Part 4

In the Court they were known as the “Feather-pates”; nothing could they be taught at all. When they were rebuked they would stand on one leg and sigh with their heads on one side; but no one ever saw tears come out of their birdish eyes.

Now at night they would dream that two grey herons came and stood by their bedsides, kissing them; “And where in the world,” they said when they woke, “_are_ our wings?”

One day, wandering about in the palace, they came upon the closet in which hung the two little feather coats. “O!!!” they cried, and opened hard bright eyes at each other, nodding, for now they knew what they would do. “If we told, they would be taken off us,” they said; and they waited till it was night. Then they crept back and took the two little coats from their pegs, and, putting them on, were turned into two young herons.

Through the window they flew, away down to the great fish-pond in the wood. Their father and mother saw them coming, and clapped their wings for joy. “See,” they said, “our children come to visit us, and our hearts are left to us to love with. What further happiness can we want?” But when they were not looking at each other they sighed.

All night long the two young herons stayed with their parents; they bathed, and fished, and flew, till they were weary. Then the Princess showed them the nest among the reeds, and told them all the story of their lives.

“But it is much nicer to be herons than to be real people,” said the young ones, sadly, and became very sorrowful when dawn drew on, and their mother told them to go back to the palace and hang up the feather coats again, and be as they had been the day before.

Long, long the day now seemed to them; they hardly waited till it was night before they took down their feather-skins, and, putting them on, flew out and away to the fish-pond in the wood.

So every night they went, when all in the palace were asleep; and in the morning came back before anyone was astir, and were found by their nurses lying demurely between the sheets, just as they had been left the night before.

One day the Queen when she went to see her daughter said to her, “My child, your two children are growing less like human beings and more like birds every day. Nothing will they learn or do, but stand all day flapping their arms up and down, and saying, ‘Where are our wings, where are our wings?’ The idea of one of them ever coming to the throne makes your father’s hair stand on end under his crown.”

“Oh, mother,” said the heron-Princess, “I have made a sad bed for you and my father to lie on!”

One day the two children said to each other, “Our father and mother are sad, because they want to be real persons again, instead of having wings and catching fish the way we like to do. Let us give up being real persons, which is all so much trouble, and such a want of exercise, and make them exchange with us!” But when the two young herons went down to the pond and proposed it to them, their parents said, “You are young; you do not know what you would be giving up.” Nor would they consent to it at all.

Now one morning it happened that the Feather-pates were so late in returning to the palace that the Queen, coming into their chamber, found the two beds empty; and just as she had turned away to search for them elsewhere, she heard a noise of wings and saw the two young herons come flying in through the window. Then she saw them take off their feather-skins and hang them up in the closet, and after that go and lie down in their beds so as to look as if they had been there all night.

The Queen struck her hands together with horror at the sight, but she crept away softly, so that they did not know they had been found out. But as soon as they were out of their beds and at play in another part of the palace, the Queen went to the closet, and setting fire to the two heron-skins where they hung, burnt them till not a feather of them was left, and only a heap of grey ashes remained to tell what had become of them.

At night, when the Feather-pates went to their cupboards and found their skins gone, and saw what had become of them, their grief knew no bounds. They trembled with fear and rage, and tears rained out of their eyes as they beheld themselves deprived of their bird bodies and made into real persons for good and all.

“We won’t be real persons!” they cried. But for all their crying they knew no way out of it. They made themselves quite ill with grief; and that night, for the first time since they had found their way to the closet, they stayed where their nurses had put them, and did not even stand up in their beds to go to sleep. There they lay with gasping mouth, and big bird-like eyes all languid with grief, and hollow grey cheeks.

Presently their father and mother came seeking for them, wondering why they had not come down to the fish-pond as they were wont. “Where are you, my children?” cried the heron-Princess, putting her head in through the window.

“Here we are, both at death’s door!” they cried. “Come and see us die! Our wicked granddam has burnt our feather-skins and made us into real persons for ever and ever, Amen. But we will die rather!”

The parent herons, when they heard that, flew in through the window and bent down over the little ones’ beds.

The two children reached up their arms. “Give us your feathers!” they cried. “We shall die if you don’t! We _will_ die if you don’t! O, do!” But still the parent birds hesitated, nor knew what to do.

“Bend down, and let me whisper something!” said the boy to his father: and “Bend down, and whisper!” cried the girl to her mother. And father and mother bent down over the faces of their sick children. Then these, both together, caught hold of them, and crying, “Human heart, and human form, exchange with the grey heron!” pulled off their parents’ feather-skins, and put them upon themselves.

And there once more stood Prince Heron and the Princess in human shape, while the two children had turned into herons in their place.

The young herons laughed and shouted and clapped their wings for joy. “Are you not happy now?” cried they. And when their parents saw the joy, not only in their children’s eyes, but in each other’s, and felt their hearts growing glad in the bodies they had regained, then they owned that the Feather-pates had been wise in their generation, and done well according to their lights.

So it came about that the Prince and the Princess lived happily ever after, and the two young herons lived happily also, and were the best-hearted birds the world ever saw.

In course of time the Prince and Princess had other children, who pleased the old King better than the first had done. But the parents loved none better than the two who lived as herons by the great fish-pond in the wood; nor could there be greater love than was found between these and their younger brothers and sisters, whose nature it was to be real persons.

SYRINGA

_TO_ DORA

SYRINGA

A great many years ago there lived a King who spent his days in travelling about to find the woman he could love and take to be his wife. Though the richest and most beautiful princesses offered him their hands in marriage, for none of them could he entertain the smallest affection. “It seems that I have had a dream,” he said. “Somewhere my Love is, but I have not found her yet!”

In those days the country over which he was lord had two Kings, one reigned and the other ruled; and as long as this was so, since his brother-King who ruled was married, his councillors allowed him who merely reigned to wander about at will in pursuit of his strange fancy.

When, however, the King who ruled died without leaving an heir, then those same councillors said, “This will not do; the State can wait no longer. Princes are born, and Kings die; love or no love, for your people’s sake you must marry!”

“Then why does he not marry me?” said the Queen-widow of the King that ruled.

The King that reigned said, “Rather than marry her I would marry my scullery-maid!” He became so terrified at the thought of her proposal that he took horse secretly by night, and rode away into the most secluded and uninhabited parts of his dominion.

Now here, as he rode along over many miles of barren moor and hill, one day, crossing a high ridge, he met the wind coming softly up out of the valley below him, and its breath upon his face was full of the perfume of some sweet flower. At that his heart, which had been so long listless and sad, seemed to awake within him. “Flower of my dream!” he cried; and soon saw below him, nestling in a corner of the valley, a small garden half hidden in the embrace of tall girdling trees.

Down he went joyfully, following the fragrant call till he came to the entrance of the place; and there, dismounting from his horse, he entered its green ways. A natural lawn mounted and hollowed before him in glossy sweeps, flowering shrubs dotted its heights, for the summer of the year was begun; but the scent which had taken hold of his heart came from a great bush of white bloom in the centre of all.

Under the bush lay a young and beautiful girl, and the blossoms were sprinkling down, one by one, like dropped kisses upon her dear face. So soon as the King saw her he knew that his search was at an end, and that his dream of years had come true.

Their glad eyes met softly through the flowers; and he said, “You had but to breathe for me, and I came!” For all her face and breath smelt to him of the blossoms she lay under.

She answered, “Three years I have lain with my ear upon the ground, and heard you going and coming, searching the world through; and now at last you are come!” She rose up to the King’s embrace, and they were to each other like old lovers long parted and at last met, so long had they known of love in their dreams.

Twilight was beginning as they turned and went out of the garden. The King said, “What is your name all these years?”

And she answered him with a voice like a bird singing, “Syringa my name was, Syringa my name is, and will be while life lasts.”

When they left the valley and went mounting the side of the hill, a sweet wind rose and rose, and came following them. All the way, as they rode, white blossoms came showering behind them, falling upon their faces and their hair, and whitening the track at their feet. Up to the city gates, where all the King’s court and his councillors stood watching and waiting for his return, the blossoms kept following them, like little scented moths fluttering round them in the darkness.

When the gates were opened, the whole city became full of the scent of the bride’s name.

So the marriage of the King who reigned was celebrated with all the joy and noise imaginable; for all the people laughed and shouted and clapped their hands when their eyes saw the beauty of the new Queen. But the dowager Queen, the widow of the King who ruled, put on yellow weeds, and shut herself up in a corner of the palace, eating unleavened bread and bitter herb sandwiches till all the rejoicings were over.

In a little while, however, she appeared to forget her grief, and, concealing her jealousy, made friends with the King who reigned, and with his Queen; and the King was glad in his great happiness to think that no heart in all the kingdom remained under a cloud.

For nearly a year the happiness of the King and Queen lasted and grew perfect. Every day that they lived together they loved each other more and more. But the Queen-widow waited and watched till an opportunity for her evil working should come in.

Presently people who looked at Syringa’s beauty began to say, “Is not such beauty more than human? Where does it come from, and what keeps it alive?” And though many in course of time learned to talk like this, no one ever seemed to know from whom such talk first came. Later, folk began to whisper instead of to talk. “We have heard,” they said, “one way by which such beauty can be kept alive, yet only one.” Then others were heard saying, “Have you heard that this man’s wife lost her child before it was a week old, and knows not where it can be gone; and that that man’s wife lost hers in the same way a week before? And who will lose hers this week that’s coming, if we don’t know yet, we soon shall know!” And shortly, sure enough, all through the city there were mothers mourning for the loss of their children, who had gone, none knew where, before they were even a week old; and more and more the crowd was taught to say, “Look how beautiful the Queen grows!” whenever she walked or rode.

The Queen-widow listened to all this, and laughed. In her own chamber she had a cage filled with little blue birds, who cried lamentably all day long.

Now, just when all the city-talk and the dark looks of the people had grown to a head, Queen Syringa gave birth to a little son; and the King’s joy was beyond all bounds. “Now,” thought the Queen-widow, “now or never! Now I will ruin her or die!”

She watched her opportunity, till one day she found Syringa lying alone upon her couch with the child asleep between her arms.

The wicked Queen saw that Syringa also was asleep. She stooped down over the child, whispering a spell, and as she clapped her hands it started from between its mother’s arms and flew away in the form of a little blue bird.

The Queen-widow did her best to catch the bird, but could not; then she took blood, and, smearing the Queen’s hands and face with it, left her lying there asleep.

So Syringa was found; and the noise of it went through the city how she had killed her own child in order to keep alive her wondrous beauty. The King tried with heart and soul not to believe so wicked a story against the wife he loved, but the evidence was too strong. When asked, the Queen could explain nothing. “When I went to sleep,” she said, “my child was in my arms, and when I awoke it was gone!”

Outside the palace all the people were crying for her to be put to death. “Give back to their mothers the babies that you have eaten!” they cried.

The King sent for his foster-brother, and told him to take the Queen away to some lonely and desolate place, and there to make an end of her. “She is too beautiful,” he said, “and I loved her too much. Let her be very far away from me when she dies!”

So that night the King’s foster-brother took the Queen, and set out in the direction of the waste places and the hills. All the day following they journeyed, till toward evening they came to the head of a valley, where a wind came to them carrying the rich scent of flowers. The Queen lifted her head and took in a deep breath; then she said, “If I have to die, let me die under the scent of those flowers!”

They went on till they came to a little garden lying in a curl of the valley. There in the centre of a lawn stood the great bush white with bloom, and a sweet fragrance blew out of it, filling all that space.

“If I must die,” said the Queen again, “let me lie down and drink in the scent of those flowers; afterwards I shall not complain.” So the King’s foster-brother gave her leave to go and lie down under the tree, and sat down close at hand to keep watch, so that she should not escape.

A small blue bird came and perched upon the bush over her head.

“Syringa, Syringa!” cried the bird, and two white blossoms fell off like kisses upon the Queen’s face. She lifted her hands and threw kisses up to the flowers, and more and more they came down and settled upon her face.

“Syringa, Syringa!” sang the bird; and, hearing it, the King’s foster-brother’s heart became ready to break for grief.

The twilight deepened in the air around. All through the hours the bird sang on, and the flowers dropped down like pale tired moths in the dusk of the summer’s night, till where the Queen lay became white with a mass of blossoms that never stirred.

The heart of the King’s foster-brother grew heavier; “What if, after all, she be not wicked but good! To-morrow at sunrise I must kill her.”

“Syringa, Syringa!” cried the bird.

Towards dawn he saw the tree all blossomless, only a great heap of petals, like a snow-covered grave, showed where the Queen lay; and the song of the bird had stopped.

“If she sleeps now,” thought the King’s foster-brother, “it will be merciful.” He drew out his sharp hunting-knife, and went softly up to the spot to carry out the King’s command.

So covered was she with blossoms, he could not tell which way lay her head; the heaviness of their dying scent almost made him swoon. Softly with his hand he brushed the petals apart to find a place where he might strike.

How deeply they lay! They seemed to be without end here in the centre of all. Presently his hand came upon green grass bent with the weight of blossoms, and dank with dew. He shut his eyes and started away, for the colour and the touch made a strange sorrow in his heart, and he knew that the Queen was not there.

He went away to the furthest part of the garden, and returned, and again searched, and still she was not there; only blossoms in a pile, and under them green grass.

“Syringa, Syringa!” sang the bird; and now there was a sort of triumph in its note.

The King’s foster-brother turned and went back to the city. All the way the blossoms drifted and blew after him along the track; till at evening he stood at the palace door in a wind of syringa scent, and dead flowers blew over his feet as he crossed the threshold.

Then he told the King all that he had seen and heard, and the King knew surely that his Queen, who had died so gentle and beloved a death, had been innocent of the crime laid to her charge. So great was his grief he could not rest; that very night he rose and journeyed till he came by day to the little garden; there he found the tree blossomless, and in the top of it he heard the blue bird crying, “Syringa, Syringa,” sadly and without ceasing.

But to the King there came no sign or sound of his love. He laid his head upon the ground at the foot of the tree, sighing, “My love, you lay three years with your ear to the ground listening for my feet; now I will lie and listen for yours!”

All the grass became wet with the tears of sorrow that the King shed; the tree waved and grew more green. In three days new blossoms looked out among the leaves; at night they fell upon his face, and he dreamed that Syringa’s lips were laid to his ear, and the tale of her betrayal whispered to him.

Then, knowing all, but determined for a time to let the truth lie buried in his heart, he caused the tree to be lifted from the ground and carried back and set secretly in the palace garden. And of all this, and of what he knew, he said nothing to the Queen-widow.

To the little blue bird that had followed the tree, and perched in its boughs, he said, “Be silent, little blue bird, and do not sing that name here.” At his word the little blue bird became silent as death, and sat motionless in the heart of the tree, never once breathing Syringa’s name.

At night the Prince would come and press his lips to the leaves of the tree and whisper, “Ah, love, how long is my heart to stay broken? And when will forgiveness blossom?”

But to the Queen-widow it appeared that the Prince was recovering from his grief; and when a year had gone round she began wooing him by stealth, seeming to pity him for the sorrow that the wickedness of his dead Queen had caused him.

Little by little he seemed to listen and open his heart to her; once he said, “All my grief would go if one whom I love could know that my heart, which once turned from her, has become wholly hers again.”

When the Queen-widow heard that said, she thought, “Surely now, in a short time, all my schemes are to be brought to a good end.”

One day as they walked and talked together in the gardens of the palace, they came upon a tree white and covered with blossom. “How I love that flower!” said the King; but the Queen-widow as soon as she smelt the scent of it turned pale and trembled. Up among the branches sat a little blue bird silently.

“Come here, and sit under this tree,” said the King, “and let me speak freely, for I am in sore want of a wife!” He drew her close under the leaves of the tree. “Here,” he thought, “I will make her speak; she shall confess all!” Over them a bough leaned down.

One of its blossoms touched the Queen-widow on the throat. “It has bitten me!” she shrieked. The branch sprang away, the whole tree opened and waved. Out of it the blossoms flew like a white swarm of angry bees.

“Syringa, Syringa!” cried the bird.

The Queen-widow caught herself by the throat and moaned, and lay down upon the grass to die.

As soon as her breath was gone, all the blossoms rose up again like a white column of cloud; down into their midst flew the blue bird.

Then, this way and that, the blossoms cast themselves loose into the wind, and out of their midst came Syringa herself, carrying her child in her arms. At her feet the Queen-widow lay quite dead, with her hand upon her throat. The little blue birds in the palace had broken out of their cage and were calling for their mothers with childish voices and laughter.

But the King knelt down before Syringa’s feet, pale and trembling, seeking pardon for having ever believed in her guilt. Swiftly Queen Syringa bent down, and in token of forgiveness held her child’s lips to his. Over them both her face and breath were fragrant as a garden full of sunshine.

When the King had kissed the child’s lips, she gave him her own.

THE TRAVELLER’S SHOES

_TO_ MARY AND EMILY

THE TRAVELLER’S SHOES

A long while ago there lived a young cobbler named Lubin, who, when his father died, was left with only the shop and the shoe-leather out of which to make his fortune. From morning to night he toiled, making and mending the shoes of the poor village folk; but his earnings were small, and he seemed never able to get more than three days ahead of poverty.

One day, as he sat working at his window-bench, the door opened, and in came a traveller. He had on a pair of long red shoes with pointed ends; but of one the seams had split, so that all his toes were coming out of it.

The stranger, putting up one foot after the other, took off both shoes, and giving that one which wanted cobbling to Lubin, he said: “To-night I shall be sleeping here at the inn; have this ready in good time to-morrow, for I am in haste to go on!” And having said this he put the other shoe into his pocket, and went out of the door barefoot.

“What a funny fellow,” thought Lubin, “not to make the most of one shoe when he has it!” But without stopping to puzzle himself he took up the to-be-mended shoe and set to work. When it was finished he threw it down on the floor behind him, and went on working at his other jobs. He meant to work late, for he had not enough money yet to get himself his Sunday’s dinner; so when darkness shut in he lighted a rushlight and cobbled away, thinking to himself all the while of the roast meat that was to be his reward.

It came close on midnight, and he was just putting on the last heel of the last pair of shoes when he was aware of a noise on the floor behind him. He looked round, and there was the red shoe with the pointed toe, cutting capers and prancing about by itself in the middle of the room.

“Peace on earth!” exclaimed Lubin. “I never saw a shoe do a thing so tipsy before!” He went up and passed his hand over it and under it, but there was nothing to account for its caperings; on it went, up and down, toeing and heeling, skipping and sliding, as if for a very wager. Lubin could even tell himself the name of the reel and the tune that it was dancing to, for all that the other foot was missing. Presently the shoe tripped and toppled, falling heel up upon the floor; nor, although Lubin watched it for a full hour, did it ever start upon a fresh jig.