The Prince and the Pauper
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 swift
footsteps, retreating. Immediately came a succession of thundering
knocks upon the cabin door, followed by--
“Hullo-o-o! Open! And despatch, in the name of all the devils!”
Oh, this was the blessedest sound that had ever made music in the King’s
ears; for it was Miles Hendon’s voice!
The hermit, grinding his teeth in impotent rage, moved swiftly out of
the bedchamber, closing the door behind him; and straightway the King
heard a talk, to this effect, proceeding from the ‘chapel’:--
“Homage and greeting, reverend sir! Where is the boy--_my_ boy?”
“What boy, friend?”
“What boy! Lie me no lies, sir priest, play me no deceptions!--I am not
in the humour for it. Near to this place I caught the scoundrels who I
judged did steal him from me, and I made them confess; they said he was
at large again, and they had tracked him to your door. They showed me
his very footprints. Now palter no more; for look you, holy sir, an’
thou produce him not--Where is the boy?”
“O good sir, peradventure you mean the ragged regal vagrant that tarried
here the night. If such as you take an interest in such as he, know,
then, that I have sent him of an errand. He will be back anon.”
“How soon? How soon? Come, waste not the time--cannot I overtake him?
How soon will he be back?”
“Thou need’st not stir; he will return quickly.”