The Prince and the Pauper

oting a great ship through a dangerous channel; they were on the alert constantly, and found their office no child's play. Wherefore, at last, when the ladies' visit was drawing to a close and the Lord Guilford Dudley was announced, they not only felt that their charge had been sufficiently taxed for the present, but also that they themselves were not in the best condition to take their ship back and make their anxious voyage all over again.  So they respectfully advised Tom to excuse himself, which he was very glad to do, although a slight shade of disappointment might have been observed upon my Lady Jane's face when she heard the splendid stripling denied admittance.

There was a pause now, a sort of waiting silence which Tom could not understand.  He glanced at Lord Hertford, who gave him a sign—but he failed to understand that also.  The ready Elizabeth came to the rescue with her usual easy grace.  She made reverence and said—

"Have we leave of the prince's grace my brother to go?"

"Peace, my lord, thou utterest treason!  Hast forgot the King's command? Remember I am party to thy crime if I but listen."

St. John paled, and hastened to say—

"I was in fault, I do confess it.  Betray me not, grant me this grace out of thy courtesy, and I will neither think nor speak of this thing more. Deal not hardly with me, sir, else am I ruined."

"I am content, my lord.  So thou offend not again, here or in the ears of others, it shall be as though thou hadst not spoken.  But thou need'st not have misgivings.  He is my sister's son; are not his voice, his face, his form, familiar to me from his cradle? Madness can do all the odd conflicting things thou seest in him, and more.  Dost not recall how that the old Baron Marley, being mad, forgot the favour of his own countenance that he had known for sixty years, and held it was another's; nay, even claimed he was the son of Mary Magdalene, and that his head was made of Spanish glass; and, sooth to say, he suffered none to touch it, lest by mischance some heedless hand might shiver it?  Give thy misgivings easement, good my lord.  This is the very prince—I know him well—and soon will be thy king; it may advantage thee to bear this in mind, and more dwell upon it than the other."

After some further talk, in which the Lord St. John covered up his mistake as well as he could by repeated protests that his faith was thoroughly grounded now, and could not be assailed by doubts again, the Lord Hertford relieved his fellow-keeper, and sat down to keep watch and ward alone.  He was soon deep in meditation, and evidently the longer he thought, the more he was bothered.  By-and-by he began to pace the floor and mutter.

"Tush, he must be the prince!  Will any be in all the land maintain there can be two, not of one blood and birth, so marvellously twinned?  And even were it so, 'twere yet a stranger miracle that chance should cast the one into the other's place. Nay, 'tis folly, folly, folly!"

Presently he said—