第11章 THE BIRTHDAY OF THE INFANTA(6)

But the little Dwarf knew nothing of all this.He liked the birds and the lizards immensely,and thought that the flowers were the most marvellous things in the whole world,except of course the Infanta,but then she had given him the beautiful white rose,and she loved him,and that made a great difference.How he wished that he had gone back with her!She would have put him on her right hand,and smiled at him,and he would have never left her side,but would have made her his playmate,and taught her all kinds of delightful tricks.For though he had never been in a palace before,he knew a great many wonderful things.He could make little cages out of rushes for the grasshoppers to sing in,and fashion the long jointed bamboo into the pipe that Pan loves to hear.He knew the cry of every bird,and could call the starlings from the tree-top,or the heron from the mere.He knew the trail of every animal,and could track the hare by its delicate footprints,and the boar by the trampled leaves.All the wild-dances he knew,the mad dance in red raiment with the autumn,the light dance in blue sandals over the corn,the dance with white snow-wreaths in winter,and the blossom-dance through the orchards in spring.He knew where the wood-pigeons built their nests,and once when a fowler had snared the parent birds,he had brought up the young ones himself,and had built a little dovecot for them in the cleft of a pollard elm.They were quite tame,and used to feed out of his hands every morning.She would like them,and the rabbits that scurried about in the long fern,and the jays with their steely feathers and black bills,and the hedgehogs that could curl themselves up into prickly balls,and the great wise tortoises that crawled slowly about,shaking their heads and nibbling at the young leaves.Yes,she must certainly come to the forest and play with him.He would give her his own little bed,and would watch outside the window till dawn,to see that the wild horned cattle did not harm her,nor the gaunt wolves creep too near the hut.And at dawn he would tap at the shutters and wake her,and they would go out and dance together all the day long.It was really not a bit lonely in the forest.Sometimes a Bishop rode through on his white mule,reading out of a painted book.Sometimes in their green velvet caps,and their jerkins of tanned deerskin,the falconers passed by,with hooded hawks on their wrists.At vintage-time came the grape-treaders,with purple hands and feet,wreathed with glossy ivy and carrying dripping skins of wine;and the charcoal-burners sat round their huge braziers at night,watching the dry logs charring slowly in the fire,and roasting chestnuts in the ashes,and the robbers came out of their caves and made merry with them.Once,too,he had seen a beautiful procession winding up the long dusty road to Toledo.The monks went in front singing sweetly,and carrying bright banners and crosses of gold,and then,in silver armour,with matchlocks and pikes,came the soldiers,and in their midst walked three barefooted men,in strange yellow dresses painted all over with wonderful figures,and carrying lighted candles in their hands.

Certainly there was a great deal to look at in the forest,and when she was tired he would find a soft bank of moss for her,or carry her in his arms,for he was very strong,though he knew that he was not tall.He would make her a necklace of red bryony berries,that would be quite as pretty as the white berries that she wore on her dress,and when she was tired of them,she could throw them away,and he would find her others.He would bring her acorn-cups and dew-drenched anemones,and tiny glow-worms to be stars in the pale gold of her hair.

But where was she?He asked the white rose,and it made him no answer.The whole palace seemed asleep,and even where the shutters had not been closed,heavy curtains had been drawn across the windows to keep out the glare.He wandered all round looking for some place through which he might gain an entrance,and at last he caught sight of a little private door that was lying open.He slipped through,and found himself in a splendid hall,far more splendid,he feared,than the forest,there was so much more gilding everywhere,and even the floor was made of great coloured stones,fitted together into a sort of geometrical pattern.But the little Infanta was not there,only some wonderful white statues that looked down on him from their jasper pedestals,with sad blank eyes and strangely smiling lips.

At the end of the hall hung a richly embroidered curtain of black velvet,powdered with suns and stars,the King's favourite devices,and broidered on the colour he loved best.Perhaps she was hiding behind that?He would try at any rate.

So he stole quietly across,and drew it aside.No;there was only another room,though a prettier room,he thought,than the one he had just left.The walls were hung with a many-figured green arras of needle-wrought tapestry representing a hunt,the work of some Flemish artists who had spent more than seven years in its composition.It had once been the chamber of JEAN LE FOU,as he was called,that mad King who was so enamoured of the chase,that he had often tried in his delirium to mount the huge rearing horses,and to drag down the stag on which the great hounds were leaping,sounding his hunting horn,and stabbing with his dagger at the pale flying deer.It was now used as the council-room,and on the centre table were lying the red portfolios of the ministers,stamped with the gold tulips of Spain,and with the arms and emblems of the house of Hapsburg.