THE HOUSE OF JOY
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
THE HOUSE
OF JOY
BY LAURENCE
HOUSMAN
1895
LONDON: KEGAN PAUL
TRENCH TRÜBNER & CO.]
CONTENTS
THE PRINCE WITH THE NINE SORROWS _Page_ 1
THE LUCK OF THE ROSES 23
THE WHITE KING 35
THE STORY OF THE HERONS 51
SYRINGA 85
THE TRAVELLER’S SHOES 101
THE MOON-FLOWER 135
HAPPY RETURNS 169
THE PRINCE WITH THE NINE SORROWS
_TO_
CLARE AND IDA
[Illustration]
THE PRINCE WITH THE NINE SORROWS
_Eight-white peahens went down to the gate:_
_“Wait!” they said, “little sister, wait!”_
_They covered her up with feathers so fine;_
_And none went out, when there went back nine._
A long time ago there lived a King and a Queen, who had an only son. As
soon as he was born his mother gave him to the forester’s wife to be
nursed; for she herself had to wear her crown all day and had no time for
nursing. The forester’s wife had just given birth to a little daughter
of her own; but she loved both children equally and nursed them together
like twins.
One night the Queen had a dream that made the half of her hair turn
grey. She dreamed that she saw the Prince her son at the age of twenty
lying dead with a wound over the place of his heart; and near him his
foster-sister was standing, with a royal crown on her head, and his heart
bleeding between her hands.
The next morning the Queen sent in great haste for the family Fairy, and
told her of the dream. The Fairy said, “This can have but one meaning,
and it is an evil one. There is some danger that threatens your son’s
life in his twentieth year, and his foster-sister is to be the cause of
it; also, it seems she is to make herself Queen. But leave her to me, and
I will avert the evil chance; for the dream coming beforehand shows that
the Fates mean that he should be saved.”
The Queen said, “Do anything; only do not destroy the forester’s wife’s
child, for as yet at least, she has done no wrong. Let her only be
carried away to a safe place and made secure and treated well. I will not
have my son’s happiness grow out of another one’s grave.”
The Fairy said, “Nothing is so safe as a grave when the Fates are awake.
Still, I think I can make everything quite safe within reason, and leave
you a clean as well as a quiet conscience.”
The little Prince and the forester’s daughter grew up together till they
were a year old; then, one day, when their nurse came to look for them,
the Prince was found, but his foster-sister was lost; and though the
search for her was long, she was never seen again, nor could any trace of
her be found.
The baby Prince pined and pined, and was so sorrowful over her loss that
they feared for a time that he was going to die. But his foster-mother,
in spite of her grief over her own child’s disappearance, nursed him so
well and loved him so much that after a while he recovered his strength.
Then the forester’s wife gave birth to another daughter, as if to console
herself for the loss of the first. But the same night that the child was
born the Queen had just the same dream over again. She dreamed that she
saw her son lying dead at the age of twenty; and there was the wound in
his breast, and the forester’s daughter was standing by with his heart in
her hand and a royal crown upon her head.
The poor Queen’s hair had gone quite white when she sent again for the
family Fairy, and told her how the dream had repeated itself. The Fairy
gave her the same advice as before, quieting her fears, and assuring her
that however persistent the Fates might be in threatening the Prince’s
life, all in the end should be well.
Before another year was passed the second of the forester’s daughters had
disappeared; and the Prince and his foster-mother cried themselves ill
over a loss that had been so cruelly renewed. The Queen, seeing how great
were the sorrow and the love that the Prince bore for his foster-sisters,
began to doubt in her heart and say, “What have I done? Have I saved my
son’s life by taking away his heart?”
Now every year the same thing took place, the forester’s wife giving
birth to a daughter, and the Queen on the same night having the same
fearful dream of the fate that threatened her son in his twentieth
year; and afterwards the family Fairy would come, and then one day the
forester’s wife’s child would disappear, and be heard of no more.
At last when nine daughters in all had been born to the forester’s wife
and lost to her when they were but a year old, the Queen fell very ill.
Every day she grew weaker and weaker, and the little Prince came and
sat by her, holding her hand and looking at her with a sorrowful face.
At last one night (it was just a year after the last of the forester’s
children had disappeared) she woke suddenly, stretching out her arms and
crying. “Oh, Fairy,” she cried, “the dream, the dream!” And covering her
face with her hands, she died.
The little Prince was now more than ten years old, and the very saddest
of mortals. He said that there were nine sorrows hidden in his heart, of
which it could not get rid; and that at night, when all the birds went
home to roost, he heard cries of lamentation and pain; but whether these
came from very far away, or out of his own heart he could not tell.
Yet he grew slenderly and well, and had such grace and tenderness in his
nature that all who saw him loved him. His foster-mother, when he spoke
to her of his nine sorrows, tried to comfort him, calling him her own
nine joys; and, indeed, he was all the joy left in life for her.
When the Prince neared his twentieth year, the King his father felt that
he himself was becoming old and weary of life. “I shall not live much
longer,” he thought: “very soon my son will be left alone in the world.
It is right, therefore, now that he should know what is the danger that
threatens his life.” For till then the Prince had not known anything;
all had been kept a secret between the Queen and the King and the family
Fairy.
The old King knew of the Prince’s nine sorrows, and often he tried to
believe that they came by chance, and had nothing to do with the secret
that sat at the root of his son’s life. But now he feared more and more
to tell the Prince the story of those nine dreams, lest the knowledge
should indeed serve but as the crowning point of his sorrows, and
altogether break his heart for him.
Yet there was so much danger in leaving the thing untold that at last he
summoned the Prince to his bedside, meaning to tell him all. The King had
worn himself so ill with anxiety and grief in thinking over the matter,
that now to tell all was the only means of saving his life.
The Prince came and knelt down, and leaned his head on his father’s
pillow; and the King whispered into his ear the story of the dreams, and
of how for his sake all the Prince’s foster-sisters had been spirited
away.
Before his tale was done he could no longer bear to look into his son’s
face, but closed his eyes, and, with long silences between, spoke as one
who prayed.
When he had ended he lay quite still, and the Prince kissed his closed
eyelids and went softly out of the room.
“Now I know,” he said to himself; “now at last!” And he came through the
wood and knocked at his foster-mother’s door. “Other mother,” he said to
her, “give me a kiss for each of my sisters, for now I am going out into
the world to find them, to be rid of the sorrows in my heart.”
“They can never be found!” she cried, but she kissed him nine times.
“And this,” she said, “was Monica, and this was Ponica, and this was
Veronica,” and so she went over every name. “But now they are only
names!” she wept, as she let him go.
He went along, and he went along, and he went along. “Where may you be
going to, fair sir?” asked an old peasant at whose cabin the Prince
sought shelter when night came to the first day of his wanderings.
“Truly,” answered the Prince, “I do not know how far or whither I need to
go; but I have a finger-post in my heart that keeps pointing me.”
So that night he stayed there, and the next day he went on.
“Where to so fast?” asked a wood-cutter when the second night found him
in the thickest and loneliest parts of the forest. “Here the night is so
dark and the way so dangerous, one like you should not go alone.”
“Nay, I know nothing,” said the Prince, “only I feel like a weather-cock
in a wind that keeps turning me to its will!”
After many days he came to a small long valley rich in woods and
water-courses, but no road ran through it. More and more it seemed like
the world’s end, a place unknown, or forgotten of its old inhabitants.
Just at the end of the valley, where the woods opened into clear slopes
and hollows toward the west, he saw before him, low and overgrown, the
walls of a little tumble-down grange. “There,” he said to himself when
he saw it, “I can find shelter for to-night. Never have I felt so tired
before, or such a pain at my heart!”
Before long he came to a little gate and a winding path that led in
among lawns and trees to the door of an old house. The house seemed as
if it had been once lived in, but there was no sign of any life about it
now. He pushed open the door, and suddenly there was a sharp rustling of
feathers, and nine white peahens rose up from the ground and flew out of
the window into the garden.
The Prince searched the whole house over, and found it a mere ruin; the
only signs of life to be seen were the white feathers that lifted and
blew about over the floors.
Outside, the garden was gathering itself together in the dusk, and the
peahens were stepping daintily about the lawns, picking here and there
between the blades of grass. They seemed to suit the gentle sadness of
the place, which had an air of grief that has grown at ease with itself.
The Prince went out into the garden, and walked about among the quietly
stepping birds; but they took no heed of him. They came picking up their
food between his very feet, as though he were not there. Silence held all
the air, and in the cleft of the valley the day drooped to its end.
Just before it grew dark, the nine white peahens gathered together at the
foot of a great elm, and lifting up their throats they wailed in chorus.
Their lamentable cry touched the Prince’s heart; “where,” he asked
himself, “have I heard such sorrow before?” Then all with one accord the
birds sprang rustling up to the lowest boughs of the elm, and settled
themselves to roost.
The Prince went back to the house, to find some corner amid its
half-ruined rooms to sleep in. But there the air was close, and an
unpleasant smell of moisture came from the floor and walls: so, the night
being warm, he returned to the garden, and folding himself in his cloak
lay down under the tree where the nine peahens were at roost.
For a long time he tried to sleep, but could not, there was so much pain
and sorrow in his heart.
Presently when it was close upon midnight, over his head one of the
birds stirred and ruffled through all its feathers; and he heard a soft
voice say:
“Sisters, are you awake?”
All the other peahens lifted their heads, and turned toward the one that
spoke, saying, “Yes, sister, we are awake.”
Then the first one said again, “Our brother is here.”
They all said, “He is our enemy; it is for him that we endure this
sorrow.”
“To-night,” said the first, “we may all be free.”
They answered, “Yes, we may all be free! Who will go down and peck out
his heart? Then we shall be free.”
And the first who had spoken said, “I will go down!”
“Do not fail, sister!” said all the others. “For if you fail you can
speak to us no more.”
The first peahen answered, “Do not fear that I shall fail!” And she began
stepping down the long boughs of the elm.
The Prince lying below heard all that was said. “Ah! poor sisters,” he
thought, “have I found you at last; and are all these sorrows brought
upon you for me?” And he unloosed his doublet, and opened his vest,
making his breast bare for the peahen to come and peck out his heart.
He lay quite still with his eyes shut, and when she reached the ground
the peahen found him lying there, as it seemed to her fast asleep, with
his white breast bare for the stroke of her beak.
Then so fair he looked to her, and so gentle in his youth, that she had
pity on him, and stood weeping by his side, and laying her head against
his, whispered, “O, brother, once we lay as babes together and were
nursed at the same breast! How can I peck out your heart?”
Then she stole softly back into the tree, and crouched down again by her
companions. They said to her, “Our minute of midnight is nearly gone. Is
there blood on your beak! Have you our brother’s heart for us?” But the
other answered never a word.
In the morning the peahens came rustling down out of the elm, and went
searching for fat carnation buds and anemone seeds among the flower-beds
in the garden. To the Prince they showed no sign either of hatred or
fear, but went to and fro carelessly, pecking at the ground about his
feet. Only one came with drooping head and wings, and sleeked itself to
his caress, and the Prince, stooping down, whispered in her ear, “O,
sister, why did you not peck out my heart.”
At night, as before, the peahens all cried in chorus as they went up into
the elm; and the Prince came and wrapped himself in his cloak, and lay
down at the foot of it to watch.
At midnight the eight peahens lifted their heads, and said, “Sister, why
did you fail last night?” But their sister gave them not a word.
“Alas!” they said, “now she has failed, unless one of us succeed we shall
never hear her speak with her human voice again. Why is it that you weep
so,” they said again, “now when deliverance is so near?” For the poor
peahen was shaken with weeping, and her tears fell down in loud drops
upon the ground.
Then the next sister said, “I will go down! He is asleep. Be certain,
I will not fail!” So she climbed softly down the tree, and the Prince
opened his shirt and laid his breast bare for her to come and take out
his heart.
Presently she stood by his side, and when she saw him, she too had pity
on him for the youth and kindness of his face. And once she shut her
eyes, and lifted her head for the stroke; but then weakness seized her,
and she laid her head softly upon his heart and said, “Once the breast
that gave me milk gave milk also to you. You were my sister’s brother,
and she spared you: so how can I peck out your heart?” And having said
this she went softly back into the tree, and crouched down again among
her sisters.
They said to her, “Have you blood upon your beak? Is his heart ours?” But
she answered them no word.
The next day the two sisters, who because their hearts betrayed them had
become mute, followed the Prince wherever he went, and stretched up their
heads to his caress. But the others went and came indifferently, careless
except for food; for until midnight their human hearts were asleep; only
now the two sisters who had given their voices away had regained their
human hearts perpetually.
That night the same thing happened as before. “Sisters,” said the
youngest, “to-night I will go down, since the two eldest of us have
failed. My wrong is fresher in my heart than theirs! Be sure I shall not
fail!” So the youngest peahen came down from the tree, and the Prince
laid his heart bare for her beak, but the bird could not find the will
to peck it out. And so it was the next night, and the next, until eight
nights were gone.
So at last only one peahen was left. At midnight she raised her head,
saying, “Sisters, are you awake?”
They all turned, and gazed at her weeping, but could say no word.
Then she said, “You have all failed, having all tried but me. Now if I
fail we shall remain mute and captive for ever, more undone by the loss
of our last remaining gift of speech than we were at first. But I tell
you, dear sisters, I will not fail; for the happiness of you all lies
with me now!”
Then she went softly down the tree; and one by one they all went
following her, and weeping, to see what the end would be.
They stood some way apart, watching with upturned heads, and their poor
throats began catching back a wish to cry as the little peahen, the last
of the sisters, came and stood by the Prince.
Then she, too, looked in his face, and saw the white breast made bare
for her beak; and the love of him went deep down into her heart. And she
tried and tried to shut her eyes and deal the stroke, but could not.
She trembled and sighed, and turned to look at her sisters, where they
all stood weeping silently together. “They have spared him,” she said to
herself: “why should not I?”
But the Prince, seeing that she, too, was about to fail like the rest of
them, turned and said, as if in his sleep, “Come, come, little peahen,
and peck out my heart!”
At that she turned back again to him, and laid her head down upon his
heart and cried more sadly than them all.
Then he said, “You have eight sisters, and a mother who cries for her
children to return!” Yet still she thought he was dreaming, and speaking
only in his sleep. The other peahens came no nearer, but stood weeping
silently. She looked from him to them. “O,” she cried, “I have a wicked
heart, to let one stand in the way of nine!” Then she threw up her neck
and cried lamentably with her peafowl’s voice, wishing that the Prince
would wake up and see her, and so escape. And at that all the other
peahens lifted up their heads and wailed with her: but the Prince never
turned, nor lifted a finger, nor uttered a sound.
Then she drew in a deep breath, and closed her eyes fast. “Let my sisters
go, but let me be as I am!” she cried; and with that she stooped down,
and pecked out his heart.
All her sisters shrieked as their human shapes returned to them. “O,
sister! O, wicked little sister!” they cried, “What have you done!”
The little white peahen crouched close down to the side of the dead
Prince. “I loved him more than you all!” she tried to say: but she only
lifted her head, and wailed again and again the peafowl’s cry.
The Prince’s heart lay beating at her feet, so glad to be rid of its nine
sorrows that mere joy made it live on, though all the rest of the body
lay cold.
The peahen leaned down upon the Prince’s breast, and there wailed without
ceasing: till suddenly, piercing with her beak her own breast, she drew
out her own living heart and laid it in the place where his had been.
And, as she did so, the wound where she had pierced him closed and became
healed; and her heart was, as it were, buried in the Prince’s breast. In
her death agony she could feel it there, her own heart leaping within his
breast for joy.
The Prince, who had seemed to be dead, flushed from head to foot as the
warmth of life came back to him; with one deep breath he woke, and found
the little white peahen lying as if dead between his arms.
Then he laughed softly and rose (his goodness making him wise), and
taking up his own still beating heart he laid it into the place of hers.
At the first beat of it within her breast, the peahen became transformed
as all her sisters had been, and her own maiden form came back to her.
And the pain and the wound in her breast grew healed together, so that
she stood up alive and well in the Prince’s arms.
“Dear heart!” said he: and “Dear, dear heart!” said she; but whether
they were speaking of their own hearts or of each other’s, who can tell?
for which was which they themselves did not know.
Then all round was so much embracing and happiness that it is out of
reach for tongue or pen to describe. For truly the Prince and his
foster-sisters loved each other dearly, and could put no bounds upon
their present contentment. As for the Prince and the one who had plucked
out his heart, of no two was the saying ever more truly told, that they
had lost their hearts to each other; nor was ever love in the world known
before that carried with it such harmony as theirs.
And so it all came about according to the Queen’s dream that the
forester’s daughter wore the royal crown upon her head, and held the
Prince’s heart in her hand.
Long before he died the old King was made happy because the dream
that he had feared so much had become true: and the forester’s wife
was happy before she died: and as for the Prince and his wife and his
foster-sisters, they were all rather happy: and none of them is dead
yet.
THE LUCK OF THE ROSES
_TO_
CLEMENCE
[Illustration]
THE LUCK OF THE ROSES
Not far from a great town, in the midst of a well-wooded valley, lived a
rose-gardener and his wife. All round the old home green sleepy hollows
lay girdled by silver streams, long grasses bent softly in the wind, and
the half fabulous murmur of woods filled the air.
Up in their rose-garden, on the valley’s side facing the sun, the
gardener and his wife lived contentedly sharing toil and ease. They had
been young, they were not yet old; and though they had to be frugal they
did not call themselves poor. A strange fortune had belonged always to
the plot of ground over which they laboured; whether because the soil was
so rich, or the place so sheltered from cold, or the gardener so skilled
in the craft, which had come down in his family from father to son,
could not be known; but certainly it was true that his rose-trees gave
forth better bloom and bore earlier and later through the season than any
others that were to be found in those parts.
The good couple accepted what came to them, simply and gladly, thanking
God. Perhaps it was from the kindness of fortune, or perhaps because the
sweet perfume of the roses had mixed itself in their blood, that her man
and his wife were so sweet-tempered and gentle in their ways. The colour
of the roses was in their faces, and the colour of the rose was in their
hearts; to her man she was the most beautiful and dearest of sweethearts,
to his wife he was the best and kindest of lovers.
Every morning, before it was light, her man and his wife would go into
the garden and gather all the roses that were ripe for sale; then with
full baskets on their backs they would set out, and get to the market
just as the level sunbeams from the east were striking all the vanes and
spires of the city into gold. There they would dispose of their flowers
to the florists and salesmen of the town, and after that trudge home
again to hoe, and dig, and weed, and water, and prune, and plant for the
rest of the day. No man ever saw them the one without the other, and the
thought that such a thing might some day happen was the only fear and
sorrow of their lives.
That they had no children of their own was scarcely a sorrow to them. “It
seems to me,” said her man after they had been married for some years,
“that God means that our roses are to be our children since He has made
us love them so much. They will last when we are grown grey, and will
support and comfort us in our old age.”
All the roses they had were red, and varied little in kind, yet her man
and his wife had a name for each of them; to every tree they had given
a name, until it almost seemed that the trees knew, and tried to answer
when they heard the voices which spoke to them.
“Jane Janet, and you ought to blossom more freely at your age!” his wife
might say to one some evening as she went round and watered the flowers;
and the next day, when the two came to their dark morning’s gathering,
Jane Janet would show ten or twelve great blooms under the light of the
lantern, every one of them the birth of a single night.
“Mary Maudlin,” the gardener would say, as he washed the blight off a
favourite rose, “to be sure, you are very beautiful, but did I not love
you so, you were more trouble than all your sisters put together.” And
then all at once great dew-drops would come tumbling down out of Mary
Maudlin’s eyes at the tender words of his reproach. So day by day the
companionable feet of the happy couple moved to and fro, always intent on
the tender nurturing of their children.
In their garden they had bees too, who drew all their honey from the
roses, and lived in a cone-thatched hive close under the porch; and that
honey was famous through all the country-side, for its flavour was like
no other honey made in the world.
Sometimes his wife said to her man, “I think our garden is looked after
for us by some good Spirit; perhaps it is the Saints after whom we have
named our rose-children.”
Her man made answer, “It is rich in years, which, like an old wine, have
made it gain in flavour; it has been with us from father to son for
three hundred years, and that is a great while.”
“A full fairy’s lifetime!” said his wife. “’Tis a pity we shall not hand
it on, being childless.”
“When we two die,” said her man, “the roses will make us a grave and
watch over us.” As he spoke a whole shower of petals fell from the trees.
“Did no one pass, just then?” said his wife.
Now one morning, soon after this, in the late season of roses, her man
had gone before his wife into the garden, gathering for the market in
the grey dusk before dawn; and wherever he went moths and beetles came
flocking to the light of his lantern, beating against its horn shutters
and crying to get in. Out of each rose, as the light fell on it, winged
things sprang up into the darkness; but all the roses were bowed and
heavy as if with grief. As he picked them from the stem great showers of
dew fell out of them, making pools in the hollow of his palm.
There was such a sound of tears that he stopped to listen, and, surely,
from all round the garden came the “drip, drip” of falling dew. Yet
the pathways under foot were all dry: there had been no rain and but
little dew. Whence was it, then, that the roses so shook and sobbed? For
under the stems, surely, there was something that sobbed; and suddenly
the light of the lantern took hold of a beautiful small figure, about
three feet high, dressed in old rose and green, that went languidly from
flower to flower. She lifted up such tired hands to draw their heads
down to hers; and to each one she kissed she made a weary little sound
of farewell, her beautiful face broken up with grief; and now and then
out of her lips ran soft chuckling laughter, as if she still meant to be
glad, but could not.
The gardener broke into tears to behold a sight so pitiful; and his wife
had stolen out silently to his side, and was weeping too.
“Drip, drip” went the roses: wherever she came and kissed, they all began
weeping. The gardener and his wife knelt down and watched her; in and
out, in and out, not a rose-blossom did she miss. She came nearer and
nearer, and at last was standing before them. She seemed hardly able to
draw limb after limb, so weak was she; and her filmy garments hung heavy
as chains.
A little voice said in their ears, “Kiss me, I am dying!”
They tasted her breath of rose.
“Do not die!” they said simply.
“I have lived three hundred years,” she answered. “Now I must die. I am
the Luck of the Roses, but I must leave them and die.”
“When must you die?” said her man and his wife.
The little lady said: “Before the last roses are over; the chills of
night take me, the first frost will kill me. Soon I must die. Now I must
dwindle and dwindle, for little life is left to me, and only so can I
keep warm. As life and heat grow less, so must I, till presently I am no
more.”
She was a little thing already—not old, she did not seem old, but
delicate as a snowflake, and so weary. She laid her head in the hand of
the gardener’s wife and sobbed hard.
“You dear people, who belong so much to me too, I have watched over you.”
“Let us watch over you!” said they. They lifted her like a
feather-weight, and carried her into the house. There, in the
ingle-nook, she sat and shivered, while they brought rose-leaves and
piled round her; but every hour she grew less and less.
Presently the sun shone full upon her from the doorway: its light went
through her as through coloured glass; and her man and his wife saw, over
the ingle behind her, shadows fluttering as of falling rose-petals: it
was the dying rose of her life, falling without end.
All day long she dwindled and grew more weak and frail. Before sunset she
was smaller than a small child when it first comes into the world. They
set honey before her to taste, but she was too weary to uncurl her tiny
hands: they lay like two white petals in the green lap of her dress. The
half-filled panniers of roses stood where they had been set down in the
porch: the good couple had taken nothing to the market that day. The luck
of the house lay dying, for all their care; they could but sit and watch.
When the sun had set, she faded away fast: now she was as small as a
young wren. The gardener’s wife took her and held her for warmth in the
hollow of her hand. Presently she seemed no more than a grasshopper:
the tiny chirrup of her voice was heard, about the middle of the night,
asking them to take her and lay her among the roses, in the heart of one
of the red roses, that there at last she might die and pass into nothing.
They went together into the dark night, and felt their way among the
roses; presently they quite lost her tiny form: she had slipped away into
the heart of a Jane Janet rose.
The gardener and his wife went back into the house and sat waiting; they
did not know for what, but they were too sad at heart to think just then
of sleep.
Soon the first greys of morning began to steal over the world; pale
shivers ran across the sky, and one bird chirped in its sleep among the
trees.
All at once there rang a soft sound of lamentation among the roses in the
rose-garden; again and again, like the cry of many gentle wounded things
in pain. The gardener and his wife went and opened the door: they had to
tell the bees of the fairy’s death. They looked out under the twilight,
into the garden they loved. “Drip,” “drip,” “drip” came the sound of
steady weeping under the leaves. Peering out through the shadows they saw
all the rose-trees rocking themselves softly for grief.
“Snow?” said his wife to her man.
But it was not snow.
Under the dawn all the roses in the garden had turned white; for they
knew that the fairy was dead.
The gardener and his wife woke the bees, and told them of the fairy’s
death; then they looked in each other’s faces, and saw that they, too,
had become white and grey.
With gentle eyes the old couple took hands, and went down into the garden
to gather white roses for the market.
THE WHITE KING
_TO_
KATE
[Illustration]
THE WHITE KING
Long years ago there was living a Queen who could not keep count of the
countries over which she ruled. Her wealth and her wonderful beauty
made her an apple of discord to all the kings who lived round about her
borders. For love of her they waged perpetual war upon one another, and
every king who proved victorious made a gift to the Queen of the country
of the one whom he had conquered, in the hopes of thereby strengthening
his claim to her favour. Thus it came about that she could no longer keep
count of the lands which had fallen under her rule; yet still of all her
suitors she chose none.
Now at this time there was one King, and only one, who had not succeeded
in losing his heart to the Queen’s majesty, in spite of her wealth and
power, and all her wonderful beauty. And so, during a long time, since
his fancy was thus free, he was left in undisturbed peace and prosperity,
while other kings fought out their jealous battles, and stole away each
other’s lands. And because his reign was so quiet and his country in such
rest, his people, for a pet-name and for their pride in him, named him
“the White King.”
Now after a time the Queen took it as an insult that any one should be
so indifferent to the power of her charms, and she began to threaten him
with war for this reason and for that, wishing thereby to cajole him into
becoming her suitor. But the White King saw through all the disguises
with which she covered her meaning, and understood the arrogance of her
claim; so one day he sent to her as a gift a statue of himself with his
sword sheathed, and all his armour covered over with the cloak of peace.
Round the base of it was written
“When a heart in stone doth move,
Then your lover I may prove;
But until the marvel’s done,
Fruitlessly your wars are won.”
The Queen looked once at the statue, and for a long time after never
looked away; and when at last she did her heart had been taken captive.
Then she looked at the words beneath, and the red flush that rose to her
face was not gone when the last of her army passed out of the city gates
to carry war into the country of the man who had dared thus to speak
scorn of her.
For a whole year the White King fought with the forces she sent against
him; but when all the other kings came to her aid, then, stronghold by
stronghold, all his cities were taken, and his lands were laid waste and
their villages burnt, and nothing but defeat and ruin remained.
Yet in the last battle, when his enemies thought to have him a safe
prisoner, all of a sudden they found that the White King had disappeared.
Back came the Queen’s armies in triumph with their allies, and the
conquered territory was added as one more to the many that formed her
realm. But the Queen sighed as she looked at the White King’s statue, and
her triumph grew bitter to her. Day by day, as she looked at the calm
marble face, her love for it increased, and she owned sadly to herself,
“He whom I have conquered has conquered me!”
Of the lost King himself no tidings could be learned, though search was
made far and wide. Minstrels came to the court, and sang of his great
deeds in fighting against odds, but of his end they sang variously. Some
sang that he lay buried beneath the thickest of the slain; others that
from his last battle he had been carried by good fairies, and that after
he had been healed of his wounds, he would return in a hundred years and
recover his kingdom.
One minstrel came to stay at the court, who sang of ruined homes and
wasted fields, and a happy land laid desolate, and how its King wandered
friendless and unknown through the world, hiding himself in disguise,
sometimes in the cottages of the poor, and sometimes in the dwellings of
the rich. But from no one could the Queen learn any news that satisfied
her, or gave hope that he would at last bend down his pride, and come and
sue to her for forgiveness.
Wishing to have a hiding place for her grief, she caused the statue to
be set up in a green glade in the most lonely part of the gardens; and
there often she would go and gaze on the calm noble face (whose closed
eyes seemed even now to disdain her love), and would wonder how long a
queen’s heart took to break.
But after a time she thought, “Though I may never win the love of the
White King for my own, is there no way by which my passion can assuage
itself, when by lifting my finger I can summon half fairyland to my aid?”
So she called to her the most powerful Fairy she knew, and taking her
into the green glade, began sighing and weeping in front of the White
King’s statue. “This,” she said, “is the image of the only man on earth
I can love! But the man himself is lost, gone I know not where; and my
heart is breaking for grief! Give this statue a life and a heart, and
teach it to love me, else soon I shall surely be dead!”
The Fairy said to her, “All the might of fairyland could not do so much;
but a little of it I can do; and if Fate is kind to you, Fate may bring
the rest of it to pass.”
“How much can you do?” asked the Queen.
“This only,” said the Fairy, “but even that you must do for yourself: I
can but show you the way. Stone is stone, and out of stone I cannot make
a heart; but a heart may grow into it, and this is the way to compass it.
“You must find first a man who is loved, but does not love (for if he
loves, the statue’s heart when it wakes will turn from you); and him you
must kill with your own hand, and take out his heart and bury it beneath
the feet of the statue. Then I will work my charms, and gradually, as a
flower draws its life out of the ground, so the statue will draw life out
of the human heart buried below. And after a little time you will see it
move, and in a little time more its senses will come, and it will be able
to hear, and see, and speak. But full life will not come to it until it
has learned to love. Then, so soon as it learns to love, it will become
no longer stone, but a human being.”
But the Queen said, “Supposing its love were to turn from me to another,
where should I be then?”
“Surely,” said the Fairy, “the secret will be your own, and the watching
of its life as it grows will be yours. Your voice it will hear, your
face it will see; whom, then, will it learn to love more than you?”
“Wait, then, till I have found the man,” said the Queen, “and we will do
this thing between us!”
She searched long among her court for some man whose heart was whole, but
who was himself loved. Generally, however, she found it was all the other
way. There was not a man at the court who was not in love, or did not
think himself so; and if there were one who had no thought of love, he
was too poor and mean for the love of any woman to be his.
But one day the Queen heard a minstrel in the palace court-yard singing
and making merry against love. It was that same minstrel who sang only
sad songs of the White King’s lands laid waste and himself a wanderer:
a fellow with a dark sunburnt face, and thick hair hanging over his
eyes. And as he sang and rattled his jests at the courtiers who stood by
to listen, the Queen noticed one of her waiting-women looking out of a
small lattice, who, as she watched the singer’s face, and listened to his
words, had tears running fast down out of her eyes.
“Is this a case,” thought the Queen, “of a man who is loved but who does
not love?”
She sent for the minstrel, and said to him, when he stood bending his
head before her, “Is this pretty scorn that you cast on love earnest or
jest?”
“Nay,” he answered, “I jest in good earnest; for to speak of love in
earnest is to jest about it.”
“So,” said the Queen, “you are heart-whole?”
“Why,” said the minstrel, “I doubt if a mouse could find its way in; and
if I am heart-whole in your presence, I ought to be safe from all the
world!”
“Now,” thought the Queen, “if only my waiting-woman answers the test,
here is the heart I will have out!”
Then she bade the minstrel follow her to where stood the White King’s
statue, bidding him sit down under it and sing her more of his rhymes
about love.
So the minstrel crossed his legs in the long grass and sang. His song
became bitter to the Queen’s ears, for he took the words that were round
the statue, and rhymed them and chimed them, and threw them laughing in
the Queen’s face. She hated him so that she could have poisoned him; but
she remembered that his life was necessary for her experiment to reach
its end. So she sent instead for a sleepy wine, which she gave him to
drink, and presently his voice grew thick and his head dropped down upon
his breast, and his legs slid out and brought him down level with the
grass. When night came on she left him soundly sleeping with his head
between the feet of the White King’s statue.
Then she sent for the waiting-woman and said, “Go down to the White
King’s statue, and find for me my handkerchief which I have dropped
there.” But as the girl went, the Queen stole secretly after her, and
watched her come to where the minstrel lay asleep.
And when the waiting-maid saw him lying so, with his face thrown back,
she knelt down in the grass by his side, and putting her arms softly
about him, kissed him upon the lips over and over again as though she
could never come to an end, and her tears dropped down on to his face,
and, as if her mind were gone mad for love of him, the Queen heard her
sighing, “Oh, White King, my White King, my Beloved, whom I love, but
who loves me not!”
As soon as the waiting-maid was gone, the Queen came softly to the place,
and with a sharp knife she cut out the minstrel’s heart and buried it at
the base of the statue.
In the morning the minstrel was found lying dead, with his heart gone;
and when they washed the dead face and put back the hair that covered the
eyes, they found that it was the White King himself.
That day, and for many days after, there were two women weeping in the
palace: one was the Queen and the other was the waiting-woman. But the
body of the White King they buried close by the statue in the green glade.
Now presently, when the first violence of her grief was over, the Queen
came to look at the place; and, sure enough, the Fairy had been there
with her spells. When the wind blew the statue swayed gently like a tree
in the wind.
The Queen caused gates and barriers to be put up so that no one should
enter the glade but herself; only Love found a way, and at night, when
all the world was asleep, the waiting-woman crept through a loose pale
in the barriers, and came to moan over the place where her lover had been
slain.
All night she would lie with her arms round the feet of the White King’s
statue, and dream of the dead minstrel whom she had loved and known
through all his disguise. And all night long her lips would murmur his
name, and whisper over and over again the sad story of her love.
And presently, as the statue drew life from the heart buried beneath its
feet, its ears were opened and it heard.
In the daytime the Queen would come and sit before it and whisper to it
of love, offering it all the gifts of riches and power that are in the
hands of kings to give; but at night came the waiting-woman and offered
it only love.
Out of the ground the Queen saw grow a small plant, that began to creep
upwards and to wind itself round the base of the statue; and when she saw
that its flower was the deadly nightshade, her heart trembled and her
conscience made her afraid.
But the waiting-maid, when she saw it, picked the sad blossoms and made a
crown for the statue’s head as of pale amethyst and gold: for she said to
herself, “Down below my dear lies dead, and the roots of this flower are
in his hair.”
One day as the Queen came into the glade, she heard the dead minstrel’s
voice, and her heart shook with terror as she saw the statue open its
white lips and sing, and recognised the tune and the words as those which
had made her heart feel so bitter against him; for she thought, “What if
he knows that it is I who have slain him?”
Now that she saw that the stone had its five senses, and could see and
speak and hear, she pleaded to it all day out of the greatness of her
grief and her love. But the statue never returned her word.
At night, lying with her face bowed between the White King’s statue’s
feet, the waiting-woman knew nothing of all this change; only the statue
heard and saw and knew. And at last one day as her tears dropped on them,
she felt the feet grow warm between her hands; and a voice over her head
that she remembered and loved, said, “Little heart, why are you weeping
so?”
In the morning the Queen came and found the statue gone. There on the
pedestal was only the print of his feet, half covered by the deadly
nightshade which had climbed up to his knees and fallen. There it lay
heavy and half-withered, clasping the hollows where his feet had been.
The Queen knelt down and caught the bare stone pedestal in her arms. “Oh,
Love,” she cried, “have you left me? Oh, White King, my White King, have
you betrayed me?” And as she clung there weeping, her lips touched the
deadly nightshade; and the nightshade thrilled, and felt joy give new
life down into its roots.
It reached up and laid its arms about the Queen, about her throat, and
about her feet and about her waist. “Dearly, dearly we love each other,”
said the nightshade, “do we not?”
At night the courtiers came, and found only a dead Queen lying, and the
statue gone.
But the White King had gone home to his own land to marry the
waiting-woman.
THE STORY OF THE HERONS
_TO_
AUDREY AND VERONICA
[Illustration]
THE STORY OF THE HERONS
A long time ago there lived a King and a Queen who loved each other
dearly. They had both fallen in love at first sight; and as their love
began so it went on through all their life. Yet this, which was the cause
of all their happiness, was the cause also of all their misfortunes.
In his youth, when he was a beautiful young bachelor, the King had had
the ill-luck to attract the heart of a jealous and powerful Fairy; and
though he never gave her the least hope or encouragement, when she heard
that his love had been won at first sight by a mere mortal, her rage and
resentment knew no bounds. She said nothing, however, but bided her time.
After they had been married a year the Queen presented her husband with a
little daughter; before she was yet a day old she was the most beautiful
object in the world, and life seemed to promise her nothing but fortune
and happiness.
The family Fairy came to the blessing of the new-born; and she, looking
at it as it lay beautifully asleep in its cradle, and seeing that it had
already as much beauty and health as the heart could desire, promised it
love as the next best gift it was within her power to offer. The Queen,
who knew how much happiness her own love had brought her, was kissing the
good Fairy with all the warmth of gratitude, when a black kite came and
perched upon the window-sill crying: “And I will give her love at first
sight! The first living thing that she sets eyes on she shall love to
distraction, whether it be man or monster, prince or pauper, bird, beast
or reptile.” And as the wicked Fairy spoke she clapped her wings, and
up through the boards of the floor, and out from under the bed, and in
through the window, came a crowd of all the ugliest shapes in the world.
Thick and fast they came, gathering about the cradle and lifting their
heads over the edge of it, waiting for the poor little Princess to wake
up and fall in love at first sight with one of them.
Luckily the child was asleep; and the good Fairy, after driving away the
black kite and the crowd of beasts it had called to its aid, wrapped
the Princess up in a shawl and carried her away to a dark room where no
glimmer of light could get in.
She said to the Queen: “Till I can devise a better way, you must keep her
in the dark; and when you take her into the open air you must blindfold
her eyes. Some day, when she is of a fit age, I will bring a handsome
Prince for her; and only to him shall you unblindfold her at last, and
make love safe for her.”
She went, leaving the King and Queen deeply stricken with grief over the
harm which had befallen their daughter. They did not dare to present
even themselves before her eyes lest love for them, fatal and consuming,
should drive her to distraction. In utter darkness the Queen would sit
and cherish her daughter, clasping her to her breast, and calling her by
all sweet names; but the little face, except by stealth when it was sound
asleep, she never dared to see, nor did the baby-Princess know the face
of the mother who loved her.
By and by, however, the family Fairy came again, saying: “Now, I have a
plan by which your child may enjoy the delights of seeing, and no ill
come of it.” And she caused to be made a large chamber, the whole of one
side of which was a mirror. High up in the opposite wall were windows so
screened that from below no one could look out of them, but across on
to the mirror came all the sweet sights of the world, glimpses of wood
and field, and the sun and the moon and the stars, and of every bird as
it flew by. So the little Princess was brought and set in a screened
place looking towards the mirror, and there her eyes learned gradually
all the beautiful things of the world. Over the screen, in the glass
before her, she learned to know her mother’s face, and to love it dearly
in a gentle child-like fashion; and when she could talk she became very
wise, understanding all that was told her about the danger of looking at
anything alive, except by its reflection in the glass.
When she went out into the open air for her health, she always wore a
bandage over her eyes, lest she should look, and love something too
well: but in the chamber of the mirror her eyes were free to see whatever
they could. The good Fairy, making herself invisible, came and taught
her to read and make music, and draw; so that before she was fifteen she
was the most charming and accomplished, as well as the most beautiful
Princess of her day.
At last the Fairy said that the time was come for her world of
reflections to be made real, and she went away to fetch the ideal Prince
that the Princess might at first sight fall in love with him.
The very day after she was gone, as the morning was fine, the Princess
went out with one of her maids for a walk through the woods. Over her
patient eyes she wore a bandage of green silk, through which she felt the
sunlight fall pleasantly.
Out of doors the Princess knew most things by their sounds. She passed
under rustling leaves, and along by the side of running water; and at
last she heard the silence of the water, and knew that she was standing
by the great fish-pond in the middle of the wood. Then she said to her
waiting-woman, “Is there not some great bird fishing out there, for I
hear the dipping of his bill, and the water falling off it as he draws
out the fish?”