Chapter II: Part 2

‘Chriemhild, whose altered history makes such a figure in the _Nibelungen_, had, it would seem, a rose-garden some seven English miles in circuit, fenced only by a silk thread, wherein, however, she maintained twelve stout fighting men, and these, so unspeakable was their prowess, sufficed to defend the silk-thread garden against all mortals. A good antiquary, Von der Hagen, imagines that this rose-garden in the primæval tradition glances obliquely at the Ecliptic, with its Twelve signs, at Jupiter’s fight with the Titans, and we know not what confused skirmishing in the Utgard, Asgard, or Midgard of the Scandinavians.’

Of the great battle of all the heroes of the North about or in this rose-field, I will say nothing. Suffice it to write that in time the fair Chriemhilde had a son by Siegfried, ‘though history passes it over, oh,’ and this offspring grew up to be a glorious youth, who was known as the Lord of the Rooseveldt, from his patrimony, being often called simply Roosevelt, for brevity’s sake. And he was a credit to his highly respectable ancestry, first making himself famous in learning and letters, then in council, holding divers offices, and yet again in a war with Spain, wherein he gained great renown, till in the fulness of time he governed Holland, or had a kingdom therein, which he administered with wisdom and grace.

Now there are some folk who are brave in one way, and some in another; some braving-mad when drunk, and others only bold while sober, or to show off, or to gratify temper; but Roosevelt was brave all round, having not only physical, but in the highest degree moral courage, for he had that of his Opinions, which is the noblest of all. And Flaxius to his great joy observed this.

The king had soon seen in the Sage great wisdom and a genial spirit, and had therefore made of him a friend. It came to pass one day that as they were riding near the Rhine, they saw seated by the road-side a poor man, of very dark colour, yet one who seemed as if he might be far better than his looks.

‘Whence camest thou?’ asked the king.

‘With the sun whose livery I wear, from the South. I am of the dark races, and was brought here a captive.’

‘What hast thou seen?’

‘I have seen sorrow, and felt oppression, heard curses, tasted bitterness, and smelt the air of dungeons, and all because of my colour, for God knows my soul is white enough, and were my skin the same I should be called learned, and, perhaps, something more. Yet at this minute I am hungry, and few, indeed, are they who would give me food, and none who would eat with me.’

‘By Frey and all the gods!’ cried Roosevelt in anger, ‘come thou with me, friend, and we will see whether no man will keep thy company! For I am lord of all this land, and I swear that this day thou shalt dine with me in my palace, sitting at my table with me, and may Loki and Svanttowit, Teuston, Vith, and Busteric, Chrodo, Swackenhammer, Irminsul, Hela, Hellwolf, Zernebock,[1] and the whole gang, do their worst with me, if I stand not by thee!’

So they went to the palace, and the pilgrim was bathed and clad in seemly garments; and when the horn was blown for dinner, and the band struck up, lo! there sat the dark man at the royal table, and Roosevelt treated him as he did the other guests.

But the dark man behaved modestly, like any other gentleman, conversing chiefly with Flaxius about foreign countries.

‘There will be a row about this,’ said Flaxius to Breitmann, a northern warrior, who spoke a barbarous Dutch, and who was something of a bard, because he had sung a ‘bardy.’ He was Poet Laureate.

‘You pet all you got on it,’ was the reply. ‘All de small minds who had rader live in a liddle country dan in a pig von, will pe hoppin’ mad. And efery man who has nodding boot a white colour to make him resbectaple, and a crate many pious beople among dem, will fluke and coorse and damn der Roosevelt; for peing too moosh like de Lord Jesus, who did in his vay de fery same ding. I shall have to sing a song apout dis.’

It is certainly true that what Breitmann (who as a poet was also something of a prophet) predicted, came to pass. For there was great rage all over the land, and people cursed, and ‘swore in high Dutch,’ and abused their lord for being morally brave and good; and it was noticed withal that everybody in the land who came of a race which had ever grunted and groaned because it had been ‘persecuted’--and there were a great many of these--all cried out the loudest against ‘the nigger,’ to show their social superiority. But the king, knowing that he had done right before God and man, cared not one broken straw for them all.

‘Go thy ways, O King,’ said Flaxius admiringly, ‘for the best and noblest, kindest and bravest man who ever sat on a throne, and had the least fear to do what is right. Others have been of good descent and brave, some again brave and learned, others as bold and honest, but of them all, thou alone art all, and with it the only one who dared be a friend to the downtrodden and oppressed. Now for this, God bless thee, Roosevelt, and thou shalt be blessed! And even if the future has no more great or glorious deeds for thee, rest content. Thou hast shown more true courage than any monarch before thee ever did, saving Christ, the Lord of all the world.’

Then it came to pass in the year 1901....

But here the chronicle abruptly ends.

History repeats itself.

* * * * *

Now the Laureate kept his word, and made a song, which he sang to a harp, which song travelled from Scheveningen up the Rhine, till it arrived, about a month later, at Cologne. It was thence transferred to Heidelberg by a wandering Minne-singer to Constance, which lies on the Bodensee, as is affirmed in a very ancient ballad, which consists of nothing else but this fact repeated fifty times in different forms, in which it bears a great resemblance to much modern intellectual effort, as displayed in political speeches, sermons, and the like. And from the Bodensee it was colported by divers wandering students and Handwerksburschen through German Switzerland, till one warm day it crossed the Alps and got to Verona or Berne in Lombardy, where I believe it stopped, albeit there is a passage or two in the _Divina Commedia_, which indicate that Dante had possibly come across some rude Italian version of it. And this was the _Lied_, which I have followed closely:

DER NOBLE ROOSEVELT

‘It is writ in many a shtory which came from olden time,
In legends full of glory, in many a minstrel’s rhyme;
Dot he who acted kindly since history began,
And gently to all beople, was der truest gentleman.

And among de very truest of dis kind in der Welt,
As die Rose among de Ritters, I put der Roosevelt;
For brave in dis, or dat, in deed, is many a king or knight,
But Roosevelt’s der only von dot’s brave in all dot’s right.

Grand in der crash of pattle among de cavaliers,
Grand in der rush of warriors among de breakin’ spears,
Vhen Odin to de Northmen his help in glory brings,
Und de Spaniards fly before dem all shkared like avery-dings.

But vhere he show der grandest and rise to der Beyond,
On de oder side of Jordan, above dis eart’ly pond,
Is when he knows he’s in der right he’s efer at his ease,
Und in spite of all de tyfels, will do yoost what he blease.

So Gott be-help him onwards unto a glorious end!
For de trodden-down and lowly efer find in him a friend.
Votefer snobs and copperheads against his name may bring,
Heaven pless dee for dy nople heart, O Roosevelt, my king!

[1] _Zernebock._ It was over this deity that George Borrow came to grief when he ridiculed Walter Scott for making an old Saxon witch swear by him. For the Saxons did adopt Zernebock, though he was the _Cerneboh_ or black god of their Slavonic neighbours.

FLAXIUS AND HAMLET

SHOWING HOW THE PRINCE OF DENMARK, WHEN AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WITTENBERG, LISTENED TO THE LECTURE ON ROMAN HISTORY BY THE LEARNED FLAXIUS, AND WAS TAKEN BY THE LATTER TO A BALL, AND INTRODUCED TO THE FAIRY QUEEN.

‘O valiant Hamlet, and worthy of immortal fame, who, being shrewdly armed with feint of folly, covered a wisdom too high for human wit under a marvellous disguise of want of sense, and in that subtlety found means whereby he did protect himself, and yet revenge the murder of his father long before.’--_Saxo Grammaticus_, Lib. 3.

IT happened once, amid the blaze, the splendour, and the symmetry of the centuries, as they whirled magnificently on--many ere this of ours, yet many more after wise Flaxius had his natal day--that the scholar went to the University of Wittenberg to see what he could pick up in the way of ideas. For, with all his experience and erudition, he was always learning something new, as any man may at any hour in this world school, if he be not too proud to note facts; as somebody’s wisdom hath it in Latin: ‘_Ea est vera nominis existimatio quæ non ex sermonibus, sed ex rebus istis deducitur_’; or, as an Englishman more concisely expressed it: ‘There’s nothing like facts to learn from.’

And being a man of marked, yet modest mien, who conversed in Latin with singular purity, and one who, when he so pleased, could construct his whole discourse out of nothing but quotations from the classics--or from the works of his auditors, which was even more agreeable to them--he was soon held in great esteem. And having read in public a paper, _De vera Essentia Verborum_, in which he demonstrated from A. Artemidorus down to Z. Zoilus, that words have souls, he came to be regarded as _clericus vel addiscens_, almost a professor.

So it befel one day, when a certain teacher named Brunkenstrorphius was incapacitated--owing to fourteen bottles of Rhenish wine the night before--from lecturing, that Flaxius kindly took his place, and read to his class in Roman history, the subject for that day being Nero.

Now, as Flaxius had had the great advantage of having been long personally acquainted with this emperor--to whom he was introduced by Seneca--and had been present by special invitation at the brilliant reception which was lighted by a whole congregation of early Christians rolled in pitch and ignited, had talked with Locusta, and seen the stupendous spectacle of the burning of Rome with an Imperial orchestra of one, and received an estate for exclaiming, ‘_Artes omnes novit Cæsar!_’ and was finally in at the death of that remarkable artist, he had almost as good a conception of the true character of the latter as sundry modern novelists and immoralists, who have so black- or white-washed him by turns that his memory seems to be like the Cathedral of Florence, or a zebra, or a chequer board, or a bad photograph, or what the Liberal and Conservative press in turn declared of G.O.M.--that is to say, an alternation of ebony and ivory, of coal and alabaster, the raven and blanche dove, or a Prussian sentry-box, or a cup jewelled in niello, or Saint Paul’s, or a cardinal’s conscience....

According to Flaxius the emperor was in himself something such a combination, well nigh beyond all the analysis of our modern moral chemistry, the wondrous product of a monstrous age, a terrible Thought elaborated with agony from a mighty but corrupt world, one who, in the true spirit of history, was more a symbol than a man; mere bronze medal from the iron die of his time. The lecturer could well nigh believe that no Nero, _per se_, had ever existed at all, but had been a mere _simulacrum_ or phantom set up in a high place, wherewith the Mighty Powers who rule the world had mocked or lessoned man; a Pharos, or beacon-tower with an effulgent burning-head, standing deeply footed in the freezing-cold, damp, roaring sea--a giant giving light in agony, and warning ships not to approach, and, like old Pharos, fearful in his pride.

There was a kind of daïs or higher range of seats and desks, at which sat only the young noblemen who were studying at the University, and among these was one who, to Flaxius--who was a marvellous reader of men, not only by metoposcopia, or physiognomy, but by all which was indicative of the soul?--seemed to be as far beyond all his fellows as an eagle would be amid the dullest, pettiest featherlings of a barnyard. Yet, though very quietly dignified, he was devoid of that arrogance of rank which displayed itself so conspicuously in every detail of dress, every gesture, and in the very intonation of every word of the aristocracy of that time; for he was truly too much above them to affect even their superiority--a thing in which the German noble of the present day hath still almost everything to learn, especially in Prussia. For even yet among these good folk, well nigh all the joy of life, and mental life itself, consists in the happy reflection that a majority of mankind are (by law, at least) their _inferiors_; which stupendous idea (it being generally their only possible one) they contemplate even as a Hindu saint contemplates God, to the exclusion of all other conception. This reflection has been concisely made into a law of ethical science by one of their number, an Austrian named Von Mannteufel, in the words, ‘_Humanity, properly speaking, begins with the rank of count._’

This young nobleman was, indeed, so elevated in rank that he could well afford to dispense with vanity, since he was heir-apparent to the throne of Denmark. His name was Hamlet, and there was that in his appearance which would indicate--to even a less clairvoyant eye than that of Flaxius--an original character of the strongest type, devoid of the eccentricity which attracts comment, learned in philosophy without pedantry, endowed with a personal grace of manner suggesting natural courtesy and a marvellous observation by a quiet eye--all of which might be seen in him by all. But Flaxius noted in him something far deeper: a soul which, if not yet risen, was rapidly rising above the storm and whirl of all things in life and time, be they great or small, so as to behold in them all the mere passing show of a drama, yet feeling all the time that _in that drama_ there would be incidents which would wreck this mere mortal life and wrench his soul with agony. He who has this tremendous dual action to undergo in life--that of being a true philosopher, yet a great sufferer--will assuredly have a strange foreboding of it, and to such a mind the idea of Nero, as presented by Flaxius, in its similar doubleness, was a marvellous revelation. He had long suffered from that problem which a great poet has expressed by saying that--

‘Not in that strife,
Wherefrom I take strange lore and read it deep,
Can I find reason why _I_ should be thus:
No--nowhere can unriddle, though I search
And pore on Nature’s universal scroll
Even to swooning, why Divinities,
The first born of all shaped and palpable gods,
Should cower beneath what, in comparison,
Is untremendous Might.’

All of which Flaxius the immortal, who could read the soul in the glance, and who saw that he had before him one into whose essence Immortality had cast its brightest rays, deeply divined. So it came that he lectured to Hamlet alone, rising far beyond the rest of the audience. And, mindful of his man, who, he felt, was thirsting to think, he made good long pauses, which his auditors deemed were to give himself rests to make new bounds.

The lecture was at an end, and Hamlet, by a sign, intimated to his friends that he would fain be left alone. When all were departed, he, with courtesy beyond the time, arose and approached the professor, and said:

‘Learned master, thou hast touched with such unerring hand the harp-strings of my heart, and drawn from it such marvellous chords that I would gladly have them combined in more coherent melody. Even as a bee in a bewildered flight, driven by the wind, at chance may light upon----’

‘A flower,’ said Flaxius, ‘which gives him rest.’

‘And in which, too, he finds a honey-store, such as he never found in flight before,’ subjoined the prince gently.

‘Yet around which some curling petals close somewhat too tightly for his eager search,’ added Flaxius, almost with a smile. ‘Truly to thee who art born to be a prince among more than mortals, I will gladly lend what aid I can to clear away the tangling, hindering leaves.’

‘Learned master,’ replied the prince, ‘I would first deeply reflect on what I have heard, since I as yet toil slowly after you. And if it be your pleasure, I pray you seek me this evening in my library.’

‘I will be there,’ said Flaxius, ‘with joy.’

* * * * *

Flaxius the Immortal, and the prince who was unconsciously an aspirant for immortality, sat at a table under antique, grotesquely carved arches, before them a flask of Rhenish, and the works of Hesiod and Homer. In the face of the Master there was the calm dignity of centuries; in that of Hamlet the quiet of a summer sea, beneath which tides are working which may break bounds in time of storm. They had long held deep discourse, and during the time Flaxius had penetrated more deeply with every utterance into the soul of the young man. At last, after a pause, the Master said:

‘He who has risen so far as to find a reality in the tremendous action of the infinite in nature, and who has dwelt so long and earnestly on the change of dynasties of gods from Saturn to Jove, of old worlds into new, on man in his stormiest moods and the rabbit sporting in the thicket, birds and clouds and life still circling on, till all such thoughts are most habitual--has gone too far to retreat. He has advanced beyond his fellows. If he be weak and break down under the stupendous load he will go mad, and readily will men esteem him so, as they do all whom they cannot understand. If he succeed, they may deem him a poet or a god. But the imbroglio is sadly worse when the man is not a hermit, or one alone in life, who can battle freely with his destiny. If he be one who is enmeshed in some dire tragedy with others, which he, being human, must humanly endure and suffer, and yet is always having his wonted glimpses of the infinite, as prisoners catch glimpses of the sun, then he has before him such a battle and a strife as deserve to bend the decree of fate for very pity. Those who achieve victory over it all live for ever. Now know there are two lives beyond the grave: one the vital life which ever was, and can never pass away; the other the life of our great deeds, imperishable in the mind of man.’

‘Ay,’ replied the prince, ‘and I feel in my deepest soul, great master, not only that thou speakest truth, but thou ne’er wouldst tell me this, didst thou not divine by some mystic power, all unknown to me, that I am destined to such warring woe? Worst of all is it for me that I have added into all of this the _weakness_ which must be truly overcome, a wax in the bronze which must be melted out, a love of sleep and ease and pleasant dreams.’

‘Go on, thou hast more to say,’ replied Flaxius.

‘Well, this remains,’ rejoined the prince, after a long pause, a draught of wine, and casting his glance briefly at the scrolls before him.... ‘In all these lives of mortals in the past, who rose by power to immortality, I find some golden glimpse vouchsafed to them of the supernatural, some comforting assurance of beings now invisible to me, of gods, guardian angels--“followers,” as my northern ancestors called them, or the beautiful _Fylgia_ who flit over the ocean after the heroes whom they protect. Truly, if I could only so much as see and talk once with moonlight fairies and merry elves, or a sprightly goblin, I, being only human, should have some strengthening assurance that life is not all a struggle with mere mortals and matter. Even in so little as what I ask, I should realise that I shall live. Do I speak wisely?’

‘Yes,’ replied Flaxius, ‘there are men dying with hunger whom a crumb may save. This much may be granted to thee. ’Tis little enough. All over doth this outer life an inner life enfold, one of exquisite beauty and grace, as the rough seaweed and grim, ugly moss, and ragged madrepores, and hard crust envelop the exquisitely curved, snow-and-rose-bloom, blushing shell, the only thing on earth which is like in hues to a lovely maiden. Around and about us there circles ever in viewless beauty and undreamed perfume, moving to music all unheard by man, a thronging host of attendant beings; following sweet missions and holy biddings; talking in mystic tongues, of which echoes may be caught in the breeze, in the forest, and in tinkling springs or falling fountains. Truly, I forget myself when I abstract my mind an instant towards them from this our earthly sphere. Yes, ’tis but little for thee to ask, who hast before thee such a destiny, to live immortal in a poet’s verse! Yes, I will give it, and with all my heart, and thou shalt see the light invisible, and hear the music never meant for ears, to such degree as a beginner may. I see thee smile--well, be it when thou wilt; but, as thy wont is, thou requirest time to think on what I’ve said. Go, take an hour. There lies not far beyond the city gate, in a wild place among the lonely rocks, an old and crumbling castle, which all men shun as a haunted place; and in its hall fairies and goblins hold their revelry from midnight till the morning red is seen. Thither together we will wend our way.’

‘It might seem marvellous to me,’ said Flaxius, as he, with Hamlet, walked forth in the summer night under the stars, ‘that thou, O Prince, who livest in the contemplation of greater marvels, who seest the miracle of the growth of flowers and the wonders of the circling universe which amaze even the spirits of earth and air, shouldst crave a mere glimpse of that which is after all only something new and unaccustomed, did I not know how deeply the desire of what is new to him is implanted in man. Yes, it is so deep that he who masters the problem treads on the verge of the Infinite. I myself----’

But here he paused and said: ‘Yonder rises the tower, built, as tradition tells, by a sorcerer who, chanting a spell, with every word broke from the rock a stone, or conjured dust and air to solid blocks, and moved them into place. And ’tis no more than man himself will do in days to come; and none will deem the deed a miracle. Hence it is written in ancient chronicles, _in veterum libris observatum est hoc fieri_, that the building has ever been haunted, _nymphæis et fatis_, and by those strange spirits of the elements, whose homes being in the crimson gold of sun-dyed skies, or deep in earth, where marvellous gems and metals abound; or in forests; like the _Silvani_ and _Oreades_; or in streams like the _Naïades_, have by natural affinity a passionate love for poetry, and all that is rare and beautiful, wild or strange, be it in what form it may. For as nature is not only lovely and comely in her very self, becoming more so the deeper we penetrate her veriest being as _natura naturans_, so is she also in her freer actions often gaily contradictory, merrily and quaintly discordant; jingling bells to her sweetest music, and singing sweet _ritournelles_ of violets over grey and ancient graves. For every one of which freaks, be they as mad as they may, there is some echo of a goblin, Flibbertigibbet, fairy, implet, bogle, browny, pixie, urchin, Puck, Robin Goodfellow, ouphe or oaf, nixey or pixey, duergar or troll, sprite or pigwiggin, sylph or sea-girl, salamander or fire-maid, Heintzelmann or Waldmeister, Kobold or Bergmannlein as here called, siren, satyr, or faunus, lemur or lamia; yea, and thereunto as many more as this outer crust of creation hath manifestations, which in themselves are ideas and immortal types, with a life such as science hath not as yet apprehended, though it will also be clearly known in ages to come. For know, O Prince,’ continued Flaxius, with an air which had in it something of the poet and the god, ‘that in due time will dawn upon the world a science, of which some of the learned now have not the faintest scent or touch, which after denying and destroying the gods, goblins, and devils, _in toto corpore_, as now believed in, will end by showing them in matter and in truth, and that in a thousand times more marvellous form than any fairy-tale maker ever fashioned or felt. For little as he knows it, man, instead of leaving the marvellous behind him in remote ages, began, in truth, utterly without it, and is now advancing towards and into it, with giant footsteps. Ah, here we are at the gate of the elfin-castle,

“which men did raise
In the ancient giant and goblin days
When they sat with ghosts on the stormy shore,
And spake in a tongue they speak no more!”

‘Now for a season be a child again.’

As they stood at the gate of the silent pile, they heard, far, far away over many a hill and dale, the crowing of a cock, and the faint chimes of midnight from the town, and then the cry of a sentinel owl from the green-tapestried elfin-tower. To which Flaxius briefly replied in a strange utterance of some fairy kind, when the gate opened, and they found themselves in a scene, which would not have appeared quite unfamiliar to any child who has beheld a gorgeous and exceptionally tasteful _féerique_ in Paris, or an unusually marvellous Christmas pantomime in London, combining all the splendours of Aladdin’s palace with all the goblinries of Mother Goose, save that _this_ was a thousand times more splendid, more varied, more grotesque, and more amazing. And having entered, Prince Hamlet stood by the door rapt in utter admiration at the marvellous art which in ever-changing, never-resting beauty and quaintness, was displayed before him.

‘The witches have their Sabbat in the Blocksberg,’ said Flaxius; ‘the fairies and all their kin hold their own grand merry-makings, but much oftener, being merrier folk, here and elsewhere. Witches and devils select scenery suited to their taste; fairies conjure up their bright magnificence and airy shows most gladly. In Germany they revel in ancient halls of castles such as this, in imitation of the mortals who preceded them, as is shown by the marvellous legend of the old Count von Hoya.’

‘And _that_?’ said Hamlet.

‘Was only this: that the fairies came to the old count and begged him to lend them his great hall for a ball for a single night, with the condition that he, the master, might be present, but that no other mortal eye should behold the revel. So at the midnight hour:

In they came tripping,
Fairy-maids, elfin-men,
Little and beautiful,
Golden, gem-glittering,
Two-fold or triple-fold,
Ten-fold and twenty-fold,
Till the great hall,
Splendidly lighted,
Looked like the crown,
Thickly bejewelled,
Of a great monarch.

So they danced, as you see. And the jolly old Graf danced with them.

Small was the lady
Who was his partner;
Three inches high.
Often he lost her
In the gay multitude,
Seeking her, finding her;
Often he picked her up
Twixt thumb and finger,
By her small wings,
Even as children
In summer catch butterflies.

When all at once there was a dead pause. The music ceased, the dancing stopped, while from above was heard an awful, scolding, human voice. It was that of the old Countess von Hoya, who having heard the music, she sleeping above, lifted a trap-door and looked down at the spectacle. Truly she was in a great rage to see such a festive scene to which she was not invited. It all died out like an extinguished taper. Tradition says that the queen of the fairies gave the count in reward for his kindness a miraculous sword, ring, and horn, which his family still preserve; but to punish the countess, laid a ban upon her descendants, that there should never be at one time more than one heir of the name, and it has ever been thus as predicted.’

‘So in this life even spirits mimic man. A man confirms all things unto himself,’ replied Hamlet. ‘This is a brilliant scene, surpassing dreams,’ he continued, as the elfin guests came pouring in, ‘but I note that they are not all butterfly-minikins.’

Which was quite true, for they were of all sizes, from that of smaller humanity or lesser youth, down to the tiniest sprites who hide in honeysuckles, and wear rose-leaves for cloaks. Among them all Hamlet and Flaxius towered like giants; nor did they seem out of place, since in the mien and eyes of both there was the expression of something not of earth or common life, which is never absent from such men, but which here, in the mysterious magic light which filled the hall, coming from no visible source, seemed to proclaim itself with tenfold power.

At the further end of the apartment was a throne of unknown splendour and material, in which were intertwined thousands of strange characters, red and black like ruby and sable onyx. It seemed as if it might be a fairy antique, ancient of the ages, and on it sat, under exquisite rainbow drapery, a female form, of such ineffable loveliness that Hamlet murmured to Flaxius that he had found in it a new ideal for beauty--it so surpassed, yet was so different from all he had ever dreamed of woman’s charms. Thereupon the queen, for such she was--who heard and perceived all things--looking at them, smiled, and beckoned an approach, when all the small folk parted right and left, leaving a lane by which they went their way unto the throne. And bowing low before her, Flaxius, holding Hamlet by the hand, said in tones of marvellous melody, learned of yore in the magic schools of Etruria:

‘To thee, All-Beautiful!
Type of all Loveliness!
Queen of the Elfin world!
Life of all Fairy Land!
I with all reverence
Bring a young mortal, Hamlet of Danamark,
One little witting
What immortality
He may inherit,
Shouldst thou bestow on him
Thy benediction!’

To this the Fairy Queen, gazing on Hamlet as with intense interest, in which sympathy and deep pity were most perceptible, replied in tones which might have checked the torrent in its course or called the eagle, wooing him to hear:

‘Well do I know thee,
Hamlet of Danamark!
Seldom was mortal,
Born to such sorrows
Never did mortal
Grapple more bravely
With a grim destiny
Than thou art fated
To find in the future.’

Hamlet, in the same staff-rhyme, but in Danish skald-tone, which was his humble best, replied:

‘As to the swimmer,
A sea-wolf before him;
As to the traveller,
Grimmest bear meeting;
Or as the wren,
With the owl over her,
Is the foreboding
Of a great Norna
Unto the fated.
But when the Norna
Is Queen of all Beauty,
Mingling iron destiny
With golden compassion,
Giving the bitter
In honey well-coated;
Gently and tenderly;
Little the fated one
Recks what may happen.
[Mishap and misfortune
Are meted to many,
Few among mortals
Ever escape them.]
If the All-Loveliest
Gives him her pity
He’s to be envied.’

Now as Flaxius was the politest man at heart on the face of the earth, while the Fairy Queen was incarnate politeness itself, this lyric, which had such a charming accompaniment of courtesy as went beyond music, made the most favourable impression. And the Sage having, as court etiquette then required, uttered his first words in metre, now expressed himself plainly in prose, saying:

‘Beautiful Spirit of the Strangely Beautiful, who alone givest to poetry the elfin-charm of _Romance_, well do I ween that this young Prince of Denmark is so entirely thy subject, and one so noble in truthfulness, and so true in his devotion to thy charm, that he has not uttered a word of flattery, in saying that the direst misfortune of life seems to him to be but a little thing, since he has gazed on thy face and felt thy sympathy. And truly, unto any on whom the Queen of Faerie and Romance has once really smiled, this world and all its woes need seem but a little thing, since it is perfect assurance of an immortal life beyond. But, I pray thee, make this clearer to him, that he may leave with a lighter heart and be the better able to endure his fate!’

The queen, as if deeply reflecting and as deeply moved, replied in gravely measured, softly modulated voice:

‘Nepenthe soothes the vulgar mind alone; to the higher soul unfading amaranth brings in time forgetfulness of pain endured, and bestows keenest enjoyment of the glory to come in the far future. Romance and poetry in purity and power can bend the decree of fate, and that boon I bestow on thee, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark! Listen, for I predict that thy life shall be a poem--and in days to come, long after thy earthly sufferings shall be to thee as naught, I will create my greatest work in the Greatest Poet of Romance whom the world will ever know. And he shall sing thy life in his greatest song, and wherever on earth true poetry is loved and known thou shalt be known and loved with it. This can be done and this I swear to do. Thine be the amaranth--I can no more. In proof whereof I place upon thy arm this golden ring of amaranthine form.’

And as she spoke, all seemed to fade before his sight. Only to the last he felt deeply gazing into his soul with infinite love and sympathy the violet eyes of the Queen of Fairy-land and of Romance.

When he awoke it was early morning. He lay on soft moss amid the crumbling ruins of the old castle--in sunlight, hearing bird-song all about him. By his side sat the Sage.

‘He would have thought it all a dream,
Save that upon his arm
Was bound the gift of the Fairy Queen:
Titania’s wondrous charm.’

‘_Tempus est abeundi_,’ quoth Flaxius. ‘’Tis time for us to go! But, _litera scripta manet_, what is written by fate will come to pass, O Hamlet, my son, and dear and gracious Prince. Breakfast awaits us, and I must think over what I am to say in my lecture on the Emperor Titus.’

HOW FLAXIUS MADE THE FORTUNE OF EADWARD THE GRANDSON OF AEOLFRIC

‘It is wise for youth to bow to age’s wisdom.’--_Norse Proverb._

‘For truth is one and right is ever one.’--_Spenser’s Faerie Queene._

IT was in the very old time of merry England. In the days when there was so much merriment among those who were above the line of safety, and so much misery for those who were below it as would have appalled a modern sociologist. When a man who was out of prison, and not positively starving to death, contrived to be happy. When, according to the testimony of all writers from Caedmon down very nearly to Chaucer, there was such suffering from all kinds of oppression among the poor as to make the heart sick to think of it. Out of which very time there has come to us such gay and festive song and chording of harps, twanging of citterns, ringing of goblets, gay hurrahing, archery, dancing round maypoles and valentining as to make one thrill with joy to think of it. For the only rule of life then was:

‘Eat, drink, and be merry while ye can,
For to-morrow we’ll perish, be sure, my man;
Make the most of what fate will lend you,
Then go wherever the priest may send you!’

And it was in the north, at a time when Anglo-Saxon and Danish-Icelandic were beginning to be English, and there was still much sound old heathenism in men’s hearts, and witches rode over the midnight sky, while fairies danced in moon-lit rings below--then it was, I say, that the immortal Flaxius paused one fair day on his pedestrian path in Northumberland.

‘A tall spreading forest there he found,
With a woodman at work mid oak-trees near,
The strokes of his axe broke the silence round,
Till the traveller called aloud, “Come here!”’

And he that was called came, and Flaxius looked at him steadily ere he spoke, but with evident approbation and interest. He was a young and lithe but strong and vigorous man, handsome, almost to beauty, in face, with a straight nose and a keen, dark eye, in which there was indeed naught repulsive, but something strange, such as one sees in the glances of uncanny folk who know things of which they do not speak to their neighbours. His dress was but little superior to that of the ordinary peasant, but there was something in the manner in which it was worn, as well as in the bold mien, and almost graceful bearing of the youth, which indicated rank or ‘birth.’

‘God be with ye!’ said Flaxius to the woodman. ‘I would fain rest here a while and chop a few words with thee, so thou be not too busy with thy chopping of wood.’

‘Nay,’ replied the youth, with a quaint pursing of the mouth, ‘many strokes fell great oaks, and many words bring merry jokes; while as for the resting never yet saw I the time when I would not pause to listen to those who are wiser than I am:

“He who listeneth to eld, Himself shall be in honour held.”

As my grandfather was wont to teach me with many a brave tale to prove it.’

‘Thy grandfather,’ replied Flaxius, who had meanwhile studied his face more attentively, ‘was Aeolfric Adelwit, whom men called the learned and the traveller.’

‘By Freia!--I mean the Holy Virgin!’--exclaimed the youth astonished and delighted, ‘thou art either a wizard or one who knew him, and it may be,’ he added, lowering his voice and looking round suspiciously, ‘perhaps a bit of both, for my grandfather who is now, I trust, in Valhall among the heroes and sages--I mean in heaven among the saints--was called a sorcerer by the fools hereabouts.’

Flaxius smiled. Each looked at the other with one eye closed; the Sage shutting the right, and the youth the left, which is the sign by which the initiated of all grades recognise one another, and the one generally used by Mahatmas and others in the Karma business--as it was by the augurs of yore--when there were true believers present or under discussion.

‘I was even about to take my noon-day rest,’ said the woodman, ‘and if it please you to partake my poor meal--thin cider and bread and bacon--I would it were for your sake wine and a capon!’

‘Knowest thou, O Eadward, grandson of Aeolfric,’ said Flaxius solemnly, ‘that whoever made a wish in that moment past--at that special position of the planets--but unwittingly--obtained it. Behold!’

And saying this he opened the basket which the youth had taken from under a thicket, and opening it drew forth a large cold roasted capon, a manchet of bread, and a mighty flask, with fruit.

‘By the divine banquet of the boar _Sahrimnir_!--I mean the Holy Supper!’--cried the youth, ‘thou hast come in a lucky hour to get a snack, O blessed traveller!’

‘Therefore,’ exclaimed Flaxius, producing a great silver goblet from his pack, which he filled from the flask, ‘therefore, O my son, _drink_!’ And just then the sunlight catching the stream awoke in it a wide-spreading, ruddy gleam, and his whole face, yea his very form, seemed to be bathed and steeped in ruby, ruddy light, as a piece of red glass in a cathedral window. And so he looked more like a glorious Bacchus, or merry Jupiter, transfigured and idealised into a gay glory in a sun-set sky, wherein the early stars were piping merrily a roundelay for vespers, and the clouds like fauns did cluster round to hear.

‘I have seen my grandfather, by Saint Eadward!’ said the youth, for once getting in a Christian swear successfully, ‘draw good ale from a hole bored in a beech-tree, which was thought to be a wondrous sorcery--I meant miracle--by the folk hereabout. But he never managed such a tap as _this_,’ he exclaimed, as he took a pull, which might have half emptied the Gialahorn, and would have excited the envy of the _Hornbruderschaft_, or Hard-Drinking Brotherhood, founded by the great Bishop Johann von Manderscheit in the castle of Hoh-Barr.

‘And by Odin who was fed on wine alone!’ (here he balanced the religious equation), ‘and like his holy cup, it refills itself!’

‘I bestow it on thee, Eadward, grandson of Aeolfric, for thy grandsire’s sake,’ said Flaxius; ‘and it shall remain full, I swear, so long as thou remainest an honest man, a true kind heart, friendly to those in need, and a good, valiant, joyous drinker and _bon compagnon_. _Waes hael!_’ he added, taking a draught which was indeed _pari passu_ with that of Eadward’s:

‘Like and like do gladly greet,
Same with joy the same doth meet,
One good turn deserves another,
Therefore drink with me, O brother;
Even as in days of yore,
Commodus, Rome’s Emperor,
Drank his boon companions dumb:
_Exsuperantissimum_!’

‘_Trinc hael!_’ replied Eadward, with a look of deep, steadfast, honest gratitude. ‘And as I cannot speak my thanks, O my greatest benefactor, therefore do I drink them!’

Nor was the young Norse-Saxon, as he said this, far unlike a jolly troll or faun himself, for the glowing golden red of sun- and wine-light shone over him and glinted in his hair, which was like waves of topaz, hanging over his eyes and rolling down his shoulders like a tufted oriole or aureole.

‘When autumn browneth wood on hill,
And the nights are growing chill,
Then upon ye wagon strong,
Ye see caskés borne along,
Black and foul without as sin,
Full of wine and ale within;
Red fire wine and golden ale,
Where from many drinken hale,
With merry song and minstrelsie:
As I do drink, all-heart, to thee!’

And he who had peeped into that shady dell on that summer day and seen the pair, amid green leaves gay, with the wondrous wizard _aura_ or rich flood of wine-light all round them, as they caroused and sang, would have verily believed he saw two joyous pagan sylvan gods who, hidden well away behind the age, had met to live the gay old times again.

‘And now tell me, Eadward,’ said Flaxius, ‘to a hair, how it goes with thee in life?’

‘My grandfather, as thou knowest,’ replied the youth, ‘was learned, and had travelled in many lands. He went to Norway, whence he never returned. It was said that when King Olaf Tryggvason assembled all the wise men in the old heathen religion in a house to which he set fire, and in which they were burned alive, my grandsire also perished. And it was a cursed deed, whoever did it. Something of Latin and other lore I learned from my grandfather, who bade me keep it ever a secret, saying that “he is a fool who shows his lore to any save to his superiors therein.” But what land my grandsire left, my father lost, so that all I have now is a field and a wood and mine own arms. Yet with some wit, and selling and trading cattle, I keep my home, truly in no great style.’

Flaxius mused and said, ‘I knew thy grandfather, and though he was not far advanced as a magian, yet he had fairy blood from distant strain, and he was, above all things, a good and honest man. And it is among us a duty to aid the descendants of all such men, when they are deserving. Now I will help thee to help thyself; but note well, Eadward, never in thy life didst thou so need every virtue as thou wilt need them now to succeed. For this is the usual secret of rising to Fortune. Some friend puts our feet on the first step of the ladder, or guides us to it, but we must climb the rest ourselves.’

‘Something like this,’ said Eadward, ‘did I once hear from my grandfather:

‘“Look well round thee with thine eyes,
Where’er thou art, if thou wouldst rise;
It is not by a single flight,
But step by step we gain the height.
So up the tree the emmet goes,
Even as Rolf the Giver rose.”’

‘Well sung,’ quoth Flaxius, ‘and pass the cup! Now take this dried leaf.’ He gave to the youth a doubled strip of parchment, like a thin book, in which was indeed a leaf.

‘To-night or to-morrow go, bathed and fasting, to bed. Then eat this leaf and note what thou shalt dream. Do exactly to a hair what thou mayst be told to do--nothing more nor less. After that all will depend on thy own good sense, courage, and kindness. And when one year shall have passed by thou wilt see me again, to render count of all that thou hast done.’

So they parted with kind words, the youth to try his fortune, and Flaxius, like Odin, ever onwards to the North.

* * * * *

A year had passed, and the Immortal Sage sat in a wild and adventurous-looking place, deep buried amid lonely woods and cliffs, by a headlong torrent, before the Odin-stone, a strangely shaped rock, seeming like a Druidic megalith, through which there was a hole of a foot in diameter. It was a striking object, and Flaxius well knew it had a tale. For he had been there and then.

He heard the trampling of a horse in the woods. He looked up and saw a magnificent steed, on which sat a knight in splendid attire. The rider dismounted; it was Eadward; and the two embraced.

‘Yea, I have the flask, and it has never run dry,’ said the youth, producing it.

‘That tells a good tale,’ replied Flaxius. So they filled and drank. ‘And now let me hear the details.’

‘Make spede is a good rede,’ replied the knight. ‘This is the story which I set before ye.

‘As you bade, I ate the leaf, and went to bed. And in a dream there came to me a white lady or a _Norna_. Such beauty did I never see before. And she said, “Eadward, grandson of Aeolfric, go to-morrow to the Odin-stone, even where we now are, and watch for one hour. Then do as thou wilt.” Word no more spake she, but vanished, and I awoke.

‘So I went with my cross-bow and knife to the stone. And here I watched for one hour, yet I saw nothing. Then, as I was about to go, I saw a strange thing. For there came creeping through the hole in the stone a fox. And such a fox I never saw before, for it was of a beautiful tawny, soft, golden colour; and on it was a large black cross. And though I was in awe, something--it seemed like a voice--bade me slay it. I did so, and skinned it, and wrapped the skin and put it in my bag, and went my way.

‘Now there is--it may be half a day’s walk from here--a rock on which Ulf the Dane, in olden time after a great battle, had carved the image of a wolf, with runic knots and letters, very curious to behold, and there I paused a while to rest. And, anon, there came to me a man, an outlander, as I weened; but he pleased me, and we held discourse. He was not rich of apparel, but he had this horse here, and a better I never saw; for truly, by Sleipnir!--I mean by the White Steed of Death seen by Saint John!--there is not its like in all the land.

‘So we talked, and I gave him of my wine. And we spake of elves and wizards and dreams. And then he said, “I will tell thee a strange tale; for indeed it was a dream which brought me hither, but, I fear, to little purpose and no good, as the troll said of the long talk which ended by his being turned to stone.

‘“And this,” he said, “is sooth and truth.” And he sang:

‘“Unto King Ulfbrand
Thus spake the wise man,
He the deep learned
Servant of Frey:
‘Danger is over thee,
Wild screaming war eagle
On the moss-grown tree,
By the white cataract,
Calleth on death to thee!
And the claw of the bear
Has scratched runes on the beech-tree;
And thy realm will be lost
Unless thou winnest
The skin of a fox
Of colour pale golden,
With a black cross.’

‘“Now the king was sore afraid, and offered his daughter to any of his nobles who could win him the prize. And I, with small hope, asked a witch, one whom I had greatly befriended--yea, saved her life and given her shelter. And she studied her spells seven days and nights with great pain, and then bid me obey my first dream. And I dreamed that I should trust in and abide by a wolf for three days. And coming here by chance I heard this rock called the Wolf; and so at hap-hazard here I have remained, but nothing has come of it, and I fear me that nothing will.”

‘Then it came into my mind,’ said Eadward, ‘hearing this, that I myself should go to King Ulfbrand and win a great reward. And yet again that this would be foul play to the man before me, and that thou, Flaxius, didst bid me to be generous and true. So I prayed in my soul to all the gods.’

(‘And a sweetly-mixed mythology thou hast, my dear boy!’ reflected Flaxius.)

‘And then said to the man, taking the skin from my bag: “Is not this what thou seekest? Take it in God’s name, for I believe it should be thine.”

‘Then he turned white and red for joy and amazement, and said:

‘“I will not haggle and cheapen with thee like a pedler, for ill fate befalls the man who is mean in buying such things. All that I have in this world, save my land, is this horse and ten gold pieces and I give them to thee, and I would I had more.” So I took his horse, but I gave him two gold pieces for his journey as fare-gold, and so he went his way.

‘But I rode on, unthinking and wondering whether I had done wisely, yet hoping hard as did Gautrek when he fought the bear. When, following a road, I came upon a horse which had been hard ridden, with bloody sides. It seemed to be dying, and yet anon, a furlong further in the woods, I found a noble knight, lying by a brook, who seemed in as evil case as the horse, for he was sore-bruised and could hardly move, and barely speak.

‘Then I asked him what it meant and he replied in pain:

‘“For two days I have fled before a band of foemen who will be here anon. And they seek my life.”

‘Then I gave him to drink from thy flask, O master, and verily it was a marvellous thing to behold how it revived him. For he rose up and said:

‘“Had I thy horse I might even yet escape. There are men who would fight thee for it, but thou hast, I think, saved me with thy wine and I will do naught in dishonour. But if thou lovest God and hast man’s faith in truth, I pray thee lend me thy steed, and it will be no loss to thee.”

‘As he spoke I heard far away a sound as of a mountain brook, and I knew it was men riding at full speed, and as it became like a clatter of hail and wind, I cried:

‘“Take another drink of wine and mount my horse in the names of Odin and Christ, and ride for thy life!”

‘And he did, but paused to draw a ring from his finger and say: