He had
been on his feet a good part of a day and a night, for it was now
two or three o'clock in the morning, and had eaten nothing meantime.
He murmured drowsily:
'Prithee, call me when the table is spread,' and sunk into a
deep sleep immediately.
A smile twinkled in Hendon's eye, and he said to himself:
'By the mass, the little beggar takes to one's quarters and usurps
one's bed with as natural and easy a grace as if he owned them- with
never a by-your-leave or so-please-it-you, or anything of the sort. In
his diseased ravings he called himself the Prince of Wales, and
bravely doth he keep up the character. Poor little friendless rat,
doubtless his mind has been disordered with ill usage. Well, I will be
his friend; I have saved him, and it draweth me strongly to him;
already I love the bold-tongued little rascal. How soldierlike he
faced the smutty rabble and flung back his high defiance! And what a
comely, sweet and gentle face he hath, now that sleep hath conjured
away its troubles and its griefs. I will teach him, I will cure his
malady; yea, I will be his elder brother, and care for him and watch
over him; and who so would shame him or do him hurt, may order his
shroud, for though I be burnt for it he shall need it!'
He bent over the boy and contemplated him with kind and pitying
interest, tapping the young cheek tenderly and smoothing back the
tangled curls with his great brown hand. A slight shiver passed over
the boy's form. Hendon muttered:
'See, now, how like a man it was to let him lie here uncovered and
fill his body with deadly rheums.
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