Victorian Fairy Tales by Michael Newton (ed)

Author:Michael Newton (ed) [Newton, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780191017360
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2014-12-30T05:00:00+00:00

‘He began to play, and then all smiles ceased.’

‘Indeed!’ cried the King. ‘Then I too would fain hear her. But stay with me, and I will send messengers all over the world to seek her far and near, and they will find her much sooner than you.’

So Arasmon stayed at the court, but he said that if Chrysea did not come soon he must go farther to seek her himself.

The King gave orders that he should be clad in the costliest clothes and have all he could want given to him, and after this he would hear no music but Arasmon’s playing, so all the other musicians were jealous, and wished he had never come to the palace. But the strangest thing was that no one but Arasmon could play upon his golden harp. All the King’s harpers tried, and the King himself tried also, but when they touched the strings there came from them a strange, melancholy wailing, and no one but Arasmon could bring out its beautiful notes.

But the courtiers and musicians grew more and more angry with Arasmon, till at last they hated him bitterly, and only wanted to do him some harm; for they said,

‘Who is he, that our King should love and honour him before us? After all, it is not his playing which is so beautiful; it is chiefly the harp on which he plays, and if that were taken from him he would be no better than the rest of us;’ and then they began to consult together as to how they should steal his harp.

One hot summer evening Arasmon went into the palace gardens, and sat down to rest beneath a large beech-tree, when a little way off he saw two courtiers talking together, and heard that they spoke of him, though they did not see him or know he was there.

‘The poor man is mad,’ said one; ‘of that there is little doubt, but, mad or not, as long as he plays on his harp the King will not listen to any one else.’

‘The only way is to take the harp from him,’ said the other. ‘But it is hard to know how to get it away, for he will never let it go out of his hands.’

‘We must take it from him when he is sleeping,’ said the first.

‘Certainly,’ said the other; and then Arasmon heard them settle how and when they would go to his room at night to steal his harp.

He sat still till they were gone, and then he rose, and grasping it tenderly, turned from the palace and walked away through the garden gates.

‘I have lost Chrysea,’ he said, ‘and now they would take from me even my harp, the only thing I have to love in all this world, but I will go away, far off where they will never find me,’ and when he was out of sight, he ran with all his might, and never rested till he was far away on a lonely hill, with no one near to see him.

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