The Prince and the Pauper (Illustrated Children's Classic). Mark Twain

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      “’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 poor little King sat and suffered. Then all at once the old man’s frenzy departed, and he became all gentleness. His voice softened, he came down out of his clouds, and fell to prattling along so simply and so humanly, that he soon won the King’s heart completely. The old devotee moved the boy nearer to the fire and made him comfortable; doctored his small bruises and abrasions with a deft and tender hand; and then set about preparing and cooking a supper – chatting pleasantly all the time, and occasionally stroking the lad’s cheek or patting his head, in such a gently caressing way that in a little while all the fear and repulsion inspired by the archangel were changed to reverence and affection for the man.

      This happy state of things continued while the two ate the supper; then, after a prayer before the shrine, the hermit put the boy to bed, in a small adjoining room, tucking him in as snugly and lovingly as a mother might; and so, with a parting caress, left him and sat down by the fire, and began to poke the brands about in an absent and aimless way. Presently he paused; then tapped his forehead several times with his fingers, as if trying to recall some thought which had escaped from his mind. Apparently he was unsuccessful. Now he started quickly up, and entered his guest’s room, and said—

      “Thou art King?”

      “Yes,” was the response, drowsily uttered.

      “What King?”

      “Of England.”

      “Of England? Then Henry is gone!”

      “Alack, it is so. I am his son.”

      A black frown settled down upon the hermit’s face, and he clenched his bony hands with a vindictive energy. He stood a few moments, breathing fast and swallowing repeatedly, then said in a husky voice—

      “Dost know it was he that turned us out into the world houseless and homeless?”

      There was no response. The old man bent down and scanned the boy’s reposeful face and listened to his placid breathing. “He sleeps – sleeps soundly”; and the frown vanished away and gave place to an expression of evil satisfaction. A smile flitted across the dreaming boy’s features. The hermit muttered, “So – his heart is happy”; and he turned away. He went stealthily about the place, seeking here and there for something; now and then halting to listen, now and then jerking his head around and casting a quick glance toward the bed; and always muttering, always mumbling to himself. At last he found what he seemed to want – a rusty old butcher knife and a whetstone. Then he crept to his place by the fire, sat himself down, and began to whet the knife softly on the stone, still muttering, mumbling, ejaculating. The winds sighed around the lonely place, the mysterious voices of the night floated by out of the distances. The shining eyes of venturesome mice and rats peered out at the old man from cracks and coverts, but he went on with his work, rapt, absorbed, and noted none of these things.

      At long intervals he drew his thumb along the edge of his knife, and nodded his head with satisfaction. “It grows sharper,” he said; “yes, it grows sharper.”

      He took no note of the flight of time, but worked tranquilly on, entertaining himself with his thoughts, which broke out occasionally in articulate speech—

      “His father wrought us evil, he destroyed us – and is gone down into the eternal fires! Yes, down into the eternal fires! He escaped us – but it was God’s will, yes it was God’s will, we must not repine. But he hath not escaped the fires! No, he hath not escaped the fires, the consuming, unpitying, remorseless fires – and they are everlasting!”

      And so he wrought, and still wrought – mumbling, chuckling a low rasping chuckle at times – and at times breaking again into words—

      “It was his father that did it all. I am but an archangel; but for him I should be pope!”

      The King stirred. The hermit sprang noiselessly to the bedside, and went down upon his knees, bending over the prostrate form with his knife uplifted. The boy stirred again; his eyes came open for an instant, but there was no speculation in them, they saw nothing; the next moment his tranquil breathing showed that his sleep was sound once more.

      The hermit watched and listened, for a time, keeping his position and scarcely breathing; then he slowly lowered his arms, and presently crept away, saying—

      “It is long past midnight; it is not best that he should cry out, lest by accident someone be passing.”

      He glided about his hovel, gathering a rag here, a thong there, and another one yonder; then he returned, and by careful and gentle handling he managed to tie the King’s ankles together without waking him. Next he essayed to tie the СКАЧАТЬ