his forehead several times with his fingers, as if trying to
recall some thought which had escaped from his mind. Apparently
he was unsuccessful. Now he started quickly up, and entered his
guest’s room, and said–
“Thou art King?”
“Yes,” was the response, drowsily uttered.
“What King?”
“Of England.”
“Of England? Then Henry is gone!”
“Alack, it is so. I am his son.”
A black frown settled down upon the hermit’s face, and he clenched
his bony hands with a vindictive energy. He stood a few moments,
breathing fast and swallowing repeatedly, then said in a husky
voice–
“Dost know it was he that turned us out into the world houseless
and homeless?”
There was no response. The old man bent down and scanned the
boy’s reposeful face and listened to his placid breathing. “He
sleeps–sleeps soundly;” and the frown vanished away and gave
place to an expression of evil satisfaction. A smile flitted
across the dreaming boy’s features. The hermit muttered, “So–his
heart is happy;” and he turned away. He went stealthily about the
place, seeking here and there for something; now and then halting
to listen, now and then jerking his head around and casting a
quick glance toward the bed; and always muttering, always mumbling
to himself. At last he found what he seemed to want–a rusty old
butcher knife and a whetstone. Then he crept to his place by the
fire, sat himself down, and began to whet the knife softly on the
stone, still muttering, mumbling, ejaculating. The winds sighed
around the lonely place, the mysterious voices of the night
floated by out of the distances. The shining eyes of venturesome
mice and rats peered out at the old man from cracks and coverts,
but he went on with his work, rapt, absorbed, and noted none of
these things.
At long intervals he drew his thumb along the edge of his knife,
and nodded his head with satisfaction. “It grows sharper,” he
said; “yes, it grows sharper.”
He took no note of the flight of time, but worked tranquilly on,
entertaining himself with his thoughts, which broke out
occasionally in articulate speech–
“His father wrought us evil, he destroyed us–and is gone down
into the eternal fires! Yes, down into the eternal fires! He
escaped us–but it was God’s will, yes it was God’s will, we must
not repine. But he hath not escaped the fires! No, he hath not
escaped the fires, the consuming, unpitying, remorseless fires–
and THEY are everlasting!”
And so he wrought, and still wrought–mumbling, chuckling a low
rasping chuckle at times–and at times breaking again into words–
“It was his father that did it all. I am but an archangel; but
for him I should be pope!”
The King stirred. The hermit sprang noiselessly to the bedside,
and went down upon his knees, bending over the prostrate form with
his knife uplifted. The boy stirred again; his eyes came open for
an instant, but there was no speculation in them, they saw
nothing; the next moment his tranquil breathing showed that his
sleep was sound once more.
The hermit watched and listened, for a time, keeping his position
and scarcely breathing; then he slowly lowered his arms, and
presently crept away, saying,–
“It is long past midnight; it is not best that he should cry out,
lest by accident someone be passing.”
He glided about his hovel, gathering a rag here, a thong there,
and another one yonder; then he returned, and by careful and
gentle handling he managed to tie the King’s ankles together
without waking him. Next he essayed to tie the wrists; he made
several attempts to cross them, but the boy always drew one hand
or the other away, just as the cord was ready to be applied; but
at last, when the archangel was almost ready to despair, the boy
crossed his hands himself, and the next moment they were bound.
Now a bandage was passed under the sleeper’s chin and brought up
over his head and tied fast–and so softly, so gradually, and so
deftly were the knots drawn together and compacted, that the boy
slept peacefully through it all without stirring.
Chapter XXI. Hendon to the rescue.