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JEe MAKER of
VRAINBOWS4

UC-NRLF

B 3 331 T3S

RICHARD LE GALLIENNE

[See page 48

OFTEN SHE WOULD LIFT THE LID OF THE GOLDEN COFFER AND LOOK AT THE

TATTERED ROBE

THE

MAKER OF RAINBOWS

AND OTHER FAIRY-TALES AND FABLES

BY
RICHARD LE GALLIENNE

Al/THOR OF
"AN OLD COUNTRY HOUSE"

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
ELIZABETH SHIPPEN GREEN

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

MCM X I I

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PUBLISHED OCTOBER. 1912

THAT THIS VOLUME SHALL BE ENTIRELY IN KEEPING WITH
ITS FAIRY-TALE CONTENTS. I DEDICATE IT TO MY GOOD
FRIENDS. ITS PUBLISHERS. MESSRS. HARPER a BROTHERS
IN REMEMBRANCE OF KINDLY RELATIONS BETWEEN THEM
AND ITS WRITER SELDOM FOUND OUT OF A FAIRY-TALE

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. The Old Coat of Dreams i

II. The Maker of Rainbows 7

III. The Man with Something in His Eye ... 14

IV. Mother-of-Pearl 17

V. The Mer-M other 27

VI. The Sleepless Lord 29

VII. The Man with Xo Money 39

VIII. The Rags of Queen Cophetua 42

IX. The Wife from Fairy-Land 51

X. The Buyer of Sorrows 54

XI. The Princess's Mirror 60

XII. The Pine Lady 73

XIII. The King on His Way to be Crowned ... 75

XIV. The Stolen Dream 88

XV. The Stern Education of Clowns 103

ILLUSTRATIONS

OFTEN SHE WOULD LIFT THE LID OF THE GOLDEN COFFER

AND LOOK AT THE TATTERED ROBE Frontispiece

A SUDDEN STRANGE NEW LIGHT WOULD SHINE OUT OF

ITS PAGES Facing p. 30

HE WENT FORTH INTO THE DAWN SLEEPLESS ... " 36
THE HERALD ONCE MORE SET THE TRUMPET TO HIS

LIPS AND BLEW " 56

HER ONLY CARE WAS TO GAZE ALL DAY AT HER OWN

FACE " 60

THE MAKER OF
RAINBOWS

THE OLD COAT OF DREAMS

A PROLOGUE

PEOPLE in London — not merely liter-
§1 ary folk, but even those "higher social

circles" to which a certain publisher,
whose name — or race — it is hardly
fair to mention, had so obsequiously
climbed — often wondered whence had come the
wealth that enabled him to maintain such an es-
tablishment, give such elaborate "parties," have
so many automobiles, and generally make all that
display which is so convincing to the modern
mind.

Of course they were not seriously concerned,
because, so long as it is a party, and the chef is
paid so much, and the wines are as old as they
should be, not even the rarest blossom on the
most ancient and distinguished genealogical tree
cares whose party it is, or, indeed, with whom she
dances. There is only one democracy, and that
is controlled by gentlemen with names that

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

hardly sound beautiful enough to mention in
fairy tales — that democracy of money to which
the fairest flower of our aristocracy now bows her
coroneted head.

Strange — but we all know that so it is. There-
fore, all sorts of distinguished and beautiful people
came to the publisher's "parties."

It would have made no difference, really, to their
hard hearts, could they have known where all the
champagne and conservatories and music came
from — they would have gone on dancing all the
same, and eating pate defoie gras and sherbets; yet
it may interest a sad heart here and there to know
how it was that that publisher — whose name I
forget, but whose nose I can never forget — was
able to pay for all that music and dancing, strange
flowers, and enchanted food, none of which he,
of course, understood.

Aristocrats in London, of course, know nothing
of a northern district of New York City called
Harlem, with so many streets that a learned arith-
metician would be needed to number them : a dis-
trict which, at the first call of spring, becomes
vocal with children on doorsteps and venders
of every vegetable in every language. In this
district, too, you hear strange trumpets blow, an-

THE OLD COAT OF DREAMS

nouncing knife and scissors grinders, and strange
bells ringing from strings suspended across carts,
whose merchandise is bottles and old newspapers.
You will hear, too, just when the indomitable
sweet smells from the terrible eternal spring are
blowing in at your window, and the murmur of
rich happy people going away is heard in the land,
a raucous cry in the hot street — a cry full of
melancholy, even despair: it goes something like
this—' ' Cash clo' ! Cash clo ' !"

Well, it was just then that a young poet, living
in one of those highly arithmetical streets, was
wondering, as all the sad spring murmur came to
his ears, how he could possibly buy a rose for the
bosom of his sweetheart, with whom he was to
dance that night at a local ball. Everything he
had in the world had gone. He had sold every-
thing— except his poems. All his precious books
had gone, sad one by one. Little paintings that
once made his walls seem like the Louvre had
gone. All his old silver spoons and all the little
intaglios he loved so well, and yes! he had even
sold the old copper chest of the Renaissance, all
studded nails, with three locks, in which . . . well,
all had gone. Only, where was that rose for the
bosom of his sweetheart — where was it growing ?
Where and how was it to be bought?

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

Just as he was at his wit's end, he heard a cry
through the window. It had meant nothing to
him before. Now — strange as it may sound — it
meant a rose!

"Cash clo'! Cash clo'!"

He had an old dress-suit in his wardrobe. Per-
haps that would buy a rose! So, leaning through
the window, he called down to the voice to "come
up."

The gentleman from Palestine came up.

It would be easy to describe the contempt with
which he surveyed the distinguished though some-
what ancient garments thus offered to him — in
exchange for a rose ! — how he affected to examine
linings and seams, knowing all the time the dis-
tinguished tailor that had made them, and what a
bargain he was about to drive.

Of course, they weren't, well . . . really . . .
practically . . . they weren't worth buying. . . .

The poet wondered a moment about the cost of a
rose.

"Are they worth the price of a rose?" he asked.

The gentleman from Palestine didn't, of course,
understand.

"You see," said he, finally; "I'd like to give
you more, but you know how it is . . . look at
these linings and buttonholes! Honestly, I don't

THE OLD COAT OF DREAMS

really care about them at all — but — really a dollar
and a half is the best I can do on them ..."
And he eyed the poet's clothes with contempt.

"A dollar seventy-five," said the poet, standing
firm.

"All right," at last said the gentleman from
Palestine, "but I don't see where I am to make any
profit; however — " And he handed out the small,
dirty money.

Then the poet bowed him out gently, saying in
his heart :

"Now I can buy my rose!"

When the Palestinian dealer in old dress-suits
went home — after sadly leaving behind him that
dollar seventy-five — he made an astonishing dis-
covery.

In the necessary process of re-examining the
"goods," something fell out of one of the pockets,
something the poet, after his nature, had quite
forgotten. The old-clothes man, now a publisher,
picked them up from the floor and gazed at them
in delight. The poet, in his grandiose careless-
ness, had forgotten to empty his pockets of various
old dreams!

Now, to be fair to the gentleman from Palestine,
he belonged to a race that loves dreams, and, to
do him justice, he forgot all about the profit he was

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

to make of the poor poet's clothes, as he sat,
cross-legged, on the floor, and read the dreams that
had fallen from the pocket of the poet's old dress-
suit. He read on and read on, and laughed and
cried — such a curious treasure- trove, such an odd
medley of fairy tales and fables and poems had
fallen out of the poet's pocket — and it was only
later that the thought came to him that he might
change from an old-clothes man into a publisher
of dreams.

Now, these are some of the dreams that fell out
of the poet's pocket.

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

Wg&&^§MT was a bleak November morning in
$the dreary little village of Twelve-
trees. Nature herself seemed hope-
H<§1 less and disgusted with the universe,
as the chill mists stole wearily among
the bare trees, and the boughs dripped with a
clammy moisture that had nothing of the energy
of tears.

Twelve-trees was a poor little village at the
best of times, but the oast summer had been more
than usually unkind to it, and the lean wheat-
fields and the ragged orchards had been leaner
and more ragged than ever before — so said the
memory of the oldest villagers.

There was very little to eat in the village of
Twelve-trees, and practically no money at all.
Some of the inhabitants found consolation in the
fact that at the Inn of the Blessed Rood the
cider-kegs still held out against despair.

But this was no comfort to the gaunt and shiv-
7

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

ering children left to themselves on the chill
door-steps, half-heartedly trying to play their in-
nocent little games. Even the heart of childhood
felt the shadows that November morning in the
dreary little village of Twelve-trees, and even the
dogs and the cats of the village seemed to be
under the same spell of gloom, and moved about
with a dank hopelessness, evidently expecting
nothing in the shape of discarded fish or trans-
figuring smells.

There was no life in the long, disheveled High
Street. No one seemed to think it worth while to
get up and work. There was nothing to get up
for, and no work worth doing. So, naturally, in
all this echoing emptiness, this lack of excitement,
anything that happened attracted a gratefully
alert attention — even from those cats and dogs so
sadly prowling amid the dejected refuse of the
village.

Presently, amid all the November numbness,
the blank nothingness of the damp, deserted street,
there was to be seen approaching from the south
a curious little figure of an old man, trundling at
his side a strange apparatus resembling a knife-
grinder's wheel, and he carried some forlorn old
umbrellas under one arm. Evidently he was an
itinerant knife-grinder and umbrella-mender. As

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

he proceeded up the street, he called out some
strange sing-song, the words of which it was im-
possible to distinguish.

But, though his cry was melancholy, his old
puckered and wizened face seemed to be alight
with some inner and inextinguishable gladness,
and his electrical blue eyes, startlingly set in a
network of wrinkles, were as fall of laughter as a
boy's. His cry attracted a weary face here and
there at window and door; but, seeing nothing
but an old knife-grinder, the faces lost interest
and immediately disappeared. The children, how-
ever, being less sophisticated, were filled with a
grateful curiosity toward the stranger, and left
the chill door-steps and trooped about him in
wonder.

A little girl, with tears making channels down
her pale, unwashed face, caught the old man's eye.

"Little one," he said, with a magical smile, and
a voice all reassuring love, "give me one of those
tears, and I will show you what I can make of it."

And he touched the child's face with his hand,
and caught one of her tears on his ringer, and
placed it, glittering, on his wheel. Then, working
a pedal with his foot, the wheel began to move so
swiftly that one could see nothing but its whirl-
ing; and as it whirled, wonderful colored rays

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

began to rise from it, so that presently the dreary-
street seemed full of rainbows. The sad houses
were lit up with a fairy radiance, and the faces
of the children were all laughter again.

"Well, little one," he said, when the wheel
stopped whirling, "did you like what I made
out of that sad little tear?"

And the children laughed, and begged him to
do some other trick for them.

At that moment there came down the street a
poor old half-witted woman, indescribably dirty
and bedraggled, talking to herself and laughing
in a creepy way. The village knew her as Crazy
Sal, and the children were accustomed to make
cruel sport of her. As she came near they began
to jeer at her, with the heartlessness of young,
unknowing things.

But the strange old man who had made rain-
bows out of the little girl's tear suddenly stopped
them.

"Stay, children," he said, "and watch."

And, as he said this, his wheel went whirling
again; and as it whirled a light shot out from it,
so that it illuminated the poor old woman, and
in its radiance she became strangely transfigured.
In place of Crazy Sal, whom they had been ac-
customed to mock, the children saw a beautiful

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

young girl, all blushes and bright eyes and pretty
ribbons; and so great was the murmur of their
surprise that it drew to the door-steps their fathers
and mothers, who also saw Crazy Sal as none of
them had ever seen her before — except a very
old man who remembered her as a beautiful young
girl, and remembered, too, how her mind had gone
from her as the news came one day that her sweet-
heart, a sailor, had been drowned in the North
Sea.

"Who and what are you?" said this old man,
stepping out a little in front of the gathering crowd.
"Are you a wizard, that you change a child's
tears into laughter, and turn an old half-witted
woman back to a young girl ? You must be of the
devil . . ."

Give me an ear of corn from your last harvest, ' '
answered the old knife-grinder, "and let me put
it on my wheel."

An ear of corn was brought to him, and
once more his wheel went whirring, and again
that strange light shot out from it, and spread
far past the houses over the fields beyond; and,
lo ! to the astonished sad eyes of the weary farmers,
they appeared waving with golden grain, waiting
for the scythe.

And again, as the wheel stopped whirring, the

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

old man who had remembered Crazy Sal as a
young girl spoke to the knife-grinder; again he
asked :

"What and who are you? Are you a wizard
that you change a child's tears into laughter, and
turn an old half-witted woman back to a young
girl, and make of a barren glebe a waving corn-
field?"

And the man with the strange wheel answered:

"I am the maker of rainbows. I am the al-
chemist of hope. To me November is always
May, tears are always laughter that is going to
be, and darkness is light misunderstood. The sad
heart makes its own sorrow, the happy heart
makes its own joy. The harvest is made by the
harvestman — and there is nothing hard or black
or weary that is not waiting for the magic touch
of hope to become soft as a spring flower, bright
as the morning star, and valiant as a young run-
ner in the dawn."

But the village of Twelve- trees was not to be
convinced by such words made out of moonshine.
Only the children believed in the laughing old
man with the strange wheel.

"Rainbows!" mocked their fathers and moth-
ers— "rainbows! Much good are rainbows to a
starving village."

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

The old maker of rainbows took their taunts
in silence, and made ready to go his way; but as
he started once more along the road he said,
with a cynical smile:

"Have you never heard that there is a pot of
gold at the end of the rainbow? ..."

"A pot of gold?" cried out the whole village
of Twelve-trees.

"Yes," he answered, "a pot of gold! I know
where it is, and I am going to find it."

And he moved on his way.

Then the villagers looked at one another, and
said over and over again, "A pot of gold!"

And they took cloaks and walking-staves and
set out to accompany the old visitor; but when
they reached the outskirts of the village there
was no sign of him. He had mysteriously dis-
appeared.

But the children never forgot the rainbows.

THE MAN WITH SOMETHING
IN HIS EYE

[NCE on a time toward the end of
February, when the snow still fes-
tered in the New York streets, and
the wind blew cruelly from river to
river, a strange figure made a some-
what storm-tossed progress along Forty-second
Street, walking toward the East Side. He was a
tall, distinguished, curiously sad-looking man,
with longish hair growing gray, and clothes which,
though they had been brushed many times, still
proclaimed aloud a Bond Street tailor. As he
walked along he had evidently some trouble with
one of his eyes, which he rubbed from time to
time, as though a cinder, perhaps, from the Ele-
vated Railroad had lodged there, and at last he held
a handkerchief to it as he walked along. But
whatever the trouble was, it did not seem to
interfere with a keen and kindly vision that noted
every object and character of the thronged street.
Now and again, strangers in that noisy and be-

SOMETHING IN HIS EYE

wildering quarter would ask direction from him,
and he never failed to stop with an aristocratic
painstaking courtesy and set them on their way.
Nervous old women with bundles at perilous cross-
ings found his arm ready to pilot them safely to
the other side. There was about him a curious
gentleness which, after a while, did not fail to
attract the attention of enterprising boys and
observing beggars, for whom, as he walked along,
evidently sorely troubled with his eye, he did not
fail to find pennies and kind words.

At last he had become so noticeable for these
oddities of behavior that, as he went along, he had
collected quite an escort of miscellaneous in-
dividuals, ragged children with pale, precocious
faces, voluble old Irishwomen with bedraggled
petticoats, sturdy beggars on crutches, and a
sprinkling of so-called "respectable" people, curi-
ously hovering on the skirts of the strange crowd.
From some of these last came at length unkindly
comments. The man was evidently crazy — more
probably he was drunk. But it was plainly evi-
dent that he had something the matter with his
eye.

At last a kindly individual suggested that he
should go to a drug-store and get the drug clerk
to look at his eye. To this the stranger assented,

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

and, accompanied by his motley escort, he en-
tered a drug-store and put himself into the hands
of the clerk, while the crowd thronged the door
and glared through the windows, wondering what
was the matter with the eccentric gentleman, who,
after all, was very free with his pence and had
so kind a tongue. A policeman did not, of course,
fail to elbow himself into the store, to inquire
what was the matter.

Meanwhile the drug clerk proceeded to lift up
the stranger's eyelid in a professional manner,
searching for the extraneous particle of pain.

At last he found something, and made a strange
announcement, v The something in the stranger's
eye was — Pity, i— •*

No wonder it had caused such a sensation in
the most pitiless city in the world.

MOTHER-OF-PEARL

'HERE was once a poet who lived all
' alone by the sea. He had built for
himself a little house of boulders mor-
tised in among the rocks, so hidden
that it was seldom that any wayfarer
stumbled upon his retreat. Wayfarers indeed
were few in that solitary island, which was for the
most part covered with thick beech woods, and
had for its inhabitants only the wild creatures of
wood and water and the strange unearthly shapes
that none but the poet's eyes could see. The
nearest village was miles away on the mainland,
and for months at a time the solitude would be
undisturbed by sound of human voice or footstep —
which was the poet's idea of happiness. The
world of men had seemed to him a world of sorrow
and foolishness and lies, and so he had forsaken it
to dwell with silence and beauty and the sound of
the sea.

For him the world had been an uncompanioned
wilderness. Here at last his spirit had found its

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

home and its kindred. The speech of men had
been to him a vain confusion, but here were the
voices he had been born to understand, the ele-
mental voices of earth and sea and sky, the
secret wisdom of the eternal. From morning till
night his days were passed in listening to these
voices, and in writing down in beautiful words the
messages of wonder they brought him. So his
little house grew to be filled with the lovely songs
that had come to him out of the sky and the sea
and the haunted beeches. He had written them
in a great book with silver clasps, and often at
evening, when the moon was rising over the sea, he
would sing them to himself, for joy in the treasure
which he had thus hoarded out of the air, as a man
might weigh the grains of gold sifted from some
flowing river.

One night, as he thus sat singing to himself in
the solitude, he was startled by a deep sigh, as of
some human creature near at hand, and looking
around he was aware of a lovely form, half in and
half out of the water, gazing at him with great
moonlit eyes from beneath masses of golden hair.
In awe and delight he gazed back spellbound at
the unearthly vision. It was a fairy woman of the
sea, more beautiful than tongue can tell. Over
her was the supernatural beauty of dreams and as

MOTHER-OF-PEARL

he looked at her the poet's heart filled with that
more than mortal happiness that only comes to us
in dreams.

"Beautiful spirit," at length he cried, stretching
out his arms to the vision ; but as he did so she was
gone, and in the place where she had been there
was nought but the lonely moonlight falling on the
rocks.

"It was all a trick of the moonlight," said the
poet to himself, but, even as he said it, there seemed
to come floating to him the cadences of an un-
earthly music of farewell.

In his heart the poet knew that it had not been
the moonlight, but that nature had granted him
one c-f those mystic visitations which come only
to those whose loving meditation upon her secrets
have opened the hidden doors. She had drawn
aside for a moment the veil of her visible beauty,
and vouchsafed him a glimpse of her invisible
mystery. But the veil had been drawn again
almost instantly, and the poet's eyes were left
empty and hungered for the face that had thus
momentarily looked at him through the veil.
Yet his heart was filled with a high happiness, for,
the vision once his, would it not be his again ? Did
it not mean that through the long initiation of his
solitary contemplation he had come at length to

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

that aery boundary where the wall between the
seen and the unseen grows transparent and the
human meets the immortal face to face?

Still, days passed, and the poet watched in vain
for the beautiful woman of the sea. She came not
again for all his singing, and his heart grew heavy
within him; but one day, as he walked the sea-
shore at dawn, it gave a great bound of joy, for
there in mystical writing upon the silver sand was
a message which no eyes but his could have read.
But the poet was skilled in the secret script of the
elements. To him the patterns of leaves and
flowers, the traceries of moss and lichen, the mark-
ings on rocks and trees, which to others were but
meaningless decorations, were the letters of na-
ture's hidden language, the spell-words of her
runic wisdom. To other eyes the message he had
found written on the sand would have seemed but
a tangle of delicate weeds and shells cast up by
the sea. To him, as he turned it into our coarser
human speech, it said :

"Seek me not, — unsought I come, —
Daughter of the moonlit foam,
Near and far am I to thee,
Near and far as earth and sea,
As wave to wave, as star to star,
Near and far, near and far."

MOTHER-OF-PEARL

And that night, when the poet sat and sang,
with full heart, in the moonlight — lo! the vision
was there once more. . . . But again, as he
stretched out his arms, she was gone. But this
time the poet did not grieve as before, for he
knew that she would come again, as indeed it
befell. When she appeared to him the third time
she had stolen so near to his side that he could
gaze deep into her strange eyes, as into the fath-
omless, moonlit sea, and at the ending of his song
she did not fade away as before, but her long
hair fell all about him like a net of moonbeams,
and she lay like the moon herself in his enraptured
arms.

To the passionate lover of nature, the anchorite
of her solitudes, there often comes, in the very
hour of his closest approach to her, an aching
sense of incomplete oneness with her, a human
desire for some responsive embodiment of her
mysterious beauty; and there are ecstatic mo-
ments in which nature seems on the tremulous
verge of sending us a magic answer — moments of
intense reverie when the woods seem about to
reveal to us the inner heart of their silence, in
some sudden shape of unimaginable enchantment,
or the infinite of the starry night take form at
our side in some companionable radiance. We

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

long, as it were, to press our lips to the forehead
of the dawn, to crush the leafy abundance of
summer to our breast, and to fold the infinite
ocean in our embrace.

To the poet, reward of his lonely vigils and
endless longing, nature had granted this marvel.
How often, as he had gazed at the moon rising
out of the sea, had he dreamed of a shining shape
that came to him along her silver pathway. And
to-night the mystery of the moonlit sea was in
his arms. No longer a lovely vision calling him
from afar — an unapproachable wonder, a voice, a
gleam — but a miraculously embodied spirit of the
elements, supernaturally fair.

The poet was, more than all men, learned in
beautiful words, but he could find no words for
this strange happiness that had befallen him;
indeed, he had now passed beyond the world of
words, and as he gazed into those magic eyes,
that seemed like sea-flowers growing out of the
air, they spoke to each other as wave talks to
wave, or the leaves whisper together on the trees, f

So it was that the poet ceased to be alone in
his solitude, and the fairy woman from the sea
became his wife, and very wonderful was their
happiness. But, as with all happiness, theirs, too,
was not without its touch of sorrow. For, mar-

MOTHER-OF-PEARL

velously wedded though they were, so closely
united that they seemed veritably one rather
than two beings, there had been a deep meaning
to that little song which the poet had found
written in seaweed upon the sand:

" Near and far am I to thee,
Near and far as earth and sea,"

it had said,

" Near and far, near and far."

For not even their love could cast down for
them one eternal barrier. They could meet and
love across it, but it was still there. They were
children of two diverse elements, and neither
could cross from one into the other — she a child
of the blue sea, he a child of the green earth.
She must always leave him at the edge of the
mysterious woods in which her heart ached to
wander, and, however far out into the wide
waters he would swim at her side, there would
always be those deep-sea grottoes and flower-
gardens whither he could never follow. Down
into these enchanted depths he would watch her
glide her shimmering way, but never might he
follow her to the hidden kingdoms of the sea.
He must await her out there, an alien, in the
upper sunshine, and watch her glittering kindred

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

stream in and out the rainbowed portals — till
again she was at his side, her hands filled for his
consolation with the secret treasures of the sea.

So would she, from the shore, with despair in
her eyes, watch him disappear among the beech-
trees to gather for her the waxen flowers and the
sweet-smelling green leaves and grasses she loved
more than any that grew in the sea. Thus across
their barrier would they make exchange of the
marvels that grew on either side, and thus, in-
deed, the barrier grew less and less by reason of
their love. Sometimes they asked each other if
that other mystery, Death, would remove the
barrier altogether. . . .

But at the heart of the woman Life was already
whispering another answer.

"What," said she, as they watched the solemn
stars in the still water one summer night, "what
if a little being were born to us that should belong
to both our worlds, to your green earth and to
my blue sea? Would you seem so lonely then?
A little being that could run by your side in the
meadows, and swim with me into the depths of
the sea! . . ."

"Would you be so lonely then?" he echoed.

And lo! after a season, it was this very marvel
that came to pass; for one night, as she came

MOTHER-OF-PEARL

along the moon-path to his side, she was not alone,
but a tiny fairy woman was with her — a little
radiant creature that, as her mother had dreamed,
could gather with one hand the flowers that grow
in the deeps of the wood and with the other the
flowers that grow in the deeps of the sea.

Like any other mortal babe she was, save for
this: around her waist ran a shimmering girdle —
of mother-of-pearl.

So the poet and his wife called her Mother-of-
Pearl; and she became for them, as it were, a
baby-bridge between two elements. In her mys-
terious life their two lives became one, as never
before. So near she brought them to each other
that often there seemed no barrier at all. And
thus days and years passed, and very wonderful
was their happiness.

But by this the world which the poet had for-
gotten had grown curious regarding the life which
he lived alone among the rocks. Many of his
songs, as songs will, had escaped from his soli-
tude, and floated singing among men; and weird
rumors grew of the strange happiness that had
come to him. Some of the more curious had spied
upon him in his seclusion, and had brought back
to the town marvelous accounts of having seen
him in the moonlight with his fairy wife and child

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

at his side. And, after its fashion, the world had
decided that here was plainly the work of the
devil, and that the poet was a wizard in league
with the powers of darkness. So the ignorant
world has ever interpreted the beauty it could
not understand, and the happiness it could not give.

Thus a cloud began to gather of which the poet
and his mer-wife and little Mother-of- Pearl knew
nothing, and one evening at moonrise, as they
were disporting themselves in their innocent hap-
piness by the sea, it burst upon them from the beech-
trees with a gathering murmur and a sudden roar.

A great mob, uttering cries and waving torches,
broke from the wood and ran toward them.

"Death to the wizard!" they cried. "Death!
Death!"

As the poet heard them, he turned to his wife
and little Mother-of -Pearl. "Fear not," he cried,
"they cannot hurt us."

Then, as again the cry went up, "Death to
the wizard!" a sudden light shone in his face.

"Death . . . yes! That is the last door of the
barrier ..." and he plunged into the moonlit water.

And when the rabble at length reached the
shore with their torches, the poet and his loved
ones were already lost in the silver pathway that
leads to the hidden kingdoms of the sea.

THE MER- MOTHER

JNE day, walking by the sea,
I heard a sweet voice calling me:
I looked — but nothing could I see;
I listened — but no more I heard;
Only the sea and the sea-bird
And the blue sky were there with me.

But on another happier day,
When all the sea was sun and spray,
And laughing shout of wind and foam,
I seemed to hear the voice once more, —
Wilder and sweeter than before,

0 wild as love and sweet as home.

1 looked, and lo! before me there
A maiden sat in seaweeds drest,
Sea-flowers hiding in her breast,
And with a comb of deep-sea pearl
She combed, like any other girl,
Her golden hair — her golden hair.

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

And, as each shining yellow curl
Flickered like sunshine through the pearl,
She laughed and sang — but not for me :
Three little babies of the sea
Were diving in and out for joy —
Two mer-girls and a small mer-boy.

That fairy song was not for me,

Nor those green eyes, nor that gold hair;

Deep in the caves beneath the foam

There was a husband and a home —

It was a mermaid taking care

Of her small children of the sea.

THE SLE EPLESS LORD

gg^^HERE was once a great lord. He
.• -'"^J ^'"r?/ was ,l,nl ol~ sevcn castles, and there

P§# were seven coronets upon his head.

^ He was richer than he ever gave
$t$&5£t=M himself the trouble to think of, for,
north, south, east, and west, the horizon even set
no bounds to his estates. A thousand villages
and ten thousand farms were in the hollow of his
hand, and into his coffers flowed the fruitfulness
and labor of all these. Therefore, as you can
imagine, he was a very rich lord. He had more
beautiful titles, denoting the various principalities
over which he was lord, than the deepest-lunged
herald could proclaim without taking breath at
least three times. In person he was most noble
and beautiful to look upon, and his voice was
like the rippling of waters under the moon, save
when it was like the call of a golden trumpet.
He stood foremost in the counsels of his realm,
not only for his eloquence, but for his wisdom.
Also, God had given him a good heart.

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

Only one gift had been denied him — the gift
of sleep. By whatever means he might weary
himself in the day — in study, in sport, in recrea-
tion, or in the business of the realm — night found
him sleepless, and all the dark hours the lights
burned in his bedchamber and in his library, as
he would pace from one to the other, with eyes
tragically awake and brain torturingly alert and
clear.

Every means known to science by which to
bring sleep to the eyes of sleepless men had been
tried in vain. Learned physicians from all parts
of the world had come to my lord's castle, and
had gone thence, confessing that their skill had
availed nothing. All strange and terrible drugs
that have power over the spirit of man had failed
to conquer those stubborn eyelids. My lord still
paced from his bedchamber to his library, from
his library to his bedchamber — sleepless.

Sometimes in his anguish he had thrown him-
self on his knees in prayer before a God whom he
had not always remembered — the God who giveth
His beloved sleep — but his prayers had remained
unanswered; and in his darkest moments he had
dreamed of snatching by his own hands that
sleep perpetual of which a great Latin poet he
loved had sung. Often, as he paced his library, he

3°

A SUDDEN STRANGE NEW LK.HT WOULD SHINE "i r < IF II- PAGES

THE SLEEPLESS LORD

would say over and over to himself, Nox est pcr-
petua una dormienda — and in the still night the
old words would often sound like soft dark voices
calling him away into the endless night of the
endless sleep. But he was not the man to take
that way of escape. No; whatever the' suffering
might be, he would fight it out to the end, and so
he continued sleepless, trying this resource and
that, but, most of all, that first and last resource
— courage. It is seldom that courage fails to
wrest for us some recompense from the hardest
situation, and the sleepless man, as night after
night he fought with his fate, did not miss such
hard-wrung rewards. Often, as in the deepest
hush of the night he wearily took up some great old
book of philosopher or poet familiar to him from
his youth, a sudden strange new light would
shine out of its pages, as of some inner radiance
of truth which he had missed in his daylight read-
ing. At such times an exaltation would come
over him, and it would almost seem as though the
curse upon him was really a blessing of initiation
into the world of a deeper wisdom, the gate of
which is hidden by the glare of the sun. In the
daylight the eternal voices are lost in the transi-
tory clamor of human business; it is only when
the night falls, and the stars rise, and the noise

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

of men dies down like the drone of some sleeping
insect, that the solemn thoughts of God may be
heard.

Other compensations he found when, weary of
his books and despairing of sleep, he would leave
his house and wander through the silent city,
where the roaring thoroughfares of the daytime
were silent as the pyramids, and the great ware-
houses seemed like deserted palaces haunted by
the moon. Night-walkers like himself grew to
find his figure familiar, and would say to them-
selves, or to each other, "There goes the lord
who never sleeps"; and the watchmen on their
rounds all knew and saluted the man whose eye-
lids never closed. Enforced as these nocturnal
rambles were, they revealed to him much beau-
tiful knowledge which those more fortunate ones
asleep in their beds must ever miss. Thus he
came in contact with all the vast nocturnal labor
of the world, the toil of sleepless men who keep
watch over the sleeping earth, and work through
the night to make it ready for the new-born
day ; all that labor which is put away and forgotten
with the rising of the sun, and of which the day
asks no questions, so that the result be there.
This brought him very near to humanity and
taught him a deep pity for the grinding lot of man.

32 .

THE SLEEPLESS LORD

Then — was it no compensation for this sleep-
less one that he thus became a companion of all
the ensorceled beauty of Night, walking by her
side, a confidant of her mystic talk, as he gazed
into her everlasting eyes? Was it nothing to be
the intimate of all her sibylline moods, learned
in every haunted murmur of her voice, intrusted
with her lunar secrets, and a friend of all her
stars ?

Yes! it was much indeed, he often said to him-
self, as he turned homeward with the first flush
of morning, and met the great sweet-smelling wains
coming from the country, laden with fruits and
flowers, and making their way like moving orchards
and meadows through the city streets.

The big wagoners, too, were well acquainted
with the great lord who never slept, and would
always stop when they saw him, for it was his
custom to buy from them a bunch of country
flowers.

"The country dew is still on them," he would
say; "it will have dried long since when the
people sleeping yonder come to buy them," and,
as he slipped back into his house, he would often
feel a sort of pity for those who slept so well
that they never saw the stars set and the sun rise.

Such were some of the compensations with
33

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

which he strove to strengthen his soul — not all
in vain. So time passed; but at length the strain
of those interminable nights began to tell upon
the sleepless man, and strange fancies began to
take possession of him. His vigils were no longer
lonely, but inhabited by spectral voices and
shadowy faces. Rebellion against his fate began
to take the place of courage; and one night, in
anger against his unending ordeal, he said to
himself: "Am I not a great lord? It is intolerable
that I should be denied that simple thing which
the humblest and poorest possess so abundantly.
Am I not rich? I will go forth and buy sleep."

So saying, he took from a cabinet a great jewel
of priceless value. "It is worth half my estate,"
he said. "Surely with this I can buy sleep."
And he went out into the night.

As if in irony, the night was unusually wide-
awake with stars, and the moon was almost at
its full. As the sleepless one looked up into the
firmament, it almost seemed as though it mocked
him with his brilliant wakefulness. From horizon
to horizon, in all the heaven, there was to be seen
no downiest feather of the wings of sleep. To his
upturned eyes, pleading for the mercy of sleep,
the stars sent down an answer of polished steel.
And so he turned his eyes again upon the earth.

THE SLEEPLESS LORD

Everything there also, even the keenly cut
shadows, seemed pitilessly awake. It almost
seemed as though God had withdrawn the blessing
of sleep from His universe.

But no! Suddenly he gave a cry of joy, as
presently, by the riverside, stretched in an angle
of its granite embankment, as though it had been
a bed of down, he came upon a great workman
fast asleep, with his arms over his head and his
face full in the light of the moon. His breath
came and went with the regularity of a man who
has done his day's work and is healthily tired
out. He seemed to be drinking great draughts
of sleep out of the sky, as one drinks water from
a spring. He was poorly clad, and evidently a
wanderer on the earth; but, houseless as he was,
to him had been granted that healing gift which
the great lord who gazed at him had prayed for
in vain for months and years, and for which this
night he was willing to surrender half — nay, the
whole — of his wealth, if needs be —

Only a little holiday of sleep,

Soft sleep, sweet sleep; a little soothing psalm,

Of slumber from Thy sanctuaries of calm.

A little sleep — it matters not how deep;

A little falling feather from Thy wing:

Merciful Lord — is it so great a thing?

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

The sleepless one gazed at the sleeper a long
time, fascinated by the mystery and beauty of
that strange gift that had been denied him. Then
he took the jewel in his hand and looked at it,
picturing to himself the sleeping man's surprise
when he awoke in the morning and found so un-
expected a treasure in his possession, and all
that the sudden acquisition of such wealth would
mean to him. But, as I said at the beginning,
God had given him a good heart, and, as he gazed
on the man's sleep again, a pang of misgiving
shot through him. After all, what were worldly
possessions compared with this natural boon of
which he was about to rob the sleeping man?
Would all his castles be a fair exchange for that?
And was he about to subject a fellow human being
to the torture which he had endured to the verge
of madness?

For a long time he stood over the sleeper
struggling with himself.

"No!" at last he said. "I cannot rob him of
his sleep," and turned and passed on his way.

Presently he came to where a beautiful woman
lay asleep with a little child in her arms. They
were evidently poor outcasts, yet how tranquilly
they lay there, as if all the riches of the earth
were theirs, and as if there was no hard world

HE WI.M I.iKIll INTO rHI DAWN SLEEPLESS

THE SLEEPLESS LORD

to fight on the morrow. If sleep had seemed
beautiful on the face of the sleeping workman,
how much more beautiful it seemed here, laying
its benediction upon this poor mother and child.
How trustfully they lay in its arms out there in
the shelterless night, as though relying on the
protection of the ever-watchful stars. Surely he
could not violate this sanctuary of sleep, and
think to make amends by exchange of his poor
worldly possessions. No! he must go on his way
again. But first he took a ring from his finger
and slipped it gently into the baby's hand. The
tiny hand closed over it with the firmness of a
baby's clutch. "It will be safe there till morn-
ing," he said to himself, and left them to their
slumbers.

So he passed along through the city, and every-
where were sleeping forms and houses filled with
sleepers, but he could not bring himself to carry
out his plan and buy sleep. Sleep was too beau-
tiful and sacred a thing to be bought with the
most precious stone, and man was so piteously
in need of it at each long day's end.

Thus he went on his way, and at last, as the
dawn was showing faint in the sky, he found
himself in a churchyard, and above one of the
graves was growing a shining silver flower.

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

"It is the flower of sleep," said the sleepless
one, and he bent over eagerly to gather it; but
as he did so his eyes fell upon an inscription on
the stone. It was the grave of a beautiful girl
who had died of heart-break for her lover.

"I may not pluck it," he said. "She needs
her sleep as well."

And he went forth into the dawn sleepless.

THE MAN WITH NO MONEY

A FABLE FOR CAPITALISTS

(NCE upon a time there was a man
who found himself, suddenly and
sadly, without any money. I am
aware that in these days it is hard
to believe such a story. Nowadays,
everybody has money, and it may seem like a
stretch of the imagination to suggest a time when
a man should search his pockets and find them
empty. But this is merely a fairy tale; so, I
trust that the reader will help me out by tak-
ing so apparently preposterous a statement for
granted.

The man had been a merchant of butterflies
in Ispahan, and, though his butterflies had flitted
all about the flowered world, the delight of many-
tongued and many-colored nations, he found him-
self at the close of the day a very poor and
weary man.

He had but one consolation and companion
39

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

left — a strange, black butterfly, which he kept
in a silver cage, and only looked at now and
again, when he was quite sure that he was alone.
He had sold all his other butterflies — all the
rainbow wings — but this dark butterfly he would
keep till the end.

Kings and queens, in sore sorrow and need,
had offered him great sums for his black butter-
fly, but it was the only beautiful thing he had
left — so, selfishly, he kept it to himself. Mean-
while, he starved and wandered the country
roads, homeless and foodless: his breakfast the
morning star, his supper the rising moon. But,
sad as was his heart, and empty as was his stom-
ach, laughter still flickered in his tired eyes; and
he possessed, too, a very shrewd mind, as a man
who sells butterflies must. Making his breakfast
of blackberries one September morning, in the
middle of an old wood, with the great cages of
bramble overladen with the fruit of the solitude,
an idea came to him. Thereupon he sought out
some simple peasants and said: "Why do you
leave these berries to fall and wither in the soli-
tude, when in the markets of the world much
money may be made of them for you and for
your household? Gather them for me, and I will
sell them and give you a fair return for your labor."

THE MAN WITH NO MONEY

Now, of course, the blackberries did not belong
to the dealer in butterflies. They were the free
gift of God to men and birds. But the simple
peasants never thought of that. Instead, they
gathered them, east and west, into bushel and
hogshead, and the man that had no money, that
September morning, smiled to himself as he paid
them their little wage, and filled his pockets, that
before had been so empty, with the money that
God and the blackberries and the peasants had
made for him.

Thus he grew so rich that he seldom looked
at the dark butterfly in the silver cage — but
sometimes, in the night, he heard the beating of
its wings.

THE RAGS OF QUEEN COPHETUA

'HEN the first dazzle of bewildered
happiness in her new estate had
faded from her eyes, and the mir-
acle of her startling metamorphosis
from a wandering beggar-maid to
a great Queen on a throne was beginning to lose
a little of its wonder and to take its place among
the accepted realities of life, Queen Cophetua be-
came growingly conscious of some dim dissatis-
faction and unrest in her heart.

Indeed, she had all that the world could give,
and surely all that a woman's heart is supposed
to desire. The King's love was still hers as when
he found her at dawn by the pool in the forest;
and, in exchange for the tattered rags which had
barely concealed the water-lily whiteness of her
body, countless wardrobes were filled with gar-
ments of every variety of subtle design and ex-
quisite fabric, textures light as the golden sun,
purple as the wine-dark sea, iridescent as the
rainbow, and soft as summer clouds — the better

RAGS OF QUEEN COPHETUA

to set off her strange beauty for the eyes of the
King.

And, every day of the year, the King brought
her a new and priceless jewel to hang about her
neck, or wear upon her moonbeam hands, or to
shine in the fragrant night of her hair.

Ah! what a magical wooing that had been in
the depths of the forest, that strange morning!
The sun was hardly above the tops of the trees
when she had awakened from sleep at the mossy
foot of a giant beech, and its first beams were
casting a solemn enchantment across a great pool
of water-lilies and filling their ivory cups with
strange gold. She had lain still a while, watching
through her sleepy eyelids the unfolding marvel
of the dawn; and then rousing herself, she had
knelt by the pool, and letting down her long hair
that fell almost to her feet had combed and
braided it, with the pool for her mirror — a mirror
with water-lilies for its frame. And, as she gazed at
herself in the clear water, with a girlish happiness
in her own beauty, a shadow fell over the pond;
and, startled, she saw beside her own face in the
mirror the face of a beautiful young knight, so it
seemed, bending over her shoulder. In fear and
maiden modesty — for her hair was only half
braided, and, whiter than any water-lily in the

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

pond, her bosom glowed bare in the morning sun-
light— she turned around, and met the eyes of
the King.

Without moving, each gazed at the other as
in a dream — eyes lost fathom-deep in eyes.

At last the King found voice to speak.

"You must be a fairy," he had said, "for
surely you are too beautiful to be human!"

"Nay, my lord," she had answered, "I am
but a poor girl that wanders with my lute yonder
from village to village and town to town, singing
my little songs."

"You shall wander no more," said the King.
"Come with me, and you shall sit upon a throne
and be my Queen, and I will love you for-
ever."

But she could not answer a word, for fear and
joy.

And therewith the King took her by the hand,
and set her upon his horse that was grazing hard
by; and, mounting behind her, he rode with her
in his arms to the city, and all the while her
eyes looked up into his eyes, as she leaned upon
his shoulder, and his eyes looked deep down
into hers — but they spake not a word. Only
once, at the edge of the forest, he had bent down
and kissed her on the lips, and it seemed to both

RAGS OF QUEEN COPHETUA

as if heaven with all its stars was falling into
their hearts.

As they rode through the city to the palace,
surrounded by wondering crowds, she nestled
closer to his side, like a frightened bird, and like
a wild bird's were her great eyes gazing up into
his in a terror of joy. Not once did she move
them to right or left, for all the murmur of the
people about them. Nor did the King see aught
but her water-lily face as they wended thus in
a dream through the crowded streets, and at
length came to the marble steps of the palace.

Then the King, leaping from his horse, took
her tenderly in his arms and carried her lightly
up the marble steps. Upon the topmost step
he set her down, and taking her hand in his, as
she stood timidly by his side, he turned his face
to the multitude and spake.

"Lo! my people," he said, "this is your Queen,
whom God has sent to me by a divine miracle,
to rule over your hearts from this day forth, as
she holds rule over mine. My people, salute your
Queen!"

And therewith the King knelt on one knee to
his beggar-maid and kissed her hand; and all the
people knelt likewise, with bowed heads, and a
great cry went up.

4 45

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

"Our Queen! Our Queen!"

Then the King and Queen passed into the pal-
ace, and the tiring-maids led the little beggar-
maid into a great chamber hung with tapestries
and furnished with many mirrors, and they took
from off her white body the tattered gown she
had worn in the forest, and robed her in per-
fumed linen and cloth of gold, and set jewels at
her throat and in her hair; and at evening in the
cathedral, before the high altar, in the presence
of all the people, the King placed a sapphire
beautiful as the evening star upon her finger,
and the twain became man and wife; and the
moon rose and the little beggar-maid was a Queen
and lay in a great King's arms.

On the morrow the King summoned a famous
worker in metals attached to his court, and com-
manded him to make a beautiful coffer of beaten
gold, in which to place the little ragged robe of
his beggar-maid; for it was very sacred to him
because of his great love. After due time the
coffer was finished, and it was acclaimed the
masterpiece of the great artificer who had made it.
About its sides was embossed the story of the
King's love. On one side was the pool with the
water-lilies and the beggar-maid braiding her
hair on its brink. And on another she was riding

RAGS OF QUEEN COPHETUA

on horseback with the King through the forest.
And on another she was standing by his side on
the steps of the palace before all the people.
And on the fourth side she was kneeling by the
King's side before the high altar in the cathedral.

The King placed the coffer in a secret gallery
attached to the royal apartments, and very ten-
derly he placed therein the little tattered gown
and the lute with which his Queen was wont to
wander from village to village and town to town,
singing her little songs.

Often at evening, when his heart brimmed over
with the tenderness of his love, he would per-
suade his Queen to doff her beautiful royal gar-
ments and clothe herself again in that little
tattered gown, through the rents of which her
white body showed whiter than any water-lilies.
And, however rich or exquisite the other garments
she wore, it was in those beloved rags, the King
declared, that she looked most beautiful. In
them he loved her best.

But this had been a while ago, and though, as
has been said, the King's love was still hers as
when he had met her that strange morning in
the forest, and though every day he brought her
a new and priceless jewel to hang about her neck,
or wear upon her moonbeam hands, or to shine

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

in the fragrant night of her hair, it was many
months since he had asked her to wear for him
the little tattered gown.

Was the miracle of their love beginning to lose
a little of its wonder for him, too ; was it beginning
to take its place among the accepted realities of life?

Sometimes the Queen fancied that he seemed
a little impatient with her elfin bird-like ways,
as though, in his heart, he was beginning to wish
that she was more in harmony with the folk
around her, more like the worldly court ladies,
with their great manners and artificial smiles.
For, though she had now been a Queen a long
while, she had never changed. She was still the
wild gipsy-hearted child the King had found
braiding her hair that morning by the lilied pool.

Often she would steal away by herself and enter
that secret gallery, and lift the lid of the golden
coffer, and look wistfully at the little tattered
robe, and run her hands over the cracked strings
of her little lute.

There was a long window in the gallery, from
which, far away, she could see the great green
cloud of the forest; and as the days went by
she often found herself seated at this window,
gazing in its direction, with vague unformed
feelings of sadness in her heart.

RAGS OF QUEEN COPHETUA

One day, as she sat there at the window, an
impulse came over her that she could not resist,
and swiftly she slipped off her beautiful garments,
and taking the little robe from the coffer, clothed
herself in the rags that the King had loved. And
she took the old lute in her hands, and sang low
to herself her old wandering songs. And she
danced, too, an elfin dance, all alone there in
the still gallery, danced as the apple-blossoms
dance on the spring winds, or the autumn leaves
dance in the depths of the forest.

Suddenly she ceased in alarm. The King had
entered the gallery unperceived, and was watching
her with sad eyes.

"Are you weary of being a Queen?" said he,
sadly.

For answer she threw herself on his breast and
wept bitterly, she knew not why.

"Oh, I love you! I love you," she sobbed,
"but this life is not real."

And the King went from her with a heavy heart.

And from day to day an unspoken sorrow lay
between them; and from day to day the King's
words haunted the Queen with a more insistent
refrain :

"Are you weary of being a Queen?"

Was she weary of being a Queen?
49

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

And so the days went by.

One day as the Queen passed down the palace
steps she came upon a beautiful girl, clothed in
tatters as she had once been, seated on the lowest
step, selling flowers — water-lilies.

The Queen stopped.

"Where did you gather your water-lilies, child? "
she asked.

' ' I gathered them from a pool in the great forest
yonder," answered the girl, with a curtsey.

"Give me one of them," said the Queen, with
a sob in her voice, and she slipped a piece of gold
into the girl's hand, and fled back into the palace,

That night, as she lay awake by her sleeping
King, she rose silently and stole into the secret
gallery. There, with tears running down her
cheeks, she dressed herself in the little tattered
gown and took the lute in her hand, and then
stole back and pressed a last kiss on the brow
of her sleeping King, who still slept on.

But at sunrise the King awoke, with a sudden
fear in his heart, and lo! where his Queen had
lain was only a white water-lily.

And at that moment, in the depths of the for-
est, a beggar-maid was braiding her hair, with a
pool of water-lilies for her mirror.

THE WIFE FROM FAIRY-LAND

ER talk was of all woodland
things,

Of little lives that pass
Away in one green afternoon,

Deep in the haunted grass.

For she had come from fairy-land,

The morning of a day
When the world that still was April

Was turning into May.

Green leaves and silence and two eyes —

'Twas so she seemed to me;
A silver shadow of the woods, —

Whisper and mystery.

I looked into her woodland eyes,

And all my heart was hers;
And then I led her by the hand

Home up my marble stairs.
5i

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

And all my granite and my gold
Was hers for her green eyes,

And all my sinful heart was hers,
From sunset to sunrise.

I gave her all delight and ease
That God had given to me,

I listened to fulfil her dreams,
Rapt with expectancy.

But all I gave and all I did
Brought but a weary smile

Of gratitude upon her face —
As though, a little while,

She loitered in magnificence

Of marble and of gold,
And waited to be home again,

When the dull tale was told.

Sometimes, in the chill galleries,
Unseen, she deemed, unheard,

I found her dancing like a leaf,
And singing like a bird.

So lone a thing I never saw
In lonely earth and sky;
52

THE WIFE FROM FAIRY-LAND

So merry and so sad a thing —
One sad, one laughing, eye.

There came a day when on her heart

A wild-wood blossom lay,
And the world that still was April

Was turning into May.

In her green eyes I saw a smile
That turned my heart to stone, —

My wife that came from fairy-land
No longer was alone.

For there had come a little hand

To show the green way home,
Home through the leaves, home through
the dew,

Home through the greenwood — home.

THE BUYER OF SORROWS

\N an evening of singular sunset,
about the rich beginning of May,
the little market-town of Beethorpe
was startled by the sound of a
trumpet.

Beethorpe was an ancient town, mysteriously
sown, centuries ago, like a wandering thistle-down
of human life, amid the silence and the nibbling
sheep of the great chalk downs. It stood in a
hollow of the long smooth billows of pale pasture
that suavely melted into the sky on every side.
The evening was so still that the little river run-
ning across the threshold of the town, and en-
circling what remained of its old walls, was the
noisiest thing to be heard, dominating with its
talkative murmur the bedtime hum of the High
Street.

Suddenly, as the flamboyance of the sky was
on the edge of fading, and the world beginning
to wear a forlorn, forgotten look, a trumpet
sounded from the western heights above the town,

THE BUYER OF SORROWS

as though the sunset itself had spoken; and the
people in Beethorpe, looking up, saw three horse-
men against the lurid sky.

Three times the trumpet blew.

And the simple folk of Beethorpe, tumbling
out into the street at the summons, and looking
to the west with sleepy bewilderment, asked
themselves: Was it the last trumpet? Or was
it the long-threatened invasion of the King of
France ?

Again the trumpet blew, and then the braver
of the young men of the town hastened up the
hill to learn its meaning.

As they approached the horsemen, they perceived
that the center of the three was a young man
of great nobility of bearing, richly but somberly
dressed, and with a dark, beautiful face filled with
a proud melancholy. He kept his eyes on the
fading sunset, sitting motionless upon his horse,
apparently oblivious of the commotion his arrival
had caused. The horseman on his right hand
was clad after the manner of a herald, and the
horseman on his left hand was clad after the
manner of a steward. And the three horsemen
sat motionless, awaiting the bewildered ambassa-
dors of Beethorpe.

When these had approached near enough the
55

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

herald once more set the trumpet to his lips and
blew; and then, unfolding a parchment scroll,
read in a loud voice:

"To the Folk of Beethorpe — Greeting from
the High and Mighty Lord, Mortimer of the
Marches :

"Whereas our heart had gone out toward the
sorrows of our people in the counties and towns
and villages of our domain, we hereby issue proc-
lamation that whosoever hath a sorrow, let him
or her bring it forth; and we, out of our private
purse, will purchase the said sorrow, according
to its value — that the hearts of our people be
lightened of their burdens."

And when the herald had finished reading he
blew again upon the trumpet three times; and
the villagers looked at one another in bewilder-
ment— but some ran down the hill to tell their
neighbors of the strange proposal of their lord.
Thus, presently, nearly all the village of Bee-
thorpe was making its way up the hill to where
those three horsemen loomed against the evening
sky.

Never was such a sorrowful company. Up the
hill they came, carrying their sorrows in their
hands — sorrows for which, in excited haste, they
had rummaged old drawers and forgotten cup-

Tm?. HKKUn ONCE MORE SET Till TRUMPET TO III- LIPS AND BLEW

THE BUYER OF SORROWS

boards, and even ran hurriedly into the church-
yard.

Lord Mortimer of the Marches sat his horse
with the same austere indifference, his melan-
choly profile against the fading sky. Only those
who stood near to him noted a kindly ironic
flicker of a smile in his eyes, as he saw, apparently
seeing nothing, the poor little raked-up sorrows
of his village of Beethorpe.

He was a fantastic young lord of many sorrows.
His heart had been broken in a very strange
way. Death and Pity were his closest friends.
He was so sad himself that he had come to realize
that sorrow is the only sincerity of life. Thus
sorrow had become a kind of passion with him,
even a kind of connoisseurship ; and he had come,
so to say, to be a collector of sorrows. It was
partly pity and partly an odd form of dilettante-
ism — for his own sad heart made him pitiful for
and companionable with any other sad heart; but
the sincerity of his sorrow made him jealous of the
sanctity of sorrow, and at the same time sternly
critical of, and sadly amused by, the hypocrisies
of sorrow.

So, as he sat his horse and gazed at the sunset,
he smiled sadly to himself as he heard, without
seeming to hear, the small, insincere sorrows of

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

his village of Beethorpe — sorrows forgotten long
ago, but suddenly rediscovered in old drawers and
unopened cupboards, at the sound of his lord-
ship's trumpet and the promise of his strange
proclamation.

Was there a sorrow in the world that no money
could buy?

It was to find such a sorrow that Lord Mortimer
thus fantastically rode from village to village of
his estates, with herald and steward.

The unpurchasable sorrow — the sorrow no gold
can gild, no jewel can buy!

Far and wide he had ridden over his estates,
seeking so rare a sorrow; but as yet he had found
no sorrow that could not be bought with a little
bag of gold and silver coins.

So he sat his horse, while the villagers of Bee-
thorpe were paid out of a great leathern bag by
the steward — for the steward understood the mind
of his master, and, without troubling him, paid each
weeping and whimpering peasant as he thought fit.

In another great bag the steward had collected
the sorrows of the village of Beethorpe; and, by
this, the moon was rising, and, with another
blast of trumpet by way of farewell, the three
horsemen took the road again to Lord Mor-
timer's castle.

THE BUYER OF SORROWS

When, out of the great leathern bag, in Lord
Mortimer's cabinet they poured upon the table
the sorrows of Beethorpe, the young lord smiled
to himself, turning over one sorrow after the
other, as though they had been precious stones —
for there was not one genuine sorrow among them.

But, later, there came news to him that there
was one real sorrow in Beethorpe; and he rode
alone on horseback to the village, and found a
beautiful girl laying flowers on a grave. She was
so beautiful that he forgot his ancient grief, and
he thought that all his castles would be but a
poor exchange for her face.

"Maiden," said he, "let me buy your sorrow
— with three counties and seven castles."

And the girl looked up at him from the grave,
writh eyes of forget-me-not, and said: "My lord,
you mistake. This is not sorrow. It is my only
joy."

THE PRINCESS'S MIRROR

^HE sun was scarcely risen, but the
young princess was already seated
by her window. Never did window
open upon a scene of such enchant-
ment. Never has the dawn risen
over so fair a land. Meadows so fresh and grass
so green, rivers of such mystic silver and far
mountains so majestically purple, no eye has seen
outside of Paradise; and over all was now out-
spread the fairy-land of the morning sky.

Even a princess might rise early to behold so
magic a spectacle.

Yet, strangely enough, it was not upon this
miracle that the eyes of the princess were gazing.
In fact, she seemed entirely oblivious of it all —
oblivious of all that was passing in the sky, and
of all the dewy awakening of the earth.

Her eyes were lost in a trance over what she
deemed a rarer beauty, a stranger marvel. The
princess was gazing at her own face in a golden
mirror.

HER ONL\ t \KI. U \-< fO GAZE All. LAN Al lll-.k OWN I V< I

THE PRINCESS'S MIRROR

And indeed it was a beautiful face that she saw
there, so beautiful that the princess might well
be pardoned for thinking it the most beautiful
face in the world. So fascinated had she become
by her own beauty that she carried her mirror
eVer at her girdle, and gazed at it night and day.
Whenever she saw another beautiful thing she
looked in her mirror and smiled to herself.

She had looked at the most beautiful rose in
the world, and then she had looked in her mirror
and said, "I am more beautiful."

She had looked at the morning star, and then
she had looked in her mirror and said, "I am
more beautiful."

She had looked at the rising moon, and then
she had looked in her mirror and still she said,
"I am more beautiful."

Whenever she heard of a beautiful face in her
kingdom she caused it to be brought before her,
and then she looked in her mirror, and always
she smiled to herself and said, "I am more beau-
tiful."

Thus it had come about that her only care was
to gaze all day at her own face. So enamored
had she become of it, that she hated even to
sleep; but not even in sleep did she lose the
beautiful face she loved, for it was still there in

5 61

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

the mirror of dreams. Yet often she would wake
in the night to gaze at it, and always she arose
at dawn that, with the first rays of the sun,
she might look into her mirror. Thus, from the
rising sun to the setting moon, she would sit at
her window, and never take her eyes from those
beautiful eyes that looked back at her, and the
longest day in the year was not long enough to
return their gaze.

This particular morning was a morning in
May — all bloom and song, and crowding leaves
and thickening grass. The valley was a mist of
blossom, and the air thrilled with the warbling
of innumerable birds. Soft dewy scents floated
hither and thither on the wandering breeze. But
the princess took no note of these things, lost
in the dream of her face, and saw the changes
of the dawn only as they were reflected in her
mirror and suffused her beauty with their rainbow
tints. So rapt in her dream was she that, when a
bird alighted near at hand and broke into sudden
song, she was so startled that — the mirror slipped
from her hand.

Now the princess's window was in the wall of
an old castle built high above the valley, and
beneath it the ground sloped precipitately, cov-
ered with underbrush and thick grasses, to a

THE PRINCESS'S MIRROR

highroad winding far beneath. As the mirror
slipped from the hand of the princess it fell among
this underbrush and rolled, glittering, down the
slope, till the princess finally lost sight of it in
a belt of wild flowers overhanging the highroad.
As it finally disappeared, she screamed so loudly
that the ladies-in-waiting ran to her in alarm,
and servants were instantly sent forth to search
for the lost mirror. It was a very beautiful
mirror, the work of a goldsmith famous for his
fantastic masterpieces in the precious metals.
The fancy he had skilfully embodied was that
of beauty as the candle attracting the moths.
The handle of the mirror, which was of ivory,
represented the candle, the golden flame of which
swept round in a circle to hold the crystal. Wrought
here and there, on the golden back of the mirror,
were moths with wings of enamel and precious
stones. It was a marvel of the goldsmith's art,
and as such was beyond price. Yet it was not
merely for this, as we know, that the princess
loved it, but because it had been so long the
intimate of her beauty. For this reason it had
become sacred in her eyes, and, as she watched
it roll down the hillside, she realized that it had
gained for her also a superstitious value. It
almost seemed as if to lose it would be to lose

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

her beauty too. She ran to another mirror in
panic. No! her beauty still remained. But no
other mirror could ever be to her like the mirror
she had lost. So, forgetting her beauty for a
moment, she wept and tore her hair and beat
her tiring-maids in her misery ; and when the men
returned from their searching without the mirror,
she gave orders to have them soundly flogged
for their failure.

Meanwhile the mirror rested peacefully among
the wild flowers and the humming of bees.

A short while after the serving-men had been
flogged and the tiring-maids had been beaten,
there came along the white road at the foot of
the castle a tired minstrel. He was singing to
himself out of the sadness of his heart. He
was forty years old, and the exchange that life
had given him for his dreams had not seemed
to him a fair equivalent. He had even grown
weary of his own songs.

He sat, dejected, amid the green grasses, and
looked up at the ancient heaven — and thought
to himself. Then suddenly he turned his tired
eyes again to earth, and saw the daisies growing
there, and the butterflies flitting from flower to
flower. And the road, as he looked at it, seemed
long — longer than ever. He took his old lute

THE PRINCESS'S MIRROR

in his hand— wondering to himself if they could
play another tune. They were so in love with
each other— and so tired of each other.

He played one of his old songs, of which he
was heartily weary, and, as he played, the butter-
flies flitted about him and filled his old hair with
blue wings.

He was forty years old and very weary. He
was alone. His last nightingale had ceased sing-
ing. The time had come for him when one thinks,
and even dreams, of the fireside, the hearth, and
the beautiful old memories.

He had, in short, arrived at that period of life
when one begins to perceive the beauty of
money.

As a boy he had never given a thought to
gold or silver. A butterfly had seemed more
valuable to him than a gold piece. But he was
growing old, and, as I have said, he was beginning
to perceive the beauty of money.

The daisies were all around him, and the lark
was singing up there in the sky. But how could
he cash a daisy or negotiate a lark?

Dreams, after all, were dreams. ... He was
saying this to himself, when suddenly his eye
fell upon the princess's mirror, lying there in
the grass— so covered with butterflies, looking

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

at themselves, that no wonder the serving-men
had been unable to find it.

The mirror of the princess, as I have said, was
made of gold and ivory, and wonderful crystal
and many precious stones.

So, when the minstrel took it in his hands
out of the grass, he thought — well, that he might
at least buy a breakfast at the next town. For
he was very hungry.

Well, he caught up the mirror and hid it in
his faded doublet, and took his way to a wood
of living green, and when he was alone — that is,
alone with a few flowers and a bird or two, and
a million leaves, and the soft singing of a little
river hiding its music under many boughs — he
took out the mirror from his doublet.

Shame upon him! he, a poet of the rainbow,
had only one thought as he took up the mirror —
the gold and ivory and the precious stones. He
was merely thinking of them and his breakfast.

But when he looked into the mirror, expecting
to see his own ancient face — what did he see?
He saw something so beautiful that, just like
the princess, he dropped the mirror. Have you
ever seen the wild rose as it opens its heart to
the morning sky ; have you ever seen the hawthorn
holding in its fragrant arms its innumerable

THE PRINCESS'S MIRROR

blooms; have you seen the rising of the moon,
or looked in the face of the morning star?

The minstrel looked in the mirror and saw some-
thing far more wonderful than all these wonderful
things.

He saw the face of the princess — eternally re-
flected there; for her love of her own beautiful
face had turned the mirror into a magic glass.
To worship oneself is the only way to make a
beautiful face.

And as the minstrel looked into the mirror he
sadly realized that he could never bring himself
to sell it — and that he must go without his break-
fast. The moon had fallen into his hand out of
the sky. Could he, a poet, exchange this celestial
windfall for a meal and a new doublet? As the
minstrel gazed and gazed at the beautiful face,
he understood that he could no more sell the
mirror than he could sell his own soul — and, in
his pilgrimage through the world, he had re-
ceived many offers for his soul. Also, many
kings and captains had vainly tried to buy from
him his gift of courage.

But the minstrel had sold neither. And now
had fallen out of the sky one more precious thing
to guard — the most beautiful face in the world.
So, as he gazed in the mirror, he forgot his hunger,

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

forgot his faded doublet, forgot the long sorrow
of his days — and at length there came the setting
sun. Suddenly the minstrel awoke from his
dream at the sound of horsemen in the valley.
The princess was sending heralds into every cor-
ner of her dominions to proclaim the loss of the
mirror, and for its return a beautiful reward — a
lock of her strange hair.

The minstrel hid himself, with his treasure,
amid the fern, and, when the trumpets had faded
in the distance, found the highroad again and
went upon his way.

Now it chanced that a scullery-maid of the
castle, as she was polishing a copper saucepan,
had lifted her eyes from her work, and, looking
down toward the highroad, had seen the minstrel
pick up the mirror. He was a very well known
minstrel. All the scullery-maids and all the
princesses had his songs by heart.

Even the birds were fabled to sing his songs,
as they flitted to and fro on their airy busi-
ness.

Thus, through the little scullery-maid, it be-
came known to the princess that the mirror had
been found by the wandering minstrel, and so
his life became a life of peril. Bandits, hoping
for the reward of that lock of strange hair, hunted

THE PRINCESS'S MIRROR

him through the woodland, across the marshes,
and over the moors.

Jews with great money-bags came to buy from
him — the beautiful face. Sometimes he had to
climb up into trees to look at it in the sunrise,
the woods were so filled with the voices of his
pursuers.

But neither hunger, nor poverty, nor small
ferocious enemies were able to take from him the
beautiful face. It never left his heart. All night
long and all the watching day it was pressed close
to his side.

Meanwhile the princess was in despair. More
and more the fancy possessed her that with the
lost mirror her beauty too was lost. In her un-
happiness, like all sad people, she took strange
ways of escape. She consulted the stars, and
empirics from the four winds settled down upon
her castle. Each, of course, had his own inval-
uable nostrum; and all went their way. For not
one of these understood the heart of a poet.

However, at last there came to the aid of the
princess a reverend old man of ninety years, a
famous seer, deeply and gently and pitifully
learned in the hearts of men. His was that wisdom
which comes of great goodness. He understood
the princess, and he understood the minstrel; for,

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

having lived so long alone with the Infinite, he
understood the Finite.

To him the princess was as a little child, and
his old wise heart went out to her.

And, as I have said, his heart understood the
minstrel too.

Therefore he said to the princess: "I know the
hearts of poets. In seven days I will bring you
back your mirror."

And the old man went, and at length found
the poet eating wild berries in the middle of the
wood.

"That is a beautiful mirror you have by your
side," said the old man.

"This mirror," answered the poet, "holds in
its deeps the most beautiful face in the world."

"It is true," said the wise old man. "I have
seen the beautiful face . . . but I too possess a
mirror. Will you look into it?"

And the poet took the mirror from the old man
and looked; and, as he looked, the mirror of the
princess fell neglected in the grass. . . .

"Why," said the wise old man, "do you let fall
the princess's mirror?"

But the poet made no answer — for his eyes
were lost in the strange mirror which the wise
old man had brought him.

THE PRINCESS'S MIRROR

"What do you see in the mirror," said the old
man, "that you gaze so earnestly in it?"

"I see," answered the minstrel, "the infinite
miracle of the universe, I see the august and
lonely elements, I see the solitary stars and the
untiring sea, I see the everlasting hills— and, as
a crocus raises its rainbow head from the black
earth in springtime, I see the young moon grow-
ing like a slender flower out of the mountains. ..."

"Yet, look again," said the old man, "into this
other mirror, the mirror of the princess. Look
again."

And the poet looked — taking the two mirrors
in his hands, and looking from one to the other.

"At last," he said, gazing into the face he had
fought so long to keep — "at last I understand
that this is but a fleeting phantom of beauty, a
fluttering flower of a face — just one beautiful
flower in the innumerable meadows of the In-
finite— but here ..."

And he turned to the other mirror —

"Here is the Eternal Beauty, the Divine Har-
mony, the Sacred Unfathomable All. . . . Would
a man be content with one rose, when all the roses j
of all the rose-gardens of the world were his? ..."

"You mean," said the wise old man, smiling
to himself, "that I may take the mirror back

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

to the princess. . . . Are you really willing to ex-
change her face for the face of the sky ? ' '

"I am," answered the minstrel.

"I knew you were a poet," said the sage.

"And I know that you are very wise," an-
swered the minstrel.

Yet, after all, the princess was not so happy to
have her mirror back again as she had expected
to be; for had not a wandering poet found some-
thing more beautiful than her face!

THE PINE LADY

HAVE you seen the Pine Lady,
Or heard her how she sings?
Have you heard her play
Your soul away

On a harp with moonbeam strings?
In a palace all of the night-black pine

iShe hides like a queen all day,
Till a moonbeam knocks
On her secret tree,
And she opens her door
With a silver key,
While the village clocks
Are striking bed
Nine times sleepily.

O come and hear the Pine Lady

Up in the haunted wood!

The stars are rising, the moths are flitting,

The owls are calling,

The dew is falling;

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

And, high in the boughs

Of her haunted house,

The moon and she are sitting.

Out on the moor the night-jar drones

Rough-throated love,

The beetle comes

With his sudden drums,

And many a silent unseen thing

Frightens your cheek with its ghostly wing;

While there above,

In a palace builded of needles and cones,

The pine is telling the moon her love,

Telling her love on the moonbeam strings —

O have you seen the Pine Lady,

Or heard her how she sings?

THE KING ON HIS WAY TO
BE CROWNED

?|X a green outlying corner of the
|» kingdom of Bohemia, one summer
^£ afternoon, the Grand Duke Stanis-
|3 laus was busy in his garden, swarm-
^§|=3!^g§§» ing a hive of bees. He was a tall,
middle-aged man of a scholarly, almost priest-
like, type, a gentle-mannered recluse, living only
in his books and his garden, and much loved by
the country-folk for the simple kindness of his
heart. He had the most winning of smiles, and
a playful wisdom radiated from his wise, rather
weary eyes. No man had ever heard him utter
a harsh word; and, indeed, life passed so tran-
quilly in that green corner of Bohemia that
even less peaceful natures found it hard to be
angry. There was so little to be angry about.

Therefore, it was all the stranger to see the
good duke suddenly lose his temper this summer
afternoon.

"Preposterous!" he exclaimed; "was there ever
75

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

anything quite so preposterous! To think of
interrupting me, at such a moment, with such
news!"

He spoke from inside a veil of gauze twisted
about his head, after the manner of beekeepers;
and was, indeed, just at that moment, engaged
in the delicate operation of transferring a new
swarm to another hive.

The necessity of keeping his mind on his task
somewhat restored his calm.

"Give the messenger refreshment," he said,
"and send for Father Scholasticus."

Father Scholasticus was the priest of the village,
and the duke's very dear friend.

The reason for this explosion was the news,
brought by swiftest courier, that Duke Stanislaus'
brother was dead, and that he himself was thus
become King of Bohemia.

By the time Father Scholasticus arrived, the
bees were housed in their new home, and the
duke was seated in his library, among the books
that he loved no less than his bees, with various
important-looking parchments spread out before
him: despatches of state brought to him by the
courier, which he had been scanning with great
impatience.

"I warn you, my friend," he said, looking up
76

ON HIS WAY TO BE CROWNED

as the good father entered, "that you will find
me in a very bad temper. Ferdinand is dead —
can you imagine anything more unreasonable of
him? He was always the most inconsiderate of
mortals; and now, without the least warning, he
shuffles his responsibilities upon my shoulders."

The priest knew his friend and the way of his
thought, and he could not help smiling at his
quaint petulance.

"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 hardship."

"Do you really understand how great a hard-
ship 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

6 77

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

to be the Head of the World Spiritual? In
short, will you consent to be Archbishop of Bo-
hemia?"

"Leave the little church that I love, and the
kind, simple hearts in my care, given into my
keeping by the goodness of God ..." 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, under-
standing 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 trum-
pets through the quiet boughs, and the priest,
rising and looking through the window, saw a pro-
cession 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

ON HIS WAY TO BE CROWNED

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 passed 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 in-
herited by those born in high places and to noble
destinies from which there is no honorable escape,
and, on the priest agreeing to be the Archbishop
of Bohemia, he resigned himself j being its king.
Thereupon he received all the various dignitaries
and functionaries that could so little have under-
stood 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

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

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 shep-
herd 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 de-
layed, started on its magnificent way again, with
flutter of pennant and feather and song of trum-
pet 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 —

ON HIS WAY TO BE CROWNED

catching sight from his carriage window, as it
flitted past, of an extremely lovely and uncommon
butterfly. The duke had, all his days, been a
passionate entomologist, and this particular butter-
fly 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 butterfly-
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 butterfly — 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 follow-
ing about him. Urgent despatches were said to
have come from the imperial city begging that his
Majesty, for the good of his loyal subjects, con-

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

tinue 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 butterfly — " 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 re-
spectful 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 inter-
ruptions, 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.

ON HIS WAY TO BE CROWNED

"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 im-
mortals?"

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
amusement 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 prom-
ising 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

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

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 re-
joiced 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 car-
riage, for any wonder of the way.

ON HIS WAY TO BE CROWNED

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, per-
ceived 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 at-
tempt 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, turn-
ing 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 MAKER OF RAINBOWS

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 God! 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 horsemen 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 Stan-
islaus 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."

ON HIS WAY TO BE CROWNED

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 cour-
tiers 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.

The duke's own people alone remained with
him, and, when all the rest had gone, the duke
gave orders for the horses' heads to be turned
homeward, to the green valley in which alone
he cared to be a king.

"Back to the bees and the books and the kind
country hearts," cried the duke to his friend.

Back to the little church among the quiet trees, ' '
added the priest, who had cared as little for an
archbishop's miter as the duke for a kingly crown.
Since then the duke had been left to hive his
bees in peace, and it may be added that he has
never been known to lose his temper again.

THE STOLEN DREAM

rHE sun was setting, and slanting
long lanes of golden light through
the trees, as an old man, borne down
by a heavy pack, came wearily
through the wood, and at last, as if
worn out with the day's travel, unshouldered his
burden and threw himself down to rest at the
foot of a great oak-tree. He was very old, older
far he seemed than the tree under whose gnarled
boughs he was resting, though that looked as if
it had been growing since the beginning of the
world. His back was bent as with the weight of
years, though really it had become so from the
weight of the pack that he carried ; his cheeks were
furrowed like the bark of a tree, and far down
upon his breast fell a beard as white as snow.
But his deep-set eyes were still bright and keen,
though sly and cruel, and his long nose was like
the beak of a hawk. His hands were like roots
strong and knotted, and his fingers ended in
talon-like nails. In repose, even, they seemed to

THE STOLEN DREAM

be clutching something, something they loved to
touch, and would never let go. His clothes were
in rags and his shoes scarce held to his feet.
He seemed as abjectly poor as he was abjectly
old.

Presently, when he had rested awhile, he turned
to his pack, and, furtively glancing with his keen
eyes up and down the wood, to make sure that
he was alone, he drew from it a sack of leather
which was evidently of great weight. Its mouth
was fastened by sliding thongs, which he loosened
with tremulous, eager hands. First he took from
the bag a square of some purple silk stuff, which
he spread out on the turf beside him, and then,
his eyes gleaming with a wild light, he carefully
poured out the contents of the bag on to the
purple square, a torrent of gold and silver coins
and precious stones flashing like rainbows — a
king's treasure. The setting sun flashed on the
glittering heap, turning it into a dazzle of many-
colored fire. The treasure seemed to light up the
wood far and near, and the gaudy summer flowers,
that a moment before had seemed so bright and
splendid, fell into shadow before its radiance.

The old man bathed his claw-like hands in the
treasure with a ghoulish ecstasy, and let the gold
and silver pour through his fingers over and over

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

again, streams of jeweled light gleaming and
flashing in the level rays of the sun. As he did
so, he murmured inarticulately to himself, gloating
and gurgling with a lonely, hideous joy.

Suddenly a look of fear came over his face; he
seemed to hear voices coming up the wood, and,
huddling his treasure swiftly back again into the
leathern bag, and the bag into the folds of his
pack, he rose and sought some bushes near by
to hide himself from the sight of whomsoever it
was that approached. But, as he shouldered his
pack, he half staggered, for the pack was of great
weight and he heaved a deep sigh.

"It grows heavier and heavier," he muttered.
"I cannot carry it much longer. I shall never be
able to carry it with me to the grave."

As he disappeared among the bushes, a young
man and a young woman, with arms twined
round each other, came slowly up the glade and
presently sat down at the foot of the tree where
the old man had been resting a moment or two
before.

"Why, what is this?" presently exclaimed the
young girl, picking up something bright out of
the grass. It was a gold coin, which, in his haste,
the old man had let slip through his fingers.

"Gold!" they both exclaimed together.
90

THE STOLEN DREAM

"It will buy you a new silk gown," said the
lover. "Who ever heard of such luck?" And
then he sighed.

"Ah! dear heart," he said, "if only we had
more like that! Then we could fulfil our dream."

As the sun poured its last rays over them there
at the foot of the oak, it was to be seen that they
were very poor. Their clothes were old and
weather-stained, and they had no shoes to their
feet; but the white feet of the girl shone like
ivory flowers in the grass, and her hair was a sheaf
of ruddy gold. Nor was there a jewel in all the
old man's treasure as blue as her eyes. And the
young man, in his manly fashion, was no less
brave and fair to look upon.

In a little while they turned to a poor wallet
at the young man's side. ' ' Let us eat our supper, ' '
they said.

But there was little more than a crust or two,
a few morsels of cheese, and a mouthful or two
of sour wine. Still, they were accustomed to
being hungry, and the thought of the gold coin
cheered their hearts. So they grew content, and
after a while they nestled close into each other's
arms and fell asleep, while slowly and softly
through the woods came the light of the moon.

Now all this time the old man had lain hidden,
91

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

crouched down among the bushes, afraid almost
to draw his breath, but from where he was he
could hear and see all, and had overheard all
that had been said. At length, after the lovers
had been silent for a long time, he took courage
to peer out from his hiding-place, and he saw
that they were asleep. He would wait a little
longer, though, till their sleep was sounder, and
then he might be able perhaps to creep away un-
heard. So he waited on, and the moon grew
brighter and brighter, and flooded the woods
with its strange silver. And the lovers fell deeper
and deeper asleep.

"It will be safe now," said the old man, half
rising and looking out from his bushes. But this
time, as he looked out, he saw something, some-
thing very strange and beautiful.

Hovering over the sleeping lovers was a float-
ing, flickering shape that seemed made of moon-
beams, with two great shining stars for its eyes.
It was the dream that came nightly to watch
over the sleep of the lovers; and, as the miser
gazed at it in wonder, a strange change came
over his soul, and he saw that all the treasure
he had hoarded so long — gathered by the cruel
practices of years, and with carrying which about/
the world his back had grown bent — was as'

THE STOLEN DREAM

dross compared with this beautiful dream of two
poor lovers, to whom but one of all his gold pieces
had seemed like a fortune.

"What, after all, is it to me but a weary bur-
den my shoulders grow too old to carry," he
murmured, "and for the sake of which my life is
in danger wherever I go, and to guard which I
must hide away from the eyes of men?"

And the longer he gazed on the fair, shining
vision, the more the longing grew within him
to possess it for himself.

"They shall have my treasure in exchange,"
he said to himself, approaching nearer to the
sleepers, treading softly lest he should awaken
them. But they slept on, lost in the profound
slumber of innocent youth. As he drew near,
the dream shrank from him, with fear in its starry
eyes; but it seemed the more beautiful to the old
man the closer he came to it and saw of what
divine radiance it was made; and, with his desire,
his confidence grew greater. So, softly placing
his leather bag in the flowers by the side of the
sleepers, he thrust out his talon-like fingers and
snatched the dream by the hand, and hurried away,
dragging it after him down the wood, fearfully turn-
ing now and again to see that he was not pursued.

But the sleepers still slept on, and by morning
7 93

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

the miser was far away, with the captive dream
by his side.

As the earliest birds chimed through the wood,
and the dawn glittered on the dewy flowers, the
lovers awoke and kissed each other and laughed
in the light of the new day.

"But what is this? " cried the girl, and her hands
fell from the pretty task of coiling up the sunrise
of her hair.

With a cry they both fell upon the leather
bag, lying there so mysteriously among the wood-
lilies in the grass. With eager ringers they drew
apart the leather thongs, and went half -mad with
wonder and joy as they poured out the glittering
treasure in the morning sun.

"What can it all mean?" they cried. "The
fairies must have been here in the night."

But the treasure seemed real enough. The
jewels were not merely dewdrops turned to dia-
monds and rubies and amethysts by the magic
beams of the sun, nor was the gold mere gold
of faerie, but coins bearing the image of the king
of the land. Here were real jewels, real gold
and silver. Like children, they dabbled their
hands in the shining heap, tossing them up and
pouring them from one hand to the other, flashing
and shimmering in the morning light.

THE STOLEN DREAM

Then a fear came on them.
"But folk will say that we have stolen them,"
said the youth; "they will take them from us,
and cast us into prison."

"No, I believe some god has heard our prayer,"
said the girl, "and sent them down from heaven
in the night. He who sent them will see that we
come to no harm."

And again they fell to pouring them through
their fingers and babbling in their delight.

"Do you remember what we said last night
when we found the gold piece ? " said the girl. ' ' If
only we had more of them ! Surely our good angel
heard us, and sent them in answer."

"It is true," said the young man. "They
were sent to fulfil our dream."

"Our poor starved and tattered dream!" said
the girl. "How splendidly we can clothe and
feed it now! What a fine house we can build for
it to live in! It shall eat from gold and silver
plate, and it shall wear robes of wonderful silks
and lawns like rainbows, and glitter with jewels,
blue and yellow and ruby, jewels like fire fountains
and the depths of the sea."

But, as they spoke, a sudden disquietude fell
over them, and they looked at each other with
a new fear.

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

"But where is our dream?" said the girl, look-
ing anxiously around. And they realized that
their dream was nowhere to be seen.

"I seemed to miss it once in the night," an-
swered the young man in alarm, "but I was too
sleepy to heed. Where can it be?"

"It cannot be far away," said the girl. "Per-
haps it has wandered off among the flowers."

But they were now thoroughly alarmed.

"Where can it have gone?" they both cried.
And they rose up and ran to and fro through
the wood, calling out aloud on their dream. But
no voice came back in reply, nor, . though they
sought high and low in covert and brake, could
they find a sign of it anywhere. Their dream was
lost. Seek as they might, it was nowhere to be
found.

And then they sat down by the treasure weep-
ing, forgetting it all in this new sorrow.

"What shall we do?" they cried. "We have
lost our dream." x*\_

For a while they sat on, inconsolable. Then
a thought came to the girl.

1 ' Some one must have stolen it from us. It would
never have left us of its own accord," said she.

And, as she spoke, her eyes fell on the forgotten
treasure.

THE STOLEN DREAM

"What use are these to us now, without our
dream?'" she said.

"Who knows?" said the young man; "perhaps
some one has stolen our dream to sell it into
bondage. We must go and seek it, and maybe
we can buy it back again with this treasure."

"Let us start at once," said the girl, drying
her tears at this ray of hope; and so, replacing
the treasure in the bag, the young man slung it
at the end of his staff, and together they set off
down the wood, seeking their lost dream.

Meanwhile, the old man had journeyed hastily
and far, the dream following in his footsteps,
sorrowing; and at length he came to a fair meadow,
and by the edge of a stream he sat down to rest
himself, and called the dream to his side.

The dream shone nothing like so brightly as
in the moonlit woodland, and its eyes were heavy
as with weeping.

"Sing to me," said the old man, "to cheer my
tired heart."

"I know no songs," said the dream, sadly.

"You lie," said the old man. "I saw the songs
last night in the depths of your eyes."

"I cannot sing them to you," said the dream.
"I can only sing them to the simple hearts I
made them for, the hearts you stole me from."

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

"Stole you!" said the old man. "Did I not
leave my treasure in exchange?"

"Your treasure will be nothing to them without
me," said the dream. ^-~* — —

"You talk folly," said the old man. "With
my treasure they can buy other dreams just as
fair as you are. Do you think that you are the
only dream in the world? There is no dream
that money cannot buy."

"But I am their own dream. They will be
happy with no other," said the dream.

"You shall sing to me, all the same," said the
old man, angrily. But the dream shrank from
him and covered its face.

"If I sang to you, you would not under-
stand. Your heart is old and hard and cruel,
and my songs are all of youth and love and
joy."

"Those are the songs I would hear," said the
old man.

"But I cannot sing them to you, and if I sang
them you could not hear."

"Sing," again cried the old man, harshly;
"sing, I bid you."

"I can never sing again," said the dream.
"I can only die."

And for none of the old man's threats would
98

THE STOLEN DREAM

the dream sing to him, but sat apart, mourning
the loved ones it had lost.

So several days passed by, and every day the
dream was growing less bright, a creature of tears
and sighs, more and more fading away, like a
withering flower. At length it was nothing but
a gray shadow, a weary shape of mist that seemed
ready to dissolve and vanish at any breath of
wind. No one could have known it for that ra-
diant vision that had hovered shimmering with
such a divine light over the sleep of the lovers.

At length the old man lost patience, and began
to curse himself for a fool in that he had parted
with so great a treasure for this worthless, whim-
pering thing. And he raved like a madman as
he saw in fancy all the gold and silver and rainbow-
tinted jewels he had so foolishly thrown away.

"Take me back to them," said the dream,
"and they will give you back your treasure."

"A likely thing," raged the old man, "to give
back a treasure like that for such a sorry phan-
tom."

"You will see," said the dream.

As there was nothing else to be done, the old
man took up his staff.

"Come along, then," said he, and started off
in the direction of the wood, and, though it was

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

some days' journey, a glow flushed all through
the gray shape of the dream at the news, and its
eyes began to shine again.

And so they took their way.

But meanwhile the two lovers had gone from
village to village, and city to city, vainly asking
news of their dream. And to every one they asked
they showed their treasure and said:

"This is all yours if you can but give us back
our dream."

But nowhere could they learn any tidings,
but gleaned only mockery and derision.

"You must be mad," said some, "to seek a
dream when you have all that wealth in your
pack. Of what use is a dream to any one? And
what more dream do you want than gold and
precious stones?"

"Ah! our dream," said the lovers, "is worth
all the gold and jewels in the world."

Sometimes others would come, bringing their
own dreams.

"Take this," they would say, "and give us
your treasure."

But the lovers would shake their heads sadly.

"No, your dreams are not so beautiful as ours.
No other dream can take its place. We can only
be happy with our own dream."

THE STOLEN DREAM

And, indeed, the dreams that were brought to
them seemed poor, pitiful, make-believe things,
often ignoble, misbegotten, sordid, and cruel. To
the lovers they seemed not dreams at all, but
shapes of greed and selfish desire.

So the days passed, bringing them neither
tidings nor hope, and there came at length an
evening when they turned their steps again to
the woodland, and sat down once more under the
great oak-tree in the sunset.

"Perhaps our dream has been waiting for us
here all the time," they said.

But the wood was empty and echoing, and they
sat and ate their supper as before, but silently
and in sorrow, and as the sun set they fell asleep
as before in each other's arms, but with tears glit-
tering on their eyelids.

And again the moon came flooding the spaces
of the wood, and nothing was heard but their
breathing and the song of a distant nightin-
gale.

But presently while they slept there was a sound
of stealthy footsteps coming up the wood.

It was the old man, with the dream shining
by his side, and ever and anon running ahead
of him in the eagerness of its hope. Suddenly it
stopped, glowing and shimmering like the dancing

IOI

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

of the northern lights, and placed a starry finger
on its lips for silence.

"See," it whispered, and there were the lovers,
lying lost in sleep.

But the old man's wolfish eyes saw but one
thing. There lay the leather bag of his treasure
just as he had left it. Without a word, he snatched
it up and hastened off with it down the wood,
gurgling uncouthly to himself.

"Oh, my beauties!" he cried, as he sat himself
down afar off and poured out the gold and the
silver and the gleaming stones into the moon-
light. "Oh, my love, my life, and my delight!
What other dream could I have but you?"

Meanwhile, the lovers stirred in their sleep, and
murmured to each other.

"I seemed to hear singing," each said.

And, half opening their eyes, they saw their
dream shining and singing above them in the
moonbeams, lovelier than ever before, a shape
of heavenly silver, with two stars for its eyes.

"Our dream has come back!" they cried to
each other. "Dear dream, we had to lose you
to know how beautiful you are!"

And with a happy sigh they turned to sleep
again, while the dream kept watch over them
till the dawn.

102

THE STERN EDUCATION
OF CLOWNS

CLOWN out of work for many-
weeks had trudged the country
roads, footsore and hungry, vainly
seeking an engagement. At length,
one afternoon, he arrived at a cer-
tain village and spied the canvas tent and the
painted wagons of a traveling circus. This sight
put a pale hope into his sad heart, and he ap-
proached the tent as bravely as he could to find
the proprietor of the show. Sad as was his heart,
his face looked sadder; and he did not, it is to
be feared, make a very impressive appearance,
as at last he found the proprietor sitting on the
side of the sawdust ring, eating lunch with the
Columbine. The circus proprietor was large and
swarthy and brutal to look on, and his sullen, cruel
eyes looked sternly at the little clown, who, be-
tween a sad heart and a long-empty stomach, had
very little courage left in his frame.

103

THE MAKER OF RAINBOWS

"Well!" roared the proprietor. "What is it?"

The little clown explained his profession and
his need of an engagement; and stood there, hat
in hand, with tremulous knees.

The circus proprietor looked at him a long time
in contemptuous silence, and then, with an ugly
sneer, said:

"Have you ever had your heart broken?"

"Indeed I have," answered the clown. "For
to have your heart broken is part of the business
of a clown."

"How many times?"

"Six."

"Not enough," answered the proprietor, rough-
ly, turning again to his lunch with the Colum-
bine. "Get it broken again and come back; then
perhaps we can talk business."

And the little clown went away; but he had
hardly gone a few yards before his heart broke
for the seventh time — because of the bitter-
ness of the world.

Yet, being wise, he waited a day or two, living
as best he could along the country roads, and then
at length he came back about noon to the circus,
and again the proprietor was eating lunch with the
Columbine, and again he looked up, sullen and
sneering, and said :

104

THE EDUCATION OF CLOWNS

"Well"'

The clown explained that hie heart had been
broken for the seventh time.

"Good," said the circus proprietor. "Wait till
I have eaten lunch and we will talk business."

And the clown sat at the side of the ring, and
the proprietor and the Columbine ate and laughed
as if he were not there.

At length, finishing a tankard of ale, and wiping
his mouth on the back of his hand, the circus
proprietor arose and beckoned the clown to come
to him.

At the same time he took a long ringmaster's
whip, and the Columbine took one end of a
skipping-rope, while he held the other.

"Now," said the circus proprietor, "while we
twirl the skipping-rope you are to dance over it,
and at the same time I will lash your shins with
this whip; and if, as you skip over the rope, you
can laugh and sing — like a child dancing on blue
flowers in a meadow — I will give you" — the pro-
prietor hesitated a moment — "six dollars a week."

So it was that the clown at last got an engage-
ment.

THE END

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
BERKELEY

Return to desk from which borrowed.
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.

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LD 21-100m-ll,'49(B7146sl6)476

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THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY

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