He knew
where every glittering shield was to hang, and every banner and
battle-axe.
"How do you suppose those knights felt," he said to Jonesy, "who saw
their shields hanging there year after year, blank and bare, because
they had never done even one noble deed? They must have been dreadfully
ashamed when the king walked by and read their names underneath, and
then looked up at the shields and saw nothing emblazoned on them or even
carved. Seems to me that I would have done something to have made me
worthy of that honour if I had _died_ for it!"
Something,--it may have been the soft, rich colour of the
jewel-broidered velvet the boy wore, or maybe the flush that rose to his
cheeks at the thrill of such noble thoughts,--something had brought an
unusual beauty into his face. As he stood there, with head held high,
his dark eyes flashing, his face glowing, and in that princely dress of
a bygone day, he looked every inch a nobleman. There was something so
pure and sweet, too, in the expression of his upturned face that the
light upon it seemed to touch it into an almost unearthly fairness.
The professor, who had been watching him with a tender smile on his
rugged old face, drew the child toward him, and brushed the hair back
on his forehead.
"Ach, liebchen," he said, in his queer broken speech, "thy shield will
never be blank and bare.
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