tried to believe that her Tom’s madness had banished this habitual
gesture of his; but she could not do it. “No,” she said, “his
HANDS are not mad; they could not unlearn so old a habit in so
brief a time. Oh, this is a heavy day for me!”
Still, hope was as stubborn now as doubt had been before; she
could not bring herself to accept the verdict of the test; she
must try the thing again–the failure must have been only an
accident; so she startled the boy out of his sleep a second and a
third time, at intervals–with the same result which had marked
the first test; then she dragged herself to bed, and fell
sorrowfully asleep, saying, “But I cannot give him up–oh no, I
cannot, I cannot–he MUST be my boy!”
The poor mother’s interruptions having ceased, and the Prince’s
pains having gradually lost their power to disturb him, utter
weariness at last sealed his eyes in a profound and restful sleep.
Hour after hour slipped away, and still he slept like the dead.
Thus four or five hours passed. Then his stupor began to lighten.
Presently, while half asleep and half awake, he murmured–
“Sir William!”
After a moment–
“Ho, Sir William Herbert! Hie thee hither, and list to the
strangest dream that ever . . . Sir William! dost hear? Man, I
did think me changed to a pauper, and . . . Ho there! Guards!
Sir William! What! is there no groom of the chamber in waiting?
Alack! it shall go hard with–”
“What aileth thee?” asked a whisper near him. “Who art thou
calling?”
“Sir William Herbert. Who art thou?”
“I? Who should I be, but thy sister Nan? Oh, Tom, I had forgot!
Thou’rt mad yet–poor lad, thou’rt mad yet: would I had never
woke to know it again! But prithee master thy tongue, lest we be
all beaten till we die!”
The startled Prince sprang partly up, but a sharp reminder from
his stiffened bruises brought him to himself, and he sank back
among his foul straw with a moan and the ejaculation–
“Alas! it was no dream, then!”
In a moment all the heavy sorrow and misery which sleep had
banished were upon him again, and he realised that he was no
longer a petted prince in a palace, with the adoring eyes of a
nation upon him, but a pauper, an outcast, clothed in rags,
prisoner in a den fit only for beasts, and consorting with beggars
and thieves.
In the midst of his grief he began to be conscious of hilarious
noises and shoutings, apparently but a block or two away. The
next moment there were several sharp raps at the door; John Canty
ceased from snoring and said–
“Who knocketh? What wilt thou?”
A voice answered–
“Know’st thou who it was thou laid thy cudgel on?”
“No. Neither know I, nor care.”
“Belike thou’lt change thy note eftsoons. An thou would save thy
neck, nothing but flight may stead thee. The man is this moment
delivering up the ghost. ‘Tis the priest, Father Andrew!”
“God-a-mercy!” exclaimed Canty. He roused his family, and
hoarsely commanded, “Up with ye all and fly–or bide where ye are
and perish!”
Scarcely five minutes later the Canty household were in the street
and flying for their lives. John Canty held the Prince by the
wrist, and hurried him along the dark way, giving him this caution
in a low voice–
“Mind thy tongue, thou mad fool, and speak not our name. I will
choose me a new name, speedily, to throw the law’s dogs off the
scent. Mind thy tongue, I tell thee!”
He growled these words to the rest of the family–
“If it so chance that we be separated, let each make for London
Bridge; whoso findeth himself as far as the last linen-draper’s
shop on the bridge, let him tarry there till the others be come,
then will we flee into Southwark together.”
At this moment the party burst suddenly out of darkness into
light; and not only into light, but into the midst of a multitude
of singing, dancing, and shouting people, massed together on the