LITMIR.BIZ

      This happy state of things continued while the two ate the supper; then, after a prayer before the shrine, the hermit put the boy to bed, in a small adjoining room, tucking him in as snugly and lovingly as a mother might; and so, with a parting caress, left him and sat down by the fire, and began to poke the brands about in an absent and aimless way. Presently he paused; then tapped 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

       Table of Contents

      The old man glided away, stooping, stealthy, cat-like, and brought the low bench. He seated himself upon it, half his body in the dim and flickering light, and the other half in shadow; and so, with his craving eyes bent upon the slumbering boy, he kept his patient vigil there, heedless of the drift of time, and softly whetted his knife, and mumbled and chuckled; and in aspect and attitude he resembled nothing so much as a grizzly, monstrous spider, gloating over some hapless insect that lay bound and helpless in his web.

      After a long while, the old man, who was still gazing – yet not seeing, his mind having settled into a dreamy abstraction – observed, on a sudden, that the boy’s eyes were open! wide open and staring! – staring up in frozen horror at the knife. The smile of a gratified devil crept over the old man’s face, and he said, without changing his attitude or his occupation—

      “Son of Henry the Eighth, hast thou prayed?”

      The boy struggled helplessly in his bonds, and at the same time forced a smothered sound through his closed jaws, which the hermit chose to interpret as an affirmative answer to his question.

      “Then pray again. Pray the prayer for the dying!”

      A shudder shook the boy’s frame, and his face blenched. Then he struggled again to free himself – turning and twisting himself this way and that; tugging frantically, fiercely, desperately – but uselessly – to burst his fetters; and all the while the old ogre smiled down upon him, and nodded his head, and placidly whetted his knife; mumbling, from time to time, “The moments are precious, they are few and precious – pray the prayer for the dying!”

      The boy uttered a despairing groan, and ceased from his struggles, panting. The tears came, then, and trickled, one after the other, down his face; but this piteous sight wrought no softening effect upon the savage old man.

      The dawn was coming now; the

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