her hand; and all the people knelt likewise, with bowed heads, and a
great cry went up.
"Our Queen! Our Queen!"
Then the King and Queen passed into the palace, and the tiring-maids led
the little beggar-maid into a great chamber hung with tapestries and
furnished with many mirrors, and they took from off her white body the
tattered gown she had worn in the forest, and robed her in perfumed
linen and cloth of gold, and set jewels at her throat and in her hair;
and at evening in the cathedral, before the high altar, in the presence
of all the people, the King placed a sapphire beautiful as the evening
star upon her finger, and the twain became man and wife; and the moon
rose and the little beggar-maid was a Queen and lay in a great King's
arms.
On the morrow the King summoned a famous worker in metals attached to
his court, and commanded him to make a beautiful coffer of beaten gold,
in which to place the little ragged robe of his beggar-maid; for it was
very sacred to him because of his great love. After due time the coffer
was finished, and it was acclaimed the masterpiece of the great
artificer who had made it. About its sides was embossed the story of the
King's love. On one side was the pool with the water-lilies and the
beggar-maid braiding her hair on its brink. And on another she was
riding on horseback with the King through the forest. And on another
she was standing by his side on the steps of the palace before all the
people. And on the fourth side she was kneeling by the King's side
before the high altar in the cathedral.
The King placed the coffer in a secret gallery attached to the royal
apartments, and very tenderly he placed therein the little tattered gown
and the lute with which his Queen was wont to wander from village to
village and town to town, singing her little songs.
Often at evening, when his heart brimmed over with the tenderness of his
love, he would persuade his Queen to doff her beautiful royal garments
and clothe herself again in that little tattered gown, through the rents
of which her white body showed whiter than any water-lilies. And,
however rich or exquisite the other garments she wore, it was in those
beloved rags, the King declared, that she looked most beautiful. In them
he loved her best.
But this had been a while ago, and though, as has been said, the King's
love was still hers as when he had met her that strange morning in the
forest, and though every day he brought her a new and priceless jewel to
hang about her neck, or wear upon her moonbeam hands, or to shine in
the fragrant night of her hair, it was many months since he had asked
her to wear for him the little tattered gown.
Was the miracle of their love beginning to lose a little of its wonder
for him, too; was it beginning to take its place among the accepted
realities of life?
Sometimes the Queen fancied that he seemed a little impatient with her
elfin bird-like ways, as though, in his heart, he was beginning to wish
that she was more in harmony with the folk around her, more like the
worldly court ladies, with their great manners and artificial smiles.
For, though she had now been a Queen a long while, she had never
changed. She was still the wild gipsy-hearted child the King had found
braiding her hair that morning by the lilied pool.
Often she would steal away by herself and enter that secret gallery, and
lift the lid of the golden coffer, and look wistfully at the little
tattered robe, and run her hands over the cracked strings of her little
lute.
There was a long window in the gallery, from which, far away, she could
see the great green cloud of the forest; and as the days went by she
often found herself seated at this window, gazing in its direction, with
vague unformed feelings of sadness in her heart.
One day, as she sat there at the window, an impulse came over her that
she could not resist, and swiftly she slipped off her beautiful
garments, and taking the little robe from the coffer, clothed herself in
the rags that the King had loved. And she took the old lute in her
hands, and sang low to herself her old wandering songs. And she danced,
too, an elfin dance, all alone there in the still gallery, danced as the
apple-blossoms dance on the spring winds, or the autumn leaves dance in
the depths of the forest.
Suddenly she ceased in alarm. The King had entered the gallery
unperceived, and was watching her with sad eyes.
"Are you weary of being a Queen?" said he, sadly.
For answer she threw herself on his breast and wept bitterly, she knew
not why.
"Oh, I love you! I love you," she sobbed, "but this life is not real."
And the King went from her with a heavy heart.
And from day to day an unspoken sorrow lay between them; and from day to
day the King's words haunted the Queen with a more insistent refrain:
"Are you weary of being a Queen?"
Was she weary of being a Queen?
And so the days went by.
* * * * *
One day as the Queen passed down the palace steps she came upon a
beautiful girl, clothed in tatters as she had once been, seated on the
lowest step, selling flowers--water-lilies.
The Queen stopped.
"Where did you gather your water-lilies, child?" she asked.
"I gathered them from a pool in the great forest yonder," answered the
girl, with a curtsey.
"Give me one of them," said the Queen, with a sob in her voice, and she
slipped a piece of gold into the girl's hand, and fled back into the
palace.
That night, as she lay awake by her sleeping King, she rose silently and
stole into the secret gallery. There, with tears running down her
cheeks, she dressed herself in the little tattered gown and took the
lute in her hand, and then stole back and pressed a last kiss on the
brow of her sleeping King, who still slept on.
But at sunrise the King awoke, with a sudden fear in his heart, and lo!
where his Queen had lain was only a white water-lily.
And at that moment, in the depths of the forest, a beggar-maid was
braiding her hair, with a pool of water-lilies for her mirror.
THE WIFE FROM FAIRY-LAND
Her talk was of all woodland things,
Of little lives that pass
Away in one green afternoon,
Deep in the haunted grass.
For she had come from fairy-land,
The morning of a day
When the world that still was April
Was turning into May.
Green leaves and silence and two eyes--
'Twas so she seemed to me;
A silver shadow of the woods,--
Whisper and mystery.
I looked into her woodland eyes,
And all my heart was hers;
And then I led her by the hand
Home up my marble stairs.
And all my granite and my gold
Was hers for her green eyes,
And all my sinful heart was hers,
From sunset to sunrise.
I gave her all delight and ease
That God had given to me,
I listened to fulfil her dreams,
Rapt with expectancy.
But all I gave and all I did
Brought but a weary smile
Of gratitude upon her face--
As though, a little while,
She loitered in magnificence
Of marble and of gold,
And waited to be home again,
When the dull tale was told.
Sometimes, in the chill galleries,
Unseen, she deemed, unheard,
I found her dancing like a leaf,
And singing like a bird.
So lone a thing I never saw
In lonely earth and sky;
So merry and so sad a thing--
One sad, one laughing, eye.
There came a day when on her heart
A wild-wood blossom lay,
And the world that still was April
Was turning into May.
In her green eyes I saw a smile
That turned my heart to stone,--
My wife that came from fairy-land
No longer was alone.
For there had come a little hand
To show the green way home,
Home through the leaves, home through the dew,
Home through the greenwood--home.
[Illustration]
THE BUYER OF SORROWS
On an evening of singular sunset, about the rich beginning of May, the
little market-town of Beethorpe was startled by the sound of a trumpet.
Beethorpe was an ancient town, mysteriously sown, centuries ago, like a
wandering thistle-down of human life, amid the silence and the nibbling
sheep of the great chalk downs. It stood in a hollow of the long smooth
billows of pale pasture that suavely melted into the sky on every side.
The evening was so still that the little river running across the
threshold of the town, and encircling what remained of its old walls,
was the noisiest thing to be heard, dominating with its talkative murmur
the bedtime hum of the High Street.
Suddenly, as the flamboyance of the sky was on the edge of fading, and
the world beginning to wear a forlorn, forgotten look, a trumpet sounded
from the western heights above the town, as though the sunset itself
had spoken; and the people in Beethorpe, looking up, saw three horsemen
against the lurid sky.
Three times the trumpet blew.
And the simple folk of Beethorpe, tumbling out into the street at the
summons, and looking to the west with sleepy bewilderment, asked
themselves: Was it the last trumpet? Or was it the long-threatened
invasion of the King of France?
Again the trumpet blew, and then the braver of the young men of the town
hastened up the hill to learn its meaning.
As they approached the horsemen, they perceived that the center of the
three was a young man of great nobility of bearing, richly but somberly
dressed, and with a dark, beautiful face filled with a proud melancholy.
He kept his eyes on the fading sunset, sitting motionless upon his
horse, apparently oblivious of the commotion his arrival had caused. The
horseman on his right hand was clad after the manner of a herald, and
the horseman on his left hand was clad after the manner of a steward.
And the three horsemen sat motionless, awaiting the bewildered
ambassadors of Beethorpe.
When these had approached near enough the herald once more set the
trumpet to his lips and blew; and then, unfolding a parchment scroll,
read in a loud voice:
"To the Folk of Beethorpe--Greeting from the High and Mighty Lord,
Mortimer of the Marches:
"Whereas our heart had gone out toward the sorrows of our people in the
counties and towns and villages of our domain, we hereby issue
proclamation that whosoever hath a sorrow, let him or her bring it
forth; and we, out of our private purse, will purchase the said sorrow,
according to its value--that the hearts of our people be lightened of
their burdens."
And when the herald had finished reading he blew again upon the trumpet
three times; and the villagers looked at one another in
bewilderment--but some ran down the hill to tell their neighbors of the
strange proposal of their lord. Thus, presently, nearly all the village
of Beethorpe was making its way up the hill to where those three
horsemen loomed against the evening sky.
Never was such a sorrowful company. Up the hill they came, carrying
their sorrows in their hands--sorrows for which, in excited haste, they
had rummaged old drawers and forgotten cupboards, and even ran hurriedly
into the churchyard.
[Illustration: THE HERALD ONCE MORE SET THE TRUMPET TO HIS LIPS AND
BLEW]
Lord Mortimer of the Marches sat his horse with the same austere
indifference, his melancholy profile against the fading sky. Only those
who stood near to him noted a kindly ironic flicker of a smile in his
eyes, as he saw, apparently seeing nothing, the poor little raked-up
sorrows of his village of Beethorpe.
He was a fantastic young lord of many sorrows. His heart had been broken
in a very strange way. Death and Pity were his closest friends. He was
so sad himself that he had come to realize that sorrow is the only
sincerity of life. Thus sorrow had become a kind of passion with him,
even a kind of connoisseurship; and he had come, so to say, to be a
collector of sorrows. It was partly pity and partly an odd form of
dilettanteism--for his own sad heart made him pitiful for and
companionable with any other sad heart; but the sincerity of his sorrow
made him jealous of the sanctity of sorrow, and at the same time sternly
critical of, and sadly amused by, the hypocrisies of sorrow.
So, as he sat his horse and gazed at the sunset, he smiled sadly to
himself as he heard, without seeming to hear, the small, insincere
sorrows of his village of Beethorpe--sorrows forgotten long ago, but
suddenly rediscovered in old drawers and unopened cupboards, at the
sound of his lordship's trumpet and the promise of his strange
proclamation.
Was there a sorrow in the world that no money could buy?
It was to find such a sorrow that Lord Mortimer thus fantastically rode
from village to village of his estates, with herald and steward.
The unpurchasable sorrow--the sorrow no gold can gild, no jewel can buy!
Far and wide he had ridden over his estates, seeking so rare a sorrow;
but as yet he had found no sorrow that could not be bought with a little
bag of gold and silver coins.
So he sat his horse, while the villagers of Beethorpe were paid out of a
great leathern bag by the steward--for the steward understood the mind
of his master, and, without troubling him, paid each weeping and
whimpering peasant as he thought fit.
In another great bag the steward had collected the sorrows of the
Village of Beethorpe; and, by this, the moon was rising, and, with
another blast of trumpet by way of farewell, the three horsemen took the
road again to Lord Mortimer's castle.
When, out of the great leathern bag, in Lord Mortimer's cabinet they
poured upon the table the sorrows of Beethorpe, the young lord smiled to
himself, turning over one sorrow after the other, as though they had
been precious stones--for there was not one genuine sorrow among them.
But, later, there came news to him that there was one real sorrow in
Beethorpe; and he rode alone on horseback to the village, and found a
beautiful girl laying flowers on a grave. She was so beautiful that he
forgot his ancient grief, and he thought that all his castles would be
but a poor exchange for her face.
"Maiden," said he, "let me buy your sorrow--with three counties and
seven castles."
And the girl looked up at him from the grave, with eyes of
forget-me-not, and said: "My lord, you mistake. This is not sorrow. It
is my only joy."
THE PRINCESS'S MIRROR
The sun was scarcely risen, but the young princess was already seated by
her window. Never did window open upon a scene of such enchantment.
Never has the dawn risen over so fair a land. Meadows so fresh and grass
so green, rivers of such mystic silver and far mountains so majestically
purple, no eye has seen outside of Paradise; and over all was now
outspread the fairy-land of the morning sky.
Even a princess might rise early to behold so magic a spectacle.
Yet, strangely enough, it was not upon this miracle that the eyes of the
princess were gazing. In fact, she seemed entirely oblivious of it
all--oblivious of all that was passing in the sky, and of all the dewy
awakening of the earth.
Her eyes were lost in a trance over what she deemed a rarer beauty, a
stranger marvel. The princess was gazing at her own face in a golden
mirror.
[Illustration: HER ONLY CARE WAS TO GAZE ALL DAY AT HER OWN FACE]
And indeed it was a beautiful face that she saw there, so beautiful that
the princess might well be pardoned for thinking it the most beautiful
face in the world. So fascinated had she become by her own beauty that
she carried her mirror ever at her girdle, and gazed at it night and
day. Whenever she saw another beautiful thing she looked in her mirror
and smiled to herself.
She had looked at the most beautiful rose in the world, and then she had
looked in her mirror and said, "I am more beautiful."
She had looked at the morning star, and then she had looked in her
mirror and said, "I am more beautiful."
She had looked at the rising moon, and then she had looked in her mirror
and still she said, "I am more beautiful."
Whenever she heard of a beautiful face in her kingdom she caused it to
be brought before her, and then she looked in her mirror, and always she
smiled to herself and said, "I am more beautiful."
Thus it had come about that her only care was to gaze all day at her own
face. So enamored had she become of it, that she hated even to sleep;
but not even in sleep did she lose the beautiful face she loved, for it
was still there in the mirror of dreams. Yet often she would wake in
the night to gaze at it, and always she arose at dawn that, with the
first rays of the sun, she might look into her mirror. Thus, from the
rising sun to the setting moon, she would sit at her window, and never
take her eyes from those beautiful eyes that looked back at her, and the
longest day in the year was not long enough to return their gaze.
This particular morning was a morning in May--all bloom and song, and
crowding leaves and thickening grass. The valley was a mist of blossom,
and the air thrilled with the warbling of innumerable birds. Soft dewy
scents floated hither and thither on the wandering breeze. But the
princess took no note of these things, lost in the dream of her face,
and saw the changes of the dawn only as they were reflected in her
mirror and suffused her beauty with their rainbow tints. So rapt in her
dream was she that, when a bird alighted near at hand and broke into
sudden song, she was so startled that--the mirror slipped from her hand.
Now the princess's window was in the wall of an old castle built high
above the valley, and beneath it the ground sloped precipitately,
covered with underbrush and thick grasses, to a highroad winding far
beneath. As the mirror slipped from the hand of the princess it fell
among this underbrush and rolled, glittering, down the slope, till the
princess finally lost sight of it in a belt of wild flowers overhanging
the highroad.
As it finally disappeared, she screamed so loudly that the
ladies-in-waiting ran to her in alarm, and servants were instantly sent
forth to search for the lost mirror. It was a very beautiful mirror, the
work of a goldsmith famous for his fantastic masterpieces in the
precious metals. The fancy he had skilfully embodied was that of beauty
as the candle attracting the moths. The handle of the mirror, which was
of ivory, represented the candle, the golden flame of which swept round
in a circle to hold the crystal. Wrought here and there, on the golden
back of the mirror, were moths with wings of enamel and precious stones.
It was a marvel of the goldsmith's art, and as such was beyond price.
Yet it was not merely for this, as we know, that the princess loved it,
but because it had been so long the intimate of her beauty. For this
reason it had become sacred in her eyes, and, as she watched it roll
down the hillside, she realized that it had gained for her also a
superstitious value. It almost seemed as if to lose it would be to lose
her beauty too. She ran to another mirror in panic. No! her beauty still
remained. But no other mirror could ever be to her like the mirror she
had lost. So, forgetting her beauty for a moment, she wept and tore her
hair and beat her tiring-maids in her misery; and when the men returned
from their searching without the mirror, she gave orders to have them
soundly flogged for their failure.
Meanwhile the mirror rested peacefully among the wild flowers and the
humming of bees.
A short while after the serving-men had been flogged and the
tiring-maids had been beaten, there came along the white road at the
foot of the castle a tired minstrel. He was singing to himself out of
the sadness of his heart. He was forty years old, and the exchange that
life had given him for his dreams had not seemed to him a fair
equivalent. He had even grown weary of his own songs.
He sat, dejected, amid the green grasses, and looked up at the ancient
heaven--and thought to himself. Then suddenly he turned his tired eyes
again to earth, and saw the daisies growing there, and the butterflies
flitting from flower to flower. And the road, as he looked at it, seemed
long--longer than ever. He took his old lute in his hand--wondering to
himself if they could play another tune. They were so in love with each
other--and so tired of each other.
He played one of his old songs, of which he was heartily weary, and, as
he played, the butterflies flitted about him and filled his old hair
with blue wings.
He was forty years old and very weary. He was alone. His last
nightingale had ceased singing. The time had come for him when one
thinks, and even dreams, of the fireside, the hearth, and the beautiful
old memories.
He had, in short, arrived at that period of life when one begins to
perceive the beauty of money.
As a boy he had never given a thought to gold or silver. A butterfly had
seemed more valuable to him than a gold piece. But he was growing old,
and, as I have said, he was beginning to perceive the beauty of money.
The daisies were all around him, and the lark was singing up there in
the sky. But how could he cash a daisy or negotiate a lark?
Dreams, after all, were dreams.... He was saying this to himself, when
suddenly his eye fell upon the princess's mirror, lying there in the
grass--so covered with butterflies, looking at themselves, that no
wonder the serving-men had been unable to find it.
The mirror of the princess, as I have said, was made of gold and ivory,
and wonderful crystal and many precious stones.
So, when the minstrel took it in his hands out of the grass, he
thought--well, that he might at least buy a breakfast at the next town.
For he was very hungry.
Well, he caught up the mirror and hid it in his faded doublet, and took
his way to a wood of living green, and when he was alone--that is, alone
with a few flowers and a bird or two, and a million leaves, and the soft
singing of a little river hiding its music under many boughs--he took
out the mirror from his doublet.
Shame upon him! he, a poet of the rainbow, had only one thought as he
took up the mirror--the gold and ivory and the precious stones. He was
merely thinking of them and his breakfast.
But when he looked into the mirror, expecting to see his own ancient
face--what did he see? He saw something so beautiful that, just like the
princess, he dropped the mirror. Have you ever seen the wild rose as it
opens its heart to the morning sky; have you ever seen the hawthorn
holding in its fragrant arms its innumerable blooms; have you seen the
rising of the moon, or looked in the face of the morning star?
The minstrel looked in the mirror and saw something far more wonderful
than all these wonderful things.
He saw the face of the princess--eternally reflected there; for her love
of her own beautiful face had turned the mirror into a magic glass. To
worship oneself is the only way to make a beautiful face.
And as the minstrel looked into the mirror he sadly realized that he
could never bring himself to sell it--and that he must go without his
breakfast. The moon had fallen into his hand out of the sky. Could he, a
poet, exchange this celestial windfall for a meal and a new doublet? As
the minstrel gazed and gazed at the beautiful face, he understood that
he could no more sell the mirror than he could sell his own soul--and,
in his pilgrimage through the world, he had received many offers for his
soul. Also, many kings and captains had vainly tried to buy from him his
gift of courage.
But the minstrel had sold neither. And now had fallen out of the sky one
more precious thing to guard--the most beautiful face in the world. So,
as he gazed in the mirror, he forgot his hunger, forgot his faded
doublet, forgot the long sorrow of his days--and at length there came
the setting sun. Suddenly the minstrel awoke from his dream at the sound
of horsemen in the valley. The princess was sending heralds into every
corner of her dominions to proclaim the loss of the mirror, and for its
return a beautiful reward--a lock of her strange hair.
The minstrel hid himself, with his treasure, amid the fern, and, when
the trumpets had faded in the distance, found the highroad again and
went upon his way.
Now it chanced that a scullery-maid of the castle, as she was polishing
a copper saucepan, had lifted her eyes from her work, and, looking down
toward the highroad, had seen the minstrel pick up the mirror. He was a
very well known minstrel. All the scullery-maids and all the princesses
had his songs by heart.
Even the birds were fabled to sing his songs, as they flitted to and fro
on their airy business.
Thus, through the little scullery-maid, it became known to the princess
that the mirror had been found by the wandering minstrel, and so his
life became a life of peril. Bandits, hoping for the reward of that lock
of strange hair, hunted him through the woodland, across the marshes,
and over the moors.