I.
THERE was a King of Hungary whose name was Adelbert.
When he lived at home, which was not often, it was in a castle of many towers and many halls and many stairways, in the city of Buda, by the side of the river Donau.
He had four daughters, and only one son, who was to be the King after him, whose name was Ladislaus. But it was the custom of those times, as boys and girls grew up, to send them for their training to some distance from their home, even for many months at a time, to try a little experiment on them, and see how they fared; and so, at the time I tell you of, there was staying in the castle of Buda the Prince Bela, who was the son of the King of Bohemia; and he and the boy Ladislaus studied their lessons together, and flew their kites, and hunted for otters, and rode with the falconers together.
One day as they were studying with the tutor, who was a priest named Stephen, he gave to them a book of fables, and each read a fable.
Ladislaus read the fable of the
SKY-LARK.
The sky-lark sat on the topmost bough of the savy-tree, and was waked by the first ray of the sun. Then the sky-lark flew and flew up and up to the topmost arch of the sky, and sang the hymn of the morning.
But a frog, who was croaking in the cranberry marsh, said, "Why do you take such pains and fly so high? the sun shines here, and I can sing here."
And the bird said, "God has made me to fly. God has made me to see. I will fly as high as He will lift me, and sing so loud that all shall hear me."
And when the little Prince Ladislaus had read the fable, he cried out, "The sky-lark is the bird for me, and I will paint his picture on my shield after school this morning."
Then the Prince Bela read the next fable,—the fable of the
WATER-RAT.
A good beaver found one day a little water-rat almost dead. His father and mother had been swept away by a freshet, and the little rat was almost starved. But the kind beaver gave him of her own milk, and brought him up in her own lodge with her children, and he got well, and could eat, and swim, and dive with the best of them.
But one day there was a great alarm, that the beavers' dam was giving way before the water. "Come one, come all," said the grandfather of the beavers, "come to the rescue." So they all started, carrying sticks and bark with them, the water-rat and all. But as they swam under an old oak-tree's root, the water-rat stopped in the darkness, and then he quietly turned round and went back to the hut. "It will be hard work," said he "and there are enough of them." There were enough of them. They mended the dam by working all night and by working all day. But, as they came back, a great wave of the freshet came pouring over the dam and, though the dam stood firm, the beavers were swept away,—away and away, down the river into the sea, and they died there.
And the water-rat lived in their grand house by himself, and had all their stores of black-birch bark and willow bark and sweet poplar bark for his own.
"That was a clever rat," said the Prince Bela. "I will paint the rat on my shield, when school is done." And the priest Stephen was very sad when he said so; and the Prince Ladislaus was surprised.
So they went to the play-room and painted their shields. The shields were made of the bark of hemlock-trees. Ladislaus chipped off the rough bark till the shield was white, and made on the place the best sky-lark he could paint there. And Bela watched him, and chipped off the rough bark from his shield, and said, "You paint so well, now paint my water-rat for me." "No," said Ladislaus, though he was very good-natured, "I cannot paint it well. You must paint it yourself." And Bela did so.
II.
So the boys both grew up, and one became King of Hungary, and one was the King of the Bohemians. And King Ladislaus carried on his banner the picture of a sky-lark; and the ladies of the land embroidered sky-larks for the scarfs and for the pennons of the soldiers, and for the motto of the banner were the Latin words "Propior Deo," which mean "Nearer to God." And King Bela carried the water-rat for his cognizance; and the ladies of his land embroidered water-rats for the soldiers; and his motto was "Enough."
And in these times a holy man from Palestine came through all the world; and he told how the pilgrims to the tomb of Christ were beaten and starved by the Saracens, and how many of them were dying in dungeons. And he begged the princes and the lords and ladies, for the love of God and the love of Christ, that they would come and rescue these poor people, and secure the pilgrims in all coming time. And King Ladislaus said to his people, "We will do the best we can, and serve God as He shows us how!" And the people said, "We will do the best we can, and save the people of Christ from the infidel!" And they all came together to the place of arms; and the King chose a hundred of the bravest and healthiest of the young men, all of whom told the truth, and no one of whom was afraid to die, and they marched with him to the land of Christ; and as they marched they sang, "Propior Deo,"—"Nearer to Thee."
And Peter the Hermit went to Bohemia, and told the story of the cruel Saracens and the sufferings of the pilgrims to King Bela and his people. And the King said, "Is it far away?" And the Hermit said, "Far, far away." And the King said, "Ah, well,—they must get out as they got in. We will take care of Bohemia." So the Hermit went on to Saxony, to tell his story.
And King Ladislaus and his hundred true young men rode and rode day by day, and came to the Mount of Olives just in time to be at the side of the great King Godfrey, when he broke the Paynim's walls, and dashed into the city of Jerusalem. And King Ladislaus and his men rode together along the Way of Tears, where Christ bore the cross-beam upon his shoulder, and he sat on the stone where the cross had been reared, and he read the gospel through again; and there he prayed his God that he might always bear his cross bravely, and that, like the Lord Jesus, he might never be afraid to die.