How sweet, how consoling, would have been the answer of a Christian parent to this agonizing question; but on Bladud’s mother the heavenly light of Revelation had never shone.  She knew not how to speak comfort to the breaking heart of her son, in those cheering words of Holy Writ, which would have been so applicable to his case in that hour of desertion:  When thy father and thy mother forsake thee, I will take thee up.  She could only weep with her son, and try to soothe his sorrow by whispering a hope, which she was far from feeling, that the day might come, when he could return to his father’s court, cured of the malady which was the cause of his banishment.

“But years may pass away before that happy day, if it ever should come,” replied the weeping boy; “and I shall be altered in stature and in features; the tones of my voice will have become strange to your ears, my mother!  Toil and sorrow will have set their hard marks upon my brow.  These garments, now so brightly stained with figures that denote my royal birth and princely station, will be worn bare, or exchanged for the sheep-skin vest of indigence.  How, then, will you know that I am indeed your son, should I ever present myself before you cleansed of this dreadful leprosy?”

“My son,” replied the queen, taking a royal ring of carved agate from her finger, and placing it on a stand before him, for so great was the terror of contagion from those afflicted with leprosy, that even the affectionate mother of Bladud avoided the touch of her child,—­“this ring was wrought by the master-hand of a Druid, a skillful worker in precious stones, within the sacred circle of Stonehenge.  It was placed upon my finger before the mystic altar, when I became the wife of the king, your father, and was saluted by the Arch-Druid as Queen of Britain.  In the whole world, there is not another like unto it; and, should you bring it back to me, by that token shall I know you to be my son, even though the lapse of thrice ten years shall have passed away, and the golden locks of my princely boy shall be darkened with toil and time, and no longer wave over a smooth, unfurrowed brow.”

II.

The unfortunate Bladud, having carefully suspended his mother’s ring about his neck, bade her a tearful farewell, and slowly and sorrowfully pursued his lonely way across the hills and downs of that part of England which is now called Somersetshire.

Evening was closing in before Bladud met with a single creature to show him the slightest compassion.  At length, he was so fortunate as to encounter a shepherd-boy, who appeared in scarcely less distress than himself; for one of the sheep belonging to his flock had fallen into a ditch, the sides of which were so steep that he was unable to pull it out without assistance.

“Stranger,” said he, addressing the outcast prince, “if ever you hope to obtain pity from others, I beseech you to lend me your aid, or I shall be severely punished by my master, for suffering this sheep to fall into the ditch.”