Chapter X. The Prince in the toils.

by Mark Twain

　　We left John Canty dragging the rightful prince into Offal Court,with a noisy and delighted mob at his heels. There was but oneperson in it who offered a pleading word for the captive, and hewas not heeded; he was hardly even heard, so great was theturmoil. The Prince continued to struggle for freedom, and torage against the treatment he was suffering, until John Canty lostwhat little patience was left in him, and raised his oaken cudgelin a sudden fury over the Prince's head. The single pleader forthe lad sprang to stop the man's arm, and the blow descended uponhis 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 agroan, a dim form sank to the ground among the feet of the crowd,and the next moment it lay there in the dark alone. The mobpressed on, their enjoyment nothing disturbed by this episode.Presently the Prince found himself in John Canty's abode, with thedoor closed against the outsiders. By the vague light of a tallowcandle which was thrust into a bottle, he made out the mainfeatures of the loathsome den, and also the occupants of it. Twofrowsy girls and a middle-aged woman cowered against the wall inone corner, with the aspect of animals habituated to harsh usage,and expecting and dreading it now. From another corner stole awithered hag with streaming grey hair and malignant eyes. JohnCanty said to this one--"Tarry! There's fine mummeries here. Mar them not till thou'stenjoyed them: then let thy hand be heavy as thou wilt. Standforth, lad. Now say thy foolery again, an thou'st not forgot it.Name thy name. Who art thou?"The insulted blood mounted to the little prince's cheek once more,and he lifted a steady and indignant gaze to the man's face andsaid--"'Tis but ill-breeding in such as thou to command me to speak. Itell thee now, as I told thee before, I am Edward, Prince ofWales, and none other."The stunning surprise of this reply nailed the hag's feet to thefloor where she stood, and almost took her breath. She stared atthe Prince in stupid amazement, which so amused her ruffianly son,that he burst into a roar of laughter. But the effect upon TomCanty's mother and sisters was different. Their dread of bodilyinjury gave way at once to distress of a different sort. They ranforward with woe and dismay in their faces, exclaiming--"Oh, poor Tom, poor lad!"The mother fell on her knees before the Prince, put her hands uponhis shoulders, and gazed yearningly into his face through herrising tears. Then she said--"Oh, my poor boy! Thy foolish reading hath wrought its woefulwork at last, and ta'en thy wit away. Ah! why did'st thou cleaveto it when I so warned thee 'gainst it? Thou'st broke thymother's heart."The Prince looked into her face, and said gently--"Thy son is well, and hath not lost his wits, good dame. Comfortthee: let me to the palace where he is, and straightway will theKing my father restore him to thee.""The King thy father! Oh, my child! unsay these words that befreighted with death for thee, and ruin for all that be near tothee. Shake of this gruesome dream. Call back thy poor wanderingmemory. Look upon me. Am not I thy mother that bore thee, andloveth 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 her eyes with her hands, gave way to heart-broken sobsand wailings."Let the show go on!" shouted Canty. "What, Nan!--what, Bet!mannerless wenches! will ye stand in the Prince's presence? Uponyour knees, ye pauper scum, and do him reverence!"He followed this with another horse-laugh. The girls began toplead timidly for their brother; and Nan said--"An thou wilt but let him to bed, father, rest and sleep will healhis madness: prithee, do.""Do, father," said Bet; "he is more worn than is his wont. To-morrow will he be himself again, and will beg with diligence, andcome not empty home again."This remark sobered the father's joviality, and brought his mindto business. He turned angrily upon the Prince, and said--"The morrow must we pay two pennies to him that owns this hole;two pennies, mark ye--all this money for a half-year's rent, elseout of this we go. Show what thou'st gathered with thy lazybegging."The Prince said--"Offend me not with thy sordid matters. I tell thee again I amthe King'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 toher breast, and sheltered him from a pelting rain of cuffs andslaps by interposing her own person. The frightened girlsretreated to their corner; but the grandmother stepped eagerlyforward to assist her son. The Prince sprang away from Mrs.Canty, exclaiming--"Thou shalt not suffer for me, madam. Let these swine do theirwill upon me alone."This speech infuriated the swine to such a degree that they setabout their work without waste of time. Between them theybelaboured the boy right soundly, and then gave the girls andtheir mother a beating for showing sympathy for the victim."Now," said Canty, "to bed, all of ye. The entertainment hastired me."The light was put out, and the family retired. As soon as thesnorings of the head of the house and his mother showed that theywere asleep, the young girls crept to where the Prince lay, andcovered him tenderly from the cold with straw and rags; and theirmother crept to him also, and stroked his hair, and cried overhim, whispering broken words of comfort and compassion in his earthe while. She had saved a morsel for him to eat, also; but theboy's pains had swept away all appetite--at least for black andtasteless crusts. He was touched by her brave and costly defenceof him, and by her commiseration; and he thanked her in very nobleand princely words, and begged her to go to her sleep and try toforget her sorrows. And he added that the King his father wouldnot let her loyal kindness and devotion go unrewarded. Thisreturn to his 'madness' broke her heart anew, and she strained himto her breast again and again, and then went back, drowned intears, to her bed.As she lay thinking and mourning, the suggestion began to creepinto her mind that there was an undefinable something about thisboy that was lacking in Tom Canty, mad or sane. She could notdescribe it, she could not tell just what it was, and yet hersharp mother-instinct seemed to detect it and perceive it. Whatif the boy were really not her son, after all? Oh, absurd! Shealmost smiled at the idea, spite of her griefs and troubles. Nomatter, she found that it was an idea that would not 'down,' butpersisted in haunting her. It pursued her, it harassed her, itclung to her, and refused to be put away or ignored. At last sheperceived that there was not going to be any peace for her untilshe 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 rightway out of the difficulty; therefore she set her wits to work atonce to contrive that test. But it was an easier thing to proposethan to accomplish. She turned over in her mind one promisingtest after another, but was obliged to relinquish them all--noneof them were absolutely sure, absolutely perfect; and an imperfectone could not satisfy her. Evidently she was racking her head invain--it seemed manifest that she must give the matter up. Whilethis depressing thought was passing through her mind, her earcaught the regular breathing of the boy, and she knew he hadfallen asleep. And while she listened, the measured breathing wasbroken by a soft, startled cry, such as one utters in a troubleddream. This chance occurrence furnished her instantly with a planworth all her laboured tests combined. She at once set herselffeverishly, but noiselessly, to work to relight her candle,muttering to herself, "Had I but seen him then, I should haveknown! Since that day, when he was little, that the powder burstin his face, he hath never been startled of a sudden out of hisdreams or out of his thinkings, but he hath cast his hand beforehis eyes, even as he did that day; and not as others would do it,with the palm inward, but always with the palm turned outward--Ihave seen it a hundred times, and it hath never varied nor everfailed. Yes, I shall soon 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 overhim, scarcely breathing in her suppressed excitement, and suddenlyflashed the light in his face and struck the floor by his ear withher knuckles. The sleeper's eyes sprang wide open, and he cast astartled stare about him--but he made no special movement with hishands.The poor woman was smitten almost helpless with surprise andgrief; but she contrived to hide her emotions, and to soothe theboy to sleep again; then she crept apart and communed miserablywith herself upon the disastrous result of her experiment. Shetried to believe that her Tom's madness had banished this habitualgesture of his; but she could not do it. "No," she said, "hishands are not mad; they could not unlearn so old a habit in sobrief a time. Oh, this is a heavy day for me!"Still, hope was as stubborn now as doubt had been before; shecould not bring herself to accept the verdict of the test; shemust try the thing again--the failure must have been only anaccident; so she startled the boy out of his sleep a second and athird time, at intervals--with the same result which had markedthe first test; then she dragged herself to bed, and fellsorrowfully asleep, saying, "But I cannot give him up--oh no, Icannot, I cannot--he must be my boy!"The poor mother's interruptions having ceased, and the Prince'spains having gradually lost their power to disturb him, utterweariness at last sealed his eyes in a profound and restful sleep.Hour after hour slipped away, and still he slept like the dead.Thus four or five hours passed. Then his stupor began to lighten.Presently, while half asleep and half awake, he murmured--"Sir William!"After a moment--"Ho, Sir William Herbert! Hie thee hither, and list to thestrangest dream that ever . . . Sir William! dost hear? Man, Idid think me changed to a pauper, and . . . Ho there! Guards!Sir William! What! is there no groom of the chamber in waiting?Alack! it shall go hard with--""What aileth thee?" asked a whisper near him. "Who art thoucalling?""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 neverwoke to know it again! But prithee master thy tongue, lest we beall beaten till we die!"The startled Prince sprang partly up, but a sharp reminder fromhis stiffened bruises brought him to himself, and he sank backamong his foul straw with a moan and the ejaculation--"Alas! it was no dream, then!"In a moment all the heavy sorrow and misery which sleep hadbanished were upon him again, and he realised that he was nolonger a petted prince in a palace, with the adoring eyes of anation upon him, but a pauper, an outcast, clothed in rags,prisoner in a den fit only for beasts, and consorting with beggarsand thieves.In the midst of his grief he began to be conscious of hilariousnoises and shoutings, apparently but a block or two away. Thenext moment there were several sharp raps at the door; John Cantyceased from snoring 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 thyneck, nothing but flight may stead thee. The man is this momentdelivering up the ghost. 'Tis the priest, Father Andrew!""God-a-mercy!" exclaimed Canty. He roused his family, andhoarsely commanded, "Up with ye all and fly--or bide where ye areand perish!"Scarcely five minutes later the Canty household were in the streetand flying for their lives. John Canty held the Prince by thewrist, and hurried him along the dark way, giving him this cautionin a low voice--"Mind thy tongue, thou mad fool, and speak not our name. I willchoose me a new name, speedily, to throw the law's dogs off thescent. Mind thy 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 LondonBridge; whoso findeth himself as far as the last linen-draper'sshop on the bridge, let him tarry there till the others be come,then will we flee into Southwark together."At this moment the party burst suddenly out of darkness intolight; and not only into light, but into the midst of a multitudeof singing, dancing, and shouting people, massed together on theriver frontage. There was a line of bonfires stretching as far asone could see, up and down the Thames; London Bridge wasilluminated; Southwark Bridge likewise; the entire river was aglowwith the flash and sheen of coloured lights; and constantexplosions of fireworks filled the skies with an intricatecommingling of shooting splendours and a thick rain of dazzlingsparks that almost turned night into day; everywhere were crowdsof revellers; all London seemed to be at large.John Canty delivered himself of a furious curse and commanded aretreat; but it was too late. He and his tribe were swallowed upin that swarming hive of humanity, and hopelessly separated fromeach other in an instant. We are not considering that the Princewas one of his tribe; Canty still kept his grip upon him. ThePrince's heart was beating high with hopes of escape, now. Aburly waterman, considerably exalted with liquor, found himselfrudely shoved by Canty in his efforts to plough through 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," answeredCanty, roughly; "take away thy hand and let me pass.""Sith that is thy humour, thou'lt not pass, till thou'st drunk tothe Prince of Wales, I tell thee that," said the waterman, barringthe way resolutely."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 oneof its handles, and with the other hand bearing up the end of animaginary napkin, presented it in due and ancient form to Canty,who had to grasp the opposite handle with one of his hands andtake off the lid with the other, according to ancient custom. {1}This left the Prince hand-free for a second, of course. He wastedno time, but dived among the forest of legs about him anddisappeared. In another moment he could not have been harder tofind, under that tossing sea of life, if its billows had been theAtlantic's and he a lost sixpence.He very soon realised this fact, and straightway busied himselfabout his own affairs without further thought of John Canty. Hequickly realised another thing, too. To wit, that a spuriousPrince of Wales was being feasted by the city in his stead. Heeasily concluded that the pauper lad, Tom Canty, had deliberatelytaken advantage of his stupendous opportunity and become ausurper.Therefore there was but one course to pursue--find his way to theGuildhall, make himself known, and denounce the impostor. He alsomade up his mind that Tom should be allowed a reasonable time forspiritual preparation, and then be hanged, drawn and quartered,according to the law and usage of the day in cases of hightreason.