The Little Lame Prince | Page 8

Dinah Maria Craik
all.
Within twenty feet of the top some ingenious architect had planned a
perfect little house, divided into four rooms--as by drawing a cross
within a circle you will see might easily be done. By making skylights,
and a few slits in the walls for windows, and raising a peaked roof
which was hidden by the parapet, here was a dwelling complete, eighty
feet from the ground, and as inaccessible as a rook's nest on the top of a
tree.
A charming place to live in! if you once got up there,--and never
wanted to come down again.
Inside--though nobody could have looked inside except a bird, and
hardly even a bird flew past that lonely tower--inside it was furnished
with all the comfort and elegance imaginable; with lots of books and
toys, and everything that the heart of a child could desire. For its only
inhabitant, except a nurse of course, was a poor solitary child.

One winter night, when all the plain was white with moonlight, there
was seen crossing it a great tall black horse, ridden by a man also big
and equally black, carrying before him on the saddle a woman and a
child. The woman--she had a sad, fierce look, and no wonder, for she
was a criminal under sentence of death, but her sentence had been
changed to almost as severe a punishment. She was to inhabit the
lonely tower with the child, and was allowed to live as long as the child
lived--no longer. This in order that she might take the utmost care of
him; for those who put him there were equally afraid of his dying and
of his living.
Yet he was only a little gentle boy, with a sweet, sleepy smile--he had
been very tired with his long journey--and clinging arms, which held
tight to the man's neck, for he was rather frightened, and the face, black
as it was, looked kindly at him. And he was very helpless, with his poor,
small shriveled legs, which could neither stand nor run away--for the
little forlorn boy was Prince Dolor.
He had not been dead at all--or buried either. His grand funeral had
been a mere pretense: a wax figure having been put in his place, while
he himself was spirited away under charge of these two, the condemned
woman and the black man. The latter was deaf and dumb, so could
neither tell nor repeat anything.
When they reached the foot of the tower, there was light enough to see
a huge chain dangling from the parapet, but dangling only halfway. The
deaf-mute took from his saddle-wallet a sort of ladder, arranged in
pieces like a puzzle, fitted it together, and lifted it up to meet the chain.
Then he mounted to the top of the tower, and slung from it a sort of
chair, in which the woman and the child placed themselves and were
drawn up, never to come down again as long as they lived. Leaving
them there, the man descended the ladder, took it to pieces again and
packed it in his pack, mounted the horse and disappeared across the
plain.
Every month they used to watch for him, appearing like a speck in the
distance. He fastened his horse to the foot of the tower, and climbed it,
as before, laden with provisions and many other things. He always saw

the Prince, so as to make sure that the child was alive and well, and
then went away until the following month.
While his first childhood lasted Prince Dolor was happy enough. He
had every luxury that even a prince could need, and the one thing
wanting,--love,--never having known, he did not miss. His nurse was
very kind to him though she was a wicked woman. But either she had
not been quite so wicked as people said, or she grew better through
being shut up continually with a little innocent child who was
dependent upon her for every comfort and pleasure of his life.
It was not an unhappy life. There was nobody to tease or ill-use him,
and he was never ill. He played about from room to room--there were
four rooms, parlor, kitchen, his nurse's bedroom, and his own; learned
to crawl like a fly, and to jump like a frog, and to run about on all-fours
almost as fast as a puppy. In fact, he was very much like a puppy or a
kitten, as thoughtless and as merry--scarcely ever cross, though
sometimes a little weary.
As he grew older, he occasionally liked to be quiet for a while, and then
he would sit at the slits of windows--which were, however, much
bigger than they looked from the bottom of the tower--and watch the
sky above and the ground below, with the
Continue reading on your phone by scaning this QR Code

 / 61
Tip: The current page has been bookmarked automatically. If you wish to continue reading later, just open the Dertz Homepage, and click on the 'continue reading' link at the bottom of the page.