Did Prince Dolor become a great king? Was he, though little more than
a boy, "the father of his people," as all kings ought to be? Did his
reign last long--long and happy?--and what were the principal events of
it, as chronicled in the history of Nomansland?
Why, if I were to answer all these questions, I should have to write
another book. And I'm tired, children, tired--as grown-up people
sometimes are; though not always with play. (Besides, I have a small
person belonging to me, who, though she likes extremely to listen to
the word-of-mouth story of this book, grumbles much at the writing of
it, and has run about the house clapping her hands with joy when mamma
told her that it was nearly finished. But that is neither here nor
there.)
I have related, as well as I could, the history of Prince Dolor, but
with the history of Nomansland I am as yet unacquainted. If anybody
knows it, perhaps he or she will kindly write it all down in another
book. But mine is done.
However, of this I am sure, that Prince Dolor made an excellent king.
Nobody ever does anything less well, not even the commonest duty of
common daily life, for having such a godmother as the little old woman
clothed in grey, whose name is--well, I leave you to guess. Nor, I
think, is anybody less good, less capable of both work and enjoyment
in after life, for having been a little unhappy in his youth, as the
Prince had been.
I cannot take upon myself to say that he was always happy now--who
is?--or that he had no cares; just show me the person who is quite free
from them! But, whenever people worried and bothered him--as they did
sometimes, with state etiquette, state squabbles, and the like, setting
up themselves and pulling down their neighbours--he would take refuge
in that upper room which looked out on the Beautiful Mountains and,
laying his head on his godmother's shoulder, become calmed and at rest.
Also, she helped him out of any difficulty which now and then
occurred--for there never was such a wise old woman. When the people of
Nomansland raised the alarm--as sometimes they did--for what people can
exist without a little fault-finding?--and began to cry out, "Unhappy
is the nation whose king is a child," she would say to him gently,
"You are a child. Accept the fact. Be humble--be teachable. Lean upon
the wisdom of others till you have gained your own."
He did so. He learned how to take advice before attempting to give it,
to obey before he could righteously command. He assembled round him all
the good and wise of his kingdom--laid all its affairs before them, and
was guided by their opinions until he had maturely formed his own.
This he did, sooner than anybody would have imagined, who did not
know of his godmother and his travelling-cloak--two secret blessings,
which, though many guessed at, nobody quite understood. Nor did they
understand why he loved so the little upper room, except that it had
been his mother's room, from the window of which, as people remembered
now, she had used to sit for hours watching the Beautiful Mountains.
Out of that window he used to fly--not very often; as he grew
older, the labours of state prevented the frequent use of his
travelling-cloak; still he did use it sometimes. Only now it was
less for his own pleasure and amusement than to see something, or
investigate something, for the good of the country. But he prized his
godmother's gift as dearly as ever. It was a comfort to him in all his
vexations; an enhancement of all his joys. It made him almost forget
his lameness--which was never cured.
However, the cruel things which had been once foreboded of him did not
happen. His misfortune was not such a heavy one after all. It proved
to be much less inconvenience, even to himself, than had been feared.
A council of eminent surgeons and mechanicians invented for him a
wonderful pair of crutches, with the help of which, though he never
walked easily or gracefully, he did manage to walk, so as to be quite
independent. And such was the love his people bore him that they never
heard the sound of his crutch on the marble palace-floors without a
leap of the heart, for they knew that good was coming to them whenever
he approached them.
Thus, though he never walked in processions, never reviewed his troops
mounted on a magnificent charger, nor did any of the things which make
a show monarch so much appreciated, he was able for all the duties and
a great many of the pleasures of his rank. When he held his levées,
not standing, but seated on a throne, ingeniously contrived to hide
his infirmity, the people thronged to greet him; when he drove out
through the city streets, shouts followed him wherever he went--every
countenance brightened as he passed, and his own, perhaps, was the
brightest of all.
[Illustration: "_When he drove out through the city streets, shouts
followed him wherever he went._" _Page 116._]
First, because, accepting his affliction as inevitable, he took it
patiently; second, because, being a brave man, he bore it bravely;
trying to forget himself, and live out of himself, and in and for other
people. Therefore other people grew to love him so well, that I think
hundreds of his subjects might have been found who were almost ready to
die for their poor lame King.
He never gave them a queen. When they implored him to choose one, he
replied that his country was his bride, and he desired no other. But,
perhaps, the real reason was that he shrank from any change; and that
no wife in all the world would have been found so perfect, so lovable,
so tender to him in all his weaknesses, as his beautiful old godmother.
His four-and-twenty other godfathers and godmothers, or as many of
them as were still alive, crowded round him as soon as he ascended the
throne. He was very civil to them all, but adopted none of the names
they had given him, keeping to the one by which he had been always
known, though it had now almost lost its meaning; for King Dolor was
one of the happiest and cheerfullest men alive.
He did a good many things, however, unlike most men and most kings,
which a little astonished his subjects. First, he pardoned the
condemned woman who had been his nurse, and ordained that from
henceforward there should be no such thing as the punishment of death
in Nomansland. All capital criminals were to be sent to perpetual
imprisonment in Hopeless Tower, and the plain round about it, where
they could do no harm to anybody, and might in time do a little good,
as the woman had done.
Another surprise he shortly afterwards gave the nation. He recalled his
uncle's family, who had fled away in terror to another country, and
restored them to all their honours in their own. By-and-by he chose
the eldest son of his eldest cousin (who had been dead a year), and
had him educated in the royal palace, as the heir to the throne. This
little prince was a quiet, unobtrusive boy, so that everybody wondered
at the King's choosing him, when there were so many more; but as he
grew into a fine young fellow, good and brave, they agreed that the
King judged more wisely than they.
"Not a lame prince neither," his Majesty observed one day, watching
him affectionately; for he was the best runner, the highest leaper,
the keenest and most active sportsman in the country. "One cannot make
oneself, but one can sometimes help a little in the making of somebody
else. It is well."
This was said, not to any of his great lords and ladies, but to a good
old woman--his first homely nurse--whom he had sought for far and
wide, and at last found, in her cottage among the Beautiful Mountains.
He sent for her to visit him once a year, and treated her with great
honour until she died. He was equally kind, though somewhat less
tender, to his other nurse, who, after receiving her pardon, returned
to her native town and grew into a great lady, and I hope a good one.
But as she was so grand a personage now, any little faults she had did
not show.
[Illustration: "_But as she was so grand a personage now, any little
faults she had did not show._" _Page 118.
Thus King Dolor's reign passed, year after year, long and prosperous.
Whether he was happy--"as happy as a king"--is a question no human
being can decide. But I think he was, because he had the power of
making everybody about him happy, and did it too; also because he was
his godmother's godson, and could shut himself up with her whenever he
liked, in that quiet little room, in view of the Beautiful Mountains,
which nobody else ever saw or cared to see. They were too far off,
and the city lay so low. But there they were, all the time. No change
ever came to them; and I think, at any day throughout his long reign,
the King would sooner have lost his crown than have lost sight of the
Beautiful Mountains.
In course of time, when the little prince, his cousin, was grown into
a tall young man, capable of all the duties of a man, his Majesty did
one of the most extraordinary acts ever known in a sovereign beloved by
his people and prosperous in his reign. He announced that he wished to
invest his heir with the royal purple--at any rate, for a time--while
he himself went away on a distant journey, whither he had long desired
to go.
Everybody marvelled, but nobody opposed him. Who could oppose the
good King, who was not a young king now? And, besides, the nation had
a great admiration for the young Regent--and, possibly, a lurking
pleasure in change.
So there was fixed a day, when all the people whom it would hold,
assembled in the great square of the capital, to see the young Prince
installed solemnly in his new duties, and undertaking his new vows.
He was a very fine young fellow; tall and straight as a poplar tree,
with a frank handsome face--a great deal handsomer than the King, some
people said, but others thought differently. However, as his Majesty
sat on his throne, with his grey hair falling from underneath his
crown, and a few wrinkles showing in spite of his smile, there was
something about his countenance which made his people, even while they
shouted, regard him with a tenderness mixed with awe.
[Illustration: "_All the people ... assembled to see the young Prince
installed solemnly in his new duties and undertaking his new vows._"
_Page 119._]
He lifted up his thin, slender hand, and there came a silence over the
vast crowd immediately. Then he spoke, in his own accustomed way, using
no grand words, but saying what he had to say in the simplest fashion,
though with a clearness that struck their ears like the first song of a
bird in the dusk of the morning.
"My people, I am tired: I want to rest. I have had a long reign, and
done much work--at least, as much as I was able to do. Many might have
done it better than I--but none with a better will. Now I leave it to
others. I am tired, very tired. Let me go home."
There rose a murmur--of content or discontent none could well tell;
then it died down again, and the assembly listened silently once more.
"I am not anxious about you--my people--my children," continued the
king. "You are prosperous and at peace. I leave you in good hands. The
Prince Regent will be a fitter king for you than I."
"No, no, no!" rose the universal shout--and those who had sometimes
found fault with him shouted louder than anybody. But he seemed as if
he heard them not.
"Yes, yes," said he, as soon as the tumult had a little subsided; and
his voice sounded firm and clear; and some very old people, who boasted
of having seen him as a child, declared that his face took a sudden
change, and grew as young and sweet as that of the little Prince Dolor.
"Yes, I must go. It is time for me to go. Remember me sometimes, my
people, for I have loved you well. And I am going a long way, and I do
not think I shall come back any more."
He drew a little bundle out of his breast pocket--a bundle that nobody
had ever seen before. It was small and shabby-looking, and tied up
with many knots, which untied themselves in an instant. With a joyful
countenance, he muttered over it a few half-intelligible words. Then,
so suddenly that even those nearest to his Majesty could not tell
how it came about, the King was away--away--floating right up in the
air--upon something, they knew not what, except that it appeared to be
as safe and pleasant as the wings of a bird.
And after him sprang a bird--a dear little lark, rising from whence
no one could say, since larks do not usually build their nests in the
pavement of city squares. But there it was, a real lark, singing far
over their heads, louder and clearer, and more joyful, as it vanished
further into the blue sky.
Shading their eyes, and straining their ears, the astonished people
stood, until the whole vision disappeared like a speck in the
clouds--the rosy clouds that overhung the Beautiful Mountains.
Then they guessed that they should see their beloved king no more.
Well-beloved as he was, he had always been somewhat of a mystery to
them, and such he remained. But they went home, and, accepting their
new monarch, obeyed him faithfully for his cousin's sake.
King Dolor was never again beheld or heard of in his own country. But
the good he had done there lasted for years and years; he was long
missed and deeply mourned--at least, so far as anybody could mourn one
who was gone on such a happy journey.
Whither he went, or who went with him, it is impossible to say. But I
myself believe that his godmother took him, on his travelling-cloak, to
the Beautiful Mountains. What he did there, or where he is now, who can
tell? I cannot. But one thing I am quite sure of, that, wherever he is,
he is perfectly happy.
And so, when I think of him, am I.
THE END.
[Illustration: STORY OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE]
The author of this little book, Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, was a woman
as modest, sweet, and wholesome as the story itself. She lived in
England, but her writings endeared her to people all over the world.
Some American ladies who went to call upon her in her home, Wildwood
Cottage, in Hampstead, near London, describe her as wearing a black
silk gown with a plain linen collar, her brown hair drawn smoothly back
from an open brow, and her face, gracious and winning to an unusual
degree, bearing the look of one who had tasted of sorrow. This was when
she was already a well-known writer, having won her place in literature
by hard and faithful work; but probably she did not dream, even then,
that she would come to be recognized as, next to Dickens, the most
widely-read novelist of her time.
She was born April 20, 1826, at Stoke-upon-Trent, one of the chief
manufacturing towns of Staffordshire, England. Staffordshire is the
central county of England, and has many curious and interesting
features. It forms the sloping base of a long chain of hills, where in
countless ages the sea, sometimes covering the land and again driven
away from it by the upheaval of a great body of earth and stone, has
worn down the grit and limestone rock into clay. Did you know that all
clay was mud made by the washing away of rocks? Just think how many
hundreds of years it took to make the little ball of clay you model
with!
Well, the people who lived in this country found out, eighteen hundred
years ago, that they could mould their clay into pots and basins, even
if they could not make things grow in it; so they dug up the clay,
shaped it with their hands, and baked it in the sun, making jars,
bowls, and other useful things which they sold to farmers in exchange
for food.
About that time there came marching over the thickly wooded land,
companies of Roman soldiers, who took all the clay bowls they wanted
for their own use, and showed the potters how to make better ones.
They also compelled them to make floors, roofs, and wall ornaments of
clay baked in very hot ovens, called kilns. Much of this old Roman
pottery was, of course, broken and lost, but still, if you should ever
go there, you would find pieces of it in the banks of the little rivers
and brooks near the clay pits, pieces more than a thousand years old.
Because it is so full of clay--dark blue clay, and red and yellow
ochres, used for coloring and painting, as well as red and black
chalk--the country seems to have been made for potteries. Besides this,
there used always to be plenty of wood to keep the kilns hot, for a
great forest covered nearly all the land. This was a continuation
of the Forest of Arden, about which you will read some day, as well
as about Sherwood Forest, which sheltered Robin Hood and his merry
men.--Have you heard about them yet?--Later, when better fuel was
needed, two great coal fields were discovered underlying the county,
one of them twenty miles long by two broad. Here, then, where all was
so perfectly prepared for his work, it was natural that the greatest
potter of modern times, and one of the greatest of all times, should be
born--Josiah Wedgwood, who lived for many years in the very town where
Mrs. Craik was born. He not only loved to make dishes and jars of all
kinds as perfect as possible, but while shut in with a long illness he
studied the chemistry and the arithmetic needed in his trade. In years
of hard labor and close study he so mastered his trade that he made it
both a science and an art. He, more than any other, turned the county
into one of the busiest places in the world, where thousands of men
work from morning till night to supply the whole world with every sort
of thing that can be made out of clay. Perhaps on the bottom of your
plates at home you may find printed the words "Staffordshire, England."
Before Wedgwood's time--in 1653, to be accurate--Stoke-upon-Trent was
a small group of thatched houses and two pot-works, gathered around
the ancient parish church. In 1762, thirty-two years after Wedgwood's
birth, it had a population of 8,000, of whom 7,000 were employed, in
one way or another, in the pottery trade. The whole country-side is
now black with smoke from the many factories. At one time, when the
potters used salt to glaze their ware--that is, to put a bright polish
on it--they used to open up their huge ovens every Saturday morning,
between the hours of eight and twelve, and cast in salt. It would then
melt, and run over the surface of the clay jugs and things inside, and
leave a smooth, shining surface. If you let some salt and water, very
strong of salt, boil over an old crock of your mother's, when the fire
is making the stove red-hot, you will see how it works. Indeed, it was
through an accidental boiling-over of this sort that salt-glaze was
discovered. On Saturdays, when the salt was cast into the kilns, it
made great clouds of smoke and vapor, filling streets and houses, and
spreading far out into the country, so heavy that travelers to town
lost their way, and persons in the street ran against each other.
Here lived, and preached, and argued, and laid down the law, a
brilliant, enthusiastic Irishman, named Thomas Mulock, the father of
the woman who wrote this book. He was a minister, but one who did
not agree with any of the other ministers around him. He had a warm,
eager nature, and a temper to match, and as the second of twenty-two
children must have exercised from his early childhood all that power
of domineering which made Lord Byron nickname him "Muley Mulock." By
this name he was known over half of Europe, but for all that he was
much loved and admired, and moved in the same circle as Byron, Scott,
Southey, and Wordsworth. From him, Mrs. Craik undoubtedly inherited her
gifts as a writer.
Her mother was a daughter of Mr. Mellard, a tanner and a member of the
Reverend Thomas Mulock's congregation. She was one of three sisters
who used to talk with the young minister over the wall that separated
their gardens. There is a legend that he went all in white to the
wedding, his shoes being of white satin; but this is very likely only a
picturesque bit of gossip, kept alive by the fact that Mr. Mulock was
quite romantic enough and independent enough to have done such a thing
if it had happened to strike his fancy. His wife was a frail little
woman, and the troubles which soon beset her husband on account of his
strong, new opinions, were hard for her to bear, as was also the way
in which he, like a hot-blooded Irishman, sure that he was right and
all the rest of the world wrong, marched straight into the thick of
any theological fight that might be going on. Dinah, at last, although
merely an inexperienced girl, persuaded her mother to go with her to
London, to seek a little peace and quiet, leaving the father to fight
out his battles alone in the country place he found--or made--so full
of strife.
This was a tremendous responsibility for a young girl with no means to
speak of and only an ordinarily good education, such as was given to
young ladies in the girls' schools of those days. At school she seems
to have been a great favorite, and is described as being always the
center of a bevy of girls, who hung round her lovingly, and for whom
she prophesied the most wonderful things. She was always sure they had
great abilities, but seemed to be quite unconscious that she herself
was the most gifted of them all, and would be remembered when they were
forgotten.
Even after she came to London, she made friends among other girls, and
in spite of her unceasing and exacting work, seems always to have had
time to enjoy them and make them enjoy her. She was only twenty years
old when, in 1846, she went to London, and undertook the main support
of her mother and the two young brothers who soon joined them. She did
everything her pen could find to do, writing stories for fashion books
and other periodicals, and had the satisfaction, finally, of knowing
that she had succeeded in caring for her aged mother to the end of her
life.
Of the two brothers, the elder, Thomas, Jr., true son of his father,
took part in some act of rebellion while studying at the
Royal Academy. His father sided with the principals of the school
and approved of the son's being expelled, his own heart aching, most
probably, while he did what he thought was his duty. The son's heart,
in turn, was sore at what he must have thought unloving conduct on the
father's part. At any rate, he decided soon after to go to Australia,
and, as he was about to board the ship, fell off the quay and was
killed.
This was a heavy blow to the brave young sister, now left with only the
younger brother. He was a musician and a photographer of no mean rank
at a time when few persons thought of photography as an art. Though he
never proved a support to her, always leaning on her motherly care and
getting himself into many scrapes from which she had to pull him out he
was nevertheless the joy of his sister's life.
In London Miss Mulock made friends whose assistance, later, was worth
a great deal to her. She had published, in 1849, her first novel,
_The Ogilvies_, which brought her recognition, and made men and women
of real power in the world of letters seek her out. When they knew
her personally, her simple cordiality, friendliness, and, above all,
her thorough goodness of heart, made them her warm friends. When she
found herself able to take a cottage--the "Wildwood Cottage" already
spoken of--she quickly gathered around her some of the brightest and
best people in the great city. From that time on, her books came out
steadily and in great numbers. In all, she wrote forty-six works,
including many novels, some essays, and two or three volumes of poetry.
The greatest of her novels is _John Halifax, Gentleman_, considered
by many the best story of English middle-class life ever written. This
novel was translated into French, German, Italian, Greek, and Russian,
and is still one of the most frequently called for books in the public
libraries. Her poems, _Douglas, Douglas, Tender and True_, and _Philip
My King_, are known wherever English is spoken.
There is an interesting story connected with the latter poem. Philip
Bourke Marston, the boy to whom it refers, was the son of one of Miss
Mulock's London friends, Westland Marston, a famous dramatic poet and
critic. When his little son was born, August 13, 1850, he asked Miss
Mulock to be Philip's godmother, and traces of her deep affection for
the gifted child are to be found among her writings. _A Hero_ was
written for him, and it is to him, evidently, that the lovely little
poem, _A Child's Smile_, refers. The boy lost his sight when only three
years old. The cause is said to have been too much belladonna, given to
prevent scarlet fever. For many years enough sight remained to enable
him, in his own words, to see "the three boughs waving in the wind,
the pageant of sunset in the west, and the glimmer of a fire upon the
hearth." Shut in thus to the inner world of thought and feeling, Philip
indulged in an imaginative series of wonderful adventures, and in long
daydreams excited by music. Perhaps his blindness, coupled with his
vivid imagination, is the reason why the beautiful poems he wrote when
he grew older show such a wonderfully vivid power of portraying nature.
When he saw a tree-bough waving in the wind, he saw it only dimly with
his outward eyes, but as he sat dreaming over it afterward, it became
more real to him than any bough was likely to become to an everyday,
hearty boy who saw so many trees, with so many branches, that he hardly
noticed them at all. It must have been a great comfort to him to have
such a godmother as Miss Mulock--a real fairy godmother, who could
weave magic spells of the most interesting stories, and heal the aches
of his poor heart by sweet little poems.
It was at Wildwood Cottage that Miss Mulock formed that close
acquaintance with George Lillie Craik that finally led to her marriage
with him. Mr. Craik met with a serious railroad accident near her
house, which she promptly gave up to him, she staying with a friend
near by; in the long days of convalescence they learned to know each
other thoroughly. The marriage was singularly happy. Mr. Craik was a
man of letters as well as a publisher, and they had every taste in
common. Their life together was beautiful and full of a deep peace.
Although they had no children of their own, they had an adopted
daughter, Dorothy, and she it is for whom _The Adventures of a Brownie_
was written. It is probably because of Mrs. Craik's devotion and love
for her that the little book is so free from self-consciousness, so
evidently written wholeheartedly "as told to my child."
Mrs. Craik's death, which took place in 1887, was, like her life, full
of self-sacrificing affection and obedience to duty. She had not been
ill, beyond a few attacks of heart-trouble that no one considered
serious. By some blessed chance, on the morning of her last day on
earth, her husband took an especially loving farewell of her--so much
so that Dorothy laughed at him, and Mrs. Craik, smiling happily,
reminded her that, although they had been so long married, they were
lovers still. It was within a few weeks of Dorothy's marriage when the
sudden heart failure came, and Mrs. Craik's one wish was that she might
be permitted to live four weeks longer, so that her death might not
overshadow her daughter's wedding. She resigned even this unselfish
wish when she saw that it was not God's will.
The beauty of her character, it may be supposed, quite as much as any
peculiar merit in her writings, led Queen Victoria, who always tried
to reward uprightness of life as well as unusual skill in any art, to
bestow upon Mrs. Craik the only mark of recognition in her power. This
was a small pension, and although she often was criticised for keeping
a sum of money she did not need, while many less fortunate writers
did need it, she retained it as her right, to use as her conscience
dictated. She set it aside for struggling authors who would accept help
from the queen's bounty that they would refuse from her private funds.
Other writers may be more brilliant and more profound than Mrs. Craik,
but her tales of simple goodness bring, not only a sense of rest and
relief to the reader, but also a new desire to put goodness into his
own daily life. In all her stories Mrs. Craik makes goodness as lovely
as it really is. There are sad things in them, but the sadness is
always made sweet at last by courage and patience and kindliness.