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

explain, but the hermit paid no attention to

him—did not even hear him, apparently, but went right on with his talk,

with a raised voice and a growing energy. “And thou shalt be at peace

here. None shall find out thy refuge to disquiet thee with supplications

to return to that empty and foolish life which God hath moved thee to

abandon. Thou shalt pray here; thou shalt study the Book; thou shalt

meditate upon the follies and delusions of this world, and upon the

sublimities of the world to come; thou shalt feed upon crusts and herbs,

and scourge thy body with whips, daily, to the purifying of thy soul.

Thou shalt wear a hair shirt next thy skin; thou shalt drink water only;

and thou shalt be at peace; yes, wholly at peace; for whoso comes to seek

thee shall go his way again, baffled; he shall not find thee, he shall

not molest thee.”

 

The old man, still pacing back and forth, ceased to speak aloud, and

began to mutter. The King seized this opportunity to state his case; and

he did it with an eloquence inspired by uneasiness and apprehension. But

the hermit went on muttering, and gave no heed. And still muttering, he

approached the King and said impressively—

 

“‘Sh! I will tell you a secret!” He bent down to impart it, but checked

himself, and assumed a listening attitude. After a moment or two he went

on tiptoe to the window-opening, put his head out, and peered around in

the gloaming, then came tiptoeing back again, put his face close down to

the King’s, and whispered—

 

“I am an archangel!”

 

The King started violently, and said to himself, “Would God I were with

the outlaws again; for lo, now am I the prisoner of a madman!” His

apprehensions were heightened, and they showed plainly in his face. In a

low excited voice the hermit continued—

 

“I see you feel my atmosphere! There’s awe in your face! None may be in

this atmosphere and not be thus affected; for it is the very atmosphere

of heaven. I go thither and return, in the twinkling of an eye. I was

made an archangel on this very spot, it is five years ago, by angels sent

from heaven to confer that awful dignity. Their presence filled this

place with an intolerable brightness. And they knelt to me, King! yes,

they knelt to me! for I was greater than they. I have walked in the

courts of heaven, and held speech with the patriarchs. Touch my hand—be

not afraid—touch it. There—now thou hast touched a hand which has been

clasped by Abraham and Isaac and Jacob! For I have walked in the golden

courts; I have seen the Deity face to face!” He paused, to give this

speech effect; then his face suddenly changed, and he started to his feet

again saying, with angry energy, “Yes, I am an archangel; A MERE

ARCHANGEL!—I that might have been pope! It is verily true. I was told

it from heaven in a dream, twenty years ago; ah, yes, I was to be pope!—

and I SHOULD have been pope, for Heaven had said it—but the King

dissolved my religious house, and I, poor obscure unfriended monk, was

cast homeless upon the world, robbed of my mighty destiny!” Here he began

to mumble again, and beat his forehead in futile rage, with his fist; now

and then articulating a venomous curse, and now and then a pathetic

“Wherefore I am nought but an archangel—I that should have been pope!”

 

So he went on, for an hour, whilst the poor little King sat and suffered.

Then all at once the old man’s frenzy departed, and he became all

gentleness. His voice softened, he came down out of his clouds, and fell

to prattling along so simply and so humanly, that he soon won the King’s

heart completely. The old devotee moved the boy nearer to the fire and

made him comfortable; doctored his small bruises and abrasions with a

deft and tender hand; and then set about preparing and cooking a supper—

chatting pleasantly all the time, and occasionally stroking the lad’s

cheek or patting his head, in such a gently caressing way that in a

little while all the fear and repulsion inspired by the archangel were

changed to reverence and affection for the man.

 

This happy state of things continued while the two ate the supper; then,

after a prayer before the shrine, the hermit put the boy to bed, in a

small adjoining room, tucking him in as snugly and lovingly as a mother

might; and so, with a parting caress, left him and sat down by the fire,

and began to poke the brands about in an absent and aimless way.

Presently he paused; then tapped his forehead several times with his

fingers, as if trying to recall some thought which had escaped from his

mind. Apparently he was unsuccessful. Now he started quickly up, and

entered his guest’s room, and said—

 

“Thou art King?”

 

“Yes,” was the response, drowsily uttered.

 

“What King?”

 

“Of England.”

 

“Of England? Then Henry is gone!”

 

“Alack, it is so. I am his son.”

 

A black frown settled down upon the hermit’s face, and he clenched his

bony hands with a vindictive energy. He stood a few moments, breathing

fast and swallowing repeatedly, then said in a husky voice—

 

“Dost know it was he that turned us out into the world houseless and

homeless?”

 

There was no response. The old man bent down and scanned the boy’s

reposeful face and listened to his placid breathing. “He sleeps—sleeps

soundly;” and the frown vanished away and gave place to an expression of

evil satisfaction. A smile flitted across the dreaming boy’s features.

The hermit muttered, “So—his heart is happy;” and he turned away. He

went stealthily about the place, seeking here and there for something;

now and then halting to listen, now and then jerking his head around and

casting a quick glance toward the bed; and always muttering, always

mumbling to himself. At last he found what he seemed to want—a rusty

old butcher knife and a whetstone. Then he crept to his place by the

fire, sat himself down, and began to whet the knife softly on the stone,

still muttering, mumbling, ejaculating. The winds sighed around the

lonely place, the mysterious voices of the night floated by out of the

distances. The shining eyes of venturesome mice and rats peered out at

the old man from cracks and coverts, but he went on with his work, rapt,

absorbed, and noted none of these things.

 

At long intervals he drew his thumb along the edge of his knife, and

nodded his head with satisfaction. “It grows sharper,” he said; “yes, it

grows sharper.”

 

He took no note of the flight of time, but worked tranquilly on,

entertaining himself with his thoughts, which broke out occasionally in

articulate speech—

 

“His father wrought us evil, he destroyed us—and is gone down into the

eternal fires! Yes, down into the eternal fires! He escaped us—but it

was God’s will, yes it was God’s will, we must not repine. But he hath

not escaped the fires! No, he hath not escaped the fires, the consuming,

unpitying, remorseless fires—and THEY are everlasting!”

 

And so he wrought, and still wrought—mumbling, chuckling a low rasping

chuckle at times—and at times breaking again into words—

 

“It was his father that did it all. I am but an archangel; but for him I

should be pope!”

 

The King stirred. The hermit sprang noiselessly to the bedside, and went

down upon his knees, bending over the prostrate form with his knife

uplifted. The boy stirred again; his eyes came open for an instant, but

there was no speculation in them, they saw nothing; the next moment his

tranquil breathing showed that his sleep was sound once more.

 

The hermit watched and listened, for a time, keeping his position and

scarcely breathing; then he slowly lowered his arms, and presently crept

away, saying,—

 

“It is long past midnight; it is not best that he should cry out, lest by

accident someone be passing.”

 

He glided about his hovel, gathering a rag here, a thong there, and

another one yonder; then he returned, and by careful and gentle handling

he managed to tie the King’s ankles together without waking him. Next he

essayed to tie the wrists; he made several attempts to cross them, but

the boy always drew one hand or the other away, just as the cord was

ready to be applied; but at last, when the archangel was almost ready to

despair, the boy crossed his hands himself, and the next moment they were

bound. Now a bandage was passed under the sleeper’s chin and brought up

over his head and tied fast—and so softly, so gradually, and so deftly

were the knots drawn together and compacted, that the boy slept

peacefully through it all without stirring.

 

Chapter XXI. Hendon to the rescue.

 

The old man glided away, stooping, stealthy, cat-like, and brought the

low bench. He seated himself upon it, half his body in the dim and

flickering light, and the other half in shadow; and so, with his craving

eyes bent upon the slumbering boy, he kept his patient vigil there,

heedless of the drift of time, and softly whetted his knife, and mumbled

and chuckled; and in aspect and attitude he resembled nothing so much as

a grizzly, monstrous spider, gloating over some hapless insect that lay

bound and helpless in his web.

 

After a long while, the old man, who was still gazing,—yet not seeing,

his mind having settled into a dreamy abstraction,—observed, on a

sudden, that the boy’s eyes were open! wide open and staring!—staring up

in frozen horror at the knife. The smile of a gratified devil crept over

the old man’s face, and he said, without changing his attitude or his

occupation—

 

“Son of Henry the Eighth, hast thou prayed?”

 

The boy struggled helplessly in his bonds, and at the same time forced a

smothered sound through his closed jaws, which the hermit chose to

interpret as an affirmative answer to his question.

 

“Then pray again. Pray the prayer for the dying!”

 

A shudder shook the boy’s frame, and his face blenched. Then he

struggled again to free himself—turning and twisting himself this way

and that; tugging frantically, fiercely, desperately—but uselessly—to

burst his fetters; and all the while the old ogre smiled down upon him,

and nodded his head, and placidly whetted his knife; mumbling, from time

to time, “The moments are precious, they are few and precious—pray the

prayer for the dying!”

 

The boy uttered a despairing groan, and ceased from his struggles,

panting. The tears came, then, and trickled, one after the other, down

his face; but this piteous sight wrought no softening effect upon the

savage old man.

 

The dawn was coming now; the hermit observed it, and spoke up sharply,

with a touch of nervous apprehension in his voice—

 

“I may not indulge this ecstasy longer! The night is already gone. It

seems but a moment—only a moment; would it had endured a year! Seed of

the Church’s spoiler, close thy perishing eyes, an’ thou fearest to look

upon—”

 

The rest was lost in inarticulate mutterings. The old man sank upon his

knees, his knife in his hand, and bent himself over the moaning boy.

 

Hark! There was a sound of voices near the cabin—the knife dropped from

the hermit’s hand; he cast a sheepskin over the boy and started up,

trembling. The sounds increased, and presently the voices became rough

and angry; then came blows, and cries for help; then a clatter of