Kisington Town

XI. HOPE

"Dear me!" said Red Rex, when Harold had finished this story. "I never saw one of those lion-dolls which your tale mentions. I would that I had one to present to my little girl."

"Have you a little girl?" exclaimed Harold in surprise. "Why, I had no idea that you were the father of little children."

"Well, why not?" asked the Red King crossly. "I have a dear little girl of seven, and her name is Hope."

"Oh, if you have a dear little girl of your own, how can you make war on a city where other dear little girls live?" cried Harold. "I cannot understand!"

"No, you cannot understand, because you are only a child yourself," said the Red King. "When you are grown up you will feel differently."

"Your Majesty, I do not think so," declared Harold, shaking his head decidedly. "When I have learned all the books in our library, and seen all the countries there are to see, and done all the interesting things there are to do, there may be time to think about war. But these other matters will keep me busy all my life, I should think."

"Rubbish! – Can one purchase a lion-doll in your city?" asked Red Rex, changing the subject uneasily.

"Yes," said Harold. "Every child in the city owns a lion-doll. Your Majesty ought to visit the great factory at Derrydown, near where Claribel lived, – where the dolls are still made. It is close by the Ancient Wood, where there was such good hunting, and where David had his adventure with the Old Gnome, you know."

"No, I do not know the Old Gnome," retorted the Red King peevishly. "How do you expect me to know all the legends of your precious country? We know nothing about this Kingdom in my own warlike land."

"Then why should you want to fight us?" asked Harold. "If you had taken the trouble to know us better, you could then judge whether we deserve to be fought. But I think you would like our people if you knew them."

Again Red Rex changed the subject. "What of the hunting in this Ancient Wood?" he asked. "When I have taken your city, and after it the rest of your Kingdom, I will go there to hunt."

"There was good hunting," said Harold, "once upon a time. In those days one had to beware the wicked Gnomes of the Great Fear. That was why the Old One fled."

"What about this 'Old One,' and this 'Great Fear'?" asked the Red King. "I suppose that is another story which you want to read to me."

"Nay; I do not care to read the tale unless Your Majesty wishes it," said Harold with dignity. "But if Your Majesty desires a lion-doll for your little Princess, I can get one for you and return with it and the story at the same time. There is a dear little girl in the story. I think your daughter must be very like her."

The Red King gnawed his red mustache and frowned forbiddingly at Harold. At last he slapped his knee and gave a grunt of assent. "Well," said he, "fetch me the doll and the book. I may as well give my soldiers another day's holiday. But in sooth, this has gone on too long! To-morrow's tale must positively be the last. I hope there will be much fighting in it. Your tales are something too peaceful for my taste. Look, now! Your city must be destroyed in short order, because I have set my heart on it."

"Will Your Majesty promise me one other thing, beside the truce, till my return?" begged Harold, looking up in his face with a winning smile.

Red Rex frowned and tried to look very wicked and cruel.

"Well, what is it now?" he growled.

"Promise me, Your Majesty, for the sake of your little dear daughter, whose name is Hope, that when you fight again you will spare that part of the city where the schoolhouse stands. Robert and Richard and all my friends are there."

"What part of the city is that?" asked Red Rex sullenly.

"It is the west part," answered Harold, pointing in the opposite direction from that in which he had declared the Wonder-Garden to have been.

"Very well; I promise," said the Red King. "Noblesse oblige."

Harold had no difficulty in getting a lion-doll for the Red King. Indeed, when they knew for what purpose it was intended, and what Harold had gained by his clever winning of the promise from Red Rex, every child in town wanted to send his or her lion-doll to the little princess, whose name was Hope.

They came to Harold's home from all parts of the city, bringing their dolls, until the High Street was crowded. But the Librarian and the Lord Mayor were unwilling to accept any of these, for none of them was quite fresh and new. Most of them had an arm or a leg dislocated, or bald spots on their yellow fur; which proved how fond the children were of these noble pets, how much they hugged and fondled and frayed them.

The Lord Mayor himself went to the largest shop in Kisington and in the name of the children of Kisington purchased a royal lion-doll, nearly as big as a real baby lion, with a patent voice inside which made it cry "Gr-r! Gr-r!" when you twisted its luxuriant tail. And this was to be the toy of the little Princess Hope.

With this wonderful toy under one arm and a basket under the other, which contained among other things a green-and-gold volume from the library, Harold kissed his mother and went once more to the camp of Red Rex. He found the monarch there alone, save for his bodyguard. His soldiers had gone to enjoy themselves in the neighboring woods, glad indeed of their continued holiday.

When Red Rex saw the great lion-doll he clapped his hands on his knees and roared with laughter. And it was the first time Harold had heard the War-Lord laugh, – a terrible sound! But when Harold showed how to make the lion itself roar, by screwing its tail, the Red King fell over on his back and nearly died of laughing.

"Oh! Oh!" he cried, wiping the tears from his bronze cheeks. "How the little Princess will squeal when I twist that lion's tail! How she will laugh when she hears the creature roar!" And he went off in another fit.

Harold stood by grinning and saying nothing.

The Red King took out a huge purse from his girdle. "And now, what shall I pay you for this wonderful toy?" he asked. "I suppose it is worth many golden crowns?"

"It is worth your promise to the children of Kisington, Your Majesty," said Harold. "It is a gift from them to your little Princess whose name is Hope. The children hope you will remember your promise to them."

"I am a King. I do not forget," said Red Rex haughtily.

"Nevertheless, Kings do forget sometimes," murmured Harold. "But this lion will remind you of your kingly crest, and of the Lion Passant whose motto you know so well."

"True," said Red Rex, and he looked at the lion-doll earnestly.

"And now, shall I read to Your Majesty the story of which we spoke?" asked Harold, opening his basket and taking out the green-and-gold-volume.

"Begin," commanded the Red King, settling himself cozily on his back, with his head lying on the soft fur of the new lion-doll. "But unless there is a deal of fighting in it I shall go to sleep. I am very weary."

Thereupon Harold began to read in his best manner the gentle tale of The Hermit Gnome.

XII: THE HERMIT GNOME

Long, long ago, in the farthest corner of the Kingdom, was a mountain covered with a pathless forest. Human folk never came this way. The shadows of the forest were gloomy, and the sounds of the forest were strange, and the name of the forest was full of dread. Men called it the Great Fear. For it was here that the Gnomes lived and did their wicked dealings.

The Gnomes were ugly and deformed and black; no larger than the Elf-People, but instead of Fairy kindness their minds plotted evil. They lived in the hollows and cracks of the mountain. Some of them camped out under the great, poisonous toadstools which they loved, as they loved everything dangerous to man. And all day long they dreamed, all night long they wrought mischief. They were at the bottom of many of the evil happenings in Kisington and elsewhere. For they could wreak their evil magic from a long distance.

Now, of the race of Gnomes there was one apart. He was a queer little fellow, the oldest, the ugliest, and the crookedest of them all. His face was wrinkled like a brown walnut; and his little misshapen body was bent under a hump which was the biggest part of him. But his mind was not evil. He was quite harmless and mild and lazy, and he hated the dire doings of his fellows who would neither mind their own business nor leave him to his.

For centuries things went on from bad to worse in the Great Fear. At last the Old Gnome could bear it no longer.

"I am very old and tired," he said. "It is almost time for me to curl up in the long sleep. But I cannot sleep here! I should have bad dreams. I will leave the Great Fear, which owes none of its name to me. I will go and become a Hermit, as men say."

So spoke the queer little Gnome. And one bright noon when all the other Gnomes were dreaming with shut eyes, – for they hated the daylight, – he stumbled away as fast as his crooked little legs could take him south from the Great Fear. Now, beyond this was a meadow, which was the borderland across which human folk dared not approach the haunt of the Gnomes. And beyond the meadow again was an Ancient Wood, which, though he did not know it, was on the outskirts of Derrydown. Thither the Old Gnome betook himself, and found it very good indeed. Like the Great Fear it was dense and shadowy and cool. In places it was very dark. But there was scarcely a spot whence you could not, when the sun shone, catch speckled gleams of gold upon the moss; or, when the moon beamed, spy a wealth of filtered silver. For the Ancient Wood was intersected hither and yon by paths of the woodchoppers. And sun and moon love to peer down through the man-made windows in the green roof of trees and beautify the ways which human feet have trod.

The Old Gnome peered and pried about the Ancient Wood, seeking a hermitage. At last he came upon the hollow stump of a tree, hidden in a clump of feathery fern. It was thatched with green lichens without, and carpeted within in a mossy pattern of green and gray and scarlet. Little hard mushrooms, growing shelf-wise one above another, made a winding staircase up to the doorway. Portieres of finest spider-wrought tapestry swayed before door and window and draped the dark-hued walls; while across one corner hung a hammock of heavier web, the very thing for a weary Gnome's resting-place.

As soon as the Old Gnome spied this stump he cried, – "Ha! This is the spot for me! Here will I make my hermitage. And when the time comes for my long sleep, here will I rest forever." For you must know that the Gnomes do not die, being immortal like the Fays; but unlike them growing older and dryer and drowsier until they are fit only for eternal sleep.

The Old Gnome was soon at home in his cell; and very peaceful and cozy he found it. For several days he lay and swung in his hammock, growing comfortably drowsier and drowsier, too lazy even to gather berries for his food. He would soon sleep without waking; and by and by the moss and lichens would grow over him, too, and he would become a silent part of the Ancient Wood, – a little green mound such as you yourself may have seen many a time.

But one day while he was snoring, with his wrinkled hands folded peacefully on his little chest, he heard a sound which made him open his eyes with a snap. It was the noise of an axe chopping. The Old Gnome sat up nervously and peered through his knot-hole window. A woodcutter was at work at the very next tree.

"Hello!" said the Old Gnome, staring open-eyed; "That must be a man!" For this was the first mortal he had ever seen.

Forgetting his drowsiness, he climbed up his staircase and peered closely at the creature from behind a curtain of fern.

It was a strong young man, who wielded the axe heartily against the giant oak. The Old Gnome watched him curiously, admiring the lithe sweep of his arm and the rhythmic bend of his body.

"They are goodly folk, these men!" he sighed, looking down on his own misshapen frame. "How can those evil brothers of mine care so much to vex and trouble them?" And he turned over and tried to go to sleep; but the sound of the axe kept knocking at something within him.

Suddenly, the man made a mis-stroke. The axe slipped and came down upon his sandaled foot. With a cry he dropped the axe and fell to the ground, lying very still and white.

"Ha!" frowned the Old Gnome, "the work of my brothers! Some one of them must have charmed that axe. But how strange he looks! Doubtless it is pain, which I do not know. Ah, pain must be something very sore!" And he felt a throb of pity.

He hobbled to the spot where the woodman lay. Across his leg was a deep gash and on the moss were drops of crimson. The Old Gnome looked at them wonderingly, for the Gnomes are bloodless. "How beautiful the color!" he cried, and he touched his finger to one of the drops. Immediately a thrill went through his cold body, and he seemed to feel a fresh draught of life. New impulses came to him.

"These men!" cried he, "how weak they are, after all! How greatly they need aid. I can help him now, – even I!" And his ugly little face wrinkled into the first grin it had known for centuries.

He called to mind his long-forgotten skill in herbs, and hunted in the Ancient Wood for certain plants of healing. One he crushed and laid upon the wound to stanch the blood. Others he set out in the ground close under the young man's nose, so that they seemed to be growing naturally there.

Presently the woodman opened his eyes and stared about him dazedly, but the Old Gnome had hidden himself. As he gained strength, the woodman tore a strip of linen and bound it upon his leg. Then, sniffing the aromatic herbs which grew conveniently at hand, he plucked a bunch with which to make a lotion, and with it limped painfully from the wood.

The Old Gnome watched him go with curious eyes. "I wonder if he will return," he said to himself. And he decided not to sleep until he should know how it fared with the young man.

It was not many days thereafter before the woodman returned to the forest. The lotion had been wondrous helpful, and had healed him more quickly than he had dared to hope; for he was eager to be at work again. Limping slightly, for the wound had been a sore one, David began work anew.

Day by day the Old Gnome watched him, half jealously at first. But the more he watched the more he liked the ways of the intruder. The woodman sang at his work; his eyes sparkled and his lips smiled as if with pleasant thoughts.

The Old Gnome found himself smiling too, unseen behind the fern. "I will not sleep yet awhile," he said, "for there is work to do."

In the night when the Ancient Wood was silent he toiled long and heartily at the crafts wherein he was wise. And the woodman tasted the result. For the Old Gnome made the berries to ripen more quickly in that glade. He caused delicious mushrooms to spring up all about. He coaxed a spring of fair water from the bed where it slumbered underground and made it gush into a little basin where David came upon it gladly. He caused medicinal herbs to grow, and certain fragrant plants that drove away the mischievous insects sent by his brother Gnomes. All this the Old One did while David was away; and the young man did not know. But he was very happy and busy. Now, one day the young man finished his woodcutting, and lo! he had made a clearing in the Ancient Wood large enough for a tiny house; but the Gnome did not know this. David looked about him at the spring and the flowers and the berries of the pleasant place which the Old Gnome had prepared, and said, "It is good!" Forthwith of the logs which he had felled he began to build the house itself.

When the Old Gnome saw what David was about to do, indeed he was angry! For he said, -

"Oho! I did not bargain for this. This is my wood! I want no neighbor, – though a merry visitor was not unwelcome. What is to become of my solitude, of my hermitage? And how am I to sleep, with another restless creature living close by forever and ever?"

For several days he sulked in his cell and would not work. But finally the merry sound of the young man's whistle keeping time to the wheeze of saw and the knock of hammer made the Old Gnome smile again, and he said to himself, -

"Well, what of it? True, I shall have a neighbor for good and all. But he will be alone and speechless, since there is no one with whom to chatter; and he will never trouble me. Let him build here if he will."

David builded his house; and a pretty little place it was, for he was a careful workman and his heart was in it. When all was done he laid the axe aside, hid the hammer and saw, put on fine new clothes and went away across the meadow, whistling happily as a bird. It was the Gnome's first chance to see the inside of a man's dwelling, and he lost no time in going there, you may be sure. He found many things to wonder at, for naturally it was very different from a Gnome's hermitage. But nothing surprised him more than the wreaths of flowers which David had hung over door and window and fireplace, over bed and chairs and table, so that the place was like a fragrant bower prepared for a beloved guest.

The Old Gnome shook his head. "Strange folk, these men!" said he. "Why, and why, and why?" But he brushed up the sawdust, which David had forgotten in a corner; and he re-piled the kindlings on the hearth, which David had hastily put together for a fire. He neatly spread the bed, which David had clumsily prepared; and he made tidy the kitchen which, in his eagerness to don his new clothes, David had quite overlooked. Then the Old One went back to his cell and lay down in his hammock, chuckling. "How surprised the fellow will be!" he said.

At night the Old Gnome heard voices in the wood, and sprang up from his hammock angrily. "More of them?" he cried. "Am I to hear human prattle around me, after all?" And he peered from the balcony of his cell with eyes almost as fierce as those of his brother Gnomes in the Great Fear. He stared and stared at what he saw. For the young woodcutter was returning in his fine clothes, and with him was a fair maiden, also in holiday gear. Both looked very happy and smiling.

They entered the open door, and the Old Gnome watched to see David's surprise when he should discover how matters had improved in his absence. But the woodman was thinking so much about his pretty new wife that he had eyes for nothing else. However, she looked about her with surprise and pleasure, and the Old Gnome heard her say to her husband, -

"Ah, David! What a tidy housekeeper you are! Or is it some Fairy who has made the house so neat and ready for me? Surely, no one but a beautiful, kind Fairy would sweep the floor so spotless and make so smooth the bed. Oh, I am glad we have a Fairy friend!"

What David replied the Old Gnome did not hear. He was filled with wondering delight. A Fairy! The sweet little thing had thought it must be a beautiful Fairy who had done this work! The Old Gnome looked whimsically down at his bandy legs and ugly body, and sighed and smiled.

"Ah, if I were but a Fairy!" he said. "Fairies are beautiful and good; they live forever young and gay, and there is no end to the kindness they may do. But I!" – he sighed again, – "a Fairy, indeed!" And he hobbled away to his cell, thinking kindly of the little wife who of all the world had spoken the first word of praise for him; and of the strong young man who loved her.

Now happy days followed in the little house in the Ancient Wood; happy days, too, for the Old Gnome in his hermit's cell. For he was busy all the time doing kind deeds for his new neighbors; without their knowing it. Sometimes he set the table for the morning meal. Sometimes he helped in the churning and made the butter come quickly. Sometimes he blew the fire like a little bellows; a hundred and one things he found to do about the cottage. And it was his reward to hear the young wife say, – "Oh! David, the good Fairy has been here again. What a dear, good, beautiful Fairy it must be!"

The Old Gnome was very careful to keep his ugly face out of sight, you may be sure.

Days went by, and the Old Gnome was ever more and more busy in the hut of the young people, so that really I do not know how they would have done without him. He was scarcely ever in the hermitage nowadays, except for a few hours' sleep by daylight; and he scarcely found time to look after his own affairs, such as they were, so little of a hermit was he become! But every night the young wife set out a bowl of curds and cream for the beautiful Fairy who helped her; and sometimes David left half his luncheon of bread and cheese in the woods, for his unknown friend. The Old Gnome was growing fat and merry because of this good fare; but he seemed as little like a Fairy as ever.

The months went by; and one day a surprising thing happened. The Old Gnome, sleeping in his hammock, was wakened by a strange, shrill little cry. He sat up and listened wonderingly. It was broad daylight, but at the risk of being seen he ran as fast as he could, and climbing up the vine of eglantine peered in at the chamber window whence came the cry. And there lying on the young wife's bed was a wee pink baby! The Old Gnome looked at it long and earnestly; and the more he peered the more he liked the look of this newest little neighbor.

"It is as beautiful as a Fairy!" he thought. "I must be good to it, and perhaps it will grow to love me."

From that time the Old Gnome had no rest at all. Unseen-wrapped in a cloak of shadows-he sat for hours while the baby was asleep, fanning the flies away from its little face. When it was restless, he kept the clothes over its tiny feet, drawing them up as fast as the baby kicked them away. And when the young wife came, she would say,

"See, David! Our Fairy has been watching over our baby, just as it watched over us. Oh, now I feel quite safe from those wicked Gnomes who live in the Great Fear!" At this the Old Gnome would chuckle from the corner where he lurked, and where only the baby's bright eyes could pierce the cloak of shadows. It was a great day for the Old Gnome when first the baby smiled at him. It was a still greater day when she held out her little arms to him, and the Old One knew that they were friends. Soon she was lisping words in her shrill voice; and one of the first things she tried to say was "Fairy friend." She looked straight at the Old Gnome when she did it, and a thrill went through him at the words. She saw him; yet she thought he was a Fairy! Poor little mite! He dreaded the day when she should know the difference. But the baby seemed to love him more and more every day, and the Old Gnome's cell became her favorite playhouse.

When she grew old enough to talk, she and her mother spoke often of the Fairy friend; and the little girl told strange tales of his doings when no one but herself was about, for still he shyly crept into his cloak of shadows when the grown-up folk were near. When the mother asked what like the Fairy was, she shook her head. "I cannot tell!" she would answer. "Not like you, Mother dear; but beautiful also, and good and merry."

Now, the woodcutter's wife was a very good woman, but she was curious. The more she heard about the friendly, mysterious Fairy whom her child alone had seen, the more she longed to see him for herself. This was not kind; for she knew he did not wish to be seen. But she was sorely tempted. One day she heard the little one out in the Ancient Wood laughing and talking merrily with some one. "It is the Fairy!" said the mother, and she picked up her toes and crept noiselessly to spy upon them.

There was the baby sitting on a bed of moss; and there, plainly seen without his shadow-cloak, was the Old Gnome, turning somersaults for her and dancing on his crooked legs to make her laugh.

But the mother did not laugh at what she saw! She burst out of the bushes with a cry and seized the baby in her arms. "My child!" she screamed. "Oh, the wicked Gnome! Help, David, help!"

Her cry summoned the woodcutter, who came running up, very pale, with his axe in his hand. "What is this?" he asked. "Who is injuring my child?"

Sobbing, his wife pointed to where the Old Gnome cowered, blinking, caught at last in the sunlight outside his cell.

"A Gnome!" cried David in horror. "One of the pests from the Great Fear! What are you doing here, Monster? How shall we pay you to go away and leave us in peace?"

"I will go away," said the Old Gnome humbly, "though I belong not to the Great Fear, and I came here before you. My wish is not evil you-ward. It is I who am a friend. But I will go." With a kind look at the baby he turned away.

But the baby struggled down from her mother's arms and ran after him crying, – "No, no! Do not go away, dear, beautiful Fairy! Mother! Father! It is the friend whom we all love. I have heard you praise him. Do not send him away."

"The Fairy!" cried the father, running to capture her.

"It is no Fairy, child!" said the mother. "It is one of the ugly, wicked Gnomes who do only evil. Let him go!"

But the child struggled and shrieked. "He shall not go! It is the beautiful Fairy who helps us. I have watched him doing all the kind things you say the Fairy does, and I love him dearly. He shall not go!" The father and mother looked at each other, then at the shrinking Gnome. "Is this true?" they demanded, "or is this some wicked Gnome-trick which has bewitched our child?"

The Old Gnome bowed meekly. "Alas! I am no Fairy, as I fain would be," he confessed. "But I loved to hear you call me so. I am a Gnome; but I have done no evil, only good, so far as my skill went. The happy days are over now. The child knows the truth. No one will ever again think me beautiful or good. I had forgotten how old I was; I had almost grown to feel young again in the merry, busy days of service. But now the time has come indeed for me to lie down in the long sleep. I will go away and find a new cell, and curl me up in a happy dream which will last forever."

Once more he turned to go. The father and mother were silent.

But the baby burst into violent weeping. "Oh, he is beautiful, beautiful, the kind, dear Fairy! Do you not see how beautiful he is, Mother, Father?" she cried.

The Old Gnome turned and looked at her, smiling sadly and shaking his head with a tender light in his eyes. "No, no!" he said, "not beautiful; only loving!"

"But yes!" cried the mother, staring amazedly. "Think, David, of all he has done for us. He does, he does look beautiful to me!"

David stared also. "From the day my foot was wounded," he said, "only good has befallen me here. And if he has done it, the kind little fellow! – Yes, yes! He does, indeed, look beautiful to me!"

"Ah!" cried the child, laughing and clapping her hands. "I was right! I knew he was our kind Fairy, all the time. If he is good, he is no Gnome. It is only a name. If he seems beautiful to us, then he is beautiful, indeed. He is a Fairy! He shall live here with us and we will love him forever."

And lo, as she spoke, the Old Gnome looked wonderingly down at his body. He seemed to have changed. He was no longer crooked and old, but light and airy and beautiful. Over his head arched gauzy wings and his dress sparkled like dew. Also he felt young and full of power to do things he had never done before.

"I believe I am a Fairy!" he cried joyously. "And I may live and love and serve forever, and never be tired or sleepy!"

So it fell out as they all wished. And the hermit's cell became a Fairy palace.