Alice Lorraine: A Tale of the South Downs

								

Enlarged by travel, he was enabled to suppress rude curiosity about
the wishes of the absent prince; and deferring to a better season
the pleasure of his acquaintance, he made all sail with the daughter
on board, as set forth already; and those two were made into one,
according to the rites of the old Greek Church, in the classic shades
of Ida. And to their dying day it never repented either of them--much.
When the prince returned, and found no daughter left to meet him, he
failed for a short time to display that self-command upon which he had
for years been wont to plume himself. But having improved his condition
of mind by a generous bastinado of servants, peasants, and matchlock
men, he found himself reasonably remounting into the sphere of pure
intellect. In a night or two an interesting conjunction of heavenly
bodies happened, and eclipsed this nebulous world of women.
In a few years’ time he began to get presents, eatable, drinkable, and
good. Gradually thus he showed his wisdom, by foregoing petty wrath;
and when he was summoned to meet a star, militant to his grandson, he
could not help ordering his horse.

CHAPTER VI.
THE LEGEND CONTINUED.

Although this prince knew so much more of the heaven above than the
earth beneath, he did not quite expect to ride the whole of the way
to England. At Smyrna he took ship, and after some difficulties
and dangers, landed at Shoreham, full of joy to behold his four
grandchildren, who proved to be five by the time he saw them. The
Sussex roads were as bad as need be, and worse than could be anywhere
else; but the sturdy oxen set their necks to drag through all things,
thick or thin; and the prince stuck fast to his coach, as firmly as
the coach stuck fast with him. Having never seen any roads before, he
thought them a wonderful institution, and though misled by the light of
nature to grumble at some of his worst upsets, a little reflection led
him softly back into contentment. A mind “irretrievably analytic” at
once distinguished wisdom’s element in the Sussex reasoners.
“Gin us made thase hyur radds gooder, volk ’ood be radin’ down droo
’em avery dai, a’most! The Lard in heaven never made radds as cud ever
baide the work, if stranngers cud goo along, wi’out bin vorced to zit
down, and mend ’un.”
When this was interpreted to his Highness, he was so struck with its
clear sound sense, and logical sequence, that he fell back, and for
the rest of his journey admired the grandeur of English character.
This sentiment, so deeply founded, was not likely to be impaired by
further acquaintance with our great nation. For more than a twelvemonth
Prince Agasicles made his home in England, and many of his quaint
remarks abode on Sussex shepherds’ tongues for generations afterwards,
recommended as they were by the vantage of princely wisdom. For he
picked up quite enough of the language to say odd things as a child