It was not at all cold; so he stretched himself on the ground in
the lee of a hedge to rest and think. Drowsiness presently began to
settle upon his senses; the faint and far-off boom of cannon was
wafted to his ear, and he said to himself, 'The new king is
crowned,' and straightway fell asleep. He had not slept or rested,
before, for more than thirty hours. He did not wake again until near
the middle of the next morning.
He got up, lame, stiff, and half famished, washed himself in the
river, stayed his stomach with a pint or two of water, and trudged off
toward Westminster grumbling at himself for having wasted so much
time. Hunger helped him to a new plan now; he would try to get
speech with old Sir Humphrey Marlow and borrow a few marks, and- but
that was enough of a plan for the present; it would be time enough
to enlarge it when this first stage should be accomplished.
Toward eleven o'clock he approached the palace; and although a
host of showy people were about him, moving in the same direction,
he was not inconspicuous- his costume took care of that. He watched
these people's faces narrowly, hoping to find a charitable one whose
possessor might be willing to carry his name to the old lieutenant- as
to trying to get into the palace himself, that was simply out of the
question.
Presently our whipping-boy passed him, then wheeled about and
scanned his figure well, saying to himself, 'An that is not the very
vagabond his majesty is in such a worry about, then am I an ass-
though belike I was that before.
Pages:
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239