The Prince and the Pauper
CHAPTER XXX. Tom's progress.
Whilst the true King wandered about the land poorly clad, poorlyfed, cuffed and derided by tramps one while, herding with thievesand murderers in a jail another, and called idiot and impostor byall impartially, the mock King Tom Canty enjoyed quite a differentexperience.
When we saw him last, royalty was just beginning to have a bright sidefor him. ?This bright side went on brightening more and more everyday: in a very little while it was become almost all sunshine anddelightfulness. ?He lost his fears; his misgivings faded out and died;his embarrassments departed, and gave place to an easy and confidentbearing. ?He worked the whipping-boy mine to ever-increasing profit.
He ordered my Lady Elizabeth and my Lady Jane Grey into his presencewhen he wanted to play or talk, and dismissed them when he was done withthem, with the air of one familiarly accustomed to such performances.?It no longer confused him to have these lofty personages kiss his handat parting.
He came to enjoy being conducted to bed in state at night, and dressedwith intricate and solemn ceremony in the morning. ?It came to be aproud pleasure to march to dinner attended by a glittering processionof officers of state and gentlemen-at-arms; insomuch, indeed, that hedoubled his guard of gentlemen-at-arms, and made them a hundred. ?Heliked to hear the bugles sounding down the long corridors, and thedistant voices responding, "Way for the King!"
He even learned to enjoy sitting in throned state in council, andseeming to be something more than the Lord Protector's mouthpiece. Heliked to receive great ambassadors and their gorgeous trains, and listento the affectionate messages they brought from illustrious monarchs whocalled him brother. ?O happy Tom Canty, late of Offal Court!
He enjoyed his splendid clothes, and ordered more: ?he found his fourhundred servants too few for his proper grandeur, and trebled them. ?Theadulation of salaaming courtiers came to be sweet music to his ears. ?Heremained kind and gentle, and a sturdy and determined champion of allthat were oppressed, and he made tireless war upon unjust laws: ?yetupon occasion, being offended, he could turn upon an earl, or even aduke, and give him a look that would make him tremble. ?Once, when hisroyal 'sister,' the grimly holy Lady Mary, set herself to reason withhim against the wisdom of his course in pardoning so many people whowould otherwise be jailed, or hanged, or burned, and reminded him thattheir august late father's prisons had sometimes contained as high assixty thousand convicts at one time, and that during his admirable reignhe had delivered seventy-two thousand thieves and robbers over to deathby the executioner, {9} the boy was filled with generous indignation,and commanded her to go to her closet, and beseech God to take away thestone that was in her breast, and give her a human heart.
Did Tom Canty never feel troubled about the poor little rightful princewho had treated him so kindly, and flown out with such hot zeal toavenge him upon the insolent sentinel at the palace-gate? Yes; his firstroyal days and nights were pretty well sprinkled with painful thoughtsabout the lost prince, and with sincere longings for his return, andhappy restoration to his native rights and splendours. ?But as timewore on, and the prince did not come, Tom's mind became more and moreoccupied with his new and enchanting experiences, and by little andlittle the vanished monarch faded almost out of his thoughts; andfinally, when he did intrude upon them at intervals, he was become anunwelcome spectre, for he made Tom feel guilty and ashamed.
Tom's poor mother and sisters travelled the same road out of his mind.At first he pined for them, sorrowed for them, longed to see them, butlater, the thought of their coming some day in their rags and dirt, andbetraying him with their kisses, and pulling him down from his loftyplace, and dragging him back to penury and degradation and the slums,made him shudder. ?At last they ceased to trouble his thoughts almostwholly. ?And he was content, even glad: ?for, whenever their mournfuland accusing faces did rise before him now, they made him feel moredespicable than the worms that crawl.
At midnight of the 19th of February, Tom Canty was sinking to sleep inhis rich bed in the palace, guarded by his loyal vassals, and surroundedby the pomps of royalty, a happy boy; for tomorrow was the day appointedfor his solemn crowning as King of England. At that same hour, Edward,the true king, hungry and thirsty, soiled and draggled, worn withtravel, and clothed in rags and shreds--his share of the results of theriot--was wedged in among a crowd of people who were watching with deepinterest certain hurrying gangs of workmen who streamed in and out ofWestminster Abbey, busy as ants: ?they were making the last preparationfor the royal coronation.