or did, echoed his eldest son's question. "Ay lad, 'twas a rare good
dip; so crave your boon. What does my bonny boy desire?"
But the boy hesitated. What was there that a royal prince, indulged as
was he, could wish for or desire? He really could think of nothing, and
crossing quickly to his elder brother, whom, boy-fashion, he adored, he
whispered, "Ud's fish, Hal, what _do_ I want?"
Prince Henry placed his hand upon his brother's shoulder and looked
smilingly into his questioning eyes, and all within the room glanced for
a moment at the two lads standing thus.
And they were well worth looking at. Prince Henry of Wales, tall,
comely, open-faced, and well-built, a noble lad of eighteen who called
to men's minds, so "rare Ben Jonson" says, the memory of the hero of
Agincourt, that other
thunderbolt of war,
Harry the Fifth, to whom in face you are
So like, as Fate would have you so in worth;
Prince Charles, royal Duke of York, Knight of the Garter and of the
Bath, fair in face and form, an active, manly, daring boy of eleven--the
princely brothers made so fair a sight that the King, jealous and
suspicious of Prince Henry's popularity though he was, looked now upon
them both with loving eyes. But how those loving eyes would have grown
dim with tears could this fickle, selfish, yet indulgent father have
foreseen the sad and bitter fates of both his handsome boys.
But, fortunately, such foreknowledge is not for fathers or mothers,
whatever their rank or station, and King James's only thought was one of
pride in the two brave lads now whispering together in secret
confidence. And into this he speedily broke.
"Come, come, Baby Charles," he cried, "stand no more parleying, but out
and over with the boon ye crave as guerdon for your lucky plum. Ud's
fish, lad, out with it; we'd get it for ye though it did rain jeddert
staves here in Whitehall."
"So please your Grace," said the little Prince, bowing low with true
courtier-like grace and suavity, "I will, with your permission, crave my
boon as a Christmas favor at wassail time in to-morrow's revels."
And then he passed from the chamber arm-in-arm with his elder brother,
while the King, chuckling greatly over the lad's show of courtliness and
ceremony, went into a learned discussion with my lord of Montacute and
Master Sandy as to the origin of the snapdragon, which he, with his
customary assumption of deep learning, declared was "but a modern
paraphrase, my lord, of the fable which telleth how Dan Hercules did
kill the flaming dragon of Hesperia and did then, with the apple of that
famous orchard, make a fiery dish of burning apple brandy which he did
name 'snapdragon.'"
For King James VI of Scotland and I of England was, you see, something
too much of what men call a pendant.
Christmas morning rose bright and glorious. A light hoarfrost whitened
the ground and the keen December air nipped the noses as it hurried the
song-notes of the score of little waifs who, gathered beneath the
windows of the big palace, sung for the happy awaking of the young
Prince Charles their Christmas carol and their Christmas noël:
A child this day is born,
A child of great renown;
Most worthy of a sceptre.
A sceptre and a crown.
_Noël, noël, noël,
Noël, sing we may
Because the King of all Kings
Was born this blessed day._
These tidings shepherds heard
in field watching their fold,
Were by an angel unto them
At night revealed and told.
_Noël, noël, noël,
Noël sing we may
Because the King of all Kings
Was born this blessed day._
He brought unto them tidings
Of gladness and of mirth,
Which cometh to all people by
This holy infant's birth.
_Noël noël, noël,
Noël sing we may
Because the King of all Kings
Was born this blessed day._
The "blessed day" wore on. Gifts and sports filled the happy hours. In
the royal banqueting hall the Christmas dinner was royally set and
served, and King and Queen and Princes, with attendant nobles and
holiday guests, partook of the strong dishes of those old days of hearty
appetites.
"A shield of brawn with mustard, boyl'd capon, a chine of beef roasted,
a neat's tongue roasted, a pig roasted, chewets baked, goose, swan and
turkey roasted, a haunch of venison roasted, a pasty of venison, a kid
stuffed with pudding, an olive-pye, capons and dowsets, sallats and
fricases"--all these and much more, with strong beer and spiced ale to
wash the dinner down, crowned the royal board, while the great boar's
head and the Christmas pie, borne in with great parade, were placed on
the table joyously decked with holly and rosemary and bay. It was a
great ceremony--this bringing in of the boar's head. First came an
attendant, so the old record tells us,
"attyr'd in a horseman's coat with a Boares-speare in his hande; next to
him another huntsman in greene, with a bloody faulchion drawne; next to
him two pages in tafatye sarcenet, each of them with a messe of mustard;
next to whom came hee that carried the Boares-head, crosst with a greene
silk scarfe, by which hunge the empty scabbard of the faulchion which
was carried before him."
After the dinner--the boar's head having been wrestled for by some of
the royal yeomen--came the wassail or health-drinking. Then the King
said:
"And now, Baby Charles, let us hear the boon ye were to crave of us at
wassail as the guerdon for the holder of the lucky raisin in Master
Sandy's snapdragon."
And the little eleven-year-old Prince stood up before the company in all
his brave attire, glanced at his brother Prince Henry, and then facing
the King said boldly:
"I pray you, my father and my liege, grant me as the boon I ask--the
freeing of Walter Raleigh."
At this altogether startling and unlooked-for request, amazement and
consternation appeared on the faces around the royal banqueting board,
and the King put down his untasted tankard of spiced ale, while
surprise, doubt and anger quickly crossed the royal face. For Sir Walter
Raleigh, the favourite of Queen Elizabeth, the lord-proprietor and
colonizer of the American colonies, and the sworn foe to Spain, had been
now close prisoner in the Tower for more than nine years, hated and yet
dreaded by this fickle King James, who dared not put him to death for
fear of the people to whom the name and valour of Raleigh were dear.
"Hoot, chiel!" cried the King at length, spluttering wrathfully in the
broadest of his native Scotch, as was his habit when angered or
surprised. "Ye reckless fou, wha hae put ye to sic a jackanape trick?
Dinna ye ken that sic a boon is nae for a laddie like you to meddle wi'?
Wha hae put ye to't, I say?"
But ere the young Prince could reply, the stately and solemn-faced
ambassador of Spain, the Count of Gondemar, arose in the place of
honour he filled as a guest of the King.
"My Lord King," he said, "I beg your majesty to bear in memory your
pledge to my gracious master King Philip of Spain, that naught save
grave cause should lead you to liberate from just durance that arch
enemy of Spain, the Lord Raleigh."
"But you did promise me, my lord," said Prince Charles, hastily, "and
you have told me that the royal pledge is not to be lightly broken."
"Ma certie, lad," said King James, "ye maunay learn that there is nae
rule wi'out its aicciptions." And then he added, "A pledge to a boy in
play, like to ours of yester-eve, Baby Charles, is not to be kept when
matters of state conflict." Then turning to the Spanish ambassador, he
said: "Rest content, my lord count. This recreant Raleigh shall not yet
be loosed."
"But, my liege," still persisted the boy prince, "my brother Hal did
say----"
The wrath of the King burst out afresh.
"Ay, said you so? Brother Hal, indeed!" he cried. "I thought the wind
blew from that quarter," and he angrily faced his eldest son. "So,
sirrah; 'twas you that did urge this foolish boy to work your traitorous
purpose in such coward guise!"
"My liege," said Prince Henry, rising in his place, "traitor and coward
are words I may not calmly hear even from my father and my king. You
wrong me foully when you use them thus. For though I do bethink me that
the Tower is but a sorry cage in which to keep so grandly plumed a bird
as my Lord of Raleigh, I did but seek----"
"Ay, you did but seek to curry favour with the craven crowd," burst out
the now thoroughly angry King, always jealous of the popularity of this
brave young Prince of Wales. "And am I, sirrah, to be badgered and
browbeaten in my own palace by such a thriftless ne'er-do-weel as you,
ungrateful boy, who seekest to gain preference with the people in this
realm before your liege lord the King? Quit my presence, sirrah, and
that instanter, ere that I do send you to spend your Christmas where
your great-grandfather, King Henry, bade his astrologer spend his--in
the Tower, there to keep company with your fitting comrade, Raleigh, the
traitor!"
Without a word in reply to this outburst, with a son's submission, but
with a royal dignity, Prince Henry bent his head before his father's
decree and withdrew from the table, followed by the gentlemen of his
household. But ere he could reach the arrased doorway, Prince Charles
sprang to his side and cried, valiantly: "Nay then, if he goes so do I!
'Twas surely but a Christmas joke and of my own devising. Spoil not our
revel, my gracious liege and father, on this of all the year's
red-letter days, by turning my thoughtless frolic into such bitter
threatening. I did but seek to test the worth of Master Sandy's lucky
raisin by asking for as wildly great a boon as might be thought upon.
Brother Hal too, did but give me his advising in joke even as I did
seek it. None here, my royal father, would brave your sovereign
displeasure by any unknightly or unloyal scheme."
The gentle and dignified words of the young prince--for Charles Stuart,
though despicable as a king, was ever loving and loyal as a friend--were
as oil upon the troubled waters. The ruffled temper of the ambassador of
Spain--who in after years really did work Raleigh's downfall and
death--gave place to courtly bows, and the King's quick anger melted
away before the dearly loved voice of his favourite son.
"Nay, resume your place, son Hal," he said, "and you, gentlemen all,
resume your seats, I pray. I too did but jest as did Baby Charles
here--a sad young wag, I fear me, is this same young Prince."
But as, after the wassail, came the Christmas mask, in which both
Princes bore their parts, Prince Charles said to Archie Armstrong, the
King's jester:
"Faith, good Archie; now is Master Sandy's snapdragon but a false beast
withal, and his lucky raisin is but an evil fruit that pays not for the
plucking."
And wise old Archie only wagged his head and answered, "Odd zooks,
Cousin Charlie, Christmas raisins are not the only fruit that burns the
fingers in the plucking, and mayhap you too may live to know that a
mettlesome horse never stumbleth but when he is reined."
Poor "Cousin Charlie" did not then understand the full meaning of the
wise old jester's words, but he did live to learn their full intent. For
when, in after years, his people sought to curb his tyrannies with a
revolt that ended only with his death upon the scaffold, outside this
very banqueting house at Whitehall, Charles Stuart learned all too late
that a "mettlesome horse" needed sometimes to be "reined," and heard,
too late as well, the stern declaration of the Commons of England that
"no chief officer might presume for the future to contrive the enslaving
and destruction of the nation with impunity."
But though many a merry and many a happy day had the young Prince
Charles before the dark tragedy of his sad and sorry manhood, he lost
all faith in lucky raisins. Not for three years did Sir Walter
Raleigh--whom both the Princes secretly admired--obtain release from the
Tower, and ere three more years were past his head fell as a forfeit to
the stern demands of Spain. And Prince Charles often declared that
naught indeed could come from meddling with luck saving burnt fingers,
"even," he said, "as came to me that profitless night when I sought a
boon for snatching the lucky raisin from good Master Sandy's Christmas
snapdragon."
FOOTNOTE:
[V] This story was first published in _Wide Awake_, vol. 26.
XXXI
A CHRISTMAS FAIRY[W]
JOHN STRANGE WINTER
IT was getting very near to Christmas time, and all the boys at Miss
Ware's school were talking about going home for the holidays.
"I shall go to the Christmas festival," said Bertie Fellows, "and my
mother will have a party, and my Aunt will give another. Oh! I shall
have a splendid time at home."
"My Uncle Bob is going to give me a pair of skates," remarked Harry
Wadham.
"My father is going to give me a bicycle," put in George Alderson.
"Will you bring it back to school with you?" asked Harry.
"Oh! yes, if Miss Ware doesn't say no."
"Well, Tom," cried Bertie, "where are you going to spend your holidays?"
"I am going to stay here," answered Tom in a very forlorn voice.
"Here--at school--oh, dear! Why can't you go home?"
"I can't go home to India," answered Tom.
"Nobody said you could. But haven't you any relatives anywhere?"
Tom shook his head. "Only in India," he said sadly.
"Poor fellow! That's hard luck for you. I'll tell you what it is, boys,
if I couldn't go home for the holidays, especially at Christmas--I think
I would just sit down and die."
"Oh, no, you wouldn't," said Tom. "You would get ever so homesick, but
you wouldn't die. You would just get through somehow, and hope something
would happen before next year, or that some kind fairy would----"
"There are no fairies nowadays," said Bertie. "See here, Tom, I'll write
and ask my mother to invite you to go home with me for the holidays."
"Will you really?"
"Yes, I will. And if she says yes, we shall have such a splendid time.
We live in London, you know, and have lots of parties and fun."
"Perhaps she will say no?" suggested poor little Tom.
"My mother isn't the kind that says no," Bertie declared loudly.
In a few days' time a letter arrived from Bertie's mother. The boy
opened it eagerly. It said:
MY OWN DEAR BERTIE:
I am very sorry to tell you that little Alice is
ill with scarlet fever. And so you cannot come for
your holidays. I would have been glad to have you
bring your little friend with you if all had been
well here.
Your father and I have decided that the best thing
that you can do is to stay at Miss Ware's. We
shall send your Christmas to you as well as we
can.
It will not be like coming home, but I am sure you
will try to be happy, and make me feel that you
are helping me in this sad time.
Dear little Alice is very ill, very ill indeed.
Tell Tom that I am sending you a box for both of
you, with two of everything. And tell him that it
makes me so much happier to know that you will not
be alone.
YOUR OWN MOTHER.
When Bertie Fellows received this letter, which ended all his Christmas
hopes and joys, he hid his face upon his desk and sobbed aloud. The
lonely boy from India, who sat next to him, tried to comfort his friend
in every way he could think of. He patted his shoulder and whispered
many kind words to him.
At last Bertie put the letter into Tom's hands. "Read it," he sobbed.
So then Tom understood the cause of Bertie's grief. "Don't fret over
it," he said at last. "It might be worse. Why, your father and mother
might be thousands of miles away, like mine are. When Alice is better,
you will be able to go home. And it will help your mother if she thinks
you are almost as happy as if you could go now."
Soon Miss Ware came to tell Bertie how sorry she was for him.
"After all," said she, smiling down on the two boys, "it is an ill wind
that blows nobody good. Poor Tom has been expecting to spend his
holidays alone, and now he will have a friend with him. Try to look on
the bright side, Bertie, and to remember how much worse it would have
been if there had been no boy to stay with you."
"I can't help being disappointed, Miss Ware," said Bertie, his eyes
filling with tears.
"No; you would be a strange boy if you were not. But I want you to try
to think of your poor mother, and write her as cheerfully as you can."
"Yes," answered Bertie; but his heart was too full to say more.
The last day of the term came, and one by one, or two by two, the boys
went away, until only Bertie and Tom were left in the great house. It
had never seemed so large to either of them before.
"It's miserable," groaned poor Bertie, as they strolled into the
schoolroom. "Just think if we were on our way home now--how different."
"Just think if I had been left here by myself," said Tom.
"Yes," said Bertie, "but you know when one wants to go home he never
thinks of the boys that have no home to go to."
The evening passed, and the two boys went to bed. They told stories to
each other for a long time before they could go to sleep. That night
they dreamed of their homes, and felt very lonely. Yet each tried to be
brave, and so another day began.
This was the day before Christmas. Quite early in the morning came the
great box of which Bertie's mother had spoken in her letter. Then, just
as dinner had come to an end, there was a peal at the bell, and a voice
was heard asking for Tom Egerton.
Tom sprang to his feet, and flew to greet a tall, handsome lady, crying,
"Aunt Laura! Aunt Laura!"
And Laura explained that she and her husband had arrived in London only
the day before. "I was so afraid, Tom," she said, "that we should not
get here until Christmas Day was over and that you would be
disappointed. So I would not let your mother write you that we were on
our way home. You must get your things packed up at once, and go back
with me to London. Then uncle and I will give you a splendid time."
For a minute or two Tom's face shone with delight. Then he caught sight
of Bertie and turned to his aunt.
"Dear Aunt Laura," he said, "I am very sorry, but I can't go."
"Can't go? and why not?"
"Because I can't go and leave Bertie here all alone," he said stoutly.
"When I was going to be alone he wrote and asked his mother to let me go
home with him. She could not have either of us because Bertie's sister
has scarlet fever. He has to stay here, and he has never been away from
home at Christmas time before, and I can't go away and leave him by
himself, Aunt Laura."
For a minute Aunt Laura looked at the boy as if she could not believe
him. Then she caught him in her arms and kissed him.
"You dear little boy, you shall not leave him. You shall bring him
along, and we shall all enjoy ourselves together. Bertie, my boy, you
are not very old yet, but I am going to teach you a lesson as well as I
can. It is that kindness is never wasted in this world."
And so Bertie and Tom found that there was such a thing as a fairy after
all.
FOOTNOTE:
[W] Reprinted with the permission of the Henry Altemus Company.
XXXII
THE GREATEST OF THESE[X]
JOSEPH MILLS HANSON
THE outside door swung open suddenly, letting a cloud of steam into the
small, hot kitchen. Charlie Moore, a milk pail in one hand, a lantern in
the other, closed the door behind him with a bang, set the pail on the
table and stamped the snow from his feet.
"There's the milk, and I near froze gettin' it," said he, addressing his
partner, who was chopping potatoes in a pan on the stove.
"Dose vried bodadoes vas burnt," said the other, wielding his knife
vigorously.
"Are, eh? Why didn't you watch 'em instead of readin' your old
Scandinavian paper?" answered Charlie, hanging his overcoat and cap
behind the door and laying his mittens under the stove to dry. Then he
drew up a chair and with much exertion pulled off his heavy felt boots
and stood them beside his mittens.
"Why didn't you shut the gate after you came in from town? The cows got
out and went up to Roney's an' I had to chase 'em; 'tain't any joke
runnin' round after cows such a night as this." Having relieved his mind
of its grievance, Charlie sat down before the oven door, and, opening
it, laid a stick of wood along its outer edge and thrust his feet into
the hot interior, propping his heels against the stick.
"Look oud for dese har biscuits!" exclaimed his partner, anxiously.
"Oh, hang the biscuits!" was Charlie's hasty answer. "I'll watch 'em.
Why didn't you?"
"Ay tank Ay fergit hem."
"Well, you don't want to forget. A feller forgot his clothes once, an'
he got froze."
"Ay gass dose faller vas ketch in a sbring snowstorm. Vas dose biscuits
done, Sharlie?"
"You bet they are, Nels," replied Charlie, looking into the pan.
"Dan subbar vas ready. Yom on!"
Nels picked up the frying-pan and Charlie the biscuits, and set them on
the oilcloth-covered table, where a plate of butter, a jar of plum
jelly, and a coffee-pot were already standing.
Outside the frozen kitchen window the snow-covered fields and meadows
stretched, glistening and silent, away to the dark belt of timber by the
river. Along the deep-rutted road in front a belated lumber-wagon passed
slowly, the wheels crunching through the packed snow with a wavering,
incessant shriek.
The two men hitched their chairs up to the table, and without ceremony
helped themselves liberally to the steaming food. For a few moments they
seemed oblivious to everything but the demands of hunger. The potatoes
and biscuits disappeared with surprising rapidity, washed down by large
drafts of coffee. These men, labouring steadily through the short
daylight hours in the dry, cold air of the Dakota winter, were like
engines whose fires had burned low--they were taking fuel. Presently,
the first keen edge of appetite satisfied, they ate more slowly, and
Nels, straightening up with a sigh, spoke:
"Ay seen Seigert in town ta-day. Ha vants von hundred fifty fer dose
team."
"Come down, eh?" commented Charlie. "Well, they're worth that. We'd
better take 'em, Nels. We'll need 'em in the spring if we break the
north forty."
"Yas, et's a nice team," agreed Nels. "Ha vas driven ham ta-day."
"Is he haulin' corn?"
"Na; he had his kids oop gettin' Christmas bresents."
"Chris--By gracious! to-morrow's Christmas!"
Nels nodded solemnly, as one possessing superior knowledge. Charlie
became thoughtful.
"We'll come in sort of slim on it here, I reckon, Nels. Christmas ain't
right, somehow, out here. Back in Wisconsin, where I came from, there's
where you get your Christmas!" Charlie spoke with the unswerving
prejudice of mankind for the land of his birth.
"Yas, dose been right. En da ol' kontry dey havin' gret times
Christmas."
Their thoughts were all bent now upon the holiday scenes of the past. As
they finished the meal and cleared away and washed the dishes they
related incidents of their boyhood's time, compared, reiterated, and
embellished. As they talked they grew jovial, and laughed often.
"The skee broke an' you went over kerplunk, hey? Haw, haw! That reminds
me of one time in Wisconsin----"
Something of the joyous spirit of the Christmastide seemed to have
entered into this little farmhouse set in the midst of the lonely, white
fields. In the hearts of these men, moving about in their dim-lighted
room, was reëchoed the joyous murmur of the great world without: the
gayety of the throngs in city streets, where the brilliant shop-windows,
rich with holiday spoils, smile out upon the passing crowd, and the
clang of street-cars and roar of traffic mingle with the cries of
street-venders. The work finished, they drew their chairs to the stove,
and filled their pipes, still talking.
"Well, well," said Charlie, after the laugh occasioned by one of Nels'
droll stories had subsided. "It's nice to think of those old times. I'd
hate to have been one of these kids that can't have any fun, Christmas
or any other time."
"Ay gass dere ain't anybody much dot don'd have someding dis tams a
year."
"Oh, yes, there are, Nels! You bet there are!" Charlie nodded at his
partner with serious conviction. "Now, there's the Roneys," he waved his
pipe over his shoulder. "The old man told me to-night when I was up
after the cows that he's sold all the crops except what they need for
feedin'--wheat, and corn, and everything, and some hogs besides--and
ain't got hardly enough now for feed and clothes for all that family.
The rent and the lumber he had to buy to build the new barn after the
old one burnt ate up the money like fury. He kind of laughed, and said
he guessed the children wouldn't get much Christmas this year. I didn't
think about it's being so close when he told me."