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A smile twinkled in Hendon's eye, and he said to himself--
"By the mass, the little beggar takes to one's quarters and usurps one's
bed with as natural and easy a grace as if he owned them--with never a
by-your-leave or so-please-it-you, or anything of the sort. In his
diseased ravings he called himself the Prince of Wales, and bravely doth
he keep up the character. Poor little friendless rat, doubtless his mind
has been disordered with ill-usage. Well, I will be his friend; I have
saved him, and it draweth me strongly to him; already I love the
bold-tongued little rascal. How soldier-like he faced the smutty rabble
and flung back his high defiance! And what a comely, sweet and gentle
face he hath, now that sleep hath conjured away its troubles and its
griefs. I will teach him; I will cure his malady; yea, I will be his
elder brother, and care for him and watch over him; and whoso would
shame him or do him hurt may order his shroud, for though I be burnt for it
he shall need it!"
He bent over the boy and contemplated him with kind and pitying interest,
tapping the young cheek tenderly and smoothing back the tangled curls
with his great brown hand. A slight shiver passed over the boy's form.
Hendon muttered--
"See, now, how like a man it was to let him lie here uncovered and fill
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