Here," thought he, "is the
+child I have been seeking. I will not tell the three straight-limbed lads
+so beautifully mannered who or what she is, but I will say that a friend
+hath sent an orphaned girl to be protected by me; then I will watch how
+they treat her, and learn at last what my sons are."
+
+"Princess Myrtle," he said, "I will henceforth treat you as an orphaned
+and poor girl. Is that to your liking?"
+
+"It is my wish, Sir," she answered, and suddenly a rising wind blew all
+the strands of her hair into a cloud of gold, so that her coarse wool
+dress appeared brocaded; and while she was thus sumptuously clothed a
+great peacock in iridescent array strutted by her, and she placed her
+gloved hand for a moment on his shining feathers, looking, indeed, a
+princess. Back of her the courtiers stared and rubbed their eyes. The
+three slim boys on the lawn were smiling.
+
+Prince Hugh tossed the scarlet ball to her and she caught it lightly as
+if she were making a curtsey.
+
+"Take the ball back to him," said the King, "and tell him I sent you."
+
+As she went down through the parterres of flowers she was as straight
+as a delphinium and fresh-colored as a rose. Where the great trees
+clouded into the sky she looked as little as a floating petal; but when
+she stepped upon the sward, she seemed to grow tall like an upward
+soaring flame.
+
+Though she walked with such courage towards the three slim lads her heart
+was beating fast, because she was afraid they would not be as noble as
+they looked. For at court nearly everyone looks noble, and the Princess
+Myrtle had learned how easy it is to keep your eyes level, and your head
+high, and your bearing proud; and how hard it is to preserve a sweet
+heart like a rose, within the shadow of this grandeur.
+
+So she went to meet the princes with a shy, hopeful manner, the scarlet
+ball in her hand, and her blue eyes addressed to theirs.
+
+"I am commanded by your royal father to return to you this ball," she
+said.
+
+"I pray you tell me," said Prince Hugh, "how you, being a beggar-maid,
+walk as if possessed of wealth?"
+
+She smiled. "All people are rich. Some know it. Some do not."
+
+The princeling gave a royal whistle, and smiled at his brother Richard,
+who picked a white carnation and began to pull its petals. "Tell me,
+maid, why you wear the blue glove?" he asked.
+
+"To cover a hand still my own," she returned proudly.
+
+Merlin said nothing at all. He took the scarlet ball, bowed, and turned
+from her. She raised her eyes to the heights where the turrets cut the
+sky, black against gold, and the whirling sea-birds beat down the seaward
+rushing wind. Then stepping softly, she followed Merlin, who walked on to
+a place where the arching trees made a green cave, and in the depths of
+the cave was a fountain of marble sunk into a round of ferns. At the edge
+the prince paused, then he dropped the ball into the water, and it sank,
+for it was solid and heavy.
+
+[Illustration: MERLIN DROPS THE BALL INTO THE FOUNTAIN]
+
+"Why did you do that?" cried the Princess.
+
+He wheeled about, and looked upon her coldly. "Why have you followed
+me?" he asked.
+
+"To pick up the ball, should you drop it."
+
+"The ball is drowned," he said.
+
+"Why did you put it in the water?" she asked.
+
+"Because you touched it," he replied.
+
+She was very sad then. "You scorn to touch what a beggar-maid has
+handled?" she asked.
+
+To this he made no reply, but strolled away into the green wood, while
+wearily she turned back. The stag-hounds, with their collars of jade,
+came to meet her, and the three enormous Persian cats whose tails were
+like long plumes. She stooped to caress them, and to hide her tears, for
+Prince Hugh and Prince Richard were coming towards her, and she did not
+wish them to know she was sad.
+
+They stood like twin trees regarding her, then Prince Richard spoke.
+"Will you sell your glove, beggar-maid?" and he drew a piece of gold from
+his purse.
+
+She replied: "I have more need of my glove than of your gold."
+
+"If you were a court lady," said Prince Hugh, "you would know that one
+glove is of no use to anyone."
+
+"If you were a beggar, Sir," she replied, "you would be glad to have one
+hand warm."
+
+"I shall never be a beggar," returned the Prince proudly.
+
+"Yet you begged your father for a cloth-of-silver falcon hood this
+morning."
+
+Prince Richard laughed and his brother stared. "Are you a witch?" asked
+the latter.
+
+"No, I am not a witch. I lost my way in the gardens before I found the
+right path. You were talking in the arbor by the edge of the lake, and
+you implored your father, the King, like a beggar on the street corner."
+
+Prince Hugh's cheeks were red as peonies. "Your words are too bold,
+beggar-maid. If you will not sell your glove, I will take it."
+
+She stretched out her arm. "You will not be able to take what is
+not yours!"
+
+"Will I not!" and he rushed at her and began to tug at the glove. His
+face grew redder and redder, but he could not strip off the glove, which
+seemed to have grown to the maid's arm. Suddenly he caught sight of his
+fiery countenance in the little round mirror, and he left off pulling at
+the glove, but his failure aroused emulation in the heart of Prince
+Richard, who now began to tug at the glove as if it were heavy armor.
+
+The Princess Myrtle grew as white as a snow-drop in pale wintry sunshine,
+for it seemed to her that all three of the princes were of base metal
+beneath their noble bearing. "Look in the mirror," she said pitifully,
+"and tell me what you see!"
+
+"His own red face, I warrant, as I saw mine," cried Prince Hugh; then
+Prince Richard seeing how flushed his face was, drew away sulkily; and
+the Princess walked from them up and up through the parterres of flowers
+to the terrace where the King stood in the evening light, his cloak blown
+out, so that the satin lining showed like a great magnolia petal. His
+long fingers rested on the marble balustrade, and the royal rings winked
+wickedly at the Princess.
+
+The King said to her, "What did my sons say and do to you?"
+
+Then she related everything.
+
+The King frowned. "But how do I know whether you are really the Princess
+Myrtle? You may for all that be but a goose-girl or a beggar-maid."
+
+She replied, "Let me remain in your court three days as a beggar-maid. If
+at the end of that time you are not sure, turn me out. I, too, will be
+sure of something at the end of three days."
+
+"Of what will you be sure?" asked the King.
+
+"Which of you is the real king here."
+
+Then King Cuthbert grew red like old leather, and laughed and sighed and
+frowned. "God knows, I should myself like that knowledge." Then he
+signed to a court lady, who was looking on with proud eyes. "Come, Dame
+Caecilia, take this beggar-maid to one of the suites in the palace, and
+put fair clothes on her, and conduct her to the dining-hall when the
+hour strikes."
+
+The court lady smiled to hide her anger, for she dared not disobey, and
+she beckoned the Princess Myrtle to follow her. They went through a vast
+door into a corridor that ran beneath heavy arches, and the walls of this
+passage moved as if alive, but it was only the draught swaying the
+tapestries with their gray trees and knights who rode among the trees
+like heavy shadows, and long-haired women who watched the knights ride
+while they wove flower-wreaths.
+
+Then the proud court lady took the Princess up a winding stair, like the
+twisted ways of life, down more corridors, then into a room, through
+whose windows high cypresses looked, and upon whose ceiling little cupids
+flew about.
+
+"Now, beggar," she said angrily, throwing open the door of a wardrobe
+where hung silken things, "make the most of your luck. What will you
+wear? Here is mallow satin sewn with pearls, and with a running border of
+jasmine flowers done in sweet embroidery silks. Will it please you? Here
+is a silver cloth, studded with little coral beads over a petticoat of
+ancient lace. Here is black velvet softly lined with apricot brocade!"
+
+"Nay, none of these will I wear, but my gown of good wool, and in my
+bundle are changes of linen, for I want no lace on my limbs. Send me
+fresh flowers for my hair, I entreat you, and I will bathe and so prepare
+myself for the court dinner."
+
+Dame Caecilia stared at her, and moved the golden combs and mirrors
+about angrily on the dressing-table. "You will lose me my place at
+court," she cried.
+
+"Perhaps it is already lost," answered the Princess.
+
+"You speak not at all like a beggar."
+
+"You never took the trouble to learn what a beggar really says," the
+Princess replied as she stripped the blue glove from her hand.
+
+Curiosity got the better of the court lady's anger. "What person gave you
+that glove in place of alms?" she asked.
+
+"My godmother out of faery land!"
+
+"Nonsense!" cried the Dame, and she departed for the flowers with a face
+like a withered leaf.
+
+The little Princess leaned against the sill of the window and sighed, and
+looked into the blue sphere of the night and wondered on what altar the
+high stars were lit. She thought of Merlin who had drowned his ball
+because her touch was on it, and her heart throbbed as if a hand were
+drawing it from her breast to place it out of her reach. She had seen
+little maids among the golden shadows of her own court with their white
+hands outstretched towards a heart someone had taken. Now the thrilling
+touch of that theft was upon her own spirit. Her thoughts followed Merlin
+as if her substance had been changed into his shadow.
+
+All the court had assembled for dinner, when she entered the banquet
+hall behind the shame-faced Dame Caecilia, who made a curtsey to the
+floor as she explained to the King that the beggar-maid, being lacking
+in art, refused the silken clothes. "She would wear only this crown of
+wood violets."
+
+Then the Princess curtsied, and all the courtiers laughed, but the King
+gravely bowed to her; and called, "Prince Hugh."
+
+Prince Hugh came forward, looking noble as was his wont in the presence
+of his father. "What is your will, Sire?"
+
+"I desire you to lead this maiden to the banquet."
+
+"Sire, I have already asked the Lady Diana," he said and blushed a
+little, for he was lying.
+
+The King then asked a lackey to summon Prince Richard, who came looking
+noble as was his custom, also, in the presence of his father.
+
+"I desire you to lead this maiden to the banquet."
+
+Prince Richard still endeavored to look noble. "Sire," he replied, "I am
+not dining to-night. I have a headache."
+
+Then King Cuthbert sent for Prince Merlin. Now when the Princess Myrtle
+heard his name, it seemed to her as if musicians had begun to play in a
+far-off room. She drooped her head a little lest she should show tears in
+her eyes when he, too, refused her. He came up white and grave with a
+look that was not patient. When his father made the request of him that
+he made of his other sons, Prince Merlin bowed and extended his arm to
+the beggar-girl, but he was as silent as a wood before a storm. Only the
+Princess quivered like a leaf that expects a great wind to pass.
+
+"Did you obey your father because you are sorry for me?" she whispered.
+
+"No, I obeyed him because he is the King, not I. I am sorry for myself
+rather than you."
+
+Then the Princess felt her soul sink into a gulf, but she smiled and
+ate the food that was offered her, and made no attempt to speak to
+Prince Merlin.
+
+All the next day she wandered in the rose-alleys, through marvelous
+terraces, and under the great trees, but no one spoke to her, nor could
+she see anything but vanishing forms; and so it was until evening, when
+wearied, she sat down on a bench and gazed into her mirror and gave a cry
+of joy. "Now," said she, "I love truly. By this sign I know I love truly,
+for I see Merlin's face in the mirror and not my own."
+
+Then she went alone to her rooms through the vast corridors, and stood
+before the long mirrors which were not magic, but only meant to
+reflect earthly vanities; and from the shining marble floor came up a
+kind of radiance about her. She opened the cedar doors of the
+wardrobes, and there issued a scent as of costly silk that has been
+perfumed with iris root.
+
+The temptation was heavy upon her to clothe herself delicately that she
+might please Merlin; and never before had beautiful clothes seemed so
+wonderful to her. She ran her long white fingers through the folds of
+silk, and let the laces cascade over her arms; but in the end she changed
+only her wooden shoes for little dancing slippers of violet velvet, and
+again she put fresh violets in her hair.
+
+When she entered the banquet hall, she found the King on the dais, and on
+one side of him stood Prince Hugh in a rose-satin dancing dress; and on
+the other Prince Richard in a garb of yellow velvet. Both wore jeweled
+girdles to which were attached little shining swords with opals in the
+hilts. About the throne were grouped the courtiers; and beyond the
+courtiers were the knights and ladies of the frescoed walls which bore
+the history of King Cuthbert's ancestors; girls like drifting blossoms,
+matrons like sweet fruit, and knights like strong trees.
+
+The white velvet curtains before the tall casements shut out the stars,
+but all the heavens seemed recorded by the glowing wax-candles. Down the
+center of the room ran the banquet-table with dishes of gold; and plumage
+of rare birds nesting strange viands; and the sweet cheeks of summer
+fruits showing through the heaped blossoms of rose, gardenia, and
+honeysuckle. There were sweetmeats on dishes of pierced silver and
+between these played into broad glass bowls jets of scented water, making
+a lake where tiny swans swam.
+
+But all this beauty was nothing to Princess Myrtle, because she did not
+see Prince Merlin in the room; nor at the banquet did he appear. So she
+could eat but a little fruit, and that was without taste to her.
+
+After the banquet the court repaired to the dancing-hall, where already
+the musicians were strumming upon their instruments, so that everyone's
+feet began to move rhythmically. Then King Cuthbert beckoned the Princess
+Myrtle to him and said: "I see that you have put on dancing-slippers.
+With whom will you dance?"
+
+"With myself, Sire, should I have no partner," she replied smiling.
+
+At that moment Prince Merlin approached the throne clothed all in black
+silk, more appropriate for a scene of mourning than of festivity; and the
+King said to him: "Wilt thou lead this beggar-maid in the dance?"
+
+The Prince's face grew as white for a moment as the lace of his collar,
+but he replied proudly, "At a ball a man chooses his own partners."
+
+Then the Princess Myrtle's heart felt as weary as feet on a long road;
+but she awaited patiently the King's next word, which was spoken to
+Prince Richard and Prince Hugh, inviting them to dance with the
+beggar-maid. Each made an excuse. Then King Cuthbert addressed her.
+"Dance with yourself, beggar-girl," and he had the heralds proclaim
+that this stranger who wore brown wool in court would go on the floor
+alone. Everyone laughed and clapped their hands, only Prince Merlin bit
+his lip and looked prouder than ever, which, when she saw, the Princess
+Myrtle thought, "I will dance so beautifully that he will ask me to be
+his partner."
+
+Then she let down her hair from beneath her crown of flowers, and went
+into the center of the circle that the court had formed, and began to
+sway a little like a flower in the breeze. Soon the court found itself
+swaying with her, so that it was like a garden when the wind rises. But
+when all were moving, the Princess saw that Prince Merlin stood like a
+pine-tree that will not bend its head unless the tempest comes out of
+the North. So she changed from a flower to a butterfly and began a
+fluttering, glancing motion, and threw back her golden locks like
+wings. Everyone watching her became very still, only Prince Merlin
+moved restlessly, and once he put his hand across his eyes as if the
+sun were in them.
+
+When she had finished the King cried "Bravo," and then the court crowded
+about her, and Prince Hugh and Prince Richard asked her to dance with
+them; but Prince Merlin did not ask her, though he led out many ladies;
+and because of that it was as if she were dancing in the snow and rain,
+or on sharp stones.
+
+The pain in her heart grew violent, and drove her at last to the
+orange-tree near which he stood. On the edge of its marble tub she sat
+down to rest, and all at once a golden orange dropped in her lap. She
+held it out to him. "You have drowned your scarlet ball, take this."
+
+"Nay, for it is perishable," he said.
+
+Then tears like pearls came slowly from her eyes and she was driven
+to say: "You alone have not asked me to dance. Did not my dancing
+please you?"
+
+He replied, "I am not like my brothers," and he bowed and left her.
+
+That night she lay on her broad bed beneath silken covers and sobbed
+bitterly because her heart told her that Prince Merlin was noble; yet her
+memory stung her with his cold words and averted eyes. Soon the third day
+would be over, and she would have to leave the court; for even if King
+Cuthbert acknowledged that she was a princess, what did that matter if
+Merlin did not know that she was his queen?
+
+All next day she sat on the terrace which looks seaward and counted the
+sails coming up over the horizon like white petals blown from an
+invisible garden; and she would say, "If five come within a space of half
+an hour there will be hope for me"; but she always lost count, in
+thinking of his face.
+
+That night she took off her woolen dress and she clothed herself in laces
+and over the laces she put on a cream silk gown all woven with apple
+blossoms, and she placed flowers upon her hair; then flashed before the
+mirror and smiled to see herself so beautiful. "Surely," she thought, "he
+will not turn from me to-night."
+
+Then she put on her dancing-slippers; and went down. When she entered
+the banquet hall there was a stir and a murmur; and even King Cuthbert
+was silent with amazement over her beauty. Prince Hugh and Prince
+Richard came forward to meet her, and they bowed low, and looked very
+noble, indeed.
+
+"Our father has played a merry jest upon us," they said. "You are,
+indeed, a princess and no beggar-maid." Then they began to dispute which
+should take her in to dinner. But her eyes were all for Prince Merlin,
+who, when the courtiers crowded about her and proclaimed her a princess,
+looked straight away from her. This was as a little sword in her heart,
+but the grief that dimmed her eyes made her appear even more beautiful.
+
+After the banquet all proceeded to the dancing-hall, and King Cuthbert
+gave his arm to her. "Now I know thou art the Princess Myrtle. Which of
+my sons hast thou chosen?"
+
+"A woman is chosen; she does not choose," she replied, for her heart was
+heavy. "To-night I must leave your court."
+
+"Wilt thou continue thy search, Princess Myrtle?" the King said
+anxiously.
+
+"No, I will return to my Kingdom."
+
+"And what wilt thou do there?"
+
+"I will weep," she answered.
+
+She danced a measure with Prince Hugh and a measure with Prince Richard;
+then she saw that though Prince Merlin was in white satin and gold he did
+not dance, but stood alone by the orange-tree.
+
+When she was free she sent a herald to fetch him, for now she desired no
+longer to play a part, but to be herself. He came slowly to where she
+stood, and bowed before her in silence.
+
+"Tell me, Prince Merlin," she said, "if you agree with these courtiers
+that to-night I am become a princess?"
+
+"I do not agree with them," he answered. "Clothes do not make a
+princess."
+
+Then they looked at each other. "Will you meet me," she said, "on the
+edge of the wild forest in half an hour's time?"
+
+"I am your servant," he replied.
+
+She stole away to her rooms, where the moonlight lay athwart the
+tessellated marble floor, and opened the casement and placed the lamp
+there, which was to be the signal for her attendants to have her horses
+ready on the edge of the wild forest. Then she put on the gown she had
+worn as a beggar-girl, and her wooden shoes, and let her hair down over
+her shoulders.
+
+The way to the wild forest was haunted with shadows and little fleeing
+things; and the night-owls called, but she remembered the look in
+Merlin's eyes, and conquered her fears.
+
+And there he was waiting, with the moonlight gleaming on his white satin;
+and his face turned to the path up which she came.
+
+She held out her hand to him with the blue velvet glove upon it, and she
+said softly, "Will you look into my mirror, Prince Merlin?"
+
+"I am your servant," he said again, then looked.
+
+His eyes became full of light. "I see your face," he cried; and sank upon
+one knee. She gave him both her hands.
+
+"What am I to you?" she asked. "A princess?"
+
+"No," he whispered.
+
+"A beggar-girl?"
+
+"No," he whispered.
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Thou art my love."
+
+Then all the birds in all the world sang in her heart. "Tell me," she
+said, "why, then, didst thou sink thy ball?"
+
+"That no hands should ever touch it after thine."
+
+"And why didst thou say when thou didst lead me in to dinner, that thou
+wast sorry not for me, but for thyself?"
+
+"I feared that thou wouldst never love me."
+
+Then she laughed joyfully and asked, "Why didst thou say 'I am not like
+my brothers' when I asked thee to dance?"
+
+"I wanted thee for thyself, not for thy dancing."
+
+And now the stars moved all to nuptial music. "One question more," she
+cried. "Why didst thou say 'Clothes do not make a princess'?"
+
+"Because I knew thou wast a princess the first hour I saw thee."
+
+"Rise up, my Prince," she said. "We have a long journey before us."
+
+"I hear the neighing of horses," he said, "and the moving of feet."
+
+"My attendants," she replied. "My foster-mother rides with them. She gave
+me the blue glove, and told me he should be my husband who should see not
+his own face in the mirror, but mine."
+
+"I see thy face everywhere," cried Prince Merlin.
+
+So he kissed her, and they rode away with all her train through the
+sighing night-wind and beneath the summer stars to the land of their joy.
+
+
+
+
+THE INVISIBLE WALL
+
+
+On the edge of the Dark Wood dwelt for a time a Wizard, whose life had
+been spent in the acquirement of many wonderful arts. As a young man he
+had wandered over Europe from university to university, until one day he
+became aware of the true secret of education and burnt his books.
+
+Then he dwelt for many years in the mountains, gazing into the dark
+mirror of his heart, plumbing the blue ocean of the sky until the hour
+for which he longed arrived, bringing Wisdom, who appeared to him as a
+young, fair being in the twilight.
+
+Leaving his hut he came forth to meet her. "I had thought to greet you at
+noonday," said he.
+
+"That is because you live in an age which thinks that to know is to be
+wise; but only those see who shut their eyes. Not in the glare of noon,
+but at twilight will you find me."
+
+"You are a beautiful maid, Wisdom," said he who was on his way to
+be a wizard. "But why do you wear coarse linen who should be
+clothed in satins?"
+
+"To travel light," she replied.
+
+"And why do you smile who should look sad?"
+
+"To be wise is to be happy."
+
+"And what will you have me do?"
+
+"Remove from here to the village that is near the Dark Wood. Go through
+all the countryside proclaiming that King Theophile will shortly make war
+upon the inhabitants, but bid them feel no terror; only they are to build
+an invisible wall."
+
+"By the books that I burned, that is a strange command!" cried the
+Wizard. "Of what materials is this wonderful wall to be built?"
+
+"Of their sacrifices, their renouncements, their good deeds,"
+replied Wisdom.
+
+"But they will call me mad," cried the Wizard.
+
+Wisdom smiled. "Did you expect to be really wise, and yet thought
+sane?" she made answer. "Have the courage of all great follies and you
+will yet save The Kingdom of the Dark Wood, which is the fairland of
+the Princess Myrtle."
+
+Upon which the Wizard took heart, for he knew that to be fearless is to
+be in the class of masters, and to be fearful is to be in the class of
+slaves; and the whole world is divided into these two classes, nor is
+there other aristocracy, or dependency.
+
+"Sweet Wisdom, I will play the fool for your sake," he answered.
+
+Then she smiled and blessed him and vanished into the shadows of the
+forest. The Wizard was not of those who say, "To-morrow I will do thus
+and thus"; but being truly wise he put all his power into the present
+moment. So he took his flask of water and his loaf of bread, for like
+Wisdom, he would travel light, and he set forth for The Kingdom of the
+Dark Wood.
+
+There he rented a little cottage in the village near the wood, and set up
+a shoemaker's bench, for he knew how to make shoes--and good ones, too.
+Being a Wizard he knew that if he showed people he could do one thing
+well, they would be the more ready to listen to his words. A fine,
+comfortable shoe is a wonderful argument, so the Wizard set to work. The
+dewy dawns found him at his bench, and when the air at evening was full
+of heliotrope mists and homeward flying birds his little candle burned
+yellow to light his labors.
+
+Soon all the inhabitants had comfortable foot-wear, which put them all in
+fine humor. Then the Wizard began to proclaim a great war and the coming
+of King Theophile. He stood on the green, near the town-pump, and at
+first only the geese listened to him, stretching out their long necks and
+opening their red bills. But this did not discourage the Wizard, for he
+knew that after geese come men.
+
+[Illustration: THE WIZARD'S FIRST AUDIENCE]
+
+"What's this! What's this!" cried the tailor who was the first to get the
+message, "A war? I must run right home and polish up my old gun."
+
+"Nay," said the Wizard. "But go home and kiss your wife--for you haven't
+kissed her in five years."
+
+"If she would comb her hair and look attractive I might kiss her,"
+growled the tailor.
+
+"If you'd buy her a ribbon occasionally," advised the Wizard, "she might
+have the desire to make herself look pretty."
+
+"What has all this to do with war?" inquired the tailor.
+
+"Your kiss will make a stone in the invisible wall which is to keep out
+the enemy," the Wizard answered. "And if you stop your everlasting work
+and take your poor wife on an outing, that will be another stone. Every
+sacrifice you make, every good deed you do, will be a guarding stone in
+the wall."
+
+The tailor rubbed his ear. "Am I crazy, or are you?"
+
+"Am I asking you to do much for your country?" demanded the Wizard.
+"Think how mean you would feel if the invisible wall got built without
+one stone of your donating."
+
+"I'll go right home and kiss Matilda," said the tailor with a skip; and
+off he ran. In a few minutes he was back again. "She blushed so and
+looked so pretty and pleased that I kissed her three times, and to-morrow
+we are going to see her mother. Put me down for four stones."
+
+"Good!" said the Wizard.
+
+By this time quite a crowd had collected, all anxious to hear about the
+war. A rich miller took the news very seriously, because his mills lay to
+the eastward, from which horizon King Theophile would appear. He sent to
+the bank for bags of gold and laid them at the feet of the Wizard. "These
+will buy much gunpowder," he said.
+
+"The wall will never be built of gold," replied the Wizard. "There is
+no gold minted that will overcome an enemy, or keep him out if he wants
+to get in, or put mercy into his heart when vengeance is flaming there.
+The real weapons are unseen. If you wish to help build the invisible
+wall, stop grinding the faces of the poor and charging famine prices
+for your grain."
+
+Then the miller grew red in the face, and took up his bags of gold and
+went away. But next day everyone bought wheat at a lower price than it
+had been for many a long year, so that people knew the Wizard's words had
+taken effect. This made him very popular, and when he again proclaimed
+the danger of war and the necessity of building an invisible wall nearly
+all the village came forward to ask him what they could do to insure a
+stone in that guarding structure. Some of them whispered in his ear,
+because they hated to have their secret faults proclaimed to their
+neighbors.
+
+Old Peter was among those who made inquiry as to what sacrifice they
+should offer to avert the threatening danger. "I have," said he, "a pet
+bird that pines in his cage. If I give him his liberty will that help
+build up the wall?"
+
+"Yes, Peter," said the Wizard. "For no good man keeps anything captive
+that has the desire for freedom."
+
+Some people paid their debts to help build the wall. Others began to go
+to church after staying away for years and years. Others made up
+long-standing quarrels with their relatives and old-time friends, and
+these stones of reconciliation were, the Wizard proclaimed, the strongest
+of all, since unity and love are the only impregnable fortresses.
+
+Of course, there was some doubt about the wall, since nobody could prove
+that it really existed. But the Wizard declared he saw it to the eastward
+growing ever stronger and wider; and he traveled up and down the land
+prophesying war and the necessity of making the invisible wall strong and
+high by good works. He met with greatest success in the villages and
+towns, but when he entered the region of the high castles, where the
+knights and ladies dwelt, he was much laughed at and some would have had
+him locked up at once.
+
+Now, being a Wizard, he knew how powerful fashion is in this world, and
+how a wandering breath may bring it into being, so he said to himself: "I
+will go direct to the court of the Princess Myrtle, who has married the
+Prince Merlin, and will gain her ear. When she knows the invisible wall
+is to protect her kingdom, she will be gracious and set the fashion of
+providing stones."
+
+So he journeyed all day and all night and came at last to the grim city
+of green stones with towers like aged fingers of gnarled wood in the
+midst of which the Princess Myrtle held her court in an old red castle
+set about with small, stiff trees. Now the Princess had not long been
+married to the Prince Merlin. So full of love were they for each other
+that for them many days had drifted away like the dreams of a night; and
+so sweet was their converse, and so softly the minstrels sang that all
+the court lived in a kind of trance.
+
+The day the Wizard reached the castle it was drowsy noon; and the
+golden-woven curtains were softly swaying in the breeze; while upon the
+dim walls the greenish tapestries looked like mysterious forests. The
+Prince and Princess sat upon their thrones like painted figures, and all
+around them sat their courtiers in their golden dreams while the
+minstrels sang:
+
+"The waves are beating on the yellow sands,
+  The moon in a black vault rides white and high.
+Let us go forth, from these most desolate lands,
+  Led by the spirit's cry."
+
+"You are quite right," said the Wizard. "Your lands will be desolate
+unless you help build the invisible wall."
+
+At that all the courtiers whose eyelids had been drooping with the summer
+heat and with dreams of romance, looked up, and the Princess Myrtle
+withdrew her gaze from Prince Merlin, and fastened her sweet eyes upon
+the Wizard. "You must not care what the minstrels sing," she said. "We
+are all so happy here, that we love songs of sorrow."
+
+"Sweet Princess," said the Wizard, "King Theophile intends to make war
+upon you, and I have come to tell you that already your subjects have
+built a fine invisible wall of good deeds and sacrifices; but they must
+not perform all the labor and have all the pain while the nobles jest and
+feast. For the wall must have a stone in it from every kind of man, rich
+or poor, high or low, else it will not endure. And you, the Princess,
+must put in the strongest stone of all, since the ruler of a country must
+be its protector."
+
+All the courtiers smiled at this, but the Princess did not smile, because
+she was as wise as she was fair. She looked down at her peach-colored
+robe of satin and her little slippers embroidered with seed-pearls, and
+she drew a long-stemmed rose from the jade bowl near her throne to pass
+back and forth across her lips, as was her manner when thinking.
+
+"Prince Merlin," she said at last, "if this strange tale be true, what
+stone wilt thou place in the invisible wall?"
+
+"I will go for a month to the Council Chamber instead of lingering near
+thee while the minstrels sing," replied her husband.
+
+"Spoken like a prince!" cried the Wizard. "And what wilt thou do,
+Princess?"
+
+"I will go to the Council Chamber with milord," she answered. "And
+read most heavy papers of State; for if he shares my play I must share
+his work."
+
+"To attend to the duties of sovereignty instead of listening to minstrels
+in a scented room is a fitting stone for the Princess to place in the
+invisible wall," commented the Wizard; then he looked around at the
+courtiers.
+
+Now after the manner of courtiers they wanted to imitate their Prince and
+Princess, but they thought this invisible wall a great joke not worth
+making sacrifices for. The Wizard read their thoughts and said to them:
+"If the ruler works alone, he is like a bird with a crippled wing. He can
+only rule wisely and well if all the wisest and best help him. You are
+placed high that you may serve. Give me each his vow of sacrifice that
+the wall may be strong!"
+
+The knights and nobles looked at each other, then at the Princess Myrtle;
+and she bowed her head and thus addressed them:
+
+"If our weapons against an enemy must be our unity, our mutual love and
+service, instead of roaring guns and flaming cannon, surely it is easy to
+provide them. Nevertheless," she added, turning to the military
+commander, "see that the army is made ready."
+
+The Wizard smiled. "Well and good, if you remember, dear Princess, that
+an army can never be greater or stronger than the nation back of it. For
+every gun manufactured there must be a noble desire forged, or a high
+ideal realized; or else the weapons will be but a mask of courage on a
+weak face."
+
+The military commander shrugged his shoulders. "I'll go and see if the
+gunpowder is dry," he commented, "as my contribution to yon stranger's
+invisible wall."
+
+Then one by one the nobles at the command of the Princess Myrtle came
+forward to register each his vow of sacrifice. One said that he would
+write no more poetry for a year; another that he would eat no truffles
+for a fortnight; a third proclaimed that he would sell his jeweled sword
+to buy bread for the poor.
+
+The Wizard listened and shook his head. "This layer of stones is going to
+be very weak," he said. "Why don't you all stop and think, while the
+ladies make their vows?"
+
+The maids-of-honor crowded forward like a nose-gay of sweet-scented
+flowers, eager to do better than the knights in the construction of this
+invisible wall; for being women they were quicker than their brothers and
+husbands to understand what the Wizard meant. Yet they, too, were not
+quite clear in their minds, for one said she would wear linen instead of
+satin; another that she would give up perfumes for six months; another
+that she would read no novels for that time.
+
+The Wizard began to look discouraged. At last a beautiful young girl
+came forward to register her vow. "I don't care enough about jewels and
+scents and satins to give them up, Sir Stranger," she said; "but I
+should like to win the love of the poor; so I will visit them, and be as
+one of them."
+
+At this the Wizard clapped his hands. "This stone is most strong," he
+said. "Now, Sir Knights, return and make new vows."
+
+Then the knights came forward. "I will be reconciled with my brother,"
+said one. "I will build a new cottage for an aged tenant," proclaimed
+another; while a third, who was in love with the beautiful girl who
+wanted the love of the poor, said, "I will make a great supper for the
+hungry and will feast with them."
+
+"Ah," cried the Wizard, "that will be, indeed, a great feast! The bread
+of charity chokes the receiver because the hand that gives it will not
+break it with him. We must have communion, not patronage; or the
+invisible wall will never be built."
+
+The Princess Myrtle listened as one who hears a new gospel; and she
+remembered that she had never broken bread with the poor, but only
+bestowed benefits upon them, which is no way to become acquainted. And
+she sighed--a little sigh of love and regret and hope of doing better,
+which the Wizard said afterwards became one of the strongest stones in
+the invisible wall.
+
+Such a change in the kingdom! People making up quarrels that had withered
+hearts for generations. Court ladies running with warm loaves to the
+cottages and staying to eat some of the bread. Knights helping old men
+with the harvest; minstrels sent to sing to the bedridden instead of to
+an assemblage of bored ladies and gentlemen in a tapestried gallery. Much
+less talk of love and many more loving deeds. People wild to serve each
+other instead of themselves. All the land silent and helpful, instead of
+chattering and selfish! Such a change in the kingdom!
+
+The Wizard was everywhere, for the wall was beginning to be a real
+defense, and he spared no pains to see that every stone was strong.
+
+Now the fame of this wall reached King Theophile--for this was in the
+days of his warring--and he laughed on his throne and said, "Oh, little
+Nation, I will make mincemeat of thee, for I have every kind of weapon
+that is made, and many officials who do nothing all day but spy on other
+people and brandish their swords. What have you to oppose to such
+strength? Little kingdom, you will be but a road to my glory."
+
+So he made great preparations for war, and gathered together all the
+weapons that shed blood. There were many of these and he prided himself
+upon them, but in all his arsenal was not one instrument that could put
+shed blood back again into the veins of a man, which shows that
+ironworkers do not know everything.
+
+One fine day the King and all his armies came across the rocking waves
+and drove their boats upon the shores of The Kingdom of the Dark Wood
+which lay fair before them like a green and purple map edged with white
+where the breakers drove high. The land wind brought to their senses the
+odors of grapes, and the scent of apples and ripe grain. And the soldiers
+said to each other, "We will kill, then we will feast."
+
+They were impatient to overrun the land. Now the air-spies reported that
+but a small army had massed to meet the intruders, and that back of their
+ranks the inhabitants were peacefully at work gathering in the harvest.
+This seemed incredible. Then King Theophile gave his command to the army,
+"March forward"; and to the air-spies, "Fly on and drop burning brands on
+the fields."
+
+The army immediately set out. Far away the air-spies were seen beating
+the air like black rooks, but strangely enough they always remained in
+sight and seemed to get no further. At last they went high up into the
+clouds and disappeared.
+
+But the soldiers pressed on joyfully, for the sweet odors of vineyard and
+garden grew ever more ravishing; and now the land lay at their feet in a
+shimmering haze, through which the forests rose like deep cool islands
+with here and there a red roof, or a white church spire to tell of human
+habitation. And up through the haze like released spirits in paradise
+came with soft, steady motion, phalanxes of soldiers smiling.
+
+"By my sword that never sleeps," cried King Theophile, "their faces shall
+be gray ere nightfall, and they shall smile no more."
+
+Then all his soldiers made their swords sing and flash like waving grain
+of death; and they chanted together a song without joy. Suddenly the
+black dam of their war fury broke and, with the wild roar of an untamed
+cataract, they swept forward towards these still and smiling knights,
+with King Theophile on a high dark horse at their head.
+
+In his rage of conquest he dug his golden spurs into his horse's side,
+and the beast with quivering nostrils, leaped through space, then
+suddenly paused, quivering; nor could cry, or whip, or spur move him.
+Then King Theophile leaped down and rushed forward to see what was
+frightening the animal; and all at once he crashed against something
+hard, and his broken right arm fell to his side. He grew gray, not with
+pain but with sheer terror, for he could see nothing, yet his arm had
+been broken upon a substance that felt like granite.
+
+As he gazed wildly about him, he saw the first phalanx of his army pitch
+back with bleeding foreheads; and their eyes rolled in amazement, for
+they could see nothing, yet they had driven themselves against stones.
+
+"On! On!" cried King Theophile, for he trusted again to his senses which
+revealed only a peaceful landscape and in the distance, haloed with the
+mists, a calm army waiting and smiling. That smile of the foe was like
+poison in the King's veins, and again he rushed forward, this time to
+bruise and cut his head, so that the blood poured over his white mantle.
+
+Then he grew faint with fear as he beheld his soldiers clawing the
+empty airs and turning horror-stricken countenances to him. "Sire,"
+they whispered, "something is holding us back. Something is here that
+we do not see!"
+
+At that moment the air-spies dropped to the ground like tired birds. "The
+wind holds us back," cried one. "No!" exclaimed another, "we broke our
+machines against a wall miles in the air! This is a bewitched country."
+
+"We will wait and try again," said King Theophile.
+
+So they encamped on the spot, and far off in the haze they saw the other
+army pitch its tents, and they heard the soldiers singing. All night
+their banners waved in the wind and the faint music continued.
+
+At dawn King Theophile's army was astir, and those air-spies whose
+vehicles were still unbroken, began their flight violently--and were as
+violently pitched back. The phalanxes were ordered to advance, but some
+fell dead with horror as they drove their limbs against an unseen
+barrier. For the limpid air revealed only the placid fields; and in the
+distance among the golden shadows, men smiling like the still saints in
+paradisal meadows. "These be happy warriors," sighed the King, and for
+once in his life he longed to call the foe "brother" and ask how the
+harvest went; and to pillow his head on the same knapsack with a soldier,
+and so sleep sweet and brotherly.
+
+But the wall which shut out his hate, now shut out also his love, so that
+he could not walk across the fields and embrace those smiling warriors
+waiting in the sunshine for a battle that was never to take place.
+
+So sadly one day he turned his army back to the sea-strand, and the
+rocking boats, and away from the vision of calm eyes gazing at him
+through golden shadows, where the land lay fair and open.
+
+Now when the last of the fleet had disappeared below the horizon the
+people of the Dark Wood kingdom went mad with joy; and the Wizard was
+escorted to the palace by all the army. The Princess Myrtle and Prince
+Merlin met him at the entrance to the throne-room, and pages scattered
+flowers beneath his feet.
+
+"O Wise Man," cried the Princess, "how shall we reward thee for
+thy wisdom?"
+
+"Only children crave rewards," replied the Wizard. "It will be pleasure
+enough for me to return to my little hut and to hear the woodpeckers in
+the eaves; and to see the white owls fly when the stars glow above the
+dark forest branches."
+
+Now the Military Commander was the only person in the kingdom who was
+not sharing the general joy. He was grumpy because he had lost all the
+honor of winning a bloody battle. Even the sight of all his army alive
+and well could not soothe the wound to his vanity; so when the Princess
+and the Wizard were exchanging the last courtesies, he strode forward,
+bowed, and said:
+
+"Your Highness, this invisible wall is all very well, but how will our
+people reach the seacoast through this perpetual barrier? Can this mighty
+Wizard destroy what he has erected?"
+
+Then all the court looked at the Wizard, who asked to be led at once to
+the great concourse where the people were assembled. "This is a question
+to be settled by the nation and not by the court," he averred.
+
+So the knights and ladies moved like living flowers to the concourse
+where the people were assembled--the pure grain of the kingdom. And the
+Wizard called in a loud voice to them, "Men and women, is it your will
+that your good deeds be destroyed or remain in everlasting remembrance?
+For this wall will never keep any true soul from the sea, nor any honest
+man; but he that is a rogue will beat in vain against it!"
+
+Then the people shouted, "We will keep this wall which we have built with
+our good deeds."
+
+So the wall stood forever, but the Wizard journeyed home, and knew the
+joy of the tired traveler who sees his own little nook again. That night
+he ate his bread and drank his draught of water on his own doorstone; and
+watched the white owls fly, hoping that Wisdom would let him be quiet
+awhile in the arms of the forest before she sent him out again to teach
+the restless hearts of men.
+
+
+
+
+THE TREE IN THE DARK WOOD
+
+
+In the kingdom of the Princess Myrtle were many forests cut through with
+roaring streams which dashed and danced their way over immense shining
+black bowlders that looked like ebony bears lying in the current. So high
+were the trees of these woods that they shut out the sun, and he who
+walked through them felt himself among the columns of a gigantic temple.
+
+In the darkest wood of all people sometimes lost their way on bitter
+nights when the white stars hung just above the tree-tops and the
+frost-fairies filled the air with the little snaps and crackles of their
+orchestra--the queer, marred music of winter. The reddening of dawn found
+these poor adventurers frozen unless they had the good fortune to find
+what all the countryside knew as "The Tree in the Dark Wood."
+
+The whispers of generations had established the fact of the existence
+of this tree since the hour when the woodcutter, Peter Garland, had
+wandered too far into the forest, and had been benighted on the feast
+of St. Stephen when the air sometimes sings with snow. He had become
+half paralyzed with the cold, his poor lantern had gone out, and he was
+about to say his last prayers thinking he would never live until
+morning, when suddenly, in the midst of the whirling snow, he saw
+extended the limbs of a most beautiful tree. It was not so tall as the
+others, and shining fruit of a delicious appearance hung upon its
+branches amidst its thick foliage.
+
+Best of all, poor, half-frozen Peter felt a wonderful warmth glowing from
+its trunk, and with the warmth came a soft crimson light; so he stole up
+to it as if he were a little boy and this tree were his beautiful Mother;
+and he cuddled down in the arms of its great roots and went to sleep.
+
+When he woke up it was morning; and the sun was turning the surface of
+the snow into sheets of iridescent light. He yawned and stretched out his
+arms, then remembering his wonderful rescue of the evening before, he
+gazed upward, but saw only a tall pine tree with shining brownish cones
+pendant from its branches. Where was the beautiful green summer-tree hung
+with crimson fruit? Where was the light like the sun's rays through
+painted glass?
+
+"But here am I alive and warm," thought Peter. "And the night was bitter.
+This tree must change its shape at the footfall of evening; and I will
+mark it, lest it should be lost to us."
+
+So taking out his knife he cut three crosses in the bark of the tree;
+then setting his face to the sun, for his cottage lay to the east of the
+Dark Wood, he hacked the trees all along the way; and at last emerged in
+the path which led to his dwelling. His wife and all the neighbors, who
+had given him up for dead, came running to meet him with cries of joy;
+but when he told them what had happened they tapped their foreheads and
+glanced at each other. "Poor man," they said, "the frost-king hath stolen
+his wits."
+
+"But I marked the tree with three crosses," he cried, "and I can lead you
+straight to it."
+
+They laughed, but to humor him they said he might take them to his
+wonderful tree after dinner, when hot soup had given them all courage; so
+that afternoon there was a long procession of people trudging through the
+Dark Wood with Peter at their head. By the time he arrived at the tree he
+was trembling like a leaf with excitement. There, sure enough, stood a
+tall pine-tree marked with the three crosses, but it was otherwise in no
+way different from its fellows. "Yes, but wait for evening; then you will
+see it change," said Peter.
+
+They laughed a little and grumbled a little; but most of them had filled
+their lanterns and brought bread and cheese against a hungry time, and
+after all, it was not so cold in the forest, for the North Wind with his
+blue ballooned cheeks could not blow hard down those long avenues. Peter
+was full of excitement, for he was sure that the tree would become
+magical as soon as the sun set.
+
+When the last splashes of crimson had faded from the topmost boughs he
+began anxiously to watch the tree about which all the villagers had
+seated themselves in a circle after first scraping the snow from the dead
+leaves. Darker and darker grew the air, and brighter the stars, while far
+off in the forest the great cats began to talk to each other, and the
+owls hooted and flew. Suddenly Peter gave a cry of joy. "See! See! the
+wonderful fruit, the glowing leaves!"
+
+"Nonsense!" said his wife. "O, poor loon, he will never be right again!"
+and she began to weep into her apron.
+
+"It is true! It is true!" cried another voice, that of hard-worked Bennie
+Brown, who supported an old father and mother and a crippled sister by
+his labors.
+
+"Yes, it is the most beautiful tree," said a young girl, who had once
+sold her golden hair to buy bread for a mother with a new-born child. "O
+the wonderful fruit! the sweet warmth."
+
+The others stared and rubbed their eyes; and looked angry. "You lie,
+Bennie!" one cried; "You are a silly girl, Elsa," shrieked another.
+
+"They speak truth. See you not the crimson light?" spoke grave Henry
+Baird, who had rescued many from drowning in the mountain streams.
+
+Those who did not see grew more and more furious. "Crazy people," they
+cried. "Loons! silly babblers! will you teach us?" Then some began to
+beat Peter; others to belabor young Elsa, at which Bennie ran to her
+rescue, and being as brave as he was good, laid about him with his fists,
+and cried "Shame on you, to hurt a woman, because your own eyes are
+blind." Soon everyone was fighting, but those who saw the tree felt a
+great strength in all their limbs, and warmth and joy; so that they soon
+escaped from the brawling disappointed ones and ran lightly homeward with
+singing hearts.
+
+But the dispute thus started went on through many months until half the
+village refused to speak to the other half. Finally a good old hermit
+traveled over the ridges of the mountains and forded many streams to
+reach a place which had become famous by its quarrel. He arrived in
+harvest time. Those who knew that the tree glowed with life were in the
+fields quietly at work, for what had they to trouble them who had found
+the truth? but the others who could not see were leaning over each
+other's fences with their neglected gardens at their impatient heels; and
+arguing and arguing the matter.
+
+The hermit being a wise man asked no direct questions concerning the
+tree, but went himself that evening into the forest and there beheld
+the miracle.
+
+Next day he made friends with the villagers; and because warm words open
+the heart, soon the good hermit had the life histories of all the
+inhabitants, as well as the names of those who had seen the tree and
+those whose sight was blinded.
+
+After which he retired into the wood to think upon what he had learned;
+and to sort out his people like little colored beads. What he discovered
+was this: that all those who had made sacrifices for their fellows, like
+Bennie Brown and young Elsa, were able to see the tree, but the selfish
+and the hard-hearted and the indifferent could not behold it.
+
+When he was quite sure of this he went calmly back to the village and
+calling together all the inhabitants he told them exactly why some saw
+the tree and why it was hidden from the sight of others. These latter
+only laughed at his words, though some of them were cut to the heart, but
+they were too proud to reveal the wound.
+
+The hermit's explanation, however, was accepted by many; and rumor
+carried it far beyond the borders of the village, so that after a while
+the nobility heard of it, and the burghers in the walled towns where
+beautiful tapestries were always drowsing into wonderful life on looms
+that could weave dreams. The result was that it grew quite fashionable to
+journey to the tree to make a test of one's character, as people go to
+physicians to have their blood examined. In the bright summer evenings
+long processions could be seen winding like a varicolored serpent among
+the gray trees. Swords flashed, banners flew, troubadours sang snatches
+of little lilting airs like the rise and dip of birds' wings, and
+beautiful ladies jingled the golden bridles of their steeds.
+
+Few of these ladies brought their betrothed with them, lest they should
+be made ashamed by not being able to see the tree; and should thereby be
+discovered as possessing hard hearts beneath their sweet manners. It was
+rumored, indeed, that people known to be selfish and cruel had
+proclaimed, nevertheless, that they beheld a glorious tree, so that liars
+were made, and hypocrites. Others said this was but the jealousy of
+disappointed ones whose own lives had blurred their eyesight.
+
+Now in the realm dwelt a splendid young knight whose name was Sir
+Godfrey, and who took pleasure in all manner of chivalrous deeds towards
+the ladies of his own rank. He was tall and strong-limbed, with clear
+blue eyes, and a fresh skin, and when he wore his golden armor he looked
+like the pictures of St. George. His home was a low-set castle of aged
+stones held together by a vast ivy vine, and around the castle was a moat
+so deep that it gave back a midnight darkness to the noon sky.
+
+Now Sir Godfrey was in love with the Lady Beatrice whose lands adjoined
+his. She was pale and slender as any lily, with black heavy hair that had
+no light in it, but in her heart was much light; and because her soul
+mirrored more than her eyes, she did not love easily, which reluctance of
+hers was a grief to Sir Godfrey, who pressed his suit in vain.
+
+One day when the roses were full-blown and all the little lambs were
+skipping in the broad green fields, Sir Godfrey rode on his great white
+horse towards the castle of the Lady Beatrice which was high up on a
+hill, and faced the dawn. And he proudly rode because he saw that she was
+watching him from the rose-terraces. But after a while he beheld her no
+more, and he thought, "She knows I know she was watching." Pride put a
+smile on his lips, because she had never watched for him before.
+
+He spurred his horse to reach her the quicker while she was in this mood.
+Now just before he gained the gate of the castle a goose-girl with her
+geese blocked the road, and he cried impatiently, "Out of the way! out of
+the way!" and scarcely reined in his horse, so that there was danger of
+the girl's being hurt. She was quick on her feet, however, and sprang
+aside, but one poor bird was trampled under the steed's hoofs, at which
+the girl gave a sob and called out, "You are wicked, wicked!" Then he put
+his hand in his purse and drew out some gold pieces and flung them
+towards her; but she did not see them, for her face was buried in the
+down of the bird, which was a pet.
+
+When he reached the gate, there in the shadow of the arch stood the Lady
+Beatrice. Her face was as white as a gardenia flower, and she did not
+smile when she greeted him. He wondered what he had done to offend her,
+and after a page had led away his horse he employed all his graceful arts
+to win the smile he craved as a thirsty man longs for water. Sometimes
+she glanced at him from beneath her lashes as if seeking to read his
+soul; and once he saw her lips tremble, but the smile did not come.
+
+They were pacing up and down between the nodding roses that seemed to be
+saying to Sir Godfrey, "Kiss her! kiss her!" until no longer could he
+bear it, and he sank on one knee before her and poured out his heart.
+
+She listened like a maiden turned to snow. Then when he was silent she
+spoke thus to him: "Will you go with me and my ladies to the Tree in the
+Dark Wood this very night? If you can behold the Tree filled with fruit
+and rosy flame I will marry you, if not I cannot be your bride. But you
+must promise me upon the cross-hilt of your sword that you will speak
+truthfully. You must not deceive me to gain my hand."
+
+Then Sir Godfrey gave his word joyfully, for he was sure that he would
+behold the magical Tree. He thought of all his noble deeds and the
+beautiful ladies for whose sake he had tilted in tourney; and of all his
+prowess as a knight in king's courts.
+
+So when the sun was low, he with Lady Beatrice and her train of ladies
+rode forth from the gates towards the Dark Wood which lay like a cloud
+in the distance; and Sir Godfrey was full of song and jest, for he
+never doubted that soon he would be the betrothed of his beautiful
+lady; but she was silent and looked often towards the west where the
+rosy clouds slept.
+
+When the procession entered the wood it was as if the gray spaces had
+turned all at once into a garden. Flashes of jewels and silks threw magic
+colors on the twilight, and the troubadours in the train sang so sweetly
+that all the birds were mute. As night came on the, pretty little
+lanterns were lit and swung at the horses' bridles.
+
+The Tree was nearly reached when Lady Beatrice halted her procession and
+bade it await her and Sir Godfrey, for she loved him too well to have him
+mortified before other people; and she feared that he would not behold
+the glowing fruit-bearing Tree. But never a doubt crossed his mind, for
+he remembered all his noble deeds that he had performed beneath the eyes
+of gallant knights and fair ladies.
+
+So they rode on to the Tree, and he unhooked the lantern from his saddle
+and held it high.
+
+"Why do you do that?" asked the Lady Beatrice.
+
+"To find the three crosses," he said.
+
+"But the Tree is glowing like a jewel," she cried.
+
+Then he grew gray as the ashes of a long-spent fire, for he knew that he
+had failed; and his pride suffered a mortal wound, since it was greater
+than his love. "You are deceived, Lady Beatrice, like all the rest," he
+said. "There is no magic Tree."
+
+For answer she turned her horse and rode sadly away. Her heart was too
+heavy for speech. As he saw her going the sense of loss cut like a
+knife into his spirit, and his pain was keen, for he still loved for
+his sake and not for hers. She, seeing that he suffered, longed to
+comfort him, but she was not one of those who live for the moment, and
+she held her peace.
+
+When they reached the waiting procession everyone looked at Sir Godfrey,
+and his pride was, by the challenge of their eyes, again aroused, for he
+could do nothing, nor feel nothing unless he was before a mirror. So he
+began to be very gay; and though he would have scorned to speak a lie, he
+acted one that everyone might believe he had seen the magic Tree. But the
+Lady Beatrice remained silent and sad. When they reached her gates he
+asked her permission to enter; then she said: "Some day, not now."
+
+He rode away without a jest, for she had never before refused him any
+courtesy, and his heart was heavy within him. That night he could not
+sleep, but tossed upon his bed, sometimes grieving because he had not
+seen the magic Tree and so had been made of no worth in the Lady
+Beatrice's eyes; sometimes in anguish because she had not allowed him to
+enter her gates.
+
+But in all this he loved himself, so the pain was but transitory, and
+next day he put on his finest doublet of leaf-green satin lined with
+primrose silk and edged with pale corals, and rode to her gates. There
+the porter brought back word that the Lady Beatrice could not see him.
+
+Sir Godfrey was angry then, and he sought to make her jealous. Next day
+when at the jousts, he sat at the feet of her cousin, Lady Alladine, nor
+did he look towards the Lady Beatrice.
+
+But all that only heaped fire on his own heart, and he rode home to his
+castle with his brow dark. The singing birds seemed to mock him, and he
+thought he heard the shrill laughter of the goblin-men, who live in the
+deep dells. That night he could not sleep; but murmured again and again
+that she was his own love, and not the Lady Alladine.
+
+So full of meekness he rode next day to the castle of his heart's life,
+but the porter brought back to him the same message, and Sir Godfrey
+departed full of anguish. His pain, like a scourge, drove him on and on
+until he was far off in the desert amid the tangled and tripping briers
+and the keen-edged stones. The rain beat upon his head and upon his
+silken clothes, but he was unmindful of it, because he had begun to
+grieve not for himself, but for his sweet lost love.
+
+The days went by and he grew thin and worn with his grieving; and because
+he learned how salt is the taste of tears he began to pity everything
+that suffered. He was well-nigh worn out with his memories, for now he
+never thought of his noble deeds, but of the times when he had given pain
+to others. Often he remembered the poor goose-girl and her birds. At
+first he would say, "I gave her gold"; then a voice in his heart
+answered, "Gold cannot pay for life."
+
+So one day he went to the market-place and bought a fine gray goose with
+a bill as red as a cardinal's robe; and he tucked the bird under his arm,
+though the people jeered to see a noble knight carrying a goose. But Sir
+Godfrey cared not. He went straight to the village green where the
+goose-girl was leading her birds around, and bowed low before her as if
+she were a great lady.
+
+"I am sorry that I killed one of your flock," he said. "Will you take
+this fellow for forgiveness's sake?"
+
+Then the tears came into her eyes, and she took into her arms from his
+the gray goose whose bill was red as a cardinal's robe; and stroked
+his feathers.
+
+"Why do you cry?" asked Sir Godfrey.
+
+"I am glad you are a true knight," she answered.
+
+Then Sir Godfrey wished with all his heart that he might bring tears to
+the eyes of the Lady Beatrice, for he felt that never more would she
+believe him a true knight.
+
+The world was full of flying leaves, for it was autumn; then the winds
+died and the snows came. Bitter winter chained the mountain streams and
+laid the forests asleep. The stars shone blue, and on the windowpanes
+were fairy pictures.
+
+Now the time drew near the birth of Christ, and one day Sir Godfrey
+was overjoyed to receive a message from the Lady Beatrice, bidding him
+to a feast on Christmas Eve. It seemed to him that he could not wait
+for the hour to come, and all that day he thought upon the joy of
+beholding her again.
+
+Towards nightfall the wind rose and the snow began to fly, but to Sir
+Godfrey it was as if the air were full of dainty flowers. Nor did he
+regard the cold nor the whistling tempest, but rode in deep joy and
+humility to the castlegate of the Lady Beatrice.
+
+When he had nearly reached it he heard a feeble voice crying: "Stop, Sir
+Knight; for the love of heaven, stop!" and looking down he saw a bent old
+woman holding her hands out to him in supplication.
+
+Every moment's delay was as the point of a sharp sword against his heart,
+but he had himself suffered too much to turn from the voice of pain; and
+leaning from his saddle he said, "What can I do for you, Mother?"
+
+"Sir Knight," she replied, "my home lies on the farther side of the Dark
+Wood, and the neighbor who was to convey me thither has no doubt
+forgotten his promise. I have a sick son there for whose sake I made this
+journey. Wilt thou, for the love of heaven, take me up behind thee and
+convey me through the Dark Wood to my dwelling? I cannot walk through
+this tempest, and my son may die."
+
+Then Sir Godfrey was as a man turned into marble by enchantment, and his
+heart was sore with struggle. Before him were the lights of the castle
+which held his love. If he carried this woman to her home, he could not
+see his Lady Beatrice, who, perhaps, would never forgive him for not
+appearing at her summons.
+
+The thought was as death to him, and he looked broodingly down at the
+poor woman. "I am bidden to a feast, Mother," he said, "the porter of
+this castle will give you shelter for the night, and in the morning I
+will convey you through the Dark Wood to your home."
+
+"The morning may be too late, Sir Knight," she said sadly.
+
+Then without a word Sir Godfrey turned his horse, and though his heart
+was like lead, he bent a cheerful countenance to the stranger, and
+assisted her to the place behind the saddle, and off they rode together
+through the night and storm.
+
+Sir Godfrey spoke but little, since his thoughts were with the Lady
+Beatrice and the empty chair at the feast which should have been his. He
+saw her face imprinted on the night's dark veil and heard her voice
+calling him on the whistling wind. The old woman behind him muttered of
+the storm while on and on they rode.
+
+At last they entered the Dark Wood, and here they made slower progress,
+for the light of Sir Godfrey's little lantern was feeble and the trees
+cast confusing shadows. By and by the old woman began to moan that she
+was cold, that she felt herself dying of the cold. "O would that we could
+reach the Tree which sheds warmth and bears fruit even in this bitter
+weather," she cried. "O Knight, hasten forward to the Tree."
+
+But Sir Godfrey made no answer, for he was now sure that he should never
+be holy enough to behold the Tree; and he, too, felt the sorrow and cold
+of death creep upon him, and a dreadful fear that never again should he
+leave the Dark Wood alive, but would perish there miserably. He could no
+longer see the path, and the arms of the old woman clinging to him were
+like the touch of ice. "O Mother!" he cried, "Pray for our deliverance,
+for I have lost the road."
+
+At that moment his lantern went out, and he gave a cry of despair, for he
+had nothing wherewith to relight it.
+
+"Fear not," cried the old woman, "but press on."
+
+So through the dark he urged his horse, seeing nothing and feeling more
+dead than alive; for he now knew that both he and his passenger must
+perish of the cold.
+
+But even as he was resigning his heart to the will of heaven, he saw afar
+off a beautiful, clear, rosy light shedding long rays over the snow, and
+where the light lay the snowflakes fell no more, but a delicate breeze,
+soft and caressing, issued like a breath of spring from that circle. The
+old woman cried, "The Tree! the Tree!"
+
+Sir Godfrey's heart leaped with joy. He could not believe that he was
+at last worthy to behold the Tree, yet there it rose, oh, so glorious!
+its trunk glowing with a sweet, warm fire, its branches covered with
+lights and heavy with delicious fruit. He laughed with joy, while the
+old woman softly wept. Even the horse saw the fine sight, for he
+whinnied his pleasure.
+
+Then the knight dismounted and turned to lift the old woman down, when
+suddenly she threw back her hood, and straightened herself; and there,
+smiling into his eyes, was his own love, the Lady Beatrice. "O my true
+Knight," she cried. "For the sake of a stranger thou didst brave death.
+Now with thy love shalt thou live."
+
+Then Sir Godfrey cried out with joy and took her in his arms and kissed
+her many times, while from behind the Tree came running all the
+true-hearted nobles and peasants who had been able to see its wonders,
+and they all circled Sir Godfrey and the Lady Beatrice while they
+plighted their troth. Then all ate the fruit, and made merry in the rosy
+warmth until the Christmas morning dawned, when they went back in the
+sunshine to celebrate the marriage of Sir Godfrey and the Lady Beatrice,
+who lived happily ever afterwards; for how otherwise could it be with
+lovers that had together beheld the Tree in the Dark Wood?
+
+
+
+
+THE CAT THAT WINKED
+
+
+Once there was an old woman who lived on the edge of the Dark Wood in a
+small cottage all covered with thick thatch and over the thatch grew a
+honeysuckle vine; but at the gable where the chimneys clustered, the
+wisteria flung purple flowers in May.
+
+On the topmost chimney was a stork's nest, and there dear grandfather
+stork stood on one leg, unless he was wanted to carry a little baby to
+some house in the village; when he flapped his wings and flew away over
+the tree-tops to the Land of Little Souls.
+
+Now the old woman loved her home, because she had lived there many years
+with her husband. She loved the two worn chairs on each side of the great
+hearth, and her pewter dishes, and her big china water-pitcher with
+flowers shining on it--not for themselves, but for the reason that once
+someone had used them and admired them with her.
+
+Into the little latticed windows the roses peeped, and these Mother
+Huldah loved too, and tended carefully all through the sweet-smelling
+summer-time. But perhaps she liked best the long winter evenings when she
+spun by the fire and sang little songs like these:
+
+"My heart as a bird has flown away,
+  (Princess, where? Princess, where?)
+Into the land that is always gay,
+  Out of the land of care.
+
+"But no bird flies alone to bliss,
+  (Princess, why? Princess, why?)
+I have no answer but a kiss,
+  And then the open sky."
+
+Nobody listened but Tommie, who was an immense black cat, held in great
+reverence by the villagers, for he had the greenest eyes and the longest
+whiskers and the heaviest fur of any cat in the kingdom. Moreover, he had
+hundreds of mice to his credit and no birds, for he was a good and wise
+grimalkin. Sometimes he talked with his tail and sometimes he opened his
+pink mouth and said just as plain as words that he had been stalking
+through the moonlight and had seen old Egbert go limping home as if he
+had the rheumatism.
+
+So next day Mother Huldah with her little bag of medicines and ointments
+would go to old Egbert's hut, and sure enough, find him bedridden; or
+Tommie would tell her that Charlemagne the stork had carried a baby to a
+poor mother who had no clothes for it. Then Mother Huldah would go to her
+great cedar chest and take out linen that smelled all sweetly of
+lavender, and carry it with some good food to the poor woman.
+
+Mother Huldah was so kind and generous that everybody got in the habit of
+taking things from her without sometimes so much as a "thank you," or an
+inquiry as to her own health. But the little children loved her because
+she made them pretty cakes; and told them the stories she used to tell
+her own children, her two fine sons who were soldiers. These sons sent
+her the money upon which she lived and out of which she made her little
+charities, and they wrote her fine brave letters, and every year they
+came home to see her, bearing beautiful presents from foreign lands,
+ivory toys and shining silks (which she always gave to some bride) and
+workboxes of sweet-scented wood richly carved--to show how much they
+loved her.
+
+One dreadful year a great war broke out, and not long after Mother Huldah
+heard that her two sons had been killed, and she herself thought she
+would follow them through grief. But she lived on and as she grew more
+sorrowful she went less and less to the village, and people began to
+forget her. Even the little children stayed away since she had no longer
+the heart to tell them the tales she had once told her sons; and she must
+no longer bake the little cakes since every day saw her small hoard of
+money diminishing.
+
+At last, when the winter tempests were raging, and the sleet was beating
+upon the thatch, there came a day when no food remained in the cottage;
+and Mother Huldah felt too weak and sick to go out in quest of it. Nor
+did she wish to tell her neighbors that no food remained in the cottage.
+
+So full of weary dreams and old sad thoughts she sat down in one of the
+armchairs before the fire, and whether she nodded from drowsiness, or
+whether Tommie nodded at her she never knew, but he moved his black head
+and opened his pink mouth, and said he, "Suppose I fetch you a bird just
+this once."
+
+She was much surprised, for Tommie had never talked to her before, but
+she did not show how astonished she was because she was always very
+polite to him. So she replied, "Bless your whiskers! Tommie! but we won't
+break through our rule. Maybe some neighbor will fetch me a loaf!"
+
+"Maybe they will and perhaps they won't," said Tommie, "they're an
+ungrateful lot."
+
+"They think I am still rich, my dear," she answered.
+
+"So you are, but not in the way they mean," Tommie said. "And,
+Mother Huldah, if they neglect you a day longer it won't be your
+Tommie's fault."
+
+Then Mother Huldah shook her finger at him. "You switch your tail just as
+if you were going to steal something. Tommie, I brought you up better
+than that."
+
+"Steal! nonsense!" cried Tommie. "Most of 'em have more than they
+need, anyway."
+
+"Tommie, I believe you're hungry, or your morals wouldn't be so queer!"
+Mother Huldah said reprovingly.
+
+"Hungry!" exclaimed Tommie. "I dream of lobster claws and chicken wings
+and blue saucers full of yellow wrinkled cream, twelve in a row. No
+wonder my morals are queer!"
+
+Then what happened was that poor Mother Huldah dozed off to sleep and
+when she awoke there was Tommie staring into the fire, his green eyes
+like two lanterns and his whiskers standing out very stiff and knowing,
+and at Mother Huldah's' feet was a wicker basket from which issued a most
+appetizing odor. "Why, Thomas" (she always called him Thomas in solemn
+moments), "what's this?"
+
+"Your dinner," said Tommie, and yawned like a gentleman who lights a
+cigarette and says, "O hang it all! what a beastly bore life is."
+
+"Thomas," questioned Mother Huldah solemnly, "where did you get this
+dinner?" for she had taken the cover off the basket and found a small
+roast chicken with vegetables and a bread pudding.
+
+"Why, I was strolling down the gray lane when I met a woman carrying that
+basket and I smelled chicken; so up I stood on my hind legs, and winked
+at her and I said, 'Thank you, I know you are taking that to Mother
+Huldah; let me carry it the rest of the way.'"
+
+But Mother Huldah cried, "Maybe the dinner wasn't for me, and you
+frightened her so she had to give it to you."
+
+Tommie yawned again. "Don't you think that the best thing you can do with
+a good dinner is to eat it?"
+
+So Mother Huldah ate her dinner, hoping all the while that she was making
+an honest meal; then, when she had fed Thomas, she asked him if
+Charlemagne was on the roof. "Indeed, no!" cried he. "Charlemagne has
+flown to the war country to fetch you a baby!"
+
+"Alas!" cried Mother Huldah. "I pity the poor babes, but how can I bring
+up a baby?"
+
+"It is your granddaughter," said Tommie. "Charlemagne told me that a year
+ago your son Rupert married, but he meant to bring his bride home as a
+surprise to you. Then the war broke out and--"
+
+"O poor little daughter-in-law!" cried Mother Huldah. "Did she break
+her heart?"
+
+"Yes, and so she followed Rupert to the Country of the Brave Souls; but
+Charlemagne is fetching the baby in a warm woolen napkin tied up at the
+four corners; and when his wings get tired from flying he puts a bit of
+sugar and a drop of water in the baby's mouth and leans his feathery
+breast against its little feet to keep them warm!"
+
+"Yes! yes!" said Mother Huldah, "a baby's feet should be always kept
+warm--but, dear me, dear me, the Sweet One will need milk before long,
+and the grain of the whole wheat to help her grow! I have no money to buy
+her food."
+
+Tommie looked very wise. "Mother Huldah," he said as he drew a black paw
+knowingly over one ear, "don't you know that wherever a baby comes, help
+comes? Open the linen chest and get your shining shears and begin to make
+little shirts and dresses. I think I'll take a look at the weather."
+
+He made the last remark carelessly like a young gentleman who will stroll
+out and leave the women-folk to their devices.
+
+"O Tommie!" said Mother Huldah, "you are not going to do anything
+impulsive?"
+
+"Mother Huldah," replied Tommie, "did you ever know a cat to do anything
+impulsive unless he saw a bird, or a mouse?"
+
+With that he left her, and she watched him walk away down the forest path
+with the sunlight glistening on his coat and his tail held high and
+straight. Sometimes he would pause and lift one foot daintily, the toes
+curling in. Mother Huldah always said that Tommie heard not with his ears
+but with his whiskers, and perhaps it was true.
+
+Tommie himself was making his own plans as he went along. "If I tell
+these villagers outright that Mother Huldah is in need, each person will
+think, 'O well, Neighbor Jude, or Gossip Dorcas has more to spare than I.
+Someone else will take care of the poor old lady, I am sure.' And it will
+end in her getting nothing at all. I will not talk about her, but to each
+person I will talk about himself, for that is the way to get people
+interested."
+
+At which Tommie smiled, and because his great-grandfather was a Cheshire
+Cat, his smile gave him a wise and jovial look, as if the Sphinx of Egypt
+should suddenly see a joke. With a good heart he went daintily on his
+way, shaking the snow from his paws at times, until he reached the
+village green. Now in the middle of the green stood the pump, made of
+wood with a flat top. On this Tommie seated himself, put his paws neatly
+together, folded his tail about them, made his green eyes perfectly
+round, and stared straight ahead of him.
+
+Now even a cat when he looks as if he could think for himself will draw
+people's attention; especially if he seems to enjoy his thoughts. And
+Tommie, seated on the pump in the bright winter sunshine, looked as if he
+had something in his mind that pleased him.
+
+"Heigh-O," said one of the passers-by. "Here's a witch-cat!"
+
+"You are mistaken," replied Tommie with a wink. "I belong to Mother
+Huldah, and she is the best woman in the village."
+
+The man was so astonished that he dropped a parcel of eggs he was
+carrying, and they were all broken.
+
+"That's what comes," said Tommie, "of imagining evil where none exists."
+
+The man was so angry that he made some snowballs hastily and began to
+pelt Tommie with them; but Tommie understood the beautiful art of
+dodging--which some people never learn all their lives--so he didn't get
+hit. By this time a crowd had gathered about the angry man, and were
+asking him what was the matter.
+
+"Matter!" he shrieked, "that black object on the pump gave me impudence!"
+
+"Heigh-O!" cried little Elsa. "How could a cat give thee impudence!"
+
+"Ask him then," said the man. "He can talk like any Christian."
+
+At which the crowd all looked at Tommie, who winked at them and said,
+"Does anybody here want to ask me any questions? I'll tell him what he
+wants to know in perfect confidence between him and me and the pump. If
+my answer pleases him, he can give me a silver piece. If my reply make
+his heart go pit-a-pat with joy he can give me a gold piece. If he
+doesn't like my answers, he needn't give me anything. Now that's fair,
+isn't it?"
+
+Then everybody looked at everybody else, and dropped their jaws and
+rubbed their eyes. Nobody stirred for a minute, then a fine young fellow
+stepped forward, blushing. This was Carl, the miller's son, who was
+straight as a birch-tree, and had blue eyes like deep lakes, and he
+walked right up to the pump, and bowed, then he whispered into Tommie's
+ear, "Does Lucia love me?"
+
+Tommie winked his right eye and smiled. "Carl," he replied, "get up
+your courage and ask her to-day, for she loves you better than anyone
+in the world."
+
+Then Carl felt his heart go pit-a-pat, and all the snow wreaths on the
+trees seemed to turn to bridal flowers. "Thanks, dear and wise Pussy," he
+said, and took out his handkerchief and spread it at Tommie's feet and on
+it he placed not one, but three gold pieces.
+
+When the villagers saw the gold pieces glittering in the sun and beheld
+the radiant face of Carl, they all began to wonder, and each person
+wanted to try his own luck. "After all," said each one to himself, "if I
+don't like what the cat says I needn't pay him anything."
+
+The next person to go up was the village tanner, whose skin was like
+leather and whose eyes were little like a pig's. Tommie was already
+acquainted with him, having been kicked out of his tannery once when on
+an innocent mousing expedition.
+
+"Say," said the tanner, "will my Uncle Jean leave me his farm?"
+
+"No," answered Tommie, winking his left eye. "That he won't! He knows you
+are always wishing he would die!"
+
+The tanner was so angry that he snarled: "Don't you ever let me catch you
+around the tannery again, or I'll make you into a muff for my daughter."
+
+"Black furs are not fashionable this winter," said Tommie. "Next?"
+
+Everybody laughed when they saw that the tanner hadn't paid money for
+his information, and so, presumably, didn't like it. But strangely
+enough, instead of discouraging this led them on to try their luck; and
+the next person who came to ask Tommie a question was poor, old,
+half-blind Henley the miser. He put his mouth close to the cat's ear, so
+the people behind him wouldn't catch what he said, and in a hoarse voice
+he asked, "Say, old whiskers, will my fine ship loaded with dates and
+spices reach Norway safely?"
+
+"Yes, it will," said Tommie, "long before your withered old soul will
+reach a haven of peace."
+
+Henley was so excited over the first words that he didn't even hear the
+last ones. He hopped about on one leg, and was rushing off at last when
+Tommie cried, "Heigh-O, you haven't paid me!"
+
+The miser felt in his pockets and drew out a silver coin and laid it on
+the handkerchief.
+
+"Not at all," said Tommie. "Remember the Worth of that cargo! Gold
+or nothing."
+
+Henley began to whine. "I'm a poor old man, Tommie. I'll leave the cream
+jug on the doorstep every day and no questions will be asked!"
+
+"I'm not a thief," answered Tommie. "Mother Huldah brought me up better
+than that. Come, you don't want to have any quarrel with a black cat."
+
+Whereupon Henley reluctantly drew from his pocket a gold piece, while all
+the villagers opened their eyes very wide, and wondered what Tommie could
+have told the old gentleman to make him so liberal.
+
+The next person to come up was a little shy girl named Clara. She had big
+brown eyes and fair floating hair, and under her white chin and about her
+little white wrists were soft furs; for her father was a wealthy
+moneylender. She came close to Tommie and whispered, "Tell me, beautiful
+Pussy, if I shall ever win the love of Joseph Grange."
+
+Tommie winked his right eye several times and replied, "My dear, I see
+it coming!"
+
+She flushed with joy. "And what shall I do to hasten it?"
+
+Tommie reflected a moment. "Be pleasant, but not anxious. A lady with
+an anxious expression has little chance of winning a lover! Don't
+invite him too often; don't talk too much. Now I haven't hurt your
+feelings, have I?"
+
+"No, indeed," she said, for she was a young lady of good sense. "And
+Tommie, dear, will you take these gold pieces to Mother Huldah. She was
+so good to me when I was a little girl, and because I have been so
+absorbed in my own affairs I haven't been to see her lately."
+
+"That's the trouble with being in love," said Tommie, "it's apt to make
+people selfish, and it should make them love and remember everybody. It
+does when it's the real thing."
+
+Little Clara clasped her hands earnestly. "I will come to see Mother
+Huldah this afternoon," she said, "and bring her some cakes of my
+own baking."
+
+After Clara one person and another came up. Some asked foolish questions,
+some wise. Some paid down money, others didn't, but the pile of gold and
+silver at Tommie's feet grew steadily.
+
+Now all novelties, even talking cats, soon cease to be novelties, and
+towards afternoon when the villagers saw how much of their money lay at
+Tommie's feet, some of them began to be discontented. Of these the tanner
+was the ringleader, and he said to the other grumblers, "If we can get
+that lying cat off the pump, we can then take his money. I have three big
+rats in the trap at the tannery, and I know Tommie is starving hungry by
+this time. We'll let 'em loose on the ground in front of the pump. When
+he makes a spring one of you grab the money and run."
+
+Now the tanner had guessed right. Tommie was hungry, but he was
+determined to keep his post until sundown. After a while no more people
+came, and he was just thinking he would take up the handkerchief by the
+four corners and go home, when he espied a group of people approaching.
+Suddenly, oh, me, oh, my! three dinners were scampering towards him, such
+rats, such big, splendid rats in fine condition. Tommie had never used
+such self-control in all his nine lives, but he sat tight and though his
+whiskers showed his agitation he never budged.
+
+The tanner was mad clear through, and he cried out, "He's a wizard; he
+ought to be killed" because some people can't see others controlling
+themselves without thinking there's something wrong with them. Then he
+began to make snowballs and to pelt poor Tommie. Now Tommie, as has been
+said, was a good dodger, but nevertheless when it rains snowballs it's
+hard not to get hit. It might have fared badly with him had not some
+knights and ladies at that moment appeared on the scene in the train of
+the beautiful Princess Yolande, one of the fairest princesses in all the
+realm. She rode a great white horse, and she was robed in cream velvet
+and white furs, while about her slender waist was a girdle of gold set
+with sapphires which were as blue as her eyes. By her side rode Lord
+Mountfalcon. He was all in black armor, for he was mourning a brother who
+had died in the distant war.
+
+Love as well as grief filled his heart, for his dark eyes were
+continually upon the beautiful Princess, who now reined in her horse and
+cried out in a sweet voice, "Shame upon you men to hurt a poor cat."
+
+"He is a wizard and he belongs to a witch," called out the tanner.
+
+"O what a wicked lie," said Tommie. "I don't care what names you call me,
+but my mistress is one of the best women in the land. She has come to
+poverty in her old age. For her sake and to get her a little money, I've
+sat here all day answering truthfully all questions. Now, dear Princess
+Yolande, believe me, for I am a true cat."
+
+The Princess was so astonished that she couldn't speak for a moment. At
+last she turned to Lord Mountfalcon and said: "Truly, we have come to
+wonderland. I'd rather believe the cat than the people who were pelting
+him, and I have a mind to test his powers. Let us alight and ask him
+questions."
+
+Then they all dismounted and with the pages and the ladies and the
+gentlemen in armor the scene was as gay as the stage of an opera.
+Everybody chatted and laughed, and some of the court ladies stroked
+Tommie's fur with their pretty white hands; and one took off her bracelet
+and hung it about his neck.
+
+But when the Princess Yolande went forward to ask her question, everyone
+fell back. Then with sweet dignity, as became a princess, she stood
+before Tommie and said, "Tell me if Lord Mountfalcon love me truly."
+
+Tommie didn't wink, for he knew the ways of court, his grandfather having
+been chief mouser to old King Adelbert; but he purred a warm good purr,
+like a mill grinding out pure white grain.
+
+"If the sky in heaven be blue,
+Then Mountfalcon loves you true;
+If the sun set in the West,
+Lord Mountfalcon loves you best."
+
+"You see," he added, "I'm not much of a poet, but those are the facts."
+
+"Never was bad verse so sweet to me," cried the Princess and she put down
+a whole bag of gold at Tommie's feet.
+
+After her came Lord Mountfalcon himself with that sad grace of his, and
+all his spirit shadowed with love and grief. "Sir Puss," he said, "shall
+I wed ever the Princess Yolande?"
+
+"Before there are violets in the vales of the kingdom," replied Tommie.
+
+"Two saddlebags will not hold the gold I shall give thee," exclaimed
+the nobleman.
+
+"Bring them to the cottage where Mother Huldah lives," said Tommie. "And
+I ask this further favor: When you leave this spot will you take me up
+behind you and give this money to a page to convey; and so bring me
+safely home with the wealth, for I fear mischief from the tanner."
+
+"Most willingly," said Mountfalcon. "I will present your request to the
+Princess."
+
+After him all the court came with questions; so when the page advanced
+to gather up the money the load was almost more than he could carry.
+Then Tommie jumped down from his perch, and another page lifted him
+safely on to the big warm back of Lord Mountfalcon's horse, which felt
+fine and comforting to poor Tommie's feet. He was so tired that he took
+forty winks after he had told the Princess how to reach the cottage of
+Mother Huldah.
+
+When he woke they were all in the dim forest and the Princess Yolande and
+Lord Mountfalcon were talking in low tones like the whisper of the wind
+through flowers; and it seemed as if their talk were all of love and
+dreams and far-away griefs and tears that must fall.
+
+At last they reined in their horses where Mother Huldah stood at her gate
+peering into the forest. When she saw the beautiful lady and the noble
+knight and Tommie on the horse's back, she cried out, "O bless you, Sir
+Knight, for bringing him home."
+
+"And I've brought a fortune with me, Mother Huldah," cried Tommie.
+
+At this Mother Huldah looked troubled. "Gracious Lady," she addressed the
+Princess, "I hope my cat has not been up to mischief."
+
+"No, bless him," replied the Princess; then she told all that Tommie had
+done. "And fear not to take the money, Mother," she added, "for those who
+gave it did so of their free-will."
+
+"Alas! I would not take it," sighed Mother Huldah, "had not my Rupert and
+my Hugh died in the great war; and Rupert's wife went with him to the
+Kingdom of the Brave Souls; and I expect Charlemagne to-night with their
+little baby."
+
+"Rupert? what Rupert?" asked Lord Mountfalcon, leaning down from
+his horse.
+
+"Rupert Gordon; I am Huldah Gordon, his bereaved mother!"
+
+Then Mountfalcon removed his cap, alighted from his horse and bowed low
+before Mother Huldah. "He died gloriously. He died trying to remove my
+poor brother from danger," he said. "Now let me be as a son to you, for
+sweet memory's sake."
+
+[Illustration: CHARLEMAGNE BRINGS THE BABY TO MOTHER HULDAH]
+
+Then they all wept softly, for even to hear of those battles and those
+Silent Ones in the Kingdom of the Brave Souls was to behold the world
+through tears. And the Princess Yolande alighted and kissed Mother
+Huldah's hands and promised to visit her often.
+
+So with many true words they parted at last, and Mother Huldah was left
+alone with Tommie and the bags of gold and silver, which she took indoors
+and then returned to scan the sky where now the white stars hung and a
+thin half-circle of a moon. Tommie romped in the snow for the joy of
+stretching his legs. After a while he said, "Listen, don't you hear
+something, Mother Huldah?"
+
+"I would I heard wings!" she cried.
+
+"But I hear wings," said Tommie. "Watch! watch where the North
+Star burns!"
+
+So Mother Huldah watched, and soon she saw the great outspread wings
+of Charlemagne and saw his long bill with something hanging from the
+end of it.
+
+"My word, here's the baby," called out Tommie. "Hello, Charlemagne, you
+old Grandpa! have you kept that precious infant warm?"
+
+But Charlemagne alighted on his feet and walked solemnly to Mother Huldah
+and laid in her arms the softest, sweetest, pinkest little baby that she
+had ever seen. There was golden down on its head, and its little hands
+were folded like rosebuds beneath its tiny chin.
+
+Mother Huldah felt its feet to know if they were warm; then she cried
+and sobbed and held the little thing to her breast; and trembled for
+love of it.
+
+"Take it before the fire," said Tommie. "We're all tired to-night and
+it will be good to drowse and dream. Good-night, Charlemagne. The
+chimney's warm."
+
+So the stork flew up to the roof, and Mother Huldah took her treasure and
+held it in her warm, ample lap before the fire; and Tommie winked and
+dozed and looked at the baby with his great green eyes, while Mother
+Huldah sang:
+
+"The gold of the world will fade away,
+  Baby sleep! Baby sleep!
+But thou wilt live in my heart alway,
+  Sleep, my darling, sleep.
+
+"The gold of the world it comes and goes,
+  Baby sleep! Baby sleep!
+But thou wilt bloom like a summer rose,
+  Cease my soul to weep."
+
+
+
+
+THE MAGIC TEARS
+
+
+There was once a king named Theophile who lived in a dim castle on the
+edge of the ocean, but so far above the water that the flying spray never
+reached its lowest terrace; and only the strongest-winged seagulls could
+circle its towers and turrets. It was a strange, melancholy, beautiful
+place, where the light shimmered on the walls like the ripple of water,
+and in the shadows of the massive walls the flowers waved all day in the
+sea-wind like little princesses who would dance before they died.
+
+King Theophile had led many armies to victory, driving his golden
+white-sailed boats upon far-off coasts, but from each conquest he
+returned the sadder because he had made many people hate him, and had won
+no one's love. Nor could he find a woman who would wed him, because of
+the sorrows of his line, which were great.
+
+When he was not at war he would labor for his kingdom until sunset, and
+at that hour he would leave his Council Chamber to pace the terraces and
+gaze seaward over the rocking blue-green waves, while his minstrels sang
+to him. Only music could drive away his care, so always a page with a
+golden harp followed him. Sometimes he would bid everyone be gone but
+this boy, and the two would glide like shadows through the long galleries
+where the bluish tapestries hung; or brood together by the roaring fire
+when the sleet rattled on the casements.
+
+One spring day when it seemed as if even the ocean air wafted the
+fragrance of little pale flowers and the sun shone warmly on the old gray
+walls of the castle, the King and the boy wandered into the garden of the
+white lilacs; where, on a marble bench, King Theophile seated himself,
+and listened while the boy sang:
+
+"My love came out of an old dream,
+  And took away my peace;
+And now I dare not sleep again,
+  Until this heartache cease."
+
+"Did he ever know slumber again, I wonder," said the King. "O boy, of
+what use are your love-songs!"
+
+"To arouse love in your heart, Sire!"
+
+"What good is that when I have no maiden to love!"
+
+"Listen, Sire," said the boy. "You are going to war with King Mace who
+has a most beautiful daughter, the Princess Elene. When you have
+overthrown him, bring her to your kingdom and wed her."
+
+"A strange way to win the love of a woman," said the King, "by invading
+her father's kingdom. Nevertheless, I will have regard to the maiden."
+
+"I have heard," said the page, "that they who once behold her are
+restless ever afterwards from the wound of her beauty."
+
+The King nodded wearily. "There are women like that--gleams from lost
+stars; faces seen at sunset; or where the light is lifting after a storm.
+I have never cast eyes on such a maid."
+
+"When you see the Princess Elene you will behold her," said the page.
+
+"I will set forth to war immediately," announced the King.
+
+Soon thereafter he sailed away, and over the rocking billows went the
+golden boats until they drove upon the coasts of King Mace's land, where
+bitter battles were fought and many men laid asleep with the sword. Then
+came a day when all was quiet, and even King Mace pillowed his royal head
+on his dead horse, and woke no more.
+
+Then King Theophile entered the little sunny palace where all was so
+silent, and strode through the echoing corridors to the throne room.
+There alone, beneath a canopy of azure satin, on the great throne sat a
+woman whose face was like a gleam from a lost star. She had proud lips,
+and hair that was like cloth of gold about her, and eyes that were wells
+of sorrow. When he beheld her, King Theophile's limbs became as weak as a
+new-born child's, and he heard the sound of a far-off wind that had
+traveled from the Kingdom of Lost Hope. He knew that henceforth for him
+there must be either love or death.
+
+"O Princess," he cried, "they are all asleep. But thou and I are awake."
+
+"Nay," she replied, "they are awake. Their spirits crowd this hall to
+wring my heart with pity; but thou art asleep."
+
+Her words were like a sword in his breast, and kneeling before her, he
+cried: "Come with me to my Kingdom. Thou art my only Love."
+
+"Thou mayst force me to wed thee," she replied, "but the sword which can
+slay, can never wake love to life. Thou hast come to the end of thy
+conquests."
+
+Then King Theophile tasted the bitterness of death as the men who slept
+from the stroke of his sword could never taste it. And because he was not
+a man to put his soul into the keeping of his tongue, he made no answer,
+but in his secret heart he resolved to win her love, though the adventure
+cost him years of pain.
+
+So while he lingered in her kingdom, building costly monuments to the
+dead, and showering gold on the wounded, and sending into fine houses the
+homeless whose hearts ached for vanished humble hearths; while he worked
+to draw life out of death, he spared no effort to bring a smile to the
+lips of the Princess Elene.
+
+But she never smiled, and though her heart was breaking, she could not
+weep. Often she said to her women, "Pray that I may have the gift of
+tears," but always her eyes remained dry, like the vision of those who
+have gazed too long on fire.
+
+To King Theophile she seemed the very Beauty of the World, as in her
+black robes she sat in her garden at her tapestry frame, or listened with
+veiled eyes to the singing of his minstrels. And in his heart was a
+battle greater than any he had ever waged in desolated lands, for his
+nobler self told him he had no right to wed her. But his wild love drove
+like a tempest across these whispers.
+
+[Illustration: KING THEOPHILE AND QUEEN ELENE]
+
+So at last he married her in the dim cathedral church of her dead
+father's kingdom, with pomp of flowers and lights and nuptial music, and
+she was as pale as those who live long underground.
+
+Then the golden boats drove home across the rocking billows, and one day
+the Queen Elene, as she was now titled, lifted her eyes and beheld the
+gaunt castle of King Theophile cutting the sky. A mist seemed to hang all
+its turrets with fog and vapor. Elene remembered the shining happy little
+castle of her vanished kingdom, and her heart was bitter with tears, but
+she could not shed them.
+
+King Theophile, gazing upon her face, read her thoughts, for he had the
+second-sight of lovers; and his heart was as lead in his breast. He was
+jealous of the very years when he had not known her. Her beauty troubled
+him like a half remembered name, and when he was in her presence he had
+the trembling of illness upon him, and when away from her he was as
+restless as a fallen leaf that the wind blows.
+
+Through many days and weeks he wooed her to bring the smile to her lips,
+but always she grew whiter and more desolate; so that when she walked the
+terraces above the boiling surf, she seemed like a white flower torn of
+its petals and tossed up by the bitter waves.
+
+At the end of a year there came a daughter from the Kingdom of the Little
+Souls, and lay like a white bud on the Queen's bosom. Then at last Elene
+smiled and wept, but her strength was gone; and soon afterwards she
+closed her eyes and went to sleep.
+
+King Theophile's heart was broken, for the baby, and not he, himself, had
+made Elene smile and weep. When the days of the court mourning were over
+the little daughter was christened, and to her christening came all the
+wise women of the kingdom. Each told what this child would be. One said,
+"She will have the beauty of shimmering rainbows"; another, "She will be
+as wise as she is good." But the Wisest Woman of all said, "Every person
+will read his future in her tears."
+
+Now this prophecy troubled King Theophile and awoke love in his heart for
+his little daughter, who was already showing how beautiful she would be
+some day. So he watched over her, and made one of his echoing rooms into
+the royal nursery.
+
+Now the nurses knew what the Wisest Woman had said--that the tears of
+this Princess would be a magic mirror of the future; and one day when
+the child was two years old, the head nurse, who had a sweetheart and
+wished to know whether she would marry him, resolved to make the
+little girl cry.
+
+Now she was puzzled how to do this, for the royal maid was sweet-tempered
+and obedient; but the nurse knew that Elene loved most dearly a beautiful
+doll as big as herself, so one afternoon, when the Princess was clasping
+this treasure to her little breast, the nurse making sure first that no
+one was looking, snatched it from her and threw it into the sea.
+
+[Illustration: THE NURSE SEES HER WEDDING IN THE PRINCESS'S TEARS]
+
+The baby-princess when she saw her darling doll falling into the water
+began to wail, and tears came into her eyes. Then her nurse knelt before
+her, and saw in those tears her own wedding. So happy was she over this
+sight that she jumped up and began to caper about, heeding not the sobs
+of the poor little Princess.
+
+But King Theophile heard them and came out with a face of thunder.
+"Woman," he cried, "why do you dance when a princess weeps?"
+
+Then the nurse came to her senses and grew gray with fear. She tried to
+mutter some excuse, but King Theophile dismissed her on the spot and
+gathering up his baby into his arms, took her into the nursery, and wiped
+away her tears. Yet her sobs did not cease and she was too little to tell
+him of her woe.
+
+The nurse, though she left the King's service, did marry immediately; and
+began to whisper how she had seen her wedding in the tears of the
+Princess Elene, which word was to work out cruelly for the royal child.
+From that day on those about her, though they loved her dearly, could not
+refrain from trying their fortune in her tears. As she grew older and
+more understanding it was a difficult matter to know how to make her cry
+without incurring suspicion.
+
+But even a wrong will finds its way, and little Elene grew up wondering
+why people were so unkind to her; and why there was so much sadness in
+the world, for when all else failed the minstrels could make her weep by
+singing of "old, unhappy far-off things, and battles long-ago."
+
+King Theophile did not know of these troubles of his little daughter, for
+she had learned early that her tears hurt him, so she concealed them from
+him. All his joy was now in her, for she was the very image of her dead
+mother, and beautiful as a dawn of May day. When she danced she was like
+the light that ripples over the flowers; when she sang the souls of all
+young birds seemed to float on her voice.
+
+The fame of her beauty went through many kingdoms, and with the legend of
+her loveliness was told the strange tale of her magic tears.
+
+Now three young princes from three great States, fell ardently in love
+with Elene from the mere breath of the rumor of her charms. The first was
+Prince Tristan, the second Prince Martin, the third Prince Lorenzo; and
+both Prince Tristan and Prince Martin were sure of winning.
+
+But Prince Lorenzo was not at all sure, because he had lost much in his
+short life, and knew that love is like the wind that comes and goes; like
+the fire that leaps into the night and is seen no more; like the star
+that flashes across the dark zenith and then vanishes.
+
+One May morning the three Princes arrived to try their fortunes and to
+sue for the hand of the Princess Elene. Prince Tristan, who was straight
+and handsome, put on his best white satin doublet and stuck a rose behind
+his ear. Prince Martin put on glittering armor like a knight going to
+battle; but Prince Lorenzo was so consumed with love that he thought not
+at all of what he wore.
+
+King Theophile himself led them into the presence of the Princess Elene,
+who was clad in a silk robe that shimmered like a rainbow, and who looked
+so beautiful that for an instant Prince Lorenzo put his hand before his
+eyes. The two other princes gazed straight at the lady; then made grand
+sweeping bows.
+
+"May I tell you," said Prince Tristan, holding out his rose, "that you
+are the most beautiful princess I have ever seen?"
+
+"May I tell you," said Prince Martin, "that your eyes are like stars?"
+
+Prince Lorenzo remained mute because his heart was too full for speech,
+and King Theophile looked coldly upon him; but the Princess Elene gazed
+at him until he blushed. Then she seated herself on her throne and bade
+the princes speak to her of what pleased them best.
+
+Prince Tristan began at once to tell her of his hunting exploits, and
+what joy he took in the chase. But the Princess's face grew colder and
+colder as she listened, for she loved all living things, and could not
+bear to see any of them hurt. Tristan did not observe this, for like all
+vain people, he was thinking of his own charms, and so was unaware of the
+effect he was producing.
+
+He finished with a flourish, and Prince Martin stumbled in on the last
+words, so eager was he to render in his turn a glowing account of all his
+fine deeds. These were not few, for he was a brave lad, so for an hour he
+discoursed upon tourneys and battles; nor did he observe that the
+Princess Elene grew pale--and trembled, for her mother's sorrow over war
+lived again in her heart.
+
+To her relief he came at last to the end of his recital; then with a sigh
+Elene turned her beautiful eyes upon Prince Lorenzo. "And what have you
+to tell me, my Prince?"
+
+For answer he said to a page, "Give me thy harp"; and when it was
+delivered to him he struck the strings and sang:
+
+"In the hour of the white moths flying
+   Beneath the great gray moon,
+My sad heart was a-sighing
+   Lest love should come too soon.
+
+"In the hour of the dawn-birds flying
+   Each to his feathery mate,
+ My sad heart was a-sighing
+   Lest love should come too late.
+
+"Thy spirit heard my voicing,
+   And bade me cease from fears,
+ And follow thee, rejoicing,
+   Beyond all time and tears."
+
+"It is a beautiful song," said the Princess. "And it would be sweet to
+follow someone beyond time and tears."
+
+Then Prince Tristan and Prince Martin looked enviously at Prince Lorenzo;
+and Prince Martin said contemptuously, "I did not know that thou wert a
+minstrel."
+
+"Thou mayst yet discover that I am a shoemaker," returned Lorenzo. "Also,
+if there were no carpenters in the world we should all be houseless. A
+carpenter may, indeed, be of more use than a princeling."
+
+Tristan looked at Elene to see how she bore the shock of hearing such
+people mentioned as carpenters and shoemakers; but she was smiling as if
+Lorenzo's words pleased her.
+
+The three princes stayed on at the Castle, and the court was very gay.
+Only King Theophile's heart was heavy, for he knew that he must lose his
+most beautiful daughter. She was equally kind to all her suitors, and he
+could not discover which prince she favored. So one evening he came to
+her in her octagon room, which was of white ivory and whose windows were
+hung with coral silk; and he found her spinning with her maidens. Her
+robe of lace rippled about her little feet, and the band of sapphires
+which held back her yellow hair were not as blue as her eyes.
+
+King Theophile dismissed the maidens, and seating himself beside his
+daughter he took her hand and said:
+
+"O ray of sunlight out of a great sorrow, tell me in the name of thy dead
+mother, to whom thou hast given thine heart?"
+
+But the Princess veiled her eyes and drooped her head, for a burden was
+upon her soul. "My father," she said, "a prince can not easily be a
+lover, for love has but one object, and in the life of a prince are many
+objects. I would be loved, but fine words are no proof of a heart."
+
+"Prince Tristan is a noble youth."
+
+"He is too fond of killing," replied Elene.
+
+King Theophile's cheeks grew pale, for he thought of the long-ago wars
+and men asleep in crimson meadows that had once been green.
+
+"Prince Martin is a gallant lad."
+
+"He would rather contend with others than with himself," said the
+Princess.
+
+"As for Prince Lorenzo, he dreams too much."
+
+"Dreamers oft know more than those who are awake," replied Elene.
+
+King Theophile sighed, for when his Princess spoke in this wise she
+seemed to pass from his arms into the arms of her dead mother. Now when
+Elene heard him sigh her heart was touched, for she loved him dearly.
+
+"King-Father, do not sigh. I will make my choice, and this will be the
+manner of my choosing. Thou knowst my tears can show the future."
+
+Then the King grew pale, for he thought of the mother who could not weep
+until the little daughter was laid upon her breast.
+
+"My three suitors may try their fortunes through my tears one week from,
+this night; that is--" she added, "if they have power to make me weep. He
+who beholds me weep, him will I wed."
+
+The King was sad when he heard this, but he saw it was her will and
+refrained from protest. Next day he announced to the court and to
+the three suitors through what means the Princess Elene would make
+her decision.
+
+From that day on Elene saw little of the three princes, for Prince
+Lorenzo was wandering off in the forests alone and Prince Martin and
+Prince Tristan were trying pathos on the maids of honor, each vying with
+the other to tell the saddest tales. They succeeded so well that the
+noble maidens nearly cried their eyes out. King Theophile was much
+embarrassed to come, in his walks, upon a little maid of honor weeping
+into her handkerchief, while a Prince discoursed at her feet.
+
+At last the week wore away, and the court assembled for what someone
+called the Trial of Tears. A thousand wax candles were lit in the
+glittering throne room. King Theophile sat upon his throne, and on his
+right hand was the Princess Elene, crowned with white roses, and robed in
+white silk which had a shimmer of gold in its folds. At the foot of the
+throne sat the three princes.
+
+When all were assembled the King arose and announced the intention of
+the Princess to give her hand to him who should behold in her tears
+her wedding.
+
+Prince Tristan was the first to try his fortune. He had chosen the tale
+of a young girl cruelly turned adrift in a forest and left there to die,
+and he related it with every circumstance that could render it more
+piteous. Soon every lady in the court was weeping, but to the eyes of the
+Princess Elene came no tears, which made Prince Tristan angry, so that he
+finished his tale in a sullen muttering voice.
+
+Then Prince Martin rose and told a story of little children who had
+climbed into a boat which the rising tide seized and carried out to sea.
+They were too little to be afraid, and only when starvation seized them
+did they begin to wail for their mothers.
+
+This story, related in a soft, melancholy voice, touched all hearts, and
+through the court there was the sound of weeping, but the Princess gazed
+straight before her, and her eyes were dry.
+
+Prince Martin ended his tale with real sadness, for he saw that the
+Princess Elene was unmoved by his narrative, and with drooping head he
+returned to his seat.
+
+Then rose Prince Lorenzo and bowed low before the Princess. "Even to win
+you," he said, "I would not have you shed tears, for you have been made
+to shed too many in your short life."
+
+He had scarcely uttered these words when the Princess's lip quivered like
+that of a little child and sudden tears welled up in her eyes. As they
+fell Lorenzo went quickly to her, and gazing upon her face, gave a cry of
+joy. "O my Love!" he exclaimed. "I see thee all in a white veil and I am
+by thy side!"
+
+Then smiling through her tears, she arose and held out her hand to him,
+and the court knew that he was the chosen one. He knelt before her and
+kissed her hand, while the heralds proclaimed him the victor.
+
+So they were married and lived happily ever afterwards, for she was a
+true Princess and he was a true Prince.
+
+
+
+
+THE GOLDEN ARCHER
+
+
+In the midst of a plain stood a great church built of white stones, with
+a massive tower. On this tower was a weather vane in the shape of a
+golden man who rode a golden horse, and made ready to shoot a golden
+arrow. Only the arrow never left the bow, but pointed always to the
+direction from which the wind blew--north from the mountains; east from
+the sea; west from the plain; south from the waving forests.
+
+Now the Archer looked very small from the court in front of the cathedral
+because he was up so high in the air; so high, indeed, that often the
+lightning passed through his body. In reality he was not small, but
+life-size, and he had once been a man, but now he was a weather vane
+because he had made a vow to dwell forever on the tower and show the
+people from which direction came the life-bringing winds.
+
+For the reason that he had a man's heart in his golden body, life was not
+always easy for him up there in the high place, and his eyes would sweep
+the far horizons in search of someone to companion him, but no living
+thing passed by him but the beautiful sea-birds who had learned that his
+golden arrow would never pierce their breasts--and so they loved him, and
+perched upon his arm that drew the bow.
+
+Even the winds were kind to him because he moved so easily at their
+behest, but all winds were not alike to him who had the heart of a man.
+When spring came and the breezes blew from the south, heavy with the
+scent of magnolia, of lilacs, and blue violets, the heart of the Golden
+Archer ached with a strange hurt out of vanished years that he couldn't
+quite remember. When summer brought to him the delicious odor of grapes
+and berries and strong bright flowers, he longed to go down from the
+tower and wander after the fireflies' lanterns among the loaded vines, or
+pillow his head on sweet hay and let the winds put him to sleep forever.
+
+When autumn came, and the flying leaves, as golden as his own steed,
+looked like yellow butterflies too tired to move their wings, the Archer
+would think of fires on hearths only half remembered, and he wished he
+could stable his golden horse while he joined some group about the
+dancing flames.
+
+Winter was hardest of all to him, for all the world went in-doors and
+left him lonely. The frost-fairies, that glided down the blue rays of the
+winter-moon with their little lanterns that gave much color but no heat,
+these little creatures could not comfort him, because though he rode so
+high and was so straight, still he had the heart of a man. Sometimes the
+wild snows came and blinded his steady, sorrowful eyes; and in blackest
+midnight, when the sleet rattled against the golden sides of his horse,
+then, indeed, he felt alone and forgotten.
+
+For the people on the plain, though they looked to his guiding arrow did
+not love him because they thought him only a weather vane.
+
+So the years drove on and the Golden Archer grew lonelier and lonelier.
+Came at last a spring when the scent of peach-blossom was like the hurt
+of too great joy, and far-away the peach-orchards splashed the land with
+pink. High up in the air the Archer looked wistfully southward and
+pointed his bow towards clouds of sweetness and rose-color. How he longed
+to leave the great white stones of the tower and go wandering through
+those creamy orchards and down the green aisles of the forests by bright
+refreshing streams.
+
+As he was gazing one day over the fertile plain he saw moving upon it
+what looked to him from that height like a very little girl. But he knew
+that she must be really a tall, slender maiden. That she had golden hair
+he also knew because it gleamed in the sun.
+
+Then his lonely heart desired her company and he sent out thoughts to
+her, for being an Archer he could do this. Thoughts were his real arrows.
+
+So this thought he sent towards her: "I do not know who you are, but I
+am a lonely Archer on the great cathedral where I have made a vow to
+tell forever the wandering of the wind. I cannot come to thee, but
+climb the winding stairs to this high place that I may gaze upon thee.
+I am lonely."
+
+Now the young girl was walking at sunset in the orchards with her
+betrothed when through the air this message came to her, and, lifting up
+her eyes, she said: "See where the last light lies on the Golden Archer.
+How graceful he is, like a bit of flame above the old white church."
+
+"They say the view is fine from there," answered her sweetheart.
+
+"Let us climb up to-morrow," proposed the maid, whose name was Felice.
+
+So next day at sunset she and her betrothed climbed the winding stair of
+the cathedral, and emerged on the roof near the Golden Archer, who, when
+he saw the maiden, felt an old rapture sweep over him. For a moment he so
+forgot his vow that he stood quite still, though the wind was veering.
+How beautiful she was with all the beauty of the sweet earth from which
+he had been so long removed. Her hair was like harvest-corn, and her eyes
+were like dim places where violets hide. The soft voice of her was as
+music in the Archer's ears, who had heard too long the jangling of iron
+bells in the towers beneath him.
+
+And now she was looking at him. Old memories stirred in him beneath the
+armor that hid his manhood. He wanted to get down from his golden horse
+and lay aside his bow and arrow, and take her in his arms.
+
+"What a beautiful Archer," she was saying, "how crisp his hair, how clear
+and firm his lips, how pure his profile."
+
+Now her betrothed could be jealous even of a weather vane, so he said:
+"Anyone can be beautiful who is made of metal."
+
+"It is an imperishable beauty," she replied. "Flesh and blood decay."
+
+The Golden Archer was so agitated that he turned his eyes upon her, and
+all at once she knew that he was alive and her heart was aflame with
+love for him.
+
+Next day she came alone to the tower. She found him pointing north and
+looking away from her, for the vow had gripped him again like the frosts
+of winter. But she spoke softly and said, "Beloved, the spring is here."
+
+Then the south wind came, and against his will he veered and looked at
+her. She came close to his golden horse and touched the arm that held the
+bow. "You drew me to you, and now you do not look at me," she said.
+
+"I am afraid to look at you," he replied and dropped his golden eyelids.
+
+"Yet you are not afraid to gaze into the sky," she ventured.
+
+"Out of the sky will come nothing to harm me," he answered.
+
+"Could I harm you, soul of my soul?" she cried.
+
+"You could make me love you," was his answer.
+
+So they were quiet for a while. She watched the sea-birds circle about
+his shining horse which seemed ever ready to plunge from the cathedral
+tower into the spaces of the air, yet remained always the toy of the
+winds. She listened to the hoarse voices of the huge bells that swung
+beneath her.
+
+At last she rose and unbound her hair so that it floated like a golden
+banner in the wind. "Come," she whispered.
+
+Then the Golden Archer felt all the pain of those who must turn away from
+the voice of love. His eyes looked towards the sunset, but his heart
+seemed drowning in a strange, sweet, throbbing darkness. "Come nearer,"
+he whispered.
+
+So she went so near that her golden hair floated all about him and he saw
+the landscape through a yellow cloud. "Kiss me," she said.
+
+But he set his lips steadfastly, and tried to turn to the north, which he
+could not do, for the wind was steadily from the south.
+
+"I am cold," she whispered. "Let us go down to the warm orchards."
+
+"Go!" he answered, "for your words pierce my heart, and I have made a vow
+to tell the people about the coming and going of the great winds."
+
+"My love is a great wind," she said.
+
+Then sadly she left him. He was alone on his tower and night was coming.
+
+He tried to think of his vow, but her eyes called him, her lips brushed
+his like the light wing of a nesting bird. Hour after hour he endured the
+pain--and at last tears rolled from his eyes and melted his armor. The
+Golden Archer felt his old humanity return like a flood and set him free;
+and in the silence that comes before the dawn, he got down from his
+horse. The limbs of the golden animal were moving also; and stealthily,
+with the cramped action of those too long in one position, horse and man
+went down the stairs of the church, through the stone vestibule and out
+into the sweet, warm plain.
+
+The Golden Archer knelt beneath the stars and wept himself back to his
+old beautiful manhood, then, mounting his horse, he galloped to the edge
+of the forest where in a cottage smothered beneath roses and honeysuckle
+Felice lived; once at her window he whispered: "The Golden Archer has
+come for thee, dearest."
+
+Then she came out trembling, and in the gray light he took her in his
+arms and comforted her. "We will ride away and be married," he said. Then
+he lifted her on his horse, and they rode away through the forest, she
+lying quite still against his heart, and gazing with wide-open eyes into
+the green dimness. So they came to a church and were married.
+
+That night they went to an inn on the borders of the forest, an old house
+with nine gables, deep moss on the roof, and a creaking signboard with a
+crowing bird painted on it; and the inn was called "The Crowing Cock."
+
+Now there were many countrymen seated in the inn-parlor, and as the
+Golden Archer entered the room everyone rose and bowed; and as they
+passed through, Felice heard a peasant say, "How strange that a prince
+should marry a farm-girl."
+
+Then the hot color came into her face, for Felice was very proud, and did
+not like to be thought inferior to her husband. When they were alone
+together she related what she had heard. The Golden Archer looked
+puzzled, for he thought that she loved him too well to care for such
+trifles. "We are one because we are dear to each other," he cried, and
+took her in his arms and cherished her.
+
+Next day came the Mistress of the Inn to set the room in order, and
+as she bustled about she said, "From what kingdom comes your husband,
+the Prince?"
+
+"My husband is not a prince," said Felice.
+
+"He talks and acts like one," remarked the Hostess. "What is he then?"
+
+The little Felice felt her cheeks burn. She could not say that her
+husband had been a weather vane, and was now a man, so she replied, "He
+occupied a very high position of trust."
+
+"Yet he seems to know as little of real life as a prince," mused the
+Hostess. "He has asked me strange questions about quite ordinary things."
+
+Felice grew pinker than ever; and when the Golden Archer came into the
+room he found her in tears.
+
+"Heart's dearest, why do you weep?" he said.
+
+Then she told him her trouble. He must act like other people, she said,
+or tongues would begin to wag. He must forget that he had ever been a
+weather vane and must learn the ways of the world. The Golden Archer's
+heart was wounded by her words.
+
+"Do you remember," he said, "that you called your love for me a
+great wind."
+
+"Yes, I remember."
+
+"A great wind blows everything before it, even the words of men."
+
+Now Felice was a woman who catches up phrases too easily and speaks them
+too trippingly. So she answered, "If you love me you will do anything for
+me," for that was her test of love, that whoever cared for her should
+bend ever to her will.
+
+"We must serve each other," said the Archer, to whom the winds in all
+those years had whispered many secrets. "When equality in love or
+friendship ceases the end of joy is near. But remove the cloud from
+your forehead, dear love, and let us hunt the blue gentians in the
+forest glades."
+
+"Oh, no! let us go to the village fair," said Felice.
+
+"What! Exchange those cool, dim places, flower-scented, for the glare and
+noise of a fair?"
+
+"No one can see me in the forest," remarked Felice, turning her head from
+side to side and gazing in a mirror.
+
+"But I see you! Isn't that enough!"
+
+Felice sighed, for she liked admiration, and the Golden Archer said no
+more about gathering gentians, but went with her to the fair, which was a
+sacrifice, for he loved fresh air and solitude; and the crowds, the heat,
+and the dust made his head ache. Then, too, he was not used to fairs, and
+more than once made Felice uncomfortable by the questions he asked. She
+was always afraid that he would betray his origin when anyone spoke of
+the wind. Someone, indeed, said it was south, and the Golden Archer with
+a smile corrected him. "It is east," he remarked. "Oh, what difference
+does it make!" Felice cried crossly.
+
+Her ill-temper increased because people looked more at her husband than
+at her. The Golden Archer was, indeed, very handsome, and he had lived so
+much in the skies that he had a fine, free air. People could take long
+breaths in his presence, instead of feeling choked and cramped, so they
+wanted to talk with him.
+
+He would have been glad to gratify them, but his wife's drooping lips
+closed his own; and after a while both went sadly back to the inn,
+wondering why all the glory was gone from the day.
+
+But in their room he drew her into his arms, and loved her anew, and
+talked to her of all the wonderful things that would come to them if they
+were faithful.
+
+"Don't you know, sweet Felice," he said, "that love is like the seed in
+the ground, which comes up a little frail and tender plant; but through
+storm and sunshine grows into a great tree. We must be patient with
+each other."
+
+Felice was of those who want their trees full-grown, and she began to
+wonder why she had married the Golden Archer instead of her own man, whom
+she could understand; and she wished that she had never climbed to the
+top of the tower and lost her heart to the Archer.
+
+The days of their honeymoon dragged, for the Archer in addition to the
+hurt of his love had now to suffer the pain of estrangement. The more he
+cared for Felice the harder it was to see her restless and unhappy. "It
+will be different when we are in our own home," he would say to himself.
+
+So one day they left the inn and went to their own cottage which stood on
+a little hill, and from the window could be seen the tower of the great
+white church. Now the Golden Archer used often to gaze at this tower,
+which made Felice ask him if he were homesick.
+
+"No; but I miss the great winds," he replied.
+
+"Do you know what people say?" she asked him.
+
+"What do they say?"
+
+"That you were struck by lightning--and all melted away."
+
+"I was struck by lightning," he answered. "Love slew me."
+
+This pleased her. For awhile she showed herself loving and tender, but
+because she obeyed moods and not a strong, steadfast will, the old
+unhappiness came back. The Golden Archer felt more lonely than ever he
+had done on the high white tower, and loneliest of all when he held her
+in his arms.
+
+One day he found her crying. "Why do you cry, Beloved?" he asked her.
+
+"I am lonely," she said.
+
+"With me?"
+
+"Yes," she sobbed, "with you. What have you to tell me but your tales of
+the great winds? Other men have had their friends, their adventures. They
+can relate stories of their boyhood, of their early life, but you came
+from a far-off tower and know nothing of the world."
+
+"It is true," he murmured. "I can only tell you of the skies; for all the
+time of my former days on earth is dim to me."
+
+That night they sat before the fire, for it was now autumn, and the
+leaping flames showed her gold hair and her eyes like dark pools. Upon
+the Golden Archer they shone, too, where he sat still and hurt, but
+unable to tell his pain, because he had lived too high above the world.
+The low, hoarse winds drove the flying leaves against the window glass
+and whistled in the keyhole; at which Felice would shiver and cast
+sidelong glances at her strange husband.
+
+All at once on the wind came a caroling voice. Felice rushed to the
+window and peered out. The voice sang:
+
+"All that I knew of thee, my Love,
+   The great winds bore away.
+ When they are hushed wilt thou return
+  To bless the close of day?
+
+"In that still hour come back to me,
+  And find thy longed-for rest.
+ Poor petal blown too near the sun,
+  Float downward to my breast."
+
+"Ah," cried Felice, "it is my old Love."
+
+"My love for thee is older than the moon," said the Golden Archer. "Can
+you not rest by our hearth?"
+
+Then she knelt by him and pressed her face against his knees. And his
+heart grew as heavy as a weary dream before a sultry dawn when the
+thunder hangs in the hills. Her grief weighed all the more upon him
+because he knew she was trying to love him; and when that hour of effort
+comes death is under its cloak.
+
+But the next day she was cheerful and sang about her tasks. The Golden
+Archer saddled his horse and rode miles through the forest upon the crisp
+red leaves; and he knew that goodness would not hold her, nor kindness,
+nor fidelity, nor service, for love like hers is held prisoner to nothing
+once its wings are outstretched, nor does it know good from evil.
+
+[Illustration: THE GOLDEN ARCHER AND FELICE]
+
+When he rode home the stars were peeping through the forest branches, and
+the white owls were flying. But the frost that silvered the red leaves
+was not so sharp and glistening as the memory of her tears.
+
+As he reached his door he saw that it was open and the light from the
+fire shone out upon the dark paths of the forest. But the room was empty
+of her presence.
+
+He called her name, but no answer was returned; then on a tablet upon the
+table he saw words written and brought them to the fire and read them.
+
+"O Golden Archer, go back to thy tower, for the great winds have taken me
+on a long journey, and I shall never see thee again."
+
+Then he knew that not his faithful winds, but the voice of old memories
+had called her, and he bowed his head in an imperishable sorrow.
+
+Because his heart was broken he desired to cease from his humanity and
+return to the old white tower. As once his warm tears had thawed his
+shining armor and made him an inhabitant of the world, so now his cold
+and bitter tears encased him again in hard metal.
+
+Walking wearily and with stiff footsteps he went to the stable, brought
+out his horse and rode across the plain to the great white church upon
+which the midnight moon was shining. He knocked on its west door, and
+from the vaults came the echoes.
+
+"You cannot return, Golden Archer, for you have broken your vow!"
+
+"But I have broken my heart also," he answered; "therefore, let me in."
+
+"But you will come down again from the tower," cried the echoes.
+
+"Nay, for only the broken-hearted know how to keep their vows," he
+answered.
+
+So the doors swung open, and up the dim spiral stairs rode the Golden
+Archer, through bars of moonlight to the region of the great winds where
+again he mounted the tower. But always there is one dream left to the
+sorrowful, and his was, that some night the great winds would drive her
+soul against his breast.
+
+Then he became very still and turned his arrow northward, for the wind
+was coming from the far circles of the Arctic ice.
+
+Next day the sun rose red and glorious and made fires on the armor of the
+Golden Archer, and all the people upon the plain rubbed their eyes and
+cried out:
+
+"There's a new Archer on the Cathedral. Now we shall know from which
+horizon comes the wind!"
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE FAERY TALES OF WEIR ***
+
+This file should be named ftowr10.txt or ftowr10.zip
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+
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+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
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+
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