The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0143/01433.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 10KB | 188 lines

$Unique_ID{bob01433}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Prince And The Pauper, The
Chapter XI}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{long
thy
tom
upon
prince
city
king
crimson
satin
}
$Date{1909}
$Log{}
Title:       Prince And The Pauper, The
Author:      Twain, Mark
Date:        1909

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 jeweled 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 center 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 head 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
of crimson velvet, voyded low on the back and before to the cannell-bone,
laced on the breasts with chains of silver; and, over that, short cloaks of
crimson satin, and on their heads hats after the dancers' fashion, with
pheasants' feather in them.  These were appareled after the fashion of
Prussia.  The torch-bearers, which were about an hundred, were appareled in
crimson satin and green, like Moors, their faces black.  Next came in a
mommarye.  Then the minstrels, which were disguised, danced; and the lords
and ladies did wildly dance also, that it was a pleasure to behold."

     And while Tom, in his high seat, was gazing upon this "wild" dancing,
lost in admiration of the dazzling commingling of kaleidoscopic colors
which the whirling turmoil of gaudy figures below him presented, the ragged
but real little Prince of Wales was proclaiming his rights and his wrongs,
denouncing the impostor, and clamoring for admission at the gates of
Guildhall!  The crowd enjoyed this episode prodigiously, and pressed
forward and craned their necks to see the small rioter.  Presently they
began to taunt him and mock at him, purposely to goad him into a higher and
still more entertaining fury.  Tears of mortification sprung to his eyes,
but he stood his ground and defied the mob right royally.  Other taunts
followed, added mockings stung him, and he exclaimed:

     "I tell ye again, you pack of unmannerly curs, I am the Prince of
Wales!  And all forlorn and friendless as I be, with none to give me word
of grace or help me in my need, yet will not I be driven from my ground,
but will maintain it!"

     "Though thou be prince or no prince, 'tis all one, thou be'st a
gallant lad, and not friendless neither!  Here stand I by thy side to prove
it; and mind I tell thee thou might'st have a worser friend than Miles
Hendon and yet not tire thy legs with seeking.  Rest thy small jaw, my
child, I talk the language of these base kennel-rats like to a very
native."

     The speaker was a sort of Don Caesar de Bazan in dress, aspect, and
bearing.  He was tall, trim-built, muscular.  His doublet and trunks were
of rich material, but faded and threadbare, and their goldlace adornments
were sadly tarnished; his ruff was rumpled and damaged; the plume in his
slouched hat was broken and had a bedraggled and disreputable look; at his
side he wore a long rapier in a rusty iron sheath; his swaggering carriage
marked him at once as a ruffler of the camp.  The speech of this fantastic
figure was received with an explosion of jeers and laughter.  Some cried,
"'Tis another prince in disguise!" "'Ware thy tongue, friend, belike he is
dangerous!" "Marry, he looketh it - mark his eye!" "Pluck the lad from him
- to the horse-pond wi' the cub!"

     Instantly a hand was laid upon the prince, under the impulse of this
happy thought; as instantly the stranger's long sword was out and the
meddler went to the earth under a sounding thump with the flat of it.  The
next moment a score of voices shouted "Kill the dog!  kill him!  kill him!"
and the mob closed in on the warrior, who backed himself against a wall and
began to lay about him with his long weapon like a madman.  His victims
sprawled this way and that, but the mob-tide poured over their prostrate
forms and dashed itself against the champion with undiminished fury.  His
moments seemed numbered, his destruction certain, when suddenly a trumpet-
blast sounded, a voice shouted, "Way for the king's messenger!" and a troop
of horsemen came charging down upon the mob, who fled out of harm's reach
as fast as their legs could carry them.  The bold stranger caught up the
prince in his arms, and was soon far away from danger and the multitude.

     Return we within the Guildhall.  Suddenly, high above the jubilant
roar and thunder of the revel, broke the clear peal of a bugle-note.  There
was instant silence, - a deep hush; then a single voice rose - that of the
messenger from the palace - and began to pipe forth a proclamation, the
whole multitude standing, listening.  The closing words, solemnly
pronounced, were:

     "The king is dead!