The Pigs’ Cure.  
It was not long before our hero recovered from his delirium. Leading, as he had been doing, an abstemious and healthy life, ordinary disease could not long maintain its grasp of him. His superabundant life seemed to cast it off with the ease with which his physical frame was able to cast aside human foes. But he could not thus shake off the leprosy.
 
One of the first things he did on recovering consciousness was to uncover his arm. The fatal spot had increased considerably in size. With something of a shudder he looked round his little hut, endeavouring to remember where he was and to recall recent events. He was alone at the time, and he fancied the fight with the robbers and rescue of the boy must have been all a dream. The name Cormac, however, puzzled him not a little. Many a time before that had he dreamed of vivid scenes and thrilling incidents, but never in his recollection had he dreamt a name!
 
Being thoughtfully disposed, he lay meditating listlessly on this point in that tranquil frame of mind which often accompanies convalescence, and had almost fallen asleep when a slight noise outside awoke him. The curtain-door was lifted, and Cormac, entering, sat quietly down on a block of wood beside him.
 
Bladud became suddenly aware that he had not been dreaming, but he did not move. Through his slightly opened eyelids he watched the lad while he mixed some berries in a cup of water. As he lay thus silently observant, he was deeply impressed with the handsome countenance of his nurse and the graceful movements of his slight figure.
 
Presently the thought of his disease recurred to him—it was seldom, indeed, absent from his mind—and the strict injunctions which he had given to his young companion.
 
“Boy!—boy!” he cried suddenly, with a vigour that caused the boy to start off his seat and almost capsize the cup, “did I not forbid you to enter my hut or to touch me?”
 
At first Cormac looked alarmed, but, seeing that a decided change for the better had taken place in his patient, his brow smoothed and he laughed softly.
 
“How dared you to disobey me?” exclaimed Bladud again in stern tones.
 
“I dared because I saw you were unable to prevent me,” returned the lad, with a quiet smile. “Besides, you were too ill to feed yourself, so, of course, I had to do it for you. Do you suppose I am so ungrateful to the man who saved my life as to stand aside and let him die for want of a helping hand? Come, now, be reasonable and let me give you this drink.” He approached as he spoke.
 
“Keep off!—keep off, I say,” shouted the prince in a voice so resolute that Cormac was fain to obey. “It is bad enough to come into my hut, but you must not touch me!”
 
“Why not?—I have touched you already.”
 
“How! when?”
 
“I have lifted your head many a time to enable you to drink when you could not lift it yourself.”
 
A groan escaped Bladud.
 
“Then it is too late! Look at this,” he cried, suddenly uncovering his arm.
 
“What is that?” asked the boy, with a look of curiosity.
 
“It is—leprosy!”
 
“I am not afraid of leprosy!”
 
“Not afraid of it!” exclaimed the prince, “that may well be, for you have the air of one who fears nothing; but it will kill you for all that, unless the Maker of all defends you, for it is a dread—a terrible—disease that no strength can resist or youth throw off. It undermines the health and eats the flesh off the bones, renders those whom it attacks horrible to look at, and in the end it kills them. But it is possible that you may not yet have caught the infection, poor lad, so you must keep away from me now, and let not a finger touch me henceforth. Your life, I say, may depend on it.”
 
“I will obey you as to that,” replied Cormac, “now that you are beginning to recover, but I must still continue to put food and water within your reach.”
 
“Be it so,” rejoined the prince, turning away with a slight groan, for his excitement not less than the conversation had exhausted him. In a few minutes more he was asleep with an expression of profound anxiety stereotyped on his countenance.
 
It was not long after the fever left him that returning strength enabled Bladud to crawl out of his hut, and soon after that he was able to ramble through the woods in company with Cormac, and with Brownie—that faithful friend who had lain by his master’s side during all his illness. The sparkling river gladdened the eyes, and the bracing air and sunshine strengthened the frame of the prince, so that with the cheerful conversation of Cormac and the gambols of his canine friend he was sometimes led to forget for a time the dark cloud that hung over him.
 
One day he was struck by something in the appearance of his dog, and, sitting down on a bank, he called it to him. After a few minutes’ careful examination he turned to Cormac with a look of deep anxiety.
 
“My boy,” he said, “I verily believe that the hound is smitten with my own complaint. In his faithful kindness he has kept by me until I have infected him.”
 
“That cannot be,” returned Cormac, “for, during my rambles alone, when you were too ill to move, I saw that a great many of the pigs were affected by a skin disease something like that on the dog, and, you know, you could not have infected the pigs, for you have never touched them.”
 
Bladud’s anxiety was not removed but deepened when he heard this, for he called to remembrance the occasion when he had rescued one of the little pigs and carried it for some distance in h............