Once on a Time Part 42

"Well?" said Merriwig.

"I desire to be your Majesty's swineherd," said the other.

"What do you know of swineherding?"

"I have a sort of natural apt.i.tude for it, your Majesty, although I have never actually been one."

"My own case exactly. Now then, let me see--how would you----"

The stranger took out a large red handkerchief and wiped his forehead.

"You propose to ask me a few questions, your Majesty?"

"Well, naturally, I----"

"Let me beg of you not to. By all you hold sacred let me implore you not to confuse me with questions." He drew himself up and thumped his chest with his fist. "I have a feeling for swineherding; it is enough."

Merriwig began to like the man; it was just how he felt about the thing himself.

"I once carried on a long technical conversation with a swineherd," he said reminiscently, "and we found we had much in common. It is an inspiring life."

"It was in just that way," said the stranger, "that I discovered my own natural bent towards it."

"How very odd! Do you know, there's something about your face that I seem to recognise?"

The stranger decided to be frank.

"I owe this face to you," he said simply.

Merriwig looked startled.

"In short," said the other, "I am the late King of Barodia."

Merriwig gripped his hand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _He was a pleasant-looking person, with a round clean-shaven face_]

"My dear fellow," he said. "My very dear fellow, of course you are.

Dear me, how it brings it all back. And--may I say--what an improvement. Really, I'm delighted to see you. You must tell me all about it. But first some refreshment."

At the word "refreshment" the late King of Barodia broke down altogether, and it was only Merriwig's hummings and hawings and thumpings on the back and (later on) the refreshment itself which kept him from bursting into tears.

"My dear friend," he said, as he wiped his mouth for the last time, "you have saved me."

"But what does it all mean?" asked Merriwig in bewilderment.

"Listen and I will tell you,"

He told himself of the great resolution to which he had come on that famous morning when he awoke to find himself whiskerless. Barodia had no more use for him now as a King, and he on his side was eager to carve out for himself a new life as a swineherd.

"I had a natural gift," he said plaintively, "an instinctive feeling for it. I know I had. Whatever they said about it afterwards--and they said many hard things--I was certain that I had that feeling. I had proved it, you know; there couldn't be any mistake."

"Well?"

"Ah, but they laughed at me. They asked me confusing questions; niggling little questions about the things swine ate and--and things like that. The great principles of swineherding, the--what I may call the art of herding swine, the whole theory of shepherding pigs in a broad-minded way, all this they ignored. They laughed at me and turned me out with jeers and blows--to starve."

Merriwig patted him sympathetically, and pressed some more food on him.

"I ranged over the whole of Barodia. n.o.body would take me in. It is a terrible thing, my dear Merriwig, to begin to lose faith in yourself. I had to tell myself at last that perhaps there was something about Barodian swine which made them different from those of any other country. As a last hope I came to Euralia; if here too I was spurned, then I should know that----"

"Just a moment," said Merriwig, breaking in eagerly. "Who was this swineherd that you talked to----"

"I talked to so many," said the other sadly. "They all scoffed at me."

"No, but the first one; the one that showed you that you had a bent towards it. Didn't you say that----"

"Oh, that one. That was at the beginning of our war. Do you remember telling me that your swineherd had an invisible cloak? It was he that----"

Merriwig looked at him sadly and shook his head.

"My poor friend," he said, "it was me."

They gazed at each other earnestly. Each of them was going over in his mind the exact details of that famous meeting.

"Yes," they murmured together, "it was us."

The King of Barodia's mind raced on through all the bitter months that had followed; he s.h.i.+vered as he thought of the things he had said; the things that had been said to him seemed of small account now.

"Not even a swineherd!" he remarked.

"Come, come," said Merriwig, "look on the bright side; you can always be a King again."

The late King of Barodia shook his head.

"It's a come down to a man with any pride," he said. "No, I'll stick to my own job. After all, I've been learning these last weeks; at any rate I know that what I do know isn't worth knowing, and that's something."

"Then stay with me," said Merriwig heartily. "My swineherd will teach you your work, and when he retires you can take it on."

"Do you mean it?"

"Of course I do. I shall be glad to have you about the place. In the evening, when the pigs are asleep, you can come in and have a chat with us."

"Bless you," said the new apprentice; "bless you, your Majesty."

They shook hands on it.

"My dear," said Merriwig to Belvane that evening, "you haven't married a very clever fellow. I discovered this afternoon that I'm not even as clever as I thought I was."

"You don't want cleverness in a King," said Belvane, smiling lovingly at him, "or in a husband."