The Serapion Brethren Volume I Part 51

"I am, certainly," the Stranger Child replied.

"Then you live in a beautiful palace?" Felix cried.

"Yes," said the Stranger Child. "My mother's palace is far more beautiful than those glittering castles which you saw in the evening clouds; for the gleaming pillars of her palace are all of the purest crystal, and they soar, slender and tall, into the blue of heaven; and upon them there rests a great, wide canopy; beneath that canopy sail the s.h.i.+ning clouds, hither and thither, on golden wings, and the red of the evening and the morning rises and falls, and the sparkling stars dance in singing circles. Dearest playmates, you have heard of the fairies, who can bring about the most glorious wonders, as mortal men cannot; now, my mother is one of the most powerful fairies of all. All that lives and moves on earth she holds embraced to her heart in the purest and truest love; although, to her inward pain, many human beings will not allow themselves to come to any knowledge of her. But my mother loves children most of all; and thence it is that the festivals which she holds in her kingdom for children are the most splendid and glorious of all. It is then that beautiful spirits belonging to my mother's kingdom, and to her royal palace, fly deftly through the sky, weaving and combining a s.h.i.+ning rainbow, from one end of her palace to another, gleaming in the most brilliant dyes. Under those rainbows they build my mother's diamond throne, all of nothing but diamonds--diamonds which are, in appearance and in perfume, like lilies, roses, and carnations; and when my mother takes her place on her throne, the spirits play on their golden harps and their crystal cymbals, and to those instruments the court singers of her court sing with voices so marvellous, that one could die of rapture to hear them. Now, those singers are beautiful birds, bigger even than eagles, with feathers all purple-red, such as you have never seen the like of. And as soon as their music begins, everything in the palace, the woods, and the gardens moves and sings; and all around there are thousands of beautiful children in charming dresses, shouting and delighting. They chase each other amongst the bushes, and throw flowers at each other in play; they climb trees, where the winds swing them and rock them; they gather gold-glittering fruit, which tastes as nothing on earth does; and they play with tame deer and other charming creatures which come bounding up to them from among the trees; then they run up and down the rainbows, or they ride on the golden pheasants, which fly up among the gleaming clouds with them on their backs."

"How delightful that must be!" Christlieb and Felix cried with rapture.

"Oh, take us with you to your home! We want to stay there always!"

But the Stranger Child said, "I cannot take you with me to my home; it is too far away. You would have to be able to fly as far and as strongly as I can myself."

Felix and Christlieb were very sorry, and cast their eyes sadly down to the ground.

THE WICKED MINISTER AT THE FAIRY QUEEN'S COURT.

"And then," the Stranger Child continued, "you might not be as happy as you expect at my mother's court. Indeed, it might be a misfortune for you to go there. There are many children who cannot bear the singing of those purple-red birds, glorious as it is: it breaks their hearts, and they are obliged to die immediately. Others, who are too pert and adventurous in running up and down the rainbows, slip, and fall; and there are many who are so stupid and awkward, that they hurt the gold pheasants when they are riding on them. Then those birds, though they are good-tempered and kind-hearted, take this amiss, and they tear those children's b.r.e.a.s.t.s open with their sharp beaks, so that they fall down from the clouds bleeding. My mother is very very sorry when children come to misfortune in those ways, although it is all their own fault when they do. She would be only too happy if all the children in the world could enjoy the pleasures of her court and kingdom. But, although there are plenty who can fly strongly enough and far enough, they are often either too forward, or too timid, and cause her only sorrow and pain; and that is why she allows me to fly away from my home, and take to nice children all sorts of delightful playthings, as I have done to you."

"Ah," cried Christlieb, "I am sure I could never do anything to hurt those beautiful birds! But to run up and down a rainbow, that I am certain I never could. I shouldn't like that."

"Now that would be just what I should delight in," Felix said; "and that is the very reason why I want to go and see your mother, the queen. Couldn't you bring one of those rainbows here with you?"

"No," the Stranger Child said, "I could not do that. And I must tell you that I have only been able to come to you by stealing away from home. Once on a time, I was quite safe every where, just as if I were at home, and my mother's beautiful kingdom seemed to extend all over the world; but now that a bitter enemy of hers, whom she has banished from her kingdom, is going raging about everywhere, I cannot be safe from being watched, pursued, and molested."

"Well," Felix cried, jumping up, and s.h.i.+eing the thorn-stick which he was cutting into the air, "I should like to come across the fellow who would do anything to harm you! He would have to do with me in the first place; and then I should send for father, and he would have him taken up and put in the tower."

"Ah," the Stranger Child said, "powerless as my bitter enemy is to harm me when I am at home, he is terribly dangerous when I am not there, and neither sticks nor prisons can protect me from him!"

"What sort of a nasty creature is it, then," Christlieb inquired, "that can do you so much harm?"

"I have told you that my mother is a mighty queen," the Stranger Child said; "and you know that queens, like kings, have courts and ministers belonging to them."

"Yes, yes," said Felix. "My own uncle, the count, is one of those ministers, and wears a star on his breast. Do your mother's ministers wear stars like him?"

"No," the Stranger Child said; "not exactly that; for most of them are s.h.i.+ning stars themselves, and others of them do not wear any coats on which they could stick things of the sort. I must tell you that my mother's ministers are all powerful spirits, either hovering in the sky, or dwelling in the waters, doing, and carrying out everywhere what my mother orders them to do. Once, a long while ago, there came amongst us a stranger, who called himself Pepasilio, who said he was very learned, and could do more, and accomplish greater things, than all the others of us. My mother took him in amongst the ranks of her other ministers; but his natural spite and wickedness very soon developed themselves and came to light, Not only did he strive to undo all that the other ministers did, but he set himself specially to spoil all the happy enjoyments of children. He had pretended to the queen that he, of all others, was the very spirit who could make children glad, and happy, and clever; but instead of that, he hung himself with a weight of lead on to the tails of the pheasants, so that they could not fly aloft any more; and when the children climbed up the rose-trees, he would drag them down by the legs, so that they knocked their noses on the ground and made them bleed; and any that were jumping and dancing he dashed down to the ground, to go crawling wretchedly about there with downcast heads. Those who were singing he crammed all sorts of nasty stuff into the mouths of, so that they had to stop; for singing he could not abide. As for the poor tame beasts, he always wanted to eat them, instead of playing with them, for he said that was what they were meant for. The worst was, that with the help of his followers, he had a way of smearing all the beautiful, sparkling precious stones of the palace, the many-tinted glowing flowers, the roses and lilies, and even the s.h.i.+ning rainbows, with a horrible black juice, so that all the glory and the beauty of them was gone, and everything became sorrowful and dead. And when he had accomplished this, he would out with a loud ringing laugh, and say that everything was now just as he wished it to be. But when, at last, he declared that he did not consider my mother to be queen at all, and that the rule really belonged to him alone,--and when he went hovering up in the shape of an enormous fly, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes, and a great trunk, or snout, sticking out, all about my mother's throne, buzzing and humming in an abominable manner,--then she, and all the rest of her court, saw that this malignant minister, who had come amongst us under the fine name of Pepasilio, was none other than Pepser, the morose and gloomy King of the Gnomes. But he had foolishly overestimated his power, as well as the bravery of his followers. The ministers of the Air department surrounded the queen, and fanned perfumed breezes towards her, whilst the ministers of the Fire department rushed up and down in billows of flame, and the singers (whose bills had been cleaned out) chanted the most full-voiced choruses, so that the queen neither saw nor heard the ugly Pepser, neither could she be aware of his evil-smelling breath.

Moreover, at that moment, the pheasant prince seized him with his glittering beak, and gripped him so strenuously that he screamed with agony and rage; and then the pheasant prince let him down to the earth from a height of three thousand ells, so that he could not stir hand or foot till his aunt, and crony, the great blue toad, took him on her back, and so carried him home. Five hundred fine sprightly children armed themselves with fly-flappers, with which they banged Pepser's horrible followers to death, when they were still swarming about intending to destroy all the beautiful flowers. Now, as soon as Pepser was gone, all the black juice which he had covered everything over with, flowed away of itself, and everything was restored, and was soon beaming and s.h.i.+ning, and blooming as gloriously as ever. You may imagine that this horrid Pepser has no more power in my mother's kingdom. But he knows that I often venture out, and he follows me everywhere, in shapes of every kind, so that, wretched child that I am, I often do not know where to hide myself in my flight; and that is why I often get away from you so quickly that you cannot see what becomes of me. Therefore things must go on just as they are; and I can a.s.sure you that if I were to try to take you with me to my home, Pepser would be sure to lie in wait for us, and kill us."

Christlieb wept bitterly over the danger to which the Stranger Child must always be exposed. But Felix said, "If that horrible Pepser is nothing but a great fly, I'll soon be at him with father's big fly-flapper; and if once I give him a good crack on the nose with it, Aunty Toad will have a job to get him home, I can tell her."

HOW THE TUTOR ARRIVED, AND HOW THE CHILDREN WERE AFRAID OF HIM.

Felix and Christlieb ran home as fast as they could, crying, as they went, "Ah! the Stranger Child is a beautiful prince!"--"Ah! the Stranger Child is a beautiful princess!" They wanted, in their delight, to tell this to their parents; but they stood at the door like marble statues when they found the baron meeting them there with a stranger at his side, an extraordinary-looking personage, who muttered to himself, half intelligibly, "Ah, a nice pair of gawkies those are, it seems to me!"

The baron took him by the hand, saying, "This gentleman is the tutor whom your gracious uncle has sent. So say, 'How-do-you do, sir?' to him properly."

But the children looked askance at the man, and could move neither hand nor foot. This was because they had never seen such an extraordinary-looking creature. He was scarcely more than half a head taller than Felix; but he was stumpy and thick-set, and his little weasened legs formed an astonis.h.i.+ng contrast with his body, which was stout and powerful. His shapeless head was almost to be called four-square, and his face was almost too ugly altogether. For not only was his nose much too long and sharp-pointed to suit with his fat, brownish cheeks, and his wide mouth, but his little prominent eyes glittered so alarmingly that one hardly liked to look at him. Moreover, he had a black periwig crammed on to his four-cornered head; he was clad in black from top to toe, and his name was "Tutor Ink."

Now, as the children stood staring like stone images, their mother got angry, and cried, "Good gracious, children, what are you thinking of?

This gentleman will take you for a pair of raw country gabies! Come, come; give him your hands!"

The children, taking heart of grace, did as their mother bade them. But as soon as the tutor took hold of their hands, they jumped back with a loud cry of "Oh! oh! It hurts!" The tutor laughed aloud, and showed a needle which he had hidden in his hand, to p.r.i.c.k the children with.

Christlieb was weeping; but Felix growled, in an aside, "Just you try that again, little Big-belly!"

"Why did you do that, dear Mr. Tutor Ink?" the baron asked, rather annoyed.

The tutor answered, "Well, it is my way; I can't alter it!" With which he stuck his hands in his sides, and went on laughing, till at length his laughter sounded as ugly as the noise of a broken rattle.

"You seem to be a person fond of your little jokes, Master Tutor Ink!"

the baron said. But he, and his wife, and most particularly the children, were beginning to feel very eery and uncomfortable. "Well, well," said Tutor Ink, "what sort of a state are these little crabs here in? Pretty well grounded in the sciences? We'll see directly."

With which he began to ask questions of Felix and Christlieb, of the sort that their uncle and aunt had asked of their cousins. But, as they both declared that, as yet, they did not know any of the sciences, by heart, Tutor Ink beat his hands over his head till everything rang again, and cried, like a man possessed, "A pretty story indeed! No sciences! Then we've got our work cut out for us. However, we shall soon make a job of it."

Felix and Christlieb could both write fairly well, and, from many old books which their father put in their hands, and which they were fond of reading, they had learned a good many pretty stories, and could repeat them. But Tutor Ink despised all this, and said it was stupid nonsense.

Alas! there was no more running about in the woods to be so much as thought of. Instead of that, the children had to sit within the four walls of the house all day long, and babble, after Tutor Ink, things which they did not in the least understand. It was really a heart-breaking business. With what longing eyes they looked at the woods! Often it was as if they heard, amidst the happy songs of the birds, and the rustling of the trees, the Stranger Child's voice calling to them and saying, "Felix! Christlieb! are you not coming any more to play with me? Oh, come! I have made you a palace, all of flowers; we will sit there, and I will give you all sorts of beautiful stones, and then we'll soar into the air, and build ourselves cloud-castles. Come! oh come!"

At this, the children were drawn to the woods with all their thoughts, and neither saw nor heard their tutor any longer. But he would get very angry, thump on the table with both his fists, and hum, and growl, and snarl, "Pim--sim--prr--srr knurr kirr--what's all this? Wait a little!

"Felix, however, did not endure this very long; he jumped up, and cried, "Don't bother me with your stupid nonsense, Mr. Ink; I must be off to the woods! Go and get hold of Cousin Pumpbreeks; that's the sort of stuff for _him_. Come along, Christlieb! The Stranger Child is waiting for us;" with which they started off. But Tutor Ink sprang after them with remarkable agility, and seized hold of them just outside the door. Felix fought like a man, and Tutor Ink was on the point of getting the worst of it, as the faithful Sultan came to Felix's help. Sultan--generally a good, kindly-behaved dog took a strong dislike to Tutor Ink the moment he set eyes on him. Whenever the tutor came near him, he growled, and swept about him so forcibly with his tail that he nearly knocked the tutor down, managing deftly to hit him great thumps on his little weazened legs. So Sultan came das.h.i.+ng up, when Felix was holding the tutor by the shoulders, and hung on to his coat-tails. Master Ink raised a doleful yell, which brought up the baron to the rescue. The tutor let go his hold of Felix, and Sultan let go his hold on the tutor's coat-tails.

"He said we weren't to go to the woods any more," cried Christlieb, weeping and lamenting. And although the baron gave Felix a good scolding, he was very sorry that the children might not go wandering, as they used, amongst the trees and bushes, and told the tutor that he wished him to go with them into the woods for a certain time every day.

The tutor did not like the idea at all. He said, "Ah, Herr Baron, if you had but a sensible piece of garden, with nicely-clipped box, and railed-in enclosures, one might go and take the children for a little walk there of forenoons! But what in all the world is the good of going into a wild forest?"

The children did not like it either, saying, "What business has Tutor Ink in our darling wood?"

HOW TUTOR INK TOOK THE CHILDREN FOR A WALK IN THE WOODS, AND WHAT HAPPENED ON THE OCCASION.

"Well, Master Ink, isn't it delightful in our wood here?" Felix said, as they were making their way through the rustling thickets. Tutor Ink made a face, and answered, "Stupid nonsense! There's no road. All that one does is to tear one's stockings. And one can't say or hear a word of sense, for the abominable screaming noise the birds are making."

"Ha, ha! master," said Felix, "I see you don't know anything about singing! And I daresay you don't hear when the morning wind is talking with the bushes, and the old forest brook is telling all those delightful tales." "And you don't even love the flowers," Christlieb chimed in; "do you, master?"

At this the tutor's face became of even a deeper cherry-brown than it was usually; and he beat with his hands about him, crying, "What stupid, ridiculous nonsense you are talking! Who has put such trash in your heads? Who ever heard that woods and streams had got the length of engaging in rational conversation? Neither is there anything in the chirping of birds. I like flowers well enough when they are nicely arranged in a room in gla.s.ses. They smell then; and one doesn't require a scent-bottle. But there are no proper flowers in woods."

"But don't you see those dear little lilies of the valley, peeping up at you with such bright, loving eyes?" Christlieb said.

"What? what?" the tutor screamed. "Flowers--eyes? Ha, ha! Nice 'eyes'

indeed! The useless things haven't even got what you would call a smell!" With which Master Ink bent down and plucked up a handful of them, roots and all, and chucked them away into the thickets. To the children it seemed, almost, as if they heard a cry of pain pa.s.s through the wood. Christlieb could not help bitter tears, and Felix gnashed his teeth in anger. Just then, a little siskin went fluttering close past the tutor's nose, alighted on a branch, and began a joyous song. "That is a mockingbird, I think!" said the tutor; and, taking up a stone, he threw it at the poor bird, which it struck, and silenced into death; it fell from the green branch to the ground.

Felix could restrain himself no longer. "You horrible Tutor Ink," he cried, "what had the bird done to you that you should strike it dead?

Ah, where are you, you beautiful Stranger Child? Oh come! only come!

Let us fly far, far away. I cannot stay beside this horrible creature any longer. I want to go to your home with you." Christlieb chimed in, sobbing and weeping bitterly, crying, "Oh, thou darling child, come to us, come to us! Rescue us, rescue us! Tutor Ink is killing us, as he is killing the flowers and the birds."

"What do you mean by the Stranger Child?" Tutor Ink asked. But at that instant there came a louder whispering and rustling amongst the bushes, mingled with melancholy, heart-breaking tones, as if of m.u.f.fled bells tolling in the far distance. In a s.h.i.+ning cloud, which came sailing over above them, they saw the beautiful face of the Stranger Child, and presently it came wholly into view, wringing its little hands, whilst tears, like glittering pearls streamed down its rosy cheeks. "Ah, darling playmates," cried the Stranger Child, in tones of sorrow, "I cannot come to you any more. You will never see me again. Farewell, farewell! The gnome Pepser has you in his power. Oh, you poor children, good-bye, good-bye!" and the Stranger Child soared up far into the sky.

But, at the children's backs, there began a horrid, fearsome sort of buzzing and humming, and snarling and growling; and lo! Tutor Ink had taken the shape of an enormous frightful-looking fly. And the horrible part of the thing was, that he had a man's face at the same time, and even some of his clothes on still. He began to fly upwards, slowly and with difficulty, evidently with the intention of following the Stranger Child. Felix and Christlieb, overpowered with terror, ran away out of the wood as quickly as they could, and did not so much as dare to look up to the sky till they had got some distance off. When they did so, they could just perceive a s.h.i.+ning speck in the sky, glittering amongst the clouds like a star, and apparently coming nearer, and downwards.

"That's the Stranger Child," Christlieb cried. The star grew bigger and bigger, and as it did, they could hear a braying of trumpets; and presently they saw that the star was a splendid bird, with wondrous s.h.i.+ning plumage, coming soaring down to the wood, flapping its mighty wings, and singing loud and clear. "Ha!" cried Felix, "this is the pheasant prince. He will bite Master Tutor Ink to death. The Stranger Child is saved and so are we! Come, Christlieb; let us get home as fast as we can, and tell father all about it."

HOW THE BARON TURNED TUTOR INK OUT OF DOORS.