"What!" cried the doctor indignantly, "would you attempt to make me believe that slight blooming boy a conqueror? the thing is impossible! It is quite ridiculous to mention it. Those laughing eyes, smooth down-like cheeks, and white teeth, may be well adapted to win a lady's heart, but I am sure they never can belong to a hero!"
The King, in the mean time, was equally struck with the doctor; and seeing something peculiarly honest and simple in his fat, round, oily face, he felt a lively interest for him, and an excessive curiosity to know what could possibly have brought a man, apparently so harmless and inoffensive, into so perilous a situation. The fine person of Edric, disfigured as it was by the troubles he had undergone, also attracted his attention; and as he rode up to his guests to question them as to their adventures, (the noble barb that carried him, pacing proudly along, as though conscious of the illustrious burthen he bore,) even the doctor was compelled to admit, the face and figure of his rider bespoke firmness, intellect, and dignity.
"What crime had you committed amongst the Spaniards?" asked he, as he approached, addressing himself to the doctor in a full, mellow, yet commanding tone. "It must have been of the blackest dye, if we are to judge by the enormity of the punishment."
"I am innocent!" cried the doctor, "an' it may please your Majesty! I am quite innocent."
"It will please me very much to find you so," said Roderick, smiling; "but assertion is nothing—what proof have you?"
"My friend here will bear witness in my behalf," said the doctor solemnly, not feeling at all pleased with what he thought the King's unseasonable disposition for merriment; whilst as he stood looking very cross, his red face and bald head streaming with perspiration from anger and vexation, his clothes having been torn to rags, and his hat and wig lost in his late troubles, he struck Roderick as presenting so very whimsical and ridiculous a figure, that after looking at him a few minutes, the Merry Monarch burst out into a violent and almost convulsive fit of laughter.
"Well!" said the doctor, still more gravely, "I am glad your Majesty seems so well amused; but for my part, I don't see any thing at all agreeable or entertaining in being about to be burned alive."
The doctor's solemn look and lengthened face, as he made this naïve remonstrance, only increased Roderick's peals of laughter. "I beg your pardon, Sir," said he, addressing Edric, as soon as he was able to speak; "I really beg your pardon; but your friend here is so exceedingly amusing, that I am really under infinite obligations to him, and know not how I shall ever be able to repay him."
"It is we who are under obligations to your Majesty, for which we can never be sufficiently grateful," said Edric gravely; for he also was not very well pleased at seeing his friend so openly ridiculed; as, though he did sometimes take the liberty of smiling at the learned doctor's innocent follies himself, he did not like to see him made the laughing stock of another. Roderick, however, saw and instantly understood the ill-humour of Edric; and as he applauded its motive, he endeavoured to divert it by every means in his power, and soon completely succeeded. Few people, indeed, knew so well how to make themselves agreeable as Roderick; and though Edric, at first, felt indignant that the King should treat him so much like a child, as to suppose his displeasure could be easily joked away, yet this feeling insensibly wore off, and he soon thought Roderick the most fascinating of human beings. Indeed, that heart must have been hard that could have withstood unmoved the fascinations of Roderick when he wished to please. His bright laughing eyes that looked the very colour of gladness, and his arch smile, might have subdued the melancholy of a stoic; whilst his character had something bewitching in its very failings. He had been all his life the spoiled child of fortune, and though his rashness and impetuosity, his pettishness and his caressing manners, his bravery, haughtiness, and obstinacy; his fondness for any thing that promised a frolic, and his chivalrous devotion to noble and grand enterprizes, formed a singular melange, he was, perhaps, more beloved than he would have been if his character had been more perfect; and it was this very inconsistency that made him so completely the idol of his soldiers.
"Believe me," said he, addressing Edric, "that it is impossible for me to describe the pleasure I feel in having had it in my power to be of service to you; and though I should have been happy to relieve any of my fellow-creatures in distress, yet I must own I am glad you are Englishmen. It was the policy of my late father to act as the enemy of England; but I have always been her friend. I am sure that Nature intended the English and Irish for brethren; and I am too sincere a votary of the goddess to wish, even in the slightest degree, to counteract her designs."