Raymond ran on without paying attention to the way he was going so long as it was away from King Ormund and his company. By and by he came to another road, narrower than the one he had left, but leading also towards the city. There was a heap of stones on the roadside, and on this Raymond sat down to think over his adventure.
It was a puzzle, whichever way he looked at it. Had the King been making game of him all along? No, his Majesty had without doubt looked upon him as a person of consequence. But if so, what had so suddenly undeceived him?
'The dwarf must be at the bottom of it,' said Raymond to himself.
But how? The dwarf had given him the cap and promised him the kingdom. He had been very near getting the kingdom; but the cap had only given him a headache. He pulled it out of his doublet and looked at it.
Yes, it was a fine cap. But Raymond had got to feel such a dislike of it that, had he owned another, he would have thrown this away. But it would never do to make his entrance into London bareheaded.
'But why should I go to London at all?' Raymond asked himself. 'I don't really want to be a king: I only like to think about being one. Shall I go back to the Brindled Cow and Rosamund? Yes, I will!' And with that he got up, put on his cap, and took two or three steps in the direction of Honeymead.
'But what an ass I should be,' he said, stopping short, 'to turn back at the very gates of London! Besides, it is too late to get back to Honeymead to-night. I won't return before to-morrow. Something may happen after all.'
'It is an odd thing,' he remarked to himself as he went along, 'how I keep changing my mind first one way and then another. Why is it? It used not to be so when I was in Honeymead. It almost seems as if I were not the same fellow; or as if I were sometimes myself, and sometimes somebody else. I believe there must be something of that kind the matter with me,' he continued after a while. 'Look how those courtiers treated me. They were all cap and knee to me one moment, and the next they were all shouting out "Who is he? Cap and knee--who is he?" Hullo! I have an idea! It is--it isn't--can it be--the cap?'
He snatched it off his head, and round the band he read again the couplet that had mystified him before:--