“Ay, ready,” replied the person who tapped, dropping the folds of the big cloak he was wearing from about his face, which was Wynkin’s.
“’Tis well you are come to-night,” said the miller, “for my house is threatened. They might even storm it to-morrow and steal the Prince, for all my endeavor.”
“I dared not venture till to-night,” said Wynkin, “but I know that this evening the coast is clear. They are all gone upon another scent.”
“Come with me,” said the miller, and he led the way above stairs. “Have you a horse?”
“Nay,” smiled Wynkin, “I have the punt; which is safer, since it is less suspected, and it is freighted with half a dozen stout men-at-arms under the canvas.”
“Take your treasure,” said the miller, as he unlocked a door, and motioned Wynkin to approach the bed where the miller’s boy lay sleeping soundly after his day’s fetching and carrying, “if indeed, as I believe, it belong to your master.”
“Ay, truly it is our lost one,” murmured Wynkin, as he lifted the sleeping child so gently in his arms that he did not stir, but seemed only to breathe the more restfully as the trusty serving-man wrapped his cloak close round him so that he could not be seen. “Heaven reward you, Master Speedwell,” and, turning down the stairway he sped out by the door, never stopping till he reached the punt held fast alongside by many hands that stretched from under the canvas covering. Then as the word was given, away, fast, on and on glided the punt, and sleeping the restful sleep of a tired child, the little Prince never stirred till far on towards morning just before the breaking of the dawn, by which time he lay in his own little carved bed in the Cedar Room shaded by its silken curtains, and then Charles was too drowsy to understand much.