Now what shall I do? 'Twill wake him
to take him up and put him within the bed, and he sorely needeth
sleep.'
He looked about for extra covering, but finding none, doffed his
doublet and wrapped the lad in it, saying, 'I am used to nipping air
and scant apparel, 'tis little I shall mind the cold'- then walked
up and down the room to keep his blood in motion, soliloquizing as
before.
'His injured mind persuades him he is Prince of Wales; 'twill be
odd to have a Prince of Wales still with us, now that he that was
the prince is prince no more, but king- for this poor mind is set upon
the one fantasy, and will not reason out that now it should cast by
the prince and call itself the king.... If my father liveth still,
after these seven years that I have heard naught from home in my
foreign dungeon, he will welcome the poor lad and give him generous
shelter for my sake; so will my good elder brother, Arthur; my other
brother, Hugh- but I will crack his crown, an he interfere, the
fox-hearted, ill-conditioned animal! Yes, thither will we fare- and
straightway, too.'
A servant entered with a smoking meal, disposed it upon a small
deal table, placed the chairs, and took his departure, leaving such
cheap lodgers as these to wait upon themselves. The door slammed after
him, and the noise woke the boy, who sprung to a sitting posture,
and shot a glad glance about him; then a grieved look came into his
face and he murmured to himself, with a deep sigh, 'Alack, it was
but a dream.
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