The Little Lame Prince Part 6

Prince Dolor was now a big boy. Not tall--alas! he never could be that, with his poor little shrunken legs. But he was stout and strong, with great st.u.r.dy shoulders, and muscular arms, upon which he could swing himself about almost as well as a monkey. His face, too, was very handsome; thinner, firmer, more manly; but still the sweet face of his childhood--his mother's own face.

The boy was not a stupid boy either. He could learn almost anything he chose--and he did choose, which was more than half the battle. He never gave up his lessons until he had learned them all--never thought it a punishment that he had to work at them, and that they cost him a deal of trouble sometimes.

"But," thought he, "men work, and it must be so grand to be a man;--a prince too; and I fancy princes work harder than anybody--except kings.

The princes I read about generally turn into kings. I wonder"--the boy was always wondering--"Nurse"--and one day he startled her with a sudden question--"tell me--shall I ever be a king?"

The woman stood, perplexed beyond expression. So long a time had pa.s.sed by since her crime--if it were a crime--and her sentence, that she now seldom thought of either. She had even grown used to her punishment. And the little prince whom she at first hated, she had learned to love--at least, enough to feel sorry for him.

The Prince noticed that her feeling toward him was changing and did not shrink from her.

"Nurse--dear nurse," said he, one day, "I don't mean to vex you, but tell me--what is a king? Shall I ever be one?"

Then the idea came to her--what harm would it be, even if he did know his own history? Perhaps he ought to know it--for there had been many changes in Nomansland, as in most other countries. Something might happen--who could tell? Possibly a crown would yet be set upon those pretty, fair curls--which she began to think prettier than ever when she saw the imaginary crown upon them.

She sat down, considering whether her oath, "never to say a word to Prince Dolor about himself," would be broken, if she were to take a pencil and write, what was to be told. It was a miserable deception. But then, she was an unhappy woman, more to be pitied than scorned.

After long doubt, she put her finger to her lips, and taking the Prince's slate--with a sponge tied to it, ready to rub out the writing in a minute--she wrote:

"You are a king."

Prince Dolor started. His face grew pale and then flushed all over; his eyes glistened; he held himself erect. Lame as he was, anybody could see he was born to be a king.

"Hush!" said the nurse, as he was beginning to speak. And then, terribly frightened all the while, she wrote down in a few sentences, his history. How his parents had died, how his uncle had stolen the throne, and sent him to end his days in this lonely tower.

"I, too," added she, bursting into tears. "Unless, indeed, you could get out into the world, and fight for your rights like a man. And fight for me also, My Prince, that I may not die in this desolate place."

"Poor old nurse," said the boy tenderly. For somehow, boy as he was, when he heard he was born to be a king, he felt like a man--like a king--who could afford to be tender because he was strong.

He scarcely slept that night, and barely listened to the singing of the lark. Things more important were in his mind.

"Suppose," thought he, "I were to go into the world, no matter how it hurts me. The people might only laugh at me, but still I might show them I could do something. At any rate, I might go and see if there was anything for me to do. G.o.dmother, help me!"

It was so long since he had asked for help, that he was hardly surprised when he got no answer. He sprang out of bed, dressed himself, and leaped to the corner where lay his traveling-cloak and unrolled it.

Then he jumped into the middle of it, said his charm, and was out through the skylight immediately.

"Good-bye, pretty lark!" he shouted, as he pa.s.sed it on the wing. "You have been my pleasure, now I must go and work. Sing to old nurse until I come back again. Good-bye!"

But as the cloak hung motionless in air, he suddenly remembered that he had not made up his mind where to go--indeed, he did not know, and there was n.o.body to tell him.

"G.o.dmother," he cried, "you know what I want. Tell me where I ought to go; show me whatever I ought to see--never mind what I like."

This journey was not for pleasure as before. He was not a baby now, to do nothing but play. Men work, this much Prince Dolor knew. As the cloak started off, over freezing mountain tops, and desolate forests, smiling plains and great lakes, he was often rather frightened. But he crouched down, and wrapping himself up in his bearskin waited for what was to happen.

After some time he heard a murmur in the distance, and stretching his chin over the edge of the cloak, Prince Dolor saw--far, far below him, yet with his gold spectacles and silver ears on he could distinctly hear and see--a great city!

Suppose you were to see a large city from the upper air; where, with your ears and eyes open, you could take in everything at once. What would it look like? How would you feel about it? I hardly know myself.

Do you?

Prince Dolor was as bewildered as a blind person who is suddenly made to see.

He gazed down on the city below him, and then put his hand over his eyes.

"I can't bear to look at it, it is so beautiful--so dreadful. And I don't understand it--not one bit. I wish I had some one to tell me about it."

"Do you? Then pray speak to me."

The voice that squeaked out this reply came from a great black and white bird that flew into the cloak and began walking round and round on the edge of it with a dignified stride.

"I haven't the honor of your acquaintance," said the boy politely.

"My name is Mag and I shall be happy to tell you everything you want to know. My family is very old; we have builded in this palace for many years. I am well acquainted with the King, the Queen, and the little princes and princesses--also the maids of honor, and all the inhabitants of the city. I talk a great deal, but I always talk sense, and I dare say I shall be very useful to a poor, little, ignorant boy like you."

"I am a prince," said the other gently.

"All right. And I am a magpie."

She settled herself at his elbow and began to chatter away, pointing out with one skinny claw every object of interest, evidently believing, as no doubt all its inhabitants did, that there was no city in the world like the great capital of Nomansland.

Mag said that it was the finest city in the world but there were a few things in it that surprised Prince Dolor. One half the people seemed so happy and contented and the other half were so poor and miserable. "I would try to make it a little more equal if I were king," he said.

"But you're not the king," returned the magpie loftily. "Shall I show you the royal palace?"

It was a magnificent palace covering many acres of ground. It had terraces and gardens; battlements and towers. But since the Queen died the windows through which she looked at the Beautiful Mountains, had been closed and boarded up. The room was so little that no one cared to use it.

"I should like to see the King," said Prince Dolor, and as he spoke Mag flew down to the palace roof, where the cloak rested, settling down between the great stocks of chimneys as comfortably as if on the ground.

Mag pecked at the tiles with her beak and immediately a little hole opened, a sort of door, through which could be seen distinctly the chamber below.

"Now pop down on your knees and take a peep at his Majesty."

[Ill.u.s.tration: HE LIFTED UP HIS THIN, SLENDER HAND, AND THERE CAME A SILENCE OVER THE VAST CROWD IMMEDIATELY. [PAGE 47.]]

The Prince gazed eagerly down, into a large room, the largest room he had ever beheld, with furniture and hangings grander than anything he could have ever imagined. A sunbeam struck across the carpet and it looked like a bed of flowers.

"Where is the King?" asked the puzzled boy.

"There," said Mag, pointing with one wrinkled claw to a magnificent bed, large enough to contain six people. In the centre of it quite straight and still with its head on the lace pillow lay a small figure, something like waxwork, fast asleep. There were a number of sparkling rings on the tiny yellow hands; the eyes were shut, and the nose looked sharp and thin, and the long grey beard hid the mouth, and lay over the breast.

Two little flies buzzing about the curtains of the bed was the only audible sound.

"Is that the King?" whispered Prince Dolor.

"Yes," replied the bird.

He had been angry ever since he learned how his uncle had taken the crown and had felt as if, king as he was, he should like to strike him, this great, strong wicked man.

Why, you might as well have struck a baby! How helpless he lay! with his eyes shut, and his idle hands folded; they had no more work to do, bad or good.

"What is the matter with him?" asked the Prince.