The Prince and the Pauper (16 page)

XXIII

The Prince a Prisoner

H
endon forced back a smile, and bent down and whispered in the king’s ear:

“Softly, softly my prince, wag thy tongue warily—nay, suffer it not to wag at all. Trust in me—all shall go well in the end.” Then he added, to himself:
“Sir
Miles! Bless me, I had totally forgot I was a knight! Lord, how marvelous a thing it is, the grip his memory doth take upon his quaint and crazy fancies! ... An empty and foolish title is mine, and yet it is something to have deserved it, for I think it is more honor to be held worthy to be a specter-knight in his Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows than to be held base enough to be an earl in some of the
real
kingdoms of this world.”

The crowd fell apart to admit a constable, who approached and was about to lay his hand upon the king’s shoulder, when Hendon said:

“Gently, good friend, withhold your hand—he shall go peaceably; I am responsible for that. Lead on, we will follow.”

The officer led, with the woman and her bundle; Miles and the king followed after, with the crowd at their heels. The king was inclined to rebel; but Hendon said to him in a low voice:

“Reflect, sire—your laws are the wholesome breath of your own royalty; shall their source resist them, yet require the branches to respect them? Apparently, one of these laws has been broken; when the king is on his throne again, can it ever grieve him to remember that when he was seemingly a private person he loyally sunk the king in the citizen and submitted to its authority?”

“Thou art right; say no more; thou shalt see that whatsoever the king of England requires a subject to suffer under the law, he will himself suffer while he holdeth the station of a subject.”

When the woman was called upon to testify before the justice of the peace, she swore that the small prisoner at the bar was the person who had committed the theft; there was none able to show the contrary, so the king stood convicted. The bundle was now unrolled, and when the contents proved to be a plump little dressed pig, the judge looked troubled, while Hendon turned pale, and his body was thrilled with an electric shiver of dismay; but the king remained unmoved, protected by his ignorance. The judge meditated, during an ominous pause, then turned to the woman, with the question:

“What dost thou hold this property to be worth?”

The woman courtesied and replied:

“Three shillings and eightpence, your worship—I could not abate a penny and set forth the value honestly.”

The justice glanced around uncomfortably upon the crowd, then nodded to the constable and said:

“Clear the court and close the doors.”

It was done. None remained but the two officials, the accused, the accuser, and Miles Hendon. This latter was rigid and colorless, and on his forehead big drops of cold sweat gathered, broke and blended together, and trickled down his face. The judge turned to the woman again, and said, in a compassionate voice:

“ ’Tis a poor ignorant lad, and mayhap was driven hard by hunger, for these be grievous times for the unfortunate; mark you, he hath not an evil face—but when hunger driveth—Good woman! dost know that when one steals a thing above the value of thirteen pence ha’penny
^an
the law saith he shall
hang
for it?”

The little king started, wide-eyed with consternation, but controlled himself and held his peace; but not so the woman. She sprang to her feet, shaking with fright, and cried out:

“Oh, good lack, what have I done! God-a-mercy, I would not hang the poor thing for the whole world! Ah, save me from this, your worship—what shall I do, what
can
I do?”

The justice maintained his judicial composure, and simply said:

“Doubtless it is allowable to revise the value, since it is not yet writ upon the record.”

“Then in God’s name call the pig eightpence, and heaven bless the day that freed my conscience of this awesome thing!”

Miles Hendon forgot all decorum in his delight; and surprised the king and wounded his dignity by throwing his arms around him and hugging him. The woman made her grateful adieux and started away with her pig; and when the constable opened the door for her, he followed her out into the narrow hall. The justice proceeded to write in his record-book. Hendon, always alert, thought he would like to know why the officer followed the woman out; so he slipped softly into the dusky hall and listened. He heard a conversation to this effect:

“It is a fat pig, and promises good eating; I will buy it of thee; here is the eightpence.”

“Eightpence, indeed! Thou‘lt do no such thing. It cost me three shillings and eightpence, good honest coin of the last reign, that old Harry that’s just dead ne’er touched nor tampered with. A fig for thy eightpence!”

“Stands the wind in that quarter? Thou wast under oath, and so swore falsely when thou saidst the value was but eightpence. Come straightway back with me before his worship, and answer for the crime!—and then the lad will hang.”

“There, there, dear heart, say no more, I am content. Give me the eightpence, and hold thy peace about the matter.”

The woman went off crying; Hendon slipped back into the court-room, and the constable presently followed, after hiding his prize in some convenient place. The justice wrote awhile longer, then read the king a wise and kindly lecture, and sentenced him to a short imprisonment in the common jail, to be followed by a public flogging. The astounded king opened his mouth and was probably going to order the good judge to be beheaded on the spot; but he caught a warning sign from Hendon, and succeeded in closing his mouth again before he lost anything out of it. Hendon took him by the hand, now made reverence to the justice, and the two departed in the wake of the constable toward the jail. The moment the street was reached, the inflamed monarch halted, snatched away his hand, and exclaimed:

“Idiot, dost imagine I will enter a common jail
alive?”

Hendon bent down and said, somewhat sharply:

“Will
you trust in me? Peace! and forbear to worsen our chances with dangerous speech. What God wills, will happen; thou canst not hurry it, thou canst not alter it; therefore wait, and be patient—’twill be time enow to rail or rejoice when what is to happen has happened.”
^ao

XXIV

The Escape

T
he short winter day was nearly ended. The streets were deserted, save for a few random stragglers, and these hurried straight along, with the intent look of people who were only anxious to accomplish their errands as quickly as possible and then snugly house themselves from the rising wind and the gathering twilight. They looked neither to the right nor to the left; they paid no attention to our party, they did not even seem to see them. Edward the Sixth wondered if the spectacle of a king on his way to jail had ever encountered such marvelous indifference before. By and by the constable arrived at a deserted market-square and proceeded to cross it. When he had reached the middle of it, Hendon laid his hand upon his arm, and said in a low voice:

“Bide a moment, good sir, there is none in hearing, and I would say a word to thee.”

“My duty forbids it, sir; prithee, hinder me not, the night comes on.”

“Stay, nevertheless, for the matter concerns thee nearly. Turn thy back a moment and seem not to see;
let this poor lad escape.”

“This to me, sir! I arrest thee in—”

“Nay, be not too hasty. See thou be careful and commit no foolish error”—then he shut his voice down to a whisper, and said in the man’s ear—“the pig thou hast purchased for eightpence may cost thee thy neck, man!”

The poor constable, taken by surprise, was speechless at first, then found his tongue and fell to blustering and threatening; but Hendon was tranquil, and waited with patience till his breath was spent; then said:

“I have a liking to thee, friend, and would not willingly see thee come to harm. Observe, I heard it all—every word. I will prove it to thee.” Then he repeated the conversation which the officer and the woman had had together in the hall, word for word, and ended with:

“There—have I set it forth correctly? Should not I be able to set it forth correctly before the judge, if occasion required?”

The man was dumb with fear and distress for a moment; then he rallied and said with forced lightness:

“ ’Tis making a mighty matter indeed, out of a jest; I but plagued the woman for mine amusement.”

“Kept you the woman’s pig for amusement?”

The man answered sharply:

“Naught else, good sir—I tell thee ’twas but a jest.”

“I do begin to believe thee,” said Hendon, with a perplexing mixture of mockery and half-conviction in his tone; “but tarry thou here a moment whilst I run and ask his worship—for nathless, he being a man experienced in law, in jests, in—”

He was moving away, still talking; the constable hesitated, fidgeted, spat out an oath or two, then cried out:

“Hold, hold, good sir—prithee, wait a little—the judge! why man, he hath no more sympathy with a jest than hath a dead corpse!—come, and we will speak further. Ods body! I seem to be in evil case—and all for an innocent and thoughtless pleasantry. I am a man of family; and my wife and little ones—List to reason, good your worship; what wouldst thou of me?”

“Only that thou be blind and dumb and paralytic whilst one may count a hundred thousand—counting slowly,” said Hendon, with the expression of a man who asks but a reasonable favor, and that a very little one.

“It is my destruction!” said the constable despairingly. “Ah, be reasonable, good sir; only look at this matter, on all its sides, and see how mere a jest it is—how manifestly and how plainly it is so. And even if one granted it were not a jest, it is a fault so small that e’en the grimmest penalty it could call forth would be but a rebuke and warning from the judge’s lips.”

Hendon replied with a solemnity which chilled the air about him:

“This jest of thine hath a name in law—wot you what it is?”

“I knew it not! Peradventure I have been unwise. I never dreamed it had a name—ah, sweet heaven, I thought it was original.”

“Yes, it hath a name. In the law this crime is called
Non compos mentis lex talionis sic transit gloria Mundi.”
^ap

“Ah, my God!”

“And the penalty is death!”

“God be merciful to me, a sinner!”

“By advantage taken of one in fault, in dire peril, and at thy mercy, thou hast seized goods worth above thirteen pence ha’penny, paying but a trifle for the same; and this, in the eye of the law, is constructive barratry, misprision of treason, malfeasance in office,
ad hominem expurgatis in statu quo
^†
—and the penalty is death by the halter, without ransom, commutation, or benefit of clergy.”

“Bear me up, bear me up, sweet sir, my legs do fail me! Be thou merciful—spare me this doom, and I will turn my back and see naught that shall happen.”

“Good! now thou‘rt wise and reasonable. And thou’lt restore the pig?
^»

“I will, I will, indeed—nor ever touch another, though heaven send it and an archangel fetch it. Go—I am blind for thy sake—I see nothing. I will say thou didst break in and wrest the prisoner from my hands by force. It is but a crazy, ancient door—I will batter it down myself betwixt midnight and the morning.”

“Do it, good soul, no harm will come of it; the judge hath a loving charity for this poor lad, and will shed no tears and break no jailer’s bones for his escape.”

XXV

Hendon Hall

A
s soon as Hendon and the king were out of sight of the constable, his majesty was instructed to hurry to a certain place outside the town, and wait there, whilst Hendon should go to the inn and settle his account. Half an hour later the two friends were blithely jogging eastward on Hendon’s sorry steeds. The king was warm and comfortable now, for he had cast his rags and clothed himself in the second-hand suit which Hendon had bought on London Bridge.

Hendon wished to guard against over-fatiguing the boy; he judged that hard journeys, irregular meals, and illiberal measures of sleep would be bad for his crazed mind; while rest, regularity, and moderate exercise would be pretty sure to hasten its cure; he longed to see the stricken intellect made well again and its diseased visions driven out of the tormented little head; therefore he resolved to move by easy stages toward the home whence he had so long been banished, instead of obeying the impulse of his impatience and hurrying along night and day.

When he and the king had journeyed about ten miles, they reached a considerable village, and halted there for the night, at a good inn. The former relations were resumed; Hendon stood behind the king’s chair while he dined, and waited upon him; undressed him when he was ready for bed; then took the floor for his own quarters, and slept athwart the door, rolled up in a blanket.

The next day, and the next day after, they jogged lazily along, talking over the adventures they had met since their separation, and mightily enjoying each other’s narratives. Hendon detailed all his wide wanderings in search of the king, and described how the archangel had led him a fool’s journey all over the forest, and taken him back to the hut finally, when he found he could not get rid of him. Then—he said—the old man went into the bedchamber and came staggering back looking broken-hearted, and saying he had expected to find that the boy had returned and lain down in there to rest, but it was not so. Hendon had waited at the hut all day; hope of the king’s return died out then, and he departed upon the quest again.

“And old Sanctum Sanctorum was truly sorry your highness came not back,” said Hendon; “I saw it in his face.”

“Marry, I will never doubt
that!”
said the king—and then told his own story; after which Hendon was sorry he had not destroyed the archangel.

During the last day of the trip, Hendon’s spirits were soaring. His tongue ran constantly. He talked about his old father, and his brother Arthur, and told of many things which illustrated their high and generous characters; he went into loving frenzies over his Edith, and was so glad-hearted that he was even able to say some gentle and brotherly things about Hugh. He dwelt a deal on the coming meeting at Hendon Hall; what a surprise it would be to everybody, and what an outburst of thanksgiving and delight there would be.

It was a fair region, dotted with cottages and orchards, and the road led through broad pasturelands whose receding expanses, marked with gentle elevations and depressions, suggested the swelling and subsiding undulations of the sea. In the afternoon the returning prodigal made constant deflections from his course to see if by ascending some hillock he might not pierce the distance and catch a glimpse of his home. At last he was successful, and cried out excitedly:

“There is the village, my prince, and there is the Hall close by! You may see the towers from here; and that wood there—that is my father’s park. Ah, now thou’lt know what state and grandeur be! A house with seventy rooms—think of that!—and seven and twenty servants! A brave lodging for such as we, is it not so? Come, let us speed—my impatience will not brook further delay.”

All possible hurry was made; still, it was after three o’clock before the village was reached. The travelers scampered through it, Hendon’s tongue going all the time. “Here is the church—covered with the same ivy—none gone, none added.” “Yonder is the inn, the old Red Lion—and yonder is the market-place.” “Here is the Maypole, and here the pump—nothing is altered; nothing but the people, at any rate; ten years make a change in people; some of these I seem to know, but none know me.” So his chat ran on. The end of the village was soon reached; then the travelers struck into a crooked, narrow road, walled in with tall hedges, and hurried briskly along it for a half-mile, then passed into a vast flower-garden through an imposing gateway whose huge stone pillars bore sculptured armorial devices. A noble mansion was before them.

“Welcome to Hendon Hall, my king!” exclaimed Miles. “Ah, ‘tis a great day! My father and my brother and the Lady Edith will be so mad with joy that they will have eyes and tongue for none but me in the first transports of the meeting, and so thou’lt seem but coldly welcomed—but mind it not; ‘twill soon seem otherwise; for when I say thou art my ward, and tell them how costly is my love for thee, thou’lt see them take thee to their breasts for Miles Hendon’s sake, and make their house and hearts thy home forever after!”

The next moment Hendon sprang to the ground before the great door, helped the king down, then took him by the hand and rushed within. A few steps brought him to a spacious apartment; he entered, seated the king with more hurry than ceremony, then ran toward a young man who sat at a writing-table in front of a generous fire of logs.

“Embrace me, Hugh,” he cried, “and say thou’rt glad I am come again! and call our father, for home is not home till I shall touch his hand, and see his face, and hear his voice once more!”

But Hugh only drew back, after betraying a momentary surprise, and bent a grave stare upon the intruder—a stare which indicated somewhat of offended dignity at first, then changed, in response to some inward thought or purpose, to an expression of marveling curiosity, mixed with a real or assumed compassion. Presently he said, in a mild voice:

“Thy wits seem touched, poor stranger; doubtless thou hast suffered privations and rude buffetings at the world’s hands; thy looks and dress betoken it. Whom dost thou take me to be?”

“Take thee? Prithee, for whom else than whom thou art? I take thee to be Hugh Hendon,” said Miles, sharply.

The other continued, in the same soft tone:

“And whom dost thou imagine thyself to be?”

“Imagination hath naught to do with it! Dost thou pretend thou knowest me not for thy brother Miles Hendon?”

An expression of pleased surprise flitted across Hugh’s face, and he exclaimed:

“What! thou art not jesting? can the dead come to life? God be praised if it be so! Our poor lost boy restored to our arms after all these cruel years! Ah, it seems too good to be true, it is too good to be true—I charge thee, have pity, do not trifle with me! Quick—come to the light—let me scan thee well!”

He seized Miles by the arm, dragged him to the window, and began to devour him from head to foot with his eyes, turning him this way and that, and stepping briskly around him and about him to prove him from all points of view; whilst the returned prodigal, all aglow with gladness, smiled, laughed, and kept nodding his head and saying:

“Go on, brother, go on, and fear not; thou‘lt find nor limb nor feature that cannot bide the test. Scour and scan me to thy content, my dear old Hugh—I am indeed thy old Miles, thy same old Miles, thy lost brother, is’t not so? Ah, ’tis a great day—I
said
’twas a great day! Give me thy hand, give me thy cheek—lord, I am like to die of very joy!”

He was about to throw himself upon his brother; but Hugh put up his hand in dissent, then dropped his chin mournfully upon his breast, saying with emotion:

“Ah, God of his mercy give me strength to bear this grievous disappointment!”

Miles, amazed, could not speak for a moment; then he found his tongue, and cried out:

“
What
disappointment? Am I not thy brother?”

Hugh shook his head sadly, and said:

“I pray heaven it may prove so, and that other eyes may find the resemblances that are hid from mine. Alack, I fear me the letter spoke but too truly.”

“What letter?”

“One that came from oversea, some six or seven years ago. It said my brother died in battle.”

“It was a lie! Call thy father—he will know me.”

“One may not call the dead.”

“Dead?” Miles’s voice was subdued, and his lips trembled. “My father dead!—oh, this is heavy news. Half my new joy is withered now. Prithee, let me see my brother Arthur—he will know me; he will know me and console me.”

“He, also, is dead.”

“God be merciful to me, a stricken man! Gone—both gone—the worthy taken and the worthless spared in me! Ah! I crave your mercy!—do not say the Lady Edith—”

“Is dead? No, she lives.”

“Then, God be praised, my joy is whole again! Speed thee, brother—let her come to me! An
she
say I am not myself—but she will not; no, no,
she
will know me, I were a fool to doubt it. Bring her—bring the old servants; they, too, will know me.”

“All are gone but five—Peter, Halsey, David, Bernard, and Margaret.”

So saying, Hugh left the room. Miles stood musing awhile, then began to walk the floor, muttering:

“The five arch villains have survived the two-and-twenty leal and honest—’tis an odd thing.”

He continued walking back and forth, muttering to himself; he had forgotten the king entirely. By and by his majesty said gravely, and with a touch of genuine compassion, though the words themselves were capable of being interpreted ironically:

“Mind not thy mischance, good man; there be others in the world whose identity is denied, and whose claims are derided. Thou hast company.”

“Ah, my king,” cried Hendon, coloring slightly, “do not thou condemn me—wait, and thou shalt see. I am no impostor—she will say it; you shall hear it from the sweetest lips in England. I an impostor? Why I know this old hall, these pictures of my ancestors, and all these things that are about us, as a child knoweth its own nursery. Here was I born and bred, my lord; I speak the truth; I would not deceive thee; and should none else believe, I pray thee do not thou doubt me—I could not bear it.”

“I do not doubt thee,” said the king, with a childlike simplicity and faith.

“I thank thee out of my heart!” exclaimed Hendon, with a fervency which showed that he was touched. The king added, with the same gentle simplicity:

“Dost thou doubt
me?”

A guilty confusion seized upon Hendon, and he was grateful that the door opened to admit Hugh, at that moment, and saved him the necessity of replying.

A beautiful lady, richly clothed, followed Hugh, and after her came several liveried servants. The lady walked slowly, with her head bowed and her eyes fixed upon the floor. The face was unspeakably sad. Miles Hendon sprang forward, crying out:

“Oh, my Edith, my darling—”

But Hugh waved him back, gravely, and said to the lady:

“Look upon him. Do you know him?”

At the sound of Miles’s voice the woman had started slightly, and her cheeks had flushed; she was trembling now. She stood still, during an impressive pause of several moments; then slowly lifted up her head and looked into Hendon’s eyes with a stony and frightened gaze; the blood sank out of her face, drop by drop, till nothing remained but the gray pallor of death; then she said, in a voice as dead as the face, “I know him not!” and turned, with a moan and a stifled sob, and tottered out of the room.

Miles Hendon sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands. After a pause, his brother said to the servants:

“You have observed him. Do you know him?”

They shook their heads; then the master said:

“The servants know you not, sir. I fear there is some mistake. You have seen that my wife knew you not.”

“Thy
wife!”
In an instant Hugh was pinned to the wall, with an iron grip about his throat. “Oh, thou fox-hearted slave, I see it all! Thou’st writ the lying letter thyself, and my stolen bride and goods are its fruit. There—now get thee gone, lest I shame mine honorable soldiership with the slaying of so pitiful a manikin!”

Hugh, red-faced and almost suffocated, reeled to the nearest chair, and commanded the servants to seize and bind the murderous stranger. They hesitated, and one of them said:

“He is armed, Sir Hugh, and we are weaponless.”

“Armed? What of it, and ye so many? Upon him, I say!”

But Miles warned them to be careful what they did, and added:

“Ye know me of old—I have not changed; come on, an it like you.”

This reminder did not hearten the servants much; they still held back.

“Then go, ye paltry cowards, and arm yourselves and guard the doors, while I send one to fetch the watch,” said Hugh. He turned, at the threshold, and said to Miles, “You’ll find it to your advantage to offend not with useless endeavors at escape.”

“Escape? Spare thyself discomfort, an that is all that troubles thee. For Miles Hendon is master of Hendon Hall and all its belongings. He will remain—doubt it not.”