The Prince and the Pauper Mark Twain (readict books .TXT) đ
- Author: Mark Twain
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Our friends threaded their way slowly through the throngs upon the Bridge. This structure, which had stood for six hundred years, and had been a noisy and populous thoroughfare all that time, was a curious affair, for a closely packed rank of stores and shops, with family quarters overhead, stretched along both sides of it, from one bank of the river to the other. The Bridge was a sort of town to itself; it had its inn, its beer-houses, its bakeries, its haberdasheries, its food markets, its manufacturing industries, and even its church. It looked upon the two neighbors which it linked togetherâ âLondon and Southwarkâ âas being well enough as suburbs, but not otherwise particularly important. It was a close corporation, so to speak; it was a narrow town, of a single street a fifth of a mile long, its population was but a village population and everybody in it knew all his fellow townsmen intimately, and had known their fathers and mothers before themâ âand all their little family affairs into the bargain. It had its aristocracy, of courseâ âits fine old families of butchers, and bakers, and whatnot, who had occupied the same old premises for five or six hundred years, and knew the great history of the Bridge from beginning to end, and all its strange legends; and who always talked bridgy talk, and thought bridgy thoughts, and lied in a long, level, direct, substantial bridgy way. It was just the sort of population to be narrow and ignorant and self-conceited. Children were born on the Bridge, were reared there, grew to old age, and finally died without ever having set a foot upon any part of the world but London Bridge alone. Such people would naturally imagine that the mighty and interminable procession which moved through its street night and day, with its confused roar of shouts and cries, its neighings and bellowing and bleatings and its muffled thunder-tramp, was the one great thing in this world, and themselves somehow the proprietors of it. And so they were, in effectâ âat least they could exhibit it from their windows, and didâ âfor a considerationâ âwhenever a returning king or hero gave it a fleeting splendor, for there was no place like it for affording a long, straight, uninterrupted view of marching columns.
Men born and reared upon the Bridge found life unendurably dull and inane elsewhere. History tells of one of these who left the Bridge at the age of seventy-one and retired to the country. But he could only fret and toss in his bed; he could not go to sleep, the deep stillness was so painful, so awful, so oppressive. When he was worn out with it, at last, he fled back to his old home, a lean and haggard spectre, and fell peacefully to rest and pleasant dreams under the lulling music of the lashing waters and the boom and crash and thunder of London Bridge.
In the times of which we are writing, the Bridge furnished âobject lessonsâ in English history for its childrenâ ânamely, the livid and decaying heads of renowned men impaled upon iron spikes atop of its gateways. But we digress.
Hendonâs lodgings were in the little inn on the Bridge. As he neared the door with his small friend, a rough voice saidâ â
âSo, thouârt come at last! Thouâlt not escape again, I warrant thee; and if pounding thy bones to a pudding can teach thee somewhat, thouâlt not keep us waiting another time, mayhap,ââ âand John Canty put out his hand to seize the boy.
Miles Hendon stepped in the way and saidâ â
âNot too fast, friend. Thou art needlessly rough, methinks. What is the lad to thee?â
âIf it be any business of thine to make and meddle in othersâ affairs, he is my son.â
âââTis a lie!â cried the little king, hotly.
âBoldly said, and I believe thee, whether thy small headpiece be sound or cracked, my boy. But whether this scurvy ruffian be thy father or no, âtis all one, he shall not have thee to beat thee and abuse, according to his threat, so thou prefer to bide with me.â
âI do, I doâ âI know him not, I loathe him, and will die before I will go with him.â
âThen âtis settled, and there is nought more to say.â
âWe will see, as to that!â exclaimed John Canty, striding past Hendon to get at the boy; âby force shall heâ ââ
âIf thou do but touch him, thou animated offal, I will spit thee like a goose!â said Hendon, barring the way and laying his hand upon his sword hilt. Canty drew back. âNow mark ye,â continued Hendon, âI took this lad under my protection when a mob of such as thou would have mishandled him, mayhap killed him; dost imagine I will desert him now to a worser fate?â âfor whether thou art his father or noâ âand sooth to say, I think it is a lieâ âa decent swift death were better for such a lad than life in such brute hands as thine. So go thy ways, and set quick about it, for I like not much bandying of words, being not over-patient in my nature.â
John Canty moved off, muttering threats and curses, and was swallowed from sight in the crowd. Hendon ascended three flights of stairs to his room, with his charge, after ordering a meal to be sent thither. It was a poor apartment, with a shabby bed and some odds and ends of old furniture in it, and was vaguely lighted by a couple of sickly candles. The little king dragged himself to the bed and lay down upon it, almost exhausted with hunger and fatigue. He had been on his
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