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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7243-h.zip b/7243-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..79ad9de --- /dev/null +++ b/7243-h.zip diff --git a/7243-h/7243-h.htm b/7243-h/7243-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5e95eef --- /dev/null +++ b/7243-h/7243-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1811 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<title>A CONNECTICUT YANKEE, By Twain, Part 2.</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body {background:#faebd7; margin:10%; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; text-align: center; } + blockquote {font-size: 97% } + .figleft {float: left;} + .figright {float: right;} + .toc { margin-left: 15%; margin-bottom: 0em;} + CENTER { padding: 10px;} + // --> +</style> + +</head> +<body> + +<h2>A CONNECTICUT YANKEE, By Twain, Part 2.</h2> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's +Court, Part 2., by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 2. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +Release Date: July 6, 2004 [EBook #7243] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONNECTICUT YANKEE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + +<br> +<hr> +<br><br><br><br><br><br> + + + +<center> +<img alt="bookcover.jpg (121K)" src="images/bookcover.jpg" height="1017" width="952"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="Extra.jpg (144K)" src="images/Extra.jpg" height="743" width="1117"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<center> +<img alt="titlepage.jpg (58K)" src="images/titlepage.jpg" height="1066" width="779"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<center> +<h1>A CONNECTICUT YANKEE +<br><br>IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT</h1> +<br> +<h3>by</h3> +<br> +<h2>MARK TWAIN</h2> +<h3>(Samuel L. Clemens) +<br><br> +Part 2. +</h3> +</center> + +<br><br><br><br> + + + +<h2>CONTENTS:</h2> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + +<a href="#c7">CHAPTER VII.</a> </td><td> MERLIN'S TOWER<br></td></tr><tr><td> +<a href="#c8">CHAPTER VIII.</a> </td><td>THE BOSS<br></td></tr><tr><td> +<a href="#c9">CHAPTER IX.</a> </td><td>THE TOURNAMENT<br></td></tr><tr><td> +<a href="#c10">CHAPTER X.</a> </td><td>BEGINNINGS OF CIVILIZATION <br></td></tr><tr><td> +<a href="#c11">CHAPTER XI. </a> </td><td>THE YANKEE IN SEARCH OF ADVENTURES <br></td></tr> + + + +</table> +</center> + + + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="07-081.jpg (90K)" src="images/07-081.jpg" height="937" width="633"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<br><br><a name="c7"></a><br><br><center><h2>CHAPTER VII</h2></center><br><br> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="07-083.jpg (128K)" src="images/07-083.jpg" height="857" width="701"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>MERLIN'S TOWER</p> + +<p>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 +<i>little</i> 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.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="07-084.jpg (161K)" src="images/07-084.jpg" height="1031" width="749"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>One thing troubled me along at first—the immense interest which +people took in me. Apparently the whole nation wanted a look +at me. It soon transpired that the eclipse had scared the British +world almost to death; that while it lasted the whole country, +from one end to the other, was in a pitiable state of panic, and +the churches, hermitages, and monkeries overflowed with praying +and weeping poor creatures who thought the end of the world was +come. Then had followed the news that the producer of this awful +event was a stranger, a mighty magician at Arthur's court; that he +could have blown out the sun like a candle, and was just going +to do it when his mercy was purchased, and he then dissolved +his enchantments, and was now recognized and honored as the man +who had by his unaided might saved the globe from destruction and +its peoples from extinction. Now if you consider that everybody +believed that, and not only believed it, but never even dreamed +of doubting it, you will easily understand that there was not +a person in all Britain that would not have walked fifty miles +to get a sight of me. Of course I was all the talk—all other +subjects were dropped; even the king became suddenly a 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 countryside. +I had to go out a dozen times a day and show myself to these +reverent and awe-stricken multitudes.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="07-086.jpg (95K)" src="images/07-086.jpg" height="527" width="713"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>them</i> . 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.</p> + +<p>By my authority as executive I threw Merlin into prison—the same +cell I had occupied myself. Then I gave public notice by herald +and trumpet that I should be busy with affairs of state for +a fortnight, but about the end of that time I would take a moment's +leisure and blow up Merlin's stone tower by fires from heaven; +in the meantime, whoso listened to evil 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Merlin arrived in a gloomy mood. I said:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I can, fair sir, and I will. Doubt it not."</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="07-090.jpg (179K)" src="images/07-090.jpg" height="1028" width="726"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="08-093.jpg (106K)" src="images/08-093.jpg" height="981" width="644"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<br><br><a name="c8"></a><br><br><center><h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2></center><br><br> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="08-095.jpg (131K)" src="images/08-095.jpg" height="851" width="745"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>THE BOSS</p> + +<p>To be vested with enormous authority is a fine thing; but to have +the on-looking world consent to it is a finer. The tower episode +solidified my power, and made it impregnable. If any were 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="08-097.jpg (118K)" src="images/08-097.jpg" height="645" width="726"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>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, <i>any</i> kind of royalty, howsoever modified, <i>any</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="08-099.jpg (168K)" src="images/08-099.jpg" height="969" width="703"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>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 <i>them</i> ? 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 axe +to grind; and she was wise, subtle, and knew more than one way +to skin a cat—or a nation; she invented "divine right of kings," +and propped it all around, brick by brick, with the +Beatitudes—wrenching them from their good purpose to make them fortify +an evil one; she preached (to the commoner) humility, obedience +to superiors, the beauty of self-sacrifice; she preached (to the +commoner) meekness under insult; preached (still to the commoner, +always to the commoner) 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.</p> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="08-101.jpg (123K)" src="images/08-101.jpg" height="768" width="728"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p>But to return to my anomalous position in King Arthur's kingdom. +Here I was, a giant among pigmies, 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 +<i>he</i> 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.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="08-102.jpg (36K)" src="images/08-102.jpg" height="275" width="463"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Well, I liked the king, and as king I respected him—respected +the office; at least respected it as much as I was capable of +respecting any unearned supremacy; but as MEN I looked down upon +him and his nobles—privately. And he and they liked me, and +respected my office; but as an animal, without birth or sham title, +they looked down upon me—and were not 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.</p> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="09-105.jpg (117K)" src="images/09-105.jpg" height="990" width="668"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<br><br><a name="c9"></a><br><br><center><h2>CHAPTER IX</h2></center><br><br> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="09-107.jpg (131K)" src="images/09-107.jpg" height="926" width="730"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>THE TOURNAMENT</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="09-108.jpg (88K)" src="images/09-108.jpg" height="628" width="726"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<p>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 lanceshaft 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.</p> + +<p>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 cross-cut saw for me, +and broke the saw-buck, too, but I let it pass. And as for my +axe—well, I made up my mind that the next time I lent an axe +to a surgeon I would pick my century.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="09-109.jpg (131K)" src="images/09-109.jpg" height="819" width="743"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + +Then Sir Brian de les Isles and Grummore Grummorsum,<br> +knights of the castle, encountered with Sir Aglovale and<br> +Sir Tor, and Sir Tor smote down Sir Grummore Grummorsum<br> +to the earth. Then came Sir Carados of the dolorous<br> +tower, and Sir Turquine, knights of the castle, and<br> +there encountered with them Sir Percivale de Galis<br> +and Sir Lamorak de Galis, that were two brethren, and<br> +there encountered Sir Percivale with Sir Carados, and<br> +either brake their spears unto their hands, and then<br> +Sir Turquine with Sir Lamorak, and either of them smote<br> +down other, horse and all, to the earth, and either<br> +parties rescued other and horsed them again. And Sir<br> +Arnold, and Sir Gauter, knights of the castle,<br> +encountered with Sir Brandiles and Sir Kay, and these<br> +four knights encountered mightily, and brake their<br> +spears to their hands. Then came Sir Pertolope from<br> +the castle, and there encountered with him Sir Lionel,<br> +and there Sir Pertolope the green knight smote down Sir<br> +Lionel, brother to Sir Launcelot. All this was marked<br> +by noble heralds, who bare him best, and their names.<br> +Then Sir Bleobaris brake his spear upon Sir Gareth,<br> +but of that stroke Sir Bleobaris fell to the earth.<br> +When Sir Galihodin saw that, he bad Sir Gareth keep him,<br> +and Sir Gareth smote him to the earth. Then Sir Galihud<br> +gat a spear to avenge his brother, and in the same wise<br> +Sir Gareth served him, and Sir Dinadan and his brother<br> +La Cote Male Taile, and Sir Sagramore le Disirous, and<br> +Sir Dodinas le Savage; all these he bare down with one<br> +spear. When King Aswisance of Ireland saw Sir Gareth<br> +fare so he marvelled what he might be, that one time<br> +seemed green, and another time, at his again coming,<br> +he seemed blue. And thus at every course that he rode<br> +to and fro he changed his color, so that there might<br> +neither king nor knight have ready cognizance of him.<br> +Then Sir Agwisance the King of Ireland encountered<br> +with Sir Gareth, and there Sir Gareth smote him from<br> +his horse, saddle and all. And then came King Carados<br> +of Scotland, and Sir Gareth smote him down horse and<br> +man. And in the same wise he served King Uriens of the<br> +land of Gore. And then there came in Sir Bagdemagus,<br> +and Sir Gareth smote him down horse and man to the<br> +earth. And Bagdemagus's son Meliganus brake a spear<br> +upon Sir Gareth mightily and knightly. And then Sir<br> +Galahault the noble prince cried on high, Knight with<br> +the many colors, well hast thou justed; now make thee<br> +ready that I may just with thee. Sir Gareth heard him,<br> +and he gat a great spear, and so they encountered<br> +together, and there the prince brake his spear; but Sir<br> +Gareth smote him upon the left side of the helm, that<br> +he reeled here and there, and he had fallen down had not<br> +his men recovered him. Truly, said King Arthur, that<br> +knight with the many colors is a good knight. Wherefore<br> +the king called unto him Sir Launcelot, and prayed him<br> +to encounter with that knight. Sir, said Launcelot, I<br> +may as well find in my heart for to forbear him at<br> +this time, for he hath had travail enough this day, and<br> +when a good knight doth so well upon some day, it is<br> +no good knight's part to let him of his worship, and,<br> +namely, when he seeth a knight hath done so great<br> +labour; for peradventure, said Sir Launcelot, his<br> +quarrel is here this day, and peradventure he is best<br> +beloved with this lady of all that be here, for I see<br> +well he paineth himself and enforceth him to do great<br> +deeds, and therefore, said Sir Launcelot, as for me,<br> +this day he shall have the honour; though it lay in my<br> +power to put him from it, I would not. + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + +<p>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 <i>him</i> .</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="09-113.jpg (97K)" src="images/09-113.jpg" height="606" width="746"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<p>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 <i>had</i> 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 <i>them</i> . There +was worlds of reputation in it, but no money. Why, they actually +wanted <i>me</i> to put in! Well, I should smile.</p> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="10-115.jpg (136K)" src="images/10-115.jpg" height="923" width="769"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<br><br><a name="c10"></a><br><br><center><h2>CHAPTER X</h2></center><br><br> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="10-117.jpg (138K)" src="images/10-117.jpg" height="945" width="768"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>BEGINNINGS OF CIVILIZATION</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Yes, I had made pretty handsome progress when Sir Sagramor's +challenge struck me.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="10-119.jpg (148K)" src="images/10-119.jpg" height="833" width="730"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Four years rolled by—and then! Well, you would never imagine +it in the world. Unlimited power is the ideal thing when it is in +safe hands. The despotism of heaven is the one absolutely perfect +government. An earthly despotism would be the absolutely perfect +earthly government, if the conditions were the same, namely, the +despot the perfectest individual of the human race, and his lease +of life perpetual. But as a perishable perfect man must die, and +leave his despotism in the hands of an imperfect successor, an +earthly despotism is not merely a bad form of government, it is +the worst form that is possible.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>No, I had been going cautiously all the while. I had had confidential +agents trickling through the country some time, whose office was +to undermine knighthood by imperceptible degrees, and to gnaw +a little at this and that and the other superstition, and so prepare +the way gradually for a better order of things. I was turning on +my light one-candle-power at a time, and meant to continue to do so.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="10-121.jpg (35K)" src="images/10-121.jpg" height="623" width="248"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 one 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.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="10-122.jpg (97K)" src="images/10-122.jpg" height="687" width="713"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="11-125.jpg (108K)" src="images/11-125.jpg" height="1000" width="671"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<br><br><a name="c11"></a><br><br><center><h2>CHAPTER XI</h2></center><br><br> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="11-127.jpg (149K)" src="images/11-127.jpg" height="937" width="784"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>THE YANKEE IN SEARCH OF ADVENTURES</p> + +<p>There never was such a country for wandering liars; and they were +of both sexes. Hardly a month went by without one of these tramps +arriving; and generally loaded with a tale about some princess or +other wanting help to get her out of some far-away castle where +she was held in captivity by a lawless scoundrel, usually a giant. +Now you would think that the first thing the king would do after +listening to such a novelette from an entire stranger, would be +to ask for credentials—yes, and a pointer or two as to locality +of castle, best route to it, and so on. But nobody ever thought +of so simple and common-sense a thing at that. No, everybody +swallowed these 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.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="11-128.jpg (110K)" src="images/11-128.jpg" height="673" width="723"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>said</i> I was glad. And in a way it was true; I was as +glad as a person is when he is scalped.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"My dear, have you been questioned as to particulars?"</p> + +<p>She said she hadn't.</p> + +<p>"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. <i>You</i> +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?"</p> + +<p>"In the land of Moder, fair sir."</p> + +<p>"Land of Moder. I don't remember hearing of it before. +Parents living?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Your name, please?"</p> + +<p>"I hight the Demoiselle Alisande la Carteloise, an it please you."</p> + +<p>"Do you know anybody here who can identify you?"</p> + +<p>"That were not likely, fair lord, I being come hither now for +the first time."</p> + +<p>"Have you brought any letters—any documents—any proofs that +you are trustworthy and truthful?"</p> + +<p>"Of a surety, no; and wherefore should I? Have I not a tongue, +and cannot I say all that myself?"</p> + +<p>"But <i>your</i> saying it, you know, and somebody else's saying it, +is different."</p> + +<p>"Different? How might that be? I fear me I do not understand."</p> + +<p>"Don't <i>understand</i> ? 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—<i>why</i> do you look so innocent and idiotic!"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="11-131.jpg (205K)" src="images/11-131.jpg" height="989" width="749"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<p>"I? In truth I know not, but an it were the will of God."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Harem?"</p> + +<p>"The <i>castle</i> , you understand; where is the castle?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, as to that, it is great, and strong, and well beseen, and +lieth in a far country. Yes, it is many leagues."</p> + +<p>"<i>How</i> many?"</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>"Hold on, hold on, never mind about the distance; <i>whereabouts</i> +does the castle lie? What's the direction from here?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, please you sir, it hath no direction from here; by reason +that the road lieth not straight, but turneth evermore; wherefore +the direction of its place abideth not, but is some time under +the one sky and anon under another, whereso if ye be minded that +it is in the east, and wend thitherward, ye shall observe that +the way of the road doth yet again turn upon itself by the space +of half a circle, and this marvel happing again and yet again and +still again, it will grieve you that you had thought by vanities +of the mind to thwart and bring to naught the will of Him that +giveth not a castle a direction from a place except it pleaseth +Him, and if it please Him not, will the rather that even all castles +and all directions thereunto vanish out of the earth, leaving the +places wherein they tarried desolate and vacant, so warning His +creatures that where He will He will, and where He will not He—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's all right, that's all right, give us a rest; never mind +about the direction, <i>hang</i> 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—"</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Why, great guns," I said, "don't I want to find the castle? And +how else would I go about it?"</p> + +<p>"La, sweet your worship, one may lightly answer that, I ween. +She will go with thee. They always do. She will ride with thee."</p> + +<p>"Ride with me? Nonsense!"</p> + +<p>"But of a truth she will. She will ride with thee. Thou shalt see."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"In East Har—" I came to myself and stopped, a little confused; +then I said, "Never mind, now; I'll tell you some time."</p> + +<p>And might he see her? Would I let him see her some day?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>were</i> 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.</p> + +<p>I was to have an early breakfast, and start at dawn, for that was +the usual way; but I had the demon's own time with my armor, +and this delayed me a little. It is troublesome to get into, and +there is so much detail. First you wrap a layer or two of blanket +around your body, for a sort of cushion and to keep off the cold +iron; then you put on your sleeves and shirt of chain mail—these +are made of small steel links woven together, and they form a fabric +so flexible that if you toss your shirt onto the floor, it slumps +into a pile like a peck of wet fish-net; it is very heavy and +is nearly the uncomfortablest material in the world for a night +shirt, yet plenty used it for that—tax collectors, and reformers, +and one-horse kings with a defective title, and those sorts of +people; then you put on your shoes—flat-boats roofed over with +interleaving bands of steel—and screw your clumsy spurs into +the heels. Next you buckle your greaves on your legs, and your +cuisses on your thighs; then come your backplate and your breastplate, +and you begin to feel crowded; then you hitch onto the breastplate +the half-petticoat of broad overlapping bands of steel which hangs +down in front but is scolloped out behind so you can sit down, +and isn't any real improvement on an inverted coal scuttle, either +for looks or for wear, or to wipe your hands on; next you belt +on your sword; then you put your stove-pipe joints onto your arms, +your iron gauntlets onto your hands, your iron rat-trap onto your +head, with a rag of steel web hitched onto it to hang over the back +of your neck—and there you are, snug as a candle in a candle-mould. +This is no time to dance. Well, a man that is packed away like +that is a nut that isn't worth the cracking, there is so little of +the meat, when you get down to it, by comparison with the shell.</p> + +<p>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 sun-struck man to the drug store, and put you on, and help get +you to rights, and fix your feet in the stirrups; and all the while +you do feel so strange and stuffy and like somebody else—like +somebody that has been 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.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="11-136.jpg (88K)" src="images/11-136.jpg" height="587" width="716"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>And so we started, and everybody gave us a goodbye 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:</p> + +<p>"Oh, what a guy!" And hove clods at us.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + + +<br> +<br> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's +Court, Part 2., by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONNECTICUT YANKEE *** + +***** This file should be named 7243-h.htm or 7243-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/7/2/4/7243/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 2. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +Release Date: July 6, 2004 [EBook #7243] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONNECTICUT YANKEE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT + + by + + MARK TWAIN + (Samuel L. Clemens) + + Part 2. + + + +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 +_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 praying +and weeping poor creatures who thought the end of the world was +come. Then had followed the news that the producer of this awful +event was a stranger, a mighty magician at Arthur's court; that he +could have blown out the sun like a candle, and was just going +to do it when his mercy was purchased, and he then dissolved +his enchantments, and was now recognized and honored as the man +who had by his unaided might saved the globe from destruction and +its peoples from extinction. Now if you consider that everybody +believed that, and not only believed it, but never even dreamed +of doubting it, you will easily understand that there was not +a person in all Britain that would not have walked fifty miles +to get a sight of me. Of course I was all the talk--all other +subjects were dropped; even the king became suddenly a 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 countryside. +I had to go out a dozen times a day and show myself to these +reverent and awe-stricken multitudes. It came to be a great burden, +as to time and trouble, but of course it was at the same time +compensatingly 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 _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 meantime, 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 on-looking 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, _any_ kind of royalty, howsoever modified, _any_ kind +of aristocracy, howsoever pruned, is rightly an insult; but if you +are born and brought up under that sort of arrangement you probably +never find it out for yourself, and don't believe it when somebody +else tells you. It is enough to make a body ashamed of his race +to think of the sort of froth that has always occupied its thrones +without shadow of right or reason, and the seventh-rate people +that have always figured as its aristocracies--a company of monarchs +and nobles who, as a rule, would have achieved only poverty and +obscurity if left, like their betters, to their own exertions. + +The most of King Arthur's British nation were slaves, pure and +simple, and bore that name, and wore the iron collar on their +necks; and the rest were slaves in fact, but without the name; +they imagined 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 _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 axe +to grind; and she was wise, subtle, and knew more than one way +to skin a cat--or a nation; she invented "divine right of kings," +and propped it all around, brick by brick, with the Beatitudes +--wrenching them from their good purpose to make them fortify +an evil one; she preached (to the commoner) humility, obedience +to superiors, the beauty of self-sacrifice; she preached (to the +commoner) meekness under insult; preached (still to the commoner, +always to the commoner) 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 pigmies, a man among children, a master +intelligence among intellectual moles: by all rational measurement +the one and only actually great man in that whole British world; +and yet there and then, just as in the remote England of my +birth-time, the sheep-witted earl who could claim long descent +from a king's leman, acquired at second-hand from the slums of +London, was a better man than I was. Such a personage was fawned +upon in Arthur's realm and reverently looked up to by everybody, +even though his dispositions were as mean as his intelligence, +and his morals as base as his lineage. There were times when +_he_ could sit down in the king's presence, but I couldn't. I could +have got a title easily enough, and that would have raised me +a large step in everybody's eyes; even in the king's, the giver +of it. But I didn't ask for it; and I declined it when it was +offered. I couldn't have enjoyed such a thing with my notions; +and it wouldn't have been fair, anyway, because as far back as +I could go, our tribe had always been short of the bar sinister. +I couldn't have felt really and satisfactorily fine and proud +and set-up over any title except one that should come from the nation +itself, the only legitimate source; and such an one I hoped to win; +and in the course of years of honest and honorable endeavor, I did +win it and did wear it with a high and clean pride. This title +fell casually from the lips of a blacksmith, one day, in a village, +was caught up as a happy thought and tossed from mouth to mouth +with a laugh and an affirmative vote; in ten days it had swept +the kingdom, and was become as familiar as the king's name. I was +never known by any other designation afterward, whether in the +nation's talk or in grave debate upon matters of state at the +council-board of the sovereign. This title, translated into modern +speech, would be THE BOSS. Elected by the nation. That suited me. +And it was a pretty high title. There were very few THE'S, and +I was one of them. If you spoke of the duke, or the earl, or +the bishop, how could anybody tell which one you meant? But if +you spoke of The King or The Queen or The Boss, it was different. + +Well, I liked the king, and as king I respected him--respected +the office; at least respected it as much as I was capable of +respecting any unearned supremacy; but as MEN I looked down upon +him and his nobles--privately. And he and they liked me, and +respected my office; but as an animal, without birth or sham title, +they looked down upon me--and were not 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 lanceshaft 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 cross-cut saw for me, +and broke the saw-buck, too, but I let it pass. And as for my +axe--well, I made up my mind that the next time I lent an axe +to a surgeon I would pick my century. + +I not only watched this tournament from day to day, but detailed +an intelligent priest from my Department of Public Morals and +Agriculture, and ordered him to report it; for it was my purpose +by and by, when I should have gotten the people along far enough, +to start a newspaper. The first thing you want in a new country, +is a patent office; then work up your school system; and after that, +out with your paper. A newspaper has its faults, and plenty of them, +but no matter, it's hark from the tomb for a dead nation, and don't +you forget it. You can't resurrect a dead nation without it; there +isn't any way. So I wanted to sample things, and be finding out +what sort of reporter-material I might be able to rake together out +of the sixth century when I should come to need it. + +Well, the priest did very well, considering. He got in all +the details, and that is a good thing in a local item: you see, +he had kept books for the undertaker-department of his church +when he was younger, and there, you know, the money's in the details; +the more details, the more swag: bearers, mutes, candles, prayers +--everything counts; and if the bereaved don't buy prayers enough +you mark up your candles with a forked pencil, and your bill +shows up all right. And he had a good knack at getting in the +complimentary thing here and there about a knight that was likely +to advertise--no, I mean a knight that had influence; and he also +had a neat gift of exaggeration, for in his time he had kept door +for a pious hermit who lived in a sty and worked miracles. + +Of course this novice's report lacked whoop and crash and lurid +description, and therefore wanted the true ring; but its antique +wording was quaint and sweet and simple, and full of the fragrances +and flavors of the time, and these little merits made up in a 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 with Sir Carados, and + either brake their spears unto their hands, and then + Sir Turquine with Sir Lamorak, and either of them smote + down other, horse and all, to the earth, and either + parties rescued other and horsed them again. And Sir + Arnold, and Sir Gauter, knights of the castle, + encountered with Sir Brandiles and Sir Kay, and these + four knights encountered mightily, and brake their + spears to their hands. Then came Sir Pertolope from + the castle, and there encountered with him Sir Lionel, + and there Sir Pertolope the green knight smote down Sir + Lionel, brother to Sir Launcelot. All this was marked + by noble heralds, who bare him best, and their names. + Then Sir Bleobaris brake his spear upon Sir Gareth, + but of that stroke Sir Bleobaris fell to the earth. + When Sir Galihodin saw that, he bad Sir Gareth keep him, + and Sir Gareth smote him to the earth. Then Sir Galihud + gat a spear to avenge his brother, and in the same wise + Sir Gareth served him, and Sir Dinadan and his brother + La Cote Male Taile, and Sir Sagramore le Disirous, and + Sir Dodinas le Savage; all these he bare down with one + spear. When King Aswisance of Ireland saw Sir Gareth + fare so he marvelled what he might be, that one time + seemed green, and another time, at his again coming, + he seemed blue. And thus at every course that he rode + to and fro he changed his color, so that there might + neither king nor knight have ready cognizance of him. + Then Sir Agwisance the King of Ireland encountered + with Sir Gareth, and there Sir Gareth smote him from + his horse, saddle and all. And then came King Carados + of Scotland, and Sir Gareth smote him down horse and + man. And in the same wise he served King Uriens of the + land of Gore. And then there came in 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 + labour; for peradventure, said Sir Launcelot, his + quarrel is here this day, and peradventure he is best + beloved with this lady of all that be here, for I see + well he paineth himself and enforceth him to do great + deeds, and therefore, said Sir Launcelot, as for me, + this day he shall have the honour; though it lay in my + power to put him from it, I would not. + +There was an unpleasant little episode that day, which for reasons +of state I struck out of my priest's report. You will have noticed +that Garry was doing some great fighting in the engagement. When +I say Garry I mean Sir Gareth. Garry was my private pet name +for him; it suggests that I had a deep affection for him, and that +was the case. But it was a private pet name only, and never spoken +aloud to any one, much less to him; being a noble, he would not +have endured a familiarity like that from me. Well, to 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 _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 _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 _them_. There +was worlds of reputation in it, but no money. Why, they actually +wanted _me_ to put in! Well, I should smile. + + + +CHAPTER X + +BEGINNINGS OF CIVILIZATION + +The Round Table soon heard of the challenge, and of course it was +a good deal discussed, for such things interested the boys. +The king thought I ought now to set forth in quest of adventures, +so that I might gain renown and be the more worthy to meet +Sir Sagramor when the several years should have rolled away. +I excused myself for the present; I said it would take me three +or four years yet to get things well fixed up and going smoothly; +then I should be ready; all the chances were that at the end of +that time Sir Sagramor would still be out grailing, so no valuable +time would be lost by the postponement; I should then have been +in office six or seven years, and I believed my system and machinery +would be so well developed that I could take a holiday without +its working any harm. + +I was pretty well satisfied with what I had already accomplished. +In various quiet nooks and corners I had the beginnings of all +sorts of industries under way--nuclei of future vast factories, +the iron and steel missionaries of my future civilization. In these +were gathered together the brightest young minds I could find, +and I kept agents out raking the country for more, all the time. +I was training a crowd of ignorant folk into experts--experts +in every sort of handiwork and scientific calling. These nurseries +of mine went smoothly and privately along undisturbed in their +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 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-candle-power at a time, and meant to continue to do so. + +I had scattered some branch schools secretly about the kingdom, +and they were doing very well. I meant to work this racket more +and more, as time wore on, if nothing occurred to frighten me. +One of my deepest secrets was my West Point--my military academy. +I kept that most jealously out of sight; and I did the same with my +naval academy which I had established at a remote seaport. Both +were prospering to my satisfaction. + +Clarence was twenty-two now, and was my head executive, my right +hand. He was a darling; he was equal to anything; there wasn't +anything he couldn't turn his hand to. Of late I had been training +him for journalism, for the time seemed about right for a start +in the newspaper line; nothing big, but just a small weekly for +experimental circulation in my civilization-nurseries. He took +to it like a duck; there was an editor concealed in him, sure. +Already he had doubled himself in one way; he talked sixth century +and wrote nineteenth. His journalistic style was climbing, +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 one 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 at 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 _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. _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 _your_ saying it, you know, and somebody else's saying it, +is different." + +"Different? How might that be? I fear me I do not understand." + +"Don't _understand_? Land of--why, you see--you see--why, great Scott, +can't you understand a little thing like that? Can't you understand +the difference between your--_why_ do you look so 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 _castle_, you understand; where is the castle?" + +"Oh, as to that, it is great, and strong, and well beseen, and +lieth in a far country. Yes, it is many leagues." + +"_How_ many?" + +"Ah, fair sir, it were woundily hard to tell, they are so many, +and do so lap the one upon the other, and being made all in the +same image and tincted with the same color, one may not know +the one league from its fellow, nor how to count them except +they be taken apart, and ye wit well it were God's work to do +that, being not within man's capacity; for ye will note--" + +"Hold on, hold on, never mind about the distance; _whereabouts_ +does the castle lie? What's the direction from here?" + +"Ah, please you sir, it hath no direction from here; by reason +that the road lieth not straight, but turneth evermore; wherefore +the direction of its place abideth not, but is some time under +the one sky and anon under another, whereso if ye be minded that +it is in the east, and wend thitherward, ye shall observe that +the way of the road doth yet again turn upon itself by the space +of half a circle, and this marvel happing again and yet again and +still again, it will grieve you that you had thought by vanities +of the mind to thwart and bring to naught the will of Him that +giveth not a castle a direction from a place except it pleaseth +Him, and if it please Him not, will the rather that even all castles +and all directions thereunto vanish out of the earth, leaving the +places wherein they tarried desolate and vacant, so warning His +creatures that where He will He will, and where He will not He--" + +"Oh, that's all right, that's all right, give us a rest; never mind +about the direction, _hang_ the direction--I beg pardon, I beg +a thousand pardons, I am not well to-day; pay no attention when +I soliloquize, it is an old habit, an old, bad habit, and hard +to get rid of when one's digestion is all disordered with eating +food that was raised forever and ever before he was born; good +land! a man can't keep his functions regular on spring chickens +thirteen hundred years old. But come--never mind about that; +let's--have you got such a thing as a map of that region about +you? Now a good map--" + +"Is it peradventure that manner of thing which of late the unbelievers +have brought from over the great seas, which, being boiled in oil, +and an onion and salt added thereto, doth--" + +"What, a map? What are you talking about? Don't you know what +a map is? There, there, never mind, don't explain, I hate +explanations; they fog a thing up so that you can't tell anything +about it. Run along, dear; good-day; show her the way, Clarence." + +Oh, well, it was reasonably plain, now, why these donkeys didn't +prospect these liars for details. It may be that this girl had +a fact in her somewhere, but I don't believe you could have sluiced +it out with a hydraulic; nor got it with the earlier forms of +blasting, even; it was a case for dynamite. Why, she was a perfect +ass; and yet the king and his knights had listened to her as if +she had been a leaf out of the gospel. It kind of sizes up the +whole party. And think of the simple ways of this court: this +wandering wench hadn't any more trouble to get access to the king +in his palace than she would have had to get into the poorhouse +in my day and country. In fact, he was glad to see her, glad +to hear her tale; with that adventure of hers to offer, she was +as welcome as a corpse is to a coroner. + +Just as I was ending-up these reflections, Clarence came back. +I remarked upon the barren result of my efforts with the girl; +hadn't got hold of a single point that could help me to find +the castle. The youth looked a little surprised, or puzzled, +or something, and intimated that he had been wondering to himself +what I had wanted to ask the girl all those questions for. + +"Why, great guns," I said, "don't I want to find the castle? And +how else would I go about it?" + +"La, sweet your worship, one may lightly answer that, I ween. +She will go with thee. They always do. She will ride with thee." + +"Ride with me? Nonsense!" + +"But of a truth she will. She will ride with thee. Thou shalt see." + +"What? She browse around the hills and scour the woods with me +--alone--and I as good as engaged to be married? Why, it's scandalous. +Think how it would look." + +My, the dear face that rose before me! The boy was eager to know +all about this tender matter. I swore him to 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 +_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 night +shirt, yet plenty used it for that--tax collectors, and reformers, +and one-horse kings with a defective title, and those sorts of +people; then you put on your shoes--flat-boats roofed over with +interleaving bands of steel--and screw your clumsy spurs into +the heels. Next you buckle your greaves on your legs, and your +cuisses on your thighs; then come your backplate and your breastplate, +and you begin to feel crowded; then you hitch onto the breastplate +the half-petticoat of broad overlapping bands of steel which hangs +down in front but is scolloped out behind so you can sit down, +and isn't any real improvement on an inverted coal scuttle, either +for looks or for wear, or to wipe your hands on; next you belt +on your sword; then you put your stove-pipe joints onto your arms, +your iron gauntlets onto your hands, your iron rat-trap onto your +head, with a rag of steel web hitched onto it to hang over the back +of your neck--and there you are, snug as a candle in a candle-mould. +This is no time to dance. Well, a man that is packed away like +that is a nut that isn't worth the cracking, there is so little of +the meat, when you get down to it, by comparison with the shell. + +The boys helped me, or I never could have got in. Just as we +finished, Sir Bedivere happened in, and I saw that as like as not +I hadn't chosen the most 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 sun-struck man to the drug store, and put you on, and help get +you to rights, and fix your feet in the stirrups; and all the while +you do feel so strange and stuffy and like somebody else--like +somebody that has been 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 goodbye 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. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's +Court, Part 2., by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONNECTICUT YANKEE *** + +***** This file should be named 7243.txt or 7243.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/7/2/4/7243/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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