into his flesh, “were it but a thorn-hedge which had to be trampled
down, you should be my bride to-morrow!” But shut off by the thorns, he
was not a whit further from winning her than if he had been kneeling at
her feet.
He had no wealth in all the world, only a poor hut with poppies growing
at the door; no mother or father, and his own living to get. To think
at all of the Princess was the sign either of a knave or a fool.
No knave, but perhaps a fool, he thought himself to be. “I will go,” he
said at last, “to the wise woman who tells fortunes and works strange
cures, and ask her to help me.”
So he took all the money he had in the world and went to the wise
woman in her house by the dark pool, and said, “Show me how I may win
Princess Fleur-de-lis to be my wife, and I will give you everything I
possess.”
“That is a hard thing you ask,” said the wise woman; “how much dare you
risk for it?”
“Anything you can name,” said he.
“Your life?” said she.
“With all my heart,” he replied; “for without her I shall but end by
dying.”
“Then,” said the wise woman, “give me your money, and you shall take
your own risk.”
Then he gave her all.
“Now,” said she, “you have but to choose any flower you like, and I
will turn you into it; then, in the night I will take you and plant you
in the palace garden; and if before you die the Princess touches you
with her lips and lays you as a flower in her bosom, you shall become a
man again and win her love; but if not, when the flower dies you will
die too and be no more. So if that seem to you a good bargain, you have
but to name your flower, and the thing is done.”
[Illustration]
“Agreed, with all my heart!” cried the ploughboy. “Only make me into
some flower that is like me, for I would have the Princess to know what
sort of a man I am, so that she shall not be deceived when she takes me
to her bosom.”
He looked himself up and he looked himself down in the pool which was
before the wise woman’s home; at his rough frieze coat with its frayed
edges, his long supple limbs, and his red face with its black eyes, and
hair gleaming at the top.
“I am altogether like a poppy,” he said, “what with my red head, and my
rough coat, and my life among fields which the plough turns to furrow.
Make a poppy of me, and put me in the palace garden and I will be
content.”
Then she stroked him down with her wand full couthly, and muttered her
wise saws over him, for she was a wonderful witch-woman; and he turned
before her very eyes into a great red poppy, and his coat of frieze
became green and hairy all over him, and his feet ran down into the
ground like roots.
The wise woman got a big flower-pot and a spade; and she dug him up out
of the ground and planted him in the pot, and having watered him well,
waited till it was quite dark.
As soon as the pole-star had hung out its light she got across her
besom, tucked the flower-pot under her arm, and sailed away over hedge
and ditch till she came to the palace garden.
There she dug a hole in a border by one of the walks, shook the
ploughboy out of his flower-pot, and planted him with his feet deep
down in the soil. Then giving a wink all round, and a wink up to the
stars, she set her cap to the east, mounted her besom, and rode away
into thin space.
But the poppy stood up where she had left him taking care of his
petals, so as to be ready to show them off to the Princess the next
morning. He did not go fast asleep, but just dozed the time away, and
found it quite pleasant to be a flower, the night being warm. Now and
then small insects ran up his stalks, or a mole passed under his roots,
reminding him of the mice at home. But the poppy’s chief thought was
for the morning to return; for then would come the Princess walking
straight to where he stood, and would reach out a hand and gather him,
and lay her lips to his and his head upon her bosom, so that in the
shaking of a breath he could turn again to his right shape, and her
love would be won for ever.
Morning came, and gardeners with their brooms and barrows went all
about, sweeping up the leaves, and polishing off the slugs from the
gravel-paths. The head gardener came and looked at the poppy. “Who has
been putting this weed here?” he cried. And at that the poppy felt a
shiver of red ruin go through him; for what if the gardener were to
weed him up so that he could never see the Princess again?
All the other gardeners came and considered him, twisting wry faces at
him. But they said, “Perhaps it is a whim of the Princess’s. It’s none
of our planting.” So after all they let him be.
The sun rose higher and higher, and the gardeners went carrying away
their barrows and brooms; but the poppy stood waiting with his black
eye turned to the way by which the Princess should come.
It was a long waiting, for princesses do not rise with the lark, and
the poppy began to think his petals would be all shrivelled and old
before she came. But at last he saw slim white feet under the green
boughs and heard voices and shawm-like laughter and knew that it was
the Princess coming to him.
Down the long walks he watched her go, pausing here and there to taste
a fruit that fell or to look at a flower that opened. To him she would
come shortly, and so bravely would he woo her with his red face, that
she would at once bend down and press her lips to his, and lift him
softly to her bosom. Yes, surely she would do this.
She came; she stopped full and began looking at him: he burned under
her gaze. “That is very beautiful!” she said at last. “Why have I not
seen that flower before? Is it so rare, then, that there is no other?”
But, “Oh, it is too common!” cried all her maids in a chorus; “it is
only a common poppy such as grows wild in the fields.”
“Yet it is very beautiful,” said the Princess; and she looked at it
long before she passed on. She half bent to it. “Surely now,” said the
poppy, “her lips to mine!”
“Has it a sweet smell?” she asked. But one of her maids said, “No,
only a poor little stuffy smell, not nice at all!” and the Princess
drew back.
“Alas, alas,” murmured the poor poppy in his heart, as he watched her
departing, “why did I forget to choose a flower with a sweet smell?
then surely at this moment she would have been mine.” He felt as if his
one chance were gone, and death already overtaking him. But he remained
brave; “At least,” he said, “I will die looking at her; I will not
faint or wither, till I have no life left in me. And after all there is
to-morrow.” So he went to sleep hoping much, and slept late into the
morning of the next day.
Opening his eyes he was aware of a great blaze of red in a border
to his right. Ears had been attentive to the words of Princess
Fleur-de-lis, and a whole bed of poppies had been planted to gratify
her latest fancy. There they were, in a thick mass burning the air
around them with their beauty. Alas! against their hundreds what chance
had he?
And the Princess came and stood by them, lost in admiration, while
the poppy turned to her his love-sick eye, trying to look braver than
them all. And she being gracious, and not forgetful of what first had
given her pleasure, came and looked at him also, but not very long;
and as for her lips, there was no chance for him there now. Yet for
the delight of those few moments he was almost contented with the fate
he had chosen--to be a flower, and to die as a flower so soon as his
petals fell.
Days came and went; they were all alike now, save that the Princess
stayed less often to look at him or the other poppies which had stolen
his last chance from him. He saw autumn changes coming over the
garden; flowers sickened and fell, and were removed, and the nights
began to get cold.
Beside him the other poppies were losing their leaves, and their
flaming tops had grown scantier; but for a little while he would hold
out still; so long as he had life his eye should stay open to look at
the Princess as she passed by.
The sweet-smelling flowers were gone, but the loss of their fragrant
rivalry gave him no greater hopes: one by one every gorgeous colour
dropped away; only when a late evening primrose hung her lamp beside
him in the dusk did he feel that there was anything left as bright as
himself to the eye. And now death was taking hold of him, each night
twisting and shrivelling his leaves; but still he held up his head,
determined that, though but for one more day, his eye should be blessed
by a sight of his Princess. If he could keep looking at her he believed
he should dream of her when dead.
At length he could see that he was the very last of all the poppies,
the only spot of flame in a garden that had gone grey. In the cold dewy
mornings cobwebs hung their silvery hammocks about the leaves, and the
sun came through mist, making them sparkle. And beautiful they were,
but to him they looked like the winding-sheet of his dead hopes.
Now it happened just about this time that the Prince of a neighbouring
country was coming to the Court to ask Princess Fleur-de-lis’ hand in
marriage. The fame of his manners and his good looks had gone before
him, and the Princess being bred to the understanding that princesses
must marry for the good of nations according to the bidding of their
parents, was willing, since the King her father wished it, to look upon
his suit with favour. All that she looked for was to be wooed with
sufficient ardour, and to be allowed time for a becoming hesitancy
before yielding.
A great ball was prepared to welcome the Prince on his arrival; and
when the day came, Princess Fleur-de-lis went into the garden to find
some flower that she might wear as an adornment of her loveliness. But
almost everything had died of frost, and the only flower that retained
its full beauty was the poor bewitched poppy, kept alive for love of
her.
“How wonderfully that red flower has lasted!” she said to one of her
maidens. “Gather it for me, and I will wear it with my dress to-night.”
The poppy, not knowing that he was about to meet a much more dangerous
rival than any flower, thrilled and almost fainted for bliss as the
maid picked him from the stalk and carried him in.
He lay upon Princess Fleur-de-lis’ toilet-table and watched the putting
on of her ballroom array. “If she puts me in her breast,” he thought,
“she must some time touch me with her lips; and then!”
And then, when the maid was giving soft finishing touches to the
Princess’s hair, the beloved one herself took up the poppy and arranged
it in the meshes of gold. “Alas!” thought the poppy, even while he
nestled blissfully in its warm depths, “I shall never reach her lips
from here; but I shall dream of her when dead; and for a ploughboy,
that surely is enough of happiness.”
So he went down with her to the ball, and could feel the soft
throbbing of her temples, for she had not yet seen this Prince who
was to be her lover, and her head was full of gentle agitation and
excitement to know what he would be like. Very soon he was presented to
her in state. Certainly he was extremely passable: he was tall and fine
and had a pair of splendid mustachios that stuck out under his nostrils
like walrus-tusks, and curled themselves like ram’s horns. Beyond a
slight fear that these might sweep her away when he tried to kiss her,
she favoured his looks sufficiently to be prepared to accept his hand
when he offered it.
Then music called to them invitingly, and she was led away to the dance.
As they danced the Prince said: “I cannot tell how it is, I feel as if
someone were looking at me.”
“Half the world is looking at you,” said the Princess in slight
mockery. “Do you not know you are dancing with Princess Fleur-de-lis?”
“Beautiful Princess,” said the Prince, “can I ever forget it? But it
is not in that way I feel myself looked at. I could swear I have seen
somewhere a man with a sunburnt face and a bold black eye looking at
me.”
“There is no such here,” said the Princess; and they danced on.
When the dance was over the Prince led her to a seat screened from view
by rich hangings of silken tapestry; and Princess Fleur-de-lis knew
that the time for the wooing was come.
She looked at him; quite clearly she meant to say “Yes.” Without being
glad, she was not sorry. If he wooed well she would have him.
“It is strange,” said the Prince, “I certainly feel that I am being
looked at.”
The Princess was offended. “I am not looking at you in the least,” she
said slightingly.
“Ah!” replied the other, “if you did, I should lose at once any less
pleasant sensation; for when your eyes are upon me I know only that I
love you--you, Princess, who are the most beautiful, the most radiant,
the most accomplished, the most charming of your sex! Why should I
waste time in laying my heart bare before you? It is here; it is yours.
Take it!”
“Truly,” thought the Princess, “this is very pretty wooing, and by no
means ill done.” She bent down her head, and she toyed and she coyed,
but she would not say “Yes” yet.
But the poppy, when he heard the Prince’s words, first went all of a
tremble, and then giving a great jump fell down at the Princess’s feet.
And she, toying and coying, and not wishing to say “Yes” yet, bent down
and taking up the poppy from where it had fallen, brushed it gently to
and fro over her lips to conceal her smiles, and then tucking her chin
down into the dimples of her neck began to arrange the flower in the
bosom of her gown.
As she did so, all of a sudden a startled look came over her face. “Oh!
I am afraid!” she cried. “The man, the man with the red face, and the
strong black eyes!”
“What is the matter?” demanded the Prince, bending over her in the
greatest concern.
“No, no!” she cried, “go away! Don’t touch me! I can’t and I won’t
marry you! Oh, dear! oh, dear! what is going to become of me?” And
she jumped up and ran right away out of the ballroom, and up the great
staircase, where she let the poppy fall, and right into her own room,
where she barred and bolted herself in.
In the palace there was the greatest confusion: everybody was running
about and shaking heads at everybody else. “Heads and tails! has it
come to this?” cried the King, as he saw a party of serving-men turning
out a ploughboy who by some unheard of means had found his way into the
palace. Then he went up to interview his daughter as to her strange and
sudden refusal of the Prince.
The Princess wrung her hands and cried: she didn’t know why, but she
couldn’t help herself: nothing on earth should induce her to marry him.
Then the King was full of wrath, and declared that if she were not
ready to obey him in three days’ time, she should be turned out into
the world like a beggar to find a living for herself.
So for three days the Princess was locked up and kept on nothing but
bread and water; and every day she cried less, and was more determined
than ever not to marry the Prince.
“Whom do you suppose you are going to marry then?” demanded the King in
a fury.
“I don’t know,” said the Princess, “I only know he is a dear; and has
got a beautiful tanned face and bold black eyes.”
The King felt inclined to have all the tanned faces and bold black eyes
in his kingdom put to death: but as the Princess’s obstinacy showed no
signs of abating, he ended by venting all his anger upon her. So on
the third day she was clothed in rags, and had all her jewellery taken
off her, and was turned out of the palace to find her way through the
world alone.
And as she went on and on, crying and wondering what would become
of her, she suddenly saw by the side of the road a charming cottage
with winter poppies growing at the door. And in the doorway stood a
beautiful man, with a tanned face and bold black eyes, looking as like
a poppy as it was possible for a man to look.
Then he opened his arms: and the Princess opened her arms: and he ran,
and she ran. And they ran and they ran and they ran, till they were
locked in each other’s arms, and lived happily ever after.
THE WOOING OF THE MAZE
Once upon a time there lived a beautiful Princess named Rosemary who
had all she wanted in the world but freedom. She had riches, and power,
and glory without end; but above and beyond all these things, her
beauty was like the sound of a trumpet.
If she lifted the veil from her face, or looked out from her window
at morning as she combed her bright hair, the whole plain at her
feet became like an army of banners, and the hillsides dark with the
galloping of her suitors.
Rejected potentates went clamouring to the four winds of heaven, of her
charm and of her cruelty; and the saying went that she had paved the
floor of her palace with the hearts which she had broken.
But she was weary, was weary of saying “No” to wooers she did not love;
and often when alone she would cry that her riches and her power and
her glory might vanish away from her, and her beauty too, save so much
of it as would win her the heart of the one man she loved, and leave
her to be tended by his hands, as was her sweet namesake rosemary.
One day at noon, when it was the middle of summer, she was lying on a
couch in the palace watching how the flies’ wings threw a network on
the air as they made love to each other and played. It seemed to her so
like the net that the swarm of her suitors threw round her day by day,
that she caught one of the flies, and to make it more like herself,
sprinkled it with gold dust so that it shone; then she let it go. But
to her surprise all the other flies avoided it, and the gilded one went
about solitary and alone.
“Oh! why then,” she cried, “am I not left free like yonder fly
sprinkled with gold?”
Just then under the window a young gardener at his work among the
flowers began singing; and this is what he sang:
“What will I do for my rose of the roses?
Build her a window that looks at the sky;
Fashion her bower with a door that so closes,
No man shall open or enter but I.”
The Princess waited till the words of the song were ended; then a smile
broke over her face; she took up her guitar, and with musically skilled
fingers played over the air as it had been sung. One by one the clear
notes sprang through the open window and fell upon the ears of the
listener on the green lawn below. Also her voice took up the air and
sang:
“Thus, in her heart, saith thy rose of the roses,
‘Build me a window with heaven for its brow;
Fashion my bower with a door that so closes,
No man shall open or enter but thou.’”
That same day the Princess, sitting upon her throne and having crown
and sceptre in her hands, caused the gardener to be called into her
presence. The courtiers thought it was very strange that the Princess
should have a thing of such importance to make known to a gardener that
it was necessary for her to receive him with crown and throne and
sceptre, as if it were an affair of state.
To the gardener, when he stood before her, she said, “Gardener, it
is my wish that there should be fashioned for me a very great maze,
so intricate and deceitful that no man who has not the secret of it
shall be able to penetrate therein. Inmost is to be a little tower and
fountains, and borders of sweet-smelling flowers and herbs. But the
man who fashions this maze and has its secret must remain in it for
ever lest he should betray his knowledge to others. So it is my will
that you should devise such a maze for my delight, and be yourself the
prisoner of your own craft when it is accomplished.”
The gardener lifted his head where he knelt, and saw the Princess
sitting with eyes fast shut and hard-bitten lips, and hands down loose
on either side of her, from which had fallen the crown and sceptre they
had held. Then he answered her, “Princess, by all the might of my craft
I will be, and it shall be so as you wish.”
Now the Princess gave it out to the world that, being so wooed, she was
minded to put all men who required her hand to a great test, that so
he who deserved her most might win her. Therefore at such and such a
time she made it to be known that she would withdraw herself from all
men’s eyes to the centre of a great maze strongly knit round by magic,
and that whoever desired her beauty and could penetrate through all the
deceits and dangers of that maze should possess herself and her lands
and her power, and live in glory of his achievement.
Day by day, out of her palace window, she watched the great maze as
it grew. Wondrously it wound like a huge serpent, gathering into its
fold many miles of country--wood and hill and valley, and great pits
and caverns. And far within rose a small round tower about which stood
fountains like silver willows blown by the wind; but the door no man
could see, for mighty hedges and walls circled all ways about, cutting
off what was below the eye, so that the inner garden lay hidden like a
skylark’s nest in the corn.
One day when the Princess asked, “How strong is this maze to be?” the
gardener answered, “As strong as love.” And when she asked, “How hard
will its way be to find?” he answered, “As hard as is the foolishness
of the kings and princes who shall seek thee therein.” Then she laughed
and was comforted in her heart when the day approached on which all the
world was to be parted from her.
On that day a hundred suitors had gathered to the Court, eager to prove
their prowess and win the most beautiful woman in all the world for a
bride. At night the palace was ablaze from floor to roof, for there a
great feast was held, at which sat Princess Rosemary, magnificent in
her beauty and the splendour of her robes and crown. And all the kings
and princes and lords bent round her with love and worship.
When the clocks struck midnight she rose, and all her jewels shone in
the fashion of a star, so thickly clustered the eye might not discern
one from other; but from heel to crown they clothed her as in a sheet
of fire. She passed down the midst of the hall, bowing both ways to
the assembly in gracious farewell, and her train as it went from floor
to floor was as a great retinue following her when she herself had
passed forth.
She went from terrace to terrace of garden under great trees where
torches and trombones hung, blown by the wind, till she came to the
entrance of the maze. Then she drew out of her breast a small chart,
and gazing thereon went as though fate-led out of sight and sound. And
all the crowd standing without watched the mysterious jewelled train of
her robe passing in after she was gone, as though itself knew the way
it had to go and the windings that led into the very heart of the maze.
A whispered tale went from mouth to mouth that he who had devised and
fashioned the maze had disappeared--was dead, lest the secret should be
betrayed. Some said “Poison”; some said nothing, but shook their heads
darkly and seemed wise.
At the first dawn of day the hundred kings, princes, and knights went
forth to the wooing of the maze, for there were many paths, and each
one went his own way.
For many days the doors remained sealed and silent as a tomb, and the
crowds that gathered daily to watch began dwindling away, and went back
to resume their neglected trades. At last the countries whose kings
did not return sent ambassadors with messages that became more and
more urgent in demanding their presence. They spoke of the balance of
thrones, and the encroachments of neighbouring powers, and the deaths
of relatives. These ambassadors went down to the various entrances at
which their masters had been seen to go in, and thence shot arrows at a
venture with the urgent messages attached to them. But yet none came to
answer.
Then the ambassadors were summoned away, for new kings had seized on
the vacant thrones, and the return of their predecessors became no
longer expedient. People almost forgot at last to trouble their heads,
save when fresh suitors came desirous of joining in the great wooing of
the maze, the more by reason of its apparent dangers. Then indeed for a
time gossips would wait and talk, but afterwards they went away.
Many years went by, and at last there came forth a knight with grizzled
hair and bowed head. He walked in loops and circles, and his eyes slid
from right to left over the ground at his feet. He seemed crazed, and
stuttered when he spoke. They asked him how he had fared. He showed
them many badges of other knights fastened about his shield and helmet.
“I overthrew these,” he said, “till I met one who said, ‘I am Old Age:
turn back!’”
They watched after him with his middle-aged stoop, till he had stumbled
his way into his own country. Some remembered him as a gallant young
knight fifteen years ago.
Yet the story went that the wondrous beauty of the Princess did not
fade; and the people became proud of a legend that spread so great a
distinction for their land, and would point to the maze and the far-off
fountains, and say, “There waits our beautiful Princess till one come
worthy to woo her.”