Kisington Town Part 4

The Red King looked at him sideways. "I had forgotten Sunday," he said.

"I have mislaid my calendar. Now, you remind me,--no, I suppose not. No, I do not fight on Sundays."

"I thought not!" said Harold, relieved. "It would not be quite knightly, would it? I will return to-morrow afternoon, as soon as I have had my dinner; and then we will go on with the story of the Dragon of Hushby.

Good day, Your Majesty!"

"Good day!" growled Red Rex, watching him march away between the files of soldiers. "Youngster!" he called after the boy, "be sure you bring back the right volume."

Harold waved his hand in a.s.sent.

Now, when Harold told the Librarian and the other Leading Citizens what he had done, they were greatly pleased; for they saw that their city was safe for at least eighteen hours, while their mounted messenger went speeding to King Victor. Harold's chums Robert and Richard were so excited they could not sleep that night. Harold's mother was as proud as a peac.o.c.k when he told the story to her; though it was with some dread that she looked forward to his return on the morrow into the camp of the fierce besieger. But Harold said:--

"I shall be quite safe, Mother. Never fear! Red Rex is too much interested in my story to hurt me. When he forgets war he is a different man. He is almost pleasant, Mother!"

"What a stupid King he must be to choose war for his pleasure!" said the mother. "But suppose he cannot wait for to-morrow afternoon? Suppose he should decide to take the city and win the library for himself, so that he can read all the books at his leisure. What then?

"Mother," said Harold, "I believe Red Rex has no joy in reading for himself; no more than you have,--though he may not have your excuse."

"La la!" cried the mother. "What a King is that who has no key to the treasury of books! You are richer than he, my son. With all his armies, you are more powerful than he, my dear son!"

On the Sunday, after dinner, Harold's friends escorted him to the gate; and as before he went to the Red King under the flag of truce. In his hand he bore the second volume of red-and-gold. Red Rex received him sulkily, yet with a certain eagerness.

"Well, boy, have you brought the book?" he asked. "I have been thinking of that tale all the night long, all this morning long. Come, let us hear what happened next to Arthur and the Dragon." Then Harold began the second part of the tale. Red Rex kept him at it, and would not let him rest until he had quite finished both the second and the third parts of the story; though Harold had meant to gain time by reading only the former on that occasion.

But when he had quite finished, Red Rex sat up, rubbing his hands together. "It is a good story!" he declared. "That Arthur was a brave fellow. I am glad I did not destroy your library until I had heard about him. But now I can return to the siege without delay. I give you warning, my boy! Do not go back to that doomed town. Desert those peace-lovers and come with me to be a fighter, like Arthur."

"Arthur fought wicked Dragons, not men," said Harold. "I would not desert if I could. I, too, am a peace-lover, and there is too much in Kisington from which I could not part. Besides, I must return this book safe and sound to the library, even if it is to be destroyed soon after, or I shall be fined. My poor mother can ill afford to pay fines for me!"

"But there will be no one left to fine you," retorted the Red King. "The whole city will be destroyed,--the library, the Librarian, the Lord Mayor, and all! What a ruination it will be!" He rubbed his hands gleefully.

Harold shuddered, but he was firm. "What a pity!" he said. "You really should know our Librarian. And there are still many fine books which Your Majesty ought to hear. You will never know them if they be destroyed now; their duplicates exist nowhere."

"There are none so good as the tale you have just finished, I warrant!"

cried Red Rex.

"Oh, many far better than that, Your Majesty!" said Harold. "Indeed, that is one of the least important.--Did you ever hear of the Wonder-Garden, Your Majesty?"

"The Wonder-Garden!" echoed the Red King; "no, that I never did. What means a 'wonder-garden,' boy?"

"Ah, that you will never know, for it is another of the secret tales of Kisington," said Harold. "It is all about a Mermaid, and a Lord Mayor's son, and a fair stranger maiden, who--now I bethink me--might be from your own land across the border. The Wonder-Garden was hers."

"A maid from my land, with a wonder-garden!" mused Red Rex. "I would fain learn of her. I dare say there is good fighting in this tale also.

Come, boy; will you read me that tale to-morrow?"

"Yes, Your Majesty; if you will give your kingly word that the truce shall last until the story be finished," replied Harold.

"Ho-hum!" the Red King hesitated. He mumbled and he grumbled; he winked and he blinked. But at last he said grudgingly, "Well, I promise. No soldier shall advance, no weapon shall be discharged until I have heard the tale of your Wonder-Garden."

With this promise, Harold joyfully hastened back to the beleaguered city. Kisington was safe for another day! The Lord Mayor and the Librarian shook hands and went to congratulate Harold's mother.

As for Red Rex, he dreamed that Harold had bewitched him with a red-and-gold book; as perhaps he had done. Were not Richard and Robert at that moment clapping Harold on the shoulder and declaring that he was indeed a "Book-Wizard"? This is the tale which Harold read to Red Rex on the following day; the story of _The Wonder-Garden_.

VIII. THE WONDER-GARDEN

There never were seen such beautiful gardens as bloomed in Kisington-by-the-Sea. Not only every chateau and villa had its parterres spread with blooming rugs of all colors; but each white-washed cottage, every thatched hut, boasted its garden-plot of dainty posies. Each had some quaint device or some special beauty which distinguished it from the others. For there was great horticultural rivalry in Kisington-by-the-Sea.

Now this was all because Hugh, the Lord Mayor, who was very fond of flowers, had offered a prize for the prettiest garden in the town. The Lord Mayor himself lived on a hill in the center of the town, in the midst of the most beautiful garden of all. It flowed down the hillside from the summit in ripples of radiant color,--roses and lilies, pinks and daffodils, larkspur and snapdragon. All the flowers of the land were there, and many foreigners beside.

Through the garden wound the yellow driveway by which the Lord Mayor pa.s.sed in his golden coach. He loved to drive slowly down this road, sniffing the fragrance of his flowers; and then out through the streets of the town, observing the beautiful gardens on every hand,--the result of his own love for flowers.

When the Lord Mayor saw all the fair maidens down on their knees in the flower-beds, watering the buds with their little green water-pots, nipping off dead leaves, pulling up scrawny weeds, coaxing the delicate creepers to climb, he would rub his hands and say:--

"Ah, this is good! This is very good indeed! We shall have the most beautiful town in the world, blossoming with flowers, and the most beautiful maids in the world, blossoming with health and sweetness like the flowers they tend. It will be hard to tell which is the fairer, the maidens or the flowers. Hey! Is it not so, my son?"

Then he would chuckle and poke in the ribs the young man who rode beside him.

The Lord Mayor's son was very good to look upon; tall and fair, with curly golden locks and eyes as brown as the heart of a yellow daisy.

When he drove through the town with the Lord Mayor, the maidens down on their knees in their garden-plots would pause a moment from their chase of a wriggling worm or a sluggish slug to look after the golden coach and sigh gently. Then they would turn back to their Bowers more eagerly than before. For there was the prize!

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MAIDENS WOULD PAUSE TO LOOK AFTER THE GOLDEN COACH]

You see, the Lord Mayor's son was himself part of the prize to be won.

The Lord Mayor had vowed that Cedric, his son, should marry the girl who could show by late summer the most beautiful garden in Kisington-by-the-Sea. Moreover, he promised to build a fine palace to overlook this prize garden, and there the young couple should live happy ever after, like any Prince and Princess. And this was why the maids worked so hard in the gardens of Kisington-by-the-Sea, and why the flowers blossomed there as no flowers ever blossomed before.

Now one day the Lord Mayor drove through the village in his golden coach and came out upon the downs near the seash.o.r.e. And there, quite by itself, he found a little cottage which he had never before seen: a tiny cottage which had no sign of a garden anywhere about it,--only a few flowers growing in cracked pots on the window-sills, and on the bench just outside the door.

"What!" cried the Lord Mayor, stopping the coach. "What does this mean?

There should be a garden here. I must look to the reason for this contempt of my offer." And he jumped down from the coach and rapped sharply upon the door.

Presently the door opened, and there stood a girl, all in rags, but so beautiful that the Lord Mayor's son, who was sitting languidly in the golden coach, shut his eyes as one does when a great light s.h.i.+nes suddenly in one's face.

"Hey!" cried the Lord Mayor, frowning. "Why have you no garden, girl?

Have you no pride? Do you not dream to win the prize which I offer?"

"I am a stranger," said the maiden timidly. "No one has told me of a prize. What may it be, my Lord?"

"It is a prize worth trying for," said the Lord Mayor. "The hand of my son there, and the finest palace in the land for the mistress of the prize garden. Does that thought please you, girl? If not, you are different from all the other maidens."

The girl lifted her eyes to the golden coach and met the gaze of Cedric fixed upon her. "I love flowers," she said. "I had once a little garden in my old home. But now I am too poor to buy plants and bulbs and seedlings. How, then, shall I make a garden to please Your Lords.h.i.+p?"

"I will send you plants and bulbs and seedlings," said the Lord Mayor's son, leaning forward eagerly. "You must make haste, for September will soon be here, when the gardens will be judged."

"Thank you, fair sir," said the girl. "I shall love my garden dearly, if you will help me."

Now when the Lord Mayor and his son had returned home, Cedric hastened to keep his promise. For Gerda was the fairest maid in Kisington-by-the Sea, and already he loved her so dearly that he hoped she would win the prize and become his wife. He sent her the most beautiful flowers that he could find, and transplanted from his father's garden its choicest seedlings; he brought shrubs from the city market.

The meadow between Gerda's cottage and the sea was transformed as if by magic, and became a ma.s.s of rare and lovely flowers. The choicest foreign plants, the gayest native blooms, the shyest wild posies, all were at home in Gerda's lovely garden over which the sea-breeze blew.