the courtliest way he was capable of.
While the King ate, the rigour of his royal dignity relaxed a
little, and with his growing contentment came a desire to talk.
He said–“I think thou callest thyself Miles Hendon, if I heard
thee aright?”
“Yes, Sire,” Miles replied; then observed to himself, “If I MUST
humour the poor lad’s madness, I must ‘Sire’ him, I must ‘Majesty’
him, I must not go by halves, I must stick at nothing that
belongeth to the part I play, else shall I play it ill and work
evil to this charitable and kindly cause.”
The King warmed his heart with a second glass of wine, and said–
“I would know thee–tell me thy story. Thou hast a gallant way
with thee, and a noble–art nobly born?”
“We are of the tail of the nobility, good your Majesty. My father
is a baronet–one of the smaller lords by knight service {2}–Sir
Richard Hendon of Hendon Hall, by Monk’s Holm in Kent.”
“The name has escaped my memory. Go on–tell me thy story.”
“‘Tis not much, your Majesty, yet perchance it may beguile a short
half-hour for want of a better. My father, Sir Richard, is very
rich, and of a most generous nature. My mother died whilst I was
yet a boy. I have two brothers: Arthur, my elder, with a soul
like to his father’s; and Hugh, younger than I, a mean spirit,
covetous, treacherous, vicious, underhanded–a reptile. Such was
he from the cradle; such was he ten years past, when I last saw
him–a ripe rascal at nineteen, I being twenty then, and Arthur
twenty-two. There is none other of us but the Lady Edith, my
cousin–she was sixteen then–beautiful, gentle, good, the
daughter of an earl, the last of her race, heiress of a great
fortune and a lapsed title. My father was her guardian. I loved
her and she loved me; but she was betrothed to Arthur from the
cradle, and Sir Richard would not suffer the contract to be
broken. Arthur loved another maid, and bade us be of good cheer
and hold fast to the hope that delay and luck together would some
day give success to our several causes. Hugh loved the Lady
Edith’s fortune, though in truth he said it was herself he loved–
but then ’twas his way, alway, to say the one thing and mean the
other. But he lost his arts upon the girl; he could deceive my
father, but none else. My father loved him best of us all, and
trusted and believed him; for he was the youngest child, and
others hated him–these qualities being in all ages sufficient to
win a parent’s dearest love; and he had a smooth persuasive
tongue, with an admirable gift of lying–and these be qualities
which do mightily assist a blind affection to cozen itself. I was
wild–in troth I might go yet farther and say VERY wild, though
’twas a wildness of an innocent sort, since it hurt none but me,
brought shame to none, nor loss, nor had in it any taint of crime
or baseness, or what might not beseem mine honourable degree.
“Yet did my brother Hugh turn these faults to good account–he
seeing that our brother Arthur’s health was but indifferent, and
hoping the worst might work him profit were I swept out of the
path–so–but ’twere a long tale, good my liege, and little worth
the telling. Briefly, then, this brother did deftly magnify my
faults and make them crimes; ending his base work with finding a
silken ladder in mine apartments–conveyed thither by his own
means–and did convince my father by this, and suborned evidence
of servants and other lying knaves, that I was minded to carry off
my Edith and marry with her in rank defiance of his will.
“Three years of banishment from home and England might make a
soldier and a man of me, my father said, and teach me some degree
of wisdom. I fought out my long probation in the continental
wars, tasting sumptuously of hard knocks, privation, and
adventure; but in my last battle I was taken captive, and during
the seven years that have waxed and waned since then, a foreign