Chapter VI: The Camphor-Worm (4)

Killian’s fingers grew nimble; and yet he often wondered to see how true to life his puppets were, how they sighed, how they embraced and clung, as if their hearts were coming in two when the parting drew near. How lingeringly the little queen drew up the sheet over her face, when her lover did not return, and let it fall to cover her with a quiet sigh. Often he cried when she did that part, so like Grendel was it,--the tender waiting, and the last giving in! And then, how the little king shuddered as he drew the cloth from her face; and how he threw the flowers, as if there were not enough in the world to express his grief! And yet it was only a play, made by the twitching of the strings tied to his fingers, with love as the beginning and end of it.

Killian was getting quite rich in copper coin, so he sent some of it home to Grendel, that she might buy stock for the home that was so soon to be theirs. And presently he made bold to go into the towns, where, instead of copper, he might gain silver. He built a bigger stage, and had more music to go to the dance; but still it was the story of himself and Grendel, with crowns upon their heads, and nothing more.

And now, indeed, people began to cry, “Here is a wonderful new actor! He has it all at the ends of his fingers! What a pity he has no better play in which to show himself off!” But Killian said, “It is the only play I know how to do.”

Presently there came a sharp fellow to him, who said: “If you will go shares with me I will make your fortune. We have only to put our heads together, and the thing is done. I will write the plays for you, and you shall play them on the strings. What is wanted is a little more real life.”

Killian was a simple fellow, who believed all the world to be wiser than himself. He was glad enough to meet with a clever fellow who could write plays for him. His partner wanted him to make new dresses for the marionettes, to suit their new parts; but to that Killian would not agree. So whatever they were they still wore their broad hats and crowns, and their wooden shoes, that still he might watch in his own mind himself and Grendel making their way to fortune and happiness.

The marionettes grew bewildered with their new taking; they did not understand the meaning of all the coarse things they had to do. So in the middle of a play, the little queen would fail now and then in her part, and move awkwardly, wondering what her lover meant when he sprawled to and fro, and seemed trying to find in the air more feet than he had upon the ground.

Yet the crowd found her bashful fear so irresistibly funny, that it roared again. Also, when the little cow-herd with the crown on his head, lifted his hand or foot towards his partner, and then shrank trembling away, it roared yet more at the poltroon manner of the thing.

Killian’s partner said, “You alter all my plays, but the way you do them is something to marvel at. Only, why do you always bring them round again to that silly lovers’ ending?”

“I cannot help it,” said Killian; “often now, with these new plays, I can’t get the strings to work properly. I think the poor puppets are getting worn out.”

His partner began examining the puppets, and watching how Killian played them, with more attention; and presently he knew that there was more in it than met the eye. “It is the puppets who are the marvel, not the man,” he said to himself. “I could work them better myself, if I had practice.”

Soon after this he proposed that they should set off for another town; it was the chief town of all, where they hoped at last to be allowed to show their plays to the queen herself. “It must be a real play this time,” said the partner, “a tragedy; but it wants a third person. You must make another puppet, while I write the play!”

So Killian set to work. But he had no love for the third puppet, which was neither himself nor Grendel, and he put no heart inside it, and no little drop of blood. So the new marionette was but limbs, and a head drawn on wires.

“Soon,” thought Killian, “I shall be rich enough to go home and marry Grendel. Then I will throw this stupid third one away; but the other two we will always keep close to the niche with the statue of Our Lady, to help to make us thankful for the good things God gives us in this world.”

It was beautiful late spring weather when he and his companion set out for the capital. On the way Killian’s partner told him the play that would have to be played before the queen, and said, “In case three should be too much for you to manage, you had better teach me also to handle the strings.” So Killian began to teach him, with the two little marionettes alone, the first play which he had brought down with him from the mountains,--that being the easiest of all to learn, and the one he loved best to teach.

The partner was surprised to find how wonderfully the puppets followed the leading-strings; in spite of his clumsiness the story acted itself to perfection.

Simple-hearted Killian was charmed. “Ah! you clever townsman,” said he, “see how at first trial you equal poor me, who have been at it for months! It had better be you, after all, to do the play when it is called for at the court.” And this Killian proposed truly out of pure modesty, but also because he did not like the play his partner had made for him. “It is too cruel a one!” he said. “After they have played it together so long, I feel as if my two puppets can do nothing else so well as love each other, and live happily.”

“Ah, but,” said his partner, “the queen would find that very dull!” Killian could not see why; but he believed that the townsman was wiser than himself, and gave in. All he wanted now was to get money enough to run back home with, and throw himself into his dear Grendel’s arms for life.

So they journeyed on, and at last, one day, they came in sight of the capital. But it had been such a long way to come that when they reached the gates they found them shut.

The night was warm, and a high moon was overhead. “Come,” said Killian, “and let us lie down in one of these orchards that are outside the walls!” So they left the high road, and went and lay down.

First they ate some food that they carried with them. Then Killian opened the case in which lay the two marionettes, and looked them over to see that they were in working order. His partner took up the odd number, and began practising it; but Killian’s attention all went to the little king-cowherd and his queen.

He fondled them gently with his hands, and as he looked at them his heart went up into the mountains to pray for his dear Grendel.

Presently he began dreaming to himself like Jacob, only his dream was just of the simple things of earth. Down the great green uplands came troops of white cattle; but to him they seemed to be bridesmaids coming to Grendel’s wedding day, and the ringing of the cow-bells was as sweet to him as the songs of angels. Before he was fast asleep the two marionettes had slipped off his knee and lay in the deep grass looking up at the sky.

* * * * *

They had never seen so beautiful a sight before, for never had they spent a night in the sweet open air till now. Over their heads swung dusky clusters of blossom, that would look white by day; and over them the moon went kissing its way from star to star.

Now and then single blossoms dropped as if they had something to say to the little cow-herd and his queen, lying there in the cool grass.

But the marionettes said nothing; their hearts were very full; now, at last, they found their old happiness return to them. Their prayers, that they used to say to each other so tenderly, had been going wrong for quite a long time; sudden starts and tremblings of fear had taken hold of their light-hearted deceptions of each other; and every day things had been going worse. But now they felt like entering upon a long rest.

As they lay, their hands met together. The little cow-herd could count her fingers across the palm of his hand, and never once did she pretend to be drawing them away. How good it all seemed!

Close by them the odd man was strutting in stiff, ungainly attitudes, cricking his neck and elbows, and tossing up his toes. How foolish he seemed to them in their innocent wisdom! They knew he was nothing to them, for he had no heart; he was nothing but a trick on springs. Yet they wished he would go away, and give them room to be alone, while the moon was making a white dream over their lives.

* * * * *

The partner grumbled to himself at the awkward ways of the new puppet. Instead of obeying, it kicked at the leading strings, and did everything like a stick, all angles and corners. Presently he put it back into its box; and then he saw the little king and queen lying together on the damp grass. He picked them up, growling at Killian as a simpleton, for leaving them there to get rusty with the dew. Then he put them also away, and curled himself up to dream about the success of his play on the morrow.

Quite early in the morning he and Killian went into the city, and set up their stage in a corner of the market-place. The wonderful acting of the little king and queen, compared with the ungainly hobblings and jerkings of the odd man, threw the townspeople into ecstasies of laughter. They declared they had never seen so funny a sight in their lives as the beautiful nervous acting of the pair, side by side with the stiff-jointed awkwardness of the other.

Presently, sure enough, the queen heard tell of this new form of entertainment, and sent word for the mummers to appear at the palace.

Killian said to his partner: “There is something the matter with the puppets to-day; they want careful handling. I am glad we settled that you are to do the new play; for, before the queen and her great ladies, I am likely to lose my head.”

All the court was gathered together to watch the puppet-play, while behind the scenes the partner took all the leading strings into his own hands.

* * * * *

The two marionettes opened their eyes, and saw daylight; they began moving to and fro softly; every now and then they put their faces together and kissed. The stupid odd man seemed to have gone; they were so glad to be left alone.

Soon the little king lay down, pretending to be tired, but it was only that he might put his head in the queen’s lap. She bent over him, and laid her fingers on his eyes, seeming to say, “Go to sleep, then! I will shut your eyes for you.” How pretty it was of her!

Then she covered his face over with her handkerchief; and all at once in came the odd man, walking on the points of his toes. The little king, now that the handkerchief was over his face, opened his eyes, and looked through it, to see what his dear queen would be doing now. The odd man had his arms round her neck, and was kissing her, and the queen looked as if she were going to kiss him back; but all at once she had pushed away the odd man so hard that he fell down with his heels in the air; and then she snatched the handkerchief from the king’s face, and began trembling, and kissing him.

The whole of the court shouted, first with laughter at the odd man’s fall, and then with admiration at the wonderful acting of the little queen.

Behind the scenes the partner began grumbling to Killian: “They are going all wrong! It’s all your doing, leaving them to lie in the damp grass last night!”

But still the whole court shouted and applauded. So the play went on; and now, more and more, the showman had cause to grumble. Whenever he came to a part where the play required that the queen should turn from her own cow-herd to the ugly odd man, everything went wrong. “Very well,” thought he at last, “she may be as innocent as Desdemona but it will all come to the same at the last!”

And so, still more, as the play went on, the little marionettes trembled and shook with fear. They wished the silly odd man would go away, and not come interrupting their prayers; and all the while they loved each other so! No idea of jealousy ever entered the little king’s head; and as for the queen, if the odd man came and put his arms round her neck and kissed her, could she help it? All she could do was to run and put her arms round her own lover when he reappeared; and how the court shouted and applauded, when she went so quick from one to the other.

At last the final act was begun; the king came running in with a sword in his hand, why, he did not know, until he saw his poor little queen struggling in the arms of the odd man. “Ah,” thought he, “it is to drive him away! Then we shall be by ourselves again, and happy.”

No one ever fought so wonderfully on a stage before as the little cow-herd. All the court started to their feet, shouting; and still, while they shouted, they laughed to see the impossible odd man scooping about with his sword, and jerking head over heels, and high up into the air, to get away from the little king’s sword-play. The partner had to keep snatching him up out of harm’s way, for fear of a wrong ending. Then, suddenly he let him come down with a jump on the little king’s head. And at that the king fell back upon the ground, and felt a sharp pain go through his heart.

The odd man drew out his sword and laughed; on the end of it was a tiny drop of blood. The poor little queen ran up, and bent down to look in her lover’s face, to know if he were really hurt. And then a terrible thing happened.

Three times the little king raised his sword and pointed it at her heart, and dropped it again. And all the time the partner was tugging at the strings, and swearing by all the worst things he knew.

The little king felt himself growing weak; he was very frightened. He felt as if he were going away altogether, and leaving her to think he did not love her any more. And still his arm went up and down, pointing the sword at her heart.

The showman tugged angrily; then there was the sound of a wire that snapped--the king had thrown away his sword.

He reached up his two arms, and laid them fast round the queen’s neck. “Now at last she knows that I have not left off loving her.” He felt her drawing herself away, he held her more and more tightly to his breast; and now her little face lay close against his. Nothing can take her away from him now!

The showman pulled violently with all his might, to get her away; there was a snapping of strings, and then--the queen reached out two weak little hands, and laid them under her lover’s head.

They lay quite still, quite still for a long time, and never moved. “The play is over!” said the showman, disgusted and angry at the wreck of his plot.

Suddenly the whole stage became showered with gold; the great queen and all her court threw out showers of it like rain. It fell all over the two marionettes, covering them where they lay, just as the babes in the wood when they died were covered over with leaves.

Killian dropped his head on to the boards of the little stage, and sobbed. The partner let down the curtain, and began gathering up the gold.

And still, from without, the queen and her court clapped, and cried their applause; and still within lay Killian with his head upon the stage, sobbing for the two little marionettes, lying still with all the springs and strings of their bodies quite broken. Inside, though he could not see them, their hearts were broken also. “Now,” he thought, “I must go back to Grendel, or I too shall die!”

Later, in the middle of the night, the partner went away, carrying with him all the gold that the little marionettes had earned by their deaths. And these, indeed, he left, seeing that they were useless any more. But to Killian, when he woke the next morning, they were the only things left him in the world, to take back to Grendel.

He took them just as they were, locked in each other’s arms, and went back all the long way to Grendel, up into the hills of his home, as poor in money as when he first started.

But Grendel saw that he had come back rich; for his face was grown tender and wise. And for five years they waited very patiently together, till by cow-keeping he had earned enough for them to keep some cows of their own, and to live in married happiness.

The little marionettes they put on a shelf, beneath the cross, and the statue of our Lady; and there, locked in each other’s arms, those two disciples and martyrs of love lie at peace, feeling no pain any more in their broken hearts.

KNOONIE IN THE SLEEPING PALACE

Just when the palace fell into its deep sleep, the porter’s son had run out to follow a swarm of bees which had flown over the fish-ponds into the woods lying outside the royal demesne. In the very minute after he had climbed the wood-pales, to the time when the shifty swarm came swinging its long bright tangle for home, calling on him to retrace his pursuit, sleep had clapped down like a great eyelid over the whole palace.

Knoonie made a clear leap over the palings into the royal clover; and then felt something hurting his heart, he could not know what or why, very strange, very frightening; it was like waking up all alone in the middle of a dark night, and feeling that something was standing quite still in the silence before him--quite still, because he himself had moved. He took one step forward, and at that sprang aside as if a snake were under him: his foot had made no sound in the clover! Then, thinking his ears must have deceived him, he tried once more. Ah! now it was so frightful that his courage went utterly: “Help, help!” he cried with all the force of his lungs: but his voice gave no sound. The dead silence that weighed on his struggles to cry, drove him wild with terror.

He set off running as if Death were after him: running like a blind thing; and knew nothing more till he fell half-stunned and bleeding into the gateway of the palace-courtyard.

He sprang, and tapped with his hand on the porter’s wicket. “Father, dear father, open quick!” he cried. But the words fell mute, and the wicket did not open. Then he began beating with his fists on the bronze panels, and, seizing hold of the knocker, battered for dear life. For dear life! But dear reason almost died in the attempt. The great bronze knocker beat without making a sound. He stopped his ears with his fingers to get rid of the stillness which was so terrible: and then at last he began to think that while in the wood he must have gone stone-deaf. But he was frightened; though he was deaf, others surely should hear him: again he beat and beat upon the knocker, throwing his whole weight upon it, and cried with the tears running down his face for his father to come to him.

Surely somebody must come. No, all was quite still as well as silent: nothing moved: everywhere it was the same. There was a sentry on guard over the gate: Knoonie could see his helmet and the top of his halbert shining in the sun. He cried to him to come down and let him in; but the man stood so still that he began to think he must truly have lost the power of speech as well as of hearing. He stooped down, and taking up a stone, threw it at the soldier to make him turn round; moving away from the wall so as to get a better aim, he was able to see more of him. The sentry stood very strangely; he must be asleep or sun-struck, for a small green paroquet had come and perched on his shoulder.

The fifth stone Knoonie threw (for fear had made his hand tremble) hit the soldier on the head; and yet he did not wake up, and the strange little paroquet remained as if stuffed and glued to its perch.

Then Knoonie, casting his eyes all round for anything to help, saw a new sight. All down the broad avenues of the park a movement was taking place from the earth upwards: it came nearer and nearer: it was like a green army on the march: it waved long prickly spears and many-pointed crests, and sent green things like lizards swarming into the high trees that stood in its way. Up and up, closer and higher to the very gates of the palace it came--a wall of thistles, magic in strength and stature, over-ranked by beetling heads of hemlock, and under-run by long snakey loops of bramble, that writhed in and out of the earth like huge worms.

“I must be dreaming!” thought Knoonie for a way out of his distress. “It’s all one horrid dream which will come to an end just as the worst thing happens.” But the giant thistles came crowding close, reaching hungry hands at him. He caught hold of the knocker, and dragging himself up was able in his terror to force open the wicket, and work his small body through, just as the first thistle caught him by the leg. He escaped shoeless and with all his hose torn into ribands from the knee. Inside he came upon his father, sitting in his accustomed niche, keys in hand, sitting quite still with head bent and closed eyes.

The child began to tremble and cry; he forgot any longer to think it was a dream; a remembrance like the touch of dead lips chilled his heart: the remembrance that while his father had been sitting there almost within reach of his hand, he, Knoonie, had cried and beaten with all his force upon the door, and had not been heard. He threw his arms round his father’s neck, and clinging close to the deaf face he loved: “Father, father,” he cried, “wake!” But his words had no sound, and the porter made no sound or stir.

Dead, dead! Knoonie threw up his hands, and trying vainly to utter one call for help, darted into the palace.

After a long time, he came out again with a white face, looking dazed into the sunlight: what was it he had seen in there? Beautiful lords and ladies, still as death, smiling and bending over golden plates and half-tasted wine; serving men who stood upright and still as death, carrying dishes and tilting out the wine into great tankards; and, over all, the yellow sunlight streaming in licked the dead faces as a beast licks carrion.

He ran tottering over the marble pavement, as fast as fear would send him; to get away out of the palace and fetch help for all these dead or dying people: for there must still be somebody left somewhere. But when he came to the porter’s lodge, there was a sight in the wicket that stopped him: the small square aperture was bulged through by thistle and bramble, in the midst of which his little shoe hung trussed and skewered; the hard grasp of the thistles had bent it out of shape, and the thorns of the bramble had cut into the leather like the steel teeth of a trap. Looking through, he could see nothing but one dense forest of thistles, made the more impassable by a thick mesh of creepers that clung about their stems. He climbed up on to the walls: everywhere was the same; those death’s heads of hemlock had grown higher than the trees of the park, and threw their shadows over the whole palace.

Slowly, the meaning of the horror which had first been so impossible for his mind to take in grew clear to his imagination. The sleeping palace, that whispered tale of his childhood, was embodied before him; and of all those who had heard it told, and laughed it lightly away because every day brought sameness of life to each sense, he alone was left awake to drink the full cup of this sleep of doom, he alone, amid others unconscious of their arrested life, with all the ways of knowledge closed from him by an overwhelming silence, he and he only must live and move, and endure this living tomb, till the Prince Rescuer should come, of whom the same tale gave promise. The great palace where he had been such a little thing at everybody’s beck and call, one for the grooms to tease, and for maids and serving-men to harry, was his own possession now, to do in what he would; but no joy came to him with this growing sense of a strange liberty. He went from place to place, tiptoeing at first, hardly daring to enter those grand chambers where the king and his great lords were sitting in state; but the lords-in-waiting stood making way for him with closed eyes; and he might see and touch and taste whatever he chose.

He went and stood behind great ladies, and stroked their shining hair, and touched their white wondrous throats, and the strong hands of the knights, the King’s even, with its gold signet ring; but there was no joy in any of these things. And when hunger came on him he put out his hand and helped himself from the King’s plate: yet though he had tasted no such delicacies in his life before, they gave him no pleasure now. He looked at all the beautiful ladies with their sweet-smiling lips, and remembered how he had thought that to be kissed by them would be almost death, so great must be the delight. Now he climbed up to the sweetest of them all, and tried to imagine her as the mother he had never known; yet when he kissed, and saw how the lips went smiling on, it was such bitterness that the tears burst from his eyes, and fell into the velvet lap of her dress. He caught up a napkin, “For when she wakes up she will see what a mess I have made and be angry,” he thought: then he remembered the hundred years, and cried still more.

At last, when it began to get dark, weary with sorrow, and drawn thither by a growing fear of his loneliness, he went back to the gate, and there, kissing him, lay down with his head on his father’s knee, and clinging to the hand that had hold of the keys of his prison, wept himself to sleep. Ah! how happy would he be if sleep would join his lot to theirs, and his eyes never open again till the whole day of deliverance was come. Alas! that the bees should have led him beyond reach of the charm which would have brought sleep, and only back to be enclosed in the impenetrable embrace of that thorny fastness.

The next day’s sun shone down and opened Knoonie’s eyes; and he rose up into the life-long silence that encompassed him; and, kissing his father’s face, went forth into the joyless splendours of his prison-house.

This day he climbed all the towers, and strained his eyes for a glimpse of the great unsleeping world beyond. But high and far the forest of thorns had stretched itself; and he could only see here and there the blue of the most distant hills through gaps of thicket.

Then he went down, and sought out all his old acquaintances, the stable-boys who played with him, the grooms who bullied, and the maids who teased. He came face to face with the terrible head-cook, who had so many times threatened to beat him to a jelly; now Knoonie could have boxed the tyrant’s head off, and no hand would be there to stay him; but he only stood and looked at the big grim face and the closed eyes, and longed hungrily for a blow from that coarse red fist.

He went on to the stables; and now who was there to forbid him his heart’s desire to climb on to the back of the King’s great charger, who stood sleeping with beautifully arched neck: yet when he had clambered his way up by the manger, it was no pride to him to be there: he only bowed his face down into the black mane and wept.

That same day he found the Princess sleeping in her chamber; oh! so beautiful she was with her little white hand laid on the spinning-wheel, a small prick of scarlet showing on the delicate skin. So beautiful she was, he dared not kiss her yet, for he did not know that anyone who could win entrance into the sleeping palace, could by kissing the Princess break the charm and gain her for his bride. Already more than one brave knight had entered that vast forest of thorns and thrown away his life in striving to get to those lips which were Knoonie’s for a little stooping. But he was a child and he did not understand.

The days went by, the weeks went by, and the child fell in with ever deepening sadness to the loneliness of his environment. His wistful face grew beautiful and pure in that still air, and the picture of courtly life that encircled his lent him an unconscious grace. Yet he stayed humble and sad, and every night, leaving beds of down and pillows of lace untouched, went back to kiss his father’s face and lie with his head on his knee. As for food, that great palace held stores which would suffice him through many lives; and during the magic sleep nothing changed or decayed: even the milk stayed fresh through the many years to come; a hundred shining pails of it standing in the king’s dairy.

The weeks, the months, even the years went by; but the child forgot the passing of time; and the less and less of a child, retained the child’s heart still, lonely and sad; with a child’s will and brain, with the memory of its childish prattle dying away, and no words or thoughts of a growing man to take its place; and amid that sleep of dreamless men, where even the thought of evil did not enter, his heart was left to him, gentle, simple, and pure.

Every night at his father’s knee Knoonie knelt and said his evening prayer, and slept well, with the porter’s hand in his. Years made his body fair and of a slender strength, and through the deep silence he grew tall. And he would go and look at the sweet-faced women, and wonder why he sighed, and why it was so sad to kiss their lips that smiled and yet cared nothing--so sad that as years went on he left off from that which seemed to put a double silence on his life, the pain being too keen for his heart. And then he would go and look at the Princess whose lips he had never kissed: and that seemed the saddest thing of all.

Still years went on, and his mild mute life bore him very slowly on to age: and still night by night, a young man once, and then a man in his full prime, and then a man with grey hair showing on his head, and then a man beginning to bend down with age, went and said his childish prayer, and kissed his father’s face, and slept with his head against his father’s knee.

Very gently had life cradled him to age when a hundred years came round: he had lost all knowledge or thought of speech, save that one form of daily use, and his silver-grey face was a reflection of the spirit that brooded over the sleeping palace.

The great day came when all the palace clocks, and the sounds of speech and laughter woke back to life. The thorns and thistles had disappeared, dropping a child’s shoe for luck over the palace threshold: the Prince had come and broken the spell. The cook was screaming that a hundred cats had been at the cream.

In a far-off corner of the palace Knoonie heard, and knew what these sounds meant, and his heart trembled for joy: but it was so very terrible! To him the pain, the bewilderment, the multitude of sights and sounds made this renewed life an agony past knowing; he was so giddy he could only creep hand over hand along the wall towards the gate where his father sat. Now his one thought was to see his father.

As he came under the archway, the porter took him by the shoulder roughly, and turned him out of doors. “We want no naked old mendicants here.”

Knoonie found no words to say; he just walked on and on, a beautiful bowed down old man, bespoken of none, until one night he knocked at a doorway in fairyland, and there with me found contentment and a home.

_Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld.,
London and Aylesbury._

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Hyphens restored in “will-o’-the-wisp” (page 26) and “Fire-eaters” (page 88). All other inconsistencies in hyphenation have been left unchanged.

Page 145: Extraneous quotation mark in “I don’t know,” removed.

Page 171: Typo “Princesss” corrected.

Missing puncutation restored: “out of his heart.” (page 113); “kissed the hand,” (page 131); “try his fortune.” (page 192).

Some illustrations have been moved from the original positions for readability.