Chapter VI: The Camphor-Worm (3)

She pointed to the net over their heads, to the walls that stood on all sides of them, and to the ground beneath their feet. “That,” she said, “and that, and this.”

“Who are you?” he asked, “and where do you come from? and whose power is it that now holds you captive?”

She led him on to a terrace, from which they could see out towards the west; and there lay the new Moon, low down in the sky. “Yonder,” she said, pointing to it, “is my home!” She wept. “Shall I ever return to it?”

The Prince, gazing at her in wonder, cried, “Are you one of a Fairy race?”

“No, oh, no!” she sighed. “I am but mortal like yourself; only my home is there, while yours is here. We, who dwell in the Moon, are as you are, but the sun has greater power over us; the light of it falling on us makes us pale and unsubstantial, so that we weigh not so much as a gossamer and become transparent as thin fleeces of cloud. Then we can go where you cannot go, treading the light as it flies; but at sunset we regain our strength, and our bodies come to us again; and we are as you see me now--no different from yourselves, the inhabitants of the Earth.”

“Tell me,” said the Prince, “of yourself, and the dwellers in the Moon! Is it not cold there, and barren?”

She answered smiling, for the memory of her home was sweet to her, “Outside, the Moon is cold and barren; but within it is very warm and rich and fertile; more beautiful than any place I have seen on earth. It is there we live; and we have flocks, and herds, and woods, and rivers, and harbours, and seas. Also we have great cities built inside the Moon’s crust, for the Moon is a great hollow shell, and we walk upon its inner surface and are warm. The sunlight comes to us through craters and clefts in the ground; and the beams of it are like solid pillars of gold that quiver and sway as they shoot upwards into the opal twilight of our world; and the shine and the warmth of it come to us, and colour the air above our heads; but we are safe from its full light falling on us, for the ground is between us and it. Only when we pass through to the outer side do we become pale and faint, a mere whisper of our former selves. And then we are so light that if we step upon a moonbeam it will bear our weight; and the moonbeam carries us swiftly as its own light travels, till it reaches the Earth: so we come. But to return there is another way.”

And when the Prince asked her, she told him of the other way back into the Moon.

“When we wish to return,” she went on “(for the falling light of a moonbeam cannot carry us back), we must go where there is a pool of still water and wait for the reflection of the Moon to fall on it; and when the Moon is full, and throws its image into the water, then we dive down, and with our lips touch the reflection of its face, crying, ‘Open, open to me, for I am a Moon-child!’ And the Moon will open her face like a door of pearl, and let us pass in; and when she draws her reflection out of the pool, we find ourselves once again among our own people and in our own land. Many of us have so come and so returned,” she sighed deeply, “but I fear that I shall never again return.”

Then the Prince asked her further whose power it was that held her captive; and she told him how she had dropped the pearl that her mother had given her, and had come down seeking it. Then she said, “In the Moon we have many jewels, for we have opals and onyxes, and pearls and moonstones, but we have no rubies, or emeralds, or sapphires, or stones of a single colour, such as you have. Therefore, we have a passion for these things, and our merchants come down and bring them back to us at a great price.

“Now it chanced that in my search I came upon a gnome who had dealings with our merchants and had many jewels to sell, and he, seeming to be kind, helped me until my pearl was found. Then he took me to see his own treasures; and, alas, while my eyes were feasting on the colours of the stones he showed to me, my poor beauty inflamed the avarice of his evil heart, and the desire to have me for his wife became great. So when I asked him the price of his jewels, he vowed that the only price at which he would let them go was that of my own hand in marriage. Alas, I am young and innocent, and without subtlety, nor did I know how great was his power and wickedness. As I laughed at his request his face grew dark with rage, and I saw that I had incurred the undying enmity of his cruel heart. And now for a whole year he has held me in his enchantment, striving to break me to his will by the length and weariness of my captivity; and lest search or any help should come for me from my father’s people, he has covered me in with a net, and surrounded me with walls; and here there is no pool into which the full Moon may fall, and at the mere touch of my lips upon its face, open and draw me free from my enchantment, and back into the heart of my own land. Only yonder, in the corner of the garden is a deep well, where the Moon never shines; so there is no way here left for me by which I may get free.”

“Does not the gnome ever come to see you in your captivity?” asked the Prince. “If so, I may by some means be able to entrap him, and force him to let you go.”

“Twice in the year he has visited me,” answered the Princess. “He comes up out of the ground in the form of a Red Mole; but he looks at me wickedly and cunningly with the eyes of a man, seeming to say, ‘Will you have me yet?’ And when I shake my head he burrows under again, and is gone till another six months shall be past.”

The Prince thought for a while and said, “I do not know whether I have the power or the wit to make you free; if love only were needed for the work, to-morrow would see you as free as a bird.”

The Princess, between smiles and sighs, said, “I have been most lonely here; already you make my imprisonment seem less.” Then she led him within doors, from room to room, showing him the splendours of her prison. Wherever they went, out of the floor before them rose burning jewels that hung hovering over their heads to light them as they passed; and when she struck her hands together, up from the ground rose a table covered with fruit and dainties of all sorts; and when she and the Prince had eaten, she clapped her hands again, and they disappeared by the same way that they had come.

The Prince was struck with admiration at the delicacy of these marvels. “When I think of the Red Mole, they sicken me!” said the Moon-Princess. The good youth used all his arts to cheer her, promising to devote himself, and if need be his life, to the task of setting her free. And now and then she laughed and was almost merry again, forgetting the walls that still held her spell-bound from her own people and her own land.

She showed the Prince a chamber where he might sleep; and so soft and warm was the couch after his last hard night on the ground, that it was full day before he awoke. The Princess Berenice appeared before him misty and faint, for the sunlight threw a veil upon her beauty; but still as he looked at her he did not love her less, and it still seemed to him that hers was the face of the loveliest heart on earth.

All day he watched her drifting about the garden, seeming to feed herself on the scent of the flowers. In the evening, when the sun set, her body grew strong and her face shone out to him like the new Moon upon a twilight sky.

Then he drew water for her from the well, and watched her as she watered the flowers which were her only delight. Presently he said, “There is much water in the well, for the rope goes down into it many fathoms; and yet I find no bottom.”

“Yes,” answered the Princess, “I doubt not that the well is deep.”

“Before many days are over,” said the Prince, “the well shall become a pool.”

The Princess wondered to hear him. “Is there,” he went on, “no such thing as a spade for me to dig with?” Then she led him to a shed, where lay all the needed implements for gardening. So his eyes brightened, while he cried, “O, beautiful Princess Berenice, as I love you, before many weeks are over you shall be free!”

The next morning he arose very early, and in the centre of the garden, where the ground hollowed somewhat, he marked out a space and set to work to dig.

All day the Princess went to and fro, faint and pale as a mist, watching him at his work. At dusk her beauty shone full upon him, and she said, “What is this that you are doing?” He answered, “What I am making shall presently become a pool; then when the pool is full, and the full Moon comes and shines on it, you shall go down into the water, and shall kiss the face of its reflection with your lips, and be free from your enchantment.”

Princess Berenice looked long at him, and her eyes clung to his like soft moths in the gloom. “But you?” she said, “You are no Moon-child, and this will never set you free.”

“Ever since I saw you,” said the Prince, “I have not thought of freedom; my dearest wish is but to set you free.”

The Princess gave him her hand. “And mine,” she said, “my dearest wish henceforth is to set you free also. Yet I know but one way, and I cannot name it.” She smiled tenderly on him, and bowed her face into the shadow of her hair.

The Prince caught her in his arms, “One way is my way!” he cried. “Your way,” she said, “is my way.” Then, when he had finished kissing her, she said, “Look, on my finger is a ring; this ring is for him to whom I give myself in marriage. Surely, it opens to him the heart of my own people, and he becomes one of us, a child of the Moon.” She showed him an opal ring, full of fires. “If your way is my way,” she said, “draw this off my finger, and put it upon your own, and take me to be your wife!”

So the Prince drew off the ring from her finger, and set it upon his own; and as he did so he felt indeed the heart of the Moon-people become his own, and the love of the Moon strike root in him. Yet did the love of the Earth remain his as well, making it seem as if all the love in his heart had but doubled itself.

So he and the most beautiful Berenice were married there by the light of the new Moon, and all thought of sorrow or danger from the encirclement that bound them was lost in their great joy.

During the whole of the next day the Prince went on with his digging, making a broad shallow in the ground. “Before the full Moon comes,” he said, “I will make it deep.” And he worked on, refusing to take any rest.

The Princess loved him more and more as she watched him; and his love for her daily increased, for every day, while the Moon grew full, her beauty shone in greater perfection and splendour. “Here,” she said to him, “the coming of the full Moon is like the coming of Spring to me: I feel it in my blood. After the full Moon my beauty will wane and grow paler. But in my own land I do not feel these changes, for there it is always the full Moon.” The Prince answered her, “To me your beauty, though it grows more, will not ever grow less.”

At last, on the day before that of the full Moon, the pit which he had dug was broad and deep; then he began to fill it with water from the well. “To-morrow,” he said to his wife, when the pool was nearly full, as she came and stood by his side at sunset in the full blaze of her beauty, “to-morrow we shall be free; and you will carry me away with you into your own land.”

“I do not know,” said the Princess; “I begin to be afraid!” and she sighed heavily. “Any day the Red Mole may come: one day is not too soon for him to be here.”

“But why need you fear him now?” asked the Prince. “Since you are married to me, you cannot be married to him.”

“As to that,” said she, “I fear that to have outwitted him will but make his malice all the greater against us!” Then she walked softly among the moonbeams, bathing her hands in them, and letting them fall upon the loveliness of her face; and as she stood in their light, tears rained down out of her eyes.

In the morning it seemed as if her happiness had returned. The Prince, as he toiled under the blazing sun, carrying water from the well to the pool, felt her moving by his side, and heard her light shadowy laughter when, just before sunset, the water flowed level to the pool’s brink. And when dusk rose out of the grass, there she stood glowing with the full Moon of her beauty and leaning in all the light of her loveliness towards him.

The happy night drew round them; out of the East came the glow of the full Moon as it rose; soon, soon it would cross the tops of the trees and rest its face upon the quiet waters of the pool. They clung in each other’s arms, entranced. “My beautiful,” said the Prince, “shall we not take to your mother some of those jewels she loves--the green, and the red, and the blue, and the pearl which was hers, the quest of which has cost you so much?” He ran into one of the jewelled chambers where lay the pearl, and caught from the walls the largest stones he could find. Quickly he went and returned, for the Moon was now fast cresting the avenues of the garden. He came bearing the jewels in his hands.

Princess Berenice stood no longer by the brink of the pool, though therein lay the image of the Moon’s face, a circle of pale gold upon the water. “Berenice,” called the Prince, and ran through the garden searching for her. “Berenice!” he cried by the well; but she was not there. “Berenice!” His voice grew trembling and weak, and quick fear took hold of him. “O, my beautiful, my beloved, where are you?”

Only the silence stood up to answer him. Under his feet ran a Red Mole.

It scampered across the grass, and disappeared through a burrow in the ground. Then the Prince knew that the worst had surely come, and that his Princess had been taken away from him. Where she was he could not know; within her former prison she was nowhere to be seen.

All night the Prince lay weeping by the brink of the pool, where she had last stood before his sight; the print of her dear feet still lay on the lawn where she had stayed waiting with him so long. “O, miserable wretch that I am!” he cried, kissing the trodden grass. “Now never again may I hope to behold you, or hear your dear voice!”

All the day following he wandered like a ghost from place to place, filling the empty garden with memories of her presence, and sighing over and over again the music of her name. All the flowers glowed round him in their accustomed beauty; new buds came into life, and full blooms broke and fell; not a thing seemed to sorrow for her loss except himself. As for the flowers, he paid them little heed.

In his sleep that night a dream came to him, a dream as of something that whispered and laughed in his ear. Over and over again it seemed to be saying, “The Red Mole came, and the full Moon came, and the Princess jumped down into the water!” Then his heart knocked so loud for joy that he started awake, and saw the Red Mole scuffling away to its borrow in the ground.

Then he feared that the dream was but a thing devised to cheat his fancy, and get rid of him by making him go away and search for his Princess in the land of the Moon, by the way that she had told him. But he thought to himself, “If the Red Mole wants so much to get me away, it means that my beloved is somewhere near at hand. Is she in the well?” he began wondering; and as soon as it was light he went to where lay the well in its corner under the shadow of the wall. But though he searched long and diligently, there was no trace of her that he could find.

Yet every time he came near to the well sorrow seemed to take hold of him, and, mixed with it, a kind of joy, as though indeed the heart of his beloved beat in this place. Near to the well stood a tall flower with bowed head. It seemed to him the only one in the whole garden that had any share in his sorrow: he wondered if the flower had grown up to mark the sad place of her burial.

“O, my beloved Berenice, art thou near me now?” he murmured, heart-broken, one day as he passed by: then it seemed to him that all at once the flower stirred. He turned to look at it; it was like a sunflower, but white even to its centre, and its head kept drooping as if for pure grief. “Berenice, Berenice!” he wept, passing it.

At dusk he returned again; and now the flower’s head was lifted up, and shone with a strange lustre. The Prince, as he went by on his way to the well, saw the flower turn its head, bending its face ever towards where he was. Then grief and joy stirred in his heart. “The flower knows where she is!” he said.

So he bent, whispering, “Where, then, is Berenice?” and the flower lifted its head, and hung quite still, looking at him.

Then the Prince whispered again, “The Red Mole came, and the full Moon came, and the Princess jumped down into the water?”

But the flower swayed its head from side to side, and the Prince found that it had answered “No.”

Then he had it in his mind to ask of it further things; but, as he was about to speak, he beheld its face all brimming over with tears, that suddenly broke and fell down in a shower over its leaves.

At that his heart leaped, and his voice choked as he cried, “Art _thou_ my beloved, my Berenice?” And all at once the flower swayed down, and leaned, and fell weeping against his breast.

So at last he knew! And joy and grief struggled together in him for mastery.

All that night he knelt with the flower’s head upon his heart, stroking its soft leaves, and letting it rest between his hands; till, towards dawn, it seemed to him that peace was upon it and sleep.

All through the day it hung faint upon its stem; but when evening came it lifted its head and shone in moon-like beauty; and so deep for it was the Prince’s love and compassion that he could hardly bear to be absent from its side one moment of the day or night.

And, when he was very weary, he lay down under its shadow to sleep; and the Moon-flower bent down and rested its head upon his face.

All night long in dreams Berenice came back to him. He seemed to hear how the Red Mole had come, and changed her to a rooted shape, lest the full Moon in the water should carry her away from him back into her own land. Yet it was only a dream, and the Prince could learn nothing there of the way by which he might set her free.

A month went by, and he said to his Flower, “To-night is the night of the full Moon: now, if I drew you from the ground, and carried you down, and called for the Moon’s face to open to us, would you not be free from the enchantment, when you were come again to your own people?” But the Moon-flower shook its head, as if to bid him still wait and watch patiently.

Now, as the Prince came and went day by day, he began to notice that the Moon-flower had its roots in a small green mound, no bigger than a mole-hill; and he thought to himself, “surely that mound was not there at first: the Red Mole must be down below at work!” So he watched it from day to day; and at last he knew for certain that, as time went on, the mound grew larger.

Month by month the mound upon which the Moon-flower had root increased in size; yet the Flower thrived, and its beauty shone brighter as each full Moon approached, so that at last the Prince’s fear lest the Red Mole were working mischief against its life, passed away.

Once, on the night of a full Moon, as the Prince lay with his head upon Earth, and the Moon-flower bowed over his face, he heard under the mound a peal of silvery laughter; and at the sound of it the Moon-flower started, and stood erect, and a stir of delight seemed to take hold of its leaves. Again the laughter came, and the soft earth moved at the sound of it.

The Prince started up, and ran and fetched a spade, and struck it down under the loose soil of the mound. When he lifted up the earth, out sprang a tiny child like a lobe of quicksilver, laughing merrily with its first leap into the light. But even then its laughter changed into a cry; for out after it darted the Red Mole, with fury in its whiskers, and wrath flashing out of its eyes.

The quicksilver child sprang away, darting swiftly over the grass towards the margin of the pool. There lay the full Moon’s image upon the clear stillness of the water; and the child leapt down the bank, and laughed as it sprang safely away. Then there followed a tiny splash; and the Prince, amid the rings upon the water’s surface, saw, like a door of pearl, the Moon’s face open and close again. And the Red Mole went down into the earth gnashing its teeth for rage.

The Prince ran back to the Moon-flower, and found it bent forwards and trembling with fear. Then he drew its head towards his heart, and whispered “The Red Mole came, and the full Moon came, and the silver child jumped down into the water!” And at that the Flower lifted its head and began clapping its leaves for joy.

A month went by, and the green mound had disappeared from beneath the Moon-flower’s roots; and still every night the Prince lay down under the shadow of its leaves; and the Flower bent over him, and laid its head against his face.

As he lay so, one night, and watched the full Moon travelling high overhead, he saw a shadow begin to cross over it; and he knew that it was the eclipse, which is the shadow of the Earth passing over the face of the Moon; then he rose softly, leaving the Moon-flower asleep, and went and stood by the brink of the pool.

Up in the Moon the silver child felt the shadow of the Earth fall upon the face of the Moon; and he came and touched the Earth’s shadow with his lips, crying, “Open, open to me, for I am an Earth-child!” Then the Earth’s shadow that was upon the Moon opened, and the silver child sprang through.

The Prince, watching the veiled image of the Moon’s face in the water, saw the Earth’s shadow open like a door, so that for an instant the brightness of the Moon shone through, and out sprang the quicksilver child, up to the surface of the pool.

He leapt laughing up the bank, and went running over the grass to where the Moon-flower was standing. He reached up his arms, and caught the Flower by the head.

“O mother, mother, mother!” he cried as he kissed it.

And at the touch of his lips the Moon-flower opened and changed, growing wondrously tall and fair; and the flower turned into a face, and the leaves disappeared, till it was the beautiful Princess Berenice herself, who stooped down and took the quicksilver child up into her arms.

She cried, fondling him, “Did they give you your name?”

And the child laughed. “They call me Gammelyn,” he said.

The Prince caught them both together in his arms. “Come, come!” he shouted and laughed, “for yonder is the full Moon waiting for us!” And, lifting them up, he ran with them to the borders of the pool.

And the Red Mole came, and the full Moon came; and the Prince, and the Princess, and the silver child jumped down into the water.

Then the Prince laid his lips against the reflection of the Earth’s shadow, crying, “Open, open to me, for I am a child of the Earth!” And the shadow opened like a door to let them pass through. Then they pressed their lips against the reflection of the Moon’s face crying, “Open, open to us, for we are Moon-children!” And the Moon opened her face like a door of pearl, so that they sprang through together, and were safe.

And when the Moon drew its reflection out of the pool, they found themselves in the land of the Moon, in the silver chamber with the round window, in the palace of Princess Berenice’s father.

Looking out through the window, down at the end of a long moonbeam they saw the Red Mole gnashing his whiskers for rage. Then the Prince took off his shoes, and threw them with all his might down the moonbeam at the Mole.

As the shoes fell, they went faster, and faster, and faster, till they came to earth; and they struck the Mole so hard upon the head that he died.

Now as for Gammelyn and the shoes we may hear of them again elsewhere; but as for the Prince and his beautiful Princess Berenice, the happiness in which they lived for the rest of their days is too great even to be told.

THE WHITE KING

Many years ago there lived a Queen who could not keep count of the countries over which she ruled. Her wealth and her wonderful beauty made her an apple of discord to all the kings who lived round about her borders. For love of her they waged perpetual war upon one another, and every King who proved victorious made a gift to the Queen of the country of the one whom he had conquered, in the hopes of thereby strengthening his claim to her favour. Thus it came about that she could no longer keep count of the lands which had fallen under her rule; yet still of all her suitors she chose none.

Now at this time there was one King, and only one, who had not succeeded in losing his heart to the Queen’s majesty, in spite of her wealth and power, and all her wonderful beauty. And so, during a long time, since his fancy was thus free, he was left in undisturbed peace and prosperity, while other kings fought out their jealous battles, and stole away each other’s lands. And because his reign was so quiet and his country in such rest, his people for a pet-name and for their pride in him, named him the White King.

Now after a time the Queen took it as an insult that anyone should be so indifferent to the power of her charms, and she began to threaten him with war for this reason and for that, wishing thereby to cajole him into becoming her suitor. But the White King saw through all the disguises with which she covered her meaning, and understood the arrogance of her claim; so one day he sent to her as a gift a statue of himself with his sword sheathed, and all his armour covered over with the cloak of peace. Round the base of it was written

“When a heart in stone doth move,
Then your lover I may prove;
But until the marvel’s done,
Fruitlessly your wars are won.”

The Queen looked once at the statue, and for a long time after never looked away; and when at last she did her heart had been taken captive. Then she looked at the words beneath, and the red flush that rose to her face was not gone when the last of her army passed out of the city gates to carry war into the country of the man who had dared thus to speak scorn of her.

For a whole year the White King fought with the forces she sent against him; but when all the other kings came to her aid, then, stronghold by stronghold, all his cities were taken, and his lands were laid waste and their villages burnt, and nothing but defeat and ruin remained.

Yet in the last battle, when his enemies thought to have him a safe prisoner, all of a sudden they found that the White King had disappeared.

Back came the Queen’s armies in triumph with their allies, and the conquered territory was added as one more to the many that formed her realm. But the Queen sighed as she looked at the White King’s statue, and her triumph grew bitter to her. Day by day, as she looked at the calm marble face, her love for it increased, and she owned sadly to herself, “He whom I have conquered has conquered me!”

Of the lost King himself no tidings could be learned, though search was made far and wide. Minstrels came to the court, and sang of his great deeds in fighting against odds, but of his end they sang variously. Some sang that he lay buried beneath the thickest of the slain; others that from his last battle he had been carried by good fairies, and that after he had been healed of his wounds, he would return in a hundred years and recover his kingdom.

One minstrel came to stay at the court who sang of ruined homes and wasted fields, and a happy land laid desolate, and how its King wandered friendless and unknown through the world, hiding himself in disguise, sometimes in the cottages of the poor, and sometimes in the dwellings of the rich. But from no one could the Queen learn any news that satisfied her or gave hope that he would at last bend down his pride, and come and sue to her for forgiveness.

Wishing to have a hiding place for her grief, she caused the statue to be set up in a green glade in the most lonely part of the gardens; and there often she would go and gaze on the calm noble face (whose closed eyes seemed even now to disdain her love), and would wonder how long a queen’s heart took to break.

But after a time she thought, “Though I may never win the love of the White King for my own, is there no way by which my passion can assuage itself, when by lifting my finger I can summon half fairyland to my aid?”

So she called to her the most powerful fairy she knew, and taking her into the green glade, began sighing and weeping in front of the White King’s statue. “This,” she said, “is the image of the only man on earth I can love! But the man himself is lost, gone I know not where; and my heart is breaking for grief! Give this statue a life and a heart, and teach it to love me, else soon I shall surely be dead!”

The Fairy said to her, “All the might of Fairyland could not do so much; but a little of it I can do; and if Fate is kind to you, Fate may bring the rest of it to pass.”

“How much can you do?” asked the Queen.

“This only,” said the Fairy, “but even that you must do for yourself. I can but show you the way. Stone is stone, and out of stone I cannot make a heart; but a heart may grow into it, and this is the way to compass it.

“You must find first a man who is loved, but does not love (for if he loves, the statue’s heart when it wakes will turn from you); and him you must kill with your own hand, and take out his heart and bury it beneath the feet of the statue. Then I will work my charms, and gradually, as a flower draws its life out of the ground, so the statue will draw life out of the human heart buried below. And after a little time you will see it move, and in a little time more its senses will come, and it will be able to hear, and see, and speak. But full life will not come to it until it has learned to love. Then, so soon as it learns to love, it will become no longer stone, but a human being.”

But the Queen said, “Supposing its love were to turn from me to another, where should I be then?”

“Surely,” said the Fairy, “the secret will be your own, and the watching of its life as it grows will be yours. Your voice it will hear, your face it will see; whom, then, will it learn to love more than you?”

“Wait, then, till I have found the man,” said the Queen, “and we will do this thing between us!”

She searched long among her court for some man whose heart was whole, but who was himself loved. Generally, however, she found it was all the other way. There was not a man at the court who was not in love, or did not think himself so; and if there were one who had no thought of love, he was too poor and mean for the love of any woman to be his.

But one day the Queen heard a minstrel in the palace courtyard singing and making merry against love. It was that same minstrel who sang only sad songs of the White King’s lands laid waste and himself a wanderer: a fellow with a dark sunburnt face, and thick hair hanging over his eyes. And as he sang and rattled his jests at the courtiers who stood by to listen, the Queen noticed one of her waiting-women looking out of a small lattice, who, as she watched the singer’s face, and listened to his words, had tears running fast down out of her eyes.

“Is this a case,” thought the Queen, “of a man who is loved but who does not love?”

She sent for the minstrel, and said to him, when he stood bending his head before her, “Is this pretty scorn that you cast on love earnest or jest?”

“Nay,” he answered, “I jest in good earnest; for to speak of love in earnest is to jest about it.”

“So,” said the Queen, “you are heart-whole?”

“Why,” said the minstrel, “I doubt if a mouse could find its way in; and if I am heart-whole in your presence, I ought to be safe from all the world!”

“Now,” thought the Queen, “if only my waiting-woman answers the test, here is the heart I will have out!”

Then she bade the minstrel follow her to where stood the White King’s statue, bidding him sit down under it and sing her more of his rhymes about love.

So the minstrel crossed his legs in the long grass and sang. His song became bitter to the Queen’s ears, for he took the words that were round the statue, and rhymed them and chimed them, and threw them laughing in the Queen’s face. She hated him so that she could have poisoned him; but she remembered that his life was necessary for her experiment to reach its end. So she sent instead for a sleepy wine, which she gave him to drink, and presently his voice grew thick and his head dropped down upon his breast, and his legs slid out and brought him down level with the grass. When night came on she left him soundly sleeping with his head between the feet of the White King’s statue.

Then she sent for the waiting-woman and said, “Go down to the White King’s statue, and find for me my handkerchief which I have dropped there.” But as the girl went, the Queen stole secretly after her, and watched her come to where the minstrel lay asleep.

And when the waiting-maid saw him lying so, with his face thrown back, she knelt down in the grass by his side, and putting her arms softly about him, kissed him upon the lips over and over again as though she could never come to an end; and her tears dropped down on to his face, and, as if her mind were gone mad for love of him, the Queen heard her sighing, “Oh, White King, my White King, my Beloved, whom I love, but who loves me not!”

As soon as the waiting-maid was gone, the Queen came softly to the place, and with a sharp knife she cut out the minstrel’s heart and buried it at the base of the statue.

In the morning the minstrel was found lying dead with his heart gone; and when they washed the dead face and put back the hair that covered the eyes, they found that it was the White King himself.

That day, and for many days after, there were two women weeping in the palace: one was the Queen and the other was the waiting-woman. But the body of the White King they buried close by the statue in the green glade.

Now presently, when the first violence of her grief was over, the Queen came to look at the place; and, sure enough, the Fairy had been there with her spells. When the wind blew the statue swayed gently like a tree in the wind.

The Queen caused gates and barriers to be put up so that no one should enter the glade but herself; only Love found a way, and at night, when all the world was asleep, the waiting-woman crept through a loose pale in the barriers, and came to moan over the place where her lover had been slain.

All night she would lie with her arms round the feet of the White King’s statue, and dream of the dead minstrel whom she had loved and known through all his disguise. And all night long her lips would murmur his name, and whisper over and over again the sad story of her love.

And presently, as the statue drew life from the heart buried beneath its feet, its ears were opened and it heard.

In the daytime the Queen would come and sit before it and whisper words of love, offering it all the gifts of riches and power that are in the hands of kings to give; but at night came the waiting-woman and offered it only love.

Out of the ground the Queen saw grow a small plant, that began to creep upwards and to wind itself round the base of the statue; and when she saw that its flower was the deadly nightshade, her heart trembled and her conscience made her afraid.

But the waiting-maid, when she saw it, picked the sad blossoms and made a crown for the statue’s head as of pale amethyst and gold: for she said to herself, “Down below my dear lies dead, and the roots of this flower are in his hair.”

One day as the Queen came into the glade, she heard the dead minstrel’s voice, and her heart shook with terror as she saw the statue open its white lips and sing, and recognised the tune and the words as those which had made her heart feel so bitter against him; for she thought, “What if he knows that it is I who have slain him?”

Now that she saw that the stone had its five senses, and could see and speak and hear, she pleaded to it all day out of the greatness of her grief and her love. But the statue never returned her a word.

At night, lying with her face bowed between the White King’s statue’s feet, the waiting-woman knew nothing of all this change; only the statue heard and saw and knew. And at last one day as her tears dropped on them, she felt the feet grow warm between her hands; and a voice over her head that she remembered and loved, said, “Little heart, why are you weeping so?”

In the morning the Queen came and found the statue gone. There on the pedestal was only the print of his feet, half covered by the deadly nightshade which had climbed up to his knees and fallen. There it lay heavy and half-withered, clasping the hollows where his feet had been.

The Queen knelt down and caught the bare stone pedestal in her arms. “Oh, Love,” she cried, “have you left me? Oh, White King, my White King, have you betrayed me?” And as she clung there weeping, her lips touched the deadly nightshade; and the nightshade thrilled, and felt joy give new life down into its roots.

It reached up and laid its arms about the Queen, about her throat, and about her feet and about her waist. “Dearly, dearly we love each other,” said the nightshade, “do we not?”

At night the courtiers came, and found only a dead Queen lying, and the statue gone.

But the White King had gone home to his own land to marry the waiting-woman.

THE PASSIONATE PUPPETS

When the long days of summer began, Killian, the cow-herd, was able to lead his drove up into the hills, giving them the high pastures to range. Then from sunrise to sunset he was alone, except when, early each morning, Grendel and the other girls came up to carry down the milk to the villages.

All day long the cow-bells sounded in his ears, but still the time of his wedding was a long way off; it would be five years before he and Grendel could afford to set up a house and farm, with cows of their own.

The great stretch of world that lay out under him, like a broad map coloured blue and green, made him full of a restless longing to try his fortune. Yonder he could pick out the towns with their spires and glittering roofs, and the overhead mists, that gave token of crowded life below. It was there that wealth could be got; and with wealth men married soon, and were at ease. Somewhere, he had heard, lived kings and queens, wearing rich robes and gold crowns on the top of their heart’s desire. For kings and queens, he supposed, loved as did he and Grendel, regarding nothing else as much in the world besides.

So Killian, putting heart into his deft hands, set to work.

One evening Grendel came up from the valley, after her day’s work, to have a look at her lover; she had brought him some brown cakes and a bottle of wine. But Killian, who had caught sight of her eyes over the green rise at his feet, was hiding something behind his back.

“Whatever have you there?” she asked, as she saw chips, and tools, and bits of bright foil, lying scattered about the ground. Yet for three days he would show her nothing, only he said, “What I do is because we love each other so.”

At the end of that time, he showed her what he had done. There she saw a little king and queen, about six inches high; he was in blue, and she in white; and they were both as dear as they were small. The king was partly like a cow-herd, having a crown over his broad-brimmed hat, with thick wooden shoes, and leather-bound legs; and the queen was like Grendel, with great long plaits past her waist, and a gold-worked bodice, such as Grendel had for Sunday wear. “Aye, aye,” cried Grendel, “why, it is you and me!”

Then Killian showed her how the joints of the little puppets moved on delicate wires, and how four strings ran up, one from each limb, to be fastened to the player’s fingers, so that he might make them act as though life were in them.

“I shall take these down with me to the valley,” said Killian. “First I shall go about among the villages; then, when I can do better, I shall go to the towns. After that no doubt the kings and queens will hear of me, and will send for me to play before them, and I shall become rich. Then I shall come home and marry you.”

Grendel thought her lover the most wonderful man in the world, and it is the truth he was very clever; she kissed him a hundred times, and the little marionettes also. “Ah,” she said, “now we shall not have to wait five years! in five months you will come back rich and famous, and we shall marry, and live happily.”

How Killian had loved her while making his puppets, only she knew as well as he. Truly, he had put his heart into them, so that they were like living beings,--and so small that their very smallness made them a marvel. Being a lover, he had put inside each breast a little heart, and, for the luck of the thing, had christened them with a drop of his own blood, and a drop of Grendel’s; so each heart had in it one little drop of blood. Now he was to go out, and try his fortune.

He found a lad to come and take his place and see after the cows; then he said good-bye to Grendel, and set off on a round of all the villages of the plain.

At every inn where he put up, he called the country folk together to the sound of his shepherd’s bag-pipes, and showed them his play. It was only himself and Grendel, no story at all, merely lovers parting and meeting again, each believing the other dead, and in the end living happily to the sound of cow-bells, that showed how rich they were in herds.

And the villagers laughed and cried, and gave him pence, and a night’s lodging, and food; so that presently he was able to make himself a little travelling-stage, and hire a piper to play dance-music for him. But it was always the one story of himself and Grendel, and no other, though the two puppets wore crowns upon their heads.

* * * * *

The little marionettes had hearts. That was the beginning of things: they remembered nothing else. When their eyes had grown open to the fact, then for them life had begun. After that they lived like bee and blossom, only that the bee never flew away, and the honey remained in the blossom.

How this came to pass was a question they never asked; why they loved each other they did not know. If they had had to think of it they would have said, “It is because we cannot help it.” And every day one same thing happened to them that they could not help, the most beautiful thing in life. It came to them by instinct, taking hold of them from head to feet and saying, “Love, love, love,” in all sorts of wonderful ways.

Whenever this thing happened they began to move about softly, going to and fro, and round and round, dancing, and holding each other by the hand, putting their cheeks so close together that their eyelids brushed, and sometimes their little hearts that heaved. And all the while music from somewhere was giving a meaning to these things; and over and over again, “Love, love, love” was what it kept saying to them.

Their happiness was so great, that they would begin playing with it, pretending that it was all turned into grief. First he would kiss her from forehead to chin, and into the hollow of her little throat; and then all down each dear arm, even to the finger-tips; and last of all her feet; and again last of all her lips, and again last of all her breast. And then he would go away, walking backwards most of the time, or if not, still turning round and round to take another look at her. Then when he was altogether out of sight, she would sit down and cry, though all the while he would be peeping at her from his hiding-place, to let her know that he was not really gone. Then she would lie down, and cry more, and at last leave off crying and stay almost still on a little bed, that seemed to come to her from nowhere, just when she was ready to fall on it. Then, at last, she would shut her eyes, and cover her face up very slowly with a sheet, and lie so still that he would grow quite frightened, and come running from his hiding-place, and lift the sheet, and look at her; then he would fall down as if his legs had been cut from under him; then he would get up and throw flowers over her, and at last catch her up and begin to carry her; and at that she would wake up all at once and kiss him, to a sound of bells.

They did not know why they did this; it was so beautiful they could not have thought of it for themselves, and yet it said everything of life that they wanted to say. For love was the beginning and the end of it; and always, as they came to the sad part, they had tender tremblings for fear the other should think the sorrow was real: he, lest she should think he had really gone away and left her, never to return; and she, lest he should believe that she always meant to lie so cruelly still, with a sheet over her eyes. Yet the kissings that came after made the fearfulness almost the sweetest thing in their prayer-sayings to each other.

For to them this was a daily prayer, the most solemn thing in their lives; heart praying to heart, and hand reaching to hand; and from somewhere overhead gentle monitions as to what they must do next coming to them, so that they knew how to pray best, now by lifting a hand, or now by turning the head, or now by running fast with both feet. And all this beautiful worship of love their bodies learned to do more perfectly day by day; yet the little quaking of fear was still in the centre of it all.

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