第30章

'Le Roi est Mort - Vive le Roi'

TOWARD daylight of the same morning, Tom Canty stirred out of a heavy sleep and opened his eyes in the dark. He lay silent a few moments, trying to analyze his confused thoughts and impressions, and get some sort of meaning out of them, then suddenly he burst out in a rapturous but guarded voice:

'I see it all, I see it all! Now God be thanked, I am, indeed, awake at last! Come, joy! vanish, sorrow! Ho, Nan! Bet! kick off your straw and hie ye hither to my side, till I do pour into your unbelieving ears the wildest madcap dream that ever the spirits of night did conjure up to astonish the soul of man withal!... Ho, Nan, Isay! Bet!'...

A dim form appeared at his side, and a voice said:

'Wilt deign to deliver thy commands?'

'Commands?... Oh, woe is me, I know thy voice! Speak, thou- who am I?'

'Thou? In sooth, yesternight wert thou the Prince of Wales, to-day art thou my most gracious liege, Edward, king of England.'

Tom buried his head among his pillows, murmuring plaintively:

'Alack, it was no dream! Go to thy rest, sweet sir- leave me to my sorrows.'

Tom slept again, and after a time he had this pleasant dream. He thought it was summer and he was playing, all alone, in the fair meadow called Goodman's Fields, when a dwarf only a foot high, with long red whiskers and a humped back, appeared to him suddenly and said, 'Dig, by that stump.' He did so, and found twelve bright new pennies- wonderful riches! Yet this was not the best of it; for the dwarf said:

'I know thee. Thou art a good lad and deserving; thy distresses shall end, for the day of thy reward is come. Dig here every seventh day, and thou shalt find always the same treasure, twelve bright new pennies. Tell none- keep the secret.'

Then the dwarf vanished, and Tom flew to Offal Court with his prize, saying to himself, 'Every night will I give my father a penny; he will think I begged it, it will glad his heart, and Ishall no more be beaten. One penny every week the good priest that teacheth me shall have; mother, Nan, and Bet the other four. We be done with hunger and rags now, done with fears and frets and savage usage.'

In his dream he reached his sordid home all out of breath, but with eyes dancing with grateful enthusiasm; cast four of his pennies into his mother's lap and cried out:

'They are for thee!- all of them, every one!- for thee and Nan and Bet- and honestly come by, not begged nor stolen!'

The happy and astonished mother strained him to her breast and exclaimed:

'It waxeth late- may it please your majesty to rise?'

Ah, that was not the answer he was expecting. The dream had snapped asunder- he was awake.

He opened his eyes- the richly clad First Lord of the Bedchamber was kneeling by his couch. The gladness of the lying dream faded away-the poor boy recognized that he was still a captive and a king. The room was filled with courtiers clothed in purple mantles- the mourning color- and with noble servants of the monarch. Tom sat up in bed and gazed out from the heavy silken curtains upon this fine company.

The weighty business of dressing began, and one courtier after another knelt and paid his court and offered to the little king his condolences upon his heavy loss, while the dressing proceeded. In the beginning, a shirt was taken up by the Chief Equerry in Waiting, who passed it to the First Lord of the Buckhounds, who passed it to the Second Gentleman of the Bedchamber, who passed it to the Head Ranger of Windsor Forest, who passed it to the Third Groom of the Stole, who passed it to the Chancellor Royal of the Duchy of Lancaster, who passed it to the Master of the Wardrobe, who passed it to Norroy King-at-Arms, who passed it to the Constable of the Tower, who passed it to the Chief Steward of the Household, who passed it to the Hereditary Grand Diaperer, who passed it to the Lord High Admiral of England, who passed it to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who passed it to the First Lord of the Bedchamber, who took what was left of it and put it on Tom. Poor little wondering chap, it reminded him of passing buckets at a fire.

Each garment in its turn had to go through this slow and solemn process; consequently Tom grew very weary of the ceremony; so weary that he felt an almost gushing gratefulness when he at last saw his long silken hose begin the journey down the line and knew that the end of the matter was drawing near. But he exulted too soon. The First Lord of the Bedchamber received the hose and was about to encase Tom's legs in them, when a sudden flush invaded his face and he hurriedly hustled the things back into the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury with an astounded look and a whispered, 'See, my lord!'- pointing to a something connected with the hose. The Archbishop paled, then flushed, and passed the hose to the Lord High Admiral, whispering 'See, my lord!' The Admiral passed the hose to the Hereditary Grand Diaperer, and had hardly breath enough in his body to ejaculate, 'See, my lord!'

The hose drifted backward along the line, to the Chief Steward of the Household, the Constable of the Tower, Norroy King-at-Arms, the Master of the Wardrobe, the Chancellor Royal of the Duchy of Lancaster, the Third Groom of the Stole, the Head Ranger of Windsor Forest, the Second Gentleman of the Bedchamber, the First Lord of the Buckhounds- accompanied always with that amazed and frightened 'See! see!'- till they finally reached the hands of the Chief Equerry in Waiting, who gazed a moment, with a pallid face, upon what had caused all this dismay, then hoarsely whispered 'Body of my life, a tag gone from a truss point!- to the Tower with the Head Keeper of the King's Hose!'- after which he leaned upon the shoulder of the First Lord of the Buckhounds to regather his vanished strength while fresh hose, without any damaged strings to them, were brought.