I walk, I shall be in time enough, so that is
settled. Besides, it will give you more time to remove the boy's
property, which, as his father was in all probability a Malignant, and a
denounced man, they might think right to secure for the government."

"Very true; then be it so. Do you start for the Intendant's; and Pablo,
go home and fetch the pony and cart, while I remain here with the boy,
and get everything ready."

Humphrey and Pablo both set off, and then Edward went to waken the boy,
still lying on the bed.

"Come, you must get up now. You know that what's done cannot be undone;
and if you are a good boy, and have read the Bible, you must know that
we must submit to the will of God, who is our kind Father in heaven."

"Ah me!" said the boy, who was awake when Edward went to him, "I know
well it is my duty, but it is a hard duty, and I am heart-broken. I
have lost my father, the only friend I had in the world: who is there to
love and to cherish me now? What will become of me?"

"I promised your father, before he died, that I would take care of you,
my poor fellow; and a promise is sacred with me, even if it were not
made to a dying man. I will do my best, depend upon it, for I have
known myself what it is to want and to find a protector. You shall live
with me and my brother and sisters, and you shall have all we have."

"Have you sisters, then?" replied the boy.

"Yes; I have sent for the cart to take you away from this, and to-night
you shall be in our cottage; but now tell me--I do not ask who your
father was, or why he was living here in secret, as I found it out by
what I overheard the robbers say to one another--but how long have you
lived here?"

"More than a year."

"Whose cottage is it?"

"My father bought it when he came, as he thought it safer so, that he
might not be discovered or betrayed; for he had escaped from prison
after having been condemned to death by the Parliament."

"Then he was a loyal man to his king?"

"Yes he was, and that was his only crime."

"Then fear not, my good boy; we are all loyal as well as he was, and
will never be otherwise. I tell you this that you may safely trust to
us. Now, if the cottage was his, the furniture and property were his
also."

"Yes; all was his."

"And it is now yours, is it not?"

"I suppose so," said the boy, bursting into tears.

"Then listen to me;--your father is safe from all persecution now; he
is, I trust, in heaven;