"Down Snap, down! Stop that, or I'll thrash you," the Prince heard him say; though with such a rough hard voice and queer pronunciation that it was difficult to make the words out. "Hollo! Let's warm ourselves by a race."
They started off together, boy and dog—barking and shouting, till it was doubtful which made the most noise or ran the fastest. A regular steeple-chase it was: first across the level common, greatly disturbing the quiet sheep; and then tearing away across country, scrambling through hedges, and leaping ditches, and tumbling up and down over ploughed fields. They did not seem to have anything to run for—but as if they did it, both of them, for the mere pleasure of motion.
And what a pleasure that seemed! To the dog of course, but scarcely less so to the boy. How he skimmed along over the ground—his cheeks glowing, and his hair flying, and his legs—oh, what a pair of legs he had!
Prince Dolor watched him with great intentness, and in a state of excitement almost equal to that of the runner himself—for a while. Then the sweet pale face grew a trifle paler, the lips began to quiver and the eyes to fill.
"How nice it must be to run like that!" he said softly, thinking that never—no, never in this world—would he be able to do the same.
Now he understood what his godmother had meant when she gave him his travelling-cloak, and why he had heard that sigh—he was sure it was hers—when he had asked to see "just one little boy."
"I think I had rather not look at him again," said the poor little Prince, drawing himself back into the centre of his cloak, and resuming his favourite posture, sitting like a Turk, with his arms wrapped round his feeble, useless legs.
"You're no good to me," he said, patting them mournfully. "You never will be any good to me. I wonder why I had you at all; I wonder why I was born at all, since I was not to grow up like other little boys. Why not?"