Part 5

And Mary, the armourer's daughter, having admired George, went up to her maiden room, and kneeling then before the image of the Holy Virgin: "Holy Virgin," she said, "grant me a husband like this young lord."

Every one spoke in their own way of the return of George, so much so that the news flew from mouth to mouth to the ears of the Duchess, who was then walking in the orchard. Her heart beat high, and she heard all the birds in the grove sing:

Teewhit, teewhit, teewhit, Teewhit, teewhit, teewhit, George of the White Moor, Teewhit, teewhit, teewhit, Whom you brought up, Teewhit, teewhit, teewhit, Is here, here, here, here.

Freeheart respectfully approached her, and said to her:

"Your Grace, George of the White Moor, whom you thought to be dead, has returned. I am going to make a song about it."

Still the birds sang:

Teewhit, teewhit, twit, twit, Is here, here, here, Is here, here, here.

And when she saw the child coming she had brought up as a son she opened her arms and fell in a swoon.

*CHAPTER XIX*

*TELLS OF A LITTLE SATIN SLIPPER*

People were pretty certain in the Clarides that Bee had been carried off by the dwarfs. It was also the belief of the Duchess; but her dreams did not give her any exact information.

"We will find her," said George.

"We will find her," answered Freeheart.

"And we will bring her back to her mother," said George.

"And we will bring her back," answered Freeheart.

"And we will marry her," said George.

"And we will marry her," answered Freeheart.

And they inquired among the inhabitants concerning the habits of the dwarfs and the mysterious facts of Bee's capture.

This led them to question the nurse Glauce, who had been the nurse of the Duchess of the Clarides; but now Glauce was old and fed the fowls in her farmyard.

There the squire and his master found her. She was crying "Ss! ss! ss! chick! chick! chick; ss! ss! ss! ss!" and throwing grain to the chicks.

"Ss! ss! ss! chick! chick! chick! It is your Highness! Ss! ss! ss! Is it possible that you have become so big ... ss! and so handsome? Ss! ss! shoo! shoo! shoo! Do you see that big one there eating the share of the small ones? Shoo! shoo! So it is everywhere in the world, your Highness. All the good goes to the rich. The lean get leaner, while the fat get fatter. For there is no justice on this earth. What can I do for you, your Highness? You will surely each of you take a glass of ale?"

"We will take one with pleasure, Glauce, and I will kiss you because you nursed the mother of her whom I love best in the world."

"It is quite true, your Highness; my baby had its first tooth in six months and fourteen days, and on that occasion the late Duchess made me a present. It is quite true."

"Well, tell us, Glauce, what you know of the dwarfs who carried off Bee."

"Alas! your Highness, I know nothing of the dwarfs who carried her off. And how can an old woman like me know anything? I forgot the little I ever learnt long ago, and I have not even enough memory to remember where I put my spectacles. I often look for them when I have them on. Try this ale, it is nice and cool."

"Your health, Glauce; but I am told your husband knew something about Bee's carrying off."

"It is quite true, your Highness. Though he had never got any education, he knew a great many things that he learnt in inns and taverns. He never forgot anything. If he was still in this world and sitting at this table with us, he could tell you stories by the week. He told me so many and so many of all kinds that they have made a muddle inside my head, and I cannot, at this moment, make head or tail of any of them. It is quite true, your Highness."

Yes, it is quite true, and the head of the old nurse was as useless as an old cracked kettle. George and Freeheart had all the trouble in the world to get any good out of her. At last, by sifting her, they drew out a story which began in this style:

"Seven years ago, your Highness, on the very day you and Bee got into the scrape from which neither of you came back, my late husband went into the hills to sell a horse. It is quite true. He gave his beast a good feed of oats with a dash of cider in it, so that it might have a firm leg and a bright eye; he took it to the market near the hills. His corn and his cider were not lost, for it made his horse sell better. It is the same with beasts as with men; they are judged by appearances. My late husband was pleased at the good business he had done; he offered to drink with his friends, undertaking to drink fair to them. And I must tell you, your Highness, that there was not a man in the whole Clarides who could drink fairer with his friends than my husband. So much so that, on this day, after a great deal of good feeling and harmony, he came back alone in the twilight and took a wrong road, for want of finding the right one. Finding himself near a cavern, he saw as clear as it was possible in his condition and at that hour a band of little men carrying a boy or a girl on a stretcher. He ran away for fear of a mishap, for wine did not deprive him of discretion. But at some distance from the cavern, having let his pipe fall, he bent to pick it up and took hold of a little satin slipper instead. He made a remark about it which he liked to repeat when he was in a good temper. 'This is the first time,' he said to himself, 'that a pipe changes into a slipper.' Now, as this slipper was the slipper of a little girl, he thought that she who had lost it in the wood had been carried off by the dwarfs, and that it was her capture he had seen. He was just on the point of putting the slipper in his pocket when little men, covered with hoods, threw themselves upon him and gave him so many smacks on the head that he remained on the spot quite dazed."

"Glauce! Glauce!" cried George, "it is Bee's slipper! Give it me that I may kiss it a thousand times. It shall lie on my heart for ever, in a bag of scented silk, and when I die it shall be put in my coffin."

"As you please, your Highness; but where will you go to get it? The dwarfs took it back from my poor husband, and he even thought that why he had been so thoroughly beaten was because he tried to put it in his pocket to show the magistrates. He was accustomed to say on the subject when he was in a good temper..."

"Enough! Enough! Only tell me the name of the cave."

"My lord, it is called the cave of the dwarfs, and it is well called so. My late husband..."

"Glauce! not a word more! But you, Freeheart, do you know where this cave is?"

"My lord," answered Freeheart, finishing his mug of ale, "you would be quite certain I do if you knew my songs better. I have composed at least a dozen on this cave, and I have described it without forgetting the smallest sprig of moss. I venture to say, my lord, that of these twelve songs, six are really worth something. But the six others are not to be disdained. I will just sing you one or two..."

"Freeheart," cried George, "we will seize the cave of the dwarfs, and we will deliver Bee!"

"Nothing could be more certain," answered Freeheart.

*CHAPTER XX*

*IN WHICH A DANGEROUS ADVENTURE IS RELATED*

As soon as night came, and the whole castle was asleep, George and Freeheart slipped into the low hall to get arms. There, under the smoky joists, gleamed lances, swords, dirks, espadons, hunting knives, daggers, all that is required to kill man and wolf. Under each rafter, a complete suit of armour stood upright, holding itself so sternly and proudly that it seemed as if it was still filled by the soul of the brave man who had arrayed himself in it in bygone days to go on great adventures. And the glove clasped the lance in ten iron fingers, while the shield rested on the tassets of the thigh, as if to teach that prudence is necessary to courage and that the good soldier is armed for defence as well as for attack. George selected amid so ample a choice the suit of armour which the father of Bee had carried as far as the isles of Avalon and of Thule. He put it on with the help of Freeheart, and he did not forget the shield on which was blazoned proper the golden sun of the Clarides. Freeheart, on the other hand, arrayed himself in the good old steel coat of his grandfather and crowned himself with an obsolete headpiece, to which he added a kind of moth-eaten and ragged plume, feather, or brush. He made this choice for fun and to look comical; for he considered that gaiety, good at all hours, is especially useful when there are great dangers to be incurred.

Having thus armed themselves, they went off, under the moon, over the dark fields. Freeheart had tied the horses at the edge of a little wood, near the fortress gate, where they found them gnawing the bark of the bushes; these horses were very swift, and it took them less than an hour to reach, amid dancing will o' wisps and confused visions, the mountains of the dwarfs.

"Here is the cave," said Freeheart.

The lord and squire dismounted. Sword in hand, they entered the cave. Great courage was required to engage in such an adventure. But George was in love and Freeheart was faithful. And as the most delightful of poets says:

"What cannot Friendship do guided by sweet Love?"

The lord and the squire walked in the darkness for nearly an hour; then they saw a great blaze, at which they were astonished. It was one of those meteors with which we know the dwarfs illuminate their kingdom.

By the light of this subterranean brightness they saw they were at the base of an ancient castle.

"Here," said George, "is the castle which we must seize."

"Certainly," answered Freeheart, "but allow me to drink a few drops of this wine which I brought with me as a weapon, for a good wine makes a good man, and a good man makes a good spear, and a good spear makes a bad foe."

George, not seeing a living soul, roughly struck with the hilt of his sword the door of the castle. A small quavering voice made him lift his head, and he saw at one of the windows a very small old man with a long beard who asked him:

"Who are you?"

"George of the White Moor."

"And what do you want?"

"I want to take back Bee of the Clarides, whom you unjustly detain in your mole-hill, ugly moles that you are!"

The dwarf disappeared, and again George found himself alone with Freeheart, who said to him:

"My lord, I do not know if I am guilty of exaggeration when I state that in your answer to the dwarf you did not perhaps exhaust all the resources of the most persuasive eloquence."

Freeheart feared nothing, but he was old. His manners, like the top of his head, had been smoothed by time, and he did not like to see people annoyed. George, on the other hand, rushed about yelling:

"Vile earthmen, moles, badgers, dormice, ferrets, and water-rats, only open the door and I will cut all your ears off."

But hardly had he finished speaking these words when the bronze door of the castle opened of itself. No one could be seen pushing the huge leaves.

George was frightened, and yet he stepped through the mysterious door because his courage was greater than his fear. Once inside the court, he saw at all the windows, in all the galleries, on all the roofs, on all the gables, inside the lamp and even on the chimney-pots dwarfs armed with bows and cross-bows.

He heard the bronze door shut behind him, and a shower of arrows began to fall hard on his head and his shoulders. For the second time he was very frightened, and for the second time he overcame his fear.

Shield on arm, and sword in hand, he went up the stairs, when suddenly he saw, standing on the highest step, and calmly majestic, a stately dwarf, bearing the golden sceptre, the royal crown, and the purple mantle. And this dwarf he recognised to be the little man who had freed him from his glass prison. Then he threw himself at his feet and said to him in tears:

"My benefactor, is it you? Are you one of those who have taken from me Bee whom I love?"

"I am King Loc," answered the dwarf. "I have kept Bee with me to teach her the secrets of the dwarfs. Child, you have come upon my kingdom like hail on a garden of flowers. But the dwarfs, less weak than men, do not grow irritated as they do. I am too much above you in mind to feel anger at your acts, whatever they may be. Of all the advantages I have over you there is one that I will carefully keep; it is that of being just. I will send for Bee, and I will ask her if she wishes to follow you. I will do this not because you demand it, but because it is my duty."

There was a deep silence, and Bee appeared in a white dress with her fair hair loose. As soon as she saw George she ran to throw herself in his arms, and clasped with all her might the iron breast of the knight.

Then King Loc said to her:

"Bee, is it true that this is the man whom you wish to marry?"

"It is true, very true, that this is the man, little King Loc," answered Bee. "Look, little men, how I laugh and how I am happy."

And she began to cry. Her tears fell on George's cheek, and they were tears of happiness; laughter mingled with the tears and a thousand delightful words which had no sense, like those murmured by little children. She did not reflect that the sight of her happiness could sadden the heart of King Loc.

"Dearest," George said to her, "I find you again just as I wished you to be: the most beautiful and the best of beings. You love me! Heaven be thanked, you love me! But, Bee, do you not also love King Loc a little, who drew me from the glass prison where the Sylphs kept me far from you?"

Bee turned to King Loc:

"Little King Loc, you did this!" she cried: "you loved me and you freed the one who loved me and whom I loved..."

She could say no more, and she fell on her knees, her head in her hands.

All the little men, witnesses of this scene, shed tears on their crossbows. King Loc alone kept an unmoved face. Bee, discovering in him so much magnanimity and so much kindness, felt for him the love of a daughter for a father. She seized the hand of her lover and said:

"George, I love you: heaven only knows how much I love you. But how can I leave little King Loc?"

"Ha, ha! you are both prisoners of mine," cried King Loc in a terrible voice.

He put on a terrible voice by way of amusement and to play a good joke. But really he was not angry. Freeheart came to him and bent a knee to the ground.

"Sir," he said, "will your Highness be pleased to let me share the captivity of the master I serve?"

Bee, recognising him, said to him:

"It is you, my good Freeheart. I am pleased to see you again. You are wearing a very ugly feather. Tell me, have you composed any new songs?"

And King Loc took them all three off to dinner.

*CHAPTER XXI*

*IN WHICH ALL ENDS WELL*

The next day George and Freeheart dressed themselves in sumptuous clothes which the dwarfs had prepared for them, and betook themselves to the Hall of State where King Loc, in the dress of an Emperor, soon came to join them as he had promised. He was followed by his officers wearing arms, and furs of a wild magnificence, and helmets on which swan-wings waved. The dwarfs, thronging in crowds, came in by the windows, the ventilators, and the chimneys, and even crept under the seats.

King Loc got up on a stone table, at the end of which were drawn up rows of flagons, candlesticks, bowls, and cups of fine gold and of marvellous workmanship. He motioned to Bee and to George to come near, and said:

"Bee, a law of the Dwarf people requires that a stranger received within our house should be free at the end of seven full years. You have spent seven years in our midst, Bee, and I would be a bad citizen and a guilty king if I detained you longer. But before I let you go away, I wish, not having been able to marry you, to betroth you myself to the man you have chosen. I do so with joy, because I love you more than myself, and my pain, if any is left, is like a little shadow unnoticed in my happiness. Bee of the Clarides, Princess of the Dwarfs, give me your hand; and you, George of the White Moor, give me yours."

Having put the hand of George in that of Bee, King Loc turned to his people and said in a loud voice:

"Little men, my children, you are witnesses that these two here undertake mutually to marry each other on earth. Let them return there together and together bring forth deeds of courage, modesty, and faithfulness, as good gardeners tend and bring to flower roses, carnations and peonies."

At these words the dwarfs shouted loudly, and, not knowing whether they ought to lament or to rejoice, they were distracted by contrary feelings. King Loc turned again to the two betrothed, and showing them the bowls, the flagons, all the splendid plate:

"These," he said, "are the presents of the dwarfs. Take them, Bee, they will recall your little friends; they are given by them and not by me. You will know in a moment what I mean to give you."

There was a long silence. King Loc gazed with a lovely look of tenderness at Bee, whose beautiful radiant head, crowned with roses, rested on the shoulder of her betrothed.

Then he spoke again in these terms:

"Children, it is not enough to love much; you must love well. Great love is good, undoubtedly; wise love is better. May yours be as mild as it is strong; may it want nothing, not even indulgence, and may some pity be mingled with it. You are young, beautiful and good; but you are human, and, for that very reason, subject to many miseries. This is why, if some pity does not form part of the feelings you have for each other, these feelings will not be adapted to the circumstances of your common life; they will be like holiday clothes which are no protection against the wind and the rain. You only love those securely whom you love even in their weaknesses and meannesses. Mercy, forgiveness, consolation, that is love and all its science."

King Loc stopped, overcome by sweet and powerful emotions. He resumed his speech:

"Children, be happy. Keep your happiness, keep it carefully."

While he spoke, Pic, Tad, Dic, Bob, Truc, and Paw, clinging to Bee's white mantle, covered with kisses the girl's naked arms and hands. And they begged her not to leave them. Then King Loc drew from his belt a ring, the stone of which flung showers of light. It was the magic ring with which he had opened the dungeon of the Sylphs. He slipped Bee's finger through it, and said:

"Bee, receive at my hands this ring, which will allow you to enter at all times, you and your husband, the kingdom of the dwarfs. You will be received with delight and helped in every way. On the other hand, teach the children you will have not to despise the innocent and industrious little men who live under the earth."

*LOOKING BACKWARD*

[Sidenote: _Chapter I._]

Now that we know all about Princess Bee, we may find it pleasant to look backward and think a little about the story, chapter by chapter, to find out whether it has come to stay in our minds. Some stories do and others don't. We are glad to forget some stories, but I do not think that the story of Bee is one of that kind. Besides, it is told with such loving carefulness that, for the sake of the writer, who wrote that he might please and inspire us, we ought to read it again with a quiet mind, undisturbed by any thought of what is going to happen next; for now we know all about that.

It is a story of that wonder time so often spoken of as "long, long ago," and its date does not matter; but you will see from the first chapter that it belongs to the time of the knights, the best of whom tried to remedy things that were wrong and make the world a finer place in which to live.

Do you like the Countess of the White Moor? And why? How much older was George than Bee?

[Sidenote: _Chapter II._]

Read over several times the description of the estates of the Duchess of Clarides (there are three bites to _this_ cherry). It is such a good "pen-picture" and there are many more in this story for which you ought to watch with care. The old monk in the tower with his birds and his books is worth thinking about and so are his rules; so also are the rules of the Duchess. There is a good "pen-picture" with two trees and two children in it. I wonder if you could sketch it?

[Sidenote: _Chapter III._]

Do they teach falconry in your school? If not, you might at least try to find out something about it, for it was a fascinating sport--except, of course, for the little birds--much better fun than learning several styles of handwriting or getting "grammatical instruction with barbarous terminology." What a lovely jumble of big words! What about that sentence, "affectionate lessons are the only good lessons"? And whatever is "inebriety "? It must be something very dreadful. I fancy it is something catching and can most easily be caught at "Tin-jugs," and "Red Lions," and "Indian Queens," and "Bull and Bushes," and suchlike places where they know absolutely nothing about synecdoche or aposiopesis either.

[Sidenote: _Chapter IV._]

There are some lovely colours in the first bit of this chapter. Perhaps you could get someone to make a colour-sketch? And pearls _have_ a "mild splendour," haven't they, quite different from diamonds or rubies? If you are a girl wouldn't you like to have a hair-ribbon like Bee's? George and Bee were taught a beautiful lesson that morning, and learnt it, too. I wish we could all describe beautiful scenery as beautifully as the Duchess could--and, by-the-way, look carefully at the iris flower when you meet with one again. Sylphs? Have you another name for them? What a sounding title the old beggar-woman gave herself, and what a well furnished kitchen she had! Have you a pipkin and a caldron at home? What are the duties of Dwarfs?

[Sidenote: _Chapter V._]

Have you ever noticed that hills and woods are really "blue in the distance"? A great many writers have done so. What a charming definition (horrid word) Princess Bee gave of the horizon, and how differently she thought of the bigness of the world from George. Do you think they would find lobsters by fishing under the old stone bridge? (Perhaps, however, this is too severe a question for a tale about "long, long ago.") Those forbidden Sylphs were still in the children's minds, but Bee had less fear than George--or was she daring George to go? Which of the two children was the best quarreller?

[Sidenote: _Chapter VI._]

And _now_, who is the brave adventurer? There is a pretty picture of which the "Headless Woman" is the centre. Read the description again and again and look at the picture with closed eyes. There is another with Bee in the centre, holding out her skirt for the cherries. Bee's teachers had not taught her economics, had they? It would be hard to find a more charming description of a walk than is contained in this chapter. Bee is soon plunged in despair, but George is a little Greatheart and soon has his reward. Read slowly and more than once the description of the lake. The sudden appearance of the goose-girl gives us another pretty picture. What is a demijohn? How does Bee tell us that the day is waning? Consider the words "Reeds, like pliant swords," and the pretty coloured flower-picture at the end of the chapter.

[Sidenote: _Chapter VII._]