A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT

by Mark Twain

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 unerringly, 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 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 interested- 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, immediately

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; observe 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- perhaps 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, (r)I saw it done." Then, after a pause, added: "I did

it myself."

By the time I had recovered from the electric surprise 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, *001 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 threescore 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 gentlewomen 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 gentlewoman 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, herefore 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 Hartford, 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 everything: 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

thousand 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 entirely; 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 prodigious

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 concluded 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 before." He was steeped

in drowsiness by this time. As I went out at his door I heard him murmur

sleepily: "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 parchment, and yellow with age. I scanned a

leaf particularly 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 monkish legends, evidently. I turned to the place indicated by my

stranger and began to read- as follows:

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 indolently 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, (r)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, uncombed 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 nobody 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 unpaved; 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

spearheads; 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 here 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 (r)what?"

(r)"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 paragraph."

It was pretty severe, but I was nettled. However, it never fazed him;

he didn't appear to know he was hurt. He began to talk and laugh, in

happy, thoughtless, 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 happened 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. (r)Something in me

seemed to believe him- my consciousness, 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 stumbled 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 (r)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 interesting. 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 tapestries 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

gingerbread; 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, except that whenever one addressed

himself directly to the king, he lifted his hat a trifle just as he was

beginning 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

tumultuous 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 themselves 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 industries 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 telling 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 naivete, 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 suffering 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

complain. The thought was forced upon me: "The rascals- (r)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, intellectual

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 between

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 something 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 indeed

would have marred it, hindered it, spoiled its symmetry- 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 countenance 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

Seneschal, 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 disappointed; and the page whispered in my ear with an accent

and manner expressive of extravagant derision-

"Sir (r)Kay, forsooth! Oh, call me pet names, dearest, 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 according to

the facts; he would tell the simple straightforward 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 furtive 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 practised

fighters. I said as much to Clarence; but this mocking 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 countenance. 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 again," sighed the boy; "that same old weary

tale that he hath told a thousand times in the same words, and that he

(r)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 entrails 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 pretended 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, *002 said

Merlin, hereby is a sword that shall be yours an 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 yourself 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 an he

had seen you ye had not lightly departed. 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 sufficiently 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

afterward. 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 believed, 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 history-mill with me for

fuel. It was time for me to feel serious, and I did. Sir Kay told how he

had encountered 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-devouring 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 statistics 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 (r)Tom Jones,

and (r)Roderick 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, instead 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 unconsciously indelicate all things are

delicate. King Arthur'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 common-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

unconcernedly 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 (r)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 reasons- and weightier."

"Other ones? What are they?"

"Well, they say- oh, but I daren't, indeed I 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 kingdoms 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! (r)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 known 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, (r)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 return

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-

Muckamuck and head of the tribe, at that; and I want him to be made to

understand that I am just quietly arranging 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 promised 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 heedless 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 (r)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 foolishness and idle

vaporing. They disputed long, but in the end, Merlin, scoffing, said,

'Wherefore hath he not (r)named his brave calamity? Verily it is

because he cannot.' 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 perplexed 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 impressiveness

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 nine of the

morning now."

"No! Then I have slept well, sure enough. Nine in the morning now! And

yet it is the very complexion 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 knowledge of a fact is pale; but when you

come to (r)realize your fact, it takes on color. It is all the

difference between 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 solicitudes 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 compromise. 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 tomorrow."

"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 purposelessly 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 inclosed 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 concealment and was pouring news into my ear,

his eyes beaming with triumph and gladness. He said:

"'Tis through (r)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 salvation 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 (r)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 falling 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 remember- ah, good friend, I implore thee remember

my supplication, and do the blessed sun no hurt. For (r)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 stillness 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 continued 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, I 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 (r)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 (r)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 merciful; 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 condition, anyway, and wanted to think. Something was wrong

about that eclipse, and the fact was very unsettling. 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 (r)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 (r)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

(r)was in King Arthur's court, and I might as well make the most of it

I could.

The darkness was steadily growing, the people becoming 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 (r)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; therefore I would let

the darkness grow awhile, 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 hand- 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 authority 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 uncomfortable. 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 (r)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- except 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

upsetting. 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 servants carried torches. There were no books,

pens, paper or ink, and no glass in the openings they believed 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 prayings 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 person 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

country-side. 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 agreeable 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 distance to see (r)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 accommodate the people with a

miracle was because I couldn't. I saw that I must do something. I

presently 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 mean time, whoso

listened to evil reports 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 superintended 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 liberated

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

uncomfortable. 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 thousand 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

modified 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 interfered. 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 expect 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

onlooking world consent to it is a finer. The tower episode solidified

my power, and made it impregnable. If any were perchance 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 circumstances. 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 adventurers like myself in the

shelter of its long array of thrones: De Montforts, Gavestons,

Mortimers, Villierses; 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 challenged 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 simplest and trustingest race; why, they

were nothing but rabbits. It was pitiful for a person born in a

wholesome 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, (r)any kind of

royalty, howsoever modified, (r)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 themselves

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 paying 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 unearned 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 (r)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 respected. 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

anything being entitled to that except pedigree and lordship. 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 ax 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

things," 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)

patience, meanness of spirit, non-resistance under oppression; 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 commoners was still content to see

his inferiors impudently continuing to hold a number of positions, such

as lordships 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 disappeared- 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 pygmies, 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 (r)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 (r)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 (r)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 particularly 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. However, 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 improvement on it. That reminds me to remark, in passing, that the

very first official thing I did, in my administration- 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 costumery, and

very characteristic of the country and the time, in the way of high

animal spirits, innocent indecencies 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 circumstances, because it kept me from

hearing the quacks detaching legs and arms from the day's cripples. They

ruined an uncommon good old crosscut saw for me, and broke the saw-buck,

too, but I let it pass. And as for my ax- well, I made up my mind that

the next time I lent an ax 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 measure 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 and 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 Sagramor le Desirous, and Sir Dodinas le

Savage; all these he bare down with one spear. When King Agwisance of

Ireland saw Sir Gareth fare so he marveled 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 Sir 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

labor; 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 honor; 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 proceed: 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 Lactantius," 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 unconsciously 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 (r)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 explanations. 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 (r)had run across it. You

see, it was just the Northwest Passage of that day, as you may say; that

was all. Every year expeditions went out holy grailing, and next year

relief expeditions went out to hunt for (r)them. There was worlds of

reputation in it, but no money. Why, they actually wanted (r)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 obscure 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 admirable system of graded schools in

full blast in those places, and also a complete variety of Protestant

congregations 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 Presbyterian 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 spiritual complexion, angularities, and

stature of the individual 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 (r)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 nineteenth 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

candlepower 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, steadily; 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 perfect. My men had orders to strike across country,

avoiding roads, and establishing connection with any considerable towns

whose lights betrayed their presence, 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 generally left it without thinking to inquire

what its name was. At once time and another we had sent out

topographical 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 necessarily 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 kingdom felt a sense of relief,

and the praises of my administration 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 as

that. No, everybody swallowed these people'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 pattern. 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, gratitude 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 (r)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 business 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 particulars?"

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. (r)You understand that. I'm obliged to ask

you a few questions; 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 (r)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 (r)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- (r)why do you look so innocent

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 (r)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."

(r)"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; (r)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

have 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, (r)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 secrecy 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 hundred 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 vexation and disappointment, and come to be as anxious for me to

hive those ogres and set those ripe old virgins loose as if it were

themselves that had the contract. Well, they (r)were good children- but

just children, 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 enchantments, 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 necromancer 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 nightshirt, 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 back-plate and your breast-plate, and you begin

to feel crowded; then you hitch onto the breast-plate 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-mold. 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 convenient 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 disappointed. They carry you out, just as

they carry a sunstruck 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 married 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-by 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 anything 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 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 afterward. 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 bandana, 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 awhile 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 bobtailed 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 respectworthy, 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 crossroads 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 ax compared with

lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heartbreak? 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- (r)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 (r)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 (r)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 (r)at all

times an undeniable and indefeasible right to (r)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-

(r)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 (r)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 backward 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

whir and a body, 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 sha'n'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-"

(r)"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 passing good knight as any

is on live."

(r)"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. As, 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-"

(r)"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, the archaics are a little (r)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 (r)his spear, and the other man brast his

shield, and down (r)he goes, horse and man, over his horse-tail, and

brake (r)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 (r)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, (r)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-

(r)ahh -pls, (r)aw -rnjz, b'(r)nan ners, (r)s-a-n-d' ches, p- (r)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 (r)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 (r)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

(r)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:

(r)"Persimmons's Soap- All the Prime-Donne 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 (r)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, (r)'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 a 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 wownds, 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.

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 Catholic 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 persons; below the salt sat

minor officers of the household, 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 unimaginable 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 happened 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 chaplain 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 quarrelsomely, some dead and under the table. Of the ladies, the

worst spectacle was a lovely young duchess, 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 expectation 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

another inspiration. I said:

"Do what you choose."

She was up and facing toward the queen in a moment. She indicated me,

and said:

"Madame, (r)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 person 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 (r)were a

superstitious lot. It is all a body can do to conceive of it.

The poor queen was so seared 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

statesman 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 composed and serene, when

the cords all down my legs were hurting in sympathy with that man's

pain. Conducted by mailed guards bearing flaring torches, we tramped

along echoing corridors, and down stone stairways dank and dripping, and

smelling of mold 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, (r)no man (r)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 suspicious. 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 (r)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

representative, and was speaking in his name. She saw she had to yield.

I asked her to indorse me to these people, 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, lovingly, 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 (r)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 groveling 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 (r)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 otherwise."

"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 dullest understanding that you had nothing to confess-"

(r)"I, my lord? How so? It was I that killed the deer!"

"You (r)did? Oh, dear, this is the most mixed-up business that ever-"

"Dear lord, I begged him on my knees to confess. but-"

"You (r)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 (r)he didn't want the quick

death."

"He? Why, of a surety he (r)did."

"Well, then, why in the world (r)didn't he confess?"

"Ah, sweet sir, and leave my wife and chick without 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 (r)you - true wife

and true 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

(r)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 distressing 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 Established

Church. We (r)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 an Established

Church is only a political machine; it was invented for that; it is

nursed, cradled, preserved 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 sudden

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

extenuating circumstance in the killing of venison- or of a person- so I

gave it up and let her sulk it out. I (r)did think I was going to make

her see it by remarking 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 (r)pay for him!"

Oh, it was no use to waste sense on her. Training- training is

everything; training is all there is (r)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 discreditable 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 unprofitably 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 (r)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 deserved 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 something 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 (r)pay for him! (r)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 (r)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 (r)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 expense,

as far as the law was concerned, but reprisals in kind were to be

expected. Anybody could kill somebody, 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 murdered somebody who belonged up among the

ornamental 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 dismemberment 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 prodding 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

ashpile 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 prisoners. 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 (r)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, believing 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

astonished at this strange treatment, and implacably embittered 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, kerneled 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 awhile, with a sort of

weak animal curiosity; 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 disrespectful 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! Indeed, 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 fellows 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 distance. 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 mourners, 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 (r)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 condition 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

(r)invented all those funerals herself, to scorch his heart with; and

the sublimest stroke of genius of the whole thing was leaving the family

invoice a funeral (r)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 incarceration 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 repeated 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 oppression

was what He loved to see in parties of a subordinate 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

incarceration 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 had 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 (r)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- nothing more, nothing less.

Well, when we inherit property, 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 (r)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 ax!

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 photograph a procession; but being

in doubt, it was just like her to try to do it with an ax.

Chapter XIX: KNIGHT-ERRANTRY AS A TRADE

SANDY and I were on the road again, next morning, bright and early. It

was (r)so good to open up one's lungs and take in whole luscious

barrelfuls 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! I 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 consequences. 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 harbor. 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

Marhaus. And they kneeled all down and put the pommels 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 Whitsuntide after, to come he

and his sons, and put them in the king's grace. *003

"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 (r)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 nonsense 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 corners the market on (r)you, and down goes your

bucketshop; 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 (r)so, just as I say. I (r)know it's so. And,

moreover, when you come right down to the bed-rock, knight-errantry is

(r)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 battered corpses and a

barrel or two of busted hardware. Can you call (r)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,

meseemeth-"

"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

nooning 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 distinction 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 clutching a prophylactic toothbrush, with

motto: (r)"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 than 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 account. 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 cross-lot 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 afternoon we came upon one of those very

patriarchs ourselves, 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 stagnant. 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 generation 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 account 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 encounter who was planning out a peaceful

revolution in his mind. For it could not help bringing up the unget-

aroundable fact that, all gentle cant and philosophizing 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 (r)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. Presently, 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 perception it is enchanted and dight in a base and shameful 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 banners 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 (r)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

particular 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 swineherds-"

"The ogres? Are (r)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 (r)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 swineherds. 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 swineherds 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 annoying 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 blisters 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

gasometer.

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

anything. 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 enchantments; 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

Connecticut 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

support 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 performance. 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 overmastering 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 unexpectedness; 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

promenaded; 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 observance; 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 miraculous waters and be cleansed 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 unceasingly 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

monastery 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 multitudes 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 agreeable 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 account 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 procession 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 husbands, 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 consciousness 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

gladness 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 instead. 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

shrieking 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 every-day

familiarity 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 pilgrims 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 rough-shod. 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 husband 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 as 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 saddle 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 common?"

"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 whereof 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: (r)"Chemical

Department, Laboratory 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 despatch."

"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 constructions 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 possessed 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 emergency 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 reputation, 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

community 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 questionable 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 eighth 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 temporary 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- ninety-eight feet. Then I called

in a 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, anyway; 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 hundred and fifty feet deep, and there was

forty-one feet of water in it! I called in a monk and asked:

"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 testimony goeth, brought

down to us through our predecessors."

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

fishline 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 (r)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 brotherhood, 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

difficulty 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 Wednesday. 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 (r)nor could, nor might-not

nor could-not, might be by advantage turned to the desired (r)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 sentences

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 exactly 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 renowned 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 twelve hundred and forty-four revolutions in twenty-four minutes

and forty-six 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 thousand 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

boulder or a dead wall in England but you could read on it at a mile

distance:

(r)"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 forehatch

and the running-gear clewed up with a feather-stitch to leeward and then

hauled aft with a backstay 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 personal condition will

not quite bear description here. You can read it in the (r)Lives of the

Saints. *004

Chapter XXIII: RESTORATION OF THE FOUNTAIN

SATURDAY noon I went to the well and looked on awhile. Merlin was

still burning smoke-powders, and pawing the air, and muttering gibberish

as hard as ever, but looking pretty downhearted, 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 occult 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 necessarily 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

(r)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. Whenever 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 conditions. We took possession of the well and

its surroundings. My boys were experts in all sorts of things, from the

stoning-up of a well to the constructing of a mathematical instrument.

An hour before sunrise we had that leak mended in shipshape fashion, and

the water began to rise. Then we stowed our fireworks 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 determined to spring the miracle before

midnight, for business 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 ten-thirty, performance to begin at

eleven-twenty-five 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 ten, 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 evening 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 ten-

thirty, 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 beyond 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 pronounced

this ghastly word with a kind of awfulness which caused hundreds to

tremble, and many women to faint:

(See Illustration)

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:

(See Illustration)

-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:

(See Illustration)

-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:

(See Illustration)

-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

see-saw 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 pronounce the dread name and

command the spell to dissolve. You want to brace up, and take hold of

something." 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 understand 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 uncovered 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 glorying over it.

Chapter XXIV: A RIVAL MAGICIAN

MY influence in the Valley of Holiness was something 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 suggested 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 remaining. 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 innocent 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

rheumatism 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 everybody 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 every-

day 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 hermitage 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:

(r)"Hello, Central! Is this you, Camelot? - Behold, thou mayst glad

thy heart an thou hast faith to believe the wonderful when that it

cometh in unexpected 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 medieval 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 when as 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 (r)they know all about this thing. Haven't they told you

anything about the great miracle of the restoration of a holy fountain?"

"Oh, (r)that? Indeed yes. But the name of (r)this valley doth

woundily differ from the name of (r)that one; indeed to differ wider

were not pos-"

"What was that name, then?"

"The Valley of Hellishness."

(r)"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, 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 help you with your miracle will be his guide and lead the way, and

appoint the places for rests at noon 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 myself. 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?- chuckle-

heads."

"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 tonight 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 suffocation. 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 Academy 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 therefore 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 (r)would like to know what that monarch was at,

just at 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. (r)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 consequence. 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

destructive. 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 enchanter.

"Most gladly, yea, and gratefully."

Everybody was full of awe and interest again right away, the

incorrigible idiots. They watched the incantations 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 refreshment 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 before 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 (r)here, in this valley."

(r)That was a noble shot! It set the abbot and the monks in a whirl

of excitement, and it rocked the enchanter 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 cutting 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 procession; 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 trade-

mark 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.

Chapter XXV: A COMPETITIVE EXAMINATION

WHEN the king traveled for change of air, or made a progress, or

visited a distant noble whom he wished to bankrupt with the cost of his

keep, part of the administration moved with him. It was a fashion of the

time. The Commission charged with the examination of candidates for

posts in the army came with the king to the Valley, whereas they could

have transacted their business just as well at home. And although this

expedition was strictly a holiday excursion for the king, he kept some

of his business functions going just the same. He touched for the evil,

as usual; he held court in the gate at sunrise and tried cases, for he

was himself Chief Justice of the King's Bench.

He shone very well in this latter office. He was a wise and humane

judge, and he clearly did his honest best and fairest- according to his

lights. That is a large reservation. His lights- I mean his rearing-

often colored his decisions. Whenever there was a dispute between a

noble or gentleman and a person of lower degree, the king's leanings and

sympathies were for the former class always, whether he suspected it or

not. It was impossible that this should be otherwise. The blunting

effects of slavery upon the slaveholder's moral perceptions are known

and conceded, the world over; and a privileged class, an aristocracy, is

but a band of slaveholders under another name. This has a harsh sound,

and yet should not be offensive to any- even to the noble himself-

unless the fact itself be an offense: for the statement simply

formulates a fact. The repulsive feature of slavery is the (r)thing,

not its name. One needs but to hear an aristocrat speak of the classes

that are below him to recognize- and in but indifferently modified

measure- the very air and tone of the actual slaveholder; and behind

these are the slaveholder's spirit, the slaveholder's blunted feeling.

They are the result of the same cause in both cases: the possessor's old

and inbred custom of regarding himself as a superior being. The king's

judgments wrought frequent injustices, but it was merely the fault of

his training, his natural and unalterable sympathies. He was as unfitted

for a judgeship as would be the average mother for the position of milk-

distributer to starving children in famine-time; her own children would

fare a shade better than the rest.

One very curious case came before the king. A young girl, an orphan,

who had a considerable estate, married a fine young fellow who had

nothing. The girl's property was within a seigniory held by the Church.

The bishop of the diocese, an arrogant scion of the great nobility,

claimed the girl's estate on the ground that she had married privately,

and thus had cheated the Church out of one of its rights as lord of the

seigniory- the one heretofore referred to as (r)le droit du seigneur.

The penalty of refusal or avoidance was confiscation. The girl's defense

was, that the lordship of the seigniory was vested in the bishop, and

the particular right here involved was not transferable, but must be

exercised by the lord himself or stand vacated; and that an older law,

of the Church itself, strictly barred the bishop from exercising it. It

was a very odd case, indeed.

It reminded me of something I had read in my youth about the ingenious

way in which the aldermen of London raised the money that built the

Mansion House. A person who had not taken the Sacrament according to the

Anglican rite could not stand as a candidate for sheriff of London. Thus

Dissenters were ineligible; they could not run if asked, they could not

serve if elected. The aldermen, who without any question were Yankees in

disguise, hit upon this neat device: they passed a bylaw imposing a fine

of L400 upon any one who should refuse to be a candidate for sheriff,

and a fine of L600 upon any person who, after being elected sheriff,

refused to serve. Then they went to work and elected a lot of

Dissenters, one after another, and kept it up until they had collected

L15,000 in fines; and there stands the stately Mansion House to this

day, to keep the blushing citizen in mind of a long past and lamented

day when a band of Yankees slipped into London and played games of the

sort that has given their race a unique and shady reputation among all

truly good and holy peoples that be in the earth.

The girl's case seemed strong to me; the bishop's case was just as

strong. I did not see how the king was going to get out of this hole.

But he got out. I append his decision:

"Truly I find small difficulty here, the matter being even a child's

affair for simpleness. An the young bride had conveyed notice, as in

duty bound, to her feudal lord and proper master and protector the

bishop, she had suffered no loss, for the said bishop could have got a

dispensation making him, for temporary conveniency, eligible to the

exercise of his said right, and thus would she have kept all she had.

Whereas, failing in her first duty, she hath by that failure failed in

all; for whoso, clinging to a rope, severeth it above his hands, must

fall; it being no defense to claim that the rest of the rope is sound,

neither any deliverance from his peril, as he shall find. Pardy, the

woman's case is rotten at the source. It is the decree of the court that

she forfeit to the said lord bishop all her goods, even to the last

farthing that she doth possess, and be thereto mulcted in the costs.

Next!"

Here was a tragic end to a beautiful honeymoon not yet three months

old. Poor young creatures! They had lived these three months lapped to

the lips in worldly comforts. These clothes and trinkets they were

wearing were as fine and dainty as the shrewdest stretch of the

sumptuary laws allowed to people of their degree; and in these pretty

clothes, she crying on his shoulder, and he trying to comfort her with

hopeful words set to the music of despair, they went from the judgment

seat out into the world homeless, bedless, breadless; why, the very

beggars by the roadsides were not so poor as they.

Well, the king was out of the hole; and on terms satisfactory to the

Church and the rest of the aristocracy, no doubt. Men write many fine

and plausible arguments in support of monarchy, but the fact remains

that where every man in a state has a vote, brutal laws are impossible.

Arthur's people were of course poor material for a republic, because

they had been debased so long by monarchy; and yet even they would have

been intelligent enough to make short work of that law which the king

had just been administering if it had been submitted to their full and

free vote. There is a phrase which has grown so common in the world's

mouth that it has come to seem to have sense and meaning- the sense and

meaning implied when it is used; that is the phrase which refers to this

or that or the other nation as possibly being "capable of self-

government"; and the implied sense of it is, that there has been a

nation somewhere, some time or other, which (r)wasn't capable of it-

wasn't as able to govern itself as some self-appointed specialists were

or would be to govern it. The master minds of all nations, in all ages,

have sprung in affluent multitude from the mass of the nation, and from

the mass of the nation only- not from its privileged classes; and so, no

matter what the nation's intellectual grade was, whether high or low,

the bulk of its ability was in the long ranks of its nameless and its

poor, and so it never saw the day that it had not the material in

abundance whereby to govern itself. Which is to assert an always self-

proven fact: that even the best-governed and most free and most

enlightened monarchy is still behind the best condition attainable by

its people; and that the same is true of kindred governments of lower

grades, all the way down to the lowest.

King Arthur had hurried up the army business altogether beyond my

calculations. I had not supposed he would move in the matter while I was

away; and so I had not mapped out a scheme for determining the merits of

officers; I had only remarked that it would be wise to submit every

candidate to a sharp and searching examination; and privately I meant to

put together a list of military qualifications that nobody could answer

to but my West-Pointers. That ought to have been attended to before I

left; for the king was so taken with the idea of a standing army that he

couldn't wait but must get about it at once, and get up as good a scheme

of examination as he could invent out of his own head.

I was impatient to see what this was; and to show, too, how much more

admirable was the one which I should display to the Examining Board. I

intimated this, gently, to the king, and it fired his curiosity. When

the Board was assembled, I followed him in, and behind us came the

candidates. One of these candidates was a bright young West-Pointer of

mine, and with him were a couple of my West Point professors.

When I saw the Board, I did not know whether to cry or to laugh. The

head of it was the officer known to later centuries as Norroy King-at-

Arms! The two other members were chiefs of bureaus in his department;

and all three were priests, of course; all officials who had to know how

to read and write were priests.

My candidate was called first, out of courtesy to me, and the head of

the Board opened on him with official solemnity:

"Name?"

"Mal-ease."

"Son of?"

"Webster."

"Webster- Webster. H'm- I- my memory faileth to recall the name.

Condition?"

"Weaver."

"Weaver!- God keep us!"

The king was staggered, from his summit to his foundations; one clerk

fainted, and the others came near it. The chairman pulled himself

together, and said indignantly:

"It is sufficient. Get you hence."

But I appealed to the king. I begged that my candidate might be

examined. The king was willing, but the Board, who were all well-born

folk, implored the king to spare them the indignity of examining the

weaver's son. I knew they didn't know enough to examine him anyway, so I

joined my prayers to theirs and the king turned the duty over to my

professors. I had had a blackboard prepared, and it was put up now, and

the circus began. It was beautiful to hear the lad lay out the science

of war, and wallow in details of battle and siege, of supply,

transportation, mining and countermining, grand tactics, big strategy

and little strategy, signal service, infantry, cavalry, artillery, and

all about siege-guns, field-guns, Gatling guns, rifled guns, smooth

bores, musket practice, revolver practice- and not a solitary word of it

all could these catfish make head or tail of, you understand- and it was

handsome to see him chalk off mathematical nightmares on the blackboard

that would stump the angels themselves, and do it like nothing, too- all

about eclipses, and comets, and solstices, and constellations, and mean

time, and sidereal time, and dinner-time, and bedtime, and every other

imaginable thing above the clouds or under them that you could harry or

bullyrag an enemy with and make him wish he hadn't come- and when the

boy made his military salute and stood aside at last, I was proud enough

to hug him, and all those other people were so dazed they looked partly

petrified, partly drunk, and wholly caught out and snowed under. I

judged that the cake was ours, and by a large majority.

Education is a great thing. This was the same youth who had come to

West Point so ignorant that when I asked him, "If a general officer

should have a horse shot under him on the field of battle, what ought he

to do?" answered up naively and said:

"Get up and brush himself."

One of the young nobles was called up now. I thought I would question

him a little myself. I said:

"Can your lordship read?"

His face flushed indignantly, and he fired this at me:

"Takest me for a clerk? I trow I am not of a blood that-"

"Answer the question!"

He crowded his wrath down and made out to answer "No."

"Can you write?"

He wanted to resent this, too, but I said:

"You will confine yourself to the questions, and make no comments. You

are not here to air your blood or your graces, and nothing of the sort

will be permitted. Can you write?"

"No."

"Do you know the multiplication table?"

"I wit not what ye refer to."

"How much is nine times six?"

"It is a mystery that is hidden from me by reason that the emergency

requiring the fathoming of it hath not in my life-days occurred, and so,

not having no need to know this thing, I abide barren of the knowledge."

"If A trade a barrel of onions to B, worth two-pence the bushel, in

exchange for sheep worth four-pence and a dog worth a penny, and C kill

the dog before delivery, because bitten by the same, who mistook him for

D, what sum is still due to A from B, and which party pays for the dog,

C or D, and who gets the money? If A, is the penny sufficient, or may he

claim consequential damages in the form of additional money to represent

the possible profit which might have inured from the dog, and

classifiable as earned increment, that is to say, usufruct?"

"Verily, in the all-wise and unknowable providence of God, who moveth

in mysterious ways His wonders to perform, have I never heard the fellow

to this question for confusion of the mind and congestion of the ducts

of thought. Wherefore I beseech you let the dog and the onions and these

people of the strange and godless names work out their several

salvations from their piteous and wonderful difficulties without help of

mine, for indeed their trouble is sufficient as it is, whereas an I

tried to help I should but damage their cause the more and yet mayhap

not live myself to see the desolation wrought."

"What do you know of the laws of attraction and gravitation?"

"If there be such, mayhap his grace the king did promulgate them

whilst that I lay sick about the beginning of the year and thereby

failed to hear his proclamation."

"What do you know of the science of optics?"

"I know of governors of places, and seneschals of castles, and

sheriffs of counties, and many like small offices and titles of honor,

but him you call the Science of Optics I have not heard of before;

peradventure it is a new dignity."

"Yes, in this country."

Try to conceive of this mollusk gravely applying for an official

position, of any kind under the sun! Why, he had all the earmarks of a

typewriter copyist, if you leave out the disposition to contribute

uninvited emendations of your grammar and punctuation. It was

unaccountable that he didn't attempt a little help of that sort out of

his majestic supply of incapacity for the job. But that didn't prove

that he hadn't material in him for the disposition, it only proved that

he wasn't a typewriter copyist yet. After nagging him a little more, I

let the professors loose on him and they turned him inside out, on the

line of scientific war, and found him empty, of course. He knew somewhat

about the warfare of the time- bushwhacking around for ogres, and bull-

fights in the tournament ring, and such things- but otherwise he was

empty and useless. Then we took the other young noble in hand, and he

was the first one's twin, for ignorance and incapacity. I delivered them

into the hands of the chairman of the Board with the comfortable

consciousness that their cake was dough. They were examined in the

previous order of precedence.

"Name, so please you?"

"Pertipole, son of Sir Pertipole, Baron of Barley Mash."

"Grandfather?"

"Also Sir Pertipole, Baron of Barley Mash."

"Great-grandfather?"

"The same name and title."

"Great-great-grandfather?"

"We had none, worshipful sir. the line failing before it had reached

so far back."

"It mattereth not. It is a good four generations, and fulfilleth the

requirements of the rule."

"Fulfils what rule?" I asked.

"The rule requiring four generations of nobility or else the candidate

is not eligible."

"A man not eligible for a lieutenancy in the army unless he can prove

four generations of noble descent?"

"Even so; neither lieutenant nor any other office may be commissioned

without that qualification."

"Oh, come, this is an astonishing thing. What good is such a

qualification as that?"

"What good? It is a hardy question, fair sir and Boss, since it doth

go far to impugn the wisdom of even our holy Mother Church herself."

"As how?"

"For that she hath established the selfsame rule regarding saints. By

her law none may be canonized until he hath lain dead four generations."

"I see, I see- it is the same thing. It is wonderful. In the one case

a man lies dead-alive four generations- mummified in ignorance and

sloth- and that qualifies him to command live people, and take their

weal and woe into his impotent hands; and in the other case, a man lies

bedded with death and worms four generations, and that qualifies him for

office in the celestial camp. Does the king's grace approve of this

strange law?"

The king said:

"Why, truly I see naught about it that is strange. All places of honor

and of profit do belong, by natural right, to them that be of noble

blood, and so these dignities in the army are their property and would

be so without this or any rule. The rule is but to mark a limit. Its

purpose is to keep out too recent blood, which would bring into contempt

these offices, and men of lofty lineage would turn their backs and scorn

to take them. I were to blame an I permitted this calamity. (r)You can

permit it an you are minded so to do, for you have the delegated

authority, but that the king should do it were a most strange madness

and not comprehensible to any."

"I yield. Proceed, sir Chief of the Herald's College."

The chairman resumed as follows:

"By what illustrious achievement for the honor of the Throne and state

did the founder of your great line lift himself to the sacred dignity of

the British nobility?"

"He built a brewery."

"Sire, the Board finds this candidate perfect in all the requirements

and qualifications for military command, and doth hold his case open for

decision after due examination of his competitor."

The competitor came forward and proved exactly four generations of

nobility himself. So there was a tie in military qualifications that

far.

He stood aside a moment, and Sir Pertipole was questioned further:

"Of what condition was the wife of the founder of your line?"

"She came of the highest landed gentry, yet she was not noble; she was

gracious and pure and charitable, of a blameless life and character,

insomuch that in these regards was she peer of the best lady in the

land."

"That will do. Stand down." He called up the competing lordling again,

and asked: "What was the rank and condition of the great-grandmother

who, conferred British nobility upon your great house?"

"She was a king's leman and did climb to that splendid eminence by her

own unholpen merit from the sewer where she was born."

"Ah, this, indeed, is true nobility, this is the right and perfect

intermixture. The lieutenancy is yours, fair lord. Hold it not in

contempt; it is the humble step which will lead to grandeurs more worthy

of the splendor of an origin like to thine."

I was down in the bottomless pit of humiliation. I had promised myself

an easy and zenith-scouring triumph, and this was the outcome!

I was almost ashamed to look my poor disappointed cadet in the face. I

told him to go home and be patient, this wasn't the end.

I had a private audience with the king, and made a proposition. I said

it was quite right to officer that regiment with nobilities, and he

couldn't have done a wiser thing. It would also be a good idea to add

five hundred officers to it; in fact, add as many officers as there were

nobles and relatives of nobles in the country, even if there should

finally be five times as many officers as privates in it; and thus make

it the crack regiment, the envied regiment, the King's Own regiment, and

entitled to fight on its own hook and in its own way, and go whither it

would and come when it pleased, in time of war, and be utterly swell and

independent. This would make that regiment the heart's desire of all the

nobility, and they would all be satisfied and happy. Then we would make

up the rest of the standing army out of commonplace materials, and

officer it with nobodies, as was proper- nobodies selected on a basis of

mere efficiency- and we would make this regiment toe the line, allow it

no aristocratic freedom from restraint, and force it to do all the work

and persistent hammering, to the end that whenever the King's Own was

tired and wanted to go off for a change and rummage around amongst ogres

and have a good time, it could go without uneasiness, knowing that

matters were in safe hands behind it, and business going to be continued

at the old stand, same as usual. The king was charmed with the idea.

When I noticed that, it gave me a valuable notion. I thought I saw my

way out of an old and stubborn difficulty at last. You see, the

royalties of the Pendragon stock were a long-lived race and very

fruitful. Whenever a child was born to any of these- and it was pretty

often- there was wild joy in the nation's mouth, and piteous sorrow in

the nation's heart. The joy was questionable, but the grief was honest.

Because the event meant another call for a Royal Grant. Long was the

list of these royalties, and they were a heavy and steadily increasing

burden upon the treasury and a menace to the crown. Yet Arthur could not

believe this latter fact, and he would not listen to any of my various

projects for substituting something in the place of the royal grants. If

I could have persuaded him to now and then provide a support for one of

these outlying scions from his own pocket, I could have made a grand to-

do over it, and it would have had a good effect with the nation; but no,

he wouldn't hear of such a thing. He had something like a religious

passion for royal grant; he seemed to look upon it as a sort of sacred

swag, and one could not irritate him in any way so quickly and so surely

as by an attack upon that venerable institution. If I ventured to

cautiously hint that there was not another respectable family in England

that would humble itself to hold out the hat- however, that is as far as

I ever got; he always cut me short there, and peremptorily, too.

But I believed I saw my chance at last. I would form this crack

regiment out of officers alone- not a single private. Half of it should

consist of nobles, who should fill all the places up to Major-General,

and serve gratis and pay their own expenses; and they would be glad to

do this when they should learn that the rest of the regiment would

consist exclusively of princes of the blood. These princes of the blood

should range in rank from Lieutenant-General up to Field Marshal, and be

gorgeously salaried and equipped and fed by the state. Moreover- and

this was the master stroke- it should be decreed that these princely

grandees should be always addressed by a stunningly gaudy and awe-

compelling title which I would presently invent), and they and they only

in all England should be so addressed. Finally, all princes of the blood

should have free choice; join that regiment, get that great title, and

renounce the royal grant, or stay out and receive a grant. Neatest touch

of all: unborn but imminent princes of the blood could be (r)born into

the regiment, and start fair, with good wages and a permanent situation,

upon due notice from the parents.

All the boys would join, I was sure of that; so, all existing grants

would be relinquished; that the newly born would always join was equally

certain. Within sixty days that quaint and bizarre anomaly, the Royal

Grant, would cease to be a living fact, and take its place among the

curiosities of the past.

Chapter XXVI: THE FIRST NEWSPAPER

WHEN I told the king I was going out disguised as a petty freeman to

scour the country and familiarize myself with the humbler life of the

people, he was all afire with the novelty of the thing in a minute, and

was bound to take a chance in the adventure himself- nothing should stop

him- he would drop everything and go along- it was the prettiest idea he

had run across for many a day. He wanted to glide out the back way and

start at once; but I showed him that that wouldn't answer. You see, he

was billed for the king's-evil- to touch for it, I mean- and it wouldn't

be right to disappoint the house; and it wouldn't make a delay worth

considering, anyway, it was only a one-night stand. And I thought he

ought to tell the queen he was going away. He clouded up at that and

looked sad. I was sorry I had spoken, especially when he said

mournfully:

"Thou forgettest that Launcelot is here; and where Launcelot is, she

noteth not the going forth of the king, nor what day he returneth."

Of course, I changed the subject. Yes, Guenever was beautiful, it is

true, but take her all around she was pretty slack. I never meddled in

these matters, they weren't my affair, but I did hate to see the way

things were going on, and I don't mind saying that much. Many's the time

she had asked me, "Sir Boss, hast seen Sir Launcelot about?" but if ever

she went fretting around for the king I didn't happen to be around at

the time.

There was a very good lay-out for the king's-evil business- very tidy

and creditable. The king sat under a canopy of state; about him were

clustered a large body of the clergy in full canonicals. Conspicuous,

both for location and personal outfit, stood Marinel, a hermit of the

quack-doctor species, to introduce the sick. All abroad over the

spacious floor, and clear down to the doors, in a thick jumble, lay or

sat the scrofulous, under a strong light. It was as good as a tableau;

in fact, it had all the look of being gotten up for that, though it

wasn't. There were eight hundred sick people present. The work was slow;

it lacked the interest of novelty for me, because I had seen the

ceremonies before; the thing soon became tedious, but the proprieties

required me to stick it out. The doctor was there for the reason that in

all such crowds there were many people who only imagined something was

the matter with them, and many who were consciously sound but wanted the

immortal honor of fleshly contact with a king, and yet others who

pretended to illness in order to get the piece of coin that went with

the touch. Up to this time this coin had been a wee little gold piece

worth about a third of a dollar. When you consider how much that amount

of money would buy, in that age and country, and how usual it was to be

scrofulous, when not dead, you would understand that the annual king's-

evil appropriation was just the River and Harbor bill of that government

for the grip it took on the treasury and the chance it afforded for

skinning the surplus. So I had privately concluded to touch the treasury

itself for the king's-evil. I covered six-sevenths of the appropriation

into the treasury a week before starting from Camelot on my adventures,

and ordered that the other seventh be inflated into five-cent nickels

and delivered into the hands of the head clerk of the King's Evil

Department; a nickel to take the place of each gold coin, you see, and

do its work for it. It might strain the nickel some, but I judged it

could stand it. As a rule, I do not approve of watering stock, but I

considered it square enough in this case, for it was just a gift,

anyway. Of course, you can water a gift as much as you want to; and I

generally do. The old gold and silver coins of the country were of

ancient and unknown origin, as a rule, but some of them were Roman; they

were ill-shapen, and seldom rounder than a moon that is a week past the

full; they were hammered, not minted, and they were so worn with use

that the devices upon them were as illegible as blisters, and looked

like them. I judged that a sharp, bright new nickel, with a first-rate

likeness of the king on one side of it and Guenever on the other, and a

blooming pious motto, would take the tuck out of scrofula as handy as a

nobler coin and please the scrofulous fancy more; and I was right. This

batch was the first it was tried on, and it worked to a charm. The

saving in expense was a notable economy. You will see that by these

figures: We touched a trifle over seven hundred of the eight hundred

patients; at former rates, this would have cost the government about two

hundred and forty dollars; at the new rate we pulled through for about

thirty-five dollars, thus saving upward of two hundred dollars at one

swoop. To appreciate the full magnitude of this stroke, consider these

other figures: the annual expenses of a national government amount to

the equivalent of a contribution of three days' average wages of every

individual of the population, counting every individual as if he were a

man. If you take a nation of sixty millions, where average wages are two

dollars per day, three days' wages taken from each individual will

provide three hundred and sixty million dollars and pay the government's

expenses. In my day, in my own country, this money was collected from

imposts, and the citizen imagined that the foreign importer paid it, and

it made him comfortable to think so; whereas, in fact, it was paid by

the American people, and was so equally and exactly distributed among

them that the annual cost to the one-hundred-millionaire and the annual

cost to the sucking child of the day-laborer was precisely the same-

each paid six dollars. Nothing could be equaler than that, I reckon.

Well, Scotland and Ireland were tributary to Arthur, and the united

populations of the British Islands amounted to something less than one

million. A mechanic's average wage was three cents a day, when he paid

his own keep. By this rule the national government's expenses were

ninety thousand dollars a year, or about two hundred and fifty dollars a

day. Thus, by the substitution of nickels for gold on a king's-evil day,

I not only injured no one, dissatisfied no one, but pleased all

concerned and saved four-fifths of that day's national expense into the

bargain- a saving which would have been the equivalent of eight hundred

thousand dollars in my day in America. In making this substitution I had

drawn upon the wisdom of a very remote source- the wisdom of my boyhood-

for the true statesman does not despise any wisdom, howsoever lowly may

be its origin: in my boyhood I had always saved my pennies and

contributed buttons to the foreign missionary cause. The buttons would

answer the ignorant savage as well as the coin, the coin would answer me

better than the buttons; all hands were happy and nobody hurt.

Marinel took the patients as they came. He examined the candidate; if

he couldn't qualify he was warned off; if he could he was passed along

to the king. A priest pronounced the words, "They shall lay their hands

on the sick, and they shall recover." Then the king stroked the ulcers,

while the reading continued; finally, the patient graduated and got his

nickel- the king hanging it around his neck himself- and was dismissed.

Would you think that that would cure? It certainly did. Any mummery will

cure if the patient's faith is strong in it. Up by Astolat there was a

chapel where the Virgin had once appeared to a girl who used to herd

geese around there- the girl said so herself- and they built the chapel

upon that spot and hung a picture in it representing the occurrence- a

picture which you would think it dangerous for a sick person to

approach; whereas, on the contrary, thousands of the lame and the sick

came and prayed before it every year and went away whole and sound; and

even the well could look upon it and live. Of course, when I was told

these things I did not believe them; but when I went there and saw them

I had to succumb. I saw the cures effected myself; and they were real

cures and not questionable. I saw cripples whom I had seen around

Camelot for years on crutches, arrive and pray before that picture, and

put down their crutches and walk off without a limp. There were piles of

crutches there which had been left by such people as a testimony.

In other places people operated on a patient's mind, without saying a

word to him, and cured him. In others, experts assembled patients in a

room and prayed over them, and appealed to their faith, and those

patients went away cured. Wherever you find a king who can't cure the

king's-evil you can be sure that the most valuable superstition that

supports his throne- the subject's belief in the divine appointment of

his sovereign- has passed away. In my youth the monarchs of England had

ceased to touch for the evil, but there was no occasion for this

diffidence: they could have cured it forty-nine times in fifty.

Well, when the priest had been droning for three hours, and the good

king polishing the evidences, and the sick were still pressing forward

as plenty as ever, I got to feeling intolerably bored. I was sitting by

an open window not far from the canopy of state. For the five hundredth

time a patient stood forward to have his repulsivenesses stroked; again

those words were being droned out: "they shall lay their hands on the

sick"- when outside there rang clear as a clarion a note that enchanted

my soul and tumbled thirteen worthless centuries about my ears: "Camelot

(r)Weekly Hosannah and Literary Volcano! - latest irruption- only two

cents- all about the big miracle in the Valley of Holiness!" One greater

than kings had arrived- the newsboy. But I was the only person in all

that throng who knew the meaning of this mighty birth, and what this

imperial magician was come into the world to do.

I dropped a nickel out of the window and got my paper; the Adam-

newsboy of the world went around the corner to get my change; is around

the corner yet. It was delicious to see a newspaper again, yet I was

conscious of a secret shock when my eye fell upon the first batch of

display head-lines. I had lived in a clammy atmosphere of reverence,

respect, deference, so long that they sent a quivery little cold wave

through me:

HIGH TIMES IN THE VALLEY

OF HOLINESS!

-------------

THE WATER-WORKS CORKED!

-------------

BRER MERLIN WORKS HIS ARTS, BUT GETS

LEFT?

-------------

But t he Boss scores on his first Innings!

-------------

(r)The Miraculous Well Uncorked amid

(r)awful outbursts of

INFERNAL FIRE AND SMOKE

ANDTHUNDER!

-------------

THE BUZZARD-ROOST ASTONISHED!

-------------

UNPARALLELED REJOIBINGS!

-------------

-and so on, and so on. Yes, it was too loud. Once I could have enjoyed

it and seen nothing out of the way about it, but now its note was

discordant. It was good Arkansas journalism, but this was not Arkansas.

Moreover, the next to the last line was calculated to give offense to

the hermits, and perhaps lose us their advertising. Indeed, there was

too lightsome a tone of flippancy all through the paper. It was plain I

had undergone a considerable change without noticing it. I found myself

unpleasantly affected by pert little irreverencies which would have

seemed but proper and airy graces of speech at an earlier period of my

life. There was an abundance of the following breed of items, and they

discomforted me:

(See Illustration)

Of course it was good enough journalism for a beginning; I knew that

quite well, and yet it was somehow disappointing. The "Court Circular"

pleased me better; indeed, its simple and dignified respectfulness was a

distinct refreshment to me after all those disgraceful familiarities.

But even it could have been improved. Do what one may, there is no

getting an air of variety into a court circular, I acknowledge that.

There is a profound monotonousness about its facts that baffles and

defeats one's sincerest efforts to make them sparkle and enthuse. The

best way to manage- in fact, the only sensible way- is to disguise

repetitiousness of fact under variety of form: skin your fact each time

and lay on a new cuticle of words. It deceives the eye; you think it is

a new fact; it gives you the idea that the court is carrying on like

everything; this excites you, and you drain the whole column, with a

good appetite, and perhaps never notice that it's a barrel of soup made

out of a single bean. Clarence's way was good, it was simple, it was

dignified, it was direct and businesslike; all I say is, it was not the

best way:

COURT CIRCULAR.

On Monday, the King rode in the park.

" Tuesday, " " "

" Wendesday " " "

" Thursday " " "

" Friday, " " "

" Saturday " " "

" Sunday, " " "

However, take the paper by and large, I was vastly pleased with it.

Little crudities of a mechanical sort were observable here and there,

but there were not enough of them to amount to anything, and it was good

enough Arkansas proof-reading, anyhow, and better than was needed in

Arthur's day and realm. As a rule, the grammar was leaky and the

construction more or less lame; but I did not much mind these things.

They are common defects of my own, and one mustn't criticize other

people on grounds where he can't stand perpendicular himself.

I was hungry enough for literature to want to take down the whole

paper at this one meal, but I got only a few bites, and then had to

postpone, because the monks around me besieged me so with eager

questions: What is this curious thing? What is it for? Is it a

handkerchief?- saddle-blanket?- part of a shirt? What is it made of? How

thin it is, and how dainty and frail; and how it rattles. Will it wear,

do you think, and won't the rain injure it? Is it writing that appears

on it, or is it only ornamentation? They suspected it was writing,

because those among them who knew how to read Latin and had a smattering

of Greek, recognized some of the letters, but they could make nothing

out of the result as a whole. I put my information in the simplest form

I could:

"It is a public journal; I will explain what that is, another time. It

is not cloth, it is made of paper; some time I will explain what paper

is. The lines on it are reading-matter; and not written by hand, but

printed; by and by I will explain what printing is. A thousand of these

sheets have been made, all exactly like this, in every minute detail-

they can't be told apart." Then they all broke out with exclamations of

surprise and admiration:

"A thousand! Verily a mighty work- a year's work for many men."

"No- merely a day's work for a man and a boy."

They crossed themselves, and whiffed out a protective prayer or two.

"Ah-h- a miracle, a wonder! Dark work of enchantment."

I let it go at that. Then I read in a low voice, to as many as could

crowd their shaven heads within hearing distance, part of the account of

the miracle of the restoration of the well, and was accompanied by

astonished and reverent ejaculations all through: "Ah-h-h!" "How true!"

"Amazing, amazing!" "These be the very haps as they happened, in

marvelous exactness!" And might they take this strange thing in their

hands, and feel of it and examine it?- they would be very careful. Yes.

So they took it, handling it as cautiously and devoutly as if it had

been some holy thing come from some supernatural region; and gently felt

of its texture, caressed its pleasant smooth surface with lingering

touch, and scanned the mysterious characters with fascinated eyes. These

grouped bent heads, these charmed faces, these speaking eyes- how

beautiful to me! For was not this my darling, and was not all this mute

wonder and interest and homage a most eloquent tribute and unforced

compliment to it? I knew, then, how a mother feels when women, whether

strangers or friends, take her new baby, and close themselves about it

with one eager impulse, and bend their heads over it in a tranced

adoration that makes all the rest of the universe vanish out of their

consciousness and be as if it were not, for that time. I knew how she

feels, and that there is no other satisfied ambition, whether of king,

conqueror, or poet, that ever reaches half-way to that serene far summit

or yields half so divine a contentment.

During all the rest of the seance my paper traveled from group to

group all up and down and about that huge hall, and my happy eye was

upon it always, and I sat motionless, steeped in satisfaction, drunk

with enjoyment. Yes, this was heaven; I was tasting it once, if I might

never taste it more.

Chapter XXVII: THE YANKEE AND THE KING TRAVEL INCOGNITO

ABOUT bedtime I took the king to my private quarters to cut his hair

and help him get the hang of the lowly raiment he was to wear. The high

classes wore their hair banged across the forehead but hanging to the

shoulders the rest of the way around, whereas the lowest ranks of

commoners were banged fore and aft both; the slaves were bangless, and

allowed their hair free growth. So I inverted a bowl over his head and

cut away all the locks that hung below it. I also trimmed his whiskers

and mustache until they were only about a half-inch long; and tried to

do it inartistically, and succeeded. It was a villainous disfigurement.

When he got his lubberly sandals on, and his long robe of coarse brown

linen cloth, which hung straight from his neck to his anklebones, he was

no longer the comeliest man in his kingdom, but one of the unhandsomest

and most commonplace and unattractive. We were dressed and barbered

alike, and could pass for small farmers, or farm bailiffs, or shepherds,

or carters; yes, or for village artisans, if we chose, our costume being

in effect universal among the poor, because of its strength and

cheapness. I don't mean that it was really cheap to a very poor person,

but I do mean that it was the cheapest material there was for male

attire- manufactured material, you understand.

We slipped away an hour before dawn, and by broad sun-up had made

eight or ten miles, and were in the midst of a sparsely settled country.

I had a pretty heavy knapsack; it was laden with provisions- provisions

for the king to taper down on till he could take to the coarse fare of

the country without damage.

I found a comfortable seat for the king by the roadside, and then gave

him a morsel or two to stay his stomach with. Then I said I would find

some water for him, and strolled away. Part of my project was to get out

of sight and sit down and rest a little myself. It had always been my

custom to stand when in his presence; even at the council board, except

upon those rare occasions when the sitting was a very long one,

extending over hours; then I had a trifling little backless thing which

was like a reversed culvert and was as comfortable as the toothache. I

didn't want to break him in suddenly, but do it by degrees. We should

have to sit together now when in company, or people would notice; but it

would not be good politics for me to be playing equality with him when

there was no necessity for it.

I found the water some three hundred yards away, and had been resting

about twenty minutes, when I heard voices. That is all right, I thought-

peasants going to work; nobody else likely to be stirring this early.

But the next moment these comers jingled into sight around a turn of the

road- smartly clad people of quality, with luggage-mules and servants in

their train! I was off like a shot, through the bushes by the shortest

cut. For a while it did seem that these people would pass the king

before I could get to him; but desperation gives you wings, you know,

and I canted my body forward, inflated my breast, and held my breath and

flew. I arrived. And in plenty good enough time, too.

"Pardon, my king, but it's no time for ceremony- jump! Jump to your

feet- some quality are coming!"

"Is that a marvel? Let them come."

"But my liege! You must not be seen sitting. Rise!- and stand in

humble posture while they pass. You are a peasant, you know."

"True- I had forgot it, so lost was I in planning of a huge war with

Gaul"- he was up by this time, but a farm could have got up quicker, if

there was any kind of a boom in real estate- "and right-so a thought

came randoming overthwart this majestic dream the which-"

"A humbler attitude, my lord the king- and quick! Duck your head!-

more!- still more!- droop it!"

He did his honest best, but lord, it was no great things. He looked as

humble as the leaning tower at Pisa. It is the most you could say of it.

Indeed, it was such a thundering poor success that it raised wondering

scowls all along the line, and a gorgeous flunkey at the tail end of it

raised his whip; but I jumped in time and was under it when it fell; and

under cover of the volley of coarse laughter which followed, I spoke up

sharply and warned the king to take no notice. He mastered himself for

the moment, but it was a sore tax; he wanted to eat up the procession. I

said:

"It would end our adventures at the very start; and we, being without

weapons, could do nothing with that armed gang. If we are going to

succeed in our emprise, we must not only look the peasant but act the

peasant."

"It is wisdom; none can gainsay it. Let us go on, Sir Boss. I will

take note and learn, and do the best I may."

He kept his word. He did the best he could, but I've seen better. If

you have ever seen an active, heedless, enterprising child going

diligently out of one mischief and into another all day long, and an

anxious mother at its heels all the while, and just saving it by a hair

from drowning itself or breaking its neck with each new experiment,

you've seen the king and me.

If I could have foreseen what the thing was going to be like, I should

have said, No, if anybody wants to make his living exhibiting a king as

a peasant, let him take the layout; I can do better with a menagerie,

and last longer. And yet, during the first three days I never allowed

him to enter a hut or other dwelling. If he could pass muster anywhere

during his early novitiate, it would be in small inns and on the road;

so to these places we confined ourselves. Yes, he certainly did the best

he could, but what of that? He didn't improve a bit that I could see.

He was always frightening me, always breaking out with fresh

astonishers, in new and unexpected places. Toward evening on the second

day, what does he do but blandly fetch out a dirk from inside his robe!

"Great guns, my liege, where did you get that?"

"From a smuggler at the inn, yester eve."

"What in the world possessed you to buy it?"

"We have escaped divers dangers by wit- thy wit- but I have bethought

me that it were but prudence if I bore a weapon, too. Thine might fail

thee in some pinch."

"But people of our condition are not allowed to carry arms. What would

a lord say- yes, or any other person of whatever condition- if he caught

an upstart peasant with a dagger on his person?"

It was a lucky thing for us that nobody came along just then. I

persuaded him to throw the dirk away; and it was as easy as persuading a

child to give up some bright fresh new way of killing itself. We walked

along, silent and thinking. Finally the king said:

"When ye know that I meditate a thing inconvenient, or that hath a

peril in it, why do you not warn me to cease from that project?"

It was a startling question, and a puzzler. I didn't quite know how to

take hold of it, or what to say, and so, of course, I ended by saying

the natural thing:

"But, sire, how can (r)I know what your thoughts are?"

The king stopped dead in his tracks, and stared at me.

"I believed thou wert greater than Merlin; and truly in magic thou

art. But prophecy is greater than magic. Merlin is a prophet."

I saw I had made a blunder. I must get back my lost ground. After a

deep reflection and careful planning, I said:

"Sire, I have been misunderstood. I will explain. There are two kinds

of prophecy. One is the gift to foretell things that are but a little

way off, the other is the gift to foretell things that are whole ages

and centuries away. Which is the mightier gift, do you think?"

"Oh, the last, most surely!"

"True. Does Merlin possess it?"

"Partly, yes. He foretold mysteries about my birth and future kingship

that were twenty years away."

"Has he ever gone beyond that?"

"He would not claim more, I think."

"It is probably his limit. All prophets have their limit. The limit of

some of the great prophets has been a hundred years."

"These are few, I ween."

"There have been two still greater ones, whose limit was four hundred

and six hundred years, and one whose limit compassed even seven hundred

and twenty."

"Gramercy, it is marvelous!"

"But what are these in comparison with me? They are nothing."

"What? Canst thou truly look beyond even so vast a stretch of time as-

"

"Seven hundred years? My liege, as clear as the vision of an eagle

does my prophetic eye penetrate and lay bare the future of this world

for nearly thirteen centuries and a half!"

My land, you should have seen the king's eyes spread slowly open, and

lift the earth's entire atmosphere as much as an inch! That settled Brer

Merlin. One never had any occasion to prove his facts, with these

people; all he had to do was to state them. It never occurred to anybody

to doubt the statement.

"Now, then," I continued, "I (r)could work both kinds of prophecy-

the long and the short- if I chose to take the trouble to keep in

practice; but I seldom exercise any but the long kind, because the other

is beneath my dignity. It is properer to Merlin's sort- stump-tail

prophets, as we call them in the profession. Of course, I whet up now

and then and flirt out a minor prophecy, but not often- hardly ever, in

fact. You will remember that there was great talk, when you reached the

Valley of Holiness, about my having prophesied your coming and the very

hour of your arrival, two or three days beforehand."

"Indeed, yes, I mind it now."

"Well, I could have done it as much as forty times easier, and piled

on a thousand times more detail into the bargain, if it had been five

hundred years away instead of two or three days."

"How amazing that it should be so!"

"Yes, a genuine expert can always foretell a thing that is five

hundred years away easier than he can a thing that's only five hundred

seconds off."

"And yet in reason it should clearly be the other way; it should be

five hundred times as easy to foretell the last as the first, for,

indeed, it is so close by that one uninspired might almost see it. In

truth, the law of prophecy doth contradict the likelihoods, most

strangely making the difficult easy, and the easy difficult."

It was a wise head. A peasant's cap was no safe disguise for it; you

could know it for a king's under a diving-bell, if you could hear it

work its intellect.

I had a new trade now, and plenty of business in it. The king was as

hungry to find out everything that was going to happen during the next

thirteen centuries as if he were expecting to live in them. From that

time out, I prophesied myself bald-headed trying to supply the demand. I

have done some indiscreet things in my day, but this thing of playing

myself for a prophet was the worst. Still, it had its ameliorations. A

prophet doesn't have to have any brains. They are good to have, of

course, for the ordinary exigencies of life, but they are no use in

professional work. It is the restfulest vocation there is. When the

spirit of prophecy comes upon you, you merely cake your intellect and

lay it off in a cool place for a rest, and unship your jaw and leave it

alone; it will work itself: the result is prophecy.

Every day a knight-errant or so came along, and the sight of them

fired the king's martial spirit every time. He would have forgotten

himself, sure, and said something to them in a style a suspicious shade

or so above his ostensible degree, and so I always got him well out of

the road in time. Then he would stand and look with all his eyes; and a

proud light would flash from them, and his nostrils would inflate like a

war-horse's, and I knew he was longing for a brush with them. But about

noon of the third day I had stopped in the road to take a precaution

which had been suggested by the whip-stroke that had fallen to my share

two days before; a precaution which I had afterward decided to leave

untaken, I was so loath to institute it; but now I had just had a fresh

reminder: while striding heedlessly along, with jaw spread and intellect

at rest, for I was prophesying, I stubbed my toe and fell sprawling. I

was so pale I couldn't think for a moment; then I got softly and

carefully up and unstrapped my knapsack. I had that dynamite bomb in it,

done up in wool in a box. It was a good thing to have along; the time

would come when I could do a valuable miracle with it, maybe, but it was

a nervous thing to have about me, and I didn't like to ask the king to

carry it. Yet I must either throw it away or think up some safe way to

get along with its society. I got it out and slipped it into my scrip,

and just then here came a couple of knights. The king stood, stately as

a statue, gazing toward them- had forgotten himself again, of course-

and before I could get a word of warning out, it was time for him to

skip, and well that he did it, too. He supposed they would turn aside.

Turn aside to avoid trampling peasant dirt under foot? When had he ever

turned aside himself- or ever had the chance to do it, if a peasant saw

him or any other noble knight in time to judiciously save him the

trouble? The knights paid no attention to the king at all; it was his

place to look out himself, and if he hadn't skipped he would have been

placidly ridden down, and laughed at besides.

The king was in a flaming fury, and launched out his challenge and

epithets with a most royal vigor. The knights were some little distance

by now. They halted, greatly surprised, and turned in their saddles and

looked back, as if wondering if it might be worth while to bother with

such scum as we. Then they wheeled and started for us. Not a moment must

be lost. I started for (r)them. I passed them at a rattling gait, and

as I went by I flung out a hair-lifting soul-scorching thirteen-jointed

insult which made the king's effort poor and cheap by comparison. I got

it out of the nineteenth century where they know how. They had such

headway that they were nearly to the king before they could check up;

then, frantic with rage, they stood up their horses on their hind hoofs

and whirled them around, and the next moment here they came, breast to

breast. I was seventy yards off, then, and scrambling up a great boulder

at the roadside. When they were within thirty yards of me they let their

long lances droop to a level, depressed their mailed heads, and so, with

their horse-hair plumes streaming straight out behind, most gallant to

see, this lightning express came tearing for me! When they were within

fifteen yards, I sent that bomb with a sure aim, and it struck the

ground under the horses' noses.

Yes, it was a neat thing, very neat and pretty to see. It resembled a

steamboat explosion on the Mississippi; and during the next fifteen

minutes we stood under a steady drizzle of microscopic fragments of

knights and hardware and horse-flesh. I say we, for the king joined the

audience, of course, as soon as he had got his breath again. There was a

hole there which would afford steady work for all the people in that

region for some years to come- in trying to explain it, I mean; as for

filling it up, that service would be comparatively prompt, and would

fall to the lot of a select few- peasants of that seigniory; and they

wouldn't get anything for it, either.

But I explained it to the king myself. I said it was done with a

dynamite bomb. This information did him no damage, because it left him

as intelligent as he was before. However, it was a noble miracle, in his

eyes, and was another settler for Merlin. I thought it well enough to

explain that this was a miracle of so rare a sort that it couldn't be

done except when the atmospheric conditions were just right. Otherwise

he would be encoring it every time we had a good subject, and that would

be inconvenient, because I hadn't any more bombs along.

Chapter XXVIII: DRILLING THE KING

ON the morning of the fourth day, when it was just sunrise, and we had

been tramping an hour in the chill dawn, I came to a resolution: the

king (r)must be drilled; things could not go on so, he must be taken in

hand and deliberately and conscientiously drilled, or we couldn't ever

venture to enter a dwelling; the very cats would know this masquerader

for a humbug and no peasant. So I called a halt and said:

"Sire, as between clothes and countenance, you are all right, there is

no discrepancy; but as between your clothes and your bearing, you are

all wrong, there is a most noticeable discrepancy. Your soldierly

stride, your lordly port- these will not do. You stand too straight,

your looks are too high, too confident. The cares of a kingdom do not

stoop the shoulders, they do not droop the chin, they do not depress the

high level of the eye-glance, they do not put doubt and fear in the

heart and hang out the signs of them in slouching body and unsure step.

It is the sordid cares of the lowly born that do these things. You must

learn the trick; you must imitate the trade-marks of poverty, misery,

oppression, insult, and the other several and common inhumanities that

sap the manliness out of a man and make him a loyal and proper and

approved subject and a satisfaction to his masters, or the very infants

will know you for better than your disguise, and we shall go to pieces

at the first hut we stop at. Pray try to walk like this."

The king took careful note, and then tried an imitation.

"Pretty fair- pretty fair. Chin a little lower, please- there, very

good. Eyes too high; pray don't look at the horizon, look at the ground,

ten steps in front of you. Ah- that is better, that is very good. Wait,

please; you betray too much vigor, too much decision; you want more of a

shamble. Look at me, please- this is what I mean.... Now you are getting

it; that is the idea- at least, it sort of approaches it.... Yes, that

is pretty fair. (r)But! There is a great big something wanting, I don't

quite know what it is. Please walk thirty yards, so that I can get a

perspective on the thing.... Now, then- your head's right, speed's

right, shoulders right, eyes right, chin right, gait, carriage, general

style right- everything's right! And yet the fact remains, the

aggregate's wrong. The account don't balance. Do it again, please...

(r)now I think I begin to see what it is. Yes, I've struck it. You see,

the genuine spiritlessness is wanting; that's what's the trouble. It's

all (r)amateur - mechanical details all right, almost to a hair;

everything about the delusion perfect, except that it don't delude."

"What, then, must one do, to prevail?"

"Let me think.... I can't seem to quite get at it. In fact, there

isn't anything that can right the matter but practice. This is a good

place for it: roots and stony ground to break up your stately gait, a

region not liable to interruption, only one field and one hut in sight,

and they so far away that nobody could see us from there. It will be

well to move a little off the road and put in the whole day drilling

you, sire."

After the drill had gone on a little while, I said:

"Now, sire, imagine that we are at the door of the hut yonder, and the

family are before us. Proceed, please- accost the head of the house."

The king unconsciously straightened up like a monument, and said, with

frozen austerity:

"Varlet, bring a seat; and serve to me what cheer ye have."

"Ah, your grace, that is not well done."

"In what lacketh it?"

"These people do not call (r)each other varlets."

"Nay, is that true?"

"Yes; only those above them call them so."

"Then must I try again. I will call him villein."

"No-no; for he may be a freeman."

"Ah- so. Then peradventure I should call him goodman."

"That would answer, your grace, but it would be still better if you

said friend, or brother."

"Brother!- to dirt like that?"

"Ah, but (r)we are pretending to be dirt like that, too."

"It is even true. I will say it. Brother, bring a seat, and thereto

what cheer ye have, withal. (r)Now 'tis right."

"Not quite, not wholly right. You have asked for one, not (r)us - for

one, not both; food for one, a seat for one."

The king looked puzzled- he wasn't a very heavy weight,

intellectually. His head was an hour-glass; it could stow an idea, but

it had to do it a grain at a time, not the whole idea at once.

"Would (r)you have a seat also- and sit?"

"If I did not sit, the man would perceive that we were only pretending

to be equals- and playing the deception pretty poorly, too."

"It is well and truly said! How wonderful is truth, come it in

whatsoever unexpected form it may! Yes, he must bring out seats and food

for both, and in serving us present not ewer and napkin with more show

of respect to the one than to the other."

"And there is even yet a detail that needs correcting. He must bring

nothing outside; we will go in- in among the dirt, and possibly other

repulsive things- and take the food with the household, and after the

fashion of the house, and all on equal terms, except the man be of the

serf class; and finally, there will be no ewer and no napkin, whether he

be serf or free. Please walk again, my liege. There- it is better- it is

the best yet; but not perfect. The shoulders have known no ignobler

burden than iron mail, and they will not stoop."

"Give me, then, the bag. I will learn the spirit that goeth with

burdens that have not honor. It is the spirit that stoopeth the

shoulders, I ween, and not the weight; for armor is heavy, yet it is a

proud burden, and a man standeth straight in it.... Nay, but me no buts,

offer me no objections. I will have the thing. Strap it upon my back."

He was complete now with that knapsack on, and looked as little like a

king as any man I had ever seen. But it was an obstinate pair of

shoulders; they could not seem to learn the trick of stooping with any

sort of deceptive naturalness. The drill went on. I prompting and

correcting:

"Now, make believe you are in debt, and eaten up by relentless

creditors; you are out of work- which is horse-shoeing, let us say- and

can get none; and your wife is sick, your children are crying because

they are hungry-"

And so on, and so on. I drilled him as representing in turn all sorts

of people out of luck and suffering dire privations and misfortunes. But

lord, it was only just words, words- they meant nothing in the world to

him, I might just as well have whistled. Words realize nothing, vivify

nothing to you, unless you have suffered in your own person the thing

which the words try to describe. There are wise people who talk ever so

knowingly and complacently about "the working classes," and satisfy

themselves that a day's hard intellectual work is very much harder than

a day's hard manual toil, and is righteously entitled to much bigger

pay. Why, they really think that, you know, because they know all about

the one, but haven't tried the other. But I know all about both; and so

far as I am concerned, there isn't money enough in the universe to hire

me to swing a pickax thirty days, but I will do the hardest kind of

intellectual work for just as near nothing as you can cipher it down-

and I will be satisfied, too.

Intellectual "work" is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation, and

is its own highest reward. The poorest paid architect, engineer,

general, author, sculptor, painter, lecturer, advocate, legislator,

actor, preacher, singer is constructively in heaven when he is at work;

and as for the musician with the fiddlebow in his hand who sits in the

midst of a great orchestra with the ebbing and flowing tides of divine

sound washing over him- why, certainly, he is at work, if you wish to

call it that, but lord, it's a sarcasm just the same. The law of work

does seem utterly unfair- but there it is, and nothing can change it:

the higher the pay in enjoyment the worker gets out of it, the higher

shall be his pay in cash, also. And it's also the very law of those

transparent swindles, transmissible nobility and kingship.

Chapter XXIX: THE SMALLPOX HUT

WHEN we arrived at that hut at mid-afternoon, we saw no signs of life

about it. The field near by had been denuded of its crop some time

before, and had a skinned look, so exhaustively had it been harvested

and gleaned. Fences, sheds, everything had a ruined look, and were

eloquent of poverty. No animal was around anywhere, no living thing in

sight. The stillness was awful, it was like the stillness of death. The

cabin was a one-story one, whose thatch was black with age, and ragged

from lack of repair.

The door stood a trifle ajar. We approached it stealthily- on tiptoe

and at half-breath- for that is the way one's feeling makes him do, at

such a time. The king knocked. We waited. No answer. Knocked again. No

answer. I pushed the door softly open and looked in. I made out some dim

forms, and a woman started up from the ground and stared at me, as one

does who is wakened from sleep. Presently she found her voice:

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

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

"You are not a priest?"

"No."

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

"No, I am a stranger."

"Oh, then, for the fear of God, who visits with misery and death such

as be harmless, tarry not here, but fly! This place is under his curse-

and his Church's."

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

I was better used to the dim light now. I could see her hollow eyes

fixed upon me. I could see how emaciated she was.

"I tell you the place is under the Church's ban. Save yourself- and

go, before some straggler see thee here, and report it."

"Give yourself no trouble about me; I don't care anything for the

Church's curse. Let me help you."

"Now all good spirits- if there be any such- bless thee for that word.

Would God I had a sup of water!- but hold, hold, forget I said it, and

fly; for there is that here that even he that feareth not the Church

must fear: this disease whereof we die. Leave us, thou brave, good

stranger, and take with thee such whole and sincere blessing as them

that be accursed can give."

But before this I had picked up a wooden bowl and was rushing past the

king on my way to the brook. It was ten yards away. When I got back and

entered, the king was within, and was opening the shutter that closed

the window-hole, to let in air and light. The place was full of a foul

stench. I put the bowl to the woman's lips, and as she gripped it with

her eager talons the shutter came open and a strong light flooded her

face. Smallpox!

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

"Out of the door on the instant, sire! the woman is dying of that

disease that wasted the skirts of Camelot two years ago."

He did not budge.

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

I whispered again:

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

"Ye mean well, and ye speak not unwisely. But it were shame that a

king should know fear, and shame that belted knight should withhold his

hand where be such as need succor. Peace, I will not go. It is you who

must go. The Church's ban is not upon me, but it forbiddeth you to be

here, and she will deal with you with a heavy hand an word come to her

of your trespass."

It was a desperate place for him to be in, and might cost him his

life, but it was no use to argue with him. If he considered his knightly

honor at stake here, that was the end of argument; he would stay, and

nothing could prevent it; I was aware of that. And so I dropped the

subject. The woman spoke:

"Fair sir, of your kindness will ye climb the ladder there, and bring

me news of what ye find? Be not afraid to report, for times can come

when even a mother's heart is past breaking- being already broke."

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

put down the knapsack.

I turned to start, but the king had already started. He halted, and

looked down upon a man who lay in a dim light, and had not noticed us

thus far, or spoken.

"Is it your husband?" the king asked.

"Yes."

"Is he asleep?"

"God be thanked for that one charity, yes- these three hours. Where

shall I pay to the full, my gratitude! for my heart is bursting with it

for that sleep he sleepeth now."

I said:

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

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

"Dead?"

"Yes, what triumph it is to know it! None can harm him, none insult

him more. He is in heaven now, and happy; or if not there, he bides in

hell and is content; for in that place he will find neither abbot nor

yet bishop. We were boy and girl together; we were man and wife these

five-and-twenty years, and never separated till this day. Think how long

that is to love and suffer together. This morning was he out of his

mind, and in his fancy we were boy and girl again and wandering in the

happy fields; and so in that innocent glad converse wandered he far and

farther, still lightly gossiping, and entered into those other fields we

know not of, and was shut away from mortal sight. And so there was no

parting, for in his fancy I went with him; he knew not but I went with

him, my hand in his- my young soft hand, not this withered claw. Ah,

yes, to go, and know it not; to separate and know it not; how could one

go peacefuler than that? It was his reward for a cruel life patiently

borne."

There was a slight noise from the direction of the dim corner where

the ladder was. It was the king descending. I could see that he was

bearing something in one arm, and assisting himself with the other. He

came forward into the light; upon his breast lay a slender girl of

fifteen. She was but half conscious; she was dying of smallpox. Here was

heroism at its last and loftiest possibility, its utmost summit; this

was challenging death in the open field unarmed, with all the odds

against the challenger, no reward set upon the contest, and no admiring

world in silks and cloth-of-gold to gaze and applaud; and yet the king's

bearing was as serenely brave as it had always been in those cheaper

contests where knight meets knight in equal fight and clothed in

protecting steel. He was great now; sublimely great. The rude statues of

his ancestors in his palace should have an addition- I would see to

that; and it would not be a mailed king killing a giant or a dragon,

like the rest, it would be a king in commoner's garb bearing death in

his arms that a peasant mother might look her last upon her child and be

comforted.

He laid the girl down by her mother, who poured out endearments and

caresses from an overflowing heart, and one could detect a flickering

faint light of response in the child's eyes, but that was all. The

mother hung over her, kissing her, petting her, and imploring her to

speak, but the lips only moved and no sound came. I snatched my liquor

flask from my knapsack, but the woman forbade me, and said:

"No- she does not suffer; it is better so. It might bring her back to

life. None that be so good and kind as ye are would do her that cruel

hurt. For look you- what is left to live for? Her brothers are gone, her

father is gone, her mother goeth, the Church's curse is upon her, and

none may shelter or befriend her even though she lay perishing in the

road. She is desolate. I have not asked you, good heart, if her sister

be still on live, here overhead; I had no need; ye had gone back, else,

and not left the poor thing forsaken-"

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

"I would not change it. How rich is this day in happiness! Ah, my

Annis, thou shalt join thy sister soon- thou'rt on thy way, and these be

merciful friends that will not hinder."

And so she fell to murmuring and cooing over the girl again, and

softly stroking her face and hair, and kissing her and calling her by

endearing names; but there was scarcely sign of response now in the

glazing eyes. I saw tears well from the king's eyes, and trickle down

his face. The woman noticed them, too, and said:

"Ah, I know that sign: thou'st a wife at home, poor soul, and you and

she have gone hungry to bed, many's the time, that the little ones might

have your crust; you know what poverty is, and the daily insults of your

betters, and the heavy hand of the Church and the king."

The king winced under this accidental home-shot, but kept still; he

was learning his part; and he was playing it well, too, for a pretty

dull beginner. I struck up a diversion. I offered the woman food and

liquor, but she refused both. She would allow nothing to come between

her and the release of death. Then I slipped away and brought the dead

child from aloft, and laid it by her. This broke her down again, and

there was another scene that was full of heartbreak. By and by I made

another diversion, and beguiled her to sketch her story.

"Ye know it well yourselves, having suffered it- for truly none of our

condition in Britain escape it. It is the old, weary tale. We fought and

struggled and succeeded; meaning by success, that we lived and did not

die; more than that is not to be claimed. No troubles came that we could

not outlive, till this year brought them; then came they all at once, as

one might say, and overwhelmed us. Years ago the lord of the manor

planted certain fruit-trees on our farm; in the best part of it, too- a

grievous wrong and shame-"

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

"None denieth that, indeed; an the law mean anything, what is the

lord's is his, and what is mine is his also. Our farm was ours by lease,

therefore 'twas likewise his, to do with it as he would. Some little

time ago, three of those trees were found hewn down. Our three grown

sons ran frightened to report the crime. Well, in his lordship's dungeon

there they lie, who saith there shall they lie and rot till they

confess. They have naught to confess, being innocent, wherefore there

will they remain until they die. Ye know that right well, I ween. Think

how this left us; a man, a woman, and two children, to gather a crop

that was planted by so much greater force, yes, and protect it night and

day from pigeons and prowling animals that be sacred and must not be

hurt by any of our sort. When my lord's crop was nearly ready for the

harvest, so also was ours; when his bell rang to call us to his fields

to harvest his crop for nothing, he would not allow that I and my two

girls should count for our three captive sons, but for only two of them;

so, for the lacking one were we daily fined. All this time our own crop

was perishing through neglect; and so both the priest and his lordship

fined us because their shares of it were suffering through damage. In

the end the fines ate up our crop- and they took it all; they took it

all and made us harvest it for them, without pay or food, and we

starving. Then the worst came when I, being out of my mind with hunger

and loss of my boys, and grief to see my husband and my little maids in

rags and misery and despair, uttered a deep blasphemy- oh! a thousand of

them!- against the Church and the Church's ways. It was ten days ago. I

had fallen sick with this disease, and it was to the priest I said the

words, for he was come to chide me for lack of due humility under the

chastening hand of God. He carried my trespass to his betters; I was

stubborn; wherefore, presently upon my head and upon all heads that were

dear to me, fell the curse of Rome.

"Since that day we are avoided, shunned with horror. None has come

near this hut to know whether we live or not. The rest of us were taken

down. Then I roused me and got up, as wife and mother will. It was

little they could have eaten in any case; it was less than little they

had to eat. But there was water, and I gave them that. How they craved

it! and how they blessed it! But the end came yesterday; my strength

broke down. Yesterday was the last time I ever saw my husband and this

youngest child alive. I have lain here all these hours- these ages, ye

may say- listening, listening for any sound up there that-"

She gave a sharp quick glance at her eldest daughter, then cried out,

"Oh, my darling!" and feebly gathered the stiffening form to her

sheltering arms. She had recognized the death-rattle.

Chapter XXX: THE TRAGEDY OF THE MANOR-HOUSE

AT midnight all was over, and we sat in the presence of four corpses.

We covered them with such rags as we could find, and started away,

fastening the door behind us. Their home must be these people's grave,

for they could not have Christian burial, or be admitted to consecrated

ground. They were as dogs, wild beasts, lepers, and no soul that valued

its hope of eternal life would throw it away by meddling in any sort

with these rebuked and smitten outcasts.

We had not moved four steps when I caught a sound as of footsteps upon

gravel. My heart flew to my throat. We must not be seen coming from that

house. I plucked at the king's robe and we drew back and took shelter

behind the corner of the cabin.

"Now we are safe," I said, "but it was a close call- so to speak. If

the night had been lighter he might have seen us, no doubt, he seemed to

be so near."

"Mayhap it is but a beast and not a man at all."

"True. But man or beast, it will be wise to stay here a minute and let

it get by and out of the way."

"Hark! It cometh hither."

True again. The step was coming toward us- straight toward the hut. It

must be a beast, then, and we might as well have saved our trepidation.

I was going to step out, but the king laid his hand upon my arm. There

was a moment of silence, then we heard a soft knock on the cabin door.

It made me shiver. Presently the knock was repeated, and then we heard

these words in a guarded voice:

"Mother! Father! Open- we have got free, and we bring news to pale

your cheeks but glad your hearts; and we may not tarry, but must fly!

And- but they answer not. Mother! father!-"

I drew the king toward the other end of the hut and whispered:

"Come- now we can get to the road."

The king hesitated, was going to demur; but just then we heard the

door give way, and knew that those desolate men were in the presence of

their dead.

"Come, my liege! in a moment they will strike a light, and then will

follow that which it would break your heart to hear."

He did not hesitate this time. The moment we were in the road I ran;

and after a moment he threw dignity aside and followed. I did not want

to think of what was happening in the hut- I couldn't bear it; I wanted

to drive it out of my mind; so I struck into the first subject that lay

under that one in my mind:

"I have had the disease those people died of, and so have nothing to

fear; but if you have not had it also-"

He broke in upon me to say he was in trouble, and it was his

conscience that was troubling him:

"These young men have got free, they say- but (r)how? It is not

likely that their lord hath set them free."

"Oh, no, I make no doubt they escaped."

"That is my trouble; I have a fear that this is so, and your suspicion

doth confirm it, you having the same fear."

"I should not call it by that name though. I do suspect that they

escaped, but if they did, I am not sorry, certainly."

"I am not sorry, I (r)think - but-"

"What is it? What is there for one to be troubled about?"

(r)"If they did escape, then are we bound in duty to lay hands upon

them and deliver them again to their lord; for it is not seemly that one

of his quality should suffer a so insolent and high-handed outrage from

persons of their base degree."

There it was again. He could see only one side of it. He was born so,

educated so, his veins were full of ancestral blood that was rotten with

this sort of unconscious brutality, brought down by inheritance from a

long procession of hearts that had each done its share toward poisoning

the stream. To imprison these men without proof, and starve their

kindred, was no harm, for they were merely peasants and subject to the

will and pleasure of their lord, no matter what fearful form it might

take; but for these men to break out of unjust captivity was insult and

outrage, and a thing not to be countenanced by any conscientious person

who knew his duty to his sacred caste.

I worked more than half an hour before I got him to change the

subject- and even then an outside matter did it for me. This was a

something which caught our eyes as we struck the summit of a small hill-

a red glow, a good way off.

"That's a fire," said I.

Fires interested me considerably, because I was getting a good deal of

an insurance business started, and was also training some horses and

building some steam fire-engines, with an eye to a paid fire department

by and by. The priests opposed both my fire and life insurance, on the

ground that it was an insolent attempt to hinder the decrees of God; and

if you pointed out that they did not hinder the decrees in the least,

but only modified the hard consequences of them if you took out policies

and had luck, they retorted that that was gambling against the decrees

of God, and was just as bad. So they managed to damage those industries

more or less, but I got even on my Accident business. As a rule, a

knight is a lummox, and sometimes even a labrick, and hence open to

pretty poor arguments when they come glibly from a superstition-monger,

but even (r)he could see the practical side of a thing once in a while;

and so of late you couldn't clean up a tournament and pile the result

without finding one of my accident-tickets in every helmet.

We stood there awhile, in the thick darkness and stillness, looking

toward the red blur in the distance, and trying to make out the meaning

of a faraway murmur that rose and fell fitfully on the night. Sometimes

it swelled up and for a moment seemed less remote; but when we were

hopefully expecting it to betray its cause and nature, it dulled and

sank again, carrying its mystery with it. We started down the hill in

its direction, and the winding road plunged us at once into almost solid

darkness- darkness that was packed and crammed in between two tall

forest walls. We groped along down for half a mile, perhaps, that murmur

growing more and more distinct all the time, the coming storm

threatening more and more, with now and then a little shiver of wind, a

faint show of lightning, and dull grumblings of distant thunder. I was

in the lead. I ran against something- a soft heavy something which gave,

slightly, to the impulse of my weight; at the same moment the lightning

glared out, and within a foot of my face was the writhing face of a man

who was hanging from the limb of a tree! That is, it seemed to be

writhing, but it was not. It was a gruesome sight. Straightway there was

an ear-splitting explosion of thunder, and the bottom of heaven fell

out; the rain poured down in a deluge. No matter, we must try to cut

this man down, on the chance that there might be life in him yet,

mustn't we? The lightning came quick and sharp now, and the place was

alternately noonday and midnight. One moment the man would be hanging

before me in an intense light, and the next he was blotted out again in

the darkness. I told the king we must cut him down. The king at once

objected.

"If he hanged himself, he was willing to lose him property to his

lord; so let him be. If others hanged him, belike they had the right-

let him hang."

"But-"

"But me no buts, but even leave him as he is. And for yet another

reason. When the lightning cometh again- there, look abroad."

Two others hanging, within fifty yards of us!

"It is not weather meet for doing useless courtesies unto dead folk.

They are past thanking you. Come- it is unprofitable to tarry here."

There was reason in what he said, so we moved on. Within the next mile

we counted six more hanging forms by the blaze of the lightning, and

altogether it was a grisly excursion. That murmur was a murmur no

longer, it was a roar; a roar of men's voices. A man came flying by now,

dimly through the darkness, and other men chasing him. They disappeared.

Presently another case of the kind occurred, and then another and

another. Then a sudden turn of the road brought us in sight of that

fire- it was a large manor-house, and little or nothing was left of it-

and everywhere men were flying and other men raging after them in

pursuit.

I warned the king that this was not a safe place for strangers. We

would better get away from the light, until matters should improve. We

stepped back a little, and hid in the edge of the wood. From this

hiding-place we saw both men and women hunted by the mob. The fearful

work went on until nearly dawn. Then, the fire being out and the storm

spent, the voices and flying footsteps presently ceased, and darkness

and stillness reigned again.

We ventured out, and hurried cautiously away; and although we were

worn out and sleepy, we kept on until we had put this place some miles

behind us. Then we asked hospitality at the hut of a charcoal-burner,

and got what was to be had. A woman was up and about, but the man was

still asleep, on a straw shake-down, on the clay floor. The woman seemed

uneasy until I explained that we were travelers and had lost our way and

been wandering in the woods all night. She became talkative, then, and

asked if we had heard of the terrible goings-on at the manor-house of

Abblasoure. Yes, we had heard of them, but what we wanted now was rest

and sleep. The king broke in:

"Sell us the house and take yourselves away, for we be perilous

company, being late come from people that died of the Spotted Death."

It was good of him, but unnecessary. One of the commonest decorations

of the nation was the waffle-iron face. I had early noticed that the

woman and her husband were both so decorated. She made us entirely

welcome, and had no fears; and plainly she was immensely impressed by

the king's proposition; for, of course, it was a good deal of an event

in her life to run across a person of the king's humble appearance who

was ready to buy a man's house for the sake of a night's lodging. It

gave her a large respect for us, and she strained the lean possibilities

of her hovel to the utmost to make us comfortable.

We slept till far into the afternoon, and then got up hungry enough to

make cotter fare quite palatable to the king, the more particularly as

it was scant in quantity. And also in variety; it consisted solely of

onions, salt, and the national black bread- made out of horse-feed. The

woman told us about the affair of the evening before. At ten or eleven

at night, when everybody was in bed, the manor-house burst into flames.

The country-side swarmed to the rescue, and the family were saved, with

one exception, the master. He did not appear. Everybody was frantic over

this loss, and two brave yeomen sacrificed their lives in ransacking the

burning house seeking that valuable personage. But after a while he was

found- what was left of him- which was his corpse. It was in a copse

three hundred yards away, bound, gagged, stabbed in a dozen places.

Who had done this? Suspicion fell upon a humble family in the

neighborhood who had been lately treated with peculiar harshness by the

baron; and from these people the suspicion easily extended itself to

their relatives and familiars. A suspicion was enough; my lord's

liveried retainers proclaimed an instant crusade against these people,

and were promptly joined by the community in general. The woman's

husband had been active with the mob, and had not returned home until

nearly dawn. He was gone now to find out what the general result had

been. While we were still talking he came back from his quest. His

report was revolting enough. Eighteen persons hanged or butchered, and

two yeomen and thirteen prisoners lost in the fire.

"And how many prisoners were there altogether in the vaults?"

"Thirteen."

"Then every one of them was lost?"

"Yes, all."

"But the people arrived in time to save the family; how is it they

could save none of the prisoners?"

The man looked puzzled, and said:

"Would one unlock the vaults at such a time? Marry, some would have

escaped."

"Then you mean that nobody (r)did unlock them?"

"None went near them, either to lock or unlock. It standeth to reason

that the bolts were fast; wherefore it was only needful to establish a

watch, so that if any broke the bonds he might not escape, but be taken.

None were taken."

"Natheless, three did escape," said the king, "and ye will do well to

publish it and set justice upon their track, for these murthered the

baron and fired the house."

I was just expecting he would come out with that. For a moment the man

and his wife showed an eager interest in this news and an impatience to

go out and spread it; then a sudden something else betrayed itself in

their faces, and they began to ask questions. I answered the questions

myself, and narrowly watched the effects produced. I was soon satisfied

that the knowledge of who these three prisoners were had somehow changed

the atmosphere; that our hosts' continued eagerness to go and spread the

news was now only pretended and not real. The king did not notice the

change, and I was glad of that. I worked the conversation around toward

other details of the night's proceedings, and noted that these people

were relieved to have it take that direction.

The painful thing observable about all this business was the alacrity

with which this oppressed community had turned their cruel hands against

their own class in the interest of the common oppressor. This man and

woman seemed to feel that in a quarrel between a person of their own

class and his lord, it was the natural and proper and rightful thing for

that poor devil's whole caste to side with the master and fight his

battle for him, without ever stopping to inquire into the rights or

wrongs of the matter. This man had been out helping to hang his

neighbors, and had done his work with zeal, and yet was aware that there

was nothing against them but a mere suspicion, with nothing back of it

describable as evidence, still neither he nor his wife seemed to see

anything horrible about it.

This was depressing- to a man with the dream of a republic in his

head. It reminded me of a time thirteen centuries away, when the "poor

whites" of our South who were always despised and frequently insulted by

the slave-lords around them, and who owed their base condition simply to

the presence of slavery in their midst, were yet pusillanimously ready

to side with the slave-lords in all political moves for the upholding

and perpetuating of slavery, and did also finally shoulder their muskets

and pour out their lives in an effort to prevent the destruction of that

very institution which degraded them. And there was only one redeeming

feature connected with that pitiful piece of history; and that was, that

secretly the "poor white" did detest the slave-lord, and did feel his

own shame. That feeling was not brought to the surface, but the fact

that it was there and could have been brought out, under favoring

circumstances, was something- in fact, it was enough; for it showed that

a man is at bottom a man, after all, even if it doesn't show on the

outside.

Well, as it turned out, this charcoal-burner was just the twin of the

Southern "poor white" of the far future. The king presently showed

impatience, and said:

"An ye prattle here all the day, justice will miscarry. Think ye the

criminals will abide in their father's house? They are fleeing, they are

not waiting. You should look to it that a party of horse be set upon

their track."

The woman paled slightly, but quite perceptibly, and the man looked

flustered and irresolute. I said:

"Come, friend, I will walk a little way with you, and explain which

direction I think they would try to take. If they were merely resisters

of the gabelle or some kindred absurdity I would try to protect them

from capture; but when men murder a person of high degree and likewise

burn his house, that is another matter."

The last remark was for the king- to quiet him. On the road the man

pulled his resolution together, and began the march with a steady gait,

but there was no eagerness in it. By and by I said:

"What relation were these men to you- cousins?"

He turned as white as his layer of charcoal would let him, and

stopped, trembling.

"Ah, my God, how know ye that?"

"I didn't know it; it was a chance guess."

"Poor lads, they are lost. And good lads they were, too."

"Were you actually going yonder to tell on them?"

He didn't quite know how to take that; but he said, hesitatingly:

"Ye-s."

"Then I think you are a damned scoundrel!"

It made him as glad as if I had called him an angel.

"Say the good words again, brother! for surely ye mean that ye would

not betray me an I failed of my duty."

"Duty? There is no duty in the matter, except, the duty to keep still

and let those men get away. They've done a righteous deed."

He looked pleased; pleased, and touched with apprehension at the same

time. He looked up and down the road to see that no one was coming, and

then said in a cautious voice:

"From what land come you, brother, that you speak such perilous words,

and seem not to be afraid?"

"They are not perilous words when spoken to one of my own caste, I

take it. You would not tell anybody I said them?"

"I? I would be drawn asunder by wild horses first."

"Well, then, let me say my say. I have no fears of your repeating it.

I think devil's work has been done last night upon those innocent poor

people. That old baron got only what he deserved. If I had my way, all

his kind should have the same luck."

Fear and depression vanished from the man's manner, and gratefulness

and a brave animation took their place:

"Even though you be a spy, and your words a trap for my undoing, yet

are they such refreshment that to hear them again and others like to

them, I would go to the gallows happy, as having had one good feast at

least in a starved life. And I will say my say now, and ye may report it

if ye be so minded. I helped to hang my neighbors for that it were peril

to my own life to show lack of zeal in the master's cause; the others

helped for none other reason. All rejoice to-day that he is dead, but

all do go about seemingly sorrowing, and shedding the hypocrite's tear,

for in that lies safety. I have said the words, I have said the words!

the only ones that have ever tasted good in my mouth, and the reward of

that taste is sufficient. Lead on, an ye will, be it even to the

scaffold, for I am ready."

There it was, you see. A man (r)is a man, at bottom. Whole ages of

abuse and oppression cannot crush the manhood clear out of him. Whoever

thinks it a mistake is himself mistaken. Yes, there is plenty good

enough material for a republic in the most degraded people that ever

existed- even the Russians; plenty of manhood in them- even in the

Germans- if one could but force it out of its timid and suspicious

privacy, to overthrow and trample in the mud any throne that ever was

set up and any nobility that ever supported it. We should see certain

things yet, let us hope and believe. First, a modified monarchy, till

Arthur's days were done, then the destruction of the throne, nobility

abolished, every member of it bound out to some useful trade, universal

suffrage instituted, and the whole government placed in the hands of the

men and women of the nation there to remain. Yes, there was no occasion

to give up my dream yet awhile.

Chapter XXXI: MARCO

WE strolled along in a sufficiently indolent fashion now, and talked.

We must dispose of about the amount of time it ought to take to go to

the little hamlet of Abblasoure and put justice on the track of those

murderers and get back home again. And meantime I had an auxiliary

interest which had never paled yet, never lost its novelty for me since

I had been in Arthur's kingdom: the behavior- born of nice and exact

subdivisions of caste- of chance passers-by toward each other. Toward

the shaven monk who trudged along with his cowl tilted back and the

sweat washing down his fat jowls, the coal-burner was deeply reverent;

to the gentleman he was abject; with the small farmer and the free

mechanic he was cordial and gossipy; and when a slave passed by with a

countenance respectfully lowered, this chap's nose was in the air- he

couldn't even see him. Well, there are times when one would like to hang

the whole human race and finish the farce.

Presently we struck an incident. A small mob of half-naked boys and

girls came tearing out of the woods, scared and shrieking. The eldest

among them were not more than twelve or fourteen years old. They

implored help, but they were so beside themselves that we couldn't make

out what the matter was. However, we plunged into the wood, they

scurrying in the lead, and the trouble was quickly revealed: they had

hanged a little fellow with a bark rope, and he was kicking and

struggling, in the process of choking to death. We rescued him, and

fetched him around. It was some more human nature; the admiring little

folk imitating their elders; they were playing mob, and had achieved a

success which promised to be a good deal more serious than they had

bargained for.

It was not a dull excursion for me. I managed to put in the time very

well. I made various acquaintanceships, and in my quality of stranger

was able to ask as many questions as I wanted to. A thing which

naturally interested me, as a statesman, was the matter of wages. I

picked up what I could under that head during the afternoon. A man who

hasn't had much experience, and doesn't think, is apt to measure a

nation's prosperity or lack of prosperity by the mere size of the

prevailing wages; if the wages be high, the nation is prosperous; if

low, it isn't. Which is an error. It isn't what sum you get, it's how

much you can buy with it, that's the important thing; and it's that that

tells whether your wages are high in fact or only high in name. I could

remember how it was in the time of our great civil war in the nineteenth

century. In the North a carpenter got three dollars a day, gold

valuation; in the South he got fifty- payable in Confederate

shinplasters worth a dollar a bushel. In the North a suit of overalls

cost three dollars- a day's wages; in the South it cost seventy-five-

which was two days' wages. Other things were in proportion.

Consequently, wages were twice as high in the North as they were in the

South, because the one wage had that much more purchasing power than the

other had.

Yes, I made various acquaintances in the hamlet, and a thing that

gratified me a good deal was to find our new coins in circulation- lots

of milrays, lots of mills, lots of cents, a good many nickels, and some

silver; all this among the artisans and commonalty generally; yes, and

even some gold- but that was at the bank, that is to say, the

goldsmith's. I dropped in there while Marco, the son of Marco, was

haggling with a shopkeeper over a quarter of a pound of salt, and asked

for change for a twenty-dollar gold piece. They furnished it- that is,

after they had chewed the piece, and rung it on the counter, and tried

acid on it, and asked me where I got it, and who I was, and where I was

from, and where I was going to, and when I expected to get there, and

perhaps a couple of hundred more questions; and when they got aground, I

went right on and furnished them a lot of information voluntarily; told

them I owned a dog, and his name was Watch, and my first wife was a Free

Will Baptist, and her grandfather was a Prohibitionist, and I used to

know a man who had two thumbs on each hand and a wart on the inside of

his upper lip, and died in the hope of a glorious resurrection, and so

on, and so on, and so on, till even that hungry village questioner began

to look satisfied, and also a shade put out; but he had to respect a man

of my financial strength, and so he didn't give me any lip, but I

noticed he took it out of his underlings, which was a perfectly natural

thing to do. Yes, they changed my twenty, but I judged it strained the

bank a little, which was a thing to be expected, for it was the same as

walking into a paltry village store in the nineteenth century and

requiring the boss of it to change a two-thousand-dollar bill for you

all of a sudden. He could do it, maybe; but at the same time he would

wonder how a small farmer happened to be carrying so much money around

in his pocket; which was probably this goldsmith's thought, too; for he

followed me to the door and stood there gazing after me with reverent

admiration.

Our new money was not only handsomely circulating, but its language

was already glibly in use; that is to say, people had dropped the names

of the former moneys, and spoke of things as being worth so many dollars

or cents or mills or milrays now. It was very gratifying. We were

progressing, that was sure.

I got to know several master mechanics, but about the most interesting

fellow among them was the blacksmith, Dowley. He was a live man and a

brisk talker, and had two journeymen and three apprentices, and was

doing a raging business. In fact, he was getting rich, hand over fist,

and was vastly respected. Marco was very proud of having such a man for

a friend. He had taken me there ostensibly to let me see the big

establishment which bought so much of his charcoal, but really to let me

see what easy and almost familiar terms he was on with this great man.

Dowley and I fraternized at once; I had had just such picked men,

splendid fellows, under me in the Colt Arms Factory. I was bound to see

more of him, so I invited him to come out to Marco's Sunday, and dine

with us. Marco was appalled, and held his breath; and when the grandee

accepted, he was so grateful that he almost forgot to be astonished at

the condescension.

Marco's joy was exuberant- but only for a moment; then he grew

thoughtful, then sad; and when he heard me tell Dowley I should have

Dickon, the boss mason, and Smug, the boss wheelwright, out there, too,

the coal-dust on his face turned to chalk, and he lost his grip. But I

knew what was the matter with him; it was the expense. He saw ruin

before him; he judged that his financial days were numbered. However, on