'And that,' said Hugh Fitzwarren, 'is the price
Paid for your cat in Barbary, by a King
Whose house was rich in gems, but sorely plagued
With rats and mice. Gather it up, my lad,
And praise your master for his honesty;
For, though my cargo prospered, yours outshines
The best of it. Take it, my lad, and go;
You're a rich man; and, if you use it well, Riches will make you richer, and the world
Will prosper in your own prosperity.
The miser, like the cold and barren moon,
Shines with a fruitless light. The spendthrift fool
Flits like a Jack-o-Lent over quags and fens;
But he that's wisely rich gathers his gold
Into a fruitful and unwasting sun
That spends its glory on a thousand fields
And blesses all the world. Take it and go.'
Blankly, as in a dream, Whittington stared.
'How should I take it, sir? The ship was yours,
And ...'
'Ay, the ship was mine; but in that ship
Your stake was richer than we knew. 'Tis yours.'
'Then,' answered Whittington, 'if this wealth be mine,
Who but an hour ago was all so poor,
I know one way to make me richer still.'
He gathered up the glittering sack of gems,
Turned to the halpace, where his green-gowned maid
Stood in the glory of the coloured panes.
He thrust the splendid load into her arms,
Muttering—'Take it, lady! Let me be poor!
But rich, at least, in that you not despise
The waif you saved.'
—'Despise you, Whittington?'—
'O, no, not in the sight of God! But I
Grow tired of waiting for the Judgment Day!
I am but a man. I am a scullion now;
But I would like, only for half an hour,
To stand upright and say "I am a king!"
Take it!'
And, as they stood, a little apart,
Their eyes were married in one swift level look,
Silent, but all that souls could say was said.
* * * *
And
'I know a way,' said the Bell of St. Martin's.
'Tell it, and be quick,' laughed the prentices below!
'Whittington shall marry her, marry her, marry her!
Peal for a wedding,' said the big Bell of Bow.
He shall take a kingdom up, and cast it on the sea again;
He shall have his caravels to traffic for him now;
He shall see his royal sails rolling up from Araby,
And the crest—a honey-bee—golden at the prow.
Whittington! Whittington! The world is all a fairy tale!—
Even so we sang for him.—But O, the tale is true!
Whittington he married her, and on his merry marriage-day,
O, we sang, we sang for him, like lavrocks in the blue.
Far away from London, these happy prentice lovers
Wandered through the fern to his western home again,
Down by deep Dorset to the wooded isle of Purbeck,
Round to little Kimmeridge, by many a lover's lane.
There did they abide as in a dove-cote hidden
Deep in happy woods until the bells of duty rang;
Then they rode the way he went, a barefoot boy to London,
Round by Hampshire forest-roads, but as they rode he sang:—
Kimmeridge in Dorset is the happiest of places!
All the little homesteads are thatched with beauty there!
All the old ploughmen, there, have happy smiling faces,
Christmas roses in their cheeks, and crowns of silver hair.
Blue as are the eggs in the nest of the hedge-sparrow,
Gleam the little rooms in the homestead that I know:
Death, I think, has lost the way to Kimmeridge in Dorset;
Sorrow never knew it, or forgot it, long ago!