The Complete Novels of Mark Twain and the Complete Biography of Mark Twain (118 page)

It was a fair region, dotted with cottages and orchards, and the road led through broad pasture lands whose receding expanses, marked with gentle elevations and depressions, suggested the swelling and subsiding undulations of the sea.  In the afternoon the returning prodigal made constant deflections from his course to see if by ascending some hillock he might not pierce the distance and catch a glimpse of his home.  At last he was successful, and cried out excitedly—

"There is the village, my Prince, and there is the Hall close by! You may see the towers from here; and that wood there—that is my father's park. Ah, NOW thou'lt know what state and grandeur be! A house with seventy rooms—think of that!—and seven and twenty servants!  A brave lodging for such as we, is it not so?  Come, let us speed—my impatience will not brook further delay."

All possible hurry was made; still, it was after three o'clock before the village was reached.  The travellers scampered through it, Hendon's tongue going all the time.  "Here is the church—covered with the same ivy—none gone, none added."  "Yonder is the inn, the old Red Lion,—and yonder is the market-place."  "Here is the Maypole, and here the pump—nothing is altered; nothing but the people, at any rate; ten years make a change in people; some of these I seem to know, but none know me."  So his chat ran on. The end of the village was soon reached; then the travellers struck into a crooked, narrow road, walled in with tall hedges, and hurried briskly along it for half a mile, then passed into a vast flower garden through an imposing gateway, whose huge stone pillars bore sculptured armorial devices.  A noble mansion was before them.

"Welcome to Hendon Hall, my King!" exclaimed Miles.  "Ah, 'tis a great day!  My father and my brother, and the Lady Edith will be so mad with joy that they will have eyes and tongue for none but me in the first transports of the meeting, and so thou'lt seem but coldly welcomed—but mind it not; 'twill soon seem otherwise; for when I say thou art my ward, and tell them how costly is my love for thee, thou'lt see them take thee to their breasts for Miles Hendon's sake, and make their house and hearts thy home for ever after!"

The next moment Hendon sprang to the ground before the great door, helped the King down, then took him by the hand and rushed within. A few steps brought him to a spacious apartment; he entered, seated the King with more hurry than ceremony, then ran toward a young man who sat at a writing-table in front of a generous fire of logs.

"Embrace me, Hugh," he cried, "and say thou'rt glad I am come again! and call our father, for home is not home till I shall touch his hand, and see his face, and hear his voice once more!"

But Hugh only drew back, after betraying a momentary surprise, and bent a grave stare upon the intruder—a stare which indicated somewhat of offended dignity, at first, then changed, in response to some inward thought or purpose, to an expression of marvelling curiosity, mixed with a real or assumed compassion.  Presently he said, in a mild voice—

"Thy wits seem touched, poor stranger; doubtless thou hast suffered privations and rude buffetings at the world's hands; thy looks and dress betoken it.  Whom dost thou take me to be?"

"Take thee?  Prithee for whom else than whom thou art?  I take thee to be Hugh Hendon," said Miles, sharply.

The other continued, in the same soft tone—

"And whom dost thou imagine thyself to be?"

"Imagination hath nought to do with it!  Dost thou pretend thou knowest me not for thy brother Miles Hendon?"

An expression of pleased surprise flitted across Hugh's face, and he exclaimed—

"What! thou art not jesting? can the dead come to life?  God be praised if it be so!  Our poor lost boy restored to our arms after all these cruel years!  Ah, it seems too good to be true, it IS too good to be true—I charge thee, have pity, do not trifle with me!  Quick—come to the light—let me scan thee well!"

He seized Miles by the arm, dragged him to the window, and began to devour him from head to foot with his eyes, turning him this way and that, and stepping briskly around him and about him to prove him from all points of view; whilst the returned prodigal, all aglow with gladness, smiled, laughed, and kept nodding his head and saying—

"Go on, brother, go on, and fear not; thou'lt find nor limb nor feature that cannot bide the test.  Scour and scan me to thy content, my good old Hugh—I am indeed thy old Miles, thy same old Miles, thy lost brother, is't not so?  Ah, 'tis a great day—I SAID 'twas a great day!  Give me thy hand, give me thy cheek—lord, I am like to die of very joy!"

He was about to throw himself upon his brother; but Hugh put up his hand in dissent, then dropped his chin mournfully upon his breast, saying with emotion—

"Ah, God of his mercy give me strength to bear this grievous disappointment!"

Miles, amazed, could not speak for a moment; then he found his tongue, and cried out—

"WHAT disappointment?  Am I not thy brother?"

Hugh shook his head sadly, and said—

"I pray heaven it may prove so, and that other eyes may find the resemblances that are hid from mine.  Alack, I fear me the letter spoke but too truly."

"What letter?"

"One that came from over sea, some six or seven years ago.  It said my brother died in battle."

"It was a lie!  Call thy father—he will know me."

"One may not call the dead."

"Dead?" Miles's voice was subdued, and his lips trembled.  "My father dead!—oh, this is heavy news.  Half my new joy is withered now.  Prithee let me see my brother Arthur—he will know me; he will know me and console me."

"He, also, is dead."

"God be merciful to me, a stricken man!  Gone,—both gone—the worthy taken and the worthless spared, in me!  Ah! I crave your mercy!—do not say the Lady Edith—"

"Is dead?  No, she lives."

"Then, God be praised, my joy is whole again!  Speed thee, brother—let her come to me!  An' SHE say I am not myself—but she will not; no, no, SHE will know me, I were a fool to doubt it. Bring her—bring the old servants; they, too, will know me."

"All are gone but five—Peter, Halsey, David, Bernard, and Margaret."

So saying, Hugh left the room.  Miles stood musing a while, then began to walk the floor, muttering—

"The five arch-villains have survived the two-and-twenty leal and honest—'tis an odd thing."

He continued walking back and forth, muttering to himself; he had forgotten the King entirely.  By-and-by his Majesty said gravely, and with a touch of genuine compassion, though the words themselves were capable of being interpreted ironically—

"Mind not thy mischance, good man; there be others in the world whose identity is denied, and whose claims are derided.  Thou hast company."

"Ah, my King," cried Hendon, colouring slightly, "do not thou condemn me—wait, and thou shalt see.  I am no impostor—she will say it; you shall hear it from the sweetest lips in England.  I an impostor?  Why, I know this old hall, these pictures of my ancestors, and all these things that are about us, as a child knoweth its own nursery.  Here was I born and bred, my lord; I speak the truth; I would not deceive thee; and should none else believe, I pray thee do not THOU doubt me—I could not bear it."

"I do not doubt thee," said the King, with a childlike simplicity and faith.

"I thank thee out of my heart!" exclaimed Hendon with a fervency which showed that he was touched.  The King added, with the same gentle simplicity—

"Dost thou doubt ME?"

A guilty confusion seized upon Hendon, and he was grateful that the door opened to admit Hugh, at that moment, and saved him the necessity of replying.

A beautiful lady, richly clothed, followed Hugh, and after her came several liveried servants.  The lady walked slowly, with her head bowed and her eyes fixed upon the floor.  The face was unspeakably sad.  Miles Hendon sprang forward, crying out—

"Oh, my Edith, my darling—"

But Hugh waved him back, gravely, and said to the lady—

"Look upon him.  Do you know him?"

At the sound of Miles's voice the woman had started slightly, and her cheeks had flushed; she was trembling now.  She stood still, during an impressive pause of several moments; then slowly lifted up her head and looked into Hendon's eyes with a stony and frightened gaze; the blood sank out of her face, drop by drop, till nothing remained but the grey pallor of death; then she said, in a voice as dead as the face, "I know him not!" and turned, with a moan and a stifled sob, and tottered out of the room.

Miles Hendon sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands. After a pause, his brother said to the servants—

"You have observed him.  Do you know him?"

They shook their heads; then the master said—

"The servants know you not, sir.  I fear there is some mistake. You have seen that my wife knew you not."

"Thy WIFE!"  In an instant Hugh was pinned to the wall, with an iron grip about his throat.  "Oh, thou fox-hearted slave, I see it all!  Thou'st writ the lying letter thyself, and my stolen bride and goods are its fruit.  There—now get thee gone, lest I shame mine honourable soldiership with the slaying of so pitiful a mannikin!"

Hugh, red-faced, and almost suffocated, reeled to the nearest chair, and commanded the servants to seize and bind the murderous stranger.  They hesitated, and one of them said—

"He is armed, Sir Hugh, and we are weaponless."

"Armed!  What of it, and ye so many?  Upon him, I say!"

But Miles warned them to be careful what they did, and added—

"Ye know me of old—I have not changed; come on, an' it like you."

This reminder did not hearten the servants much; they still held back.

"Then go, ye paltry cowards, and arm yourselves and guard the doors, whilst I send one to fetch the watch!" said Hugh.  He turned at the threshold, and said to Miles, "You'll find it to your advantage to offend not with useless endeavours at escape."

"Escape?  Spare thyself discomfort, an' that is all that troubles thee. For Miles Hendon is master of Hendon Hall and all its belongings.  He will remain—doubt it not."

The King sat musing a few moments, then looked up and said—

"'Tis strange—most strange.  I cannot account for it."

"No, it is not strange, my liege.  I know him, and this conduct is but natural.  He was a rascal from his birth."

"Oh, I spake not of HIM, Sir Miles."

"Not of him?  Then of what?  What is it that is strange?"

"That the King is not missed."

"How?  Which?  I doubt I do not understand."

"Indeed?  Doth it not strike you as being passing strange that the land is not filled with couriers and proclamations describing my person and making search for me?  Is it no matter for commotion and distress that the Head of the State is gone; that I am vanished away and lost?"

"Most true, my King, I had forgot."  Then Hendon sighed, and muttered to himself, "Poor ruined mind—still busy with its pathetic dream."

"But I have a plan that shall right us both—I will write a paper, in three tongues—Latin, Greek and English—and thou shalt haste away with it to London in the morning.  Give it to none but my uncle, the Lord Hertford; when he shall see it, he will know and say I wrote it.  Then he will send for me."

"Might it not be best, my Prince, that we wait here until I prove myself and make my rights secure to my domains?  I should be so much the better able then to—"

The King interrupted him imperiously—

"Peace!  What are thy paltry domains, thy trivial interests, contrasted with matters which concern the weal of a nation and the integrity of a throne?"  Then, he added, in a gentle voice, as if he were sorry for his severity, "Obey, and have no fear; I will right thee, I will make thee whole—yes, more than whole.  I shall remember, and requite."

So saying, he took the pen, and set himself to work.  Hendon contemplated him lovingly a while, then said to himself—

"An' it were dark, I should think it WAS a king that spoke; there's no denying it, when the humour's upon on him he doth thunder and lighten like your true King; now where got he that trick?  See him scribble and scratch away contentedly at his meaningless pot-hooks, fancying them to be Latin and Greek—and except my wit shall serve me with a lucky device for diverting him from his purpose, I shall be forced to pretend to post away to-morrow on this wild errand he hath invented for me."

The next moment Sir Miles's thoughts had gone back to the recent episode. So absorbed was he in his musings, that when the King presently handed him the paper which he had been writing, he received it and pocketed it without being conscious of the act. "How marvellous strange she acted," he muttered.  "I think she knew me—and I think she did NOT know me. These opinions do conflict, I perceive it plainly; I cannot reconcile them, neither can I, by argument, dismiss either of the two, or even persuade one to outweigh the other.  The matter standeth simply thus: she MUST have known my face, my figure, my voice, for how could it be otherwise?  Yet she SAID she knew me not, and that is proof perfect, for she cannot lie.  But stop—I think I begin to see. Peradventure he hath influenced her, commanded her, compelled her to lie.  That is the solution.  The riddle is unriddled.  She seemed dead with fear—yes, she was under his compulsion.  I will seek her; I will find her; now that he is away, she will speak her true mind.  She will remember the old times when we were little playfellows together, and this will soften her heart, and she will no more betray me, but will confess me.  There is no treacherous blood in her—no, she was always honest and true.  She has loved me, in those old days—this is my security; for whom one has loved, one cannot betray."