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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/7245-h.zip b/7245-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f775cb6 --- /dev/null +++ b/7245-h.zip diff --git a/7245-h/7245-h.htm b/7245-h/7245-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..647933c --- /dev/null +++ b/7245-h/7245-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2690 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<title>A CONNECTICUT YANKEE, By Twain, Part 4.</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 4.</h2> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's +Court, Part 4., 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 4. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +Release Date: July 6, 2004 [EBook #7245] + +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 4. +</h3> +</center> + +<br><br><br><br> + + + +<h2>CONTENTS:</h2> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + +<a href="#c17">CHAPTER XVII.</a> </td><td>A ROYAL BANQUET<br></td></tr><tr><td> +<a href="#c18">CHAPTER XVIII.</a> </td><td>IN THE QUEEN'S DUNGEONS<br></td></tr><tr><td> +<a href="#c19">CHAPTER XIX.</a> </td><td>KNIGHT ERRANTRY AS A TRADE <br></td></tr><tr><td> +<a href="#c20">CHAPTER XX. </a> </td><td>THE OGRE'S CASTLE<br></td></tr><tr><td> +<a href="#c21">CHAPTER XXI.</a> </td><td>THE PILGRIMS<br></td></tr><tr><td> +<a href="#c22">CHAPTER XXII.</a> </td><td>THE HOLY FOUNTAIN<br></td></tr> + + + +</table> +</center> + + + + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="17-199.jpg (119K)" src="images/17-199.jpg" height="1070" width="696"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<br><br><a name="c17"></a><br><br><center><h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2></center><br><br> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="17-201.jpg (131K)" src="images/17-201.jpg" height="862" width="779"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>A ROYAL BANQUET</p> + +<p>Madame, seeing me pacific and unresentful, no doubt judged that +I was deceived by her excuse; for her fright dissolved away, and +she was soon so importunate to have me give an exhibition and kill +somebody, that the thing grew to be embarrassing. However, to my +relief she was presently interrupted by the call to prayers. I will +say this much for the nobility: that, tyrannical, murderous, +rapacious, and morally rotten as they were, they were deeply and +enthusiastically religious. Nothing could divert them from the +regular and faithful performance of the pieties enjoined by the +Church. More than once I had seen a noble who had gotten his +enemy at a disadvantage, stop to pray before cutting his throat; +more than once I had seen a noble, after ambushing and despatching +his enemy, retire to the nearest wayside shrine and humbly give +thanks, without even waiting to rob the body. There was to be +nothing finer or sweeter in the life of even Benvenuto Cellini, +that rough-hewn saint, ten centuries later. All the nobles of +Britain, with their families, attended divine service morning and +night daily, in their private chapels, and even the worst of them +had family worship five or six times a day besides. The credit +of this belonged entirely to the Church. Although I was no friend +to that Catholic Church, I was obliged to admit this. And often, +in spite of me, I found myself saying, "What would this country +be without the Church?"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="17-202.jpg (118K)" src="images/17-202.jpg" height="673" width="729"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>After prayers we had dinner in a great banqueting hall which was +lighted by hundreds of grease-jets, and everything was as fine and +lavish and rudely splendid as might become the royal degree of the +hosts. At the head of the hall, on a dais, was the table of the +king, queen, and their son, Prince Uwaine. Stretching down the hall +from this, was the general table, on the floor. At this, above +the salt, sat the visiting nobles and the grown members of their +families, of both sexes,—the resident Court, in effect—sixty-one +persons; below the salt sat minor officers of the household, with +their principal subordinates: altogether a hundred and eighteen +persons sitting, and about as many liveried servants standing +behind their chairs, or serving in one capacity or another. It was +a very fine show. In a gallery a band with cymbals, horns, harps, +and other horrors, opened the proceedings with what seemed to be +the crude first-draft or original agony of the wail known to later +centuries as "In the Sweet Bye and Bye." It was new, and ought +to have been rehearsed a little more. For some reason or other +the queen had the composer hanged, after dinner.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="17-203.jpg (83K)" src="images/17-203.jpg" height="592" width="711"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>After this music, the priest who stood behind the royal table said +a noble long grace in ostensible Latin. Then the battalion of +waiters broke away from their posts, and darted, rushed, flew, +fetched and carried, and the mighty feeding began; no words +anywhere, but absorbing attention to business. The rows of chops +opened and shut in vast unison, and the sound of it was like to +the muffled burr of subterranean machinery.</p> + +<p>The havoc continued an hour and a half, and unimaginable was the +destruction of substantials. Of the chief feature of the +feast—the huge wild boar that lay stretched out so portly and imposing +at the start—nothing was left but the semblance of a hoop-skirt; +and he was but the type and symbol of what had happened to all +the other dishes.</p> + +<p>With the pastries and so on, the heavy drinking began—and the talk. +Gallon after gallon of wine and mead disappeared, and everybody +got comfortable, then happy, then sparklingly joyous—both +sexes,—and by and by pretty noisy. Men told anecdotes that were terrific +to hear, but nobody blushed; and when the nub was sprung, the +assemblage let go with a horse-laugh that shook the fortress. +Ladies answered back with historiettes that would almost have made +Queen Margaret of Navarre or even the great Elizabeth of England +hide behind a handkerchief, but nobody hid here, but only +laughed—howled, you may say. In pretty much all of these dreadful stories, +ecclesiastics were the hardy heroes, but that didn't worry the +chaplain any, he had his laugh with the rest; more than that, upon +invitation he roared out a song which was of as daring a sort as +any that was sung that night.</p> + +<p>By midnight everybody was fagged out, and sore with laughing; and, +as a rule, drunk: some weepingly, some affectionately, some +hilariously, some quarrelsomely, some dead and under the table. +Of the ladies, the worst spectacle was a lovely young duchess, whose +wedding-eve this was; and indeed she was a spectacle, sure enough. +Just as she was she could have sat in advance for the portrait of the +young daughter of the Regent d'Orleans, at the famous dinner whence +she was carried, foul-mouthed, intoxicated, and helpless, to her bed, +in the lost and lamented days of the Ancient Regime.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, even while the priest was lifting his hands, and all +conscious heads were bowed in reverent expectation of the coming +blessing, there appeared under the arch of the far-off door at +the bottom of the hall an old and bent and white-haired lady, +leaning upon a crutch-stick; and she lifted the stick and pointed it +toward the queen and cried out:</p> + +<p>"The wrath and curse of God fall upon you, woman without pity, +who have slain mine innocent grandchild and made desolate this +old heart that had nor chick, nor friend nor stay nor comfort in +all this world but him!"</p> + +<p>Everybody crossed himself in a grisly fright, for a curse was an +awful thing to those people; but the queen rose up majestic, with +the death-light in her eye, and flung back this ruthless command:</p> + +<p>"Lay hands on her! To the stake with her!"</p> + +<p>The guards left their posts to obey. It was a shame; it was a +cruel thing to see. What could be done? Sandy gave me a look; +I knew she had another inspiration. I said:</p> + +<p>"Do what you choose."</p> + +<p>She was up and facing toward the queen in a moment. She indicated +me, and said:</p> + +<p>"Madame, <i>he</i> saith this may not be. Recall the commandment, or he +will dissolve the castle and it shall vanish away like the instable +fabric of a dream!"</p> + +<p>Confound it, what a crazy contract to pledge a person to! What if +the queen—</p> + +<p>But my consternation subsided there, and my panic passed off; +for the queen, all in a collapse, made no show of resistance but +gave a countermanding sign and sunk into her seat. When she reached +it she was sober. So were many of the others. The assemblage rose, +whiffed ceremony to the winds, and rushed for the door like a mob; +overturning chairs, smashing crockery, tugging, struggling, +shouldering, crowding—anything to get out before I should change +my mind and puff the castle into the measureless dim vacancies of +space. Well, well, well, they <i>were</i> a superstitious lot. It is +all a body can do to conceive of it.</p> + +<p>The poor queen was so scared and humbled that she was even afraid +to hang the composer without first consulting me. I was very sorry +for her—indeed, any one would have been, for she was really +suffering; so I was willing to do anything that was reasonable, and +had no desire to carry things to wanton extremities. I therefore +considered the matter thoughtfully, and ended by having the +musicians ordered into our presence to play that Sweet Bye and +Bye again, which they did. Then I saw that she was right, and +gave her permission to hang the whole band. This little relaxation +of sternness had a good effect upon the queen. A statesman gains +little by the arbitrary exercise of iron-clad authority upon all +occasions that offer, for this wounds the just pride of his +subordinates, and thus tends to undermine his strength. A little +concession, now and then, where it can do no harm, is the wiser policy.</p> + +<p>Now that the queen was at ease in her mind once more, and measurably +happy, her wine naturally began to assert itself again, and it got +a little the start of her. I mean it set her music going—her silver +bell of a tongue. Dear me, she was a master talker. It would not +become me to suggest that it was pretty late and that I was a tired +man and very sleepy. I wished I had gone off to bed when I had +the chance. Now I must stick it out; there was no other way. So +she tinkled along and along, in the otherwise profound and ghostly +hush of the sleeping castle, until by and by there came, as if +from deep down under us, a far-away sound, as of a muffled +shriek—with an expression of agony about it that made my flesh crawl. +The queen stopped, and her eyes lighted with pleasure; she tilted +her graceful head as a bird does when it listens. The sound bored +its way up through the stillness again.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" I said.</p> + +<p>"It is truly a stubborn soul, and endureth long. It is many hours now."</p> + +<p>"Endureth what?"</p> + +<p>"The rack. Come—ye shall see a blithe sight. An he yield not +his secret now, ye shall see him torn asunder."</p> + +<p>What a silky smooth hellion she was; and so composed and serene, +when the cords all down my legs were hurting in sympathy with that +man's pain. Conducted by mailed guards bearing flaring torches, +we tramped along echoing corridors, and down stone stairways dank +and dripping, and smelling of mould and ages of imprisoned +night—a chill, uncanny journey and a long one, and not made the shorter +or the cheerier by the sorceress's talk, which was about this +sufferer and his crime. He had been accused by an anonymous +informer, of having killed a stag in the royal preserves. I said:</p> + +<p>"Anonymous testimony isn't just the right thing, your Highness. +It were fairer to confront the accused with the accuser."</p> + +<p>"I had not thought of that, it being but of small consequence. +But an I would, I could not, for that the accuser came masked by +night, and told the forester, and straightway got him hence again, +and so the forester knoweth him not."</p> + +<p>"Then is this Unknown the only person who saw the stag killed?"</p> + +<p>"Marry, <i>no</i> man <i>saw</i> the killing, but this Unknown saw this hardy +wretch near to the spot where the stag lay, and came with right +loyal zeal and betrayed him to the forester."</p> + +<p>"So the Unknown was near the dead stag, too? Isn't it just possible +that he did the killing himself? His loyal zeal—in a mask—looks +just a shade suspicious. But what is your highness's idea for +racking the prisoner? Where is the profit?"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="17-208.jpg (169K)" src="images/17-208.jpg" height="1001" width="730"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"He will not confess, else; and then were his soul lost. For his +crime his life is forfeited by the law—and of a surety will I see +that he payeth it!—but it were peril to my own soul to let him +die unconfessed and unabsolved. Nay, I were a fool to fling me +into hell for <i>his</i> accommodation."</p> + +<p>"But, your Highness, suppose he has nothing to confess?"</p> + +<p>"As to that, we shall see, anon. An I rack him to death and he +confess not, it will peradventure show that he had indeed naught +to confess—ye will grant that that is sooth? Then shall I not be +damned for an unconfessed man that had naught to +confess—wherefore, I shall be safe."</p> + +<p>It was the stubborn unreasoning of the time. It was useless to +argue with her. Arguments have no chance against petrified +training; they wear it as little as the waves wear a cliff. And +her training was everybody's. The brightest intellect in the land +would not have been able to see that her position was defective.</p> + +<p>As we entered the rack-cell I caught a picture that will not go +from me; I wish it would. A native young giant of thirty or +thereabouts lay stretched upon the frame on his back, with his +wrists and ankles tied to ropes which led over windlasses at either +end. There was no color in him; his features were contorted and +set, and sweat-drops stood upon his forehead. A priest bent over +him on each side; the executioner stood by; guards were on duty; +smoking torches stood in sockets along the walls; in a corner +crouched a poor young creature, her face drawn with anguish, +a half-wild and hunted look in her eyes, and in her lap lay a little +child asleep. Just as we stepped across the threshold the +executioner gave his machine a slight turn, which wrung a cry +from both the prisoner and the woman; but I shouted, and the +executioner released the strain without waiting to see who spoke. +I could not let this horror go on; it would have killed me to +see it. I asked the queen to let me clear the place and speak +to the prisoner privately; and when she was going to object I spoke +in a low voice and said I did not want to make a scene before +her servants, but I must have my way; for I was King Arthur's +representative, and was speaking in his name. She saw she had +to yield. I asked her to indorse me to these people, and then +leave me. It was not pleasant for her, but she took the pill; +and even went further than I was meaning to require. I only wanted +the backing of her own authority; but she said:</p> + +<p>"Ye will do in all things as this lord shall command. It is The Boss."</p> + +<p>It was certainly a good word to conjure with: you could see it +by the squirming of these rats. The queen's guards fell into line, +and she and they marched away, with their torch-bearers, and woke +the echoes of the cavernous tunnels with the measured beat of their +retreating footfalls. I had the prisoner taken from the rack and +placed upon his bed, and medicaments applied to his hurts, and +wine given him to drink. The woman crept near and looked on, +eagerly, lovingly, but timorously,—like one who fears a repulse; +indeed, she tried furtively to touch the man's forehead, and jumped +back, the picture of fright, when I turned unconsciously toward +her. It was pitiful to see.</p> + +<p>"Lord," I said, "stroke him, lass, if you want to. Do anything +you're a mind to; don't mind me."</p> + +<p>Why, her eyes were as grateful as an animal's, when you do it +a kindness that it understands. The baby was out of her way and +she had her cheek against the man's in a minute and her hands +fondling his hair, and her happy tears running down. The man +revived and caressed his wife with his eyes, which was all he +could do. I judged I might clear the den, now, and I did; cleared +it of all but the family and myself. Then I said:</p> + +<p>"Now, my friend, tell me your side of this matter; I know +the other side."</p> + +<p>The man moved his head in sign of refusal. But the woman looked +pleased—as it seemed to me—pleased with my suggestion. I went on—</p> + +<p>"You know of me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. All do, in Arthur's realms."</p> + +<p>"If my reputation has come to you right and straight, you should +not be afraid to speak."</p> + +<p>The woman broke in, eagerly:</p> + +<p>"Ah, fair my lord, do thou persuade him! Thou canst an thou wilt. +Ah, he suffereth so; and it is for me—for <i>me</i> ! And how can I bear it? +I would I might see him die—a sweet, swift death; oh, my Hugo, +I cannot bear this one!"</p> + +<p>And she fell to sobbing and grovelling about my feet, and still +imploring. Imploring what? The man's death? I could not quite +get the bearings of the thing. But Hugo interrupted her and said:</p> + +<p>"Peace! Ye wit not what ye ask. Shall I starve whom I love, +to win a gentle death? I wend thou knewest me better."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "I can't quite make this out. It is a puzzle. Now—"</p> + +<p>"Ah, dear my lord, an ye will but persuade him! Consider how +these his tortures wound me! Oh, and he will not speak!—whereas, +the healing, the solace that lie in a blessed swift death—"</p> + +<p>"What <i>are</i> you maundering about? He's going out from here a free +man and whole—he's not going to die."</p> + +<p>The man's white face lit up, and the woman flung herself at me +in a most surprising explosion of joy, and cried out:</p> + +<p>"He is saved!—for it is the king's word by the mouth of the king's +servant—Arthur, the king whose word is gold!"</p> + +<p>"Well, then you do believe I can be trusted, after all. Why +didn't you before?"</p> + +<p>"Who doubted? Not I, indeed; and not she."</p> + +<p>"Well, why wouldn't you tell me your story, then?"</p> + +<p>"Ye had made no promise; else had it been otherwise."</p> + +<p>"I see, I see.... And yet I believe I don't quite see, after all. +You stood the torture and refused to confess; which shows plain +enough to even the dullest understanding that you had nothing +to confess—"</p> + +<p>"I, my lord? How so? It was I that killed the deer!"</p> + +<p>"You <i>did</i> ? Oh, dear, this is the most mixed-up business that ever—"</p> + +<p>"Dear lord, I begged him on my knees to confess, but—"</p> + +<p>"You <i>did</i> ! It gets thicker and thicker. What did you want him +to do that for?"</p> + +<p>"Sith it would bring him a quick death and save him all this +cruel pain."</p> + +<p>"Well—yes, there is reason in that. But <i>he</i> didn't want the +quick death."</p> + +<p>"He? Why, of a surety he <i>did</i> ."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, why in the world <i>didn't</i> he confess?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, sweet sir, and leave my wife and chick without bread and shelter?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, heart of gold, now I see it! The bitter law takes the convicted +man's estate and beggars his widow and his orphans. They could +torture you to death, but without conviction or confession they +could not rob your wife and baby. You stood by them like a man; +and <i>you</i>—true wife and the woman that you are—you would have +bought him release from torture at cost to yourself of slow +starvation and death—well, it humbles a body to think what your +sex can do when it comes to self-sacrifice. I'll book you both +for my colony; you'll like it there; it's a Factory where I'm going +to turn groping and grubbing automata into <i>men</i> ."</p> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="18-213.jpg (105K)" src="images/18-213.jpg" height="967" width="680"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<br><br><a name="c18"></a><br><br><center><h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2></center><br><br> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="18-215.jpg (143K)" src="images/18-215.jpg" height="890" width="749"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>IN THE QUEEN'S DUNGEONS</p> + +<p>Well, I arranged all that; and I had the man sent to his home. +I had a great desire to rack the executioner; not because he was +a good, painstaking and paingiving official,—for surely it was +not to his discredit that he performed his functions well—but to +pay him back for wantonly cuffing and otherwise distressing that +young woman. The priests told me about this, and were generously +hot to have him punished. Something of this disagreeable sort +was turning up every now and then. I mean, episodes that showed +that not all priests were frauds and self-seekers, but that many, +even the great majority, of these that were down on the ground +among the common people, were sincere and right-hearted, and +devoted to the alleviation of human troubles and sufferings. +Well, it was a thing which could not be helped, so I seldom fretted +about it, and never many minutes at a time; it has never been my +way to bother much about things which you can't cure. But I did +not like it, for it was just the sort of thing to keep people +reconciled to an Established Church. We <i>must</i> have a +religion—it goes without saying—but my idea is, to have it cut up into +forty free sects, so that they will police each other, as had been +the case in the United States in my time. Concentration of power +in a political machine is bad; and and an Established Church is +only a political machine; it was invented for that; it is nursed, +cradled, preserved for that; it is an enemy to human liberty, and +does no good which it could not better do in a split-up and scattered +condition. That wasn't law; it wasn't gospel: it was only +an opinion—my opinion, and I was only a man, one man: so it wasn't +worth any more than the pope's—or any less, for that matter.</p> + +<p>Well, I couldn't rack the executioner, neither would I overlook +the just complaint of the priests. The man must be punished +somehow or other, so I degraded him from his office and made him +leader of the band—the new one that was to be started. He begged +hard, and said he couldn't play—a plausible excuse, but too thin; +there wasn't a musician in the country that could.</p> + +<p>The queen was a good deal outraged, next morning when she found +she was going to have neither Hugo's life nor his property. But +I told her she must bear this cross; that while by law and custom +she certainly was entitled to both the man's life and his property, +there were extenuating circumstances, and so in Arthur the king's +name I had pardoned him. The deer was ravaging the man's fields, +and he had killed it in sudden passion, and not for gain; and he +had carried it into the royal forest in the hope that that might make +detection of the misdoer impossible. Confound her, I couldn't +make her see that sudden passion is an extenuating circumstance +in the killing of venison—or of a person—so I gave it up and let +her sulk it out. I <i>did</i> think I was going to make her see it by +remarking that her own sudden passion in the case of the page +modified that crime.</p> + +<p>"Crime!" she exclaimed. "How thou talkest! Crime, forsooth! +Man, I am going to <i>pay</i> for him!"</p> + +<p>Oh, it was no use to waste sense on her. Training—training is +everything; training is all there is <i>to</i> a person. We speak of +nature; it is folly; there is no such thing as nature; what we +call by that misleading name is merely heredity and training. +We have no thoughts of our own, no opinions of our own; they are +transmitted to us, trained into us. All that is original in us, +and therefore fairly creditable or discreditable to us, can be +covered up and hidden by the point of a cambric needle, all the +rest being atoms contributed by, and inherited from, a procession +of ancestors that stretches back a billion years to the Adam-clam +or grasshopper or monkey from whom our race has been so tediously +and ostentatiously and unprofitably developed. And as for me, +all that I think about in this plodding sad pilgrimage, this +pathetic drift between the eternities, is to look out and humbly +live a pure and high and blameless life, and save that one +microscopic atom in me that is truly <i>me</i> : the rest may land in +Sheol and welcome for all I care.</p> + +<p>No, confound her, her intellect was good, she had brains enough, +but her training made her an ass—that is, from a many-centuries-later +point of view. To kill the page was no crime—it was her right; +and upon her right she stood, serenely and unconscious of offense. +She was a result of generations of training in the unexamined and +unassailed belief that the law which permitted her to kill a subject +when she chose was a perfectly right and righteous one.</p> + +<p>Well, we must give even Satan his due. She deserved a compliment +for one thing; and I tried to pay it, but the words stuck in my +throat. She had a right to kill the boy, but she was in no wise +obliged to pay for him. That was law for some other people, but +not for her. She knew quite well that she was doing a large and +generous thing to pay for that lad, and that I ought in common +fairness to come out with something handsome about it, but I +couldn't—my mouth refused. I couldn't help seeing, in my fancy, +that poor old grandma with the broken heart, and that fair young +creature lying butchered, his little silken pomps and vanities +laced with his golden blood. How could she <i>pay</i> for him! <i>Whom</i> +could she pay? And so, well knowing that this woman, trained +as she had been, deserved praise, even adulation, I was yet not +able to utter it, trained as I had been. The best I could do was +to fish up a compliment from outside, so to speak—and the pity +of it was, that it was true:</p> + +<p>"Madame, your people will adore you for this."</p> + +<p>Quite true, but I meant to hang her for it some day if I lived. +Some of those laws were too bad, altogether too bad. A master +might kill his slave for nothing—for mere spite, malice, or +to pass the time—just as we have seen that the crowned head could +do it with <i>his</i> slave, that is to say, anybody. A gentleman could +kill a free commoner, and pay for him—cash or garden-truck. +A noble could kill a noble without expense, as far as the law was +concerned, but reprisals in kind were to be expected. <i>Any</i> body +could kill <i>some</i> body, except the commoner and the slave; these had +no privileges. If they killed, it was murder, and the law wouldn't +stand murder. It made short work of the experimenter—and of +his family, too, if he murdered somebody who belonged up among +the ornamental ranks. If a commoner gave a noble even so much +as a Damiens-scratch which didn't kill or even hurt, he got Damiens' +dose for it just the same; they pulled him to rags and tatters +with horses, and all the world came to see the show, and crack +jokes, and have a good time; and some of the performances of the +best people present were as tough, and as properly unprintable, +as any that have been printed by the pleasant Casanova in his +chapter about the dismemberment of Louis XV's poor awkward enemy.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="18-218.jpg (54K)" src="images/18-218.jpg" height="378" width="707"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>I had had enough of this grisly place by this time, and wanted +to leave, but I couldn't, because I had something on my mind that +my conscience kept prodding me about, and wouldn't let me forget. +If I had the remaking of man, he wouldn't have any conscience. +It is one of the most disagreeable things connected with a person; +and although it certainly does a great deal of good, it cannot +be said to pay, in the long run; it would be much better to have +less good and more comfort. Still, this is only my opinion, and +I am only one man; others, with less experience, may think +differently. They have a right to their view. I only stand +to this: I have noticed my conscience for many years, and I know +it is more trouble and bother to me than anything else I started +with. I suppose that in the beginning I prized it, because we +prize anything that is ours; and yet how foolish it was to think so. +If we look at it in another way, we see how absurd it is: if I had +an anvil in me would I prize it? Of course not. And yet when you +come to think, there is no real difference between a conscience +and an anvil—I mean for comfort. I have noticed it a thousand +times. And you could dissolve an anvil with acids, when you +couldn't stand it any longer; but there isn't any way that you can +work off a conscience—at least so it will stay worked off; not +that I know of, anyway.</p> + +<p>There was something I wanted to do before leaving, but it was +a disagreeable matter, and I hated to go at it. Well, it bothered +me all the morning. I could have mentioned it to the old king, +but what would be the use?—he was but an extinct volcano; he had +been active in his time, but his fire was out, this good while, +he was only a stately ash-pile now; gentle enough, and kindly +enough for my purpose, without doubt, but not usable. He was +nothing, this so-called king: the queen was the only power there. +And she was a Vesuvius. As a favor, she might consent to warm +a flock of sparrows for you, but then she might take that very +opportunity to turn herself loose and bury a city. However, +I reflected that as often as any other way, when you are expecting +the worst, you get something that is not so bad, after all.</p> + +<p>So I braced up and placed my matter before her royal Highness. +I said I had been having a general jail-delivery at Camelot and +among neighboring castles, and with her permission I would like +to examine her collection, her bric-a-brac—that is to say, her +prisoners. She resisted; but I was expecting that. But she finally +consented. I was expecting that, too, but not so soon. That about +ended my discomfort. She called her guards and torches, and +we went down into the dungeons. These were down under the castle's +foundations, and mainly were small cells hollowed out of the living +rock. Some of these cells had no light at all. In one of them was +a woman, in foul rags, who sat on the ground, and would not answer +a question or speak a word, but only looked up at us once or twice, +through a cobweb of tangled hair, as if to see what casual thing +it might be that was disturbing with sound and light the meaningless +dull dream that was become her life; after that, she sat bowed, +with her dirt-caked fingers idly interlocked in her lap, and gave +no further sign. This poor rack of bones was a woman of middle +age, apparently; but only apparently; she had been there nine +years, and was eighteen when she entered. She was a commoner, +and had been sent here on her bridal night by Sir Breuse Sance Pite, +a neighboring lord whose vassal her father was, and to which said +lord she had refused what has since been called le droit du +seigneur, and, moreover, had opposed violence to violence and spilt +half a gill of his almost sacred blood. The young husband had +interfered at that point, believing the bride's life in danger, +and had flung the noble out into the midst of the humble and +trembling wedding guests, in the parlor, and left him there +astonished at this strange treatment, and implacably embittered +against both bride and groom. The said lord being cramped for +dungeon-room had asked the queen to accommodate his two criminals, +and here in her bastile they had been ever since; hither, indeed, +they had come before their crime was an hour old, and had never +seen each other since. Here they were, kenneled like toads in the +same rock; they had passed nine pitch dark years within fifty feet +of each other, yet neither knew whether the other was alive or not. +All the first years, their only question had been—asked with +beseechings and tears that might have moved stones, in time, +perhaps, but hearts are not stones: "Is he alive?" "Is she alive?" +But they had never got an answer; and at last that question was +not asked any more—or any other.</p> + +<p>I wanted to see the man, after hearing all this. He was thirty-four +years old, and looked sixty. He sat upon a squared block of +stone, with his head bent down, his forearms resting on his knees, +his long hair hanging like a fringe before his face, and he was +muttering to himself. He raised his chin and looked us slowly +over, in a listless dull way, blinking with the distress of the +torchlight, then dropped his head and fell to muttering again +and took no further notice of us. There were some pathetically +suggestive dumb witnesses present. On his wrists and ankles were +cicatrices, old smooth scars, and fastened to the stone on which +he sat was a chain with manacles and fetters attached; but this +apparatus lay idle on the ground, and was thick with rust. Chains +cease to be needed after the spirit has gone out of a prisoner.</p> + +<p>I could not rouse the man; so I said we would take him to her, +and see—to the bride who was the fairest thing in the earth to him, +once—roses, pearls, and dew made flesh, for him; a wonder-work, +the master-work of nature: with eyes like no other eyes, and voice +like no other voice, and a freshness, and lithe young grace, and +beauty, that belonged properly to the creatures of dreams—as he +thought—and to no other. The sight of her would set his stagnant +blood leaping; the sight of her—</p> + +<p>But it was a disappointment. They sat together on the ground and +looked dimly wondering into each other's faces a while, with a +sort of weak animal curiosity; then forgot each other's presence, +and dropped their eyes, and you saw that they were away again and +wandering in some far land of dreams and shadows that we know +nothing about.</p> + +<p>I had them taken out and sent to their friends. The queen did not +like it much. Not that she felt any personal interest in the matter, +but she thought it disrespectful to Sir Breuse Sance Pite. However, +I assured her that if he found he couldn't stand it I would fix him +so that he could.</p> + +<p>I set forty-seven prisoners loose out of those awful rat-holes, +and left only one in captivity. He was a lord, and had killed +another lord, a sort of kinsman of the queen. That other lord +had ambushed him to assassinate him, but this fellow had got the +best of him and cut his throat. However, it was not for that that +I left him jailed, but for maliciously destroying the only public +well in one of his wretched villages. The queen was bound to hang +him for killing her kinsman, but I would not allow it: it was no +crime to kill an assassin. But I said I was willing to let her +hang him for destroying the well; so she concluded to put up with +that, as it was better than nothing.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="18-223.jpg (190K)" src="images/18-223.jpg" height="1007" width="736"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Dear me, for what trifling offenses the most of those forty-seven +men and women were shut up there! Indeed, some were there for +no distinct offense at all, but only to gratify somebody's spite; +and not always the queen's by any means, but a friend's. The newest +prisoner's crime was a mere remark which he had made. He said +he believed that men were about all alike, and one man as good +as another, barring clothes. He said he believed that if you were +to strip the nation naked and send a stranger through the crowd, he +couldn't tell the king from a quack doctor, nor a duke from a hotel +clerk. Apparently here was a man whose brains had not been reduced +to an ineffectual mush by idiotic training. I set him loose and +sent him to the Factory.</p> + +<p>Some of the cells carved in the living rock were just behind the +face of the precipice, and in each of these an arrow-slit had been +pierced outward to the daylight, and so the captive had a thin +ray from the blessed sun for his comfort. The case of one of +these poor fellows was particularly hard. From his dusky swallow's +hole high up in that vast wall of native rock he could peer out +through the arrow-slit and see his own home off yonder in the +valley; and for twenty-two years he had watched it, with heartache +and longing, through that crack. He could see the lights shine +there at night, and in the daytime he could see figures go in and +come out—his wife and children, some of them, no doubt, though +he could not make out at that distance. In the course of years +he noted festivities there, and tried to rejoice, and wondered +if they were weddings or what they might be. And he noted funerals; +and they wrung his heart. He could make out the coffin, but he +could not determine its size, and so could not tell whether it was +wife or child. He could see the procession form, with priests +and mourners, and move solemnly away, bearing the secret with +them. He had left behind him five children and a wife; and in +nineteen years he had seen five funerals issue, and none of them +humble enough in pomp to denote a servant. So he had lost five +of his treasures; there must still be one remaining—one now +infinitely, unspeakably precious,—but <i>which</i> one? wife, or child? +That was the question that tortured him, by night and by day, +asleep and awake. Well, to have an interest, of some sort, and +half a ray of light, when you are in a dungeon, is a great support +to the body and preserver of the intellect. This man was in pretty +good condition yet. By the time he had finished telling me his +distressful tale, I was in the same state of mind that you would +have been in yourself, if you have got average human curiosity; +that is to say, I was as burning up as he was to find out which +member of the family it was that was left. So I took him over +home myself; and an amazing kind of a surprise party it was, +too—typhoons and cyclones of frantic joy, and whole Niagaras of happy +tears; and by George! we found the aforetime young matron graying +toward the imminent verge of her half century, and the babies all +men and women, and some of them married and experimenting familywise +themselves—for not a soul of the tribe was dead! Conceive of the +ingenious devilishness of that queen: she had a special hatred for +this prisoner, and she had <i>invented</i> all those funerals herself, +to scorch his heart with; and the sublimest stroke of genius of +the whole thing was leaving the family-invoice a funeral <i>short</i> , +so as to let him wear his poor old soul out guessing.</p> + +<p>But for me, he never would have got out. Morgan le Fay hated him +with her whole heart, and she never would have softened toward him. +And yet his crime was committed more in thoughtlessness than +deliberate depravity. He had said she had red hair. Well, she +had; but that was no way to speak of it. When red-headed people +are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn.</p> + +<p>Consider it: among these forty-seven captives there were five +whose names, offenses, and dates of incarceration were no longer +known! One woman and four men—all bent, and wrinkled, and +mind-extinguished patriarchs. They themselves had long ago forgotten +these details; at any rate they had mere vague theories about them, +nothing definite and nothing that they repeated twice in the same +way. The succession of priests whose office it had been to pray +daily with the captives and remind them that God had put them +there, for some wise purpose or other, and teach them that patience, +humbleness, and submission to oppression was what He loved to see +in parties of a subordinate rank, had traditions about these poor +old human ruins, but nothing more. These traditions went but +little way, for they concerned the length of the incarceration only, +and not the names of the offenses. And even by the help of +tradition the only thing that could be proven was that none of +the five had seen daylight for thirty-five years: how much longer +this privation has lasted was not guessable. The king and the queen +knew nothing about these poor creatures, except that they were +heirlooms, assets inherited, along with the throne, from the former +firm. Nothing of their history had been transmitted with their +persons, and so the inheriting owners had considered them of no +value, and had felt no interest in them. I said to the queen:</p> + +<p>"Then why in the world didn't you set them free?"</p> + +<p>The question was a puzzler. She didn't know <i>why</i> she hadn't, the +thing had never come up in her mind. So here she was, forecasting +the veritable history of future prisoners of the Castle d'If, +without knowing it. It seemed plain to me now, that with her +training, those inherited prisoners were merely property—nothing +more, nothing less. Well, when we inherit property, it does not +occur to us to throw it away, even when we do not value it.</p> + +<p>When I brought my procession of human bats up into the open world +and the glare of the afternoon sun—previously blindfolding them, +in charity for eyes so long untortured by light—they were a +spectacle to look at. Skeletons, scarecrows, goblins, pathetic +frights, every one; legitimatest possible children of Monarchy +by the Grace of God and the Established Church. I muttered absently:</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="18-226.jpg (128K)" src="images/18-226.jpg" height="829" width="720"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"I <i>wish</i> I could photograph them!"</p> + +<p>You have seen that kind of people who will never let on that they +don't know the meaning of a new big word. The more ignorant they +are, the more pitifully certain they are to pretend you haven't +shot over their heads. The queen was just one of that sort, and +was always making the stupidest blunders by reason of it. She +hesitated a moment; then her face brightened up with sudden +comprehension, and she said she would do it for me.</p> + +<p>I thought to myself: She? why what can she know about photography? +But it was a poor time to be thinking. When I looked around, she +was moving on the procession with an axe!</p> + +<p>Well, she certainly was a curious one, was Morgan le Fay. I have +seen a good many kinds of women in my time, but she laid over them +all for variety. And how sharply characteristic of her this episode +was. She had no more idea than a horse of how to photograph +a procession; but being in doubt, it was just like her to try +to do it with an axe.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="19-229.jpg (90K)" src="images/19-229.jpg" height="834" width="596"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<br><br><a name="c19"></a><br><br><center><h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2></center><br><br> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="19-231.jpg (146K)" src="images/19-231.jpg" height="903" width="773"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>KNIGHT-ERRANTRY AS A TRADE</p> + +<p>Sandy and I were on the road again, next morning, bright and early. +It was so good to open up one's lungs and take in whole luscious +barrels-ful of the blessed God's untainted, dew-fashioned, +woodland-scented air once more, after suffocating body and mind for two +days and nights in the moral and physical stenches of that intolerable +old buzzard-roost! I mean, for me: of course the place was all +right and agreeable enough for Sandy, for she had been used to +high life all her days.</p> + +<p>Poor girl, her jaws had had a wearisome rest now for a while, +and I was expecting to get the consequences. I was right; but she +had stood by me most helpfully in the castle, and had mightily +supported and reinforced me with gigantic foolishnesses which were +worth more for the occasion than wisdoms double their size; so +I thought she had earned a right to work her mill for a while, +if she wanted to, and I felt not a pang when she started it up:</p> + +<p>"Now turn we unto Sir Marhaus that rode with the damsel of thirty +winter of age southward—"</p> + +<p>"Are you going to see if you can work up another half-stretch on +the trail of the cowboys, Sandy?"</p> + +<p>"Even so, fair my lord."</p> + +<p>"Go ahead, then. I won't interrupt this time, if I can help it. +Begin over again; start fair, and shake out all your reefs, and +I will load my pipe and give good attention."</p> + +<p>"Now turn we unto Sir Marhaus that rode with the damsel of thirty +winter of age southward. And so they came into a deep forest, +and by fortune they were nighted, and rode along in a deep way, +and at the last they came into a courtelage where abode the duke +of South Marches, and there they asked harbour. And on the morn +the duke sent unto Sir Marhaus, and bad him make him ready. And +so Sir Marhaus arose and armed him, and there was a mass sung +afore him, and he brake his fast, and so mounted on horseback in +the court of the castle, there they should do the battle. So there +was the duke already on horseback, clean armed, and his six sons +by him, and every each had a spear in his hand, and so they +encountered, whereas the duke and his two sons brake their spears +upon him, but Sir Marhaus held up his spear and touched none of +them. Then came the four sons by couples, and two of them brake +their spears, and so did the other two. And all this while +Sir Marhaus touched them not. Then Sir Marhaus ran to the duke, +and smote him with his spear that horse and man fell to the earth. +And so he served his sons. And then Sir Marhaus alight down, and +bad the duke yield him or else he would slay him. And then some +of his sons recovered, and would have set upon Sir Marhaus. Then +Sir Marhaus said to the duke, Cease thy sons, or else I will do +the uttermost to you all. When the duke saw he might not escape +the death, he cried to his sons, and charged them to yield them +to Sir Marhaus. And they kneeled all down and put the pommels +of their swords to the knight, and so he received them. And then +they holp up their father, and so by their common assent promised +unto Sir Marhaus never to be foes unto King Arthur, and thereupon +at Whitsuntide after, to come he and his sons, and put them in +the king's grace.*</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="19-233.jpg (148K)" src="images/19-233.jpg" height="745" width="953"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>[*Footnote: The story is borrowed, language and all, from the +Morte d'Arthur.—M.T.]</p> + +<p>"Even so standeth the history, fair Sir Boss. Now ye shall wit +that that very duke and his six sons are they whom but few days +past you also did overcome and send to Arthur's court!"</p> + +<p>"Why, Sandy, you can't mean it!"</p> + +<p>"An I speak not sooth, let it be the worse for me."</p> + +<p>"Well, well, well,—now who would ever have thought it? One +whole duke and six dukelets; why, Sandy, it was an elegant haul. +Knight-errantry is a most chuckle-headed trade, and it is tedious +hard work, too, but I begin to see that there <i>is</i> money in it, +after all, if you have luck. Not that I would ever engage in it +as a business, for I wouldn't. No sound and legitimate business +can be established on a basis of speculation. A successful whirl +in the knight-errantry line—now what is it when you blow away +the nonsense and come down to the cold facts? It's just a corner +in pork, that's all, and you can't make anything else out of it. +You're rich—yes,—suddenly rich—for about a day, maybe a week; +then somebody corners the market on <i>you</i> , and down goes your +bucket-shop; ain't that so, Sandy?"</p> + +<p>"Whethersoever it be that my mind miscarrieth, bewraying simple +language in such sort that the words do seem to come endlong +and overthwart—"</p> + +<p>"There's no use in beating about the bush and trying to get around +it that way, Sandy, it's <i>so</i> , just as I say. I <i>know</i> it's so. And, +moreover, when you come right down to the bedrock, knight-errantry +is <i>worse</i> than pork; for whatever happens, the pork's left, and +so somebody's benefited anyway; but when the market breaks, in a +knight-errantry whirl, and every knight in the pool passes in his +checks, what have you got for assets? Just a rubbish-pile of +battered corpses and a barrel or two of busted hardware. Can you +call <i>those</i> assets? Give me pork, every time. Am I right?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, peradventure my head being distraught by the manifold matters +whereunto the confusions of these but late adventured haps and +fortunings whereby not I alone nor you alone, but every each of us, +meseemeth—"</p> + +<p>"No, it's not your head, Sandy. Your head's all right, as far as +it goes, but you don't know business; that's where the trouble +is. It unfits you to argue about business, and you're wrong +to be always trying. However, that aside, it was a good haul, +anyway, and will breed a handsome crop of reputation in Arthur's +court. And speaking of the cowboys, what a curious country this +is for women and men that never get old. Now there's Morgan le Fay, +as fresh and young as a Vassar pullet, to all appearances, and +here is this old duke of the South Marches still slashing away with +sword and lance at his time of life, after raising such a family +as he has raised. As I understand it, Sir Gawaine killed seven +of his sons, and still he had six left for Sir Marhaus and me to +take into camp. And then there was that damsel of sixty winter +of age still excursioning around in her frosty bloom—How old +are you, Sandy?"</p> + +<p>It was the first time I ever struck a still place in her. The mill +had shut down for repairs, or something.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="20-237.jpg (96K)" src="images/20-237.jpg" height="764" width="651"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<br><br><a name="c20"></a><br><br><center><h2>CHAPTER XX</h2></center><br><br> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="20-239.jpg (145K)" src="images/20-239.jpg" height="917" width="756"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>THE OGRE'S CASTLE</p> + +<p>Between six and nine we made ten miles, which was plenty for a +horse carrying triple—man, woman, and armor; then we stopped +for a long nooning under some trees by a limpid brook.</p> + +<p>Right so came by and by a knight riding; and as he drew near he +made dolorous moan, and by the words of it I perceived that he +was cursing and swearing; yet nevertheless was I glad of his +coming, for that I saw he bore a bulletin-board whereon in letters +all of shining gold was writ:</p> + +<p> "USE PETERSON'S PROPHYLACTIC TOOTH-BRUSH—ALL THE GO."</p> + +<p>I was glad of his coming, for even by this token I knew him for +knight of mine. It was Sir Madok de la Montaine, a burly great +fellow whose chief distinction was that he had come within an ace +of sending Sir Launcelot down over his horse-tail once. He was +never long in a stranger's presence without finding some pretext +or other to let out that great fact. But there was another fact +of nearly the same size, which he never pushed upon anybody unasked, +and yet never withheld when asked: that was, that the reason he +didn't quite succeed was, that he was interrupted and sent down +over horse-tail himself. This innocent vast lubber did not see +any particular difference between the two facts. I liked him, +for he was earnest in his work, and very valuable. And he was so +fine to look at, with his broad mailed shoulders, and the grand +leonine set of his plumed head, and his big shield with its quaint +device of a gauntleted hand clutching a prophylactic tooth-brush, +with motto: "Try Noyoudont." This was a tooth-wash that I was +introducing.</p> + +<p>He was aweary, he said, and indeed he looked it; but he would not +alight. He said he was after the stove-polish man; and with this +he broke out cursing and swearing anew. The bulletin-boarder +referred to was Sir Ossaise of Surluse, a brave knight, and of +considerable celebrity on account of his having tried conclusions +in a tournament once, with no less a Mogul than Sir Gaheris +himself—although not successfully. He was of a light and laughing +disposition, and to him nothing in this world was serious. It was +for this reason that I had chosen him to work up a stove-polish +sentiment. There were no stoves yet, and so there could be nothing +serious about stove-polish. All that the agent needed to do was +to deftly and by degrees prepare the public for the great change, +and have them established in predilections toward neatness against +the time when the stove should appear upon the stage.</p> + +<p>Sir Madok was very bitter, and brake out anew with cursings. He +said he had cursed his soul to rags; and yet he would not get down +from his horse, neither would he take any rest, or listen to any +comfort, until he should have found Sir Ossaise and settled this +account. It appeared, by what I could piece together of the +unprofane fragments of his statement, that he had chanced upon +Sir Ossaise at dawn of the morning, and been told that if he would +make a short cut across the fields and swamps and broken hills and +glades, he could head off a company of travelers who would be rare +customers for prophylactics and tooth-wash. With characteristic +zeal Sir Madok had plunged away at once upon this quest, and after +three hours of awful crosslot riding had overhauled his game. And +behold, it was the five patriarchs that had been released from the +dungeons the evening before! Poor old creatures, it was all of +twenty years since any one of them had known what it was to be +equipped with any remaining snag or remnant of a tooth.</p> + +<p>"Blank-blank-blank him," said Sir Madok, "an I do not stove-polish +him an I may find him, leave it to me; for never no knight that +hight Ossaise or aught else may do me this disservice and bide +on live, an I may find him, the which I have thereunto sworn a +great oath this day."</p> + +<p>And with these words and others, he lightly took his spear and +gat him thence. In the middle of the afternoon we came upon one +of those very patriarchs ourselves, in the edge of a poor village. +He was basking in the love of relatives and friends whom he had not +seen for fifty years; and about him and caressing him were also +descendants of his own body whom he had never seen at all till now; +but to him these were all strangers, his memory was gone, his mind +was stagnant. It seemed incredible that a man could outlast half +a century shut up in a dark hole like a rat, but here were his old +wife and some old comrades to testify to it. They could remember +him as he was in the freshness and strength of his young manhood, +when he kissed his child and delivered it to its mother's hands +and went away into that long oblivion. The people at the castle +could not tell within half a generation the length of time the man +had been shut up there for his unrecorded and forgotten offense; +but this old wife knew; and so did her old child, who stood there +among her married sons and daughters trying to realize a father +who had been to her a name, a thought, a formless image, a tradition, +all her life, and now was suddenly concreted into actual flesh +and blood and set before her face.</p> + +<p>It was a curious situation; yet it is not on that account that +I have made room for it here, but on account of a thing which +seemed to me still more curious. To wit, that this dreadful matter +brought from these downtrodden people no outburst of rage against +these oppressors. They had been heritors and subjects of cruelty +and outrage so long that nothing could have startled them but +a kindness. Yes, here was a curious revelation, indeed, of the +depth to which this people had been sunk in slavery. Their entire +being was reduced to a monotonous dead level of patience, resignation, +dumb uncomplaining acceptance of whatever might befall them in +this life. Their very imagination was dead. When you can say +that of a man, he has struck bottom, I reckon; there is no lower +deep for him.</p> + +<p>I rather wished I had gone some other road. This was not the sort +of experience for a statesman to encounter who was planning out +a peaceful revolution in his mind. For it could not help bringing +up the unget-aroundable fact that, all gentle cant and philosophizing +to the contrary notwithstanding, no people in the world ever did +achieve their freedom by goody-goody talk and moral suasion: +it being immutable law that all revolutions that will succeed must +<i>begin</i> in blood, whatever may answer afterward. If history teaches +anything, it teaches that. What this folk needed, then, was a +Reign of Terror and a guillotine, and I was the wrong man for them.</p> + +<p>Two days later, toward noon, Sandy began to show signs of excitement +and feverish expectancy. She said we were approaching the ogre's +castle. I was surprised into an uncomfortable shock. The object +of our quest had gradually dropped out of my mind; this sudden +resurrection of it made it seem quite a real and startling thing +for a moment, and roused up in me a smart interest. Sandy's +excitement increased every moment; and so did mine, for that sort +of thing is catching. My heart got to thumping. You can't reason +with your heart; it has its own laws, and thumps about things which +the intellect scorns. Presently, when Sandy slid from the horse, +motioned me to stop, and went creeping stealthily, with her head +bent nearly to her knees, toward a row of bushes that bordered +a declivity, the thumpings grew stronger and quicker. And they +kept it up while she was gaining her ambush and getting her glimpse +over the declivity; and also while I was creeping to her side on +my knees. Her eyes were burning now, as she pointed with her +finger, and said in a panting whisper:</p> + +<p>"The castle! The castle! Lo, where it looms!"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="20-243.jpg (138K)" src="images/20-243.jpg" height="739" width="732"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>What a welcome disappointment I experienced! I said:</p> + +<p>"Castle? It is nothing but a pigsty; a pigsty with a wattled +fence around it."</p> + +<p>She looked surprised and distressed. The animation faded out of +her face; and during many moments she was lost in thought and +silent. Then:</p> + +<p>"It was not enchanted aforetime," she said in a musing fashion, +as if to herself. "And how strange is this marvel, and how +awful—that to the one perception it is enchanted and dight in a base +and shameful aspect; yet to the perception of the other it is not +enchanted, hath suffered no change, but stands firm and stately +still, girt with its moat and waving its banners in the blue air +from its towers. And God shield us, how it pricks the heart to +see again these gracious captives, and the sorrow deepened in their +sweet faces! We have tarried along, and are to blame."</p> + +<p>I saw my cue. The castle was enchanted to <i>me</i> , not to her. It would +be wasted time to try to argue her out of her delusion, it couldn't +be done; I must just humor it. So I said:</p> + +<p>"This is a common case—the enchanting of a thing to one eye and +leaving it in its proper form to another. You have heard of it +before, Sandy, though you haven't happened to experience it. +But no harm is done. In fact, it is lucky the way it is. If these +ladies were hogs to everybody and to themselves, it would be +necessary to break the enchantment, and that might be impossible +if one failed to find out the particular process of the enchantment. +And hazardous, too; for in attempting a disenchantment without the +true key, you are liable to err, and turn your hogs into dogs, +and the dogs into cats, the cats into rats, and so on, and end by +reducing your materials to nothing finally, or to an odorless gas +which you can't follow—which, of course, amounts to the same +thing. But here, by good luck, no one's eyes but mine are under +the enchantment, and so it is of no consequence to dissolve it. +These ladies remain ladies to you, and to themselves, and to +everybody else; and at the same time they will suffer in no way +from my delusion, for when I know that an ostensible hog is a +lady, that is enough for me, I know how to treat her."</p> + +<p>"Thanks, oh, sweet my lord, thou talkest like an angel. And I know +that thou wilt deliver them, for that thou art minded to great +deeds and art as strong a knight of your hands and as brave to will +and to do, as any that is on live."</p> + +<p>"I will not leave a princess in the sty, Sandy. Are those three +yonder that to my disordered eyes are starveling swine-herds—"</p> + +<p>"The ogres, Are <i>they</i> changed also? It is most wonderful. Now +am I fearful; for how canst thou strike with sure aim when five of +their nine cubits of stature are to thee invisible? Ah, go warily, +fair sir; this is a mightier emprise than I wend."</p> + +<p>"You be easy, Sandy. All I need to know is, how <i>much</i> of an ogre +is invisible; then I know how to locate his vitals. Don't you be +afraid, I will make short work of these bunco-steerers. Stay +where you are."</p> + +<p>I left Sandy kneeling there, corpse-faced but plucky and hopeful, +and rode down to the pigsty, and struck up a trade with the +swine-herds. I won their gratitude by buying out all the hogs +at the lump sum of sixteen pennies, which was rather above latest +quotations. I was just in time; for the Church, the lord of the +manor, and the rest of the tax-gatherers would have been along +next day and swept off pretty much all the stock, leaving the +swine-herds very short of hogs and Sandy out of princesses. But +now the tax people could be paid in cash, and there would be +a stake left besides. One of the men had ten children; and he +said that last year when a priest came and of his ten pigs took +the fattest one for tithes, the wife burst out upon him, and offered +him a child and said:</p> + +<p>"Thou beast without bowels of mercy, why leave me my child, yet +rob me of the wherewithal to feed it?"</p> + +<p>How curious. The same thing had happened in the Wales of my day, +under this same old Established Church, which was supposed by many +to have changed its nature when it changed its disguise.</p> + +<p>I sent the three men away, and then opened the sty gate and beckoned +Sandy to come—which she did; and not leisurely, but with the rush +of a prairie fire. And when I saw her fling herself upon those +hogs, with tears of joy running down her cheeks, and strain them +to her heart, and kiss them, and caress them, and call them +reverently by grand princely names, I was ashamed of her, ashamed +of the human race.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="20-246.jpg (115K)" src="images/20-246.jpg" height="740" width="720"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>We had to drive those hogs home—ten miles; and no ladies were +ever more fickle-minded or contrary. They would stay in no road, +no path; they broke out through the brush on all sides, and flowed +away in all directions, over rocks, and hills, and the roughest +places they could find. And they must not be struck, or roughly +accosted; Sandy could not bear to see them treated in ways unbecoming +their rank. The troublesomest old sow of the lot had to be called +my Lady, and your Highness, like the rest. It is annoying and +difficult to scour around after hogs, in armor. There was one +small countess, with an iron ring in her snout and hardly any hair +on her back, that was the devil for perversity. She gave me a race +of an hour, over all sorts of country, and then we were right where +we had started from, having made not a rod of real progress. +I seized her at last by the tail, and brought her along squealing. +When I overtook Sandy she was horrified, and said it was in the +last degree indelicate to drag a countess by her train.</p> + +<p>We got the hogs home just at dark—most of them. The princess +Nerovens de Morganore was missing, and two of her ladies in waiting: +namely, Miss Angela Bohun, and the Demoiselle Elaine Courtemains, +the former of these two being a young black sow with a white star +in her forehead, and the latter a brown one with thin legs and a +slight limp in the forward shank on the starboard side—a couple +of the tryingest blisters to drive that I ever saw. Also among +the missing were several mere baronesses—and I wanted them to +stay missing; but no, all that sausage-meat had to be found; so +servants were sent out with torches to scour the woods and hills +to that end.</p> + +<p>Of course, the whole drove was housed in the house, and, great +guns!—well, I never saw anything like it. Nor ever heard anything +like it. And never smelt anything like it. It was like an +insurrection in a gasometer.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="21-249.jpg (101K)" src="images/21-249.jpg" height="959" width="666"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<br><br><a name="c21"></a><br><br><center><h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2></center><br><br> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="21-251.jpg (134K)" src="images/21-251.jpg" height="884" width="760"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>THE PILGRIMS</p> + +<p>When I did get to bed at last I was unspeakably tired; the stretching +out, and the relaxing of the long-tense muscles, how luxurious, +how delicious! but that was as far as I could get—sleep was out of +the question for the present. The ripping and tearing and squealing +of the nobility up and down the halls and corridors was pandemonium +come again, and kept me broad awake. Being awake, my thoughts +were busy, of course; and mainly they busied themselves with Sandy's +curious delusion. Here she was, as sane a person as the kingdom +could produce; and yet, from my point of view she was acting like +a crazy woman. My land, the power of training! of influence! +of education! It can bring a body up to believe anything. I had +to put myself in Sandy's place to realize that she was not a +lunatic. Yes, and put her in mine, to demonstrate how easy it is +to seem a lunatic to a person who has not been taught as you have +been taught. If I had told Sandy I had seen a wagon, uninfluenced +by enchantment, spin along fifty miles an hour; had seen a man, +unequipped with magic powers, get into a basket and soar out of +sight among the clouds; and had listened, without any necromancer's +help, to the conversation of a person who was several hundred miles +away, Sandy would not merely have supposed me to be crazy, she +would have thought she knew it. Everybody around her believed in +enchantments; nobody had any doubts; to doubt that a castle could +be turned into a sty, and its occupants into hogs, would have been +the same as my doubting among Connecticut people the actuality +of the telephone and its wonders,—and in both cases would be +absolute proof of a diseased mind, an unsettled reason. Yes, Sandy +was sane; that must be admitted. If I also would be sane—to +Sandy—I must keep my superstitions about unenchanted and unmiraculous +locomotives, balloons, and telephones, to myself. Also, I believed +that the world was not flat, and hadn't pillars under it to support +it, nor a canopy over it to turn off a universe of water that +occupied all space above; but as I was the only person in the kingdom +afflicted with such impious and criminal opinions, I recognized +that it would be good wisdom to keep quiet about this matter, too, +if I did not wish to be suddenly shunned and forsaken by everybody +as a madman.</p> + +<p>The next morning Sandy assembled the swine in the dining-room and +gave them their breakfast, waiting upon them personally and +manifesting in every way the deep reverence which the natives of +her island, ancient and modern, have always felt for rank, let its +outward casket and the mental and moral contents be what they may. +I could have eaten with the hogs if I had had birth approaching my +lofty official rank; but I hadn't, and so accepted the unavoidable +slight and made no complaint. Sandy and I had our breakfast at +the second table. The family were not at home. I said:</p> + +<p>"How many are in the family, Sandy, and where do they keep themselves?"</p> + +<p>"Family?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Which family, good my lord?"</p> + +<p>"Why, this family; your own family."</p> + +<p>"Sooth to say, I understand you not. I have no family."</p> + +<p>"No family? Why, Sandy, isn't this your home?"</p> + +<p>"Now how indeed might that be? I have no home."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, whose house is this?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, wit you well I would tell you an I knew myself."</p> + +<p>"Come—you don't even know these people? Then who invited us here?"</p> + +<p>"None invited us. We but came; that is all."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="21-253.jpg (80K)" src="images/21-253.jpg" height="608" width="717"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"Why, woman, this is a most extraordinary performance. The +effrontery of it is beyond admiration. We blandly march into +a man's house, and cram it full of the only really valuable nobility +the sun has yet discovered in the earth, and then it turns out +that we don't even know the man's name. How did you ever venture +to take this extravagant liberty? I supposed, of course, it was +your home. What will the man say?"</p> + +<p>"What will he say? Forsooth what can he say but give thanks?"</p> + +<p>"Thanks for what?"</p> + +<p>Her face was filled with a puzzled surprise:</p> + +<p>"Verily, thou troublest mine understanding with strange words. +Do ye dream that one of his estate is like to have the honor twice +in his life to entertain company such as we have brought to grace +his house withal?"</p> + +<p>"Well, no—when you come to that. No, it's an even bet that this +is the first time he has had a treat like this."</p> + +<p>"Then let him be thankful, and manifest the same by grateful speech +and due humility; he were a dog, else, and the heir and ancestor +of dogs."</p> + +<p>To my mind, the situation was uncomfortable. It might become more so. +It might be a good idea to muster the hogs and move on. So I said:</p> + +<p>"The day is wasting, Sandy. It is time to get the nobility together +and be moving."</p> + +<p>"Wherefore, fair sir and Boss?"</p> + +<p>"We want to take them to their home, don't we?"</p> + +<p>"La, but list to him! They be of all the regions of the earth! +Each must hie to her own home; wend you we might do all these +journeys in one so brief life as He hath appointed that created +life, and thereto death likewise with help of Adam, who by sin +done through persuasion of his helpmeet, she being wrought upon +and bewrayed by the beguilements of the great enemy of man, that +serpent hight Satan, aforetime consecrated and set apart unto that +evil work by overmastering spite and envy begotten in his heart +through fell ambitions that did blight and mildew a nature erst +so white and pure whenso it hove with the shining multitudes +its brethren-born in glade and shade of that fair heaven wherein +all such as native be to that rich estate and—"</p> + +<p>"Great Scott!"</p> + +<p>"My lord?"</p> + +<p>"Well, you know we haven't got time for this sort of thing. Don't +you see, we could distribute these people around the earth in less +time than it is going to take you to explain that we can't. We +mustn't talk now, we must act. You want to be careful; you mustn't +let your mill get the start of you that way, at a time like this. +To business now—and sharp's the word. Who is to take the +aristocracy home?"</p> + +<p>"Even their friends. These will come for them from the far parts +of the earth."</p> + +<p>This was lightning from a clear sky, for unexpectedness; and the +relief of it was like pardon to a prisoner. She would remain to +deliver the goods, of course.</p> + +<p>"Well, then, Sandy, as our enterprise is handsomely and successfully +ended, I will go home and report; and if ever another one—"</p> + +<p>"I also am ready; I will go with thee."</p> + +<p>This was recalling the pardon.</p> + +<p>"How? You will go with me? Why should you?"</p> + +<p>"Will I be traitor to my knight, dost think? That were dishonor. +I may not part from thee until in knightly encounter in the field +some overmatching champion shall fairly win and fairly wear me. +I were to blame an I thought that that might ever hap."</p> + +<p>"Elected for the long term," I sighed to myself. "I may as well +make the best of it." So then I spoke up and said:</p> + +<p>"All right; let us make a start."</p> + +<p>While she was gone to cry her farewells over the pork, I gave that +whole peerage away to the servants. And I asked them to take +a duster and dust around a little where the nobilities had mainly +lodged and promenaded; but they considered that that would be +hardly worth while, and would moreover be a rather grave departure +from custom, and therefore likely to make talk. A departure from +custom—that settled it; it was a nation capable of committing any +crime but that. The servants said they would follow the fashion, +a fashion grown sacred through immemorial observance; they would +scatter fresh rushes in all the rooms and halls, and then the +evidence of the aristocratic visitation would be no longer visible. +It was a kind of satire on Nature: it was the scientific method, +the geologic method; it deposited the history of the family in +a stratified record; and the antiquary could dig through it and +tell by the remains of each period what changes of diet the family +had introduced successively for a hundred years.</p> + +<p>The first thing we struck that day was a procession of pilgrims. +It was not going our way, but we joined it, nevertheless; for it +was hourly being borne in upon me now, that if I would govern +this country wisely, I must be posted in the details of its life, +and not at second hand, but by personal observation and scrutiny.</p> + +<p>This company of pilgrims resembled Chaucer's in this: that it +had in it a sample of about all the upper occupations and professions +the country could show, and a corresponding variety of costume. +There were young men and old men, young women and old women, +lively folk and grave folk. They rode upon mules and horses, and +there was not a side-saddle in the party; for this specialty was +to remain unknown in England for nine hundred years yet.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="21-257.jpg (36K)" src="images/21-257.jpg" height="304" width="703"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>It was a pleasant, friendly, sociable herd; pious, happy, merry and +full of unconscious coarsenesses and innocent indecencies. What +they regarded as the merry tale went the continual round and caused +no more embarrassment than it would have caused in the best English +society twelve centuries later. Practical jokes worthy of the +English wits of the first quarter of the far-off nineteenth century +were sprung here and there and yonder along the line, and compelled +the delightedest applause; and sometimes when a bright remark was +made at one end of the procession and started on its travels toward +the other, you could note its progress all the way by the sparkling +spray of laughter it threw off from its bows as it plowed along; +and also by the blushes of the mules in its wake.</p> + +<p>Sandy knew the goal and purpose of this pilgrimage, and she posted +me. She said:</p> + +<p>"They journey to the Valley of Holiness, for to be blessed of the +godly hermits and drink of the miraculous waters and be cleansed +from sin."</p> + +<p>"Where is this watering place?"</p> + +<p>"It lieth a two-day journey hence, by the borders of the land that +hight the Cuckoo Kingdom."</p> + +<p>"Tell me about it. Is it a celebrated place?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, of a truth, yes. There be none more so. Of old time there +lived there an abbot and his monks. Belike were none in the world +more holy than these; for they gave themselves to study of pious +books, and spoke not the one to the other, or indeed to any, and +ate decayed herbs and naught thereto, and slept hard, and prayed +much, and washed never; also they wore the same garment until it +fell from their bodies through age and decay. Right so came they +to be known of all the world by reason of these holy austerities, +and visited by rich and poor, and reverenced."</p> + +<p>"Proceed."</p> + +<p>"But always there was lack of water there. Whereas, upon a time, +the holy abbot prayed, and for answer a great stream of clear +water burst forth by miracle in a desert place. Now were the +fickle monks tempted of the Fiend, and they wrought with their +abbot unceasingly by beggings and beseechings that he would construct +a bath; and when he was become aweary and might not resist more, +he said have ye your will, then, and granted that they asked. +Now mark thou what 'tis to forsake the ways of purity the which +He loveth, and wanton with such as be worldly and an offense. +These monks did enter into the bath and come thence washed as +white as snow; and lo, in that moment His sign appeared, in +miraculous rebuke! for His insulted waters ceased to flow, and +utterly vanished away."</p> + +<p>"They fared mildly, Sandy, considering how that kind of crime +is regarded in this country."</p> + +<p>"Belike; but it was their first sin; and they had been of perfect +life for long, and differing in naught from the angels. Prayers, +tears, torturings of the flesh, all was vain to beguile that water +to flow again. Even processions; even burnt-offerings; even votive +candles to the Virgin, did fail every each of them; and all in +the land did marvel."</p> + +<p>"How odd to find that even this industry has its financial panics, +and at times sees its assignats and greenbacks languish to zero, +and everything come to a standstill. Go on, Sandy."</p> + +<p>"And so upon a time, after year and day, the good abbot made humble +surrender and destroyed the bath. And behold, His anger was in that +moment appeased, and the waters gushed richly forth again, and even +unto this day they have not ceased to flow in that generous measure."</p> + +<p>"Then I take it nobody has washed since."</p> + +<p>"He that would essay it could have his halter free; yes, and +swiftly would he need it, too."</p> + +<p>"The community has prospered since?"</p> + +<p>"Even from that very day. The fame of the miracle went abroad +into all lands. From every land came monks to join; they came +even as the fishes come, in shoals; and the monastery added building +to building, and yet others to these, and so spread wide its arms +and took them in. And nuns came, also; and more again, and yet +more; and built over against the monastery on the yon side of the +vale, and added building to building, until mighty was that nunnery. +And these were friendly unto those, and they joined their loving +labors together, and together they built a fair great foundling +asylum midway of the valley between."</p> + +<p>"You spoke of some hermits, Sandy."</p> + +<p>"These have gathered there from the ends of the earth. A hermit +thriveth best where there be multitudes of pilgrims. Ye shall not +find no hermit of no sort wanting. If any shall mention a hermit +of a kind he thinketh new and not to be found but in some far +strange land, let him but scratch among the holes and caves and +swamps that line that Valley of Holiness, and whatsoever be his +breed, it skills not, he shall find a sample of it there."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="21-260.jpg (159K)" src="images/21-260.jpg" height="1005" width="725"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>I closed up alongside of a burly fellow with a fat good-humored +face, purposing to make myself agreeable and pick up some further +crumbs of fact; but I had hardly more than scraped acquaintance +with him when he began eagerly and awkwardly to lead up, in the +immemorial way, to that same old anecdote—the one Sir Dinadan +told me, what time I got into trouble with Sir Sagramor and was +challenged of him on account of it. I excused myself and dropped +to the rear of the procession, sad at heart, willing to go hence +from this troubled life, this vale of tears, this brief day of +broken rest, of cloud and storm, of weary struggle and monotonous +defeat; and yet shrinking from the change, as remembering how long +eternity is, and how many have wended thither who know that anecdote.</p> + +<p>Early in the afternoon we overtook another procession of pilgrims; +but in this one was no merriment, no jokes, no laughter, no playful +ways, nor any happy giddiness, whether of youth or age. Yet both +were here, both age and youth; gray old men and women, strong men +and women of middle age, young husbands, young wives, little boys +and girls, and three babies at the breast. Even the children were +smileless; there was not a face among all these half a hundred +people but was cast down, and bore that set expression of hopelessness +which is bred of long and hard trials and old acquaintance with +despair. They were slaves. Chains led from their fettered feet +and their manacled hands to a sole-leather belt about their waists; +and all except the children were also linked together in a file +six feet apart, by a single chain which led from collar to collar +all down the line. They were on foot, and had tramped three +hundred miles in eighteen days, upon the cheapest odds and ends +of food, and stingy rations of that. They had slept in these +chains every night, bundled together like swine. They had upon +their bodies some poor rags, but they could not be said to be +clothed. Their irons had chafed the skin from their ankles and +made sores which were ulcerated and wormy. Their naked feet were +torn, and none walked without a limp. Originally there had been a +hundred of these unfortunates, but about half had been sold on +the trip. The trader in charge of them rode a horse and carried +a whip with a short handle and a long heavy lash divided into +several knotted tails at the end. With this whip he cut the +shoulders of any that tottered from weariness and pain, and +straightened them up. He did not speak; the whip conveyed his +desire without that. None of these poor creatures looked up as +we rode along by; they showed no consciousness of our presence. +And they made no sound but one; that was the dull and awful clank +of their chains from end to end of the long file, as forty-three +burdened feet rose and fell in unison. The file moved in a cloud +of its own making.</p> + +<p>All these faces were gray with a coating of dust. One has seen +the like of this coating upon furniture in unoccupied houses, and +has written his idle thought in it with his finger. I was reminded +of this when I noticed the faces of some of those women, young +mothers carrying babes that were near to death and freedom, how +a something in their hearts was written in the dust upon their +faces, plain to see, and lord, how plain to read! for it was the +track of tears. One of these young mothers was but a girl, and +it hurt me to the heart to read that writing, and reflect that it +was come up out of the breast of such a child, a breast that ought +not to know trouble yet, but only the gladness of the morning of +life; and no doubt—</p> + +<p>She reeled just then, giddy with fatigue, and down came the lash +and flicked a flake of skin from her naked shoulder. It stung me +as if I had been hit instead. The master halted the file and +jumped from his horse. He stormed and swore at this girl, and +said she had made annoyance enough with her laziness, and as this +was the last chance he should have, he would settle the account now. +She dropped on her knees and put up her hands and began to beg, +and cry, and implore, in a passion of terror, but the master gave +no attention. He snatched the child from her, and then made the +men-slaves who were chained before and behind her throw her on +the ground and hold her there and expose her body; and then he +laid on with his lash like a madman till her back was flayed, she +shrieking and struggling the while piteously. One of the men who +was holding her turned away his face, and for this humanity he was +reviled and flogged.</p> + +<p>All our pilgrims looked on and commented—on the expert way in +which the whip was handled. They were too much hardened by lifelong +everyday familiarity with slavery to notice that there was anything +else in the exhibition that invited comment. This was what slavery +could do, in the way of ossifying what one may call the superior +lobe of human feeling; for these pilgrims were kind-hearted people, +and they would not have allowed that man to treat a horse like that.</p> + +<p>I wanted to stop the whole thing and set the slaves free, but that +would not do. I must not interfere too much and get myself a name +for riding over the country's laws and the citizen's rights +roughshod. If I lived and prospered I would be the death of +slavery, that I was resolved upon; but I would try to fix it so +that when I became its executioner it should be by command of +the nation.</p> + +<p>Just here was the wayside shop of a smith; and now arrived a landed +proprietor who had bought this girl a few miles back, deliverable +here where her irons could be taken off. They were removed; then +there was a squabble between the gentleman and the dealer as to +which should pay the blacksmith. The moment the girl was delivered +from her irons, she flung herself, all tears and frantic sobbings, +into the arms of the slave who had turned away his face when she +was whipped. He strained her to his breast, and smothered her +face and the child's with kisses, and washed them with the rain +of his tears. I suspected. I inquired. Yes, I was right; it was +husband and wife. They had to be torn apart by force; the girl +had to be dragged away, and she struggled and fought and shrieked +like one gone mad till a turn of the road hid her from sight; and +even after that, we could still make out the fading plaint of those +receding shrieks. And the husband and father, with his wife and +child gone, never to be seen by him again in life?—well, the look +of him one might not bear at all, and so I turned away; but I knew +I should never get his picture out of my mind again, and there +it is to this day, to wring my heartstrings whenever I think of it.</p> + +<p>We put up at the inn in a village just at nightfall, and when +I rose next morning and looked abroad, I was ware where a knight +came riding in the golden glory of the new day, and recognized him +for knight of mine—Sir Ozana le Cure Hardy. He was in the +gentlemen's furnishing line, and his missionarying specialty was +plug hats. He was clothed all in steel, in the beautifulest armor +of the time—up to where his helmet ought to have been; but he +hadn't any helmet, he wore a shiny stove-pipe hat, and was ridiculous +a spectacle as one might want to see. It was another of my +surreptitious schemes for extinguishing knighthood by making it +grotesque and absurd. Sir Ozana's saddle was hung about with +leather hat boxes, and every time he overcame a wandering knight +he swore him into my service and fitted him with a plug and made +him wear it. I dressed and ran down to welcome Sir Ozana and +get his news.</p> + +<p>"How is trade?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Ye will note that I have but these four left; yet were they sixteen +whenas I got me from Camelot."</p> + +<p>"Why, you have certainly done nobly, Sir Ozana. Where have you +been foraging of late?"</p> + +<p>"I am but now come from the Valley of Holiness, please you sir."</p> + +<p>"I am pointed for that place myself. Is there anything stirring +in the monkery, more than common?"</p> + +<p>"By the mass ye may not question it!.... Give him good feed, +boy, and stint it not, an thou valuest thy crown; so get ye lightly +to the stable and do even as I bid.... Sir, it is parlous news +I bring, and—be these pilgrims? Then ye may not do better, good +folk, than gather and hear the tale I have to tell, sith it +concerneth you, forasmuch as ye go to find that ye will not find, +and seek that ye will seek in vain, my life being hostage for my +word, and my word and message being these, namely: That a hap +has happened whereof the like has not been seen no more but once +this two hundred years, which was the first and last time that +that said misfortune strake the holy valley in that form by +commandment of the Most High whereto by reasons just and causes +thereunto contributing, wherein the matter—"</p> + +<p>"The miraculous fount hath ceased to flow!" This shout burst from +twenty pilgrim mouths at once.</p> + +<p>"Ye say well, good people. I was verging to it, even when ye spake."</p> + +<p>"Has somebody been washing again?"</p> + +<p>"Nay, it is suspected, but none believe it. It is thought to be +some other sin, but none wit what."</p> + +<p>"How are they feeling about the calamity?"</p> + +<p>"None may describe it in words. The fount is these nine days dry. +The prayers that did begin then, and the lamentations in sackcloth +and ashes, and the holy processions, none of these have ceased +nor night nor day; and so the monks and the nuns and the foundlings +be all exhausted, and do hang up prayers writ upon parchment, +sith that no strength is left in man to lift up voice. And at last +they sent for thee, Sir Boss, to try magic and enchantment; and +if you could not come, then was the messenger to fetch Merlin, +and he is there these three days now, and saith he will fetch that +water though he burst the globe and wreck its kingdoms to accomplish +it; and right bravely doth he work his magic and call upon his +hellions to hie them hither and help, but not a whiff of moisture +hath he started yet, even so much as might qualify as mist upon +a copper mirror an ye count not the barrel of sweat he sweateth +betwixt sun and sun over the dire labors of his task; and if ye—"</p> + +<p>Breakfast was ready. As soon as it was over I showed to Sir Ozana +these words which I had written on the inside of his hat: "Chemical +Department, Laboratory extension, Section G. Pxxp. Send two of +first size, two of No. 3, and six of No. 4, together with the proper +complementary details—and two of my trained assistants." And I said:</p> + +<p>"Now get you to Camelot as fast as you can fly, brave knight, and +show the writing to Clarence, and tell him to have these required +matters in the Valley of Holiness with all possible dispatch."</p> + +<p>"I will well, Sir Boss," and he was off.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="22-267.jpg (88K)" src="images/22-267.jpg" height="627" width="711"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<br><br><a name="c22"></a><br><br><center><h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2></center><br><br> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="22-269.jpg (134K)" src="images/22-269.jpg" height="892" width="760"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>THE HOLY FOUNTAIN</p> + +<p>The pilgrims were human beings. Otherwise they would have acted +differently. They had come a long and difficult journey, and now +when the journey was nearly finished, and they learned that the main +thing they had come for had ceased to exist, they didn't do as +horses or cats or angle-worms would probably have done—turn back +and get at something profitable—no, anxious as they had before +been to see the miraculous fountain, they were as much as forty +times as anxious now to see the place where it had used to be. +There is no accounting for human beings.</p> + +<p>We made good time; and a couple of hours before sunset we stood +upon the high confines of the Valley of Holiness, and our eyes +swept it from end to end and noted its features. That is, its +large features. These were the three masses of buildings. They +were distant and isolated temporalities shrunken to toy constructions +in the lonely waste of what seemed a desert—and was. Such a scene +is always mournful, it is so impressively still, and looks so +steeped in death. But there was a sound here which interrupted +the stillness only to add to its mournfulness; this was the faint +far sound of tolling bells which floated fitfully to us on the +passing breeze, and so faintly, so softly, that we hardly knew +whether we heard it with our ears or with our spirits.</p> + +<p>We reached the monastery before dark, and there the males were +given lodging, but the women were sent over to the nunnery. The +bells were close at hand now, and their solemn booming smote +upon the ear like a message of doom. A superstitious despair +possessed the heart of every monk and published itself in his +ghastly face. Everywhere, these black-robed, soft-sandaled, +tallow-visaged specters appeared, flitted about and disappeared, +noiseless as the creatures of a troubled dream, and as uncanny.</p> + +<p>The old abbot's joy to see me was pathetic. Even to tears; but +he did the shedding himself. He said:</p> + +<p>"Delay not, son, but get to thy saving work. An we bring not +the water back again, and soon, we are ruined, and the good work +of two hundred years must end. And see thou do it with enchantments +that be holy, for the Church will not endure that work in her cause +be done by devil's magic."</p> + +<p>"When I work, Father, be sure there will be no devil's work +connected with it. I shall use no arts that come of the devil, +and no elements not created by the hand of God. But is Merlin +working strictly on pious lines?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, he said he would, my son, he said he would, and took oath +to make his promise good."</p> + +<p>"Well, in that case, let him proceed."</p> + +<p>"But surely you will not sit idle by, but help?"</p> + +<p>"It will not answer to mix methods, Father; neither would it be +professional courtesy. Two of a trade must not underbid each +other. We might as well cut rates and be done with it; it would +arrive at that in the end. Merlin has the contract; no other +magician can touch it till he throws it up."</p> + +<p>"But I will take it from him; it is a terrible emergency and the +act is thereby justified. And if it were not so, who will give +law to the Church? The Church giveth law to all; and what she +wills to do, that she may do, hurt whom it may. I will take it +from him; you shall begin upon the moment."</p> + +<p>"It may not be, Father. No doubt, as you say, where power is +supreme, one can do as one likes and suffer no injury; but we poor +magicians are not so situated. Merlin is a very good magician +in a small way, and has quite a neat provincial reputation. He +is struggling along, doing the best he can, and it would not be +etiquette for me to take his job until he himself abandons it."</p> + +<p>The abbot's face lighted.</p> + +<p>"Ah, that is simple. There are ways to persuade him to abandon it."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="22-273.jpg (214K)" src="images/22-273.jpg" height="901" width="660"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"No-no, Father, it skills not, as these people say. If he were +persuaded against his will, he would load that well with a malicious +enchantment which would balk me until I found out its secret. +It might take a month. I could set up a little enchantment of +mine which I call the telephone, and he could not find out its +secret in a hundred years. Yes, you perceive, he might block me +for a month. Would you like to risk a month in a dry time like this?"</p> + +<p>"A month! The mere thought of it maketh me to shudder. Have it +thy way, my son. But my heart is heavy with this disappointment. +Leave me, and let me wear my spirit with weariness and waiting, +even as I have done these ten long days, counterfeiting thus +the thing that is called rest, the prone body making outward sign +of repose where inwardly is none."</p> + +<p>Of course, it would have been best, all round, for Merlin to waive +etiquette and quit and call it half a day, since he would never be +able to start that water, for he was a true magician of the time; +which is to say, the big miracles, the ones that gave him his +reputation, always had the luck to be performed when nobody but +Merlin was present; he couldn't start this well with all this crowd +around to see; a crowd was as bad for a magician's miracle in +that day as it was for a spiritualist's miracle in mine; there was +sure to be some skeptic on hand to turn up the gas at the crucial +moment and spoil everything. But I did not want Merlin to retire +from the job until I was ready to take hold of it effectively +myself; and I could not do that until I got my things from Camelot, +and that would take two or three days.</p> + +<p>My presence gave the monks hope, and cheered them up a good deal; +insomuch that they ate a square meal that night for the first time +in ten days. As soon as their stomachs had been properly reinforced +with food, their spirits began to rise fast; when the mead began to +go round they rose faster. By the time everybody was half-seas over, +the holy community was in good shape to make a night of it; so we +stayed by the board and put it through on that line. Matters got +to be very jolly. Good old questionable stories were told that made +the tears run down and cavernous mouths stand wide and the round +bellies shake with laughter; and questionable songs were bellowed out +in a mighty chorus that drowned the boom of the tolling bells.</p> + +<p>At last I ventured a story myself; and vast was the success of it. +Not right off, of course, for the native of those islands does +not, as a rule, dissolve upon the early applications of a humorous +thing; but the fifth time I told it, they began to crack in places; +the eight time I told it, they began to crumble; at the twelfth +repetition they fell apart in chunks; and at the fifteenth they +disintegrated, and I got a broom and swept them up. This language +is figurative. Those islanders—well, they are slow pay at first, +in the matter of return for your investment of effort, but in the end +they make the pay of all other nations poor and small by contrast.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="22-275.jpg (47K)" src="images/22-275.jpg" height="305" width="693"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>I was at the well next day betimes. Merlin was there, enchanting +away like a beaver, but not raising the moisture. He was not in +a pleasant humor; and every time I hinted that perhaps this contract +was a shade too hefty for a novice he unlimbered his tongue and +cursed like a bishop—French bishop of the Regency days, I mean.</p> + +<p>Matters were about as I expected to find them. The "fountain" was +an ordinary well, it had been dug in the ordinary way, and stoned up +in the ordinary way. There was no miracle about it. Even the lie +that had created its reputation was not miraculous; I could have +told it myself, with one hand tied behind me. The well was in a +dark chamber which stood in the center of a cut-stone chapel, whose +walls were hung with pious pictures of a workmanship that would +have made a chromo feel good; pictures historically commemorative +of curative miracles which had been achieved by the waters when +nobody was looking. That is, nobody but angels; they are always +on deck when there is a miracle to the fore—so as to get put in +the picture, perhaps. Angels are as fond of that as a fire company; +look at the old masters.</p> + +<p>The well-chamber was dimly lighted by lamps; the water was drawn +with a windlass and chain by monks, and poured into troughs which +delivered it into stone reservoirs outside in the chapel—when +there was water to draw, I mean—and none but monks could enter +the well-chamber. I entered it, for I had temporary authority +to do so, by courtesy of my professional brother and subordinate. +But he hadn't entered it himself. He did everything by incantations; +he never worked his intellect. If he had stepped in there and used +his eyes, instead of his disordered mind, he could have cured +the well by natural means, and then turned it into a miracle in +the customary way; but no, he was an old numskull, a magician who +believed in his own magic; and no magician can thrive who is +handicapped with a superstition like that.</p> + +<p>I had an idea that the well had sprung a leak; that some of the +wall stones near the bottom had fallen and exposed fissures that +allowed the water to escape. I measured the chain—98 feet. Then +I called in a couple of monks, locked the door, took a candle, and +made them lower me in the bucket. When the chain was all paid out, +the candle confirmed my suspicion; a considerable section of the +wall was gone, exposing a good big fissure.</p> + +<p>I almost regretted that my theory about the well's trouble was +correct, because I had another one that had a showy point or two +about it for a miracle. I remembered that in America, many +centuries later, when an oil well ceased to flow, they used to +blast it out with a dynamite torpedo. If I should find this well +dry and no explanation of it, I could astonish these people most +nobly by having a person of no especial value drop a dynamite +bomb into it. It was my idea to appoint Merlin. However, it was +plain that there was no occasion for the bomb. One cannot have +everything the way he would like it. A man has no business to +be depressed by a disappointment, anyway; he ought to make up his +mind to get even. That is what I did. I said to myself, I am in no +hurry, I can wait; that bomb will come good yet. And it did, too.</p> + +<p>When I was above ground again, I turned out the monks, and let down +a fish-line; the well was a hundred and fifty feet deep, and there +was forty-one feet of water in it. I called in a monk and asked:</p> + +<p>"How deep is the well?"</p> + +<p>"That, sir, I wit not, having never been told."</p> + +<p>"How does the water usually stand in it?"</p> + +<p>"Near to the top, these two centuries, as the testimony goeth, +brought down to us through our predecessors."</p> + +<p>It was true—as to recent times at least—for there was witness +to it, and better witness than a monk; only about twenty or thirty +feet of the chain showed wear and use, the rest of it was unworn +and rusty. What had happened when the well gave out that other +time? Without doubt some practical person had come along and +mended the leak, and then had come up and told the abbot he had +discovered by divination that if the sinful bath were destroyed +the well would flow again. The leak had befallen again now, and +these children would have prayed, and processioned, and tolled +their bells for heavenly succor till they all dried up and blew +away, and no innocent of them all would ever have thought to drop +a fish-line into the well or go down in it and find out what was +really the matter. Old habit of mind is one of the toughest things +to get away from in the world. It transmits itself like physical +form and feature; and for a man, in those days, to have had an idea +that his ancestors hadn't had, would have brought him under suspicion +of being illegitimate. I said to the monk:</p> + +<p>"It is a difficult miracle to restore water in a dry well, but we +will try, if my brother Merlin fails. Brother Merlin is a very +passable artist, but only in the parlor-magic line, and he may +not succeed; in fact, is not likely to succeed. But that should +be nothing to his discredit; the man that can do <i>this</i> kind of +miracle knows enough to keep hotel."</p> + +<p>"Hotel? I mind not to have heard—"</p> + +<p>"Of hotel? It's what you call hostel. The man that can do this +miracle can keep hostel. I can do this miracle; I shall do this +miracle; yet I do not try to conceal from you that it is a miracle +to tax the occult powers to the last strain."</p> + +<p>"None knoweth that truth better than the brotherhood, indeed; for +it is of record that aforetime it was parlous difficult and took +a year. Natheless, God send you good success, and to that end +will we pray."</p> + +<p>As a matter of business it was a good idea to get the notion around +that the thing was difficult. Many a small thing has been made +large by the right kind of advertising. That monk was filled up +with the difficulty of this enterprise; he would fill up the others. +In two days the solicitude would be booming.</p> + +<p>On my way home at noon, I met Sandy. She had been sampling the +hermits. I said:</p> + +<p>"I would like to do that myself. This is Wednesday. Is there +a matinee?"</p> + +<p>"A which, please you, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Matinee. Do they keep open afternoons?"</p> + +<p>"Who?"</p> + +<p>"The hermits, of course."</p> + +<p>"Keep open?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, keep open. Isn't that plain enough? Do they knock off at noon?"</p> + +<p>"Knock off?"</p> + +<p>"Knock off?—yes, knock off. What is the matter with knock off? +I never saw such a dunderhead; can't you understand anything at all? +In plain terms, do they shut up shop, draw the game, bank the fires—"</p> + +<p>"Shut up shop, draw—"</p> + +<p>"There, never mind, let it go; you make me tired. You can't seem +to understand the simplest thing."</p> + +<p>"I would I might please thee, sir, and it is to me dole and sorrow +that I fail, albeit sith I am but a simple damsel and taught of +none, being from the cradle unbaptized in those deep waters of +learning that do anoint with a sovereignty him that partaketh of +that most noble sacrament, investing him with reverend state to +the mental eye of the humble mortal who, by bar and lack of that +great consecration seeth in his own unlearned estate but a symbol +of that other sort of lack and loss which men do publish to the +pitying eye with sackcloth trappings whereon the ashes of grief +do lie bepowdered and bestrewn, and so, when such shall in the +darkness of his mind encounter these golden phrases of high mystery, +these shut-up-shops, and draw-the-game, and bank-the-fires, it is +but by the grace of God that he burst not for envy of the mind that +can beget, and tongue that can deliver so great and mellow-sounding +miracles of speech, and if there do ensue confusion in that humbler +mind, and failure to divine the meanings of these wonders, then +if so be this miscomprehension is not vain but sooth and true, +wit ye well it is the very substance of worshipful dear homage and +may not lightly be misprized, nor had been, an ye had noted this +complexion of mood and mind and understood that that I would +I could not, and that I could not I might not, nor yet nor might +<i>nor</i> could, nor might-not nor could-not, might be by advantage +turned to the desired <i>would</i> , and so I pray you mercy of my fault, +and that ye will of your kindness and your charity forgive it, good +my master and most dear lord."</p> + +<p>I couldn't make it all out—that is, the details—but I got the +general idea; and enough of it, too, to be ashamed. It was not +fair to spring those nineteenth century technicalities upon the +untutored infant of the sixth and then rail at her because she +couldn't get their drift; and when she was making the honest best +drive at it she could, too, and no fault of hers that she couldn't +fetch the home plate; and so I apologized. Then we meandered +pleasantly away toward the hermit holes in sociable converse +together, and better friends than ever.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="22-279.jpg (124K)" src="images/22-279.jpg" height="713" width="709"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>I was gradually coming to have a mysterious and shuddery reverence +for this girl; nowadays whenever she pulled out from the station +and got her train fairly started on one of those horizonless +transcontinental sentences of hers, it was borne in upon me that +I was standing in the awful presence of the Mother of the German +Language. I was so impressed with this, that sometimes when she +began to empty one of these sentences on me I unconsciously took +the very attitude of reverence, and stood uncovered; and if words +had been water, I had been drowned, sure. She had exactly the +German way; whatever was in her mind to be delivered, whether a +mere remark, or a sermon, or a cyclopedia, or the history of a war, +she would get it into a single sentence or die. Whenever the literary +German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see +of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his +verb in his mouth.</p> + +<p>We drifted from hermit to hermit all the afternoon. It was a most +strange menagerie. The chief emulation among them seemed to be, +to see which could manage to be the uncleanest and most prosperous +with vermin. Their manner and attitudes were the last expression +of complacent self-righteousness. It was one anchorite's pride +to lie naked in the mud and let the insects bite him and blister +him unmolested; it was another's to lean against a rock, all day +long, conspicuous to the admiration of the throng of pilgrims +and pray; it was another's to go naked and crawl around on all fours; +it was another's to drag about with him, year in and year out, +eighty pounds of iron; it was another's to never lie down when +he slept, but to stand among the thorn-bushes and snore when there +were pilgrims around to look; a woman, who had the white hair of +age, and no other apparel, was black from crown to heel with +forty-seven years of holy abstinence from water. Groups of gazing +pilgrims stood around all and every of these strange objects, lost +in reverent wonder, and envious of the fleckless sanctity which +these pious austerities had won for them from an exacting heaven.</p> + +<p>By and by we went to see one of the supremely great ones. He was +a mighty celebrity; his fame had penetrated all Christendom; the +noble and the renowned journeyed from the remotest lands on the globe +to pay him reverence. His stand was in the center of the widest part +of the valley; and it took all that space to hold his crowds.</p> + +<p>His stand was a pillar sixty feet high, with a broad platform on +the top of it. He was now doing what he had been doing every day +for twenty years up there—bowing his body ceaselessly and rapidly +almost to his feet. It was his way of praying. I timed him with a +stop watch, and he made 1,244 revolutions in 24 minutes and +46 seconds. It seemed a pity to have all this power going to waste. +It was one of the most useful motions in mechanics, the pedal +movement; so I made a note in my memorandum book, purposing some +day to apply a system of elastic cords to him and run a sewing +machine with it. I afterward carried out that scheme, and got +five years' good service out of him; in which time he turned out +upward of eighteen thousand first-rate tow-linen shirts, which +was ten a day. I worked him Sundays and all; he was going, Sundays, +the same as week days, and it was no use to waste the power. +These shirts cost me nothing but just the mere trifle for the +materials—I furnished those myself, it would not have been right +to make him do that—and they sold like smoke to pilgrims at a +dollar and a half apiece, which was the price of fifty cows or +a blooded race horse in Arthurdom. They were regarded as a perfect +protection against sin, and advertised as such by my knights +everywhere, with the paint-pot and stencil-plate; insomuch that +there was not a cliff or a bowlder or a dead wall in England but +you could read on it at a mile distance:</p> + +<p>"Buy the only genuine St. Stylite; patronized by the Nobility. +Patent applied for."</p> + +<p>There was more money in the business than one knew what to do with. +As it extended, I brought out a line of goods suitable for kings, +and a nobby thing for duchesses and that sort, with ruffles down +the forehatch and the running-gear clewed up with a featherstitch +to leeward and then hauled aft with a back-stay and triced up with +a half-turn in the standing rigging forward of the weather-gaskets. +Yes, it was a daisy.</p> + +<p>But about that time I noticed that the motive power had taken to +standing on one leg, and I found that there was something the matter +with the other one; so I stocked the business and unloaded, taking +Sir Bors de Ganis into camp financially along with certain of his +friends; for the works stopped within a year, and the good saint +got him to his rest. But he had earned it. I can say that for him.</p> + +<p>When I saw him that first time—however, his personal condition +will not quite bear description here. You can read it in the +Lives of the Saints.*</p> + +<p>[*All the details concerning the hermits, in this chapter, are from +Lecky—but greatly modified. This book not being a history but +only a tale, the majority of the historian's frank details were too +strong for reproduction in it.—<i>Editor</i> ]</p> + + + + + +<br> +<br> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's +Court, Part 4., by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONNECTICUT YANKEE *** + +***** This file should be named 7245-h.htm or 7245-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/7/2/4/7245/ + +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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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 4. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +Release Date: July 6, 2004 [EBook #7245] + +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 4. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A ROYAL BANQUET + +Madame, seeing me pacific and unresentful, no doubt judged that +I was deceived by her excuse; for her fright dissolved away, and +she was soon so importunate to have me give an exhibition and kill +somebody, that the thing grew to be embarrassing. However, to my +relief she was presently interrupted by the call to prayers. I will +say this much for the nobility: that, tyrannical, murderous, +rapacious, and morally rotten as they were, they were deeply and +enthusiastically religious. Nothing could divert them from the +regular and faithful performance of the pieties enjoined by the +Church. More than once I had seen a noble who had gotten his +enemy at a disadvantage, stop to pray before cutting his throat; +more than once I had seen a noble, after ambushing and despatching +his enemy, retire to the nearest wayside shrine and humbly give +thanks, without even waiting to rob the body. There was to be +nothing finer or sweeter in the life of even Benvenuto Cellini, +that rough-hewn saint, ten centuries later. All the nobles of +Britain, with their families, attended divine service morning and +night daily, in their private chapels, and even the worst of them +had family worship five or six times a day besides. The credit +of this belonged entirely to the Church. Although I was no friend +to that Catholic Church, I was obliged to admit this. And often, +in spite of me, I found myself saying, "What would this country +be without the Church?" + +After prayers we had dinner in a great banqueting hall which was +lighted by hundreds of grease-jets, and everything was as fine and +lavish and rudely splendid as might become the royal degree of the +hosts. At the head of the hall, on a dais, was the table of the +king, queen, and their son, Prince Uwaine. Stretching down the hall +from this, was the general table, on the floor. At this, above +the salt, sat the visiting nobles and the grown members of their +families, of both sexes,--the resident Court, in effect--sixty-one +persons; below the salt sat minor officers of the household, with +their principal subordinates: altogether a hundred and eighteen +persons sitting, and about as many liveried servants standing +behind their chairs, or serving in one capacity or another. It was +a very fine show. In a gallery a band with cymbals, horns, harps, +and other horrors, opened the proceedings with what seemed to be +the crude first-draft or original agony of the wail known to later +centuries as "In the Sweet Bye and Bye." It was new, and ought +to have been rehearsed a little more. For some reason or other +the queen had the composer hanged, after dinner. + +After this music, the priest who stood behind the royal table said +a noble long grace in ostensible Latin. Then the battalion of +waiters broke away from their posts, and darted, rushed, flew, +fetched and carried, and the mighty feeding began; no words +anywhere, but absorbing attention to business. The rows of chops +opened and shut in vast unison, and the sound of it was like to +the muffled burr of subterranean machinery. + +The havoc continued an hour and a half, and unimaginable was the +destruction of substantials. Of the chief feature of the feast +--the huge wild boar that lay stretched out so portly and imposing +at the start--nothing was left but the semblance of a hoop-skirt; +and he was but the type and symbol of what had happened to all +the other dishes. + +With the pastries and so on, the heavy drinking began--and the talk. +Gallon after gallon of wine and mead disappeared, and everybody +got comfortable, then happy, then sparklingly joyous--both sexes, +--and by and by pretty noisy. Men told anecdotes that were terrific +to hear, but nobody blushed; and when the nub was sprung, the +assemblage let go with a horse-laugh that shook the fortress. +Ladies answered back with historiettes that would almost have made +Queen Margaret of Navarre or even the great Elizabeth of England +hide behind a handkerchief, but nobody hid here, but only laughed +--howled, you may say. In pretty much all of these dreadful stories, +ecclesiastics were the hardy heroes, but that didn't worry the +chaplain any, he had his laugh with the rest; more than that, upon +invitation he roared out a song which was of as daring a sort as +any that was sung that night. + +By midnight everybody was fagged out, and sore with laughing; and, +as a rule, drunk: some weepingly, some affectionately, some +hilariously, some quarrelsomely, some dead and under the table. +Of the ladies, the worst spectacle was a lovely young duchess, whose +wedding-eve this was; and indeed she was a spectacle, sure enough. +Just as she was she could have sat in advance for the portrait of the +young daughter of the Regent d'Orleans, at the famous dinner whence +she was carried, foul-mouthed, intoxicated, and helpless, to her bed, +in the lost and lamented days of the Ancient Regime. + +Suddenly, even while the priest was lifting his hands, and all +conscious heads were bowed in reverent expectation of the coming +blessing, there appeared under the arch of the far-off door at +the bottom of the hall an old and bent and white-haired lady, +leaning upon a crutch-stick; and she lifted the stick and pointed it +toward the queen and cried out: + +"The wrath and curse of God fall upon you, woman without pity, +who have slain mine innocent grandchild and made desolate this +old heart that had nor chick, nor friend nor stay nor comfort in +all this world but him!" + +Everybody crossed himself in a grisly fright, for a curse was an +awful thing to those people; but the queen rose up majestic, with +the death-light in her eye, and flung back this ruthless command: + +"Lay hands on her! To the stake with her!" + +The guards left their posts to obey. It was a shame; it was a +cruel thing to see. What could be done? Sandy gave me a look; +I knew she had another inspiration. I said: + +"Do what you choose." + +She was up and facing toward the queen in a moment. She indicated +me, and said: + +"Madame, _he_ saith this may not be. Recall the commandment, or he +will dissolve the castle and it shall vanish away like the instable +fabric of a dream!" + +Confound it, what a crazy contract to pledge a person to! What if +the queen-- + +But my consternation subsided there, and my panic passed off; +for the queen, all in a collapse, made no show of resistance but +gave a countermanding sign and sunk into her seat. When she reached +it she was sober. So were many of the others. The assemblage rose, +whiffed ceremony to the winds, and rushed for the door like a mob; +overturning chairs, smashing crockery, tugging, struggling, +shouldering, crowding--anything to get out before I should change +my mind and puff the castle into the measureless dim vacancies of +space. Well, well, well, they _were_ a superstitious lot. It is +all a body can do to conceive of it. + +The poor queen was so scared and humbled that she was even afraid +to hang the composer without first consulting me. I was very sorry +for her--indeed, any one would have been, for she was really +suffering; so I was willing to do anything that was reasonable, and +had no desire to carry things to wanton extremities. I therefore +considered the matter thoughtfully, and ended by having the +musicians ordered into our presence to play that Sweet Bye and +Bye again, which they did. Then I saw that she was right, and +gave her permission to hang the whole band. This little relaxation +of sternness had a good effect upon the queen. A statesman gains +little by the arbitrary exercise of iron-clad authority upon all +occasions that offer, for this wounds the just pride of his +subordinates, and thus tends to undermine his strength. A little +concession, now and then, where it can do no harm, is the wiser policy. + +Now that the queen was at ease in her mind once more, and measurably +happy, her wine naturally began to assert itself again, and it got +a little the start of her. I mean it set her music going--her silver +bell of a tongue. Dear me, she was a master talker. It would not +become me to suggest that it was pretty late and that I was a tired +man and very sleepy. I wished I had gone off to bed when I had +the chance. Now I must stick it out; there was no other way. So +she tinkled along and along, in the otherwise profound and ghostly +hush of the sleeping castle, until by and by there came, as if +from deep down under us, a far-away sound, as of a muffled shriek +--with an expression of agony about it that made my flesh crawl. +The queen stopped, and her eyes lighted with pleasure; she tilted +her graceful head as a bird does when it listens. The sound bored +its way up through the stillness again. + +"What is it?" I said. + +"It is truly a stubborn soul, and endureth long. It is many hours now." + +"Endureth what?" + +"The rack. Come--ye shall see a blithe sight. An he yield not +his secret now, ye shall see him torn asunder." + +What a silky smooth hellion she was; and so composed and serene, +when the cords all down my legs were hurting in sympathy with that +man's pain. Conducted by mailed guards bearing flaring torches, +we tramped along echoing corridors, and down stone stairways dank +and dripping, and smelling of mould and ages of imprisoned night +--a chill, uncanny journey and a long one, and not made the shorter +or the cheerier by the sorceress's talk, which was about this +sufferer and his crime. He had been accused by an anonymous +informer, of having killed a stag in the royal preserves. I said: + +"Anonymous testimony isn't just the right thing, your Highness. +It were fairer to confront the accused with the accuser." + +"I had not thought of that, it being but of small consequence. +But an I would, I could not, for that the accuser came masked by +night, and told the forester, and straightway got him hence again, +and so the forester knoweth him not." + +"Then is this Unknown the only person who saw the stag killed?" + +"Marry, _no_ man _saw_ the killing, but this Unknown saw this hardy +wretch near to the spot where the stag lay, and came with right +loyal zeal and betrayed him to the forester." + +"So the Unknown was near the dead stag, too? Isn't it just possible +that he did the killing himself? His loyal zeal--in a mask--looks +just a shade suspicious. But what is your highness's idea for +racking the prisoner? Where is the profit?" + +"He will not confess, else; and then were his soul lost. For his +crime his life is forfeited by the law--and of a surety will I see +that he payeth it!--but it were peril to my own soul to let him +die unconfessed and unabsolved. Nay, I were a fool to fling me +into hell for _his_ accommodation." + +"But, your Highness, suppose he has nothing to confess?" + +"As to that, we shall see, anon. An I rack him to death and he +confess not, it will peradventure show that he had indeed naught +to confess--ye will grant that that is sooth? Then shall I not be +damned for an unconfessed man that had naught to confess +--wherefore, I shall be safe." + +It was the stubborn unreasoning of the time. It was useless to +argue with her. Arguments have no chance against petrified +training; they wear it as little as the waves wear a cliff. And +her training was everybody's. The brightest intellect in the land +would not have been able to see that her position was defective. + +As we entered the rack-cell I caught a picture that will not go +from me; I wish it would. A native young giant of thirty or +thereabouts lay stretched upon the frame on his back, with his +wrists and ankles tied to ropes which led over windlasses at either +end. There was no color in him; his features were contorted and +set, and sweat-drops stood upon his forehead. A priest bent over +him on each side; the executioner stood by; guards were on duty; +smoking torches stood in sockets along the walls; in a corner +crouched a poor young creature, her face drawn with anguish, +a half-wild and hunted look in her eyes, and in her lap lay a little +child asleep. Just as we stepped across the threshold the +executioner gave his machine a slight turn, which wrung a cry +from both the prisoner and the woman; but I shouted, and the +executioner released the strain without waiting to see who spoke. +I could not let this horror go on; it would have killed me to +see it. I asked the queen to let me clear the place and speak +to the prisoner privately; and when she was going to object I spoke +in a low voice and said I did not want to make a scene before +her servants, but I must have my way; for I was King Arthur's +representative, and was speaking in his name. She saw she had +to yield. I asked her to indorse me to these people, and then +leave me. It was not pleasant for her, but she took the pill; +and even went further than I was meaning to require. I only wanted +the backing of her own authority; but she said: + +"Ye will do in all things as this lord shall command. It is The Boss." + +It was certainly a good word to conjure with: you could see it +by the squirming of these rats. The queen's guards fell into line, +and she and they marched away, with their torch-bearers, and woke +the echoes of the cavernous tunnels with the measured beat of their +retreating footfalls. I had the prisoner taken from the rack and +placed upon his bed, and medicaments applied to his hurts, and +wine given him to drink. The woman crept near and looked on, +eagerly, lovingly, but timorously,--like one who fears a repulse; +indeed, she tried furtively to touch the man's forehead, and jumped +back, the picture of fright, when I turned unconsciously toward +her. It was pitiful to see. + +"Lord," I said, "stroke him, lass, if you want to. Do anything +you're a mind to; don't mind me." + +Why, her eyes were as grateful as an animal's, when you do it +a kindness that it understands. The baby was out of her way and +she had her cheek against the man's in a minute and her hands +fondling his hair, and her happy tears running down. The man +revived and caressed his wife with his eyes, which was all he +could do. I judged I might clear the den, now, and I did; cleared +it of all but the family and myself. Then I said: + +"Now, my friend, tell me your side of this matter; I know +the other side." + +The man moved his head in sign of refusal. But the woman looked +pleased--as it seemed to me--pleased with my suggestion. I went on-- + +"You know of me?" + +"Yes. All do, in Arthur's realms." + +"If my reputation has come to you right and straight, you should +not be afraid to speak." + +The woman broke in, eagerly: + +"Ah, fair my lord, do thou persuade him! Thou canst an thou wilt. +Ah, he suffereth so; and it is for me--for _me_! And how can I bear it? +I would I might see him die--a sweet, swift death; oh, my Hugo, +I cannot bear this one!" + +And she fell to sobbing and grovelling about my feet, and still +imploring. Imploring what? The man's death? I could not quite +get the bearings of the thing. But Hugo interrupted her and said: + +"Peace! Ye wit not what ye ask. Shall I starve whom I love, +to win a gentle death? I wend thou knewest me better." + +"Well," I said, "I can't quite make this out. It is a puzzle. Now--" + +"Ah, dear my lord, an ye will but persuade him! Consider how +these his tortures wound me! Oh, and he will not speak!--whereas, +the healing, the solace that lie in a blessed swift death--" + +"What _are_ you maundering about? He's going out from here a free +man and whole--he's not going to die." + +The man's white face lit up, and the woman flung herself at me +in a most surprising explosion of joy, and cried out: + +"He is saved!--for it is the king's word by the mouth of the king's +servant--Arthur, the king whose word is gold!" + +"Well, then you do believe I can be trusted, after all. Why +didn't you before?" + +"Who doubted? Not I, indeed; and not she." + +"Well, why wouldn't you tell me your story, then?" + +"Ye had made no promise; else had it been otherwise." + +"I see, I see.... And yet I believe I don't quite see, after all. +You stood the torture and refused to confess; which shows plain +enough to even the dullest understanding that you had nothing +to confess--" + +"I, my lord? How so? It was I that killed the deer!" + +"You _did_? Oh, dear, this is the most mixed-up business that ever--" + +"Dear lord, I begged him on my knees to confess, but--" + +"You _did_! It gets thicker and thicker. What did you want him +to do that for?" + +"Sith it would bring him a quick death and save him all this +cruel pain." + +"Well--yes, there is reason in that. But _he_ didn't want the +quick death." + +"He? Why, of a surety he _did_." + +"Well, then, why in the world _didn't_ he confess?" + +"Ah, sweet sir, and leave my wife and chick without bread and shelter?" + +"Oh, heart of gold, now I see it! The bitter law takes the convicted +man's estate and beggars his widow and his orphans. They could +torture you to death, but without conviction or confession they +could not rob your wife and baby. You stood by them like a man; +and _you_--true wife and the woman that you are--you would have +bought him release from torture at cost to yourself of slow +starvation and death--well, it humbles a body to think what your +sex can do when it comes to self-sacrifice. I'll book you both +for my colony; you'll like it there; it's a Factory where I'm going +to turn groping and grubbing automata into _men_." + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +IN THE QUEEN'S DUNGEONS + +Well, I arranged all that; and I had the man sent to his home. +I had a great desire to rack the executioner; not because he was +a good, painstaking and paingiving official,--for surely it was +not to his discredit that he performed his functions well--but to +pay him back for wantonly cuffing and otherwise distressing that +young woman. The priests told me about this, and were generously +hot to have him punished. Something of this disagreeable sort +was turning up every now and then. I mean, episodes that showed +that not all priests were frauds and self-seekers, but that many, +even the great majority, of these that were down on the ground +among the common people, were sincere and right-hearted, and +devoted to the alleviation of human troubles and sufferings. +Well, it was a thing which could not be helped, so I seldom fretted +about it, and never many minutes at a time; it has never been my +way to bother much about things which you can't cure. But I did +not like it, for it was just the sort of thing to keep people +reconciled to an Established Church. We _must_ have a religion +--it goes without saying--but my idea is, to have it cut up into +forty free sects, so that they will police each other, as had been +the case in the United States in my time. Concentration of power +in a political machine is bad; and and an Established Church is +only a political machine; it was invented for that; it is nursed, +cradled, preserved for that; it is an enemy to human liberty, and +does no good which it could not better do in a split-up and scattered +condition. That wasn't law; it wasn't gospel: it was only +an opinion--my opinion, and I was only a man, one man: so it wasn't +worth any more than the pope's--or any less, for that matter. + +Well, I couldn't rack the executioner, neither would I overlook +the just complaint of the priests. The man must be punished +somehow or other, so I degraded him from his office and made him +leader of the band--the new one that was to be started. He begged +hard, and said he couldn't play--a plausible excuse, but too thin; +there wasn't a musician in the country that could. + +The queen was a good deal outraged, next morning when she found +she was going to have neither Hugo's life nor his property. But +I told her she must bear this cross; that while by law and custom +she certainly was entitled to both the man's life and his property, +there were extenuating circumstances, and so in Arthur the king's +name I had pardoned him. The deer was ravaging the man's fields, +and he had killed it in sudden passion, and not for gain; and he +had carried it into the royal forest in the hope that that might make +detection of the misdoer impossible. Confound her, I couldn't +make her see that sudden passion is an extenuating circumstance +in the killing of venison--or of a person--so I gave it up and let +her sulk it out. I _did_ think I was going to make her see it by +remarking that her own sudden passion in the case of the page +modified that crime. + +"Crime!" she exclaimed. "How thou talkest! Crime, forsooth! +Man, I am going to _pay_ for him!" + +Oh, it was no use to waste sense on her. Training--training is +everything; training is all there is _to_ a person. We speak of +nature; it is folly; there is no such thing as nature; what we +call by that misleading name is merely heredity and training. +We have no thoughts of our own, no opinions of our own; they are +transmitted to us, trained into us. All that is original in us, +and therefore fairly creditable or discreditable to us, can be +covered up and hidden by the point of a cambric needle, all the +rest being atoms contributed by, and inherited from, a procession +of ancestors that stretches back a billion years to the Adam-clam +or grasshopper or monkey from whom our race has been so tediously +and ostentatiously and unprofitably developed. And as for me, +all that I think about in this plodding sad pilgrimage, this +pathetic drift between the eternities, is to look out and humbly +live a pure and high and blameless life, and save that one +microscopic atom in me that is truly _me_: the rest may land in +Sheol and welcome for all I care. + +No, confound her, her intellect was good, she had brains enough, +but her training made her an ass--that is, from a many-centuries-later +point of view. To kill the page was no crime--it was her right; +and upon her right she stood, serenely and unconscious of offense. +She was a result of generations of training in the unexamined and +unassailed belief that the law which permitted her to kill a subject +when she chose was a perfectly right and righteous one. + +Well, we must give even Satan his due. She deserved a compliment +for one thing; and I tried to pay it, but the words stuck in my +throat. She had a right to kill the boy, but she was in no wise +obliged to pay for him. That was law for some other people, but +not for her. She knew quite well that she was doing a large and +generous thing to pay for that lad, and that I ought in common +fairness to come out with something handsome about it, but I +couldn't--my mouth refused. I couldn't help seeing, in my fancy, +that poor old grandma with the broken heart, and that fair young +creature lying butchered, his little silken pomps and vanities +laced with his golden blood. How could she _pay_ for him! _Whom_ +could she pay? And so, well knowing that this woman, trained +as she had been, deserved praise, even adulation, I was yet not +able to utter it, trained as I had been. The best I could do was +to fish up a compliment from outside, so to speak--and the pity +of it was, that it was true: + +"Madame, your people will adore you for this." + +Quite true, but I meant to hang her for it some day if I lived. +Some of those laws were too bad, altogether too bad. A master +might kill his slave for nothing--for mere spite, malice, or +to pass the time--just as we have seen that the crowned head could +do it with _his_ slave, that is to say, anybody. A gentleman could +kill a free commoner, and pay for him--cash or garden-truck. +A noble could kill a noble without expense, as far as the law was +concerned, but reprisals in kind were to be expected. _Any_body +could kill _some_body, except the commoner and the slave; these had +no privileges. If they killed, it was murder, and the law wouldn't +stand murder. It made short work of the experimenter--and of +his family, too, if he murdered somebody who belonged up among +the ornamental ranks. If a commoner gave a noble even so much +as a Damiens-scratch which didn't kill or even hurt, he got Damiens' +dose for it just the same; they pulled him to rags and tatters +with horses, and all the world came to see the show, and crack +jokes, and have a good time; and some of the performances of the +best people present were as tough, and as properly unprintable, +as any that have been printed by the pleasant Casanova in his +chapter about the dismemberment of Louis XV's poor awkward enemy. + +I had had enough of this grisly place by this time, and wanted +to leave, but I couldn't, because I had something on my mind that +my conscience kept prodding me about, and wouldn't let me forget. +If I had the remaking of man, he wouldn't have any conscience. +It is one of the most disagreeable things connected with a person; +and although it certainly does a great deal of good, it cannot +be said to pay, in the long run; it would be much better to have +less good and more comfort. Still, this is only my opinion, and +I am only one man; others, with less experience, may think +differently. They have a right to their view. I only stand +to this: I have noticed my conscience for many years, and I know +it is more trouble and bother to me than anything else I started +with. I suppose that in the beginning I prized it, because we +prize anything that is ours; and yet how foolish it was to think so. +If we look at it in another way, we see how absurd it is: if I had +an anvil in me would I prize it? Of course not. And yet when you +come to think, there is no real difference between a conscience +and an anvil--I mean for comfort. I have noticed it a thousand +times. And you could dissolve an anvil with acids, when you +couldn't stand it any longer; but there isn't any way that you can +work off a conscience--at least so it will stay worked off; not +that I know of, anyway. + +There was something I wanted to do before leaving, but it was +a disagreeable matter, and I hated to go at it. Well, it bothered +me all the morning. I could have mentioned it to the old king, +but what would be the use?--he was but an extinct volcano; he had +been active in his time, but his fire was out, this good while, +he was only a stately ash-pile now; gentle enough, and kindly +enough for my purpose, without doubt, but not usable. He was +nothing, this so-called king: the queen was the only power there. +And she was a Vesuvius. As a favor, she might consent to warm +a flock of sparrows for you, but then she might take that very +opportunity to turn herself loose and bury a city. However, +I reflected that as often as any other way, when you are expecting +the worst, you get something that is not so bad, after all. + +So I braced up and placed my matter before her royal Highness. +I said I had been having a general jail-delivery at Camelot and +among neighboring castles, and with her permission I would like +to examine her collection, her bric-a-brac--that is to say, her +prisoners. She resisted; but I was expecting that. But she finally +consented. I was expecting that, too, but not so soon. That about +ended my discomfort. She called her guards and torches, and +we went down into the dungeons. These were down under the castle's +foundations, and mainly were small cells hollowed out of the living +rock. Some of these cells had no light at all. In one of them was +a woman, in foul rags, who sat on the ground, and would not answer +a question or speak a word, but only looked up at us once or twice, +through a cobweb of tangled hair, as if to see what casual thing +it might be that was disturbing with sound and light the meaningless +dull dream that was become her life; after that, she sat bowed, +with her dirt-caked fingers idly interlocked in her lap, and gave +no further sign. This poor rack of bones was a woman of middle +age, apparently; but only apparently; she had been there nine +years, and was eighteen when she entered. She was a commoner, +and had been sent here on her bridal night by Sir Breuse Sance Pite, +a neighboring lord whose vassal her father was, and to which said +lord she had refused what has since been called le droit du +seigneur, and, moreover, had opposed violence to violence and spilt +half a gill of his almost sacred blood. The young husband had +interfered at that point, believing the bride's life in danger, +and had flung the noble out into the midst of the humble and +trembling wedding guests, in the parlor, and left him there +astonished at this strange treatment, and implacably embittered +against both bride and groom. The said lord being cramped for +dungeon-room had asked the queen to accommodate his two criminals, +and here in her bastile they had been ever since; hither, indeed, +they had come before their crime was an hour old, and had never +seen each other since. Here they were, kenneled like toads in the +same rock; they had passed nine pitch dark years within fifty feet +of each other, yet neither knew whether the other was alive or not. +All the first years, their only question had been--asked with +beseechings and tears that might have moved stones, in time, +perhaps, but hearts are not stones: "Is he alive?" "Is she alive?" +But they had never got an answer; and at last that question was +not asked any more--or any other. + +I wanted to see the man, after hearing all this. He was thirty-four +years old, and looked sixty. He sat upon a squared block of +stone, with his head bent down, his forearms resting on his knees, +his long hair hanging like a fringe before his face, and he was +muttering to himself. He raised his chin and looked us slowly +over, in a listless dull way, blinking with the distress of the +torchlight, then dropped his head and fell to muttering again +and took no further notice of us. There were some pathetically +suggestive dumb witnesses present. On his wrists and ankles were +cicatrices, old smooth scars, and fastened to the stone on which +he sat was a chain with manacles and fetters attached; but this +apparatus lay idle on the ground, and was thick with rust. Chains +cease to be needed after the spirit has gone out of a prisoner. + +I could not rouse the man; so I said we would take him to her, +and see--to the bride who was the fairest thing in the earth to him, +once--roses, pearls, and dew made flesh, for him; a wonder-work, +the master-work of nature: with eyes like no other eyes, and voice +like no other voice, and a freshness, and lithe young grace, and +beauty, that belonged properly to the creatures of dreams--as he +thought--and to no other. The sight of her would set his stagnant +blood leaping; the sight of her-- + +But it was a disappointment. They sat together on the ground and +looked dimly wondering into each other's faces a while, with a +sort of weak animal curiosity; then forgot each other's presence, +and dropped their eyes, and you saw that they were away again and +wandering in some far land of dreams and shadows that we know +nothing about. + +I had them taken out and sent to their friends. The queen did not +like it much. Not that she felt any personal interest in the matter, +but she thought it disrespectful to Sir Breuse Sance Pite. However, +I assured her that if he found he couldn't stand it I would fix him +so that he could. + +I set forty-seven prisoners loose out of those awful rat-holes, +and left only one in captivity. He was a lord, and had killed +another lord, a sort of kinsman of the queen. That other lord +had ambushed him to assassinate him, but this fellow had got the +best of him and cut his throat. However, it was not for that that +I left him jailed, but for maliciously destroying the only public +well in one of his wretched villages. The queen was bound to hang +him for killing her kinsman, but I would not allow it: it was no +crime to kill an assassin. But I said I was willing to let her +hang him for destroying the well; so she concluded to put up with +that, as it was better than nothing. + +Dear me, for what trifling offenses the most of those forty-seven +men and women were shut up there! Indeed, some were there for +no distinct offense at all, but only to gratify somebody's spite; +and not always the queen's by any means, but a friend's. The newest +prisoner's crime was a mere remark which he had made. He said +he believed that men were about all alike, and one man as good +as another, barring clothes. He said he believed that if you were +to strip the nation naked and send a stranger through the crowd, he +couldn't tell the king from a quack doctor, nor a duke from a hotel +clerk. Apparently here was a man whose brains had not been reduced +to an ineffectual mush by idiotic training. I set him loose and +sent him to the Factory. + +Some of the cells carved in the living rock were just behind the +face of the precipice, and in each of these an arrow-slit had been +pierced outward to the daylight, and so the captive had a thin +ray from the blessed sun for his comfort. The case of one of +these poor fellows was particularly hard. From his dusky swallow's +hole high up in that vast wall of native rock he could peer out +through the arrow-slit and see his own home off yonder in the +valley; and for twenty-two years he had watched it, with heartache +and longing, through that crack. He could see the lights shine +there at night, and in the daytime he could see figures go in and +come out--his wife and children, some of them, no doubt, though +he could not make out at that distance. In the course of years +he noted festivities there, and tried to rejoice, and wondered +if they were weddings or what they might be. And he noted funerals; +and they wrung his heart. He could make out the coffin, but he +could not determine its size, and so could not tell whether it was +wife or child. He could see the procession form, with priests +and mourners, and move solemnly away, bearing the secret with +them. He had left behind him five children and a wife; and in +nineteen years he had seen five funerals issue, and none of them +humble enough in pomp to denote a servant. So he had lost five +of his treasures; there must still be one remaining--one now +infinitely, unspeakably precious,--but _which_ one? wife, or child? +That was the question that tortured him, by night and by day, +asleep and awake. Well, to have an interest, of some sort, and +half a ray of light, when you are in a dungeon, is a great support +to the body and preserver of the intellect. This man was in pretty +good condition yet. By the time he had finished telling me his +distressful tale, I was in the same state of mind that you would +have been in yourself, if you have got average human curiosity; +that is to say, I was as burning up as he was to find out which +member of the family it was that was left. So I took him over +home myself; and an amazing kind of a surprise party it was, too +--typhoons and cyclones of frantic joy, and whole Niagaras of happy +tears; and by George! we found the aforetime young matron graying +toward the imminent verge of her half century, and the babies all +men and women, and some of them married and experimenting familywise +themselves--for not a soul of the tribe was dead! Conceive of the +ingenious devilishness of that queen: she had a special hatred for +this prisoner, and she had _invented_ all those funerals herself, +to scorch his heart with; and the sublimest stroke of genius of +the whole thing was leaving the family-invoice a funeral _short_, +so as to let him wear his poor old soul out guessing. + +But for me, he never would have got out. Morgan le Fay hated him +with her whole heart, and she never would have softened toward him. +And yet his crime was committed more in thoughtlessness than +deliberate depravity. He had said she had red hair. Well, she +had; but that was no way to speak of it. When red-headed people +are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn. + +Consider it: among these forty-seven captives there were five +whose names, offenses, and dates of incarceration were no longer +known! One woman and four men--all bent, and wrinkled, and +mind-extinguished patriarchs. They themselves had long ago forgotten +these details; at any rate they had mere vague theories about them, +nothing definite and nothing that they repeated twice in the same +way. The succession of priests whose office it had been to pray +daily with the captives and remind them that God had put them +there, for some wise purpose or other, and teach them that patience, +humbleness, and submission to oppression was what He loved to see +in parties of a subordinate rank, had traditions about these poor +old human ruins, but nothing more. These traditions went but +little way, for they concerned the length of the incarceration only, +and not the names of the offenses. And even by the help of +tradition the only thing that could be proven was that none of +the five had seen daylight for thirty-five years: how much longer +this privation has lasted was not guessable. The king and the queen +knew nothing about these poor creatures, except that they were +heirlooms, assets inherited, along with the throne, from the former +firm. Nothing of their history had been transmitted with their +persons, and so the inheriting owners had considered them of no +value, and had felt no interest in them. I said to the queen: + +"Then why in the world didn't you set them free?" + +The question was a puzzler. She didn't know _why_ she hadn't, the +thing had never come up in her mind. So here she was, forecasting +the veritable history of future prisoners of the Castle d'If, +without knowing it. It seemed plain to me now, that with her +training, those inherited prisoners were merely property--nothing +more, nothing less. Well, when we inherit property, it does not +occur to us to throw it away, even when we do not value it. + +When I brought my procession of human bats up into the open world +and the glare of the afternoon sun--previously blindfolding them, +in charity for eyes so long untortured by light--they were a +spectacle to look at. Skeletons, scarecrows, goblins, pathetic +frights, every one; legitimatest possible children of Monarchy +by the Grace of God and the Established Church. I muttered absently: + +"I _wish_ I could photograph them!" + +You have seen that kind of people who will never let on that they +don't know the meaning of a new big word. The more ignorant they +are, the more pitifully certain they are to pretend you haven't +shot over their heads. The queen was just one of that sort, and +was always making the stupidest blunders by reason of it. She +hesitated a moment; then her face brightened up with sudden +comprehension, and she said she would do it for me. + +I thought to myself: She? why what can she know about photography? +But it was a poor time to be thinking. When I looked around, she +was moving on the procession with an axe! + +Well, she certainly was a curious one, was Morgan le Fay. I have +seen a good many kinds of women in my time, but she laid over them +all for variety. And how sharply characteristic of her this episode +was. She had no more idea than a horse of how to photograph +a procession; but being in doubt, it was just like her to try +to do it with an axe. + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +KNIGHT-ERRANTRY AS A TRADE + +Sandy and I were on the road again, next morning, bright and early. +It was so good to open up one's lungs and take in whole luscious +barrels-ful of the blessed God's untainted, dew-fashioned, +woodland-scented air once more, after suffocating body and mind for two +days and nights in the moral and physical stenches of that intolerable +old buzzard-roost! I mean, for me: of course the place was all +right and agreeable enough for Sandy, for she had been used to +high life all her days. + +Poor girl, her jaws had had a wearisome rest now for a while, +and I was expecting to get the consequences. I was right; but she +had stood by me most helpfully in the castle, and had mightily +supported and reinforced me with gigantic foolishnesses which were +worth more for the occasion than wisdoms double their size; so +I thought she had earned a right to work her mill for a while, +if she wanted to, and I felt not a pang when she started it up: + +"Now turn we unto Sir Marhaus that rode with the damsel of thirty +winter of age southward--" + +"Are you going to see if you can work up another half-stretch on +the trail of the cowboys, Sandy?" + +"Even so, fair my lord." + +"Go ahead, then. I won't interrupt this time, if I can help it. +Begin over again; start fair, and shake out all your reefs, and +I will load my pipe and give good attention." + +"Now turn we unto Sir Marhaus that rode with the damsel of thirty +winter of age southward. And so they came into a deep forest, +and by fortune they were nighted, and rode along in a deep way, +and at the last they came into a courtelage where abode the duke +of South Marches, and there they asked harbour. And on the morn +the duke sent unto Sir Marhaus, and bad him make him ready. And +so Sir Marhaus arose and armed him, and there was a mass sung +afore him, and he brake his fast, and so mounted on horseback in +the court of the castle, there they should do the battle. So there +was the duke already on horseback, clean armed, and his six sons +by him, and every each had a spear in his hand, and so they +encountered, whereas the duke and his two sons brake their spears +upon him, but Sir Marhaus held up his spear and touched none of +them. Then came the four sons by couples, and two of them brake +their spears, and so did the other two. And all this while +Sir Marhaus touched them not. Then Sir Marhaus ran to the duke, +and smote him with his spear that horse and man fell to the earth. +And so he served his sons. And then Sir Marhaus alight down, and +bad the duke yield him or else he would slay him. And then some +of his sons recovered, and would have set upon Sir Marhaus. Then +Sir Marhaus said to the duke, Cease thy sons, or else I will do +the uttermost to you all. When the duke saw he might not escape +the death, he cried to his sons, and charged them to yield them +to Sir Marhaus. And they kneeled all down and put the pommels +of their swords to the knight, and so he received them. And then +they holp up their father, and so by their common assent promised +unto Sir Marhaus never to be foes unto King Arthur, and thereupon +at Whitsuntide after, to come he and his sons, and put them in +the king's grace.* + +[*Footnote: The story is borrowed, language and all, from the +Morte d'Arthur.--M.T.] + +"Even so standeth the history, fair Sir Boss. Now ye shall wit +that that very duke and his six sons are they whom but few days +past you also did overcome and send to Arthur's court!" + +"Why, Sandy, you can't mean it!" + +"An I speak not sooth, let it be the worse for me." + +"Well, well, well,--now who would ever have thought it? One +whole duke and six dukelets; why, Sandy, it was an elegant haul. +Knight-errantry is a most chuckle-headed trade, and it is tedious +hard work, too, but I begin to see that there _is_ money in it, +after all, if you have luck. Not that I would ever engage in it +as a business, for I wouldn't. No sound and legitimate business +can be established on a basis of speculation. A successful whirl +in the knight-errantry line--now what is it when you blow away +the nonsense and come down to the cold facts? It's just a corner +in pork, that's all, and you can't make anything else out of it. +You're rich--yes,--suddenly rich--for about a day, maybe a week; +then somebody corners the market on _you_, and down goes your +bucket-shop; ain't that so, Sandy?" + +"Whethersoever it be that my mind miscarrieth, bewraying simple +language in such sort that the words do seem to come endlong +and overthwart--" + +"There's no use in beating about the bush and trying to get around +it that way, Sandy, it's _so_, just as I say. I _know_ it's so. And, +moreover, when you come right down to the bedrock, knight-errantry +is _worse_ than pork; for whatever happens, the pork's left, and +so somebody's benefited anyway; but when the market breaks, in a +knight-errantry whirl, and every knight in the pool passes in his +checks, what have you got for assets? Just a rubbish-pile of +battered corpses and a barrel or two of busted hardware. Can you +call _those_ assets? Give me pork, every time. Am I right?" + +"Ah, peradventure my head being distraught by the manifold matters +whereunto the confusions of these but late adventured haps and +fortunings whereby not I alone nor you alone, but every each of us, +meseemeth--" + +"No, it's not your head, Sandy. Your head's all right, as far as +it goes, but you don't know business; that's where the trouble +is. It unfits you to argue about business, and you're wrong +to be always trying. However, that aside, it was a good haul, +anyway, and will breed a handsome crop of reputation in Arthur's +court. And speaking of the cowboys, what a curious country this +is for women and men that never get old. Now there's Morgan le Fay, +as fresh and young as a Vassar pullet, to all appearances, and +here is this old duke of the South Marches still slashing away with +sword and lance at his time of life, after raising such a family +as he has raised. As I understand it, Sir Gawaine killed seven +of his sons, and still he had six left for Sir Marhaus and me to +take into camp. And then there was that damsel of sixty winter +of age still excursioning around in her frosty bloom--How old +are you, Sandy?" + +It was the first time I ever struck a still place in her. The mill +had shut down for repairs, or something. + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE OGRE'S CASTLE + +Between six and nine we made ten miles, which was plenty for a +horse carrying triple--man, woman, and armor; then we stopped +for a long nooning under some trees by a limpid brook. + +Right so came by and by a knight riding; and as he drew near he +made dolorous moan, and by the words of it I perceived that he +was cursing and swearing; yet nevertheless was I glad of his +coming, for that I saw he bore a bulletin-board whereon in letters +all of shining gold was writ: + + "USE PETERSON'S PROPHYLACTIC TOOTH-BRUSH--ALL THE GO." + +I was glad of his coming, for even by this token I knew him for +knight of mine. It was Sir Madok de la Montaine, a burly great +fellow whose chief distinction was that he had come within an ace +of sending Sir Launcelot down over his horse-tail once. He was +never long in a stranger's presence without finding some pretext +or other to let out that great fact. But there was another fact +of nearly the same size, which he never pushed upon anybody unasked, +and yet never withheld when asked: that was, that the reason he +didn't quite succeed was, that he was interrupted and sent down +over horse-tail himself. This innocent vast lubber did not see +any particular difference between the two facts. I liked him, +for he was earnest in his work, and very valuable. And he was so +fine to look at, with his broad mailed shoulders, and the grand +leonine set of his plumed head, and his big shield with its quaint +device of a gauntleted hand clutching a prophylactic tooth-brush, +with motto: "Try Noyoudont." This was a tooth-wash that I was +introducing. + +He was aweary, he said, and indeed he looked it; but he would not +alight. He said he was after the stove-polish man; and with this +he broke out cursing and swearing anew. The bulletin-boarder +referred to was Sir Ossaise of Surluse, a brave knight, and of +considerable celebrity on account of his having tried conclusions +in a tournament once, with no less a Mogul than Sir Gaheris +himself--although not successfully. He was of a light and laughing +disposition, and to him nothing in this world was serious. It was +for this reason that I had chosen him to work up a stove-polish +sentiment. There were no stoves yet, and so there could be nothing +serious about stove-polish. All that the agent needed to do was +to deftly and by degrees prepare the public for the great change, +and have them established in predilections toward neatness against +the time when the stove should appear upon the stage. + +Sir Madok was very bitter, and brake out anew with cursings. He +said he had cursed his soul to rags; and yet he would not get down +from his horse, neither would he take any rest, or listen to any +comfort, until he should have found Sir Ossaise and settled this +account. It appeared, by what I could piece together of the +unprofane fragments of his statement, that he had chanced upon +Sir Ossaise at dawn of the morning, and been told that if he would +make a short cut across the fields and swamps and broken hills and +glades, he could head off a company of travelers who would be rare +customers for prophylactics and tooth-wash. With characteristic +zeal Sir Madok had plunged away at once upon this quest, and after +three hours of awful crosslot riding had overhauled his game. And +behold, it was the five patriarchs that had been released from the +dungeons the evening before! Poor old creatures, it was all of +twenty years since any one of them had known what it was to be +equipped with any remaining snag or remnant of a tooth. + +"Blank-blank-blank him," said Sir Madok, "an I do not stove-polish +him an I may find him, leave it to me; for never no knight that +hight Ossaise or aught else may do me this disservice and bide +on live, an I may find him, the which I have thereunto sworn a +great oath this day." + +And with these words and others, he lightly took his spear and +gat him thence. In the middle of the afternoon we came upon one +of those very patriarchs ourselves, in the edge of a poor village. +He was basking in the love of relatives and friends whom he had not +seen for fifty years; and about him and caressing him were also +descendants of his own body whom he had never seen at all till now; +but to him these were all strangers, his memory was gone, his mind +was stagnant. It seemed incredible that a man could outlast half +a century shut up in a dark hole like a rat, but here were his old +wife and some old comrades to testify to it. They could remember +him as he was in the freshness and strength of his young manhood, +when he kissed his child and delivered it to its mother's hands +and went away into that long oblivion. The people at the castle +could not tell within half a generation the length of time the man +had been shut up there for his unrecorded and forgotten offense; +but this old wife knew; and so did her old child, who stood there +among her married sons and daughters trying to realize a father +who had been to her a name, a thought, a formless image, a tradition, +all her life, and now was suddenly concreted into actual flesh +and blood and set before her face. + +It was a curious situation; yet it is not on that account that +I have made room for it here, but on account of a thing which +seemed to me still more curious. To wit, that this dreadful matter +brought from these downtrodden people no outburst of rage against +these oppressors. They had been heritors and subjects of cruelty +and outrage so long that nothing could have startled them but +a kindness. Yes, here was a curious revelation, indeed, of the +depth to which this people had been sunk in slavery. Their entire +being was reduced to a monotonous dead level of patience, resignation, +dumb uncomplaining acceptance of whatever might befall them in +this life. Their very imagination was dead. When you can say +that of a man, he has struck bottom, I reckon; there is no lower +deep for him. + +I rather wished I had gone some other road. This was not the sort +of experience for a statesman to encounter who was planning out +a peaceful revolution in his mind. For it could not help bringing +up the unget-aroundable fact that, all gentle cant and philosophizing +to the contrary notwithstanding, no people in the world ever did +achieve their freedom by goody-goody talk and moral suasion: +it being immutable law that all revolutions that will succeed must +_begin_ in blood, whatever may answer afterward. If history teaches +anything, it teaches that. What this folk needed, then, was a +Reign of Terror and a guillotine, and I was the wrong man for them. + +Two days later, toward noon, Sandy began to show signs of excitement +and feverish expectancy. She said we were approaching the ogre's +castle. I was surprised into an uncomfortable shock. The object +of our quest had gradually dropped out of my mind; this sudden +resurrection of it made it seem quite a real and startling thing +for a moment, and roused up in me a smart interest. Sandy's +excitement increased every moment; and so did mine, for that sort +of thing is catching. My heart got to thumping. You can't reason +with your heart; it has its own laws, and thumps about things which +the intellect scorns. Presently, when Sandy slid from the horse, +motioned me to stop, and went creeping stealthily, with her head +bent nearly to her knees, toward a row of bushes that bordered +a declivity, the thumpings grew stronger and quicker. And they +kept it up while she was gaining her ambush and getting her glimpse +over the declivity; and also while I was creeping to her side on +my knees. Her eyes were burning now, as she pointed with her +finger, and said in a panting whisper: + +"The castle! The castle! Lo, where it looms!" + +What a welcome disappointment I experienced! I said: + +"Castle? It is nothing but a pigsty; a pigsty with a wattled +fence around it." + +She looked surprised and distressed. The animation faded out of +her face; and during many moments she was lost in thought and +silent. Then: + +"It was not enchanted aforetime," she said in a musing fashion, +as if to herself. "And how strange is this marvel, and how awful +--that to the one perception it is enchanted and dight in a base +and shameful aspect; yet to the perception of the other it is not +enchanted, hath suffered no change, but stands firm and stately +still, girt with its moat and waving its banners in the blue air +from its towers. And God shield us, how it pricks the heart to +see again these gracious captives, and the sorrow deepened in their +sweet faces! We have tarried along, and are to blame." + +I saw my cue. The castle was enchanted to _me_, not to her. It would +be wasted time to try to argue her out of her delusion, it couldn't +be done; I must just humor it. So I said: + +"This is a common case--the enchanting of a thing to one eye and +leaving it in its proper form to another. You have heard of it +before, Sandy, though you haven't happened to experience it. +But no harm is done. In fact, it is lucky the way it is. If these +ladies were hogs to everybody and to themselves, it would be +necessary to break the enchantment, and that might be impossible +if one failed to find out the particular process of the enchantment. +And hazardous, too; for in attempting a disenchantment without the +true key, you are liable to err, and turn your hogs into dogs, +and the dogs into cats, the cats into rats, and so on, and end by +reducing your materials to nothing finally, or to an odorless gas +which you can't follow--which, of course, amounts to the same +thing. But here, by good luck, no one's eyes but mine are under +the enchantment, and so it is of no consequence to dissolve it. +These ladies remain ladies to you, and to themselves, and to +everybody else; and at the same time they will suffer in no way +from my delusion, for when I know that an ostensible hog is a +lady, that is enough for me, I know how to treat her." + +"Thanks, oh, sweet my lord, thou talkest like an angel. And I know +that thou wilt deliver them, for that thou art minded to great +deeds and art as strong a knight of your hands and as brave to will +and to do, as any that is on live." + +"I will not leave a princess in the sty, Sandy. Are those three +yonder that to my disordered eyes are starveling swine-herds--" + +"The ogres, Are _they_ changed also? It is most wonderful. Now +am I fearful; for how canst thou strike with sure aim when five of +their nine cubits of stature are to thee invisible? Ah, go warily, +fair sir; this is a mightier emprise than I wend." + +"You be easy, Sandy. All I need to know is, how _much_ of an ogre +is invisible; then I know how to locate his vitals. Don't you be +afraid, I will make short work of these bunco-steerers. Stay +where you are." + +I left Sandy kneeling there, corpse-faced but plucky and hopeful, +and rode down to the pigsty, and struck up a trade with the +swine-herds. I won their gratitude by buying out all the hogs +at the lump sum of sixteen pennies, which was rather above latest +quotations. I was just in time; for the Church, the lord of the +manor, and the rest of the tax-gatherers would have been along +next day and swept off pretty much all the stock, leaving the +swine-herds very short of hogs and Sandy out of princesses. But +now the tax people could be paid in cash, and there would be +a stake left besides. One of the men had ten children; and he +said that last year when a priest came and of his ten pigs took +the fattest one for tithes, the wife burst out upon him, and offered +him a child and said: + +"Thou beast without bowels of mercy, why leave me my child, yet +rob me of the wherewithal to feed it?" + +How curious. The same thing had happened in the Wales of my day, +under this same old Established Church, which was supposed by many +to have changed its nature when it changed its disguise. + +I sent the three men away, and then opened the sty gate and beckoned +Sandy to come--which she did; and not leisurely, but with the rush +of a prairie fire. And when I saw her fling herself upon those +hogs, with tears of joy running down her cheeks, and strain them +to her heart, and kiss them, and caress them, and call them +reverently by grand princely names, I was ashamed of her, ashamed +of the human race. + +We had to drive those hogs home--ten miles; and no ladies were +ever more fickle-minded or contrary. They would stay in no road, +no path; they broke out through the brush on all sides, and flowed +away in all directions, over rocks, and hills, and the roughest +places they could find. And they must not be struck, or roughly +accosted; Sandy could not bear to see them treated in ways unbecoming +their rank. The troublesomest old sow of the lot had to be called +my Lady, and your Highness, like the rest. It is annoying and +difficult to scour around after hogs, in armor. There was one +small countess, with an iron ring in her snout and hardly any hair +on her back, that was the devil for perversity. She gave me a race +of an hour, over all sorts of country, and then we were right where +we had started from, having made not a rod of real progress. +I seized her at last by the tail, and brought her along squealing. +When I overtook Sandy she was horrified, and said it was in the +last degree indelicate to drag a countess by her train. + +We got the hogs home just at dark--most of them. The princess +Nerovens de Morganore was missing, and two of her ladies in waiting: +namely, Miss Angela Bohun, and the Demoiselle Elaine Courtemains, +the former of these two being a young black sow with a white star +in her forehead, and the latter a brown one with thin legs and a +slight limp in the forward shank on the starboard side--a couple +of the tryingest blisters to drive that I ever saw. Also among +the missing were several mere baronesses--and I wanted them to +stay missing; but no, all that sausage-meat had to be found; so +servants were sent out with torches to scour the woods and hills +to that end. + +Of course, the whole drove was housed in the house, and, great +guns!--well, I never saw anything like it. Nor ever heard anything +like it. And never smelt anything like it. It was like an +insurrection in a gasometer. + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE PILGRIMS + +When I did get to bed at last I was unspeakably tired; the stretching +out, and the relaxing of the long-tense muscles, how luxurious, +how delicious! but that was as far as I could get--sleep was out of +the question for the present. The ripping and tearing and squealing +of the nobility up and down the halls and corridors was pandemonium +come again, and kept me broad awake. Being awake, my thoughts +were busy, of course; and mainly they busied themselves with Sandy's +curious delusion. Here she was, as sane a person as the kingdom +could produce; and yet, from my point of view she was acting like +a crazy woman. My land, the power of training! of influence! +of education! It can bring a body up to believe anything. I had +to put myself in Sandy's place to realize that she was not a +lunatic. Yes, and put her in mine, to demonstrate how easy it is +to seem a lunatic to a person who has not been taught as you have +been taught. If I had told Sandy I had seen a wagon, uninfluenced +by enchantment, spin along fifty miles an hour; had seen a man, +unequipped with magic powers, get into a basket and soar out of +sight among the clouds; and had listened, without any necromancer's +help, to the conversation of a person who was several hundred miles +away, Sandy would not merely have supposed me to be crazy, she +would have thought she knew it. Everybody around her believed in +enchantments; nobody had any doubts; to doubt that a castle could +be turned into a sty, and its occupants into hogs, would have been +the same as my doubting among Connecticut people the actuality +of the telephone and its wonders,--and in both cases would be +absolute proof of a diseased mind, an unsettled reason. Yes, Sandy +was sane; that must be admitted. If I also would be sane--to Sandy +--I must keep my superstitions about unenchanted and unmiraculous +locomotives, balloons, and telephones, to myself. Also, I believed +that the world was not flat, and hadn't pillars under it to support +it, nor a canopy over it to turn off a universe of water that +occupied all space above; but as I was the only person in the kingdom +afflicted with such impious and criminal opinions, I recognized +that it would be good wisdom to keep quiet about this matter, too, +if I did not wish to be suddenly shunned and forsaken by everybody +as a madman. + +The next morning Sandy assembled the swine in the dining-room and +gave them their breakfast, waiting upon them personally and +manifesting in every way the deep reverence which the natives of +her island, ancient and modern, have always felt for rank, let its +outward casket and the mental and moral contents be what they may. +I could have eaten with the hogs if I had had birth approaching my +lofty official rank; but I hadn't, and so accepted the unavoidable +slight and made no complaint. Sandy and I had our breakfast at +the second table. The family were not at home. I said: + +"How many are in the family, Sandy, and where do they keep themselves?" + +"Family?" + +"Yes." + +"Which family, good my lord?" + +"Why, this family; your own family." + +"Sooth to say, I understand you not. I have no family." + +"No family? Why, Sandy, isn't this your home?" + +"Now how indeed might that be? I have no home." + +"Well, then, whose house is this?" + +"Ah, wit you well I would tell you an I knew myself." + +"Come--you don't even know these people? Then who invited us here?" + +"None invited us. We but came; that is all." + +"Why, woman, this is a most extraordinary performance. The +effrontery of it is beyond admiration. We blandly march into +a man's house, and cram it full of the only really valuable nobility +the sun has yet discovered in the earth, and then it turns out +that we don't even know the man's name. How did you ever venture +to take this extravagant liberty? I supposed, of course, it was +your home. What will the man say?" + +"What will he say? Forsooth what can he say but give thanks?" + +"Thanks for what?" + +Her face was filled with a puzzled surprise: + +"Verily, thou troublest mine understanding with strange words. +Do ye dream that one of his estate is like to have the honor twice +in his life to entertain company such as we have brought to grace +his house withal?" + +"Well, no--when you come to that. No, it's an even bet that this +is the first time he has had a treat like this." + +"Then let him be thankful, and manifest the same by grateful speech +and due humility; he were a dog, else, and the heir and ancestor +of dogs." + +To my mind, the situation was uncomfortable. It might become more so. +It might be a good idea to muster the hogs and move on. So I said: + +"The day is wasting, Sandy. It is time to get the nobility together +and be moving." + +"Wherefore, fair sir and Boss?" + +"We want to take them to their home, don't we?" + +"La, but list to him! They be of all the regions of the earth! +Each must hie to her own home; wend you we might do all these +journeys in one so brief life as He hath appointed that created +life, and thereto death likewise with help of Adam, who by sin +done through persuasion of his helpmeet, she being wrought upon +and bewrayed by the beguilements of the great enemy of man, that +serpent hight Satan, aforetime consecrated and set apart unto that +evil work by overmastering spite and envy begotten in his heart +through fell ambitions that did blight and mildew a nature erst +so white and pure whenso it hove with the shining multitudes +its brethren-born in glade and shade of that fair heaven wherein +all such as native be to that rich estate and--" + +"Great Scott!" + +"My lord?" + +"Well, you know we haven't got time for this sort of thing. Don't +you see, we could distribute these people around the earth in less +time than it is going to take you to explain that we can't. We +mustn't talk now, we must act. You want to be careful; you mustn't +let your mill get the start of you that way, at a time like this. +To business now--and sharp's the word. Who is to take the +aristocracy home?" + +"Even their friends. These will come for them from the far parts +of the earth." + +This was lightning from a clear sky, for unexpectedness; and the +relief of it was like pardon to a prisoner. She would remain to +deliver the goods, of course. + +"Well, then, Sandy, as our enterprise is handsomely and successfully +ended, I will go home and report; and if ever another one--" + +"I also am ready; I will go with thee." + +This was recalling the pardon. + +"How? You will go with me? Why should you?" + +"Will I be traitor to my knight, dost think? That were dishonor. +I may not part from thee until in knightly encounter in the field +some overmatching champion shall fairly win and fairly wear me. +I were to blame an I thought that that might ever hap." + +"Elected for the long term," I sighed to myself. "I may as well +make the best of it." So then I spoke up and said: + +"All right; let us make a start." + +While she was gone to cry her farewells over the pork, I gave that +whole peerage away to the servants. And I asked them to take +a duster and dust around a little where the nobilities had mainly +lodged and promenaded; but they considered that that would be +hardly worth while, and would moreover be a rather grave departure +from custom, and therefore likely to make talk. A departure from +custom--that settled it; it was a nation capable of committing any +crime but that. The servants said they would follow the fashion, +a fashion grown sacred through immemorial observance; they would +scatter fresh rushes in all the rooms and halls, and then the +evidence of the aristocratic visitation would be no longer visible. +It was a kind of satire on Nature: it was the scientific method, +the geologic method; it deposited the history of the family in +a stratified record; and the antiquary could dig through it and +tell by the remains of each period what changes of diet the family +had introduced successively for a hundred years. + +The first thing we struck that day was a procession of pilgrims. +It was not going our way, but we joined it, nevertheless; for it +was hourly being borne in upon me now, that if I would govern +this country wisely, I must be posted in the details of its life, +and not at second hand, but by personal observation and scrutiny. + +This company of pilgrims resembled Chaucer's in this: that it +had in it a sample of about all the upper occupations and professions +the country could show, and a corresponding variety of costume. +There were young men and old men, young women and old women, +lively folk and grave folk. They rode upon mules and horses, and +there was not a side-saddle in the party; for this specialty was +to remain unknown in England for nine hundred years yet. + +It was a pleasant, friendly, sociable herd; pious, happy, merry and +full of unconscious coarsenesses and innocent indecencies. What +they regarded as the merry tale went the continual round and caused +no more embarrassment than it would have caused in the best English +society twelve centuries later. Practical jokes worthy of the +English wits of the first quarter of the far-off nineteenth century +were sprung here and there and yonder along the line, and compelled +the delightedest applause; and sometimes when a bright remark was +made at one end of the procession and started on its travels toward +the other, you could note its progress all the way by the sparkling +spray of laughter it threw off from its bows as it plowed along; +and also by the blushes of the mules in its wake. + +Sandy knew the goal and purpose of this pilgrimage, and she posted +me. She said: + +"They journey to the Valley of Holiness, for to be blessed of the +godly hermits and drink of the miraculous waters and be cleansed +from sin." + +"Where is this watering place?" + +"It lieth a two-day journey hence, by the borders of the land that +hight the Cuckoo Kingdom." + +"Tell me about it. Is it a celebrated place?" + +"Oh, of a truth, yes. There be none more so. Of old time there +lived there an abbot and his monks. Belike were none in the world +more holy than these; for they gave themselves to study of pious +books, and spoke not the one to the other, or indeed to any, and +ate decayed herbs and naught thereto, and slept hard, and prayed +much, and washed never; also they wore the same garment until it +fell from their bodies through age and decay. Right so came they +to be known of all the world by reason of these holy austerities, +and visited by rich and poor, and reverenced." + +"Proceed." + +"But always there was lack of water there. Whereas, upon a time, +the holy abbot prayed, and for answer a great stream of clear +water burst forth by miracle in a desert place. Now were the +fickle monks tempted of the Fiend, and they wrought with their +abbot unceasingly by beggings and beseechings that he would construct +a bath; and when he was become aweary and might not resist more, +he said have ye your will, then, and granted that they asked. +Now mark thou what 'tis to forsake the ways of purity the which +He loveth, and wanton with such as be worldly and an offense. +These monks did enter into the bath and come thence washed as +white as snow; and lo, in that moment His sign appeared, in +miraculous rebuke! for His insulted waters ceased to flow, and +utterly vanished away." + +"They fared mildly, Sandy, considering how that kind of crime +is regarded in this country." + +"Belike; but it was their first sin; and they had been of perfect +life for long, and differing in naught from the angels. Prayers, +tears, torturings of the flesh, all was vain to beguile that water +to flow again. Even processions; even burnt-offerings; even votive +candles to the Virgin, did fail every each of them; and all in +the land did marvel." + +"How odd to find that even this industry has its financial panics, +and at times sees its assignats and greenbacks languish to zero, +and everything come to a standstill. Go on, Sandy." + +"And so upon a time, after year and day, the good abbot made humble +surrender and destroyed the bath. And behold, His anger was in that +moment appeased, and the waters gushed richly forth again, and even +unto this day they have not ceased to flow in that generous measure." + +"Then I take it nobody has washed since." + +"He that would essay it could have his halter free; yes, and +swiftly would he need it, too." + +"The community has prospered since?" + +"Even from that very day. The fame of the miracle went abroad +into all lands. From every land came monks to join; they came +even as the fishes come, in shoals; and the monastery added building +to building, and yet others to these, and so spread wide its arms +and took them in. And nuns came, also; and more again, and yet +more; and built over against the monastery on the yon side of the +vale, and added building to building, until mighty was that nunnery. +And these were friendly unto those, and they joined their loving +labors together, and together they built a fair great foundling +asylum midway of the valley between." + +"You spoke of some hermits, Sandy." + +"These have gathered there from the ends of the earth. A hermit +thriveth best where there be multitudes of pilgrims. Ye shall not +find no hermit of no sort wanting. If any shall mention a hermit +of a kind he thinketh new and not to be found but in some far +strange land, let him but scratch among the holes and caves and +swamps that line that Valley of Holiness, and whatsoever be his +breed, it skills not, he shall find a sample of it there." + +I closed up alongside of a burly fellow with a fat good-humored +face, purposing to make myself agreeable and pick up some further +crumbs of fact; but I had hardly more than scraped acquaintance +with him when he began eagerly and awkwardly to lead up, in the +immemorial way, to that same old anecdote--the one Sir Dinadan +told me, what time I got into trouble with Sir Sagramor and was +challenged of him on account of it. I excused myself and dropped +to the rear of the procession, sad at heart, willing to go hence +from this troubled life, this vale of tears, this brief day of +broken rest, of cloud and storm, of weary struggle and monotonous +defeat; and yet shrinking from the change, as remembering how long +eternity is, and how many have wended thither who know that anecdote. + +Early in the afternoon we overtook another procession of pilgrims; +but in this one was no merriment, no jokes, no laughter, no playful +ways, nor any happy giddiness, whether of youth or age. Yet both +were here, both age and youth; gray old men and women, strong men +and women of middle age, young husbands, young wives, little boys +and girls, and three babies at the breast. Even the children were +smileless; there was not a face among all these half a hundred +people but was cast down, and bore that set expression of hopelessness +which is bred of long and hard trials and old acquaintance with +despair. They were slaves. Chains led from their fettered feet +and their manacled hands to a sole-leather belt about their waists; +and all except the children were also linked together in a file +six feet apart, by a single chain which led from collar to collar +all down the line. They were on foot, and had tramped three +hundred miles in eighteen days, upon the cheapest odds and ends +of food, and stingy rations of that. They had slept in these +chains every night, bundled together like swine. They had upon +their bodies some poor rags, but they could not be said to be +clothed. Their irons had chafed the skin from their ankles and +made sores which were ulcerated and wormy. Their naked feet were +torn, and none walked without a limp. Originally there had been a +hundred of these unfortunates, but about half had been sold on +the trip. The trader in charge of them rode a horse and carried +a whip with a short handle and a long heavy lash divided into +several knotted tails at the end. With this whip he cut the +shoulders of any that tottered from weariness and pain, and +straightened them up. He did not speak; the whip conveyed his +desire without that. None of these poor creatures looked up as +we rode along by; they showed no consciousness of our presence. +And they made no sound but one; that was the dull and awful clank +of their chains from end to end of the long file, as forty-three +burdened feet rose and fell in unison. The file moved in a cloud +of its own making. + +All these faces were gray with a coating of dust. One has seen +the like of this coating upon furniture in unoccupied houses, and +has written his idle thought in it with his finger. I was reminded +of this when I noticed the faces of some of those women, young +mothers carrying babes that were near to death and freedom, how +a something in their hearts was written in the dust upon their +faces, plain to see, and lord, how plain to read! for it was the +track of tears. One of these young mothers was but a girl, and +it hurt me to the heart to read that writing, and reflect that it +was come up out of the breast of such a child, a breast that ought +not to know trouble yet, but only the gladness of the morning of +life; and no doubt-- + +She reeled just then, giddy with fatigue, and down came the lash +and flicked a flake of skin from her naked shoulder. It stung me +as if I had been hit instead. The master halted the file and +jumped from his horse. He stormed and swore at this girl, and +said she had made annoyance enough with her laziness, and as this +was the last chance he should have, he would settle the account now. +She dropped on her knees and put up her hands and began to beg, +and cry, and implore, in a passion of terror, but the master gave +no attention. He snatched the child from her, and then made the +men-slaves who were chained before and behind her throw her on +the ground and hold her there and expose her body; and then he +laid on with his lash like a madman till her back was flayed, she +shrieking and struggling the while piteously. One of the men who +was holding her turned away his face, and for this humanity he was +reviled and flogged. + +All our pilgrims looked on and commented--on the expert way in +which the whip was handled. They were too much hardened by lifelong +everyday familiarity with slavery to notice that there was anything +else in the exhibition that invited comment. This was what slavery +could do, in the way of ossifying what one may call the superior +lobe of human feeling; for these pilgrims were kind-hearted people, +and they would not have allowed that man to treat a horse like that. + +I wanted to stop the whole thing and set the slaves free, but that +would not do. I must not interfere too much and get myself a name +for riding over the country's laws and the citizen's rights +roughshod. If I lived and prospered I would be the death of +slavery, that I was resolved upon; but I would try to fix it so +that when I became its executioner it should be by command of +the nation. + +Just here was the wayside shop of a smith; and now arrived a landed +proprietor who had bought this girl a few miles back, deliverable +here where her irons could be taken off. They were removed; then +there was a squabble between the gentleman and the dealer as to +which should pay the blacksmith. The moment the girl was delivered +from her irons, she flung herself, all tears and frantic sobbings, +into the arms of the slave who had turned away his face when she +was whipped. He strained her to his breast, and smothered her +face and the child's with kisses, and washed them with the rain +of his tears. I suspected. I inquired. Yes, I was right; it was +husband and wife. They had to be torn apart by force; the girl +had to be dragged away, and she struggled and fought and shrieked +like one gone mad till a turn of the road hid her from sight; and +even after that, we could still make out the fading plaint of those +receding shrieks. And the husband and father, with his wife and +child gone, never to be seen by him again in life?--well, the look +of him one might not bear at all, and so I turned away; but I knew +I should never get his picture out of my mind again, and there +it is to this day, to wring my heartstrings whenever I think of it. + +We put up at the inn in a village just at nightfall, and when +I rose next morning and looked abroad, I was ware where a knight +came riding in the golden glory of the new day, and recognized him +for knight of mine--Sir Ozana le Cure Hardy. He was in the +gentlemen's furnishing line, and his missionarying specialty was +plug hats. He was clothed all in steel, in the beautifulest armor +of the time--up to where his helmet ought to have been; but he +hadn't any helmet, he wore a shiny stove-pipe hat, and was ridiculous +a spectacle as one might want to see. It was another of my +surreptitious schemes for extinguishing knighthood by making it +grotesque and absurd. Sir Ozana's saddle was hung about with +leather hat boxes, and every time he overcame a wandering knight +he swore him into my service and fitted him with a plug and made +him wear it. I dressed and ran down to welcome Sir Ozana and +get his news. + +"How is trade?" I asked. + +"Ye will note that I have but these four left; yet were they sixteen +whenas I got me from Camelot." + +"Why, you have certainly done nobly, Sir Ozana. Where have you +been foraging of late?" + +"I am but now come from the Valley of Holiness, please you sir." + +"I am pointed for that place myself. Is there anything stirring +in the monkery, more than common?" + +"By the mass ye may not question it!.... Give him good feed, +boy, and stint it not, an thou valuest thy crown; so get ye lightly +to the stable and do even as I bid.... Sir, it is parlous news +I bring, and--be these pilgrims? Then ye may not do better, good +folk, than gather and hear the tale I have to tell, sith it +concerneth you, forasmuch as ye go to find that ye will not find, +and seek that ye will seek in vain, my life being hostage for my +word, and my word and message being these, namely: That a hap +has happened whereof the like has not been seen no more but once +this two hundred years, which was the first and last time that +that said misfortune strake the holy valley in that form by +commandment of the Most High whereto by reasons just and causes +thereunto contributing, wherein the matter--" + +"The miraculous fount hath ceased to flow!" This shout burst from +twenty pilgrim mouths at once. + +"Ye say well, good people. I was verging to it, even when ye spake." + +"Has somebody been washing again?" + +"Nay, it is suspected, but none believe it. It is thought to be +some other sin, but none wit what." + +"How are they feeling about the calamity?" + +"None may describe it in words. The fount is these nine days dry. +The prayers that did begin then, and the lamentations in sackcloth +and ashes, and the holy processions, none of these have ceased +nor night nor day; and so the monks and the nuns and the foundlings +be all exhausted, and do hang up prayers writ upon parchment, +sith that no strength is left in man to lift up voice. And at last +they sent for thee, Sir Boss, to try magic and enchantment; and +if you could not come, then was the messenger to fetch Merlin, +and he is there these three days now, and saith he will fetch that +water though he burst the globe and wreck its kingdoms to accomplish +it; and right bravely doth he work his magic and call upon his +hellions to hie them hither and help, but not a whiff of moisture +hath he started yet, even so much as might qualify as mist upon +a copper mirror an ye count not the barrel of sweat he sweateth +betwixt sun and sun over the dire labors of his task; and if ye--" + +Breakfast was ready. As soon as it was over I showed to Sir Ozana +these words which I had written on the inside of his hat: "Chemical +Department, Laboratory extension, Section G. Pxxp. Send two of +first size, two of No. 3, and six of No. 4, together with the proper +complementary details--and two of my trained assistants." And I said: + +"Now get you to Camelot as fast as you can fly, brave knight, and +show the writing to Clarence, and tell him to have these required +matters in the Valley of Holiness with all possible dispatch." + +"I will well, Sir Boss," and he was off. + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE HOLY FOUNTAIN + +The pilgrims were human beings. Otherwise they would have acted +differently. They had come a long and difficult journey, and now +when the journey was nearly finished, and they learned that the main +thing they had come for had ceased to exist, they didn't do as +horses or cats or angle-worms would probably have done--turn back +and get at something profitable--no, anxious as they had before +been to see the miraculous fountain, they were as much as forty +times as anxious now to see the place where it had used to be. +There is no accounting for human beings. + +We made good time; and a couple of hours before sunset we stood +upon the high confines of the Valley of Holiness, and our eyes +swept it from end to end and noted its features. That is, its +large features. These were the three masses of buildings. They +were distant and isolated temporalities shrunken to toy constructions +in the lonely waste of what seemed a desert--and was. Such a scene +is always mournful, it is so impressively still, and looks so +steeped in death. But there was a sound here which interrupted +the stillness only to add to its mournfulness; this was the faint +far sound of tolling bells which floated fitfully to us on the +passing breeze, and so faintly, so softly, that we hardly knew +whether we heard it with our ears or with our spirits. + +We reached the monastery before dark, and there the males were +given lodging, but the women were sent over to the nunnery. The +bells were close at hand now, and their solemn booming smote +upon the ear like a message of doom. A superstitious despair +possessed the heart of every monk and published itself in his +ghastly face. Everywhere, these black-robed, soft-sandaled, +tallow-visaged specters appeared, flitted about and disappeared, +noiseless as the creatures of a troubled dream, and as uncanny. + +The old abbot's joy to see me was pathetic. Even to tears; but +he did the shedding himself. He said: + +"Delay not, son, but get to thy saving work. An we bring not +the water back again, and soon, we are ruined, and the good work +of two hundred years must end. And see thou do it with enchantments +that be holy, for the Church will not endure that work in her cause +be done by devil's magic." + +"When I work, Father, be sure there will be no devil's work +connected with it. I shall use no arts that come of the devil, +and no elements not created by the hand of God. But is Merlin +working strictly on pious lines?" + +"Ah, he said he would, my son, he said he would, and took oath +to make his promise good." + +"Well, in that case, let him proceed." + +"But surely you will not sit idle by, but help?" + +"It will not answer to mix methods, Father; neither would it be +professional courtesy. Two of a trade must not underbid each +other. We might as well cut rates and be done with it; it would +arrive at that in the end. Merlin has the contract; no other +magician can touch it till he throws it up." + +"But I will take it from him; it is a terrible emergency and the +act is thereby justified. And if it were not so, who will give +law to the Church? The Church giveth law to all; and what she +wills to do, that she may do, hurt whom it may. I will take it +from him; you shall begin upon the moment." + +"It may not be, Father. No doubt, as you say, where power is +supreme, one can do as one likes and suffer no injury; but we poor +magicians are not so situated. Merlin is a very good magician +in a small way, and has quite a neat provincial reputation. He +is struggling along, doing the best he can, and it would not be +etiquette for me to take his job until he himself abandons it." + +The abbot's face lighted. + +"Ah, that is simple. There are ways to persuade him to abandon it." + +"No-no, Father, it skills not, as these people say. If he were +persuaded against his will, he would load that well with a malicious +enchantment which would balk me until I found out its secret. +It might take a month. I could set up a little enchantment of +mine which I call the telephone, and he could not find out its +secret in a hundred years. Yes, you perceive, he might block me +for a month. Would you like to risk a month in a dry time like this?" + +"A month! The mere thought of it maketh me to shudder. Have it +thy way, my son. But my heart is heavy with this disappointment. +Leave me, and let me wear my spirit with weariness and waiting, +even as I have done these ten long days, counterfeiting thus +the thing that is called rest, the prone body making outward sign +of repose where inwardly is none." + +Of course, it would have been best, all round, for Merlin to waive +etiquette and quit and call it half a day, since he would never be +able to start that water, for he was a true magician of the time; +which is to say, the big miracles, the ones that gave him his +reputation, always had the luck to be performed when nobody but +Merlin was present; he couldn't start this well with all this crowd +around to see; a crowd was as bad for a magician's miracle in +that day as it was for a spiritualist's miracle in mine; there was +sure to be some skeptic on hand to turn up the gas at the crucial +moment and spoil everything. But I did not want Merlin to retire +from the job until I was ready to take hold of it effectively +myself; and I could not do that until I got my things from Camelot, +and that would take two or three days. + +My presence gave the monks hope, and cheered them up a good deal; +insomuch that they ate a square meal that night for the first time +in ten days. As soon as their stomachs had been properly reinforced +with food, their spirits began to rise fast; when the mead began to +go round they rose faster. By the time everybody was half-seas over, +the holy community was in good shape to make a night of it; so we +stayed by the board and put it through on that line. Matters got +to be very jolly. Good old questionable stories were told that made +the tears run down and cavernous mouths stand wide and the round +bellies shake with laughter; and questionable songs were bellowed out +in a mighty chorus that drowned the boom of the tolling bells. + +At last I ventured a story myself; and vast was the success of it. +Not right off, of course, for the native of those islands does +not, as a rule, dissolve upon the early applications of a humorous +thing; but the fifth time I told it, they began to crack in places; +the eight time I told it, they began to crumble; at the twelfth +repetition they fell apart in chunks; and at the fifteenth they +disintegrated, and I got a broom and swept them up. This language +is figurative. Those islanders--well, they are slow pay at first, +in the matter of return for your investment of effort, but in the end +they make the pay of all other nations poor and small by contrast. + +I was at the well next day betimes. Merlin was there, enchanting +away like a beaver, but not raising the moisture. He was not in +a pleasant humor; and every time I hinted that perhaps this contract +was a shade too hefty for a novice he unlimbered his tongue and +cursed like a bishop--French bishop of the Regency days, I mean. + +Matters were about as I expected to find them. The "fountain" was +an ordinary well, it had been dug in the ordinary way, and stoned up +in the ordinary way. There was no miracle about it. Even the lie +that had created its reputation was not miraculous; I could have +told it myself, with one hand tied behind me. The well was in a +dark chamber which stood in the center of a cut-stone chapel, whose +walls were hung with pious pictures of a workmanship that would +have made a chromo feel good; pictures historically commemorative +of curative miracles which had been achieved by the waters when +nobody was looking. That is, nobody but angels; they are always +on deck when there is a miracle to the fore--so as to get put in +the picture, perhaps. Angels are as fond of that as a fire company; +look at the old masters. + +The well-chamber was dimly lighted by lamps; the water was drawn +with a windlass and chain by monks, and poured into troughs which +delivered it into stone reservoirs outside in the chapel--when +there was water to draw, I mean--and none but monks could enter +the well-chamber. I entered it, for I had temporary authority +to do so, by courtesy of my professional brother and subordinate. +But he hadn't entered it himself. He did everything by incantations; +he never worked his intellect. If he had stepped in there and used +his eyes, instead of his disordered mind, he could have cured +the well by natural means, and then turned it into a miracle in +the customary way; but no, he was an old numskull, a magician who +believed in his own magic; and no magician can thrive who is +handicapped with a superstition like that. + +I had an idea that the well had sprung a leak; that some of the +wall stones near the bottom had fallen and exposed fissures that +allowed the water to escape. I measured the chain--98 feet. Then +I called in a couple of monks, locked the door, took a candle, and +made them lower me in the bucket. When the chain was all paid out, +the candle confirmed my suspicion; a considerable section of the +wall was gone, exposing a good big fissure. + +I almost regretted that my theory about the well's trouble was +correct, because I had another one that had a showy point or two +about it for a miracle. I remembered that in America, many +centuries later, when an oil well ceased to flow, they used to +blast it out with a dynamite torpedo. If I should find this well +dry and no explanation of it, I could astonish these people most +nobly by having a person of no especial value drop a dynamite +bomb into it. It was my idea to appoint Merlin. However, it was +plain that there was no occasion for the bomb. One cannot have +everything the way he would like it. A man has no business to +be depressed by a disappointment, anyway; he ought to make up his +mind to get even. That is what I did. I said to myself, I am in no +hurry, I can wait; that bomb will come good yet. And it did, too. + +When I was above ground again, I turned out the monks, and let down +a fish-line; the well was a hundred and fifty feet deep, and there +was forty-one feet of water in it. I called in a monk and asked: + +"How deep is the well?" + +"That, sir, I wit not, having never been told." + +"How does the water usually stand in it?" + +"Near to the top, these two centuries, as the testimony goeth, +brought down to us through our predecessors." + +It was true--as to recent times at least--for there was witness +to it, and better witness than a monk; only about twenty or thirty +feet of the chain showed wear and use, the rest of it was unworn +and rusty. What had happened when the well gave out that other +time? Without doubt some practical person had come along and +mended the leak, and then had come up and told the abbot he had +discovered by divination that if the sinful bath were destroyed +the well would flow again. The leak had befallen again now, and +these children would have prayed, and processioned, and tolled +their bells for heavenly succor till they all dried up and blew +away, and no innocent of them all would ever have thought to drop +a fish-line into the well or go down in it and find out what was +really the matter. Old habit of mind is one of the toughest things +to get away from in the world. It transmits itself like physical +form and feature; and for a man, in those days, to have had an idea +that his ancestors hadn't had, would have brought him under suspicion +of being illegitimate. I said to the monk: + +"It is a difficult miracle to restore water in a dry well, but we +will try, if my brother Merlin fails. Brother Merlin is a very +passable artist, but only in the parlor-magic line, and he may +not succeed; in fact, is not likely to succeed. But that should +be nothing to his discredit; the man that can do _this_ kind of +miracle knows enough to keep hotel." + +"Hotel? I mind not to have heard--" + +"Of hotel? It's what you call hostel. The man that can do this +miracle can keep hostel. I can do this miracle; I shall do this +miracle; yet I do not try to conceal from you that it is a miracle +to tax the occult powers to the last strain." + +"None knoweth that truth better than the brotherhood, indeed; for +it is of record that aforetime it was parlous difficult and took +a year. Natheless, God send you good success, and to that end +will we pray." + +As a matter of business it was a good idea to get the notion around +that the thing was difficult. Many a small thing has been made +large by the right kind of advertising. That monk was filled up +with the difficulty of this enterprise; he would fill up the others. +In two days the solicitude would be booming. + +On my way home at noon, I met Sandy. She had been sampling the +hermits. I said: + +"I would like to do that myself. This is Wednesday. Is there +a matinee?" + +"A which, please you, sir?" + +"Matinee. Do they keep open afternoons?" + +"Who?" + +"The hermits, of course." + +"Keep open?" + +"Yes, keep open. Isn't that plain enough? Do they knock off at noon?" + +"Knock off?" + +"Knock off?--yes, knock off. What is the matter with knock off? +I never saw such a dunderhead; can't you understand anything at all? +In plain terms, do they shut up shop, draw the game, bank the fires--" + +"Shut up shop, draw--" + +"There, never mind, let it go; you make me tired. You can't seem +to understand the simplest thing." + +"I would I might please thee, sir, and it is to me dole and sorrow +that I fail, albeit sith I am but a simple damsel and taught of +none, being from the cradle unbaptized in those deep waters of +learning that do anoint with a sovereignty him that partaketh of +that most noble sacrament, investing him with reverend state to +the mental eye of the humble mortal who, by bar and lack of that +great consecration seeth in his own unlearned estate but a symbol +of that other sort of lack and loss which men do publish to the +pitying eye with sackcloth trappings whereon the ashes of grief +do lie bepowdered and bestrewn, and so, when such shall in the +darkness of his mind encounter these golden phrases of high mystery, +these shut-up-shops, and draw-the-game, and bank-the-fires, it is +but by the grace of God that he burst not for envy of the mind that +can beget, and tongue that can deliver so great and mellow-sounding +miracles of speech, and if there do ensue confusion in that humbler +mind, and failure to divine the meanings of these wonders, then +if so be this miscomprehension is not vain but sooth and true, +wit ye well it is the very substance of worshipful dear homage and +may not lightly be misprized, nor had been, an ye had noted this +complexion of mood and mind and understood that that I would +I could not, and that I could not I might not, nor yet nor might +_nor_ could, nor might-not nor could-not, might be by advantage +turned to the desired _would_, and so I pray you mercy of my fault, +and that ye will of your kindness and your charity forgive it, good +my master and most dear lord." + +I couldn't make it all out--that is, the details--but I got the +general idea; and enough of it, too, to be ashamed. It was not +fair to spring those nineteenth century technicalities upon the +untutored infant of the sixth and then rail at her because she +couldn't get their drift; and when she was making the honest best +drive at it she could, too, and no fault of hers that she couldn't +fetch the home plate; and so I apologized. Then we meandered +pleasantly away toward the hermit holes in sociable converse +together, and better friends than ever. + +I was gradually coming to have a mysterious and shuddery reverence +for this girl; nowadays whenever she pulled out from the station +and got her train fairly started on one of those horizonless +transcontinental sentences of hers, it was borne in upon me that +I was standing in the awful presence of the Mother of the German +Language. I was so impressed with this, that sometimes when she +began to empty one of these sentences on me I unconsciously took +the very attitude of reverence, and stood uncovered; and if words +had been water, I had been drowned, sure. She had exactly the +German way; whatever was in her mind to be delivered, whether a +mere remark, or a sermon, or a cyclopedia, or the history of a war, +she would get it into a single sentence or die. Whenever the literary +German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see +of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his +verb in his mouth. + +We drifted from hermit to hermit all the afternoon. It was a most +strange menagerie. The chief emulation among them seemed to be, +to see which could manage to be the uncleanest and most prosperous +with vermin. Their manner and attitudes were the last expression +of complacent self-righteousness. It was one anchorite's pride +to lie naked in the mud and let the insects bite him and blister +him unmolested; it was another's to lean against a rock, all day +long, conspicuous to the admiration of the throng of pilgrims +and pray; it was another's to go naked and crawl around on all fours; +it was another's to drag about with him, year in and year out, +eighty pounds of iron; it was another's to never lie down when +he slept, but to stand among the thorn-bushes and snore when there +were pilgrims around to look; a woman, who had the white hair of +age, and no other apparel, was black from crown to heel with +forty-seven years of holy abstinence from water. Groups of gazing +pilgrims stood around all and every of these strange objects, lost +in reverent wonder, and envious of the fleckless sanctity which +these pious austerities had won for them from an exacting heaven. + +By and by we went to see one of the supremely great ones. He was +a mighty celebrity; his fame had penetrated all Christendom; the +noble and the renowned journeyed from the remotest lands on the globe +to pay him reverence. His stand was in the center of the widest part +of the valley; and it took all that space to hold his crowds. + +His stand was a pillar sixty feet high, with a broad platform on +the top of it. He was now doing what he had been doing every day +for twenty years up there--bowing his body ceaselessly and rapidly +almost to his feet. It was his way of praying. I timed him with a +stop watch, and he made 1,244 revolutions in 24 minutes and +46 seconds. It seemed a pity to have all this power going to waste. +It was one of the most useful motions in mechanics, the pedal +movement; so I made a note in my memorandum book, purposing some +day to apply a system of elastic cords to him and run a sewing +machine with it. I afterward carried out that scheme, and got +five years' good service out of him; in which time he turned out +upward of eighteen thousand first-rate tow-linen shirts, which +was ten a day. I worked him Sundays and all; he was going, Sundays, +the same as week days, and it was no use to waste the power. +These shirts cost me nothing but just the mere trifle for the +materials--I furnished those myself, it would not have been right +to make him do that--and they sold like smoke to pilgrims at a +dollar and a half apiece, which was the price of fifty cows or +a blooded race horse in Arthurdom. They were regarded as a perfect +protection against sin, and advertised as such by my knights +everywhere, with the paint-pot and stencil-plate; insomuch that +there was not a cliff or a bowlder or a dead wall in England but +you could read on it at a mile distance: + +"Buy the only genuine St. Stylite; patronized by the Nobility. +Patent applied for." + +There was more money in the business than one knew what to do with. +As it extended, I brought out a line of goods suitable for kings, +and a nobby thing for duchesses and that sort, with ruffles down +the forehatch and the running-gear clewed up with a featherstitch +to leeward and then hauled aft with a back-stay and triced up with +a half-turn in the standing rigging forward of the weather-gaskets. +Yes, it was a daisy. + +But about that time I noticed that the motive power had taken to +standing on one leg, and I found that there was something the matter +with the other one; so I stocked the business and unloaded, taking +Sir Bors de Ganis into camp financially along with certain of his +friends; for the works stopped within a year, and the good saint +got him to his rest. But he had earned it. I can say that for him. + +When I saw him that first time--however, his personal condition +will not quite bear description here. You can read it in the +Lives of the Saints.* + +[*All the details concerning the hermits, in this chapter, are from +Lecky--but greatly modified. This book not being a history but +only a tale, the majority of the historian's frank details were too +strong for reproduction in it.--_Editor_] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's +Court, Part 4., by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONNECTICUT YANKEE *** + +***** This file should be named 7245.txt or 7245.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/7/2/4/7245/ + +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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