THE TRAINING OF ROYALTY
On that day began the real instruction of Prince Adalbert of
Lippe-Schweidnitz in the art of life and the graces of social
intercourse. Pollyooly continued it with unswerving firmness. Her
method of treating a Hohenzollern was indeed entirely subversive of all
current ideas on the matter of the deference due to the members of a
family which has practically made the history of Europe since the
beginning of this century. It seemed at times as if to her a
Hohenzollern was a hardly animate object which you shoved here and there
as you might an easy-chair which kept catching in the carpet, or at other
times a mere beast of burden which you shoved, or shook, or cuffed gently
into doing what you wanted with a moderate, but uncertain, degree of
precision. Often however a piercing shriek was sufficient to produce the
required action.
The prince was always in a perspiration, and often out of breath. But he
seemed to thrive on the treatment: his appetite improved; his pastiness
lessened; his skin grew clearer; and his flesh became less abundant and
harder. He also became quicker in his movements, and showed many more
glimmerings of intelligence, sometimes sustained for seconds at a time.
The baron's deferential soul could not endure the situation; and it never
occurred to him to make the enquiries which would have informed him that
Pollyooly, as a red Deeping, was of an older strain than the
Hohenzollerns. He made many efforts to withdraw the prince from her
society. He remonstrated both with her and with his little charge on the
extraordinary impropriety of their being acquainted. But they seemed to
find it entirely natural; and his efforts were vain. The prince, in
truth, followed Pollyooly about; and what he followed her about like was
a dog. He did not indeed spring to do her bidding, for he was not built
to spring; but it was plain that if he could have sprung he would.
Perhaps the most remarkable fact about him was the improvement in his
spirits: he was losing his air of gloomy savagery; often he smiled--at a
dish which took his fancy, and on setting out for the sands to join
Pollyooly. At times, when he had performed some small feat, clumsily
indeed, but not with a quite incredible clumsiness, he would turn to her
a triumphant, but appealing, eye which begged for a word, or a smile of
approval. The humane Pollyooly rarely failed to give him that word or
smile to brace him to fresh efforts. With other little girls he had come
to be civil but uninterested; and little boys he ignored.
There are minds to whom it would have occurred that there were other
seaside resorts equally healthy with Pyechurch to one of which the young
prince might be removed to save him from the social degradation of
playing with children who were neither high, nor well-born. The baron's
was not one of these minds: he was a soldier of the emperor; he had been
instructed that his young charge was to spend a month at Pyechurch; at
Pyechurch he must spend it. But he wrote a long and earnest letter to
his august master, the Grand Duke of Lippe-Schweidnitz, informing him,
with full details, of his son's unfortunate social entanglement with a
red-haired English child, and of the impossibility, in the circumstances,
of his putting an end to it. He got no answer, for the grand duke was
splendidly busy maintaining the agrarian interests of his Fatherland.
The baron therefore found himself compelled to accept the situation
gloomily. Presently he was accepting it with resignation. He found that
Pollyooly lightened his work. She relieved him of his little charge for
the greater part of the day. He could now carry a deck-chair on to the
sands, and stretched at full length in it, with a large, but not
extravagantly fragrant, cigar in his mouth, could spend the sunny hours
in the perusal of the works of the English novelists who appealed most
strongly to his idealistic Teutonic sensibilities.
Sometimes however he was disturbed in this resigned acceptance of the
situation. One afternoon he raised his head from the enthralled perusal
of "Maiden Sweet" to find that the sands were empty of his charge. He
struggled up from his chair, dropped the luscious masterpiece into it,
and hurried in search of him. Pollyooly was a good sixty yards away; and
he was breathless when he reached her. He clamoured wheezily for
information as to the whereabouts of the prince. Pollyooly told him,
indifferently enough, that he had gone to the village. The baron sought
the village at his best, but curious, toddling rush. In the middle of it
he met his young charge plodding along with an air of perfect content.
In his hand he bore a paper bag.
"Vot 'af your 'ighness been doing?" cried his richly purple preceptor.
"Bollyooly zent me to buy bebbermints," said his charge stolidly, without
stopping.
"Mein Gott!" cried the baron. "And now that she-devil-child uses you as
a lackey!"
"She wanted zem," said his charge stolidly, pursuing his way without
turning his head.
"Bud bebbermints you do not like!" cried the baron.
"Bollyooly wanted bebbermints," said the prince stolidly.
The baron said no more because there was no more to say.
He followed his charge to the beach and sought his chair; his charge
sought Pollyooly. Gloomily the baron resumed his perusal of "Maiden
Sweet." He had not read half a page when the thoughtful Pollyooly sent
the prince to offer him a peppermint. The baron refused it with the
proper cold scorn. The prince put it into his own mouth.
"Bud bebbermints you do not like!" said the baron again.
"Bollyooly says bebbermints is goot," said the prince stolidly; and he
turned on his heel.
The baron searched the far-smiling sea with wild, questioning eyes. It
offered neither explanation nor comfort.
It chanced a few days later that the Honourable John Ruffin put
Pollyooly's skilful cooking to the further test of grilling mushrooms
along with his bacon. They came from the marsh. Presently to
Pollyooly's prudent mind it seemed foolish to pay for vegetables which
might be gathered for nothing. She resolved to gather them herself; and
one afternoon with that end in view she came down to the sands, leading
the Lump, and carrying a basket, and suggested to Kathleen and others of
her young friends that they should accompany her on her quest and share
the spoil. But their nurses, fore-seeing extra work from the mud in the
marsh, would not allow them to go.
The prince, who had been waiting patiently for the arrival of Pollyooly,
while the baron slept in his deck-chair, listened to the discussion with
uncomprehending ears. It did not occur to her to invite the be-tutored
Hohenzollern to accompany her; but when she started, the prince, doubtful
of the reception of a direct offer to escort her would receive, followed
her at a distance of about thirty yards. Pollyooly was giving her
attention to the Lump, and was not aware of her follower until she had
crossed the bridge over the dyke, from the road into the marsh. There
she turned and saw him; and at the first sight of him she was minded to
send him back to his sleeping tutor. Then it occurred to her that the
company of the prince would be better than no company at all; and she
suffered him to come.
Though neither of them had any conversation, Pollyooly talked away to the
prince and the Lump, and was quite content with the grunts of assent with
which the prince punctuated her observations. But she was presently
annoyed to find that he shone no more as an assistant mushroomer than as
a conversationalist. It was not so much that he was ignorant of the
difference between mushrooms and toadstools, and equally unskilful in
discovering either, as that he often trod on the fairest members of the
group he was picking. Pollyooly therefore gave him the basket to carry
and picked the mushrooms herself. Twice he dropped it and scattered them
over the turf. She chid him but gently and carried it herself.
But destiny, which dogs the steps of princes, was leading him to a
catastrophe. The basket was large and growing heavy; but the
indefatigable Pollyooly pushed deeper into the marsh. They had crossed
several dykes safely; then they came to a plank over a small dyke, nearly
dried up. Pollyooly took every possible care to get the expedition
across safely. She carried the Lump across and then the basket of
mushrooms. Then she turned to watch the passage of the prince. The
plank was not more than ten feet long; and it was destiny which chose the
exact middle of it for the prince to fall off. He struck the dyke with a
splash which drew a cry of delight from the Lump, and sank up to his
knees in the thick mud. He burst into a terrified bellow; and Pollyooly
hurried down the steep bank to help him out. But destiny had arranged
that he should be just out of her reach; and he was too frightened to
make the effort to struggle to her helping hand.
For a while Pollyooly, for all her power of resource, was at a loss; and
the bellowing of the prince did nothing to clear her wits. Then she saw
how she could reach him. She dug her feet into the bank, hugged the
plank over the dyke with her left arm, and leaning forward, succeeded in
getting a grip of his left wrist, and began to tug. Her grip seemed to
inspirit him, for he began to struggle hard toward the bank. It was not
an easy business in the thick mud, but thanks to the purchase afforded by
the plank, Pollyooly could put most of her strength into the effort and
slowly dragged him on to the firmer mud at the edge and then on to the
bank.
Still blubbering a little, he followed Pollyooly up the bank; on the top
of it she turned and surveyed him with horrified eyes. He was wrapped
nearly up to his waist in a smooth, dripping garment of greenish mud; and
patches of it adorned the rest of him. It would have been difficult to
imagine anything more unlike a Hohenzollern in a white sailor suit; and
his face was hardly attractive enough to justify you in comparing him to
the dripping, weed-be-draped Lorelei of his native land.
"Well! You _are_ an aggravating little boy! Whatever am I to do with
you?" cried Pollyooly in a tone of despair.
The prince uttered an apologetic grunt.
"The only thing to do is to get you home as quick as I can," she said
heavily.
She carried the Lump back across the dyke, then the basket of mushrooms.
Then she led the prince across it. They took their slow way back to the
village, the prince leaving behind him a trail which would have gladdened
the heart of the last, or any other, of the Cherokees.
The Baron von Habelschwert, sleeping peacefully beside a sweet work of
genius, called "Dove Wifie," which had fallen from his hand, missed the
departure of his young charge in the wake of Pollyooly. He slept for an
hour; and when he did awake, her friends had moved a long way down the
beach. He struggled to his feet, and set out in search of the prince,
assured that he was somewhere on the sands playing with his active, but
socially impossible, protector. At first he sought him with careless
eyes, then with keener; but it was some twenty minutes before he
satisfied himself that neither his charge nor Pollyooly were on the
sands. Then he set out, in some annoyance to search the village; and
when he had drawn blank all the village shops at which sweets were sold,
he began to grow anxious and alarmed. For all his military contempt for
the English as a people soon to be subjugated, he had a deep distrust of
them. It awoke suddenly in its most violent form; and he began to
suspect that the perfidious politicians of England had stolen his
Hohenzollern.
The suspicion presently became a conviction; and he acted on it with
splendid, but unwonted, energy. In little more than ten minutes the
village was ringing with the news that the prince was lost; and the baron
was toddling furiously along at the head of a band composed of the
village children, the village idiot, some idle fishermen, and a number of
unoccupied visitors who had leapt at the chance of action. There was no
lack of theories. Every other member of the group had one of his own.
The baron himself made no secret of his belief that the prince was the
victim of a political plot, till the Honourable John Ruffin, out of mere
idle curiosity, stopped the procession to enquire its object and on
learning it proclaimed his firm conviction that the prince was neither
lost, stolen, nor strayed.
By this time the news had spread to the sands; and a nurse came hurrying
up with the information that the prince had gone into the marsh,
mushrooming with Pollyooly.
"Ach Gott! Then that little she-devil-child haf 'im drowned in a dyke!"
said the baron cheerfully.
The suggestion increased greatly the interest of his followers; and they
accompanied him into the marsh eagerly. On that expanse figures are seen
at a great distance; but the searchers had gone a long way into it before
they caught sight of the children. At some distance the figures of
Pollyooly and the Lump, and even the basket of mushrooms were plainly
recognised. But what was that strange object which moved beside them?
The baron and his band quickened their steps, Pollyooly still walked at
the leisurely gait which suited the Lump.
It was not till he was within ten yards of them that the procession and
the baron recognised his young charge. The procession began to laugh
heartily.
The baron flung his arms to heaven and cried, or, to be exact, howled:
"Vhat is it you haf done ad 'im?"
"I didn't do anything!" cried Pollyooly with indignant heat. "He did it
_himself_! He _would_ fall into the dyke! He's the most aggravating
little boy I ever knew!"
"You trow 'im into ze dyke! You id on purpose did!" cried the furious
baron.
"Bollyooly didn't," said his little charge stolidly.
"Do try and have a little sense, Baron von Habelschwert," said the
Honourable John Ruffin, smiling upon the hope of the house of
Lippe-Schweidnitz. "Pollyooly wouldn't throw any one into dykes."
"Bud look at 'im!" cried the baron. "'e will the enteric fever haf!"
"Oh, no. He didn't get any water into his mouth," said Pollyooly
quickly. "I made him open it and looked, because Mr. Ruffin told me the
marsh water gave people fever. It's only mud on his clothes."
"Moodd! Onlie moodd!" howled the baron. "His cloze, zey are spoiled!
Ze cloze of the bezd dailor of Schweidnitz!"
That was a misfortune which appealed deeply to Pollyooly. She looked at
the spoiled suit of the prince very sadly, and said generously:
"Well, I'll give him half of the mushrooms--though really he didn't
gather them; and I had to carry the basket."
"Mooshrooms!" howled the baron. "Vhat is mooshrooms wiz cloze? Zeze
English, zey are all mad!"
In his emotion the baron had not kept his usual wary watch on his young
charge, and so failed to observe the light of battle gather and gleam in
his eyes. But as he finished the prince sprang at him, cried angrily:
"Bollyooly isn't!" and kicked him on the shin.
The kick was stiff and lacked its usual snap; but it was sufficiently
vigorous to dislodge a good deal of the mud from the once white
trouser-leg and bespatter the legs of the baron, who uttered a short howl
and bent like a bow, holding off his little charge, and gazing wildly
round the marsh. This time Pollyooly did not come to his aid; she gazed
at him with a cold eye.
"It serves you right--talking like that about people when they try to
make up," she said coldly.
The prince, encouraged by this quite unexpected approval, made another
fine effort to plant a second kick of remonstrance on the shin of his
preceptor. His foot missed it; but plenty of mud hit it.
"That's enough, Adalbert. Stop it!" said the magnanimous Pollyooly
sharply.
Adalbert stopped it.
The baron ground his teeth at this new familiarity; but was glad to be
loosed by his admonished charge; and the procession took its triumphant
way back to the village.
The prince's valet was a long while cleaning him; but directly after his
tea he was out on the sands again, seeking Pollyooly.