"You're no good to me," he said, patting them mournfully. "You never will be any good to me. I wonder why I had you at all. Iwonder why I was born at all, since I was not to grow up like other boys. Why not?"A question so strange, so sad, yet so often occurring in some form or other in this world --as you will find, my children, when you are older--that even if he had put it to his mother she could only have answered it, as we have to answer many as difficult things, by simply saying, "I don't know." There is much that we do not know and cannot understand--we big folks no more than you little ones. We have to accept it all just as you have to accept anything which your parents may tell you, even though you don't as yet see the reason of it. You may sometime, if you do exactly as they tell you, and are content to wait.
Prince Dolor sat a good while thus, or it appeared to him a good while, so many thoughts came and went through his poor young mind--thoughts of great bitterness, which, little though he was, seemed to make him grow years older in a few minutes.
Then he fancied the cloak began to rock gently to and fro, with a soothing kind of motion, as if he were in somebody's arms: somebody who did not speak, but loved him and comforted him without need of words; not by deceiving him with false encouragement or hope, but by making him see the plain, hard truth in all its hardness, and thus letting him quietly face it, till it grew softened down, and did not seem nearly so dreadful after all.
Through the dreary silence and blankness, for he had placed himself so that he could see nothing but the sky, and had taken off his silver ears as well as his gold spectacles--what was the use of either when he had no legs with which to walk or run?--up from below there rose a delicious sound.
You have heard it hundreds of times, my children, and so have I. When I was a child Ithought there was nothing so sweet; and I think so still. It was just the song of a skylark, mounting higher and higher from the ground, till it came so close that Prince Dolor could distinguish his quivering wings and tiny body, almost too tiny to contain such a gush of music.
"Oh, you beautiful, beautiful bird!" cried he;"I should dearly like to take you in and cuddle you. That is, if I could--if I dared."But he hesitated. The little brown creature with its loud heavenly voice almost made him afraid. Nevertheless, it also made him happy;and he watched and listened--so absorbed that he forgot all regret and pain, forgot everything in the world except the little lark.
It soared and soared, and he was just wondering if it would soar out of sight, and what in the world he should do when it was gone, when it suddenly closed its wings, as larks do when they mean to drop to the ground. But, instead of dropping to the ground, it dropped right into the little boy's breast.
What felicity! If it would only stay! A tiny, soft thing to fondle and kiss, to sing to him all day long, and be his playfellow and companion, tame and tender, while to the rest of the world it was a wild bird of the air. What a pride, what a delight! To have something that nobody else had--something all his own. As the traveling-cloak traveled on, he little heeded where, and the lark still stayed, nestled down in his bosom, hopped from his hand to his shoulder, and kissed him with its dainty beak, as if it loved him, Prince Dolor forgot all his grief, and was entirely happy.
But when he got in sight of Hopeless Tower a painful thought struck him.
"My pretty bird, what am I to do with you?
If I take you into my room and shut you up there, you, a wild skylark of the air, what will become of you? I am used to this, but you are not. You will be so miserable; and suppose my nurse should find you--she who can't bear the sound of singing? Besides, I remember her once telling me that the nicest thing she ever ate in her life was lark pie!"The little boy shivered all over at the thought.
And, though the merry lark immediately broke into the loudest carol, as if saying derisively that he defied anybody to eat him, still, Prince Dolor was very uneasy. In another minute he had made up his mind.
"No, my bird, nothing so dreadful shall happen to you if I can help it; I would rather do without you altogether. Yes, I'll try. Fly away, my darling, my beautiful! Good-by, my merry, merry bird."Opening his two caressing hands, in which, as if for protection, he had folded it, he let the lark go. It lingered a minute, perching on the rim of the cloak, and looking at him with eyes of almost human tenderness; then away it flew, far up into the blue sky. It was only a bird.
But some time after, when Prince Dolor had eaten his supper--somewhat drearily, except for the thought that he could not possibly sup off lark pie now--and gone quietly to bed, the old familiar little bed, where he was accustomed to sleep, or lie awake contentedly thinking--suddenly he heard outside the window a little faint carol--faint but cheerful--cheerful even though it was the middle of the night.
The dear little lark! it had not flown away, after all. And it was truly the most extraordinary bird, for, unlike ordinary larks, it kept hovering about the tower in the silence and darkness of the night, outside the window or over the roof. Whenever he listened for a moment, he heard it singing still.
He went to sleep as happy as a king.
