great dislike to scenes at meal times.
The five-and-forty poets recovered their composure, when they heard
that the Princess was rather to be pitied than blamed; and the Queen
was able to turn to the cause of the disturbance.
"Will you be kind enough to go?" she said to the Poet. "My daughter
did not know who you were because, unfortunately, she cannot see. She
actually mistook you for a poet!"
"It is the first time," said the Poet, "that any one has made the
mistake. However, you are quite right and I had better go. You will
not like my poetry; I see five-and-forty gentlemen who can write the
poetry that will give you pleasure; mine is written for the people, who
have to work that you may be happy. Little lady," he added, turning to
the Princess, "I pray you, think no more of me. As for me, I shall
love you to the end of my days."
Then he tried to go, but the small, white fingers of the little blind
Princess were round his own rough, tanned ones, and he could not move.
"I loved you before you came," she said, smiling. "I have been waiting
for you all the time. Why are you in such a hurry to go, if you love
me?"
The listeners grew more scandalised every moment. No one had seen such
love-making before. To be sure, the five-and-forty poets had written
love songs innumerable, but that was not at all the same thing. Every
one felt that something ought to be done and nobody quite knew how to
do it. Fortunately, the King was hungry.
"I think you had better say the rest in private, when we have had
lunch," he said grimly, and the courtiers looked immensely relieved,
and a place was found next to the Princess for the Poet; and the Queen
and her ladies in waiting proceeded to make conversation, and lunch
went on as usual.
"Now," said the King, with a sigh, for meals were of far greater
importance to him than poetry, "you shall tell us one of your poems, so
that we may know whether you are a poet or not."
Then the Poet stood up and told them one of his poems. It was about
the people who lived on the dark side of the city, and it was very
fierce, and bitter, and passionate; and when he had finished telling
it, he expected to be thrust out of the palace and banished from the
country, for that was what usually happened to him. There was a great
silence when he sat down again, and the Poet did not know what to make
of it. But the small, white fingers of the little Princess had again
stolen round his, and that was at least consoling.
The Queen was the first to break the silence.
"Charming," she said with an effort, "and so new."
"We have heard nothing like it before," said the ladies in waiting.
"Are there really such people as that in the world? It might be
amusing to meet them, or, at least, to study them."
The King glanced at all the other poets and said nothing at all. And
the five-and-forty kings' sons, who, if they were not poets, were at
least gentlemen, rose from their seats with one accord.
"Her royal Highness was quite right," they said. "We are not poets at
all."
Then they took leave of every one present and filed out of the room and
rode away to their respective countries, where, of course, nobody ever
suspected them of being poets; and they just remained Princes of the
royal blood and nothing else to the end of their days.
"And you, little lady?" said the Poet, anxiously.
"It was wonderful," answered the little blind Princess. "But there was
no love in it."
By this time the Queen had ceased to be impressed and had begun to
remember that she was a Queen.
"We are quite sure you are a poet," she said in her most queenly
manner, "because you have told us something that we did not know
before. But we think you are not a fit companion for her royal
Highness, and it is therefore time for you to go."
"No, no!" cried the Princess. "You are not to go. You are my Poet,
and I want you to stay here always."
Matters were becoming serious, and every one set to work to try to turn
the little Princess from her purpose.
"He is shockingly untidy," whispered the ladies in waiting.
"And _so_ ugly," murmured the Queen; "there is nothing distinguished
about him at all."
"He will cost the nation something to keep," added the King, without
lowering his voice at all.
But the little Princess turned a deaf ear to them all and held out her
hand again to the Poet.
"I do not believe a word they say," she cried. "You cannot be ugly,
you with a voice like that! If you are ugly, then ugliness is what I
have wanted all my life. Ugliness is what I love, and you are to stay
here with me."
In the end, it was the Poet himself who came to the rescue.
"I cannot stay with you, little lady," he said gently. "It is true
what they say; I am too ugly to be tolerated, and it has been my good
fortune that you could not see me. I will go away and put some love
into my poetry, and then, perhaps, I shall find some one who will
listen to me."
But the poor little Princess burst out sobbing.
"If I could only see," she wept, "I would prove to you that I do not
think you ugly. Oh, if I could only see! I have never wanted to see
before."
"Little lady," whispered the Poet, bending over her, "_I_ am glad that
you cannot see."
And then, he turned and fled out of the palace and out of the city and
away from the country that contained the little Princess who had loved
him because she was blind. And he wandered from place to place as
before; but he told no one that he was a poet, for he had felt ashamed
of his poetry ever since the little Princess had said there was no love
in it. But there came a day when he could keep silent no longer, so he
went among the people once more and told them one of his poems. This
time, he had no difficulty in making them understand, for he told them
the story of his love for the little blind Princess.
"Why," said the people, when he had finished, "the maid is easily
cured, for it is well known among our folk that a kiss on the eyelids
when asleep, from a true lover, will open the eyes of any one who has
been blind from birth."
Now, when the Poet heard this, he was greatly perplexed. For to open
the eyes of his little Princess was to kill her love for him; and yet,
he could not forget how she had wept for the want of her sight, and
here was the power to give it back to her, and it rested with him alone
of all men in the world. So he determined to make her happy at any
cost, and he turned his face towards the King's palace once more and
arrived there at midday, after travelling for seven days and seven
nights without ceasing. But, of course, that was nothing to a poet who
was in love.
"Dear me," said the King irritably, when the Poet appeared before him;
"I thought you had gone for good. And a pretty time we 've been having
of it with the Princess, in consequence! What have you come back for?"
"I have come back to open the Princess's eyes," answered the Poet,
boldly.
"It strikes me," grumbled the King, "that you opened everybody's eyes
pretty effectually, last time you were here. You certainly can't see
the Princess now, for she has gone to sleep in the garden."
"That is exactly what I want," cried the Poet, joyfully. "Let me but
kiss her eyelids while she is sleeping, and by the time she awakes I
shall have gone for ever."
"The Queen must deal with this," said the King, looking helpless in the
face of such a preposterous suggestion. Her Majesty was accordingly
sent for, and the Poet explained his mission all over again.
"It is certainly unusual," said the Queen, doubtfully, "not to say out
of order. But still, in view of the advantage to be gained, and by
considering it in the light of medical treatment--and if you promise to
go away directly after, just like a physician, or--or a
singing-master,--perhaps something might be arranged."
The end of it was that the Poet was taken into the garden, and there
was the little blind Princess sound asleep in her hammock, with a maid
of honour fanning her on each side.
"Hush," whispered the Queen. "She must not awake, on _any_ account."
"No," echoed the poor, ugly Poet; "she must not awake--on _my_ account."
Then he bent over her, for the second time in his life, and touched her
eyelids with his lips. The Princess went on dreaming happily, but the
Poet turned and fled out of the city.
"At least," he said, "she shall never know how ugly I am."
That day, every Prince who was in the palace put on his best court
suit, in order to charm the Princess. But the Princess refused to be
charmed. She looked at them all, with large, frightened eyes, and sent
them away, one by one, as they came to offer her their congratulations.
"Why do you congratulate me on being able to see you?" she asked them.
"Are you so beautiful, then?"
"Oh, _no_," they said in a chorus. "Do not imagine such a thing for a
moment."
"Then why should I be glad because I can see you?" persisted the
Princess; and they went away much perplexed.
"Tell me what is beautiful," said the little Princess to her mother.
"All my life I have longed to look on beauty, and now it is all so
confusing that I cannot tell one thing from another. Is there anything
beautiful here?"
"To be sure there is," replied the Queen. "This room is very beautiful
to begin with, and the nation is still being taxed to pay for it."
"This room?" said the Princess in astonishment. "How can anything be
beautiful that keeps out the sun and the air? Tell me something else
that is beautiful."
"The dresses of the ladies in waiting are very beautiful," said the
Queen. "And the ladies in waiting themselves might be called beautiful
by some, though that of course is a matter of opinion."
"They all look alike to me," sighed the little Princess. "Is there
nothing else here that is beautiful?"
"Certainly," answered the Queen, pointing out the wealthiest and most
eligible Prince in the room. "That is the handsomest man you could
ever want to see."
"That?" said the Princess, disconsolately. "After all, one is best
without eyes! Can you not show me some ugliness for a change? Perhaps
it may be ugliness that I want to see so badly."
"There is nothing ugly in the palace," replied the Queen. "When you
get used to everything you will be able to see how beautiful it all is."
But the Princess sighed and came down from her golden throne and
wandered out into the garden. She walked uncertainly, for now that she
was no longer blind she did not know where she was going. And there,
under the trees where she had been sleeping a few hours back, stood a
man with his face buried in his hands.
"Little lady," he stammered, "I tried to keep away, but--"
Then the little Princess gave a shout of joy and pulled away his hands
and looked into his face for a full minute without speaking. She put
her small, white fingers into every one of his wrinkles, and she
touched every one of his ugly scars, and she drew a deep breath of
satisfaction.
"Just fancy," laughed the little Princess to the Poet; "they have been
trying to persuade me in there that all those Princes and people
are--_beautiful_!"
[Illustration: THE ROCKING-HORSES RUSHED OVER THE GROUND]
The Wonderful Toymaker
Princess Petulant sat on the nursery floor and cried. She was only
eight years old, but she had lived quite long enough to grow extremely
discontented; and the royal household was made very uncomfortable in
consequence.
"I want a new toy," sobbed the little Princess. "Do you expect me to
go on playing with the same toys for ever? I might just as well not be
a Princess at all!"
The whole country was searched in vain for a toy that would be likely
to please the Princess; but, as she already possessed every kind of toy
that has ever been heard of, nobody succeeded in finding her a new one.
So the little Princess went on crying bitterly, and the royal nurses
shook their heads and sighed. Then the King called a council in
despair.
"It is very absurd," grumbled his Majesty, "that my daughter cannot be
kept amused. What is the use of an expensive government and a
well-dressed court, if there are not enough toys for her to play with?
Can no one invent a new toy for the Princess Petulant?"
He looked sternly at all his councillors as he spoke; but his
councillors were so horrified at being expected to invent something
straight out of their heads that no one said anything at all until the
Prime Minister summoned up courage to speak.
"Perhaps, if we were to send for Martin," he suggested, "her royal
Highness might consent to be comforted."
"Who is Martin?" demanded the King.
"He is my son," said the Prime Minister, apologetically; "and he spends
his days either dreaming by himself or playing with the Princess
Petulant. He will never be Prime Minister," he added sadly, "but he
might think of a way to amuse the Princess."
So the King dismissed the council with much relief and sent for Martin
to come and play with his daughter. Martin walked straight up to the
royal nursery and found the spoilt little Princess still crying on the
floor. So down on the floor sat Martin too; and he looked at her very
solemnly out of his round, serious eyes, and he asked her why she was
crying.
"I want a new toy," she pouted. "I am tired of all my old toys. Don't
you think you can find me a new toy to play with, Martin?"
"If I do," said Martin, "will you promise not to be cross when I run
faster than you do?"
The Princess nodded.
"And will you promise not to mind when I don't want to play any more?"
The Princess nodded again.
"And will you promise not to call me sulky when I don't feel inclined
to talk?" continued Martin.
"Yes, yes!" cried Princess Petulant. "You won't be long before you
find it, will you, Martin?"
"In four weeks from now," said the Prime Minister's son, "you will have
me with you again."
"And I shall have my new toy," said the Princess Petulant, sighing
contentedly.
Now, Martin was one of the few children who can see the fairies. He
knew how to coax the flower fairies to speak to him, and how to find
the wood fairies when they hid among the ferns, and how to laugh back
when the wymps made fun of him; and, above all, he knew how to find his
way to Bobolink, the Purple Enchanter, who knows everything. And he
found his way to Bobolink, on the evening of that very same day.
Bobolink, the Purple Enchanter, sat on his amethyst throne in the
middle of a grove of deadly nightshade. He was the ugliest enchanter
any one has ever seen; and on each side of him sat an enormous purple
toad with an ugly purple smile on his face. Even the sun's rays shone
purple in the home of the Purple Enchanter; and Martin stared at him
for a whole minute without speaking. For, although Martin was two
years older than the little Princess Petulant, he was not a very big
boy for all that; and there was something that made him feel a little
queer in the purple face, and the purple hands, and the purple
expression of Bobolink.
"Why don't you say something?" growled Bobolink, in just the kind of
voice one would expect such a very ugly person to have. "What are you
thinking about, eh? If it's anything about me, you 'd better say so at
once!"
"Well," said Martin, as bravely as he could, "I was thinking that it
must be very odd to be so purple as you are. Of course," he added
politely, "I don't suppose you can help it exactly, because even the
sun is purple here, and perhaps you have got sunpurpled instead of
sunburned."
"May I ask," said Bobolink, rolling his purple eyes about, "if you came
all this way on purpose to make remarks about me?"
"No, I did n't," explained Martin, hurriedly. "I came to ask you the
way to the Wonderful Toymaker, who makes all the toys for Fairyland. I
am going to fetch a new toy for the Princess Petulant."
"And how do you think you are going to get it?" asked Bobolink, with a
chuckle.
"That is exactly what I want you to tell me," said Martin, boldly.
Now, Bobolink, the Purple Enchanter, was used to being visited by
people who wanted to get something out of him, because, as I said
before, Bobolink knows everything. But he had never come across any
one who did not begin by flattering him; and he took a fancy to Martin
from the moment he told him he was sunpurpled. So he smiled as well as
he could,--which was not very well, for he had never done such a thing
before and his jaws were extremely stiff,--and for the moment he hardly
looked ugly at all.
"I like you," he said, nodding at the small figure of the Prime
Minister's son; "and I am going to help you. Of course, I know quite
well where the Wonderful Toymaker lives; but I have promised the pine
dwarfs not to tell, because it is the only secret they possess, and it
would break their hearts if any one were to hear it from me instead of
from them. You see, when a person knows everything he must keep some
of it to himself, or else there would be nothing left for anybody else
to say, and then there would be no more conversation. That is the
worst of knowing everything. But I can show you the way to the pine
dwarfs; and if you keep perfectly quiet and speak in a whisper to them,
they'll tell you all you want to know."
"Why must I keep perfectly quiet and speak in a whisper?" asked Martin.
Bobolink scowled, and became as ugly as ever again.
"Now you want to know too much, and that is n't fair," he complained.
"I 'll tell you the way to the pine dwarfs, and you must find out the
rest for yourself. Go straight ahead and take the hundred and first
turning to the right, and the fifty-second turning to the left, then
turn round seventeen times; and if that is n't good enough for you I
'll never help you again. Now, off you go!"
Martin saw that he was no longer wanted and set off as fast as he
could. It took him a whole week to reach the hundred and first turning
on the right; and it was the most anxious week he had ever spent, for
he had to keep counting the turnings all the time and was dreadfully
afraid of losing count altogether. And the fifty-second turning on the
left was almost as bad, for his way took him through a large town, and
he dare not stay to speak to any one for fear of overlooking one of the
little streets. He left the town behind him at last; and after walking
for two days longer, he reached the fifty-second turning on his left,
and it led him to the middle of a vast sandy plain.
"How queer!" thought Martin. "Not a single tree to be seen! Surely
the pine dwarfs don't live in a place like this? Perhaps old Bobolink
has only hoaxed me after all."
However, he turned round seventeen times just to see what would happen;
and the first thing that happened was that he became remarkably giddy
and had to sit down on the ground to recover himself. When he did
recover he found he was in a beautiful thick pine wood, with the
sunshine coming through the branches, and flickering here and there
over the ground, and painting the great big pine trunks bright red.
Over it all hung the most delicious silence, only broken by the soft
passage of the wind through the pine leaves. Martin had almost
forgotten the warning Bobolink had given him, but, even if he had quite
forgotten it, nothing would have induced him to speak loudly in such a
stillness as that.
"Are you there, little pine dwarfs?" he whispered, as he looked up
through the pine trees at the blue sky on the other side. No sooner
had his whisper travelled up through the hushed air than all the
branches seemed to be filled with life and movement; and what Martin
had believed to be brown pine cones suddenly moved, and ran about among
the trees, and slid down the long red trunks. And then he saw they
were dear little brown dwarfs, who surrounded him by hundreds and
thousands, and travelled up and down his boots, and stared at him with
looks full of curiosity.
"Who are you, little boy, and where do you come from?" they seemed to
be saying; and as they spoke all together their voices sounded exactly
like the wind as we hear it in the pine trees. They were so gentle and
kind-looking that Martin was not a bit afraid and asked them at once to
tell him the way to the Wonderful Toymaker who makes all the toys for
Fairyland. They were delighted to tell him all they knew, for it was
their one secret and they were very proud of it; and so few people ever
came that way that they had very few opportunities of telling it. So
their honest little brown faces were covered with good-nature and
smiles, as they crooned out their information.
"You must walk straight through the wood," they said, "until you come
to a waterfall at the beginning of a stream; and you must follow the
stream down, down, down, until it brings you to a valley surrounded by
high hills; and in that valley is the toyshop of the Wonderful
Toymaker, who makes all the toys for Fairyland."
"That is simple enough, I 'm sure," said Martin.
"Ah," said the pine dwarfs, wisely, "but it is not so easy to get there
as you think; for the stream leads you through the country of the
people who make conversation, and they try to stop every stranger who
passes by, so that they can make him into conversation; and that is why
so few people ever reach the Wonderful Toymaker at all."
"Make conversation! How funny!" said Martin; and he almost laughed
aloud at the idea.
"It is more sad than funny," said the pine dwarfs, sighing like a large
gust of wind that for the moment made Martin feel quite chilly; "for it
gives _us_ so much to do. You see, they make conversation, and we make
silence; and the more conversation they make the more silence we have
to make to keep things even. They are always ahead of us, for all
that!" They sighed again. Martin looked puzzled.
"Still, your silence is so full of sound," he said. The pine dwarfs
laughed softly, so softly that most people would have called it only
smiling.
"Real silence, the best kind, is always full of sound; and of course we
only make the very best kind," they explained proudly. "Anybody can
make the other kind of silence by taking the air and sifting out the
noise in it. Now, _we_ take the air, and when we have sifted out the
noise we fill it with sound. That's a very different thing. The worst
of it is," they added, sadly, "there is so little demand for real
silence. We have layers of it piled up at the top, of those pine
trees, and nobody ever wants it. The other silence is so much cheaper,
you see, and most people don't know the difference."
"When I am grown up and have a house of my own," said Martin, "I shall
come and ask you to fill it with the very best silence for me."
The pine dwarfs shook their little brown heads incredulously.
"Wait till you are grown up," they said; "and then, if you will let us
fill one room for you, we shall be quite satisfied. Now, set off on
your journey; and if you want to escape being made into conversation,
you must not speak a single word until you reach the valley where the
Wonderful Toymaker lives."
"Trust me!" laughed Martin. "It is only talking that is difficult; any
one can keep silent."
"Very well; be careful, only be careful!" they sighed; and in another
moment they had all gone back to their pine trees, and nothing was to
be heard except the distant sounds with which they were filling the
silence.
Then Martin walked on until he came to the rushing waterfall; and along
by the side of the stream he trudged and thought it was the very
noisiest stream he had ever come across, for it clattered over the
stones, and splashed up in the air, and seemed bent on getting through
life with as much fuss and excitement as it was possible to make. As
he walked along by its side, he discovered that the noise it made was
caused by millions of little voices, chattering and gossiping,
quarrelling and laughing, as busily as they could.
"This must be the country where they make conversation," thought
Martin. "Well, I must be pretty careful not to let them know I can
talk." At the same time, the longer he walked by that talkative little
stream the easier it was to forget the silence in the pine wood; and he
began to think that, after all, one silent room would be quite enough
in the house he was going to have some day. Presently, there were not
only voices in the stream beside him but all around him as well, in the
trees, and the flowers, and the grass, and the air; and they were not
the pretty little voices of the fairies which he knew so well, but they
were the harsh, shrill, unpleasant voices of unpleasant people, who
must have spent their lives in chattering about things that did not
concern them. Then the voices came closer and closer to him, and
buzzed up round his head, and shrieked into his ears, asking him dozens
and dozens of questions, until it was all he could do not to shout at
them to leave him alone.