Bab Bab 28 · The sacrifice.

. The sacrifice.

Meantime Miles was growing sufficiently tired of confinement and

inaction.  But now his trial came on, to his great gratification, and

he thought he could welcome any sentence provided a further imprisonment

should not be a part of it.  But he was mistaken about that.  He was in

a fine fury when he found himself described as a ‘sturdy vagabond’ and

sentenced to sit two hours in the stocks for bearing that character

and for assaulting the master of Hendon Hall.  His pretensions as to

brothership with his prosecutor, and rightful heirship to the Hendon

honours and estates, were left contemptuously unnoticed, as being not

even worth examination.

He raged and threatened on his way to punishment, but it did no good; he

was snatched roughly along by the officers, and got an occasional cuff,

besides, for his irreverent conduct.

The King could not pierce through the rabble that swarmed behind; so

he was obliged to follow in the rear, remote from his good friend and

servant.  The King had been nearly condemned to the stocks himself for

being in such bad company, but had been let off with a lecture and a

warning, in consideration of his youth.  When the crowd at last halted,

he flitted feverishly from point to point around its outer rim, hunting

a place to get through; and at last, after a deal of difficulty and

delay, succeeded.  There sat his poor henchman in the degrading stocks,

the sport and butt of a dirty mob--he, the body servant of the King

of England!  Edward had heard the sentence pronounced, but he had not

realised the half that it meant.  His anger began to rise as the sense

of this new indignity which had been put upon him sank home; it jumped

to summer heat, the next moment, when he saw an egg sail through the air

and crush itself against Hendon’s cheek, and heard the crowd roar

its enjoyment of the episode.  He sprang across the open circle and

confronted the officer in charge, crying--

“For shame!  This is my servant--set him free!  I am the--”

“Oh, peace!” exclaimed Hendon, in a panic, “thou’lt destroy thyself.

Mind him not, officer, he is mad.”

“Give thyself no trouble as to the matter of minding him, good man, I

have small mind to mind him; but as to teaching him somewhat, to that

I am well inclined.”  He turned to a subordinate and said, “Give the

little fool a taste or two of the lash, to mend his manners.”

“Half a dozen will better serve his turn,” suggested Sir Hugh, who had

ridden up, a moment before, to take a passing glance at the proceedings.

The King was seized.  He did not even struggle, so paralysed was he

with the mere thought of the monstrous outrage that was proposed to be

inflicted upon his sacred person.  History was already defiled with

the record of the scourging of an English king with whips--it was an

intolerable reflection that he must furnish a duplicate of that shameful

page.  He was in the toils, there was no help for him; he must either

take this punishment or beg for its remission.  Hard conditions; he

would take the stripes--a king might do that, but a king could not beg.

But meantime, Miles Hendon was resolving the difficulty. “Let the child

go,” said he; “ye heartless dogs, do ye not see how young and frail he

is?  Let him go--I will take his lashes.”

“Marry, a good thought--and thanks for it,” said Sir Hugh, his face

lighting with a sardonic satisfaction. “Let the little beggar go, and

give this fellow a dozen in his place--an honest dozen, well laid on.”

The King was in the act of entering a fierce protest, but Sir Hugh

silenced him with the potent remark, “Yes, speak up, do, and free thy

mind--only, mark ye, that for each word you utter he shall get six

strokes the more.”

Hendon was removed from the stocks, and his back laid bare; and whilst

the lash was applied the poor little King turned away his face and

allowed unroyal tears to channel his cheeks unchecked. “Ah, brave good

heart,” he said to himself, “this loyal deed shall never perish out of

my memory.  I will not forget it--and neither shall _they_!” he added,

with passion.  Whilst he mused, his appreciation of Hendon’s magnanimous

conduct grew to greater and still greater dimensions in his mind, and

so also did his gratefulness for it.  Presently he said to himself, “Who

saves his prince from wounds and possible death--and this he did for

me--performs high service; but it is little--it is nothing--oh, less

than nothing!--when ’tis weighed against the act of him who saves his

prince from _shame_!”

Hendon made no outcry under the scourge, but bore the heavy blows with

soldierly fortitude.  This, together with his redeeming the boy by

taking his stripes for him, compelled the respect of even that forlorn

and degraded mob that was gathered there; and its gibes and hootings

died away, and no sound remained but the sound of the falling blows.

The stillness that pervaded the place, when Hendon found himself once

more in the stocks, was in strong contrast with the insulting clamour

which had prevailed there so little a while before.  The King came

softly to Hendon’s side, and whispered in his ear--

“Kings cannot ennoble thee, thou good, great soul, for One who is higher

than kings hath done that for thee; but a king can confirm thy nobility

to men.”  He picked up the scourge from the ground, touched Hendon’s

bleeding shoulders lightly with it, and whispered, “Edward of England

dubs thee Earl!”

Hendon was touched.  The water welled to his eyes, yet at the same time

the grisly humour of the situation and circumstances so undermined his

gravity that it was all he could do to keep some sign of his inward

mirth from showing outside.  To be suddenly hoisted, naked and gory,

from the common stocks to the Alpine altitude and splendour of

an Earldom, seemed to him the last possibility in the line of the

grotesque.  He said to himself, “Now am I finely tinselled, indeed!

The spectre-knight of the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows is become a

spectre-earl--a dizzy flight for a callow wing!  An’ this go on, I

shall presently be hung like a very maypole with fantastic gauds and

make-believe honours.  But I shall value them, all valueless as

they are, for the love that doth bestow them. Better these poor mock

dignities of mine, that come unasked, from a clean hand and a right

spirit, than real ones bought by servility from grudging and interested

power.”

The dreaded Sir Hugh wheeled his horse about, and as he spurred away,

the living wall divided silently to let him pass, and as silently closed

together again.  And so remained; nobody went so far as to venture

a remark in favour of the prisoner, or in compliment to him; but no

matter--the absence of abuse was a sufficient homage in itself.  A

late comer who was not posted as to the present circumstances, and who

delivered a sneer at the ‘impostor,’ and was in the act of following it

with a dead cat, was promptly knocked down and kicked out, without any

words, and then the deep quiet resumed sway once more.