The Prince and The Pauper, Complete

M >> Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) >> The Prince and The Pauper, Complete


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

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

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

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

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

"Who art thou?"

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

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

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

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

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

"I am an archangel!"

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

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

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

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

"Thou art King?"

"Yes," was the response, drowsily uttered.

"What King?"

"Of England."

"Of England? Then Henry is gone!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Chapter XXI. Hendon to the rescue.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What boy, friend?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Noise? I heard only the wind."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Chapter XXII. A victim of treachery.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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