This
is the very prince, I know him well- and soon will be thy king; it may
advantage thee to bear this in mind and more dwell upon it than the
other.'
After some further talk, in which the Lord St. John covered up his
mistake as well as he could by repeated protests that his faith was
thoroughly grounded now, and could not be assailed by doubts again,
the Lord Hertford relieved his fellow-keeper, and sat down to keep
watch and ward alone. He was soon deep in meditation. And evidently
the longer he thought, the more he was bothered. By and by he began to
pace the floor and mutter.
'Tush, he must be the prince! Will any he in all the land maintain
there can be two, not of one blood and birth, so marvelously
twinned? And even were it so, 'twere yet a stranger miracle that
chance should cast the one into the other's place. Nay, 'tis folly,
folly, folly!'
Presently he said:
'Now were he impostor and called himself prince, look you that
would be natural; that would be reasonable. But lived ever an impostor
yet, who, being called prince by the king, prince by the court, prince
by all, denied his dignity and pleaded against his exaltation? No!
By the soul of St. Swithin, no! This is the true prince, gone mad!'
CHAPTER VII
Tom's First Royal Dinner
SOMEWHAT after one in the afternoon, Tom resignedly underwent
the ordeal of being dressed for dinner. He found himself as finely
clothed as before, but everything different, everything changed,
from his ruff to his stockings.
Pages:
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50