More "Short Sixes"

by H. C. Bunner

So it is not remarkable that the new Emperor had been several months on his throne before the good people of Ausserland learned that he was a very peculiar young man, with a character of his own, and with a passion, that almost amounted to a mania, for re-establishing an ancient order of things that had well-nigh perished from the face of the earth. Nor is it to be wondered at that, considering all news of the court as frivolous and probably fictitious, they were utterly ignorant of a controversy that had divided the whole social system of the empire into two camps. Who could expect that in the cosy, well-furnished rooms of the weather-beaten old houses of Ausserland it should be known that there was a vast commotion in the Imperial court over the new cotillion introduced by the Lord Chamberlain? It was a charming cotillion, all agreed; the music was ravishing, and the figures were exquisitely original; but the third figure—ah, there was the trouble!—the third figure had not met with the approval of the matrons. The young girls and the very young married women all liked it; and the men were as a unit in its favor; but the more elderly ladies thought that it was indelicate, and that it afforded opportunities for objectionable familiarities. A hot war was raged between the two parties. The Emperor, of course, was arbiter. He hesitated long. He was a very young man, and he took himself very much in earnest. To him a matter of court punctilio had an importance scarcely second to that of the fate of nations. As soon as an objection was offered, he issued an edict proscribing the performance of

the dance of dubious propriety until such time as he should have made up his imperial mind as to its character. For three months its fate trembled in the balance. Then he decided that it should be and continue to be; and he issued a formal proclamation to that effect—the first formal proclamation of his reign. It was an opportunity for the re-introduction of ancient and ancestral methods which the young Emperor could not lose. The edict had gone forth in haste by word of mouth and by notice in the daily papers; but he resolved that the proclamation should go by special envoy to all the principalities that composed his powerful empire. Accordingly, an officer of high rank, specially despatched from the court, read his Imperial Majesty’s proclamation in every principality of the nation; and thereafter it was legitimate and proper to dance the third figure of the new Lord Chamberlain’s cotillion on all occasions of lordly festivities, and all the elderly ladies accepted the situation with a cheerful submissiveness, and set about using it for scandal-mongering purposes with promptitude and alacrity.

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Early one Midsummer morning a strange fishing-smack was sighted from the Ausserland wharves far out at sea, beating up against an obstinate wind, and coming from the direction of the mainland. This in itself was enough to cause general comment and to stir the whole village with a thrill of interest; for strange vessels rarely came that way, except under stress of storm; and though the sea was running unusually high there had been no storm in many days. Besides, why should a vessel obviously unfitted for that sort of sailing, beat up against a wind that would take her to the mainland in half the time? Yet there she was, making for the island in long, laborious tacks. Everybody stopped work to look at her; but work was suspended and utterly thrown aside when she hoisted a pennant that, according to the nautical code, signified that she had on board an Envoy from his Imperial Majesty.

The whole town was astir in a moment. The shops and schools closed. The village band began to practice as it had never practiced before. The burgesses and other officials donned their garments of state. A committee was promptly appointed to prepare a public banquet worthy of the Emperor’s messenger. The children were sent collecting flowers, and were instructed how to strew them in his path. The bell-ringers gathered and arranged an elaborate

programme of chimes. The citizens got into their Sunday clothes, which were most wonderful clothes in their way; and the town-crier, who played the trumpet, got his instrument out and polished it up until it shone like gold. But the man who felt most of the burden of responsibility upon his shoulders was the Head Burgess. He got into his robes of office as quickly as his wife and his three daughters could array him, and then he hastened to the Rathhaus, or Town Hall, and there consulted the archives to find out from the records of his predecessors what it became him to do when his Majesty’s Envoy should announce his errand. He must make a speech, that was clear, for the honor of the Island. But what speech should he make? He could not compose one on the instant—in fact, he could not compose one at all. What had his forerunners done on like occasions? He looked over the record and found that three King’s Envoys had landed on the Island: one in 1699, to announce that the Island had been ceded by one kingdom to another; another in 1764, to inform the people that the great-grandmother of the hereditary Prince was dead; and another in 1848, to proclaim that the Islanders’ right of exemption from conscription was suspended. In not one of these cases, it should be remarked, did the message of King, Prince or Emperor, change the face of affairs on the Island in the smallest degree. The herring market remaining stable, the Ausserlanders cared no whit to whom they paid taxes; as to the death of the Prince’s great-grandmother, they simply remarked that it was a pity to die at the early age of eighty-seven; and when they were told that they would have to get up a draft and be conscripted into the army or navy, they just went fishing, and there the matter dropped. One is not an Ausserlander for nothing.

But the Head Burgess found that the same speech had been used on all three occasions. It was short, and he had little difficulty in committing it to memory, for it took the ship of his Majesty’s Envoy six good hours to get into port. This was the speech:

“Noble and Honorable, Well and High-Born Sir, the people of Ausserland desire through their representative, the Head Burgess, to affirm their unwavering loyalty to the most illustrious and high-born personage who condescends to assume the government of a loyal and independent populace, and to express the hope that Divine Providence may endow him with such power and capacity as properly befit a so-situated ruler.”