The Prince and the Pauper
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 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