"Back to the bees and the books and the kind country hearts," cried the duke to his friend.
"Back to the little church among the quiet trees," added the priest, who had cared as little for an archbishop's miter as the duke for a kingly crown.
Since then the duke had been left to hive his bees in peace, and it may be added that he has never been known to lose his temper again.
[THE STOLEN DREAM]
he sun was setting, and slanting long lanes of golden light through the trees, as an old man, borne done by a heavy pack, came wearily through the wood, and at last, as if worn out with the day's travel, unshouldered his burden and threw himself down to rest at the foot of a great oak-tree. He was very old, older far he seemed than the tree under whose gnarled boughs he was resting, though that looked as if it had been growing since the beginning of the world. His back was bent as with the weight of years, though really it had become so from the weight of the pack that he carried; his cheeks were furrowed like the bark of a tree, and far down upon his breast fell a beard as white as snow. But his deep-set eyes were still bright and keen, though sly and cruel, and his long nose was like the beak of a hawk. His hands were like roots strong and knotted, and his fingers ended in talon-like nails. In repose, even, they seemed to be clutching something, something they loved to touch, and would never let go. His clothes were in rags and his shoes scarce held to his feet. He seemed as abjectly poor as he was abjectly old.
Presently, when he had rested awhile, he turned to his pack, and, furtively glancing with his keen eyes up and down the wood, to make sure that he was alone, he drew from it a sack of leather which was evidently of great weight. Its mouth was fastened by sliding thongs, which he loosened with tremulous, eager hands. First he took from the bag a square of some purple silk stuff, which he spread out on the turf beside him, and then, his eyes gleaming with a wild light, he carefully poured out the contents of the bag on to the purple square, a torrent of gold and silver coins and precious stones flashing like rainbows—a king's treasure. The setting sun flashed on the glittering heap, turning it into a dazzle of many-colored fire. The treasure seemed to light up the wood far and near, and the gaudy summer flowers, that a moment before had seemed so bright and splendid, fell into shadow before its radiance.
The old man bathed his claw-like hands in the treasure with a ghoulish ecstasy, and let the gold and silver pour through his fingers over and over again, streams of jeweled light gleaming and flashing in the level rays of the sun. As he did so, he murmured inarticulately to himself, gloating and gurgling with a lonely, hideous joy.