If any reader, big or little, should wonder whether there is a meaning
in this story, deeper than that of an ordinary fairy tale, I will own
that there is. But I have hidden it so carefully that the smaller
people, and many larger folk, will never find it out, and meantime the
book may be read straight on, like "Cinderella," or "Blue-Beard," or
"Hop-o'-my Thumb," for what interest it has, or what amusement it may
bring.
Having said this, I return to Prince Dolor, that little lame boy whom
many may think so exceedingly to be pitied. But if you had seen him
as he sat patiently untying his wonderful cloak, which was done up in
a very tight and perplexing parcel, using skilfully his deft little
hands, and knitting his brows with firm determination, while his eyes
glistened with pleasure, and energy, and eager anticipation--if you had
beheld him thus, you might have changed your opinion.
When we see people suffering or unfortunate, we feel very sorry for
them; but when we see them bravely bearing their sufferings, and making
the best of their misfortunes, it is quite a different feeling. We
respect, we admire them. One can respect and admire even a little child.
When Prince Dolor had patiently untied all the knots, a remarkable
thing happened. The cloak began to undo itself. Slowly unfolding, it
laid itself down on the carpet, as flat as if it had been ironed; the
split joined with a little sharp crick-crack, and the rim turned up all
round till it was breast-high; for meantime the cloak had grown and
grown, and become quite large enough for one person to sit in it, as
comfortable as if in a boat.
The Prince watched it rather anxiously; it was such an extraordinary,
not to say a frightening thing. However, he was no coward, but a
thorough boy, who, if he had been like other boys, would doubtless have
grown up daring and adventurous--a soldier, a sailor, or the like. As
it was, he could only show his courage morally, not physically, by
being afraid of nothing, and by doing boldly all that it was in his
narrow powers to do. And I am not sure but that in this way he showed
more real valour than if he had had six pairs of proper legs.
He said to himself, "What a goose I am! As if my dear godmother would
ever have given me anything to hurt me. Here goes!"
So, with one of his active leaps, he sprang right into the middle of
the cloak, where he squatted down, wrapping his arms tight round his
knees, for they shook a little and his heart beat fast. But there he
sat, steady and silent, waiting for what might happen next.
Nothing did happen, and he began to think nothing would, and to feel
rather disappointed, when he recollected the words he had been told to
repeat--"Abracadabra, dum, dum, dum!"
He repeated them, laughing all the while, they seemed such nonsense.
And then--and then----
Now, I don't expect anybody to believe what I am going to relate,
though a good many wise people have believed a good many sillier
things. And as seeing's believing, and I never saw it, I cannot be
expected implicitly to believe it myself, except in a sort of a way;
and yet there is truth in it--for some people.
The cloak rose, slowly and steadily, at first only a few inches, then
gradually higher and higher, till it nearly touched the skylight.
Prince Dolor's head actually bumped against the glass, or would have
done so, had he not crouched down, crying, "Oh, please don't hurt me!"
in a most melancholy voice.
Then he suddenly remembered his godmother's express command--"Open the
skylight!"
Regaining his courage at once, without a moment's delay, he lifted
up his head and began searching for the bolt, the cloak meanwhile
remaining perfectly still, balanced in air. But the minute the window
was opened, out it sailed--right out into the clear fresh air, with
nothing between it and the cloudless blue.
Prince Dolor had never felt any such delicious sensation before! I
can understand it. Cannot you? Did you never think, in watching the
rooks going home singly or in pairs, oaring their way across the calm
evening sky, till they vanish like black dots in the misty grey, how
pleasant it must feel to be up there, quite out of the noise and din of
the world, able to hear and see everything down below, yet troubled by
nothing and teased by no one--all alone, but perfectly content.
Something like this was the happiness of the little lame Prince when he
got out of Hopeless Tower, and found himself for the first time in the
pure open air, with the sky above him and the earth below.
True, there was nothing but earth and sky; no houses, no trees, no
rivers, mountains, seas--not a beast on the ground, or a bird in the
air. But to him even the level plain looked beautiful; and then there
was the glorious arch of the sky, with a little young moon sitting in
the west like a baby queen. And the evening breeze was so sweet and
fresh, it kissed him like his godmother's kisses; and by-and-by a few
stars came out, first two or three, and then quantities--quantities! so
that, when he began to count them, he was utterly bewildered.
[Illustration: "_By-and-by a few stars came out, first two or three,
and then quantities!_"]
By this time, however, the cool breeze had become cold, the mist
gathered, and as he had, as he said, no outdoor clothes, poor Prince
Dolor was not very comfortable. The dews fell damp on his curls--he
began to shiver.
"Perhaps I had better go home," thought he.
But how?--For in his excitement the other words which his godmother
had told him to use had slipped his memory. They were only a little
different from the first, but in that slight difference all the
importance lay. As he repeated his "Abracadabra," trying ever so many
other syllables after it, the cloak only went faster and faster,
skimming on through the dusky empty air.
The poor little Prince began to feel frightened. What if his wonderful
travelling-cloak should keep on thus travelling, perhaps to the world's
end, carrying with it a poor, tired, hungry boy, who, after all, was
beginning to think there was something very pleasant in supper and bed?
"Dear godmother," he cried pitifully, "do help me! Tell me just this
once and I'll never forget again."
Instantly the words came rushing into his head--"Abracadabra, tum, tum,
ti!" Was that it? Ah, yes!--for the cloak began to turn slowly. He
repeated the charm again, more distinctly and firmly, when it gave a
gentle dip, like a nod of satisfaction, and immediately started back,
as fast as ever, in the direction of the tower.
He reached the skylight, which he found exactly as he had left it,
and slipped in, cloak and all, as easily as he had got out. He had
scarcely reached the floor, and was still sitting in the middle of his
travelling-cloak--like a frog on a water-lily leaf, as his godmother
had expressed it--when he heard his nurse's voice outside.
"Bless us! what has become of your Royal Highness all this time? To
sit stupidly here at the window till it is quite dark, and leave the
skylight open too. Prince! what can you be thinking of? You are the
silliest boy I ever knew."
"Am I?" said he absently, and never heeding her crossness; or his only
anxiety was lest she might find out anything.
She would have been a very clever person to have done so. The instant
Prince Dolor got off it, the cloak folded itself up into the tiniest
possible parcel, tied all its own knots, and rolled itself of its own
accord into the farthest and darkest corner of the room. If the nurse
had seen it, which she didn't, she would have taken it for a mere
bundle of rubbish not worth noticing.
Shutting the skylight with an angry bang, she brought in the supper and
lit the candles, with her usual unhappy expression of countenance. But
Prince Dolor hardly saw it; he only saw, hid in the corner where nobody
else would see it, his wonderful travelling-cloak. And though his
supper was not particularly nice, he ate it heartily, scarcely hearing
a word of his nurse's grumbling, which to-night seemed to have taken
the place of her sullen silence.
[Illustration: "_She brought in the supper and lit the candles,
with her usual unhappy expression ... he only saw his wonderful
travelling-cloak._" _Page 58._]
"Poor woman!" he thought, when he paused a minute to listen and look at
her, with those quiet, happy eyes, so like his mother's. "Poor woman!
_she_ hasn't got a travelling-cloak!"
And when he was left alone at last, and crept into his little
bed, where he lay awake a good while, watching what he called his
"sky-garden," all planted with stars, like flowers, his chief thought
was, "I must be up very early to-morrow morning and get my lessons
done, and then I'll go travelling all over the world on my beautiful
cloak."
So, next day, he opened his eyes with the sun, and went with a good
heart to his lessons. They had hitherto been the chief amusement of
his dull life; now, I am afraid, he found them also a little dull. But
he tried to be good--I don't say Prince Dolor always was good, but he
generally tried to be--and when his mind went wandering after the dark
dusty corner where lay his precious treasure, he resolutely called it
back again.
"For," he said, "how ashamed my godmother would be of me if I grew up a
stupid boy."
But the instant lessons were done, and he was alone in the empty room,
he crept across the floor, undid the shabby little bundle, his fingers
trembling with eagerness, climbed on the chair, and thence to the
table, so as to unbar the skylight--he forgot nothing now--said his
magic charm, and was away out of the window, as children say, "in a few
minutes less than no time!"
Nobody missed him. He was accustomed to sit so quietly always, that
his nurse, though only in the next room, perceived no difference. And
besides, she might have gone in and out a dozen times, and it would
have been just the same; she never could have found out his absence.
For what do you think the clever godmother did? She took a quantity
of moonshine, or some equally convenient material, and made an image,
which she set on the window-sill reading, or by the table drawing,
where it looked so like Prince Dolor, that any common observer would
never have guessed the deception; and even the boy would have been
puzzled to know which was the image and which was himself.
And all this while the happy little fellow was away, floating in the
air on his magic cloak, and seeing all sorts of wonderful things--or
they seemed wonderful to him, who had hitherto seen nothing at all.
First, there were the flowers that grew on the plain, which, whenever
the cloak came near enough, he strained his eyes to look at; they were
very tiny, but very beautiful--white saxifrage, and yellow lotus,
and ground-thistles, purple and bright, with many others the names
of which I do not know. No more did Prince Dolor, though he tried to
find them out by recalling any pictures he had seen of them. But he
was too far off; and though it was pleasant enough to admire them as
brilliant patches of colour, still he would have liked to examine them
all. He was, as a little girl I know once said of a playfellow, "a very
_examining_ boy."
"I wonder," he thought, "whether I could see better through a pair of
glasses like those my nurse reads with, and takes such care of. How I
would take care of them too! if only I had a pair!"
Immediately he felt something queer and hard fixing itself on to the
bridge of his nose. It was a pair of the prettiest gold spectacles ever
seen; and looking downwards, he found that, though ever so high above
the ground, he could see every minute blade of grass, every tiny bud
and flower--nay, even the insects that walked over them.
"Thank you, thank you!" he cried in a gush of gratitude--to anybody or
everybody, but especially to his dear godmother, whom he felt sure had
given him this new present. He amused himself with it for ever so long,
with his chin pressed on the rim of the cloak, gazing down upon the
grass, every square foot of which was a mine of wonders.
Then, just to rest his eyes, he turned them up to the sky--the blue,
bright, empty sky, which he had looked at so often and seen nothing.
Now, surely there was something. A long, black, wavy line, moving on
in the distance, not by chance, as the clouds move apparently, but
deliberately, as if it were alive. He might have seen it before--he
almost thought he had; but then he could not tell what it was. Looking
at it through his spectacles, he discovered that it really was alive;
being a long string of birds, flying one after the other, their wings
moving steadily and their heads pointed in one direction, as steadily
as if each were a little ship, guided invisibly by an unerring helm.
"They must be the passage-birds flying seawards!" cried the boy, who
had read a little about them, and had a great talent for putting two
and two together and finding out all he could. "Oh, how I should like
to see them quite close, and to know where they come from, and whither
they are going! How I wish I knew everything in all the world!"
A silly speech for even an "examining" little boy to make; because, as
we grow older, the more we know, the more we find out there is to know.
And Prince Dolor blushed when he had said it, and hoped nobody had
heard him.
Apparently somebody had, however; for the cloak gave a sudden bound
forward, and presently he found himself high up in air, in the very
middle of that band of ærial travellers, who had no magic cloak to
travel on--nothing except their wings. Yet there they were, making
their fearless way through the sky.
Prince Dolor looked at them, as one after the other they glided past
him; and they looked at him--those pretty swallows, with their changing
necks and bright eyes--as if wondering to meet in mid-air such an
extraordinary sort of a bird.
[Illustration: "_They looked at him ... as if wondering to meet in
mid-air such an extraordinary sort of bird._" _Page 62._]
"Oh, I wish I were going with you, you lovely creatures!" cried the
boy. "I'm getting so tired of this dull plain, and the dreary and
lonely tower. I do so want to see the world! Pretty swallows, dear
swallows! tell me what it looks like--the beautiful, wonderful world!"
But the swallows flew past him--steadily, slowly, pursuing their course
as if inside each little head had been a mariner's compass, to guide
them safe over land and sea, direct to the place where they desired to
go.
The boy looked after them with envy. For a long time he followed with
his eyes the faint wavy black line as it floated away, sometimes
changing its curves a little, but never deviating from its settled
course, till it vanished entirely out of sight.
Then he settled himself down in the centre of the cloak, feeling quite
sad and lonely.
"I think I'll go home," said he, and repeated his "Abracadabra, tum,
tum, ti!" with a rather heavy heart. The more he had, the more he
wanted; and it is not always one can have everything one wants--at
least, at the exact minute one craves for it; not even though one is a
prince, and has a powerful and beneficent godmother.
He did not like to vex her by calling for her, and telling her how
unhappy he was, in spite of all her goodness; so he just kept his
trouble to himself, went back to his lonely tower, and spent three days
in silent melancholy without even attempting another journey on his
travelling-cloak.