And what of the little lame prince, whom everybody seemed so easily to
have forgotten?
Not everybody. There were a few kind souls, mothers of families, who
had heard his sad story, and some servants about the palace, who had
been familiar with his sweet ways--these many a time sighed and said,
"Poor Prince Dolor!" Or, looking at the Beautiful Mountains, which
were visible all over Nomansland, though few people ever visited them,
"Well, perhaps his Royal Highness is better where he is than even
there."
They did not know--indeed, hardly anybody did know--that beyond the
mountains, between them and the sea, lay a tract of country, barren,
level, bare, except for short stunted grass, and here and there a
patch of tiny flowers. Not a bush--not a tree--not a resting-place for
bird or beast was in that dreary plain. In summer, the sunshine fell
upon it hour after hour with a blinding glare; in winter, the winds
and rains swept over it unhindered, and the snow came down, steadily,
noiselessly, covering it from end to end in one great white sheet,
which lay for days and weeks unmarked by a single footprint.
[Illustration: "_One large round tower which rose up in the center of
the plain._"]
Not a pleasant place to live in--and nobody did live there, apparently.
The only sign that human creatures had ever been near the spot, was
one large round tower which rose up in the centre of the plain, and
might be seen all over it--if there had been anybody to see, which
there never was. Rose, right up out of the ground, as if it had grown
of itself, like a mushroom. But it was not at all mushroom-like; on the
contrary, it was very solidly built. In form, it resembled the Irish
round towers, which have puzzled people for so long, nobody being
able to find out when, or by whom, or for what purpose they were made;
seemingly for no use at all, like this tower. It was circular, of very
firm brickwork, with neither doors nor windows, until near the top,
when you could perceive some slits in the wall, through which one might
possibly creep in or look out. Its height was nearly a hundred feet
high, and it had a battlemented parapet, showing sharp against the sky.
As the plain was quite desolate--almost like a desert, only
without sand, and led to nowhere except the still more desolate
sea-coast--nobody ever crossed it. Whatever mystery there was about the
tower, it and the sky and the plain kept their secret to themselves.
It was a very great secret indeed--a state secret--which none but so
clever a man as the present king of Nomansland would ever have thought
of. How he carried it out, undiscovered, I cannot tell. People said,
long afterwards, that it was by means of a gang of condemned criminals,
who were set to work, and executed immediately after they had done, so
that nobody knew anything, or in the least suspected the real fact.
And what was the fact? Why, that this tower, which seemed a mere mass
of masonry, utterly forsaken and uninhabited, was not so at all. Within
twenty feet of the top, some ingenious architect had planned a perfect
little house, divided into four rooms--as by drawing a cross within a
circle you will see might easily be done. By making skylights, and a
few slits in the walls for windows, and raising a peaked roof which was
hidden by the parapet, here was a dwelling complete; eighty feet from
the ground, and as inaccessible as a rook's nest on the top of a tree.
A charming place to live in! if you once got up there, and never wanted
to come down again.
Inside--though nobody could have looked inside except a bird, and
hardly even a bird flew past that lonely tower--inside it was furnished
with all the comfort and elegance imaginable; with lots of books and
toys, and everything that the heart of a child could desire. For its
only inhabitant, except a nurse of course, was a poor little solitary
child.
One winter night, when all the plain was white with moonlight, there
was seen crossing it a great tall black horse, ridden by a man also
big and equally black, carrying before him on the saddle a woman and
a child. The woman--she had a sad, fierce look, and no wonder, for
she was a criminal under sentence of death, but her sentence had been
changed to almost as severe a punishment. She was to inhabit the lonely
tower with the child, and was allowed to live as long as the child
lived--no longer. This, in order that she might take the utmost care
of him; for those who put him there were equally afraid of his dying
and of his living. And yet he was only a little gentle boy, with a
sweet sleepy smile--he had been very tired with his long journey--and
clinging arms, which held tight to the man's neck, for he was rather
frightened, and the face, black as it was, looked kindly at him. And
he was very helpless, with his poor small shrivelled legs, which could
neither stand nor run away--for the little forlorn boy was Prince Dolor.
[Illustration: "_He was rather frightened, and the face, black as it
was, looked kindly at him._"]
He had not been dead at all--or buried either. His grand funeral had
been a mere pretence: a wax figure having been put in his place, while
he himself was spirited away under charge of these two, the condemned
woman and the black man. The latter was deaf and dumb, so could neither
tell nor repeat anything.
When they reached the foot of the tower, there was light enough to see
a huge chain dangling from the parapet, but dangling only half way.
The deaf-mute took from his saddle-wallet a sort of ladder, arranged
in pieces like a puzzle, fitted it together and lifted it up to meet
the chain. Then he mounted to the top of the tower, and slung from it a
sort of chair, in which the woman and the child placed themselves and
were drawn up, never to come down again as long as they lived. Leaving
them there, the man descended the ladder, took it to pieces again and
packed it in his pack, mounted the horse, and disappeared across the
plain.
Every month they used to watch for him, appearing like a speck in the
distance. He fastened his horse to the foot of the tower and climbed
it, as before, laden with provisions and many other things. He always
saw the Prince, so as to make sure that the child was alive and well,
and then went away until the following month.
While his first childhood lasted, Prince Dolor was happy enough. He
had every luxury that even a prince could need, and the one thing
wanting--love, never having known, he did not miss. His nurse was very
kind to him, though she was a wicked woman. But either she had not been
quite so wicked as people said, or she grew better through being shut
up continually with a little innocent child, who was dependent upon her
for every comfort and pleasure of his life.
It was not an unhappy life. There was nobody to tease or ill-use him,
and he was never ill. He played about from room to room--there were
four rooms--parlour, kitchen, his nurse's bed-room, and his own; learnt
to crawl like a fly, and to jump like a frog, and to run about on
all-fours almost as fast as a puppy. In fact, he was very much like a
puppy or a kitten, as thoughtless and as merry--scarcely ever cross,
though sometimes a little weary. As he grew older, he occasionally
liked to be quiet for awhile, and then he would sit at the slits of
windows, which were, however, much bigger than they looked from the
bottom of the tower,--and watch the sky above and the ground below,
with the storms sweeping over and the sunshine coming and going, and
the shadows of the clouds running races across the blank plain.
By-and-by he began to learn lessons--not that his nurse had been
ordered to teach him, but she did it partly to amuse herself. She was
not a stupid woman, and Prince Dolor was by no means a stupid boy; so
they got on very well, and his continual entreaty "What can I do? what
can you find me to do?" was stopped; at least for an hour or two in the
day.
It was a dull life, but he had never known any other; anyhow, he
remembered no other; and he did not pity himself at all. Not for a long
time, till he grew to be quite a big little boy, and could read easily.
Then he suddenly took to books, which the deaf-mute brought him from
time to time--books which, not being acquainted with the literature of
Nomansland, I cannot describe, but no doubt they were very interesting;
and they informed him of everything in the outside world, and filled
him with an intense longing to see it.
From this time a change came over the boy. He began to look sad and
thin, and to shut himself up for hours without speaking. For his nurse
hardly spoke, and whatever questions he asked beyond their ordinary
daily life she never answered. She had, indeed, been forbidden, on
pain of death, to tell him anything about himself, who he was, or what
he might have been. He knew he was Prince Dolor, because she always
addressed him as "my prince," and "your royal highness," but what a
prince was he had not the least idea. He had no idea of any thing in
the world, except what he found in his books.
He sat one day surrounded by them, having built them up round him
like a little castle wall. He had been reading them half the day, but
feeling all the while that to read about things which you never can
see is like hearing about a beautiful dinner while you are starving.
For almost the first time in his life he grew melancholy: his hands
fell on his lap; he sat gazing out of the window-slit upon the view
outside--the view he had looked at every day of his life, and might
look at for endless days more.
Not a very cheerful view--just the plain and the sky--but he liked
it. He used to think, if he could only fly out of that window, up to
the sky or down to the plain, how nice it would be! Perhaps when he
died--his nurse had told him once in anger that he would never leave
the tower till he died--he might be able to do this. Not that he
understood much what dying meant, but it must be a change, and any
change seemed to him a blessing.
"And I wish I had somebody to tell me all about it; about that and many
other things; somebody that would be fond of me, like my poor white
kitten."
Here the tears came into his eyes, for the boy's one friend, the
one interest of his life, had been a little white kitten, which the
deaf-mute, kindly smiling, once took out of his pocket and gave
him--the only living creature Prince Dolor had ever seen. For four
weeks it was his constant plaything and companion, till one moonlight
night it took a fancy for wandering, climbed on to the parapet of the
tower, dropped over and disappeared. It was not killed, he hoped, for
cats have nine lives; indeed, he almost fancied he saw it pick itself
up and scamper away, but he never caught sight of it more.
"Yes, I wish I had something better than a kitten--a person, a real
live person, who would be fond of me and kind to me. Oh, I want
somebody--dreadfully, dreadfully!"
As he spoke, there sounded behind him a slight tap-tap-tap, as of a
stick or a cane, and twisting himself round, he saw--what do you think
he saw?
Nothing either frightening or ugly, but still exceedingly curious. A
little woman, no bigger than he might himself have been, had his legs
grown like those of other children, but she was not a child--she was
an old woman. Her hair was grey, and her dress was grey, and there was
a grey shadow over her whereever she moved. But she had the sweetest
smile, the prettiest hands, and when she spoke it was in the softest
voice imaginable.
"My dear little boy,"--and dropping her cane, the only bright and rich
thing about her, she laid those two tiny hands on his shoulders--"my
own little boy, I could not come to you until you had said you wanted
me, but now you do want me, here I am."
[Illustration: "_She laid those two tiny hands on his shoulders--'My
own little boy, I could not come to you until you had said you wanted
me.'_"]
"And you are very welcome, madam," replied the Prince, trying to speak
politely, as princes always did in books; "and I am exceedingly obliged
to you. May I ask who you are? Perhaps my mother?" For he knew that
little boys usually had a mother, and had occasionally wondered what
had become of his own.
"No," said the visitor, with a tender, half-sad smile, putting back the
hair from his forehead, and looking right into his eyes--"No, I am not
your mother, though she was a dear friend of mine; and you are as like
her as ever you can be."
"Will you tell her to come and see me then?"
"She cannot; but I dare say she knows all about you. And she loves
you very much--and so do I; and I want to help you all I can, my poor
little boy."
"Why do you call me poor?" asked Prince Dolor in surprise.
The little old woman glanced down on his legs and feet, which he did
not know were different from those of other children, and then at
his sweet, bright face, which, though he knew not that either, was
exceedingly different from many children's faces, which are often so
fretful, cross, sullen. Looking at him, instead of sighing, she smiled.
"I beg your pardon, my prince," said she.
"Yes, I am a prince, and my name is Dolor; will you tell me yours,
madam?"
The little old woman laughed like a chime of silver bells.
"I have not got a name--or rather, I have so many names that I don't
know which to choose. However, it was I who gave you yours, and you
will belong to me all your days. I am your godmother."
"Hurrah!" cried the little prince; "I am glad I belong to you, for I
like you very much. Will you come and play with me?"
So they sat down together, and played. By-and-by they began to talk.
"Are you very dull here?" asked the little old woman.
"Not particularly, thank you, godmother. I have plenty to eat and
drink, and my lessons to do, and my books to read--lots of books."
"And you want nothing?"
"Nothing. Yes--perhaps--If you please, godmother, could you bring me
just one more thing?"
"What sort of thing?"
"A little boy to play with."
The old woman looked very sad. "Just the thing, alas, which I cannot
give you. My child, I cannot alter your lot in any way, but I can help
you to bear it."
"Thank you. But why do you talk of bearing it? I have nothing to bear."
"My poor little man!" said the old woman in the very tenderest tone of
her tender voice. "Kiss me!"
"What is kissing?" asked the wondering child.
His godmother took him in her arms and embraced him many times.
By-and-by he kissed her back again--at first awkwardly and shyly, then
with all the strength of his warm little heart.
"You are better to cuddle than even my white kitten, I think. Promise
me that you will never go away."
"I must; but I will leave a present behind me--something as good as
myself to amuse you--something that will take you wherever you want to
go, and show you all that you wish to see."
"What is it?"
"A travelling-cloak."
The Prince's countenance fell. "I don't want a cloak, for I never go
out. Sometimes nurse hoists me on to the roof, and carries me round by
the parapet; but that is all. I can't walk, you know, as she does."
"The more reason why you should ride; and besides, this
travelling-cloak----"
"Hush!--she's coming."
There sounded outside the room door a heavy step and a grumpy voice,
and a rattle of plates and dishes.
"It's my nurse, and she is bringing my dinner; but I don't want dinner
at all--I only want you. Will her coming drive you away, godmother?"
"Perhaps; but only for a little. Never mind; all the bolts and bars
in the world couldn't keep me out. I'd fly in at the window, or down
through the chimney. Only wish for me, and I come."
"Thank you," said Prince Dolor, but almost in a whisper, for he
was very uneasy at what might happen next. His nurse and his
godmother--what would they say to one another? how would they look
at one another?--two such different faces: one, harsh-lined, sullen,
cross, and sad; the other, sweet and bright and calm as a summer
evening before the dark begins.
When the door was flung open, Prince Dolor shut his eyes, trembling all
over: opening them again, he saw he need fear nothing; his lovely old
godmother had melted away just like the rainbow out of the sky, as he
had watched it many a time. Nobody but his nurse was in the room.
"What a muddle your Royal Highness is sitting in," said she sharply.
"Such a heap of untidy books; and what's this rubbish?" kicking a
little bundle that lay beside them.
"Oh, nothing, nothing--give it me!" cried the prince, and darting after
it, he hid it under his pinafore, and then pushed it quickly into his
pocket. Rubbish as it was, it was left in the place where she had sat,
and might be something belonging to her--his dear, kind godmother, whom
already he loved with all his lonely, tender, passionate heart.
It was, though he did not know this, his wonderful travelling-cloak.