Prince and the Pauper (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) by Mark Twain Page B

and adventure; but in my last battle I was taken captive, and during the seven years that have waxed and waned since then, a foreign dungeon hath harbored me. Through wit and courage I won to the free air at last, and fled hither straight; and am but just arrived, right poor in purse and raiment, and poorer still in knowledge of what these dull seven years have wrought at Hendon Hall, its people and belongings. So please you, sir, my meager tale is told.”
    “Thou hast been shamefully abused!” said the little king, with a flashing eye. “But I will right thee—by the cross will I! The king hath said it.”
    Then, fired by the story of Miles’s wrongs, he loosed his tongue and poured the history of his own recent misfortunes into the ears of his astonished listener. When he had finished, Miles said to himself:
    “Lo, what an imagination he hath! Verily this is no common mind; else, crazed or sane, it could not weave so straight and gaudy a tale as this out of the airy nothings wherewith it hath wrought this curious romaunt. Poor ruined little head, it shall not lack friend or shelter whilst I bide with the living. He shall never leave my side; he shall be my pet, my little comrade. And he shall be cured!—aye, made whole and sound—then will he make himself a name—and proud shall I be to say, ‘Yes, he is mine—I took him, a homeless little ragamuffin, but I saw what was in him, and I said his name would be heard some day—behold him, observe him—was I right?’ ”
    The king spoke—in a thoughtful, measured voice:
    “Thou didst save me injury and shame, perchance my life, and so my crown. Such service demandeth rich reward. Name thy desire, and so it be within the compass of my royal power, it is thine.”
    This fantastic suggestion startled Hendon out of his reverie. He was about to thank the king and put the matter aside with saying he had only done his duty and desired no reward, but a wiser thought came into his head, and he asked leave to be silent a few moments and consider the gracious offer—an idea which the king gravely approved, remarking that it was best to be not too hasty with a thing of such great import.
    Miles reflected during some moments, then said to himself, “Yes, that is the thing to do—by any other means it were impossible to get at it—and certes, this hour’s experience has taught me ‘twould be most wearing and inconvenient to continue it as it is. Yes, I will propose it; ’twas a happy accident that I did not throw the chance away.” Then he dropped upon one knee and said:
    “My poor service went not beyond the limit of a subject’s simple duty, and therefore hath no merit; but since your majesty is pleased to hold it worthy some reward, I take heart of grace to make petition to this effect. Near four hundred years ago, as your grace knoweth, there being ill blood betwixt John, king of England, and the king of France, it was decreed that two champions should fight together in the lists, and so settle the dispute by what is called the arbitrament of God. These two kings, and the Spanish king, being assembled to witness and judge the conflict, the French champion appeared; but so redoubtable was he that our English knights refused to measure weapons with him. So the matter, which was a weighty one, was like to go against the English monarch by default. Now in the Tower lay the Lord de Courcy, the mightiest arm in England, stripped of his honors and possessions, and wasting with long captivity. Appeal was made to him; he gave assent, and came forth arrayed for battle; but no sooner did the Frenchman glimpse his huge frame and hear his famous name, but he fled away, and the French king’s cause was lost. King John restored De Courcy’s titles and possessions, and said, ‘Name thy wish and thou shalt have it, though it cost me half my kingdom’; whereat De Courcy, kneeling, as I do now, made answer, ‘This, then, I ask, my liege; that I and my successors may have and