Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0129/01295.txt

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$Unique_ID{bob01295}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{(A) Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court
Chapter 29}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{king
ye
upon
woman
come
how
none
church's
death
hand}
$Date{1889}
$Log{}
Title:       (A) Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court
Author:      Twain, Mark
Date:        1889

Chapter 29

The Smallpox Hut

     When we arrived at that hut at midafternoon, we saw no signs of life
about it.  The field near by had been denuded of its crop some time before,
and had a skinned look, so exhaustively had it been harvested and gleaned.
Fences, sheds, everything had a ruined look, and were eloquent of poverty.  No
animal was around anywhere, no living thing in sight.  The stillness was
awful, it was like the stillness of death.  The cabin was a one-story one,
whose thatch was black with age, and ragged from lack of repair.

     The door stood a trifle ajar.  We approached it stealthily - on tiptoe
and at half breath - for that is the way one's feeling makes him do, at such
a time.  The king knocked.  We waited.  No answer.  Knocked again.  No
answer.  I pushed the door softly open and looked in.  I made out some dim
forms, and a woman started up from the ground and stared at me, as one does
who is wakened from sleep.  Presently she found her voice -

     "Have mercy!" she pleaded.  "All is taken, nothing is left."

     "I have not come to take anything, poor woman."

     "You are not a priest?"

     "No."

     "Nor come not from the lord of the manor?"

     "No, I am a stranger."

     "Oh, then, for the  fear of God, who visits with misery and death such
as be harmless, tarry not here, but fly!  This place is under his curse - and
his Church's."

     "Let me come in and help you - you are sick and in trouble."

     I was better used to the dim light, now.  I could see her hollow eyes
fixed upon me.  I could see how emaciated she was.

     "I tell you the place is under the Church's ban.  Save yourself - and
go, before some straggler see thee here, and report it."

     "Give yourself no trouble about me: I don't care anything for the
Church's curse.  Let me help you."

     "Now all good spirits - if there be any such - bless thee for that word.
Would God I had a sup of water - but hold, hold, forget I said it, and fly;
for there is that here that even he that feareth not the Church must fear:
this disease whereof we die.  Leave us, thou brave, good stranger, and take
with thee such whole and sincere blessing as them that be accursed can give."

     But before this I had picked up a wooden bowl and was rushing past the
king on my way to the brook.  It was ten yards away.  When I got back and
entered, the king was within, and was opening the shutter that closed the
window hole, to let in air and light.  The place was full of a foul stench.
I put the bowl to the woman's lips, and as she gripped it with her eager
talons the shutter came open and a strong light flooded her face.  Smallpox!

     I sprang to the king, and said in his ear:

     "Out of the door on the instant , sire! the woman is dying of that
disease that wasted the skirts of Camelot two years ago."

     He did not budge.

     "Of a truth I shall remain - and likewise help."

     I whispered again:

     "King, it must not be.  You must go."

     "Ye mean well, and ye speak not unwisely.  But it were shame that a king
should know fear, and shame that belted knight should withhold his hand where
be such as need succor.  Peace, I will not go.  It is you who must go.  The
Church's ban is not upon me, but it forbiddeth you to be here, and she will
deal with you with a heavy hand an word come to her of your trespass."

     It was a desperate place for him to be in, and might cost him his life,
but it was no use to argue with him.  If he considered his knightly honor at
stake here, that was the end of argument; he would stay, and nothing could
prevent it; I was aware of that.  And so I dropped the subject.  The woman
spoke:

     "Fair sir, of your kindness will ye climb the ladder there, and bring me
news of what ye find?  Be not afraid to report, for times can come when even
a mother's heart is past breaking - being already broke."

     "Abide," said the king, "and give the woman to eat.  I will go."  And he
put down the knapsack.

     I turned to start but the king had already started.  He halted, and
looked down upon a man who lay in a dim light, and had not noticed us, thus
far, or spoken.

     "Is it your husband?" the king asked.

     "Yes."

     "Is he asleep?"

     "God be thanked for that one charity, yes - these three hours.  Where
shall I pay to the full, my gratitude!  For my heart is bursting with it for
that sleep he sleepeth now."

     I said:

     "We will be careful.  We will not wake him."

     "Ah, no, that ye will not, for he is dead."

     "Dead?"

     "Yes, what triumph it is to know it!  None can harm him, none insult him
more.  He is in heaven, now, and happy; or if not there, he bides in hell and
is content; for in that place he will find neither abbot nor yet bishop.  We
were boy and girl together; we were man and wife these five and twenty years,
and never separated till this day.  Think how long that is, to love and
suffer together.  This morning was he out of his mind, and in his fancy we
were boy and girl again and wandering in the happy fields; and so in that
innocent glad converse wandered he far and farther, still lightly gossiping,
and entered into those other fields we know not of, and was shut away from
mortal sight.  And so there was no parting, for in his fancy I went with him;
he knew not but I went with him, my hand in his - my young soft hand, not
this withered claw.  Ah, yes, to go, and know it not; to separate and know it
not; how could one go peacefuler than that?  It was his reward for a cruel
life patiently borne."

     There was a slight noise from the direction of the dim corner where the
ladder was.  It was the king, descending.  I could see that he was bearing
something in one arm, and assisting himself with the other.  He came forward
into the light; upon his breast lay a slender girl of fifteen.  She was but
half conscious; she was dying of smallpox.  Here was heroism at its last and
loftiest possibility, its utmost summit; this was challenging death in the
open field unarmed, with all the odds against the challenger, no reward set
upon the contest, and no admiring world in silks and cloth of gold to gaze
and applaud; and yet the king's bearing was as serenely brave as it had
always been in those cheaper contests where knight meets knight in equal
fight and clothed in protecting steel.  He was great, now; sublimely great.
The rude statues of his ancestors in his palace should have an addition - I
would see to that; and it would not be a mailed king killing a giant or a
dragon, like the rest, it would be a king in commoner's garb bearing death in
his arms that a peasant mother might look her last upon her child and be
comforted.

     He laid the girl down by her mother, who poured out endearments and
caresses from an overflowing heart, and one could detect a flickering faint
light of response in the child's eyes, but that was all.  The mother hung
over her, kissing her, petting her, and imploring her to speak, but the lips
only moved and no sound came.  I snatched my liquor flask from my knapsack,
but the woman forbade me, and said:

     "No - she does not suffer; it is better so.  It might bring her back to
life.  None that be so good and kind as ye are, would do her that cruel hurt.
For look you - what is left to live for?  Her brothers are gone, her father
is gone, her mother goeth, the Church's curse is upon her, and none may
shelter or befriend her even though she lay perishing in the road.  She is
desolate.  I have not asked you, good heart, if her sister be still on live,
here overhead; I had no need; ye had gone back, else, and not left the poor
thing forsaken -"

     "She lieth at peace," interrupted the king, in a subdued voice.

     "I would not change it.  How rich is this day in happiness!  Ah, my
Annis, thou shalt join thy sister soon - thou'rt on thy way, and these be
merciful friends, that will not hinder."

     And so she fell to murmuring and cooing over the girl again, and softly
stroking her face and hair, and kissing her and calling her by endearing
names; but there was scarcely sign of response, now, in the glazing eyes.  I
saw tears well from the king's eyes, and trickle down his face.  The woman
noticed them, too, and said:

     "Ah, I know that sign: thou'st a wife at home, poor soul, and you and
she have gone hungry to bed, many's the time, that the little ones might have
your crust; you know what poverty is, and the daily insults of your betters,
and the heavy hand of the Church and the king."

     The king winced under this accidental home shot, but kept still; he was
learning his part; and he was playing it well, too, for a pretty dull
beginner.  I struck up a diversion.  I offered the woman food and liquor, but
she refused both.  She would allow nothing to come between her and the
release of death.  Then I slipped away and brought the dead child from aloft,
and laid it by her.  This broke her down again, and there was another scene
that was full of heartbreak.  By and by I made another diversion, and
beguiled her to sketch her story.

     "Ye know it well, yourselves, having suffered it - for truly none of our
condition in Britain escape it.  It is the old, weary tale.  We fought and
struggled and succeeded; meaning by success, that we lived and did not die;
more than that is not to be claimed.  No troubles came that we could not
outlive, till this year brought them; then came they all at once, as one
might say, and overwhelmed us.  Years ago the lord of the manor planted
certain fruit trees on our farm; in the best part of it, too - a grievous
wrong and shame" -

     "But it was his right," interrupted the king.

     "None denieth that, indeed; an the law mean anything, what is the lord's
is his, and what is mine is his also.  Our farm was ours by lease, therefore
'twas likewise his, to do with it as he would.  Some little time ago, three
of those trees were found hewn down.  Our three grown sons ran frightened to
report the crime.  Well, in his lordship's dungeon there they lie, who saith
there shall they lie and  rot till they confess.  They have naught to
confess, being innocent, wherefore there will they remain until they die.  Ye
know that right well, I ween.  Think how this left us: a man, a woman, and
two children, to gather a crop that was planted by so much greater force,
yes, and protect it night and day from pigeons and prowling animals that be
sacred and must not be hurt by any of our sort.  When my lord's crop was
nearly ready for the harvest, so also was ours; when his bell rang to call us
to his fields to harvest his crops for nothing, he would not allow that I and
my two girls should count for our three captive sons, but for only two of
them; so, for the lacking one were we daily fined.  All this time our own
crop was perishing through neglect; and so both the priest and his lordship
fined us because their shares of it were suffering through damage.  In the
end the fines ate up our crop - and they took it all; they took it all and
made us harvest it for them, without pay or food, and we starving.  Then the
worst came when I, being out of my mind with hunger and loss of my boys, and
grief to see my husband and my little maids in rags and misery and despair,
uttered a deep blasphemy - oh, a thousand of them - against the Church and
the Church's ways.  It was ten days ago.  I had fallen sick with this
disease, and it was to the priest I said the words, for he was come to chide
me for lack of due humility under the chastening hand of God.  He carried my
trespass to his betters; I was stubborn; wherefore, presently upon my head
and upon all heads that were dear to me, fell the curse of Rome.

     "Since that day, we are avoided, shunned with horror.  None has come
near this hut to know whether we live or not.  The rest of us were taken
down.  Then I roused me and got up, as wife and mother will.  It was little
they could have eaten in any case; it was less than little they had to eat.
But there was water, and I gave them that.  How they craved it!  And how they
blessed it!  But the end came yesterday; my strength broke down.  Yesterday
was the last time I ever saw my husband and this youngest child alive.  I
have lain here all these hours - these ages, ye may say - listening,
listening, for any sound up there that -"

     She gave a sharp quick glance at her eldest daughter, then cried out,
"Oh, my darling!" and feebly gathered the stiffening form to her sheltering
arms.  She had recognized the death rattle.