The Faery Tales of Weir | Page 9

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 be gracious and set the fashion of providing stones."
So he journeyed all day and all night and came at last to the grim city of green stones with towers like aged fingers of gnarled wood in the midst of which the Princess Myrtle held her court in an old red castle set about with small, stiff trees. Now the Princess had not long been married to the Prince Merlin. So full of love were they for each other that for them many days had drifted away like the dreams of a night; and so sweet was their converse, and so softly the minstrels sang that all the court lived in a kind of trance.
The day the Wizard reached the castle it was drowsy noon; and the golden-woven curtains were softly swaying in the breeze; while upon the dim walls the greenish tapestries looked like mysterious forests. The Prince and Princess sat upon their thrones like painted figures, and all around them sat their courtiers in their golden dreams while the minstrels sang:
"The waves are beating on the yellow sands, The moon in a black vault rides white and high. Let us go forth, from these most desolate lands, Led by the spirit's cry."
"You are quite right," said the Wizard.