Prince Lazybones and Other Stories | Page 3

hopeless confusion, but those of the buildings yet in use had carved buttresses and mullioned windows, on which much skill had been displayed.
Leo knew, or thought he knew, every nook and cranny of his home, for when it rained, or heavy fogs hung threateningly about, his rambles were confined to the various quarters of the monastery.
On such days the stone floors and bare walls were very inhospitable, but he would sometimes find a new passage to loiter in or a window-ledge to loll over and look from as he watched the rain drip from the carved nose of an ugly old monk whose head adorned the water-spout.
I don't know whether it ever occurred to Leo that this world is a busy one. The very persistence of the pouring rain might have suggested it, as well as the beehives down in the kitchen court, where some of his many friends were storing their winter provision, for bees as well as birds were familiar to him; but he had the true Lazybones instinct of not following a thought too far, and so he looked and lolled and yawned, wishing for fine weather, for a new lining to his ragged old coat, or soles to his slipshod shoes, but never once supposing that any effort of his own could gain them.
When it was cold the kitchen was apt to be his resort. It was a long and low apartment on the ground-floor, and its wide fireplace, with stone settle beside the hooks and cranes for pots and kettles, had doubtless been as cheery a corner for the old monks to warm their toes after a foraging expedition as it was for Leo, who liked to smell the savory stews.
On the day of which I write the rain had fallen incessantly, and Leo had been more than usually disturbed by it, for cold and dreary though it was, the servants had turned him out of the kitchen. They would not have him there.
"Idle, worthless fellow!" said the cook; "he lolls about as a spy upon us, to repeat to the master every word he hears."
This was quite untrue and unjust, for Leo rarely conversed with his father, and seldom saw him since Morpheus took his meals as well as his woes to bed with him, as he had done at the present moment.
But the household was in revolt; the uneasiness from outside had crept within, and there was quarrelling among the servants.
"What shall I do?" said Leo to himself. "The rain is too heavy, or I would go out in it; but I have no place to get dry when I become soaked, and I can't go to bed in the daytime, as my father does. I wonder what he'd say if I went to him? Probably this: 'You have given wings to the finest of rhymes, and spoiled the turn of an exquisite verse; now, sir, what atonement can you make for so great an injury? It's the world's loss, remember.' That's the way it always is when I disturb him. Heigh-ho! what a dull day!"
"A very dull day indeed, your highness."
Leo started, his yawn ending abruptly, and he turned more quickly than he had ever done in his life towards the sound which saluted him. Surely he had been alone. Who ever came to this corridor? He looked up and down its dingy length, but saw no one. He must have been mistaken. Then he listened. The wind swept wailing through its accustomed approaches; shutters and windows shook with the blast, but no footfall was to be heard. He turned to the diamond-paned lattice, and again watched the drops trickling from the nose of the water-spout. No one had spoken. Again he yawned prodigiously, but brought his jaws together with a snap which might have damaged his teeth; for, to his great surprise, a voice said,
"I think I could amuse you."
"And pray who are you?" asked Leo, feeling very queer, and as if he were talking to himself.
"That is of little consequence, so long as I do what I have proposed," was the reply.
"Very true," said Leo; "but I never before heard of a ghost in the daytime."
"I am no ghost, your highness; I'd scorn to be such a useless thing."
"What are you, then, and where are you?"
"You will find out what I am after a while; and as to where I am, why, I am here beside you. Do you suppose you human beings have all the world to yourselves?"
"Not quite, to be sure; the birds and beasts have their share. But one can see them."
"So could you see me if your vision were not imperfect. How about all the living things you swallow every time you drink?"
"I have heard of something of the kind, but it was too much trouble