Kabanata Kabanata 2 · Tom’s early life.

. Tom’s early life.

Let us skip a number of years.

London was fifteen hundred years old, and was a great town--for that

day. It had a hundred thousand inhabitants--some think double as many.

The streets were very narrow, and crooked, and dirty, especially in the

part where Tom Canty lived, which was not far from London Bridge.  The

houses were of wood, with the second story projecting over the first,

and the third sticking its elbows out beyond the second.  The higher

the houses grew, the broader they grew.  They were skeletons of strong

criss-cross beams, with solid material between, coated with plaster.

The beams were painted red or blue or black, according to the owner’s

taste, and this gave the houses a very picturesque look.  The windows

were small, glazed with little diamond-shaped panes, and they opened

outward, on hinges, like doors.

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.  There were the remains of a blanket

or two, and some bundles of ancient and dirty straw, but these could not

rightly be called beds, for they were not organised; they were kicked

into a general pile, mornings, and selections made from the mass at

night, for service.

Bet and Nan were fifteen years old--twins.  They were good-hearted

girls, unclean, clothed in rags, and profoundly ignorant.  Their mother

was like them.  But the father and the grandmother were a couple of

fiends.  They got drunk whenever they could; then they fought each other

or anybody else who came in the way; they cursed and swore always, drunk

or sober; John Canty was a thief, and his mother a beggar.  They made

beggars of the children, but failed to make thieves of them.  Among,

but not of, the dreadful rabble that inhabited the house, was a good old

priest whom the King had turned out of house and home with a pension of

a few farthings, and he used to get the children aside and teach them

right ways secretly. Father Andrew also taught Tom a little Latin, and

how to read and write; and would have done the same with the girls,

but they were afraid of the jeers of their friends, who could not have

endured such a queer accomplishment in them.

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.  He had a hard time of it, but

did not know it.  It was the sort of time that all the Offal Court boys

had, therefore he supposed it was the correct and comfortable thing.

When he came home empty-handed at night, he knew his father would

curse him and thrash him first, and that when he was done the awful

grandmother would do it all over again and improve on it; and that away

in the night his starving mother would slip to him stealthily with any

miserable scrap or crust she had been able to save for him by going

hungry herself, notwithstanding she was often caught in that sort of

treason and soundly beaten for it by her husband.

No, Tom’s life went along well enough, especially in summer.  He only

begged just enough to save himself, for the laws against mendicancy were

stringent, and the penalties heavy; so he put in a good deal of his time

listening to good Father Andrew’s charming old tales and legends

about giants and fairies, dwarfs and genii, and enchanted castles, and

gorgeous kings and princes.  His head grew to be full of these wonderful

things, and many a night as he lay in the dark on his scant and

offensive straw, tired, hungry, and smarting from a thrashing, he

unleashed his imagination and soon forgot his aches and pains in

delicious picturings to himself of the charmed life of a petted prince

in a regal palace.  One desire came in time to haunt him day and night:

it was to see a real prince, with his own eyes.  He spoke of it once to

some of his Offal Court comrades; but they jeered him and scoffed him so

unmercifully that he was glad to keep his dream to himself after that.

He often read the priest’s old books and got him to explain and enlarge

upon them.  His dreamings and readings worked certain changes in him,

by-and-by.  His dream-people were so fine that he grew to lament his

shabby clothing and his dirt, and to wish to be clean and better clad.

He went on playing in the mud just the same, and enjoying it, too; but,

instead of splashing around in the Thames solely for the fun of it,

he began to find an added value in it because of the washings and

cleansings it afforded.

Tom could always find something going on around the Maypole in

Cheapside, and at the fairs; and now and then he and the rest of London

had a chance to see a military parade when some famous unfortunate was

carried prisoner to the Tower, by land or boat. One summer’s day he saw

poor Anne Askew and three men burned at the stake in Smithfield, and

heard an ex-Bishop preach a sermon to them which did not interest him.

Yes, Tom’s life was varied and pleasant enough, on the whole.

By-and-by Tom’s reading and dreaming about princely life wrought such a

strong effect upon him that he began to _act_ the prince, unconsciously.

His speech and manners became curiously ceremonious and courtly, to the

vast admiration and amusement of his intimates.  But Tom’s influence

among these young people began to grow now, day by day; and in time he

came to be looked up to, by them, with a sort of wondering awe, as a

superior being.  He seemed to know so much! and he could do and say such

marvellous things! and withal, he was so deep and wise!  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; his special comrades were guards, chamberlains, equerries, lords

and ladies in waiting, and the royal family.  Daily the mock prince was

received with elaborate ceremonials borrowed by Tom from his romantic

readings; daily the great affairs of the mimic kingdom were discussed

in the royal council, and daily his mimic highness issued decrees to his

imaginary armies, navies, and viceroyalties.

After which, he would go forth in his rags and beg a few farthings, eat

his poor crust, take his customary cuffs and abuse, and then stretch

himself upon his handful of foul straw, and resume his empty grandeurs

in his dreams.

And still his desire to look just once upon a real prince, in the flesh,

grew upon him, day by day, and week by week, until at last it absorbed

all other desires, and became the one passion of his life.

One January day, on his usual begging tour, he tramped despondently up

and down the region round about Mincing Lane and Little East Cheap, hour

after hour, bare-footed and cold, looking in at cook-shop windows and

longing for the dreadful pork-pies and other deadly inventions displayed

there--for to him these were dainties fit for the angels; that is,

judging by the smell, they were--for it had never been his good luck to

own and eat one. There was a cold drizzle of rain; the atmosphere was

murky; it was a melancholy day.  At night Tom reached home so wet and

tired and hungry that it was not possible for his father and grandmother

to observe his forlorn condition and not be moved--after their fashion;

wherefore they gave him a brisk cuffing at once and sent him to bed.

For a long time his pain and hunger, and the swearing and fighting

going on in the building, kept him awake; but at last his thoughts

drifted away to far, romantic lands, and he fell asleep in the company

of jewelled and gilded princelings who live in vast palaces, and had

servants salaaming before them or flying to execute their orders.  And

then, as usual, he dreamed that _he_ was a princeling himself.

All night long the glories of his royal estate shone upon him; he moved

among great lords and ladies, in a blaze of light, breathing perfumes,

drinking in delicious music, and answering the reverent obeisances of

the glittering throng as it parted to make way for him, with here a

smile, and there a nod of his princely head.

And when he awoke in the morning and looked upon the wretchedness

about him, his dream had had its usual effect--it had intensified the

sordidness of his surroundings a thousandfold.  Then came bitterness,

and heart-break, and tears.