"Speak the king. your mind freely, Baron Brunfels.' The baron rose, drew his sword from the scabbard, and placed it on the table. "Your Majesty, backed by brute force," he began, "has condemned to death ten of your subjects. You have branded us as traitors, and such we are, and so find no fault with your sentence, merely recognizing that you represent, for the time being, the upper hand. You have reminded me that my ancestors fought for yours and they never turned their swords against their sovereign. Why, then, have our swords been pointed toward your breast? Because, King Rudolph, you are yourself a traitor. You belong to the ruling class, and have turned your back upon your order. You, a king, have made yourself a brother to the demagogue on the street corner, yearning for the cheap applause of the serf. You have shorn nobility of its privileges, and for what?" 46 the kingdom of Alluria may live in amity with its neighbors, attending to its own affairs and meddling not with the concerns of others. This is the task I set myself when I came to the throne. fault have you to find with the program, my Lord Baron?" And for what?" echoed the king, with rising voice. "For this: that the plowman on the plain may reap what he has sown; that the shepherd on the hillside may enjoy the increase which comes to his flock; that taxation may be light; that my nobles should deal honestly with the people and not use their position for thievery and depredation; that those whom the state honors by appointing to positions of trust shall content themselves with the recompense lawfully given and refrain from peculation; that peace and security shall rest on the land; and that bloodthirsty swashbucklers shall not go up and down, inciting the people to carnage and rapine under the name of patriotism; that What "The simple fault that it is the program of a fool," replied the baron, calmly. "In following it you have gained the resentment of your nobles and have not even received the thanks of those pitiable hinds, the plowmen in the valley, or the shepherds on the hills. impoverished us so that the clowns may have a few more coins with which to muddle in drink their already stupid brains. You are hated in cot and castle alike. You would not stand in your place for a moment, were not an army behind you. Being a fool, you think the common people like honesty, whereas they only curse that they have not a share in the thieving." The people," said the king, soberly, "have been misled. Their ear has been abused by calumny and falsehood. Had it been possible for me personally to explain to them the good that must ultimately accrue to the land where honesty rules, I am confident I would have had their united and undivided support, even though my nobles deserted me. "Not so, your Majesty; they would listen to you and cheer you, but when the next orator came among them, promising to divide the moon and give a share to each, they would gather round his banner and hoot you from the kingdom. What care they for rectitude of government? They see no farther than the shining florin that glitters on their palm. When your nobles were rich, they came to their castles among the people and scattered their gold with a lavish hand. Little recked the peasant how it was got, so long as he shared it. There,' they said, 'the coin comes to us that we have not worked for.' But now, with castles deserted and retainers dismissed, the people have to sweat to wring from traders the reluctant silver, and they cry, Thus it was not in times of old, and this king is the cause of it;' and so they spit upon your name, and shrug their shoulders when your honesty is mentioned. And now, Rudolph of Alluria, I have done, and I go the more jauntily to my death that I have had fair speech with you before the end." The king, whose gaze had been fixed upon the floor before him, drew a deep sigh, and when he looked up at them, his eyes were veiled with moisture. "I thought," he said slowly, "until to-night, that I had possessed some qualities, at least, of a ruler of men. I came here alone among you, and although there are brave men in this company, yet I had the ordering of events as I chose to order them, notwithstanding that odds stood a score to one against me. I still venture to think that whatever failures have attended my eight years' rule in Alluria arose from faults of my own, and not through imperfections in the plan or want of appreciation in the people. I have now to inform you that if it is disastrous for a king to act without the coöperation of his nobles, it is equally disastrous for them to plot against their leader. I beg to acquaint you with the fact that the insurrection so carefully prepared has broken prematurely out. My capital is in possession of the factions, who are industriously cutting each other's throats to settle which one of two smooth-tongued rascals shall be their president. While you were dicing to settle the fate of an already deposed king, and I was sentencing you to a mythical death, we were all alike being involved in common ruin. I have seen to-night more property in flames than all my savings during the last eight years would pay for. I have no horsemen at my back, and have stumbled here blindly, a much bedraggled. fugitive, having lost my way in every sense of the phrase. And so I beg of the hospitality of Count Staumn another flagon of wine, and either a place of shelter for my patient horse, who has been left too long in the storm without, or else direction towards the frontier, whereupon my horse and I will set out to find it." "Not towards the frontier!" cried Baron Brunfels, grasping again his sword and holding it aloft, " But towards the capital! We will surround you, and hew for you a way through that fickle mob back to the throne of your ancestors." Each man sprang to his weapon, and brandished it above his head, while a ringing cheer echoed to the timbered ceiling. "The king! The king!" they cried. "Not so," he said. "I leave a thankless throne with a joy I find it impossible to express. As I sat on horseback, half way up the hill above the burning city, and heard the clash of arms, I was filled with amazement to think that men would actually fight for the position of ruler of the people. Whether the insurrection has brought freedom to themselves or not, the future will alone tell; but it has, at least, brought freedom to me. I now belong to myself. No man can question either my motives or my acts. Gentlemen, drink with me to the new president of Alluria, whoever he may be. But the king drank alone, none other raising flagon to lip. Then Baron Brunfels cried aloud: "Gentlemen, the king!" And never in the history of Alluria was a toast so heartily honored. SHALL HALL we go into the Forest and get some violets?" W. V. asks gleefully, as she muffles herself in what she calls her bearskin. "And can't we take the Man with us, father?" It is a clear forenoon in mid January; crisp with frost, but bright, and there is not a ripple in the sweet air. On the morning side of things the sun has blackened roofs and footpaths and hedges, but the rest of the world looks delightfully hoar and winterly. Now when trunks and branches are clotted white to windward, the Forest, as every one knows, is quite an exceptional place for violets. Of course, you go far and far away-through the glades and dingles of the oak-men, and past the Webs of the Iron Spider, and beyond the Water of Heart's-ease, till you are on the verge of the Blue Distances. There all the roads come to an end, and that is the real beginning of the ancient wilderness of wood, which, W. V. tells me, covered nearly the whole of England in the days before the "old Romans" came. From what she has read in history, it appears that in the rocky regions of the wold there are still plenty of bears and fierce wolves and wild stags; and that the beavers still build weirs and log-houses across the streams. Well, when you have gone far enough, you will see a fire blazing in the snow on the high rocky part of the Forest, and around it twelve strange men sitting on huge boulders, telling stories of old times. "And if January would let April change places with him," W. V. explains, "you would see jumbos of violets just leaping up through the snow in a minute. And I think he would, if we said we wanted them for the Man." You see, the Man, who has been only three months with us and has had very little to say to any one since he came, is still almost a stranger, and W. V. treats him accordingly with much deference and consideration. The bleak foggy weather had set in when he arrived, and it has grown sharper and more trying ever since; and as he came direct from a climate of perpetual sunshine and everlasting blossom, there is always danger of his catching cold. He keeps a good deal to his own room, never goes abroad when the wind is in the east or north, and has not yet set foot in the Forest. This January day, however, is so bright and safe that we think we may lure him away; and in all the divine region of fresh air, what place is sunnier and more sheltered than the Forest? And then there is the hint of violets! So off to the woods we go, and with us the Man, warm and snug, and companionable enough in his peculiar silent way. It is pleasant to notice the first catkins, and to get to white sunlit spots where the snow shows that no one has preceded us. And what a delightful surprise it is to catch sight of the footprints of the wild creatures along the edge of the paths and among the bushes! "Are the oak-men really asleep, father?" asks W. V. "Nobody else is.' We stop to examine the trail where Bunny has scuttled past. And here some small creature, a field-mouse perhaps, has waded through the fluffy drift. And do look at the bird-tracks at the foot of the big oaks! 66 Oh, father, these go right inside that little hole under the root; is the bird there?" And others go right round the trunk as though there had been a search for some small crevice of shelter. As we wander along I think of all the change which has taken place since last I recorded our birthday rambles in the Forest. It is only a year ago, and yet how amazingly W. V. has grown in a twelvemonth! Even to her the Forest is no longer quite the same vague enchanted region it used to be. Strange people have started up out of history and invaded its green solitude; on the outskirts "ancient Britons," tattooed with blue woad, have made clearings and sown corn, and “old Romans" have run a long straight ers. Poor queen of old days, hear this, and smile and take solace! "If she hadn't poisoned herself, would she be alive now?" (Did she poison herself? How one forgets!) Alas, no! she, too, would have been dead long ago. A strange mystery, this of the long, long, long time that has gone by. "street" through one portion of it. There yonder against the sky. A pause, and still lingers in her heart a coy belief in then, "We might have taken some flowlittle green-clad oak-men, and flowerelves, and subtle sylvan creatures of fancy; indeed, it was only the other day that she asked me, "How does the sun keep up in the sky? Is it hanging on a fairy tree?" but I notice a growing impatience at "sham stories," and a preference for what has really happened,—“ something about the Romans, or the Danes or Saxons, or Jesus." When I begin some wonderful saga, she looks up alertly, "True?" then settles down to her enjoyment. The shadowy figures of our old England perplex as much as they delight her imagination. I believe she cherishes a wild hope of finding some day the tiled floor of a Roman villa in a corner of her garden, like the one in the Cotswolds, you know, father; Miss Jessie saw it." I find a note of the following conversation, just after the last hug had been given and the gas was being turned down to a peep: W. V. The Ancient Britons are all dead, are they not? MOTHER. When I told her the story of the hound Gelert-" True?"—and described how, after the Prince had discovered that the child was safe, and had turned, full of pity and remorse, to the dying hound, poor Gelert had just strength to lick his hand before falling back dead, the licking of the hand moved her deeply and set her thinking for hours. Next day she wanted to know whether "that Gelert Prince" was still alive. No. Well, the Prince's son ? No. His son then? No; it was all long, long ago. It is incomprehensible to her that "every one" should have died so long ago. She does not understand how it happens that even I, venerable as I am, did not know the W. V. Then they can't come and attack us now, Druids, or the Saxons, or any of "those can they? MOTHER. No! No one wants to attack us. Besides, we are Britons ourselves, you know. Ancient Britons' little babies. How funny! old Romans." "You are very old, aren't you, father?-thirty-four?" "I am more W. V. [after a pause]. I suppose we are the than thirty-five, dear!" "That is a lot older than me,' somewhat dubiously. "Nearly six times. After a long pause: "What was your first little girl's name?' Violet, dear.' How old would she have been?" "Nearly twenty, dearie." "Did I ever see her, father?" “No, chuck." "Did she ever see me?" N Who can tell? Perhaps, perhaps. And so to sleep, with, it may be, lively dreams springing out of that fearsome legend which Miss Jessie inscribes (in letters of fire) on the blackboard as a writing exercise: "England was once the home of the Britons. They were wild and savage." In spite of her devotion to history and her love of truth, I fear W. V. cannot be counted on for accuracy. What am I to say when, in a rattle-pate mood, she tells me that not only Julius Cæsar but Oliver Cromwell was lost on board the "White Ship,"-like needles in a haystack? Her perception of the lapse of time and the remoteness of events is altogether untrustworthy. Last August we went across the Heath to visit the tumulus of Boadicea. As we passed the Ponds the sparkling of the water in the sun lit up her fancy, "Wasn't it like fairies dancing?" After a little silence she was anxious to know whether there was a wreath on Boadicea's grave. Oh no. "Not any leaves either?" No, all the people who knew her had died long ago. There used to be two pinetrees, but they were dead too,-only two broken trunks left, which she could see All these things appeal strongly to her imagination. What a delight it is to her to hear read for the twentieth time that passage about the giant Atlas in "The Heroes": They asked him, and he answered mildly, pointing to the seaboard with his mighty hand, I can see the Gorgons lying on an island far away; but this youth can never come near them unless he has the hat of darkness.'" And they touch her feelings more nearly than I should have thought. On many occasions we have heard her crying shortly after being tucked up for the night. Some one always goes to her, for it is horrible to leave a child crying in the dark; and the cause of her distress has always been a mysterious pain, which vanishes at the moment any one sits down beside her. One evening, however, I had been reading her " The Wreck of the Hesperus,'" and while she |