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Honey-Bee
by
“Bob,” said he, “mount your raven; go to the Princess of the Dwarfs and tell her that George or Blanchelande, long a captive of the nixies, has this day returned to Clarides.”
Thus he spoke and Bob flew off on his raven.
XIX
Which tells of the extraordinary encounter of Jean the
master tailor, and of the blessed song the birds in the
grove sang to the duchess
When George again found himself on the earth on which he was born, the very first person he met was Jean, the master tailor, with a red suit of clothes on his arm for the steward of the castle. The good man shrieked at sight of his young master.
“Holy St. James,” he cried, “if you are not his lordship George of Blanchelande who was drowned in the lake seven years ago, you are either his ghost or the devil in person.”
“I am neither ghost nor devil, good Jean, but I am truly that same George of Blanchelande who used to creep to your shop and beg bits of stuff out of which to make dresses for the dolls of my sister Honey-Bee.”
“Then you were not drowned, your lordship,” the good man exclaimed. “I am so glad! And how well you look. My little Peter who climbed into my arms to see you pass on horseback by the side of the Duchess that Sunday morning has become a good workman and a fine fellow. He is all of that, God be praised, your lordship. He will be glad to hear that you are not at the bottom of the sea, and that the fish have not eaten you as he always declared. He was in the habit of saying many pleasant things about it, your lordship, for he is very amusing. And it is a fact that you are much mourned in Clarides. You were such a promising child. I shall remember to my dying day how you once asked me for a needle to sew with, and as I refused, for you were not of an age to use it without danger, you replied you would go to the woods and pick beautiful green pine needles. That is what you said, and it still makes me laugh. Upon my soul you said that. Our little Peter, also, used to say clever things. Now he is a cooper and at your service, your lordship.”
“I shall employ no one else. But give me news of Honey-Bee and the Duchess, Master Jean.”
“Alack, where do you come from, your lordship, seeing that you do not know that it is now seven years since the Princess Honey-Bee was stolen by the dwarfs of the mountain? She disappeared the very day you were drowned; and one can truly say that on that day Clarides lost its sweetest flowers. The Duchess is in deep mourning. And it’s that which makes me say that the great of the earth have their sorrows just as well as the humblest artisans, if only to prove that we are all the sons of Adam. And because of this a cat may well look at a king, as the saying is. And by the same token the good Duchess has seen her hair grow white and her gaiety vanish. And when in the springtime she walks in her black robes along the hedgerow where the birds sing, the smallest of these is more to be envied than the sovereign lady of Clarides. And yet her grief is not quite without hope, your lordship; for though she had no tidings of you, she at least knows by dreams that her daughter Honey-Bee is alive.”
This and much else said good man Jean, but George listened no longer after he heard that Honey-Bee was a captive among the dwarfs.
“The dwarfs hold Honey-Bee captive under the earth,” he pondered; “a dwarf rescued me from my crystal dungeon; these little men have not all the same customs; my deliverer cannot be of the same race as those who stole my sister.”