“Oh,” said Charles, much disconcerted, “well, good-bye, little girl.”
“Don’t go,” pleaded the child, the tears brimming into her eyes.
“Needs must—I’ve got to be in London as quickly as I can. I’m going to see the King—” He stopped short and clapped his hand upon his mouth.
“Then you may as well save yourself the journey, youngster,” said a deep, manly voice behind him, with a laugh of amusement. “The King is hundreds of miles away from London. He started northward three days ago. And what, forsooth, can you be wanting of the King?”
Charles turned dumb with confusion to see before him a man white as a ghost from top to toe with flour. It was the miller, and taking up in his arms the little girl, who ran to him delightedly, he went on, “What can a gipsy boy like you be wanting of the King?”
“I am not a gipsy boy,” began Charles, “that is, I—I——”
“Always tell the truth,” said the miller. “Have you run away—from your camp?” he added, when Charles did not answer. “Where is the camp?”
“That’s just what I don’t know,” said Charles, who was thinking always of the soldiers’ camp, while the miller had, of course, the gipsies’ camp in his mind, as he looked at the little ragged boy, whose face somehow pleased him, in spite of its grimy state.
“I can’t find it, and—and—” and the tears broke forth afresh, “I don’t know what to do.”