George was alone once more, and he let himself be borne along on the rushing subterranean stream.  At length it poured out into the open air, as the Vitale river, and the boy fell with it over a wall of rock into a large pool surrounded by thick greenery.  There was a great splash, the trout were frightened to death, a dog began to bark, and a shepherd, who was sitting on the bank, sprang up, for the coloured bundle that had just shot over the falls, now arose from the water and bore the form of a pretty boy of thirteen years.

This apparition soon stood before him, puffing, and dripping, and regarding, with greedy eyes, the bread and cheese which the old man was eating.  The shepherd was very, very old, and deaf, but he understood the language of the boy’s eyes, and as he had just milked the goats, he held out a cup of the milk to him with a friendly gesture, and broke off a piece of bread for him.  Then he invited George to sit down beside him in the sun, which had been up for an hour.

The prince had never before eaten such a meal, but as he sat there in the sun, munching the bread, and drinking goats’ milk, he would have thought any one a fool who called him an ill-fated child.

After he had satisfied his hunger, he thanked the shepherd, and offered him one of the groschen which the fish had given him, but the old man refused it.

George insisted, for it hurt his pride to take anything as a gift from a man clad in rags, but the shepherd still declined, and added, after he had noticed the fine clothes of the little prince, which the water had not entirely spoiled:  “What the poor man gives gladly, no gold can repay.  Keep your groschen.”

George blushed scarlet, put his money in his pocket, and replied:  “Then may God reward you.”  The words sprang naturally and easily to his lips, and yet they were the very ones that the beggars in the duchy of the Greylocks always used.

He ran along by the side of the stream quite fast, in order to dry his clothes, until it was noon, and many thoughts passed through his mind, but so rapidly that he could hardly remember whether they were gay or sad.  When at last he sat down to rest under a flowering elder bush, he thought of his mother, and of the great sorrow that he was causing her, of his brother, and Norma, and old Pepe, and his heart failed him, and he wept.  He might never see them again, for how could he ever accomplish anything that was good and great, and yet the fish had demanded it of him!  For three days he continued to be very dejected, and whenever he passed boys at play, or boys and maidens dancing and singing under the trees, he would say to himself:  “You are happy, for you were not born under an evil star as I was.”

The first night he slept in a mill, the second in an inn, the third in a smithy.  Just as he was leaving in the early morning a horseman rode rapidly past, and called out to the smith, who was standing in front of the shop:  “The battle is lost.  The King is flying.  The Greylocks are marching on the capital.”