prince was received with elaborate ceremonials borrowed by Tom
from his romantic readings; daily the great affairs of the mimic
kingdom were discussed in the royal council, and daily his mimic
highness issued decrees to his imaginary armies, navies, and
viceroyalties.
After which, he would go forth in his rags and beg a few
farthings, eat his poor crust, take his customary cuffs and abuse,
and then stretch himself upon his handful of foul straw, and
resume his empty grandeurs in his dreams.
And still his desire to look just once upon a real prince, in the
flesh, grew upon him, day by day, and week by week, until at last
it absorbed all other desires, and became the one passion of his
life.
One January day, on his usual begging tour, he tramped
despondently up and down the region round about Mincing Lane and
Little East Cheap, hour after hour, bare-footed and cold, looking
in at cook-shop windows and longing for the dreadful pork-pies and
other deadly inventions displayed there–for to him these were
dainties fit for the angels; that is, judging by the smell, they
were–for it had never been his good luck to own and eat one.
There was a cold drizzle of rain; the atmosphere was murky; it was
a melancholy day. At night Tom reached home so wet and tired and
hungry that it was not possible for his father and grandmother to
observe his forlorn condition and not be moved–after their
fashion; wherefore they gave him a brisk cuffing at once and sent
him to bed. For a long time his pain and hunger, and the swearing
and fighting going on in the building, kept him awake; but at last
his thoughts drifted away to far, romantic lands, and he fell
asleep in the company of jewelled and gilded princelings who live
in vast palaces, and had servants salaaming before them or flying
to execute their orders. And then, as usual, he dreamed that HE
was a princeling himself.
All night long the glories of his royal estate shone upon him; he
moved among great lords and ladies, in a blaze of light, breathing
perfumes, drinking in delicious music, and answering the reverent
obeisances of the glittering throng as it parted to make way for
him, with here a smile, and there a nod of his princely head.
And when he awoke in the morning and looked upon the wretchedness
about him, his dream had had its usual effect–it had intensified
the sordidness of his surroundings a thousandfold. Then came
bitterness, and heart-break, and tears.
Chapter III. Tom’s meeting with the Prince.
Tom got up hungry, and sauntered hungry away, but with his
thoughts busy with the shadowy splendours of his night’s dreams.
He wandered here and there in the city, hardly noticing where he
was going, or what was happening around him. People jostled him,
and some gave him rough speech; but it was all lost on the musing
boy. By-and-by he found himself at Temple Bar, the farthest from
home he had ever travelled in that direction. He stopped and
considered a moment, then fell into his imaginings again, and
passed on outside the walls of London. The Strand had ceased to
be a country-road then, and regarded itself as a street, but by a
strained construction; for, though there was a tolerably compact
row of houses on one side of it, there were only some scattered
great buildings on the other, these being palaces of rich nobles,
with ample and beautiful grounds stretching to the river–grounds
that are now closely packed with grim acres of brick and stone.
Tom discovered Charing Village presently, and rested himself at
the beautiful cross built there by a bereaved king of earlier
days; then idled down a quiet, lovely road, past the great
cardinal’s stately palace, toward a far more mighty and majestic
palace beyond–Westminster. Tom stared in glad wonder at the vast
pile of masonry, the wide-spreading wings, the frowning bastions
and turrets, the huge stone gateway, with its gilded bars and its
magnificent array of colossal granite lions, and other the signs
and symbols of English royalty. Was the desire of his soul to be