FullReads

“But he didn’t make or choose this one,” said Sophia, “and I like this one best.” They sat silent for a moment. “Dear me,” she sighed, “what a lot we have to learn of each other’s ways!”

“Hullo!” Ferdinand was staring down the glade. “What’s that line at the end there, across the sky?”

Sophia turned. “I think that’s the sea–yes, there is a ship upon it.”

“But why have they hung a blue cloth in front of it?”

“I expect that’s in our honour too.”

They took hands and trotted to the end of the orchard; and there, beyond the hedge, ran a canal, and beyond the canal a wide flat country stretched away to the sea,–a land dotted with windmills and cattle and red-and-white houses with weathercocks,–a land, too, criss-crossed with canals, whereon dozens of boats, and even some large ships, threaded their way like dancers in and out of the groups of cattle, or sailed past a house so closely as almost to poke a bowsprit through the front door. The weather-cocks spun and glittered, the windmills waved their arms, the boats bowed and curtseyed to the children. Never was such a salutation. Even the blue cloth in the distance twinkled, and Ferdinand saw at a glance that it was embroidered with silver.

But the finest flash of all came from a barge moored in the canal just below them, where a middle-aged woman sat scouring a copper pan.

“Good-day!” cried Ferdinand across the hedge. “Why are you doing that?”

“Why, in honour of the wedding, to be sure. ‘Must show one’s best at such times, if only for one’s own satisfaction.” Then, as he climbed into view and helped Sophia over the hedge, she recognised them, and, dropping her pan with a clatter, called on the saints to bless them and keep them always. The bridal pair clambered down to the towpath, and from the towpath to her cabin, where she fed them (for they were hungry by this time) with bread and honey from a marvellous cupboard painted all over with tulips: in short, they enjoyed themselves immensely.

“Only,” said Ferdinand, “I wish they hadn’t covered up the sea, for I wanted a good look at it.”

“The sea?” said the barge-woman, all of a shiver. Then she explained that her two sons had been drowned in it. “Though, to be sure,” said she, “they died for your Majesty’s honour, and, if God should give them back to me, would do so again.”

“For me?” exclaimed Sophia, opening her eyes very wide.

“Ay, to be sure, my dear. So it’s no wonder–eh?–that I should love you.”

By the time they said good-bye to her and hurried back through the orchard, a dew was gathering on the grass and a young moon had poised herself above the apple-boughs. The birds here were silent; but high on the stone terrace, when they reached it, a solitary one began to sing. From the bright windows facing the terrace came the clatter of plates and glasses, with loud outbursts of laughter. But this bird had chosen his station beneath a dark window at the corner, and sang there unseen. It was the nightingale.

They could not understand what he sang. “It is my window,” whispered Sophia, and began to weep in the darkness, without knowing why; for she was not miserable in the least, but, on the contrary, very, very happy. They listened, hand in hand, by a fountain on the terrace. Through the windows they could see the Papal legate chatting at table with the King, Sophia’s father, and the Chancellor hobnobbing with the Cardinal Archbishop. Only the Queen of Ysselmonde sat at the table with her wrists on the arms of her throne and her eyes looking out into the darkness, as though she caught some whisper of the bird’s song. But the children knew that he sang for them, not for her; for he told of all the adventures of the day, and he told not as I am telling them, but so beautifully that the heart ached to hear. Yet his song was of two words only. “Young–young–young! Love love–love!”–the same words over and over.

A courtier came staggering out from the banqueting-hall, and the bird flew away. The children standing by the fountain watched him as he found the water and dipped his face in it, with a groan. He was exceedingly drunk; but as he lifted his head he caught sight of them in the moonlight and excused himself.

“In your Highnesses’ honour,” he assured them: “‘been doing my best.”

“Poor man!” said Sophia. “But how loyal!”