The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's
Court, Part 3., by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
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Title: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.
Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
Release Date: July 6, 2004 [EBook #7244]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONNECTICUT YANKEE ***
Produced by David Widger
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT
by
MARK TWAIN
(Samuel L. Clemens)
Part 3.
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 perspective 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 pleasant 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 everything 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 afterwards. 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 lonesome 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
settled 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 territory 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 inconveniences; 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 moreover 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 importing 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 person 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 because 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 combination 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 sandwiches
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 darkness 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 inside
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 limping 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
proposed 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
because 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 population 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 saving, 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, instead of being in the tail
of the procession where it belonged, 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 freemen, 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 twentieth, 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
unprintable; 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 memorable
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 Terror,
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 something 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 transmissible
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 government. 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,
become 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 Connecticut, whose
Constitution declares "that all political power is inherent in
the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority
and instituted for their benefit; and that they have _at all times_
an undeniable and indefeasible right to _alter their form of
government_ 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 excuse 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 dissatisfaction 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 dishonorable, such putrid black
treason. So to speak, I was become a stockholder in a corporation
where nine hundred 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 enchantment 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 remained 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 considerable 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 afternoon. 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 remark 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
miscarried, 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 blamable. 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 doubtful 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 supposed 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, turning 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 interrupt, and interrupt pretty
frequently, too, in order to save my life; a person would die if
he let her monotony 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 certainly act like all possessed. Yes, and
I mean your best, too, society's very choicest brands. The humblest
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 Marhaus 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 defalcation, 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
whipped; 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 Marhaus 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
increased, 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'_nan_ners,
_s-a-n-d_'ches, p--_op_-corn!"
--"and waxed past noon and drew toward evensong. Sir Gawaine's
strength feebled and waxed passing 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 marvelous 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 fountain, and three damsels sitting
thereby. In this country, 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 expletive; 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 adventures, 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 distance 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 bulletin-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 Established 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 missionary's
next move was to get the family together and try it on himself;
he was to stop at no experiment, however 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 believed 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 disseminate 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 anywhere 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 Washington 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 railings 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 afterward
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 personality 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
misrepresented, 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
confidence, 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 nevertheless 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.
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