The Emperor of Portugallia Part 17

The senator tried to console him, saying: "You can't be responsible, Pastor, for the evil that goes on in the large cities."

But the clergyman would not be consoled. He covered his beautiful young face with his hands, and wept.

"No," he sobbed, "I suppose I can't. But what have I done to guard the young girl who was thrown on the world, unprotected? And what have I done to comfort her old father who had only her to live for?"

"The pastor is practically a newcomer in the parish," said the senator, "so that if there is any question of responsibility it falls more heavily upon the rest of us, who were acquainted with the circ.u.mstances. But who could think it was to end so disastrously? Young folk have to make their own way in life. We've all been thrust out in much the same way, yet most of us have fared rather well."

"O G.o.d of mercy!" prayed the pastor, "grant me the wisdom to speak to the unhappy father. Would I might stay his fleeing wits--!"

s.e.xton Blackie, standing there with Jan, now cleared his throat.

The pastor rose at once, went up to Jan, and took him by the hand.

"My dear Jan!" he said feelingly. The pastor was tall and fair and handsome. When he came up to you, with his kindly blue eyes beaming benevolence, and spoke to you in his deep sympathetic voice, it was not easy to resist him. In this instance, however, the only thing to do was to set him right at the start, which Jan did of course.

"Jan is no more, my good Pastor," he said. "Now we are Emperor Johannes of Portugallia, and he who does not wish to address us by our proper t.i.tle, him we have nothing to say to."

With that, Jan gave the pastor a stiff' imperial nod of dismissal, and put on his cap. They looked rather foolish, did the three men who stood in the vestry, when Jan pushed open the door and walked out.

BOOK THREE

THE EMPEROR'S SONG

In the wooded heights above Loby there was still a short stretch of an old country road where in bygone days all teams had to pa.s.s, but which was now condemned because it led up and down the worst hills and rocky slopes instead of having the sense to go round them. The part that remained was so steep that no one in driving made use of it any more though foot-farers climbed it occasionally, as it was a good short cut.

The road ran as broad as any of the regular crown highways, and was still covered with fine yellow gravel. In fact, it was smoother now than formerly, being free from wheel tracks, and mud, and dust.

Along the edge bloomed roadside flowers and shrubs; dogwood, bittervetch, and b.u.t.tercups grew there in profusion even to this day, but the ditches were filled in and a whole row of spruce trees had sprung up in them. Young evergreens of uniform height, with branches from the root up, stood pressing against each other as closely as the foliage of a boxwood hedge; their needles were not dry and hard, but moist and soft, and their tips were all bright with fresh green shoots. The trees sang and played like humming bees on a fine summer day, when the sun beams down upon them from a clear sky.

When Jan of Ruffluck walked home from church the Sunday he had appeared there for the first time in his royal regalia, he turned in on the old forest road. It was a warm sunny day and, as he went up the hill, he heard the music of the spruces so plainly that it astonished him.

Never had spruce trees sung like that! It struck him that he ought to find out why they were so loud-voiced just to-day. And being in no special haste to reach home, he dropped down in the middle of the smooth gravel road, in the shade of the singing tree. Laying his stick on the ground, he removed his cap and mopped his brow, then he sat motionless, with hands clasped, and listened.

The air was quite still, therefore it could hardly have been the wind that had set all these little musical instruments into motion.

It was almost as if the spruces played for very joy at being so young and fresh; at being let stand in peace by the abandoned roadside, with the promise of many years of life ahead of them before any human being would come and cut them down.

But if such was the case, it did not explain why the trees sang with such gusto just that day; they could rejoice over those particular blessings any pleasant summer day; they did not call for any extra music.

Jan sat still in the middle of the road, listening with rapt attention. It was pleasant hearing the hum of the spruce, though it was all on one note, with no rests, so that there was neither melody nor rhythm about it.

He found it so refres.h.i.+ng and delightful up here on the heights. No wonder the trees felt happy, he mused. The wonder was they sang and played no better than they did. He looked up at their small twigs on which every needle was fine and well made, and in its proper place, and drank in the piney odour that came from them. There was no flower of the meadow, no blossom of the grove so fragrant! He noted their half-grown cones on which the scales were compactly ma.s.sed for the protection of the seed.

These trees, which seemed to understand so well what to do for themselves, ought to be able to sing and play so that one could comprehend what they meant. Yet they kept harping all the while on the same strain. He grew drowsy listening to them, and stretched himself flat on the smooth, fine gravel to take a little nap.

But hark! What was this? The instant his head touched the ground and his eyes closed, the trees struck up something new. Ah, now there came rhythm and melody!

Then all that other was only a prelude, such as is played at church before the hymn.

This was what he had felt the whole time, though he had not wanted to say it even in his mind. The trees also knew what had happened.

It was on his account they tuned up so loudly the instant he appeared. And now they sang of him--there was no mistaking it now, when they thought him asleep. Perhaps they did not wish him to hear how much they were making of him.

And what a song, what a song! He lay all the while with his eyes shut, but could hear the better for that. Not a sound was lost to him.

Ah, this was music! It was not just the young trees at the edge of the road that made music now, but the whole forest. There were organs and drums and trumpets; there were little thrush flutes and bullfinch pipes; there were gurgling brooks and singing water-sprites, tinkling bluebells and thrumming woodp.e.c.k.e.rs.

Never had he heard anything so beautiful, nor listened to music in just this way. It rang in his ear; so that he could never forget it.

When the song was finished and the forest grew silent, he sprang to his feet as if startled from a dream. Immediately he began to sing this hymn of the woods so as to fix it forever in his memory.

The Empress's father, for his part, Feels so happy in his heart.

Then came the refrain, which he had not been able to catch word for word, but anyhow he sang it about as it had sounded to him:

Austria, Portugal, Metz, j.a.pan, Read the newspapers, if you can.

Boom, boom, boom, and roll.

Boom, boom.

No gun be his but a sword of gold; Now a crown for a cap on his head behold!

Austria, Portugal, Metz, j.a.pan, Read the newspapers, if you can.

Boom, boom, boom, and roll.

Boom, boom.

Golden apples are his meat, No more of turnips shall he eat.

Austria, Portugal, Metz, j.a.pan, Read the newspapers, if you can.

Boom, boom, boom, and roll.

Boom, boom.

Court ladies clothed in bright array Bow as he pa.s.ses on his way.

Austria, Portugal, Metz, j.a.pan, Read the newspapers, if you can.

Boom, boom, boom, and roll.

Boom, boom.

When he the forest proudly treads, All the tree-tops nod their heads.

Austria, Portugal, Metz, j.a.pan, Read the newspapers, if you can.

Boom, boom, boom, and roll.

Boom, boom.

It was just this "boom, boom" that had sounded best of all to him.

With every boom he struck the ground hard with his stick and made his voice as deep and strong as he could. He sang the song over and over again, till the forest fairly rang with it.

But then the way in which it had been composed was so out of the common! And the fact that this was the first and only time in his life he had been able to catch and carry a tune was in itself a proof of its merit.

THE SEVENTEENTH OF AUGUST

The first time Jan of Ruffluck had gone to Lovdala on a seventeenth of August the visit had not pa.s.sed off as creditably for him as he could have wished; so he had never repeated it, although he had been told that each year it was becoming more lively and festive at the Manor.

But now that the little girl had come up in the world, it was altogether different with him. He felt that it would be a great disappointment to Lieutenant Liljecrona if so exalted a personage as the Emperor Johannes of Portugallia did not do him the honour of wis.h.i.+ng him happiness on his birthday.