Moonshine & Clover Part 16

Beppo undertook whatever the c.o.c.katrice told him--it was so grand to have a c.o.c.katrice of his own. But it was a hard life, stoking up fires day and night, and bringing the c.o.c.katrice the fodder necessary to replenish his drowsy being. When Beppo was quite tired out he would come and lay his head against the monster's snout: and the c.o.c.katrice would open a benevolent eye and look at him affectionately.

"Dear c.o.c.katrice," said the boy one day, "tell me about yourself, and how you lived and what the world was like when you were free!"

"Do you see any green in my eye?" said the c.o.c.katrice.

"I do, indeed!" said Beppo. "I never saw anything so green in all the world."

"That's all right, then!" said the c.o.c.katrice. "Climb up and look in, and you will see what the world was like when I was young."

So Beppo climbed and scrambled, and slipped and clung, till he found himself on the margin of a wonderful green lake, which was but the opening into the whole eye of the c.o.c.katrice.

And as soon as Beppo looked, he had lost his heart for ever to the world he saw there. It was there, quite real before him: a whole world full of living and moving things--the world before the trouble of man came to it.

"I see green hills, and fields, and rocks, and trees," cried Beppo, "and among them a lot of little c.o.c.katrices are playing!"

"They were my brothers and sisters; I remember them," said the c.o.c.katrice. "I have them all in my mind's eye. Call them--perhaps they will come and talk to you; you will find them very nice and friendly."

"They are too far off," said Beppo, "they cannot hear me."

"Ah, yes," murmured the c.o.c.katrice, "memory is a wonderful thing!"

When Beppo came down again he was quite giddy, and lost in wonder and joy over the beautiful green world the c.o.c.katrice had shown him. "I like that better than this!" said he.

"So do I," said the c.o.c.katrice. "But perhaps, when my tail gets free, I shall feel better."

One morning he said to Beppo: "I do really begin to feel my tail. It is somewhere away down the hill yonder. Go and look out for me, and tell me if you can see it moving."

So Beppo went to the mouth of the cave, and looked out towards the city, over all the rocks and ridges and goat-pastures and slopes of vine that lay between.

Suddenly, as he looked, the steeple of the cathedral tottered, and down fell its weatherc.o.c.k and two of its pinnacles, and half the chimneys of the town snapped off their tops. All that distance away Beppo could hear the terrified screams of the inhabitants as they ran out of their houses in terror.

"I've done it!" cried the c.o.c.katrice, from within the cave.

"But you mustn't do that!" exclaimed Beppo in horror.

"Mustn't do what?" inquired the c.o.c.katrice.

"You mustn't wag your tail! You don't know what you are doing!"

"Oh, master!" wailed the c.o.c.katrice; "mayn't I? For the first time this thousand years I have felt young again."

Beppo was pale and trembling with agitation over the fearful effects of that first tail-wagging. "You mustn't feel young!" said he.

"Why not?" asked the c.o.c.katrice, with a piteous wail.

"There isn't room in the world for a c.o.c.katrice to feel young nowadays,"

answered Beppo gravely.

"But, dear little master and benefactor," cried the c.o.c.katrice, "what did you wake me up for?"

"I don't know," replied Beppo, terribly perplexed. "I wouldn't have done it had I known where your tail was."

"Where is it?" inquired the c.o.c.katrice, with great interest.

"It's right underneath the city where I mean to be king," said Beppo; "and if you move it the city will come down; and then I shall have nothing to be king of."

"Very well," said the c.o.c.katrice sadly; "I will wait!"

"Wait for what?" thought Beppo. "Waiting won't do any good." And he began to think what he must do. "You lie quite still!" said he to the c.o.c.katrice. "Go to sleep, and I will still look after you."

"Oh, little master," said the c.o.c.katrice, "but it is difficult to go to sleep when the delicious trouble of spring is in one's tail! How long does this city of yours mean to stay there? I am so alive that I find it hard to shut an eye!"

"I will let the fires that keep you warm go down for a bit," said Beppo, "and you mustn't eat so much gra.s.s; then you will feel better, and your tail will be less of an anxiety."

And presently, when Beppo had let the fires which warmed him get low, and had let time go by without bringing him any fresh fodder, the c.o.c.katrice dozed off into an uneasy, prehistoric slumber.

Then Beppo, weeping bitterly over his treachery to the poor beast which had trusted him, raked open the fires and stamped out the embers; and, leaving the poor c.o.c.katrice to get cold, ran down the hill as fast as he could to the city he had saved--the city of which he meant to be king.

He had been away a good many days, but the boys in the street were still on the watch for him. He told them how he had saved the city from the earthquake; and they beat him from the city gate to his father's door.

He told his own father how he had saved the city; and his father beat him from his own door to the city gate. n.o.body believed him.

He lay outside the town walls till it was dark, all smarting with his aches and pains; then, when n.o.body could see him, he got up and very miserably made his way back to the cave on the hill. And all the way he said to himself, "Shall I put fire under the c.o.c.katrice once more, and make him shake the town into ruins? Would not that be fine?"

Inside, the cave was quite still and cold, and when he laid his hand on the c.o.c.katrice he could not feel any stir or warmth in its bones. Yet when he called, the c.o.c.katrice just opened a slit of his green eye and looked at him with trust and affection.

"Dear c.o.c.katrice," cried Beppo, "forgive me for all the wrong I have done you!" And as he clambered his way towards the green light, a great tear rolled from under the heavy lid and flowed past him like a cataract.

"Dear c.o.c.katrice," cried Beppo again when he stood on the margin of the green lake, "take me to sleep with you in the land where the c.o.c.katrices are at play, and keep quite still with your tail!"

Slowly and painfully the c.o.c.katrice opened his eye enough to let Beppo slip through; and Beppo saw the green world with its playful c.o.c.katrices waiting to welcome him. Then the great eyelid shut down fast, and the waking days of the c.o.c.katrice were over. And Beppo's native town lay safe, because he had learned from the c.o.c.katrice to be patient and gentle, and had gone to be king of a green world where everything was harmless.

THE GREEN BIRD

THERE was once a Prince whose palace lay in the midst of a wonderful garden. From gate to gate was a day's journey, where spring, summer, and autumn stayed captive; for warm streams flowed, bordering its ways, through marble conduits, and warm winds, driven by brazen fans, blew over it out of great furnaces that were kept alive through the cold of winter. And day by day, when no sun shone in heaven, a ball of golden fire rose from the palace roof and pa.s.sed down to the west, sustained invisibly in mid-air, and giving light and warmth to the flowers below.

And after it by night went a lamp of silver flame, that changed its quarters as the moon changes hers in heaven, and threw a silver light over the lawns and the flowered avenues.

All these things were that the Prince might have delight and beauty ever around him. To his eyes summer was perpetual, without end, and nothing died save to give out new life on the morrow. So through many morrows he lived, and trod the beautiful soft ways devised for him by cunning hands, and did not know that there was winter, or cold, or hunger to be borne in the world, for he never crossed the threshold of his enchanted garden, but stayed lapped in the luxury of its bright colours and soft airs.

One day he was standing by a bed of large white bell-lilies. Their great bowls were full of water, and inside among the yellow stamens gold fish went darting to and fro. While he watched he saw, mirrored in the water, the breast of a green bird flying towards the trees of the garden.

It had come from a far country surely, for its shape and colour were strange to him; and the most curious thing of all was that it carried its nest in its beak.

Its flight came keen as a sword's edge through those bowery s.p.a.ces, till its wings closed with a shock that sent the golden fruit tumbling from the branches where it had lodged: and through the whole garden went a cras.h.i.+ng sound as of soft thunder.