The Little Lame Prince(小瘸腿王子)

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The Little Lame Prince

By MISS MULOCK

The Little Lame Prince

CHAPTER I

Yes, he was the most beautiful Prince that ever was born.

Of course, being a prince, people said this; but it was true besides.

When he looked at the candle, his eyes had an expression of earnest

inquiry quite startling in a new born baby. His nose--there was not much

of it certainly, but what there was seemed an aquiline shape; his

complexion was a charming, healthy purple; he was round and fat,

straight- limbed and long--in fact, a splendid baby, and everybody was

exceedingly proud of him, especially his father and mother, the King and

Queen of Nomansland, who had waited for him during their happy reign

of ten years--now made happier than ever, to themselves and their subjects,

by the appearance of a son and heir.

The only person who was not quite happy was the King's brother, the

heir presumptive, who would have been king one day had the baby not

been born. But as his majesty was very kind to him, and even rather sorry

for him--insomuch that at the Queen's request he gave him a dukedom

almost as big as a county--the Crown- Prince, as he was called, tried to

seem pleased also; and let us hope he succeeded.

The Prince's christening was to be a grand affair. According to the

custom of the country, there were chosen for him four-and-twenty god-

fathers and godmothers, who each had to give him a name, and promise to

do their utmost for him. When he came of age, he himself had to choose

the name--and the godfather or god- mother--that he liked the best, for the

rest of his days.

Meantime all was rejoicing. Subscriptions were made among the rich

to give pleasure to the poor; dinners in town-halls for the workingmen;

tea-parties in the streets for their wives; and milk-and-bun feasts for the

children in the schoolrooms. For Nomansland, though I cannot point it out

in any map, or read of it in any history, was, I believe, much like our own

or many another country.

As for the palace--which was no different from other palaces--it was

clean "turned out of the windows," as people say, with the preparations

going on. The only quiet place in it was the room which, though the Prince

The Little Lame Prince

was six weeks old, his mother the Queen had never quitted. Nobody said

she was ill, however--it would have been so inconvenient; and as she said

nothing about it herself, but lay pale and placid, giving no trouble to

anybody, nobody thought much about her. All the world was absorbed in

admiring the baby.

The christening-day came at last, and it was as lovely as the Prince

himself. All the people in the palace were lovely too--or thought

themselves so--in the elegant new clothes which the Queen, who thought

of everybody, had taken care to give them, from the ladies-in-waiting

down to the poor little kitchen-maid, who looked at herself in her pink

cotton gown, and thought, doubtless, that there never was such a pretty

girl as she.

By six in the morning all the royal household had dressed itself in its

very best; and then the little Prince was dressed in his best--his

magnificent christening robe; which proceeding his Royal Highness did

not like at all, but kicked and screamed like any common baby. When he

had a little calmed down, they carried him to be looked at by the Queen

his mother, who, though her royal robes had been brought and laid upon

the bed, was, as everybody well knew, quite unable to rise and put them

on.

She admired her baby very much; kissed and blessed him, and lay

looking at him, as she did for hours sometimes, when he was placed

beside her fast asleep; then she gave him up with a gentle smile, and,

saying she hoped he would be very good, that it would be a very nice

christening, and all the guests would enjoy themselves, turned peacefully

over on her bed, saying nothing more to anybody. She was a very

uncomplaining person, the Queen--and her name was Dolorez.

Everything went on exactly as if she had been present. All, even the

king himself, had grown used to her absence; for she was not strong, and

for years had not joined in any gayeties. She always did her royal duties,

but as to pleasures, they could go on quite well without her, or it seemed

so. The company arrived: great and notable persons in this and

neighboring countries; also the four-and-twenty godfathers and

godmothers, who had been chosen with care, as the people who would be

The Little Lame Prince

most useful to his royal highness should he ever want friends, which did

not seem likely. What such want could possibly happen to the heir of the

powerful monarch of Nomansland?

They came, walking two and two, with their coronets on their heads--

being dukes and duchesses, princes and princesses, or the like; they all

kissed the child and pronounced the name each had given him. Then the

four-and-twenty names were shouted out with great energy by six heralds,

one after the other, and afterward written down, to be preserved in the

state records, in readiness for the next time they were wanted, which

would be either on his Royal Highness' coronation or his funeral.

Soon the ceremony was over, and everybody satisfied; except, perhaps,

the little Prince himself, who moaned faintly under his christening robes,

which nearly smothered him.

In truth, though very few knew, the Prince in coming to the chapel had

met with a slight disaster. His nurse,--not his ordinary one, but the state

nurse-maid,--an elegant and fashionable young lady of rank, whose duty it

was to carry him to and from the chapel, had been so occupied in

arranging her train with one hand, while she held the baby with the other,

that she stumbled and let him fall, just at the foot of the marble staircase.

To be sure, she contrived to pick him up again the next minute; and the

accident was so slight it seemed hardly worth speaking of. Consequently

nobody did speak of it. The baby had turned deadly pale, but did not cry,

so no person a step or two behind could discover anything wrong;

afterward, even if he had moaned, the silver trumpets were loud enough to

drown his voice. It would have been a pity to let anything trouble such a

day of felicity.

So, after a minute's pause, the procession had moved on. Such a

procession t Heralds in blue and silver; pages in crimson and gold; and a

troop of little girls in dazzling white, carrying baskets of flowers, which

they strewed all the way before the nurse and child--finally the four- and-

twenty godfathers and godmothers, as proud as possible, and so splendid

to look at that they would have quite extinguished their small godson--

merely a heap of lace and muslin with a baby face inside--had it not been

for a canopy of white satin and ostrich feathers which was held over him

The Little Lame Prince

wherever he was carried.

Thus, with the sun shining on them through the painted windows, they

stood; the king and his train on one side, the Prince and his attendants on

the other, as pretty a sight as ever was seen out of fairyland.

"It's just like fairyland," whispered the eldest little girl to the next

eldest, as she shook the last rose out of her basket; "and I think the only

thing the Prince wants now is a fairy god- mother."

"Does he?" said a shrill but soft and not unpleasant voice behind; and

there was seen among the group of children somebody,--not a child, yet no

bigger than a child,--somebody whom nobody had seen before, and who

certainly had not been invited, for she had no christening clothes on.

She was a little old woman dressed all in gray: gray gown; gray

hooded cloak, of a material excessively fine, and a tint that seemed

perpetually changing, like the gray of an evening sky. Her hair was gray,

and her eyes also--even her complexion had a soft gray shadow over it.

But there was nothing unpleasantly old about her, and her smile was as

sweet and childlike as the Prince's own, which stole over his pale little

face the instant she came near enough to touch him.

"Take care! Don't let the baby fall again."

The grand young lady nurse started, flushing angrily.

"Who spoke to me? How did anybody know? --I mean, what business

has anybody----" Then frightened, but still speaking in a much sharper

tone than I hope young ladies of rank are in the habit of speaking--"Old

woman, you will be kind enough not to say `the baby,' but `the Prince.'

Keep away; his Royal Highness is just going to sleep."

"Nevertheless I must kiss him. I am his god- mother."

"You!" cried the elegant lady nurse.

"You!" repeated all the gentlemen and ladies-in-waiting.

"You!" echoed the heralds and pages--and they began to blow the

silver trumpets in order to stop all further conversation.

The Prince's procession formed itself for returning,--the King and his

train having already moved off toward the palace,--but on the top- most

step of the marble stairs stood, right in front of all, the little old woman

clothed in gray.

The Little Lame Prince

She stretched herself on tiptoe by the help of her stick, and gave the

little Prince three kisses.

"This is intolerable!" cried the young lady nurse, wiping the kisses off

rapidly with her lace handkerchief. "Such an insult to his Royal Highness!

Take yourself out of the way, old woman, or the King shall be informed

immediately."

"The King knows nothing of me, more's the pity," replied the old

woman, with an indifferent air, as if she thought the loss was more on his

Majesty's side than hers. "My friend in the palace is the King's wife."

"King's have not wives, but queens," said the lady nurse, with a

contemptuous air.

"You are right," replied the old woman. "Nevertheless I know her

Majesty well, and I love her and her child. And--since you dropped him on

the marble stairs (this she said in a mysterious whisper, which made the

young lady tremble in spite of her anger)--I choose to take him for my

own, and be his godmother, ready to help him whenever he wants me."

"You help him!" cried all the group breaking into shouts of laughter, to

which the little old woman paid not the slightest attention. Her soft gray

eyes were fixed on the Prince, who seemed to answer to the look, smiling

again and again in the causeless, aimless fashion that babies do smile.

"His Majesty must hear of this," said a gentleman-in-waiting.

"His Majesty will hear quite enough news in a minute or two," said the

old woman sadly. And again stretching up to the little Prince, she kissed

him on the forehead solemnly.

"Be called by a new name which nobody has ever thought of. Be

Prince Dolor, in memory of your mother Dolorez."

"In memory of!" Everybody started at the ominous phrase, and also at

a most terrible breach of etiquette which the old woman had committed. In

Nomansland, neither the king nor the queen was supposed to have any

Christian name at all. They dropped it on their coronation day, and it never

was mentioned again till it was engraved on their coffins when they died.

"Old woman, you are exceedingly ill-bred," cried the eldest lady-in-

waiting, much horrified. "How you could know the fact passes my

comprehension. But even if you did know it, how dared you presume to

The Little Lame Prince

hint that her most gracious Majesty is called Dolorez?"

"WAS called Dolorez," said the old woman, with a tender solemnity.

The first gentleman, called the Gold-stick-in- waiting, raised it to

strike her, and all the rest stretched out their hands to seize her; but the

gray mantle melted from between their fingers like air; and, before

anybody had time to do anything more, there came a heavy, muffled,

startling sound.

The great bell of the palace the bell which was only heard on the death

of some one of the royal family, and for as many times as he or she was

years old--began to toll. They listened, mute and horror-stricken. Some

one counted: one--two--three--four--up to nine-and-twenty --just the

Queen's age.

It was, indeed, the Queen. Her Majesty was dead! In the midst of the

festivities she had slipped away out of her new happiness and her old

sufferings, not few nor small. Sending away all her women to see the

grand sight,--at least they said afterward, in excuse, that she had done so,

and it was very like her to do it,--she had turned with her face to the

window, whence one could just see the tops of the distant mountains --the

Beautiful Mountains, as they were called --where she was born. So gazing,

she had quietly died.

When the little Prince was carried back to his mother's room, there was

no mother to kiss him. And, though he did not know it, there would be for

him no mother's kiss any more. As for his godmother,--the little old

woman in gray who called herself so,--whether she melted into air, like

her gown when they touched it, or whether she flew out of the chapel

window, or slipped through the doorway among the bewildered crowd,

nobody knew--nobody ever thought about her.

Only the nurse, the ordinary homely one, coming out of the Prince's

nursery in the middle of the night in search of a cordial to quiet his

continual moans, saw, sitting in the doorway, something which she would

have thought a mere shadow, had she not seen shining out of it two eyes,

gray and soft and sweet. She put her hand before her own, screaming

loudly. When she took them away the old woman was gone.

The Little Lame Prince

CHAPTER II

Everybody was very kind to the poor little prince. I think people

generally are kind to motherless children, whether princes or peasants. He

had a magnificent nursery and a regular suite of attendants, and was

treated with the greatest respect and state. Nobody was allowed to talk to

him in silly baby language, or dandle him, or, above all to kiss him,

though perhaps some people did it surreptitiously, for he was such a sweet

baby that it was difficult to help it.

It could not be said that the Prince missed his mother--children of his

age cannot do that; but somehow after she died everything seemed to go

wrong with him. From a beautiful baby he became sickly and pale,

seeming to have almost ceased growing, especially in his legs, which had

been so fat and strong.

But after the day of his christening they withered and shrank; he no

longer kicked them out either in passion or play, and when, as he got to be

nearly a year old, his nurse tried to make him stand upon them, he only

tumbled down.

This happened so many times that at last people began to talk about it.

A prince, and not able to stand on his own legs! What a dreadful thing!

What a misfortune for the country!

Rather a misfortune to him also, poor little boy! but nobody seemed to

think of that. And when, after a while, his health revived, and the old

bright look came back to his sweet little face, and his body grew larger and

stronger, though still his legs remained the same, people continued to

speak of him in whispers, and with grave shakes of the head. Everybody

knew, though nobody said it, that something, it was impossible to guess

what, was not quite right with the poor little Prince.

Of course, nobody hinted this to the King his father: it does not do to

tell great people anything unpleasant. And besides, his Majesty took very

little notice of his son, or of his other affairs, beyond the necessary duties

of his kingdom.

People had said he would not miss the Queen at all, she having been so

long an invalid, but he did. After her death he never was quite the same.

The Little Lame Prince

He established himself in her empty rooms, the only rooms in the palace

whence one could see the Beautiful Mountains, and was often observed

looking at them as if he thought she had flown away thither, and that his

longing could bring her back again. And by a curious coincidence, which

nobody dared inquire into, he desired that the Prince might be called, not

by any of the four-and-twenty grand names given him by his godfathers

and godmothers, but by the identical name mentioned by the little old

woman in gray--Dolor, after his mother Dolorez.

Once a week, according to established state custom, the Prince,

dressed in his very best, was brought to the King his father for half an hour,

but his Majesty was generally too ill and too melancholy to pay much

heed to the child.

Only once, when he and the Crown-Prince, who was exceedingly

attentive to his royal brother, were sitting together, with Prince Dolor

playing in a corner of the room, dragging himself about with his arms

rather than his legs, and sometimes trying feebly to crawl from one chair

to another, it seemed to strike the father that all was not right with his son.

"How old is his Royal Highness?" said he suddenly to the nurse.

"Two years, three months, and five days, please your Majesty."

"It does not please me," said the King, with a sigh. "He ought to be far

more forward than he is now ought he not, brother? You, who have so

many children, must know. Is there not something wrong about him?"

"Oh, no," said the Crown-Prince, exchanging meaning looks with the

nurse, who did not understand at all, but stood frightened and trembling

with the tears in her eyes. "Nothing to make your Majesty at all uneasy.

No doubt his Royal Highness will outgrow it in time."

"Outgrow--what?"

"A slight delicacy--ahem!--in the spine; something inherited, perhaps,

from his dear mother."

"Ah, she was always delicate; but she was the sweetest woman that

ever lived. Come here, my little son."

And as the Prince turned round upon his father a small, sweet, grave

face,--so like his mother's,--his Majesty the King smiled and held out his

arms. But when the boy came to him, not running like a boy, but wriggling

The Little Lame Prince

awkwardly along the floor, the royal countenance clouded over.

"I ought to have been told of this. It is terrible--terrible! And for a

prince too. Send for all the doctors in my kingdom immediately."

They came, and each gave a different opinion and ordered a different

mode of treatment. The only thing they agreed in was what had been

pretty well known before, that the Prince must have been hurt when he

was an infant--let fall, perhaps, so as to injure his spine and lower limbs.

Did nobody remember?

No, nobody. Indignantly, all the nurses denied that any such accident

had happened, was possible to have happened, until the faithful country

nurse recollected that it really had happened on the day of the christening.

For which unluckily good memory all the others scolded her so severely

that she had no peace of her life, and soon after, by the influence of the

young lady nurse who had carried the baby that fatal day, and who was a

sort of connection of the Crown- Prince--being his wife's second cousin

once removed--the poor woman was pensioned off and sent to the

Beautiful Mountains from whence she came, with orders to remain there

for the rest of her days.

But of all this the King knew nothing, for, indeed, after the first shock

of finding out that his son could not walk, and seemed never likely to he

interfered very little concerning him. The whole thing was too painful, and

his Majesty never liked painful things. Sometimes he inquired after Prince

Dolor, and they told him his Royal Highness was going on as well as

could be expected, which really was the case. For, after worrying the poor

child and perplexing themselves with one remedy after another, the

Crown- Prince, not wishing to offend any of the differing doctors, had

proposed leaving him to Nature; and Nature, the safest doctor of all, had

come to his help and done her best.

He could not walk, it is true; his limbs were mere useless appendages

to his body; but the body itself was strong and sound. And his face was the

same as ever--just his mother's face, one of the sweetest in the world.

Even the King, indifferent as he was, sometimes looked at the little

fellow with sad tenderness, noticing how cleverly he learned to crawl and

swing himself about by his arms, so that in his own awkward way he was

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TheLittleLamePrince1TheLittleLamePrinceByMISSMULOCKTheLittleLamePrince2CHAPTERIYes,hewasthemostbeautifulPrincethateverwasborn.Ofcourse,beingaprince,peoplesaidthis;butitwastruebesides.Whenhelookedatthecandle,hiseyeshadanexpressionofearnestinquiryquitestartlinginanewbornbaby.Hisnose--therewasnotmuchof...

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