The Prince and the Pauper
Mark Twain

from the 1904 Chatto & Windus edition.





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