Melchiors Dream and Other Tales | Page 8

boy went
angrily back to his window corner, and Melchior--like too many of
us!--lost the opportunity of making peace for the sake of wagging his
own tongue.
"'But he will come round in a few minutes,' he thought A few minutes
passed, however, and there was no sign. A few minutes more, and there
was a noise, a shout; Melchior looked up, and saw that the boy had
jumped through the open window into the road, and had been picked up
by the men in the dog-cart, and was gone.

"And so at last my hero was alone. At first he enjoyed it very much. He
shook out his hair, wrapped himself in the rug, stared through the
opera-glass, and did the fine gentleman very well indeed. But though
everyone allowed him to be the finest young fellow on the road, yet
nobody seemed to care for the fact as much as he did; they talked, and
complimented, and stared at him, but he got tired of it. For he could not
arrange his hair any better; he could not dispose the rug more
gracefully, or stare more perseveringly through the glass; and if he
could, his friends could do nothing more than they had done. In fact, he
got tired of the crowd, and found himself gazing through the window,
not to see his fine friends, but to try and catch sight of his brothers and
sisters. Sometimes he saw the youngest brother, looking each time
more wild and reckless; and sometimes the sister, looking more and
more miserable; but he saw no one else.
"At last there was a stir among the people, and all heads were turned
towards the distance, as if looking for something. Melchior asked what
it was, and was told that the people were looking for a man, the hero of
many battles, who had won honour for himself and for his country in
foreign lands, and who was coming home. Everybody stood up and
gazed, Melchior with them. Then the crowd parted, and the hero came
on. No one asked whether he were handsome or genteel, whether he
kept good company, or wore a tiger-skin rug, or looked through an
opera-glass? They knew what he had done, and it was enough.
"He was a bronzed hairy man, with one sleeve empty, and a breast
covered with stars; but in his face, brown with sun and wind,
overgrown with hair and scarred with wounds, Melchior saw his second
brother! There was no doubt of it. And the brother himself, though he
bowed kindly in answer to the greetings showered on him, was gazing
anxiously for the old coach, where he used to ride and be so
uncomfortable, in that time to which he now looked back as the
happiest of his life.
"'I thank you, gentlemen. I am indebted to you, gentlemen. I have been
away long. I am going home.'
"'Of course he is!' shouted Melchior, waving his arms widely with pride

and joy. 'He is coming home; to this coach, where he was--oh, it seems
but an hour ago! Time goes so fast. We were great friends when we
were young together. My brother and I, ladies and gentlemen, the hero
and I--my brother--the hero with the stars upon his breast--he is coming
home!'
"Alas! what avail stars and ribbons on a breast where the life-blood is
trickling slowly from a little wound? The crowd looked anxious; the
hero came on, but more slowly, with his dim eyes straining for the old
coach; and Melchior stood with his arms held out in silent agony. But
just when he was beginning to hope, and the brothers seemed about to
meet, a figure passed between--a figure in a cloak.
"'I have seen you many times, Friend, face to face,' said the hero; 'but
now I would fain have waited for a little while.'
"'To enjoy his well-earned honours,' murmured the crowd.
"'Nay,' he said, 'not that; but to see my home, and my brothers and
sisters. But if it may not be, friend Death, I am ready, and tired too.'
With that he held out his hand, and Death lifted up the hero of many
battles like a child, and carried him away, stars and ribbons and all.
"'Cruel Death!' cried Melchior; 'was there no one else in all this crowd,
that you must take him?'
"His friends condoled with him; but they soon went on their own ways;
and the hero seemed to be forgotten; and Melchior, who had lost all
pleasure in the old bowings and chattings, sat sadly gazing out of the
window, to see if he could see any one for whom he cared. At last, in a
grave dark man, who was sitting on a horse, and making a speech to