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."

George laughed aloud, and the messenger hearing him, made a cut at him
with his riding-whip, but missed him, and the boy ran away. George felt
as if some one had removed the burden that had been weighing him down
during his wanderings, and he reflect