The Little Lame Prince Part 5

"No--I can't go back! I must go forward and see the world, but oh! if I had but the shabbiest old rug to shelter me from the rain, or the driest morsel of bread and cheese, just to keep me from starving! Still, I don't much mind, I'm a prince and ought to be able to stand anything.

Hold on, cloak, we'll make the best of it."

No sooner had he said this than he felt stealing over his knees something warm and soft; in fact, a most beautiful bearskin, which folded itself round him and cuddled him up as closely as if he had been the cub of the kind old mother-bear that once owned it. Then feeling in his pocket, which suddenly stuck out in a marvelous way, he found, not exactly bread and cheese, nor even sandwiches, but a packet of the most delicious food he had ever tasted. He ate his dinner until he grew so thirsty he did not know what to do.

"Couldn't I have just one drop of water, if it wouldn't trouble you too much, kindest of G.o.dmothers?"

He considered this a difficult request to grant for he was so far from the ground that he could not expect to find a well. He forgot one thing--the rain. While he spoke, it came on in another wild burst, as if the clouds had poured themselves out in a pa.s.sion of crying, wetting him certainly, but leaving behind in a large gla.s.s vessel which he had never noticed before, enough water to quench the thirst of two or three boys at least. And it was so fresh, so pure--as water from the clouds always is, that he drank it with the greatest delight.

Also, as soon as it was empty, the rain filled it again, so that he was able to wash his face and hands. Then the sun came out and dried him in no time. After that he curled himself up under the bearskin rug and shut his eyes just for one minute. The next minute he was sound asleep.

When he awoke, he found himself floating over a country quite unlike anything he had ever seen before.

Yet it was nothing but what most of you children see every day and never notice--a pretty country landscape. It had nothing in it grand or lovely--was simply pretty, nothing more; yet to Prince Dolor who had never seen beyond the level plain, it appeared wonderful.

First, there was a river, which came tumbling down the hillside.

"It is so active, so alive! I like things active and alive!" cried he, and watched it s.h.i.+mmering and dancing, whirling and leaping.

All this the boy saw, either with his own naked eye, or through his gold spectacles. He saw also as in a picture, beautiful but silent, many other things which struck him with wonder, especially a grove of trees.

Only think, to have lived to his age and never have seen trees! As he floated over these oaks, they seemed to him the most curious sight imaginable.

"If I could only get nearer, so as to touch them," said he, and immediately the obedient cloak ducked down; Prince Dolor made a s.n.a.t.c.h at the topmost twig of the tallest tree, and caught a bunch of leaves in his hand. Just a bunch of green leaves--such as we have seen many times, yet how wonderful they were to him, and he examined the leaves with the greatest curiosity, and also a little caterpillar that he found walking over one of them. He coaxed it to take a walk over his finger. It amused him for a long time; and when a sudden gust of wind blew it overboard, leaves and all, he felt quite disconsolate.

"Still there must be many live creatures in the world besides caterpillars. I should like to see a few of them."

The cloak gave a little slip down, as if to say, "All right, My Prince,"

and bore him across the oak forest to a long fertile valley. It was made up of cornfields, pasture fields, brooks, and ponds, and in it were a quant.i.ty of living creatures, wild and tame. Cows, horses, lambs and sheep fed in the meadows, pigs and fowls walked about the barnyards. In lonelier places were rabbits, wild birds inhabited the fields and woods.

Through his wonderful spectacles the Prince could see everything, but he was too high up to hear anything except a faint murmur, which only aroused his anxiety to hear more.

"I wonder if my G.o.dmother would give me a second pair of ears?" he said.

Scarcely had he spoken, than he found lying on his lap the most curious little parcel, all done up in silver paper. And it contained a pair of silver ears, which, when he tried them on, fitted so exactly over his own, that he hardly felt them, except for the difference they made in his hearing.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PRINCE GAZED EAGERLY DOWN INTO THE LARGEST ROOM HE HAD EVER BEHELD. [PAGE 40.]]

The sound which greeted his ears is one which we have heard many times, but Prince Dolor, who had lived all his days in the dead silence of Hopeless Tower, heard it for the first time. And oh! If you had seen his face.

He listened, and listened, and looked and looked. The motion of the animals delighted him; cows walking, horses galloping, little lambs and calves running races across the meadows, were a great treat for him to watch.

"G.o.dmother," he said, having now begun to believe that, whether he saw her or not, she could hear him--"G.o.dmother, I should like better to see a creature like myself. Couldn't you show me just one little boy?"

Suddenly, a shrill whistle startled him, even through his silver ears, and looking downwards, he saw start up from behind a bush on a common, something--

Neither a sheep, nor a horse, nor a cow--nothing upon four legs. This creature had only two; but they were long, straight and strong. And it had a lithe active body, and a curly head of black hair. It was a boy about the Prince's own age--but, oh! so different. His face was almost as red as his hands, and his s.h.a.ggy hair was matted like the backs of the sheep he was tending. But he was a rather nice-looking lad; and seemed so bright and healthy and "jolly," that the little Prince watched him with great admiration.

"Might he come and play with me? I would drop down to the ground to him, or fetch him up to me."

But the cloak, usually so obedient, disobeyed him now. There was evidently some things which his G.o.dmother could or would not give. The cloak hung high in air, never attempting to descend. The shepherd lad took it for a large bird, and shading his eyes, looked up at it, then turned round and stretched himself, for he had been half asleep, and his dog had been guarding the sheep.

The boy called to the dog and they started off together for a race across the fields. Prince Dolor watched them with great excitement, for a while, then the sweet, pale face grew a trifle paler, the lips began to quiver and the eyes to fill.

"How nice it must be to run like that!" he said softly, thinking that never--no, never in this world--would he be able to do the same.

"I think I had rather not look at him again," said the poor little Prince, drawing himself back into the centre of his cloak, and resuming his favorite posture, sitting like a Turk, with his arms wrapped around his feeble useless legs.

"You're no good to me," he said, patting them mournfully. "You never will be any good to me. I wonder why I have you at all; I wonder why I was born at all, since I was not to grow up like other little boys."

Prince Dolor sat a good while thus, and seemed to grow years older in a few minutes.

Then he fancied the cloak began to rock gently to and fro, with a soothing kind of motion, as if he were in somebody's arms; somebody who did not speak, but loved and comforted him without need of words.

He had placed himself so he could see nothing but the sky, and had taken off his silver ears, as well as his gold spectacles--what was the use of either when he had no legs to walk or run?--Up from below there rose a delicious sound.

You have heard it hundreds of times, my children, and so have I. When I was a child I thought there was nothing so sweet; and I think so still.

It was just the song of a lark, mounting higher and higher, until it came so close that Prince Dolor could distinguish its quivering wings and tiny body, almost too tiny to contain such a gush of music.

"Oh, you beautiful, beautiful bird!" cried he; "I should dearly like to take you in and cuddle you. That is, if I might--if I dared."

He was so absorbed that he forget all regret and pain, forgot everything in the world except the little lark, and he was just wondering if it would soar out of sight, when it suddenly closed its wings, as larks do when they mean to drop to the ground. But, instead of dropping to the ground, it dropped right into the little boy's breast.

When he came in sight of Hopeless Tower, a painful thought struck him.

"My pretty bird, what am I to do with you? If I take you into my room and shut you up there, you will surely die for I heard my nurse once say that the nicest thing she ever ate in her life was lark pie!"

The little boy s.h.i.+vered all over at the thought, and in another minute he had made up his mind.

"No, my bird, nothing so dreadful shall happen to you if I can help it; I would rather do without you altogether. Fly away, my darling! Good-bye my merry, merry bird."

Opening his two caressing hands, in which, as for protection, he had folded it, he let the lark go. It lingered a minute, perched on the rim of the cloak, and looked at him with eyes of almost human tenderness; then away it flew.

But, sometime after, when Prince Dolor had eaten his supper, and gone to bed, suddenly he heard outside the window a little faint carol--faint but cheerful--even though it was the middle of the night.

The dear little lark, it had not flown away after all, but had remained about the tower and he listened to its singing and went to sleep very happy.

CHAPTER VII.

After this journey which had given the Prince so much pain, his desire to see the world had somehow faded away. He contented himself with reading his books, and looking out of the tower windows, and listening to his beloved little lark, which had come home with him that day, and had never left him again.

True, it kept out of the way; but though his nurse sometimes faintly heard it, and said, "What is that horrid noise outside?" she never got the faintest chance to make the lark into a pie.

All during the winter the little bird cheered and amused him. He scarcely needed anything more--not even his traveling cloak, which lay bundled unnoticed in a corner, tied up in its many knots.