THE EMPEROR'S SONG_The Emperor of Portugallia

In the wooded heights above Loby there was still a short stretch of

an old country road where in bygone days all teams had to pass, but

which was now condemned because it led up and down the worst hills

and rocky slopes instead of having the sense to go round them. The

part that remained was so steep that no one in driving made use of

it any more though foot-farers climbed it occasionally, as it was a

good short cut.

The road ran as broad as any of the regular crown highways, and was

still covered with fine yellow gravel. In fact, it was smoother now

than formerly, being free from wheel tracks, and mud, and dust.

Along the edge bloomed roadside flowers and shrubs; dogwood,

bittervetch, and buttercups grew there in profusion even to this

day, but the ditches were filled in and a whole row of spruce trees

had sprung up in them. Young evergreens of uniform height, with

branches from the root up, stood pressing against each other as

closely as the foliage of a boxwood hedge; their needles were not

dry and hard, but moist and soft, and their tips were all bright

with fresh green shoots. The trees sang and played like humming

bees on a fine summer day, when the sun beams down upon them from a

clear sky.

When Jan of Ruffluck walked home from church the Sunday he had

appeared there for the first time in his royal regalia, he turned

in on the old forest road. It was a warm sunny day and, as he went

up the hill, he heard the music of the spruces so plainly that it

astonished him.

Never had spruce trees sung like that! It struck him that he ought

to find out why they were so loud-voiced just to-day. And being in

no special haste to reach home, he dropped down in the middle of

the smooth gravel road, in the shade of the singing tree. Laying

his stick on the ground, he removed his cap and mopped his brow,

then he sat motionless, with hands clasped, and listened.

The air was quite still, therefore it could hardly have been the

wind that had set all these little musical instruments into motion.

It was almost as if the spruces played for very joy at being so

young and fresh; at being let stand in peace by the abandoned

roadside, with the promise of many years of life ahead of them

before any human being would come and cut them down.

But if such was the case, it did not explain why the trees sang

with such gusto just that day; they could rejoice over those

particular blessings any pleasant summer day; they did not call for

any extra music.

Jan sat still in the middle of the road, listening with rapt

attention. It was pleasant hearing the hum of the spruce, though it

was all on one note, with no rests, so that there was neither

melody nor rhythm about it.

He found it so refreshing and delightful up here on the heights. No

wonder the trees felt happy, he mused. The wonder was they sang and

played no better than they did. He looked up at their small twigs

on which every needle was fine and well made, and in its proper

place, and drank in the piney odour that came from them. There was

no flower of the meadow, no blossom of the grove so fragrant! He

noted their half-grown cones on which the scales were compactly

massed for the protection of the seed.

These trees, which seemed to understand so well what to do for

themselves, ought to be able to sing and play so that one could

comprehend what they meant. Yet they kept harping all the while on

the same strain. He grew drowsy listening to them, and stretched

himself flat on the smooth, fine gravel to take a little nap.

But hark! What was this? The instant his head touched the ground

and his eyes closed, the trees struck up something new. Ah, now

there came rhythm and melody!

Then all that other was only a prelude, such as is played at church

before the hymn.

This was what he had felt the whole time, though he had not wanted

to say it even in his mind. The trees also knew what had happened.

It was on his account they tuned up so loudly the instant he

appeared. And now they sang of him--there was no mistaking it now,

when they thought him asleep. Perhaps they did not wish him to hear

how much they were making of him.

And what a song, what a song! He lay all the while with his eyes

shut, but could hear the better for that. Not a sound was lost to

him.

Ah, this was music! It was not just the young trees at the edge of

the road that made music now, but the whole forest. There were

organs and drums and trumpets; there were little thrush flutes and

bullfinch pipes; there were gurgling brooks and singing water-sprites,

tinkling bluebells and thrumming woodpeckers.

Never had he heard anything so beautiful, nor listened to music in

just this way. It rang in his ear; so that he could never forget

it.

When the song was finished and the forest grew silent, he sprang to

his feet as if startled from a dream. Immediately he began to sing

this hymn of the woods so as to fix it forever in his memory.

The Empress's father, for his part,

Feels so happy in his heart.

Then came the refrain, which he had not been able to catch word for

word, but anyhow he sang it about as it had sounded to him: