and kindly useth thee, with a sorry jest?”
Poor Tom was listening, as well as his dazed faculties would let him, to the beginning of this speech; but when the words ‘me, the good King’ fell upon his ear, his face blanched, and he dropped as instantly upon his knees as if a shot had brought him there.
Lifting up his hands, he exclaimed —
“Thou the King? Then am I undone indeed!”
This speech seemed to stun the King. His eyes wandered from face to face aimlessly, then rested, bewildered, upon the boy before him. Then he said in a tone of deep disappointment —
“Alack, I had believed the rumour disproportioned to the truth; but I fear me ’tis not so.”