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Hendon was watching the King. He said to himself, with satisfaction,
His disorder mendeth; he hath changed, and groweth gentler. If he had
"
followed his wont, he would have stormed at these varlets, and said he
was King, and commanded that the women be turned loose unscathed.
Soon his delusion will pass away and be forgotten, and his poor mind will be
whole again. God speed the day!"
That same day several prisoners were brought in to remain over night, who
were being conveyed, under guard, to various places in the kingdom, to
undergo punishment for crimes committed. The King conversed with these
-
-he had made it a point, from the beginning, to instruct himself for the
kingly office by questioning prisoners whenever the opportunity offered
-and the tale of their woes wrung his heart. One of them was a poor
half-witted woman who had stolen a yard or two of cloth from a weaver
-she was to be hanged for it. Another was a man who had been accused of
-
-
stealing a horse; he said the proof had failed, and he had imagined that
he was safe from the halter; but no--he was hardly free before he was
arraigned for killing a deer in the King's park; this was proved against
him, and now he was on his way to the gallows. There was a tradesman's
apprentice whose case particularly distressed the King; this youth said
he found a hawk, one evening, that had escaped from its owner, and he
took it home with him, imagining himself entitled to it; but the court
convicted him of stealing it, and sentenced him to death.
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