Prince and the Pauper (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (14 page)

“And hast thou been beaten, poor friend, according to the promise?”

“No, good your majesty, my punishment was appointed for this day, and peradventure it may be annulled, as unbefitting the season of mourning that is come upon us; I know not, and so have made bold to come hither and remind your grace about your gracious promise to intercede in my behalf—”

“With the master? To save thee thy whipping?”

“Ah, thou dost remember!”

“My memory mendeth, thou seest. Set thy mind at ease—thy back shall go unscathed—I will see to it.”

“Oh, thanks, my good lord!” cried the boy, dropping upon his knee again. “Mayhap I have ventured far enow; and yet”....

Seeing Master Humphrey hesitate, Tom encouraged him to go on, saying he was “in the granting mood.”

“Then will I speak it out, for it lieth near my heart. Sith thou art no more Prince of Wales, but king, thou canst order matters as thou wilt, with none to say thee nay; wherefore it is not in reason that thou wilt longer vex thyself with dreary studies, but wilt burn thy books and turn thy mind to things less irksome. Then am I ruined, and mine orphan sisters with me!”

“Ruined? Prithee, how?”

“My back is my bread, O my gracious liege! if it go idle, I starve. An thou cease from study, mine office is gone, thou’lt need no whipping-boy. Do not turn me away!”

Tom was touched with this pathetic distress. He said, with a right royal burst of generosity:

“Discomfort thyself no further, lad. Thine office shall be permanent in thee and thy line, forever.” Then he struck the boy a light blow on the shoulder with the flat of his sword, exclaiming, “Rise, Humphrey Marlow, Hereditary Grand Whipping-Boy to the royal house of England! Banish sorrow—I will betake me to my books again, and study so ill that they must in justice treble thy wage, so mightily shall the business of thine office be augmented.”

The grateful Humphrey responded fervidly:

“Thanks, oh, most noble master, this princely lavishness doth far surpass my most distempered dreams of fortune. Now shall I be happy all my days, and all the house of Marlow after me.”

Tom had wit enough to perceive that here was a lad who could be useful to him. He encouraged Humphrey to talk, and he was nothing loath. He was delighted to believe that he was helping in Tom’s “cure”; for always, as soon as he had finished calling back to Tom’s diseased mind the various particulars of his experiences and adventures in the royal schoolroom and elsewhere about the palace, he noticed that Tom was then able to “recall” the circumstances quite clearly. At the end of an hour Tom found himself well freighted with very valuable information concerning personages and matters pertaining to the court; so he resolved to draw instruction from this source daily; and to this end he would give order to admit Humphrey to the royal closet whenever he might come, provided the majesty of England was not engaged with other people.

Humphrey had hardly been dismissed when my Lord Hertford arrived with more trouble for Tom. He said that the lords of the council, fearing that some overwrought report of the king’s damaged health might have leaked out and got abroad, they deemed it wise and best that his majesty should begin to dine in public after a day or two—his wholesome complexion and vigorous step, assisted by a carefully guarded repose of manner and ease and grace of demeanor, would more surely quiet the general pulse—in case any evil rumors had gone about—than any other scheme that could be devised.

Then the earl proceeded, very delicately, to instruct Tom as to the observances proper to the stately occasion, under the rather thin disguise of “reminding” him concerning things already known to him; but to his vast gratification it turned out that Tom needed very little help in this line—he had been making use of Humphrey in that direction, for 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 a 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.

T
he next day the foreign ambassadors came, with their gorgeous trains; and Tom, throned in awful state, received them. The splendors 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 homesickness 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 labors 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 program—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 duly 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, 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?”

“Oh, blithely, yes! Oh, 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 heartstrings. 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 backward 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 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,’ while 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 offense?”

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:

“Oh, 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?”

“Oh, good my liege, not so! It is ordered that I be boiled alive!”