 in addition had
been fined £3000 and sentenced to imprisonment for life. Lately he had repeated
his offense; and in consequence was now under sentence to lose what remained of
his ears, pay a fine of £5000, be branded on both cheeks, and remain in prison
for life.
    »These be honorable scars,« he said, and turned back his gray hair and
showed the mutilated stubs of what had once been his ears.
    The king's eye burned with passion. He said -
    »None believe in me - neither wilt thou. But no matter - within the compass
of a month thou shalt be free; and more, the laws that have dishonored thee, and
shamed the English name, shall be swept from the statute books. The world is
made wrong; kings should go to school to their own laws, at times, and so learn
mercy.«20
 

                                   Chapter 28

                                 The Sacrifice

Meantime Miles was growing sufficiently tired of confinement and inaction. But
now his trial came on, to his great gratification, and he thought he could
welcome any sentence provided a further imprisonment should not be a part of it.
But he was mistaken about that. He was in a fine fury when he found himself
described as a sturdy vagabond and sentenced to sit two hours in the pillory for
bearing that character and for assaulting the master of Hendon Hall. His
pretensions as to brothership with his prosecutor, and rightful heirship to the
Hendon honors and estates, were left contemptuously unnoticed, as being not even
worth examination.
    He raged and threatened, on his way to punishment, but it did no good; he
was snatched roughly along, by the officers, and got an occasional cuff,
besides, for his unreverent conduct.
    The king could not pierce through the rabble that swarmed behind; so he was
obliged to follow in the rear, remote from his good friend and servant. The king
had been nearly condemned to the stocks, himself, for being in such bad company,
but had been let off with a lecture and a warning, in consideration of his
youth. When the crowd at last halted, he flitted feverishly from point to point
around its outer rim, hunting a place to get through; and at last, after a deal
of difficulty and delay, succeeded. There sat his poor henchman in the degrading
stocks, the sport and butt of a dirty mob - he, the body servant of the king of
England! Edward had heard the sentence pronounced, but he had not realized the
half that it meant. His anger began to rise as the sense of this new indignity
which
