Chapter VI: Part 6

Now, that same evening, when bedtime came, Olaf the Fair pressed his face against the cold bars of the window and stared wistfully at the spangled blue-blackness outside. He thought with envy of the shepherd-boy out there all alone on the hidden hill. For the little king yearned to go out while darkness was spread over the earth. How mysterious the world looked! What, he wondered, happened to all the ordinary daylight things during the night? If he were outside would he be able to see his shadow and what would the flowers and the trees be doing?

After he had climbed into his high, soft, golden bed, the queen came in to say good night.

“Oh, mother!” he said, snuggling into her white arms, “I’ve done such a dreadful, dreadful lot of lessons to-day.”

“Poor little Olaf,” said the Queen, kissing her son.

“Oh, mother,” the little king continued, “I saw such a nice boy to-day out on the hill. And isn’t he lucky? He doesn’t do any lessons at all, and he’s allowed to stay out by himself with nothing but a lot of sheep. Mayn’t I have some nice woolly sheep to play with, mother?”

“Sheep aren’t toys, Olaf. They’re duties, like lessons. The boy must have been a shepherd.”

“Duties, are they, mother? Then I’d much rather do sheep than do lessons. But was he a real shepherd, that boy? Why, he’s only my age! Oh, mother, can’t I be a shepherd?”

“You are a sort of shepherd, Olaf. But you’ve got human beings to look after instead of animals. I want you to be so good a king that I shall be proud that you were my baby. That’s why you have to work so hard.”

“I do try, mother. But I wish I was a proper out-of-doors shepherd. And please, mother, must I always wear my crown? It is so heavy, and it bites my forehead.”

“Yes, darling. I am afraid you must. Your crown is to remind you that you are a king and not your own master. Now go to sleep and dream that you are a shepherd and have to shiver out of doors in all the cold and wet. You’d soon be glad to wake up in your own bed.”

But Olaf the Fair was not to be persuaded.

“I’d love to be out in the rain!” he exclaimed. “I hate indoors, and I’d like to be dressed in a dead sheep.”

Days, weeks, months passed away, and Olaf the Fair and Olaf the Dark still continued to think of one another. More and more did the little king weary of the long lessons which kept him indoors and of all the solemn attendants who surrounded him. More and more did he pine to be free and wander at will over the hillside. Above all he yearned to go out into the night and feel the darkness. When he looked up at the sad, solemn moon, he would thrill with a strange, unaccountable excitement. The moon! She flooded the earth with a queer, transforming light that drew him out of all sleepiness and made his soul shiver till his body became too excited to lie still. Passionately he envied the shepherd-boy out there in the darkness, playing his flute beneath the pine trees. One night the longing grew too strong, and, as he tossed on his golden bed, it flashed into his memory that the bars of the window in the great hall were wide enough apart to allow his body to squeeze through them. (This was long before even kings had glass in their windows.)

He sat upright. The leaves of the trees just outside rustled mysteriously and tiny twigs tapped against the bars, beckoning him out of bed. Yes, his mind was made up. He was going to escape and run out into the strange silvery light that the moon was making. With hammering heart he slid from his high bed and tiptoed towards the door. There was a low growl, and the mastiff raised his huge head. Oh, heavens, if he were to bark, or follow, he would surely arouse the man who slept just outside across the door! But, fortunately, Olaf remembered the bone he was to give his dog next morning, and in a moment busy sounds of scrunching and gulping filled the room.

One danger passed. But now Olaf must step across the body of the man who, with a dagger in his mouth, guarded his royal master’s door. Supposing the man were awake. Then the adventure would become impossible and Olaf would have to return to the dreariness of trying to go to sleep. Trembling, he turned the handle and pulled the door towards him. Regular breathing reassured him. The man was fast asleep. Softly as snow falls on snow, the boy stepped across the huge form and hastened on swift feet down the long, empty corridor. Shafts of moonlight gleamed through the round windows and shone on the armour stacked against the wall. How strange the palace seemed in this light!

A little scared, Olaf slipped down the wide, shallow steps of the huge staircase. Now he was in the great hall. The night wind blew in and the tapestries trembled on the walls. Olaf shivered with something that was more than cold. High up in the sky a pale moon raced through white trailing clouds. She looked as if she were being pursued.

“I must get out! I must get out!” said Olaf aloud. “I must get out and run after her.”

He reached the window and seized the bars. Oh, heavens, what was this? Consternation crushed into his heart, for crisscross along the iron bars there now ran new horizontal ones. Alas! alas! he had adventured too late. Impossible now to squeeze through to liberty. His palace was a prison. In vain he tugged at the cruel bars. They could not even be shaken. He stamped his foot. Strong sobs shook his small body; tears scalded his eyes.

But what was this he saw through the dancing blur of his tears? Exactly opposite, a face stared through at him! The moon had raced behind a cloud and her light was dim. Was he looking into a mirror instead of out of doors? No, this pale face was surrounded with dark hair, and now his fingers felt the touch of other warm fingers. Yes, other hands were clasping the forbidding bars, and sobs that were not his own fell on his ear. The moon again sailed forth into the open sky and clearly Olaf the Fair recognised the face of the shepherd-boy, the constant thought of whom had so much quickened his discontent. Yes, it was Olaf the Dark, who, shivering from the cold, stood outside and wistfully gazed at the warmth and wealth within.

The one craning in, the other craning out, the two boys stared at one another.

“Why are you crying, Boy?” asked Olaf the Fair.

“Because I can’t get in,” sobbed the little shepherd. “Why are you crying?”

“Because I can’t get out,” sobbed the little king.

“Do you want to get _in_?” }
} shrilled two surprised voices.
“Do you want to get _out_?” }

“Funny!” they both said, and their next sobs rode up on the top of two little laughs and their tears fell into the cracks made by their smiles.

Yes, they both laughed and the laughter stretched their hearts, so that Understanding could enter in and open the door to Contentment. Some people can only laugh at jokes. If you can laugh at your life even while it makes you cry, you have learnt more than a thousand schoolroom lessons can teach you, and your face will be safe from ever growing ugly through sullenness.

“Why ever do you want to get in here?” asked the king.

“Because it looks so lovely—all gorgeous and glowing. I want to know what it feels like inside. I’m so cold—I’m quite blue and I mustn’t go home till morning breaks. I thought I’d squeeze through the bars and ‘catch warm’ and then go back to my sheep. There they are. Do you hear their bells? But why ever do you want to get out?”

“Because I hate the palace. Ugh! It’s a great big prison. Besides, I want to feel the moonlight, dance in it, alone and free, and I want to be cold. I’ve never been cold.”

“Wish I were you!” said both boys at once, smiling as they sighed.

“Where’s your lovely golden crown?” asked Olaf the Dark. “Don’t you always wear it?”

“Oh, no. I don’t sleep in it. I hang it on its peg. I hate it!”

“Oh, I did want to try it on.”

“You wouldn’t like it. It makes my head ache. It’s so heavy. I’d much rather have a staff like that crooked one of yours.”

“It’s awfully heavy,” sighed the shepherd.

“Heavy?” exclaimed Olaf the Fair. “I don’t see how a heavy thing in your hand could matter. Push it through. I want to hold it.”

“Fetch me your crown, then, and we’ll exchange.”

Olaf the Fair knew that it was dangerous to return to his room to fetch the crown. Supposing the mastiff should bark and awaken the man. But he longed to handle the shepherd’s staff.

“All right, I’ll fetch it,” he said and tiptoed up the stairs. Stealthily he stepped across the sleeping man, and the dog, recognising his master’s scent, made no sound. Olaf seized the crown and hastened back to the moon-flooded window.

“Here it is,” he said, pushing the crown through the bars that were just wide enough to let it through. “Try it on, and give me your staff.”

Exultantly, the shepherd placed the gleaming crown on his dark head while the king grabbed at the tall crook.

“It isn’t a bit heavy! I can’t feel it!” they both exclaimed.

Then for a few minutes they chattered, comparing one another’s days: the little king complaining of confinement and of being always in a crowd, the little shepherd complaining of having to stay out of doors and be all alone.

“Mother says I am the servant of my subjects,” said the king. “And oh, I’ve got such an awful lot of them! I’d far rather be the master of sheep, as you are.”

“I’m not their master,” replied the shepherd. “I’m no better than their slave. Father says so. Besides, they’re really yours. They’ve all got little crowns stamped on their backs.”

“Have they? That’s funny! Why, my sceptre’s the shape of a shepherd’s crook.”

As they talked, Olaf the Dark felt the crown beginning to eat into his forehead. Heavier and heavier it grew until his brows ached and his head drooped. Meanwhile, in Olaf the Fair’s hand the staff which had seemed so light grew heavier and heavier. Surely it must be made of lead, he thought, and at last with a sigh he changed it into his other arm. At the same moment, with a groan, the shepherd tore the crown from his head.

“Phew! it _is_ a weight! How can you wear it all day?” he said, pushing it back through the bars.

“Phew! it _is_ a weight,” said the king, poking the staff through the bars. “I can’t think how you can carry it all day.”

“Funny,” they both said, and they laughed quite loud; the king, feeling proud of his head that could carry so heavy a weight, and the shepherd feeling proud of his right arm, grown strong from carrying so heavy a staff.

“The dawn breaks,” he said. “I must return to my sheep.”

“Come again,” cried the king. “Come again and talk to me.”

So once in every year the little shepherd returned to the palace walls and through the bars the boys talked long and eagerly. The king always told the shepherd how stuffy it was within, and the shepherd always told the king how cold it was outside, and during the rest of the year, whenever the king’s discontentment grew, he remembered the weeping boy who had tried so hard to get _in_. And whenever the shepherd wearied of his lot, he remembered the boy who wept because he could not get _out_.

The king knew that the shepherd never forgot the heaviness of a king’s crown, and the shepherd knew that the king never forgot the heaviness of a shepherd’s staff, and thus each was braced to bear his own burden; for it is a fact that our burdens are only unendurable when no one understands how heavy is their weight.

These two boys grew into men. Sorrows they had—as all men have, yet to each was given much happiness, for the one was a good king and the other a good shepherd. Far and wide Olaf the Fair was famed as the “Shepherd of all his People,” and Olaf the Dark, who guarded the royal sheep, was called the “King of all Shepherds.”

The Simple Way

JOHN LEA

Said Mr. Wise: “I’m one of those
Who think a short and pleasant doze
Will aid in solving, yea or nay,
Such problems as perplex the day.”

So, sitting in a comfy chair,
He stretched his slippers, then and there,
Toward the fire that glowed and leapt,
And very soon he soundly slept.

He soundly slept, or so he thinks,
For little more than forty winks,
Then rose with more than common might
And went and set the world aright.

To each expectant boy he showed
The shortest and the straightest road
That leads to fortune and to fame
For those who like to play the game.

To all the girls he made it clear
How smiles and patience grace the year,
And how a placid mind will foil
The wear and tear of daily toil.

He settled in the smartest way
The hottest questions of the day,
And, by a magic mode of thought,
So deftly on opinion wrought,
That politicians failed to see
Why they should longer disagree,
And forthwith formed, by joint consent,
_One_ party in our parliament.

In short, his triumphs were so bright
While setting all the world aright,
That when he waked, ’twas sorrow deep
To find the labours of his sleep
Had failed the slightest mark to make
Upon the world he’d left awake.

Finis

HENRY NEWBOLT

Night is come,
Owls are out;
Beetles hum
Round about.

Children snore
Safe in bed,
Nothing more
Need be said.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Page Changed from Changed to
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● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.