The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Prince and The Pauper, Part 4.
by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

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Title: The Prince and The Pauper, Part 4.

Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

Release Date: July 3, 2004 [EBook #7157]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER, PART 4. ***

Produced by David Widger

THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER

by Mark Twain

Part 4.

Chapter XII. The Prince and his deliverer.

As soon as Miles Hendon and the little prince were clear of the mob, they
struck down through back lanes and alleys toward the river. Their way
was unobstructed until they approached London Bridge; then they ploughed
into the multitude again, Hendon keeping a fast grip upon the Prince's
--no, the King's--wrist. The tremendous news was already abroad, and the
boy learned it from a thousand voices at once--"The King is dead!" The
tidings struck a chill to the heart of the poor little waif, and sent a
shudder through his frame. He realised the greatness of his loss, and
was filled with a bitter grief; for the grim tyrant who had been such a
terror to others had always been gentle with him. The tears sprang to
his eyes and blurred all objects. For an instant he felt himself the
most forlorn, outcast, and forsaken of God's creatures--then another cry
shook the night with its far-reaching thunders: "Long live King Edward
the Sixth!" and this made his eyes kindle, and thrilled him with pride to
his fingers' ends. "Ah," he thought, "how grand and strange it seems--I
AM KING!"

Our friends threaded their way slowly through the throngs upon the
bridge. This structure, which had stood for six hundred years, and had
been a noisy and populous thoroughfare all that time, was a curious
affair, for a closely packed rank of stores and shops, with family
quarters overhead, stretched along both sides of it, from one bank of the
river to the other. The Bridge was a sort of town to itself; it had its
inn, its beer-houses, its bakeries, its haberdasheries, its food markets,
its manufacturing industries, and eve