The Victorian Fairy Tale Book (The Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library)

by Michael Patrick Hearn (Editor)

  She sat down, considering whether her oath, never to “say a word” to Prince Dolor about himself, would be broken if she were to take a pencil and write what was to be told. A mere quibble—a mean, miserable quibble. But then she was a miserable woman, more to be pitied than scorned.

  After long doubt, and with great trepidation, she put her fingers to her lips, and taking the Prince’s slate—with the sponge tied to it, ready to rub out the writing in a minute—she wrote:

  “You are a king.”

  Prince Dolor started. His face grew pale, and then flushed all over; he held himself erect. Lame as he was, anybody could see he was born to be a king.

  “Hush!” said the nurse, as he was beginning to speak. And then, terribly frightened all the while—people who have done wrong always are frightened—she wrote down in a few hurried sentences his history. How his parents had died—his uncle had usurped his throne, and sent him to end his days in this lonely tower.

  “I, too,” added she, bursting into tears. “Unless, indeed, you could get out into the world, and fight for your rights like a man. And fight for me also, my Prince, that I may not die in this desolate place.”

  “Poor old nurse!” said the boy compassionately. For somehow, boy as he was, when he heard he was born to be a king, he felt like a man—like a king—who could afford to be tender because he was strong.

  He scarcely slept that night, and even though he heard his little lark singing in the sunrise, he barely listened to it. Things more serious and important had taken possession of his mind.

  “Suppose,” thought he, “I were to do as she says, and go out in the world, no matter how it hurts me—the world of people, active people, as active as that boy I saw. They might only laugh at me—poor helpless creature that I am. But still I might show them I could do something. At any rate, I might go and see if there were anything for me to do. Godmother, help me!”

  It was so long since he had asked her help that he was hardly surprised when he got no answer—only the little lark outside the window sang louder and louder, and the sun rose, flooding the room with light.

  Prince Dolor sprang out of bed, and began dressing himself, which was hard work, for he was not used to it—he had always been accustomed to depend upon his nurse for everything.

  “But I must now learn to be independent,” thought he. “Fancy a king being dressed like a baby!”

  So he did the best he could—awkwardly but cheerily—and then he leaped to the corner where lay his travelling-cloak, untied it as before, and watched it unrolling itself—which it did rapidly, with a hearty good-will, as if quite tired of idleness. So was Prince Dolor—or felt as if he were. He jumped into the middle of it, said his charm, and was out through the skylight immediately.

  “Good-bye, pretty lark!” he shouted, as he passed it on the wing, still warbling its carol to the newly-risen sun. “You have been my pleasure, my delight; now I must go and work. Sing to old nurse till I come back again. Perhaps shell hear you—perhaps she won’t—but it will do her good all the same. Good-bye!”

  But, as the cloak hung irresolute in air, he suddenly remembered that he had not determined where to go—indeed, he did not know, and there was nobody to tell him.

  “Godmother,” he cried, in much perplexity, “you know what I want—at least, I hope you do, for I hardly do myself—take me where I ought to go. Show me whatever I ought to see—never mind what I like to see,” as a sudden idea came into his mind that he might see many painful and disagreeable things. But this journey was not for pleasure—as before. He was not a baby now, to do nothing but play—big boys do not always play. Nor men neither—they work. Thus much Prince Dolor knew—though very little more.

  As the cloak started off, travelling faster than he had ever known it to do—through sky-land and cloud-land, over freezing mountain-tops, and desolate stretches of forest, and smiling cultivated plains, and great lakes that seemed to him almost as shoreless as the sea—he was often rather frightened. But he crouched down, silent and quiet; what was the use of making a fuss? And, wrapping himself up in his bearskin, he waited for what was to happen.

  After some time he heard a murmur in the distance, increasing more and more till it grew like the hum of a gigantic hive of bees. And, stretching his chin over the rim of his cloak, Prince Dolor saw—far, far below him, yet, with his gold spectacles and silver ears on, he could distinctly hear and see—what?

  Most of us have some time or other visited a great metropolis—have wandered through its network of streets—lost ourselves in its crowds of people—looked up at its tall rows of houses, its grand public buildings, churches, and squares. Also, perhaps, we have peeped into its miserable little back-alleys, where dirty children play in gutters all day and half the night—where even young boys go about picking pockets, with nobody to tell them it is wrong except the policeman, and he simply takes them off to prison. And all this wretchedness is close behind the grandeur—like the two sides of the leaf of a book.

  An awful sight is a large city, seen anyhow, from anywhere. But, suppose you were to see it from the upper air, where, with your eyes and ears open, you could take in everything at once? What would it look like? How would you feel about it? I hardly know myself. Do you?

  Prince Dolor had need to be a king—that is, a boy with a kingly nature—to be able to stand such a sight without being utterly overcome. But he was very much bewildered—as bewildered as a blind person who is suddenly made to see.

  He gazed down on the city below him, and then put his hand over his eyes.

  “I can’t bear to look at it, it is so beautiful—so dreadful. And I don’t understand it—not one bit. There is nobody to tell me about it. I wish I had somebody to speak to.”

  “Do you? Then pray speak to me. I was always considered good at conversation.”

  The voice that squeaked out this reply was an excellent imitation of the human one, though it came only from a bird. No lark this time, however, but a great black-and-white creature that flew into the cloak, and began walking round and round on the edge of it with a dignified stride, one foot before the other, like any unfeathered biped you could name.

  “I haven’t the honour of your acquaintance, sir,” said the boy politely.

  “Ma’am, if you please. I am a mother-bird, and my name is Mag, and I shall be happy to tell you everything you want to know. For I know a great deal; and I enjoy talking. My family is of great antiquity. We have built in this palace for hundreds—that is to say, dozens of years. I am intimately acquainted with the King, the Queen, and the little Princes and Princesses—also the maids of honour, and all the inhabitants of the city. I talk a good deal, but I always talk sense, and I dare say I should be exceedingly useful to a poor little ignorant boy like you.”

  “I am a prince,” said the other gently.

  “All right. And I am a magpie. You will find me a most respectable bird.”

  “I have no doubt of it,” was the polite answer—though he thought in his own mind that Mag must have a very good opinion of herself. But she was a lady and a stranger, so of course he was civil to her.

  She settled herself at his elbow, and began to chatter away, pointing out with one skinny claw, while she balanced herself on the other, every object of interest, evidently believing, as no doubt all its inhabitants did, that there was no capital in the world like the great metropolis of Nomansland.

  I have not seen it, and therefore cannot describe it, so we will just take it upon trust, and suppose it to be, like every other fine city, the finest city that ever was built. Mag said so—and of course she knew.

  Nevertheless, there were a few things in it which surprised Prince Dolor—and, as he had said, he could not understand them at all. One half the people seemed so happy and busy—hurrying up and down the full streets, or driving lazily along the parks in their grand carriages, while the other half were so wretched and miserable.

  “Can’t the world be made a little more equal? I woul
d try to do it if I were a king.”

  “But you’re not the King: only a little goose of a boy,” returned the magpie loftily. “And I’m here not to explain things, only to show them. Shall I show you the royal palace?”

  It was a very magnificent palace. It had terraces and gardens, battlements and towers. It extended over acres of ground, and had in it rooms enough to accommodate half the city. Its windows looked in all directions, but none of them had any particular view—except a small one, high up towards the roof, which looked out on the Beautiful Mountains. But since the Queen died there it had been closed, boarded up, indeed, the magpie said. It was so little and inconvenient that nobody cared to live in it. Besides, the lower apartments, which had no view, were magnificent—worthy of being inhabited by the King.

  “I should like to see the King,” said Prince Dolor.

  VIII

  What, I wonder, would be most people’s idea of a king? What was Prince Dolor’s?

  Perhaps a very splendid personage, with a crown on his head and a sceptre in his hand, sitting on a throne and judging the people. Always doing right, and never wrong—“The king can do no wrong” was a law laid down in olden times. Never cross, or tired, or sick, or suffering; perfectly handsome and well-dressed, calm and good-tempered, ready to see and hear everybody, and discourteous to nobody; all things always going well with him, and nothing unpleasant ever happening.

  This, probably, was what Prince Dolor expected to see. And what did he see? But I must tell you how he saw it.

  “Ah,” said the magpie, “no levée to-day. The King is ill, though his Majesty does not wish it to be generally known—it would be so very inconvenient. He can’t see you, but perhaps you might like to go and take a look at him in a way I often do? It is so very amusing.”

  Amusing, indeed!

  The Prince was just now too much excited to talk much. Was he not going to see the King his uncle, who had succeeded his father and dethroned himself; had stepped into all the pleasant things that he, Prince Dolor, ought to have had, and shut him up in a desolate tower? What was he like, this great, bad, clever man? Had he got all the things he wanted, which another ought to have had? And did he enjoy them?

  “Nobody knows,” answered the magpie, just as if she had been sitting inside the Prince’s heart, instead of on the top of his shoulder. “He is a king, and that’s enough. For the rest, nobody knows.”

  As she spoke, Mag flew down on to the palace roof, where the cloak had rested, settling down between the great stacks of chimneys as comfortably as if on the ground. She pecked at the tiles with her beak—truly she was a wonderful bird—and immediately a little hole opened, a sort of door, through which could be seen distinctly the chamber below.

  “Now look in, my Prince. Make haste, for I must soon shut it up again.”

  But the boy hesitated. “Isn’t it rude?—won’t they think us intruding?”

  “Oh, dear, no! There’s a hole like this in every palace; dozens of holes, indeed. Everybody knows it, but nobody speaks of it. Intrusion! Why, though the royal family are supposed to live shut up behind stone walls ever so thick, all the world knows that they live in a glass house where everybody can see them and throw a stone at them. Now pop down on your knees, and take a peep at his Majesty!”

  His Majesty!

  The Prince gazed eagerly down into the large room, the largest room he had ever beheld, with furniture and hangings grander than anything he could have ever imagined. A stray sunbeam, coming through a crevice of the darkened windows, struck across the carpet, and it was the loveliest carpet ever woven—just like a bed of flowers to walk over; only nobody walked over it, the room being perfectly empty and silent.

  “Where is the King?” asked the puzzled boy.

  “There,” said Mag, pointing with one wrinkled claw to a magnificent bed, large enough to contain six people. In the centre of it, just visible under the silken counterpane—quite straight and still, with its head on the lace pillow—lay a small figure, something like waxwork, fast asleep—very fast asleep! There were a number of sparkling rings on the tiny yellow hands, that were curled a little, helplessly, like a baby’s, outside the coverlet. The eyes were shut, the nose looked sharp and thin, and the long grey beard hid the mouth and lay over the breast. A sight not ugly nor frightening, only solemn and quiet. And so very silent—two little flies buzzing about the curtains of the bed being the only audible sound.

  “Is that the King?” whispered Prince Dolor.

  “Yes,” replied the bird.

  He had been angry—furiously angry—ever since he knew how his uncle had taken the crown, and sent him, a poor little helpless child, to be shut up for life, just as if he had been dead. Many times the boy had felt as if, king as he was, he should like to strike him, this great, strong, wicked man.

  Why, you might as well have struck a baby! How helpless he lay, with his eyes shut, and his idle hands folded: they had no more work to do, bad or good.

  “What is the matter with him?” asked the Prince.

  “He is dead,” said the magpie, with a croak.

  No, there was not the least use in being angry with him now. On the contrary, the Prince felt almost sorry for him, except that he looked so peaceful with all his cares at rest. And this was being dead? So even kings died?

  “Well, well, he hadn’t an easy life, folk say, for all his grandeur. Perhaps he is glad it is over. Good-bye, your Majesty.”

  With another cheerful tap of her beak, Mistress Mag shut down the little door in the tiles, and Prince Dolor’s first and last sight of his uncle was ended.

  He sat in the centre of his travelling-cloak, silent and thoughtful.

  “What shall we do now?” said the magpie. “There’s nothing much more to be done with his Majesty, except a fine funeral, which I shall certainly go and see. All the world will. He interested the world exceedingly when he was alive, and he ought to do it now he’s dead—just once more. And since he can’t hear me, I may as well say that, on the whole, his Majesty is much better dead than alive—if we can only get somebody in his place. There’ll be such a row in the city presently. Suppose we float up again and see it all—at a safe distance, though. It will be such fun!”

  “What will be fun?”

  “A revolution.”

  Whether anybody except a magpie would have called it “fun” I don’t know, but it certainly was a remarkable scene.

  As soon as the cathedral bell began to toll and the minute guns to fire, announcing to the kingdom that it was without a king, the people gathered in crowds, stopping at street-corners to talk together. The murmur now and then rose into a shout, and the shout into a roar. When Prince Dolor, quietly floating in upper air, caught the sound of their different and opposite cries, it seemed to him as if the whole city had gone mad together.

  “Long live the King!” “The King is dead—down with the King!” “Down with the crown, and the King too!” “Hurrah for the republic!” “Hurrah for no government at all!”

  Such were the shouts which travelled up to the travelling-cloak. And then began—oh, what a scene!

  When you children are grown men and women—or before—you will hear and read in books about what are called revolutions—earnestly I trust that neither I nor you may ever see one. But they have happened, and may happen again, in other countries besides Nomansland, when wicked kings have helped to make their people wicked too, or out of an unrighteous nation have sprung rulers equally bad; or, without either of these causes, when a restless country has fancied any change better than no change at all.

  For me, I don’t like changes, unless I am pretty sure that they are for good. And how good can come out of absolute evil—the horrible evil that went on this night under Prince Dolor’s very eyes—soldiers shooting down people by hundreds in the streets, scaffolds erected, and heads dropping off—houses burnt, and women and children murdered—this is more than I can understand.

  But all these things you will find in his
tory, my children, and must by-and-by judge for yourselves the right and wrong of them, as far as anybody ever can judge.

  Prince Dolor saw it all. Things happened so fast one after another that they quite confused his faculties.

  “Oh, let me go home,” he cried at last, stopping his ears and shutting his eyes; “only let me go home!” For even his lonely tower seemed home, and its dreariness and silence absolute paradise after all this.

  “Good-bye, then,” said the magpie, flapping her wings. She had been chatting incessantly all day and all night, for it was actually thus long that Prince Dolor had been hovering over the city, neither eating nor sleeping, with all these terrible things happening under his very eyes. “You’ve had enough, I suppose, of seeing the world?”

  “Oh, I have—I have!” cried the Prince, with a shudder.

  “That is, till next time. All right, your Royal Highness. You don’t know me, but I know you. We may meet again sometime.”

  She looked at him with her clear, piercing eyes, sharp enough to see through everything, and it seemed as if they changed from bird’s eyes to human eyes—the very eyes of his godmother, whom he had not seen for ever so long. But the minute afterwards she became only a bird, and with a screech and a chatter, spread her wings and flew away.

  Prince Dolor fell into a kind of swoon of utter misery, bewilderment, and exhaustion, and when he awoke he found himself in his own room—alone and quiet—with the dawn just breaking, and the long rim of yellow light in the horizon glimmering through the window-panes.

  IX