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-
- The INTERNET WIRETAP First Electronic Edition of
-
- A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT
-
- by
-
- MARK TWAIN
- (Samuel L. Clemens)
-
- This text is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN.
-
- Electronic Edition by <dell@wiretap.spies.com>
- Released to the public June 1993
-
-
-
- A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT
-
- by
-
- MARK TWAIN
- (Samuel L. Clemens)
-
- PREFACE
-
- THE ungentle laws and customs touched upon in
- this tale are historical, and the episodes which are
- used to illustrate them are also historical. It is
- not pretended that these laws and customs existed in
- England in the sixth century; no, it is only pretended
- that inasmuch as they existed in the English and other
- civilizations of far later times, it is safe to consider that
- it is no libel upon the sixth century to suppose them to
- have been in practice in that day also. One is quite
- justified in inferring that whatever one of these laws or
- customs was lacking in that remote time, its place was
- competently filled by a worse one.
-
- The question as to whether there is such a thing as
- divine right of kings is not settled in this book. It
- was found too difficult. That the executive head of a
- nation should be a person of lofty character and
- extraordinary ability, was manifest and indisputable;
- that none but the Deity could select that head unerr-
- ingly, was also manifest and indisputable; that the
- Deity ought to make that selection, then, was likewise
- manifest and indisputable; consequently, that He does
- make it, as claimed, was an unavoidable deduction. I
- mean, until the author of this book encountered the
- Pompadour, and Lady Castlemaine, and some other
- executive heads of that kind; these were found so
- difficult to work into the scheme, that it was judged
- better to take the other tack in this book (which must
- be issued this fall), and then go into training and
- settle the question in another book. It is, of course,
- a thing which ought to be settled, and I am not going
- to have anything particular to do next winter anyway.
-
- MARK TWAIN.
-
-
- A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING
- ARTHUR'S COURT
-
-
- A WORD OF EXPLANATION
-
- IT was in Warwick Castle that I came across the
- curious stranger whom I am going to talk about.
- He attracted me by three things: his candid simplicity,
- his marvelous familiarity with ancient armor, and the
- restfulness of his company -- for he did all the talking.
- We fell together, as modest people will, in the tail of
- the herd that was being shown through, and he at once
- began to say things which interested me. As he
- talked along, softly, pleasantly, flowingly, he seemed
- to drift away imperceptibly out of this world and time,
- and into some remote era and old forgotten country;
- and so he gradually wove such a spell about me that I
- seemed to move among the specters and shadows and
- dust and mold of a gray antiquity, holding speech with
- a relic of it! Exactly as I would speak of my nearest
- personal friends or enemies, or my most familiar
- neighbors, he spoke of Sir Bedivere, Sir Bors de
- Ganis, Sir Launcelot of the Lake, Sir Galahad, and all
- the other great names of the Table Round -- and how
- old, old, unspeakably old and faded and dry and
- musty and ancient he came to look as he went on!
- Presently he turned to me and said, just as one might
- speak of the weather, or any other common matter --
-
- "You know about transmigration of souls; do you
- know about transposition of epochs -- and bodies?"
-
- I said I had not heard of it. He was so little inter-
- ested -- just as when people speak of the weather --
- that he did not notice whether I made him any answer
- or not. There was half a moment of silence, imme-
- diately interrupted by the droning voice of the salaried
- cicerone:
-
- "Ancient hauberk, date of the sixth century, time
- of King Arthur and the Round Table; said to have
- belonged to the knight Sir Sagramor le Desirous; ob-
- serve the round hole through the chain-mail in the left
- breast; can't be accounted for; supposed to have been
- done with a bullet since invention of firearms -- per-
- haps maliciously by Cromwell's soldiers."
-
- My acquaintance smiled -- not a modern smile, but
- one that must have gone out of general use many, many
- centuries ago -- and muttered apparently to himself:
-
- "Wit ye well, I SAW IT DONE." Then, after a pause,
- added: "I did it myself."
-
- By the time I had recovered from the electric sur-
- prise of this remark, he was gone.
-
- All that evening I sat by my fire at the Warwick
- Arms, steeped in a dream of the olden time, while the
- rain beat upon the windows, and the wind roared about
- the eaves and corners. From time to time I dipped
- into old Sir Thomas Malory's enchanting book, and
- fed at its rich feast of prodigies and adventures,
- breathed in the fragrance of its obsolete names, and
- dreamed again. Midnight being come at length, I read
- another tale, for a nightcap -- this which here follows,
- to wit:
-
- HOW SIR LAUNCELOT SLEW TWO GIANTS, AND MADE A
- CASTLE FREE
-
- Anon withal came there upon him two great giants,
- well armed, all save the heads, with two horrible
- clubs in their hands. Sir Launcelot put his shield
- afore him, and put the stroke away of the one
- giant, and with his sword he clave his head asunder.
- When his fellow saw that, he ran away as he were
- wood [* demented], for fear of the horrible strokes,
- and Sir Launcelot after him with all his might,
- and smote him on the shoulder, and clave him to
- the middle. Then Sir Launcelot went into the hall,
- and there came afore him three score ladies and
- damsels, and all kneeled unto him, and thanked
- God and him of their deliverance. For, sir, said
- they, the most part of us have been here this
- seven year their prisoners, and we have worked all
- manner of silk works for our meat, and we are all
- great gentle-women born, and blessed be the time,
- knight, that ever thou wert born;for thou hast
- done the most worship that ever did knight in the
- world, that will we bear record, and we all pray
- you to tell us your name, that we may tell our
- friends who delivered us out of prison. Fair
- damsels, he said, my name is Sir Launcelot du
- Lake. And so he departed from them and betaught
- them unto God. And then he mounted upon his
- horse, and rode into many strange and wild
- countries, and through many waters and valleys,
- and evil was he lodged. And at the last by
- fortune him happened against a night to come to
- a fair courtilage, and therein he found an old
- gentle-woman that lodged him with a good-will,
- and there he had good cheer for him and his horse.
- And when time was, his host brought him into a
- fair garret over the gate to his bed. There
- Sir Launcelot unarmed him, and set his harness
- by him, and went to bed, and anon he fell on
- sleep. So, soon after there came one on
- horseback, and knocked at the gate in great
- haste. And when Sir Launcelot heard this he rose
- up, and looked out at the window, and saw by the
- moonlight three knights come riding after that
- one man, and all three lashed on him at once
- with swords, and that one knight turned on them
- knightly again and defended him. Truly, said
- Sir Launcelot, yonder one knight shall I help,
- for it were shame for me to see three knights
- on one, and if he be slain I am partner of his
- death. And therewith he took his harness and
- went out at a window by a sheet down to the four
- knights, and then Sir Launcelot said on high,
- Turn you knights unto me, and leave your
- fighting with that knight. And then they all
- three left Sir Kay, and turned unto Sir Launcelot,
- and there began great battle, for they alight
- all three, and strake many strokes at Sir
- Launcelot, and assailed him on every side. Then
- Sir Kay dressed him for to have holpen Sir
- Launcelot. Nay, sir, said he, I will none of
- your help, therefore as ye will have my help
- let me alone with them. Sir Kay for the pleasure
- of the knight suffered him for to do his will,
- and so stood aside. And then anon within six
- strokes Sir Launcelot had stricken them to the
- earth.
-
- And then they all three cried, Sir Knight, we
- yield us unto you as man of might matchless. As
- to that, said Sir Launcelot, I will not take
- your yielding unto me, but so that ye yield
- you unto Sir Kay the seneschal, on that covenant
- I will save your lives and else not. Fair knight,
- said they, that were we loath to do; for as for
- Sir Kay we chased him hither, and had overcome
- him had ye not been; therefore, to yield us unto
- him it were no reason. Well, as to that, said
- Sir Launcelot, advise you well, for ye may
- choose whether ye will die or live, for an ye be
- yielden, it shall be unto Sir Kay. Fair knight,
- then they said, in saving our lives we will do
- as thou commandest us. Then shall ye, said Sir
- Launcelot, on Whitsunday next coming go unto the
- court of King Arthur, and there shall ye yield
- you unto Queen Guenever, and put you all three
- in her grace and mercy, and say that Sir Kay
- sent you thither to be her prisoners. On the morn
- Sir Launcelot arose early, and left Sir Kay
- sleeping; and Sir Launcelot took Sir Kay's armor
- and his shield and armed him, and so he went to
- the stable and took his horse, and took his leave
- of his host, and so he departed. Then soon after
- arose Sir Kay and missed Sir Launcelot; and
- then he espied that he had his armor and his
- horse. Now by my faith I know well that he will
- grieve some of the court of King Arthur; for on
- him knights will be bold, and deem that it is I,
- and that will beguile them; and because of his
- armor and shield I am sure I shall ride in peace.
- And then soon after departed Sir Kay, and
- thanked his host.
-
- As I laid the book down there was a knock at the
- door, and my stranger came in. I gave him a pipe
- and a chair, and made him welcome. I also comforted
- him with a hot Scotch whisky; gave him another one;
- then still another -- hoping always for his story. After
- a fourth persuader, he drifted into it himself, in a quite
- simple and natural way:
-
-
- THE STRANGER'S HISTORY
-
- I am an American. I was born and reared in Hart-
- ford, in the State of Connecticut -- anyway, just over
- the river, in the country. So I am a Yankee of the
- Yankees -- and practical; yes, and nearly barren of
- sentiment, I suppose -- or poetry, in other words. My
- father was a blacksmith, my uncle was a horse doctor,
- and I was both, along at first. Then I went over to
- the great arms factory and learned my real trade;
- learned all there was to it; learned to make every-
- thing: guns, revolvers, cannon, boilers, engines, all
- sorts of labor-saving machinery. Why, I could make
- anything a body wanted -- anything in the world, it
- didn't make any difference what; and if there wasn't
- any quick new-fangled way to make a thing, I could
- invent one -- and do it as easy as rolling off a log. I
- became head superintendent; had a couple of thou-
- sand men under me.
-
- Well, a man like that is a man that is full of fight --
- that goes without saying. With a couple of thousand
- rough men under one, one has plenty of that sort of
- amusement. I had, anyway. At last I met my match,
- and I got my dose. It was during a misunderstanding
- conducted with crowbars with a fellow we used to call
- Hercules. He laid me out with a crusher alongside
- the head that made everything crack, and seemed to
- spring every joint in my skull and made it overlap its
- neighbor. Then the world went out in darkness, and
- I didn't feel anything more, and didn't know anything
- at all -- at least for a while.
-
- When I came to again, I was sitting under an oak
- tree, on the grass, with a whole beautiful and broad
- country landscape all to myself -- nearly. Not en-
- tirely; for there was a fellow on a horse, looking down
- at me -- a fellow fresh out of a picture-book. He was
- in old-time iron armor from head to heel, with a
- helmet on his head the shape of a nail-keg with slits
- in it; and he had a shield, and a sword, and a pro-
- digious spear; and his horse had armor on, too, and a
- steel horn projecting from his forehead, and gorgeous
- red and green silk trappings that hung down all around
- him like a bedquilt, nearly to the ground.
-
- "Fair sir, will ye just?" said this fellow.
-
- "Will I which?"
-
- "Will ye try a passage of arms for land or lady or
- for --"
-
- "What are you giving me?" I said. "Get along
- back to your circus, or I'll report you."
-
- Now what does this man do but fall back a couple
- of hundred yards and then come rushing at me as hard
- as he could tear, with his nail-keg bent down nearly to
- his horse's neck and his long spear pointed straight
- ahead. I saw he meant business, so I was up the tree
- when he arrived.
-
- He allowed that I was his property, the captive of
- his spear. There was argument on his side -- and the
- bulk of the advantage -- so I judged it best to humor
- him. We fixed up an agreement whereby I was to go
- with him and he was not to hurt me. I came down,
- and we started away, I walking by the side of his
- horse. We marched comfortably along, through glades
- and over brooks which I could not remember to have
- seen before -- which puzzled me and made me wonder
- -- and yet we did not come to any circus or sign of
- a circus. So I gave up the idea of a circus, and con-
- cluded he was from an asylum. But we never came to
- an asylum -- so I was up a stump, as you may say. I
- asked him how far we were from Hartford. He said
- he had never heard of the place; which I took to be a
- lie, but allowed it to go at that. At the end of an
- hour we saw a far-away town sleeping in a valley by a
- winding river; and beyond it on a hill, a vast gray
- fortress, with towers and turrets, the first I had ever
- seen out of a picture.
-
- "Bridgeport?" said I, pointing.
-
- "Camelot," said he.
-
- My stranger had been showing signs of sleepiness.
- He caught himself nodding, now, and smiled one of
- those pathetic, obsolete smiles of his, and said:
-
- "I find I can't go on; but come with me, I've got
- it all written out, and you can read it if you like."
-
- In his chamber, he said: "First, I kept a journal;
- then by and by, after years, I took the journal and
- turned it into a book. How long ago that was!"
-
- He handed me his manuscript, and pointed out the
- place where I should begin:
-
- "Begin here -- I've already told you what goes be-
- fore." He was steeped in drowsiness by this time.
- As I went out at his door I heard him murmur sleep-
- ily: "Give you good den, fair sir."
-
- I sat down by my fire and examined my treasure.
- The first part of it -- the great bulk of it -- was parch-
- ment, and yellow with age. I scanned a leaf particu-
- larly and saw that it was a palimpsest. Under the old
- dim writing of the Yankee historian appeared traces of
- a penmanship which was older and dimmer still --
- Latin words and sentences: fragments from old monk-
- ish legends, evidently. I turned to the place indicated
- by my stranger and began to read -- as follows:
-
-
-
- THE TALE OF THE LOST LAND.
-
-
- CHAPTER I.
- CAMELOT
-
- "CAMELOT -- Camelot," said I to myself. "I
- don't seem to remember hearing of it before.
- Name of the asylum, likely."
-
- It was a soft, reposeful summer landscape, as lovely
- as a dream, and as lonesome as Sunday. The air was
- full of the smell of flowers, and the buzzing of insects,
- and the twittering of birds, and there were no people,
- no wagons, there was no stir of life, nothing going on.
- The road was mainly a winding path with hoof-prints
- in it, and now and then a faint trace of wheels on
- either side in the grass -- wheels that apparently had a
- tire as broad as one's hand.
-
- Presently a fair slip of a girl, about ten years old,
- with a cataract of golden hair streaming down over her
- shoulders, came along. Around her head she wore a
- hoop of flame-red poppies. It was as sweet an outfit
- as ever I saw, what there was of it. She walked indo-
- lently along, with a mind at rest, its peace reflected in
- her innocent face. The circus man paid no attention
- to her; didn't even seem to see her. And she -- she
- was no more startled at his fantastic make-up than if
- she was used to his like every day of her life. She
- was going by as indifferently as she might have gone
- by a couple of cows; but when she happened to notice
- me, THEN there was a change! Up went her hands,
- and she was turned to stone; her mouth dropped
- open, her eyes stared wide and timorously, she was
- the picture of astonished curiosity touched with fear.
- And there she stood gazing, in a sort of stupefied
- fascination, till we turned a corner of the wood and
- were lost to her view. That she should be startled at
- me instead of at the other man, was too many for me;
- I couldn't make head or tail of it . And that she
- should seem to consider me a spectacle, and totally
- overlook her own merits in that respect, was another
- puzzling thing, and a display of magnanimity, too,
- that was surprising in one so young. There was food
- for thought here. I moved along as one in a dream.
-
- As we approached the town, signs of life began to
- appear. At intervals we passed a wretched cabin, with
- a thatched roof, and about it small fields and garden
- patches in an indifferent state of cultivation. There
- were people, too; brawny men, with long, coarse, un-
- combed hair that hung down over their faces and made
- them look like animals. They and the women, as a
- rule, wore a coarse tow-linen robe that came well below
- the knee, and a rude sort of sandal, and many wore
- an iron collar. The small boys and girls were always
- naked; but nobody seemed to know it. All of these
- people stared at me, talked about me, ran into the huts
- and fetched out their families to gape at me; but no-
- body ever noticed that other fellow, except to make
- him humble salutation and get no response for their
- pains.
-
- In the town were some substantial windowless houses
- of stone scattered among a wilderness of thatched
- cabins; the streets were mere crooked alleys, and un-
- paved; troops of dogs and nude children played in the
- sun and made life and noise; hogs roamed and rooted
- contentedly about, and one of them lay in a reeking
- wallow in the middle of the main thoroughfare and
- suckled her family. Presently there was a distant blare
- of military music; it came nearer, still nearer, and
- soon a noble cavalcade wound into view, glorious with
- plumed helmets and flashing mail and flaunting banners
- and rich doublets and horse-cloths and gilded spear-
- heads; and through the muck and swine, and naked
- brats, and joyous dogs, and shabby huts, it took its
- gallant way, and in its wake we followed. Followed
- through one winding alley and then another, -- and
- climbing, always climbing -- till at last we gained the
- breezy height where the huge castle stood. There was
- an exchange of bugle blasts; then a parley from the
- walls, where men-at-arms, in hauberk and morion,
- marched back and forth with halberd at shoulder
- under flapping banners with the rude figure of a dragon
- displayed upon them; and then the great gates were
- flung open, the drawbridge was lowered, and the head
- of the cavalcade swept forward under the frowning
- arches; and we, following, soon found ourselves in a
- great paved court, with towers and turrets stretching
- up into the blue air on all the four sides; and all about
- us.the dismount was going on, and much greeting and
- ceremony, and running to and fro, and a gay display
- of moving and intermingling colors, and an altogether
- pleasant stir and noise and confusion.
-
-
- CHAPTER II.
- KING ARTHUR'S COURT
-
- THE moment I got a chance I slipped aside privately
- and touched an ancient common looking man on
- the shoulder and said, in an insinuating, confidential
- way:
-
- "Friend, do me a kindness. Do you belong to the
- asylum, or are you just on a visit or something
- like that?"
-
- He looked me over stupidly, and said:
-
- "Marry, fair sir, me seemeth --"
-
- "That will do," I said; "I reckon you are a
- patient."
-
- I moved away, cogitating, and at the same time
- keeping an eye out for any chance passenger in his
- right mind that might come along and give me some
- light. I judged I had found one, presently; so I
- drew him aside and said in his ear:
-
- "If I could see the head keeper a minute -- only
- just a minute --"
-
- "Prithee do not let me."
-
- "Let you WHAT?"
-
- "HINDER me, then, if the word please thee better.
- Then he went on to say he was an under-cook and
- could not stop to gossip, though he would like it
- another time; for it would comfort his very liver to
- know where I got my clothes. As he started away he
- pointed and said yonder was one who was idle enough
- for my purpose, and was seeking me besides, no
- doubt. This was an airy slim boy in shrimp-colored
- tights that made him look like a forked carrot, the
- rest of his gear was blue silk and dainty laces and
- ruffles; and he had long yellow curls, and wore a
- plumed pink satin cap tilted complacently over his
- ear. By his look, he was good-natured; by his gait,
- he was satisfied with himself. He was pretty enough
- to frame. He arrived, looked me over with a smiling
- and impudent curiosity; said he had come for me, and
- informed me that he was a page.
-
- "Go 'long," I said; "you ain't more than a para-
- graph."
-
- It was pretty severe, but I was nettled. However,
- it never phazed him; he didn't appear to know he was
- hurt. He began to talk and laugh, in happy, thought-
- less, boyish fashion, as we walked along, and made
- himself old friends with me at once; asked me all sorts
- of questions about myself and about my clothes, but
- never waited for an answer -- always chattered straight
- ahead, as if he didn't know he had asked a question
- and wasn't expecting any reply, until at last he hap-
- pened to mention that he was born in the beginning of
- the year 513.
-
- It made the cold chills creep over me! I stopped
- and said, a little faintly:
-
- "Maybe I didn't hear you just right. Say it again
- -- and say it slow. What year was it?"
-
- "513."
-
- "513! You don't look it! Come, my boy, I am
- a stranger and friendless; be honest and honorable
- with me. Are you in your right mind?"
-
- He said he was.
-
- "Are these other people in their right minds?"
-
- He said they were.
-
- "And this isn't an asylum? I mean, it isn't a place
- where they cure crazy people?"
-
- He said it wasn't.
-
- "Well, then," I said, "either I am a lunatic, or
- something just as awful has happened. Now tell me,
- honest and true, where am I?"
-
- "IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT."
-
- I waited a minute, to let that idea shudder its way
- home, and then said:
-
- "And according to your notions, what year is it now?"
-
- "528 -- nineteenth of June."
-
- I felt a mournful sinking at the heart, and muttered:
- "I shall never see my friends again -- never, never
- again. They will not be born for more than thirteen
- hundred years yet."
-
- I seemed to believe the boy, I didn't know why.
- SOMETHING in me seemed to believe him -- my con-
- sciousness, as you may say; but my reason didn't.
- My reason straightway began to clamor; that was
- natural. I didn't know how to go about satisfying it,
- because I knew that the testimony of men wouldn't
- serve -- my reason would say they were lunatics, and
- throw out their evidence. But all of a sudden I stum-
- bled on the very thing, just by luck. I knew that the
- only total eclipse of the sun in the first half of the
- sixth century occurred on the 21st of June, A. D. 528,
- O.S., and began at 3 minutes after 12 noon. I also
- knew that no total eclipse of the sun was due in what
- to ME was the present year -- i.e., 1879. So, if I
- could keep my anxiety and curiosity from eating the
- heart out of me for forty-eight hours, I should then
- find out for certain whether this boy was telling me the
- truth or not.
-
- Wherefore, being a practical Connecticut man, I now
- shoved this whole problem clear out of my mind till its
- appointed day and hour should come, in order that I
- might turn all my attention to the circumstances of the
- present moment, and be alert and ready to make the
- most out of them that could be made. One thing at a
- time, is my motto -- and just play that thing for all it
- is worth, even if it's only two pair and a jack. I made
- up my mind to two things: if it was still the nineteenth
- century and I was among lunatics and couldn't get
- away, I would presently boss that asylum or know the
- reason why; and if, on the other hand, it was really
- the sixth century, all right, I didn't want any softer
- thing: I would boss the whole country inside of three
- months; for I judged I would have the start of the
- best-educated man in the kingdom by a matter of
- thirteen hundred years and upward. I'm not a man
- to waste time after my mind's made up and there's
- work on hand; so I said to the page:
-
- "Now, Clarence, my boy -- if that might happen to
- be your name -- I'll get you to post me up a little if
- you don't mind. What is the name of that apparition
- that brought me here?"
-
- "My master and thine? That is the good knight
- and great lord Sir Kay the Seneschal, foster brother to
- our liege the king."
-
- "Very good; go on, tell me everything."
-
- He made a long story of it; but the part that had
- immediate interest for me was this: He said I was Sir
- Kay's prisoner, and that in the due course of custom
- I would be flung into a dungeon and left there on scant
- commons until my friends ransomed me -- unless I
- chanced to rot, first. I saw that the last chance had
- the best show, but I didn't waste any bother about
- that; time was too precious. The page said, further,
- that dinner was about ended in the great hall by this
- time, and that as soon as the sociability and the heavy
- drinking should begin, Sir Kay would have me in and
- exhibit me before King Arthur and his illustrious
- knights seated at the Table Round, and would brag
- about his exploit in capturing me, and would probably
- exaggerate the facts a little, but it wouldn't be good
- form for me to correct him, and not over safe, either;
- and when I was done being exhibited, then ho for the
- dungeon; but he, Clarence, would find a way to come
- and see me every now and then, and cheer me up, and
- help me get word to my friends.
-
- Get word to my friends! I thanked him; I couldn't
- do less; and about this time a lackey came to say I
- was wanted; so Clarence led me in and took me off to
- one side and sat down by me.
-
- Well, it was a curious kind of spectacle, and interest-
- ing. It was an immense place, and rather naked --
- yes, and full of loud contrasts. It was very, very
- lofty; so lofty that the banners depending from the
- arched beams and girders away up there floated in a
- sort of twilight; there was a stone-railed gallery at
- each end, high up, with musicians in the one, and
- women, clothed in stunning colors, in the other. The
- floor was of big stone flags laid in black and white
- squares, rather battered by age and use, and needing
- repair. As to ornament, there wasn't any, strictly
- speaking; though on the walls hung some huge tapes-
- tries which were probably taxed as works of art;
- battle-pieces, they were, with horses shaped like those
- which children cut out of paper or create in ginger-
- bread; with men on them in scale armor whose scales
- are represented by round holes -- so that the man's
- coat looks as if it had been done with a biscuit-punch.
- There was a fireplace big enough to camp in; and its
- projecting sides and hood, of carved and pillared
- stonework, had the look of a cathedral door. Along
- the walls stood men-at-arms, in breastplate and morion,
- with halberds for their only weapon -- rigid as statues;
- and that is what they looked like.
-
- In the middle of this groined and vaulted public
- square was an oaken table which they called the Table
- Round. It was as large as a circus ring; and around
- it sat a great company of men dressed in such various
- and splendid colors that it hurt one's eyes to look at
- them. They wore their plumed hats, right along, ex-
- cept that whenever one addressed himself directly to
- the king, he lifted his hat a trifle just as he was begin-
- ning his remark.
-
- Mainly they were drinking -- from entire ox horns;
- but a few were still munching bread or gnawing beef
- bones. There was about an average of two dogs to
- one man; and these sat in expectant attitudes till a
- spent bone was flung to them, and then they went for
- it by brigades and divisions, with a rush, and there
- ensued a fight which filled the prospect with a tumultu-
- ous chaos of plunging heads and bodies and flashing
- tails, and the storm of howlings and barkings deafened
- all speech for the time; but that was no matter, for
- the dog-fight was always a bigger interest anyway; the
- men rose, sometimes, to observe it the better and bet
- on it, and the ladies and the musicians stretched them-
- selves out over their balusters with the same object;
- and all broke into delighted ejaculations from time to
- time. In the end, the winning dog stretched himself
- out comfortably with his bone between his paws, and
- proceeded to growl over it, and gnaw it, and grease
- the floor with it, just as fifty others were already doing;
- and the rest of the court resumed their previous indus-
- tries and entertainments.
-
- As a rule, the speech and behavior of these people
- were gracious and courtly; and I noticed that they
- were good and serious listeners when anybody was tell-
- ing anything -- I mean in a dog-fightless interval. And
- plainly, too, they were a childlike and innocent lot;
- telling lies of the stateliest pattern with a most gentle
- and winning naivety, and ready and willing to listen to
- anybody else's lie, and believe it, too. It was hard to
- associate them with anything cruel or dreadful; and
- yet they dealt in tales of blood and suffering with a
- guileless relish that made me almost forget to shudder.
-
- I was not the only prisoner present. There were
- twenty or more. Poor devils, many of them were
- maimed, hacked, carved, in a frightful way; and their
- hair, their faces, their clothing, were caked with black
- and stiffened drenchings of blood. They were suffer-
- ing sharp physical pain, of course; and weariness, and
- hunger and thirst, no doubt; and at least none had
- given them the comfort of a wash, or even the poor
- charity of a lotion for their wounds; yet you never
- heard them utter a moan or a groan, or saw them show
- any sign of restlessness, or any disposition to com-
- plain. The thought was forced upon me: "The ras-
- cals -- THEY have served other people so in their day;
- it being their own turn, now, they were not expecting
- any better treatment than this; so their philosophical
- bearing is not an outcome of mental training, intellec-
- tual fortitude, reasoning; it is mere animal training;
- they are white Indians."
-
-
- CHAPTER III.
- KNIGHTS OF THE TABLE ROUND
-
- MAINLY the Round Table talk was monologues --
- narrative accounts of the adventures in which
- these prisoners were captured and their friends and
- backers killed and stripped of their steeds and armor.
- As a general thing -- as far as I could make out --
- these murderous adventures were not forays undertaken
- to avenge injuries, nor to settle old disputes or sudden
- fallings out; no, as a rule they were simply duels be-
- tween strangers -- duels between people who had never
- even been introduced to each other, and between
- whom existed no cause of offense whatever. Many a
- time I had seen a couple of boys, strangers, meet by
- chance, and say simultaneously, "I can lick you," and
- go at it on the spot; but I had always imagined until
- now that that sort of thing belonged to children only,
- and was a sign and mark of childhood; but here were
- these big boobies sticking to it and taking pride in it
- clear up into full age and beyond. Yet there was some-
- thing very engaging about these great simple-hearted
- creatures, something attractive and lovable. There did
- not seem to be brains enough in the entire nursery, so
- to speak, to bait a fish-hook with; but you didn't seem
- to mind that, after a little, because you soon saw that
- brains were not needed in a society like that, and in-
- deed would have marred it, hindered it, spoiled its sym-
- metry -- perhaps rendered its existence impossible.
-
- There was a fine manliness observable in almost every
- face; and in some a certain loftiness and sweetness that
- rebuked your belittling criticisms and stilled them. A
- most noble benignity and purity reposed in the counte-
- nance of him they called Sir Galahad, and likewise in the
- king's also; and there was majesty and greatness in
- the giant frame and high bearing of Sir Launcelot of
- the Lake.
-
- There was presently an incident which centered the
- general interest upon this Sir Launcelot. At a sign
- from a sort of master of ceremonies, six or eight of the
- prisoners rose and came forward in a body and knelt
- on the floor and lifted up their hands toward the ladies'
- gallery and begged the grace of a word with the queen.
- The most conspicuously situated lady in that massed
- flower-bed of feminine show and finery inclined her
- head by way of assent, and then the spokesman of the
- prisoners delivered himself and his fellows into her
- hands for free pardon, ransom, captivity, or death, as
- she in her good pleasure might elect; and this, as he
- said, he was doing by command of Sir Kay the Senes-
- chal, whose prisoners they were, he having vanquished
- them by his single might and prowess in sturdy conflict
- in the field.
-
- Surprise and astonishment flashed from face to face
- all over the house; the queen's gratified smile faded
- out at the name of Sir Kay, and she looked disap-
- pointed; and the page whispered in my ear with an
- accent and manner expressive of extravagant derision --
-
- "Sir KAY, forsooth! Oh, call me pet names, dear-
- est, call me a marine! In twice a thousand years shall
- the unholy invention of man labor at odds to beget the
- fellow to this majestic lie!"
-
- Every eye was fastened with severe inquiry upon Sir
- Kay. But he was equal to the occasion. He got up
- and played his hand like a major -- and took every
- trick. He said he would state the case exactly accord-
- ing to the facts; he would tell the simple straightfor-
- ward tale, without comment of his own; "and then,"
- said he, "if ye find glory and honor due, ye will give
- it unto him who is the mightiest man of his hands that
- ever bare shield or strake with sword in the ranks of
- Christian battle -- even him that sitteth there!" and he
- pointed to Sir Launcelot. Ah, he fetched them; it
- was a rattling good stroke. Then he went on and told
- how Sir Launcelot, seeking adventures, some brief time
- gone by, killed seven giants at one sweep of his sword,
- and set a hundred and forty-two captive maidens free;
- and then went further, still seeking adventures, and
- found him (Sir Kay) fighting a desperate fight against
- nine foreign knights, and straightway took the battle
- solely into his own hands, and conquered the nine; and
- that night Sir Launcelot rose quietly, and dressed him
- in Sir Kay's armor and took Sir Kay's horse and gat
- him away into distant lands, and vanquished sixteen
- knights in one pitched battle and thirty-four in another;
- and all these and the former nine he made to swear
- that about Whitsuntide they would ride to Arthur's
- court and yield them to Queen Guenever's hands as
- captives of Sir Kay the Seneschal, spoil of his knightly
- prowess; and now here were these half dozen, and the
- rest would be along as soon as they might be healed of
- their desperate wounds.
-
- Well, it was touching to see the queen blush and
- smile, and look embarrassed and happy, and fling fur-
- tive glances at Sir Launcelot that would have got him
- shot in Arkansas, to a dead certainty.
-
- Everybody praised the valor and magnanimity of Sir
- Launcelot; and as for me, I was perfectly amazed,
- that one man, all by himself, should have been able to
- beat down and capture such battalions of practiced
- fighters. I said as much to Clarence; but this mock-
- ing featherhead only said:
-
- "An Sir Kay had had time to get another skin of
- sour wine into him, ye had seen the accompt doubled."
-
- I looked at the boy in sorrow; and as I looked I saw
- the cloud of a deep despondency settle upon his counte-
- nance. I followed the direction of his eye, and saw that
- a very old and white-bearded man, clothed in a flowing
- black gown, had risen and was standing at the table
- upon unsteady legs, and feebly swaying his ancient
- head and surveying the company with his watery and
- wandering eye. The same suffering look that was in
- the page's face was observable in all the faces around
- -- the look of dumb creatures who know that they must
- endure and make no moan.
-
- "Marry, we shall have it a again," sighed the boy;
- "that same old weary tale that he hath told a
- thousand times in the same words, and that he WILL tell
- till he dieth, every time he hath gotten his barrel full
- and feeleth his exaggeration-mill a-working. Would
- God I had died or I saw this day!"
-
- "Who is it?"
-
- "Merlin, the mighty liar and magician, perdition
- singe him for the weariness he worketh with his one
- tale! But that men fear him for that he hath the
- storms and the lightnings and all the devils that be in
- hell at his beck and call, they would have dug his en-
- trails out these many years ago to get at that tale and
- squelch it. He telleth it always in the third person,
- making believe he is too modest to glorify himself --
- maledictions light upon him, misfortune be his dole!
- Good friend, prithee call me for evensong."
-
- The boy nestled himself upon my shoulder and pre-
- tended to go to sleep. The old man began his tale;
- and presently the lad was asleep in reality; so also were
- the dogs, and the court, the lackeys, and the files of
- men-at-arms. The droning voice droned on; a soft
- snoring arose on all sides and supported it like a deep
- and subdued accompaniment of wind instruments.
- Some heads were bowed upon folded arms, some lay
- back with open mouths that issued unconscious music;
- the flies buzzed and bit, unmolested, the rats swarmed
- softly out from a hundred holes, and pattered about,
- and made themselves at home everywhere; and one of
- them sat up like a squirrel on the king's head and held
- a bit of cheese in its hands and nibbled it, and dribbled
- the crumbs in the king's face with naive and impudent
- irreverence. It was a tranquil scene, and restful to the
- weary eye and the jaded spirit.
-
- This was the old man's tale. He said:
-
- "Right so the king and Merlin departed, and went
- until an hermit that was a good man and a great leech.
- So the hermit searched all his wounds and gave him
- good salves; so the king was there three days, and then
- were his wounds well amended that he might ride and
- go, and so departed. And as they rode, Arthur said,
- I have no sword. No force *, said Merlin, hereby is a
- [* Footnote from M.T.: No matter.]
- sword that shall be yours and I may. So they rode till
- they came to a lake, the which was a fair water and
- broad, and in the midst of the lake Arthur was ware of
- an arm clothed in white samite, that held a fair sword
- in that hand. Lo, said Merlin, yonder is that sword
- that I spake of. With that they saw a damsel going
- upon the lake. What damsel is that? said Arthur.
- That is the Lady of the lake, said Merlin; and within
- that lake is a rock, and therein is as fair a place as any
- on earth, and richly beseen, and this damsel will come
- to you anon, and then speak ye fair to her that she will
- give you that sword. Anon withal came the damsel
- unto Arthur and saluted him, and he her again.
- Damsel, said Arthur, what sword is that, that yonder
- the arm holdeth above the water? I would it were
- mine, for I have no sword. Sir Arthur King, said the
- damsel, that sword is mine, and if ye will give me a gift
- when I ask it you, ye shall have it. By my faith, said
- Arthur, I will give you what gift ye will ask. Well,
- said the damsel, go ye into yonder barge and row your-
- self to the sword, and take it and the scabbard with
- you, and I will ask my gift when I see my time. So
- Sir Arthur and Merlin alight, and tied their horses to
- two trees, and so they went into the ship, and when
- they came to the sword that the hand held, Sir Arthur
- took it up by the handles, and took it with him. And
- the arm and the hand went under the water; and so
- they came unto the land and rode forth. And then Sir
- Arthur saw a rich pavilion. What signifieth yonder
- pavilion? It is the knight's pavilion, said Merlin,
- that ye fought with last, Sir Pellinore, but he is
- out, he is not there; he hath ado with a knight of
- yours, that hight Egglame, and they have fought
- together, but at the last Egglame fled, and else he had
- been dead, and he hath chased him even to Carlion,
- and we shall meet with him anon in the highway. That
- is well said, said Arthur, now have I a sword, now will
- I wage battle with him, and be avenged on him. Sir,
- ye shall not so, said Merlin, for the knight is weary of
- fighting and chasing, so that ye shall have no worship
- to have ado with him; also, he will not lightly be
- matched of one knight living; and therefore it is my
- counsel, let him pass, for he shall do you good service
- in short time, and his sons, after his days. Also ye
- shall see that day in short space ye shall be right glad
- to give him your sister to wed. When I see him, I will
- do as ye advise me, said Arthur. Then Sir Arthur
- looked on the sword, and liked it passing well.
- Whether liketh you better, said Merlin, the sword or
- the scabbard? Me liketh better the sword, said Arthur.
- Ye are more unwise, said Merlin, for the scabbard is
- worth ten of the sword, for while ye have the scabbard
- upon you ye shall never lose no blood, be ye never so
- sore wounded; therefore, keep well the scabbard always
- with you. So they rode into Carlion, and by the way
- they met with Sir Pellinore; but Merlin had done such
- a craft that Pellinore saw not Arthur, and he passed by
- without any words. I marvel, said Arthur, that the
- knight would not speak. Sir, said Merlin, he saw you
- not; for and he had seen you ye had not lightly de-
- parted. So they came unto Carlion, whereof his
- knights were passing glad. And when they heard of
- his adventures they marveled that he would jeopard his
- person so alone. But all men of worship said it was
- merry to be under such a chieftain that would put his
- person in adventure as other poor knights did."
-
-
- CHAPTER IV.
- SIR DINADAN THE HUMORIST
-
- IT seemed to me that this quaint lie was most simply
- and beautifully told; but then I had heard it only
- once, and that makes a difference; it was pleasant to
- the others when it was fresh, no doubt.
-
- Sir Dinadan the Humorist was the first to awake, and
- he soon roused the rest with a practical joke of a suffi-
- ciently poor quality. He tied some metal mugs to a
- dog's tail and turned him loose, and he tore around and
- around the place in a frenzy of fright, with all the other
- dogs bellowing after him and battering and crashing
- against everything that came in their way and making
- altogether a chaos of confusion and a most deafening
- din and turmoil; at which every man and woman of the
- multitude laughed till the tears flowed, and some fell
- out of their chairs and wallowed on the floor in ecstasy.
- It was just like so many children. Sir Dinadan was so
- proud of his exploit that he could not keep from telling
- over and over again, to weariness, how the immortal
- idea happened to occur to him; and as is the way with
- humorists of his breed, he was still laughing at it after
- everybody else had got through. He was so set up
- that he concluded to make a speech -- of course a
- humorous speech. I think I never heard so many old
- played-out jokes strung together in my life. He was
- worse than the minstrels, worse than the clown in the
- circus. It seemed peculiarly sad to sit here, thirteen
- hundred years before I was born, and listen again to
- poor, flat, worm-eaten jokes that had given me the dry
- gripes when I was a boy thirteen hundred years after-
- wards. It about convinced me that there isn't any such
- thing as a new joke possible. Everybody laughed at
- these antiquities -- but then they always do; I had
- noticed that, centuries later. However, of course the
- scoffer didn't laugh -- I mean the boy. No, he scoffed;
- there wasn't anything he wouldn't scoff at. He said
- the most of Sir Dinadan's jokes were rotten and the rest
- were petrified. I said "petrified" was good; as I be-
- lieved, myself, that the only right way to classify the
- majestic ages of some of those jokes was by geologic
- periods. But that neat idea hit the boy in a blank
- place, for geology hadn't been invented yet. However,
- I made a note of the remark, and calculated to educate
- the commonwealth up to it if I pulled through. It is
- no use to throw a good thing away merely because the
- market isn't ripe yet.
-
- Now Sir Kay arose and began to fire up on his his-
- tory-mill with me for fuel. It was time for me to feel
- serious, and I did. Sir Kay told how he had en-
- countered me in a far land of barbarians, who all wore
- the same ridiculous garb that I did -- a garb that was a
- work of enchantment, and intended to make the wearer
- secure from hurt by human hands. However he had
- nullified the force of the enchantment by prayer, and
- had killed my thirteen knights in a three hours' battle,
- and taken me prisoner, sparing my life in order that so
- strange a curiosity as I was might be exhibited to the
- wonder and admiration of the king and the court. He
- spoke of me all the time, in the blandest way, as "this
- prodigious giant," and "this horrible sky-towering
- monster," and "this tusked and taloned man-devour-
- ing ogre", and everybody took in all this bosh in the
- naivest way, and never smiled or seemed to notice that
- there was any discrepancy between these watered statis-
- tics and me. He said that in trying to escape from him
- I sprang into the top of a tree two hundred cubits high
- at a single bound, but he dislodged me with a stone the
- size of a cow, which "all-to brast" the most of my
- bones, and then swore me to appear at Arthur's court
- for sentence. He ended by condemning me to die at
- noon on the 21st; and was so little concerned about it
- that he stopped to yawn before he named the date.
-
- I was in a dismal state by this time; indeed, I was
- hardly enough in my right mind to keep the run of a
- dispute that sprung up as to how I had better be killed,
- the possibility of the killing being doubted by some,
- because of the enchantment in my clothes. And yet it
- was nothing but an ordinary suit of fifteen-dollar slop-
- shops. Still, I was sane enough to notice this detail,
- to wit: many of the terms used in the most matter-of-
- fact way by this great assemblage of the first ladies and
- gentlemen in the land would have made a Comanche
- blush. Indelicacy is too mild a term to convey the
- idea. However, I had read "Tom Jones," and "Rod-
- erick Random," and other books of that kind, and
- knew that the highest and first ladies and gentlemen in
- England had remained little or no cleaner in their talk,
- and in the morals and conduct which such talk implies,
- clear up to a hundred years ago; in fact clear into our
- own nineteenth century -- in which century, broadly
- speaking, the earliest samples of the real lady and real
- gentleman discoverable in English history -- or in
- European history, for that matter -- may be said to
- have made their appearance. Suppose Sir Walter, in-
- stead of putting the conversations into the mouths of
- his characters, had allowed the characters to speak for
- themselves? We should have had talk from Rebecca
- and Ivanhoe and the soft lady Rowena which would
- embarrass a tramp in our day. However, to the uncon-
- sciously indelicate all things are delicate. King Ar-
- thur's people were not aware that they were indecent
- and I had presence of mind enough not to mention it.
-
- They were so troubled about my enchanted clothes
- that they were mightily relieved, at last, when old
- Merlin swept the difficulty away for them with a com-
- mon-sense hint. He asked them why they were so dull
- -- why didn't it occur to them to strip me. In half a
- minute I was as naked as a pair of tongs! And dear,
- dear, to think of it: I was the only embarrassed person
- there. Everybody discussed me; and did it as uncon-
- cernedly as if I had been a cabbage. Queen Guenever
- was as naively interested as the rest, and said she had
- never seen anybody with legs just like mine before. It
- was the only compliment I got -- if it was a compliment.
-
- Finally I was carried off in one direction, and my
- perilous clothes in another. I was shoved into a dark
- and narrow cell in a dungeon, with some scant remnants
- for dinner, some moldy straw for a bed, and no end
- of rats for company.
-
-
- CHAPTER V.
- AN INSPIRATION
-
- I WAS so tired that even my fears were not able to
- keep me awake long.
-
- When I next came to myself, I seemed to have been
- asleep a very long time. My first thought was, "Well,
- what an astonishing dream I've had! I reckon I've
- waked only just in time to keep from being hanged or
- drowned or burned or something.... I'll nap
- again till the whistle blows, and then I'll go down to
- the arms factory and have it out with Hercules."
-
- But just then I heard the harsh music of rusty chains
- and bolts, a light flashed in my eyes, and that butterfly,
- Clarence, stood before me! I gasped with surprise;
- my breath almost got away from me.
-
- "What!" I said, "you here yet? Go along with
- the rest of the dream! scatter!"
-
- But he only laughed, in his light-hearted way, and
- fell to making fun of my sorry plight.
-
- "All right," I said resignedly, "let the dream go
- on; I'm in no hurry."
-
- "Prithee what dream?"
-
- "What dream? Why, the dream that I am in
- Arthur's court -- a person who never existed; and that
- I am talking to you, who are nothing but a work of the
- imagination."
-
- "Oh, la, indeed! and is it a dream that you're to be
- burned to-morrow? Ho-ho -- answer me that!"
-
- The shock that went through me was distressing. I
- now began to reason that my situation was in the last
- degree serious, dream or no dream; for I knew by past
- experience of the lifelike intensity of dreams, that to
- be burned to death, even in a dream, would be very far
- from being a jest, and was a thing to be avoided, by
- any means, fair or foul, that I could contrive. So I
- said beseechingly:
-
- "Ah, Clarence, good boy, only friend I've got, --
- for you ARE my friend, aren't you? -- don't fail me; help
- me to devise some way of escaping from this place!"
-
- "Now do but hear thyself! Escape? Why, man,
- the corridors are in guard and keep of men-at-arms."
-
- "No doubt, no doubt. But how many, Clarence?
- Not many, I hope?"
-
- "Full a score. One may not hope to escape."
- After a pause -- hesitatingly: "and there be other rea-
- sons -- and weightier."
-
- "Other ones? What are they?"
-
- "Well, they say -- oh, but I daren't, indeed
- daren't!"
-
- "Why, poor lad, what is the matter? Why do you
- blench? Why do you tremble so?"
-
- "Oh, in sooth, there is need! I do want to tell you,
- but --"
-
- "Come, come, be brave, be a man -- speak out,
- there's a good lad!"
-
- He hesitated, pulled one way by desire, the other
- way by fear; then he stole to the door and peeped out,
- listening; and finally crept close to me and put his
- mouth to my ear and told me his fearful news in a
- whisper, and with all the cowering apprehension of one
- who was venturing upon awful ground and speaking of
- things whose very mention might be freighted with
- death.
-
- "Merlin, in his malice, has woven a spell about this
- dungeon, and there bides not the man in these king-
- doms that would be desperate enough to essay to cross
- its lines with you! Now God pity me, I have told it!
- Ah, be kind to me, be merciful to a poor boy who
- means thee well; for an thou betray me I am lost!"
-
- I laughed the only really refreshing laugh I had had
- for some time; and shouted:
-
- "Merlin has wrought a spell! MERLIN, forsooth!
- That cheap old humbug, that maundering old ass?
- Bosh, pure bosh, the silliest bosh in the world! Why,
- it does seem to me that of all the childish, idiotic,
- chuckle-headed, chicken-livered superstitions that
- ev -- oh, damn Merlin!"
-
- But Clarence had slumped to his knees before I had
- half finished, and he was like to go out of his mind
- with fright.
-
- "Oh, beware! These are awful words! Any
- moment these walls may crumble upon us if you say
- such things. Oh call them back before it is too late!"
-
- Now this strange exhibition gave me a good idea and
- set me to thinking. If everybody about here was so
- honestly and sincerely afraid of Merlin's pretended
- magic as Clarence was, certainly a superior man like
- me ought to be shrewd enough to contrive some way
- to take advantage of such a state of things. I went
- on thinking, and worked out a plan. Then I said:
-
- "Get up. Pull yourself together; look me in the
- eye. Do you know why I laughed?"
-
- "No -- but for our blessed Lady's sake, do it no
- more."
-
- "Well, I'll tell you why I laughed. Because I'm a
- magician myself."
-
- "Thou!" The boy recoiled a step, and caught his
- breath, for the thing hit him rather sudden; but the
- aspect which he took on was very, very respectful. I
- took quick note of that; it indicated that a humbug
- didn't need to have a reputation in this asylum; people
- stood ready to take him at his word, without that. I
- resumed.
-
- "I've know Merlin seven hundred years, and he --"
-
- "Seven hun --"
-
- "Don't interrupt me. He has died and come alive
- again thirteen times, and traveled under a new name
- every time: Smith, Jones, Robinson, Jackson, Peters,
- Haskins, Merlin -- a new alias every time he turns up.
- I knew him in Egypt three hundred years ago; I knew
- him in India five hundred years ago -- he is always
- blethering around in my way, everywhere I go; he
- makes me tired. He don't amount to shucks, as a
- magician; knows some of the old common tricks,
- but has never got beyond the rudiments, and never
- will. He is well enough for the provinces-- one-night
- stands and that sort of thing, you know -- but dear me,
- HE oughtn't to set up for an expert -- anyway not
- where there's a real artist. Now look here, Clarence,
- I am going to stand your friend, right along, and in re-
- turn you must be mine. I want you to do me a favor.
- I want you to get word to the king that I am a magician
- myself -- and the Supreme Grand High-yu-Muck-
- amuck and head of the tribe, at that; and I want him
- to be made to understand that I am just quietly arrang-
- ing a little calamity here that will make the fur fly in these
- realms if Sir Kay's project is carried out and any harm
- comes to me. Will you get that to the king for me?"
-
- The poor boy was in such a state that he could
- hardly answer me. It was pitiful to see a creature so
- terrified, so unnerved, so demoralized. But he prom-
- ised everything; and on my side he made me promise
- over and over again that I would remain his friend, and
- never turn against him or cast any enchantments upon
- him. Then he worked his way out, staying himself
- with his hand along the wall, like a sick person.
-
- Presently this thought occurred to me: how heed-
- less I have been! When the boy gets calm, he will
- wonder why a great magician like me should have
- begged a boy like him to help me get out of this place;
- he will put this and that together, and will see that I
- am a humbug.
-
- I worried over that heedless blunder for an hour,
- and called myself a great many hard names, meantime.
- But finally it occurred to me all of a sudden that these
- animals didn't reason; that THEY never put this and
- that together; that all their talk showed that they
- didn't know a discrepancy when they saw it. I was at
- rest, then.
-
- But as soon as one is at rest, in this world, off he goes
- on something else to worry about. It occurred to me
- that I had made another blunder: I had sent the boy
- off to alarm his betters with a threat -- I intending to
- invent a calamity at my leisure; now the people who are
- the readiest and eagerest and willingest to swallow
- miracles are the very ones who are hungriest to see you
- perform them; suppose I should be called on for a
- sample? Suppose I should be asked to name my
- calamity? Yes, I had made a blunder; I ought to
- have invented my calamity first. "What shall I do?
- what can I say, to gain a little time?" I was in trouble
- again; in the deepest kind of trouble:...
- "There's a footstep! -- they're coming. If I had only
- just a moment to think.... Good, I've got it.
- I'm all right."
-
- You see, it was the eclipse. It came into my mind
- in the nick of time, how Columbus, or Cortez, or one
- of those people, played an eclipse as a saving trump
- once, on some savages, and I saw my chance. I could
- play it myself, now, and it wouldn't be any plagiarism,
- either, because I should get it in nearly a thousand
- years ahead of those parties.
-
- Clarence came in, subdued, distressed, and said:
-
- "I hasted the message to our liege the king, and
- straightway he had me to his presence. He was
- frighted even to the marrow, and was minded to give
- order for your instant enlargement, and that you be
- clothed in fine raiment and lodged as befitted one so
- great; but then came Merlin and spoiled all; for he
- persuaded the king that you are mad, and know not
- whereof you speak; and said your threat is but foolish-
- ness and idle vaporing. They disputed long, but in the
- end, Merlin, scoffing, said, 'Wherefore hath he not
- NAMED his brave calamity? Verily it is because he can-
- not.' This thrust did in a most sudden sort close the
- king's mouth, and he could offer naught to turn the
- argument; and so, reluctant, and full loth to do you
- the discourtesy, he yet prayeth you to consider his per-
- plexed case, as noting how the matter stands, and name
- the calamity -- if so be you have determined the nature
- of it and the time of its coming. Oh, prithee delay
- not; to delay at such a time were to double and treble
- the perils that already compass thee about. Oh, be
- thou wise -- name the calamity!"
-
- I allowed silence to accumulate while I got my im-
- pressiveness together, and then said:
-
- "How long have I been shut up in this hole?"
-
- "Ye were shut up when yesterday was well spent
- It is 9 of the morning now."
-
- "No! Then I have slept well, sure enough. Nine
- in the morning now! And yet it is the very complex-
- ion of midnight, to a shade. This is the 20th, then?"
-
- "The 20th -- yes."
-
- "And I am to be burned alive to-morrow." The
- boy shuddered.
-
- "At what hour?"
-
- "At high noon."
-
- "Now then, I will tell you what to say." I paused,
- and stood over that cowering lad a whole minute in
- awful silence; then, in a voice deep, measured,
- charged with doom, I began, and rose by dramatically
- graded stages to my colossal climax, which I delivered
- in as sublime and noble a way as ever I did such a
- thing in my life: "Go back and tell the king that at
- that hour I will smother the whole world in the dead
- blackness of midnight; I will blot out the sun, and he
- shall never shine again; the fruits of the earth shall
- rot for lack of light and warmth, and the peoples of the
- earth shall famish and die, to the last man!"
-
- I had to carry the boy out myself, he sunk into such
- a collapse. I handed him over to the soldiers, and
- went back.
-
-
- CHAPTER VI.
- THE ECLIPSE
-
- IN the stillness and the darkness, realization soon
- began to supplement knowledge. The mere knowl-
- edge of a fact is pale; but when you come to REALIZE
- your fact, it takes on color. It is all the difference be-
- tween hearing of a man being stabbed to the heart, and
- seeing it done. In the stillness and the darkness, the
- knowledge that I was in deadly danger took to itself
- deeper and deeper meaning all the time; a something
- which was realization crept inch by inch through my
- veins and turned me cold.
-
- But it is a blessed provision of nature that at times
- like these, as soon as a man's mercury has got down to
- a certain point there comes a revulsion, and he rallies.
- Hope springs up, and cheerfulness along with it, and
- then he is in good shape to do something for himself,
- if anything can be done. When my rally came, it
- came with a bound. I said to myself that my eclipse
- would be sure to save me, and make me the greatest
- man in the kingdom besides; and straightway my
- mercury went up to the top of the tube, and my solici-
- tudes all vanished. I was as happy a man as there
- was in the world. I was even impatient for to-
- morrow to come, I so wanted to gather in that great
- triumph and be the center of all the nation's wonder
- and reverence. Besides, in a business way it would be
- the making of me; I knew that.
-
- Meantime there was one thing which had got pushed
- into the background of my mind. That was the half-
- conviction that when the nature of my proposed
- calamity should be reported to those superstitious
- people, it would have such an effect that they would
- want to compromise. So, by and by when I heard
- footsteps coming, that thought was recalled to me, and
- I said to myself, "As sure as anything, it's the com-
- promise. Well, if it is good, all right, I will accept;
- but if it isn't, I mean to stand my ground and play my
- hand for all it is worth."
-
- The door opened, and some men-at-arms appeared.
- The leader said:
-
- "The stake is ready. Come!"
-
- The stake! The strength went out of me, and I
- almost fell down. It is hard to get one's breath at
- such a time, such lumps come into one's throat, and
- such gaspings; but as soon as I could speak, I said:
-
- "But this is a mistake -- the execution is to-
- morrow."
-
- "Order changed; been set forward a day. Haste
- thee!"
-
- I was lost. There was no help for me. I was
- dazed, stupefied; I had no command over myself, I
- only wandered purposely about, like one out of his
- mind; so the soldiers took hold of me, and pulled me
- along with them, out of the cell and along the maze of
- underground corridors, and finally into the fierce glare
- of daylight and the upper world. As we stepped into
- the vast enclosed court of the castle I got a shock;
- for the first thing I saw was the stake, standing in the
- center, and near it the piled fagots and a monk. On
- all four sides of the court the seated multitudes rose
- rank above rank, forming sloping terraces that were
- rich with color. The king and the queen sat in their
- thrones, the most conspicuous figures there, of course.
-
- To note all this, occupied but a second. The next
- second Clarence had slipped from some place of con-
- cealment and was pouring news into my ear, his eyes
- beaming with triumph and gladness. He said:
-
- "'Tis through ME the change was wrought! And
- main hard have I worked to do it, too. But when I
- revealed to them the calamity in store, and saw how
- mighty was the terror it did engender, then saw I also
- that this was the time to strike! Wherefore I diligently
- pretended, unto this and that and the other one, that
- your power against the sun could not reach its full
- until the morrow; and so if any would save the sun
- and the world, you must be slain to-day, while your
- enchantments are but in the weaving and lack potency.
- Odsbodikins, it was but a dull lie, a most indifferent
- invention, but you should have seen them seize it and
- swallow it, in the frenzy of their fright, as it were sal-
- vation sent from heaven; and all the while was I
- laughing in my sleeve the one moment, to see them so
- cheaply deceived, and glorifying God the next, that
- He was content to let the meanest of His creatures be
- His instrument to the saving of thy life. Ah how
- happy has the matter sped! You will not need to do
- the sun a REAL hurt -- ah, forget not that, on your soul
- forget it not! Only make a little darkness -- only the
- littlest little darkness, mind, and cease with that. It
- will be sufficient. They will see that I spoke falsely, --
- being ignorant, as they will fancy -- and with the fall-
- ing of the first shadow of that darkness you shall see
- them go mad with fear; and they will set you free and
- make you great! Go to thy triumph, now! But re-
- member -- ah, good friend, I implore thee remember
- my supplication, and do the blessed sun no hurt. For
- MY sake, thy true friend."
-
- I choked out some words through my grief and
- misery; as much as to say I would spare the sun; for
- which the lad's eyes paid me back with such deep and
- loving gratitude that I had not the heart to tell him his
- good-hearted foolishness had ruined me and sent me
- to my death.
-
- As the soldiers assisted me across the court the still-
- ness was so profound that if I had been blindfold I
- should have supposed I was in a solitude instead of
- walled in by four thousand people. There was not a
- movement perceptible in those masses of humanity;
- they were as rigid as stone images, and as pale; and
- dread sat upon every countenance. This hush con-
- tinued while I was being chained to the stake; it still
- continued while the fagots were carefully and tediously
- piled about my ankles, my knees, my thighs, my body.
- Then there was a pause, and a deeper hush, if possible,
- and a man knelt down at my feet with a blazing torch;
- the multitude strained forward, gazing, and parting
- slightly from their seats without knowing it; the monk
- raised his hands above my head, and his eyes toward
- the blue sky, and began some words in Latin; in this
- attitude he droned on and on, a little while, and then
- stopped. I waited two or three moments; then looked
- up; he was standing there petrified. With a common
- impulse the multitude rose slowly up and stared into
- the sky. I followed their eyes, as sure as guns, there
- was my eclipse beginning! The life went boiling
- through my veins; I was a new man! The rim of
- black spread slowly into the sun's disk, my heart beat
- higher and higher, and still the assemblage and the
- priest stared into the sky, motionless. I knew that
- this gaze would be turned upon me, next. When it
- was, l was ready. I was in one of the most grand
- attitudes I ever struck, with my arm stretched up
- pointing to the sun. It was a noble effect. You
- could SEE the shudder sweep the mass like a wave.
- Two shouts rang out, one close upon the heels of the
- other:
-
- "Apply the torch!"
-
- "I forbid it!"
-
- The one was from Merlin, the other from the king.
- Merlin started from his place -- to apply the torch
- himself, I judged. I said:
-
- "Stay where you are. If any man moves -- even
- the king -- before I give him leave, I will blast him
- with thunder, I will consume him with lightnings!"
-
- The multitude sank meekly into their seats, and I was
- just expecting they would. Merlin hesitated a moment
- or two, and I was on pins and needles during that little
- while. Then he sat down, and I took a good breath;
- for I knew I was master of the situation now. The
- king said:
-
- "Be merciful, fair sir, and essay no further in this
- perilous matter, lest disaster follow. It was reported
- to us that your powers could not attain unto their full
- strength until the morrow; but --"
-
- "Your Majesty thinks the report may have been a
- lie? It WAS a lie."
-
- That made an immense effect; up went appealing
- hands everywhere, and the king was assailed with a
- storm of supplications that I might be bought off at
- any price, and the calamity stayed. The king was
- eager to comply. He said:
-
- "Name any terms, reverend sir, even to the halving
- of my kingdom; but banish this calamity, spare the
- sun!"
-
- My fortune was made. I would have taken him up
- in a minute, but I couldn't stop an eclipse; the thing
- was out of the question. So I asked time to consider.
- The king said:
-
- "How long -- ah, how long, good sir? Be merci-
- ful; look, it groweth darker, moment by moment.
- Prithee how long?"
-
- "Not long. Half an hour -- maybe an hour."
-
- There were a thousand pathetic protests, but I
- couldn't shorten up any, for I couldn't remember
- how long a total eclipse lasts. I was in a puzzled con-
- dition, anyway, and wanted to think. Something was
- wrong about that eclipse, and the fact was very un-
- settling. If this wasn't the one I was after, how was
- I to tell whether this was the sixth century, or nothing
- but a dream? Dear me, if I could only prove it was
- the latter! Here was a glad new hope. If the boy
- was right about the date, and this was surely the 20th,
- it WASN'T the sixth century. I reached for the monk's
- sleeve, in considerable excitement, and asked him what
- day of the month it was.
-
- Hang him, he said it was the TWENTY-FIRST! It made
- me turn cold to hear him. I begged him not to make
- any mistake about it; but he was sure; he knew it
- was the 21st. So, that feather-headed boy had botched
- things again! The time of the day was right for the
- eclipse; I had seen that for myself, in the beginning,
- by the dial that was near by. Yes, I was in King
- Arthur's court, and I might as well make the most out
- of it I could.
-
- The darkness was steadily growing, the people be-
- coming more and more distressed. I now said:
-
- "I have reflected, Sir King. For a lesson, I will
- let this darkness proceed, and spread night in the
- world; but whether I blot out the sun for good, or
- restore it, shall rest with you. These are the terms, to
- wit: You shall remain king over all your dominions,
- and receive all the glories and honors that belong to
- the kingship; but you shall appoint me your perpetual
- minister and executive, and give me for my services
- one per cent. of such actual increase of revenue over
- and above its present amount as I may succeed in
- creating for the state. If I can't live on that, I sha'n't
- ask anybody to give me a lift. Is it satisfactory?"
-
- There was a prodigious roar of applause, and out of
- the midst of it the king's voice rose, saying:
-
- "Away with his bonds, and set him free! and do
- him homage, high and low, rich and poor, for he is
- become the king's right hand, is clothed with power
- and authority, and his seat is upon the highest step of
- the throne! Now sweep away this creeping night, and
- bring the light and cheer again, that all the world may
- bless thee."
-
- But I said:
-
- "That a common man should be shamed before
- the world, is nothing; but it were dishonor to the KING
- if any that saw his minister naked should not also see
- him delivered from his shame. If I might ask that my
- clothes be brought again --"
-
- "They are not meet," the king broke in. "Fetch
- raiment of another sort; clothe him like a prince!"
-
- My idea worked. I wanted to keep things as they
- were till the eclipse was total, otherwise they would be
- trying again to get me to dismiss the darkness, and of
- course I couldn't do it. Sending for the clothes
- gained some delay, but not enough. So I had to
- make another excuse. I said it would be but natural
- if the king should change his mind and repent to some
- extent of what he had done under excitement; there-
- fore I would let the darkness grow a while, and if at
- the end of a reasonable time the king had kept his
- mind the same, the darkness should be dismissed.
- Neither the king nor anybody else was satisfied with
- that arrangement, but I had to stick to my point.
-
- It grew darker and darker and blacker and blacker,
- while I struggled with those awkward sixth-century
- clothes. It got to be pitch dark, at last, and the
- multitude groaned with horror to feel the cold uncanny
- night breezes fan through the place and see the stars
- come out and twinkle in the sky. At last the eclipse
- was total, and I was very glad of it, but everybody
- else was in misery; which was quite natural. I said:
-
- "The king, by his silence, still stands to the terms."
- Then I lifted up my hands -- stood just so a moment --
- then I said, with the most awful solemnity: "Let the
- enchantment dissolve and pass harmless away!"
-
- There was no response, for a moment, in that deep
- darkness and that graveyard hush. But when the
- silver rim of the sun pushed itself out, a moment or
- two later, the assemblage broke loose with a vast shout
- and came pouring down like a deluge to smother me
- with blessings and gratitude; and Clarence was not the
- last of the wash, to be sure.
-
-
- CHAPTER VII.
- MERLIN'S TOWER
-
- INASMUCH as I was now the second personage in
- the Kingdom, as far as political power and author-
- ty were concerned, much was made of me. My
- raiment was of silks and velvets and cloth of gold,
- and by consequence was very showy, also uncomfort-
- able. But habit would soon reconcile me to my clothes;
- I was aware of that. I was given the choicest suite of
- apartments in the castle, after the king's. They were
- aglow with loud-colored silken hangings, but the stone
- floors had nothing but rushes on them for a carpet,
- and they were misfit rushes at that, being not all of
- one breed. As for conveniences, properly speaking,
- there weren't any. I mean LITTLE conveniences; it is
- the little conveniences that make the real comfort of
- life. The big oaken chairs, graced with rude carvings,
- were well enough, but that was the stopping place.
- There was no soap, no matches, no looking-glass -- ex-
- cept a metal one, about as powerful as a pail of water.
- And not a chromo. I had been used to chromos for
- years, and I saw now that without my suspecting it a
- passion for art had got worked into the fabric of my
- being, and was become a part of me. It made me
- homesick to look around over this proud and gaudy
- but heartless barrenness and remember that in our house
- in East Hartford, all unpretending as it was, you couldn't
- go into a room but you would find an insurance-chromo,
- or at least a three-color God-Bless-Our-Home over the
- door; and in the parlor we had nine. But here, even
- in my grand room of state, there wasn't anything in
- the nature of a picture except a thing the size of a
- bedquilt, which was either woven or knitted (it had
- darned places in it), and nothing in it was the right
- color or the right shape; and as for proportions, even
- Raphael himself couldn't have botched them more
- formidably, after all his practice on those nightmares
- they call his "celebrated Hampton Court cartoons."
- Raphael was a bird. We had several of his chromos;
- one was his "Miraculous Draught of Fishes," where
- he puts in a miracle of his own -- puts three men into
- a canoe which wouldn't have held a dog without up-
- setting. I always admired to study R.'s art, it was so
- fresh and unconventional.
-
- There wasn't even a bell or a speaking-tube in the
- castle. I had a great many servants, and those that
- were on duty lolled in the anteroom; and when I
- wanted one of them I had to go and call for him.
- There was no gas, there were no candles; a bronze
- dish half full of boarding-house butter with a blazing
- rag floating in it was the thing that produced what was
- regarded as light. A lot of these hung along the walls
- and modified the dark, just toned it down enough to
- make it dismal. If you went out at night, your ser-
- vants carried torches. There were no books, pens,
- paper or ink, and no glass in the openings they be-
- lieved to be windows. It is a little thing -- glass is --
- until it is absent, then it becomes a big thing. But
- perhaps the worst of all was, that there wasn't any
- sugar, coffee, tea, or tobacco. I saw that I was just
- another Robinson Crusoe cast away on an uninhabited
- island, with no society but some more or less tame
- animals, and if I wanted to make life bearable I must
- do as he did -- invent, contrive, create, reorganize
- things; set brain and hand to work, and keep them
- busy. Well, that was in my line.
-
- One thing troubled me along at first -- the immense
- interest which people took in me. Apparently the
- whole nation wanted a look at me. It soon transpired
- that the eclipse had scared the British world almost to
- death; that while it lasted the whole country, from one
- end to the other, was in a pitiable state of panic, and
- the churches, hermitages, and monkeries overflowed
- with praying and weeping poor creatures who thought
- the end of the world was come. Then had followed
- the news that the producer of this awful event was a
- stranger, a mighty magician at Arthur's court; that he
- could have blown out the sun like a candle, and was
- just going to do it when his mercy was purchased, and
- he then dissolved his enchantments, and was now
- recognized and honored as the man who had by his
- unaided might saved the globe from destruction and
- its peoples from extinction. Now if you consider that
- everybody believed that, and not only believed it, but
- never even dreamed of doubting it, you will easily
- understand that there was not a person in all Britain
- that would not have walked fifty miles to get a sight of
- me. Of course I was all the talk -- all other subjects
- were dropped; even the king became suddenly a per-
- son of minor interest and notoriety. Within twenty-
- four hours the delegations began to arrive, and from
- that time onward for a fortnight they kept coming.
- The village was crowded, and all the countryside. I
- had to go out a dozen times a day and show myself to
- these reverent and awe-stricken multitudes. It came
- to be a great burden, as to time and trouble, but of
- course it was at the same time compensatingly agree-
- able to be so celebrated and such a center of homage.
- It turned Brer Merlin green with envy and spite, which
- was a great satisfaction to me. But there was one
- thing I couldn't understand -- nobody had asked for
- an autograph. I spoke to Clarence about it. By
- George! I had to explain to him what it was. Then
- he said nobody in the country could read or write but
- a few dozen priests. Land! think of that.
-
- There was another thing that troubled me a little.
- Those multitudes presently began to agitate for another
- miracle. That was natural. To be able to carry back
- to their far homes the boast that they had seen the
- man who could command the sun, riding in the
- heavens, and be obeyed, would make them great in
- the eyes of their neighbors, and envied by them all;
- but to be able to also say they had seen him work a
- miracle themselves -- why, people would come a dis-
- tance to see THEM. The pressure got to be pretty
- strong. There was going to be an eclipse of the
- moon, and I knew the date and hour, but it was too
- far away. Two years. I would have given a good
- deal for license to hurry it up and use it now when
- there was a big market for it. It seemed a great pity
- to have it wasted so, and come lagging along at a time
- when a body wouldn't have any use for it, as like as
- not. If it had been booked for only a month away, I
- could have sold it short; but, as matters stood, I
- couldn't seem to cipher out any way to make it do me
- any good, so I gave up trying. Next, Clarence found
- that old Merlin was making himself busy on the sly
- among those people. He was spreading a report that
- I was a humbug, and that the reason I didn't accom-
- modate the people with a miracle was because I
- couldn't. I saw that I must do something. I pres-
- ently thought out a plan.
-
- By my authority as executive I threw Merlin into
- prison -- the same cell I had occupied myself. Then
- I gave public notice by herald and trumpet that I
- should be busy with affairs of state for a fortnight, but
- about the end of that time I would take a moment's
- leisure and blow up Merlin's stone tower by fires from
- heaven; in the meantime, whoso listened to evil re-
- ports about me, let him beware. Furthermore, I
- would perform but this one miracle at this time, and
- no more; if it failed to satisfy and any murmured, I
- would turn the murmurers into horses, and make them
- useful. Quiet ensued.
-
- I took Clarence into my confidence, to a certain
- degree, and we went to work privately. I told him
- that this was a sort of miracle that required a trifle of
- preparation, and that it would be sudden death to ever
- talk about these preparations to anybody. That made
- his mouth safe enough. Clandestinely we made a few
- bushels of first-rate blasting powder, and I superin-
- tended my armorers while they constructed a lightning-
- rod and some wires. This old stone tower was very
- massive -- and rather ruinous, too, for it was Roman,
- and four hundred years old. Yes, and handsome,
- after a rude fashion, and clothed with ivy from base to
- summit, as with a shirt of scale mail. It stood on a
- lonely eminence, in good view from the castle, and
- about half a mile away.
-
- Working by night, we stowed the powder in the
- tower -- dug stones out, on the inside, and buried the
- powder in the walls themselves, which were fifteen feet
- thick at the base. We put in a peck at a time, in a
- dozen places. We could have blown up the Tower of
- London with these charges. When the thirteenth night
- was come we put up our lightning-rod, bedded it in
- one of the batches of powder, and ran wires from it to
- the other batches. Everybody had shunned that
- locality from the day of my proclamation, but on the
- morning of the fourteenth I thought best to warn the
- people, through the heralds, to keep clear away -- a
- quarter of a mile away. Then added, by command,
- that at some time during the twenty-four hours I
- would consummate the miracle, but would first give a
- brief notice; by flags on the castle towers if in the
- daytime, by torch-baskets in the same places if at
- night.
-
- Thunder-showers had been tolerably frequent of late,
- and I was not much afraid of a failure; still, I shouldn't
- have cared for a delay of a day or two; I should have
- explained that I was busy with affairs of state yet, and
- the people must wait.
-
- Of course, we had a blazing sunny day -- almost the
- first one without a cloud for three weeks; things always
- happen so. I kept secluded, and watched the weather.
- Clarence dropped in from time to time and said the
- public excitement was growing and growing all the
- time, and the whole country filling up with human
- masses as far as one could see from the battlements.
- At last the wind sprang up and a cloud appeared -- in
- the right quarter, too, and just at nightfall. For a
- little while I watched that distant cloud spread and
- blacken, then I judged it was time for me to appear.
- I ordered the torch-baskets to be lit, and Merlin liber-
- ated and sent to me. A quarter of an hour later I
- ascended the parapet and there found the king and the
- court assembled and gazing off in the darkness toward
- Merlin's Tower. Already the darkness was so heavy
- that one could not see far; these people and the old
- turrets, being partly in deep shadow and partly in the
- red glow from the great torch-baskets overhead, made
- a good deal of a picture.
-
- Merlin arrived in a gloomy mood. I said:
-
- "You wanted to burn me alive when I had not done
- you any harm, and latterly you have been trying to
- injure my professional reputation. Therefore I am
- going to call down fire and blow up your tower, but
- it is only fair to give you a chance; now if you think
- you can break my enchantments and ward off the fires,
- step to the bat, it's your innings."
-
- "I can, fair sir, and I will. Doubt it not."
-
- He drew an imaginary circle on the stones of the
- roof, and burnt a pinch of powder in it, which sent up
- a small cloud of aromatic smoke, whereat everybody
- fell back and began to cross themselves and get un-
- comfortable. Then he began to mutter and make
- passes in the air with his hands. He worked himself
- up slowly and gradually into a sort of frenzy, and got
- to thrashing around with his arms like the sails of a
- windmill. By this time the storm had about reached
- us; the gusts of wind were flaring the torches and
- making the shadows swash about, the first heavy drops
- of rain were falling, the world abroad was black as
- pitch, the lightning began to wink fitfully. Of course,
- my rod would be loading itself now. In fact, things
- were imminent. So I said:
-
- "You have had time enough. I have given you
- every advantage, and not interfered. It is plain your
- magic is weak. It is only fair that I begin now."
-
- I made about three passes in the air, and then there
- was an awful crash and that old tower leaped into the
- sky in chunks, along with a vast volcanic fountain of
- fire that turned night to noonday, and showed a thou-
- sand acres of human beings groveling on the ground in
- a general collapse of consternation. Well, it rained
- mortar and masonry the rest of the week. This was
- the report; but probably the facts would have modi-
- fied it.
-
- It was an effective miracle. The great bothersome
- temporary population vanished. There were a good
- many thousand tracks in the mud the next morning,
- but they were all outward bound. If I had advertised
- another miracle I couldn't have raised an audience
- with a sheriff.
-
- Merlin's stock was flat. The king wanted to stop
- his wages; he even wanted to banish him, but I inter-
- fered. I said he would be useful to work the weather,
- and attend to small matters like that, and I would give
- him a lift now and then when his poor little parlor-
- magic soured on him. There wasn't a rag of his tower
- left, but I had the government rebuild it for him, and
- advised him to take boarders; but he was too high-
- toned for that. And as for being grateful, he never
- even said thank you. He was a rather hard lot, take
- him how you might; but then you couldn't fairly ex-
- pect a man to be sweet that had been set back so.
-
-
- CHAPTER VIII.
- THE BOSS
-
- TO be vested with enormous authority is a fine
- thing; but to have the on-looking world consent
- to it is a finer. The tower episode solidified my
- power, and made it impregnable. If any were per-
- chance disposed to be jealous and critical before that,
- they experienced a change of heart, now. There was
- not any one in the kingdom who would have considered
- it good judgment to meddle with my matters.
-
- I was fast getting adjusted to my situation and cir-
- cumstances. For a time, I used to wake up, mornings,
- and smile at my "dream," and listen for the Colt's
- factory whistle; but that sort of thing played itself
- out, gradually, and at last I was fully able to realize
- that I was actually living in the sixth century, and in
- Arthur's court, not a lunatic asylum. After that, I
- was just as much at home in that century as I could
- have been in any other; and as for preference, I
- wouldn't have traded it for the twentieth. Look at
- the opportunities here for a man of knowledge, brains,
- pluck, and enterprise to sail in and grow up with the
- country. The grandest field that ever was; and all my
- own; not a competitor; not a man who wasn't a baby
- to me in acquirements and capacities; whereas, what
- would I amount to in the twentieth century? I should
- be foreman of a factory, that is about all; and could
- drag a seine down street any day and catch a hundred
- better men than myself.
-
- What a jump I had made! I couldn't keep from
- thinking about it, and contemplating it, just as one
- does who has struck oil. There was nothing back of
- me that could approach it, unless it might be Joseph's
- case; and Joseph's only approached it, it didn't equal
- it, quite. For it stands to reason that as Joseph's
- splendid financial ingenuities advantaged nobody but
- the king, the general public must have regarded him
- with a good deal of disfavor, whereas I had done my
- entire public a kindness in sparing the sun, and was
- popular by reason of it.
-
- I was no shadow of a king; I was the substance;
- the king himself was the shadow. My power was
- colossal; and it was not a mere name, as such things
- have generally been, it was the genuine article. I
- stood here, at the very spring and source of the second
- great period of the world's history; and could see the
- trickling stream of that history gather and deepen and
- broaden, and roll its mighty tides down the far
- centuries; and I could note the upspringing of adven-
- turers like myself in the shelter of its long array of
- thrones: De Montforts, Gavestons, Mortimers, Villier-
- ses; the war-making, campaign-directing wantons of
- France, and Charles the Second's scepter-wielding
- drabs; but nowhere in the procession was my full-
- sized fellow visible. I was a Unique; and glad to
- know that that fact could not be dislodged or chal-
- lenged for thirteen centuries and a half, for sure.
- Yes, in power I was equal to the king. At the same
- time there was another power that was a trifle stronger
- than both of us put together. That was the Church.
- I do not wish to disguise that fact. I couldn't, if I
- wanted to. But never mind about that, now; it will
- show up, in its proper place, later on. It didn't cause
- me any trouble in the beginning -- at least any of
- consequence.
-
- Well, it was a curious country, and full of interest.
- And the people! They were the quaintest and sim-
- plest and trustingest race; why, they were nothing but
- rabbits. It was pitiful for a person born in a whole-
- some free atmosphere to listen to their humble and
- hearty outpourings of loyalty toward their king and
- Church and nobility; as if they had any more occasion
- to love and honor king and Church and noble than a
- slave has to love and honor the lash, or a dog has to
- love and honor the stranger that kicks him! Why,
- dear me,ANY kind of royalty, howsoever modified,
- ANY kind of aristocracy, howsoever pruned, is rightly
- an insult; but if you are born and brought up under
- that sort of arrangement you probably never find it
- out for yourself, and don't believe it when somebody
- else tells you. It is enough to make a body ashamed
- of his race to think of the sort of froth that has
- always occupied its thrones without shadow of right
- or reason, and the seventh-rate people that have always
- figured as its aristocracies -- a company of monarchs
- and nobles who, as a rule, would have achieved only
- poverty and obscurity if left, like their betters, to their
- own exertions.
-
- The most of King Arthur's British nation were
- slaves, pure and simple, and bore that name, and wore
- the iron collar on their necks; and the rest were slaves
- in fact, but without the name; they imagined them-
- selves men and freemen, and called themselves so.
- The truth was, the nation as a body was in the world
- for one object, and one only: to grovel before king
- and Church and noble; to slave for them, sweat blood
- for them, starve that they might be fed, work that they
- might play, drink misery to the dregs that they might
- be happy, go naked that they might wear silks and
- jewels, pay taxes that they might be spared from pay-
- ing them, be familiar all their lives with the degrading
- language and postures of adulation that they might
- walk in pride and think themselves the gods of this
- world. And for all this, the thanks they got were
- cuffs and contempt; and so poor-spirited were they
- that they took even this sort of attention as an honor.
-
- Inherited ideas are a curious thing, and interesting
- to observe and examine. I had mine, the king and his
- people had theirs. In both cases they flowed in ruts
- worn deep by time and habit, and the man who should
- have proposed to divert them by reason and argument
- would have had a long contract on his hands. For
- instance, those people had inherited the idea that all
- men without title and a long pedigree, whether they
- had great natural gifts and acquirements or hadn't,
- were creatures of no more consideration than so many
- animals, bugs, insects; whereas I had inherited the
- idea that human daws who can consent to masquerade
- in the peacock-shams of inherited dignities and un-
- earned titles, are of no good but to be laughed at.
- The way I was looked upon was odd, but it was
- natural. You know how the keeper and the public
- regard the elephant in the menagerie: well, that is the
- idea. They are full of admiration of his vast bulk and
- his prodigious strength; they speak with pride of the
- fact that he can do a hundred marvels which are far
- and away beyond their own powers; and they speak
- with the same pride of the fact that in his wrath he is
- able to drive a thousand men before him. But does
- that make him one of THEM? No; the raggedest
- tramp in the pit would smile at the idea. He couldn't
- comprehend it; couldn't take it in; couldn't in any
- remote way conceive of it. Well, to the king, the
- nobles, and all the nation, down to the very slaves
- and tramps, I was just that kind of an elephant, and
- nothing more. I was admired, also feared; but it
- was as an animal is admired and feared. The animal
- is not reverenced, neither was I; I was not even re-
- spected. I had no pedigree, no inherited title; so
- in the king's and nobles' eyes I was mere dirt; the
- people regarded me with wonder and awe, but there
- was no reverence mixed with it; through the force of
- inherited ideas they were not able to conceive of any-
- thing being entitled to that except pedigree and lord-
- ship. There you see the hand of that awful power,
- the Roman Catholic Church. In two or three little
- centuries it had converted a nation of men to a nation
- of worms. Before the day of the Church's supremacy
- in the world, men were men, and held their heads up,
- and had a man's pride and spirit and independence;
- and what of greatness and position a person got, he
- got mainly by achievement, not by birth. But then
- the Church came to the front, with an axe to grind;
- and she was wise, subtle, and knew more than one
- way to skin a cat -- or a nation; she invented "divine
- right of kings," and propped it all around, brick by
- brick, with the Beatitudes -- wrenching them from
- their good purpose to make them fortify an evil one;
- she preached (to the commoner) humility, obedience
- to superiors, the beauty of self-sacrifice; she preached
- (to the commoner) meekness under insult; preached
- (still to the commoner, always to the commoner) pa-
- tience, meanness of spirit, non-resistance under op-
- pression; and she introduced heritable ranks and
- aristocracies, and taught all the Christian populations
- of the earth to bow down to them and worship them.
- Even down to my birth-century that poison was still in
- the blood of Christendom, and the best of English com-
- moners was still content to see his inferiors impudently
- continuing to hold a number of positions, such as lord-
- ships and the throne, to which the grotesque laws of
- his country did not allow him to aspire; in fact, he
- was not merely contented with this strange condition
- of things, he was even able to persuade himself that
- he was proud of it. It seems to show that there isn't
- anything you can't stand, if you are only born and
- bred to it. Of course that taint, that reverence for
- rank and title, had been in our American blood, too --
- I know that; but when I left America it had disap-
- peared -- at least to all intents and purposes. The
- remnant of it was restricted to the dudes and dudesses.
- When a disease has worked its way down to that level,
- it may fairly be said to be out of the system.
-
- But to return to my anomalous position in King
- Arthur's kingdom. Here I was, a giant among pig-
- mies, a man among children, a master intelligence
- among intellectual moles: by all rational measurement
- the one and only actually great man in that whole
- British world; and yet there and then, just as in the
- remote England of my birth-time, the sheep-witted
- earl who could claim long descent from a king's leman,
- acquired at second-hand from the slums of London,
- was a better man than I was. Such a personage was
- fawned upon in Arthur's realm and reverently looked
- up to by everybody, even though his dispositions were
- as mean as his intelligence, and his morals as base as
- his lineage. There were times when HE could sit down
- in the king's presence, but I couldn't. I could have
- got a title easily enough, and that would have raised
- me a large step in everybody's eyes; even in the
- king's, the giver of it. But I didn't ask for it; and I
- declined it when it was offered. I couldn't have enjoyed
- such a thing with my notions; and it wouldn't have
- been fair, anyway, because as far back as I could go,
- our tribe had always been short of the bar sinister. I
- couldn't have felt really and satisfactorily fine and
- proud and set-up over any title except one that should
- come from the nation itself, the only legitimate source;
- and such an one I hoped to win; and in the course of
- years of honest and honorable endeavor, I did win it
- and did wear it with a high and clean pride. This
- title fell casually from the lips of a blacksmith, one
- day, in a village, was caught up as a happy thought
- and tossed from mouth to mouth with a laugh and an
- affirmative vote; in ten days it had swept the kingdom,
- and was become as familiar as the king's name. I
- was never known by any other designation afterward,
- whether in the nation's talk or in grave debate upon
- matters of state at the council-board of the sovereign.
- This title, translated into modern speech, would be
- THE BOSS. Elected by the nation. That suited me.
- And it was a pretty high title. There were very few
- THE'S, and I was one of them. If you spoke of the
- duke, or the earl, or the bishop, how could anybody
- tell which one you meant? But if you spoke of The
- King or The Queen or The Boss, it was different.
-
- Well, I liked the king, and as king I respected him
- -- respected the office; at least respected it as much as
- I was capable of respecting any unearned supremacy;
- but as MEN I looked down upon him and his nobles --
- privately. And he and they liked me, and respected
- my office; but as an animal, without birth or sham
- title, they looked down upon me -- and were not par-
- ticularly private about it, either. I didn't charge for
- my opinion about them, and they didn't charge for
- their opinion about me: the account was square, the
- books balanced, everybody was satisfied.
-
-
- CHAPTER IX.
- THE TOURNAMENT
-
- THEY were always having grand tournaments there
- at Camelot; and very stirring and picturesque
- and ridiculous human bull-fights they were, too, but
- just a little wearisome to the practical mind. How-
- ever, I was generally on hand -- for two reasons: a
- man must not hold himself aloof from the things which
- his friends and his community have at heart if he
- would be liked -- especially as a statesman; and both
- as business man and statesman I wanted to study the
- tournament and see if I couldn't invent an improve-
- ment on it. That reminds me to remark, in passing,
- that the very first official thing I did, in my adminis-
- tration -- and it was on the very first day of it, too --
- was to start a patent office; for I knew that a country
- without a patent office and good patent laws was just
- a crab, and couldn't travel any way but sideways or
- backways.
-
- Things ran along, a tournament nearly every week;
- and now and then the boys used to want me to take a
- hand -- I mean Sir Launcelot and the rest -- but I
- said I would by and by; no hurry yet, and too much
- government machinery to oil up and set to rights and
- start a-going.
-
- We had one tournament which was continued from
- day to day during more than a week, and as many as
- five hundred knights took part in it, from first to last.
- They were weeks gathering. They came on horseback
- from everywhere; from the very ends of the country,
- and even from beyond the sea; and many brought
- ladies, and all brought squires and troops of servants.
- It was a most gaudy and gorgeous crowd, as to cos-
- tumery, and very characteristic of the country and the
- time, in the way of high animal spirits, innocent inde-
- cencies of language, and happy-hearted indifference to
- morals. It was fight or look on, all day and every
- day; and sing, gamble, dance, carouse half the night
- every night. They had a most noble good time. You
- never saw such people. Those banks of beautiful
- ladies, shining in their barbaric splendors, would see
- a knight sprawl from his horse in the lists with a lance-
- shaft the thickness of your ankle clean through him
- and the blood spouting, and instead of fainting they
- would clap their hands and crowd each other for a
- better view; only sometimes one would dive into her
- handkerchief, and look ostentatiously broken-hearted,
- and then you could lay two to one that there was a
- scandal there somewhere and she was afraid the public
- hadn't found it out.
-
- The noise at night would have been annoying to me
- ordinarily, but I didn't mind it in the present circum-
- stances, because it kept me from hearing the quacks
- detaching legs and arms from the day's cripples.
- They ruined an uncommon good old cross-cut saw for
- me, and broke the saw-buck, too, but I let it pass.
- And as for my axe -- well, I made up my mind that
- the next time I lent an axe to a surgeon I would pick
- my century.
-
- I not only watched this tournament from day to day,
- but detailed an intelligent priest from my Department
- of Public Morals and Agriculture, and ordered him to
- report it; for it was my purpose by and by, when I
- should have gotten the people along far enough, to
- start a newspaper. The first thing you want in a new
- country, is a patent office; then work up your school
- system; and after that, out with your paper. A
- newspaper has its faults, and plenty of them, but no
- matter, it's hark from the tomb for a dead nation, and
- don't you forget it. You can't resurrect a dead nation
- without it; there isn't any way. So I wanted to
- sample things, and be finding out what sort of reporter-
- material I might be able to rake together out of the
- sixth century when I should come to need it.
-
- Well, the priest did very well, considering. He got
- in all the details, and that is a good thing in a local
- item: you see, he had kept books for the undertaker-
- department of his church when he was younger,
- and there, you know, the money's in the details; the
- more details, the more swag: bearers, mutes, candles,
- prayers -- everything counts; and if the bereaved don't
- buy prayers enough you mark up your candles with a
- forked pencil, and your bill shows up all right. And
- he had a good knack at getting in the complimentary
- thing here and there about a knight that was likely to
- advertise -- no, I mean a knight that had influence;
- and he also had a neat gift of exaggeration, for in his
- time he had kept door for a pious hermit who lived in
- a sty and worked miracles.
-
- Of course this novice's report lacked whoop and
- crash and lurid description, and therefore wanted the
- true ring; but its antique wording was quaint and
- sweet and simple, and full of the fragrances and flavors
- of the time, and these little merits made up in a meas-
- ure for its more important lacks. Here is an extract
- from it:
-
- Then Sir Brian de les Isles and Grummore Grummorsum,
- knights of the castle, encountered with Sir Aglovale and
- Sir Tor, and Sir Tor smote down Sir Grummore Grummorsum
- to the earth. Then came Sir Carados of the dolorous
- tower, and Sir Turquine, knights of the castle, and
- there encountered with them Sir Percivale de Galis
- and Sir Lamorak de Galis, that were two brethren, and
- there encountered Sir Percivale with Sir Carados, and
- either brake their spears unto their hands, and then
- Sir Turquine with Sir Lamorak, and either of them smote
- down other, horse and all, to the earth, and either
- parties rescued other and horsed them again. And Sir
- Arnold, and Sir Gauter, knights of the castle,
- encountered with Sir Brandiles and Sir Kay, and these
- four knights encountered mightily, and brake their
- spears to their hands. Then came Sir Pertolope from
- the castle, and there encountered with him Sir Lionel,
- and there Sir Pertolope the green knight smote down Sir
- Lionel, brother to Sir Launcelot. All this was marked
- by noble heralds, who bare him best, and their names.
- Then Sir Bleobaris brake his spear upon Sir Gareth,
- but of that stroke Sir Bleobaris fell to the earth.
- When Sir Galihodin saw that, he bad Sir Gareth keep him,
- and Sir Gareth smote him to the earth. Then Sir Galihud
- gat a spear to avenge his brother, and in the same wise
- Sir Gareth served him, and Sir Dinadan and his brother
- La Cote Male Taile, and Sir Sagramore le Disirous, and
- Sir Dodinas le Savage; all these he bare down with one
- spear. When King Aswisance of Ireland saw Sir Gareth
- fare so he marvelled what he might be, that one time
- seemed green, and another time, at his again coming,
- he seemed blue. And thus at every course that he rode
- to and fro he changed his color, so that there might
- neither king nor knight have ready cognizance of him.
- Then Sir Agwisance the King of Ireland encountered
- with Sir Gareth, and there Sir Gareth smote him from
- his horse, saddle and all. And then came King Carados
- of Scotland, and Sir Gareth smote him down horse and
- man. And in the same wise he served King Uriens of the
- land of Gore. And then there came in Six Bagdemagus,
- and Sir Gareth smote him down horse and man to the
- earth. And Bagdemagus's son Meliganus brake a spear
- upon Sir Gareth mightily and knightly. And then Sir
- Galahault the noble prince cried on high, Knight with
- the many colors, well hast thou justed; now make thee
- ready that I may just with thee. Sir Gareth heard him,
- and he gat a great spear, and so they encountered
- together, and there the prince brake his spear; but Sir
- Gareth smote him upon the left side of the helm, that
- he reeled here and there, and he had fallen down had not
- his men recovered him. Truly, said King Arthur, that
- knight with the many colors is a good knight. Wherefore
- the king called unto him Sir Launcelot, and prayed him
- to encounter with that knight. Sir, said Launcelot, I
- may as well find in my heart for to forbear him at
- this time, for he hath had travail enough this day, and
- when a good knight doth so well upon some day, it is
- no good knight's part to let him of his worship, and,
- namely, when he seeth a knight hath done so great
- labour; for peradventure, said Sir Launcelot, his
- quarrel is here this day, and peradventure he is best
- beloved with this lady of all that be here, for I see
- well he paineth himself and enforceth him to do great
- deeds, and therefore, said Sir Launcelot, as for me,
- this day he shall have the honour; though it lay in my
- power to put him from it, I would not.
-
- There was an unpleasant little episode that day,
- which for reasons of state I struck out of my priest's
- report. You will have noticed that Garry was doing
- some great fighting in the engagement. When I say
- Garry I mean Sir Gareth. Garry was my private pet
- name for him; it suggests that I had a deep affection
- for him, and that was the case. But it was a private
- pet name only, and never spoken aloud to any one,
- much less to him; being a noble, he would not have
- endured a familiarity like that from me. Well, to pro-
- ceed: I sat in the private box set apart for me as the
- king's minister. While Sir Dinadan was waiting for
- his turn to enter the lists, he came in there and sat
- down and began to talk; for he was always making up
- to me, because I was a stranger and he liked to have a
- fresh market for his jokes, the most of them having
- reached that stage of wear where the teller has to do
- the laughing himself while the other person looks sick.
- I had always responded to his efforts as well as I
- could, and felt a very deep and real kindness for him,
- too, for the reason that if by malice of fate he knew
- the one particular anecdote which I had heard oftenest
- and had most hated and most loathed all my life, he
- had at least spared it me. It was one which I had
- heard attributed to every humorous person who had
- ever stood on American soil, from Columbus down to
- Artemus Ward. It was about a humorous lecturer
- who flooded an ignorant audience with the killingest
- jokes for an hour and never got a laugh; and then
- when he was leaving, some gray simpletons wrung him
- gratefully by the hand and said it had been the funniest
- thing they had ever heard, and "it was all they could
- do to keep from laughin' right out in meetin'." That
- anecdote never saw the day that it was worth the telling;
- and yet I had sat under the telling of it hundreds and
- thousands and millions and billions of times, and cried
- and cursed all the way through. Then who can hope
- to know what my feelings were, to hear this armor-
- plated ass start in on it again, in the murky twilight of
- tradition, before the dawn of history, while even
- Lactantius might be referred to as "the late Lactan-
- tius," and the Crusades wouldn't be born for five
- hundred years yet? Just as he finished, the call-boy
- came; so, haw-hawing like a demon, he went rattling
- and clanking out like a crate of loose castings, and I
- knew nothing more. It was some minutes before I
- came to, and then I opened my eyes just in time to
- see Sir Gareth fetch him an awful welt, and I uncon-
- sciously out with the prayer, "I hope to gracious he's
- killed!" But by ill-luck, before I had got half through
- with the words, Sir Gareth crashed into Sir Sagramor
- le Desirous and sent him thundering over his horse's
- crupper, and Sir Sagramor caught my remark and
- thought I meant it for HIM.
-
- Well, whenever one of those people got a thing into
- his head, there was no getting it out again. I knew
- that, so I saved my breath, and offered no explana-
- tions. As soon as Sir Sagramor got well, he notified
- me that there was a little account to settle between us,
- and he named a day three or four years in the future;
- place of settlement, the lists where the offense had
- been given. I said I would be ready when he got
- back. You see, he was going for the Holy Grail.
- The boys all took a flier at the Holy Grail now and
- then. It was a several years' cruise. They always
- put in the long absence snooping around, in the most
- conscientious way, though none of them had any idea
- where the Holy Grail really was, and I don't think any
- of them actually expected to find it, or would have
- known what to do with it if he HAD run across it.
- You see, it was just the Northwest Passage of that
- day, as you may say; that was all. Every year expe-
- ditions went out holy grailing, and next year relief
- expeditions went out to hunt for THEM. There was
- worlds of reputation in it, but no money. Why, they
- actually wanted ME to put in! Well, I should smile.
-
-
- CHAPTER X.
- BEGINNINGS OF CIVILIZATION
-
- THE Round Table soon heard of the challenge, and
- of course it was a good deal discussed, for such
- things interested the boys. The king thought I ought
- now to set forth in quest of adventures, so that I
- might gain renown and be the more worthy to meet
- Sir Sagramor when the several years should have rolled
- away. I excused myself for the present; I said it
- would take me three or four years yet to get things
- well fixed up and going smoothly; then I should be
- ready; all the chances were that at the end of that
- time Sir Sagramor would still be out grailing, so no
- valuable time would be lost by the postponement; I
- should then have been in office six or seven years,
- and I believed my system and machinery would be so
- well developed that I could take a holiday without its
- working any harm.
-
- I was pretty well satisfied with what I had already
- accomplished. In various quiet nooks and corners I
- had the beginnings of all sorts of industries under way
- -- nuclei of future vast factories, the iron and steel
- missionaries of my future civilization. In these were
- gathered together the brightest young minds I could
- find, and I kept agents out raking the country for
- more, all the time. I was training a crowd of ignorant
- folk into experts -- experts in every sort of handiwork
- and scientific calling. These nurseries of mine went
- smoothly and privately along undisturbed in their ob-
- scure country retreats, for nobody was allowed to
- come into their precincts without a special permit --
- for I was afraid of the Church.
-
- I had started a teacher-factory and a lot of Sunday-
- schools the first thing; as a result, I now had an ad-
- mirable system of graded schools in full blast in those
- places, and also a complete variety of Protestant con-
- gregations all in a prosperous and growing condition.
- Everybody could be any kind of a Christian he wanted
- to; there was perfect freedom in that matter. But I
- confined public religious teaching to the churches and
- the Sunday-schools, permitting nothing of it in my
- other educational buildings. I could have given my
- own sect the preference and made everybody a Presby-
- terian without any trouble, but that would have been
- to affront a law of human nature: spiritual wants and
- instincts are as various in the human family as are
- physical appetites, complexions, and features, and a
- man is only at his best, morally, when he is equipped
- with the religious garment whose color and shape and
- size most nicely accommodate themselves to the spirit-
- ual complexion, angularities, and stature of the indi-
- vidual who wears it; and, besides, I was afraid of a
- united Church; it makes a mighty power, the mightiest
- conceivable, and then when it by and by gets into
- selfish hands, as it is always bound to do, it means
- death to human liberty and paralysis to human
- thought.
-
- All mines were royal property, and there were a
- good many of them. They had formerly been worked
- as savages always work mines -- holes grubbed in the
- earth and the mineral brought up in sacks of hide by
- hand, at the rate of a ton a day; but I had begun to
- put the mining on a scientific basis as early as I could.
-
- Yes, I had made pretty handsome progress when Sir
- Sagramor's challenge struck me.
-
- Four years rolled by -- and then! Well, you would
- never imagine it in the world. Unlimited power is the
- ideal thing when it is in safe hands. The despotism of
- heaven is the one absolutely perfect government. An
- earthly despotism would be the absolutely perfect earthly
- government, if the conditions were the same, namely,
- the despot the perfectest individual of the human race,
- and his lease of life perpetual. But as a perishable
- perfect man must die, and leave his despotism in the
- hands of an imperfect successor, an earthly despotism
- is not merely a bad form of government, it is the worst
- form that is possible.
-
- My works showed what a despot could do with the
- resources of a kingdom at his command. Unsuspected
- by this dark land, I had the civilization of the nine-
- teenth century booming under its very nose! It was
- fenced away from the public view, but there it was, a
- gigantic and unassailable fact -- and to be heard from,
- yet, if I lived and had luck. There it was, as sure a
- fact and as substantial a fact as any serene volcano,
- standing innocent with its smokeless summit in the
- blue sky and giving no sign of the rising hell in its
- bowels. My schools and churches were children four
- years before; they were grown-up now; my shops of
- that day were vast factories now; where I had a dozen
- trained men then, I had a thousand now; where I had
- one brilliant expert then, I had fifty now. I stood
- with my hand on the cock, so to speak, ready to turn
- it on and flood the midnight world with light at any
- moment. But I was not going to do the thing in that
- sudden way. It was not my policy. The people
- could not have stood it; and, moreover, I should have
- had the Established Roman Catholic Church on my
- back in a minute.
-
- No, I had been going cautiously all the while. I
- had had confidential agents trickling through the
- country some time, whose office was to undermine
- knighthood by imperceptible degrees, and to gnaw a
- little at this and that and the other superstition, and so
- prepare the way gradually for a better order of things.
- I was turning on my light one-candle-power at a time,
- and meant to continue to do so.
-
- I had scattered some branch schools secretly about
- the kingdom, and they were doing very well. I meant
- to work this racket more and more, as time wore on, if
- nothing occurred to frighten me. One of my deepest
- secrets was my West Point -- my military academy. I
- kept that most jealously out of sight; and I did the
- same with my naval academy which I had established
- at a remote seaport. Both were prospering to my
- satisfaction.
-
- Clarence was twenty-two now, and was my head
- executive, my right hand. He was a darling; he was
- equal to anything; there wasn't anything he couldn't
- turn his hand to. Of late I had been training him for
- journalism, for the time seemed about right for a start
- in the newspaper line; nothing big, but just a small
- weekly for experimental circulation in my civilization-
- nurseries. He took to it like a duck; there was an
- editor concealed in him, sure. Already he had doubled
- himself in one way; he talked sixth century and wrote
- nineteenth. His journalistic style was climbing, stead-
- ily; it was already up to the back settlement Alabama
- mark, and couldn't be told from the editorial output of
- that region either by matter or flavor.
-
- We had another large departure on hand, too. This
- was a telegraph and a telephone; our first venture in
- this line. These wires were for private service only,
- as yet, and must be kept private until a riper day
- should come. We had a gang of men on the road,
- working mainly by night. They were stringing ground
- wires; we were afraid to put up poles, for they would
- attract too much inquiry. Ground wires were good
- enough, in both instances, for my wires were protected
- by an insulation of my own invention which was per-
- fect. My men had orders to strike across country,
- avoiding roads, and establishing connection with any
- considerable towns whose lights betrayed their pres-
- ence, and leaving experts in charge. Nobody could
- tell you how to find any place in the kingdom, for
- nobody ever went intentionally to any place, but only
- struck it by accident in his wanderings, and then gener-
- ally left it without thinking to inquire what its name
- was. At one time and another we had sent out topo-
- graphical expeditions to survey and map the kingdom,
- but the priests had always interfered and raised trouble.
- So we had given the thing up, for the present; it
- would be poor wisdom to antagonize the Church.
-
- As for the general condition of the country, it was
- as it had been when I arrived in it, to all intents and
- purposes. I had made changes, but they were neces-
- sarily slight, and they were not noticeable. Thus far,
- I had not even meddled with taxation, outside of the
- taxes which provided the royal revenues. I had
- systematized those, and put the service on an effective
- and righteous basis. As a result, these revenues were
- already quadrupled, and yet the burden was so much
- more equably distributed than before, that all the king-
- dom felt a sense of relief, and the praises of my ad-
- ministration were hearty and general.
-
- Personally, I struck an interruption, now, but I did
- not mind it, it could not have happened at a better
- time. Earlier it could have annoyed me, but now
- everything was in good hands and swimming right
- along. The king had reminded me several times, of
- late, that the postponement I had asked for, four years
- before, had about run out now. It was a hint that I
- ought to be starting out to seek adventures and get up
- a reputation of a size to make me worthy of the honor
- of breaking a lance with Sir Sagramor, who was still
- out grailing, but was being hunted for by various relief
- expeditions, and might be found any year, now. So
- you see I was expecting this interruption; it did not
- take me by surprise.
-
-
- CHAPTER XI.
- THE YANKEE IN SEARCH OF ADVENTURES.
-
- THERE never was such a country for wandering
- liars; and they were of both sexes. Hardly a
- month went by without one of these tramps arriving;
- and generally loaded with a tale about some princess
- or other wanting help to get her out of some far-away
- castle where she was held in captivity by a lawless
- scoundrel, usually a giant. Now you would think that
- the first thing the king would do after listening to such
- a novelette from an entire stranger, would be to ask
- for credentials -- yes, and a pointer or two as to
- locality of castle, best route to it, and so on. But
- nobody ever thought of so simple and common-sense
- a thing at that. No, everybody swallowed these peo-
- ple's lies whole, and never asked a question of any
- sort or about anything. Well, one day when I was
- not around, one of these people came along -- it was a
- she one, this time -- and told a tale of the usual pat-
- tern. Her mistress was a captive in a vast and gloomy
- castle, along with forty-four other young and beautiful
- girls, pretty much all of them princesses; they had
- been languishing in that cruel captivity for twenty-six
- years; the masters of the castle were three stupendous
- brothers, each with four arms and one eye -- the eye in
- the center of the forehead, and as big as a fruit. Sort of
- fruit not mentioned; their usual slovenliness in statistics.
-
- Would you believe it? The king and the whole
- Round Table were in raptures over this preposterous
- opportunity for adventure. Every knight of the Table
- jumped for the chance, and begged for it; but to their
- vexation and chagrin the king conferred it upon me,
- who had not asked for it at all.
-
- By an effort, I contained my joy when Clarence
- brought me the news. But he -- he could not contain
- his. His mouth gushed delight and gratitude in a
- steady discharge -- delight in my good fortune, grati-
- tude to the king for this splendid mark of his favor for
- me. He could keep neither his legs nor his body still,
- but pirouetted about the place in an airy ecstasy of
- happiness.
-
- On my side, I could have cursed the kindness that
- conferred upon me this benefaction, but I kept my
- vexation under the surface for policy's sake, and did
- what I could to let on to be glad. Indeed, I SAID I
- was glad. And in a way it was true; I was as glad as
- a person is when he is scalped.
-
- Well, one must make the best of things, and not
- waste time with useless fretting, but get down to busi-
- ness and see what can be done. In all lies there is
- wheat among the chaff; I must get at the wheat in this
- case: so I sent for the girl and she came. She was a
- comely enough creature, and soft and modest, but, if
- signs went for anything, she didn't know as much as a
- lady's watch. I said:
-
- "My dear, have you been questioned as to particu-
- lars?"
-
- She said she hadn't.
-
- "Well, I didn't expect you had, but I thought I
- would ask, to make sure; it's the way I've been raised.
- Now you mustn't take it unkindly if I remind you that
- as we don't know you, we must go a little slow. You
- may be all right, of course, and we'll hope that you
- are; but to take it for granted isn't business. YOU
- understand that. I'm obliged to ask you a few ques-
- tions; just answer up fair and square, and don't be
- afraid. Where do you live, when you are at home?"
-
- "In the land of Moder, fair sir."
-
- "Land of Moder. I don't remember hearing of it
- before. Parents living?"
-
- "As to that, I know not if they be yet on live, sith
- it is many years that I have lain shut up in the castle."
-
- "Your name, please?"
-
- "I hight the Demoiselle Alisande la Carteloise, an it
- please you."
-
- "Do you know anybody here who can identify you?"
-
- "That were not likely, fair lord, I being come hither
- now for the first time."
-
- "Have you brought any letters -- any documents --
- any proofs that you are trustworthy and truthful?"
-
- "Of a surety, no; and wherefore should I? Have
- I not a tongue, and cannot I say all that myself?"
-
- "But YOUR saying it, you know, and somebody
- else's saying it, is different."
-
- "Different? How might that be? I fear me I do
- not understand."
-
- "Don't UNDERSTAND? Land of -- why, you see --
- you see -- why, great Scott, can't you understand a
- little thing like that? Can't you understand the
- difference between your -- WHY do you look so inno-
- cent and idiotic!"
-
- "I? In truth I know not, but an it were the will of
- God."
-
- "Yes, yes, I reckon that's about the size of it.
- Don't mind my seeming excited; I'm not. Let us
- change the subject. Now as to this castle, with forty-
- five princesses in it, and three ogres at the head of it,
- tell me -- where is this harem?"
-
- "Harem?"
-
- "The CASTLE, you understand; where is the castle?"
-
- "Oh, as to that, it is great, and strong, and well beseen,
- and lieth in a far country. Yes, it is many leagues."
-
- "HOW many?"
-
- "Ah, fair sir, it were woundily hard to tell, they
- are so many, and do so lap the one upon the other,
- and being made all in the same image and tincted with
- the same color, one may not know the one league from
- its fellow, nor how to count them except they be taken
- apart, and ye wit well it were God's work to do that,
- being not within man's capacity; for ye will note --"
-
- "Hold on, hold on, never mind about the distance;
- WHEREABOUTS does the castle lie? What's the direction
- from here?"
-
- "Ah, please you sir, it hath no direction from
- here; by reason that the road lieth not straight, but
- turneth evermore; wherefore the direction of its place
- abideth not, but is some time under the one sky and
- anon under another, whereso if ye be minded that it is
- in the east, and wend thitherward, ye shall observe that
- the way of the road doth yet again turn upon itself by
- the space of half a circle, and this marvel happing
- again and yet again and still again, it will grieve you
- that you had thought by vanities of the mind to thwart
- and bring to naught the will of Him that giveth not a
- castle a direction from a place except it pleaseth Him,
- and if it please Him not, will the rather that even all
- castles and all directions thereunto vanish out of the
- earth, leaving the places wherein they tarried desolate
- and vacant, so warning His creatures that where He
- will He will, and where He will not He --"
-
- "Oh, that's all right, that's all right, give us a rest;
- never mind about the direction, HANG the direction -- I
- beg pardon, I beg a thousand pardons, I am not well
- to-day; pay no attention when I soliloquize, it is an
- old habit, an old, bad habit, and hard to get rid of
- when one's digestion is all disordered with eating food
- that was raised forever and ever before he was born;
- good land! a man can't keep his functions regular on
- spring chickens thirteen hundred years old. But come
- -- never mind about that; let's -- have you got such
- a thing as a map of that region about you? Now a
- good map --"
-
- "Is it peradventure that manner of thing which of
- late the unbelievers have brought from over the great
- seas, which, being boiled in oil, and an onion and salt
- added thereto, doth --"
-
- "What, a map? What are you talking about?
- Don't you know what a map is? There, there, never
- mind, don't explain, I hate explanations; they fog a
- thing up so that you can't tell anything about it. Run
- along, dear; good-day; show her the way, Clarence."
-
- Oh, well, it was reasonably plain, now, why these
- donkeys didn't prospect these liars for details. It
- may be that this girl had a fact in her somewhere, but
- I don't believe you could have sluiced it out with a
- hydraulic; nor got it with the earlier forms of blasting,
- even; it was a case for dynamite. Why, she was a
- perfect ass; and yet the king and his knights had
- listened to her as if she had been a leaf out of the
- gospel. It kind of sizes up the whole party. And
- think of the simple ways of this court: this wandering
- wench hadn't any more trouble to get access to the
- king in his palace than she would have had to get into
- the poorhouse in my day and country. In fact, he
- was glad to see her, glad to hear her tale; with that
- adventure of hers to offer, she was as welcome as a
- corpse is to a coroner.
-
- Just as I was ending-up these reflections, Clarence
- came back. I remarked upon the barren result of my
- efforts with the girl; hadn't got hold of a single point
- that could help me to find the castle. The youth
- looked a little surprised, or puzzled, or something, and
- intimated that he had been wondering to himself what
- I had wanted to ask the girl all those questions for.
-
- "Why, great guns," I said, "don't I want to find
- the castle? And how else would I go about it?"
-
- "La, sweet your worship, one may lightly answer
- that, I ween. She will go with thee. They always
- do. She will ride with thee."
-
- "Ride with me? Nonsense!"
-
- "But of a truth she will. She will ride with thee.
- Thou shalt see."
-
- "What? She browse around the hills and scour the
- woods with me -- alone -- and I as good as engaged to
- be married? Why, it's scandalous. Think how it
- would look."
-
- My, the dear face that rose before me! The boy
- was eager to know all about this tender matter. I
- swore him to secresy and then whispered her name --
- "Puss Flanagan." He looked disappointed, and said
- he didn't remember the countess. How natural it was
- for the little courtier to give her a rank. He asked me
- where she lived.
-
- "In East Har--" I came to myself and stopped,
- a little confused; then I said, "Never mind, now; I'll
- tell you some time."
-
- And might he see her? Would I let him see her
- some day?
-
- It was but a little thing to promise -- thirteen hun-
- dred years or so -- and he so eager; so I said Yes.
- But I sighed; I couldn't help it. And yet there was
- no sense in sighing, for she wasn't born yet. But that
- is the way we are made: we don't reason, where we
- feel; we just feel.
-
- My expedition was all the talk that day and that
- night, and the boys were very good to me, and made
- much of me, and seemed to have forgotten their vexa-
- tion and disappointment, and come to be as anxious
- for me to hive those ogres and set those ripe old vir-
- gins loose as if it were themselves that had the con-
- tract. Well, they WERE good children -- but just chil-
- dren, that is all. And they gave me no end of points
- about how to scout for giants, and how to scoop them
- in; and they told me all sorts of charms against en-
- chantments, and gave me salves and other rubbish to
- put on my wounds. But it never occurred to one of
- them to reflect that if I was such a wonderful necro-
- mancer as I was pretending to be, I ought not to need
- salves or instructions, or charms against enchantments,
- and, least of all, arms and armor, on a foray of any
- kind -- even against fire-spouting dragons, and devils
- hot from perdition, let alone such poor adversaries as
- these I was after, these commonplace ogres of the
- back settlements.
-
- I was to have an early breakfast, and start at dawn,
- for that was the usual way; but I had the demon's
- own time with my armor, and this delayed me a little.
- It is troublesome to get into, and there is so much
- detail. First you wrap a layer or two of blanket around
- your body, for a sort of cushion and to keep off the
- cold iron; then you put on your sleeves and shirt of
- chain mail -- these are made of small steel links woven
- together, and they form a fabric so flexible that if you
- toss your shirt onto the floor, it slumps into a pile like
- a peck of wet fish-net; it is very heavy and is nearly
- the uncomfortablest material in the world for a night
- shirt, yet plenty used it for that -- tax collectors, and
- reformers, and one-horse kings with a defective title,
- and those sorts of people; then you put on your shoes
- -- flat-boats roofed over with interleaving bands of
- steel -- and screw your clumsy spurs into the heels.
- Next you buckle your greaves on your legs, and your
- cuisses on your thighs; then come your backplate and
- your breastplate, and you begin to feel crowded; then
- you hitch onto the breastplate the half-petticoat of
- broad overlapping bands of steel which hangs down in
- front but is scolloped out behind so you can sit down,
- and isn't any real improvement on an inverted coal
- scuttle, either for looks or for wear, or to wipe your
- hands on; next you belt on your sword; then you
- put your stove-pipe joints onto your arms, your iron
- gauntlets onto your hands, your iron rat-trap onto
- your head, with a rag of steel web hitched onto it to
- hang over the back of your neck -- and there you are,
- snug as a candle in a candle-mould. This is no time
- to dance. Well, a man that is packed away like that
- is a nut that isn't worth the cracking, there is so little
- of the meat, when you get down to it, by comparison
- with the shell.
-
- The boys helped me, or I never could have got in.
- Just as we finished, Sir Bedivere happened in, and I
- saw that as like as not I hadn't chosen the most con-
- venient outfit for a long trip. How stately he looked;
- and tall and broad and grand. He had on his head a
- conical steel casque that only came down to his ears,
- and for visor had only a narrow steel bar that extended
- down to his upper lip and protected his nose; and all
- the rest of him, from neck to heel, was flexible chain
- mail, trousers and all. But pretty much all of him was
- hidden under his outside garment, which of course was
- of chain mail, as I said, and hung straight from his
- shoulders to his ankles; and from his middle to the
- bottom, both before and behind, was divided, so that
- he could ride and let the skirts hang down on each
- side. He was going grailing, and it was just the outfit
- for it, too. I would have given a good deal for that
- ulster, but it was too late now to be fooling around.
- The sun was just up, the king and the court were all
- on hand to see me off and wish me luck; so it wouldn't
- be etiquette for me to tarry. You don't get on your
- horse yourself; no, if you tried it you would get dis-
- appointed. They carry you out, just as they carry a
- sun-struck man to the drug store, and put you on, and
- help get you to rights, and fix your feet in the stirrups;
- and all the while you do feel so strange and stuffy and
- like somebody else -- like somebody that has been mar-
- ried on a sudden, or struck by lightning, or something
- like that, and hasn't quite fetched around yet, and is sort
- of numb, and can't just get his bearings. Then they
- stood up the mast they called a spear, in its socket by
- my left foot, and I gripped it with my hand; lastly
- they hung my shield around my neck, and I was all
- complete and ready to up anchor and get to sea.
- Everybody was as good to me as they could be, and
- a maid of honor gave me the stirrup-cup her own self.
- There was nothing more to do now, but for that
- damsel to get up behind me on a pillion, which she
- did, and put an arm or so around me to hold on.
-
- And so we started, and everybody gave us a good-
- bye and waved their handkerchiefs or helmets. And
- everybody we met, going down the hill and through
- the village was respectful to us, except some shabby
- little boys on the outskirts. They said:
-
- "Oh, what a guy!" And hove clods at us.
-
- In my experience boys are the same in all ages.
- They don't respect anything, they don't care for any-
- thing or anybody. They say "Go up, baldhead" to
- the prophet going his unoffending way in the gray of
- antiquity; they sass me in the holy gloom of the
- Middle Ages; and I had seen them act the same way
- in Buchanan's administration; I remember, because I
- was there and helped. The prophet had his bears and
- settled with his boys; and I wanted to get down and
- settle with mine, but it wouldn't answer, because I
- couldn't have got up again. I hate a country without
- a derrick.
-
-
- CHAPTER XII.
- SLOW TORTURE
-
- STRAIGHT off, we were in the country. It was
- most lovely and pleasant in those sylvan solitudes
- in the early cool morning in the first freshness of
- autumn. From hilltops we saw fair green valleys lying
- spread out below, with streams winding through them,
- and island groves of trees here and there, and huge
- lonely oaks scattered about and casting black blots of
- shade; and beyond the valleys we saw the ranges of
- hills, blue with haze, stretching away in billowy per-
- spective to the horizon, with at wide intervals a dim
- fleck of white or gray on a wave-summit, which we
- knew was a castle. We crossed broad natural lawns
- sparkling with dew, and we moved like spirits, the
- cushioned turf giving out no sound of footfall; we
- dreamed along through glades in a mist of green light
- that got its tint from the sun-drenched roof of leaves
- overhead, and by our feet the clearest and coldest of
- runlets went frisking and gossiping over its reefs and
- making a sort of whispering music, comfortable to hear;
- and at times we left the world behind and entered into
- the solemn great deeps and rich gloom of the forest,
- where furtive wild things whisked and scurried by and
- were gone before you could even get your eye on the
- place where the noise was; and where only the earliest
- birds were turning out and getting to business with a
- song here and a quarrel yonder and a mysterious far-
- off hammering and drumming for worms on a tree trunk
- away somewhere in the impenetrable remotenesses of
- the woods. And by and by out we would swing again
- into the glare.
-
- About the third or fourth or fifth time that we swung
- out into the glare -- it was along there somewhere, a
- couple of hours or so after sun-up -- it wasn't as pleas-
- ant as it had been. It was beginning to get hot. This
- was quite noticeable. We had a very long pull, after
- that, without any shade. Now it is curious how
- progressively little frets grow and multiply after they
- once get a start. Things which I didn't mind at all,
- at first, I began to mind now -- and more and more,
- too, all the time. The first ten or fifteen times I wanted
- my handkerchief I didn't seem to care; I got along,
- and said never mind, it isn't any matter, and dropped
- it out of my mind. But now it was different; I wanted
- it all the time; it was nag, nag, nag, right along, and
- no rest; I couldn't get it out of my mind; and so at
- last I lost my temper and said hang a man that would
- make a suit of armor without any pockets in it. You
- see I had my handkerchief in my helmet; and some
- other things; but it was that kind of a helmet that you
- can't take off by yourself. That hadn't occurred to
- me when I put it there; and in fact I didn't know it.
- I supposed it would be particularly convenient there.
- And so now, the thought of its being there, so handy
- and close by, and yet not get-at-able, made it all the
- worse and the harder to bear. Yes, the thing that you
- can't get is the thing that you want, mainly; every one
- has noticed that. Well, it took my mind off from every-
- thing else; took it clear off, and centered it in my
- helmet; and mile after mile, there it stayed, imagining
- the handkerchief, picturing the handkerchief; and it
- was bitter and aggravating to have the salt sweat keep
- trickling down into my eyes, and I couldn't get at it.
- It seems like a little thing, on paper, but it was not a
- little thing at all; it was the most real kind of misery.
- I would not say it if it was not so. I made up my
- mind that I would carry along a reticule next time, let
- it look how it might, and people say what they would.
- Of course these iron dudes of the Round Table would
- think it was scandalous, and maybe raise Sheol about
- it, but as for me, give me comfort first, and style after-
- wards. So we jogged along, and now and then we
- struck a stretch of dust, and it would tumble up in
- clouds and get into my nose and make me sneeze
- and cry; and of course I said things I oughtn't to
- have said, I don't deny that. I am not better than
- others.
-
- We couldn't seem to meet anybody in this lone-
- some Britain, not even an ogre; and, in the mood I
- was in then, it was well for the ogre; that is, an
- ogre with a handkerchief. Most knights would have
- thought of nothing but getting his armor; but so I
- got his bandanna, he could keep his hardware, for all
- of me.
-
- Meantime, it was getting hotter and hotter in there.
- You see, the sun was beating down and warming up the
- iron more and more all the time. Well, when you are
- hot, that way, every little thing irritates you. When I
- trotted, I rattled like a crate of dishes, and that annoyed
- me; and moreover I couldn't seem to stand that
- shield slatting and banging, now about my breast, now
- around my back; and if I dropped into a walk my
- joints creaked and screeched in that wearisome way that
- a wheelbarrow does, and as we didn't create any breeze
- at that gait, I was like to get fried in that stove; and
- besides, the quieter you went the heavier the iron set-
- tled down on you and the more and more tons you
- seemed to weigh every minute. And you had to be
- always changing hands, and passing your spear over to
- the other foot, it got so irksome for one hand to hold
- it long at a time.
-
- Well, you know, when you perspire that way, in
- rivers, there comes a time when you -- when you --
- well, when you itch. You are inside, your hands are
- outside; so there you are; nothing but iron between.
- It is not a light thing, let it sound as it may. First
- it is one place; then another; then some more; and
- it goes on spreading and spreading, and at last the ter-
- ritory is all occupied, and nobody can imagine what
- you feel like, nor how unpleasant it is. And when it
- had got to the worst, and it seemed to me that I could
- not stand anything more, a fly got in through the bars
- and settled on my nose, and the bars were stuck and
- wouldn't work, and I couldn't get the visor up; and I
- could only shake my head, which was baking hot by
- this time, and the fly -- well, you know how a fly acts
- when he has got a certainty -- he only minded the
- shaking enough to change from nose to lip, and lip to
- ear, and buzz and buzz all around in there, and keep
- on lighting and biting, in a way that a person, already
- so distressed as I was, simply could not stand. So I
- gave in, and got Alisande to unship the helmet and
- relieve me of it. Then she emptied the conveniences
- out of it and fetched it full of water, and I drank and
- then stood up, and she poured the rest down inside the
- armor. One cannot think how refreshing it was. She
- continued to fetch and pour until I was well soaked
- and thoroughly comfortable.
-
- It was good to have a rest -- and peace. But nothing
- is quite perfect in this life, at any time. I had made a
- pipe a while back, and also some pretty fair tobacco;
- not the real thing, but what some of the Indians use:
- the inside bark of the willow, dried. These comforts
- had been in the helmet, and now I had them again, but
- no matches.
-
- Gradually, as the time wore along, one annoying fact
- was borne in upon my understanding -- that we were
- weather-bound. An armed novice cannot mount his
- horse without help and plenty of it. Sandy was not
- enough; not enough for me, anyway. We had to wait
- until somebody should come along. Waiting, in
- silence, would have been agreeable enough, for I was
- full of matter for reflection, and wanted to give it a
- chance to work. I wanted to try and think out how it
- was that rational or even half-rational men could ever
- have learned to wear armor, considering its incon-
- veniences; and how they had managed to keep up such
- a fashion for generations when it was plain that what I
- had suffered to-day they had had to suffer all the days
- of their lives. I wanted to think that out; and more-
- over I wanted to think out some way to reform this
- evil and persuade the people to let the foolish fashion
- die out; but thinking was out of the question in the
- circumstances. You couldn't think, where Sandy
- was.
-
- She was a quite biddable creature and good-hearted,
- but she had a flow of talk that was as steady as a mill,
- and made your head sore like the drays and wagons in
- a city. If she had had a cork she would have been a
- comfort. But you can't cork that kind; they would
- die. Her clack was going all day, and you would think
- something would surely happen to her works, by and
- by; but no, they never got out of order; and she
- never had to slack up for words. She could grind,
- and pump, and churn, and buzz by the week, and never
- stop to oil up or blow out. And yet the result was
- just nothing but wind. She never had any ideas, any
- more than a fog has. She was a perfect blatherskite;
- I mean for jaw, jaw, jaw, talk, talk, talk, jabber, jabber,
- jabber; but just as good as she could be. I hadn't
- minded her mill that morning, on account of having
- that hornets' nest of other troubles; but more than
- once in the afternoon I had to say:
-
- "Take a rest, child; the way you are using up all
- the domestic air, the kingdom will have to go to im-
- porting it by to-morrow, and it's a low enough treasury
- without that."
-
-
- CHAPTER XIII.
- FREEMEN
-
- YES, it is strange how little a while at a time a per-
- son can be contented. Only a little while back,
- when I was riding and suffering, what a heaven this
- peace, this rest, this sweet serenity in this secluded
- shady nook by this purling stream would have seemed,
- where I could keep perfectly comfortable all the time
- by pouring a dipper of water into my armor now and
- then; yet already I was getting dissatisfied; partly be-
- cause I could not light my pipe -- for, although I had
- long ago started a match factory, I had forgotten to
- bring matches with me -- and partly because we had
- nothing to eat. Here was another illustration of the
- childlike improvidence of this age and people. A man
- in armor always trusted to chance for his food on a
- journey, and would have been scandalized at the idea
- of hanging a basket of sandwiches on his spear. There
- was probably not a knight of all the Round Table com-
- bination who would not rather have died than been
- caught carrying such a thing as that on his flagstaff.
- And yet there could not be anything more sensible.
- It had been my intention to smuggle a couple of sand-
- wiches into my helmet, but I was interrupted in the act,
- and had to make an excuse and lay them aside, and a
- dog got them.
-
- Night approached, and with it a storm. The dark-
- ness came on fast. We must camp, of course. I
- found a good shelter for the demoiselle under a rock,
- and went off and found another for myself. But I was
- obliged to remain in my armor, because I could not get
- it off by myself and yet could not allow Alisande to
- help, because it would have seemed so like undressing
- before folk. It would not have amounted to that in
- reality, because I had clothes on underneath; but the
- prejudices of one's breeding are not gotten rid of just
- at a jump, and I knew that when it came to stripping
- off that bob-tailed iron petticoat I should be embarrassed.
-
- With the storm came a change of weather; and the
- stronger the wind blew, and the wilder the rain lashed
- around, the colder and colder it got. Pretty soon,
- various kinds of bugs and ants and worms and things
- began to flock in out of the wet and crawl down in-
- side my armor to get warm; and while some of them
- behaved well enough, and snuggled up amongst my
- clothes and got quiet, the majority were of a restless,
- uncomfortable sort, and never stayed still, but went
- on prowling and hunting for they did not know what;
- especially the ants, which went tickling along in
- wearisome procession from one end of me to the other
- by the hour, and are a kind of creatures which I
- never wish to sleep with again. It would be my advice
- to persons situated in this way, to not roll or thrash
- around, because this excites the interest of all the
- different sorts of animals and makes every last one of
- them want to turn out and see what is going on, and
- this makes things worse than they were before, and of
- course makes you objurgate harder, too, if you can.
- Still, if one did not roll and thrash around he would
- die; so perhaps it is as well to do one way as the other;
- there is no real choice. Even after I was frozen solid
- I could still distinguish that tickling, just as a corpse
- does when he is taking electric treatment. I said I
- would never wear armor after this trip.
-
- All those trying hours whilst I was frozen and yet
- was in a living fire, as you may say, on account of that
- swarm of crawlers, that same unanswerable question
- kept circling and circling through my tired head: How
- do people stand this miserable armor? How have they
- managed to stand it all these generations? How can
- they sleep at night for dreading the tortures of next
- day?
-
- When the morning came at last, I was in a bad
- enough plight: seedy, drowsy, fagged, from want of
- sleep; weary from thrashing around, famished from
- long fasting; pining for a bath, and to get rid of the
- animals; and crippled with rheumatism. And how
- had it fared with the nobly born, the titled aristocrat,
- the Demoiselle Alisande la Carteloise? Why, she was
- as fresh as a squirrel; she had slept like the dead; and
- as for a bath, probably neither she nor any other noble
- in the land had ever had one, and so she was not
- missing it. Measured by modern standards, they were
- merely modified savages, those people. This noble
- lady showed no impatience to get to breakfast -- and
- that smacks of the savage, too. On their journeys
- those Britons were used to long fasts, and knew how to
- bear them; and also how to freight up against probable
- fasts before starting, after the style of the Indian and
- the anaconda. As like as not, Sandy was loaded for a
- three-day stretch.
-
- We were off before sunrise, Sandy riding and I limp-
- ing along behind. In half an hour we came upon a
- group of ragged poor creatures who had assembled to
- mend the thing which was regarded as a road. They
- were as humble as animals to me; and when I pro-
- posed to breakfast with them, they were so flattered, so
- overwhelmed by this extraordinary condescension of
- mine that at first they were not able to believe that I
- was in earnest. My lady put up her scornful lip and
- withdrew to one side; she said in their hearing that she
- would as soon think of eating with the other cattle -- a
- remark which embarrassed these poor devils merely be-
- cause it referred to them, and not because it insulted or
- offended them, for it didn't. And yet they were not
- slaves, not chattels. By a sarcasm of law and phrase
- they were freemen. Seven-tenths of the free popula-
- tion of the country were of just their class and degree:
- small "independent" farmers, artisans, etc.; which
- is to say, they were the nation, the actual Nation;
- they were about all of it that was useful, or worth sav-
- ing, or really respect-worthy, and to subtract them would
- have been to subtract the Nation and leave behind some
- dregs, some refuse, in the shape of a king, nobility
- and gentry, idle, unproductive, acquainted mainly with
- the arts of wasting and destroying, and of no sort of
- use or value in any rationally constructed world. And
- yet, by ingenious contrivance, this gilded minority, in-
- stead of being in the tail of the procession where it be-
- longed, was marching head up and banners flying, at the
- other end of it; had elected itself to be the Nation,
- and these innumerable clams had permitted it so long
- that they had come at last to accept it as a truth; and
- not only that, but to believe it right and as it should
- be. The priests had told their fathers and themselves
- that this ironical state of things was ordained of God;
- and so, not reflecting upon how unlike God it would
- be to amuse himself with sarcasms, and especially such
- poor transparent ones as this, they had dropped the
- matter there and become respectfully quiet.
-
- The talk of these meek people had a strange enough
- sound in a formerly American ear. They were free-
- men, but they could not leave the estates of their lord
- or their bishop without his permission; they could not
- prepare their own bread, but must have their corn
- ground and their bread baked at his mill and his
- bakery, and pay roundly for the same; they could not
- sell a piece of their own property without paying him a
- handsome percentage of the proceeds, nor buy a piece
- of somebody else's without remembering him in cash
- for the privilege; they had to harvest his grain for him
- gratis, and be ready to come at a moment's notice,
- leaving their own crop to destruction by the threatened
- storm; they had to let him plant fruit trees in their
- fields, and then keep their indignation to themselves
- when his heedless fruit-gatherers trampled the grain
- around the trees; they had to smother their anger when
- his hunting parties galloped through their fields laying
- waste the result of their patient toil; they were not
- allowed to keep doves themselves, and when the swarms
- from my lord's dovecote settled on their crops they
- must not lose their temper and kill a bird, for awful
- would the penalty be; when the harvest was at last
- gathered, then came the procession of robbers to levy
- their blackmail upon it: first the Church carted off its
- fat tenth, then the king's commissioner took his twen-
- tieth, then my lord's people made a mighty inroad
- upon the remainder; after which, the skinned freeman
- had liberty to bestow the remnant in his barn, in case
- it was worth the trouble; there were taxes, and taxes,
- and taxes, and more taxes, and taxes again, and yet
- other taxes -- upon this free and independent pauper,
- but none upon his lord the baron or the bishop, none
- upon the wasteful nobility or the all-devouring Church;
- if the baron would sleep unvexed, the freeman must sit
- up all night after his day's work and whip the ponds to
- keep the frogs quiet; if the freeman's daughter -- but
- no, that last infamy of monarchical government is un-
- printable; and finally, if the freeman, grown desperate
- with his tortures, found his life unendurable under such
- conditions, and sacrificed it and fled to death for mercy
- and refuge, the gentle Church condemned him to
- eternal fire, the gentle law buried him at midnight at the
- cross-roads with a stake through his back, and his master
- the baron or the bishop confiscated all his property and
- turned his widow and his orphans out of doors.
-
- And here were these freemen assembled in the early
- morning to work on their lord the bishop's road three
- days each -- gratis; every head of a family, and every
- son of a family, three days each, gratis, and a day or
- so added for their servants. Why, it was like reading
- about France and the French, before the ever memor-
- able and blessed Revolution, which swept a thousand
- years of such villany away in one swift tidal-wave of
- blood -- one: a settlement of that hoary debt in the
- proportion of half a drop of blood for each hogshead
- of it that had been pressed by slow tortures out of that
- people in the weary stretch of ten centuries of wrong
- and shame and misery the like of which was not to be
- mated but in hell. There were two "Reigns of
- Terror," if we would but remember it and consider it;
- the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in
- heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the
- other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted
- death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a
- hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the
- "horrors" of the minor Terror, the momentary Ter-
- ror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift
- death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from
- hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is
- swift death by lightning compared with death by slow
- fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the
- coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been
- so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but
- all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that
- older and real Terror -- that unspeakably bitter and
- awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see
- in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
-
- These poor ostensible freemen who were sharing
- their breakfast and their talk with me, were as full of
- humble reverence for their king and Church and nobility
- as their worst enemy could desire. There was some-
- thing pitifully ludicrous about it. I asked them if they
- supposed a nation of people ever existed, who, with a
- free vote in every man's hand, would elect that a single
- family and its descendants should reign over it forever,
- whether gifted or boobies, to the exclusion of all other
- families -- including the voter's; and would also elect
- that a certain hundred families should be raised to dizzy
- summits of rank, and clothed on with offensive trans-
- missible glories and privileges to the exclusion of the
- rest of the nation's families -- INCLUDING HIS OWN.
-
- They all looked unhit, and said they didn't know;
- that they had never thought about it before, and it
- hadn't ever occurred to them that a nation could be so
- situated that every man COULD have a say in the govern-
- ment. I said I had seen one -- and that it would last
- until it had an Established Church. Again they were
- all unhit -- at first. But presently one man looked up
- and asked me to state that proposition again; and state
- it slowly, so it could soak into his understanding. I
- did it; and after a little he had the idea, and he
- brought his fist down and said HE didn't believe a
- nation where every man had a vote would voluntarily
- get down in the mud and dirt in any such way; and
- that to steal from a nation its will and preference must
- be a crime and the first of all crimes. I said to myself:
-
- "This one's a man. If I were backed by enough of
- his sort, I would make a strike for the welfare of this
- country, and try to prove myself its loyalest citizen
- by making a wholesome change in its system of
- government."
-
- You see my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's
- country, not to its institutions or its office-holders.
- The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the
- eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care
- for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they
- are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, be-
- come ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect
- the body from winter, disease, and death. To be
- loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, to die
- for rags -- that is a loyalty of unreason, it is pure
- animal; it belongs to monarchy, was invented by
- monarchy; let monarchy keep it. I was from Con-
- necticut, whose Constitution declares "that all political
- power is inherent in the people, and all free govern-
- ments are founded on their authority and instituted for
- their benefit; and that they have AT ALL TIMES an undeni-
- able and indefeasible right to ALTER THEIR FORM OF GOVERN-
- MENT in such a manner as they may think expedient."
-
- Under that gospel, the citizen who thinks he sees
- that the commonwealth's political clothes are worn out,
- and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new
- suit, is disloyal; he is a traitor. That he may be the
- only one who thinks he sees this decay, does not ex-
- cuse him; it is his duty to agitate anyway, and it is the
- duty of the others to vote him down if they do not see
- the matter as he does.
-
- And now here I was, in a country where a right to
- say how the country should be governed was restricted
- to six persons in each thousand of its population.
- For the nine hundred and ninety-four to express dis-
- satisfaction with the regnant system and propose to
- change it, would have made the whole six shudder as
- one man, it would have been so disloyal, so dishonor-
- able, such putrid black treason. So to speak, I was
- become a stockholder in a corporation where nine hun-
- dred and ninety-four of the members furnished all the
- money and did all the work, and the other six elected
- themselves a permanent board of direction and took all
- the dividends. It seemed to me that what the nine
- hundred and ninety-four dupes needed was a new deal.
- The thing that would have best suited the circus side
- of my nature would have been to resign the Boss-ship
- and get up an insurrection and turn it into a revolution;
- but I knew that the Jack Cade or the Wat Tyler who
- tries such a thing without first educating his materials
- up to revolution grade is almost absolutely certain to
- get left. I had never been accustomed to getting left,
- even if I do say it myself. Wherefore, the "deal"
- which had been for some time working into shape
- in my mind was of a quite different pattern from the
- Cade-Tyler sort.
-
- So I did not talk blood and insurrection to that man
- there who sat munching black bread with that abused
- and mistaught herd of human sheep, but took him
- aside and talked matter of another sort to him. After
- I had finished, I got him to lend me a little ink from
- his veins; and with this and a sliver I wrote on a piece
- of bark --
-
- Put him in the Man-factory --
-
- and gave it to him, and said:
-
- "Take it to the palace at Camelot and give it into
- the hands of Amyas le Poulet, whom I call Clarence,
- and he will understand."
-
- "He is a priest, then," said the man, and some of
- the enthusiasm went out of his face.
-
- "How -- a priest? Didn't I tell you that no chattel
- of the Church, no bond-slave of pope or bishop can
- enter my Man-Factory? Didn't I tell you that YOU
- couldn't enter unless your religion, whatever it might
- be, was your own free property?"
-
- "Marry, it is so, and for that I was glad; wherefore
- it liked me not, and bred in me a cold doubt, to hear
- of this priest being there."
-
- "But he isn't a priest, I tell you."
-
- The man looked far from satisfied. He said:
-
- "He is not a priest, and yet can read?"
-
- "He is not a priest and yet can read -- yes, and
- write, too, for that matter. I taught him myself."
- The man's face cleared. "And it is the first thing
- that you yourself will be taught in that Factory --"
-
- "I? I would give blood out of my heart to know
- that art. Why, I will be your slave, your --"
-
- "No you won't, you won't be anybody's slave.
- Take your family and go along. Your lord the bishop
- will confiscate your small property, but no matter.
- Clarence will fix you all right."
-
-
- CHAPTER XIV.
- "DEFEND THEE, LORD"
-
- I PAID three pennies for my breakfast, and a most
- extravagant price it was, too, seeing that one could
- have breakfasted a dozen persons for that money; but
- I was feeling good by this time, and I had always been
- a kind of spendthrift anyway; and then these people
- had wanted to give me the food for nothing, scant as
- their provision was, and so it was a grateful pleasure to
- emphasize my appreciation and sincere thankfulness
- with a good big financial lift where the money would
- do so much more good than it would in my helmet,
- where, these pennies being made of iron and not stinted
- in weight, my half-dollar's worth was a good deal of a
- burden to me. I spent money rather too freely in
- those days, it is true; but one reason for it was that I
- hadn't got the proportions of things entirely adjusted,
- even yet, after so long a sojourn in Britain -- hadn't
- got along to where I was able to absolutely realize that
- a penny in Arthur's land and a couple of dollars in
- Connecticut were about one and the same thing: just
- twins, as you may say, in purchasing power. If my
- start from Camelot could have been delayed a very few
- days I could have paid these people in beautiful new
- coins from our own mint, and that would have pleased
- me; and them, too, not less. I had adopted the
- American values exclusively. In a week or two now,
- cents, nickels, dimes, quarters, and half-dollars, and
- also a trifle of gold, would be trickling in thin but
- steady streams all through the commercial veins of the
- kingdom, and I looked to see this new blood freshen up
- its life.
-
- The farmers were bound to throw in something, to
- sort of offset my liberality, whether I would or no; so
- I let them give me a flint and steel; and as soon as
- they had comfortably bestowed Sandy and me on our
- horse, I lit my pipe. When the first blast of smoke
- shot out through the bars of my helmet, all those
- people broke for the woods, and Sandy went over
- backwards and struck the ground with a dull thud.
- They thought I was one of those fire-belching dragons
- they had heard so much about from knights and other
- professional liars. I had infinite trouble to persuade
- those people to venture back within explaining distance.
- Then I told them that this was only a bit of enchant-
- ment which would work harm to none but my enemies.
- And I promised, with my hand on my heart, that if all
- who felt no enmity toward me would come forward and
- pass before me they should see that only those who re-
- mained behind would be struck dead. The procession
- moved with a good deal of promptness. There were no
- casualties to report, for nobody had curiosity enough
- to remain behind to see what would happen.
-
- I lost some time, now, for these big children, their
- fears gone, became so ravished with wonder over my
- awe-compelling fireworks that I had to stay there and
- smoke a couple of pipes out before they would let me
- go. Still the delay was not wholly unproductive, for
- it took all that time to get Sandy thoroughly wonted to
- the new thing, she being so close to it, you know. It
- plugged up her conversation mill, too, for a consider-
- able while, and that was a gain. But above all other
- benefits accruing, I had learned something. I was
- ready for any giant or any ogre that might come along,
- now.
-
- We tarried with a holy hermit, that night, and my
- opportunity came about the middle of the next after-
- noon. We were crossing a vast meadow by way of
- short-cut, and I was musing absently, hearing nothing,
- seeing nothing, when Sandy suddenly interrupted a re-
- mark which she had begun that morning, with the cry:
-
- "Defend thee, lord! -- peril of life is toward!"
-
- And she slipped down from the horse and ran a little
- way and stood. I looked up and saw, far off in the
- shade of a tree, half a dozen armed knights and their
- squires; and straightway there was bustle among them
- and tightening of saddle-girths for the mount. My
- pipe was ready and would have been lit, if I had not
- been lost in thinking about how to banish oppression
- from this land and restore to all its people their stolen
- rights and manhood without disobliging anybody. I lit
- up at once, and by the time I had got a good head of
- reserved steam on, here they came. All together, too;
- none of those chivalrous magnanimities which one
- reads so much about -- one courtly rascal at a time, and
- the rest standing by to see fair play. No, they came
- in a body, they came with a whirr and a rush, they
- came like a volley from a battery; came with heads low
- down, plumes streaming out behind, lances advanced at
- a level. It was a handsome sight, a beautiful sight --
- for a man up a tree. I laid my lance in rest and waited,
- with my heart beating, till the iron wave was just ready
- to break over me, then spouted a column of white
- smoke through the bars of my helmet. You should
- have seen the wave go to pieces and scatter! This was
- a finer sight than the other one.
-
- But these people stopped, two or three hundred
- yards away, and this troubled me. My satisfaction
- collapsed, and fear came; I judged I was a lost man.
- But Sandy was radiant; and was going to be eloquent --
- but I stopped her, and told her my magic had mis-
- carried, somehow or other, and she must mount, with
- all despatch, and we must ride for life. No, she
- wouldn't. She said that my enchantment had disabled
- those knights; they were not riding on, because they
- couldn't; wait, they would drop out of their saddles
- presently, and we would get their horses and harness.
- I could not deceive such trusting simplicity, so I said
- it was a mistake; that when my fireworks killed at all,
- they killed instantly; no, the men would not die, there
- was something wrong about my apparatus, I couldn't
- tell what; but we must hurry and get away, for those
- people would attack us again, in a minute. Sandy
- laughed, and said:
-
- "Lack-a-day, sir, they be not of that breed! Sir
- Launcelot will give battle to dragons, and will abide by
- them, and will assail them again, and yet again, and
- still again, until he do conquer and destroy them; and
- so likewise will Sir Pellinore and Sir Aglovale and Sir
- Carados, and mayhap others, but there be none else
- that will venture it, let the idle say what the idle will.
- And, la, as to yonder base rufflers, think ye they have
- not their fill, but yet desire more?"
-
- "Well, then, what are they waiting for? Why
- don't they leave? Nobody's hindering. Good land,
- I'm willing to let bygones be bygones, I'm sure."
-
- "Leave, is it? Oh, give thyself easement as to that.
- They dream not of it, no, not they. They wait to
- yield them."
-
- "Come -- really, is that 'sooth' -- as you people
- say? If they want to, why don't they?"
-
- "It would like them much; but an ye wot how
- dragons are esteemed, ye would not hold them blam-
- able. They fear to come."
-
- "Well, then, suppose I go to them instead, and --"
-
- "Ah, wit ye well they would not abide your coming.
- I will go."
-
- And she did. She was a handy person to have
- along on a raid. I would have considered this a doubt-
- ful errand, myself. I presently saw the knights riding
- away, and Sandy coming back. That was a relief. I
- judged she had somehow failed to get the first innings
- -- I mean in the conversation; otherwise the interview
- wouldn't have been so short. But it turned out that
- she had managed the business well; in fact, admirably.
- She said that when she told those people I was The
- Boss, it hit them where they lived: "smote them sore
- with fear and dread" was her word; and then they
- were ready to put up with anything she might require.
- So she swore them to appear at Arthur's court within
- two days and yield them, with horse and harness, and
- be my knights henceforth, and subject to my command.
- How much better she managed that thing than I should
- have done it myself! She was a daisy.
-
-
- CHAPTER XV.
- SANDY'S TALE
-
- AND so I'm proprietor of some knights," said I,
- as we rode off. "Who would ever have sup-
- posed that I should live to list up assets of that sort.
- I shan't know what to do with them; unless I raffle
- them off. How many of them are there, Sandy?"
-
- "Seven, please you, sir, and their squires."
-
- "It is a good haul. Who are they? Where do they
- hang out?"
-
- "Where do they hang out?"
-
- "Yes, where do they live?"
-
- "Ah, I understood thee not. That will I tell
- eftsoons." Then she said musingly, and softly, turn-
- ing the words daintily over her tongue: "Hang they
- out -- hang they out -- where hang -- where do they
- hang out; eh, right so; where do they hang out. Of
- a truth the phrase hath a fair and winsome grace, and
- is prettily worded withal. I will repeat it anon and
- anon in mine idlesse, whereby I may peradventure
- learn it. Where do they hang out. Even so! already
- it falleth trippingly from my tongue, and forasmuch
- as --"
-
- "Don't forget the cowboys, Sandy."
-
- "Cowboys?"
-
- "Yes; the knights, you know: You were going to
- tell me about them. A while back, you remember.
- Figuratively speaking, game's called."
-
- "Game --"
-
- "Yes, yes, yes! Go to the bat. I mean, get to
- work on your statistics, and don't burn so much
- kindling getting your fire started. Tell me about the
- knights."
-
- "I will well, and lightly will begin. So they two
- departed and rode into a great forest. And --"
-
- "Great Scott!"
-
- You see, I recognized my mistake at once. I had
- set her works a-going; it was my own fault; she would
- be thirty days getting down to those facts. And she
- generally began without a preface and finished without
- a result. If you interrupted her she would either go
- right along without noticing, or answer with a couple of
- words, and go back and say the sentence over again.
- So, interruptions only did harm; and yet I had to in-
- terrupt, and interrupt pretty frequently, too, in order
- to save my life; a person would die if he let her mo-
- notony drip on him right along all day.
-
- "Great Scott! " I said in my distress. She went
- right back and began over again:
-
- "So they two departed and rode into a great forest.
- And --"
-
- "WHICH two?"
-
- "Sir Gawaine and Sir Uwaine. And so they came
- to an abbey of monks, and there were well lodged. So
- on the morn they heard their masses in the abbey, and
- so they rode forth till they came to a great forest; then
- was Sir Gawaine ware in a valley by a turret, of
- twelve fair damsels, and two knights armed on great
- horses, and the damsels went to and fro by a tree.
- And then was Sir Gawaine ware how there hung a
- white shield on that tree, and ever as the damsels came
- by it they spit upon it, and some threw mire upon the
- shield --"
-
- "Now, if I hadn't seen the like myself in this country,
- Sandy, I wouldn't believe it. But I've seen it, and I
- can just see those creatures now, parading before that
- shield and acting like that. The women here do cer-
- tainly act like all possessed. Yes, and I mean your
- best, too, society's very choicest brands. The hum-
- blest hello-girl along ten thousand miles of wire could
- teach gentleness, patience, modesty, manners, to the
- highest duchess in Arthur's land."
-
- "Hello-girl?"
-
- "Yes, but don't you ask me to explain; it's a new
- kind of a girl; they don't have them here; one often
- speaks sharply to them when they are not the least in
- fault, and he can't get over feeling sorry for it and
- ashamed of himself in thirteen hundred years, it's such
- shabby mean conduct and so unprovoked; the fact is,
- no gentleman ever does it -- though I -- well, I myself,
- if I've got to confess --"
-
- "Peradventure she --"
-
- "Never mind her; never mind her; I tell you I
- couldn't ever explain her so you would understand."
-
- "Even so be it, sith ye are so minded. Then Sir
- Gawaine and Sir Uwaine went and saluted them, and
- asked them why they did that despite to the shield.
- Sirs, said the damsels, we shall tell you. There is a
- knight in this country that owneth this white shield, and
- he is a passing good man of his hands, but he hateth
- all ladies and gentlewomen, and therefore we do all this
- despite to the shield. I will say you, said Sir Gawaine,
- it beseemeth evil a good knight to despise all ladies and
- gentlewomen, and peradventure though he hate you he
- hath some cause, and peradventure he loveth in some
- other places ladies and gentlewomen, and to be loved
- again, and he such a man of prowess as ye speak of --"
-
- "Man of prowess -- yes, that is the man to please
- them, Sandy. Man of brains -- that is a thing they
- never think of. Tom Sayers -- John Heenan -- John
- L. Sullivan -- pity but you could be here. You
- would have your legs under the Round Table and a
- 'Sir' in front of your names within the twenty-four
- hours; and you could bring about a new distribution
- of the married princesses and duchesses of the Court in
- another twenty-four. The fact is, it is just a sort of
- polished-up court of Comanches, and there isn't a
- squaw in it who doesn't stand ready at the dropping of
- a hat to desert to the buck with the biggest string of
- scalps at his belt."
-
- "-- and he be such a man of prowess as ye speak of,
- said Sir Gawaine. Now, what is his name? Sir, said
- they, his name is Marhaus the king's son of Ireland."
-
- "Son of the king of Ireland, you mean; the other
- form doesn't mean anything. And look out and hold
- on tight, now, we must jump this gully....
- There, we are all right now. This horse belongs in the
- circus; he is born before his time."
-
- "I know him well, said Sir Uwaine, he is a passing
- good knight as any is on live."
-
- "ON LIVE. If you've got a fault in the world,
- Sandy, it is that you are a shade too archaic. But it
- isn't any matter."
-
- "-- for I saw him once proved at a justs where many
- knights were gathered, and that time there might no
- man withstand him. Ah, said Sir Gawaine, damsels,
- methinketh ye are to blame, for it is to suppose he that
- hung that shield there will not be long therefrom, and
- then may those knights match him on horseback, and
- that is more your worship than thus; for I will abide
- no longer to see a knight's shield dishonored. And
- therewith Sir Uwaine and Sir Gawaine departed a little
- from them, and then were they ware where Sir Marhaus
- came riding on a great horse straight toward them.
- And when the twelve damsels saw Sir Marhaus they
- fled into the turret as they were wild, so that some of
- them fell by the way. Then the one of the knights of
- the tower dressed his shield, and said on high, Sir Mar-
- haus defend thee. And so they ran together that the
- knight brake his spear on Marhaus, and Sir Marhaus
- smote him so hard that he brake his neck and the
- horse's back --"
-
- "Well, that is just the trouble about this state of
- things, it ruins so many horses."
-
- "That saw the other knight of the turret, and
- dressed him toward Marhaus, and they went so eagerly
- together, that the knight of the turret was soon smitten
- down, horse and man, stark dead --"
-
- "ANOTHER horse gone; I tell you it is a custom that
- ought to be broken up. I don't see how people with
- any feeling can applaud and support it."
-
- ....
-
- "So these two knights came together with great
- random --"
-
- I saw that I had been asleep and missed a chapter,
- but I didn't say anything. I judged that the Irish
- knight was in trouble with the visitors by this time, and
- this turned out to be the case.
-
- "-- that Sir Uwaine smote Sir Marhaus that his
- spear brast in pieces on the shield, and Sir Marhaus
- smote him so sore that horse and man he bare to the
- earth, and hurt Sir Uwaine on the left side --
-
- "The truth is, Alisande, these archaics are a little
- TOO simple; the vocabulary is too limited, and so, by
- consequence, descriptions suffer in the matter of
- variety; they run too much to level Saharas of fact,
- and not enough to picturesque detail; this throws about
- them a certain air of the monotonous; in fact the fights
- are all alike: a couple of people come together with
- great random -- random is a good word, and so is
- exegesis, for that matter, and so is holocaust, and de-
- falcation, and usufruct and a hundred others, but land!
- a body ought to discriminate -- they come together
- with great random, and a spear is brast, and one party
- brake his shield and the other one goes down, horse
- and man, over his horse-tail and brake his neck, and
- then the next candidate comes randoming in, and brast
- HIS spear, and the other man brast his shield, and
- down HE goes, horse and man, over his horse-tail, and
- brake HIS neck, and then there's another elected, and
- another and another and still another, till the material
- is all used up; and when you come to figure up results,
- you can't tell one fight from another, nor who whip-
- ped; and as a PICTURE, of living, raging, roaring battle,
- sho! why, it's pale and noiseless -- just ghosts scuffling
- in a fog. Dear me, what would this barren vocabulary
- get out of the mightiest spectacle? -- the burning of
- Rome in Nero's time, for instance? Why, it would
- merely say, 'Town burned down; no insurance; boy
- brast a window, fireman brake his neck!' Why, THAT
- ain't a picture!"
-
- It was a good deal of a lecture, I thought, but it
- didn't disturb Sandy, didn't turn a feather; her steam
- soared steadily up again, the minute I took off the lid:
-
- "Then Sir Marhaus turned his horse and rode toward
- Gawaine with his spear. And when Sir Gawaine saw
- that, he dressed his shield, and they aventred their
- spears, and they came together with all the might of
- their horses, that either knight smote other so hard in
- the midst of their shields, but Sir Gawaine's spear
- brake --"
-
- "I knew it would."
-
- -- "but Sir Marhaus's spear held; and therewith Sir
- Gawaine and his horse rushed down to the earth --"
-
- "Just so -- and brake his back."
-
- -- "and lightly Sir Gawaine rose upon his feet and
- pulled out his sword, and dressed him toward Sir Mar-
- haus on foot, and therewith either came unto other
- eagerly, and smote together with their swords, that their
- shields flew in cantels, and they bruised their helms and
- their hauberks, and wounded either other. But Sir
- Gawaine, fro it passed nine of the clock, waxed by the
- space of three hours ever stronger and stronger. and
- thrice his might was increased. All this espied Sir
- Marhaus, and had great wonder how his might in-
- creased, and so they wounded other passing sore; and
- then when it was come noon --"
-
- The pelting sing-song of it carried me forward to
- scenes and sounds of my boyhood days:
-
- "N-e-e-ew Haven! ten minutes for refreshments --
- knductr'll strike the gong-bell two minutes before train
- leaves -- passengers for the Shore line please take seats
- in the rear k'yar, this k'yar don't go no furder -- AHH -
- pls, AW-rnjz, b'NANners, S-A-N-D'ches, p--OP-corn!"
-
- -- "and waxed past noon and drew toward even-
- song. Sir Gawaine's strength feebled and waxed pass-
- ing faint, that unnethes he might dure any longer, and
- Sir Marhaus was then bigger and bigger --"
-
- "Which strained his armor, of course; and yet little
- would one of these people mind a small thing like that."
-
- -- "and so, Sir Knight, said Sir Marhaus, I have
- well felt that ye are a passing good knight, and a mar-
- velous man of might as ever I felt any, while it lasteth,
- and our quarrels are not great, and therefore it were a
- pity to do you hurt, for I feel you are passing feeble.
- Ah, said Sir Gawaine, gentle knight, ye say the word
- that I should say. And therewith they took off their
- helms and either kissed other, and there they swore
- together either to love other as brethren --"
-
- But I lost the thread there, and dozed off to slumber,
- thinking about what a pity it was that men with such
- superb strength -- strength enabling them to stand up
- cased in cruelly burdensome iron and drenched with
- perspiration, and hack and batter and bang each other
- for six hours on a stretch -- should not have been
- born at a time when they could put it to some useful
- purpose. Take a jackass, for instance: a jackass has
- that kind of strength, and puts it to a useful purpose,
- and is valuable to this world because he is a jackass;
- but a nobleman is not valuable because he is a jackass.
- It is a mixture that is always ineffectual, and should
- never have been attempted in the first place. And yet,
- once you start a mistake, the trouble is done and you
- never know what is going to come of it.
-
- When I came to myself again and began to listen, I
- perceived that I had lost another chapter, and that
- Alisande had wandered a long way off with her people.
-
- "And so they rode and came into a deep valley full
- of stones, and thereby they saw a fair stream of water;
- above thereby was the head of the stream, a fair foun-
- tain, and three damsels sitting thereby. In this coun-
- try, said Sir Marhaus, came never knight since it was
- christened, but he found strange adventures --"
-
- "This is not good form, Alisande. Sir Marhaus the
- king's son of Ireland talks like all the rest; you ought
- to give him a brogue, or at least a characteristic exple-
- tive; by this means one would recognize him as soon
- as he spoke, without his ever being named. It is a
- common literary device with the great authors. You
- should make him say, 'In this country, be jabers, came
- never knight since it was christened, but he found
- strange adventures, be jabers.' You see how much
- better that sounds."
-
- -- "came never knight but he found strange adven-
- tures, be jabers. Of a truth it doth indeed, fair lord,
- albeit 'tis passing hard to say, though peradventure
- that will not tarry but better speed with usage. And
- then they rode to the damsels, and either saluted other,
- and the eldest had a garland of gold about her head,
- and she was threescore winter of age or more --"
-
- "The DAMSEL was?"
-
- "Even so, dear lord -- and her hair was white under
- the garland --"
-
- "Celluloid teeth, nine dollars a set, as like as not --
- the loose-fit kind, that go up and down like a portcullis
- when you eat, and fall out when you laugh."
-
- "The second damsel was of thirty winter of age,
- with a circlet of gold about her head. The third damsel
- was but fifteen year of age --"
-
- Billows of thought came rolling over my soul, and
- the voice faded out of my hearing!
-
- Fifteen! Break -- my heart! oh, my lost darling!
- Just her age who was so gentle, and lovely, and all the
- world to me, and whom I shall never see again! How
- the thought of her carries me back over wide seas of
- memory to a vague dim time, a happy time, so many,
- many centuries hence, when I used to wake in the soft
- summer mornings, out of sweet dreams of her, and say
- "Hello, Central!" just to hear her dear voice come
- melting back to me with a "Hello, Hank!" that was
- music of the spheres to my enchanted ear. She got
- three dollars a week, but she was worth it.
-
- I could not follow Alisande's further explanation of
- who our captured knights were, now -- I mean in case
- she should ever get to explaining who they were. My
- interest was gone, my thoughts were far away, and sad.
- By fitful glimpses of the drifting tale, caught here and
- there and now and then, I merely noted in a vague way
- that each of these three knights took one of these three
- damsels up behind him on his horse, and one rode
- north, another east, the other south, to seek adventures,
- and meet again and lie, after year and day. Year and
- day -- and without baggage. It was of a piece with
- the general simplicity of the country.
-
- The sun was now setting. It was about three in the
- afternoon when Alisande had begun to tell me who the
- cowboys were; so she had made pretty good progress
- with it -- for her. She would arrive some time or
- other, no doubt, but she was not a person who could
- be hurried.
-
- We were approaching a castle which stood on high
- ground; a huge, strong, venerable structure, whose
- gray towers and battlements were charmingly draped
- with ivy, and whose whole majestic mass was drenched
- with splendors flung from the sinking sun. It was the
- largest castle we had seen, and so I thought it might be
- the one we were after, but Sandy said no. She did
- not know who owned it; she said she had passed it
- without calling, when she went down to Camelot.
-
-
- CHAPTER XVI.
- MORGAN LE FAY
-
- IF knights errant were to be believed, not all castles
- were desirable places to seek hospitality in. As a
- matter of fact, knights errant were NOT persons to be
- believed -- that is, measured by modern standards of
- veracity; yet, measured by the standards of their own
- time, and scaled accordingly, you got the truth. It
- was very simple: you discounted a statement ninety-
- seven per cent.; the rest was fact. Now after making
- this allowance, the truth remained that if I could find
- out something about a castle before ringing the door-
- bell -- I mean hailing the warders -- it was the sensible
- thing to do. So I was pleased when I saw in the dis-
- tance a horseman making the bottom turn of the road
- that wound down from this castle.
-
- As we approached each other, I saw that he wore a
- plumed helmet, and seemed to be otherwise clothed in
- steel, but bore a curious addition also -- a stiff square
- garment like a herald's tabard. However, I had to
- smile at my own forgetfulness when I got nearer and
- read this sign on his tabard:
-
- "Persimmon's Soap -- All the Prime-Donna Use It."
-
- That was a little idea of my own, and had several
- wholesome purposes in view toward the civilizing and
- uplifting of this nation. In the first place, it was a
- furtive, underhand blow at this nonsense of knight
- errantry, though nobody suspected that but me. I
- had started a number of these people out -- the bravest
- knights I could get -- each sandwiched between bul-
- letin-boards bearing one device or another, and I
- judged that by and by when they got to be numerous
- enough they would begin to look ridiculous; and then,
- even the steel-clad ass that HADN'T any board would
- himself begin to look ridiculous because he was out of
- the fashion.
-
- Secondly, these missionaries would gradually, and
- without creating suspicion or exciting alarm, introduce
- a rudimentary cleanliness among the nobility, and from
- them it would work down to the people, if the priests
- could be kept quiet. This would undermine the
- Church. I mean would be a step toward that. Next,
- education -- next, freedom -- and then she would begin
- to crumble. It being my conviction that any Estab-
- lished Church is an established crime, an established
- slave-pen, I had no scruples, but was willing to assail
- it in any way or with any weapon that promised to
- hurt it. Why, in my own former day -- in remote
- centuries not yet stirring in the womb of time -- there
- were old Englishmen who imagined that they had been
- born in a free country: a "free" country with the
- Corporation Act and the Test still in force in it --
- timbers propped against men's liberties and dishonored
- consciences to shore up an Established Anachronism
- with.
-
- My missionaries were taught to spell out the gilt
- signs on their tabards -- the showy gilding was a neat
- idea, I could have got the king to wear a bulletin-board
- for the sake of that barbaric splendor -- they were to
- spell out these signs and then explain to the lords and
- ladies what soap was; and if the lords and ladies were
- afraid of it, get them to try it on a dog. The mission-
- ary's next move was to get the family together and try
- it on himself; he was to stop at no experiment, how-
- ever desperate. that could convince the nobility that
- soap was harmless; if any final doubt remained, he
- must catch a hermit -- the woods were full of them;
- saints they called themselves, and saints they were be-
- lieved to be. They were unspeakably holy, and worked
- miracles, and everybody stood in awe of them. If a
- hermit could survive a wash, and that failed to convince
- a duke, give him up, let him alone.
-
- Whenever my missionaries overcame a knight errant
- on the road they washed him, and when he got well
- they swore him to go and get a bulletin-board and dis-
- seminate soap and civilization the rest of his days. As
- a consequence the workers in the field were increasing
- by degrees, and the reform was steadily spreading.
- My soap factory felt the strain early. At first I had
- only two hands; but before I had left home I was
- already employing fifteen, and running night and day;
- and the atmospheric result was getting so pronounced
- that the king went sort of fainting and gasping around
- and said he did not believe he could stand it much
- longer, and Sir Launcelot got so that he did hardly
- anything but walk up and down the roof and swear,
- although I told him it was worse up there than any-
- where else, but he said he wanted plenty of air; and
- he was always complaining that a palace was no place
- for a soap factory anyway, and said if a man was to
- start one in his house he would be damned if he
- wouldn't strangle him. There were ladies present,
- too, but much these people ever cared for that; they
- would swear before children, if the wind was their way
- when the factory was going.
-
- This missionary knight's name was La Cote Male
- Taile, and he said that this castle was the abode of
- Morgan le Fay, sister of King Arthur, and wife of
- King Uriens. monarch of a realm about as big as the
- District of Columbia -- you could stand in the middle
- of it and throw bricks into the next kingdom.
- "Kings" and "Kingdoms" were as thick in Britain
- as they had been in little Palestine in Joshua's time,
- when people had to sleep with their knees pulled up
- because they couldn't stretch out without a passport.
-
- La Cote was much depressed, for he had scored
- here the worst failure of his campaign. He had not
- worked off a cake; yet he had tried all the tricks of
- the trade, even to the washing of a hermit; but the
- hermit died. This was, indeed, a bad failure, for this
- animal would now be dubbed a martyr, and would take
- his place among the saints of the Roman calendar.
- Thus made he his moan, this poor Sir La Cote Male
- Taile, and sorrowed passing sore. And so my heart
- bled for him, and I was moved to comfort and stay
- him. Wherefore I said:
-
- "Forbear to grieve, fair knight, for this is not a
- defeat. We have brains, you and I; and for such as
- have brains there are no defeats, but only victories.
- Observe how we will turn this seeming disaster into an
- advertisement; an advertisement for our soap; and
- the biggest one, to draw, that was ever thought of; an
- advertisement that will transform that Mount Washing-
- ton defeat into a Matterhorn victory. We will put on
- your bulletin-board, 'PATRONIZED BY THE ELECT.' How
- does that strike you?"
-
- "Verily, it is wonderly bethought!"
-
- "Well, a body is bound to admit that for just a
- modest little one-line ad., it's a corker."
-
- So the poor colporteur's griefs vanished away. He
- was a brave fellow, and had done mighty feats of arms
- in his time. His chief celebrity rested upon the events
- of an excursion like this one of mine, which he had
- once made with a damsel named Maledisant, who was
- as handy with her tongue as was Sandy, though in a
- different way, for her tongue churned forth only rail-
- ings and insult, whereas Sandy's music was of a
- kindlier sort. I knew his story well, and so I knew
- how to interpret the compassion that was in his face
- when he bade me farewell. He supposed I was having
- a bitter hard time of it.
-
- Sandy and I discussed his story, as we rode along,
- and she said that La Cote's bad luck had begun with
- the very beginning of that trip; for the king's fool had
- overthrown him on the first day, and in such cases it
- was customary for the girl to desert to the conqueror,
- but Maledisant didn't do it; and also persisted after-
- ward in sticking to him, after all his defeats. But,
- said I, suppose the victor should decline to accept his
- spoil? She said that that wouldn't answer -- he must.
- He couldn't decline; it wouldn't be regular. I made
- a note of that. If Sandy's music got to be too
- burdensome, some time, I would let a knight defeat
- me, on the chance that she would desert to him.
-
- In due time we were challenged by the warders,
- from the castle walls, and after a parley admitted. I
- have nothing pleasant to tell about that visit. But it
- was not a disappointment, for I knew Mrs. le Fay by
- reputation, and was not expecting anything pleasant.
- She was held in awe by the whole realm, for she had
- made everybody believe she was a great sorceress. All
- her ways were wicked, all her instincts devilish. She
- was loaded to the eyelids with cold malice. All her
- history was black with crime; and among her crimes
- murder was common. I was most curious to see her;
- as curious as I could have been to see Satan. To my
- surprise she was beautiful; black thoughts had failed
- to make her expression repulsive, age had failed to
- wrinkle her satin skin or mar its bloomy freshness.
- She could have passed for old Uriens' granddaughter,
- she could have been mistaken for sister to her own son.
-
- As soon as we were fairly within the castle gates we
- were ordered into her presence. King Uriens was
- there, a kind-faced old man with a subdued look; and
- also the son, Sir Uwaine le Blanchemains, in whom I
- was, of course, interested on account of the tradition
- that he had once done battle with thirty knights, and
- also on account of his trip with Sir Gawaine and Sir
- Marhaus, which Sandy had been aging me with. But
- Morgan was the main attraction, the conspicuous per-
- sonality here; she was head chief of this household,
- that was plain. She caused us to be seated, and then
- she began, with all manner of pretty graces and
- graciousnesses, to ask me questions. Dear me, it was
- like a bird or a flute, or something, talking. I felt
- persuaded that this woman must have been misrepre-
- sented, lied about. She trilled along, and trilled along,
- and presently a handsome young page, clothed like the
- rainbow, and as easy and undulatory of movement as a
- wave, came with something on a golden salver, and,
- kneeling to present it to her, overdid his graces and
- lost his balance, and so fell lightly against her knee.
- She slipped a dirk into him in as matter-of-course a
- way as another person would have harpooned a rat!
-
- Poor child! he slumped to the floor, twisted his silken
- limbs in one great straining contortion of pain, and was
- dead. Out of the old king was wrung an involuntary
- "O-h!" of compassion. The look he got, made him
- cut it suddenly short and not put any more hyphens in
- it. Sir Uwaine, at a sign from his mother, went to
- the anteroom and called some servants, and meanwhile
- madame went rippling sweetly along with her talk.
-
- I saw that she was a good housekeeper, for while
- she talked she kept a corner of her eye on the servants
- to see that they made no balks in handling the body
- and getting it out; when they came with fresh clean
- towels, she sent back for the other kind; and when
- they had finished wiping the floor and were going, she
- indicated a crimson fleck the size of a tear which their
- duller eyes had overlooked. It was plain to me that
- La Cote Male Taile had failed to see the mistress of
- the house. Often, how louder and clearer than any
- tongue, does dumb circumstantial evidence speak.
-
- Morgan le Fay rippled along as musically as ever.
- Marvelous woman. And what a glance she had: when
- it fell in reproof upon those servants, they shrunk and
- quailed as timid people do when the lightning flashes
- out of a cloud. I could have got the habit myself. It
- was the same with that poor old Brer Uriens; he was
- always on the ragged edge of apprehension; she could
- not even turn toward him but he winced.
-
- In the midst of the talk I let drop a complimentary
- word about King Arthur, forgetting for the moment
- how this woman hated her brother. That one little
- compliment was enough. She clouded up like
- storm; she called for her guards, and said:
-
- "Hale me these varlets to the dungeons."
-
- That struck cold on my ears, for her dungeons had
- a reputation. Nothing occurred to me to say -- or
- do. But not so with Sandy. As the guard laid a
- hand upon me, she piped up with the tranquilest con-
- fidence, and said:
-
- "God's wounds, dost thou covet destruction, thou
- maniac? It is The Boss!"
-
- Now what a happy idea that was! -- and so simple;
- yet it would never have occurred to me. I was born
- modest; not all over, but in spots; and this was one
- of the spots.
-
- The effect upon madame was electrical. It cleared
- her countenance and brought back her smiles and all
- her persuasive graces and blandishments; but never-
- theless she was not able to entirely cover up with them
- the fact that she was in a ghastly fright. She said:
-
- "La, but do list to thine handmaid! as if one
- gifted with powers like to mine might say the thing
- which I have said unto one who has vanquished
- Merlin, and not be jesting. By mine enchantments I
- foresaw your coming, and by them I knew you when
- you entered here. I did but play this little jest with
- hope to surprise you into some display of your art, as
- not doubting you would blast the guards with occult
- fires, consuming them to ashes on the spot, a marvel
- much beyond mine own ability, yet one which I have
- long been childishly curious to see."
-
- The guards were less curious, and got out as soon as
- they got permission.
-
-
- CHAPTER XVII.
- A ROYAL BANQUET
-
- MADAME, seeing me pacific and unresentful, no
- doubt judged that I was deceived by her excuse;
- for her fright dissolved away, and she was soon so
- importunate to have me give an exhibition and kill
- somebody, that the thing grew to be embarrassing.
- However, to my relief she was presently interrupted by
- the call to prayers. I will say this much for the
- nobility: that, tyrannical, murderous, rapacious, and
- morally rotten as they were, they were deeply and
- enthusiastically religious. Nothing could divert them
- from the regular and faithful performance of the pieties
- enjoined by the Church. More than once I had seen
- a noble who had gotten his enemy at a disadvantage,
- stop to pray before cutting his throat; more than once
- I had seen a noble, after ambushing and despatching
- his enemy, retire to the nearest wayside shrine and
- humbly give thanks, without even waiting to rob the
- body. There was to be nothing finer or sweeter in the
- life of even Benvenuto Cellini, that rough-hewn saint,
- ten centuries later. All the nobles of Britain, with
- their families, attended divine service morning and
- night daily, in their private chapels, and even the
- worst of them had family worship five or six times a
- day besides. The credit of this belonged entirely to
- the Church. Although I was no friend to that Cath-
- olic Church, I was obliged to admit this. And often,
- in spite of me, I found myself saying, "What would
- this country be without the Church?"
-
- After prayers we had dinner in a great banqueting
- hall which was lighted by hundreds of grease-jets, and
- everything was as fine and lavish and rudely splendid
- as might become the royal degree of the hosts. At
- the head of the hall, on a dais, was the table of the
- king, queen, and their son, Prince Uwaine. Stretching
- down the hall from this, was the general table, on the
- floor. At this, above the salt, sat the visiting nobles
- and the grown members of their families, of both
- sexes, -- the resident Court, in effect -- sixty-one per-
- sons; below the salt sat minor officers of the house-
- hold, with their principal subordinates: altogether a
- hundred and eighteen persons sitting, and about as
- many liveried servants standing behind their chairs, or
- serving in one capacity or another. It was a very fine
- show. In a gallery a band with cymbals, horns, harps,
- and other horrors, opened the proceedings with what
- seemed to be the crude first-draft or original agony of
- the wail known to later centuries as "In the Sweet
- Bye and Bye." It was new, and ought to have been
- rehearsed a little more. For some reason or other the
- queen had the composer hanged, after dinner.
-
- After this music, the priest who stood behind the
- royal table said a noble long grace in ostensible Latin.
- Then the battalion of waiters broke away from their
- posts, and darted, rushed, flew, fetched and carried,
- and the mighty feeding began; no words anywhere,
- but absorbing attention to business. The rows of
- chops opened and shut in vast unison, and the sound
- of it was like to the muffled burr of subterranean
- machinery.
-
- The havoc continued an hour and a half, and unim-
- aginable was the destruction of substantials. Of the
- chief feature of the feast -- the huge wild boar that lay
- stretched out so portly and imposing at the start --
- nothing was left but the semblance of a hoop-skirt;
- and he was but the type and symbol of what had hap-
- pened to all the other dishes.
-
- With the pastries and so on, the heavy drinking
- began -- and the talk. Gallon after gallon of wine and
- mead disappeared, and everybody got comfortable,
- then happy, then sparklingly joyous -- both sexes, --
- and by and by pretty noisy. Men told anecdotes that
- were terrific to hear, but nobody blushed; and when
- the nub was sprung, the assemblage let go with a
- horse-laugh that shook the fortress. Ladies answered
- back with historiettes that would almost have made
- Queen Margaret of Navarre or even the great Elizabeth
- of England hide behind a handkerchief, but nobody
- hid here, but only laughed -- howled, you may say.
- In pretty much all of these dreadful stories, ecclesiastics
- were the hardy heroes, but that didn't worry the chap-
- lain any, he had his laugh with the rest; more than
- that, upon invitation he roared out a song which was
- of as daring a sort as any that was sung that night.
-
- By midnight everybody was fagged out, and sore
- with laughing; and, as a rule, drunk: some weepingly,
- some affectionately, some hilariously, some quarrel-
- somely, some dead and under the table. Of the
- ladies, the worst spectacle was a lovely young duch-
- ess, whose wedding-eve this was; and indeed she was
- a spectacle, sure enough. Just as she was she could
- have sat in advance for the portrait of the young
- daughter of the Regent d'Orleans, at the famous dinner
- whence she was carried, foul-mouthed, intoxicated, and
- helpless, to her bed, in the lost and lamented days of
- the Ancient Regime.
-
- Suddenly, even while the priest was lifting his hands,
- and all conscious heads were bowed in reverent expec-
- tation of the coming blessing, there appeared under
- the arch of the far-off door at the bottom of the hall
- an old and bent and white-haired lady, leaning upon a
- crutch-stick; and she lifted the stick and pointed it
- toward the queen and cried out:
-
- "The wrath and curse of God fall upon you, woman
- without pity, who have slain mine innocent grandchild
- and made desolate this old heart that had nor chick, nor
- friend nor stay nor comfort in all this world but him!"
-
- Everybody crossed himself in a grisly fright, for a
- curse was an awful thing to those people; but the
- queen rose up majestic, with the death-light in her
- eye, and flung back this ruthless command:
-
- "Lay hands on her! To the stake with her!"
-
- The guards left their posts to obey. It was a
- shame; it was a cruel thing to see. What could be
- done? Sandy gave me a look; I knew she had an-
- other inspiration. I said:
-
- "Do what you choose."
-
- She was up and facing toward the queen in a mo-
- ment. She indicated me, and said:
-
- "Madame, HE saith this may not be. Recall the
- commandment, or he will dissolve the castle and it
- shall vanish away like the instable fabric of a dream!"
-
- Confound it, what a crazy contract to pledge a per-
- son to! What if the queen --
-
- But my consternation subsided there, and my panic
- passed off; for the queen, all in a collapse, made no
- show of resistance but gave a countermanding sign and
- sunk into her seat. When she reached it she was
- sober. So were many of the others. The assemblage
- rose, whiffed ceremony to the winds, and rushed for
- the door like a mob; overturning chairs, smashing
- crockery, tugging, struggling, shouldering, crowding
- -- anything to get out before I should change my
- mind and puff the castle into the measureless dim
- vacancies of space. Well, well, well, they WERE a
- superstitious lot. It is all a body can do to conceive
- of it.
-
- The poor queen was so scared and humbled that she
- was even afraid to hang the composer without first
- consulting me. I was very sorry for her -- indeed, any
- one would have been, for she was really suffering; so
- I was willing to do anything that was reasonable, and
- had no desire to carry things to wanton extremities. I
- therefore considered the matter thoughtfully, and ended
- by having the musicians ordered into our presence to
- play that Sweet Bye and Bye again, which they did.
- Then I saw that she was right, and gave her permission
- to hang the whole band. This little relaxation of
- sternness had a good effect upon the queen. A states-
- man gains little by the arbitrary exercise of iron-clad
- authority upon all occasions that offer, for this wounds
- the just pride of his subordinates, and thus tends to
- undermine his strength. A little concession, now and
- then, where it can do no harm, is the wiser policy.
-
- Now that the queen was at ease in her mind once
- more, and measurably happy, her wine naturally began
- to assert itself again, and it got a little the start of her.
- I mean it set her music going -- her silver bell of a
- tongue. Dear me, she was a master talker. It would
- not become me to suggest that it was pretty late and
- that I was a tired man and very sleepy. I wished I
- had gone off to bed when I had the chance. Now I
- must stick it out; there was no other way. So she
- tinkled along and along, in the otherwise profound and
- ghostly hush of the sleeping castle, until by and by
- there came, as if from deep down under us, a far-away
- sound, as of a muffled shriek -- with an expression of
- agony about it that made my flesh crawl. The queen
- stopped, and her eyes lighted with pleasure; she tilted
- her graceful head as a bird does when it listens. The
- sound bored its way up through the stillness again.
-
- "What is it?" I said.
-
- "It is truly a stubborn soul, and endureth long. It
- is many hours now."
-
- "Endureth what?"
-
- "The rack. Come -- ye shall see a blithe sight.
- An he yield not his secret now, ye shall see him torn
- asunder."
-
- What a silky smooth hellion she was; and so com-
- posed and serene, when the cords all down my legs
- were hurting in sympathy with that man's pain. Con-
- ducted by mailed guards bearing flaring torches, we
- tramped along echoing corridors, and down stone stair-
- ways dank and dripping, and smelling of mould and
- ages of imprisoned night -- a chill, uncanny journey
- and a long one, and not made the shorter or the
- cheerier by the sorceress's talk, which was about this
- sufferer and his crime. He had been accused by an
- anonymous informer, of having killed a stag in the
- royal preserves. I said:
-
- "Anonymous testimony isn't just the right thing,
- your Highness. It were fairer to confront the accused
- with the accuser."
-
- "I had not thought of that, it being but of small
- consequence. But an I would, I could not, for that
- the accuser came masked by night, and told the
- forester, and straightway got him hence again, and so
- the forester knoweth him not."
-
- "Then is this Unknown the only person who saw
- the stag killed?"
-
- "Marry, NO man SAW the killing, but this Unknown
- saw this hardy wretch near to the spot where the stag
- lay, and came with right loyal zeal and betrayed him
- to the forester."
-
- "So the Unknown was near the dead stag, too?
- Isn't it just possible that he did the killing himself?
- His loyal zeal -- in a mask -- looks just a shade sus-
- picious. But what is your highness's idea for racking
- the prisoner? Where is the profit?"
-
- "He will not confess, else; and then were his soul
- lost. For his crime his life is forfeited by the law --
- and of a surety will I see that he payeth it! -- but it
- were peril to my own soul to let him die unconfessed
- and unabsolved. Nay, I were a fool to fling me into
- hell for HIS accommodation."
-
- "But, your Highness, suppose he has nothing to
- confess?"
-
- "As to that, we shall see, anon. An I rack him to
- death and he confess not, it will peradventure show
- that he had indeed naught to confess -- ye will grant
- that that is sooth? Then shall I not be damned for
- an unconfessed man that had naught to confess --
- wherefore, I shall be safe."
-
- It was the stubborn unreasoning of the time. It was
- useless to argue with her. Arguments have no chance
- against petrified training; they wear it as little as the
- waves wear a cliff. And her training was everybody's.
- The brightest intellect in the land would not have been
- able to see that her position was defective.
-
- As we entered the rack-cell I caught a picture that
- will not go from me; I wish it would. A native young
- giant of thirty or thereabouts lay stretched upon the
- frame on his back, with his wrists and ankles tied to
- ropes which led over windlasses at either end. There
- was no color in him; his features were contorted and
- set, and sweat-drops stood upon his forehead. A
- priest bent over him on each side; the executioner
- stood by; guards were on duty; smoking torches
- stood in sockets along the walls; in a corner crouched
- a poor young creature, her face drawn with anguish,
- a half-wild and hunted look in her eyes, and in her lap
- lay a little child asleep. Just as we stepped across the
- threshold the executioner gave his machine a slight
- turn, which wrung a cry from both the prisoner and
- the woman; but I shouted, and the executioner released
- the strain without waiting to see who spoke. I could
- not let this horror go on; it would have killed me to
- see it. I asked the queen to let me clear the place
- and speak to the prisoner privately; and when she was
- going to object I spoke in a low voice and said I did
- not want to make a scene before her servants, but I
- must have my way; for I was King Arthur's repre-
- sentative, and was speaking in his name. She saw she
- had to yield. I asked her to indorse me to these peo-
- ple, and then leave me. It was not pleasant for her,
- but she took the pill; and even went further than I
- was meaning to require. I only wanted the backing of
- her own authority; but she said:
-
- "Ye will do in all things as this lord shall command.
- It is The Boss."
-
- It was certainly a good word to conjure with: you
- could see it by the squirming of these rats. The
- queen's guards fell into line, and she and they marched
- away, with their torch-bearers, and woke the echoes of
- the cavernous tunnels with the measured beat of their
- retreating footfalls. I had the prisoner taken from
- the rack and placed upon his bed, and medicaments
- applied to his hurts, and wine given him to drink.
- The woman crept near and looked on, eagerly, lov-
- ingly, but timorously, -- like one who fears a repulse;
- indeed, she tried furtively to touch the man's forehead,
- and jumped back, the picture of fright, when I turned
- unconsciously toward her. It was pitiful to see.
-
- "Lord," I said, "stroke him, lass, if you want to.
- Do anything you're a mind to; don't mind me."
-
- Why, her eyes were as grateful as an animal's, when
- you do it a kindness that it understands. The baby
- was out of her way and she had her cheek against the
- man's in a minute. and her hands fondling his hair,
- and her happy tears running down. The man revived
- and caressed his wife with his eyes, which was all he
- could do. I judged I might clear the den, now, and I
- did; cleared it of all but the family and myself. Then
- I said:
-
- "Now, my friend, tell me your side of this matter;
- I know the other side."
-
- The man moved his head in sign of refusal. But
- the woman looked pleased -- as it seemed to me --
- pleased with my suggestion. I went on --
-
- "You know of me?"
-
- "Yes. All do, in Arthur's realms."
-
- "If my reputation has come to you right and
- straight, you should not be afraid to speak."
-
- The woman broke in, eagerly:
-
- "Ah, fair my lord, do thou persuade him! Thou
- canst an thou wilt. Ah, he suffereth so; and it is for
- me -- for ME! And how can I bear it? I would I
- might see him die -- a sweet, swift death; oh, my
- Hugo, I cannot bear this one!"
-
- And she fell to sobbing and grovelling about my
- feet, and still imploring. Imploring what? The man's
- death? I could not quite get the bearings of the thing.
- But Hugo interrupted her and said:
-
- "Peace! Ye wit not what ye ask. Shall I starve
- whom I love, to win a gentle death? I wend thou
- knewest me better."
-
- "Well," I said, "I can't quite make this out. It
- is a puzzle. Now --"
-
- "Ah, dear my lord, an ye will but persuade him!
- Consider how these his tortures wound me! Oh, and
- he will not speak! -- whereas, the healing, the solace
- that lie in a blessed swift death --"
-
- "What ARE you maundering about? He's going out
- from here a free man and whole -- he's not going to
- die."
-
- The man's white face lit up, and the woman flung
- herself at me in a most surprising explosion of joy,
- and cried out:
-
- "He is saved! -- for it is the king's word by the
- mouth of the king's servant -- Arthur, the king whose
- word is gold!"
-
- "Well, then you do believe I can be trusted, after
- all. Why didn't you before?"
-
- "Who doubted? Not I, indeed; and not she."
-
- "Well, why wouldn't you tell me your story, then?"
-
- "Ye had made no promise; else had it been other-
- wise."
-
- "I see, I see.... And yet I believe I don't quite
- see, after all. You stood the torture and refused to
- confess; which shows plain enough to even the dull-
- est understanding that you had nothing to confess --"
-
- "I, my lord? How so? It was I that killed the
- deer!"
-
- "You DID? Oh, dear, this is the most mixed-up
- business that ever --"
-
- "Dear lord, I begged him on my knees to confess,
- but --"
-
- "You DID! It gets thicker and thicker. What did
- you want him to do that for?"
-
- "Sith it would bring him a quick death and save
- him all this cruel pain."
-
- "Well -- yes, there is reason in that. But HE didn't
- want the quick death."
-
- "He? Why, of a surety he DID."
-
- "Well, then, why in the world DIDN'T he confess?"
-
- "Ah, sweet sir, and leave my wife and chick with-
- out bread and shelter?"
-
- "Oh, heart of gold, now I see it! The bitter law
- takes the convicted man's estate and beggars his widow
- and his orphans. They could torture you to death,
- but without conviction or confession they could not
- rob your wife and baby. You stood by them like a
- man; and YOU -- true wife and the woman that you
- are -- you would have bought him release from torture
- at cost to yourself of slow starvation and death -- well,
- it humbles a body to think what your sex can do when
- it comes to self-sacrifice. I'll book you both for my
- colony; you'll like it there; it's a Factory where I'm
- going to turn groping and grubbing automata into
- MEN."
-
-
- CHAPTER XVIII.
- IN THE QUEEN'S DUNGEONS
-
- WELL, I arranged all that; and I had the man sent
- to his home. I had a great desire to rack the
- executioner; not because he was a good, painstaking
- and paingiving official, -- for surely it was not to his
- discredit that he performed his functions well -- but to
- pay him back for wantonly cuffing and otherwise dis-
- tressing that young woman. The priests told me about
- this, and were generously hot to have him punished.
- Something of this disagreeable sort was turning up
- every now and then. I mean, episodes that showed
- that not all priests were frauds and self-seekers, but
- that many, even the great majority, of these that were
- down on the ground among the common people, were
- sincere and right-hearted, and devoted to the alleviation
- of human troubles and sufferings. Well, it was a thing
- which could not be helped, so I seldom fretted about
- it, and never many minutes at a time; it has never
- been my way to bother much about things which you
- can't cure. But I did not like it, for it was just the
- sort of thing to keep people reconciled to an Estab-
- lished Church. We MUST have a religion -- it goes
- without saying -- but my idea is, to have it cut up into
- forty free sects, so that they will police each other, as
- had been the case in the United States in my time.
- Concentration of power in a political machine is bad;
- and and an Established Church is only a political machine;
- it was invented for that; it is nursed, cradled, pre-
- served for that; it is an enemy to human liberty, and
- does no good which it could not better do in a split-up
- and scattered condition. That wasn't law; it wasn't
- gospel: it was only an opinion -- my opinion, and I
- was only a man, one man: so it wasn't worth any
- more than the pope's -- or any less, for that matter.
-
- Well, I couldn't rack the executioner, neither would
- I overlook the just complaint of the priests. The man
- must be punished somehow or other, so I degraded
- him from his office and made him leader of the band
- -- the new one that was to be started. He begged
- hard, and said he couldn't play -- a plausible excuse,
- but too thin; there wasn't a musician in the country
- that could.
-
- The queen was a good deal outraged, next morning
- when she found she was going to have neither Hugo's
- life nor his property. But I told her she must bear
- this cross; that while by law and custom she certainly
- was entitled to both the man's life and his property,
- there were extenuating circumstances, and so in Arthur
- the king's name I had pardoned him. The deer was
- ravaging the man's fields, and he had killed it in sud-
- den passion, and not for gain; and he had carried it
- into the royal forest in the hope that that might make
- detection of the misdoer impossible. Confound her, I
- couldn't make her see that sudden passion is an ex-
- tenuating circumstance in the killing of venison -- or
- of a person -- so I gave it up and let her sulk it out
- I DID think I was going to make her see it by remark-
- ing that her own sudden passion in the case of the
- page modified that crime.
-
- "Crime!" she exclaimed. "How thou talkest!
- Crime, forsooth! Man, I am going to PAY for him!"
-
- Oh, it was no use to waste sense on her. Training
- -- training is everything; training is all there is TO a
- person. We speak of nature; it is folly; there is no
- such thing as nature; what we call by that misleading
- name is merely heredity and training. We have no
- thoughts of our own, no opinions of our own; they
- are transmitted to us, trained into us. All that is
- original in us, and therefore fairly creditable or dis-
- creditable to us, can be covered up and hidden by the
- point of a cambric needle, all the rest being atoms
- contributed by, and inherited from, a procession of
- ancestors that stretches back a billion years to the
- Adam-clam or grasshopper or monkey from whom our
- race has been so tediously and ostentatiously and un-
- profitably developed. And as for me, all that I think
- about in this plodding sad pilgrimage, this pathetic
- drift between the eternities, is to look out and humbly
- live a pure and high and blameless life, and save that
- one microscopic atom in me that is truly ME: the rest
- may land in Sheol and welcome for all I care.
-
- No, confound her, her intellect was good, she had
- brains enough, but her training made her an ass -- that
- is, from a many-centuries-later point of view. To kill
- the page was no crime -- it was her right; and upon
- her right she stood, serenely and unconscious of
- offense. She was a result of generations of training
- in the unexamined and unassailed belief that the law
- which permitted her to kill a subject when she chose
- was a perfectly right and righteous one.
-
- Well, we must give even Satan his due. She de-
- served a compliment for one thing; and I tried to pay
- it, but the words stuck in my throat. She had a right
- to kill the boy, but she was in no wise obliged to pay
- for him. That was law for some other people, but
- not for her. She knew quite well that she was doing a
- large and generous thing to pay for that lad, and that
- I ought in common fairness to come out with some-
- thing handsome about it, but I couldn't -- my mouth
- refused. I couldn't help seeing, in my fancy, that
- poor old grandma with the broken heart, and that fair
- young creature lying butchered, his little silken pomps
- and vanities laced with his golden blood. How could
- she PAY for him! WHOM could she pay? And so,
- well knowing that this woman, trained as she had been,
- deserved praise, even adulation, I was yet not able to
- utter it, trained as I had been. The best I could do
- was to fish up a compliment from outside, so to speak
- -- and the pity of it was, that it was true:
-
- "Madame, your people will adore you for this."
-
- Quite true, but I meant to hang her for it some day
- if I lived. Some of those laws were too bad, altogether
- too bad. A master might kill his slave for nothing --
- for mere spite, malice, or to pass the time -- just as
- we have seen that the crowned head could do it with
- HIS slave, that is to say, anybody. A gentleman could
- kill a free commoner, and pay for him -- cash or
- garden-truck. A noble could kill a noble without ex-
- pense, as far as the law was concerned, but reprisals in
- kind were to be expected. ANYbody could kill SOME-
- body, except the commoner and the slave; these had
- no privileges. If they killed, it was murder, and the
- law wouldn't stand murder. It made short work of
- the experimenter -- and of his family, too, if he mur-
- dered somebody who belonged up among the orna-
- mental ranks. If a commoner gave a noble even so
- much as a Damiens-scratch which didn't kill or even
- hurt, he got Damiens' dose for it just the same; they
- pulled him to rags and tatters with horses, and all the
- world came to see the show, and crack jokes, and have
- a good time; and some of the performances of the
- best people present were as tough, and as properly
- unprintable, as any that have been printed by the
- pleasant Casanova in his chapter about the dismember-
- ment of Louis XV.'s poor awkward enemy.
-
- I had had enough of this grisly place by this time,
- and wanted to leave, but I couldn't, because I had
- something on my mind that my conscience kept prod-
- ding me about, and wouldn't let me forget. If I had
- the remaking of man, he wouldn't have any conscience.
- It is one of the most disagreeable things connected
- with a person; and although it certainly does a great
- deal of good, it cannot be said to pay, in the long run;
- it would be much better to have less good and more
- comfort. Still, this is only my opinion, and I am only
- one man; others, with less experience, may think
- differently. They have a right to their view. I only
- stand to this: I have noticed my conscience for many
- years, and I know it is more trouble and bother to me
- than anything else I started with. I suppose that in
- the beginning I prized it, because we prize anything
- that is ours; and yet how foolish it was to think so.
- If we look at it in another way, we see how absurd it
- is: if I had an anvil in me would I prize it? Of course
- not. And yet when you come to think, there is no
- real difference between a conscience and an anvil -- I
- mean for comfort. I have noticed it a thousand times.
- And you could dissolve an anvil with acids, when you
- couldn't stand it any longer; but there isn't any way
- that you can work off a conscience -- at least so it will
- stay worked off; not that I know of, anyway.
-
- There was something I wanted to do before leaving,
- but it was a disagreeable matter, and I hated to go at
- it. Well, it bothered me all the morning. I could
- have mentioned it to the old king, but what would be
- the use? -- he was but an extinct volcano; he had
- been active in his time, but his fire was out, this good
- while, he was only a stately ash-pile now; gentle
- enough, and kindly enough for my purpose, without
- doubt, but not usable. He was nothing, this so-called
- king: the queen was the only power there. And she
- was a Vesuvius. As a favor, she might consent to
- warm a flock of sparrows for you, but then she might
- take that very opportunity to turn herself loose and
- bury a city. However, I reflected that as often as any
- other way, when you are expecting the worst, you get
- something that is not so bad, after all.
-
- So I braced up and placed my matter before her
- royal Highness. I said I had been having a general
- jail-delivery at Camelot and among neighboring castles,
- and with her permission I would like to examine her
- collection, her bric-a-brac -- that is to say, her prison-
- ers. She resisted; but I was expecting that. But she
- finally consented. I was expecting that, too, but not
- so soon. That about ended my discomfort. She
- called her guards and torches, and we went down into
- the dungeons. These were down under the castle's
- foundations, and mainly were small cells hollowed out
- of the living rock. Some of these cells had no light at
- all. In one of them was a woman, in foul rags, who
- sat on the ground, and would not answer a question or
- speak a word, but only looked up at us once or twice,
- through a cobweb of tangled hair, as if to see what
- casual thing it might be that was disturbing with sound
- and light the meaningless dull dream that was become
- her life; after that, she sat bowed, with her dirt-caked
- fingers idly interlocked in her lap, and gave no further
- sign. This poor rack of bones was a woman of middle
- age, apparently; but only apparently; she had been
- there nine years, and was eighteen when she entered.
- She was a commoner, and had been sent here on her
- bridal night by Sir Breuse Sance Pite, a neighboring
- lord whose vassal her father was, and to which said
- lord she had refused what has since been called le droit
- du seigneur, and, moreover, had opposed violence to
- violence and spilt half a gill of his almost sacred blood.
- The young husband had interfered at that point. be-
- lieving the bride's life in danger, and had flung the
- noble out into the midst of the humble and trembling
- wedding guests, in the parlor, and left him there aston-
- ished at this strange treatment, and implacably embit-
- tered against both bride and groom. The said lord
- being cramped for dungeon-room had asked the queen
- to accommodate his two criminals, and here in her
- bastile they had been ever since; hither, indeed, they
- had come before their crime was an hour old, and had
- never seen each other since. Here they were, ken-
- neled like toads in the same rock; they had passed
- nine pitch dark years within fifty feet of each other,
- yet neither knew whether the other was alive or not.
- All the first years, their only question had been --
- asked with beseechings and tears that might have
- moved stones, in time, perhaps, but hearts are not
- stones: "Is he alive?" "Is she alive?" But they
- had never got an answer; and at last that question was
- not asked any more -- or any other.
-
- I wanted to see the man, after hearing all this. He
- was thirty-four years old, and looked sixty. He sat
- upon a squared block of stone, with his head bent
- down, his forearms resting on his knees, his long hair
- hanging like a fringe before his face, and he was
- muttering to himself. He raised his chin and looked
- us slowly over, in a listless dull way, blinking with the
- distress of the torchlight, then dropped his head and
- fell to muttering again and took no further notice of
- us. There were some pathetically suggestive dumb
- witnesses present. On his wrists and ankles were
- cicatrices, old smooth scars, and fastened to the stone
- on which he sat was a chain with manacles and fetters
- attached; but this apparatus lay idle on the ground,
- and was thick with rust. Chains cease to be needed
- after the spirit has gone out of a prisoner.
-
- I could not rouse the man; so I said we would take
- him to her, and see -- to the bride who was the fairest
- thing in the earth to him, once -- roses, pearls, and dew
- made flesh, for him; a wonder-work, the master-work
- of nature: with eyes like no other eyes, and voice like
- no other voice, and a freshness, and lithe young grace,
- and beauty, that belonged properly to the creatures of
- dreams -- as he thought -- and to no other. The sight
- of her would set his stagnant blood leaping; the sight
- of her --
-
- But it was a disappointment. They sat together on
- the ground and looked dimly wondering into each
- other's faces a while, with a sort of weak animal curi-
- osity; then forgot each other's presence, and dropped
- their eyes, and you saw that they were away again and
- wandering in some far land of dreams and shadows
- that we know nothing about.
-
- I had them taken out and sent to their friends. The
- queen did not like it much. Not that she felt any
- personal interest in the matter, but she thought it dis-
- respectful to Sir Breuse Sance Pite. However, I
- assured her that if he found he couldn't stand it I
- would fix him so that he could.
-
- I set forty-seven prisoners loose out of those awful
- rat-holes, and left only one in captivity. He was a
- lord, and had killed another lord, a sort of kinsman of
- the queen. That other lord had ambushed him to
- assassinate him, but this fellow had got the best of him
- and cut his throat. However, it was not for that that
- I left him jailed, but for maliciously destroying the
- only public well in one of his wretched villages. The
- queen was bound to hang him for killing her kinsman,
- but I would not allow it: it was no crime to kill an
- assassin. But I said I was willing to let her hang him
- for destroying the well; so she concluded to put up
- with that, as it was better than nothing.
-
- Dear me, for what trifling offenses the most of those
- forty-seven men and women were shut up there! In-
- deed, some were there for no distinct offense at all,
- but only to gratify somebody's spite; and not always
- the queen's by any means, but a friend's. The newest
- prisoner's crime was a mere remark which he had
- made. He said he believed that men were about all
- alike, and one man as good as another, barring clothes.
- He said he believed that if you were to strip the nation
- naked and send a stranger through the crowd, he
- couldn't tell the king from a quack doctor, nor a duke
- from a hotel clerk. Apparently here was a man whose
- brains had not been reduced to an ineffectual mush by
- idiotic training. I set him loose and sent him to the
- Factory.
-
- Some of the cells carved in the living rock were just
- behind the face of the precipice, and in each of these
- an arrow-slit had been pierced outward to the daylight,
- and so the captive had a thin ray from the blessed sun
- for his comfort. The case of one of these poor fel-
- lows was particularly hard. From his dusky swallow's
- hole high up in that vast wall of native rock he could
- peer out through the arrow-slit and see his own home
- off yonder in the valley; and for twenty-two years he
- had watched it, with heartache and longing, through
- that crack. He could see the lights shine there at
- night, and in the daytime he could see figures go in
- and come out -- his wife and children, some of them,
- no doubt, though he could not make out at that dis-
- tance. In the course of years he noted festivities
- there, and tried to rejoice, and wondered if they were
- weddings or what they might be. And he noted
- funerals; and they wrung his heart. He could make
- out the coffin, but he could not determine its size, and
- so could not tell whether it was wife or child. He
- could see the procession form, with priests and mourn-
- ers, and move solemnly away, bearing the secret with
- them. He had left behind him five children and a
- wife; and in nineteen years he had seen five funerals
- issue, and none of them humble enough in pomp to
- denote a servant. So he had lost five of his treasures;
- there must still be one remaining -- one now infinitely,
- unspeakably precious, -- but WHICH one? wife, or child?
- That was the question that tortured him, by night and
- by day, asleep and awake. Well, to have an interest,
- of some sort, and half a ray of light, when you are in
- a dungeon, is a great support to the body and preserver
- of the intellect. This man was in pretty good condi-
- tion yet. By the time he had finished telling me his
- distressful tale, I was in the same state of mind that
- you would have been in yourself, if you have got
- average human curiosity; that is to say, I was as
- burning up as he was to find out which member of
- the family it was that was left. So I took him over
- home myself; and an amazing kind of a surprise party
- it was, too -- typhoons and cyclones of frantic joy,
- and whole Niagaras of happy tears; and by George!
- we found the aforetime young matron graying toward
- the imminent verge of her half century, and the babies
- all men and women, and some of them married and
- experimenting familywise themselves -- for not a soul
- of the tribe was dead! Conceive of the ingenious
- devilishness of that queen: she had a special hatred
- for this prisoner, and she had INVENTED all those funer-
- als herself, to scorch his heart with; and the sublimest
- stroke of genius of the whole thing was leaving the
- family-invoice a funeral SHORT, so as to let him wear his
- poor old soul out guessing.
-
- But for me, he never would have got out. Morgan
- le Fay hated him with her whole heart, and she never
- would have softened toward him. And yet his crime
- was committed more in thoughtlessness than deliberate
- depravity. He had said she had red hair. Well, she
- had; but that was no way to speak of it. When red-
- headed people are above a certain social grade their
- hair is auburn.
-
- Consider it: among these forty-seven captives there
- were five whose names, offenses, and dates of incar-
- ceration were no longer known! One woman and four
- men -- all bent, and wrinkled, and mind-extinguished
- patriarchs. They themselves had long ago forgotten
- these details; at any rate they had mere vague theories
- about them, nothing definite and nothing that they re-
- peated twice in the same way. The succession of
- priests whose office it had been to pray daily with the
- captives and remind them that God had put them
- there, for some wise purpose or other, and teach them
- that patience, humbleness, and submission to oppres-
- sion was what He loved to see in parties of a subordi-
- nate rank, had traditions about these poor old human
- ruins, but nothing more. These traditions went but
- little way, for they concerned the length of the incar-
- ceration only, and not the names of the offenses. And
- even by the help of tradition the only thing that could
- be proven was that none of the five had seen daylight
- for thirty-five years: how much longer this privation
- has lasted was not guessable. The king and the queen
- knew nothing about these poor creatures, except that
- they were heirlooms, assets inherited, along with the
- throne, from the former firm. Nothing of their history
- had been transmitted with their persons, and so the
- inheriting owners had considered them of no value,
- and had felt no interest in them. I said to the queen:
-
- "Then why in the world didn't you set them free?"
-
- The question was a puzzler. She didn't know WHY
- she hadn't, the thing had never come up in her mind.
- So here she was, forecasting the veritable history of
- future prisoners of the Castle d'If, without knowing it.
- It seemed plain to me now, that with her training,
- those inherited prisoners were merely property -- noth-
- ing more, nothing less. Well, when we inherit prop-
- erty, it does not occur to us to throw it away, even
- when we do not value it.
-
- When I brought my procession of human bats up
- into the open world and the glare of the afternoon sun
- -- previously blindfolding them, in charity for eyes
- so long untortured by light -- they were a spectacle
- to look at. Skeletons, scarecrows, goblins, pathetic
- frights, every one; legitimatest possible children of
- Monarchy by the Grace of God and the Established
- Church. I muttered absently:
-
- "I WISH I could photograph them!"
-
- You have seen that kind of people who will never let
- on that they don't know the meaning of a new big
- word. The more ignorant they are, the more pitifully
- certain they are to pretend you haven't shot over their
- heads. The queen was just one of that sort, and was
- always making the stupidest blunders by reason of it.
- She hesitated a moment; then her face brightened up
- with sudden comprehension, and she said she would
- do it for me.
-
- I thought to myself: She? why what can she know
- about photography? But it was a poor time to be
- thinking. When I looked around, she was moving on
- the procession with an axe!
-
- Well, she certainly was a curious one, was Morgan
- le Fay. I have seen a good many kinds of women in
- my time, but she laid over them all for variety. And
- how sharply characteristic of her this episode was.
- She had no more idea than a horse of how to photo-
- graph a procession; but being in doubt, it was just
- like her to try to do it with an axe.
-
-
- CHAPTER XIX.
- KNIGHT-ERRANTRY AS A TRADE
-
- SANDY and I were on the road again, next morn-
- ing, bright and early. It was so good to open up
- one's lungs and take in whole luscious barrels-ful of
- the blessed God's untainted, dew-fashioned, woodland-
- scented air once more, after suffocating body and mind
- for two days and nights in the moral and physical
- stenches of that intolerable old buzzard-roost!
- mean, for me: of course the place was all right and
- agreeable enough for Sandy, for she had been used to
- high life all her days.
-
- Poor girl, her jaws had had a wearisome rest now
- for a while, and I was expecting to get the conse-
- quences. I was right; but she had stood by me most
- helpfully in the castle, and had mightily supported and
- reinforced me with gigantic foolishnesses which were
- worth more for the occasion than wisdoms double
- their size; so I thought she had earned a right to work
- her mill for a while, if she wanted to, and I felt not a
- pang when she started it up:
-
- "Now turn we unto Sir Marhaus that rode with the
- damsel of thirty winter of age southward --"
-
- "Are you going to see if you can work up another
- half-stretch on the trail of the cowboys, Sandy?"
-
- "Even so, fair my lord."
-
- "Go ahead, then. I won't interrupt this time, if I
- can help it. Begin over again; start fair, and shake
- out all your reefs, and I will load my pipe and give
- good attention."
-
- "Now turn we unto Sir Marhaus that rode with the
- damsel of thirty winter of age southward. And so
- they came into a deep forest, and by fortune they were
- nighted, and rode along in a deep way, and at the last
- they came into a courtelage where abode the duke of
- South Marches, and there they asked harbour. And
- on the morn the duke sent unto Sir Marhaus, and bad
- him make him ready. And so Sir Marhaus arose and
- armed him, and there was a mass sung afore him, and
- he brake his fast, and so mounted on horseback in the
- court of the castle, there they should do the battle.
- So there was the duke already on horseback, clean
- armed, and his six sons by him, and every each had a
- spear in his hand, and so they encountered, whereas
- the duke and his two sons brake their spears upon
- him, but Sir Marhaus held up his spear and touched
- none of them. Then came the four sons by couples,
- and two of them brake their spears, and so did the
- other two. And all this while Sir Marhaus touched
- them not. Then Sir Marhaus ran to the duke, and
- smote him with his spear that horse and man fell to
- the earth. And so he served his sons. And then Sir
- Marhaus alight down, and bad the duke yield him or
- else he would slay him. And then some of his sons
- recovered, and would have set upon Sir Marhaus.
- Then Sir Marhaus said to the duke, Cease thy sons, or
- else I will do the uttermost to you all. When the
- duke saw he might not escape the death, he cried to
- his sons, and charged them to yield them to Sir Mar-
- haus. And they kneeled all down and put the pom-
- mels of their swords to the knight, and so he received
- them. And then they holp up their father, and so by
- their common assent promised unto Sir Marhaus never
- to be foes unto King Arthur, and thereupon at Whit-
- suntide after, to come he and his sons, and put them
- in the king's grace. *
-
- [* Footnote: The story is borrowed, language and
- all, from the Morte d'Arthur. --M.T.]
-
- "Even so standeth the history, fair Sir Boss. Now
- ye shall wit that that very duke and his six sons are
- they whom but few days past you also did overcome
- and send to Arthur's court!"
-
- "Why, Sandy, you can't mean it!"
-
- "An I speak not sooth, let it be the worse for me."
-
- "Well, well, well, -- now who would ever have
- thought it? One whole duke and six dukelets; why,
- Sandy, it was an elegant haul. Knight-errantry is a
- most chuckle-headed trade, and it is tedious hard
- work, too, but I begin to see that there IS money in
- it, after all, if you have luck. Not that I would ever
- engage in it as a business, for I wouldn't. No sound
- and legitimate business can be established on a basis of
- speculation. A successful whirl in the knight-errantry
- line -- now what is it when you blow away the non-
- sense and come down to the cold facts? It's just a
- corner in pork, that's all, and you can't make anything
- else out of it. You're rich -- yes, -- suddenly rich --
- for about a day, maybe a week; then somebody cor-
- ners the market on YOU, and down goes your bucket-
- shop; ain't that so, Sandy?"
-
- "Whethersoever it be that my mind miscarrieth,
- bewraying simple language in such sort that the words
- do seem to come endlong and overthwart --"
-
- "There's no use in beating about the bush and
- trying to get around it that way, Sandy, it's SO, just as
- I say. I KNOW it's so. And, moreover, when you
- come right down to the bedrock, knight-errantry is
- WORSE than pork; for whatever happens, the pork's
- left, and so somebody's benefited anyway; but when
- the market breaks, in a knight-errantry whirl, and
- every knight in the pool passes in his checks, what
- have you got for assets? Just a rubbish-pile of bat-
- tered corpses and a barrel or two of busted hardware.
- Can you call THOSE assets? Give me pork, every time.
- Am I right?"
-
- "Ah, peradventure my head being distraught by
- the manifold matters whereunto the confusions of these
- but late adventured haps and fortunings whereby not
- I alone nor you alone, but every each of us, meseem-
- eth --"
-
- "No, it's not your head, Sandy. Your head's all
- right, as far as it goes, but you don't know business;
- that's where the trouble is. It unfits you to argue
- about business, and you're wrong to be always trying.
- However, that aside, it was a good haul, anyway, and
- will breed a handsome crop of reputation in Arthur's
- court. And speaking of the cowboys, what a curious
- country this is for women and men that never get old.
- Now there's Morgan le Fay, as fresh and young as a
- Vassar pullet, to all appearances, and here is this old
- duke of the South Marches still slashing away with
- sword and lance at his time of life, after raising such a
- family as he has raised. As I understand it, Sir
- Gawaine killed seven of his sons, and still he had six
- left for Sir Marhaus and me to take into camp. And
- then there was that damsel of sixty winter of age still
- excursioning around in her frosty bloom -- How old
- are you, Sandy?"
-
- It was the first time I ever struck a still place in her.
- The mill had shut down for repairs, or something.
-
-
- CHAPTER XX.
- THE OGRE'S CASTLE
-
- BETWEEN six and nine we made ten miles, which
- was plenty for a horse carrying triple -- man,
- woman, and armor; then we stopped for a long noon-
- ing under some trees by a limpid brook.
-
- Right so came by and by a knight riding; and as he
- drew near he made dolorous moan, and by the words
- of it I perceived that he was cursing and swearing; yet
- nevertheless was I glad of his coming, for that I saw
- he bore a bulletin-board whereon in letters all of
- shining gold was writ:
-
- "USE PETERSON S PROPHYLACTIC TOOTH-BRUSH--
- ALL THE GO."
-
- I was glad of his coming, for even by this token I
- knew him for knight of mine. It was Sir Madok de
- la Montaine, a burly great fellow whose chief distinc-
- tion was that he had come within an ace of sending Sir
- Launcelot down over his horse-tail once. He was
- never long in a stranger's presence without finding
- some pretext or other to let out that great fact. But
- there was another fact of nearly the same size, which
- he never pushed upon anybody unasked, and yet never
- withheld when asked: that was, that the reason he
- didn't quite succeed was, that he was interrupted and
- sent down over horse-tail himself. This innocent vast
- lubber did not see any particular difference between
- the two facts. I liked him, for he was earnest in his
- work, and very valuable. And he was so fine to look
- at, with his broad mailed shoulders, and the grand
- leonine set of his plumed head, and his big shield
- with its quaint device of a gauntleted hand clutch-
- ing a prophylactic tooth-brush, with motto: "Try
- Noyoudont." This was a tooth-wash that I was
- introducing.
-
- He was aweary, he said, and indeed he looked it;
- but he would not alight. He said he was after the
- stove-polish man; and with this he broke out cursing
- and swearing anew. The bulletin-boarder referred to
- was Sir Ossaise of Surluse, a brave knight, and of
- considerable celebrity on account of his having tried
- conclusions in a tournament once, with no less a Mogul
- that Sir Gaheris himself -- although not successfully.
- He was of a light and laughing disposition, and to him
- nothing in this world was serious. It was for this
- reason that I had chosen him to work up a stove-polish
- sentiment. There were no stoves yet, and so there
- could be nothing serious about stove-polish. All that
- the agent needed to do was to deftly and by degrees
- prepare the public for the great change, and have them
- established in predilections toward neatness against the
- time when the stove should appear upon the stage.
-
- Sir Madok was very bitter, and brake out anew with
- cursings. He said he had cursed his soul to rags;
- and yet he would not get down from his horse, neither
- would he take any rest, or listen to any comfort, until
- he should have found Sir Ossaise and settled this ac-
- count. It appeared, by what I could piece together
- of the unprofane fragments of his statement, that he
- had chanced upon Sir Ossaise at dawn of the morning,
- and been told that if he would make a short cut across
- the fields and swamps and broken hills and glades, he
- could head off a company of travelers who would be
- rare customers for prophylactics and tooth-wash. With
- characteristic zeal Sir Madok had plunged away at
- once upon this quest, and after three hours of awful
- crosslot riding had overhauled his game. And behold,
- it was the five patriarchs that had been released from
- the dungeons the evening before! Poor old creatures,
- it was all of twenty years since any one of them had
- known what it was to be equipped with any remaining
- snag or remnant of a tooth.
-
- "Blank-blank-blank him," said Sir Madok, "an I
- do not stove-polish him an I may find him, leave it to
- me; for never no knight that hight Ossaise or aught
- else may do me this disservice and bide on live, an I
- may find him, the which I have thereunto sworn a
- great oath this day."
-
- And with these words and others, he lightly took his
- spear and gat him thence. In the middle of the after-
- noon we came upon one of those very patriarchs our-
- selves, in the edge of a poor village. He was basking
- in the love of relatives and friends whom he had not
- seen for fifty years; and about him and caressing him
- were also descendants of his own body whom he had
- never seen at all till now; but to him these were all
- strangers, his memory was gone, his mind was stag-
- nant. It seemed incredible that a man could outlast
- half a century shut up in a dark hole like a rat, but
- here were his old wife and some old comrades to
- testify to it. They could remember him as he was in
- the freshness and strength of his young manhood,
- when he kissed his child and delivered it to its mother's
- hands and went away into that long oblivion. The
- people at the castle could not tell within half a genera-
- tion the length of time the man had been shut up there
- for his unrecorded and forgotten offense; but this old
- wife knew; and so did her old child, who stood there
- among her married sons and daughters trying to realize
- a father who had been to her a name, a thought, a
- formless image, a tradition, all her life, and now was
- suddenly concreted into actual flesh and blood and set
- before her face.
-
- It was a curious situation; yet it is not on that ac-
- count that I have made room for it here, but on
- account of a thing which seemed to me still more
- curious. To wit, that this dreadful matter brought
- from these downtrodden people no outburst of rage
- against these oppressors. They had been heritors and
- subjects of cruelty and outrage so long that nothing
- could have startled them but a kindness. Yes, here
- was a curious revelation, indeed, of the depth to which
- this people had been sunk in slavery. Their entire
- being was reduced to a monotonous dead level of
- patience, resignation, dumb uncomplaining acceptance
- of whatever might befall them in this life. Their very
- imagination was dead. When you can say that of a
- man, he has struck bottom, I reckon; there is no
- lower deep for him.
-
- I rather wished I had gone some other road. This
- was not the sort of experience for a statesman to en-
- counter who was planning out a peaceful revolution in
- his mind. For it could not help bringing up the un-
- get-aroundable fact that, all gentle cant and philoso-
- phizing to the contrary notwithstanding, no people in
- the world ever did achieve their freedom by goody-
- goody talk and moral suasion: it being immutable law
- that all revolutions that will succeed must BEGIN in
- blood, whatever may answer afterward. If history
- teaches anything, it teaches that. What this folk
- needed, then, was a Reign of Terror and a guillotine,
- and I was the wrong man for them.
-
- Two days later, toward noon, Sandy began to show
- signs of excitement and feverish expectancy. She
- said we were approaching the ogre's castle. I was
- surprised into an uncomfortable shock. The object of
- our quest had gradually dropped out of my mind; this
- sudden resurrection of it made it seem quite a real and
- startling thing for a moment, and roused up in me a
- smart interest. Sandy's excitement increased every
- moment; and so did mine, for that sort of thing is
- catching. My heart got to thumping. You can't
- reason with your heart; it has its own laws, and
- thumps about things which the intellect scorns. Pres-
- ently, when Sandy slid from the horse, motioned me
- to stop, and went creeping stealthily, with her head
- bent nearly to her knees, toward a row of bushes that
- bordered a declivity, the thumpings grew stronger and
- quicker. And they kept it up while she was gaining
- her ambush and getting her glimpse over the declivity;
- and also while I was creeping to her side on my knees.
- Her eyes were burning now, as she pointed with her
- finger, and said in a panting whisper:
-
- "The castle! The castle! Lo, where it looms!"
-
- What a welcome disappointment I experienced! I
- said:
-
- "Castle? It is nothing but a pigsty; a pigsty with
- a wattled fence around it."
-
- She looked surprised and distressed. The animation
- faded out of her face; and during many moments she
- was lost in thought and silent. Then:
-
- "It was not enchanted aforetime," she said in a
- musing fashion, as if to herself. "And how strange
- is this marvel, and how awful -- that to the one per-
- ception it is enchanted and dight in a base and shame-
- ful aspect; yet to the perception of the other it is not
- enchanted, hath suffered no change, but stands firm
- and stately still, girt with its moat and waving its ban-
- ners in the blue air from its towers. And God shield
- us, how it pricks the heart to see again these gracious
- captives, and the sorrow deepened in their sweet faces!
- We have tarried along, and are to blame."
-
- I saw my cue. The castle was enchanted to ME, not
- to her. It would be wasted time to try to argue her
- out of her delusion, it couldn't be done; I must just
- humor it. So I said:
-
- "This is a common case -- the enchanting of a thing
- to one eye and leaving it in its proper form to another.
- You have heard of it before, Sandy, though you
- haven't happened to experience it. But no harm is
- done. In fact, it is lucky the way it is. If these
- ladies were hogs to everybody and to themselves, it
- would be necessary to break the enchantment, and that
- might be impossible if one failed to find out the par-
- ticular process of the enchantment. And hazardous,
- too; for in attempting a disenchantment without the
- true key, you are liable to err, and turn your hogs into
- dogs, and the dogs into cats, the cats into rats, and so
- on, and end by reducing your materials to nothing
- finally, or to an odorless gas which you can't follow --
- which, of course, amounts to the same thing. But
- here, by good luck, no one's eyes but mine are under
- the enchantment, and so it is of no consequence to
- dissolve it. These ladies remain ladies to you, and to
- themselves, and to everybody else; and at the same
- time they will suffer in no way from my delusion, for
- when I know that an ostensible hog is a lady, that is
- enough for me, I know how to treat her."
-
- "Thanks, oh, sweet my lord, thou talkest like an
- angel. And I know that thou wilt deliver them, for
- that thou art minded to great deeds and art as strong a
- knight of your hands and as brave to will and to do,
- as any that is on live."
-
- "I will not leave a princess in the sty, Sandy. Are
- those three yonder that to my disordered eyes are
- starveling swine-herds --"
-
- "The ogres, Are THEY changed also? It is most
- wonderful. Now am I fearful; for how canst thou
- strike with sure aim when five of their nine cubits of
- stature are to thee invisible? Ah, go warily, fair sir;
- this is a mightier emprise than I wend."
-
- "You be easy, Sandy. All I need to know is, how
- MUCH of an ogre is invisible; then I know how to
- locate his vitals. Don't you be afraid, I will make
- short work of these bunco-steerers. Stay where you
- are."
-
- I left Sandy kneeling there, corpse-faced but plucky
- and hopeful, and rode down to the pigsty, and struck
- up a trade with the swine-herds. I won their gratitude
- by buying out all the hogs at the lump sum of sixteen
- pennies, which was rather above latest quotations. I
- was just in time; for the Church, the lord of the
- manor, and the rest of the tax-gatherers would have
- been along next day and swept off pretty much all the
- stock, leaving the swine-herds very short of hogs and
- Sandy out of princesses. But now the tax people
- could be paid in cash, and there would be a stake left
- besides. One of the men had ten children; and he
- said that last year when a priest came and of his ten
- pigs took the fattest one for tithes, the wife burst out
- upon him, and offered him a child and said:
-
- "Thou beast without bowels of mercy, why leave
- me my child, yet rob me of the wherewithal to feed it?"
-
- How curious. The same thing had happened in the
- Wales of my day, under this same old Established
- Church, which was supposed by many to have changed
- its nature when it changed its disguise.
-
- I sent the three men away, and then opened the sty
- gate and beckoned Sandy to come -- which she did;
- and not leisurely, but with the rush of a prairie fire.
- And when I saw her fling herself upon those hogs,
- with tears of joy running down her cheeks, and strain
- them to her heart, and kiss them, and caress them,
- and call them reverently by grand princely names, I
- was ashamed of her, ashamed of the human race.
-
- We had to drive those hogs home -- ten miles; and
- no ladies were ever more fickle-minded or contrary.
- They would stay in no road, no path; they broke out
- through the brush on all sides, and flowed away in all
- directions, over rocks, and hills, and the roughest
- places they could find. And they must not be struck,
- or roughly accosted; Sandy could not bear to see
- them treated in ways unbecoming their rank. The
- troublesomest old sow of the lot had to be called my
- Lady, and your Highness, like the rest. It is annoy-
- ing and difficult to scour around after hogs, in armor.
- There was one small countess, with an iron ring in her
- snout and hardly any hair on her back, that was the
- devil for perversity. She gave me a race of an hour,
- over all sorts of country, and then we were right where
- we had started from, having made not a rod of real
- progress. I seized her at last by the tail, and brought
- her along squealing. When I overtook Sandy she was
- horrified, and said it was in the last degree indelicate
- to drag a countess by her train.
-
- We got the hogs home just at dark -- most of them.
- The princess Nerovens de Morganore was missing, and
- two of her ladies in waiting: namely, Miss Angela
- Bohun, and the Demoiselle Elaine Courtemains, the
- former of these two being a young black sow with a
- white star in her forehead, and the latter a brown one
- with thin legs and a slight limp in the forward shank
- on the starboard side -- a couple of the tryingest blis-
- ters to drive that I ever saw. Also among the missing
- were several mere baronesses -- and I wanted them to
- stay missing; but no, all that sausage-meat had to be
- found; so servants were sent out with torches to scour
- the woods and hills to that end.
-
- Of course, the whole drove was housed in the house,
- and, great guns! -- well, I never saw anything like it.
- Nor ever heard anything like it. And never smelt
- anything like it. It was like an insurrection in a gaso-
- meter.
-
-
- CHAPTER XXI.
- THE PILGRIMS
-
- WHEN I did get to bed at last I was unspeakably
- tired; the stretching out, and the relaxing of
- the long-tense muscles, how luxurious, how delicious!
- but that was as far as I could get -- sleep was out of
- the question for the present. The ripping and tearing
- and squealing of the nobility up and down the halls
- and corridors was pandemonium come again, and kept
- me broad awake. Being awake, my thoughts were
- busy, of course; and mainly they busied themselves
- with Sandy's curious delusion. Here she was, as sane
- a person as the kingdom could produce; and yet,
- from my point of view she was acting like a crazy
- woman. My land, the power of training! of influence!
- of education! It can bring a body up to believe any-
- thing. I had to put myself in Sandy's place to realize
- that she was not a lunatic. Yes, and put her in mine,
- to demonstrate how easy it is to seem a lunatic to a
- person who has not been taught as you have been
- taught. If I had told Sandy I had seen a wagon,
- uninfluenced by enchantment, spin along fifty miles an
- hour; had seen a man, unequipped with magic powers,
- get into a basket and soar out of sight among the
- clouds; and had listened, without any necromancer's
- help, to the conversation of a person who was several
- hundred miles away, Sandy would not merely have
- supposed me to be crazy, she would have thought she
- knew it. Everybody around her believed in enchant-
- ments; nobody had any doubts; to doubt that a castle
- could be turned into a sty, and its occupants into hogs,
- would have been the same as my doubting among Con-
- necticut people the actuality of the telephone and its
- wonders, -- and in both cases would be absolute proof
- of a diseased mind, an unsettled reason. Yes, Sandy
- was sane; that must be admitted. If I also would be
- sane -- to Sandy -- I must keep my superstitions about
- unenchanted and unmiraculous locomotives, balloons,
- and telephones, to myself. Also, I believed that the
- world was not flat, and hadn't pillars under it to sup-
- port it, nor a canopy over it to turn off a universe of
- water that occupied all space above; but as I was the
- only person in the kingdom afflicted with such impious
- and criminal opinions, I recognized that it would be
- good wisdom to keep quiet about this matter, too, if I
- did not wish to be suddenly shunned and forsaken by
- everybody as a madman.
-
- The next morning Sandy assembled the swine in the
- dining-room and gave them their breakfast, waiting
- upon them personally and manifesting in every way
- the deep reverence which the natives of her island,
- ancient and modern, have always felt for rank, let its
- outward casket and the mental and moral contents be
- what they may. I could have eaten with the hogs if I
- had had birth approaching my lofty official rank; but
- I hadn't, and so accepted the unavoidable slight and
- made no complaint. Sandy and I had our breakfast at
- the second table. The family were not at home. I
- said:
-
- "How many are in the family, Sandy, and where
- do they keep themselves?"
-
- "Family?"
-
- "Yes."
-
- "Which family, good my lord?"
-
- "Why, this family; your own family."
-
- "Sooth to say, I understand you not. I have no
- family."
-
- "No family? Why, Sandy, isn't this your home?"
-
- "Now how indeed might that be? I have no home."
-
- "Well, then, whose house is this?"
-
- "Ah, wit you well I would tell you an I knew
- myself."
-
- "Come -- you don't even know these people?
- Then who invited us here?"
-
- "None invited us. We but came; that is all."
-
- "Why, woman, this is a most extraordinary per-
- formance. The effrontery of it is beyond admiration.
- We blandly march into a man's house, and cram it
- full of the only really valuable nobility the sun has yet
- discovered in the earth, and then it turns out that we
- don't even know the man's name. How did you ever
- venture to take this extravagant liberty? I supposed,
- of course, it was your home. What will the man say?"
-
- "What will he say? Forsooth what can he say but
- give thanks?"
-
- "Thanks for what?"
-
- Her face was filled with a puzzled surprise:
-
- "Verily, thou troublest mine understanding with
- strange words. Do ye dream that one of his estate is
- like to have the honor twice in his life to entertain
- company such as we have brought to grace his house
- withal?"
-
- "Well, no -- when you come to that. No, it's an
- even bet that this is the first time he has had a treat
- like this."
-
- "Then let him be thankful, and manifest the same
- by grateful speech and due humility; he were a dog,
- else, and the heir and ancestor of dogs."
-
- To my mind, the situation was uncomfortable. It
- might become more so. It might be a good idea to
- muster the hogs and move on. So I said:
-
- "The day is wasting, Sandy. It is time to get the
- nobility together and be moving."
-
- "Wherefore, fair sir and Boss?"
-
- "We want to take them to their home, don't we?"
-
- "La, but list to him! They be of all the regions of
- the earth! Each must hie to her own home; wend
- you we might do all these journeys in one so brief life
- as He hath appointed that created life, and thereto
- death likewise with help of Adam, who by sin done
- through persuasion of his helpmeet, she being wrought
- upon and bewrayed by the beguilements of the great
- enemy of man, that serpent hight Satan, aforetime
- consecrated and set apart unto that evil work by over-
- mastering spite and envy begotten in his heart through
- fell ambitions that did blight and mildew a nature erst
- so white and pure whenso it hove with the shining
- multitudes its brethren-born in glade and shade of that
- fair heaven wherein all such as native be to that rich
- estate and --"
-
- "Great Scott!"
-
- "My lord?"
-
- "Well, you know we haven't got time for this sort
- of thing. Don't you see, we could distribute these
- people around the earth in less time than it is going to
- take you to explain that we can't. We mustn't talk
- now, we must act. You want to be careful; you
- mustn't let your mill get the start of you that way, at
- a time like this. To business now -- and sharp's the
- word. Who is to take the aristocracy home?"
-
- "Even their friends. These will come for them
- from the far parts of the earth."
-
- This was lightning from a clear sky, for unexpected-
- ness; and the relief of it was like pardon to a prisoner.
- She would remain to deliver the goods, of course.
-
- "Well, then, Sandy, as our enterprise is handsomely
- and successfully ended, I will go home and report;
- and if ever another one --"
-
- "I also am ready; I will go with thee."
-
- This was recalling the pardon.
-
- "How? You will go with me? Why should you?"
-
- "Will I be traitor to my knight, dost think? That
- were dishonor. I may not part from thee until in
- knightly encounter in the field some overmatching
- champion shall fairly win and fairly wear me. I were
- to blame an I thought that that might ever hap."
-
- "Elected for the long term," I sighed to myself.
- "I may as well make the best of it." So then I spoke
- up and said:
-
- "All right; let us make a start."
-
- While she was gone to cry her farewells over the
- pork, I gave that whole peerage away to the servants.
- And I asked them to take a duster and dust around a
- little where the nobilities had mainly lodged and prom-
- enaded; but they considered that that would be hardly
- worth while, and would moreover be a rather grave
- departure from custom, and therefore likely to make
- talk. A departure from custom -- that settled it; it
- was a nation capable of committing any crime but
- that. The servants said they would follow the fashion,
- a fashion grown sacred through immemorial observ-
- ance; they would scatter fresh rushes in all the rooms
- and halls, and then the evidence of the aristocratic
- visitation would be no longer visible. It was a kind of
- satire on Nature: it was the scientific method, the
- geologic method; it deposited the history of the family
- in a stratified record; and the antiquary could dig
- through it and tell by the remains of each period what
- changes of diet the family had introduced successively
- for a hundred years.
-
- The first thing we struck that day was a procession
- of pilgrims. It was not going our way, but we joined
- it, nevertheless; for it was hourly being borne in
- upon me now, that if I would govern this country
- wisely, I must be posted in the details of its life,
- and not at second hand, but by personal observation
- and scrutiny.
-
- This company of pilgrims resembled Chaucer's in
- this: that it had in it a sample of about all the upper
- occupations and professions the country could show,
- and a corresponding variety of costume. There were
- young men and old men, young women and old
- women, lively folk and grave folk. They rode upon
- mules and horses, and there was not a side-saddle in
- the party; for this specialty was to remain unknown in
- England for nine hundred years yet.
-
- It was a pleasant, friendly, sociable herd; pious,
- happy, merry and full of unconscious coarsenesses and
- innocent indecencies. What they regarded as the
- merry tale went the continual round and caused no
- more embarrassment than it would have caused in the
- best English society twelve centuries later. Practical
- jokes worthy of the English wits of the first quarter of
- the far-off nineteenth century were sprung here and
- there and yonder along the line, and compelled the
- delightedest applause; and sometimes when a bright
- remark was made at one end of the procession and
- started on its travels toward the other, you could note
- its progress all the way by the sparkling spray of
- laughter it threw off from its bows as it plowed along;
- and also by the blushes of the mules in its wake.
-
- Sandy knew the goal and purpose of this pilgrimage,
- and she posted me. She said:
-
- "They journey to the Valley of Holiness, for to be
- blessed of the godly hermits and drink of the miracu-
- lous waters and be cleased from sin."
-
- "Where is this watering place?"
-
- "It lieth a two-day journey hence, by the borders
- of the land that hight the Cuckoo Kingdom."
-
- "Tell me about it. Is it a celebrated place?"
-
- "Oh, of a truth, yes. There be none more so. Of
- old time there lived there an abbot and his monks.
- Belike were none in the world more holy than these;
- for they gave themselves to study of pious books, and
- spoke not the one to the other, or indeed to any, and
- ate decayed herbs and naught thereto, and slept hard,
- and prayed much, and washed never; also they wore
- the same garment until it fell from their bodies through
- age and decay. Right so came they to be known of
- all the world by reason of these holy austerities, and
- visited by rich and poor, and reverenced."
-
- "Proceed."
-
- "But always there was lack of water there. Whereas,
- upon a time, the holy abbot prayed, and for answer
- a great stream of clear water burst forth by miracle
- in a desert place. Now were the fickle monks tempted
- of the Fiend, and they wrought with their abbot un-
- ceasingly by beggings and beseechings that he would
- construct a bath; and when he was become aweary and
- might not resist more, he said have ye your will, then,
- and granted that they asked. Now mark thou what
- 'tis to forsake the ways of purity the which He loveth,
- and wanton with such as be worldly and an offense.
- These monks did enter into the bath and come thence
- washed as white as snow; and lo, in that moment His
- sign appeared, in miraculous rebuke! for His insulted
- waters ceased to flow, and utterly vanished away."
-
- "They fared mildly, Sandy, considering how that
- kind of crime is regarded in this country."
-
- "Belike; but it was their first sin; and they had
- been of perfect life for long, and differing in naught
- from the angels. Prayers, tears, torturings of the
- flesh, all was vain to beguile that water to flow again.
- Even processions; even burnt-offerings; even votive
- candles to the Virgin, did fail every each of them;
- and all in the land did marvel."
-
- "How odd to find that even this industry has its
- financial panics, and at times sees its assignats and
- greenbacks languish to zero, and everything come to a
- standstill. Go on, Sandy."
-
- "And so upon a time, after year and day, the good
- abbot made humble surrender and destroyed the bath.
- And behold, His anger was in that moment appeased,
- and the waters gushed richly forth again, and even
- unto this day they have not ceased to flow in that
- generous measure."
-
- "Then I take it nobody has washed since."
-
- "He that would essay it could have his halter free;
- yes, and swiftly would he need it, too."
-
- "The community has prospered since?"
-
- "Even from that very day. The fame of the miracle
- went abroad into all lands. From every land came
- monks to join; they came even as the fishes come, in
- shoals; and the monastery added building to building,
- and yet others to these, and so spread wide its arms
- and took them in. And nuns came, also; and more
- again, and yet more; and built over against the mon-
- astery on the yon side of the vale, and added building
- to building, until mighty was that nunnery. And
- these were friendly unto those, and they joined their
- loving labors together, and together they built a fair
- great foundling asylum midway of the valley between."
-
- "You spoke of some hermits, Sandy."
-
- "These have gathered there from the ends of the
- earth. A hermit thriveth best where there be multi-
- tudes of pilgrims. Ye shall not find no hermit of no
- sort wanting. If any shall mention a hermit of a kind
- he thinketh new and not to be found but in some far
- strange land, let him but scratch among the holes and
- caves and swamps that line that Valley of Holiness,
- and whatsoever be his breed, it skills not, he shall find
- a sample of it there."
-
- I closed up alongside of a burly fellow with a fat
- good-humored face, purposing to make myself agree-
- able and pick up some further crumbs of fact; but I
- had hardly more than scraped acquaintance with him
- when he began eagerly and awkwardly to lead up, in
- the immemorial way, to that same old anecdote -- the
- one Sir Dinadan told me, what time I got into trouble
- with Sir Sagramor and was challenged of him on ac-
- count of it. I excused myself and dropped to the rear
- of the procession, sad at heart, willing to go hence
- from this troubled life, this vale of tears, this brief day
- of broken rest, of cloud and storm, of weary struggle
- and monotonous defeat; and yet shrinking from the
- change, as remembering how long eternity is, and how
- many have wended thither who know that anecdote.
-
- Early in the afternoon we overtook another proces-
- sion of pilgrims; but in this one was no merriment, no
- jokes, no laughter, no playful ways, nor any happy
- giddiness, whether of youth or age. Yet both were
- here, both age and youth; gray old men and women,
- strong men and women of middle age, young hus-
- bands, young wives, little boys and girls, and three
- babies at the breast. Even the children were smileless;
- there was not a face among all these half a hundred
- people but was cast down, and bore that set expression
- of hopelessness which is bred of long and hard trials
- and old acquaintance with despair. They were slaves.
- Chains led from their fettered feet and their manacled
- hands to a sole-leather belt about their waists; and all
- except the children were also linked together in a file
- six feet apart, by a single chain which led from collar
- to collar all down the line. They were on foot, and
- had tramped three hundred miles in eighteen days,
- upon the cheapest odds and ends of food, and stingy
- rations of that. They had slept in these chains every
- night, bundled together like swine. They had upon
- their bodies some poor rags, but they could not be
- said to be clothed. Their irons had chafed the skin
- from their ankles and made sores which were ulcerated
- and wormy. Their naked feet were torn, and none
- walked without a limp. Originally there had been a
- hundred of these unfortunates, but about half had been
- sold on the trip. The trader in charge of them rode
- a horse and carried a whip with a short handle and a
- long heavy lash divided into several knotted tails at the
- end. With this whip he cut the shoulders of any that
- tottered from weariness and pain, and straightened
- them up. He did not speak; the whip conveyed his
- desire without that. None of these poor creatures
- looked up as we rode along by; they showed no con-
- sciousness of our presence. And they made no sound
- but one; that was the dull and awful clank of their
- chains from end to end of the long file, as forty-three
- burdened feet rose and fell in unison. The file moved
- in a cloud of its own making.
-
- All these faces were gray with a coating of dust.
- One has seen the like of this coating upon furniture in
- unoccupied houses, and has written his idle thought in
- it with his finger. I was reminded of this when I
- noticed the faces of some of those women, young
- mothers carrying babes that were near to death and
- freedom, how a something in their hearts was written
- in the dust upon their faces, plain to see, and lord, how
- plain to read! for it was the track of tears. One of
- these young mothers was but a girl, and it hurt me to
- the heart to read that writing, and reflect that it was
- come up out of the breast of such a child, a breast
- that ought not to know trouble yet, but only the glad-
- ness of the morning of life; and no doubt --
-
- She reeled just then, giddy with fatigue, and down
- came the lash and flicked a flake of skin from her
- naked shoulder. It stung me as if I had been hit in-
- stead. The master halted the file and jumped from his
- horse. He stormed and swore at this girl, and said
- she had made annoyance enough with her laziness, and
- as this was the last chance he should have, he would
- settle the account now. She dropped on her knees
- and put up her hands and began to beg, and cry, and
- implore, in a passion of terror, but the master gave no
- attention. He snatched the child from her, and then
- made the men-slaves who were chained before and
- behind her throw her on the ground and hold her there
- and expose her body; and then he laid on with his
- lash like a madman till her back was flayed, she shriek-
- ing and struggling the while piteously. One of the
- men who was holding her turned away his face, and
- for this humanity he was reviled and flogged.
-
- All our pilgrims looked on and commented -- on the
- expert way in which the whip was handled. They
- were too much hardened by lifelong everyday familiar-
- ity with slavery to notice that there was anything else
- in the exhibition that invited comment. This was what
- slavery could do, in the way of ossifying what one may
- call the superior lobe of human feeling; for these pil-
- grims were kind-hearted people, and they would not
- have allowed that man to treat a horse like that.
-
- I wanted to stop the whole thing and set the slaves
- free, but that would not do. I must not interfere too
- much and get myself a name for riding over the
- country's laws and the citizen's rights roughshod. If
- I lived and prospered I would be the death of slavery,
- that I was resolved upon; but I would try to fix it so
- that when I became its executioner it should be by
- command of the nation.
-
- Just here was the wayside shop of a smith; and now
- arrived a landed proprietor who had bought this girl a
- few miles back, deliverable here where her irons could
- be taken off. They were removed; then there was a
- squabble between the gentleman and the dealer as to
- which should pay the blacksmith. The moment the
- girl was delivered from her irons, she flung herself, all
- tears and frantic sobbings, into the arms of the slave
- who had turned away his face when she was whipped.
- He strained her to his breast, and smothered her
- face and the child's with kisses, and washed them
- with the rain of his tears. I suspected. I inquired.
- Yes, I was right; it was husband and wife. They had
- to be torn apart by force; the girl had to be dragged
- away, and she struggled and fought and shrieked like
- one gone mad till a turn of the road hid her from
- sight; and even after that, we could still make out the
- fading plaint of those receding shrieks. And the hus-
- band and father, with his wife and child gone, never to
- be seen by him again in life? -- well, the look of him
- one might not bear at all, and so I turned away; but I
- knew I should never get his picture out of my mind
- again, and there it is to this day, to wring my heart-
- strings whenever I think of it.
-
- We put up at the inn in a village just at nightfall,
- and when I rose next morning and looked abroad, I
- was ware where a knight came riding in the golden
- glory of the new day, and recognized him for knight
- of mine -- Sir Ozana le Cure Hardy. He was in the
- gentlemen's furnishing line, and his missionarying
- specialty was plug hats. He was clothed all in steel,
- in the beautifulest armor of the time -- up to where his
- helmet ought to have been; but he hadn't any helmet,
- he wore a shiny stove-pipe hat, and was ridiculous a
- spectacle as one might want to see. It was another of
- my surreptitious schemes for extinguishing knighthood
- by making it grotesque and absurd. Sir Ozana's sad-
- dle was hung about with leather hat boxes, and every
- time he overcame a wandering knight he swore him
- into my service and fitted him with a plug and made
- him wear it. I dressed and ran down to welcome Sir
- Ozana and get his news.
-
- "How is trade?" I asked.
-
- "Ye will note that I have but these four left; yet
- were they sixteen whenas I got me from Camelot."
-
- "Why, you have certainly done nobly, Sir Ozana.
- Where have you been foraging of late?"
-
- "I am but now come from the Valley of Holiness,
- please you sir."
-
- "I am pointed for that place myself. Is there
- anything stirring in the monkery, more than com-
- mon?"
-
- "By the mass ye may not question it!.... Give him
- good feed, boy, and stint it not, an thou valuest thy
- crown; so get ye lightly to the stable and do even as I
- bid...... Sir, it is parlous news I bring, and -- be
- these pilgrims? Then ye may not do better, good
- folk, than gather and hear the tale I have to tell, sith it
- concerneth you, forasmuch as ye go to find that ye
- will not find, and seek that ye will seek in vain, my life
- being hostage for my word, and my word and message
- being these, namely: That a hap has happened where-
- of the like has not been seen no more but once this
- two hundred years, which was the first and last time
- that that said misfortune strake the holy valley in that
- form by commandment of the Most High whereto by
- reasons just and causes thereunto contributing, wherein
- the matter --"
-
- "The miraculous fount hath ceased to flow!" This
- shout burst from twenty pilgrim mouths at once.
-
- "Ye say well, good people. I was verging to it,
- even when ye spake. "
-
- "Has somebody been washing again?"
-
- "Nay, it is suspected, but none believe it. It is
- thought to be some other sin, but none wit what."
-
- "How are they feeling about the calamity?"
-
- "None may describe it in words. The fount is
- these nine days dry. The prayers that did begin then,
- and the lamentations in sackcloth and ashes, and the
- holy processions, none of these have ceased nor night
- nor day; and so the monks and the nuns and the
- foundlings be all exhausted, and do hang up prayers
- writ upon parchment, sith that no strength is left in
- man to lift up voice. And at last they sent for thee,
- Sir Boss, to try magic and enchantment; and if you
- could not come, then was the messenger to fetch
- Merlin, and he is there these three days now, and
- saith he will fetch that water though he burst the globe
- and wreck its kingdoms to accomplish it; and right
- bravely doth he work his magic and call upon his
- hellions to hie them hither and help, but not a whiff
- of moisture hath he started yet, even so much as might
- qualify as mist upon a copper mirror an ye count not
- the barrel of sweat he sweateth betwixt sun and sun
- over the dire labors of his task; and if ye --"
-
- Breakfast was ready. As soon as it was over I
- showed to Sir Ozana these words which I had written
- on the inside of his hat: Chemical Department, Labor-
- atory extension, Section G. Pxxp. Send two of first
- size, two of No. 3, and six of No. 4, together with the
- proper complementary details -- and two of my trained
- assistants." And I said:
-
- "Now get you to Camelot as fast as you can fly,
- brave knight, and show the writing to Clarence, and
- tell him to have these required matters in the Valley of
- Holiness with all possible dispatch."
-
- "I will well, Sir Boss," and he was off.
-
-
- CHAPTER XXII.
- THE HOLY FOUNTAIN
-
- THE pilgrims were human beings. Otherwise they
- would have acted differently. They had come a
- long and difficult journey, and now when the journey
- was nearly finished, and they learned that the main
- thing they had come for had ceased to exist, they
- didn't do as horses or cats or angle-worms would
- probably have done -- turn back and get at something
- profitable -- no, anxious as they had before been to
- see the miraculous fountain, they were as much as
- forty times as anxious now to see the place where it
- had used to be. There is no accounting for human
- beings.
-
- We made good time; and a couple of hours before
- sunset we stood upon the high confines of the Valley
- of Holiness, and our eyes swept it from end to end
- and noted its features. That is, its large features.
- These were the three masses of buildings. They were
- distant and isolated temporalities shrunken to toy con-
- structions in the lonely waste of what seemed a desert
- -- and was. Such a scene is always mournful, it is so
- impressively still, and looks so steeped in death. But
- there was a sound here which interrupted the stillness
- only to add to its mournfulness; this was the faint far
- sound of tolling bells which floated fitfully to us on the
- passing breeze, and so faintly, so softly, that we hardly
- knew whether we heard it with our ears or with our
- spirits.
-
- We reached the monastery before dark, and there
- the males were given lodging, but the women were sent
- over to the nunnery. The bells were close at hand
- now, and their solemn booming smote upon the ear
- like a message of doom. A superstitious despair pos-
- sessed the heart of every monk and published itself
- in his ghastly face. Everywhere, these black-robed,
- soft-sandaled, tallow-visaged specters appeared, flitted
- about and disappeared, noiseless as the creatures of a
- troubled dream, and as uncanny.
-
- The old abbot's joy to see me was pathetic. Even
- to tears; but he did the shedding himself. He said:
-
- "Delay not, son, but get to thy saving work. An
- we bring not the water back again, and soon, we are
- ruined, and the good work of two hundred years must
- end. And see thou do it with enchantments that be
- holy, for the Church will not endure that work in her
- cause be done by devil's magic."
-
- "When I work, Father, be sure there will be no
- devil's work connected with it. I shall use no arts
- that come of the devil, and no elements not created
- by the hand of God. But is Merlin working strictly
- on pious lines?"
-
- "Ah, he said he would, my son, he said he would,
- and took oath to make his promise good."
-
- "Well, in that case, let him proceed."
-
- "But surely you will not sit idle by, but help?"
-
- "It will not answer to mix methods, Father; neither
- would it be professional courtesy. Two of a trade
- must not underbid each other. We might as well cut
- rates and be done with it; it would arrive at that in
- the end. Merlin has the contract; no other magician
- can touch it till he throws it up."
-
- "But I will take it from him; it is a terrible emer-
- gency and the act is thereby justified. And if it were
- not so, who will give law to the Church? The Church
- giveth law to all; and what she wills to do, that she
- may do, hurt whom it may. I will take it from him;
- you shall begin upon the moment."
-
- "It may not be, Father. No doubt, as you say,
- where power is supreme, one can do as one likes and
- suffer no injury; but we poor magicians are not so
- situated. Merlin is a very good magician in a small
- way, and has quite a neat provincial reputation. He
- is struggling along, doing the best he can, and it would
- not be etiquette for me to take his job until he himself
- abandons it."
-
- The abbot's face lighted.
-
- "Ah, that is simple. There are ways to persuade
- him to abandon it."
-
- "No-no, Father, it skills not, as these people say.
- If he were persuaded against his will, he would load
- that well with a malicious enchantment which would
- balk me until I found out its secret. It might take a
- month. I could set up a little enchantment of mine
- which I call the telephone, and he could not find out
- its secret in a hundred years. Yes, you perceive, he
- might block me for a month. Would you like to risk a
- month in a dry time like this?"
-
- "A month! The mere thought of it maketh me to
- shudder. Have it thy way, my son. But my heart is
- heavy with this disappointment. Leave me, and let
- me wear my spirit with weariness and waiting, even as
- I have done these ten long days, counterfeiting thus
- the thing that is called rest, the prone body making
- outward sign of repose where inwardly is none."
-
- Of course, it would have been best, all round, for
- Merlin to waive etiquette and quit and call it half a
- day, since he would never be able to start that water,
- for he was a true magician of the time; which is to
- say, the big miracles, the ones that gave him his repu-
- tation, always had the luck to be performed when
- nobody but Merlin was present; he couldn't start this
- well with all this crowd around to see; a crowd was as
- bad for a magician's miracle in that day as it was for a
- spiritualist's miracle in mine; there was sure to be
- some skeptic on hand to turn up the gas at the crucial
- moment and spoil everything. But I did not want
- Merlin to retire from the job until I was ready to take
- hold of it effectively myself; and I could not do that
- until I got my things from Camelot, and that would
- take two or three days.
-
- My presence gave the monks hope, and cheered
- them up a good deal; insomuch that they ate a square
- meal that night for the first time in ten days. As
- soon as their stomachs had been properly reinforced
- with food, their spirits began to rise fast; when the
- mead began to go round they rose faster. By the
- time everybody was half-seas over, the holy com-
- munity was in good shape to make a night of it; so
- we stayed by the board and put it through on that
- line. Matters got to be very jolly. Good old ques-
- tionable stories were told that made the tears run down
- and cavernous mouths stand wide and the round bellies
- shake with laughter; and questionable songs were
- bellowed out in a mighty chorus that drowned the
- boom of the tolling bells.
-
- At last I ventured a story myself; and vast was the
- success of it. Not right off, of course, for the native
- of those islands does not, as a rule, dissolve upon the
- early applications of a humorous thing; but the fifth
- time I told it, they began to crack in places; the eight
- time I told it, they began to crumble; at the twelfth
- repetition they fell apart in chunks; and at the fifteenth
- they disintegrated, and I got a broom and swept them
- up. This language is figurative. Those islanders --
- well, they are slow pay at first, in the matter of return
- for your investment of effort, but in the end they make
- the pay of all other nations poor and small by contrast.
-
- I was at the well next day betimes. Merlin was
- there, enchanting away like a beaver, but not raising
- the moisture. He was not in a pleasant humor; and
- every time I hinted that perhaps this contract was a
- shade too hefty for a novice he unlimbered his tongue
- and cursed like a bishop -- French bishop of the
- Regency days, I mean.
-
- Matters were about as I expected to find them.
- The "fountain" was an ordinary well, it had been dug
- in the ordinary way, and stoned up in the ordinary
- way. There was no miracle about it. Even the lie
- that had created its reputation was not miraculous; I
- could have told it myself, with one hand tied behind
- me. The well was in a dark chamber which stood in
- the center of a cut-stone chapel, whose walls were
- hung with pious pictures of a workmanship that would
- have made a chromo feel good; pictures historically
- commemorative of curative miracles which had been
- achieved by the waters when nobody was looking.
- That is, nobody but angels; they are always on deck
- when there is a miracle to the fore -- so as to get put
- in the picture, perhaps. Angels are as fond of that as
- a fire company; look at the old masters.
-
- The well-chamber was dimly lighted by lamps; the
- water was drawn with a windlass and chain by monks,
- and poured into troughs which delivered it into stone
- reservoirs outside in the chapel -- when there was
- water to draw, I mean -- and none but monks could
- enter the well-chamber. I entered it, for I had tempo-
- rary authority to do so, by courtesy of my professional
- brother and subordinate. But he hadn't entered it
- himself. He did everything by incantations; he never
- worked his intellect. If he had stepped in there and
- used his eyes, instead of his disordered mind, he could
- have cured the well by natural means, and then turned
- it into a miracle in the customary way; but no, he was
- an old numskull, a magician who believed in his own
- magic; and no magician can thrive who is handicapped
- with a superstition like that.
-
- I had an idea that the well had sprung a leak; that
- some of the wall stones near the bottom had fallen and
- exposed fissures that allowed the water to escape. I
- measured the chain -- 98 feet. Then I called in
- couple of monks, locked the door, took a candle, and
- made them lower me in the bucket. When the chain
- was all paid out, the candle confirmed my suspicion;
- a considerable section of the wall was gone, exposing a
- good big fissure.
-
- I almost regretted that my theory about the well's
- trouble was correct, because I had another one that
- had a showy point or two about it for a miracle. I
- remembered that in America, many centuries later,
- when an oil well ceased to flow, they used to blast it
- out with a dynamite torpedo. If I should find this
- well dry and no explanation of it, I could astonish
- these people most nobly by having a person of no
- especial value drop a dynamite bomb into it. It was
- my idea to appoint Merlin. However, it was plain
- that there was no occasion for the bomb. One cannot
- have everything the way he would like it. A man has
- no business to be depressed by a disappointment, any-
- way; he ought to make up his mind to get even.
- That is what I did. I said to myself, I am in no
- hurry, I can wait; that bomb will come good yet.
- And it did, too.
-
- When I was above ground again, I turned out the
- monks, and let down a fish-line; the well was a hun-
- dred and fifty feet deep, and there was forty-one feet
- of water in it I I called in a monk and asked:
-
- A Yankee in King Arthur's Court 187
-
- "How deep is the well?"
-
- "That, sir, I wit not, having never been told."
-
- "How does the water usually stand in it?"
-
- "Near to the top, these two centuries, as the testi-
- mony goeth, brought down to us through our prede-
- cessors."
-
- It was true -- as to recent times at least -- for there
- was witness to it, and better witness than a monk;
- only about twenty or thirty feet of the chain showed
- wear and use, the rest of it was unworn and rusty.
- What had happened when the well gave out that other
- time? Without doubt some practical person had come
- along and mended the leak, and then had come up and
- told the abbot he had discovered by divination that if
- the sinful bath were destroyed the well would flow
- again. The leak had befallen again now, and these
- children would have prayed, and processioned, and
- tolled their bells for heavenly succor till they all dried
- up and blew away, and no innocent of them all would
- ever have thought to drop a fish-line into the well or
- go down in it and find out what was really the matter.
- Old habit of mind is one of the toughest things to
- get away from in the world. It transmits itself like
- physical form and feature; and for a man, in those
- days, to have had an idea that his ancestors hadn't
- had, would have brought him under suspicion of being
- illegitimate. I said to the monk:
-
- "It is a difficult miracle to restore water in a dry
- well, but we will try, if my brother Merlin fails.
- Brother Merlin is a very passable artist, but only in the
- parlor-magic line, and he may not succeed; in fact, is
- not likely to succeed. But that should be nothing to
- his discredit; the man that can do THIS kind of miracle
- knows enough to keep hotel."
-
- "Hotel? I mind not to have heard --"
-
- "Of hotel? It's what you call hostel. The man
- that can do this miracle can keep hostel. I can do this
- miracle; I shall do this miracle; yet I do not try to
- conceal from you that it is a miracle to tax the occult
- powers to the last strain."
-
- "None knoweth that truth better than the brother-
- hood, indeed; for it is of record that aforetime it was
- parlous difficult and took a year. Natheless, God send
- you good success, and to that end will we pray."
-
- As a matter of business it was a good idea to get the
- notion around that the thing was difficult. Many a
- small thing has been made large by the right kind of
- advertising. That monk was filled up with the diffi-
- culty of this enterprise; he would fill up the others.
- In two days the solicitude would be booming.
-
- On my way home at noon, I met Sandy. She had
- been sampling the hermits. I said:
-
- "I would like to do that myself. This is Wednes-
- day. Is there a matinee?"
-
- "A which, please you, sir?"
-
- "Matinee. Do they keep open afternoons?"
-
- "Who?"
-
- "The hermits, of course."
-
- "Keep open?"
-
- "Yes, keep open. Isn't that plain enough? Do
- they knock off at noon?"
-
- "Knock off?"
-
- "Knock off? -- yes, knock off. What is the matter
- with knock off? I never saw such a dunderhead;
- can't you understand anything at all? In plain terms,
- do they shut up shop, draw the game, bank the
- fires --"
-
- "Shut up shop, draw --"
-
- "There, never mind, let it go; you make me tired.
- You can't seem to understand the simplest thing."
-
- I would I might please thee, sir, and it is to me
- dole and sorrow that I fail, albeit sith I am but a
- simple damsel and taught of none, being from the
- cradle unbaptized in those deep waters of learning that
- do anoint with a sovereignty him that partaketh of that
- most noble sacrament, investing him with reverend
- state to the mental eye of the humble mortal who, by
- bar and lack of that great consecration seeth in his
- own unlearned estate but a symbol of that other sort
- of lack and loss which men do publish to the pitying
- eye with sackcloth trappings whereon the ashes of
- grief do lie bepowdered and bestrewn, and so, when
- such shall in the darkness of his mind encounter these
- golden phrases of high mystery, these shut-up-shops,
- and draw-the-game, and bank-the-fires, it is but by the
- grace of God that he burst not for envy of the mind
- that can beget, and tongue that can deliver so great
- and mellow-sounding miracles of speech, and if there
- do ensue confusion in that humbler mind, and failure
- to divine the meanings of these wonders, then if so be
- this miscomprehension is not vain but sooth and true,
- wit ye well it is the very substance of worshipful dear
- homage and may not lightly be misprized, nor had
- been, an ye had noted this complexion of mood
- and mind and understood that that I would I could
- not, and that I could not I might not, nor yet nor
- might NOR could, nor might-not nor could-not, might
- be by advantage turned to the desired WOULD, and so I
- pray you mercy of my fault, and that ye will of your
- kindness and your charity forgive it, good my master
- and most dear lord."
-
- I couldn't make it all out -- that is, the details -- but
- I got the general idea; and enough of it, too, to be
- ashamed. It was not fair to spring those nineteenth
- century technicalities upon the untutored infant of the
- sixth and then rail at her because she couldn't get
- their drift; and when she was making the honest best
- drive at it she could, too, and no fault of hers that she
- couldn't fetch the home plate; and so I apologized.
- Then we meandered pleasantly away toward the hermit
- holes in sociable converse together, and better friends
- than ever.
-
- I was gradually coming to have a mysterious and
- shuddery reverence for this girl; nowadays whenever
- she pulled out from the station and got her train fairly
- started on one of those horizonless transcontinental
- sentences of hers, it was borne in upon me that I was
- standing in the awful presence of the Mother of the
- German Language. I was so impressed with this, that
- sometimes when she began to empty one of these sen-
- tences on me I unconsciously took the very attitude of
- reverence, and stood uncovered; and if words had
- been water, I had been drowned, sure. She had ex-
- actly the German way; whatever was in her mind to
- be delivered, whether a mere remark, or a sermon, or
- a cyclopedia, or the history of a war, she would get it
- into a single sentence or die. Whenever the literary
- German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are
- going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of
- his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.
-
- We drifted from hermit to hermit all the afternoon.
- It was a most strange menagerie. The chief emulation
- among them seemed to be, to see which could manage
- to be the uncleanest and most prosperous with vermin.
- Their manner and attitudes were the last expression of
- complacent self-righteousness. It was one anchorite's
- pride to lie naked in the mud and let the insects bite
- him and blister him unmolested; it was another's to
- lean against a rock, all day long, conspicuous to the
- admiration of the throng of pilgrims and pray; it was
- another's to go naked and crawl around on all fours;
- it was another's to drag about with him, year in and
- year out, eighty pounds of iron; it was another's to
- never lie down when he slept, but to stand among the
- thorn-bushes and snore when there were pilgrims
- around to look; a woman, who had the white hair of
- age, and no other apparel, was black from crown to
- heel with forty-seven years of holy abstinence from
- water. Groups of gazing pilgrims stood around all
- and every of these strange objects, lost in reverent
- wonder, and envious of the fleckless sanctity which
- these pious austerities had won for them from an
- exacting heaven.
-
- By and by we went to see one of the supremely
- great ones. He was a mighty celebrity; his fame had
- penetrated all Christendom; the noble and the re-
- nowned journeyed from the remotest lands on the
- globe to pay him reverence. His stand was in the
- center of the widest part of the valley; and it took all
- that space to hold his crowds.
-
- His stand was a pillar sixty feet high, with a broad
- platform on the top of it. He was now doing what he
- had been doing every day for twenty years up there --
- bowing his body ceaselessly and rapidly almost to his
- feet. It was his way of praying. I timed him with a
- stop watch, and he made 1,244 revolutions in 24 min-
- utes and 46 seconds. It seemed a pity to have all this
- power going to waste. It was one of the most useful
- motions in mechanics, the pedal movement; so I made
- a note in my memorandum book, purposing some day
- to apply a system of elastic cords to him and run a
- sewing machine with it. I afterward carried out that
- scheme, and got five years' good service out of him;
- in which time he turned out upward of eighteen thou-
- sand first-rate tow-linen shirts, which was ten a day. I
- worked him Sundays and all; he was going, Sundays,
- the same as week days, and it was no use to waste the
- power. These shirts cost me nothing but just the mere
- trifle for the materials -- I furnished those myself, it
- would not have been right to make him do that -- and
- they sold like smoke to pilgrims at a dollar and a half
- apiece, which was the price of fifty cows or a blooded
- race horse in Arthurdom. They were regarded as a
- perfect protection against sin, and advertised as such
- by my knights everywhere, with the paint-pot and
- stencil-plate; insomuch that there was not a cliff or a
- bowlder or a dead wall in England but you could read
- on it at a mile distance:
-
- "Buy the only genuine St. Stylite; patronized by the
- Nobility. Patent applied for."
-
- There was more money in the business than one
- knew what to do with. As it extended, I brought out
- a line of goods suitable for kings, and a nobby thing
- for duchesses and that sort, with ruffles down the fore-
- hatch and the running-gear clewed up with a feather-
- stitch to leeward and then hauled aft with a back-stay
- and triced up with a half-turn in the standing rigging
- forward of the weather-gaskets. Yes, it was a daisy.
-
- But about that time I noticed that the motive power
- had taken to standing on one leg, and I found that
- there was something the matter with the other one; so
- I stocked the business and unloaded, taking Sir Bors
- de Ganis into camp financially along with certain of his
- friends; for the works stopped within a year, and the
- good saint got him to his rest. But he had earned it.
- I can say that for him.
-
- When I saw him that first time -- however, his per-
- sonal condition will not quite bear description here.
- You can read it in the Lives of the Saints. *
-
- [* All the details concerning the hermits, in this
- chapter, are from Lecky -- but greatly modified. This
- book not being a history but only a tale, the majority
- of the historian's frank details were too strong for
- reproduction in it. - EDITOR]
-
-
- CHAPTER XXIII.
- RESTORATION OF THE FOUNTAIN
-
- SATURDAY noon I went to the well and looked on
- a while. Merlin was still burning smoke-powders,
- and pawing the air, and muttering gibberish as hard as
- ever, but looking pretty down-hearted, for of course
- he had not started even a perspiration in that well yet.
- Finally I said:
-
- "How does the thing promise by this time, partner?"
-
- "Behold, I am even now busied with trial of the
- powerfulest enchantment known to the princes of the oc-
- cult arts in the lands of the East; an it fail me, naught
- can avail. Peace, until I finish."
-
- He raised a smoke this time that darkened all the
- region, and must have made matters uncomfortable for
- the hermits, for the wind was their way, and it rolled
- down over their dens in a dense and billowy fog. He
- poured out volumes of speech to match, and contorted
- his body and sawed the air with his hands in a most
- extraordinary way. At the end of twenty minutes he
- dropped down panting, and about exhausted. Now
- arrived the abbot and several hundred monks and nuns,
- and behind them a multitude of pilgrims and a couple
- of acres of foundlings, all drawn by the prodigious smoke,
- and all in a grand state of excitement. The abbot
- inquired anxiously for results. Merlin said:
-
- "If any labor of mortal might break the spell that
- binds these waters, this which I have but just essayed
- had done it. It has failed; whereby I do now know
- that that which I had feared is a truth established; the
- sign of this failure is, that the most potent spirit known
- to the magicians of the East, and whose name none
- may utter and live, has laid his spell upon this well.
- The mortal does not breathe, nor ever will, who can
- penetrate the secret of that spell, and without that
- secret none can break it. The water will flow no more
- forever, good Father. I have done what man could.
- Suffer me to go."
-
- Of course this threw the abbot into a good deal of a
- consternation. He turned to me with the signs of it in
- his face, and said:
-
- "Ye have heard him. Is it true?"
-
- "Part of it is."
-
- "Not all, then, not all! What part is true?"
-
- "That that spirit with the Russian name has put his
- spell upon the well."
-
- "God's wownds, then are we ruined!"
-
- "Possibly."
-
- "But not certainly? Ye mean, not certainly?"
-
- "That is it."
-
- "Wherefore, ye also mean that when he saith none
- can break the spell --"
-
- "Yes, when he says that, he says what isn't neces-
- sarily true. There are conditions under which an effort
- to break it may have some chance -- that is, some
- small, some trifling chance -- of success."
-
- "The conditions --"
-
- "Oh, they are nothing difficult. Only these: I
- want the well and the surroundings for the space of
- half a mile, entirely to myself from sunset to-day until
- I remove the ban -- and nobody allowed to cross the
- ground but by my authority."
-
- "Are these all?"
-
- "Yes."
-
- "And you have no fear to try?"
-
- "Oh, none. One may fail, of course; and one
- may also succeed. One can try, and I am ready to
- chance it. I have my conditions?"
-
- "These and all others ye may name. I will issue
- commandment to that effect."
-
- "Wait," said Merlin, with an evil smile. "Ye
- wit that he that would break this spell must know that
- spirit's name?"
-
- "Yes, I know his name."
-
- "And wit you also that to know it skills not of
- itself, but ye must likewise pronounce it? Ha-ha!
- Knew ye that?"
-
- "Yes, I knew that, too."
-
- "You had that knowledge! Art a fool? Are ye
- minded to utter that name and die?"
-
- "Utter it? Why certainly. I would utter it if it
- was Welsh."
-
- "Ye are even a dead man, then; and I go to
- tell Arthur."
-
- "That's all right. Take your gripsack and get
- along. The thing for YOU to do is to go home and
- work the weather, John W. Merlin."
-
- It was a home shot, and it made him wince; for he
- was the worst weather-failure in the kingdom. When-
- ever he ordered up the danger-signals along the coast
- there was a week's dead calm, sure, and every time he
- prophesied fair weather it rained brickbats. But I kept
- him in the weather bureau right along, to undermine
- his reputation. However, that shot raised his bile, and
- instead of starting home to report my death, he said
- he would remain and enjoy it.
-
- My two experts arrived in the evening, and pretty
- well fagged, for they had traveled double tides. They
- had pack-mules along, and had brought everything I
- needed -- tools, pump, lead pipe, Greek fire, sheaves
- of big rockets, roman candles, colored fire sprays,
- electric apparatus, and a lot of sundries -- everything
- necessary for the stateliest kind of a miracle. They
- got their supper and a nap, and about midnight we
- sallied out through a solitude so wholly vacant and
- complete that it quite overpassed the required condi-
- tions. We took possession of the well and its sur-
- roundings. My boys were experts in all sorts of
- things, from the stoning up of a well to the construct-
- ing of a mathematical instrument. An hour before
- sunrise we had that leak mended in ship-shape fashion,
- and the water began to rise. Then we stowed our fire-
- works in the chapel, locked up the place, and went
- home to bed.
-
- Before the noon mass was over, we were at the well
- again; for there was a deal to do yet, and I was deter-
- mined to spring the miracle before midnight, for busi-
- ness reasons: for whereas a miracle worked for the
- Church on a week-day is worth a good deal, it is worth
- six times as much if you get it in on a Sunday. In
- nine hours the water had risen to its customary level --
- that is to say, it was within twenty-three feet of the
- top. We put in a little iron pump, one of the first
- turned out by my works near the capital; we bored
- into a stone reservoir which stood against the outer
- wall of the well-chamber and inserted a section of lead
- pipe that was long enough to reach to the door of the
- chapel and project beyond the threshold, where the
- gushing water would be visible to the two hundred and
- fifty acres of people I was intending should be present
- on the flat plain in front of this little holy hillock at
- the proper time.
-
- We knocked the head out of an empty hogshead and
- hoisted this hogshead to the flat roof of the chapel,
- where we clamped it down fast, poured in gunpowder
- till it lay loosely an inch deep on the bottom, then we
- stood up rockets in the hogshead as thick as they
- could loosely stand, all the different breeds of rockets
- there are; and they made a portly and imposing sheaf,
- I can tell you. We grounded the wire of a pocket
- electrical battery in that powder, we placed a whole
- magazine of Greek fire on each corner of the roof --
- blue on one corner, green on another, red on another,
- and purple on the last -- and grounded a wire in each.
-
- About two hundred yards off, in the flat, we built a
- pen of scantlings, about four feet high, and laid planks
- on it, and so made a platform. We covered it with
- swell tapestries borrowed for the occasion, and topped
- it off with the abbot's own throne. When you are
- going to do a miracle for an ignorant race, you want
- to get in every detail that will count; you want to
- make all the properties impressive to the public eye;
- you want to make matters comfortable for your head
- guest; then you can turn yourself loose and play your
- effects for all they are worth. I know the value of
- these things, for I know human nature. You can't
- throw too much style into a miracle. It costs trouble,
- and work, and sometimes money; but it pays in the
- end. Well, we brought the wires to the ground at the
- chapel, and then brought them under the ground to
- the platform, and hid the batteries there. We put a
- rope fence a hundred feet square around the platform
- to keep off the common multitude, and that finished
- the work. My idea was, doors open at 10:30, per-
- formance to begin at 11:25 sharp. I wished I could
- charge admission, but of course that wouldn't answer.
- I instructed my boys to be in the chapel as early as
- 10, before anybody was around, and be ready to man
- the pumps at the proper time, and make the fur fly.
- Then we went home to supper.
-
- The news of the disaster to the well had traveled far
- by this time; and now for two or three days a steady
- avalanche of people had been pouring into the valley.
- The lower end of the valley was become one huge
- camp; we should have a good house, no question
- about that. Criers went the rounds early in the eve-
- ning and announced the coming attempt, which put
- every pulse up to fever heat. They gave notice that
- the abbot and his official suite would move in state and
- occupy the platform at 10:30, up to which time all the
- region which was under my ban must be clear; the
- bells would then cease from tolling, and this sign
- should be permission to the multitudes to close in and
- take their places.
-
- I was at the platform and all ready to do the honors
- when the abbot's solemn procession hove in sight --
- which it did not do till it was nearly to the rope fence,
- because it was a starless black night and no torches
- permitted. With it came Merlin, and took a front seat
- on the platform; he was as good as his word for once.
- One could not see the multitudes banked together be-
- yond the ban, but they were there, just the same.
- The moment the bells stopped, those banked masses
- broke and poured over the line like a vast black wave,
- and for as much as a half hour it continued to flow,
- and then it solidified itself, and you could have walked
- upon a pavement of human heads to -- well, miles.
-
- We had a solemn stage-wait, now, for about twenty
- minutes -- a thing I had counted on for effect; it is
- always good to let your audience have a chance to
- work up its expectancy. At length, out of the silence
- a noble Latin chant -- men's voices -- broke and
- swelled up and rolled away into the night, a majestic
- tide of melody. I had put that up, too, and it was one
- of the best effects I ever invented. When it was finished
- I stood up on the platform and extended my hands
- abroad, for two minutes, with my face uplifted -- that
- always produces a dead hush -- and then slowly pro-
- nounced this ghastly word with a kind of awfulness which
- caused hundreds to tremble, and many women to faint:
-
- "Constantinopolitanischerdudelsackspfeifen-
- machersgesellschafft!"
-
- Just as I was moaning out the closing hunks of that
- word, I touched off one of my electric connections
- and all that murky world of people stood revealed in a
- hideous blue glare! It was immense -- that effect!
- Lots of people shrieked, women curled up and quit in
- every direction, foundlings collapsed by platoons. The
- abbot and the monks crossed themselves nimbly and
- their lips fluttered with agitated prayers. Merlin held
- his grip, but he was astonished clear down to his
- corns; he had never seen anything to begin with that,
- before. Now was the time to pile in the effects. I
- lifted my hands and groaned out this word -- as it were
- in agony:
-
- "Nihilistendynamittheaterkaestchensspreng-
- ungsattentaetsversuchungen!"
-
- -- and turned on the red fire! You should have heard
- that Atlantic of people moan and howl when that
- crimson hell joined the blue! After sixty seconds I
- shouted:
-
- "Transvaaltruppentropentransporttrampelthier-
- treibertrauungsthraenentragoedie!"
-
- -- and lit up the green fire! After waiting only forty
- seconds this time, I spread my arms abroad and
- thundered out the devastating syllables of this word of
- words:
-
- "Mekkamuselmannenmassenmenchenmoerdermohrenmutter-
- marmormonumentenmacher!"
-
- -- and whirled on the purple glare! There they were,
- all going at once, red, blue, green, purple! -- four
- furious volcanoes pouring vast clouds of radiant smoke
- aloft, and spreading a blinding rainbowed noonday to
- the furthest confines of that valley. In the distance
- one could see that fellow on the pillar standing rigid
- against the background of sky, his seesaw stopped for
- the first time in twenty years. I knew the boys were
- at the pump now and ready. So I said to the abbot:
-
- "The time is come, Father. I am about to pro-
- nounce the dread name and command the spell to dis-
- solve. You want to brace up, and take hold of some-
- thing." Then I shouted to the people: "Behold, in
- another minute the spell will be broken, or no mortal
- can break it. If it break, all will know it, for you will
- see the sacred water gush from the chapel door!"
-
- I stood a few moments, to let the hearers have a
- chance to spread my announcement to those who
- couldn't hear, and so convey it to the furthest ranks,
- then I made a grand exhibition of extra posturing and
- gesturing, and shouted:
-
- "Lo, I command the fell spirit that possesses the
- holy fountain to now disgorge into the skies all the
- infernal fires that still remain in him, and straightway
- dissolve his spell and flee hence to the pit, there to lie
- bound a thousand years. By his own dread name I
- command it -- BGWJJILLIGKKK!"
-
- Then I touched off the hogshead of rockets, and a
- vast fountain of dazzling lances of fire vomited itself
- toward the zenith with a hissing rush, and burst in
- mid-sky into a storm of flashing jewels! One mighty
- groan of terror started up from the massed people --
- then suddenly broke into a wild hosannah of joy -- for
- there, fair and plain in the uncanny glare, they saw
- the freed water leaping forth! The old abbot could not
- speak a word, for tears and the chokings in his throat;
- without utterance of any sort, he folded me in his arms
- and mashed me. It was more eloquent than speech.
- And harder to get over, too, in a country where there
- were really no doctors that were worth a damaged
- nickel.
-
- You should have seen those acres of people throw
- themselves down in that water and kiss it; kiss it, and
- pet it, and fondle it, and talk to it as if it were alive,
- and welcome it back with the dear names they gave
- their darlings, just as if it had been a friend who was
- long gone away and lost, and was come home again.
- Yes, it was pretty to see, and made me think more of
- them than I had done before.
-
- I sent Merlin home on a shutter. He had caved in
- and gone down like a landslide when I pronounced that
- fearful name, and had never come to since. He never
- had heard that name before, -- neither had I -- but to
- him it was the right one. Any jumble would have
- been the right one. He admitted, afterward, that
- that spirit's own mother could not have pronounced
- that name better than I did. He never could under-
- stand how I survived it, and I didn't tell him. It is
- only young magicians that give away a secret like that.
- Merlin spent three months working enchantments to
- try to find out the deep trick of how to pronounce that
- name and outlive it. But he didn't arrive.
-
- When I started to the chapel, the populace un-
- covered and fell back reverently to make a wide way
- for me, as if I had been some kind of a superior being
- -- and I was. I was aware of that. I took along a
- night shift of monks, and taught them the mystery of
- the pump, and set them to work, for it was plain that
- a good part of the people out there were going to sit
- up with the water all night, consequently it was but
- right that they should have all they wanted of it. To
- those monks that pump was a good deal of a miracle
- itself, and they were full of wonder over it; and of
- admiration, too, of the exceeding effectiveness of its
- performance.
-
- It was a great night, an immense night. There was
- reputation in it. I could hardly get to sleep for glory-
- ing over it.
-
-
- CHAPTER XXIV.
- A RIVAL MAGICIAN
-
- MY influence in the Valley of Holiness was some-
- thing prodigious now. It seemed worth while
- to try to turn it to some valuable account. The
- thought came to me the next morning, and was sug-
- gested by my seeing one of my knights who was in
- the soap line come riding in. According to history,
- the monks of this place two centuries before had been
- worldly minded enough to want to wash. It might be
- that there was a leaven of this unrighteousness still re-
- maining. So I sounded a Brother:
-
- "Wouldn't you like a bath?"
-
- He shuddered at the thought -- the thought of the
- peril of it to the well -- but he said with feeling:
-
- "One needs not to ask that of a poor body who has
- not known that blessed refreshment sith that he was a
- boy. Would God I might wash me! but it may not
- be, fair sir, tempt me not; it is forbidden."
-
- And then he sighed in such a sorrowful way that I
- was resolved he should have at least one layer of his
- real estate removed, if it sized up my whole influence
- and bankrupted the pile. So I went to the abbot and
- asked for a permit for this Brother. He blenched at
- the idea -- I don't mean that you could see him blench,
- for of course you couldn't see it without you scraped
- him, and I didn't care enough about it to scrape him,
- but I knew the blench was there, just the same, and
- within a book-cover's thickness of the surface, too --
- blenched, and trembled. He said:
-
- "Ah, son, ask aught else thou wilt, and it is thine,
- and freely granted out of a grateful heart -- but this,
- oh, this! Would you drive away the blessed water
- again?"
-
- "No, Father, I will not drive it away. I have
- mysterious knowledge which teaches me that there
- was an error that other time when it was thought the
- institution of the bath banished the fountain." A
- large interest began to show up in the old man's face.
- "My knowledge informs me that the bath was inno-
- cent of that misfortune, which was caused by quite
- another sort of sin."
-
- "These are brave words -- but -- but right welcome,
- if they be true."
-
- "They are true, indeed. Let me build the bath
- again, Father. Let me build it again, and the fountain
- shall flow forever."
-
- "You promise this? -- you promise it? Say the
- word -- say you promise it!"
-
- "I do promise it."
-
- "Then will I have the first bath myself! Go --
- get ye to your work. Tarry not, tarry not, but go."
-
- I and my boys were at work, straight off. The
- ruins of the old bath were there yet in the basement of
- the monastery, not a stone missing. They had been
- left just so, all these lifetimes, and avoided with a
- pious fear, as things accursed. In two days we had it
- all done and the water in -- a spacious pool of clear
- pure water that a body could swim in. It was running
- water, too. It came in, and went out, through the
- ancient pipes. The old abbot kept his word, and was
- the first to try it. He went down black and shaky,
- leaving the whole black community above troubled and
- worried and full of bodings; but he came back white
- and joyful, and the game was made! another triumph
- scored.
-
- It was a good campaign that we made in that Valley
- of Holiness, and I was very well satisfied, and ready to
- move on now, but I struck a disappointment. I caught
- a heavy cold, and it started up an old lurking rheuma-
- tism of mine. Of course the rheumatism hunted up
- my weakest place and located itself there. This was
- the place where the abbot put his arms about me and
- mashed me, what time he was moved to testify his
- gratitude to me with an embrace.
-
- When at last I got out, I was a shadow. But every-
- body was full of attentions and kindnesses, and these
- brought cheer back into my life, and were the right
- medicine to help a convalescent swiftly up toward
- health and strength again; so I gained fast.
-
- Sandy was worn out with nursing; so I made up my
- mind to turn out and go a cruise alone, leaving her at
- the nunnery to rest up. My idea was to disguise myself
- as a freeman of peasant degree and wander through
- the country a week or two on foot. This would give
- me a chance to eat and lodge with the lowliest and
- poorest class of free citizens on equal terms. There
- was no other way to inform myself perfectly of their
- everyday life and the operation of the laws upon it. If
- I went among them as a gentleman, there would be
- restraints and conventionalities which would shut me
- out from their private joys and troubles, and I should
- get no further than the outside shell.
-
- One morning I was out on a long walk to get up
- muscle for my trip, and had climbed the ridge which
- bordered the northern extremity of the valley, when I
- came upon an artificial opening in the face of a low
- precipice, and recognized it by its location as a hermit-
- age which had often been pointed out to me from a
- distance as the den of a hermit of high renown for dirt
- and austerity. I knew he had lately been offered a
- situation in the Great Sahara, where lions and sandflies
- made the hermit-life peculiarly attractive and difficult,
- and had gone to Africa to take possession, so I thought
- I would look in and see how the atmosphere of this
- den agreed with its reputation.
-
- My surprise was great: the place was newly swept
- and scoured. Then there was another surprise. Back
- in the gloom of the cavern I heard the clink of a little
- bell, and then this exclamation:
-
- "Hello Central! Is this you, Camelot? -- Be-
- hold, thou mayst glad thy heart an thou hast faith to
- believe the wonderful when that it cometh in unex-
- pected guise and maketh itself manifest in impossible
- places -- here standeth in the flesh his mightiness The
- Boss, and with thine own ears shall ye hear him
- speak!"
-
- Now what a radical reversal of things this was; what
- a jumbling together of extravagant incongruities; what
- a fantastic conjunction of opposites and irreconcilables
- -- the home of the bogus miracle become the home of
- a real one, the den of a mediaeval hermit turned into a
- telephone office!
-
- The telephone clerk stepped into the light, and I
- recognized one of my young fellows. I said:
-
- "How long has this office been established here,
- Ulfius?"
-
- "But since midnight, fair Sir Boss, an it please you.
- We saw many lights in the valley, and so judged it
- well to make a station, for that where so many lights
- be needs must they indicate a town of goodly size."
-
- "Quite right. It isn't a town in the customary
- sense, but it's a good stand, anyway. Do you know
- where you are?"
-
- "Of that I have had no time to make inquiry; for
- whenas my comradeship moved hence upon their
- labors, leaving me in charge, I got me to needed rest,
- purposing to inquire when I waked, and report the
- place's name to Camelot for record."
-
- "Well, this is the Valley of Holiness."
-
- It didn't take; I mean, he didn't start at the name,
- as I had supposed he would. He merely said:
-
- "I will so report it."
-
- "Why, the surrounding regions are filled with the
- noise of late wonders that have happened here! You
- didn't hear of them?"
-
- "Ah, ye will remember we move by night, and
- avoid speech with all. We learn naught but that we
- get by the telephone from Camelot."
-
- "Why THEY know all about this thing. Haven't
- they told you anything about the great miracle of the
- restoration of a holy fountain?"
-
- "Oh, THAT? Indeed yes. But the name of THIS
- valley doth woundily differ from the name of THAT one;
- indeed to differ wider were not pos --"
-
- "What was that name, then?"
-
- "The Valley of Hellishness."
-
- "THAT explains it. Confound a telephone, anyway.
- It is the very demon for conveying similarities of sound
- that are miracles of divergence from similarity of sense.
- But no matter, you know the name of the place now.
- Call up Camelot."
-
- He did it, and had Clarence sent for. It was good
- to hear my boy's voice again. It was like being home.
- After some affectionate interchanges, and some account
- of my late illness, I said:
-
- "What is new?"
-
- "The king and queen and many of the court do
- start even in this hour, to go to your valley to pay
- pious homage to the waters ye have restored, and
- cleanse themselves of sin, and see the place where the
- infernal spirit spouted true hell-flames to the clouds --
- an ye listen sharply ye may hear me wink and hear me
- likewise smile a smile, sith 'twas I that made selection
- of those flames from out our stock and sent them by
- your order."
-
- "Does the king know the way to this place?"
-
- "The king? -- no, nor to any other in his realms,
- mayhap; but the lads that holp you with your miracle
- will be his guide and lead the way, and appoint the
- places for rests at noons and sleeps at night."
-
- "This will bring them here -- when?"
-
- "Mid-afternoon, or later, the third day."
-
- "Anything else in the way of news?"
-
- "The king hath begun the raising of the standing
- army ye suggested to him; one regiment is complete
- and officered."
-
- "The mischief! I wanted a main hand in that my-
- self. There is only one body of men in the kingdom
- that are fitted to officer a regular army."
-
- "Yes -- and now ye will marvel to know there's not
- so much as one West Pointer in that regiment."
-
- "What are you talking about? Are you in earnest?"
-
- "It is truly as I have said."
-
- "Why, this makes me uneasy. Who were chosen,
- and what was the method? Competitive examination?"
-
- "Indeed, I know naught of the method. I but
- know this -- these officers be all of noble family, and
- are born -- what is it you call it? -- chuckleheads."
-
- "There's something wrong, Clarence. "
-
- "Comfort yourself, then; for two candidates for a
- lieutenancy do travel hence with the king -- young
- nobles both -- and if you but wait where you are you
- will hear them questioned."
-
- "That is news to the purpose. I will get one West
- Pointer in, anyway. Mount a man and send him to
- that school with a message; let him kill horses, if
- necessary, but he must be there before sunset to-night
- and say -- "
-
- "There is no need. I have laid a ground wire to
- the school. Prithee let me connect you with it."
-
- It sounded good! In this atmosphere of telephones
- and lightning communication with distant regions, I
- was breathing the breath of life again after long suffo-
- cation. I realized, then, what a creepy, dull, inanimate
- horror this land had been to me all these years, and
- how I had been in such a stifled condition of mind as
- to have grown used to it almost beyond the power to
- notice it.
-
- I gave my order to the superintendent of the Acad-
- emy personally. I also asked him to bring me some
- paper and a fountain pen and a box or so of safety
- matches. I was getting tired of doing without these
- conveniences. I could have them now, as I wasn't
- going to wear armor any more at present, and there-
- fore could get at my pockets.
-
- When I got back to the monastery, I found a thing
- of interest going on. The abbot and his monks were
- assembled in the great hall, observing with childish
- wonder and faith the performances of a new magician,
- a fresh arrival. His dress was the extreme of the
- fantastic; as showy and foolish as the sort of thing an
- Indian medicine-man wears. He was mowing, and
- mumbling, and gesticulating, and drawing mystical
- figures in the air and on the floor, -- the regular thing,
- you know. He was a celebrity from Asia -- so he
- said, and that was enough. That sort of evidence was
- as good as gold, and passed current everywhere.
-
- How easy and cheap it was to be a great magician
- on this fellow's terms. His specialty was to tell you
- what any individual on the face of the globe was doing
- at the moment; and what he had done at any time in
- the past, and what he would do at any time in the
- future. He asked if any would like to know what the
- Emperor of the East was doing now? The sparkling
- eyes and the delighted rubbing of hands made eloquent
- answer -- this reverend crowd WOULD like to know what
- that monarch was at, just as this moment. The fraud
- went through some more mummery, and then made
- grave announcement:
-
- "The high and mighty Emperor of the East doth at
- this moment put money in the palm of a holy begging
- friar -- one, two, three pieces, and they be all of
- silver."
-
- A buzz of admiring exclamations broke out, all
- around:
-
- "It is marvelous!" "Wonderful!" "What study,
- what labor, to have acquired a so amazing power as this!"
-
- Would they like to know what the Supreme Lord of
- Inde was doing? Yes. He told them what the
- Supreme Lord of Inde was doing. Then he told
- them what the Sultan of Egypt was at; also what the
- King of the Remote Seas was about. And so on and
- so on; and with each new marvel the astonishment at
- his accuracy rose higher and higher. They thought
- he must surely strike an uncertain place some time;
- but no, he never had to hesitate, he always knew, and
- always with unerring precision. I saw that if this thing
- went on I should lose my supremacy, this fellow would
- capture my following, I should be left out in the cold.
- I must put a cog in his wheel, and do it right away,
- too. I said:
-
- "If I might ask, I should very greatly like to know
- what a certain person is doing."
-
- "Speak, and freely. I will tell you."
-
- "It will be difficult -- perhaps impossible."
-
- "My art knoweth not that word. The more difficult
- it is, the more certainly will I reveal it to you."
-
- You see, I was working up the interest. It was
- getting pretty high, too; you could see that by the
- craning necks all around, and the half-suspended
- breathing. So now I climaxed it:
-
- "If you make no mistake -- if you tell me truly
- what I want to know -- I will give you two hundred
- silver pennies."
-
- "The fortune is mine! I will tell you what you
- would know."
-
- "Then tell me what I am doing with my right hand."
-
- "Ah-h!" There was a general gasp of surprise.
- It had not occurred to anybody in the crowd -- that
- simple trick of inquiring about somebody who wasn't
- ten thousand miles away. The magician was hit hard;
- it was an emergency that had never happened in his
- experience before, and it corked him; he didn't know
- how to meet it. He looked stunned, confused; he
- couldn't say a word. "Come," I said, "what are
- you waiting for? Is it possible you can answer up,
- right off, and tell what anybody on the other side of
- the earth is doing, and yet can't tell what a person is
- doing who isn't three yards from you? Persons behind
- me know what I am doing with my right hand -- they
- will indorse you if you tell correctly." He was still
- dumb. "Very well, I'll tell you why you don't speak
- up and tell; it is because you don't know. YOU a
- magician! Good friends, this tramp is a mere fraud
- and liar."
-
- This distressed the monks and terrified them. They
- were not used to hearing these awful beings called
- names, and they did not know what might be the con-
- sequence. There was a dead silence now; superstitious
- bodings were in every mind. The magician began to
- pull his wits together, and when he presently smiled an
- easy, nonchalant smile, it spread a mighty relief
- around; for it indicated that his mood was not destruc-
- tive. He said:
-
- "It hath struck me speechless, the frivolity of this
- person's speech. Let all know, if perchance there be
- any who know it not, that enchanters of my degree
- deign not to concern themselves with the doings of any
- but kings, princes, emperors, them that be born in the
- purple and them only. Had ye asked me what Arthur
- the great king is doing, it were another matter, and I
- had told ye; but the doings of a subject interest me
- not."
-
- "Oh, I misunderstood you. I thought you said
- 'anybody,' and so I supposed 'anybody' included --
- well, anybody; that is, everybody."
-
- "It doth -- anybody that is of lofty birth; and the
- better if he be royal."
-
- "That, it meseemeth, might well be," said the abbot,
- who saw his opportunity to smooth things and avert
- disaster, "for it were not likely that so wonderful a
- gift as this would be conferred for the revelation of the
- concerns of lesser beings than such as be born near to
- the summits of greatness. Our Arthur the king --"
-
- "Would you know of him?" broke in the en-
- chanter.
-
- "Most gladly, yea, and gratefully."
-
- Everybody was full of awe and interest again right
- away, the incorrigible idiots. They watched the incan-
- tations absorbingly, and looked at me with a "There,
- now, what can you say to that?" air, when the
- announcement came:
-
- "The king is weary with the chase, and lieth in his
- palace these two hours sleeping a dreamless sleep."
-
- "God's benison upon him!" said the abbot, and
- crossed himself; "may that sleep be to the refresh-
- ment of his body and his soul."
-
- "And so it might be, if he were sleeping," I said,
- "but the king is not sleeping, the king rides."
-
- Here was trouble again -- a conflict of authority.
- Nobody knew which of us to believe; I still had some
- reputation left. The magician's scorn was stirred, and
- he said:
-
- "Lo, I have seen many wonderful soothsayers and
- prophets and magicians in my life days, but none be-
- fore that could sit idle and see to the heart of things
- with never an incantation to help."
-
- "You have lived in the woods, and lost much by it.
- I use incantations myself, as this good brotherhood are
- aware -- but only on occasions of moment."
-
- When it comes to sarcasming, I reckon I know how
- to keep my end up. That jab made this fellow squirm.
- The abbot inquired after the queen and the court, and
- got this information:
-
- "They be all on sleep, being overcome by fatigue,
- like as to the king."
-
- I said:
-
- "That is merely another lie. Half of them are
- about their amusements, the queen and the other half
- are not sleeping, they ride. Now perhaps you can
- spread yourself a little, and tell us where the king and
- queen and all that are this moment riding with them
- are going?"
-
- "They sleep now, as I said; but on the morrow
- they will ride, for they go a journey toward the sea."
-
- "And where will they be the day after to-morrow at
- vespers?"
-
- "Far to the north of Camelot, and half their journey
- will be done."
-
- "That is another lie, by the space of a hundred and
- fifty miles. Their journey will not be merely half
- done, it will be all done, and they will be HERE, in this
- valley."
-
- THAT was a noble shot! It set the abbot and the
- monks in a whirl of excitement, and it rocked the en-
- chanter to his base. I followed the thing right up:
-
- "If the king does not arrive, I will have myself
- ridden on a rail: if he does I will ride you on a rail
- instead."
-
- Next day I went up to the telephone office and found
- that the king had passed through two towns that were
- on the line. I spotted his progress on the succeeding
- day in the same way. I kept these matters to myself.
- The third day's reports showed that if he kept up his
- gait he would arrive by four in the afternoon. There
- was still no sign anywhere of interest in his coming;
- there seemed to be no preparations making to receive
- him in state; a strange thing, truly. Only one thing
- could explain this: that other magician had been cut-
- ting under me, sure. This was true. I asked a friend
- of mine, a monk, about it, and he said, yes, the
- magician had tried some further enchantments and
- found out that the court had concluded to make no
- journey at all, but stay at home. Think of that!
- Observe how much a reputation was worth in such a
- country. These people had seen me do the very
- showiest bit of magic in history, and the only one
- within their memory that had a positive value, and yet
- here they were, ready to take up with an adventurer
- who could offer no evidence of his powers but his mere
- unproven word.
-
- However, it was not good politics to let the king
- come without any fuss and feathers at all, so I went
- down and drummed up a procession of pilgrims and
- smoked out a batch of hermits and started them out at
- two o'clock to meet him. And that was the sort of
- state he arrived in. The abbot was helpless with rage
- and humiliation when I brought him out on a balcony
- and showed him the head of the state marching in and
- never a monk on hand to offer him welcome, and no
- stir of life or clang of joy-bell to glad his spirit. He
- took one look and then flew to rouse out his forces.
- The next minute the bells were dinning furiously, and
- the various buildings were vomiting monks and nuns,
- who went swarming in a rush toward the coming pro-
- cession; and with them went that magician -- and he
- was on a rail, too, by the abbot's order; and his
- reputation was in the mud, and mine was in the sky
- again. Yes, a man can keep his trademark current in
- such a country, but he can't sit around and do it; he
- has got to be on deck and attending to business right
- along.
-
-