Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0143/01434.txt

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$Pretitle{}
$Title{Prince And The Pauper, The
Chapter XII}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{king
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$Date{1909}
$Log{See King and Knight*0143401.scf
}
Title:       Prince And The Pauper, The
Author:      Twain, Mark
Date:        1909

Chapter XII

The Prince And His Deliverer

     As soon as Miles Hendon and the little prince were clear of the mob,
they struck down through back lanes and alleys toward the river.  Their way
was unobstructed until they approached London Bridge; then they plowed into
the multitude again, Hendon keeping a fast grip upon the prince's - no, the
king's - wrist.  The tremendous news was already abroad, and the boy
learned it from a thousand voices at once - "The king is dead!" The tidings
struck a chill to the heart of the poor little waif, and sent a shudder
through his frame.  He realized the greatness of his loss, and was filled
with a bitter grief; for the grim tyrant who had been such a terror to
others had always been gentle with him.  The tears sprung to his eyes and
blurred all objects.  For an instant he felt himself the most forlorn,
outcast, and forsaken of God's creatures - then another cry shook the night
with its far-reaching thunders: "Long live King Edward the Sixth!" and this
made his eyes kindle, and thrilled him with pride to his fingers' ends.
"Ah," he thought, "how grand and strange it seems - I am King!"

     Our friends threaded their way slowly through the throngs upon the
Bridge.  This structure, which had stood for six hundred years, and had
been a noisy and populous thoroughfare all that time, was a curious affair,
for a closely packed rank of stores and shops, with family quarters
overhead, stretched along both sides of it, from one bank of the river to
the other.  The Bridge was a sort of town to itself; it had its inn, its
beer houses, its bakeries, its haberdasheries, its food markets, its
manufacturing industries, and even its church.  It looked upon the two
neighbors which it linked together - London and Southwark - as being well
enough, as suburbs, but not otherwise particularly important.  It was a
close corporation, so to speak; it was a narrow town, of a single street a
fifth of a mile long, its population was but a village population, and
everybody in it knew all his fellow townsmen intimately, and had known
their fathers and mothers before them - and all their little family affairs
into the bargain.  It had its aristocracy, of course - its fine old
families of butchers, and bakers, and what-not, who had occupied the same
old premises for five or six hundred years, and knew the great history of
the Bridge from beginning to end, and all its strange legends; and who
always talked bridgy talk, and thought bridgy thoughts, and lied in a long,
level, direct, substantial bridgy way.  It was just the sort of population
to be narrow and ignorant and self-conceited.  Children were born on the
Bridge, were reared there, grew to old age and finally died without ever
having set a foot upon any part of the world but London Bridge alone.  Such
people would naturally imagine that the mighty and interminable procession
which moved through its street night and day, with its confused roar of
shouts and cries, its neighings and bellowings and bleatings and its
muffled thunder-tramp, was the one great thing in this world, and
themselves somehow the proprietors of it.  And so they were in effect - at
least they could exhibit it from their windows, and did - for a
consideration - whenever a returning king or hero gave it a fleeting
splendor, for there was no place like it for affording a long, straight,
uninterrupted view of marching columns.

     Men born and reared upon the Bridge found life unendurably dull and
inane elsewhere.  History tells of one of these who left the Bridge at the
age of seventy-one and retired to the country.  But he could only fret and
toss in his bed; he could not go to sleep, the deep stillness was so
painful, so awful, so oppressive.  When he was worn out with it, at last,
he fled back to his old home, a lean and haggard specter, and fell
peacefully to rest and pleasant dreams under the lulling music of the
lashing waters and the boom and crash and thunder of London Bridge.

     In the times of which we are writing, the Bridge furnished "object
lessons" in English history, for its children - namely, the livid and
decaying heads of renowned men impaled upon iron spikes atop of its
gateways.  But we digress.

     Hendon's lodgings were in the little inn on the Bridge.  As he neared
the door with his small friend, a rough voice said:

     "So, thou'rt come at last!  Thou'lt not escape again, I warrant thee;
and if pounding thy bones to a pudding can teach thee somewhat, thou'lt not
keep us waiting another time, mayhap" - and John Canty put out his hand to
seize the boy.

     Miles Hendon stepped in the way, and said:

     "Not too fast, friend.  Thou art needlessly rough, methinks.  What is
the lad to thee?"

     "If it be any business of thine to make and meddle in others' affairs,
he is my son."

     "'Tis a lie!" cried the little king, hotly.

     "Boldly said, and I believe thee, whether thy small head-piece be
sound or cracked, my boy.  But whether this scurvy ruffian be thy father or
no, 'tis all one, he shall not have thee to beat thee and abuse, according
to his threat, so thou prefer to abide with me."

     "I do, I do - I know him not, I loathe him, and will die before I will
go with him."

     "Then 'tis settled, and there is nought more to say."

     "We will see, as to that!" exclaimed John Canty, striding past Hendon
to get at the boy; "by force shall he - "

     "If thou do but touch him, thou animated offal, I will spit thee like
a goose!" said Hendon, barring the way and laying his hand upon his sword
hilt.  Canty drew back.  "Now mark ye," continued Hendon, "I took this lad
under my protection when a mob of such as thou would have mishandled him,
mayhap killed him; dost imagine I will desert him now to a worser fate? -
for whether thou art his father or no, - and sooth to say, I think it is a
lie - a decent swift death were better for such a lad than life in such
brute hands as thine.  So go thy ways, and set quick about it, for I like
not much bandying of words, being not overpatient in my nature."

     John Canty moved off, muttering threats and curses, and was swallowed
from sight in the crowd.  Hendon ascended three flights of stairs to his
room, with his charge, after ordering a meal to be sent thither.  It was a
poor apartment, with a shabby bed and some odds and ends of old furniture
in it, and was vaguely lighted by a couple of sickly candles.  The little
king dragged himself to the bed and lay down upon it, almost exhausted with
hunger and fatigue.  He had been on his feet a good part of a day and a
night, for it was now two or three o'clock in the morning, and had eaten
nothing meantime.  He murmured drowsily:

     "Prithee, call me when the table is spread," and sunk into a deep
sleep immediately.

     A smile twinkled in Hendon's eye, and he said to himself:

     "By the mass, the little beggar takes to one's quarters and usurps
one's bed with as natural and easy a grace as if he owned them - with never
a by-your-leave or so-please-it-you, or anything of the sort.  In his
diseased ravings he called himself the Prince of Wales, and bravely doth he
keep up the character.  Poor little friendless rat, doubtless his mind has
been disordered with ill usage.  Well, I will be his friend; I have saved
him, and it draweth me strongly to him; already I love the bold-tongued
little rascal.  How soldier-like he faced the smutty rabble and flung back
his high defiance!  And what a comely, sweet and gentle face he hath, now
that sleep hath conjured away its troubles and its griefs.  I will teach
him, I will cure his malady; yea, I will be his elder brother, and care for
him and watch over him; and whoso would shame him or do him hurt, may order
his shroud, for though I be burnt for it he shall need it!"

     He bent over the boy and contemplated him with kind and pitying
interest, tapping the young cheek tenderly and smoothing back the tangled
curls with his great brown hand.  A slight shiver passed over the boy's
form.  Hendon muttered:

     "See, now, how like a man it was to let him lie here uncovered and
fill his body with deadly rheums.  Now what shall I do?  'Twill wake him to
take him up and put him within the bed, and he sorely needeth sleep."

     He looked about for extra covering, but finding none, doffed his
doublet and wrapped the lad in it, saying, "I am used to nipping air and
scant apparel, 'tis little I shall mind the cold" - then walked up and down
the room to keep his blood in motion, soliloquizing as before.

     "His injured mind persuades him he is Prince of Wales; 'twill be odd
to have a Prince of Wales still with us, now that he that was the prince is
prince no more, but king - for this poor mind is set upon the one fantasy,
and will not reason out that now it should cast by the prince and call
itself the king....If my father liveth still, after these seven years that
I have heard nought from home in my foreign dungeon, he will welcome the
poor lad and give him generous shelter for my sake; so will my good elder
brother, Arthur; my other brother, Hugh - but I will crack his crown, an'
he interfere, the fox-hearted, ill-conditioned animal!  Yes, thither will
we fare - and straightway, too."

     A servant entered with a smoking meal, disposed it upon a small deal
table, placed the chairs, and took his departure, leaving such cheap
lodgers as these to wait upon themselves.  The door slammed after him, and
the noise woke the boy, who sprung to a sitting posture, and shot a glad
glance about him; then a grieved look came into his face and he murmured to
himself, with a deep sigh, "Alack, it was but a dream.  Woe is me." Next he
noticed Miles Hendon's doublet - glanced from that to Hendon, comprehended
the sacrifice that had been made for him, and said, gently:

     "Thou art good to me, yes, thou art very good to me.  Take it and put
it on - I shall not need it more."

     Then he got up and walked to the washstand in the corner, and stood
there waiting.  Hendon said in a cheery voice:

     "We'll have a right hearty sup and bite now, for everything is savory
and smoking hot, and that and thy nap together will make thee a little man
again, never fear!"

     The boy made no answer, but bent a steady look, that was filled with
grave surprise, and also somewhat touched with impatience, upon the tall
knight of the sword.  Hendon was puzzled, and said:

     "What's amiss?"

     "Good sir, I would wash me."

     "Oh, is that all!  Ask no permission of Miles Hendon for aught thou
cravest.  Make thyself perfectly free here and welcome, with all that are
his belongings."

     Still the boy stood, and moved not; more, he tapped the floor once or
twice with his small impatient foot.  Hendon was wholly perplexed.  Said
he:

     "Bless us, what is it?"

     "Prithee, pour the water, and make not so many words!"

     Hendon, suppressing a horse-laugh, and saying to himself, "By all the
saints, but this is admirable!" stepped briskly forward and did the small
insolent's bidding; then stood by, in a sort of stupefaction, until the
command, "Come - the towel!" woke him sharply up.  He took up a towel from
under the boy's nose and handed it to him, without comment.  He now
proceeded to comfort his own face with a wash, and while he was at it his
adopted child seated himself at the table and prepared to fall to.  Hendon
dispatched his ablutions with alacrity, then drew back the other chair and
was about to place himself at table, when the boy said, indignantly:

     "Forbear!  Wouldst sit in the presence of the king?"

     This blow staggered Hendon to his foundations.  He muttered to
himself, "Lo, the poor thing's madness is up with the time!  it hath
changed with the great change that is come to the realm, and now in fancy
is he king!  Good lack, I must humor the conceit, too - there is no other
way - faith, he would order me to the Tower, else!"

     And pleased with this jest, he removed the chair from the table, took
his stand behind the king, and proceeded to wait upon him in the courtliest
way he was capable of.

     When the king ate, the rigor of his royal dignity relaxed a little,
and with his growing contentment came a desire to talk.  He said:

     "I think thou callest thyself Miles Hendon, if I heard thee aright?"

     "Yes, sire," Miles replied; then observed to himself, "If I must humor
the poor lad's madness, I must sire him, I must majesty him, I must not go
by halves, I must stick at nothing that belongeth to the part I play, else
shall I play it ill and work evil to this charitable and kindly cause."

     The king warmed his heart with a second glass of wine, and said: "I
would know thee - tell me thy story.  Thou hast a gallant way with thee,
and a noble - art nobly born?"

     "We are of the tail of the nobility, good your majesty.  My father is
a baronet - one of the smaller lords, by knight service ^* - Sir Richard
Hendon, of Hendon Hall, by Monk's Holm in Kent."

[Footnote *: He refers to the order of baronets, or baronettes, - the
barones minores, as distinct from the parliamentary barons; - not, it need
hardly be said, the baronets of later creation.]

     "The name has escaped my memory.  Go on - tell me thy story."

     "'Tis not much, your majesty, yet perchance it may beguile a short half
hour for want of a better.  My father, Sir Richard, is very rich, and of a
most generous nature.  My mother died whilst I was yet a boy.  I have two
brothers: Arthur, my elder, with a soul like to his father's; and Hugh,
younger than I, a mean spirit, covetous, treacherous, vicious, underhanded - a
reptile.  Such was he from the cradle; such was he ten years past, when I last
saw him - a ripe rascal at nineteen, I being twenty then, and Arthur
twenty-two.  There is none other of us but the Lady Edith, my cousin - she was
sixteen, then - beautiful, gentle, good, the daughter of an earl, the last of
her race, heiress of a great fortune and a lapsed title.  My father was her
guardian.  I loved her and she loved me; but she was betrothed to Arthur from
the cradle, and Sir Richard would not suffer the contract to be broken.
Arthur loved another maid, and bade us be of good cheer and hold fast to the
hope that delay and luck together would some day give success to our several
causes.  Hugh loved the Lady Edith's fortune, though in truth he said it was
herself he loved - but then 'twas his way, alway, to say one thing and mean
the other.  But he lost his arts upon the girl; he could deceive my father,
but none else.  My father loved him best of us all, and trusted and believed
him; for he was the youngest child and others hated him - these qualities
being in all ages sufficient to win a parent's dearest love; and he had a
smooth persuasive tongue, with an admirable gift of lying - and these be
qualities which do mightily assist a blind affection to cozen itself.  I was
wild - in troth I might go yet farther and say very wild, though 'twas a
wildness of an innocent sort, since it hurt none but me, brought shame to
none, nor loss, nor had in it any taint of crime or baseness, or what might
not beseem mine honorable degree.

     "Yet did my brother Hugh turn these faults to good account - he seeing
that our brother Arthur's health was but indifferent, and hoping the worst
might work him profit were I swept out of the path - so, - but 'twere a
long tale, good my liege, and little worth the telling.  Briefly, then,
this brother did deftly magnify my faults and make them crimes; ending his
base work with finding a silken ladder in mine apartments - conveyed
thither by his own means - and did convince my father by this, and suborned
evidence of servants and other lying knaves, that I was minded to carry off
my Edith and marry with her, in rank defiance of his will.

     "Three years of banishment from home and England might make a soldier
and a man of me, my father said, and teach me some degree of wisdom.  I
fought out my long probation in the continental wars, tasting sumptuously
of hard knocks, privation, and adventure; but in my last battle I was taken
captive, and during the seven years that have waxed and waned since then, a
foreign dungeon hath harbored me.  Through wit and courage I won to the
free air at last, and fled hither straight; and am but just arrived, right
poor in purse and raiment, and poorer still in knowledge of what these dull
seven years have wrought at Hendon Hall, its people and belongings.  So
please you, sir, my meager tale is told."

     "Thou hast been shamefully abused!" said the little king, with a
flashing eye.  "But I will right thee - by the cross will I!  The king hath
said it."

     Then, fired by the story of Miles' wrongs, he loosed his tongue and
poured the history of his own recent misfortunes into the ears of his
astonished listener.  When he had finished, Miles said to himself:

     "Lo, what an imagination he hath!  Verily this is no common mind;
else, crazed or sane, it could not weave so straight and gaudy a tale as
this out of the airy nothings wherewith it hath wrought this curious
romaunt.  Poor ruined little head, it shall not lack friend or shelter
whilst I bide with the living.  He shall never leave my side; he shall be
my pet, my little comrade.  And he shall be cured! - aye, made whole and
sound - then will he make himself a name - and proud shall I be to say,
'Yes, he is mine - I took him, a homeless little ragamuffin, but I saw what
was in him, and I said his name would be heard some day - behold him,
observe him - was I right?"

     The king spoke - in a thoughtful, measured voice:

     "Thou didst save me injury and shame, perchance my life, and so my
crown.  Such service demandeth rich reward.  Name thy desire, and so it be
within the compass of my royal power, it is thine."

     This fantastic suggestion startled Hendon out of his revery.  He was
about to thank the king and put the matter aside with saying he had only
done his duty and desired no reward, but a wiser thought came into his
head, and he asked leave to be silent a few moments and consider the
gracious offer - an idea which the king gravely approved, remarking that it
was best to be not too hasty with a thing of such great import.

     Miles reflected during some moments, then said to himself, "Yes, that
is the thing to do - by any other means it were impossible to get at it -
and certes, this hour's experience has taught me 'twould be most wearing
and inconvenient to continue it as it is.  Yes, I will propose it; 'twas a
happy accident that I did not throw the chance away." Then he dropped upon
one knee and said:

     "My poor service went not beyond the limit of a subject's simple duty,
and therefore hath no merit; but since your majesty is pleased to hold it
worthy some reward, I take heart of grace to make petition to this effect.
Near four hundred years ago, as your grace knoweth, there being ill blood
betwixt John, king of England, and the king of France, it was decreed that
two champions should fight together in the lists, and so settle the dispute
by what is called the arbitrament of God.  These two kings, and the Spanish
king, being assembled to witness and judge the conflict, the French
champion appeared; but so redoubtable was he that our English knights
refused to measure weapons with him.  So the matter, which was a weighty
one, was like to go against the English monarch by default.  Now in the
Tower lay the Lord de Courcy, the mightiest arm in England, stripped of his
honors and possessions, and wasting with long captivity.  Appeal was made
to him; he gave assent, and came forth arrayed for battle; but no sooner
did the Frenchman glimpse his huge frame and hear his famous name but he
fled away, and the French king's cause was lost.  King John restored De
Courcy's titles and possessions, and said, 'Name thy wish and thou shalt
have it, though it cost me half my kingdom;' whereat De Courcy, kneeling,
as I do now, made answer, 'This, then, I ask, my liege; that I and my
successors may have and hold the privilege of remaining covered in the
presence of the kings of England, henceforth while the throne shall last.'
The boon was granted, as your majesty knoweth; and there hath been no time,
these four hundred years, that that line has failed of an heir; and so,
even unto this day, the head of that ancient house still weareth his hat or
helm before the king's majesty, without let or hindrance, and this none
other may do. ^* Invoking this precedent in aid of my prayer, I beseech the
king to grant to me but this one grace and privilege - to my more than
sufficient reward - and none other, to wit: that I and my heirs, forever,
may sit in the presence of the majesty of England!"

[Footnote *: The lords of Kingsale, descendants of De Courcy, still enjoy
this curious privilege.]

     "Rise, Sir Miles Hendon, knight," said the king, gravely - giving the
accolade with Hendon's sword - "rise, and seat thyself.  Thy petition is
granted.  While England remains, and the crown continues, the privilege
shall not lapse."

[See King and Knight: Thy petition is granted. While England remains, the
crown continues, the privelege shall not lapse.]

     His majesty walked apart, musing, and Hendon dropped into a chair at
table, observing to himself, "'Twas a brave thought, and hath wrought me a
mighty deliverance; my legs are grievously wearied.  An' I had not thought
of that, I must have had to stand for weeks, till my poor lad's wits are
cured." After a little he went on, "And so I am become a knight of the
Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows!  A most odd and strange position, truly, for
one so matter-of-fact as I.  I will not laugh - no, God forbid, for this
thing which is so substanceless to me is real to him.  And to me, also, in
one way, it is not a falsity, for it reflects with truth the sweet and
generous spirit that is in him." After a pause: "Ah, what if he should call
me by my fine title before folk! - there'd be a merry contrast betwixt my
glory and my raiment!  But no matter; let him call me what he will, so it
please him; I shall be content."