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

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 for ever 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 marvelling 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 nought 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 good 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 over sea, 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 a while, 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, colouring 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 grey

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 honourable

soldiership with the slaying of so pitiful a mannikin!”

 

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,

whilst 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 endeavours 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.”

 

Chapter XXVI. Disowned.

 

The King sat musing a few moments, then looked up and said—

 

“‘Tis strange—most strange. I cannot account for it.”

 

“No, it is not strange, my liege. I know him, and this conduct is but

natural. He was a rascal from his birth.”

 

“Oh, I spake not of HIM, Sir Miles.”

 

“Not of him? Then of what? What is it that is strange?”

 

“That the King is not missed.”

 

“How? Which? I doubt I do not understand.”

 

“Indeed? Doth it not strike you as being passing strange that the land

is not filled with couriers and proclamations describing my person and

making search for me? Is it no matter for commotion and distress that

the Head of the State is gone; that I am vanished away and lost?”

 

“Most true, my King, I had forgot.” Then Hendon sighed, and muttered to

himself, “Poor ruined mind—still busy with its pathetic dream.”

 

“But I have a plan that shall right us both—I will write a paper, in

three tongues—Latin, Greek and English—and thou shalt haste away with

it to London in the morning. Give it to none but my uncle, the Lord

Hertford; when he shall see it, he will know and say I wrote it. Then he

will send for me.”

 

“Might it not be best, my Prince, that we wait here until I prove myself

and make my rights secure to my domains? I should be so much the better

able then to—”

 

The King interrupted him imperiously—

 

“Peace! What are thy paltry domains, thy trivial interests, contrasted

with matters which concern the weal of a nation and the integrity of a

throne?” Then, he added, in a gentle voice, as if he were sorry for his

severity, “Obey, and have no fear; I will right thee, I will make thee

whole—yes, more than whole. I shall remember, and requite.”

 

So saying, he took the pen, and set himself to work. Hendon contemplated

him lovingly a while, then said to himself—

 

“An’ it were dark, I should think it WAS a king that spoke; there’s no

denying it, when the humour’s upon on him he doth thunder and lighten

like your true King; now where got he that trick? See him scribble and

scratch away contentedly at his meaningless pot-hooks, fancying them to

be Latin and Greek—and except my wit shall serve me with a lucky device

for diverting him from his purpose, I shall be forced to pretend to post

away tomorrow on this wild errand he hath invented for me.”

 

The next moment Sir Miles’s thoughts had gone back to the recent episode.

So absorbed was he in his musings, that when the King presently handed

him the paper which he had been writing, he received it and pocketed it

without being conscious of the act. “How marvellous