Part 8

And Ned sets out on his first begging expedition, which proves so successful that in a few hours the tumble-down stove retires ignominiously to make place for a shining new one, in which the fire need not go out while cold weather lasts; and the evening shadows, creeping back to their favorite haunt, the attic, are amazed and panic-stricken to find it occupied by a rosy troop of hilarious elfs, dancing up and down the wall, with whom they must battle for possession.

Moreover, Ned has enlisted the sympathies of another of his particular friends, Bridget, the cook, who fails not to prepare, daily, delicacies for him to carry to the sick boy—glad of an errand thither, for this new acquaintance is extremely interesting, not in the least like any one Ned has ever met before, so young and yet so accomplished. Why, he can give a hundred hints about playing on that precious violin, he can show sheets of music of his own composing, a portfolio full of sketches, his own work, in pencil and crayon and oil; and, oh! to hear him talk of wonderful Paris, and of famous people whom he has seen and whom his father has known.

Perhaps a month has passed, when, upon an afternoon, Ned, bounding in all aglow from the frosty air without, stops short, seeing the pallid face is not lifted in eager greeting from among the cushions.

“Is he asleep?” he whispers.

“Yes,” sobs Jeanette.

* * * * *

By and by as the lad turns slowly away, she places in his hands the portfolio, saying;

“He tells me eet ees for you.”

* * * * *

Belle, noticing her brother as he enters the house and hurries through the hall on his way to his room, exclaims:

“Why, Ned, you’ve been crying! What’s the matter?”

“Ernest is dead!”

“Who is Ernest?” inquires the father, lately returned, glancing up from his newspaper.

When he has heard Ned’s story he asks to see the sketches. While he is examining them, Belle comes and looks over his shoulder. Suddenly she utters a little scream.

“Why, Ned, you darling! look here!”

They have found, among the rest, a picture which Ned has not seen before. It brings tears to his eyes again, to Belle’s, too; the grim old lawyer’s lips twitch for a moment, and he goes off and has the painting framed in most costly style, and hangs it above the mantel in his study. Perhaps it may serve as reminder of a bit of a sentence, spoken centuries ago, which fortune-favored people, snuggling about the ingleside on boisterous winter nights, are very apt to forget: “The poor ye have always with you.”

You may imagine the faithful Jeannette is not neglected. The sunniest spot in the cemetery is where a marble cross tells you that Ernest is sleeping below. And the picture, what is it? It is a glimpse, in brown and amber tints, of a wretched attic chamber with dilapidated ceiling, and scant, worn-out furniture, and bare, uneven floor. And the only light there comes from the face peeping in through a door which stands ajar—a boyish face, round and merry, with ruddy cheeks, and big, heartful eyes, and brown bits of curls clustering about the broad forehead—a frank, open, cheery, winsome face. Now, away from the light which streams from this face and into the sombre shadows, frightened demons are turning to flee. And one of the demons whose gloomy features are partly visible, and whose hand grasps a dagger, you may guess was meant for Despair. This picture has a name. Ernest painted it underneath, in large letters of scarlet and gold. This is the name—SUNSHINE.

CZAR AND CARPENTER.

“Dear Rudolph, art thou not well?” asks his mother, in that native language which she loves. “For some time past thou hast been so very quiet, and—” there she pauses, not wanting to remind him of how fretful and ill-natured he has been of late.

“Feel well enough!” he answers gruffly, and then is sorry, and wishes he had gone to rest ten minutes ago, as he thought of doing.

A tiny cloud of displeasure flits across the sweet, gentle face, and little Karl, leaning against his mother’s chair, twines an arm about her neck, and smooths her sunny hair, as if to make amends. As for Rudolph’s father, stern words spring to his lips; but suspecting what is the trouble, he withholds them, only glancing up from his book with eyes so full of unutterable sadness that the boy creeps guiltily out of the room, and off to his chamber above.

This is the trouble with Rudolph—he is haunted; haunted by a demon whose name is Discontent. It first appeared to him one evening in a certain elegant mansion on a certain fashionable avenue, whither he had been sent with a message; for his father was to do some repairing there. In the spacious, high-ceiled, oak-paneled library, where he waited to see the master of the house, this little demon stole up to him and whispered:

“Look at it—at all this splendor! these tall mirrors, and huge chandeliers, and rich paintings, and carved cases of books! You never saw the like, did you?”

It followed him through the great hall with its marble floor and high, arched entrance, followed him down the wide steps and out into the street, whispering all the while, pointing back at the smooth front of stone and the plate-glass windows; then, when they reached Rudolph’s home, pointing scornfully at the humble cottage, and the entrance that is neither high nor arched. It followed him in, this demon, into the single apartment that is hall and library and kitchen combined. It sat down beside him in the corner. “Bah!” it muttered in disdain, “this lounge can’t compare with that sofa where you rested just now. But wasn’t it soft, though!” It called his attention to all the objects around, sneering at the curtains because they are not of damask, at the floor because it is uncarpeted, at the wall-paper because it is cheap. It noticed Rudolph’s mother laying the table, and asked, “Do you imagine that ladies who live in fine houses ever get supper themselves? Bah! don’t you believe it!” It noticed Rudolph’s father leaning back in his arm-chair with closed eyes, weary after the day’s labor, and queried, “Do you suppose that gentleman you saw to-night ever gets tired, ever works? No, of course he doesn’t. _He_ never wears work-clothes, shabby and worn like that! He always goes dressed in broadcloth, and his purse is always full, and he carries himself like a prince, and asks no odds of anybody. And did you mind how he looked down at you, as if you were nothing but a worm?—because your father’s only a carpenter! Wonder if he’ll treat _him_ so? Bah! isn’t it wretched to be poor and to have to work!” And when Rudolph took his place at the table, it was—“Bah! do you think gentlemen ever eat anything so common as this?” and he pushed from him the simple food, untasted, and went back to his corner; and there he sat the whole evening, and there he has spent every evening since, his face buried in his hands, the demon whispering in his ear. For it has never left him; no, not for a moment. It has followed him everywhere. In school, day after day it kept up a continual buzzing, hindering him from getting his lessons—he, the one who had always known them so well. It would compare his own garments with those of one and another better clad than he. “And there’s Jesse James—see, he carries a gold watch!” “And isn’t it mean for ’em to call you a ‘Dutchman!’ just because your father and mother came from Germany—though _you_ never lived there in your life—and because you’re poor and only a carpenter’s son. Pity your father couldn’t have been a count, or a baron, or something like that! How everybody would have stared when he rode along in his glittering carriage, and how everybody would have wanted to be friends, and would have asked him to dinner, and all that! And how polite everybody would have been to _you_! You wouldn’t have been a ‘Dutchman’ then; oh, not at all! And if he had been a grand-duke, oh, think of it! How everybody would have gone down to the depot to meet him, and how people would have crowded around to shake hands with him, and what a fuss they would have made over him—as they did one winter when Alexis was here, you know, and you climbed up a lamp-post to get a glimpse of him. Wasn’t he splendid, though! How grand it must be to be the son of a Czar!”

But during the Christmas holidays, now almost over, there has been no school, and Rudolph has had nothing to do but the marketing, and keeping the walk before the house clear of snow, and running here and there about the city on errands for his father—who never has any vacation, the year round. And all these days, oh, how that demon has tantalized him! It would lead him through the market to where lay great heaps of turkeys and geese and ducks, so plump and tempting, ready for the oven. “But _you_ can’t buy any, they cost too much!” It would draw him close up to the bakery windows. “Wouldn’t Karl like one of those delicious cakes, though! But you can’t buy it, it costs too much. Isn’t it too bad to have to count the pennies so?” All the way down the street, of pleasant afternoons, it would keep tormenting, pointing now at the richly-dressed ladies out shopping: “Pity your mother can’t have velvets, and feathers, and furs, like that, and be fashionable!” now exclaiming: “Look! there goes Jesse James. He’s taking his sister out for a sleigh-ride. Aren’t those horses just splendid! and that robe, look at it! it’s a real tiger’s skin! and the bells, oh, how they jingle! By the way, did you hear him telling one of the schoolboys, last week, about the Christmas present he was going to give his cousin Florence?—a set of diamonds! think of it! Here are some, right here in this shop-window. Look at them! see how they shine!... Pity _you_ can’t make somebody a Christmas present!—your cousin Mina, for instance. Pity _you_ can’t take somebody out sleigh-riding. Never had a sleigh-ride yourself, for that matter. Never had a ride any way, except in a street-car. Never had a single chance to drive a horse, even.... What’s the reason some can have everything they want, and others—oh! don’t it make you mad the way things go on in this world?”

Yes, it does make him “mad.” He goes about glum and scowling. (He used to be pleasant enough.) The ripple of his laughter is no longer heard, and he frolics no more with little Karl, who hardly dares approach him, he is so cross. And thus it is that his mother is led to question if he is not well, and thus it is that his father comes to suspect what is the trouble, and to guess the name of the demon that has crept in to disturb their peaceful home, and to vex the bright, ambitious boy he is so proud of. The book he is reading has lost its interest, for hours he scarcely turns a page; and it is a great relief to lay it aside when the consoling little Karl, feeling that something is amiss, climbs sleepily into his arms and lays a velvety cheek against his own.

Meanwhile, there is that wicked demon up-stairs upon the pillow, never ceasing its poisonous whispering, till Rudolph, unable to shake off the tormentor, at last gives way to sobs and tears, thankful that he is alone and in the dark, for he wouldn’t have so much as a ray of daylight catch him crying.

Oh, Rudolph, is there no one to come to you here and drive away that demon, by telling you of all the mighty ones who have risen from humbler stations than yours—aye, climbed, round by round, up the ladder of fortune till they reached the top, admired and applauded by the crowds below—will no one comfort you by telling you of these?

Wait; here comes some one into the room, comes close to the bedside—a stranger. Perhaps he has come for that.... But no; listen to what he says:

“Arise, Rudolph, and accompany me to the palace of the Czar.”

The lad stares in amazement at the speaker—a tall, gaunt personage, wrapped in a black mantle that almost touches the floor, and so conceals the head and face with its ample folds that only the eyes are visible. What black, piercing eyes!—blacker than the mantle. Rudolph stares, and then arises, obedient.

The two travelers are not long in reaching their destination, and Rudolph soon finds himself in the imperial palace, in a great saloon, magnificent beyond comparison with that oak-paneled library he saw some time ago. There is dancing here, and the glittering dresses of the dancers dazzle him, and the music is so delightful it drives him nearly wild. When finally he lifts his dizzy eyes from the whirling throng, he sees, sitting in state at the farther end of the apartment, one who he concludes is the Czar; for all who approach him bow low and speak to him reverently.

“Would Rudolph like to be Czar?” asks the personage in black.

“A-a-ah!” exclaims the other, smiling and clasping his hands.

“Then bide your time.”

They wait behind a heavy curtain till the music ceases, and the dancers are gone, and the lights are extinguished, and the long saloon is dark and empty. Then the muffled stranger leads through a maze of galleries and corridors, unlocks, at length, a door, bids Rudolph enter, and Rudolph obeys. This apartment, also, is magnificent, but not so large as the other. At one side is a downy couch with golden-fringed drapery, and there the great Czar reposes. Upon the wall, near, hangs a sword.

“Take it down,” commands the personage in black; and Rudolph takes it down.

“Raise it,” is the second command, as they stand over the sleeping Czar; and Rudolph raises on high the gleaming sword.

“Strike!” And Rudolph strikes.

“Now return it to its place and follow me.” And Rudolph returns the weapon, dripping, to its place upon the wall, and follows back through the long galleries and corridors, and down the marble stairs, and out and away from the palace, and out and away from the city—away to a cave in the mountains. And the personage in black again commands, “Stay here and bide your time.”

Day after day there come to them, in their hiding-place, rumors, now of the murder of the Czar, now of strife and difference among his subjects over who shall be successor, and, finally, of an invasion by the neighboring monarchs, who, seeing the people at war among themselves, would profit by this opportunity to gain possession of the Empire.

“Now is your time!” says the personage in black to Rudolph, and he leads him into the midst of the battles, and teaches him so well the art of warfare, that from the ranks he soon rises to be Field-Marshal. Then, the personage in black always secretly counseling, Rudolph (always blindly obedient, he knows not why), following closely his instructions, defeats the invading armies in every battle, drives them out of the Empire, pursues them into their own provinces, and returns triumphant; and the people greet him with loud rejoicing, and lead him to the great throne-room, and robe him in the ermine-lined robe, and crown him with the jeweled crown, and shout till the echoes ring—“Hail, Rudolph, the Czar!” and, “Long live Rudolph, the Czar!”

And again there are music and dancing; and it is Rudolph, now, who is seated in state above the glittering throng, and all who approach him bow low and address him reverently—excepting one—a tall, gaunt personage, with muffled face, and piercing eyes, and long, black mantle, who steals up behind him and whispers, “Does Rudolph enjoy being Czar?” And Rudolph, remembering all, neither clasps his hands nor smiles.

At midnight, as Rudolph lies upon the downy couch with its silken folds and golden-fringed drapery, suddenly waking from slumber, he sees one standing over him with lifted sword; and he springs upon the assassin, and seizes his sword, and calls to the attendants, and has him put in irons; and this man makes confession, and reveals to the Czar a plot among the nobles against his life; then Rudolph causes some of those conspirators to be thrown into prison, and some to be beheaded; and, for further safety, the guard in the palace is increased. But not long after, again suddenly waking in the middle of the night, he sees another standing over him with lifted sword; and he springs upon this one also, and seizes his sword, and calls to the attendants, and has him bound with irons; and behold, when the lights are brought, this man is found to be one of the palace guard; and he, too, makes confession, and reveals to the Czar that all in the army are his foes and ready to take his life; then Rudolph sends out and causes some of the Generals and chief conspirators of the army to be imprisoned, and others to be beheaded; and, for further safety, he places his most faithful and trusty servant to watch in his chamber while he sleeps. But a third time, suddenly waking at midnight, he sees this servant standing over him with lifted sword; and him, too, he overpowers, and seizes the murderous weapon; and this man, also, confesses; and from him the Czar learns that all in the palace hate him and have plotted to take his life.

So it comes to pass that Rudolph, the Czar, dares not close his eyes day or night, for there is no one whom he can trust to protect him while he slumbers. And as the weeks and months wear away, he grows so haggard with watching, so weary for lack of sleep, that one morning, ere the sun has risen, and while all is hushed and silent, he casts aside the robe of ermine, and the golden crown and sceptre, and steals away from the palace, and out through the palace garden, and off to the fields beyond; and there, feeling secure, he lies down and closes his eyes, and is just falling into a delicious slumber, when the sound of stealthy footsteps arouses him, and looking up, behold one standing over him with lifted sword; and he springs up to defend himself, but the other turns and flees. Then he goes on till he reaches a wide forest, and thinking, “Surely no one will molest me here,” he lies down with a sigh of relief, and is just losing himself in sleep, when the howling of wolves disturbs him, and he is obliged to hurry onward, to escape being torn in pieces by those ferocious beasts.

When he reaches the plain at the other side of the forest, he perceives, at some distance, a group of huts, and saying, “Surely no one will know me there,” he approaches them and asks for lodging, and is shown to a rude chamber, where, just as he is about to lie down, he spies some object crouching among the shadows, and moving toward it, behold, a peasant armed with a glittering sword. And the wretched Czar departs in haste, saying, “My enemies are my own subjects;” and he pauses not till he is far beyond the boundaries of his own realm. Now at last in a country ruled by another, thinking, “I am surely safe,” he throws himself down by the wayside, faint and footsore; but just as sweet sleep is stealing over him, listen—a rustling, and look—a highwayman standing near with lifted sword; and he wearily moans, and, rising, hastens away.

At length he comes to a great city, and saying, “Surely none will know me or wish to harm me here,” he finds lodgings for the night, and lays himself down to rest, when lo! one approaches softly with lifted sword, and Rudolph, the Czar, recognizes the face of him he saw in the field beyond the palace garden. “Alas, he has followed me hither!” he cries, and hurriedly leaves the city.

And so, wherever he goes, he dares not sleep, either from fear of assassins, or of highwaymen, or of wild beasts. And so he wanders, and ever wanders on. And one day as he drags himself along, seeking a place to rest, he stops to drink from a fountain beside the path, and as he kneels over the smooth, mirror-like waters, he discovers that his locks are very white, and that his garments are thread-bare and torn. Still onward and onward he journeys, sleep the one thing that he longs for.

At last, as he emerges from the shadows of a dark defile between high mountains, he lifts his heavy, drooping eyelids, and beholds, spread out beyond, a valley far lovelier than any he has seen in all his journeyings. Slowly and gently it climbs up and into the purpling distance, with other valleys stepping down between the hills to meet it, and little hamlets nestling at the feet of those hills. And he says, “Surely in so peaceful a valley nothing can disturb me. I will get me to one of those villages and inquire for an inn, and there I will rest—there I will sleep, sleep, sleep.”

But just where the defile opens into the valley he encounters an armed sentinel, who steps forward and asks for his pass.

“I have no pass,” he answers.

“Then thou canst not enter.”

“But I am no common man. I am great, and famous, and much feared.”

“That matters not. Thou hast no pass. I may not let thee enter.”

“But hark you! I am Czar of all the Russias.”

“Whatever or whoever thou art, thou hast no pass; therefore our King knows thee not; I may not let thee enter. Answer me no more.”

And Rudolph, the Czar, complaining bitterly, crawls a little way off and casts himself down among the rocks. While he lies there, peering wistfully into the beautiful valley, wondering at the blueness of the heavens and the softness of the light, listening to the gurgling of waters, and catching glimpses of cataracts flashing down the distant hills, under overhanging branches—while he lies there, one, haughty, and bearing himself like a prince, draws near, and Rudolph remembers to have met him in a spacious, oak-paneled library, long ago, when he, the Czar, was a boy.

No sooner does this one reach the entrance to the valley, than the sentinel appears as before, and demands his pass. The other hands him a paper, which he examines, and pronounces to be worthless. “It bears not our King’s signature, but that of his worst enemy. Begone, impostor!”

“But I am a millionaire! I own ships upon the sea, laden with merchandise, and mines in the earth rich with ore, and acres of land more than I can count!”

“Away! Answer me no more.”

And the rich man turns away in wrath and confusion.

Presently appears another, in workman’s garb, which proves to be only a disguise, for, as he nears the entrance to the valley, on a sudden behold him a warrior clad in armor! And this armor is like nothing that Rudolph, the Czar, has seen. The various pieces of which it is composed are of different hues; the helmet white as snow, and so dazzling that he turns his eyes from it as he would turn them from the burning sun of noonday; the breastplate like gold, only brighter; the sword red like flame; the shield is as if it were of adamant, and the device upon it is an anchor. As the warrior gives his pass to the sentinel, the Czar, unseen, recognizes his own father!

But the sentinel does not look at the pass. “I know thee by thine armor!” he cries, with a smile of welcome, and immediately blows a bugle which he carries, and the sound rings through the valley—sweetly, sweetly! winding among the hills, sending back a thousand echoes on its way. Then the people pour out of the hamlets, and come down in myriads to meet the warrior, strewing the way with flowers and greeting him with music—oh, so marvelous! oh, so thrilling! that the very light moves to and fro in little waves, as if keeping time, and the flashing, gurgling waters join the chorus, and the overhanging branches swing a slow accompaniment.