ity or open country. They
only knew London back streets and courts. Most of them had never
traveled as far as the public parks, and in fact scarcely believed in
their existence. They were a rough lot, and as they had stared at
Marco at first sight of him, so they continued to stare at him as he
talked. When he told of the tall Samavians who had been like giants
centuries ago, and who had hunted the wild horses and captured and
trained them to obedience by a sort of strong and gentle magic, their
mouths fell open. This was the sort of thing to allure any boy's
imagination.

"Blimme, if I wouldn't 'ave liked ketchin' one o' them 'orses," broke
in one of the audience, and his exclamation was followed by a dozen of
like nature from the others. Who wouldn't have liked "ketchin' one"?

When he told of the deep endless-seeming forests, and of the herdsmen
and shepherds who played on their pipes and made songs about high deeds
and bravery, they grinned with pleasure without knowing they were
grinning. They did not really know that in this neglected,
broken-flagged inclosure, shut in on one side by smoke-blackened,
poverty-stricken houses, and on the other by a deserted and forgotten
sunken graveyard, they heard the rustle of green forest boughs where
birds nested close, the swish of the summer wind in the river reeds,
and the tinkle and laughter and rush of brooks running.

They heard more or less of it all through the Lost Prince story,
because Prince Ivor had loved lowland woods and mountain forests and
all out-of-door life. When Marco pictured him tall and strong-limbed
and young, winning all the people when he rode smiling among them, the
boys grinned again with unconscious pleasure.

"Wisht 'e 'adn't got lost!" some one cried out.

When they heard of the unrest and dissatisfaction of the Samavians,
they began to get restless themselves. When Marco reached the part of
the story in which the mob rushed into the palace and demanded their
prince from the king, they ejaculated scraps of bad language. "The old
geezer had got him hidden somewhere in some dungeon, or he'd killed him
out an' out--that's what he'd been up to!" they clamored. "Wisht the
lot of us had been there then--wisht we 'ad. We'd 'ave give' 'im wot
for, anyway!"

"An' 'im walkin' out o' the place so early in the mornin' just singin'
like that! 'E 'ad 'im follered an' done for!" they decided with
various exclamations of boyish wrath. Somehow,