Tom Canty

“ AN HOUR TO TRY THE SOUL What do you suppose Prince Edward would have done, if Tom Canty hadn’t wished to be Tom Canty any more? Suppose that Tom, instead of being a well-mannered little English boy, willing to keep his proper station, had cried out at the mere thought of going back to the foulness and cruelty of Offal Court, and insisted, not unnaturally, perhaps, that he preferred to be comfortable in a palace?
Jacqueline had never thought of this possibility, when she read “The Prince and the Pauper,” nor when she tried to translate the story into modern terms. ”

“ Tom Canty gazed abroad over the surging sea of eager faces, and his heart swelled with exultation; and he felt that the one thing worth living for in this world was to be a king, and a nation's idol. Presently he caught sight, at a distance, of a couple of his ragged Offal Court comrades—one of them the lord high admiral in his late mimic court, the other the first lord of the bedchamber in the same pretentious fiction ”

“ Now began a movement of the gorgeous particles of that official group which was slow, scarcely perceptible, and yet steady and persistent—a movement such as is observed in a kaleidoscope that is turned slowly, whereby the components of one splendid cluster fall away and join themselves to another—a movement which, little by little, in the present case, dissolved the glittering crowd that stood about Tom Canty and clustered it together again in the neighbourhood of the new-comer. Tom Canty stood almost alone. ”

“ Tom's remarks, and Tom's performances, were reported by the boys to their elders; and these, also, presently began to discuss Tom Canty, and to regard him as a most gifted and extraordinary creature. Full-grown people brought their perplexities to Tom for solution, and were often astonished at the wit and wisdom of his decisions. In fact he was become a hero to all who knew him except his own family—these, only, saw nothing in him.
Privately, after a while, Tom organised a royal court! He was the prince ”

“ All Offal Court was just such another hive as Canty’s house. Drunkenness, riot and brawling were the order, there, every night and nearly all night long. Broken heads were as common as hunger in that place. Yet little Tom was not unhappy. ”

“ I'm no true man!"
With this he dragged the frantic and struggling prince away, and disappeared up a front court followed by a delighted and noisy swarm of human vermin.
Chapter V. Tom as a patrician. Tom Canty, left alone in the prince's cabinet, made good use of his opportunity. He turned himself this way and that before the great mirror, admiring his finery; then walked away, imitating the prince's high-bred carriage, and still observing results in the glass. ”

“ The house which Tom's father lived in was up a foul little pocket called Offal Court, out of Pudding Lane. It was small, decayed, and rickety, but it was packed full of wretchedly poor families. Canty's tribe occupied a room on the third floor. The mother and father had a sort of bedstead in the corner; but Tom, his grandmother, and his two sisters, Bet and Nan, were not restricted—they had all the floor to themselves, and might sleep where they chose. ”

“ Ah, it's a grand thing to be gifted, Tom. The idea of your chuckin' yourself away on a composin' room! Manual labor is all very well for plain men like me, with no gift but just enough brains to see into the realities of things—to understand that we've got no soul and no immortality, and all that—and too selfish to look after anybody's comfort but my own and mother's and the kid's. But men like you and Cantercot—it ain't right that you should be peggin' away at low material things. Not that I think Cantercot's gospel's any value to the masses. ”

“ And the pretty blush in Constance Channing’s face deepened to a glowing crimson. Tom made a whole heap of bullets at once, and showered them on to her.
“So Hamish—be quiet, Tom!—you may inquire all over Helstonleigh to-morrow, whether any one wants a governess; a well-trained young lady of twenty-one, who can play, sing, and paint, speak really good English, and decent French, and has a smattering of German,” rattled on Constance, as if to cover her blushes. “I shall ask forty guineas a year. ”

“ Tom had a sober, benevolent smile, and seemed, in his quiet way, to be enjoying the fun quite as much as his little mistress. He lifted his eyes, when he saw his master, with a half-deprecating, apologetic air.
"How can you let her?" said Miss Ophelia.
"Why not?" said St. Clare.
"Why, I don't know, it seems so dreadful!"
"You would think no harm in a child's caressing a large dog, even if he was black; but a creature that can think, and reason, and feel, and is immortal, you shudder at; confess it, cousin. I know the feeling among some of you northerners well enough. ”

“ The village lay midway between the vicarage and the church, and the fiddler and his company marched through it to a brisk tune, bringing fifty pairs of curious eyes to the windows and the doors. Tom o' Dint sat erect in the saddle, playing vigorously, and when a burst of cheering hailed the procession as it passed a group of topers gathered outside the Flying Horse, Tom accepted it as a tribute to his playing, and bowed his head with becoming dignity, and without undue familiarity, always remembering that courtesy comes after art, as a true artist is in loyalty bound to do. ”

“ Gerald Yorke and his party reproached Tom Channing with being a disgrace to the school’s charter, through his brother Arthur. Huntley and a few more warmly espoused Tom’s cause, of whom saucy Bywater was one, who roared out cutting sarcasms from his gymnasium on the window-frame. Tom controlled himself better than might have been expected, but he and Gerald Yorke flung passionate retorts one to the other.
“It is not fair to cast in a fellow’s teeth the shortcomings of his relations,” continued Bywater. ”

“ And, as he spoke, he turned quite pale, and then quite white.
"Why, you're ill!" said Tom. But he did not answer.
"You're dead," said Tom, looking at him as he stood on his knee as white as a ghost.
"No, I ain't!" answered a little squeaking voice over his head. "This is me up here, in my ball-dress; and that's my skin. Ha, ha! you could not do such a trick as that!"
And no more Tom could, nor all the conjurors in the world. For the little rogue had jumped clean out of his own skin, and left it standing on Tom's knee, eyes, wings, legs, tail, exactly as if it had been alive. ”

“ He knows about you. He'll say that he turned the horse into the pasture. You must.... Joe! Sam! Go up to the stable and saddle my horse and bring him here. Run!"
"Yassum," replied the negroes in a breath. They disappeared into the darkness. Tom's protest was smothered under Marjorie's hand. The wave of excitement which had kept him on his feet passed, and it was as though he had been caught in a powerful undertow which swept his legs from under him. He sank down on the fallen log where they had been sitting together earlier in the day.
"Can you ride? Are you strong enough?" ”

“ You've always stood it out again' me: now, I'll conquer ye, or kill ye!—one or t' other. I'll count every drop of blood there is in you, and take 'em, one by one, till ye give up!"
Tom looked up to his master, and answered, "Mas'r, if you was sick, or in trouble, or dying, and I could save ye, I'd give ye my heart's blood; and, if taking every drop of blood in this poor old body would save your precious soul, I'd give 'em freely, as the Lord gave his for me. O, Mas'r! don't bring this great sin on your soul! It will hurt you more than 't will me! ”

“ His shoes were made of mouse's skin,
Tann'd with the downy hair within.
Tom never grew any larger than his father's thumb, which was only of ordinary size; but as he got older he became very cunning and full of tricks. When he was old enough to play with the boys, and had lost all his own cherry stones, he used to creep into the bags of his playfellows, fill his pockets, and, getting out without their noticing him, would again join in the game.
One day, however, as he was coming out of a bag of cherry stones, where he had been stealing as usual, the boy to whom it belonged chanced to see him. ”

“ The stars are very beautiful, certainly, but unfortunately they go in the twenty-thousandth part of a split second, and the pain which comes after them does not. And so Tom hurt his head; but he was a brave boy, and did not mind that a penny. He guessed that over the wall the cover would end; and up it he went, and over like a squirrel.
And there he was, out on the great grouse-moors, which the country folk called Harthover Fell—heather and bog and rock, stretching away and up, up to the very sky.
Now, Tom was a cunning little fellow—as cunning as an old Exmoor stag. Why not? ”

“ Yorke? I am so glad it has been given to you!”
Mr. Channing looked up in surprise. “Tom, you will never learn manners! What has been given?”
“Has he not told you?” exclaimed Tom, ignoring the reproof to his manners. “He is appointed to Hazeldon Chapel. Where’s Constance? I’ll be bound he has told her!”
Saucy Tom! They received his news in silence, looking to Mr. Yorke for explanation. He rose from his chair, and his cheek slightly flushed as he confirmed the tidings.
“Does Constance know it?” inquired Mrs. Channing, speaking in the moment’s impulse. ”

“ So says she to him next morning, "Tom, you thief, you never done any good yet, and you six foot high, and past nineteen;—take that rope and bring me a faggot from the wood."
"Never say't twice, mother," says Tom—"here goes."
When he had it gathered and tied, what should come up but a big giant, nine foot high, and made a lick of a club at him. Well become Tom, he jumped a-one side, and picked up a ram-pike; and the first crack he gave the big fellow, he made him kiss the clod.
"If you have e'er a prayer," says Tom, "now's the time to say it, before I make fragments of you." ”

“ Tom was now, in his own way, an altogether accomplished man of the world, who knew (at least in all companies and places where he was likely to find himself) exactly what to say, to do, to make, to seek, and to avoid. Shifty and thrifty as old Greek, or modern Scot, there were few things he could not invent, and perhaps nothing he could not endure. He had watched human nature under every disguise, from the pomp of the ambassador to the war-paint of the savage, and formed his own clear, hard, shallow, practical estimate thereof. ”

“ Isn't that it?"
"Well, cousin," said Miss Ophelia, thoughtfully, "there may be some truth in this."
"What would the poor and lowly do, without children?" said St. Clare, leaning on the railing, and watching Eva, as she tripped off, leading Tom with her. "Your little child is your only true democrat. Tom, now is a hero to Eva; his stories are wonders in her eyes, his songs and Methodist hymns are better than an opera, and the traps and little bits of trash in his pocket a mine of jewels, and he the most wonderful Tom that ever wore a black skin. ”

“ Don’t you see that your obstinacy is injuring Tom Channing? Yorke is going in for the seniorship; is sure to get it—if it’s true that Pye has given the promise to Lady Augusta. But, let it come out that he was the Jack-in-the-box, and his chance falls to the ground. And you won’t say a word to do good to your brother!”
Charley shook his head. He did not take the bait. “And Tom himself would be the first to punish me for doing wrong! He never forgives a sneak. It’s of no use your keeping me, Bywater.” ”

“ Away all the good folk ran from him, except Tom, who stood his ground and dodged between his legs; and the giant, when he had passed him, looked down, and cried, as if he was quite pleased and comforted—
"What? who are you? And you actually don't run away, like all the rest?" But he had to take his spectacles off, Tom remarked, in order to see him plainly.
Tom told him who he was; and the giant pulled out a bottle and a cork instantly, to collect him with.
But Tom was too sharp for that and dodged between his legs and in front of him; and then the giant could not see him at all. ”

“ But come, Eva," he said; and taking the hand of his daughter, he stepped across the boat, and carelessly putting the tip of his finger under Tom's chin, said, good-humoredly, "Look up, Tom, and see how you like your new master."
Tom looked up. It was not in nature to look into that gay, young, handsome face, without a feeling of pleasure; and Tom felt the tears start in his eyes as he said, heartily, "God bless you, Mas'r!"
"Well, I hope he will. What's your name? Tom? Quite as likely to do it for your asking as mine, from all accounts. Can you drive horses, Tom?" ”

“ She remembered how, as she pictured that happy little fireside, she had made up her mind to keep her hands better, not for the wearing of jewelled rings, but for the accomplishment of that same dainty needlework.
As she thought of all this, Tom's face came back to her memory. She wished, oh, how she wished that she had looked round at him when her friend had whispered that he was on the other side of the road!
What had he looked like? Why should her friend look upon his face and she not see it?
"Oh, Tom! Tom!" ”

“ A thousand times a day rough voices blessed her, and smiles of unwonted softness stole over hard faces, as she passed; and when she tripped fearlessly over dangerous places, rough, sooty hands were stretched involuntarily out to save her, and smooth her path.
Tom, who had the soft, impressible nature of his kindly race, ever yearning toward the simple and childlike, watched the little creature with daily increasing interest. ”