The marvellous land of Snergs
exercises, including musketry drill. On the whole the Expeditionary
Force, with Snergs in half armour and the sailors carrying their
muskets at the slope, looked hard and efficient.
King Kul left his throne and advanced six steps. King Merse came
forward, looking every inch a king, though small.
“Welcome, our cousin of Snerg.”
Their hands met. King Kul took the arm of the other and led him to
a seat by the throne. There was a murmur of satisfaction from the
assembled courtiers, while the two exchanged the friendly, but not
necessarily very deep, remarks which characterize the conversation of
princes or presidents who meet for the first time.
It is of course not very probable that any of my readers will visit
this land, but if by chance they should do so I recommend them to
take special note of the fresco which was painted to commemorate this
historic scene, for it well repays inspection. It is in the vaulted
corridor on the left of the hall, next to the cloak-room.
NECESSARY EXPLANATIONS
Formalities were soon over, and King Kul ordered that the two children
be brought to greet their friends. In the meantime, he stood, his
hands lightly clasped behind him, talking to Vanderdecken, who had
been presented to him with due ceremony and whose sterling qualities
he could both discern and appreciate. Though but a merchant adventurer
Vanderdecken was of good family; he had as we know some knowledge of
the classics, he spoke easily and well, there was no hesitation or
_mauvaise honte_ about the man; though his dress was rough and perhaps
ill-fitted to the brilliant scene, he bore himself with proper pride.
As the late Lord Buscoe said to one who expostulated with him for
coming to dinner in plus-fours, you cannot disguise a gentleman.
Sylvia and Joe, in their fine and fancy garb, were brought into the
hall by the Lady Ermyntrude and affectionately greeted and kissed by
King Merse. They instantly told him that he must demand the release of
Gorbo, for he had been put in a dungeon.
“By the way, your Majesty,” said King Merse, turning to his brother
monarch, “what about my subject, Gorbo? I hear he is in trouble.”
“You shall see him,” replied the other with a touch of sternness (with
two kings conversing the reader will have sometimes to judge their
identity by the matter of their speech). “Ho there! bring hither that
fellow!”
Metallic sounds caused all to look towards the council chamber where
Gorbo had been left with his guards. He came forward, carrying his
chain with difficulty and occasionally stumbling over it. He looked at
his liege lord with a sheepish smile.
“Hail, Gorbo,” said King Merse, amid a deep silence.
“May your shadow ever be a wide one,” murmured Gorbo.
“You seem to have got tangled up with some iron, Gorbo. What is it this
time?”
Gorbo gave no reply, but only toyed with a link of his chain.
“Let me ask you, our cousin,” said King Kul impressively. “Suppose an
utter stranger were to come into your hall unannounced and hand you one
of the very best with a stout sapling while you were reaching across
your own supper-table, what would you say?”
King Merse thought diligently for a moment; then he shook his head. “I
give it up,” he said. “But,” he added half-unconsciously touching the
hilt of his sword, “I might be able to tell you what I would _do_, if
that is of any use to you.”
“Exactly!” said King Kul; “that is just my point. This subject of yours
did so behave to us. And you can scarcely credit what a stinger he gave
us. I ask you.”
“Well, Gorbo,” said King Merse after a serious pause, “to put it in the
very mildest way, you are not improving. Can you make anything of this
strange case?” he asked of Vanderdecken.
Vanderdecken did not reply in words; he merely grasped his beard and
shook his head slowly from side to side as one who is utterly defeated.
“I suppose,” went on King Merse, “it were too much to expect that the
fellow had some dim shadow of a reason, at the back of what for want of
a better word we must call his brain, for this outrage?”
“Oh, we have found reason enough!” cried King Kul, with a slight
tendency to rave. “He did it, he says, to save these little children
from execution at our hands! These--_these_ whom we were at the moment
stuffing with muffins! Oh----” here his sense of the bitter indignity
overcame him again and he could only articulate words which I prefer to
represent by dashes.
“This is a blow to me,” said King Merse, sadly. “I had hoped that when
I found Gorbo I would also find that his mind had been broadened by
foreign travel; it is said to have that effect. But what hope now?”
“It’s all very well,” said Gorbo sullenly, “but if you’d heard what
Golithos said about the King, and what Mother Meldrum said about him,
perhaps you’d have made a little mistake too. And Baldry said----” here
he stopped suddenly, for Baldry was his sworn friend and he felt that
to go on would not be cricket.
“Baldry!” exclaimed King Merse. “Ah, now the matter is clearing. Tell
me what that reprobate said about me.”
But Gorbo remained silent.
“Bring hither our one-time jester,” said the King to an officer. “I
think, cousin, we may find some extra reason for this matter.”
BALDRY’S SENTENCE
Baldry was brought in, chewing a straw. There were straws sticking in
his hair and more on his clothes. He stood before the King with his
eyes cast down and his hands clasped before him, a dejected figure.
“Thou insolent!” said the King, after regarding him for a moment. “Thou
impertinent one! Think not to trick me by this show of sorrow. Tell me,
have you said aught to this stranger that would lead him to believe me
a tyrant?”
Baldry took the straw from his mouth, dried it carefully and deposited
it within the bosom of his doublet. He placed his hand daintily over
his mouth and coughed a little cough. Then he spoke:
“My liege lord and master, it is true that I did in some sort induce
my dear friend Gorbo to believe you more despotic than is perhaps
the case. But in my defence I must say that I had some good reason
for it, namely, to wit”--here he checked off the items on his
fingers--“Firstly, the idea occurred to me a choice one. Secondly,
it seemed to be full of humour. Thirdly, I was highly amused at it.
Fourthly, it tickled me greatly. Fifthly----”
“Silence me that lewd mouth!” cried the King to the jailor. A kerchief
was hastily whipped round Baldry’s mouth and held while they waited
further orders.
“Listen to my words,” said the King sternly, “for you will hear but few
again. We can pardon much levity in a professional fool, but this more
than reaches the limits of our patience. Go forth from our presence and
from our palace and from our City--and keep on going. Know all,” he
continued, turning to the court, “that Baldry is henceforth exiled from
our dominions.”
Baldry started violently and stared at him as if he could not
comprehend. Then, as the bitter truth dawned upon him, he turned, and
with bowed head, paced slowly forth. But after some four or five steps
he paused, placing his hand upon his heart as if with a sudden pang.
Then, raising his hands aloft with a gesture of despair, he swayed,
and fell at full length on his face, as falls a tree.
There was general consternation, and all rushed forward. One, skilled
in leechcraft, knelt down and, bending his head sideways, listened
carefully. Then he rose. “I cannot hear his heart beat,” he said sadly.
“He is dead.”
They made way for the King, from whose countenance the stern look had
faded, giving place to one of deep sorrow. He stood looking down at
the prostrate figure and heaved a deep sigh, almost a groan. At length
he spoke--in blank verse, for nothing less could express his bitter
feelings:
“Alas, poor fool! is’t thus that comes the end,
The terminus of all your antic ways?
Could not the fate which spares the grim tom-cat
That yesternight did rack my harmless slumbers,
Making the moonlight tremble with his yells,
Have spared thee too? Can’st ne’er again
Devise thy lightsome jests, thy bonnetings,
Thy traps of booby poised on half-op’d door,
Or juggle with the table furnishings?
No, thou art dead, and I without my fool
Am left to mourn the law inscrutable
That gives us chiefly what we would not have.
The violet withers while the rhubarb thrives,
The buttered slice falls ever upside-down,
The horse we back does seldom find a place,
The horse we back not comes a romping in.
Too late, poor fool, this unavailing woe!
I loved thee more than thou did’st ever know.”
“Then in that case,” said Baldry, turning smartly over on to his back,
“why are you making things so difficult?”
ROYAL CLEMENCY
It was characteristic of Baldry that he always (in seafaring phrase)
sailed pretty close to the wind, and it was lucky for him in this case
that the King’s satisfaction in knowing that he was not dead after all
slightly outbalanced his new rage at finding that not only had he been
tricked, but that he had wasted some rather superior blank verse. But
Baldry dexterously twisted himself out of reach of the King’s itching
foot and fled to where Sylvia and Joe were standing (both rather
perplexed with these happenings) and embraced them with ardour.
“Ah, our cousin of Snerg!” said the King with a mournful smile, “well
has the poet said that beneath a monarch’s crown there is often a sore
head. But now let me recount to you what other reasons this Gorbo of
yours gave for his behaviour. It will take some believing.”
King Merse, after hearing full details of how Gorbo had been cozened
into perpetration of the outrage, gave his opinion that, the man being
the ass he was, it would be best to pass the matter over as an error of
judgment.
“That’s one way of looking at it,” said King Kul rather peevishly. “Of
course it was I who got the stinger, not you. But,” he added with true
nobility, “the quality of mercy is not strained like cabbage. Ho there,
guards! unchain that extraordinary person. He is free.”
Gorbo’s fetters were instantly removed and carried away in a basket.
He murmured some inarticulate thanks to the King and then went over to
his brother Snergs, who were ranged against the wall and who greeted
him with affection mingled with scarcely dissembled mirth. But he was
cheered by the sudden impact of two small bodies; Sylvia and Joe had
flung themselves at him and were hugging him tight.
King Kul watched the scene for a moment with a benevolent smile; then
he turned to King Merse and Vanderdecken.
“Come,” he said, “to my privy chamber, where a stoup of wine and a
mixed biscuit awaits us. The Master of the Buckhounds will see to it
that your men are cared for. Pray mind the step.”
THE NEXT DAY
The next day passed happily and to the contentment of all except Sir
Giles, who instead of walking for hours in the gardens with the Lady
Ermyntrude, as he hoped to do, had to mount and away in order to bring
Golithos and Mother Meldrum up for judgment. He started early and went
off at great speed with his men. Since the job had to be done he would
get it over quickly.
The Snergs and the Dutchmen were well entertained by the townspeople.
They visited some public places, such as the building of Science and
Arts, and were present at the ceremony of unveiling a new horse-trough
in the market-place. A good spread, at which the Mayor presided, was
given to them in the Town Hall.
Sylvia and Joe enjoyed themselves to the full. They went out shopping
with the Lady Ermyntrude, who needed some lining and a piece of narrow
insertion, and they roamed about with Gorbo afterwards and each bought
a little china mug and saucer as a souvenir. They were very happy for