The Gate

It was a Sunday when I first noticed the castle gate was in sad repair. The weathered wood was sickly gray with despair and the hinges and flanges were flaking away with canker. 
Not that I was a king or anything, and not that it was really a castle of the Robin Hood kind. But we had a moat and a drawbridge, just the same, and the gate was nearly two stories tall and quite wide. And right now I was seeing it as rusted shut and no good to man nor beast. It hadn't been opened in years, that I knew of. Everyone came in and went out of the tiny side door where the porter sullenly stewed in his foul room filled with rotted hay and red iron pipes that had never been used for anything except beating rope ends to make tow for caulking ships.
As nominal landlord of the castle, I felt that the main gate should be refurbished and opened wide during the day to invite good people from all around to enter and have converse with me and all others eager to enlarge their knowledge of things. 
I had no idea how to go about such a project. The porter was a craven ninny, too fond of his sweetened tea to stir his mind beyond the confines of his room. My parents were off to the wars, slaying foes and laying waste to farmland and orchards with a hearty goodwill. My siblings were being schooled in Duncanny, far away, in the art of brewing butter and shooting leather. I had two counselors, Fatty and Skinny, who occasionally lectured me about my immortal soul but probably knew nothing of a practical nature. Still, I went to them about the gate. At first they were nonplussed.
"What's wrong with the gate?" asked Fatty.
"Yes, what's wrong with it?" echoed Skinny. "It's a very grand gate that keeps the countryside in awe so we don't need to hire a sheriff."
"You would have to pay for a sheriff if we were forced to hire one" said Fatty condescendingly. "They don't work for free."
"I want my gate to be opened wide and welcoming, with a new coat of paint on it and the hinges polished and oiled" I told them firmly. "Hang the cost!"
"Very well, it's your funeration!" they said together and left to gather workmen, paint, and other needful items. 
I am not skilled in choosing pleasing color combinations. I like a wild disharmony in hues and patterns, which Fatty says is because of my Romany blood. So I tried to be cautious about the color of the gate. I decided on gold, with the flanges highlighted in silver.
Several dozen men were rounded up from the village and given stiff brushes to clean and smooth the wood before it was painted. They found that the hinges and flanges were not in a bad way -- they just needed a good dry scrubbing and then lubricating with goose grease.
When the work was done I commanded the gate to be thrown open as wide as possible. At first we couldn't budge it -- it had lain dormant for too long, But I made Fatty and Skinny, and even the sullen porter, help pull on the massive brass rings and slowly the gate swung all the way back with a magnificent swoosh of displaced air and dust.
I thanked the men for their help, told Fatty and Skinny to pay them off (which is when I found out the treasury was barren -- so I divided all my jewels among them), and dragged a stool from out of the milkmaid's shed to sit and watch my open gate.
I could see the village in the distance, with plumes of tired smoke sluggishly rising from broken chimney pots. Beyond the village lay a forest of dusty green trees, with little black specks I took to be birds circling around and around above it all day.  Nearby a dusty lane curved around the outside of the moat, and I saw a farmer driving a cart full of hay past the gate. I waved at him. He took off his hat and bowed his head to me. I wanted to say hello to him and invite him in, but he was already aimed and traveling with a set purpose, so I let him pass in silence.
Then a man on a horse rode across the drawbridge and entered the gate to stare down at me with a withering, supercilious expression. He was dressed much better than I was, or ever had been.
"This your place?" he demanded haughtily.
"Yessir" I answered, standing up anxiously. 
"Waste of time" he sneered briefly, and turned around. The back of his head was a hornet's nest. I'm glad he decided not to stick around.
Two little girls came wandering by, and I was bold enough to invite them through the gate. They skipped over to me, holding hands. 
"Would you two like a bowl of milk?" I asked them.
Shyly they nodded yes, so I told Fatty to bring them each a full bowl from the milkmaid's shed. 
"The milk might have straw in it" he said, eyeing the girls disapprovingly.
Arms akimbo, I ordered him to bring the milk and make it snappy.
The girls giggled as they drank up their milk, then thanked me with unsteady curtsies and ran off, still holding hands. I felt like I was the one who had drunk up the refreshing milk.
For a while there was no more traffic going up or down the lane. I didn't get bored or discontented with just sitting there waiting for something good to come through my open gate. The waiting itself was comforting to me.
Finally an old man, riding a donkey, came into view. He seemed tired and distracted, so I walked out through the gate to greet him and invite him in for the night if he needed it.
His smile made my cheeks blush. But the mood was spoiled by the sullen porter, who chose this moment to rush out of his filthy room and yell at me: "What's to become of me, now that this cursed gate is wide open? I have no work and shall be turned away to starve!"
I assured him he would not be turned out of his dirty room; he could stay there until the day he died, beating old rope into caulking tow whenever he liked. 
"I'm sorry for such unseemly behavior" I apologized to the old man on the donkey. 
"No matter" he said serenely. "I will tell you the secret of your heart tonight, if you wish."
"Oh yes!" I said happily. "Please take my room for your rest tonight. I will have some bread and milk brought for you, and a fine green robe I will give to you."
So he told me the secret of my heart, which I had always known, and I loved him for telling it to me just as I knew it was. 
The next day, after embracing the old man and giving him a woolen cap for his pendulous ears, I told Fatty and Skinny I never wanted the gate to be closed again. Not ever.
"And no sheriff do I want" I told them also. "Nothing but peace will come through that gate or go out of it until time itself drops dead."
They bowed sullenly and went to beat some rope into tow.