A PRINCE IN DISGUISE.
More good-tempered than usual next morning, nurse was easily
persuaded by Bryda that the village would be quite the nicest
direction for a walk. She wanted to see that nice old Roger again,
and perhaps they might even meet Beppo. She begged a roll left from
breakfast, and put it, wrapped in a sheet of old copy-book, with some
pennies, in her pocket.
The blacksmith was in his forge, and had some very important news for
nurse, and Roger was outside his door busily weaving the cane seat of
a chair he had made, for he was a jack-of-two-trades, if not of all
trades, and made chairs from beginning to end.
"Good morning, Roger," said Bryda, as she came up.
"Good morning, missy. A good morning it is, though not like
yesterday. That was a sort o' wedding day, with the world in a green
dress, covered with jewels made of dewdrops, while the birds sang a
hymn, and the great gold sun came in his best blue dress to marry
her," answered the poetical Roger.
"And to-day, Roger? What's that like?"
"All! to-day's a good honest workin' day, missy, made for the busy
bees and all the Lord's workin' folk."
"Cats aren't working folk," said Bryda, stroking Roger's sleek tabby.
"Maybe cats' work is to keep lone folk company, missy," said the
disguised prince, for as such his little friend always thought of him.
"Shall you have cats in your palace?" she asked.
"That'll be as the king pleases, missy. I do hope so, for I be main
fond o' cats."
"Is tabby very old? she's very lazy."
"I don't rightly know how old she is. You see, missy, nigh on two
years ago my housecat died. Well, I suppose the village cats told
each other when they met on the house-tops at night. Anyhow I never
could open my door of a morning that there wasn't one cat, or maybe
two and three cats, applying for the situation, each one with a
first-rate character from his last place."
Bryda laughed heartily. "How did they tell you?"
"How? Why, bless you, little miss, it's often easier to know what
God Almighty's brutes mean than what men mean, for all we call the
brutes dumb. Tell me all about it they did, rubbin' against me and
purrin', how the master of one had gone away, and the mistress of
another was dead; and how one was a real good mouser, and another was
that honest he'd rather starve than steal.
"Well, the long and short of it is, missy, I took Mrs. Tabby for a
month on trial, to see if she'd make a good housekeeper. An' we
suited, she and I, and she's never given me warning yet, nor I her,
so I don't think we'll part company till I go home."
"When are you going, Roger?" asked Bryda. She could not help
puzzling a good deal over this story of the old man's, about his
palace home; but he spoke so simply and naturally that she could not
doubt that he spoke the truth.
"I don't rightly know," he answered slowly; "I'm thinking when it's
ready they'll let me know. But I'd be main glad to stay a little
longer now, Miss Bryda, for all I've often wearied to be there.
Shall I show you why?"
"Please do."
The old carpenter got up and opened a door opposite to that which led
to his own little room, and there Bryda saw a touching sight.
[Illustration: (Old Italian woman in chair with Beppo)]
The poor Italian woman was sitting propped up with pillows in a
straight-backed old armchair, with Beppo in her arms. The child
seemed to have grown sleepy after play, or perhaps, like his
countrymen, he was accustomed to take a nap at midday. At all events
he was sleeping, and the poor sick mother was gently rocking the
heavy boy, and singing a soft little Italian cradle song:
"Ninni, ninni, ninni, nanna,
Ninni, nanna, ninni, nolu,
Allegrezza di la mamma,
Addormentati, oh figliolu."
That is:
"Joy of thy mother,
Fall asleep, oh, my little son!"
How white she looked and how weary! She laid her finger on her lip,
and looked at the curly black head on her knee. Roger closed the
door softly, and went back to his seat on tiptoe.
"I think, missy," he said, "it won't be long before the Everlasting
Arms are put round her, to soothe her gently to sleep, as she do the
little 'un."
"Is she _dying_, Roger?" asked Bryda, in an awe-struck voice.
"Ay," answered the carpenter, wiping his spectacles, which had
suddenly grown dim. "That little black head'll not long have a
mother to lean against; though she'll want for nothing as I can get
her; and doctor, he sent her full two pints o' stuff, all for
nothing. But he shook his head, he did, and I know what he means by
that only too well; he did it to my Liz twenty-five years ago, come
March next."
Bryda felt very sorrowful. Her own mother had gone to India, but
then she wrote letters, nice long ones, every week. And she would
come back. But poor Beppo would have no letter from his mother if
once she went away, as she knew Roger's loved wife Liz had done, for
there was an old gravestone by the old church door with that one
little word roughly cut upon it--"Liz." And on it last Sunday she
had seen the old man lay a bunch of fresh flowers, as he passed in to
pray.
"Will you share your riches with her, Roger--that money you told me
you had stored away?" she asked.
"My hid treasure, missy? Ah, that I will! There's so much o'
that--ah, so much!--that I might share it wi' every soul as passed
the door and be none the worse off mysel'."
"You won't want it in your palace, will you? Or is there more of it
there? Chests and chests of precious things all the palaces in fairy
tales have in them. But they are only made up," added Bryda, with a
little sigh. "That's the worst of fairy tales. But your treasures
are really true, aren't they, Roger?"
"True when all else is false, missy; safe when all else is lost; real
when all else is a sham."
Bryda longed to ask more about this wonderful wealth of the old man
who looked so poor. He must be a miser, she thought.
"Roger, are all the king's sons as rich as you are? and his
daughters? or are you the eldest?"
"There's enough for all alike, missy. No one's too rich or too poor
in our Father's house. But our Elder Brother, missy, there's none
like him--none. The only wonder is as he isn't ashamed of his
sisters and brothers, so far as he is above them, and so much greater
than ever since his work was finished."
"Oh, do tell me about him! Oh, nurse! don't go on yet, please!"
implored Bryda, as nurse came up the little garden-path with hasty
step.
But nurse would not stay. She always said she "couldn't abide that
old Methody carpenter;" and the real reason of her dislike was that
once before, when she had brought Bryda to stay with the grannies,
old Roger had said something she did not care to hear, because she
had helped to spread a cruel mischief-making story about the village.
So Bryda left her roll and her pence with Roger, and went on with
nurse.
Bryda had not seen the last of Beppo for that day. There was a
private walk through the grounds, which led to the church. The
grannies could not walk so far, and the old carriage always came to
take them to church. But this afternoon, as Bryda was wandering in
the garden, it struck her that she would like to take some flowers
and put them on the grave of Roger's dear Liz. It would please the
old man to see them there.
Bryda, of course, had never seen Liz.
"But I know exactly what she was like," she told herself. "She was
not very tall, but just nice; and she had violet eyes and long black
lashes, and pretty rosy cheeks--not too red, but pink like a peach.
Oh, I know she was nice! And she always wore a brown gown, and a red
handkerchief crossed on her chest. And I don't wonder Roger loved
her. I should, too, for she always spoke gently, not like nurse."
So Bryda grew quite fond of the Liz she had thus invented while she
gathered her flowers.
"I wonder what flower Liz was like? Cousin Salome says we ought all
to be like flowers in God's garden. If we are, I'd rather be like
some flowers than others. Here is a tall orange lily. Oh, you
great, showy thing! How stiff and proud you are! And I tell you
you're not so very pretty, after all," said Bryda severely.
The orange lily did not seem to mind in the least, but stood up just
as proudly as ever.
"You poppies, red and white," went on Bryda, "you have much nicer
manners: you're like ladies who are polite as well, and say nicely,
'How do you do, Mr. Jones? Will you sell me some chickens, please?'
You yellow flowers--I don't know your name--you're very nice till one
comes close, and then you smell horrid. I think you are like people
who are very polite to strangers, but are nasty and cross at home,
and slap when they play games.
"You, dear roses," she went on, talking to all the flowers in turn,
"you are really too lovely! But I mustn't put you on Liz's grave,
because the grannies don't like you gathered; you are like beautiful
ladies in pictures, who get prettier and prettier if you go on
looking at them.
"Here are pansies--hearts'ease, nurse calls them. That is the right
flower for Liz! She was so gentle, and good, and kind that she made
every one happy. If you fell down and were hurt, or if you had that
horrid ache all over, that comes of being naughty or unhappy, and you
told Liz, she would make you all right in no time. She shall have
hearts'ease on her grave and nothing else, except a little
mignonette, for that is quiet and sweet like she was."
[Illustration: (Bryda and her wreath of flowers)]
So Bryda twisted up a pretty wreath of hearts'ease and mignonette, to
take to the grave of this Liz, whose looks and character you see she
had invented for herself, for you know if the carpenter was really a
prince in disguise, of course his wife and daughter were princesses.
Bryda would take the first possible chance of asking old Roger more
about his brother and about the palace, and if he would not be sorry
that Liz could never go there with him. Meanwhile she set off down
the pretty shrubbery walk with her simple little wreath to lay on the
princess' grave.
"No one would call her Princess Liz. I suppose she was Princess
Elizabeth," she said to herself.