The Prince and the Pauper, Mark Twain [fantasy novels to read .TXT] 📗

full of pity; for

his forlorn condition and apparently crazed intellect touched her womanly

heart. She was a widow, and rather poor; consequently she had seen

trouble enough to enable her to feel for the unfortunate. She imagined

that the demented boy had wandered away from his friends or keepers; so

she tried to find out whence he had come, in order that she might take

measures to return him; but all her references to neighbouring towns and

villages, and all her inquiries in the same line went for nothing—the

boy’s face, and his answers, too, showed that the things she was talking

of were not familiar to him. He spoke earnestly and simply about court

matters, and broke down, more than once, when speaking of the late King

‘his father’; but whenever the conversation changed to baser topics, he

lost interest and became silent.

 

The woman was mightily puzzled; but she did not give up. As she

proceeded with her cooking, she set herself to contriving devices to

surprise the boy into betraying his real secret. She talked about

cattle—he showed no concern; then about sheep—the same result: so her

guess that he had been a shepherd boy was an error; she talked about

mills; and about weavers, tinkers, smiths, trades and tradesmen of all

sorts; and about Bedlam, and jails, and charitable retreats: but no

matter, she was baffled at all points. Not altogether, either; for she

argued that she had narrowed the thing down to domestic service. Yes,

she was sure she was on the right track, now; he must have been a house

servant. So she led up to that. But the result was discouraging. The

subject of sweeping appeared to weary him; fire-building failed to stir

him; scrubbing and scouring awoke no enthusiasm. The goodwife touched,

with a perishing hope, and rather as a matter of form, upon the subject

of cooking. To her surprise, and her vast delight, the King’s face

lighted at once! Ah, she had hunted him down at last, she thought; and

she was right proud, too, of the devious shrewdness and tact which had

accomplished it.

 

Her tired tongue got a chance to rest, now; for the King’s, inspired by

gnawing hunger and the fragrant smells that came from the sputtering pots

and pans, turned itself loose and delivered itself up to such an eloquent

dissertation upon certain toothsome dishes, that within three minutes the

woman said to herself, “Of a truth I was right—he hath holpen in a

kitchen!” Then he broadened his bill of fare, and discussed it with such

appreciation and animation, that the goodwife said to herself, “Good

lack! how can he know so many dishes, and so fine ones withal? For these

belong only upon the tables of the rich and great. Ah, now I see! ragged

outcast as he is, he must have served in the palace before his reason

went astray; yes, he must have helped in the very kitchen of the King

himself! I will test him.”

 

Full of eagerness to prove her sagacity, she told the King to mind the

cooking a moment—hinting that he might manufacture and add a dish or

two, if he chose; then she went out of the room and gave her children a

sign to follow after. The King muttered—

 

“Another English king had a commission like to this, in a bygone time—it

is nothing against my dignity to undertake an office which the great

Alfred stooped to assume. But I will try to better serve my trust than

he; for he let the cakes burn.”

 

The intent was good, but the performance was not answerable to it, for

this King, like the other one, soon fell into deep thinkings concerning

his vast affairs, and the same calamity resulted—the cookery got burned.

The woman returned in time to save the breakfast from entire destruction;

and she promptly brought the King out of his dreams with a brisk and

cordial tongue-lashing. Then, seeing how troubled he was over his

violated trust, she softened at once, and was all goodness and gentleness

toward him.

 

The boy made a hearty and satisfying meal, and was greatly refreshed and

gladdened by it. It was a meal which was distinguished by this curious

feature, that rank was waived on both sides; yet neither recipient of the

favour was aware that it had been extended. The goodwife had intended to

feed this young tramp with broken victuals in a corner, like any other

tramp or like a dog; but she was so remorseful for the scolding she had

given him, that she did what she could to atone for it by allowing him to

sit at the family table and eat with his betters, on ostensible terms of

equality with them; and the King, on his side, was so remorseful for

having broken his trust, after the family had been so kind to him, that

he forced himself to atone for it by humbling himself to the family

level, instead of requiring the woman and her children to stand and wait

upon him, while he occupied their table in the solitary state due to his

birth and dignity. It does us all good to unbend sometimes. This good

woman was made happy all the day long by the applauses which she got out

of herself for her magnanimous condescension to a tramp; and the King was

just as self-complacent over his gracious humility toward a humble

peasant woman.

 

When breakfast was over, the housewife told the King to wash up the

dishes. This command was a staggerer, for a moment, and the King came

near rebelling; but then he said to himself, “Alfred the Great watched

the cakes; doubtless he would have washed the dishes too—therefore will

I essay it.”

 

He made a sufficiently poor job of it; and to his surprise too, for the

cleaning of wooden spoons and trenchers had seemed an easy thing to do.

It was a tedious and troublesome piece of work, but he finished it at

last. He was becoming impatient to get away on his journey now; however,

he was not to lose this thrifty dame’s society so easily. She furnished

him some little odds and ends of employment, which he got through with

after a fair fashion and with some credit. Then she set him and the

little girls to paring some winter apples; but he was so awkward at this

service that she retired him from it and gave him a butcher knife to

grind. Afterwards she kept him carding wool until he began to think he

had laid the good King Alfred about far enough in the shade for the

present in the matter of showy menial heroisms that would read

picturesquely in story-books and histories, and so he was half-minded to

resign. And when, just after the noonday dinner, the goodwife gave him a

basket of kittens to drown, he did resign. At least he was just going to

resign—for he felt that he must draw the line somewhere, and it seemed

to him that to draw it at kitten-drowning was about the right thing—when

there was an interruption. The interruption was John Canty—with a

peddler’s pack on his back—and Hugo.

 

The King discovered these rascals approaching the front gate before they

had had a chance to see him; so he said nothing about drawing the line,

but took up his basket of kittens and stepped quietly out the back way,

without a word. He left the creatures in an out-house, and hurried on,

into a narrow lane at the rear.

 

Chapter XX. The Prince and the hermit.

 

The high hedge hid him from the house, now; and so, under the impulse of

a deadly fright, he let out all his forces and sped toward a wood in the

distance. He never looked back until he had almost gained the shelter of

the forest; then he turned and descried two figures in the distance.

That was sufficient; he did not wait to scan them critically, but hurried

on, and never abated his pace till he was far within the twilight depths

of the wood. Then he stopped; being persuaded that he was now tolerably

safe. He listened intently, but the stillness was profound and solemn—

awful, even, and depressing to the spirits. At wide intervals his

straining ear did detect sounds, but they were so remote, and hollow, and

mysterious, that they seemed not to be real sounds, but only the moaning

and complaining ghosts of departed ones. So the sounds were yet more

dreary than the silence which they interrupted.

 

It was his purpose, in the beginning, to stay where he was the rest of

the day; but a chill soon invaded his perspiring body, and he was at last

obliged to resume movement in order to get warm. He struck straight

through the forest, hoping to pierce to a road presently, but he was

disappointed in this. He travelled on and on; but the farther he went,

the denser the wood became, apparently. The gloom began to thicken, by-and-by, and the King realised that the night was coming on. It made him

shudder to think of spending it in such an uncanny place; so he tried to

hurry faster, but he only made the less speed, for he could not now see

well enough to choose his steps judiciously; consequently he kept

tripping over roots and tangling himself in vines and briers.

 

And how glad he was when at last he caught the glimmer of a light! He

approached it warily, stopping often to look about him and listen. It

came from an unglazed window-opening in a shabby little hut. He heard a

voice, now, and felt a disposition to run and hide; but he changed his

mind at once, for this voice was praying, evidently. He glided to the

one window of the hut, raised himself on tiptoe, and stole a glance

within. The room was small; its floor was the natural earth, beaten hard

by use; in a corner was a bed of rushes and a ragged blanket or two; near

it was a pail, a cup, a basin, and two or three pots and pans; there was

a short bench and a three-legged stool; on the hearth the remains of a

faggot fire were smouldering; before a shrine, which was lighted by a

single candle, knelt an aged man, and on an old wooden box at his side

lay an open book and a human skull. The man was of large, bony frame;

his hair and whiskers were very long and snowy white; he was clothed in a

robe of sheepskins which reached from his neck to his heels.

 

“A holy hermit!” said the King to himself; “now am I indeed fortunate.”

 

The hermit rose from his knees; the King knocked. A deep voice

responded—

 

“Enter!—but leave sin behind, for the ground whereon thou shalt stand is

holy!”

 

The King entered, and paused. The hermit turned a pair of gleaming,

unrestful eyes upon him, and said—

 

“Who art thou?”

 

“I am the King,” came the answer, with placid simplicity.

 

“Welcome, King!” cried the hermit, with enthusiasm. Then, bustling about

with feverish activity, and constantly saying, “Welcome, welcome,” he

arranged his bench, seated the King on it, by the hearth, threw some

faggots on the fire, and finally fell to pacing the floor with a nervous

stride.

 

“Welcome! Many have sought sanctuary here, but they were not worthy, and

were turned away. But a King who casts his crown away, and despises the

vain splendours of his office, and clothes his body in rags, to devote

his life to holiness and the mortification of the flesh—he is worthy, he

is welcome!—here shall he abide all his days till death come.” The King

hastened to interrupt and