The Prince and The Pauper
by
Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
Part 1 out of 4
Produced by David Widger [widger@cecomet.net]
The previous edition was prepared by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset
The Prince and the Pauper
by Mark Twain
Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, to Lord Cromwell, on the birth of the
Prince of Wales (afterward Edward VI.).
From the National Manuscripts preserved by the British Government.
Ryght honorable, Salutem in Christo Jesu, and Syr here ys no lesse joynge
and rejossynge in thes partees for the byrth of our prynce, hoom we
hungurde for so longe, then ther was (I trow), inter vicinos att the
byrth of S. J. Baptyste, as thys berer, Master Erance, can telle you.
Gode gyffe us alle grace, to yelde dew thankes to our Lorde Gode, Gode of
Inglonde, for verely He hathe shoyd Hym selff Gode of Inglonde, or rather
an Inglyssh Gode, yf we consydyr and pondyr welle alle Hys procedynges
with us from tyme to tyme. He hath over cumme alle our yllnesse with Hys
excedynge goodnesse, so that we are now moor then compellyd to serve Hym,
seke Hys glory, promott Hys wurde, yf the Devylle of alle Devylles be
natt in us. We have now the stooppe of vayne trustes ande the stey of
vayne expectations; lett us alle pray for hys preservatione. Ande I for
my partt wylle wyssh that hys Grace allways have, and evyn now from the
begynynge, Governares, Instructores and offyceres of ryght jugmente, ne
optimum ingenium non optima educatione deprevetur.
Butt whatt a grett fowlle am I! So, whatt devotione shoyth many tymys
butt lytelle dyscretione! Ande thus the Gode of Inglonde be ever with
you in alle your procedynges.
The 19 of October.
Youres, H. L. B. of Wurcestere, now att Hartlebury.
Yf you wolde excytt thys berere to be moore hartye ayen the abuse of
ymagry or mor forwarde to promotte the veryte, ytt myght doo goode. Natt
that ytt came of me, butt of your selffe, etc.
(Addressed) To the Ryght Honorable Loorde P. Sealle hys synguler gode
Lorde.
To those good-mannered and agreeable children Susie and Clara Clemens
this book is affectionately inscribed by their father.
I will set down a tale as it was told to me by one who had it of his
father, which latter had it of HIS father, this last having in like
manner had it of HIS father--and so on, back and still back, three
hundred years and more, the fathers transmitting it to the sons and so
preserving it. It may be history, it may be only a legend, a tradition.
It may have happened, it may not have happened: but it COULD have
happened. It may be that the wise and the learned believed it in the old
days; it may be that only the unlearned and the simple loved it and
credited it.
Contents.
I. The birth of the Prince and the Pauper.
II. Tom's early life.
III. Tom's meeting with the Prince.
IV. The Prince's troubles begin.
V. Tom as a patrician.
VI. Tom receives instructions.
VII. Tom's first royal dinner.
VIII. The question of the Seal.
IX. The river pageant.
X. The Prince in the toils.
XI. At Guildhall.
XII. The Prince and his deliverer.
XIII. The disappearance of the Prince.
XIV. 'Le Roi est mort--vive le Roi.'
XV. Tom as King.
XVI. The state dinner.
XVII. Foo-foo the First.
XVIII. The Prince with the tramps.
XIX. The Prince with the peasants.
XX. The Prince and the hermit.
XXI. Hendon to the rescue.
XXII. A victim of treachery.
XXIII. The Prince a prisoner.
XXIV. The escape.
XXV. Hendon Hall.
XXVI. Disowned.
XXVII. In prison.
XXVIII. The sacrifice.
XXIX. To London.
XXX. Tom's progress.
XXXI. The Recognition procession.
XXXII. Coronation Day.
XXXIII. Edward as King.
Conclusion. Justice and Retribution.
Notes.
'The quality of mercy . . . is twice bless'd;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes;
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The thron-ed monarch better than his crown'.
Merchant of Venice.
Chapter I. The birth of the Prince and the Pauper.
In the ancient city of London, on a certain autumn day in the second
quarter of the sixteenth century, a boy was born to a poor family of the
name of Canty, who did not want him. On the same day another English
child was born to a rich family of the name of Tudor, who did want him.
All England wanted him too. England had so longed for him, and hoped for
him, and prayed God for him, that, now that he was really come, the
people went nearly mad for joy. Mere acquaintances hugged and kissed
each other and cried. Everybody took a holiday, and high and low, rich
and poor, feasted and danced and sang, and got very mellow; and they kept
this up for days and nights together. By day, London was a sight to see,
with gay banners waving from every balcony and housetop, and splendid
pageants marching along. By night, it was again a sight to see, with its
great bonfires at every corner, and its troops of revellers making merry
around them. There was no talk in all England but of the new baby,
Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales, who lay lapped in silks and satins,
unconscious of all this fuss, and not knowing that great lords and ladies
were tending him and watching over him--and not caring, either. But
there was no talk about the other baby, Tom Canty, lapped in his poor
rags, except among the family of paupers whom he had just come to trouble
with his presence.
Chapter II. Tom's early life.
Let us skip a number of years.
London was fifteen hundred years old, and was a great town--for that day.
It had a hundred thousand inhabitants--some think double as many. The
streets were very narrow, and crooked, and dirty, especially in the part
where Tom Canty lived, which was not far from London Bridge. The houses
were of wood, with the second story projecting over the first, and the
third sticking its elbows out beyond the second. The higher the houses
grew, the broader they grew. They were skeletons of strong criss-cross
beams, with solid material between, coated with plaster. The beams were
painted red or blue or black, according to the owner's taste, and this
gave the houses a very picturesque look. The windows were small, glazed
with little diamond-shaped panes, and they opened outward, on hinges,
like doors.
The house which Tom's father lived in was up a foul little pocket called
Offal Court, out of Pudding Lane. It was small, decayed, and rickety,
but it was packed full of wretchedly poor families. Canty's tribe
occupied a room on the third floor. The mother and father had a sort of
bedstead in the corner; but Tom, his grandmother, and his two sisters,
Bet and Nan, were not restricted--they had all the floor to themselves,
and might sleep where they chose. There were the remains of a blanket or
two, and some bundles of ancient and dirty straw, but these could not
rightly be called beds, for they were not organised; they were kicked
into a general pile, mornings, and selections made from the mass at
night, for service.
Bet and Nan were fifteen years old--twins. They were good-hearted girls,
unclean, clothed in rags, and profoundly ignorant. Their mother was like
them. But the father and the grandmother were a couple of fiends. They
got drunk whenever they could; then they fought each other or anybody
else who came in the way; they cursed and swore always, drunk or sober;
John Canty was a thief, and his mother a beggar. They made beggars of
the children, but failed to make thieves of them. Among, but not of, the
dreadful rabble that inhabited the house, was a good old priest whom the
King had turned out of house and home with a pension of a few farthings,
and he used to get the children aside and teach them right ways secretly.
Father Andrew also taught Tom a little Latin, and how to read and write;
and would have done the same with the girls, but they were afraid of the
jeers of their friends, who could not have endured such a queer
accomplishment in them.
All Offal Court was just such another hive as Canty's house. Drunkenness,
riot and brawling were the order, there, every night and nearly all night
long. Broken heads were as common as hunger in that place. Yet little
Tom was not unhappy. He had a hard time of it, but did not know it. It
was the sort of time that all the Offal Court boys had, therefore he
supposed it was the correct and comfortable thing. When he came home
empty-handed at night, he knew his father would curse him and thrash him
first, and that when he was done the awful grandmother would do it all
over again and improve on it; and that away in the night his starving
mother would slip to him stealthily with any miserable scrap or crust she
had been able to save for him by going hungry herself, notwithstanding
she was often caught in that sort of treason and soundly beaten for it by
her husband.
No, Tom's life went along well enough, especially in summer. He only
begged just enough to save himself, for the laws against mendicancy were
stringent, and the penalties heavy; so he put in a good deal of his time
listening to good Father Andrew's charming old tales and legends about
giants and fairies, dwarfs and genii, and enchanted castles, and gorgeous
kings and princes. His head grew to be full of these wonderful things,
and many a night as he lay in the dark on his scant and offensive straw,
tired, hungry, and smarting from a thrashing, he unleashed his
imagination and soon forgot his aches and pains in delicious picturings
to himself of the charmed life of a petted prince in a regal palace. One
desire came in time to haunt him day and night: it was to see a real
prince, with his own eyes. He spoke of it once to some of his Offal
Court comrades; but they jeered him and scoffed him so unmercifully that
he was glad to keep his dream to himself after that.
He often read the priest's old books and got him to explain and enlarge
upon them. His dreamings and readings worked certain changes in him, by-
and-by. His dream-people were so fine that he grew to lament his shabby
clothing and his dirt, and to wish to be clean and better clad. He went
on playing in the mud just the same, and enjoying it, too; but, instead
of splashing around in the Thames solely for the fun of it, he began to
find an added value in it because of the washings and cleansings it
afforded.
Tom could always find something going on around the Maypole in Cheapside,
and at the fairs; and now and then he and the rest of London had a chance
to see a military parade when some famous unfortunate was carried
prisoner to the Tower, by land or boat. One summer's day he saw poor Anne
Askew and three men burned at the stake in Smithfield, and heard an ex-
Bishop preach a sermon to them which did not interest him. Yes, Tom's
life was varied and pleasant enough, on the whole.
By-and-by Tom's reading and dreaming about princely life wrought such a
strong effect upon him that he began to ACT the prince, unconsciously.
His speech and manners became curiously ceremonious and courtly, to the
vast admiration and amusement of his intimates. But Tom's influence
among these young people began to grow now, day by day; and in time he
came to be looked up to, by them, with a sort of wondering awe, as a
superior being. He seemed to know so much! and he could do and say such
marvellous things! and withal, he was so deep and wise! Tom's remarks,
and Tom's performances, were reported by the boys to their elders; and
these, also, presently began to discuss Tom Canty, and to regard him as a
most gifted and extraordinary creature. Full-grown people brought their
perplexities to Tom for solution, and were often astonished at the wit
and wisdom of his decisions. In fact he was become a hero to all who
knew him except his own family--these, only, saw nothing in him.
Privately, after a while, Tom organised a royal court! He was the
prince; his special comrades were guards, chamberlains, equerries, lords
and ladies in waiting, and the royal family. Daily the mock prince was
received with elaborate ceremonials borrowed by Tom from his romantic
readings; daily the great affairs of the mimic kingdom were discussed in
the royal council, and daily his mimic highness issued decrees to his
imaginary armies, navies, and viceroyalties.
After which, he would go forth in his rags and beg a few farthings, eat
his poor crust, take his customary cuffs and abuse, and then stretch
himself upon his handful of foul straw, and resume his empty grandeurs in
his dreams.
And still his desire to look just once upon a real prince, in the flesh,
grew upon him, day by day, and week by week, until at last it absorbed
all other desires, and became the one passion of his life.
One January day, on his usual begging tour, he tramped despondently up
and down the region round about Mincing Lane and Little East Cheap, hour
after hour, bare-footed and cold, looking in at cook-shop windows and
longing for the dreadful pork-pies and other deadly inventions displayed
there--for to him these were dainties fit for the angels; that is,
judging by the smell, they were--for it had never been his good luck to
own and eat one. There was a cold drizzle of rain; the atmosphere was
murky; it was a melancholy day. At night Tom reached home so wet and
tired and hungry that it was not possible for his father and grandmother
to observe his forlorn condition and not be moved--after their fashion;
wherefore they gave him a brisk cuffing at once and sent him to bed. For
a long time his pain and hunger, and the swearing and fighting going on
in the building, kept him awake; but at last his thoughts drifted away to
far, romantic lands, and he fell asleep in the company of jewelled and
gilded princelings who live in vast palaces, and had servants salaaming
before them or flying to execute their orders. And then, as usual, he
dreamed that HE was a princeling himself.
All night long the glories of his royal estate shone upon him; he moved
among great lords and ladies, in a blaze of light, breathing perfumes,
drinking in delicious music, and answering the reverent obeisances of the
glittering throng as it parted to make way for him, with here a smile,
and there a nod of his princely head.
And when he awoke in the morning and looked upon the wretchedness about
him, his dream had had its usual effect--it had intensified the
sordidness of his surroundings a thousandfold. Then came bitterness, and
heart-break, and tears.
Chapter III. Tom's meeting with the Prince.
Tom got up hungry, and sauntered hungry away, but with his thoughts busy
with the shadowy splendours of his night's dreams. He wandered here and
there in the city, hardly noticing where he was going, or what was
happening around him. People jostled him, and some gave him rough
speech; but it was all lost on the musing boy. By-and-by he found
himself at Temple Bar, the farthest from home he had ever travelled in
that direction. He stopped and considered a moment, then fell into his
imaginings again, and passed on outside the walls of London. The Strand
had ceased to be a country-road then, and regarded itself as a street,
but by a strained construction; for, though there was a tolerably compact
row of houses on one side of it, there were only some scattered great
buildings on the other, these being palaces of rich nobles, with ample
and beautiful grounds stretching to the river--grounds that are now
closely packed with grim acres of brick and stone.
Tom discovered Charing Village presently, and rested himself at the
beautiful cross built there by a bereaved king of earlier days; then
idled down a quiet, lovely road, past the great cardinal's stately
palace, toward a far more mighty and majestic palace beyond--Westminster.
Tom stared in glad wonder at the vast pile of masonry, the wide-spreading
wings, the frowning bastions and turrets, the huge stone gateway, with
its gilded bars and its magnificent array of colossal granite lions, and
other the signs and symbols of English royalty. Was the desire of his
soul to be satisfied at last? Here, indeed, was a king's palace. Might
he not hope to see a prince now--a prince of flesh and blood, if Heaven
were willing?
At each side of the gilded gate stood a living statue--that is to say, an
erect and stately and motionless man-at-arms, clad from head to heel in
shining steel armour. At a respectful distance were many country folk,
and people from the city, waiting for any chance glimpse of royalty that
might offer. Splendid carriages, with splendid people in them and
splendid servants outside, were arriving and departing by several other
noble gateways that pierced the royal enclosure.
Poor little Tom, in his rags, approached, and was moving slowly and
timidly past the sentinels, with a beating heart and a rising hope, when
all at once he caught sight through the golden bars of a spectacle that
almost made him shout for joy. Within was a comely boy, tanned and brown
with sturdy outdoor sports and exercises, whose clothing was all of
lovely silks and satins, shining with jewels; at his hip a little
jewelled sword and dagger; dainty buskins on his feet, with red heels;
and on his head a jaunty crimson cap, with drooping plumes fastened with
a great sparkling gem. Several gorgeous gentlemen stood near--his
servants, without a doubt. Oh! he was a prince--a prince, a living
prince, a real prince--without the shadow of a question; and the prayer
of the pauper-boy's heart was answered at last.
Tom's breath came quick and short with excitement, and his eyes grew big
with wonder and delight. Everything gave way in his mind instantly to
one desire: that was to get close to the prince, and have a good,
devouring look at him. Before he knew what he was about, he had his face
against the gate-bars. The next instant one of the soldiers snatched him
rudely away, and sent him spinning among the gaping crowd of country
gawks and London idlers. The soldier said,--
"Mind thy manners, thou young beggar!"
The crowd jeered and laughed; but the young prince sprang to the gate
with his face flushed, and his eyes flashing with indignation, and cried
out,--
"How dar'st thou use a poor lad like that? How dar'st thou use the King
my father's meanest subject so? Open the gates, and let him in!"
You should have seen that fickle crowd snatch off their hats then. You
should have heard them cheer, and shout, "Long live the Prince of Wales!"
The soldiers presented arms with their halberds, opened the gates, and
presented again as the little Prince of Poverty passed in, in his
fluttering rags, to join hands with the Prince of Limitless Plenty.
Edward Tudor said--
"Thou lookest tired and hungry: thou'st been treated ill. Come with
me."
Half a dozen attendants sprang forward to--I don't know what; interfere,
no doubt. But they were waved aside with a right royal gesture, and they
stopped stock still where they were, like so many statues. Edward took
Tom to a rich apartment in the palace, which he called his cabinet. By
his command a repast was brought such as Tom had never encountered before
except in books. The prince, with princely delicacy and breeding, sent
away the servants, so that his humble guest might not be embarrassed by
their critical presence; then he sat near by, and asked questions while
Tom ate.
"What is thy name, lad?"
"Tom Canty, an' it please thee, sir."
"'Tis an odd one. Where dost live?"
"In the city, please thee, sir. Offal Court, out of Pudding Lane."
"Offal Court! Truly 'tis another odd one. Hast parents?"
"Parents have I, sir, and a grand-dam likewise that is but indifferently
precious to me, God forgive me if it be offence to say it--also twin
sisters, Nan and Bet."
"Then is thy grand-dam not over kind to thee, I take it?"
"Neither to any other is she, so please your worship. She hath a wicked
heart, and worketh evil all her days."
"Doth she mistreat thee?"
"There be times that she stayeth her hand, being asleep or overcome with
drink; but when she hath her judgment clear again, she maketh it up to me
with goodly beatings."
A fierce look came into the little prince's eyes, and he cried out--
"What! Beatings?"
"Oh, indeed, yes, please you, sir."
"BEATINGS!--and thou so frail and little. Hark ye: before the night
come, she shall hie her to the Tower. The King my father"--
"In sooth, you forget, sir, her low degree. The Tower is for the great
alone."
"True, indeed. I had not thought of that. I will consider of her
punishment. Is thy father kind to thee?"
"Not more than Gammer Canty, sir."
"Fathers be alike, mayhap. Mine hath not a doll's temper. He smiteth
with a heavy hand, yet spareth me: he spareth me not always with his
tongue, though, sooth to say. How doth thy mother use thee?"
"She is good, sir, and giveth me neither sorrow nor pain of any sort.
And Nan and Bet are like to her in this."
"How old be these?"
"Fifteen, an' it please you, sir."
"The Lady Elizabeth, my sister, is fourteen, and the Lady Jane Grey, my
cousin, is of mine own age, and comely and gracious withal; but my sister
the Lady Mary, with her gloomy mien and--Look you: do thy sisters forbid
their servants to smile, lest the sin destroy their souls?"
"They? Oh, dost think, sir, that THEY have servants?"
The little prince contemplated the little pauper gravely a moment, then
said--
"And prithee, why not? Who helpeth them undress at night? Who attireth
them when they rise?"
"None, sir. Would'st have them take off their garment, and sleep
without--like the beasts?"
"Their garment! Have they but one?"
"Ah, good your worship, what would they do with more? Truly they have
not two bodies each."
"It is a quaint and marvellous thought! Thy pardon, I had not meant to
laugh. But thy good Nan and thy Bet shall have raiment and lackeys enow,
and that soon, too: my cofferer shall look to it. No, thank me not;
'tis nothing. Thou speakest well; thou hast an easy grace in it. Art
learned?"
"I know not if I am or not, sir. The good priest that is called Father
Andrew taught me, of his kindness, from his books."
"Know'st thou the Latin?"
"But scantly, sir, I doubt."
"Learn it, lad: 'tis hard only at first. The Greek is harder; but
neither these nor any tongues else, I think, are hard to the Lady
Elizabeth and my cousin. Thou should'st hear those damsels at it! But
tell me of thy Offal Court. Hast thou a pleasant life there?"
"In truth, yes, so please you, sir, save when one is hungry. There be
Punch-and-Judy shows, and monkeys--oh such antic creatures! and so
bravely dressed!--and there be plays wherein they that play do shout and
fight till all are slain, and 'tis so fine to see, and costeth but a
farthing--albeit 'tis main hard to get the farthing, please your
worship."
"Tell me more."
"We lads of Offal Court do strive against each other with the cudgel,
like to the fashion of the 'prentices, sometimes."
The prince's eyes flashed. Said he--
"Marry, that would not I mislike. Tell me more."
"We strive in races, sir, to see who of us shall be fleetest."
"That would I like also. Speak on."
"In summer, sir, we wade and swim in the canals and in the river, and
each doth duck his neighbour, and splatter him with water, and dive and
shout and tumble and--"
"'Twould be worth my father's kingdom but to enjoy it once! Prithee go
on."
"We dance and sing about the Maypole in Cheapside; we play in the sand,
each covering his neighbour up; and times we make mud pastry--oh the
lovely mud, it hath not its like for delightfulness in all the world!--we
do fairly wallow in the mud, sir, saving your worship's presence."
"Oh, prithee, say no more, 'tis glorious! If that I could but clothe me
in raiment like to thine, and strip my feet, and revel in the mud once,
just once, with none to rebuke me or forbid, meseemeth I could forego the
crown!"
"And if that I could clothe me once, sweet sir, as thou art clad--just
once--"
"Oho, would'st like it? Then so shall it be. Doff thy rags, and don
these splendours, lad! It is a brief happiness, but will be not less
keen for that. We will have it while we may, and change again before any
come to molest."
A few minutes later the little Prince of Wales was garlanded with Tom's
fluttering odds and ends, and the little Prince of Pauperdom was tricked
out in the gaudy plumage of royalty. The two went and stood side by side
before a great mirror, and lo, a miracle: there did not seem to have been
any change made! They stared at each other, then at the glass, then at
each other again. At last the puzzled princeling said--
"What dost thou make of this?"
"Ah, good your worship, require me not to answer. It is not meet that
one of my degree should utter the thing."
"Then will _I_ utter it. Thou hast the same hair, the same eyes, the
same voice and manner, the same form and stature, the same face and
countenance that I bear. Fared we forth naked, there is none could say
which was you, and which the Prince of Wales. And, now that I am clothed
as thou wert clothed, it seemeth I should be able the more nearly to feel
as thou didst when the brute soldier--Hark ye, is not this a bruise upon
your hand?"
"Yes; but it is a slight thing, and your worship knoweth that the poor
man-at-arms--"
"Peace! It was a shameful thing and a cruel!" cried the little prince,
stamping his bare foot. "If the King--Stir not a step till I come again!
It is a command!"
In a moment he had snatched up and put away an article of national
importance that lay upon a table, and was out at the door and flying
through the palace grounds in his bannered rags, with a hot face and
glowing eyes. As soon as he reached the great gate, he seized the bars,
and tried to shake them, shouting--
"Open! Unbar the gates!"
The soldier that had maltreated Tom obeyed promptly; and as the prince
burst through the portal, half-smothered with royal wrath, the soldier
fetched him a sounding box on the ear that sent him whirling to the
roadway, and said--
"Take that, thou beggar's spawn, for what thou got'st me from his
Highness!"
The crowd roared with laughter. The prince picked himself out of the
mud, and made fiercely at the sentry, shouting--
"I am the Prince of Wales, my person is sacred; and thou shalt hang for
laying thy hand upon me!"
The soldier brought his halberd to a present-arms and said mockingly--
"I salute your gracious Highness." Then angrily--"Be off, thou crazy
rubbish!"
Here the jeering crowd closed round the poor little prince, and hustled
him far down the road, hooting him, and shouting--
"Way for his Royal Highness! Way for the Prince of Wales!"
Chapter IV. The Prince's troubles begin.
After hours of persistent pursuit and persecution, the little prince was
at last deserted by the rabble and left to himself. As long as he had
been able to rage against the mob, and threaten it royally, and royally
utter commands that were good stuff to laugh at, he was very
entertaining; but when weariness finally forced him to be silent, he was
no longer of use to his tormentors, and they sought amusement elsewhere.
He looked about him, now, but could not recognise the locality. He was
within the city of London--that was all he knew. He moved on, aimlessly,
and in a little while the houses thinned, and the passers-by were
infrequent. He bathed his bleeding feet in the brook which flowed then
where Farringdon Street now is; rested a few moments, then passed on, and
presently came upon a great space with only a few scattered houses in it,
and a prodigious church. He recognised this church. Scaffoldings were
about, everywhere, and swarms of workmen; for it was undergoing elaborate
repairs. The prince took heart at once--he felt that his troubles were
at an end, now. He said to himself, "It is the ancient Grey Friars'
Church, which the king my father hath taken from the monks and given for
a home for ever for poor and forsaken children, and new-named it Christ's
Church. Right gladly will they serve the son of him who hath done so
generously by them--and the more that that son is himself as poor and as
forlorn as any that be sheltered here this day, or ever shall be."
He was soon in the midst of a crowd of boys who were running, jumping,
playing at ball and leap-frog, and otherwise disporting themselves, and
right noisily, too. They were all dressed alike, and in the fashion
which in that day prevailed among serving-men and 'prentices{1}--that is
to say, each had on the crown of his head a flat black cap about the size
of a saucer, which was not useful as a covering, it being of such scanty
dimensions, neither was it ornamental; from beneath it the hair fell,
unparted, to the middle of the forehead, and was cropped straight around;
a clerical band at the neck; a blue gown that fitted closely and hung as
low as the knees or lower; full sleeves; a broad red belt; bright yellow
stockings, gartered above the knees; low shoes with large metal buckles.
It was a sufficiently ugly costume.
The boys stopped their play and flocked about the prince, who said with
native dignity--
"Good lads, say to your master that Edward Prince of Wales desireth
speech with him."
A great shout went up at this, and one rude fellow said--
"Marry, art thou his grace's messenger, beggar?"
The prince's face flushed with anger, and his ready hand flew to his hip,
but there was nothing there. There was a storm of laughter, and one boy
said--
"Didst mark that? He fancied he had a sword--belike he is the prince
himself."
This sally brought more laughter. Poor Edward drew himself up proudly
and said--
"I am the prince; and it ill beseemeth you that feed upon the king my
father's bounty to use me so."
This was vastly enjoyed, as the laughter testified. The youth who had
first spoken, shouted to his comrades--
"Ho, swine, slaves, pensioners of his grace's princely father, where be
your manners? Down on your marrow bones, all of ye, and do reverence to
his kingly port and royal rags!"
With boisterous mirth they dropped upon their knees in a body and did
mock homage to their prey. The prince spurned the nearest boy with his
foot, and said fiercely--
"Take thou that, till the morrow come and I build thee a gibbet!"
Ah, but this was not a joke--this was going beyond fun. The laughter
ceased on the instant, and fury took its place. A dozen shouted--
"Hale him forth! To the horse-pond, to the horse-pond! Where be the
dogs? Ho, there, Lion! ho, Fangs!"
Then followed such a thing as England had never seen before--the sacred
person of the heir to the throne rudely buffeted by plebeian hands, and
set upon and torn by dogs.
As night drew to a close that day, the prince found himself far down in
the close-built portion of the city. His body was bruised, his hands
were bleeding, and his rags were all besmirched with mud. He wandered on
and on, and grew more and more bewildered, and so tired and faint he
could hardly drag one foot after the other. He had ceased to ask
questions of anyone, since they brought him only insult instead of
information. He kept muttering to himself, "Offal Court--that is the
name; if I can but find it before my strength is wholly spent and I drop,
then am I saved--for his people will take me to the palace and prove that
I am none of theirs, but the true prince, and I shall have mine own
again." And now and then his mind reverted to his treatment by those
rude Christ's Hospital boys, and he said, "When I am king, they shall not
have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books; for a full
belly is little worth where the mind is starved, and the heart. I will
keep this diligently in my remembrance, that this day's lesson be not
lost upon me, and my people suffer thereby; for learning softeneth the
heart and breedeth gentleness and charity." {1}
The lights began to twinkle, it came on to rain, the wind rose, and a raw
and gusty night set in. The houseless prince, the homeless heir to the
throne of England, still moved on, drifting deeper into the maze of
squalid alleys where the swarming hives of poverty and misery were massed
together.
Suddenly a great drunken ruffian collared him and said--
"Out to this time of night again, and hast not brought a farthing home, I
warrant me! If it be so, an' I do not break all the bones in thy lean
body, then am I not John Canty, but some other."
The prince twisted himself loose, unconsciously brushed his profaned
shoulder, and eagerly said--
"Oh, art HIS father, truly? Sweet heaven grant it be so--then wilt thou
fetch him away and restore me!"
"HIS father? I know not what thou mean'st; I but know I am THY father,
as thou shalt soon have cause to--"
"Oh, jest not, palter not, delay not!--I am worn, I am wounded, I can
bear no more. Take me to the king my father, and he will make thee rich
beyond thy wildest dreams. Believe me, man, believe me!--I speak no lie,
but only the truth!--put forth thy hand and save me! I am indeed the
Prince of Wales!"
The man stared down, stupefied, upon the lad, then shook his head and
muttered--
"Gone stark mad as any Tom o' Bedlam!"--then collared him once more, and
said with a coarse laugh and an oath, "But mad or no mad, I and thy
Gammer Canty will soon find where the soft places in thy bones lie, or
I'm no true man!"
With this he dragged the frantic and struggling prince away, and
disappeared up a front court followed by a delighted and noisy swarm of
human vermin.
Chapter V. Tom as a patrician.
Tom Canty, left alone in the prince's cabinet, made good use of his
opportunity. He turned himself this way and that before the great
mirror, admiring his finery; then walked away, imitating the prince's
high-bred carriage, and still observing results in the glass. Next he
drew the beautiful sword, and bowed, kissing the blade, and laying it
across his breast, as he had seen a noble knight do, by way of salute to
the lieutenant of the Tower, five or six weeks before, when delivering
the great lords of Norfolk and Surrey into his hands for captivity. Tom
played with the jewelled dagger that hung upon his thigh; he examined the
costly and exquisite ornaments of the room; he tried each of the
sumptuous chairs, and thought how proud he would be if the Offal Court
herd could only peep in and see him in his grandeur. He wondered if they
would believe the marvellous tale he should tell when he got home, or if
they would shake their heads, and say his overtaxed imagination had at
last upset his reason.
At the end of half an hour it suddenly occurred to him that the prince
was gone a long time; then right away he began to feel lonely; very soon
he fell to listening and longing, and ceased to toy with the pretty
things about him; he grew uneasy, then restless, then distressed.
Suppose some one should come, and catch him in the prince's clothes, and
the prince not there to explain. Might they not hang him at once, and
inquire into his case afterward? He had heard that the great were prompt
about small matters. His fear rose higher and higher; and trembling he
softly opened the door to the antechamber, resolved to fly and seek the
prince, and, through him, protection and release. Six gorgeous
gentlemen-servants and two young pages of high degree, clothed like
butterflies, sprang to their feet and bowed low before him. He stepped
quickly back and shut the door. He said--
"Oh, they mock at me! They will go and tell. Oh! why came I here to
cast away my life?"
He walked up and down the floor, filled with nameless fears, listening,
starting at every trifling sound. Presently the door swung open, and a
silken page said--
"The Lady Jane Grey."
The door closed and a sweet young girl, richly clad, bounded toward him.
But she stopped suddenly, and said in a distressed voice--
"Oh, what aileth thee, my lord?"
Tom's breath was nearly failing him; but he made shift to stammer out--
"Ah, be merciful, thou! In sooth I am no lord, but only poor Tom Canty
of Offal Court in the city. Prithee let me see the prince, and he will
of his grace restore to me my rags, and let me hence unhurt. Oh, be thou
merciful, and save me!"
By this time the boy was on his knees, and supplicating with his eyes and
uplifted hands as well as with his tongue. The young girl seemed horror-
stricken. She cried out--
"O my lord, on thy knees?--and to ME!"
Then she fled away in fright; and Tom, smitten with despair, sank down,
murmuring--
"There is no help, there is no hope. Now will they come and take me."
Whilst he lay there benumbed with terror, dreadful tidings were speeding
through the palace. The whisper--for it was whispered always--flew from
menial to menial, from lord to lady, down all the long corridors, from
story to story, from saloon to saloon, "The prince hath gone mad, the
prince hath gone mad!" Soon every saloon, every marble hall, had its
groups of glittering lords and ladies, and other groups of dazzling
lesser folk, talking earnestly together in whispers, and every face had
in it dismay. Presently a splendid official came marching by these
groups, making solemn proclamation--
"IN THE NAME OF THE KING!
Let none list to this false and foolish matter, upon pain of death, nor
discuss the same, nor carry it abroad. In the name of the King!"
The whisperings ceased as suddenly as if the whisperers had been stricken
dumb.
Soon there was a general buzz along the corridors, of "The prince! See,
the prince comes!"
Poor Tom came slowly walking past the low-bowing groups, trying to bow in
return, and meekly gazing upon his strange surroundings with bewildered
and pathetic eyes. Great nobles walked upon each side of him, making him
lean upon them, and so steady his steps. Behind him followed the court-
physicians and some servants.
Presently Tom found himself in a noble apartment of the palace and heard
the door close behind him. Around him stood those who had come with him.
Before him, at a little distance, reclined a very large and very fat man,
with a wide, pulpy face, and a stern expression. His large head was very
grey; and his whiskers, which he wore only around his face, like a frame,
were grey also. His clothing was of rich stuff, but old, and slightly
frayed in places. One of his swollen legs had a pillow under it, and was
wrapped in bandages. There was silence now; and there was no head there
but was bent in reverence, except this man's. This stern-countenanced
invalid was the dread Henry VIII. He said--and his face grew gentle as
he began to speak--
"How now, my lord Edward, my prince? Hast been minded to cozen me, the
good King thy father, who loveth thee, and kindly useth thee, with a
sorry jest?"
Poor Tom was listening, as well as his dazed faculties would let him, to
the beginning of this speech; but when the words 'me, the good King' fell
upon his ear, his face blanched, and he dropped as instantly upon his
knees as if a shot had brought him there. Lifting up his hands, he
exclaimed--
"Thou the KING? Then am I undone indeed!"
This speech seemed to stun the King. His eyes wandered from face to face
aimlessly, then rested, bewildered, upon the boy before him. Then he
said in a tone of deep disappointment--
"Alack, I had believed the rumour disproportioned to the truth; but I
fear me 'tis not so." He breathed a heavy sigh, and said in a gentle
voice, "Come to thy father, child: thou art not well."
Tom was assisted to his feet, and approached the Majesty of England,
humble and trembling. The King took the frightened face between his
hands, and gazed earnestly and lovingly into it awhile, as if seeking
some grateful sign of returning reason there, then pressed the curly head
against his breast, and patted it tenderly. Presently he said--
"Dost not know thy father, child? Break not mine old heart; say thou
know'st me. Thou DOST know me, dost thou not?"
"Yea: thou art my dread lord the King, whom God preserve!"
"True, true--that is well--be comforted, tremble not so; there is none
here would hurt thee; there is none here but loves thee. Thou art better
now; thy ill dream passeth--is't not so? Thou wilt not miscall thyself
again, as they say thou didst a little while agone?"
"I pray thee of thy grace believe me, I did but speak the truth, most
dread lord; for I am the meanest among thy subjects, being a pauper born,
and 'tis by a sore mischance and accident I am here, albeit I was therein
nothing blameful. I am but young to die, and thou canst save me with one
little word. Oh speak it, sir!"
"Die? Talk not so, sweet prince--peace, peace, to thy troubled heart--
thou shalt not die!"
Tom dropped upon his knees with a glad cry--
"God requite thy mercy, O my King, and save thee long to bless thy land!"
Then springing up, he turned a joyful face toward the two lords in
waiting, and exclaimed, "Thou heard'st it! I am not to die: the King
hath said it!" There was no movement, save that all bowed with grave
respect; but no one spoke. He hesitated, a little confused, then turned
timidly toward the King, saying, "I may go now?"
"Go? Surely, if thou desirest. But why not tarry yet a little? Whither
would'st go?"
Tom dropped his eyes, and answered humbly--
"Peradventure I mistook; but I did think me free, and so was I moved to
seek again the kennel where I was born and bred to misery, yet which
harboureth my mother and my sisters, and so is home to me; whereas these
pomps and splendours whereunto I am not used--oh, please you, sir, to let
me go!"
The King was silent and thoughtful a while, and his face betrayed a
growing distress and uneasiness. Presently he said, with something of
hope in his voice--
"Perchance he is but mad upon this one strain, and hath his wits unmarred
as toucheth other matter. God send it may be so! We will make trial."
Then he asked Tom a question in Latin, and Tom answered him lamely in the
same tongue. The lords and doctors manifested their gratification also.
The King said--
"'Twas not according to his schooling and ability, but showeth that his
mind is but diseased, not stricken fatally. How say you, sir?"
The physician addressed bowed low, and replied--
"It jumpeth with my own conviction, sire, that thou hast divined aright."
The King looked pleased with this encouragement, coming as it did from so
excellent authority, and continued with good heart--
"Now mark ye all: we will try him further."
He put a question to Tom in French. Tom stood silent a moment,
embarrassed by having so many eyes centred upon him, then said
diffidently--
"I have no knowledge of this tongue, so please your majesty."
The King fell back upon his couch. The attendants flew to his
assistance; but he put them aside, and said--
"Trouble me not--it is nothing but a scurvy faintness. Raise me! There,
'tis sufficient. Come hither, child; there, rest thy poor troubled head
upon thy father's heart, and be at peace. Thou'lt soon be well: 'tis
but a passing fantasy. Fear thou not; thou'lt soon be well." Then he
turned toward the company: his gentle manner changed, and baleful
lightnings began to play from his eyes. He said--
"List ye all! This my son is mad; but it is not permanent. Over-study
hath done this, and somewhat too much of confinement. Away with his
books and teachers! see ye to it. Pleasure him with sports, beguile him
in wholesome ways, so that his health come again." He raised himself
higher still, and went on with energy, "He is mad; but he is my son, and
England's heir; and, mad or sane, still shall he reign! And hear ye
further, and proclaim it: whoso speaketh of this his distemper worketh
against the peace and order of these realms, and shall to the gallows!
. . . Give me to drink--I burn: this sorrow sappeth my strength. . . .
There, take away the cup. . . . Support me. There, that is well. Mad,
is he? Were he a thousand times mad, yet is he Prince of Wales, and I the
King will confirm it. This very morrow shall he be installed in his
princely dignity in due and ancient form. Take instant order for it, my
lord Hertford."
One of the nobles knelt at the royal couch, and said--
"The King's majesty knoweth that the Hereditary Great Marshal of England
lieth attainted in the Tower. It were not meet that one attainted--"
"Peace! Insult not mine ears with his hated name. Is this man to live
for ever? Am I to be baulked of my will? Is the prince to tarry
uninstalled, because, forsooth, the realm lacketh an Earl Marshal free of
treasonable taint to invest him with his honours? No, by the splendour of
God! Warn my Parliament to bring me Norfolk's doom before the sun rise
again, else shall they answer for it grievously!" {1}
Lord Hertford said--
"The King's will is law;" and, rising, returned to his former place.
Gradually the wrath faded out of the old King's face, and he said--
"Kiss me, my prince. There . . . what fearest thou? Am I not thy loving
father?"
"Thou art good to me that am unworthy, O mighty and gracious lord: that
in truth I know. But--but--it grieveth me to think of him that is to
die, and--"
"Ah, 'tis like thee, 'tis like thee! I know thy heart is still the same,
even though thy mind hath suffered hurt, for thou wert ever of a gentle
spirit. But this duke standeth between thee and thine honours: I will
have another in his stead that shall bring no taint to his great office.
Comfort thee, my prince: trouble not thy poor head with this matter."
"But is it not I that speed him hence, my liege? How long might he not
live, but for me?"
"Take no thought of him, my prince: he is not worthy. Kiss me once
again, and go to thy trifles and amusements; for my malady distresseth
me. I am aweary, and would rest. Go with thine uncle Hertford and thy
people, and come again when my body is refreshed."
Tom, heavy-hearted, was conducted from the presence, for this last
sentence was a death-blow to the hope he had cherished that now he would
be set free. Once more he heard the buzz of low voices exclaiming, "The
prince, the prince comes!"
His spirits sank lower and lower as he moved between the glittering files
of bowing courtiers; for he recognised that he was indeed a captive now,
and might remain for ever shut up in this gilded cage, a forlorn and
friendless prince, except God in his mercy take pity on him and set him
free.
And, turn where he would, he seemed to see floating in the air the
severed head and the remembered face of the great Duke of Norfolk, the
eyes fixed on him reproachfully.
His old dreams had been so pleasant; but this reality was so dreary!
Chapter VI. Tom receives instructions.
Tom was conducted to the principal apartment of a noble suite, and made
to sit down--a thing which he was loth to do, since there were elderly
men and men of high degree about him. He begged them to be seated also,
but they only bowed their thanks or murmured them, and remained standing.
He would have insisted, but his 'uncle' the Earl of Hertford whispered in
his ear--
"Prithee, insist not, my lord; it is not meet that they sit in thy
presence."
The Lord St. John was announced, and after making obeisance to Tom, he
said--
"I come upon the King's errand, concerning a matter which requireth
privacy. Will it please your royal highness to dismiss all that attend
you here, save my lord the Earl of Hertford?"
Observing that Tom did not seem to know how to proceed, Hertford
whispered him to make a sign with his hand, and not trouble himself to
speak unless he chose. When the waiting gentlemen had retired, Lord St.
John said--
"His majesty commandeth, that for due and weighty reasons of state, the
prince's grace shall hide his infirmity in all ways that be within his
power, till it be passed and he be as he was before. To wit, that he
shall deny to none that he is the true prince, and heir to England's
greatness; that he shall uphold his princely dignity, and shall receive,
without word or sign of protest, that reverence and observance which unto
it do appertain of right and ancient usage; that he shall cease to speak
to any of that lowly birth and life his malady hath conjured out of the
unwholesome imaginings of o'er-wrought fancy; that he shall strive with
diligence to bring unto his memory again those faces which he was wont to
know--and where he faileth he shall hold his peace, neither betraying by
semblance of surprise or other sign that he hath forgot; that upon
occasions of state, whensoever any matter shall perplex him as to the
thing he should do or the utterance he should make, he shall show nought
of unrest to the curious that look on, but take advice in that matter of
the Lord Hertford, or my humble self, which are commanded of the King to
be upon this service and close at call, till this commandment be
dissolved. Thus saith the King's majesty, who sendeth greeting to your
royal highness, and prayeth that God will of His mercy quickly heal you
and have you now and ever in His holy keeping."
The Lord St. John made reverence and stood aside. Tom replied
resignedly--
"The King hath said it. None may palter with the King's command, or fit
it to his ease, where it doth chafe, with deft evasions. The King shall
be obeyed."
Lord Hertford said--
"Touching the King's majesty's ordainment concerning books and such like
serious matters, it may peradventure please your highness to ease your
time with lightsome entertainment, lest you go wearied to the banquet and
suffer harm thereby."
Tom's face showed inquiring surprise; and a blush followed when he saw
Lord St. John's eyes bent sorrowfully upon him. His lordship said--
"Thy memory still wrongeth thee, and thou hast shown surprise--but suffer
it not to trouble thee, for 'tis a matter that will not bide, but depart
with thy mending malady. My Lord of Hertford speaketh of the city's
banquet which the King's majesty did promise, some two months flown, your
highness should attend. Thou recallest it now?"
"It grieves me to confess it had indeed escaped me," said Tom, in a
hesitating voice; and blushed again.
At this moment the Lady Elizabeth and the Lady Jane Grey were announced.
The two lords exchanged significant glances, and Hertford stepped quickly
toward the door. As the young girls passed him, he said in a low voice--
"I pray ye, ladies, seem not to observe his humours, nor show surprise
when his memory doth lapse--it will grieve you to note how it doth stick
at every trifle."
Meantime Lord St. John was saying in Tom's ear--
"Please you, sir, keep diligently in mind his majesty's desire. Remember
all thou canst--SEEM to remember all else. Let them not perceive that
thou art much changed from thy wont, for thou knowest how tenderly thy
old play-fellows bear thee in their hearts and how 'twould grieve them.
Art willing, sir, that I remain?--and thine uncle?"
Tom signified assent with a gesture and a murmured word, for he was
already learning, and in his simple heart was resolved to acquit himself
as best he might, according to the King's command.
In spite of every precaution, the conversation among the young people
became a little embarrassing at times. More than once, in truth, Tom was
near to breaking down and confessing himself unequal to his tremendous
part; but the tact of the Princess Elizabeth saved him, or a word from
one or the other of the vigilant lords, thrown in apparently by chance,
had the same happy effect. Once the little Lady Jane turned to Tom and
dismayed him with this question,--
"Hast paid thy duty to the Queen's majesty to-day, my lord?"
Tom hesitated, looked distressed, and was about to stammer out something
at hazard, when Lord St. John took the word and answered for him with the
easy grace of a courtier accustomed to encounter delicate difficulties
and to be ready for them--
"He hath indeed, madam, and she did greatly hearten him, as touching his
majesty's condition; is it not so, your highness?"
Tom mumbled something that stood for assent, but felt that he was getting
upon dangerous ground. Somewhat later it was mentioned that Tom was to
study no more at present, whereupon her little ladyship exclaimed--
"'Tis a pity, 'tis a pity! Thou wert proceeding bravely. But bide thy
time in patience: it will not be for long. Thou'lt yet be graced with
learning like thy father, and make thy tongue master of as many languages
as his, good my prince."
"My father!" cried Tom, off his guard for the moment. "I trow he cannot
speak his own so that any but the swine that kennel in the styes may tell
his meaning; and as for learning of any sort soever--"
He looked up and encountered a solemn warning in my Lord St. John's eyes.
He stopped, blushed, then continued low and sadly: "Ah, my malady
persecuteth me again, and my mind wandereth. I meant the King's grace no
irreverence."
"We know it, sir," said the Princess Elizabeth, taking her 'brother's'
hand between her two palms, respectfully but caressingly; "trouble not
thyself as to that. The fault is none of thine, but thy distemper's."
"Thou'rt a gentle comforter, sweet lady," said Tom, gratefully, "and my
heart moveth me to thank thee for't, an' I may be so bold."
Once the giddy little Lady Jane fired a simple Greek phrase at Tom. The
Princess Elizabeth's quick eye saw by the serene blankness of the
target's front that the shaft was overshot; so she tranquilly delivered a
return volley of sounding Greek on Tom's behalf, and then straightway
changed the talk to other matters.
Time wore on pleasantly, and likewise smoothly, on the whole. Snags and
sandbars grew less and less frequent, and Tom grew more and more at his
ease, seeing that all were so lovingly bent upon helping him and
overlooking his mistakes. When it came out that the little ladies were
to accompany him to the Lord Mayor's banquet in the evening, his heart
gave a bound of relief and delight, for he felt that he should not be
friendless, now, among that multitude of strangers; whereas, an hour
earlier, the idea of their going with him would have been an
insupportable terror to him.
Tom's guardian angels, the two lords, had had less comfort in the
interview than the other parties to it. They felt much as if they were
piloting a great ship through a dangerous channel; they were on the alert
constantly, and found their office no child's play. Wherefore, at last,
when the ladies' visit was drawing to a close and the Lord Guilford
Dudley was announced, they not only felt that their charge had been
sufficiently taxed for the present, but also that they themselves were
not in the best condition to take their ship back and make their anxious
voyage all over again. So they respectfully advised Tom to excuse
himself, which he was very glad to do, although a slight shade of
disappointment might have been observed upon my Lady Jane's face when she
heard the splendid stripling denied admittance.
There was a pause now, a sort of waiting silence which Tom could not
understand. He glanced at Lord Hertford, who gave him a sign--but he
failed to understand that also. The ready Elizabeth came to the rescue
with her usual easy grace. She made reverence and said--
"Have we leave of the prince's grace my brother to go?"
Tom said--
"Indeed your ladyships can have whatsoever of me they will, for the
asking; yet would I rather give them any other thing that in my poor
power lieth, than leave to take the light and blessing of their presence
hence. Give ye good den, and God be with ye!" Then he smiled inwardly at
the thought, "'Tis not for nought I have dwelt but among princes in my
reading, and taught my tongue some slight trick of their broidered and
gracious speech withal!"
When the illustrious maidens were gone, Tom turned wearily to his keepers
and said--
"May it please your lordships to grant me leave to go into some corner
and rest me?"
Lord Hertford said--
"So please your highness, it is for you to command, it is for us to obey.
That thou should'st rest is indeed a needful thing, since thou must
journey to the city presently."
He touched a bell, and a page appeared, who was ordered to desire the
presence of Sir William Herbert. This gentleman came straightway, and
conducted Tom to an inner apartment. Tom's first movement there was to
reach for a cup of water; but a silk-and-velvet servitor seized it,
dropped upon one knee, and offered it to him on a golden salver.
Next the tired captive sat down and was going to take off his buskins,
timidly asking leave with his eye, but another silk-and-velvet
discomforter went down upon his knees and took the office from him. He
made two or three further efforts to help himself, but being promptly
forestalled each time, he finally gave up, with a sigh of resignation and
a murmured "Beshrew me, but I marvel they do not require to breathe for
me also!" Slippered, and wrapped in a sumptuous robe, he laid himself
down at last to rest, but not to sleep, for his head was too full of
thoughts and the room too full of people. He could not dismiss the
former, so they stayed; he did not know enough to dismiss the latter, so
they stayed also, to his vast regret--and theirs.
Tom's departure had left his two noble guardians alone. They mused a
while, with much head-shaking and walking the floor, then Lord St. John
said--
"Plainly, what dost thou think?"
"Plainly, then, this. The King is near his end; my nephew is mad--mad
will mount the throne, and mad remain. God protect England, since she
will need it!"
"Verily it promiseth so, indeed. But . . . have you no misgivings as to
. . . as to . . ."
The speaker hesitated, and finally stopped. He evidently felt that he
was upon delicate ground. Lord Hertford stopped before him, looked into
his face with a clear, frank eye, and said--
"Speak on--there is none to hear but me. Misgivings as to what?"
"I am full loth to word the thing that is in my mind, and thou so near to
him in blood, my lord. But craving pardon if I do offend, seemeth it not
strange that madness could so change his port and manner?--not but that
his port and speech are princely still, but that they DIFFER, in one
unweighty trifle or another, from what his custom was aforetime. Seemeth
it not strange that madness should filch from his memory his father's
very lineaments; the customs and observances that are his due from such
as be about him; and, leaving him his Latin, strip him of his Greek and
French? My lord, be not offended, but ease my mind of its disquiet and
receive my grateful thanks. It haunteth me, his saying he was not the
prince, and so--"
"Peace, my lord, thou utterest treason! Hast forgot the King's command?
Remember I am party to thy crime if I but listen."
St. John paled, and hastened to say--
"I was in fault, I do confess it. Betray me not, grant me this grace out
of thy courtesy, and I will neither think nor speak of this thing more.
Deal not hardly with me, sir, else am I ruined."
"I am content, my lord. So thou offend not again, here or in the ears of
others, it shall be as though thou hadst not spoken. But thou need'st
not have misgivings. He is my sister's son; are not his voice, his face,
his form, familiar to me from his cradle? Madness can do all the odd
conflicting things thou seest in him, and more. Dost not recall how that
the old Baron Marley, being mad, forgot the favour of his own countenance
that he had known for sixty years, and held it was another's; nay, even
claimed he was the son of Mary Magdalene, and that his head was made of
Spanish glass; and, sooth to say, he suffered none to touch it, lest by
mischance some heedless hand might shiver it? Give thy misgivings
easement, good my lord. This is the very prince--I know him well--and
soon will be thy king; it may advantage thee to bear this in mind, and
more dwell upon it than the other."
After some further talk, in which the Lord St. John covered up his
mistake as well as he could by repeated protests that his faith was
thoroughly grounded now, and could not be assailed by doubts again, the
Lord Hertford relieved his fellow-keeper, and sat down to keep watch and
ward alone. He was soon deep in meditation, and evidently the longer he
thought, the more he was bothered. By-and-by he began to pace the floor
and mutter.
"Tush, he MUST be the prince! Will any he in all the land maintain there
can be two, not of one blood and birth, so marvellously twinned? And
even were it so, 'twere yet a stranger miracle that chance should cast
the one into the other's place. Nay, 'tis folly, folly, folly!"
Presently he said--
"Now were he impostor and called himself prince, look you THAT would be
natural; that would be reasonable. But lived ever an impostor yet, who,
being called prince by the king, prince by the court, prince by all,
DENIED his dignity and pleaded against his exaltation? NO! By the soul
of St. Swithin, no! This is the true prince, gone mad!"
Chapter VII. Tom's first royal dinner.
Somewhat after one in the afternoon, Tom resignedly underwent the ordeal
of being dressed for dinner. He found himself as finely clothed as
before, but everything different, everything changed, from his ruff to
his stockings. He was presently conducted with much state to a spacious
and ornate apartment, where a table was already set for one. Its
furniture was all of massy gold, and beautified with designs which well-
nigh made it priceless, since they were the work of Benvenuto. The room
was half-filled with noble servitors. A chaplain said grace, and Tom was
about to fall to, for hunger had long been constitutional with him, but
was interrupted by my lord the Earl of Berkeley, who fastened a napkin
about his neck; for the great post of Diaperers to the Prince of Wales
was hereditary in this nobleman's family. Tom's cupbearer was present,
and forestalled all his attempts to help himself to wine. The Taster to
his highness the Prince of Wales was there also, prepared to taste any
suspicious dish upon requirement, and run the risk of being poisoned. He
was only an ornamental appendage at this time, and was seldom called upon
to exercise his function; but there had been times, not many generations
past, when the office of taster had its perils, and was not a grandeur to
be desired. Why they did not use a dog or a plumber seems strange; but
all the ways of royalty are strange. My Lord d'Arcy, First Groom of the
Chamber, was there, to do goodness knows what; but there he was--let that
suffice. The Lord Chief Butler was there, and stood behind Tom's chair,
overseeing the solemnities, under command of the Lord Great Steward and
the Lord Head Cook, who stood near. Tom had three hundred and eighty-
four servants beside these; but they were not all in that room, of
course, nor the quarter of them; neither was Tom aware yet that they
existed.
All those that were present had been well drilled within the hour to
remember that the prince was temporarily out of his head, and to be
careful to show no surprise at his vagaries. These 'vagaries' were soon
on exhibition before them; but they only moved their compassion and their
sorrow, not their mirth. It was a heavy affliction to them to see the
beloved prince so stricken.
Poor Tom ate with his fingers mainly; but no one smiled at it, or even
seemed to observe it. He inspected his napkin curiously, and with deep
interest, for it was of a very dainty and beautiful fabric, then said
with simplicity--
"Prithee, take it away, lest in mine unheedfulness it be soiled."
The Hereditary Diaperer took it away with reverent manner, and without
word or protest of any sort.
Tom examined the turnips and the lettuce with interest, and asked what
they were, and if they were to be eaten; for it was only recently that
men had begun to raise these things in England in place of importing them
as luxuries from Holland. {1} His question was answered with grave
respect, and no surprise manifested. When he had finished his dessert,
he filled his pockets with nuts; but nobody appeared to be aware of it,
or disturbed by it. But the next moment he was himself disturbed by it,
and showed discomposure; for this was the only service he had been
permitted to do with his own hands during the meal, and he did not doubt
that he had done a most improper and unprincely thing. At that moment
the muscles of his nose began to twitch, and the end of that organ to
lift and wrinkle. This continued, and Tom began to evince a growing
distress. He looked appealingly, first at one and then another of the
lords about him, and tears came into his eyes. They sprang forward with
dismay in their faces, and begged to know his trouble. Tom said with
genuine anguish--
"I crave your indulgence: my nose itcheth cruelly. What is the custom
and usage in this emergence? Prithee, speed, for 'tis but a little time
that I can bear it."
None smiled; but all were sore perplexed, and looked one to the other in
deep tribulation for counsel. But behold, here was a dead wall, and
nothing in English history to tell how to get over it. The Master of
Ceremonies was not present: there was no one who felt safe to venture
upon this uncharted sea, or risk the attempt to solve this solemn
problem. Alas! there was no Hereditary Scratcher. Meantime the tears
had overflowed their banks, and begun to trickle down Tom's cheeks. His
twitching nose was pleading more urgently than ever for relief. At last
nature broke down the barriers of etiquette: Tom lifted up an inward
prayer for pardon if he was doing wrong, and brought relief to the
burdened hearts of his court by scratching his nose himself.
His meal being ended, a lord came and held before him a broad, shallow,
golden dish with fragrant rosewater in it, to cleanse his mouth and
fingers with; and my lord the Hereditary Diaperer stood by with a napkin
for his use. Tom gazed at the dish a puzzled moment or two, then raised
it to his lips, and gravely took a draught. Then he returned it to the
waiting lord, and said--
"Nay, it likes me not, my lord: it hath a pretty flavour, but it wanteth
strength."
This new eccentricity of the prince's ruined mind made all the hearts
about him ache; but the sad sight moved none to merriment.
Tom's next unconscious blunder was to get up and leave the table just
when the chaplain had taken his stand behind his chair, and with uplifted
hands, and closed, uplifted eyes, was in the act of beginning the
blessing. Still nobody seemed to perceive that the prince had done a
thing unusual.
By his own request our small friend was now conducted to his private
cabinet, and left there alone to his own devices. Hanging upon hooks in
the oaken wainscoting were the several pieces of a suit of shining steel
armour, covered all over with beautiful designs exquisitely inlaid in
gold. This martial panoply belonged to the true prince--a recent present
from Madam Parr the Queen. Tom put on the greaves, the gauntlets, the
plumed helmet, and such other pieces as he could don without assistance,
and for a while was minded to call for help and complete the matter, but
bethought him of the nuts he had brought away from dinner, and the joy it
would be to eat them with no crowd to eye him, and no Grand Hereditaries
to pester him with undesired services; so he restored the pretty things
to their several places, and soon was cracking nuts, and feeling almost
naturally happy for the first time since God for his sins had made him a
prince. When the nuts were all gone, he stumbled upon some inviting
books in a closet, among them one about the etiquette of the English
court. This was a prize. He lay down upon a sumptuous divan, and
proceeded to instruct himself with honest zeal. Let us leave him there
for the present.
Chapter VIII. The question of the Seal.
About five o'clock Henry VIII. awoke out of an unrefreshing nap, and
muttered to himself, "Troublous dreams, troublous dreams! Mine end is now
at hand: so say these warnings, and my failing pulses do confirm it."
Presently a wicked light flamed up in his eye, and he muttered, "Yet will
not I die till HE go before."
His attendants perceiving that he was awake, one of them asked his
pleasure concerning the Lord Chancellor, who was waiting without.
"Admit him, admit him!" exclaimed the King eagerly.
The Lord Chancellor entered, and knelt by the King's couch, saying--
"I have given order, and, according to the King's command, the peers of
the realm, in their robes, do now stand at the bar of the House, where,
having confirmed the Duke of Norfolk's doom, they humbly wait his
majesty's further pleasure in the matter."
The King's face lit up with a fierce joy. Said he--
"Lift me up! In mine own person will I go before my Parliament, and with
mine own hand will I seal the warrant that rids me of--"
His voice failed; an ashen pallor swept the flush from his cheeks; and
the attendants eased him back upon his pillows, and hurriedly assisted
him with restoratives. Presently he said sorrowfully--
"Alack, how have I longed for this sweet hour! and lo, too late it
cometh, and I am robbed of this so coveted chance. But speed ye, speed
ye! let others do this happy office sith 'tis denied to me. I put my
Great Seal in commission: choose thou the lords that shall compose it,
and get ye to your work. Speed ye, man! Before the sun shall rise and
set again, bring me his head that I may see it."
"According to the King's command, so shall it be. Will't please your
majesty to order that the Seal be now restored to me, so that I may forth
upon the business?"
"The Seal? Who keepeth the Seal but thou?"
"Please your majesty, you did take it from me two days since, saying it
should no more do its office till your own royal hand should use it upon
the Duke of Norfolk's warrant."
"Why, so in sooth I did: I do remember . . . What did I with it?. . . I
am very feeble . . . So oft these days doth my memory play the traitor
with me . . . 'Tis strange, strange--"
The King dropped into inarticulate mumblings, shaking his grey head
weakly from time to time, and gropingly trying to recollect what he had
done with the Seal. At last my Lord Hertford ventured to kneel and offer
information--
"Sire, if that I may be so bold, here be several that do remember with me
how that you gave the Great Seal into the hands of his highness the
Prince of Wales to keep against the day that--"
"True, most true!" interrupted the King. "Fetch it! Go: time flieth!"
Lord Hertford flew to Tom, but returned to the King before very long,
troubled and empty-handed. He delivered himself to this effect--
"It grieveth me, my lord the King, to bear so heavy and unwelcome
tidings; but it is the will of God that the prince's affliction abideth
still, and he cannot recall to mind that he received the Seal. So came I
quickly to report, thinking it were waste of precious time, and little
worth withal, that any should attempt to search the long array of
chambers and saloons that belong unto his royal high--"
A groan from the King interrupted the lord at this point. After a little
while his majesty said, with a deep sadness in his tone--
"Trouble him no more, poor child. The hand of God lieth heavy upon him,
and my heart goeth out in loving compassion for him, and sorrow that I
may not bear his burden on mine old trouble-weighted shoulders, and so
bring him peace."
He closed his eyes, fell to mumbling, and presently was silent. After a
time he opened his eyes again, and gazed vacantly around until his glance
rested upon the kneeling Lord Chancellor. Instantly his face flushed with
wrath--
"What, thou here yet! By the glory of God, an' thou gettest not about
that traitor's business, thy mitre shall have holiday the morrow for lack
of a head to grace withal!"
The trembling Chancellor answered--
"Good your Majesty, I cry you mercy! I but waited for the Seal."
"Man, hast lost thy wits? The small Seal which aforetime I was wont to
take with me abroad lieth in my treasury. And, since the Great Seal hath
flown away, shall not it suffice? Hast lost thy wits? Begone! And hark
ye--come no more till thou do bring his head."
The poor Chancellor was not long in removing himself from this dangerous
vicinity; nor did the commission waste time in giving the royal assent to
the work of the slavish Parliament, and appointing the morrow for the
beheading of the premier peer of England, the luckless Duke of Norfolk.
{1}
Chapter IX. The river pageant.
At nine in the evening the whole vast river-front of the palace was
blazing with light. The river itself, as far as the eye could reach
citywards, was so thickly covered with watermen's boats and with
pleasure-barges, all fringed with coloured lanterns, and gently agitated
by the waves, that it resembled a glowing and limitless garden of flowers
stirred to soft motion by summer winds. The grand terrace of stone steps
leading down to the water, spacious enough to mass the army of a German
principality upon, was a picture to see, with its ranks of royal
halberdiers in polished armour, and its troops of brilliantly costumed
servitors flitting up and down, and to and fro, in the hurry of
preparation.
Presently a command was given, and immediately all living creatures
vanished from the steps. Now the air was heavy with the hush of suspense
and expectancy. As far as one's vision could carry, he might see the
myriads of people in the boats rise up, and shade their eyes from the
glare of lanterns and torches, and gaze toward the palace.
A file of forty or fifty state barges drew up to the steps. They were
richly gilt, and their lofty prows and sterns were elaborately carved.
Some of them were decorated with banners and streamers; some with cloth-
of-gold and arras embroidered with coats-of-arms; others with silken
flags that had numberless little silver bells fastened to them, which
shook out tiny showers of joyous music whenever the breezes fluttered
them; others of yet higher pretensions, since they belonged to nobles in
the prince's immediate service, had their sides picturesquely fenced with
shields gorgeously emblazoned with armorial bearings. Each state barge
was towed by a tender. Besides the rowers, these tenders carried each a
number of men-at-arms in glossy helmet and breastplate, and a company of
musicians.
The advance-guard of the expected procession now appeared in the great
gateway, a troop of halberdiers. 'They were dressed in striped hose of
black and tawny, velvet caps graced at the sides with silver roses, and
doublets of murrey and blue cloth, embroidered on the front and back with
the three feathers, the prince's blazon, woven in gold. Their halberd
staves were covered with crimson velvet, fastened with gilt nails, and
ornamented with gold tassels. Filing off on the right and left, they
formed two long lines, extending from the gateway of the palace to the
water's edge. A thick rayed cloth or carpet was then unfolded, and laid
down between them by attendants in the gold-and-crimson liveries of the
prince. This done, a flourish of trumpets resounded from within. A
lively prelude arose from the musicians on the water; and two ushers with
white wands marched with a slow and stately pace from the portal. They
were followed by an officer bearing the civic mace, after whom came
another carrying the city's sword; then several sergeants of the city
guard, in their full accoutrements, and with badges on their sleeves;
then the Garter King-at-arms, in his tabard; then several Knights of the
Bath, each with a white lace on his sleeve; then their esquires; then the
judges, in their robes of scarlet and coifs; then the Lord High
Chancellor of England, in a robe of scarlet, open before, and purfled
with minever; then a deputation of aldermen, in their scarlet cloaks; and
then the heads of the different civic companies, in their robes of state.
Now came twelve French gentlemen, in splendid habiliments, consisting of
pourpoints of white damask barred with gold, short mantles of crimson
velvet lined with violet taffeta, and carnation coloured hauts-de-
chausses, and took their way down the steps. They were of the suite of
the French ambassador, and were followed by twelve cavaliers of the suite
of the Spanish ambassador, clothed in black velvet, unrelieved by any
ornament. Following these came several great English nobles with their
attendants.'
There was a flourish of trumpets within; and the Prince's uncle, the
future great Duke of Somerset, emerged from the gateway, arrayed in a
'doublet of black cloth-of-gold, and a cloak of crimson satin flowered
with gold, and ribanded with nets of silver.' He turned, doffed his
plumed cap, bent his body in a low reverence, and began to step backward,
bowing at each step. A prolonged trumpet-blast followed, and a
proclamation, "Way for the high and mighty the Lord Edward, Prince of
Wales!" High aloft on the palace walls a long line of red tongues of
flame leapt forth with a thunder-crash; the massed world on the river
burst into a mighty roar of welcome; and Tom Canty, the cause and hero of
it all, stepped into view and slightly bowed his princely head.
He was 'magnificently habited in a doublet of white satin, with a front-
piece of purple cloth-of-tissue, powdered with diamonds, and edged with
ermine. Over this he wore a mantle of white cloth-of-gold, pounced with
the triple-feathered crest, lined with blue satin, set with pearls and
precious stones, and fastened with a clasp of brilliants. About his neck
hung the order of the Garter, and several princely foreign orders;' and
wherever light fell upon him jewels responded with a blinding flash. O
Tom Canty, born in a hovel, bred in the gutters of London, familiar with
rags and dirt and misery, what a spectacle is this!
Chapter X. The Prince in the toils.
We left John Canty dragging the rightful prince into Offal Court, with a
noisy and delighted mob at his heels. There was but one person in it who
offered a pleading word for the captive, and he was not heeded; he was
hardly even heard, so great was the turmoil. The Prince continued to
struggle for freedom, and to rage against the treatment he was suffering,
until John Canty lost what little patience was left in him, and raised
his oaken cudgel in a sudden fury over the Prince's head. The single
pleader for the lad sprang to stop the man's arm, and the blow descended
upon his own wrist. Canty roared out--
"Thou'lt meddle, wilt thou? Then have thy reward."
His cudgel crashed down upon the meddler's head: there was a groan, a
dim form sank to the ground among the feet of the crowd, and the next
moment it lay there in the dark alone. The mob pressed on, their
enjoyment nothing disturbed by this episode.
Presently the Prince found himself in John Canty's abode, with the door
closed against the outsiders. By the vague light of a tallow candle
which was thrust into a bottle, he made out the main features of the
loathsome den, and also the occupants of it. Two frowsy girls and a
middle-aged woman cowered against the wall in one corner, with the aspect
of animals habituated to harsh usage, and expecting and dreading it now.
From another corner stole a withered hag with streaming grey hair and
malignant eyes. John Canty said to this one--
"Tarry! There's fine mummeries here. Mar them not till thou'st enjoyed
them: then let thy hand be heavy as thou wilt. Stand forth, lad. Now
say thy foolery again, an thou'st not forgot it. Name thy name. Who art
thou?"
The insulted blood mounted to the little prince's cheek once more, and he
lifted a steady and indignant gaze to the man's face and said--
"'Tis but ill-breeding in such as thou to command me to speak. I tell
thee now, as I told thee before, I am Edward, Prince of Wales, and none
other."
The stunning surprise of this reply nailed the hag's feet to the floor
where she stood, and almost took her breath. She stared at the Prince in
stupid amazement, which so amused her ruffianly son, that he burst into a
roar of laughter. But the effect upon Tom Canty's mother and sisters was
different. Their dread of bodily injury gave way at once to distress of
a different sort. They ran forward with woe and dismay in their faces,
exclaiming--
"Oh, poor Tom, poor lad!"
The mother fell on her knees before the Prince, put her hands upon his
shoulders, and gazed yearningly into his face through her rising tears.
Then she said--
"Oh, my poor boy! Thy foolish reading hath wrought its woeful work at
last, and ta'en thy wit away. Ah! why did'st thou cleave to it when I so
warned thee 'gainst it? Thou'st broke thy mother's heart."
The Prince looked into her face, and said gently--
"Thy son is well, and hath not lost his wits, good dame. Comfort thee:
let me to the palace where he is, and straightway will the King my father
restore him to thee."
"The King thy father! Oh, my child! unsay these words that be freighted
with death for thee, and ruin for all that be near to thee. Shake of
this gruesome dream. Call back thy poor wandering memory. Look upon me.
Am not I thy mother that bore thee, and loveth thee?"
The Prince shook his head and reluctantly said--
"God knoweth I am loth to grieve thy heart; but truly have I never looked
upon thy face before."
The woman sank back to a sitting posture on the floor, and, covering her
eyes with her hands, gave way to heart-broken sobs and wailings.
"Let the show go on!" shouted Canty. "What, Nan!--what, Bet! mannerless
wenches! will ye stand in the Prince's presence? Upon your knees, ye
pauper scum, and do him reverence!"
He followed this with another horse-laugh. The girls began to plead
timidly for their brother; and Nan said--
"An thou wilt but let him to bed, father, rest and sleep will heal his
madness: prithee, do."
"Do, father," said Bet; "he is more worn than is his wont. To-morrow
will he be himself again, and will beg with diligence, and come not empty
home again."
This remark sobered the father's joviality, and brought his mind to
business. He turned angrily upon the Prince, and said--
"The morrow must we pay two pennies to him that owns this hole; two
pennies, mark ye--all this money for a half-year's rent, else out of this
we go. Show what thou'st gathered with thy lazy begging."
The Prince said--
"Offend me not with thy sordid matters. I tell thee again I am the
King's son."
A sounding blow upon the Prince's shoulder from Canty's broad palm sent
him staggering into goodwife Canty's arms, who clasped him to her breast,
and sheltered him from a pelting rain of cuffs and slaps by interposing
her own person. The frightened girls retreated to their corner; but the
grandmother stepped eagerly forward to assist her son. The Prince sprang
away from Mrs. Canty, exclaiming--
"Thou shalt not suffer for me, madam. Let these swine do their will upon
me alone."
This speech infuriated the swine to such a degree that they set about
their work without waste of time. Between them they belaboured the boy
right soundly, and then gave the girls and their mother a beating for
showing sympathy for the victim.
"Now," said Canty, "to bed, all of ye. The entertainment has tired me."
The light was put out, and the family retired. As soon as the snorings
of the head of the house and his mother showed that they were asleep, the
young girls crept to where the Prince lay, and covered him tenderly from
the cold with straw and rags; and their mother crept to him also, and
stroked his hair, and cried over him, whispering broken words of comfort
and compassion in his ear the while. She had saved a morsel for him to
eat, also; but the boy's pains had swept away all appetite--at least for
black and tasteless crusts. He was touched by her brave and costly
defence of him, and by her commiseration; and he thanked her in very
noble and princely words, and begged her to go to her sleep and try to
forget her sorrows. And he added that the King his father would not let
her loyal kindness and devotion go unrewarded. This return to his
'madness' broke her heart anew, and she strained him to her breast again
and again, and then went back, drowned in tears, to her bed.
As she lay thinking and mourning, the suggestion began to creep into her
mind that there was an undefinable something about this boy that was
lacking in Tom Canty, mad or sane. She could not describe it, she could
not tell just what it was, and yet her sharp mother-instinct seemed to
detect it and perceive it. What if the boy were really not her son,
after all? Oh, absurd! She almost smiled at the idea, spite of her
griefs and troubles. No matter, she found that it was an idea that would
not 'down,' but persisted in haunting her. It pursued her, it harassed
her, it clung to her, and refused to be put away or ignored. At last she
perceived that there was not going to be any peace for her until she
should devise a test that should prove, clearly and without question,
whether this lad was her son or not, and so banish these wearing and
worrying doubts. Ah, yes, this was plainly the right way out of the
difficulty; therefore she set her wits to work at once to contrive that
test. But it was an easier thing to propose than to accomplish. She
turned over in her mind one promising test after another, but was obliged
to relinquish them all--none of them were absolutely sure, absolutely
perfect; and an imperfect one could not satisfy her. Evidently she was
racking her head in vain--it seemed manifest that she must give the
matter up. While this depressing thought was passing through her mind,
her ear caught the regular breathing of the boy, and she knew he had
fallen asleep. And while she listened, the measured breathing was broken
by a soft, startled cry, such as one utters in a troubled dream. This
chance occurrence furnished her instantly with a plan worth all her
laboured tests combined. She at once set herself feverishly, but
noiselessly, to work to relight her candle, muttering to herself, "Had I
but seen him THEN, I should have known! Since that day, when he was
little, that the powder burst in his face, he hath never been startled of
a sudden out of his dreams or out of his thinkings, but he hath cast his
hand before his eyes, even as he did that day; and not as others would do
it, with the palm inward, but always with the palm turned outward--I have
seen it a hundred times, and it hath never varied nor ever failed. Yes,
I shall soon know, now!"
By this time she had crept to the slumbering boy's side, with the candle,
shaded, in her hand. She bent heedfully and warily over him, scarcely
breathing in her suppressed excitement, and suddenly flashed the light in
his face and struck the floor by his ear with her knuckles. The
sleeper's eyes sprang wide open, and he cast a startled stare about him--
but he made no special movement with his hands.
The poor woman was smitten almost helpless with surprise and grief; but
she contrived to hide her emotions, and to soothe the boy to sleep again;
then she crept apart and communed miserably with herself upon the
disastrous result of her experiment. She tried to believe that her Tom's
madness had banished this habitual gesture of his; but she could not do
it. "No," she said, "his HANDS are not mad; they could not unlearn so
old a habit in so brief a time. Oh, this is a heavy day for me!"
Still, hope was as stubborn now as doubt had been before; she could not
bring herself to accept the verdict of the test; she must try the thing
again--the failure must have been only an accident; so she startled the
boy out of his sleep a second and a third time, at intervals--with the
same result which had marked the first test; then she dragged herself to
bed, and fell sorrowfully asleep, saying, "But I cannot give him up--oh
no, I cannot, I cannot--he MUST be my boy!"
The poor mother's interruptions having ceased, and the Prince's pains
having gradually lost their power to disturb him, utter weariness at last
sealed his eyes in a profound and restful sleep. Hour after hour slipped
away, and still he slept like the dead. Thus four or five hours passed.
Then his stupor began to lighten. Presently, while half asleep and half
awake, he murmured--
"Sir William!"
After a moment--
"Ho, Sir William Herbert! Hie thee hither, and list to the strangest
dream that ever . . . Sir William! dost hear? Man, I did think me
changed to a pauper, and . . . Ho there! Guards! Sir William! What! is
there no groom of the chamber in waiting? Alack! it shall go hard with--"
"What aileth thee?" asked a whisper near him. "Who art thou calling?"
"Sir William Herbert. Who art thou?"
"I? Who should I be, but thy sister Nan? Oh, Tom, I had forgot! Thou'rt
mad yet--poor lad, thou'rt mad yet: would I had never woke to know it
again! But prithee master thy tongue, lest we be all beaten till we
die!"
The startled Prince sprang partly up, but a sharp reminder from his
stiffened bruises brought him to himself, and he sank back among his foul
straw with a moan and the ejaculation--
"Alas! it was no dream, then!"
In a moment all the heavy sorrow and misery which sleep had banished were
upon him again, and he realised that he was no longer a petted prince in
a palace, with the adoring eyes of a nation upon him, but a pauper, an
outcast, clothed in rags, prisoner in a den fit only for beasts, and
consorting with beggars and thieves.
In the midst of his grief he began to be conscious of hilarious noises
and shoutings, apparently but a block or two away. The next moment there
were several sharp raps at the door; John Canty ceased from snoring and
said--
"Who knocketh? What wilt thou?"
A voice answered--
"Know'st thou who it was thou laid thy cudgel on?"
"No. Neither know I, nor care."
"Belike thou'lt change thy note eftsoons. An thou would save thy neck,
nothing but flight may stead thee. The man is this moment delivering up
the ghost. 'Tis the priest, Father Andrew!"
"God-a-mercy!" exclaimed Canty. He roused his family, and hoarsely
commanded, "Up with ye all and fly--or bide where ye are and perish!"
Scarcely five minutes later the Canty household were in the street and
flying for their lives. John Canty held the Prince by the wrist, and
hurried him along the dark way, giving him this caution in a low voice--
"Mind thy tongue, thou mad fool, and speak not our name. I will choose
me a new name, speedily, to throw the law's dogs off the scent. Mind thy
tongue, I tell thee!"
He growled these words to the rest of the family--
"If it so chance that we be separated, let each make for London Bridge;
whoso findeth himself as far as the last linen-draper's shop on the
bridge, let him tarry there till the others be come, then will we flee
into Southwark together."
At this moment the party burst suddenly out of darkness into light; and
not only into light, but into the midst of a multitude of singing,
dancing, and shouting people, massed together on the river frontage.
There was a line of bonfires stretching as far as one could see, up and
down the Thames; London Bridge was illuminated; Southwark Bridge
likewise; the entire river was aglow with the flash and sheen of coloured
lights; and constant explosions of fireworks filled the skies with an
intricate commingling of shooting splendours and a thick rain of dazzling
sparks that almost turned night into day; everywhere were crowds of
revellers; all London seemed to be at large.
John Canty delivered himself of a furious curse and commanded a retreat;
but it was too late. He and his tribe were swallowed up in that swarming
hive of humanity, and hopelessly separated from each other in an instant.
We are not considering that the Prince was one of his tribe; Canty still
kept his grip upon him. The Prince's heart was beating high with hopes
of escape, now. A burly waterman, considerably exalted with liquor,
found himself rudely shoved by Canty in his efforts to plough through the
crowd; he laid his great hand on Canty's shoulder and said--
"Nay, whither so fast, friend? Dost canker thy soul with sordid business
when all that be leal men and true make holiday?"
"Mine affairs are mine own, they concern thee not," answered Canty,
roughly; "take away thy hand and let me pass."
"Sith that is thy humour, thou'lt NOT pass, till thou'st drunk to the
Prince of Wales, I tell thee that," said the waterman, barring the way
resolutely.
"Give me the cup, then, and make speed, make speed!"
Other revellers were interested by this time. They cried out--
"The loving-cup, the loving-cup! make the sour knave drink the loving-
cup, else will we feed him to the fishes."
So a huge loving-cup was brought; the waterman, grasping it by one of its
handles, and with the other hand bearing up the end of an imaginary
napkin, presented it in due and ancient form to Canty, who had to grasp
the opposite handle with one of his hands and take off the lid with the
other, according to ancient custom. {1} This left the Prince hand-free
for a second, of course. He wasted no time, but dived among the forest
of legs about him and disappeared. In another moment he could not have
been harder to find, under that tossing sea of life, if its billows had
been the Atlantic's and he a lost sixpence.
He very soon realised this fact, and straightway busied himself about his
own affairs without further thought of John Canty. He quickly realised
another thing, too. To wit, that a spurious Prince of Wales was being
feasted by the city in his stead. He easily concluded that the pauper
lad, Tom Canty, had deliberately taken advantage of his stupendous
opportunity and become a usurper.
Therefore there was but one course to pursue--find his way to the
Guildhall, make himself known, and denounce the impostor. He also made
up his mind that Tom should be allowed a reasonable time for spiritual
preparation, and then be hanged, drawn and quartered, according to the
law and usage of the day in cases of high treason.
Chapter XI. At Guildhall.
The royal barge, attended by its gorgeous fleet, took its stately way
down the Thames through the wilderness of illuminated boats. The air was
laden with music; the river banks were beruffled with joy-flames; the
distant city lay in a soft luminous glow from its countless invisible
bonfires; above it rose many a slender spire into the sky, incrusted with
sparkling lights, wherefore in their remoteness they seemed like jewelled
lances thrust aloft; as the fleet swept along, it was greeted from the
banks with a continuous hoarse roar of cheers and the ceaseless flash and
boom of artillery.
To Tom Canty, half buried in his silken cushions, these sounds and this
spectacle were a wonder unspeakably sublime and astonishing. To his
little friends at his side, the Princess Elizabeth and the Lady Jane
Grey, they were nothing.
Arrived at the Dowgate, the fleet was towed up the limpid Walbrook (whose
channel has now been for two centuries buried out of sight under acres of
buildings) to Bucklersbury, past houses and under bridges populous with
merry-makers and brilliantly lighted, and at last came to a halt in a
basin where now is Barge Yard, in the centre of the ancient city of
London. Tom disembarked, and he and his gallant procession crossed
Cheapside and made a short march through the Old Jewry and Basinghall
Street to the Guildhall.
Tom and his little ladies were received with due ceremony by the Lord
Mayor and the Fathers of the City, in their gold chains and scarlet robes
of state, and conducted to a rich canopy of state at the head of the
great hall, preceded by heralds making proclamation, and by the Mace and
the City Sword. The lords and ladies who were to attend upon Tom and his
two small friends took their places behind their chairs.
At a lower table the Court grandees and other guests of noble degree were
seated, with the magnates of the city; the commoners took places at a
multitude of tables on the main floor of the hall. From their lofty
vantage-ground the giants Gog and Magog, the ancient guardians of the
city, contemplated the spectacle below them with eyes grown familiar to
it in forgotten generations. There was a bugle-blast and a proclamation,
and a fat butler appeared in a high perch in the leftward wall, followed
by his servitors bearing with impressive solemnity a royal baron of beef,
smoking hot and ready for the knife.
After grace, Tom (being instructed) rose--and the whole house with him--
and drank from a portly golden loving-cup with the Princess Elizabeth;
from her it passed to the Lady Jane, and then traversed the general
assemblage. So the banquet began.
By midnight the revelry was at its height. Now came one of those
picturesque spectacles so admired in that old day. A description of it
is still extant in the quaint wording of a chronicler who witnessed it:
'Space being made, presently entered a baron and an earl appareled after
the Turkish fashion in long robes of bawdkin powdered with gold; hats on
their heads of crimson velvet, with great rolls of gold, girded with two
swords, called scimitars, hanging by great bawdricks of gold. Next came
yet another baron and another earl, in two long gowns of yellow satin,
traversed with white satin, and in every bend of white was a bend of
crimson satin, after the fashion of Russia, with furred hats of gray on
their heads; either of them having an hatchet in their hands, and boots
with pykes' (points a foot long), 'turned up. And after them came a
knight, then the Lord High Admiral, and with him five nobles, in doublets
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