tion, Tom
Canty grew pale, and still paler, and a deep and steadily deepening woe
and despondency settled down upon his spirits and upon his remorseful
heart.

At last the final act was at hand. The Archbishop of Canterbury lifted
up the crown of England from its cushion and held it out over the
trembling mock-King's head. In the same instant a rainbow-radiance
flashed along the spacious transept; for with one impulse every
individual in the great concourse of nobles lifted a coronet and poised
it over his or her head--and paused in that attitude.

A deep hush pervaded the Abbey. At this impressive moment, a startling
apparition intruded upon the scene--an apparition observed by none in the
absorbed multitude, until it suddenly appeared, moving up the great
central aisle. It was a boy, bareheaded, ill shod, and clothed in coarse
plebeian garments that were falling to rags. He raised his hand with a
solemnity which ill comported with his soiled and sorry aspect, and
delivered this note of warning--

"I forbid you to set the crown of England upon that forfeited head. I am
the King!"

In an instant several indignant hands were laid upon the boy; but in the
same instant Tom Canty, in his regal vestments, made a swift step
forward, and cried out in a ringing voice--

"Loose him and forbear! He IS the King!"

A sort of panic of astonishment swept the assemblage, and they partly
rose in their places and stared in a bewildered way at one another and at
the chief figures in this scene, like persons who wondered whether they
were awake and in their senses, or asleep and dreaming. The Lord
Protector was as amazed as the rest, but quickly recovered himself, and
exclaimed in a voice of authority--

"Mind not his Majesty, his malady is upon him again--seize the vagabond!"

He would have been obeyed, but the mock-King stamped his foot and cried
out--

"On your peril! Touch him not, he is the King!"

The hands were withheld; a paralysis fell upon the house; no one moved,
no one spoke; indeed, no one knew how to act or what to say, in so
strange and surprising an emergency. While all minds were struggling to
right themselves, the boy still moved steadily forward, with high port
and confident mien; he had never halted from the beginning; and while the
tangled minds still floundered helplessly, he stepped upon the platform,
and the mock-King ran with a glad face to meet him; and fell on his knees
before him and said