side, sees the sword that he brought lying near by, and having nothing
better to do, she looks first at the jewels in the hilt and then slowly
draws the sword out of its scabbard to let her eye run along the
polished blade, with its smooth, sharp edge. And then her eye quickly
comes to a break in the smooth, sharp edge, and in an instant she
thinks of the splinter of a sword edge that she found in her uncle's
wound. At that she quickly drops the sword. Then she gets the splinter,
which she has kept, and finds that it just fits the broken place in the
sword, so she knows that this knight whom she is nursing and curing of
his wound is the one who killed her uncle when he was fighting for her
father. For a moment she thinks that she will kill him, and she lifts
the sword above him, but when she sees the helpless look in his eyes
she has not the heart to do it, and she lets the sword fall again. If
the truth were told, I think she is already a little in love with him,
and if he were any kind of knight except a green one, he would be in
love with her too.
"If he only would fall in love now it might save a good deal of trouble
afterwards, but because of his habit of wearing green clothes and green
armor, or for some other reason, he does not, and when his wound is
quite cured he sails cheerfully away again, just as if it were an
everyday affair to be nursed by a queen and a princess. He sails back
here to our own shore now, to the King's castle, and the King and
everybody else are as glad as possible to see him. He tells them all
about the Queen and the princess, and how beautiful she is, for it
seems he did notice that, till by and by, when the knights of the court
find that he is talking about her only in the way he would talk about a
picture that pleased him, they whisper to the King that such a
princess, who is so beautiful, and knows so much about curing wounds,
would no doubt make a good queen, and they advise him to send for her
and marry her. The green knight himself hears these whispers, and he
says, 'Yes, by all means; I will go and get her; she will be glad to
come, and her father and mother will be delighted to have her.' Did you
ever hear of such absurd conduct from a young man dressed in green?
"Away he sails again, over to the island, and when he tells his errand
the King and the Queen are delighted indeed. The princess is not so
much delighted as some young women might be at the prospect of being
married to a king, but she pretends to be very well pleased and says
that she will go. This time it is she who makes a sad mistake, for if
she would only say, right out aloud, 'I do not want to be married to
this King; I want to be married to the green knight,' again it might
save a good deal of trouble afterwards. She need not say it to him, but
she might say it to her mother, and if he did not love her the Queen
would know very well how to make him, as you shall see by and by.
Still, if there were no trouble there would be no story, so we might
better not complain, as long as the trouble will not be ours. So the
princess sails away with the knight, and the Queen, before she goes,
like a careful mother, gives her a little box of medicines such as she
uses herself. That is to say, medicines and other things. One of the
other things is a poison that kills anybody who drinks it, in just
about a minute, and it looks and tastes just like wine. Another is a
stranger mixture yet, for when a man and a woman drink it together it
makes them, from that instant, love each other as long as they live,
more than they love life or honor or their country or anything or
anybody else in the world. And this, too, looks and tastes just like
wine. It would not be easy to find two more dangerous drinks than these
together.
"I see the knight and the princess now on board the ship, coming here
to our shore. The knight stands near the helmsman, looking away at the
sea and the sky, and thinking of nothing more sensible than how glad
his King will be when he sees his bride, and how much his King will
thank him for finding for him and bringing to him such a lovely
princess. But the princess, who is sitting far away from him, at the
other end of the ship, is thinking a great deal, and of such bitter
things that she does not look at the beautiful sea and sky at all. The
end of half her thoughts is that in a very little while now she will
have to be the wife of a king whom she has never seen and never wants
to see, because she loves the green knight, and the end of the other
half of her thoughts is that she hates the knight who has brought her
to this, as she could never in the world hate anybody except one whom
she loved.
"And this is how her thoughts come, for you know I can see thoughts
just as plainly as I can see castles and ships and battles: she thinks
of her uncle, whom she loved, who fought for her father and for her
country, who was wounded, and whose life she could not save; she thinks
of the unknown knight who came to her, wounded too, whom she nursed and
did save; she thinks how she began to love him, for the most of us love
better those whom we help than those who help us; she thinks of that
time when she saw his sword and knew that it was he who had killed her
uncle, how her anger rose against him for that and because he had dared
to come to her for help, how she had been about to kill him, and how
she saw that helpless look in his eyes and had not the heart to do it.
It is now that her thoughts grow bitter, for she thinks how he went
away again and never dreamed of loving her for healing his wound and
saving his life, and then sparing his life and loving him, when she
ought to hate him and kill him, because he killed her uncle. She is
beautiful enough to be loved, she thinks. Then comes a maddening
thought of how this man whom she loved not only cared no more for her
than for one of her father's dogs, but himself came back to ask her
hand for another. This seems an insult to her and it makes her whole
soul burn. She wishes she had killed him when she had his sword in her
hands, and the madness fills her mind and burns her soul till she
resolves that she will kill him now.
"She not only thinks all this but says it to her maid, and she orders
her to take the poison out of the box of medicines that her mother gave
her, and put it into a goblet, and she says that the knight shall drink
some of it and that she will drink the rest herself, and so punish her
enemy and be rid of the King who is to be her husband, for she will
gladly die rather than be married to him. Of course this throws the
poor maid into a terrible fright, for she is not a princess, and
poisoning and cutting off heads, and such things seem like serious
matters to her, so she would gladly save the knight and her mistress
too, if she could. If you were in her place I know very well what you
would do. You would give the princess some wine instead of the poison,
and before she could find out what you had done, she and the knight
would be on shore and would be saved. But this poor girl is so
frightened that she can think of nothing to do but to give her mistress
and the knight the love drink instead of the poison.
"The princess calls the knight to her and frowns upon him as dreadfully
as she knows how. Can you think how a bunch of sweet, fresh, red and
white roses would look if it should get terribly angry? Well, that is
about the way the princess frowns. But it is not her fault. She was not
made to frown. She tells the knight that he has been very cruel and
very untrue to her, and that she ought to have killed him for killing
her uncle; but now she says she will forgive him, and to show that they
are friends she asks him to drink this wine with her. And now you may
see how brave this green knight really is, for he sees well enough that
she does not forgive him at all and means to kill him; yet he takes the
goblet from her hand without a tremor of his own and drinks. Then she
snatches the goblet from him and drinks the rest herself, and cries,
'Now we shall both die; I have my revenge upon you, and you shall not
marry me to your King!'
"But, oh, it is the drink of love, and instead of dying the two stand
and gaze at each other as if they could never gaze enough, then they
stretch their arms toward each other, and so they meet, and now,
whatever happens to either of them, they must always love each other as
long as they live, more than they love life or honor or their country
or anything or anybody else in the world.
"How they ever get on shore I don't know, but I do know that when they
are there they make another great mistake, for they hide from the King
that they love each other, and they let him think still that the
princess means to be married to him, when I am sure she can mean
nothing of the kind. He is a very good sort of King, who wants
everybody to be as happy as possible, and he never has seen this
princess before, so what can he really care for her? If they would only
tell him I am sure he would be glad to help them, instead of standing
in their way, but they are just as foolish as they have both been all
along, and they say nothing about it.
"The princess is in the garden of the castle with her maid and they are
waiting for the knight to come. The King and all his men have ridden a-
hunting. It is night, and a torch burns at the castle door; at last we
can see something in the fire. The knight will not come till they put
out the torch, for that is the signal they have arranged, and they will
not put out the torch till the hunting party is far away. You see they
are still so absurdly secret about it! The maid tells the princess that
she might better not put out the torch at all, for a treacherous friend
of the knight has watched them, suspects their love, and has told the
King; that the hunting party is only a trap, and that the King will
soon come back. If it were a real hunt it would be strange for the
green knight himself not to go, for he is the best huntsman in the
whole country. All this is quite true; for the King, kind and generous
as he is, does not like to be deceived any better than anybody else,
and he wants people to keep the promises that they make to him.
"But the princess is in such haste to see the green knight again that
she will not heed the maid's warning. She sends her up to the tower to
watch, as soon as she thinks the hunters are far enough away, and then
she throws the torch down upon the ground and puts it out. Then the
green knight comes. But they have scarcely sat down on the grassy bank
to tell each other how much they love each other, and to forget all
about the poor King, when the maid cries out from the tower that the
huntsmen are coming back, the knight's old servant comes running with
his sword drawn to his master and begs him to save himself, and in a
minute they all come, the treacherous friend of the green knight
leading the way, and the King next after him. The knight is standing
before the princess, not thinking of himself, and the traitor, who
could never match him for a moment in a fair fight, rushes upon him and
wounds him, but before he can do more the King himself holds him back.
The old servant raises the knight from the ground where he has fallen,
drags him quickly to the shore and puts him in a ship that is there,
and once more they sail away.
[Illustration: "AS IF THEY COULD NEVER GAZE ENOUGH."]
"The rock there by the water is no longer the castle of the King. It is
the green knight's castle now, in another country, across the sea. The
old servant has brought the knight here, away from his enemies, to try
to heal his wound. All his care seems useless. The poor knight has all
the time grown worse. But his faithful old servant has remembered who
it was that cured another wound of his before, and he has sent a ship
with secret messengers to bring the princess if they can. That he may
know as soon as he sees the ship whether the princess is on board, he
has told the sailors to hoist white sails if they bring her with them,
and black sails if they do not. He is watching now for the ship to come
back.
"It is the court-yard of the castle that I see, and a sweet, calm,
lovely picture it is. The knight and his servant have been so long away
that the place has been neglected, but it is all the prettier for that.
The grass has grown long, and, as the light winds breathe upon it, it
sways and sinks and rises in waves, as if it tried to be like the sea
down there below it. The gray old walls and ramparts of the castle have
bright green moss upon them, and from the crannies hang little plants
and vines. High up, where a rough stone projects a little from the
tower, a cluster of bluebells swings in the breeze and nods to the
other flowers and the grass and the trees down below. Are the bluebells
trying to say to the grass that up there on their airy lookout they can
see away over the shining water, that the ship is not yet in sight, but
that they know she will come? Beyond and away, clear to the edge of the
sky, just as it is here before us now, lies the sea. Smooth and
peaceful it is, as if it were resting all through this calm day. Over
it all the sun is sending a flood of light, fifty times as bright as
the light of this splendid moon of ours. But now and then it is dimmed
a little, for far away on the sea lies a strip of shade, the shadow of
a cloud; slowly it moves toward the land, as the cloud sails through
the blue sky, and as it comes it is seen plainer and moves faster, till
the shadow reaches the shore and rests for an instant on the castle and
the court-yard, and then it passes away into the land and everything is
sunny again.
"Yet in all this light and peaceful beauty there is something that
seems like sadness. In the court-yard, on his couch, lies the knight,
in the cool shade. He does not know where he is, and he does not know
his servant, who stands beside him, with the tears in his faithful old
eyes, but he must know that he is in a beautiful place. Does everything
in the place know that he is here, too, and feel sad to see him lying
sick and wounded and weak and weary? The sun veils his face oftener
than he does on some of our bright days, and when there is no cloud he
shines with a soft, mellow light, the sea throws shades of purple over
its blue and silver, and its waves break against the shore with only a
soft little sound, and a sort of hushed song that is like a moan and is
like a lullaby too. You can hear it down there among the pebbles around
the rock. The bluebells swing softly, as if they were afraid to ring
out aloud and disturb the sleeping knight. The hard walls look softer
for their coverings of moss; the grass waves slowly and bends toward
the wounded man, seeming to listen to his breathing. A shepherd leans
over the rampart and plays a soft, sad, sleepy little air on his pipe.
'Is the knight awake?' he calls to the servant.
"'No,' the servant answers, 'and unless the princess comes I fear he
will never wake; watch for the ship.'
"'I will watch,' the shepherd says, 'and if I see the ship I will play
a lively tune on my pipe to tell you of it.'
"The knight begins to wake and stir; he asks where he is, and the
servant tells him that he is at his own castle. He has been dreaming of
the princess, and the servant says, 'I have sent the ship for her; she
will come to-day.' But the knight is so weak that he cannot understand
or talk of one thing very long, and he falls half asleep again and
dreams of the princess, and because he has heard of a ship he dreams of
other ships. He has his old wound now and is lying, just as he lies
here, in that ship which bore him the first time toward the princess;
now she is with him and his face grows lighter. She is looking at his
sword; she raises it again, as she did so long ago, to kill him; but
she sees again the helpless look in his eyes and has not the heart to
do it, and she lets the sword fall again. He is on a second ship,
sailing toward the princess to bring her for the King's bride; now the
ship is sailing back and they are together on the deck. She holds out
to him that goblet of strange wine; they both drink, they gaze into
each other's eyes, the dream is too happy to last, and he awakes and
cries, 'Has the ship come? Can you not see her yet?'
"'Not yet,' the servant answers; 'but she must come soon.'
"The knight is in the garden of the castle--the other castle--waiting
for the princess to put out the torch, that he may come to her. The
torch falls upon the ground, he runs toward the place, and they are
together yet again. It is another happy dream that cannot stay. 'Is the
ship nowhere in sight?'
"Before the servant can answer he hears the merry tune from the
shepherd's pipe and knows that the ship is coming now, indeed. He looks
away across the sea and tells his master how swiftly it flies over the
water toward them, with its white sails, for the sails are white and
the princess is on board. The time seems long to the knight and his
servant, yet it is really short, for the wind is fair. The ship comes
nearer and nearer, it passes the dangerous reef, it is so near that the
servant can see the faces of the princess and the helmsman and the
sailors. Now it is at the very shore and the princess is at the gate.
Ah, it was not medicines that the knight needed. With the very
knowledge that the princess is there, he raises himself from his couch
and walks toward the gate. Then his little strength fails again and he
would fall, but the princess herself catches him in her arms and holds
him. This time it is no dream.
"She leads him back to the couch, he sinks upon it, and she bends over
him. But suddenly the shepherd runs to the rampart and cries that
another ship is coming, the King's ship. Are the King's men coming then
to carry back the princess, perhaps to kill the knight? The servant
calls the men of the castle and they try to barricade and guard the
gate. But they are too late; the King's men and the King himself break
through the barriers and are in the courtyard. The very first of them
is the knight's treacherous friend; the old servant instantly cuts him
down with his sword, and there is one good stroke at least. Then the
King calls to all to hold their hands and to strike no more; he has
come only to give the princess to the knight. He has heard of the love
drink, and knows at last that they were not to blame for what they did,
and that they never meant to be false to him.
"But still the knight lies there on his couch and the princess kneels
by his side and bends over him, and neither of them speaks or moves."
"And will the knight get well again?" the little girl asked.
"Let us not try to find out any more now," I said. "The knight and the
princess are both here, and I know that they are happier together than
they have ever been before. That is enough, is it not?"
All at once there were voices behind us, three voices at least.
"Hello, there! who's attending to the fire? You're letting it all go
out, and there's plenty of wood left."
"What are you two doing here all alone? Don't you know you'll catch
your death o' cold sitting here so long?"
"Are there any marshmallows left?"
"No," said the little girl, answering the last question, "we don't care
about marshmallows any way," and I really believe just then she thought
she did not care about them, though usually she likes them almost as
well as anybody.
THE MINSTREL KNIGHT
The little girl stayed at the seashore till the middle of the autumn.
That is the way sensible people do, when they can, and I have worked
much in vain if I have not shown by this time that this little girl is
a sensible little person. The spring is very lovely, to be sure, and of
course we all love it. I should be the last one to say anything against
it. But to me the most beautiful time of the whole beautiful year is
the early autumn. The heat and the work and the worry of the year are
over, and the clear, rich, golden good of it all is left to be enjoyed.
The flowers are not pink and pale blue any more; they are of deep,
splendid yellow and red and purple. The golden-rod and the asters are
lords of flowers, and the cardinal is their high-priest, while if you
will have something that is delicate and modest, there is the fringed
gentian, and that shows, too, how healthy and brave and free it is by
keeping no company with dark shadows, and opening only when the bright
sun shines full upon it.
But of the things that are best in the autumn, the best above all
others is the sea. It has been lying quiet and restful all summer, and
now it awakes and begins to move and to show the strength and the
freedom of its glorious life. As you stand upon the shore and look at
it, it draws itself away from you and away from the land as if it were
done with it forever; then it pauses, and in a moment begins to come
back. Up and up the beach it marches with a majestic will that nothing
else in the world is like; as it comes it lifts itself higher and
higher; then the wave leaps into the air and its crest is turned to
emerald as the sunlight strikes through it for the pause of another
instant, there is a roll, a mad plunge, the spray dashes high above
your head, the foam floats and flies up the beach to your very feet,
the hollow rumble of the water sounds fainter and farther along the
sands, and the ocean draws itself back away from you and away from the
land. Its colors are different, too. Before it had all sorts of
fanciful hues and shades, pale green and blue, silver, violet, almost
rose sometimes, the colors of summer dreams. Now the dreaming time is
over. The green of the wave-crests is luminous, the white and the blue
have the gleam of polished steel, the violet and the rose are turned to
deep, rich purple. The sea is not cold, harsh, and cruel yet, but it is
free, bold, and majestic.
All this I knew because I remembered it, not because I saw it, for I
had been back in the city a long time. The fire was lighted again and I
had sat before it often, thinking of the driftwood fire away down
there, with the little girl sitting before it, seeing pictures in it
for herself, perhaps, and listening to the low sound of the sea, coming
up through the still evening air. But one night she came and sat with
me again, and once more we both looked into the same fire. "I believe I
can almost see pictures myself now," she said.
"Can you? And what do you see in the fire now?"
"Oh, I can see a prince and a princess--and a knight--and a lovely
goddess, like the one that had the apples--and a cave, like the one
where the dragon lived--"
"And don't you see the dragon himself? Where is he?"
"No, there isn't any dragon; that would be too much like the other
story."
"But you must not mind that. There are only a few good stories
altogether, and the most we can do, as I told you once before, is to
tell them over and over again in different ways."
"But I don't want any dragon in this one. Now you tell me what they all
do, the goddess and the knight, and the prince and the princess, and
what the cave is for."
"Very well, I will try. First I see the knight. He is riding along upon
his horse, through the forests, over the hills and across the valleys.
It is a lovely day of summer. When he comes to the top of a hill, he
sees the country lying before him and all around him, deep green with
woods and pastures and paler green where the grain is ripening. Here
and there, too, it is sprinkled with tiny dots of red, where the
poppies grow thick in a field, and there are spots that are almost blue
with cornflowers. A silver ribbon of a river winds through it, and the
sight of it is lost among the blue mountains. As he rides down into a
valley the branches wave above him and break the sunshine that falls
upon the road and the grass beside it. The flecks of light and the
patches of shade tremble and waver and dart across and across the way,
as if they were weaving a robe for the earth, of gold and brown and
green. The air is full of the smell of the flowers, a brook makes a
soft, cheery little noise, and from the pastures comes the sleepy sound
of sheep-bells.
"The knight is riding toward the castle of the prince. He is a
minstrel, as well as a knight, and at the castle he will meet other
minstrels who are his friends, and they are all to sing for a prize
which the prince has offered. There is as much happiness in the heart
of the knight as in everything around him, for he loves the prince's
daughter, and he knows that she loves him. Besides this she is to give
the prize to the one who wins it, and with his mind full of gladness
and thoughts of her, he feels sure that he can win.