The Prince and the Pauper, Part 6. by Mark Twain (top fiction books of all time .TXT) 📗

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 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