The Faery Tales Of Weir Part 9

"I would I heard wings!" she cried.

"But I hear wings," said Tommie. "Watch! watch where the North Star burns!"

So Mother Huldah watched, and soon she saw the great outspread wings of Charlemagne and saw his long bill with something hanging from the end of it.

"My word, here's the baby," called out Tommie. "h.e.l.lo, Charlemagne, you old Grandpa! have you kept that precious infant warm?"

But Charlemagne alighted on his feet and walked solemnly to Mother Huldah and laid in her arms the softest, sweetest, pinkest little baby that she had ever seen. There was golden down on its head, and its little hands were folded like rosebuds beneath its tiny chin.

Mother Huldah felt its feet to know if they were warm; then she cried and sobbed and held the little thing to her breast; and trembled for love of it.

"Take it before the fire," said Tommie. "We're all tired to-night and it will be good to drowse and dream. Good-night, Charlemagne. The chimney's warm."

So the stork flew up to the roof, and Mother Huldah took her treasure and held it in her warm, ample lap before the fire; and Tommie winked and dozed and looked at the baby with his great green eyes, while Mother Huldah sang:

"The gold of the world will fade away, Baby sleep! Baby sleep!

But thou wilt live in my heart alway, Sleep, my darling, sleep.

"The gold of the world it comes and goes, Baby sleep! Baby sleep!

But thou wilt bloom like a summer rose, Cease my soul to weep."

THE MAGIC TEARS

There was once a king named Theophile who lived in a dim castle on the edge of the ocean, but so far above the water that the flying spray never reached its lowest terrace; and only the strongest-winged seagulls could circle its towers and turrets. It was a strange, melancholy, beautiful place, where the light shimmered on the walls like the ripple of water, and in the shadows of the ma.s.sive walls the flowers waved all day in the sea-wind like little princesses who would dance before they died.

King Theophile had led many armies to victory, driving his golden white-sailed boats upon far-off coasts, but from each conquest he returned the sadder because he had made many people hate him, and had won no one's love. Nor could he find a woman who would wed him, because of the sorrows of his line, which were great.

When he was not at war he would labor for his kingdom until sunset, and at that hour he would leave his Council Chamber to pace the terraces and gaze seaward over the rocking blue-green waves, while his minstrels sang to him. Only music could drive away his care, so always a page with a golden harp followed him. Sometimes he would bid everyone be gone but this boy, and the two would glide like shadows through the long galleries where the bluish tapestries hung; or brood together by the roaring fire when the sleet rattled on the cas.e.m.e.nts.

One spring day when it seemed as if even the ocean air wafted the fragrance of little pale flowers and the sun shone warmly on the old gray walls of the castle, the King and the boy wandered into the garden of the white lilacs; where, on a marble bench, King Theophile seated himself, and listened while the boy sang:

"My love came out of an old dream, And took away my peace; And now I dare not sleep again, Until this heartache cease."

"Did he ever know slumber again, I wonder," said the King. "O boy, of what use are your love-songs!"

"To arouse love in your heart, Sire!"

"What good is that when I have no maiden to love!"

"Listen, Sire," said the boy. "You are going to war with King Mace who has a most beautiful daughter, the Princess Elene. When you have overthrown him, bring her to your kingdom and wed her."

"A strange way to win the love of a woman," said the King, "by invading her father's kingdom. Nevertheless, I will have regard to the maiden."

"I have heard," said the page, "that they who once behold her are restless ever afterwards from the wound of her beauty."

The King nodded wearily. "There are women like that--gleams from lost stars; faces seen at sunset; or where the light is lifting after a storm.

I have never cast eyes on such a maid."

"When you see the Princess Elene you will behold her," said the page.

"I will set forth to war immediately," announced the King.

Soon thereafter he sailed away, and over the rocking billows went the golden boats until they drove upon the coasts of King Mace's land, where bitter battles were fought and many men laid asleep with the sword. Then came a day when all was quiet, and even King Mace pillowed his royal head on his dead horse, and woke no more.

Then King Theophile entered the little sunny palace where all was so silent, and strode through the echoing corridors to the throne room.

There alone, beneath a canopy of azure satin, on the great throne sat a woman whose face was like a gleam from a lost star. She had proud lips, and hair that was like cloth of gold about her, and eyes that were wells of sorrow. When he beheld her, King Theophile's limbs became as weak as a new-born child's, and he heard the sound of a far-off wind that had traveled from the Kingdom of Lost Hope. He knew that henceforth for him there must be either love or death.

"O Princess," he cried, "they are all asleep. But thou and I are awake."

"Nay," she replied, "they are awake. Their spirits crowd this hall to wring my heart with pity; but thou art asleep."

Her words were like a sword in his breast, and kneeling before her, he cried: "Come with me to my Kingdom. Thou art my only Love."

"Thou mayst force me to wed thee," she replied, "but the sword which can slay, can never wake love to life. Thou hast come to the end of thy conquests."

Then King Theophile tasted the bitterness of death as the men who slept from the stroke of his sword could never taste it. And because he was not a man to put his soul into the keeping of his tongue, he made no answer, but in his secret heart he resolved to win her love, though the adventure cost him years of pain.

So while he lingered in her kingdom, building costly monuments to the dead, and showering gold on the wounded, and sending into fine houses the homeless whose hearts ached for vanished humble hearths; while he worked to draw life out of death, he spared no effort to bring a smile to the lips of the Princess Elene.

But she never smiled, and though her heart was breaking, she could not weep. Often she said to her women, "Pray that I may have the gift of tears," but always her eyes remained dry, like the vision of those who have gazed too long on fire.

To King Theophile she seemed the very Beauty of the World, as in her black robes she sat in her garden at her tapestry frame, or listened with veiled eyes to the singing of his minstrels. And in his heart was a battle greater than any he had ever waged in desolated lands, for his n.o.bler self told him he had no right to wed her. But his wild love drove like a tempest across these whispers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: KING THEOPHILE AND QUEEN ELENE]

So at last he married her in the dim cathedral church of her dead father's kingdom, with pomp of flowers and lights and nuptial music, and she was as pale as those who live long underground.

Then the golden boats drove home across the rocking billows, and one day the Queen Elene, as she was now t.i.tled, lifted her eyes and beheld the gaunt castle of King Theophile cutting the sky. A mist seemed to hang all its turrets with fog and vapor. Elene remembered the shining happy little castle of her vanished kingdom, and her heart was bitter with tears, but she could not shed them.

King Theophile, gazing upon her face, read her thoughts, for he had the second-sight of lovers; and his heart was as lead in his breast. He was jealous of the very years when he had not known her. Her beauty troubled him like a half remembered name, and when he was in her presence he had the trembling of illness upon him, and when away from her he was as restless as a fallen leaf that the wind blows.

Through many days and weeks he wooed her to bring the smile to her lips, but always she grew whiter and more desolate; so that when she walked the terraces above the boiling surf, she seemed like a white flower torn of its petals and tossed up by the bitter waves.

At the end of a year there came a daughter from the Kingdom of the Little Souls, and lay like a white bud on the Queen's bosom. Then at last Elene smiled and wept, but her strength was gone; and soon afterwards she closed her eyes and went to sleep.

King Theophile's heart was broken, for the baby, and not he, himself, had made Elene smile and weep. When the days of the court mourning were over the little daughter was christened, and to her christening came all the wise women of the kingdom. Each told what this child would be. One said, "She will have the beauty of shimmering rainbows"; another, "She will be as wise as she is good." But the Wisest Woman of all said, "Every person will read his future in her tears."

Now this prophecy troubled King Theophile and awoke love in his heart for his little daughter, who was already showing how beautiful she would be some day. So he watched over her, and made one of his echoing rooms into the royal nursery.

Now the nurses knew what the Wisest Woman had said--that the tears of this Princess would be a magic mirror of the future; and one day when the child was two years old, the head nurse, who had a sweetheart and wished to know whether she would marry him, resolved to make the little girl cry.

Now she was puzzled how to do this, for the royal maid was sweet-tempered and obedient; but the nurse knew that Elene loved most dearly a beautiful doll as big as herself, so one afternoon, when the Princess was clasping this treasure to her little breast, the nurse making sure first that no one was looking, s.n.a.t.c.hed it from her and threw it into the sea.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NURSE SEES HER WEDDING IN THE PRINCESS'S TEARS]