"Of England."

"Of England? Then Henry is gone!"

"Alack, it is so. I am his son."

A black frown settled down upon the hermit's face, and he clenched his
bony hands with a vindictive energy. He stood a few moments, breathing
fast and swallowing repeatedly, then said in a husky voice--

"Dost know it was he that turned us out into the world houseless and
homeless?"

There was no response. The old man bent down and scanned the boy's
reposeful face and listened to his placid breathing. "He sleeps--sleeps
soundly;" and the frown vanished away and gave place to an expression of
evil satisfaction. A smile flitted across the dreaming boy's features.
The hermit muttered, "So--his heart is happy;" and he turned away. He
went stealthily about the place, seeking here and there for something;
now and then halting to listen, now and then jerking his head around and
casting a quick glance toward the bed; and always muttering, always
mumbling to himself. At last he found what he seemed to want--a rusty
old butcher knife and a whetstone. Then he crept to his place by the
fire, sat himself down, and began to whet the knife softly on the stone,
still muttering, mumbling, ejaculating. The winds sighed around the
lonely place, the mysterious voices of the night floated by out of the
distances. The shining eyes of venturesome mice and rats peered out at
the old man from cracks and coverts, but he went on with his work, rapt,
absorbed, and noted none of these things.

At long intervals he drew his thumb along the edge of his knife, and
nodded his head with satisfaction. "It grows sharper," he said; "yes, it
grows sharper."

He took no note of the flight of time, but worked tranquilly on,
entertaining himself with his thoughts, which broke out occasionally in
articulate speech--

"His father wrought us evil, he destroyed us--and is gone down into the
eternal fires! Yes, down into the eternal fires! He escaped us--but it
was God's will, yes it was God's will, we must not repine. But he hath
not escaped the fires! No, he hath not escaped the fires, the consuming,
unpitying, remorseless fires--and THEY are everlasting!"

And so he wrought, and still wrought--mumbling, chuckling a low rasping
chuckle at times--and at times breaking again into words--

"It was his father that did it all. I am but an archangel; but for him I
should be pope!"

The King stirred. The hermit sprang noiselessly to the bedside, and went