Page by Page Books
Read Books Online, for Free
The Prince and the Pauper Mark Twain

Chapter XII. The Prince and his deliverer.


Page 5 of 7



Table Of Contents: The Prince and the Pauper

Previous Page

Next Page

Previous Chapter

Next Chapter


More Books

More by this Author

The King warmed his heart with a second glass of wine, and said-- "I would know thee--tell me thy story. Thou hast a gallant way with thee, and a noble--art nobly born?"

"We are of the tail of the nobility, good your Majesty. My father is a baronet--one of the smaller lords by knight service {2}--Sir Richard Hendon of Hendon Hall, by Monk's Holm in Kent."

"The name has escaped my memory. Go on--tell me thy story."

We have hundreds more books for your enjoyment. Read them all!

"'Tis not much, your Majesty, yet perchance it may beguile a short half-hour for want of a better. My father, Sir Richard, is very rich, and of a most generous nature. My mother died whilst I was yet a boy. I have two brothers: Arthur, my elder, with a soul like to his father's; and Hugh, younger than I, a mean spirit, covetous, treacherous, vicious, underhanded--a reptile. Such was he from the cradle; such was he ten years past, when I last saw him--a ripe rascal at nineteen, I being twenty then, and Arthur twenty-two. There is none other of us but the Lady Edith, my cousin--she was sixteen then--beautiful, gentle, good, the daughter of an earl, the last of her race, heiress of a great fortune and a lapsed title. My father was her guardian. I loved her and she loved me; but she was betrothed to Arthur from the cradle, and Sir Richard would not suffer the contract to be broken. Arthur loved another maid, and bade us be of good cheer and hold fast to the hope that delay and luck together would some day give success to our several causes. Hugh loved the Lady Edith's fortune, though in truth he said it was herself he loved-- but then 'twas his way, alway, to say the one thing and mean the other. But he lost his arts upon the girl; he could deceive my father, but none else. My father loved him best of us all, and trusted and believed him; for he was the youngest child, and others hated him--these qualities being in all ages sufficient to win a parent's dearest love; and he had a smooth persuasive tongue, with an admirable gift of lying--and these be qualities which do mightily assist a blind affection to cozen itself. I was wild--in troth I might go yet farther and say VERY wild, though 'twas a wildness of an innocent sort, since it hurt none but me, brought shame to none, nor loss, nor had in it any taint of crime or baseness, or what might not beseem mine honourable degree.

"Yet did my brother Hugh turn these faults to good account--he seeing that our brother Arthur's health was but indifferent, and hoping the worst might work him profit were I swept out of the path--so--but 'twere a long tale, good my liege, and little worth the telling. Briefly, then, this brother did deftly magnify my faults and make them crimes; ending his base work with finding a silken ladder in mine apartments--conveyed thither by his own means--and did convince my father by this, and suborned evidence of servants and other lying knaves, that I was minded to carry off my Edith and marry with her in rank defiance of his will.

 
Page 5 of 7 Previous Page   Next Page
Who's On Your Reading List?
Read Classic Books Online for Free at
Page by Page Books.TM
The Prince and the Pauper
Mark Twain

Home | More Books | About Us | Copyright 2004