Part 3

Ah! what a magical wooing that had been in the depths of the forest, that strange morning! The sun was hardly above the tops of the trees when she had awakened from sleep at the mossy foot of a giant beech, and its first beams were casting a solemn enchantment across a great pool of water-lilies and filling their ivory cups with strange gold. She had lain still a while, watching through her sleepy eyelids the unfolding marvel of the dawn; and then rousing herself, she had knelt by the pool, and letting down her long hair that fell almost to her feet had combed and braided it, with the pool for her mirror--a mirror with water-lilies for its frame. And, as she gazed at herself in the clear water, with a girlish happiness in her own beauty, a shadow fell over the pond; and, startled, she saw beside her own face in the mirror the face of a beautiful young knight, so it seemed, bending over her shoulder. In fear and maiden modesty--for her hair was only half braided, and, whiter than any water-lily in the pond, her bosom glowed bare in the morning sunlight--she turned around, and met the eyes of the King.

Without moving, each gazed at the other as in a dream--eyes lost fathom-deep in eyes.

At last the King found voice to speak.

"You must be a fairy," he had said, "for surely you are too beautiful to be human!"

"Nay, my lord," she had answered, "I am but a poor girl that wanders with my lute yonder from village to village and town to town, singing my little songs."

"You shall wander no more," said the King. "Come with me, and you shall sit upon a throne and be my Queen, and I will love you forever."

But she could not answer a word, for fear and joy.

And therewith the King took her by the hand, and set her upon his horse that was grazing hard by; and, mounting behind her, he rode with her in his arms to the city, and all the while her eyes looked up into his eyes, as she leaned upon his shoulder, and his eyes looked deep down into hers--but they spake not a word. Only once, at the edge of the forest, he had bent down and kissed her on the lips, and it seemed to both as if heaven with all its stars was falling into their hearts.

As they rode through the city to the palace, surrounded by wondering crowds, she nestled closer to his side, like a frightened bird, and like a wild birds were her great eyes gazing up into his in a terror of joy. Not once did she move them to right or left, for all the murmur of the people about them. Nor did the King see aught but her water-lily face as they wended thus in a dream through the crowded streets, and at length came to the marble steps of the palace.

Then the King, leaping from his horse, took her tenderly in his arms and carried her lightly up the marble steps. Upon the topmost step he set her down, and taking her hand in his, as she stood timidly by his side, he turned his face to the multitude and spake.

"Lo! my people," he said, "this is your Queen, whom God has sent to me by a divine miracle, to rule over your hearts from this day forth, as she holds rule over mine. My people, salute your Queen!"

And therewith the King knelt on one knee to his beggar-maid and kissed her hand; and all the people knelt likewise, with bowed heads, and a great cry went up.

"Our Queen! Our Queen!"

Then the King and Queen passed into the palace, and the tiring-maids led the little beggar-maid into a great chamber hung with tapestries and furnished with many mirrors, and they took from off her white body the tattered gown she had worn in the forest, and robed her in perfumed linen and cloth of gold, and set jewels at her throat and in her hair; and at evening in the cathedral, before the high altar, in the presence of all the people, the King placed a sapphire beautiful as the evening star upon her finger, and the twain became man and wife; and the moon rose and the little beggar-maid was a Queen and lay in a great King's arms.

On the morrow the King summoned a famous worker in metals attached to his court, and commanded him to make a beautiful coffer of beaten gold, in which to place the little ragged robe of his beggar-maid; for it was very sacred to him because of his great love. After due time the coffer was finished, and it was acclaimed the masterpiece of the great artificer who had made it. About its sides was embossed the story of the King's love. On one side was the pool with the water-lilies and the beggar-maid braiding her hair on its brink. And on another she was riding on horseback with the King through the forest. And on another she was standing by his side on the steps of the palace before all the people. And on the fourth side she was kneeling by the King's side before the high altar in the cathedral.

The King placed the coffer in a secret gallery attached to the royal apartments, and very tenderly he placed therein the little tattered gown and the lute with which his Queen was wont to wander from village to village and town to town, singing her little songs.

Often at evening, when his heart brimmed over with the tenderness of his love, he would persuade his Queen to doff her beautiful royal garments and clothe herself again in that little tattered gown, through the rents of which her white body showed whiter than any water-lilies. And, however rich or exquisite the other garments she wore, it was in those beloved rags, the King declared, that she looked most beautiful. In them he loved her best.

But this had been a while ago, and though, as has been said, the King's love was still hers as when he had met her that strange morning in the forest, and though every day he brought her a new and priceless jewel to hang about her neck, or wear upon her moonbeam hands, or to shine in the fragrant night of her hair, it was many months since he had asked her to wear for him the little tattered gown.

Was the miracle of their love beginning to lose a little of its wonder for him, too; was it beginning to take its place among the accepted realities of life?

Sometimes the Queen fancied that he seemed a little impatient with her elfin bird-like ways, as though, in his heart, he was beginning to wish that she was more in harmony with the folk around her, more like the worldly court ladies, with their great manners and artificial smiles. For, though she had now been a Queen a long while, she had never changed. She was still the wild gipsy-hearted child the King had found braiding her hair that morning by the lilied pool.

Often she would steal away by herself and enter that secret gallery, and lift the lid of the golden coffer, and look wistfully at the little tattered robe, and run her hands over the cracked strings of her little lute.

There was a long window in the gallery, from which, far away, she could see the great green cloud of the forest; and as the days went by she often found herself seated at this window, gazing in its direction, with vague unformed feelings of sadness in her heart.

One day, as she sat there at the window, an impulse came over her that she could not resist, and swiftly she slipped off her beautiful garments, and taking the little robe from the coffer, clothed herself in the rags that the King had loved. And she took the old lute in her hands, and sang low to herself her old wandering songs. And she danced, too, an elfin dance, all alone there in the still gallery, danced as the apple-blossoms dance on the spring winds, or the autumn leaves dance in the depths of the forest.

Suddenly she ceased in alarm. The King had entered the gallery unperceived, and was watching her with sad eyes.

"Are you weary of being a Queen?" said he, sadly.

For answer she threw herself on his breast and wept bitterly, she knew not why.

"Oh, I love you! I love you," she sobbed, "but this life is not real."

And the King went from her with a heavy heart.

And from day to day an unspoken sorrow lay between them; and from day to day the King's words haunted the Queen with a more insistent refrain:

"Are you weary of being a Queen?"

Was she weary of being a Queen?

And so the days went by.

* * * * *

One day as the Queen passed down the palace steps she came upon a beautiful girl, clothed in tatters as she had once been, seated on the lowest step, selling flowers--water-lilies.

The Queen stopped.

"Where did you gather your water-lilies, child?" she asked.

"I gathered them from a pool in the great forest yonder," answered the girl, with a curtsey.

"Give me one of them," said the Queen, with a sob in her voice, and she slipped a piece of gold into the girl's hand, and fled back into the palace.

That night, as she lay awake by her sleeping King, she rose silently and stole into the secret gallery. There, with tears running down her cheeks, she dressed herself in the little tattered gown and took the lute in her hand, and then stole back and pressed a last kiss on the brow of her sleeping King, who still slept on.

But at sunrise the King awoke, with a sudden fear in his heart, and lo! where his Queen had lain was only a white water-lily.

And at that moment, in the depths of the forest, a beggar-maid was braiding her hair, with a pool of water-lilies for her mirror.

THE WIFE FROM FAIRY-LAND

Her talk was of all woodland things, Of little lives that pass Away in one green afternoon, Deep in the haunted grass.

For she had come from fairy-land, The morning of a day When the world that still was April Was turning into May.

Green leaves and silence and two eyes-- 'Twas so she seemed to me; A silver shadow of the woods,-- Whisper and mystery.

I looked into her woodland eyes, And all my heart was hers; And then I led her by the hand Home up my marble stairs.

And all my granite and my gold Was hers for her green eyes, And all my sinful heart was hers, From sunset to sunrise.

I gave her all delight and ease That God had given to me, I listened to fulfil her dreams, Rapt with expectancy.

But all I gave and all I did Brought but a weary smile Of gratitude upon her face-- As though, a little while,

She loitered in magnificence Of marble and of gold, And waited to be home again, When the dull tale was told.

Sometimes, in the chill galleries, Unseen, she deemed, unheard, I found her dancing like a leaf, And singing like a bird.

So lone a thing I never saw In lonely earth and sky; So merry and so sad a thing-- One sad, one laughing, eye.

There came a day when on her heart A wild-wood blossom lay, And the world that still was April Was turning into May.

In her green eyes I saw a smile That turned my heart to stone,-- My wife that came from fairy-land No longer was alone.

For there had come a little hand To show the green way home, Home through the leaves, home through the dew, Home through the greenwood--home.

THE BUYER OF SORROWS

On an evening of singular sunset, about the rich beginning of May, the little market-town of Beethorpe was startled by the sound of a trumpet.

Beethorpe was an ancient town, mysteriously sown, centuries ago, like a wandering thistle-down of human life, amid the silence and the nibbling sheep of the great chalk downs. It stood in a hollow of the long smooth billows of pale pasture that suavely melted into the sky on every side. The evening was so still that the little river running across the threshold of the town, and encircling what remained of its old walls, was the noisiest thing to be heard, dominating with its talkative murmur the bedtime hum of the High Street.

Suddenly, as the flamboyance of the sky was on the edge of fading, and the world beginning to wear a forlorn, forgotten look, a trumpet sounded from the western heights above the town, as though the sunset itself had spoken; and the people in Beethorpe, looking up, saw three horsemen against the lurid sky.

Three times the trumpet blew.

And the simple folk of Beethorpe, tumbling out into the street at the summons, and looking to the west with sleepy bewilderment, asked themselves: Was it the last trumpet? Or was it the long-threatened invasion of the King of France?

Again the trumpet blew, and then the braver of the young men of the town hastened up the hill to learn its meaning.

As they approached the horsemen, they perceived that the center of the three was a young man of great nobility of bearing, richly but somberly dressed, and with a dark, beautiful face filled with a proud melancholy. He kept his eyes on the fading sunset, sitting motionless upon his horse, apparently oblivious of the commotion his arrival had caused. The horseman on his right hand was clad after the manner of a herald, and the horseman on his left hand was clad after the manner of a steward. And the three horsemen sat motionless, awaiting the bewildered ambassadors of Beethorpe.

When these had approached near enough the herald once more set the trumpet to his lips and blew; and then, unfolding a parchment scroll, read in a loud voice:

"To the Folk of Beethorpe--Greeting from the High and Mighty Lord, Mortimer of the Marches:

"Whereas our heart had gone out toward the sorrows of our people in the counties and towns and villages of our domain, we hereby issue proclamation that whosoever hath a sorrow, let him or her bring it forth; and we, out of our private purse, will purchase the said sorrow, according to its value--that the hearts of our people be lightened of their burdens."

And when the herald had finished reading he blew again upon the trumpet three times; and the villagers looked at one another in bewilderment--but some ran down the hill to tell their neighbors of the strange proposal of their lord. Thus, presently, nearly all the village of Beethorpe was making its way up the hill to where those three horsemen loomed against the evening sky.

Never was such a sorrowful company. Up the hill they came, carrying their sorrows in their hands--sorrows for which, in excited haste, they had rummaged old drawers and forgotten cupboards, and even ran hurriedly into the churchyard.

Lord Mortimer of the Marches sat his horse with the same austere indifference, his melancholy profile against the fading sky. Only those who stood near to him noted a kindly ironic flicker of a smile in his eyes, as he saw, apparently seeing nothing, the poor little raked-up sorrows of his village of Beethorpe.

He was a fantastic young lord of many sorrows. His heart had been broken in a very strange way. Death and Pity were his closest friends. He was so sad himself that he had come to realize that sorrow is the only sincerity of life. Thus sorrow had become a kind of passion with him, even a kind of connoisseurship; and he had come, so to say, to be a collector of sorrows. It was partly pity and partly an odd form of dilettanteism--for his own sad heart made him pitiful for and companionable with any other sad heart; but the sincerity of his sorrow made him jealous of the sanctity of sorrow, and at the same time sternly critical of, and sadly amused by, the hypocrisies of sorrow.

So, as he sat his horse and gazed at the sunset, he smiled sadly to himself as he heard, without seeming to hear, the small, insincere sorrows of his village of Beethorpe--sorrows forgotten long ago, but suddenly rediscovered in old drawers and unopened cupboards, at the sound of his lordship's trumpet and the promise of his strange proclamation.

Was there a sorrow in the world that no money could buy?

It was to find such a sorrow that Lord Mortimer thus fantastically rode from village to village of his estates, with herald and steward.

The unpurchasable sorrow--the sorrow no gold can gild, no jewel can buy!

Far and wide he had ridden over his estates, seeking so rare a sorrow; but as yet he had found no sorrow that could not be bought with a little bag of gold and silver coins.

So he sat his horse, while the villagers of Beethorpe were paid out of a great leathern bag by the steward--for the steward understood the mind of his master, and, without troubling him, paid each weeping and whimpering peasant as he thought fit.

In another great bag the steward had collected the sorrows of the Village of Beethorpe; and, by this, the moon was rising, and, with another blast of trumpet by way of farewell, the three horsemen took the road again to Lord Mortimer's castle.

When, out of the great leathern bag, in Lord Mortimer's cabinet they poured upon the table the sorrows of Beethorpe, the young lord smiled to himself, turning over one sorrow after the other, as though they had been precious stones--for there was not one genuine sorrow among them.

But, later, there came news to him that there was one real sorrow in Beethorpe; and he rode alone on horseback to the village, and found a beautiful girl laying flowers on a grave. She was so beautiful that he forgot his ancient grief, and he thought that all his castles would be but a poor exchange for her face.

"Maiden," said he, "let me buy your sorrow--with three counties and seven castles."

And the girl looked up at him from the grave, with eyes of forget-me-not, and said: "My lord, you mistake. This is not sorrow. It is my only joy."

THE PRINCESS'S MIRROR

The sun was scarcely risen, but the young princess was already seated by her window. Never did window open upon a scene of such enchantment. Never has the dawn risen over so fair a land. Meadows so fresh and grass so green, rivers of such mystic silver and far mountains so majestically purple, no eye has seen outside of Paradise; and over all was now outspread the fairy-land of the morning sky.

Even a princess might rise early to behold so magic a spectacle.

Yet, strangely enough, it was not upon this miracle that the eyes of the princess were gazing. In fact, she seemed entirely oblivious of it all--oblivious of all that was passing in the sky, and of all the dewy awakening of the earth.

Her eyes were lost in a trance over what she deemed a rarer beauty, a stranger marvel. The princess was gazing at her own face in a golden mirror.

And indeed it was a beautiful face that she saw there, so beautiful that the princess might well be pardoned for thinking it the most beautiful face in the world. So fascinated had she become by her own beauty that she carried her mirror ever at her girdle, and gazed at it night and day. Whenever she saw another beautiful thing she looked in her mirror and smiled to herself.

She had looked at the most beautiful rose in the world, and then she had looked in her mirror and said, "I am more beautiful."

She had looked at the morning star, and then she had looked in her mirror and said, "I am more beautiful."

She had looked at the rising moon, and then she had looked in her mirror and still she said, "I am more beautiful."

Whenever she heard of a beautiful face in her kingdom she caused it to be brought before her, and then she looked in her mirror, and always she smiled to herself and said, "I am more beautiful."

Thus it had come about that her only care was to gaze all day at her own face. So enamored had she become of it, that she hated even to sleep; but not even in sleep did she lose the beautiful face she loved, for it was still there in the mirror of dreams. Yet often she would wake in the night to gaze at it, and always she arose at dawn that, with the first rays of the sun, she might look into her mirror. Thus, from the rising sun to the setting moon, she would sit at her window, and never take her eyes from those beautiful eyes that looked back at her, and the longest day in the year was not long enough to return their gaze.

This particular morning was a morning in May--all bloom and song, and crowding leaves and thickening grass. The valley was a mist of blossom, and the air thrilled with the warbling of innumerable birds. Soft dewy scents floated hither and thither on the wandering breeze. But the princess took no note of these things, lost in the dream of her face, and saw the changes of the dawn only as they were reflected in her mirror and suffused her beauty with their rainbow tints. So rapt in her dream was she that, when a bird alighted near at hand and broke into sudden song, she was so startled that--the mirror slipped from her hand.

Now the princess's window was in the wall of an old castle built high above the valley, and beneath it the ground sloped precipitately, covered with underbrush and thick grasses, to a highroad winding far beneath. As the mirror slipped from the hand of the princess it fell among this underbrush and rolled, glittering, down the slope, till the princess finally lost sight of it in a belt of wild flowers overhanging the highroad.

As it finally disappeared, she screamed so loudly that the ladies-in-waiting ran to her in alarm, and servants were instantly sent forth to search for the lost mirror. It was a very beautiful mirror, the work of a goldsmith famous for his fantastic masterpieces in the precious metals. The fancy he had skilfully embodied was that of beauty as the candle attracting the moths. The handle of the mirror, which was of ivory, represented the candle, the golden flame of which swept round in a circle to hold the crystal. Wrought here and there, on the golden back of the mirror, were moths with wings of enamel and precious stones. It was a marvel of the goldsmith's art, and as such was beyond price. Yet it was not merely for this, as we know, that the princess loved it, but because it had been so long the intimate of her beauty. For this reason it had become sacred in her eyes, and, as she watched it roll down the hillside, she realized that it had gained for her also a superstitious value. It almost seemed as if to lose it would be to lose her beauty too. She ran to another mirror in panic. No! her beauty still remained. But no other mirror could ever be to her like the mirror she had lost. So, forgetting her beauty for a moment, she wept and tore her hair and beat her tiring-maids in her misery; and when the men returned from their searching without the mirror, she gave orders to have them soundly flogged for their failure.

Meanwhile the mirror rested peacefully among the wild flowers and the humming of bees.

A short while after the serving-men had been flogged and the tiring-maids had been beaten, there came along the white road at the foot of the castle a tired minstrel. He was singing to himself out of the sadness of his heart. He was forty years old, and the exchange that life had given him for his dreams had not seemed to him a fair equivalent. He had even grown weary of his own songs.

He sat, dejected, amid the green grasses, and looked up at the ancient heaven--and thought to himself. Then suddenly he turned his tired eyes again to earth, and saw the daisies growing there, and the butterflies flitting from flower to flower. And the road, as he looked at it, seemed long--longer than ever. He took his old lute in his hand--wondering to himself if they could play another tune. They were so in love with each other--and so tired of each other.

He played one of his old songs, of which he was heartily weary, and, as he played, the butterflies flitted about him and filled his old hair with blue wings.

He was forty years old and very weary. He was alone. His last nightingale had ceased singing. The time had come for him when one thinks, and even dreams, of the fireside, the hearth, and the beautiful old memories.

He had, in short, arrived at that period of life when one begins to perceive the beauty of money.