Prince and the Pauper (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (15 page)

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 forbid!—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 a rope let down into the oil by degrees, and slowly; first the feet, then the legs, then—”

“Oh, 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 honor 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
³²
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 spasm 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 recognized 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.”

“Naught 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;
³³
yea more, my king, for I could show, that while 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 witnesses 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
^ad
this is a serious matter.” Tom turned this dark piece of scoundrelism over in his mind awhile, 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 shelter-less.”

“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 it is 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.”

“O 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 naught 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 mold. Thou art free, good wire—thou and thy child—rbr I do think thee innocent.
Now
thou’st naught 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, while 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.”
^ae

T
he 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 strikingly illustrated.

Let us privileged ones hurry to the great banqueting-room and have a glance at matters there while Tom is being made ready for the imposing occasion. It is a spacious apartment, with gilded pillars and pilasters, and pictured walls and ceilings. At the door stand tall guards, as rigid as statues, dressed in rich and picturesque costumes, and bearing halberds. In a high gallery which runs all around the place is a band of musicians and a packed company of citizens of both sexes, in brilliant attire. In the center of the room, upon a raised platform, is Tom’s table. Now let the ancient chronicler speak:

“A gentleman enters the room bearing a rod, and along with him another bearing a table-cloth, which, after they have both kneeled three times with the utmost veneration, he spreads upon the table, and after kneeling again they both retire; then come two others, one with the rod again, the other with a salt-cellar, a plate, and bread; when they have kneeled as the others had done, and placed what was brought upon the table, they too retire with the same ceremonies performed by the first; at last come two nobles, richly clothed, one bearing a tasting-knife, who, after prostrating themselves in the most graceful manner, approach and rub the table with bread and salt, with as much awe as if the king had been present.”
^af

So end the solemn preliminaries. Now, far down the echoing corridors we hear a bugle-blast, and the indistinct cry, “Place for the king! way for the king’s most excellent majesty!” These sounds are momently repeated—they grow nearer and nearer—and presently, almost in our faces, the martial note peals and the cry rings out, “Way for the king!” At this instant the shining pageant appears, and files in at the door, with a measured march. Let the chronicler speak again:

“First come Gentlemen, Barons, Earls, Knights of the Garter, all richly dressed and bareheaded; next comes the Chancellor, between two, one of which carries the royal scepter, the other the Sword of State in a red scabbard, studded with golden fleurs-de-lis, the point upwards; next comes the King himself—whom, upon his appearing, twelve trumpets and many drums salute with a great burst of welcome, whilst all in the galleries rise in their places, crying ‘God save the King!’ After him come nobles attached to his person, and on his right and left march his guard of honor, his fifty Gentlemen Pensioners, with gilt battle-axes.”