The loving sympathy with which his mother listened to his story, the caresses she showered upon him in thought of the deadly peril in which he had stood, and the hearty approbation of his brothers and the retainers and servants in his father’s halls, were a small pleasure as compared with those few brief, almost stern, words from that father himself.  Even the notification that he was to present himself on the Monday before the king and queen added little to his happiness, although the idea of seeing once again his admired little prince could not but fill him with gratification.

His father led him to the royal presence, and bowed low on hearing himself thanked for having brought up sons who so well demonstrated the loyalty and devotion which had been born and bred in them.  But Paul scarce heard what passed, for the little prince dashed forward to take him round the neck, kissing him with all the natural grace of childhood, whilst half rebuking him for having denied him his own legitimate share in the adventure.

“If we had but been together we would have achieved our own liberty,” he said, his bright eyes flashing with the spirit of his ancestors.  “We would have shown them what Plantagenet blood could do.  I would I had been there.  I would I had shared the adventure with you.  It would have been a thing for our bards to write of, for our soldiers to sing over their campfires.  But now I shall have none of the glory.  I was sleeping in a tree.  It was you who were the hero, the prince.”

“Ah, sweet prince, had they once laid hold on the true prize, methinks neither you nor I would so easily have escaped,” said Paul, who had vivid recollections of the iron hands that had been laid upon him by the stern men who had carried him off.  “I know not how I could have escaped, had it not been that they were willing to be quit of me when they found out I was not him whom they sought.”

But the prince was hardly satisfied with the rather tame ending to the adventure.

“To be rescued by a farmer, and carried home on his nag!” he said, tossing back his curls with a gesture of hauteur.  “Paul, I would that you had cut your way through the very heart of them.  I would you had left at least one or two dead upon the spot.  Had we been together—­” He clenched his hands for a moment, but then laughed a little, and said in a whisper—­“But no matter, Paul; they all say that you played the hero, and I will not envy you for it.  We shall be men one day, and then I shall come and claim your promise.  You will be my faithful esquire, and I will be your liege lord.  Together we will roam the world in search of adventure, and well I know that we shall meet with such as will not disgrace the royal house of the Plantagenet.”

The child’s eyes flashed, and an answering spark was kindled in the breast of the hardy little Paul.  He put his hand within that of the prince, and cried loud enough to be heard by those who stood by: