The Maker of Rainbows Part 7

"Which means that you are King of Bohemia ... sire!" said he, with a half-whimsical reverence. Where on earth--he was wondering--was there another man who would be so put out at being made a king?

"Exactly," answered the duke. "Do you wonder that I am out of temper?

You must give me your advice. There must be some way out of it.

What--what am I to do?"

"I am afraid there is nothing for you to do but--reign ... your Majesty," answered the priest. "I agree with you that it is a great hards.h.i.+p."

"Do you really understand how great a hards.h.i.+p it is?" retorted the king to his friend. "Will you share it with me?"

"Share it with you?" asked the priest.

"Yes! as it appears that I must consent to be Head of the World Temporal--will you consent to be the Head of the World Spiritual? In short, will you consent to be Archbishop of Bohemia?"

"Leave the little church that I love, and the kind, simple hearts in my care, given into my keeping by the goodness of G.o.d...." asked the priest.

"To be the spiritual shepherd," answered the king, not without irony, "of the sad flocks of souls that wander, without pastor, the strange streets of lost cities...."

The king paused, and added, with his sad, understanding smile, "and to sit on a gold throne, in a great cathedral, filled with incense and colored windows."

And the priest smiled back; for the king and the priest were old friends and understood and loved each other.

At that moment there came a sound of trumpets through the quiet boughs, and the priest, rising and looking through the window, saw a procession of gilded carriages, from the first of which stepped out a dignified man with white hair and many years, and robed in purple and ermine.

"It is your Prime Minister, and your court," answered the priest to the mute question of the king. And again they smiled together; but the smile on the face of the king was weary beyond all human words: because of all the perils that beset a man, the one peril he had feared was the peril of being made a king, of all the sorrows that sorrow, of all the foolishness that foolishness; for vanity had long since pa.s.sed away from his heart, and the bees and the blossoms of his garden seemed just as worthy of his care as that swarming hive of ambitious human wasps and earwigs over which he was thus summoned by sound of trumpet, that happy summer afternoon--to be the king. Think of being the king of so foul a kingdom--when one might be the king--of a garden.

But in spite of his reluctance, the good duke at length admitted the truth urged upon him by the good priest--that there are sacred duties inherited by those born in high places and to n.o.ble destinies from which there is no honorable escape, and, on the priest agreeing to be the Archbishop of Bohemia, he resigned himself to being its king. Thereupon he received all the various dignitaries and functionaries that could so little have understood his heart--having in the interval recovered his lost temper--with all the graciousness for which he was famous, and appointed a day--as far off as possible--when he would set out, with all his train, for his coronation in the capital, a journey of many leagues.

However, when the day came, and, in fact, at the very moment of the starting out of the long and glittering cortege, all the gilded carriages were suddenly brought to a halt by news coming to the duke of the sickness and imminent death of a much loved dependent of his, an old shepherd with whom as a boy he was wont to wander the hills, and listen eagerly to the lore of times and seasons, of rising and setting stars, and of the ways of the winds, which are hidden in the hearts of tanned and withered old men, who have spent their lives out-of-doors under sun and rain.

But, to the great impatience of the court ladies and the great bewigged and powdered gentlemen, the old shepherd lived on for several days, during which time the duke was constantly at his side. At last, however, the old shepherd went to his rest, and the procession, which he, humble soul, would not have believed that he could have delayed, started on its magnificent way again, with flutter of pennant and feather and song of trumpet and ladies' laughter.

But it had traveled only a few leagues when it was again brought to a standstill by the duke--who was thus progressing to his coronation--catching sight from his carriage window, as it flitted past, of an extremely lovely and uncommon b.u.t.terfly. The duke had, all his days, been a pa.s.sionate entomologist, and this particular b.u.t.terfly was the one that so far he had been unable to add to his collection.

Therefore he commanded the trumpets to call a halt, and had his b.u.t.terfly-net brought to him; and he and several of his gentlemen went in pursuit of the flitting painted thing; but not that day, nor the next, was it captured in the royal net, not, in fact, till a whole week had gone by; and meanwhile the carriages stood idly in the stables, and the postilions kicked their heels, and the great ladies and gentlemen fumed at their enforced exile amid country ways and country freshness, pining to be back once more in that artificial world where alone they could breathe.

"To think of a man chasing a b.u.t.terfly--with a king's crown awaiting him--and even perhaps a kingdom at stake!" said many a tongue--for rumors came on the wind that a half-brother of the dead king was meditating usurpation of the throne, and was already gathering a large following about him. Urgent despatches were said to have come from the imperial city begging that his Majesty, for the good of his loyal subjects, continue his journey with all possible expedition. His kingdom was at stake!

The good duke smiled on the messenger and said, "Yes! but look at my b.u.t.terfly--" and no one but his friend the priest, of course, had understood. Murmurs began to arise, indeed, among the courtiers, and hints of plots even, as the duke pursued his leisurely journey, turning aside for each wayward fancy.

One day it would be a turtle crossing the road, with her little ones, which would bring to a respectful halt all those beautiful gold coaches and caracoling horses. Tenderly would the good duke step from his carriage and watch her with his gentle smile--not, doubtless, without sly laughter in his heart, and an understanding glance from the priest, that so humble and helpless a creature should for once have it in its power thus to delay so much worldly pomp and vanity.

On another occasion, when they had journeyed for a whole day without any such fanciful interruptions, and the courtiers began to think that they would reach the imperial city at last, the duke decided to turn aside several long leagues out of their course, to visit the grave of a great poet whose songs were one of the chief glories of his land.

"I may have no other opportunity to do him honor," said the duke.

And when his advisers ventured to protest, and even to murmur, urging the increasing jeopardy of his crown, he gently admonished them:

"Poets are greater than kings," he said, "and what is my poor crown compared with that crown of laurel which he wears forever among the immortals?"

There was no one found to agree with this except the good priest, and one other, a poor poet who had somehow been included in the train, but whom few regarded. The priest kept his thoughts to himself, but the poet created some amus.e.m.e.nt by openly agreeing with the duke.

But, of course, the royal will had to be accepted with such grace as the courtiers could find to hide their discontented--and even, in the case of some, their disaffected--hearts; for some of them, at this new whimsy of the duke's, secretly sent messengers to the would-be usurper promising him their allegiance and support.

So, at length, after a day's journey, the peaceful valley was reached where the poet lay at rest among the simple peasants whom he had loved--kindly folk who still carried his songs in their hearts, and sang them at evening to their babies and sweethearts, and each day brought flowers to his green, bird-haunted grave.

When the duke came and bowed his head in that quiet place, carrying in his hands a wreath of laurel, his heart was much moved by their simple flowers lying there, fresh and glittering, as with new-shed tears; and, as he reverently knelt and placed the wreath upon the sleeping mound, he said aloud, in the humility of his great heart:

"What is such an offering as mine, compared with these?"

And a picture came to him of the peaceful valley he had left behind, and of the simple folk he loved who were his friends, and more and more his heart missed them, and less and less it rejoiced at the journey still before him, and still more foolish seemed his crown.

So, with a great sigh, he rose from the poet's grave, and gave word for the carriages once more to move along the leafy lanes.

And, to the great satisfaction of the courtiers, the duke delayed them no more, for his heart grew heavier within him, and he sat with his head on his breast, speaking little even to his dear friend the priest, who rode with him, and scarcely looking out of the windows of his carriage, for any wonder of the way.

At length the broad walls and towers of the city came in sight,--a city set in a fair land of meadow and stream. The morning sun shone bright over it, and the priest, looking up, perceived how it glittered upon a great building of many white towers, whose gilt pinnacles gleamed like so many crowns of gold.

"Look, your Majesty," he said, with a sad attempt at gaiety, "yonder is your palace."

And the duke looked up from a deep reverie, and saw his palace, and groaned aloud.

But presently there came a sad twinkle in his sad eyes, as he descried another building of many peaks and pinnacles glittering in the sun.

"Look up, my Lord Archbishop," he said, turning to his friend, "yonder is _your_ palace."

And as the good priest looked, his face was all sorrow, and the tears overflowed his eyes, as he thought of the simple souls once in his keeping, in his parish far away.

But presently the king, looking again toward the palace, descried a flag floating from one of the towers, covered with heraldic devices.

As he looked, it seemed that ten years of weariness fell from his face, and a great joy returned.

"Look," he said, almost in a whisper, to the priest, "those are not my arms!..."

The priest looked, and then looked again into the duke's eyes, and ten years of weariness fell from his face also, and a great joy returned.

"Thank G.o.d! we are saved," the duke and the priest exclaimed together, and fell laughing upon each other's shoulders. For the arms floating from the tower of the palace were the arms of the usurper, and the king that cared not to be a king had lost his kingdom.

And, while they were still rejoicing together, there came the sound of many hors.e.m.e.n from the direction of the city, a cavalcade of many glittering spears. The duke halted his train to await their coming, and when they had arrived where the duke was, a herald in cloth of gold broke from their ranks and read aloud from a great parchment many sounding words--the meaning of which was that the good Duke Stanislaus had been deposed from his kingdom, and that the High and Mighty Prince, the usurper, reigned in his stead.

When the herald had concluded the duke's voice was heard in reply:

"It is well--it is very well!" he said. "Gather yonder white flower and take it back to your master, and say that it is the white flower of peace betwixt him and me."

And astonishment fell on all, and no one, of course, except the priest, understood. All thought that the good duke had lost his wits, which, indeed, had been the growing belief of his courtiers for some time.

But the herald gathered the white flower and carried it back to the city, with sound of many trumpets. Need one say that the usurper least of all understood?

With the herald went all the gilded coaches and the fine ladies and gentlemen, complaining sadly that they had had such a long and tedious journey to no purpose, and hastening with all speed to take their allegiance to the new king.