When Prince Dolor sat up in bed, trying to remember where he was,
whither he had been, and what he had seen the day before, he perceived
that his room was empty.
Generally, his nurse rather worried him by breaking his slumbers,
coming in and "setting things to rights," as she called it. Now, the
dust lay thick upon chairs and tables; there was no harsh voice heard
to scold him for not getting up immediately--which, I am sorry to say,
this boy did not always do. For he so enjoyed lying still, and thinking
lazily, about everything or nothing, that, if he had not tried hard
against it, he would certainly have become like those celebrated
"Two little men
Who lay in their bed till the clock struck ten."
It was striking ten now, and still no nurse was to be seen. He was
rather relieved at first, for he felt so tired; and besides when he
stretched out his arm, he found to his dismay that he had gone to bed
in his clothes.
Very uncomfortable he felt, of course; and just a little frightened.
Especially when he began to call and call again, but nobody answered.
Often he used to think how nice it would be to get rid of his nurse and
live in this tower all by himself--like a sort of monarch, able to do
everything he liked, and leave undone all that he did not want to do;
but now that this seemed really to have happened, he did not like it at
all.
"Nurse--dear nurse--please come back!" he called out. "Come back, and I
will be the best boy in all the land."
And when she did not come back, and nothing but silence answered his
lamentable call, he very nearly began to cry.
"This won't do," he said at last, dashing the tears from his eyes.
"It's just like a baby, and I'm a big boy--shall be a man some day.
What has happened, I wonder? I'll go and see."
He sprang out of bed--not to his feet, alas! but to his poor little
weak knees, and crawled on them from room to room. All the four
chambers were deserted--not forlorn or untidy, for everything seemed
to have been done for his comfort--the breakfast and dinner-things
were laid, the food spread in order. He might live "like a prince,"
as the proverb is, for several days. But the place was entirely
forsaken--there was evidently not a creature but himself in the
solitary tower.
A great fear came upon the poor boy. Lonely as his life had been,
he had never known what it was to be absolutely alone. A kind of
despair seized him--no violent anger or terror, but a sort of patient
desolation.
"What in the world am I to do?" thought he, and sat down in the middle
of the floor, half inclined to believe that it would be better to give
up entirely, lay himself down and die.
This feeling, however, did not last long, for he was young and strong,
and I said before, by nature a very courageous boy. There came into his
head, somehow or other, a proverb that his nurse had taught him--the
people of Nomansland were very fond of proverbs:--
"For every evil under the sun
There is a remedy, or there's none;
If there is one, try to find it--
If there isn't, never mind it."
"I wonder--is there a remedy now, and could I find it?" cried the
Prince, jumping up and looking out of the window.
No help there. He only saw the broad bleak sunshiny plain--that is, at
first. But, by-and-by, in the circle of mud that surrounded the base
of the tower he perceived distinctly the marks of a horse's feet, and
just in the spot where the deaf-mute was accustomed to tie up his great
black charger, while he himself ascended, there lay the remains of a
bundle of hay and a feed of corn.
"Yes, that's it. He has come and gone, taking nurse away with him. Poor
nurse! how glad she would be to go!"
That was Prince Dolor's first thought. His second--wasn't it
natural?--was a passionate indignation at her cruelty--at the cruelty
of all the world towards him--a poor little helpless boy. Then he
determined--forsaken as he was--to try and hold on to the last, and not
to die as long as he could possibly help it.
Anyhow, it would be easier to die here than out in the world, among the
terrible doings which he had just beheld. From the midst of which, it
suddenly struck him, the deaf-mute had come--contrived somehow to make
the nurse understand that the king was dead, and she need have no fear
in going back to the capital, where there was a grand revolution, and
everything turned upside down. So, of course she had gone.
"I hope she'll enjoy it, miserable woman--if they don't cut off her
head too."
And then a kind of remorse smote him for feeling so bitterly towards
her, after all the years she had taken care of him--grudgingly,
perhaps, and coldly; still, she had taken care of him, and that even
to the last: for, as I have said, all his four rooms were as tidy as
possible, and his meals laid out, that he might have no more trouble
than could be helped.
"Possibly she did not mean to be cruel. I won't judge her," said he.
And afterwards he was very glad that he had so determined.
For the second time he tried to dress himself, and then to do
everything he could for himself--even to sweeping up the hearth and
putting on more coals. "It's a funny thing for a prince to have to do,"
said he laughing. "But my godmother once said princes need never mind
doing anything."
And then he thought a little of his godmother. Not of summoning her,
or asking her to help him--she had evidently left him to help himself,
and he was determined to try his best to do it, being a very proud and
independent boy--but he remembered her, tenderly and regretfully, as
if even she had been a little hard upon him--poor, forlorn boy that he
was! But he seemed to have seen and learned so much within the last few
days, that he scarcely felt like a boy, but a man--until he went to bed
at night.
When I was a child, I used often to think how nice it would be to live
in a little house all by my own self--a house built high up in a tree,
or far away in a forest, or half way up a hillside,--so deliciously
alone and independent. Not a lesson to learn--but no! I always liked
learning my lessons. Anyhow, to choose the lessons I liked best, to
have as many books to read and dolls to play with as ever I wanted:
above all, to be free and at rest, with nobody to teaze, or trouble, or
scold me, would be charming. For I was a lonely little thing, who liked
quietness--as many children do; which other children, and sometimes
grown-up people even, cannot always understand. And so I can understand
Prince Dolor.
After his first despair, he was not merely comfortable, but actually
happy in his solitude, doing everything for himself, and enjoying
everything by himself--until bedtime.
Then, he did not like it at all. No more, I suppose, than other
children would have liked my imaginary house in a tree, when they had
had sufficient of their own company.
But the prince had to bear it--and he did bear it--like a prince: for
fully five days. All that time he got up in the morning and went to
bed at night, without having spoken to a creature, or, indeed, heard
a single sound. For even his little lark was silent: and as for his
travelling-cloak, either he never thought about it, or else it had been
spirited away--for he made no use of it, nor attempted to do so.
A very strange existence it was, those five lonely days. He never
entirely forgot it. It threw him back upon himself, and into
himself--in a way that all of us have to learn when we grow up, and are
the better for it--but it is somewhat hard learning.
On the sixth day, Prince Dolor had a strange composure in his look, but
he was very grave, and thin, and white. He had nearly come to the end
of his provisions--and what was to happen next? Get out of the tower he
could not; the ladder the deaf-mute used was always carried away again;
and if it had not been, how could the poor boy have used it? And even
if he slung or flung himself down, and by miraculous chance came alive
to the foot of the tower how could he run away?
Fate had been very hard to him, or so it seemed.
He made up his mind to die. Not that he wished to die; on the contrary,
there was a great deal that he wished to live to do; but if he must
die, he must. Dying did not seem so very dreadful; not even to lie
quiet like his uncle, whom he had entirely forgiven now, and neither be
miserable nor naughty any more, and escape all those horrible things
that he had seen going on outside the palace, in that awful place which
was called "the world."
"It's a great deal nicer here," said the poor little Prince, and
collected all his pretty things round him: his favourite pictures,
which he thought he should like to have near him when he died; his
books and toys--no, he had ceased to care for toys now; he only liked
them because he had done so as a child. And there he sat very calm and
patient, like a king in his castle, waiting for the end.
"Still, I wish I had done something first--something worth doing, that
somebody might remember me by," thought he. "Suppose I had grown a man,
and had had work to do, and people to care for, and was so useful and
busy that they liked me, and perhaps even forgot I was lame. Then, it
would have been nice to live, I think."
A tear came into the little fellow's eyes, and he listened intently
through the dead silence for some hopeful sound.
Was there one--was it his little lark, whom he had almost forgotten?
No, nothing half so sweet. But it really was something--something which
came nearer and nearer, so that there was no mistaking it. It was the
sound of a trumpet, one of the great silver trumpets so admired in
Nomansland. Not pleasant music, but very bold, grand, and inspiring.
As he listened to it the boy seemed to recall many things which had
slipped his memory for years, and to nerve himself for whatever might
be going to happen.
What had happened was this.
The poor condemned woman had not been such a wicked woman after all.
Perhaps her courage was not wholly disinterested, but she had done a
very heroic thing. As soon as she heard of the death and burial of
the King, and of the changes that were taking place in the country, a
daring idea came into her head--to set upon the throne of Nomansland
its rightful heir. Thereupon she persuaded the deaf-mute to take her
away with him, and they galloped like the wind from city to city,
spreading everywhere the news that Prince Dolor's death and burial
had been an invention concocted by his wicked uncle--that he was alive
and well, and the noblest young Prince that ever was born.
It was a bold stroke, but it succeeded. The country, weary, perhaps,
of the late King's harsh rule, and yet glad to save itself from the
horrors of the last few days, and the still further horrors of no rule
at all, and having no particular interest in the other young princes,
jumped at the idea of this Prince, who was the son of their late good
King and the beloved Queen Dolorez.
"Hurrah for Prince Dolor! Let Prince Dolor be our sovereign!" rang
from end to end of the kingdom. Everybody tried to remember what a
dear baby he once was--how like his mother, who had been so sweet and
kind, and his father, the finest looking king that ever reigned. Nobody
remembered his lameness--or, if they did, they passed it over as a
matter of no consequence. They were determined to have him to reign
over them, boy as he was--perhaps just because he was a boy, since in
that case the great nobles thought they should be able to do as they
liked with the country.
Accordingly, with a fickleness not confined to the people of
Nomansland, no sooner was the late King laid in his grave than they
pronounced him to have been a usurper; turned all his family out of
the palace, and left it empty for the reception of the new sovereign,
whom they went to fetch with great rejoicing; a select body of lords,
gentlemen, and soldiers, travelling night and day in solemn procession
through the country, until they reached Hopeless Tower.
There they found the Prince, sitting calmly on the floor--deadly pale
indeed, for he expected a quite different end from this, and was
resolved if he had to die, to die courageously, like a prince and a
king.
But when they hailed him as prince and king, and explained to him how
matters stood, and went down on their knees before him, offering the
crown (on a velvet cushion, with four golden tassels, each nearly as
big as his head)--small though he was and lame, which lameness the
courtiers pretended not to notice--there came such a glow into his
face, such a dignity into his demeanour, that he became beautiful,
king-like.
"Yes," he said, "if you desire it, I will be your king. And I will do
my best to make my people happy."
Then there arose, from inside and outside the tower, such a shout as
never yet was heard across the lonely plain.
Prince Dolor shrank a little from the deafening sound. "How shall I be
able to rule all this great people? You forget, my lords, that I am
only a little boy still."
"Not so very little," was the respectful answer. "We have searched
in the records, and found that your Royal Highness--your Majesty, I
mean--is precisely fifteen years old."
"Am I?" said Prince Dolor; and his first thought was a thoroughly
childish pleasure that he should now have a birthday, with a whole
nation to keep it. Then he remembered that his childish days were
done. He was a monarch now. Even his nurse, to whom, the moment he saw
her, he had held out his hand, kissed it reverently, and called him
ceremoniously "his Majesty the King."
"A king must be always a king, I suppose," said he half sadly, when,
the ceremonies over, he had been left to himself for just ten minutes,
to put off his boy's clothes, and be re-attired in magnificent robes,
before he was conveyed away from his tower to the Royal Palace.
He could take nothing with him; indeed, he soon saw that, however
politely they spoke, they would not allow him to take anything. If
he was to be their king, he must give up his old life for ever. So he
looked with tender farewell on his old books, old toys, the furniture
he knew so well, and the familiar plain in all its levelness, ugly yet
pleasant, simply because it was familiar.
"It will be a new life in a new world," said he to himself; "but I'll
remember the old things still. And, oh! if before I go, I could but
once see my dear old godmother."
While he spoke, he had laid himself down on the bed for a minute or
two, rather tired with his grandeur, and confused by the noise of
the trumpets which kept playing incessantly down below. He gazed,
half sadly, up to the skylight, whence there came pouring a stream of
sun-rays, with innumerable motes floating there, like a bridge thrown
between heaven and earth. Sliding down it, as if she had been made of
air, came the little old woman in grey.
[Illustration: "_There came pouring a stream of sun-rays ... like a
bridge ... Sliding down it, as if she had been made of air, came the
little old woman in grey._"]
So beautiful looked she--old as she was--that Prince Dolor was at first
quite startled by the apparition. Then he held out his arms in eager
delight.
"O, godmother, you have not forsaken me!"
"Not at all, my son. You may not have seen me, but I have seen you,
many a time."
"How?"
"O, never mind. I can turn into anything I please, you know. And I
have been a bear-skin rug, and a crystal goblet--and sometimes I have
changed from inanimate to animate nature, put on feathers, and made
myself very comfortable as a bird."
"Ha!" laughed the Prince, a new light breaking in upon him, as he
caught the infection of her tone, lively and mischievous. "Ha, ha! a
lark, for instance?"
"Or a magpie," answered she, with a capital imitation of Mistress
Mag's croaky voice. "Do you suppose I am always sentimental and never
funny?--If anything makes you happy, gay or grave, don't you think it
is more than likely to come through your old godmother?"
"I believe that," said the boy tenderly, holding out his arms. They
clasped one another in a close embrace.
Suddenly Prince Dolor looked very anxious. "You will not leave me now
that I am a king? Otherwise, I had rather not be a king at all. Promise
never to forsake me?"
The little old woman laughed gaily. "Forsake you? that is impossible.
But it is just possible you may forsake me. Not probable though. Your
mother never did, and she was a queen. The sweetest queen in all the
world was the lady Dolorez."
"Tell me about her," said the boy eagerly. "As I get older I think I
can understand more. Do tell me."
"Not now. You couldn't hear me for the trumpets and the shouting. But
when you are come to the palace, ask for a long-closed upper room,
which looks out upon the Beautiful Mountains; open it and take it for
your own. Whenever you go there, you will always find me, and we will
talk together about all sorts of things."
"And about my mother?"
The little old woman nodded--and kept nodding and smiling to herself
many times, as the boy repeated over and over again the sweet words he
had never known or understood--"my mother--my mother."
"Now I must go," said she, as the trumpets blared louder and louder,
and the shouts of the people showed that they would not endure any
delay. "Good-bye, Good-bye! Open the window and out I fly."
Prince Dolor repeated gaily the musical rhyme--but all the while tried
to hold his godmother fast.
Vain, vain!--for the moment that a knocking was heard at his door, the
sun went behind a cloud, the bright stream of dancing motes vanished,
and the little old woman with them--he knew not where.
So Prince Dolor quitted his tower--which he had entered so mournfully
and ignominiously, as a little helpless baby carried in the deaf-mute's
arms--quitted it as the great King of Nomansland.
[Illustration: "_So Prince Dolor quitted his tower ... quitted it as
the great King of Nomansland._" _Page 111._]
The only thing he took away with him was something so insignificant,
that none of the lords, gentlemen, and soldiers who escorted him with
such triumphant splendour, could possibly notice it--a tiny bundle,
which he had found lying on the floor just where the bridge of sunbeams
had rested. At once he had pounced upon it, and thrust it secretly into
his bosom, where it dwindled into such small proportions, that it might
have been taken for a mere chest-comforter--a bit of flannel--or an old
pocket-handkerchief!
It was his travelling-cloak.