“You are right, my boy. Sit down and set me an example, for youth, not less than age, must be supported.”
Without more words they set to work, first throwing a bone to the hound, in order, as Bladud remarked, that they might all start on equal terms.
From that day the health of the prince began to mend—slowly but steadily the spot on his arm also began to diminish and to assume a more healthy aspect. Brownie also became convalescent, and much to the joy of Bladud, Cormac showed no symptoms of having caught the disease. Still, as a precaution, they kept studiously apart, and the prince observed—and twitted the boy with the fact—that the more he gained in health, and the less danger there was of infection, the more anxious did he seem to be to keep away from him!
Things were in this state when, one evening, they received a visit—which claims a new chapter to itself.
Chapter Twenty Three.
In which very Perplexing Events Occur.
The visitor referred to in the last chapter was a tall, broad-shouldered old man with a snowy head of hair and a flowing white beard, a long, loose black garment, and a stout staff about six feet long.
Cormac had gone to a spring for water at the time he arrived, and Bladud was lying on his back inside his hut.