Morning came in the full glory of the risen sun, but the Village of Youth was no more. It was as a dream that had pa.s.sed. Again old age gossiped in the streets and sat serene at its board of council. The King bowed his head, and accepted his punishment with a dignified humility.

In the autumn of his life he found joy his youth had never known. He became wise in judgment, patient in sorrow, and was beloved by all his subjects. In latter years his kingdom grew large and prosperous, and it was no longer known as the Village of Youth, but was called the City of Content.

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A CHILD OF THE WIND

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CHILD OF THE WINDS]

"Love, like an Alpine harebell hung with tears By some cold morning glacier"

Lord Tennyson

I.

When Sorrow was a little child and the Sea yet nursed pale Grief on her breast, there lived in a distant country a great and wise King. Renowned for justice, he was both loved and revered by his subjects, and if G.o.d had blessed him with a child to inherit his lands he could have died without a regret. However, time pa.s.sed, and it seemed that his wish was to remain ungratified. Being a n.o.ble and sagacious man, he reconciled himself to the will of his Creator; but his Queen still hoped against hope. The King's time was fully occupied. Each day brought its different tasks. There was much state business to be discussed in council, and the administration of justice made great demands on the monarch's leisure. His spouse, on the other hand, had little to do, excepting to tend her flowers and to ply her needle. She took to brooding and wishing impiously for what G.o.d evidently did not intend she should have. Unknown to the King, she visited all the magicians in his realm, and sought their help to aid her in the fulfilment of her wish; but in vain.

When very much depressed, it was the Queen's habit to wander by the sea and speak her thoughts aloud. One day, feeling more wretched than she had ever done before, she left the palace secretly, and walked some miles along the coast, unburdening her mind as she went.

It was late autumn. The approaching death of the year struck her majesty painfully. The ocean was a dull green under the heavy sky. She turned, and looked at the silver spires of the palace which lay in the distance.

"Ah! what a difference it would have made in our dear home," she said, "had we been blessed with a child." She clasped her hands in a frenzy of desire. It seemed to her agitated mind that the sea too was perturbed, that its rippling waves kissed her sandalled feet lovingly. At length, tired with her walk, she lay down and wept herself to sleep.

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When she awoke it was evening. The woodlands and mountains lay in deep shadow.

The Queen started up, scarcely remembering where she was. When she quite realised her position she drew her hooded cloak more tightly around her, and prepared to return home. She had scarcely made any progress, when suddenly, a few feet from her, she observed in the sea a face of surpa.s.sing beauty. The hair lay floating on the waves like red weed; the eyes were as green as emeralds, with a fierce tenderness in them. The Queen stood transfixed with amazement, gazing at the woman's face. She was uncertain what to do, whether to remain where she was, or whether to fly homewards along the sh.o.r.e. The royal lady had been reared in the simplest manner; she had been taught to distrust her imagination, so she rubbed her eyes, expecting that when she looked again the vision would have vanished. But she was mistaken; moreover, the apparition began to address her in throbbing bursts of song.

"Mortal, I am here to grant thy desire. I have heard thy plaints and caught thy tears, and I have sorrowed for thee and tried to soothe thy woe, for I too have known bitterness and despair. I was once the love of the North Wind. He wooed me amidst the ice-plains, in a world of crystal glaciers. He chased me through s.p.a.ce, until we lay panting on the sh.o.r.es of Africa. But he has left me for the South Wind, with her golden hair and her hot breath. They have made their home on a mountain-top, where the snow-flowers bloom in profusion, where the sea can never go. Four years since he came, bearing a child in his arms. He laid it on my breast, saying that I was to keep it and rear it for his sake. That child I will give to thee. She knows nothing of her parentage, and it would be best that thou shouldst never tell her to whom she owes her being."

"But when the North Wind finds that thou hast parted with thy precious charge what will he do?" panted the Queen.

"He will storm and tear and lash my waves into mountains, and moan round continent and island, and search my ocean from the North to the South Pole. His spouse will scorch me with her breath till I am forced to dive down to cool crystal caverns, where, upon a bed of seaweed, I shall laugh loud and long, a conqueror."

The Queen held her breath in terror. She would have liked to escape from the fierce Sea, whose face wore a look of wild triumph; but her anxiety to see the Child of the Winds overcame her fear, and she waited patiently, her hands clasped tightly together to quell her rising agitation.

By this time it was quite dark; the sky was starless, there was not a breath of air. In her imagination the Queen seemed to see the Winds in their mountain home, unconscious of the peril of their daughter. The Sea had disappeared, and was so long absent that the Queen began to think she had been dreaming, when suddenly, by invisible hands, a child was placed in her arms.

"Thou must call her Myra," said a voice, "for she hath known only bitterness on the breast of her foster-mother."

The Queen looked around, but saw no one. Pressing the burden to her heart, she started homewards. She dared not look at the little one; but she felt the tiny arms clasped confidingly round her neck, and the sweet mouth pressed against her cheek gave her more happiness than she had ever known.

The Sea followed her, washing the sh.o.r.e with phosph.o.r.escent waves to light her steps homewards. The royal lady flew along with the agility of early youth, and the burden in her arms was made light by love.

At length the marble steps were reached. She hurried up them and through the golden gates--along winding pa.s.sages and across alabaster halls, until at length, breathless and trembling with excitement, she burst into the King's apartments, where she placed Myra in the arms of her amazed and happy husband.

Cognisant of his just and upright nature, she did not tell him of the child's parentage, knowing that he would have been the first to restore it to its rightful owners. She said that she had found the little creature on the sh.o.r.e, and that fearing it would be drowned by the incoming tide, she had borne it to the palace, hoping that, should it be unclaimed, her royal lord would, in pity of her loneliness, and in consideration of their desire for a daughter, allow her to keep and rear it as their own.

Long into the night they sat, admiring the lovely waif.

"She must be royally born, my love," said the King. "Washed overboard, perhaps, from some regal ship. Be sure she will be claimed of thee."

Suddenly Myra awoke, and the Queen set her on her feet, that they might the better observe her.

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She was about four years old. Heavy black hair fell around her face, which was lit with wild, pale eyes. Her small seamless garment was embroidered with pearls and sh.e.l.ls, and through its transparent folds the little body looked like a blush rose with the dew upon it. The Queen, in an ecstasy of happiness, drew Myra's hands within her own and kissed them; her heart went out in motherly tenderness to the poor babe, hitherto unkissed by mortal lips, though born of the Winds and rocked by the Sea. Yet, as she gazed into the child's sorrowful face, a strange fear smote her, and she almost wished that she had left the eerie creature in its salt sea home, or that she had told her husband the story of its birth. Still, she could not go back now.

In the night a great storm arose. The Queen lay trembling in her chamber. Myra's powerful father had learned of the loss of his daughter.

He lashed the Sea from Pole to Pole; it thundered on the sh.o.r.e, and burst into wild shrieks of triumph. The night was long and tempestuous; whole towns were destroyed, and many ships were sunk; but towards morning the North Wind subsided into low wails of pain, which were answered by the languorous sighs of the South, as they returned to their mountain home sad and desolate, while in a marble palace a Queen awoke pressing their child to her breast. She had taken the weird sea-tossed thing to her heart, for weal or woe.

II.

Myra's first years in her new home were trying ones to her foster-parents. Nothing in the palace seemed to please her. Not that she ever in any way testified her dislike of anybody or anything; but there was a wistful look in her face, and she had a listless way of sitting for hours on the floor, her elbows resting on her knees and her hands supporting her chin. Asked what she thought about at these times her reply was an odd one, and always gave the Queen a creepy feeling. "I am not thinking; I am only seeing things," she would say.

A s.p.a.cious nursery had been built for the child's use in the grounds of the palace. It had a walled-in garden of its own, in which there were flowers, fruit trees, soft lawns, and sparkling fountains. All the toy-makers in the kingdom had been employed to furnish the nursery with ingenious inventions. There were dolls by the hundred, tea and dinner services, farmyards, woolly animals, games innumerable, everything that the heart of the most petted child could desire; yet Myra took no pleasure in them. The only playthings she appeared to care for were a collection of sh.e.l.ls, which had been gathered for her on the beach and pierced with holes; these she would string and re-string for hours.

Time pa.s.sed, and Myra grew into a lovely woman. The King was exceedingly proud of her, and he made her heiress to his crown and estates. One thing alone troubled him deeply. Myra would not consent to marry any of the great n.o.bles who had frequented his court. All the high-born princes of his realm had wooed her in vain, and many others from distant lands had failed to please her. The King had often heard of princesses who set so high a value on themselves that they did not think any man good enough for them in the light of a husband, but Myra was not proud. She was of a very gentle nature, and he could not believe that she was cold-hearted; yet she appeared to be so, for none of her n.o.ble lovers could boast the smallest word of encouragement from her sweet lips. She moved through the palace, a slim, dark beauty, in her pale draperies, her hair half hidden beneath her jewelled head-dress, her face, though calm and serene, still lit by the strange, wistful eyes which had so struck the Queen on that night seventeen years ago when the Winds had lost their daughter.

As she grew to womanhood Myra delighted in her garden. She often sat there most of the day, reading or sewing or talking with the flowers.

It amused the Princess to find that, from simple daisy to proud tiger-lily, they were all in love. With one exception.

Near the wall there grew a purple Hollyhock or Rose-Mallow. The Princess preferred to call him by his latter name, because it seemed to her the grander and also the more euphonious of the two. He, of all the flowers in the enclosure, was her favourite, and he alone had not yet found a lady upon whom to bestow his affections.

Myra always attended upon the garden herself. She cut off the dead blossoms, raked the soil with a golden rake, and gave the plants water out of a golden pitcher when the heat of the sun had been oppressive.

Therefore, she partic.i.p.ated in all their secrets. She knew that, although the Rose-Mallow was not in love with any inmate of the garden, there was an humble Violet which grew at his feet, in whose eyes he was the rarest and most lovely flower in the world. It amused Myra to see the Violet peep from its green leaves at the stately Mallow, and then, if he chanced to be looking, which, of course, was just what the Violet wanted, she would hide herself, in a strange tremor of excitement.

"I feel so happy, and yet so miserable, to-day," said the Rose-Mallow to the Princess one morning. "Last night, when all the others were asleep, I heard, from over the wall, a sweet voice singing a hymn to Night. I asked the Poplar who it was, and he said it was the Evening Primrose; that there were none of her race in our garden, and that she was more beautiful than daylight."

"And why should that knowledge distress thee?" asked the Princess, sitting down at his feet.

"Because I love her. Her voice is music. I am pining to see her."

He trembled as he spoke. The Princess rose, laughing.

"Well, this is a strange garden," she said. "I did think my Rose-Mallow was sensible. What is it," she cried aloud, "what is this Love, for which all Nature pines?"

There was no answer; but the sun shot down a handful of golden sunbeams upon her face, which dazzled her and made her laugh again.

"Ah! thou wilt know ere long," said the Rose-Mallow, much hurt at her want of sympathy. "Do not think, Princess, that the most beautiful of women will be allowed to go unscathed."

Myra threw her arms around him, to make up for her unfeeling remarks, and then in soft tones advised him to climb the wall and look over at his lady-love.

"But it will take so long, and be so hard!" he replied.