His eyes burned and, in an inspired way, he muttered some disconnected words: "Ah! Ah! thy son!--great bloodshed--great glory--happy always--an emperor's family." Then he stooped to pick up the alms thrown to him, and disappeared in the tall grass.
The lord of the manor looked up and down the road and called as loudly as he could.

But no one answered him! The wind only howled and the morning mists were fast dissolving.
He attributed his vision to a dullness of the brain resulting from too much sleep.

"If I should speak of it," quoth he, "people would laugh at me." Still, the glory that was to be his son's dazzled him, albeit the meaning of the prophecy was not clear to him, and he even doubted that he had heard it.
The parents kept their secret from each other.

But both cherished the child with equal devotion, and as they considered him marked by God, they had great regard for his person.

His cradle was lined with the softest feathers, and lamp representing a dove burned continually over it; three nurses rocked him night and day, and with his pink cheeks and blue eyes, brocaded cloak and embroidered cap he looked like a little Jesus.