The Prince and the Pauper

Chapter 10

"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.