Princess Prunella came to the end of her patience. It had been bad enough to exist for six whole weeks without being allowed to lose her temper once, but now that she found she could not even cry with any pleasure, she felt it was more than any little girl of twelve years old could be expected to bear.
"It isn"t sticking-plaster that I want," she said miserably. "When people cry, they want to be comforted, of course."
"Do they?" said deaf Robert, looking perplexed. "But if I cannot hear you cry, how am I to comfort you?"
The Princess was far too cross to be reasonable, though she managed to remember that it was no use letting her crossness appear in her voice.
"That"s just it!" she sobbed. "You ought to be able to hear me cry, and then you would be a real boy!"
And the Princess pitied herself so much for being forced to play with some one who was not real, that she buried her face in her hands and wept more than ever. She half hoped, even then, that deaf Robert would come and kiss her and make friends again, as any nice boy would have done at once; but deaf Robert did nothing of the kind, and when she at last took her hands from her eyes, her playfellow was gone.
Truly, the forest had never looked so beautiful as on that day when the minstrel"s son hastened through it on his way to his old home. The flowers looked their best, and the birds sang their merriest, and the trees bent their greenest boughs, to give him a welcome; but the boy with the wonderful look on his face, who had lived among them for so long, never paused so much as to glance at them, and they only had time to notice, as he pa.s.sed them by, that the wonderful look was no longer there. On he hurried until he came to the little grey house, set in its garden of bright-coloured flowers; and he pushed open the gate and walked in, just as his Princess had done six weeks ago.
The minstrel was at home, this time, and he was sitting on the doorstep in the sunshine. He had just composed a new song, and that always made him extremely happy; but he sighed a little when he saw his son come in at the gate, for he, too, had no difficulty in seeing that the wonderful look had gone from the boy"s face.
"What is the matter, my son?" he asked anxiously.
Deaf Robert wasted no time in greeting him. "Father," he cried, "why did you ask the wymps to my christening?"
"That is easily answered," said the minstrel, soothingly. "It was because I wished you to hear nothing but beautiful sounds all your life."
"But what sounds do you call beautiful?" demanded his son.
The minstrel smiled. "Can you not hear my music?" he asked.
"Yes, yes," said deaf Robert; "but what else?"
It had never struck the minstrel that there need be anything else, and he hesitated a little. "Well," he said at last, "can you not hear the sounds of the forest?"
Deaf Robert looked up at the pine-trees overhead and down to the flowers at his feet. "I used to be able to," he said sadly, "but even the forest has grown silent now." Then he clenched his fists and looked imploringly at his father. "Must I live to the end of my days without hearing any of the things that other boys hear?" he cried.
"You are a little unreasonable, my son," said the minstrel. "Are not the beautiful sounds of life enough for you?"
"Enough?" said deaf Robert. "I want much, much more than that, father.
Why, I want to hear the Princess cry!"
"That is nonsense!" exclaimed the minstrel. "Tears make a most unpleasant sound, and you would be extremely disappointed if you were to hear the Princess cry."
The minstrel"s son drew himself up proudly. "You do not understand; you are not real either," he said. "The tears of _my_ Princess make the sweetest sound in the world, and I am not going to rest until I learn how to hear it." Then he turned and walked through the gate and out into the forest once more.
The minstrel looked after him and sighed. "It was the best gift I could think of," he murmured; "it was the one I would have chosen for myself.
It is true," he added thoughtfully, "that I never wanted to play with a King"s daughter."
The minstrel"s son wandered aimlessly through the forest,--the forest that he had once liked so well because it was all his, and that he only liked now because he had found his little Princess in it; and there he might have been wandering still, if he had not suddenly met a wymp. This was not really surprising in that particular forest, for it was just the kind of forest in which any boy of fourteen might at any minute meet a wymp; but for all that, deaf Robert was just a little bit startled when the wymp suddenly dropped in his path from the tree above and nodded at him.
"Hullo!" said the wymp. "What is the matter with you?"
"I am very unhappy, because I am not a real boy," explained deaf Robert.
"Dear me! How is that?" asked the wymp, pretending to be surprised.
"Well, _you_ ought to know," answered deaf Robert. "It is all because the wymps came to my christening."
"Nothing of the sort!" cried the wymp, indignantly. "It is all because your father insisted on knowing better than we did, and we let him have his own way. If the wymps had not been at your christening, you would not even _want_ to be a real boy. So you cannot hear the Princess cry, eh? That"s a good wympish joke, that is!" And the wymp stood on his head and choked with laughter.
"It is all very well for you to laugh," complained the minstrel"s son.
"You don"t know how unpleasant it is to be a boy without being a real boy."
The wymp came down on his toes again and stopped laughing. "Then why don"t you go and learn to be a real boy?" he asked in surprise.
"How can I find out the way?" asked deaf Robert.
"You ridiculous boy!" exclaimed the wymp. "Why, the first person you meet will be able to tell you that!"
Deaf Robert had no time to thank him for his information, for the wymp began turning somersaults the moment he had finished speaking, and he went on turning them until he turned into nothing at all, and there was no more wymp to be seen. Then the minstrel"s son walked on through the forest; and for three days and three nights he met no one at all, but on the morning of the fourth day he came to the very edge of the forest, and there he saw an old woman sitting by the side of a blackberry bush.
"Hurrah!" cried deaf Robert, waving his cap. "Do you know that you are the first person I have met, and that you are going to tell me how to become a real boy?"
"I will tell you at once," said the old woman, smiling, "for you come straight to the point and do not beat about the bush. This is what you must do, then:--something brave and something kind and something foolish and something wise. If you are not a real boy after that, it will be your own fault!" Then she walked round the blackberry bush and disappeared; and although deaf Robert forgot what she had just said about him and beat about that bush in good earnest, he never saw any more of her.
Then the minstrel"s son walked straight on in search of a brave deed to do; and this did not take him long, for there are always plenty of brave deeds waiting to be done by some one. So, long before the sun was above his head that day, he came to a castle where a beautiful Princess was being kept captive by a cruel old giant,--all because he was cruel, and for no other reason at all. And when deaf Robert saw the Princess weeping behind the bars of her prison window, he was reminded of his own little Princess whom he had left weeping on the nursery floor; and that made him call on the giant instantly to come out and be killed. The giant laughed a great laugh and came out into the courtyard, not to be killed, but to kill the minstrel"s son instead; but before he had time to do that, the minstrel"s son had managed to kill _him_, and there was an end of the cruel old giant.
"That is the bravest deed I have ever seen done!" cried the Princess, when he fetched her out of her dungeon.
"Brave deeds are easily done, then," said deaf Robert; but he was glad enough, all the same, to hear that he had done the first part of his task. The next thing he did was to take the beautiful Princess back to her own country; and that seemed to him a great waste of time, for he could not certainly do his kind deed so long as he had the Princess on his hands. But when they reached her country and the Princess told her father how deaf Robert had come out of his way to bring her home, the old King was pleased, and asked him what reward he would like for his trouble. "For," he said, "you have done the kindest deed any one could possibly think of."
"No reward for me!" laughed deaf Robert; "for there is my kind deed done without my knowing it!" And off he set once more on his travels.
After that, the minstrel"s son wandered about for a great many days; for neither a wise nor a foolish deed could he find to do. Sometimes, when he thought he had been wise, the people told him he was cruel, and drove him out of their country; and sometimes, when he was sure he had been foolish, they only praised him for his kindness. He grew tired and footsore, and his clothes became old and ragged, and he almost forgot that he had once been a Marquis and Playfellow-in-chief to a princess.
But he never forgot how the little Princess Prunella had looked, as she sat on the nursery floor and wept with sobs that he was not able to hear. So two years pa.s.sed away, and still he had not learned how to be a real boy.
One day, as he walked along a country road, he came upon a girl driving cows.
"Why are you looking so sad?" she asked him.
"Because I left my Princess crying in her nursery two years ago, and I have been away from her ever since," answered the boy, simply.
The girl burst out laughing. "Well," she exclaimed, "that was a foolish thing to do!"
"Foolish?" shouted deaf Robert. "Did you say _foolish_?"
"To be sure I did," laughed the girl. "Could anything be more foolish than to keep away from some one whom you want to be with?"
"Then I will go back to her this very instant," declared the minstrel"s son.
"And that would be the wisest thing you could do," answered the girl; and she immediately disappeared, cows and all, which just shows that she must have been a wymp all the while.
"Well," said deaf Robert, "there are my wise and my foolish deeds done together, and now I am a real boy!"