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

oil by degrees, and slowly; first the feet, then the legs, then—”

“O prithee no more, my lord, I cannot bear it!” cried Tom, covering his

eyes with his hands to shut out the picture. “I beseech your good

lordship that order be taken to change this law—oh, let no more poor

creatures be visited with its tortures.”

The Earl’s face showed profound gratification, for he was a man of

merciful and generous impulses—a thing not very common with his class in

that fierce age. He said—

“These your Grace’s noble words have sealed its doom. History will

remember it to the honour of your royal house.”

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

to wait; then he said—

“Good sir, I would look into this matter further. The man has said his

deed was but lamely proved. Tell me what thou knowest.”

“If the King’s grace please, it did appear upon the trial that this man

entered into a house in the hamlet of Islington where one lay sick—three

witnesses say it was at ten of the clock in the morning, and two say it

was some minutes later—the sick man being alone at the time, and

sleeping—and presently the man came forth again and went his way. The

sick man died within the hour, being torn with spasms and retchings.”

“Did any see the poison given? Was poison found?”

“Marry, no, my liege.”

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

“Please your Majesty, the doctors testified that none die with such

symptoms but by poison.”

Weighty evidence, this, in that simple age. Tom recognised its

formidable nature, and said—

“The doctor knoweth his trade—belike they were right. The matter hath

an ill-look for this poor man.”

“Yet was not this all, your Majesty; there is more and worse. Many

testified that a witch, since gone from the village, none know whither,

did foretell, and speak it privately in their ears, that the sick man

WOULD DIE BY POISON—and more, that a stranger would give it—a stranger

with brown hair and clothed in a worn and common garb; and surely this

prisoner doth answer woundily to the bill. Please your Majesty to give

the circumstance that solemn weight which is its due, seeing it was

FORETOLD.”

This was an argument of tremendous force in that superstitious day. Tom

felt that the thing was settled; if evidence was worth anything, this

poor fellow’s guilt was proved. Still he offered the prisoner a chance,

saying—

“If thou canst say aught in thy behalf, speak.”

“Nought that will avail, my King. I am innocent, yet cannot I make it

appear. I have no friends, else might I show that I was not in Islington

that day; so also might I show that at that hour they name I was above a

league away, seeing I was at Wapping Old Stairs; yea more, my King, for I

could show, that whilst they say I was TAKING life, I was SAVING it. A

drowning boy—”

“Peace! Sheriff, name the day the deed was done!”

“At ten in the morning, or some minutes later, the first day of the New

Year, most illustrious—”

“Let the prisoner go free—it is the King’s will!”

Another blush followed this unregal outburst, and he covered his

indecorum as well as he could by adding—

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

evidence!”

A low buzz of admiration swept through the assemblage. It was not

admiration of the decree that had been delivered by Tom, for the

propriety or expediency of pardoning a convicted poisoner was a thing

which few there would have felt justified in either admitting or

admiring—no, the admiration was for the intelligence and spirit which

Tom had displayed. Some of the low-voiced remarks were to this effect—

“This is no mad king—he hath his wits sound.”

“How sanely he put his questions—how like his former natural self was

this abrupt imperious disposal of the matter!”

“God be thanked, his infirmity is spent! This is no weakling, but a

king. He hath borne himself like to his own father.”

The air being filled with applause, Tom’s ear necessarily caught a little

of it. The effect which this had upon him was to put him greatly at his

ease, and also to charge his system with very gratifying sensations.

However, his juvenile curiosity soon rose superior to these pleasant

thoughts and feelings; he was eager to know what sort of deadly mischief

the woman and the little girl could have been about; so, by his command,

the two terrified and sobbing creatures were brought before him.

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

“Please your Majesty, a black crime is charged upon them, and clearly

proven; wherefore the judges have decreed, according to the law, that

they be hanged. They sold themselves to the devil—such is their crime.”

Tom shuddered. He had been taught to abhor people who did this wicked

thing. Still, he was not going to deny himself the pleasure of feeding

his curiosity for all that; so he asked—

“Where was this done?—and when?”

“On a midnight in December, in a ruined church, your Majesty.”

Tom shuddered again.

“Who was there present?”

“Only these two, your grace—and THAT OTHER.”

“Have these confessed?”

“Nay, not so, sire—they do deny it.”

“Then prithee, how was it known?”

“Certain witness did see them wending thither, good your Majesty; this

bred the suspicion, and dire effects have since confirmed and justified

it. In particular, it is in evidence that through the wicked power so

obtained, they did invoke and bring about a storm that wasted all the

region round about. Above forty witnesses have proved the storm; and

sooth one might have had a thousand, for all had reason to remember it,

sith all had suffered by it.”

“Certes this is a serious matter.” Tom turned this dark piece of

scoundrelism over in his mind a while, then asked—

“Suffered the woman also by the storm?”

Several old heads among the assemblage nodded their recognition of the

wisdom of this question. The sheriff, however, saw nothing consequential

in the inquiry; he answered, with simple directness—

“Indeed did she, your Majesty, and most righteously, as all aver. Her

habitation was swept away, and herself and child left shelterless.”

“Methinks the power to do herself so ill a turn was dearly bought. She

had been cheated, had she paid but a farthing for it; that she paid her

soul, and her child’s, argueth that she is mad; if she is mad she knoweth

not what she doth, therefore sinneth not.”

The elderly heads nodded recognition of Tom’s wisdom once more, and one

individual murmured, “An’ the King be mad himself, according to report,

then is it a madness of a sort that would improve the sanity of some I

wot of, if by the gentle providence of God they could but catch it.”

“What age hath the child?” asked Tom.

“Nine years, please your Majesty.”

“By the law of England may a child enter into covenant and sell itself,

my lord?” asked Tom, turning to a learned judge.

“The law doth not permit a child to make or meddle in any weighty matter,

good my liege, holding that its callow wit unfitteth it to cope with the

riper wit and evil schemings of them that are its elders. The DEVIL may

buy a child, if he so choose, and the child agree thereto, but not an

Englishman—in this latter case the contract would be null and void.”

“It seemeth a rude unchristian thing, and ill contrived, that English law

denieth privileges to Englishmen to waste them on the devil!” cried Tom,

with honest heat.

This novel view of the matter excited many smiles, and was stored away in

many heads to be repeated about the Court as evidence of Tom’s

originality as well as progress toward mental health.

The elder culprit had ceased from sobbing, and was hanging upon Tom’s

words with an excited interest and a growing hope. Tom noticed this, and

it strongly inclined his sympathies toward her in her perilous and

unfriended situation. Presently he asked—

“How wrought they to bring the storm?”

“BY PULLING OFF THEIR STOCKINGS, sire.”

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

eagerly—

“It is wonderful! Hath it always this dread effect?”

“Always, my liege—at least if the woman desire it, and utter the needful

words, either in her mind or with her tongue.”

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

“Exert thy power—I would see a storm!”

There was a sudden paling of cheeks in the superstitious assemblage, and

a general, though unexpressed, desire to get out of the place—all of

which was lost upon Tom, who was dead to everything but the proposed

cataclysm. Seeing a puzzled and astonished look in the woman’s face, he

added, excitedly—

“Never fear—thou shalt be blameless. More—thou shalt go free—none

shall touch thee. Exert thy power.”

“Oh, my lord the King, I have it not—I have been falsely accused.”

“Thy fears stay thee. Be of good heart, thou shalt suffer no harm. Make

a storm—it mattereth not how small a one—I require nought great or

harmful, but indeed prefer the opposite—do this and thy life is spared—

thou shalt go out free, with thy child, bearing the King’s pardon, and

safe from hurt or malice from any in the realm.”

The woman prostrated herself, and protested, with tears, that she had no

power to do the miracle, else she would gladly win her child’s life

alone, and be content to lose her own, if by obedience to the King’s

command so precious a grace might be acquired.

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

“I think the woman hath said true. An’ MY mother were in her place and

gifted with the devil’s functions, she had not stayed a moment to call

her storms and lay the whole land in ruins, if the saving of my forfeit

life were the price she got! It is argument that other mothers are made

in like mould. Thou art free, goodwife—thou and thy child—for I do

think thee innocent. NOW thou’st nought to fear, being pardoned—pull

off thy stockings!—an’ thou canst make me a storm, thou shalt be rich!”

The redeemed creature was loud in her gratitude, and proceeded to obey,

whilst Tom looked on with eager expectancy, a little marred by

apprehension; the courtiers at the same time manifesting decided

discomfort and uneasiness. The woman stripped her own feet and her

little girl’s also, and plainly did her best to reward the King’s

generosity with an earthquake, but it was all a failure and a

disappointment. Tom sighed, and said—

“There, good soul, trouble thyself no further, thy power is departed out

of thee. Go thy way in peace; and if it return to thee at any time,

forget me not, but fetch me a storm.” {13}

Chapter XVI. The State Dinner.

The dinner hour drew near—yet strangely enough, the thought brought but

slight discomfort to Tom, and hardly any terror. The morning’s

experiences had wonderfully built up his confidence; the poor little ash-cat was already more wonted to his strange garret, after four days’

habit, than a mature person could have become in a full month. A child’s

facility in accommodating itself to circumstances was never more