The Little Lame Prince

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THE LITTLE LAME PRINCE

By Miss Mulock [Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik]


CONTENTS

THE LITTLE LAME PRINCE
THE INVISIBLE PRINCE
PRINCE CHERRY
THE PRINCE WITH THE NOSE
THE FROG-PRINCE
CLEVER ALICE





THE LITTLE LAME PRINCE



CHAPTER I

Yes, he was the most beautiful Prince that ever was born.

Of course, being a prince, people said this; but it was true besides.
When he looked at the candle, his eyes had an expression of earnest
inquiry quite startling in a new born baby. His nose--there was not
much of it certainly, but what there was seemed an aquiline shape;
his complexion was a charming, healthy purple; he was round and fat,
straight-limbed and long--in fact, a splendid baby, and everybody was
exceedingly proud of him, especially his father and mother, the King and
Queen of Nomansland, who had waited for him during their happy reign of
ten years--now made happier than ever, to themselves and their subjects,
by the appearance of a son and heir.

The only person who was not quite happy was the King's brother, the
heir presumptive, who would have been king one day had the baby not been
born. But as his majesty was very kind to him, and even rather sorry for
him--insomuch that at the Queen's request he gave him a dukedom almost
as big as a county--the Crown-Prince, as he was called, tried to seem
pleased also; and let us hope he succeeded.

The Prince's christening was to be a grand affair. According to the
custom of the country, there were chosen for him four-and-twenty
god-fathers and godmothers, who each had to give him a name, and promise
to do their utmost for him. When he came of age, he himself had to
choose the name--and the godfather or god-mother--that he liked the
best, for the rest of his days.

Meantime all was rejoicing. Subscriptions were made among the rich to
give pleasure to the poor; dinners in town-halls for the workingmen;
tea-parties in the streets for their wives; and milk-and-bun feasts for
the children in the schoolrooms. For Nomansland, though I cannot point
it out in any map, or read of it in any history, was, I believe, much
like our own or many another country.

As for the palace--which was no different from other palaces--it was
clean "turned out of the windows," as people say, with the preparations
going on. The only quiet place in it was the room which, though the
Prince was six weeks old, his mother the Queen had never quitted. Nobody
said she was ill, however--it would have been so inconvenient; and as
she said nothing about it herself, but lay pale and placid, giving no
trouble to anybody, nobody thought much about her. All the world was
absorbed in admiring the baby.

The christening-day came at last, and it was as lovely as the Prince
himself. All the people in the palace were lovely too--or thought
themselves so--in the elegant new clothes which the Queen, who thought
of everybody, had taken care to give them, from the ladies-in-waiting
down to the poor little kitchen-maid, who looked at herself in her pink
cotton gown, and thought, doubtless, that there never was such a pretty
girl as she.

By six in the morning all the royal household had dressed itself in
its very best; and then the little Prince was dressed in his best--his
magnificent christening robe; which proceeding his Royal Highness did
not like at all, but kicked and screamed like any common baby. When he
had a little calmed down, they carried him to be looked at by the Queen
his mother, who, though her royal robes had been brought and laid upon
the bed, was, as everybody well knew, quite unable to rise and put them
on.

She admired her baby very much; kissed and blessed him, and lay looking
at him, as she did for hours sometimes, when he was placed beside her
fast asleep; then she gave him up with a gentle smile, and, saying she
hoped he would be very good, that it would be a very nice christening,
and all the guests would enjoy themselves, turned peacefully over on
her bed, saying nothing more to anybody. She was a very uncomplaining
person, the Queen--and her name was Dolorez.

Everything went on exactly as if she had been present. All, even the
king himself, had grown used to her absence; for she was not strong,
and for years had not joined in any gayeties. She always did her royal
duties, but as to pleasures, they could go on quite well without her, or
it seemed so. The company arrived: great and notable persons in this
and neighboring countries; also the four-and-twenty godfathers and
godmothers, who had been chosen with care, as the people who would be
most useful to his royal highness should he ever want friends, which did
not seem likely. What such want could possibly happen to the heir of the
powerful monarch of Nomansland?

They came, walking two and two, with their coronets on their
heads--being dukes and duchesses, princes and princesses, or the like;
they all kissed the child and pronounced the name each had given him.
Then the four-and-twenty names were shouted out with great energy by
six heralds, one after the other, and afterward written down, to be
preserved in the state records, in readiness for the next time they were
wanted, which would be either on his Royal Highness' coronation or his
funeral.

Soon the ceremony was over, and everybody satisfied; except, perhaps,
the little Prince himself, who moaned faintly under his christening
robes, which nearly smothered him.

In truth, though very few knew, the Prince in coming to the chapel had
met with a slight disaster. His nurse,--not his ordinary one, but the
state nurse-maid,--an elegant and fashionable young lady of rank, whose
duty it was to carry him to and from the chapel, had been so occupied
in arranging her train with one hand, while she held the baby with
the other, that she stumbled and let him fall, just at the foot of the
marble staircase.

To be sure, she contrived to pick him up again the next minute; and the
accident was so slight it seemed hardly worth speaking of. Consequently
nobody did speak of it. The baby had turned deadly pale, but did not
cry, so no person a step or two behind could discover anything wrong;
afterward, even if he had moaned, the silver trumpets were loud enough
to drown his voice. It would have been a pity to let anything trouble
such a day of felicity.

So, after a minute's pause, the procession had moved on. Such a
procession t Heralds in blue and silver; pages in crimson and gold; and
a troop of little girls in dazzling white, carrying baskets of flowers,
which they strewed all the way before the nurse and child--finally the
four-and-twenty godfathers and godmothers, as proud as possible, and so
splendid to look at that they would have quite extinguished their small
godson--merely a heap of lace and muslin with a baby face inside--had it
not been for a canopy of white satin and ostrich feathers which was held
over him wherever he was carried.

Thus, with the sun shining on them through the painted windows, they
stood; the king and his train on one side, the Prince and his attendants
on the other, as pretty a sight as ever was seen out of fairyland.

"It's just like fairyland," whispered the eldest little girl to the next
eldest, as she shook the last rose out of her basket; "and I think the
only thing the Prince wants now is a fairy god-mother."

"Does he?" said a shrill but soft and not unpleasant voice behind; and
there was seen among the group of children somebody,--not a child, yet
no bigger than a child,--somebody whom nobody had seen before, and who
certainly had not been invited, for she had no christening clothes on.

She was a little old woman dressed all in gray: gray gown; gray
hooded cloak, of a material excessively fine, and a tint that seemed
perpetually changing, like the gray of an evening sky. Her hair was
gray, and her eyes also--even her complexion had a soft gray shadow over
it. But there was nothing unpleasantly old about her, and her smile was
as sweet and childlike as the Prince's own, which stole over his pale
little face the instant she came near enough to touch him.

"Take care! Don't let the baby fall again."

The grand young lady nurse started, flushing angrily.

"Who spoke to me? How did anybody know?--I mean, what business has
anybody----" Then frightened, but still speaking in a much sharper tone
than I hope young ladies of rank are in the habit of speaking--"Old
woman, you will be kind enough not to say 'the baby,' but 'the Prince.'
Keep away; his Royal Highness is just going to sleep."

"Nevertheless I must kiss him. I am his god-mother."

"You!" cried the elegant lady nurse.

"You!" repeated all the gentlemen and ladies-in-waiting.

"You!" echoed the heralds and pages--and they began to blow the silver
trumpets in order to stop all further conversation.

The Prince's procession formed itself for returning,--the King and his
train having already moved off toward the palace,--but on the top-most
step of the marble stairs stood, right in front of all, the little old
woman clothed in gray.

She stretched herself on tiptoe by the help of her stick, and gave the
little Prince three kisses.

"This is intolerable!" cried the young lady nurse, wiping the kisses
off rapidly with her lace handkerchief. "Such an insult to his Royal
Highness! Take yourself out of the way, old woman, or the King shall be
informed immediately."

"The King knows nothing of me, more's the pity," replied the old woman,
with an indifferent air, as if she thought the loss was more on his
Majesty's side than hers. "My friend in the palace is the King's wife."

"King's have not wives, but queens," said the lady nurse, with a
contemptuous air.

"You are right," replied the old woman. "Nevertheless I know her Majesty
well, and I love her and her child. And--since you dropped him on the
marble stairs (this she said in a mysterious whisper, which made the
young lady tremble in spite of her anger)--I choose to take him for my
own, and be his godmother, ready to help him whenever he wants me."

"You help him!" cried all the group breaking into shouts of laughter,
to which the little old woman paid not the slightest attention. Her soft
gray eyes were fixed on the Prince, who seemed to answer to the look,
smiling again and again in the causeless, aimless fashion that babies do
smile.

"His Majesty must hear of this," said a gentleman-in-waiting.

"His Majesty will hear quite enough news in a minute or two," said
the old woman sadly. And again stretching up to the little Prince, she
kissed him on the forehead solemnly.

"Be called by a new name which nobody has ever thought of. Be Prince
Dolor, in memory of your mother Dolorez."

"In memory of!" Everybody started at the ominous phrase, and also at a
most terrible breach of etiquette which the old woman had committed.
In Nomansland, neither the king nor the queen was supposed to have any
Christian name at all. They dropped it on their coronation day, and it
never was mentioned again till it was engraved on their coffins when
they died.

"Old woman, you are exceedingly ill-bred," cried the eldest
lady-in-waiting, much horrified. "How you could know the fact passes
my comprehension. But even if you did know it, how dared you presume to
hint that her most gracious Majesty is called Dolorez?"

"WAS called Dolorez," said the old woman, with a tender solemnity.

The first gentleman, called the Gold-stick-in-waiting, raised it to
strike her, and all the rest stretched out their hands to seize her; but
the gray mantle melted from between their fingers like air; and, before
anybody had time to do anything more, there came a heavy, muffled,
startling sound.

The great bell of the palace the bell which was only heard on the death
of some one of the royal family, and for as many times as he or she was
years old--began to toll. They listened, mute and horror-stricken. Some
one counted: one--two--three--four--up to nine-and-twenty--just the
Queen's age.

It was, indeed, the Queen. Her Majesty was dead! In the midst of the
festivities she had slipped away out of her new happiness and her old
sufferings, not few nor small. Sending away all her women to see the
grand sight,--at least they said afterward, in excuse, that she had done
so, and it was very like her to do it,--she had turned with her face
to the window, whence one could just see the tops of the distant
mountains--the Beautiful Mountains, as they were called--where she was
born. So gazing, she had quietly died.

When the little Prince was carried back to his mother's room, there was
no mother to kiss him. And, though he did not know it, there would be
for him no mother's kiss any more. As for his godmother,--the little old
woman in gray who called herself so,--whether she melted into air, like
her gown when they touched it, or whether she flew out of the chapel
window, or slipped through the doorway among the bewildered crowd,
nobody knew--nobody ever thought about her.

Only the nurse, the ordinary homely one, coming out of the Prince's
nursery in the middle of the night in search of a cordial to quiet his
continual moans, saw, sitting in the doorway, something which she would
have thought a mere shadow, had she not seen shining out of it two eyes,
gray and soft and sweet. She put her hand before her own, screaming
loudly. When she took them away the old woman was gone.



CHAPTER II

Everybody was very kind to the poor little prince. I think people
generally are kind to motherless children, whether princes or peasants.
He had a magnificent nursery and a regular suite of attendants, and was
treated with the greatest respect and state. Nobody was allowed to talk
to him in silly baby language, or dandle him, or, above all to kiss him,
though perhaps some people did it surreptitiously, for he was such a
sweet baby that it was difficult to help it.

It could not be said that the Prince missed his mother--children of his
age cannot do that; but somehow after she died everything seemed to go
wrong with him. From a beautiful baby he became sickly and pale, seeming
to have almost ceased growing, especially in his legs, which had been so
fat and strong.

But after the day of his christening they withered and shrank; he no
longer kicked them out either in passion or play, and when, as he got
to be nearly a year old, his nurse tried to make him stand upon them, he
only tumbled down.

This happened so many times that at last people began to talk about it.
A prince, and not able to stand on his own legs! What a dreadful thing!
What a misfortune for the country!

Rather a misfortune to him also, poor little boy! but nobody seemed to
think of that. And when, after a while, his health revived, and the old
bright look came back to his sweet little face, and his body grew larger
and stronger, though still his legs remained the same, people continued
to speak of him in whispers, and with grave shakes of the head.
Everybody knew, though nobody said it, that something, it was impossible
to guess what, was not quite right with the poor little Prince.

Of course, nobody hinted this to the King his father: it does not do
to tell great people anything unpleasant. And besides, his Majesty
took very little notice of his son, or of his other affairs, beyond the
necessary duties of his kingdom.

People had said he would not miss the Queen at all, she having been
so long an invalid, but he did. After her death he never was quite the
same. He established himself in her empty rooms, the only rooms in
the palace whence one could see the Beautiful Mountains, and was often
observed looking at them as if he thought she had flown away thither,
and that his longing could bring her back again. And by a curious
coincidence, which nobody dared inquire into, he desired that the Prince
might be called, not by any of the four-and-twenty grand names given him
by his godfathers and godmothers, but by the identical name mentioned by
the little old woman in gray--Dolor, after his mother Dolorez.

Once a week, according to established state custom, the Prince, dressed
in his very best, was brought to the King his father for half an hour,
but his Majesty was generally too ill and too melancholy to pay much
heed to the child.

Only once, when he and the Crown-Prince, who was exceedingly attentive
to his royal brother, were sitting together, with Prince Dolor playing
in a corner of the room, dragging himself about with his arms rather
than his legs, and sometimes trying feebly to crawl from one chair to
another, it seemed to strike the father that all was not right with his
son.

"How old is his Royal Highness?" said he suddenly to the nurse.

"Two years, three months, and five days, please your Majesty."

"It does not please me," said the King, with a sigh. "He ought to be far
more forward than he is now ought he not, brother? You, who have so many
children, must know. Is there not something wrong about him?"

"Oh, no," said the Crown-Prince, exchanging meaning looks with the
nurse, who did not understand at all, but stood frightened and trembling
with the tears in her eyes. "Nothing to make your Majesty at all uneasy.
No doubt his Royal Highness will outgrow it in time."

"Outgrow--what?"

"A slight delicacy--ahem!--in the spine; something inherited, perhaps,
from his dear mother."

"Ah, she was always delicate; but she was the sweetest woman that ever
lived. Come here, my little son."

And as the Prince turned round upon his father a small, sweet, grave
face,--so like his mother's,--his Majesty the King smiled and held out
his arms. But when the boy came to him, not running like a boy, but
wriggling awkwardly along the floor, the royal countenance clouded over.

"I ought to have been told of this. It is terrible--terrible! And for a
prince too. Send for all the doctors in my kingdom immediately."

They came, and each gave a different opinion and ordered a different
mode of treatment. The only thing they agreed in was what had been
pretty well known before, that the Prince must have been hurt when he
was an infant--let fall, perhaps, so as to injure his spine and lower
limbs. Did nobody remember?

No, nobody. Indignantly, all the nurses denied that any such accident
had happened, was possible to have happened, until the faithful
country nurse recollected that it really had happened on the day of the
christening. For which unluckily good memory all the others scolded her
so severely that she had no peace of her life, and soon after, by the
influence of the young lady nurse who had carried the baby that fatal
day, and who was a sort of connection of the Crown-Prince--being his
wife's second cousin once removed--the poor woman was pensioned off and
sent to the Beautiful Mountains from whence she came, with orders to
remain there for the rest of her days.

But of all this the King knew nothing, for, indeed, after the first
shock of finding out that his son could not walk, and seemed never
likely to he interfered very little concerning him. The whole thing was
too painful, and his Majesty never liked painful things. Sometimes he
inquired after Prince Dolor, and they told him his Royal Highness was
going on as well as could be expected, which really was the case. For,
after worrying the poor child and perplexing themselves with one remedy
after another, the Crown-Prince, not wishing to offend any of the
differing doctors, had proposed leaving him to Nature; and Nature, the
safest doctor of all, had come to his help and done her best.

He could not walk, it is true; his limbs were mere useless appendages to
his body; but the body itself was strong and sound. And his face was the
same as ever--just his mother's face, one of the sweetest in the world.

Even the King, indifferent as he was, sometimes looked at the little
fellow with sad tenderness, noticing how cleverly he learned to crawl
and swing himself about by his arms, so that in his own awkward way he
was as active in motion as most children of his age.

"Poor little man! he does his best, and he is not unhappy--not half
so unhappy as I, brother," addressing the Crown-Prince, who was more
constant than ever in his attendance upon the sick monarch. "If anything
should befall me, I have appointed you Regent. In case of my death, you
will take care of my poor little boy?"

"Certainly, certainly; but do not let us imagine any such misfortune.
I assure your Majesty--everybody will assure you--that it is not in the
least likely."

He knew, however, and everybody knew, that it was likely, and soon after
it actually did happen. The King died as suddenly and quietly as the
Queen had done--indeed, in her very room and bed; and Prince Dolor was
left without either father or mother--as sad a thing as could happen,
even to a prince.

He was more than that now, though. He was a king. In Nomansland, as in
other countries, the people were struck with grief one day and revived
the next. "The king is dead--long live the king!" was the cry that rang
through the nation, and almost before his late Majesty had been laid
beside the Queen in their splendid mausoleum, crowds came thronging from
all parts to the royal palace, eager to see the new monarch.

They did see him,--the Prince Regent took care they should,--sitting on
the floor of the council chamber, sucking his thumb! And when one of
the gentlemen-in-waiting lifted him up and carried him--fancy carrying a
king!--to the chair of state, and put the crown on his head, he shook it
off again, it was so heavy and uncomfortable. Sliding down to the foot
of the throne he began playing with the golden lions that supported it,
stroking their paws and putting his tiny fingers into their eyes, and
laughing--laughing as if he had at last found something to amuse him.

"There's a fine king for you!" said the first lord-in-waiting, a friend
of the Prince Regent's (the Crown-Prince that used to be, who, in the
deepest mourning, stood silently beside the throne of his young nephew.
He was a handsome man, very grand and clever-looking). "What a king! who
can never stand to receive his subjects, never walk in processions, who
to the last day of his life will have to be carried about like a baby.
Very unfortunate!"

"Exceedingly unfortunate," repeated the second lord. "It is always bad
for a nation when its king is a child; but such a child--a permanent
cripple, if not worse."

"Let us hope not worse," said the first lord in a very hopeless tone,
and looking toward the Regent, who stood erect and pretended to hear
nothing. "I have heard that these sort of children with very large
heads, and great broad fore-heads and staring eyes, are--well, well, let
us hope for the best and be prepared for the worst. In the meantime----"

"I swear," said the Crown-Prince, coming forward and kissing the hilt of
his sword--"I swear to perform my duties as Regent, to take all care of
his Royal Highness--his Majesty, I mean," with a grand bow to the little
child, who laughed innocently back again. "And I will do my humble
best to govern the country. Still, if the country has the slightest
objection----"

But the Crown-Prince being generalissimo, having the whole army at his
beck and call, so that he could have begun a civil war in no time, the
country had, of course, not the slightest objection.

So the King and Queen slept together in peace, and Prince Dolor reigned
over the land--that is, his uncle did; and everybody said what a
fortunate thing it was for the poor little Prince to have such a clever
uncle to take care of him.

All things went on as usual; indeed, after the Regent had brought his
wife and her seven sons, and established them in the palace, rather
better than usual. For they gave such splendid entertainments and made
the capital so lively that trade revived, and the country was said to be
more flourishing than it had been for a century. Whenever the Regent
and his sons appeared, they were received with shouts: "Long live the
Crown-Prince!" "Long live the royal family!" And, in truth, they were
very fine children, the whole seven of them, and made a great show
when they rode out together on seven beautiful horses, one height above
another, down to the youngest, on his tiny black pony, no bigger than a
large dog.

As for the other child, his Royal Highness Prince Dolor,--for somehow
people soon ceased to call him his Majesty, which seemed such a
ridiculous title for a poor little fellow, a helpless cripple,--with
only head and trunk, and no legs to speak of,--he was seen very seldom
by anybody.

Sometimes people daring enough to peer over the high wall of the palace
garden noticed there, carried in a footman's arms, or drawn in a chair,
or left to play on the grass, often with nobody to mind him, a pretty
little boy, with a bright, intelligent face and large, melancholy
eyes--no, not exactly melancholy, for they were his mother's, and she
was by no means sad-minded, but thoughtful and dreamy. They rather
perplexed people, those childish eyes; they were so exceedingly innocent
and yet so penetrating. If anybody did a wrong thing--told a lie, for
instance they would turn round with such a grave, silent surprise the
child never talked much--that every naughty person in the palace was
rather afraid of Prince Dolor.