Everybody was very kind to the poor little prince. I think people
generally are kind to motherless children, whether princes or peasants.
He had a magnificent nursery and a regular suite of attendants, and was
treated with the greatest respect and state. Nobody was allowed to talk
to him in silly baby language, or dandle him, or, above all to kiss him,
though perhaps some people did it surreptitiously, for he was such a
sweet baby that it was difficult to help it.
It could not be said that the Prince missed his mother--children of his
age cannot do that; but somehow after she died everything seemed to go
wrong with him. From a beautiful baby he became sickly and pale, seeming
to have almost ceased growing, especially in his legs, which had been so
fat and strong.
But after the day of his christening they withered and shrank; he no
longer kicked them out either in passion or play, and when, as he got
to be nearly a year old, his nurse tried to make him stand upon them, he
only tumbled down.
This happened so many times that at last people began to talk about it.
A prince, and not able to stand on his own legs! What a dreadful thing!
What a misfortune for the country!
Rather a misfortune to him also, poor little boy! but nobody seemed to
think of that. And when, after a while, his health revived, and the old
bright look came back to his sweet little face, and his body grew larger
and stronger, though still his legs remained the same, people continued
to speak of him in whispers, and with grave shakes of the head.
Everybody knew, though nobody said it, that something, it was impossible
to guess what, was not quite right with the poor little Prince.
Of course, nobody hinted this to the King his father: it does not do
to tell great people anything unpleasant. And besides, his Majesty
took very little notice of his son, or of his other affairs, beyond the
necessary duties of his kingdom.
People had said he would not miss the Queen at all, she having been
so long an invalid, but he did. After her death he never was quite the
same. He established himself in her empty rooms, the only rooms in
the palace whence one could see the Beautiful Mountains, and was often
observed looking at them as if he thought she had flown away thither,
and that his longing could bring her back again. And by a curious
coincidence, which nobody dared inquire into, he desired that the Prince
might be called, not by any of the four-and-twenty grand names given him
by his godfathers and godmothers, but by the identical name mentioned by
the little old woman in gray--Dolor, after his mother Dolorez.
Once a week, according to established state custom, the Prince, dressed
in his very best, was brought to the King his father for half an hour,
but his Majesty was generally too ill and too melancholy to pay much
heed to the child.
Only once, when he and the Crown-Prince, who was exceedingly attentive
to his royal brother, were sitting together, with Prince Dolor playing
in a corner of the room, dragging himself about with his arms rather
than his legs, and sometimes trying feebly to crawl from one chair to
another, it seemed to strike the father that all was not right with his
son.
“How old is his Royal Highness?” said he suddenly to the nurse.
“Two years, three months, and five days, please your Majesty.”
“It does not please me,” said the King, with a sigh. “He ought to be far
more forward than he is now ought he not, brother? You, who have so many
children, must know. Is there not something wrong about him?”
“Oh, no,” said the Crown-Prince, exchanging meaning looks with the
nurse, who did not understand at all, but stood frightened and trembling
with the tears in her eyes. “Nothing to make your Majesty at all uneasy.
No doubt his Royal Highness will outgrow it in time.”
“Outgrow--what?”
“A slight delicacy--ahem!--in the spine; something inherited, perhaps,
from his dear mother.”
“Ah, she was always delicate; but she was the sweetest woman that ever
lived. Come here, my little son.”
And as the Prince turned round upon his father a small, sweet, grave
face,--so like his mother's,--his Majesty the King smiled and held out
his arms. But when the boy came to him, not running like a boy, but
wriggling awkwardly along the floor, the royal countenance clouded over.
“I ought to have been told of this. It is terrible--terrible! And for a
prince too. Send for all the doctors in my kingdom immediately.”
They came, and each gave a different opinion and ordered a different
mode of treatment. The only thing they agreed in was what had been
pretty well known before, that the Prince must have been hurt when he
was an infant--let fall, perhaps, so as to injure his spine and lower
limbs. Did nobody remember?
No, nobody. Indignantly, all the nurses denied that any such accident
had happened, was possible to have happened, until the faithful
country nurse recollected that it really had happened on the day of the
christening. For which unluckily good memory all the others scolded her
so severely that she had no peace of her life, and soon after, by the
influence of the young lady nurse who had carried the baby that fatal
day, and who was a sort of connection of the Crown-Prince--being his
wife's second cousin once removed--the poor woman was pensioned off and
sent to the Beautiful Mountains from whence she came, with orders to
remain there for the rest of her days.
But of all this the King knew nothing, for, indeed, after the first
shock of finding out that his son could not walk, and seemed never
likely to he interfered very little concerning him. The whole thing was
too painful, and his Majesty never liked painful things. Sometimes he
inquired after Prince Dolor, and they told him his Royal Highness was
going on as well as could be expected, which really was the case. For,
after worrying the poor child and perplexing themselves with one remedy
after another, the Crown-Prince, not wishing to offend any of the
differing doctors, had proposed leaving him to Nature; and Nature, the
safest doctor of all, had come to his help and done her best.
He could not walk, it is true; his limbs were mere useless appendages to
his body; but the body itself was strong and sound. And his face was the
same as ever--just his mother's face, one of the sweetest in the world.
Even the King, indifferent as he was, sometimes looked at the little
fellow with sad tenderness, noticing how cleverly he learned to crawl
and swing himself about by his arms, so that in his own awkward way he
was as active in motion as most children of his age.
“Poor little man! he does his best, and he is not unhappy--not half
so unhappy as I, brother,” addressing the Crown-Prince, who was more
constant than ever in his attendance upon the sick monarch. “If anything
should befall me, I have appointed you Regent. In case of my death, you
will take care of my poor little boy?”
“Certainly, certainly; but do not let us imagine any such misfortune.
I assure your Majesty--everybody will assure you--that it is not in the
least likely.”
He knew, however, and everybody knew, that it was likely, and soon after
it actually did happen. The King died as suddenly and quietly as the
Queen had done--indeed, in her very room and bed; and Prince Dolor was
left without either father or mother--as sad a thing as could happen,
even to a prince.
He was more than that now, though. He was a king. In Nomansland, as in
other countries, the people were struck with grief one day and revived
the next. “The king is dead--long live the king!” was the cry that rang
through the nation, and almost before his late Majesty had been laid
beside the Queen in their splendid mausoleum, crowds came thronging from
all parts to the royal palace, eager to see the new monarch.
They did see him,--the Prince Regent took care they should,--sitting on
the floor of the council chamber, sucking his thumb! And when one of
the gentlemen-in-waiting lifted him up and carried him--fancy carrying a
king!--to the chair of state, and put the crown on his head, he shook it
off again, it was so heavy and uncomfortable. Sliding down to the foot
of the throne he began playing with the golden lions that supported it,
stroking their paws and putting his tiny fingers into their eyes, and
laughing--laughing as if he had at last found something to amuse him.
“There's a fine king for you!” said the first lord-in-waiting, a friend
of the Prince Regent's (the Crown-Prince that used to be, who, in the
deepest mourning, stood silently beside the throne of his young nephew.
He was a handsome man, very grand and clever-looking). “What a king! who
can never stand to receive his subjects, never walk in processions, who
to the last day of his life will have to be carried about like a baby.
Very unfortunate!”
“Exceedingly unfortunate,” repeated the second lord. “It is always bad
for a nation when its king is a child; but such a child--a permanent
cripple, if not worse.”
“Let us hope not worse,” said the first lord in a very hopeless tone,
and looking toward the Regent, who stood erect and pretended to hear
nothing. “I have heard that these sort of children with very large
heads, and great broad fore-heads and staring eyes, are--well, well, let
us hope for the best and be prepared for the worst. In the meantime----”
“I swear,” said the Crown-Prince, coming forward and kissing the hilt of
his sword--“I swear to perform my duties as Regent, to take all care of
his Royal Highness--his Majesty, I mean,” with a grand bow to the little
child, who laughed innocently back again. “And I will do my humble
best to govern the country. Still, if the country has the slightest
objection----”
But the Crown-Prince being generalissimo, having the whole army at his
beck and call, so that he could have begun a civil war in no time, the
country had, of course, not the slightest objection.
So the King and Queen slept together in peace, and Prince Dolor reigned
over the land--that is, his uncle did; and everybody said what a
fortunate thing it was for the poor little Prince to have such a clever
uncle to take care of him.
All things went on as usual; indeed, after the Regent had brought his
wife and her seven sons, and established them in the palace, rather
better than usual. For they gave such splendid entertainments and made
the capital so lively that trade revived, and the country was said to be
more flourishing than it had been for a century. Whenever the Regent
and his sons appeared, they were received with shouts: “Long live the
Crown-Prince!” “Long live the royal family!” And, in truth, they were
very fine children, the whole seven of them, and made a great show
when they rode out together on seven beautiful horses, one height above
another, down to the youngest, on his tiny black pony, no bigger than a
large dog.
As for the other child, his Royal Highness Prince Dolor,--for somehow
people soon ceased to call him his Majesty, which seemed such a
ridiculous title for a poor little fellow, a helpless cripple,--with
only head and trunk, and no legs to speak of,--he was seen very seldom
by anybody.
Sometimes people daring enough to peer over the high wall of the palace
garden noticed there, carried in a footman's arms, or drawn in a chair,
or left to play on the grass, often with nobody to mind him, a pretty
little boy, with a bright, intelligent face and large, melancholy
eyes--no, not exactly melancholy, for they were his mother's, and she
was by no means sad-minded, but thoughtful and dreamy. They rather
perplexed people, those childish eyes; they were so exceedingly innocent
and yet so penetrating. If anybody did a wrong thing--told a lie, for
instance they would turn round with such a grave, silent surprise the
child never talked much--that every naughty person in the palace was
rather afraid of Prince Dolor.
He could not help it, and perhaps he did not even know it, being no
better a child than many other children, but there was something
about him which made bad people sorry, and grumbling people ashamed of
themselves, and ill-natured people gentle and kind.
I suppose because they were touched to see a poor little fellow who
did not in the least know what had befallen him or what lay before him,
living his baby life as happy as the day is long. Thus, whether or not
he was good himself, the sight of him and his affliction made other
people good, and, above all, made everybody love him--so much so, that
his uncle the Regent began to feel a little uncomfortable.
Now, I have nothing to say against uncles in general. They are usually
very excellent people, and very convenient to little boys and girls.
Even the “cruel uncle” of the “Babes in the Wood” I believe to be quite
an exceptional character. And this “cruel uncle” of whom I am telling
was, I hope, an exception, too.
He did not mean to be cruel. If anybody had called him so, he would
have resented it extremely: he would have said that what he did was done
entirely for the good of the country. But he was a man who had always
been accustomed to consider himself first and foremost, believing that
whatever he wanted was sure to be right, and therefore he ought to have
it. So he tried to get it, and got it too, as people like him very often
do. Whether they enjoy it when they have it is another question.
Therefore he went one day to the council chamber, determined on making
a speech, and informing the ministers and the country at large that the
young King was in failing health, and that it would be advisable to send
him for a time to the Beautiful Mountains. Whether he really meant to
do this, or whether it occurred to him afterward that there would be an
easier way of attaining his great desire, the crown of Nomansland, is a
point which I cannot decide.
But soon after, when he had obtained an order in council to send the
King away, which was done in great state, with a guard of honor composed
of two whole regiments of soldiers,--the nation learned, without much
surprise, that the poor little Prince--nobody ever called him king
now--had gone a much longer journey than to the Beautiful Mountains.
He had fallen ill on the road and died within a few hours; at least so
declared the physician in attendance and the nurse who had been sent
to take care of him. They brought his coffin back in great state, and
buried it in the mausoleum with his parents.
So Prince Dolor was seen no more. The country went into deep mourning
for him, and then forgot him, and his uncle reigned in his stead. That
illustrious personage accepted his crown with great decorum, and wore it
with great dignity to the last. But whether he enjoyed it or not there
is no evidence to show.