The Sunny Side Part 49

"Once stop the supplies of coal, you see, and you drain the life-blood of the country."

"Of _course_," said Anne, and looked very serious.

After lunch an extremely brisk little man took her in hand.

"Have you been studying this coal strike question at all?" he began.

"I read the papers," said Anne.

"Ah, but you don't _get_ it there. They don't _tell_ you--they don't _tell_ you. Now I know a man who is actually _in_ it, and he _says_--and he knows this for a _fact_--that from the _moment_ when the _first man_ downed tools--from the very moment when he _downed tools_..."

Anne edged away from him nervously. Her face had a.s.sumed an expression of wild interest which she was certain couldn't last much longer.

"Now, take coal at the pit's mouth," he went on--"at the _pit's mouth_"--he shook a forefinger at her--"at the _pit's mouth_--and I know this for a _fact_--the _royalties_, the royalties are--"

"It's awful," said Anne. "I _know_."

She went home feeling a little disturbed. There was something in her mind, a dim sense of foreboding, which kept casting its shadow across her pleasanter thoughts; "Just as you feel," she said, "when you _know_ you've got to go to the dentist." But they had a big dinner-party that evening, and Anne, full of the joy of life, was not going to let anything stand in the way of her enjoyment of it.

Her man began on the stairs.

"Well," he said, "what about the coal strike? When are you going to start your coal-parties? 'Fire, 10--2.' They say that that's going to be the new rage." He smiled rea.s.suringly at her. He was giving the impression that he _could_ have been very, very serious over this terrible business, but that for her sake he was wearing the mask. In the presence of women a man must make light of danger.

Anne understood then what was troubling her; and as, half-way through dinner, the man on her other side turned to talk to her, she shot an urgent question at him. At any cost she must know the worst.

"_How_ long will the strike last?" she said earnestly. "That's just what I was going to ask you," he said. "I fear it may be months."

Anne sighed deeply.

I took the last sandwich and put down the plate.

"And that," said Anne, "was three weeks ago."

"It has been the same ever since?" I asked, beginning on a new plate.

"Every day. I'm tired of it. I shrink from every new man I meet. I wait nervously for the word 'coal,' feeling that I shall scream when it comes. Oh, I want a vote or something. I don't know what I want, but I _hate_ men! Why should they think that everything they say to us is funny or clever or important? Why should they talk to us as if we were children? Why should they take it for granted that it's our duty to _listen_ always?"

I rose with dignity. Dash it all, who had been doing the listening for the last half-hour?

"You are run down," I said. "What you want is a tonic."

Quite between ourselves, though, I really think--

But no. We men must stick together.

THE LEGEND OF HI-YOU

I

In the days of Good King Carraway (dead now, poor fellow, but he had a pleasant time while he lasted) there lived a certain swineherd commonly called Hi-You. It was the duty of Hi-You to bring up one hundred and forty-one pigs for his master, and this he did with as much enthusiasm as the work permitted. But there were times when his profession failed him.

In the blue days of summer Princes and Princesses, Lords and Ladies, Chamberlains and Enchanters would ride past him and leave him vaguely dissatisfied with his company, so that he would remove the straw from his mouth and gaze after them, wondering what it would be like to have as little regard for a swineherd as they. But when they were out of sight, he would replace the straw in his mouth and fall with great diligence to the counting of his herd and such other duties as are required of the expert pigtender, a.s.suring himself that, if a man could not be lively with one hundred and forty-one companions, he must indeed be a poor-spirited sort of fellow.

Now there was one little black pig for whom Hi-You had a special tenderness. Just so, he often used to think, would he have felt towards a brother if this had been granted to him. It was not the colour of the little pig nor the curliness of his tail (endearing though this was), nor even the melting expression in his eyes which warmed the swineherd's heart, but the feeling that intellectually this pig was as solitary among the hundred and forty others as Hi-You himself. Frederick (for this was the name which he had given to it) shared their food, their sleeping apartments, much indeed as did Hi-You, but he lived, or so it seemed to the other, an inner life of his own. In short, Frederick was a soulful pig.

There could be only one reason for this: Frederick was a Prince in disguise. Some enchanter--it was a common enough happening in those days--annoyed by Frederick's father, or his uncle, or even by Frederick himself, had turned him into a small black pig until such time as the feeling between them had pa.s.sed away. There was a Prince Frederick of Milvania who had disappeared suddenly; probably this was he. His complexion was darker now, his tail more curly, but the royal bearing was unmistakable.

It was natural then that, having little in common with his other hundred and forty charges, Hi-You should find himself drawn into ever closer companionship with Frederick. They would talk together in the intervals of acorn-hunting, Frederick's share of the conversation limited to "Humphs," unintelligible at first, but, as the days went on, seeming more and more charged with an inner meaning to Hi-You, until at last he could interpret every variation of grunt with which his small black friend responded. And indeed it was a pretty sight to see them sitting together on the top of a hill, the world at their feet, discussing at one time the political situation of Milvania, at another the latest ballad of the countryside, or even in their more hopeful moments planning what they should do when Frederick at last was restored to public life.

II

Now it chanced that one morning when Frederick and Hi-You were arguing together in a friendly manner over the new uniforms of the Town Guard (to the colours of which Frederick took exception) King Carraway himself pa.s.sed that way, and being in a good humour stood for a moment listening to them.

"Well, well," he said at last, "well, well, well."

In great surprise Hi-You looked up, and then, seeing that it was the King, jumped to his feet and bowed several times.

"Pardon, Your Majesty," he stammered, "I did not see Your Majesty. I was--I was talking."

"To a pig," laughed the King.

"To His Royal Highness Prince Frederick of Milvania," said Hi-You proudly.

"I beg your pardon," said the King; "could I trouble you to say that again?"

"His Royal Highness Prince Frederick of Milvania."

"Yes, that was what it sounded like last time."

"Frederick," murmured Hi-You in his friend's ear, "this is His Majesty King Carraway. He lets me call him Frederick," he added to the King.

"You don't mean to tell me," said His Majesty, pointing to the pig, "that _this_ is Prince Frederick?"

"It is indeed, Sire. Such distressing incidents must often have occurred within Your Majesty's recollection."

"They have, yes. Dear me, dear me."

"Humph," remarked Frederick, feeling it was time he said something.

"His Royal Highness says that he is very proud to meet so distinguished a monarch as Your Majesty."

"Did he say that?" asked the King, surprised.