The Faery Tales of Weir | Page 9

him, stretching out their long
necks and opening their red bills. But this did not discourage the
Wizard, for he knew that after geese come men.
[Illustration: THE WIZARD'S FIRST AUDIENCE]
"What's this! What's this!" cried the tailor who was the first to get the
message, "A war? I must run right home and polish up my old gun."
"Nay," said the Wizard. "But go home and kiss your wife--for you
haven't kissed her in five years."
"If she would comb her hair and look attractive I might kiss her,"
growled the tailor.
"If you'd buy her a ribbon occasionally," advised the Wizard, "she
might have the desire to make herself look pretty."
"What has all this to do with war?" inquired the tailor.
"Your kiss will make a stone in the invisible wall which is to keep out
the enemy," the Wizard answered. "And if you stop your everlasting
work and take your poor wife on an outing, that will be another stone.
Every sacrifice you make, every good deed you do, will be a guarding
stone in the wall."
The tailor rubbed his ear. "Am I crazy, or are you?"
"Am I asking you to do much for your country?" demanded the Wizard.
"Think how mean you would feel if the invisible wall got built without
one stone of your donating."
"I'll go right home and kiss Matilda," said the tailor with a skip; and off
he ran. In a few minutes he was back again. "She blushed so and looked
so pretty and pleased that I kissed her three times, and to-morrow we
are going to see her mother. Put me down for four stones."
"Good!" said the Wizard.

By this time quite a crowd had collected, all anxious to hear about the
war. A rich miller took the news very seriously, because his mills lay to
the eastward, from which horizon King Theophile would appear. He
sent to the bank for bags of gold and laid them at the feet of the Wizard.
"These will buy much gunpowder," he said.
"The wall will never be built of gold," replied the Wizard. "There is no
gold minted that will overcome an enemy, or keep him out if he wants
to get in, or put mercy into his heart when vengeance is flaming there.
The real weapons are unseen. If you wish to help build the invisible
wall, stop grinding the faces of the poor and charging famine prices for
your grain."
Then the miller grew red in the face, and took up his bags of gold and
went away. But next day everyone bought wheat at a lower price than it
had been for many a long year, so that people knew the Wizard's words
had taken effect. This made him very popular, and when he again
proclaimed the danger of war and the necessity of building an invisible
wall nearly all the village came forward to ask him what they could do
to insure a stone in that guarding structure. Some of them whispered in
his ear, because they hated to have their secret faults proclaimed to
their neighbors.
Old Peter was among those who made inquiry as to what sacrifice they
should offer to avert the threatening danger. "I have," said he, "a pet
bird that pines in his cage. If I give him his liberty will that help build
up the wall?"
"Yes, Peter," said the Wizard. "For no good man keeps anything
captive that has the desire for freedom."
Some people paid their debts to help build the wall. Others began to go
to church after staying away for years and years. Others made up
long-standing quarrels with their relatives and old-time friends, and
these stones of reconciliation were, the Wizard proclaimed, the
strongest of all, since unity and love are the only impregnable
fortresses.

Of course, there was some doubt about the wall, since nobody could
prove that it really existed. But the Wizard declared he saw it to the
eastward growing ever stronger and wider; and he traveled up and
down the land prophesying war and the necessity of making the
invisible wall strong and high by good works. He met with greatest
success in the villages and towns, but when he entered the region of the
high castles, where the knights and ladies dwelt, he was much laughed
at and some would have had him locked up at once.
Now, being a Wizard, he knew how powerful fashion is in this world,
and how a wandering breath may bring it into being, so he said to
himself: "I will go direct to the court of the Princess Myrtle, who has
married the Prince Merlin, and will gain her ear. When she knows the
invisible wall is to protect her kingdom, she will