“Ay,” said the little lad, “I think that is what I am. I would that I be not Peter, but Trumpeter. So send me forth.”
At this the king laughed, and for the laughter his heart was the lighter. He touched the boy’s brow.
“See, then, I touch your brow, little Trumpeter,” he said. “Go forth—and do you know my message?”
“You had first touched my heart, your majesty,” said the little boy, “and the message is there.”
You would think, perhaps, that Peter would have waited till the morning, but he would not wait an hour. He made a little packet of linen and of food, and just as the folk within the palace were beginning their evening revelry, he stepped out on the highway and fared forth under the moon.
But fancy walking on such a highway as that! At first glance it looked like any other night road, stretching between mysterious green. But not anything there could be depended upon to stay as it was. A hillock, lying a little way ahead, became, as he reached it, a plumy shrub, trembling with amazement at its trans-
