Part 8

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 burrow 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, and went shrilling over the grass toward 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 of.

HAPPY RETURNS

_TO_ JEANNIE

[Illustration]

HAPPY RETURNS

By the side of a great river, whose stream formed the boundary to two countries, lived an old ferryman and his wife. All the day, while she minded the house, he sat in his boat by the ferry, waiting to carry travellers across; or, when no travellers came, and he had his boat free, he would cast drag-nets along the bed of the river for fish. But for the food which he was able thus to procure at times, he and his wife might well have starved, for travellers were often few and far between, and often they grudged him the few pence he asked for ferrying them; and now he had grown so old and feeble that when the river was in flood he could scarcely ferry the boat across; and continually he feared lest a younger and stronger man should come and take his place, and the bread from his mouth.

But he had trust in Providence. “Will not God,” he said, “who has given us no happiness in this life, save in each other’s help and companionship, allow us to end our days in peace?”

And his wife answered, “Yes, surely, if we trust Him enough He will.”

One morning, it being the first day of the year, the ferryman going down to his boat, found that during the night it had been loosed from its moorings and taken across the river, where it now lay fastened to the further bank.

“Wife,” said he, “I can remember this same thing happening a year ago, and the year before also. Who is this traveller who comes once a year, like a thief in the night, and crosses without asking me to ferry him over?”

“Perhaps it is the good folk,” said his wife. “Go over and see if they have left no coin behind them in the boat.”

The old man got on to a log and poled himself across, and found, down in the keel of the boat, the mark of a man’s bare foot driven deep into the wood; but there was no coin or other trace to show who it might be.

Time went on; the old ferryman was all bowed down with age, and his body was racked with pains. So slow was he now in making the passage of the stream, that all travellers who knew those parts took a road higher up the bank, where a stronger ferryman plied.

Winter came; and hunger and want pressed hard at the old man’s door. One day while he drew his net along the stream, he felt the shock of a great fish striking against the meshes down below, and presently, as the net came in, he saw a shape like living silver, leaping and darting to and fro to find some way of escape. Up to the bank he landed it, a great gasping fish.

When he was about to kill it, he saw, to his astonishment, tears running out of its eyes, that gazed at him and seemed to reproach him for his cruelty. As he drew back, the Fish said: “Why should you kill me, who wish to live?”

The old man, altogether bewildered at hearing himself thus addressed, answered: “Since I and my wife are hungry, and God gave you to be eaten, I have good reason for killing you.”

“I could give you something worth far more than a meal,” said the Fish, “if you would spare my life.”

“We are old,” said the ferryman, “and want only to end our days in peace. To-day we are hungry; what can be more good for us than a meal which will give us strength for the morrow, which is the new year?”

The Fish said: “To-night some one will come and unfasten your boat, and ferry himself over, and you know nothing of it till the morning, when you see the craft moored out yonder by the further bank.”

The old man remembered how the thing had happened in previous years, directly the Fish spoke. “Ah, you know that then! How is it?” he asked.

“When you go back to your hut at night to sleep, I am here in the water,” said the Fish. “I see what goes on.”

“What goes on, then?” asked the old man, very curious to know who the strange traveller might be.

“Ah,” said the Fish, “if you could only catch him in your boat, he could give you something you might wish for! I tell you this: do you and your wife keep watch in the boat all night, and when he comes, and you have ferried him into mid-stream, where he cannot escape, then throw your net over him and hold him till he pays you for all your ferryings.”

“How shall he pay me? All my ferryings of a lifetime!”

“Make him take you to the land of Returning Time. There, at least, you can end your days in peace.”

The old man said: “You have told me a strange thing; and since I mean to act on it, I suppose I must let you go. If you have deceived me, I trust you may yet die a cruel death.”

The Fish answered: “Do as I tell you, and you shall die a happy one.” And, saying this, he slipped down into the water and disappeared.

The ferryman went back to his wife supperless, and said to her: “Wife, bring a net, and come down into the boat!” And he told her the story of the Fish and of the yearly traveller.

They sat long together under the dark bank, looking out over the quiet and cold moonlit waters, till the midnight hour. The air was chill, and to keep themselves warm they covered themselves over with the net and lay down in the bottom of the boat. It was the very hour when the old year dies and the new year is born.

Before they well knew that they had been asleep, they started to feel the rocking of the boat, and found themselves out upon the broad waters of the river. And there in the fore-part of the boat, clear and sparkling in the moonlight, stood a naked man of shining silver. He was bending upon the pole of the boat, and his long hair fell over it right down into the water.

The old couple rose up quietly, and unwinding themselves from the net, threw it over the Silver Man, over his head and hands and feet, and dragged him down into the bottom of the boat.

The old man caught the ferry pole, and heaved the boat still into the middle of the stream. As he did so a gentle shock came to the heart of each; feebly it fluttered and sank low. “Oh, wife!” sighed the old man, and reached out his hand for hers.

The Silver Man lay still in the folds of the net, and looked at them with a wise and quiet gaze. “What would you have of me?” he said, and his voice was far off and low.

They said, “Bring us into the land of Returning Time.”

The Silver Man said: “Only once can you go there, and once return.”

They both answered “We wish once to go there, and once return.”

So he promised them that they should have the whole of their request; and they unloosed him from the net, and landed all together on the further bank.

Up the hill they went, following the track of the Silver Man. Presently they reached its crest; and there before them lay all the howling winter of the world.