day another English child was born to a rich family of the name of
Tudor, who did want him. All England wanted him too. England had
so longed for him, and hoped for him, and prayed God for him,
that, now that he was really come, the people went nearly mad for
joy. Mere acquaintances hugged and kissed each other and cried.
Everybody took a holiday, and high and low, rich and poor, feasted
and danced and sang, and got very mellow; and they kept this up
for days and nights together. By day, London was a sight to see,
with gay banners waving from every balcony and housetop, and
splendid pageants marching along. By night, it was again a sight
to see, with its great bonfires at every corner, and its troops of
revellers making merry around them. There was no talk in all
England but of the new baby, Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales, who
lay lapped in silks and satins, unconscious of all this fuss, and
not knowing that great lords and ladies were tending him and
watching over him–and not caring, either. But there was no talk
about the other baby, Tom Canty, lapped in his poor rags, except
among the family of paupers whom he had just come to trouble with
his presence.
Chapter II. Tom’s early life.
Let us skip a number of years.
London was fifteen hundred years old, and was a great town–for
that day. It had a hundred thousand inhabitants–some think
double as many. The streets were very narrow, and crooked, and
dirty, especially in the part where Tom Canty lived, which was not
far from London Bridge. The houses were of wood, with the second
story projecting over the first, and the third sticking its elbows
out beyond the second. The higher the houses grew, the broader
they grew. They were skeletons of strong criss-cross beams, with
solid material between, coated with plaster. The beams were
painted red or blue or black, according to the owner’s taste, and
this gave the houses a very picturesque look. The windows were
small, glazed with little diamond-shaped panes, and they opened
outward, on hinges, like doors.
The house which Tom’s father lived in was up a foul little pocket
called Offal Court, out of Pudding Lane. It was small, decayed,
and rickety, but it was packed full of wretchedly poor families.
Canty’s tribe occupied a room on the third floor. The mother and
father had a sort of bedstead in the corner; but Tom, his
grandmother, and his two sisters, Bet and Nan, were not
restricted–they had all the floor to themselves, and might sleep
where they chose. There were the remains of a blanket or two, and
some bundles of ancient and dirty straw, but these could not
rightly be called beds, for they were not organised; they were
kicked into a general pile, mornings, and selections made from the
mass at night, for service.
Bet and Nan were fifteen years old–twins. They were good-hearted
girls, unclean, clothed in rags, and profoundly ignorant. Their
mother was like them. But the father and the grandmother were a
couple of fiends. They got drunk whenever they could; then they
fought each other or anybody else who came in the way; they cursed
and swore always, drunk or sober; John Canty was a thief, and his
mother a beggar. They made beggars of the children, but failed to
make thieves of them. Among, but not of, the dreadful rabble that
inhabited the house, was a good old priest whom the King had
turned out of house and home with a pension of a few farthings,
and he used to get the children aside and teach them right ways
secretly. Father Andrew also taught Tom a little Latin, and how
to read and write; and would have done the same with the girls,
but they were afraid of the jeers of their friends, who could not
have endured such a queer accomplishment in them.
All Offal Court was just such another hive as Canty’s house.
Drunkenness, riot and brawling were the order, there, every night
and nearly all night long. Broken heads were as common as hunger