"God save the king!"
The bay shied suddenly, standing with nostrils a-quiver; and I had to look closely to make out the little brown dot of humanity clad in russet homespun crouching in the path, its childish eyes wide with fear and its lips parted to shrill again: "God save the king!"
I threw a stiff leg over the cantle and swung down to go on one knee to my stout challenger. I can never make you understand, my dears, how the sight of this helpless waif appearing thus unaccountably in the heart of the great forest mellowed and softened me. 'Twas a little maid, not above three or four years old, and with a face that Master Raphael might have taken as a pattern for one of his seraphs.
"What know you of the king, little one?" I asked.
"Gran'dad told me," she lisped. "If I was to see a soldier-man I must say, quick, 'God save the king,' or 'haps he'd eat me. Is—is you hungry, Mister Soldier-man?"
"Truly I am that, sweetheart; but I don't eat little maids. Where is your grandfather?"
"Ain't got any gran'favver; I said 'gran'dad.'"
"Well, your gran'dad, then; can you take me to him?"
"I don't know. 'Haps you'd eat him."
"No fear of that, my dear. Do I look as if I ate people?"