The Prince and The Pauper: Chapters 15-21

Even the two hours devoted to certain princely pastimes and recreations were rather a burden to him than otherwise, they were so fettered by restrictions and ceremonious observances.

A messenger returned, to report that the crowd were following a man, a woman, and a young girl to execution for crimes committed against the peace and dignity of the realm.

he never thought of the offended laws, or of the grief or loss which these three criminals had inflicted upon their victims; he could think of nothing but the scaffold and the grisly fate hanging over the heads of the condemned.

Then he blushed scarlet, and a sort of apology sprung to his lips; but observing that his order had wrought no sort of surprise in the Earl or the waiting page, he suppressed the words he was about to utter.

Tom experienced a glow of pride and a renewed sense of the compensating advantages of the kingly office.

He said to himself, "Truly it is like what I was used to feel when I read the old priest's tales, and did imagine mine own self a prince, giving law and command to all, saying 'Do this, do that,' whilst none durst offer let or hindrance to my will."

In a little while the measured tread of military men was heard approaching, and the culprits entered the presence in charge of an under-sheriff and escorted by a detail of the king's guard.

Just then the man glanced quickly up and quickly dropped his face again, not being able to endure the awful port of sovereignty

"I beseech your good lordship that order be taken to change this law--oh, let no more poor creatures be visited with its tortures."

It was not admiration of the decree that had been delivered by Tom, for the propriety or expediency of pardoning a convicted poisoner was a thing which few there would have felt justified in either admitting or admiring--no, the admiration was for the intelligence and spirit which Tom had displayed.

"How sanely he put his questions--how like his former natural self was this abrupt imperious disposal of the matter!"

The elderly heads nodded recognition of Tom's wisdom once more, and one individual murmured, "An' the King be mad himself, according to report, then is it a madness of a sort that would improve the sanity of some I wot of, if by the gentle providence of God they could but catch it."

"By the law of England may a child enter into covenant and sell itself, my lord?" asked Tom, turning to a learned judge.

The law doth not permit a child to make or meddle in any weighty matter, good my liege, holding that its callow wit unfitteth it to cope with the riper wit and evil schemings of them that are its elders.

"It seemeth a rude unchristian thing, and ill contrived, that English law denieth privileges to Englishmen to waste them on the devil!" cried Tom, with honest heat.

Tom turned to the woman, and said with impetuous zeal--"Exert thy power--I would see a storm!"

There was a sudden paling of cheeks in the superstitious assemblage, and a general, though unexpressed, desire to get out of the place--all of which was lost upon Tom, who was dead to everything but the proposed cataclysm.

Make a storm--it mattereth not how small a one--I require nought great or harmful, but indeed prefer the opposite--do this and thy life is spared--thou shalt go out free, with thy child, bearing the King's pardon, and safe from hurt or malice from any in the realm.

A gentleman enters the room bearing a rod, and along with him another bearing a tablecloth, which, after they have both kneeled three times with the utmost veneration, he spreads upon the table, and after kneeling again they both retire

First come Gentlemen, Barons, Earls, Knights of the Garter, all richly dressed and bareheaded; next comes the Chancellor, between two, one of which carries the royal sceptre, the other the Sword of State in a red scabbard, studded with golden fleurs-de-lis, the point upwards; next comes the King himself

When the meal was over at last and he marched away in the midst of his bright pageant, with the happy noises in his ears of blaring bugles, rolling drums, and thundering acclamations, he felt that if he had seen the worst of dining in public it was an ordeal which he would be glad to endure several times a day if by that means he could but buy himself free from some of the more formidable requirements of his royal office.

There were huge stalwart men, brown with exposure, long-haired, and clothed in fantastic rags; there were middle-sized youths, of truculent countenance, and similarly clad

some of the females were hardly-grown girls, some were at prime, some were old and wrinkled hags, and all were loud, brazen, foul-mouthed

London is better than the country, and safer, these late years, the laws be so bitter and so diligently enforced.

The law roasted her to death at a slow fire. It did touch me to a sort of tenderness to see the gallant way she met her lot--cursing and reviling all the crowd that gaped and gazed around her, whilst the flames licked upward toward her face and catched her thin locks and crackled about her old gray head--cursing them!

Drink ye all again to the merciful English law!--for its lash drank deep of my Mary's blood and its blessed deliverance came quick.

"Ye mannerless vagrants, is this your recognition of the royal boon I have promised?"

"Deign to spit upon us, O Sire, that our children's children may tell of thy princely condescension, and be proud and happy for ever!"

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

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.

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.

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!

A black frown settled down upon the hermit's face, and he clenched his bony hands with a vindictive energy.

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.

This doth well and truly account for his complaisance! Right well I knew he would budge nor hand nor foot in the menial service of any mortal; but, lord, even a king must obey when an archangel gives the word o' command!