Part 21 (2/2)

At last Red Rex said:--

”In sooth, I believe you are, indeed, of my kin! Something tells me so.

I am sure that Gerda, your great-great-grandmother came from my Kingdom, and was sister of my great-great-grandfather.”

”I think so too,” said the Lady Anyse.

”Cousin,” declared Red Rex, ”you have been too long away from the land of your fathers. Will you go back with me, to my little daughter? She has no mother, and she needs one badly; some one from a peaceful Kingdom. I think she needs you. I am going, moreover, to make for her a splendid Aquarium, like this of Kisington. This also will need your care.”

”I think so too,” said the Lady Anyse.

”Then you will come back with me?” begged Red Rex, more eagerly than he had ever begged for anything in his life. ”It will make a new bond between our Kingdoms, so that we shall never be at war again.”

”I think so too!” said the Lady Anyse, who was a woman of few words.

So that matter was happily settled, to the Red King's great content. And a happy thing, indeed, it proved for the little Princess Hope and for the two Kingdoms.

When the second week began, Red Rex left Kisington to visit King Victor at the Capital City. Harold and Robert and Richard accompanied him as pages, each wearing a beautiful suit of velvet and gold, and each riding on a fine little white pony, the gift of Red Rex.

What a glorious trip that was! For first they made a detour to the Town of Hushby. There still stood the inn where Arthur had met pretty Margot who afterwards became his Countess, and where he had his first adventure with the wicked Oscar. From there the party went up into the mountains where the Dragon used to live. Harold and the other two boys scrambled about among the rocks, and after a while they found the very place which had been the Dragon's den. It was a cave fifty feet long and twelve feet high, very black and gloomy. And in it were a great many skulls and bones of persons whom the Dragon had killed and eaten in those dreadful years, long, long ago. But now it was empty and forgotten.

From Hushby they rode to the Capital City, which was all decked with banners and flowers to receive Red Rex, the ex-War-Lord. Then began a season of royal merrymaking to celebrate the peace between the two Kingdoms. There were banquets and dancing and games and pageants, processions and concerts and fireworks, all of which the Red King and his three pages enjoyed hugely. King Victor was very kind to them, and made them happy in every way he could devise.

He invited them to the Royal Museum, where they were privileged to view some of the most precious treasures of the Kingdom. They saw in a gla.s.s case on a velvet mat the tiny stuffed Dragon himself; he who had once been the Terror of Hushby. They saw, too, the now un-magical gla.s.s with which Arthur had vanquished his enemy. It looked like any other mere reading-gla.s.s with an ivory handle, and it was hard to believe what wonders it had done. In this same collection was the first pie-plate brought by Rafe's messenger to the King, after that clever cook became pie-maker-in-ordinary to the throne.

Here, too, was the glove of that royal giantess, the Princess Agnes, who had refused to marry Arthur because he was too little. It was as broad as a palm-leaf fan, and much thicker. Close by the monster glove lay a tiny white moccasin, which had once been worn by Ursula, the bear's daughter, and which had been brought back from the far land of that sad story by one of the sea-rovers of Kisington, who had first told the tale.

Here also was one of the partly-grated nuts with which Meg had flavored the first King's Pie; and a precious pearl from Gerda's Wonder-Garden, the gift of the grateful Mermaid. There, worn to rags, by the pa.s.sage of many years, was the original lion-doll made by Claribel, from the model of the Lion Pa.s.sant. And this the Red King liked best of all. But there were many interesting things in the Museum of King Victor which recalled to Red Rex the stories that Harold had read to him.

One day King Victor and a merry party rode to the town of Derrydown in the north. Here was the great lion-doll factory, started by Claribel and the Lion Pa.s.sant, which had made their fortune and that of Derrydown.

The party stopped at the old Red Lion Inn where the sign still swung over the door as in the days when the Lion Pa.s.sant had first been struck by its resemblance to his family crest. And because it was his family crest also, Red Rex made the landlord a handsome present. In these days the Red King was generosity itself.

Hard by the Inn was the very same tiny hut in which Claribel had lived; and over the fireplace still showed dimly the carved coat of arms and the motto, _n.o.blesse oblige_.

When Red Rex saw this, he stood and stared at it a long time, saying nothing. ”I used to think that meant 'A King can do no wrong,'” said he at last in a low voice to King Victor. ”Now I believe it means, 'A King must do no wrong.'”

”So I too believe,” agreed King Victor. ”But I would make the motto say still more. Every one can be n.o.ble, and a n.o.ble must do no wrong.”

”It shall be the motto of my people!” declared Red Rex. And so it became.

But there were other tales of this neighborhood which Red Rex remembered. ”May we not go hunting in the Ancient Wood, of which I have heard?” asked Red Rex while they tarried in Derrydown. ”I understand that it is not far, and that there is great game to be had in those still coverts.”

”Nay; in these days we do not hunt in my Kingdom,” replied King Victor.

”Since hearing the tale of the Bear's Daughter it has been no pleasure for any of us to kill or hurt any dumb creature.”

”Ah!” cried Red Rex. ”I had forgot that story! Hans wounded a poor friendly bear who had done him no harm. That was cowardly, indeed! True, Cousin. Neither do I wish to hunt any more. It was that tale which you punctuated by your noisy arrival in Kisington, do you remember? I picked out that story for myself; and it has done a service to the wild creatures of my Kingdom, who will henceforth be safe from me and mine.

But, indeed, though we do not hunt, I would fain see this Ancient Wood, where the Old Gnome lived in his hollow tree.”

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