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.