by Mark Twain
CHAPTER X. The Prince in the toils.
We left John Canty dragging the rightful prince into Offal Court, witha noisy and delighted mob at his heels. ?There was but one person in itwho offered a pleading word for the captive, and he was not heeded; hewas hardly even heard, so great was the turmoil. ?The Prince continuedto struggle for freedom, and to rage against the treatment he wassuffering, until John Canty lost what little patience was left in him,and raised his oaken cudgel in a sudden fury over the Prince's head.?The single pleader for the lad sprang to stop the man's arm, and theblow descended upon his own wrist. ?Canty roared out--
"Thou'lt meddle, wilt thou? ?Then have thy reward."
His cudgel crashed down upon the meddler's head: ?there was a groan, adim form sank to the ground among the feet of the crowd, and the nextmoment it lay there in the dark alone. ?The mob pressed on, theirenjoyment nothing disturbed by this episode.
Presently the Prince found himself in John Canty's abode, with the doorclosed against the outsiders. ?By the vague light of a tallow candlewhich was thrust into a bottle, he made out the main features of theloathsome den, and also the occupants of it. ?Two frowsy girls anda middle-aged woman cowered against the wall in one corner, with theaspect of animals habituated to harsh usage, and expecting and dreadingit now. From another corner stole a withered hag with streaming greyhair and malignant eyes. ?John Canty said to this one--
"Tarry! ?There's fine mummeries here. ?Mar them not till thou'st enjoyedthem: ?then let thy hand be heavy as thou wilt. ?Stand forth, lad. ?Nowsay thy foolery again, an thou'st not forgot it. Name thy name. ?Who artthou?"
The insulted blood mounted to the little prince's cheek once more, andhe 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 tellthee now, as I told thee before, I am Edward, Prince of Wales, and noneother."
The stunning surprise of this reply nailed the hag's feet to the floorwhere she stood, and almost took her breath. ?She stared at the Princein stupid amazement, which so amused her ruffianly son, that he burstinto a roar of laughter. ?But the effect upon Tom Canty's mother andsisters was different. ?Their dread of bodily injury gave way at once todistress of a different sort. ?They ran forward with woe and dismay intheir faces, exclaiming--
"Oh, poor Tom, poor lad!"
The mother fell on her knees before the Prince, put her hands upon hisshoulders, 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 atlast, and ta'en thy wit away. ?Ah! why did'st thou cleave to it when Iso 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 myfather restore him to thee."
"The King thy father! ?Oh, my child! unsay these words that be freightedwith death for thee, and ruin for all that be near to thee. ?Shake ofthis gruesome dream. ?Call back thy poor wandering memory. ?Look uponme. 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 neverlooked upon thy face before."
The woman sank back to a sitting posture on the floor, and, covering hereyes with her hands, gave way to heart-broken sobs and wailings.
"Let the show go on!" shouted Canty. ?"What, Nan!--what, Bet! mannerlesswenches! will ye stand in the Prince's presence? ?Upon your knees, yepauper scum, and do him reverence!"
He followed this with another horse-laugh. ?The girls began to pleadtimidly for their brother; and Nan said--
"An thou wilt but let him to bed, father, rest and sleep will heal hismadness: ?prithee, do."
"Do, father," said Bet; "he is more worn than is his wont. ?To-morrowwill he be himself again, and will beg with diligence, and come notempty home again."
This remark sobered the father's joviality, and brought his mind tobusiness. ?He turned angrily upon the Prince, and said--
"The morrow must we pay two pennies to him that owns this hole; twopennies, mark ye--all this money for a half-year's rent, else out ofthis 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 theKing's son."
A sounding blow upon the Prince's shoulder from Canty's broad palmsent him staggering into goodwife Canty's arms, who clasped him to herbreast, and sheltered him from a pelting rain of cuffs and slaps byinterposing her own person. ?The frightened girls retreated to theircorner; 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 willupon me alone."
This speech infuriated the swine to such a degree that they set abouttheir work without waste of time. ?Between them they belaboured the boyright soundly, and then gave the girls and their mother a beating forshowing 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 snoringsof 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 tenderlyfrom the cold with straw and rags; and their mother crept to him also,and stroked his hair, and cried over him, whispering broken words ofcomfort and compassion in his ear the while. ?She had saved a morsel forhim to eat, also; but the boy's pains had swept away all appetite--atleast for black and tasteless crusts. ?He was touched by her brave andcostly defence of him, and by her commiseration; and he thanked her invery noble and princely words, and begged her to go to her sleep and tryto forget her sorrows. ?And he added that the King his father would notlet her loyal kindness and devotion go unrewarded. ?This return to his'madness' broke her heart anew, and she strained him to her breast againand again, and then went back, drowned in tears, to her bed.
As she lay thinking and mourning, the suggestion began to creep intoher mind that there was an undefinable something about this boy that waslacking in Tom Canty, mad or sane. ?She could not describe it, she couldnot tell just what it was, and yet her sharp mother-instinct seemed todetect 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 hergriefs and troubles. ?No matter, she found that it was an idea thatwould not 'down,' but persisted in haunting her. ?It pursued her, itharassed 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 heruntil she should devise a test that should prove, clearly and withoutquestion, whether this lad was her son or not, and so banish thesewearing and worrying doubts. ?Ah, yes, this was plainly the right wayout of the difficulty; therefore she set her wits to work at once tocontrive that test. ?But it was an easier thing to propose than toaccomplish. ?She turned over in her mind one promising test afteranother, but was obliged to relinquish them all--none of them wereabsolutely sure, absolutely perfect; and an imperfect one could notsatisfy her. ?Evidently she was racking her head in vain--it seemedmanifest that she must give the matter up. ?While this depressingthought was passing through her mind, her ear caught the regularbreathing of the boy, and she knew he had fallen asleep. ?And while shelistened, the measured breathing was broken by a soft, startledcry, such as one utters in a troubled dream. ?This chance occurrencefurnished her instantly with a plan worth all her laboured testscombined. ?She at once set herself feverishly, but noiselessly, to workto relight her candle, muttering to herself, "Had I but seen him _then_,I should have known! ?Since that day, when he was little, that thepowder burst in his face, he hath never been startled of a sudden out ofhis dreams or out of his thinkings, but he hath cast his hand before hiseyes, even as he did that day; an
d not as others would do it, with thepalm inward, but always with the palm turned outward--I have seen it ahundred times, and it hath never varied nor ever failed. ?Yes, I shallsoon know, now!"
By this time she had crept to the slumbering boy's side, with thecandle, shaded, in her hand. ?She bent heedfully and warily over him,scarcely breathing in her suppressed excitement, and suddenly flashedthe 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 abouthim--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 sleepagain; then she crept apart and communed miserably with herself uponthe disastrous result of her experiment. ?She tried to believe that herTom's madness had banished this habitual gesture of his; but she couldnot do it. ?"No," she said, "his _hands_ are not mad; they could notunlearn so old a habit in so brief a time. ?Oh, this is a heavy day forme!"
Still, hope was as stubborn now as doubt had been before; she could notbring herself to accept the verdict of the test; she must try the thingagain--the failure must have been only an accident; so she startled theboy out of his sleep a second and a third time, at intervals--with thesame result which had marked the first test; then she dragged herself tobed, and fell sorrowfully asleep, saying, "But I cannot give him up--ohno, I cannot, I cannot--he _must_ be my boy!"
The poor mother's interruptions having ceased, and the Prince's painshaving gradually lost their power to disturb him, utter weariness atlast sealed his eyes in a profound and restful sleep. Hour after hourslipped away, and still he slept like the dead. Thus four or five hourspassed. Then his stupor began to lighten. Presently, while half asleepand half awake, he murmured--
"Sir William!"
After a moment--
"Ho, Sir William Herbert! ?Hie thee hither, and list to the strangestdream that ever . . . Sir William! dost hear? ?Man, I did think mechanged to a pauper, and . . . Ho there! ?Guards! Sir William! ?What!is there no groom of the chamber in waiting? Alack! it shall go hardwith--"
"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 toknow it again! ?But prithee master thy tongue, lest we be all beatentill we die!"
The startled Prince sprang partly up, but a sharp reminder from hisstiffened bruises brought him to himself, and he sank back among hisfoul 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 banishedwere upon him again, and he realised that he was no longer a pettedprince in a palace, with the adoring eyes of a nation upon him, buta pauper, an outcast, clothed in rags, prisoner in a den fit only forbeasts, and consorting with beggars and thieves.
In the midst of his grief he began to be conscious of hilarious noisesand shoutings, apparently but a block or two away. ?The next momentthere were several sharp raps at the door; John Canty ceased fromsnoring 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 upthe ghost. ?'Tis the priest, Father Andrew!"
"God-a-mercy!" exclaimed Canty. ?He roused his family, and hoarselycommanded, "Up with ye all and fly--or bide where ye are and perish!"
Scarcely five minutes later the Canty household were in the street andflying for their lives. ?John Canty held the Prince by the wrist, andhurried 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 chooseme a new name, speedily, to throw the law's dogs off the scent. ?Mindthy 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 thebridge, let him tarry there till the others be come, then will we fleeinto 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, upand down the Thames; London Bridge was illuminated; Southwark Bridgelikewise; the entire river was aglow with the flash and sheen ofcoloured lights; and constant explosions of fireworks filled the skieswith an intricate commingling of shooting splendours and a thick rainof dazzling sparks that almost turned night into day; everywhere werecrowds 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 thatswarming hive of humanity, and hopelessly separated from each other inan 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 highwith hopes of escape, now. ?A burly waterman, considerably exalted withliquor, found himself rudely shoved by Canty in his efforts to ploughthrough the crowd; he laid his great hand on Canty's shoulder and said--
"Nay, whither so fast, friend? ?Dost canker thy soul with sordidbusiness 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 thePrince of Wales, I tell thee that," said the waterman, barring the wayresolutely.
"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 theloving-cup, else will we feed him to the fishes."
So a huge loving-cup was brought; the waterman, grasping it by one ofits handles, and with the other hand bearing up the end of an imaginarynapkin, presented it in due and ancient form to Canty, who had to graspthe opposite handle with one of his hands and take off the lid with theother, according to ancient custom. This left the Prince hand-free fora second, of course. ?He wasted no time, but dived among the forest oflegs about him and disappeared. ?In another moment he could not havebeen harder to find, under that tossing sea of life, if its billows hadbeen the Atlantic's and he a lost sixpence.
He very soon realised this fact, and straightway busied himself abouthis own affairs without further thought of John Canty. ?He quicklyrealised another thing, too. ?To wit, that a spurious Prince of Waleswas being feasted by the city in his stead. ?He easily concluded thatthe pauper lad, Tom Canty, had deliberately taken advantage of hisstupendous opportunity and become a usurper.
Therefore there was but one course to pursue--find his way to theGuildhall, make himself known, and denounce the impostor. ?He also madeup his mind that Tom should be allowed a reasonable time for spiritualpreparation, and then be hanged, drawn and quartered, according to thelaw and usage of the day in cases of high treason.
