The Prince and the Pauper

“Neither to any other is she, so please your worship. She hath a wicked heart, and worketh evil all her days.”

“Doth she mistreat thee?”

“There be times that she stayeth her hand, being asleep or overcome with drink; but when she hath her judgment clear again, she maketh it up to me with goodly beatings.”

A fierce look came into the little prince’s eyes, and he cried out:

“What! Beatings?”

“Oh, indeed, yes, please you, sir.”

“Beatings!—and thou so frail and little. Hark ye: before the night come, she shall hie her to the Tower. The king my father—”

“In sooth, you forget, sir, her low degree. The Tower is for the great alone.”

“True, indeed. I had not thought of that. I will consider of her punishment. Is thy father kind to thee?”

“Not more than Gammer Canty, sir.”

“Fathers be alike, mayhap. Mine hath not a doll’s temper. He smiteth with a heavy hand, yet spareth me: he spareth me not always with his tongue, though, sooth to say. How doth thy mother use thee?”

“She is good, sir, and giveth me neither sorrow nor pain of any sort. And Nan and Bet are like to her in this.”

“How old be these?”

“Fifteen, an it please you, sir.”

“The Lady Elizabeth, my sister, is fourteen, and the Lady Jane Grey, my cousin, is of mine own age, and comely and gracious withal; but my sister the Lady Mary, with her gloomy mien and—Look you: do thy sisters forbid their servants to smile, lest the sin destroy their souls?”

“They? Oh, dost think, sir, that they have servants?”

The little prince contemplated the little pauper gravely a moment, then said:

“And prithee, why not? Who helpeth them undress at night? who attireth them when they rise?”

“None, sir. Wouldst have them take off their garment, and sleep without—like the beasts?”

“Their garment! Have they but one?”

“Ah, good your worship, what would they do with more? Truly, they have not two bodies each.”

“It is a quaint and marvelous thought! Thy pardon, I had not meant to laugh. But thy good Nan and thy Bet shall have raiment and lackeys enow, and that soon, too: my cofferer shall look to it. No, thank me not; ’tis nothing. Thou speakest well; thou hast an easy grace in it. Art learned?”

“I know not if I am or not, sir. The good priest that is called Father Andrew taught me, of his kindness, from his books.”

“Know’st thou the Latin?”

“But scantily, sir, I doubt.”

“Learn it, lad: ’tis hard only at first. The Greek is harder; but neither these nor any tongues else, I think, are hard to the Lady Elizabeth and my cousin. Thou shouldst hear those damsels at it! But tell me of thy Offal Court. Hast thou a pleasant life there?”

“In truth, yes, so please you, sir, save when one is hungry. There be Punch-and-Judy shows, and monkeys—oh, such antic creatures! and so bravely dressed!—and there be plays wherein they that play do shout and fight till all are slain, and ’tis so fine to see, and costeth but a farthing—albeit ’tis main hard to get the farthing, please your worship.”

“Tell me more.”

“We lads of Offal Court do strive against each other with the cudgel, like to the fashion of the ’prentices, sometimes.”

The prince’s eyes flashed. Said he:

“Marry, that would I not mislike. Tell me more.”

“We strive in races, sir, to see who of us shall be fleetest.”

“That would I like also. Speak on.”

“In summer, sir, we wade and swim in the canals and in the river, and each doth duck his neighbor, and spatter him with water, and dive and shout and tumble and—”

“’Twould be worth my father’s kingdom but to enjoy it once! Prithee go on.”

“We dance and sing about the Maypole in Cheapside; we play in the sand, each covering his neighbor up; and times we make mud pastry—oh, the lovely mud, it hath not its like for delightfulness in all the world!—we do fairly wallow in the mud, sir, saving your worship’s presence.”

“Oh, prithee, say no more, ’tis glorious! If that I could but clothe me in raiment like to thine, and strip my feet, and revel in the mud once, just once, with none to rebuke me or forbid, meseemeth I could forego the crown!”

“And if that I could clothe me once, sweet sir, as thou art clad—just once—”

“Oho, wouldst like it? Then so shall it be. Doff thy rags, and don these splendors, lad! It is a brief happiness, but will be not less keen for that. We will have it while we may, and change again before any come to molest.”

A few minutes later the little Prince of Wales was garlanded with Tom’s fluttering odds and ends, and the little Prince of Pauperdom was tricked out in the gaudy plumage of royalty. The two went and stood side by side before a great mirror, and lo, a miracle: there did not seem to have been any change made! They stared at each other, then at the glass, then at each other again. At last the puzzled princeling said:

“What dost thou make of this?”

“Ah, good your worship, require me not to answer. It is not meet that one of my degree should utter the thing.”

“Then will I utter it. Thou hast the same hair, the same eyes, the same voice and manner, the same form and stature, the same face and countenance, that I bear. Fared we forth naked, there is none could say which was you, and which the Prince of Wales. And, now that I am clothed as thou wert clothed, it seemeth I should be able the more nearly to feel as thou didst when the brute soldier—Hark ye, is not this a bruise upon your hand?”

“Yes; but it is a slight thing, and your worship knoweth that the poor man-at-arms—”

“Peace! It was a shameful thing and a cruel!” cried the little prince, stamping his bare foot. “If the king—Stir not a step till I come again! It is a command!”

In a moment he had snatched up and put away an article of national importance that lay upon a table, and was out at the door and flying through the palace grounds in his bannered rags, with a hot face and glowing eyes. As soon as he reached the great gate, he seized the bars, and tried to shake them, shouting:

“Open! Unbar the gates!”

The soldier that had maltreated Tom obeyed promptly; and as the prince burst through the portal, half smothered with royal wrath, the soldier fetched him a sounding box on the ear that sent him whirling to the roadway, and said:

“Take that, thou beggar’s spawn for what thou got’st me from his Highness!”

The crowd roared with laughter. The prince picked himself out of the mud, and made fiercely at the sentry, shouting: