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
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' feathers in them.  These
were appareled after the fashion of Prussia.  The torchbearers,
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 colours 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 clamouring 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
sprang 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
gold-lace 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!"

The great assemblage bent their heads upon their breasts with one
accord; remained so, in profound silence, a few moments; then all
sank upon their knees in a body, stretched out their hands toward
Tom, and a mighty shout burst forth that seemed to shake the
building--

"Long live the King!"

Poor Tom's dazed eyes wandered abroad over this stupefying
spectacle, and finally rested dreamily upon the kneeling
princesses beside him, a moment, then upon the Earl of Hertford.
A sudden purpose dawned in his face.  He said, in a low tone, at
Lord Hertford's ear--

"Answer me truly, on thy faith and honour!  Uttered I here a
command, the which none but a king might hold privilege and
prerogative to utter, would such commandment be obeyed, and none
rise up to say me nay?"

"None, my liege, in all these realms.  In thy person bides the
majesty of England.  Thou art the king--thy word is law."

Tom responded, in a strong, earnest voice, and with great
animation--

"Then shall the king's law be law of mercy, from this day, and
never more be law of blood!  Up from thy knees and away!  To the
Tower, and say the King decrees the Duke of Norfolk shall not
die!" {1}

The words were caught up and carried eagerly from lip to lip far
and wide over the hall, and as Hertford hurried from the presence,
another prodigious shout burst forth--

"The reign of blood is ended!  Long live Edward, King of England!"



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 ploughed 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 realised 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
sprang 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 neighbours 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 bellowing 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 splendour, 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 spectre, 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 headpiece 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 bide 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 over-patient 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 sank 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,
soliloquising 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 sprang 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
savoury 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
despatched 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 humour 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.

While the King ate, the rigour 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
humour 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 {2}--Sir
Richard Hendon of Hendon Hall, by Monk's Holm in Kent."

"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 the 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 honourable 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 harboured 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 meagre
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's 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!--ay, 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 reverie.  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 honours 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. {3}  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, for ever,
may SIT in the presence of the Majesty of England!"

"Rise, Sir Miles Hendon, Knight," said the King, gravely--giving
the accolade with Hendon's sword--"rise, and seat thyself.  Thy
petition is granted.  Whilst England remains, and the crown
continues, the privilege 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."



Chapter XIII. The disappearance of the Prince.

A heavy drowsiness presently fell upon the two comrades.  The King
said--

"Remove these rags"--meaning his clothing.

Hendon disapparelled the boy without dissent or remark, tucked him
up in bed, then glanced about the room, saying to himself,
ruefully, "He hath taken my bed again, as before--marry, what
shall _I_ do?"  The little King observed his perplexity, and
dissipated it with a word.  He said, sleepily--

"Thou wilt sleep athwart the door, and guard it."  In a moment
more he was out of his troubles, in a deep slumber.

"Dear heart, he should have been born a king!" muttered Hendon,
admiringly; "he playeth the part to a marvel."

Then he stretched himself across the door, on the floor, saying
contentedly--

"I have lodged worse for seven years; 'twould be but ill gratitude
to Him above to find fault with this."

He dropped asleep as the dawn appeared.  Toward noon he rose,
uncovered his unconscious ward--a section at a time--and took his
measure with a string.  The King awoke, just as he had completed
his work, complained of the cold, and asked what he was doing.

"'Tis done, now, my liege," said Hendon; "I have a bit of business
outside, but will presently return; sleep thou again--thou needest
it.  There--let me cover thy head also--thou'lt be warm the
sooner."

The King was back in dreamland before this speech was ended.
Miles slipped softly out, and slipped as softly in again, in the
course of thirty or forty minutes, with a complete second-hand
suit of boy's clothing, of cheap material, and showing signs of
wear; but tidy, and suited to the season of the year.  He seated
himself, and began to overhaul his purchase, mumbling to himself--

"A longer purse would have got a better sort, but when one has not
the long purse one must be content with what a short one may do--

     "'There was a woman in our town,
        In our town did dwell--'

"He stirred, methinks--I must sing in a less thunderous key; 'tis
not good to mar his sleep, with this journey before him, and he so
wearied out, poor chap . . . This garment--'tis well enough--a
stitch here and another one there will set it aright.  This other
is better, albeit a stitch or two will not come amiss in it,
likewise . . . THESE be very good and sound, and will keep his
small feet warm and dry--an odd new thing to him, belike, since he
has doubtless been used to foot it bare, winters and summers the
same . . . Would thread were bread, seeing one getteth a year's
sufficiency for a farthing, and such a brave big needle without
cost, for mere love.  Now shall I have the demon's own time to
thread it!"

And so he had.  He did as men have always done, and probably
always will do, to the end of time--held the needle still, and
tried to thrust the thread through the eye, which is the opposite
of a woman's way.  Time and time again the thread missed the mark,
going sometimes on one side of the needle, sometimes on the other,
sometimes doubling up against the shaft; but he was patient,
having been through these experiences before, when he was
soldiering.  He succeeded at last, and took up the garment that
had lain waiting, meantime, across his lap, and began his work.

"The inn is paid--the breakfast that is to come, included--and
there is wherewithal left to buy a couple of donkeys and meet our
little costs for the two or three days betwixt this and the plenty
that awaits us at Hendon Hall--

     "'She loved her hus--'

"Body o' me!  I have driven the needle under my nail! . . . It
matters little--'tis not a novelty--yet 'tis not a convenience,
neither . . .We shall be merry there, little one, never doubt it!
Thy troubles will vanish there, and likewise thy sad distemper--

     "'She loved her husband dearilee,
       But another man--'

"These be noble large stitches!"--holding the garment up and
viewing it admiringly--"they have a grandeur and a majesty that do
cause these small stingy ones of the tailor-man to look mightily
paltry and plebeian--

     "'She loved her husband dearilee,
       But another man he loved she,--'

"Marry, 'tis done--a goodly piece of work, too, and wrought with
expedition.  Now will I wake him, apparel him, pour for him, feed
him, and then will we hie us to the mart by the Tabard Inn in
Southwark and--be pleased to rise, my liege!--he answereth not--
what ho, my liege!--of a truth must I profane his sacred person
with a touch, sith his slumber is deaf to speech.  What!"

He threw back the covers--the boy was gone!

He stared about him in speechless astonishment for a moment;
noticed for the first time that his ward's ragged raiment was also
missing; then he began to rage and storm and shout for the
innkeeper.  At that moment a servant entered with the breakfast.

"Explain, thou limb of Satan, or thy time is come!" roared the man
of war, and made so savage a spring toward the waiter that this
latter could not find his tongue, for the instant, for fright and
surprise.  "Where is the boy?"

In disjointed and trembling syllables the man gave the information
desired.

"You were hardly gone from the place, your worship, when a youth
came running and said it was your worship's will that the boy come
to you straight, at the bridge-end on the Southwark side.  I
brought him hither; and when he woke the lad and gave his message,
the lad did grumble some little for being disturbed 'so early,' as
he called it, but straightway trussed on his rags and went with
the youth, only saying it had been better manners that your
worship came yourself, not sent a stranger--and so--"

"And so thou'rt a fool!--a fool and easily cozened--hang all thy
breed!  Yet mayhap no hurt is done.  Possibly no harm is meant the
boy.  I will go fetch him.  Make the table ready.  Stay! the
coverings of the bed were disposed as if one lay beneath them--
happened that by accident?"

"I know not, good your worship.  I saw the youth meddle with them-
-he that came for the boy."

"Thousand deaths!  'Twas done to deceive me--'tis plain 'twas done
to gain time.  Hark ye!  Was that youth alone?"

"All alone, your worship."

"Art sure?"

"Sure, your worship."

"Collect thy scattered wits--bethink thee--take time, man."

After a moment's thought, the servant said--

"When he came, none came with him; but now I remember me that as
the two stepped into the throng of the Bridge, a ruffian-looking
man plunged out from some near place; and just as he was joining
them--"

"What THEN?--out with it!" thundered the impatient Hendon,
interrupting.

"Just then the crowd lapped them up and closed them in, and I saw
no more, being called by my master, who was in a rage because a
joint that the scrivener had ordered was forgot, though I take all
the saints to witness that to blame ME for that miscarriage were
like holding the unborn babe to judgment for sins com--"

"Out of my sight, idiot!  Thy prating drives me mad!  Hold!
Whither art flying?  Canst not bide still an instant?  Went they
toward Southwark?"

"Even so, your worship--for, as I said before, as to that
detestable joint, the babe unborn is no whit more blameless than--
"

"Art here YET!  And prating still!  Vanish, lest I throttle thee!"
The servitor vanished.  Hendon followed after him, passed him, and
plunged down the stairs two steps at a stride, muttering, "'Tis
that scurvy villain that claimed he was his son.  I have lost
thee, my poor little mad master--it is a bitter thought--and I had
come to love thee so!  No! by book and bell, NOT lost!  Not lost,
for I will ransack the land till I find thee again.  Poor child,
yonder is his breakfast--and mine, but I have no hunger now; so,
let the rats have it--speed, speed! that is the word!"  As he
wormed his swift way through the noisy multitudes upon the Bridge
he several times said to himself--clinging to the thought as if it
were a particularly pleasing one--"He grumbled, but he WENT--he
went, yes, because he thought Miles Hendon asked it, sweet lad--he
would ne'er have done it for another, I know it well."



Chapter XIV. 'Le Roi est mort--vive le Roi.'

Toward daylight of the same morning, Tom Canty stirred out of a
heavy sleep and opened his eyes in the dark.  He lay silent a few
moments, trying to analyse his confused thoughts and impressions,
and get some sort of meaning out of them; then suddenly he burst
out in a rapturous but guarded voice--

"I see it all, I see it all!  Now God be thanked, I am indeed
awake at last!  Come, joy! vanish, sorrow!  Ho, Nan! Bet! kick off
your straw and hie ye hither to my side, till I do pour into your
unbelieving ears the wildest madcap dream that ever the spirits of
night did conjure up to astonish the soul of man withal! . . . Ho,
Nan, I say!  Bet!"

A dim form appeared at his side, and a voice said--

"Wilt deign to deliver thy commands?"

"Commands? . . . O, woe is me, I know thy voice!  Speak thou--who
am I?"

"Thou?  In sooth, yesternight wert thou the Prince of Wales; to-
day art thou my most gracious liege, Edward, King of England."

Tom buried his head among his pillows, murmuring plaintively--

"Alack, it was no dream!  Go to thy rest, sweet sir--leave me to
my sorrows."

Tom slept again, and after a time he had this pleasant dream.  He
thought it was summer, and he was playing, all alone, in the fair
meadow called Goodman's Fields, when a dwarf only a foot high,
with long red whiskers and a humped back, appeared to him suddenly
and said, "Dig by that stump."  He did so, and found twelve bright
new pennies--wonderful riches!  Yet this was not the best of it;
for the dwarf said--

"I know thee.  Thou art a good lad, and a deserving; thy
distresses shall end, for the day of thy reward is come.  Dig here
every seventh day, and thou shalt find always the same treasure,
twelve bright new pennies.  Tell none--keep the secret."

Then the dwarf vanished, and Tom flew to Offal Court with his
prize, saying to himself, "Every night will I give my father a
penny; he will think I begged it, it will glad his heart, and I
shall no more be beaten.  One penny every week the good priest
that teacheth me shall have; mother, Nan, and Bet the other four.
We be done with hunger and rags, now, done with fears and frets
and savage usage."

In his dream he reached his sordid home all out of breath, but
with eyes dancing with grateful enthusiasm; cast four of his
pennies into his mother's lap and cried out--

"They are for thee!--all of them, every one!--for thee and Nan and
Bet--and honestly come by, not begged nor stolen!"

The happy and astonished mother strained him to her breast and
exclaimed--

"It waxeth late--may it please your Majesty to rise?"

Ah! that was not the answer he was expecting.  The dream had
snapped asunder--he was awake.

He opened his eyes--the richly clad First Lord of the Bedchamber
was kneeling by his couch.  The gladness of the lying dream faded
away--the poor boy recognised that he was still a captive and a
king.  The room was filled with courtiers clothed in purple
mantles--the mourning colour--and with noble servants of the
monarch.  Tom sat up in bed and gazed out from the heavy silken
curtains upon this fine company.

The weighty business of dressing began, and one courtier after
another knelt and paid his court and offered to the little King
his condolences upon his heavy loss, whilst the dressing
proceeded.  In the beginning, a shirt was taken up by the Chief
Equerry in Waiting, who passed it to the First Lord of the
Buckhounds, who passed it to the Second Gentleman of the
Bedchamber, who passed it to the Head Ranger of Windsor Forest,
who passed it to the Third Groom of the Stole, who passed it to
the Chancellor Royal of the Duchy of Lancaster, who passed it to
the Master of the Wardrobe, who passed it to Norroy King-at-Arms,
who passed it to the Constable of the Tower, who passed it to the
Chief Steward of the Household, who passed it to the Hereditary
Grand Diaperer, who passed it to the Lord High Admiral of England,
who passed it to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who passed it to
the First Lord of the Bedchamber, who took what was left of it and
put it on Tom.  Poor little wondering chap, it reminded him of
passing buckets at a fire.

Each garment in its turn had to go through this slow and solemn
process; consequently Tom grew very weary of the ceremony; so
weary that he felt an almost gushing gratefulness when he at last
saw his long silken hose begin the journey down the line and knew
that the end of the matter was drawing near.  But he exulted too
soon.  The First Lord of the Bedchamber received the hose and was
about to encase Tom's legs in them, when a sudden flush invaded
his face and he hurriedly hustled the things back into the hands
of the Archbishop of Canterbury with an astounded look and a
whispered, "See, my lord!" pointing to a something connected with
the hose.  The Archbishop paled, then flushed, and passed the hose
to the Lord High Admiral, whispering, "See, my lord!"  The Admiral
passed the hose to the Hereditary Grand Diaperer, and had hardly
breath enough in his body to ejaculate, "See, my lord!"  The hose
drifted backward along the line, to the Chief Steward of the
Household, the Constable of the Tower, Norroy King-at-Arms, the
Master of the Wardrobe, the Chancellor Royal of the Duchy of
Lancaster, the Third Groom of the Stole, the Head Ranger of
Windsor Forest, the Second Gentleman of the Bedchamber, the First
Lord of the Buckhounds,--accompanied always with that amazed and
frightened "See! see!"--till they finally reached the hands of the
Chief Equerry in Waiting, who gazed a moment, with a pallid face,
upon what had caused all this dismay, then hoarsely whispered,
"Body of my life, a tag gone from a truss-point!--to the Tower
with the Head Keeper of the King's Hose!"--after which he leaned
upon the shoulder of the First Lord of the Buckhounds to regather
his vanished strength whilst fresh hose, without any damaged
strings to them, were brought.

But all things must have an end, and so in time Tom Canty was in a
condition to get out of bed.  The proper official poured water,
the proper official engineered the washing, the proper official
stood by with a towel, and by-and-by Tom got safely through the
purifying stage and was ready for the services of the Hairdresser-
royal.  When he at length emerged from this master's hands, he was
a gracious figure and as pretty as a girl, in his mantle and
trunks of purple satin, and purple-plumed cap.  He now moved in
state toward his breakfast-room, through the midst of the courtly
assemblage; and as he passed, these fell back, leaving his way
free, and dropped upon their knees.

After breakfast he was conducted, with regal ceremony, attended by
his great officers and his guard of fifty Gentlemen Pensioners
bearing gilt battle-axes, to the throne-room, where he proceeded
to transact business of state.  His 'uncle,' Lord Hertford, took
his stand by the throne, to assist the royal mind with wise
counsel.

The body of illustrious men named by the late King as his
executors appeared, to ask Tom's approval of certain acts of
theirs--rather a form, and yet not wholly a form, since there was
no Protector as yet.  The Archbishop of Canterbury made report of
the decree of the Council of Executors concerning the obsequies of
his late most illustrious Majesty, and finished by reading the
signatures of the Executors, to wit:  the Archbishop of
Canterbury; the Lord Chancellor of England; William Lord St. John;
John Lord Russell; Edward Earl of Hertford; John Viscount Lisle;
Cuthbert Bishop of Durham--

Tom was not listening--an earlier clause of the document was
puzzling him.  At this point he turned and whispered to Lord
Hertford--

"What day did he say the burial hath been appointed for?"

"The sixteenth of the coming month, my liege."

"'Tis a strange folly.  Will he keep?"

Poor chap, he was still new to the customs of royalty; he was used
to seeing the forlorn dead of Offal Court hustled out of the way
with a very different sort of expedition.  However, the Lord
Hertford set his mind at rest with a word or two.

A secretary of state presented an order of the Council appointing
the morrow at eleven for the reception of the foreign ambassadors,
and desired the King's assent.

Tom turned an inquiring look toward Hertford, who whispered--

"Your Majesty will signify consent.  They come to testify their
royal masters' sense of the heavy calamity which hath visited your
Grace and the realm of England."

Tom did as he was bidden.  Another secretary began to read a
preamble concerning the expenses of the late King's household,
which had amounted to 28,000 pounds during the preceding six
months--a sum so vast that it made Tom Canty gasp; he gasped again
when the fact appeared that 20,000 pounds of this money was still
owing and unpaid; {4} and once more when it appeared that the
King's coffers were about empty, and his twelve hundred servants
much embarrassed for lack of the wages due them.  Tom spoke out,
with lively apprehension--

"We be going to the dogs, 'tis plain.  'Tis meet and necessary
that we take a smaller house and set the servants at large, sith
they be of no value but to make delay, and trouble one with
offices that harass the spirit and shame the soul, they
misbecoming any but a doll, that hath nor brains nor hands to help
itself withal.  I remember me of a small house that standeth over
against the fish-market, by Billingsgate--"

A sharp pressure upon Tom's arm stopped his foolish tongue and
sent a blush to his face; but no countenance there betrayed any
sign that this strange speech had been remarked or given concern.

A secretary made report that forasmuch as the late King had
provided in his will for conferring the ducal degree upon the Earl
of Hertford and raising his brother, Sir Thomas Seymour, to the
peerage, and likewise Hertford's son to an earldom, together with
similar aggrandisements to other great servants of the Crown, the
Council had resolved to hold a sitting on the 16th of February for
the delivering and confirming of these honours, and that meantime,
the late King not having granted, in writing, estates suitable to
the support of these dignities, the Council, knowing his private
wishes in that regard, had thought proper to grant to Seymour '500
pound lands,' and to Hertford's son '800 pound lands, and 300
pound of the next bishop's lands which should fall vacant,'--his
present Majesty being willing. {5}

Tom was about to blurt out something about the propriety of paying
the late King's debts first, before squandering all this money,
but a timely touch upon his arm, from the thoughtful Hertford,
saved him this indiscretion; wherefore he gave the royal assent,
without spoken comment, but with much inward discomfort.  While he
sat reflecting a moment over the ease with which he was doing
strange and glittering miracles, a happy thought shot into his
mind:  why not make his mother Duchess of Offal Court, and give
her an estate?  But a sorrowful thought swept it instantly away:
he was only a king in name, these grave veterans and great nobles
were his masters; to them his mother was only the creature of a
diseased mind; they would simply listen to his project with
unbelieving ears, then send for the doctor.

The dull work went tediously on.  Petitions were read, and
proclamations, patents, and all manner of wordy, repetitious, and
wearisome papers relating to the public business; and at last Tom
sighed pathetically and murmured to himself, "In what have I
offended, that the good God should take me away from the fields
and the free air and the sunshine, to shut me up here and make me
a king and afflict me so?"  Then his poor muddled head nodded a
while and presently drooped to his shoulder; and the business of
the empire came to a standstill for want of that august factor,
the ratifying power.  Silence ensued around the slumbering child,
and the sages of the realm ceased from their deliberations.

During the forenoon, Tom had an enjoyable hour, by permission of
his keepers, Hertford and St. John, with the Lady Elizabeth and
the little Lady Jane Grey; though the spirits of the princesses
were rather subdued by the mighty stroke that had fallen upon the
royal house; and at the end of the visit his 'elder sister'--
afterwards the 'Bloody Mary' of history--chilled him with a solemn
interview which had but one merit in his eyes, its brevity.  He
had a few moments to himself, and then a slim lad of about twelve
years of age was admitted to his presence, whose clothing, except
his snowy ruff and the laces about his wrists, was of black,--
doublet, hose, and all.  He bore no badge of mourning but a knot
of purple ribbon on his shoulder.  He advanced hesitatingly, with
head bowed and bare, and dropped upon one knee in front of Tom.
Tom sat still and contemplated him soberly a moment.  Then he
said--

"Rise, lad.  Who art thou.  What wouldst have?"

The boy rose, and stood at graceful ease, but with an aspect of
concern in his face.  He said--

"Of a surety thou must remember me, my lord.  I am thy whipping-
boy."

"My WHIPPING-boy?"

"The same, your Grace.  I am Humphrey--Humphrey Marlow."

Tom perceived that here was someone whom his keepers ought to have
posted him about.  The situation was delicate.  What should he
do?--pretend he knew this lad, and then betray by his every
utterance that he had never heard of him before?  No, that would
not do.  An idea came to his relief:  accidents like this might be
likely to happen with some frequency, now that business urgencies
would often call Hertford and St. John from his side, they being
members of the Council of Executors; therefore perhaps it would be
well to strike out a plan himself to meet the requirements of such
emergencies.  Yes, that would be a wise course--he would practise
on this boy, and see what sort of success he might achieve.  So he
stroked his brow perplexedly a moment or two, and presently said--

"Now I seem to remember thee somewhat--but my wit is clogged and
dim with suffering--"

"Alack, my poor master!" ejaculated the whipping-boy, with
feeling; adding, to himself, "In truth 'tis as they said--his mind
is gone--alas, poor soul!  But misfortune catch me, how am I
forgetting!  They said one must not seem to observe that aught is
wrong with him."

"'Tis strange how my memory doth wanton with me these days," said
Tom.  "But mind it not--I mend apace--a little clue doth often
serve to bring me back again the things and names which had
escaped me.  (And not they, only, forsooth, but e'en such as I
ne'er heard before--as this lad shall see.)  Give thy business
speech."

"'Tis matter of small weight, my liege, yet will I touch upon it,
an' it please your Grace.  Two days gone by, when your Majesty
faulted thrice in your Greek--in the morning lessons,--dost
remember it?"

"Y-e-s--methinks I do.  (It is not much of a lie--an' I had
meddled with the Greek at all, I had not faulted simply thrice,
but forty times.)  Yes, I do recall it, now--go on."

"The master, being wroth with what he termed such slovenly and
doltish work, did promise that he would soundly whip me for it--
and--"

"Whip THEE!" said Tom, astonished out of his presence of mind.
"Why should he whip THEE for faults of mine?"

"Ah, your Grace forgetteth again.  He always scourgeth me when
thou dost fail in thy lessons."

"True, true--I had forgot.  Thou teachest me in private--then if I
fail, he argueth that thy office was lamely done, and--"

"Oh, my liege, what words are these?  I, the humblest of thy
servants, presume to teach THEE?"

"Then where is thy blame?  What riddle is this?  Am I in truth
gone mad, or is it thou?  Explain--speak out."

"But, good your Majesty, there's nought that needeth simplifying.-
-None may visit the sacred person of the Prince of Wales with
blows; wherefore, when he faulteth, 'tis I that take them; and
meet it is and right, for that it is mine office and my
livelihood." {1}

Tom stared at the tranquil boy, observing to himself, "Lo, it is a
wonderful thing,--a most strange and curious trade; I marvel they
have not hired a boy to take my combings and my dressings for me--
would heaven they would!--an' they will do this thing, I will take
my lashings in mine own person, giving God thanks for the change."
Then he said aloud--

"And hast thou been beaten, poor friend, according to the
promise?"

"No, good your Majesty, my punishment was appointed for this day,
and peradventure it may be annulled, as unbefitting the season of
mourning that is come upon us; I know not, and so have made bold
to come hither and remind your Grace about your gracious promise
to intercede in my behalf--"

"With the master?  To save thee thy whipping?"

"Ah, thou dost remember!"

"My memory mendeth, thou seest.  Set thy mind at ease--thy back
shall go unscathed--I will see to it."

"Oh, thanks, my good lord!" cried the boy, dropping upon his knee
again.  "Mayhap I have ventured far enow; and yet--"

Seeing Master Humphrey hesitate, Tom encouraged him to go on,
saying he was "in the granting mood."

"Then will I speak it out, for it lieth near my heart.  Sith thou
art no more Prince of Wales but King, thou canst order matters as
thou wilt, with none to say thee nay; wherefore it is not in
reason that thou wilt longer vex thyself with dreary studies, but
wilt burn thy books and turn thy mind to things less irksome.
Then am I ruined, and mine orphan sisters with me!"

"Ruined?  Prithee how?"

"My back is my bread, O my gracious liege! if it go idle, I
starve.  An' thou cease from study mine office is gone thou'lt
need no whipping-boy.  Do not turn me away!"

Tom was touched with this pathetic distress.  He said, with a
right royal burst of generosity--

"Discomfort thyself no further, lad.  Thine office shall be
permanent in thee and thy line for ever."  Then he struck the boy
a light blow on the shoulder with the flat of his sword,
exclaiming, "Rise, Humphrey Marlow, Hereditary Grand Whipping-Boy
to the Royal House of England!  Banish sorrow--I will betake me to
my books again, and study so ill that they must in justice treble
thy wage, so mightily shall the business of thine office be
augmented."

The grateful Humphrey responded fervidly--

"Thanks, O most noble master, this princely lavishness doth far
surpass my most distempered dreams of fortune.  Now shall I be
happy all my days, and all the house of Marlow after me."

Tom had wit enough to perceive that here was a lad who could be
useful to him.  He encouraged Humphrey to talk, and he was nothing
loath.  He was delighted to believe that he was helping in Tom's
'cure'; for always, as soon as he had finished calling back to
Tom's diseased mind the various particulars of his experiences and
adventures in the royal school-room and elsewhere about the
palace, he noticed that Tom was then able to 'recall' the
circumstances quite clearly.  At the end of an hour Tom found
himself well freighted with very valuable information concerning
personages and matters pertaining to the Court; so he resolved to
draw instruction from this source daily; and to this end he would
give order to admit Humphrey to the royal closet whenever he might
come, provided the Majesty of England was not engaged with other
people.  Humphrey had hardly been dismissed when my Lord Hertford
arrived with more trouble for Tom.

He said that the Lords of the Council, fearing that some
overwrought report of the King's damaged health might have leaked
out and got abroad, they deemed it wise and best that his Majesty
should begin to dine in public after a day or two--his wholesome
complexion and vigorous step, assisted by a carefully guarded
repose of manner and ease and grace of demeanour, would more
surely quiet the general pulse--in case any evil rumours HAD gone
about--than any other scheme that could be devised.

Then the Earl proceeded, very delicately, to instruct Tom as to
the observances proper to the stately occasion, under the rather
thin disguise of 'reminding' him concerning things already known
to him; but to his vast gratification it turned out that Tom
needed very little help in this line--he had been making use of
Humphrey in that direction, for Humphrey had mentioned that within
a few days he was to begin to dine in public; having gathered it
from the swift-winged gossip of the Court.  Tom kept these facts
to himself, however.

Seeing the royal memory so improved, the Earl ventured to apply a
few tests to it, in an apparently casual way, to find out how far
its amendment had progressed.  The results were happy, here and
there, in spots--spots where Humphrey's tracks remained--and on
the whole my lord was greatly pleased and encouraged.  So
encouraged was he, indeed, that he spoke up and said in a quite
hopeful voice--

"Now am I persuaded that if your Majesty will but tax your memory
yet a little further, it will resolve the puzzle of the Great
Seal--a loss which was of moment yesterday, although of none to-
day, since its term of service ended with our late lord's life.
May it please your Grace to make the trial?"

Tom was at sea--a Great Seal was something which he was totally
unacquainted with.  After a moment's hesitation he looked up
innocently and asked--

"What was it like, my lord?"

The Earl started, almost imperceptibly, muttering to himself,
"Alack, his wits are flown again!--it was ill wisdom to lead him
on to strain them"--then he deftly turned the talk to other
matters, with the purpose of sweeping the unlucky seal out of
Tom's thoughts--a purpose which easily succeeded.



Chapter XV. Tom as King.

The next day the foreign ambassadors came, with their gorgeous
trains; and Tom, throned in awful state, received them.  The
splendours of the scene delighted his eye and fired his
imagination at first, but the audience was long and dreary, and so
were most of the addresses--wherefore, what began as a pleasure
grew into weariness and home-sickness by-and-by.  Tom said the
words which Hertford put into his mouth from time to time, and
tried hard to acquit himself satisfactorily, but he was too new to
such things, and too ill at ease to accomplish more than a
tolerable success.  He looked sufficiently like a king, but he was
ill able to feel like one.  He was cordially glad when the
ceremony was ended.

The larger part of his day was 'wasted'--as he termed it, in his
own mind--in labours pertaining to his royal office.  Even the two
hours devoted to certain princely pastimes and recreations were
rather a burden to him than otherwise, they were so fettered by
restrictions and ceremonious observances.  However, he had a
private hour with his whipping-boy which he counted clear gain,
since he got both entertainment and needful information out of it.

The third day of Tom Canty's kingship came and went much as the
others had done, but there was a lifting of his cloud in one way--
he felt less uncomfortable than at first; he was getting a little
used to his circumstances and surroundings; his chains still
galled, but not all the time; he found that the presence and
homage of the great afflicted and embarrassed him less and less
sharply with every hour that drifted over his head.

But for one single dread, he could have seen the fourth day
approach without serious distress--the dining in public; it was to
begin that day.  There were greater matters in the programme--for
on that day he would have to preside at a council which would take
his views and commands concerning the policy to be pursued toward
various foreign nations scattered far and near over the great
globe; on that day, too, Hertford would be formally chosen to the
grand office of Lord Protector; other things of note were
appointed for that fourth day, also; but to Tom they were all
insignificant compared with the ordeal of dining all by himself
with a multitude of curious eyes fastened upon him and a multitude
of mouths whispering comments upon his performance,--and upon his
mistakes, if he should be so unlucky as to make any.

Still, nothing could stop that fourth day, and so it came.  It
found poor Tom low-spirited and absent-minded, and this mood
continued; he could not shake it off.  The ordinary duties of the
morning dragged upon his hands, and wearied him.  Once more he
felt the sense of captivity heavy upon him.

Late in the forenoon he was in a large audience-chamber,
conversing with the Earl of Hertford and dully awaiting the
striking of the hour appointed for a visit of ceremony from a
considerable number of great officials and courtiers.

After a little while, Tom, who had wandered to a window and become
interested in the life and movement of the great highway beyond
the palace gates--and not idly interested, but longing with all
his heart to take part in person in its stir and freedom--saw the
van of a hooting and shouting mob of disorderly men, women, and
children of the lowest and poorest degree approaching from up the
road.

"I would I knew what 'tis about!" he exclaimed, with all a boy's
curiosity in such happenings.

"Thou art the King!" solemnly responded the Earl, with a
reverence.  "Have I your Grace's leave to act?"

"O blithely, yes!  O gladly, yes!" exclaimed Tom excitedly, adding
to himself with a lively sense of satisfaction, "In truth, being a
king is not all dreariness--it hath its compensations and
conveniences."

The Earl called a page, and sent him to the captain of the guard
with the order--

"Let the mob be halted, and inquiry made concerning the occasion
of its movement.  By the King's command!"

A few seconds later a long rank of the royal guards, cased in
flashing steel, filed out at the gates and formed across the
highway in front of the multitude.  A messenger returned, to
report that the crowd were following a man, a woman, and a young
girl to execution for crimes committed against the peace and
dignity of the realm.

Death--and a violent death--for these poor unfortunates!  The
thought wrung Tom's heart-strings.  The spirit of compassion took
control of him, to the exclusion of all other considerations; he
never thought of the offended laws, or of the grief or loss which
these three criminals had inflicted upon their victims; he could
think of nothing but the scaffold and the grisly fate hanging over
the heads of the condemned.  His concern made him even forget, for
the moment, that he was but the false shadow of a king, not the
substance; and before he knew it he had blurted out the command--

"Bring them here!"

Then he blushed scarlet, and a sort of apology sprung to his lips;
but observing that his order had wrought no sort of surprise in
the Earl or the waiting page, he suppressed the words he was about
to utter.  The page, in the most matter-of-course way, made a
profound obeisance and retired backwards out of the room to
deliver the command.  Tom experienced a glow of pride and a
renewed sense of the compensating advantages of the kingly office.
He said to himself, "Truly it is like what I was used to feel when
I read the old priest's tales, and did imagine mine own self a
prince, giving law and command to all, saying 'Do this, do that,'
whilst none durst offer let or hindrance to my will."

Now the doors swung open; one high-sounding title after another
was announced, the personages owning them followed, and the place
was quickly half-filled with noble folk and finery.  But Tom was
hardly conscious of the presence of these people, so wrought up
was he and so intensely absorbed in that other and more
interesting matter.  He seated himself absently in his chair of
state, and turned his eyes upon the door with manifestations of
impatient expectancy; seeing which, the company forbore to trouble
him, and fell to chatting a mixture of public business and court
gossip one with another.

In a little while the measured tread of military men was heard
approaching, and the culprits entered the presence in charge of an
under-sheriff and escorted by a detail of the king's guard.  The
civil officer knelt before Tom, then stood aside; the three doomed
persons knelt, also, and remained so; the guard took position
behind Tom's chair.  Tom scanned the prisoners curiously.
Something about the dress or appearance of the man had stirred a
vague memory in him.  "Methinks I have seen this man ere now . . .
but the when or the where fail me"--such was Tom's thought.  Just
then the man glanced quickly up and quickly dropped his face
again, not being able to endure the awful port of sovereignty; but
the one full glimpse of the face which Tom got was sufficient.  He
said to himself:  "Now is the matter clear; this is the stranger
that plucked Giles Witt out of the Thames, and saved his life,
that windy, bitter, first day of the New Year--a brave good deed--
pity he hath been doing baser ones and got himself in this sad
case . . . I have not forgot the day, neither the hour; by reason
that an hour after, upon the stroke of eleven, I did get a hiding
by the hand of Gammer Canty which was of so goodly and admired
severity that all that went before or followed after it were but
fondlings and caresses by comparison."

Tom now ordered that the woman and the girl be removed from the
presence for a little time; then addressed himself to the under-
sheriff, saying--

"Good sir, what is this man's offence?"

The officer knelt, and answered--

"So please your Majesty, he hath taken the life of a subject by
poison."

Tom's compassion for the prisoner, and admiration of him as the
daring rescuer of a drowning boy, experienced a most damaging
shock.

"The thing was proven upon him?" he asked.

"Most clearly, sire."

Tom sighed, and said--

"Take him away--he hath earned his death.  'Tis a pity, for he was
a brave heart--na--na, I mean he hath the LOOK of it!"

The prisoner clasped his hands together with sudden energy, and
wrung them despairingly, at the same time appealing imploringly to
the 'King' in broken and terrified phrases--

"O my lord the King, an' thou canst pity the lost, have pity upon
me!  I am innocent--neither hath that wherewith I am charged been
more than but lamely proved--yet I speak not of that; the judgment
is gone forth against me and may not suffer alteration; yet in
mine extremity I beg a boon, for my doom is more than I can bear.
A grace, a grace, my lord the King! in thy royal compassion grant
my prayer--give commandment that I be hanged!"

Tom was amazed.  This was not the outcome he had looked for.

"Odds my life, a strange BOON!  Was it not the fate intended
thee?"

"O good my liege, not so!  It is ordered that I be BOILED ALIVE!"

The hideous surprise of these words almost made Tom spring from
his chair.  As soon as he could recover his wits he cried out--

"Have thy wish, poor soul! an' thou had poisoned a hundred men
thou shouldst not suffer so miserable a death."

The prisoner bowed his face to the ground and burst into
passionate expressions of gratitude--ending with--

"If ever thou shouldst know misfortune--which God forefend!--may
thy goodness to me this day be remembered and requited!"

Tom turned to the Earl of Hertford, and said--

"My lord, is it believable that there was warrant for this man's
ferocious doom?"

"It is the law, your Grace--for poisoners.  In Germany coiners be
boiled to death in OIL--not cast in of a sudden, but by a rope let
down into the oil by degrees, and slowly; first the feet, then the
legs, then--"

"O prithee no more, my lord, I cannot bear it!" cried Tom,
covering his eyes with his hands to shut out the picture.  "I
beseech your good lordship that order be taken to change this law-
-oh, let no more poor creatures be visited with its tortures."

The Earl's face showed profound gratification, for he was a man of
merciful and generous impulses--a thing not very common with his
class in that fierce age.  He said--

"These your Grace's noble words have sealed its doom.  History
will remember it to the honour of your royal house."

The under-sheriff was about to remove his prisoner; Tom gave him a
sign to wait; then he said--

"Good sir, I would look into this matter further.  The man has
said his deed was but lamely proved.  Tell me what thou knowest."

"If the King's grace please, it did appear upon the trial that
this man entered into a house in the hamlet of Islington where one
lay sick--three witnesses say it was at ten of the clock in the
morning, and two say it was some minutes later--the sick man being
alone at the time, and sleeping--and presently the man came forth
again and went his way.  The sick man died within the hour, being
torn with spasms and retchings."

"Did any see the poison given?  Was poison found?"

"Marry, no, my liege."

"Then how doth one know there was poison given at all?"

"Please your Majesty, the doctors testified that none die with
such symptoms but by poison."

Weighty evidence, this, in that simple age.  Tom recognised its
formidable nature, and said--

"The doctor knoweth his trade--belike they were right.  The matter
hath an ill-look for this poor man."

"Yet was not this all, your Majesty; there is more and worse.
Many testified that a witch, since gone from the village, none
know whither, did foretell, and speak it privately in their ears,
that the sick man WOULD DIE BY POISON--and more, that a stranger
would give it--a stranger with brown hair and clothed in a worn
and common garb; and surely this prisoner doth answer woundily to
the bill.  Please your Majesty to give the circumstance that
solemn weight which is its due, seeing it was FORETOLD."

This was an argument of tremendous force in that superstitious
day.  Tom felt that the thing was settled; if evidence was worth
anything, this poor fellow's guilt was proved.  Still he offered
the prisoner a chance, saying--

"If thou canst say aught in thy behalf, speak."

"Nought that will avail, my King.  I am innocent, yet cannot I
make it appear.  I have no friends, else might I show that I was
not in Islington that day; so also might I show that at that hour
they name I was above a league away, seeing I was at Wapping Old
Stairs; yea more, my King, for I could show, that whilst they say
I was TAKING life, I was SAVING it.  A drowning boy--"

"Peace!  Sheriff, name the day the deed was done!"

"At ten in the morning, or some minutes later, the first day of
the New Year, most illustrious--"

"Let the prisoner go free--it is the King's will!"

Another blush followed this unregal outburst, and he covered his
indecorum as well as he could by adding--

"It enrageth me that a man should be hanged upon such idle, hare-
brained evidence!"

A low buzz of admiration swept through the assemblage.  It was not
admiration of the decree that had been delivered by Tom, for the
propriety or expediency of pardoning a convicted poisoner was a
thing which few there would have felt justified in either
admitting or admiring--no, the admiration was for the intelligence
and spirit which Tom had displayed.  Some of the low-voiced
remarks were to this effect--

"This is no mad king--he hath his wits sound."

"How sanely he put his questions--how like his former natural self
was this abrupt imperious disposal of the matter!"

"God be thanked, his infirmity is spent!  This is no weakling, but
a king.  He hath borne himself like to his own father."

The air being filled with applause, Tom's ear necessarily caught a
little of it.  The effect which this had upon him was to put him
greatly at his ease, and also to charge his system with very
gratifying sensations.

However, his juvenile curiosity soon rose superior to these
pleasant thoughts and feelings; he was eager to know what sort of
deadly mischief the woman and the little girl could have been
about; so, by his command, the two terrified and sobbing creatures
were brought before him.

"What is it that these have done?" he inquired of the sheriff.

"Please your Majesty, a black crime is charged upon them, and
clearly proven; wherefore the judges have decreed, according to
the law, that they be hanged.  They sold themselves to the devil--
such is their crime."

Tom shuddered.  He had been taught to abhor people who did this
wicked thing.  Still, he was not going to deny himself the
pleasure of feeding his curiosity for all that; so he asked--

"Where was this done?--and when?"

"On a midnight in December, in a ruined church, your Majesty."

Tom shuddered again.

"Who was there present?"

"Only these two, your grace--and THAT OTHER."

"Have these confessed?"

"Nay, not so, sire--they do deny it."

"Then prithee, how was it known?"

"Certain witness did see them wending thither, good your Majesty;
this bred the suspicion, and dire effects have since confirmed and
justified it.  In particular, it is in evidence that through the
wicked power so obtained, they did invoke and bring about a storm
that wasted all the region round about.  Above forty witnesses
have proved the storm; and sooth one might have had a thousand,
for all had reason to remember it, sith all had suffered by it."

"Certes this is a serious matter."  Tom turned this dark piece of
scoundrelism over in his mind a while, then asked--

"Suffered the woman also by the storm?"

Several old heads among the assemblage nodded their recognition of
the wisdom of this question.  The sheriff, however, saw nothing
consequential in the inquiry; he answered, with simple directness-
-

"Indeed did she, your Majesty, and most righteously, as all aver.
Her habitation was swept away, and herself and child left
shelterless."

"Methinks the power to do herself so ill a turn was dearly bought.
She had been cheated, had she paid but a farthing for it; that she
paid her soul, and her child's, argueth that she is mad; if she is
mad she knoweth not what she doth, therefore sinneth not."

The elderly heads nodded recognition of Tom's wisdom once more,
and one individual murmured, "An' the King be mad himself,
according to report, then is it a madness of a sort that would
improve the sanity of some I wot of, if by the gentle providence
of God they could but catch it."

"What age hath the child?" asked Tom.

"Nine years, please your Majesty."

"By the law of England may a child enter into covenant and sell
itself, my lord?" asked Tom, turning to a learned judge.

"The law doth not permit a child to make or meddle in any weighty
matter, good my liege, holding that its callow wit unfitteth it to
cope with the riper wit and evil schemings of them that are its
elders.  The DEVIL may buy a child, if he so choose, and the child
agree thereto, but not an Englishman--in this latter case the
contract would be null and void."

"It seemeth a rude unchristian thing, and ill contrived, that
English law denieth privileges to Englishmen to waste them on the
devil!" cried Tom, with honest heat.

This novel view of the matter excited many smiles, and was stored
away in many heads to be repeated about the Court as evidence of
Tom's originality as well as progress toward mental health.

The elder culprit had ceased from sobbing, and was hanging upon
Tom's words with an excited interest and a growing hope.  Tom
noticed this, and it strongly inclined his sympathies toward her
in her perilous and unfriended situation.  Presently he asked--

"How wrought they to bring the storm?"

"BY PULLING OFF THEIR STOCKINGS, sire."

This astonished Tom, and also fired his curiosity to fever heat.
He said, eagerly--

"It is wonderful!  Hath it always this dread effect?"

"Always, my liege--at least if the woman desire it, and utter the
needful words, either in her mind or with her tongue."

Tom turned to the woman, and said with impetuous zeal--

"Exert thy power--I would see a storm!"

There was a sudden paling of cheeks in the superstitious
assemblage, and a general, though unexpressed, desire to get out
of the place--all of which was lost upon Tom, who was dead to
everything but the proposed cataclysm.  Seeing a puzzled and
astonished look in the woman's face, he added, excitedly--

"Never fear--thou shalt be blameless.  More--thou shalt go free--
none shall touch thee.  Exert thy power."

"Oh, my lord the King, I have it not--I have been falsely
accused."

"Thy fears stay thee.  Be of good heart, thou shalt suffer no
harm.  Make a storm--it mattereth not how small a one--I require
nought great or harmful, but indeed prefer the opposite--do this
and thy life is spared--thou shalt go out free, with thy child,
bearing the King's pardon, and safe from hurt or malice from any
in the realm."

The woman prostrated herself, and protested, with tears, that she
had no power to do the miracle, else she would gladly win her
child's life alone, and be content to lose her own, if by
obedience to the King's command so precious a grace might be
acquired.

Tom urged--the woman still adhered to her declarations.  Finally
he said--

"I think the woman hath said true.  An' MY mother were in her
place and gifted with the devil's functions, she had not stayed a
moment to call her storms and lay the whole land in ruins, if the
saving of my forfeit life were the price she got!  It is argument
that other mothers are made in like mould.  Thou art free,
goodwife--thou and thy child--for I do think thee innocent.  NOW
thou'st nought to fear, being pardoned--pull off thy stockings!--
an' thou canst make me a storm, thou shalt be rich!"

The redeemed creature was loud in her gratitude, and proceeded to
obey, whilst Tom looked on with eager expectancy, a little marred
by apprehension; the courtiers at the same time manifesting
decided discomfort and uneasiness.  The woman stripped her own
feet and her little girl's also, and plainly did her best to
reward the King's generosity with an earthquake, but it was all a
failure and a disappointment.  Tom sighed, and said--

"There, good soul, trouble thyself no further, thy power is
departed out of thee.  Go thy way in peace; and if it return to
thee at any time, forget me not, but fetch me a storm." {13}



Chapter XVI. The State Dinner.

The dinner hour drew near--yet strangely enough, the thought
brought but slight discomfort to Tom, and hardly any terror.  The
morning's experiences had wonderfully built up his confidence; the
poor little ash-cat was already more wonted to his strange garret,
after four days' habit, than a mature person could have become in
a full month.  A child's facility in accommodating itself to
circumstances was never more strikingly illustrated.

Let us privileged ones hurry to the great banqueting-room and have
a glance at matters there whilst Tom is being made ready for the
imposing occasion.  It is a spacious apartment, with gilded
pillars and pilasters, and pictured walls and ceilings.  At the
door stand tall guards, as rigid as statues, dressed in rich and
picturesque costumes, and bearing halberds.  In a high gallery
which runs all around the place is a band of musicians and a
packed company of citizens of both sexes, in brilliant attire.  In
the centre of the room, upon a raised platform, is Tom's table.
Now let the ancient chronicler speak:

"A gentleman enters the room bearing a rod, and along with him
another bearing a tablecloth, which, after they have both kneeled
three times with the utmost veneration, he spreads upon the table,
and after kneeling again they both retire; then come two others,
one with the rod again, the other with a salt-cellar, a plate, and
bread; when they have kneeled as the others had done, and placed
what was brought upon the table, they too retire with the same
ceremonies performed by the first; at last come two nobles, richly
clothed, one bearing a tasting-knife, who, after prostrating
themselves three times in the most graceful manner, approach and
rub the table with bread and salt, with as much awe as if the King
had been present." {6}

So end the solemn preliminaries.  Now, far down the echoing
corridors we hear a bugle-blast, and the indistinct cry, "Place
for the King!  Way for the King's most excellent majesty!"  These
sounds are momently repeated--they grow nearer and nearer--and
presently, almost in our faces, the martial note peals and the cry
rings out, "Way for the King!"  At this instant the shining
pageant appears, and files in at the door, with a measured march.
Let the chronicler speak again:--

"First come Gentlemen, Barons, Earls, Knights of the Garter, all
richly dressed and bareheaded; next comes the Chancellor, between
two, one of which carries the royal sceptre, the other the Sword
of State in a red scabbard, studded with golden fleurs-de-lis, the
point upwards; next comes the King himself--whom, upon his
appearing, twelve trumpets and many drums salute with a great
burst of welcome, whilst all in the galleries rise in their
places, crying 'God save the King!'  After him come nobles
attached to his person, and on his right and left march his guard
of honour, his fifty Gentlemen Pensioners, with gilt battle-axes."

This was all fine and pleasant.  Tom's pulse beat high, and a glad
light was in his eye.  He bore himself right gracefully, and all
the more so because he was not thinking of how he was doing it,
his mind being charmed and occupied with the blithe sights and
sounds about him--and besides, nobody can be very ungraceful in
nicely-fitting beautiful clothes after he has grown a little used
to them--especially if he is for the moment unconscious of them.
Tom remembered his instructions, and acknowledged his greeting
with a slight inclination of his plumed head, and a courteous "I
thank ye, my good people."

He seated himself at table, without removing his cap; and did it
without the least embarrassment; for to eat with one's cap on was
the one solitary royal custom upon which the kings and the Cantys
met upon common ground, neither party having any advantage over
the other in the matter of old familiarity with it.  The pageant
broke up and grouped itself picturesquely, and remained
bareheaded.

Now to the sound of gay music the Yeomen of the Guard entered,--
"the tallest and mightiest men in England, they being carefully
selected in this regard"--but we will let the chronicler tell
about it:--

"The Yeomen of the Guard entered, bareheaded, clothed in scarlet,
with golden roses upon their backs; and these went and came,
bringing in each turn a course of dishes, served in plate.  These
dishes were received by a gentleman in the same order they were
brought, and placed upon the table, while the taster gave to each
guard a mouthful to eat of the particular dish he had brought, for
fear of any poison."

Tom made a good dinner, notwithstanding he was conscious that
hundreds of eyes followed each morsel to his mouth and watched him
eat it with an interest which could not have been more intense if
it had been a deadly explosive and was expected to blow him up and
scatter him all about the place.  He was careful not to hurry, and
equally careful not to do anything whatever for himself, but wait
till the proper official knelt down and did it for him.  He got
through without a mistake--flawless and precious triumph.

When the meal was over at last and he marched away in the midst of
his bright pageant, with the happy noises in his ears of blaring
bugles, rolling drums, and thundering acclamations, he felt that
if he had seen the worst of dining in public it was an ordeal
which he would be glad to endure several times a day if by that
means he could but buy himself free from some of the more
formidable requirements of his royal office.



Chapter XVII. Foo-foo the First.

Miles Hendon hurried along toward the Southwark end of the bridge,
keeping a sharp look-out for the persons he sought, and hoping and
expecting to overtake them presently.  He was disappointed in
this, however.  By asking questions, he was enabled to track them
part of the way through Southwark; then all traces ceased, and he
was perplexed as to how to proceed.  Still, he continued his
efforts as best he could during the rest of the day.  Nightfall
found him leg-weary, half-famished, and his desire as far from
accomplishment as ever; so he supped at the Tabard Inn and went to
bed, resolved to make an early start in the morning, and give the
town an exhaustive search.  As he lay thinking and planning, he
presently began to reason thus:  The boy would escape from the
ruffian, his reputed father, if possible; would he go back to
London and seek his former haunts?  No, he would not do that, he
would avoid recapture.  What, then, would he do?  Never having had
a friend in the world, or a protector, until he met Miles Hendon,
he would naturally try to find that friend again, provided the
effort did not require him to go toward London and danger.  He
would strike for Hendon Hall, that is what he would do, for he
knew Hendon was homeward bound and there he might expect to find
him.  Yes, the case was plain to Hendon--he must lose no more time
in Southwark, but move at once through Kent, toward Monk's Holm,
searching the wood and inquiring as he went.  Let us return to the
vanished little King now.

The ruffian whom the waiter at the inn on the bridge saw 'about to
join' the youth and the King did not exactly join them, but fell
in close behind them and followed their steps.  He said nothing.
His left arm was in a sling, and he wore a large green patch over
his left eye; he limped slightly, and used an oaken staff as a
support.  The youth led the King a crooked course through
Southwark, and by-and-by struck into the high road beyond.  The
King was irritated, now, and said he would stop here--it was
Hendon's place to come to him, not his to go to Hendon.  He would
not endure such insolence; he would stop where he was.  The youth
said--

"Thou'lt tarry here, and thy friend lying wounded in the wood
yonder?  So be it, then."

The King's manner changed at once.  He cried out--

"Wounded?  And who hath dared to do it?  But that is apart; lead
on, lead on!  Faster, sirrah!  Art shod with lead?  Wounded, is
he?  Now though the doer of it be a duke's son he shall rue it!"

It was some distance to the wood, but the space was speedily
traversed.  The youth looked about him, discovered a bough
sticking in the ground, with a small bit of rag tied to it, then
led the way into the forest, watching for similar boughs and
finding them at intervals; they were evidently guides to the point
he was aiming at.  By-and-by an open place was reached, where were
the charred remains of a farm-house, and near them a barn which
was falling to ruin and decay.  There was no sign of life
anywhere, and utter silence prevailed.  The youth entered the
barn, the King following eagerly upon his heels.  No one there!
The King shot a surprised and suspicious glance at the youth, and
asked--

"Where is he?"

A mocking laugh was his answer.  The King was in a rage in a
moment; he seized a billet of wood and was in the act of charging
upon the youth when another mocking laugh fell upon his ear.  It
was from the lame ruffian who had been following at a distance.
The King turned and said angrily--

"Who art thou?  What is thy business here?"

"Leave thy foolery," said the man, "and quiet thyself.  My
disguise is none so good that thou canst pretend thou knowest not
thy father through it."

"Thou art not my father.  I know thee not.  I am the King.  If
thou hast hid my servant, find him for me, or thou shalt sup
sorrow for what thou hast done."

John Canty replied, in a stern and measured voice--

"It is plain thou art mad, and I am loath to punish thee;  but if
thou provoke me, I must.  Thy prating doth no harm here, where
there are no ears that need to mind thy follies; yet it is well to
practise thy tongue to wary speech, that it may do no hurt when
our quarters change.  I have done a murder, and may not tarry at
home--neither shalt thou, seeing I need thy service.  My name is
changed, for wise reasons; it is Hobbs--John Hobbs; thine is Jack-
-charge thy memory accordingly.  Now, then, speak.  Where is thy
mother?  Where are thy sisters?  They came not to the place
appointed--knowest thou whither they went?"

The King answered sullenly--

"Trouble me not with these riddles.  My mother is dead; my sisters
are in the palace."

The youth near by burst into a derisive laugh, and the King would
have assaulted him, but Canty--or Hobbs, as he now called himself-
-prevented him, and said--

"Peace, Hugo, vex him not; his mind is astray, and thy ways fret
him.  Sit thee down, Jack, and quiet thyself; thou shalt have a
morsel to eat, anon."

Hobbs and Hugo fell to talking together, in low voices, and the
King removed himself as far as he could from their disagreeable
company.  He withdrew into the twilight of the farther end of the
barn, where he found the earthen floor bedded a foot deep with
straw.  He lay down here, drew straw over himself in lieu of
blankets, and was soon absorbed in thinking.  He had many griefs,
but the minor ones were swept almost into forgetfulness by the
supreme one, the loss of his father.  To the rest of the world the
name of Henry VIII. brought a shiver, and suggested an ogre whose
nostrils breathed destruction and whose hand dealt scourgings and
death; but to this boy the name brought only sensations of
pleasure; the figure it invoked wore a countenance that was all
gentleness and affection.  He called to mind a long succession of
loving passages between his father and himself, and dwelt fondly
upon them, his unstinted tears attesting how deep and real was the
grief that possessed his heart.  As the afternoon wasted away, the
lad, wearied with his troubles, sank gradually into a tranquil and
healing slumber.

After a considerable time--he could not tell how long--his senses
struggled to a half-consciousness, and as he lay with closed eyes
vaguely wondering where he was and what had been happening, he
noted a murmurous sound, the sullen beating of rain upon the roof.
A snug sense of comfort stole over him, which was rudely broken,
the next moment, by a chorus of piping cackles and coarse
laughter.  It startled him disagreeably, and he unmuffled his head
to see whence this interruption proceeded.  A grim and unsightly
picture met his eye.  A bright fire was burning in the middle of
the floor, at the other end of the barn; and around it, and lit
weirdly up by the red glare, lolled and sprawled the motliest
company of tattered gutter-scum and ruffians, of both sexes, he
had ever read or dreamed of.  There were huge stalwart men, brown
with exposure, long-haired, and clothed in fantastic rags; there
were middle-sized youths, of truculent countenance, and similarly
clad; there were blind mendicants, with patched or bandaged eyes;
crippled ones, with wooden legs and crutches; diseased ones, with
running sores peeping from ineffectual wrappings; there was a
villain-looking pedlar with his pack; a knife-grinder, a tinker,
and a barber-surgeon, with the implements of their trades; some of
the females were hardly-grown girls, some were at prime, some were
old and wrinkled hags, and all were loud, brazen, foul-mouthed;
and all soiled and slatternly; there were three sore-faced babies;
there were a couple of starveling curs, with strings about their
necks, whose office was to lead the blind.

The night was come, the gang had just finished feasting, an orgy
was beginning; the can of liquor was passing from mouth to mouth.
A general cry broke forth--

"A song! a song from the Bat and Dick and Dot-and-go-One!"

One of the blind men got up, and made ready by casting aside the
patches that sheltered his excellent eyes, and the pathetic
placard which recited the cause of his calamity.  Dot-and-go-One
disencumbered himself of his timber leg and took his place, upon
sound and healthy limbs, beside his fellow-rascal; then they
roared out a rollicking ditty, and were reinforced by the whole
crew, at the end of each stanza, in a rousing chorus.  By the time
the last stanza was reached, the half-drunken enthusiasm had risen
to such a pitch, that everybody joined in and sang it clear
through from the beginning, producing a volume of villainous sound
that made the rafters quake.  These were the inspiring words:--

     'Bien Darkman's then, Bouse Mort and Ken,
      The bien Coves bings awast,
      On Chates to trine by Rome Coves dine
      For his long lib at last.
      Bing'd out bien Morts and toure, and toure,
      Bing out of the Rome vile bine,
      And toure the Cove that cloy'd your duds,
      Upon the Chates to trine.'
                           (From 'The English Rogue.' London,
1665.)

Conversation followed; not in the thieves' dialect of the song,
for that was only used in talk when unfriendly ears might be
listening.  In the course of it, it appeared that 'John Hobbs' was
not altogether a new recruit, but had trained in the gang at some
former time.  His later history was called for, and when he said
he had 'accidentally' killed a man, considerable satisfaction was
expressed; when he added that the man was a priest, he was roundly
applauded, and had to take a drink with everybody.  Old
acquaintances welcomed him joyously, and new ones were proud to
shake him by the hand.  He was asked why he had 'tarried away so
many months.'  He answered--

"London is better than the country, and safer, these late years,
the laws be so bitter and so diligently enforced.  An' I had not
had that accident, I had stayed there.  I had resolved to stay,
and never more venture country-wards--but the accident has ended
that."

He inquired how many persons the gang numbered now.  The
'ruffler,' or chief, answered--

"Five and twenty sturdy budges, bulks, files, clapperdogeons and
maunders, counting the dells and doxies and other morts. {7}  Most
are here, the rest are wandering eastward, along the winter lay.
We follow at dawn."

"I do not see the Wen among the honest folk about me.  Where may
he be?"

"Poor lad, his diet is brimstone, now, and over hot for a delicate
taste.  He was killed in a brawl, somewhere about midsummer."

"I sorrow to hear that; the Wen was a capable man, and brave."

"That was he, truly.  Black Bess, his dell, is of us yet, but
absent on the eastward tramp; a fine lass, of nice ways and
orderly conduct, none ever seeing her drunk above four days in the
seven."

"She was ever strict--I remember it well--a goodly wench and
worthy all commendation.  Her mother was more free and less
particular; a troublesome and ugly-tempered beldame, but furnished
with a wit above the common."

"We lost her through it.  Her gift of palmistry and other sorts of
fortune-telling begot for her at last a witch's name and fame.
The law roasted her to death at a slow fire.  It did touch me to a
sort of tenderness to see the gallant way she met her lot--cursing
and reviling all the crowd that gaped and gazed around her, whilst
the flames licked upward toward her face and catched her thin
locks and crackled about her old gray head--cursing them! why an'
thou should'st live a thousand years thoud'st never hear so
masterful a cursing.  Alack, her art died with her.  There be base
and weakling imitations left, but no true blasphemy."

The Ruffler sighed; the listeners sighed in sympathy; a general
depression fell upon the company for a moment, for even hardened
outcasts like these are not wholly dead to sentiment, but are able
to feel a fleeting sense of loss and affliction at wide intervals
and under peculiarly favouring circumstances--as in cases like to
this, for instance, when genius and culture depart and leave no
heir.  However, a deep drink all round soon restored the spirits
of the mourners.

"Have any others of our friends fared hardly?" asked Hobbs.

"Some--yes.  Particularly new comers--such as small husbandmen
turned shiftless and hungry upon the world because their farms
were taken from them to be changed to sheep ranges.  They begged,
and were whipped at the cart's tail, naked from the girdle up,
till the blood ran; then set in the stocks to be pelted; they
begged again, were whipped again, and deprived of an ear; they
begged a third time--poor devils, what else could they do?--and
were branded on the cheek with a red-hot iron, then sold for
slaves; they ran away, were hunted down, and hanged.  'Tis a brief
tale, and quickly told.  Others of us have fared less hardly.
Stand forth, Yokel, Burns, and Hodge--show your adornments!"

These stood up and stripped away some of their rags, exposing
their backs, criss-crossed with ropy old welts left by the lash;
one turned up his hair and showed the place where a left ear had
once been; another showed a brand upon his shoulder--the letter V-
-and a mutilated ear; the third said--

"I am Yokel, once a farmer and prosperous, with loving wife and
kids--now am I somewhat different in estate and calling; and the
wife and kids are gone; mayhap they are in heaven, mayhap in--in
the other place--but the kindly God be thanked, they bide no more
in ENGLAND!  My good old blameless mother strove to earn bread by
nursing the sick; one of these died, the doctors knew not how, so
my mother was burnt for a witch, whilst my babes looked on and
wailed.  English law!--up, all, with your cups!--now all together
and with a cheer!--drink to the merciful English law that
delivered HER from the English hell!  Thank you, mates, one and
all.  I begged, from house to house--I and the wife--bearing with
us the hungry kids--but it was crime to be hungry in England--so
they stripped us and lashed us through three towns.  Drink ye all
again to the merciful English law!--for its lash drank deep of my
Mary's blood and its blessed deliverance came quick.  She lies
there, in the potter's field, safe from all harms.  And the kids--
well, whilst the law lashed me from town to town, they starved.
Drink, lads--only a drop--a drop to the poor kids, that never did
any creature harm.  I begged again--begged, for a crust, and got
the stocks and lost an ear--see, here bides the stump; I begged
again, and here is the stump of the other to keep me minded of it.
And still I begged again, and was sold for a slave--here on my
cheek under this stain, if I washed it off, ye might see the red S
the branding-iron left there!  A SLAVE!  Do you understand that
word?  An English SLAVE!--that is he that stands before ye.  I
have run from my master, and when I am found--the heavy curse of
heaven fall on the law of the land that hath commanded it!--I
shall hang!" {1}

A ringing voice came through the murky air--

"Thou shalt NOT!--and this day the end of that law is come!"

All turned, and saw the fantastic figure of the little King
approaching hurriedly; as it emerged into the light and was
clearly revealed, a general explosion of inquiries broke out--

"Who is it?  WHAT is it?  Who art thou, manikin?"

The boy stood unconfused in the midst of all those surprised and
questioning eyes, and answered with princely dignity--

"I am Edward, King of England."

A wild burst of laughter followed, partly of derision and partly
of delight in the excellence of the joke.  The King was stung.  He
said sharply--

"Ye mannerless vagrants, is this your recognition of the royal
boon I have promised?"

He said more, with angry voice and excited gesture, but it was
lost in a whirlwind of laughter and mocking exclamations.  'John
Hobbs' made several attempts to make himself heard above the din,
and at last succeeded--saying--

"Mates, he is my son, a dreamer, a fool, and stark mad--mind him
not--he thinketh he IS the King."

"I AM the King," said Edward, turning toward him, "as thou shalt
know to thy cost, in good time.  Thou hast confessed a murder--
thou shalt swing for it."

"THOU'LT betray me?--THOU?  An' I get my hands upon thee--"

"Tut-tut!" said the burley Ruffler, interposing in time to save
the King, and emphasising this service by knocking Hobbs down with
his fist, "hast respect for neither Kings NOR Rufflers?  An' thou
insult my presence so again, I'll hang thee up myself."  Then he
said to his Majesty, "Thou must make no threats against thy mates,
lad; and thou must guard thy tongue from saying evil of them
elsewhere.  BE King, if it please thy mad humour, but be not
harmful in it.  Sink the title thou hast uttered--'tis treason; we
be bad men in some few trifling ways, but none among us is so base
as to be traitor to his King; we be loving and loyal hearts, in
that regard.  Note if I speak truth.  Now--all together:  'Long
live Edward, King of England!'"

"LONG LIVE EDWARD, KING OF ENGLAND!"

The response came with such a thundergust from the motley crew
that the crazy building vibrated to the sound.  The little King's
face lighted with pleasure for an instant, and he slightly
inclined his head, and said with grave simplicity--

"I thank you, my good people."

This unexpected result threw the company into convulsions of
merriment.  When something like quiet was presently come again,
the Ruffler said, firmly, but with an accent of good nature--

"Drop it, boy, 'tis not wise, nor well.  Humour thy fancy, if thou
must, but choose some other title."

A tinker shrieked out a suggestion--

"Foo-foo the First, King of the Mooncalves!"

The title 'took,' at once, every throat responded, and a roaring
shout went up, of--

"Long live Foo-foo the First, King of the Mooncalves!" followed by
hootings, cat-calls, and peals of laughter.

"Hale him forth, and crown him!"

"Robe him!"

"Sceptre him!"

"Throne him!"

These and twenty other cries broke out at once! and almost before
the poor little victim could draw a breath he was crowned with a
tin basin, robed in a tattered blanket, throned upon a barrel, and
sceptred with the tinker's soldering-iron.  Then all flung
themselves upon their knees about him and sent up a chorus of
ironical wailings, and mocking supplications, whilst they swabbed
their eyes with their soiled and ragged sleeves and aprons--

"Be gracious to us, O sweet King!"

"Trample not upon thy beseeching worms, O noble Majesty!"

"Pity thy slaves, and comfort them with a royal kick!"

"Cheer us and warm us with thy gracious rays, O flaming sun of
sovereignty!"

"Sanctify the ground with the touch of thy foot, that we may eat
the dirt and be ennobled!"

"Deign to spit upon us, O Sire, that our children's children may
tell of thy princely condescension, and be proud and happy for
ever!"

But the humorous tinker made the 'hit' of the evening and carried
off the honours.  Kneeling, he pretended to kiss the King's foot,
and was indignantly spurned; whereupon he went about begging for a
rag to paste over the place upon his face which had been touched
by the foot, saying it must be preserved from contact with the
vulgar air, and that he should make his fortune by going on the
highway and exposing it to view at the rate of a hundred shillings
a sight.  He made himself so killingly funny that he was the envy
and admiration of the whole mangy rabble.

Tears of shame and indignation stood in the little monarch's eyes;
and the thought in his heart was, "Had I offered them a deep wrong
they could not be more cruel--yet have I proffered nought but to
do them a kindness--and it is thus they use me for it!"



Chapter XVIII. The Prince with the tramps.

The troop of vagabonds turned out at early dawn, and set forward
on their march.  There was a lowering sky overhead, sloppy ground
under foot, and a winter chill in the air.  All gaiety was gone
from the company; some were sullen and silent, some were irritable
and petulant, none were gentle-humoured, all were thirsty.

The Ruffler put 'Jack' in Hugo's charge, with some brief
instructions, and commanded John Canty to keep away from him and
let him alone; he also warned Hugo not to be too rough with the
lad.

After a while the weather grew milder, and the clouds lifted
somewhat.  The troop ceased to shiver, and their spirits began to
improve.  They grew more and more cheerful, and finally began to
chaff each other and insult passengers along the highway.  This
showed that they were awaking to an appreciation of life and its
joys once more.  The dread in which their sort was held was
apparent in the fact that everybody gave them the road, and took
their ribald insolences meekly, without venturing to talk back.
They snatched linen from the hedges, occasionally in full view of
the owners, who made no protest, but only seemed grateful that
they did not take the hedges, too.

By-and-by they invaded a small farmhouse and made themselves at
home while the trembling farmer and his people swept the larder
clean to furnish a breakfast for them.  They chucked the housewife
and her daughters under the chin whilst receiving the food from
their hands, and made coarse jests about them, accompanied with
insulting epithets and bursts of horse-laughter.  They threw bones
and vegetables at the farmer and his sons, kept them dodging all
the time, and applauded uproariously when a good hit was made.
They ended by buttering the head of one of the daughters who
resented some of their familiarities.  When they took their leave
they threatened to come back and burn the house over the heads of
the family if any report of their doings got to the ears of the
authorities.

About noon, after a long and weary tramp, the gang came to a halt
behind a hedge on the outskirts of a considerable village.  An
hour was allowed for rest, then the crew scattered themselves
abroad to enter the village at different points to ply their
various trades--'Jack' was sent with Hugo.  They wandered hither
and thither for some time, Hugo watching for opportunities to do a
stroke of business, but finding none--so he finally said--

"I see nought to steal; it is a paltry place.  Wherefore we will
beg."

"WE, forsooth!  Follow thy trade--it befits thee.  But _I_ will
not beg."

"Thou'lt not beg!" exclaimed Hugo, eyeing the King with surprise.
"Prithee, since when hast thou reformed?"

"What dost thou mean?"

"Mean?  Hast thou not begged the streets of London all thy life?"

"I?  Thou idiot!"

"Spare thy compliments--thy stock will last the longer.  Thy
father says thou hast begged all thy days.  Mayhap he lied.
Peradventure you will even make so bold as to SAY he lied,"
scoffed Hugo.

"Him YOU call my father?  Yes, he lied."

"Come, play not thy merry game of madman so far, mate; use it for
thy amusement, not thy hurt.  An' I tell him this, he will scorch
thee finely for it."

"Save thyself the trouble.  I will tell him."

"I like thy spirit, I do in truth; but I do not admire thy
judgment.  Bone-rackings and bastings be plenty enow in this life,
without going out of one's way to invite them.  But a truce to
these matters; _I_ believe your father.  I doubt not he can lie; I
doubt not he DOTH lie, upon occasion, for the best of us do that;
but there is no occasion here.  A wise man does not waste so good
a commodity as lying for nought.  But come; sith it is thy humour
to give over begging, wherewithal shall we busy ourselves?  With
robbing kitchens?"

The King said, impatiently--

"Have done with this folly--you weary me!"

Hugo replied, with temper--

"Now harkee, mate; you will not beg, you will not rob; so be it.
But I will tell you what you WILL do.  You will play decoy whilst
_I_ beg.  Refuse, an' you think you may venture!"

The King was about to reply contemptuously, when Hugo said,
interrupting--

"Peace!  Here comes one with a kindly face.  Now will I fall down
in a fit.  When the stranger runs to me, set you up a wail, and
fall upon your knees, seeming to weep; then cry out as all the
devils of misery were in your belly, and say, 'Oh, sir, it is my
poor afflicted brother, and we be friendless; o' God's name cast
through your merciful eyes one pitiful look upon a sick, forsaken,
and most miserable wretch; bestow one little penny out of thy
riches upon one smitten of God and ready to perish!'--and mind
you, keep you ON wailing, and abate not till we bilk him of his
penny, else shall you rue it."

Then immediately Hugo began to moan, and groan, and roll his eyes,
and reel and totter about; and when the stranger was close at
hand, down he sprawled before him, with a shriek, and began to
writhe and wallow in the dirt, in seeming agony.

"O, dear, O dear!" cried the benevolent stranger, "O poor soul,
poor soul, how he doth suffer!  There--let me help thee up."

"O noble sir, forbear, and God love you for a princely gentleman--
but it giveth me cruel pain to touch me when I am taken so.  My
brother there will tell your worship how I am racked with anguish
when these fits be upon me.  A penny, dear sir, a penny, to buy a
little food; then leave me to my sorrows."

"A penny! thou shalt have three, thou hapless creature"--and he
fumbled in his pocket with nervous haste and got them out.
"There, poor lad, take them and most welcome.  Now come hither, my
boy, and help me carry thy stricken brother to yon house, where--"

"I am not his brother," said the King, interrupting.

"What! not his brother?"

"Oh, hear him!" groaned Hugo, then privately ground his teeth.
"He denies his own brother--and he with one foot in the grave!"

"Boy, thou art indeed hard of heart, if this is thy brother.  For
shame!--and he scarce able to move hand or foot.  If he is not thy
brother, who is he, then?"

"A beggar and a thief!  He has got your money and has picked your
pocket likewise.  An' thou would'st do a healing miracle, lay thy
staff over his shoulders and trust Providence for the rest."

But Hugo did not tarry for the miracle.  In a moment he was up and
off like the wind, the gentleman following after and raising the
hue and cry lustily as he went.  The King, breathing deep
gratitude to Heaven for his own release, fled in the opposite
direction, and did not slacken his pace until he was out of harm's
reach.  He took the first road that offered, and soon put the
village behind him.  He hurried along, as briskly as he could,
during several hours, keeping a nervous watch over his shoulder
for pursuit; but his fears left him at last, and a grateful sense
of security took their place.  He recognised, now, that he was
hungry, and also very tired.  So he halted at a farmhouse; but
when he was about to speak, he was cut short and driven rudely
away.  His clothes were against him.

He wandered on, wounded and indignant, and was resolved to put
himself in the way of like treatment no more.  But hunger is
pride's master; so, as the evening drew near, he made an attempt
at another farmhouse; but here he fared worse than before; for he
was called hard names and was promised arrest as a vagrant except
he moved on promptly.

The night came on, chilly and overcast; and still the footsore
monarch laboured slowly on.  He was obliged to keep moving, for
every time he sat down to rest he was soon penetrated to the bone
with the cold.  All his sensations and experiences, as he moved
through the solemn gloom and the empty vastness of the night, were
new and strange to him.  At intervals he heard voices approach,
pass by, and fade into silence; and as he saw nothing more of the
bodies they belonged to than a sort of formless drifting blur,
there was something spectral and uncanny about it all that made
him shudder.  Occasionally he caught the twinkle of a light--
always far away, apparently--almost in another world; if he heard
the tinkle of a sheep's bell, it was vague, distant, indistinct;
the muffled lowing of the herds floated to him on the night wind
in vanishing cadences, a mournful sound; now and then came the
complaining howl of a dog over viewless expanses of field and
forest; all sounds were remote; they made the little King feel
that all life and activity were far removed from him, and that he
stood solitary, companionless, in the centre of a measureless
solitude.

He stumbled along, through the gruesome fascinations of this new
experience, startled occasionally by the soft rustling of the dry
leaves overhead, so like human whispers they seemed to sound; and
by-and-by he came suddenly upon the freckled light of a tin
lantern near at hand.  He stepped back into the shadows and
waited.  The lantern stood by the open door of a barn.  The King
waited some time--there was no sound, and nobody stirring.  He got
so cold, standing still, and the hospitable barn looked so
enticing, that at last he resolved to risk everything and enter.
He started swiftly and stealthily, and just as he was crossing the
threshold he heard voices behind him.  He darted behind a cask,
within the barn, and stooped down.  Two farm-labourers came in,
bringing the lantern with them, and fell to work, talking
meanwhile.  Whilst they moved about with the light, the King made
good use of his eyes and took the bearings of what seemed to be a
good-sized stall at the further end of the place, purposing to
grope his way to it when he should be left to himself.  He also
noted the position of a pile of horse blankets, midway of the
route, with the intent to levy upon them for the service of the
crown of England for one night.

By-and-by the men finished and went away, fastening the door
behind them and taking the lantern with them.  The shivering King
made for the blankets, with as good speed as the darkness would
allow; gathered them up, and then groped his way safely to the
stall.  Of two of the blankets he made a bed, then covered himself
with the remaining two.  He was a glad monarch, now, though the
blankets were old and thin, and not quite warm enough; and besides
gave out a pungent horsey odour that was almost suffocatingly
powerful.

Although the King was hungry and chilly, he was also so tired and
so drowsy that these latter influences soon began to get the
advantage of the former, and he presently dozed off into a state
of semi-consciousness.  Then, just as he was on the point of
losing himself wholly, he distinctly felt something touch him!  He
was broad awake in a moment, and gasping for breath.  The cold
horror of that mysterious touch in the dark almost made his heart
stand still.  He lay motionless, and listened, scarcely breathing.
But nothing stirred, and there was no sound.  He continued to
listen, and wait, during what seemed a long time, but still
nothing stirred, and there was no sound.  So he began to drop into
a drowse once more, at last; and all at once he felt that
mysterious touch again!  It was a grisly thing, this light touch
from this noiseless and invisible presence; it made the boy sick
with ghostly fears.  What should he do?  That was the question;
but he did not know how to answer it.  Should he leave these
reasonably comfortable quarters and fly from this inscrutable
horror?  But fly whither?  He could not get out of the barn; and
the idea of scurrying blindly hither and thither in the dark,
within the captivity of the four walls, with this phantom gliding
after him, and visiting him with that soft hideous touch upon
cheek or shoulder at every turn, was intolerable.  But to stay
where he was, and endure this living death all night--was that
better?  No.  What, then, was there left to do?  Ah, there was but
one course; he knew it well--he must put out his hand and find
that thing!

It was easy to think this; but it was hard to brace himself up to
try it.  Three times he stretched his hand a little way out into
the dark, gingerly; and snatched it suddenly back, with a gasp--
not because it had encountered anything, but because he had felt
so sure it was just GOING to.  But the fourth time, he groped a
little further, and his hand lightly swept against something soft
and warm.  This petrified him, nearly, with fright; his mind was
in such a state that he could imagine the thing to be nothing else
than a corpse, newly dead and still warm.  He thought he would
rather die than touch it again.  But he thought this false thought
because he did not know the immortal strength of human curiosity.
In no long time his hand was tremblingly groping again--against
his judgment, and without his consent--but groping persistently
on, just the same.  It encountered a bunch of long hair; he
shuddered, but followed up the hair and found what seemed to be a
warm rope; followed up the rope and found an innocent calf!--for
the rope was not a rope at all, but the calf's tail.

The King was cordially ashamed of himself for having gotten all
that fright and misery out of so paltry a matter as a slumbering
calf; but he need not have felt so about it, for it was not the
calf that frightened him, but a dreadful non-existent something
which the calf stood for; and any other boy, in those old
superstitious times, would have acted and suffered just as he had
done.

The King was not only delighted to find that the creature was only
a calf, but delighted to have the calf's company; for he had been
feeling so lonesome and friendless that the company and
comradeship of even this humble animal were welcome.  And he had
been so buffeted, so rudely entreated by his own kind, that it was
a real comfort to him to feel that he was at last in the society
of a fellow-creature that had at least a soft heart and a gentle
spirit, whatever loftier attributes might be lacking.  So he
resolved to waive rank and make friends with the calf.

While stroking its sleek warm back--for it lay near him and within
easy reach--it occurred to him that this calf might be utilised in
more ways than one.  Whereupon he re-arranged his bed, spreading
it down close to the calf; then he cuddled himself up to the
calf's back, drew the covers up over himself and his friend, and
in a minute or two was as warm and comfortable as he had ever been
in the downy couches of the regal palace of Westminster.

Pleasant thoughts came at once; life took on a cheerfuller
seeming.  He was free of the bonds of servitude and crime, free of
the companionship of base and brutal outlaws; he was warm; he was
sheltered; in a word, he was happy.  The night wind was rising; it
swept by in fitful gusts that made the old barn quake and rattle,
then its forces died down at intervals, and went moaning and
wailing around corners and projections--but it was all music to
the King, now that he was snug and comfortable:  let it blow and
rage, let it batter and bang, let it moan and wail, he minded it
not, he only enjoyed it.  He merely snuggled the closer to his
friend, in a luxury of warm contentment, and drifted blissfully
out of consciousness into a deep and dreamless sleep that was full
of serenity and peace.  The distant dogs howled, the melancholy
kine complained, and the winds went on raging, whilst furious
sheets of rain drove along the roof; but the Majesty of England
slept on, undisturbed, and the calf did the same, it being a
simple creature, and not easily troubled by storms or embarrassed
by sleeping with a king.



Chapter XIX. The Prince with the peasants.

When the King awoke in the early morning, he found that a wet but
thoughtful rat had crept into the place during the night and made
a cosy bed for itself in his bosom.  Being disturbed now, it
scampered away.  The boy smiled, and said, "Poor fool, why so
fearful?  I am as forlorn as thou.  'Twould be a sham in me to
hurt the helpless, who am myself so helpless.  Moreover, I owe you
thanks for a good omen; for when a king has fallen so low that the
very rats do make a bed of him, it surely meaneth that his
fortunes be upon the turn, since it is plain he can no lower go."

He got up and stepped out of the stall, and just then he heard the
sound of children's voices.  The barn door opened and a couple of
little girls came in.  As soon as they saw him their talking and
laughing ceased, and they stopped and stood still, gazing at him
with strong curiosity; they presently began to whisper together,
then they approached nearer, and stopped again to gaze and
whisper.  By-and-by they gathered courage and began to discuss him
aloud.  One said--

"He hath a comely face."

The other added--

"And pretty hair."

"But is ill clothed enow."

"And how starved he looketh."

They came still nearer, sidling shyly around and about him,
examining him minutely from all points, as if he were some strange
new kind of animal, but warily and watchfully the while, as if
they half feared he might be a sort of animal that would bite,
upon occasion.  Finally they halted before him, holding each
other's hands for protection, and took a good satisfying stare
with their innocent eyes; then one of them plucked up all her
courage and inquired with honest directness--

"Who art thou, boy?"

"I am the King," was the grave answer.

The children gave a little start, and their eyes spread themselves
wide open and remained so during a speechless half minute.  Then
curiosity broke the silence--

"The KING?  What King?"

"The King of England."

The children looked at each other--then at him--then at each other
again--wonderingly, perplexedly; then one said--

"Didst hear him, Margery?--he said he is the King.  Can that be
true?"

"How can it be else but true, Prissy?  Would he say a lie?  For
look you, Prissy, an' it were not true, it WOULD be a lie.  It
surely would be.  Now think on't.  For all things that be not
true, be lies--thou canst make nought else out of it."

It was a good tight argument, without a leak in it anywhere; and
it left Prissy's half-doubts not a leg to stand on.  She
considered a moment, then put the King upon his honour with the
simple remark--

"If thou art truly the King, then I believe thee."

"I am truly the King."

This settled the matter.  His Majesty's royalty was accepted
without further question or discussion, and the two little girls
began at once to inquire into how he came to be where he was, and
how he came to be so unroyally clad, and whither he was bound, and
all about his affairs.  It was a mighty relief to him to pour out
his troubles where they would not be scoffed at or doubted; so he
told his tale with feeling, forgetting even his hunger for the
time; and it was received with the deepest and tenderest sympathy
by the gentle little maids.  But when he got down to his latest
experiences and they learned how long he had been without food,
they cut him short and hurried him away to the farmhouse to find a
breakfast for him.

The King was cheerful and happy now, and said to himself, "When I
am come to mine own again, I will always honour little children,
remembering how that these trusted me and believed in me in my
time of trouble; whilst they that were older, and thought
themselves wiser, mocked at me and held me for a liar."

The children's mother received the King kindly, and was full of
pity; for his forlorn condition and apparently crazed intellect
touched her womanly heart.  She was a widow, and rather poor;
consequently she had seen trouble enough to enable her to feel for
the unfortunate.  She imagined that the demented boy had wandered
away from his friends or keepers; so she tried to find out whence
he had come, in order that she might take measures to return him;
but all her references to neighbouring towns and villages, and all
her inquiries in the same line went for nothing--the boy's face,
and his answers, too, showed that the things she was talking of
were not familiar to him.  He spoke earnestly and simply about
court matters, and broke down, more than once, when speaking of
the late King 'his father'; but whenever the conversation changed
to baser topics, he lost interest and became silent.

The woman was mightily puzzled; but she did not give up.  As she
proceeded with her cooking, she set herself to contriving devices
to surprise the boy into betraying his real secret.  She talked
about cattle--he showed no concern; then about sheep--the same
result:  so her guess that he had been a shepherd boy was an
error; she talked about mills; and about weavers, tinkers, smiths,
trades and tradesmen of all sorts; and about Bedlam, and jails,
and charitable retreats:  but no matter, she was baffled at all
points.  Not altogether, either; for she argued that she had
narrowed the thing down to domestic service.  Yes, she was sure
she was on the right track, now; he must have been a house
servant.  So she led up to that.  But the result was discouraging.
The subject of sweeping appeared to weary him; fire-building
failed to stir him; scrubbing and scouring awoke no enthusiasm.
The goodwife touched, with a perishing hope, and rather as a
matter of form, upon the subject of cooking.  To her surprise, and
her vast delight, the King's face lighted at once!  Ah, she had
hunted him down at last, she thought; and she was right proud,
too, of the devious shrewdness and tact which had accomplished it.

Her tired tongue got a chance to rest, now; for the King's,
inspired by gnawing hunger and the fragrant smells that came from
the sputtering pots and pans, turned itself loose and delivered
itself up to such an eloquent dissertation upon certain toothsome
dishes, that within three minutes the woman said to herself, "Of a
truth I was right--he hath holpen in a kitchen!"  Then he
broadened his bill of fare, and discussed it with such
appreciation and animation, that the goodwife said to herself,
"Good lack! how can he know so many dishes, and so fine ones
withal?  For these belong only upon the tables of the rich and
great.  Ah, now I see! ragged outcast as he is, he must have
served in the palace before his reason went astray; yes, he must
have helped in the very kitchen of the King himself!  I will test
him."

Full of eagerness to prove her sagacity, she told the King to mind
the cooking a moment--hinting that he might manufacture and add a
dish or two, if he chose; then she went out of the room and gave
her children a sign to follow after.  The King muttered--

"Another English king had a commission like to this, in a bygone
time--it is nothing against my dignity to undertake an office
which the great Alfred stooped to assume.  But I will try to
better serve my trust than he; for he let the cakes burn."

The intent was good, but the performance was not answerable to it,
for this King, like the other one, soon fell into deep thinkings
concerning his vast affairs, and the same calamity resulted--the
cookery got burned.  The woman returned in time to save the
breakfast from entire destruction; and she promptly brought the
King out of his dreams with a brisk and cordial tongue-lashing.
Then, seeing how troubled he was over his violated trust, she
softened at once, and was all goodness and gentleness toward him.

The boy made a hearty and satisfying meal, and was greatly
refreshed and gladdened by it.  It was a meal which was
distinguished by this curious feature, that rank was waived on
both sides; yet neither recipient of the favour was aware that it
had been extended.  The goodwife had intended to feed this young
tramp with broken victuals in a corner, like any other tramp or
like a dog; but she was so remorseful for the scolding she had
given him, that she did what she could to atone for it by allowing
him to sit at the family table and eat with his betters, on
ostensible terms of equality with them; and the King, on his side,
was so remorseful for having broken his trust, after the family
had been so kind to him, that he forced himself to atone for it by
humbling himself to the family level, instead of requiring the
woman and her children to stand and wait upon him, while he
occupied their table in the solitary state due to his birth and
dignity.  It does us all good to unbend sometimes.  This good
woman was made happy all the day long by the applauses which she
got out of herself for her magnanimous condescension to a tramp;
and the King was just as self-complacent over his gracious
humility toward a humble peasant woman.

When breakfast was over, the housewife told the King to wash up
the dishes.  This command was a staggerer, for a moment, and the
King came near rebelling; but then he said to himself, "Alfred the
Great watched the cakes; doubtless he would have washed the dishes
too--therefore will I essay it."

He made a sufficiently poor job of it; and to his surprise too,
for the cleaning of wooden spoons and trenchers had seemed an easy
thing to do.  It was a tedious and troublesome piece of work, but
he finished it at last.  He was becoming impatient to get away on
his journey now; however, he was not to lose this thrifty dame's
society so easily.  She furnished him some little odds and ends of
employment, which he got through with after a fair fashion and
with some credit.  Then she set him and the little girls to paring
some winter apples; but he was so awkward at this service that she
retired him from it and gave him a butcher knife to grind.
Afterwards she kept him carding wool until he began to think he
had laid the good King Alfred about far enough in the shade for
the present in the matter of showy menial heroisms that would read
picturesquely in story-books and histories, and so he was half-
minded to resign.  And when, just after the noonday dinner, the
goodwife gave him a basket of kittens to drown, he did resign.  At
least he was just going to resign--for he felt that he must draw
the line somewhere, and it seemed to him that to draw it at
kitten-drowning was about the right thing--when there was an
interruption.  The interruption was John Canty--with a peddler's
pack on his back--and Hugo.

The King discovered these rascals approaching the front gate
before they had had a chance to see him; so he said nothing about
drawing the line, but took up his basket of kittens and stepped
quietly out the back way, without a word.  He left the creatures
in an out-house, and hurried on, into a narrow lane at the rear.



Chapter XX. The Prince and the hermit.

The high hedge hid him from the house, now; and so, under the
impulse of a deadly fright, he let out all his forces and sped
toward a wood in the distance.  He never looked back until he had
almost gained the shelter of the forest; then he turned and
descried two figures in the distance.  That was sufficient; he did
not wait to scan them critically, but hurried on, and never abated
his pace till he was far within the twilight depths of the wood.
Then he stopped; being persuaded that he was now tolerably safe.
He listened intently, but the stillness was profound and solemn--
awful, even, and depressing to the spirits.  At wide intervals his
straining ear did detect sounds, but they were so remote, and
hollow, and mysterious, that they seemed not to be real sounds,
but only the moaning and complaining ghosts of departed ones.  So
the sounds were yet more dreary than the silence which they
interrupted.

It was his purpose, in the beginning, to stay where he was the
rest of the day; but a chill soon invaded his perspiring body, and
he was at last obliged to resume movement in order to get warm.
He struck straight through the forest, hoping to pierce to a road
presently, but he was disappointed in this.  He travelled on and
on; but the farther he went, the denser the wood became,
apparently.  The gloom began to thicken, by-and-by, and the King
realised that the night was coming on.  It made him shudder to
think of spending it in such an uncanny place; so he tried to
hurry faster, but he only made the less speed, for he could not
now see well enough to choose his steps judiciously; consequently
he kept tripping over roots and tangling himself in vines and
briers.

And how glad he was when at last he caught the glimmer of a light!
He approached it warily, stopping often to look about him and
listen.  It came from an unglazed window-opening in a shabby
little hut.  He heard a voice, now, and felt a disposition to run
and hide; but he changed his mind at once, for this voice was
praying, evidently.  He glided to the one window of the hut,
raised himself on tiptoe, and stole a glance within.  The room was
small; its floor was the natural earth, beaten hard by use; in a
corner was a bed of rushes and a ragged blanket or two; near it
was a pail, a cup, a basin, and two or three pots and pans; there
was a short bench and a three-legged stool; on the hearth the
remains of a faggot fire were smouldering; before a shrine, which
was lighted by a single candle, knelt an aged man, and on an old
wooden box at his side lay an open book and a human skull.  The
man was of large, bony frame; his hair and whiskers were very long
and snowy white; he was clothed in a robe of sheepskins which
reached from his neck to his heels.

"A holy hermit!" said the King to himself; "now am I indeed
fortunate."

The hermit rose from his knees; the King knocked.  A deep voice
responded--

"Enter!--but leave sin behind, for the ground whereon thou shalt
stand is holy!"

The King entered, and paused.  The hermit turned a pair of
gleaming, unrestful eyes upon him, and said--

"Who art thou?"

"I am the King," came the answer, with placid simplicity.

"Welcome, King!" cried the hermit, with enthusiasm.  Then,
bustling about with feverish activity, and constantly saying,
"Welcome, welcome," he arranged his bench, seated the King on it,
by the hearth, threw some faggots on the fire, and finally fell to
pacing the floor with a nervous stride.

"Welcome!  Many have sought sanctuary here, but they were not
worthy, and were turned away.  But a King who casts his crown
away, and despises the vain splendours of his office, and clothes
his body in rags, to devote his life to holiness and the
mortification of the flesh--he is worthy, he is welcome!--here
shall he abide all his days till death come."  The King hastened
to interrupt and explain, but the hermit paid no attention to him-
-did not even hear him, apparently, but went right on with his
talk, with a raised voice and a growing energy.  "And thou shalt
be at peace here.  None shall find out thy refuge to disquiet thee
with supplications to return to that empty and foolish life which
God hath moved thee to abandon.  Thou shalt pray here; thou shalt
study the Book; thou shalt meditate upon the follies and delusions
of this world, and upon the sublimities of the world to come; thou
shalt feed upon crusts and herbs, and scourge thy body with whips,
daily, to the purifying of thy soul.  Thou shalt wear a hair shirt
next thy skin; thou shalt drink water only; and thou shalt be at
peace; yes, wholly at peace; for whoso comes to seek thee shall go
his way again, baffled; he shall not find thee, he shall not
molest thee."

The old man, still pacing back and forth, ceased to speak aloud,
and began to mutter.  The King seized this opportunity to state
his case; and he did it with an eloquence inspired by uneasiness
and apprehension.  But the hermit went on muttering, and gave no
heed.  And still muttering, he approached the King and said
impressively--

"'Sh!  I will tell you a secret!"  He bent down to impart it, but
checked himself, and assumed a listening attitude.  After a moment
or two he went on tiptoe to the window-opening, put his head out,
and peered around in the gloaming, then came tiptoeing back again,
put his face close down to the King's, and whispered--

"I am an archangel!"

The King started violently, and said to himself, "Would God I were
with the outlaws again; for lo, now am I the prisoner of a
madman!"  His apprehensions were heightened, and they showed
plainly in his face.  In a low excited voice the hermit continued-
-

"I see you feel my atmosphere!  There's awe in your face!  None
may be in this atmosphere and not be thus affected; for it is the
very atmosphere of heaven.  I go thither and return, in the
twinkling of an eye.  I was made an archangel on this very spot,
it is five years ago, by angels sent from heaven to confer that
awful dignity.  Their presence filled this place with an
intolerable brightness.  And they knelt to me, King! yes, they
knelt to me! for I was greater than they.  I have walked in the
courts of heaven, and held speech with the patriarchs.  Touch my
hand--be not afraid--touch it.  There--now thou hast touched a
hand which has been clasped by Abraham and Isaac and Jacob!  For I
have walked in the golden courts; I have seen the Deity face to
face!"  He paused, to give this speech effect; then his face
suddenly changed, and he started to his feet again saying, with
angry energy, "Yes, I am an archangel; A MERE ARCHANGEL!--I that
might have been pope!  It is verily true.  I was told it from
heaven in a dream, twenty years ago; ah, yes, I was to be pope!--
and I SHOULD have been pope, for Heaven had said it--but the King
dissolved my religious house, and I, poor obscure unfriended monk,
was cast homeless upon the world, robbed of my mighty destiny!"
Here he began to mumble again, and beat his forehead in futile
rage, with his fist; now and then articulating a venomous curse,
and now and then a pathetic "Wherefore I am nought but an
archangel--I that should have been pope!"

So he went on, for an hour, whilst the poor little King sat and
suffered.  Then all at once the old man's frenzy departed, and he
became all gentleness.  His voice softened, he came down out of
his clouds, and fell to prattling along so simply and so humanly,
that he soon won the King's heart completely.  The old devotee
moved the boy nearer to the fire and made him comfortable;
doctored his small bruises and abrasions with a deft and tender
hand; and then set about preparing and cooking a supper--chatting
pleasantly all the time, and occasionally stroking the lad's cheek
or patting his head, in such a gently caressing way that in a
little while all the fear and repulsion inspired by the archangel
were changed to reverence and affection for the man.

This happy state of things continued while the two ate the supper;
then, after a prayer before the shrine, the hermit put the boy to
bed, in a small adjoining room, tucking him in as snugly and
lovingly as a mother might; and so, with a parting caress, left
him and sat down by the fire, and began to poke the brands about
in an absent and aimless way.  Presently he paused; then tapped
his forehead several times with his fingers, as if trying to
recall some thought which had escaped from his mind.  Apparently
he was unsuccessful.  Now he started quickly up, and entered his
guest's room, and said--

"Thou art King?"

"Yes," was the response, drowsily uttered.

"What King?"

"Of England."

"Of England?  Then Henry is gone!"

"Alack, it is so.  I am his son."

A black frown settled down upon the hermit's face, and he clenched
his bony hands with a vindictive energy.  He stood a few moments,
breathing fast and swallowing repeatedly, then said in a husky
voice--

"Dost know it was he that turned us out into the world houseless
and homeless?"

There was no response.  The old man bent down and scanned the
boy's reposeful face and listened to his placid breathing.  "He
sleeps--sleeps soundly;" and the frown vanished away and gave
place to an expression of evil satisfaction.  A smile flitted
across the dreaming boy's features.  The hermit muttered, "So--his
heart is happy;" and he turned away.  He went stealthily about the
place, seeking here and there for something; now and then halting
to listen, now and then jerking his head around and casting a
quick glance toward the bed; and always muttering, always mumbling
to himself.  At last he found what he seemed to want--a rusty old
butcher knife and a whetstone.  Then he crept to his place by the
fire, sat himself down, and began to whet the knife softly on the
stone, still muttering, mumbling, ejaculating.  The winds sighed
around the lonely place, the mysterious voices of the night
floated by out of the distances.  The shining eyes of venturesome
mice and rats peered out at the old man from cracks and coverts,
but he went on with his work, rapt, absorbed, and noted none of
these things.

At long intervals he drew his thumb along the edge of his knife,
and nodded his head with satisfaction.  "It grows sharper," he
said; "yes, it grows sharper."

He took no note of the flight of time, but worked tranquilly on,
entertaining himself with his thoughts, which broke out
occasionally in articulate speech--

"His father wrought us evil, he destroyed us--and is gone down
into the eternal fires!  Yes, down into the eternal fires!  He
escaped us--but it was God's will, yes it was God's will, we must
not repine.  But he hath not escaped the fires!  No, he hath not
escaped the fires, the consuming, unpitying, remorseless fires--
and THEY are everlasting!"

And so he wrought, and still wrought--mumbling, chuckling a low
rasping chuckle at times--and at times breaking again into words--

"It was his father that did it all.  I am but an archangel; but
for him I should be pope!"

The King stirred.  The hermit sprang noiselessly to the bedside,
and went down upon his knees, bending over the prostrate form with
his knife uplifted.  The boy stirred again; his eyes came open for
an instant, but there was no speculation in them, they saw
nothing; the next moment his tranquil breathing showed that his
sleep was sound once more.

The hermit watched and listened, for a time, keeping his position
and scarcely breathing; then he slowly lowered his arms, and
presently crept away, saying,--

"It is long past midnight; it is not best that he should cry out,
lest by accident someone be passing."

He glided about his hovel, gathering a rag here, a thong there,
and another one yonder; then he returned, and by careful and
gentle handling he managed to tie the King's ankles together
without waking him.  Next he essayed to tie the wrists; he made
several attempts to cross them, but the boy always drew one hand
or the other away, just as the cord was ready to be applied; but
at last, when the archangel was almost ready to despair, the boy
crossed his hands himself, and the next moment they were bound.
Now a bandage was passed under the sleeper's chin and brought up
over his head and tied fast--and so softly, so gradually, and so
deftly were the knots drawn together and compacted, that the boy
slept peacefully through it all without stirring.



Chapter XXI. Hendon to the rescue.

The old man glided away, stooping, stealthy, cat-like, and brought
the low bench.  He seated himself upon it, half his body in the
dim and flickering light, and the other half in shadow; and so,
with his craving eyes bent upon the slumbering boy, he kept his
patient vigil there, heedless of the drift of time, and softly
whetted his knife, and mumbled and chuckled; and in aspect and
attitude he resembled nothing so much as a grizzly, monstrous
spider, gloating over some hapless insect that lay bound and
helpless in his web.

After a long while, the old man, who was still gazing,--yet not
seeing, his mind having settled into a dreamy abstraction,--
observed, on a sudden, that the boy's eyes were open! wide open
and staring!--staring up in frozen horror at the knife.  The smile
of a gratified devil crept over the old man's face, and he said,
without changing his attitude or his occupation--

"Son of Henry the Eighth, hast thou prayed?"

The boy struggled helplessly in his bonds, and at the same time
forced a smothered sound through his closed jaws, which the hermit
chose to interpret as an affirmative answer to his question.

"Then pray again.  Pray the prayer for the dying!"

A shudder shook the boy's frame, and his face blenched.  Then he
struggled again to free himself--turning and twisting himself this
way and that; tugging frantically, fiercely, desperately--but
uselessly--to burst his fetters; and all the while the old ogre
smiled down upon him, and nodded his head, and placidly whetted
his knife; mumbling, from time to time, "The moments are precious,
they are few and precious--pray the prayer for the dying!"

The boy uttered a despairing groan, and ceased from his struggles,
panting.  The tears came, then, and trickled, one after the other,
down his face; but this piteous sight wrought no softening effect
upon the savage old man.

The dawn was coming now; the hermit observed it, and spoke up
sharply, with a touch of nervous apprehension in his voice--

"I may not indulge this ecstasy longer!  The night is already
gone.  It seems but a moment--only a moment; would it had endured
a year!  Seed of the Church's spoiler, close thy perishing eyes,
an' thou fearest to look upon--"

The rest was lost in inarticulate mutterings.  The old man sank
upon his knees, his knife in his hand, and bent himself over the
moaning boy.

Hark!  There was a sound of voices near the cabin--the knife
dropped from the hermit's hand; he cast a sheepskin over the boy
and started up, trembling.  The sounds increased, and presently
the voices became rough and angry; then came blows, and cries for
help; then a clatter of swift footsteps, retreating.  Immediately
came a succession of thundering knocks upon the cabin door,
followed by--

"Hullo-o-o!  Open!  And despatch, in the name of all the devils!"

Oh, this was the blessedest sound that had ever made music in the
King's ears; for it was Miles Hendon's voice!

The hermit, grinding his teeth in impotent rage, moved swiftly out
of the bedchamber, closing the door behind him; and straightway
the King heard a talk, to this effect, proceeding from the
'chapel':--

"Homage and greeting, reverend sir!  Where is the boy--MY boy?"

"What boy, friend?"

"What boy!  Lie me no lies, sir priest, play me no deceptions!--I
am not in the humour for it.  Near to this place I caught the
scoundrels who I judged did steal him from me, and I made them
confess; they said he was at large again, and they had tracked him
to your door.  They showed me his very footprints.  Now palter no
more; for look you, holy sir, an' thou produce him not--Where is
the boy?"

"O good sir, peradventure you mean the ragged regal vagrant that
tarried here the night.  If such as you take an interest in such
as he, know, then, that I have sent him of an errand.  He will be
back anon."

"How soon?  How soon?  Come, waste not the time--cannot I overtake
him?  How soon will he be back?"

"Thou need'st not stir; he will return quickly."

"So be it, then.  I will try to wait.  But stop!--YOU sent him of
an errand?--you!  Verily this is a lie--he would not go.  He would
pull thy old beard, an' thou didst offer him such an insolence.
Thou hast lied, friend; thou hast surely lied!  He would not go
for thee, nor for any man."

"For any MAN--no; haply not.  But I am not a man."

"WHAT!  Now o' God's name what art thou, then?"

"It is a secret--mark thou reveal it not.  I am an archangel!"

There was a tremendous ejaculation from Miles Hendon--not
altogether unprofane--followed by--

"This doth well and truly account for his complaisance!  Right
well I knew he would budge nor hand nor foot in the menial service
of any mortal; but, lord, even a king must obey when an archangel
gives the word o' command!  Let me--'sh!  What noise was that?"

All this while the little King had been yonder, alternately
quaking with terror and trembling with hope; and all the while,
too, he had thrown all the strength he could into his anguished
moanings, constantly expecting them to reach Hendon's ear, but
always realising, with bitterness, that they failed, or at least
made no impression.  So this last remark of his servant came as
comes a reviving breath from fresh fields to the dying; and he
exerted himself once more, and with all his energy, just as the
hermit was saying--

"Noise?  I heard only the wind."

"Mayhap it was.  Yes, doubtless that was it.  I have been hearing
it faintly all the--there it is again!  It is not the wind!  What
an odd sound!  Come, we will hunt it out!"

Now the King's joy was nearly insupportable.  His tired lungs did
their utmost--and hopefully, too--but the sealed jaws and the
muffling sheepskin sadly crippled the effort.  Then the poor
fellow's heart sank, to hear the hermit say--

"Ah, it came from without--I think from the copse yonder.  Come, I
will lead the way."

The King heard the two pass out, talking; heard their footsteps
die quickly away--then he was alone with a boding, brooding, awful
silence.

It seemed an age till he heard the steps and voices approaching
again--and this time he heard an added sound,--the trampling of
hoofs, apparently.  Then he heard Hendon say--

"I will not wait longer.  I CANNOT wait longer.  He has lost his
way in this thick wood.  Which direction took he?  Quick--point it
out to me."

"He--but wait; I will go with thee."

"Good--good!  Why, truly thou art better than thy looks.  Marry I
do not think there's not another archangel with so right a heart
as thine.  Wilt ride?  Wilt take the wee donkey that's for my boy,
or wilt thou fork thy holy legs over this ill-conditioned slave of
a mule that I have provided for myself?--and had been cheated in
too, had he cost but the indifferent sum of a month's usury on a
brass farthing let to a tinker out of work."

"No--ride thy mule, and lead thine ass; I am surer on mine own
feet, and will walk."

"Then prithee mind the little beast for me while I take my life in
my hands and make what success I may toward mounting the big one."

Then followed a confusion of kicks, cuffs, tramplings and
plungings, accompanied by a thunderous intermingling of volleyed
curses, and finally a bitter apostrophe to the mule, which must
have broken its spirit, for hostilities seemed to cease from that
moment.

With unutterable misery the fettered little King heard the voices
and footsteps fade away and die out.  All hope forsook him, now,
for the moment, and a dull despair settled down upon his heart.
"My only friend is deceived and got rid of," he said; "the hermit
will return and--"  He finished with a gasp; and at once fell to
struggling so frantically with his bonds again, that he shook off
the smothering sheepskin.

And now he heard the door open!  The sound chilled him to the
marrow--already he seemed to feel the knife at his throat.  Horror
made him close his eyes; horror made him open them again--and
before him stood John Canty and Hugo!

He would have said "Thank God!" if his jaws had been free.

A moment or two later his limbs were at liberty, and his captors,
each gripping him by an arm, were hurrying him with all speed
through the forest.



Chapter XXII. A victim of treachery.

Once more 'King Foo-foo the First' was roving with the tramps and
outlaws, a butt for their coarse jests and dull-witted railleries,
and sometimes the victim of small spitefulness at the hands of
Canty and Hugo when the Ruffler's back was turned.  None but Canty
and Hugo really disliked him.  Some of the others liked him, and
all admired his pluck and spirit.  During two or three days, Hugo,
in whose ward and charge the King was, did what he covertly could
to make the boy uncomfortable; and at night, during the customary
orgies, he amused the company by putting small indignities upon
him--always as if by accident.  Twice he stepped upon the King's
toes--accidentally--and the King, as became his royalty, was
contemptuously unconscious of it and indifferent to it; but the
third time Hugo entertained himself in that way, the King felled
him to the ground with a cudgel, to the prodigious delight of the
tribe.  Hugo, consumed with anger and shame, sprang up, seized a
cudgel, and came at his small adversary in a fury.  Instantly a
ring was formed around the gladiators, and the betting and
cheering began.  But poor Hugo stood no chance whatever.  His
frantic and lubberly 'prentice-work found but a poor market for
itself when pitted against an arm which had been trained by the
first masters of Europe in single-stick, quarter-staff, and every
art and trick of swordsmanship.  The little King stood, alert but
at graceful ease, and caught and turned aside the thick rain of
blows with a facility and precision which set the motley on-
lookers wild with admiration; and every now and then, when his
practised eye detected an opening, and a lightning-swift rap upon
Hugo's head followed as a result, the storm of cheers and laughter
that swept the place was something wonderful to hear.  At the end
of fifteen minutes, Hugo, all battered, bruised, and the target
for a pitiless bombardment of ridicule, slunk from the field; and
the unscathed hero of the fight was seized and borne aloft upon
the shoulders of the joyous rabble to the place of honour beside
the Ruffler, where with vast ceremony he was crowned King of the
Game-Cocks; his meaner title being at the same time solemnly
cancelled and annulled, and a decree of banishment from the gang
pronounced against any who should thenceforth utter it.

All attempts to make the King serviceable to the troop had failed.
He had stubbornly refused to act; moreover, he was always trying
to escape.  He had been thrust into an unwatched kitchen, the
first day of his return; he not only came forth empty-handed, but
tried to rouse the housemates.  He was sent out with a tinker to
help him at his work; he would not work; moreover, he threatened
the tinker with his own soldering-iron; and finally both Hugo and
the tinker found their hands full with the mere matter of keeping
his from getting away.  He delivered the thunders of his royalty
upon the heads of all who hampered his liberties or tried to force
him to service.  He was sent out, in Hugo's charge, in company
with a slatternly woman and a diseased baby, to beg; but the
result was not encouraging--he declined to plead for the
mendicants, or be a party to their cause in any way.

Thus several days went by; and the miseries of this tramping life,
and the weariness and sordidness and meanness and vulgarity of it,
became gradually and steadily so intolerable to the captive that
he began at last to feel that his release from the hermit's knife
must prove only a temporary respite from death, at best.

But at night, in his dreams, these things were forgotten, and he
was on his throne, and master again.  This, of course, intensified
the sufferings of the awakening--so the mortifications of each
succeeding morning of the few that passed between his return to
bondage and the combat with Hugo, grew bitterer and bitterer, and
harder and harder to bear.

The morning after that combat, Hugo got up with a heart filled
with vengeful purposes against the King.  He had two plans, in
particular.  One was to inflict upon the lad what would be, to his
proud spirit and 'imagined' royalty, a peculiar humiliation; and
if he failed to accomplish this, his other plan was to put a crime
of some kind upon the King, and then betray him into the
implacable clutches of the law.

In pursuance of the first plan, he purposed to put a 'clime' upon
the King's leg; rightly judging that that would mortify him to the
last and perfect degree; and as soon as the clime should operate,
he meant to get Canty's help, and FORCE the King to expose his leg
in the highway and beg for alms.  'Clime' was the cant term for a
sore, artificially created.  To make a clime, the operator made a
paste or poultice of unslaked lime, soap, and the rust of old
iron, and spread it upon a piece of leather, which was then bound
tightly upon the leg.  This would presently fret off the skin, and
make the flesh raw and angry-looking; blood was then rubbed upon
the limb, which, being fully dried, took on a dark and repulsive
colour.  Then a bandage of soiled rags was put on in a cleverly
careless way which would allow the hideous ulcer to be seen, and
move the compassion of the passer-by. {8}

Hugo got the help of the tinker whom the King had cowed with the
soldering-iron; they took the boy out on a tinkering tramp, and as
soon as they were out of sight of the camp they threw him down and
the tinker held him while Hugo bound the poultice tight and fast
upon his leg.

The King raged and stormed, and promised to hang the two the
moment the sceptre was in his hand again; but they kept a firm
grip upon him and enjoyed his impotent struggling and jeered at
his threats.  This continued until the poultice began to bite; and
in no long time its work would have been perfected, if there had
been no interruption.  But there was; for about this time the
'slave' who had made the speech denouncing England's laws,
appeared on the scene, and put an end to the enterprise, and
stripped off the poultice and bandage.

The King wanted to borrow his deliverer's cudgel and warm the
jackets of the two rascals on the spot; but the man said no, it
would bring trouble--leave the matter till night; the whole tribe
being together, then, the outside world would not venture to
interfere or interrupt.  He marched the party back to camp and
reported the affair to the Ruffler, who listened, pondered, and
then decided that the King should not be again detailed to beg,
since it was plain he was worthy of something higher and better--
wherefore, on the spot he promoted him from the mendicant rank and
appointed him to steal!

Hugo was overjoyed.  He had already tried to make the King steal,
and failed; but there would be no more trouble of that sort, now,
for of course the King would not dream of defying a distinct
command delivered directly from head-quarters.  So he planned a
raid for that very afternoon, purposing to get the King in the
law's grip in the course of it; and to do it, too, with such
ingenious strategy, that it should seem to be accidental and
unintentional; for the King of the Game-Cocks was popular now, and
the gang might not deal over-gently with an unpopular member who
played so serious a treachery upon him as the delivering him over
to the common enemy, the law.

Very well.  All in good time Hugo strolled off to a neighbouring
village with his prey; and the two drifted slowly up and down one
street after another, the one watching sharply for a sure chance
to achieve his evil purpose, and the other watching as sharply for
a chance to dart away and get free of his infamous captivity for
ever.

Both threw away some tolerably fair-looking opportunities; for
both, in their secret hearts, were resolved to make absolutely
sure work this time, and neither meant to allow his fevered
desires to seduce him into any venture that had much uncertainty
about it.

Hugo's chance came first.  For at last a woman approached who
carried a fat package of some sort in a basket.  Hugo's eyes
sparkled with sinful pleasure as he said to himself, "Breath o' my
life, an' I can but put THAT upon him, 'tis good-den and God keep
thee, King of the Game-Cocks!"  He waited and watched--outwardly
patient, but inwardly consuming with excitement--till the woman
had passed by, and the time was ripe; then said, in a low voice--

"Tarry here till I come again," and darted stealthily after the
prey.

The King's heart was filled with joy--he could make his escape,
now, if Hugo's quest only carried him far enough away.

But he was to have no such luck.  Hugo crept behind the woman,
snatched the package, and came running back, wrapping it in an old
piece of blanket which he carried on his arm.  The hue and cry was
raised in a moment, by the woman, who knew her loss by the
lightening of her burden, although she had not seen the pilfering
done.  Hugo thrust the bundle into the King's hands without
halting, saying--

"Now speed ye after me with the rest, and cry 'Stop thief!' but
mind ye lead them astray!"

The next moment Hugo turned a corner and darted down a crooked
alley--and in another moment or two he lounged into view again,
looking innocent and indifferent, and took up a position behind a
post to watch results.

The insulted King threw the bundle on the ground; and the blanket
fell away from it just as the woman arrived, with an augmenting
crowd at her heels; she seized the King's wrist with one hand,
snatched up her bundle with the other, and began to pour out a
tirade of abuse upon the boy while he struggled, without success,
to free himself from her grip.

Hugo had seen enough--his enemy was captured and the law would get
him, now--so he slipped away, jubilant and chuckling, and wended
campwards, framing a judicious version of the matter to give to
the Ruffler's crew as he strode along.

The King continued to struggle in the woman's strong grasp, and
now and then cried out in vexation--

"Unhand me, thou foolish creature; it was not I that bereaved thee
of thy paltry goods."

The crowd closed around, threatening the King and calling him
names; a brawny blacksmith in leather apron, and sleeves rolled to
his elbows, made a reach for him, saying he would trounce him
well, for a lesson; but just then a long sword flashed in the air
and fell with convincing force upon the man's arm, flat side down,
the fantastic owner of it remarking pleasantly, at the same time--

"Marry, good souls, let us proceed gently, not with ill blood and
uncharitable words.  This is matter for the law's consideration,
not private and unofficial handling.  Loose thy hold from the boy,
goodwife."

The blacksmith averaged the stalwart soldier with a glance, then
went muttering away, rubbing his arm; the woman released the boy's
wrist reluctantly; the crowd eyed the stranger unlovingly, but
prudently closed their mouths.  The King sprang to his deliverer's
side, with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, exclaiming--

"Thou hast lagged sorely, but thou comest in good season, now, Sir
Miles; carve me this rabble to rags!"



Chapter XXIII. The Prince a prisoner.

Hendon forced back a smile, and bent down and whispered in the
King's ear--

"Softly, softly, my prince, wag thy tongue warily--nay, suffer it
not to wag at all.  Trust in me--all shall go well in the end."
Then he added to himself:  "SIR Miles!  Bless me, I had totally
forgot I was a knight!  Lord, how marvellous a thing it is, the
grip his memory doth take upon his quaint and crazy fancies! . . .
An empty and foolish title is mine, and yet it is something to
have deserved it; for I think it is more honour to be held worthy
to be a spectre-knight in his Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows, than
to be held base enough to be an earl in some of the REAL kingdoms
of this world."

The crowd fell apart to admit a constable, who approached and was
about to lay his hand upon the King's shoulder, when Hendon said--

"Gently, good friend, withhold your hand--he shall go peaceably; I
am responsible for that.  Lead on, we will follow."

The officer led, with the woman and her bundle; Miles and the King
followed after, with the crowd at their heels.  The King was
inclined to rebel; but Hendon said to him in a low voice--

"Reflect, Sire--your laws are the wholesome breath of your own
royalty; shall their source resist them, yet require the branches
to respect them?  Apparently one of these laws has been broken;
when the King is on his throne again, can it ever grieve him to
remember that when he was seemingly a private person he loyally
sank the king in the citizen and submitted to its authority?"

"Thou art right; say no more; thou shalt see that whatsoever the
King of England requires a subject to suffer, under the law, he
will himself suffer while he holdeth the station of a subject."

When the woman was called upon to testify before the justice of
the peace, she swore that the small prisoner at the bar was the
person who had committed the theft; there was none able to show
the contrary, so the King stood convicted.  The bundle was now
unrolled, and when the contents proved to be a plump little
dressed pig, the judge looked troubled, whilst Hendon turned pale,
and his body was thrilled with an electric shiver of dismay; but
the King remained unmoved, protected by his ignorance.  The judge
meditated, during an ominous pause, then turned to the woman, with
the question--

"What dost thou hold this property to be worth?"

The woman courtesied and replied--

"Three shillings and eightpence, your worship--I could not abate a
penny and set forth the value honestly."

The justice glanced around uncomfortably upon the crowd, then
nodded to the constable, and said--

"Clear the court and close the doors."

It was done.  None remained but the two officials, the accused,
the accuser, and Miles Hendon.  This latter was rigid and
colourless, and on his forehead big drops of cold sweat gathered,
broke and blended together, and trickled down his face.  The judge
turned to the woman again, and said, in a compassionate voice--

"'Tis a poor ignorant lad, and mayhap was driven hard by hunger,
for these be grievous times for the unfortunate; mark you, he hath
not an evil face--but when hunger driveth--Good woman! dost know
that when one steals a thing above the value of thirteenpence
ha'penny the law saith he shall HANG for it?"

The little King started, wide-eyed with consternation, but
controlled himself and held his peace; but not so the woman.  She
sprang to her feet, shaking with fright, and cried out--

"Oh, good lack, what have I done!  God-a-mercy, I would not hang
the poor thing for the whole world!  Ah, save me from this, your
worship--what shall I do, what CAN I do?"

The justice maintained his judicial composure, and simply said--

"Doubtless it is allowable to revise the value, since it is not
yet writ upon the record."

"Then in God's name call the pig eightpence, and heaven bless the
day that freed my conscience of this awesome thing!"

Miles Hendon forgot all decorum in his delight; and surprised the
King and wounded his dignity, by throwing his arms around him and
hugging him.  The woman made her grateful adieux and started away
with her pig; and when the constable opened the door for her, he
followed her out into the narrow hall.  The justice proceeded to
write in his record book.  Hendon, always alert, thought he would
like to know why the officer followed the woman out; so he slipped
softly into the dusky hall and listened.  He heard a conversation
to this effect--

"It is a fat pig, and promises good eating; I will buy it of thee;
here is the eightpence."

"Eightpence, indeed!  Thou'lt do no such thing.  It cost me three
shillings and eightpence, good honest coin of the last reign, that
old Harry that's just dead ne'er touched or tampered with.  A fig
for thy eightpence!"

"Stands the wind in that quarter?  Thou wast under oath, and so
swore falsely when thou saidst the value was but eightpence.  Come
straightway back with me before his worship, and answer for the
crime!--and then the lad will hang."

"There, there, dear heart, say no more, I am content.  Give me the
eightpence, and hold thy peace about the matter."

The woman went off crying:  Hendon slipped back into the court
room, and the constable presently followed, after hiding his prize
in some convenient place.  The justice wrote a while longer, then
read the King a wise and kindly lecture, and sentenced him to a
short imprisonment in the common jail, to be followed by a public
flogging.  The astounded King opened his mouth, and was probably
going to order the good judge to be beheaded on the spot; but he
caught a warning sign from Hendon, and succeeded in closing his
mouth again before he lost anything out of it.  Hendon took him by
the hand, now, made reverence to the justice, and the two departed
in the wake of the constable toward the jail.  The moment the
street was reached, the inflamed monarch halted, snatched away his
hand, and exclaimed--

"Idiot, dost imagine I will enter a common jail ALIVE?"

Hendon bent down and said, somewhat sharply--

"WILL you trust in me?  Peace! and forbear to worsen our chances
with dangerous speech.  What God wills, will happen; thou canst
not hurry it, thou canst not alter it; therefore wait, and be
patient--'twill be time enow to rail or rejoice when what is to
happen has happened." {1}



Chapter XXIV. The escape.

The short winter day was nearly ended.  The streets were deserted,
save for a few random stragglers, and these hurried straight
along, with the intent look of people who were only anxious to
accomplish their errands as quickly as possible, and then snugly
house themselves from the rising wind and the gathering twilight.
They looked neither to the right nor to the left; they paid no
attention to our party, they did not even seem to see them.
Edward the Sixth wondered if the spectacle of a king on his way to
jail had ever encountered such marvellous indifference before.
By-and-by the constable arrived at a deserted market-square, and
proceeded to cross it.  When he had reached the middle of it,
Hendon laid his hand upon his arm, and said in a low voice--

"Bide a moment, good sir, there is none in hearing, and I would
say a word to thee."

"My duty forbids it, sir; prithee hinder me not, the night comes
on."

"Stay, nevertheless, for the matter concerns thee nearly.  Turn
thy back a moment and seem not to see:  LET THIS POOR LAD ESCAPE."

"This to me, sir!  I arrest thee in--"

"Nay, be not too hasty.  See thou be careful and commit no foolish
error"--then he shut his voice down to a whisper, and said in the
man's ear--"the pig thou hast purchased for eightpence may cost
thee thy neck, man!"

The poor constable, taken by surprise, was speechless, at first,
then found his tongue and fell to blustering and threatening; but
Hendon was tranquil, and waited with patience till his breath was
spent; then said--

"I have a liking to thee, friend, and would not willingly see thee
come to harm.  Observe, I heard it all--every word.  I will prove
it to thee."  Then he repeated the conversation which the officer
and the woman had had together in the hall, word for word, and
ended with--

"There--have I set it forth correctly?  Should not I be able to
set it forth correctly before the judge, if occasion required?"

The man was dumb with fear and distress, for a moment; then he
rallied, and said with forced lightness--

"'Tis making a mighty matter, indeed, out of a jest; I but plagued
the woman for mine amusement."

"Kept you the woman's pig for amusement?"

The man answered sharply--

"Nought else, good sir--I tell thee 'twas but a jest."

"I do begin to believe thee," said Hendon, with a perplexing
mixture of mockery and half-conviction in his tone; "but tarry
thou here a moment whilst I run and ask his worship--for nathless,
he being a man experienced in law, in jests, in--"

He was moving away, still talking; the constable hesitated,
fidgeted, spat out an oath or two, then cried out--

"Hold, hold, good sir--prithee wait a little--the judge!  Why,
man, he hath no more sympathy with a jest than hath a dead
corpse!--come, and we will speak further.  Ods body!  I seem to be
in evil case--and all for an innocent and thoughtless pleasantry.
I am a man of family; and my wife and little ones--  List to
reason, good your worship:  what wouldst thou of me?"

"Only that thou be blind and dumb and paralytic whilst one may
count a hundred thousand--counting slowly," said Hendon, with the
expression of a man who asks but a reasonable favour, and that a
very little one.

"It is my destruction!" said the constable despairingly.  "Ah, be
reasonable, good sir; only look at this matter, on all its sides,
and see how mere a jest it is--how manifestly and how plainly it
is so.  And even if one granted it were not a jest, it is a fault
so small that e'en the grimmest penalty it could call forth would
be but a rebuke and warning from the judge's lips."

Hendon replied with a solemnity which chilled the air about him--

"This jest of thine hath a name, in law,--wot you what it is?"

"I knew it not!  Peradventure I have been unwise.  I never dreamed
it had a name--ah, sweet heaven, I thought it was original."

"Yes, it hath a name.  In the law this crime is called Non compos
mentis lex talionis sic transit gloria mundi."

"Ah, my God!"

"And the penalty is death!"

"God be merciful to me a sinner!"

"By advantage taken of one in fault, in dire peril, and at thy
mercy, thou hast seized goods worth above thirteenpence ha'penny,
paying but a trifle for the same; and this, in the eye of the law,
is constructive barratry, misprision of treason, malfeasance in
office, ad hominem expurgatis in statu quo--and the penalty is
death by the halter, without ransom, commutation, or benefit of
clergy."

"Bear me up, bear me up, sweet sir, my legs do fail me!  Be thou
merciful--spare me this doom, and I will turn my back and see
nought that shall happen."

"Good! now thou'rt wise and reasonable.  And thou'lt restore the
pig?"

"I will, I will indeed--nor ever touch another, though heaven send
it and an archangel fetch it.  Go--I am blind for thy sake--I see
nothing.  I will say thou didst break in and wrest the prisoner
from my hands by force.  It is but a crazy, ancient door--I will
batter it down myself betwixt midnight and the morning."

"Do it, good soul, no harm will come of it; the judge hath a
loving charity for this poor lad, and will shed no tears and break
no jailer's bones for his escape."



Chapter XXV. Hendon Hall.

As soon as Hendon and the King were out of sight of the constable,
his Majesty was instructed to hurry to a certain place outside the
town, and wait there, whilst Hendon should go to the inn and
settle his account.  Half an hour later the two friends were
blithely jogging eastward on Hendon's sorry steeds.  The King was
warm and comfortable, now, for he had cast his rags and clothed
himself in the second-hand suit which Hendon had bought on London
Bridge.

Hendon wished to guard against over-fatiguing the boy; he judged
that hard journeys, irregular meals, and illiberal measures of
sleep would be bad for his crazed mind; whilst rest, regularity,
and moderate exercise would be pretty sure to hasten its cure; he
longed to see the stricken intellect made well again and its
diseased visions driven out of the tormented little head;
therefore he resolved to move by easy stages toward the home
whence he had so long been banished, instead of obeying the
impulse of his impatience and hurrying along night and day.

When he and the King had journeyed about ten miles, they reached a
considerable village, and halted there for the night, at a good
inn.  The former relations were resumed; Hendon stood behind the
King's chair, while he dined, and waited upon him; undressed him
when he was ready for bed; then took the floor for his own
quarters, and slept athwart the door, rolled up in a blanket.

The next day, and the day after, they jogged lazily along talking
over the adventures they had met since their separation, and
mightily enjoying each other's narratives.  Hendon detailed all
his wide wanderings in search of the King, and described how the
archangel had led him a fool's journey all over the forest, and
taken him back to the hut, finally, when he found he could not get
rid of him.  Then--he said--the old man went into the bedchamber
and came staggering back looking broken-hearted, and saying he had
expected to find that the boy had returned and laid down in there
to rest, but it was not so.  Hendon had waited at the hut all day;
hope of the King's return died out, then, and he departed upon the
quest again.

"And old Sanctum Sanctorum WAS truly sorry your highness came not
back," said Hendon; "I saw it in his face."

"Marry I will never doubt THAT!" said the King--and then told his
own story; after which, Hendon was sorry he had not destroyed the
archangel.

During the last day of the trip, Hendon's spirits were soaring.
His tongue ran constantly.  He talked about his old father, and
his brother Arthur, and told of many things which illustrated
their high and generous characters; he went into loving frenzies
over his Edith, and was so glad-hearted that he was even able to
say some gentle and brotherly things about Hugh.  He dwelt a deal
on the coming meeting at Hendon Hall; what a surprise it would be
to everybody, and what an outburst of thanksgiving and delight
there would be.

It was a fair region, dotted with cottages and orchards, and the
road led through broad pasture lands whose receding expanses,
marked with gentle elevations and depressions, suggested the
swelling and subsiding undulations of the sea.  In the afternoon
the returning prodigal made constant deflections from his course
to see if by ascending some hillock he might not pierce the
distance and catch a glimpse of his home.  At last he was
successful, and cried out excitedly--

"There is the village, my Prince, and there is the Hall close by!
You may see the towers from here; and that wood there--that is my
father's park.  Ah, NOW thou'lt know what state and grandeur be!
A house with seventy rooms--think of that!--and seven and twenty
servants!  A brave lodging for such as we, is it not so?  Come,
let us speed--my impatience will not brook further delay."

All possible hurry was made; still, it was after three o'clock
before the village was reached.  The travellers scampered through
it, Hendon's tongue going all the time.  "Here is the church--
covered with the same ivy--none gone, none added."  "Yonder is the
inn, the old Red Lion,--and yonder is the market-place."  "Here is
the Maypole, and here the pump--nothing is altered; nothing but
the people, at any rate; ten years make a change in people; some
of these I seem to know, but none know me."  So his chat ran on.
The end of the village was soon reached; then the travellers
struck into a crooked, narrow road, walled in with tall hedges,
and hurried briskly along it for half a mile, then passed into a
vast flower garden through an imposing gateway, whose huge stone
pillars bore sculptured armorial devices.  A noble mansion was
before them.

"Welcome to Hendon Hall, my King!" exclaimed Miles.  "Ah, 'tis a
great day!  My father and my brother, and the Lady Edith will be
so mad with joy that they will have eyes and tongue for none but
me in the first transports of the meeting, and so thou'lt seem but
coldly welcomed--but mind it not; 'twill soon seem otherwise; for
when I say thou art my ward, and tell them how costly is my love
for thee, thou'lt see them take thee to their breasts for Miles
Hendon's sake, and make their house and hearts thy home for ever
after!"

The next moment Hendon sprang to the ground before the great door,
helped the King down, then took him by the hand and rushed within.
A few steps brought him to a spacious apartment; he entered,
seated the King with more hurry than ceremony, then ran toward a
young man who sat at a writing-table in front of a generous fire
of logs.

"Embrace me, Hugh," he cried, "and say thou'rt glad I am come
again! and call our father, for home is not home till I shall
touch his hand, and see his face, and hear his voice once more!"

But Hugh only drew back, after betraying a momentary surprise, and
bent a grave stare upon the intruder--a stare which indicated
somewhat of offended dignity, at first, then changed, in response
to some inward thought or purpose, to an expression of marvelling
curiosity, mixed with a real or assumed compassion.  Presently he
said, in a mild voice--

"Thy wits seem touched, poor stranger; doubtless thou hast
suffered privations and rude buffetings at the world's hands; thy
looks and dress betoken it.  Whom dost thou take me to be?"

"Take thee?  Prithee for whom else than whom thou art?  I take
thee to be Hugh Hendon," said Miles, sharply.

The other continued, in the same soft tone--

"And whom dost thou imagine thyself to be?"

"Imagination hath nought to do with it!  Dost thou pretend thou
knowest me not for thy brother Miles Hendon?"

An expression of pleased surprise flitted across Hugh's face, and
he exclaimed--

"What! thou art not jesting? can the dead come to life?  God be
praised if it be so!  Our poor lost boy restored to our arms after
all these cruel years!  Ah, it seems too good to be true, it IS
too good to be true--I charge thee, have pity, do not trifle with
me!  Quick--come to the light--let me scan thee well!"

He seized Miles by the arm, dragged him to the window, and began
to devour him from head to foot with his eyes, turning him this
way and that, and stepping briskly around him and about him to
prove him from all points of view; whilst the returned prodigal,
all aglow with gladness, smiled, laughed, and kept nodding his
head and saying--

"Go on, brother, go on, and fear not; thou'lt find nor limb nor
feature that cannot bide the test.  Scour and scan me to thy
content, my good old Hugh--I am indeed thy old Miles, thy same old
Miles, thy lost brother, is't not so?  Ah, 'tis a great day--I
SAID 'twas a great day!  Give me thy hand, give me thy cheek--
lord, I am like to die of very joy!"

He was about to throw himself upon his brother; but Hugh put up
his hand in dissent, then dropped his chin mournfully upon his
breast, saying with emotion--

"Ah, God of his mercy give me strength to bear this grievous
disappointment!"

Miles, amazed, could not speak for a moment; then he found his
tongue, and cried out--

"WHAT disappointment?  Am I not thy brother?"

Hugh shook his head sadly, and said--

"I pray heaven it may prove so, and that other eyes may find the
resemblances that are hid from mine.  Alack, I fear me the letter
spoke but too truly."

"What letter?"

"One that came from over sea, some six or seven years ago.  It
said my brother died in battle."

"It was a lie!  Call thy father--he will know me."

"One may not call the dead."

"Dead?" Miles's voice was subdued, and his lips trembled.  "My
father dead!--oh, this is heavy news.  Half my new joy is withered
now.  Prithee let me see my brother Arthur--he will know me; he
will know me and console me."

"He, also, is dead."

"God be merciful to me, a stricken man!  Gone,--both gone--the
worthy taken and the worthless spared, in me!  Ah! I crave your
mercy!--do not say the Lady Edith--"

"Is dead?  No, she lives."

"Then, God be praised, my joy is whole again!  Speed thee,
brother--let her come to me!  An' SHE say I am not myself--but she
will not; no, no, SHE will know me, I were a fool to doubt it.
Bring her--bring the old servants; they, too, will know me."

"All are gone but five--Peter, Halsey, David, Bernard, and
Margaret."

So saying, Hugh left the room.  Miles stood musing a while, then
began to walk the floor, muttering--

"The five arch-villains have survived the two-and-twenty leal and
honest--'tis an odd thing."

He continued walking back and forth, muttering to himself; he had
forgotten the King entirely.  By-and-by his Majesty said gravely,
and with a touch of genuine compassion, though the words
themselves were capable of being interpreted ironically--

"Mind not thy mischance, good man; there be others in the world
whose identity is denied, and whose claims are derided.  Thou hast
company."

"Ah, my King," cried Hendon, colouring slightly, "do not thou
condemn me--wait, and thou shalt see.  I am no impostor--she will
say it; you shall hear it from the sweetest lips in England.  I an
impostor?  Why, I know this old hall, these pictures of my
ancestors, and all these things that are about us, as a child
knoweth its own nursery.  Here was I born and bred, my lord; I
speak the truth; I would not deceive thee; and should none else
believe, I pray thee do not THOU doubt me--I could not bear it."

"I do not doubt thee," said the King, with a childlike simplicity
and faith.

"I thank thee out of my heart!" exclaimed Hendon with a fervency
which showed that he was touched.  The King added, with the same
gentle simplicity--

"Dost thou doubt ME?"

A guilty confusion seized upon Hendon, and he was grateful that
the door opened to admit Hugh, at that moment, and saved him the
necessity of replying.

A beautiful lady, richly clothed, followed Hugh, and after her
came several liveried servants.  The lady walked slowly, with her
head bowed and her eyes fixed upon the floor.  The face was
unspeakably sad.  Miles Hendon sprang forward, crying out--

"Oh, my Edith, my darling--"

But Hugh waved him back, gravely, and said to the lady--

"Look upon him.  Do you know him?"

At the sound of Miles's voice the woman had started slightly, and
her cheeks had flushed; she was trembling now.  She stood still,
during an impressive pause of several moments; then slowly lifted
up her head and looked into Hendon's eyes with a stony and
frightened gaze; the blood sank out of her face, drop by drop,
till nothing remained but the grey pallor of death; then she said,
in a voice as dead as the face, "I know him not!" and turned, with
a moan and a stifled sob, and tottered out of the room.

Miles Hendon sank into a chair and covered his face with his
hands.  After a pause, his brother said to the servants--

"You have observed him.  Do you know him?"

They shook their heads; then the master said--

"The servants know you not, sir.  I fear there is some mistake.
You have seen that my wife knew you not."

"Thy WIFE!"  In an instant Hugh was pinned to the wall, with an
iron grip about his throat.  "Oh, thou fox-hearted slave, I see it
all!  Thou'st writ the lying letter thyself, and my stolen bride
and goods are its fruit.  There--now get thee gone, lest I shame
mine honourable soldiership with the slaying of so pitiful a
mannikin!"

Hugh, red-faced, and almost suffocated, reeled to the nearest
chair, and commanded the servants to seize and bind the murderous
stranger.  They hesitated, and one of them said--

"He is armed, Sir Hugh, and we are weaponless."

"Armed!  What of it, and ye so many?  Upon him, I say!"

But Miles warned them to be careful what they did, and added--

"Ye know me of old--I have not changed; come on, an' it like you."

This reminder did not hearten the servants much; they still held
back.

"Then go, ye paltry cowards, and arm yourselves and guard the
doors, whilst I send one to fetch the watch!" said Hugh.  He
turned at the threshold, and said to Miles, "You'll find it to
your advantage to offend not with useless endeavours at escape."

"Escape?  Spare thyself discomfort, an' that is all that troubles
thee.  For Miles Hendon is master of Hendon Hall and all its
belongings.  He will remain--doubt it not."



Chapter XXVI. Disowned.

The King sat musing a few moments, then looked up and said--

"'Tis strange--most strange.  I cannot account for it."

"No, it is not strange, my liege.  I know him, and this conduct is
but natural.  He was a rascal from his birth."

"Oh, I spake not of HIM, Sir Miles."

"Not of him?  Then of what?  What is it that is strange?"

"That the King is not missed."

"How?  Which?  I doubt I do not understand."

"Indeed?  Doth it not strike you as being passing strange that the
land is not filled with couriers and proclamations describing my
person and making search for me?  Is it no matter for commotion
and distress that the Head of the State is gone; that I am
vanished away and lost?"

"Most true, my King, I had forgot."  Then Hendon sighed, and
muttered to himself, "Poor ruined mind--still busy with its
pathetic dream."

"But I have a plan that shall right us both--I will write a paper,
in three tongues--Latin, Greek and English--and thou shalt haste
away with it to London in the morning.  Give it to none but my
uncle, the Lord Hertford; when he shall see it, he will know and
say I wrote it.  Then he will send for me."

"Might it not be best, my Prince, that we wait here until I prove
myself and make my rights secure to my domains?  I should be so
much the better able then to--"

The King interrupted him imperiously--

"Peace!  What are thy paltry domains, thy trivial interests,
contrasted with matters which concern the weal of a nation and the
integrity of a throne?"  Then, he added, in a gentle voice, as if
he were sorry for his severity, "Obey, and have no fear; I will
right thee, I will make thee whole--yes, more than whole.  I shall
remember, and requite."

So saying, he took the pen, and set himself to work.  Hendon
contemplated him lovingly a while, then said to himself--

"An' it were dark, I should think it WAS a king that spoke;
there's no denying it, when the humour's upon on him he doth
thunder and lighten like your true King; now where got he that
trick?  See him scribble and scratch away contentedly at his
meaningless pot-hooks, fancying them to be Latin and Greek--and
except my wit shall serve me with a lucky device for diverting him
from his purpose, I shall be forced to pretend to post away to-
morrow on this wild errand he hath invented for me."

The next moment Sir Miles's thoughts had gone back to the recent
episode.  So absorbed was he in his musings, that when the King
presently handed him the paper which he had been writing, he
received it and pocketed it without being conscious of the act.
"How marvellous strange she acted," he muttered.  "I think she
knew me--and I think she did NOT know me.  These opinions do
conflict, I perceive it plainly; I cannot reconcile them, neither
can I, by argument, dismiss either of the two, or even persuade
one to outweigh the other.  The matter standeth simply thus:  she
MUST have known my face, my figure, my voice, for how could it be
otherwise?  Yet she SAID she knew me not, and that is proof
perfect, for she cannot lie.  But stop--I think I begin to see.
Peradventure he hath influenced her, commanded her, compelled her
to lie.  That is the solution.  The riddle is unriddled.  She
seemed dead with fear--yes, she was under his compulsion.  I will
seek her; I will find her; now that he is away, she will speak her
true mind.  She will remember the old times when we were little
playfellows together, and this will soften her heart, and she will
no more betray me, but will confess me.  There is no treacherous
blood in her--no, she was always honest and true.  She has loved
me, in those old days--this is my security; for whom one has
loved, one cannot betray."

He stepped eagerly toward the door; at that moment it opened, and
the Lady Edith entered.  She was very pale, but she walked with a
firm step, and her carriage was full of grace and gentle dignity.
Her face was as sad as before.

Miles sprang forward, with a happy confidence, to meet her, but
she checked him with a hardly perceptible gesture, and he stopped
where he was.  She seated herself, and asked him to do likewise.
Thus simply did she take the sense of old comradeship out of him,
and transform him into a stranger and a guest.  The surprise of
it, the bewildering unexpectedness of it, made him begin to
question, for a moment, if he WAS the person he was pretending to
be, after all.  The Lady Edith said--

"Sir, I have come to warn you.  The mad cannot be persuaded out of
their delusions, perchance; but doubtless they may be persuaded to
avoid perils.  I think this dream of yours hath the seeming of
honest truth to you, and therefore is not criminal--but do not
tarry here with it; for here it is dangerous."  She looked
steadily into Miles's face a moment, then added, impressively, "It
is the more dangerous for that you ARE much like what our lost lad
must have grown to be if he had lived."

"Heavens, madam, but I AM he!"

"I truly think you think it, sir.  I question not your honesty in
that; I but warn you, that is all.  My husband is master in this
region; his power hath hardly any limit; the people prosper or
starve, as he wills.  If you resembled not the man whom you
profess to be, my husband might bid you pleasure yourself with
your dream in peace; but trust me, I know him well; I know what he
will do; he will say to all that you are but a mad impostor, and
straightway all will echo him."  She bent upon Miles that same
steady look once more, and added:  "If you WERE Miles Hendon, and
he knew it and all the region knew it--consider what I am saying,
weigh it well--you would stand in the same peril, your punishment
would be no less sure; he would deny you and denounce you, and
none would be bold enough to give you countenance."

"Most truly I believe it," said Miles, bitterly.  "The power that
can command one life-long friend to betray and disown another, and
be obeyed, may well look to be obeyed in quarters where bread and
life are on the stake and no cobweb ties of loyalty and honour are
concerned."

A faint tinge appeared for a moment in the lady's cheek, and she
dropped her eyes to the floor; but her voice betrayed no emotion
when she proceeded--

"I have warned you--I must still warn you--to go hence.  This man
will destroy you, else.  He is a tyrant who knows no pity.  I, who
am his fettered slave, know this.  Poor Miles, and Arthur, and my
dear guardian, Sir Richard, are free of him, and at rest:  better
that you were with them than that you bide here in the clutches of
this miscreant.  Your pretensions are a menace to his title and
possessions; you have assaulted him in his own house:  you are
ruined if you stay.  Go--do not hesitate.  If you lack money, take
this purse, I beg of you, and bribe the servants to let you pass.
Oh, be warned, poor soul, and escape while you may."

Miles declined the purse with a gesture, and rose up and stood
before her.

"Grant me one thing," he said.  "Let your eyes rest upon mine, so
that I may see if they be steady.  There--now answer me.  Am I
Miles Hendon?"

"No.  I know you not."

"Swear it!"

The answer was low, but distinct--

"I swear."

"Oh, this passes belief!"

"Fly!  Why will you waste the precious time?  Fly, and save
yourself."

At that moment the officers burst into the room, and a violent
struggle began; but Hendon was soon overpowered and dragged away.
The King was taken also, and both were bound and led to prison.



Chapter XXVII. In prison.

The cells were all crowded; so the two friends were chained in a
large room where persons charged with trifling offences were
commonly kept.  They had company, for there were some twenty
manacled and fettered prisoners here, of both sexes and of varying
ages,--an obscene and noisy gang.  The King chafed bitterly over
the stupendous indignity thus put upon his royalty, but Hendon was
moody and taciturn.  He was pretty thoroughly bewildered; he had
come home, a jubilant prodigal, expecting to find everybody wild
with joy over his return; and instead had got the cold shoulder
and a jail.  The promise and the fulfilment differed so widely
that the effect was stunning; he could not decide whether it was
most tragic or most grotesque.  He felt much as a man might who
had danced blithely out to enjoy a rainbow, and got struck by
lightning.

But gradually his confused and tormenting thoughts settled down
into some sort of order, and then his mind centred itself upon
Edith.  He turned her conduct over, and examined it in all lights,
but he could not make anything satisfactory out of it.  Did she
know him--or didn't she know him?  It was a perplexing puzzle, and
occupied him a long time; but he ended, finally, with the
conviction that she did know him, and had repudiated him for
interested reasons.  He wanted to load her name with curses now;
but this name had so long been sacred to him that he found he
could not bring his tongue to profane it.

Wrapped in prison blankets of a soiled and tattered condition,
Hendon and the King passed a troubled night.  For a bribe the
jailer had furnished liquor to some of the prisoners; singing of
ribald songs, fighting, shouting, and carousing was the natural
consequence.  At last, a while after midnight, a man attacked a
woman and nearly killed her by beating her over the head with his
manacles before the jailer could come to the rescue.  The jailer
restored peace by giving the man a sound clubbing about the head
and shoulders--then the carousing ceased; and after that, all had
an opportunity to sleep who did not mind the annoyance of the
moanings and groanings of the two wounded people.

During the ensuing week, the days and nights were of a monotonous
sameness as to events; men whose faces Hendon remembered more or
less distinctly, came, by day, to gaze at the 'impostor' and
repudiate and insult him; and by night the carousing and brawling
went on with symmetrical regularity.  However, there was a change
of incident at last.  The jailer brought in an old man, and said
to him--

"The villain is in this room--cast thy old eyes about and see if
thou canst say which is he."

Hendon glanced up, and experienced a pleasant sensation for the
first time since he had been in the jail.  He said to himself,
"This is Blake Andrews, a servant all his life in my father's
family--a good honest soul, with a right heart in his breast.
That is, formerly.  But none are true now; all are liars.  This
man will know me--and will deny me, too, like the rest."

The old man gazed around the room, glanced at each face in turn,
and finally said--

"I see none here but paltry knaves, scum o' the streets.  Which is
he?"

The jailer laughed.

"Here," he said; "scan this big animal, and grant me an opinion."

The old man approached, and looked Hendon over, long and
earnestly, then shook his head and said--

"Marry, THIS is no Hendon--nor ever was!"

"Right!  Thy old eyes are sound yet.  An' I were Sir Hugh, I would
take the shabby carle and--"

The jailer finished by lifting himself a-tip-toe with an imaginary
halter, at the same time making a gurgling noise in his throat
suggestive of suffocation.  The old man said, vindictively--

"Let him bless God an' he fare no worse.  An' _I_ had the handling
o' the villain he should roast, or I am no true man!"

The jailer laughed a pleasant hyena laugh, and said--

"Give him a piece of thy mind, old man--they all do it.  Thou'lt
find it good diversion."

Then he sauntered toward his ante-room and disappeared.  The old
man dropped upon his knees and whispered--

"God be thanked, thou'rt come again, my master!  I believed thou
wert dead these seven years, and lo, here thou art alive!  I knew
thee the moment I saw thee; and main hard work it was to keep a
stony countenance and seem to see none here but tuppenny knaves
and rubbish o' the streets.  I am old and poor, Sir Miles; but say
the word and I will go forth and proclaim the truth though I be
strangled for it."

"No," said Hendon; "thou shalt not.  It would ruin thee, and yet
help but little in my cause.  But I thank thee, for thou hast
given me back somewhat of my lost faith in my kind."

The old servant became very valuable to Hendon and the King; for
he dropped in several times a day to 'abuse' the former, and
always smuggled in a few delicacies to help out the prison bill of
fare; he also furnished the current news.  Hendon reserved the
dainties for the King; without them his Majesty might not have
survived, for he was not able to eat the coarse and wretched food
provided by the jailer.  Andrews was obliged to confine himself to
brief visits, in order to avoid suspicion; but he managed to
impart a fair degree of information each time--information
delivered in a low voice, for Hendon's benefit, and interlarded
with insulting epithets delivered in a louder voice for the
benefit of other hearers.

So, little by little, the story of the family came out.  Arthur
had been dead six years.  This loss, with the absence of news from
Hendon, impaired the father's health; he believed he was going to
die, and he wished to see Hugh and Edith settled in life before he
passed away; but Edith begged hard for delay, hoping for Miles's
return; then the letter came which brought the news of Miles's
death; the shock prostrated Sir Richard; he believed his end was
very near, and he and Hugh insisted upon the marriage; Edith
begged for and obtained a month's respite, then another, and
finally a third; the marriage then took place by the death-bed of
Sir Richard.  It had not proved a happy one.  It was whispered
about the country that shortly after the nuptials the bride found
among her husband's papers several rough and incomplete drafts of
the fatal letter, and had accused him of precipitating the
marriage--and Sir Richard's death, too--by a wicked forgery.
Tales of cruelty to the Lady Edith and the servants were to be
heard on all hands; and since the father's death Sir Hugh had
thrown off all soft disguises and become a pitiless master toward
all who in any way depended upon him and his domains for bread.

There was a bit of Andrew's gossip which the King listened to with
a lively interest--

"There is rumour that the King is mad.  But in charity forbear to
say _I_ mentioned it, for 'tis death to speak of it, they say."

His Majesty glared at the old man and said--

"The King is NOT mad, good man--and thou'lt find it to thy
advantage to busy thyself with matters that nearer concern thee
than this seditious prattle."

"What doth the lad mean?" said Andrews, surprised at this brisk
assault from such an unexpected quarter.  Hendon gave him a sign,
and he did not pursue his question, but went on with his budget--

"The late King is to be buried at Windsor in a day or two--the
16th of the month--and the new King will be crowned at Westminster
the 20th."

"Methinks they must needs find him first," muttered his Majesty;
then added, confidently, "but they will look to that--and so also
shall I."

"In the name of--"

But the old man got no further--a warning sign from Hendon checked
his remark.  He resumed the thread of his gossip--

"Sir Hugh goeth to the coronation--and with grand hopes.  He
confidently looketh to come back a peer, for he is high in favour
with the Lord Protector."

"What Lord Protector?" asked his Majesty.

"His Grace the Duke of Somerset."

"What Duke of Somerset?"

"Marry, there is but one--Seymour, Earl of Hertford."

The King asked sharply--

"Since when is HE a duke, and Lord Protector?"

"Since the last day of January."

"And prithee who made him so?"

"Himself and the Great Council--with help of the King."

His Majesty started violently.  "The KING!" he cried.  "WHAT king,
good sir?"

"What king, indeed! (God-a-mercy, what aileth the boy?)  Sith we
have but one, 'tis not difficult to answer--his most sacred
Majesty King Edward the Sixth--whom God preserve!  Yea, and a dear
and gracious little urchin is he, too; and whether he be mad or
no--and they say he mendeth daily--his praises are on all men's
lips; and all bless him, likewise, and offer prayers that he may
be spared to reign long in England; for he began humanely with
saving the old Duke of Norfolk's life, and now is he bent on
destroying the cruellest of the laws that harry and oppress the
people."

This news struck his Majesty dumb with amazement, and plunged him
into so deep and dismal a reverie that he heard no more of the old
man's gossip.  He wondered if the 'little urchin' was the beggar-
boy whom he left dressed in his own garments in the palace.  It
did not seem possible that this could be, for surely his manners
and speech would betray him if he pretended to be the Prince of
Wales--then he would be driven out, and search made for the true
prince.  Could it be that the Court had set up some sprig of the
nobility in his place?  No, for his uncle would not allow that--he
was all-powerful and could and would crush such a movement, of
course.  The boy's musings profited him nothing; the more he tried
to unriddle the mystery the more perplexed he became, the more his
head ached, and the worse he slept.  His impatience to get to
London grew hourly, and his captivity became almost unendurable.

Hendon's arts all failed with the King--he could not be comforted;
but a couple of women who were chained near him succeeded better.
Under their gentle ministrations he found peace and learned a
degree of patience.  He was very grateful, and came to love them
dearly and to delight in the sweet and soothing influence of their
presence.  He asked them why they were in prison, and when they
said they were Baptists, he smiled, and inquired--

"Is that a crime to be shut up for in a prison?  Now I grieve, for
I shall lose ye--they will not keep ye long for such a little
thing."

They did not answer; and something in their faces made him uneasy.
He said, eagerly--

"You do not speak; be good to me, and tell me--there will be no
other punishment?  Prithee tell me there is no fear of that."

They tried to change the topic, but his fears were aroused, and he
pursued it--

"Will they scourge thee?  No, no, they would not be so cruel!  Say
they would not.  Come, they WILL not, will they?"

The women betrayed confusion and distress, but there was no
avoiding an answer, so one of them said, in a voice choked with
emotion--

"Oh, thou'lt break our hearts, thou gentle spirit!--God will help
us to bear our--"

"It is a confession!" the King broke in.  "Then they WILL scourge
thee, the stony-hearted wretches!  But oh, thou must not weep, I
cannot bear it.  Keep up thy courage--I shall come to my own in
time to save thee from this bitter thing, and I will do it!"

When the King awoke in the morning, the women were gone.

"They are saved!" he said, joyfully; then added, despondently,
"but woe is me!--for they were my comforters."

Each of them had left a shred of ribbon pinned to his clothing, in
token of remembrance.  He said he would keep these things always;
and that soon he would seek out these dear good friends of his and
take them under his protection.

Just then the jailer came in with some subordinates, and commanded
that the prisoners be conducted to the jail-yard.  The King was
overjoyed--it would be a blessed thing to see the blue sky and
breathe the fresh air once more.  He fretted and chafed at the
slowness of the officers, but his turn came at last, and he was
released from his staple and ordered to follow the other prisoners
with Hendon.

The court or quadrangle was stone-paved, and open to the sky.  The
prisoners entered it through a massive archway of masonry, and
were placed in file, standing, with their backs against the wall.
A rope was stretched in front of them, and they were also guarded
by their officers.  It was a chill and lowering morning, and a
light snow which had fallen during the night whitened the great
empty space and added to the general dismalness of its aspect.
Now and then a wintry wind shivered through the place and sent the
snow eddying hither and thither.

In the centre of the court stood two women, chained to posts.  A
glance showed the King that these were his good friends.  He
shuddered, and said to himself, "Alack, they are not gone free, as
I had thought.  To think that such as these should know the lash!-
-in England!  Ay, there's the shame of it--not in Heathennesse,
Christian England!  They will be scourged; and I, whom they have
comforted and kindly entreated, must look on and see the great
wrong done; it is strange, so strange, that I, the very source of
power in this broad realm, am helpless to protect them.  But let
these miscreants look well to themselves, for there is a day
coming when I will require of them a heavy reckoning for this
work.  For every blow they strike now, they shall feel a hundred
then."

A great gate swung open, and a crowd of citizens poured in.  They
flocked around the two women, and hid them from the King's view.
A clergyman entered and passed through the crowd, and he also was
hidden.  The King now heard talking, back and forth, as if
questions were being asked and answered, but he could not make out
what was said.  Next there was a deal of bustle and preparation,
and much passing and repassing of officials through that part of
the crowd that stood on the further side of the women; and whilst
this proceeded a deep hush gradually fell upon the people.

Now, by command, the masses parted and fell aside, and the King
saw a spectacle that froze the marrow in his bones.  Faggots had
been piled about the two women, and a kneeling man was lighting
them!

The women bowed their heads, and covered their faces with their
hands; the yellow flames began to climb upward among the snapping
and crackling faggots, and wreaths of blue smoke to stream away on
the wind; the clergyman lifted his hands and began a prayer--just
then two young girls came flying through the great gate, uttering
piercing screams, and threw themselves upon the women at the
stake.  Instantly they were torn away by the officers, and one of
them was kept in a tight grip, but the other broke loose, saying
she would die with her mother; and before she could be stopped she
had flung her arms about her mother's neck again.  She was torn
away once more, and with her gown on fire.  Two or three men held
her, and the burning portion of her gown was snatched off and
thrown flaming aside, she struggling all the while to free
herself, and saying she would be alone in the world, now; and
begging to be allowed to die with her mother.  Both the girls
screamed continually, and fought for freedom; but suddenly this
tumult was drowned under a volley of heart-piercing shrieks of
mortal agony--the King glanced from the frantic girls to the
stake, then turned away and leaned his ashen face against the
wall, and looked no more.  He said, "That which I have seen, in
that one little moment, will never go out from my memory, but will
abide there; and I shall see it all the days, and dream of it all
the nights, till I die.  Would God I had been blind!"

Hendon was watching the King.  He said to himself, with
satisfaction, "His disorder mendeth; he hath changed, and groweth
gentler.  If he had followed his wont, he would have stormed at
these varlets, and said he was King, and commanded that the women
be turned loose unscathed.  Soon his delusion will pass away and
be forgotten, and his poor mind will be whole again.  God speed
the day!"

That same day several prisoners were brought in to remain over
night, who were being conveyed, under guard, to various places in
the kingdom, to undergo punishment for crimes committed.  The King
conversed with these--he had made it a point, from the beginning,
to instruct himself for the kingly office by questioning prisoners
whenever the opportunity offered--and the tale of their woes wrung
his heart.  One of them was a poor half-witted woman who had
stolen a yard or two of cloth from a weaver--she was to be hanged
for it.  Another was a man who had been accused of stealing a
horse; he said the proof had failed, and he had imagined that he
was safe from the halter; but no--he was hardly free before he was
arraigned for killing a deer in the King's park; this was proved
against him, and now he was on his way to the gallows.  There was
a tradesman's apprentice whose case particularly distressed the
King; this youth said he found a hawk, one evening, that had
escaped from its owner, and he took it home with him, imagining
himself entitled to it; but the court convicted him of stealing
it, and sentenced him to death.

The King was furious over these inhumanities, and wanted Hendon to
break jail and fly with him to Westminster, so that he could mount
his throne and hold out his sceptre in mercy over these
unfortunate people and save their lives.  "Poor child," sighed
Hendon, "these woeful tales have brought his malady upon him
again; alack, but for this evil hap, he would have been well in a
little time."

Among these prisoners was an old lawyer--a man with a strong face
and a dauntless mien.  Three years past, he had written a pamphlet
against the Lord Chancellor, accusing him of injustice, and had
been punished for it by the loss of his ears in the pillory, and
degradation from the bar, and in addition had been fined 3,000
pounds and sentenced to imprisonment for life.  Lately he had
repeated his offence; and in consequence was now under sentence to
lose WHAT REMAINED OF HIS EARS, pay a fine of 5,000 pounds, be
branded on both cheeks, and remain in prison for life.

"These be honourable scars," he said, and turned back his grey
hair and showed the mutilated stubs of what had once been his
ears.

The King's eye burned with passion.  He said--

"None believe in me--neither wilt thou.  But no matter--within the
compass of a month thou shalt be free; and more, the laws that
have dishonoured thee, and shamed the English name, shall be swept
from the statute books.  The world is made wrong; kings should go
to school to their own laws, at times, and so learn mercy." {1}



Chapter XXVIII. The sacrifice.

Meantime Miles was growing sufficiently tired of confinement and
inaction.  But now his trial came on, to his great gratification,
and he thought he could welcome any sentence provided a further
imprisonment should not be a part of it.  But he was mistaken
about that.  He was in a fine fury when he found himself described
as a 'sturdy vagabond' and sentenced to sit two hours in the
stocks for bearing that character and for assaulting the master of
Hendon Hall.  His pretensions as to brothership with his
prosecutor, and rightful heirship to the Hendon honours and
estates, were left contemptuously unnoticed, as being not even
worth examination.

He raged and threatened on his way to punishment, but it did no
good; he was snatched roughly along by the officers, and got an
occasional cuff, besides, for his irreverent conduct.

The King could not pierce through the rabble that swarmed behind;
so he was obliged to follow in the rear, remote from his good
friend and servant.  The King had been nearly condemned to the
stocks himself for being in such bad company, but had been let off
with a lecture and a warning, in consideration of his youth.  When
the crowd at last halted, he flitted feverishly from point to
point around its outer rim, hunting a place to get through; and at
last, after a deal of difficulty and delay, succeeded.  There sat
his poor henchman in the degrading stocks, the sport and butt of a
dirty mob--he, the body servant of the King of England!  Edward
had heard the sentence pronounced, but he had not realised the
half that it meant.  His anger began to rise as the sense of this
new indignity which had been put upon him sank home; it jumped to
summer heat, the next moment, when he saw an egg sail through the
air and crush itself against Hendon's cheek, and heard the crowd
roar its enjoyment of the episode.  He sprang across the open
circle and confronted the officer in charge, crying--

"For shame!  This is my servant--set him free!  I am the--"

"Oh, peace!" exclaimed Hendon, in a panic, "thou'lt destroy
thyself.  Mind him not, officer, he is mad."

"Give thyself no trouble as to the matter of minding him, good
man, I have small mind to mind him; but as to teaching him
somewhat, to that I am well inclined."  He turned to a subordinate
and said, "Give the little fool a taste or two of the lash, to
mend his manners."

"Half a dozen will better serve his turn," suggested Sir Hugh, who
had ridden up, a moment before, to take a passing glance at the
proceedings.

The King was seized.  He did not even struggle, so paralysed was
he with the mere thought of the monstrous outrage that was
proposed to be inflicted upon his sacred person.  History was
already defiled with the record of the scourging of an English
king with whips--it was an intolerable reflection that he must
furnish a duplicate of that shameful page.  He was in the toils,
there was no help for him; he must either take this punishment or
beg for its remission.  Hard conditions; he would take the
stripes--a king might do that, but a king could not beg.

But meantime, Miles Hendon was resolving the difficulty.  "Let the
child go," said he; "ye heartless dogs, do ye not see how young
and frail he is?  Let him go--I will take his lashes."

"Marry, a good thought--and thanks for it," said Sir Hugh, his
face lighting with a sardonic satisfaction.  "Let the little
beggar go, and give this fellow a dozen in his place--an honest
dozen, well laid on."  The King was in the act of entering a
fierce protest, but Sir Hugh silenced him with the potent remark,
"Yes, speak up, do, and free thy mind--only, mark ye, that for
each word you utter he shall get six strokes the more."

Hendon was removed from the stocks, and his back laid bare; and
whilst the lash was applied the poor little King turned away his
face and allowed unroyal tears to channel his cheeks unchecked.
"Ah, brave good heart," he said to himself, "this loyal deed shall
never perish out of my memory.  I will not forget it--and neither
shall THEY!" he added, with passion.  Whilst he mused, his
appreciation of Hendon's magnanimous conduct grew to greater and
still greater dimensions in his mind, and so also did his
gratefulness for it.  Presently he said to himself, "Who saves his
prince from wounds and possible death--and this he did for me--
performs high service; but it is little--it is nothing--oh, less
than nothing!--when 'tis weighed against the act of him who saves
his prince from SHAME!"

Hendon made no outcry under the scourge, but bore the heavy blows
with soldierly fortitude.  This, together with his redeeming the
boy by taking his stripes for him, compelled the respect of even
that forlorn and degraded mob that was gathered there; and its
gibes and hootings died away, and no sound remained but the sound
of the falling blows.  The stillness that pervaded the place, when
Hendon found himself once more in the stocks, was in strong
contrast with the insulting clamour which had prevailed there so
little a while before.  The King came softly to Hendon's side, and
whispered in his ear--

"Kings cannot ennoble thee, thou good, great soul, for One who is
higher than kings hath done that for thee; but a king can confirm
thy nobility to men."  He picked up the scourge from the ground,
touched Hendon's bleeding shoulders lightly with it, and
whispered, "Edward of England dubs thee Earl!"

Hendon was touched.  The water welled to his eyes, yet at the same
time the grisly humour of the situation and circumstances so
undermined his gravity that it was all he could do to keep some
sign of his inward mirth from showing outside.  To be suddenly
hoisted, naked and gory, from the common stocks to the Alpine
altitude and splendour of an Earldom, seemed to him the last
possibility in the line of the grotesque.  He said to himself,
"Now am I finely tinselled, indeed!  The spectre-knight of the
Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows is become a spectre-earl--a dizzy
flight for a callow wing!  An' this go on, I shall presently be
hung like a very maypole with fantastic gauds and make-believe
honours.  But I shall value them, all valueless as they are, for
the love that doth bestow them.  Better these poor mock dignities
of mine, that come unasked, from a clean hand and a right spirit,
than real ones bought by servility from grudging and interested
power."

The dreaded Sir Hugh wheeled his horse about, and as he spurred
away, the living wall divided silently to let him pass, and as
silently closed together again.  And so remained; nobody went so
far as to venture a remark in favour of the prisoner, or in
compliment to him; but no matter--the absence of abuse was a
sufficient homage in itself.  A late comer who was not posted as
to the present circumstances, and who delivered a sneer at the
'impostor,' and was in the act of following it with a dead cat,
was promptly knocked down and kicked out, without any words, and
then the deep quiet resumed sway once more.



Chapter XXIX. To London.

When Hendon's term of service in the stocks was finished, he was
released and ordered to quit the region and come back no more.
His sword was restored to him, and also his mule and his donkey.
He mounted and rode off, followed by the King, the crowd opening
with quiet respectfulness to let them pass, and then dispersing
when they were gone.

Hendon was soon absorbed in thought.  There were questions of high
import to be answered.  What should he do?  Whither should he go?
Powerful help must be found somewhere, or he must relinquish his
inheritance and remain under the imputation of being an impostor
besides.  Where could he hope to find this powerful help?  Where,
indeed!  It was a knotty question.  By-and-by a thought occurred
to him which pointed to a possibility--the slenderest of slender
possibilities, certainly, but still worth considering, for lack of
any other that promised anything at all.  He remembered what old
Andrews had said about the young King's goodness and his generous
championship of the wronged and unfortunate.  Why not go and try
to get speech of him and beg for justice?  Ah, yes, but could so
fantastic a pauper get admission to the august presence of a
monarch?  Never mind--let that matter take care of itself; it was
a bridge that would not need to be crossed till he should come to
it.  He was an old campaigner, and used to inventing shifts and
expedients:  no doubt he would be able to find a way.  Yes, he
would strike for the capital.  Maybe his father's old friend Sir
Humphrey Marlow would help him--'good old Sir Humphrey, Head
Lieutenant of the late King's kitchen, or stables, or something'--
Miles could not remember just what or which.  Now that he had
something to turn his energies to, a distinctly defined object to
accomplish, the fog of humiliation and depression which had
settled down upon his spirits lifted and blew away, and he raised
his head and looked about him.  He was surprised to see how far he
had come; the village was away behind him.  The King was jogging
along in his wake, with his head bowed; for he, too, was deep in
plans and thinkings.  A sorrowful misgiving clouded Hendon's new-
born cheerfulness:  would the boy be willing to go again to a city
where, during all his brief life, he had never known anything but
ill-usage and pinching want?  But the question must be asked; it
could not be avoided; so Hendon reined up, and called out--

"I had forgotten to inquire whither we are bound.  Thy commands,
my liege!"

"To London!"

Hendon moved on again, mightily contented with the answer--but
astounded at it too.

The whole journey was made without an adventure of importance.
But it ended with one.  About ten o'clock on the night of the 19th
of February they stepped upon London Bridge, in the midst of a
writhing, struggling jam of howling and hurrahing people, whose
beer-jolly faces stood out strongly in the glare from manifold
torches--and at that instant the decaying head of some former duke
or other grandee tumbled down between them, striking Hendon on the
elbow and then bounding off among the hurrying confusion of feet.
So evanescent and unstable are men's works in this world!--the
late good King is but three weeks dead and three days in his
grave, and already the adornments which he took such pains to
select from prominent people for his noble bridge are falling.  A
citizen stumbled over that head, and drove his own head into the
back of somebody in front of him, who turned and knocked down the
first person that came handy, and was promptly laid out himself by
that person's friend.  It was the right ripe time for a free
fight, for the festivities of the morrow--Coronation Day--were
already beginning; everybody was full of strong drink and
patriotism; within five minutes the free fight was occupying a
good deal of ground; within ten or twelve it covered an acre of
so, and was become a riot.  By this time Hendon and the King were
hopelessly separated from each other and lost in the rush and
turmoil of the roaring masses of humanity.  And so we leave them.



Chapter XXX. Tom's progress.

Whilst the true King wandered about the land poorly clad, poorly
fed, cuffed and derided by tramps one while, herding with thieves
and murderers in a jail another, and called idiot and impostor by
all impartially, the mock King Tom Canty enjoyed quite a different
experience.

When we saw him last, royalty was just beginning to have a bright
side for him.  This bright side went on brightening more and more
every day:  in a very little while it was become almost all
sunshine and delightfulness.  He lost his fears; his misgivings
faded out and died; his embarrassments departed, and gave place to
an easy and confident bearing.  He worked the whipping-boy mine to
ever-increasing profit.

He ordered my Lady Elizabeth and my Lady Jane Grey into his
presence when he wanted to play or talk, and dismissed them when
he was done with them, with the air of one familiarly accustomed
to such performances.  It no longer confused him to have these
lofty personages kiss his hand at parting.

He came to enjoy being conducted to bed in state at night, and
dressed with intricate and solemn ceremony in the morning.  It
came to be a proud pleasure to march to dinner attended by a
glittering procession of officers of state and gentlemen-at-arms;
insomuch, indeed, that he doubled his guard of gentlemen-at-arms,
and made them a hundred.  He liked to hear the bugles sounding
down the long corridors, and the distant voices responding, "Way
for the King!"

He even learned to enjoy sitting in throned state in council, and
seeming to be something more than the Lord Protector's mouthpiece.
He liked to receive great ambassadors and their gorgeous trains,
and listen to the affectionate messages they brought from
illustrious monarchs who called him brother.  O happy Tom Canty,
late of Offal Court!

He enjoyed his splendid clothes, and ordered more:  he found his
four hundred servants too few for his proper grandeur, and trebled
them.  The adulation of salaaming courtiers came to be sweet music
to his ears.  He remained kind and gentle, and a sturdy and
determined champion of all that were oppressed, and he made
tireless war upon unjust laws:  yet upon occasion, being offended,
he could turn upon an earl, or even a duke, and give him a look
that would make him tremble.  Once, when his royal 'sister,' the
grimly holy Lady Mary, set herself to reason with him against the
wisdom of his course in pardoning so many people who would
otherwise be jailed, or hanged, or burned, and reminded him that
their august late father's prisons had sometimes contained as high
as sixty thousand convicts at one time, and that during his
admirable reign he had delivered seventy-two thousand thieves and
robbers over to death by the executioner, {9} the boy was filled
with generous indignation, and commanded her to go to her closet,
and beseech God to take away the stone that was in her breast, and
give her a human heart.

Did Tom Canty never feel troubled about the poor little rightful
prince who had treated him so kindly, and flown out with such hot
zeal to avenge him upon the insolent sentinel at the palace-gate?
Yes; his first royal days and nights were pretty well sprinkled
with painful thoughts about the lost prince, and with sincere
longings for his return, and happy restoration to his native
rights and splendours.  But as time wore on, and the prince did
not come, Tom's mind became more and more occupied with his new
and enchanting experiences, and by little and little the vanished
monarch faded almost out of his thoughts; and finally, when he did
intrude upon them at intervals, he was become an unwelcome
spectre, for he made Tom feel guilty and ashamed.

Tom's poor mother and sisters travelled the same road out of his
mind.  At first he pined for them, sorrowed for them, longed to
see them, but later, the thought of their coming some day in their
rags and dirt, and betraying him with their kisses, and pulling
him down from his lofty place, and dragging him back to penury and
degradation and the slums, made him shudder.  At last they ceased
to trouble his thoughts almost wholly.  And he was content, even
glad:  for, whenever their mournful and accusing faces did rise
before him now, they made him feel more despicable than the worms
that crawl.

At midnight of the 19th of February, Tom Canty was sinking to
sleep in his rich bed in the palace, guarded by his loyal vassals,
and surrounded by the pomps of royalty, a happy boy; for tomorrow
was the day appointed for his solemn crowning as King of England.
At that same hour, Edward, the true king, hungry and thirsty,
soiled and draggled, worn with travel, and clothed in rags and
shreds--his share of the results of the riot--was wedged in among
a crowd of people who were watching with deep interest certain
hurrying gangs of workmen who streamed in and out of Westminster
Abbey, busy as ants:  they were making the last preparation for
the royal coronation.



Chapter XXXI. The Recognition procession.

When Tom Canty awoke the next morning, the air was heavy with a
thunderous murmur:  all the distances were charged with it.  It
was music to him; for it meant that the English world was out in
its strength to give loyal welcome to the great day.

Presently Tom found himself once more the chief figure in a
wonderful floating pageant on the Thames; for by ancient custom
the 'recognition procession' through London must start from the
Tower, and he was bound thither.

When he arrived there, the sides of the venerable fortress seemed
suddenly rent in a thousand places, and from every rent leaped a
red tongue of flame and a white gush of smoke; a deafening
explosion followed, which drowned the shoutings of the multitude,
and made the ground tremble; the flame-jets, the smoke, and the
explosions, were repeated over and over again with marvellous
celerity, so that in a few moments the old Tower disappeared in
the vast fog of its own smoke, all but the very top of the tall
pile called the White Tower; this, with its banners, stood out
above the dense bank of vapour as a mountain-peak projects above a
cloud-rack.

Tom Canty, splendidly arrayed, mounted a prancing war-steed, whose
rich trappings almost reached to the ground; his 'uncle,' the Lord
Protector Somerset, similarly mounted, took place in his rear; the
King's Guard formed in single ranks on either side, clad in
burnished armour; after the Protector followed a seemingly
interminable procession of resplendent nobles attended by their
vassals; after these came the lord mayor and the aldermanic body,
in crimson velvet robes, and with their gold chains across their
breasts; and after these the officers and members of all the
guilds of London, in rich raiment, and bearing the showy banners
of the several corporations.  Also in the procession, as a special
guard of honour through the city, was the Ancient and Honourable
Artillery Company--an organisation already three hundred years old
at that time, and the only military body in England possessing the
privilege (which it still possesses in our day) of holding itself
independent of the commands of Parliament.  It was a brilliant
spectacle, and was hailed with acclamations all along the line, as
it took its stately way through the packed multitudes of citizens.
The chronicler says, 'The King, as he entered the city, was
received by the people with prayers, welcomings, cries, and tender
words, and all signs which argue an earnest love of subjects
toward their sovereign; and the King, by holding up his glad
countenance to such as stood afar off, and most tender language to
those that stood nigh his Grace, showed himself no less thankful
to receive the people's goodwill than they to offer it.  To all
that wished him well, he gave thanks.  To such as bade "God save
his Grace," he said in return, "God save you all!" and added that
"he thanked them with all his heart."  Wonderfully transported
were the people with the loving answers and gestures of their
King.'

In Fenchurch Street a 'fair child, in costly apparel,' stood on a
stage to welcome his Majesty to the city.  The last verse of his
greeting was in these words--

     'Welcome, O King! as much as hearts can think;
        Welcome, again, as much as tongue can tell,--
      Welcome to joyous tongues, and hearts that will not shrink:
        God thee preserve, we pray, and wish thee ever well.'

The people burst forth in a glad shout, repeating with one voice
what the child had said.  Tom Canty gazed abroad over the surging
sea of eager faces, and his heart swelled with exultation; and he
felt that the one thing worth living for in this world was to be a
king, and a nation's idol.  Presently he caught sight, at a
distance, of a couple of his ragged Offal Court comrades--one of
them the lord high admiral in his late mimic court, the other the
first lord of the bedchamber in the same pretentious fiction; and
his pride swelled higher than ever.  Oh, if they could only
recognise him now!  What unspeakable glory it would be, if they
could recognise him, and realise that the derided mock king of the
slums and back alleys was become a real King, with illustrious
dukes and princes for his humble menials, and the English world at
his feet!  But he had to deny himself, and choke down his desire,
for such a recognition might cost more than it would come to:  so
he turned away his head, and left the two soiled lads to go on
with their shoutings and glad adulations, unsuspicious of whom it
was they were lavishing them upon.

Every now and then rose the cry, "A largess! a largess!" and Tom
responded by scattering a handful of bright new coins abroad for
the multitude to scramble for.

The chronicler says, 'At the upper end of Gracechurch Street,
before the sign of the Eagle, the city had erected a gorgeous
arch, beneath which was a stage, which stretched from one side of
the street to the other.  This was an historical pageant,
representing the King's immediate progenitors.  There sat
Elizabeth of York in the midst of an immense white rose, whose
petals formed elaborate furbelows around her; by her side was
Henry VII., issuing out of a vast red rose, disposed in the same
manner:  the hands of the royal pair were locked together, and the
wedding-ring ostentatiously displayed.  From the red and white
roses proceeded a stem, which reached up to a second stage,
occupied by Henry VIII., issuing from a red and white rose, with
the effigy of the new King's mother, Jane Seymour, represented by
his side.  One branch sprang from this pair, which mounted to a
third stage, where sat the effigy of Edward VI. himself, enthroned
in royal majesty; and the whole pageant was framed with wreaths of
roses, red and white.'

This quaint and gaudy spectacle so wrought upon the rejoicing
people, that their acclamations utterly smothered the small voice
of the child whose business it was to explain the thing in
eulogistic rhymes.  But Tom Canty was not sorry; for this loyal
uproar was sweeter music to him than any poetry, no matter what
its quality might be.  Whithersoever Tom turned his happy young
face, the people recognised the exactness of his effigy's likeness
to himself, the flesh and blood counterpart; and new whirlwinds of
applause burst forth.

The great pageant moved on, and still on, under one triumphal arch
after another, and past a bewildering succession of spectacular
and symbolical tableaux, each of which typified and exalted some
virtue, or talent, or merit, of the little King's.  'Throughout
the whole of Cheapside, from every penthouse and window, hung
banners and streamers; and the richest carpets, stuffs, and cloth-
of-gold tapestried the streets--specimens of the great wealth of
the stores within; and the splendour of this thoroughfare was
equalled in the other streets, and in some even surpassed.'

"And all these wonders and these marvels are to welcome me--me!"
murmured Tom Canty.

The mock King's cheeks were flushed with excitement, his eyes were
flashing, his senses swam in a delirium of pleasure.  At this
point, just as he was raising his hand to fling another rich
largess, he caught sight of a pale, astounded face, which was
strained forward out of the second rank of the crowd, its intense
eyes riveted upon him.  A sickening consternation struck through
him; he recognised his mother! and up flew his hand, palm outward,
before his eyes--that old involuntary gesture, born of a forgotten
episode, and perpetuated by habit.  In an instant more she had
torn her way out of the press, and past the guards, and was at his
side.  She embraced his leg, she covered it with kisses, she
cried, "O my child, my darling!" lifting toward him a face that
was transfigured with joy and love.  The same instant an officer
of the King's Guard snatched her away with a curse, and sent her
reeling back whence she came with a vigorous impulse from his
strong arm.  The words "I do not know you, woman!" were falling
from Tom Canty's lips when this piteous thing occurred; but it
smote him to the heart to see her treated so; and as she turned
for a last glimpse of him, whilst the crowd was swallowing her
from his sight, she seemed so wounded, so broken-hearted, that a
shame fell upon him which consumed his pride to ashes, and
withered his stolen royalty.  His grandeurs were stricken
valueless:  they seemed to fall away from him like rotten rags.

The procession moved on, and still on, through ever augmenting
splendours and ever augmenting tempests of welcome; but to Tom
Canty they were as if they had not been.  He neither saw nor
heard.  Royalty had lost its grace and sweetness; its pomps were
become a reproach.  Remorse was eating his heart out.  He said,
"Would God I were free of my captivity!"

He had unconsciously dropped back into the phraseology of the
first days of his compulsory greatness.

The shining pageant still went winding like a radiant and
interminable serpent down the crooked lanes of the quaint old
city, and through the huzzaing hosts; but still the King rode with
bowed head and vacant eyes, seeing only his mother's face and that
wounded look in it.

"Largess, largess!"  The cry fell upon an unheeding ear.

"Long live Edward of England!"  It seemed as if the earth shook
with the explosion; but there was no response from the King.  He
heard it only as one hears the thunder of the surf when it is
blown to the ear out of a great distance, for it was smothered
under another sound which was still nearer, in his own breast, in
his accusing conscience--a voice which kept repeating those
shameful words, "I do not know you, woman!"

The words smote upon the King's soul as the strokes of a funeral
bell smite upon the soul of a surviving friend when they remind
him of secret treacheries suffered at his hands by him that is
gone.

New glories were unfolded at every turning; new wonders, new
marvels, sprang into view; the pent clamours of waiting batteries
were released; new raptures poured from the throats of the waiting
multitudes:  but the King gave no sign, and the accusing voice
that went moaning through his comfortless breast was all the sound
he heard.

By-and-by the gladness in the faces of the populace changed a
little, and became touched with a something like solicitude or
anxiety:  an abatement in the volume of the applause was
observable too.  The Lord Protector was quick to notice these
things:  he was as quick to detect the cause.  He spurred to the
King's side, bent low in his saddle, uncovered, and said--

"My liege, it is an ill time for dreaming.  The people observe thy
downcast head, thy clouded mien, and they take it for an omen.  Be
advised:  unveil the sun of royalty, and let it shine upon these
boding vapours, and disperse them.  Lift up thy face, and smile
upon the people."

So saying, the Duke scattered a handful of coins to right and
left, then retired to his place.  The mock King did mechanically
as he had been bidden.  His smile had no heart in it, but few eyes
were near enough or sharp enough to detect that.  The noddings of
his plumed head as he saluted his subjects were full of grace and
graciousness; the largess which he delivered from his hand was
royally liberal:  so the people's anxiety vanished, and the
acclamations burst forth again in as mighty a volume as before.

Still once more, a little before the progress was ended, the Duke
was obliged to ride forward, and make remonstrance.  He whispered-
-

"O dread sovereign! shake off these fatal humours; the eyes of the
world are upon thee."  Then he added with sharp annoyance,
"Perdition catch that crazy pauper! 'twas she that hath disturbed
your Highness."

The gorgeous figure turned a lustreless eye upon the Duke, and
said in a dead voice--

"She was my mother!"

"My God!" groaned the Protector as he reined his horse backward to
his post, "the omen was pregnant with prophecy.  He is gone mad
again!"



Chapter XXXII. Coronation Day.

Let us go backward a few hours, and place ourselves in Westminster
Abbey, at four o'clock in the morning of this memorable Coronation
Day.  We are not without company; for although it is still night,
we find the torch-lighted galleries already filling up with people
who are well content to sit still and wait seven or eight hours
till the time shall come for them to see what they may not hope to
see twice in their lives--the coronation of a King.  Yes, London
and Westminster have been astir ever since the warning guns boomed
at three o'clock, and already crowds of untitled rich folk who
have bought the privilege of trying to find sitting-room in the
galleries are flocking in at the entrances reserved for their
sort.

The hours drag along tediously enough.  All stir has ceased for
some time, for every gallery has long ago been packed.  We may
sit, now, and look and think at our leisure.  We have glimpses,
here and there and yonder, through the dim cathedral twilight, of
portions of many galleries and balconies, wedged full with other
people, the other portions of these galleries and balconies being
cut off from sight by intervening pillars and architectural
projections.  We have in view the whole of the great north
transept--empty, and waiting for England's privileged ones.  We
see also the ample area or platform, carpeted with rich stuffs,
whereon the throne stands.  The throne occupies the centre of the
platform, and is raised above it upon an elevation of four steps.
Within the seat of the throne is enclosed a rough flat rock--the
stone of Scone--which many generations of Scottish kings sat on to
be crowned, and so it in time became holy enough to answer a like
purpose for English monarchs.  Both the throne and its footstool
are covered with cloth of gold.

Stillness reigns, the torches blink dully, the time drags heavily.
But at last the lagging daylight asserts itself, the torches are
extinguished, and a mellow radiance suffuses the great spaces.
All features of the noble building are distinct now, but soft and
dreamy, for the sun is lightly veiled with clouds.

At seven o'clock the first break in the drowsy monotony occurs;
for on the stroke of this hour the first peeress enters the
transept, clothed like Solomon for splendour, and is conducted to
her appointed place by an official clad in satins and velvets,
whilst a duplicate of him gathers up the lady's long train,
follows after, and, when the lady is seated, arranges the train
across her lap for her.  He then places her footstool according to
her desire, after which he puts her coronet where it will be
convenient to her hand when the time for the simultaneous
coroneting of the nobles shall arrive.

By this time the peeresses are flowing in in a glittering stream,
and the satin-clad officials are flitting and glinting everywhere,
seating them and making them comfortable.  The scene is animated
enough now.  There is stir and life, and shifting colour
everywhere.  After a time, quiet reigns again; for the peeresses
are all come and are all in their places, a solid acre or such a
matter, of human flowers, resplendent in variegated colours, and
frosted like a Milky Way with diamonds.  There are all ages here:
brown, wrinkled, white-haired dowagers who are able to go back,
and still back, down the stream of time, and recall the crowning
of Richard III. and the troublous days of that old forgotten age;
and there are handsome middle-aged dames; and lovely and gracious
young matrons; and gentle and beautiful young girls, with beaming
eyes and fresh complexions, who may possibly put on their jewelled
coronets awkwardly when the great time comes; for the matter will
be new to them, and their excitement will be a sore hindrance.
Still, this may not happen, for the hair of all these ladies has
been arranged with a special view to the swift and successful
lodging of the crown in its place when the signal comes.

We have seen that this massed array of peeresses is sown thick
with diamonds, and we also see that it is a marvellous spectacle--
but now we are about to be astonished in earnest.  About nine, the
clouds suddenly break away and a shaft of sunshine cleaves the
mellow atmosphere, and drifts slowly along the ranks of ladies;
and every rank it touches flames into a dazzling splendour of
many-coloured fires, and we tingle to our finger-tips with the
electric thrill that is shot through us by the surprise and the
beauty of the spectacle!  Presently a special envoy from some
distant corner of the Orient, marching with the general body of
foreign ambassadors, crosses this bar of sunshine, and we catch
our breath, the glory that streams and flashes and palpitates
about him is so overpowering; for he is crusted from head to heel
with gems, and his slightest movement showers a dancing radiance
all around him.

Let us change the tense for convenience.  The time drifted along--
one hour--two hours--two hours and a half; then the deep booming
of artillery told that the King and his grand procession had
arrived at last; so the waiting multitude rejoiced.  All knew that
a further delay must follow, for the King must be prepared and
robed for the solemn ceremony; but this delay would be pleasantly
occupied by the assembling of the peers of the realm in their
stately robes.  These were conducted ceremoniously to their seats,
and their coronets placed conveniently at hand; and meanwhile the
multitude in the galleries were alive with interest, for most of
them were beholding for the first time, dukes, earls, and barons,
whose names had been historical for five hundred years.  When all
were finally seated, the spectacle from the galleries and all
coigns of vantage was complete; a gorgeous one to look upon and to
remember.

Now the robed and mitred great heads of the church, and their
attendants, filed in upon the platform and took their appointed
places; these were followed by the Lord Protector and other great
officials, and these again by a steel-clad detachment of the
Guard.

There was a waiting pause; then, at a signal, a triumphant peal of
music burst forth, and Tom Canty, clothed in a long robe of cloth
of gold, appeared at a door, and stepped upon the platform.  The
entire multitude rose, and the ceremony of the Recognition ensued.

Then a noble anthem swept the Abbey with its rich waves of sound;
and thus heralded and welcomed, Tom Canty was conducted to the
throne.  The ancient ceremonies went on, with impressive
solemnity, whilst the audience gazed; and as they drew nearer and
nearer to completion, Tom Canty grew pale, and still paler, and a
deep and steadily deepening woe and despondency settled down upon
his spirits and upon his remorseful heart.

At last the final act was at hand.  The Archbishop of Canterbury
lifted up the crown of England from its cushion and held it out
over the trembling mock-King's head.  In the same instant a
rainbow-radiance flashed along the spacious transept; for with one
impulse every individual in the great concourse of nobles lifted a
coronet and poised it over his or her head--and paused in that
attitude.

A deep hush pervaded the Abbey.  At this impressive moment, a
startling apparition intruded upon the scene--an apparition
observed by none in the absorbed multitude, until it suddenly
appeared, moving up the great central aisle.  It was a boy,
bareheaded, ill shod, and clothed in coarse plebeian garments that
were falling to rags.  He raised his hand with a solemnity which
ill comported with his soiled and sorry aspect, and delivered this
note of warning--

"I forbid you to set the crown of England upon that forfeited
head.  I am the King!"

In an instant several indignant hands were laid upon the boy; but
in the same instant Tom Canty, in his regal vestments, made a
swift step forward, and cried out in a ringing voice--

"Loose him and forbear!  He IS the King!"

A sort of panic of astonishment swept the assemblage, and they
partly rose in their places and stared in a bewildered way at one
another and at the chief figures in this scene, like persons who
wondered whether they were awake and in their senses, or asleep
and dreaming.  The Lord Protector was as amazed as the rest, but
quickly recovered himself, and exclaimed in a voice of authority--

"Mind not his Majesty, his malady is upon him again--seize the
vagabond!"

He would have been obeyed, but the mock-King stamped his foot and
cried out--

"On your peril!  Touch him not, he is the King!"

The hands were withheld; a paralysis fell upon the house; no one
moved, no one spoke; indeed, no one knew how to act or what to
say, in so strange and surprising an emergency.  While all minds
were struggling to right themselves, the boy still moved steadily
forward, with high port and confident mien; he had never halted
from the beginning; and while the tangled minds still floundered
helplessly, he stepped upon the platform, and the mock-King ran
with a glad face to meet him; and fell on his knees before him and
said--

"Oh, my lord the King, let poor Tom Canty be first to swear fealty
to thee, and say, 'Put on thy crown and enter into thine own
again!'"

The Lord Protector's eye fell sternly upon the new-comer's face;
but straightway the sternness vanished away, and gave place to an
expression of wondering surprise.  This thing happened also to the
other great officers.  They glanced at each other, and retreated a
step by a common and unconscious impulse.  The thought in each
mind was the same:  "What a strange resemblance!"

The Lord Protector reflected a moment or two in perplexity, then
he said, with grave respectfulness--

"By your favour, sir, I desire to ask certain questions which--"

"I will answer them, my lord."

The Duke asked him many questions about the Court, the late King,
the prince, the princesses--the boy answered them correctly and
without hesitating.  He described the rooms of state in the
palace, the late King's apartments, and those of the Prince of
Wales.

It was strange; it was wonderful; yes, it was unaccountable--so
all said that heard it.  The tide was beginning to turn, and Tom
Canty's hopes to run high, when the Lord Protector shook his head
and said--

"It is true it is most wonderful--but it is no more than our lord
the King likewise can do."  This remark, and this reference to
himself as still the King, saddened Tom Canty, and he felt his
hopes crumbling from under him.  "These are not PROOFS," added the
Protector.

The tide was turning very fast now, very fast indeed--but in the
wrong direction; it was leaving poor Tom Canty stranded on the
throne, and sweeping the other out to sea.  The Lord Protector
communed with himself--shook his head--the thought forced itself
upon him, "It is perilous to the State and to us all, to entertain
so fateful a riddle as this; it could divide the nation and
undermine the throne."  He turned and said--

"Sir Thomas, arrest this--No, hold!"  His face lighted, and he
confronted the ragged candidate with this question--

"Where lieth the Great Seal?  Answer me this truly, and the riddle
is unriddled; for only he that was Prince of Wales CAN so answer!
On so trivial a thing hang a throne and a dynasty!"

It was a lucky thought, a happy thought.  That it was so
considered by the great officials was manifested by the silent
applause that shot from eye to eye around their circle in the form
of bright approving glances.  Yes, none but the true prince could
dissolve the stubborn mystery of the vanished Great Seal--this
forlorn little impostor had been taught his lesson well, but here
his teachings must fail, for his teacher himself could not answer
THAT question--ah, very good, very good indeed; now we shall be
rid of this troublesome and perilous business in short order!  And
so they nodded invisibly and smiled inwardly with satisfaction,
and looked to see this foolish lad stricken with a palsy of guilty
confusion.  How surprised they were, then, to see nothing of the
sort happen--how they marvelled to hear him answer up promptly, in
a confident and untroubled voice, and say--

"There is nought in this riddle that is difficult."  Then, without
so much as a by-your-leave to anybody, he turned and gave this
command, with the easy manner of one accustomed to doing such
things: "My Lord St. John, go you to my private cabinet in the
palace--for none knoweth the place better than you--and, close
down to the floor, in the left corner remotest from the door that
opens from the ante-chamber, you shall find in the wall a brazen
nail-head; press upon it and a little jewel-closet will fly open
which not even you do know of--no, nor any sould else in all the
world but me and the trusty artisan that did contrive it for me.
The first thing that falleth under your eye will be the Great
Seal--fetch it hither."

All the company wondered at this speech, and wondered still more
to see the little mendicant pick out this peer without hesitancy
or apparent fear of mistake, and call him by name with such a
placidly convincing air of having known him all his life.  The
peer was almost surprised into obeying.  He even made a movement
as if to go, but quickly recovered his tranquil attitude and
confessed his blunder with a blush.  Tom Canty turned upon him and
said, sharply--

"Why dost thou hesitate?  Hast not heard the King's command?  Go!"

The Lord St. John made a deep obeisance--and it was observed that
it was a significantly cautious and non-committal one, it not
being delivered at either of the kings, but at the neutral ground
about half-way between the two--and took his leave.

Now began a movement of the gorgeous particles of that official
group which was slow, scarcely perceptible, and yet steady and
persistent--a movement such as is observed in a kaleidoscope that
is turned slowly, whereby the components of one splendid cluster
fall away and join themselves to another--a movement which, little
by little, in the present case, dissolved the glittering crowd
that stood about Tom Canty and clustered it together again in the
neighbourhood of the new-comer.  Tom Canty stood almost alone.
Now ensued a brief season of deep suspense and waiting--during
which even the few faint hearts still remaining near Tom Canty
gradually scraped together courage enough to glide, one by one,
over to the majority.  So at last Tom Canty, in his royal robes
and jewels, stood wholly alone and isolated from the world, a
conspicuous figure, occupying an eloquent vacancy.

Now the Lord St. John was seen returning.  As he advanced up the
mid-aisle the interest was so intense that the low murmur of
conversation in the great assemblage died out and was succeeded by
a profound hush, a breathless stillness, through which his
footfalls pulsed with a dull and distant sound.  Every eye was
fastened upon him as he moved along.  He reached the platform,
paused a moment, then moved toward Tom Canty with a deep
obeisance, and said--

"Sire, the Seal is not there!"

A mob does not melt away from the presence of a plague-patient
with more haste than the band of pallid and terrified courtiers
melted away from the presence of the shabby little claimant of the
Crown.  In a moment he stood all alone, without friend or
supporter, a target upon which was concentrated a bitter fire of
scornful and angry looks.  The Lord Protector called out fiercely-
-

"Cast the beggar into the street, and scourge him through the
town--the paltry knave is worth no more consideration!"

Officers of the guard sprang forward to obey, but Tom Canty waved
them off and said--

"Back!  Whoso touches him perils his life!"

The Lord Protector was perplexed in the last degree.  He said to
the Lord St. John--

"Searched you well?--but it boots not to ask that.  It doth seem
passing strange.  Little things, trifles, slip out of one's ken,
and one does not think it matter for surprise; but how so bulky a
thing as the Seal of England can vanish away and no man be able to
get track of it again--a massy golden disk--"

Tom Canty, with beaming eyes, sprang forward and shouted--

"Hold, that is enough!  Was it round?--and thick?--and had it
letters and devices graved upon it?--yes?  Oh, NOW I know what
this Great Seal is that there's been such worry and pother about.
An' ye had described it to me, ye could have had it three weeks
ago.  Right well I know where it lies; but it was not I that put
it there--first."

"Who, then, my liege?" asked the Lord Protector.

"He that stands there--the rightful King of England.  And he shall
tell you himself where it lies--then you will believe he knew it
of his own knowledge.  Bethink thee, my King--spur thy memory--it
was the last, the very LAST thing thou didst that day before thou
didst rush forth from the palace, clothed in my rags, to punish
the soldier that insulted me."

A silence ensued, undisturbed by a movement or a whisper, and all
eyes were fixed upon the new-comer, who stood, with bent head and
corrugated brow, groping in his memory among a thronging multitude
of valueless recollections for one single little elusive fact,
which, found, would seat him upon a throne--unfound, would leave
him as he was, for good and all--a pauper and an outcast.  Moment
after moment passed--the moments built themselves into minutes--
still the boy struggled silently on, and gave no sign.  But at
last he heaved a sigh, shook his head slowly, and said, with a
trembling lip and in a despondent voice--

"I call the scene back--all of it--but the Seal hath no place in
it."  He paused, then looked up, and said with gentle dignity, "My
lords and gentlemen, if ye will rob your rightful sovereign of his
own for lack of this evidence which he is not able to furnish, I
may not stay ye, being powerless.  But--"

"Oh, folly, oh, madness, my King!" cried Tom Canty, in a panic,
"wait!--think!  Do not give up!--the cause is not lost!  Nor SHALL
be, neither!  List to what I say--follow every word--I am going to
bring that morning back again, every hap just as it happened.  We
talked--I told you of my sisters, Nan and Bet--ah, yes, you
remember that; and about mine old grandam--and the rough games of
the lads of Offal Court--yes, you remember these things also; very
well, follow me still, you shall recall everything.  You gave me
food and drink, and did with princely courtesy send away the
servants, so that my low breeding might not shame me before them--
ah, yes, this also you remember."

As Tom checked off his details, and the other boy nodded his head
in recognition of them, the great audience and the officials
stared in puzzled wonderment; the tale sounded like true history,
yet how could this impossible conjunction between a prince and a
beggar-boy have come about?  Never was a company of people so
perplexed, so interested, and so stupefied, before.

"For a jest, my prince, we did exchange garments.  Then we stood
before a mirror; and so alike were we that both said it seemed as
if there had been no change made--yes, you remember that.  Then
you noticed that the soldier had hurt my hand--look! here it is, I
cannot yet even write with it, the fingers are so stiff.  At this
your Highness sprang up, vowing vengeance upon that soldier, and
ran towards the door--you passed a table--that thing you call the
Seal lay on that table--you snatched it up and looked eagerly
about, as if for a place to hide it--your eye caught sight of--"

"There, 'tis sufficient!--and the good God be thanked!" exclaimed
the ragged claimant, in a mighty excitement.  "Go, my good St.
John--in an arm-piece of the Milanese armour that hangs on the
wall, thou'lt find the Seal!"

"Right, my King! right!" cried Tom Canty; "NOW the sceptre of
England is thine own; and it were better for him that would
dispute it that he had been born dumb!  Go, my Lord St. John, give
thy feet wings!"

The whole assemblage was on its feet now, and well-nigh out of its
mind with uneasiness, apprehension, and consuming excitement.  On
the floor and on the platform a deafening buzz of frantic
conversation burst forth, and for some time nobody knew anything
or heard anything or was interested in anything but what his
neighbour was shouting into his ear, or he was shouting into his
neighbour's ear.  Time--nobody knew how much of it--swept by
unheeded and unnoted.  At last a sudden hush fell upon the house,
and in the same moment St. John appeared upon the platform, and
held the Great Seal aloft in his hand.  Then such a shout went up-
-

"Long live the true King!"

For five minutes the air quaked with shouts and the crash of
musical instruments, and was white with a storm of waving
handkerchiefs; and through it all a ragged lad, the most
conspicuous figure in England, stood, flushed and happy and proud,
in the centre of the spacious platform, with the great vassals of
the kingdom kneeling around him.

Then all rose, and Tom Canty cried out--

"Now, O my King, take these regal garments back, and give poor
Tom, thy servant, his shreds and remnants again."

The Lord Protector spoke up--

"Let the small varlet be stripped and flung into the Tower."

But the new King, the true King, said--

"I will not have it so.  But for him I had not got my crown again-
-none shall lay a hand upon him to harm him.  And as for thee, my
good uncle, my Lord Protector, this conduct of thine is not
grateful toward this poor lad, for I hear he hath made thee a
duke"--the Protector blushed--"yet he was not a king; wherefore
what is thy fine title worth now?  To-morrow you shall sue to me,
THROUGH HIM, for its confirmation, else no duke, but a simple
earl, shalt thou remain."

Under this rebuke, his Grace the Duke of Somerset retired a little
from the front for the moment.  The King turned to Tom, and said
kindly--"My poor boy, how was it that you could remember where I
hid the Seal when I could not remember it myself?"

"Ah, my King, that was easy, since I used it divers days."

"Used it--yet could not explain where it was?"

"I did not know it was THAT they wanted.  They did not describe
it, your Majesty."

"Then how used you it?"

The red blood began to steal up into Tom's cheeks, and he dropped
his eyes and was silent.

"Speak up, good lad, and fear nothing," said the King.  "How used
you the Great Seal of England?"

Tom stammered a moment, in a pathetic confusion, then got it out--

"To crack nuts with!"

Poor child, the avalanche of laughter that greeted this nearly
swept him off his feet.  But if a doubt remained in any mind that
Tom Canty was not the King of England and familiar with the august
appurtenances of royalty, this reply disposed of it utterly.

Meantime the sumptuous robe of state had been removed from Tom's
shoulders to the King's, whose rags were effectually hidden from
sight under it.  Then the coronation ceremonies were resumed; the
true King was anointed and the crown set upon his head, whilst
cannon thundered the news to the city, and all London seemed to
rock with applause.



Chapter XXXIII. Edward as King.

Miles Hendon was picturesque enough before he got into the riot on
London Bridge--he was more so when he got out of it.  He had but
little money when he got in, none at all when he got out.  The
pickpockets had stripped him of his last farthing.

But no matter, so he found his boy.  Being a soldier, he did not
go at his task in a random way, but set to work, first of all, to
arrange his campaign.

What would the boy naturally do?  Where would he naturally go?
Well--argued Miles--he would naturally go to his former haunts,
for that is the instinct of unsound minds, when homeless and
forsaken, as well as of sound ones.  Whereabouts were his former
haunts?  His rags, taken together with the low villain who seemed
to know him and who even claimed to be his father, indicated that
his home was in one or another of the poorest and meanest
districts of London.  Would the search for him be difficult, or
long?  No, it was likely to be easy and brief.  He would not hunt
for the boy, he would hunt for a crowd; in the centre of a big
crowd or a little one, sooner or later, he should find his poor
little friend, sure; and the mangy mob would be entertaining
itself with pestering and aggravating the boy, who would be
proclaiming himself King, as usual.  Then Miles Hendon would
cripple some of those people, and carry off his little ward, and
comfort and cheer him with loving words, and the two would never
be separated any more.

So Miles started on his quest.  Hour after hour he tramped through
back alleys and squalid streets, seeking groups and crowds, and
finding no end of them, but never any sign of the boy.  This
greatly surprised him, but did not discourage him.  To his notion,
there was nothing the matter with his plan of campaign; the only
miscalculation about it was that the campaign was becoming a
lengthy one, whereas he had expected it to be short.

When daylight arrived, at last, he had made many a mile, and
canvassed many a crowd, but the only result was that he was
tolerably tired, rather hungry and very sleepy.  He wanted some
breakfast, but there was no way to get it.  To beg for it did not
occur to him; as to pawning his sword, he would as soon have
thought of parting with his honour; he could spare some of his
clothes--yes, but one could as easily find a customer for a
disease as for such clothes.

At noon he was still tramping--among the rabble which followed
after the royal procession, now; for he argued that this regal
display would attract his little lunatic powerfully.  He followed
the pageant through all its devious windings about London, and all
the way to Westminster and the Abbey.  He drifted here and there
amongst the multitudes that were massed in the vicinity for a
weary long time, baffled and perplexed, and finally wandered off,
thinking, and trying to contrive some way to better his plan of
campaign.  By-and-by, when he came to himself out of his musings,
he discovered that the town was far behind him and that the day
was growing old.  He was near the river, and in the country; it
was a region of fine rural seats--not the sort of district to
welcome clothes like his.

It was not at all cold; so he stretched himself on the ground in
the lee of a hedge to rest and think.  Drowsiness presently began
to settle upon his senses; the faint and far-off boom of cannon
was wafted to his ear, and he said to himself, "The new King is
crowned," and straightway fell asleep.  He had not slept or
rested, before, for more than thirty hours.  He did not wake again
until near the middle of the next morning.

He got up, lame, stiff, and half famished, washed himself in the
river, stayed his stomach with a pint or two of water, and trudged
off toward Westminster, grumbling at himself for having wasted so
much time.  Hunger helped him to a new plan, now; he would try to
get speech with old Sir Humphrey Marlow and borrow a few marks,
and--but that was enough of a plan for the present; it would be
time enough to enlarge it when this first stage should be
accomplished.

Toward eleven o'clock he approached the palace; and although a
host of showy people were about him, moving in the same direction,
he was not inconspicuous--his costume took care of that.  He
watched these people's faces narrowly, hoping to find a charitable
one whose possessor might be willing to carry his name to the old
lieutenant--as to trying to get into the palace himself, that was
simply out of the question.

Presently our whipping-boy passed him, then wheeled about and
scanned his figure well, saying to himself, "An' that is not the
very vagabond his Majesty is in such a worry about, then am I an
ass--though belike I was that before.  He answereth the
description to a rag--that God should make two such would be to
cheapen miracles by wasteful repetition.  I would I could contrive
an excuse to speak with him."

Miles Hendon saved him the trouble; for he turned about, then, as
a man generally will when somebody mesmerises him by gazing hard
at him from behind; and observing a strong interest in the boy's
eyes, he stepped toward him and said--

"You have just come out from the palace; do you belong there?"

"Yes, your worship."

"Know you Sir Humphrey Marlow?"

The boy started, and said to himself, "Lord! mine old departed
father!"  Then he answered aloud, "Right well, your worship."

"Good--is he within?"

"Yes," said the boy; and added, to himself, "within his grave."

"Might I crave your favour to carry my name to him, and say I beg
to say a word in his ear?"

"I will despatch the business right willingly, fair sir."

"Then say Miles Hendon, son of Sir Richard, is here without--I
shall be greatly bounden to you, my good lad."

The boy looked disappointed.  "The King did not name him so," he
said to himself; "but it mattereth not, this is his twin brother,
and can give his Majesty news of t'other Sir-Odds-and-Ends, I
warrant."  So he said to Miles, "Step in there a moment, good sir,
and wait till I bring you word."

Hendon retired to the place indicated--it was a recess sunk in the
palace wall, with a stone bench in it--a shelter for sentinels in
bad weather.  He had hardly seated himself when some halberdiers,
in charge of an officer, passed by.  The officer saw him, halted
his men, and commanded Hendon to come forth.  He obeyed, and was
promptly arrested as a suspicious character prowling within the
precincts of the palace.  Things began to look ugly.  Poor Miles
was going to explain, but the officer roughly silenced him, and
ordered his men to disarm him and search him.

"God of his mercy grant that they find somewhat," said poor Miles;
"I have searched enow, and failed, yet is my need greater than
theirs."

Nothing was found but a document.  The officer tore it open, and
Hendon smiled when he recognised the 'pot-hooks' made by his lost
little friend that black day at Hendon Hall.  The officer's face
grew dark as he read the English paragraph, and Miles blenched to
the opposite colour as he listened.

"Another new claimant of the Crown!" cried the officer.  "Verily
they breed like rabbits, to-day.  Seize the rascal, men, and see
ye keep him fast whilst I convey this precious paper within and
send it to the King."

He hurried away, leaving the prisoner in the grip of the
halberdiers.

"Now is my evil luck ended at last," muttered Hendon, "for I shall
dangle at a rope's end for a certainty, by reason of that bit of
writing.  And what will become of my poor lad!--ah, only the good
God knoweth."

By-and-by he saw the officer coming again, in a great hurry; so he
plucked his courage together, purposing to meet his trouble as
became a man.  The officer ordered the men to loose the prisoner
and return his sword to him; then bowed respectfully, and said--

"Please you, sir, to follow me."

Hendon followed, saying to himself, "An' I were not travelling to
death and judgment, and so must needs economise in sin, I would
throttle this knave for his mock courtesy."

The two traversed a populous court, and arrived at the grand
entrance of the palace, where the officer, with another bow,
delivered Hendon into the hands of a gorgeous official, who
received him with profound respect and led him forward through a
great hall, lined on both sides with rows of splendid flunkeys
(who made reverential obeisance as the two passed along, but fell
into death-throes of silent laughter at our stately scarecrow the
moment his back was turned), and up a broad staircase, among
flocks of fine folk, and finally conducted him into a vast room,
clove a passage for him through the assembled nobility of England,
then made a bow, reminded him to take his hat off, and left him
standing in the middle of the room, a mark for all eyes, for
plenty of indignant frowns, and for a sufficiency of amused and
derisive smiles.

Miles Hendon was entirely bewildered.  There sat the young King,
under a canopy of state, five steps away, with his head bent down
and aside, speaking with a sort of human bird of paradise--a duke,
maybe.  Hendon observed to himself that it was hard enough to be
sentenced to death in the full vigour of life, without having this
peculiarly public humiliation added.  He wished the King would
hurry about it--some of the gaudy people near by were becoming
pretty offensive.  At this moment the King raised his head
slightly, and Hendon caught a good view of his face.  The sight
nearly took his breath away!--He stood gazing at the fair young
face like one transfixed; then presently ejaculated--

"Lo, the Lord of the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows on his throne!"

He muttered some broken sentences, still gazing and marvelling;
then turned his eyes around and about, scanning the gorgeous
throng and the splendid saloon, murmuring, "But these are REAL--
verily these are REAL--surely it is not a dream."

He stared at the King again--and thought, "IS it a dream . . . or
IS he the veritable Sovereign of England, and not the friendless
poor Tom o' Bedlam I took him for--who shall solve me this
riddle?"

A sudden idea flashed in his eye, and he strode to the wall,
gathered up a chair, brought it back, planted it on the floor, and
sat down in it!

A buzz of indignation broke out, a rough hand was laid upon him
and a voice exclaimed--

"Up, thou mannerless clown! would'st sit in the presence of the
King?"

The disturbance attracted his Majesty's attention, who stretched
forth his hand and cried out--

"Touch him not, it is his right!"

The throng fell back, stupefied.  The King went on--

"Learn ye all, ladies, lords, and gentlemen, that this is my
trusty and well-beloved servant, Miles Hendon, who interposed his
good sword and saved his prince from bodily harm and possible
death--and for this he is a knight, by the King's voice.  Also
learn, that for a higher service, in that he saved his sovereign
stripes and shame, taking these upon himself, he is a peer of
England, Earl of Kent, and shall have gold and lands meet for the
dignity.  More--the privilege which he hath just exercised is his
by royal grant; for we have ordained that the chiefs of his line
shall have and hold the right to sit in the presence of the
Majesty of England henceforth, age after age, so long as the crown
shall endure.  Molest him not."

Two persons, who, through delay, had only arrived from the country
during this morning, and had now been in this room only five
minutes, stood listening to these words and looking at the King,
then at the scarecrow, then at the King again, in a sort of torpid
bewilderment.  These were Sir Hugh and the Lady Edith.  But the
new Earl did not see them.  He was still staring at the monarch,
in a dazed way, and muttering--

"Oh, body o' me!  THIS my pauper!  This my lunatic!  This is he
whom _I_ would show what grandeur was, in my house of seventy
rooms and seven-and-twenty servants!  This is he who had never
known aught but rags for raiment, kicks for comfort, and offal for
diet!  This is he whom _I_ adopted and would make respectable!
Would God I had a bag to hide my head in!"

Then his manners suddenly came back to him, and he dropped upon
his knees, with his hands between the King's, and swore allegiance
and did homage for his lands and titles.  Then he rose and stood
respectfully aside, a mark still for all eyes--and much envy, too.

Now the King discovered Sir Hugh, and spoke out with wrathful
voice and kindling eye--

"Strip this robber of his false show and stolen estates, and put
him under lock and key till I have need of him."

The late Sir Hugh was led away.

There was a stir at the other end of the room, now; the assemblage
fell apart, and Tom Canty, quaintly but richly clothed, marched
down, between these living walls, preceded by an usher.  He knelt
before the King, who said--

"I have learned the story of these past few weeks, and am well
pleased with thee.  Thou hast governed the realm with right royal
gentleness and mercy.  Thou hast found thy mother and thy sisters
again?  Good; they shall be cared for--and thy father shall hang,
if thou desire it and the law consent.  Know, all ye that hear my
voice, that from this day, they that abide in the shelter of
Christ's Hospital and share the King's bounty shall have their
minds and hearts fed, as well as their baser parts; and this boy
shall dwell there, and hold the chief place in its honourable body
of governors, during life.  And for that he hath been a king, it
is meet that other than common observance shall be his due;
wherefore note this his dress of state, for by it he shall be
known, and none shall copy it; and wheresoever he shall come, it
shall remind the people that he hath been royal, in his time, and
none shall deny him his due of reverence or fail to give him
salutation.  He hath the throne's protection, he hath the crown's
support, he shall be known and called by the honourable title of
the King's Ward."

The proud and happy Tom Canty rose and kissed the King's hand, and
was conducted from the presence.  He did not waste any time, but
flew to his mother, to tell her and Nan and Bet all about it and
get them to help him enjoy the great news. {1}



Conclusion. Justice and retribution.

When the mysteries were all cleared up, it came out, by confession
of Hugh Hendon, that his wife had repudiated Miles by his command,
that day at Hendon Hall--a command assisted and supported by the
perfectly trustworthy promise that if she did not deny that he was
Miles Hendon, and stand firmly to it, he would have her life;
whereupon she said, "Take it!"--she did not value it--and she
would not repudiate Miles; then the husband said he would spare
her life but have Miles assassinated!  This was a different
matter; so she gave her word and kept it.

Hugh was not prosecuted for his threats or for stealing his
brother's estates and title, because the wife and brother would
not testify against him--and the former would not have been
allowed to do it, even if she had wanted to.  Hugh deserted his
wife and went over to the continent, where he presently died; and
by-and-by the Earl of Kent married his relict.  There were grand
times and rejoicings at Hendon village when the couple paid their
first visit to the Hall.

Tom Canty's father was never heard of again.

The King sought out the farmer who had been branded and sold as a
slave, and reclaimed him from his evil life with the Ruffler's
gang, and put him in the way of a comfortable livelihood.

He also took that old lawyer out of prison and remitted his fine.
He provided good homes for the daughters of the two Baptist women
whom he saw burned at the stake, and roundly punished the official
who laid the undeserved stripes upon Miles Hendon's back.

He saved from the gallows the boy who had captured the stray
falcon, and also the woman who had stolen a remnant of cloth from
a weaver; but he was too late to save the man who had been
convicted of killing a deer in the royal forest.

He showed favour to the justice who had pitied him when he was
supposed to have stolen a pig, and he had the gratification of
seeing him grow in the public esteem and become a great and
honoured man.

As long as the King lived he was fond of telling the story of his
adventures, all through, from the hour that the sentinel cuffed
him away from the palace gate till the final midnight when he
deftly mixed himself into a gang of hurrying workmen and so
slipped into the Abbey and climbed up and hid himself in the
Confessor's tomb, and then slept so long, next day, that he came
within one of missing the Coronation altogether.  He said that the
frequent rehearsing of the precious lesson kept him strong in his
purpose to make its teachings yield benefits to his people; and
so, whilst his life was spared he should continue to tell the
story, and thus keep its sorrowful spectacles fresh in his memory
and the springs of pity replenished in his heart.

Miles Hendon and Tom Canty were favourites of the King, all
through his brief reign, and his sincere mourners when he died.
The good Earl of Kent had too much sense to abuse his peculiar
privilege; but he exercised it twice after the instance we have
seen of it before he was called from this world--once at the
accession of Queen Mary, and once at the accession of Queen
Elizabeth.  A descendant of his exercised it at the accession of
James I.  Before this one's son chose to use the privilege, near a
quarter of a century had elapsed, and the 'privilege of the Kents'
had faded out of most people's memories; so, when the Kent of that
day appeared before Charles I. and his court and sat down in the
sovereign's presence to assert and perpetuate the right of his
house, there was a fine stir indeed!  But the matter was soon
explained, and the right confirmed.  The last Earl of the line
fell in the wars of the Commonwealth fighting for the King, and
the odd privilege ended with him.

Tom Canty lived to be a very old man, a handsome, white-haired old
fellow, of grave and benignant aspect.  As long as he lasted he
was honoured; and he was also reverenced, for his striking and
peculiar costume kept the people reminded that 'in his time he had
been royal;' so, wherever he appeared the crowd fell apart, making
way for him, and whispering, one to another, "Doff thy hat, it is
the King's Ward!"--and so they saluted, and got his kindly smile
in return--and they valued it, too, for his was an honourable
history.

Yes, King Edward VI. lived only a few years, poor boy, but he
lived them worthily.  More than once, when some great dignitary,
some gilded vassal of the crown, made argument against his
leniency, and urged that some law which he was bent upon amending
was gentle enough for its purpose, and wrought no suffering or
oppression which any one need mightily mind, the young King turned
the mournful eloquence of his great compassionate eyes upon him
and answered--

"What dost THOU know of suffering and oppression?  I and my people
know, but not thou."

The reign of Edward VI. was a singularly merciful one for those
harsh times.  Now that we are taking leave of him, let us try to
keep this in our minds, to his credit.



FOOTNOTES AND TWAIN'S NOTES



{1}  For Mark Twain's note see below under the relevant chapter
heading.

{2}  He refers to the order of baronets, or baronettes; the
barones minores, as distinct from the parliamentary barons--not,
it need hardly be said, to the baronets of later creation.

{3}  The lords of Kingsale, descendants of De Courcy, still enjoy
this curious privilege.

{4}  Hume.

{5}  Ib.

{6}  Leigh Hunt's 'The Town,' p.408, quotation from an early
tourist.

{7}  Canting terms for various kinds of thieves, beggars and
vagabonds, and their female companions.

{8}  From 'The English Rogue.'  London, 1665.

{9}  Hume's England.

{10}  See Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull's Blue Laws, True and False, p.
11.

NOTE 1, Chapter IV. Christ's Hospital Costume.

It is most reasonable to regard the dress as copied from the
costume of the citizens of London of that period, when long blue
coats were the common habit of apprentices and serving-men, and
yellow stockings were generally worn; the coat fits closely to the
body, but has loose sleeves, and beneath is worn a sleeveless
yellow under-coat; around the waist is a red leathern girdle; a
clerical band around the neck, and a small flat black cap, about
the size of a saucer, completes the costume.--Timbs' Curiosities
of London.

NOTE 2, Chapter IV.

It appears that Christ's Hospital was not originally founded as a
SCHOOL; its object was to rescue children from the streets, to
shelter, feed, clothe them.
--Timbs' Curiosities of London.

NOTE 3, Chapter V. The Duke of Norfolk's Condemnation commanded.

The King was now approaching fast towards his end; and fearing
lest Norfolk should escape him, he sent a message to the Commons,
by which he desired them to hasten the Bill, on pretence that
Norfolk enjoyed the dignity of Earl Marshal, and it was necessary
to appoint another, who might officiate at the ensuing ceremony of
installing his son Prince of Wales.--Hume's History of England,
vol. iii. p. 307.

NOTE 4, Chapter VII.

It was not till the end of this reign (Henry VIII.) that any
salads, carrots, turnips, or other edible roots were produced in
England.  The little of these vegetables that was used was
formerly imported from Holland and Flanders.  Queen Catherine,
when she wanted a salad, was obliged to despatch a messenger
thither on purpose.--Hume's History of England, vol. iii. p. 314.

NOTE 5, Chapter VIII. Attainder of Norfolk.

The House of Peers, without examining the prisoner, without trial
or evidence, passed a Bill of Attainder against him and sent it
down to the Commons . . . The obsequious Commons obeyed his (the
King's) directions; and the King, having affixed the Royal assent
to the Bill by commissioners, issued orders for the execution of
Norfolk on the morning of January 29 (the next day).--Hume's
History of England, vol iii. p 306.

NOTE 6, Chapter X. The Loving-cup.

The loving-cup, and the peculiar ceremonies observed in drinking
from it, are older than English history.  It is thought that both
are Danish importations.  As far back as knowledge goes, the
loving-cup has always been drunk at English banquets.  Tradition
explains the ceremonies in this way.  In the rude ancient times it
was deemed a wise precaution to have both hands of both drinkers
employed, lest while the pledger pledged his love and fidelity to
the pledgee, the pledgee take that opportunity to slip a dirk into
him!

NOTE 7, Chapter XI. The Duke of Norfolk's narrow Escape.

Had Henry VIII. survived a few hours longer, his order for the
duke's execution would have been carried into effect. 'But news
being carried to the Tower that the King himself had expired that
night, the lieutenant deferred obeying the warrant; and it was not
thought advisable by the Council to begin a new reign by the death
of the greatest nobleman in the kingdom, who had been condemned by
a sentence so unjust and tyrannical.'--Hume's History of England,
vol. iii, p. 307.

NOTE 8, Chapter XIV. The Whipping-boy.

James I. and Charles II. had whipping-boys, when they were little
fellows, to take their punishment for them when they fell short in
their lessons; so I have ventured to furnish my small prince with
one, for my own purposes.

NOTES to Chapter XV.

Character of Hertford.

The young King discovered an extreme attachment to his uncle, who
was, in the main, a man of moderation and probity.--Hume's History
of England, vol. iii.p324.

But if he (the Protector) gave offence by assuming too much state,
he deserves great praise on account of the laws passed this
session, by which the rigour of former statutes was much
mitigated, and some security given to the freedom of the
constitution.  All laws were repealed which extended the crime of
treason beyond the statute of the twenty-fifth of Edward III.; all
laws enacted during the late reign extending the crime of felony;
all the former laws against Lollardy or heresy, together with the
statute of the Six Articles.  None were to be accused for words,
but within a month after they were spoken.  By these repeals
several of the most rigorous laws that ever had passed in England
were annulled; and some dawn, both of civil and religious liberty,
began to appear to the people.  A repeal also passed of that law,
the destruction of all laws, by which the King's proclamation was
made of equal force with a statute.--Ibid. vol. iii. p. 339.

Boiling to Death.

In the reign of Henry VIII. poisoners were, by Act of Parliament,
condemned to be BOILED TO DEATH.  This Act was repealed in the
following reign.

In Germany, even in the seventeenth century, this horrible
punishment was inflicted on coiners and counterfeiters.  Taylor,
the Water Poet, describes an execution he witnessed in Hamburg in
1616.  The judgment pronounced against a coiner of false money was
that he should 'BE BOILED TO DEATH IN OIL; not thrown into the
vessel at once, but with a pulley or rope to be hanged under the
armpits, and then let down into the oil BY DEGREES; first the
feet, and next the legs, and so to boil his flesh from his bones
alive.'--Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull's Blue Laws, True and False, p.
13.

The Famous Stocking Case.

A woman and her daughter, NINE YEARS OLD, were hanged in
Huntingdon for selling their souls to the devil, and raising a
storm by pulling off their stockings!--Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull's
Blue Laws, True and False, p. 20.

NOTE 10, Chapter XVII. Enslaving.

So young a King and so ignorant a peasant were likely to make
mistakes; and this is an instance in point.  This peasant was
suffering from this law BY ANTICIPATION; the King was venting his
indignation against a law which was not yet in existence; for this
hideous statute was to have birth in this little King's OWN REIGN.
However, we know, from the humanity of his character, that it
could never have been suggested by him.

NOTES to Chapter XXIII. Death for Trifling Larcenies.

When Connecticut and New Haven were framing their first codes,
larceny above the value of twelve pence was a capital crime in
England--as it had been since the time of Henry I.--Dr. J. Hammond
Trumbull's Blue Laws, True and False, p. 17.

The curious old book called The English Rogue makes the limit
thirteen pence ha'penny:  death being the portion of any who steal
a thing 'above the value of thirteen pence ha'penny.'

NOTES to Chapter XXVII.

From many descriptions of larceny the law expressly took away the
benefit of clergy:  to steal a horse, or a HAWK, or woollen cloth
from the weaver, was a hanging matter.  So it was to kill a deer
from the King's forest, or to export sheep from the kingdom.--Dr.
J. Hammond Trumbull's Blue Laws, True and False, p.13.

William Prynne, a learned barrister, was sentenced (long after
Edward VI.'s time) to lose both his ears in the pillory, to
degradation from the bar, a fine of 3,000 pounds, and imprisonment
for life.  Three years afterwards he gave new offence to Laud by
publishing a pamphlet against the hierarchy.  He was again
prosecuted, and was sentenced to lose WHAT REMAINED OF HIS EARS,
to pay a fine of 5,000 pounds, to be BRANDED ON BOTH HIS CHEEKS
with the letters S. L. (for Seditious Libeller), and to remain in
prison for life.  The severity of this sentence was equalled by
the savage rigour of its execution.--Ibid. p. 12.

NOTES to Chapter XXXIII.

Christ's Hospital, or Bluecoat School, 'the noblest institution in
the world.'

The ground on which the Priory of the Grey Friars stood was
conferred by Henry VIII. on the Corporation of London (who caused
the institution there of a home for poor boys and girls).
Subsequently, Edward VI. caused the old Priory to be properly
repaired, and founded within it that noble establishment called
the Bluecoat School, or Christ's Hospital, for the EDUCATION and
maintenance of orphans and the children of indigent persons . . .
Edward would not let him (Bishop Ridley) depart till the letter
was written (to the Lord Mayor), and then charged him to deliver
it himself, and signify his special request and commandment that
no time might be lost in proposing what was convenient, and
apprising him of the proceedings.  The work was zealously
undertaken, Ridley himself engaging in it; and the result was the
founding of Christ's Hospital for the education of poor children.
(The King endowed several other charities at the same time.)
"Lord God," said he, "I yield Thee most hearty thanks that Thou
hast given me life thus long to finish this work to the glory of
Thy name!"  That innocent and most exemplary life was drawing
rapidly to its close, and in a few days he rendered up his spirit
to his Creator, praying God to defend the realm from Papistry.--J.
Heneage Jesse's London:  its Celebrated Characters and Places.

In the Great Hall hangs a large picture of King Edward VI. seated
on his throne, in a scarlet and ermined robe, holding the sceptre
in his left hand, and presenting with the other the Charter to the
kneeling Lord Mayor.  By his side stands the Chancellor, holding
the seals, and next to him are other officers of state.  Bishop
Ridley kneels before him with uplifted hands, as if supplicating a
blessing on the event; whilst the Aldermen, etc., with the Lord
Mayor, kneel on both sides, occupying the middle ground of the
picture; and lastly, in front, are a double row of boys on one
side and girls on the other, from the master and matron down to
the boy and girl who have stepped forward from their respective
rows, and kneel with raised hands before the King.--Timbs'
Curiosities of London, p. 98.

Christ's Hospital, by ancient custom, possesses the privilege of
addressing the Sovereign on the occasion of his or her coming into
the City to partake of the hospitality of the Corporation of
London.--Ibid.

The Dining Hall, with its lobby and organ-gallery, occupies the
entire storey, which is 187 feet long, 51 feet wide, and 47 feet
high; it is lit by nine large windows, filled with stained glass
on the south side; and is, next to Westminster Hall, the noblest
room in the metropolis.  Here the boys, now about 800 in number,
dine; and here are held the 'Suppings in Public,' to which
visitors are admitted by tickets issued by the Treasurer and by
the Governors of Christ's Hospital.  The tables are laid with
cheese in wooden bowls, beer in wooden piggins, poured from
leathern jacks, and bread brought in large baskets.  The official
company enter; the Lord Mayor, or President, takes his seat in a
state chair made of oak from St. Catherine's Church, by the Tower;
a hymn is sung, accompanied by the organ; a 'Grecian,' or head
boy, reads the prayers from the pulpit, silence being enforced by
three drops of a wooden hammer.  After prayer the supper
commences, and the visitors walk between the tables.  At its close
the 'trade-boys' take up the baskets, bowls, jacks, piggins, and
candlesticks, and pass in procession, the bowing to the Governors
being curiously formal.  This spectacle was witnessed by Queen
Victoria and Prince Albert in 1845.

Among the more eminent Bluecoat boys are Joshua Barnes, editor of
Anacreon and Euripides; Jeremiah Markland, the eminent critic,
particularly in Greek Literature; Camden, the antiquary; Bishop
Stillingfleet; Samuel Richardson, the novelist; Thomas Mitchell,
the translator of Aristophanes; Thomas Barnes, many years editor
of the London Times; Coleridge, Charles Lamb, and Leigh Hunt.

No boy is admitted before he is seven years old, or after he is
nine; and no boy can remain in the school after he is fifteen,
King's boys and 'Grecians' alone excepted.  There are about 500
Governors, at the head of whom are the Sovereign and the Prince of
Wales.  The qualification for a Governor is payment of 500
pounds.--Ibid.


GENERAL NOTE.


One hears much about the 'hideous Blue Laws of Connecticut,' and
is accustomed to shudder piously when they are mentioned.  There
are people in America--and even in England!--who imagine that they
were a very monument of malignity, pitilessness, and inhumanity;
whereas in reality they were about the first SWEEPING DEPARTURE
FROM JUDICIAL ATROCITY which the 'civilised' world had seen.  This
humane and kindly Blue Law Code, of two hundred and forty years
ago, stands all by itself, with ages of bloody law on the further
side of it, and a century and three-quarters of bloody English law
on THIS side of it.

There has never been a time--under the Blue Laws or any other--
when above FOURTEEN crimes were punishable by death in
Connecticut.  But in England, within the memory of men who are
still hale in body and mind, TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-THREE crimes
were punishable by death! {10}  These facts are worth knowing--and
worth thinking about, too.