Chapter II. Tom's early life.

by Mark Twain

　　Let us skip a number of years.London was fifteen hundred years old, and was a great town--forthat day. It had a hundred thousand inhabitants--some thinkdouble as many. The streets were very narrow, and crooked, anddirty, especially in the part where Tom Canty lived, which was notfar from London Bridge. The houses were of wood, with the secondstory projecting over the first, and the third sticking its elbowsout beyond the second. The higher the houses grew, the broaderthey grew. They were skeletons of strong criss-cross beams, withsolid material between, coated with plaster. The beams werepainted red or blue or black, according to the owner's taste, andthis gave the houses a very picturesque look. The windows weresmall, glazed with little diamond-shaped panes, and they openedoutward, on hinges, like doors.The house which Tom's father lived in was up a foul little pocketcalled Offal Court, out of Pudding Lane. It was small, decayed,and rickety, but it was packed full of wretchedly poor families.Canty's tribe occupied a room on the third floor. The mother andfather had a sort of bedstead in the corner; but Tom, hisgrandmother, and his two sisters, Bet and Nan, were notrestricted--they had all the floor to themselves, and might sleepwhere they chose. There were the remains of a blanket or two, andsome bundles of ancient and dirty straw, but these could notrightly be called beds, for they were not organised; they werekicked into a general pile, mornings, and selections made from themass at night, for service.Bet and Nan were fifteen years old--twins. They were good-heartedgirls, unclean, clothed in rags, and profoundly ignorant. Theirmother was like them. But the father and the grandmother were acouple of fiends. They got drunk whenever they could; then theyfought each other or anybody else who came in the way; they cursedand swore always, drunk or sober; John Canty was a thief, and hismother a beggar. They made beggars of the children, but failed tomake thieves of them. Among, but not of, the dreadful rabble thatinhabited the house, was a good old priest whom the King hadturned out of house and home with a pension of a few farthings,and he used to get the children aside and teach them right wayssecretly. Father Andrew also taught Tom a little Latin, and howto read and write; and would have done the same with the girls,but they were afraid of the jeers of their friends, who could nothave endured such a queer accomplishment in them.All Offal Court was just such another hive as Canty's house.Drunkenness, riot and brawling were the order, there, every nightand nearly all night long. Broken heads were as common as hungerin that place. Yet little Tom was not unhappy. He had a hardtime of it, but did not know it. It was the sort of time that allthe Offal Court boys had, therefore he supposed it was the correctand comfortable thing. When he came home empty-handed at night,he knew his father would curse him and thrash him first, and thatwhen he was done the awful grandmother would do it all over againand improve on it; and that away in the night his starving motherwould slip to him stealthily with any miserable scrap or crust shehad been able to save for him by going hungry herself,notwithstanding she was often caught in that sort of treason andsoundly beaten for it by her husband.No, Tom's life went along well enough, especially in summer. Heonly begged just enough to save himself, for the laws againstmendicancy were stringent, and the penalties heavy; so he put in agood deal of his time listening to good Father Andrew's charmingold tales and legends about giants and fairies, dwarfs and genii,and enchanted castles, and gorgeous kings and princes. His headgrew to be full of these wonderful things, and many a night as helay in the dark on his scant and offensive straw, tired, hungry,and smarting from a thrashing, he unleashed his imagination andsoon forgot his aches and pains in delicious picturings to himselfof the charmed life of a petted prince in a regal palace. Onedesire came in time to haunt him day and night: it was to see areal prince, with his own eyes. He spoke of it once to some ofhis Offal Court comrades; but they jeered him and scoffed him sounmercifully that he was glad to keep his dream to himself afterthat.He often read the priest's old books and got him to explain andenlarge upon them. His dreamings and readings worked certainchanges in him, by-and-by. His dream-people were so fine that hegrew to lament his shabby clothing and his dirt, and to wish to beclean and better clad. He went on playing in the mud just thesame, and enjoying it, too; but, instead of splashing around inthe Thames solely for the fun of it, he began to find an addedvalue in it because of the washings and cleansings it afforded.Tom could always find something going on around the Maypole inCheapside, and at the fairs; and now and then he and the rest ofLondon had a chance to see a military parade when some famousunfortunate was carried prisoner to the Tower, by land or boat.One summer's day he saw poor Anne Askew and three men burned atthe stake in Smithfield, and heard an ex-Bishop preach a sermon tothem which did not interest him. Yes, Tom's life was varied andpleasant enough, on the whole.By-and-by Tom's reading and dreaming about princely life wroughtsuch a strong effect upon him that he began to act the prince,unconsciously. His speech and manners became curiouslyceremonious and courtly, to the vast admiration and amusement ofhis intimates. But Tom's influence among these young people beganto grow now, day by day; and in time he came to be looked up to,by them, with a sort of wondering awe, as a superior being. Heseemed to know so much! and he could do and say such marvellousthings! and withal, he was so deep and wise! Tom's remarks, andTom's performances, were reported by the boys to their elders; andthese, also, presently began to discuss Tom Canty, and to regardhim as a most gifted and extraordinary creature. Full-grownpeople brought their perplexities to Tom for solution, and wereoften astonished at the wit and wisdom of his decisions. In facthe was become a hero to all who knew him except his own family--these, only, saw nothing in him.Privately, after a while, Tom organised a royal court! He was theprince; his special comrades were guards, chamberlains, equerries,lords and ladies in waiting, and the royal family. Daily the mockprince was received with elaborate ceremonials borrowed by Tomfrom his romantic readings; daily the great affairs of the mimickingdom were discussed in the royal council, and daily his mimichighness issued decrees to his imaginary armies, navies, andviceroyalties.After which, he would go forth in his rags and beg a fewfarthings, eat his poor crust, take his customary cuffs and abuse,and then stretch himself upon his handful of foul straw, andresume his empty grandeurs in his dreams.And still his desire to look just once upon a real prince, in theflesh, grew upon him, day by day, and week by week, until at lastit absorbed all other desires, and became the one passion of hislife.One January day, on his usual begging tour, he trampeddespondently up and down the region round about Mincing Lane andLittle East Cheap, hour after hour, bare-footed and cold, lookingin at cook-shop windows and longing for the dreadful pork-pies andother deadly inventions displayed there--for to him these weredainties fit for the angels; that is, judging by the smell, theywere--for it had never been his good luck to own and eat one.There was a cold drizzle of rain; the atmosphere was murky; it wasa melancholy day. At night Tom reached home so wet and tired andhungry that it was not possible for his father and grandmother toobserve his forlorn condition and not be moved--after theirfashion; wherefore they gave him a brisk cuffing at once and senthim to bed. For a long time his pain and hunger, and the swearingand fighting going on in the building, kept him awake; but at lasthis thoughts drifted away to far, romantic lands, and he fellasleep in the company of jewelled and gilded princelings who livein vast palaces, and had servants salaaming before them or flyingto execute their orders. And then, as usual, he dreamed that hewas a princeling himself.All night long the glories of his royal estate shone upon him; hemoved among great lords and ladies, in a blaze of light, breathingperfumes, drinking in delicious music, and answering the reverentobeisances of the glittering throng as it parted to make way forhim, with here a smile, and there a nod of his princely head.And when he awoke in the morning and looked upon the wretchednessabout him, his dream had had its usual effect--it had intensifiedthe sordidness of his surroundings a thousandfold. Then camebitterness, and heart-break, and tears.