The Little Lame Prince | Page 9

storms sweeping over and
the sunshine coming and going, and the shadows of the clouds running
races across the blank plain.
By and by he began to learn lessons--not that his nurse had been
ordered to teach him, but she did it partly to amuse herself. She was not
a stupid woman, and Prince Dolor was by no means a stupid boy; so
they got on very well, and his continual entreaty, "What can I do? what
can you find me to do?" was stopped, at least for an hour or two in the
day.
It was a dull life, but he had never known any other; anyhow, he
remembered no other, and he did not pity himself at all. Not for a long
time, till he grew quite a big little boy, and could read quite easily.
Then he suddenly took to books, which the deaf-mute brought him
from time to time--books which, not being acquainted with the

literature of Nomansland, I cannot describe, but no doubt they were
very interesting; and they informed him of everything in the outside
world, and filled him with an intense longing to see it.
From this time a change came over the boy. He began to look sad and
thin, and to shut himself up for hours without speaking. For his nurse
hardly spoke, and whatever questions he asked beyond their ordinary
daily life she never answered. She had, indeed, been forbidden, on pain
of death, to tell him anything about himself, who he was, or what he
might have been.
He knew he was Prince Dolor, because she always addressed him as
"My Prince" and "Your Royal Highness," but what a prince was he had
not the least idea. He had no idea of anything in the world, except what
he found in his books.
He sat one day surrounded by them, having built them up round him
like a little castle wall. He had been reading them half the day, but
feeling all the while that to read about things which you never can see
is like hearing about a beautiful dinner while you are starving. For
almost the first time in his life he grew melancholy; his hands fell on
his lap; he sat gazing out of the window-slit upon the view outside--the
view he had looked at every day of his life, and might look at for
endless days more.
Not a very cheerful view,--just the plain and the sky,--but he liked it.
He used to think, if he could only fly out of that window, up to the sky
or down to the plain, how nice it would be! Perhaps when he died--his
nurse had told him once in anger that he would never leave the tower
till he died--he might be able to do this. Not that he understood much
what dying meant, but it must be a change, and any change seemed to
him a blessing.
"And I wish I had somebody to tell me all about it--about that and
many other things; somebody that would be fond of me, like my poor
white kitten."
Here the tears came into his eyes, for the boy's one friend, the one

interest of his life, had been a little white kitten, which the deaf-mute,
kindly smiling, once took out of his pocket and gave him--the only
living creature Prince Dolor had ever seen.
For four weeks it was his constant plaything and companion, till one
moonlight night it took a fancy for wandering, climbed on to the
parapet of the tower, dropped over and disappeared. It was not killed,
he hoped, for cats have nine lives; indeed, he almost fancied he saw it
pick itself up and scamper away; but he never caught sight of it more.
"Yes, I wish I had something better than a kitten--a person, a real live
person, who would be fond of me and kind to me. Oh, I want
somebody--dreadfully, dreadfully!"
As he spoke, there sounded behind him a slight tap-tap-tap, as of a stick
or a cane, and twisting himself round, he saw--what do you think he
saw?
Nothing either frightening or ugly, but still exceedingly curious. A little
woman, no bigger than he might himself have been had his legs grown
like those of other children; but she was not a child--she was an old
woman. Her hair was gray, and her dress was gray, and there was a
gray shadow over her wherever she moved. But she had the sweetest
smile, the prettiest hands, and when she spoke it was in the softest
voice imaginable.
"My dear little boy,"--and dropping her cane, the only bright and rich
thing about her, she laid those two tiny hands on his shoulders,--"my
own little boy, I could not come to you until you