conceit of treasure: one had a toy, and another a lamb, another a
bird; and all of them hunted and caught the thing they loved, and
kissed it and again let go. So it went on, over and over again, more
sad than the sight of a quaker as he twiddles his thumbs.
Whenever they were at peace for a moment, they turned their eyes his
way. 'What, you here too, Tulip?' was always the thing they seemed to
be saying.
While Tulip sat looking at them, and thinking of it all, suddenly his
lady disappeared, and only her green feet darted from his side and
began running round and round in a circle. Then was he just about to
set off running after them, when he felt himself caught up to the
coloured fires of the roof and sent spinning ungovernably through
space. Suddenly he was dumped to the ground, and just as his feet were
gathering themselves up under him he heard the Angelus bell ringing
from the village below the slopes of the wood.
He was standing again by the side of the Wishing-Pot, and the old
woman sat cowering, and blinking her spider-eye at him, too much
astonished to speak or move.
Tulip looked at her with a pleasant and engaging air. 'Oh, good
mother, what a treat you have given me!' he said. 'How I wish I had
money for another wish! what a pity it was ever to have wished myself
back again!'
When the old witch heard that she thought still to entrap him, and
answered joyfully, 'Why, kind Sir, surely, kind Sir, if you like it
you shall look again! Take another wish, and never mind about the
money.' So she said the spell once more which opened to him the
wonders of the Wishing-Pot.
Then cried Tulip, clapping his hands, 'What better can I wish than to
have you in the Wishing-Pot, in the place of all those poor folk whom
you have imprisoned with their wishes!'
Hardly was the thing said than done; all the children who had been
Tulip's playmates, and Miller Dick with his broad thumbs, and the
dairyman's wife, were every one of them out, and the old witch woman
was nowhere to be seen.
But Tulip put his eye to the mouth of the Wishing-Pot; and there down
below he saw the old witch, running round and round as hard as she
could go, pursued by a herd of green spiders. And there without doubt
she remains.
And now everybody was happy except Tulip himself; for the children had
all of them their toys, and the old miller his gold, and as for the
dairyman's wife, she found that she had become the mother of a large
and promising infant. But Tulip had altogether lost his lady of the
dear green feet, for in thinking of others he had forgotten to think
of himself. All the gratitude of the poor people he had saved was
nothing to him in that great loss which had left him desolate. For his
part he only took the Wishing-Pot up under his arm, and went sadly
away home.
But before long the noise of what he had done reached to the king's
ears; and he sent for Tulip to appear before him and his Court. Tulip
came, carrying the Wishing-Pot under his arm, very downcast and sad
for love of the lady of the dear green feet.
At that time all the Court was in half mourning; for the Princess
Royal, who was the king's only child, and the most beautiful and
accomplished of her sex, had gone perfectly distraught with grief, of
which nothing could cure her. All day long she sat with her eyes shut,
and tears running down, and folded hands and quiet little feet. And
all this came, it was said, from a dream which she could not tell or
explain to anybody.
The king had promised that whoever could rouse her from her grief,
should have the princess for his wife, and become heir to the throne;
and when he heard that there was such a thing in the world as a
Wishing-Pot, he thought that something might be done with it.
From Tulip he learned, however, that no one knew the spell which
opened the resources of the Wishing-Pot save the old witch woman who
was shut up fast for ever in its inside. So it seemed to the king that
the Pot could be of no use for curing the princess.
But it was so beautiful, with its shooting stars and coloured fires,
that, when Tulip brought it, they carried it in to show to her.
After three hours the princess was prevailed upon to open her eyes;
and directly they fell upon the great opal bowl, all at once she
started to her feet and began laughing and dancing and singing.
These are the words that they heard her sing,--
'Lap for lap I must wind you;
Equal, before I can find you;
I am a lap behind you!'
Tulip, as soon as he heard the sweetness of that voice, and the words,
pushed his way past the king and all his court, to where the princess
was. And there over the heads of the crowd he saw his lady of the dear
green feet laughing and opening her white arms to him.
As she set eyes on his face the dream of the princess came true, and
all her unhappiness passed from her. So they loved and were married,
to the astonishment and edification of the whole court; and lived to
be greatly loved and admired by all their grandchildren.
THE FEEDING OF THE EMIGRANTS
[Illustration]
THE FEEDING OF THE EMIGRANTS
Over the sea went the birds, flying southward to their other home
where the sun was. The rustle of their wings, high over head, could be
heard down on the water; and their soft, shrill twitterings, and the
thirsty nibbling of their beaks; for the seas were hushed, and the
winds hung away in cloud-land.
Far away from any shore, and beginning to be weary, their eyes caught
sight of a white form resting between sky and sea. Nearer they came,
till it seemed to be a great white bird, brooding on the calmed water;
and its wings were stretched high and wide, yet it stirred not. And
the wings had in themselves no motion, but stood rigidly poised over
their own reflection in the water.
Then the birds came curiously, dropping from their straight course, to
wonder at the white wings that went not on. And they came and settled
about this great, bird-like thing, so still and so grand.
Onto the deck crept a small child, for the noise of the birds had come
down to him in the hold. 'There is nobody at home but me,' he said;
for he thought the birds must have come to call, and he wished to be
polite. 'They are all gone but me,' he went on, 'all gone. I am left
alone.'
The birds, none of them understood him; but they put their heads
on one side and looked down on him in a friendly way, seeming to
consider.
He ran down below and fetched up a pannikin of water and some biscuit.
He set the water down, and breaking the biscuit sprinkled it over the
white deck. Then he clapped his hands to see them all flutter and
crowd round him, dipping their bright heads to the food and drink he
gave them.
They might not stay long, for the waterlogged ship could not help
them on the way they wished to go; and by sunset they must touch land
again. Away they went, on a sudden, the whole crew of them, and the
sound of their voices became faint in the bright sea-air.
'I am left alone!' said the child.
Many days ago, while he was asleep in a snug corner he had found for
himself, the captain and crew had taken to the boats, leaving the
great ship to its fate. And forgetting him because he was so small, or
thinking that he was safe in some one of the other boats, the rough
sailors had gone off without him, and he was left alone. So for a
whole week he had stayed with the ship, like a whisper of its vanished
life amid the blues of a deep calm. And the birds came to the ship
only to desert it again quickly, because it stood so still upon the
sea.
But that night the mermen came round the vessel's side, and sang; and
the wind rose to their singing, and the sea grew rough. Yet the child
slept with his head in dreams. The dreams came from the mermen's
songs, and he held his breath, and his heart stayed burdened by the
deep sweetness of what he saw.
Dark and strange and cold the sea-valleys opened before him; blue
sea-beasts ranged there, guarded by strong-finned shepherds, and
fishes like birds darted to and fro, but made no sound. And that was
what burdened his heart,--that for all the beauty he saw, there was no
sound, no song of a single bird to comfort him.
The mermen reached out their blue arms to him, and sang; on the top of
the waves they sang, striving to make him forget the silence of the
land below. They offered him the sea-life: why should he be drowned
and die?
And now over him in the dark night the great wings crashed, and beat
abroad in the wind, and the ship made great way. And the mermen swam
fast to be with her, and ceased from their own song, for the wind sang
a coronach in the canvas and cordage. But the little child lifted his
head in his sleep and smiled, for his soul was eased of the mermen's
song, and it seemed to him that instead he heard birds singing in a
far-off land, singing of a child whose loving hand had fed them, faint
and weary, in their way over the wide ocean.
In that far southern land the dawn had begun, and the birds, waking
one by one, were singing their story of him to the soft-breathing
tamarisk boughs. And none of them knew how they had been sent as
a salvage crew to save the child's spirit from the spell of the
sea-dream, and to carry it safely back to the land that loved him.
* * * * *
But with the child's body the white wings had flown down into the
wave-buried valleys, and to a cleft of the sea-hills to rest.
THE PASSIONATE PUPPETS
[Illustration]
THE PASSIONATE PUPPETS
When the long days of summer began, Killian, the cow-herd, was able
to lead his drove up into the hills, giving them the high pastures to
range. Then from sunrise to sunset he was alone, except when, early
each morning, Grendel and the other girls came up to carry down the
milk to the villages.
All day long the cow-bells sounded in his ears, but still the time of
his wedding was a long way off; it would be five years before he and
Grendel could afford to set up a house and farm, with cows of their
own.
The great stretch of world that lay out under him, like a broad map
coloured blue and green, made him full of a restless longing for a
move in life. Yonder he could pick out the towns with their spires and
glittering roofs, and the overhead mists, that gave token of crowded
life below. It was there that wealth could be got; and with wealth men
married soon, and were at ease. Somewhere, he had heard, lived kings
and queens, wearing rich robes and gold crowns on the top of their
heart's desire. For kings and queens, he supposed, loved as did he and
Grendel, regarding nothing else as much in the world besides.
So Killian put heart into his deft hands, and presently had set to
work.
One evening Grendel came up from the valley, after her day's work, to
have a look at her lover; she had brought him some brown cakes and a
bottle of wine. But Killian, who had caught sight of her eyes over the
green rise at his feet, was hiding something behind his back.
'Whatever have you there?' she asked, as she saw chips, and tools, and
bits of bright foil, lying scattered about the ground. Yet for three
days he would show her nothing, only he said, 'What I do is because we
love each other so.'
At the end of that time, he showed her what he had done. There she saw
a little king and queen, about six inches high; he was in blue, and
she in white; and they were both as dear as they were small. The king
was partly like a cow-herd, having a crown over his broad-brimmed hat,
with thick wooden shoes, and leather-bound legs; and the queen was
like Grendel, with great long plaits past her waist, and a gold-worked
bodice, such as Grendel had for Sunday wear. 'Aye, aye,' cried
Grendel, 'why, it is you and me!'
Then Killian showed her how the joints of the little puppets moved on
delicate wires, and how five strings ran up, one from each limb, to be
fastened to the player's fingers, so that he might make them act as
though life were in them.
'I shall take these down with me to the valley,' said Killian. 'First
I shall go about among the villages; then, when I can do better, I
shall go to the towns. After that no doubt the kings and queens will
hear of me, and will send for me to play before them, and I shall
become rich. Then I shall come home and marry you.'
Grendel thought her lover the most wonderful man in the world, and it
is the truth he was very clever; she kissed him a hundred times, and
the little marionettes also. 'Ah,' she said, 'now we shall not have to
wait five years! in five months you will come back rich and famous,
and we shall marry, and live happily.'
How Killian had loved her while making his puppets, only she knew as
well as he. Truly, he had put his heart into them, so that they were
like living beings,--and so small that their very smallness made them
a marvel. Being a lover, he had put inside each breast a little heart,
and, for the luck of the thing, had christened them with a drop of his
own blood, and a drop of Grendel's; so each heart had in it one little
drop of blood. Now he was to go out, and try his fortune.
He found a lad to come and take his place and see after the cows;
then he said good-bye to Grendel, and set off on a round of all the
villages of the plain.
At every inn where he put up, he called the country folk together to
the sound of his shepherd's bag-pipes, and showed them his play. It
was only himself and Grendel, no story at all, merely lovers parting
and meeting again, each believing the other dead, and in the end
living happily to the sound of cow-bells, that showed how rich they
were in herds.
And the villagers laughed and cried, and gave him pence, and a night's
lodging, and food; so that presently he was able to make himself a
little travelling-stage, and hire a piper to play dance-music for him.
But it was always the one story of himself and Grendel, and no other,
though the two puppets wore crowns upon their heads.
* * * * *
The little marionettes had hearts. That was the beginning of things:
they remembered nothing else. When their eyes had grown open to the
fact, then for them life had begun. After that they lived like bee and
blossom, only that the bee never flew away, and the honey remained in
the blossom.
How this came to pass was a question they never asked; why they loved
each other they did not know. If they had had to think of it they
would have said, 'It is because we cannot help it.' And every day
one same thing happened to them that they could not help, the most
beautiful thing in life. It came to them by instinct, taking hold of
them from head to feet and saying, 'love, love, love,' in all sorts of
wonderful ways.
Whenever this thing happened they began to move about softly, going to
and fro, and round and round, dancing, and holding each other by
the hand, putting their cheeks so close together that their eyelids
brushed, and sometimes their little hearts that heaved. And all the
while music from somewhere was giving a meaning to these things; and
over and over again, 'love, love, love,' was what it kept saying to
them.
Their happiness was so great, that they would begin playing with it,
pretending that it was all turned into grief. First he would kiss her
from forehead to chin, and into the hollow of her little throat; and
then all down each dear arm, even to the finger-tips; and last of all
her feet; and again last of all her lips, and again last of all her
breast. And then he would go away, walking backwards most of the time,
or if not, still turning round and round to take another look at her.
Then when he was altogether out of sight, she would sit down and cry,
though all the while he would be peeping at her from his hiding-place,
to let her know that he was not really gone. Then she would lie down,
and cry more, and at last leave off crying and stay almost still on a
little bed, that seemed to come to her from nowhere, just when she was
ready to fall on it. Then, at last, she would shut her eyes, and cover
her face up very slowly with a sheet, and lie so still that he would
grow quite frightened, and come running from his hiding-place, and
lift the sheet, and look at her; then he would fall down as if his
legs had been cut from under him; then he would get up and throw
flowers over her, and at last catch her up and begin to carry her;
and at that she would wake up all at once and kiss him, to a sound of
bells.
They did not know why they did this; it was so beautiful they could
not have thought of it for themselves, and yet it said everything of
life that they wanted to say. For love was the beginning and the end
of it; and always, as they came to the sad part, they had tender
tremblings for fear the other should think the sorrow was real: he,
lest she should think he had really gone away and left her, never to
return; and she, lest he should believe that she always meant to lie
so cruelly still, with a sheet over her eyes. Yet the kissings that
came after made the fearfulness almost the sweetest thing in their
prayer-sayings to each other.
For to them this was a daily prayer, the most solemn thing in their
lives; heart praying to heart, and hand reaching to hand; and from
somewhere overhead gentle monitions as to what they must do next
coming to them, so that they knew how to pray best, now by lifting a
hand, or now by turning the head, or now by running fast with both
feet. And all this beautiful worship of love their bodies learned to
do more perfectly day by day; yet the little quaking of fear was still
in the centre of it all.
* * * * *
Killian's fingers grew nimble; and yet he often wondered to see how
true to life his puppets were, how they sighed, how they embraced and
clung, as if their hearts were coming in two when the parting drew
near. How lingeringly the little queen drew up the sheet over her
face, when her lover did not return, and let it fall to cover her with
a quiet sigh. Often he cried when she did that part, so like Grendel
was it,--the tender waiting, and the last giving in! And then, how the
little king shuddered as he drew the cloth from her face; and how he
threw the flowers, as if there were not enough in the world to express
his grief! And yet it was only a play, made by the twitching of the
strings tied to his fingers, with love as the beginning and end of it.
Killian was getting quite rich in copper coin, so he sent some of it
home to Grendel, that she might buy stock for the home that was so
soon to be theirs. And presently he made bold to go into the towns,
where, instead of copper, he might gain silver. He built a bigger
stage, and had more music to go to the dance; but still it was the
story of himself and Grendel, with crowns upon their heads, and
nothing more.
And now, indeed, people began to cry, 'Here is a wonderful new actor!
He has it all at the ends of his fingers! What a pity he has no better
play in which to show himself off!' But Killian said, 'It is the only
play I know how to do.'
Presently there came a sharp fellow to him, who said: 'If you will
go shares with me, I will make your fortune. We have only to put our
heads together, and the thing is done. I will write the plays for you,
and you shall play them on the strings. What is wanted is a little
more real life.'
Killian was a simple fellow, who believed all the world to be wiser
than himself. He was glad enough to meet with a clever fellow who
could write plays for him. His partner wanted him to make new dresses
for the marionettes, to suit their new parts; but to that Killian
would not agree. So whatever they were they still wore their broad
hats and crowns, and their wooden shoes, that still he might watch
in his own mind himself and Grendel making their way to fortune and
happiness.
The marionettes grew bewildered with their new taking; they did not
understand the meaning of all the coarse things they had to do. So in
the middle of a play, the little queen would fail now and then in
her part, and move awkwardly, wondering what her lover meant when he
sprawled to and fro, and seemed trying to find in the air more feet
than he had upon the ground.
Yet the crowd found her bashful fear so irresistibly funny, that it
roared again. Also, when the little cow-herd with a crown on his head,
lifted his hand or foot toward his partner, and then shrank trembling
away, it roared yet more at the poltroon manner of the thing.
Killian's partner said, 'You alter all my plays, but the way you do
them is something to marvel at. Only, why do you always bring them
round again to that silly lover's ending?'
'I cannot help it,' said Killian; 'often now, with these new plays, I
can't get the strings to work properly. I think the poor puppets are
getting worn out.'
His partner began examining the puppets, and watching how Killian
played them, with more attention; and presently he knew that there was
more in it than met the eye. 'It is the puppets who are the marvel,
not the man,' he said to himself. 'I could work them better myself, if
I had practice.'
Soon after this he proposed that they should set off for another town;
it was the chief town of all, where they hoped at last to be allowed
to show their plays to the queen herself. 'It must be a real play this
time,' said the partner, 'a tragedy; but it wants a third person. You
must make another puppet, while I write the play!'
So Killian set to work. But he had no love for the third puppet, which
was neither himself nor Grendel, and he put no heart inside it, and no
little drop of blood. So the new marionette was but limbs, and a head
drawn on wires.
'Soon,' thought Killian, 'I shall be rich enough to go home and marry
Grendel. Then I will throw this stupid third one away; but the other
two we will always keep close to the niche with the statue of Saint
Lady, to help to make us thankful for the good things God gives us in
this world.'
It was beautiful late spring weather when he and his companion set out
for the capital. On the way Killian's partner told him the play that
would have to be played before the queen, and said, 'In case three
should be too much for you to manage, you had better teach me also
to handle the strings.' So Killian began to teach him, with the two
little marionettes alone, the first play which he had brought down
with him from the mountains,--that being the easiest of all to learn,
and the one he loved best to teach.
The partner was surprised to find how wonderfully the puppets followed
the leading-strings; in spite of his clumsiness the story acted itself
to perfection.
Simple-hearted Killian was charmed. 'Ah! you clever townsman,' said
he, 'see how at first trial you equal poor me, who have been at it for
months! It had better be you, after all, to do the play when it is
called for at the court.' And this Killian proposed truly out of pure
modesty, but also because he did not like the play his partner had
made for him. 'It is too cruel a one!' he said. 'After they have
played it together so long, I feel as if my two puppets can do nothing
else so well as love each other, and live happily.'
'Ah, but,' said his partner, 'the queen would find that very dull!'
Killian could not see why, but he believed that the townsman was wiser
than himself, and gave in. All he wanted now was to get money enough
to run back home with, and throw himself into his dear Grendel's arms
for life.
So they journeyed on, and at last, one day, they came in sight of
the capital. But it had been such a long way to come that when they
reached the gates they found them shut.
The night was warm, and a high moon was overhead. 'Come,' said
Killian, 'and let us lie down in one of these orchards that are
outside the walls!' So they left the high-road, and went and lay down.
First they ate some food that they carried with them. Then Killian
opened the case in which lay the two marionettes, and looked them over
to see that they were in working order. His partner took up the odd
number, and began practising it; but Killian's attention all went to
the little king cow-herd and his queen.
He fondled them gently with his hands, and as he looked at them his
heart went up into the mountains to pray for his dear Grendel.
Presently he began dreaming to himself like Jacob, only his dream was
just of the simple things of earth. Down the great green uplands came
troops of white cattle; but to him they seemed to be bridesmaids
coming to Grendel's wedding day, and the ringing of the cow-bells was
as sweet to him as the songs of angels. Before he was fast asleep the
two marionettes had slipped off his knee and lay in the deep grass
looking up at the sky.
* * * * *
They had never seen so beautiful a sight before, for never had they
spent a night in the sweet open air till now. Over their heads swung
dusky clusters of blossom, that would look white by day; and over them
the moon went kissing its way from star to star.