The Prince and the Pauper Mark Twain (readict books .TXT) 📖

heard the crowd roar its enjoyment of the episode. He sprang across the open circle and confronted the officer in charge, crying⁠—

“For shame! This is my servant⁠—set him free! I am the⁠—”

“Oh, peace!” exclaimed Hendon, in a panic, “thou’lt destroy thyself. Mind him not, officer, he is mad.”

“Give thyself no trouble as to the matter of minding him, good man, I have small mind to mind him; but as to teaching him somewhat, to that I am well inclined.” He turned to a subordinate and said, “Give the little fool a taste or two of the lash, to mend his manners.”

“Half a dozen will better serve his turn,” suggested Sir Hugh, who had ridden up, a moment before, to take a passing glance at the proceedings.

The king was seized. He did not even struggle, so paralyzed was he with the mere thought of the monstrous outrage that was proposed to be inflicted upon his sacred person. History was already defiled with the record of the scourging of an English king with whips⁠—it was an intolerable reflection that he must furnish a duplicate of that shameful page. He was in the toils, there was no help for him; he must either take this punishment or beg for its remission. Hard conditions; he would take the stripes⁠—a king might do that, but a king could not beg.

But meantime, Miles Hendon was resolving the difficulty. “Let the child go,” said he; “ye heartless dogs, do ye not see how young and frail he is? Let him go⁠—I will take his lashes.”

“Marry, a good thought⁠—and thanks for it,” said Sir Hugh, his face lighting with a sardonic satisfaction. “Let the little beggar go, and give this fellow a dozen in his place⁠—an honest dozen, well laid on.” The king was in the act of entering a fierce protest, but Sir Hugh silenced him with the potent remark, “Yes, speak up, do, and free thy mind⁠—only, mark ye, that for each word you utter he shall get six strokes the more.”

Hendon was removed from the stocks, and his back laid bare; and whilst the lash was applied the poor little king turned away his face and allowed unroyal tears to channel his cheeks unchecked. “Ah, brave good heart,” he said to himself, “this loyal deed shall never perish out of my memory. I will not forget it⁠—and neither shall they!” he added, with passion. Whilst he mused, his appreciation of Hendon’s magnanimous conduct grew to greater and still greater dimensions in his mind, and so also did his gratefulness for it. Presently he said to himself, “Who saves his prince from wounds and possible death⁠—and this he did for me⁠—performs high service; but it is little⁠—it is nothing⁠—oh, less than nothing!⁠—when ’tis weighed against the act of him who saves his prince from shame!”

Hendon made no outcry under the scourge, but bore the heavy blows with soldierly fortitude. This, together with his redeeming the boy by taking his stripes for him, compelled the respect of even that forlorn and degraded mob that was gathered there; and its gibes and hootings died away, and no sound remained but the sound of the falling blows. The stillness that pervaded the place, when Hendon found himself once more in the stocks, was in strong contrast with the insulting clamor which had prevailed there so little a while before. The king came softly to Hendon’s side, and whispered in his ear⁠—

“Kings cannot ennoble thee, thou good, great soul, for One who is higher than kings hath done that for thee; but a king can confirm thy nobility to men.” He picked up the scourge from the ground, touched Hendon’s bleeding shoulders lightly with it, and whispered, “Edward of England dubs thee earl!”

Hendon was touched. The water welled to his eyes, yet at the same time the grisly humor of the situation and circumstances so undermined his gravity that it was all he could do to keep some sign of his inward mirth from showing outside. To be suddenly hoisted, naked and gory, from the common stocks to the Alpine altitude and splendor of an Earldom, seemed to him the last possibility in the line of the grotesque. He said to himself, “Now am I finely tinselled, indeed! The spectre-knight of the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows is become a spectre-earl⁠—a dizzy flight for a callow wing! An’ this go on, I shall presently be hung like a very maypole with fantastic gauds and make-believe honors. But I shall value them, all valueless as they are, for the love that doth bestow them. Better these poor mock dignities of mine, that come unasked, from a clean hand and a right spirit, than real ones bought by servility from grudging and interested power.”

The dreaded Sir Hugh wheeled his horse about, and as he spurred away, the living wall divided silently to let him pass, and as silently closed together again. And so remained; nobody went so far as to venture a remark in favor of the prisoner, or in compliment to him; but no matter⁠—the absence of abuse was a sufficient homage in itself. A late comer who was not posted as to the present circumstances, and who delivered a sneer at the “impostor,” and was in the act of following it with a dead cat, was promptly knocked down and kicked out, without any words, and then the deep quiet resumed sway once more.

XXIX To London

When Hendon’s term of service in the stocks was finished, he was released and ordered to quit the region and come back no more. His sword was restored to him, and also his mule and his donkey. He mounted and rode off, followed by the king, the crowd opening with quiet respectfulness to let them pass, and then dispersing when they were gone.

Hendon was soon absorbed in thought. There were questions of high import to be answered. What should he do? Whither should he go? Powerful help must be