Seven Little People and their Friends Part 11

"How came I here?" said she, "with these strange looking birds about me.

That is certainly a very odd looking bird, and very tame;" and she went up to the Phoenix to stroke it.

"Make your manners! make your manners! Stand on one foot! Put your head out! so!" screamed all the Tufters at once, as they stretched out their necks toward her and the Phoenix. But Isal could not tell that they said anything. "How these geese do cackle," said she, as she stroked the Phoenix, who did not dislike it, though he thought her rather forward, and bade Rosedrop bring her some berries. Rosedrop brought them to Isal, who thought she was the prettiest of all, and not at all like a goose.

"What shall we do with her now we have her here?" asked the rash Tufter; but he was sorry he asked, for the Phoenix gave him a terrible peck.

"I know my own affairs," said the old bird angrily, but really he knew very little about this affair and was sadly perplexed and quite at his wit's end. He said nothing of that though, but looked more than usually wise, and finally, when all were on tip-toe, or rather tip-claw, to hear what the wise bird would say, he spoke, and told the oldest to go to the palace of the King and bring back word of what was going on there.

"Ah!" said the second in age, "the Phoenix is a wonderful bird! what deep plans he has!"

Meanwhile Isal stayed by the Phoenix and the three Tufters, who kept very good watch over her. She looked about in vain for her father's house or for the great blue river; she could not understand how she came to be where she was and in such strange company; for, though the birds all told her everything about it a great many times over, she could not understand them, for she had never learned the Phoenician and the Tufter tongues. After roaming about all day and eating berries, shouting for her father and sometimes crying, she lay down upon the Old Brown Coat. The coat she knew; somehow or other she was pretty sure that it must have had something to do with her strange journey. She had heard her father tell about the wonderful cus.h.i.+on that Houssain rode upon; perhaps she had flown here upon the coat; she would lie down upon it and wish herself home again, and "who knows," said she, "but I shall wake up on my cot in the morning?"

After Isal had dropped asleep the Tufter who had been sent to the palace returned quite out of breath; he had such good news to tell; he hurried through his manners before the punctilious Phoenix, and then proceeded to relate how he had called on his friend, the Peac.o.c.k, who lived in the palace garden. "I had a very good time, indeed," said he; "we had green peas to eat, and the Peac.o.c.k showed me all his new feathers. I asked him about the theft of the coat and what the prince was going to do; but he did not know much about it; he said that for his part he thought people made a very ridiculous fuss about a seedy old coat. But just then we were joined by the Rabbit. The Peac.o.c.k rather despised him; he whispered to me--so loud that I am sure the Rabbit must have heard--'Did you ever see such an absurd tail?' But I am sure the Rabbit is very beautiful and much more intelligent. The Peac.o.c.k has such a disagreeable voice, and he is always trying to sing. I asked the Rabbit if he knew anything about the coat. He said he did; his friend the Mouse had told him the latest news that very morning; and the Mouse was very good authority, for he lived generally in the library and had gone through a great many books; he was very learned; he had overheard the Prince talking with the prime-minister, and he gathered that the Prince had sent out a proclamation, promising to give a very large sum to any one who would bring back the Old Brown Coat, and if it chanced to be a maiden he would marry her and make her queen; though of course that was quite absurd, the Rabbit said; but then the Rabbit jumps at conclusions. The Peac.o.c.k tried to turn the conversation once or twice; he thought it was insufferably dull and finally went off in a dudgeon, and I saw him as I flew away, looking very grand, strutting along the garden walk. I bade the Rabbit good-by and left my regards for the Mouse though I am afraid it was rather improper--the Mouse is so learned. And here I am."

When the Tufter finished they all talked very eagerly about what was best to be done, while the Phoenix sat apart and deliberated by himself; of course the four children could know nothing about it.

Finally he called them to him and said--"Children, you may get yourselves ready to go with me to the Palace." This was, indeed, great news; the Phoenix had not, visited the palace for a hundred years.

This was indeed a great event!

"May I go too?" asked Rosedrop.

"Yes," said the Phoenix, "you shall all go. You are to carry Isal with you on the coat. We shall go slowly. I am too old to travel very fast."

For a week they travelled. Every morning when Isal awoke she was surprised to find herself in a new place; always with the Old Brown Coat and the strange birds; they only travelled in the night time when Isal was asleep; in the day time they rested on account of the Phoenix. At last one morning, an hour before sunrise, they came to the Palace and alighted in the garden just below the Prince's window. They laid Isal on the Old Brown Coat upon the gra.s.s, and then the Phoenix bade the Tufters fly away a few miles into the woods and wait his coming.

Rosedrop, however, he bade stay a while, when she tapped with her beak upon the window of the Prince's chamber, and then flew away to join her brothers.

The Prince heard the tapping upon the window, and said--"It is the messenger-bird," and rose to see if it had brought him a billet. He opened the window but no bird flew in, and he leaned upon the sill and looked up to the beautiful sky; the morning-star was just disappearing; he watched it till it was gone, and then cast his eyes on the green gra.s.s below. What should he see there but a lovely girl lying asleep on the gra.s.s, and a very magnificent bird standing beside her. He hastened down and stooped over the beautiful maiden. "How lovely!" said he; "she is more beautiful than the daughters of Calla. She is the morning-star which I just saw disappear in the heavens." He bent his face to hers and kissed her. With the kiss Isal awoke, and when she saw leaning over her so grand a looking person, she was more wonderstruck than ever before.

"Surely he kissed me!" she murmured. Here the Phoenix broke in with a remark.

"O Prince," said he, "I am the Phoenix. For nearly five hundred years I have lived and guarded the Old Brown Coat. It was stolen, and I have brought it back to you with the maiden you are to marry. But you have taken no sort of notice of the coat. My great-great-great grandfather made that coat. It is more valuable than a hundred lovely girls."

When the Prince heard the Phoenix speak, he turned and saw the grand bird which he had overlooked. But he could not understand a word he said, though the Phoenix spoke very loud and as he thought very distinctly. "This is a very strange bird, indeed!" said the Prince. "Did the bird fly with you from the heavens, Morning-Star!"

Isal said, half to herself, "It is very strange. I cannot understand it at all. How did I come here! It is like a dream. And where are the other birds with tufts on their heads?" She got up as she said this; the Prince lifting her by the hand. Then the Prince saw the Old Brown Coat.

"Ah! you have brought me my precious coat again!" said he, and he took it up joyfully. At this the Phoenix grew very much excited.

"He will tear it!" said he. "Where are the Sixteen Coat-Tails? This is alarming!"

But the Prince, without heeding him, took Isal by the hand and led her into the Palace, carrying, too, the Old Brown Coat. Then he made Isal tell him all that she knew about it. The royal household gathered about, mad with joy that the Old Brown Coat had been found again. The Sixteen Coat-Tails came in very solemnly and took possession of it. Each of the Sixteen in turn looked over it carefully, but could not find the least rent or tear. "How wonderful!" said they, "but we are very glad to get it again; we are so distinguished now." The bells of the city were rung and crowds of people came to rejoice over the recovery of the coat.

Meanwhile the Phoenix walked about the garden.

"This is as it should be," said he, "as far as the Old Brown Coat is concerned, but I don't receive the honour due to me. I am the Phoenix; the only one of course in the world. I am five hundred years old, nearly. When I was here a hundred years ago I was made very much of. But the world is growing very degenerate." The gardener of the palace came by just then.

"What have we here?" said he. "Can it be that this is the Phoenix? I have heard my father describe the one that was here a century ago, and it certainly was very much like this fine bird." He went into the Palace and desired an audience with the Prince. "Does your majesty know," said he, "that the Phoenix is here?"

At this all the people set up a shout. "The Phoenix! It is the royal bird of Percan! Long live the Phoenix!"

The Prince and people pa.s.sed into the garden and stood looking at the Phoenix. "Now I am respected;" said he. "This is as it should be." It was a great day for the Phoenix and a great day for the people. The Poet recited a long ode in his honour. The musicians played a great deal of music; the wise men, moreover, all got together and held a discussion for several hours about his age; but the people did not care much for this. The Phoenix was given a place above the throne. And not only that, but upon that very day the Prince of Percan, son of Shahtah the Great, the former king, was throned king and took for his queen the beautiful Isal, daughter of a woodman. He wore the Old Brown Coat, and it fitted him very well; it took the Sixteen Coat-Tails only an hour, with all their care, to get it upon him. When it was nightfall, the Phoenix came majestically down from his high perch, and hovering for a few minutes about the King and Queen, gave them a great deal of good advice which they could not understand, and then sailed grandly away, joined the Tufters in the woods, and flew back to his eyrie, far off. In the Palace lived the Prince and his beautiful Queen, the good Isal.

The Sacrifice.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The Prince and Isal had now been married nearly five years, so that Isal was then eighteen years old and even more beautiful than when the prince found her in the garden. The royal family was at first displeased that the Prince should marry a peasant maiden, but Isal was so good that one could not help loving her, and soon every one said that there never had been such a Queen in Percan. As for the Prince, he loved her more than the whole of his kingdom; he always called her his Morning-Star. And Isal loved the Prince and was very happy in the palace where she had everything she could desire; but often in the five years did she remember the woodman's hut on the bank of the great blue river where she had spent her childhood; often she thought of her father living there alone, reft of his little daughter, the one comfort of his life. Then would the Prince come with his kind love, and quite drive away such sad thoughts. As the years went by she thought less of her former life; indeed it was so different from the present that she persuaded herself that she had died in her cot the night after finding the Old Brown Coat, that now she was in the Paradise she had heard her father tell about, and that the birds--the Phoenix and the Tufters--were the winged spirits that brought her there.

The Phoenix was now very nearly five hundred years old; in a few weeks he would have to build his nest and die. The Tufters too were five years older; but five years makes a great deal more difference with them than it does with the Phoenix. It makes them much wiser; even the one that had been rash was quite prudent now. They waited still on the old bird and brought him all the information they could find about the affairs of the world.

"I wonder how the Old Brown Coat does," said the Tufter who had once been rash, as they all stood round the Phoenix one night. "That was a very grand event we brought about--the marriage of the Prince with Isal.

If it had not been for us, Isal might still have been only a woodman's daughter and not a Queen at all!" Here the Phoenix spoke, but with a very m.u.f.fled voice; his age prevented him from talking very loud or much at a time; he was apt to repeat himself, too, sometimes, and to ramble in his remarks. But the Tufters always listened very respectfully to whatever he had to say: he was so old and so wise; everything he said would bear reflection.

"You are a goose. My great-great-great grandfather made the Old Brown Coat. He was called Phoenix the Tailor. The world is growing very degenerate. I am five hundred years old very nearly. I don't know what will become of it when I die. The Prince is very well, but he did not know me when he saw me in the garden. I was respected, though. The gardener knew me, and the people shouted. My great--"

The Phoenix was going on with some of his reminiscences, or perhaps beginning again, when just at this point there was a rustling in the bushes, and in burst the oldest of the Tufters who had been away hunting for news. All the rest bustled about him as he smoothed his feathers to make his manners to the Phoenix.

"I have some very important news!" began he, with great dignity. "Isal's father, the woodman is dying."

"Is he, indeed!" exclaimed the rest in chorus, except the Phoenix, who stood with one eye shut, painfully distracted between the desire to administer a rebuke and to hear further.

"That may be," said he, finally, "but you should not have interrupted me while I was speaking. Besides you have not told us yet the particulars."

"I was flying up the river," proceeded the eldest Tufter, respectfully, "when I happened to recollect little Isal, and how we brought her away from her house. I was pa.s.sing the very spot, so I just flew in for a moment, and there I saw the woodman, her father, lying upon his bed very sick. There was no one with him."

"How sad!" said Rosedrop, mournfully.

"The cot from which we took Isal," added the Tufter, "was there still, just as we left it, in precisely the same spot."

"How remarkable!" said the rash Tufter, who had become prudent.

While all this cackling was going on, the Phoenix maintained a stiff silence. At last he stroked his beak with a claw. "Hus.h.!.+" said the second Tufter, "we shall hear something now." And surely the Phoenix did speak.

"Children, Isal must know of this. We took her away on the Old Brown Coat. My great-great-great grandfather made the coat. He was called Phoenix the Tailor." It was very hard for the Phoenix to avoid speaking of this whenever the Old Brown Coat was mentioned, and he continued for some time to wander upon the subject, till they all thought he was through, and the Tufter, who had once been rash asked: "And who shall tell Isal?" The Phoenix was not really through, though.

He was just in the midst of the sentence, "The world is growing very degenerate--" only the last word stuck in his throat--and he was exceedingly vexed that he should be interrupted by an upstart Tufter.

"You--" are a goose, he tried to say, but the difficulty in his throat occurred again, and prevented any word beyond the first, and the Tufter taking it for a command to carry the news--he was too quick sometimes,--set off for the palace as fast as his wings could carry him.

"How provoking!" said the oldest; "he will spoil it all with his rashness!" The Phoenix now recovered himself, and having finished his two broken sentences together, "degenerate--are a goose," for he never left anything undone, told Rosedrop to fly faster and carry the news before the other. Rosedrop sped swiftly, and overtaking her brother, went with him in company and soon persuaded him, for he was a good-natured fellow, to let her undertake the message. So when they reached the palace garden, while her brother remained without, Rosedrop flew in at the open window where she had tapped nearly five years ago, and hovering over Isal as she lay asleep, told her the sad message, and flying out rejoined her bother.

"Did she hear you?" asked he.

"Oh, yes," said Rosedrop. "I told her all about it, and she looked very sad indeed. How sorry I am for her. I am sure I shall feel dreadfully when the Phoenix dies."

Now Isal really did hear all that Rosedrop told her; for as the Tufter flew through the open window, a suggestion entered the open window of her mind as she lay asleep, and this is what it showed her:--A lonely woodman's hut in the forest upon the bank of a great blue river; in the hut a solitary man, pale and thin, worn out with sickness and sorrow stretched upon a bed; not a living thing about the house; the axe lying rusty from disuse by the trunk of a fallen tree; one little bed deserted in the other corner of the room, toward which the sick man is turned with longing look, while his lips move but refuse to speak the name his heart dwells upon. And just as the Tufter flew out, having told her message, so did the picture vanish from Isal's mind, and in its place followed others in quick succession, all of them centering about one person--a maiden, who is now playing by the same hut, now surrounded mysteriously by strange birds, now waking to find herself kissed by a n.o.ble-looking man, who marries her and makes her Queen of the land. With this she awoke, and saw the Prince leaning over her.

"What were you dreaming about, Morning-Star, that made you look so sad just before I kissed you?" said the Prince. Then Isal told him her dream.