The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain (novel24 txt) 📕

Humphrey had mentioned that within a few days he was to begin to dine in

public; having gathered it from the swift-winged gossip of the Court.

Tom kept these facts to himself, however.

Seeing the royal memory so improved, the Earl ventured to apply a few

tests to it, in an apparently casual way, to find out how far its

amendment had progressed. The results were happy, here and there, in

spots—spots where Humphrey’s tracks remained—and on the whole my lord

was greatly pleased and encouraged. So encouraged was he, indeed, that

he spoke up and said in a quite hopeful voice—

“Now am I persuaded that if your Majesty will but tax your memory yet a

little further, it will resolve the puzzle of the Great Seal—a loss

which was of moment yesterday, although of none to-day, since its term of

service ended with our late lord’s life. May it please your Grace to make

the trial?”

Tom was at sea—a Great Seal was something which he was totally

unacquainted with. After a moment’s hesitation he looked up innocently

and asked—

“What was it like, my lord?”

The Earl started, almost imperceptibly, muttering to himself, “Alack, his

wits are flown again!—it was ill wisdom to lead him on to strain them”—

then he deftly turned the talk to other matters, with the purpose of

sweeping the unlucky seal out of Tom’s thoughts—a purpose which easily

succeeded.

Chapter XV. Tom as King.

The next day the foreign ambassadors came, with their gorgeous trains;

and Tom, throned in awful state, received them. The splendours of the

scene delighted his eye and fired his imagination at first, but the

audience was long and dreary, and so were most of the addresses—

wherefore, what began as a pleasure grew into weariness and home-sickness

by-and-by. Tom said the words which Hertford put into his mouth from

time to time, and tried hard to acquit himself satisfactorily, but he was

too new to such things, and too ill at ease to accomplish more than a

tolerable success. He looked sufficiently like a king, but he was ill

able to feel like one. He was cordially glad when the ceremony was

ended.

The larger part of his day was ‘wasted’—as he termed it, in his own

mind—in labours pertaining to his royal office. Even the two hours

devoted to certain princely pastimes and recreations were rather a burden

to him than otherwise, they were so fettered by restrictions and

ceremonious observances. However, he had a private hour with his

whipping-boy which he counted clear gain, since he got both entertainment

and needful information out of it.

The third day of Tom Canty’s kingship came and went much as the others

had done, but there was a lifting of his cloud in one way—he felt less

uncomfortable than at first; he was getting a little used to his

circumstances and surroundings; his chains still galled, but not all the

time; he found that the presence and homage of the great afflicted and

embarrassed him less and less sharply with every hour that drifted over

his head.

But for one single dread, he could have seen the fourth day approach

without serious distress—the dining in public; it was to begin that day.

There were greater matters in the programme—for on that day he would

have to preside at a council which would take his views and commands

concerning the policy to be pursued toward various foreign nations

scattered far and near over the great globe; on that day, too, Hertford

would be formally chosen to the grand office of Lord Protector; other

things of note were appointed for that fourth day, also; but to Tom they

were all insignificant compared with the ordeal of dining all by himself

with a multitude of curious eyes fastened upon him and a multitude of

mouths whispering comments upon his performance,—and upon his mistakes,

if he should be so unlucky as to make any.

Still, nothing could stop that fourth day, and so it came. It found poor

Tom low-spirited and absent-minded, and this mood continued; he could not

shake it off. The ordinary duties of the morning dragged upon his hands,

and wearied him. Once more he felt the sense of captivity heavy upon

him.

Late in the forenoon he was in a large audience-chamber, conversing with

the Earl of Hertford and dully awaiting the striking of the hour

appointed for a visit of ceremony from a considerable number of great

officials and courtiers.

After a little while, Tom, who had wandered to a window and become

interested in the life and movement of the great highway beyond the

palace gates—and not idly interested, but longing with all his heart to

take part in person in its stir and freedom—saw the van of a hooting and

shouting mob of disorderly men, women, and children of the lowest and

poorest degree approaching from up the road.

“I would I knew what ‘tis about!” he exclaimed, with all a boy’s

curiosity in such happenings.

“Thou art the King!” solemnly responded the Earl, with a reverence.

“Have I your Grace’s leave to act?”

“O blithely, yes! O gladly, yes!” exclaimed Tom excitedly, adding to

himself with a lively sense of satisfaction, “In truth, being a king is

not all dreariness—it hath its compensations and conveniences.”

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

order—

“Let the mob be halted, and inquiry made concerning the occasion of its

movement. By the King’s command!”

A few seconds later a long rank of the royal guards, cased in flashing

steel, filed out at the gates and formed across the highway in front of

the multitude. A messenger returned, to report that the crowd were

following a man, a woman, and a young girl to execution for crimes

committed against the peace and dignity of the realm.

Death—and a violent death—for these poor unfortunates! The thought

wrung Tom’s heart-strings. The spirit of compassion took control of him,

to the exclusion of all other considerations; he never thought of the

offended laws, or of the grief or loss which these three criminals had

inflicted upon their victims; he could think of nothing but the scaffold

and the grisly fate hanging over the heads of the condemned. His concern

made him even forget, for the moment, that he was but the false shadow of

a king, not the substance; and before he knew it he had blurted out the

command—

“Bring them here!”

Then he blushed scarlet, and a sort of apology sprung to his lips; but

observing that his order had wrought no sort of surprise in the Earl or

the waiting page, he suppressed the words he was about to utter. The

page, in the most matter-of-course way, made a profound obeisance and

retired backwards out of the room to deliver the command. Tom

experienced a glow of pride and a renewed sense of the compensating

advantages of the kingly office. He said to himself, “Truly it is like

what I was used to feel when I read the old priest’s tales, and did

imagine mine own self a prince, giving law and command to all, saying ‘Do

this, do that,’ whilst none durst offer let or hindrance to my will.”

Now the doors swung open; one high-sounding title after another was

announced, the personages owning them followed, and the place was quickly

half-filled with noble folk and finery. But Tom was hardly conscious of

the presence of these people, so wrought up was he and so intensely

absorbed in that other and more interesting matter. He seated himself

absently in his chair of state, and turned his eyes upon the door with

manifestations of impatient expectancy; seeing which, the company forbore

to trouble him, and fell to chatting a mixture of public business and

court gossip one with another.

In a little while the measured tread of military men was heard

approaching, and the culprits entered the presence in charge of an under-sheriff and escorted by a detail of the king’s guard. The civil officer

knelt before Tom, then stood aside; the three doomed persons knelt, also,

and remained so; the guard took position behind Tom’s chair. Tom scanned

the prisoners curiously. Something about the dress or appearance of the

man had stirred a vague memory in him. “Methinks I have seen this man

ere now … but the when or the where fail me”—such was Tom’s thought.

Just then the man glanced quickly up and quickly dropped his face again,

not being able to endure the awful port of sovereignty; but the one full

glimpse of the face which Tom got was sufficient. He said to himself:

“Now is the matter clear; this is the stranger that plucked Giles Witt

out of the Thames, and saved his life, that windy, bitter, first day of

the New Year—a brave good deed—pity he hath been doing baser ones and

got himself in this sad case … I have not forgot the day, neither the

hour; by reason that an hour after, upon the stroke of eleven, I did get

a hiding by the hand of Gammer Canty which was of so goodly and admired

severity that all that went before or followed after it were but

fondlings and caresses by comparison.”

Tom now ordered that the woman and the girl be removed from the presence

for a little time; then addressed himself to the under-sheriff, saying—

“Good sir, what is this man’s offence?”

The officer knelt, and answered—

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

Tom’s compassion for the prisoner, and admiration of him as the daring

rescuer of a drowning boy, experienced a most damaging shock.

“The thing was proven upon him?” he asked.

“Most clearly, sire.”

Tom sighed, and said—

“Take him away—he hath earned his death. ‘Tis a pity, for he was a

brave heart—na—na, I mean he hath the LOOK of it!”

The prisoner clasped his hands together with sudden energy, and wrung

them despairingly, at the same time appealing imploringly to the ‘King’

in broken and terrified phrases—

“O my lord the King, an’ thou canst pity the lost, have pity upon me! I

am innocent—neither hath that wherewith I am charged been more than but

lamely proved—yet I speak not of that; the judgment is gone forth

against me and may not suffer alteration; yet in mine extremity I beg a

boon, for my doom is more than I can bear. A grace, a grace, my lord the

King! in thy royal compassion grant my prayer—give commandment that I be

hanged!”

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

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

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

The hideous surprise of these words almost made Tom spring from his

chair. As soon as he could recover his wits he cried out—

“Have thy wish, poor soul! an’ thou had poisoned a hundred men thou

shouldst not suffer so miserable a death.”

The prisoner bowed his face to the ground and burst into passionate

expressions of gratitude—ending with—

“If ever thou shouldst know misfortune—which God forefend!—may thy

goodness to me this day be remembered and requited!”

Tom turned to the Earl of Hertford, and said—

“My lord, is it believable that there was warrant for this man’s

ferocious doom?”

“It is the law, your Grace—for poisoners. In Germany coiners be boiled

to death in OIL—not cast in of a sudden, but by