It is hardly necessary to say that Charles kept his word. The favor he desired was granted him after he had been summoned next day to the presence of the King and of Sir William and Lady Chauncy in the dining-hall. Each of them in turn pointed out to him not only the terrible danger he had exposed himself to by running away out into the wide world, but also the misery and strife that had nearly come of it for everybody—not by any means least or last for good Master and Mistress Speedwell and the sweet little maid Molly, who had been so kind and pitying of his plight.
After that Charles was permitted to leave the great shadowy hall, and since the King and Sir William considered that he must have suffered enough, and had shown himself brave as boys should be under difficulties and privations, no more was said about the matter by the King or by Sir William. Lady Chauncy, however, never wearied for a long time of lamenting that she could not “give him a good whipping as he deserved,” she said, “as much as any other naughty little boy,” and to escape that was one of the very few advantages Charles found in being the King’s eldest son, upon whom at that time it was not accounted lawful to lay whipping materials of any kind.
Till a short time after, when his father took him to London with him, Charles had his freedom in the old house as far as his given word allowed it him. As to Wynkin, he remained Charles’s most trusty and well-beloved friend to the end of his long life.
Molly grew up to be a brave yeoman’s wife, and of winter nights as she sat at her wheel and little, merry-faced, golden-haired, blue-eyed children, like once she herself had been, were gathered round her, she would relate the story of the gipsy boy who was now King of England. As for the miller, he lived long and peacefully, not mixing so much as of old in the affairs of the nation, but attending to the grinding of his corn, and listening with a contented mind to the music of the mill-sails, as they whirled in the wind.
[Transcriber’s note—the following changes have been made to this text:
Page 23—it to if—“even if he dared”.]