The romance of the silver shoon; a story of the sixteenth century

Front matter

ROMANCE

OF THE

SILVER

Chapter I

44 it is impossible !” exclaimed the King of Bonhomy.

* 4 4 It is preposterous,” said his Queen.

4 ‘Sire,” said Prince Olaf to his father, “your Majesty’s word can never be impossible or preposterous. Moreover, it cannot be broken. ’ 9

The King laughed, though he had been entrapped and he did not like it. It was an old promise that he had made to his son. When Olaf was twelve years old he was to choose his own Christmas gift, for Christmas Day was his birthday.

For something expensive the King had been prepared. It was not the costliness of what Olaf had asked for that disturbed his Majesty, but the extraordinary nature of the thing itself. Indeed the King had been ready to spend much more money than would be required for what Olaf wanted. The boy inherited a taste for beautiful things, and within certain limits both the King and Queen were willing to gratify that taste. For if he was not faultless he was a loving and an obedient son; and though his father and mother felt sure he would never be a Cardinal- Archbishop, as they had hoped, they were equally sure he would always he a pious Catholic. He was their youngest child, the youngest of seven sons. He had five sisters and four of them were married. A pair of solid silver shoes ! This was the unheard of gift that Olaf desired. Always he had had a notable taste for the white metal. And now the King and Queen came to think of it, every birthday present they had ever given him had been made of silver. It is true that the cups sent to him for his christening were of gold ; but from his earliest years he had preferred silver to the more precious metal.

“But, my child/ ’ remonstrated the Queen, “even if the silversmith can make them to fit you nicely they are sure to hurt your feet . 9 9

“Not if he lines them with silk or velvet, and I wear my winter hose , 9 9 said the Prince.

“Certainly they will be very uncomfortable / 9 laughed the King, “and serve you right. Why you might just as well wear the iron shoes that belong to your suit of armour . 9 9

1 ‘ May I send for the court silversmith, sire f 9 9 asked the boy, as he kissed his father ’s cheek.

“Yes, but you’d better send for the shoemaker as well , 99 put in the Queen. “Silversmiths are not cobblers, you know.”

‘ 4 To be sure, ’ 9 said Olaf as he put his arms round his mother ’s neck. i 6 I never thought of that . 9 9

“Fortunately, my darling,’’ said the Queen as she kissed his lips, “you have the small pretty feet that belong to my side of the family.”

It wanted just three weeks to Christmas Day, and Olaf ’s one anxiety was lest the silversmith should fail to have the gift finished in time. But long before the Angelus bell rang on Christmas Eve the silver shoes were on the Prince’s feet. He was so delighted with them that he wanted to make the silversmith a knight, but this, said the King, was not in the bargain. Certainly the man had followed the Prince’s instructions to the letter. So little surprise had he shown at the command, Olaf was half inclined to think that, after all, silver shoes were not a novelty. They were made, said the smith, of solid silver of the purest quality, quite without ornament of any kind, saving that the Prince ’s device was engraved upon the instep, just where the latchet opened on the hinge in order to admit the foot. They were lined with wadded silk.

Olaf declared that they were not only a perfect fit but the most comfortable pair of shoes he had ever worn. He admitted that they were heavier than he had expected them to be, and he had not thought they would make quite so much noise when he walked in them. His pages were full of admiration of such a novelty ; though one boy who had once worn wooden shoes for a month as a punishment told the Prince that his new foot-gear was many times heavier than sabots.

No need now to ask where the Prince was : the noise of his metal shoes falling on stone and marble and wood could everywhere be heard, unless the floor rushes chanced to be very thickly strewn. When his Highness walked into the castle-chapel for Midnight Mass his footfall was like that of a man-at-arms.

It had been the custom that on Christmas Day some member of the royal family should visit the big Carmelite priory that stood at the foot of the hill. This year Prince Olaf was to be permitted to represent the King, his father. Olaf was delighted. Here was a splendid chance of showing off his Christmas gift. After the last Mass he mounted his horse and attended by a retinue of pages and guards rode down the snowcovered hill to the priory gates, where he was received by the Prior and community. Boy-like, he had anticipated the hour at which royal visitors were expected, and though a special messenger had been sent to tell the friars of his Highness’s approach, it was impossible for them to dismiss the great crowd of poor people who waited at their gates for the Christmas dole.

Now up to this time the Prince’s life had been a very sheltered one, and though he rode out hunting quite regularly, and sometimes passed through the principal streets of the city, he had never before seen such a crowd of hungry-looking men and women and children.

As he reached the priory and reined in his horse to look round upon the multitude, he was astounded to see so many blind and crippled folk, so many ragged and barefooted boys and girls, so many evidences of poverty, disease, and suffering. It seemed to him that the misery of the whole world had been collected and brought to the gates of this religious house.

Too feeble to burst into lively cheering, the crowd began to make some demonstrations of loyalty and respect. The guards had already cleared a way to the priory gates, and as his Highness advanced the people went down on their knees in the snow. To the astonishment of the Prior, as the Prince stepped forward there were tears in his eyes.

“Father Prior,’ ’ began Olaf as soon as he had dismounted, “why do all the poor people in the world come to you?”

“Alas! your Highness,” said the Prior with a sad smile, “these are only a very few of the poor of the city. Crowds like this are waiting at the gates of every religious house in the world; yea, and bigger crowds than this.”

“Is it possible!” exclaimed the Prince. “But do they always come to beg on Christmas Day?”

“Always, your Highness,” smiled the Prior, “and every day in the year. At times we try to give them bread, but on great festivals we contrive to have something extra for them.”

The Prince looked down at his silver shoes and was silent for a moment. Suddenly he asked: “Will they have to wait longer now that I have come? Please do not let them: they look so very cold and hungry. ’ ’

“That is a most kind thought on the part of your Highness, but ” the Prior hesitated.

“Father Prior,” exclaimed the boy with decision, “I will come again. I will come to-morrow. But first I must see my father and mother.”

Hastily kissing the Prior’s beads the Prince hurried back to his horse as fast as his silver shoes would permit him. In another moment he was riding away at a gallop.

On St. Stephen’s Day Prince Olaf was present at High Mass in the priory church. When he had communicated, instead of returning to his seat in the choir, he went to the crib and knelt there long after the Mass was finished.

When his Highness had left the church, the sacristan found standing just within the crib a pair of silver shoes. Within one of them lay a scrap of parchment, and this is what was written upon it.

“Olaf, a sinful boy, begs King Jesus to accept these shoes . Father Prior, who is the almoner of King Jesus, will please turn this silver into many pairs of wooden shoon for the poor boys and girls of the city . May the King of Heaven always have pity on the soul of Olaf, a sinner.”

Two years later among the young Carmelite novices who helped to serve the Christmas dole to the poor was a boy who had that very morning received the holy habit. As he moved about with smiling face and loving eyes the people were heard whispering to one another : ‘ ‘ If that is not our good Prince Olaf, it is his angel !”

“Two years ago,” said one friar to another, “he gave his silver shoes to the Infant Jesus; to-day he has given himself to the Divine Babe for ever.”

CHAPTER H

T o tell you that the young Queen Marabout once ruled over the kingdom of Lesser Potamia, is merely reminding you of what you know ; while to insist overmuch on the fact that Lesser Potamia is bounded on the north and east by Great Potamia, on the west by Bonhomy, and on the south by the Milky Sea, would be an insult to your knowledge of the world’s map.

It is not wicked to be young — though, years ago, I met people who seemed to think it was; and Queen Marabout might have been much younger without blame and without reproach if — well, if she had behaved better. But her mother had died when the child was very small; when she was fifteen years old her father was killed while boar-hunting.

Fifteen is an early age at which to be crowned Queen, but Marabout was the last person in the world to shrink from occupying an elevated position ; and though at first she wept a little for her father’s death, she did not try to conceal her delight at the coronation — which took place the day after his Majesty’s funeral. 14

Yes, she was very young, and if you wanted to get into everlasting disgrace at the Court of Lesser Potamia all you had to do was to remind the Queen of her youth. Long before she reached the age of eighteen she had imprisoned or banished or dismissed most of the old court officials, including the chaplains, who had served her father long and faithfully. She wanted younger people about her, she said, and of course she did not find the slightest difficulty in getting ladies and gentlemen as young as, in many cases much younger than, herself. Indeed she preferred that her personal attendants should be her juniors.

So she had thirty or forty maids of honour and young ladies-in-waiting, and a little band of hoy pages and young gentlemen-in-waiting — every one of whom ought to have been at school. Of course the Prime- Minister, the Lord Chamberlain, and the other necessary officials were quite grown up — otherwise I don’t know what would have become of the kingdom of Lesser Potamia.

Fortunately for the court of Lesser Potamia, the Queen, like most empty-headed persons, was never happy unless she was flying about the world at breakneck speed “enjoying,” as she called it, change of air and scene. She said the Court Doctor had told her that travelling was necessary for the maintenance of her health; the truth being that, like all the other court officials who were left at home, his only chance of obtaining a little rest and peace was to get rid of his royal mistress.

At one time or other the Queen had visited nearly every country in Europe — except her own and the adjacent kingdom of Great Potamia. She knew very much less about any one of them than did the post-boys who rode the horses that pulled her chaise ; for as she always put up at the grandest of grand hotels, and rarely left her card-table except to go shopping, and seldom spent more than a day or two in one city, and had no taste for anything except cards and cookery, feathers and chiffon, it seemed to her that there was very little difference indeed between one country and another. What a lover of motor-cars she would have been supposing that in her time such things had been in use !

As she always travelled incognito, she never included in her suite more than two ladies-in-waiting, one page and a courier, and you may just imagine what a sorry time of it they had. For the ladies had to act as veritable serving maids, and the boy led the life of an ill-used dog. She knew no language but her own — ‘ ‘not even that,” her old governess once declared — and indeed if it had not been for the experienced courier she always employed I cannot imagine how she could have travelled at all.

Now the reason why her Majesty had never visited Great Potamia was this. The King of that country was a boy of fifteen, and Queen Marabout had quite made up her mind to marry him — when he was eighteen. As I told you before, she liked the people about her to he younger than herself, and she was determined that her future husband should be her junior. Moreover, she often told her maids that though she intended to be Queen of Great Potamia she would take particular care that its ruler did not become even King Consort of her own country. 4 4 What is his will be mine,” she said, “but what is mine is mine alone.”

At Christmas-time the Queen was going home for a court ball on what the newspapers called “a scale of unexampled splendour.” Now among the things that she was really fond of, dress easily took the lead. She pretended to “adore” any number of objects; but as her uncle, the old Cardinal- Archbishop, once told her, the only person she was really in love with was herself. His Eminence was promptly exiled.

It is possible that the Queen loved dress just because she was so much in love with herself ; at any rate, she certainly did adore fine clothes. What is more, she “very nearly rather liked” anybody who suggested a new fashion. As a rule, however, she invented her own robes and confections.

For a dress for the grand State ball we have mentioned she one morning told her ladies that she had conceived the most brilliant idea that ever entered the brain of a Queen. As she began to explain it to them in detail they all sat spellbound — as well they might.

“The dress will be entirely of feathers,’ ’ said the Queen, “the feathers of birds — chiefly singing birds. Blackbirds, thrushes, nightingales, blackcaps, bullfinches, meadow-warblers, robins — each will contribute a flounce. The skirt will be of wings, but for the bodice we shall reserve the breast feathers. We have not yet made up our mind whether to have a belt made of robins’ or of bullfinches’ breasts. Which do you suggest, ladies?”

But though all the girls had their mouths wide open not one of them could say anything but “Oh!”

“Yes, isn’t it a lovely idea?” asked the Queen, who quite misunderstood the “Oh!” chorus, and thought all her ladies were in ecstasies. “But which pink do you recommend for a belt, Lady Bose? Both are so pretty, it is rather hard to choose, is it not?”

“It is indeed, madame,” answered Lady Bose with a gasp, “but — hut ”

“Well?” asked the Queen. “Don’t stutter in our presence — if you please.”

“I humbly beg your Majesty’s pardon,” said the maid of honour, “but — but — but ”

“What! you’re stuttering again!” shouted the Queen, slapping the girl’s bare arms: all the ladies wore sleeveless frocks so that the Queen could the more easily slap their arms.

“Begging your Majesty’s pardon,” said Lady Rose desperately as she rubbed her arms, “but your Majesty can’t kill robins.”

“Can’t? can’t ff can’t???” exclaimed Marabout, punctuating each interrogation with a slap on Lady Rose’s face; “do you dare to tell us that there is any thing we can’t do?”

“No, no ! — oh no, your Majesty, of course not,” cried the now weeping Lady Rose. “Of course, if your Majesty wants robins, your Majesty must have them.”

“We should just think so,” said the Queen with a laugh. “In fact your impertinent remark has helped us to make up our royal mind. Our belt shall be composed of robins’ breasts. We will reserve the bullfinches for a collarette. But how very glum you all are!” continued the Queen, looking round upon her ladies. “Ah, we quite understand: you are all as jealous as you can be. You are envious of our superior cleverness and inventiveness, we suppose. Well, no wonder. However, you may all go now. Send to us the Lord Chamberlain and the Master of the Royal Pages. The birds have yet to be killed. ’ ’

When the maids of honour and ladies-in-waiting left the royal presence they talked to one another for over two hours without stopping. And as they all shouted at once and nobody listened, you may imagine the kind of confusion that reigned in the ladies’ quarters. Yet this was a small family tea-party compared with the row that went on that same evening in the dormitory of the pages and the young gentlemen-in-waiting. For the boys had been interviewed by the Lord Chamberlain and their own Master, and a list of the birds they had to begin to shoot on the following morning was already posted up on the wall of the guard-room. Before they went to bed they each and all resolved that not one little bird should he shot by them.

The Chamberlain was a gentleman of rank who had been a great favourite of the Queen’s father. He was of middle age, and his experience of court life was ripe and particular. The ruling of royal personages he had made into an exact science, or if you like, into the finest of fine arts. His leading principle was to agree with everything they said, to promise that everything they commanded should be done immediately, and then — to do what he knew would be best.

So when the Queen told him how many hundreds of singing birds she required for her hall-costume, he did not express the smallest surprise, but answered her Majesty that the finding and killing of so many songsters was just the easiest thing in the world, and that he would lose no time in distributing to the boys the necessary bows and arrows.

The Master of the Pages was quite a different sort of man. In the royal presence he did nothing but bow and smile : out of it he did little but grumble and growl. He was supposed to teach the three IPs to the pages: and this he did indifferently well. As a disciplinarian he was not particularly notable ; but then, as he said (to the Queen’s face), her Majesty was such an admirable ruler of all her subjects, including the pages, that his own office was a sinecure. Behind the Queen’s back he was wont to say that boys who were constantly being thumped, boxed, smacked, often enough put in irons or set in the stocks, had nearly all the punishment that could be got into a day’s work.

On the following morning when the two officials met, they both looked thoughtful, and walked together in perfect silence until they reached the courtyard of the castle. The Chamberlain was the first to speak.

“I suppose your young wretches will be only too delighted with this royal order ?” he asked. “The destructive little beasts will just kill off every bird in the countryside.”

The Master smiled and shook his head ; then after a pause he remarked: “Your lordship has some knowledge of Queens, but, if I may say so, your understanding of boys is imperfect.”

4 4 Do you mean to say that they will refuse to do the Queen’s bidding?”

4 4 They have already done so. ’ ’

“She’ll have them all hanged — to a boy.”

4 4 Don ’t think she will, ’ ’ said the Master. 4 4 They are nearly all noble, and their parents would appeal to the King of Great Potamia. You know, my lord, what our army is like.”

4 4 One hundred and twenty-three men, all told,” mused the Chamberlain. 4 4 Yes, you are right. Besides, the one person on earth she really fears — and hopes some day to marry — is the young King of Great Potamia. All the same, you know, something’s got to be done.”

4 4 Yes, I suppose something’s got to be done; but you may bet your gold stick the boys won’t do it. No, my lord, you’d better go to your chamber and think something out. ’ ’

‘ 4 Can’t yon have an epidemic — measles, for instance ?”

1 ‘ Afraid it won’t do. You see when she ordered those sixteen boys to get forty lashes apiece we had to go in for whooping-cough. That is so recent that if we had another epidemic she might be suspicious . 9 9

“Ah,” whispered the Chamberlain, “I shall have to send for old Magus, the jester’s uncle.”

The Chamberlain and Magus were sitting together in consultation in one of the former’s apartments, high up in the southwestern tower. A beautiful room it was, hung with ancient tapestry in which the green and gold and crimson glistened in the noon-day sun. From the Gothic windows there was a view of quite onehalf of the entire kingdom of Lesser Potamia.

6 1 To kill so many birds at once is of course quite out of the question,” Magus was saying. “The crops were bad enough last year, my lord, but such wholesale destruction would inevitably lead to a famine. No birds, no corn ; no birds, no fruit : that is what it would mean, my lord. ’ ’

“I know it,” said the Chamberlain, sadly, “I know it well. Moreover, I fear the people would rise in rebellion.”

“If they did not revolt on account of the killing of the birds they would certainly do so when they found that their crops were ruined. You see, my lord, they have already been greatly tried by her Majesty’s — may I call it erratic conduct ?”

“You certainly may,” answered the Chamberlain. “You could not find a milder word for such extraordinary doings as hers. Between ourselves I sometimes

think ” here the Chamberlain got up, opened his

door and looked down the stairway outside. Then he returned and for half-an-hour or more the two men spoke in whispers. They were not plotting against the Queen — they were much too honest and loyal to do that ; but they were considering what would be best and wisest to do supposing some day her Majesty’s subjects should rise in rebellion. They both came to the conclusion that the only possible thing would be to beg the help of the King of Great Potamia.

However, this did not assist the poor Chamberlain in the matter of the Queen’s ball-dress of feathers.

“I must think it out,” said Magus when his companion harked back to the original question. “It is such a large order that at this moment I cannot see my way to help you. But I will go back to my hut and consider it. Could your lordship ride over and see me just after sunset?”

The Chamberlain said he could and would. And he did. Though he had ridden his horse thither at a fast trot, he returned to the castle at a gallop, and the groom who relieved him of his steed declared that his lordship whistled and sang all the way upstairs to his apartments in the tower.

Everybody at the ball said, truly enough, that such a costume as that of Queen Marabout’s had never before been seen in any age of the world ’s history. Some, however, were struck dumb with admiration — so the Queen thought. When she asked them pointedly how they liked her unique creation, they replied that words entirely failed them when they tried to express their feelings. Yet, strangely enough, once they had left the castle they could talk of nothing else. In fact, the Queen’s feather-costume became the talk of Lesser Potamia, and you may be sure that whatever was discussed in that country soon became the favourite topic of Great Potamia.

The secret was shared by only a few very reliable people. For the truth is that not one single small bird had been killed to furnish feathers for the Queen’s ball-dress. The materials used for the costume by the Queen’s dressmakers were just the feathers of geese and turkeys, dyed and painted to resemble the plumage of the robin, the bullfinch, the thrush, and all the other birds she had mentioned.

For, as you know, at Christmas-time the slaughter of geese and turkeys in Lesser Potamia is enormous, and, as Magus had told the Chamberlain, to buy up their feathers, big and little, and to dye them appropriately would be a comparatively easy operation. Magus himself superintended the entire business, and the result was in every way satisfactory. The dressmakers were not in the secret, for as they had stipulated that every feather should come into their hands ready dried and cured, and as not one of them could have distinguished the plumage of a plover from that of an owl, they were the last people in the world to be suspicious.

The young jester knew the secret, of course, and so did his friend the cook ; but not one of the pages or the maids of honour was aware that every feather in the Queen’s dress had come from the poultry-yard. They had been bought wholesale, said my Lord Chamberlain, and the statement was a true one. When somebody remarked to the jester that there must have been a lot of killing, he replied, “Yes, and by villains of the deepest dye.”

“And what about those four negro pages ?” somebody else asked him.

“Ah!” he exclaimed, “corkers, weren’t they? Sooted the colour of the Queen’s dress — didn’t they?”

Chapter III Queen Mababout's Difficulties

yjis Majesty the King of Great Potamia had prom- A A ised to pay Queen Marabout a visit; but as she was so rarely at home, and as he was not particularly fond of paying visits, they had not met since she was a girl of ten, and he a little lad of seven. And as he was now only fifteen, of course there was no sort of hurry, and she would take great care that his Majesty should visit her in state before ever she set foot in his kingdom.

Now the court officials, particularly the Secretary of State and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, were feeling very anxious about this forthcoming marriage. Indeed they heartily wished that the King and Queen might at least become engaged, for to say truth her Majesty’s money-bags were getting very empty, and so many of the best people had gone to live in Great Potamia that how to raise the enormous sums of money the Queen constantly demanded, the Chancellor of the Exchequer simply could not imagine. They had reduced the army until its dimensions had become those of a guard of honour, and as to the navy — well, when I 27 tell you that it consisted of one pleasure-barge, one sailing yacht, and one gunboat, you will understand. The salaries of the officials were all in arrears, and the Queen’s debts to dressmakers, milliners, and tailors were simply enormous. The very handsome liveries worn by the pages had not been paid for for three or four years, and when you hear that the court tailors had to design a new doublet for each boy every three months, and that every suit had to be of a distinctive colour, you will get an idea of the colossal size of the tailors’ bills.

“You really must not expect me to remember your wretched names,” the Queen had said to the pages at the beginning of her reign. “You shall each have a suit of a different colour, and I shall call you Scarlet, Crimson, Purple, Green, Blue, Yellow, Pink, and so on.” Similarly the young ladies were called Lady Rose, Lady Mauve, Lady Cerise, and the rest.

Now as some of these boys and girls had names that the writing of took up nearly half a sheet of notepaper, you may imagine what their feelings were ; hut then at the court of Lesser Potamia nobody was supposed to have any feelings except the Queen herself. Moreover, as she fancied that she had an eye that was exceedingly sensitive to colour — the lads had to group themselves in a certain order, and woe betide the unfortunate boys whose colour sense was not educated or who forgot their exact position in the royal circle.

So it was no wonder that the confabulations of the Chamberlain and the Chancellor became frequent and prolonged. Almost at any hour you might see them striding up and down the inner courtyard of the castle, talking together in a low voice and trying in vain to hit upon some plan of raising money without adding to the existing weight of the taxes.