always arrange everything so well to make it go his way. The town is
lucky to have such a clerk. Yet, strange to say, the minute he begins
to sing, he makes more mistakes than even the poor young knight did,
and it is really a question whether his song or the shoemaker's
pounding makes the more noise. Mind, I say noise, not music; if it were
a question of music the shoemaker would be far ahead. Well, between
them, they wake up the shoemaker's prentice, and he comes to the window
of the shop, to see what is the matter. He is the same prentice whom we
saw in the church, who looked at the goldsmith's daughter's maid in
such a strange way, you remember. And now, as he looks across at the
house opposite, he sees the goldsmith's daughter's maid again, standing
at the window. She is standing there in one of her mistress's gowns, to
make the town clerk think that the mistress herself is listening to his
song; and he does think so, but the poor prentice knows who she is very
well indeed. And since he knows who she is, of course he makes up his
mind at once that the town clerk is singing to her, that he loves her,
and that just as likely as not she loves him. No doubt you think he
might know better; and perhaps he might, if he were not so much in love
with the goldsmith's daughter's maid; but when a man is in love he is
always ready to believe anything that it is particularly uncomfortable
for him to believe.
"So, what does the shoemaker's prentice do but jump right out of the
window, fetch the good town clerk one blow under the chin, that shuts
his mouth and stops his singing, and begin just as lively a fight with
him as any we ever saw among our knights and giants and dragons. They
make so much noise that more people wake up, and come out of their
houses into the street; and, since the old town is usually a bit dull
and quiet, they find this just the sort of thing they like, and they
all begin fighting, too, with a jolly good will. Of course, not one of
them has the slightest notion of what he is fighting about; but that
makes no difference to any good, honest fighter, and there is a fine
breaking of heads and kicking of shins. Just as everything is in the
most delightful confusion possible, the knight and the goldsmith's
daughter try to make their way through the crowd and escape; but the
troublesome old shoemaker, who has been watching them from the very
beginning, runs quickly out, pushes the girl to her own door, where her
father stands to receive her, drags the knight into his shop, seizes
his prentice too, and shuts his door behind him. Somebody cries that
the watchman is coming; the people scatter right and left, and, by the
time that little flame there under the andiron has burned up and shown
itself to me as the old watchman's lantern, it shines on nothing but
the quiet, empty street.
"But there is more light than the watchman's lantern, for our new stick
is beginning to burn now. The night must be past, and, if the night is
past, it is Midsummer Day. It is not so bright yet as it might be. Let
us put on still another stick, and have all the Midsummer weather we
can. I see a room now, not very handsome or rich, but very comfortable
and cheerful, with flowers in the window and more flowers scattered
about. It is the old shoemaker's shop, and the old shoemaker himself
sits at the window, pretending to read, but really thinking, as usual,
about the young knight who sings to please himself and not to obey
other people's rules, and about the goldsmith's daughter; and he is
trying, also as usual, to plan some way to make the prize go as he
wants it to go. He does not quite see how it is to be done, but he has
a comfortable feeling that it will all come out right; and while he is
studying over it, the knight himself comes put of the room where he has
slept to say good-morning.
"He tells the shoemaker that he has had a beautiful dream, and the
shoemaker asks him what it was, saying that it is the true business of
a poet to have dreams and to tell them, so that everybody may know
them. So the knight tells his dream, making it into a song as he goes
along, and now and then the shoemaker stops him quietly to tell him
what are the rules of the masters for making such songs as this. The
knight always asks why such rules should be, and the shoemaker gives
him some pretty reason for each one, and he shows that the rules are
not so bad after all, if only one knows how to use them and to make the
most of them. The dream was about a beautiful garden with a tree that
bore fruit of gold, and as the dreamer looked at it there came a lovely
maiden, who you may be sure was the goldsmith's daughter, and she
embraced him and then pointed to the fruit of the tree, and when she
pointed to it, it was golden fruit no longer, but stars, and the tree
itself was a laurel-tree.
"You may guess that the poor old masters never heard such a song as
this. As the knight sings it the shoemaker writes it down on a bit of
paper and tells the knight to remember the melody, and then they go
away together. Scarcely have they gone when the door opens softly and
in a treacherous-looking sort of way that must be strange to the
shoemaker's door, and in comes the town clerk. Ridiculous enough he
looks in his gorgeous holiday clothes, and limping along, because of
the beating that the prentice gave him last night. And angry enough he
is, too, with the shoemaker and the prentice and the knight and the
world in general, except himself, with whom it might be reasonable for
him to be angry. You can see a wicked red glow, right there in the
middle of the fire, where he stands. But he has not forgotten about the
prize--oh, not in the least. He is still plotting and contriving how he
can best make sure of it, and so it does not take long for his sharp
little eyes to find the song lying on the table, where the shoemaker
left it when he went out.
"Now, there is one peculiar thing about these people who can see
through mill-stones, and that is, that they sometimes think they are
seeing through one when there is really no mill-stone there at all;
just as you and I might think we were looking through a glass window
when it was only an empty sash. Just see, for instance, how much
cleverer the town clerk is than there is any sort of need for him to
be. He sees that this song is a song; well, anybody could see that. He
sees that it is in the shoemaker's handwriting; anybody who knew the
shoemaker's handwriting could see that. But now he takes the liberty of
guessing that the shoemaker made this song himself, and that he is
going to sing it himself for the prize. So he gets more angry still,
for he knows that the shoemaker is the best poet in all this dear old
town, where anybody can be a poet by learning the rules, and he knows
that if the shoemaker tries to win the prize he will probably do so.
But he hears the shoemaker coming back and he has just time to hide the
song in his pocket.
"Now he boldly accuses the shoemaker of meaning to sing for the prize.
It may seem to you that it is no affair of his whether the shoemaker
means to sing or not, and it may seem so to me too, but we are not town
clerks. Yet the shoemaker assures him that he does not mean to sing,
accuses him in turn of stealing the song, and then, to prove his own
words, gives it to him. With that the town clerk is altogether
delighted, for he is one of those shallow people who think that when
one man has done a good thing, another man can do just as well as he by
doing the same thing. He feels sure that if he sings one of the
shoemaker's songs he cannot fail to win the prize, and he makes the
shoemaker promise that, whatever happens, he will not claim the song as
his. The shoemaker is quite ready to promise anything, because he is a
wise old soul and he knows that it is not altogether what one does, but
pretty largely how one does it, as a cobbler or as a town clerk or as a
singer, that wins him fame and honor--and Midsummer Day prizes.
"The town clerk hobbles away, and now who should come in but the
goldsmith's daughter herself? Well, no one could wonder at her lover's
having pleasant dreams, for she is as pretty a prize as ever a poet
sang a song for, or to, or about. With her best gown and her flowers
and her jewels, and especially with herself, I don't think you could
find any prize that a poet would rather have, even in a town twice as
big as this. It seems there is something wrong about the shoe that the
cobbler has made for her to wear to-day, and she has come to get him to
mend it. I wonder, by the way, if she knows that the knight was the
shoemaker's guest last night. She says that when she wants to
standstill the shoe insists on walking, and when she wants to walk the
shoe makes up its mind to stand still. You see yourself what a
remarkable and improper way this is for a shoe to behave. It is so
strange that I am inclined to doubt if it is the fault of the shoe at
all, or if she really knows whether she wants to walk or stand still.
You see it is not easy for us to tell just how a girl would feel at
being put up for a prize.
"While the cobbler is at work on the shoe, the knight too appears, and
the cobbler hints that he should like to hear the rest of the dream
that the young man began to tell him before. So he sings more of his
song and tells how the stars among the branches of the laurel-tree
formed a crown for the lovely maiden's head, how her eyes, as he looked
into her face, were to him brighter than all of them, and how then she
twined with her own hand, about his head, the wreath of the star-fruit
of the laurel-tree, and still and always he saw her eyes brighter than
the stars.
"After he has sung this they all seem to understand one another better.
The goldsmith's daughter's maid comes in to look for her mistress, the
prentice tumbles in to look for the maid, or for something else, and
away they all start for the fields outside the town, where all who
will--that is, if they are masters and may--are to sing for the prize.
"At last the fire is burning as it ought, and we can see all the life
and light that we care to enjoy. Those flames that stream up so far
must mean that the sun has mounted his very highest to mark the noon of
Midsummer Day, and the floods of merry sparks that pour up the chimney
are not brighter or merrier than the throngs of people, men and women,
boys and girls, that walk and run, and caper and dance, and tumble out
of the city gates and into the meadows where the singing is to be. But
there is more gravity all at once when the masters come. They are
mighty and important persons at any time, and above all they are so
to-day, when they are to decide who is to have this wonderful prize.
They have a higher place to sit than the rest of the meadow, and the
common people of the town, who do not pretend to be poets at all, can
stand wherever they can find room. The goldsmith and his daughter have
the highest seats of all, and the shoemaker is next to them, for he is
supposed to know a good song when he hears it. All the other masters
have good places too, including the town clerk. The knight is somewhere
in the crowd of people who know nothing about poetry.
[Illustration: "HE SAW HER EYES BRIGHTER THAN THE STARS."]
"When everything is ready the town clerk is the first to sing his song
for the prize, because he is the oldest of those who are to try, and
indeed he seems to be about the only one, with the knight quite out of
the race, because he did so badly in the church yesterday. So the town
clerk stands forth, and after a little opening plink-plunk on his
guitar, he tries to sing the knight's own song, which the shoemaker
gave him, knowing well that he would get into trouble with it. And
indeed, the dream that he tells about must have been a nightmare,
though nobody who hears him knows what it is about, and the poor town
clerk seems to know least of all. He has the song under his coat and
tries to look at it now and then, but he reads it wrong and sings
nonsense, and in a moment all the people are laughing at him, even
those who do not know a good song when they hear it, for they seem to
know a bad song very well when they hear it.
"At that he gets angry, stops singing, and says that the song is not
his at all but the shoemaker's, and he is to blame. Here is a fine
state of things, for the shoemaker is supposed, as I said before, to
know more about songs than any of the other people in town, and indeed
he knows more about most things than all of them put together. He says
that the song is not his, but that it is good enough, if only it could
be sung right, and he asks if there is anybody here who knows how to
sing it.
"This is the time for the young knight, and he comes forward from the
crowd and says that he will try. But first, the shoemaker makes all the
masters promise that if he sings the song well and if it is a good song
he shall have all the honor just as if he were a master. Now the young
man takes his place and everybody is still. He looks straight at the
goldsmith's daughter; he does not know that there are any others around
him; and now he sings. And what a glorious song it is, full of hope and
happiness and victory and joy! He did not sing like this to the masters
in the church yesterday; not even to the shoemaker this morning did he
sing like this. It is not hard to see the reason. Yesterday he tried to
be a master, and when he sang he was wondering how these fussy old
fellows would measure his song with their rhyme-gauges and their foot-
rules. How could anybody sing when he was thinking of that? Even then
it was not a bad song and the goldsmith's daughter would have known it
if she had been the judge. The shoemaker, with his warm old spring-time
heart, knew it as it was, but the masters were too learned ever to know
anything. But now the goldsmith's daughter is the judge and the young
poet sings only to her, only for her, only about her. If one smile
curves her pretty lips as he sings, it is more to him than the shouts
of all the people. That is the way to sing, and that is why, when he is
done, all the people do shout, and do clap their hands and wave their
hats, and do cry out that he must have the prize.
"And he does have the prize. She crowns his head with a wreath of
laurel, which he cares for only because she sets it there, and the
goldsmith himself brings him the gold chain that makes him a master.
This the young man would put aside, but the wise old shoemaker bids him
take this too, and to honor the masters and their art; for, he says,
though the Holy Roman Empire should vanish in smoke, yet art will
remain. And I think he means by this that all the kingdoms of the earth
may be lost and may fall into dust and ashes, as our fire here will do
when we leave it to-night, but that the happy young people, with their
stirring hearts of spring, and the kindly old people, with their ripe
hearts of autumn, will still sing songs and still tell stories."
THE BLOOD-RED SAIL
The fire had been out for weeks. Somebody who came from the country had
almost filled the fireplace with a huge bouquet of wild roses. They
made it look very pretty for a few days, but now the roses had all
faded and fallen to pieces too, and nobody cared enough even to sweep
up the dry, dead leaves and throw them out. It all looked forsaken and
desolate enough. But it was no more desolate than I. We were lonely and
unhappy for the same reason, the poor fireplace and I, because the
little girl had gone away with her mother down to the sea and would not
be back for more weeks and weeks yet. The city was so hot and dull and
stupid! It made me feel dull and stupid to stay in it, except when it
made me angry. Yet perhaps the fireplace was even a little worse off
than I, though it was not more forsaken and alone, for it had no work
to do, while I had plenty. Then again the fireplace, in spite of all
the wonderful and beautiful things we had seen in it sometimes, had
never been anywhere except just where it was now, and it knew nothing
about the sea. But I had been in several other places; and even in the
city, with the heat pouring down from the sky and quivering up from the
pavements, one can dream of "waters, winds, and rocks," and dreams are
good things to have for those who can have nothing else.
And I had the dreams and something else. For the little girl and her
mother had said that I might come down to the sea too, whenever I
thought the city could get on without me. What surprised me was that
the city got on at all, but all the time I thought more and more that I
was of no use to it, and it was of no use to me, and finally I left all
my work in it to take care of itself and fled away to the sea. Oh, how
lovely it was! That first long unbroken sight of the line where the sky
and the water met made me feel, as I always feel at such times, that it
was worth half the year's worry and care just to see this ocean and
this heaven, to breathe this free, salt air, to smell the flowers by
the roadside, and to gaze and gaze again at the two great tracts of
peaceful blue. How wonderful is this calm rest of a thing that can rage
and destroy when it will! The peace of a field of daisies is pretty and
sweet; the peace of the ocean is like that of God.
The little girl and I had a long walk along the beaches, over the
rocks, and through the tall, salt grass. We hunted among the smooth,
round pebbles for the smoothest and the roundest; we studied the jelly-
fish that was borne up the beach by the wave and then glided swiftly
back again with it, as if it had forgotten something, till one wave,
higher than the others, would leave it lying on the sand at our feet,
where we could study it as much as we liked; we wondered if the jelly-
fish ever did forget anything and if he had remembered it now, so that
he did not want to go back any more. We caught little crabs and made
them run races, laying huge wagers on our favorites; I filled my
pocket, and the little girl filled her handkerchief with the tiny,
pointed shells that can be strung into such pretty necklaces. Then we
found a great, bright, curly ribbon of seaweed, as wide as two hands,
so long that when the little girl held it by the middle she could
scarcely lift the ends off the sand, and rich and beautiful in color
like dark-red tortoise-shell. The little girl looped one end of it
around her head and wound the rest about her body, so that she looked a
true little sea princess.
All day a fresh, cool breeze came up from the sea, so different from
the air of the dreadful city. Toward evening it grew cooler yet. The
wind blew more, and little shreds and patches of fog, and then larger
clouds of it, hurried along over the fields. We could see them coming,
away off over the water, then they reached the shore and hid the walls
and the pastures, then they wrapped us up within themselves and passed
us, and we saw them flying off again as if they were trying to carry a
chill from the sea as far into the land as they could. And it was
chilly after the sun was quite gone--not very cold, but just cool
enough so that everybody thought it would be pleasant to have a bit of
fire on the hearth. And when we thought a fire would be pleasant we
always had it.
Of course down there we never think of making a fire of anything but
driftwood. It makes the most wonderful, magical fire in the world. One
could dream out stories for a whole evening from the wood alone. Here
is a stick that must have been a part of a spar. Was it blown away from
the mast in a gale? Now hold your breath and think if some poor sailor
was blown off into the waves with it. Did he catch at this very stick
as he sank? Did his wife wait and wait for him at home, till his
shipmate came and told her? Here is a little piece of smooth board,
with a bit of cornice fastened to the end. It must be from the wall of
a cabin. Did the captain's daughter and the young mate sit under it and
whisper stories to each other in the calm evenings of the voyage? There
is a piece of barrel-stave. Perhaps it once held rum for the sailors'
grog; it burns as if it did. There again is a float from a fisherman's
net. Was the net torn when it broke away, and did the fisherman lose
some fish? And because of that did his sweetheart perhaps lose a ribbon
or a trinket? Then here is a broken fragment of a lobster pot. Even
this might be some loss to a poor man. And not only are all these
things and a hundred times as many more to be thought of, but all this
wood has been soaked in the salts of the sea, and when it burns the
flames are of all sorts of strange and beautiful and ghostly colors--
white and red and green and blue and yellow and violet.
Everybody feels the charm of a driftwood fire. The little girl surely
could not help feeling it, and she came and sat on the stool at my
feet, leaned her head against my knee, and gazed at the flames without
saying a word. But I answered her thought. "Yes," I said, "we may see
almost anything in that fire. Look at that strip of cocoanut husk. Does
it not tell of green palm-groves and sunny skies and warm breezes? Yet
as it lies there on its curved side, with the two ends lifted from the
hearth, has it not the shape of a galley, like those in which the rude
old pirates of the North used to sweep over the sea, bringing terror to
all who came in their way? It is all burnt and blackened, and right
over it rises a tall flame of bright red. It is a black ship, with
sails all of the color of blood. The strangest of ships it is, and it
has the strangest of stories.
"Long, long years ago, in a fearful storm, the captain tried to sail
this ship around the cape. The captain of another ship hailed him and
asked him if he did not mean to find a harbor for the night. But he
swore a terrible oath that he would sail around the cape in spite of
Davy Jones, if it took till doomsday. At this Davy Jones was angry, and
swore on his part that it should take till doomsday, that the captain
should sail in the storm till then and should never get around the
cape. Do you know who Davy Jones is? He is the wicked spirit of the
sea. When the winds and the waves rage and tear away the sails of the
ships, or sink the ships or drive them upon the reefs, it is his work;
when it is all smooth and calm and sparkling, as we saw it to-day, then
the good fairies of the sea are there and are making everything about
it calm and happy.
"But the fairies never came near this ship. She was always driven
about, and there was a storm wherever she went. Never could her captain
bring her into any port and never could he round the cape. Only for
years and years he sailed and sailed in the storm, and found no harbor
and no rest. At first he was bold and tried to sail on and gain his
port; then he was angry and raged again, and swore that he would not be
beaten; then he was in despair; and at last he grew so weary with the
storm and the sea and the clouds and again the wind and the sky and the
ocean and yet the rain and the waves and the fog, that he longed only
to die and to be at peace.
"But he did not die, and no one of his crew died. The sailors all grew
old, and their hair and their beards were white, and they looked like
ghosts, and their ship was like the ghost of a ship; but they were not
ghosts; they were real men and they sailed in a real ship. Sometimes
the crews of other ships saw them. Sometimes they hailed the crews of
the other ships and begged them to take letters to their friends at
home. They said that their almanac had been blown away and they did not
know how long they had been from home. They would lower a boat and row
to the ship they had hailed, in a sea that would swamp any other boat
in half a minute, and so they would bring their letters on deck. Those
who knew their story refused to take the letters, and then the sailors
would nail them to the mast or lay them on the deck, with a heavy
weight to keep them from blowing away, and go back to their own ship.
So the letters sometimes reached their homes, for it was said to bring
bad luck either to take their letters willingly or to throw them away
when they were left on the ship.