It was in Warwick Castle that I came across the curious stranger whom I
am going to talk about. He attracted me by three things: his candid
simplicity, his marvelous familiarity with ancient armor, and the
restfulness of his company—for he did all the talking. We fell together,
as modest people will, in the tail of the herd that was being shown
through, and he at once began to say things which interested me. As he
talked along, softly, pleasantly, flowingly, he seemed to drift away
imperceptibly out of this world and time, and into some remote era and
old forgotten country; and so he gradually wove such a spell about me
that I seemed to move among the specters and shadows and dust and mold
of a gray antiquity, holding speech with a relic of it! Exactly as I
would speak of my nearest personal friends or enemies, or my most
familiar neighbors, he spoke of Sir Bedivere, Sir Bors de Ganis, Sir
Launcelot of the Lake, Sir Galahad, and all the other great names of the
Table Round—and how old, old, unspeakably old and faded and dry and
musty and ancient he came to look as he went on! Presently he turned to
me and said, just as one might speak of the weather, or any other common
matter—
“You know about transmigration of souls; do you know about transposition
of epochs—and bodies?”
I said I had not heard of it. He was so little interested—just as when
people speak of the weather—that he did not notice whether I made him
any answer or not. There was half a moment of silence, immediately
interrupted by the droning voice of the salaried cicerone:
“Ancient hauberk, date of the sixth century, time of King Arthur and the
Round Table; said to have belonged to the knight Sir Sagramor le
Desirous; observe the round hole through the chain-mail in the left
breast; can’t be accounted for; supposed to have been done with a bullet
since invention of firearms—perhaps maliciously by Cromwell’s soldiers.”
My acquaintance smiled—not a modern smile, but one that must have gone
out of general use many, many centuries ago—and muttered, apparently to
himself:
“Wit ye well, _I saw it done_.” Then, after a pause, added: “I did it
myself.”
By the time I had recovered from the electric surprise of this remark,
he was gone.
All that evening I sat by my fire at the Warwick Arms, steeped in a
dream of the olden time, while the rain beat upon the windows, and the
wind roared about the eaves and corners. From time to time I dipped into
old Sir Thomas Malory’s enchanting book, and fed at its rich feast of
prodigies and adventures, breathed in the fragrance of its obsolete
names, and dreamed again.
As I laid the book down there was a knock at the door, and my stranger
came in. I gave him a pipe and a chair, and made him welcome. I also
comforted him with a hot Scotch whisky; gave him another one; then still
another—hoping always for his story. After a fourth persuader, he
drifted into it himself, in a quite simple and natural way: