The Messenger of the Black Prince

by Thomas A. H. Mawhinney

I did not want to wound his feelings. With the pretext that I must be going, I leaned over and tossed a handful of small silver into his hands. At the same time I clapped my heels against the horse’s flanks and with a wave of my arm bade him “Adieu.”

I thought I had done with him. I had given him more than he had counted on, I am sure. I had no other idea but that he would gather up his cart and make his way to the nearest village. But my horse had scarcely carried me ten steps when there fell upon my ears the same whistling with which he had first greeted me. Then followed the chorus of the birds. I turned in the saddle and looked back. The great fellow was standing in the middle of the road. His hands were extended towards me. His chest was heaving like a bellows and the sweat was streaming from his forehead. For all that he was smiling like a pleased child. His little eyes were twinkling and blinking in the light of the sun. When he saw that I had turned about, he struck still higher notes and the birds with him.

I rode slowly on and on. I turned now and then to wave back at him. At each turning I saw the same figure in the middle of the road and heard the same trilling sounds. They grew fainter and fainter. The man himself grew dimmer and dimmer. At length the warbling ceased. For the last time I waved “farewell.” But as I did, there he was with his head thrown back, his thumb under his arm and one foot proudly before the other. When he realized that I would soon be out of sight he threw both arms out towards me to wish me good fortune on my way.

So it went with me. On that great highway I found myself in a new and varied world. One strange character passed after the other with each quite different from the one before. At first I thought them only the odds and ends of all humanity driving forward without aim or purpose. But after a while I had to acknowledge that of the people I met, I was the least in experience of them all. I began to make a fresh estimate of men and their manners. They soon impressed me with the thought that they knew what they were about as well as I. The only difference between them and me was that they had interests other than my own. And to cap it all a certain shrewdness warned me that if I were to continue to cope with them, I must sharpen my wits to the keenness of theirs.

I went on and on. I took time to feed my horse and eat a bite myself in the shade of the trees. The afternoon came and went. The sun was dropping behind the hills. An uneasiness took hold of me lest I be forced to lie out in the open exposed to the uncertainties of the night. It was rapidly getting dark. My uneasiness was turning into fear, when I came upon a bend in the road and behind it a broad stretch of thick woods.

I stopped and looked circumspectly around. I might have passed on, but, as I gazed, I spied a little house or cottage hidden far in among the trees. Not a soul was in sight. It seemed a place deserted. The walls were of stone and very old for they were covered with moss in patches here and there. There was a blackness about them from the dust of the road, besides, on the corners and the window-ledges they were worn with pieces knocked off. The windows themselves were hardly visible. They were matted with cobwebs and dirt so that it was scarcely possible that any light could shine through them.

An old slab of stone served as a door-step, but it was surrounded with weeds that grew waist-high even as far as the edge of the road. There was little inviting about the house. Indeed, the more I examined it, the more I felt that I should leave it as it was.

I was about to give my horse the rein when I observed a thin curl of smoke lifting lazily in the air from a chimney in the rear. I knitted my brows in surprise. I looked again to make certain. Then, with curiosity getting the better of me, I got down from the horse, led him by the bridle and tied him to the nearest tree.

I cannot tell you why I did it. I suppose it was the mystery and the strangeness about the place, but before I gave thought to the consequences, I had brushed my way through the weeds and was knocking at the antiquated door.

I drew a deep breath and stood waiting. The time seemed very long indeed. My heart began to flutter in my breast. A feeling that my actions were rash stole over me. The horse neighed. The sound struck me like a warning that I ought to let well enough alone and be further on my way. I was about to turn when I heard a board creak within. The quick shuffling of feet came to me through the door. Then there fell a silence that was like the hollowness of an empty cave.